Madison, WI
With my energy relatively high and my eating at near normal levels, Aiday and I decided to take a short trip to Madison, WI before the start of the next scheduled chemo cycle. It was our first time traveling outside of Chicago since the diagnosis, and we wanted to enjoy a different town and scenery for a little bit while we can. It was my first time being back in Madison for over 20 years, when my high school friends were students or recent graduates.
We went from Monday (Labor Day) through Wednesday, with Madison being a relatively short 3 hour drive. Despite the variable weather - rain on Monday, sunny and near 90F on Tuesday, thunderstorms on Wednesday, we managed to fit a lot in. Besides Madison, we did also stop by New Glarus on the way back.
Activities
Our first stop was at Cave of the Mounds, located in Blue Mounds, roughly 30 minutes west of Madison. The cave rocks date back millions of years and the formation of the save was 1-2 million years ago. It was discovered in 1939 by miners. The tour was very good, both in terms of information and seeing all the stalactites, stalagmites and other formations. I think my favorite part was seeing the fluorescence of the calcite and iron under black light. It only glows for a second or two (in an excited, unstable state). After that, they turned off the lights and it was as pitch black, as dark as could be. I literally could not see my hand in front of my face.
The next day, we did a free guided tour of the Wisconsin State Capitol. That, the university, and the isthmus / lakes, seem to dominate Madison. The building is grand from the outside and has a stately interior. The dome is taller than the US Capitol and is one of the largest by volume in the US. We learned quite a bit from free tour. For example, the state motto is simply “Forward”. The term “badger” was coined because like miners blasting and burrowing tunnels looked like the animal.
After the Capitol, we walked around town a little bit. We stopped by the Monoma Terrace, which is a building designed initially but Frank Lloyd Wright, though finished by another architect after lengthy disputes with the city. This is mainly a meeting space on the lake, without too much architectural interest, to be honest.
With the weather being dry on Tuesday, we went to the Olbrich Botanical Gardens. This is a nice space a few miles outside the center of town. The gardens are in a little bit of a transition, with new exhibits and spaces planned for 2019. These gardens are much more compact as compared to the Chicago Botanical Gardens, which was fine for us since I’m not sure how much time I wanted to spend outside on a 90F and sunny day.
The other activity that was constant throughout our visit was to take pictures with Bucky the Badger. This looked to be a street art project, with 85 statues painted / decorated by various groups scattered through the city and surrounding areas. Some of our efforts to emulate his pose were more successful than others - we couldn’t get both the legs and arms to match up, despite it being the same on all Buckys. We got pictures with more than 30 of these.
Food and Drink
Wisconsin is the dairy state, so I had to make sure my diet featured the best of what the state has to offer. Namely, I ate a lot of ice cream and fried cheese curds. This is, after all, primary components of my diet current diet, with lots of protein, calories and fat. I also couldn’t go to Wisconsin without having brats and beer, so that also featured. I think I gained 3-4 lbs on the trip (though some has come off).
While we did have 12 scoops of ice cream over the three days, I could have and perhaps should have eaten more. Almost all of the ice cream came from Babcock Dairy, which is made by students on campus and sold both at their own store as well as the Daily Scoop at Memorial Union Terrace. The ice cream was super fresh and the flavors were good. Nothing too fancy but very tasty. Plus, the prices were much less than what you’d pay at a specialty ice cream shop in Chicago or SF or other big cities. At the Daily Scoop, 4 scoops with a waffle cone cup was $6.43! The shop does offer a “Freshman 15”, i.e. 15 scoops for $19. While that may not be meant for one person, I am game to try (next time). Favorite flavors included the salted caramel truffle, the blueberry swirl and the always classic cookies and cream.
In addition to ice cream, fried cheese curds was another item that I knew I could eat comfortably. The crunchy fried bits did not bother me and it’s just cheese in the middle. I ordered cheese curds at every opportunity, so 5x during the trip. While I don’t pretend to be an expert on this food, I was looking for a good tasting, crunchy exterior and a gooey and squeaky cheese interior. For my current eating, the sauce was less important, as some ranch sauces were OK for me, but some other sauces had spices that irritated me. Thus, I mostly ate these cheese curds naked, without additional sauces. Of the places we visited, here is my ranking
The Old Fashioned: this shows up on many lists and for good reason. The exterior has pretty light and the cheese tastes like fresh cheese
Graze: these were really tasty and was neck-and-neck with The Old Fashioned as my favorite. However, these are served in a taller cup (most others were served in a basket), like fries. As a result, some of the cheese curds stuck together, particularly towards the end
Camp Trippalinedee: this was our first exposure to the cheese curds and a solid one
State Street Brats: solid, but nothing special. The cheese was a little less gooey and more rubbery compared to the other places
Tofflers (New Glarus): not sure I’d order these again - batter was too dense
I’ll need to try other curds next time I’m back in town.
Besides ice cream and cheese curds, we did eat some uniqulely Wisconsin foods. Our first stop was at Ian’s Pizza, which sells pizza by the slice. Their best sellers are the mac & cheese pizza and the BBQ chicken pizza. The mac & cheese pizza was pretty good, though it’d probably taste even better as a late night snack. (Unlike my prior visit to Madison, there were no late night burrito at La Bamba or other places.)
Most places were closed on Labor Day, either because of Monday or the holiday, so our dinner options were limited. At both Camp Trippalindee and State Street Brats, we felt like we were the oldest people in the restaurant by at least 20 years and one of the handful of non-white patrons. State Street Brats was serving their “late night menu” at 8:30pm, which felt a little odd. The white brat there is very good and is one of the food in a list of “30 Plates That Define Madison.”
Tuesday was a more refined dining day. After the Capitol tour, we had lunch at Graze, which is the casual restaurant of Tory Miller, the JBA-winning chef of L’Etoile. Lunch at Graze was good, though I couldn’t order their signature bibimbap salad (too spicy). I was able to eat the fried chicken sandwich, provided I cut it into small portions and skipped much of the bread.
Dinner that night was at forequarter, the restaurants from Jonny Hunter (he was hanging out at the bar in the restaurant that night) and his Underground Food Collective group. We met our friends Bogey and Chris, who live in Madison. It was great to catch up with them over a good meal. The menu is seasonal, with a focus on vegetables (despite having a butchery shop and charcuterie offering as well). Some favorite items there included the fried mushrooms with black garlic and the gnocchi with cherry tomatoes. We also liked the mushroom-black garlic salami enough to buy some the next day and take back (I suffer a little bit to eat it, but it’s worth it). After dinner, Bogey and Chris invited us to have dessert at their house. We got to relax over some tea, a delicious homemade chocolate cake and more ice cream. A great end to an eventful day.
We had high hopes for the Dane County Farmer’s Market to start Wednesday. However, the weekday market is much smaller than the famed Saturday market, and the thunderstorms probably impacted how many vendors came. Unfortunately for us, there was no prepared foods to snack on while we walked around. We did buy a bunch of vegetables (and decorative gourds) for prices that were 30-50% less than the Green City Market. For example, a pint of sungold tomatoes were $2 vs. $4-6 at GCM.
We went to a cheese store called Fromagination after the farmer’s market and got to sample some really nice stuff. We got some Bleu Mont Bandaged Cheddar (aka Willi Lehner Bandaged Cheddar), Marieke foenegreek gouda, and some others. This is one of the cheeseshops with knowledgeable salespeople and will introduce and let you sample new cheeses. It’s a fun place to explore.
Our remaining time in Madison was spent at the Old Fashioned for breakfast and then Babcock Hall for one last serving of local ice cream (as well as getting some cheese for $5/lb vs. $20-35+/lb at Fromagination).
After that, we made a trip to New Glarus Brewing Company. It was a nice drive through the farmland in Wisconsin, about 40 minutes southwest of Madison. We did the self-guided tour of the brewery while enjoying one of their beers. This was the first time I was able to finish an entire beer. We managed to pick up a few brewery-exclusive beers that hopefully I’ll be able to sample in the coming weeks.
Our final stop before returning to Chicago was Ramen House Shinchan, located in a strip mall in Palantine. Eater writes that this is one of the best bowls of ramen in the Midwest. They have a unique creamy tonkotsu ramen that was quite smooth and tasty. It was lighter than other pork-based ramen bowls. The base bowl is served with scallions, sprouts, an excellent egg and a rather plain braised pork. Aiday got their “Best Condition” ramen, which features a lot of vegetables in a chicken broth. Sadly, even that bowl was too spicy for me to eat. I wish I could have tried some of the spicier versions, as I’ve enjoyed that style more in the past.
All in all, the trip to Madison was a really good one. We got out of the city for a few days, ate some good meals (with plenty of calories), and brought back produce to cook and beer to drink,.