The Rake Magazine

Category: Food and Drink

  • Restaurant Hall of Fame

    For the restaurant industry, this week marks the final push of the year: Sell those gift cards! Book the holiday parties! Throw open the new doors and get some butts in chairs (welcome Otho and finally Red Stag)!

    Last week was different. Before all the hubbub there was time for a moment of reflection.

    Last Monday night, I found myself jammed into Mancini’s Char House with a throng of industry lifers for a little celebration of the old-school. It was the Minnesota Restaurant Association’s big soiree, a night when they induct honorees into the Hall of Fame and present their award for Restaurant of the Year.

    First of all, it wasn’t the James Beard awards. Standing there, swirling my Maker’s Mark as I surveyed the room, it was obvious to me that the night wasn’t about cutting-edge chefs and daring cuisine.There were plenty of suits sporting names like Kozlak, Cossetta, and Murray on their badges, but not a McKee or Woodman or Becker in sight. Maybe for some that’s reason enough to poo-poo the whole affair, but I’m happy for their short-sightedness: more room for me at the prime rib carving station.

    The Hall of Famers this year included the late Bob Casper of Casper’s Cherokee Sirloin Room, Louis Tinucci of Tinucci’s Restaurant, and the man I was there to applaud, Pete Mihajlov of Parasole Restaurant Holdings.

    It has been said that if you don’t like Pete, you don’t like Santa Claus. His boisterous and snarky partner, Phil Roberts, is usually the one to get the press, which is just as Pete would have it. While Phil is the buzz, Pete is the undercurrent, working behind the scenes to build the Twin Cities dining culture. When you read about the staff at Manny’s who have the almost unnerving ability to recognize and remember frequent guests, that’s Pete at work. His guest-focus is the core of the Parasole culture, which has further influenced the local dining scene as former employees (Town Talk’s Niver was a Pronto manager, Tim McKee a Figlio cook…) branch out and make their mark.

    It wasn’t lost on me that we were celebrating these groundbreakers in a place that started as a small 3.2 beer joint, just serving some Italian sandwiches. When Nick Mancini decided to buy a bar instead of a gas station in 1948, the "good" part of town was still a few blocks away. Over the years, Mancini’s has become a jewel of West Seventh and a St. Paul institution. Nick Mancini died earlier this year, but his love for the business clearly infected his sons who proudly accepted the mantle of Restaurant of the Year.

    Nestling into one of the iconic, high-backed, red leather booths for a good gossip session, I kept one eye trained on the shrimp station. As soon as it was refilled, I made a bee-line for the young man serving. It’s true I get a bit "chatty" after a measure of bourbon, and thusly discovered that the food was being served by culinary students. Of course I asked him my favorite question: Why do you want to be a chef? And of course he started out with the usual blah blah I’ve always loved food blah blah my grandmother taught me to cook blah blah I want to bring new food to the Twin Cites blah blah. But then he added: If I could create a restaurant that would last as long as this, wouldn’t that be something?

    No school like the old school.

  • The Feast Index

    "Be not angry or sour at table; whatever may happen put on the cheeful mien for good humor makes one dish a feast."

    from the Shaker manual Gentle Manners.

     

    THE FEAST INDEX

    Estimated number of turkeys rasied in Minnesota in 2007: 46 million

    Rank of Minnesota in the top six turkey producing states: 1

    Estimated pounds of cranberries produced by Wisconsin this year: 390 million

    Amount by which that kicks ass over Massachusetts, the second largest producer: 210 million

    Average spoonfuls of cranberry sauce that someone under the age of 15 will put on their plate: .5

    Percentage of grocery store checkout ladies that knew what quince were: 25%

    Margin by which the vote swung against me and my whole wheat dinner rolls: 5

    Amount, in pounds, of potatoes I expect to be eaten: 10

    Amount, in pounds, of butter that I expect to use: 4

    Number of people eating The Feast at my house: 15

    Number who will wince as my diabetic mother-in-law goes in for her second piece of pie: 14

    Ratio of guests to matching silverware: 15:11

    Minimum hours spent laboriously pressing cloth napkins that will only get wrinkled and mashed up anyway!: 2

    Chances that my husband and his sister will get in a politically motivated "discussion": 1 in 4

    Amount of holiday cheer that I will need, expressed in ounces of Johnnie Walker Blue: 18

    Chances that a dessert will contain pumpkin: 2 in 3

    Chances that, as I’m eating the dessert, I will feel like a pumpkin: 3 in 3

    Minutes after the last guest leaves that the first turkey sandwich will be eaten: 27.3

    Maximum number of days post-feat that I will be deconstructing the night with some local ladies at McGarry’s Pub: 3

  • The Giving Guest

    Tradition hasn’t rooted so firmly in my kitchen that I cook the Thanksgiving meal every year. Sometimes I am a guest at the feast, like the mjority of people, an eater. It’s a beautiful thing, for a cook to be cooked for, and I never take that invitation lightly.

    It should be one of the first rules of life that you never show up to a feast empty-handed, and I’m not talking about pot-luck. A little gift, a little prize, a little special something that will make the host smile … it’s a small price for a full belly.

    That being said here are some peccadilloes to avoid:

    I know this will sound surprising, but don’t bring flowers. The hostess will have to find a vase and a location for your flowers, taking her away from her duties. And even if they have a pleasant odor, they’ll take away from the smell of the food.

    Don’t bring a cookbook. Nothing says "Hey, time to learn something new!" to a harried cook more than that.

    Dont’ you dare bring a surprise dish: "I brought along my favorite mayonnaise pizza dish just to help out!" This person should be banned for life.

    And never, ever, ever this.

    So what’s a stylish and gracious guest to do? Simply, be thoughtful:

    A bottle of wine is classic and easy, but make it a bottle that is meant for another day. In fact, make it a kick-ass port with a tag that reads: Open when we’re all gone.

    A ribbon-tied pair of dish washing gloves, with your name inked on them.

    Chicken stock … just in case.

    Onion goggles. Your contribution to a tears-free family feast!

    A game to occupy the kids at the Kids Table, whether you’re still sitting there or not.

    Chocolate turkeys. Who doesn’t love biting the waddle off a chocolate turkey?

    A great loaf of bread and jar of mayo for the first post-meal-everyone’s-gone-late-night turkey sandwich.

    Breakfast in a clean kitchen: a bag of pre-ground coffee, scones, and lemon curd.

    Fine! You can bring a pie, dammit. But make sure it’s flippin’ great and not something you picked up at Costco or the gas station.

    The All Time Best Gift: an invitation to dinner at your house.

  • T-Day Seven Days Out: The Bird

    The bird is the word.

    We used to go to my aunt’s house in North Oaks for Thanksgiving. I clearly remember her perched on a chair next to the oven, heater and scotch in one hand, turkey baster in the other as she dutifully doused the bird every five minutes. From that chair she barked orders to the rest of the family to execute the remainder of the meal, I was in charge of rolling butter into pretty balls. Others can mash the potatoes or slice the beets, but she couldn’t, wouldn’t leave her post or her mission, all in the name of moisture.

    A dry turkey is a sin. You don’t build an entire feast around one main protein only to realize you’ve served a chew-toy. I can’t seem to get my mother-in-law to see that you don’t need to start cooking the bird at 6am for a 4pm dinner. Gravy needn’t be the real main course, there is another way.

    In the past few years, it’s been all about the brine. Brining a turkey involves soaking the thawed bird in a salt and herb solution. The theory is that the meat absorbs the flavorful solution and the proteins, when heated, lock the moisture inside. Although it does change the texture slightly, the resulting meat is ultra-moist, even when slightly overcooked.

    Change the flavor of your brine with the addition of cider or different herbs, just don’t oversalt. The first time I made my own brine, my turkey tasted like ham. There are a ton of good brines on the market, Golden Fig’s locally made brine mix is one of the best.

    If your bird is frozen, start thawing it in the fridge on Monday. By Tuesday, you should mix your brine solution and let it sit overnight. If you don’t have a big enough pot or bucket, don’t worry, there are plenty of giant bags meant for brining. I don’t even need to say that you shouldn’t use a scented garbage bag, do I? Get the bird into the solution by Wednesday and let it soak until you get it ready for the oven.

    I guarantee that any old-timers who haven’t had a brined bird will flip over the juiciness.

    Now for the ultimate question: to baste or not to baste? I’ve never basted a brined bird, and have yet to be disappointed. I have a chef friend that laughs at the basters, swearing that they only thing you have to do is slow-roast the bird at a low temp wrapped in parchment paper and foil, followed with a turn under high heat to add the crispiness.

    I’m sure I could have explained this all in detail to my aunt, but I fear not even a lecture from the turkey himself could have moved her from her perch.

  • T-Day: Eight Days Out

    It’s go time.

    It’s the opening of Feast Season, are you ready? This is the week that my head starts spinning with potato options and I rip through the internet trying to find the cranberry recipe that will outshine last year’s. Thank goodness one of my kitchen walls is made of slate, because it is now chalked over with lists of ingredients crossed with possible permutations in a mad Kaczynski-esque fashion.

    While the lead-up may be crazed and insane, the feast must be about balance. I have 15 or so coming for dinner, some are food-driven (like me) and some aren’t. While I would love to break the mold on every dish, creating an entirely new feast each year, that wouldn’t be right. That wouldn’t serve my eaters very well. There are people coming whose food agenda is focused simply on the turkey and my husband’s creamed corn, they just agree to suffer through whatever cranberry concoction I serve.

    My ulimate goal is to create a spread from which you can assemble the perfect plate, however that suits you. Ignore the brussel sprouts, that’s fine, there are two kinds of potatoes. I’d love all to know the glory of ginger glazed carrots, but if not, there’s more room for pumpkin pie.

    Corny as it sounds, I am thankful for the challenge. It’s my industry background, only under pressure do I truly thrive. This is a week in which all cylinders are firing and I could yap endlessly about yams.

    So, tomorrow it’s turkey talk: to brine or not to brine.

     

     

  • Strong, Rugged, Somewhat Sweet

    On any list of the smaller enormities of modern life, other people’s Christmas circular letters ought to loom large. It is not the information itself that is so rebarbative. In the great scheme of things, knowing about the family’s new job/house/car/place at the lake is no more or less annoying than reading that Junior has scooped the Miss Joyful Prize for Raffia Work.

    What offends is not the list of facts; it is the impersonal braggadocio which implicitly animates their recital. Other documents in life that puff one’s importance at least do so to secure some good purpose: To get a pay raise or obtain a job. But the Christmas circular is bombast in its pure form, intended to impress merely for the purpose of impressing—vanitas vanitatum.

    How much more welcome than such cyclo-styled self-advertisement are a few words of personal greeting scrawled on a conventional card. One might even be happier to receive one of the un-Christmas cards sent out annually by an irascible colleague who experiences difficulty forgiving his enemies, even though he knows he really ought to. His concession to the Season of Goodwill consists of posting to the offenders plain black cards signed and inscribed in simple silver script: “I await your apology.”

    At least his cards are plain. The nadir of the Christmas circular phenomenon is reached when the puff sheet is accompanied by a card showing not the Holy Family heaped onto a single donkey fleeing into Egypt, but the Nuclear Family disporting itself somewhere warm. Such an exhibition can only be intended to promote envy and uncharitableness when sent to people spending December in Minnesota.

    The only one of these family snaps I have ever kept beyond Twelfth Night came from a sprightly minded graduate student the Christmas before the invasion of Iraq. The photograph showed her husband in combat fatigues standing next to his tank. Her bikini-clad form was draped deliciously across the front of the vehicle. The caption read simply “Peace on Earth.”

    It is good to know the U.S. Marines do irony.

    It is actually the Christians of Iraq I shall be thinking of this Christmas. These are not the converts of intrusive Victorian missionaries; they are communities as old as Christianity itself, long predating the emergence in the Western Middle Ages of Christmas as an important holiday. (In the early Church the great festivals were Easter and to a lesser extent Epiphany.) Their liturgical language is Syriac, a literary form of Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke.

    During the first three centuries of Islam, Syriac Christians were a vital link in the transmission of Greek science to the scholars of the Arab world. In the three centuries before Islam, their monasteries were places of poetry and of a spiritual endeavor characterized by considerable psychological acuity. Standing outside a monastery gate on the escarpment of Mount Izla, looking south over the little Turkish border town of Nusaybin, once a great center of Syriac learning, one can sense centuries of intellectual effort wafting up on the thermals from the Mesopotamian plain.

    Today the subtle symbiosis that has for centuries sustained these Christian communities is being brushed violently aside. Syriac Christians are leaving their ancestral land to live precariously as refugees in Syria and Jordan. And it’s not just Christians; the Yezidis, a small community whose principal shrine is in the mountains of northern Iraq, also live in justifiable fear. This tragedy seems to be little reported, though the Archbishop of Canterbury’s distress at what he saw when visiting refugees in Syria got some coverage on the internet.

    The sober consideration of this cultural catastrophe may be lubricated by a wine that, like the landscape of northern Mesopotamia, is strong and rugged and somewhat sweet. The people of Mount Izla were making their own wines in the time of Ezekiel, but I fear that today the grapes there get turned into raki (the Turkish equivalent of ouzo) or pekmez (a sort of jam). One may substitute a Parducci Pinot Noir grown in the precipitous hills of Mendocino County in northern California, which may be had in Minnesota for about twelve dollars. The color is a good deep red; an aroma rises with the alcohol as the hand warms the glass; the taste is robust and lingering.

    This wine would be good company for bread and cheese and hard thinking. Its mellowing influence might well evaporate the vanity of one’s friends. One might even start to wonder what can be done to stop the modern world from destroying all the good we inherited from the past.

  • Season's Eatings

    One of the toughest questions I’m asked is “What’s your favorite restaurant?” You might as well ask me which specific taste bud I prefer. Instead of a quick reference, this question begs a full discussion of the weather, the season, the time of day/night, what I’m wearing, who’s paying, etc. But that’s the thing about being a foodie—our hunger is unusually complex and wide-ranging.

    This means that gift-giving for food lovers can come easy; unless you give a box of steaks to a vegetarian, it’s hard to mess up. Epicures are by nature curious, so if you can appeal to even one aspect of their passion, you will earn a permanent place in their heart—and at their table.

    For the convert to “sustainability”: Alice Waters’s new tome, The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution, is a straightforward and tasteful discourse from one of the founders of the sustainability movement. Pair this gift with a loin of grass-fed beef from locally owned Thousand Hills Cattle Co. and the recipient will feel that all his ranting about factory farming has not been in vain.

    For the harried cook: The mise en place approach isn’t just for veggies—it can apply to a whole recipe system. The Russell + Hazel recipe keeper is both stylish and ingeniously organized so as to eliminate the 5:30 p.m. frenzied search for Chicken Diablo. Another way to save time is with the new OXO peeler: It fits in the palm and allows both speed and control over any vegetable. As a party gift, the time-crunched hostess will love the frozen cubes of chopped herbs available at Trader Joe’s. They melt perfectly and brightly into any concoction.

    For the Scandinavian locavore: Even if you didn’t grow up eating them, one taste and there’s no denying the power of the ebleskiver. These Danish stuffed pancake-balls can be filled with jam or chocolate and are made in a special pan created by the local wizards at Nordic Ware. Beyond breakfast, you can satisfy your inner Swede and support a small, local shop when you buy lingonberry fudge from The Sweet Swede. Dark and rich on the front with a deep berry finish, this is fudge even an outlander would love.

    For the dairy snob: Most of those who fall into this category are cheese snobs, and most of them believe that they must love the oddest, stinkiest, funkiest of washed rind cheeses in order to hold court. I say relax and enjoy the soft earthiness of Sottocenere al Tartufo, an Italian semisoft cow’s milk cheese that is plied with black truffle and aged in an edible vegetable ash rind rubbed with a heady concoction of nutmeg, coriander, cinnamon, licorice, cloves, and fennel. If you want to go the simple route for a lover of dairy, give a rich European butter like the salted Beurre de Gourmets—and a Laguiole spreader to use with it exclusively.

    For the adventurer: Your food-lover might never be an Iron Chef, but now she can study up with Morimoto: The New Art of Japanese Cooking. In his first book, Masaharu Morimoto gives wonderfully exact instructions on how to create staggeringly beautiful Japanese food. It’s serious kitchen work, especially the bit about how to tie up your samurai robe. Before diving in, your giftee should do an initial read-through accompanied by a nicely chilled glass of sake, that under-sung brewed beverage. Otokoyama should do the trick.

    Finders, keepers: where to get the goods

    Cookbooks: online at Jessica’s Biscuit or at Kitchen Window, 3001 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; 612-824-4417

    Thousand Hills Cattle Co. meats: Kowalski’s, various locations

    Recipe keeper: Russell + Hazel, 4388 France Ave. S, Minneapolis;
    952-358-3685

    OXO peeler: Sur la Table, 3901 W. 50th St., Minneapolis; 952-656-0045

    Frozen herbs: Trader Joe’s, various locations

    Ebleskiver pan: Cook’s of Crocus Hill, various locations, or Nordic Ware

    Lingonberry fudge: The Sweet Swede, www.thesweetswede.com

    Cheese and butter: Premier Cheese Market, 5013 France Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-436-5590

    Laguiole spreaders: Williams-Sonoma, various locations

    Otokoyama sake: Hennepin-Lake Liquors, 1200 W. Lake St., Minneapolis; 612-825-4411

  • Cursed

    Someone put a food curse on my house.

    I cooked like crap last week … Nothing lived up to expectation, mistakes were made at every turn, I threw my knife more than once into the wooden chopping block.

    Maybe it started with the Osso Buco my husband attempted last weekend. He had been craving the comforting dish and we were all looking forward to it. Sadly, not even his rich sauce could save the mealy, fatty pork shanks which he had substituted for veal shanks (fearing a revolt from the teenagers).

    That meal was followed by a diappointing bean soup, in which I used too few beans and too much stock. Post puree, the resulting soup was a thin, weak mess instead of a thick, hearty belly warmer.

    So I resorted to the repertoire and pulled together a meatloaf. But I miscalculated the oven temp/size of loaf/timing of sides and ended up with a set table, ready eaters, and a main dish with a nakedly raw center. More broccoli anyone?

    I won’t resort to victimology, that my mojo must have been off due to the illness making its way among my family members, or the silly situation that gave me stitches on Friday. I’m better than that, I’ve cooked through worse to better heights. So I thought I would be able to kick it into high gear and pull off a spectacular dinner party this weekend for one of the Grrrls who was debuting her current beau among her friends. The veg was good, everything else was average. They broke up the next day, I kid you not.

    My confidence is shaken, the phrase ringing through my head as I pick up a knife is a resouning YOU SUCK. What’s worse, this is a particularly bad time to have the whammy on my kitchen, we’re in the final countdown to the seasonal feast: Tday 10 days out.

    So tonight I am cleaning my kitchen from floor to ceiling and lighting a bound stick of dried sage. I don’t know what I have done to piss off the Kitchen Witch, but this evening’s meal will be cooked humbly and slowly. To rebalance myself I am making spaghetti Napoletana. The smell of freshly smashed garlic simmering in olive oil should help rebaptize my kitchen and there’s a chance the bright red tomatoes will bring me luck. Using a long and toothsome pasta like spaghetti just feels right. This is a simple dish that I could make with my eyes closed … but not tonight.

    Spaghetti Napoletana

    1 lb. spaghetti

    4 T olive oil

    4 cloves garlic: peel, then smash with side of knife, roughly chop

    1 28oz. can whole peeled tomatoes: drain most (not all) of liquid, move knife within the can to break tomatoes apart

    1/2 cup freshly chopped basil

    Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

    In a big pot of salted water, cook spaghetti until aldente, DO NOT OVERCOOK.

    While pasta is cooking, heat olive oil in large saute pan over med-high heat. Add garlic and simmer until slightly browned. Toss in tomatoes and stir about to mix with garlic, add basil with salt and pepper to taste. Let mix reduce and thicken, stirring occaisionally for about 6-8 minutes.

    When pasta is ready and drained, add it to the tomato mixture and toss to coat. Sprinkly liberally with cheese and toss again. Slide it all into a large serving bowl/platter. Garnish with more cheese and chopped basil if you’d like. Serves 4 hungry people who might like a slice of garlic bread on the side.

  • Cookery Books: Next Gen

    I don’t really want to think about Christmas yet, I shun any holiday movies/songs until after Thanksgiving. I even direct my 4 year old to avert his gaze from the shiny shiny currently draped all over Target.

    And yet, I have to begin thinking of what I’m going to send as my "holiday card" because it’s rarely just a holiday card. I used to send mock-newsletters that detailed every sniffle and horrible disease we had suffered over the year, but that grew boring. Two years ago I sent a family DVD (complete with a pack of microwave popcorn) and that was a stitch. Last year I did nothing, I bailed completely.

    So this year I’m sending everyone a collection of the family’s favorite recipes, complete with photos and snarky comments, natch. I’m thinking of calling it The Hot 12, and I just have to figure out the media: CD, recipe cards, bound book, printed on magnet paper…I’m not sure yet.

    But that’s the beauty of the cookbook, it’s evolving along with the way we cook. My shelf of cookbooks, which I peruse regularly, is stacked with everything from glossy chef diatribes to crumbly 1928 vintage antique store finds. I have a file on the Epicurious site that is crammed with hundreds of favorites, and a collection of hand scrabbled notecards housed stylishly in my Russel + Hazel organizer. I use them all, I haven’t given up one way for another, different meals and different situations call for different methods.

    And you don’t have to be a food writer to compile your own cookbook. Epicurious has launched TasteBook, with which you download your favorite recipes from the site into a custom book they’ll create for you.

    Many uber-creative cooks have been making use of Blurb to realize their dream of authorship. Download the software for free and you can design your own pages in input your own recipes.

    If anyone knows about the future of food and cooking, it’s got to be Grant Achatz of Alinea in Chicago. He’s a big name with those who fancy molecular gastronomy and deconstructionism. He’s a man of atomized shrimp and caramel bubbles, of course he wouldn’t do a cookbook like anyone else. His deal with Ten Speed Press includes a new paradigm for royalties and a web-based addendum complete with video demos and further instruction.

    Maybe I’ll try to pull that off next year …

  • Water Wars

    First, it was Alice Waters who said NO to bottled water at Chez Panisse. Suddenly, something that seemed so lovely and useful (fresh, clean water wherever I go!) became downright evil, and almost … dirty.

    Fast Company’s piece outlined much of the concerns and issues held by conservationists.

    Restauranteurs have been stepping lightly it seems to me. On one hand, they want to serve the guest a quality product. On the other hand, they want to give the guest what they want, or don’t want. And on the last hand, they want to make money: can you push bottled water and still court a return visit from the ethical guest?

    It seems there is a sparkly idea on the front: house-bottled water. In a Gourmet Weekly e-newletter, I read about a restaurant that is now selling all-you-can-drink house-bottled water for $2.50. And they’re not alone. But this isn’t any old tap water, this is highly filtered tap water, bottled with connsumate care. It would never, ever be just tap-filled in the wait-station by a harried server … no, never.

    Is there anyone in town doing this? yet?

    Check out what the food cognoscenti from across the country are saying about it.