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

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

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

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

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

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

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