I spy ... mustard!

Yesterday I went for my eye exam. The news was mainly good, but I did have to get some new specs. They should be here in about ten days. Tom and John had helped me pick out new frames, which are neither a fashion statement nor much of a change.

About midday the three of us headed to Madison. John wanted to visit a bookstore and Tom wanted to find out more about the Nook. He is pondering whether to get an e-book reader and, if so, whether to go Nook or Kindle. So we did all that. John got a vegetarian cookbook. Since we were already in Middleton (west side of Madison), we looked around for a place to go and wound up at the -- I am not making this up -- National Mustard Museum.

The National Mustard Museum boasts a large display of prepared mustards. It is often featured in lists of unusual museums in the United States.

The museum was conceived and founded by Barry Levenson, former Assistant Attorney General (yup, assistant attorney general) of Wisconsin. It centers on a mustard collection he began in 1986 while despondent over the failure of his favorite baseball team, the Boston Red Sox, to win the 1986 World Series. The initial dozen jars have grown to a collection of more than 5,300 mustards from more than 60 countries, along with hundreds of items of mustard memorabilia and exhibits depicting the use of mustard through history.

The museum opened its doors in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin on April 6, 1992. It moved across the street to a larger site in October 2000. In November 2009, the museum moved to Middleton and changed its name to the present one.

The museum's gift shop occupies about half of its floor space and offers free tasting of mustard samples from a refrigerated case containing scores of varieties; the museum also operates a mail-order mustard business.

Among the displays are sweet hot mustards, fruit mustards, hot pepper mustards, horseradish mustards, and spirit mustards. The collection includes a large variety of French and English mixes, but many other countries are also represented. I noticed that there are several shelves of Texas-made mustards, many flavored with jalapeños or chipotles.

John, figuring you can never have enough oddball mustards, did a little shopping. I was all for getting Christmas gifts here, but Tom dissuaded me. One item was an inflatable full-sized Thanksgiving turkey. I thought we might pick up one to put on the table this year for Peter, who is coming home for the holiday. Again, Tom disagreed.

Anyway, if you want to visit the museum's website and buy some mustard or mustard-related stuff, click here. I thought Ted might want one of the Poupon U t-shirts or coffee mugs.

Every day I call Mama and we talk about what we did that day.She thinks Tom and I are the "going-est people", but when I told her about the mustard museum, she said, "Boy, y'all have really run out of places to go."

Well, you know what they say: Relish today, ketchup tomorrow -- if you must(ard).