THIS IS THE OLD SITE

Ethnic Recipes from the Novak-Ravnik-Odanović Kitchens

Volume One contributor/web writer Nik Novak has provided a trio of delightful, ethnic recipes you may want to attempt this holiday season. Click "continue reading" for instructions on:

• Novak's Cream Cheese Kolačy (Czech-style pastry)
• Grandma Betty's Paprika (Slovenian-style stuffed peppers)
• Grandpa Chubby's Hot Sarma (Serbian-style cabbage rolls)

You may not have a "Grandpa Chubby," but perhaps you'd like to share your own family's traditional holiday recipes by leaving an informative comment. Yum.

Posted by Mike and Nik Novak

Tyrone Coal = No Go

Fellow Wisconsinites:

Good news! Xcel Energy announced last week that they are scrapping plans to build a coal-fired power plant in the Chippewa Valley. The proposed power plant was sited near Tyrone, 19 miles downstream from Eau Claire on the Chippewa River, below the mouth of the Red Cedar River.

Assuredly, the announced withdrawal spares us a litany of adverse human and environmental health effects, including air, water, and soil contamination, as well as CO2 spewage, the chief progenitor of man-made climate change.

Instead, pressures brought by concerned citizens (the Chippewa Valley Sustainable Energy Association in particular) and media attention, along with economic and geographic realities, seem to have appealed to Xcel's innate common sense and influenced their decision-making process. Xcel now plans to invest in clean wind technology. (You can read the Leader Telegram story here.)

Xcel's other new proposal, to buy power from Manitoba Hydro, poses a variety of related cultural and ecological consequences, but the proposal is not certain and it is not of the same scale as Big Coal.

Good things do happen when people actively engage in their communities.

Ziveli.

Posted by Nik Novak

Larry: An Autumn Tale

Dateline: 28 September 2003, Madison, Wisconsin, USA

Last weekend Gov asked me and Swanny if we wanted to go pick grapes with him and a vagrant named Larry.

We didn’t have anything particularly pressing to do.

Thus it was we found ourselves sitting in Gov’s little Toyota pick-up shortly before 0900 Saturday morning, sitting on the corner of Johnson and something, waiting for Larry (who doesn't own a motor vehicle) so we can go pick grapes at a vineyard south of town.

0900 rolls around and pretty soon this odd man comes ambling down the sidewalk. Strangest bleeding fellow you ever seen. Six-foot-four. Skinny as a rail. White beard, bright red denim, khaki shorts, cooking apron, multi-colored sweater, black trench coat, towel around the neck, fishing hat, dark sunglasses. He is bouncing a tennis ball and carrying a full trash bag, satchel, and portfolio.

Gov snickers: “Looks like Larry.”

Swanny and I exchange glances. Clearly the man is asylum fodder.

Posted by Nik Novak

My Favorite Albums

Here are my favorite albums:

• At Folsom Prison / At San Quentin
–Johnny Cash
• The Mountain –Steve Earle and the
Del McCoury Band
• Nashville Skyline, Bringing It All Back Home, and Freewheelin' –Bob Dylan
• Fox Confessor Brings the Flood –Neko Case
• Dreaming My Dreams –Waylon Jennings
• Mercy Now –Mary Gauthier
• Folk Singer –Muddy Waters
• Red Headed Stranger –Willie Nelson
• Salesmen and Racists –Ike Reilly
• Burnside on Burnside –R. L. Burnside
• Infamous Angel –Iris DeMent
• Nighthawks at the Diner –Tom Waits
• The Rising –Bruce Springsteen
• Mermaid Avenue –Billy Bragg and Wilco

Click ‘Continue’ for the rest of the list. Click ‘Comments’ to add your own.

Posted by Nik Novak

Concert Review: Neko Case

My friends and I had the great good fortune to attend a Neko Case concert this past weekend. The venue: Chicago's Vic Theatre, a tall, 94-year-old hall of gilded frame and antiquated charm. It was the third night of her tour, a rousing and still-improvisational send-off for Case's latest and best album: Fox Confessor Brings the Flood.

Case's voice is simply incredible. Haunting, ethereal, and operatic, it filled the hall and soared into the balconies above, where we sat, entranced by her sad and poignant lyrics. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Case, she is the Tacoma-born punk-rocker, turned "country noir" artist, who is now speedily defying any and all categorization. Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, in particular, runs the gamut of eccentricity: The title track reinterprets Ukrainian folklore, "Dirty Knife" explores the abject horror of a family gone simultaneously insane, and "John Saw That Number" delivers a full-on gospel punch that will send shivers down your spine. Although it is not yet included on any of her albums, my personal favorite of the evening was her honky-tonk rendition of Bob Dylan's "Buckets of Rain."

If God were a woman, She'd have a voice like Miss Neko Case.

P.S. This NPR interview is worth checking out.

Posted by Nik Novak

Opinion: Thoughts on Immigration

The recent blitz of news regarding U.S. immigration policy, protests, and political infighting calls for reflection.

Indeed, much ink has been spilled in the last week or so over what to do about the throng of destitute wretches seeking asylum in this great country of ours. The solutions range from left ("Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses...") to right ("Re-trench and Re-arm!").

Alas, I have heard of no popular proposal from Congress that seeks to reduce immigrants’ desire to come here. Building big, expensive border walls is obviously ridiculous, as proved by Israel, Germany, China, and others. Similarly, open-door policies and "guest-worker" programs are not the answer, as they would surely cripple our already overwhelmed institutions of welfare and education. In other words: Once here, always here. You can't just evict a worker whose time in this country is up, because there is no incentive for them to go anywhere else. Nor can you let a person stay and not provide them with food, shelter, etc. To do otherwise would be uncivilized.

Posted by Nik Novak

Film Review: Come and See

Come and See (or Idi i smotri) is the most terrifying movie I have ever seen. I checked it out last week for no other reason than I have a soft spot for most things Russian and East European, generally. But it did not disappoint.

Made in 1985 and directed by Elim Klimov, the film is set in WW2-era Byelorussia. The Nazis are taking control of the countryside and sixteen-year-old Florya decides it is time for him to do his duty in the Red Army. He leaves his mother, his two young sisters, and joins the rest of his jovial comrades in a primeval wood, far from home.

As it turns out, the war is not all it is cracked up to be. We see Florya lost in green forest, slogging through marsh with rifle in tow. He meets a girl, Glasha. She is pretty. But this is before the Nazis start bombing. Florya is hit by shrapnel and goes deaf. As do the rest of us. For more than an hour we see and feel the world as Florya does. It is a muted, haunting world. Cold. Wet. Filthy. Slowly we begin to go crazy, our perception so clear and vivid as to appear surreal, dream-like.

Florya returns to his village. But the Germans do, too, and thus we are left to watch as their prisoners (the villagers) suffer successive and altogether horrifying fates. It still gives me chills.

You can find Come and See at the public library… if you dare.

Posted by Nik Novak

My Favorite Places

Here are my favorite places:

• Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park (on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, see picture above)
• The sea caves of Lake Superior’s southern shore (near Cornucopia)
• Sand Point Beach (near Cornucopia)
• Chequamegon Books (Washburn)
• Copper Falls State Park (near Mellen)
• Cayuga Hotel and Saloon (Cayuga)
• Swanny’s cabin (near Birchwood)
• Peninsula State Park (near Fish Creek)
• Carson Park (along the peninsula’s western shore under white pine canopy)
• Putnam Park (the oak swamp west of Little Niagara)
• Acoustic Café
• Chicken Unlimited

Click ‘Continue’ for the complete list. Click ‘Comments’ to add your own.

Posted by Nik Novak

A Few of My Favorite Books

This is an incomplete list of my favorite books. (Note: Friends may notice that while I am anally-retentive enough to organize my personal library by subject matter and author’s last name, this particular list follows no such hierarchy.)

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A River Runs Through It (Norman MacLean)
The Boat Who Wouldn’t Float (Farley Mowat)
A People’s History of the United States: (Howard Zinn)
The World Atlas
The Onion: Our Dumb Century
America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction (Jon Stewart)
East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
Travels with Charley (John Steinbeck)
Cannery Row (John Steinbeck)
Farmer (Jim Harrison)
Warlock (Jim Harrison)

Click ‘Continue’ for the rest of the list, or leave a comment with your own favorites.

Posted by Nik Novak

President’s Day Fun

Rather than giving thanks to our presidential leadership on this very secular holy day, I recommend listening to a few rabble-rousing speeches over at Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now!" website. In particular, try Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?" (fast-forward to 28:50).

Posted by Nik Novak