Wisconsin cheese

27th October, 2011

So Wisconsin is famous for cheese. It is known as the Dairy State. So I had a pretty "cheesy" day today. Before the cheesiness I went to the State Capitol Building in Madison. It is the biggest state capitol in the USA and it is a nice building. It is built in an X shape and had a huge dome on top. No building can be taller than the Capitol so there are no skyscrapers in Madison. The building is about 100 years old and is full of expensive marble from throughout the world and nice paintings. The observation deck gives you a sense of where Madison is situated (in between two lakes).

After the tour of the Capitol, I wandered around and happened upon a cheese store called fromagination (terrible name). The woman there was very nice. She gave me lots of free samples. She was impressed when I said that I visited Gouda in Holland (as she has never been outside of Wisconsin). I didn't tell her that she was pronouncing 'Gouda' incorrectly. I found out that chedder is what they mostly produce in Wisconsin but gouda is also popular. They had a selection of international cheeses as well, including cashel blue, manchego and pecorino cheeses from Pienza (which I tried in Pienza this summer and loved). I tried a sample of a 2 year old cheddar and bought a 12 year old cheddar. It was really good.

Next I walked down State St. It is a semi-pedestrian street full of fair trade cafes and ethnic restaurants. You can get a sense of the progressive environmental and gay-friendly Madison I read about in my guide book. State St. continues to the very large university (over 42,000 students in a city of 230,000). Like University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin is like its own city. I ate lunch in "Fair Trade Cafe", which was good (apart from the fair trade part). I saw a lot of posters, t-shirts and bumper stickers which say "Recall Walker". Scott Walker is the controversial governor of Wisconsin that wants to limit the power of unions and freeze public sector wages. He seems like a great guy to me but he is not popular in "progressive" Madison so people want to recall elections.

I visit the Veterans Museum, Wisconsin Historical Museum and Museum of Contemporary Art. The Veterans Museum was what you would expect. The Historical Museum was a little disappointing, though I did buy a state flag. Me and Sarah had fun trying to interpret the Museum of Contemporary Art.

We ate in a brewery (beer is a big thing in Wisconsin). I had a very tasty meal with a slightly offensive name, a Black and Tan Cheese Burger. I also had samples of a Scottish ale and Emirald Isle Stout, which are both brewed in the restaurant.We went cheese shopping afterwards and bought four different types of cheese and a bottle of wine, which we enjoyed while watching the pretty funny, Zombieland.