I’m kind of spoiled when it comes to steaks, because the general store a half block from my house cuts their own steaks, and everything is pretty much aged in the cooler as it hangs on the hooks. Whenever friends come to stay, I always get a couple steaks and serve them, and everyone is shocked how good they are.
Having said that, I just ate one of the best filets I’ve ever had. I went to the Tornado room, which is an old supper club and sort of looks like the kind of place the Mad Men would hang out at in the Adirondacks. At any rate, had an old fashioned (or three), this delightful dish of scallops cooked in white wine and heavy cream served in a whipped mashed potato shell, the Filet au Poivre with a side of creamed spinach and green beans. And there was bacon in the creamed spinach. BACON! Also, too.
I’m now in a food coma. The filet was seriously the size of my head, and you could cut it with a fork. Halfway through eating, they asked me if it was ok, and I told them the only thing that would make it better was a bigger fork.
I highly recommend this place. Just a very cool atmosphere, great food, and if you go alone, eat at the bar. The bartenders are great guys and were fun to talk to, and you get to look out on West Main and take in the scenery.
Cat Lady
Scallops in Wisconsin? Yeah, no.
/new englander
birthmarker
What a great description of a dynamite meal! Have fun, you deserve it after your crappy winter and your injury/surgery.
r€nato
Now that’s a steak.
blogbytom
+6? Old-fashioneds are pretty boozy.
General Stuck
Haven’t had cowmeat in about 8 years now. It wasn’t a planned thing, and for no particular reason. I loved steaks, adored them. But usually later had this weird feeling, or little dude on my shoulder telling me they were making me feel not so good. So I just gradually stopped eating red meat.
It has carried on through eating a lot of turkey meat, and chicken meat with often the same almost subconscious conclusion. Maybe it was the chemicals and preservatives and antibiotics and whatever other nasty shit they feed the critters with, or later apply to the meat, but now about the only meat I consume is ocean caught seafood, though I don’t rule out an occasional chicken sandwich from Wendy’s or turkey during the holidays. But I still totally recoil from cow meat like from poison.
schrodinger's cat
But, but what about your girlish figure…
mcd410x
Should have had the rack of lamb (roasted with mustard, garlic, bread crumbs & mint vinegar). Hell, everything sounds great!
Doktor Ziellos
Relating to John’s “Give the Whiner’s a Band-Aid” post: the NYTimes has a creepy article showing what happens when street lights go out in Colorado Springs owing to municipal cuts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/us/07cutbacksWEB.html?hp
Funny, it was just in February when Michelle Malkin, a Colorado Springs resident, was touting the shut offs as a fine example of: “Self-reliance. Privatization. Thrift. Fiscal accountability.”
http://michellemalkin.com/2010/02/08/colorado-springs-derangement-syndrome/
smiley
The only time I’ve been to that town (at a conference, natch) I saw one of the drunkest persons I’ve ever seen They drink a lot up there.
South of I-10
I just had a steak too! We went to Blue Dog Cafe, which is George Rodrigue’s place. Great dinner, can’t wait for our friends’ 40th Bday party tomorrow night and our Abita Brewery tour tomorrow.
Omnes Omnibus
No fish fry on a Friday?
Omnes Omnibus
@smiley: Hi, I am much better now.
Nicole
There I was, all content after the season finale of Friday Night Lights and now all I can think about is eating scallops in cream sauce. And I don’t even like scallops. Sigh. Wade into open threads at one’s own risk. Hunger may result.
Lysana
Now I want to go buy a steak. I can, thankfully, but damn.
lamh32
Okay, this may be too girly for youse guys, but So I’m watching Say Yes to The Dress. A show about a popular bridal salon in NYC (and now in Atlanta, GA) The 2 focal brides include one who lost beaucoup weight, but she still has body image issues, cause no matter what dress they bring her, she feels she looks big, but forget about her a minute.
the second girl has a fiancee’ who totally spoils her, and a family that also seems to spoil her, but don’t really have much money. So her mom’s dress budget is less than $5000, somewhere between $3000 and $5000. But the bride has loftier taste, and she claims that her fiancee’ will help out so she can get a much more expensiuve dress. (btw, the fiancee’ does not really look like he makes much money anyway). So the dresses she’s trying on and looking at, started at $9000 up to $50000. Ugh!
Heads up guys, if your bride is willing to spend up to $50,000 on their wedding dress, then guess what, first, her parents better rich, but you also betta be rich, cause if she is willing to spend that much on a dress before the wedding, you betta believe she will probably be spending like crazy during the marriage.
Actually, the mom actually budgeted for the dress at $3000, no more. I’m guessing she thought the mother-in-law or future husband would put up money. So after trying on all those damn dresses she left with nothing.
SBJules
I had a 70s flashback reading about John’s meal. I used to make a scallop dish that sounds a lot like his. He found a real old-fashioned steak house.
South of I-10
@Nicole: Hey, it was you who recommended the Brazilian Keratin treatment for hair many open threads back, right? Had it done today, my hair is straight as a board!
SiubhanDuinne
O/T? O/K!!
I was in Charleston for a few days and took time to explore the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor. Came across a Gullah New Testament, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t have the same cadence (and much of the same patois) as the LOLCat Bible!!
I’m devoting a chunk of the weekend to pulling up verse-by-verse comparisons, and will astonish you all next week with my findings.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: LOLcats speak Gullah? Who would have guessed.
Joel
Is this an open thread?
Not as good as the first, but still pretty great.
Joel
Is this an open thread?
Not as good as the first, but still pretty great.
Nicole
@South of I-10: I’d love to take credit, but it must have been some other poster masquerading under my moniker, because, of course, it’s such an unusual name (4th most popular the year I was born, boo!) That said, yay for successful hair treatments! My hair does happen to be straight, but that’s due to genetics. I wouldn’t mind a wee bit of wave now and again.
Ash Can
Well, if you’re not going to do a lake perch fish fry on a Friday night, it might as well be this. And, after all, if you play your cards right, you can still find a decent lake perch platter or sandwich for yourself tomorrow for lunch.
WereBear
@Omnes Omnibus: The dreams I’m gonna have now.
I was tempted, so tempted:
I was doing Tarot for Charity at a Block Party on Thursday (money for the Humane Society) and who should show up but Doug Hoffman!
I could have made a fuss and bulled him into having his Tarot done; he obviously didn’t volunteer… and who knows what it would have said! I was worried it would show he would win.
But I could have done that. I just felt it would be a swamp of ethical issues. And what if it was some kind of Dead Zone thing where I saw something really horrible!?!?!
So, I passed on the opportunity. I can be such a confrontational wimp.
South of I-10
@Nicole: Ha! Ok, must have been someone else. I have more wave than I know what to do with. This is supposed to make my hair curly but not frizzy. I can’t wash it for 24 hrs, so it is straight as can be right now, despite all the S. La. humidity.
Martha
Tornado is really good and yes, Mad Men could film a scene or three there, especially at the bar. Their perch is excellent, but I’ve only eaten red meat there…they also have Yorkshire pudding as a side! love it and never learned to make it…
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus: Or de Gullah peeplz spkz LOLcat.
dopealope
Ok, Imma gonna let you finish, but the best steaks in the United States of America are served at Jocko’s Steakhouse in Nipoma, CA. If you ever come this way, I will buy you dinner there and prove it to you, and provide the wine to make it worthwhile. Ever had grilled sweetbreads dipped in butter as an appertizer …
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: Possibly, god knows I wouldn’t want to offend Ceiling Cat.
Charles
No one is saying that the Tornado Room is the best steak in the country. But it’s a hell of a place, and in 5 years I haven’t had anything sub-par there, including atmosphere or company.
I’ve been in Madison for 20 years now, and whoever is showing you around has done very good by you. But if you don’t have a least one beer down at the Memorial Union Terrace before you leave (preferably in the evening with live music, but no time is a bad time), then you’ve wasted the air-fare spent. The Union Terrace isn’t the best place in the world, but it doesn’t embarrass itself if mentioned during that conversation.
ms badger
@Doktor Ziellos: We locals prefer the name “Somalia Springs”. It contains our essence,
Comrade Kevin
@Doktor Ziellos: Everyone in places like those who complain, bitch and moan about services cuts should be asked if they would support higher taxes to pay for them. If the answer is “no”, they should be told to STFU.
Mnemosyne
Corner Stone and mclaren can begin rejoicing — G and I leave for Chicago tomorrow and I’m not bringing the laptop, just my iPod Touch, so I will probably be pretty scarce for a while.
I would be looking forward to the visit more if my father-in-law hadn’t started chemo and radiation for his brain tumor last week. :-(
Kaleb
I couldn’t afford a steak dinner when I lived in Madison, but my crappy old punk band played in the Tornado’s basement. Not sure they still have shows down there, but it was really cool that such a classy place supported the scene.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Jesus. This is the second time I’ve been eating cereal for dinner and you fuckers are discussing steaks.
Fuck you all.
BDeevDad
With Mark Hurd getting told to leave or get fired today, can we now discuss the silliness and inanity of high priced CEOs. HP’s last two CEOs probably made a quarter billion dollars between them over the last ten years from HP and one was fired for performance and the other because was paying his mistress with HP’s money even though he made 43 million dollars in 2008 alone, the same year he gave everyone a 5% paycut.
t jasper parnell
The Tornado Room is beyond fantastic; but it aint an old fashion supper club. The Top Hat in Middleton or, wtf was the name, Cuba Room on University were supper clubs. Smokey’s, years ago, had the best steaks in the Great Lakes region but, once it started taking reservations, went rapidly down hill. Also too if you were up on the Square you should have gone to Genna’s, which used to be down on University on Campus and was once the greatest of dives, up there with the 602, before recreating itself as a cocktail bar with a great sidecar.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: Big virtual hug to you and G. Hopefully the treatment will go well. Try to have a decent visit home besides okay? I think the last thing your FIL would want is to be miserable on his part.
t jasper parnell
Almost forgot, Madison now has a distillery on East Main Street, there are signs on the Bike Path two blocks after the Bike Boulevard. It makes some kind of honey based or heny tasting alcoholic beverage and will, next week, introduce rum. My sister tells me that the honey drink is great and that next weekend is their open house with food from the Underground Food Cooperative, which provides the food at the Goodman Community Center and is, I think, the force behind the new butcher shop by the downtown Y, will be providing the food.
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne:
I will say a prayer for your father-in-law.
trollhattan
I KNEW it, I KNEW it, I KNEW it. Grrr.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/seahawks/2012557740_referee07.html
Fucking hate the fucking Steelers. Yeah, I said it. Should I send Tunch a Seahawks blankie?
Yutsano
@trollhattan: I was at a Super Bowl watching party when Big Ben
never broke the damn planegot that touchdown. I have never seen such a huge gnashing of teeth and screaming about that call, and I was going right along with it. In fact I even risked being banned for noting that fact. I’m glad to finally be vindicated, although it’s long in the past now. And yes Tunch needs a Seahawks blankie.FlipYrWhig
Since this is the Open Thread… hey, remember when it was entertaining and/or informative to read Atrios? Long, LONG ago?
Almost PhD
Hi. I love filet mignon, but that’s not what I want to comment on here.
I have read a lot about U.S. health care in the past year, including a story about a young man whose testicular cancer treatment ended up costing $2 million (http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/04/21/a-health-care-disgrace/). Am I heartless to observe that we’re all paying for that very expensive treatment for one person, indirectly? Am I heartless for seeing how the hospital might balk at funding this man’s further expensive treatment without additional funding from an insurance plan, when the mother’s insurance ended as opposed to vilifying the hospital for not helping out more?
In a recent discussion I had with a health care broker before health reform passed, she pointed out that in the UK, if a baby is born under 5 pounds in weight, they won’t go to great lengths to save its life as we do in US (if one has coverage/cash) for babies as premature as 2 pounds in weight. Was I heartless to observe that maybe that 2 pound baby, realistically, shouldn’t receive extensive, expensive medical intervention? In nature, that baby would die and the mammal would try again to reproduce. How are we different?
The health care broker–a Christian and conservative–then surprised me by observing that her own sister, who was a premature baby, had experienced a lifetime of health issues and complications, most likely linked to her premature birth. When I tried to discuss this with a conservative relative of mine (and a western medical doctor with four kids), he angrily told me that I had no idea what it was like to lose a child (because I have chosen not to reproduce). Am I heartless or logical? Our western medical system has developed many ways to spend money on preserving life (pulse, nutrition, etc.) but not necessarily how to, at the same time, ensure the quality of life that is being preserved (see the very good/long piece on hospice in _The New Yorker_: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/02/100802fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all).
Is this a third-rail type of discussion that smacks of “death panels,” or is this something that will need to be confronted if we’ll ever get a grip on health care costs? Context: I’m 40 years old, have always voted blue, have buried both my parents, and have watched another family member degrade slowly over 15+ years of dementia while on blood thinning medicine that prevented a more expedient death rather than that slow, expensive end to her body when her mind was long gone.
[Is this the sort of thing you’re looking for in your open threads?]
BDeevDad
@Almost PhD: I’ll answer from my own personal experience. My daughter has a host of medical issues (see my wife’s blog) and we were even told multiple times that we should either prepare to make life/death decisions or she might never walk, eat or speak on her own.
She is now four. In the past year, she has learned to walk, drink (yes DRINK) and had her feeding tube and tracheotomy removed. She is cognitively at age level and is a joy and inspiration to all that meet her, including her doctors and therapists.
The point is doctors while smart, don’t know shit about the future and can’t really, except in the obvious circumstances, know what the future lies for any patient. So, the odds may be on their side, but they are definitely missing out on a lot of jackpots.
asiangrrlMN
@Mnemosyne: Sorry to hear. Good vibes to you, G, and G’s father.
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: I’m so sorry. Your family gets my best wishes.
And yes, health care is different in Europe. Germany treats brain tumors with a ketogenic diet.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1662484,00.html