Besides a different taste, is there something beyond gimmickry to frying in avocado oil? Is it healthier? Better for the environment? I guess it's not a seed oil which found themselves being demonized for reasons I do not comprehend not that long ago. Avocado oil isn't cheap so perhaps using it is supposed to give a "premium" vibe - chips for the well-heeled.
Here's the company's story, in brief.
Megan and Scott Reamer's son, Jackson, was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder and they found that a high-fat diet rich in "premium fats" benefited him. Aha!
I also see here that it's a Wisconsin company. They're in Muskego, part of the greater Milwaukee area and I like to support my local chipsmitheries.
The camera on my phone auto-boosts brightness and either has a lousy auto-white balance or it f***s with color. I have turned off every photo enhancement setting I can find yet many photos, especially those with bright colors, end up slightly washed out. So apologies for the photo.
The chips were actually of a medium dark yellow not the near white you see above. There were some brown edges and minimal bubbles. They were cut thicklier than your normal chip. I was happy to catch a big vinegar aroma, so much so, in fact, that it hurt my nose. "A good portent," I thought to myself. Potato came next with oil trailing in third. Very odd. Oil is usually the primary smell. "Another good portent," I figured.
They were crunchy as I expected considering their thickness. Plus they were kettle cooked. I was surprised that the potato flavor was way out front with a nice sweet-earthy balance. Salt level seemed average while the vinegar tang was medium-light, a disappointment considering it was so prominent a smell and had caused me some mild olfactory distress.
Another one from last fall. I am really behind in my salt & vinegar snack reviews.
Lay's strikes again.
Stax are Lay's newfangled answer to Pringle's, apparently. Potato paste extruded into a mould. Not really my thing but I will give any salt & vinegar snack a tasting at least once.
These Stax thingies are all uniform in shape - and color too: yellow with the odd tan area. I was surprised to find that they had a big vinegar smell to them but this was followed by a reconstituted potato aroma - like instant mashed potatoes.
Putting one into my mouth, I was surprised again but this time it was their crunch. Pringle's are crispy but these had crunch. Maybe they're thicker than Pringle's. I didn't find them to be saltier than your average potato chip food product and was highly unsurprised to find that they had that instant mashed potato flavor. Lactose and malic acid gave them a solid medium dose of tang.
While I appreciated the firm tanginess here, the spud flavor was found lacking.
Last fall I made a trek south for reasons I cannot recall. I just remember that I ended up at the Duluth Trading Co. outlet store in Belleville, about 20 miles south of Madison. Perhaps that was my destination - to get some new shorts.
So I bought a couple pairs of shorts and a vest and then drove around a spell during which I spied a Trachte building. Before heading home, I stopped in at the Casey's on River Street. (Is there more than one in town?) There I did a stroll down the junk food aisle and happened up their house brand of salt & vinegar chips. I eagerly busted the bag open upon my return.
They were slightly darker than most chips - a nice tan hue. It seemed the skin was left on as the edges were lined with brown. Although I didn't pull out my calipers, these chips were thicker than normal. Sticking my nose in the bag and taking a sniff, I got a big whiff of oil while the vinegar was pleasantly pungent. The spud smell was rather faint, however.
Their thickness and/or kettle preparation gave these chips a massive crunch. I think my skill vibrated while taking my first bite, good sign, I felt. They tasted a bit oily, initially, but a potent vinegar tang made itself known and I found that it had brought its salty friend. With enough chips in my maw chewed to a paste, I found that I could taste a nice, earthy spud flavor.
These chips were an unexpected find and an unexpected pleasure. I adored all the tangy goodness and appreciated the elevated level of salt. Plus the potato taste was, er, tasty. More earthy than sweet.
Last fall I made my second annual stop in at Qahwah House in lovely Lombard, Illinois. I bought a bag of their coffee beans in addition to a cuppa thinking it would be fun to ward off the chill of winter with a mofawar in-hand. Well, it took me a while and spring is nearly here but I've finally opened that bag o' beans and tried my hand at coffee Yemeni style at home.
I have not been brewing it in the traditional manner and instead have been using my coffeemaker. Step 1: grind the beans. Check. Step 2: lightly crush some cardamom pods.
Check.
Step 3: put everything in basket and let 'er rip.
Add cream and voila!
It took me a couple pots to figure out how much cardamom to put in there but, once I got that down, things have been humming along. Good stuff.
Before the Los Lobos show last night in Stoughton I stopped in at Ink Cap Books. It's a lovely little bookstore with lots of cards and stickers and whatnot too. Despite being a small shop, they had a couple titles I've been seeking.
I just found out about Absolution within the past couple weeks. Hopefully it is as creepy as the preceding books and bursting with unheimlich goodness. I've had Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell on my to-read list for a long while. I've heard good things about Piranesi and perhaps reading it will motivate me to finally read Clarke's epic debut.
I've been meaning to have a taste of Africa at Holisac Taste of Africa since I first heard of them a few years back. If I recall correctly, they were in Sun Prairie at that time but they've since moved to the food court at Global Market.
Earlier this week I took a friend's daughter out for dinner at Global Market. She's a student at the UW and I like getting her out of the campus area for a good meal. There were several folks who were very kind to me back when I was an impecunious college student and I am happy to pay it forward. Her mother told me that she'd recently suffered a breakup and was disillusioned with boys. It was my hope that a visit with her honorary uncle and something different for dinner would help cheer her up. Oh, and ice cream too.
The occasion also gave me the chance to try Holisac. My dining companion was initially going to order something familiar, a
poke bowl, until we got to Hotco Noodles. The counter there had some
samples and I grabbed one of their noodles. After popping a couple into
her mouth, she was hooked and ordered some stir fry noodles with tofu.
She really liked the noodles and somehow managed to wolf down a rather large plate of food. You can do that when you're 19. Methinks she'll get it spicier next time. I ordered chicken peanut soup with fufu. Delicious! The soup was mild yet richly flavored. The fufu was just something to dip in the soup. It had a texture that was somewhere between mashed potatoes and bao.
I look forward to exploring their menu further.
While chatting with her I discovered she has taken after her mother and is a regular at a particular campus area bar. Ha! I got an earful about Gen Z men and learned that they are goofy. For instance, many are reluctant to approach women. She complained about having to go up to men whom she catches looking at her from across the bar.
Last Sunday I had a couple folks over for brunch. I took advantage of the situation to foist my first attempt at making scones on them.
They were buttermilk lavender. There they are just before being put into the oven. I brushed them with buttermilk.
And here they are just after being taken out.
They turned out well - visually.
Luckily they tasted good too. Mild sweetness to accent the gentle floral taste of the lavender. The texture was Goldilocks - it wasn't super light like Wonder Bread but wasn't too heavy either as with Landbrot. My guests enjoyed them and the leftovers were happily taken home.
Last night I had the pleasure of taking dinner with my father-in-law. We dined at Vintage out on the west side once again. I indulged myself and had a pint of Ionic Bond as I am all over rye beers**.
It was very tasty.
It had a body that was fairly light for the style, i.e. - it wasn't very viscous as if it were motor oil like takes on the style by Baltika or Żywiec. However, it was delicious. Full of coffee, roasty goodness undergirded by a rye earthiness. Plus a stiff dose of hops to balance all those malts. A fine way to chase away the late winter chills.
A couple weeks back I had a conversation about Kaiser rolls, those round rolls with the starfish-like slits on the top. When I was growing up the Kaiser rolls we ate may or may not have had poppy seed on them but they were all crusty on the outside while being light & fluffy on the inside. My interlocutor had a similar experience in their youth.
We both lamented that Kaiser rolls in Madison lack the crusty exterior. Here's a photo I took of Kaiser rolls, which may have been labeled as Hard Rolls, at Hy-Vee.
Look at how that crust gives! It was soft and not crispy crusty. Oddly enough, the same goes for those from Clasen's whom you'd think would make them "traditionally", i.e. - with a crispy crust.
Am I wrong? Is the crusty outside an optional thing with the Kaiser roll? How can you have a hard roll that is squishy when you poke it? So you don't make the slits to give it that crown-like appearance but you also don't put the "hard" in hard roll? This is just odd to me.
Recently I put a CD shelf together and got all of my music CD's unpacked. Well, most of them. Bootlegs remain in a box. Since then I have bought even more and now have to rejigger things to make room for them on the proper shelves.
The Louis Michot and Alash albums were bought at their shows here earlier this month while the one by Verità Baroque was purchased online after seeing one of their performances at the Madison Early Music Festival back in January. Tomeka Reid - come back to Madison, please!
I bought The Monks album just yesterday at B-Side. It was neat because I hadn't been there in ages and had never been to their new digs which, I suppose, aren't all that new anymore. The general layout is the same as the old space and the presence of Steve Manley behind the counter gave a familiar and welcoming feeling. But it was really odd to be able to browse without having to squeeze between shelves. All that space is so odd. Ha!
I was happy to see that the King Crimson selection remains strong there.
Shortly after being served divorce papers I did some internet searching for a local divorce support group, one that met in-person. I felt that listening to and sharing with others in my position would be helpful in dealing with the unique loneliness that divorce bestows. Of course I wasn't alone as I had friends and family and Piper and co-workers that populated my life, helped shape it, and give it meaning. But having my wife, the woman whom I trusted implicitly, whom I loved, whom I thought would be my companion through life, reject and disown me made me feel a certain kind of existential loneliness and I wanted to commiserate with others who knew this feeling.
After sifting and winnowing out groups for women only and those with a religious bent, I was left with one gathering where a godless man might be welcome. I eagerly contacted the host and was told that the group no longer meets.
And so I did a little research on books about divorce. If I couldn't be with fellow divorcees then perhaps I could glean some wisdom from the printed page. I say a little because the hunt didn't last too long. My recollection says that the books I encountered didn't seem interesting to me or didn't seem to approach the subject as I desired. From their descriptions they came off as cheesy self-help schlock or perhaps were focused on the plight of people with minor children, a condition that did not apply to me. I proceeded to get on with life, I suppose you could say, largely by engaging in various activities to get out of the house so as to avoid my wife who took a similar course of action.
Things on the research front didn't change until recently after a bout of chatting with my eldest stepson and his fiancée. I came away feeling like I should give them some advice as they look to form a permanent union but also felt quite hesitant since my marriage was a disaster.
This ambivalence got me in the mindset to start seeking out books about divorce again. I ran into a Reddit thread which seemed helpful. In it someone recommended This is How Your Marriage Ends: A Hopeful Approach to Saving Relationships by Matthew Fray and the comments led me to further investigation. I discovered that Fray had his 15 minutes of viral fame about 10 years ago with an essay he wrote called "She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes by the Sink".
The premise of the piece is essentially that you have be on the lookout for little things in a relationship and he illustrated this by telling of his own marriage and the damage done to it by the countless times he left a drinking glass by the sink instead of putting it into the dishwasher. Death by a thousand cuts.
There is only ONE reason I will ever stop leaving that glass by the sink. A lesson I learned much too late: Because I love and respect my partner, and it REALLY matters to her.
...
The wife doesn’t want to divorce her husband because he leaves used drinking glasses by the sink.
She wants to divorce him because she feels like he doesn’t respect or appreciate her, which suggests he doesn’t love her, and she can’t count on him to be her lifelong partner.
...
She’s fighting for acknowledgment, respect, validation, and his love.
I felt like he captured a lot of went wrong in my marriage in his essay and sought out interviews with him online. Here's a good one that's fairly brief yet highly informative.
Having read his essay and watched a few interviews with him, it is notable to me how my wife used the same language as he does, which is to say that she used the language of someone who makes their living from helping others with their intimate partnerships. "Emotional labor" is the first term that springs to mind, though I am unsure if he uses it in this particular interview. I'd have to rewatch some interviews but shivers went up my spine multiple times as he said things that my wife parroted to me.
********
One evening a couple weeks or so before my wife filed for divorce, I found her in the kitchen crying after she'd returned from a friend's home. A conversation ensued in which she did most of the talking but, to the best of my recollection, we didn't argue.
She stood by the sink so I made sure to stand at the opposite end of the kitchen from her as I didn't want to be close to her in case she decided to lash out and, quite honestly, I simply didn't want to be near her. Through her tears, she lamented, "I feel so alone!" Two things sprang to mind at this point.
First was that I understood completely. I too felt alone. My wife barely spoke to me by this time and, when she did, it was normally snark and snideness. Or simple, direct opprobrium. When I told her that just bidding me good morning instead of starting her day by either ignoring me and retreating to the carport to watch TikTok videos and doomscroll social media or launching into a tirade by yelling at me from the foot of the stairs would be a good way to proceed, I received a text the following morning that began:
Good morning good morning good morning. Oh joyous morn.
She was keen on conducting our marriage largely via email - and she had a new email address created for this purpose. If there was an emergency, I was not allowed to call or text her; instead I had to email her.
My wife's ability to simultaneously be spiteful & distant on one hand and seeming to genuinely long for healing & intimacy on the other was extraordinary.
The second thing that I recall thinking at this point was that I was happy. Happy that I felt no desire to comfort my wife despite the waterworks. I didn't want to hug her nor to console her in any manner. Instead I was content to just let her continue to speak her piece at a distance.
She continued sobbing and then let me told me something that I'd known for some time. "I don't mind clutter but the house has to be clean," she protested. Or something akin to that. And this is where Fray's ideas come in.
By this time I had spent 16+ years expressing dissatisfaction at my wife's hoarding, at having to navigate a house full of her hoarder piles, and, in general, clutter clutter everywhere. Some areas of our house were decluttered when she had invited company over but that type of respect was rarely extended to me. At last she had verbalized it. She finally uttered words indicating that she had no respect for me, that she was unwilling to even attempt to change the way she did things because I was not important. Her drinking buddies from the tavern (nice people from what I could tell) commanded respect and decluttering but not her own husband.
********
I felt very stupid after this conversation because I then understood that she had been telling me I was not important, not worthy of respect for 16+ years. Sixteen plus years. To my mind she was well aware of the messages she was sending. And I put up with it. In retrospect, I think that I began to regret my marriage 10 or so months prior to this incident after she issued an ultimatum to me, she began accusing me of wrongthink, and she twisted our wedding anniversary into an argument about politics. About 2 months before this conversation new feelings sank in: shame and embarrassment. I began to feel ashamed and embarrassed at having married my wife after I heard about a visit she made to a couple friends of mine where she shit talked me to the point of making them uncomfortable.
This kitchen sink conversation only served to heighten those feelings.
I am inured to the thought that the regret will dog me the rest of my life but hope that the shame and the embarrassment fade with time. For now, when I think about my brother, I apologize to him. Although I would love to have his support in these times, a part of me is relieved that he is no longer with us to see me stumble and fall, to witness my failure, and to feel Fremdschämen at his brother's ineptness.
********
I think that if I am ever inclined or asked to give my stepson and his fiancée marriage advice I will tell them to look up Matthew Fray. I will also tell them to not be like me.
On reflection, it occurs to me that I have been a deist when it comes to romantic relationships and was in my marriage. Like a deity that creates the universe and then steps back and watches events unfold rather than getting involved with miracles and revelation, I tend to get the relationship up and going on a desired trajectory and then refrain from intervening thereafter, expecting inertia to somehow keep the flame alive. And perhaps my significant other. The plant analogy seems apt. You've got to water and feed a plant, give it its desired amount of sunlight. I am just not good at nurturing relationships.
While I think I've learned a lesson, I have to actually apply it. We shall see how that goes.
Seen before a screening of Train Dreams. I really enjoyed it and felt very sympathetic in the wake of Piper's death towards the central character, Robert Grainier, who struggles after losing his wife and child. The Malickian shots which placed him in natural, non-man-made environments were gorgeous. They gave context for the character - a man at home in the woods, away from his fellow men. But he also seeks the company of a woman and has a child with her so he is no misanthrope Unabomber type fellow.
I'd like to read the book upon which the movie was based now.
Seen at a screening of Blades of the Guardians, which I found to be an absolute blast. The action scenes were fun, Dao Ma is your likeable every man kind of fellow just trying to get along in the world and is protective of his young nephew. Was Zhishilang really that big of a pansy? Did I miss something?
Anyway, just a lot of fun.
A new Ben Wheatley flick! It'll be at the Wisconsin Film Festival but I am hoping to see it at AMC. This frees up its showtimes at the festival for other films. Hopefully. I've seen the trailer for Sirat several times at AMC and it still hasn't played.
On Friday night I met a friend at Genna's Cocktail Lounge, the venue being her choice. I could not recall the last time I was there. Walking inside memories of going there to see The Vibro Champs play upstairs back in the mid-90s rushed back.
It felt a bit odd to be surrounded by all the young folk who were my stepsons' ages and younger. Since the temperature outside was well above freezing, many women had their lithe, youthful bodies on display as they were clad in short shorts, mini skirts, crop tops - that kind of clothing. And the young men were jockeying for their favors.
At some point all of the other older folks had left leaving me and my companion to represent the over 30 (i.e. - 50) crowd. Ere long Boyce Johnson, drummer extraordinaire, came in and sat at the bar so we had some grey company for a spell.
My companion and I had a wonderful time. We talked about cats and music and friendship and divorce. She has given me some good advice in dealing with the end of my marriage, discussed her divorce openly, and been very supportive of me these past few months.
A Jethro Tull song came to mind.
Sit down as strangers will, let the stress unload. Talk in confidential terms, share a dark unspoken fear.
We made the clasp as I received one of the biggest hugs ever from her that night as she gave me her condolences for Piper's death.
This was the first time I'd spent 3+ hours at a downtown bar in a very long time. I drove her home and hauled one of Piper's cat trees up to her place where two felines awaited. At first they eyed up this new structure from afar before cautiously approaching it. After some intense sniffing, they began applying their own scents to it.
I am glad it'll get some use instead of sitting around my apartment gathering dust and standing as a monument to loss. When I get a new cat, she'll get a new tree.
The geese were honking, the ducks were quacking, and the first birdsong of spring ushered me down the path to the Arch.
"They're singing for you, Pipey," I muttered aloud.
Once there the sweet trilling of our feathered friends filled the air as I tearfully scattered the ashes of my sweetpea cat, Piper, at my beloved Acewood Conservation Pond this morning at dawn.
As I began my walk back to my car, I heard the loud squawking of Sandhill cranes.
Spring is here, it seems. Although I had hoped to celebrate its arrival with Piper, I can at least now and forever stroll along the shore and be with her.
