Foodie File

F3: Leggo Already

November 20, 2009

Please, please, please. If I have to hear another news story about the shortage of Eggo Waffles I just might lose it. Are people really...

Please, please, please. If I have to hear another news story about the shortage of Eggo Waffles I just might lose it. Are people really running out and hoarding boxes of the stuff? Because OMG what would we do, how could we cope if we couldn't pull a factory-formed rock-hard frozen breakfast item from our freezer? I don't know, crack some eggs? This Fresh Forkin' Friday I'm making 200 waffles, freezing them, and seling them from a stand in front of my house.

*****

OPEN/ING

The Showplace Icon movie complex in the hot hot West End is finally open today. More than just your average flix-house, there's all sorts of fancy shmancy seating, lounges, and bar snacks. I bet if you spill a martini your feet still stick to the floor.

Il Gatto will open on Monday the 23rd. You can still see the ghost of Figlio in the space, but it has morphed into something slicker, more steamlined. I couldn't find the bathroom, though. No pink arrow.

The Nicklow family is resurrecting the Shorewood Inn as the Shorewood Bar & Grill on Monday, November 30th. The iconic Fridley restaurant has been closed for a couple of years, but the next generation of Nicklows have given it a scrub and polish with hopes of luring the next generation of Fridlians for casual Greek/American food.

CLOSING

Cafe Brenda is closing after a venerable 23 year run, which by and large kick-started our local farm to table movement. For more than a few years there have been murmurs of it being for sale, but it looks like the final dish will be served December 5th.
Cafe Agri, a restaurant with a very similar food ethos, has announced its official closing date: November 29. To use up some of its wine inventory, it will be offering $1 glasses of vino on its final nights, post-Thanksgiving.

*****

If all you want to do is chow on sushi, but the chicken finger set won't let you indulge, Sushi Empress Lisa Edevold feels your pain. At Lisa's Tiger Sushi 2, every Sunday is Tigger Sunday. Not only do kids 8 and under eat for FREE, but you can call ahead and reserve a table-top DVD with kid movies. Kids over 6 years old get invited into the kitchen for a sushi lesson while Mommies can indulge in a special cocktail called "Mommy's Little Helper". A parent herself, Lisa want to provide a place where the kiddos are free to be.

*****

The Blue Plate crew is doing their part to fuel the shoppers who fuel the economy this Black Friday. Their 3 Squares, Edina, Longfellow, and Highland Grills will open at an ungodly hour to feed the power shoppers some sweet deals. From 4-5 a.m. you get any breakfast entree FREE, from 5-6 a.m. you get 75% off any breakfast entree, from 6-7 a.m. you get 50% off any breakfast entree.

*****

If you're not attending one of the kajillion glitzy charity events on Saturday night, maybe you want to take in something a little more laid-back for a good cause. Jazz 88 is throwing a late night fundraiser dinner at Corner Table. The 9:30 seating will run you $50 for four courses with wine pairings, and damn if the menu doesn't include cheese and potato pierogies. Much better than shrimp puffs you're likely to find at the fancy ball.

]]>

A Gem In South

November 18, 2009

I am lucky enough to live near Everett’s Food and Meats on 38th Street and Cedar Avenue in south Minneapolis. It’s lucky because they have a great meat...]]>

I am lucky enough to live near Everett’s Food and Meats on 38^th Street and Cedar Avenue in south Minneapolis. It’s lucky because they have a great meat counter with actual butchers … yes, I said butchers. This little store is really an old-school butcher shop with a good smattering of groceries.

By old-school I mean they don’t feature any local grass-finished beef, free-range chickens, or pasture-raised pork like Clancy’s (which is wonderful). While that might be a shortcoming for the locavore, the store has been family-owned and operated for more than 50 years, and that counts for something in my mind. What it may lack in the locavore department, it makes up for in the great hand-cut USDA Choice steaks, fresh chickens, and handmade traditional style meat offerings such as summer sausage, hard salami, ring bologna, polish sausage, bratwurst, snappy wieners, jerky, et Al. The butchers are friendly, very knowledgeable, and will help guide you in making your meat selections.

With the overwhelming change in the grocery buying dynamic over the last two decades, and most of our meat coming from a package in an anonymous case, it is refreshing to talk to a local trained butcher who has your interest in mind. Everett’s will order just about anything you want in the “land protein” realm if they don’t have it on hand. Also, they custom processed my 100 pounds of venison meat into superb sausages, deer sticks, salami, and summer sausage.

The Magic of Ham Flavored Ruffles

November 16, 2009

This is why I won't be getting any work done today.... This is why I won't be getting any work done today.

McSweeney's Reviews of New Food is hi-larious and beautiful and oddly satiating. The brilliant have written in to give their what-for concerning various food products. Go, read, and lighten life's load.

100% Vegetarish Wiener Schnitzel

Vegetarian Wiener Schnitzel, despite its alluring alliteration, feels like an oxymoron, even to a lifelong vegetarian. Arguably the most iconic meat dish in a national cuisine that worships meat, I can visualize the original, flesh-based version coming to life and expressing fury at the idea of a vegetarian joining in the cultural fun (in its plated form—not the original animal, for obvious reasons).

Nissin Top Ramen, Chicken Flavor

I listen when my mother, a longlived WASP from a long line of longlived WASPS, lectures me about what a high sodium diet will do to my blood pressure. I understand that there are no ingredients in Nissin Top Ramen, Chicken Flavor that have potential to impart health benefits with the dubious exceptions of chicken powder, celery powder, and dehydrated leek. I recognize that chicken powder is an unsavory enterprise, which should disturb the thinking consumer.

Yet I slurp on.

Ham Flavored Ruffles

During my brief stint living in Pamplona, a city known mostly for its Hemingway-lauded Mardi-Gras-for-20somethings-with-a-deathwish festival, I often found myself wondering how a population who enjoyed so much animal fat, nicotine, and bull-goading had—at least, according to our guides—some of the longest life spans in the world. And each month, down to my last few Euros before paying rent, I'd be faced with the proverbial two roads: buy the more substantive baguette or the bag of Ham-Flavored Ruffles.

Laughing Cow Light Cheese Wedges

If P.E. was the Crimean War of my middle-school life, then cheese was my Florence Nightingale. Every day after school, I sought refuge in Kids in the Hall reruns and a thick block of lactose-filled comfort. Crackers? Not necessary. Just a sturdy slice off the Costco block of cheese − usually cheddar or gouda − that perpetually haunted the refrigerator shelves. Cream, cottage, curd, wheel, baby loaf: these were the materials from which happiness was fashioned.

]]>

F3: Small Bites

November 13, 2009

Last night I was at a charity function that featured a sampling of chefs. It was the usual gig with scattered stations of chefs offering tasty food on small plastic plates. While... Last night I was at a charity function that featured a sampling of chefs. It was the usual gig with scattered stations of chefs offering tasty food on small plastic plates. While some of the plates were perfectly balanced, a few were laden with a giant chunk of meat that would prove to be more than a bite. Lord knows I don't always strive for ladylike ideals when snacking, but wrestling to bite into a chewy hunk of seared protein as sauce drips down my dress is not fabulous on any night. Cut it, you say? With my cute little plastic fork as I stand bustling with silent auction bidders? No, I'll just half-bend over and hope my hair shields my Neanderthal technique of grabbing the burning bite from my mouth with my fingers. This Fresh Forkin' Friday I'm scrubbing my dress.

*****

CLOSED

BALi, the Indonesian joint on Eat Street that Peter looooooved, has closed.

Premier Cheese Market will be doing its last day of business on December 6th. There are burning hopes that someone will throw them a bucket of money so they can rise again!

Chase Brook Natural Farms is calling it quits. They'll be at the MGM until its stock of natural meat runs out.

Manhattan's has closed for dinner until further notice while staff works on a new menu.

OPEN

Cocina Latina has opened in the former Taco Blass spot on Nicollet. Look for Steven Brown's assessment of the mostly Ecuadorian menu next month. I'm quite curious about the figs and cheese dessert.

Trader Joes continues its world domination with an opening in Minnetonka.

The Olive Grove is a new olive oil boutique in Mendota Heights. Its 100% extra virgin oils are fused with flavors during the crush, which gives them a richer depth than those silly oils with rosemary branches soaking in them. All are available to sample, and recipe cards are sprinkled throughout the store. The Grand Opening runs through Saturday and any purchase enters you in a drawing for a $100 gift card.

The owners of Patina (who receive entirely too large a percentage of my Christmas budget) have opened Shoppe Local celebrating our home-grown talent. For the foodist, the shop offers local products from Golden Fig, Ames Honey, Nordic Ware, Funky Chunky, Thomasina's Cashew Brittle and more.

The Sweets Bakeshop is celebrating their grand opening this Saturday with raffles, samples, free t-shirts, and some of the best cupcakes this side of sugar. There are crumbs from the breakfast/bacon cupcake on my keyboard as I type.

FLIP FLOPPING

China Jen in Roseville has changed ownership and entered the hot trend toward Szechuan and getting right to the point by renaming itself Szechuan.

Alaska Eatery, the seafood house run by the Taher group, quietly took down its sign and morphed into a Timber Lodge Steakhouse.

COMING SOON

Vescios put up a Coming Soon sign on the old Cafe DiNapoli skyway spot in the 6 Quebec building (next to Zen Box, down from My Burger). Sooooo, we're replacing old Minneapolis Italian with ... old Minneapolis Italian.

*****

Seven is psyched to be out of detention.

*****

If you were a fan of the boys who grew an acre of corn in King Corn, they're back with a sequel. Big River explores our own Mighty Mississipi and the impact that corn growers have on the river. These guys tell a great and convincing story that doesn't hit you over the head with preachiness. The Riverview will host the MN premier with filmmaker Curt Ellis, doing a double feature of the films on November 18th. Tickets ($10) are available in advance at the Birchwood.

Maybe you can go get your tickets this Saturday while checking out Steven Read of Shepherd's Way Farm. He'll be at the Birchwood from 1-3 p.m. sampling cheeses and signing people up for their cheese CSA. Brilliant gift for the cheese lover in the family... or me ... just sayin'.

*****

Shefzilla is throwing a Thanksgiving Eve bash in celebration of all that is brash and loud and outspoken. Special friends Vincent, Ferris Schiffer of Minikahda, David Vlach, and Stewart the 'Zilla himself will cook up some tasty treats on Wednesday the 25th starting at 9 p.m. at Sunny's Midtown. There'll be frivolity and live music, plus a special Pink Zilla cocktail. Cover is $10 cash money, with some of the proceeds benefitting Second Harvest. Maybe with enough Pink Zillas in him, Dee Wayne will display some of that exotic dancing he's rumored to be famous for.

*****

Julia Moskin of the NYT agrees with me about sides. So there.

]]>

Deer Camp 2009

November 12, 2009

I did not grow up a hunter. In my youth we fished, boated, camped, and played in the woods daily but that was the... I did not grow up a hunter. In my youth we fished, boated, camped, and played in the woods daily but that was the entirety of my outdoors endeavors. But since my wife and I bought our farm five years ago, I started seeing our land as a bounty to be preserved and harvested from. We preserve the natural landscape by leaving most of our land alone, and we harvest the garden that we tend all summer and then some of the wildlife that the natural landscape provides.

The culture and couture in much of northern Minnesota in the autumn is mossy oak camouflage and Vikings purple. The mossy oak, being the preferred camo of the deer hunter, is a kind of badge worn with honor by men and women alike. It tells everyone: I deer hunt and I can’t wait for da opener.

Four years ago, I started hunting for deer on my property. Not gung-ho style, I sort of eased into it, perching in a tree with my father’s old gun and my North Face jacket, donning a blaze orange vest and cap, and assuming nothing would happen . . . and it didn’t. But after years of listening to what sounded like the Fourth of July in November, last year I got a bit more serious. My sous chef, Lucas, and I built a basic deer stand in the back pasture, which worked like a charm, and we harvested our first deer from the property. We have so many deer in Wadena that I could have legally taken five deer!

We turned that first deer into venison roasts and stew meat, since there is relatively little meat that you can just grill or sauté and serve from these animals. The straps, tenderloin, and hearts are great for quick cooking and the rest is pretty much sausage and stew meat. This year we harvested two large bucks and a large doe, which we fabricated reserving the quick-cooking cuts, 40 pounds for jerky making, and a few roasts, then delivered the remaining 93 pounds to Everett’s Meats and Grocery (my neighborhood grocery and butcher for sausage making). As I write, my first batch of jerky is slowly drying in the oven. More on that and the heart next week.

]]>