Put Your Tongue in My Mouth, and Pass the Tiramisu

Berit, who works in my office, came across a new post about tongue. She thinks tongue is going to become hot again in 2008. Last time tongue was a racy ingredient was 1908, so it is long overdue. One of the chefs she admires, Lisa Carlson over at Spoonriver, is serving it, and so is Lenny Russo at Heartland. Here is the post she trolled across.

There is a lot of tongue around town; plenty of places serve it from Kramarczuk’s to half a dozen taquerias on Lake St., so it was only a matter of time before other chefs began utilizing this unappreciated cut. When cooked and served properly, it has the best qualities of pot roast, and because of its unparalleled marbling and deep, beefy flavor, it works perfectly in everything from stews to braises, as a superb filling for tacos, or thinly sliced on rye with a gritty and assertive mustard. I like to cook it whole, trimmed, and let it chill overnight in its cooking liquid, slice it in one-third-inch discs, and heat them up two or three at a time in butter to crust up the slices. Then, I serve it that way on a sandwich Reuben-style with sauerkraut, thinly sliced Gruyere or Appenzeller, and Russian dressing. Heaven.

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There is an amazing series of events in support of Children’s HeartLink that you should know about. Children’s HeartLink, founded in 1969, is an international humanitarian organization based in North America that inspires, empowers, and mobilizes individuals and organizations to address the heart problems of needy children in their communities around the world. In short, Children’s HeartLink sends medical teams from the United States to developing countries to train, teach, and perform lifesaving heart procedures—only on kids. I have seen their work up-close-and-personal in many of the Third and Second World countries that I travel to, and they are miracle workers.

Tonight, from 5 to 8:30 p.m. at the Fine Line Music Café, Billy Johnson and the local rock and soul band Hookers and Blow (great name for a kids’-cause event!) are performing. VIP admission is $60, and general admission is $35. Then, beginning the next day, the Tiramisu for Two goes on sale at all Lunds and Byerly’s with 100 percent of the proceeds going to Children’s HeartLink. On Saturday, February 9, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., local celebs such as Belinda Jensen, Mark Rosen, Frank Vascellaro, and Brian Turner will be serving tiramisu samples at select Lunds and Byerly’s grocery stores, and you can pick up your free Tiramisu for Two recipe book as well. The book features recipes from local notables such as Christina Kaelberer, Margo Bredeson, Zoe Francois, Michelle Gayer, and Khanh Tran.

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I think you should get your membership to a CSA now. With the high trend in "locavorism,” shares might sell out mighty quickly this year. 

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My old schoolmate Eric Schlosser, the man who birthed a generation of outrage, puts in his two cents about the cloned meat craze

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In molecular gastronomy news, Hervé This gives monthly lectures, and they are posted online and in French no less.

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Grant Achatz's taste might take awhile to come back and might not come back completely, but Beethoven was deaf, and he did all right last we checked. 

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For all those who feel that the government needs to stay out of our food choices, here is some bad news: The UK is making cooking classes mandatory in schools, and I think this is AWESOME. Here is a great chat on Just Hungry and an editorial about it on Culinate. Is the UK going to lead an uber -conscious eating trend?

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I keep running into this story: Mercury levels in tuna are way above and beyond FDA allowances. But if you ate a lot of Tekka Maki, and you eat the nori with the tuna, wouldn't that negate the bad effects since the alginic acid will bind to the toxins and flush it out?

Need a new social networking site for culinarians? Here it is.

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Finally, the problem of getting bacon perfectly situated on a BLT has been fixed, and hopefully we can all get some sleep.   

The World's Largest Bake Sale, Nick and Eddie, and News

Seth Bixby Daugherty is helping to organize the world’s largest bake sale—aptly named the World’s Largest Bake Sale—at Mall of America on Sunday, March 30 from 1 to 5 p.m. The event is to raise funds and promote Share Our Strength’s Great American Bake Sale. What’s on the menu? Food Network talent recipes will be produced by The International Culinary School at the Art Institutes International, and there will be baked goods donated by Twin City bakeries and restaurants, too.

According to the latest info, both Sandra Lee, host of Food Network’s Semi-Homemade Cooking, and Duff Goldman, star of Ace of Cakes, have agreed to make personal appearances, and Lee will do a book signing. I love Goldman and his show; it gets DVRed at the Zimmern household every week. But Lee, who might be a fantastic person in real life, represents everything that is wrong with our modern food culture. And guess what? Hers is the most popular page on the Food Network website. Help me now, Lord. Apparently Goldman might create the world’s largest cupcake for a taping of the Ace of Cakes. According to Guinness, there is currently no world’s record for the world’s largest bake sale or cupcake. So mark it down, and get involved with Share Our Strength by checking out its site.

Seth will be featured on an upcoming segment of Rachael Ray—they will be in town on Tuesday taping some stuff with him detailing the work he is doing in the local public schools system to improve the quality of the food programs for kids of all ages. The taping is for air at a later date, but I will keep you posted.

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Scott Irestone is indeed gone from 20.21, but my naming of sous chef Asher Miller as the new chef is only half true: He is the acting chef. The company is considering Miller and several other members of its national organization for the permanent post. I say, “Keep the local guy!”

As part of my ongoing effort to regain the respect and admiration of legendary food writer Jeremy Iggers, I ate at Nick and Eddie the other day for lunch. This is the new restaurant that Doug Anderson opened along with several other local notables, including Scott Ida, Steve Vranian, and the superbly talented Jessica Anderson (Doug’s wife). I really think Doug has an innate sense of style and substance as a restaurateur, and I hope that his new venture stays on course over its first few years so that it can grow and mature.

The base they have set down is impressive. I love casual restaurants that take their food seriously, and if Nick and Eddie can take an accurate self-appraisal and fix some of its issues, this will be a great restaurant for years to come. If it doesn’t, it could go the way of Bakery on Grand and A Rebours: hot start, cool finish. The space is light and contemporary, the location is superb (right on Loring Park), and the menu is very appealing. But some of the items we sampled need tweaking that should be obvious by anyone’s standards. Vranian has his work cut out for him.

On the day I was there, he was not in the kitchen but in the restaurant, which means the cooks are sending out food they shouldn’t have (a training/awareness issue) or, worse, the cooks were simply executing to the chef’s standards. I am hoping that is not the case, but stranger things happen.

The breads we tried were fantastic, especially the Parker House dinner roll loaf that we had. Good Lord was it awesome. The borscht was a decent beef soup with cabbage, but it could have used some seasoning—anything really. It was too thin, had no backbone, and was really disappointing. The whitefish salad that came with potato pancakes was stellar—about as good as it gets—, so clearly someone in the kitchen gets it, but the potato pancakes were gray on the inside and tasted muddy. The pickled onions on the dish were old. What was billed as chopped chicken liver was just a smear of chicken liver mousse, and it tasted of old onions and was bitter on the rebound going down, but the cress salad with it was delightful. The egg salad sandwich was fair, but the grilled sausages over polenta with caramelized onions and peppers were exquisitely turned out, a simple cold weather bowl of happiness. The butterscotch pudding that was so good at Bakery On Grand has risen again, like the phoenix, and I am eternally grateful.

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The New York Daily News reports that “The New York City Board of Health is poised to reenact a bitterly contested rule requiring restaurants to post the calorie contents of each dish on their menu. The proposed regulation - part of Mayor Bloomberg's campaign to reduce obesity and diabetes - would make eateries with 15 or more outposts around the country prominently display calorie counts before patrons order."

This is a bad deal. Posting calories is only half the battle—not even—, and it is misplaced energy. We need to see proper labeling of all food in retail and wholesale operations and in supermarkets on all items, especially when it comes to a food’s origin. The big restaurant chains will argue successfully that they are being prejudiced against and that the rule should apply to everyone, but how does a mom-and-pop operation afford to test and post all the nutritional information on a menu? And if we properly labeled our food in its ‘natural’ state, wouldn’t the general population become better educated and be able to make better decisions about how and what they eat? And when it comes to fast food, half of the restaurants should be shut down by government agencies anyway for poisoning the public at large. If Big Tobacco can go down, why can’t McDonald’s?

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City Pages announced who its new food critics will be, and it unveiled plans for expanded restaurant coverage both in the paper and online. Taking over Dara’s chair covering the new and noteworthy openings is Rachel Hutton, formerly of Mn Mo, and James Norton, whose work I have referenced before on this blog, will cover the ‘deals on meals’ angle. All of this begins on February 20, and both of the new hires will be blogging and podcasting as well. I like the work of both these writers, and CP’s commitment to its food section and its plans to grow it is good for the local food scene.

Chef Tales

This just in: Longtime sous chef Asher Miller has replaced Scott Irestone as the chef at Wolfgang Puck’s 20.21 in the Walker Art Center.

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Randy Lewis, 2001 Food & Wine 10 Best award winner for his work at Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates and Indigo restaurant, is taking over the stoves at Chetek, Wisconsin’s Canoe Bay, our five-state area’s only Relais & Châteaux property. That says a lot about Canoe Bay’s commitment to excellence. Lewis’s friend Lenny Russo told me that Lewis was sold on the resort because of the availability of so many fantastic farm-fresh ingredients in our neck of the woods. Nice.

But last time I checked, Santa Rosa, California had us over a barrel on produce and larder quality, which tells me that the Dombrowski’s made some compelling offers and persuasive arguments to land a chef of that caliber. I have stayed at Canoe Bay before, and it rocks; make your reservations now, and don’t wait ’til summer.

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Mark McGraw hired Dan Grilz (Bayport Cookery sous and Trio (Chicago) alum) to take over the kitchen at Confluence. Mark will still be there when the restaurant is open, but since the restaurant is weekends only until summer, he has taken a position at Porter & Frye along with some of the best young talent in the city, all of whom are flocking to Steven Brown’s new restaurant to be a part of what I think will be the most important new restaurant in town. Had Restaurant Levain stayed open in 2007, Brown would have been a lock to earn a James Beard nomination, and based on what I have heard from Steven and from others associated with the project, this restaurant will be the eatery that he has always wanted to create. My gut tells me this is the year that Brown gets the national press he deserves, and we get a place to enjoy his stellar, sophisticated, and urbane take on food.

As McGraw told me, “I am absolutely amazed at the team that Steven has put together for this restaurant. I absolutely could not resist the temptation to jump on board; I have no doubt in my mind that this is going to be a very big deal. I know you know this, but he has never had an opportunity to create his own world like this before. Steven is an amazing person, and his ability to lead is something that this town has not seen in this business, at this level, period.”

McGraw also told me that he is upping the food quotient at Confluence and making it more food focused than it already was; that’s also saying something. I guess the ‘build-it-better’ vibe is in the air.

So what local restaurants could benefit from taking a cold, hard look at themselves and improving the food? Which eateries are close enough to making a real impact on the food world but whose food is just a notch below what would get them there? Who could benefit most from a Pimp My Kitchen makeover? Thoughts?

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And for those looking to catch up on some fun reading:

Absinthe is legal! Here's a very informative and myth-busting article by Sarah Hepola from Slate.

Smoking ban begins—in FRANCE!

Here are some great graphics illustrating how the cheapest calories come from bad food, which is low in nutrition.

Hot Stuff! A notebook made with cocktail napkins; let the inspiration flow!

Sir Ask A Lot

I get asked all the time about cooking classes. I used to teach a lot at Cooks of Crocus Hill in St. Paul. But this coming November, I am teaching a bunch of classes and hosting a dinner onboard the Holland America Line’s Ryndam. This is all part of the Carlson Wagonlit Travel culinary cruise program, and the classes and events are available only to passengers booking through Carlson Wagonlit Travel agencies. The ten-day cruise along the Mexican Riviera is roundtrip out of San Diego and stops in Cabo, Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta, etc. Want more info? Go here to book the cruise.

I also get asked to go to restaurant openings, and in the past, I always said no out of some vague sense of professional propriety. But I was asked to attend a soft opening for The Strip Club, Aaron Johnson and Tim Niver’s new joint, and I told chef-partner J.D. Fratzke I would stop by; but last week, my wife and son had the flu, the dog had surgery, and the cat was being the cat, so needless to say, I missed the first few nights of service at The Strip Club, a restaurant on my side of town that I have high hopes for. But I got an e-mail from J.D. at the end of the week. He told me that on opening night, into the first rush, with a bunch of tickets hanging,

“the shelf bolted into the stainless over our char-broiler -- the one holding all of our steak plates -- collapses.  Platters shatter all over the first ten grass-fed strips we've fired for paying customers, two fillets of char, four salmon steaks, two saute pans and, of course, my broiler cook, six foot seven Anthony Finck, who turns to me and says with a bewildered smirk, "I don't think we can stack plates there anymore, Chef." We fought out of it. It took about an hour, but we fought out.  Insurgents breached the perimeter, but we took no casualties.”

Funny stuff, J.D. Every chef has stories like this one, and since so many readers of this blog are in the business, on both sides of the room, perhaps some of you will share yours? Here’s one of mine:

I was running the floor one night in 1984 (or 85?) at Elio’s as a favor to the owner who was out of town for the weekend; it was a Friday night in NYC—in the summer. I was working at his other restaurant Petaluma as the chef, but he wanted me up the street at his flagship for the night, and my sous was handling the light night at our eatery. Calm evening at Elio’s, full but no crush; all our customers were retreating to their summer homes. A guy lights up a cigar at a six-top. I tell him to put it out since tables near him are complaining. He points out that two other tables in the front are smoking cigars. It’s Ben Gazzara at one table and someone at Woody Allen’s table smoking the other one. I tell the foppish guy in the back with the heavy New York accent that those men are regulars and that no one complained about them. He throws five one-hundred dollar bills on the table and walks.

The next day I get a call from the GM at Elio’s; there’s a picket line around the restaurant, and no deliveries can come through. We call Elio. He does some digging on Local 459. Turns out, there is no such union local. Turns out the guy I pissed off was Tony “Fat Tony” Salerno, head of the Genovese crime family. I ended up having to go with the restaurant GM to meet this guy and apologize before they would lift the fake picket. Scared sh**less. Thank goodness he was more interested in coming back to try the gnocchi than he was in messing with me.

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Here’s a great local blog, The Masticator. I get asked what I like about these all the time, and of course I think this guy’s take is spot on. Go figure.

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Go here, and check out the awesome photo contest, and start charging the digi-cam batteries—there are great prizes galore. Also, am I the only one who thinks that Punch in Highland is heads and shoulders better than any of their other locations when it comes to pizza quality?

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Tori Shin in NYC is a hot little Yakitori bar that serves chicken sashimi and some killer skewered, grilled poultry treats. I have been asked about this stuff endlessly, and I promised many of you that I would let you know about it. Consider yourself informed. The yakitori is out of sight, and this should be a must-stop for anyone heading to the Big Apple looking for a taste of Tokyo.

Catching Up

For months, I have lamented my crazy schedule, and spending half the year overseas means that I have lost ground in my battle to stay on top of my local restaurant visits. And of course because I want Jeremy Iggers to think I am really on top of the local food scene (insert sarcastic look here), I have redoubled my efforts to catch up on places I have not eaten at or have only been to once or twice.

I finally made it into Good Day Cafe for the second time. I first visited during its second month of operation and was underwhelmed. On Tuesday, I had breakfast there with Ed Levine and Rick Nelson, and the food, for the most part, was better. Service was very good. I could care less for the cavernous room, which to me comes off as cold. The caramelized apple pancake was absurdly large and would make a great dessert if it was three inches across and came with a small scoop of caramel ice cream. Please explain to me why they serve a twelve incher in the morning. It is grossly oversize.

The omelet with potato, leek, and cheese was nicely cooked, but the potato component was a dud. The potatoes should have been crisped or made flavorful in some way. The leek was an ingredient in name only, and the GDC potatoes that are bragged about all over the menu were flash-fried, listless half moons that left me unimpressed. The caramel pecan rolls were good. The best thing I ate there was the highly touted fried egg sandwich, which was very tasty but was oddly lukewarm when it arrived.

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I had lunch this week at Be’wiched, which, like the GDC, has gotten a lot of great ink this year. I ordered a pastrami on rye, and you can get a “New York” style pastrami sandwich (double meat) if that is your thing. The pastrami is a scratch product; they brine raw briskets for six days, roll the brisket in crushed peppercorns and coriander, and smoke it for six to eight hours.

Be’wiched also smokes its own turkey and bacon, and it was in the process of smoking thick slabs of bacon for La Belle Vie in a huge smoker using apple and cherry woodchips on Wednesday. But I digress.

The brisket has great flavor, but my sandwich was dry. First off, it needed a good brown mustard. Second, the coleslaw that came on the sandwich, which was very tasty, was skimpy. Third, the beef itself was too lean. Next time, I am going to see if a fatty cut is available, but like most non-traditional delicatessens, it seemed that it was only using the “flat end” of the brisket; I like the “nose.” Last, the sandwich came with a pathetically small (one ounce soufflé cups that were not even filled) tablespoon of potato salad and five razor-thin slices of pickle as sides. C’mon guys, at least give me a whole pickle. All of this being said, the sandwich was great, and had the pastrami not been dry, Be’wiched would have been a home run.

I give them huge points for the scratch pastrami, and based on the owners’ pedigree and their obvious desire to make a great product, I think it should improve. I cannot wait to eat my way through more of the menu over the next few months.

I am aware that many Twin Citians have said the Be’wiched pastrami is better than any they have had in NYC. These people are clearly in desperate need of a new deli to go to in the Big Apple, and I mean no disrespect to the Be’wiched crew, but c’mon.

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As God is my witness, I am going to make it into Heidi’s this month. Check out this review from Jim Norton; pretty funny stuff.

Hot Links

I love this stuff. Get ready, here we go.

The Smoking Gun is reporting that when Bill and Hillary Clinton vacationed at a Caribbean resort two years ago, the hotel staffers were coached with memos outlining the couple's dietary and lodging requirements. Hysterical.

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Now, I believe in the pursuit of quality—why bother making something if you’re not going to make it right? Well, pissed off at the lousy jailhouse cookies and cakes, a trio of inmates is suing a sheriff for $2 million, claiming their rights have been violated by the provision of lousy baked goods.

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Gael Greene's 2008 predictions are very funny and spot on. Gael is one of my favorite food people and her blog is one of my regular reads. She says that Jeffrey Chodorow and Frank Bruni will have a food fight in Madison Square Park televised by the Food Network. If Bruni loses, he will be required to review restaurants in Des Moines for six months. If Chodorow is the loser, he will be forbidden to open a new restaurant for three weeks.

That’s clever . . . as are her dining trends, some of which are actually happening. I had a conceptual dish at Moto once; it was simply a smell, and I have been served courses into my hand as well—and not just in sushi bars:

"Conceptual Dining will become the rage. The pleasure derived from the dish is found in its description alone. The dish, in fact, does not exist. A small fee will be charged.

Small Plates will give way to no plates, a trend for even healthier portion control. All food will be served on oak leaves, in clam shells or onto your outstretched palm."

She also highlights some new products, such as my favorite one here:

"A breed of black-footed pigs from the southwest of France, fed strictly on foie gras, custom made charcuterie and pork belly from lesser pigs will be marketed each with its own identification number and tag with a picture of the pig farmer’s daughter."

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Did anyone see the banned word list that was originally on the Lake Superior State University website? Organic is right there, front and center. And deservedly so. Grub Street chimed in with a sigh of relief as did Slashfood.

Organic should have been a word that meant something. I think I speak for a lot of us when I say that we all had high hopes. Instead, it has become an irrelevant term, neutered by alphabet organizations, such as the FDA and the assorted organic marketing boards. It is now a trademark—a bought-and-sold entitlement—and, sadly, something of a labeling canard. Now it is an overused cliché that everyone is tired of. What a shame.

Where Was My Camera?

The Critics Choice Awards were in Santa Monica the other night, and so was I. My wife, son, and I strolled into our hotel and asked the major domo in the lobby who all the paparazzi were stalking, and she says, “I can’t say, but you might want to stroll over to the big fireplace.” We did.

We were staying at Shutters Hotel On The Beach, my new favorite hotel in a city filled with great ones. The location is great; it is at the end of Pico Blvd., right on the beach, great pool, amazing service, and a level of finishes in the rooms that leaves you wanting for nothing: iPod docks, six different Italian bath bombs, and steam and hot tub in the rooms. It is casual and hip but still supplying all the kowtowing that you need when you are traveling with the family. Need milk for a bottle? It’s in the room in three minutes. And you can walk to Michael’s restaurant. The scene in the lobby is always hopping: roaring fireplaces, comfy couches, killer snack food (the braised short rib sliders were particularly awesome).

So we sidle over to the first set of comfy chairs, and who should we see standing in front of us but George Clooney, Daniel Day-Lewis, Julian Schnabel, Sean Penn, and a few other mega stars all enjoying a quiet drink in front of the fireplace. Welcome to LA.

Clooney and DDL are throwbacks, real big stars who radiate a deeper heat than most actors, even the famous ones, and they also strongly contrasted the brooding Penn, who glared at us and never moved from his chair. The others smiled and were gracious as we chatted with the producer who was sitting with them, a fellow we knew from here. Other highlights: Pizza from Vito, brunch at Coast, Wagyu at Cut, calves’ liver at Angelini Osteria, hamachi and crab rolls at Nozawa, chicken salad at Ivy at the Shore, tacos at Guelaguetza, and of course a double-double at In-N-Out. Mozza remains the hottest table in town, but Lucques, A.O.C., Matsuhisa, and Dan Tana’s are still some of my regular stops when I’m hungry.

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I have gotten a ton of e-mail about a few roundups that included yours truly. Check out zap2it’s annual review of TV people. OK, I’ll take twenty-first on the list; it’s better than twenty-second, isn’t it? Or you can check out Chow’s website and click on the media title in the middle of the page. Not too shabby.

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In Defense of Food is Michael Pollan's fifth book, and it’s another home run. As Liz Weise pointed out in USA Today two days ago (quotes are verbatim from her story):

Pollan started out with an interest in "the tradition of nature writing in America," but turned his attentions to our relationship to the food we eat after he "found himself fire-bombing the den of a woodchuck that had mowed down" his garden.

"Here I was pouring gasoline down its burrow and lighting a match to it and I realized I was replaying a certain American approach to nature, which is 'How dare these small-brained creatures thwart our desires?'" But in his latest book, Michael's focus is on the "small-brained creatures" otherwise known as the food industry. He doesn't call them small-brained, actually, but he does seem to regard them as the marketing equivalent of a hungry woodchuck: "Their interests are getting you to eat too much food processed more than it should be. And your interests are to leave well enough alone with food. But they can't make enough money on that."

Instead, says Michael, the food industry seeks "ways to 'add value' to food, by making it more processed and more complicated." They are enabled, he says, by scientists who "deconstruct food, to understand the component parts of it —vitamins, minerals—that make it healthy." Food companies take this information (e.g., resveratrol is good for the heart), and use it "to get us to eat more highly processed foods touted as healthier because the nutrients present in whole foods have been added back in at the factory." Michael's best advice is to "shop the periphery of the supermarket ... where the meat, diary, produce and fish are pretty much as they started out." He also advises eating "only foods that our great-grandmothers would have recognized."

It’s a simple idea but true, and although IDOF won’t change the discourse of our food lives the way The Omnivore’s Dilemma did, it’s worth reading.

Parry and Thrust

In fairness to the process, here is my take on some of the other stuff that has left a ring around my tub recently.

To Brad Zellar . . . obviously you need to read more stuff about me.  I could have saved you a lot of time and effort if you had bothered to ask. Anyone who knows me at all could have told that I don’t do dry wall. And even the most casual of my readers/viewers/listeners could have told you that I am all about the eating as well as the dining. I have forgotten about more wing joints, burger parlors, canned meals, truck stops, etc. than Mr. Zellar can ever hope to wax on about.  I hate to throw down with the food-freak pride card, but c’mon Brad! I even made an entire hourlong Travel Channel special on ballpark foods alone just ’cause I love that stuff. And I would happily take you to several places in the metro whose wings are superior to the ones you like at Shorty and Wags, but I am thrilled that you felt compelled to chime in. Someday I hope to meet you and ask about the strangely odd ‘you-must-not-be-a-man-if-you-don’t-do-your-own-dry-wall’ vibe you threw out.

To Jeremy Iggers . . . like you, too, and have enjoyed all our chats over the years when we have bumped into each other. But let’s get to it. Say anything you like about me, I can take it. And I am sorry if I hurt your feelings. Truly. That was not my intention at all, and for that, I am sorry. But what does it mean that I am the perfect critic for MSP Mag? Oh, I get it. Sarcasm. It seems the implication is that I am somehow, in some way, inadequate and that the magazine is as well. Well that not only hurts my feelings, but it is about as uninformed a riposte as I have ever read. By any yardstick, our magazine is the Rolls-Royce of its class, and the people who put it out every month are the best in the business. And yes, I have been to many of the restaurants that you wondered out loud about, and guess what, I could return the favor. Who cares? Throughout the last five months, I have blogged about—and the magazine has published pieces detailing—the issues involved in me changing my duties to account for the fact that I am not in town as much as I used to be, and I am not able to eat in as many local restaurants as I have in the past. This Just In: You and I have differing tastes in what makes for a great restaurant experience.  And that’s good for the food loving readership as a whole.

To Anne Bauer . . . you are  class act. And you get it.

And finally to Mitch . . . You are a smart guy, and I could spend pages and pages of space responding to the points you made in your piece, but let’s simply say this: You missed the forest for the trees. I feel strongly that it is not “anti-Minneapolis condescension”—as you say—to call restaurants that are less than thrilling exactly what they are: middling. And as a longtime Twin Cities food professional, I am shocked that you would try to make the argument that we live in something other than a meat and potatoes state—with an exceedingly large percentage of our community ignorant about many ingredients and techniques that are commonly found elsewhere— or that we support innovative restaurants or are willing to “pay for good food.”  Almost every piece of evidence you can gather from the last decade says otherwise. That doesn’t make us ‘less than’ in some way, just different. We are a food community that is evolving and growing and improving in fits and starts. If we delude ourselves into thinking otherwise, we are simply delaying and impeding our journey. I have many times written and spoken about how exciting our food community is to live and work in; it’s a shame you never read those pieces or chose to excerpt them. Beyond that, you took so much of my stuff out of context that I lost the energy to rebut any of it after re-reading the first couple of paragraphs.

And Jeff Guntzel . . . speaking of out of context. The point I made in our half-hour chat about “people being afraid to come out with bold opinions and stir the pot” was part of my applause for Omer in response to your question about my general impressions of his screed. We need more of that stuff (Omer’s blunt honesty) in our culinary discourse, not less. Well, everything except the cheap shot about my house and my family. What was that all about?

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On to the world of food news and notes. Here are my faves from last week:

How were your holidays? And are you more partial to Donder or Blitzen? How about Rudolph the Red-Nosed Pâté? Yes indeed, you heard right, reindeer pâté. I love a good reindeer, they’re actually quite tasty.

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Have you heard anything about the recently passed Farm Bill, which went through the Senate a few weeks ago? Here is the best rundown I have seen recently for those looking for a score sheet to crib from.

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Are you into umami, the infamous fifth taste? Yes, Dorothy, it does exist, and you should read this WSJ article replete with a video clip of Gary Danko making an umami-laden tomato sauce. 

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Jamie Oliver, one of the best food presenters on television, is back on the Food Network, and he will have a show debuting January. He will also be battling Mario in Kitchen Stadium; that should be fantastic to watch.

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Almost as much fun as buying your very own version of Rachael Ray's "Garbage Bowl." And speaking of RR, Slashfood.com reported that an online RR doll has been created and that you can dress her up yourself. Here's the link to the doll—absurd pleasure in the extreme.

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Speaking of absurd, here's a YouTube video of Kobayashi going up against a bear in a hot dog eating contest. 

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Did you see Sara's article on the Food Snob's Dictionary? She is fantastic to read regularly; keep her link handy.

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New York Mag had a great piece this last week. "Check out Molecular Gastronomy Made Complicated via PowerPoint." We all love Hervé This, but the PowerPoint lecture feels like a shark-jumping moment in the extreme.

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Here is a fun piece from the National Restaurant Association, its annual "What's Hot What's Not" list. I think it is worth a peek as is this gem from the San Fran Chronicle about whether or not it is even possible to measure if organic produce has more nutrients than their commercial counterparts.

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There’s a new report on salt that is out, and, yes, it says it is bad for you but not necessarily the stuff you use to cook at home or sprinkle on your food. The real problem is the salt compounds found in processed foods. The FDA is holding hearings. 

Peace on Earth, Good Will to All Men

Oh my, what a Pandora’s box the whole Mitch Omer rake.com piece has become. I just got back from a family vacation and only saw the blog last Thursday afternoon when my editor e-mailed it to me to see if I had seen it yet. I hadn’t but read it for the first time by late Tuesday night. I know City Pages is running a story on it next week, and I will be posting something on Monday myself, but to satisfy the gossip addicts out there, here is the short version.

1. Holy crap was that a great read! I really enjoyed it.

2. Omer had some factual errors, but they were all excusable given the format he was writing in. Blogs are fun for that kind of rant.

3. He was misinformed about several Mpls.St.Paul Magazine policies, but no harm, no foul.

4. My blog last Thursday morning was not a response to Mitch—I submitted that blog the day before I saw his piece.

5. Most importantly, I have been advocating for years to see the loosening of the ‘road rules’ for these types of conversations. I applaud them; they are all healthy, and we need more people speaking their minds, not fewer.

6. I no longer write monthly restaurant reviews for the magazine and haven’t for some time.

7. In our print and online media, we consistently applaud many of the items at Hell’s Kitchen, and I have listed them in several roundups I have been a part of. My family loves the lemon ricotta pancakes.

8. Anyone who didn’t think that Aquavit in its prime was worth fellating should have their head examined. When that restaurant was firing on all cylinders and when Marcus and Roger were in the kitchen, the food was the best in town, hands down.

Anyway, more on Monday.

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One thing is true: I am a food first kind of guy, and I am ecstatic that one of the Midwest’s best chefs is about to go public, again, in a kitchen that is geared to his talent level. Steven Brown has promised to let me know ASAP about Porter and Frye’s opening, but he did e-mail me last week to fill me in on the crew he has put together and the training/testing they are undergoing right now. He has taken over Mark McGraw’s kitchen at Confluence in Prescott for a few weeks to test recipes and train staff. More restaurants should be approaching opening day the way Brown is—very few can afford it, but the results for opening a kitchen without having the food execution reasonably tested are disastrous.

According to Steven, P and F’s chef de cuisine is Josh Habiger, an alum of Chicago’s Alinea as well as Craft in NYC. Other crew members include Abe Sanchez (112 eatery sous-chef and currently staging in San Fran) and Juliette Lelchuk (an Ecole Lenotre grad who just finished staging for a second time at Gary Danko) in pastry. Other local line cooks and sous-chefs are headed there as well. Potential menu items include veal tenderloin and veal breast paired with spinach, grapefruit, and juniper. Also look for swordfish with apple butter, celery, crescent potatoes, and warm truffle vinaigrette. I am excited to say the least.