"This lake-studded swath of Northern Wisconsin."

MMmmmm, mmmm, mmmm....
Getting past the "guns and Gods" bitter language spewed in SanFran, liberals at the NYT seek better understanding, apparently, of what white people in Wisconsin like*.

And as they bravely note in the headline, "In Wisconsin, Supper Clubs Open to All."

What -- do they still turn paying people away at the NYC and DC finer dining establishments? Do tell...

Personally, I think the story might have benefitted though had the editors axed all personal references and made it more about the Wisconsin people and places ... and less about the author, his wife and daughter. Enough already with the personal stories, people? Can't you save that stuff -- my daughter's first cheese curd!! How adorable!! -- for the private family blogs?

My visit to the Al-Gen was the culmination — or nearly so — of a three-day road trip I’d embarked on with my wife, Michele, through a hundred-odd miles** of northern Wisconsin in search of these living vestiges of the pre-Interstate era.
...
Growing up in Chicago, I spent my summers in Wisconsin, weaned on the iceberg salads, cold relish trays, char-broiled steaks and Friday-night perch dinners that constitute the bill of fare at a typical supper club. I fell in love with these restaurants long before I’d ordered my first cocktail, and for good reason: the food was always tasty — supper clubs were doing custom-cut dry-aged steaks long before the practice became an urban fetish — and the vibe was always pure Wisconsin gemütlichkeit, leavened by a lively mix of locals and vacationing families.
...
To this day a supper club meal remains the common touchstone for me and my far-flung siblings whenever we pay a visit to my parents in Wisconsin. I actually choked up when my daughter, now 4, tried her first fried cheese curd (a classic Wisconsin appetizer) at the Sister Bay Bowl, a supper club in Door County that my family has been going to for 35 years.
...
After our meal, at Mr. Swearingen’s suggestion, Michele and I drove north on Route 17 to a supper club called the White Stag Inn to end the evening with an ice cream cocktail, an after-dinner tradition in Wisconsin that merges dessert with digestif.
...
Our ice cream drinks — a brandy Alexander for me and a grasshopper for Michele — came in coupe glasses and were thicker than milkshakes.

Perhaps rather than, "Supper Clubs Open to All" a better title might have been, "These Are a Few of My Favorite Things..." (when the wait staff... brings a drink that stings... to the back of my throat, I throw down an ice-cream float!)

Same kinda misty nostalgia, same kinda "these folks really be living in the past!" mentality... These are a few of my fav-o-rite things!



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* heavy on the alcohol over-emphasis, of course. We got stereotypes to keep up, people!

** Betcha he and Michele wrote off, at 50 cents a subsidized mile, the recent family holiday vacation with this story. Dawg! (or, You can take the boy out of Chicago...)

















(... but you can't take the Chicago out of the boy! Don't let that cheese curds kidstuff fool ya. ;-)