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Road trip to Wisconsin

Posted at 1:03 PM on July 17, 2008 by Sareen Dunleavy Keenan (5 Comments)

We are going to take to the streets and head off to the far away lands of.... Wisconsin. Ok, so I don't anticipate any expansion in the availability of food, but we will be checking out the Madison farmers market this weekend.

Also in the plans:
Watching the Mallards play a little baseball
A tour of New Glarus Brewing and Tyranena
Some cheese shopping (recommendations??)
and a trip to Devil's Lake

Are we missing anything? The internet tells me that there is a county fare while we are in town, so that is on the tentative list. But where do you shop or eat locally in or around 94 between Minneapolis and Madison?

Here's hoping the bumpy roads, leaving town, the grandparents out of the country, and my doctor being on vacation all align to mean that baby day is near!

Comments (5)

You'll be floored at the numbers of cheese vendors at the farmer's market on Saturday. I'd be surprised if there's a local or artisanal farmer that isn't represented.

Do you know about the "squeakyness" of a fresh cheese curd? Ask around. The most fresh cheese curds are the most "squeaky" and you can get samples all over.

The big thing you're missing is Le Etoile! Odessa Piper was a tutee of Alice Waters and Le Etoile, now managed by the VERY competent Tori Miller, is the Midwest figurehead of the local restaurant movement. If you get to the square VERY early (6:30 or so) you can see all of Tori's shoppers stream out of Le Etoile with their large baskets and shopping carts to buy all of the food they cook and serve that week.

Just as a sidenote, the "formal" homepage is the Dane County Farmer's Market on the Square. The "madison farmer's market" is promotional hype that started up a bunch of years ago when the NYTimes Sunday travel mistakenly linked to the website "madisonfarmersmarket.com" when discussing our market instead of the DCFM.org site.

Posted by Addi - A Madisoninte | July 18, 2008 7:19 PM

Quivey's Grove outside Madison makes an effort to serve local foods. http://www.quiveysgrove.com/ It's a really nice restaurant too - it's in an old farmhouse with lots of little nooks and crannies, and the grounds are pretty. The served warm raspberry muffins as an appetizer when we went there!

Posted by S Kitt | July 19, 2008 8:37 AM

Hi Sareen - check out Carr Valley Cheese in La Valle Wisconsin. They have some awesome cheeses (cow, goat, and sheep too).

Posted by Deirdre | July 21, 2008 9:01 AM

Addi - You all are spoiled! The farmers market was fantastic, and everywhere we went it seemed there was an eye out for local eating. We did get some curds, but thought the squeakiness advertisements were cute but a little strange! It was really a fantastic trip and fantastic visit to Madison. I will be writing more about it soon! Thanks for the heads up.

Skitt - We didn't read your post in time, but absolutely plan to make it back to Madison in the near future. It is going into the plans!

Deirdre - I guess we read your mental notes to us. we checked out the Carr valley cheeses. They were fantastic and our refridgerator is now cheese laden.

Posted by Sareen | July 23, 2008 7:41 AM

I'm planning a Wisconsin Cheese Pilgrimage myself using _The Cheeses of Wisconsin: A Culinary Travel Guide_ by Jeannette Hurt. Excellent info including suggested day trips to different regions, detailed descriptions and contact info on farms, etc. Here in St. Paul, we get Lovetree Farms amazing Fish Bait at the farmer's market but only a few others.

Posted by Dawne | July 23, 2008 9:03 AM