What is a Denver sandwich???

A Denver sandwich or omelet apparently goes back to the early forties. It was a popular dish in restaurants.
You start with 2 or 3 eggs scrambled a bit, throw into a small frying pan with a few sauteed onions, maybe a some mushrooms, and the most important ingredient is chopped sauteed green pepper. Among my relatives people did not eat green peppers, celery or anything that resembled them. We did eat mushrooms as my Mother knew how to gather the safe ones in the fall of the year.
You cooked this mixture like an omelet and served it in a sandwich or left it as an omelet.
I remember sometime in the 60's my parents had a small work party at their house. Ma made delicious home baked crescent rolls and they were filled with chicken salad. I know she cooked the chicken herself which made for a delicious filling. One of my brothers was just livid because she put a small amount of diced celery into the filling. He could not believe she ruined the sandwiches with celery!!! That is my point about using green pepper in an omelet, really, how gross is that??? Change came slow, I don't know if it was this way in all families, but the men had a hard time eating something new and unknown. I will have more stories about this subject at a later date, The Countess of Cuisine

My Family of Origin

This is a small commentary on my family of origin. My Mother (maiden name Valek) came from a family of 11 children and so did my Dad. The Valek's moved to Hazelwood, Minnesota (I challenge you to find that on a map) in 1914 and the same year my Dad's family (Malecha) moved to Little Chicago (same challenge) about a mile away as the crow flies, These families were the only Czech people in the neighorhood so it was only natural they were drawn to each other. My parents, Tom and Mary, started all of this and to make a long story short my Dad's 2 brothers and 1 sister married 3 of my Mom's siblings. I have many "double" cousins but more about that later. All of them were farmers as
were most people in the area. In 1926 my parents bought an existing farmstead in Dakota County about 3 miles from Hazelwood. They had a barn raising and it was completed in one day. They kept cows, hogs, poultry, and field horses. Dad had a small sawmill and he was an expert on the new Rural Electric Association (REA), many of the local farms were "wired" by Dad and his brother Uncle Joe. Uncle Joe's wife Christina is my Mother's sister, they lived with my parents after they married until they were able to find their own farm. My parents farmed until about 1943, they had an auction, rented out the farm to Aunt Elizabeth and Jim Koktavy. We moved to town, Dad had gone to work for Commander Elevators earlier so he had a good job. Mom worked nights at the Riverside Cafe, it was located several doors down from the apartment we were living in. One of the things she loved was the fact she knew how to make a "Denver sandwich", throughout her life she never found a restaurant that knew how to make a proper Denver sandwich. Next we moved out to the Peterson farm across the road from where my nephew Mark Malecha lives now. We lived there for several years, my younger sister was born during this time. Our house burned down on the farm, my Dad and many relatives built a new house and in 1949 we moved back to the farm. We stayed on the farm until my brother came home from the Army, he bought the farm and we moved to town. By now I was in high school and I will sign off for now, more at a later time. The Countess

My Family

In future writings I will tell you about my family, husband, children, grandchildren, my family of origin, I guarantee you that will be fun, I have some funny and weired people in my family. Then we will go on to other things. The Countess of Cuisine.

Where I have been and where I'm going!!!!

I've been around for a long time, lived in a lot of places, some of them weird and some not. My first time overseas I traveled with 4 children from Oregon to Brindisi, Italy. This was in the early 70's, soldiers all over the airport in Rome, I wasn't expecting this and I was just a little bit SCARED. Italy was a great time for our whole family, we loved the Italians and the countryside, we lived a block from the Adriatic Sea. Before that we had lived in Minnesota, Arizona and Oregon, Italy opened up a whole new world. After three years we moved to Colorado Springs for 3 years, also a good place, then on to Pusan, Korea for 3 years, Washington D.C. for 2 years and on to Saudi Arabia for 3 years. We have been back to Minnesota for 20 years. We do live in Arizona in the winter time, it adds a little extra dimension to our lives. This is it for today, really a skeleton sketch of the last 35 years. As time goes on I will be writing more about some of our more unusual experiences along the way. Also I will go back to the land before time (more than 35 years ago).