road trippin'

Today my friend B and I headed across the fair dairyland state to attend an awesome conference, chat it up with some fellow professor types, and forage for good eats after our minds were filled with new ideas.

First, we visited a candy store that carries Vosges exotic candy bars--I purchased my ever favorite Barcelona bar (dark milk chocolate, smoked almonds, and grey sea salt). We found a groovy little grocery store that featured organic produce and natural/organic goodies. I bought a bouquet of organic CHARD (hoorah!) and a small paper bag full of organic yukon gold potatoes. Tomorrow I'll make a simple dish of sauteed chard, garlic, mashed yukon golds, and olive oil. Yummm. Then we browsed in a used book store, where I bought my very own copy of Jhumpa Lahiri's pulitzer prize winning short story collection The Interpreter of Maladies for six dollars. Then it was back in the car in search of caffeine and all we could find was the ubiquitous Starbucks. We drove the rolling hills of central Wisconsin and found our way to Green Bay, where we drove through town on a whim and serendipitously settled into spicy goodness at Nukeo Thai. Delish!

I'm happy to report that Green Bay seems alive and thriving even with the news of Brett Favre's retirement, which has broken a few hearts and induced many a tear to fall across this great state this week. (note: if you would've told me a year ago that I would blog about Brett Favre, not just once but on multiple occasions, I would've been full of scoff and snark).