Food in the City

Food is a bit of a rock star these days, loved and loathed just like celebrities.

In a recession, food—especially healthy food—is a luxury to a lot more people. Folks are having a hard time finding enough of it for their families. Thankfully, we have a strong food bank and distribution system in our community, so we find and feed as many hungry stomachs as possible.

How we grow and produce our food is another lively topic of conversation. I’m a big fan of anything Michael Pollan writes, outlining in excruciating detail how the failures of the modern agricultural system is one of the most important subjects on earth. The guy is brilliant (and coming to Madison later this year) and if he and others are successful in convincing the Obama family to plant a garden at the White House, the Sashas and Malias of the world might not grow up (like I did) wondering how hard they have to scrub to remove the chemicals on their apples and carrots.

Here in Madison, local and organic food conversations are lively and abundant. We have them in the magazine every month, thanks to senior food writer Nancy Christy and her hungry husband, Neil. Each time I edit their column, “Genuine Articles,” I’m smarter, and more interested than ever in the food chain. They bring us insightful and intelligent food for thought from all over the planet, including people and ideas in our own back yard.

Dan Curd’s blog is another great source of information and inspiration for me. He’s an encyclopedia of knowledge about local restaurants, the state’s culinary contributions, and more. Nancy Lynch’s recipe columns beautifully connect what’s cooking in the kitchen to the warmth of family and friends—she shows how food and nostalgia go hand in hand.

I’m excited to read Terese Allen’s latest book that updates the late Harva Hachten’s amazing Flavors of Wisconsin, a history of food and cooking in the state. It’s due out later this year. Meanwhile, there’s a really great book out right this minute called Hungry for Wisconsin: A Tasty Guide for Travelers (Itchy Cat Press, $25). It’s by Madison’s own Mary Bergin, a syndicated travel columnist whose byline has appeared in The Capital Times for many years. When I picked it up I flipped right to the Madison section eager to see what she’d chosen to feature. There were a few usual suspects—the Farmers' Market and L’Etoile, for example—because they are always worthy of mention. But I was surprised by the diversity of food Bergin finds and loved the way she presented it. So I asked her for an interview and she graciously accepted.

It’s interesting that you open your chapter on the Madison area with its exciting relationships with Chicago restaurants. What was your reasoning? We are not an island. Others notice our good work, good taste and find it attractive. The ever-growing connections between southwest Wisconsin farmers and Chicago restaurateurs add credibility to the product abundance and quality that we locals might otherwise take for granted.

The Madison businesses you chose to profile are a nice cross-section of the food community—from upscale to ethnic to heritage to taverns to, of course, the Farmers’ Market. And the mixture of storytelling and service stands out to me. How did you determine who and what to include? My aim, throughout the book, was to gather the most eclectic mix of food businesses and stories/situations that I could find. It was important to go beyond the obvious.

By the way, you stole my big idea for a picture of Keith Daniels of the Harmony Bar standing next to his bumper sticker door. I’ve been dying to get that shot in the magazine! Keith is a gem, and genuine. I very much like what he stands for. He seems to care about his neighborhood as much as he wants to operate a successful business that bucks stereotypes. “Bar food” can have a “gourmet flair.”

Anybody you regret leaving out? Yes! We had more material than we could accommodate, even though much is written pretty concisely.

I make a point of mentioning that “Hungry” is not a “best of” book. It’s a discriminating glimpse at our wealth of diversity and integrity, as it pertains to food. I continue to hear about enticing enterprises, be it Alpha Delights—a nifty European bakery in DePere, or a farm near Stockholm whose public “pizza nights” during the growing season involve all-local ingredients.

How long did the book take to research? To write? I began my syndicated “Roads Traveled” column in 2002, but my interest in food writing predates that. Some of what I wrote years ago was recycled for this book project. Other material was written just for it. I signed a book contract with Itchy Cat Press in October 2007 and had the project finished (that means even the index – ugh!) shortly before summer 2008 arrived.

What, if anything, was news to you? The depth of our culinary creativity and integrity in Wisconsin’s small towns is amazing. I knew a few of these players when my research began, but I keep hearing about more and more!

What kind of reaction are you getting? It’s been extremely positive, and I’m grateful.

What’s next? I continue to build a full-time freelance writing and photography business, seeking projects instead of traditional employment. Wisconsin people/places/topics are the core of my work, but I’m also traveling far away. Will be in Egypt, for example, in early February.

A Holiday Must-See, Laugh

If you’ve never met Jodi Cohen, too bad for you. And even though she’ll be presenting “Oy to the World! Comic Relief for the Holidays” right here in Madison this week, you won’t get to meet her even if you just want an autograph. Why? Because she will be busy impersonating a warm and hilarious cast of characters to an audience of folks eager to find joy AND laughter this holiday season. Cohen’s writing and comedy/improv work is coastal caliber, but like a lot of us she fell in love with Madison and the Midwest. So lucky us.

Jodi, who has worked with the likes of Chris Farley and Brian Stack, a writer for Conan O’Brien (read an earlier blog on this), is not only gifted and talented, she’s warm and generous with her time. I know this because I asked her to ask one of my favorite characters a few questions for my blog and she was kind enough to let Helvi give us a preview of the kind of funny you’ll experience when you go to the show. Click here for the schedule.

So, without further ado, heeeeeeeeere’s Helvi!

Tell us a little bit about yourself, Helvi. Well, I’m a social and political macaroni sculptor, making macaroni sculptures to express my feelings about what is going on in the world and to make changes in the world. I used to use clay, but well, that was not for me. I found my inner macaroni and now I have a cable show, “Helvi’s Corner,” and I’m the hostess of the radio show “Pasta and YOU,” where we talk about changing the world one noodle at a time, and I also am the editor of the Macaroni Monthly.

So what were you doing last Friday while the rest of us were skipping, um I mean SNOWED IN, from work? When it snowed I was outside, I was making a snow angel. Then I decorated it with uncooked macaroni. It was itchy, as I laid down in the snow and the uncooked macaroni. But that is what I do for art.

I understand you have some important political statements you’re planning to make in this year’s show. Without giving it all away, could you give us a hint of what you’re going to try to accomplish? Fer cryin’ out loud. I did such a great job canvassing in Wisconsin during the primary that I was awarded the Canvasser of the Year award and invited to the inauguration. Ya’ hey. I’m going to wear my special apron. I’m going to connect with other social and political craftspeople. We’re going to meet in a corner somewhere.

Do you work with a number of different macaroni styles or do you stick with the quintessential elbow? I work mostly with elbow macaroni, but that is just me. You can work with anything that floats your boat. Some people work with clay! Not this pony. No. I tried it, but it lost some of its zip zap sop along the way. I did start working with Spaghetti-O’s as an homage to Obama. However, I feel a little cramped when there’s sauce involved.

Do macaroni ingredients—say, egg or no egg—make a difference in your work? Some people like eggless pasta. It doesn’t hold together in the same way when you get to the decoupage part of the project. But still, whatever works. You have to do your work, make your art, in order to be heard and seen and known in the world. With enough super glue you can do anything.

Is there a friendly competition among the characters you present in “Oy to the World,” or are you all, like, best friends? Everyone who shows up for “Oy to the World” is amazing. I have to say, it’s an honor to be there. People are so nice and friendly and what have you. I give away potato salad recipes as rewards to people who are speaking out. You have to speak out whenever and wherever possible. That is what I always say.

Are there any other artists who work with macaroni—or other artistic media—that you admire or are inspired by? I love Twyla Tharp. I’ve asked her if she’d like to collaborate and I’ve yet to hear back. I’m also inspired by Babs Gillespie, my friend from years ago. She works with laundry in these fanciful ways. It’s hard to explain. I haven’t seen her or her laundry for years and I miss her terribly. One time she wore just a sheet all night because everything she owned was in the wash. She is a consummate artist gal.

What is your New Year’s resolution for 2009? To be realistic about my resolutions. To start small and keep it all very small. One noodle at a time, is what I always say....

OK, I saved the toughest question for last: What’s your producer/director Jodi REALLY like? Ah, well, she’s, you know, normal. I guess. She’s a bit nervous sometimes and is always saying, “Oh, Helvi, where’s your macaroni sculpture? Where are your noodles? Where are your potato salad recipe cards? Where’s your guitar? Do you know the song you’ll do for the sing-along? Have you written your poem? Do you still want to do some modern dance as a way of interpreting the global financial meltdown that’s occurring?” I just say to her O FER CUTE! Build a bridge and get over yourself already then there now. Real good.

See? I told you she was good. Go see Helvi and the rest of Jodi’s gang this week. You’ll get delicious Imperial Garden Chinese food to boot.

Two Journalists You Should Know

Back when I was studying for a master's in journalism at UW–Madison, I spent a lot of time on news.wisc.edu, the University Communications website. The depth and breadth of its coverage made it a fertile ground for article ideas and academic experts for my writing assignments.

After I joined the magazine I signed up for their media press releases and often marveled at how thoroughly reported and well written they were. I used to joke about how the newspapers should've just printed the releases verbatim; often they were smarter and more provocative than the stories that showed up in the next day's news.

When uber-talented UW communications staffer Tim Kelley was lured back to the State Journal, I wasn't surprised. He penned a ton of great stories that came out of the press office. Tim also wrote for the magazine for a time. He was one of those freelancers who took an assignment, you wouldn't hear boo from him for a month, and then he'd file a story you hardly had to edit. You never quite felt like you were earning your keep. Tim's still at the State Journal as its digital media manager for madison.com.

Another UW communicator I admire is Michael Penn. He wrote and edited for the UW alumni magazine On Wisconsin for many years and is now with a College of Agriculture and Life Sciences magazine called Grow. Michael is an excellent storyteller, and he has a knack for reporting that a lot of writers think they have but don't. He gets that readers want more than the who, what, where and engages them in an intellectual joyride.

Check out Penn's recent article on corn, called "Grain of Doubt." If you've read The Omnivore's Dilemma, or even if you haven't, it's a local complement to the global discussion about the corn crop and how it is, in detrimental ways, taking over the planet's agricultural system. Remarkable, and a little bit scary.

Diversity Almost Done!

While I hope readers are busy devouring all things pet in our current issue of Madison Magazine, my staff is a little busy on the next issue. Thing is, it’s not just any issue, it’s two magazines in one. For more than a year now we’ve been planning for a new, 68-page magazine celebrating diversity in the Madison area. It’s called Spectrum Magazine, and the organization we’re producing it for is the Madison Area Diversity Roundtable. They are an amazing group of Madisonians I’ll blog about later, but for now I want to brag about the writers and designers who are, like I said, B-U-S-Y putting this important publication together.

Laura Salinger, who has deftly covered a broad range of issues and topics for The Madison Times, Capital City Hues and Asian Wisconzine, wrote most of the major articles, and a whole slew of smart, talented people, including all of our editors, designers and more than a dozen area freelance writers and photographers, have been laboring to make this magazine matter in a community that embraces diversity but doesn’t always follow through in executing it. (More on that later, too.) For now, just know that I can hardly think straight, much less blog straight, because I’m so nervous and excited about sharing Spectrum with you.

It’s been hard and exhilarating to help birth a new magazine … and remarkably, the labor has been longer than my seven-year-old who took her own sweet time in production. But in a few short weeks Spectrum Magazine will ride along with the January issue of Madison Magazine, which we’re dubbing “Big Ideas.” The Spectrum concept is a perfect fit for a magazine about what our city and its people can accomplish if we set our minds to it. Because we all know that ideas are only as good, or as big, as those of us willing to work to make them happen.

Op-Ed Epiphany

This is going to sound so corny, but as I read the State Journal’s latest op-ed, “Don’t let pols pick their votes,” I had an epiphany about Wisconsin politics. Last Sunday the thoughtful and paid-to-be opinionated editorial page writers were opining about the state’s rotten redistricting rules designed by and for incumbents to protect their legislative seats. Lefties and conservatives both took the heat for allowing the once-a-decade line drawing to conveniently shed voting districts that aren’t exactly keen on their brand of politics.

As a trained journalist, I can be skeptical about the reckless nature of power and influence. And I can wax all poetic about how crucial it is for democratic societies to examine and question the role of leadership and government. Frankly, that’s why I’ve been so pissed lately that newsrooms have been virtually abandoned by their corporate owners and ungrateful advertisers. (Is it just me or do the ads in the State Journal lately look like invasive species choking healthy flora?). But at the same time, I have always felt that most people in charge—be they teachers, priests, doctors or politicians—have their community’s best interests at heart.

So it’s with a heavy—and a little bit guilty—heart that I share my epiphany. Wisconsin started its journey into the 20th century a progressive and principled role model. It finished out the 1990s a fat and happy cat, the kind that led to political cronies, legislative caucus scandals and now, because all good things must come to an end, five-billion—BILLION—dollar deficits. It’s atrocious. And what I realized reading the op-ed column Sunday was that Wisconsinites like me are so used to good, clean government and a reputation for years and years and years of best behavior by our elected officials that we can't acknowledge or accept how much damage has been done. We’re no longer a role model; we’re the girl you don’t dare bring home to your parents.

Fellow Midwestern states like Iowa—let me repeat: IOWA—have gotten the best of us when it comes to something as straightforward and little “d” democratic as redistricting. Then there’s another neighbor called Minnesota, with sparkling clean lakes and a taxation system that experts say is a friend to businesses, government and education without bleeding taxpayers’ wallets.

For so many years we’ve voted so many good and honest people into office—Democrat, Republican or Ed Thompson—that we’ve taken for granted our privilege and responsibility to hold these humans, with all of their imperfections, accountable. Then we’re shocked and appalled when they pass a Band-Aid solution to funding public education, campaign on the taxpayers’ dime, or hold a budget hostage to protect the special interests and party leadership that got them elected.

We’ve all had our political epiphanies. Mine is admittedly a variation on a pundit’s theme, and frankly, a little too late. While my belated “aha” moment won’t do much for that state of our state, it reminds me of the incredible importance of our editorial voices, whether they are in print, online or over the airwaves. They are made up of smart, well reasoned and well-read professionals who tell us what they think--not because, like our politicians, they want our vote in the districts they’ve drawn like kids with too many crayons, but because they want us to know the facts as they see them.

We might not agree with the op-ed pages every time, but we should respect what they have to say, and in many cases, thank them for having the courage to put pen to dying paper.

First Step

Our November story on domestic violence (on newsstands now!) has struck a chord. The advocacy community praised it (though I received some understandable flak for not running the crisis hotline number: 251-4445). Survivors identified with it and took the time to let us know. But best of all, we’ve heard an anecdotal story or two about how it helped bring someone the courage to leave an abusive situation.

That’s exactly why we titled the article “Seeing is Believing.” If you see yourself or a loved one in one of those remarkable stories of survival, you might believe in yourself and your situation. You might acknowledge that it’s real, and happening to you, and that you need to get help.

The title was also intended to shed light on one of society's greatest failures because so often domestic violence goes unnoticed or ignored by friends, neighbors, employers and the media. It takes a village to recognize and refuse to allow chronic and dangerous emotional and physical violence. And when we do so, we take the power out of the hands of the abuser. It becomes a community problem—like homelessness, burglary, or jaywalking—that is no longer tolerated just because it goes on behind closed doors. It says to the abuser: what you are doing is wrong, even illegal. So stop, get help, or go to jail.

The subject has so deeply affected the author of the article, Maggie Ginsberg-Schutz, that she is building an online community of support for a new blog called Violence UnSilenced. Here’s Maggie’s latest update on her own terrific blog, which is spawning her new advocacy campaign.

When the domestic violence blog goes live, I’m going to ask survivors to speak out. And because they are brave enough to speak out, I’m going to ask the rest of us to pledge to listen. I hope you will take up that challenge. Please, keep listening.

A few days after Maggie’s article came out, I ran into my friend Bill at the Harmony Bar. Bill is a writer and a poet, a gadfly and a grandpa … an all-around good guy. Though I respect his politics, we usually disagree. And yet, when we got to talking about domestic violence Bill launched (as Bill is wont to do) into a diatribe about women’s liberation. If women are not free, healthy and educated, Bill told me, economies collapse, democracies fail and societies are ruined. The world needs more women in power, he continued, because they won’t let their sons go off to war without a fight of their own.

While Bill was pontificating I thought of the Taliban in Afghanistan and their oppression of women. I thought about how every nine minutes a woman in the U.S. is beaten. I thought about how women still earn substantially less than men, which is often why they can’t leave an abusive situation. I thought about my mom, who helped get my hometown’s first battered women’s shelter off the ground. How she would make me close my eyes when we drove there because even a little girl might tell the wrong person where it was.

But not everybody understands the fundamental truth about women like Bill does—he and I do agree on that one. Which is why we need more survivors telling their stories to Maggie and more Maggies launching blogs and more moms volunteering at shelters and more Bills spreading the gospel from barstool to barstool. We all have something we can offer the cause.

What can you do?

Well Done

So it’s an embarrassment of riches when we are lucky enough to have two well stories in a single issue. In the magazine business, the “well” is the place where you run the meaty, in-depth features, which usually includes the cover story. With our little glossy—as opposed to, say, Vanity Fair—the well is often home to only one feature-length story. We try to dedicate as much space as we can to the well because it’s important to let a story breathe, to let the pictures compel the reader to come join in the conversation. And that it will be worth their precious time. In November we had two important stories to tell, so we decided, come hell or high water, to squeeze them both in.

The first is a profile of Madison’s Police Chief Noble Wray, who we named our 2008 Person of the Year. Public safety is on everyone’s minds—tonight’s Halloween festivities, which haven’t always ended well, are a prime example of why. And while Chief Wray has worked hard to make Halloween less drunken, reckless debauchery and more good, clean fun, citizens throughout the city aren’t feeling as safe these days. So we asked award-winning writer Frank Bures to explore the problem through the lens of a quiet and thoughtful Wray, who is policing a city that can no longer afford to see itself as a quaint little college town.

The second well story is a stunning portrait of seven survivors of domestic violence. Writer Maggie Ginsberg-Schutz weaves the stories of isolating fear and remarkable resilience together in a way that somehow gives me hope. That these women were brave enough to tell us what they went through means we can no longer ignore the pain and suffering that goes on behind closed doors. When women and children are abused and subjugated, societies weaken. Look at the Taliban in Afghanistan for evidence of the worst possible outcome of inequality and rule by ignorance and force. And even in a place like Madison, violence against women happens everyday but we don’t hear about it unless someone is severely injured or killed.

So if I was lucky to have two well stories in the magazine this month, I hit the jackpot with the writers who penned them. Frank and Maggie are two of my favorite storytellers, so I decided to ask them a few questions about how they do what they do so very well.

Maggie: What was it about the story of domestic violence that made you want to write about it? How prevalent it is (one in four women), and how little press it gets unless someone dies. The whole “murder-suicide” thing bugs me to no end, because it makes these events seem like isolated incidences—well, they're not. They are the inevitable end to a long-standing cycle of abuse within a relationship. I also knew that one third to one half of all Dane County arrests are domestic-violence related, so that made the lack of news coverage even more appalling to me. But it’s not that the media is being irresponsible, it’s far more complicated than that. Because of safety and privacy issues, because of fear and shame, these women are essentially muzzled. But abusers get their power manipulating those very same things—so maybe if we keep dragging the issue kicking and screaming out into the open, some of that power can be reversed. Mostly, it was really important to me to give these survivors a voice, and to show everybody else just how common these stories are.

Frank: You’ve profiled Bishop Morlino, Sen. Russ Feingold, brain researcher Richard Davidson and others for me over the last few years. What was different about Police Chief Noble Wray? One of my favorite writers, Gary Smith, says, “Each person’s life is a problem to be solved.” I think that’s really true. And not only is their life a problem they (and you the writer) are trying to solve, but there’s some larger story around their personal story that gives their story meaning. With Morlino it was the search for absolutes in a shifting world. With Feingold, it was a question of how you make the biggest decision of your life. With [UW–Madison men’s football coach] Bret Bielema it was the personal cost of success. With Davidson it was a question of free will. Noble Wray’s story, how he came from a tough background and rose to the top, is the perfect American story. But the larger narrative around that is about how Madison is changing, evolving, and what part Wray plays in that story. The challenge with writing about him was that he doesn’t much like to talk about himself, which is fine if you’re his neighbor, but not so good if you’re profiling him.

Maggie: You told me you envisioned the way you would write the story before you actually interviewed the seven survivors. How did that evolve as you went through the interview process and then sat down to write? If you’re trying to get me to publicly admit I hear voices in my head, then fine, you win. From the beginning I could hear the women’s voices in a chorus, kind of overlapping. Since I don’t like to go into a story knowing what I’m going to write, I tried to just get out of the way and focus on being a megaphone for them. But as the interviewing process went on, I was really struck by how different each of these women were, but how many of them were saying the exact same core things. One night I dreamed the story in its current format, with the women’s stories connected by identical quotes. So when I sat down to write, the only real outline I did was connecting those quotes in the right order. Then I just let the women speak. You’re welcome, I look totally crazy now.

Frank: I talk to a lot of young writers and journalism students about how in magazine journalism we “show, don’t tell” a story. In your profiles, you often do this by setting some amazing scenes for the reader. Talk a little bit about that process. Yeah, that’s a big difference between magazine and newspaper writing. What I do is sometimes called “narrative nonfiction,” where you’re trying to recreate a scene and transport the reader there. It involves more detailed and imaginative reporting, and I think it’s where my background as a travel writer comes in handy. You want the reader to be able to see and feel and hear the things that were going on, and in a way that contributes to the storyline, not in a way that’s just throwing things in. It’s basically storytelling through pictures and images—you have to visualize it. In the classic anthology, The New Journalism, Tom Wolfe says that with this kind of writing, information isn’t the basic unit of reporting. The scene is. So you have to imagine it, report it, recreate it and interpret it. And this can be hard with profiles, because you’re basically taking someone else’s life and making it your own.

As far as “show don’t tell,” it’s easy to say, hard to do. Basically I avoid adjectives, and try not to write in a way that manipulates someone into feeling/thinking/seeing something. I want them to arrive there themselves.

Maggie: It’s difficult to do these kinds of stories without being personally affected by them. How has this experience affected you? Well, I’m not letting it go. It’s definitely under my skin. I am considering starting a domestic violence blog to keep the conversation going, and I’ll probably keep bugging you for follow-up stories. I am completely humbled by the bravery these seven women showed in trusting me, in allowing me to speak for them— but there are many, many more who don’t have that option at all. Yes, it was emotional and depressing, but more than that it was really inspiring. I’m raising daughters. I feel like it’s my mandate to do my part in solving a social issue this critical. I want everyone else to feel that way, too.

Frank: You have two bylines in the November issue—you also wrote our travel essay and it’s this crazy trip you took from the suburb of Verona to downtown Madison by foot. First, what the hell were you thinking? Second, what are trying to convey to the reader through this kind of travel writing versus the more conventional service-oriented “go, see, do” story?
1.) I have no idea what I was thinking.
2.) One big pet peeve of mine is how everything in our society is preconceived and packaged for sale. This peeve doubles when it comes to travel, because travel is so much about your own experience in a place. And half of that experience—or more than half—is the imagination and insight you bring to it, as well as how you let it change you. So one thing I hoped to do with this piece was to inspire people to create their own experiences rather than just pay to consume someone else’s. There are so many fascinating things in this world, but they’re all on the road less taken. And that road lead me from Verona to Madison. It involved some chafing.

Chafing. I think I’ll leave it at that. Now do you see why I’m a very lucky editor?