The Anna Articles

As we're spending nearly all of our time at home now due to COVID-19, we're taking the time to explore our yard and learn about the plants we now have. It's been a really great yard to have during quarantine with so many birds and plants to keep us - or me at least - entertained. We're treating this year as a maintenance year while we figure it out. As the new neighbor says, if we don't like anything we can always take it out (though, probably next year). Plant giveaways and trades are popular in the neighborhood email listserv, which seems even more active than Nextdoor here.  That neighbor - and Google Lens - has been super helpful as she helped the previous owner plant much of the garden here (and apparently did the same for other neighbors) so she was able to help us identify a lot of the plants. The previous owner also kindly responded to our email when we were certain one plant was dead and couldn't figure out why Google Lens told me we had a bunch of baby

This is not a fancy, or colorful, recipe; it seems classically German to me. Well, probably Polish really, with the kluski and kielbasa. I associate this dish with my hometown, though, and my ancestors from there emigrated from Bavaria or "West Prussia."  Growing up I ate a lot of sauerkraut as my Mom would make kraut with my Grandma using the lettuce from the garden and it was a staple of church dinners. My Mom made a variety of dishes, but I think I remember her kluski kraut well at least partially because the name is so fun to say. A couple years ago I decided to make it from memory after a trip to Kramarczuk's that yielded the 3 main ingredients: kluski noodles, kielbasa and sauerkraut. My recent trip was via curbside pickup, as one does "in these times."  I recently confirmed my Mom's steps and turns out I wasn't too far off. I made just slight variations and tried to capture measurements, though this is really one of those "to taste" reci