BeigeJournal

My mother lives in Green Valley, Arizona, and while I was visiting during the summer we ate twice at the Longhorn Grill.

This place was recently remodeled, adding a quite nice dining room to the original small bar. There is a screened outdoor area, though in southern Arizona summer is not the outdoor dining season. The building has a distinctive appearance:

I had a quite nice steak on our first visit there. As you can imagine, steaks are a big portion of the menu there. The second visit was for the all-you-can-eat pizza night. Though it is all-you-can-eat, the initial serving is plenty for someone my size who plans to remain my size. It was pretty generic thin-crust pizza, but the Green Valley area doesn’t offer much in the pizza department, or for that matter pretty much any other department, so it is serviceable. You can’t deny that the building is unusual.

I stopped in at Pizzeria Piccola in Wauwatosa for dinner on Tuesday before the Barb’s Basement concert. It’s one of those charming locations, with a wood-burning brick oven on the first floor and somewhat rusticated tables on the second. They operate on the order and pay at the counter, then take your drink and sit down to wait for your food to be brought to you system.

The pizzas are thin crust, sized for one person. I tried the shrimp and pesto. It was quite good, though I’d say just a bit bland and also a bit oily. The berry gelato was excellent. In the pizza-for-one market this place is far better than the usual suspects.

The annual Friends of the Medical College of Wisconsin Chili Supper was last night. A large number of people prepare chili according to their own recipes and serve it to the gathered multitude, who get the chance to try an amazing variety of chilies. It really is remarkable how many variations there are.

The salted in-shell peanuts (groundnuts) from Outpost Natural Foods Co-op are considerably better than the usual peanuts. They are nearly $4.40 per kilogram, so one would hope for high quality. I’d say the flavor is well worth it.

I recently purchased some Black Jewell popcorn from my local Outpost Natural Foods Co-op. The unpopped kernels are small and black and the popped corn is small and bright white with black bits from the exterior visible. It is tasty, but the most noticeable advantage over the usual popcorn is that it makes much less of a mess in the hot-air popper. The usual popcorn pops so vigorously that a lot of unpopped corn is blown out of the machine, some of which then proceeds to pop in the bowl, scattering popcorn around the kitchen. Black Jewell stays in the machine and only popped corn, for the most part, makes it out. Less wasteful and much less messy.

My girlfriend and I enjoyed a dinner at Crawdaddy’s in West Allis, Wisconsin last Saturday. We arrived around 17:00 and were seated immediately. Shortly thereafter a huge crowed gathered, waiting to eat. So our advice is to arrive early. Air quality seemed much better than before as well. They let people smoke indoors there for some reason and in the past we’ve experienced spectacularly bad air, but it was much better this time. So our advice is to arrive early. Since bad air and long waits are our only complaints (and have discouraged us from eating there more often), we were quite happy with how well the last visit went as far as these issues go. They are, by the way, currently closed Sunday and Monday.

I ordered the Alaskan king crab again. I really ought to try something else there, but the crab is so good that I’ve had it three times. I am getting pretty good at getting the meat out of the crab. When you taste that good, you have to be armor-plated. Judging by the size of the legs, I wouldn’t want to meet that crab in a dark alley, prior to it being de-legged, I mean.

The Chocolate Beyond Reason desert, made with light and dark chocolate mousse plus additional chocolate, is wonderful.

Crawdaddy’s Restaurant

6414 W. Greenfield Avenue

West Allis, WI 53214

Phone: (414) 778-2228

Email: crawdad@execpc.com

I’ve been eating salad increasingly often recently. I’ve noticed a trend of escalating complexity. First it was just lettuce and dressing, then croutons got added, then mushrooms, then onion, then cheese, and now something from The Spice House. I even have a wooden salad bowl. It’s getting out of hand. At least I’m still just using just one kind of lettuce at a time.

If you live in Milwaukee or Chicago, you ought to visit the Spice House. Just the smell is unique (though possibly overpowering) and the selection vast. The Milwaukee store is charmingly…historic.