MADISON – It's the foodie rapture. A gourmand's nirvana. An epicurean Utopia.
And for those of us who just like to eat, it is pretty darn fun.
The Dane County Farmers' Market is the largest producer-only farm market in the country. That means the vendor behind the table must have grown, raised, cooked or baked the items on sale. No reselling is permitted.
Of course, you can get your lettuce, potatoes and green beans here, plain or organic, but the Madison market, on the Capitol Square every Saturday from April 16 to Nov. 5, is the home of the gastronomical weird and unusual.
As well as buying all the fixings for your Saturday night dinner party, you can merrily eat your way through the market. And we aren't talking hot dogs from a corner cart.
My main squeeze and I drove to Madison and attacked the market on a recent Saturday, seeking the odd edible while we filled our faces with ready-to-eat treats.
I am a sucker for anything rhubarb. The day Starbucks comes up with a rhubarb latte, I'm there, so it should surprise no one that my first instant dining purchase of the morning was a traditional sticky bun filled with the tart vegetable.
The bun's gooey sweetness was a delicious contrast to the piquant rhubarb filling. The Sweet Street Bakery of New Glarus was selling the treat for $2.50.
My first encounter with a peculiar food item came quickly after the sticky bun. Tom Nord, a retired Madison cook, bottles a broad variety of vinegars under his Nord Haus label. They make for a colorful display at his booth.
Nord produces conventional infused vinegars (raspberry and garlic, for example), the slightly different (red Spanish onion) and the downright bizarre (catnip.) He says some people tell him catnip is beneficial for treating ulcers, and it is a slight sleep aid. "But you have to consume a lot of it," he advises.
Of course, I bought a bottle of rhubarb vinegar for $4.
There is nothing particularly unusual about the oyster mushrooms Jamie Ramsay of Merrimac sells at the farmers' market, but his mushroom growing kit ($25) is something to see. It hangs, looks sort of like a beehive that sprouts mushrooms, and should be kept in a basement or garage.
The mushroom crop eventually peters out, but throw the bag in a snowbank for the winter, and the shrooms will come back strong next summer.
My Dane County Farmers' Market tradition is to always stop at the Cress Spring Bakery booth for a chocolate fire cookie ($1.75) and at the Country Baker's stand for a potato buttermilk donut ($1). Cress Spring, based in Blue Mounds, includes oranges, cinnamon, cayenne pepper and black pepper in the chocolate cookie, and it has a pleasant kick. The Country Baker, part of the Goose Gulch Farmstead in Poynette, gives customers the choice of sugared or plain donuts.
The new find of the day was a Persian confection called Sohan Asali ($1), a wonderfully sticky and messy candy made with honey, slivered almonds, ground saffron and olive oil, among other things. Jamie's & Son of Madison is selling the irresistible sweet, which it calls Persian toffee.
Curiosities that caught my eye but I didn't buy were the bison braunschweiger ($6 a pound) from Cherokee Bison Farms in Colby, and a loaf of cranberry wild rice bread ($3.25) from the Silly Yak Bakery and Bread Barn in Madison. The Silly Yak, which has many gluten free products, was also selling a coffee chocolate scone for $1.75.
Betty Lou Cauffman likes to tell market shoppers that the emu is the closest surviving relative of the T-Rex, and when she shows you the flightless bird's small-football size egg, you are unlikely to doubt her. She sells the individual eggs, suitable for a large scramble or omelet, for $15, but mostly she offers emu steaks, burgers, brats and jerky, priced at $12 a pound.
Cauffman operates the Valley View emu farm in Fennimore and says the bird tastes most similar to turkey dark meat. She also sells emu oil products, which range from soaps to pain rubs.
After touring all four sides of the square, it was time for lunch, and we crossed the street to Caracas Empanadas, which prepares and sells sweet ($1.50) and savory ($2.75 or two for $5) empanadas out of a small trailer. Caracas, Venezuela native Luis Dompablo and business partner David Piovanetti are at the farmers market every Saturday.
The Dane County Farmers' Market is open from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Better entertainment on a summer Saturday is difficult to find.
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.
