Athens Restaurant, Sweet Lodi, Amish Country, and Ehlenbach’s Cheese Chalet Day Trip from DeForest, Wisconsin by Ruth Paget
On the third day of our trip to Wisconsin, my mom took us out to eat at the Athens Restaurant in Westport, which is located halfway between Madison and Middleton in a strip mall on Madison’s west side.
You order at the counter and servers bring your food to the table and take away dishes at the end. Laurent and I shared a gyros sandwich platter for two.
I love spicy lamb and beef gyro meat with thin-cut, white onions and tzatziki made with thin-cut cucumbers, yogurt, garlic, salt, and red wine vinegar. The gyro sandwich bread at Athens is chewy and seemed to be made with some yogurt. I have never had a bad meal at a Greek restaurant. The Athens Restaurant joins Detroit and Chicago Greektowns as a good place to eat.
After lunch, Laurent and I visited Lodi named after a northern Italian with a long history for battles including one with Napoleon and cheese. Lodi’s dairy contribution to the community in Wisconsin seems to be ice cream at the town’s pizza parlor.
On the way into town, we saw signs for fresh strawberries and eggs along with billboards for the Lodi Sausage Company. Lodi as a town was very clean. Having a butcher shop seems to promote cleanliness to keep the butchered meat sanitary and cool.
The day we were in Lodi, there was a small, classic car show going on and a duck show on a small river that meanders through town (the Wisconsin River is nearby and this may be a tributary of that river).
The town’s tourism magazines advertised wine and whiskey tastings along with shows by blue grass and blues bands. Outside town, there was a large park where people walked with their children.
The tourism guide said there was an “Amish Country” nearby, so we drove down hilly and crooked roads by very organized and clean farms. People in Amish Country all seemed to have blue Harvestore silos for food to feed cows and farm animals.
We wound our way back to DeForest and stopped at Ehlenbach’s Cheese Chalet to do some shopping. We bought some garlic and herb sausage and three kinds of cheese:
-Swiss-style gruyère
-Mesquite wood smoked 7-year cheddar
-2 year-old aged Swiss
We ate the sausage, cheese, and toasted bread with my mom for dinner. The Monterey Mice were happy in DeForest on their vacation.
This was a waddle-to-bed day for me. I had fun all day and conked out sleeping.
Dairyland Wisconsin Vacation Day 3 - Complete!
By Ruth Paget
-author Eating Soup with Chopsticks, Marrying France, and Europe’s Lessons written during overseas duty in Germany + 5 other Kindle books
-developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games + 8 Classical Western Civilization War Games
-developer of food and beverage knowledge games
-creator of online exhibits about San Miguel Arcangel Mission, French baguette making, and the Carmel Valley History Center
-creator of French travel and culture games
-writer of 1800+ Central Coast California lifestyle blogs
-family genealogist
-developer of 9 music theory games
