It is all my sister-in-law, Katie’s fault.  I was visiting her and my brother about a month ago and prior to going to see them I had been working very diligently on a specific ‘sugar and flour are evil’ diet.  In spite of that diligence, my success to that point had been limited (I had not gained any additional weight) but I was steadfastly adhering to the plan finding alternative ways to satisfy my very small sweet tooth.  Those who know me can attest; I can resist most sweets, chocolate included.  My weakness is on the savory side. I can eat an entire bag of salt and vinegar potato chips and if I have a craving it is usually something in that family.  This diet has depraved me of that too, and so I think I was especially vulnerable.  Katie is the opposite, she always has a variety of chocolate stashed all over their house.  One night, I noticed an open bag of Cadbury Mini Eggs tucked next to Katie’s laptop on the couch.  I picked up the bag and asked my brother if I should put it away so that their new puppy didn’t get into it.  He said that Katie and the dog had gone to bed and she would absolutely retrieve it before she left for work in the morning.  I read the nutritional panel to see how many I might be able to eat without upsetting the delicate balance between gaining, and not gaining, any weight on my weight loss diet.  I calculated I could eat 9 and still be ‘OK’.  I don’t recall eating the 9 eggs.  Maybe I dreamed it; 5 more wouldn’t hurt.  This would have continued until the bag was completely empty except that my guilt for stealing Katie’s chocolate and pride in being able to resist was a teensy bit  stronger that day than my temporary addiction to the hard candy coated chocolates.  I went to bed.  Far away from the bag.  But only after  grabbing one more little handful for the road.

Here I am, back at home, one month later, and I have only gained 3 pounds on my sugar and flour free wight loss  diet.  The diet book says you shouldn’t plan to stay on this restricted part for very long because you will grow tired of the restrictions.  It has been 3 months.  2 1/2 months longer than they suggest; also because it my not be good for you to loose weight so fast, for that long.  Um, yea.  I decide that maybe I am one of those people who really does need to add exercise to ‘diet’ in order to lose weight, so, Monday I took a walk.  I walked up to the coffee shop and bought a scone and a cookie.  If I spread them out over several days, I rationalized, it will be fine.  They were both almost gone before I got home.  Tuesday; new day.  Walked for an hour but the return route took me back by the coffee shop.  Darn, I have just enough money for a cookie and a scone.  I hurry home because I need to run an errand and forget about the cookie and scone…. Because….All the way to the store I am thinking about Cadbury Mini Eggs.  They must be on sale..it is almost Easter.  I find the 18 oz bag and walk away in disgust.  No way do I want that much chocolate in my house.  I almost get out of the store and I see a smaller bag by the checkout.  Damn!

I only ate 12 on the way home, counting them and still thinking of a way to stay on my ‘Oh-So-Successful’ diet.  Once home,  I ate another 15 while I was fixing dinner..oh hell, I really wasn’t even counting by that time.  After dinner, I hid them from myself.  It actually has worked a couple of times in the past with other things, but I underestimated the pull of the complex pleasure of sucking on the hard candy coating until the chocolate begins to soften and then you have to just smash it all in your mouth.  Myself found the bag again two more times before I went to bed.  I really tried to resist.  I even ate two sugar free jello cups to distract myself.  Because those are sooooo satisfying…

This morning when I got up, I new what I had to do.  There was still half a a bag of those damn eggs left.  I couldn’t keep them.  I had to get them out of the house or I would crush the rest of the bag before nightfall.  I couldn’t just throw them away; I didn’t trust myself  not to try to retrieve them.  Fortunately, my sense of dignity is stronger than my addiction.    I had to find a safe place to leave them where I knew they would be cared for and loved.  I tied the bag with a bow and wrote a note to my neighbor Elaina and explained that I could no longer keep the eggs.  I asked her to enjoy them and care for them as she would her own.  My note stopped short of explaining the sucking and melting part; she is from Russia and surely savoring chocolate is international, but obviously a very personal thing.  She will figure it out.   I left the note and the bag on the steps to her apartment and I know before nightfall my Cadbury Mini Eggs will have a new home.

Maybe this was a good thing.  I can renew my vows with my diet and maybe this lapse has somehow reset my metabolism and my resolve.  I will take a walk this afternoon in the opposite direction of the coffee house and work off some of those chocolate egg calories.  After I eat that scone fried up with a little butter.  Butter is a free food on this diet.  I know it will work, if I just stick to it.

While in Mackinaw, IL, on the second part of my trip visiting my brother, we stumbled upon a nice 10 lb beef brisket.  I just happened to be traveling with my spice box and curing salts, (doesn’t everyone?) so I suggested we split the brisket in half and brine both pieces to make Corned Beef.   I doubled the recipe I was using from Charcuterie for 5 lbs of brisket to accommodate our 10 pounds.  Then I combined, toasted and ground a mixture of pickling spices (allspice, cloves Cinnamon, coriander, bay leaf, mustard seed, mace); mixed that with pink salt, regular salt, sugar and water and placed the briskets in containers to get pink, corney and briney for a few days.  In the mean time I got to share my bacon from last months challenge.

When I returned home Sunday with my half of the brisket, I rinsed the brine off and put it on the stove to boil with some fresh water and some of the remaining pickling spice.  I had originally planned to put it in a Dutch oven to cook in the oven but the recipe specifically called for boiling and since this was my first time around for home corned beef, I followed the directions.  After about 3 hours on the stove, the house smelling wonderful with the pickling spices, I dropped in some carrots, onions, cabbage and chunks of celery root.

About an hour later, when the vegetables seemed done, I pulled out the brisket and let it rest for a while.  I decided to make a puree of the root vegs and what was left of the onion.  I fished out the cabbage chunks to serve whole along side the puree and corned beef and set the dark aromatic boiling liquid (Corned Beef Stock?) aside to transfer to a gravy boat and use as au jus later.

The brisket sliced easily and was very tender.  I was afraid it would be tough or stringy but it was beautiful sliced against the grain as I tested it, making thinner and thinner slices.  Each piece hung together as I was slicing it but then fell apart with my fork on my plate and I was able to appropriately mash the cabbage, corned beef and celery root  puree into a nice little pile ready for my fork to take to my mouth.  I have to admit it is not the most colorful plate.  The cabbage and the other vegetables took on the color of the brining liquid, not that it would have looked much different had they not done so, and it looked like I had some little piles of putty next to my corned beef.

No matter.  In spite of not being very photogenic, it was delicious.  I think If I am going to continue to photograph my food for this contest, I probably should learn a little more about my camera and photography in general.  At least I stepped up from the camera on my Blackberry and used a real camera.  Even though it is 10 years old, it takes pretty good pictures..when someone who knows how is behind the viewfinder.

I am already planning tomorrows corned beef dish…Fried Corned beef with a couple of poached eggs.  Then for lunch…

A few notes for the margin of my Charcuterie book and to share with my brother before he prepares his half for his family:  the cooked corned beef was plenty salty and peppery.  I like a lot of pepper but this was almost too much.  For him, I am going to suggest he not only rinses the brine off thoroughly but also soak in water overnight before he boils or changes his water half way through the boil with fresh water.  I am also going to double check the amount of salt and pepper in the pickling spice mix I used to in the fresh water boil and maybe adjust it next time, or even omit.

Early in her life she lost a significant part of her hearing and was fortunate to have access to the latest hearing aid technology of the day (I’m sure that’s not what they called it back then).  The earliest version I remember had wires that she carefully tucked in behind her ears and under her ‘hairdo’, and was attached to a small transistor radio like thing that she tucked into her dress.  Always dressed to impress, there was always a little competition between her and her sister for the ‘glamor girl’ title of the week.  In the late 30′s she got married, started her family and in the early 50′s became an independent sales rep for Sonotone.  She traveled (alone!) to conventions and to be trained on the latest hearing aid products and back then, I am thinking that was pretty progressive.  To meet her, you would never guess she was in sales or as independent as she was in business. She has always been very demur and sweet and would truly blush if someone was telling an off color joke or just pretend like she didn’t hear it.   More than a sales woman, she was truly an advocate for the hearing impaired and taught us from the time we were very little about the bones of the ear, the hammer, anvil and stirrup, (not the official names but for little kids, good for visualization) and explained how everything worked. 

From my earliest memory, she had a home office and took her profession very seriously.  She always kept up to date on her training and knowledge as well as the advances in the field and was happy to discuss it if you asked.  I recall a high school friend mentioning to me at one of our class reunions that my grandmother had fitted her with her first hearing aids when she was much younger.  I was surprised, first, because I had never noticed she wore them, but second, that my grand mother never mentioned meeting her.  When I spoke to my grand mother about it she explained that she felt it was a very private matter and never felt comfortable discussing who her clients were with anyone. She still had some regular clients as she progressed in to her 90′s and still had local doctors referring clients to her.  She was reluctant to retire because she didn’t feel like she had anyone reliable (not many hearing techs that make house calls anymore) to turn her clients over to so she just kept doing it until 3-4 years ago when it just became physically impossible for her.

It was hard to see her this weekend.  She is having a hard time communicating and it is frustrating for her.  My brother and sister went over a couple weeks ago and my brother smuggled his dog in to the nursing home and took these pictures.  She was not doing as well this weekend so I am glad they captured some fun moments then.  No matter what, she is always happy and quick to welcome you and enjoys hamming it up for a little laugh.  I am glad I got to see her again and it made me remember what a sweet, strong woman she is.  She has been a wonderful role model and inspiration and I am proud to be her grand daughter.

So I did.

This is day 7 of my planned 2 week drying process.  Things look good so far.  And from the little bit I sampled it tastes good so far too.

I have almost finished (eating) my bacon.  I am finding so many things to add it to when I m cooking.  the only thing I haven’t done with it is dip it in chocolate.  Yet.  I told my neighbor I would bring him some for shoveling all the snow but he may have to wait for the next batch.  I am pretty happy with my first attempt but I have some ideas for improvement for the second time around.  My savory Montreal bacon was really salty but my Maple bacon is perfect.  I think I need to spend more time rinsing before I cook it and the bay leaf  flavor was stronger than I liked.  No matter; great stash to have on a cold winter day in Milwaukee.

The March challenge is ‘Brine’.  That one will be easy for me.  I have been playing with brines for several years so it will be fun to come up with some fun examples for the challenge.

Early in January, I was looking for something creative to do with pork I acquired during a Butchering Class last summer at Balzano. I stumbled upon these two bloggers who were getting worked up about ‘making meat’ using Brian Polcyn and Michael Ruhlmans book Charcuterie.  I bought this book a couple of years ago and have even given it as a gift on a few occasions, but haven’t done much with it myself.  I’ve followed Ruhlman’s blog for a few years and have a few of his other books. He is an Ohioan, like myself, and he writes with a perspective that I enjoy, however, Charcuterie has been too intimidating, so far, for me to attempt on my own.

As I was watching the Meat Making Bloggers, Yummy Mummy, and Mrs. Wheelbarrow, from a far, the excitement quickly developed in to a real contest with monthly challenges and support from the author Ruhlman, sponsors like D’Artagnan, and Food 52 even a grand prize. I mentioned the contest to a few meat loving friends, hoping I could live vicariously through their meat making because lately, the meat in my budget was not worth preserving.  Then a chef friend of mine surprised me with 20 lbs of pork belly so that I could jump in to the challenge myself.  So much for watching from a far.

The first Charcutepalooza challenge issued in January was preserving duck breast by making duck prosciutto.  Fortunately, because it evolved so quickly, they are allowing latecomers like myself, to catch up with our duck later, and I will share it when it unfolds.  Right now, I have to figure out what to do with all this pork belly.  February’s challenge was a dry cure and included an Apprentice Challenge and a Charcuterie Challenge.  The Apprentice Challenge was making fresh bacon.  One of the critical ingredients in this dry cure process (but not all, as you will see with the Duck Prosciutto) is salt with nitrate (Pink Salt).  It is not something you find in the grocery store and there are several sources on-line but since my pork was not sourced locally (who can be particular about a gift?), and because I was in a hurry, I wanted to try to find a local source for the ingredients I used in the curing process.  I consulted a Milwaukee food blogger I also found early in January, PorkDrunk, because I noticed he had also made some fresh bacon from the Charcuterie book sometime last year.  Unfortunately, although I learned about a good local meat source and saw some great Pork Stuff on his site, like most everyone else, he gets his Pink salt online from a sausage and meat curing specialty house.  Ever determined, I checked TheSpice House located in the Milwaukee Public Market and on 3rd Street in Milwaukee they had everything I needed and more.  In addition to the Pink Salt and every kind of spice you could imagine they also have some of their own blends.  There were a couple that I’ve used in the past that I thought might be good for bacon. Since I have so much pork belly I decided to make two different kinds of bacon (and maybe trying to overcompensate for being late to the party. It is a contest after all).  I wanted to have a sweet one and a savory one, so I used a maple spice blend and added little brown sugar to it along with the basic pink salt cure.  The savory one I cured with a blend called Quebec Beef Spice (my pork is from Canada so that made sense) and the blend is white and black pepper, sugar, garlic and coriander and although I don’t know how those spices relate to Quebec, I thought that would make some good fresh bacon.  I added some additional peppercorn and coriander and toasted it to warm up the oils before I crushed and added to the blend.

I decided to divide my belly up into 4 -5lb pieces and I divided one of those in half for the bacon so I would have 2-2.5 slabs of finished product.  I mean really, how much pork belly do you think a single girl in Milwaukee can eat?  Don’t answer that.  I do have lots of friends to share with but, honestly, since it is my first time, I figured if I screwed it up, there would be less to throw away. 

The entire Charcutepalooza contest includes blogging about your experience and hopefully sharing some recipes using your preserved bounty.  This fresh bacon takes 7 days to cure in the refrigerator it also takes a few hours in the oven to cook. Today is the 7th day and I already have my bellies in the oven. The typical next step for bacon after it is cured is smoking and I gave my smoker away last fall because I hadn’t used it in 10 years.  I am sure that I could negotiate some smoking time on it in trade for some bacon but I am excited to taste the fresh bacon (un-smoked) first.  Later today to be exact.  Ironically, Anne Burrell featured Porkbelly and Mustard greens this week on her show and I happen to have some Mustard greens in my fridge…..

Almost Done!

The Charcuterie Challenge will take a bit longer.  For that challenge I made Pancetta.  Before you call me an over achiever, remember, I have 20 lbs of pork belly and really tiny freezer.  Besides, this is a CONTEST and there are PRIZES!  Can you say “Bonjour Francez Vous”? (my sister, with a MA in French Translation, is having a french cow right now:)  Sorry, Boo, none of it rubbed off on me).  I am usually the type who feels comfortable improvising with recipes; either adjusting according to what I have on hand, or to my own individual taste buds.  However, I believe that ‘food to die for’ should remain a figure of speech and while I felt comfortable adjusting the spice blends for the bacon, I followed the Pancetta recipe to the letter.  My mise en place (see sis, I get some of it right) included juniper berries, coriander, garlic, bay leaf, thyme and some other stuff from my trip to the Spice House.  

So after the pancetta is dry cured, it looks like this below.  I learned this evening in a Tweet-up with Ruhlman and Bob delGrosso that you can concieveably leave it flat like this and hang it.

Too late.  I spent a bout an hour wrapping it and trussing it but I think I might have some issues. I have some ‘bulging’ areas that might be big fat welcome signs for that bad mold.  I am sending pictures to a meat specialist and getting a second opinion.  I have a feeling he will tell me to re-wrap but I think it is worth the consultation.

I looked back to see what I did last year on Valentines day and found myself drawing a blank.  Looks like this year might be a blank as well.  It is Monday after all.  But it is 40 degrees out side…Its a heat wave!  Maybe I will have some good news to report tomorrow.

I only have 12 Facebook Friends.  I am a Facebook Failure. And I am not 55 or older.  At first Facbook was fun.  There are a lot of artists and creative people in Milwaukee that I have met through Facebook.   I like seeing what my 12 friends are up to and comparing our top 5 albums of all time, but we could do that in person.  And while I did play a fascinating game of on-line Scrabble, I don’t like those applications that send a virtual drink or a virtual hug.  I don’t believe I am saving the planet or saving green space by sending a virtual plant. The problem is most of my friends don’t see the value in Facebook (they are busy making a living?) so my ‘Friend’ pool is pretty limited.  After I get the nerve to ‘friend’ my high school sweetheart whom I found on Facebook the other day and haven’t spoken to in…never mind how long, I’ll be out of options  (I wasn’t really looking, I just accidentally found him.  That is my story and I am sticking to it).

Doesn’t matter.  Anyway, I have moved on to Twitter and I have 29 followers there.   On Twitter, you don’t have to actually know the people you follow.  And they don’t have to know you to follow you.  I must have hit some Twitter ‘Sweet Spot’ yesterday because I picked up 11 followers.  In one day!  Yes, they are included in the 29 aforementioned followers.. stop doing the math.    Hey, I have …. a bunch…of  connections on Linked In.

Each social networking site has its own protocol.  Facebook is pretty friendly.  Like a Puppy.  Yea, wanna be my friend;  come on be my friend, pant, pant, it will be fun; pant, pant, lick.  Linked In people are more selective about who they invite and who they accept invites from.  At least that’s the prescribed method of behaviour.  All bets are off if you’re a recruiter or in HR.  They (we, as I actually belong to that group; if not to the behaviour) subscribe to the ‘more is better’ philosophy.   The LI purists (engineers and analysts, you know who you are), say you should only ‘connect’ with people you actually know and would pick up the phone to call.   This idea is lost on recruiters and sales people because we will call anyone.  A true Linked In snob will not accept an invitation from anyone below their title or rank.  Yet, it is an accolade to reach 1000 connections.  Whatever.  The reality is, while Linked in can be a very useful networking tool, it’s pretty stuffy and not really very fun.

Enter Twitter.  Some people on Twitter are indiscriminate about who they follow and I kinda like that.   I don’t want to compete for popularity among my peers like a second grader on Valentine’s Day (thank god for the decorated shoe box so no one could see I only got 3 Valentines). Your # of followers is prominently displayed on your front page just like Facebook and Linked In but you don’t see that during normal discourse like you do on the other two sites.  @Blackbottoms from Colorado started following me yesterday.  He/she is promoting a new type of biking short and other biking apparel.  @blackbottoms obviously has not seen me in bike shorts (no one has, luckily) or seen the condition of my bike. @MikeFry SpecialNeeds  (who obviously didn’t read the memo on how to select a twitter name) is a Christ follower in Naperville (I think he has been mislead because I haven’t seen Christ on Twitter), who specializes in special needs financial planning.  What ever that is, I am pretty sure that if MFSN saw my ‘SpecialNeeds’ in the finance area, he would see no amount of planning is going to help.  He followed me twice.  Does that count?  No matter, as soon as he realizes I didn’t ‘follow him back’, I’m sure he will buzz off.   The unspoken rule of Twitter is that you have to give to get, and that’s ideally how you get people to follow you.   You have something to say that other people want to hear.  Just like everything else in life you have to have some currency to play.

@daltukhov from Moscow also started following me yesterday.  I decided to ‘follow him back’ because he Tweets about stuff I am interested in (and it is in English) but I have no idea how he found me.   My motivation for being on Twitter is about networking and learning.  That is pretty much the same reason I am on Facebook and Linked In, but for some reason Twitter seems more accessible because there are no prerequisites for participation like there are on the other two.   Yesterday I decided to look for more local Twitteratzi because, while it is kind of cool to kibitz with @daltukhov from Moscow I really want to get to know Milwaukee and the people who live here more than I want to get to know the world.  I would like to actually be able to sit F2F and have a glass of wine or trade business with someone who’s relationship I cultivated through Twitter.

From a @twtrtip tweet I  learned about a program TwitterLocal that shows you all the Tweets in your metro area within a specified radius.  OMG.  Now I know what happened to all the people who found out that Facebook was cultivating the AARP crowd.  I am still amazed that people don’t understand the concept of a public profile.  What happens on Facebook , Twitter, MySpace, etc. is like doing it in a fishbowl.  Everyone is on the outside watching.  Everyone.  There are still many people who don’t get this; or don’t care.  Anyway, after I filtered through the hook ups and hopes for hookups, and” I am picking my nose now” tweets, I did find a few interesting local people that I am now following.  @Mike_Brenner, former owner of Hotcakes Gallery shares a lot of interesting things.  And he can be colorful at times.  We all need a little spice.  @The_Bus_Blog is a guy who rides a MTC bus daily and tweets about what he sees along the way.  Some of his tweets imply he is also a musician/performer but I am not sure.  I am really in it to meet new people and cultivate relationships that are tangible and real world.   Hmmm, that sounds vaguely similar to what I put on my Match.com profile when I first moved to town…    Follow me @atalentpartner.  I am not a prolific Tweeter but I promise not to tweet about ANY bodily functions.

When I first moved to Milwaukee one of the first things I did to meet people in my new town was find the local Browns Backer Club.  The company I used to work for moved me around a lot and when you suddenly find your self in a town full of strangers it’s comforting to seek out others of your own kind.  Growing up in central Ohio affords you the opportunity to root for a number of sports teams and I grew up rooting for the Browns (rather than the Bengals).  Although I am not a die hard football fan, seeking out the local ‘Dawg Pound’ has served me well socially during my ‘relocation years’.  Jennifer Dahler, a then recent transplant from Cleveland, was the Brew City BB Club prez when I moved to town and after a season or two, we became good friends. The membership tends to be transient with people moving in and out but Jennifer and I have both stayed and made Milwaukee our home.  Although neither are as active in the group as we once were, our friendship evolved (even if the team hasn’t).  Browns fans are a lot like Packer fans (except Packer fans get to celebrate a lot more); always true blue (or orange..or green, as the case may be) and always full of hope for next year.  And we do have a new coach…but I will save that for another post.  Jennifer has since married a home grown Packer/Badger fan and they had baby and have settled into life in suburbia.  It’s a little more challenging for us to get together now but we make it happen.  A few weeks ago we planned a girls night and I drove out to her house in Waukesha for a glass of wine and a catch up session.

It was a beautiful but cold evening and during the entire drive out I was marveling at the brightness of the sky and the beauty of the moon and stars.  There are many great things about living downtown but there are a lot of lights and I don’t see the night sky much unless I am way out on Lake Michigan at night.  It was good to see Jen and her daughter Harper, who turned 2 in February.  Harper was born a few months early and weighed only a couple pounds when she was born.  She didn’t get to come home for a while but Jen took lots of pictures and Harper was the tiniest baby I have ever seen.  She is fine now and was a delight chasing bubbles in her silk pajamas and riding her horse in her cowboy hat.   Definitely a princess with big bright beautiful eyes and a personality to match.  Prior to the arrival of Harper, Cassady, a rat terrier, was the princess of the house and I was happy to see that she has taken her back seat without much trauma.  She has plumped up a little, no doubt enjoying many tasty morsels inadvertently dropped by the now very active Harper.

Driving home, I was again enjoying the beauty of the night sky when I noticed the temperature gauge on my dashboard was way hotter than it should be and I the car began to make a funny sound.  I quickly pulled off to the side of the highway and turned the car off.  It was 10 degrees outside and 11:30 on a Friday night.   I started running through options in my head.  There was half a bottle of water laying abandoned in the back seat so I grabbed it and got out of the car, lifted the hood and poured it into the radiator reservoir.  The water sizzled all the way down the parched pipe.  The engine was smoking (or was it steam? I couldn’t tell in the freezing night air) and it didn’t look good.  I got back in to the car and waited patiently for the temperature to gauge return to normal and tried to start the car again, hoping to to limp to the next exit and get more water.   The engine would not turn over at all.  With each attempt to start the car the battery lost more power.  It was getting hard to stay warm and I had to face reality and break down and call for help.

I started scrolling through my list of friends trying to decide which ones might be awake and sober enough to come to my rescue and which ones would hate me the least for making the call.  Although I was still very close to Jennifer’s house, I knew I couldn’t call her.  Her husband was away on his annual snow mobiling trip and there was no way I could ask her to drag Harper out of bed and into the frigid night .  After agonizing a little more over who to call, I finally started down the list of recent calls on my phone.   The first two people I called were evidently too busy to pick up their phones (were they screening their calls?.. No time for insecurity now…file to revisit later, and it WAS Midnight, after all).  By then I was seeing my breath in the car and feeling a little bit of panic, which gave me the motivation to make the third call.  Thankfully, Joe, the other half of Joe and Caroline, answered slightly groggy, but was very kind about his willingness to drive from the east side, out to BFE… uh I mean Waukesha,  to save me.  It was hard to abandon my car to the cold night but I knew nothing could be done then and I had a gut feel it was not going to be an easy fix.

That was three weeks ago and I am still without a car.  Turns out the engine blew up or something.  The mechanic said something about compression and cylinders and needing a new engine.  Not really what I wanted to hear.  I just paid it off a few months ago and was enjoying, for the first time in my life, no payments on a car that had only one original owner-ME.   Ironically a new motor (new to me, I think refurbished is the technical term) would cost exactly what the car was worth.   It’s a conspiracy, I am sure.  The car is a 2000 Jetta and I really like it.  I am struggling to get my business off the ground and right now fixing the car is more reasonable than any other options but it stills seems absurd and somehow ironic.  Like buying back my own car, but with a refurbishd engine. Or something like that.

In the mean time, while I am waiting for Butch the Mechanic to fix my car, I am learning the ins and outs of public transportation in Milwaukee.   Not having control of your transportation pretty humbling.  If I really need to get somewhere, I know my friends are willing to help (especially if I don’t call in the middle of the night) but I am a little stubborn and just can’t bring myself to call someone for a ride to the grocery store or to run mundane errands.  There are grocery stores with in walking distance and I am already  a frequent patron of Glorioso’s Market and Scortino’s Bakery on Brady St (think it was an Italian neighborhood, back in the day?).  You just have to plan your trips and refrain from buying a lot of canned or frozen goods.  I gave up buying a lot of soda and beer a long time ago because I didn’t like lugging the bottles and cans up two flights of stairs to my condo.  You see, it is more convenient to use the stairs in my building  than the elevator.  I wish I could say it  was because I was really health conscious but the stairs are closer to my parking spot in the garage and to my front door, than the elevator, so really I’m just lazy.   Wine and liquor bottles much more efficient anyway.

Getting around without a car in Milwaukee turned out to be a little more challenging than I expected.  The MTS web site provided lots map routes but after staring at them for a couple hours I still couln’t figure out what time they stopped and where the actual stops were.  I knew from walking around my neighborhood that there were bus stops near by, but I didn’t see any listed on the route maps.  I accidentally found a Google map page that listed a bus route I was looking for and some of the actual stops.  I back tracked the time, guessed at the location near my house and figured if I picked up Route 11 any where in the vicinity, it would take me where I wanted to go.

Not quite.  I got on a Route 11 bus ready for an adventure and the driver asked me if I needed a ‘transfer’.  The dumb look on my face prompted her to ask me where I was going.  When I told her, she said she didn’t go there but the next 11 bus did and asked me if I was coming back.  I got the idea that a transfer was something like a round trip and said yes and asked where I should get off to catch the ‘next’ 11 bus.   She let me off at the next stop, gave me a peice of paper which I now knew was a ‘transfer’ and kindly told me that the buses ran about every 15 minutes and to just wait there.  As I started to get off, a man from the back of the bus came  forward and bent down to pick up my gloves which had fallen in the exchange of money and information.  I gave him a flustered thank you.  The driver was very patient and assured me that the next bus would be the right bus and gave me a route map.  I felt like it was my first day at school.

On the way home, I studied how other people navigated the stops.  There is a yellow cord that when pulled, notifies the driver you want to get off.  I quickly learned if there is no one standing at a particular stop, some drivers will just buzz on by, unless someone yanks the cord.  As there are stops on almost every block on some routes, this is a good thing because it speeds up the trip.  Unless, you don’t know the code and are sitting politely, waiting for the bus to stop before  getting up, to ready yourself to get off.  The good news is there are stops on almost every block.

On my first bus adventure I wore  a warm coat, gloves, MP3 player, walking shoes and a back pack to carry my purchases home.   My second adventure was to a business meeting and I had to dress up.  And it was raining.  Now that I was an old pro at bus riding, I just made sure I wore comfortable dress shoes and my trench with a hood because I didn’t want to carry an umbrella;  purse and my portfolio.  On the way home, I ran in to a meeting participant also waiting at the bus stop and we had a chance to exchange cards and do some networking.  As I was digging in my wallet for bus fare, a guy who was also waiting at the stop handed me a transfer and said he was waiting for a ride.    On this trip I noticed there were other business people, students, folks dressed in service industry uniforms and casual clothing.  This was nothing like what I had heard about recently in the media.

Now to be fair, I was just riding the 11 which goes around downtown, 3rd Ward and Walkers Point.  From there it goes past Rockwell Automation, up Greenfield Avenue to Miller Parkway and heads South.  Tomorrow I am venturing Northbound toward Bayshore and beyond and it is a multiple route trip.  It’s going to take me about an hour to get to a destination that usually takes about 15 minutes.  We will see how that goes and it may be a whole different experience traveling out of the downtown area.  I think everyone should try it once (easy for me to say).  You have to plan ahead, plan to be flexible and give yourself plenty of time.  The bus is going to take you 3 to 4 times the amount of time as a direct route by car.  It is too bad Milwaukee has not embraced likght rail or a metro train system.  I have used mass transportation a lot in other cities I have lived in and found it to be much more efficient than driving in many cases.  In the absence of that here, the bus is an acceptable alternative to a car and a heck of a lot cheaper than a cab.   Fortunately, my car and Butch the Mechanic are far enough away  I won’t be tempted to take the bus to stalk the shop and breathe down his neck asking “are you done yet”, but I don’t feel as anxious about it either.  C’mon.  Just do it.  Skip the web site, pick a general route and get on the bus.  See where it goes.  For 2 bucks, you might be surprised.

In Ohio, I looked forward to watching the spring unfold in a predictable way.  Red Buds and Crocus were the first to bloom in early March; Daffodils and Hyacinth  in April; followed in early May by Tulips and then Dogwoods and finally, the crowning glory at the end of May, just in time for my birthday, Peonies; my favorite flower of all (I know, these are Cosmos, not Peonies, and they bloom in July; just go with it).  It all happens a little later here, in Wisconsin.  Like about a month and a half  later.   I know that now, and  I have tried to learn how to pace myself.   I spoke to a friend of mine on Friday, who moved here from Delaware and should know better.  He said ” Aren’t you excited? It is almost Spring! We will be sailing before you know it!”.  Now, I hate to be a wet blanket and I thought like that too, for the first few years after I moved here.  I gently broke the bad news, “Are you Nuts? We aren’t going to see Lake Michigan for…2 months..AT LEAST!”  Not swayed by my soothing tone, he calmly said ” Oh, no.  We’re almost there.”  I just shook my head and rolled my eyes.

Well, I sincerely and humbly apologize to the Winter Deities I must have offended with my negative karma.  Jack Frost, The Abominable Snowman, Mr. Freeze…Really, I am sorry if I rubbed you the wrong way, but we did not deserve the 15 inches of snow we got yesterday.   And it was a little obvious that you had a specific target in mind since the snow only fell on downtown Milwaukee.  Lake Effect, my big toe.  The radio traffic guy kept repeating that “yes, there are flurries and white-out conditions on the freeway downtown, but don’t worry, the ‘western suburbs’ are snow free and dry”.  What’s up with that?  The TV weather people were claiming it was a ‘fluke’.  Jack,  are you going to let ‘em get away with dismissing you as a fluke?  Why don’t you go dump snow on their houses and show ‘em who is boss?   ‘Cause, I’m over it and found a way to cure my cabin fever.  Nana, nana, boo, boo, Mr. Freeze.  I started looking at my sailing pictures from October and I felt a surge of adrenalin.  And serotonin and dopamine and all that stuff too.   Come late April sailors thumb their noses at the weather and boats will start going back into the water.  We can’t help ourselves.  Once the boat is in the water, we have to get on the boat and touch everything to see if anything changed over the winter.  And then after we are on the boat, we are compelled to sail somewhere.  Anywhere.  Even if it is just out of the harbor and back.  Yes, it is still cold in late April in Wisconsin.  There are few spring flowers brave enough to poke their heads through the earth to see if it is Spring yet.  But we are Sailors.  We know how to wear thermal underwear and turtle necks on the water.  What do you think we have been doing all winter?  We have been buying more foul weather gear so we can sail every single second that we can squeeze out of the season on Lake Michigan.

It’s now Thursday.   Mother Nature is in cahoots with Old Man Winter and they lauging at us.  It’s 46 degrees and the snow from Monday is starting to melt (with the help of a light drizzel).  If  the rain lets up a little I think I will put on some shorts and my yellow raincoat, like the Gorton’s Fish guy, and take a walk down to the lake.  Take that, Winter.

Janine, the newest Wild Goose crew member, said she wanted to do something on Friday and I suggested that we go check out The Alley Cat Revue.  Now, I don’t know Janine that well, so I sent her links describing the The Revue and Stonefly, hoping she would see the adventure in it.  I shouldn’t have worried; a true sailor is always up for an adventure, and Janine has proven herself a true adventurous sailor.

The show was scheduled to start at 10 o’clock so we went early to get a good seat and to have some dinner.  The menu on-line looked good with lots of bacon and sausage stuff and mashed potatoes with celery root!  They also have several wheat free and vegetarian options. If you must.  I was really hungry by the time we got there and Janine suggested we order a few things and share.  I think Janine and I are going to become good friends.  We selected the fish fry, some wings and… drum roll please…deep fried BACON!   The menu described “thick cut Usinger’s bacon fried in beer batter”.  I could hardly wait.

Unfortunately my exhilaration was short lived.   I am very sad to report that this bacon did not live up to the porcine name and I predict the Usinger elves are going to show up shortly to revoke this bacon’s porky privileges.  The Stonefly brew batter was so thick I really couldn’t taste (or even see) the bacon at all.  It was supposed to be served with Stonefly Stout mustard which would have been a dish saver (mustard fixes anything).  What we were actually served was more like a floury tasting cheese sauce (looking at the menu I’m guessing it was the Stonefly Brown Ale Cheese sauce).  Oh, well, at least I got it out of my system.  Next time I can go for something more healthy like the tofu pot pie.  Yea, right.

By now I figured out the on-line menu differed slightly from the one in the restaurant.  No big deal, but it does make it impossible to tell what is a deliberate substitution and what is a mistake.  Fortunately, the next two dishes we ordered were very good, regardless of the intention.  The fish fry options were a choice of  smelt or cod and thank goodness my dining partner felt the same way I did about smelt.  Ick.   Instead of 3 pieces of cod as listed on the on-line menu, we got two pieces (albeit, nice sized), warm sauteed apples, and cold slaw (which wasn’t mentioned on either menu).  We made the deep fried fest complete and chose french fries instead of tater tots or celery root mashed potatoes.   We were happy with the cold slaw instead of a 3rd piece of cod, deliberate or not, and it was a nice fish fry for under $10.  Next up were the wings and we went with half BBQ and half spicy.  Our server said the spicy wasn’t that spicy but I am a wuss when it comes to hot things and even the BBQ was a little spicy for me.  But not too spicy I couldn’t choke a couple down.  They were big wings and it was a generous portion (6-9? wings) for $6.50.  Overall, it was a lot of food and Janine had the foresight to recognize that those wings would taste really good at 2 or 3 AM, devil sauce and all,  so we boxed what was left.  We also each had a few beers.  Janine sampling some of Stonefly’s house brews, while I, a hot sauce AND beer wuss,  stuck with my usual Miller product.  Our total bill was under $50, before tip, for the two of us.  Pretty darn good for a couple girls watching their pennies.

The crowd for the show started drifting in around 9:30 and the area near the stage started to fill up.  We were in front at a 4 top.  Some girls came in, and seeing our empty chairs, asked if they could share our table.  I normally don’t mind this, but we were still eating and it was a little annoying to have to put down my mini drum stick, clean the BBQ sauce off my face and fingers and make room for them.  Little did I know sharing a table would become a non-issue compared with asking the people who came in even later not to stand in front of us and block our view.  I hate to be cranky but we went early so we could have a view.  Most people got it (and were less oblivious, inebriated and rude than the ones standing in front of us), and were beginning to sit on the floor in front of the stage.  The place was packed.

For some reason, the show didn’t start until almost 11:00.   Maybe that is how it goes, I don’t know.  The first performance included the ‘pros’ and the ‘newbies’ (about 8 dancers on stage) and I have to say the ‘newbies’ did just fine.  For those of you not familiar with burlesque (and have been living under a rock), it originated as humorous theatrical entertainment usually including parody, satire and exaggerated performances.  American burlesque was performed in the 19th century in music halls and vaudeville and in the early 20th century evolved as adult theater and strip tease with Gypsy Rose Lee as one of the most well known ‘Burlesque Babes’ of her time.  The beauty of burlesque is that success does not require a perfect female form and it gives legitimate respect to all shapes and sizes; although all the performers on stage this night were pretty svelte.  All of the costumes were clever and sexy and some of the women had body art that was beautiful and appropriate for this setting.  Not sure if they could pull it off (no pun intended) working in a bank, but if you truly love your ink, this is one place that it really works.  True to it’s early origins, The Alley Cats had comedic performers clear the stage of stray bustiers, stockings, gloves, lots of glitter and entertain the crowd in between performances.  After the initial performance debuting the new class, there were several individual dances and costume changes performed by the more experienced Miss Bella Sue, Vee, Raven and others.  We were also treated to a couple of special performances by a local belly dance artist who’s name I did not catch.   She has obviously been studying her craft for a while and was very talented.  Her performance was more serious and she was clad in a traditional bare midriff costume draped with veils as she moved rhythmically to middle eastern music. The crowd responded loudly with sincere sounding appreciation of her skills.

The burlesque beauties performances were more relaxed and deliberately campy matching the cat calls and mood of the crowd.  Dances were choreographed to appropriate ‘bump and grind’ musical selections from the likes of Eartha Kitt and others of that era.   All the burlesque dancers ended their strip teases and performances in a g-string and a bra or pasties; some with, and some without, twirling tassels.   Janine and I were both wide eyed and amazed by the, uh… dexterity and athletic agility of all the dancers.  We were also speculating on the specific technical skills involved in the centrifugal spin of the tassels.  Some were able to spin both tassels in sync, clockwise or counter clockwise; and some could spin clockwise AND counter clockwise, at the same time.  Thank goodness I was too tired by the time I got home to give it a try.  I think I would have hurt myself in ways that would be difficult and really embarrassing to explain.

Miss Bella Sue announced the next performance would be at Stonefly March 13.  Go see it!  See the link to the Alley Cat Revue MySpace page for more information.