{"id":15149,"date":"2026-03-18T20:52:50","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T01:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.debslunch.com\/blog\/?p=15149"},"modified":"2026-03-19T14:23:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T19:23:19","slug":"headaches-and-headlines-and-crazy-weather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debslunch.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/18\/headaches-and-headlines-and-crazy-weather\/","title":{"rendered":"Headaches and headlines and crazy weather"},"content":{"rendered":"

I started writing this on Sunday when our crazy weather started. That day we had rain, slush, hail, ice pellets, rain again, then after dark it started to snow. The St. Patrick’s Day parade got cancelled and the Madison schools decided by around noon on Sunday to be closed Monday. Sunday afternoon it was so nasty outside, Mark didn’t even go for his second walk. Instead we holed up, watched the Oscars, and ate more of the cherry pie I made Saturday which was Pi Day. \u03c0<\/p>\n

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2026 Pi Day cherry pie. Still molten at this point<\/p><\/div>\n

And by the time the snow stopped Monday the official count for Madison was about 8 inches, but it looked like more to me when we were shoveling. Jasper came here because daycare was closed, although Emma actually got him here before 8:00, not much later than our regular 7:40AM start time. She drove over in Al’s car because it has the newest tires. We were still shoveling then, and Jasper didn’t want to stay outside, so Mark did most of the first round. I made up by shoveling the driveway apron where the really wet stuff was, when we went out again around 2:00, when the sun was out and Jasper had on his full winter gear including snow pants.<\/p>\n

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Snow Day inside play<\/p><\/div>\n

Looking at that nice cherry pie shot, I think I figured out why my blog has seemed so disappointing to me recently – not enough food. I’ve been trying to write about war and politics and all the stuff that’s horrifying me, and I think I’ve lost the food journalling aspect of this blog, that is what I like the best. So I will try to remedy that now.<\/p>\n

My last post left off March<\/a> 6th while we were heading to Chicago for an overnight. We had lunch at Monteverde<\/a>, one of our Chicago faves, and I only got these not very pretty empty plate shots.<\/p>\n

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We split a mushroom ragu pasta and stuffed cabbage. That I think had almost the same mushroom sauce as the pasta but with a little tomato added.<\/p><\/div>\n

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We had a caramel budino for dessert that came with chocolate and caramel shards on top. I drank iced tea.<\/p><\/div>\n

We also split an Oma salad, and it was a little different than the one we had in 2018<\/a>. That time it had pickled veggies and an avocado vinaigrette; the 2026 version had all fresh veggies and a lighter dressing.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Stephen Hamilton for Food & Wine<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

We proceeded on to the Art Institute and looked at Matisse’s Jazz and Bruce Goff. The Matisse show was small; Goff, big. Jazz is a handmade book, or at least some iterations of it are, so the show was mostly pages from the book, augmented with some of Matisse’s other works on paper. Like the last image of the woman threading the needle.<\/p>\n\n\t\t