Woodman's continues to stock Ideal Bakery's delicious breads and sweet treats. I am pleased that they rotate the varieties of sweets and found pound cakes on offer last weekend. I got the German one.
It is very tasty, as expected, and I really enjoy the dried fruits. A prelude to stollen season.
I finally made my first visit to Prost!, the German beer hall & restaurant which is the heir apparent to Essen Haus, if/when the venerable German restaurant/bar is demolished to make way for apartments or condos or a hotel or whatever is slated to take its place.
Housed in a former church, Prost! is a lovely space with stained glass everywhere.
A friend and I had lunch and I dined with a Früh Kölsch. The bier was delicious, full of bready/crackery goodness. And the food was very tasty. There were enough pickled vegetables on my plate to fell a horse and I think that I ate the equivalent of 2 cucumbers.
With such a lovely space, it's a shame there are TVs. On the other hand, the bier selection is pretty good. However, there was no gose, no altbier, no Dortmunder Export, no schwarzbier, and, most importantly, no rauchbier. But what's not to like about having drei Helles's on tap? Perhaps they'll put a Maibock on tap once Easter has passed.
The wurst was really good and we were told that it was artisanally made by, if memory servers, a Chef Mike somebody-or-other in Chicago. And the senf was sehr gut too. A nice little kick.
Nobody:
— Kristi Yamaguccimane (@TheWapplehouse) May 20, 2024
Germans: pic.twitter.com/KBPtqfElqM
Bought my first Stollen of the season at Batch Bakehouse this weekend.
Because I lack self-control, most of it is going to work so my co-workers will eat it.
The processed meats coolers at Woodman's hold many delights. Some are unexpected. For instance, I recall noticing Albanian sausage made here in Madison on one trip. On another I spied a small selection of kishka way up on a top shelf. More recently I discovered Yachtwurst (Jagdwurst) from Usinger's in Milwaukee.
There are countless types of wurst. I don't know how the Germans keep up with them all. This is a cold cut and Wikipedia says the addition of pistachio nuts, as Usinger's does here, is a southern German thing.
As you can see, the grind is very coarse. Pistachios were rather sparse. Seasoning was mild. Salt, pepper, and garlic seemed evident but paprika and other spices were on the label. However, I couldn't make out what they were. (A dash or coriander, perhaps?) I'd like to try frying up a couple slices of this stuff. As it is, I've been eating a slice or 2 cold for breakfast which seems rather Deutsch.
(early October 2022)
Although the autumnal equinox falls in September, I really think of October as the beginning of fall. September has vestiges of summer with still warm temperatures and trees only giving a hint of what’s to come but it’s October that really ushers in the change of seasons. The leaves change more quickly, decorative Indian corn is to be found, and Halloween beckons with store shelves filled with a billion cavities worth of candy. It’s also when deer mating season begins. Bucks go into rut, anxiously waiting for a doe who will put out for him to come along. And so horny deer are often seen carelessly crossing the roads in pursuit of some action.
There was a slight chill in the air on 1 October when I jumped in my car just after dawn and headed east to the fringe of Madison where it meets the Town of Burke. I was keen to take some photos of a couple Trachte buildings that I’d recently heard of and to explore a mysterious white dot.
A couple weeks previously I had been checking out the far east side of Madison on Google Maps trying to get a handle on the growth of the housing developments that sprawled on the fringes of the city and lament how much of the countryside had been lost. At one point I noticed an anomalous white dot in a group of trees. I immediately made like Deckard in Blade Runner pretending Google Maps was an Esper machine and started calling out commands to enhance the image.
Unfortunately, just like my cats, the site was not keen on responding to my voice and so, when I said, “enhance 224, 176”, absolutely nothing happened. And so I was forced to manually zoom in and rotate the view. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t tell what this mysterious dot was but I assumed that the anomaly was the top of a silo poking out from the tree canopy.
Farm ruins!
My first stop that morning, however, was just up the road from the anomaly where a pair of Trachte buildings sit nestled in the tress, slowly being consumed as grass and brush reclaim the area.
Nearby were a couple other outbuildings that looked as if they hadn’t seen use in ages either such as this one tucked a bit further back.
Having gotten my Trachte photos, it was off to find that mysterious silo. I drove slowly south along the road but didn’t see anything other than the new day’s sun peeking through the trees.
I had driven this road many times over the years but never noticed the wall. It will no doubt be more obvious when the trees have shed their leaves, but I think it’s set back just far enough to not be visible at a casual glance when you drive past.
Despite the rising sun and the muffled roar of speeding cars in the distance, it was rather spooky setting out into the ruins. By the time I got to them, the din of the highway was completely absent and it got even more eerie as a silence settled upon me.
The wall was part of the remains of foundation of an old barn.
I saw no trace of any of the wooden structure. Looking around this area that is nearest the road, I couldn’t see the silo so I wandered deeper into the woods to the other side and voila! There it was hidden in the trees.
Walking towards it, I ran into the foundation of another barn. This one was set deeper and I had to step down.
Finally, I was at the silo.
There was a round concrete space next door which perhaps was the base of a silo at some point in the past. Just to the north was a large concrete rectangle that looked like it may have been a trough.
A cursory internet search didn’t reveal any history of the farm or who owns the land currently. The subdivisions are still mainly to the south but I suspect it won’t be too long before the area is subdivided and littered with cookie cutter houses.
On my way home – almost as if on cue – a buck ran out in front of my car.
********
The previous owner of my house put a carport onto the back of it and so there’s a small gap between a gutter and the side of the house itself. That end of the gutter gets runoff from a valley and fills up with stuff causing water to drip down onto a window sill. This is really annoying because the sill is made of metal so the dripping is a bit loud. The water then runs off onto the driveway where there is a 1” gap between the driveway slab and the foundation of the house.
My predecessor had filled part of that gap with some kind of grey goop that had the consistency of caulk. The remaining space simply had what appeared to be some leftover black plastic garden edging dropped into it. Perhaps this undergirded some kind of filler in the past but now it was doing little.
Having resolved to keep water away from my foundation, I asked some friends who are also homeowners about how to take care of this. Most weren’t sure but one recommended pouring sand into the space until there was just a little room at the top and then laying down this new-fangled gap filler. You place it atop the sand and then heat it with a torch or heat gun so it melts to fill in the space.
This would mean buying sand and a torch. Surely there was something cheaper. After an internet search, I found there was.
I bought some backer rod which is a tube of semi-rigid foam that’s ½” in diameter. A bit like those pool noodle floatation thingies. I made a braid out of it and stuffed it into the gap a bit less than ¼” below grade after power washing the foundation and a bit of driveway. Then I slopped in some concrete patch which I think is sand and limestone in some kind of petroleum-based goop. I am no whiz with a putty knife but I think I patched it well enough. Three days later it had hardened.
We’ll see how it takes to having a shovel being dragged across before long but it seems solid enough.
********
Our wedding anniversary was in the latter half of last month but, unfortunately, our plans to have dinner at the fancy, relatively new The Harvey House fell through. And the florist never delivered the flowers I had ordered. A real shame that the floral shop just a few blocks away closed. Never had a problem with them.
Shortly after this, I was exhorting my Frau to make reservations there again when word came down that The Harvey House had just been mentioned in the New York Times. Ooh. Might be a long wait to get a table now.
So our anniversary was a bust. But I have plans to make it up to my Frau…
********
With the weather getting slightly chilly, it was time to start making the transition to winter cooking. For me, it chiefly means more casseroles, stews, and the like. The first thing I made was Graupeneintopf which I believe means “barley stew”. However, the recipe in my German cookbook is more of a casserole. It’s very simple but delicious. Brown some ground beef, onion, and celery root. Throw in barley, beef stock, and some tomato paste. Cook until done.
********
Back in September, a friend of mine down in Chicagoland who is a big World War II buff told me to choose one of his unread books on the subject and that we’d discuss it when I went down to his place again in early October. I chose Ivan’s War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945.
Merridale begins by noting that the Soviet army was made up of men from various parts of the Soviet Union, many of whom had no love for Stalin and/or weren’t ethnic Russians. Some even thought that German occupation might be a step up for them.
Being a soldier in the Red Army was sheer horror. When Germany began its march east to Moscow, the Soviets were ill-prepared, under-equipped, and had military leadership – including Stalin – who had no idea what to do. The Soviet Union was huge and so the one thing it did have in large supply were bodies. The Red Army could just throw wave after wave of men at the Germans.
The book talks about how party apparatchiks were assigned to the army to try to maintain morale and report on treacherous behavior. So the soldiers were being watched at all times as they dealt with a lack of food, lice, improper clothing, a shortage of munitions, et al. We also learn about some soldiers who would receive Dear Ivan letters in which their wives informed them they had found someone else.
Soviet doctors did not recognize what we call PTSD today so, if soldiers afflicted with it didn’t improve, they were simply sent back to the front or even executed if they didn’t obey orders.
The Red Army defeated Hitler at a great cost. It repelled the German invasion and fought its way to Berlin. For the first two thirds of the book, we feel a lot of empathy for the members of the Red Army as they take on the marauding Huns at a great cost. But the empathy becomes strained when restraint is abandoned as they raped and pillaged the whole way to the German capital.
Immediately after the war, Stalin hailed them as heroes and promised largess from the state for their service. But after a year, Stalin abandoned these heroes of the Soviet state and many veterans had a hard time finding housing, feeding themselves, and integrating back into society.
Certainly not a happy tale, but it was nonetheless very interesting. I have read about Eastern Front a bit, mainly about the Siege of Stalingrad, but those texts were all about the battles, the maneuvering, and the strategies. Ivan’s War told a story mainly at ground level and kept a human face on the combatants instead of rendering them into chess pieces. In film terms, think The Big Red One vs The Longest Day.
After reading this, I needed something lighter and so I decided to read something I should have read decades ago…
********
Bonus photo time! Here’s Grabby eyeing up the Frau’s new bag of candy corn.
(late October 2021)
I want to get the bad news out of the way first. About 3 weeks ago our oldest cat, Marilyn, a.k.a. – Grabby, was diagnosed with lymphoma.
.jpg)
She is doing
fairly well, all things considered. Her stomach seems better and she is still
rather spry and playful. I am hoping that she can last until the spring (and beyond) because
I'd like to bury her in the backyard but not have to dig into frozen ground.
I am really
going to miss her when she's gone.
********
While it has
certainly gotten chillier and I am not happy at having to turn the heat on, I
can take some consolation in the pretty scenery. A neighbor a couple doors down
from us has what I think is a maple in their backyard which turns a blazing
orange in the fall and it is simply gorgeous.
While I plan
on more bike rides through the fall – last year I was riding into December - I
took one last trek a couple weeks ago where I could still wear shorts and a
t-shirt. (Shortly after this I put on a pair of pants for the first time since
the spring. It felt rather odd.) I didn't go very far and mainly cruised around
the neighborhood to check out construction projects in progress, Halloween
decorations, and fall colors.
I found one
neighbor giving his vintage car one last wash before putting it into storage
for the winter.
I went to check
on the progress of the new bike path by Starkweather Creek. A new bridge was
installed over the creek, Starkweather Drive, which runs along the creek, was narrowed down to a one lane
street, and a bike path was installed creekside.
If you'd
rather take a pass on stuffing yourself, there is also a yoga practitioner and
a spa on site for all of your mind-body needs.
The bike
path leads north to a park where another bridge spans over some wetlands and
eventually you'll find yourself on a busy street.
I zipped
down a dead end street and saw this sign:
.jpg)
********
Almost as
soon as the weather changed, I started cooking heartier foods and drinking
beers that are darker and a little heavier. For reasons unknown, I got a taste
for Swedish meatballs and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies one day shortly after
September had given way to October. September still has a patina of summer to
it but October, well, October is all autumn to my mind.
The
meatballs were tasty.
Having
German blood in me means that I get a craving for marzipan as winter
approaches. Well, that's misleading. I get a craving for marzipan when spring,
summer, and fall approach too. But cookies and confections with that
ultra-tasty almond paste generally have a reputation for being made at
Yuletide.
My Frau had
made another stop at our favorite orchard, Lapacek's, so we had a surfeit of apples lying around. A
look through one of my German cookbooks yielded Überbackene Marzipanäpfel - baked
marzipan apples. I used a trio of Braeburn.
A little
butter on top and they then spent some time in the oven in a pan that had had
white wine applied generously to it.
With
Halloween around the corner, that means All Souls' Day/Día de Muertos
will also soon be upon us. And so I had to buy a loaf of Pan de Muerto this
week. But our favorite Mexican bakery which was just 3 blocks away closed last
year. What to do?
Go to the next closest Mexican bakery.
The Frau and I made the mistake of stopping there
on our way to the grocery store to get dinner. I ended up getting a loaf that
had just come out of the oven and it filled our car with the most heavenly
scent. My mouth started watering instantly.
Bonus photo: This time it's a weathervane – with a dragon!
Early August 2021
I wrote previously that I was saddened when the news came down that an old Prohibition era roadhouse here in Madison with ties
to Chicago mobsters called The Wonder Bar was slated to be demolished to make way
for an 18-story high rise. In a surprising turn of events, the Madison Plan
Commission saved the building by denying permission to the
developer. Considering that the owner was ready to sell and that the restaurant
has been closed for months, I am not sure that it is out of the woods yet but
at least it has been given a temporary reprieve.
********
I saw this
at the grocery store last week: sauerkraut in squeeze bottles from a company
called Sauer Frau. I love the name and logo.
A cousin of mine sent out
an email last month with a link to a photo gallery of train stations from
the days of yore. I was reminded of this missive a couple weeks ago when one of
our local papers ran an article about the debate over where to build a train
station should intercity passenger rail return to Madison.
The article
quoted a local urban planner:
"If
Madison aims high, and hires the best station architects available, then it can
have a beautiful new civic icon," he said.
Our mayor
wants to locate it on the north side in the former Oscar Mayer site which is in the early days of being transformed from a meat processing facility into something new that doesn't smell like hot dogs.
Here's a rendering showing a train station in the lower center with a clock
tower.
Of course,
there's no guarantee we'll even need a station in the near future. But let us
hope. Biden's infrastructure bill is working its way through the legislative
process…
********
Despite
having been open since 2017 and being a mere 2 blocks from our house, the Frau and I had never been to the Olbrich Biergarten until a week or so ago. Located
on the north shore of Lake Monona, it serves up beer, soda, pretzels, and
mini-bratwurst in an idyllic setting. Well, it's idyllic when the lake doesn't smell of toxic algae slime.
It seems
that all of the doomsaying by the local Cassandras didn't come to pass,
thankfully.
********
Back in high
school I read Kerouac's On the Road and Ginsberg's "Howl". It took me a
while but I have finally read something by the final member of the Beat
Generation holy triumvirate, William S. Burroughs. I don't know why it took me
so long especially considering his brief resurgence of popularity while I was
in college when he did a couple spoken word albums with the musicians Kurt
Cobain and The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, respectively. It was the Beat Generation
collaborating with Generation X.
After I
finished reading the novel, I sought out a little more about the man and found
that the radio show This American Life broadcasted a BBC Radio 4
documentary about Burroughs called "Burroughs at 100" and it can be
found here. To say that the guy was a character
is a vast understatement.
********
Now that
there's fresh, local sweetcorn to be had, I bought some at the stand just 5 or
6 blocks from us. I grilled it up fine and turned it into elote, a.k.a. –
Mexican street corn. I mixed some mayo with crema (Mexican sour cream) and
smeared it on liberally. Then a layer of cotija, a dry cheese that crumbles
into small bits easily, followed by some chili powder, and finally plenty of
lime juice. It accompanied some fresh kielbasa that was also grilled to
perfection.
The stuffing
included rum soaked raisins and, on the day I was to cook the chops, I got them
soaking first thing. I mean it was 5 A.M. and I went to the liquor cabinet to
find the rum even before turning on the coffeemaker. My morning routine normally starts
with the Brewing of the Coffee followed by feeding the cats who are noisily petitioning me with meows for breakfast so you can imagine they were not
happy and even a bit confused as to just what the human was up to. In addition
to those raisins, the stuffing had apple slices sautéed in butter, some
cinnamon sugar, and bread crumbs. The chops were braised with beer in the oven
and I think they turned out pretty well.
Bonus photo. I saw this on the back of a car on one of my bike rides. When they turn on the rear windshield wipers, Arnie flexes his muscles.
A few years ago The Dulcinea and I were watching some travel show where the host went to Bamberg, Germany and toured the Schlenkerla brewery. This immediately made us thirst for some rauchbier. Then this person stopped in at some hole-in-the-wall restaurant and had a Bamberg Onion. This had two results: 1) I vowed to go to Bamberg someday and 2) we got really hungry and probably ordered a pizza. Since I can't go to Bamberg, I decided to bring a little of it to my home and made the titular onions.
The first thing you do is peel some onions and then scoop out their guts. I cried and cried doing this. Next time I hope to have a nice serrated melon baller with a comfy ergonomic grip to speed things up and make it easier on my finger. I took the onion guts and pureed them I did the same with a smoked pork chop. Then I mixed it all with some ground pork, eggs, bread crumbs, and seasoning. Aside from salt and pepper, I added mace and marjoram. What you're doing is essentially putting a smoked brat in an onion.
I went to the Jenifer Street Market to get my meat for this venture and was disappointed to find that, not only did they not have any of Nueske's smoked chops but that they were also out of ground pork. So I went to Jim's. I got some smoked chops and they ground the pork for me on the spot. It was so nice to be able to go to a butcher shop on a weekend when there was actually a butcher around instead of simply someone who can weigh and wrap meat. I suspect that there are no real butchers at the big grocery stores these days and perhaps a slight chance of the Jenifer Street Market employing one. Unfortunately Jim's has succumbed to the brat craze. By this I mean having only a smattering of cuts of meat and instead filling the display case with funkily-flavored sausages. If I hear one more word about how "sophisticated" Madison is in a culinary way, I am going to vomit. There are shopping days when I have a problem finding a simple cut of meat like a rump or chuck roast because meat departments and butchers are spending all their time combining ground pork with bulk powdered seasoning mixes from Sysco so all the sophistos can have their gyros, chipotle & sun dried tomato, and mac & cheddar brats. Meat counters across the land are inundated with these sausages as well as pre-stuffed this and marinated that. So I call bullshit on any notion that Madisonians are any more culinarily sophisticated than folks in Richland Center. With the filling done, you stuff those bad boys.
After about 45 minutes in the oven, you apply bacon and pop the root end of the onion that was hacked off earlier on top and return to the heat to finish.
