With a bleary-eyed youngster on my arm and a little time to kill, I stopped at the Milwaukee Public Market recently and decided on a whim to hit the oyster bar.
The St. Paul Fish Company has a nice selection of fish to take home and cook -- I was thrilled to see skatewing, which I love, and I need to get back there to get some -- but it also has a nice zinc bar with a half-dozen or so stools to welcome oyster fans and other diners.
Seeing the sign for the fresh oysters, we bellied up to the bar and ordered one of each.
Although my son didn't want to try eating them (his grandmother deemed him smarter than me thanks to that), he was interested in checking out the shells and seeing the lobsters in the tank. The brightly colored Easter cookies at C. Adams Bakery across the aisle were much more to his tastes as were the bread samples from Piacentine's.
I had a beer and five oysters, he had his milk and a couple packages of oyster crackers and it felt like we were on vacation. Alas, we waited too long to try and find a restaurant and with long wait times, we ended up back home for dinner.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
