A perfect summer evening

A and I decided to go to Osteria Papavero without much ado on Friday evening.
We started with a poached chicken appetizer. For the entree, she wanted the clam spaghetti but ended up with the Gramigna con Salsiccia, a pasta with sausage ragout, because they ran out (at 6pm). I had the roast quail special. She drank a chianti with hers, I had an Italian pilsner, Moretti (I switched to Bell's Oberon in the next round).
This is the second time, in a row, that the OP has blown my socks off. I had the Polipo in Umido, or octopus in tomato, last time. At this rate, my sock drawer may well be empty before fall. Is this place Madison's best kept secret? How could it be, since it sits right in the middle of the restaurant district? Or did I merely come to this place late, and that too by word from Lethal's mouth? Thank you, dear Lethal. You have made me want to sell my house and move back into the Bellevue, from where I could walk out the lobby of one and into the bar of the other without soiling what remains of my socks. Thanks.
Later, we strolled down to the Orpheum and saw The Simpsons movie. A declared it the best movie she's watched in a while. Certainly the fellow in front of us was enthusiastically appreciative of every plot development. Apu did not feature much at all, nor even Ralph Wiggums or Mr Burns, and those are my favorite characters; despite this, it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, and went a long way in erasing memories of the idiotic Hustle and Flow that we had watched the previous evening.
On the way back, A, now tired and yawning, consented to sit outside at The Local (remote and strangely apt memory...it used to be a comic store back in the day when the ladies of the night still patrolled King Street... Comic Store Guy got a good scene or two in the Simpsons movie) and have a drink with me, before we came back home.

Thair saadam, macha

We had a long day (A, The Boy, and I) on Saturday, putting up the screens for the porch. Not for the first time, and it certainly won’t be the last, was the realization brought upon me that I am simply not a real, slam-bang, honest-to-goodness three-fisted humdinger when it comes to DIY. We took two hours to put up the first screen (of ten total), which, five minutes later, we had to take back down because I walked through it. No bona-fide supraman me. So we downed tools and had lunch at Amy’s Café; I had the Texas Burger with spicy fries and a cold Bell's Oberon; A had the Mediterranean ragbag, and The Boy had, as I recall, a turkey sandwich; we also shared onion rings all around. Set just back from State Street, so it’s close enough to the action (but not too close), and serving up an eclectic mix of well-made fried foods from hither and yon, Amy’s is the perfect place for lunch on a warm (but not hot) sunny afternoon.
Pleasantly bursting with food and goodwill, we napped in the afternoon and worked some more in the evening; but when it came to dinner, we were still full. At this time, when asked what I could rustle up for a light dinner, The Boy suggested yogurt and rice. This put me in the mood to make some thair (pron. THA-yeer) saadam, a much-loved and long-uneaten preparation from college days in Pondicherry. Thair saadam is essentially cooked rice mixed with a few pungent spices (asafetida, dried red hot chillies, mustard seeds and curry leaves), a fried dal or two to lend it some crunch (typically urad and/or chana), cucumber, fresh ginger, green chillies and coriander (and green mango if you have it, I used amchur, or dried mango powder) for a bit o' zap and texture, and, most important, yogurt. NOT non-fat. The simple nature of this dish, which is universally beloved in southern India, means that virtually every home has its own secret recipe which is, naturally, the “best in the world.” In warm and humid Pondy, it was served cold for Sunday lunch with hot spicy fried chicken in the grad student dorms; we wolfed it all down with a bottle of Kalyani lager… ahh! You know, some memories are as indelibly associated with food as others are with smells… to me, the words “hot Sunday afternoon” mean thair saadam, and vice versa.
The Boy, naturally, being flesh of my flesh, loved it, and took some with him to camp on Monday, for lunch. A was not overly impressed; I think it fell somewhere in the general category of “Weird Indian Snacks” for her (other preparations that howl like lost souls in this purgatory of the palate include all milk-based sweets, kheer (a rice pudding), and kulfi, which is the Indian take on ice-cream – except it’s on a stick and has cardamom and almonds in it. Also included are all the salty crunchies that Indians of a certain age love to munch when having a glassy).
“Macha” (also spelled machaan) is the Tamil word for “brother-in-law”; it’s used as an affectionate or pejorative term of address, depending on the tone. It does not refer to the teahouse of the same name on Monroe Street. Although the fellow who owns it might well be someone’s brother-in-law, I doubt if that is its name’s provenance.

Post interim

Whilst I'm still contemplating my navel, to those of you who are chary of commenting, it should be apparent that the tedious log-in and account-creating gremlins have been banished. The toothsome delicacies I describe will be back; this jackanape is going nowhere. I'm not promising that attitudes of old are going to be swept away like freshet under a culvert, but I'll say this: A and I are looking forward to visiting the Osteria Papavero next week ( I had an octopus stew that blew the mind to parts eternal the last time), and I will have a full report.

As to the rest, I refer you to the font of eternal wisdom - and vocab.

What not to blog, part deux

When we ate at the Thai Orchid the other night, I realized I was there less for the food, which was terrible, and more for the insults I would heap upon its head when I got to blog about it.

Eating out merely to write about it is a waste of time and money. Here I was, sitting with A, enjoying my life, enjoying the time I spend with her, feeling good about the long snarky ride through the 'burbs to get to this place. Instead, The Word Beautiful Bomber was already on the runway with the arrival of the spring rolls; all thoughts of the here and now slipped away and the searchlights switched on; at the first sight of a wilted spring onion (and there were a few) the sirens began: the air-raid was on, the bombs were falling and, with the arrival of the lacklustre pad thai, The Thai Orchid was on fire.

My growing unease with laying waste to a part of my life that I really enjoy found words last night at Jolly Bob's, as I was chatting with Wonder Boy. Living life while savoring every second is difficult enough without having to commit everything to memory. Imagine eating an oyster, that quivering sight, the smells and tastes of a life lived in a mysterious, somewhat scary world, that mix with your own memories of the sea (dancing beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free, or a variant thereof), that feel of the rough shell on your fingertips as you tilt that entire universe into your throat and feel your eyeballs rotate in their sockets as the sand and brine hit the roof of your nasopharynx... all this, and then you have to write about the not so good champagne that you drank with it? Doesn't that introduce, as it were, some sand into the oyster, and not one that's going to produce a particularly good pearl, either?

The way I'm thinking about it is, I'm going to try and continue writing something about the food that I eat, but in a more hands-off, unreview-y, way. Wonder Boy was at least empathetic to my predicament (he might even have been sympathetic). Attorney Adorable was more skeptical: "How can you have a food blog without food?" We'll see. Maybe it won't be a food blog; after all, it does say " ...and other things I like doing around Madison, Wisconsin" right under the title, doesn't it?

Food-filled weekend

The Boy was with us this weekend- it seemed like he had been away forever, but I checked, and it was just the usual schedule- and we had us some food adventures- foodventures?-.

On Friday, The Little Bruiser was over for a sleep-over, and I was gratified - as always - to note that his appetite for what he still calls "Dal-bhat and rice" (for those of you who are not Nepali, dal and bhat often get said together because the one is usually served with the other; but they are two words, and bhat means rice, in Nepali and in many Indian dialects) remains undiminished. A made a delicious raita to go with the dal and green-pea and cumin pilaf. The temperature was in the 90's and, altogether, a quintessential northern Indian down-home experience was had by all. A capped the evening in grand style by producing a blueberry pie that she had made earlier, which I could, Goodness Gracious Me-style, claim was also Indian (like a samosa except with berries. And sweet.) in origin, but I'll spare it.

Owing to a scheduling snafu, The Little Bruiser had to return to his mother's rather earlier on Saturday than we had planned, so we couldn't go to Ella's Deli, a ritual from ancient times that the boys love. Nevertheless, we got over our disappointment and went to the first movie of the weekend, Deep Sea 3-D. This was an excellent show that A had seen once before, in the company of L, M and N, in London last year, and had been talking about ever since. I thoroughly recommend taking your child to this show, but only if you have confidence in their sea-legs. Bring a sick-bag just to be sure. Also, be prepared for squealing children grasping at jelly-fish. Vaseline works.

After the movie, we made a second trip to Hilldale in less than a week, determined, this time, to do it right. Thus, a drink was enjoyed at the Bistro, this time in the company of the Boy, who had a lemonade. A and I had mojitos, which were remarkable for their lush minty foliage. Well-sweetened and flavored, they were a great accompaniment to the discussion, which revolved mainly around the question that remains after all the questions of life, the universe, and everything have been answered. Mainly, we were having a hard time deciding between Muramoto and the Flat Top Grill. A favored the former (as did I), whereas the Boy favored the latter. After much airing of pros and cons, we decided on the latter. A and I decided to come back to the Muramoto at another time.

The Flat Top operates on the conceit that you, the average pasty-faced mid-westerner, have a pretty good notion of what you like in your stir-fry. Just so no taste is left behind, your choices of what goes into your noodles/ rice/ beansprouts/other veggies range from Filipino sausage (longganisa) to prime rib. Your sauces cover the gamut from plum sauce to something called horse-radish water, touching on curry-sauce along the way. You then balance your bowl in one hand with your shit-eating grin in the other and proffer it to Imelda and Ferdinand, who stir-fry it with great aplomb in front of your child's wide eyes. Back at the table, you blanch and silently curse yourself for adding too much horse-radish water. And make a mental note to look it all up on-line, if a return trip has to be made. I will say this: the Boy had an excellent time, finishing all his food (which he rarely does) with every evidence of relish. Perhaps we did do it right. As The Polymath says,"Even a blind sow will stumble upon an acorn once in a while".

We had begun making plans to eat the brunch buffet on Sunday at the Concourse Hotel's Dayton Street Cafe while sitting at the Bistro. Accordingly, that's what we did. This buffet is one of the pricier ones in town, and compares favorably with the offerings at other places, such as the Great Dane in Fitchburg, where all three of us had eaten last year (and never returned), and the Orpheum Cafe (which has a much better setting but a slimmer display). Slim is certainly not the adjective I would use to describe anything to do with eating at the Concourse. The dessert table is the pick of the four stations (meats and eggs, more fried stuff, and omelets being the other three). A cocktail is included in the price of the meal; does that make it complimentary, as the waiter averred? A colleague from long ago used this phrase to describe the advantages of a meeting he had been to: "...and what's more, the pizza's free once you've paid for (the meeting)."

The last big event of this weekend was a movie; appropriately enough, it was Ratatouille, a movie about a rat who wants to cook. I join all the other reviewers who raved about it. Indeed, "anyone can cook". It just requires a special someone to eat it with good grace.

Independence Night

We decided to go see a movie on July 4th, and eat out, maybe at the Flat Top Grill, later.

We began the evening with a drink (I had a martini, A the mojito) on the roof garden of the Sundance, aka the Bistro. The martini was made to order; the mojito was remarkable for the size of the glass in which it was served (a pint glass; most restaurants in Madison will serve it in a highball glass). Thus fortified, we survived the movie- Waitress- which was a wall-to-wall cliche fest (just read the plot summary here... need I say more). A deduced that it was a Mystic Pizza re-make. We chatted about movies for women vs. movies about women vs. movies for men. All three feature mainly women; the story line of the first can usually be summed up with some synonym of the word "empowering" (exhibit A: Steel Magnolias). Of the third, one can safely say that the storyline, like the clothing, is skimpy (exhibit B: Barb Wire). The works of Pedro Almodovar are glorious testimony to movies in the second category.

Later, finding ourselves stranded outside the Flat Top at 9:01pm (it closes at 9:00pm), we decided to take a chance with the "small plates" at the Bistro. We started by ordering crab cakes (passable) and a california sushi roll (okay; major negative: niggardly gari and wasabi garnishes). We were well on our way into these offerings when the fireworks started up. Although I would never call this location the best place in the city from which to watch the fireworks, because there are too many obstructions in the line of sight to the parks where the fireworks were, it still wasn't bad. And for A and I, who are not given to falling over in joy, foaming at mouth and twitching in limb, each time the word "Fireworks!" is mentioned (and trust me, in this town, there are a few who do), the subdued patter of the distant lights was quite all right.

We finished the evening by over-reaching with the food. I ordered fried calamari (over-cooked and under-blotted); A ordered pizza which I was too full to try, by then.

We'll likely be back, to enjoy what this place does best: a summer night after dinner, for drinks.