Marquette Waterfront Festival + Ivory Room + Tornado

Sorry I'm so laggardly in posting this. The Marquette Waterfront Festival was one of the first festivals of the season, and I thought I'd posted about it. Alas, the other day, I found this half-complete post hunkered down in my drafts folder. Eh. It happens. My favorite band that day was The Pimps of Joytime from Brooklyn; they evoked Prince and Sly and the Family Stone.

Dating Advice

I would've thought these things were obvious, but I was sorely mistaken.

So, a little online dating advice for attempting to snare the Ricapants:

-Do not just write "Hi. How are you" unless you want "I am fine. How are you?" as a response. C'mon, you can at least glance at my profile and ask a simple, substantial question about its content. Or go with something basic like: "This weekend, I'm excited about doing X. What are your plans for the weekend?"

-A brief "Hey there" or "You are beautiful" will not elicit a response.

-Do not start contact with the following messages:

• "Submissive?"* (that's all that was in the msg.)
•  "Hey, I'm not from here, but I'm in town for an impromptu trip and was wondering if you'd like to get together."* (translation: I'd like to get laid while I'm in town.)
• "You turn me on. Let's f*** hard."*

-Don't have all of your pics be with your ex-girlfriend.

-Don't ask to be FWB and then say, "It could be fun" when I refuse.

-Sexting is not suitable courtship behavior.

-Take a little time to fill in your profile a bit and add a few photos. Without those pieces, I assume  that you are hopelessly lazy and/or are a twelve-year-old boy just messing around.

-Profiles with shirtless pics, pics with a motorcycle, pics of other body parts, and pics with dead critters will not elicit a response.

*real messages that I've received

Art and Tacos in Milwaukee

I made a sojourn to Milwaukee again recently to see the 30 Americans exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum before it closes on September 8. It was amazing to see the work of Iona Rozeal Brown, Kara Walker, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and many other African American artists in person. (The works are all from 1970 to the present and address themes of race, class, gender, sexuality, or history.)

The ubiquitous shot of the museum's wings

Lunch at BelAir Cantina consisted of tacos and beans and rice. If you order three tacos, beans and rice are included. I had the ninja pig (crispy, hoisin-glazed pork topped with cucumber and jicama slaw), the carnitas (crispy pork and pico de gallo), and the black bean and corn, despite my call for fish tacos. (Their fish/seafood offerings were a little disappointing: variations with lobster and shrimp, chipotle mahi mahi, grilled tilapia with mango, and breaded and fried tilapia. Tilapia is such a bland fish, I'm not a huge fan of breaded and fried fish or chipotle, and shrimp and mahi mahi are often overfished.)

Mallards baseball + Banzo

Fattoush

I finally made it to a Mallards game. Beckie, Will, and I stopped at Banzo for dinner beforehand. I had the fattoush special and a side of falafel. Beckie has the falafel sandwich, and Will opted for the falafel platter. The fattoush (Levantian bread salad) was light and wonderful and featured more veggies than I expected. Their falafel is good. This time, it was a bit too dark, and it hasn't made me forget the Caspian Cafe's version. Alas, the Caspian Cafe has been gone for quite some time.

Falafel platter

Laura's July Visit

Laura tore herself away from her little Penny for a few days recently. As a special treat, we indulged in Muramoto, choosing à la carte items from the Restaurant Week menu, as well as favorites from the regular menu.

Seaweed salad

Chilled oyster trio

We started with the seaweed salad and the chilled oyster trio. From the left is the Thai relish, the cucumber granita, and the red wine mignonette threads. Our favorite by a far cry was the Thai relish. The other two were bland by comparison, but the Thai relish had the just right amount of garlic and spice. I wish we could've had all three with the Thai relish topping.

Oshkosh

Kristine and I ventured to Oshkosh for a conference not that long ago, and we were pleasantly surprised to find a Filipino restaurant called Manila Resto near our hotel. You don't often come across Filipino food, so we gave it a try. They also had sushi, and while we didn't try it, we heard rave reviews from other diners. We started with a fresh spring roll, or lumpia in Indonesia and the Philippines. (Fresh seems a bit redundant because I think of spring rolls as unfried. That's not always the case, though. Here's Wikipedia's take on the fried vs. unfried debate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_roll). The roll was nice, but the sauce could've taken down the sweet a notch and added more spice.

Fresh spring roll

Lumpia, or spring roll

Summer Dinner

Jim and Mike visited my humble abode for a lovely dinner earlier in the summer. The boys brought a Southwestern chopped salad with cilantro dressing that I'd seen on Pinterest. The Garden Grazer is responsible for the recipe. This is the first time I've encountered it, but it boasts some wonderful vegetarian recipes.

Southwestern chopped salad

Southwestern Chopped Salad with Cilantro-Lime Dressing

SALAD

Ingredients

Large head of romaine
15 oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 large orange bell pepper
1 pint cherry tomatoes
2 cups corn (I used frozen, thawed)
5 green onions
Creamy Cilantro-Lime Dressing