I took Picasso back to the vet for a checkup yesterday, to see if the special diet had done its thing.  Bloodwork showed his kidney numbers were back in the normal range, so yay.  And, he hadn't lost any weight.  x-ray showed that the bladder stone is still there, though.  So, another month on the special food - if the food can't fix it, then it will need to be removed the hard way, and no one wants that.  The special food contains grain, which is starting to aggravate Picasso's allergic over-grooming.  Once he's sorted, there's a hypo-allergenic maintenance diet.  Neither stone nor over-grooming seem to bother Picasso at all, but I don't want either to get out of hand.

After, Z. and I went to Madison for a quick run through the Dane County farmer's market, and later a slow, ever-more-bloated stroll through Taste of Madison.  Somewhere in there we also fit in a tour of the State Street stores (I now have a small Kali poster), a meet-up with head-injury D, a quick stop at Yue-Wah for basmati rice in one of those nice zippered bags, and a browse at Frugal Muse (mmm...used book sale...).

Winner at ToM, of what I tried, was probably the aji chicken - hard to go wrong with Peruvian food.  The moscado d'asti wine was surprisingly good, too.  The questionable choice was the sweet plantain and roasted garlic empanada - a truly strange flavor combo.

The sky had a slow leak all day yesterday.  Which we didn't mind; we were damp, but not soaked through, and I'm used to looking like a drowned rat.  And, it made it seem reasonable to goof off most of the day rather than attempting any sort of yardwork.  The real irritation was all the people with larger-than-necessary umbrellas and no awareness of their surroundings.


I didn't get much at farmer's market, seeing as I get so much CSA veg these days.  Still, it was my first visit to "the big market" all year.  Weston's Antique Apples got about 2.5 lbs of business from me - a wide assortment of apples for tart snacking.  I got a loaf of "expedition bread" from Cress bakery - naturally leavened and with a very strong rye flavor; it made good "Russian" toast this morning (like French toast but with Russian sausage seasoning and allspice).  And I can't resist the goat feta.

I also got a container of seaberries.  I've seen the plants advertised, but haven't ever tried the fruit.  Mighty tart.  The plan is to mix the seaberry juice (strain out the seeds) with juice from the Michigan blueberries that were gifted to me, and make some sort of...custard?...pie. We also found hickory nuts (last year's, but they look beautiful); Mom had specifically requested them.

As far as I can recall, I sampled/shared the following at ToM:

breaded okra
voodoo shrimp
reuben rolls
ajide gallina (Peruvian chile chicken)
momo (Tibetan vegetable dumpling)
tsel pakora (Tibetan deep-fried vegetables)
arancinette (sort of fried Italian saffron rice balls - very good)
sweet plantain and roasted garlic empanada

a couple of smoothies
lemonade
Italian ice
a taste of moscado d'asti wine
a glass of amber ale

tiramisu
chocolate chip cookie dough egg roll
a bite of baklava
Sassy Cow salted caramel ice cream