Thumbprint 6: Weizen Doppelbock by New Glarus Brewing Co.

Back in 2021, New Glarus Brewing bid good riddance to the worst of the pandemic and its lockdowns with Gyrator, a doppelbock that eased me into winter with a rush of malty goodness and a nice buzz. Apparently others were similarly smitten and we collectively made Gyrator into a hit. Well, as big a hit a New Glarus beer that isn't Spotted Cow can be, I guess.

Realizing they had stumbled onto something good, Dan Carey and his brewhouse minions (with the blessing of Deb Carey, of course) went the doppelbock route again last fall and loosed Weizen Doppelbock upon us late in the autumn.

The weizen doppelbock is, as far as I know, a bigger, chewier, more potent version of the venerable hefeweizen/weissbier, a.k.a. - the German wheat bier. The style involves boiling a bunch of wheat that has been bolstered with some barley and then letting the resulting proto-bier mingle with a particular type of yeast that poops out tasty phenols and esters that your tongue thinks are like banana, clove, bubble gum, et al. Today I learned that this yeast strain is called Torulaspora delbrueckii. I suppose a weizen doppelbock is just this formula with more ingredients.

While hefeweizens are fairly common, their doppelbock cousins are not. When it comes to this style, I immediately think of Tap 6: Mein Avenitus from the German brewery Schneider Weisse - G. Schneider & Sohn. It is the platonic ideal of a weizen doppelbock from a brewery that turns the popular drink into an art form. They seem to have weissbier in their blut and brew various takes on the style: cloudy, clear, bocky, eisbocky, extra hoppy, aged in wine barrels, und so weiter.

In addition to increasing my yeast knowledge today, I have also learned that the name "Aventinus" refers to the Bavarian historian of that same name, a.k.a. - Johannes Turmair, who lived from 1477-1534. Now, why the bier was named after him is as of yet unknown to me. Perhaps it's just a tribute to a local boy who done good for himself.

For their part, New Glarus seem to have taken a cue from Tap 6. Their weizen doppelbock appears to be rather traditional, if the text on the bottle is to be believed. No mention of added fruit nor the use of experimental hops; no kveik-torulaspora hybrid yeast for that Norwegian farmhouse weizen taste.

 

The beer came with a lovely firm, light tan head of no small volume. And it had staying power too, owing, no doubt, to all of the protein from the wheat. (60% wheat, I hear.) It was deep copper in color and cloudy. I could smell banana even though my glass was several inches from my nose. Moving it closer, I also caught bubble gum and a wheaty-grainy aroma. Although it had been a while since I'd had an Aventinus, I felt my memories of it come flooding back in every sip of estery goodness.

Although it had a medium-full body, there was also a hefty dose of fizz here that kept my tongue from being cloyed by all the malty sweetness. Banana and bubble gum were the most prominent flavors from that special yeast, but there was a hint of clove in there too. That sweetness was a bit like raisin and balanced by some hops which had a herbal, vaguely minty taste. And there was the taste of wheat as well.

The fruity flavors lingered on the finish as the sweetness faded. Something like mild cinnamon entered the picture here as the hops gained in strength. They, along with some boozy heat, made for a nice dry, bitter finish that stood in stark contrast to the big malty sweetness that I had just swallowed.

My tasting was done in February and this weizen doppelbock made a fine companion on a chilly night. Furthermore, I can recommend its muscle relaxing qualities after shoveling snow. The label notes that it was double decocted but I didn't detect much, if anything, in the way of the toasty bread flavor I associate with that process. Maybe it was just me because, when I see "weizen", I immediately start thinking of banana and clove and all of the flavors from the yeast and how I prefer the former. Perhaps I was concentrating on that and not any traces of Maillard reactions and this steered by tastebuds in a certain direction.

Regardless, this is a very fine beer. I hope that the trend continues this autumn with a roggenbier brewed to bock strength so I can have a taste-off with Tippy Toboggan.

Junk food pairing: When drinking one of these Weizen Doppelbocks, shake hands with beef and pop open a bag of Lay's Kobe Steak flavored potato chips.

Under the Covers

I've been a music fan for decades and I still occasionally run into the original version of songs that I only knew as a cover but didn't know they were covers. Not too long ago I discovered these tunes:

The Chain-Smoking Gumshoe

Last night my Frau and I braved the cold and snow and went to see Marlowe.

It was directed by an Irishman, Neil Jordan, and based on a novel by Irish author Benjamin Black (a.k.a.- John Banville) which is a tribute to Raymond Chandler's stories and features his enduring detective, Philip Marlowe.

I know nothing about the novel that is the basis of the film, The Black-Eyed Blonde, but felt that the movie was a fun homage to the film noir of yesteryear. Liam Neeson is the titular private dick and, before long, the femme fatale walks in, one Clare Cavendish played by the lovely Diane Kruger. Marlowe is drawn into a particularly seedy part of the Los Angeles underbelly in 1939. 

The first few scenes have some lovely cinematography with plenty of light and shade courtesy of Venetian blinds.

Not knowing anything about the book, I felt that the Marlowe here was light on witticisms and aphorisms. Sure, there was a quip here and there but he's much more weary than witty.

It was a bit funny to be watching a contemporary movie in 2023 with so much smoking. Whenever Marlowe meets someone, he offers a cigarette. Today that's a good way to get a heap of social opprobrium most of the time, if not physically assaulted. Is there a sociological term for this kind of thing? When you share something as a way of breaking the ice with a stranger or easing into a conversation with an acquaintance you haven't seen in a while?

While my Frau really didn't like this movie, I thought it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed delving into the mystery. While the characters were mostly to type, I still liked watching them do their thing. Marlowe doesn't break new ground but I enjoy these retro noir hard-boiled detective tales. When was the last time we had one? L.A. Confidential in 1997?

Oh the Dalekanity!

An epic 7-parter that picks up exactly where "The Faceless Ones" left off.

With Ben and Polly gone, Jamie steps forward to pick up the slack. He's a real mensch here. Not only does he do the classic things such as going off to save the pretty girl, but he also shows pity on his enemy and gives the Doctor a piece of his mind a couple of times. Jamie is a man of action here, a companion that doesn't just stand around waiting for direction from the Doctor.

The recorder makes a return here - it is 7 parts and so has plenty of time to fill - and the Doctor has that aura of all-knowing as he has figured out things before most of the others/comprehends more than they do, having met the Daleks before. Plus, he throws in plenty of indignation and Troughton does it louder than Hartnell.

I love the Dalek Emperor in looks and sounds. (It would return to battle the Ninth Doctor in 2005.) But, overall, the Daleks are rather wimpy here. They may have overcome the need for sucking up static electricity from the floors, but they were not the mini-tanks that they would become as we see Jamie and Kemel (R.I.P.) throw one down into a drawing room from a 2nd floor hallway and it explodes like a Pinto that has had its bumper gently tapped.

Here the Daleks snare the Doctor and force him to help them with an experiment. They want to isolate what they call the "human element", those human characteristics which help we Earthlings defeat the Daleks time and again. (No help from the Doctor, mind you.) This idea would return to the show in 2007 in "Evolution of the Daleks". It was simply pure fun to see Daleks infected with some humanity frolicking here, giving the Doctor a ride, joyously spinning in circles, etc.

We've also got the scientist blinded by his lust for power along with a fine beard and big mad scientist hair. And we get a new companion - Victoria, who is orphaned like Nyssa.

It's also the end of Troughton's first season, a.k.a. - series 4. His corridor running alone makes his tenure feel, if not exactly modern, then not so ancient. Hartnell went into gremlin mode every once in a while and put a lighthearted spin on the proceedings occasionally but Troughton alternates between a goofy trickster and simply indignant rather often. While Polly did her fair share of screaming, Ben and Jamie are quite often men of action, even if they don't give their actions proper consideration.

I enjoyed the wire work and we got to see something a little different from the Daleks, who bookended the season. Is "The Highlanders" the final pure historical for a while? I think so.

Series 2 to commence soon.

"The Navigators"

Another song from the forthcoming Jethro Tull album, RökFlöte, has been released - "The Navigator". It's a good tune and I am enjoying having the electric guitar up in the mix.

Back in theaters: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

How wonderful to have Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon back in theaters. I think it was the first bit of wuxia (or martial arts tale set in ancient China) for many Americans. I presume it was brought back as star Michelle Yeoh is popular once again because of her role in Everything Everywhere All At Once.

It was a hoot watching those fight scenes once again with the actors flying around on wires. The bad gal, Jade Fox, was suitably villainous with a dose of hubris for a classical character flaw. A pair of romances provided some motivation as well breaks from the investigation and fight scenes. There were some instances of those eternal conflicts in the human condition: between man and woman and between youth and age.

My Frau came out of the theater swooning over Chang Chen. For my part, I thought Michelle Yeoh was smoking! Oh, and Zhang Ziyi was pretty little thing too. And they were badasses, both.

I'd like to read the story that this film was based on.

Global Market & Food Hall & Rock

I made my first visit to Global Market & Food Hall relatively recently and find myself going there every other week or so to stock up on tom yum soup base, a bag of potato chips flavored for the shops of the Orient and not Peoria, and other miscellany. I go mid-morning so I've never eaten at the food hall though my Frau vouches for the tasty Hmong egg rolls to be had there.

It would appear that supply chain shortages are still plaguing the snack food chain of the East as I haven't seen tom yum flavored peanuts in a while. Are they perhaps sitting in containers aboard a ship that is hanging out off the California coast?

I really adore the mural at the entrance depicting a street somewhere in the Far East with sellers hawking their wares and foods.

I have to admit that I am flummoxed by the faux big black rock, though.

A Salt & Vinegar Miscellany XII

Are these South African lentils?!

I cannot see lentils - the legume or the word - and not think of that episode of The Young Ones where Neil makes lentil casserole and spills it on the floor. "Guys! There's some dinner on the floor, if you want it."

Unlike with most chips, I could smell the vinegar with these. Unfortunately, they went easy on it in the taste department. Salt too. These have some earthy lentil flavor but, oddly enough, they mostly tasted like fried wonton skins to me. I like those so I enjoyed these chips. Just not in a salt & vinegar way.

Therese Dreaming of Dunkel: My Turn - Chopper by Lakefront Brewery

As I type, the latest in Lakefront's My Turn series is Chopper, a Munich-style Dunkel. Chopper is the brewery's controller which, if the bottle's label is to be believed, means he sits in an office with a picture of Amatino Manucci on the wall behind him as he calculates the brewery's finances on an old Texas Instruments calculator.

The My Turn series, which allows employees to brew a beer of their choice or have a beer of their choice brewed, has had some appealing brews as of late. The kellerbier was great but I didn't taste a Vienna lager, Berliner Weisse, and Dunkelweizen which all sound tasty and are most welcome as the brewery embraces the IPA ever more strongly. It's not that non-IPAs have all gone away, but Lakefront used to brew a nice variety of beers but it's gotten kind of less so.

Bitching about the ubiquity of IPAs is like shooting fish in a barrel. I get it. But I remember when Fixed Gear was a red ale, not an IPA. (I also remember when they brewed it too.) There was a witbier, a mild, an ESB...I adored their cherry lager. These days it's largely IPA this and barrel-aged that. Oh well.

One area they seem to be a pioneer in instead of a follower is with non-alcoholic beers. Just as they were on the bleeding edge of gluten-free brews, they now seem to be the leaders of NA beer brewing. I don't drink NA beers but good for Lakefront. While I miss the non-IPAs of yesteryear, I will find solace in the wonderful variety of the My Turn series.

Chopper ran the numbers and found a Munich-style Dunkel wouldn't break the bank. It's a close cousin to their Eastside Dark, which is described as a Bavarian dark lager. They have some malts in common but different hops. I presume the same yeast is used in both. A side-by-side comparison would be neat but, since I don't get paid to do this, you're stuck with just the one beer.

Chopper is a lovely bier. Dark copper and ruby-tinged, by right, it should have had a big, light tan head atop it but my pour only produced a modicum of foam and what was there disappeared rather quickly. No doubt my poor pouring skills on display once more. As is proper with Munich-style Dunkels, it was clear. The aroma had some prominent milk chocolate along with roasted grain and stone fruit smells.

Looking at the bier, I didn't see many bubbles but my tongue was greeted with a nice, medium dose of fizziness. Roasty grain, a little milk chocolate, and bit of bread gave the bier a full flavor despite having only a medium-light body. On the swallow, those malty flavors faded allowing a moderate bit of spicy-herbal hoppiness - think black tea but "greener" - to come through and deposit some bitterness and dryness which both lasted a while on my tongue.

I brought some of this over to a friend's house for a homebrew day and he, a professional brewer type, was delighted by this bier. And so was I. While I wish it was a bit breadier tasting, I really enjoyed how the hops kept the sweeter inclinations of the malts in check. Its light body made for some easy drinking and refreshment on a chilly winter day of sparging and stirring.

It has been a while since I've had an Eastside Dark so I am going from memory here. This is very similar to Lakefront's beloved annual. I think the chocolate is more prominent in Chopper and that it's a bit breadier than Eastside. Methinks I shall have to get some Eastside Dark to refresh my memory.

Junk food pairing: Pair your Chopper with a bag of steak flavored Cheetos. The faux beef flavor goes with the roasted grain flavors in the bier and cheese just goes with everything.

Rolling Stone Says "Milwaukee Rap Is Taking Over TikTok"

I am not a subscriber but, if you are, you can read the article here. Regardless, good to see Milwaukee get some positive national press.

Another full moon, another Peter Gabriel tune

Speaking of Peter Gabriel...

Another full moon has arrived, I guess, because he has released another new song from his impending album - "The Court (Dark-Side Mix)".

The Knights of Magog Standing Around

Hmm...

(Photo found here.)

You got potato chips in my croutons! You got croutons in my potato chips!: Hen of the Woods Red Wine Vingear Kettle Cooked Potato Chips

Hen of the Woods is a snack company out of Cincinnati. Their website tells an origin story involving 3 area chefs who were on a mission to make a gluten-free crouton. "Countless trials later we found it," it claims, "and our Red Wine Vinegar potato chips born [sic]." This sounds more than a bit suspicious to me. How do you go from croutons to potato chips? With drugs.

I bet they were tinkering around with sorghum or millet or corn and got frustrated. So they popped open a few cold ones and then lit a doobie. Finding themselves more than a bit hungry, they ordered a pizza. But the munchies just wouldn't wait so they busted out a bag of potato chips which got into a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup-like accident with a nearby cruet of red wine vinegar. Viola! The snack at hand was born.

That's my hypothesis, anyway.

Hen of the Woods is a type of mushroom but the company's website makes no mention of how it got named after a mushroom. (A 'shroom, eh? Hmm...)

This is apparently the first time I've encountered a salt & vinegar chip made with red wine vinegar. I thought that I'd tasted one or at least a chip that had red wine vinegar in addition another variety but, alas, I can find no evidence of such a snack. Too bad as red wine vinegar is very tasty with a fruity, vinous flavor. It's my preferred vinegar for potato salad.

These chips were light in color - a very light yellow - with some brown edges. When I stuck my nose in the bag and took a whiff, it caught mainly oil. But there was a faint vinegar tang and a hint of potato as well.

In addition to being kettle cooked, these spuds were also sliced more thickly than your normal chip. As expected, they had a high crunch factor. Concomitant to that, however, was a kind of mushiness. Kind of like a Tootsie Roll Pop with its hard candy shell encasing a soft interior. It was as if these chips were thickly sliced and not cooked long enough to imbue crunchiness throughout.

This crunchy-mushy yin-yang thing aside, they had a lovely creamy potato flavor. They went easy on the salt but get a pass, I suppose, since they're advertised as vinegar chips and not salt & vinegar. The vinegar was firm but stopped short of corrosive strength. And I could taste the red wine part of it.

Although perhaps not as tangy as is my preference in these matters, these are excellent chips. The vinegar tastes wonderful as do the chips, texture issues aside. The tang and spud comingle perfectly here.

I would also add that Hen of the Woods kept things basic in this recipe. There are no "natural" flavorings to be had. You've got some citric acid added to the holy trinity of potato, oil, and vinegar powder but that's it. You don't need to adulterate a salt & vinegar chip. Keeping it simple is a winning formula.

Grassmilk: An Amateur Flavoromics Investigation

I bought some half & half from Organic Valley made by cows on a diet of grass instead of grain.

To begin with, this grassy stuff looks a bit different than what I am used to. Instead of being white, it appears off white. Just a tad. It also definitely tastes different from my usual half & half courtesy of the cows at Sassy Cow. I'm not sure how to describe the flavor. I think it tastes more like butter and...a bit floral, perhaps? I cannot discern any green type of flavor - it doesn't taste like it would if you pull up some blades from your lawn and pop them in your mouth. The best analogy I can think of is that your common milk is like white chicken meat and the stuff from grass-fed cows is like lamb. More aromatic, more pungent.

I live in America's Dairyland. Within 10 miles of my house is the University of Wisconsin-Madison, home of Stephen Babcock, the man who figured out how to accurately measure the amount of butterfat in milk 130 years ago. Surely today it is home to the world's leading dairy scientists, at least one of whom can give me the 411 on the taste of milk from grass-fed cows.

...

I posed the question of what makes milk from grass-fed cows taste different to Jimena Laporta, Assistant Professor Lactation Physiology, here in town at the esteemed Department of Animal & Dairy Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

She begins:

I am not sure I have a well rounded answer to your question, my understanding is that increasing the inclusion of grass in the diet of dairy cows changes the fatty acid composition of the milk (higher omega 3 lower omega 6 in grass fed cows according to the literature).

I wonder if this fatty acid composition accounts for the buttery flavor I tasted. She continues:

The gut microbes will work differently to digest grass compared to grain and legume based diets and that changes the profile of precursors and intermediates reaching the mammary gland.  Also, in organic milks there is a different processing after milk is harvested leading to (possibly) crystallization of the sugars (mainly lactose) and denaturation of primary milk proteins.

This whole milk production thing is more complicated than I thought.

I found this paper called "The Flavor of Dairy Products from Grass-Fed Cows" and, though most of it was way above my head, three things stood out.

The first is that the science addressing this question is somewhat lacking. "...there is sufficient evidence of the presence of a distinctive aroma in milk from grass-fed cows, but the connection with specific aroma-active compounds is still in progress," the authors say. "...several molecules have been identified as potential key-flavor compounds of grass-based milk and dairy products, but their real sensory impacts still need to be defined in detail," they admit.

"Further work is still needed to answer the question," we are told. "...but the increasing application of a flavoromics approach to the studies should rapidly bring about a decisive contribution to the knowledge."

Woo hoo!

We should have an answer in my lifetime.

Secondly, the paper explained the off white color I noticed:

"Under the sensory point of view, the yellow color and the smoother texture of derived butter and cheese is the most evident effect of grass feeding: these features are connected to the higher concentrations of β-carotene and unsaturated fatty acids with respect to non-grass-based products."

The final thing that stood out for me was this:

"Other potentially flavor-active compounds in milk from grass-based farming systems are indole and skatole (presenting flowery of fecal odor, depending on the concentration)."

Now there is an aroma descriptor I have never used when writing about food going in, just coming out.

I think more research is needed in this area to close our diary knowledge gap.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 75 - Postlude: Slowing down

Watch your honey drip, can't keep away: Peach Mead by Wyldewood Cellars

Here we have my final review of a Wyldewood Cellars mead. For now. While I bought a variety 4-pack, the bottle of raspberry mead ended up at a friend's house.

I was listening to a podcast earlier today and the host remarked that the pigs my medieval European ancestors kept looked different from the ones we have today. It made me wonder if peaches are in a similar predicament. Apparently they are. Thought to have originated in China, they were in Mediterranean regions by the 4th century B.C.E. and spread from there. It seems the Spanish brought them over to these parts in the late 16th century.

It says here that peaches can have white or yellow flesh but that the latter are a product of the second half of the 19th century. I have also learned about peach stones. If the flesh adheres to it, it's called a clingstone. But, if the flesh is easily removed, it's called a freestone.

As I was reading that there are a couple thousand plus varieties of peaches, I thought about how we (i.e. - average American supermarket denizens) are presented and familiar with multiple varieties of apples but not so with peaches. Sure, we may not recall which variety of apple is best for baking, canning, or eating raw, but we are accustomed to seeing green ones and red ones; apple shaped ones and shorter, rounder ones that are shaped more like tomatoes. But, generally speaking, when we go to the store, a peach is a peach is a peach. We just hope the flesh isn't mealy, which, I just learned, happens when the fruit's pectin isn't allowed to breakdown due to cold storage.

Here is a sampling of peach varieties.

We have the Doughnut peach which is a bit flattened and its stem area is a depression that gives the appearance of a doughnut hole. Then we have the Brazilian Babcock variety that is missing the iconic fuzz. Indiana Jones' favorite peach is surely the Melting Flesh. I guess it take the freestone concept to the next level. There is also a Madison peach which is hardy enough for Wisconsin weather.

Lastly, I'll note that peaches taste like peaches because of compounds called lactones. It appears that gamma-decalactones are the main culprit as they taste like, er...um, peaches.

I guess Wyldewood used white-fleshed peaches because this peach mead looked like water. Actually, this mead is a blend of their sweet mead and peach wine so I suppose it's more correct to say that their wine must have been made with white-fleshed peaches. But shouldn't the mead have been yellow? There might have been the barest hint of yellow here but really, it looked colorless. It was also clear and unfizzed. While minimalism ruled the visual aspect, the olfactory one was much less ascetic as the mead smelled very sweet with the honey being floral and aided by a bit of earthiness. The peach was in the back somewhere.

As with the other Wydlewood meads I've tasted, this was very sweet and very smooth. The earthy-vanilla aspect of the honey seemed more prominent to my tongue. Just like their other meads, this stuff is 12% A.B.V. and there was some boozy heat to be tasted. The peach was mild, at first, but became much fuller as the mead warmed. The fruity/honey sweetness lingered when I swallowed but some gentle tannins eventually came through bringing a mild dryness that made for a nice contrast.

Another tasty wine from the folks at Wyldewood. Sweet but not like drinking Libby's Peach Nectar. I appreciated how the peach never totally obscured the honey. The ratio of these 2 flavors varied with temperature, but I could always taste both. A fine lactone-laced mead.

Junk food pairing: I recommend white peach & jasmine potato chips to accompany this mead. The jasmine adds a nice floral taste to the proceedings while the salt contrasts with sweetness nicely and enhances the flavors all around.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 75: Slowing Down for the Towns That Time Forgot

(late October 2022)

(Check out this entry's rant. Er, prelude.)

Heading west out of Osseo on Highway 10, it’s about 10 miles to the town of Strum which greets you with this Potemkin village-like facade.

Although you are welcomed in Norwegian, I don't think there's much Norwegian heritage on display in town. There's the Viking Golf Course but that's about it. To the best of my knowledge, there's no restaurant offering lefse wraps like the Norske Nook down the road in Osseo, no bakeries with lefse and sandbakkels. I didn't notice any Norwegian flags.

That was one of the things that struck me when I moved to this area - the lack of ethnic character. OK, there were the Ole & Lena jokes which supplanted the Polock jokes that I knew from Chicago but that's all I can recall. My hometown is full of ethnic enclaves but I found nothing like that in Trempealeau County. I don't doubt that Norwegian culture could be found in pockets here and there and that I, a mere teenager, simply missed them, but there was nothing of any scale. No Syttende Mai parades, for example.

It doesn’t take long before you’re out of town and on your way to Eleva. Originally called New Chicago, the legend I always heard was that its name came about when someone was painting the word "Elevator" on the side of a grain elevator but couldn't finish owing to the weather and/or onset of winter. A few months go by with a giant "Eleva" in the middle of town and the name stuck. More likely it's a corruption of a French name.

Eleva is a rather nondescript town like Strum. Its claim to fame is an apocryphal tale that Jesse James and his James Gang buried some loot or gold in the area after their raid on the First National Bank in Northfield, Minnesota. Legend has it that they buried their booty either by Chimney Rock to the south of Eleva or near Hamlin, a town that was to the east. However, the raid on the bank was a failure and the robbers came away with a paltry $26.70.

Hamlin was a stop on the Tomah-Hudson Stage Coach Line and something of a town on the make by the 1880s. Prosperity came to a crashing halt when that railroad line I mentioned in my last entry bypassed Hamlin. However, it proved a shot in the arm for Eleva which got a rail stop. I think the Hamlin Cemetery is all that remains of the town.

I caught 93 north in Eleva. As I mentioned in my entry about this drive last year, the views from the ridge just north of town are spectacular.

Back in the autumn I found this photo (and a couple others) that were taken atop the ridge back in 1914.

I sent the site to my friend Jason who promptly went out on a hunt for the spot where the photos were taken. He is fairly confident that he has found it.

My next destination was the Hadleyville Cemetery. Halloween was approaching, after all.

Hadleyville was a small town that used to lie about 2 miles north as the crow flies from where I lived which was 10 miles or so north of Eleva. Since the cemetery is dated to 1859, I assume the town was also founded that year. It dissolved sometime during the Great Depression. Wikipedia cites a source claiming that the general store was across the street from the cemetery.

A friend and I were discussing this extinct community one time and wondered if the little grocery store that we used to stop at on our bike rides was part of the town. It was called Hazen’s, I believe, and was a bit west of the cemetery.

Here is what it looks like today.

An aerial map from 1939 shows the structure although it has been added onto over the years.

Was it part of Hadleyville? A definite maybe.

Here’s a satellite view of the cemetery and its surroundings today.

1939:

It appears that, within 10 years, all traces of the town had vanished except for the cemetery.

When I was in Milwaukee in October, my friend who is from this area told us a tale of how her father brought her and her brothers out here one Halloween for a little spooky fun. Things did not go as planned.

I presume Joseph D. Hadley was a founding father of the town. He was surely related to one, at least. The cemetery has plenty of space for new residents and the latest marker I found was for a poor child who died at 17 days old and was buried there in 2021.

Several tombstones had a picture at the top like Mr. Hadley’s. I must admit that when I saw this one:

I felt that it looked like something from a Monty Python animation scene. As if it was going to push an animated man in a bowler hat into the Argument Clinic or some such thing.

One thing that struck me as I walked around the cemetery was that there were no people with Scandinavian surnames interred there. The area is infested with Norwegian-Americans. Recall the Norske Nook in Osseo; the Strum welcome sign is in Norwegian; the golf course in Strum is the Viking Golf Course. Almost everyone in the area is an Olson, Nelson, Johnson, Skogstad, and so on.

Although I wished the sun had peeked out from behind the clouds more frequently, it was a fairly nice day. Not too chilly. A few cars passed by as the road the cemetery is on intersects with a couple state highways and some backroads which take you into Eau Claire about 10 miles to the north.

It was quiet and peaceful but, at one point, I noticed the cawing of crows. No surprise as they seem to need little cause to give their piercing call. But the cawing seemed to continue for longer than normal. So, as I returned to my car, I decided to see what the hubbub was all about.

I saw this scene in a tree which, perhaps, stood behind the site of the Hadleyville general store.

Those two crows were reading that eagle the riot act. How many minutes had it just sat there perched on the branch ignoring the insults? However long, the eagle just didn’t care and sat there calmly as the crows hopped from branch to branch in search of an even better spot from which to let loose their corvidian invective.

Eventually the eagle took off towards the cemetery and I made my way north in search of a little something to break my fast. My destination was about 35 miles up the road: Bohemian Ovens in Bloomer.

Bohemian Ovens Bakery and Restaurant is known for its kolache. Now, growing up, my Polish grandma made kołaczki, which were diamond shaped cookies filled with jam or jelly. And the dough was made with cream cheese. My Frau and I encountered the Czech kolache last year in Cedar Rapids, you may recall. Those were larger and round with a flakier, more bread-like dough.

I found that Bohemian Ovens made sweet as well as savory kolache. Furthermore, theirs were pasty-like with the filling enclosed in a bready dough. I bought samples of both kinds. Here was my breakfast, ham & cheese kolache:

It was very tasty. The enclosure was a very light, fluffy dough and really hit the spot. I also brought home a package of peanut butter Nutella kolache. These were smaller with a dollop of frosting on top.

Heavenly stuff!

From Bloomer it was maybe 12 miles to my next stop – the Chippewa Moraine State Recreation Area. I was there last year in mid-November and was hoping to find a few trees that still had leaves this time around. And, unlike last year, there was no rain in the forecast. Even a little sun here and there was to be expected.

On my way there I passed by some ruins and I just had to pull over and check them out.

A collapsed outbuilding, I guess.

A set of stairs that lead to nowhere…I presume there was a shed there at some point.

When I arrived at the recreation area, I found a school bus parked in the lot with a bored looking driver behind the wheel just like last year. A group of kids was running around by the interpretive center with some trying their hand at a demonstration featuring a two-man crosscut saw. We were up in the pinery, after all.

I put on my new boots which I had bought in Osseo and hit the trail. Last year I went left at the intersection so this year I went right.

Just like last year, the scenery was spectacular.

It was a lovely day – perfect for a hike. And there were indeed trees that still had leaves. This place must look simply incredible when the trees are at peak colors. Still, the trails were gorgeous.

I suppose there’s a trade off to be made. If the trees have full canopies, then views of the many kettle lakes would be obscured from the trail. Later in the autumn, you get views of the lakes but little colorful foliage.

At one spot I found evidence of a beaver that had been hard at work.

When I walk the trails, I alternate between looking up – the sky, potential bird sightings in the trees - looking around at the lovely scenery, perhaps to spot a deer (or a bear), and down at the ground so I don’t step awkwardly onto a rock or tree root and take a tumble. It’s easy to get lost in one’s thoughts.

On one stretch of the trail, I was looking up, down, and all around, my thoughts in the clouds. Then I looked down and saw this:

I took evasive action so that I didn’t step on it. Like that eagle, it just didn’t care and didn’t move an inch. I knew it wasn’t a timber rattlesnake and figured it was non-poisonous. Even when I stooped down to get photographs, it remained still. I think it’s a garter snake of some variety.

Not 10 steps up the trail from my serpent friend I spied something long and thin on the ground and the primitive fight or flight part of my brain yelled, “Snake!!” No doubt my pupils dilated as much as they could to take in the potential threat as a small dose of adrenaline shot through my veins. Closer examination revealed it to be a moss-covered stick. That’s evolution for ya.

The sun did indeed peek out occasionally and made for some nice photo opportunities.

I don’t know what it is, but I have a thing for moss covered rocks and trees.

Towards the end of my hike – about 4.5 miles – I came upon a sign.

I realized that I had gone the “correct” way around this time. Plus, I think it offered some important wisdom: Slow down. It asks the walker to “take a few minutes to relax before finishing your hike.”

This.

This is exactly why I went up north. To slow down, relax, and spend some time when I am not slave to a clock. To get out of bed when the sun rises instead of at the insistence of an alarm app on my phone (or a hungry cat, for that matter). To go about my day at a leisurely and deliberate pace instead of being pulled here and there by the demands of work and everything else that would have my time.

The recreation area is rather large and encompasses much more than the area I hiked. My walk took me along a short segment of the Ice Age Trail but it continued to the southeast. I drove around the area, including down a designated scenic road for a spell. The land is just gorgeous. One road is a narrow two-lane affair with no shoulder and no stretch that goes straight for more than 100 feet, it seemed. I took it at 35MPH the whole way and took in the scenery.

Evening approached and my stomach was insistent that I put food in it. It was back to Bloomer where I could get a beer and dinner at the Bloomer Brewing Company.

I arrived just after opening and was the only person there for a little while.

The bartender was a young woman who didn’t look old enough to legally consume the beer she was serving but that may just be a sign of me getting older. I asked what was happening in Bloomer these days and she unenthusiastically replied with something about a high school volleyball tournament. She may have been distracted by a slate of opening duties yet to be performed or was simply a young person who was eager to leave the confines of a small town and seek her fortune elsewhere. Or maybe she just wanted to be out with friends instead of being at work.

My first beer was a Hog Breath. The brewery didn’t give a style for it but it was a stout or some kind of dark ale.

It had a faint smokiness along with a maple syrup sweetness. The latter ingredient was a nice Northwoods touch. Being served cold and an abundance of fizz kept it from being cloying. It was a nice, hearty drink to relax with after a hike.

I was pleased to see people trickle in. First was an older couple and then a younger one. A trio of women who looked like they had just gotten off from work shuffled in to start the weekend. The place was not full when I left but it was slowly getting more crowded. Hopefully it’ll be around when I am up that way again.

My next destination was a hotel room in Chetek. The plan was to relax and then get to the Chetek Bakery in the hope that they’d have some Swedish limpa bread on offer.

********

Bonus photo. It’s Grabby again. She’s been sleeping on my backpack on the dining room table a lot lately. Sometimes, though, she must be moved to accommodate eaters. Here she is shortly after being awakened from her slumbers.

The 18-25 demographic is shrinking

As I was watching, it occurred to me that this one seemed like a Pertwee or Tom Baker episode. It just felt like something from later in the classic series as opposed to the Hartnell era. There was a variety of locations around the airport and then add in the plane/spaceship and the big spaceship and you've kept those set builders very busy. Throw in some scenes out on the airfield and you have a rather extensive story world.

Sadly, Ben is absent for most of the story. Polly fares little better, getting more screen time only in the form of the alien that took her likeness. I guess the show's makers had given up on them by this time and had no interest in giving them a grand send-off. Instead, the Doctor and Jamie pairing gets an early run.

I watched the black & white animated episodes and the remaining 2 original ones. I must admit that I really like the animation. It may not be the most expensive, photorealistic stuff around, but it has a low budget charm just like the show itself. The grinning guy at the newsstand was funny plus I noticed a wanted poster with the Master's face on it.

Jamie gets in a wee snog with Samantha, a woman looking for her brother. What a stud! Leaving the originals (i.e. - humans) in those cars - not exactly the best hiding place, if you ask me. The animation meant the shots of planes and spaceships were better than what could be done back then. I also loved the detective with his omnipresent pipe. Did the animation ever show smoke coming from it or was that only in the surviving footage?

Overall I liked this story. Jamie is a fun character. I miss the goofy Doctor, though, especially the recorder playing. And I, for one, had no problem with the disguises. He's much more your standard Doctor here. That the aliens were taking young adults to be interpreted as a commentary on the youth culture of 1967? Hmm...

Troughton's first season is almost done and it ends with Daleks.

Building / Blocks: The Architecture of Chicago’s South Side

This looks to be a really neat look at the overlooked architecture of Chicago's south side. Host Lee Bey is a photographer and I believe he now writes a column for the Chicago Sun-Times.

With the Honey and Berries United: Elderberry Blackberry Mead by Wyldewood Cellars

When I was composing my previous elderberry mead review, I wrote under the impression that elderberries were on the obscure side of things, that the folks at Wyldewood Cellars were nearly alone in their love of the fruit of the elder plant and that, for most, they were simply something mentioned in a Monty Python movie.

One day after having posted that review, I was poking around my refrigerator for some sport peppers because I was in the middle of a Chicago dog marathon when I came across a bottle of elderberry tincture or some such thing. It reminded me of my impression that elderberry juice was de rigueur in natural health circles. It may not be, but it seems fairly common to me, at least, with multiple people I know taking it whereas it was nowhere to be seen a few years back.

It also occurred to me that elderflower liqueur was trendy. (I believe we have a bottle of St. Germaine that my wife bought in the liquor cabinet.) Although I am not a big cocktail drinker, I've heard tell of tasty concoctions that have elderflower liqueur in them from some folks who frequent bars that have a cocktail menu that reaches beyond Old Fashioneds and rum & coke. Plus I've seen articles about craft cocktails that mention it in local publications.

I then discovered the existence of the Midwest Elderberry Cooperative, a group that promotes the growing and selling of elderberries. Although the coop is out of Minnesota, it seems that there are some Wisconsin members. The coop notes, "Over 95% of the elder ingredients found in American made products are sourced from outside our continent."

In addition to touting the elderberry's taste and health benefits, they also promote the environmental benefits: "Perennial native elderberry supports over 60 native pollinators, holds soils in place, sequesters carbon and sucks up nitrogen." My guess is that these qualities are basically the exact opposite ones of corn and soy beans, the biggest crops in this country.

It appears that the humble elderberry isn't quite obscure as I had thought initially.

Joining it here are blackberries. Along with raspberries, they are the main members of the caneberry family. I see here that cloudberries are also part of the family and my wife came back with a jar of cloudberry jam on a recent trip to Ikea. In a blind taste test, I think I'd be hard pressed to distinguish between a blackberry and a raspberry. To my mind blackberries are sweeter and less tart than raspberries. And I have just began my investigation of the cloudberry.

I'd be unable to distinguish the colors of plain elderberry mead and this elderberry-blackberry combo stuff even if I had a really detailed Pantone swatch book that was the OED of colors. They looked indistinguishable. Still, they also both looked lovely having a deep ruby hue. It was clear and had no fizz. The aroma was much the same as well. It smelled like berries along with a large dose of honeyed sweetness and that same vinous scent.

(I should make things easy for myself and just do some cutting and pasting here.)

The mead tasted smooth with a heavy body full of sugars as it was very sweet. Again, the honey had a prominent floral taste to it and less earthy. That vinous thing was present in the taste as was a nice tartness. I think this stuff was a little less tart than the mead made from elderberries alone. Not dramatically but noticeably.

I found that the honey-berry sweetness lingered after swallowing and the tannins took a little while to kick in and add moderate dryness.

I greatly enjoyed this mead as I did the version without the blackberries. The differences are subtle with the main one being that this stuff is a tad less tart. As I noted last time, I prefer dry mead but Wyldewood has a knack for using tart fruits to keep high doses of sweetness from being overly cloying.

Junk food pairing: To honor the coming together of two berries here, pair this mead with Lay's Funyuns Potato Chips which bring together two vegetables dug up from the soil.

The Cold War Turns Hot

Yesterday my gamer friends and I dipped our toes into the world of Twilight:2000.

The United States and its western allies went to war with the Soviet Union in the late 90s. It is now 2000 and Operation Reset is launched to rid Poland of the Soviets. It fails disastrously.

So a few of us, the remains of a platoon, are in our Humvee trying to make our way to the German border to meetup with our remaining forces and regroup. But Ivan lurks with his explosive devices at the side of the road, there are friendly stragglers here and there, and then there are the locals whose allegiance is not always clear.

We ended the session just south of Ostrów Wielkopolski with some injured comrades in back and a need to find some water.

A really fun hex crawl. It's a Free League game and uses the same basic rules as Alien, which I loved. I am really looking forward to the next session.

The Will of the Women

The publicity I saw for Women Talking made it out to be like 12 Angry Men except the men are women and there are fewer than 12 of them. Still angry, though. It's an apt comparison. Instead of a jury deliberating the fate of a defendant, here we have a group of women deliberating over whether they and the other women (and girls and younger boys) of a Mennonite colony should leave it. You see, the women and at least some of the girls have been drugged and raped by some of the men of the colony. The rapists were arrested but now the colony's men have gone to the city to post bail for them and expect the victims to forgive them unconditionally. This leaves the women a couple of days to determine whether to stay or leave.

A group of women gather to deliberate and quickly the Frances McDormand contingent abandon the deliberations saying that they intend to stay as the colony is their home and they know nothing else. The remaining women are left to hash things out.

Pros and cons are weighed, fears for the futures of their sons arise, and apologies are offered as they look back at their time in the colony. The younger women let their passions loose more easily than the older women who try to keep the deliberations on course and whose comments add an occasional dose of levity.

Rooney Mara is Ona and her big eyes and warm face are the anchor here. She loves August, a man who had previously left the colony but has been repatriated and is now a school teacher, and he her. August has been enlisted to take the minutes of their meeting. He and Ona's shared affections stand in contrast to the attitudes of seemingly the rest of the men in the colony.

The centerpiece here is a group of smart, strong women trying to figure out their fate and the fate of dozens of others. But we also have a couple of symbolic characters. August may be a man but, tellingly, he did not go to town to help post bail. He is presented as being rather feminine. He is very meek and he cries. 

His counterpart is Melvin, a woman who was raped and lost her child. I forgot how it is phrased in the movie but she assumed the identity of a man after enduring the traumas. Changed her name, cut her hair, and began wearing suspenders. When Melvin was introduced, I thought she might be a kind of Tiresias figure who could lecture from both sides. But it turned out she became a mute.

While I think the Melvin-August duo was a lost opportunity to toss around ideas of gender, the fact remains that drama at the center of the story was powerful and moving.

Adrift on the Sea of Sorrows

 

 

Yesterday I finished listening to the Alien: Sea of Sorrows audio drama. I've never read the book so it was all new territory for me.

I'll be honest, I got very scared a couple of times listening to this tale. I mean scared on top of a general feeling of creepiness sinking in from both ears. The first couple of times I heard the plasma rifles being fired, I think my fight or flight instinct kicked in. A shiver went up my spine.

It's a sequel to Alien: Out of the Shadows, which was also adapted into an audio drama. Here, a few hundred years after the events of the previous story, Alan Decker is pressganged into service by Weyland-Yutani as he has some psychic abilities and somehow dreams about Xenomorphs despite never having heard of them. It's off to LV-178 and its trimonite mines to secure a living Xenomorph for the arms division of W-Y.

Stockard Channing is a creepfest unto herself as Rollins, the cold, uncaring Weyland-Yutani apparatchik in charge of the mission. Good lord, her voice gave me the heebie jeebies.

This is all standard Alien fare - no new ground is broken here, really. But it was a great scare. And it made me wonder what kind of story could be had that broke the mold. How do you make a good Xenomorph story and break conventions at the same time?

Burn bright through the night

After having watched a couple movies that filter existential angst through the eyes of donkeys that unceremoniously meet their demise and then the malevolence of the ugly tourists in Brandon Cronenberg's latest, I was in the mood for something more upbeat and affirming of life.

While I caught a trailer for Living a couple weeks back, it didn't really make much of an impression on me. However, when I heard that it was a remake of a Kurosawa film, I reconsidered. That Kurosawa film is Ikuru and, although I know of it, I've never seen it.

It is 1953 and Bill Nighy plays Rodney Williams, a taciturn mid-level(?) manager type in the Public Works department or ministry who is always clad in pinstripe suit and bowler hat. He has a coterie of much younger minions who report to him that seem a little afraid of their inscrutable boss. At home, he lives with his son, Michael, and his daughter-in-law, Fiona. The young couple tend to keep Rodney at arms length and are eager to get their hands on some of the money he has stashed away.

Upon receiving a diagnosis of terminal cancer, Rodney heads to a seaside resort town that is completely unlike the one in Infinity Pool for one last hurrah before killing himself. (I assume this city was Blackpool because it's the only such place with arcades and whatnot that I know of in England thanks to Jethro Tull lyrics.) He is unable to do so and returns home determined not to live out his final days in quiet desperation.

Instead he helps out a trio of women who seek to have a bombed out building turned into a playground. They're lost in the ministry's bureaucratic maze and Rodney takes up their cause as his own. He also spends time with Margaret Harris, a young woman who was formerly one of his minions but left for an exciting career in the food service industry. There's nothing sexual between them. Rather Rodney, a widower, wants to spend a little time with a pretty young woman and perhaps absorb some of her vivaciousness so that his life may end on a bang instead of a whimper.

The plot here is straightforward and the movie is not particularly ostentatious stylistically so it's actors who get the focus. (One exception here is the 4:3 aspect ratio which evokes, along with the opening credits, early TV shows.) Nighy does a fine job of going from rather laconic and staid to someone animated by purpose with stops at pity and drunkenness in between.

While there is a certain formalistic simplicity here, there is still much food for thought. The bowler hatted figure is, for me, the subject of many a Monty Python sketch. I've always known it as something to be ridiculed. That came to mind when contemplating the movie's less than favorable commentary on government bureaucracy.

I also kept in mind that England (and Japan, for that matter) were very different places than the United States in 1953. The U.S. was ascendant with an emerging middle class eager to use fancy new appliances, eat at McDonald's, and consume consume consume. England, on the other hand, still had food rationing at the time.

Beyond these kinds of differences, the call to, well, carpe diem is timeless. The movie also implores us to live purposefully, to not be resigned to simply be carried along by tides but rather to tack our own course.

Living has more breadth of themes than depth, on the whole, although it does do some justice to the question of how to live. Despite this, I found it to be engaging and hopeful, the latter not being a part of my cinematic diet lately.

51.5 Years After

I see that a 50th anniversary edition of Ten Years After's A Space in Time is set to come out next month, about a year and a half late. Doesn't look like the vaults were plundered for this release and we instead get 3 surround mixes and a new stereo mix.

I recall buying this album back in the mid-90s seeking to find out more about the band whose only song to ever get on the radio was "I’d Love To Change The World".

A Space in Time turned out to be a rather eclectic album. While the band's affinity for the blues remains - hear "One of These Days", for example - but there's also boogie woogie rock'n'roll and a lot of well-crafted rock/pop songs built on a foundation of wonderfully melodic acoustic guitar of Alvin Lee. A favorite of mine is "Here They Come" with its brief psychedelic synth overture leading into a moody acoustic song that comes across as a bit symphonic and a bit like something from the soundtrack of a western. It finishes with a bouncy whistling section.

I believe that the above version of "I’d Love To Change The World" is the new stereo remix. To my ears, it sounds much like the original mix but everything sounds more up front.

Freezing! 1 February 2023

EO to Live at EO

The 120 Minutes of Sodom

 

In Brandon Cronenberg's third feature, we meet James and Em Foster who are on vacation at a resort on the shore of a nameless body of water in an entirely fictional country that is Third World or developing or whatever you call it these days. The resort is ringed by a rather tall fence that is topped with barbed wire. James befriends Gabi, a frenetic naughty dream girl. He and Em join Gabi and her husband, Alban, for a venture outside the resort compound.

James volunteers to drive the revelers home but he is not exactly sober and ends up hitting a local. This leads to his arrest. He discovers that the government makes liberal use of the death penalty but, in order to maintain good optics for tourists and generate a little income, one can pay to have a clone made who will take one for the team. But you have to watch your double being killed.

James takes the authorities up on the deal and is prepared to head home with an urn of his double's ashes but he instead is lured deeper into the Gabi's world which consists of her husband and a few other visitors to the country who form a band of ugly tourists. They are perverted and wicked. And rich too because they are happy to engage in all manner of vice and destruction and simply pay to have a double suffer the consequences as they gleefully watch.

I didn't know much about this movie walking into the theater and, for a while, it seemed as if it was going to simply be a twisted take on The Sheltering Sky. But it quickly went beyond twisted into hedonistic depravity. Mia Goth is great as the ringleader who is out for a thrill at any cost. I really enjoyed the dreamy, psychedelic orgies scenes as they were visually arresting.

A fun ride into the darkest recesses of our minds that thrills and horrifies. Cronenberg's best yet.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 75 - Prelude: That's no kolcache

(Head on down the road to the next entry.)

Comfort him

The kind folks at UW Cinematheque followed up their screening of EO with one of Au Hasard Balthazar, the 1966 Robert Bresson movie that provided the basis of the former film.

Here we get less donkey and more human drama. It opens with a boy named Jacques who baptizes our equine hero along with his sisters and the girl he has a crush on, Marie. One of Jacques' sister dies and he and his family move away from the town and Balthazar ends up being sent to a farm. Years later he returns to Marie who is now a willful teenager in "love" with the town bad boy, Gérard, while the donkey is passed from owner to owner.

If, as the presenter noted in his intro to Au Hasard Balthazar, Eo goes on an odyssey, then Balthazar is more of a Greek chorus. He appears less frequently than Eo, popping up to offer some contrast to and commentary on the hairless apes and their small town drama. Eo, on the other hand, is centerstage and it his journey that acts as an omnipresent glass mirror for the audience to see through, however darkly.

My own preference is for EO. I can appreciate Bresson originating the conceit and will admit that my heartstrings got tugged at the end as

SPOILERS!

 

 

we watched life slowly ebb from Balthazar.

But I found the small town drama to be largely inconsequential, with what I think of as the more trivial concerns of teenagers being given more weight than they deserve.