respublica

Good bye last of you original water pipes

The past couple of years we've had a lot of work done on the house including the replacement of most of the water pipes, including the pipe which goes from the street to the main valve in the house. After that excavation and much better water pressure as a result, we noticed one section of pipes we'd forgotten about. They're under the utility sink and connect to the sink, washer, and outside faucet. Oh, and, also to a hot/cold set of faucets which seem to have no purpose except draining onto the basement floor. It was that pair which made us notice what we'd forgotten because after the water pressure got much better these old spouts filled with mineral deposits and corrusion began dripping. They would not tighten and turn off completely due to the new force of the water. Which meant a bucket under the spout and having to shut off the water to the entire house each time we left so as not to have an overflow. 

So today a nice guy from Excel Plumbing in Troy Illinois is here to replace these pipes as well as a 1927 cast iron utility sink which has become stained and horrible looking through the years. Excel has replaced all the other pipes for us and has done it in an efficient and excellent manner so as awful as the ancient pipes look, I'm sure today's job will be completed in the same way. 

One head of Cauliflower is never enough

It looks as though those who predicted cauliflower will be an "in" food item this year were right. The New York Times has a story on the historic popularity of cauliflower in Sicily and recipes for us to add to our dinner rotation.

For many years we had the best Italian neighbor lady in Collinsville who always whipped up hearty meals using family recipes from her Sicilian heritage and her use of cauliflower with pasta was my first introduction to this combination. I was afraid of this co-mingling of pasta and cauliflower at first since my pasta heritage was a more anglo saxon version consisting of spaghetti or mostaccioli with red sauce. If we were really cutting the edge we'd sprinkle on some parmesan cheese. But as the years went by I spent many a day in her kitchen watching how she concocted her meals and have replicated many of them time and again.

Thank you Angie. We miss you every day but a part of you continues through our family.

One of Angie's favorite things to whip up was a huge bowl of marinated black Scilian olives. She'd send John to the Italian store somewhere in St. Louis, he never said exactly where this was.

These are not the small, pointy Kalamata olives they are more robust in size and have a pinkish cast and come right from large containers of brine, no bottled olives for Angie and John.

Years ago I found these olives at Viviano's Italian Grocery on the Hill. They are in the big buckets of brine and sit next to other varities of olives in their original brine. I get them serveral times a year and fix them just like Angie did. You'll never want black olives from a can after tasting these.

First you rinse the olives really well, pat dry and put into a bowl. Pour in some olive oil, chopped or sliced garlic (Angie used thinly sliced garlic and lots of it) some dried oregano and paprika. Toss, let sit for a bit to combine the flavors and then enjoy them with some crunchy Italian bread and cheese. The bread is good for sopping up. The amounts of things never mattered, it was all a matter of taste and looks. These are so good.

Back to the cauliflower. The linked article has a few recipes most of which could have been made in Angie's kitchen except the first which adds raisins or currants and saffron. She'd never have done that.

Still something to see there

Early last January the Collinsville city council voted unanimously to purchase and demolish the old Martha Manning building apartments. Guess what? They're still there.

Collinsville Festival of Trees Decorating Day 2012

Tomorrow is the Festival of Trees, a dinner with music and decorated trees to bid on. Each year Collinsville puts on this wonderful event with the proceeds going to a local non profit. The entity which receives the profits from the Festival is in charge of putting it on and this year the money will go to the Collinsville Education Fund. The day before the Festival, organizations which agreed to do a tree went to the Gateway Center and began decorating. 

Gary Clark, this year's chairman, representing the Collinsville Education group.

Collinsville Progress, of which I am a member always decorates a tree and today was the day. The trees will be lined up on risers and auctioned off, most by a silent auction, the top trees as judged by a group of judges will be auctioned during an oral auction. Here's a look at some of the activity today.

The lights go on first and then it is serious business getting the ornaments just right. The Collinsville Progress tree is an Italian theme. 

It turned out just gorgeous and will be completed with many gift certificates to St Louis Italian restuarants, grocery stores and bottles of Italian wine.

Here's a look at some of the rest of what went on by others.

Hand made wreathes will also be auctioned off.

As will a number of decorated artificial trees. 

Ah, it wouldn't be the St Louis area without a Cardinal tree.

Then some of the live trees being decorated by members of various organizations.

This group put the lights on the tree and then spray painted it white. But, the paint took a while to dry so they got out a hair dryer to try and speed things along.

A Spider Man tree!!

A candy cane design

And this which was really striking

And lastly, there were place settings up for bid.

Some beautiful trees going up for auction tomorrow night.

 

In the cold and dark stands Kim Hudson

At 5:35 this morning all of a sudden I realize what I'm seeing on Fox 2 News. Reporter Kim Hudson is standing outside Collinsville City Hall doing a report on something that came up at last night's council meeting. This is too funny. I mean, really, city hall is locked up and dark-no one is there. Don't they think we'd understand the story even if they told it back in the studio?

The story is about a city council discussion on the result of a ballot question on video gambling during the November 6 election. The voting public voted that they felt it was ok to allow bars and restaurants and veteran's halls to have a bingo or poker video game on the premises. To that approval the council approved it last night 3-1. The issue which brought Fox 2 out to an empty city wall was the question raised over whether the voters understood 'Prohibit' or 'Approve' when they went into vote.

Water line replacement continues

So far new water pipes have been put up in the basement, replacing older pipes with 3/4 inch copper pipes. These lines supply the upstairs bathrooms and kitchen. That work got done fast. The guys are still trying to get the old cast iron pipe out of the front yard from the meter to the house. This is going slower than anyone figured because they decision was made to dig down to the end of the pipe and yank or pull it out rather than excavate the entire yard. 

Here's a look at how bad the pipe was and understand that it is the original water line from the 1920's.

This is the end which came into the basement and held the whole house water shut off valve. I couldn't even stick my finger into it, so full of rust and deposits it was.

This is the pipe end which was attached to the meter by the street.

And a couple pieces they hack sawed off. Since then they have hooked up some kind of machine to a generator on the back of a truck. The machine has a hose of some sort and they are using the force to try and move the rest of the pipe which is buried, forward from basement to the street.

I'm not sure how much success they're having but the generator has shut off.

There's a lot of watching going on.

Ferdie from the front door.

One of our neighbors

The stuffed raccoon on the porch is enjoying the hub bub too.

 In the end of several hours of trying, they weren't able to move most of the buried line so they bored to the side of it, laid the new pipe, and are now hooking things up, filling in the holes and just about ready to test the water. 

Big equipment for a not so big yard

We're having our water line replaced today because the old iron pipe has narrowed enough that the water pressure is punk poor. Lot of trucks, vans, and heavy equipment in front of the house. 

Actually, this isn't even our house, this big guy is third in line. If Dale were here he'd be begging to make the first dig.

And a van full of all kinds of things.

The Catsup Bottle in 1952

Have been converting some slides of Holy Cross from 1952 and in this apple butter making photo you can see the Catsup Bottle in the background.

Collinsville's recycling

Homeowners in Collinsville have begun receiving their new 95 gallon recycling carts, carts which are so much larger than the old 18 gallon square bins that it is almost mind boggling. However, my experience with the larger containers is that they will fill up very quickly because it will now be possible to really recycle most things. The 18 gallon bin filled up so fast that most other recyclables had no where to go and so were tossed in the regular trash. 

Collinsville people have gone from this:

to this

What a difference

A neighbor of ours laughed when he first saw it, said it looked like a spare room and that he might push it around town and collect cans.  :) 

I love it. 

Gambling now legal in Illinois bars and restaurants

Yesterday the new law allowing bars and restaurants in Illinois to have video gambling machines went into effect. State legislators passed this law back in 2009 and expect the tax revenue to be around 375 million dollars a year which will then be used to fix bridges and schools.

Not every local city in Illinois is going to allow this type of gaming and some, like Collinsville, plan to put the question to voters on the November ballot to get a feel for how residents feel about this. Here's the irony in the local gambling issue, cities with casinos like Alton and East St. Louis are wary of competition to the casinos since these businesses have been a source of good tax revenue over the years. Collinsville has Fairmount Park Race Track's competition to keep in mind.

What's ironic is that the state and presumably Gov Quinn passed the legislation allowing veterans halls, bars, restaurants to have the poker, bingo, slot video gambling machines, but Gov Quinn vetoed legislation allowing the 2 or 3 Illinois race tracks to do the same. The obvious place for the new gambling machines would be in places where gambling has always been allowed. But sorry Fairmount Park, everyone else can have this revenue but not you.

This is all very weird.