Like many people, I’ve been looking for comfort in cooking these last few weeks while quarantined at home. And while I have been doing some adventurous things, I’ve mostly been craving my comfort foods. My go-to childhood meal to make at home was instant ramen. Maruchan or Top Ramen– I wasn’t picky. But I did have a secret ingredient I would add to the soup which I may divulge at the end of this post. And my favorite place to go out for dinner as a kid was Olive Garden–specifically for the endless soup, salad, and bread sticks. I would always get the zuppa Toscana, and I’d always have one bowl too many.

In the last couple weeks I’ve recreated both of those meals, largely sourced from Enos Farms, friends of ours who farm near Spring Green and sell locally through their website (we’ve written about them here, and here). I’d bought 5 pounds of frozen kale from them and was trying to figure out what to do with it when I remembered the zuppa Toscana, which combines kale, potatoes, and sausage in a light cream broth. As it happened, I had ramp and mozzarella brats from Enos Farms as well, so I searched out clone recipes of the chain’s soup. In the end I combined a couple different recipes, and made a few modifications along the way, so here’s my version:

Zuppa Toscana

• 0.25 lbs salami
• 2 tbs bacon fat
• 1 med white onion
• 3 cups vegetable stock
• 2 cups water
• 1 lb ramp and mozzarella brats
• 1.5 lbs chopped kale
• 1 lb russet potatoes
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 ts black pepper
• 1 ts crushed dried red pepper
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• salt to taste

Melt the bacon fat in a dutch oven (or your largest soup pot) and add crumbled sausage (you don’t need to remove the casing, but I did). If the pan is too crowded, do this in two batches so the sausage can brown properly. Once you’ve browned the sausage, remove it from the pan and set it aside for now. Next, add diced salami to the pot. Cook for a minute on medium to render the fat in the salami. Alternatively, you can just use bacon instead of the salami, in which case you won’t need the extra bacon fat. While that’s cooking, dice the onion and add it to the pot as well. Keep an eye on the onion to make sure it doesn’t burn, and stir it regularly as you brown it. After five minutes or so, slice the garlic cloves and add them. Continue to cook until the onions are translucent. Next add the vegetable stock, water, black and red pepper, and return the sausage to the pot. While you bring this to a simmer, peel the potatoes and slice them to ~1/8″ thick rounds (I used a mandoline). Add the potatoes to the soup and cook for about 10 minutes. then add the kale and cook for another 10 minutes. Finally stir in the cream and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Tastes even better the next day.

A week later I was once again in the kitchen figuring out what to make for dinner. We’d gotten another order from Enos Farms–this time we’d bought some of their fantastic pork stock which I wanted to use. We also had a bottle of sake chilling in our freezer that we wanted to try so I decided to make ramen. I’ve made ramen noodles from stratch before (and Leslie briefly worked at a Japanese restaurant that made their own), but I was feeling a bit lazy. Enos actually sells ramen noodles themselves, but I hadn’t bought any. I had recently heard about a trick for making Italian pasta more like ramen noodles though, and I was eager to give that a try.

Ramen noodles get their characteristic flavor, color, and chewy texture from the addition of kansui, an alkaline solution which increases the pH of the dough. Other than that, they are a simple wheat noodle, like spaghetti. I had a bottle of kansui in the pantry–that’s how I’d made ramen in the past. But I’d recently watched a program from chef Sachie Nomura where she cooked spaghetti in water with baking soda to get a ramen-like taste. I figured I could probably do the same with the kansui, and a little online research backed that up (a third option is to used baked baking soda, which has better solubility in water than untreated baking soda). The effect isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty close.

Wisconsin Ramen Noodles

• 1/2 lb thin spaghetti
• 1 tbs kansui
• salt
• 1 qt pork stock
• 1/2 lb portabella mushrooms, sliced thin
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 small carrot, julienned
• 1 ts crushed red pepper
• 2 hard boiled eggs
• 1 sheet of nori

Boil salted water for the noodles. For 2 quarts of water, I added 1 tablespoon of kansui. While doing that, in a separate pot heat the pork stock and add the mushrooms and garlic. Blanche the carrots in the stock and set them aside. Cook the spaghetti to just past al dente and drain. The water should have turned pale yellowish-green from the alkali (I don’t know the exact chemistry there, but I’m guessing the higher pH extracts more starches out of the pasta). Portion the spaghetti into bowls and ladle the broth over it. Serve with the carrots, hard boiled egg, nori, or whatever you like with your ramen.

Oh, and if you’d like to replicate my childhood ramen, use my secret ingredient: pour some cola (Pepsi or RC Cola recommended) into your ramen. It sweetens the broth and lowers the temperature so you can start eating right away!

The post Comfort Cooking first appeared on Driftless Appetite.

The post Alive Together: A Recipe for Healing first appeared on Driftless Appetite.

Apple Fritters 

yields about 3 dozen 1 and 1/2 inch diameter spheres

Ingredients

2 c. all-purpose flour

1/4 c. plus 2 T. sugar

1/4 t. baking powder

1 t. salt

3/4 c. whole milk

2 large eggs

2 T. melted butter (room temperature)

2 t. vanilla extract

2 sweet apples cut unto 1/4 inch pieces 

3 cups safflower oil for frying

powdered sugar for dusting

1. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

2. In another bowl, whisk together milk, eggs, butter, and vanilla.

3. Gently fold milk mixture into flour mixture until just combined.  Fold in the apples.

4. Meanwhile, heat 2 inches of oil in a medium heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high heat until ~350 degrees.  Set a wire rack on a baking sheet.

5. Working in batches, drop heaping tablespoons of dough into oil.  Cook, turning once, until puffed and golden, about 3 – 4 minutes.  Transfer to rack with a slotted spoon.

 6. Let cool slightly, then dust with powdered sugar.

YUM!

Thanks to Jess for the recipe!!

The post Apple Fritters first appeared on Driftless Appetite.

I decided to write about this party because I woke up craving an apple fritter, and because I’m a big fan of my friend Jess.

Awhile back, Keith and I were invited by our friends Jess and Eli for a cider pressing party. We were out late the night before and ended up sleeping in that morning. We were still sleepy enough that we got lost in the winding roads outside of Dodgeville going to their house. When we eventually arrived, no one was there. Keith asked if it was another one of those times where I “felt” there was going to be a party and didn’t check the calendar. I said, I was pretty sure it was that day. I knew they were going to pick THE apples first, so I figured that’s where they were. The cell signal was spotty so we couldn’t figure out where the orchard was. We parked by the house, rolled the car windows down and napped to the clucking of chickens carried by the warm, light breeze. About fifteen minutes later, we were woken up by boisterous laughter and the sound of engines pulling up the driveway.

Everyone took turns cranking the wheel to release the juices from the apples. The bees joined the party as well and stung a few of the revelers (include five times for Keith). Everyone got a gallon or two to take home. We had a beautiful meal of roast pork and beef sandwiches, salads, brownies, apple pie and apple fritters made by Jess. We all tried our best not to take the fritters as soon as she strained them from the frying pot so that we would have a platter of it for the meal.

Jess grew up in Dodgeville from the age of five. Her great grandparents moved here from Switzerland when grandpa (Arnold Thuli) was 2 years old. Many Swiss immigrants moved here in the early 1900’s because the Driftless Area reminded them of home and that this was an ideal place for dairy farms. Arnold became a cheesemaker and married Gladys who raised seven kids and counted money for the church. The factory still runs today but it is now used for pressing sunflower oil.

Jess’s father, Rick, moved back to the area after college with his 100% Greek wife, Lauren, from the Milwaukee area and started a business building chiropractic tables.

The cider pressing parties started in the 1980’s. It was an all day affair with all the extended families plus the grandparents, of course. Jess remembers climbing trees, shaking apples, filling trailers, bringing them back to the house to send through the press, straining, trying her best to ignore the bees, drinking glass-fulls of the fresh cider, eating caramel apples, the big pot of chili and freshly baked bread, and then “you can can can can can the apple cider all day long!“. They switched to cartons and then to plastic freezer bags, which they’ve found has been the best method so far.

“The orchard is entirely wild and the apples are hybrids or several varieties. Some are sweet, some are sour, some are crunchy and juicy, some are mealy and dry. Some have thick skin, some have thin skin. But when they are mixed together, it turns into a cider you couldn’t plan for!” 

Cheers!

The post Cider Pressing Party first appeared on Driftless Appetite.

“Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?”

John Milton, Paradise Lost (X 743-5)

If you wanted my advice on how to live an interesting life, I’d say it’s all about following threads. Every day we are presented with a tapestry of information. And yes, it’s great to try and see the whole work, but I find the things that have changed my life have been when I’ve picked up a thread and wondered “Where does this lead?” That’s how we ended in Mineral Point, after all. We visited this town one cold, gray winter day and found it charming. We could have left it there and continued on with our life in Madison, but for whatever reason we decided to follow the thread we found here.

This last year, I picked up a thread without even an inkling of how much impact it would have on me. I was working on a paper for a literature class I was taking (the paper was about digital humanities research). I came across an article about Lance Weiler, who runs something called the Digital Storytelling Lab (DSL) at Columbia University. It sounded like they did interesting work, researching the potential impacts of technology on the forms and functions of storytelling. Intriguing enough, particularly since I am a Columbia grad, but none of that was what I needed. I could have just moved on, I had that paper to write after all, but I decided to follow that thread for awhile. I went to the DSL’s website, and read more about their work. I saw that they had been doing this project called Frankenstein AI: A Monster Made by Many, and they’d just had an event at the Sundance Film Festival. The idea behind Frankenstein AI was to start a conversation about what we might want artificial intelligence to be like, and through that discussion to understand better what the best version of ourselves might be. I then saw that they were building a version of the event as a dinner party and they were looking for volunteers to host prototype dinner parties on Halloween to assist with the design. I signed up immediately.

I knew exactly want I wanted to do with the party. We’d already been playing around with the idea of hosting an 1800’s dinner party, and Frankenstein was written in 1818. I’d also been looking for a reason to do some real modernist cooking and combining the modernist and the 1800’s menus would be a great way to bring together the Frankenstein and the AI themes for the dinner party. We’d already been talking with some friends, Jeff & Esther, about hosting an event together and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. Jeff immediately volunteered to handle all of the 1800’s courses. After a few brainstorming sessions, this is the menu we came up with:

Jeff started the dinner off with a perfect seasonal salad with walnuts, bacon, and onion dressing, and for the main course he made slow cooked beef shortribs in a red wine reduction served with green beans and mashed potatoes. Alternating with these warming, filling dishes I concocted modernist dishes, making them as futuristic and bizarre as I could.

I spent hours reading through cookbooks from Heston Blumenthal, Grant Achatz, and Nathan Myhrvold looking for ideas. I ended up making a trio of starters and a dessert. The first starter was inspired by a pork belly salad served at State Bird Provisions in San Francisco. They change it around a lot, but when we were there is was fried pork belly with sliced jalapenos, grape halves, cilantro, and a vinegar dressing. I loved their particular combination of spice, acid, sweetness and fat. I wanted to recapture those flavors, but in a more minimalist presentation. I also wanted a lighter take so we could build up to the fatty short ribs. I halved grapes and dressed them with a serrano pepper vinegar, and then dusted them with bacon fat powder made by combining rendered bacon fat with tapioca maltodextrin (available from N-Zorbit).

I worked on a bunch of different ideas for the second dish. For awhile I was planning on making centrifuge pea butter, but the centrifuge I have a work is really small, and I worked out it would take me something like 100 hours to make enough pea butter for fifteen people (Fun fact: peas are only 0.4% fat). I moved through a lot of other ideas (ultrafiltered soups, sous vide soft boiled eggs, etc), but I came across a white tomato soup somewhere and loved the idea (it is white because you filter out most of the pigments in the tomato with ice filtration. Instead of a soup, I ended up making it as a foam which I stabilized with gelatin and served on top of a cheese cracker, made by microwaving disks of shredded parmigiana.

The final starter was the easiest. I came across these black garlic kimchi caramels with edible wrappers and fell in love. I modified the recipe a bit, to use Leslie’s homemade kimchi rather than just kimchi base, and added a sweet note by blending in Hawflake pastilles. Hawflakes are a candy popular in China made using the fruit of the hawthorn tree. I wanted to use them because in my research on futuristic foods I found out they used hawflakes as a prop on a favorite science fiction show of mine, Farscape, where they were the ubiquitous and nutritious (but bland) Food Cubes.

Particularly after the black garlic dish (where I used locally fermented garlic from Black Garlic North America, by the way), I thought we need a palette cleanser. I found a simple sous vide recipe for making limoncello, which I served in test tubes for that appealing urine sample look.

The dessert was actually the very first thing I figured out for the dinner. I wanted to play with the environment, and had the idea of having the lights go out during the dinner party in a “storm”. This led me to the idea of a glow-in-the-dark course to serve with the lights off. I already knew that the quinine in tonic water would fluoresce under ultraviolet light, so I decided on a gin & tonic jelly to be served under black lights. Easier said than done though- quinine is quite bitter and getting the right balance of bitter, sweetness, and flavor from the G&T jello wasn’t easy. More than a dozen attempts later (all the way up the the morning of the dinner), I finally had the right combination (using Saint George’s Terroir gin). In the picture below, you can also see that we covered the tables in messages and quotes written in invisible ink that showed up only under the black light.

I’ve only described the food so far though, and there was a lot more to this party than just that. Remember the Frankenstein AI project I talked about at the beginning? With assistance from the Columbia team and other groups holding prototyping dinners, we built their Frankenstein AI narrative into the dinner. This was done through conversational prompts with each course, building thematic context into the environment, and a really handy tool used by the Columbia group called appreciative inquiry, which is used to help people break through conversational banalities and get them to really engage with each other.

The evening started with this appreciative inquiry exercise. Guests paired off, ideally with someone they didn’t know very well. One person in each pair started by telling a story about a time they felt particularly connected with humanity. The other person’s job was to listen and ask questions, to interview them and get to the heart of the story. After a few minutes they switched roles the the second person told a story about when they felt disconnected from humanity, with the first person then serving as the investigative reporter. The exercise did its job, people then went into the next phase of the dinner primed to be thoughtful, honest, and most importantly, to actively listen to each other.

Each course of the dinner included a conversational prompt to help guide discussion, though guests were free to ignore the prompt if they wanted. The only rules were: no discussing jobs, the weather, or current events, and to try to keep the conversation between the whole table, and not to break off into side conversations.

My favorite prompt was the one for dessert. I told each table a little about the computer scientist Alan Turing (many were already familiar with his story because of a recent film). I explained that he had developed this idea of a test in which a judge has two conversations via computer text. One of those conversations is with another human, the other is with a computer program. After a few minutes, the judged is asked to pick which one was the human. If a computer program could trick the judge, it was said to pass the Turing Test. There is an organization that runs an annual Turing Test when they actually test programs in these conditions, and each year they give out a Most Human Computer award to the program that does the best. But each year there is also a judge that does the best against the computers, and this judge is given the Most Human Human Award. I love this story, and so I picked one person at each table and asked them to interview their fellow guests and see which one could convince them the most of their humanity. That guest was given our Most Human Human At The Table award.

I could go on and on about this party. I could talk about how I learned how powerful controlling the context (setting, theme, etc) can be for guiding the “text” (i.e. the conversation). I could talk about how much fun it was to plan and organize. About the insane amount of work it ended up being, from which I feel like I’m still recovering. I could tell you about how the DSL is using information they collected from us and the other prototype parties to refine their ideas and build newer and better versions of the event. I could tell you how great it was that all the guests were completely game to try out this weird thing that I wouldn’t, or couldn’t, even explain to them properly. And no matter how much work or thought I put into it, it was (and always is) the guests that made this dinner party great.

If you’re interested in the design process behind the dinner, or want to find out more about the Frankenstein AI dinner parties or the DSL, please follow these threads:

Lance Weiler on our dinner party

Frankenstein AI

Digital Storytelling Lab

*The title of the post is a reference to the awesome breakfast place by this name we came across in Chattanooga.

The post Aretha Frankenstein* first appeared on Driftless Appetite.

I find it most fitting that an English organization would, on a list of life’s activities, have queuing listed second.

Mass Observation was a social research organization set up by Tom Harrisson, Humphrey Jennings, and Charles Madge (an anthropologist, a filmmaker, and a poet, respectively [sounds like the beginning of a bad joke]) in Britain in 1937 to create an “anthropology of ourselves”.  Among their many projects was this detailed study of pubs in a working class town in the north of England (Bolton, identified only as Worktown in the book). Using dozens of volunteer (undercover) observers, they tracked every aspect of pub life, from how people chose which pub to frequent, to the average time it took to drink a pint (6.7 minutes on a Friday if drinking with a group, 13.6 minutes on a Wednesday drinking alone).  It is a distinctly wonkish but compelling record of a nonextant time and place.  I am sure modern anthropologists take issue with the research methods and I know some people detect a whiff of middle class condescension to the whole thing, but for me it provides a valuable corner piece for my personal cultural jigsaw.

The reason I bring all this up is that I have been thinking a lot about my pub recently: Tequila Point. I have mentioned Tequila Point here before, when they had just opened up, but in the three years since then it has become my go-to spot in town for drinks or dinner.  In Worktown parlance, it is my local. And while the food is great and they make a mean cocktail, those are not the reasons I keep coming back.

Just like the mill workers, tramwaymen, and steeplejacks of Worktown, the pub is more than just a source of drinks for me—it is a center of community.  Not being a churchgoer or much of a facebooker, the pub is where I find out what is going on in town, where I make new connections, and where I get things done. Hell, last month I sold my house sitting at the bar in Tequila Point. It is also an extension of my living room—even more now since I sold that house and moved to a building just one hundred and forty-six steps up the road. Meeting friends, watching soccer games, having birthday parties–we do almost everything there.

But maybe Tequila Point is not your local, should you still go?  Absolutely.  The food is great, and I really appreciate the fact that their specials come from around the globe.  In the last few months I have had: shrimp green curry with spring rolls, chicken tikka masala, chicken and waffles, Hungarian mushroom soup, and macaroni and cheese.  You can stick with the Mexican menu though, and still have lots of great options.  I suggest ordering a “kimchanga” which is their chimichanga made with Korean BBQ beef and kimchi (made by Leslie of Driftless Appetite fame).  It is not on the menu, but just tell them Keith told you to order it. If you are just having a drink, Tequila Point remains a great choice; I cannot think of a better cocktail bar in the area and they always have good local beers on tap from breweries such as One Barrel, Karben4, and Pearl Street (they occasionally have cider on tap from local Cider Farm as well). The restaurant also now includes a café space (Café 43) which is open for breakfast and lunch, so now I can get my morning cappuccino there as well.

It is not just Leslie and I who have this relationship with the place, either. One regular has his special golden syrup stocked at the café so they can make him his oatmeal just the way he likes it. Another customer, when the café got really busy one morning, just started taking orders and making people drinks.  Of course it helps immensely that the owners and staff are all great.  It was our anniversary recently; Leslie had foraged some morels and she dropped them off at Café 43 with the instructions to “do something special with them”.  When I showed up later that morning Zac (the chef) had whipped up fried chicken and morel eggs Benedict for our breakfast.  Other times Leslie has been offered a pillow and blanket (Tim) when hanging out at the café all day, or they have made us dinner-to-go (Richard) when they heard we were under the weather, or they have given us advice about trimming the trees in our yard (Joel). Come for the pub, stay for the people.

Mass Observation “wheel” image used in compliance with the terms and conditions of The Keep, part of the University of Sussex’s Special Collections.

More about Mass Observation:

http://www.massobs.org.uk/about/history-of-mo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass-Observation

http://www.thekeep.info/collections/mass-observation-archive/

The post The Pub and the People first appeared on Driftless Appetite.

A few months ago, I came upon a Japanese phrase ichi-go ichi-e for the first time. Commonly associated with the traditional Japanese tea ceremony, it means that each moment, even when we try to replicate it, is unique and should be treasured. Of course it is a universal concept and there have been times in the past of this feeling, but hearing the phrase made me want to evaluate whether I was truly present in my daily life and it also made me want to recognize some special moments I’ve been fortunate to have in the last year.  As a lot of you know by now, I love any excuse to prepare food, go out to eat, to celebrate and to travel; most importantly, that these great pleasures are shared with wonderful people.

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”

-J.R.R. Tolkien

The first thing that comes to mind is a trip through Maine with Dunja and Ayla late last spring. The air was salty and smelled of pine, lilacs, and apple blossoms.  We tasted a local delicacy: the chocolate whoopie pie.  Even better, we bought some live lobsters from a gas station in Lewiston for a special dinner prepared by Ayla’s grampy. He put the lobsters to sleep in the freezer before boiling them in a hug pot of water. We helped set the table with all the utensils for cracking the shell and for extracting the meat and we put on the traditional bibs. There was a half a stick of melted butter for each of us, several lemon wedges, and toasted bread as a vehicle for the creton, a pork spread similar to French rillettes.  We made a fine mess. Lemon juice stung our eyes and our faces were shiny with butter.

* * *

In December, Keith and I attended a dinner party to celebrate a friend’s cheese. This is not as abnormal as it sounds– it is Wisconsin after all. The cheese is a seasonal delicacy called Rush Creek Reserve. That night was a blustery and cold with a little snow. Caitlin and Andy prepared a lovely table decorated with candles, faerie lights, pine garland, and several wheels of the cheese. We started with a cocktail of grapefruit, rosemary and gin to accompany the salumi and fondue made with Pleasant Ridge Reserve. For the meal we had salad with daikon dressing, roast vegetables, and beef pot roast. I may have put copious amounts of the Rush Creek on my vegetables. The dessert was almond chocolate brownie with lavender ice cream and blackberries. Later in the night, we played music and sipped on whiskey.

* * *

In the summer, as part of our annual trip to Colorado, Keith and I camped at the Curecanti National Recreation Area near Gunnison. It was my first time camping as an adult. I wanted to be in charge and picked the spot for our tent. We made a pretty fancy camp dinner of bison meat, black truffles, and gnocchi. The night sky was stunning. It happened to be around the time of the Perseids so I was able to spot a few shooting stars. When it was time to sleep, we ended up rolling down toward the front of the tent. I guess I should consider the flatness of the ground next time. The view was spectacular!

* * *

On the same trip to Colorado, we did a day hike in the San Juans. I could complain about the pesky mosquitoes (I don’t know what they were doing hanging out at 8,000 ft.) along the way and the lack of oxygen but being far away from the moment now, I’m glad that we did it. The prize at the top was the carpet of yellow green and pink paintbrush flowers. There must have been thousands of them. The Ice Lake Basin had the deepest turquoise water I’d ever seen. We sat in awe, surrounded by snow covered peak. Nearby was a stream where we drank the most refreshing water (after filtering it!). The day after that experience, we ended up at some museum staring at fossilized fish vomit. Actually, it was a replica of fossilized fish vomit! The real stuff was off on loan somewhere. Not every day can be heaven.

* * *

There have been so many other fine moments like sharing a huge Filipino feast for Friendsgiving, devouring Italian pastries on a sidewalk at two in the morning in Boston, the pitcher of bloody Mary garnished with a whole fried chicken and finding a traveling beer garden in Milwaukee with family, eating the best canelles and foie gras and raspberry toast at Iliana Regan’s Bunny in Chicago with Wes and Ruth, and going to an opera at the Lyric and slurping spicy handmade ramen in a tiny basement bar with Megan. And the many visits to our local pub (Tequila Point), hanging out at the chocolate factory, and making music. How could I even forget the 24 hour vigil at American Players Theatre of Shakespeare’s 400^th anniversary? At dawn, a bunch of us got onstage and sang drinking songs with our tankards of local ale. In New York we had Christmas dinner at Le Bernardin paired with the controversial Salome at the Metropolitan Opera. I even went to my first county fair and witnessed “bed racing” and had my first taste of funnel cake.

I remember the brunch at the Tippy Top Orchard for our friend Rebecca. Mike made sourdough pancakes with turnips. Bazile made beet kvass, rye bread, yogurt, pear compote, and vegetable parmesan quiche made with local eggs. We also had apple and pear blossom honey, horseradish, maple syrup, and pear cider. It was hyper local and beyond organic, as Mike would put it.

* * *

We also attended a couple of events at Lightyears. Lightyears is a dining club in the Clyde Valley started by Serafina Bathrick and her late husband Michael Florescu. The first one we attended was a brunch in the summer with foraged food, prepared by chef Nate Berg of The Lakely in Eau Claire. The second was the last dinner of the season prepared by Sam Kamson Benanav, Shamus Khan, and Jonny Hunter. Some of the memorable dishes included a bowl of pistachios on a bed of salt, flambéed with Sambuca, duck sausage with cabbage slaw, apples, ground cherries with mustard dressing, an egg omelet with walnuts and hen of the woods mushroom topped with an herb salad of mint, basil, lemon balm, parsley and oregano.  Dessert consisted of candied squash, apples, sea berries, raspberries, and Concord grapes with a side of balsamic vinegar dressing and ricotta cheese on an antique silver platter. It was accompanied by a glass of nocino (black walnut liqueur), a cup of mint tea, and a dish of dark chocolate. Lightyears to me is a condensed version of all the good.  It is a place where many of the local food artisans have been inspired and supported through the years.  To me it is a space with so much joyfulness that I’ve told Keith after every time we’ve been there with friends, that I would be happy if that was to be my last meal and last night on earth.

* * *

October took me to the other side of the world with my friend Heather. We celebrated her birthday in Hong Kong with a couple of her long-time friends who live there. Before we arrived, I thought it was going to feel claustrophobic and chaotic. There were parts of the city like that but Heather and I were surprised by so many moments of unexpected beauty and feelings of being at peace.  We saw the giant Buddha on Lantau island, tasted the mouth numbing Schezuan hot pot and ate at a dai pai dong (a sidewalk restaurant with buckets of fresh fish cooked to order). We even went to the horse races and did a cruise at sunset on an old junk with the traditional red sails. Heather blew out her birthday candles up high in a tower surrounded by the Hong Kong “jungle”. My favorite was our time at the Lock Cha tea house in Hong Kong garden. We sipped oolong tea from tiny porcelain cups and enjoyed our vegetarian dim sum meal, mostly in silence, with a view of a great banyan tree.

Ichi-go, ichi-e, “Once in a lifetime, never again.” The past year has been unusually good to me and I’m extremely grateful for it. I want to try to continue seeing and sharing the beauty even when at times it doesn’t seem to exist or it is difficult to see. Wishing you lots of love, joy, and peace.

The post Once in a Lifetime, Never Again first appeared on Driftless Appetite.

This weekend was pretty relaxing for us.  We spent most of today just reading or walking around town.  On Saturday, we made a trip out to the Mines of Spain in Dubuque to do some light hiking (it still amazes me how many wonderful parks there are near us, particularly along the Mississippi).  While it’s nice to have a break, there’s so much going on this spring that we’re looking forward to, it was probably our last quiet weekend for awhile. Here’s some of the things we’re looking forward to over the next few weeks:

• The Wisconsin Grilled Cheese Championship (April 23rd, Dodgeville) – This is the 5th year for the event, and my 4th year judging.  It’s always been a lot of fun and there will be live music, food, beer, and maybe a little cheese.
• Leslie’s concert at Tequila Point (April 23rd, Mineral Point) – Come here Leslie sing a mix of Jazz, Americana, and 1980’s thrash metal.
• Afternoon Tea at the Mineral Point Collection (April 24th, Mineral Point) – Join proprietors Catherine and Tekie for a chance to tastes some of the wonderful imported English treats available in the store.
• Enos Farms brunch at Arcadia (April 24th, Spring Green) – Last brunch of the season, but Enos Farms will still be making lunch at Arcadia Mon-Sat.
• Miles Nielsen and the Rusted Hearts (April 30th, Mineral Point) – The Mineral Point Opera House 2016 season is packed with great concerts, such as this.  If you haven’t been to a show yet, give it a try!
• Spring Green Library book reading (May 7th, Spring Green) – Friends of Driftless Appetite JM and Nicole will be reading  from their book Madison Food: A History of Capital Cuisine.
• Mineral Point Farmer’s Market (May 7th, Mineral Point) – First of the year.  Can’t miss!
• Clay in May (May 7th & 8th, Mineral Point) – One of our favorite annual events in MP.
• Morel Mushroom Festival (May 14th & 15th, Muscoda) – Hoping to go, and hoping it will be a good year for morels.
• Ten Dollar House (May 15th, Mineral Point) – We can’t wait see this play about a couple, Edgar and Bob, who played huge role in revitalizing Mineral Point.

Hopefully, we’ll see you at a few of these.  If you know anything else going on that we’d be interested in, please let us know!

The post Spring Checklist first appeared on Driftless Appetite.

Sjölinds on 219 East Main St. in Mt Horeb is one of my favorite places to indulge.  In fact, I bank in Mt Horeb just to have an excuse to go there.  I have brought many friends there through the years but there is nothing like a solo morning excursion accompanied by travel magazines, a cup of French hot chocolate (extra whipped cream), and maybe a little pastry.  And, just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, they have opened a second spot in Mt. Horeb at 150 Lillehammer Lane!  The older location will remain a cafe plus bakehouse while the new one will serve as a cafe and their chocolate factory.  If you have not been to either location yet, you have really been missing out on the delightful confections, Scandinavian comfort food, and friendly atmosphere.

 Chocolate Factory at 150 Lillehammer Lane

The new space, while bright and modern, is still cozy with a fireplace in the middle of the dining area.  A long table along a wall of windows, crowned by an indulgent chandelier, is a good spot for bigger groups or for those looking to make new friends.  And in case you didn’t notice in the picture above, there is a drive-through window for people on-the-go.  When Keith and I visited last weekend, owner Tracy Thompson was busy making Swedish pancakes on the griddle and her daughter Melissa was manning the coffee machine.

Mother & Daughter

We enjoyed traditional and buckwheat Swedish pancakes with ham, drizzled with maple syrup, as well as a jammy dodger and a stroopwaffle.  Melissa informed us that the proper way to eat a stroopwaffle was to first let it warm up on top of your coffee.  I warmed my stroopwaffle on top of my mug of caramel green tea until the rim was half covered in melted chocolate and I could break off pliable pieces of it.  May I please say stroopwaffle, one more time? Stroopwaffle!

Treats

The factory tour was intoxicating.  There were bags of cacao beans and huge blocks of chocolate with different grades and origins. We learned about cracking, sorting, and winnowing and roasting.  The melanger, a big drum where the cacao nibs are ground and mixed with sugar until the texture is silky to the tongue was a hypnotic piece of machinery. One could lose themselves staring at the giant vat of swirling chocolate. Even more fun was the tempering area and truffle making area.  There was a trolley that must have been at least twenty layers deep with an assortment of truffles, large containers of sprinkles in all shapes and sizes, bottles of liqueurs and vanilla, chocolate hearts on sticks that were about ready to be unmolded, and gingerbread men resting from their chocolate baths.

The chocolate bars (which come in about a dozen varieties) are beautifully wrapped and the wax seal and colorful strings make me feel like I’m opening a royal letter from the 17th century.  The fleur-de-lis pattern, imprinted in the wax, is commonly thought of as a French symbol, but today I’ve read that some scholars have connected it to the corn sheaf used as the emblem of Skjöldr, the legendary ancestor of the Danish royal family.  Skjöldr shows up in the historical Prose Edda and the opening lines of Beowulf (as Scyld) as well as other historical documents, often depicted as a boy who washes ashore in a boat with a sheaf of wheat placed by his head.  I particularly like this connection because it is so fitting with the meaning of Sjölind (see below).

Bars

I will leave you with a little Q&A with Melissa.

Leslie: How did you get interested in food business?

Melissa:  When I was nineteen my Mom started Sjölinds intending it to be a little desert shop that would be have limited hours, I was going to be involved for a year or so but we  were lucky enough to keep growing and I really enjoyed being in customer service so I have been here for almost ten years now.

Leslie:  What is the meaning of Sjölinds?

Melissa:  Sjölind is my Grandmother’s maiden name, it means one who makes their living from the sea.

Leslie:  What are your favorite things about owning and operating a cafe?

Melissa:  Interacting with people is always a pleasure.  Problem solving is an underrated joy, you learn how to fix things and balance people’s needs, when it works out you feel like a small scale super hero.

Leslie:  When did you start working with chocolate and why?

Melissa:  When we opened Sjölinds we had sweets and we brought in chocolate bars from European and American chocolate makers.  Slowly we added truffles, caramels, toffee, and other confections.  Then about six years ago we got curious as to what chocolate we made from scratch would taste like so we started playing around  making tiny batches.

Leslie:  Who designed the packaging for your various confections?

Melissa: Tracy, my mom is the person who attends to all the visual panache of our stores including our packaging.

Leslie:  Where do you source the cacao beans?

Melissa: We like use a wide variety of cacao beans. Some of my favorite origins have been Ecuador and the Dominican Republic.  We blend our milk chocolates and our high percentage bars so finding beans that will play well together that you really like the taste of on their own is a fun challenge.

Leslie:  Do you listen to music when you are making chocolate?  If so, what is on your playlist?

Melissa:  Our process of making chocolate is very loud so there is not as much music when we are roasting and winnowing the beans.  Otherwise we take turns in the kitchen  choosing what we listen to, these days it is a lot of the Flaming Lips and the Sweeney Todd soundtrack every day.  I also listen to audiobooks ones with seafaring and travel are always great.  Also podcasts, Tom Ashbrook!

Leslie:  What is it like working with the whole family?

Melissa:  It’s so fun!  This time of year it’s exactly like when we were kids and my mom would make so many tins of cookies for friends and relatives.  The only downside is that no one knows how to tease you like your family does.

Leslie:  What other forms of art are you involved with or what forms/pieces inspire you?

Melissa:  I used to be really in love with working with glass, I haven’t really done it in some time but it is still something that I love, if you can get there,the Bergstrom-Mahler glass museum in Neenah Wisconsin is a great place to be inspired.  I made a marionette for my Grandpa’s birthday and have started another. It’s a great way to integrate many forms of craft.

Leslie:  If you could have one last meal on earth, what would you have?

Melissa:  Buttered toasted Swedish rye bread and a hot chocolate. And probably pickles.

Backstage

How have you been pronouncing Sjölinds in your head while reading this post?  Go visit either location to find out the proper way.  You’ll likely spot owners Chris or Tracy working alongside their beloved staff and their children Melissa, Erin, and Ty.

The post Sjölinds Chocolate Factory first appeared on Driftless Appetite.

Watermelon Radish & Lemon Salad

I felt like I cheated when I made this simple watermelon radish and lemon salad.  All you need is a mandolin to slice it uniformly and thinly, then sprinkle with lemon juice.  The radish is gorgeous on its own.  I felt like I was plating precious prosciutto.  It’s is great alternative to crackers for eating cheese or as a refreshing palate cleanser between the richer items.

Green Pea Hummus

This green pea hummus was also easy to make, according to Keith.  Take 3 cups thawed green peas, 1/4 cup olive oil, the juice of half a lemon, 1 garlic clove, salt, black pepper, fresh or dried mint to taste and puree in a food processor.  Decorate it to your liking.  The dried chive blossoms and mint were from the summer garden.

Kale, Apple, Walnut, Sumac-Onion Tabbouleh

This kale, apple, walnut, sumac-onion tabbouleh is a mouthful to say but it is my absolute favorite salad this winter.  I like it so much, I’ve eaten it for breakfast.  It is that good.  Click on the recipe here from Tasting Table.  If you do not have sumac, use onion and a little paprika in the onion marinade.  Sumac grows everywhere in Wisconsin.  Keith and I gathered quite a bit late summer for use this winter.  Normally they taste exactly of lemon but the ones here taste of plums and lemons. Even better!

Happy Eating and Happy Holidays!!

The post Feasting on the Light Side first appeared on Driftless Appetite.