Archive Page 80

Dinner out and about

Published June 22, 2011 local 7 Comments
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Many months ago, Cafe Montmartre and its Sidecar closed unexpectedly. At least it was unexpected for me. Montmartre had been somewhat of an institution and an anomaly. A somewhat gritty wine bar. It had sometimes decent food and frequently decent music. Positioned on the ground floor of an older brick apartment building on the corner of East Mifflin and Webster, Montmartre was a small, dark, intimate spot for wine and conversation, drinks and music or a special event. My rehearsal dinner was held there in October 2003, and I saw my cousin’s band play there to a large crowd in August 2007. But, alas, its time with us was finite and it closed its doors sometime in 2009. RIP Cafe Montmartre.

Enter Kitchen. Or Underground Kitchen. But I think it’s really just Kitchen, brought to you by Madison’s esteemed Underground Food Collective.

Kitchen

As we were walking towards the place, I opined, “I think this is going to be a really good restaurant that I’ll never really want to go to again.” [Spoiler alert: I was way wrong on one of these two posits.] In walking through the front door, it is clear that this place used to be Montmartre — the steps down seem the same, the bar is in the same place, the kitchen is in the same place…but everything is different. It is bright and clean and bright and clean. Where Montmartre was dusty and felt like I imagine a jazz club in a seedy part of Paris in the 1940s may have felt, this place is white and well-lit and feels more like a movie set of a restaurant. And I mean that in a good way. You know those restaurants in some movies that you always want to go to? They’re bright and loud and filled with activity — all in a really good way? Well, that was what I felt when walking into Kitchen. It feels like someone who really loves to make people feel welcome and at home designed it. I mean, there are mason jars as light fixtures, for crying out loud.

Ceiliing

I know there are probably people who feel design is irrelevant to a restaurant and that good food = a good restaurant and that is the end of the story. I am not one of those people. I’ll eat in a poorly designed restaurant, but it’s not the same to me as eating somewhere that is truly kind and exciting on the eyes. Good design like this is exciting to me. After taking in the decor, I modified my previous opinion to the following, “I bet this will be a really good restaurant that looks stunning that I’ll never want to go to again.” [Spoiler alert: I was still wrong about one of these things.]

After a few minutes of wait, we were seated — four of us — at a communal table that could hold up to ten. For a short time, we shared the table with a couple who hesitated to even sit down with us. After perusing the menu, they left without a word. A short time after that, another couple sat with us, but left upon realizing that they could sit outside. Or that they really would rather take any other option than sit with us. Fine by me; I wasn’t exactly thrilled at the idea of sitting by strangers (though I admit to getting a wee bit insulted when they appeared to reject me).

Jody & Sachin

Anyway, the four of us ordered drinks. Aaron had a canned beer ($2.75, which made him giddy), Jody had a white wine, Sachin had a shandy cocktail, and I had a tasty French 75 that came with a couple of sprigs of thyme.

Wine & French 75

Next up, appetizers. We ordered bread with butter and with lardo. We also ordered a cheese plate with Pleasant Ridge Reserve cheese and a quince jelly. I tried neither the quince nor the lardo, but Aaron tells me both were excellent. The butter was quite tasty and the breads were nice — airy and just the right softness to firm ratio.

Breads and cheese and quince

Sach and Jody split an asparagus panzanella, which they said was good and looked to be so.

Asparagus panzanella

Ok. Now onto the featured part of the show! Dinner. I studied the menu carefully. I wanted the cavatelli, but it came with mushrooms. The tilapia sounded really good, but the pasta was calling me. I decided to ask if I could get the cavatelli without the monstrous ‘shrooms and, if not, I’d hit up the tilapia to see if it would have me. I was nervous that asking for the cavatelli senza funghi would be an insult, but I thought if I put a lot of humility into my voice I might not cause a scene. It worked! Voila! No scene and no funghi in my pasta. Everyone’s a winner at Kitchen!

Cavatelli

The pasta came with baby onions, asparagus, confit, fromage blanc and radish pesto. I don’t really know how to describe it except to say I really, really loved it. I mean, love. I fully anticipate writing an Ode to Cavatelli ala Kitchen in the next month. And I am sure I will have many a dream about this heavenly meal. And probably write at least four love songs to sing its praises. It. Was. Awesome. The radish pesto gave it a little kick and the fromage blanc added a really nice texture. I would describe the white cheese as goat cheese-like in texture, but it didn’t have the same flavor; it was more bland (and I don’t mean that in a bad way). The asparagus was nicely cooked and the pasta was perfect. I’m not sure it really needed the confit, but it was a special treat. I highly recommend this plate of total yumsville.

Jody had the cavatelli but went for the ‘shrooms. She’s a dentist so, of course, she’s a lot braver than I.

Cavatelli con funghi

Sachin had the tilapia, which came on a bed of lentils and smelled really good.

Tilaps

Aaron went off the rails and ordered the special, pig’s foot with a fried egg on lentils. Yikes! But, obv, he loved it. And I admit, I tried some foot and it was lovely.

Foot + egg

We just had a great night. A great restaurant with great friends. Thanks, (Underground) Kitchen. In conclusion, I must amend my preopinion to an actual opinoin: I think this place is a great restaurant with great design to which I can’t wait to return.

One small caveat: this is not a place my mom would like. Not because of the food or the design, but because of the noise. The place is loud, which is a repeated complaint she has about many of the places I love. Usually, I don’t really see her point, but if I don’t see it so much at, say, Sardine, I know she will really notice it at a place like Kitchen because I definitely noticed it. It’s just a very loud, small space. I admit, though, that I kind of loved that about it. It made me feel like I was in a place where everyone was having fun, celebrating good food and company and spending money and time at small, local businesses in downtown Madison. As we drove to Kitchen on this Wednesday night, we passed a packed Graze and an overflowing Old Fashioned. The crowds made me feel happy and hopeful, even if I don’t really want them sitting at my table.

Moving on

Published June 8, 2011 home improvements , local 4 Comments

I know, the last story wasn’t very interesting. I thought it was, but it turns out I was wrong. I apologize. At the risk of telling an even less interesting story, this is the short story of what I did in between work and tonight’s stormy book club.

This is a flower pot that sits on our front stoop and has been looking like this since the last of the snow receded.

Please note the sad alliums, discarded after I insisted they were the cause of a weird fly infiltration. I think they were wrongly convicted. Anyway, this is what I brought to show the flower pot what was in store for it.

Here come the zinnias! I weeded the old dirt and tossed some out just for fun and in went the new plants! I watered them like crazy, something I learned from Master Gardener Gwen, and here is the result.

Now, I realize it’s far from perfect (especially with all of that dirt on the concrete), but I think we can all agree that it’s a radical improvement. If you want real tips on gardening in southern Wisconsin, check out Gwen’s great blog.

Why I love paying taxes, reason #64365181682

Published June 8, 2011 customer service , law stuff 8 Comments

You know those people who seem to live in bubbles and make a point to tell you that they are so unbelievably busy that they don’t have time for things like, say, ‘news?’ And then they ask you a question that you don’t know the answer to, and the answer to which doesn’t have any effect on you in any manner, but they whine with such gravity that you feel compelled to spend your time finding the answer? Well, maybe you don’t, but I do. And one such person just irked me. For the billionth time.

Which leads me to an ode to Eau Claire. I never really thought I’d write such a sentence, but here I am doing so, and doing so happily. There have been rumors aplenty in the office about the contents of Joint Finance Committee’s dreaded Wisconsin’s 2011-13 budget. You may have even heard some yourself, Dear Reader. I decided to try to tackle one such rumor myself by, shockingly, finding the text of the budget. Radical, I know. Although I do have an unabashed love for Wikipedia (despite learning recently — from Wikipedia — that one of its founders purportedly has an unabashed love for all things Ayn Rand-y), sometimes it’s best to, you know, do some actual research. Original texts can be a good place to start. So, what do I do? Well, I hit up a variety of sites, including the legislature’s own. Hmm. Can’t find anything. My research turns up what Walker proposed what feels like a century ago, but was really March, what the assembly proposed and what the senate proposed and what was taken up in JFC. But nowhere can I find what JFC sent to the assembly on Monday when the committee took its sad, final vote on the destructive nonsense. Boo.

Well, where the hell is it? After checking the usual suspects — the LFB, the Wheeler Report, Wispolitics’ budget blog (which is genius, by the way) — I turn back to the old and reliable stand-by, the google search. After paging through a few pages devoted to Monday’s supreme court argument (oh, google, you were there with me when I listened to the whole thing online! you should know I don’t need any more info on that), I came across a page from the UW-Eau Claire’s library that appeared to house state government documents. Voila! Click and click! Hmm. It wasn’t there. But what was set off in the lower right-hand corner? It looked to be…wait, is that right? No, it couldn’t be…Well, maybe…It was an area to type in a question and to instant-message with a public school librarian! (Is instant-message a verb?) I cautiously type in my query, “Where can I find the text of the budget bill that has been sent to the assembly?” I wait. I take a bite of salad. A co-worker pops his head in to ask about a brief. Beep! I am now chatting with the government documents librarian at Eau Claire. Genius! We have a brief chat about my request, she starts to look around for it, I tell her where I have looked, she tells me she can’t find it either, she takes me email address and says she’ll email me if she locates it. Hoo-ray! I know I may never hear from her again, but the beauty of being able to chat on the computer with a public-employee librarian really made my day. Possibly my week. We’ll see.

Dubuque (or how we spent our last furlough day)

Published May 30, 2011 bling blog , local 19 Comments

Yes, Dubuque. Aaron and his friends are in the habit of heading to Dubuque every now and again. The city boasts two full-blown casinos and, I was told, other charms. Those charms weren’t really specified, but it doesn’t take much to coax me into a mini-vacation an hour and a half away on what promises to be our last furlough day. We cashed in our change jar for 145 hard ones and off to Dubuque we went!

We left the comfort of our Madison condo shortly after one o’clock on Friday and rolled into the old river town around 2:30. Famished, we entered Paul’s Tavern and claimed a small booth. It was not hard to decide on what to order because the menu is succinct: burger, cheeseburger, tuna, grilled cheese and one other item I’m forgetting. For $2.65, I was sold on the cheeseburger. It did not disappoint. After our meal, we headed out to explore the downtown. Armed with my camera, I happily snapped pictures of the city’s old architecture. As you can see from the pics, some is very well-preserved while some is not so much. I hope someone will come along with enough money and sense to restore it to its intended beauty. It’d be a shame to let it deteriorate further; the town must have positively sparkled once.

After we deemed our exploration complete, we checked into our hotel: the Hilton Garden Inn, which happens to be connected to what Aaron calls the “good” casino, Mystique. As you know, Dear Reader, I am not much of a gambler, but apparently 2011 is the year of gaming for me. In the past month, I have quadmultiplied the number of casinos I had previously set foot in. Anyway, the hotel room was nice, but the walls were quite thin and we were treated to the sounds of other tvs and vacuum cleaners. But, you rightly point out, we were not there for rest. We were there to make money. Aaron clearly delineated our mission: money for our bar dues (or around $900 for the both of us, due July 1). After watching a bit of tape-delayed French Open, I put on some lip gloss and was ready to hit the floor. We walked the long hall connecting the hotel to Mystique and entered the Promised Land. The lights! The sounds! The costumes! Ok, maybe it’s not Vegas, but make no mistake – this is a casino. And it will take your money. Or, at least our money. After wasting time playing five cent Jacks or Better video poker, there were finally enough people at the craps table to make us feel comfortable to join in. Aaron went first. $100. And…cold table. That, of course, did not deter me. I’m in. $60. And…super cold table. We’re all out, except I insist on saving my $1 chip. So, we’re out $159 in about 30 minutes. Drat.

We regroup at the bar where two drinks are about $5. At least that’s something. We strategize. I suggest more five cent Jacks or Better to get our confidence up. Aaron (skeptically) agrees. Ten minutes later, we’re down another $4. Hmm. Ok, Aaron says, we’re going to go to Diamond Jo’s. I looked at him with confusion. But you always say Diamond Jo’s is the “bad” casino; you say they’re mean there. Well, they’re not mean, Aaron responds, they’re just rude. What’s the difference? I ask. Aaron pretty much shrugs off my query and confidently tells me Diamond Jo’s is our ticket to again being licensed attorneys. Off we go! A short car ride later, we surreptitiously enter the “bad” casino. I say surreptitiously because Aaron parked the car in some far-off lot and we had to crawl through bushes to get to the front door. He insisted this is normal. After being carded and stamped (and, in my memory, wanded), we hit the floor. The place is seriously electric. If the mood at Mystique was a sedated octogenarian with a twist of zombie, this place is the opposite. We do a quick tour of the place and settle in on a hopping craps table. Aaron sets $100 on the table, and we divvy up the chips. We’re instantly raking in the dough. Come on 9! 9 hits! Come on 4! 4 hits! The old man in the White Sox jacket next to me is rolling like crazy. The young guy with the pretty wine-drinking wife (she asked for a red like a Chardonnay and then laughed at herself) on the other end of the table keeps calling the White Sox gent, “Blue.” “You’re my man, Blue!” I laugh. Old School is a great movie and this is our table. Until it isn’t. After Blue craps out, it’s downhill. We cash out. We’ve made more than $100, though. Hooray! For reasons neither one of us understand, we headed back to Mystique, put our new $100 back on the cold craps table and lost the money in about five seconds. Oops.

Oh well. It was fun. We got a drink, went back to the room and decided upon room service and a movie. We ordered sandwiches and The Company Men, with Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper and Tommy Lee Jones. The sandwiches were decent and the movie was ok, but should have been better. I had serious insomnia and didn’t really fall asleep until about six in the morning. Was I overstimulated? Was it too much adrenaline? Was Dubuque too much for me? I don’t think so. I think I just couldn’t sleep. I think part of me was just awake, thinking about craps. Thinking about how you do everything right but it doesn’t work out for you. And about how someone else bets all wrong, but they win big. Thinking about how many things I have absolutely no control over. Like dice. Like the weather. Like other people. Thinking about how, despite all that and despite my horrible gambling luck, I am extremely lucky. I have a husband whom I adore; I have a family that makes me really happy; I have friends that are family; I feel safe in the morning and at night; I have a dog that I can’t imagine living without; I have a home that I love being in; I live in a city that’s home; I have a job that makes me intellectually and emotionally satisfied; I have coworkers I trust and enjoy; I have the ability to go to Dubuque for a night in a trusty car; I have, with the assistance of Albuterol, the ability to breathe in and out every day. Even if we lost our change jar savings, I have come out ahead.

Romantic weekend

Published May 22, 2011 home improvements 11 Comments

Because Aaron and I are so in love, we spent this weekend doing home improvement projects I had sent my mind upon. Or, rather, we spent Saturday on projects and I spent Sunday recovering from Saturday. We decided a few months ago to replace the toilet on the main floor. The old toilet was impossible to get truly clean and Madison is offering $100 to any household that replaces an old toilet with a new, low-flow toilet. We were promised this project would be easier than it turned out to be. Although the new toilet is in place and there has (knock on wood) been no leaking thus far, it is the second toilet we bought yesterday. The first was both too big (ie the door couldn’t close once it was installed — not good for a prude like me) and not a low-flow toilet, as it had said it was on the box. Plus, the initial installation led to water coming out of a light fixture in the basement. Oops. Turns out that wax ring really doesn’t like to be moved. But, after an evening return trip to Home Depot, a new toilet and my assistance in reading the directions (strangely absent in the previous box) we are in the business of having a new, environmentally-better, clean toilet. Of course, the door still can’t close when the toilet seat is down, but we’re saving that issue for another day.

The other project of the weekend was my insistence, inspired by a recent Real Simple article (subscription given to me by my lovely mother-in-law), to reinvent the coat closet in our condo. I think of the closet as large for a coat closet, approximately 48″ wide and 24″ deep, but according to virtually any closet organizing system, it is apparently the smallest closet any closet artist contemplates. Undeterred, we spent a significant time in the woefully understocked closet section at Home Depot. Despite what it may seem like, I am not in love with Home Depot. Frankly, I wish we had a large, local hardware store. Or a Lowe’s. In any event, yes, we shopped at Home Depot and bought lots of metal accoutrements to remake this closet.

Before closet

Before closet

Ok, so in my haste to remake my world, I forgot to take pictures of the closet with all of the coats and crap in it, but you get the idea. Aside from one hanging organizer, the closet was the same as it was when I moved in in 2005. There was the high shelf, as you can see, a closet rod, as you can also see, and two of those white wall-mounted organizer things. And, with the addition of the hanging organizer from Ikea I added, that was the closet. So, I decided that I first needed a little more wow in the closet. Taking my cue from the Real Simple article, I ordered self-adhesive wallpaper. Although the pattern choices were few, they were really great. Because the closet is on wall painted a lemon yellow, that meets a wall painted grey, I opted for a darker grey wallpaper with a lemon yellow tree-bird pattern.

Wallpaper

Now, this wallpaper was not nearly as easy to install as the company — tempaper designs — makes it seem. At least not for me. But, because I was installing it in a closet that was going to contain a million things, I figured the bumps I couldn’t get out would not be really visible. I really do recommend these papers. They are gorgeous and look so amazing. This is my first experience with any kind of wallpaper and I would buy it again in a heartbeat.

Next up, the installation of all of the crap. This is where things got even harder. We bought these screw-anchor things that are meant to be used so that you can hang heavier items without having to drill holes and without having to find studs in which to drill holes. Genius. But they really weren’t working for us. I don’t really know what the problem was, but it seemed as though the holes in the anchors were not large enough for the screws to fit through. Hmm. Anyway, after total frustration and the use of two different types of these screw-anchor things and me asking Aaron for help, the base structure of the closet organizer was finally affixed to the wall. Then I added the shelves and the drawers. I filled the shelves and  the drawers. I added the cubby boxes from the Ikea organizer and filled them with bike lights, tennis balls and camera equipment. My purses are upright and in cubby boxes. All of our scarves, hats and mittens are in sliding drawers. Spring coats and an umbrella hang from the high shelf.

After closet

I realize it might look a little chaotic, but it really doesn’t feel chaotic. I want to redo all of my closets now.

After closet

Drawers and shelf

It really feels much more calm, contained and useful. I know I could swap out all of the winter items and store them in the basement, but I like minimizing how much I need to change things around with the seasons, if I can. In Wisconsin, we know winter can come at a minute’s notice, so having a toasty scarf nearby makes sense to me.

After closet

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