1. Check Out the Ornament Trail Downtown
BRIANNA SCHUBERT, ASSOCIATE DIGITAL EDITOR
Have you been Downtown recently? Did you notice a giant ornament or two while you were frolicking about? Well let me tell you that those ornaments are part of a huge installation around Downtown called the Ornament Trail. You can read more about it here, and there’s a map online here. I’m excited to venture out and find as many as I can this season!
2. Bake a Breakfast Cake
ANN CHRISTENSON, DINING EDITOR
Another week, another cake. This time around, I was drawn to the idea of a breakfast cake. Hearty, not too sweet. Instagram hooked me up with this jam-swirled almond flour number from the food blog Cook Republic – a cake made with olive oil, polenta, maple syrup and any flavor jam you like. I always have about three kinds and used some strawberry-rhubarb made last summer. This cake is dense and rustic, but not too heavy. I used cornmeal, which has a finer grain than polenta but I otherwise followed the recipe exactly. I love the fruity sweetness of the jam – next time I make it, I’ll use the cherry jam I got in Door County.
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
3. Go Drink Some Great Beer!
CHRIS DROSNER, EXECUTIVE EDITOR
The biggest beer week of the year, at least in Milwaukee, is nigh, and I felt like a … well, middle-aged man in a liquor store reading Dan Murphy’s preview of this week’s doings. As much of a beer guy as I am, I’ve never been to Lakefront Brewery’s Black Friday bacchanalia – getting up before dawn after a day already replete with indulgence is a bridge too far for me – but there’s so much going on. And you don’t even have to wait until Friday. The Fermentorium’s Sweater Weather releases drop Wednesday as do Supermoon Beer’s triumvirate of new beers. But circled on my calendar is the pair of shuttles scooting people around town without the need to drive. One circuit is the Riverwest breweries of Lakefront, Company, Amorphic, Gathering Place and Black Husky (10 a.m.-3 p.m.) and another spans the center of the city with Dead Bird, Pilot Project, Eagle Park, Explorium Third Ward, Wizard Works, Component/Torzala/New Barons, Indeed, 1840 Brewing and Broken Bat (1-5 p.m.). Watch your intake, drink water and tip your driver.
4. Get Your Thanksgiving Dinner Locally
BRIANNA SCHUBERT, ASSOCIATE DIGITAL EDITOR
I’ve never hosted an official Thanksgiving dinner. But I did, however, co-host a friendsgiving earlier this month and couldn’t believe how much work it was. And I only cooked half the dinner! If you’re like me and cooking that much food for that many people feels overwhelming, maybe you want to try ordering Thanksgiving from one of these local restaurants. Some of them have to-go dinners and others let you dine there. Either way, get your reservations or orders in ASAP. It’s nearly go-time!
5. Read Radical Chic by Tom Wolfe
ARCHER PARQUETTE, MANAGING EDITOR
In 1970, legendary white-suited writer Tom Wolfe wrote this devastating feature in The New Yorker about a swanky party Leonard and Felicia Bernstein threw for the Black Panthers at their luxurious Park Avenue duplex. The title of the piece, in many ways, says it all. Wolfe dives into the way certain folks in the higher echelons of wealth and society align with ideological causes largely in order to achieve status. It’s a phenomenal work of journalism, with Wolfe’s prose expertly dissecting the positively delicious manner in which the status-conscious wealthy spoke at the time. Wolfe’s eye for detail draws out the self-aggrandizing self-righteous silliness and hypocrisy of the occasion. Just one example: the partygoers munch on “Roquefort cheese morsels rolled in crushed nuts” served by silent waitstaff, while discussing the need for a revolution to overthrow the powerful and “bourgeois.” Hilarious, infuriating, thought-provoking, etc. The story is one of my favorite examples of great magazine writing – a must-read.
