Dinner With a Friend

I had dinner with a friend this past Friday. She lives in Cedarburg, so we tried to find a place to go to that wouldn't require her to drive all the way into the city. Since I'm not familiar with the restaurants in that area, I asked her to suggest a place. She suggested the Silver Spring House, which is an older but popular (at least that's what I knew about it) restaurant. I'd never been to the Silver Spring House, but I am always interested in trying new places. Now, my friend, being my friend, is familiar with this blog and insisted that there would be no fly-ventures to report.

So, I arrived at the restaurant and ran inside (because it's raining outside). I had to pass through a dark, smoky bar area before arriving to the entrance of the restaurant (sidebar: I can't wait until public places are all smoke free). I noticed a few glances as I walked through, but no overt staring. "Not so bad" I thought to myself. Then, a spotlight shined and the angels sang...the hostess was a fellow fly – WOOHOO! However, that revelation was short-lived because I couldn't say the same for any of the patrons. But, being quite use to this phenomenon I spotted my friend and sat down to have a wonderful time (4 hrs just flew by). By the time we left, the dinner crowd was gone and the bar crowd had arrived and with them came many more flies!

We must do this again, soon! Oh and another sidebar: I realized that it was many moons ago when someone raved about the SSH. How time flies (no pun intended)!

Holy Hill and Alpine Retreat - 9/20/09

I entered a silent auction at a breast cancer fundraiser and I won, which is great.

What did I win, tickets to Holy Hill's annual craft fair and a chef''s table dinner for four at Alpine Retreat in Hubertus. I thought this was an awesome package to win and was quite excited.

So, my daughter, sister and her daughter and I ventured off to Holy Hill for the craft fair. Let me preface this with, we LOVE crafts. We are all very crafty and craft fairs are right up our alley for if nothing else, to get more craft ideas.

We get to Holy Hill, park and proceed to walk this Lonnnnnng road, uphill, to the actual fair location. Picture the Blair Witch Project in the day time... We get to the entrance, hand over our tickets and start perusing the items at the different booths. It didn't take long before I whispered to my sister "flies in the buttermilk, again." We both laughed. What's funny about being flies are the responses you receive for being flies. It's almost as if you can hear people saying, "flies really aren't that bad." But, after we were there for a while we realized that there were other flies (not many) but more than we originally thought. All was right in the world!

After the fair, we went for dinner at Alpine Retreat, which was a little under 10 minutes from Holy Hill. When we arrived at the location, we all were a bit skeptical about the place. I wish I would have taken a picture, but I didn't think about it. It was pretty rustic. It's the restaurant near the lake that all the locals go to when they want to go out for dinner, if you can imagine that. We went inside and we approached the bar (which is the first thing you encounter once your inside). No one was there except a bartender and a waitress. This place is small and dark, but cozy. Definitely an older place. The initial shock of seeing flies by the employees was covered quickly and it almost went un-noticed (almost). But, that's okay, we're use to it, being flies and all. Again, the funniest response is when the other patrons started to arrive while we were sitting at the bar laughing and having a drink. You can almost hear the wheels squeal to a stop...urrrrrrrrrrrr! LOL

All in all, dinner was fantastic (bacon wrapped water chestnuts, salad, deep fried pickles (yes I did say deep fried pickles - which weren't half bad), filet, lobster a bottle of wine and homemade vanilla ice cream with carmelized apples - yum)! Thank you Chef CJ - dinner was delish and you were a great host!