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Roman Candle goes to Fitchburg
on 11/20/09 at 9:00 am | Roman Candle, the retro-hip Willy Street pizzeria that has a satellite restaurant in Middleton, is set to open a third branch in Fitchburg in mid-January. The site is the former Kelly's Grille, 2685 Research Park Dr. (near Lacy Road and Fish Hatchery). |
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Dane County Farmers' Market favorite Stella's Bakery opens cafe
on 11/20/09 at 9:00 am | Longtime Dane County Farmers' Market favorite Stella's Bakery — purveyor of hot 'n' spicy cheese bread — has opened a cafe/bakery at its headquarters at 2908 Syene Rd., Madison. In addition to selling breads, pastries and other desserts familiar to market habitués, the cafe serves breakfast sandwiches and lunch. |
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Textbook case
on 11/20/09 at 9:00 am | The Madison Breakfast Rotary just wants a snow shovel. Sure, money would help to defray the costs of sending used U.S. textbooks overseas to southern Africa as part of a literacy project called Rotary Books for the World. But in the short term, the handful of volunteers who collect, unpack, sort and repack the books for African school kids need a way to shovel their loading dock this winter. |
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Side dish recipes: Choose the right bowl for the job
on 11/19/09 at 9:00 am | The holidays involve more communal meals than we have at any other time of the year. Although potlucks and picnics often call for a dish to pass, a Tupperware bowl or a paper plate will do for presentation — you're balancing portability and unbreakability and the possibility that you might end up leaving a half-eaten entree at the event. During the holidays, that's not okay. |
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The Wish List for 2009
on 11/19/09 at 9:00 am | "The donations we received last Christmas helped many families," writes Susan from the First United Methodist Church Food Pantry." Since last January, we have had a 40% increase in food pantry usage. Thank you for the extra donations we receive due to the Isthmus Wish List!" |
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Meditations for shoppers on Black Friday
on 11/19/09 at 9:00 am | Zen-like phrases to ease our tensions around the holidays. |
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Kadushin appears in The Best Food Writing 2009
on 11/13/09 at 9:00 am | The Best Food Writing 2009 anthology (DaCapo Press) has just been published and once again includes an essay by Isthmus food writer Raphael Kadushin. |
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Scrambling for slices at Pie Palooza 2009
on 11/10/09 at 3:00 pm | Pie Palooza, the celebration of local ingredients as reconceived residing atop a flaky crust, is not just all about the pie. It's also a benefit event for the REAP Food Group, and it completed its most successful turn this past Sunday at larger digs in the Goodman Community Center. |
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Hy-Vee is a supermarket and a cafeteria
on 11/06/09 at 9:00 am | The new Hy-Vee, at 3801 East Washington Ave., was crowded on its grand opening Friday, Oct. 30. Madison schools had the day off, so kids trailed moms and dads pushing carts; plus there were lots of seniors, because who else would be grocery shopping at 10:30 a.m.? There were armies of staff, too, asking shoppers how they were doing, and mobile cashier stations to ease checkout congestion. |
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Is Madison ready for Hy-Vee?
on 10/23/09 at 5:04 pm | Hy-Vee is already a well-established chain in Iowa, but it set its sights on Madison as the place that would be right to open its first LEED-certified (green-built) store. "We thought Madison would be a great place to try making our buildings more carbon efficient, and do more recycling," says Hy-Vee C.E.O. Ric Jurgens, in town in advance of next week's grand opening. |
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Madison's best chefs bake fall's fave dessert for Pie Palooza
on 10/23/09 at 9:00 am | Gooey pecan, homemade pumpkin, apple made with a mix of tart and sweet fruit. "There's something about the fall that just says 'pie,'" says Miriam Grunes, executive director of Madison's REAP Food Group. "I'm really craving pie right now." So it only makes sense that the annual REAP benefit, Pie Palooza, has moved this year from July to November, in part to take full advantage of our collective unconscious' association of autumn with flaky crust and luscious filling. |
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Coopers Tavern construction to start soon
on 10/23/09 at 9:00 am | The buzz about Coopers Tavern, a gastropub coming to the Square, has been around for months now, but with seemingly no change to the 20 W. Mifflin space. Co-owner Peter McElvanna says all the permits are finalized and construction on the space will start very soon. So far, the plan is for a soft opening on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, with lunch and dinner service beginning Dec. 2. |
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The Green Owl brings vegetarian dining back to Madison
on 10/22/09 at 1:25 pm | Jennie Capellaro started cooking "just out of necessity." Soon, she'll spin that necessity into a brave venture: The Green Owl, Madison's first vegetarian restaurant since Peacemeal closed about five years ago. It's been hard for vegetarians in Madison -- well known as a place that loves its farmers' markets, food coop and CSAs, yet has been unable to sustain a dedicated vegetarian restaurant. |
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The doughnuts of autumn
on 10/13/09 at 1:00 pm | Normally I can take doughnuts or I can leave them. But in the fall, I'd much rather take them. The frosting-leaden glazed doughnuts that are the stock-in-trade of supermarket pastry cases are left behind in autumn for the promise of fresh apple cider doughnuts. |
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Jane Hamilton and David Rhodes read to a capacity audience at the Wisconsin Book Festival
on 10/11/09 at 7:43 am | Upstairs at Overture, a book festival volunteer herding people asked me, "Are you here for Jane Hamilton?" Well, if the truth were told, I was out in the windy cold on Saturday night to hear David Rhodes. |
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Muramoto opening The Haze American + Asian Bar-B-Que on King
on 10/09/09 at 3:21 pm | Kushi Bar Muramoto, the most casual of the three local restaurants of chef Shinji Muramoto, closed at 106 King St. at the end of August, but already the space is being revamped for a new casual Asian-American concept restaurant. |
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Chicago chefs Timothy and Elizabeth Dahl relocate to Madison
on 10/09/09 at 9:00 am | Chicago chefs Timothy and Elizabeth Dahl will move to Madison to open a new restaurant this spring. Tim, formerly pastry chef at Chi-town's Blackbird, and Elizabeth, pastry chef at BOKA and Landmark, are expecting their first child -- any day now. But after the birth, Tim Dahl says in a phone interview from Chicago, the couple will head to Madison to complete plans for the new restaurant. |
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Madison eats agenda: Ferment!, urban farming, Diwali, and Sunday meals
on 10/05/09 at 1:00 pm | The coming week, in events that get to your heart through your stomach. |
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Urban homesteader Novella Carpenter comes to the Wisconsin Book Fest
on 10/02/09 at 9:00 am | There's not a hint of smugness in Novella Carpenter's Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer. Nothing preachy or precious. No tricks. Just her curiosity. And pluck. And storytelling verve. |
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Fat Sandwich Company is wacky and bland at the same time
on 10/02/09 at 9:00 am | Looking at the menu at Fat Sandwich in the same week that Michael Pollan was on campus to discuss his In Defense of Food, a book about better eating practices suggested for campus-wide reading, was ironic -- maybe even surreal. If Pollan took one look at the FSC menu, I think his head would explode. |
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Mary Nohl: Inside and Outside uncovers Milwaukee's 'witch house' at Wisconsin Book Festival 2009
on 09/30/09 at 4:00 pm | Madisonians are familiar with large scale "outsider" folk art from the concrete sculptures of Waubesa Street's Sid Boyum that are now installed across the near east side. Other notable southern Wisconsin folk art sites include Nick Engelbert's Grandview (near Hollandale), and Dr. Evermor's art garden (near Sauk City). But less well known in Madison is work of Mary Nohl of Milwaukee. |
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Kickshaw set to open in Fitchburg
on 09/29/09 at 4:00 pm | Kickshaw, billed as "American cuisine with a global influence" is set to open in the former Good Times and Fitch's Chophouse space on McKee Road in Fitchburg. The site, though convenient to Star Cinema and the growing retail area near Target, has yet to find a good match. |
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W Cupcake: Handmade and remade
on 09/25/09 at 9:00 am | Given the popularity of cupcakes these days, it's understandable that the not-paying-close-attention community might come to the conclusion that W Cupcake is another one of those east-side cupcakeries. It is not. |
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No meat, no cheese, no problem at the Vegan Chili Cookoff, with recipe
on 09/22/09 at 3:30 pm | Last Saturday, I entered my first ever cooking contest, the sixth annual Alliance for Animals Vegan Chili Cookoff. This is surprising for a few reasons. First, I'm not vegan. Secondly, I'm not a huge fan of contests. Finally, I don't really juggle cooking tasks, combined with serving a lot of people food, all that well. |
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Madison eats agenda: Michael Pollan, Food for Thought, and pedaling for pumpkin pie
on 09/21/09 at 1:00 pm | The coming week, in events that get to your heart through your stomach. |
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Emphasis: Antiques + adaptive re-use
on 09/17/09 at 9:00 am | If you're heading into the Driftless Area of southwestern Wisconsin this fall for apple picking or leaf-color gawking, don't forget to bring home some vintage treasures. The area has plenty of antique shops to choose from, but two of our favorites make creative use of historic spaces. |
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Emphasis: Kitchen agility trials
on 09/17/09 at 9:00 am | If you're still trying to flip an omelet with that metal spatula your aunt got you at a Chef's Secret party, trade it in for the super-flexible silicone versions now on the market. Spatulas or turners come in a variety of shapes to match your kitchen task. The ZipFlip from Chef'n comes in small, medium and large and has both a turning end and a spatula end. The Mario Batali line offers turners in extra-wide. |
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Emphasis: How old is your toilet? Flush in the new
on 09/17/09 at 9:00 am | How old is your toilet? Quite apart from where the top is chipped and the inside seat looks a trifle too used, there's another reason to replace it — old toilets use a lot of water. The Madison Water Utility wants to nudge you along the path to toilet replacement with rebates of up to $100 for residential customers who replace a high water volume toilet with an EPA WaterSense-rated High-Efficiency Toilet (HET). This is part of the utility's goal to reduce Madison's per capita water usage 20% by the year 2020. |
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A commonsense remodel keeps longtime Madison residents in their 1950s ranch
on 09/17/09 at 9:00 am | Gary and Yvonne Bushland could have moved into a condo. The couple considered it. But they had some reservations about the environmental statement they'd make moving into a condo that was "probably built in a place that was a cornfield a year ago," says Gary. Wouldn't making some improvements to their modest, mid-century modern ranch be a more sustainable choice? |
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Batch Bakehouse opens on Willy Street
on 09/15/09 at 3:00 pm | The highly anticipated Batch Bakehouse opened earlier this month in the former Pavlov's Pizza space on Williamson Street, near the Yahara River. |
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