Hey, ma! What's there to eat in Wisconsin?

All kinds of local fare - landjaeger, smoked meats, squeaky cheese curds, many kinds of cheeses, berries and cherries.  Followed by a hand tossed pizza and a local craft beer chaser at Red Eye Brewery.

My sister Bev and her husband Red once sent us some great tasting Wisconsin smoked meat for Christmas from Nueske's Meats in Wittenberg, WI.  Of course, we visited the smokehouse and store the first full day here in Wisconsin.  We purchased some smoked bacon, pork chops, meat sticks, and landjaeger.  Landjaeger is a semi-dried sausage traditionally made in Southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Alsace.  Since it doesn't require refrigeration, it is a popular snack food for outdoor activities like hiking.  Hmm, that fits well into our current lifestyle!  By the way, Nueske's meats are sold in many grocery stores across the country, and, yes, we have found it in the Dallas area.

For our good friends Gail and Randy, we have found the perfect camper for you at Nueske's.  You might want to cancel your camper order before it's too late!

We've started our cheese factory tour - three down and 150 more to go!  Wisconsin is known for their dairy products, especially cheese.  Each factory makes the standard cheese curds that squeak when warm, string cheese, and mozzarella, cheddar, and colby cheeses.  Each store also has its own specialties.  So far, Renard's Cheese in Door County wins hands down with its string cheese.

The picture below shows some of our haul from Nueske's and the cheese factories.  Don ate the landjaeger before we even made it back to our hotel.

We couldn't leave Wisconsin Dairy State Cheese Factory without sampling their ice cream - lemon meringue and butter pecan.

Summer is berry and cherry season in Wisconsin.  We picked two gallons of tart cherries, four quarts of blueberries and four quarts of raspberries.  There were four varieties of raspberries at the U-pick farm - red, black, purple and gold.  After tasting each kind, we decided to pick only the red and black.

These tart cherries taste just like the cherries used in cherry pie - and we didn't even add sugar when we ate them!  We froze most of them.  We're even eating them right out of the freezer for a cold snack.

Red raspberries.

We have berries or cherries in our oatmeal every morning.  We also made a tasty cherry crisp and plan to make berry crisp later this week.

Don can't eat dessert without topping it with whipped cream.

We're here for another three weeks, so stay tuned!  There's sure to be more fun!