2009-01 Vital Source Mag – January 2009
Keeping warm, Ukrainian style
Vasyl Lemberskyy Owner/Chef – Transfer Pizzeria Café 101 W. Mitchell St. 414-763-0438 • transfermke.com (photos by Melissa Merline) The economy may be suffering, but you’d never know it from the percolating patronage of a restaurant less than a year old: Transfer. Co-owner and, in his own words, “Chef Extraordinaire” Vasyl Lemberskyy grew up in Kiev, Ukraine when it was still a Soviet Socialist Republic. There, the economy left people so destitute that hunger was rampant, and the Chernobyl disaster occurred just a few hours away. Lemberskyy made pizza for 20 years in Ukraine and later studied with a Master chef in Italy. When he moved to the United States in 2001, he thought he’d sworn off restaurant work for good. “It’s hard work. I’m tired all the time, not enough time for my family or myself.” Nonetheless, he worked for Polonez and then opened several restaurants alone and with partners, among them Primavera and Fresche. At Transfer, the focus is on Lemberskyy-style pizza, pasta and paninis. He is not overly boastful about his cred as a pizza maker, especially considering his product: his crusts, all made daily by hand, are thin enough to be crispy with enough body to hold a luscious chewy center. The garlic pizza is lavished with a creamy sauce and cheese and slides down the throat without being greasy. You won’t find any Ukrainian dishes on Transfer’s menu, so you’ll have to try this hearty winter favorite in your own kitchen. Zrazy – Vasyl’s Favorite Ukrainian Dish Zrazy are small potato pancakes filled with meat and fried in fat. Zrazy are usually served with fried pork fat. 2 lbs potatoes 1 lb beef 2 large onions, chopped and fried 2 cups sunflower oil Salt to taste Grate half of the potatoes finely. Boil another half in skins. Peel off, grate and add to the uncooked potatoes, then blend and salt to taste. Boil meat, then grind in a food processor and combine with fried finely chopped onion. Shape small cakes and fill in with meat. Fry in oil until light brown. Serve at once. We want you! Submit your recipes for consideration to eatthis@vitalsourcemag.com. We might use them in a future edition of Eat This! Ulana Tyshynsky Ulana Tyshynsky, a fourth grade teacher at Forest Home Avenue School, proudly maintains the Ukrainian culture passed on by her immigrant parents. Cuisine is one of the things she values from her heritage. This bread is a holiday tradition but is also made though out the year. It’s best stored in plastic for several weeks to let the honey mellow before serving. A fun fact: many Ukrainians worship in the Eastern Orthodox tradition and celebrate Christmas on January 7. Medivnyk (Ukrainian honey loaf) ½ cup butter 1 cup dark honey 6 eggs, separated 1 cup powdered sugar 3 cups all-purpose flour ½ t ground cloves ½ t ground cinnamon 1 t baking soda 1 cup golden raisins (optional) 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional) Melt honey and butter over […]
Jan 1st, 2009 by Cate Miller
Boards, committees and Bohl – oh my!
In this edition: BOZA gets a new chair, Alderman Bohl blows up and the mainstream media once again misses the mark. Big news! New BOZA head: Outside of city government, not many people know or care about the Board of Zoning Appeals, affectionately known by insiders as BOZA. (Pronounced with a long “o” and a short “a,” so it rhymes with “Rosa.”) But if you live in the City of Milwaukee, run a business here or watch the city government station on TV (Channel 25), you know how vitally important BOZA is to maintaining a good quality of life in Milwaukee. Whenever a daycare wants to open in a residential neighborhood, or someone wants to put up an extra-large billboard, or a corner store is up for renewal, the Board, made up of private citizens, votes on whether or not exceptions (i.e. “variances”) to land use restrictions should be granted. Typically, an alderman or his/her aide will go before BOZA and tell why he/she is for/against the variance. There is often a lot of good neighborhood testimony, too, and the hearings can go well into the night. This is local government at its finest, and the chairman – for more than a decade – has been well-respected tax attorney Craig Zetley. In November, Zetley announced his resignation. This announcement sent shockwaves throughout City Hall and beyond, but it was barely mentioned by most Milwaukee media outlets. The replacement is long-time BOZA member Catey Doyle, who also happens to be sister to Governor Jim Doyle. Catey, the staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society, is passionate about Milwaukee and a great person for a job that would be demanding for anyone. Tune in to Channel 25 on any Thursday night when BOZA is in session and see how she runs her meetings. The general expectation seems to be that Ms. Doyle will be extremely fair with aldermen and citizens alike, but maybe not has hard line as Mr. Zetley when it comes to the interpretation of city code. Doyle is known for being empathetic and understanding of special circumstances. Like church, but for liquor licenses: Speaking of running city meetings, there was quite a bit of commotion at the Licenses Committee hearing in early December. Alderman Jim Bohl, known for his integrity, sincerity and long-winded analogies, is chair of the committee that grants a variety of alcohol and other licenses. He took over that role for Ald. James Witkowiak in April, but it’s Bohl’s second turn at being the chair of Licenses. (He’s one of the most veteran aldermen, having represented the west side of Milwaukee for more than a decade.) During this particular hearing, Bohl blasted citizens in attendance for not turning off their cell phones. “This should be like church,” he said at one point, exhorting people to be respectful of the proceedings. He even kicked out one person whose cell phone continued to ring. Many observers thought Bohl crossed the line. The castigation of Milwaukee residents – many […]
Jan 1st, 2009 by Dan Corcoran
This is Fearless
By Amy Elliott, Brian Jacobson, Erin Petersen, Erin Wolf Introduction by Jon Anne Willow, photograph by Erin Landry The idea of leadership has been receiving a lot of play lately, not only in the media but also in the conversations of everyday people. Too often, in the last several years in particular, the term “leadership” is modified by adjectives like “vacuum,” “lack of” and “inadequate.” When we at VITAL began planning these awards in early 2008, it was in response to a general feeling that our community and our nation were in the grips of a collective malaise brought on in part by the sinking sensation that things were spinning out of control and nobody was stepping up to do anything meaningful about the country’s direction. We could relate, and there wasn’t much good news coming from the top. Nevertheless, we could all think of individual citizens who apparently missed the memo to abandon all hope and continued to work within their communities for positive change, keeping their chins up, chests out and heads down but not bowed. In fact, we thought of so many that we realized there must be hundreds more right here in Milwaukee. So instead of picking people we knew in a closed-door staff meeting, we put the vote to the people of our city. And over 3,000 of you weighed in. That’s democracy in action, and we thank each of you sincerely for taking the time to recognize the efforts of all our nominees and award winners. Most of you who read this will be familiar with the larger concept of leadership, though you may not have thought about it much until the recent presidential election brought the idea back into vogue. The term has since gained momentum, first as a campaign slogan and now as a very real expectation of our next president, who takes the helm in such troubling times. Leadership is not about being in charge – some of the best leaders are peers, not bosses – nor is it about being the face connected with a name or cause. Leadership comes from within, and very often lies dormant until required. After all, what sane person grows up wanting to go down with the ship, lead the charge to battle or otherwise commit to exposing themselves to all sorts of hopelessness and unpleasantness on a daily basis? The answer is that nobody sane would think this is a good idea. But as William Shakespeare famously wrote: “Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.” The latter circumstance, I believe, is how most greatness is uncovered. It is human nature to follow, to fit in and to believe that doing no harm is doing enough. It’s how most of us are wired, so if this is you, you’re in good company with most of the human race. But in your heart, don’t you ever yearn to hear a call that you can’t […]
Jan 1st, 2009 by Jon Anne Willow
