Madison Essentials January/February 2020

VISIT US AT THE SPARK! FREE EVENTS | INSPIRING EXHIBITS | OPEN TO ALL DreamBank is located in the Spark building, just eight blocks down East Washington Avenue from the state capitol.

Our beautiful space is designed to support and inspire your dreams. Stop in and check out our exhibit, have a cup of coffee or attend free events that are offered daily.

Find a full list of free events and RSVP by visiting:

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American Family Mutual Insurance Company S.I., American Family Insurance Company, 6000 American Parkway, Madison, WI 53783 ©2018 015829 – Rev. 6/19

CONTENTS january/february 2020

vol. 65

publisher Towns & Associates, Inc. PO Box 174 Baraboo, WI 53913-0174 P (608) 356-8757 • F (608) 356-8875

madisonessentials.com

essential arts Carol Chase Bjerke.......................48

editor-in-chief Amy S. Johnson ajohnson@madisonessentials.com

publication designer Jennifer Denman

senior copy editor

community Boundaries.....................................52 Everyday Volunteerism with Sarah Rowe.........................38

dining

Kyle Jacobson

copy editor Krystle Engh Naab

sales & marketing director Amy S. Johnson ajohnson@madisonessentials.com

design team Crea Stellmacher, Linda Walker, Barbara Wilson

administration Cathy Bacon, Debora Knutson

contributing writers Sandy Eichel, Danielle Endvick, Jeanne Engle, Dave Fidlin, Kyle Jacobson, Lauri Lee, Krystle Engh Naab, Katy Plantenberg, Lori Scarlett, DVM

photographer

Brunch............................................10 Firefly Coffeehouse.........................6 The Mixing Bowl Bakery.................14 The Old Feed Mill Restaurant........18

food & beverage The Cider Farm..............................34 Nano Nano Ale from Pail..............54 Totally Tropical Flavors..................58 UW Provision...................................22

landmark The House of Michelangelo’s Coffee..............30

nonprofit Wisconsin Farmers Union...............26

pets

Eric Tadsen

Falling for Fleas..............................41

additional photographs Carol Chase Bjerke, Lee Bjerke, Rachel Bottner, Chris Hynes Photography, The Cider Farm, Dane County Humane Society, Hannah Heise, Kyle Jacobson, Bill Lemke, Manna Café & Bakery, Michelangelo’s Coffee House, Jane Nicholson, Olbrich Botanical Gardens, Kathy Pakes, Sarah Phipps, Katy Plantenberg, Sarah Rowe, Xana Rowe, UW Brand Communications, Diane Welsh, Wisconsin Farmers Union

sports & recreation UW Badgers Softball......................44

including From the Editor................................4 Contest Information......................62 Contest Winners............................62

(continued) madisonessentials.com

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all rights reserved. ©2020

No portion of this magazine may be reproduced without prior written permission by the publisher, Towns & Associates, Inc.

Watch for the next issue March/April 2020.

Cover photograph— Tomato Basil Salmon taken at The Old Feed Mill by Eric Tadsen Photographs on page 3: top—Bottomless Mimosas taken at DLUX

by Chris Hynes Photography middle—Cajun Pasta taken at The Old Feed Mill by Eric Tadsen bottom—Provided by UW Brand Communications

Eric Tadsen

4 | madison essentials

from the editor

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something.”

— Neil Gaiman I love this quote because it’s a simple message about being, trying, and living.

What you choose to do with a day not only affects that day, it influences your week, month, year, and life. When you expose yourself to and engage in something new, it signifies a willingness to grow. Growth comes from success and failure, so you simply need to try to grow. The chances you take ultimately direct the path of your life.

Fifteen years ago, my team joined me in taking a chance on creating a new magazine devoted to community. We wanted to bring readers the stories of influencers, local small businesses, organizations, places, and more. And we committed to doing so exclusively about those who are located in our community, whether they reside in Madison, Dane County, or Wisconsin. Throughout the years, we’ve learned, changed, and grown in the way we approach and create each issue because we’re open to improvement. While we’ve evolved in our process, the substance of why we do it remains the same.

My challenge to you in 2020 is to be open to possibilities and willing to take on opportunities to grow, and to embrace where that growth takes you. We look forward to joining you on the path to better work, both professionally and personally, for a more fulfilling life.

amy johnson

family crafted Port Wine

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essential dining

COFFEEHOUSE Something for Everyone in Oregon’s Living Room

Latte with milk from Sassy Cow Creamery

by Kyle Jacobson Coffee. Just saying the word is alluring enough. But my experience has been that different coffeehouses call out to different types of coffee drinkers. Some seem to appeal to the hipster persona, others to a more traditional crowd.

Though all shades of fads might be present at any given coffeehouse, rarely will the venue speak beyond any single one in a meaningful way.

place everyone wants to go to. Whether looking for the more relaxed feeling of a lounge, the studious air of a library, the artistic bravado of a gallery, or a family-friendly nook, every patron finds a home somewhere in the 5,000 square feet of space adorned with comfy leather furniture, high-top bar tables, local artwork hanging on the walls, and a colorful kids area.

And that’s the first thing I noticed when walking into Firefly Coffeehouse in downtown Oregon. It feels like the

“We have seating for 120, and we are full most of the time,” says Jeanne Carpenter, village president of Oregon,

6 | madison essentials

substantiated cheese geek, former food writer for Madison Essentials, and coowner of Firefly Coffeehouse with husband Uriah. “During the weekdays, we serve 100 lunches and 75 breakfasts. ... We serve as much or more food as we do coffee.”

Though Firefly’s success might get a little help from their pristine downtown location, a large degree of credit belongs to the food. Avery Carpenter, health and wellness guru and Firefly’s baker exemplar, says “I’m really passionate

about whole food ingredients and healthy ingredients. Using the best ingredients possible. ... I wouldn’t put stuff that’s not in season on our menu.”

Jeanne adds, “You’re never going to see a Sysco truck in the back of the Firefly.”

Local farmers, 17 sources and counting, are Jeanne’s go-to for most anything in the coffeehouse that isn’t coffee. As a result, she can tell you exactly where each ingredient came from in any of her menu items, chockful of vegan and gluten-free options. Take the McFly, two sausage patties from Jones Dairy Farm, a big slab of Hook’s one-year cheddar bought direct from Tony Hook, and a cage-free egg on an English muffin.

“Over the course of a weekend, we’ll sell 125 of them,” Jeanne says. “And people will say, ‘This tastes how food used to taste.’ ... I’m a foodie. I grew up on a farm in Wisconsin, where we grew our food and we had our own animals.” If it’s not authentic, it’s not served at Firefly, as Jeanne refuses to treat her customers the same way her college cafeteria treated her.

Turkey Pesto Panini

Jeanne says, “The vision is to build fiercely loyal customers.” And to do that, she and Uriah have a game plan for Firefly. “December 1 was the twoyear mark of our ownership, and when we purchased, we were committed to investing in three things: first was our employees, second was new equipment and upgrades to the building, and third was investing in the menu and the espresso.

“On day one, we bumped all of our full-time employees up to $14 an hour madisonessentials.com

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Pumpkin Cranberry Scone about their dogs, how their vacation went because she knows where they went on vacation. My manager, Rachael, knows everybody’s kids because she has a four-year-old.”

Jeanne investing in her employees translates to her employees investing in Firefly’s customers. Having spent a lot of money getting the building up to code and improving the kitchen’s overall efficiency, and also continually investing in high-quality ingredients, means having a strong foundation to spurn future growth in whatever form it might take. “One-hundred percent of our profit is reinvested into the business and the employees because that’s how you grow a business,” says Jeanne. In fact, Jeanne has yet to draw a salary, though she hopes she’ll be able to at the end of year three.

(all now average at least $15 an hour) because we’re committed to paying a living wage, which means all of those folks quit their second jobs. What that means is I now have the best eight hours of those six people. ... I’m looking at the people working right now. Maddie’s on the espresso machine. She knows all these people’s names.” Jeanne gestures to the fast-moving line. “She’s communicating with them. She’s asking

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But solidifying Firefly’s presence in Oregon isn’t just about a salary. As the village president, Jeanne is very aware of the benefits to the community through her efforts to improve her employees’ lives. “A new initiative we [Firefly] just rolled out for people working more than 30 hours a week here is that if they want to live in Oregon, we pay them $150 a month toward rent.” It’s another way to integrate her employees into Oregon.

She recalls last year’s winter. “During the polar vortex, my husband actually drove around and picked up employees.

Their cars wouldn’t start because they were living in super crappy apartments and their cars were all parked outside.

... That’s not going to be a problem this winter because four of my employees now live within walking distance.”

Jeanne uses Firefly as a voice to other local businesses, saying, “It’s worth investing in your employees because it pays off so much in dividends.”

In addition to fresh paninis, sandwiches, wraps, salads, and cheese boards, Firefly Coffeehouse carries two of Wisconsin’s finest coffee brands: Kickapoo Coffee in Viroqua and Anodyne Coffee in the Walker’s Point neighborhood of Milwaukee. “They totally complement each other in the styles of single origins that they roast,” says Jeanne. “We’re using high-end espresso.” And they’ve hired top-notch baristas.

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OUTDOOR CREATIV VE Hummus Platter

Nearly every person who visits Firefly Coffeehouse doesn’t have to try too hard to find a reason to return. As Avery puts it, “You don’t have to be a diehard vegan to enjoy a slice of vegan banana bread.”

Customers who come to Firefly are not just investing in Jeanne’s vision. They’re investing in living wages, sustainable agricultural practices, and even the village of Oregon itself. As a bonus, they get some of the best coffee, local food, and fresh-daily bakery items the state has to offer.

Kyle Jacobson is a copy editor for Madison Essentials, and a writer and beer enthusiast (sometimes all at once) living in Sun Prairie.

Photographs by Eric Tadsen.

Seasonal Cheese Board for Two

Kyle Jacobson

Firefly Coffeehouse 114 N. Main Street Oregon, WI 53575 (608) 835-6238 fireflycoffeehouse.com

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by Dave Fidlin

Sardine Croissant

Photograph by Rachel Bottner

essential dining

BRUNC H

It’s a favorite ritual for many, marked by the leisurely pace a weekend oftentimes affords and a desire to venture out and enjoy new and well-known eateries. The practice of enjoying brunch in lieu of a standalone breakfast or lunch stretches back nearly a century in America by many accounts. Restaurants with brunch menus have long provided a range of offerings on Saturdays and Sundays, and the following restaurants are no exception.

DLUX

This Madison eatery, which opened in 2012, serves up brunch from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday alongside its regular menu. Megan Nolan, general manager of DLUX, says she and other staff aspire to provide a fun, festive environment. “I describe it as a bit of a tailgate or a frat party,” Megan says. “It’s a great pregame experience.”

A sampling of DLUX’s brunch menu includes fresh donut balls and a fruit salad as appetizers, multiple breakfast sandwiches, five iterations of breakfast potatoes, and other offerings Megan says have become crowd-pleasers over time. She singles out the fried chicken and waffle entrée, which melds together the two favorites with maple syrup, rosemary, and honey-compound butter.

“It’s been on our menu for a while, and it’s staying there,” Megan says.

DLUX Bacon, Double Egg, & Cheesy Sandwich, Bottomless Mimosa 10 | m a d i s o n e s s e n t i a l s

Photograph by Chris Hynes Photography

On the beverage front, one of DLUX’s most popular brunch offerings is the bottomless mimosa, which rounds out a lengthy list of concoctions. “We’ve been offering the bottomless mimosa for a number of years, and it brings in a good number of people,” Megan says.

Other drinks at DLUX include a bloodorange screwdriver, a handmade vodka Bloody Mary bar, and the espresso milkshake. Also on the drink menu is the Rosé Paloma, which brings together Mi Campo tequila, grapefruit juice, strawberry puree, Domain de Canton, and rosé.

The goal is to appeal to different customers’ palates and specific dietary

Photograph by Chris Hynes Photography

DLUX needs. A range of vegetarian options, for example, are on the menu, including cauliflower grits and the breakfast potato offerings—one intermingling eggs, scallions, and a Mornay sauce. “It’s a nice, bold dish to have, and vegetarians love it,” Megan says.

7:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.

Mike Pratzel, who owns Manna Café & Bakery with wife Barb, says quiche is one of the restaurant’s signature dishes

throughout the week, and the weekend brunch menu is no exception. Quiche options vary by the day, and on average, 18 varieties are served each week. “We’re known for making our quiche through a deep-dish method.” Mike says. “We also

MANNA CAFÉ & BAKERY

Manna Café is known around Madison for its robust bakery, but it also offers other noteworthy menu items. The list of the nearly 15-year-old establishment’s specialties are baked into a weekend brunch menu, which is served from

Photograph provided by Manna Café & Bakery

Manna Café & Bakery A stack of Collins House oatmeal pancakes with pure Wisconsin maple syrup

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Another of the Pratzels’ specialties over the years is the Collins House Oatmeal Pancakes, which marry two breakfast favorites: oatmeal and pancakes. “People come from all around for them,” Mike says. “They’re pretty unique.” Preparing the batter is a 45-minute process, and whole rolled oats are used to soak up the moisture from the eggs, butter, and buttermilk.

Bialy is another favorite. Bialy’s are baked and feature a middle pocket of onions and poppy seeds. Manna Café & Bakery serves bialys with several brunch menu options, including The Breakfast Maven entrée, which includes slices of Nova lox, cucumbers, onions, and capers.

Other brunch menu items include a number of traditional eggs benedict dishes as well as offerings sprinkling in other fare, such as the Navajo Veggie Benny, which incorporates grilled cornbread with refried beans, a bell pepper onion sauté, and chile hollandaise. Also on the menu are a range of other egg dishes—scrambles, omelets, and frittatas—and traditional lunchtime options, such as a classic tuna melt, BLT, and a soup and salad combination.

Photograph provided by Manna Café & Bakery

put a lot of care into our crust, which is a labor of love.”

Manna Café & Bakery Ham & Cheddar Quiche

The time-honored tradition of enjoying brunch is as alive as ever.

“I think we have a very interesting menu,” Mike says, pointing to the care he and Barb have put into their wellrounded list of options. “We work very hard to get to know our customers and offer them a great dining experience.”

SARDINE

While the list of Sardine brunch menu offerings is varied, co-owners Phillip Hurley and John Gadau say there’s a common thread between each item at the restaurant. “Sardine has a Frenchinspired focus. We offer a fun vibe, and we’re always packed on the weekends,” Phillip says. “It has a real sense of celebration.”

Photograph by Rachel Bottner

Phillip says Sardine, which opened in 2006, specializes in a number of brunch-related food options, served 9:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on weekends.

One popular dish is baked cream eggs, which includes prosciutto, spinach, and gruyere cheese. Another is the brioche French toast, which brings together a local fruit compote, crème fraîche, lemon zest, and pure maple syrup into one dish.

Sardine Sardine’s Bloody Mary 12 | m a d i s o n e s s e n t i a l s

Also on the brunch menu are smallplate offerings, such as housemade salmon torchon and charred farmer’s cheese; an array of salads, entrées, and sandwiches; and an ever-rotating list of pastries. Rounding the menu out are drink offerings, including the ocean punch cocktail, which brings

together French-inspired ingredients with rhubarb, basil, lemon, and thyme.

While much of Sardine’s menu is inspired by cuisine originating from afar, the sourcing of ingredients is very close to home. “We really try to focus on our products coming from local sources,” Phillip says. “This includes meat, eggs, syrup, and honey.”

Dave Fidlin is a freelance writer who has a special affinity for Madison.

Dave’s career spans nearly 20 years, and he’s grateful for the opportunity to learn something new each day through his professional pursuits.

Dave Fidlin

DLUX

117 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard Madison, WI 53703 (608) 467-3130 dluxmadison.com

MANNA CAFÉ & BAKERY

Photograph by Rachel Bottner

The time-honored tradition of enjoying brunch is as alive as ever. And these three restaurants showcase the range of diverse menus and specialties served up each weekend.

Sardine West & East Coast Oysters

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SARDINE

617 Williamson Street Madison, WI 53703 (608) 441-1600 sardinemadison.com

Stoughton Hospital accepts over 160 area insurance plans. Please check your individual plan regarding coverage of services at Stoughton Hospital.

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Extreme Chocolate Cake

essential dining

THE MIXING BOWL BAKERY Treat Yourself Spinach & Chicken Quiche

by Krystle Engh Naab Walking distance from the Wisconsin River in Sauk City, The Mixing Bowl Bakery offers sweet distractions from the everyday. Owners Vickie and Curtis Eberle grew up in the community and recognize that their customers are the reason they’re in business. They created a community-driven business built on the ideals of family and togetherness, and are grateful to provide a little slice of happiness in the form of a baked good, latte, or casual conversation.

Curtis was working in life insurance when he felt spiritually directed to open the bakery. People had praised the baked goods he made for gatherings, and then a friend praised a cheesecake he made for a potluck, saying it was the best she’d tasted. The decision became clear to Curtis, and he told Vickie, “We’re opening up a bakery.” A year later, The Mixing Bowl Bakery was born.

Vickie was working full-time when the bakery opened, so staff were hired to

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help with the front of the house while Curtis and business partner Diane Clement did all the baking. But about a month after the opening, Vickie quit her job to be at the bakery full-time, then three years ago, they bought out Diane. October 9, 2019, was their five-year celebration.

When Vickie and Curtis were looking for the ideal home for their business, a building belonging to the library opened up. They almost had to move because of an expansion plan, but they were able to stay and transformed the 1970s bank into a functional, livable space. Curtis converted two offices into a kitchen, and they kept a large display window so people could see the preparation of daily treats. The vault is still in the building, the bulletproof window is still intact by the kids’ corner, the bank’s drivethrough became a screened-in patio, and the night-drop depository became the bakery’s drive-through window.

They keep it fresh by making everything from scratch. “A lot of our prep work

is done throughout the day making the basic ingredients. We both bake throughout the day, splitting up the duties,” says Vickie. Curtis makes the donuts, cinnamon rolls, cookies, ice cream, cheesecakes, and the bar recipes with peanut butter (because Vickie is allergic), while Vickie makes the quiches, pies, bread, and other bars and breakfast items. And she’s the main barista. “Sometimes my ovens don’t get turned off until late into the afternoon depending on the demand. We do things based on when they’re ordered.

If they’re not picking up until 5:00 p.m., we won’t bake until the afternoon so it’s fresh.”

Vickie adds, “It definitely was a process learning how to run a bakery and learning the barista part of it. Our roasters from Kickapoo Coffee sent trainers to show us how to make drinks, and they calibrated the equipment.”

Vickie remembers that when they started, they didn’t have take-and-bake cookies, there wasn’t ice cream, and

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“Quiches were later because we didn’t have a refrigerated case to keep them in.

Unless you can display it, it doesn’t sell.”

Pumpkin Bar

They also fill custom orders. “People ask for unique items, and people just clamor for it. For example, date bars— oatmeal, flour-crusted top, cooked dates in the center, baked together, and brown sugar gives it the sweetness—can cross generations; from old remembering them to new discovering it for the first time.”

Vickie also says, “We’re constantly adding new items to the menu. We still have to do the classics, and we try to do the classics well. My personal favorite is the cinnamon roll.” Seasonal items, like pumpkin bars, are also very popular. “We pride ourselves in using local ingredients, like Sassy Cow dairy, apples are from Oakwood Fruit Farm.

Pumpkins come from my cousin’s farm in DeForest, and we roast the pumpkins at the bakery.”

Not surprising, holidays are busy. Vickie says, “Chocolate-covered strawberries, heart-shaped and rose-shaped peanut butter cups, and French macarons are popular items for Valentine’s Day.” January has Bald Eagle Watching Days, so while people take in the sights, they can also stop at the bakery for something warm to eat and drink.

“People are surprised to find this place and know it has been around for five years. We started tracking zip codes, and since tracking from April, we have 500 zip codes from 37 states and 3 other countries—people from Canada,

16 | m a d i s o n e s s e n t i a l s

Thailand, and Austria. Especially tourists come to a small town to find the local shops.”

Vickie and Curtis are involved in the community, finding it mutually beneficial because it gets the word out about their business. They offer group tours for schools, daycares, and Girl Scouts, and they host storytime with the library. Curtis is a volunteer firefighter, so they give back to the local fire department and EMS. And they donate food to Badger Honor Flight, while leftover food or day-old food goes to the local food pantry and the Eagle Academy.

EXPERIENCE

Sauk Prairie

SAUKPRAIRIE.COM

Running a bakery has good and bad days, but “who wouldn’t want to earn a living and be around their children all the time?” says Vickie. Curtis and Vickie have 10 children, and the older ones help out. Vickie believes it teaches them values and work ethic, and allows the community to play a part in their upbringing because they enjoy spending time with them.

The uniqueness of the business is undeniable. “We’re not just a bakery and a coffee shop. We wanted it to be a very homey and comforting place, not in some commercial space, and feel like you belong,” says Vickie. The Eberle family makes customers feel at home.

With a little faith and a lot of love, The Mixing Bowl Bakery will continue to thrive for many years to come.

Krystle Engh Naab is a bakery-loving freelance writer and copy editor for Madison Essentials.

Krystle Engh Naab

Photograph by Barbara Wilson

Photographs by Eric Tadsen.

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essential dining

Chicken Pot Pie

by Lauri Lee The Old Feed Mill Restaurant in Mazomanie evokes a sense of a bygone era while diners enjoy tried-and-true comfort food like grandma used to make, and they do so in a working stone buhr mill dating back to 1856.

“In addition to my original recipes, I’ve taken recipes from my mother,” says Nancy Viste, who has co-owned the restaurant with her husband, Dan, since 1995. Nancy upped the ante on the recipes to make them taste even better, leading to the restaurant’s reputation for great food. “I call it the open-minded version of mom’s cooking by adding wine or switching up an ingredient or two to take the dish to the next level.

Mom wasn’t closed minded, but she never thought to experiment or vary the recipe.”

Tradition has endured at The Old Feed Mill because the restaurant stays true

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to its rich history. Their bread is an excellent example. The flour is ground fresh in the mill then baked within 78 hours of grinding, allowing the vitamins and minerals of the living plant to be retained. In addition, the wheat for the restaurant’s honey wheat bread and the rye for the Friday night fish fry bread are both grown organically in the Taliesin area of Spring Green.

The farmhouse menu reflects the Midwestern food Nancy and Dan grew up with, which tastes homemade because it is. All is housemade—cooked from scratch. “People come just to eat our famous pot roast, meatloaf, cider roast chicken, and chicken pot pies served in a round of freshly baked bread,” says Nancy. “The Mushroom Strudel vegetarian dish is so popular, you’d think I put a drug in it because people absolutely love it. We supply fresh produce grown in our own garden to supplement the other locally sourced vegetables served at the restaurant, so diners actually get a part of who we are.”

The bread pudding, carrot cake, Baileys Irish Cream chocolate chip cheesecake, and Irish Car Bomb cupcake, (an

infused cupcake with Grand Marnier, Baileys Irish Cream, and Jameson whiskey) are to die for, and it’s hard to pass up their pies and crisps. It’s no wonder the restaurant has been featured in Midwest Living magazine and on the Food Network.

It was the building that caught Dan’s eye and got things rolling for the restaurant.

He and Nancy lived a couple of miles out of town on a small farmette raising chickens and sheep and tending a large garden, and Dan would stop at the mill for animal food. As a hydrogeologist for a Madison engineering firm, he fell in love with the building’s stone construction. “A geologist spits on a rock to be able to reveal the rich color and beauty in the grains and to give it more luster. Because it was a building, I thankfully didn’t have to spit on it to see the beauty, I just waited until it rained.

The stone combined with water power just made the decision to purchase the building feel good.” Dan is also a history buff, and loves the role the building played in Mazomanie’s history.

The Village of Mazomanie was founded in 1855, getting a boost in 1856 when

the railroad needed water every 40 miles to power the steam engines.

Engineers diverted water from Black Earth Creek, just south of the village, into a lake against the bluff to power the mill next to the railroad. This allowed flour to be shipped to the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. The building was later expanded, but burned in the early

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Brandied Peach & Apple Pork

1900s. While the original mill was built with a 16-foot diameter water wheel with 14-foot buckets to power it, the new mill was built using turbines, and shifted to electric power in the 1950s.

20 | m a d i s o n e s s e n t i a l s

At one point, the mill also served as a safe house for the underground railroad.

In the mid-1990s, with their children in elementary school, Nancy was ready

to add running a restaurant to her life experience, and the timing couldn’t have been better. Cultural and heritage tourism was on the rise, and the local historical society had a collection of 32 downtown buildings declared a historical district. Geography was also on their side since Mazomanie is in the second-largest tourism region of Wisconsin, which includes the communities of Baraboo, Wisconsin Dells, Madison, Spring Green, and Mineral Point.

While establishing the restaurant, Nancy and Dan followed their philosophy that everything has to have a purpose or it shouldn’t be there. The dining room seats 75 people around mismatched tables in a historically based décor.

Large dark ceiling beams and two-footthick rustic whitewashed concrete walls with unpainted window lintels provide the room its interesting aesthetic. Panes of glass separated by muttons in the slender, single-paned windows provide true divided light to complete the look of the farmhouse style. Antique quilts adorn the wall and hang on a clothesline between the beams when privacy is desired for small groups. And diners can browse a small, charming gift shop.

The 10-foot marble bar top when you enter came from an old tavern in Prairie du Sac. Initially, The Old Feed Mill had a soda fountain/bakery theme, but about 10 years ago, Nancy and Dan’s son, Patrick, made the bar conversion. You can also enjoy seasonal outdoor seating

under a covered patio, and there’s music on Friday nights.

There are two large rooms upstairs that each seat 75 and are available for receptions and parties. The rooms are banquet style, with linens and lace over the tops of tables for country elegance.

For Valentine’s Day, they’re converted to tables for two with roses and candlelight for a more intimate setting.

Everything about The Old Feed Mill— food, ambiance, experience—is worth the trip from wherever you may be coming from.

Lauri Lee is a freelance writer living in Madison.

Photographs by Eric Tadsen.

1847 at the Stamm House A Pig in a Fur Coat Banzo Bonfyre American Grille Brasserie V Captain Bill’s Charlie’s on Main CIRC Cow & Quince Crema Cafe Daisy Cafe & Cupcakery Delaney’s Charcoal Steaks Dobhan Restaurant Dotty Dumpling’s Dowry Essen Haus Harvest Ian’s Pizza by the Slice - Frances Ian’s Pizza by the Slice - Garver Ian’s Pizza by the Slice - State Imperial Garden West Liliana’s Restaurant Lombardino’s Italian Restaurant Longtable Beer Cafe Manna Cafe and Bakery Mariner’s Inn Nau-Ti-Gal Nitty Gritty - Downtown Nitty Gritty - Middleton Nitty Gritty - Sun Prairie Old Feed Mill Paisan’s Restaurant Parthenon Gyros Pizza Brutta - Middleton Pizza Brutta - Monroe St. Porta Bella Restaurant Quivey’s Grove Rockhound Brewing Company Short Stack Eatery Smoky’s Club The Old Fashioned The Roman Candle - East The Roman Candle - Fitchburg The Roman Candle - Middleton The Roman Candle - Monroe St. The Wonder Bar Tipsy Cow - Downtown Tipsy Cow - Sun Prairie Tornado Club Steak House Yola’s Cafe

Gift Cards available at madisonoriginals.com

Key Lime Pie

Lauri Lee

madisonessentials.com

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essential food & beverage

UW Provision

T he Meat People

by Lauri Lee

If you want to go whole hog for your next cookout, fundraiser, or event, a visit to The Meat Market in Middleton or Local Source Food in Sun Prairie is in order. The meat at these two specialty store outlets is from UW Provision in Middleton, which is the same high-quality fresh or frozen meat the wholesaler ships to regional grocery stores and restaurants. It’s convenient to buy in bulk without breaking the bank.

An actual whole hog requires special ordering, but customers will readily find refrigerators and freezer cases filled with beef (steaks, brisket, hamburger, stew meat, roasts, meatballs, and shredded beef), pork (ribs, chops, shoulder roast, ham, bacon, brats, hot dogs, sausage, and shredded pork), seafood (shrimp, 22 | m a d i s o n e s s e n t i a l s

cod, haddock, walleye, and catfish), turkey, and chicken. You’ll even find lamb, goat, and rabbit. Same-day or next-day delivery service sets UW Provision apart from the competition.

In addition to the variety of meat, over 100 products are stocked for large events, including rubs, sauces, seasonings, cheese, dairy, soda, wine, beer, chips, condiments, pasta and potato salads, desserts, paper products, and specialty products made in Wisconsin.

“Many people think a membership is needed to shop at the stores,” says Steve Kalscheur, president of UW Provisions.

“It seems to be a big secret that everyone is welcome to shop with us. The stores have different names than the wholesale

division, but share the same purpose of providing high-quality meat in bulk quantities.”

The UW Provision story goes back to the late 1940s after Steve’s father, Jim, graduated from high school. Jim worked for Esser’s, a small family-owned wholesale meat business, starting at the bottom delivering meat and learning the business on the job. In those days, there weren’t refrigerated trucks, so Jim would spray the truck with cold water on the outside to cool it down, and cover the pot roast, ground beef, and steaks with blankets to insulate them. The delivery route had to be short and just around Madison. This experience gave Jim the knowledge and confidence needed to begin UW Provision in 1958.

in the Midwest, delivering meat by refrigerated trucks to seven Midwestern states, including Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Missouri.

When Jim heard that UW Meat Market adjacent to the University of Wisconsin–

Madison campus was for sale, he seized the opportunity. A newlywed, he used the $1,000 wedding gift money (with his wife’s blessing) and made additional monthly payments to cover the $20,000 starting inventory. Jim kept the name and launched the business that would become UW Provision.

Building upon the success of UW Provision’s wholesale business, expansion into the retail segment came in 1979 with The Meat Market and again in 2016 with Local Source Food.

“We chose the name Local Source Food so that when we eventually add online sales, customers from around the region will know they’re getting local food,” says Steve.

Today, UW Provision is one of the largest food distributors and freight services madisonessentials.com

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Steve Badalich became Jim’s business partner from 1961 to 1992, and they incorporated as UW Provision to recognize their wholesale business and University Avenue location. When the university wanted their property and started a condemnation proceeding in 1962, UW Provision moved to the larger 1900 Beld Street space. Ron Krantz started with the company in 1965 and became a partner in 1971. He’s still a partner and serves as vice president.

By the early 1970s, UW Provision needed upgraded equipment and more space so they could sell to restaurants and add other food items besides meat. In 1973, they moved to the Middleton business park at 2315 Pleasant View Road and have since expanded the 10,000-squarefoot plant 11 times to become one of the biggest in the industry. There’s over 100,000 square feet of USDA inspected space, and they’ve grown to be one of the largest providers of fresh, frozen, and dry-food products in the Midwest.

The freezer warehouses combined with their Sun Prairie Cold Storage business holding a $10 million inventory means they always have quality product at great prices to meet customer’s needs.

Offering high-quality products at competitive prices is UW Provision’s 24 | m a d i s o n e s s e n t i a l s

quality products at competitive prices to our customers. Many have worked here for 42 years.” way of helping keep local grocers in business, and giving restaurants an option to purchase meat that has been properly cut and stored.

Jim’s salesmen became the original telemarketers because Jim couldn’t afford to buy cars and pay for gasoline, a move the company credits for its success. They were the only telemarketers making cold-call sales to restaurants. “All sales are still made over the phone,” says Steve. “We grow our own staff by hiring and training young men whose personalities mesh with our customers. Overall, there are 119 employees providing efficient, friendly, and professional service to sell high-

Steve started with UW Provision when he was 14 years old. At age 16, he worked full-time and received pay. Like his father, he also worked his way up from the bottom to learn everything. By the time he graduated high school in 1981, he was scheduling 70 inbound and 50 outbound semis and selling 250,000 pounds of meat a week. Steve became president in 2009. “I worked alongside my dad through last year, when he was age 89. At age 90, he quit coming to work.”

Jim left a legacy at UW Provision, punctuated by quality service and inventory, convenience, and competitive prices. Since Steve learned so much of what he knows about the industry

through his father, expect those qualities to be front and center when you see The Meat People at UW Provision for your next barbeque—that is, if you want it to have some of the best steaks, chops, or walleye this side of the Mason-Dixon (grill master pending).

Lauri Lee is a freelance writer living in Madison.

Photographs by Eric Tadsen.

Lauri Lee

UW Provision uwprovision.com

Retail Stores THE MEAT MARKET 2315 Pleasant View Road Middleton, WI 53562 (608) 836-7400 LOCAL SOURCE FOODS 1100 Wilburn Road Sun Prairie, WI 53590 (608) 662-0660 madisonessentials.com

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essential nonprofit

Farmers Union Unites Farmers and Foodies in Vision for Family Farms and Local Foodscapes

by Danielle Endvick Let Us Reason Together.

The phrase has inspired the work of Wisconsin Farmers Union (WFU) for nearly a century. It encapsulates the efforts happening even today across the countryside as farmers, foodies,

Farmers Union members, like Tenzin Botsford and Stacy Thompson Botsford of Red Door Family Farm, are working to build up family farm agriculture by producing food for their local communities in the most sustainable ways possible.

and advocates organize to keep family farms on the land and reform a broken American food system.

WFU believes that family farms and strong local food systems are the foundation for thriving and vibrant

communities. These communities, in turn, are vital to the health, security, and economic well-being of our entire state and national economy.

But WFU isn’t just for farmers or rural Wisconsinites. With 29 chapters across the state, the grassroots, nonpartisan organization bridges rural and urban, conventional and organic, and young and old. The result has been a big-tent atmosphere that challenges the status quo and advocates for fair policies that protect our farms, land, water, and communities.

True to Our Roots

Barron County Farmers Union members Patty Wright and Mike Racette, who were among the early pioneers of the Community Supported Agriculture movement, on their Spring Hill Community Farm near Prairie Farm.

26 | m a d i s o n e s s e n t i a l s

WFU’s roots run deep. In November 1929, as the Great Depression and winter tightened their grips on the Midwest, a group of foresighted farmers gathered in Menomonie to convene the first WFU convention.

The Farmers Union Herald reported that 285 delegates attended, and the event was “a thrilling experience … with not a moment of relaxation except during hours of scanty slumber.” These

determined farmers banded together to face challenges that are strikingly similar to many we still see today: lack of fair prices, corporate greed, land and market access struggles, and the dismantling of cooperative rights.

The organization born out of that gathering has spent nearly the last century advocating for family farmers in Wisconsin through their work in education, legislation, and cooperation.

This January 31 to February 2, WFU will host its 89th State Convention in Rothschild, and just as in those days, hundreds of members will gather to reflect on and organize around the future of family-farm agriculture.

Much of WFU’s early work was in the development of cooperatives that enabled farmers to earn a fair price for their goods as well as collaboratively purchase supplies at more affordable prices. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, members donated funds and labor to help build the rustic cabins and lodge at Kamp Kenwood. Nestled in the forest on the shores of Lake Farmers, consumers, and rural allies gathered in Madison in February for the Farm & Rural Lobby Day. Members spoke with their representatives on issues related to groundwater quality, hemp production, and access to affordable healthcare.

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Farmers Union members gather each winter to set the family farm organization’s grassroots policy.

Wissota, the camp, still owned by WFU today, welcomes hundreds of youth each summer for camps focused on the values of cooperatives and social justice.

model can play in reshaping local food systems. Over the winter months, WFU will host several regional meetings for those interested in the CSA movement.

That cooperative spirit remains woven into WFU’s work today. The organization founded the Wisconsin Food Hub Cooperative, a farmer-led cooperative that is committed to building an economically sustainable local food network. WFU has also partnered on a project to make solar panels more affordable for its farmer-members who want to invest in renewable energy.

It’s been inspiring to see WFU members building on the excitement around local food with farm-to-table events, farm tours, and engaging speakers at chapter meetings. Pockets of energy have been bubbling up in regions across the state, with several new WFU chapters forming in recent years, including South Central (spanning several counties south of Madison), Lake to Bay (eastern Wisconsin), Ashland-Bayfield, and Iowa-Grant.

One of WFU’s newest cooperative ventures is support of the South Central Wisconsin Hemp Cooperative, a producer-led cooperative of organic farmers, activists, and community leaders who are assembling resources, community, and infrastructure around the new opportunity to grow hemp here in the state. Once a historic crop in Wisconsin, hemp is grown for its medicinal and fiber capabilities.

Hemp is just one way that WFU members are rethinking the future of farming in Wisconsin. It has also organized the Midwest CSA Conference, which draws hundreds of farmers and food activists from across the country for farmer-led sessions on communitysupported agriculture and the role this 28 | m a d i s o n e s s e n t i a l s

Underlying WFU’s work to inject energy into these niche opportunities is a recognition that the model for modernday agriculture is broken. After several consecutive years of bottomed-out milk prices due to overproduction, Wisconsin lost 691 dairy herds in 2018. Meanwhile, farmers have also been challenged by extreme weather conditions and unpredictable markets for their commodity crops. Monopolization is impacting livestock farmers, who are at the mercy of a market where 85 percent of U.S. beef processing is controlled by four companies. The U.S. agriculture economy is being artificially propped up by subsidies, but in reality, even billions of dollars in subsidies aren’t

stopping the crippling of the American family farmer.

That’s why WFU’s work heavily leans toward educating on issues and advocating for policy and structural reform for fair prices for family farmers and a safe and stable food system for consumers. In addition to a core staff in its Chippewa Falls headquarters, WFU has several staff members working in Madison on legislative issues. The organization also has a strong focus on the health of our lands and water and recently hired a watershed coordinator who is working with farmer-led watershed projects in western Wisconsin to reduce runoff and implement practices to improve the health of the Mississippi River watershed.

But WFU recognizes that the important work of advocating for family farmers and stronger communities cannot be

done alone. Every voice is needed to speak up and help shape the policies that will guide agriculture into the future.

Danielle Endvick is communications director for Wisconsin Farmers Union, a grassroots organization committed to enhancing the quality of life for farmers, rural communities, and all people.

Photographs provided by Wisconsin Farmers Union.

Madison’s LGBTQ magazine since 2007

Danielle Endvick

Learn more about Wisconsin Farmers Union at wisconsinfarmersunion.com. A family membership is $30 per year. The Wisconsin Farmers Union 89th Annual State Convention is January 31 to February 2 at the Central Wisconsin Convention & Expo Center in Rothschild. See wisconsinfarmersunion.com/convention for details.

Pasture walks are among the programming WFU offers to connect and educate consumers and farmers about the role they can play in conservation and building up local food systems.

madisonessentials.com

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essential landmark

The House of Michelangelo’s Coffee

by Jeanne Engle Built in 1905, the Lamb Building, at 114 State Street, is one of the earliest and finest remaining Queen Annestyle commercial buildings in Madison.

The structure was designed by local architectural masters Claude and Starck and is a Madison landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

The National Register nomination notes that the Lamb Building is unique because of the Jacobean feeling created by its multistory, wide bay windows with leaded glass and heraldic shield designs, brick façade, and stone corners. The original store front has been preserved, one of only four pre-World War I era commercial buildings in downtown Madison. Even though the Lamb Building is small, it was built better than other larger and more complex commercial structures in the city. The rapid growth experienced by Madison after 1920 resulted in the destruction of a number of earlier commercial buildings, making the Lamb Building and those that remain special.

For the last 23 years, the Lamb Building has housed Michelangelo’s Coffee House on the first floor. Previous tenants have included a drug store, confectionary shop, a social club, a beauty parlor, a bridal shop, men’s clothing store, music teacher’s studio, and bank offices. The architects who designed the building even had offices in the building at one time.

Mifflin Street Entrance 30 | m a d i s o n e s s e n t i a l s

When Michelangelo’s owner, Sam Chehade, saw the building in the late 1990s, he found what he was looking for in terms of interior layout; size; and, most of all, location. Not only

is the coffee shop’s main entrance on State Street, there’s another entrance around the corner on Mifflin Street.

“We did rather extensive work on the interior of the building putting in the necessary utilities to operate a food service/coffee shop venue. The exterior has not changed. We just do regular maintenance to keep the building in sound structural condition,” Sam says.

The building was originally constructed for Francis J. Lamb, a prominent Madison attorney. Lamb was born in western New York in 1825 and raised on a farm. There he cleared land, split logs, and generally engaged in the hard manual labor of farming. Lamb later studied law and practiced in New York until he moved to Madison in 1857, following his parents, who had moved to the area 10 years earlier.

At one time, Lamb was a partner with Philip Spooner, who became a Madison mayor. During the 1870s, Lamb was partners with George Smith. Their firm was one of the leading law firms in Wisconsin. A prominent client was the Chicago and North Western Railway. In the early 1880s, Lamb partnered with Burr Jones. That firm was the beginning of today’s Axley Brynelson, LLP, one of the oldest practices in Madison. Lamb left before the decade ended and formed a partnership with two others and his son, Charles. He retired from the

practice of law in 1904, but that wasn’t the end of his life in the community.

Lamb was a Ripon College trustee for many years and president of the Wisconsin Home Missionary Society for more than 20 years. He served on the Madison Board of Education and as court commissioner of the Dane County Circuit Court. He’d been an active member of the First Congregational Church in Madison for 60 years and continued until his death in 1916.

According to the eulogy delivered

by Burr Jones, Lamb was not only serious, but had a “delicious sense of humor.” Burr went on to say that Lamb possessed an “inexhaustible fund of stories, apt scriptural allusions, and quaint old sayings,” making him a “most interesting companion. For many years, the younger lawyers were accustomed to seek his advice on the knotty problems which arose in their practice, and no one could give such help more satisfactorily or in a kindlier spirit.”

In 1909, Lamb published the book Miracle and Science: Bible Miracles Examined by the Methods, Rules and Tests of the Science of Jurisprudence as Administered Today in Courts of Justice.

At that time, critics denied Biblical miracles, declaring such actions to be impossible and not to be the basis of history. They advocated removing

madisonessentials.com

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miracles from the Bible. Lamb, however, using the philosophy and theories of the law, argued there is evidence to prove Bible miracles are true.

“The name Michelangelo is a catchy name that gives a little bit of old-world feel for the coffee shop. It’s something our customers enjoy,” Sam says. “We march to the beat of a different drummer since the design of the coffee shop is not the latest trend—minimal, white, and new. Our customers like walking into a space that has been there a long time.

Without even realizing it, they connect to the past. … Historical buildings help anchor a city to itself. We are extending the legacy of this building by being locally owned and operated.”

32 | m a d i s o n e s s e n t i a l s

State Street Entrance

Michelangelo’s is a small-batch coffee brewer, meaning that one small airpot is brewed at a time. Sam explains, “Even though our system requires more labor because we are constantly brewing, we believe that the freshness of the coffee is essential to the product. Small batch also refers to the small farmers who grow the coffee beans. Their farms, on average, are about six acres in size, and they form cooperatives to bring their product to market.”

Sam’s dedication to supporting small farmers and his unwavering commitment to serving only fair trade, socially conscious coffee would no doubt be looked upon favorably by Francis Lamb, a man who knew farm

life from his pioneer days in New York and service to the community from his time in Madison.

Jeanne Engle is a freelance writer.

Photographs provided by Michelangelo’s Coffee House.

Jeanne Engle

Photograph by MOD Media Productions

It’s fitting, then, that a prominent image in the Lamb Building is the most famous section of the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling, The Creation of Adam. Painted by artist Michelangelo in the early 16th century, the painting illustrates the Biblical creation narrative from Genesis, the first book of the Bible, in which God gives life to Adam, the first man.

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Drawing inspiration from the finest ingredients, 2 we are concocting truffles and treats to create the ultimate chocolate experience!

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American Indian jewelry, craft, and art. Authentic 3 and handmade pieces. Fair trade. Watch for the Anniversary-Valentine’s Day sale coming up soon!

Katy’s American Indian Arts 1817 Monroe St., Madison

4

Located in downtown Stoughton, featuring an 4 exceptional collection of artworks from artists throughout the U.S. Featured work by Diane Washa.

Abel Contemporary Gallery 524 E. Main St., Stoughton

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6

The Hygge Game offers 300 entertaining, interesting, 5 and thoughtful questions designed to spark cozy conversation this winter season and beyond.

Little Luxuries 230 State St. Stop 2, Madison Work one-on-one with our jeweler 6 artisans to create jewelry as unique as you.

Celebrating 50 years of unique custom design.

Jewelers Workshop 301 N. Sherman Ave., Madison

madisonessentials.com

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Photograph provided by The Cider Farm

essential food & beverage

THE CIDER FARM

BY KYLE JACOBSON “And there never was an apple, in Adam’s opinion, that wasn’t worth the trouble you got into for eating it.” – Good Omens

by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett We’ve been duped! Well, at least I have.

See, I used to have this narrow vision of what a hard cider is, this sweet, sugary cavity bomb carbonated like a soda pop and tart like a Jolly Rancher. I hate even writing those words in this article, so do me a favor and forget I used them. The Cider Farm in Madison, co-located with Brennan’s Cellars, makes a definitive argument that apples can be to ciders what grapes are to wines.

“Some of our ciders, you certainly can tell, were made from apples,” says John Biondi, co-owner of The Cider Farm.

“But frequently people will say, ‘These don’t taste like apples at all.’ Well, wines don’t taste like grapes either.” Consider the implications of this statement. The disposition most consumers have is to expect a distinct apple taste. Lack of exposure to the true potential of a cider created the opportunity for overly sweet 34 | m a d i s o n e s s e n t i a l s

ciders, what we’ll call six-pack ciders, to come off as more than a gimmick. “If you took generic white grape juice, table grape juice; fermented it to dryness; then added back in Merlot flavoring, sugar, colorant, and then called it Merlot, nobody would buy that. They’d be laughed out of existence. That’s exactly what a lot of these ciders do.”

Imagine eating M&Ms your whole life and being told they were truffles before actually trying a truffle. That’s the difference John is talking about.

Sure, they’re both chocolates, but there’s no mistaking the two in a blind taste test. Simply drinking any of the ciders produced at The Cider Farm is an instant education, and if you want to learn more, Deirdre Birmingham, coowner of The Cider Farm, can tell you anything and everything you’d ever want to know about what happens from seed to cider.

Deirdre and John, her husband, have been living on their orchard for 16 years. Consulting for various people in

ag in the area, being the former board chair for the Organic Farming Research Foundation, working on the governor’s Wisconsin Organic Task Force, cofounding the Midwest Organic Tree Fruit Growers Network, and now joining the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) board of directors, Deirdre knows what she’s doing when it comes to running the orchard, and Johns says he’s “kind of a farmer’s husband.”

Even with the range of experience and knowledge Deirdre has, she didn’t have the information she needed to grow the French and English apples used to make the best cider variants in the world. “I quickly found that I was a data point of one growing these rare apples organically in Midwest conditions,” she says. Deirdre had to find out a lot on her own. “How widely should you space them? How far apart should the rows be? How far apart in the rows should the trees be?” The particular apples The Cider Farm wanted to harvest for their ciders are not easy to grow, and they’re susceptible to disease—one particularly

lethal one has taken a lot of their trees over time.

The result of her hard work has produced ciders that live up to The Cider Farm’s motto. “Cider refreshment with wine complexity,” Deirdre says. “These are the wine grapes of apples.” Take my favorite of what I sampled, Tremlett’s, which features the Tremlett’s Bitter apple.

“Tremlett’s is one of the most strongly tannic of the English cider apples,” says John. “We’re maybe one of six orchards in America that might have enough of that apple to do anything with. We blend it with a very aromatic American apple called Priscilla.” When I tasted it, I was surprised at how soft it sat on the palate. “It’s got this tannic backbone and structure of the Tremlett’s apple, and then it’s got some nice aromatic notes underneath. Makes it kind of a refreshing but interesting cider.”

Though The Cider Farm distinguishes itself through its complex ciders, there’s been this American influence of ingenuity in the drinking world Photograph provided by The Cider Farm

ngs i d d e W & s t e u q n a B

m a d i s o n c a p i t o l e as t

s au s a ukk p p rra a i r i er i e

600 WATER ST. SAUK CITY, WI

803 EAST WA S H I N G T O N AV E .

MADISON, WI

madison

674 S. WHITNEY WAY MADISON, WI

madisonessentials.com

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BOARD My Town MERRIMAC, WI

BIKE • SKI • FISH • STAY

Expect a lot of this sort of mix of ciders from The Cider Farm. They’re aging in oak barrels. They’re using Belgian yeast strains. They’re making distinct dry ciders. It’s really easy to appreciate the obvious effort put into balancing each cider. Though not technically vintages, it’s worth it to try each year’s iteration of a favorite because “as these young trees

mature, the complexity of the apples also matures,” says Deirdre.

John and Deirdre also have an event space on site, which is best utilized during Wisconsin’s warmer months for wedding anniversaries, corporate

Photograph by Hannah Heise

www.devilsheadresort.com

that Deirdre and John are not deaf to.

“It’s kind of the Wild Wild West in the U.S. for cider making,” says Deirdre.

So I tipped my hat and tasted their Equinox—a cider made with Equinox (now Ekuanot) hops. What really stood out was how the alpha acids in the hops brought out the tartness of the cider that might’ve otherwise gone unnoticed. “We didn’t want to create a cider that tasted like beer,” says John. “We used a hop to create a cider that tasted more like a wine. We think it’s much more like a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc with the citrusy note than it is anything in the beer family.” I don’t know enough about wines to add to that, so I’ll simply say it’s herbaceous and citric on the tongue and the hops are evident on the nose.

36 | m a d i s o n e s s e n t i a l s

Signature Dishes Photograph provided by The Cider Farm

Photograph by Eric Tadsen

of local food artisans

events, birthdays...you get the idea.

They also like to put on cider and cheese pairings.

QUIVEY’S TURTLE PIE A Quivey’s original made fresh by their bakers with Bavarian chocolate cream over caramel and pecans. The recipe can be found in the Quivey’s Grove Heritage Cookbook!

Try this signature dish at

If you appreciate wine, beer, and spirits, you owe it to yourself to visit The Cider Farm. I was as skeptical as anyone, as I sort of keep myself pigeonholed in the beer world. Now, I can’t wait to take my wine-loving wife and family members to try something they’ll be hard pressed to find anywhere else in the Midwest.

Photograph by Eric Tadsen

6261 Nesbitt Rd., Madison (608) 273-4900 | quiveysgrove.com

Kyle Jacobson is a copy editor for Madison Essentials, and a writer and beer enthusiast (sometimes all at once) living in Sun Prairie.

Kyle Jacobson

THE CIDER FARM 8216 Watts Road Madison, WI 53719 (608) 217-6217 theciderfarm.com

MUSHROOM STRUDEL Portabella and button mushrooms, onions, roasted red pepper, and Arborio rice wrapped in phyllo dough and served with porcini mushroom Try this béchamel and seasonal vegetables.

signature dish at

114 Cramer St., Mazomanie (608) 795-4909 | oldfeedmill.com

Look for more dishes in future issues! madisonessentials.com

| 37

e ssential community

by Kyle Jacobson

Everyday Volunteerism with Sarah Rowe

Think about things you notice that seem to be invisible to everyone else.

Something as simple as a honeybee on a flower. Or as chance as a shooting star.

Or as glaring as the number of MacBooks in a café. But then you remember the documentary you saw on the declining honeybee population. Oh, and the factoid you learned about being able to see a shooting star every 10 to 15 minutes while stargazing. Ah yes, and that you’ve been looking into buying a MacBook for the past month. It’s the things we preoccupy our minds with that suddenly go from being our world’s white noise to taking center stage.

Photograph by Diane Welsh

For Sarah Rowe, the thing on the forefront of her mind, the thing she habitually recognizes everywhere she looks, is people helping others. It’s because Sarah, herself, is a chronic volunteer, always looking for opportunities and finding ways she can be involved. She says she definitely gets it from her mother. “Being a Depression person, she always has her eye out and really notices people who

Sarah has personally made over 200 pairs of mittens for charity and many more have been donated through the help of other volunteers.

Sarah and her mother, Leni Rowe.

Photograph by Xana Rowe

are struggling. She once took it to the point where people would move in with us for a period of time.”

38 | m a d i s o n e s s e n t i a l s

Sarah’s mom, Leni Rowe, told stories to her kids about when she was growing up during the Great Depression in Brooklyn, New York. Leni’s parents were fortunate to have a stable income, and when times were tough, they were able to feed people who came to the back door of their home. Both Sarah’s parents were careful with their money, but generous in their donations of time and talent.

Seeing having played pursue

the impact her parents were on the lives of others surely a part in Sarah’s decision to a career as a nurse practitioner

for Access Community Health Centers in 1996. But this didn’t completely satisfy her desire to help the community. In fact, her work at the clinic only fuels her need to get involved in her community when she’s off the clock.

Sarah remembers when she saw a Wisconsin State Journal ad for a volunteer to teach a Friday fresh-food cooking class at the McFarland Youth Center. She thought, “I can do that, I have Friday afternoons off. So I showed up there, and I had a lot of really ambitious plans. I’m like, okay, we’re going to get wild foods.

I’m going to teach them how to make pesto out of garlic mustard. I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that. No, no, no.” The reality: some of the kids didn’t

know the basics, like the fact that cherry tomatoes grow on vines. So she started from square one. Now there’s a community garden, and a lot of kids are learning some really cool things about agriculture on a scale they can appreciate.

Something else volunteering at the Youth Center provided Sarah was the opportunity to work with kids who were sometimes eating their first meal of the day. But these experiences didn’t just give her reason to reflect on her good fortune in life, they also served as a source for inspiration. One girl’s mom, a single parent, is what Sarah calls a “super-dedicated volunteer.” This mom is on the list of people who can take food home

because of her financial situation. “She was volunteering all the time. And it cuts both ways. People want an opportunity to contribute.”

In a sense, it’s really easy to find something you’re passionate about, whether it’s local schools, gardening, or recycling, and turn it into a chance to volunteer. But if you’re like me, finding the time is often the inhibitor. Though Sarah seems fluent in her ability to sense volunteer opportunities, she has developed a foolproof way to actively contribute to her community.

Sarah’s conviction in the importance of recycling, energized her and a friend to start Mitten Palooza: a group focused on creating mittens and other apparel from

The inspiration goes back to an old knit wool coat Sarah’s grandpa had given Leni in the ‘70s. “It was the last thing he gave her before he died.” Leni couldn’t part with it, but the garment still had some life left in it. Sarah thought, “If I could turn it into something else that you really liked, that you needed, that you could use.”

Then she took out her sewing machine, which hadn’t been touched in 25 years and, “through the magic of YouTube,” began upcycling. She turned the wool coat into a set of mittens, and decided to keep the momentum going.

Upcycled mitten production could be a good way to earn some extra income, but Sarah instead works hard to determine where the proceeds are best donated.

“There’s a lot of things I could be doing, and maybe I can’t affect large things, but I can affect small things. Like my $500 contribution is a big deal for the Youth Center. Maybe it wouldn’t be for some other organization, but it’s a big deal for them.”

Photograph by Kathy Pakes

The first annual Mitten Palooza in 2014 in Sarah’s dining room.

recycled clothing often found at the St. Vincent de Paul Dig & Save.

Photograph by Sarah Rowe

In addition to making mittens for charity, Sarah also makes memorial mittens out of the sweaters of loved ones who have died. The recipient of the mittens can then donate to their own personal charities if they wish.

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Photograph by Diane Welsh

Photograph by Sarah Rowe

Sarah teaching her son, Ansel, how to sew.

Baskets with mittens and cocoa made by Sarah Rowe and Kathy Pakes for a McFarland Food Pantry fundraiser.

Finding your niche, giving back, Sarah says, “All these things are a mindset that you can develop if you care to and if you’re interested in it.” As much as I tried to make this article a window into Sarah’s life, I find it also operates as a manual on how to volunteer. But maybe that’s because it speaks to who Sarah is and what she wants to inspire in others.

Which brings me back to Leni, now 90 years old. “She’s no longer serving at Luke House, but she’s still making the sloppy joe mix.” There are so many little things we can do that instantly improve someone’s day or make a community event a success. “I have a whole different way of looking at things since I started doing Mitten Palooza because I’m always looking for an opportunity now. I like to stay busy, and it’s kind of fun for me.

It makes me more cheerful, just like my dog. My dog makes me cheerful, and this does too.”

Kyle Jacobson is a copy editor for Madison Essentials, and a writer and beer enthusiast (sometimes all at once) living in Sun Prairie.

Kyle Jacobson

40 | m a d i s o n e s s e n t i a l s

essentia l pets

Fleas are everywhere on every continent, but most people don’t really think much about them anymore. I mean, the Black Death was a long time ago, right? The facts are found everywhere, on every continent. The fleas in Antarctica feed on a variety of seabirds, but if there was a large population of dogs and cats there, I’m sure the cat flea would be there too.

Fleas have been around longer than humans, their flea fossils embedded in amber dating back to the upper Eocene and Miocene periods.

There are over 2,000 flea species, but pet owners need to be concerned with just one: Ctenocephalides felis, the cat flea. This flea doesn’t just feed on cats.

While it prefers blood from cats and dogs, it will feed on humans in a pinch.

Interestingly, human blood isn’t nutritionally complete enough to allow much reproduction, which is why they prefer our furry friends. They have a wide host

range, including raccoons, opossums, and birds, which is why eliminating fleas on pets that go outside can be difficult.

When I see a cat or dog for a wellness exam, I first comb them with a flea comb. Owners often say, “You shouldn’t find anything. I use a preventative on them.” But sometimes I do find a live flea or, more commonly, flea dirt. Because of flea preventative use, I’m more likely to find evidence of fleas in December and January—the months people decide it’s too cold for fleas and stop using a preventative.

Although the cat flea doesn’t transmit plague, which is spread by the rat flea (Xenopsylla cheopis), it causes other health problems. The most common allergy in dogs and cats is to the saliva from a flea. For affected pets, just one flea bite is enough to cause scratching and biting.

Cat scratch fever is another disease caused indirectly by fleas. The flea can be infected with Bartonella henselae, the bacteria causing cat scratch disease. A cat gets infected by the bacteria when bit by a flea or from fighting with an infected cat. Cats don’t usually show any clinical signs, but if an infected cat scratches, bites, or licks an open wound, you can get a nasty infection.

Mycoplasma is another bacterial infection transmitted to cats through flea bites, as well as by tick and mosquito bites.

The bacteria infect the red blood cells, causing anemia and fever in cats. Because fleas can bite humans, Mycoplasma can infect people too.

Adult fleas are visible to the human eye, but are less than an eighth of an inch long. They have pretty flat bodies, no wings, and backward-pointing hairs, which make it easy for them to navigate madisonessentials.com

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between hairs on your pet. They also have strong hind legs, making them great jumpers, and a hard exoskeleton, so it’s difficult to squish them. When I catch one in my flea comb, I have to get it trapped and squished under my fingernail before it jumps away (they can jump up to 7 inches vertically or 13 inches horizontally). Interestingly, bat fleas don’t jump—they’re blind and live high up in the air, so jumping could plunge them to their death.

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Both male and female fleas feed on blood, required to mate and reproduce.

Males are half the size of females and don’t need as much blood. An unfed female flea will increase in weight 140 percent after feeding. That’s like a 125-pound woman gaining 175 pounds after eating dinner!

Both sexes take in more blood than they need, excreting the excess as feces, also known as flea dirt. If I find thin black bits on the flea comb, I put them on a damp, white paper towel. If they leave a rust spot, I know it’s dried blood from a flea. About 40 eggs are laid on a cat or dog per female flea per day. Then the eggs fall off as the pet moves, along with the nutrient-rich flea poop. Adults can live for up to a year in ideal conditions, which means if you see just one flea, you have a lot of eggs in the environment.

Eggs take anywhere from two days to two weeks to hatch, depending on humidity and heat in your house. Optimal conditions are 70 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit and 70 percent humidity. The emerging maggots (larvae) are tiny, white, and legless. They feed on flea dirt along with skin and hair from the pet. Maggots don’t like light, and hide under the pet’s bedding and carpets. Maggots will spin cocoons within 5 to 20 days of hatching and become pupae.

The cocoon protects the pupae for days to years, depending on the environment. This is why you might move into a house that has been empty for months and suddenly find fleas on your pets— the pupae didn’t hatch until they felt the vibration of your pet moving around.

Cocoons are sticky, which makes it very difficult to suck them out of carpet or from the cracks between hardwood

42 | m a d i s o n e s s e n t i a l s

floor slats. The cocoon is also resistant to chemicals that might kill adult fleas.

Once a flea hatches from the cocoon, it’s an adult and uses its powerful legs to jump onto a host, where it will stay for the rest of its life.

In the past, and even now, people would treat fleas on their pets with ineffective shampoos; dips; and smelly, dusty flea collars. These would help decrease the adult flea population for a short time, but 95 percent of the flea population in a house is not on the animal. Flea bombs or sprays can help, but they put a lot of chemicals in your environment. The good news is that there are very effective prescription products available to prevent flea infestations on your pets.

If your pet has fleas, plan on cleaning your house thoroughly each week for the next three months and treating your pet every 30 days with a veterinarian-approved preventative. Vacuum the house thoroughly and throw away the bag or clean out the canister. Wash all your bedding and things that your pets sleep on in hot water.

People are horrified to find their pets have fleas, but fleas are ubiquitous in the environment and not an indication of an unclean house. I recommend treating all pets year-round for fleas. Anyone can bring fleas in from outside, and it only takes one female flea on a pet to start a huge problem.

Lori Scarlett, DVM, is the owner and veterinarian at Four Lakes Veterinary Clinic. For more information, visit fourlakesvet.com.

Lori Scarlett, DVM & Charlie

Photograph by Brenda Eckhardt

Photographs provided by Dane County Humane Society.

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essential sports & recreation

Photograph by Sarah Phipps

UW Badgers Spotlight

Softball

by Dave Fidlin Despite the inevitable curveballs that come at the hands of Mother Nature, the University of Wisconsin–Madison Badgers’ softball program has been a fan favorite from the get-go. The 20-player team begins competitive play when temperatures tentatively, if ever, sneak above the freezing mark, and snow is a common sight. “It’s a warm-weathered sport played in a cold-weathered climate,” says coach Yvette Healy of the reality for the women wearing a UW Badgers softball uniform. “We’re kind of a road-warrior team because we travel a lot.”

The schedule for NCAA Division I college softball begins in February, “right after the Super Bowl,” Yvette says, with regular-season play continuing through May. The team’s commitment to the sport comes with some sacrifice.

When regular-season play heats up in the dead of winter, the team typically 44 | m a d i s o n e s s e n t i a l s

devotes entire weekends away from Madison, flying to game destinations on Fridays.

Softball was added to the UW Badgers athletics program in 1996. Over the years, the team, which plays in the Leaders division of the Big Ten Conference, has enjoyed a number of triumphs, including eight NCAA tournament appearances. A high-water mark for the team came in 2013, when it achieved NCAA conference tournament championship status.

Being a part of the Big Ten is an exhilarating experience for all involved.

“It’s such a great conference,” Yvette says. “There’s so much history to it. It’s very competitive.”

The program has experienced a renewed sense of vigor in recent years, spurred by the most recent string of NCAA

tournament appearances, which began in 2017. “There’s been a lot of enthusiasm because we’ve never done three in a row before,” Yvette says. “We’ve been in an upward swing that way. Everyone is real proud of the girls for accomplishing that.” Outside of the recent three-year trend, the team made it to the NCAA tournament in 2001, 2002, 2005, 2013, and 2014.

While the team has been on a roll, several individual players have enjoyed successes of their own. In a postseason announcement in May, first baseman Kayla Konwent, No. 15, was named Player of the Year in the Big Ten Conference’s list of 2019 softball honorees. Kayla’s being named Player of the Year was notable on multiple fronts.

She not only was the first Wisconsin student to earn the award, she was also the first Badger to receive an individual conference softball award since Big Ten

first began presenting the honors in 1985. Kayla’s accomplishments this past season included notching a .500 batting average during conference play, ranking her as one of four Big Ten students to make such an achievement in 2019.

While the team’s prowess is notable and commendable, Yvette says fan support has been an undeniable part of the process, particularly for a team that plays many of its games in southerly states. “It’s a big deal to these women,” Yvette says. “The support is definitely felt.” Even when Badgers fans do not pack the stands at an away game, Yvette says support is shown remotely. Many of the games can be viewed on cable and satellite through the Big Ten Network and ESPN. Yvette is the third coach in Badgers softball history. She began her duties in 2011, and the upcoming season is her 10th consecutive at the helm.

There were several factors that came together as Yvette contemplated the life change before the start of the 2011 softball season. The Chicago native says

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Photograph provided by UW Brand Communications Photograph provided by UW Brand Communications

Madison’s relatively close proximity to her original stomping grounds was appealing in and of itself, but there was one pivotal person who played a key role in making the decision one worth pursuing. “My interview with coach (Barry) Alvarez was great,” Yvette says of her meeting with the UW’s athletic director. “That interview sold me on taking this job. He’s so knowledgeable.

He has a way of keeping it about the students and the experience.”

46 | m a d i s o n e s s e n t i a l s

Having the opportunity to help reshape the team into its current form was another challenge Yvette was ready and willing to undertake. “It’s been a really cool experience ever since.”

When asked about the recent success, Yvette points to some of the team’s teaching and training activities, which, she adamantly points out, extend beyond simple warm-up exercises. The goal is to offer the women wearing a Badgers softball uniform a well-rounded training regimen. An initiative known as “Wellness Wednesdays,” for example,

Photograph provided by UW Brand Communications

emphasizes mindfulness and other activities that apply to the playing field, to the classroom, and all other facets of life. The midweek training activities sprinkle in elements of what Yvette describes as “sports psychology,” and are designed to help the players overcome adversity and challenges as they inevitably arise.

Other mantras emphasized during the Wednesday activities touch on confidence, speaking with clarity, selflessness, and helping other teammates as needs arise—all the while honing in on the competitive spirit that is an important backbone to the playing field. “It’s a pretty inspirational program, and we’ve taken a lot of pride in it,” Yvette says. “I think it’s helped us out on the field. … We’ve got some very impressive women.”

Dave Fidlin is a freelance writer who has a special affinity for Madison.

Dave’s career spans nearly 20 years, and he’s grateful for the opportunity to learn something new each day through his professional pursuits.

Dave Fidlin

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essential arts

CAROL CHASE BJERKE

Roaming the Mountain

by Kyle Jacobson

Photograph by Eric Tadsen

The life of an artist is relaying the exploration of a mountain that nobody else gets to experience. Carol Chase Bjerke has been in the professional world of art for decades, and she’s traveled all over her mountain of adaptive context, spending time in the greenery of the foothills, the trials of the nival storms, and even reaching the summit a time or two. Whether ascending or descending a moment in life, Carol’s outlook is constantly evolving through aspect.

GESTATION

Photograph provided by Carol Chase Bjerke

Limnograph on gelatin silver photo paper.

PILGRIMAGE: KNOCKNAREA

Limnograph on gelatin silver photo paper.

48 | m a d i s o n e s s e n t i a l s

I met Carol in her studio, which probably once doubled as the basement of her house but has taken on a distinction all its own with years of accumulated works piled in corners and displayed on walls.

Getting pieces off the floor during last year’s flood led to the wall opposite her workstation being covered in spontaneous groupings of artwork. “The work represents a long period of time,” says Carol. “And it’s interesting for me to see it this way because even as I continue to make new work, and move what I think is ahead, I’ve been thinking there really should be a retrospective that would tell the story of the connection between all these bodies of work that I’ve done over a period of 40-some years.”

As random as it seems at first glance, the wall has an amusing connection to many of Carol’s projects, as they are often meant to compel audiences to take things out of order, rearranging what is presented and reinventing context. Consider her boxed sets, gelatin silver prints on photo cards. Audiences take a series of photos and rearrange them in unique ways. The thought exercise is as creative as it is

Photograph by Lee Bjerke

Carol Chase Bjerke on Mt. Kearsarge. meditative, confronting order and chaos while challenging conventions of time and place.

Integrating a kinesthetic element into her pieces harkens back to a pastime Carol relishes. “I like the idea of holding the photo in your hand. It’s reminiscent of the days when we used to get the prints back from the photo finisher, and you leaf through them and spread them out. Poke through them and pick out the ones you like.” She doesn’t have a smartphone or a digital camera, and anything that disrupts the tactile experience of developing a photo and holding it once it’s developed wouldn’t be true to her joy in the art. It’d be a disruption of process.

When I look at Carol’s love for things that aren’t perfect, I see a connection to her 2008 book, Hidden Agenda—a collection of pictures, journal entries, and thoughts Carol amassed through her experiences with her colorectal cancer diagnosis in the mid-1990s and recurrence in 2000.

“I think of the Art & Healing work as three phases.”

Phase one takes the form of a collection called Life Boat, illustrating the first diagnosis when everything seemed to turn out alright. There’s something hypnotic in the repeated showing of ripples in the water and boats without oars. Alongside a lot of sadness and weight in the images, I also see a lot of hope. An acknowledgment of flow—

everything having a reason and working itself out.

Enso series was another meditative year-long project.”

Phase two features the Hidden Agenda series, which is about the recurrence.

Medical supplies and physical anomalies were used to create unapologetic hyperrealities, two of them being Misfortune Cookies and rose-tinted glasses with images of stomas on the lenses. Living with an ostomy isn’t just something you learn to live with, it completely alters how you view yourself and arrange your life around self-care. One photo is of a wallpaper Carol did. “I carved this little rubber stamp of a stoma, and for an entire year, I stamped 110 of these every day because, if you use the statistics from the United Ostomy Association, that’s the average number of people that have the surgery every day. ... I’m grateful for what the medical community did for me, but there are times where it feels like they’re just stamping you out.

Carol’s journey through cancer was taken without choice and with no destination in mind, and through it she was able to digest aspects of her life once left unexamined, her voyage through

“Part three of the Art & Healing work was what took me back to the dark room. Part of the medical supplies—the sealant that holds the appliance to your body and keeps it all discrete—you use a sealant, you draw a circle with it. And it’s like every few days changing medical supplies. At one point, somebody gave me a book about the Japanese Zen masters that draw ensō circles. It’s a meditation. So I set up a copy stand in my closet and started photographing these circles before I used them. My madisonessentials.com

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Photograph by Eric Tadsen

the human experience. Her attempts to share those experiences become intimate conversations with each individual who interacts with her works. The vein of universal reality she tapped into, an ever-obstructed view of optimism somewhere amongst pain, survival, and everyday mundanity, took her to create something rather unique in the world of photography.

BARROW

Limnograph on gelatin silver photo paper.

“This is a process that I have named limnography. Limnograph. You won’t find that name anywhere else.” Limnography weaves Carol’s knowledge of photography into the meditative nature of her pieces through process rather than product. “I expose the photo paper to room light, and then I draw on it with the developer using a brush or sponge.

There’s a delay between the time the fluid hits the paper and the time the image appears. It’s like drawing with invisible ink. It started with drawing the ensō circles, and then I realized I could use it to draw other things, like the stone forms for the Touch/Stones series and mountains.” The work she makes from limnography has an intriguing depth in

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Photograph by Eric Tadsen

Limnograph on gelatin silver photo paper.

character, as though the image is still developing or is starting to fade away, reflecting the transient quality of an idea and the mind holding it.

Carol’s motif of stone and mountain certainly stands as a metaphor to her life and work, and much of it can be explored on her website, carolchasebjerke.com.

She also has many ongoing projects, including Twin Mountain, a collaborative book and exhibition with Albuquerque painter Carol S. Hinote projected for completion in 2021. A recent printing of Life Boat is available from Borderland Books, borderlandbooks.net, as is Hidden Agenda. Carol’s most recent artwork can be found at Abel Contemporary Gallery

MOUNTAIN, the boxed set.

in Stoughton, currently in an exhibition called Thaw.

Kyle Jacobson is a copy editor for Madison Essentials, and a writer and beer enthusiast (sometimes all at once) living in Sun Prairie.

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e ssential community

B OUN DA R I ES

By Sandy Eichel Do you say yes to things that you know you really don’t have the time for? Do you put other people’s needs above yours?

Do you feel pressure to do things you don’t want to do because you don’t want to disappoint someone? Yep, I’m looking at you, kid. You have problems with boundaries. People who have problems with personal boundaries are the people that are focused on the needs of others and not on themselves. In other words, people pleasers.

high self-esteem that I derived from my ability to please other people. I was really good at being a people pleaser, so I had high self-esteem but low self-worth.

If I wasn’t being or doing what others wanted or if I tried and didn’t please them, I felt worthless. My self-worth was defined by others. After spending a life of impressing other people, the person who was the least impressed by me was me. I wasn’t true to myself.

I didn’t take care of my needs.

It sounds nice to put others first, doesn’t it? It’s a virtue instilled in us at a very young age. Your needs don’t matter, other people’s do. But personal boundaries are what allow us to have happy, healthy lives and good relationships with others. Boundaries can be defined as the physical, emotional, and mental limits we set with other people to protect ourselves from being manipulated, used, or violated. They indicate what we determine as acceptable and unacceptable behaviors toward us.

Setting boundaries with people is first about knowing your own limits of what you are willing to accept. Think about situations you were in when you felt discomfort, anger, resentment, or frustration. Think about what the behavior was that made you feel that way, and that is the starting place for a boundary.

If you have a coworker or superior who always interrupts you when you are talking, in a calm, but firm voice, say, “Please let me finish.” If you have a friend who is always asking for too much of your time, attention, or stuff, say, “This is all I can give.” If you find yourself always feeling horrible after spending time with someone or doing a certain thing for someone, stop spending your time that way. Don’t apologize for asking for what you need and letting people know what is more than you can do. You have the right to ask for this.

When you start flexing this muscle, you’ll start to see so many situations in your life where people are stepping over your boundaries.

The second step is drawing the boundary—telling the people who stepped over the line where the line is or deciding you aren’t spending your time or energy that way. Hear me when I say this—if you want to know who the experts are at crushing your boundaries, it’s your family. I’m betting that if you figure out what your limits are, you’ll realize your family members are the ones most likely to trample over those limits. Setting boundaries with family is really hard, so you may want to start with co-workers, friends, and other acquaintances before working your way into close relations. If you’re ready for the challenge of your life, start with your

CAUTION-once you draw a boundary with someone, be prepared to redraw it at least 100 times. Understand that your new behavior is not what people expect from you, and they may react poorly.

They’re used to getting what they want from you, and this may be off-putting for them. Bummer for them. Keep drawing the boundary. Family members will especially push back at this. They have the longest patterns of behavior with you. They may say you are mean, acting selfishly, etc. Be ready for this.

It’s normal, and it means you are doing it right. It’s important to stay as calm as you can when drawing boundaries because others will likely not be.

It’s human nature to step on another’s boundaries. Our brain wants people to do what we want them to do so we are in control. You push other people’s boundaries and they push yours, and that is normal. But that doesn’t mean it feels healthy.

Boundary issues are often related to our self-worth—if we struggle with selfworth, we may find it more difficult to draw boundaries with people. Don’t confuse that with self-esteem. I had 52 | m a d i s o n e s s e n t i a l s

family. It will change the way you draw boundaries in all parts of your life, but it isn’t for the faint of heart.

Pushing boundaries is one thing, bulldozing is another. You will come across people who are bona fide boundary smashers. Some of them you can draw boundaries with, and others you can’t. Depending on the severity of the behavior and how it makes you feel, you must also come to terms with the fact that you may have to let that person go from your life, at least for a time. That sounds dramatic, and it is. This is not most people, but some are so stuck in their destructive patterns that your only option is to stay away. That doesn’t mean you hate them or wish them ill will or don’t forgive them. That means that they aren’t at a point in their lives where they can mind your boundaries and not hurt you. Maybe some day they will, just not right now. They may not even be able to hear or process your request if they are in the grip of addiction, a mental health crisis, etc. You can let them know that you are still there if things change, but do not accept the abuse.

It’s your right as a human to not accept abuse. This can be challenging to do, but essential for your own peace and safety.

Woohoo! Doesn’t this sound fun? It isn’t. It’s really hard. Psychologists tell us that a lack of healthy boundaries can affect all aspects of a person’s life and are essential to our mental health. Examine your feelings, figure out your limits, and let others around you know that you respect yourself and they must as well.

Healthy boundaries with others are a gift you give to yourself every day.

Sandy Eichel is a happy ex-should-er.

Check out our video podcast series with Sandy, After Should, at madisonessentials.com.

Sandy Eichel

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essential food & beverage

Nano Nano ALE FROM PAIL

by Kyle Jacobson The world of beer is a fairly vast playground for the hairsplitter—rife with rules and well-defined classifications of what is and isn’t acceptable per the prescribed. With any art, there comes the inevitable critic. And with the introduction of the critic, marginalization, categorization, and occasional deification blossom like bloodstained thorn bushes between beer and beer drinker. I could go into rankings that influence market decisions and alcoholic bloggers celebrating unbalanced beers that get you drunk quick, but the world of definition certainly has its place and benefits.

Stepping out of style and into the brewery itself, a lot of work has been taken by state governments to classify what is and isn’t a microbrewery. Within the last decade, there’s also been another push: to define the nanobrewery.

Nanobreweries are small…very small… nanoscopic in comparison to macrobreweries. I bet that’s where they get 54 | m a d i s o n e s s e n t i a l s

their name. You may have heard of the differences between a craft brewery and a microbrewery and a nanobrewery and a picobrewery. For most applications, I don’t see the need for so many distinctions, so I’m essentially grouping microbrewery and craft brewery as one item and nanobrewery and picobrewery as another. These categories may have credence in the brewer’s world, but to the beer drinker, pedants gonna pedant.

Helles Lager. Now consider buying a Helles Lager from a facility that maybe has a bomber available at the local liquor store or a guest tap at a nearby bar, but does most of its distribution in house from pint to mouth. This is the distinction I think matters more to the drinker—one with a genuine thrill of discovery and an intimacy fundamental to overall satisfaction.

Microbreweries distinguish themselves from macrobreweries in several ways, the most notable being overall volume produced annually. Typically, no more than 15,000 barrels, though some bigger facilities do much, much more— New Glarus Brewing Company generally pushing 200,000.

A nanobrewery tends to be limited to around 2,000 barrels a year, but oftentimes doesn’t break a couple hundred.

I tend to think of nanobrewing as being one step above homebrewing and several steps below microbrewing. In fact, most homebrewers can walk into a nanobrewery and feel at home with the equipment and process.

To the beer enthusiast, do you experience any difference in purchasing and tasting Two Women from New Glarus Brewing Company versus Lost Camper from Door County Brewing? To me, they’re both excellent iterations of a

But the differences aren’t just apparent to the homebrewer. The overall feel of the brewing side of the establishment is often barebones, like being in a farm-totable restaurant. There’s nothing superimposing itself to awe patrons and split

focus between the beer and the facility.

To be clear, I’m not saying it’s better, just different.

Martin McNally of Right Bauer Brewing discusses the perks from the brewing side of running a nanobrewery. “The reason I did it is to do a lot more experimentation and then adjust our recipes.

Selling it by the pint in a taphouse, we get that instant feedback.” It’s true that a lot of bigger breweries run small experimental batches, but there’s an expectation of perfection from the drinker right off the bat. With a nanobrewery, you almost feel like you’re in on the discussion about tweaks to try next time. You’re tasting a more unadulterated process.

Any brewer will agree that brewing the same thing twice is one of the hardest aspects of brewing. Scale aside, consistency is always important, but to drink a beer five years ago and have it taste exactly the same today as it did back then is something consumers expect from the macros. This dead horse I’ve dragged into many of my articles

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manages to take a breath in the world of nanobrewing because, here, there’s an expectation of evolution.

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“Eventually I’d like to get there,” says Martin, “where my recipes are dialed in exactly how I want them, but this allows me to keep brewing them over and over and making adjustments.”

There’s a practical component too.

“I’m not sitting on 90 barrels of what I brewed, I’m sitting on maybe a few weeks of it. And then it’s gone, and I’m on to the next thing.” Which is probably the one thing beer drinkers want from a nanobrewery: variety.

A nanobrewery that just focuses on one or two beers might not do too well in an environment like the Greater Madison area, filled with everything the world of beer has to offer. If I want something true to style, I tend to favor those who’ve proven themselves time and time again.

That said, I’m writing this during Oktoberfest season, and Right Bauer has a fantastic interpretation. But then they also have their Peanut Butter Porter and a Blackberry Sour. Being a nanobrewery,

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Martin says, “You’re just a little more agile, and you can change things up completely.” You’re also a bit of a local favorite and define the block you’re on.

For the brewer, a nanobrewery also provides many logical advantages. The upfront cost is lower, and if the time comes where you’re ready to expand, you have a degree of freedom in making the decision based on what you’ve learned because you’re not beholden to a space and a system, let alone a mountain of debt.

For the beer drinker, a nanobrewery is an opportunity to directly influence the creation and development of probably the closest thing there is to a grassroots brewery. Just being a regular patron at something smaller in scale amplifies your voice. Every purchase you make is a declaration of value, and the impact is immediate. If you live near a nanobrewery and you dig what they’re doing, frequenting their establishment gives them the opportunity to grow and become something of a staple in your community.

I believe many beer drinkers go out of their way to find and support the breweries that speak to them. But, beer drinker or not, if you like what a nanobrewery brings to your area, remember that they live and die by your continued patronage.

To those bold enough to take a leap; may us fools always be in abundance to prop them up.

Kyle Jacobson is a copy editor for Madison Essentials, and a writer and beer enthusiast (sometimes all at once) living in Sun Prairie.

Photographs by Kyle Jacobson.

Right Bauer Brewing always has something new on tap—from their own beers to area favorites. Stop in and ask what’s fermenting.

Wherever you are, whatever you call home, remember to check out your nearest nanobrewery to say hi and have a pint. They’ll appreciate it more than you might realize.

Kyle Jacobson

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essential food & beverage

Vanilla Orchid

Totally Tropical Pink Bananas Photograph provided by Olbrich Botanical Gardens

When browsing the grocery store and piling items in a shopping cart, it’s easy to give little thought to where the food came from. As eating local and farm-to-table movements become more commonplace, labels identifying the city, state, or number of miles from which your produce came are helping shoppers make more informed choices about the sources of their food. But what about the tropical foods you eat on a daily basis?

The bananas your kids eat as a snack certainly weren’t grown in Wisconsin, but have you ever thought about where they come from? Where do they grow?

What does a banana look like before it’s harvested? Or what about the cinnamon you use to spice up cider or an apple pie? Did that fragrant powder even come from a plant?

You don’t have to travel far to find the answers—you can travel to the tropics 58 | m a d i s o n e s s e n t i a l s

Flavors

by Katy Plantenberg

without leaving Madison! The Bolz Conservatory at Olbrich Botanical Gardens houses more than 650 plants native to the tropical and subtropical regions of the world, including common food plants that travel from the rainforest to your pantry shelves.

Coffee

The beans that make your coffee travel great distances to provide your morning dose of caffeine. Brazil exports the most coffee, shipping more than $4.6 billion worth of coffee worldwide. That’s more than 14 percent of the total global coffee exports.

There are several steps coffee beans go through before they’re ground and brewed. The small coffee plants are grown in nurseries until they’re a few feet tall, and won’t start producing fruit until they’re three to five years old. Called coffee cherries, the fruit is ripe when it

turns red. Inside each individual cherry are two blueish-green coffee beans that will be processed into the final aromatic product we know and love.

Vanilla

Did you know that vanilla comes from an orchid? It’s the fruit of an orchid plant, which grows in the form of a bean pod.

While there are many different varieties of vanilla orchids, only one produces the fruit that makes 99 percent of all commercial vanilla—Vanilla planifolia.

If you’ve thought vanilla has become more expensive, you’re right; prices have increased more than 10 times compared to just a few years ago due to unfavorable weather and the length of time it takes vanilla plants to reach maturity and produce fruit.

While vanilla is one of the most used flavors, it’s also one of the most complicated crops to grow. In order to produce

Photograph provided by Olbrich Botanical Gardens

fruit, it must be pollinated by hand with a small applicator. While vanilla is native to Mexico, most commercial vanilla is grown in Madagascar. There are no natural vanilla pollinators in Madagascar, thus requiring hand pollination. The timing of pollination also has to be precise, as vanilla flowers only last for 24 hours and have a tiny 8-hour window in which they can be pollinated.

Banana

Fun fact: bananas don’t grow on trees.

Really! Contrary to popular belief, a banana tree is actually the world’s largest herbaceous perennial. (Herbaceous plants have no woody stems above ground.) The trunk of the plant is made up of long, overlapping leaves.

Bananas have been part of our diet for thousands of years, and written references to their consumption date back to around 500 BC. In fact, some horticul-

Coffee Plant

turists believe that bananas were the first fruit on earth.

Today, they’re the most popular fruit in the world, with more than 1,000 types to choose from. The typical supermarket banana is the Cavendish banana. Other popular types include red bananas, tiny “Lady Finger” bananas, and the starchier cooking bananas known as plantains.

Cinnamon

Cinnamon is a distinctive flavor and aroma that’s used in many products, from cinnamon gum to cinnamon candy to cinnamon candles. But did you know it’s actually derived from the bark of a tree?

To produce cinnamon, the bark is harvested twice a year, starting when the trees are about three years old. Most comes from Sri Lanka and is always harvested immediately after each of the

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two rainy seasons, when the rain-soaked bark can be more easily stripped from the trees. Cinnamon peeling is a highly skilled technique handed down from generation to generation, almost entirely unchanged from ancient times. Large bands of bark are ground into powder, whereas smaller stems are used to make those cinnamon sticks we put in drinks.

Cacao

Photograph by Katy Plantenberg

Chocolate. Probably one of humankind’s favorite foods that some may even consider its own food group. The scientific name, Theobroma cacao, gives a clue to its taste. The genus name derived from the Greek word theos, meaning god, and broma, meaning food. It’s literally the food of the gods.

Would you be surprised to learn that delicious, velvety chocolate comes from a small bitter seed? The cacao tree is native to the tropical regions of the Americas, and the seeds of its fruit, cacao beans, are the basis of chocolate. The earliest evidence of cacao being used in this way goes back as far as 1900 BC, during the early Olmec civilization in Mexico. madisonessentials.com

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Cacao beans were so valuable that there’s evidence they were used as a form of barter currency to exchange for clothes or food in ancient Mayan civilizations.

Cacao Beans in Pod

The next time you grab a chocolate candy bar in the checkout lane, bake a cinnamon-spiced apple pie, give your kids bananas to tide them over to dinner time, or sip a frothy vanilla latte, take a minute to remember how those tasty treats started—as plants from some of the largest rainforests in the world.

Tadsen Photography Drone/Aerial Imagery

Katy Plantenberg

Photograph provided by Olbrich Botanical Gardens

Photograph by Jane Nicholson

Katy Plantenberg is the public relations & marketing manager at Olbrich Botanical Gardens.

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Pollinating Vanilla

Dive deeper into the world of tropical plants with Garden to Glass: Totally Tropical, a guided sensory tour at Olbrich Botanical Gardens’ Bolz Conservatory. Smell, touch, and taste your way through the tour and encounter plants both familiar and unique. And, at the end, you can enjoy a signature drink created with ingredients derived from rainforest plants served in a souvenir glass. It’s an insider’s view of this indoor oasis, where you can discover the plants, stories, and people that make it one of Madison’s most iconic places. For more details and registration information, visit olbrich.org.

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advertiser index association

Ho-Chunk Gaming Madison......................... 64

Aldo Leopold Nature Center........................ 16

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Madison Opera............................................... 50

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MOD Media Productions............................... 47

Commerce.................................................. 17

Olbrich Botanical Gardens........................... 59

Town of Merrimac........................................... 36

Our Lives Magazine........................................ 29 Simply Creative Productions......................... 53

dining, food & beverage

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Question:

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“The building of which establishment once served as a safe house for the underground railroad?”

Specialties & Delicatessen......................... 32 Lombardino’s................................................... 23

services

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The Mixing Bowl Bakery.................................. 15

Bergamot Massage & Bodywork.................. 27

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The Old Feed Mill Restaurant........................ 19

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Otto’s Restaurant & Bar.................................. 47

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shopping

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Abel Contemporary Gallery................ 33 & 49

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Gail Ambrosius Chocolatier.......................... 33

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Enter by submitting your answer to the above question online at madisonessentials.com or by mail with your name, mailing address, phone number, and email to: Madison Essentials c/o Towns & Associates, Inc. PO Box 174 Baraboo, WI 53913-0174 All entries with the correct answer will be entered into a drawing for one of two $50 gift cards. Contest deadline is January 24, 2020. Gift cards will be honored at all Food Fight® Restaurant Group restaurants (see foodfightinc.com).

Good Luck!

Winners Thank you to everyone who entered our previous contest.

The answer to the question “Which local, bimonthly community magazine is celebrating its 15th anniversary in November 2019?” is Madison Essentials. A $50 Food Fight® Gift Card was sent to each of our winners, Jane Amberg of Madison and Andrea Debs of Middleton.

CONGRATULATIONS! 62 | m a d i s o n e s s e n t i a l s

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