Month: April 2016

Culinary no-no #470

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It just might be the most beautiful state capitol in the country.

Madison, WI.

The city hosts a terrific farmer’s market.

On Wednesdays the market is held  8:30am – 2pm from April to November in the 200 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, just down the street from the Capitol Building.

The big market is on Saturdays, 6am – 2pm from April to November all around the Capitol Square.

File:Dane county farmers market.JPG - Wikimedia Commons

The possibilities are plentiful.

farmers-market-produce - Passions Of Paradise

Dane County Farmers' Market | What To Know About the Biggest Farmers' Market in the U.S.

Saturday on the Square | Dane County Farmers' Market

10 must-buy items from the Dane County Farmers' Market

When I visit the Madison market, normally on a Wednesday, I might pick up vegetables or fruit for the entire family. But I must grab a snack from Stella’s Bakery. Most often it’s a spicy cheese empanada (provolone and monterey jack cheese laced with herbs and spices rolled into a buttery crust).

But it could be a cheese danish or cinnamon roll, or more.

Their spicy cheese bread is extremely popular.Home | Stella's Bakery Online Store

Hot and spicy cheese bread from Stella's Bakery

YUMMY!

Over the past few years, not just here in Wisconsin but across the country there’s been an ever-increasing bond between local chefs and farmers. Chefs shops the farmer’s market’s for ingredients that wind up on their customers’ plates the same evening. But that’s not all.

The collaboration goes beyond picking the right green beans to pair with the evening’s entrees. Long before, try months before cabbage or carrots or eggplant turns up at the market for a chef to purchase, the chef has made arrangements with a farmer to pick the right ingredients for their menus, and then the seeds for those ingredients go in the ground resulting in the peppers and tomatoes, etc, etc the chef desires for his dinner plates. What once was a spontaneous decision is now a thought process months in the making.

Sounds great, right?

Regular readers of Culinary know the drill. Eventually, after paragraphs and photos comes the no-no.

Farmer’s markets are the bomb, right? Popular? You bet. But kinda like disco music once the 1970’s ended.

The number of nationwide farmer’s markets has leveled off after more than a decade of stunning growth. The value of face-to-face farm sales rose by 36 percent between 1997 and 2002, and again rose by 32 percent between 2002 and 2007, before dropping 1 percent between 2007 and 2012. A staggering 8,268 farmers markets were operating in 2014, representing a 180 percent jump from 2006.

So there continues to be great appeal, and a loyal clientele. That whole farm-to-table marketing approach is working.

Now the bubble bursts. Now, the no-no.

Laura Reiley is the food critic at the Tampa Bay Times.

Reiley has written a revealing two-part series called “Farm to Fable” that examines the bold proclamations “local food” at restaurants farmer’s markets.

Committing a flagrant act of journalism, Reiley took samples from restaurants that got raves for their seasonal menus. What she found was “fiction.”

Check out her series, “Farm to Fable.”

 CULINARY NO-NO BONUS

Teen Booted from McDonald’s after Using Women’s Room and Asked to Prove Gender

Taxed to the max

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Today is National Tax Freedom Day®. Wisconsin’s Tax Freedom day is Monday, April 25.

From the Tax Foundation:

Tax Freedom Day® is the day when the nation as a whole has earned enough money to pay off its total tax bill for the year.

Americans will collectively spend more on taxes in 2015 than they will on food, clothing, and housing combined.

Tax Freedom Day is a significant date for taxpayers and lawmakers because it represents how long Americans as a whole have to work in order to pay the nation’s tax burden.

One of my favorite musical groups back in the day was Tower of Power.

Politicians promise all they can
to get elected, to make a better land
In a smoke filled room, they’re makin’ all their plans
but when the smoke gets clear, you know it’s just a scam
I’m just an average ordinary kind of guy,
punchin’ in at nine, punchin’ out at five
doing all I can to pay the bills on time
no matter how hard I try, I just can’t get by
Taxed to the max, but we can’t get the facts
they just tell us what they think we ought to know
(we get) taxed to the max, but we don’t get it back
someone tell me where the money really goes
Weapon systems, national defense
Vested interests, it doesn’t make no sense
what we think we get, ain’t always what we get
they keep raising all our taxes, but we get deeper, deeper in debt
I’m just an average ordinary kind of man,
slightly underpaid, tryin’ to understand
no matter what I make it’s never quite enough
I want to do my share, but it just ain’t fair

That wasn’t a good week for Alderwoman Wilhelm

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Kristen says things.

She does things.

She votes.

Then she runs away from all that, making feeble excuses in a sorry defense.

Social media wasn’t kind. Love this:

Doug Milinovich She is never wrong, just ask her. She is always the victim, just ask her. I had a meeting scheduled with her back in 06 or 07. She stood me up. A simple email from me stating I thought we had an appointment and I would have appreicated communciation if she wasn’t going to be there turned into my fault in her long ranting email. An appointment with me would be more memorable if my tone was different was her claim. Yes true story, in fact I still have the email!! The queen of diversion tactics! She is the smartest person in Franklin and all her ideas are the best, just ask her. Oh Jennifer Bokan Fischer you have no right to question her, nobody does. She is queen, just ask her!

Kristen Wilhelm I was not elected into office in 2006 or 2007.

Doug Milinovich Didn’t say you were. Didn’t say the meeting was because you were an elected official. Was just pointing out that your know it all, righteous and victim playing ways have been a way of life for you. Thanks for confirming it is who you are not just because you are an elected official. I just looked the email was 6/15/2007. So again thank you for trying to prove me wrong but in the process verifying my point!

Look out Le Roy!

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Le Roy Lewandowski is a fixture at Franklin Common Council meetings. He attends just about every one and he speaks at all of them, too, during the citizen comment period.

Le Roy is an octogenarian.

He’s also a …

https://basicbeekeeping.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/curmudgeon.jpg

https://i0.wp.com/media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l63a69gedI1qbolbn.jpg

Lewandowski appears at City Hall to vent and complain. Then he e-mails officials with a laundry list of issues, complaints and questions, most of which are unnecessary.

He is a retired senior citizen who knows how to use a computer. Ol’ Le Roy is never happy. He’s one of those guys that isn’t content unless he’s griping or moaning or bitching about something. I admit that when we cross paths I will intentionally greet him with the emphasis on the wrong syllable. Drives him nuts. He instantly corrects me. “It’s Le ROY!”

I often see Le ROY at my regular Sunday morning post-Church restaurant hangout. Le Roy heads over to our table, sly grin in place when he has no intention of being friendly.

Ignoring my wife, my daughter, and any cordial greetings, Le Roy marches right up to our table, barges in, and with my fork and scrambled eggs placed firmly in mouth, Le Roy completely ignores, interrupts, and launches into, “Say, what the hell do you think about what Franklin is doing” about such and such. Before I can answer, Le Roy begins his own discussion about what he thinks Franklin is doing about such and such, and it’s usually awful.

I have yet to have a conversation with Le Roy where it ended with my feeling that it was an enlightening, positive experience.

There, I’ve done it again. I’ve said what everyone wants to say but won’t.

To Le Roy, everything is wrong. Everything is a calamity. Or to use Le Roy’s own favorite word, it’s a “disaster.”

Image result for the hindenburg

After the last Franklin Common Council meeting, you know, the one that launched “Tablegate,” Le Roy was on his way home when he tells me he was rear-ended in the City Hall parking lot.

Who hit Le Roy?

None other than Mark Luberda, the Director of Administration for the city of Franklin.

I couldn’t resist. My immediate reaction to the news was, “Did Mark do it on purpose?”

It was a minor incident. Le Roy’s dent has been fixed and he wasn’t upset at all when he gave me his account.

Even so, there’s something oddly humorous about Le Roy getting nicked by a ranking city official.Save

Photos of the Week (04/24/16)

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1) Fidel Castro sits as he clasps hands with his brother, Cuban President Raul Castro, right, and second secretary of the Central Committee, Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, moments before the playing of the Communist party hymn during the closing ceremonies of the 7th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party, in Havana, Cuba. Fidel Castro formally stepped down in 2008 after suffering gastrointestinal ailments and public appearances have been increasingly unusual in recent years. Photo: Ismael Francisco / Cubadebate via AP

2) President Barack Obama and his wife first lady Michelle Obama are greeted by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip after landing by helicopter at Windsor Castle for a private lunch in Windsor, England. Photo: Alastair Grant / AP

3) Residents of the Arbor Court apartments evacuate their flooded apartment complex in a refrigerator  on Monday, April 18, 2016, in The Woodlands, Texas.  Photo: Brett Coomer / AP

4) Locals work to rescue up to 70 horses along Cypresswood Drive near Humble along Cypress Creek, after a Houston-area stable was inundated by floodwaters on April 18.  Photo: Mark Mulligan / AP

5) A woman holds a baby in a canoe as Texas Guardsmen arrive to assist after flooding in Brookshire, Texas, on April 20, 2016. Photo: 1st Lt. Zachary West / U.S. Army National Guard via Reuters

6) Roberto Ganchoso is comforted by a neighbor as he sits on what’s left of his earthquake-demolished neighborhood in Pedernales, Ecuador. President Rafael Correa said the earthquake caused $3 billion in damage and warned that the reconstruction effort will take years. Rodrigo Abd / AP

7) Two girls who each lost a leg in last year’s Nepal earthquake became best friends at a hospital in Kathmandu. Khendo Tamang, left, and Nirmala Pariyar, both 8, play on a mobile phone at the Bir Trauma Center in Kathmandu, Nepal, on July 6, 2015. Each girl lost one leg in Nepal’s massive April 25, 2015 earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 people and left more than 22,000 injured. Photo: Niranjan Shrestha / AP

8) More than 30,000 participants registered for the 2016 Boston Marathon, the third largest field in the race history. Marathon bombing survivor Patrick Downes, (blue shirt) hugs a group before running the marathon. (Bill Greene/ Boston Globe)

9) The mobility impaired competitors are cheered on by Wellesley College students. (Suzanne Kreiter /Boston Globe)

10) Some Wellesley College students got their wish and were kissed by the passing runners. (Suzanne Kreiter/ Boston Globe)

11) An exhausted runner falls to the ground after crossing the finish line. (John Tlumacki/ Boston Globe)

12) Women’s winner Astede Baysa and men’s winner Lemi Berhanu Hayle hold the trophy at the finish line. (John Tlumacki/ Boston Globe)

13) Men’s wheelchair winner Marcel Hug crosses the finish line in a close finish with Ernst Van Dyk and Kurt Feanley. (John Tlumacki/ Boston Globe)

14) Boston Marathon bombing survivor Patrick Downes is kissed by another survivor, Celeste Corcoran after he crossed the finish line. He lost his left leg in the bombing as did his wife Jessica, and Celeste lost both legs in the bombing. (John Tlumacki/ Boston Globe)

15) Knoxville, a trained service dog, sleeps at the feet of retired U.S. Army soldier Stefan LeRoy, who was injured in Afghanistan in 2012. Photo: Reuters

16) A colorful butterfly sits on a branch of wheat in a field in Peshawar, Pakistan. Photo: Mohammad Sajjad / AP

17) The Abbotsford Tulip Festival is in full bloom in Abbotsford, Canada. Photo: AP

18) Lion cubs cuddle at a St. Petersburg, Russia, zoo. Photo: EPA

19) A baby lemur clings to its mom in the Bronx Zoo. Photo: AP

20) A bulldog poses with her litter of 14 puppies in Glasgow. Photo: Splash News

21) An elephant named Benji uses her tusks to lift a zookeeper in a Schloss Holte-Stukenbrock, Germany, zoo. Photo: Zuma Press

22) Korean artist Choi Jeong Hwa’s work “Flower Chandelier” is on display in his exhibition “Happy Together” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki, Finland. Photo: EPA

23) Britain’s Prince William is hugged by Chewbacca as British actor John Boyega smiles during a tour of the Star Wars sets at Pinewood studios. Photo: Pool via Reuters

24) Greek actress Katerina Lehou, playing the role of High Priestess, lights a torch from the sun’s rays reflected in a parabolic mirror during the dress rehearsal for the Olympic flame lighting ceremony for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the site of ancient Olympia in Greece. Photo: YANNIS BEHRAKIS / Reuters

25) A music fan visits a memorial created outside Paisley Park, the home and studio of Prince in Chanhassen, Minnesota. Prince, 57, was pronounced dead shortly after being found unresponsive in an elevator April 21 at Paisley Park. Scott Olson / Getty Image

 

Recommended Reading (04/23/16)

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Here are interesting articles from the past week that are worth a read (even if, on occasion, I do not agree with the author).

Your Daughter Must Pee Next to a Man, and You Will Be Compelled to Agree

The rules of bigotry according to the left represent a constantly shifting kaleidoscope of nonsense. This week, we learned that if you don’t want your small daughter peeing next to a giant man who thinks he is a woman, you are a bigot. Conversely, if you are a man who thinks he is a woman and you want to force a small girl to pee next to you, you are a freedom fighter.

Hands off the ladies’ rooms

If it concerns sex in any way, you can be sure that our culture will fixate on it and manage to defy common sense with hyperventilating indignation. Same-sex marriage roiled the waters for decades, but now that the Supreme Court has big-footed that question, culture warriors are prowling for new realms of transgression to embrace. So, coming soon to a bathroom near you: transgenderism.

Back to Bedlam

In response to the incessant accusations of racism and the heightened hostility in the streets that has followed the Michael Brown shooting, officers have pulled back from making investigatory stops and enforcing low-level offenses in many urban areas. As a result, violent crime in cities with large black populations has shot up…

Blacks to Dems: What’ve you done for me lately?

The question that I ask to Democrats and to the black community is, are we better off? I am reminded of the song by Janet Jackson that asks, “what have you done for me lately?” It’s a simple line, but one that African American voters should ask the Democratic party… after 50 years of the war on poverty and roughly 7 trillion dollars into combating poverty, there haven’t been great improvements in the condition of African Americans.

Someone tell Bernie Sanders the rich are generous, not greedy

Benevolence: Bernie Sanders uses the word greed like a billy club to batter those who dare to be wealthy. But the word doesn’t describe those he thinks it does.

An Earth Day Salute to America’s Real “Environmentalists”

To date, hunters and fisherpersons have shelled out over $20 billion “on behalf of the environment.” A study by the National Shooting Sports Foundation found that for every taxpayer dollar invested in wildlife conservation, hunters and fishermen contribute nine.

The unceasing war over teacher tenure

The lesson that state and local policymakers should take from these developments is that teacher quality is not only important to how well our children learn but also to voters.

Reality check: Distracted walking isn’t a big problem. (Distracted driving is.)

At the gentle speed of a normal walking pace, we can afford to multitask, while at higher speeds, we can’t, argues Toronto pedestrian activist Dylan Reid.“We are completely designed to be able to do many things while we walk, moving at a walking speed. It’s how we evolved.”

Why dirt is good for kids

I wish they could grow up the way I and millions of other kids did in the ’70s.

Unlike modern kids, we didn’t sit inside air-conditioned homes playing video games and texting our pals.

We were out in the hills roaming, exploring and creating all day long.

Week-ends (04/23/16)

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A look back at the people and events that made news the past week. Week-ends is a regular weekly feature of This Just In…

HEROES OF THE WEEK

Patrick Downes

Racine, WI

Jason Jischke

Damon Cole

The garbage man

VILLAINS OF THE WEEK

Loser named Brandon

HBO

Cyclists

QUOTES OF THE WEEK

“Well, first of all, in case anybody gets confused, I’m not endorsing Ted Cruz. I hate Ted Cruz. And I think I’ll take cyanide if he got the nomination.”
Rep. Peter King (R-NY)

“Hot sauce. Yeah. I’ve been eating a lot of hot sauce. Raw peppers and hot sauce. I think it keeps my immune system strong. Hot sauce is good for you.”
During an interview on a black radio station, Hillary Clinton was asked what she always has in her purse

“It’s the same thing she always does. She carries hot sauce like I carry hot sauce. It’s just, I don’t know so phony, and so pandering and so terrible.”
Donald Trump

“My feeling is that she (Hillary Clinton) went on TV afterwards, telling everybody that I was the liar, that there’s someone here that is lying, and it wasn’t her, and that I was liar. I want her to apologize to me for calling me a liar on TV, because this is clearly not true. And I want to know why my son was left to die breathing in diesel smoke, which is the most horrible way to die, and she didn’t do anything to stop it. She could have.

Clinton “ought to be in — she ought to be wearing stripes. I want to see this woman in stripes, because she lied, and the different things that she did say, were very, totally wrong. My son is dead because of her.”
Patricia Smith, whose son, Sean, was killed in the September 11, 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya

“So when you see the TV, you see all the yelling and the screaming. And the ‘Feel the Bern’ and the Trump stuff. And the whatever. Just know there are many, many people in both parties who care a great deal and who are working — who are hard at work — to make a difference.”
Paul Ryan

“I’ve never authorized a flight for a wallet.’
Former Alabama Law Enforcement Secretary Spencer Collier on allegations that while he was in office he approved the use of a state helicopter to deliver Gov. Robert Bentley’s forgotten wallet to him at the beach. The governor has said that he did not request the pricey delivery method.

“So, under the new law in Charlotte, if my 10-year-old daughter goes into one of these mixed-up bathrooms, other men dressed up as women can go in there and do their thing alongside her, but I’m not allowed to go in there with her because I know my gender? Please God, don’t let this be true.”
Todd Finch writing on wng.org

OUTRAGE OF THE WEEK

VA shredding critical documents

MOST UNDER-REPORTED STORY OF THE WEEK

Public Schools in Obama’s Home State Drowning in $20 Billion Debt

MOST OVER-HYPED STORY OF THE WEEK

Prince dies

STRANGEST, MOST UNUSUAL STORY OF THE WEEK

If you have your period, women can swap out a regular tampon for the Ruby Cup which is a reusable menstrual cup that can be used for up to 10 years, thereby reducing the number of unsustainable sanitary items making their way to landfill.
One of the suggestions by treehugger.com on how to celebrate Earth Day

 

Franklin resident: “There is nothing here nothing!”

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Well here’s a sure fire way to start a spirited discussion.

Over on the Facebook page of Franklin Neighborhood Watch, Jill Bieszk Perlberg posted the following:

I’m relatively new to Franklin and not sure of the answer to this question so hoping someone can shed some light. When you look at Franklin, sandwiched between Greendale and Oak Creek, what are the plans to create a community area or town center/village for our residents. I find ourselves always heading to one of the other cities and I’d love to see that in our community. Is there support for something like this where we can see more smaller/local business and a better mix of the chain locations.

I’d say Jill has caught on rather quickly to a major Franklin deficiency.