Recommended

While no weekend activities can compete with Lucia's canning extravaganza (61 pounds of tomatoes - utterly insane), I have a few recommendations from the past week.

1. Fish fry at Avenue Bar. I went there for fish during Lent last year, and we went back last Friday for the benefit of a friendly visitor from the South. They offer boiled and fried options, with the fried cod having won multiple "best of" awards. The reputation is deserved. The atmosphere is appropriately Wisconsin supperclub kitschy, as well. There is always a crowd on weekend - make reservations or go early.
2. Community gardens. Saturday morning, I rode my bike 20 miles on the annual Bike Tour of Community Gardens sponsored by the Community Action Coalition. This summer's Wednesday Latino Garden program took place in the Marlborough Park garden. That's where the tour ended up this year, so it was exciting to join in. The gardens are beautiful, and there is a real sense of community there. No matter where you live in Madison, there is one near your house. Go take a stroll through sometime before harvest ends. You'll see people from many different countries, vegetables you've never heard of before, and kids who don't have a lot of access to open space running around and doing manual labor with their families or playing with their friends. Fabulous. As a bonus, I got to ride my bike next to Mayor Dave and translate for him at our Evenstart garden. He is Midwestern nice, as advertised.
3. Orton Park Festival. Yet another Eastside festival with the usual assortment of food, beer, good music, and fabulous people-watching. The performance by Cycropia aerial dance theater was ... interesting. There were a few numbers, particularly an athletic throwing-about on trapeze by two men that was amazing. But, there was also much birds-on-stilts 'BRAWKKING' during the ten-minute breaks between each number, much blocking of views by annoying children or their kneeling parents, and some less impressive acts. On balance, I feel that the experience would be better in a theater with proper sightlines, lighting, and equipment and without the abrupt juxtaposition of Interpretive Art to beer-and-blues-bands. There is only one more festival left this year - the Willy Street Fair September 15-16. I will have attended all of the festivals except the Atwood one this year. Next year I will get my act together and bat 1.000.
4. Mirror Lake State Park. Due to planning negligence on my part, backpacking adventures were cancelled this weekend. We went hiking as a sad substitute. We eschewed perennial favorite, and probably very crowded, Devil's Lake for its near neighbor Mirror Lake. Mirror Lake has some nice hiking/skiing/mountain biking trails, a tannin-filled lake, and apparently a lot of camping spaces. It lacked the physical challenge of lugging up Devil's Lake bluffs, as well as the views verging on grandeur, but it was a lovely, pleasant place to hike for an afternoon. Also, it's close by and I think we ran into maybe two people on the trails the whole time, rather than playing dodge-hiker like you do on weekends at Devil's Lake.
5. Jada's Soul Food. I had a meeting off of South Park Street last night, and a couple of people mentioned this place. I'd heard glowing reviews before and felt not at all like cooking, so I stopped by on my way home to get takeout. The place is not fancy - a few fold-out tables and chairs covered with plastic tablecloths ala church dinner, a pool table with "No Profanity" and "No Gambling" signs displayed by the cue rack, and some, well, soulful music on the CD player. The man who took my order was incredibly polite. It took 15 minutes to cook the chicken, but OMG was it worth it. I'm a notorious chicken-avoider, but I wasn't quite up for catfish or chitlins yet. (If I'm going to eat meat, it's got to be on par with bacon or it ain't worth it.) Enter the best chicken I've ever had. Seriously. Still blazing hot when I got home, I devoured it. Fabulous batter, juicy, juicy, juicy on the inside. The mac-and-cheese side was also excellent, though it got to be a little rich at the end. This may have been due to my general excessive fullness. The greens were OK, but bland. Throw some bacon fat in there and you'd have yourself some mean greens. The next time I have a rich food/grease craving/bad day, I'm going here. And only eating half of my meal at a sitting so I don't spend the rest of the night in a digestive stupor. Yummm!