I continued my whirlwind tour of Chicago with a quick side trip to The Badger State. The nanosecond I crossed over from Illinois to Wisconsin, I could actually feel myself getting fatter. I wonder if any other state can make that claim.
Milwaukee is about 90 minutes from Chicago. Well, two and a half hours if you count the unrelenting traffic from the city. We started our day with an early lunch with my good friend Anne State. Anne is a gypsy anchorwoman. She’s akin to a M*A*S*H unit, ready to move at a moment’s notice and always on to bigger and better.
We had lunch at an artsy-fartsy area near the river. Every city has a warehouse district, but Milwaukee has made amazing use of their space. It’s urban, trendy and features a hodge-podge of shoppes and restaurants. We ate a place called “Swig”. I may have had the best Mojito of my life there. Besides rum, it was made with pure Wisconsin honey. I would have ordered two, but the one of the buttons on my jeans popped.
Happens.
Once you exit the arts and farts, you’re on your own, however. The only tasteful and cultural thing I could find (that didn’t involve cheese curds) was at Milwaukee’s Art Museum. It’s this massive lakefront structure that features 20,000 works of art. Its new Quadracci Pavilion (built in 2001) is this amazing vaulted, cathedral-like space. It’s like being inside a giant white space egg. Or block of Swiss cheese … if you want to impress the natives. (And believe me … I don’t think the natives are hard to impress.) They had an extensive display dedicated to the works of architect Frank Lloyd Wright. I would have gone inside, but there were eight different high schools touring the exhibit — and I quickly lost patience.
Happens.
After leaving the lakefront area, we opted for something a little less highbrow. So we did we any good deranged out-of-towner (or in Christian’s case: foreign visitor) would do. We toured the Jelly Belly Factory in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin.
I don’t have the time or the energy to go in to the 36-step process of making Jelly Belly Jelly Beans, but the tour explained it all in painstaking detail. I did remember a few random tidbits from the train ride around the plant. There was something about Ronald Regan. And, also, the bright green Kiwi Jelly Belly was the most difficult flavor to perfect. Other than that … it was just a big blur of sugar-induced nonsense. At the end of the train ride, you get to visit the “Sampling Room” where you can gorge yourself on Jelly Belly’s … one at a time. (Do you realize how hard it is to be a gluttonous pig when they only give you one Jelly Belly to eat? I nearly killed someone.)
Then it was off to the Cheese Castle. It’s actually up the road from the Jelly Belly Factory. The Cheese Castle’s original location is a rundown shanty off the interstate. They just opened a giant new mega-cheese-plex behind it. You want Gouda? They got Gouda! They feature 27 different kids of cheddar cheese too. Plus, there’s a dude there willing to talk about the subtle nuances of Cheddar for as long as you’re willing to listen. And, again, there were plenty of free samples.
Needless to say, I didn’t eat dinner that night. After a robust lunch, I still managed to gorge myself on Jelly Belly Jelly Beans (mind you, ONE at a time) and sampled 41 different kinds of cheese. I was constipated for two days after that. Now I know what 94% of Wisconsin-ers must feel like on a daily basis.