It’s the start of a new week, which means it’s time to look back at the weekend that was.

We were both pretty worn out after last week. It had been a rough final week for takaza at his old job, though he received some really nice going-away gifts from his boss and cow-orkers, including $120 in Best Buy gift cards. Dan slept in on Saturday and I slept rather late for me (8:30!). We finally got motivated at around 1 PM and decided to head up to Milwaukee. After a bite to eat at a nice little burger joint in Spring Grove, we headed off to Mukwanago, Wisconsin, home of the Elegant Farmer.

I had seen a writeup about the Elegant Farmer on Roadfood and we figured it would be worth a stop. And it was! Aside for the usual tack knick-knacks, they had some truly amazing apple pie. We picked up a caramel apple pie, along wit a few other items. Then it was off northwards up to Spice Work in Wauwatosa. Interesting story: Spice Work is run by Bill Sr. and Ruth Penzey. Their sons, daughters, and in-laws run Penzeys Spices and The Spice House. Depending on who you ask, there may be some acrimony between the latter two companies, but that’s neither here nor there – each has its own specialty and reason for coming back. Spice Work is interesting because it’s a teeny-tiny (300 square feet) shop jam-packed with spices. We talked briefly with Ruth Penzey and she was a very sweet lady. All of the staff there was extremely nice and engaging, and they loaded us up with some nice freebies with our purchases. Neatest new purchase: Hickory smoke salt. That’ll be great on burgers!

On the way home, we stopped at Best Buy in Gurnee to pick up a shiny new toy for Takaza. Dan had been collecting Best Buy gift cards for the past few months, and finally put them all together (along with a well-timed 10% off sale) to get a 50% discount on the camera he wanted: A Canon Digital Rebel XTi. We disappointed the salesdrone by not buying any accessories or service plans, though – I checked the CompactFlash prices on Amazon as we were standing in the store and they were about 40% cheaper. Once we got home, we put in an order to Amazon for a tripod, a remote trigger, and two 4 GB CompactFlash cards, all of which will be here tomorrow. Yay Amazon Prime! Before anyone asks, we haven’t really looked into getting other lenses – probably the next one will be a zoom lens, and the one Dan is looking at runs $700. We’ll hold off on that one for a bit.

On Sunday, I wanted to make a test recipe that I was supposed to evaluate for Cooks Illustrated. Well, of course that wasn’t all – I mean, a nice soup was to be a good accompaniment. roho and genet brought some tasty munchies and steviemaxwell and magicpaw graciously accepted our last-minute invitation. I made a Pizza Blanco with Portabella Mushrooms and Taleggio Cheese (or I would have had I been able to find taleggio – instead I found an excellent washed-rind Wisconsin artisan cheese that was an excellent substitute). Additionally, I made the Hearty Tuscan Bean Stew from the latest issue of Cooks Illustrated. Imagine The Olive Garden’s Zuppa Tuscana, only homemade and ten times better. Yum! The Pizza Blanco was nothing short of amazing – the crust was focaccia-like, only thicker and with a nice chew. The Petite Frere and portabellas were topped just before serving with a mixture of fresh parsley, fresh garlic, and lemon zest. Wow! What a great flavor combination. We opened two bottles of wine as well and everyone ate more than their fill, particularly with the delectable caramel apple pie from the day before for dessert!

This week is looking to be pretty crazy again. I’ve got all-day training on Wednesday and Thursday of this week and next week (a fascinating refresher of statistics, which I detested when I took it 13 years ago), and somewhere in there I need to wrap up my current project by Friday. It’s all part of the job, though.

And now, I’m off to bed!