This is going to be a sketchy review of a very nice, Third Ward restaurant that happens to have a sketchy menu on its web site. I use online menus so I don't have to write down all the details of preparation and prices when I’d rather be savoring new tastes. Well.. Nanakusa’s online menu does not show all of its specials-of-the-day, nor is it detailed enough for me to even figure out which items I ate at the restaurant.
This could also have something to do with my inability to read or speak Japanese. It’s hard to believe that we actually hosted a Japanese exchange student for an entire year back in the late ‘80's. Yukie perfected her already-fluent English, while The Man and I learned konichiwa (good afternoon) and ohio gazimus (good morning). In a whole year. We are SO pathetic.
Before eating at Nanakusa with our friends, Fay and Terry, on Friday night, we attended a classy wine tasting at George Watt’s Tea Room. Put on by Riedel, the manufacturer of skinny-stemmed, expensive, easy-to-break wine glasses, this affair boasted lovely hor deuvers and a pour of four higher-end wines for each of us. Here’s what I learned: 1) that wines actually do not taste as good in what the Riedel guy politely called “Joker Glasses,” but I call Pier One glasses, 2) that it matters which shape glass you use for which wine, 3) that those “balloon” glasses really are the best for chardonnay, and 4) which glass is best for my current favorite varietal, red zinfandel.
Then we were off to the Third Ward. Fortunately, we were able to park right outside the door of Nanakusa on E. Chicago St, as winter (or at least nasty fall) weather has returned to Wisconsin. Nanakusa does not take reservations for parties of fewer than six, but we were seated within ten minutes after arriving at about 7:30 PM. Our table for four was along the windows and graciously separated from other diners.
As we’d consumed an adequate amount of wine before arriving at the restaurant, we delved right into our food selections. Fay, Terry and I decided to share a number of dishes, while the Man Who Could NEVER Choke Down Raw Fish, Even If Stranded On An Island With No Matches, ordered his own meal. The Man chose a vegetable tempura which came with a salad. (When I asked him today about that salad, he said it was especially good because “It had some grated good stuff on the top.” This I found on the online menu. It was ginger. Had he known that, I wonder if he would have even tried it.) The Wild Man also had an appetizer of Gyu Maki ($7.75), made of thin slices of beef wrapped around green onions, then grilled. “That was good,” he said. High praise for any food that is not meat loaf or ring bologna.
The other three of us shared four dishes. First came a dish which I recall might have been called Hotate Sashimi, a plate of thinly sliced raw scallops with the tastiest dollop of wasabi sauce on each slice. They were difficult to pick up with chopsticks, but there’s no way you’d want to eat any of these lovely dishes with a fork.
We wanted to have some tuna and had asked the hostess what dish she’d recommend. We took her suggestion and ordered the Hon Maguro Chu Toro ($11.50), three pieces of very soft, mild, almost bland tuna with two puddles of tasty dipping sauces. This is not like eating sushi from the deli, where you get some soy sauce for dipping. Here each sauce is unique perfection. Then came the salmon with sesame (I think this cost about $13), a generous portion of raw delicious salmon with yummy sesame sauce plated up with two piles of shredded items, one of crisp raw vegetables and the other deep fried oh-so-skinny potatoes. We agreed this was the best item we ordered, though all were very good. Next to arrive at our table was black cod marinated in a miso sauce. It was delicious, however $8 was a bit of a shock for this one-and-a-half-inch serving of fish. And finally we enjoyed several pieces of panko crusted and fried eggplant with a red miso sauce.
Each of the four of us spent a total of about $20 - mighty reasonable for this snazzy restaurant. Of course we’d had wine and appetizers before we came here.
So that’s all for now, friends. Or, as they say in Japan, sayonara. (Okay, so I know one more word. Still – it's pathetic.)
Stirring the Pot
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Sunday, November 2, 2008
The Joint is a Pain
I don’t think I've told you that the The Man built the fence that was on my gulag list. It looks terrific. Check that off the list. The shrubs have been transplanted from my sunny perennial bed to in front of the new fence section. But our house was built in 1958. Like everything from that era, it’s falling apart. Remaining on the gulag list are: caulk the roof windows that have decided it’s time to leak when it rains, finish spreading huge, heavy rolls of insulation in the attic before winter, saw down an ugly crabapple tree and cut back the ugly lilacs. The Man Who Insists On Having A Lawn Regardless Of The Fact That We Live In A Woods also has mountains of leaves to blow, rake, mow and mulch.
And then there’s the annual fall bulb-planting project. Every spring I make a list of where some daffodils would look cool. We usually plant upwards of a hundred bulbs each fall. They don’t live forever, in case you didn’t know. Last spring was a great year for spring flowers. Maybe it was the mountains of snow that blanketed them all winter. I don’t know. But they bloomed forever and were spectacular. So when I made my list of what to plant this fall, I must have pictured a really amazing show. I found my notes this week. They say things like, “twelve yellow daffs S. of bench, W. of amalancher, eight red tulips in front bed, E of fence, S of bleeding hearts,” etc. I added up the number of bulbs to plant, and YIKES! It came to 372! That is insane.
I bought 6 dozen. The Man Who Digs My Holes (and I who fill those holes) would be cripples for the winter if we planted 31 dozen. This list is going to take years to complete, even if we can prevent further bodily deterioration.
For the moment, my knee is healing. On Tuesday I made an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. On Thursday I cancelled it. On Friday, trick or treat eve in Brookfield, I set up my usual treat station out in our driveway, where I hand out M&Ms and homemade cut-out pumpkin cookies to kiddies and wine, spiced cider and cheese to the adults who walk the streets to prevent the kidnapping of Spiderman and Princess Di. The Man and I spent a few hours hanging out with them. Fine for The Man. His knees more-or-less function. (That means: he can play singles tennis for an hour and a half, but he cannot walk around the block with me, because of his knees, he says. He must think I’m an idiot.) Anyway, between having cancelled the appointment with the ortho doc for Monday and having stood for hours in the driveway on Friday, the knee is not so swell this weekend, but I insist it is improving.
(How many people do you know who’ve had a knee replacement and had problem with or after the surgery? Of our friends, I know of four. All had very serious problems that lasted for years after the surgery or are still a problem. I am not rushing to have my lousy joint repaired.)
Then this morning, The Man gets up from his breakfast, leans for a minute on one foot, and then hobbles off to the bathroom. “Whoa,” I say. “What’s with the limp?”
“It’s my big toe,” he replies. “It hurts when I bend it. Maybe I did something to it when I was mowing the leaves yesterday.”
It’s sunny and 55 degrees today. The man and I are sitting at our computers, ignoring The List. The rolls of insulation can stand in the front hall for another week. The ugly crabapple tree and lilac bushes have been ugly for years. They can be ugly a while longer. The Man has been known to dig holes through the snow in which to plant daffodil bulbs. And the roof window won't leak if it doesn't rain.
Stirring the Pot
And then there’s the annual fall bulb-planting project. Every spring I make a list of where some daffodils would look cool. We usually plant upwards of a hundred bulbs each fall. They don’t live forever, in case you didn’t know. Last spring was a great year for spring flowers. Maybe it was the mountains of snow that blanketed them all winter. I don’t know. But they bloomed forever and were spectacular. So when I made my list of what to plant this fall, I must have pictured a really amazing show. I found my notes this week. They say things like, “twelve yellow daffs S. of bench, W. of amalancher, eight red tulips in front bed, E of fence, S of bleeding hearts,” etc. I added up the number of bulbs to plant, and YIKES! It came to 372! That is insane.
I bought 6 dozen. The Man Who Digs My Holes (and I who fill those holes) would be cripples for the winter if we planted 31 dozen. This list is going to take years to complete, even if we can prevent further bodily deterioration.
For the moment, my knee is healing. On Tuesday I made an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. On Thursday I cancelled it. On Friday, trick or treat eve in Brookfield, I set up my usual treat station out in our driveway, where I hand out M&Ms and homemade cut-out pumpkin cookies to kiddies and wine, spiced cider and cheese to the adults who walk the streets to prevent the kidnapping of Spiderman and Princess Di. The Man and I spent a few hours hanging out with them. Fine for The Man. His knees more-or-less function. (That means: he can play singles tennis for an hour and a half, but he cannot walk around the block with me, because of his knees, he says. He must think I’m an idiot.) Anyway, between having cancelled the appointment with the ortho doc for Monday and having stood for hours in the driveway on Friday, the knee is not so swell this weekend, but I insist it is improving.
(How many people do you know who’ve had a knee replacement and had problem with or after the surgery? Of our friends, I know of four. All had very serious problems that lasted for years after the surgery or are still a problem. I am not rushing to have my lousy joint repaired.)
Then this morning, The Man gets up from his breakfast, leans for a minute on one foot, and then hobbles off to the bathroom. “Whoa,” I say. “What’s with the limp?”
“It’s my big toe,” he replies. “It hurts when I bend it. Maybe I did something to it when I was mowing the leaves yesterday.”
It’s sunny and 55 degrees today. The man and I are sitting at our computers, ignoring The List. The rolls of insulation can stand in the front hall for another week. The ugly crabapple tree and lilac bushes have been ugly for years. They can be ugly a while longer. The Man has been known to dig holes through the snow in which to plant daffodil bulbs. And the roof window won't leak if it doesn't rain.
Stirring the Pot
Monday, October 27, 2008
A Friend in Need...
So yesterday I take a spill on the wet leaves on my patio. One minute I’m filling the bird feeders; the next minute, BAM, I’m on my butt. I look up to see if The Man Who Is Reading The Sports’ Page just inside the window, about ten feet away from where I am lying on the patio, will notice my distress. But... I am not Brett Favre. Or even Aaron Rodgers. I'm on my own. I drag my body to an upright position. I think: next time I'll bring my cell phone when I go out to fill the bird feeders, so I can call The Man if I break a leg or something.
This morning I call my walking buddy, Hilde, and tell her what happened. Her Man doesn’t do the household upkeep stuff that My Man does. Hilde doesn't just fill the feeders. She does it all.
Later I receive the following message in my email from Hilde. This is too good not to pass on. She writes:
"Scenario I:
The phone is ringing - voice mail 'Hilde, this is Ellen. I fell. I am under the bird feeder. I don't think anything is broken, but I can't get up. Could you come over?'
Hilde is on her roof; HER phone is on the patio where she left it before climbing on the roof to clean the gutters - when the ladder slid away. But at least she knows Ellen can call 911.
Scenario II:
As above, but now Hilde tries to climb down in panic at her friend's accident; now she is hanging by both hands from the gutter, undecided whether to let go and drop the last 3 feet to the ground...when the phone stops ....and Hilde drops...too far away from HER phone to call 911. But she can pull herself close enough to a rake. She rakes the phone to herself just before she passes out.
Scenario III: As in scenario I, but
Hilde has her phone in her pocket. She stops cleaning the gutter, pulls out the ringing phone and answers it. Ellen hears a THUD and a scream and then it's quiet. Ellen dials 911 and tells them to send two ambulances, one to her house and one to Hilde's, and 911 thinks this is a crank call and hangs up. TWO old woman, one under a bird feeder and one falling from a roof? COME ON! Three days later the newspapers have great stories.
Scenario IV:
They find Ellen after several days lying under her birdfeeder. Many surgeries later she is urged to start walking the hallway in the hospital to get the juices flowing. She is annoyed that her best friend Hilde never even called or inquired after her.
Meanwhile, Hilde has been calling Ellen's house. When she doesn't get an answer that first day, she assumes that Ellen is at one of her many landtrust meetings and proceeds to do what she always does in the fall: cleans the gutters, blows the leaves off the roof, etc... but, stepping backward on the roof, there is just one of those little sticks that rolls...sending Hilde flying...head-over-heels and down to the patio...where a few days later the cat-father next door finds her when he is looking for his cat which sat right next to Hilde and didn't come home.
So, many surgeries later the doctors tell Hilde to go and try walking a bit in the hospital hallway to get the juices moving in her body...and as she does...at the end of the hall ---
yep, you guessed it...she has an apparition of a bandaged, crooked figure that in spite of all the lacerations and casts, bandages and blood-supply-attachments hanging from one of those surgical trees, looks an awful lot like her best friend Ellen.
No, they don't throw their arms high into the air as they used to do when meeting at the bridge...neither can move both arms...but they grin...and not even that from ear to ear...each has too many bandages over one side her head...but it makes the rest of their stay in the hospital a hell of a lot less miserable."
With a best friend like Hilde, who needs A Man Who Pays Attention To Me?
Bruised, but still
Stirring the Pot
This morning I call my walking buddy, Hilde, and tell her what happened. Her Man doesn’t do the household upkeep stuff that My Man does. Hilde doesn't just fill the feeders. She does it all.
Later I receive the following message in my email from Hilde. This is too good not to pass on. She writes:
"Scenario I:
The phone is ringing - voice mail 'Hilde, this is Ellen. I fell. I am under the bird feeder. I don't think anything is broken, but I can't get up. Could you come over?'
Hilde is on her roof; HER phone is on the patio where she left it before climbing on the roof to clean the gutters - when the ladder slid away. But at least she knows Ellen can call 911.
Scenario II:
As above, but now Hilde tries to climb down in panic at her friend's accident; now she is hanging by both hands from the gutter, undecided whether to let go and drop the last 3 feet to the ground...when the phone stops ....and Hilde drops...too far away from HER phone to call 911. But she can pull herself close enough to a rake. She rakes the phone to herself just before she passes out.
Scenario III: As in scenario I, but
Hilde has her phone in her pocket. She stops cleaning the gutter, pulls out the ringing phone and answers it. Ellen hears a THUD and a scream and then it's quiet. Ellen dials 911 and tells them to send two ambulances, one to her house and one to Hilde's, and 911 thinks this is a crank call and hangs up. TWO old woman, one under a bird feeder and one falling from a roof? COME ON! Three days later the newspapers have great stories.
Scenario IV:
They find Ellen after several days lying under her birdfeeder. Many surgeries later she is urged to start walking the hallway in the hospital to get the juices flowing. She is annoyed that her best friend Hilde never even called or inquired after her.
Meanwhile, Hilde has been calling Ellen's house. When she doesn't get an answer that first day, she assumes that Ellen is at one of her many landtrust meetings and proceeds to do what she always does in the fall: cleans the gutters, blows the leaves off the roof, etc... but, stepping backward on the roof, there is just one of those little sticks that rolls...sending Hilde flying...head-over-heels and down to the patio...where a few days later the cat-father next door finds her when he is looking for his cat which sat right next to Hilde and didn't come home.
So, many surgeries later the doctors tell Hilde to go and try walking a bit in the hospital hallway to get the juices moving in her body...and as she does...at the end of the hall ---
yep, you guessed it...she has an apparition of a bandaged, crooked figure that in spite of all the lacerations and casts, bandages and blood-supply-attachments hanging from one of those surgical trees, looks an awful lot like her best friend Ellen.
No, they don't throw their arms high into the air as they used to do when meeting at the bridge...neither can move both arms...but they grin...and not even that from ear to ear...each has too many bandages over one side her head...but it makes the rest of their stay in the hospital a hell of a lot less miserable."
With a best friend like Hilde, who needs A Man Who Pays Attention To Me?
Bruised, but still
Stirring the Pot
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Water Buffalo
I hope TJM can teach us all how to do the comment thing. I agree with tubeworm; it's a pain in the Google.
Just to show you how dumb I am (and not just about techie stuff), it didn’t occur to me the other night, until we parked the car on Water Street, just south of Buffalo Street, that the restaurant we were about to go to in the Third Ward was named after its location. Duh.
Water Buffalo is a bit tricky to find. If you just remember it is ON the river, you’ll find it. It’s really not on Water Street, despite its address.
What a cool location it is! I think it is just about THE best spot in town for a restaurant, maybe with the exception of the old Pieces of Eight. Water Buffalo has two levels of dining outside, on the river. Of course it is a tad cool to eat outside in Wisconsin in mid-October. But the inside is stunning too. Cool industrial chic, with exposed, cream city brick walls and very high ceilings, decorated with big chunks of lumber hanging at odd angles from bent wires. Very artistic. Very downtown.
Our table for four, next to a window, looked west, over the river, toward the sunset. Lovely. Though there was an empty table or two at 6:15 when we arrived, Water Buffalo was packed with customers by 7:00. Apparently no one, at least in Milwaukee, is listening to The Powers That Be who are telling us that our finances are in a mess. I haven’t noticed a downturn in the number of folks eating in restaurants anywhere in the Milwaukee area.
Kay, The Doc, The Man and I had studied the Water Buffalo’s menu on our way downtown. For foodies like me, reading menus is half the fun. And reading it ahead gives me time to drool over the delicious words, like "demi-glace" and "toasted sesame aioli." And time to check out the wine list. I noticed Water Buffalo's wine list included Ridge Zinfandel Blend by the bottle ($57). I had read about this wine in Eric Asimov’s column in the “NY Times” and wanted to try it. Well, try it we did, and what a good choice it was! This blend of zinfandel and petite syrah grapes was a smooth mouthful of berries; a real find.
Water Buffalo’s menu is huge. For instance, there are 14 possible sandwiches to choose from, ranging from a B.L.T. for $6.75 to a Deli Corned Beef sandwich for $9.00, and there are 14 entrees as well. To make this many different items well would tax any kitchen.
Let’s start with the best items we tried. Kay and I split a Warm Mushroom & Goat Cheese salad ($9.50). Oh, my. Atop a bowl of mixed baby greens were sauted, HOT mushrooms and walnuts, with the goat cheese melted in the dressing. Golden raisins were a perfect sweet foil for the mushrooms, and the deep-fried, skinny onion rings added a nice crunch. If this sounds good to you, give it a try when you go to Water Buffalo. It’s memorable.
The highlight of the entrees we ordered was, believe it or not, Pot Pie! You could probably guess who ordered this. The Man Who Prefers Comfort Food. Which reminds me of another of those great stories about My Man.
We were visiting our daughter. She suggested she would order dinner out from a Thai restaurant in her Connecticut neighborhood. The Man Who Fears Funky Food raised one eyebrow and said, “Well, I don’t know if I’d like that.”
Our daughter replied, “Dad, they have Pad Thai with chicken. I think you’d like that.”
“Oh,” he replied. “That sounds good.” So it was ordered. When the buckets were placed on the table, The Man asked, “Where is the Pot Pie?”
Laugh – I thought I’d die!
So, back to the Water Buffalo’s Pot Pie. It is a single crust affair, with chicken and corn and peas and carrots – nothing too funky there – and mashed sweet potatoes piped over the top. The Man said it was a very tasty combination – and even let me have a small taste.
The rest of our entrees were not so notable. I had Baked Stuffed Salmon ($15.00), just to compare it to the delicious salmon I’d had for lunch at Mitchell’s the day before. As I much prefer to eat at local restaurants, rather than chains, I am reluctant to admit that Mitchell’s salmon was moister and tastier and was more attractively plated with lots of buttery, roasted and browned vegetables. Kay tried Water Buffalo’s Beef Tenderloin Kabab ($12.00), as it was one of our favorites at Swig. Where Swig’s was SO tender, this one was chewy, she said. And The Doc had Oven Roasted Chicken ($12.00), which he felt did not compare favorably with the deli chickens he buys at Grasch’s grocery store in Brookfield.
As you can see, the dinner prices at Water Buffalo are amazingly inexpensive. And obviously people love it here. The ambiance is wonderful, the service is very good, as are the prices. But if it’s superb food you’re looking for, I’d eat at Swig.
Stirring the Pot
Just to show you how dumb I am (and not just about techie stuff), it didn’t occur to me the other night, until we parked the car on Water Street, just south of Buffalo Street, that the restaurant we were about to go to in the Third Ward was named after its location. Duh.
Water Buffalo is a bit tricky to find. If you just remember it is ON the river, you’ll find it. It’s really not on Water Street, despite its address.
What a cool location it is! I think it is just about THE best spot in town for a restaurant, maybe with the exception of the old Pieces of Eight. Water Buffalo has two levels of dining outside, on the river. Of course it is a tad cool to eat outside in Wisconsin in mid-October. But the inside is stunning too. Cool industrial chic, with exposed, cream city brick walls and very high ceilings, decorated with big chunks of lumber hanging at odd angles from bent wires. Very artistic. Very downtown.
Our table for four, next to a window, looked west, over the river, toward the sunset. Lovely. Though there was an empty table or two at 6:15 when we arrived, Water Buffalo was packed with customers by 7:00. Apparently no one, at least in Milwaukee, is listening to The Powers That Be who are telling us that our finances are in a mess. I haven’t noticed a downturn in the number of folks eating in restaurants anywhere in the Milwaukee area.
Kay, The Doc, The Man and I had studied the Water Buffalo’s menu on our way downtown. For foodies like me, reading menus is half the fun. And reading it ahead gives me time to drool over the delicious words, like "demi-glace" and "toasted sesame aioli." And time to check out the wine list. I noticed Water Buffalo's wine list included Ridge Zinfandel Blend by the bottle ($57). I had read about this wine in Eric Asimov’s column in the “NY Times” and wanted to try it. Well, try it we did, and what a good choice it was! This blend of zinfandel and petite syrah grapes was a smooth mouthful of berries; a real find.
Water Buffalo’s menu is huge. For instance, there are 14 possible sandwiches to choose from, ranging from a B.L.T. for $6.75 to a Deli Corned Beef sandwich for $9.00, and there are 14 entrees as well. To make this many different items well would tax any kitchen.
Let’s start with the best items we tried. Kay and I split a Warm Mushroom & Goat Cheese salad ($9.50). Oh, my. Atop a bowl of mixed baby greens were sauted, HOT mushrooms and walnuts, with the goat cheese melted in the dressing. Golden raisins were a perfect sweet foil for the mushrooms, and the deep-fried, skinny onion rings added a nice crunch. If this sounds good to you, give it a try when you go to Water Buffalo. It’s memorable.
The highlight of the entrees we ordered was, believe it or not, Pot Pie! You could probably guess who ordered this. The Man Who Prefers Comfort Food. Which reminds me of another of those great stories about My Man.
We were visiting our daughter. She suggested she would order dinner out from a Thai restaurant in her Connecticut neighborhood. The Man Who Fears Funky Food raised one eyebrow and said, “Well, I don’t know if I’d like that.”
Our daughter replied, “Dad, they have Pad Thai with chicken. I think you’d like that.”
“Oh,” he replied. “That sounds good.” So it was ordered. When the buckets were placed on the table, The Man asked, “Where is the Pot Pie?”
Laugh – I thought I’d die!
So, back to the Water Buffalo’s Pot Pie. It is a single crust affair, with chicken and corn and peas and carrots – nothing too funky there – and mashed sweet potatoes piped over the top. The Man said it was a very tasty combination – and even let me have a small taste.
The rest of our entrees were not so notable. I had Baked Stuffed Salmon ($15.00), just to compare it to the delicious salmon I’d had for lunch at Mitchell’s the day before. As I much prefer to eat at local restaurants, rather than chains, I am reluctant to admit that Mitchell’s salmon was moister and tastier and was more attractively plated with lots of buttery, roasted and browned vegetables. Kay tried Water Buffalo’s Beef Tenderloin Kabab ($12.00), as it was one of our favorites at Swig. Where Swig’s was SO tender, this one was chewy, she said. And The Doc had Oven Roasted Chicken ($12.00), which he felt did not compare favorably with the deli chickens he buys at Grasch’s grocery store in Brookfield.
As you can see, the dinner prices at Water Buffalo are amazingly inexpensive. And obviously people love it here. The ambiance is wonderful, the service is very good, as are the prices. But if it’s superb food you’re looking for, I’d eat at Swig.
Stirring the Pot
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Your Comments & Mitchell's Fish Market
Many of you have complained that it is difficult to put a comment on my blog. I agree. I’ve tried it too, and it is nigh onto impossible. Apparently the only folks who can figure this out are guys who work for The Unnamed Mattress Company and Restaurant Owners. Wouldn’t you think the geeks at Google could make commenting more user-friendly? As there are no comments, it must appear to you all that no one is reading my blog, yet I get emails saying you are. So just keep reading, my good friends. And if you can’t wade through the techie hoo-haa to leave a comment, send it to my email. I LOVE to hear from you.
Yesterday was one of the every-other Wednesdays when I have a cleaning gal who decontaminates my house. It is good idea to get out of her way, to leave my house on those days. So My Walking Companion (MWC) and I have decided to do something fun together every other Wednesday. Today was our first try at blowing much of a day together. First we walked laps in the Mall (it was raining). Then we shopped. Then there was lunch.
There are several new restaurants that you enter directly from Brookfield Square’s parking lot. (I just want you to know that I can “practically see these restaurants when I'm sitting at my kitchen table,” so that makes me an expert chef.)
Back to our lunch. MWC and Her Man had recently eaten dinner at the Fox and Hounds and been very disappointed in their food. She complained of under-cooked vegetables, poorly prepared walleye, and unappetizingly-presented mountains of food on their plates. She wanted a comparison. Someplace that might know how to cook fish. We chose Mitchell’s Fish Market.
Mitchell’s inside has a very attractive, modern decor with rich warm woods, cozy booths along the outside walls, and, on a rainy Wednesday noon, was only about a third full. The clientele was mixed: businessmen and women in suits from the nearby offices, senior couples in sweaters and slacks, and a few hip and trendy people wearing jeans and tennis shoes - like MWC and me.
Our attentive waitress, Lea, informed us that Mitchell’s prints a new menu every day, based on what fish are flown in that day. Their fish is all flown in FRESH EVERY DAY. Trust me: this is important to folks who live as far from an ocean as we do. Lea also recommended the day’s special fruit drink made of mangoes and oranges ($3.50) that turned out to be a perfect thirst-quencher for us athletic mall-walkers. For my lunch I ordered the Cedar Roasted Salmon ($12.95), a 4-ounce fillet served on a wood plank atop delicious oven-roasted vegetables. And not just your usual broccoli and carrots. There were slabs of roasted portabella mushrooms and eggplant and yellow peppers topped with a delicious red pepper coulis. I haven't found chain restaurants to be the best places to eat, but this is a chain restaurant that knows how to hire a good chef.
MWC ordered the Asian Salmon Salad ($12.95). Her luncheon plate included a nice-sized mesclun salad topped with a grilled salmon fillet that had been basted with a slightly sweetened soy sauce. Also on her plate was a pile of very thin angel hair pasta prepared with the same Asian sauce. MWC found it both attractive and delicious. So did I, as we shared bites across the table.
The Man Who Eats Pretty Much Only Steak Or Spaghetti would never consider putting a bite of what I’ve ordered in his mouth. So he’s not keen on sharing even a tiny taste of his dinner. With MWC, it seemed perfectly natural to sample each other’s food. Otherwise how is An Important Restaurant Critic to access the information she requires to tell you about ALL the dishes prepared in a restaurant? (Stay tuned: tonight we're off to Water Buffalo in the Third Ward.)
Our lunches at Mitchell's did take abut 20 minutes to be served after we placed our order, which could be a problem for those on a lunch hour from office work. But for MWC and I, it was a perfect time to sit a few minutes and learn what each other looks like, after walking, side-by-side, for 30 years. Or so.
Stirring the Pot
Yesterday was one of the every-other Wednesdays when I have a cleaning gal who decontaminates my house. It is good idea to get out of her way, to leave my house on those days. So My Walking Companion (MWC) and I have decided to do something fun together every other Wednesday. Today was our first try at blowing much of a day together. First we walked laps in the Mall (it was raining). Then we shopped. Then there was lunch.
There are several new restaurants that you enter directly from Brookfield Square’s parking lot. (I just want you to know that I can “practically see these restaurants when I'm sitting at my kitchen table,” so that makes me an expert chef.)
Back to our lunch. MWC and Her Man had recently eaten dinner at the Fox and Hounds and been very disappointed in their food. She complained of under-cooked vegetables, poorly prepared walleye, and unappetizingly-presented mountains of food on their plates. She wanted a comparison. Someplace that might know how to cook fish. We chose Mitchell’s Fish Market.
Mitchell’s inside has a very attractive, modern decor with rich warm woods, cozy booths along the outside walls, and, on a rainy Wednesday noon, was only about a third full. The clientele was mixed: businessmen and women in suits from the nearby offices, senior couples in sweaters and slacks, and a few hip and trendy people wearing jeans and tennis shoes - like MWC and me.
Our attentive waitress, Lea, informed us that Mitchell’s prints a new menu every day, based on what fish are flown in that day. Their fish is all flown in FRESH EVERY DAY. Trust me: this is important to folks who live as far from an ocean as we do. Lea also recommended the day’s special fruit drink made of mangoes and oranges ($3.50) that turned out to be a perfect thirst-quencher for us athletic mall-walkers. For my lunch I ordered the Cedar Roasted Salmon ($12.95), a 4-ounce fillet served on a wood plank atop delicious oven-roasted vegetables. And not just your usual broccoli and carrots. There were slabs of roasted portabella mushrooms and eggplant and yellow peppers topped with a delicious red pepper coulis. I haven't found chain restaurants to be the best places to eat, but this is a chain restaurant that knows how to hire a good chef.
MWC ordered the Asian Salmon Salad ($12.95). Her luncheon plate included a nice-sized mesclun salad topped with a grilled salmon fillet that had been basted with a slightly sweetened soy sauce. Also on her plate was a pile of very thin angel hair pasta prepared with the same Asian sauce. MWC found it both attractive and delicious. So did I, as we shared bites across the table.
The Man Who Eats Pretty Much Only Steak Or Spaghetti would never consider putting a bite of what I’ve ordered in his mouth. So he’s not keen on sharing even a tiny taste of his dinner. With MWC, it seemed perfectly natural to sample each other’s food. Otherwise how is An Important Restaurant Critic to access the information she requires to tell you about ALL the dishes prepared in a restaurant? (Stay tuned: tonight we're off to Water Buffalo in the Third Ward.)
Our lunches at Mitchell's did take abut 20 minutes to be served after we placed our order, which could be a problem for those on a lunch hour from office work. But for MWC and I, it was a perfect time to sit a few minutes and learn what each other looks like, after walking, side-by-side, for 30 years. Or so.
Stirring the Pot
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
The Brown Bag Lunch
Ooops! Yesterday was one of those rare days when The Man forgets to take his lunch to work with him. I notice the packed brown bag left on the counter after he has gone to work. Not wanting him to realize at the last minute that he has no lunch, I call him. “Oh, darn,” he says.
I don’t want him to go without lunch, of course, but I know My Man better than to suggest that he go OUT for lunch. That would not only cost Good Money, but it would take 20 minutes away from his lunch hour sheepshead game. The Man has his Priorities.
“Why don’t you ask The Guy At Work who buys his lunch at Karl’s Market if he would bring you a something for lunch,” I suggest.
So the Man says to me - believe it or not - he says, “I can’t buy my lunch there. It’s too greasy.”
Whatta hoot! How dumb does he think I am? Like he EVER thinks a thing about the amount of fat in his food. I know that he’s either just being his usual tightwad self or his usual picky self about the food he eats. So I say, “What does Your Guy At Work buy at Karl’s Market when he goes there and brings back lunch?”
“Something like chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy,” he replies.
Grease? Fat? Like he wouldn’t eat chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy at home? Like I never make a roasted chicken and gravy and mashed potatoes for The Man Who Only Wants Food That Reminds Him Of The Fifties?
It is clear. He just wants what he always has for lunch: a sandwich Made By ME and a couple pieces of fruit, one of which must be A Quite Ripe Banana. He has often told me that no one can make a sandwich as good as mine. Yeh, right. Of course, he is picky about that sandwich. Here’s the list of allowable sandwich fillings: Oscar Mayer bologna (a personal favorite), chicken or turkey (preferably from one I’ve roasted at home), liver sausage (Usinger’s braunschweiger prefered), or ham salad. A real sandwich is ALWAYS made with Miracle Whip and a very small, single leaf of lettuce (preferably iceberg) is allowed. So does this sound like A Man Who Is Picky About The Fat In His Diet? I don’t think so.
“Well, I just wanted to let you know that you forgot your lunch,” I say. “I’m just leaving to walk.”
“How long will that take?” he quickly asks. “Will you be back in time to bring my lunch to my office before noon?”
Now, I have made lunch for The Man EVERY day of his lengthy working life. Let’s see: that’s 11,040 bagged lunches. (I actually just figured that out – 46 years at about 240 days per year. He’s never sick and for many years he had little vacation.) But I have to admit, the income from The Man’s Amazing Work Ethic has given me a mighty fine life. What’s a Good Woman to do?
I walk. I take him his lunch.
Stirring the Pot
I don’t want him to go without lunch, of course, but I know My Man better than to suggest that he go OUT for lunch. That would not only cost Good Money, but it would take 20 minutes away from his lunch hour sheepshead game. The Man has his Priorities.
“Why don’t you ask The Guy At Work who buys his lunch at Karl’s Market if he would bring you a something for lunch,” I suggest.
So the Man says to me - believe it or not - he says, “I can’t buy my lunch there. It’s too greasy.”
Whatta hoot! How dumb does he think I am? Like he EVER thinks a thing about the amount of fat in his food. I know that he’s either just being his usual tightwad self or his usual picky self about the food he eats. So I say, “What does Your Guy At Work buy at Karl’s Market when he goes there and brings back lunch?”
“Something like chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy,” he replies.
Grease? Fat? Like he wouldn’t eat chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy at home? Like I never make a roasted chicken and gravy and mashed potatoes for The Man Who Only Wants Food That Reminds Him Of The Fifties?
It is clear. He just wants what he always has for lunch: a sandwich Made By ME and a couple pieces of fruit, one of which must be A Quite Ripe Banana. He has often told me that no one can make a sandwich as good as mine. Yeh, right. Of course, he is picky about that sandwich. Here’s the list of allowable sandwich fillings: Oscar Mayer bologna (a personal favorite), chicken or turkey (preferably from one I’ve roasted at home), liver sausage (Usinger’s braunschweiger prefered), or ham salad. A real sandwich is ALWAYS made with Miracle Whip and a very small, single leaf of lettuce (preferably iceberg) is allowed. So does this sound like A Man Who Is Picky About The Fat In His Diet? I don’t think so.
“Well, I just wanted to let you know that you forgot your lunch,” I say. “I’m just leaving to walk.”
“How long will that take?” he quickly asks. “Will you be back in time to bring my lunch to my office before noon?”
Now, I have made lunch for The Man EVERY day of his lengthy working life. Let’s see: that’s 11,040 bagged lunches. (I actually just figured that out – 46 years at about 240 days per year. He’s never sick and for many years he had little vacation.) But I have to admit, the income from The Man’s Amazing Work Ethic has given me a mighty fine life. What’s a Good Woman to do?
I walk. I take him his lunch.
Stirring the Pot
Friday, October 10, 2008
Is it Tuscany?
Images of San Gianamo and Gambassi Terma flashed in my mind. A window lined with wine bottles. Brick interior walls. A mural depicting an Italian village perched atop a mountain. A small cozy restaurant. A plate of olives. For a moment I thought there might actually be a god, and I’d died and gone back to Tuscany.
But, no. I was in the Third Ward. The Man Whose Tastes Are Oh So Much Fussier Than Mine always lets me choose a restaurant on my birthday. It was my birthday. I chose what turned out to be a perfect Italian restaurant for both of us: The Third Ward Caffe.
Let’s see. What did we eat? Well, we started with a plate of bruschetta, crispy warm Italian bread toasted and topped with tomatoes and cheese (perhaps pecorino) and broiled. But what were the other vegetables? What was this yellow stuff? Soft, and it had a skin, but didn’t taste like peppers. I asked the waitress. You’ll never guess. At least I didn’t. It was yellow tomatoes! Turns out the restaurant’s owner has a vegetable farm in Door County where much of the produce served in the Third Ward Caffe is grown. Is that Cool, or What? Locally-grown produce.
Remembering the words Quatro Frommagio from our Italian vacation, The Man ordered the four cheese tortellini ($18), rich and swimming in a cheesy sauce. I always want seafood when eating out, as you all know, but there was this interesting seasonal dish I couldn’t resist. Pumpkin-filled Ravioli ($21) is just not on every menu you see. Our waitress said many customers come asking when it will be back on the menu each year. I can see why. It was amazing! The sauce was a bit sweet and prettily garnished with finely chopped carrots. I asked the waitress for a suggestion of a wine that would complement this unusual dish. She poured me a glass of a reserve wine from Montalcino – a wonderful choice.
The Third Ward Caffe truly has all the charm of Osteria de Montegue in Gambassi Terma, Italy. And that’s no small compliment. “I could probably eat here again sometime,” The Man said. Ah, the promise of future pleasures.
Stirring the Pot
But, no. I was in the Third Ward. The Man Whose Tastes Are Oh So Much Fussier Than Mine always lets me choose a restaurant on my birthday. It was my birthday. I chose what turned out to be a perfect Italian restaurant for both of us: The Third Ward Caffe.
Let’s see. What did we eat? Well, we started with a plate of bruschetta, crispy warm Italian bread toasted and topped with tomatoes and cheese (perhaps pecorino) and broiled. But what were the other vegetables? What was this yellow stuff? Soft, and it had a skin, but didn’t taste like peppers. I asked the waitress. You’ll never guess. At least I didn’t. It was yellow tomatoes! Turns out the restaurant’s owner has a vegetable farm in Door County where much of the produce served in the Third Ward Caffe is grown. Is that Cool, or What? Locally-grown produce.
Remembering the words Quatro Frommagio from our Italian vacation, The Man ordered the four cheese tortellini ($18), rich and swimming in a cheesy sauce. I always want seafood when eating out, as you all know, but there was this interesting seasonal dish I couldn’t resist. Pumpkin-filled Ravioli ($21) is just not on every menu you see. Our waitress said many customers come asking when it will be back on the menu each year. I can see why. It was amazing! The sauce was a bit sweet and prettily garnished with finely chopped carrots. I asked the waitress for a suggestion of a wine that would complement this unusual dish. She poured me a glass of a reserve wine from Montalcino – a wonderful choice.
The Third Ward Caffe truly has all the charm of Osteria de Montegue in Gambassi Terma, Italy. And that’s no small compliment. “I could probably eat here again sometime,” The Man said. Ah, the promise of future pleasures.
Stirring the Pot
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Milwaukee's OTHER Baseball Team
Reading the buzz about the Brewers this past week and the comparisons to the 1982 Big Season got me thinking about Milwaukee’s OTHER big baseball season. It was1957, when Lew Burdette shut out the Yankees two times in four days to win the World Series. WIN the World Series! Why don’t the baseball writers and announcers make any to-do about that any more? It was a different baseball franchise, but it was a professional baseball team playing in Milwaukee. There must be more than one or two of us who still remember the Braves.
Pat and I were kids when the Braves came to Milwaukee to play in the brand new, publicly-owned Milwaukee County Stadium. Pat was my best friend. Baseball suddenly became Our Thing. We were just the right age for hero-worship. The boys our age were Such Babies, nowhere near as sophisticated as we girls.
It began that summer when we were 12. Whenever the Braves were in town, Pat and I would walk to the Village of Wauwatosa and take the streetcar to County Stadium to see Our Cool Guys. Our WAY COOL guys. You recall the names: Eddie Matthews. Johnny Logan. Bobby Thompson. Billy Bruton. Wes Covington. Henry Aaron. Del Crandel. Andy Pafko. And our personal favorite heart-throb: Taylor Phillips. Oh? You say you’ve never heard of him? Well, truth be known, no one has. He was not the star of the team, but he was Our Hero. HE actually talked to us. Really. He talked to young swooning girls. And sometimes he gave us stuff. It was tooo exciting.
In those days, the players parked in a reserved section of the Stadium parking lot, but anyone could go there and wait for them. Lots of kids followed the players to their cars, asking for autographs. Pat and I also discovered where, under the Stadium, the players would walk between the locker room and the dugout. It was a narrow path surrounded by nothing but a chainlink fence. We could almost touch them. We could talk to them. Oh, my. The thrill of it all.
On days when we had the 50 cents (or whatever it was) that it cost to sit in the bleachers in the 50's, we would buy tickets and actually watch the game. Pat and I always brought baseball mitts. If we got into the seated area early enough, Our Cool Guys would be warming up, throwing balls around, playing catch. Sometimes one of them would throw a ball to us that we could keep! Really! In one game I got one ball before the game and another one that was hit either foul or over the fence. I had several balls with signatures on them. I know I had Billy Bruton’s signature and maybe Andy Pafko’s. Maybe even Hank Aaron (back then he was called Henry.) Where are these collector’s items now, when they would be worth something? Probably my brothers traded them for bicycle pumps or auto parts.
Anyway, I think it’s high time that one of the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel reporters gave recognition to that other champion professional baseball team in Milwaukee, the one that actually won the World Series. So I’m going to include a few of my photos that were taken on my Brownie Box Camera in the parking lot of County Stadium in about 1954 or 55. I will try to figure out how to label them.
Okay: so I can't figure out how to label them. The top one is Billy Bruton, then Bobby Thomson, then Henry Aaron, then Taylor Phillips on the bottom. Aaron looks about as old as we were!
In case any Journal/Sentinel reporters are reading this, I have more pictures....
And to my brothers: You're supposed to be looking at the Cool Guys, not the Cool Cars.
Stirring the Pot
Monday, October 6, 2008
The Brewers Trump "The List"
It's over. The Man is sad. He will have to find a new subject of conversation with The Guys At Work. But what could have been more exciting than those last Brewers' games where they won by home runs in the ninth and tenth innings? And that post-season hootenanny on Saturday at Miller Park? Such entertainment in the midst of this disgusting election season and dismaying financial news.
I know, I know. I’m supposed to be reviewing restaurants in the Third Ward. We are going to Water Buffalo on the 16th, as we couldn’t find a free date before then. After the Connecticut trip, The Man and I cheered nieces and nephew’s children at soccer and football games and spent a weekend watching eagles gathering along the Mississippi River for the winter.
The eagle watching was last weekend. My brother (we call him Odie) needed to take his houseboat from his slip in Trempeleau WI to its winter home in Wabasha, MN. (I know: you’re jealous. My family is more fun than yours.) Odie asked if we’d like to come along. Like, duh! It was absolutely fabulous. The scenery was fabulous. (See photo I will try to include here -- okay, so I can't include it "here". It's at the top of this page.) The wine and sunsets were fabulous. Watching the magnificent bald eagles diving for fish in the backwater bays along the river was fabulous. Eating pan-fried walleye and locally-grown produce at the Trempeleau Hotel restaurant was fabulous. Touring the new Eagle Center in Wabasha was fabulous. Munching Gala and Wealthy and Cortland apples from orchards in western Wisconsin was fabulous. Altogether a fabulous weekend.
So The Man was out of town for two weekends in a row, plus Labor Day weekend. (With me, of course. He’s still a hunk who women hit on in bars. He needs my protection.) Not much from the nag’s (me) work list got done around here in September. The list is growing. And then there was this weekend. All sports, all the time. Would you think it was possible to play two Brewers’ post-season baseball games and two football games (Badgers and Packers) in one weekend? I think the last of them is just over. Quiet seems to have returned to my house. The Man is probably napping after trying to sort out television and radio playing – at the same time. Besides, now it is raining. Is that fair? Well, The Man did dig the post-hole for the fence construction that tops my list. And he bought the needed fence boards during half-time or the seventh-inning stretch or something.
Will this fence get built before the snow flies? The Brewers’ season is over. There is hope.
Stirring the Pot
Friday, September 26, 2008
The Ambiance
I have been asked to comment on ambiance of the Connecticut Indian dinner. The location was stunning. Set at the end of a sul-du-sac on a typical suburban street, one is pleasantly surprised to discover a totally natural, wooded backyard with birdfeeders at every window. Inside, one finds interesting artwork line the walls: masks from all over the world. And photographs. Cool wildlife shots apparently from Africa. A portrait of a woman who appears to be from some far-eastern country. Colorful fabric wall hangings made from Indian saris. Other artwork that seems to make environmental and political statements: a painting of a large crow turning pages of a book titled “Quoth the Raven: Read Some More.” Even in the bathroom there is interesting artwork, all making statements about the interests and philosophy of the owner of this lovely establishment.
The tablecloth appeared to be from some foreign place, a dyed intricate pattern. The dishes were also unique, a lovely brown glaze with a diamond pattern imprinted around the edges. If one even noticed, the only flaw in the decor was the use of paper napkins in this otherwise natural, yet exotic setting.
The dinner company was especially entertaining. In addition to The Man and I, SG (Sandy’s Guy, the chef), and OD (our daughter), there was a charming, beautiful young woman who was a HOOT! Besides wishing that SG could come to Brookfield and cook for me, I wish I could invite HER to all of my parties. It might even be worth flying her in from CT just for the entertainment.
Other comments on the dinner location: The bathroom (shared male and female – hmmm) was immaculate. Just like yours and mine at home. Sometimes.
Stirring the Pot
The tablecloth appeared to be from some foreign place, a dyed intricate pattern. The dishes were also unique, a lovely brown glaze with a diamond pattern imprinted around the edges. If one even noticed, the only flaw in the decor was the use of paper napkins in this otherwise natural, yet exotic setting.
The dinner company was especially entertaining. In addition to The Man and I, SG (Sandy’s Guy, the chef), and OD (our daughter), there was a charming, beautiful young woman who was a HOOT! Besides wishing that SG could come to Brookfield and cook for me, I wish I could invite HER to all of my parties. It might even be worth flying her in from CT just for the entertainment.
Other comments on the dinner location: The bathroom (shared male and female – hmmm) was immaculate. Just like yours and mine at home. Sometimes.
Stirring the Pot
Thursday, September 25, 2008
The Connecticut Gulag
We’re back from the Connecticut parental gulag. Our CT daughter always has a list of stuff she’d like done when we come. She calls it The Gulag. Over the years and in several cities The Man and I have pulled out masses of unwanted plant material, built fences, constructed and installed cabinets that come in literally hundreds of boxes, planted bulbs and pots, painted and scrubbed.
The good part about a gulag is – there is a definite list of tasks. Once you’ve checked off an item, it is DONE. Unlike at our 50-year-old manse in Brookfield, where the list is unending and where many of the items should have been accomplished years ago. Like removing the overgrown lilacs bushes. Or weeding out the contents of the file cabinets. Or repairing and painting the cracked ceiling. Etc, etc..
One item on the parental gulag list for this trip was to meet daughter Sandy’s New Guy (SG for short). What a nice guy! Not only is Sandy's Guy a photographer, as is Sandy, and does he play the guitar, as does Sandy, but he also cooks! Did you catch that? HE cooks! A male in the kitchen.
SG cooked an amazing meal for us. The Meal featured some of his favorite dishes from his childhood home in India. SG loves to cook. He assured us he was having a great time at the stove, while we guests sat around the kitchen island cart, drinking wine and inhaling spicey aromas.
Here’s what SG served and how he prepared it:
Vegetable Fried Rice – SG starts by sauteing a bunch of spices in oil, things like whole cloves and cardamom pods and dried chili peppers and bay leaves. When the house smells perfectly spectacular, he adds the rice, sautes that, then boils it and adds vegetables.
Garlic Chicken – First SG mixes chopped onions, garlic and yogurt and marinates the chicken pieces in it. I think he was using thighs cut in half. SG doesn’t eat a ton of meat, like The Other Man I My Life does. The staple on SG's plate is a mountain of rice. Okay, then SG fries spices again, peppers, cinnamon, cloves and more garlic, and then cooks the chicken in these spices. Tasty, tasty, tasty is all I can say.
Dal Fry – Dal are yellow lentils. In butter, SG fried onions, cumin, garlic, tumeric, chopped tomatoes and red hot chilies. He adds the lentils and some liquid that I forgot to write down and cooks it all until this yummy soup is done.
Cabbage and Potatoes – The chopped cabbage and the cubed potatoes are cooked with tomatoes, fresh ginger, bay leaves, cardamom and cloves. My Man Who Normally Eats Nothing In The Cabbage Family Unless It Is Cole Slaw had several helpings of this dish.
Potatoes and Pumpkin – SG calls it pumpkin, but I peeled a hunk of this squash-like vegetable for him, and I can tell you that the outside is green. But who cares? It was delicious. This was The Best Dish because it was made with special spices mixed by SG’s mother and sent from India. This 5-spice mix is called Panch Phoran and is a combination of bay leaves, fennel, cumin, mustard and something that looks like it starts with a “z” in my notes that I wrote after sipping several glasses of wine from Sandy’s wine “cellar”.
What a meal!
Now if I could just bring Sandy’s Guy to Brookfield to cook for The Man and I, which would free me up to nag The Man about taking out those ugly lilac bushes.
Stirring the Pot
The good part about a gulag is – there is a definite list of tasks. Once you’ve checked off an item, it is DONE. Unlike at our 50-year-old manse in Brookfield, where the list is unending and where many of the items should have been accomplished years ago. Like removing the overgrown lilacs bushes. Or weeding out the contents of the file cabinets. Or repairing and painting the cracked ceiling. Etc, etc..
One item on the parental gulag list for this trip was to meet daughter Sandy’s New Guy (SG for short). What a nice guy! Not only is Sandy's Guy a photographer, as is Sandy, and does he play the guitar, as does Sandy, but he also cooks! Did you catch that? HE cooks! A male in the kitchen.
SG cooked an amazing meal for us. The Meal featured some of his favorite dishes from his childhood home in India. SG loves to cook. He assured us he was having a great time at the stove, while we guests sat around the kitchen island cart, drinking wine and inhaling spicey aromas.
Here’s what SG served and how he prepared it:
Vegetable Fried Rice – SG starts by sauteing a bunch of spices in oil, things like whole cloves and cardamom pods and dried chili peppers and bay leaves. When the house smells perfectly spectacular, he adds the rice, sautes that, then boils it and adds vegetables.
Garlic Chicken – First SG mixes chopped onions, garlic and yogurt and marinates the chicken pieces in it. I think he was using thighs cut in half. SG doesn’t eat a ton of meat, like The Other Man I My Life does. The staple on SG's plate is a mountain of rice. Okay, then SG fries spices again, peppers, cinnamon, cloves and more garlic, and then cooks the chicken in these spices. Tasty, tasty, tasty is all I can say.
Dal Fry – Dal are yellow lentils. In butter, SG fried onions, cumin, garlic, tumeric, chopped tomatoes and red hot chilies. He adds the lentils and some liquid that I forgot to write down and cooks it all until this yummy soup is done.
Cabbage and Potatoes – The chopped cabbage and the cubed potatoes are cooked with tomatoes, fresh ginger, bay leaves, cardamom and cloves. My Man Who Normally Eats Nothing In The Cabbage Family Unless It Is Cole Slaw had several helpings of this dish.
Potatoes and Pumpkin – SG calls it pumpkin, but I peeled a hunk of this squash-like vegetable for him, and I can tell you that the outside is green. But who cares? It was delicious. This was The Best Dish because it was made with special spices mixed by SG’s mother and sent from India. This 5-spice mix is called Panch Phoran and is a combination of bay leaves, fennel, cumin, mustard and something that looks like it starts with a “z” in my notes that I wrote after sipping several glasses of wine from Sandy’s wine “cellar”.
What a meal!
Now if I could just bring Sandy’s Guy to Brookfield to cook for The Man and I, which would free me up to nag The Man about taking out those ugly lilac bushes.
Stirring the Pot
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Black Jeans
Are you a person who always knows what is The Right Thing to wear? The only rule I know is: Don’t Wear White After Labor Day. I know that’s true because my mother told me. She also said that “smoke” was the correct color of stockings for all occasions. But who wears stockings? If I am ever invited to your house, I will probably wear a turtleneck and black slacks in the winter and a tee shirt and white slacks in the summer.
But what if you invite me in fall? What does one wear when it’s 60 - 70 degrees in September? I can’t wear the white slacks. So it has to be the black ones. It’s a bit cold for tee shirts, but not cold enough for turtlenecks.
So I actually made a trip to Talbot’s today. It’s An Occasion if I go into a store-that-doesn’t-sell-food-or-kitchen-toys. Or maybe plants.
We’re going to visit the Connecticut daughter. Her weather is about the same as Brookfield's. I need black jeans, and if it happens to fall into my shopping bag, a sweat suit that’s presentable enough to wear on airplanes. I only shop in one place. Talbots Petites. If they don’t have it, I don’t need it. Since I have no idea what is in fashion at this moment, it makes no difference where I shop. And, as I have no idea what color looks good with what (except in dahlias), I wear black. And I’m always on the lookout for printed tops or blouses that won’t show the cooking oil spills and airplane food. Though pretzels aren’t too messy.
Today I wore a kind of dark red denim jacket to Talbot’s. A clerk said, “You are really in style, with that color.” I looked around the store, and ... sure enough. Lots of the mannikins were dressed in the same red. With black. Wow. It’s my year.
What I like least about shopping is trying on clothes. All those mirrors... I needed black jeans and a sweat suit, and that’s what I took in the dressing room. The clerk showed me a sweater she liked with the jeans, so I tried that on too. It was patterned. Black and white. I bought jeans, a sweater, and a sweat suit. I was home again in less than a half hour. That’s this fall’s wardrobe.
When you invite me over, please make it an appropriate occasion to wear jeans and a sweater. Or a sweat suit.
Stirring the Pot
But what if you invite me in fall? What does one wear when it’s 60 - 70 degrees in September? I can’t wear the white slacks. So it has to be the black ones. It’s a bit cold for tee shirts, but not cold enough for turtlenecks.
So I actually made a trip to Talbot’s today. It’s An Occasion if I go into a store-that-doesn’t-sell-food-or-kitchen-toys. Or maybe plants.
We’re going to visit the Connecticut daughter. Her weather is about the same as Brookfield's. I need black jeans, and if it happens to fall into my shopping bag, a sweat suit that’s presentable enough to wear on airplanes. I only shop in one place. Talbots Petites. If they don’t have it, I don’t need it. Since I have no idea what is in fashion at this moment, it makes no difference where I shop. And, as I have no idea what color looks good with what (except in dahlias), I wear black. And I’m always on the lookout for printed tops or blouses that won’t show the cooking oil spills and airplane food. Though pretzels aren’t too messy.
Today I wore a kind of dark red denim jacket to Talbot’s. A clerk said, “You are really in style, with that color.” I looked around the store, and ... sure enough. Lots of the mannikins were dressed in the same red. With black. Wow. It’s my year.
What I like least about shopping is trying on clothes. All those mirrors... I needed black jeans and a sweat suit, and that’s what I took in the dressing room. The clerk showed me a sweater she liked with the jeans, so I tried that on too. It was patterned. Black and white. I bought jeans, a sweater, and a sweat suit. I was home again in less than a half hour. That’s this fall’s wardrobe.
When you invite me over, please make it an appropriate occasion to wear jeans and a sweater. Or a sweat suit.
Stirring the Pot
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Blood in the Prairie
The Man is still alive - barely. And our marriage is too - sort of. We have just finished putting together another edition of the Land Letter, a newsletter of the land trust for which we act as volunteer director (me) and volunteer bookkeeper (The Computer Geek and Engineer Who Shares My House). Yes, he is more vital to the organization than I am. Yes, his skills would cost REAL money to replace. But, dang it, I am the president of the board of directors. I am in charge. Except I can’t lay out the danged newsletter without him and I don’t know how to put it into Quark, the program the printer uses. But The Man should still obey my every wish because he doesn’t write one word of it.
The real problem is that he doesn’t read it. Any of it. So when I try to say, “Do you think we should put this picture after the paragraph about the knapweed in the prairie,” he has no opinion except that The Picture Should Be 3.56" by 1.732" and It Fits Better On Page 2. Good grief! What if our press operated on this principle? There would be photos of barns burning on the page with the mayor’s speech. Which may actually be appropriate in some circumstances. But anyway. Did I ever tell you about the time a newsletter on which we were working had an article about the results of some election and what the new politicians were proposing to do? This issue of the newsletter was coming out in November. The Man With The Engineering Degree Who Can’t (Or Won’t) Read had found a swell picture of a Thanksgiving turkey that he wanted to insert in a convenient space in the newsletter. That space was within the article about the politicians. Again, that may actually be appropriate, but still NOT a good idea.
The good thing about working on this issue of the Land Letter was that I needed photos of the prairie which was featured in this edition. So on Saturday The Man and I spent 3 hours doing a Lit Drop (we are the ones who put those flyers in your mailboxes) for a Steve Schmuki, a candidate for State Assembly who we are supporting, and then we actually took a hike in the Eagle Centre Prairie. What a treat! Almost as exciting as going to downtown Milwaukee to a cool restaurant or bar with views of The Lake.
The goldenrods and asters in the prairie were blooming spectacularly. The scattered red sumac just glowed among the dry prairie grasses. I took a ton of photos with my little digital camera. Aren’t those things amazing toys? By taking oodles of shots, every amateur can narrow down to a few great pictures while not spending a fortune having film developed. If I can remember how to put a picture in this blog, I’ll show you what the amazing Eagle Centre Prairie looked like last Saturday.
So The Man and I had lots of photos to fight over. I have to admit The Man has a better sense of proportion than I do. And color. Oh, well. But as a friend once told me, "I never let lack of knowledge stand in the way of having an opinion." Besides, I actually know what the article about the prairie says. I wrote it.
The newsletter is at the printer. If you are a member of the Waukesha County Land Conservancy, you’ll be getting a copy soon. The red of the sumac represents The Man’s blood on the page.
Stirring the Pot
Friday, September 5, 2008
SWIG WINS BIG!
They did it. Swig won us over – big time!
Last night we set out for a second time for dinner at Swig with Our Friends, Kay and The Doc Who Goes To Bed Before The Sun Sets. Therefore, we were eating early, even though we did not have theater tickets this night. Only the tables along the big glass doors in Swig were filled when we arrived. On one of Milwaukee’s three or four perfect weather days, it would be nice to sit at those tables, especially if the door is open, but last night it was pouring. Besides, the tables along the big door are rather close together and those in the back room feel a bit isolated, away from the real downtown atmosphere that we suburbanites crave. But there is a table that feels like it is the box seat of the restaurant. It overlooks the bar area and has no other tables around it. We sat there and will ask for that table any time we are come here. Which will be often. Especially since Barclay’s Gallery and Café closed, where we used to like to go before performances at the Broadway Theater. Swig is even more convenient for pre-theater dining.
The ambiance at Swig is modern, but definitely warm. The walls are covered with slabs of wood in various natural wood tones, all nailed together in a geometric pattern, like very artsy, three-dimensional wallpaper. The clientele is just like us: hip, young, very attractive and urbane. And for our friends who like to sit at a nifty bar and chat with a handsome bartender while eating dinner, this bar is perfect for you.
While riding downtown, we studied the wine list that I’d printed from Swig’s website. We decided on a bottle of the Picard Cotes du Rhone Grenache/Syrah ($32) while The Man Who Only Drinks White Wine Regardless Of The Color Of His Meat ordered a glass of Cutrer Chardonnay ($10). He had tasted it the last time we were here, had raved about it then and enjoyed it just as much last night. Our shared bottle grenache/syrah was lovely, after it gasped for breath a few minutes to shed its tannins. We agreed it was crisp, light, and not too fruity to serve with food. Very nice with the seafood we were going to try.
To share as appetizers, The Man Who Likes Any Food That Sounds Like It May Have Originated In Italy insisted upon ordering the Classic Bruschetta ($6.50 for four), while I pushed for the Asiago Spinach and Artichoke Dip ($8.75). Personally, I wouldn’t have ordered bruschetta. It’s available in grocery stores, and even I can make a reasonable rendition of it. But was I wrong - again. It is SO tiresome. The bruschetta was one of the highlights of the evening. The crostini on which it was served was perfectly light and toasty and the bruschetta was .... well, all I can say is, “WOW!” Well-drained fresh tomatoes chopped finely, fresh basil, just enough parmesan... Great flavors beautifully blended. Though there were four pieces, I had to beg The Man to allow me one bite. Next time we will definitely order the plate of seven pieces for $11.50. The asiago and artichoke dip at first seemed bland next to the bruschetta, but it grew on us. It was creamy and rich, served with very hot, crusty French bread. It would make a perfect after-theater snack with one of Swig’s specialty martinis – if you’re not out with A Man Who Goes To Bed Before Sunset.
On to bigger things. I was going to order a salad and an entre, but our waiter, Josh, told us that the salads are huge, so Doc and I split a Greek Salad ($9.00). There was enough feta and kalamata olives and even garbanzo beans - a delicious addition that I’ve never had in a Greek salad – to satisfy even the most ravenous of appetites. With it, I ordered an entre of the Pan-seared Scallops in a roasted red pepper sauce, served with spinach gnocchi ($12.50 -- The Man withThe Tight Wallet really liked the prices here). What a meal! The sea scallops were perfectly cooked, tender and not rubbery at all, and the mild red pepper sauce was amazing with them. I even brought a couple of scallops home to have for lunch today. Doc had the Crab Cakes ($8.50) from the “Small Plates” menu. There were four nice-sized cakes served with a chipotle pesto. Though the sauce was not excessively hot, I thought it drowned out the crab taste a bit. This was the only dish from the entire evening that I probably would not order again – and you all know I love crab cakes. The crab was blended into fine pieces or even meal. I prefer to have definable pieces of crab in my crab cakes – though that is not the preference of The Man Who Eats Almost Nothing With Fins or Claws, But Does Eat Crab Cakes If He Can’t Tell They Contain Something That Swims. He liked these.
The Man thoroughly enjoyed a bowl of the soup-of-the-day, a chicken vegetable soup, that I could make an entire meal of. The broth was unusual in that it had some tomato in it. With it The Man ordered the Breaded Three Cheese Ravioli that he missed having when we were here last time. It was worth the wait. I was only allowed a tiny taste, but I could tell these ravioli were unusually yummy. These handmade pouches stuffed with cheese had been steamed till almost done, then breaded and sauted so they were a bit crisp on the outside. What an unusual and tasty concept.
Kay ordered the small plate of Tempura Snap Peas ($6.75) and an entre of Chicken Manicotti Cacciatore ($10.50 – believe-it-or-not!). DO NOT EVER GO TO SWIG AND NOT ORDER THESE SNAP PEAS! These are about the best appetizer I can remember ever eating – and I love many appetizers. This cannot be considered a “small plate.” A mountainous portion of snap peas had been dipped in a very light, thin batter and deep fried oh-so-briefly, then served with a sour cream-based dip. OH, MY. That’s all I can say. After all of this food, Kay took home most of her chicken cacciatore, which consisted of a generous portion of manicotti stuffed with chicken and tons of tasty cheese served with a gorgonzola marinara sauce. We all agreed we would order this again.
I did even check out the ladies room for you public bathroom users. As I expected, it was immaculate.
Our service last night was outstanding, from the hostess to the bartender to our waiter, Josh. And the food! The food was to die for. And I almost NEVER say this. I reviewed 43 restaurants along Bluemound Road when we were dining out every night while my new kitchen was under construction. (You can still see those reviews at: www.bluemoundinseptember.blogspot.com ) There was some very good food – and some really bad stuff as well. But very few restaurants offered anything near as well- prepared as Swig’s. Hats off to your chef, Mr Sorge! And to you and to all of your staff.
We will Swig in again. (As soon as I review the rest of the Third Ward’s restaurants.
Sometimes I'm not -
Stirring the Pot
Last night we set out for a second time for dinner at Swig with Our Friends, Kay and The Doc Who Goes To Bed Before The Sun Sets. Therefore, we were eating early, even though we did not have theater tickets this night. Only the tables along the big glass doors in Swig were filled when we arrived. On one of Milwaukee’s three or four perfect weather days, it would be nice to sit at those tables, especially if the door is open, but last night it was pouring. Besides, the tables along the big door are rather close together and those in the back room feel a bit isolated, away from the real downtown atmosphere that we suburbanites crave. But there is a table that feels like it is the box seat of the restaurant. It overlooks the bar area and has no other tables around it. We sat there and will ask for that table any time we are come here. Which will be often. Especially since Barclay’s Gallery and Café closed, where we used to like to go before performances at the Broadway Theater. Swig is even more convenient for pre-theater dining.
The ambiance at Swig is modern, but definitely warm. The walls are covered with slabs of wood in various natural wood tones, all nailed together in a geometric pattern, like very artsy, three-dimensional wallpaper. The clientele is just like us: hip, young, very attractive and urbane. And for our friends who like to sit at a nifty bar and chat with a handsome bartender while eating dinner, this bar is perfect for you.
While riding downtown, we studied the wine list that I’d printed from Swig’s website. We decided on a bottle of the Picard Cotes du Rhone Grenache/Syrah ($32) while The Man Who Only Drinks White Wine Regardless Of The Color Of His Meat ordered a glass of Cutrer Chardonnay ($10). He had tasted it the last time we were here, had raved about it then and enjoyed it just as much last night. Our shared bottle grenache/syrah was lovely, after it gasped for breath a few minutes to shed its tannins. We agreed it was crisp, light, and not too fruity to serve with food. Very nice with the seafood we were going to try.
To share as appetizers, The Man Who Likes Any Food That Sounds Like It May Have Originated In Italy insisted upon ordering the Classic Bruschetta ($6.50 for four), while I pushed for the Asiago Spinach and Artichoke Dip ($8.75). Personally, I wouldn’t have ordered bruschetta. It’s available in grocery stores, and even I can make a reasonable rendition of it. But was I wrong - again. It is SO tiresome. The bruschetta was one of the highlights of the evening. The crostini on which it was served was perfectly light and toasty and the bruschetta was .... well, all I can say is, “WOW!” Well-drained fresh tomatoes chopped finely, fresh basil, just enough parmesan... Great flavors beautifully blended. Though there were four pieces, I had to beg The Man to allow me one bite. Next time we will definitely order the plate of seven pieces for $11.50. The asiago and artichoke dip at first seemed bland next to the bruschetta, but it grew on us. It was creamy and rich, served with very hot, crusty French bread. It would make a perfect after-theater snack with one of Swig’s specialty martinis – if you’re not out with A Man Who Goes To Bed Before Sunset.
On to bigger things. I was going to order a salad and an entre, but our waiter, Josh, told us that the salads are huge, so Doc and I split a Greek Salad ($9.00). There was enough feta and kalamata olives and even garbanzo beans - a delicious addition that I’ve never had in a Greek salad – to satisfy even the most ravenous of appetites. With it, I ordered an entre of the Pan-seared Scallops in a roasted red pepper sauce, served with spinach gnocchi ($12.50 -- The Man withThe Tight Wallet really liked the prices here). What a meal! The sea scallops were perfectly cooked, tender and not rubbery at all, and the mild red pepper sauce was amazing with them. I even brought a couple of scallops home to have for lunch today. Doc had the Crab Cakes ($8.50) from the “Small Plates” menu. There were four nice-sized cakes served with a chipotle pesto. Though the sauce was not excessively hot, I thought it drowned out the crab taste a bit. This was the only dish from the entire evening that I probably would not order again – and you all know I love crab cakes. The crab was blended into fine pieces or even meal. I prefer to have definable pieces of crab in my crab cakes – though that is not the preference of The Man Who Eats Almost Nothing With Fins or Claws, But Does Eat Crab Cakes If He Can’t Tell They Contain Something That Swims. He liked these.
The Man thoroughly enjoyed a bowl of the soup-of-the-day, a chicken vegetable soup, that I could make an entire meal of. The broth was unusual in that it had some tomato in it. With it The Man ordered the Breaded Three Cheese Ravioli that he missed having when we were here last time. It was worth the wait. I was only allowed a tiny taste, but I could tell these ravioli were unusually yummy. These handmade pouches stuffed with cheese had been steamed till almost done, then breaded and sauted so they were a bit crisp on the outside. What an unusual and tasty concept.
Kay ordered the small plate of Tempura Snap Peas ($6.75) and an entre of Chicken Manicotti Cacciatore ($10.50 – believe-it-or-not!). DO NOT EVER GO TO SWIG AND NOT ORDER THESE SNAP PEAS! These are about the best appetizer I can remember ever eating – and I love many appetizers. This cannot be considered a “small plate.” A mountainous portion of snap peas had been dipped in a very light, thin batter and deep fried oh-so-briefly, then served with a sour cream-based dip. OH, MY. That’s all I can say. After all of this food, Kay took home most of her chicken cacciatore, which consisted of a generous portion of manicotti stuffed with chicken and tons of tasty cheese served with a gorgonzola marinara sauce. We all agreed we would order this again.
I did even check out the ladies room for you public bathroom users. As I expected, it was immaculate.
Our service last night was outstanding, from the hostess to the bartender to our waiter, Josh. And the food! The food was to die for. And I almost NEVER say this. I reviewed 43 restaurants along Bluemound Road when we were dining out every night while my new kitchen was under construction. (You can still see those reviews at: www.bluemoundinseptember.blogspot.com ) There was some very good food – and some really bad stuff as well. But very few restaurants offered anything near as well- prepared as Swig’s. Hats off to your chef, Mr Sorge! And to you and to all of your staff.
We will Swig in again. (As soon as I review the rest of the Third Ward’s restaurants.
Sometimes I'm not -
Stirring the Pot
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Swig's Second Chance
This has been a busy week, what with the holiday and the Harleys and all. Please don't give up on me. I promise: I WILL write more often.
Many of you read the comment placed on my last blog entry from a Mr. Sorge. He is the owner of Swig, the restaurant I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. He says he wants a "chance to make it up to me." So I decided to give his restaurant another chance. We have a reservation for tomorrow evening. Mr. Sorge knows we are coming. I’ll let you know how he "handles the details of my return visit personally." What fun to be a celebrity!
After Swig, I will continue to eat at, and review, all 17 of the restaurants in the Third Ward. And, as someone requested, I promise to check out the ladies’ bathrooms. However, I hope you don’t mind if I don’t actually “use” most of them. Over Labor Day weekend, I discovered that I really have an aversion to public bathrooms.
We went out to dinner at BJ’s, a small, local restaurant in Hancock, Wisconsin, near our family’s cottage. As we were heading for the door to go home, I had my usual fleeting thought when leaving a restaurant, the thought that says, "I could stand to use the bathroom, but I can wait until I get home."
Well, home in this case is our cottage. And at our cottage all running water flows into a holding tank. Which has to be pumped out. At some expense. So to avoid having to pump that sucker too often, we use an ancient outhouse most of the time. I was perched in the outhouse when it occurred to me that I had actually made a conscious decision not to use BJ’s plumbing. Real, 21st century, indoor plumbing.
Now THAT’s an aversion to public bathrooms.
Stirring the Pot
Many of you read the comment placed on my last blog entry from a Mr. Sorge. He is the owner of Swig, the restaurant I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. He says he wants a "chance to make it up to me." So I decided to give his restaurant another chance. We have a reservation for tomorrow evening. Mr. Sorge knows we are coming. I’ll let you know how he "handles the details of my return visit personally." What fun to be a celebrity!
After Swig, I will continue to eat at, and review, all 17 of the restaurants in the Third Ward. And, as someone requested, I promise to check out the ladies’ bathrooms. However, I hope you don’t mind if I don’t actually “use” most of them. Over Labor Day weekend, I discovered that I really have an aversion to public bathrooms.
We went out to dinner at BJ’s, a small, local restaurant in Hancock, Wisconsin, near our family’s cottage. As we were heading for the door to go home, I had my usual fleeting thought when leaving a restaurant, the thought that says, "I could stand to use the bathroom, but I can wait until I get home."
Well, home in this case is our cottage. And at our cottage all running water flows into a holding tank. Which has to be pumped out. At some expense. So to avoid having to pump that sucker too often, we use an ancient outhouse most of the time. I was perched in the outhouse when it occurred to me that I had actually made a conscious decision not to use BJ’s plumbing. Real, 21st century, indoor plumbing.
Now THAT’s an aversion to public bathrooms.
Stirring the Pot
Friday, August 22, 2008
Downtown at last!
I finally got to go to downtown Milwaukee last night! Yippee! We went out to dinner and to see the play, “Well” at the Broadway Theatre with friends of ours.
Driving into downtown is a bit exciting these days. The new downtown interchange, that $800 million dollar, four-year project has been completed and is open for traffic. It’s kind of attractive, in an it-will-have-to-do-because-we-don’t-have-decent-public-transportation sort of way. I’d recommend that you all take an evening and just ride around that interchange, testing in which lane you want to be to go where you want to go.
Not wanting to end up in Bay View or Fox Point, we dumped off at the former Railroad Station, now the Multi-modal Station (la-tee-dah), to go to the Third Ward. That worked, though we were on city streets for a ways. It seems that the Plankinton Road exit only goes north now. Maybe. I’m not sure.
My job for the evening was to find a place for dinner, preferably not too far from the Broadway Theatre. I did my research on line and found there are 17 restaurants in the Third Ward in which I might consider eating dinner. They all looked soooo sophisticated and soooo not suburban chains, I wanted to try them all. So.. While in the presence of our friends, I made a proposal that we go to one of them every other week – and I’ll review them in my blog. I’ll bet you’d really like to know what I think of the restaurants in the Third Ward. I am an expert at this, you know. I reviewed all the restaurants on Bluemound Road last fall, while my Most Beautiful Kitchen in Brookfield was being created.
So it was decided. Even The Man With the Tight Wallet didn’t object to going out with these good friends every other week. He loves to talk sports with the wife of this couple and projects with the husband. That’s worth a couple of bucks.
Today I will review Swig, where we almost didn’t get to eat last night. Yep. Our visit was a bit of a disaster for the restaurant, and I’m sure if they knew I was reviewing our dinner last night for my masses of dinner-going blog-readers, they’d be quaking in their aprons.
I chose Swig because it is only a block from the Broadway Theatre. We parked in the Third Ward parking structure and arrived at Swig at 6:15, with plenty of time for dinner before the play at 7:30. Our wine order was placed fairly quickly. We did wait longer than you’d think was necessary for our wine to be served. Meanwhile we perused the delicious-looking items on the menu. Swig specializes in “small plates,” which are smaller servings of what would otherwise be main dishes. Our waiter, Steve, told us that often four diners order six small plates and share them.
It did take us a bit of time to decide which of the items to order. But though Steve knew about our theater schedule, he didn’t arrive to take our food orders until about 6:35. It was obvious he had too many tables to serve.
We ordered 7 small plates. I’ll list them so you can read how tempting they all sound. There was the Classic Bruschetta, Tempura Snap Peas with tarragon sour cream, Lobster Stuffed Roasted Poblano Pepper, Crab Cakes, Three Cheese Ravioli, Sesame Beef Tenderloin Skewers, and Chicken Skewers. Now wouldn’t you just LOVE to taste all those? Just to give you an idea of prices, the total of all 7 of those items would have been $72.25. Notice the “would have been...”
Time passed. No food. More time. We queried Steve as he rushed past our table. He was polite, friendly even, but... No food. Finally three of the plates, the Lobster, the Beef and the Chicken, arrived at about 7:05. YIKES! They were delicious - I think. We wolfed that food down, keeping our eyes peeled for the remainder of our order.
The other four items never arrived. Steve showed up with our bill at 7:15, apologizing that the kitchen had gotten so backed up with last minute people trying to make it to the theater, they just couldn’t get the rest of our order done in time.
There were only three other tables occupied when we arrived. When Steve accepted our order, the kitchen should have completed it and, if necessary, told the later arrivals that they couldn’t be served in time for the theater.
I’d like to go back to try the items we missed and others on the menu that sounded tempting. But NEVER will we eat at Swig again when we’re on a schedule.
At least The Man Who Can Sleep Anywhere (and often does) was not too stuffed to stay awake through an entire theater performance. I thought the play was interesting, with an excellent cast. The mother/adult daughter relationship was very familiar, from both sides of the generational divide.
Then it was time to leave downtown. Drat. Wouldn’t it be fun to own a condo down there? In addition to my house and gardens, of course. Anyway, we hopped back on the Freeway at Jackson Street, which was a lucky choice. It appears that the 6th St on-ramp may be gone, and I’m not sure about getting on at Marquette Univ. I’m telling The Man that we need to drive downtown more often for a while, just to practice these new roads.
You don’t think that’s TOO transparent, do you?
Stirring the Pot
Driving into downtown is a bit exciting these days. The new downtown interchange, that $800 million dollar, four-year project has been completed and is open for traffic. It’s kind of attractive, in an it-will-have-to-do-because-we-don’t-have-decent-public-transportation sort of way. I’d recommend that you all take an evening and just ride around that interchange, testing in which lane you want to be to go where you want to go.
Not wanting to end up in Bay View or Fox Point, we dumped off at the former Railroad Station, now the Multi-modal Station (la-tee-dah), to go to the Third Ward. That worked, though we were on city streets for a ways. It seems that the Plankinton Road exit only goes north now. Maybe. I’m not sure.
My job for the evening was to find a place for dinner, preferably not too far from the Broadway Theatre. I did my research on line and found there are 17 restaurants in the Third Ward in which I might consider eating dinner. They all looked soooo sophisticated and soooo not suburban chains, I wanted to try them all. So.. While in the presence of our friends, I made a proposal that we go to one of them every other week – and I’ll review them in my blog. I’ll bet you’d really like to know what I think of the restaurants in the Third Ward. I am an expert at this, you know. I reviewed all the restaurants on Bluemound Road last fall, while my Most Beautiful Kitchen in Brookfield was being created.
So it was decided. Even The Man With the Tight Wallet didn’t object to going out with these good friends every other week. He loves to talk sports with the wife of this couple and projects with the husband. That’s worth a couple of bucks.
Today I will review Swig, where we almost didn’t get to eat last night. Yep. Our visit was a bit of a disaster for the restaurant, and I’m sure if they knew I was reviewing our dinner last night for my masses of dinner-going blog-readers, they’d be quaking in their aprons.
I chose Swig because it is only a block from the Broadway Theatre. We parked in the Third Ward parking structure and arrived at Swig at 6:15, with plenty of time for dinner before the play at 7:30. Our wine order was placed fairly quickly. We did wait longer than you’d think was necessary for our wine to be served. Meanwhile we perused the delicious-looking items on the menu. Swig specializes in “small plates,” which are smaller servings of what would otherwise be main dishes. Our waiter, Steve, told us that often four diners order six small plates and share them.
It did take us a bit of time to decide which of the items to order. But though Steve knew about our theater schedule, he didn’t arrive to take our food orders until about 6:35. It was obvious he had too many tables to serve.
We ordered 7 small plates. I’ll list them so you can read how tempting they all sound. There was the Classic Bruschetta, Tempura Snap Peas with tarragon sour cream, Lobster Stuffed Roasted Poblano Pepper, Crab Cakes, Three Cheese Ravioli, Sesame Beef Tenderloin Skewers, and Chicken Skewers. Now wouldn’t you just LOVE to taste all those? Just to give you an idea of prices, the total of all 7 of those items would have been $72.25. Notice the “would have been...”
Time passed. No food. More time. We queried Steve as he rushed past our table. He was polite, friendly even, but... No food. Finally three of the plates, the Lobster, the Beef and the Chicken, arrived at about 7:05. YIKES! They were delicious - I think. We wolfed that food down, keeping our eyes peeled for the remainder of our order.
The other four items never arrived. Steve showed up with our bill at 7:15, apologizing that the kitchen had gotten so backed up with last minute people trying to make it to the theater, they just couldn’t get the rest of our order done in time.
There were only three other tables occupied when we arrived. When Steve accepted our order, the kitchen should have completed it and, if necessary, told the later arrivals that they couldn’t be served in time for the theater.
I’d like to go back to try the items we missed and others on the menu that sounded tempting. But NEVER will we eat at Swig again when we’re on a schedule.
At least The Man Who Can Sleep Anywhere (and often does) was not too stuffed to stay awake through an entire theater performance. I thought the play was interesting, with an excellent cast. The mother/adult daughter relationship was very familiar, from both sides of the generational divide.
Then it was time to leave downtown. Drat. Wouldn’t it be fun to own a condo down there? In addition to my house and gardens, of course. Anyway, we hopped back on the Freeway at Jackson Street, which was a lucky choice. It appears that the 6th St on-ramp may be gone, and I’m not sure about getting on at Marquette Univ. I’m telling The Man that we need to drive downtown more often for a while, just to practice these new roads.
You don’t think that’s TOO transparent, do you?
Stirring the Pot
Thursday, August 21, 2008
I'm Grounded
Here I am at home for a week. My car is in the body shop. They said it will be done next Tuesday. Our insurance didn’t cover renting a car, so ... I’m grounded.
My desk is so clean. I’ve returned phone calls. I’ve written newsletter articles. I actually read the entire NY Times this morning, trying to figure out what Russia is up to in Georgia. Oh, I have to tell you, my daughter, the one who travels a lot for business, had to fly to Atlanta this week. One of her co-workers actually said, “Are you sure its safe to go to Atlanta this week? Didn’t you hear that the Russians have invaded Georgia?”
The sad part is: she wasn’t kidding.
Anyway, I read all about that conflict. And about Afganistan. And Algeria. It was way too depressing. I put down the newspaper and moved into the Most Beautiful Kitchen in Brookfield. In preparation for being housebound, I bought enough groceries on Monday to cook for an entire Senior Citizen’s Center for the rest of the summer. So yesterday I made: barbequed baby-back ribs in the slow cooker, using some apple barbeque sauce that a houseguest had brought as a gift, homemade potato salad - some of the best I’ve ever eaten – if you like mayonnaise potato salad, it’s definitely worth the bother, let me tell you – and apricot jam and blueberry jam. Not that we eat so much jam; I give it as Christmas gifts. At least I do in the years I have time to make it. I was planning to also make peach jam and peach blueberry jam too, when I discovered I had no more Certo. Dang!
I went back to reading depressing news until The Man Who Is Still Employed came home with his car. “I’ll be back in a minute,” I said. “Just have to run to Pick ‘N Save for one thing.” The Man was curling up on the sofa for his after-work nap as I tooled off.
It only took a few minutes to find the Certo at Pick ‘N Save, but then... I couldn’t find the car. I searched up and down the aisles. It was getting dark. The Man With The Appetite would be waiting. I knew where I parked. I thought. But my car was not there. I tried other aisles. No car. I remembered the time we lost our car at the airport, and was just thinking that maybe it got stolen – when I remembered... I was looking for the wrong car! I didn't drive my Prius there. Duh! I was standing right next to The Man’s Camry. I snuck a peak around to see if anyone was watching me and slunk into the Camry and zipped home.
“I was getting hungry,” commented The Man when I walked in, carrying one small bag with Certo. Just so he wouldn’t feel too smug, I said, “Do you remember that time at the airport where I waited and waited for you to pick me up after you’d gone to get the car? Well, that’s what took me so long. I couldn’t find the Prius.”
A few years ago we flew back to Mitchell Airport from a trip somewhere. I remember that it was night and it was winter. We’d probably gone to Costa Rica or some other tropical place. The Man said, ‘You get the luggage. I’ll circle the airport until you get outside.”
I waited. Our luggage came. I dragged it outside. It was 40 degrees and raining, as I recall. I watched for The Man’s car. Other cars were driving in circles, watching for their people to pick up. No Man Of Mine. I waited. I was dressed for a far better climate than Wisconsin in January. After 20 minutes or so, I dragged the luggage back into the terminal and waited inside. After 45 minutes, I was just about to call the airport police to see if The Man had been mugged in the parking garage, when he pulled up.
“Where the hell have you been?” I demanded. (As you can see, I’m not as sweet as The Man is under such circumstances.)
“Looking for the car,” he replied, somewhat sheepishly. The Man With The Family’s Remaining Functioning Brain Cells always knows in exactly which aisle and on which level of the parking garage we have parked our car. Doesn’t matter if we’re gone 5 days or 5 weeks. He knows. So he went to where he knew the car was. But it wasn’t. He hiked all over that level of the parking garage. And then another level. Finally a security guy picked him up. He told him he couldn’t find our car. They drove around the structure, while the cop eyed him with suspicion. Though My Man doesn’t look like a guy who would be breaking into cars, you never know... Well, after covering the whole building, the security guy says, “ Are you sure you parked inside the parking garage?”
We travel a lot these days. Our kids are out of town. We fly to their houses. We fly for vacations. We always park inside the parking structure. It’s a few dollars more, but so much more convenient when you come home dragging your butt that’s been stuffed in an airplane seat for hours - or days. So The Man knew the car was inside, about where we always park it.
But it wasn’t. Who knows why we parked it outside this time. But we did.
Thank goodness it wasn’t me that lost the car – that time. Of course I never admitted that I would have been looking inside the parking structure too.
Stirring the Pot
My desk is so clean. I’ve returned phone calls. I’ve written newsletter articles. I actually read the entire NY Times this morning, trying to figure out what Russia is up to in Georgia. Oh, I have to tell you, my daughter, the one who travels a lot for business, had to fly to Atlanta this week. One of her co-workers actually said, “Are you sure its safe to go to Atlanta this week? Didn’t you hear that the Russians have invaded Georgia?”
The sad part is: she wasn’t kidding.
Anyway, I read all about that conflict. And about Afganistan. And Algeria. It was way too depressing. I put down the newspaper and moved into the Most Beautiful Kitchen in Brookfield. In preparation for being housebound, I bought enough groceries on Monday to cook for an entire Senior Citizen’s Center for the rest of the summer. So yesterday I made: barbequed baby-back ribs in the slow cooker, using some apple barbeque sauce that a houseguest had brought as a gift, homemade potato salad - some of the best I’ve ever eaten – if you like mayonnaise potato salad, it’s definitely worth the bother, let me tell you – and apricot jam and blueberry jam. Not that we eat so much jam; I give it as Christmas gifts. At least I do in the years I have time to make it. I was planning to also make peach jam and peach blueberry jam too, when I discovered I had no more Certo. Dang!
I went back to reading depressing news until The Man Who Is Still Employed came home with his car. “I’ll be back in a minute,” I said. “Just have to run to Pick ‘N Save for one thing.” The Man was curling up on the sofa for his after-work nap as I tooled off.
It only took a few minutes to find the Certo at Pick ‘N Save, but then... I couldn’t find the car. I searched up and down the aisles. It was getting dark. The Man With The Appetite would be waiting. I knew where I parked. I thought. But my car was not there. I tried other aisles. No car. I remembered the time we lost our car at the airport, and was just thinking that maybe it got stolen – when I remembered... I was looking for the wrong car! I didn't drive my Prius there. Duh! I was standing right next to The Man’s Camry. I snuck a peak around to see if anyone was watching me and slunk into the Camry and zipped home.
“I was getting hungry,” commented The Man when I walked in, carrying one small bag with Certo. Just so he wouldn’t feel too smug, I said, “Do you remember that time at the airport where I waited and waited for you to pick me up after you’d gone to get the car? Well, that’s what took me so long. I couldn’t find the Prius.”
A few years ago we flew back to Mitchell Airport from a trip somewhere. I remember that it was night and it was winter. We’d probably gone to Costa Rica or some other tropical place. The Man said, ‘You get the luggage. I’ll circle the airport until you get outside.”
I waited. Our luggage came. I dragged it outside. It was 40 degrees and raining, as I recall. I watched for The Man’s car. Other cars were driving in circles, watching for their people to pick up. No Man Of Mine. I waited. I was dressed for a far better climate than Wisconsin in January. After 20 minutes or so, I dragged the luggage back into the terminal and waited inside. After 45 minutes, I was just about to call the airport police to see if The Man had been mugged in the parking garage, when he pulled up.
“Where the hell have you been?” I demanded. (As you can see, I’m not as sweet as The Man is under such circumstances.)
“Looking for the car,” he replied, somewhat sheepishly. The Man With The Family’s Remaining Functioning Brain Cells always knows in exactly which aisle and on which level of the parking garage we have parked our car. Doesn’t matter if we’re gone 5 days or 5 weeks. He knows. So he went to where he knew the car was. But it wasn’t. He hiked all over that level of the parking garage. And then another level. Finally a security guy picked him up. He told him he couldn’t find our car. They drove around the structure, while the cop eyed him with suspicion. Though My Man doesn’t look like a guy who would be breaking into cars, you never know... Well, after covering the whole building, the security guy says, “ Are you sure you parked inside the parking garage?”
We travel a lot these days. Our kids are out of town. We fly to their houses. We fly for vacations. We always park inside the parking structure. It’s a few dollars more, but so much more convenient when you come home dragging your butt that’s been stuffed in an airplane seat for hours - or days. So The Man knew the car was inside, about where we always park it.
But it wasn’t. Who knows why we parked it outside this time. But we did.
Thank goodness it wasn’t me that lost the car – that time. Of course I never admitted that I would have been looking inside the parking structure too.
Stirring the Pot
Sunday, August 17, 2008
It's a Mystery
Do you read mysteries? I don’t, as a rule. Oh, I’ve read some of Clancy’s books and “The DaVinci Code,” but normally I read more works by female authors like Barbara Kingsolver and Amy Tan and Christina Schwarz. I’d just finished reading Schwarz’s “So Long at the Fair” when a friend who reads and reads and reads constantly (when he’s not on the golf course or singing in a chorus somewhere) gave me a Vince Flynn book. It’s called “Term Limits” and turns out that it's Flynn's first novel. Well... I whisked through that mystery/ spy fiction/whatever you call that genre in a couple of days last weekend, up at our cottage. I knew that The Man Who Reads Mostly Sports Pages And Computer Journals would find it interesting, so I picked up two more of Flynn’s books at the library. The Man is now into his second of Flynn’s books, while I am rereading Schwarz’s book. But I am now much better informed about weapons’ systems and assassins and political intrigue. So I’d suggest you stay out of my way; I know many ways to “take you out.”
It seems to be a bit risky to print such stuff on-line. I had no idea that everyone can get into anyone’s website and read and comment on anything. Did you happen to notice the comment that was left on my blog about the Bed Whose Name I Shall No Longer Put In Writing? How did that customer representative guy find me? One of my cousins wrote to me that she always wondered how all these computer nerds make a living. Now we know about one of them. He works for the company that makes That Bed.
I am hoping that simply using the word “bed” will not be adequate to peak his interest, or anyone else's, but how about the word, “assassins?” Scarey thought, isn’t it?
I asked The Engineer I Live With if he could explain to me how this hacker got into my blog. He said, “Watch me,” as he turned on Google. The Man typed in “Sleep Number Blog” and 498,000 entries came up. Really. That was the number. “That would take some time to search,” he said. So My Live-in Computer Whiz added a few other words to narrow down his search. He didn’t succeed – at least not in the amount of time for which I had the patience to watch his computer screen. (Is there anything more boring than watching someone else working on a computer? Well... Maybe golf on television, but not many things.)
I wonder if such computer hacking is used by The Bad Guys - or the CIA (who may, or may not be, bad guys, depending upon whose novel you read)? Is it used in any of the recent spy fiction? I’ll have to ask my big-reader guy who introduced me to Flynn’s work.
Meanwhile, if I totally disappear from this earth, you might start your search for me at the CIA or the FBI. They just might be interested in anyone who uses the word “assassin” in their blog.
Stirring the Pot
(Gee, they might even be interested in someone who uses the word “Pot”.)
It seems to be a bit risky to print such stuff on-line. I had no idea that everyone can get into anyone’s website and read and comment on anything. Did you happen to notice the comment that was left on my blog about the Bed Whose Name I Shall No Longer Put In Writing? How did that customer representative guy find me? One of my cousins wrote to me that she always wondered how all these computer nerds make a living. Now we know about one of them. He works for the company that makes That Bed.
I am hoping that simply using the word “bed” will not be adequate to peak his interest, or anyone else's, but how about the word, “assassins?” Scarey thought, isn’t it?
I asked The Engineer I Live With if he could explain to me how this hacker got into my blog. He said, “Watch me,” as he turned on Google. The Man typed in “Sleep Number Blog” and 498,000 entries came up. Really. That was the number. “That would take some time to search,” he said. So My Live-in Computer Whiz added a few other words to narrow down his search. He didn’t succeed – at least not in the amount of time for which I had the patience to watch his computer screen. (Is there anything more boring than watching someone else working on a computer? Well... Maybe golf on television, but not many things.)
I wonder if such computer hacking is used by The Bad Guys - or the CIA (who may, or may not be, bad guys, depending upon whose novel you read)? Is it used in any of the recent spy fiction? I’ll have to ask my big-reader guy who introduced me to Flynn’s work.
Meanwhile, if I totally disappear from this earth, you might start your search for me at the CIA or the FBI. They just might be interested in anyone who uses the word “assassin” in their blog.
Stirring the Pot
(Gee, they might even be interested in someone who uses the word “Pot”.)
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Organic or Not
I ask The Man Who Is Picky About Food if there is anything he’d particularly like for dinner this week. I do get a bit tired of coming up with menu ideas that include nothing that has ever been swimming, no unusual spices or herbs (like, god forbid, cilantro or tarragon – too “funky”, and those quotation marks are intentional), no broccoli or cauliflower or (god forbid) asparagus, but do include meat and, as often as possible, The Best Vegetable There Is: peas.
When I ask for menu ideas, the only thing The Man Who Does Nothing With Food But Eat It comes up with is macaroni and cheese. Basically, if I cook as if I’m cooking for my five-year-old grandson, The Man is happy. Actually, the taste buds probably get inherited in the other direction: the grandson is happy to eat what The Grandpa eats. Mac ‘n cheese, fish sticks, chicken fingers, french fries.
I may call him The Man, but his idea of macaroni and cheese is not adult. When The Man suggests macaroni and cheese, he is thinking “box”. As in: Kraft dinner, which is his epitome of fine cuisine, perhaps tied with Tuna Chip Casserole.
I discover in my cupboard a leftover box of Annie’s Organic Bunny-shaped Macaroni and Cheese that was purchased to feed the grandson, should he visit.
So this evening I spend an exhausting 3.5 minutes in the kitchen, cooking up that box of organic fake food. I add a few ounces of actual grated Wisconsin cheddar, hoping The Man won't notice this bastardization of his cuisine. And then I taste it. Oh, YUK! The “sauce” has a bitter, artificial taste, and the bunny macaroni is just plain inedible, organic or not.
I push a spoonful into the mouth of The Resident Food Critic. “Try this,” I say. “Do you think this is how it’s supposed to taste?” I ask The Master.
“Kinda bland,” he replies.
Bland would be an improvement, I’m thinking. This is beyond disgusting. So I shove another larger spoonful into his mouth. “It’s okay, I guess,” he says. “Not much taste.”
So I ask, “Would you like me to throw it out and make some real macaroni and cheese?” And here comes the Way Cool part...
He replies, “Would you like to go out to eat tonight?”
WOW! I never even suggested it.
Those Annie’s bunnies hit the garbage disposal on the fly, as we head off to the Venice Club for Real Spaghetti.
I’m kind of thinking I might cook up a box of macaroni and cheese, oh, maybe once a week from now on.
Stirring the Pot
When I ask for menu ideas, the only thing The Man Who Does Nothing With Food But Eat It comes up with is macaroni and cheese. Basically, if I cook as if I’m cooking for my five-year-old grandson, The Man is happy. Actually, the taste buds probably get inherited in the other direction: the grandson is happy to eat what The Grandpa eats. Mac ‘n cheese, fish sticks, chicken fingers, french fries.
I may call him The Man, but his idea of macaroni and cheese is not adult. When The Man suggests macaroni and cheese, he is thinking “box”. As in: Kraft dinner, which is his epitome of fine cuisine, perhaps tied with Tuna Chip Casserole.
I discover in my cupboard a leftover box of Annie’s Organic Bunny-shaped Macaroni and Cheese that was purchased to feed the grandson, should he visit.
So this evening I spend an exhausting 3.5 minutes in the kitchen, cooking up that box of organic fake food. I add a few ounces of actual grated Wisconsin cheddar, hoping The Man won't notice this bastardization of his cuisine. And then I taste it. Oh, YUK! The “sauce” has a bitter, artificial taste, and the bunny macaroni is just plain inedible, organic or not.
I push a spoonful into the mouth of The Resident Food Critic. “Try this,” I say. “Do you think this is how it’s supposed to taste?” I ask The Master.
“Kinda bland,” he replies.
Bland would be an improvement, I’m thinking. This is beyond disgusting. So I shove another larger spoonful into his mouth. “It’s okay, I guess,” he says. “Not much taste.”
So I ask, “Would you like me to throw it out and make some real macaroni and cheese?” And here comes the Way Cool part...
He replies, “Would you like to go out to eat tonight?”
WOW! I never even suggested it.
Those Annie’s bunnies hit the garbage disposal on the fly, as we head off to the Venice Club for Real Spaghetti.
I’m kind of thinking I might cook up a box of macaroni and cheese, oh, maybe once a week from now on.
Stirring the Pot
Friday, August 8, 2008
My Sleep Number
Speaking of the influence of The Guys At Work, I am struggling to find my Sleep Number because of one of The Guys At Work.
A couple of months ago I suggested - repeatedly- to The Man Who Doesn’t Like Change In His Life that perhaps we had gotten mature enough to live without a waterbed. We’ve had our waterbed since 1975, or thereabouts, and what with my aging knees, it was not getting any easier to get in and out of. I’d about come to the conclusion that I would be placed directly from my waterbed into my coffin, when one evening The Man announced that we were going out to buy a new mattress. I leaped in the car, panting like an excited puppy.
“Where are we going to shop?” I asked.
“Brookfield Square” The Man replied.
“There’s no mattress store there,” I assured him. “Boston Store has a separate furniture store out further on Bluemound.” I assumed that was where we were headed until The Man pulled into Brookfield Square’s parking lot.
I reaffirmed that there is no furniture department at Boston Store, to which The Man Who Is Right replied, “But there is a mattress store in Brookfield Square. It sells Sleep Number mattresses.”
Well, I have walked 4 miles-a-day for 3-5 days a week for over 35 years. As last winter was tough walking through the perpetual snowdrifts, my walking-friend and I walked in the mall at Brookfield Square. All winter. Three to five times a week. As I told The Man Who Is Usually Right, I’d have seen a mattress store if there was one.
Well... You can already guess the rest of this story. He was right, of course. I kept insisting, as he parked the car. I asked where this store was in the mall. The Man assured me that it was right next to Boston Store. I said, “It’s not there.”
But it was. Dang!
“Why did you decide to try a Sleep Number mattress,” I asked. “A Guy At Work has one and recommends them. So we tried them on. We laid on this one and that one. They seemed really comfortable. The Sleep Number store clerk has a machine that tests what your best Sleep Number is. She said mine was 35. I was impressed that she could tell that. I guess I impress easily. Much easier than I sleep, actually.
We tried no other mattresses. Our ridiculously expensive Sleep Number bed was delivered and installed the next day. We’ve had it a couple of months. Some nights I sleep okay. For instance, last night I probably slept fairly continuously from 1 AM till 7 AM, which is incredibly long for me. Most nights I have trouble getting comfortable enough to go to sleep. I think this bed is way to warm, for some reason. I’ve changed the pillow. I’ve changed the sleep number. I’m up to 50 now. I’ve added air. I’ve subtracted air. Oh, yes. I forgot to mention that a Sleep Number mattress is just a very expensive air mattress with some kind of divider down the middle.
I would have returned the sucker within a few nights of delivery. The Man Who Could Sleep Propped Up In A Corner thinks the mattress is just fine. I’ll probably be laid out on it (at a Permanent Sleep Number of 82) when I die.
My deepest thanks, again, to The Guys At Work.
A couple of months ago I suggested - repeatedly- to The Man Who Doesn’t Like Change In His Life that perhaps we had gotten mature enough to live without a waterbed. We’ve had our waterbed since 1975, or thereabouts, and what with my aging knees, it was not getting any easier to get in and out of. I’d about come to the conclusion that I would be placed directly from my waterbed into my coffin, when one evening The Man announced that we were going out to buy a new mattress. I leaped in the car, panting like an excited puppy.
“Where are we going to shop?” I asked.
“Brookfield Square” The Man replied.
“There’s no mattress store there,” I assured him. “Boston Store has a separate furniture store out further on Bluemound.” I assumed that was where we were headed until The Man pulled into Brookfield Square’s parking lot.
I reaffirmed that there is no furniture department at Boston Store, to which The Man Who Is Right replied, “But there is a mattress store in Brookfield Square. It sells Sleep Number mattresses.”
Well, I have walked 4 miles-a-day for 3-5 days a week for over 35 years. As last winter was tough walking through the perpetual snowdrifts, my walking-friend and I walked in the mall at Brookfield Square. All winter. Three to five times a week. As I told The Man Who Is Usually Right, I’d have seen a mattress store if there was one.
Well... You can already guess the rest of this story. He was right, of course. I kept insisting, as he parked the car. I asked where this store was in the mall. The Man assured me that it was right next to Boston Store. I said, “It’s not there.”
But it was. Dang!
“Why did you decide to try a Sleep Number mattress,” I asked. “A Guy At Work has one and recommends them. So we tried them on. We laid on this one and that one. They seemed really comfortable. The Sleep Number store clerk has a machine that tests what your best Sleep Number is. She said mine was 35. I was impressed that she could tell that. I guess I impress easily. Much easier than I sleep, actually.
We tried no other mattresses. Our ridiculously expensive Sleep Number bed was delivered and installed the next day. We’ve had it a couple of months. Some nights I sleep okay. For instance, last night I probably slept fairly continuously from 1 AM till 7 AM, which is incredibly long for me. Most nights I have trouble getting comfortable enough to go to sleep. I think this bed is way to warm, for some reason. I’ve changed the pillow. I’ve changed the sleep number. I’m up to 50 now. I’ve added air. I’ve subtracted air. Oh, yes. I forgot to mention that a Sleep Number mattress is just a very expensive air mattress with some kind of divider down the middle.
I would have returned the sucker within a few nights of delivery. The Man Who Could Sleep Propped Up In A Corner thinks the mattress is just fine. I’ll probably be laid out on it (at a Permanent Sleep Number of 82) when I die.
My deepest thanks, again, to The Guys At Work.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Body Shops
Where do I go to get estimates for fixing the damage to my precious Prius? Where are the good body shops in this area? I have no idea. But The Man does. He says that The Guys At Work say to go to the body shop on Barker Rd, just south of where Gebhardt Road ends.
The Guys At Work know everything that is important to know. On all issues. Will Brett actually play for the Jets, or will they trade him? Ask The Guys At Work. Is a Jeep more reliable than a Chevy? The Guys At Work will know. Where is a good body shop around here? The Guys say I should go to Abra Auto Body on Barker Road and Gebhardt Roads.
“Body Shop?” I say. “There’s no body shop on Barker Road.” “Sure there is.” says The Man. Well, I know better than to bet on this kind of thing with the Man Who IS One Of The Guys At Work, but golly, I drive that way all the time.
“There’s a nursing home on Barker Road at the end of Gebhardt,” I say. “It’s got about a mile-long row of ugly red begonias planted right in the sun in front of the place. Can you believe it?" I say. "Begonias! In the sun!”
“I don’t know about any begonias on Barker,” The Man admits, “but there IS a body shop there.”
So, just to prove my point, I drive there. And of course he’s right. Again. It is called Abra Auto Body, and it is just one or two buildings to the south of the nursing home with the red begonias burning up in the sun.
So I get an estimate from Abra's Body Shop and one from a body shop called Marshall’s that is just east of that cool antique shop and restaurant on Hwy J, beyond Goerke’s Corners. Marshall’s is recommended by my walking companion and friend, Hilde. It turns out she is somewhat of an expert on auto body work. “If you’d raised sons instead of daughters, you’d be familiar with body shops, too,” she tells me. So I get two estimates.
Wouldn’t you think that car repair would be similar to having your oil changed -- there might be a slight difference in price from the car dealer to the BP station, but not so much as to cause you to drive an extra five miles to have it done? Well! It ain’t so. The estimate from Abra was $1771.99 and from Marshall’s it was $2729.77! And they are doing the identical work. I think. If I understood what they said. Anyway, there is a substantial difference.
The Man calls our auto insurance company, Farmer’s Insurance. They tell him they work with Marshall’s, and I should take the car there for repairs. Now I think we have an ethical dilemma. Do we pay for the repair ourselves at a cost of $1771.99? Or do we pay our $250 deductible and let the insurance company get ripped off? It wasn’t a dilemma for The Man With The Wallet. He says, “This is what we have paid insurance premiums for all these years.”
I guess I can live with the guilt. And the $1521.99. Maybe I’ll buy some more plants for my big, sunny garden.
But certainly not begonias.
Signed,
Stirring the Pot
The Guys At Work know everything that is important to know. On all issues. Will Brett actually play for the Jets, or will they trade him? Ask The Guys At Work. Is a Jeep more reliable than a Chevy? The Guys At Work will know. Where is a good body shop around here? The Guys say I should go to Abra Auto Body on Barker Road and Gebhardt Roads.
“Body Shop?” I say. “There’s no body shop on Barker Road.” “Sure there is.” says The Man. Well, I know better than to bet on this kind of thing with the Man Who IS One Of The Guys At Work, but golly, I drive that way all the time.
“There’s a nursing home on Barker Road at the end of Gebhardt,” I say. “It’s got about a mile-long row of ugly red begonias planted right in the sun in front of the place. Can you believe it?" I say. "Begonias! In the sun!”
“I don’t know about any begonias on Barker,” The Man admits, “but there IS a body shop there.”
So, just to prove my point, I drive there. And of course he’s right. Again. It is called Abra Auto Body, and it is just one or two buildings to the south of the nursing home with the red begonias burning up in the sun.
So I get an estimate from Abra's Body Shop and one from a body shop called Marshall’s that is just east of that cool antique shop and restaurant on Hwy J, beyond Goerke’s Corners. Marshall’s is recommended by my walking companion and friend, Hilde. It turns out she is somewhat of an expert on auto body work. “If you’d raised sons instead of daughters, you’d be familiar with body shops, too,” she tells me. So I get two estimates.
Wouldn’t you think that car repair would be similar to having your oil changed -- there might be a slight difference in price from the car dealer to the BP station, but not so much as to cause you to drive an extra five miles to have it done? Well! It ain’t so. The estimate from Abra was $1771.99 and from Marshall’s it was $2729.77! And they are doing the identical work. I think. If I understood what they said. Anyway, there is a substantial difference.
The Man calls our auto insurance company, Farmer’s Insurance. They tell him they work with Marshall’s, and I should take the car there for repairs. Now I think we have an ethical dilemma. Do we pay for the repair ourselves at a cost of $1771.99? Or do we pay our $250 deductible and let the insurance company get ripped off? It wasn’t a dilemma for The Man With The Wallet. He says, “This is what we have paid insurance premiums for all these years.”
I guess I can live with the guilt. And the $1521.99. Maybe I’ll buy some more plants for my big, sunny garden.
But certainly not begonias.
Signed,
Stirring the Pot
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
PRIDE GOES BEFORE THE FALL
There may be some truth to that proverb. But don’t panic, good friends. It wasn’t exactly a “fall.” More of a crash, or a scrape...
First the news about the canteloupes. ALL of my vast readership is asking: how was the canteloupe? Well, My Man, The Canteloupe Expert, has this to say: Neither of those we bought on Saturday were as good as the one we had two weeks ago. The half- melon from Brennan’s was tasty, but too firm for his taste. I suspect it would have met his expectations if we had bought a whole one of Brennan’s that we could let it sit out for a couple of days to soften up. The whole melon, the one we bought at Sendik’s, was less firm, but obviously had been picked pretty darned green and had less flavor. That one did sit on our counter for three days, but you can only do so much. So the canteloupe saga will continue.
The good news -- before we get to the part about the crash, or scrape, or whatever it was -- is of all the great, fresh produce I bought at the Farmers' Market on Saturday and the fun I’ve been having trying to decide what to do with it. I hadn’t really gotten back into cooking since our kitchen was demolished last fall, when we were forced to eat out every day for a couple of months. We’ve been eating at home since re-occupying The Now-Most Beautiful Kitchen In Brookfield, but I haven’t really been cooking, if you know what I mean. Tacos, BLT’s, chicken from the deli – no recipes have been in use here in almost a year. It’s like I forgot how.
Then August came, and Brookfield’s weather got miserably muggy and forced me in from my flower gardens and into my cookbooks. I dragged out about 10 of them this week and spent a fabulous afternoon browsing for good corn chowder recipes and chicken salad recipes and fresh tomato recipes to use my market bounty. My idea of a perfect day is spent with a cookbook – and maybe some cheese on the side. I’ve even been known to take a cookbook into the bathtub with me for a long soak. (Not the book – me.) And then there’s www.epicurious.com It’s the coolest web site for people who want to make things with cointreau and cumin and cauliflower and... One just types into the search box “corn chowder” and 72 or 348 recipes show up, plus ratings and reviews by us amateur cooks who have tried them.
So today I made Corn Chowder with Bacon from an Epicurious.com recipe. Wow! Is it delicious, if I do say so myself. And I did say so. The soup is so good, I got to showin’ off and delivering buckets of it to a couple of friends. Now we come to the “Pride goes before the fall” part of the day. At one friend’s house, after telling them how spectacular this soup is and, like a pathetic old sheepdog, lapping up their praise for being such a great and generous cook, I left their house and backed my Prius into a tree. YIKES! Actually I scrapped the danged tree all the way down the side of my car. DOUBLE RATS!
My Prius is the only car I have ever loved. Actually loved. How could I be so consumed with myself as to cause it injury? And, almost immediately my brain said... What will The Man, The Engineer Who Is The Very Manifestation of Caution, what will he think of my carelessness?
Unwilling to face his disappointment, I called The Man’s office during his lunch hour, when I knew he’d be out playing sheepshead. Figured it’s easiest to leave a humble, contrite message with the news. To his great credit - and my great relief-- he wasn’t even concerned enough to call me back! I called him later to see if he had gotten my message. He had. He asked how bad it was. I said it was bad. All he said was, “We’ll have to find a good body shop to repair it.”
Hallelujah!
I married him when I was only 20 years old, and I sure got lucky.
First the news about the canteloupes. ALL of my vast readership is asking: how was the canteloupe? Well, My Man, The Canteloupe Expert, has this to say: Neither of those we bought on Saturday were as good as the one we had two weeks ago. The half- melon from Brennan’s was tasty, but too firm for his taste. I suspect it would have met his expectations if we had bought a whole one of Brennan’s that we could let it sit out for a couple of days to soften up. The whole melon, the one we bought at Sendik’s, was less firm, but obviously had been picked pretty darned green and had less flavor. That one did sit on our counter for three days, but you can only do so much. So the canteloupe saga will continue.
The good news -- before we get to the part about the crash, or scrape, or whatever it was -- is of all the great, fresh produce I bought at the Farmers' Market on Saturday and the fun I’ve been having trying to decide what to do with it. I hadn’t really gotten back into cooking since our kitchen was demolished last fall, when we were forced to eat out every day for a couple of months. We’ve been eating at home since re-occupying The Now-Most Beautiful Kitchen In Brookfield, but I haven’t really been cooking, if you know what I mean. Tacos, BLT’s, chicken from the deli – no recipes have been in use here in almost a year. It’s like I forgot how.
Then August came, and Brookfield’s weather got miserably muggy and forced me in from my flower gardens and into my cookbooks. I dragged out about 10 of them this week and spent a fabulous afternoon browsing for good corn chowder recipes and chicken salad recipes and fresh tomato recipes to use my market bounty. My idea of a perfect day is spent with a cookbook – and maybe some cheese on the side. I’ve even been known to take a cookbook into the bathtub with me for a long soak. (Not the book – me.) And then there’s www.epicurious.com It’s the coolest web site for people who want to make things with cointreau and cumin and cauliflower and... One just types into the search box “corn chowder” and 72 or 348 recipes show up, plus ratings and reviews by us amateur cooks who have tried them.
So today I made Corn Chowder with Bacon from an Epicurious.com recipe. Wow! Is it delicious, if I do say so myself. And I did say so. The soup is so good, I got to showin’ off and delivering buckets of it to a couple of friends. Now we come to the “Pride goes before the fall” part of the day. At one friend’s house, after telling them how spectacular this soup is and, like a pathetic old sheepdog, lapping up their praise for being such a great and generous cook, I left their house and backed my Prius into a tree. YIKES! Actually I scrapped the danged tree all the way down the side of my car. DOUBLE RATS!
My Prius is the only car I have ever loved. Actually loved. How could I be so consumed with myself as to cause it injury? And, almost immediately my brain said... What will The Man, The Engineer Who Is The Very Manifestation of Caution, what will he think of my carelessness?
Unwilling to face his disappointment, I called The Man’s office during his lunch hour, when I knew he’d be out playing sheepshead. Figured it’s easiest to leave a humble, contrite message with the news. To his great credit - and my great relief-- he wasn’t even concerned enough to call me back! I called him later to see if he had gotten my message. He had. He asked how bad it was. I said it was bad. All he said was, “We’ll have to find a good body shop to repair it.”
Hallelujah!
I married him when I was only 20 years old, and I sure got lucky.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Not Much Cooking on Donmar Lane
It’s hot this week in Brookfield. My new kitchen's been done for eight months. I’ve cooked in it (sort of). I’ve also weeded my gardens. I’ve deadheaded my flower beds. I’m getting really crabby. It’s time to get out of Brookfield. In my opinion.
So on Friday when The Man comes home from work I say, "Let’s go downtown to a movie and then go out for a drink or a cup of coffee somewhere near the Lake, where it’s cooler and there are some different people to look at."
The Man has his projects and priorities. He has his favorite Ace Hardware store nearby. His computer is just waiting on his desk to tell him the latest Brewers' scores and the prices of gasoline in every gas station in the Milwaukee area. What could possibly be more exciting than that?
"What movie do you want to see?" The Man asks. I tell him what’s playing at the Oriental. He checks the web. "We can see any of those movies at the Majestic right here in Brookfield." I tell him (again) that I REALLY want to go downtown, into the city. "So where did you have in mind to go for a drink afterward?" he asks, and, of course, I have no idea, because how would I know? We never do this. Mr Practical thinks that driving along Lake Michigan looking for a cool place where we can sit outside for a drink is really dumb, when we have two patios and plenty of booze right in the cabinet in our sunroom. Cheaper. After I talk at him for a half hour or so, he says, "It’s supposed to be really humid again tomorrow. I have to mow the lawn this weekend, so I think I’d better mow it tonight, while it’s a little cooler." Now what the hell am I supposed to say to that? We stay home. He mows the lawn.
Saturday I start in over breakfast with ideas of where we might go. Eventually he picks up his keys. "So are you off to Ace Hardware?" I ask. "No," he says. "I thought I’d go to the farmer’s market with you." I am faint with excitement. The Man has never been to the farmer’s market – or to any other purveyor of food, for that matter. Our only pre-marital agreement was his statement: "I just want you to know. The only thing I do with food is eat it." He has remained faithful to his vow.
On the way, The Man informs me that he wants me to buy a canteloupe like the one I had at home a couple of weeks ago. I doubt there are melons available yet from farmers in Wisconsin and tell him so, but, as soon as he discovers there are bakers at the market selling sweet rolls, he agreeably walks the whole market to check for canteloupe -- as well as a bit of dessert for the breakfast he just ate – at home of course. We get to the last booth as he is finishing off a gooey, frosted cinnamon roll. There are no melons. He’s ready to go home. I have bought nothing. As we walk briskly past booths on the way back to the car, I manage to purchase some local corn, tomatoes, beets. raspberries, a cucumber and a dozen eggs.
We drive away from the market. The Man is going the wrong way to go home. "Where are you going?" I ask. "To find a canteloupe like that one you had at home. You said it was from Sendik’s." "There is no way to tell if a canteloupe is going to be any good," I tell him. "They may not have the same ones as they had 2 weeks ago." But he drives to Sendik’s on Capitol Dr.
"Have you ever been here?" I ask, knowing the answer. He has not. So I attempt to show him how cool this store is. "Here’s their wine department. Pretty good selection," I tell him. But he is on a mission. "So where’s the produce?" "At least you MUST see the walk-in cheese cooler," I insist. I try to drag him inside. "It’s cold in there," he says. I am still exclaiming about the incredible selection of goat cheeses as he heads down an aisle to the produce. He buys a canteloupe, not knowing, of course, whether it is any good or not.
Back in the car, I tell The Man Who Apparently Loves Canteloupe about Brennan’s, the only place where you can sample everything – all the fruits, the cheeses. It’s the only way to REALLY be sure you are going to like the melon you are buying. He is indifferent. So I put my foot down. "We are GOING to Brennan’s. It will take you five minutes. Have you ever been to Brennan’s?" Of course I know that answer too. We’ve been married for 48 years; he’s not set foot in any grocery store in all that time that I know of. But I’ll give him this: he goes to Brennan’s without a comment. As we walk in, I say, "See? You can try the peaches and the plums and ..." as I sample them all. He tries none of it. "Where’s the melon section," he persists. He tries two kinds of canteloupe. He buys one. He is uninterested in trying the cheeses. We go home. He immediately heads off to Home Depot, rents a truck, buys 1200 lbs (I am not making that number up) of paving bricks and proceeds to spend the entire weekend building a path in a part of our yard where the grass won’t grow.
At least I’ve got some local corn to cook.
Signed,
Stirring the Pot
So on Friday when The Man comes home from work I say, "Let’s go downtown to a movie and then go out for a drink or a cup of coffee somewhere near the Lake, where it’s cooler and there are some different people to look at."
The Man has his projects and priorities. He has his favorite Ace Hardware store nearby. His computer is just waiting on his desk to tell him the latest Brewers' scores and the prices of gasoline in every gas station in the Milwaukee area. What could possibly be more exciting than that?
"What movie do you want to see?" The Man asks. I tell him what’s playing at the Oriental. He checks the web. "We can see any of those movies at the Majestic right here in Brookfield." I tell him (again) that I REALLY want to go downtown, into the city. "So where did you have in mind to go for a drink afterward?" he asks, and, of course, I have no idea, because how would I know? We never do this. Mr Practical thinks that driving along Lake Michigan looking for a cool place where we can sit outside for a drink is really dumb, when we have two patios and plenty of booze right in the cabinet in our sunroom. Cheaper. After I talk at him for a half hour or so, he says, "It’s supposed to be really humid again tomorrow. I have to mow the lawn this weekend, so I think I’d better mow it tonight, while it’s a little cooler." Now what the hell am I supposed to say to that? We stay home. He mows the lawn.
Saturday I start in over breakfast with ideas of where we might go. Eventually he picks up his keys. "So are you off to Ace Hardware?" I ask. "No," he says. "I thought I’d go to the farmer’s market with you." I am faint with excitement. The Man has never been to the farmer’s market – or to any other purveyor of food, for that matter. Our only pre-marital agreement was his statement: "I just want you to know. The only thing I do with food is eat it." He has remained faithful to his vow.
On the way, The Man informs me that he wants me to buy a canteloupe like the one I had at home a couple of weeks ago. I doubt there are melons available yet from farmers in Wisconsin and tell him so, but, as soon as he discovers there are bakers at the market selling sweet rolls, he agreeably walks the whole market to check for canteloupe -- as well as a bit of dessert for the breakfast he just ate – at home of course. We get to the last booth as he is finishing off a gooey, frosted cinnamon roll. There are no melons. He’s ready to go home. I have bought nothing. As we walk briskly past booths on the way back to the car, I manage to purchase some local corn, tomatoes, beets. raspberries, a cucumber and a dozen eggs.
We drive away from the market. The Man is going the wrong way to go home. "Where are you going?" I ask. "To find a canteloupe like that one you had at home. You said it was from Sendik’s." "There is no way to tell if a canteloupe is going to be any good," I tell him. "They may not have the same ones as they had 2 weeks ago." But he drives to Sendik’s on Capitol Dr.
"Have you ever been here?" I ask, knowing the answer. He has not. So I attempt to show him how cool this store is. "Here’s their wine department. Pretty good selection," I tell him. But he is on a mission. "So where’s the produce?" "At least you MUST see the walk-in cheese cooler," I insist. I try to drag him inside. "It’s cold in there," he says. I am still exclaiming about the incredible selection of goat cheeses as he heads down an aisle to the produce. He buys a canteloupe, not knowing, of course, whether it is any good or not.
Back in the car, I tell The Man Who Apparently Loves Canteloupe about Brennan’s, the only place where you can sample everything – all the fruits, the cheeses. It’s the only way to REALLY be sure you are going to like the melon you are buying. He is indifferent. So I put my foot down. "We are GOING to Brennan’s. It will take you five minutes. Have you ever been to Brennan’s?" Of course I know that answer too. We’ve been married for 48 years; he’s not set foot in any grocery store in all that time that I know of. But I’ll give him this: he goes to Brennan’s without a comment. As we walk in, I say, "See? You can try the peaches and the plums and ..." as I sample them all. He tries none of it. "Where’s the melon section," he persists. He tries two kinds of canteloupe. He buys one. He is uninterested in trying the cheeses. We go home. He immediately heads off to Home Depot, rents a truck, buys 1200 lbs (I am not making that number up) of paving bricks and proceeds to spend the entire weekend building a path in a part of our yard where the grass won’t grow.
At least I’ve got some local corn to cook.
Signed,
Stirring the Pot
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