Talk of the Town

Food chat is great, but there is so much to catch up on, I thought we could stretch a little today as well. Did anyone catch Tony Bourdain at Triple Rock or Solera? What did you think? Anyone go to both events and have a favorite? Any great pull quotes you heard? I was in NYC doing the Today Show, so I couldn’t attend. Very disappointing; I would have loved to check out the action, especially at Solera. If you go to my website, we have some blogs up from some ladies who attended the event, and we also have a podcast on the site that I recorded last week with TB.

Did anyone see the pics of the one-and-a-half kilo white truffle that was discovered in Italy a few days ago? Good lord, I could smell it through my TV. Apparently it was dug up in Tuscany by a truffle-sniffing dog and will be auctioned this week in Florence for charity. According to the AP:

“Truffle hunter Cristiano Savini said Tuesday he was searching for truffles with his father and dog Rocco last week in Palaia, a town about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Pisa, when his dog, Rocco, started sniffing "like crazy." With Rocco leashed to a tree to prevent him from digging too furiously, the Savinis carefully extracted a truffle they said weighed 1.497 kilograms (about 3.3 pounds), which they contended was a record weight. Guinness Book of World Records lists a 1.3 kilogram (2.86-pound) white truffle found in Croatia in 1999 as the biggest. Cristiano's father, Luciano, said the truffle had been weighed at the traffic police station in the nearby town of San Miniato, which issued a certificate attesting to its weight. The station said the officer involved in the weighing was not immediately available for comment. On Tuesday, Cristiano Savini brought the truffle to Rome to publicize the planned auction, to be held Saturday in a palace in Florence. Truffles can fetch €7,500 ($11,155) a kilogram [$5,500 a pound] in Rome, although they usually weigh from 30 to 80 grams (1 to 2.8 ounces). Slivers of truffles, with their strong aroma, are prized in Italy to flavor pasta sauces and rice dishes. Proceeds from the auction will go to an Italian organization that helps sufferers of genetic diseases, a group that helps street children in London and Catholic charities in Macau.”

In a recent Mpls.St.Paul Magazine issue, I wrote a few blurbs on our leading local pastry chefs and was limited to highlighting five talents. Last week, I had lunch at Bank and was impressed with the awesome confection that Liz Matheson sent to our table. Next time you are there, order the white chocolate grapefruit bomb with dark chocolate and salted pretzel. It’s goooooooood. 

Did any of you fall in love with the cardamom mini donuts as much as we did last summer at the Mill City Farmers Market? Well, the talents behind those little gems, Carrie Summer and Lisa Carlson from Spoonriver, just bought a winterized concession wagon. Carrie will be taking her treats to the street. And the menu is growing. You can look forward to more mini-donuts, soft-serve ice cream, and her famous chocolate mousse in Popsicle form. Over the last few years, I have been aching for someone to bring street food into our food culture. Why can’t McCormick and Schmick's have a stand outside their restaurant that sells oysters and cups of ceviche? What about Brothers Deli pushing kosher dogs on the Avenue? Chino Latino could go in several directions, and Lucia’s could do hot chocolate and baked goods all winter long. Well, Carrie is trying hard to bring street food into vogue here, and there is even a wonderful rumor swirling about that she is thinking of creating some kind of winter carnival to take place between the Guthrie and Spoonriver with even more street food being hawked.

Here is the fun part: She needs a name for the cart. In my office, this is cause for a major creative brainstorming session. Berit came up with Street Treats. Dusti came up with The Honey Wagon. Carrie said she would consider readers' suggestions, so get on the stick, and let me know your thoughts. Carrie will check in on this site, and if you end up with the winning name, I am thinking you would never have to wait in line . . . ever.

Now a month or so ago, I started writing about Landmarc, one of the most ridiculous restaurants I have been to in a long time. First, no one ever seems to be there. I have stopped in to peek out the room on five occasions, and it was never more than 25 percent full, not once. No one ever seemed to be talking about it anywhere I went; it had no buzz at all. The food I ate there on the one visit I stayed for dinner was awful. One reason I think this restaurant is still open is because it is in a hotel, which provides some shelter from the typical financial vagaries facing a restaurant on life support. Only open for a relatively short time, the chef was gone one day and then back; and now the manager (my former Café 1-2-3 buddy Michael Morse) is apparently gone from Landmarc in a quid pro quo move by ownership in order to get the chef to return to the stove. Anyone know any details? I called and only got the broad story.

In NYC, I ate a wonderful dinner at Balthazar, followed up by a banana pudding at Magnolia Bakery on Bleeker and 11th.  BTW, the pool at Miami’s Standard Hotel has some of the best mini burgers I have ever tasted, and Versailles in Little Havana still has some killer roasted pork with beans and rice. Cuban sandwiches at La Carretta are better than I remembered.

Thanks for all the opinions on Heidi’s everyone;
anyone been to Nick and Eddie’s yet?

Lost Desserts

How was everyone’s Thanksgiving? My bird was outstanding, thank you for asking, and the stock is made and in the freezer. Huge props to my wife, who has mastered a citrus cranberry sauce that we all are happily addicted to. We’ll get back to our regularly scheduled blogging on Thursday; there is a lot to talk about as we move into December, but here is a great book idea for you to think about either for yourself or as a gift.

It is that time of year—no, I’m not thinking shopping, in-laws, or little twinkling lights. I’m thinking of recipes with histories. Holidays are thick with recipes we dig out from the back of our collections, especially sweet ones that the whole family adores. Grandma’s lime Jell-O? Fruitcakes? No one really likes these, do they? And yet, they endure, feeding our hearts with warm memories. It isn’t often we stray from the particulars of our personal holiday repertoire, but this year you should start some new traditions, and you can find them in an amazing new book, Gail Monaghan’s Lost Desserts, which provides a feast of desserts.

The first thing you’ll notice is the stunning photography by Eric Boman, and if that wasn’t enough to get your sweet side cooking, Monaghan provides a story for each dessert that will easily become yet another tale in your own family history. Monaghan pulls these stories from a collective gastronomic consciousness—from the history of bananas Foster to the 1940s tale of La Pyramide’s pruneaux au pichet (prunes in a pitcher), which is a wonderful story of chef Fernand Point’s regular customer, the Aga Khan III. This book reads as well as it cooks. You can even reconstruct Ultra Violet’s chocolate and chestnut torte that had Andy Warhol addicted. Each bite you take of a dessert made from Monaghan’s book is rich with history; it will delight the taste buds of your family, and have a good story, too.

Let’s not forget the recipes. Each dessert varies in difficulty but is accessible to the home cook. True, Escoffier’s recipe for peach Melba might look a little daunting— precise plating directions of embedding a silver timbale filled with the dessert into an ice sculpture and then adding spun sugar to the top—but Monaghan provides modern suggestions that wouldn’t diminish this recipe in the eyes of the father of modern cuisine.

There are many cookbooks out there to tantalize and teach, but with the gastronomic knowledge that Monaghan imparts in this book, merely reading it will catapult any weekend cook into a food historian of the highest order.

Something Stinks, and It’s Not Your Do-ahead Gravy

In last Wednesday’s Star Tribune, Kevin Diaz reported on Hormel and Cargill CEOs testifying about the modified atmosphere packaging that allows for storing meat and other foods in an oxygen-depleted environment, then pumping the meat with carbon monoxide, making it shelf stable for up to twenty days, and it retains all it’s original bright red color. I have all the respect in the world for many of the local politicians on all sides of this issue, but if you take the position that the process preserves freshness and minimizes contamination as Cargill and Hormel do, and if you really believe this is a positive step for food safety as they do, then the least you could do is stick a BIG FAT LABEL on the meat that tells everyone how old the stuff is. I happen to think the practice is deceptive and is a scarily, but weakly, disguised attempt to get us to relieve the giant food companies of old meat that otherwise ends up in the garbage. You can say as many times as you like that it’s about preserving freshness, but it is simply a matter of baiting consumers into buying old meat that looks fresh and keeping meat shelf stable without freezing it. Why not simply sell fresh meat as fresh meat; then freeze the stuff before throwing it away in the supermarkets and sell that at a discount? And if you believe in the product and the new science so much, why not simply label it as “CO gassed” with large “made-on” dates? Hormel and Cargill have offered to label the product with a “color is not an accurate indicator of freshness” warning. Why create a process like this and then label it as such? Isn’t this an obvious mea culpa? Thoughts?

Speaking of freshness . . . for those looking to make do-ahead gravy for the holidays:

Do-Ahead Gravy
3 lb. poultry wings and backs
2 c. chopped onion and celery
4 c. chicken or turkey stock
3 T. flour
3 T. butter
1/2 c. cream (if you like)
salt and pepper to taste
herb sprig as needed

Chop the onion and celery, and place in a large brownie pan. Roast the poultry wings and backs on top of the chopped onion and celery. Season and cook at 350 degrees for 75 minutes. Remove from stove, pour off any accumulated liquid/fat, and return to oven for 10 minutes. Onions under the bird bits should be golden brown around edges, and poultry should be crisp-gold. Skim fat from liquid and discard, returning the liquid to pan along with the chicken or turkey stock. Simmer on a stove top for 10 minutes to loosen the sticky bits, pour contents of the pan into a small pot, and simmer covered for 50 minutes. You can add an herb sprig here if you like. Uncover, strain well, discard solids, and reduce liquid to 2-1/2 cups.

Set aside, and place the flour and butter in a saucepan, and cook for a few minutes over medium heat. Add the hot gravy liquid in thirds, whisking, and bring to a slow boil. Cook for 3–5 minutes, add cream, if you like, or season with salt and pepper, and serve as is. I do mine ahead to make life easy on Thursday. Happy Thanksgiving.

Perspective

The obits are filled these days with notices that give me more pause than usual. A woman whom I cooked with years ago, Kristine Fontaine, passed away last week in San Francisco, and her memorial is this Saturday here in Minnesota. Anyone cooking in town for more than the last five minutes might remember her and might want to attend. She was forty-two. AA historian and author Bill Pittman was sixty, and Norman Mailer was older still; Ira Levin, another of my fave authors passed away, too . . . the message I am getting at is that life is precious, treat it that way. Too often we take ourselves way too seriously. Moving on . . .

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Nice quote from Lucia Watson in Wednesday’s New York Times in Julia Moskin’s mashed potato piece: “You always have to have sympathy for the potato.” Beautiful. Not sure what it means, but I love it. Speaking of the New York Times, Frank Bruni’s brutal review of Harry Cipriani on Fifth Avenue is proof positive of how fun it is to wield a poison pen, especially when it is deserved and helps to inform thousands of diners who assume the place is good based on historical reputation. You really need to read it for yourself. A sample? Regarding the crowd, he writes, “You rarely see blondness this improbable, cosmetology this transparent, wealth this flamboyantly misspent.” Awesome.

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The Red Stag Supper Club, Kim Bartmann’s new joint, is opening on Monday. Cosmos alumn, Bill Baskin, is the chef. Anyone want to chime in on this one? Why am I not interested? Hmmmm. Am I not a target customer of this concept? What about Kim’s other venues? I love Barbette (food driven), but I rarely go to Bryant Lake Bowl (not food driven). What if Baskin’s food is outrageously good? I’m in.

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This Saturday is the annual KARE 11 morning news food show. Look for Eric and Belinda to interview chefs, go live at Cooks of Crocus Hill for some turkey talk, and (here comes the shameless plug) see a few vignettes from yours truly on just a few of my fave cookbooks. And to the people who saw the shoot through the window and emailed me about getting back into the news genre, no, I am not working in local TV these days, just got asked to be a guest. Check it out. The show is always fun to watch.

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When I was in China last month shooting for Travel Channel, the USA women won the bridge world cup in Shanghai, and it has now surfaced that one of the members scribbled, “We did not vote for Bush” on the back of her menu at an awards dinner, setting off an international incident, lawsuits, countersuits, etc. The menu scribbler notes in the article that she was being spontaneous, funny, glib, and was responding to the “questioning and critical” nature of our government by others she had met and was saying that she, too, was critical. I can back her last assertion up. I have never, on any trip to any country, been so often asked about our president and our government and never in a positive vein either. The effect of our geopolitics on the American reputation abroad is staggeringly negative.

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On a more positive note . . .
The Oxford word of the year is locavore! Wow. I love it. Anyone looking for some Thanksgiving perspective should look at Christopher Kimball’s (Cooks Illustrated) talk with Ed Levine about the magazine's take on Thanksgiving. And speaking of Ed, his food blog, Serious Eats, won a best food blog award and deservedly so. Has anyone seen Mario Batali's blog? (BTW, GP is Gywneth Paltrow, and Bitty is Mark Bittman.) I like the man, and I like the blog. And speaking of good reads, just making sure that everyone read the Pollan New York Times piece, another brilliant op-ed from the mind of one of the most important thinkers and writers of our generation. And that is not a hyperbole. 

Chef News And Link Me

Who could be the new chef at Muffuletta now that J. D. Fratzke is leaving for The Strip Club? It is a great company to work for, fabulous high-profile job, restaurant on solid footing . . . who’s available, and who would be ready for the next step? (Any aspiring sous chefs out there?) Joan Ida is back in town from Hong Kong, but there are about a thousand people wooing her, including some Asian companies looking to woo her back. Marianne Miller, former culinatrix at Red and Bobino has now resurfaced and is running the cooking program at The Saga Hill Cooking School, above The Five Swans on Lake Street in Wayzata. The space is wonderful, and the town needs stuff like this. More than a cooking school, what the town needs is Marianne cooking private events and using the school as a lab for her next restaurant. Wouldn’t that be slick? Running Red and Bobino should be great experiences for a chef looking to figure out how to work with owners, run a kitchen, and make some great food. I am hoping Miller winds up somewhere other than a cooking school.

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In the recent Food & Wine, they riff on the new Julia Child movie, directed by Nora Ephron, which has Dame Julia being played by Meryl Streep.

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If you are trying to get your kids to eat their greens, here is a good article in Slate on hiding vegetables in kids' food. And here is the related article in Jessica Seinfeld's book Deceptively Delicious that many think has been plagiarized, but here’s the skinny. You can’t copyright a broad and roomy idea that is merely a tip (Seinfeld’s book is full of those). Additionally, the copyrighting of recipes is restricted to patent law. For example: The KFC batter is a patented process and not an intellectual property. Here’s a question for the legal eagles who read this blog: With all the dough wrapped up in recipes these days, will that change anytime soon?

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Talk about f***ed up!  The organic Batter Blaster (approved by the USDA) comes in a Cheez Wiz can, which brings up a couple of questions: Is this a bait-and-switch issue? And, is this one more reason we cannot trust the USDA to certify food as organic? Shouldn’t there be more stringent moral/ethical guidelines in the USDA approval system as well as more teeth into the technical guidelines? The idea that something is not 100 percent organic and can be labeled as such is one of the great tragedies of the modern food culture.

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I love cheese, check this out. 

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Beer might be just as good as a bottle of Gatorade (if not better) for the body after a workout.

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Here is Time magazine's slideshow of last-meal choices of famous chefs. Loving Mario's vegetal mullet. And Gary Danko's portrait in a Roman feast. The book will be out soon. Love this idea.

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Christopher Brosius (perfumer) has created a food series. Here's the report from New York magazine.

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Looking for a good guide on, which produce has the most pesticides? Here’s one.

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This is another good culinate article by Curt Ellis, one of the King Corn filmmakers, about eating corn and making November a no-corn month. Did anyone see Scott Goldberg’s KARE 11 Extra reports about ethanol? He gets it. The only reason so much corn is being grown and so much ethanol is being produced is because of government subsidies. No one buys it; no meaningful about of cars are made to support the fuel type; and if you do have a car that supports the fuel type, you are saving sixty cents a gallon, but the fuel miles per gallon rating is lower, so you actually get no meaningful ecological or financial benefit. Speaking of cars, here is a contest in which participants had to lick chocolate off the grill of a Jeep Liberty to win it. The world is ending.

Talking Turkey

It’s not too early to parse all the issues surrounding the big meal on the November 22, my favorite holiday of the year. There are a lot of choices out there, and I am a fan of broad-breasted, naturally raised, pastured turkeys. I also adore heritage birds, but they pose a problem for the home cook. Nothing worse than having twelve assembled loved ones staring at a bony, scrawny turkey that has less fork-tender meat than Aunt Sadie is conventionally used to seeing. Heritage birds are fantastic, though, and Bourbon Reds, Royal Palms, Blue Slates, and Spanish Reds are some of my favorites. I recommend that anyone looking to make one for the first time this year gets one now and does a test drive. Trust me—since heritage birds have different flavor, musculature, bone structure, and inter- and intramuscular fat content than the conventional birds you are used to roasting, cooking times and recipes need to be adjusted, and sometimes you’ll need more total bird weight to get the same amount of meat that everyone is counting on.

Here at mspmag.com's recipes database, I have some great recipes for you, and there are lots of other resources you can check out as well. Here are two sites from William Rubel and Local Harvest that offer a lot of good information on heritage birds. Let the games begin.

Now, D’Artagnan offers some killer birds, and all their species are designed for good eating. What’s more, they know how to ship, and anyone who has dealt with shipping issues from small producers knows what I am talking about. Additionally, for those looking for a fun alternative to turkey, they are one-stop shopping for all your local and imported game—fresh and frozen, birds or bucks . . . whatever.

This year I am ordering our family a white turkey from Coon Creek Family Farm, a small, certified-organic family farm located just eleven miles south of Eau Claire, WI. They raise their animals kindly, humanely, and ethically, allowing them daily access to fresh air, clean water, green grass, and sunshine. They eat lots of grasshoppers, I am assured, and love to roll in the dust. According to their website:

“Pastured Poultry” is the term used to describe how we raise our chickens and turkeys. Typically, the day-old poultry arrives by mail. They are then introduced to a warm, cozy indoor brooder environment where the temperature is regulated to meet their need for heat and safety. Once these birds are old enough (around three to four weeks of age), they are transferred to our certified organic pasture. Their pasture area is secured by a portable electric fence which is used to keep them safe from predators. Portable pens provide the birds with shade from the sun and protection from the rain. By regularly moving the fence and shelters, our poultry have access to fresh vegetation at all times. This gives our flocks a clean, healthy environment to thrive in. All of our poultry are fed certified organic grain from day one. Our feed is totally drug-free and contains no chemical additives, no animal by-products, no hormones, and no antibiotics.

Their turkeys range in weight from twelve to twenty-five pounds. The flavor is phenomenal.

Let’s say you are not living in Minnesota. Remember, it is always best to order birds from as close a source as possible. For example, Mary's Turkeys is the largest producer of heritage turkeys in Southern California, and they are adding outlets like gangbusters. See their website for a list. Reese Turkeys is a huge heritage turkey producer from Kansas that is selling in California this year as well. Want to support your local farmer? Check out Diane Leonhardt (507-767-4435, nlfarms@wabasha.net). She is offering Bourbon Reds (that come from Joanne Griffin's stock) at $4.99 per pound. She is also the supplier for Cooks of Crocus Hill, where you can place orders at the store and pick them up the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. She also sells at the co-op in Winona and the Red Hills Farmer's Market.

Sara Austin, at Hilltop Pastures Family Farm (26134 Jasmine Drive, Fountain, 507-867-0096, hpff@myclearwave.net) is offering Bourbon Reds for $3.29 per pound (they also come from Joanne Griffin's stock). Sara’s birds range between nine pounds and fourteen pounds.

As you have probably noticed, most of these turkeys come from Joanne Griffin's stock.  She breeds them and sells chicks in the spring to farmers all over the country. You can get a hold of her at Hawk's Valley Farm in Spring Grove by e-mailing hvfarm@springgrove.coop or calling 507-498-5108.

As of this writing, the folks at Clancy’s are unsure if they will be getting in any heritage turkeys because of the horrific flooding. The people they usually get theirs from are Sandy & Lonny Dietz, who lost all of their turkeys in the flood, as did Eric Hoiland, who has been mentioned in past blogs. Very sad.

Many other turkey farmers sell great birds, but not heritage species. There is Earth-Be-Glad Farm, run by Mike, Jennifer, and Johanna Rupprecht (18828 Cty. Rd. 20, Lewiston, 507-523-2564, ebgfarm@hbci.com). We talked to Mike last month. He said that while they do not offer heritage turkeys, they have certified organic turkeys that are free range. He chooses to raise these turkeys because they offer a bit more for the average consumer. They are fourteen to twenty-three pounds at $2.95 per pound  They butcher them the Monday before the big day, so they are super fresh. And they only do about 150 turkeys a year, so pre-ordering right now is necessary.

There is also Cedar Summit Farm (25830 Drexel Ave., New Prague, 952-758-6886, orders@cedarsummit.com), run by Dave and Florence Minar. When we talked to Florence about species-specific turkeys, she said they had done them in the past, but it is such a hard product to raise that they went the way of certified free-range organic birds. The biggest the heritage birds ever got was sixteen pounds. She also said that to find them in Minnesota, one should try contacting Clancy's, Lunds, or Byerly’s. But they are tres cher—five to six dollars per pound for a normally eight to nine pound bird.

And since we are writing about Minnesota turkeys, here are some facts about conventionally raised birds, including those raised in factory farms:

*Minnesota is the nation's largest producer of turkeys, raising 43.5 million birds in 2001.

*Turkey producers and processors earned $212 million in 2001, and spin-off industries earned $374 million.

*The turkey industry directly employs 6,900 people, and spin-off industries employ 7,800, including the equivalent of nearly 1,800 cash grain producers.

*The average tom takes eighteen weeks to reach a market weight of thirty pounds. The average hen takes fourteen weeks to reach fifteen pounds.

*Turkeys are fed a diet of corn, soy beans, supplemental vitamins and minerals, and water.

*A thirty-pound tom eats at least seventy-five pounds of feed. Turkeys convert feed to weight gain at a rate of 2.4:1.

*No hormones are approved for use in turkeys. FDA-approved antibiotics are used to prevent disease, but a withdrawal period is required before the birds can be slaughtered.

*In 2000, turkey consumption per person in the country was 17.75 pounds.

*Top turkey export markets for the United States in 2000 were Mexico, Russia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Dominican Republic.

Bobo's Remembered

Insiders on all sides of the fence e-mailed me over the weekend to say that J. D. Fratzke, longtime chef at Muffuletta—the Parasole group’s heritage restaurant in St. Anthony Park—has been made a managing partner and will also assume chef duties at The Strip Club, the new Tim Niver/Aaron Johnson restaurant on Mound and Maria in St. Paul. Niver and Johnson are the duo behind the smash hit eatery on Lake Street, the Town Talk Diner. Fratzke assumes his new duties in December.

Now on to the recipe at hand . . .

My wife loves lettuce cups and so does our son, and when I was in China last month I was reminded that they are just as popular there. All great food is about contrasts—hot-cold, salt-sweet, crunchy-sweet—and this dish has it all. The first time I ate this dish I was five years old with my Dad at Bobo’s in NYC’s Chinatown, a restaurant that closed about a year ago after a ninety-year run. This is a recipe that I spent years perfecting, trying to get it to the point where it would be indistinguishable from the original I had tasted there. It works.

Minced ‘Dragon and Phoenix’ in Lettuce Cups
2 whipped egg whites
2 T. corn starch
4 T. Chinese rice wine
2 T. soy sauce
1 lb. boneless and skinless chicken thigh, minced fine by hand
1 lb. shrimp, cleaned and finely diced
4 c. peanut oil
2 T. hot chili paste
1 t. sugar
1 T. plus 1 t. Toban Djan . . . Lee Kum Kee brand is best (Toban Djan is
     fermented bean paste that is seasoned with chiles and garlic).
1 T. minced ginger
1 T. minced garlic
1 dried hot chile
1/4 c. minced scallion
1/2 c. minced red pepper
1/2 c. minced celery
1/2 c. diced fresh water chestnuts
3 heads Boston lettuce or iceberg lettuce

Place the egg, corn starch, half the rice wine, the chili paste, and half the soy in a large Ziploc bag. Add the meat and let marinate for 12 hours.

Remove meat from marinade. Heat oil in a wok to 375 degrees. Fry the meat until cooked through in batches. Using a spider wand, reserve to a plate. When finished, pour off the oil through a strainer and refrigerate for another use. Do not wipe the wok. There will be oil remaining behind in the pan. This is intended.

Return the wok to high heat. When smoking, add the ginger, sugar, garlic, and the dried chili. Stir fry for a moment and add the vegetables. Stir fry for another moment and add the meats back to the wok. Add the remaining rice wine, Toban Djan, remaining soy sauce and cook, stirring until sauce is reduced to proper consistency.

Serve with the lettuce, allowing the guests to spoon a few morsels of meat mixture into the lettuce leaves at the table. Serves 4–6 people as a small course.

I'm Baaaaack . . .

It doesn’t take much to get me ticked off these days, but one way to do it for sure is for me to go to my local movie complex, clothing store, or supermarket expecting to find some film, shirt, or comestible that the rest of the country is enjoying on a regular basis, only to find that in our market, it’s not available. I remember all too well the skirt steak incidents of years past! Try to find real pastrami in this town, or a good prepared-foods store. They don’t exist.

But I digress. So I went to Iceland a few months ago and fell in love with skyr, a low-fat/high-protein cheese that looks like thick yogurt. You sweeten and mix things into it, and it’s phenomenal. Then I read my Food Section update this week and saw that Whole Foods was carrying it!

When I went to the St. Paul store, no skyr.

Why are so many Whole Foods around the country twice as well stocked, twice as efficient, and twice as appealing as our local versions? It drives me crazy.

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My friend Katie sent me an e-mail re: a post I wrote a few weeks back about St. Paul restaurants generally and, specifically, a comment I made about Margaux closing. I got a lot of e-mail about the same post, most expressing the same opinion. Katie wrote that Margaux had:

. . . hit-or-miss food and not a bad location. Everyone who lives in that neighborhood was sad to see it go. Meaning, I'm speaking for me, who lives a block away. It always seemed like there were lots of people there. I went for drinks quite a bit. Everyone [in] downtown St. Paul that I've talked to wants somewhere good to eat and fun places to hang out and would go there if they built it. We're dying for it! I wish people'd stop saying St. Paulites wouldn't go there. My whole neighborhood is wishing for a grocery store and some places to hang out—the Embassy Suites bar doesn't cut it.

I agree with a lot of this, but let’s be honest. Margaux had hit/miss food when they opened, and it all went downhill from there. There were never enough customers there to sustain the business, and that is why these places close.

When it comes to dining in St. Paul's downtown, I think we are trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Look at Atlanta. Their downtown business district rolls up at 5 p.m. sharp. No one dines downtown at all. The restaurants that want to do more than just lunch business have all opened where the customers are . . . which is to say, outside of their downtown. I've said it before: Grand Avenue should be St. Paul's restaurant row. The Grand Avenue Business Association should be working to bring independent restaurants to the avenue, not chasing them away because of ungrounded fears that competition stunts growth. It’s the opposite. And the city council should be relaxing rules and restrictions to allow those businesses to flourish. Liquor licensing and café seating regulations are unduly harsh and need to be eased up on. Grand Avenue does not need another crappy coffee bar or a booze trough masquerading as a burger bar. It needs restaurants that can cater to the diverse clientele that lives around the avenue, from students to titans of industry.

Consider how ethnic dining has flourished on University Avenue. We ought to focus on putting restaurants into neighborhoods that can support them, then let Downtown grow at it’s own pace. If Meritage opened on Grand Avenue, it would do twice the business and have a longer life expectancy than it will opening downtown in the old A Rebours space. I am hoping Meritage succeeds, but location makes it a tougher row to hoe.

The idea that Margaux’s failing represents anything more than a bad restaurant not finding customers is a canard, and while it's less sexy of a topic, the more interesting closing is Copper Bleu shuttering up in Lakeville. I think that closing is a nasty indicator that our economy is not well in the 'burbs. Yes, it was a glorified Applebee's, but it was a notch up food-wise and with respect to price point, and it planted itself within easy reach of customers. It calls to mind enjoy! or the Bellanotte project in Blaine. Are they doing well? Does anyone out there even go to these restaurants? It would be interesting to know. I avoid restaurants like these like the plague.

And what is the early buzz on Heidi’s? I have been away for a while . . . .

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On a happier note, David Kamp (The Food Snob's Dictionary and The United States of Arugula) has added "Mexican Coke" (cane-sugar sweetened cola) and "Pitmaster" (BBQ master) to the food snob lexicon. And he has a website of snobolicious fun for food and what modern food snobbery is. You can even take the food snob quiz, if you like.