Weeknight Cooking:
Spanish Tortilla with Chorizo

"At the age of barely three, I would rush outside whenever I heard Julie, our family hen, cackling to announce that she was about to lay.  I would gently collect the still warm new-laid egg and hurry to the kitchen with it.  My mother collected the eggs in a large bowl, which would be kept full during the summer; in winter Julie laid only one or two eggs a week – but we loved her just the    same" – Michel Roux, from Eggs



Having finally (hopefully) mastered the delicate art of the soft two egg omelette, it seems natural to move on to other forms of cooking eggs, which Roux describes in the introduction to his book on the subject, "an undervalued food, invariably overshadowed by expensive, luxury ingredients."  What I found out while cooking the Tortilla was as an important a lesson as any with eggs – it still seems that there will be those eaters who are attracted to the plain and natural taste of eggs themselves, and those who might want the added variety of seasoning and ingredients to enjoy.  The traditional French omelette, for example, is an interesting case: it calls for

eggs, butter, Gruyere cheese and fresh chives, but the extras very sparingly, so that the egg most certainly still stands out as the primary flavor source.  The Spanish Tortilla, on the other hand, is a dish that not only offers a variety of substantial extra components to an egg dish, but what it really does is invite the addition of just about anything you can think of.  The recipe calls for chorizo, a Spanish style sausage, but one could

see adding just about any kind of meat you could think of, depending on taste or what is on hand.  The recipe calls for parsley leaves, but why not spinach for the green?  I diced up zucchini into cubes...asparagus?  The other egg trick I gathered was how to cook a much larger volume of eggs than what you get used to for the 2-3 egg omelette.  Even though the Spanish Tortilla called for only 6 eggs, I used ten because I was

feeding five of us and I wanted my dish to be thicker than the picture shown.  The process in Roux's book calls for a pan fry, cooking from the bottom up, then a flip to fry the top portion.  Because my dish was 10 eggs, I decided to go ahead and watch the eggs begin to cook from the bottom up on low heat for around 8 minutes, then I decided to go ahead and bake it in the 8-inch diameter, four-inch high deep pan for the rest of the time needed.  I knew the bottom would already be close to done from the stove top heat; I would then check the top layer while in the oven for any of the standing egg liquid to firm, and then assume that it was done.  It was, and done perfectly.  The end product of my dish was somewhere around four inches high, it peeled from the non-stick pan, and cut and kept its form in pie shaped pieces for serving.  Although there was much luck with this first time approach for the tortilla, the understanding of cooking eggs still centered around the hundreds of omelettes that I have cooked and those hard lessons learned in heat control while pan cooking thin linings of eggs.  If I would have turned my stovetop dial to anything beyond my number three at low, there is no doubt that the bottom would have browned and rubberized.  Any time after that in the oven would have made this condition worse.  I kept the temperature low and watched the heat bubble up through the center and slowly firm up.  This yielded a soft textured bottom that maintained shape and egginess.  In the end, the tortilla was a wonderful pie 'mold' that held great ingredients: potatoes cubed and fried with red onion as base; polska kielbasa quartered and fried briefly with diced garlic and a dice of red pepper; a zucchini dice

added towards the end to add a crisp and moist green.  I piled all of these cooked ingredients into the deep 8-inch pan, then dumped a bowl of 10 whipped eggs over the top, flattened it out, and let it sit.  Throughout, I made sure to salt all of the ingredients, but if there was one obvious complaint to the dish, it would be that the three potatoes and 10 eggs still needed one more heavier touch of seasoning. Because I used kielbasa instead of chorizo, I lost some spice in the mix, and we all know potatoes generally need some help.  Next time I could see slipping in olives or even a small hint of anchovies

to liven the dish, but what I did learn was one more step in perfecting the art of eggs.

Arundel's Eggz
Family Food Truck 

"For a long time after that summer, the four Penderwick sisters still talked of Arundel. Fate drove us there, Jane would say. No, it was the greedy landlord who sold our vacation house on Cape Cod, someone else would say, probably Skye." from Jeanne Birdsall's The Penderwicks









When we first saw the two images of new home and new truck in our new designated city, we weren't quite sure if any of them were close to how father had sold them to us in our imaginations.  The ideas
had the kind of shine on them as the golden Easter egg that is filled with riches beyond dreams.  For this new venture, we were all assured, would have no choice but to succeed – we were going to the farmers, offering to pick their produce and using their own fresh items in our dishes, all made from local eggs, (every dish had to have eggs, that was the namesake!) wherever and whenever we could find them.  Some of us would pick, others would prep out the vegetables, others would cook or work the counter.  How could such a brilliant idea go wrong? Lacy had been tempted with the prospect of driving the truck since she was the only one with a driver's license, so it was her eyes that bulged the biggest when we saw that the Arundel's Eggz Family Food Truck hadn't yet, well, become a food truck.  "I can see it already," father said as soon he laid eyes on the old odd shell sitting at an angle in the driveway, both left side tires flat. "This will be a true farmer's truck, we'll paint it black, put some old wood siding on starboard and port.  Can we grow herbs along the gutter of the roof?"  Zach and Hannah, the twins, Lacy all at the same time scratch their heads and had to figure out  if they were truly in good hands or if this was an appropriate time for what they all understood to be an appropriate time to mutiny.  "Livin' up troops, haven't seen a real challenge in some time I see.  We'll have 'er up and rolling around this new city of ours in no time at all.  First dish out the counter, already decided, Spanish Tortilla with Chorizo."

On the Yahara

"Shot gold, maroon and violet, dazzling silver,  emerald, fawn,
The earth's whole amplitude and Nature's multiform power
consign'd for once to colors;" – Whitman, from "A Prairie Sunset"








Yahara Spring VI



The brown backwaters in Spring flush by the chop of waves,
aqua, charcoal, silver marine waves powered by a deep
and ever churning blue that carries
ever upward from the unseeable universe of lower depths
toward the surface and holds
         its own show of floating lights.

Over its top – when silent, when floating by canoe or kayak –
that great hiss of geese wings pass low,
their flat heels off the surface had lifted off in tandem,
         the lead goose blindly honking,
then the partner responding, up they go across
the lake like ancient ships oaring forward in unison.

Off in the distance, redheaded ducks flit back and forth
in silhouettes, radiant heads pecking at the solar wind.

Eagle, majesty, white-tailed, fan-tailed, wings
from pine bough to pine bough as the trunks twist
at its landing, watches the world of water for fish.

On the Yahara

"(Ah little rocks the laborer,
How near his work is holding him to God.
The loving Laborer through space and time).
–Whitman, from "Song of the Exposition"






Yahara Spring V


A stiff gust sweeps off the last of the icy mists
that hibernate Lake Monona,
sweep off the thick matted oak leaves that
have held the crystallized muds and tended
to the autumn seeds, stuck, sleeping, an inner
throbbing though that could never fully sleep.
The gardner and farmer of the coming months
feels the same blank throb at the fingertips
and knows that the season of humility comes,
the months of warmth and rain come seeking
all those who would labor for the world.
In labor the man and woman find identities
leaving and lifting above the land and water,
themselves becoming but that which is digging,
becoming the sharpened hoe creating
the canals for the seeds along the raised beds,
becoming the moist soil roiling with waking worms,
the watering can singing and returning
birds singing and stashing the dandelion stems
for nests bound to the leafing limbs.
When man and woman fill themselves by seeds,
and night approaches it is no longer
the cold apparitions that visit but the rising
of flower petals and lilac vines that reach
ever upward always growing.

"Long and long has the green been growing,
Long and long has the rain been falling,
Long has the globe been rolling around."

On the Yahara

"On the beach at night,
Stands a child with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky."
–Whitman, from "On the Beach at Night"






Yahara Spring IV


The day is coming to an end and the beach
is but a darkening smudge as seen against the window.
Across the street the child stands with mother and father
as they move back and forth
from the bridge to the water and toss leaves
from the limestone quarry laid at the shore.
Ducks are so tame they preen only a step away,
their great green heads nearly phospherescent
against the dying light of the western sky.
The child can only know the great forces of clouds
and moving water by name,
that the stars beyond are born as points
that flash and seem to smile as they blink.
Traffic along Riverside Drive moves slow and seems
to hum a tune that mirrors that of the Yahara below.
So many songs sing the wrath of mourning
But in this scene there is no weeping or burials of things,
a song that is fresh of the coming summer
the coming flow of things as the ice recedes
and rejuvenates the stagnant rocks,
the coming of longer days spent on spokes rolling
over the warming sidewalks
and fish dive deep to cool their long and growing bodies,
the coming of the rainbow colored sails
that will dash past the white face of the Monona Terrace
as if the bodies of the warm breeze itself.

On the Yahara A-Z

C.



Corry Street to Next Door Brewery.  Riding the Monona Loop of the Capital City Path trail system

counterclockwise would take you eventually past starkwater creek bridge near the East Washington corridor and on into the Atwood

Schenk neighborhood, the revitalized historical neighborhood stocked full of so many shops, restaurants and pubs it would be difficult to pass without stopping somewhere.  So, try this stop... taking a sharp left down Corry street would bring the biker very close to the front door of Next Door Brewery, one of the great small – and maybe somewhat unknown – breweries in Madison.

For bikers or visitors mostly familiar with the west side of Madison, or only Ale Asylum or Capital Brewery – the city's most well known breweries – this east side gem, along with One Barrel Brewery a few blocks down – is a find and a half. With fresh and creative brews created on site like the Kaleidospoke Pale Ale, Luminous American IPA, and a recently voted top 10 beer in Wisconsin, Plumptuous Scotch Ale ("Wee Heavy/Strong Scotch Ale), this is the kind of place you like to claim as a next door neighbor.  A tap of Luminous along a novel dish of Feijoada (a traditional Brazilian stew with rib meat, black beans and bacon served over steamed rice), is a perfect combo.

From Correy St. at Atwood down the City Trail Path past Riverside Drive and on into the capital perimeter, past the Monona Terrace at John Nolan Drive.

On the Yahara: A-Z

B.

Basic Pie, Grampa's Pizzeria.

Grampa's on Williamson Street has taken on one of the most difficult culinary challenges in the 'good' food industry: how to separate oneself from the hundreds of others that find a good location and try

 to make the best pizza in the city.  We've visited Grampa's only twice and sampled only three pizzas, but it would be an understatement to say that we might very well have found the best pizza the city will offer.  As we sat down in the small main dining room we knew that we were in a very neat and stylish 'joint.' We could even see from our table the cooks behind the serving wall diligently working toward perfection topping off salads with herbs.

But really there's no way to evaluate the beauty of za until the moment it arrives, is stacked on the table, and sampled.  We ordered one basic pie of cheese and pepperoni, one of a basil and tomato base, and the Puerto, which was supposed to be tomato sauce, pork confit, and gorgonzola.  I asked if the gorgonzola could become the standard house blend of cheese instead so to avoid gonzola overload, and each of these came out looking thin, slightly brown and not overdone in any way.

There was something happening with these pizzas that all the greatest recipes share: something exclusive, something perfect in both taste and texture.  It is written that the new owner of Grampas had loved his own grandfather's pizza recipe growing up and decided to put it to true commercial use.   It works.  The pork confit on the Puerto was perfectly placed and not overdone, the cheese not gushing and broiling over every inch of the crust, and the tomato underneath it all an authentic, nearly decadent, rich paste.  Pizza, when done like this, is as close to dessert as dessert.  It is very difficult to stop eating the best.  When the three pizzas were placed on our table, we pictured multiple boxes necessary for take home, yet we left with only one box of a mere handful of pizza.

The owner and head chef at Grampas is a trained chef whose lineage in family restauranting runs deep.  The care that is put into each piece is obvious indication.  Hundreds of pizzerias try; only one, here and there, become what all the others hope to be.

"Flow on, river! flow with the flood tide, and ebb with the
         ebb tide!
Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg'd waves!
Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor
          me, or the men and women generations after
          me!"

– Whitman, from "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"


Yahara Spring III


To the millions of gallons that flow from the glacial
alluvium lakes at the mouth of the Yahara;
the gallons that flow through the wide bowl of Mendota
and sift through the upper reaches of the Taychopera
at the Cherokee marsh to us at the Yahara Bridge
where schools of fish stew underneath to feed.
To the millions of gallons that curve where the park yard still holds
the living ghosts of German immigrants
in their Sunday suits playing billiards and bowling,
as they chant to beer hall suites and children frolic,
to the millions of gallons that flow past the curved
park yard and on toward Starkweather Creek,
past the burial mounds above the shoreline protected,
Graham Park, Paunuck Marsh and Inter-lake at Squaw Bay.
How your voyage carries all our eyes of generations.
Under the tame air into worlds only known by water
we peek as the foil-edged jewels of sharp waves
and on into the more known mysteries of the city.

Nature Journal

March 14


Taychopera is the Ho-Chunk word for the four lakes at Madison.  The city here, it becomes so easy to see, is like the rest of the earth itself – dominated by water and all the streets, bridges, parks, curbs, gutters, sewers and all else but an afterthought when considered it glacial heritage.  Monona is not as deep as Mendota – an average at forty-some feet deep – but it too is well carved in the 20 feet range.  Below Monona is Waubesa and Kegonsa; connecting all these the Yahara chain, including the city stretch between Monona and Mendota, what used to be a meandering catfish alley, then straightened for the sake of flow and boat traffic....at one point, in 1913, over 600 boats traveled from the Tenney lochs to Monona.  Millions of gallons flow through this cut each day.  What makes this spectacular is the series of 16 bridges that cross, the neighborhoods they connect, the shops and walking traffic along Williamson and past that East Washington.  It is a vital water path through one of the hearts of the city.  For this, it might well be considered an opportune interface between people and nature.  To take a quick pause over the top of the bridge is to begin to ponder the easy thought that Madison is water first and foremost, especially here at the isthmus connection.  The mind then is allowed to wander north all the way through Mendota on into the largest of the Dane county marshlands at Cherokee, the origin of the watershed.  It may drift south finally to Kegonsa, imagining further the hundreds of inlets, bays, creeks, springs, flows, marshes and abundant wildlife.  In short, glaciation has left us with the carving of an aquatic treasure that can be understood by exploration and furthermore preservation.  City leaders had known and acted upon this treasure from its inception and it shows.  Yahara Place Park was a German immigrant place for gathering to listen to music, play outdoor games, listen to live music, play billiards, drink beer, and no doubt watch children interact with nature.

"Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose."
–Whitman, from "Song of the Open Road"


Yahara Spring II


Out the door and across the street I go among many.
We are but schools of air-breathing fish as we weave
over the top of the bridge and down the park street.
Out the door and across the street I go to run along the side of the lake
where the wise old oaks dip their limbs comfortably to taste
and have learned the great art of non complaining.
Out the door and across the street I go and see children
lined at the foot of the monkey bars, sliding and swinging,
as the wintering birds dare now stand tall to sing.
Out the door and across the the street I go to escape
the indoor clamoring of water pipes and cold quarreling,
the soft wind that blows outside a new friend.

"Roots and leaves themselves alone are these,
Scents brought to men and women from the wild  
              woods and pond-side...."

–Whitman, "Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone"




Yahara Spring I


The cars at the corner slow at the stop sign of Rutledge Bridge.
There is a moment then on the bridge to align with water to either side.
The mind may leave the car for a moment.
The world now not far away as the stone bridge arches over the ducks
Swimming at their leisure below on the top lace of the cool water.
The stone bridge is a lookout to Lake Monona;
Clouds bust out high above the last shelf of ice at its center
           and turn away as if wild and untamed.
Here is where the promise of each bud sings but can't be heard.
The buds are singing in the earth under the mud of the path
That curves along the bank; the buds are singing invisible leaves;
The buds sing as buried cones, the base of grass seed,
            yet we do not know it.
The man lifts up his eyes from the water and he sees his next street.
The ducks paddle out to the ice instinctually.
The clouds return.
The mouths of seeds keep on singing.

Weeknight Cooking:
Lemony Asparagus-Prosciutto Ravioli

Set aside the jarred alfredo and in only a few simple and fast steps make an even more delicious batch of ravioli in white sauce.

As with so many other semi-gourmet products at the grocery store right now, there are more and more refrigerated (fresh non frozen) ravioli products to choose from.  Where there used to be one main brand of frozen, now there are at least four located in most stores near the butter and cream cheese.  This recipe calls for one package of cheese-filled, but one new product in particular stood out, the chicken and cheese stuffed selection.  The recipe also calls for prosciutto, but the stuffed chicken allowed me to skip the tougher meat option.  Asparagus, cut into four inch pieces, is dropped into the boiling pot of ravioli with four

minutes left, just enough to tenderize the cut spears.  Meanwhile, in a larger skillet, sauté a shallot or two in oil, then add a cup of heavy whipping cream and 3tbsp of chicken stock in with shallots, letting simmer until some thickening at six minutes.  At this point the tender ravioli and asparagus, drained and oiled, is set in the skillet of the milky sauce, 1/4 cup of Romano cheese added to the top and folded in, left to simmer 2-3 minutes.  Just before serving, grate as much lemon peel as desired but try not to fold in.

The final product with this fairly simple recipe from the big book of weeknight cooking, is a thinly creamy, bright, and dynamic layering of vegetable and pasta textures.  The richness of the milk, shallot and cheese sauce is contrasted nicely by the asparagus and lemon zest.

On the Yahara A-Z

"The Year Began with lunch. We have always found that New Year's Eve, with its eleventh-hour excesses and doomed resolutions, is a dismal occasion for all the forced jollity and midnight toasts and kisses.  And so, when we heard that over in the village of Lacoste, a few miles away, the proprietor of Le Simiane was offering a six-course lunch with pink champagne to his amiable clientele, it seemed like a much more cheerful way to start the next twelve months." Peter Mayle, from A Year in Provence



A.

To be new but not really new to a city is a fascinating state of mind when in a foodie capital like Madison.  We have been to Madison many many times, lived here for two summers and completed an undergrad at UW.  But to experience the food renaissance here in the city anew is the foodie's dream.  Avenue Club and Bubble Up Room fits right into this very well, having been one of those restaurants that we might very well have driven by a hundred times when younger but that now, when you realize you live only a couple of miles away from it – that it's basically walkable, and that it's been transformed into a reconceived retro-modern supper club – it becomes a mainstay in the mind almost upon walking in the door.

We wanted to spend time in a great Madison joint late afternoon, somewhere off Capital, and even away from East, where we knew we might be later that night.  The restaurant was wide open to us, post lunch crowd and just before dinner.  We were able to soak up the Bubble Up for a couple of hours sitting on tall round booths. The Spotted Cow tap was poured into tall ale glasses and the oysters and Nicoise salads were well handled and prepared.

What we felt most, though, was a perfect blend of the old and the new; it's true, we're not life-longers here in the city, but we have spent many an hour in many a restaurant, pub, joint, club and cafe here....the Avenue is a blend of clean corners and old style, but not too kitschy.  If we had more time, the scene might well have played out how the old supper club played: happy hour drinks, family, friends, the traffic rolling past one of the old thoroughfares of the city, as the sun dims and city neon takes over.  On the way home, some light chatter between neighbors along the riverside.

Nature Journal

"Early in the morning I tied my notebook and some bread to my belt, and strode away full of eager hope, feeling that I was going to have a glorious revel.  The glacier meadows that lay along my way served to soothe my morning speed, for the sod was full of blue gentians and daisies, kalmia and dwarf vaccinium, calling for recognition as old friends...." John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra






March 9


Living now across from the Yahara River opens many new worlds of water.  The bridges that cross the man-made canal connecting Mendota to Monona Lakes are themselves part of the rocky art of water scene.

Because it is early March and the gentians and daisies have not yet risen, it is the power of the rocky bridges and the quarried stone landings along the mile or so path of the Yahara that stands out most.  A variety of ducks and other feathered divers gather at the point where the river meets Monona and the ice has finally retreated here to nothing more than thin sheets out in the middle of the lake.  As the ice recedes the potential of all the water trails begin to shape up in the mind: the boater, the kayaker, the paddle boarder can begin to see the long water path from as far south as Lake Waubesa, up along the southern portion of the Yahara, north across Monona to the canal, entry through the lock and dam at Tenney Park and out onto the grandaddy Mendota.

Mendota, larger, more northerly, still holds a potholed mass of ice and a heavy fog, stirred from a warming wind but cooled from below – thickens in along the contours of the shoreline.  Fewer diving birds here, deeper water, colder, and less visible.  Soon this will be the scene of a boat line-up readying for the locks; kayakers, able to skip the locks altogether, put-in around the edges and color the lake in shining fragments.   As you turn around and look inward to the city, the normally shining dome at the top of the skyline is nearly buried by fog, just one more reminder of things to come.