A hodgepodge listing of everything that’s truly different but maybe baked porage follows, and we’re not talking about a connect-the-dots or puzzle-pieces contest or one on Trump’s foreign policy, haha, rather what I saw and what will be seen around town in recent times. Mostly, one of each.
Think you have the world’s, or more likely local church’s, best grilled cheese sandwich, (coming from the land of, specifically, well curded and curdled milk and honey?) Fry it to the test on Saturday.
No this is not an autumn chili cookoff, or char the best burger, or even a poker run or polka mass, although there are plenty of them to go around lately. It’s what you might put on them. (If you’re Donald Trump it’s beyond fete in price and obscure tasting, but for sure not French, and he and/or Vance just might be an “Apprentice” style celebrity judge. Seriously folks, there are others of what is more regional prominence. Past what you would see at prom, to get obscure myself.)
Anyway, to now go as billed, the big cheese will be broiled and baked to a perfectly melted (we hope) bit of crisp, and they’ll be judged on that quality, contest on Aug. 22 from 3-7 p.m. Consult your fridge and enter, as spaces are limited.
It’s all at Hillcity Church on — aged like cheese? — Old Hwy. 35, and will feature “celebrity” judges from the local fire and police departments, the Hudson High School principal and area business owners, some we think of restaurants or would that show bias? Who is The Big Cheese, and not just a quarter-pounder? They will grill what goes between rye and sourdough, that we think we know, and white and wheat. Cheddar alas, also is sure to be a staple. Dismiss Swiss? Hey, this is Wisconsin. Which denomination of church will prove the cheesiest? That could be like a border battle, and maybe even more highly contested. Schism anyone? And this is not a Friday, rather, to use biblical lingo, and then Saturday came, the next day. And then on Sunday, they rested, the next and final day. The seventh day since food prep started? That would have to have been a Monday, since by rule, you do not work on the sabbath. But back to the contest itself. Last supper? No, they just gotta, quickly as they’ll only have a few hours, before the next sabbath, wash the dishes left over from the leftovers. Stow all that remains of them in the fridge, as is with the food, (but will not forever shall be, as even cheese is not without end and eventually gets moldy, like a rolling stone gathering moss) we go back to the beginning. (But not After Forever. Or Remember Tomorrow.) I bow before the hardcore Black Sabbath and other bands fans, and theological junkies too, who will get the veiled references here. And not played backwards.
We gotta max out on Max’s, with our coverage, as they are building a bigger social house, digging what’s like a ditch to connect not dots, but the main building they bought from Ziggy’s and another one they bought from Hop N Barrel brewery. Over the last couple of weeks, the level that the construction workers work on is up a floor or two, from excavating what looked like it would be a lower level, to doing masonry-type work on the higher-then-one-floor cream-colored existing east wall that used to house big metal brewing vats. Yes, there is one part that exists, and one that is being built, like two big and wide halls. This adds a bit of mystery. How will it be made? And into what? As this is a music hall, this is what the Doobie Brothers sang, trying hard to re-create what has yet to be created … But hey, that Megadeth music video they created looked a lot this way.
I have an idea, that would save money on making this addition, and earn more by, I think, bringing in more patrons and cashing in on the mystery value. As people would wonder while they sip, just what is this link that cannot currently be seen inside, across the way — and in hidden-from-view in the back — from both a secondary lounging room and even further away the one that houses the main bar rail, along the far south wall.
Make the adjoining hallway, call it a portal or pathway, alley or avenue, that cannot be seen, and has even additional tasty treasures when crossing into the other full-size building, into something along the lines of, and keeping the mystery of, The Safe-House bar in Milwaukee. You know, the one where Studio 54-like you have to know a code and give it to an attendant or some such thing to gain entry and break on through to the other side, which The Doors-like could be made deep and wide. Purchase a drink there, and then to go back to where you had been previously and buy a beer there, you have to find your way to the place I was before, and a maze-like quality could be used, like in Hotel California. Where next to the color of cream exterior doors, the shadows run from themselves. And the attendant could be kindness in the hard crowd, from the old (white) room now forgotten.
Work also continues on building a credit union branch on The Hill, adding another business to the formerly flailing east side. One wonders, if they took out a construction loan from themselves to finance the project, the best way to get a competitive interest rate? Just kidding, as that would be like insider trading.
Seriously, continuing a more than decade-long tradition, there are even more colorful chalk renderings on downtown sidewalks, the first couple beckoning visitors to take the adjoining doors into businesses, the next on a massive concrete platform, inviting patrons of the local library to have their kids play in a special sandbox. However, one massive one drawn in front of a house, about 30 feet wide, has also drawn the online ire of a neighbor. Both things seem a bit childlike.