When I go visit my friend, we tend to eat to excess. This trip to Madison was no different than the many weekends in New York where we aimed to taste all of the best pizza in the city. We started out our day, Friday, with a 6-mile walk. When you eat like we do, you have to exercise those muscles. After that, we had lunch at a French bistro-type place. We went primarily so Mr Ferguson could taste several Belgian beers. Again, because of my vast knowledge of these eating fests, I declined the beer and drank water. After a sandwich, the afternoon began.
We ventured out to Penzy's, the best spice shop ever. I got some amazing cinnamon, about 20 lbs of Spanish paprika (because I love it more than anything), saffron, and some salt. Then we went over to the U double-U to have some beer at the Union. There was talk of ice cream, as the U double-U students make their own dairy products. This isn't the U Dub, folks. These kids love their dairy. Because we had the luck of choosing graduation weekend, the patio outside of the Union was packed with drunk kids, a few of their parents, and one kid dressed like a banana. Mr Ferguson picked up a pitcher of some unnamed beer and we sat and watched the water. We couldn't help overhearing a lot of these kids' conversations. Most of them we're stoked that they were done, some were combining vodka with Gatorade, and all of it made us feel very old. Mr Ferguson got slightly mopey, talking about how he'd done nothing with his life (it didn't help that he was reading the biography of Scott Fischer --or Gary Fisher, or Bobby Fisher, depending on whether you ask Mr Ferguson, me, or Serenity Steve.) Thankfully my friend returned with ice cream from those lovely dairy students at U double-U. She chose raspberry, pecan, and Badger blast (which prompted her cry "I'm going to blast my badger!"). Turns out the mascot of UW is the badger (which we finally figured out after 2 nights) and badger blast is chocolate with more chocolate. Quite tasty.
Feeling better about our lives (Who cares if we're old and washed up and without the dreams of our youth? We had ice cream.) we went for a drink before meeting Serenity Steve and some of their friends for dinner. Dinner was something I'd been anticipating for months. It would include a Lazy Susan and a fish fry. And we were going to a place called The Old Fashioned, which was just packed with students. While we waited, we ordered fried cheese curds. Few things are better and Mr Ferguson still mumbles about their glory. Then we indulged in a Lazy Susan, which was plunked down in the middle of the table to share. We had the fish Lazy Susan, with smoked whitefish, smoked salmon, beets, haddock, bread, and Ritz crackers. For dinner, we had fish fries, which come in different varieties (depending on the fish) and include fries, cole slaw, and rye bread. Mr Ferguson tried to keep up with Serenity Steve's eating and ordered a side of mac n'cheese. It was by far the best mac n'cheese ever.
The eating evening was a great success and even Mr Ferguson couldn't muster enthusiasm for frozen custard afterward. I don't think he's ever been so full, but we all know that I've eaten more (think Maine lobster feed or who are we kidding, the last time I was in NYC). Saturday, though, would truly challenge my stomach capacity.
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