We were fortunate enough to obtain press-passes to the SloPig Milwaukee event, in addition to last minute babysitters (Thanks, Sheryl and Mike!). The event was a celebration of “fine swine and robust spirits,” created by two Madison area foodies. The event housed three main events: a chef competition, a bartender competition, and the ability to gorge yourself on some of the tastiest dishes and drinks in the city. For you, Loyal Readers, I did just that.

Favorite Food: Chef Tory Miller for L’Etoile

While much of what I ate were some of the tastiest things I’ve ever consumed, nothing was quite as scrumptious as the 7 courses created by Tory Miller of L’Etoile. I should mention that I’m not even sure if I had all 7 of the offered dishes. L’Etoile’s booth was the very first booth we visited, and also the very last. At first, it was because of the flavorful soup with chunks of pork and delicate noodles all marinating together in a tasty pork broth. Later, it was the promise of donuts. As soon as I took my first taste, I felt bad for all of the other chefs. How exactly does one compete with a donut? Well, it turns out you can’t in my book. Chef Miller did NOT disappoint. That lard-filled, maple-lard glazed donut was the most delectable thing I have ever eaten. That’s really saying a lot, too, after years of attending the Twin Cities food and Wine Experience. I won’t lie. I went back and had three of those donuts. I’m fairly certain that each one shortened my life significantly, but I can honestly say I don’t feel bad about it.

Favorite Bartender: Micah Melton of Aviary

The punch competition was much harder for me to judge. The last three years have left me unable to drink much, so my tolerance is next to nothing. As a result, I probably didn’t even try half of the different concoctions available. That being said, of those I did try, none were quite as refreshing as Micah Melton’s Plantation Punch. I can’t remember what was in it exactly, aside from Plantation Rum, some sort of fresh juice, and magic. I do remember that I loved it and had two cups full. While it didn’t have the same punch (haha) as the others I’d tried, it was there, cleverly masked by fresh, juicy goodness. Therefore, I feel I should warn you that drinking too much of that would be deadly.

Final Thoughts
Before I get too deep into my reflection, I need to share the Cream City Cuisine Rule of the Night: Don’t ask what a dish is until you’ve already tried it. Had we not followed that rule, we truly would have missed out on some fabulous culinary experiences. I would also like to add porkoma to our official Cream City Cuisine dictionary. Nicely done, Mandi.

Mandi was right in that the event was lacking female representation. Just saying. I would also like to agree on the difficulty of picking a favorite. In the beginning, I was pretty diligent about taking pictures of the chef’s name, followed by the dishes. After a few rounds of punch, however, I got sloppy with this practice. I wish there had been some sort of program that had the chef’s name, restaurant, and a list of the available dishes. This would have greatly helped me keep track of what I liked. I imagine it also would have helped me get to more of the booths. Overall, however, I thought it was a fabulous event. I also felt really cool wearing a press pass. I hope to go again next year, although hopefully on a Saturday night instead of Sunday night.

This past weekend I got the chance to marry these two adages in one grand event, SloPig, a celebration of heritage pigs and artful cocktails.

6 local chefs.

8 bartenders.

Over 50 pork-infused dishes.

I’m still suffering from a bit of a porkoma after last night’s decadence, and I don’t think I even made it to every morsel. I was pretty much full after my first trip past L’Etoile’s seven dishes, and sorta drunk after the folks at Bell’s Brewery got to me. However, don’t fret, lovely readers, I soldiered on for you. For you I ate what surely was my body weight in porcine products, only occasionally asking what it was I was putting into my mouth and only then after the fact.

You see, even though I grew up in a household full of sizzling bacon, tasty pork chops, and scrumptious sausage, we generally steered clear of the organ meat and other unfamiliar hoof-to-mouth cuts. That all changed at SloPig. I ate heart, liver, head cheese, pig skin, lard, and pig’s feet. And that’s just the stuff I asked about. And it was delicious. So delicious that I had a hard time picking my favorites, but here they are in no particular order…

Favorite Food: Chef Tory Miller for L’Etoile

Truly all of the food I tasted last night was un-freakin-believably delicious. We have some mighty talent in these here parts, and every chef should be dang proud of what he accomplished. The moment Chef Miller said the word “donuts,” however, was a tipping point from which there was no return. Not just any donut, but lard-filled, maple-lard-glazed donuts to be exact.

Here’s a picture of me eating my second donut for all of you food porn aficionados out there.

To. Die. For.

Literally. I might actually die just from eating these donuts and I can’t bring myself to care that a few years have been taken off my life.

I’m sorry to all other competing chefs – you’re dishes were delightful, but the competition was over for me at L’Etoile.

Favorite Punch: Hinterland

The punch competition at SloPig was a bit more difficult to navigate. I enjoy boozy cocktails, and, as happens, after tasting the first two or three the rest sort of become a hazy mix of pig ice sculptures in your mind. More on that in a future post.

The concoction that really floated my boat, however, was the beer-based booze from Hinterland. I’m not one for super sweet drinks – alcoholic or otherwise – and this mix was a refreshing Goldilocks of punch…just enough fizz, just enough sweet, just enough booze.

Final Thoughts

First, I think an event like SloPig could be greatly enhanced by the addition of a femme fatale chef competitor. There was one lady bartender leading an entry in the punch competition, and it was a bit disappointing not to see more women representing in what is an, admittedly, male-dominated industry.

Second, and somewhat-related, one punch was named Crimson Tide. A lady bartender would never make such a moniker mistake.

And last, it was really difficult picking my favorites. Not just because all the competitors did such a fantastic job, though they did, but also because as the night wore on my ability to distinguish great from exceptional deteriorated in direct proportion to the number of punches I tasted.  As such, keep an eye out for my next post in which I uncover my Honorable Mentions and, basically, tell you about all the other good stuff I tasted. Bonus: the official SloPig winner of the chef’s competition and the official winner of the punch competition will be highlighted.

I was a bit horrified to see how much perfectly edible food is thrown away on a daily basis, mainly because American Consumers have ridiculous standards. At one location, a whole chicken was ready to be thrown in the garbage because a wing was broken. There was nothing wrong with the actual chicken, but because it wasn’t pretty, they knew it wouldn’t sell.

This got me thinking about Milwaukee. I was not naive enough to think we are exempt from this problem. I was happy, if not a little surprised, to see that there are efforts to reduce and reuse the food waste produced in Wisconsin. I read an interesting article about garbage disposals, and how ground up food waste is turned into energy and used to clean our water. You can read the article here.

I also read about Growing Power, which uses food waste as compost and another article about a proposal by the Potawatomi tribe to use food waste to power their casino. You can read that article here.

So, back to The Big Waste. I won’t tell you who wins at the end, but I will say this is worth watching. It really got me thinking. I wonder what I can do to reduce food waste, and, honestly, how to obtain some of it. I’m still not sure how I feel about dumpster diving, which they did at one point in the show, but I’m intruigued by the quality of the food they found. It’s also ridiculous that so much food goes to waste when so many are hungry.

Food Network is airing their special again on January 14th at 3:00 (central time) and January 15th at 4:00 (central time). I recommend you watch it.

The meat, after simmering an hour and a half, comes out so tender and flaky while the sauce is layered with flavors of garlic (of course), red wine (ditto), and spices. Enjoy.

Savory Beef Tips & Noodles

Pairs better with Chianti than fava beans and liver, just saying.

Ingredients:

2 lb. Beef Tips
3 tbsp. flour, divided
3 tbsp. olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups baby portabella mushrooms, halved
3/4 cup beef broth
1/4 cup red wine
1 packet Beefy Onion dry soup mix
3/4 cup water
1 package egg noodles

Preparation:
1. Pour yourself a glass of red wine to drink whilst cooking.

2. Heat olive oil in deep skillet over medium heat and saute onion, garlic, and mushroom until onion is glossy, approximately 5-7 minutes. Meanwhile toss beef tips in large bowl with 2 tbsp. flour until evenly coated.

3. Add beef tips to skillet and sear meat on all sides, approximately 3-5 minutes per side. Add beef broth and red wine, reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 1 hour.

4. In small bowl whisk together dry soup mix, 1 tbsp. flour, and water. Add to skillet, cover, and simmer additional 30 minutes. Cook egg noodles according to package directions. Serve tips on top of noodles with another glass of  red wine on the side.

The recipe combines two cuts of beef, as the more cuts you use the more flavorful the stew. I used short ribs mainly for the catchy name, and a lot of the fat melted into the broth and needed to be strained (in my opinion). Consider using soup bones or beef neck to get that flavor without so much fat. I also used stew meat because it was cheaper, but because this isn’t a stew that cooks for 10 hours, you may want to consider using a brisket trimmed and cut into 2-inch pieces.

This stew also builds flavor throughout each step. It sounds kind of putzy to “add this, set aside, rinse, and repeat” but that ensures flavor is layered throughout cooking time and really melds together. Because I made it last night for today’s competition, I didn’t get a chance to taste it, so I hope you enjoy.

Short & Stout Beef Stew

My kitchen smells like beef & beer. That's a nice start to a personal ad...

Ingredients:

1 lb. Beef Stew Meat
1 lb. Beef Short Ribs
2 tbsp. flour
salt & pepper to taste
5 tbsp. oil
1 cup turnips, diced
1 cup carrots, diced
1 cup parsnips, diced
1 cup potato, diced
1 cup onion, diced
1 cup portabella mushroom, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 bottles or cans Guinness beer
1 packet Beefy Onion dry soup mix
2 cups water
4 sprigs fresh thyme, chopped
2 sprigs fresh rosemary, chopped

Preparation:

Heat oil in dutch oven. Toss meat with flour, salt, and pepper, and then brown in oil on all sides (3-5 minutes per side). Set aside.

Place portabella mushrooms in dutch oven and saute until glossy, about 5 minutes. Remove and set aside.

Place turnips, carrots, parsnips, potato, and onion in dutch oven and heat until onions are glossy, approximately 10 minutes. Add garlic and continue cooking 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove and set aside.

Return meat to pot and add beer. Bring to a boil and cook until liquid is reduced by half. Whisk water and soup mix in bowl and add to meat. Bring to boil, and then reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until meat is tender, about 1-2 hours.

Remove short ribs and clean meat from bones. Shred and add back to pot along with veggies. Continue simmering on medium-low for 1 hour. Add mushrooms, thyme, and rosemary, heating through and letting herbs meld, approximately 20 minutes.

Serve with a side of crusty bread.

Cooking Time: 3 Hours
Serves: 6-8 adults

There are two such contests to take note of:

1. Cook’s Corner Homemade Apple Pie Recipe Contest

We don’t have a family Apple Pie recipe. We can, however, make a mean crust, we can peel and slice apples, add some sugar and cinnamon…maybe some dried cranberries, flour, lemon juice, and/or walnuts. But we don’t want to do that. Everyone will be doing that.

Instead we’ve developed a super secret Apple Cream Pie recipe to be unveiled after September 25th if we don’t get chosen as finalists or after October 1st if we do get chosen.

2. Journal-Sentinel Holiday Cookie Contest

We’ve got a great recipe for a holiday themed cookie, complete with winter imagery, chocolatey-goodness, a somewhat putzy recipe, and ooey-gooey deliciousness.

The recipe is a family one and will be posted in time for you to bake a batch for your holiday party and wow your friends.

Got any delicious recipes to submit? Feel free to join us in trying to win scads of fabulous prizes whilst simultaneously making food judges incredibly fat.

Enter Door County Coffee & Tea.

Any of their blends are absolutely to-die-for, but it’s the Highlander Grogg that gets me every time.

Seriously, the Irish creme and caramel combination is so good that if a 7-year-old taunted, “if you love it so much why don’t you marry it?” I’d likely reply (in a rather melancholy tone), “if only that were possible…”

Highlander Grogg, in my mind, is Sean Connery’s brogue plus George Clooney’s charm plus Jimmy Stewart’s honor with Henry Cavill’s (circa 2009) face.

What gal wouldn’t want to marry that, or, in this case, wake up to that?

If the Interwebs had smell-o-vision, be sure you’d get a big whiff. Alas, you’ll just have to buy your own grounds and brew a cup. You won’t be disappointed.

Mecca

Pork & Beans Oup

Ingredients

*Unless otherwise noted, all ingredients come from the Green Bay Farmer’s Market

• 2 lbs Fresh Green and Yellow Beans, cleaned and cut
• 1 Ham Hock (smoked, from Maplewood Meats)
• 1 Medium Onion, diced
• 1 lb Bacon, crisped and crumbled (smoked, from Maplewood Meats)
• 1 can Cream of Celery Soup (from the pantry, sorry)
• Salt & Pepper to taste (from the pantry, sorry)

Directions:

To get you started:
Weezer: Pork & Beans

The original recipe calls for making a roux out of the bacon grease and then adding that to the soup to give it that “creaminess.” Feel free to do that if you wish. I wholly salute the use of full bacon flavor. However, for those watching their figures, this version instead calls for a can of cream of celery soup.

1. Clean and cut the green and yellow beans into a large stock pot. Cut them roughly the size that will fit in your spoon – this is a soup after all. Add smoked ham hock, whole, along with diced onion.

Damn, this is gonna be good.

2. Fill pot with water until water line reaches just above ham hock. You be the judge. Too little water and you’ll have a casserole, too much water and you’ll have zero flavor. Heat to boiling.

3. In the meantime, fry up that bacon until it’s nice and crispy. Nope, crispier. You’ll be adding it to the soup, and soggy bacon is no one’s friend.

4. Once beans are tender, remove from heat and fish out the ham hock. Butcher that baby until all of the meat is off and the gristle is trimmed. Dice the meat and add it back to the soup.

5. Add the can of cream of celery soup to the pot and stir until incorporated. Add the bacon. In place of the cream of celery soup you can also make a roux with the bacon grease (Google it) and temper it by whisking in a bit of the soup broth before you add it all to the pot. Again, Google it, but just know that adding the roux directly into the soup pot will likely result in lumpy bacon grease dumplings and not creamy deliciousness.

6. Return pot to heat and let sit until steamy enough to soothe your sore throat.

"Everything tastes better enhanced with bacon." - My Mom

One side effect of this soup is that now your house will smell like bacon. Gentlemen, I’m single.

So that’s exactly what I did.

I made out my shopping list.

I woke up at 6:35 AM.

I hit the snooze when I heard it pouring outside.

I hit the snooze again when I heard it still raining the second time.

x4.

I finally meandered to downtown Green Bay at 8:00 AM with my list. I got a whole chicken from Foster’s Organic Acres out of Little Suamico (and will email them with how delicious it is after I roast the sucker with a can full of Lakefront’s Riverwest Stein up it’s butt). I also got smoked ham hocks from Maplewood Meats and will boil them with green and yellow beans from the market to make my mom’s famous bean soup. Bacon, also from Maplewood, crisped up and crumbled will finish the soup. For breakfast I got eggs from Sweet Dirt Acres that I’ll scramble with peppers, jalapenos, and Renard’s Cheese (cheddar).

All this I got in an hour and it was only on my way home to the west side of Green Bay that it started to sprinkle again.

*Whew* Made it!

I got home.

I noted the firetruck and police car up the street.

I pulled in the driveway and punched the code to the garage.

The light blinked, but the door did not open.

I punched in the code again.

The light blinked at me in mockery.

The neighbor leaned out his window, “Your power out, too?”

Great.

Long story short, I don’t have a key to my parent’s front door.

My sister does, though.

She lives 30 minutes away.

I walk down the street to ask Mr. Fireman how long the wait will be. 3 hours? 12 hours?

“I don’t know,” he said, “WPS hasn’t even gotten here yet. There are 50,000 people without power in Appleton from the storm last night.”

Awesome. 12 hours, then.

I call my sister and arrange a pick up. As I head to Shawano, where she lives, I make plans to turn my lunch with Dad into breakfast and a trip to WalMart for a change of clothes (Let that be a lesson…always leave your house looking your best. Don’t think you can just shower and get ready after you run a short errand in the morning).

“That’s funny,” I tell my Dad, “there wasn’t a storm in Green Bay, how did the neighbor’s tree fall on the line?”

“Oh, sure there was,” Dad says matter-of-factly, “there was a tiny pin prick of yellow on the radar screen this morning.”

I spend the day in Shawano, hitting up the fair, eating breakfast at a local greasy spoon that, no doubt, doesn’t use locally-sourced ingredients, bygones. I enjoy a diet SunDrop from the tap at the Firemen’s Stand (or 3). I head to my favorite sister’s house to pick up the key. I return to Green Bay wondering if I’ll just pick up my pajamas and head straight back to Shawano for the night.

I arrive, once again, at my mom’s house. I enter through the front door.

I flip the light switch…

…

IT WORKS!

I call my Dad. I call my sister. I take a shower. Oh, the long-awaited shower.

I unpack my Farmers’ Market finds and watch the Brewers beat the Astros.

The only Wisconsin-made product I ingested that day was the SunDrop. Three glasses.

*Sigh* The best laid plans…

1. It’s Hard! - My definition of “eating local” for this challenge is anything grown and/or produced in Wisconsin. This limits my choices in ways that surprise me, usually as I’m just about to order or consume something and I have to think about where it came from first. Last night, for example.

This low-carb diet has me drinking only water, diet soda (I used to drink very little soda before this), and coffee. Last night I decided to shake things up a bit and made some sugar-free Crystal Light to drink.

Whoops.

Yeah, Crystal Light is neither grown in Wisconsin (can chemicals be “grown” anywhere?) nor is it produced in Wisconsin.

What I learned before chugging the now-won’t-stop-tempting-me-simply-because-I-can’t-have-it beverage is:

a) there are so many innocuous things in my daily diet that I now can’t have during this challenge (a.k.a. I’m getting more aware of our national food system), and

b) Ew, what am I doing putting so many chemicals in my body? I think this challenge will help me banish some unhealthy processed foods from my life Disclaimer: I’m not saying Crystal Light is unhealthy, per se, just that this example made me realize how many things in our lives are processed who-knows-where and made out of who-knows-what.

2. SunDrop is Local! – Those who know me and/or came from my hometown of Shawano, WI might be shocked to hear this, but I completely forgot that I can, indeed, have some locally-made diet soda! As I mentioned above, diet soda is something I’ve caught on to because of my low-carb diet. I used to not drink soda of any kind that much, but the diet stuff has become my one glimmer of sweetness in a sugar-free wasteland.

SunDrop = Heaven's Ambrosia

Turns out, I don’t have to give up that ray of hope during this two-week challenge. Twig’s Beverage of Shawano, WI is a longtime bottler of SunDrop, also known as Heaven’s Ambrosia to those from this little lake hamlet.

Even better is that I’m heading up there this weekend (Shawano County Fair, oh the small town wonderment) and will certainly be picking up a bunch of the brew in glass bottles. Because why just drink soda when you can be amazed by its true deliciousness, too? Seriously, drinking soda from a glass bottle is the only way to go. Trust me on this.

3. Plan Ahead & Plan Some More! - My beginning stumbles during this challenge largely stem from my lack of planning. I had it in my mind that I would hit up the Saturday farmers’ market and get my fill in local produce, meats, and cheeses. What I didn’t think about is that this challenge started on September 1st, a.k.a. Thursday, a.k.a. two days before Saturday.

Whoops.

Since I’ve been so derelict in my duties, I’ve gotten by breakfast at Alterra and lunch at Comet Cafe to tide me over until I can make the market. Expense I wasn’t planning for, but, then again, it’s awesome that Milwaukee gives me so many restaurant options for eating local.