Milwaukee diary

The local free weekly that's not MKE, The Shepherd Express, now staples its pages together instead of leaving them loose like most tabloid papers. I don't know why I find this so unsettling.

I just learned that a really good seafood restaurant, Watermark, has been replaced by a newly opened "small plates" eatery and wine bar called Balzac. I do know why I find this so unsettling.

This is the time of year that one really notices the lake's effect on the climate. Living a few blocks from Lake Michigan as we do, it's almost always much cooler than the temperatures the radio reports. This afternoon it got almost chilly.

There's a new public market in town (click the link and hear the rooster crow). The outdoor part, a summertime produce market, has already been open on weekends and I'm hoping finally to make it there Saturday or Sunday. The indoor part, which promises good meat and fish, doesn't open until October.

I always get excited when a local public radio voice is heard on a nationally broadcast program. Today Anna Panoka reported on NPR's Day to Day on the Chai Vang trial. Chai Vang is the Hmong-American immigrant on trial for the murder of several hunters in northern Wisconsin last year.

I've got a chicken defrosting overnight, the one I bought last week at the farmer's market. Tomorrow I'll decide what to do with it.