Linda Falkenstein
March has prompted for many of us some poignant recollections of last year at this time, and more than a little bit of soul-searching. It also meant that I finally got around to unpacking most of the material from my Isthmus desk that I took home in the middle of last March.
At that time, I threw the most immediate materials — notes for stories in progress — in a tote bag and dumped most of the other files in bankers boxes. Piles of old copies of the paper that I kept for various reference purposes — like “What was in Dining last year?” — I shoved into another big IKEA tote. This stuff spent a month or so sitting in my kitchen and the rest of quarantine in a pile in my basement.
Last week I finally sorted through the issues and got rid of duplicates, and took the files out of the bankers boxes and arranged them in an empty filing cabinet. One thing I found was my manila folders of Madison restaurant menus.
Some of these materials pre-date my tenure on the dining desk — a menu from the old Pinckney Street Hideaway used to have pride of place under the glass on the Isthmus page boards on the first floor of the old office at 101 King St. I know I got rid of some menus when we moved from King Street over to 100 State St. in 2015. Too bad. Heaven knows — as a people we should keep everything…but as the comedian Steven Wright says, “You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?”
I am scanning some of the older and beloved bygone menus in hopes that you too will enjoy looking at them once again. Reading the dishes listed, I remembered — or think I remember — the pineapple muffins at Cafe Palms, a special of a lamb and raisin burrito at Taqueria Gila Monster, the veggie melt at the Radical Rye, and the incredible cheeses at Relish Deli, before there was a Fromagination. Click the image to expand and start the slide show.
