Sour beer and sour grapes

We went to the Great Taste of the Midwest in Madison this weekend and sampled some tasty craft brews. My favorites were the sours from Jolly Pumpkin and the Annun Unum from Flossmore Station, also sour. I didn't like sour beers the first time I tried them, but now I find them refreshing.

The whole event was a pretty neat experience. It's held in a park on Lake Mendota (? possibly Lake Monona), and you get a tiny sampling glass to walk around to all sorts of good midwestern brewers. It was very well thought out, so much so that the lines for beer weren't very long, and I never had to wait in a line longer than two people for the port-o-potties.

The only sad part was a talk on beer and chocolate pairings that I went to in the education tent. Only the people with chairs (of which I was not) got chocolates and beer, and the whole talk was not about pairing chocolate and beer in general, but those specific pairings (THAT beer with THAT chocolate). I could overhear people in the chairs (we'll call them the Haves) chatting with their fellow Haves about how the chocolate was the most amazing chocolate they'd ever had, blah blah blah, while us Havenots were left to sit on the cold muddy ground with nothing to do but watch them lick their fingers. Before too long I left the education tent, as I was not being educated.

Zucchini in pasta sauce

I've been hearing that you can put zucchini in a pasta sauce and you'll never know it's there. It's true! Even Chris grudgingly admitted that he liked it. I shredded a zucchini on my box grater and sauteed the shreds with the salt, pepper, olive oil, and garlic that I was going to use to make the sauce anyway. (Next time I think I'll salt the shreds and let them drain in a collider for a while first, just to see what happens.) I meant to saute it until brown, but the zucchini actually just sort of built up a layer of browned mush on the bottom of the pan and I didn't want that to burn so I just aborted that plan (any ideas for how to avoid the layer of mush?). I deglazed the tasty brown mush with tomato juice from the can of diced tomatoes I was going to put in the sauce, then added everything else. Browned zucchini sort of gets that savory flavor that I'm pretty addicted to this time of year, and it added a subtle smokeyness to the sauce.

Let the bears pay the bear tax

Everytime we drive into Maryland, Chris starts looking for bears. There's signs all over the highway sporting a bear and a deer and it says, Watch for our wildlife. This promise has never been realized as the only bears we have ever seen have been in zoos (so not technically wild). We went to Colorado and Idaho hoping to see a bear. No bears, just disappointment.

Two days ago there was a black bear wandering around INSIDE the Eau Claire city limits. WHY have we been going to far off places to find bears when they were in Wisconsin all along? Will have to keep eyes peeled.

I just made this salad dressing last night - my first ever creamy dressing. It's fabulous, and also not terribly fattening, as I usually assume creamy dressings are. I used lowfat buttermilk and mayo, and it was just fine. I put it on a somewhat boring cabbage/radish/celery/green onion salad, but I think it'd be good on just about anything. Since I had green onions, and didn't feel like buying chives, I left them out, and it was still great. I got the recipe from smittenkitchen.com.

Buttermilk Dressing

1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoons minced shallot
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons finely chopped chives

Whisk together buttermilk, mayonnaise, vinegar, shallot, sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in a large bowl until sugar has dissolved, then whisk in chives.

I went to the Irish Lion for lunch yesterday. We sat in the bar area, which is something I've never done, and the waiter was an older guy. I guess he must be the Irish because I couldn't understand a blessed thing he said. It was pretty astonishing. I remember not understanding the Irish I knew the summer I worked at the beach, especially the guys from Kilkenny, but their meaning was usually clear even if the details got lost. This guy? Off the charts.

Food was good, though.

Things I certainly will not miss about Bloomington

• The oppressive summers, although this year hasn't been so bad so far.
• The (sadly more pronounced and vocal) segment of the undergraduate population that feels entitled to everything and feels the need to talk about their sex lives very loudly on cell phones on a bus. It really is amazing how much my experience in this town has been tarnished by this smallish population of students. I would have enjoyed my time here so much more if these kids were either not here or less prominent. My experience with kids that age in Wisconsin is that this entitled rudeness is rarer, although the last time I spent time with Wisconsin undergraduates I was barely out of college myself, so I might not have noticed.
• That God-awful drive between Bloomington and Indianapolis. I only have to do it once more, and I'm dreading it.
  

Things I'm looking forward to in Wisconsin

• Being closer to our dear friends in Madison. We already have plans to go down there twice in August.
  
• Owning a home. I still can't believe that we bought a house, and it's a lovely, warm house in a good neighborhood. I can't believe how lucky we are that we get to do this.
  
• All the nature and wildlife. You would think it wouldn't be that big of a difference, but I think it is. Example: we went to a big furniture store in Eau Claire just to poke around. This store was close to the edge of town, but not by any means outside of town. Near an interstate, the mall, and two Culver's, that sort of thing. When I got out of the car I nearly stepped on a severed deer leg. Gross, but stick with me. All plausible explanations for how that deer leg got there in EC would make no sense in Bloomington. For example, let's say a coyote brought it there. It seems possible that the coyote found a dead deer hit by a car on the interstate and carried the leg a quarter mile or so to the parking lot where it got scared off. This would never have happened in Bloomington. Sure, there are coyotes in Indiana, but they stay (usually) well out of the city limits. Even if they DID come into the city, they certainly would not have brought along a deer leg. They would also not be in close proximity a dead deer. Sure, we have deer in Bloomington, but I've never seen a DEAD deer in the Bloomington city limits. Or, we could say that it fell off of someone's truck while they were parked at the furniture store looking at end tables. This would not happen in Bloomington. People would just NOT drive around town with a dead deer in their pickup. They would certainly not stop at a store whilst hauling a carcass. I dunno, for some reason this sort of closeness to nature (albeit gross in this case) seems like an adventure. There are more serene examples, like all the great hiking trails along the rivers and streams, the massive wooded park in the middle of town on the island, and a giant preserve just outside of town with a btterfly house. I just thought the deer leg was especially illustrative.
  
• Winter sports. The winter here in Bloomington has just stopped bothering me, and I really think I could handle a greater challenge. Give me more snow, more cold! I want to cross country ski!
• I'm looking forward to cultivating my Sconnie accent again.
• Being close to the Twin Cities. Should be neat.
• Getting to know my new neighbors. I just really like people from Wisconsin, as a group.
• I just mentioned Culver's, but to those of you who are unaware of this great fast food chain, it really is great. It's the only fast food burger that I like. They make their own custard at the store, fresh, and every day they have a different featured flavor, like rocky road or turtle or M&M or something. This may make losing the Idaho potato pounds a little harder, but it's so worth it.
• Living amongst football fanatics who are still smarting from the Brett Favre fiasco. Smarting sports fans make for good fun. I'm really looking forward to the Packers v. Vikings games this year. Speaking of which, check out this hilarious shirt. Give it time to sink in. I'll explain if you don't get it.