The cheese blog is back with what my local hippy grocery store bills as a classic Wisconsin cheese, Mammoth Cheddar.
Sadly, this is one classic that’s better left in the past.
I meant to do a writeup of Taste of Madison when we went, almost a month ago now, but I never got around to it. Funny that; I’ve been slacking off a lot.
I would blame some new medication I’m on from my doctor, but quite frankly, we all know I’m a slacker at heart.
Ok, so, Taste of Madison is yet another Madison festival around the Capitol, much like Art Fair on the Square, Freakfest on Halloween (which also uses State Street), and the like. (There really is a ton to do in this town.)
Taste of Madison is foodie-related, however, as local restaurants gather around the square to sell samples of their cooking to a ravenous public, all, apparently, in the name of fundraising forUnited Cerebral Palsy of Dane County
I don’t have a lot of pictures, but I did catch this one with my mother eating some beer battered, deep fried cheese curds from The Old Fashioned.
They were pretty good, though much heavier on the beer batter than the cheese.
Particular standouts this year for me were Joey’s Seafood and Grill, which had some fantastic lightly breaded halibut and this great appetizery shrimp thing called Firecracker Shrimp*, Lombardino’s, which had a terrific Italian beef sandwich with Chianti, Brat und Brau, which made the first brat I’ve ever actually liked, and Antojitos el Toril, which had the softest tortillas I’ve ever eaten to frame a very respectable chicken taco. Yum.
It was great to get out and try a bunch of places I’d had on my list to visit, all in one day. Even better that it was a fun social event for a good cause.
Though pairing it up on the same weekend that I went to Samba might have been a bad idea… oy, the gluttony.
So California has been having a bit of trouble, of late, with regard to its budget. A lot of people have written a lot of good stuff on the subject, which I won’t go into here (linky linky link), but it boils down to three things:
1) The real estate bubble burst, leaving the economy in smoldering ruins.
2) California’s government is completely and utterly dysfunctional, having strict caps on property taxation and almost no ability to raise funds, thanks to an amendment to their Constitution pushed by good old Ronnie Reagan
3) Current Governator Ahhnold Schwarzenegger would rather slash the budget to the bone, steal money from cities and muncipalities, destroy the social safety net and sell public land than raise taxes on the ultra rich, even a smidgeon, even if he could. That’s ok though, because nothing bothers the soulless monster, so long as he can go home and relax in his jacuzzi. He helped drive the state broke faster, of course, being elected on a promise to slash one of the few taxes California had to pay its bills.
4) Due to this history of abuse and a total lack of leadership from California Democrats, the state had to come up with a variety of gimmicks in addition to these severe cuts to the budget and basic social services.
Oh, right, one more detail: California has decided to stop paying its debts and instead make up its own Monopoly-style currency. I call them Californiabucks.
