Tosan Nancy Stohs, food editor at the Journal Sentinel, recently published food shopping tips from a financial counselor. And a good idea, now that food is going the way of gasoline, price-wise.

I can't match the financial counselor's $3 dinner/day/person . (And to tell you the truth, I don't believe she does it, either). But I'm getting better. I’m experimenting with my own approach, the $1.99 rule. Don’t buy anything that costs more than $1.99 a pound at the grocery store.

If you nudge it up to $2, you can have your strawberries and eat 'em, too. Shopping at Sendiks (the closest stores to my house) and applying the rule, we’ve been putting together meals with said strawberries plus green beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, brown rice, and the like.

I had to cheat on two items. Anchovies were almost a buck for 2 ozs. But a little goes a long way. The big surprise was bread. Four water rolls, lots of air, weighing in around half a pound, set me back $2.20. I’m having to regroup on bread: flour, water, yeast, and salt are bubbling away right now at home and will become a loaf for less than a dollar by nightfall.

The most successful $1.99 a pound or less meal was soup: beets, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, red cabbage, onions, and a few assorted odds and ends from the crisper drawer. Add some honey and vinegar, a dollop of sour cream later. Heavenly color and good for you, too.

What are you doing for good eats on the cheap?
 

Friends Susan, Steph and I decided to skip McBob's fish fry during our latest Friday Night on North venture. McBob 's has been shaky in the fish quality control department since they expanded. Besides, we now have the chance to dine on "one magical river (with) three enchanted cuisines." The Mekong Cafe at 5930 W. North Avenue features food from Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. Food maven Willard Romantini always tells me not to eat at a restaurant during the first three months, but in this location, if you wait that long the business might have vanished.

This one's a keeper. Despite being new and still under redecoration, the place is pleasant, our service was charming, and the food was good even before the owners have worked out the inevitable kinks in restaurant start-up. What a great addition to the Almost-Tosa restaurant scene!

Skip the appetizer sampler unless you're really big on deep fried food. Next time I might try the Yum Nua (char broiled meat with cucumber, onions, and tomato in lime juice and Thai herbs). Better still at a restaurant with southeast Asian cuisine, start with one of the astonishing soups (or make it your whole meal). Mekong has the expected Tom Yum and Pho, but the house soup features quail eggs and sounds intriguing. There's also Kow-Laow, beef soup with "secret ingredients." Who could resist?

The standout dish at our table was the Pud Kee Mow, or Drunken Man Noodles with beef. Lovely fat noodles, lots of peapods and fresh basil leaves, and densely flavorful dark sauce based on  hot chili paste. Medium hot was hot enough for us, and we all like it hot.

 I had the Mussamun Curry with chicken, potato, and carrots. Lovely flavor, generous portion, and peanuts added a nice texture contrast. But next time I'd go for something with a green vegetable in it, just because I like green vegetables.

 I don't remember what Susan had. Something with chicken and veggies: she pronounced it delicious and ate the whole thing. I've never seen her that do before.

This is an adventuresome menu with interesting things most of us haven't seen before. The Dumpling Stir Fry has crab, shrimp, and fish dumplings with asparagus, black mushrooms, zucchini, onion, and water chestnut. You can get a deep fried quail with papaya salad, dishes with homemade Vietnamese sausage, and Purple Sticky Rice Pudding or deep fried taro for dessert. f you've got a timid eater in the bunch, you can't go wrong with Pud Thai.

We had Thai beer and jasmine tea. There's also a short wine list. And of course you can order that delicious and caloric Thai iced coffee or tea and the more entertaining Bubble Tea in mango, taro, avocado, strawberry, pineapple, honeydew, or papaya.

Entrees (and I include soups here) run from about $7-15 at dinner time. Lunch is in the $8 range. You could do a cup of delicious soup and an appetizer for about that price.

If you're inclined toward interesting food with lots of flavor, please try the Mekong Cafe. They're open every day until 9 or 10 pm. Not only will you have a good meal, but you'll be contributing to building North Avenue as a thriving destination business district. And that's all good. (Purple sticky rice image is not from Mekong but by Stef Noble from flickr).

 Last weekend I hiked a couple miles through the county grounds, stalking the rhubarb that still grows, despite all odds, behind the Eschweiler buildings. It's a lot more difficult than it was when I wrote about it here in my first blog entry in June 2006:

I pick bouquets of rhubarb from the abandoned garden plots . . . Pies, cakes, breads and muffins ensue. The world is good when there is rhubarb pie in it.

And that’s how I discovered the disappearance of the tennis courts and emergence of silt fence markers across from Hansen Golf Course.

Bottom line, in case you don’t know, is that a huge retention pond shaped like a reproducing amoeba will cover the old county nursery--one of the prettiest places in the county—behind the tennis court area. You may not have seen it because walking there has been perhaps a tad illegal. . . 

How much has changed since then. The nursery is completely obliterated. I suppose traipsing is even more illegal now than it was then. Plastic fences in trash-bag black and orange mesh have been strung along the silt fence markers. And the roads have been dug out, their entries chained, to make it hard for the scavengers in SUVs to poach wild asparagus and domestic rhubarb. It all  seems a little extreme. 

The retention ponds are in, though still not finished. You can walk around them now and wonder if they will ever look like something other than craters left by strip mining or meteors. But walking into the landfill is even worse. The great views from almost any vantage point are gone. No matter where you stand, you can only see a short distance before your sight line is interrupted by another odd mound. It's like no terrain I've ever encountered: defensive berms everywhere, with nothing to defend.

Was this the plan? Or was the dirt just dumped anywhere? If so, it will have to be completely regraded for any use that might be made of it. And that will cost more money.

The rhubarb, though thin (it's late this year), was good and made a splendid pie.  Something lives, still, on the edges of the desolation. I hope more will creep in: it will make the place less creepy.

 

After working late to catch up from the four-day holiday and making a quick "hot turkey salad," I've collapsed in front of the TV. Suzy Orman is telling me YOU MUST BE IN HARMONY!!! When I am in harmony, she says, I will CLEAN UP MY SURROUNDINGS!!! This will make me rich, not to mention HAPPY!!! and a CONFIDENT WOMAN WHO KNOWS HER OWN WORTH!! in all senses of the word, which will make me BEAUTIFUL and I forget what else.

Now, Suzy Orman is a very smart woman, and she knows a great deal about money management. But I am not entirely sure that I want to "GET IN LINE, AND NEVER GET OUT OF IT AGAIN!!! And I'm quite sure I don't want to be yelled at about it.

Financially, it's a great idea. Domestically, ditto. But so much of what's good in life, including harmony, happens when you're not in line.

This year we violated almost all of our holiday rules, aka habits. We ate Thanksgiving dinner in a restaurant. The food wasn't as good. There were chicken nuggets and baked cod in the buffet, and that was so wrong. But it saved a lot of stress and anxiety, and that was very good. There was harmony in the family.

Black Friday, we shopped for the first time ever on the day after Thanksgiving. We were heading home from Oshkosh, and the Blue Top outlet mall was right there, and it just seemed. . . prudent. We made a killing at the Gap and brought Geo's wardrobe into harmony.

Last night, we had our own small Thanksgiving dinner--turkey breast cooked in the slow cooker. There were lots of vegetables, none in Cream of Mushroom soup. The cranberry sauce was jellied and straight from the can, in violation of a three generation family taboo. It was good, with few dishes.

Later, driving past the dump, we saw a buck. A huge one, maybe 8 points. He was illuminated by the full moon, which made the moment magical. It also saved us from hitting him.

And that's harmonious. We are, indeed, HAPPY!!! But not rich.

 Harmonious Hot Turkey Salad

3 cups cooked turkey, diced

1/2 cup celery, chopped

1 can water chestnuts, diced

1/2 to 1 cup black olives, sliced

1 small red pepper, diced

1/2 cup frozen peas 

3 tablespoons grated onion 

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1/2 cup leftover gravy and 1/2 cup of mayonnaise (or 1 cup mayonnaise)

Salt and pepper to taste; 1 teaspoon or more or less curry powder if you like it 

1/2 cup sliced or slivered almonds

1 cup grated cheddar cheese or more if you prefer

Mix all ingredients except cheese. Place in a 9 X 13 inch baking dish or other large gratin dish. Cover with cheese. Then cover with topping (below). Bake ~20 minutes at 400 degrees or until crumbs are golden brown and salad is heated through.

Topping: 1/2 to 1 cup bread crumbs, 2 to 4 tablespoons melted butter, and salt to taste. 

 

 

When my kids were little, it seemed like my entire life was lived in a 2.5 mile radius. Home, school, work, church, grocery store. Sometimes it still seems that way, only now I have the pleasure of three Sendiks stores in the same circle.

We're suddenly blessed with an abundance of great grocery stores (but no "low-price leader"). So why Sendiks? It's just a Sendiks kind of day.

Elm Grove
And then there's news: a reader wrote that October 4-10 is grand opening week for the newest Sendiks near Tosa, the old Sentry store at 13425 Watertown Plank Road.

I shopped there yesterday: it’s a great store, even though the check-out lines are set up “left-handed.” You’ll just have to go to see what I’m talking about.

Backstory
Sendiks has a lot of emotional resonance for me. I practically grew up in the Oakland Sendiks store, owned by my friend Mary Jane’s father, Ignatius, and then by her hunky older brothers Ted and Steve.

It’s because of the Balistreris that I'm a foodie. There may be exceptions to this rule, especially in this generation, but Italians love good food and they love to feed people. I won’t start in on the fragrant groaning table this family set because I’ll start drooling on my keyboard.

86th and North
The new Elm Grove store is run by the same branch of the Sendiks/Balistreri family who run the Tosa store on 86th and North, the old Silver Spring Sendiks family. This is the store I visit most often. I love the smaller size, the hustle bustle of businesses around there, and the chance of running into someone I know. Another lure: dog treats next door at Wisconsin Garden and Pet--and mom treats (gelato) at Stam Chocolate down the street.

Brookfield: 124th and North
To the Sendiks store at 124th and North in Brookfield, run by the Downer Avenue bunch, I owe a special debt of gratitude. Son George worked there from the time he was a little under 15 years old until recently. And as he says in the college essay he’s working on, the people there helped raise him.

Good grocery stores make good neighbors--and better neighborhoods.

Then: On the first day of high school lo those many years ago, my dad, for whom food was love, sent me off with a hearty lunch designed to get me through the day.

Apparently he thought I was a stevedore, not a high school student.

Carefully wrapped in foil, which was aluminum though we called it "tin," was a huge sandwich, beefsteak rye with fried Spam (I know, but as God is my witness it was delicious); tomatoes, lettuce and mayonnaise.

There was an apple, if I recall, and a container of Shake-a-Pudding, the fastfood junk snack of the moment. You poured school milk from the waxed paper carton into the pudding powder, shook, and voila: chocolate pudding with bits of undissolved grit. I loved it.

However, it took me about three minutes to realize just how very, very wrong this lunch—and by extension, I--was.

The whippet-thin girls, the popular ones, each had a small yogurt and a piece of foil containing a half-inch square cube of cheese. This was before the same group came to consider a leaf of lettuce to be an entree.

We didn’t have soda in school back then. But if we had, they’d have been drinking Tab.

I gave up and started buying hot lunch, which was equally uncool but had the advantage of allowing me to shrug my shoulders and complain bitterly.

Now: From what I can pry out of the twins, kids at Tosa West are generally nicer now than kids at Nicolet were back then. Certainly, there's less humiliation through food. Though that might change, now that the school food police have banned fried potato chips in favor of their often more caloric and less satisfying baked cousins.

Still, my kids tell me that the new hot lunch program is better than the old on two out of three measures:

"It's cheaper and the quality's better. But it's the same old choice of burgers and pizza, pretty much," they said, almost in unison, which is a first.

Liz and George provide their own lunches and breakfasts. One of the few advantages of being a single parent is that you get to raise competent kids, if only because of your own failures to be able to be all things. This year, they’ll brown bag more but be glad of the school's subs when I’ve forgotten to stock the larder or they've awakened late.

The first day of school was different this year. George and Liz started at noon, so they slept as I headed into town. There were no pictures of two adorable little ones (they both tower over me now) in their new outfits standing in front of the linden tree.

But I did manage a hot breakfast for them, which made me feel delusions of good mothering for a moment or two.

I offer the recipe for Oatmeal Cookie Oatmeal to you now. Even non-oatmeal eaters love it. Make it the night before to warm up in the morning. Vary it as you will: it's a forgiving recipe. You can use less butter, substitute oil, throw in coconut. . . whatever floats your boat.

We eat it with nectarines and vanilla yogurt. Some use ice cream. Eat it any time of day.

Oatmeal Cookie Oatmeal (Baked Oatmeal)

INGREDIENTS:

3 cups oatmeal
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 eggs
2 cups milk
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon each cinnamon and vanilla extract (from the Spice House, of course)
Optional
3/4 C dried cherries (or raisins or a combination)
1/2 C chopped nuts
1 apple, grated or chopped

PREPARATION:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.

Mix all ingredients together and pour into 13 x 9 inch buttered pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

You know it’s a slow news week when TosaNow reports that a Tosa company completes two projects. And neither one in Wauwatosa. It might be newsworthy when your kids actually complete something they started, but I’m guessing Selzer-Ornst does that with all the projects they start.

* * *

The rain is nice and needed. But I’m stuck in a house with an excessive amount of vegetative matter from this morning’s farmers market in Brookfield and a stir-crazy dog.

I can do things with the tomatoes and basil, but the dog wants exercise. Bark. Bark. BARKBARKBARKBARK!!!

For now, a furious tongue workout with a peanut butter-filled kong will have to do.

* * *

Even with a car full of sweet corn, green beans, and red onions, I had to stop at the new Fresh Foods store at Brookfield Square. I’m not often tempted by the mall, but resisting this will take some self-control.

The best part was the engaging staff, scores of animated and friendly folks.

Oh: and the great jazz trio. I’m not sure why the store's management stuck them in the entrance where you could only listen in passing. If they’d been playing in the store, I’d have stayed all morning and impulse-purchased more than $19.56 worth of foccacia, "artisanal" cereal, and herb-roasted chicken.

Still, in aiming to make grocery shopping an “experience,” they seem to have hit a new note for this side of town.

Yesterday’s storm blew in cool fresh air and a Midwest jet carrying Annie, my eldest, back from Colorado. Today is a very good day indeed.

The flight was delayed but not much by today’s standards. Her father picked her up, and by a little before 9 we were all assembled around a pretty table at Il Mito on North Avenue.

Fellow blogger Jean Radtke was there gracing an outdoor table.

We were inside, where the place was blessedly not over-air-conditioned. I actually had to take off my jacket.

The food was lovely, but I have to say they’ve carried portion control a little far. We ordered two appetizers, and two of us had soup, yet we had to fight over the tiny bread basket that carried six precious two-inch-square chunks of good crusty bread—about a small baguette-worth.

It was a pity, as the olive oil and garlic and the juice from the insalata Caprese, tomatoes and basil and mozzarella in good balsamic vinegar, begged to be sopped up.

Andrea Bocelli and an unusual assortment of friends serenaded us in the background. I’m afraid we grew a little loud with laughter over the petite breadbasket, about the size of Mac’s palm.

Or was it pleasure in satisfying our hunger and breaking bread together that made us laugh? Maybe both.

If you go there, and I hope you do, let me know your interpretation of the bas-relief frieze on the wall over our table. On the right, Pan or some other satyr pipes a furious bacchanal. The couple on the far left seem to be enjoying themselves, but we debated about the ones in the middle.

Last night, with all three of my beautiful children under my roof, I slept well again.

“The last rhubarb pie on the Fourth of July” was one of my mother’s rules. I don’t know where it came from, although it’s probably a good idea to stop picking early enough for the plant to build up the sustenance for the next season’s crop.

I just took mine out of the oven. A hint of freshly ground nutmeg, the grated peel of a whole orange, custard to cut the sharpness just a bit, and crumb topping just because: it’s fairly spectacular.

This really is the last rhubarb pie. I made it from stalks I’d culled from the County Grounds last year in my minor acts of civil disobedience—or criminal trespass, depending on how severe you are feeling today. Since it’s the Fourth of July, and since that’s about freedom, maybe you’ll lean toward favoring the pursuit of personal happiness that doesn’t harm person or property.

Or maybe you prefer restrictions. Lots of people do these days.

I like things a little wild, even if it leads to more effort. It was hard wading through the tall weeds that had overtaken the old gardens in just a year. This year, the weeds are nearly insurmountable, and the driveways to the Eschweiler ruins have been dug out so you can’t drive there.

You’d think there was treasure in those fields, the way the land has been made inaccessible.

In a way, there is. Not the strawberry rhubarb gardeners had tended for decades; that’s gone to dry woodiness. But among the thistles and teazle and Jerusalem artichokes grows wild garlic, a plant of almost unbearable beauty.

Someone’s put down sheets of plywood to give shelter to the Butler garter snakes. These “sudden fellows in the grass” still seem like treasures in the surprise they bring.

Later tonight, when the kids and I come together, we’ll eat the pie and give thanks for the ground in which it grew. I hope we’ll remember to love what we have before it’s gone forever.

Since I actually like my kids, most of the time, luring them home now and then has become the summer challenge. I like to see them for a minute or two during all their developmental stages.

I figured it out a week or so ago when the “posse” made a refueling pitstop.

“My, Ms. McLaughlin, that smells wonderful,” said handsome nice young man #1, who may sound like Eddie Haskell but is genuine and just a well-mannered kid.

“Why thanks, dear.”

“May I ask what you’re making?” asked handsome nice young man #2, who is even more polite.

“I’m boiling water.”

Now, I’m not suggesting that Tosa parents aren’t feeding their children, but when boiling water smells like home cooking, well, you may want to consider firing up the old range now and then, just to make sure it still works.

My kids just got back from a trip to Colorado, so I’ve been needing an extra fix of them.

“Are you coming home for dinner?” I implore over the course of several cell phone messages.

“That depends. What is it?” They are spoiled and cruel. But I have a secret weapon: basil from the farmer’s market.

“Pesto pasta, swiss chard with balsamic vinegar, and fish. The stuff from Sendiks in crushed corn tortillas with lime and chipotle.”

“I’m coming home!”

I left work early today. Slogged through the slush, the wind, the white-out. Spun out on Highway 100: fortunately, no one was behind me. No point contributing to the evening traffic mess. And a keyboard being a keyboard, I can do much of my work from anywhere.

Besides, the kids are home on spring break, and this seems like a perfect day for what they call a "forest dinner:" pot roast with mashed potatoes and broccoli. Something about the rich dark gravy with the green “trees” led to that name. It’s always guaranteed to comfort.

It should be time for the strawberries and asparagus that are around all year now but don’t really make sense until spring.

The roast, browned and covered with all the substances that lead miraculously to gravy, is cooking slowly, while I am rat-tat-ta-tat-tattating out a report. Oprah inveighs about happiness in the background, and I know what she means. Wildness at bay outside; inside safe and warm with good smells, work getting done. Kids safe nearby; it’s all very fine.

Suddenly, something feels different. I don’t know whether the light has shifted, or the sound of the wind has stopped, but the air feels still. Before I look I know the storm has stopped. Just stopped.

Winter will, too. Soon. This will be the last pot roast of winter, or the last pot roast of spring. I'm not sure which to call it.