Editor’s note: Below is the Thursday, April 9 edition of the Food & Culture newsletter. If you want to receive it in your email inbox every Thursday (it’s free!), subscribe at captimes.com/newsletters.
It might as well be spring🪻
By Lindsay Christians, food and culture editor
A few years ago, I took a friend who’d moved to town from California to Madison’s first outdoor farmers market of the spring. My friend was confused. “Where are all the vegetables?” she asked. I gestured to the still-leafless trees. Nothing is growing yet! And yet, the market is back. If you’re low on honey or frost-sweetened spinach or spicy cheese bread, head to the Square this weekend.
Spring in Wisconsin can be so gray and muddy. Luckily it looks like a decent weekend to wait outside during the Wisconsin Film Fest, which we previewed quite a bit this year. Try a documentary about the “last” music critic (sigh) or revisit “Babe: Pig in the City” with the folks from the Blank Check podcast.
I’ll be in the theater for the opening weekend of “Lady Disdain,” Forward Theater’s modern take on Shakespeare’s comedy “Much Ado About Nothing.” When I learned that University Theatre is putting up the actual “Much Ado” starting April 16 and the runs would overlap, I was delighted — “Much Ado” times two!
Colleen Madden, left, and David Daniel play Beatrice and Ben (again) in Forward Theater’s “Lady Disdain,” opening this weekend.
“Disdain” star David Daniel said he and Colleen Madden — who played opposite each other in “Much Ado” at American Players Theatre in 2014 — “sometimes revert to the Shakespeare line rather than the Lauren Gunderson line. … One of the joys of my life is that (we) get to do Beatrice and Benedick again.”
Milwaukee got the exciting news this week that the city will be part of the next Michelin guide, part of a Great Lakes cohort funded by Visit Milwaukee, Destination Cleveland, Visit Detroit, Visit Indianapolis, Meet Minneapolis and Visit Pittsburgh. Restaurant criticism is expensive, and Michelin is no exception. It often costs city tourism boards hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring in the guide, and because that doesn’t equate to stars, it’s a calculated risk.
I’d like to see Michelin take a look at Sanford, The Diplomat, Lupi & Iris, Ca’Lucchenzo and EsterEv. I’d love those secretive inspectors to dine at Cassis and Morel. And if Odd Duck doesn’t get a Bib Gourmand nod, I’ll be shocked.
Cheers, friends! — Lindsay
PS Are you watching the feeds from Artemis II? Here’s wishing the astronauts a safe trip home tomorrow!
PPS Psst, Cap Times members: “Company” author Amy Thielen, the James Beard Award winner and former host of “Heartland Table” on the Food Network, is our next Cooking with the Cap Times guest chef! Sign up here to express your interest in the event, which will be May 13. More details coming soon.
What we’re reading
Weekly reading recommendations from Lindsay Christians and Beck Henreckson
As cozy mysteries go, “10 Marchfield Square” takes its time, opening with a murder of a nasty character known for selling dodgy antiques and abusing his wife. Author Nicola Whyte presents a colorful cast, from an aging movie star to a gregarious captain and a nosy grand dame who spies on her tenants from her elegant flat. The detective pairing of practical Audrey, a house cleaner, and self-involved mystery writer Lewis had me immediately taking sides. The combination works. — Lindsay
The first half of “The Magpie Murders” is a classic murder mystery set in a cozy English village, complete with a brilliant foreign private detective, reminiscent of Poirot. That could have been the whole book — it had me completely spellbound in the way that only really well done mysteries can. But the book cuts off right before the mystery is solved, and we’re pulled back to modern-day London where an editor is trying to find the final chapter of the novel we just read, solve who the murderer was, and figure out why reality is starting to eerily mirror the fiction she just read. Or was it fiction? Anthony Horowitz is brilliant. I’m enthralled. — Beck
Blind Shot Social Club was known for its non-alcoholic cocktail list.
Restaurant news
Blind Shot Social, a restaurant on Fair Oaks Avenue known for its non-alcoholic cocktails and golf simulators, will have its final day of service on Sunday. Owners told the State Journal that insurance costs following a flood and flagging business led them to break their seven-year lease in the Garver Point apartment building.
A third location of Poke Bay opened this week in Monona at 6518 Monona Drive. The menu is streamlined, offering build-your-own bowls and house specials. One example, the Maui Bowl, combines shrimp and chicken with mango and pineapple, topped with avocado, masago (fish roe), coconut sauce, fried onion and toasted coconut, on either rice or greens. Hours are Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-8:30 p.m. and Friday-Saturday 11 a.m.-9 p.m.
A new cafe and bar on Madison’s south side, Friends Applaud, has had its soft open at 1602 Gilson St. According to Adam and Sacha Benedetto’s website, the spot began serving its whole food menu April 8 and hopes to have its liquor license after April 13.
After a burst pipe necessitated renovations in the kitchen, La Rocca’s Pizzeria at 971 Janesville St. in Oregon has reopened. Stop by for spaghetti and meatballs, chicken parmigiana and pizzas from thin crust to stuffed from Wednesday-Saturday, 4-9 p.m
A tuna salad sandwich on a great baguette at Lakeside Street Coffee House.
Recent obsessions
Last week I needed a kid-friendly lunch spot to meet some friends, and the downstairs space at Lakeside Street Coffee House at 402 W. Lakeside St. was a perfect fit. Hat tip to the great crusty baguette on my tuna sandwich, the wall of games, the cozy rugs and framed band posters — it all feels so homey and warm.
I have a new cocktail obsession. The Oliveto, born at the Marvel Bar in Minneapolis, includes a half ounce of olive oil — Gin Pennant host Martin Foys knocks it down to 1/4 ounce — plus gin, lemon juice, a sweet vanilla-scented liqueur called Licor 43 and an egg white, to keep it smooth. The tiny pop-up house bar Gin Pennant may be sold out until they open reservations again this fall, but I will be making this cocktail at home.
Easter inspired a friend of mine to re-watch “The Prince of Egypt,” the 1998 Dreamworks hit, which led me to watch it for the first time. The cast is a bit crazy on a couple of levels (lots of extremely famous white people voicing brown characters, and why are some of them British?). But the Stephen Schwartz songs hold up and my buddy’s right, the plague scenes are powerful. As the angel of death passed through, I held my breath. (Available on Peacock.)
Ryan Gosling stars as Ryland Grace in “Project Hail Mary,” from Amazon MGM Studios.
Speaking of movies, “Project Hail Mary” is still in theaters, and my former editor Rob Thomas says the Ryan Gosling adaptation of an Andy Weir novel is a winner. “I haven’t felt this good walking out of a movie theater in a while,” he wrote in his review. Watching human and alien learn to communicate and work together to save the galaxy “is so delightful.” — Lindsay
Greenbush Bar is everyone’s secret place. Read about the tavern-style pizza and great vibes in this week’s Table for Two features, a newsletter exclusive. Sign up here.
The Alberici, a house pizza at Greenbush Bar, is topped with smoky bacon, roasted tomatoes, gorzongola and arugula. Read about it in this week’s Food & Culture newsletter.
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