Monday, July 23, 2007

Nothing new, so something old (ish)

I'm not flaking right now because I'm trying to get Gator's socks done before his birthday. Can't show progress because I want the color and style to be a surprise to him. The rest of the world has been taken over by Harry Potter-dom, in which I do not indulge. This makes for boring blogging. Sorry.

So I'll tell you about last weekend, which I never got around to blogging about at the time. It'll be like time travel! Exciting!

As I've said before, Milwaukee is the City of Festivals. All summer long there are festivals for this and that -- mostly ethnic in nature -- plus fairs and church festivals and myriad reasons to spend all your money on various foods on sticks. Many of the festivals make some sort of sense, reflect the culture of the ancestry of large contingencies of SE Wisconsin residents, etc. Heck, any reason to party, right? There's Polish Fest, German Fest, Irish Fest, Arab Fest, African Fest, Festa Mexicana, Festa Italiana and...

Bastille Days
! Yes, the French residents of Beer Town (both of them) are well represented in the festival circuit. Somewhere along the line, someone salvaged a 40-foot replica of the Eiffel Tower (which apparently was once part of an Estee Lauder mall display), turned it over to the Milwaukee School of Engineering, the lit it up, set it in a park, and now we party around it and have an excuse to drink wine as well as beer! Genius!


Did they at least have a variety of French wares and food items to get people into the mood? Of course not! The closest we could find was some Cajun offerings. And in true festival form, I had mine on a stick. New Friend Veronica and I pondered the moral (and kinda icky) implications of my possible enjoyment of gator (little "g")-on-a-stick, but since Gator (big "G") wasn't there to witness the actual mastication and (mostly) because it was just too cool to pass up, I did, in fact, order gator-on-a-stick. It was okay. But it t'weren't no brat. (Why don't they serve brats on sticks???) I also enjoyed some Cajun spiced "French" fries. Oh la la!!


Of course, they tried to make things more French. They did sell beignets, but they were little more than glorified funnel cakes. I'm sure they were a slap in the face to French chefs everywhere. I had two.


NFV had two, too!


They did manage to book some fairly decent French music and an act that was reminiscent of Cirq de Soleil (but much more "Milwaukee"). A good time was had by all. If only I knew enough French to say something witty or pithy in French now! Ceci nes pas un witty saying!

I crack my ass up.

_____

2 comments:

YarnThrower said...

Laughing out loud!

jmk said...

I'm missing your flakes but it sounds like you're having a great time and that's good enough for me! Looking forward to seeing Gator's socks (you wouldn't hear that in ordinary conversation very often, would you).