2023 52 Card Project: Week 34: Mustard
Aug. 25th, 2023 01:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegkerrAt the beginning of this week, instead of going back to work after my one-week stay-cation, I ended up taking two additional days off to go to the visitation for my cousin's wife in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin.
My two sisters and my Mom were unable to attend, which, if anything, increased my desire to go myself to represent the family and pass along their condolences. I was also keenly aware that my cousin is now a widower, and since I know what that is like, I particularly wanted to show up to support him.
I carpooled with another cousin who lives here in Minneapolis, Jill, and her partner Jack. We traveled very comfortably together, and we all agreed that we were happy that we had gone, seeing our cousin and his family and other relatives who came from Milwaukee and Chicago.
But that is not what this week's collage is about.
On the way home, Jack and Jill suggested making a stop at the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin.
Now it has never occurred to me that there might be a National Mustard Museum, nor that I would be pleased to have experienced it. But I have been thinking about it ever since.
The museum was founded by an attorney (and former Assistant Attorney General of the State of Wisconsin) Barry Levenson, who refers to himself as the museum's founder, curator, and CMO (“chief mustard officer”). According to the story, he went to the grocery store one day, bummed that his favorite baseball team the Red Sox had lost (again) in the World Series in 1986, and his attention got drawn to the variety of mustards on the shelf. He got fascinated and started collecting different varieties. And it snowballed from there until he switched his career to found the museum.
The Museum displays more than 6,090 mustards from all 50 states and more than 70 countries. You can see a wide variety of mustard pots, taste different varieties at the tasting bar, and buy different gourmet varieties to take home. Here is their mission statement:
In keeping with one of their mission goals, having fun, there are touches of humor throughout the museum, like the bust of Michelangelo's David with a yellow mustard mustache with a sign underneath that says 'Got Mustard?'
Or the vending machine which dispenses...nothing but mustard.
I tried about ten or fifteen different varieties at the tasting bar, and it was a revelation. Who knew there could be so many flavors, so many different textures? My favorite, naturally, was the most expensive one, mustard flavored with truffles, which cost $25.00 a jar. I ended up taking home two different sweet varieties: chardonnay cranberry and honey dill. And I wanted to buy plenty more.
Every year, Middleton hosts a National Mustard Day festival which draws tens of thousands of people.
The whole experience made me think about passion projects, about building one's career around an incredibly small, mundane thing that somehow captures your interest (having one's life revolve around mustard? Who knew??) and succeeding to such an incredible extent that you start getting other people interested in it, too. Imagine getting so excited about mustard that ten or fifteen years later you're drawing thousands of people to your city so that they can taste mustard ice cream and crème brûlée.
My hat's off to you, Barry. Congratulations on finding your passion in something small and ordinary, running with it, and turning it into something extraordinary.
If you ever have the chance, definitely stop to check this place out. It's well worth the visit.
Image description: Lower right: an open-mouthed man with yellow mustard coating his cupped hands (Barry Levenson, founder, curator, and CMO (“chief mustard officer”) of the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin) Lower left: the marble head of Michelangelo's statue "David" with a yellow mustard coated upper lip. A sign below the bust reads "Got mustard?" Lower center - a smiling man in a yellow t-shirt and a purple apron extends a tasting spoon below a sign that reads "Ultimate Mustard Tasting Bar." Right, center and upper: dozens of varieties of mustard jars on a shelf. The logo sign for the National Mustard Sign (a yellow jar with a spoon inside) is overlaid over the shelves. Upper center: a gift basket with an assortment of gourmet mustards. Upper left: a display case with china mustard pots for the formal table.
Mustard
Click here to see the 2023 52 Card Project gallery.
Click here to see the 2022 52 Card Project gallery.
Click here to see the 2021 52 Card Project gallery.
My two sisters and my Mom were unable to attend, which, if anything, increased my desire to go myself to represent the family and pass along their condolences. I was also keenly aware that my cousin is now a widower, and since I know what that is like, I particularly wanted to show up to support him.
I carpooled with another cousin who lives here in Minneapolis, Jill, and her partner Jack. We traveled very comfortably together, and we all agreed that we were happy that we had gone, seeing our cousin and his family and other relatives who came from Milwaukee and Chicago.
But that is not what this week's collage is about.
On the way home, Jack and Jill suggested making a stop at the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin.
Now it has never occurred to me that there might be a National Mustard Museum, nor that I would be pleased to have experienced it. But I have been thinking about it ever since.
The museum was founded by an attorney (and former Assistant Attorney General of the State of Wisconsin) Barry Levenson, who refers to himself as the museum's founder, curator, and CMO (“chief mustard officer”). According to the story, he went to the grocery store one day, bummed that his favorite baseball team the Red Sox had lost (again) in the World Series in 1986, and his attention got drawn to the variety of mustards on the shelf. He got fascinated and started collecting different varieties. And it snowballed from there until he switched his career to found the museum.
The Museum displays more than 6,090 mustards from all 50 states and more than 70 countries. You can see a wide variety of mustard pots, taste different varieties at the tasting bar, and buy different gourmet varieties to take home. Here is their mission statement:
In keeping with one of their mission goals, having fun, there are touches of humor throughout the museum, like the bust of Michelangelo's David with a yellow mustard mustache with a sign underneath that says 'Got Mustard?'
Or the vending machine which dispenses...nothing but mustard.
I tried about ten or fifteen different varieties at the tasting bar, and it was a revelation. Who knew there could be so many flavors, so many different textures? My favorite, naturally, was the most expensive one, mustard flavored with truffles, which cost $25.00 a jar. I ended up taking home two different sweet varieties: chardonnay cranberry and honey dill. And I wanted to buy plenty more.
Every year, Middleton hosts a National Mustard Day festival which draws tens of thousands of people.
The whole experience made me think about passion projects, about building one's career around an incredibly small, mundane thing that somehow captures your interest (having one's life revolve around mustard? Who knew??) and succeeding to such an incredible extent that you start getting other people interested in it, too. Imagine getting so excited about mustard that ten or fifteen years later you're drawing thousands of people to your city so that they can taste mustard ice cream and crème brûlée.
My hat's off to you, Barry. Congratulations on finding your passion in something small and ordinary, running with it, and turning it into something extraordinary.
If you ever have the chance, definitely stop to check this place out. It's well worth the visit.
Image description: Lower right: an open-mouthed man with yellow mustard coating his cupped hands (Barry Levenson, founder, curator, and CMO (“chief mustard officer”) of the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin) Lower left: the marble head of Michelangelo's statue "David" with a yellow mustard coated upper lip. A sign below the bust reads "Got mustard?" Lower center - a smiling man in a yellow t-shirt and a purple apron extends a tasting spoon below a sign that reads "Ultimate Mustard Tasting Bar." Right, center and upper: dozens of varieties of mustard jars on a shelf. The logo sign for the National Mustard Sign (a yellow jar with a spoon inside) is overlaid over the shelves. Upper center: a gift basket with an assortment of gourmet mustards. Upper left: a display case with china mustard pots for the formal table.
Click here to see the 2023 52 Card Project gallery.
Click here to see the 2022 52 Card Project gallery.
Click here to see the 2021 52 Card Project gallery.
Sweet! Err, Spicy?
Date: 2023-08-25 07:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-26 12:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-26 01:58 am (UTC)I am also reminded of my quest to find the right recipe to recreate a dish that Namaste used to serve -- the restaurant still exists but they stopped making the fish dish, and nobody would say why. It was called mustard fish. There are hundreds of recipes, as it is apparently a Bengali staple that everybody makes a little differently. But none of them is right so far.
I'm not surprised that you liked the truffle mustard best. Not because it was the most expensive, but because you have an affinity for that flavor. I think it's your fault that I even know what truffle oil tastes like.
P.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-26 12:05 pm (UTC)