Milwaukee??? Who Knew???

Over the past month, I have been travelling weekly to Milwaukee.  As you can see, I have not been very successful with travelling, so I was not really looking forward to a 12 week assignment out of town.  Its hard enough finding food to eat in the house (although I admit, its been a while since I made a PB&J.  I posted a note on my Grateful Dead twitter (@gratefulday)... (I run a Grateful Dead streaming audio site in my spare time, but that's a discussion for another blog)... that I was going to be travelling to Milwaukee, and out of nowhere @milwaukeevegan shows up with a few good ideas.  One thing lead to another, and before I knew it, I was sitting in a nice local bar called the Palomino, enjoying some southern fried vegan food.  Lets just forget about health food here, this was not the stuff.  I'm not saying the whole menu was like that, but I zeroed in on the "Tuffalo (sic) wings"  (I've loved wings in my former life, and I continue to be on a quest for a vegan replacement).  Suffice it to say, the Palomino was my first of many such adventures in Milwaukee.  Hey, I may lose my crabbiness after this trip.

I took the liberty of creating a little map to help guide me around town for my stay.  I tagged all of the places that have Vegan friendly on the menu.  I'm sure I'll talk more about them over the next month.  I'll be flying back weekly.

View Milwaukee Vegan Restaurants in a larger map

Two other notable standouts have to be Honeypie and The Comet Cafe.  As it turned out, these two and the Palomino are owned by the same folks.  Clearly they are doing something right, as there vegan options are great.  Honeypie makes a vegan "Porkslaw" sandwich that tastes dangerously familiar, and the Comet truly has the best Reuben I have ever had, vegan or not.

I also learned about something else at these places that may very well change the course of this veganification transformation I am going through.  Two simple words could have the power to grant me safe passage through the troubled waters. (Actually, I created these troubled waters, so I hope it doesn't sound like I'm playing the martyr).  

Two simple words can help right my course, and help lift the fog (how about this drama)..... "Field Roast".  Yes, you heard that right.  I thought it was just some vegan term that I should have known, so when I first heard it at Honeypie, I said "Oh yeah, Field Roast", like I knew what I was talking about. I'm new to the club, so I'm not sure what rules, or definitions I'm supposed to know.  On some respects I was a little disappointed that my meal was not a completely unique creation from some master vegan chef, but then I got over that in a hurry when I realized I might actually be able to buy this stuff myself.  The little lightbulb went off, and that weekend you can best believe, we were heading across town to the Whole Foods.

OK, I have digressed quite a bit from the top of this entry.  I think I made my point about Milwaukee, much more than I had hoped for, and it has done much for my crabbiness.  I cant do my whole adventure justice, so I leave some more of the details for later blogs.