• beverages,  booze,  food,  local,  restaurants,  reviews

    Local Spotlight: Umami Ramen & Dumpling Bar

    It’s unfortunate that the grand opening of Umami Ramen & Dumpling Bar on Madison’s East Side occurred just a few weeks before dump trucks and fork lifts rolled in to tear up Willy Street in a major road construction project that won’t conclude until October. Umami is located at 923 Williamson Street in a building that, from the outside, just looks like a renovated house. Inside, though, the space is modern and I dare say hip… all this in a neighborhood where tie-died shirts and Crocs are considered appropriate dinner attire. You can still wear your Crocs there, but you might feel upstaged a bit by the sexy lighting, bamboo…

  • blogging,  cheese,  farms,  food,  local,  restaurants

    A New Project… and an Announcement

    I’m back over at Wisconsin Public Television’s website, blogging about sustainable and local food for the next 5 weeks. My posts will go up every Tuesday. Come on over and check out this week’s post about How to Eat Locally Without Lifting a Finger. I love to cook, and when I agreed to do a food-specific blogging series for WPT, I had grand visions of trolling the aisles of natural foods co-ops and the winter farmers’ markets to come up with new ways to eat squash and kale. And then came a little “bump” in the road. Literally. I’m 15 weeks pregnant and, though very excited, I’m finding it hard…

  • cheese,  coffee,  green living,  local,  recipes,  restaurants,  writing

    A Winter Pick-Me-Up

    When I opened my February 2011 copy of Food & Wine magazine, an unusual picture caught my eye. A band of adults and kids, all of them clad in bright parkas and clutching broomsticks, were captured mid-sprint in a game of broomball on an ice-covered lake. The scene looked like a modern Norman Rockwell painting. It also looked vaguely familiar. As I turned to the article that went along with the photo, I realized it looked familiar because it was familiar. The article featured Madison’s own chef Tory Miller, of L’Etoile and Graze restaurants, and the photo was taken on Lake Mendota. As pointed out in the article, which was…

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