Join me in remembering the veterans we all have in our family tree on this day which is set aside for doing that very thing.  As imperfect as we think our country might be, our ancestors fought for the freedoms we enjoy, and many of them gave their lives in defense of that freedom.

Walter (in uniform) with brothers James and Bertchel and father
Joseph Baxter Lovelace

My personal veteran ancestors:

Walter Washington Lovelace, 1917-2000.  My dad served as a Staff Sergeant in the European Theater in WWII, earning a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart.  He didn’t speak much of his service.  He was a quiet man, a humble man, and a kind and generous man.

George Logan Lovelace, 1845-1915.  My great-grandfather served as a private in Co. I of the 56^th North Carolina Infantry of the Confederate Army in the War Between the States (or, if you prefer, the War of Northern Aggression or Our Late Unpleasantness…  Hey, I live in Charleston, SC, and it is known by those and many other names down here!).  His unit was known as the Rutherford Rifles, and, years ago, I was privileged to hold the rifle he carried during the war.  He was involved in the defense of Petersburg, VA during the year-long siege of that city, and was present at the Battle of the Crater on 30 July 1864.

Barton Lovelace, circa 1757 to circa 1802.  My gggggradfather was a member of the Flying Camp of the Maryland Militia during the American Revolution.  I have no inkling as to what his service entailed or of any action he saw during the war.  But he served, and after the war set out for greener pastures in the southern states.  Unfortunately, as many of you already know, he ran afoul of the law in Halifax Co., VA, arrested for horse thievery and bound over for trial in Richmond.  His family continued on into Spartanburg Co., SC and then settled in Rutherford Co., NC.  Barton himself, through as yet undiscovered means, apparently escaped and fled into the frontier of Tennessee, later settling in Madison Co., Kentucky where he died.

Gratitude is due all of the veterans from the past, and to those of today, who have endured tremendous physical and mental trials and continue to do so.  Thank you, veterans.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

First publication???

Well, folks, I’m not sure if it qualifies as me being “published”, but I just got my latest issue (Vol XL, Number 3, August 2012) of the “Bulletin of the Genealogical Society of Old Tryon County” today.  On the last page, p150, is the following:

“Clairifcation / Correction:  Malena Bailey

In the May 2012 article on the Braddy family, it was noted that Bery Israel Bailey married Malena Padgett but that her death certificate showed her as the daughter of William Lovelace and Milly Hollifield.  Greg Lovelace, 683 Edmonds Dr., Charleston, SC 29412, greglovelace@comcast.net, writes that ‘Malena is actually Malena/Malinda Lovelace, daughter of William Lovelace and Cynthia/Sintha Hollifield.  I have her with various names Malena, Melena, Malinda, Malindy … and the middle initial P.  She is listed in the 1850 census, Sandy Run, Rutherford Co., NC, as Malinda Lovelace, age 10, in the home of William and Cyntha Lovelace.  The article gives her name as Malena Padgett, and Padgett may have indeed been her middle name.  Her maternal grandmother was Emsy Padgett Hollifield, married to Elijah Hollifield.  The informant for the death certificate was S. B. Green, probably Sidney B. Green, son of Malinda and her first husband William Green.”

While this may not seem like much, it is a correction that was actually accepted by the editor of the Bulletin, Mr. Miles Philbeck, who is a noted NC genealogist, and I feel honored that he saw fit to include my correction to his article in the ensuing issue of the journal!  I’m stoked!

Friday, Late July...

The heat wave gripping the country is evident also in the SC Lowcountry.  Our heat indexes over the past couple days have been in the 110s with actual temps in the high 90s.  Brutal weather, which I think took its toll on me Wednesday afternoon.  I worked late and was stressed to the max there, then emerged into the furnace for the short walk to my car.  By the time I got home about 15 minutes later, I felt totally exhausted and ragged out.  Went to sleep at about 6:30 and slept til about 9, then up for a glass of wine with the wife before falling back asleep for another 9 hours or so.  I took a sick day yesterday and decided to do the same today to try to recover a bit of sanity and stay in the cool.  Been working on genealogy, too, and that has helped a bit.

Last weekend I visited the churchyard of one of the oldest churches in Charleston, St. Michael’s Episcopal on the corner of Meeting and Broad Streets.  It was part of an assignment for the NGS Home Study Course in American Genealogy which, as you know if you’ve been reading my posts since December, I am in the process of taking.  The assignment was to visit a local cemetery or a cemetery where my ancestors are buried and report on the available records there, as well as picking a family plot of at least 4 graves and transcribing the stones and mapping the plot.  It was an interesting trip, and I submitted the report on Sunday.  No word back yet from the graders.  The next lesson and assignment set deals with estate and probate records.  I’ll need to go to the office of the probate court in Charleston to report on the available records, and choose one probate file to transcribe records from.  Should be an interesting assignment.  Of course, I’d like to use stuff that I already have for my family, but I think it is important for me to go ahead and branch out of my comfort zone with unrelated families to see if I can actually get into doing research on families I have no connection with.  So I need to check online to see exactly where the records are and then make a visit.  Wish me luck!

Now to my own family….  I made a minor discovery on Thursday having to do with my ggrandfather’s sister, Malinda Lovelace.  She was the daughter of William and Cynthia Hollifield Lovelace, of Rutherford County, NC.  As you all probably know, this line goes back to Barton “the horse thief” Lovelace.  Malinda was born December 1840, the first child of William and Cynthia.  She married William Pinkney Green 17 May 1862 and bore him 5 (or 6, depending on the source) children before he died 10 Oct 1876 at age 35.  On 21 Oct 1879, Malinda’s father William sold a parcel of land to his youngest surviving son Morgan Ross Lovelace (one of Cuzzin Cecil’s Lovelace ancestors), and the remaining siblings of Morgan, including Malinda, sold their interest in the parcel, which was to be transferred to Morgan after the death of William and Cynthia.  Malinda signed this deed as M. P. Green.  This gave me a middle initial of “P” for her, which I didn’t have before.  Always wondered what the “P” stood for.  Read on….

Malinda and second husband

Cecil and others told me that Malinda had remarried before her death, but nobody knew the identity of her husband, despite the fact that Cecil obtained a copy of a photograph of her with her second husband.  So his identity remained a mystery to those of us who were researching the family.  Fast forward to earlier this year….  I received my quarterly copy of the Bulletin of the Genealogical Society of Old Tryon County, from which I have been extracting data since it arrived.  One of the articles, titled “The Braddy/Brady Bunch”, contains information on Margaret Braddy/Bailey, who married Lewis Green Lovelace, a son of William’s brother James Lovelace (Cuzzin Creighton Lovelace’s line).  Margaret’s mother was Lucinda Braddy, who, apparently after Margaret was born, married Benjamin Bailey.  As I was going through the list of the children of Benjamin and Lucinda, I came across their sixth child, a son listed as Bery Israel Bailey, b. Mar 1851, who was listed as being married to Malena Padgett.  The information given for Malena:  “… b. December 1840, d. 2 Jun 1917.  Buried in Walls Baptist cemetery, Rutherford Co., N. C.  Her death certificate names her as Malena Padgett Bailey, daughter of William Lovelace and Milly Hollifield.” 

Malinda's death certificate

Now I had missed this reference to William Lovelace in my earlier scanning of the article.  And Padgett is a common name in Rutherford County.  In fact, the parents of Cynthia Hollifield, Malinda’s mother, were Elijah and Emsy Padgett Hollifield.  I was also intrigued by the mention of William Lovelace and *Milly* Hollifield, so I went to Ancestry.com and found a copy of the death certificate for Malena Padgett Bailey.  There as plain as day was the listing of her parents…  William Lovelace and Sinthy Hollifield, not Milly.  The informant for the information on the death certificiate was S. B. Green, who I am sure was Sidney B. Green, son of Malinda and her first husband William Green.  The date of death was given as 2 Jun 1917, and Sidney said she died of old age (77 years) without a physician.  She was also listed as a widow.

So I now have a middle name for Malinda…  Padgett, named after her maternal grandmother Emsy…. and most probably a name for her second husband, Bery Israel Bailey.  Could I find evidence of their marriage?  I searched through the records of Bill Floyd, who compiled tons and tons of data for his website before he couldn’t afford to pay for it anymore and had to take it down.  But I was able to purchase CDs (from the genealogical society) of all the data from the site (photos of marriage records, cemetery transcriptions, indexes of marriage bonds, extracts of deed indexes, etc. etc. …  a wealth of information on Rutherford County and surrounding counties in North and South Carolina).  So I searched through all the marriage record indexes without finding anything.  I finally ended up back on Ancestry.com, searching for anything I could find on Israel Bailey or Berry Bailey.  No luck, until I changed the surname to “Baily”.  Lo and behold, up popped a B.I. Baily in the 1900 census of Colfax Twp., Rutherford Co.  When I opened the image, I got a pleasant surprise… 

B.I. Baily and wife M.P. Baily lived in household #144.  In the previous house to them (#143) was Jim Lovlass and wife Ana.  This was James Dolphus Lovelace and his wife Beuna Leanna Blankenship.  And next to them (#142) was G. L. Lovlass and wife M.J. (George Logan Lovelace and Mary Jane Green), Malinda’s brother (my ggrandfather) and his wife.  So this was surely Malinda Padgett (Lovelace)(Green) Bailey and her husband Berry Israel Bailey!  And for those of you who are not aware, the 1900 census has a column for “number of years of present marriage”.  This column had the number “15” for B.I. and M.P. Baily, showing that they were married c1885, which fit in nicely with the timeline I already had for her.  So, on the basis of a listing of the family of Benjamin Bailey and Lucinda Braddy, I got a middle name, name of the second husband, date of death, approximate date of second marriage, and a lead to her death certificate and grave marker photo (also on Ancestry.com, and possibly in my unexamined stack of photos from Walls Cemetery way back when)!

What a great feeling it is to run across something like this!  Even though it has taken a couple days to search and to compile all the data, I now have a more complete picture of Malinda’s life.  Can anything be more genealogically gratifying???

And now…  back to the article, to continue extracting the data.  BTW…  I have written to the president of the society, correcting the data about “Milly” Hollifield, and have asked her to forward the information to the editor of the Bulletin.  We’ll see if a correction in print is forthcoming.

OK…  Coffee….   [_]7

And then data….

Trapped....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXArxxN1qKE

Ah, well...  The job I thought I had a good chance of getting didn't pan out.  Looks like I'm stuck where I am for a while longer...  Disappointed?  Yeah...  But as Bruce says, "One day I'll walk outta here again..."

Mid-July 2012

Well, where to begin tonight?  It is Sunday night, 9:30 or so, and once again I face the spectre of returning to work at MUSC tomorrow.  I've told some folks there that, when I enter that building, I feel like I'm entering prison.  Well, maybe it isn't all that bad.  There are good parts... with a few exceptions, the people I work with are great.  It is those few exceptions that really make me dislike the job as a whole.  And working in medical research using animal models has really taken its toll on me.  I find myself trying to avoid any work involving killing rats or mice.  And the problem is, almost every aspect of the research that I'm directly involved in requires the killing of a rat or of a mouse on a regular basis.  I find myself trying to delegate those tasks to others in the lab, and it is getting to the point where that is no longer an option.  The boss has told me he wants me more involved in the actual animal work, including the maintenance of the breeding colony of transgenic mice we have.  While this does offer me the opportunity of learning new methods (PCR, genotyping, DNA isolation, etc), what good are those new methods going to be for me?  I'm now 62, and nearing the end of any career I may have in research at my level, which is low (technician level).  I'm always trying to shun new work and leave as early as I can get away.  It isn't good for my state of mind, and it isn't good for my employer, either.  And that in itself is a source of inner conflict.

Enough...  I just have to suck it up, go to work, do what I have to do, and keep on working toward my goal of becoming a certified genealogical researcher.  I'm now working on the second disc of the NGS Home Study Course.  I hope I'm ahead of schedule...  There are three disks, and I have a total of three years to complete the course.  I started in January, so if all the assignments/lessons are of equal length and require equal work, then I should be ahead of schedule.  That's probably really optimistic, though, as the lessons and assignments are supposed to get harder and require more work as we progress through the course.  Here's hoping that I can get through this quickly, and then it's time to work on certification, which is another kettle of fish altogether.

We actually caught up with Maya on Skype this evening.  She looks great, and it appears that she is happily fitting into the food and bev business in Portland.  She has made many friends, is dating a guy she really likes, and is learning a lot on her job.  We found out that she will be coming with her chef to the Food and Wine Festival here in Charleston in February, and she hopes she will have lots of time to visit while here.  She also told us that the restaurant will close for a week this fall, so we can go out for another visit and spend a lot of catch-up time with her.  It makes me feel good that she looks so good and seems so happy.

Well, time to go do some more data entry...  I continue to build my database on Rutherford County, North Carolina families connected to my Lovelace family there.  Sometimes tedious, sometimes boring, but always a fun alternative to the lab work  ;-)

Oh, by the way...  Wife and I saw Sarah Jarosz again last night at the Charleston Hippodrome.  It was a great show!  That trio is a truly gifted group of musicians.  This was the second time we've seen them, and this time we were in the third row...  could see faces, fingers, guitar brands....  it was great!  In a few weeks Lindsey Buckingham (of Fleetwood Mac fame) will be in town.  Already have tickets, and I'm looking forward to his show.  The guy is a guitar wizard and a great songsmith.

And with that, I bid good night to any who might be reading this. Hope your lives are happy, healthy, and productive tonight.  Have a great week!

Monday afternoon after 5 days off

Hope the world is treating you all well and that you are keeping cool.  As in the rest of the country, it is HOT in the SC Lowcountry.  My computer says it is now 99 outside, and if you mix that in with the high humidity, it is like swimming in mosquito soup out there.  Luckily for me, the A/C here in the lab is working like it is supposed to, and it is a nice 73 inside.

Susan is off to Tampa for a few days for meetings, so I'm doing the bachelor thing until then.  Still have the mother-in-law, the daughter, and the two dogs to deal with though, so of course I'm not totally on my own. 

I find myself looking forward to the winter and the start of Wolfpack basketball season...   With the NC Tarheels losing most of their team to the pros, and with the Duke Blue Devils appearing to be at the beginning of a long slide down, maybe the Wolfpack will be in contention this year.  We return all but 2 players and have an excellent Freshman class coming in, so things are looking up for the 'Pack faithful.

I continue to work through the National Genealogical Society Home Study Course.  This weekend I wrote a report on the Walls Baptist Church (Rutherford County, NC) records, a copy of which I got many many years ago and still have not gone all the way through.  The last time I went through the film, I got up to the time of the late Civil War and Reconstruction which followed it.  And it was really sad... In the period of about 1865 to 1868, the records are nearly unreadable, because the ink faded.  It is just one indication of the state of affairs in former Confederacy after the war.  The church was either unable to afford quality ink with which to keep records, or there was no quality ink to be had.  The writing is there...  it is just too faint and faded to be able to read.  And of course this is the time period where the estate of my ancestor Benjamin went into administration.  It is my belief that he died sometime between the founding of the church in 1844 and the census of 1850, and that his widow Nancy died in the fall of 1868, allowing his estate to finally be turned over to the courts for administration.  I was hoping to find some mention of Nancy's death or burial in these records, but I am unable to read the appropriate entries.  Sad...

My next task in this lesson on church and cemetery records is to try to map out several of the sections of the Walls Baptist Church cemetery where Lovelaces and their allieds are buried.  I've unsuccessfully tried to find records online which would help me in this task, and I've written to the church to see if any burial records exist for the cemetery.  I haven't heard back from them yet, but I'm not hopeful that any records have been kept which will help me.  That means I need to plan another trip to Rutherford County to undertake this task.  Not a bad thing...

Well, time to go and do some actual paying work, I guess.  First, time to grab an afternoon cuppa coffee  [_]7

Y'all have a good one!

July Heat, 2012

Hope everyone is doing well on this summer afternoon.  It is hot hot hot here in the SC lowcountry.  The monstrous bubble of heat that was sitting over the middle of the country earlier in the week has moved over us and is giving us temperatures near 100 this afternoon.  Luckily, our AC is working OK!  We went out to the beach yesterday evening for a short swim, and that helped a little with the idea of the heat, if not with the actual temperature  ;-)  At any rate, I am glad to be sitting here at my ‘puter and not slaving away doing yard work or some other outside activity.

Been working hard trying to escape from my current job…  Things just continue to go downhill, and I’m just really tired of putting up with my bully of a boss.  It’s time for me to move on to something else, and hopefully I can continue my efforts toward genealogical certification and an eventual business doing what we all love to do.  I am now a third of the way through the National Genealogical Society Home Study Course on American Genealogy, and looking forward to starting on the next lesson.  I still have some reading to do before starting on the assignments, which involve church and cemetery records.  I have everything I need except a map of Walls Baptist Church Cemetery in Rutherford County.  I need to write the church and see if they have any sort of record that I could match up with a Google Earth photo of the graveyard.  I’ll try to get that letter written this weekend.

Now it’s time to hit the ol’ TMG program and continue extracting data from the latest issue of the Bulletin of the Old Tryon County Genealogical Society.  The article I’m working on deals with the family of one John Bridges who lived on Grog Creek in Rutherford County, NC.  Some of you who have done work in Rutherford County may be familiar with a book by Stephen Collis Jones and published in 1920 titled “The Hamrick Generations,”, which we all refer to as The Hamrick Book.  After making some leaps of faith in the early generations, Jones did an excellent job, except in a few isolated cases, of documenting the family connections of many of the early Rutherford County families, including that of Grog Creek John Bridges.  Trouble is, all he included was names and relationships…  no dates at all.  Early on in my research, I extracted the data from that book into my database and continue to add dates and places as I come across them.  This OTCGS article on John Bridges supplies dates of birth, death, and marriages, and sometime gives the cemeteries where some of the folks were buried.  So there is a lot of data to extract from the 10 pages contained in the article.  Gotta get to it, because the next article, titled “The Braddy/Brady Bunch,” actually contains data on Lovelaces which married into the Braddy family. 

So much to do, so little time….

Need a fresh pot o’ coffee   [_]7

Chicago, day three

I started my third day in Chicago with a bike ride.  The day began much cooler than Monday, with a breeze coming in off Lake Michigan and with fog shrouding parts of the downtown area where we are staying.  I rented a bike from the Bike Chicago stand on the Riverwalk by our hotel and, with the help of a map of biking routes supplied by the rental agent, proceeded to bike north on the bike path along Lake Shore Drive toward the Navy Pier.  Crossing the river was an adventure, with bikers, walkers, and runners all vying for space on a fairly narrow path on the bridge across.  But I made it with no incidents to report, and soon found myself in the touristy wonderland of the Pier.  I hopped off the bike, dutifully locked it in place in a bike rack at the entrance, and proceeded to walk down the pier and back.  Not much to say about it.  It reminded me of the Circle at Atlantic Beach back in NC...  just a bunch of touristy shops and junk food places, with touristy types taking boat tours and wandering up and down, like me, taking pictures of the fog and the gulls.  It wasn't long before I became bored with the scene and hopped back on the bike to head north.

An interesting ride along the lakefront north of the pier.  Lots of folks out walking and biking on the lakefront trail, which is an amazing thing which I believe Charleston needs.  I passed nice beaches packed with people trying to keep cool in Chicago's record heat.  But the fog was still around, and the breeze from the lake was refreshing.  I saw what appeared to be an endurance swim event, but may have just been regular Chicagoans doing some distance swimming in the lake, parallelling the bikeway.  By the time I got to Oak Street Beach and took a water break, I figured it was time to head back south...  my map ended there, with pointers north to Northwestern University. 

So I retraced my path back past the Navy Pier and headed south toward the museums that I had visited the day before.  It was a nice ride, and when I got to the Field Museum, I decided to continue on.  What the hell... I had the bike til 2, and it was only 11:30 or so.  So I went further south along the lakefront, past the Shedd Aquarium and Soldier Field, and kept going down to the Hyde Park area.  I needed to stop for a toilet break, and at that point the old legs were starting to feel it, so I turned around and headed back.  Nothing worth mentioning happened on either leg of this round trip, except that I really enjoyed the ride.  By the time I returned to the Riverwalk, it was only 12:30 or so, but my rear end and my legs told me it was time to turn the bike in. 

I met Susan in the room for a bit.  She had brought me up a sandwich from the conference lunch, so after I cooled off and she returned to work, I had lunch and relaxed for a while.  Then Susan came back to finish up her presentation for Wednesday, and we both stayed in the room until time to get ready for dinner.

As I said, we were excited about going to Frontera Grill.  We had watched Rick Balyess on some of his PBS cooking shows, and his food always appealed to us.  So after dressing up, we headed out for the walk down to North Clark Street.  There was a big line at the door, but we had reservations and, after having to worm our way in to the front desk, we were checked in and seated promptly.  We ordered a bottle of wine, and I chose to have a Mexican mojito with tequila instead of rum.  Nice tasty cocktail, and the wine was a good one.  It was fairly dark where we were seated, and there was a fan right above us, so Susan was chilly most of the evening and wrapped her scarf around her to stay warm.

So It came time to order our dinner.  We opted for guacamole and chips as an appetizer.

It was good, as were the chips and the hot and mild salsa.  Our appeties were whetted for more.  Susan, on the recommendation of our server, chose Camarones a la Mexicana, listed in the menu as garlicky grilled fresh Florida shrimp, seared summer tomato salsa, roasted poblano rajas, black beans, peashoots, lime. (Photo from the menu)

I chose, on the recommendation of the diners beside us, Tacos al Carbon, wood-grilled pork sliced & served with roasted pepper rajas, two salsas, frijoles charros, guacamole & homemade tortillas. 

Unfortunately, the shrimp were especially spicy, and Susan didn't enjoy them to their fullest.  I sampled 3 or 4 of them, and they were indeed spicy hot.  My tacos were very good, enhanced by the bottle of Bayless's own hot sauce on the table.  The hot freshly made tortillas (in the little red dish above) were probably the best taste of the night.  You could smell and taste the masa, and I could just imagine the little old Mexican woman in the back patting them out by hand and cooking them on a hot rock by the fire.

So all in all, I was a bit disappointed.  We had a much better time eating at Publican.  That is a newer, edgier restaurant, more like the food we've grown to love from our association with our daughter-chef Maya.  Frontera offered good, solid Mexican fare in a well-established, old-style restaurant.  The food was good, but not all that remarkable, save the tortillas, which were, as our neighbors at the next table told us, "to die for".  But now we can say that we ate at Frontera in Chicago.  Kinda like saying you've eaten at Tony's Sanitary Fish Market and Restaurant in Morehead City, NC.  If you're a visitor, it's something you do.  But let me say this...  I am NOT trying to dis Frontera... the food at Frontera was good, and if we hadn't had such a great night at Pelican the night before, I probably would have been more satisfied with Frontera.  At any rate, Frontera's food is highly superior to what I remember of the food at the Sanitary!

After dinner, Susan and I walked back to the hotel and tried to get into the Big Bar for an after-dinner drink.  It was jammed, so we just got a couple glasses of wine and headed back up to the room to find something to watch on TV.  That turned out to be a bust, as there was nothing on that we cared to see. We ended up watching Joye Bahar and Nancy Grace discussing Casey Anthony.  And the irony is that it was the best thing on!

So... next is a night of heavy hors d'oeuvres at the Shedd Aquarium.  It's the reception for Susan's conference.  Then we fly out of Chicago and return home on Thursday. 

All in all, it has been a fun visit to Chicago so far.

Night Two, Chicago

Well,  Susan and I arrived in the Windy City yesterday morning after an uneventful flight from Charleston via Charlotte.  And we've been eating, of course!  We are staying at the Hyatt Regency downtown, and we are right across the street from the Chicago River.  So yesterday after check-in we decided to explore the Riverwalk.  We walked out to the marina just off Lake Michigan, and let me tell you, it was HOT!  So after investigating the lake and taking a few photos, we came back along the Riverwalk and stopped at a little outdoor restaurant, Cyrano's Wine Bar.  Decent place to eat, and the atmosphere was wonderful...  right on the river, with folks traveling by on their boats and with the water taxis and river tour boats crusing by.  Susan had a vegetarian omelet and I had a burger.  The food was good, and we were able to relax a little bit.  So a bit later we went exploring and ran across the new statue of Marilyn Monroe outside the Chicago Tribune building. 

And then we discovered a place called The Purple Pig and decided to have dinner there.  I just can't remember everything we got, but the food and wine were excellent.  I had chicken thigh kabobs with fried smashed potatoes and tzatziki sauce.  Excellent.

So today, while Susan was in meetings all day, I walked down the lakefront to the Field Museum of Natural History and spent most of the day there going through the exhibits.  It's a huge place, and well worth a visit if you're in the area.  After walking back to the Riverwalk, I hit Cyrano's again, this time for a Chicago-style hot dog. 

Tasty, but nothing spectacular.  The service on Monday wasn't nearly as good, and that kinda ruined the lunch for me.

So, after Susan got out of her meetings, we decided to hike over to the Fulton Market area, a walk of about a mile and a half, to check out Publican.  Daughter Maya had said we should try Blackbird in Fulton Market, but that was beyond our budget.  Publican is Blackbird's sister restaurant, and we were pleased with the offerings.  The plates are meant to be shared, so we decided to have two vegetable plates and two fish plates, along with a bottle of Picras Negras, an organic Torrontes from Argentina.Very nice wine.   

We started the meal with a Market Salad. 

Nice selection of greens with pecorino cheese, faro, quinoa, and raspberries.  Very tasty.  We then sampled the fried walleye with arugula, fried onions, fried cauliflower, and believe it or not, fried lemon!  All on a coarse mustard sauce.  Wonderful blend of tastes.

Next plate out was soft-shelled crab from Maryland. 

Not the best... there was a bit too much flour taste in on the crab.  The English pea puree was very tasty, and the sauteed onion added a nice zest to the dish.

The last plate we sampled was a salad of trumpet mushrooms from California and summer squash. 

The 'shrooms and veggies were served in thin slices with a vinaigrette which had a little too much freshly ground pepper.  But the blend of flavors was superb, and the fungi were extremely tender and very, very good. 

We were taking pictures all through the meal.  The place was very energetic, and the sound level was sometimes near deafening. 

dining area

kitchen

However, the food was well worth the hike in the record Chicago heat.  Our sever, Matt, comped us with a couple after-dinner "digestifs"...  Susan received a creamy limoncello, and I got something I can only describe as highly complex, delicious, and extremely alcoholic!

Tomorrow night we're off on another hike to Rick Bayless's Frontera Grill.  Can't wait!!

Jeez, I love good food.  And I love sharing it with my favorite dining partner and my partner in life, Susan.  We have such great fun together!

Santi's in Charleston

Just got in from dinner at Santi's Restaurante Mexicano in Charleston.  Had cactus and pork...  very spicy, but good stuff.  Sweated out the two Dos Equis I had. A bit cooler now that I'm home.  I love Charleston....  great places to eat!