A Tale of Two Mills

This was a long day which started with breakfast at home (scrambled eggs and plain parathas, which I've been jonesing for for a few days, see last post); a mid-morning snack at the Fiesta Fe Cafe in Richland Center, lunch at the cottage near Gays Mills, Wisconsin, and dinner at The Old Feed Mill in Mazomanie. The folks involved were, besides myself, A, The Boy, Sid, and The General.

Here is how I like to make the scrambled eggs for which I am world-famous in Madison:
Ingredients:
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
8-10 curry leaves
1 medium Onion, thinly sliced
1-2 hot green peppers, chopped
1/4 tsp turmeric
2 tbsp heavy cream
2-4 eggs, briefly beaten
Pepper
Salt to taste
Method:
Heat oil on medium-high for a couple of minutes until hot. Pop mustard seeds, then add curry leaves for about 30 seconds. Add onions, saute until translucent, then add green peppers. Add turmeric, stir briefly (30 seconds or so). Add heavy cream, stir briefly. Turn heat to medium-low, add eggs, and scramble as usual. Add pepper and salt; serve to cries of delight.
I occasionally add garam masala, about a pinch, if I feel like it.

As for the parathas, I buy the "Deep" brand from the Maharani Indian grocery, owners, incidentally, of the restaurant of the same name, and either heat 'em up in the oven or, as The General showed me, microwaved them in a damp cloth or paper towel for 1-1.5 minutes. They taste great and I recommend, even more heartily, their "Aloo parathas".

The Fiesta Fe; as usual, underwhelming. The best thing I can say about what we had today (chips and salsa, shrimp cocktail...yes, yes, I know, it's getting predictable) is that the salsa was not inedible. The rest of it was forgettable; the "cocktail" part of the shrimp cocktail seemed to have come mostly out of a glass bottle marked "Heinz". I lost interest at that point; Sid, always a good indicator of what not to eat, loved it.
Up at the cottage, we flew a kite and explored; later, A made us sandwiches for lunch (turkey pastrami and salami) which went down easy with some beer.
Expectations ran high for the Old Feed Mill. I had heard good things about it. A's parents apparently eat at it all the time and like it; but they also favor Fiesta Fe and A says they are easy to please. I believe her. Although I don't understand why A's ma, who cooks up some really good home-style meals featuring salmon and turkey, allows this.
Let me get on with the story. I ordered the lamb "rayshele" with blue cheese; it was served cold. Even the mashed potatoes it came with were cold. Garlicky and creamy, the temperature of the latter was a real tragedy. The lamb was served in a treacly mushroom sauce. The lamb was done just right, and warm, it might well have tasted just fine. The salad that preceded it was less than fresh. A had a cider-roast chicken that she could not finish; she says it was alright (I'm guessing this is less than a ringing endorsement). Her mashed potatoes were nice and warm. The General had the pork chop which he tolerated; he said it was bland and served too sweet: with regard to the issue of "blandness", I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt to any purveyor of white-people-food who's trying to feed Indians fresh off the boat, so I will say no more. Sid had the chicken pot-pie that he really loved, so the less said the better. The Boy wanted chicken strips and fries off the kids menu. A and I read him the Riot Act in re dining at "proper" restaurants: from here on out, no more "junk food" except when we were at rest-stops, "Oases", or similar. Kids menus are a travesty and I have a new theory for restaurants that have them (in the form that I'm talking about: mac and cheese, burgers, hot dogs and the like): they do not like to take the time. The Boy has happily dined off the regular menu at Japanese and Indian (among others) establishments that do not have kids menus and there seems to be no reason to fear challenging his palate at any other place. Sid was still hungry after finishing his entree, so The General, A and I gave him tastes of ours; his pronouncements were thus : Dad's: "not good"; A's: "did not like, because it was tasteless"; mine: "don't like it". Consistent across the board, he roped The Boy's name into a petition for dessert that I acceded to with poor grace; as it turned out, The Boy barely touched his (a chocolatey confection that appeared to be made of melted fly-paper).
The common denominator seemed to be the poor service. The maitre d' surprised me by announcing the "specials" before we even entered the dining room. Later, it turned out that there was but one server for the entire dining room, which, although granted it was Wednesday, still had people on at least 6 tables that I could see. That was the probable reason for my cold food, and also for the lack of butter with the bread, and for a missed order of wine for The General. There is only so much a single server can do; I felt bad for her as I left her a 15% tip, but I wasn't going to complain, was I?