pantryslut

Oops, this got long.

Thursday:

Italian dinner with

peake. Steven says that the Trattoria whose name I can't remember on State Street is one of his favorite restaurants in Madison. I think it's just OK, but I like making the boy happy, and

brisingamen declared the puttanesca the best she's ever had, so don't pay any attention to me. Ate something with cream and ham and mushrooms. Women's softball was on the TV over the bar. The waitstaff wear Italian soccer jerseys as uniforms. Steven quizzed the poor girl on what team she was wearing -- "I don't know, I picked it because it's pink!"

Later, in the bar, I had my requisite New Glarus Spotted Cow, a "yellow beer" that for some reason I like, though usually I prefer my beers darker and less hoppy.

peake was buying the round. As I noted earlier, New Glarus, a local brand, also makes a beer called "Fat Squirrel," which I later found out is their brown ale. I'll definitely have to try it next year.

Friday:

For breakfast: water and a bagel from Michaelangelo's, the coffee shop around the corner from the hotel, fetched by an ever-attentive

imnotandrei.

Writer's Workshop participants traditionally eat lunch in the hotel restaurant on Friday afternoon -- partly because the workshop leaders get free lunch vouchers in appreciation of their work. Hotel food is usually overpriced and mediocre; the Councourse's food is merely overpriced. I hit up the salad bar with its pickled herring and cheese and crackers and other goodies, and managed to make it worthwhile. The instant gratification was also nice, considering how long my companions had to wait for their dishes to arrive.

Dinner was Mexican food at a place called Frida's, which was large and decorated colorfully and not at all bad, although the only carnitas they had were smothered with cheese in a quesadilla, so I had the steak fajitas instead. Plus a frozen strawberry margarita, which I don't often indulge in, but what the heck? We were at dinner with seven people, which means that I don't remember everyone else's names, but Matt and Janet and

redbird were there. We tried to accomodate

redbird's guidelines about no more than six people at dinner by merging into a two-headed beast.

We prudently rejected the vegetarian place next door due to its preponderance of fake meat dishes. Nobody needs a fake Philly cheese steak sandwich. Honest.

I somehow managed to spend most of the evening party time stashed in the halls between rooms, so I don't remember much about the available food.

Saturday:

I eat my first con hot dog sometime today. It will not be the last. However, cheese pack is still missing from the con suite.

Also today I think I find somewhere that has RC cola, and get all excited for no real reason.

This was the day of the farmer's market. Since I didn't elaborate on the pastries the first time around, I will list them here: cranberry scone, almond scone, and a custard-filled Bismark doughnut. I haven't had Bismarks in simply ages. They're totally crap food, and I adore them.

I changed my shirt to something not-black before I ate it, to avoid a powdered sugar catastrophe. It worked.

Saturday dinner was with Bill and Lyn at the Casbah, a Middle Eastern (tending toward Moroccan) restaurant on the other side of Capitol Square that we found by accident last year. In the basement, it has these cave-like booths that you kneel in instead of sit. Unfortunately, the basement was reserved for another party this year, but sitting upstairs in the dim evening light wasn't a bad second choice. I ate a truly outstanding lamb tagine with dried figs and cinnamon and other seasonings I don't remember. This restaurant also makes the only version of muhamarra (red pepper paste) that I've ever liked; the rest have always been to sweet, but this one's smoky. We were too full to even contemplate dessert, which is too bad.

I cannot sing the praises of this place highly enough. The consistently good company helps, too.

Saturday party food always benefits from the farmer's market's proximity. I had smoked trout plain, and in sushi form at the Nippon 2007 party. Lots of cheese made an appearance here, too.

I somehow missed the bake sale entirely. It sold out without me.

Sunday:

Sunday was my busy day, and I honestly do not remember what I ate for breakfast. Maybe I didn't. Maybe I waited for lunch. Lunch was the Programming Lunch, with subs ordered from some takeout place by the fabulously organized Betsy Lundsten. I had the Italian sub, and it was good.

Cheese pack finally makes its debut in the con suite, and I honor it with much grazing.

Sunday was also the day of "Social Issues in Food," a panel I would have liked to have been on, but settled for sitting in the audience and contributing when I saw fit. At least one person wanted to see more less-processed food choices and more recyclables in the con suite -- a good suggestion, and one I misunderstood when she first said it, because she said she wanted more "at the con," and I've been on programming so long I immediately defaulted to "Green Room," and the hotel covers that. Oops. I wonder, though, if she really wanted to see *more*, or if she wanted to see less Oreos and such. It's an idle speculation. Somebody suggested that volunteering is a good way to help with this desire of hers.

The folks on the panel, Barth Anderson and Lynn A. Litterer in particular (I don't remember the name of the third woman), were very well-informed and articulate -- even I learned some things from this panel. They did not indulge in scaremongering, and were very good at talking about the real concerns about, say, irradiation and transgenic corn. I think I would have liked more spec-fic content, but I suspect that many people feel like they're already living in a spec-fic story when it comes to these issues. (In fact, the best fiction writer I know of on the subject, Ruth Ozeki, is writing mainstream books.)

Dinner is glorified bar food at the place that now occupies the storefront where the diner/deli used to be. They make excellent fried squid, pretty good warm artichoke dip, a decent burger. And more Sprecher's. Ah. Bar food is a theme for the weekend, as seems appropriate in Wisconsin, land of beer.

Monday:

Breakfast was tea and a pice of lemon blueberry bread (I think) from the Green Room, once again fetched by

imnotandei, as I was too busy on the phone to actually stop by the room myself. I had to eat it while on my first panel. I did not talk with my mouth full.

Lunch was not had with

elisem, but there will be other chances. Lunch was instead noodles at Noodles -- beef stroganoff to be exact. I think I like it better without the beef per se, in this particular rendition. Company consisted of the friendly Brit couple whose names I have forgotten. (No, we do not collect them.) (Ed. note -- I originally assigned this lunch to Sunday.)

For dinner, we took a big section of the Dead Dog party to Cafe Montmartre, our favorite Madison establishment of all time. Steven and I split an antipasti plate, a crispy, super-thin four-cheese pizza, and a salad with almonds and dried cranberries and mandarin oranges and feta. I think the mandarins could have been skipped, but the rest was utterly delicious. We also split a bottle of wine three ways, because the cafe was having a half-off special. Something from the Cote du Rhone that we wrote down because it was bright yet structured, the perfect winy compromise between my tastes and Steven's.

I realized yesterday, btw, that I got in at least two months' worth of drinking quota in this one weekend. And all I had was a third of a bottle of wine, two beers, and a frozen margarita.

Tuesday:

The con is officially over by now, but there are some small final notes worth making:

The cafe at L'Etoile is now open only on Saturdays. Darn.

There is a new place on State Street that is selling Russian pelmeni. I want! How did I miss them before?

Our favorite ice cream place is out of business, but now thanks to

redbird, I know that the Memorial Union sells ice cream, too. I wonder if U Wisc has a dairy store, like MSU and Rutgers do? I wonder if that's where the ice cream comes from? If so, I am *so* there.

I ate neither sushi nor Nepalese, nor Afghani nor Turkish, as has been traditional in previous years. (Yes, I eat sushi in Wisconsin. I was talked into it by local friends. They were right.) As we were walking up State Street on our last day, I actually called out to the storefronts and said "I still love you!"