And, I’m back

Time for Wisconsin, and Illinois,  fun.

I collected my bag and drove home from the Milwaukee airport and was home by 2:00. Plenty of time for unpacking and a dinner of leftovers (Beef enchiladas, Metcalfe’s deli coleslaw, Zatarain’s Spanish rice mix with added chicken) followed by Game of Thrones, the Starbucks cup episode. I remain firm in my belief that Jamie is going to have to kill Cersei, because no one else can.

Did a little grocery shopping in there too.

Monday I went and prepped the pantry breakfast, and then changed into work clothes and drove downtown, where I parked in my campus ramp and walked over to West Washington Ave. to buy our Madison Symphony ticket subscription in person because I was confused by what had  happened when I tried to buy online the night before: My only choice to keep our same seats from this year seemed to be handicapped tickets.

I bought a cookie and an iced coffee at Casetta Kitchen, a little restaurant that does sandwiches and carry out dinners, in the fancy new (or newly remodeled) office building where the Symphony’s offices are. They had a cookie in the Culinary Ladies cookie sale for Planned Parenthood, that was like the rainbow cookies I (and every good Italian deli) make. But the cookie I bought wasn’t a rainbow cookie, it was salted chocolate chip and it was very, very good. The cookie part was light colored – I guess no brown sugar – and was nicely moist on the inside with a thin crispy crust. The chocolate was kind of flat squares, so the cookie had a geologic, striated look when you bit in. And, salt. Cookie Perfection. The straw they gave me for my iced coffee, made from hay (or dried grass), not so much. After just a few sips, it split and stopped working. I left it in a planter on State Street, figuring it was compostable.

My schedule was made simpler because Anna decided she didn’t feel well, which meant that she didn’t go to school, or soccer practice. So, instead of trying to get home and take her to practice, getting her there at what she obviously felt was going to be too early, so that I could make my 4:00 haircut, she stayed in bed and I pursued my own schedule.

Got my haircut, and I think I stopped at the co-op for more fruit, and came home and had another leftovers dinner – this time the coconut rice and chicken.

Tuesday Anna was still sick, so I headed off to Goodman to serve the pantry breakfast and called the school to say she’d be out when I got there.

The menu was:

• zucchini and summer squash-cheese-egg bake, my helpers diced and sauteed the squash and onions on Monday, and I had them beat up all the eggs. In the morning I mixed a couple of cartons of lite sour cream into the eggs and topped the squash with cheese and the egg mix, and baked it. Very popular.
• Blueberry pudding cake, 8x this recipe, a big hit
• Roast turkey, some of these pre-formed JennieO turkey roasts. I thawed them the day before, but they were still a bit frozen in the middle and even though I roasted them for two hours, they were still cold and raw inside. I sliced them up, put the slices on trays, put the trays into the convex, and wah lah – turkey in 10 minutes. People liked it just fine. Later one of the young guys told me that I was supposed to cook them in the plastic bags – 90 mins, at 325° in the convex with steam. I’m sure he’s right.
• Little potatoes, lightly oiled, salt & peppered, and roasted – they were crazy good.

After breakfast, I came home, showered, and changed, and walked to get the bus to Chicago, because the CSO strike is finally ended, and we had tickets for what was I guess a Rome-themed concert. The first piece was Bizet’s Roma which I liked the best. Then Berlioz, The Death of Cleopatra, Lyric Scene for Mezzo-Soprano and Orchestra, with Joyce DiDonato, who wore a special Egyptian-themed dress, and some shoes that seemed to make it almost impossible for her to walk. She also must have brought her own fan club. Then Respighi’s “Pines of Rome“. It was a good concert, and everyone seemed very happy to be back.

In the morning we got coffee at Dollop, and then I went to the Library to work until the Art Institute opened, and Mark went to work. I had to go to the Art Institute to update our membership cards. I have a two card membership, and the two cards had me and John on them, but I bought John his own membership for his birthday back in March so it was time to put Mark’s name on a card. I thought I’d have time to go see the Rembrandt portraits, but I forgot the bag checking factor, which would not have left me enough time to go through the galleries. So I just went to a Starbucks until it was time to walk to the bus.

And things are finally starting to bloom in Madison.