The first big weekend.

Madison.

The weekend's been busier than the week that preceded it, for the first time in a while. With Sharon out of town, I needed to keep myself busy, and the rainy - or always threatening - weather meant that gardening would just have to wait. Not that there's much to do at the moment beyond watering, and nature seems to be taking care of that.

Knowing that I'd have too much free time on my hands, I actually made up a to-do list for this weekend. Among the activities:

Bresaola
After sitting in curing salt and spices for two weeks, eating up valuable refrigerator space, it was time to dry the bresaola. For the next three weeks, it'll live in the basement, slowly drying out and intensifying in flavor. The whole dry-curing concept is still a little frightening, since it seems to fly in the face of the food-safety wisdom I'd been so used to. But, then again, when I was growing up, the notion of packing food in salt was completely foreign. Food preservation, in my family, meant freezing.

Not that this is a bad thing. Those containers of homemade tomato sauce, stacked in the basement freezer, were one of the early stages of my cooking education.

IPA
Jared came over to give me a hand with the bottling process, for which I'm rather grateful. I can do it myself - and have done, too - but it helps to have an extra set of hands. He then took the bottling equipment to his place, so he can repeat the process with his first batch.

Lessons learned:

• When dry-hopping, hanging the hops in a bag in the secondary fermenter is a great way to avoid clogging the racking cane. The downside? Getting the saturated hops back out the little neck of the carboy takes some doing. My method involved slowly digging them out, spoonful by spoonful. Then clogging the garbage disposal - briefly.
  
  
• When hanging that bag of hops, remember the concept of capillary action. And tying a knot to close off the bag means it'll stay damp enough to foster mold growth. Not much, but it means I'll have to sanitize the bag again.
  
  
• When cleaning a bucket with a hole drilled near the bottom, it's best to take care to avoid spilling water all over the floor. I learned this lesson the hard way some time ago. Now, Jared can say he's learned through experience.

The labels are just about ready, too. I now know the alcohol level - 6.0% ABV - and just need to confirm the president's approval rating. (What are the chances it'll be less than the alcohol level?) Then I'll print, affix said labels, and send a photo or two to Dan Savage.

Asparagus
Though Sharon can't stand it, I adore asparagus, and it's fresh and abundant at the markets now. Since I can only eat so much, I figured I'd try my hand at pickling. I now have a pound of pickled asparagus spears, flavored with hot peppers, garlic, black pepper and coriander, packed in jars. Or, I will, once they've sat for a week or so to soak up all that pickle brine.

One of the unsettling characteristics of pickling and canning is the way some vegetables look withered and shriveled immediately following the hot-water bath. Like you've done something horribly wrong. But I'm sure it'll work out - the cucumbers did this last year, like the recipe said they would, but plumped back up after a little while.

Trout
Since I'd cleared out a corner of the fridge by removing the bresaola, I needed to fill it with another food experiment. Seafood options are somewhat limited here in Wisconsin, but fresh trout are available at the farmers' market. Eventually, when I get the cold smoker set up, I can make smoked salmon (and trout, and scallops, etc.). The first step, though, is curing the fish, packing it with salt and sugar and flavorings, which should make something a lot like gravlax.

I decided to go with what I had handy, so these trout fillets are flavored with orange zest and black pepper. Right now, they're being pressed beneath a random assortment of heavy cans from the pantry. After just a few hours, the weight and salt had drawn out so much moisture that the dry cure had transformed into a brine, which just amazes me. By midday tomorrow, it ought to be entirely transformed.

Farmers' Market
The focus of the weekend, it seems, is the farmers' market. Without Sharon around, I decided to go a little earlier than usual, then take my time chatting with the vendors. This weekend's highlights:

• I spent a good while by Fountain Prairie, chatting with the Priskes and meeting a few new folks. I can't remember names, though. Tory Miller asked if I had any new sausage to try this time¹, which was heartening. It's good to know that the chef from your favorite restaurant recognizes your face. It was funny when he explained that he's apparently incapable of working a fax machine: every week, he faxes an order to certain regular vendors so they can have everything boxed up for him. Somehow, he didn't manange to get the order through to Harmony Valley, and so they had to scramble to get fifteen pounds of ramps together for him.
  
  Due to some hiccup in the communication with the processing plant, the Priskes ended up with some cured, smoked hog jowls. I was thrilled to discover that they consider me one of their favorite customers, and gave me one of the two packages to do something with. So, sitting in the freezer, I've got two pounds of pig cheeks to put to use.
  
  
• Farmer John is always a good guy to exchange goodies with. I brought him a pair of my last batch of homebrews, since he got such a kick out of that last year. I didn't expect anything in return, but he gave me some blocks of his colby caliente anyway. Mmm... nachos.
  
  
• JenEhr Family Farm has officially signed me up as a market worker this year. I hadn't seen Kay since last November/December, so it was good to talk with her a while. At least until she needed to get back to work. Now, I'll get to pick up a few extra bucks working every other Saturday at their stand, selling produce and chickens. It means early mornings at the market, but Sharon gets to sleep in. Plus, my wages include free produce and birds, which can always be put to good use.
  
  Kay was also thrilled to learn of my sausage-making ways, and even offered to trade me chickens in exchange for sausage. If nothing else, this means that I can really start to perfect my charcuterie skills without overloading the freezer. As much as I enjoy the process, playing Tetris with the freezer is not my favorite game.
  
  
• Morels are out now. Yes, they're fantastically expensive - about $40 per pound - but they're well worth it and only available for a few weeks a year. A quarter pound is the perfect amount for a meal for two. They're just the most amazingly earthy and intense flavor, the sort of thing that can be the centerpiece of a dish with only a minimal quantity.
  
  For lack of a better description, I think they taste like great sex. Not entirely literally, of course, but there's a reason, a sensation beyond the range of my language skills that makes that the best one I can come up with.

* * * * *

¹Tory had tried the pork mole and pork thai curry sausages a few months back, and given me a thumbs-up. Clearly, they made an impression.

Killing time.

Chicago.

Yet another key sign of spring - Cubs games. Despite the fact that I likely won't attend a single one all season, I keep the schedule posted prominently beside my desk. Forget to check that, and you run the definite possibility of getting stuck on a red line train with the baseball hordes. If it were just folks going to the ballgame, it'd be crowded. But, for whatever reason, all sorts of folks - especially tourists, once summer's in full swing - decide that it'd be a great time to see Wrigley Field.

I can understand this, to a degree. It's a neat old ballpark, if a bit oversold. From the back side, it looks like any old, decrepit stadium. Visit at an off time, and it's only marginally more thrilling than visiting a municipal parking deck. Around game time, though, there's a palpable sense of excitement in the air. That said, it's not the sort of excitement I'm looking for when I'm on my way out of the office.

Tonight, of course, there's a home game at Wrigley, so I'm looking for ways to kill time. Pointless blog entry? It's a start.

Jared: Brewmaster.

Chicago.

I gave Jared the quick lesson in homebrewing this weekend, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it turns out well. Though the recipe kit was different than my first batch, the whole process was pretty much the same. We deviated from the printed recipe, in part because I can act like I know what I'm doing. I don't, actually.

I do, however, have the experience of a few batches under my belt, and few bits of equipment¹ that your typical, beginning homebrewer isn't going to shell out for. So we modified the instructions. The recipe went more or less like this:

• Steep the included grains in 6 quarts of water. We used a gallon, because that should be plenty for a pound of grain. Meanwhile, we started boiling up the additional three gallons so we wouldn't be waiting all day for it to happen.
  
  
• Stir in the included malt extract syrup, which is contained in a handy plastic pouch. Instead of having to scrape it out of a jar or can with a spatula, you can simply snip off a corner and squeeze it in. This no-mess bag was my favorite part of the kit. We added this to the near-boiling three gallons, then added the liquid with the grains steeped in it.
  
  
• Add an ounce and a half of Fuggles hop pellets for 60 minutes of boil. Okay. At 3.3% alpha acid, though, there sure won't be much in the way of hop presence in this beer.
  
  
• Add an additional quarter ounce of the hops at 15 minutes and 1 minute. Done. We also dropped in a teaspoon of Irish moss at fifteen minutes, to help clarify. Also dropped in the wort chiller to sanitize it.
  
  
• Pour the remaining three and three-quarters gallons into the fermenter, then add in the wort. This seems like a stretch to get the wort down to a yeast-friendly temperature, and outright impossible with our four-gallon boil. So, much to Emily's consternation, we ran a garden hose into the house to run the wort chiller. It should be noted that we only spilled a tablespoon or two of water. Next time, though, I think I'll suggest walking the apparatus out to the patio.
  
  
• Since we didn't particularly want the sediment in the fermenter, we racked the wort off the trub and through a fine-mesh sieve to help aerate it. Then we added in enough sanitized water to bring the total up to five gallons. We also took a hydrometer reading, and found an original gravity of 1.044.² The kit lists 1.037, and I'm guessing that we may actually have a little less water than five gallons.
  
  
• Pitch the yeast. Those Wyeast packs are great, because it really looks like they could explode at any moment. They don't, of course, and there's just a short hiss of escaping carbon dioxide when you open the pouch, but it's always freaky the first time.

That pretty much sums it up. Jared gets to learn the ropes of bottling next weekend, when I put my latest batch into bottles. Might as well give him the tour, without needing to invite myself over to his place, over and over, just to explain how.

* * * * *

¹The ones that come to mind are the 10-gallon stainless steel stockpot from a restaurant supply house, and the immersion wort chiller. These were two major purchases at about the same time. The stockpot's great, because I don't need to worry about the wort boiling over. Unfortunately, it's too big to fit in the sink, which makes it impossible to cool down in a cold water bath. (Not that bringing 4 gallons of boiling liquid to below 80°F is ever easy that way.) Therefore, the next purchase was the wort chiller, which was worth every cent for all the hassle it's saved.

²I think it'll be about 4.2% ABV, when it's all done. A nice, easy-drinking beer.

The Brass Ring.

Madison.

Through a series of unexpected events, we managed to find a decent new bar last night. Originally, Sharon and I had planned to rent a movie and stay in. We were going to head up to Four Star, stop in at the Chocolate Shoppe for ice cream, and spend the evening lounging on the couch.

Except that there was no parking downtown, not without paying for the garages, which are always $3 "Event Parking" on Friday nights. There's always something going on at the Overture Center, and usually something at the Kohl Center, so parking's a flat fee. Not a big deal if you're going out for dinner and drinks, seeing a movie, whatever. But I see it as raising the cost of a rental up to $7 and change, which is just silly.

We were still in an ice cream mood. The Roman Candle has Chocolate Shoppe ice cream, and, being at the south end of Willy Street, parking there is never a problem. The place was jammed, as usual for a Friday night, but we didn't need a table. We walked up to the front, and, surprise, Ben's there. His first time at Roman Candle, nonetheless. He'd been planning to go Ian's for a slice of pizza, but ran into the same no-parking problem we did. He's even got a motorcycle and couldn't find space for it.

He was by himself, because he was going to meet Pete over at the Brass Ring for drinks. It sounded good, so we went along. Turns out it's like a less-crowded version of the Dane - brightly lit, plenty of pool tables, outdoor seating, and plenty of good beers on tap. (Two different Bell's brews, and two more from Lake Louie.)

The location's a little awkward for most folks, I think, which is why it wasn't packed. It's out on East Wash, by the High Noon Saloon. Far enough that you wouldn't really want to walk from downtown or Willy Street, and why drive if you're going to be drinking, but have so many other options within walking distance of home? If nothing else, it keeps the student level to a minimum.

And that, by now, is a critical factor in picking a bar.

It's multi-colored toilet paper!

Madison.

This can't go by without comment, I'm afraid. Oh, the things we do when we're not in our right minds: An old man flushes a fortune down the toilet.

To sum it up: a "slightly bewildered" German man decided to get rid of what he thought were 60,000 worthless German marks. (Roughly $38,000, and still perfectly valid for exchange at any bank.) So, he decided to flush them down the toilet. When investigators were looking into a blocked pipe (blocked with wads of bills), they noticed that this man had reported a blocked pipe at his house. Police managed to convince him to take the rest - with another 14,000 euros - to the bank for safe keeping.

It's just a wonderful series of slightly unusual errors that, in combination, become hilariously funny. Money? Actually worth quite a tidy sum, though you can't use it to buy a newspaper at the corner shop. So, it's got to go. Feel silly hauling trash bags full of paper to the curb? Just flush it! But money, of course, is designed to put up with more abuse than your average sheet of newspaper, and doesn't tend to break up in water.¹ Add on the "slightly bewildered" retiree, an apartment full of loose cash², and you're on the fast track to comedy headlines, world-wide.

* * * * *

¹It's like the ever-so-charming British pub trick, where some joker decides to offer you £20 if he can put out a lit cigarette on your arm. You get the money when it burns a hole in the bill. The trick, of course, is that the bill won't burn, so you'll get a scar and no cash. Oh, that dry British wit!

²The AP doesn't mention if he kept it all in the mattress. Or if the man looks anything like C. Montgomery Burns. But that just leaves more room for imagination.

The garden's open.

Madison.

The garden is officially open for the season.

Okay, so the Eagle Heights Community Garden has been open for nearly two weeks already, but I've been busy. Yesterday evening was the first chance I had to see how the plot had fared through the winter. This always makes me nervous, having been away since late October / early November. I remember piling on the mulch, hoping it would be enough, but it's too long ago to recall significant details.

We must've done pretty well, since the garden's in the best early-season shape yet. Granted, our first year was a mess. Whoever'd had the plot before us hadn't taken any precautions to winterize it, and I suspect they'd left Madison at the end of summer. The plot was fairly disorganized, filled with the remains of sunflowers and tomatoes. Without any mulch, the weeds had established a pretty firm foothold, and quackgrass was everywhere. I did a single-dig on the whole plot, while Sharon removed all of the weeds and grass roots, and we then lined the perimeter with a heavy-duty weed barrier to keep the grass out. It's been down for two years, no, and looks to be doing just fine.

The plot does have its share of grass clumps and weeds, but not much. The few I tested came out easily, so it looks like an hour or so of weed-removal should have things ready to go. The gardens also have an enormous pile of leaf mulch ready for us, so I can simply pile more of that on the plots that don't get early-season crops and have no worries.

We also seem to have a new resident in our plot this year. At the southern edge, a pair of two-inch burrows suggests there might be some ground squirrels living beneath the former nasturtium bed. I'm not particularly bothered by this. Sure, they'll be more than happy to devour the low-hanging snap peas - which'll be planted right on their front stoop - but it's not as though they didn't make the effort to find them before. Plus, they've got more of a claim to that land than I do, so I'm willing to cut them some slack. I'll trade a handful of vegetables for a little biological diversity.

Also exciting was seeing the hop bines well on their way. Two plots - one adjacent to ours - have hops, complete with large trellises to support them. (At a distance, it makes for a handy visual reference for our plot.) Though they haven't begun to train to the supports, the longest of the bines are already a foot or more. Every year, the plants come back more vigorously than before, so it'll be neat to watch them grow into monsters again this year.

That's also a downside to growing hops, at least for me, at this point. They're a lot like asparagus, in that you need a minimum of several years to justify the effort. In the first year, the rhizomes are getting settled, and only send up a few small bines. At the end of the season, the plant draws all of the nutrients back underground, and tries harder the next year. It'll take three to five years before things level out, before you can expect serious hop harvests. Well worth it for a long-term homebrewing hobby, but not a season-by-season garden.

I won't be here long enough to get a good return on hops, so I never started. It'd be such a shame to know someone else was tearing them out as weeds as April rolled around.

Brunch.

Madison.

Easter. It's an excuse for either brunch or large cuts of lamb. This year, it was brunch. And brunch, as far as I'm concerned, is the best sort of meal. Why?

• Brunch lends itself to lazy mornings. You don't really have enough time beforehand to get anything serious done, so you might as well sleep in, watch cartoons, do the crossword puzzle, etc.
  
  
• Brunch is also a lazy meal. There's no reason to sit at the table for any less than an hour, unless you're getting up to for a coffee or juice refill. Food tends to arrive in slow waves, and the conversation drifts casually. And unlike Thanksgiving, you know you have the bulk of the day ahead of you, so you don't slump into naptime. Coffee also helps.
  
  
• It's an excuse to gorge on comfort foods, but with a little elegance. Just a shade. Quiche looks and sounds fancy, but it's really not much more than an omelette in a pie crust. Fresh fruit and pastries. And bacon you can eat with your fingers, and no one cares. Salty and sweet elements really dominate - breakfast meats and muffins/pancakes/french toast - and yet, no one feels bad. As if a bowl of fruit salad makes it all healthy.
  
  
• The gorging, of course, requires a social atmosphere. You can't have brunch without a big group, gathering, talking, and eating. If you can all fit around a big table, it's perfect.
  
  
• With the social atmosphere comes the opportunity for booze. You're limited to breakfast-related drinks like mimosas and bloody marys, but they're also the sort of low-intensity drinks that won't get you terribly drunk. Especially given the copious amounts of food and caffeine you'll also be consuming. Should you manage to pound down a few too many, you've got the afternoon to recover and avoid the hangover.

The top fifty.

Chicago.

In this week's Chicago Reader: their "Restaurants Special". It's Chicago-centric, of course. There're articles on various aspects of the Chicago restaurant scene, includingthe Lettuce Entertain You group, the crazy serving gadgets at avant-garde places like Alinea, and a rundown of the local culinary schools. The best part, and clearly the most useful, is their list of the top 50 restaurants in the city.

Note that their list is compiled from readers' reviews on the website, not a professional reviewer. More democratic, for sure, but tougher to compare apples to apples. Does that make it any less valid? Probably not.

I'm thrilled, of course, because Hot Doug's made the list. It's not at all surprising, but it's also great that they've made use of several Hot Doug's photos in putting this list together.¹ You'd have to expect elegant, super-expensive places like Charlie Trotter's, Tru and Alinea to be there, and they are. So's Green Zebra, a haute cuisine vegetarian restaurant that I've heard raves about. They're pretty much the filler on a list like this, with prices marked by ever-increasing quantities of $ signs. It's the little spots, the one-$ restaurants, that are really worth seeking out. Other cheap eats that made the list, for which I've heard glowing recommendations: Art of Pizza and Lula Cafe.

And aren't cheap eats the backbone of the restaurant scene? For me, they are. Five-star restaurants are fantastic - and pretty much worth the exorbitant price tag - but they only make the few-and-far-between list.² The only reason I get to eat at those sorts of places is because Sharon and I save up for the experience. But cheap places? That's where you go when you don't feel like cooking dinner, or you're out of the basic elements of food, or you're trying to get a group together for a movie or something.

I can't claim to be an expert on the Madison food scene³, but I know more than enough places to impress an out-of-towner. We've got plenty of unique restaurants. Wisconsin also has significantly more relaxed liquor laws, which has to be a help. Madison has, what, seven microbreweries⁴ in or near town?

Great Dane, Angelic (if they're still brewing), and J.T. Whitney's in Madison proper; Capital in Middleton; New Glarus in New Glarus; Lake Louie in Arena; Gray's in Janesville... Some're better than others, of course, but at least we've got variety. And that's not even mentioning anything from the Milwaukee area, which is more or less beer central in the popular mind.

Plus my own brews, of course. And this weekend will see the first batch of politically active beer: the ITMFA IPA! More on that as it develops.

* * * * *

¹Including the top photo on the front page of the Arts & Events section. You can tell that's it, because the half-out-of-focus order sheet has "BAGELS/TOTS" barely legible at the bottom. That's the only Hot Doug's menu item not named after a celebrity, but rather after Doug's two sons, Charlie and James.

²When my entire company came to Madison, they took my recommendation and set us up with a dinner at L'Etoile. Normally, L'Etoile can't handle thirty-one. Maybe in the dining room, total, but we were in addition to the Saturday night crowd, which more or less fills the restaurant. But they stepped up to the plate and accommodated us.

The limits they imposed were a limited wine selection - they had two reds and a white ready to pour as soon as we stepped inside - and a truncated menu. Not that much shorter, though, and the Fountain Prairie sirloin was still there. And, despite the huge group, the service was excellent, and the kitchen delivered everything flawlessly, on time. So, to Tory and the rest of the L'Etoile staff, many thanks.

³I should be, though. Perhaps that's a future blogging challenge.

⁴Also worth making into a reviewing challenge: local beers. Invite a bunch of guys over, and have everyone bring a different six-pack. It's, um, educational.

Signs of spring.

Chicago.

Ah, the signs of springtime in Chicago: crocuses and daffodils in bloom; buds appearing on the trees overnight; thunderstorms rumbling through at night; and those hazard-orange signs proclaiming street cleaning. This, of course, means playing the parallel parking version of musical chairs to avoid getting a ticket. Whee!

Okay, so I'm not particularly thrilled by the half-assed appearance of spring inside the city. It's there if you look for it, but the eruption of life from winter dormancy is rather muted. Madison promises more, and the signs are all there, as well, if lagging by a day or two. The animals are active, the plants are coming back to life, and the winds are picking up.

It's time to swap the snow shovel in the car trunk for gardening implements. The Eagle Heights Community Gardens officially opened last weekend, though we couldn't be out there. Saturday evening's the tentative time for the first survey of the season, seeing how well we managed to keep the weeds down over the winter, checking to see if the perennials survived the winter. If there's enough daylight, and no serious threat of rain, we might be able to get some cool-weather crops in. It's not like there's any reason to worry about the soil being too cold. Not after this past winter.

It'll also be interesting to be out at the far edge of the gardens. The university has been reclaiming portions of the community gardens in their efforts to restore the natural prairie, and our plot's just a few steps over from the new boundary. I realize the conflict between the two sides: the gardeners want to keep their plots, to keep the community spirit going; the restoration folks want to restore the land to a natural state, to help bolster the native ecosystem, to use it as an educational resource for the community. The thing that irks me is that the university's returning the land to natural prairie by taking organic gardens and loading them with chemical fertilizers and pesticides. It just seems like a poor way of going about it.

This is a long drive for someone with nothing to think about.

Chicago.

Another valuable lesson gleaned from this past weekend: working seven days a week is a great way to kill productivity. The office was essentially dead yesterday, with everyone tired and feeling burned out. It just reinforced a comment I recall reading in Eliot Coleman's The New Organic Grower, where he strongly recommends setting aside at least a day a week for doing something other than farming.¹ No matter what still needs to be done.

I very much agree. It applies to work in general. I'm of the opinion that it applies to long-distance hiking, too. When you're on the AT, or wherever, driving ever onward just gives you a sort of tunnel vision. You begin to lose sight of your surroundings, to miss out on the process in the search for the end. For some folks, that seems to be enough to slog through the difficulties, but the rest of us would rather give up and move onto something more interesting.

After the weekend was over, I drove a colleague of mine back to the city after he'd been visiting an old friend. It was great fun to have someone to talk with for the trip, with all sorts of new topics. New to me, at any rate. We talked about opera houses (Josh being a theater designer who, he admits, can talk at great length about theater and architecture), used book stores and some interesting finds, and some random food thoughts.

I find Josh to be a particularly enjoyable conversationalist, in part because he's open and self-critical, the sort of qualities I'd like to have.² He'll readily point out that his designs have mistakes, that he's only a passable cook, that he tends to gravitate to discussing theater stuff beyond the limits of everyone else's patience, etc. But he is open to learning and new ideas, to being as bored as he makes someone else.³ Among the high points of the drifting conversation:

• Comparing the rotunda of the Overture Center to Mojo Jojo's hat is inevitably amusing. Now Josh can't get the image out of his mind. But he thinks it's as misplaced an architectural element as I do.
  
  
• Scottish highland cattle - the sort raised by John and Dorothy of Fountain Prairie Farm - look like giant, rust-colored sheepdogs. Whenever I mention this to people, they always want to see a picture.
  
  
• The concept of a "free verse limerick" is hilarious. See this past week's episode of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!
  
  
• Josh's brilliant book-shopping method: wander through Borders to find what he wants, then walk a block down the street to the neighborhood independent bookstore. If they don't have what he's looking for, he'll just special-order it.
  
  
• We are both aficionados of singing along with music in the car. Preferably at full volume, though only by ourselves.⁴ I lean to caP'n Jazz as a fallback; he's into early Beatles. Lately, I've had The Smiths on regular play, but it's never something I can even pretend to sing along well with. Oftentimes, I'm just making up the words, whether I know it or not. (See caP'n Jazz.) Josh tells me his word for this is "spagoline⁵", though it applies specifically to those times when you don't realize you're singing the wrong words.
  
  
• His brother's the executive chef at fine-dining restaurant called Quince, somewhere near Boston. Yesterday, he forwarded me a brief article in the Boston Globe's magazine that mentioned his brother (and some other Boston chefs) doing some unique things with lavender. Everything from roast salmon with lavender and honey to lavender lemonade.

Complete side note: Pulp's Different Class - in particular "Common People"? Complete, logical extension of "Hand In Glove" by The Smiths. I don't know why this never occurred to me before. Or why it does now.

Personally, I've an alarming addiction to Johnny Marr's guitar work on "This Charming Man".

* * * * *

¹The book's at home, or else I'd quote directly. That said, it's a worthwhile read for anyone interested in raising organic vegetables. It's geared primarily to small-scale vegetable farming, but is well-written and offers plenty of useful information for hobby gardeners like myself.

²Maybe I do, maybe I don't. I'm fairly confident I'm in the worst possible position to make that judgement.

³Note: He wasn't boring me. But he tells me he has a tendency to do that.

⁴Okay, so we'll both subject our wives to our less-than-stunning singing talents. But nobody else.

⁵This comes from a song his wife used to sing along with, incorrectly. She misheard the word "finally" as "spagoline", assuming it was somebody's name. It sounds crazy, but I'm guilty of equally embarrassing faux lyrics. Doesn't stop me from trying.

Thoughts on the office retreat.

Madison.

I've just spent the last few days in long meetings with the various offices of my company, in the form of a company retreat. What initially seemed like several days of mind-numbing discussions (building energy codes! whee!) turned out to be a useful and not-too-boring experience. Aside from the fact that it squashed a weekend, it wasn't bad. On the definite upside, we had dinner at L'Etoile last night and brunch at the Orpheum this morning.

Things I learned through all this:

• The Overture Center is pretty cool. Having, at best, a marginal interest in the theater/opera/symphony/etc.-type arts¹, I haven't made the effort to go. It really is a series of rather striking spaces. To judge from the comments of the theater folks, my uninformed impressions aren't all that far off the mark.
  
  Side note: The Overture has a series they call "Duck Soup Cinema", in which they show classic silent films, prefaced with some vaudeville acts. This April, it's a bunch of Charlie Chaplin shorts, but they've had all sorts. This I'd find worth investigating.
  
  
• Bowling is more fun when you make it as interesting to watch as to play. Since I don't have a consistent knack for getting the ball to go straight down the lane to knock over the pins, I decided to get the lightest ball possible and make it spin (and consequently, curve) as much as I could. It took a while before I got the technique down, but I was eventually able to get a few strikes in. In order to make it work, I needed to rest the ball on my arm (since I couldn't fit more than the tips of two fingers in the holes) and approach the lane at a diagonal. I'd usually end up on one knee, as well. But it worked, despite the "Cro-Magnon" dance it took to get the ball going.
  
  Also: a beer or two helps. You can't actually take this stuff too seriously.
  
  
• Act like you know what you're doing and/or talking about, and people will trust you. I'm far from an expert on any aspect of lighting design, but a sheen of confidence makes it so no one'd notice². I don't play this card often. Maybe that's why it seems to work so well.
  
  In much the same way, you can walk in just about anywhere if you look like you know where you're going. Duane, one the of company's partners, confirmed this. Want to see the back of house of nearly any theater? Just walk in with a clipboard and act like you know where you're going, like you've got something important to do. The moment you seem puzzled or lost, though, it's game over.
  
  
• It seems that some food service folks still haven't grasped the notion that "vegetarian option" doesn't mean just salad. Or a tray of raw vegetables. If I were vegetarian, I'd be infuriated by this.

* * * * *

¹This, of course, makes me the odd man out at a firm specializing in lighting design and theater planning. On the other hand, I'm the only one who can speak intelligently on coffee and coffee-tasting.

²Assuming there aren't any experts present, that is. And you've still got to be believable.

Doug & Ingrid.

Madison.

I completely forgot about this last night, but my Hot Doug's t-shirt got all kinds of attention at the farmers' market on Saturday. To the point where one of the guys at Cress Springs Bakery said he'd spotted it from across the room, spurring a Hot Doug's conversation. Apparently he's heard of it, but hasn't been there yet. In exchange, he mentioned a place called Lula's around Logan Square, as well as Sunprint On The Square here in Madison for good, cheap breakfasts. Among the others intrigued by Hot Dougs: John and Dorothy from Fountain Prairie Farm. They're taking my recommendation so strongly that, for a trip to the city with friends this May, John's only condition was that they stop in for hot dogs.

As someone who makes every excuse to drop by - and I have no other reason to be within a mile of that place - I can understand.

Breakfast in Madison makes me think that the market will soon be moving outdoors. While that spells the end of market breakfasts, it also means that I can get myself some Johnson Brothers coffee¹, then swing by Ingrid's LunchBox for some hearty, Midwestern eats. Her crepes - filled with whatever's fresh and seasonal - are delicious, if a bit messy to eat. And the oatmeal is outstanding. Ingrid's a professionally-trained chef, and it shows. Everything on the menu is delicious and well-rounded, and shows a thoughtful approach to the local food.

Also to look forward to, in the way of market breakfasts: fresh buttermilk doughnuts.

* * * * *

¹Best coffee available in Madison, hands down. And, I say with no exaggeration, some of the finest available in the country. The downside is that, for me, I have a tough time drinking anything but, such that I've been coffee-free for some time now. But it's oh so worth it...

Busy weekend.

Madison.

It's been a big weekend for the food hobbies.

• A quick trip to the Wine & Hop Shop netted me most of the makings of a new batch of beer. Due to work conflicts, next weekend's a wash, but I can get the yeast starter going that Sunday for a brewing session the weekend after. This one's going to be something akin to an India Pale Ale, American-style. That means a clean profile, without too much maltiness, and an alarming quantity of hops. Nine ounces for five gallons, with somewhere around ninety-plus IBUs.
  
  The inspiration for this is Dan Savage's ITMFA campaign. Rather than rely solely on t-shirts and buttons, I've decided to slap that acronym on a batch of beer. Genuine, American beer, brewed with all-American hops: Centennial, Willamette, Glacier and Vanguard. Be a brewer and a patriot!
  
  
• Today's major endeavor - at least to judge by the mess made in the kitchen - was to make my own scrapple. It's nigh impossible to find when you're any significant distance from Pennsylvania Dutch country, and I haven't had any in years. A conversation with my friend Jared, a few weeks back, somehow wandered onto the topic. He's from Maryland, not far from where I grew up, and he's got a hankering for it, as well.
  
  Scrapple, for those unacquainted with it, is the sort of food that sounds repulsive when most folks describe it, like the average person's understanding of cheap hot dogs. Traditionally, it's been a way to use up the leftover meat scraps of the pig, after making bacon and sausages and whatever else, and isn't drastically different than a rustic French pâté. You grind up the leftover trimmings, boil them, then add cornmeal and spices, and cook slowly over low heat. The mixture is then spooned into loaf pans to cool. To reheat it, cut slices and fry on a griddle until the outside is browned and crispy, the interior still a little soft.
  
  In my case, I've used pork shoulder and liver, mixed with some buckwheat flour and cornmeal, and spiced with nutmeg, coriander, thyme and black pepper. The traditional method might use the heart, tongue, brains, or even the entire head, boiled and scraped¹. You make use of what you have, especially if you're trying to get by on exclusively what you can produce on your own little patch of land.
  
  
• Also in process from the pork shoulder is some salt pork. (I guess this is really the weekend of nearly-abandoned pork preparation techniques.) Basically, it's a way to preserve chunks of pork with loads of salt. After sitting for nearly two weeks in a mixture of salt, dextrose, and sodium nitrite, it'll be set to last more or less forever. At least a year in the freezer.
  
  Salt pork is esssentially a flavoring ingredient, meant for tossing into stews, or a rich tomato sauce, in the same way you might add bacon for some extra richness and depth. The key difference here is that it's all kinds of salty. You'd never try to eat salt pork on its own.
  
  Or, you wouldn't make that mistake a second time.
  
  
• I'm thinking of taking half of the salt pork, after it's done curing, and smoking it for some extra flavor. Yesterday, I went to the hardware store and picked up most of the necessary bits and pieces for my homemade smoker: a hot plate, extension cord, cast-iron skillet, etc. I'll raid the basement for some cardboard boxes, hunt around for a small fan to pump the smoke between chambers, and I'm essentially there.
  
  I only ran into one little snafu, when I realized that the medium-base plug adapter is only rated for 660 watts. The hot plate takes 1,000 watts at full power, so I'm stuck running an extension cord from inside. It'll take a little extra creativity to make that happen without filling the apartment with bugs.
  
  Despite that, the smoker's nearly set to go. Some hickory sawdust and sodium nitrate ought to be arriving in a week or so, and the toughest part should be deciding what to use for the test run. Smoked salmon? Scallops? Pork chops?
  
  Such difficulties.

* * * * *

¹Boiling a pig's or calf's head is how you make headcheese, or fromage de tête. Sounds disgusting? It isn't. I had the pleasure of having a delicious headcheese, Alsatian-style, when I was in Strasbourg. It was like a savory jello mold, rich, delicate on the tongue, with delicious meaty bits and lots of spices.