EPHRAIM – The "Rhythm Chicken" has surfaced, operating a soup restaurant in Door County. Remember the guy who would show up on street corners and in the South Shore Frolics parade maniacally playing the drums while wearing an oversized rabbit head?
Yes, he looked like a bunny but he called himself a chicken. Well, his name is Paul, and this spring he opened a small soup kitchen among the Shorewood Village shops here. It's called the Czarnuszka Soup Bar, and while his rotating menu of four daily soups includes such standards as tomato florentine, the emphasis is on eastern European fare. To protect his "Rhythm Chicken" identity, he doesn't want his last name revealed.
Bohemian potato chowder is the house soup, on sale every day. Paul describes it as cream based but a little sour, containing mostly spuds and rosemary. The Irish root soup has a touch of curry and is quite delicious.
Some of his eastern European creations include Bulgarian cucumber, Lithuanian beef and Ukrainian chicken soups. Paul lived in Poland for two years.
Czarnuszka is tiny, with seating for only a handful of people in and outdoors. While Paul is happy to sell a cup ($4) or bowl ($5) of soup to anyone, he says he is not targeting tourists as his primary customers.
"I'm serving the blue collar guys up here, the construction workers, the starving college kids who are working up here to make and save money."
Paul has cooked at Tenuta's in Bay View, County Clare on the East Side "and all over Door County," he says. Why did he open Czarnuszka?
"I'm passionate about making great soups. I'm sick of the stress of normal kitchen work."
Damien has been around so long, he was at Summerfest the night George Carlin was arrested for speaking the seven dirty words you can't say on TV. He was also at the Uptown Theatre the night Bruce Springsteen's first Milwaukee concert was interrupted for three hours by a bomb scare. Damien was reviewing the concert for the Milwaukee Journal. He wrote for the Journal and Journal Sentinel for 37 years, the last 29 as theater critic.
During those years, Damien served two terms on the board of the American Theatre Critics Association, a term on the board of the association's foundation, and he studied the Latinization of American culture in a University of Southern California fellowship program. Damien also hosted his own arts radio program, "Milwaukee Presents with Damien Jaques," on WHAD for eight years.
Travel, books and, not surprisingly, theater top the list of Damien's interests. A news junkie, he is particularly plugged into politics and international affairs, but he also closely follows the Brewers, Packers and Marquette baskeball. Damien lives downtown, within easy walking distance of most of the theaters he attends.
