The Rake Magazine

Category: Food and Drink

  • Balls of Bourbon

    Been a bit boozy lately, haven’t I?

    Well, it is the season of holiday parties, family gatherings, and all manner of cold-weather frolic that can be greatly enhanced by hot cocoa with a "bump"…

    It’s Nana’s fault.

    The old girl was a former society debutante who started smoking when she was a Campfire Girl and cocktailed promptly at 4pm until the day she died at the ripe ol’ age of 90.

    From her I inherited my lack of height, two crystal decanters etched with the words SCOTCH and BOURBON, and the habit of asking for a "skowsch" of water with any single malt over 18 years old. She wasn’t the kind of grandmother that cuddled, but she was a pip and I rather liked her most of the time.

    And now, during these festive days, there is a certain expectation from my social set that I arrive at a function with my signature treat. I bring bourbon balls.

    Not a cookie, not a bar, these little high-octane balls will sit on any holiday table and command attention. It’s the wafting nose of sweet Kentucky mash. The little beauties aren’t cooked, so every bite reminds you what it’s like to be over 21. Some people will shy away, opting for a weak snickerdoodle, but those who induge will find soft notes of vanilla and hints of nutmeg that play well with the rich bourbony flavor.

    Throw one home for Nana.

    Bourbon Balls

    3 cups Nilla Wafers

    1 cup walnuts

    2 cups powdered sugar

    1/4 cup cocoa

    2 tsp. nutmeg

    1/4 cup corn syrup

    1/2 cup + bourbon (Maker’s Mark, Jim Beam, etc.)

    granulated sugar for rolling

    In a food processor, grind up Nilla Wafers. Pour into a large bowl. Grind nuts, add to bowl. Add sugar, cocoa, and nutmeg and stir to evenly combine. In separate bowl mix corn syrup and bourbon, stirring until the syrup is dissolved. Work the liquid into the dry mixture, with your hands for best (but sticky) results. Knead the mix until all ingredients are combined, adding more bourbon if needed. The mix should be firm and sticky, not overly gooey.

    Pull off a small chunk and roll between your palms into about a 2-inch ball. Roll the ball in a shallow bowl of sugar until coated. That’s it.

    Store your bourbon balls in an airtight container and let them age for a few days.

  • Ripeness Is All

    We all, they say, have one book in us. God knows what mine would be. How about Good Wine Needs No Bush: Political Maunderings of an Expatriate Oenophile? Or perhaps Latin Love in a Cold Climate: Memories of a Minnesota Classicist.

    These are merely titles in the mind. More intriguing are authors who produce one brilliant book and only one—vox et praeterea nihil. What fresh dragons of injustice did Harper Lee slay after she killed her mockingbird? Search me. Peter Beckford was a Georgian foxhunter of broad and elegant taste. He was partly responsible for introducing Clementi, the pianist, to polite English society, and yet his classic Thoughts on Hunting in a Series of Familiar Letters to a Friend are the only thoughts I know he committed to print.

    Until last week I had always thought of Rose Macaulay as another such auctor unius libri, all her unread early work leading to the great triumph of The Towers of Trebizond, the funniest book ever written about an Anglo-Catholic suffragette traveling around Eastern Turkey on a camel. Then I found, in a second-hand stall (in original dust jacket, some damp staining, slightly foxed), The World My Wilderness, the story, published in 1950, of Barbary, a farouche seventeen-year-old art student, allowed to run wild through the wasteland of ragwort and fireweed, ruined banks, and roofless Wren churches that was the Square Mile of the City, the historic and commercial heart of London, in the years following the Blitz.

    Barbary knows nothing about the centuries of commercial effort and bürgerlich devotion whose archaeology lies romantically at her feet, though she turns an honest penny painting watercolor postcards of the ruins to sell to rubber-necked tourists. She also turns several dishonest ones: shoplifting, stealing ration books (food and clothes were rationed in England for years following World War II), going with army deserters, and generally being the despair of her amiable if rather upright father, an eminent lawyer whose hair one imagines growing daily grayer beneath his barrister’s wig.

    In fact the only thing that would prevent a right-thinking person from wanting to apply a stout boot to Barbary’s bony little behind is the fact that she learnt her unusual manners in an excellent school and while struggling for a good cause. Before coming to London she had been brought up by her divorced mother, a louche lady who had settled in the Côtes du Roussillon, not far from the Franco-Spanish frontier, just before the War. She stayed there for the duration, so Barbary had spent her formative years as a runner for the Resistance, dodging the Gestapo, sleeping rough on the maquis. Her mother, an easy-going artist, keen on painting and a quiet life, had never interfered. It is Barbary’s mother, in fact, who remains in the mind as a character, what the French call un type. You can savor her in your mind’s eye, lolling pneumatically on a chaise longue, an amber cigarette holder in one hand, a glass in the other, well-read, seductive, lovely to look at, delightful to behold, but perhaps a little overripe. One wonders if perhaps she is what Rose Macaulay herself feared she might become as she grew older: delightful but directionless, sunk in sin. She need not have worried; the published letters of her later years suggest a formidably crisp old lady, whose daily ritual involved early-morning mass and a cold open-air swim in a London park, followed by copious correspondence, much of it concerned with the technicalities of mediaeval Latin verse.

    Overripe, though, is the word for the Pepperwood Grove Old Vine non-vintage zinfandel that sits in a glass beside me as I write. For all that (it comes from the big California firm of Don Sebastiani), this is wine with strong character—some of it the sort your mother warned you to avoid—per Yeats, caught in that sensual music all neglect monuments of un-aging intellect. The color recalls deep red lipstick, the kind that leaves an indelible mark on a shirt collar; the sweetness rising from the surface is redolent of the end of summer, the bubbling vats of black currants being boiled into jam. (How distant summer seems. Où sont les confitures d’antan?). The taste is chewy, like well-hung mutton (for which it would make a better mate than red-currant jelly). The grittiness that lingers on the palate is flecked with sensations of black pepper. Best of all, its percentage of alcohol by volume (13.5) exceeds its price in dollars. I shall pour myself another glass and take a long, hot bath.

  • A Great Big Flip

    He’d been a groom before; I hated the idea of a puffy white dress. So we had a ceremony at the courthouse and left abruptly the next morning for Paris. I’d like to say it was impossibly romantic. But among the magical nighttime moments in the Louvre courtyard, there was plenty of bickering concerning the correct path to the Panthéon. After one particularly nasty exchange, I stormed ahead on the Rue Mouffetard, only to be halted in my tracks by the sweetness wafting from a street-side window. A man with thick arms plied a crêpe from a hot pan and slathered it with Nutella; I quickly ordered two. When my husband finally caught up, I handed him the warm confection. We shared a silent, wide-eyed moment of bliss with that first bite and continued on, hand in hand.

    It wasn’t the first time I’d used a crêpe to save the day; and it certainly wasn’t the last. But who can blame me? With a small list of ingredients, the options for sweet or savory fillings (not to mention almost endless topping possibilities), and a nearly fool-proof batter, it’s a versatile creation that belongs in every cook’s repertoire. In my family, crêpes have become the ultimate grab-and-go food: pour, flip, fill, fold, and see you later.

    The French obviously have a close relationship with the crêpe. During Candlemas in February, they have a tradition in which a preparer must flip a crêpe with one hand while holding a coin in the other. A successful flip portends a year of good fortune. Originating in Brittany, crêpes were originally known as galettes crêpes, or flat cakes, and were customarily made with buckwheat flour and used like bread.

    Today, the buckwheat version is sometimes called galettes de sarrasins and is customarily used in savory preparations.
    But it’s the sweet crêpe that lures most food-lovers. Whether for dessert or brunch, a delicate pancake filled with berries, chocolate, sweet cream, or simply butter and sugar is hard to refuse. My own mother used rolled crêpes covered with sugar to wedge eggs into my early, extremely limited diet. But as of late, my attentions have turned to the savory crêpe, including heartier versions made from whole wheat flour and laced with herbs. Softly folded around any number of ingredients (mushrooms and Gruyère, halibut and leeks, squash and chèvre with sage), crêpes allow you to skip the bread and ditch the pasta, all while lending an air of refinement.

    There’s no mystery to the mix, a basic batter of flour, eggs, and milk. Even with all the potential permutations and additions, it’s almost impossible to screw up. Check out the three pages dedicated to crêpes in the Larousse Gastronomique, where you’ll find recipes for sweet crêpes that call for sugar, vanilla, and cognac as well as savory recipes with beer. As for my own concoctions, no matter how off-the-cuff, each has yielded a wholly edible pancake. I think that’s the true magic of the crêpe: It can be anything you want or need it to be. If I was set upon by four hungry dinner guests and had only a sparsely stocked pantry, crêpes would not only suffice, they would surprise and satisfy.

    Patience may be the final ingredient—even an experienced crêpe chef knows the first of the batch will be an ugly one. But once you master the skill, the only mystery left is this: Why on earth haven’t you made these treasures more often?

    Savory Mushroom Crêpes

    For Crêpes:

    1 c. buckwheat flour
    1/4 c. all-purpose flour
    1/2 tsp. salt
    1-1/2 c. milk
    4 eggs
    1/4 c. melted butter (plus a touch for the pan)

    For filling:

    3 T. butter
    2 c. chopped baby portabellas
    2 T. freshly chopped thyme
    Shredded Gruyère

    Sift flours and salt together in a medium bowl. Slowly whisk in milk until blended. Whisk in eggs until smooth, then stir in melted butter. Cover and chill batter for at least two hours, giving it a quick stir before using.

    Heat a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. When pan is hot, brush lightly with a little melted butter. Lifting pan from the heat, pour in just enough batter to cover the bottom of the pan and swirl to coat the surface. When the cake firms up, loosen the edges and flip. After a few seconds, transfer crêpe to a warmed baking dish in a 200-degree oven.

    Meanwhile, sauté mushrooms in butter with thyme until deep brown and soft. Add salt and pepper to taste.

    Place crêpe in a clean pan over medium heat. Top with shredded gruyère, and remove just as cheese is melting. Top one half with a spoonful of mushrooms and gently fold closed.

  • Shop n' Nosh

    I am WAY behind on shopping. I know I’ve been writing out gift guides for y’all, but that doesn’t mean that I’m surrounded with foodies in my real life. I have to buy Bionicles and Restoration Hardware tchotchkes like the rest of you.

    But I generally hate shopping. The only way I can suffer the hours of bumping into other people, sweating into my winter coat as I stand in line, and the dearth of endless can-I-help-yous from holiday retail associates is to know that in the end I’ll be fed.

    I’m the most focused when I shop alone, and find dining alone most rewarding. Sitting at the bar of a restaurant, you’re generally not bugged by other people, your bartender is always right in front of you, and it can be a beautiful, solitary moment when it’s just you and your food. The right places will read your mood and engage or retreat as dictated.

    This is my potential week:

    If I have to go to Southdale, and fight the good fight of the mall crowds, I’m planning on ending up at Via. I might have to fight for a space at the bar, but the tomato arugula salad and prosciutto flat bread are worth it.

    My Uptown trip will include Paper Source and the Shoe Zoo, which means I’ll be very close to Lucia’s. The lack of a real bar might force this into a mid-day lunch trip which means snacking on crepes at a little table in the corner of Lucia’s Take-Home. BONUS: I can buy a giant loaf of artisan bread and bring it home for dinner, double Santa!

    Nordeast means Surdyk’s, Bibelot, Pacifier, and Let’s Cook. A big trip like that may deserve a treat at The Red Stag, though I haven’t tried them out yet. A safer bet, depending on my mood, would be a juicy burger at The Bulldog.

    Downtown, post-Macy’s, post-parade, post-Juut treatment (a girl’s gotta treat herself sometimes), I’d head to Bank. Quiet and majestic, their service is spot-on.

    Grand Ave has more than enough shopping to make me dizzy, but Golden Fig will be my main stop. If I stop at Penzey’s as well, I’ll be called into Tavern on Grand by a cold beer and a basket of fried walleye. I am powerless in this instance.

    I refuse to go to Hugedale.

    I do have one shopping date scheduled with a BFF for last minute digging on Christmas Eve. We’re planning to head to 50th/France sometime in the morning and just see how it all plays out. I’m pretty sure there will be a glass of wine at Beaujo’s and potentially another at Salut a few hours later.

    At that point, the tree should be stocked and my gullet properly tuned to appreciate the next week’s home-cooking-athon.

  • The Jewels of Nordeast

    Last night I finished my week’s run of holiday parties/steak-binge with a soiree at Jax. I wore a kicky ruffled tux shirt and drank Dewar’s all night, because that’s what Jax calls for.

    The bartenders always put on a fine display of drinksmanship, not only do they remember your drink, but they have a freshie waiting as you plunk down your empy glass. With my second glass, the barman reminded me to try the pierogi on the appetizer buffet. (Perhaps he was watching out for my drink to food ratio?)

    I love pierogi. Pierogi are a cocktailer’s best friend. Simply put, pierogi (or perogi or pirogen or piroschke) are stuffed dumplings. With their strong ties to Slavic cultures, it’s no surprise to find them on menus scattered throughout Nordeast Minneapolis.

    Personally, I think they’re best when they’ve been baked and the dumpling dough has a warm, flour-dusted crustiness to the outside. The initial bite should reveal a soft and steamy inside gently packed with a salty pork product, like Westphalian ham. It’s a quick two-bite process: the second half should be popped into your mouth before you reach for your next pierogi. Or at least, that’s how it happens at my Mom’s house on Christmas Eve.

    Sadly, the pierogi at Jax were not my dream pierogi, they were more like flat and soggy ravioli. I did eat a couple, in respectful deference to my barman, and they did function beautifully as a balance to more Scotch, so in the end we’ll count it as a win. Truthfully, there are as many versions of pierogi as there are Babas in babushkas, and everyone knows that their favorite is the "right way".

    Of course I ended up extolling the virtues of good pierogi long into the night, well past the first party and into the next at Nye’s. It was too late for the kitchen by the time we arrived, but I’m quite sure I bored everyone with my detailed account of a great Nye’s pierogi experience. I think I was goaded into singing Que Sera Sera just to shut me up. Ok, there was no goading.

    And today I am in search of a recipe for my Oma’s pierogi because that’s all I can think about.

  • Cookie Party

    Do you have a cookie party in your future?

    Is there a massive plan afoot to organize friends/co-workers/relatives/cellmates for a gathering in which an inordinate amount of cookies is exchanged?

    I have a love/hate thing going for the cookie party. The premise is a bit appealing, bake dozens of one kind of cookie and bring it to a social gathering where there will be dozens of other cookies for which you make an even swap: Ta-daa, now for the price of one recipe, you have a huge variety of cookies.

    But (and here comes the Scroogey part) most of them suck.

    Yes, we all know I am a control freak and a bit of a food snob, but I enjoy an M&M cookie just as much as the next coiffed Super-mom. Neither at issue are traditional cookies: iced gingerbread, frosted sugar cookies, spritz or the like. And ugly cookies are always welcome in my house, if it looks like a toddler iced it, great.

    It’s the non-cookies that bother me. Melting a Rolo on top of a bell-shaped pretzel does not a cookie make. Mixing cornflakes into melted chocolate and dropping them into blobs does not a cookie make. Dipping an Oreo halfway into white chocolate? Come one, why don’t you just kick me in the gut. If I’ve spent a whole afternoon mixing and baking and cutting and sandwiching and frosting for you, the least you can do is turn off Guiding Light, put down the Arbor Mist and dust off the Kitchenaid mixer you got as a wedding present.

    I’m not asking for anyone to go overboard, just cream a little butter, throw a little sugar, break an egg or two. Don’t hand me "busy", we’re all busy, there’s maybe two or three people in the state who aren’t. But it doesn’t have to be hard, and it doesn’t have to be elaborate, it just has to be real.

    Just try it this year, go for the real:

    Shortbread is easy and rich and seems like you worked really hard.

    Cranberry Hootycreeks are simple, and fun to say!

    Lace cookies are ridiculously good.

    Mini Black and White’s are worth the effort.

    Gingersnap Raspberry Sandwiches would be a welcome sight.

    There are those who can’t resist Chocolate and Mint or Chocolate and Ginger.

    When in doubt, go classic. Your house will smell amazing.

     

     

  • Love and Bacon

    Last night I drank a lot of the beautiful, golden, silky liquid known as The Macallan 12. So I apologize if this isn’t my most shimmering post.

    A few of us had dinner at Manny’s and it was a significant event in that my BRF (best redheaded friend) was bringing her new boyfriend for us to meet. Yes, this is the same girl who recently broke up with a different guy after a less than spectacular dinner at my house.

    I was more than a little excited to meet this one, mainly because in the littany of men she’s debuted with us, this is the first one to truly bowl her over. And man, don’t we all deserve to be bowled over? Reeling with that flush of excitement, doing things that you normally wouldn’t do, throwing caution to the wind for just a little while…

    Wait a minute, was I talking about the potential relationship or the slab of Nueske’s on the table, the thick and charred salty slab of bacon? Seriously, what’s wrong with feeling like that about a pork product? I’ve just passed through the eighth year of marriage with my husband and I love him more than he may deserve, but I see him every day. The bacon, I don’t.

    The bacon is a surrender to fat and flavor, to risk and decadence, to the aknowledgement that this is not an average night. Your hungry heart may crave it, and you may find yourself remembering it fondly, but you couldn’t eat the bacon every day, your real heart wouldn’t allow it.

    I enjoyed the night and I enjoyed her choice of suitor. He seems to be a good person who is equally over the moon about his date. We all laughed and ate and drank far too much for a Thursday night, wrapped up as we were, in a haze of bacon and anticipation.

  • Local Food Heroes

    Food Heroes don’t leap tall buildings in a single bound, their deeds are rather more humble. They get in the dirt when it’s still frozen or wake up before the sun to hang out with the goats. They spend their summer weekends working the markets or give up holiday time to make the most of the retail flurry. They live the dream, and for a few dollars less than most of us would expect.

    Edible Twin Cities, part of the national Edible Communities, celebrates local food mavens on a quarterly basis. Now they want you to nominate your favorites for their Local Food Heroes awards.

    Categories for nominations are:

    Best Farm/Farmer (did you get some awesome CSA form Loon Organics this year? have you heard about the good work of Gale Woods Farm? Cedar Summit? Callister Farms?)

    Best Chef/Restaurant (I don’t know … Scott Pampuch is both talented and cute … there’s always the Goddess of Local … I’m still mad at JD, but still believe in him … Mr. Midwest continues to make me proud of my home … it’s a toss up.)

    Best Food Artisan (Love Amy, love the shortbread … Laurie’s Golden Fig products invade my kitchen … Daddy Sam’s is surprisingly local… I know it’s cold, but I still dream of Izzy’s and Pumphouse Creamery)

    Best Beverage Artisan (um … Mrs. Kelly of course … the Peace Coffee gang … Surly Surly Surly … Town Hall Brewery’s efforts to cure January with a growler of Retreating Darkness is worth gold)

    Best Non-Profit Organization (It’s hard to pick one amongst Slow Food MN, Land Stewardship Project, Heartland Food Network, Minnesota Grown Program …and so many others)

    Vote away!

  • The Very Serious Incident of the Gift Basket

    It was last year when the UPS man left the box by our front door. As always, when unexpected boxes arrive, there was excitement and a flurry of dancing about the foyer. Upon quick and furious destruction of the box, we discovered a gift basket.

    It was a large gift basket, and once we removed the cellophane, rather fragrant. The quick once-over revealed various sausages and cheese among the fruit, not to mention a chocolate tucked here and there. The overwhelmingly beefy smell was wrapping around me as I picked up one of the yellow logs and realized something was very, very wrong: it was a tube of Ched-Onion Cheeze Food.

    I quickly scrutinized the other items (teriyaki beef sticks, spreadable parmesan, something called "chutter") and my head began to spin: I had been gifted an entire mountain of processed foods. And not even the good kind.

    It had to be a joke. No one who actually knew me would do something like that unless they were hoping for a good chuckle. After all, a bunch of my college chums have successfully re-gifted a box of smoked salmon spread for at least ten years running.

    But there was no card.

    There was no card, no note, no acknowledgement of sender, no indication of a hardy-har-har. Even if it was a serious gift, why wouldn’t they want credit? I had no idea who had sent the gift, nor a clue as to their intention.

    Thusly, I felt duty-bound to at least try some of the goods. Peeling back the wrapping on the "chutter", I grabbed a cracker and topped it with a healthy schmear. At first, it was actually creamy and a bit yummy in that cheese-dip kinda way. I was truly considering another crackerfull when the waxy mouth coating started to bloom. That was enough. The fruit was eaten, the chocolates left for the mailman and the sausages incorporated into a house game in which you might discover a plump package under your pillow or furtively placed in your shoe.

    If you gave this basket to me, know that it was enjoyed. Maybe not in the manner intended, maybe so. Please know that you have become known as the Mad Basketeer who Gifts on the Sly and with every UPS truck that pulls up, we wonder if you have struck again.

    Resources for those who actually wish to attach their names to a gift basket:

    Pears and Stilton from Harry & David

    Tapas Party Gift Box from La Tienda

    Anything from Zingerman’s

    Exotic Truffle Collection from Vosges Chocolate

    Fig Gift Box from Norm Thompson (plus hard to find peppermints!)

    Noon Whistle from Dean and Deluca

    Belgian Chocolate-Covered Oreos from Red Envelope

  • The Tea Lady

    If you were casting the role of Tea Lady, you might choose a soft woman with a doughy nature. Maybe you’d pick a spinster who has a serious passion for bone china and a pension for plushy chairs and quiet nights by the fire. Maybe she has cats, lots of cats.

    Mrs. Kelly of Mrs. Kelly’s Custom Teas would blow your Tea Lady right off the map. Not content to sit by the fire, Mindy Kelly is a driven individual with boundless energy who has created one of the most successful food companies around. With her husky voice she’ll proudly tell you that it’s actually a family affair, that she’s sucked her husband and kids into the business along with her. They’re the ones you see manning the farmer’s market stalls week after week.

    Chat with Mindy for five seconds and you’ll see that she’s not just passionate about tea and business, but about the reach it’s afforded her. A few years ago, she traveled to India as part of an American tea delegation sponsored by the Specialty Tea Institute. She was amazed and humbled by the people whose tea she imports, and will expressively tell you how it changed her world view.

    This weekend you can chat-up Mindy and her clan at the annual Tea Tasting. Held in the old Grain Belt Brewery which houses the company, this has become quite the festive event. While sampling over 100 of their specialty teas, you can stroll art galleries or check out products and seminars by local chocolate god B.T. McElrath, peruvian food princess Rachel Rubin, or bread master Klecko.

    December 1-2 … 9am – 4pm … bring a non-perishable food donation or $2 for Second Harvest Heartland.