DeForest, Wisconsin Trip by Ruth Paget
My California family set out by car for a road trip to DeForest, Wisconsin for a Sawle Family Reunion from June 8 – 16, 2022. We drove through the states of Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Iowa.
DeForest sits immediately off Interstates 90 and 94, north of university town Madison, Wisconsin on the way to tourist town Wisconsin Dells. DeForest is a good stop for tourists from Chicago. There are many fast food chains by the highway and Ehlenbach’s German Food and Gift Shop.
My favorite fast food is the Wisconsin chain called Culver’s, which sells fish fry dinners everyday with 2 or 3 pieces of cod, coleslaw, a yeasty bun with butter, and crinkly fries that fill the bottom of the dinner tray. Drinks for this special are extra. Butter burgers are Culver’s main item along with daily ice cream specials – dairy land products from America’s Dairy Land.
I lived in DeForest three years and think they did some nice things to promote local businesses and civic services. The local chamber of commerce offered a welcome wagon service that they presented to you at home or in a local food outlet. A chamber representative introduced me to local businesses like the video store, supermarket, movie theatres, library programs like summer reading and literacy programs, and farmers’ markets. The chamber representative gave me some coupons as a “welcome to the neighborhood.” I became a quick part of the community by becoming a literacy volunteer for a French woman in town.
Ace Hardware is a business of longstanding that has gone into the food business. Besides tools, their billboard out front advertises Brat Party Kits. (Brats are bratwurst sausage.) The kits no doubt come with buns, German potato salad, coleslaw, maybe a pasta salad, and charcoal and grills, if you need them.
About ten minutes west of DeForest in Waunakee are two good restaurants that tourists might also like – Cuco’s Mexican Restaurant and Rex’s Innkeeper. The Sawle Family Reunion was held at Rex’s, which features various kinds of steak and prime rib and excellent seafood with a soup and salad bar and yeasty buns and whipped Wisconsin butter.
Across the street from Rex’s is Cuco’s. I like their tangy Mexican cheese enchiladas verdes with green tomatillo tomato sauce and pulled pork (carnitas) on top with beans and rice on the side.
We did some tourism around DeForest, too, visiting towns that Laurent worked in when he was a representative for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce from 1994 – 1996.
In Portage, red brick Main Street bars are now wine bars that also sell chocolate, cheese, and gifts. Hot and humid summers make Wisconsin good wine growing territory.
At the outlet malls in Johnson Creek going towards Milwaukee, there are still good deals and lots of parking. At the Pine Cone Restaurant, you can eat breakfast and fish fry all day.
In Sun Prairie, there is now a halal market that sells meat and fine produce. There are miles of barns here that the artist Georgia O’Keefe painted in her youth. The corn in the area is used to feed dairy cows.
In Madison, we made a pilgrimage to Metcalf’s Market to buy pancetta, Maytag Blue Cheese from Iowa, and oblong country loaves of bread to toast for breakfast.
We ate well in Wisconsin, but left the excellent craft brewery beers to the Wisconsin cousins.
By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
