Svacina Project

My mother's maiden name is Kallus and the family's reunion is one that we go to every year.  It's always within a few days of my birthday. (My partner thinks I have a family reunion every weekend, but it's actually four a year... Kallus, Morkovsky, Orsak and Zielonka.) Until last year, the Kallus reunion had been held for decades (literally since the 30s, I think) at the Wied Hall in, you guessed it, Wied, a teeny tiny community between Hallettsville and Shiner in Lavaca County. My great grandfather Kallus lived in Wied and owned a general store and post office in the early part of the 20th century. The story is that he and other families in the area pooled their money to build the hall so their daughters wouldn't have to go far for a dance. He donated the land, though the hall was actually moved across Alt. Highway90 at some point. It's an enigmatic old hall and I've always loved being there. It deserves a blog post on its own. Last year the host family m

Below is the last recipe with meat in it that I'll be posting for a month. Last Saturday I pledged to go meat-free for October, which is National Vegetarian Awareness Month. (I was a vegetarian for about 10 years - throughout my 20s - so I know what it entails. I stopped because I missed sausage.) Why am I doing it? Because I've been thinking a LOT about my health and how what I eat affects it. Last year, my mother almost died from colon cancer. I'm not saying she developed cancer because she ate meat, but what happened to her reminded me that there's overwhelming evidence that a plant-based diet increases your chances of not developing all kinds of bad conditions and of living longer. And now, two of my three siblings have had colonoscopies that found pre-cancerous polyps. That makes me want to take even more precautions with my health. But I've committed to writing the cookbook, which involves testing lots of meat recipes... fried chicken, pork cutlets, pickled