Madison Date Night

Canadian Artisans Bed and Breakfast

2011-07-28T13:38:00.002-05:00

Here it begins. Some of our favorite times as a couple are while we are on vacation and we prefer to stay at bed and breakfasts whenever possible. We enjoy them because each comes with a unique experience. However we have a hard time remembering the details of each place so when we plan our next vacation or are asked by friends where we would recommend it can be hard to dig up the details. Therefore we are going to record the places we are staying for selfish reasons, we need a memory aid. Each place has four scored parts with additional comments added if we feel like it. The four parts are: room, breakfast, hosts, extras. We will keep it simple with 1 = crap and 10 = better than a bag of cash.

Jon
The first B and B we stayed at was on our honeymoon so I'm biased on this one. The house is tucked back into a wooded area on the edge of Canmore. It was a great place that I would love to return to. The only small thing was the cost was more than any other B and B we have ever stayed at which I believe is primarily due to location.

Room - 9
We stayed in the Treehouse suite. The room was great size and came with an even better view.

Breakfast - 6
This part I remember as actually being a bit bland. The homemade granola was a little too healthy tasting and the rest was forgettable

Hosts - 8
They were interesting to talk to, helpful but also gave us space.

Extras - 10
This is the part that really made this place. They had a steam shower in the room which was amazing, the room had a mini fridge and sink so we could keep our food there and they had a decent movie collection which is a fun extra.

late installments, part 2: april 28

2007-05-05T09:37:00.001-05:00

i had't had a real vacation since july when jon, chris, sarah and i went to jon's friends' cabin for a few days. and since i'd been REALLY missing my sanity, and jon had been really missing my sanity, too, so we jumped at the chance to go camping with our friends liz and john at the end of april. we went west to wyalusing where the mississippi and wisconsin rivers come together just for an overnight on friday, but it was so worth it. if you're reading this and need a vacation, go to wyalusing. now.

john had a gig saturday night, so we all grudgingly packed up our tents and settled in for the not quite 2 hour ride home that afternoon. since liz and john were driving, jon and i napped on and off in the backseat, leaving us with not nearly enough energy to make dinner, but with just enough to wisely make saturday night our date night.

as you may have guessed, jon's been doing all the planning lately. this is because i've been too stressed out lately to take on the planning, so my date nights become the ones where i cry because i'm too stressed out and planning has pushed me over the edge. my loving fiance has graciously taken it upon himself to brainstorm ideas and ease the burden for the time being. he's so great. but i digress ...

anyway, since it was up to him, he chose casa de lara.

i NEVER would have chosen casa de lara.

this is because i once went with an old boyfriend to the one on state street and vowed i would never return - not because of the memories of the boy (though i'm sure that doesn't help casa de lara's case), but because of the memories of the lighting. all i see when i think of that place is nasty florescent pink lighting, sleezy men dressed like miami vice's don johnson, and old, tired mexican food that appears to have been sitting under a heat lamp for over 24 hours.

to be fair, the only thing that rings absolutely true of the place is the florescent pink lighting, but florescent pink lighting equates with all those things i listed above, and, therefore, warmly invites those images into my memory. so why would i want to go back?

because i love jon.

"you just need to try it again," he'd been saying for the past few months. so i agreed finally.

"but only to the one on fish hatchery," i stubbornly insisted. "i am NOT going to the one on state street."

so we went to the one on fish hatch. because jon loves me.

i admit it. casa de lara is not all awful. in fact, it was pretty good. the night was just chilly enough where we chose not to sit outside on the patio (though they've got great outdoor seating). they've got about 3 different "rooms" plus the outside seating, so there's plenty of room for lots of people. the lighting and the decorations are pretty dang colorful, and much classier than the horrid, 80s themed state street branch. the chips & salsa keep coming, and that's always a plus. our meals were pleasantly large, but not memorable. i suppose it is what it is, but i wouldn't consider this any adobo grill.

i can't remember what i got to eat, but i did love my margarita. they do that well, i confess. so even if the food isn't memorable, that doesn't mean it wasn't tasty. i found myself enjoying my time there so much, i nominated it as a contender for our rehearsal dinner after we finished our meal. i suppose i'll have to go back casa de lara and consider it again.

wow, i never thought i'd hear myself say that.

april 23rd late installment

2007-05-05T09:35:00.000-05:00

so monday, april 23rd was scheduled to be an uber-relaxing, take your time waking up, totally chill out kind of day. but when i got a call from jon early in the morning that my brother-in-law had left a voicemail on his phone, sharing that he was at the hospital with my sister, the day took a turn for what any thinking person would consider "crazy."

so my sister was okay, just a bad stomach virus that made her feel something akin to contractions. but while we were visiting her at st.mary's, i got a call from our realtor who informed us that the offer we'd put in for a house had been joined by two other offers ... so to her office we'd have to go to counter our own offer.

the whole day was go-go-go, so by the time we hit late afternoon, i was desperate to get my life in order, and jon was desperate for a run. and by the time he got back to my house, it was nearly 8 pm, and neither of us were ready for an official date night (read: what's nearby?).

thank god famous dave's is so close to my house. bbq it was. we love bbq, and you can't go wrong with the baked beans or the firecracker green beans or the hot applesauce or the cornbread on the side. i was particularly pleased with my beer, berghoff's hefe-weizen blend (i think ... jon's not around right now to tell me i'm wrong, but it was light and citrusy, so i'm going to say it was a hefe regardless of being right or wrong). i never drink berghoff, but the waiter was so enthused, i couldn't pass it up. turns out he was rightly enthused. it was so fresh, so crisp, so citrusy, i'd take it over a blue moon any day. check it out when you hit up famous dave's next.

we spent the good part of the evening there, talking through our day, discussing the possibility of losing this house we'd been so excited about, and just enjoying comfort food on a day that necessitated it. we left full and happy. thanks, famous dave's.

and that was it for date night. we might have considered a movie ... if we hadn't received a call at 10:30 pm from our realtor, congratulating us on becoming homeowners.

turns out the day ended even crazier than it began :)

funny man's performance follows state street stroll

2007-04-30T09:45:00.000-05:00

monday, april 16th

the evening jon planned revolved around an event i had brought to his attention weeks ago. one of our favorite authors and npr guests, david sedaris, was in town and reading at the orpheum. besides the fact that sedaris is one of the greatest storytellers i've ever heard, he's got this voice that serves as the icing on the cake. weeks prior to the show, we visited the orpheum (tickets are always cheaper at the box office than online), jon purchased our $30+ tickets which assigned us a seat in the front row of the balcony. we were pretty jazzed.

when the 16th finally rolled around, we took a walk up past the orpheum and landed at myles teddywedger's cornish pasty (that's a mouthful). i'd never had a pasty and never really intended on it (i'd also never said the name right, so maybe that was the turnoff in and of itself), but jon insisted it was time i break into this little world, and i'm glad i did.

it's one of the cheapest meals downtown - and meal, yes, is the correct word to use. we split a ground beef pasty with vegetables and i couldn't even dare to finish my portion of it. although lacking any particular smack of spice, it was salted enough to leave a taste lingering, but it gave off a vibe that this little meal could actually be healthy (i actually have no concept of the nutrional value in one of these little pasties, so don't trust me). but to split a pasty, some sodas, and a bench up at the capitol on a gorgeous night? unbeatable.

after dinner, we were craving something sweet and the night's perfect spring temps called for the first outdoor icecream of the season. and where else could we stop but the chocolate shoppe? (well, okay, there are plenty of places to stop, but the line at ben & jerry's was ridiculously long, and i think cold stone creamery is ridiculously overpriced) i ordered the espresso fudge & jon got something (c'mon, it's been two weeks! how am i supposed to remember?). delicious. we devoured them happily and arrived at the orphem with 10 minutes to spare.

and how was sedaris? hilarious. i don't know if i can do a write-up justice so long after the actual event, but i encourage you to pick up "me talk pretty one day" or any one of his other books. or just tune in to this american life - he's more or less a regular.

new and old

2007-04-17T11:47:00.000-05:00

One of the hard things about trying to enjoy all that Madison has to offer is deciding if you want to try something new or stick with what works. This past Monday we went with both and.

We headed over toward the Willy street neighborhood where we dream of owning a home if only it were closer to work and we could actually afford that area. It is amazing the cost of homes in an area with such a hippie feel ... ah, to be a rich hippie. So instead of lusting over what we can not have, we headed over to Monty’s Blue Plate to get some food we could have.

Neither of us had been there since our college days but we both arrived with fond memories and high expectations. Monty’s seems perfect as a neighborhood or high school date hangout. The décor and sounds of a busy diner give off a comfortable, come as you are feel. So far so good.

We quickly ordered our food; Mary got the chicken in a pie and I asked for the salmon cakes. The service was friendly although the server seemed a bit stretched by the number of tables he had to cover. When the food arrived, our "A" experience dropped a couple of letter grades. The food was luke-warm and tasted as though it had been sitting under a heating lamp for far too long. It was a race to get it down before it became too cold. The gravy over the chicken in a pie overwhelmed the dish and the rice with the salmon cakes was crunchy, from either sitting out too long or being undercooked.

We were especially bummed by the less than stellar food since our memories recalled something much better. Besides, word of mouth about this place has always been good. Still, despite the disappointing meal, we decided to have dessert there since we couldn’t think of anything else close by and pie is hard to pass up. We ordered a slice of the pecan pie and a cup of coffee - both of both were better than dinner.

We then headed over to The Weary Traveler which has become one of our favorite places. Upon entering we were reminded why we love this place: good beer selection, great lighting and good service. For the remainder of the night we worked our way through a pitcher of Bell’s Oberon and played Rummikub. (For $100 dollars please leave a comment on how to correctly pronounce this game.)

bbq & bball

2007-04-09T11:38:00.000-05:00

i think when you've committed yourself to writing up your date nights on a public blog, you have the potential of overwhelming yourself with a need to do something uber-creative for the sake of your audience (be it all 3 or 30 of you who read this). thankfully, we love each other more than we love you (though we think you're all very lovely people), so we are learning to choose dates that are right for us.

and that's just what we did last monday.

as usual, we wiped ourselves out last weekend, visiting family in eau claire, traveling up to the twin cities for a good friend's wedding, and driving back in time for work early sunday morning. so by monday, we were ready to take it easy.

date night started with a walk out to the washington hotel coffee room located on lakeside right off lake monona. we had intended to just grab coffee at cargo coffee since it's so close to my house, but for god-only-knows-why, cargo closes at a ridiculously early hour so we extended our walk for a few blocks.

neither of us is washington hotel coffee room's biggest fan. for a few reasons: 1) it's eerily quiet making conversation frowned upon, 2) we're not knitters, so we just really don't belong, and 3) if you're gonna order a sandwich, subway's really got better bang for the buck. but if you're a lakeside fibers junkie, this is the place for you. but as i said, not being knitters, we knew better than to overstay our welcome (feeling awkward anyway just daring to converse with each other in this sanctuary of silence), so we took our coffees and enjoyed the short walk back to my house.

ah yes, date night at my house. and it was excellent.

jon is the king of the BBQ, so he entertained me with a full meal including his signature fall-off-the-bone ribs. YUM. i am a very lucky woman, and will be a very lucky wife :)

the meal was an appetizer to the night's main event (though i really believe the main event proved itself to be quite unsatisfying in comparison): the ncaa men's basketball championship, florida vs. ohio state.

honestly, with wisconsin out, a girl's gotta cheer for the remaining big ten team, and oden had been growing me. and tell me who in good conscience can route for florida? really.

but we all know how the game turned out. and we all saw noah make a fool of himself on national tv. and we all wondered if florida is really concerned with turning out articulate, thoughtful, intelligent adults or if we ought to encourage high schools to scrap scholastics and focus all their energies on training a handful of potential athletes to compete for scholarships to schools who will fail to prepare their students for careers actually beneficial to the real world. okay, maybe i just wondered that.

i digress. i love college basketball. and i love ribs. and i love coffee. so here's to jon: well done, babe. good date night.

old enough?

2007-04-03T11:30:00.000-05:00

Let me begin this week’s post with some humble advice. For those of you out there engaged or about to be engaged or for that matter ever plan on getting engaged allow me to highly recommend a short engagement. There are a number of reasons for this but as it relates to this blog I recommend this course of action because planning a wedding will HIGHLY affect your day off.

After a tiring morning and afternoon of looking at potential reception sites it was time to turn the corner and have fun. We headed over to Greenbush Bar on Regent St. We had just been there a few days ago with other members of my family only to find out that since they are a bar everyone in the party needs to either be your child, spouse or over 21. The annoying thing that night was that they first seated us and then a few minutes later asked to see our ids so we had to leave and ended up heading to Nam’s down the street for a great meal.

On Monday night we sat down without a problem next to a family with little kids and a young college couple and ordered a couple of beers. We tried to drown out all wedding conversation with a plate of garlic cheese bread that was good and would have been amazing if the marinara sauce would have not been cold and then came our garlic, pepperoni and green pepper pizza. Overall all the food and drinks were good but the service was lacking and the prior experience left me with a B- impression of Greenbush BAR.

(wrong barriques)
After dinner we headed over to Barriques on Monroe St. for a couple of loaded drinks and the chance to just sit back read, write and talk. The place was busy compared to many of our Monday night experiences and for good reason. It is a great place to get a drink with friends whether your prefer tea, coffee, beer or wine. Or you can plug into an ipod and read. Mary and I stayed there till close and thus ended another night of exploring a couple Madison’s many options.

out of hibernation

2007-03-24T10:19:00.000-05:00

if you were working this past monday the 19th, i have only one word for you ....

Sucka!

monday was drop-dead gorgeous. that morning, jon's youngest sister, joanna, (who was in town for her spring break) went out to breakfast with me at the sunroom cafe, where we chowed down on breakfast burritos and spinach & feta omelettes before strolling up and down our vibrant little state street. we eventually made our way over to jon's place on the west side to pick him up and return back to central madison for a leisurely, long walk in the arborteum.

it was so gorgeous out that we made time to lay down in the grass and absorb the rays on our pasty white legs and arms. it was the kind of day that makes you love living in wisconsin, where you appreciate the seasons, and get to feel what it's like to actually fall in love with a day.

at about 3, i dropped joanna off at jon's other sister's apartment on campus, stopped at home to grab my hiking boots and a warmer jacket, and raced over to jon's house.

there's no time to waste when you're heading to devil's lake.

man, i love devil's lake. i love warm days and hiking and lakes and conversation while walking. and our "date afternoon" was all of that. so after driving 40 minutes to get out there and buying a wisconsin state park season pass, we were ready for a solid afternoon of outdoor activity.

there were a handful of other hikers at devil's lake (yet another reason i love having mondays off), so we rarely had to stop to let someone pass or move too quickly from a scenic overlook if other hikers approached. the lake made things cool at the bottom of the hill, where patches of snow remained in stubborn obstinence to the early spring heat. but up top, even my long sleeved tee was much too warm of an option. and that's pretty sweet considering it's still march and all (of course, we've recently seen al gore's "an inconvenient truth" so it feels wrong to enjoy the early spring too much now).

after our hike, we drove to prairie du sac for dinner at the blue spoon creamery cafe. as the site says, the blue spoon was named after the traditional blue spoons used at culver's and is a concept developed by the co-founders of, duh, culver's restaurants.

it's a nice little spot in the main drag of town, seated on the wisconsin river - kind of like an upscale culver's. jon had been there before, and says "as a one-hit wonder, i like it." so when the waitress told us they were planning on franchising out to middleton, we questioned how successful they'd really be.

i mean, i liked the lighting upstairs, but i enjoyed the view of the river WAY more. they've got a great outdoor seating area there which is going to be impossible to duplicate out in middleton. and the food was nothing to write home about, but was decent and a tad more adventurous than culver's. my tuscan grilled cheese was a little lacking (and was quickly cold) earning it a C+, but jon's bbq sandwich special deserved a solid B. still, the tiramisu gelato at the end made up for my sad sandwich and i left feeling quite rewarded for my day's hike ...

i'm very curious as to how they'll really do in middleton, so keep your eyes peeled for it and let us know what you think when you hit it up.

seat of your pants

2007-03-20T10:49:00.000-05:00

As Mary and I explore Madison we tend to approach the night with either a well-defined plan or spontaneous desire. Those two approaches usually line up according to our personality types so Mary being the one who is able to be more laid back decided to create the night as it came.

She knew we were headed to a lecture/performance that was part of the Line Breaks series at the Wisconsin Historical Society but it was too early to head over there and we were both hungry. So we started walking down State Street waiting for inspiration. It struck quickly as we decided to just take the edge off and wait on dinner until after the lecture so we ducked into Einstein Bros (I have never called it that until now) for a coffee and bagel. I am not much of a bagel connoisseur but their apple-something-something bagels are tasty.

So with coffee in hand we walked the short distance to the Historical building. As we took a seat and got comfortable, I was not really sure what we were in for but I was hoping to learn something new. I was not disappointed. First off, I have very little experience with seeing or hearing spoken word art and I found the host's opening performance powerful. Then after creating an open definition of hip hop, Kamilah Forbes, Executive Producer of Russell Simmons’ HBO Def Poetry Jam was introduced.

Most of what was discussed was eye-opening to me and created a number of interesting questions about art, culture, television and the line between artistic integrity and selling out to The Man. This series continues through the end of April; we hope to go back to experience and learn more.

Towards the end, the Q &A portion was starting to feel a little long, so we headed out to find something to fill our now grumbling bellies. Mary narrowed our choices down to getting a good burger, so we found it convenient to be so close to one of Madison’s favorite burger places, Dotty’s.

We quickly ordered some burgers, fries and beer and sat back to discuss the many questions and ideas recently created by the aforementioned lecture.

And thus ended another good date night.

italian dishes and indoor putt-putt

2007-03-15T08:11:00.000-05:00

a couple of weeks ago now (i know, i know - late again!!), jon and i spent another exhausting monday wedding planning (less than 5 months to go!), and we needed a solid break to just hang out. so even though jon had hoped we'd go to the uw's distinguished lecture series, i put in my request to hang out with jon and jon alone. i mean, i can enjoy a good lecture most of the time, but i enjoy jon and jon alone all of the time (ooh, brownie points).

so jon rearranged his plans and drove us out to tutto pasta in middleton for a classic italian dinner.

my memories of tutto pasta are limited to first dates at their location on state street - big portions, small tables, and flirty smiles and conversations (i swear, if you weren't watching a game in the bar there, you were on a first date).

contrast that to middleton's tutto pasta - same big portions, but much larger tables and booths, and, well, it's middleton, so your customers are much more varied in age; and though i couldn't spot any first-daters from our vantage point in the the aforementioned ginormous booth, this is not to say that an older customer isn't on a first date. i just want to make that clear. god knows who for, i just don't want anyone taking issue with me (i had a long day yesterday).

but back to the point, so jon and i are sitting in this huge booth that felt like it could have been a private room all on its own had they just strung a curtain rod across the top or added on a dutch door. i love huge booths because they feel totally unnecessary to me. the rest of the room is relatively small (i admit, i was raised in the burbs, so i'm used to "big"). i'd say you'd max out at 125 in there (more if everyone squished into a booth?). the lighting was just right with candles glowing a warm orange and the crooning 50s era tunes suggested you enjoy your time and order another glass of wine. oh, the power of musical influence.

our college-age-ish waiter seemed pleased that his tip for the night would be taken from a bill including a bottle of wine, so he was really cool with us all night. i, for one, love a good waiter who interacts with his customers. i always like to ask waiters what they'd recommend from the menu (i think they really should know it best), and was pleased with my mozzarella, garlic, tomato penne (i have to admit that it wasn't a mouthwatering recipe and didn't thrill me, but, to be frank, i haven't been to very many italian restaurants that do create such masterpieces). jon ordered some sort of pesto penne, which i think would have tasted better had it not been such an unappetizing shade of green (yes, i know pesto is green anyway, but it was REALLY green).

after our leisurely dinner, we raced over to dick vitense's new indoor mini golf land. sadly, the course closes at 9 pm; happily, the golf attendant charged us half since we came about 15-20 minutes before close.

the new course is created to represent all of madison's major landmarks. if we hadn't been racing through there, i might have enjoyed reading about the creation of capitol building, or spending more time in the black light back hallway where vitense recognizes rhythm and booms. lakes mendota and monona are both prominently featured, each offering a distraction of remote controlled boats should you be playing a particularly shoddy game of mini-golf.

the staff at vitense was unusually gracious, allowing us to finish up our game a few minutes after 9. but with such an early finish to our dinner & mini-golf, what was there to do next?

and herein lies another reason why i enjoy dating jon so much: there's so little lag time between his ideas. so off we went to barnes and nobles for a few games of cribbage (it's officially beat out my love for euchre, i admit). we appreciated seeing the couple at the table next to us pull out their own cribbage board. if we see them again next week, maybe we'll invite them to join us ...

so we officially ended date night with that, since at 10:30 pm, jon had to be at breakaway playing a late game with his soccer team. i joined him, since it feels rather schoolgirlish to watch your boyfriend from the fan stands (and is a whole lot cooler than being a lame-o and going to bed before letterman even gets on the air).

*just a side note, i did feel pretty sick to my stomach later on that evening - which may have partly been due to the fact that huge chunks of mozzarella are probably not a good idea for my sensitive stomach. if you might lean that way, i suggest staying away from the cheesy selections on the menu.

language barriers and unexpected musical greatness

2007-03-01T12:49:00.000-06:00

This past weekend Mary and I spent the weekend up north with nearly a hundred middle school students for our annual snow camp. Everything went well which means the students had a great time and did their best to avoid anything resembling sleep. This also meant that once again we arrived at another Monday exhausted. Both Mary and I love live music and as much as Madison seems to want to have a vibrant music scene we have yet to really experience it.

So we were excited to find out there was going to be a Monday night show happening at the Orpheum this week. Before we went to buy tickets we wandered down State St and stopped in at Himal Chuli for dinner. When we arrived we were the only costumers but within a few minutes of being there the place started to fill up. Within minutes we ordered, Mary something with chicken and mine was a beef. I wish I could remember the actual names but I couldn’t find an online menu. Soon after ordering we ran into a bit of a language barrier. After some discussion we both were pretty sure that dal is bread, it is not, and thought our service had forgotten to bring it, which of course she had not. So Mary bravely, since I was too much of a wuss to ask, went up and asked for ‘our dal, you know bread’. Within moments the server came out with two more cups of soup and when we looked confused and asked for bread she very kindly brought out a warm plate of pita bread smothered in butter. We felt pretty embarrassed but not so much as to not enjoy the food. Himal Chuli is another one of the great things about Madison that I never had a chance experiencing growing up in small town Wisconsin.

After dinner we walked back up the Orpheum to get tickets to the Brett Dennen show. A coworker, friend of mine had recommended this show a few weeks ago but neither of us had heard his music so didn’t know what to expect. It was good enough to have a place to go, kick back and unplug after a crazy weekend. We were in for a good surprise. We arrived at the Orpheum Stage Door Theater a little after 7 for the 8 show and were some of the first people there. When the doors opened we headed and found great seats in the third row. Within minutes the opener kicked things off and thus began nearly 3 ½ hours of music.

Brett Dennen’s music has a bit of Jack Johnson, Ben Harper feel from a musician that looks 14. Brett has a shaggy head of hair that I only wish I could have and knows how to perform to his audience. It was a good show and I would recommend checking them out if they ever end up back in Madison.

And so with the purchase of the group’s CD and a slippery walk back to our car another good date night came to an end.

an easy stroll down memory lane

2007-02-27T17:01:00.000-06:00

my apologies for the tardiness of this blog. so let's just get to it.

february has been crazy for us. we figured out that between the two of us, we had a total of 3 unplanned evenings in a total of 28 days. the middle of the month found us in the twin cities at my best friend's wedding. from friday to sunday, we enjoyed a near-hourly booking of our time. so you can imagine how we felt sunday night when we arrived home to another packed evening of events yet again.

i had to work on monday, which i did with little enthusiasm (traveling to stand up in a wedding should never count as vacation-time. there's very little that screams "relaxation" in that). so monday night, when jon invited me over for stir-fry, i couldn't have been happier.

we don't do meals at home very regularly because 1) we both have roommates who are often at home, leaving us with little privacy and 2) we feel an obligation to get out and try something new for the sake of exploring date night options in our fine city. but tonight, it was exactly what we needed.

afterwards, jon drove us out to campus. first stop? memorial union. and this is how jon knows me so well. i went to russia last year and was able to bring back a few pieces of old russian propaganda. they hang on my bedroom wall, reminding me of my love for that country, their fascinating history, and my desire to go back again.

so what else did my wonderful fiance find than memorial union's exhibition of soviet propaganda posters? incredible. the website notes, "This exhibition presents a glimpse of propaganda art created in the Soviet Union to express and disseminate Communist ideology. The images, which date from 1917-1977, include work by leading artists, such as Dmitrii Moor, Irakhlii Toizde, and Viktor Ivanov, who used visually stimulating techniques in order to convey the goals of the Soviet regime to the masses." the gallery exhibition ends march 6th, so i highly recommend you get down there.

after walking through nearly every nook and crany of memorial union, our night continued as a stroll down memory lane. i know this can't be for everyone, but for uw grads like us, spending an evening walking by our old dorms and apartments, sharing stories of being chased down the sidewalk outside the physics building by a friend's car small enough to maneuver that pedestrian path, illustrating moments of roommates who got nauseus and puked on lakeshore path on their way up to van hise for spanish class, and marveling that boys are actually LIVING in liz waters, made for a great evening. the weather was warm enough to stroll from memorial union down observatory, back behind ag hall and down university.

and any college student knows that if there's one constant along all of those drives it's going to be the pizza delivery guy ... and if seeing that guy everywhere doesn't fuel your hunger for papa john's breadsticks with garlic and cheese sauce, i don't know what will ...

and i still can't believe we finished off ALL those breadsticks between the two of us.

YUM.

date night: sick leave

2007-02-19T16:43:00.000-06:00

This last Monday, Mary was not feeling well so after wrapping up the first round of wedding registry, I was surprised that she wanted to reward us (or if we are honest, mostly me) with a steak dinner.

I suspect the idea came from the store manager we were working with when he mentioned that I seemed to have a better than average attitude than most in my position and that my bride-to-be could thank me in man fashion with a dinner of red meat. Shortly after he made his comment Mary announced that she knew what we were doing that night.

So thanks to a free Bucky book, we headed to George's Chop House. George’s is attached to a hotel on the west side of Madison. It was surprisingly busy on a Monday night - we've grown fairly accustomed to relatively empty restaurants. We even had to wait to be seated. Despite hearing mixed reviews of George's, we thought this was a good sign.

Within minutes we were seated and told one of the specials of the day was their burger and two Miller Lites. This special did not match the image of "classy steak house" which their atmosphere and prices appeared to strive for. Our time there was a mixed experience. We both ordered the New York Strip; the meal was excellent. And the service? Okay but not great. After dinner we agreed that if it were not for Bucky Book's $20-off-meal it would not have been worth it despite the good food. It was the little things that left us wanting.

And with that Mary headed home to get to bed early and try to recover while I reclaimed a favorite bachelorhood activity (hey don’t jump to any bad conclusions) and went to watch a movie on my own. I finally saw The Departed. It was good although the art house geek in me preferred the original, Infernal Affairs.

why gift cards make for good date nights.

2007-02-13T11:00:00.000-06:00

i know, i know. i'm late to post. we had tried making a new year's resolution that date night couldn't happen unless the person responsible for the past week's post had actually posted. but last night, we still went out. i played the "i've been sick" card, and so - perhaps because it was my night to pay? - we did date night anyway.

but here's the follow up from february 5th:

as much as gift cards can seem like the ultimate cop-out present, they provided an imaginative date night for us a couple of weeks ago. with an envelope packed full of thin plastic cards to all sorts of places (though, to be honest, coffeeshops dominated the bunch), jon and i drove towards the east side. on our way, jon laid out the two rules to the evening:

1) we have to spend all the money on the gift card.
2) we can only spend 10% over what's on the gift card.

our first stop was at family christian bookstores to which jon had received a $5 gift card. among the plethora of gadgets and gizmos imprinted with fish and jesus logos (this is a whole other subject for another day and another post; i will certainly make an abnormally long and passionate tangent if i don't stop writing now), we found a box of chocolates quite quickly, and exited. fast.

so we took our box of chocolates (which cost $0.23 over our $5 - woohoo!!) and hurried through the cold to the cool beans cafe just next door.

i love the vibe of cool beans. i love the orange lights (pictures to come) and the alterra coffee served and the tables and the chairs. and i love the fireplace. and i love the people-watching. if i didn't live on the near west side, i'd be there way more frequently.

with $10 to spend at cool beans, we did quite well staying within the total. sort of. i'm not counting the pound of coffee jon bought himself since buying things for ourselves is hardly date night protocol. but we enjoyed our medium chais and lattes and chocolates and played a couple games of cribbage (or which i lost all the but the last game - and then only by one point).

dinner was at paisan's, a restaurant i haven't been to since it was located at university square during my college years. its new location, on lake monona over by the monona terrace, is quite large, which meant is quite empty for our monday night excursion. we were seated in a booth overlooking the veranda which overlooks the lake. a fire at the end of the 6 booth aisle warmed us up on the cold night while we looked through paisan's extensive menu.

jon's gift certificate to paisan's was plentiful at $40, so we debated a bit with our beers at our side (three cheers for capital brewery's maibock!) and finally decided on the medium deluxe combo pizza, hopeful that paisan's claim to have famous thin crust pizzas would prove that famous = delicious.

so first the bread came (always yum - i will never be a no-carbs girl), and then my iceberg lettuce salad, and then our pizza.

it was good. i mean i don't know if i'd go around telling people about our pizza, so i'd not advocate for using the word "famous" in relation to paisan's, but it was good, and i enjoyed it. but mostly i appreciated that they were open till 11 pm on a monday night, and that the service was friendly and not intrusive.

and the best part? keeping close to our rules of not going far over 10% over the gift card. man, it feels good not to drop a lot of cash ...

so i take back my initial claim of gift cards being a cop-out gift. i would gladly accept them. it makes for a great date night.

and if you want to send me one, i'll gladly email you with my address :)

reclining and teenage angst

2007-02-02T15:54:00.000-06:00

This past Monday night it was Mary’s turn to be in charge of the planning and for a change had a plethora of options to pick from. Last week was restaurant week sponsored by Sysco, Madison Originals and Madison Magazine. From what their website says they stole this idea from a number of bigger cities. Other than franchises, overcrowding and impossible parking I say we should steal more often. There were over 20 restaurants that were offering a $25 per person three course meal. However the downside as we found out was that many of the places are closed on Mondays. So after crossing off our first two choices Mary went with The Casbah. It was Mary’s first time there and neither of us had eaten in one of the booths downstairs. When we got there at 6:30 we had the place to ourselves which was nice since we both took a few minutes to figure out how to get comfortable with the traditional Mediterranean seating.

We quickly discovered that the $25 per person deal was not going to save us any money so instead we went with Ultimate Grill which sounds very un-Mediterranean but was a delicious and filling mix of grilled chicken, lamb, rice, hummus, etc. After stuffing ourselves we capped off the meal with some coffee and baklava or as it is spelled on the menu, baklawa. (Are both correct?)

The Casbah is a great place for a date since it provides the option of either private or public dinning and could give the impression one is cultured if early in the dating process. Unfortunately Mary already knows this is not true of me.

Then we were off to one of my favorite bars in Madison, Genna’s Lounge. The place is much better than their website. After having met with Jesse Russell who runs dane101.com a couple of months ago we were both intrigued by his excitement for Madison’s own version of What’s Your Damage. Coming into it I understood it to be a night where mostly 20-somethings come and read old high school poetry and journal entries to publicly exorcise past demons. It was sort of that but a lot funnier than expected and I found myself becoming increasingly of the cathartic process as each person took that stage to read another funny, poignant or embarrassing story from a time in life that was hard for all of us. This event happens on the last Monday of every month and I would highly recommend it.

So to sum up, another good date had and another chance to experience a little more of what this city has to offer.

i love restaurants with good lighting.

2007-01-26T10:03:00.000-06:00

sunday afternoon, in between hours at the job, i snuck into borders for some quick reading and snagged a copy of madison magazine, whose cover suggested an oodle of cheap eat options inside its pages.

i suppose madison magazine's readers make substantially more than i do.

still, the mag managed to highlight a few spots i figured i'd keep in my pocket for a cold winter's day. with a list of 6 or 7 taquerias in madison featuring $1.50 tacos, testing out a new place was an obvious no brainer. so come monday, jon and i went out on gammon past the beltline to visit el cabrito for lunch. it's kind of a clean hole in the wall, sitting at the end of a mini-strip mall, next to a laundromat, which is next to a supermercado. i had potato tacos, i think, which were surprisingly yummy, but jon was less than thrilled about his el pastor and steak tacos. the long and short is that it's not exciting, but it's a lot of food and it's decent. it's not necessarily cheap (i think our meals were about $15 total) and i'd be just as happy to visit chipotle.

but again, this isn't part of the real date night. so let's move ahead to the evening.

at about 6:30, jon picked me up to head up to cafe porta alba (yet another feature in madison magazine's cheap eats issue), on butler street up near the capitol. i immediately recognized it as the old espresso royale, though the waitress shared that it had been through numerous different hands since those days - a few more coffee shops, a pizza spot, and finally cafe porta alba. the decor was just what i wanted. relaxed, warm, totally unpretentious, and simple. the warm track lighting on the ceiling, the large wood-fired pizza oven in the back of the dining room, and the size of the room all contributed to a feeling of intimacy. it reminded me of my favorite spots in chicago - it may be a little out of the way, but once you're there, the vibe is quite obviously this: stay and linger and enjoy.

i ordered the margherita pizza, which was excellently light on the sauce, just the right amount of cheese, but a little too stingy on the basil. jon ordered the margherita con salame, which arrived with perfectly sliced large circles of salame on nearly each slice of his pie. i devoured the entire thing.

before we left, i asked for a cappuccino which came with a few tablespoons of coffee grounds at the bottom (ugh), but i couldn't mention anything, because the waitress was so nice and friendly, i just didn't care. i drank as much as i could anyway. jon had an espresso which was - thankfully - fully ground and drinkable.

afterwards, we walked a few blocks over to cafe montmartre for half-price wine night and selected a bottle of pinot noir. i love cafe montmartre but it always makes me feel a little self-conscious, like i'm suddenly exposed in the view of all the trendy, hippie-ish, 20-somethings in madison, caught wearing my grey wool sweater from gap's 1998 fashion line. i shake my head at myself, throw back the last sips of wine, and pour myself a fuller glass. i really like montmartre, but i HAVE to remember to get in the zone before i go, otherwise, my emotions begin to run high, and pretty soon jon is left with a silently crying mess of a fiancee.

maybe it was just the wine.

overall? cafe porta alba is DEFINITELY a place to visit again. i'd be a regular there if i could.
and cafe montmartre is always a good bet - just make sure you call forth your inner hipster before you enter the doors.

date night groupie style

2007-01-22T14:28:00.000-06:00

Our latest date night was a prime example of not knowing when enjoying our mutual day off turns into what is considered a date. Last Monday was a beautiful, snowy day and after Mary made waffles at her place for lunch we headed over to the Arboretum to hike through the snow. There are few things I love more than a walk through the woods while the snow is coming down and covering everything in a white, silencing blanket.

But I don’t think any of that was part of our date night so I will move on. Things kicked off for real when we headed out for dinner at the Brass Ring. Our first impression upon entering was a good one regarding the overall feel of the place. I felt a dorky closeness thanks to their tagline Lord of the Rings reference. The place was empty as we sat down to eat dinner at 7 pm. Our server believed the slow night was thanks to it being Monday and so cold and snowy outside. She said it was usually much busier. Our dinner was good but not great. Mary ordered the Madtown burger and I had the steak sandwich both with fries. Mary said her burger was original which I think is a good thing and my sandwich was okay but a bit bland, even with the mushrooms and onions.

After dinner we played pool while waiting for the main event of the evening. I taught Mary how to play nine ball and then beginners luck kicked in and she proceeded to beat me. I remembered that I don’t really like losing.

Around 10 we went next door to The High Noon Saloon to watch our friends Jonathan and Joel Kramka front the band Mute City. There is something that feels very cool knowing the people in the band no matter how famous they may or may not be. I saw them play once before at the Klinic Bar but this was a much better venue and they have significantly improved as a band. We were both impressed with their sound and energy. The band before them whose name I can no longer remember was also really good.

Overall it was another great night together and a reminder of why I am thankful we have committed to this each week.

happy new year, date night.

2007-01-14T18:10:00.000-06:00

it's quiet right now. and thank god for that. i've been going full steam since 7 am this morning, and now, eleven hours later, i'm thankful for this little breather and eager to type out details of our most recent madison date night (and keep the new year's resolution to write up our date nights before we're out on our next date).

phew. that's a lot of "dates" on one sentence. anyway, i digress ...

so last monday night, after an afternoon visiting a church (which may end up being home to our wedding ceremony) and writing up a potential guest list of 300+ friends and family members we'd love to invite to celebrate our vows with us, i was exhausted and eager for a night with jon ... sans talk of wedding hoo-hah.

and where better to avoid drama than the low-key, ultra-casual tex tubb's taco palace? the brainchild of eldorado's kevin tubb, this not quite one-year-old "palace" exceeds its classier relative in worth. how can you not love walking into a restaurant and spotting a sign offering $2.65 tacos? love it.

though the bill was far more expensive when we were done ordering (two two-taco platters with yummy rice and beans, some chips and perfectly spicy green salsa, one negra modelo and one new glarus IPA came out to about $25) , it was absolutely worth it. kitschy-texmex western music and some live songs from john hiatt played over the stereo, adding to the come-as-you-are vibe. the casual waitstaff was attentive, but relaxed enough to make you feel like you were just all hanging out together, watching the ohio state vs. florida championship game.

and the food? again, really excellent. jon thinks eldorado's food was still better, but i'm so swayed by environment that i'd hit tex tubb's again in a heartbeat before even considering eldorado. we ordered the same thing (in the interest of trying new things, we usually attempt to order different dishes, but we're just getting back into this date night thing again after the holidays and we just wanted what we wanted, you know?): one carne asada taco and one el pastor taco. i can't really say which one was my favorite, though the girl who took our order up front was right in telling us we'd be fine with just one taco each. i was pretty stuffed later that night.

afterwards, we walked 20 feet to our car (this is the advantage of a monday night date night - we don't fight many other people for parking lot spots) and headed to barnes and noble on the west side. we'd considered going to dejope since neither of us have ever been and learning their (evidently different) version of bingo, but ended choosing the barnes and noble on the west side near jon's house for coffee and games. jon found cheesy little "do you know your bride/groom?" quiz books and we spent the next hour or so discovering who knew more about who (or is it whom? sorry, i can't remember). i won't tell you who won because i think i got cheated. i'll just say that jon's questions were way easier.

so it was a good welcome back to date night. after two busy weeks of family, friends, and traveling, it's a pretty excellent thing just to spend the evening with the person you love most.

Date night goes chill

2006-12-19T14:28:00.000-06:00

Ever since last Monday night life has gone into warp speed for both Mary and me. I think we are experiencing our 15 minutes of fame as we have been asked about our engagement and wedding plans numerous times a day. I think we may just start referring friends and family to this blog over the holidays to save time. It has been exhausting but it is a good exhausting and I would not want it any other way.

So this week Mary was excited to have everything planned ahead but she made it clear that it was a night to relax and get away from all the madness for at least a short time. Things started off as we headed over the one of my favorite neighborhood bars, the Harmony Bar and Grill on Atwood. I love this place because it has for its unpretentious feel and inexpensive but good food. It also holds many good memories of enjoying a beer and discussing politics, religion and philosophy with college friends.

Last night the Harmony played host to the Madison Jazz Orchestra playing Christmas tunes and a number of jazz classics. At least that is what they said as I am not much of a jazz connoisseur. The place was comfortably full with both old and young people enjoying the free show. Mary and I enjoyed some bar food and I had a bowl of their chili which is some of the best chili I have had in a long time if you like spicy food.

Then after a couple games of cribbage, we are like an 80 year old couple already, we sat back and enjoyed the music. After the Harmony we headed over to the Holiday Fantasy of Lights over at Olin Park. It was not really that impressive but felt like the right thing to do with it being a week before Christmas and we had mentioned going there a number of times while driving past.

And then we called it a night and for the first time in past week I believe we both got to bed early and had plenty of sleep.

Note: We will be off for the next couple of weeks over Christmas and New Years. Drop us some ideas over the break if you have any. Happy holidays all.

the best date post. ever.

2006-12-17T21:35:00.000-06:00

well, this won't be the standard date night entry, but i have no idea how else to write it up ... so here's madison date night from december 11th, otherwise known as "chicago proposal night" ... read on :)

... so for those of you who don't know, jon and i have standing monday night date nights, so him... taking me out last night was nothing out of the ordinary. we had been talking about engagement, but, like any secretive boyfriend, jon has always refused to talk proposal details with me, so i've been in the dark as to the when and where ... he'd asked that i try not to think of every date night as a possible proposal night, so i've been trying REALLY hard to be calm about the whole thing.

so last week, he told me we were going to drive down to chicago for our upcoming monday night date night because he thought we ought to get outside madison just to change it up a bit. so yesterday, even though i had voices of "maybe we're getting engaged tonight, maybe we're not, but this does seem like engagement, but then again, maybe it's not," there wasn't anything bizarre about us going to uncommon ground (it's my favorite restaurant/coffeehouse/wine bar in all of chicago). it was where we first started dating, but we'd been there many times since that it wasn't out of the ordinary to go there.

jon had made reservations (for 4:30 pm which is crazy. no one eats that early in chicago), so when we got there i told him we didn't need to mention we'd made reservations because that would seem so weird when there were so many tables available. still, jon told the host casually that he had actually made reservations and the host replied casually and led us back to our table.

now uncommon ground has three rooms, one of which is used for small, intimate concerts, so when we walked in to that back room, it wasn't too bizarre that there would be white lights strung from the ceiling, and candles everywhere. but it was VERY different to have a beautiful bouquet of fresh flowers on one table and smaller, warmer candles on that table and the ones near that one, with their own flower arrangements as well.

the host sat us, and i remarked to jon how gorgeous the room was (all the while thinking, "be cool, mary. it might be, it might not be."). then the server came out with a bottle of pinot noir (we hadn't even ordered yet), followed by their gorgeous hummus plate. i told jon that he'd set the bar really, really high now for date night, and asked if it'd be okay if i couldn't ever match this. he smiled.

after the waitress left us, he said, i wanted to come back to uncommon ground because this is where we had our first date. i wanted to have the same wine, and the same hummus, but i want to do something different this time.

and then he walked around the table to my side, got down on one knee and asked me if i'd marry him.

i was speechless.

(that's a really big deal for me).

but when i found words, i said yes :)

we celebrated with incredible food and dessert and 5 or 6 staff members came in to congratulate us throughout our evening (our waitress was so wonderful ... she made sure to let the chefs know since they kept peeking through the kitchen door to see if jon had proposed yet ... yes, they ALL knew what was happening in that back room).

afterwards, jon planned for us to go to guthrie's (one of my favorite casual game-playing taverns) where he thought we could hang out, have a beer, and play cribbage (my new obsession). at that point i was, of course, happy just to be with him and celebrate just us two, but i was THRILLED to see a few of my closest friends arrive minutes later .. jon had called them much in advance to ask them to celebrate with us that night.

seriously, i am going to marry the most excellent man on the planet :)

it was an incredible night of being overwhelmed by the realization that i'd get to marry the person who's loved me better than anyone ever has. i feel pretty dang lucky.

is it worth posting?

2006-12-15T15:06:00.000-06:00

I have mixed feelings about even writing up this date night review as I know that is soon to be overshadowed by the following week. However for the sake of trying to get caught up and keep an accurate record I will sum up the night.

One of the reasons we started this blog was to challenge ourselves to think outside the box so as to avoid falling into the pattern of dinner-and-a-movie each and every week. However there are weeks that that is exactly what you want and you should not feel guilty for it. This was one of those weeks.

We had both been talking about wanting to see Borat so Mary got the tickets and, with lattes in hand, we sat down eagerly awaiting to be shocked and humored. We were not let down. This is not a movie most of you would want to take your mom to. That is unless she thinks naked men wrestling around for several minutes is enjoyable. The film is some of the best comical social commentary I have ever seen and made for good conversation over dinner ...

... which we had at Eldorado Grill on Willy Street. Eldorado Grill is one of the many locally owned restaurants that make Madison such a great town to eat in. The food we had was excellent. I enjoyed the southwestern blackened catfish while Mary ordered the grilled pork tenderloin. That, along with an appetizer of chips and salsa and our beer, was more than enough food. The place has a trendy but comfortable feel and I would guess could get pretty loud if full, but on this Monday night was nearly empty and quiet.

My only criticism of Eldorado Grill is that for Mary and me it falls into the category of "too expensive to go very often, but not nice enough to go for special occasions," therefore making it the sort of restaurant we almost never go to.

Overall it was another fun date full of laughter, good food and interesting conversation (Mary's note: interesting coversation, indeed. Borat reveals some pretty sad things about our country in an amusing format ... highly recommended).

playing cards & eating jambalaya

2006-12-11T11:55:00.000-06:00

so it's no longer my addiction to the card game spiderette that's keeping me away from the blog; this month, i'd like to blame it on, well, the month of december. and out of respect for those actually interested in what "madison date night" has to offer, i'll digress no further ...

date night began early a couple of weeks ago. whether that was intended or not is not certain, but since one coffee led to another which led to another which led to many, many games of the best card game i've played yet, we stayed for at least a couple of hours at meeting grounds on the west side.

meeting grounds is a cute little spot located in the mini-me version of greenway station. i love supporting locally owned things, i like the fireplace and furniture, and still have patience enough to wait the comparitively inordinate amount of time to get my latte (they obviously have no strict starbucks-esque practices of getting out 8 lattes per minute). i recommend it for those living on the west side (and will recommend it for those living on the east side once the speed of service picks up).

afterwards, jon and i went to gaston's on old sherman. OLD sherman. not new sherman, which is not OLD sherman (jon and i got lost). gaston's is a cajun and creole cafe situated in an old house on the near east side.

we walked through the front door and into the bar right away where patrons were watching the packers game (boring, of course, because the packers suck right now). the host took us through the bar and downstairs to a room that could seat about 20-25 people, but that night only sat us and one other table of two (until another table of 5 arrived later that evening). mardi gras beads wrapped the chairs in traditional lousianne style, and the walls were colored a bright antiquey yellow. the menu was smaller than normal (it being a monday night and all, they abbreviate the menu for the sake of the chef), but nearly every item came highly recommended.

i ordered jambalaya and jon ordered some kind of po' boy french dip sandwich (he can't quite remember but it was really delicious, as good as my jambalaya). we ordered some appetizer of shrimp, which our waiter wasn't sure they had, so he came out with baby shrimp instead. a minute later, he returned with four large jumbo shrimp after the chef informed that yes, indeed, they did have jumbo shrimp for appetizers that evening.

the food is spicy, colorful, well-priced, and delicious. for dessert, i had their creamy cheesecake with bourbon sauce. that was probably more than i should have eaten, but my food baby and i left very contented (jon doesn't eat cheesecake so when he dropped me off that night, he had to come in and grab a bowl of ice cream to satisfy his sweet tooth).

overall, gaston's is an ideal monday night dinner spot. i'm curious what it's like on the weekend and look forward to exploring their menu further one friday night with friends.

back to duck soup.

2006-11-27T13:10:00.000-06:00

jon's trying to get me off my addiction to the card game spider. and actually, it's not even spider, it's spiderette, but i'm only winning 10% of my games, and the drive to hit 11% burns inside of me. in his wish to shake my mac free of the spiderette game on my dashboard, he's "encouraged" me to log on to the internet and write up our november 4th date.

and only because our november 4th date was SO good will i leave my little addictive game of spiderette.

so, reflect back, if you will, to saturday, november 4th. a normal day. a badger game in the morning. a chill in the autumn air. the skies growing dark at 5 pm.

jon came over around 5:30 to make dinner with me and we lounged around until "date night" officially began.

for jon's date, he discovered overture center's silent film series, "duck soup cinema." according to the OC's site, "these light-hearted presentations bring back the Capitol Theater's early years as a silent-film era movie palace." a classic silent movie (in our case, they showed the great black and white "for heaven's sake") accompanied by live music played on an organ is preceeded by vaudeville style entertainment on stage, magic in the lobby and chances to win (often) extravagant door prizes.

a uw a capella group who sang a couple of beautiful songs followed a folk quartet. then we had a juggler and then giveaways. and then the movie. and i loved it all. i've watched and enjoyed at least a few silent movies in my day, but accompanied by a live organ and amongst a multi-generational audience the fun factor goes WAY up. in a world of aaron sorkin and gilmore girls shows where the dialogue is spit out so quickly that clearly it's been rehearsed a thousand times (seriously, you can't listen and talk that quickly), watching a movie without words is really refreshing.

we're definitely going back in february. check out the upcoming schedule here.

oh yeah, and make sure to get your tickets at the overture center beforehand. don't call on the phone or order over the internet because they add a $3 fee for each ticket. and if you don't get them in advance, it'll most likely be sold out. just a tip!

playing catch up

2006-11-26T14:15:00.000-06:00

As Mary has already mentioned we are way behind in our date blogs but rest assured we did not break-up. Thank you all for your many concerned emails asking how we are doing as a couple. We are now trying to catch up and the next couple entries are not in chronological order, all anal retentive readers please forgive us.

Some time ago Mary and I spent the afternoon at Barnes and Noble as I worked on homework and she did some light reading. As I remember the date was not yet planned at this point but with a little brainstorming it came together nicely. Mary decided we would have a drinks and game night. She went and picked up a couple books on bartending and after much thought and reflection decided that we would imbibe in the famous WooWoo and Michael Bolton*. Then as I continued my homework she ran over to Shopko and picked up Scene-It.

We eventually headed back to her place and ordered out from Sa Bai Thong. If you are at all a fan of Thai food then please for your sake head to one of their two locations or call for delivery. I don’t remember now what we had but I think we had Pad Thai and something spice. Memory loss sucks.

The rest of our time included taking turns making the aforementioned drinks and me trying to retain my manhood while enjoying a Michael Bolton. I am not always a big board game fan but Scene-It is fun for anyone who likes movies which is pretty much all but 4 people.

After going out to so many different restaurants and bars this date night was a nice change of pace and had the advantage of owning a new game when all was said and done.

* According to legend The Michael Bolton was created one fateful night when the incredible musical artist, Michael Bolton was out at a bar and approached the bartender and asked him to make a drink that reflected his talented and unique style. The bartended had a moment of inspiration and made an incredibly sweet and fruity drink to reflect the man. And that is how we came to have the Michael Bolton.

oh! the weary traveler!

2006-11-22T11:50:00.000-06:00

well, it's been awhile since we've written up a creative date night in madison. this happens to be for a number of reasons ...

1. jon had a birthday which we celebrated for a few days at different venues but, it being his birthday, those nights trumped what would have been considered "date night."
2. we are lazy.
3. we've been out of town and enjoying a few of my favorite spots in chicago (oh, how i miss the number of tapas restaurants and the freedom from chain spots!!)
4. my date nights have been pathetic and left jon with very little to write up. it's true. he's been kind not to post how really ridiculous i get when it's my turn to take him out. somehow, we believe that i subconsciously feel unloved because i'm not being wooed with dates created for me. i am a very selfish person and am still learning how to be confident that jon loves me even when he's not planning something for me.
5. we are lazy.

so since there's been nothing new for a month, i'd like to write up a bit on my new favorite restaurant in madison - the weary traveler.

now, granted, this was a birthday dinner, so it can't be technically classified under "date night," but to appease our audience of nearly no one, i'll write about it anyhow...

so, imagine this. it's a saturday night in november. folks are recovering from a snowstorm the night before. it's chilly chilly chilly outside, but we're midwesterners so we adjust quickly to the 30 degree drop in temperature from only days before.

jon's birthday had been celebrated with a few friends at the wine cellar at porta bella the night before (great in nearly all respects minus the manic music choices - i.e. frank sinatra and big band music for 15 minutes, then one bad 80s techno-rock-pop piece, repeat cycle). so saturday night was my time to take him out. of course, i hadn't thought of it in advance, so when we showed up at sardine, i wasn't surprised that without reservations my wait would be an hour plus.

jon and i had been wanting to check out sardine since it opened so i was looking forward to it, but the wait started me out on the wrong foot (i know, i know, it was my responsibility to make reservations, but i still begrudged them that).

"you can grab a table anywhere in bar area as they open up if you don't want to wait for the dining room spots," our hostess offered.

sure, we'd do that. of course, the bar area leaves something to be desired. it looks like a big deli, bright white lights in an open room that echos nearly every conversation (could it have been built with the rathskellar in mind? i wondered if we'd hear someone's conversations across the room if we positioned ourselves correctly). but we waited. and watched. we noticed a lot of people leaving the dining room and not so many going in, but figured our hostess would alert us if a table opened up in the dining room. perhaps there is a secret entrance for people with reservations ...

anyhow, when we at long last saw a table of four stand up, we moseyed over towards the table until a waitress blocked our path. "i'm sorry," she said. "these tables are part of the dining room."

"oh no, I'M sorry," i replied sarcastically. "they didn't mention that they saved four unmarked tables to tease waiting patrons into believing they may actually be seated soon."

ok, ok, i didn't actually say that. but i thought it. i think the conversation actually went something like this: "Oh, okay. Thanks."

details, details. the point is that that was enough to send us out of there. i'd like to try the food someday, but i'm not in any rush now. i'll wait till the thrill of it among madisonians wears off.

we hopped in the car and drove down willy street to the weary traveler. now THIS is a hot spot.

i love the dark wood, i love the service, i love the bartenders, and oh, how i love the carne asada. it sets the perfect mood. it's probably a little trendy for willy street's hippie population, but it's unique. and, in my world, unique equals fascinating. and when fascinating is good, it becomes trendy. (i haven't really thought all that, so don't hold it to me).

there are games on the back wall (oh, the days of guthries in chicago!) which says, "stay awhile. no rush. enjoy your friends. enjoy, o weary traveler." there is so little pretention. it's good. it is good as restaurants should be. in my opinion, it sets the standard for madison restaurants.

i'll add links later, but now i'm getting hungry. and it's lunchtime. later.

quivey's grove needs to invest in couches for its patrons

2006-10-16T21:03:00.000-05:00

last monday during our firefly/perkins evening, jon and i discussed moving date night out of its original monday slot. why? well, at this point, both of us work sundays which makes mondays our new sundays. and i don't know about you, but sunday evenings are intended for mega relaxation and relatively early bedtimes. plus, when the daily page's monday offerings are the same every week (i don't mean to be a snob, but metromix doesn't highlight the same activities every monday night), i get frustrated with the city's lack of creativity and feel unsupported in my attempts to embrace madison.

and so, we moved date night to friday night so that we can enjoy a relaxing monday evening (i.e. right now) and experience more of what madison has to offer on a night when it actually has more to offer ...

voila. that's the quick update.

so friday afternoon, jon calls me up at work and asks me what time he can pick me up for our night out. i love being asked out. it's something that i really appreciate now that we've been for this long. he wanted to know what time i'd get off work so he could make reservations accordingly.

i love when guys make reservations. like i told jon's roommate the other day, a man with a plan is irresistable (in most cases). there's something particularly wooing about feeling like a guy has thought about you and paid some attention to the details of the evening before you've even gotten into his car. i love it.

anyway, jon made reservations at the stone house at quivey's grove. i'd been to the stable before, but the farmhouse was known only to me as the place my sister and her husband got engaged, so i was pretty excited. of course, i was overdressed (it was just nice black pants and heels, but the friday night crowd evidently rarely wears heels) but i'd rather be overdressed than underdressed. and while i'm sorry for jon that he was wearing clothes not purchased at REI, i can't help but enjoying dressing up every now and then.

it was a busy evening at quivey's grove what with two late-staying rehearsal dinner parties upstairs, so our server - a late 60s-ish woman who evoked images of mrs. claus - apologized for the bit of a delay in taking our order. but she was so charming that if i had at all felt perturbed with the wait, i can no longer remember because her service was that good. jon and i later wondered how quivey's grove managed to attract this sort of employee ... all the waitresses (i don't think i saw one waiter) oozed a warm homey charm. impressive.

because jon had been checking out the QG website earlier, he already knew about the $25 three course meal. the deal entitled you to one glass of riesling or capital brewery's oktoberfest, an appetizer, entree and dessert. that, my friends, is one heck of a sweet deal.

we both chose heavy german meals (warm potato salad, sausage and cheese sampler, pork schnitzel, apple streudel, and rasberry torte) and were immensely satisfied. i highly recommend it.

of course, my full belly put the cabash on the remainder of the evening's agenda. jon had hoped we'd visit the high noon saloon (where, sadly, i've not been yet) to check out madison's local music scene, but my full belly had pushed me closer to exhaustion. we instead spent what little was left of the evening with my roommate and her visiting sister.

the takeaway? an eventful evening requires small courses. and remember to treat quivey's grove like thanksgiving and find a couch soon afterwards for your post-meal nap.

so much good food

2006-10-11T22:28:00.000-05:00

Now that both Mary and I are part of the working world we love lazy night more and more. We both have Mondays off thanks to being part of the strange church work week. I personally love having a day off when most people work so that I can run errands and just relax while most people are sitting in their offices wishing the weekend could be a day longer.

After doing some random shopping around town and having lunch with my brother we transitioned into date mode, whatever exactly that means. I had been commenting over the last week that I was in the mood for some good Chinese food and we had both wanted to check out the Firefly after reading/hearing about it from others. So around 7:30 we arrived at what I have come to understand as a fashionable Chicago hour to eat dinner. To go too early is to risk eating at the geriatric hour but too go too late is to act against all dieticians.

My first impression was a good one as the place was packed for a restaurant on a Monday in Madison. Mary pointed out some small things they should consider to make the room feel more welcoming which is why she will be so good at her new job.

After sitting at the bar and experiencing rather indifferent service we were seated. The meal itself was excellent. It began with I think snow peas that you ate the peas and put the pod in the provided bowl. Mary ordered the stir friend green beans and I don’t usually like green beans but these were amazing.

For entrees Mary ordered the Kung Pao chicken which upon arrival looked different then I had ever seen Kung Pao chicken but it too was excellent. If you enjoy spicy food I would recommend it. I had the macadamia nut chicken and like everything else it was great.

My only real issue with the Firefly was the service. I have lived with a few servers so I know that Monday nights are despised so maybe that was it but small things like water refills or asking how things are were all a bit slow or did not happen at all.

After dinner Mary wanted to go for dessert or drinks so we headed towards the capital. But as we were on our way we were talking about how we seem to already be in a rut of going to the capital square so we did the most natural thing one would do when tired of trying to be too metropolitan. We pulled a u-turn and headed to Perkins for some of their nasty and yet warm memory educing coffee and the every wonderful chocolate chipper and pie.

And so went the rest of our date night, sitting in a booth reliving high school memories and watching the place get busy around 11 pm with regulars and high school students.

I went home happy and I think a good five pounds heavier. (that is not really me, I have more hair)

date #7 or date night sleepwalking

2006-10-06T14:16:00.000-05:00

i know this isn't the place for talk of the day to day, but i feel like i must preface this entry with a little backstory ...

so tuesday afternoon, i was offered a job. wednesday morning, one of my new bosses asked me if could start the following day by attending a conference in illinois. i agreed, on condition that i would be able to return in time for friday night's napoleon dynamite themed junior high barn party in stoughton. i made it in by 8 p.m., stayed out till 11 or so, crashed, woke up early again to drive out to blackhawk's new building site for a tour, return downtown to pick up my little sister, and head out with her and jon to minneapolis (stopping for lunch at jon's parents' house in eau claire) for jon's sunday participation in the twin cities marathon. and that's just the nutshell summary of the past week ...

so needless to say, come monday, we were both flat-out exhausted. and because daytime napping is within the realm of impossibility for me, i was still flat-out exhausted come monday evening. so jon's evening activity was exactly what we needed.

jon chose porta bella for dinner, located just off of state street on frances near library mall. i'd been there before on a few first dates (based on my own and others' experiences, i think it's the place a guy takes a girl when he's really interested in the relationship) and always enjoyed it. but since it had been easily 6 years since i'd been, i was feeling game for the plush, velvety embrace of porta bella's rich italian atmosphere.

when dinner came, i sleepily ordered a diet coke, and listened as carefully as possible to the evening's specials (which, of course, i can't remember now. actually, i don't even know if i heard them the first time). jon and i agreed to order and share the pasta scilliano (spinach fettucine topped with italian sausage, green peppers, onions, and tomato sauce) and an 8 oz. steak special. evidently, both plates entitle you to a salad or soup, but in my sleepy deliriousness, i somehow communicated that i'd like to split jon's salad with him (i vaguely remember jon chuckling as i miscommunicated my order. boo for laughing at weary, overtired people). but i'll tell you, DO NOT get your own salad. ONE salad is plenty for two people. I swear, it's just like the Cheesecake Factory - who can, no, better yet, who should eat that much?

anyway, the food came rather quickly. whether this was because we arrived around 7 p.m. on a monday night we may never know, but the privacy and intimacy of the place separates you so much from the other customers, that you don't even feel tempted to see who's getting their food the fastest (and besides, it's my opinion that dining out should necessarily be a slow event. if you want fast, try mcdonald's).

our server was courteous, very kind in responding to my exhaustion by repeatedly coming to replace my empty glass with a new one filled to the top with little diet coke bubbles. the experience was lovely, intimate, and filling. jon and i agree on giving porta bella B+/A- (the steak wasn't ridiculously fabulous, so that lowered it a few notches. and much as i enjoy the cozy interior, there are a few interior design touches that could be tweaked to update its old-worldliness a bit). overall, really great.

afterwards, we took a walk up state street to steep and brew, where (gasp!) i've actually never been. i was an espresso royale junkie in college once cafe assisi closed over on gilman and state. and the steep and brew crowd always appeared a bit intimidating to me (the number of older men reclining in their metal chairs on the front patio, massaging their goatees, and staring into the eyes of passersby was enough to propel me towards any other coffee shop in the neighborhood). but monday night was quiet and the cold had most likely moved creepy men indoors and out of sight, so jon and i popped in to grab a drink. the baristas are great - everything a college-age campus coffee person should be. so me with my hot apple cider and jon with his americano (jon would like me to give props here to steep & brew for serving americanos at the same price as their coffees) went out again into the on-again, off-again rain and spent the rest of our evening out walking around the capitol and talking.

we headed back to my house, determined not to put in a movie we'd just end up falling asleep in front of, and sat on the couch facing each other chatting. just an hour later, i woke up to my roommate grinding coffee beans. turns out that even if daytime napping is out of the question, nighttime napping certainly is not.

and with a kiss goodnight and goodbye, date #7 quickly ended in sweet dreams.

date night starts early

2006-09-28T23:57:00.000-05:00

Mary switched this up this past week and put together a day full of activity. The plan was to head off in the morning but thanks to me taking longer than expected on the phone with my brother in India and some frustrating complications things got started a bit later. Thankfully it was a beautiful day and perfect for what was in store.

Mary had done her research and come up with a bike tour along the Military Ridge Trail that goes from Madison to Dodgeville. If you do the whole thing it is about an 80 mile round trip but neither of us likes pain that much so instead the plan was a laid back ride from Verona to Mount Horeb. We parked my car around 12:30. It was cool and sunny with a slight breeze, perfect. The biking around Madison is one of my favorite things about this town and the surrounding area and on a Monday afternoon the trail is pretty empty. So after filling up my backpack with snacks and drinks that Mary brought we hit the trail.

We took our time getting to Mount Horeb and learned that even a little wind makes the legs burn and the downtown was a welcome rest when we finally entered the land of the trolls. We took a quick stroll through the downtown area and after seeing that our lunch options were rather limited we ended up going to a café/diner whose name I can’t remember and who is not on the Mount Horeb website. We made it in just before it closed at 3 and sat down for an okay lunch from a great waitress.

After lunch it was back on the trail for a much easier return trip. Amazing what a little wind to the back does. Once back in Madison we took easy for rest of the night since I was trying to get over a cold and enjoyed some chicken noodle soup and tv premiers.

The challenge of coming up with something each week continues to be fun but now as I am writing I realize I need to start thinking about this next week. Any ideas?

date #5 or take me out to the ballgame ...

2006-09-19T13:55:00.000-05:00

if you were sitting in your office cubicle yesterday, i am sorry for you ... because it was ridiculously beautiful outside. such a change from the mondays of the past few weeks. of course, by the time jon picked me up last night, the clouds had just started rolling in and covering up the brilliant sun. jon's plan for the evening, however, allowed us to chase the sun and win some extra hours of blue sky.

at 4:30, jon and i got in the car bundled in layers with a cooler and bag of snacks in the back, fully prepared to tailgate before the brewers game at miller park that night (!).

because it was so chilly and because we were short on time, we didn't do the whole grilling thing, so jon had stopped at the store for sandwiches and oreos and fruit and beer. Really good beer (Jon's pretty experimental when it comes to finding beers he likes, and that means I get to try a lot of stuff I'd otherwise know nothing about).

i hadn't been to the brewers' ballpark since it was remodeled a few years back, so it was pretty incredible to see how much it had changed. it's really pretty impressive. it didn't hurt either that we had the best seats i've ever had at a baseball game.

now, the brewers aren't known for their winning records, but they were taking on the st. louis cardinals who, as i understand it, have a good shot at making the series. it was an eventful game with frequent runs and one homer (from the cardinals who got three in from just that one). and everytime the brewers score, they shoot fireworks off inside the park. i LOVE fireworks.

anyway, the score was 3-3 until the bottom of the ninth. jon and i had decided we'd take off after the ninth whether it was finished or not (i'd had enough beer to make me feel a little sleepy). the row of nuns directly in front of us would not leave after the ninth, we knew. they appeared to be fairly die-hard brewers fans. probably even bigger fans than the row of seven twenty-something guys right next to them. too bad they aren't allowed to wear brewers jerseys over their habits.

so we're at the bottom of the ninth, two outs, two strikes, and a guy on third. and what do the unimpressive brewers do? send it to the left, just between second and third, sending mr. third baseman home to win it for the home team.

that was awesome. it's great to see a winning game.

what's great about a brewers game is that there are usually always tickets available (it's not like they've got the blind frenzied following of the cubs) and i was excited that jon had managed to swing such great seats. and not only did he have dinner for us, but he also packed treats in a bookbag so we could munch our way through his 3 lb bag of peanuts that probably cost half of what a 1/2 lb bag of peanuts would cost you at miller park. he's so smart :)

because it only takes a little over an hour to get to milwaukee, a brewers game is a great fall date. it really doesn't matter what the game is, i think. just seeing something like that live, and getting to sit back, lick the salt off of peanuts, drink a beer, and have some relaxed conversation is a sweet way to spend time together. i kind of wish the season wasn't coming to an end so quickly. and i want to go back in the summer when the top's open, too.

so to sum it up:
eating dinner in the car, bundled up = love it.
miller park = very clean, very spacious, lots of good seats, want to go back to see what it looks like when the ceiling is pulled back.
brewers surprisingly good show against cardinals = A+
city of milwaukee = rocks.
date night = rocks even harder.

Date #4 or Are all Mondays this cold and wet?

2006-09-15T15:20:00.000-05:00

It has been a crazy week for me at work with everything starting up again, so I am a little behind on getting the latest date night blog up. Sorry for being late.

This past Monday was another not-so-pleasant day of cold rain in what is becoming a weekly pattern. However Mary put together a great night of good food, wine, and live music. We were both coming off a long weekend of being around people all the time so I was excited to have some time for just the two of us to catch up and relax.

We started off at Natt Spil on King Street. I had never been there before and was excited to check it out after seeing it a number of times on people’s top 10 lists of places to eat in Madison. It can be a bit hard to find your first time since it has no sign out front and is in a building that does not appear to house a restaurant. But since we had the address and we can both read, we found it without a problem and stepped out of the cold, wet night into the atmosphere that is Natt Spil. It's a great little place with dim overhead lighting and small, lit candles all around the room. On a Monday night it had the feeling of regulars only, yet our server was friendly and helpful. The menu is small which both Mary and I appreciate because it cuts down on the time spent being indecisive. Also like most Madison bars/restaurants, the beer list is good and, even better, they had Bell’s Oberon which is a personal favorite (sadly, our server informed us they were out of it that night).

Mary ordered one of the personal pizzas which are just fancy enough to feel unique but not over-the-top so people like me feel like the place is trying too hard. I had the pork sandwich. Both were excellent. After our meal and laid back conversation we headed out to Café Montmartre which is only a short walk away. Monday nights are half-price wine nights there so we took our time and enjoyed an amazing chocolate dessert along with a great bottle of wine while listening to the live band that comes in every other week. Café Montmartre has an easy going feel and seems to attract a wide variety of people. I used to think of this place as for trendy artist types only but this is not the case - at least not on Monday nights.

Overall it was a great evening with much better food and drink then my past Monday, but you can’t win every week, right? Plus half the fun is trying new things, good or bad and experiencing them together.

Date #3 or why restaurant websites lie.

2006-09-05T13:07:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning, as I anticipated last night's date night, I googled the weather for Madison next week, so I could start preparing for my next Monday night. Rain, it said. Wet, rainy and temps in the low 60s.

How is it possible that every week but our first would be so blue?

Confident, of course, that Jon would pull something lovely together, I began panicking a bit about my second date. Searching the internet for romantic rainy date ideas is an absolutely absurd waste of time. If, however, you're jobless like me and have time to "waste," you should visit www.lovingyou.com for "ideas." For example, "D" advises, "On a boring, rainy afternoon when you and your love are sitting in front of the TV, turn it off, stand up, grab their hand and go outside. Give your love a big hug, lean back and look into their eyes deeply and tell them you love him/her, then kiss your love passionately...." What I really appreciated about this suggestion was all the very useful details. I'm not sure if I'd understand what to do unless "D" pointed out to me that I'd eventually need to "stand up" and that if I'd then want to be in the rain, I'd need to "go outside." Very useful.

Of course, other suggestions involved so little detail to make me think that perhaps the couple was quite literally comotose: "Spend the whole time cuddling on the couch; kissing and hugging." Does anyone realize that this is probably what Charlie Bucket's grandparents' relationships initially looked like? Look what happened to them! 24 hours spent cuddling and their muscles start to cramp and they're fated to spend the rest of their lives in beds opposite each other, unable to get up for even the smallest activity. Sad. That is a dangerous suggestion, Charli'sAngel.

I digress. The point is rainy day ideas for romantic dates are few and far between (please read this as "I need ideas for next week STAT!"). And after my battle with finding something cool last week, and knowing Jon was facing the same thing yesterday, I began feeling a little defeated for my upcoming time.

The morning came and went, and when Jon called me to let me know he was planning on running around a bit to check things out for the night, I not so subtlely let it be known that I wouldn't mind the surprise being fully taken out of the night if it meant I could hang out with him that afternoon.

Now, to be fair, I already knew much of what was coming. Sunday night, Jon consulted his friend Matt for rainy day ideas, and even for as much as we'd tried setting ourselves up to avoid the dinner-and-movie fallback, all signs pointed to just such an evening. Matt mentioned borrowing a projector and ordering take-out and curling up to watch movies with the rain pouring outside. Great idea.

What I didn't know was that Jon got more input from his running group, one of whom suggested he bring the projector to a park and set up a movie watching picnic there inside a shelter, so we could be outside, but out of the rain.

To be brief, we scoped out a few park shelters, took into account the fact that it was Labor Day weekend, and considered the chilly temps, and decided to bring it inside instead. Like I've said before, Jon rolls with the punches well and sticks to the overall vision even better ("it really doesn't matter what we do," he says, "it's just that we're doing it together"). So we picked up a few movies at Blockbuster - Friends with Money and Tsotsi - and headed back to watch the movies on the wall.

Unforunately, the downer of the evening might have to be the discovery that Madison Magazine's Best of Madison Reader's Poll is a complete sham. After being told by our Blockbuster register lady that Madison has no good take-out ("There's nothing," she said. "Especially not Chinese. I mean, I'm from Chicago and nothing here compares." You can imagine Jon's reaction), we purused some online directories for take-out and came upon the Reader's Poll which crowned Chang Jiang with the bronze medal in take-out.

We ordered $20 worth of Chinese take-out, asked for the two free egg rolls the website said we'd get when purchasing that much, and then obliged when the man asked for directions (his restaurant was about 5 minutes from us). When he arrived, I happily gave him his $25, adding that we were excited to try Chang Jiang after seeing it had been recommended in Madison Magazine. He looked at me, puzzled, and said, "No, that's not us." I figured I hadn't been clear, tried to express it again, but he shook his head, "No, thank you. But no, I don't know it."
"On Madisonmagazine.com, you're listed there!"
"Madisonmagazine.com? Oh, I don't know. Thank you." And with that, he took off.

Turns out there is no way in hell that Chang Jiang could win any prize. Unless there is a competition for beef that most closely resembles a small turd coated in thick brown paste and tastes like a dense ball of gelatin.

Gag.

The chicken fried rice is bland to say the least (indeed, it almost made me question if I was sick and unable to taste or smell). The beef sesame, well, see above. And the crab rangoon was okay in the middle, but nasty oily and crunch on the outside. Jon tried a bit of everything, and then in hopes of redeeming the pathetic meal catered by Chang Jiang, asked me to pass the egg rolls.

No egg rolls.

We ate what we could bear, and threw the rest away.

I checked Chang Jiang's website this afternoon, and it turns out the free egg rolls come with pick-up only. Of course, it also turns out that delivery should be free (ours added a $1.75 fee).

So there you have it. The long story short is Chang Jiang = bad, Friends with Money = B- for its lack of originality, Tsotsi = A- for its beautifully told story of redemption and accompanying soundtrack, and Time with Jon = A+ because I just really, really like him.

P.S. Please, please send me your ideas for next Monday. Help spark the creative juices and leave a comment. Thank you :)

Date dos, 8/25/06

2006-08-31T14:09:00.000-05:00

(FYI, after talking about it we have decided to write about each other’s dates but if we want to write about something that did not go all that well then we will write about our own.)

The weather on Monday was less than great so Mary planned indoor things this time around. After spending the afternoon together running around town, Mary finally let me know what the plan for the evening was. One of the things we both enjoy is good food and trying new places to eat and Madison is a great place to live for a wide variety of restaurants. Also Mary knows that I love dessert.

Growing up, dinner was never really done until after dessert - and it has been hard getting rid of that habit or even wanting to. There is just something about closing the eating experience with even a small sweet that feels so right. So we headed to Hubbard Avenue Diner for dinner and pie. We both had the chicken chili which was good, especially if you like rich, cheesy soups. The soup along with the cornbread was a ton of food but we fought against better judgment and finished off our time there with a slice of turtle pie and ice-cream.

After dinner we walked around Middleton for a while and chatted about whatever came to mind. Then it was off to the Ale Asylum on the east side of town. Being a west-sider, I don’t really know the east side anymore or what it has to offer but I would definitely recommend this place if you like good beer, free pool and a relatively quiet bar. The rest of the night was spent enjoying a couple of Belgian style brews and playing cards and pool (Mary's note: I had the Madtown Nutbrown which I thoroughly enjoyed, but Jon's delight in the Tripel Nova - Ale Asylum's Belgian Tripel Summer Seasonal - fully won me over).

So far the idea of a date night has been a great thing for our relationship and a fun way to try and come up with creative ways to spend time together. It also has been interesting how many people I have talked to who do or have done the same sort of thing.

Date #1, 8/21/06

2006-08-30T14:25:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure yet if Jon should blog about the dates he plans or about the dates I plan, but since he's in a meeting right now, I suppose I'll start it off ...

So part of making our date night a casual time for the two of us to be together requires that we not stress ourselves out about the planning. That said, we've invited a bit of the element of surprise to this ... so far. I mean, we're only two dates in, and we may find that we're just too tired to keep "surprising" each other each week. But for now, we haven't elected to give anything away until the day of the date.

All I knew last Monday was that we'd be outside eating and that Jon would pick me up at 6:00. Of course, last Monday also happened to be the day that I met Bethany, the girl who recently became my roommate. Because I wanted Jon to meet her before she left and before we took off for our first date, I delayed Jon's plans for the evening.

Which reminds me, I really like how easy-going and patient he is. But that's just a side note here. Anyway ...

After Bethany left, Jon grabbed the bottle of wine I'd been chilling for him for the past few days, and we left, sweatshirts and jackets in tow.

Out at his car in front of my apartment, Jon emptied the pinot grigio into a Nalgene, and packed it in the cooler of other items he had with him. We drove out to Hoyt Park on the near West side, pulled grocery bags of goodies and other picnic-y items out of the trunk, walked down the trail and parked ourselves at an appropriate fire pit (Jon will have to fill you in on what exactly makes a good fire pit, because a lot of this is still beyond me).

We moved a picnic table closer to our "oven" and while I poured wine, Jon built a fire to toast our pita appetizers to dip in hummus. Yum. I love hummus.

For dinner, Jon brought pepperoni, cheese, pizza sauce, green peppers, onions, spices, and individual pizza pie crusts. I have to admit that I kind of didn't expect too much from pizzas cooked over a campfire, but wow. Delicious. Two thumbs up. I'd come back for more (see a similar recipe here).

And then dessert too! Tortillas warmed with cinnamon and sugar. Seriously good meal.

Jon will have to give you the final price tag on the evening, but I assure you it was worth every penny.

Of course, our being late meant that we couldn't drive up to an overlook to watch the sun set like Jon had originally planned, but like I said, Jon is just the kind of guy who can roll with changes. Maybe the best part about the night was that his choice for our first Monday night was something that he loves doing and does well. The skies were clear and the temp cool for a summer evening, and getting to be outside all night with someone I love is easily a great date.

An Introduction

2006-08-30T12:18:00.000-05:00

so here's the low down. madison has all these great websites featuring nightlife guides, restaurant picks, summer festivals and the like, but what they all lack (as far as i can tell) is a date guide.

here's what i mean: jon and i started dating last august, kicking off nearly a year of long distance dating. i'd been living in chicago while jon was up in madison and so weekends together tended towards the dramatic. you know, i'd choose a restaurant in chicago i loved, then head to a pub, maybe plan a day's excursion in the indiana dunes. it was great because we'd been able to plan for each other's visit a week in advance. and still, we wished to be in the same city so we could just hang out with each other casually.

fast forward to summer 2006. i moved up to madison. that's a longer story. you can read the whole dramatic tale on my blog later. as it relates to this blog, however, jon and i found ourselves juggling his bizarre work schedule (gone for a week, here for a week, studying insanely for classes) and being together with friends at a cabin, visiting family, and generally just bumming around.

so does just bumming around with someone constitute a date? i would say no. you can ask jon for his opinion, but if at least one person in a relationship of two thinks you're not going on dates, well, you're not going on dates.

with fall approaching and jon's calendar revealing how our time together will change (i don't say that to point the finger at jon for having a busy load; really, i'd like to have a schedule, too, i just don't have a job yet. but that's another story again), we decided to pick a ...

(wow, thanks to bret who saw my need for a glittered word and found a website that does it. this post is SO much better now. thank you!!!)

anyway, so the premise is that we'll set aside one night a week that's just for us. and each week we'll take turns taking the other out. it doesn't have to be dramatic (i.e. we can't take hot air balloon rides every monday), but it shouldn't be lazy (dinner and a movie at home is great, but not every monday. we're more creative than that).

we've only had two so far, but it was the second one that inspired this blog. and yes, that's because it was my turn.

i'd expected that i'd be better at this. i don't know why, i guess just because i really like planning things. but even with a week to think about what we could do, i found myself desperately grasping at straws on monday afternoon. i even put a few calls in to friends who'd creatively dated in madison once upon a time. i stopped by my sister and brother-in-law's house to glean some information. i needed something good. and why in the world could i find nothing online?

voila madisondatenight.blogspot.com.

we'll share what we do monday nights, and hopefully you'll comment with some suggestions, too. and of course, we'll provide links to the things we did and give you a general price range for the evening.

fun fun :)

so with out further ado, we hope you enjoy these madison date night diaries ...