My mom had volunteered to chauffeur us around town and buy us lunch which was quite a coup since she has a minivan and the five coolers we had with us barely fit it Jason's car. When we arrived at my mom's, she was warming up her van so, after we threw the coolers in, we were off.
Our first stop was to be Serrelli's but Jason and I were informed that the Eli's Cheesecake factory was on the way and that they had a retail store there. How could we say no? Walking in, I immediately caught sight of a familiar figure.
There was a little café in the joint which had coffee, sandwiches, and lots of sweets.
Over by the coolers of cheesecakes was a group of elementary schools kids who were at the beginning of their tour of the place. As I peered through the glass cases at the cakes lying in wait, I overheard the guide say that Eli's sometimes does special orders and that one company had requested jalapeno cheesecake. All the kids said "Ewww!" but not me. Personally I think that sounds remarkably tasty. Something to think of for my wedding cake.
One section was devoted to "Sweet Imperfections", i.e. – cakes that weren't perfect and were sold at a discount. Now, Eli's cheesecakes usually start at $25 and go up depending on size and flavor. I'm not proud. An imperfect looking cheesecake still tastes great and many cakes were only $6.95. I walked out with a large plain and an 8" Turtle for under $15. That's like a billion calories for just a fraction of a penny per! While I could have spent all the money I'd brought down with me there, I decided to save some for our other stops. On our way out, we ran into Marc Schulman, the president of the company who was an amiable chap.
It didn't take us long to get to Serrelli's and we passed by the M&M factory.
The Metra (commuter rail) stop near it was called "Mars" and I can just imagine hearing the conductor say, "Next stop – Mars". Walking into Serrelli's, it was really nice because there was only one other person there and, being a small, cramped store, we had plenty of room to run the cart through the aisles. Jason had introduced the delights of their Italian beef to friends and so he was filling about 4 orders. The stuff is so lean & tender and the gravy is the best around. Nothing in Madison compares. Jason bought some of their frozen manicotti and ravioli last time and his wife really enjoyed the stuff so he bought tons more in addition to about 30 pounds of beef. He had also bought their meatballs and so I got me some of them. When we got to the deli case, we found the butchers hard at work.
My mom asked one of them a question about the neighborhood and the gentleman replied that he didn't know since he did not live in the area. She asked where he lived and found out that it was her. I hoped that she flirted some more because I'd imagine that dating a Serrelli's butcher could have benefits for me in the form of discounted Italian beef. Alas, that conversation ended and we started stockpiling.
Jason and I ended up getting a country ton of their garlic Italian sausage which Jason swears is some of the best stuff he's ever had, in addition to repelling vampires in a 1-mile radius. I can't wait to try the stuff. In addition to it and Italian beef, I grabbed a small tub of their meatballs and I can vouch for their tastiness. I hit the motherlode over in one of the aisles which had super-family size containers of sport peppers and hot giardinara.
Back at the minivan, I think we managed to fill up two of our coolers. From there, we were off to Paulina's. When we got there, we found that it was closed for remodeling. Bummer. And so we went up Lincoln Avenue to Lincoln Square where German food stuffs awaited us. Our first stop was Lincoln Quality Meat Market.
They had mettwurst in addition to oodles of sausage, most of which I'd never heard of. There was this Hungarian garlic sausage that I just had to get. The link was about 3" in diameter, a huge sucker. Plus there were Romanian and Bulgarian varieties that intrigued me.
I went with the Kebapceta as it featured cumin and I already had a ton of garlic sausage. The stuff is in my freezer now but I'm looking forward to busting it out.
The snack we had on the road was wearing off and any further shopping could have seriously drained our wallets so we had lunch at the Chicago Brauhaus. It's a nice enough place. Sie haben gut bier on tap und there's always folks there speaking German, including the folks at the table next to ours. My 3 semesters of German paid off as I understood them when the waitress took their order auf Deutsch as well as snippets of their conversation. It was much better than hearing some loud mouth off to our right going on and on about how bad liberals are.
Here's my pork goulash mit spaetzle:
My mother got the weisswurst platter which had 3 links and she put down 2 of them. I haven't seen her eat that much in years. When we finished lunch, we stepped over to Merz Apothecary, which has a really neat storefront.
And the interior ain't so shabby either.
There are all kinds of beauty and hygiene products there. It's just like The Soap Opera here in Madison except Merz carries a full line of German products including all kinds of good, Teutonic shower gels.
I bought a bottle of cherry-scented gel for The Dulcinea and some of the kinder-friendly raspberry-scented stuff for her youngest, M. After this brief sojourn into the world of cleanliness, it was down the street to Delicatessen Meyer.
I bought some salami and also found another brand of mettwurst. Now, I was being helped by the Frau who was sehr schön, so I had to wonder what this was all about.
I walked over and found him looking intently at the booze.
A woman came over and started making suggestions. Jason bought a bottle of something I cannot recall for his old man. Apparently his dad and uncles used to drink the stuff all the time when he was a kid but it was nowhere to be found in Madison any longer. It was probably equivalent to diesel fuel but it would no doubt bring back happy memories, not to mention a nice buzz. Upon selecting the bottle, the woman told Jason that it was a good choice as "no house should be without it".
As always, I cannae wait to get some of your juicy polish sausage in my mouth! I think you should have gotten a few more cheesecakes too as we made such quick work of them! Next time, perhaps.
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