Bret Bielema's Badgers As he starts his fifth season, coach Bielema is coming into his own Vic Feuerherd on Thursday 08/26/2010 To know Bret Bielema, one also needs to know Prophetstown, the west central Illinois farming hamlet the University of Wisconsin football coach once called home and still regularly visits. Like other small cities, Prophetstown is slowly ebbing away, squeezed by the strip mall commerce of nearby bigger cities like Sterling and Rock Falls. There, big-box stores and supermarket chains drain precious dollars from miles around. >MoreA gander at The Purple Goose in Verona Michana Buchman on Thursday 08/26/2010 If you have a yen for one-of-a-kind items, a sense of play, a creative impulse, and maybe a kid or two, get thee to Verona. At the far end of Verona Avenue, in a lovely two-story brick house with a purple door, you'll find the Purple Goose. >More
Fringe Foods: Cuitlacoche from Las Cazuelas For everything, there is a season -- including corn smut Kyle Nabilcy on Tuesday 08/31/2010 2:00 pm, (1) Comment, (2) Likes This is another one of those foods that forces you to wonder what exactly the first daring eater was thinking; infected ears of corn puff up, turn purplish-black, and grow fuzz. The Aztec name for this freaky-looking cob is cuitlacoche (also frequently spelled "huitlacoche"), which likely meant "sleeping shit." Wrapped in the husk, cuitlacoche does look a bit like a swaddled turd. So, naturally, it’s what’s for dinner. >MoreHow do you solve a problem like an eggplant? (recipe) New uses for the big purple veggie Terese Allen on Thursday 08/26/2010 The topic of eggplant came up in a recent exchange I had with a colleague. "Of all the things I buy at the farmers' market, eggplant is the item that is most likely to go bad in the fridge," she said. "I never really know what to do with it." The inventory of familiar eggplant preparations is indeed a short list; think eggplant Parmesan, ratatouille and baba ganoush, and you're pretty much there. >More
The Selfish Gene revives the B-side But wait, there's more Jessica Steinhoff on Thursday 08/26/2010 The members of local rock band the Selfish Gene are experts at changing course. Case in point: When they were just starting their engines in 2005, they chose the name Long Story Short, only to receive a cease-and-desist letter from another group with the same moniker. "They were already playing all the top bowling alleys in Baltimore, so we let them keep the name," jokes bassist and vocalist Eric Andraska. >More
Attention Madison geeks: Geek.kon 2010 is here! Amanda Lanyon-LeSage on Wednesday 09/01/2010 12:01 pm, (2) Likes Attention geeks! Geek.Kon, Madison's own anime, gaming, and science fiction convention, comes to the Marriott West hotel in Middleton Friday, September 3. Geeks of all stripes will find something to do at this three-day event. >MoreWilmington on DVD: Me & Orson Welles, Ludwig: Requiem for a Virgin King, Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, Harry Brown, Marmaduke on Wednesday 09/01/2010 10:00 am In Me and Orson Welles, Richard Linklater takes on a highly ambitious subject that really, really appeals to me -- a portrayal of the astonishing youthful theatrical triumphs of the 22-year-old Welles, his adroit and urbane (and long-suffering) producer John Houseman, and of their ingenious, experimental 1937 Mercury Theater production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. >More
Artists look at themselves in MMoCA's True Self Keeping up appearances Jennifer A. Smith on Thursday 08/26/2010, (1) Like Identity is a notoriously slippery concept. What do we even mean when we talk about it? Some mixture, perhaps, of characteristics we can't change (like age or ethnicity) and things we can (how we dress). Other aspects of identity are not necessarily visible, like religious or political affiliation. Identity can be a reflection of the things we hold dearest about ourselves, or it can be a guise to cast off or change at will. >MoreThe Oddly Compelling Art of Denis Kitchen recalls hazy counterculture days Comic flashback Paul Buhle on Thursday 08/26/2010, (1) Like There are plenty of stories about the counterculture in Madison's past -- some of which remains, since we Madisonians still exist at least part of the time in a cheerful parallel reality. But you don't hear so many stories about comic art. Looking at The Oddly Compelling Art of Denis Kitchen (Dark Horse Books) is not quite like smoking a joint discovered accidentally in the back of a drawer. Perhaps, on some pages, it just feels that way. >More
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