My Epicurean Adventure Part 2, Beer and Cheese

When the cat is away the mouse will play and I got a chance to be a very naughty mouse. Without my beer-hating husband and dairy-allergic son, I spent my Friday afternoon as a Foodbuzz correspondent at Traverse City's Epicurean Classic nibbling and sipping beer and cheese. It was an indulgence almost too good to be true!

After spending the morning enthralled but shivering and freezing my way through several demonstrations in the outdoor tents, I decided to pop in one of the indoor tasting rooms to see if the presentation was worth staying for. The tasting class I ended up in was Beer and Cheese, held by Rex Halfpenny. Halfpenny publishes the bi-monthly Michigan Beer Guide. In this tasting 8 beers would be paired with 8 cheeses in the manner of a traditional wine and cheese tasting. The beginning seemed interesting enough and my toes were starting to thaw so I stuck around.

Halfpenny began with some of his thoughts on modern beer drinking:
-It's a shame that we've lost the ability to buy beer by style.
-Beer needs to get out of bottles and into glasses so that we can appreciate the aromas, aroma determines 80% of the perception of flavor.
-Beer in single serving bottles is by nature better suited to pairing with individual meals in restaurants.

The beers from the tasting

We then moved on to tasting first the beer alone and then with the chosen cheese.
Here is the rundown of the beers and cheeses:

1. New Holland Lucid (a German Kolsch) w/ Fresh Buffalo Mozzarella
2. Samuel Smith Nut Brown Ale w/ French Comte Gruyere
3. Bass Ale (an English-style brown ale) w/ French Chevre
4. Lindeman's Framboise (a Belgian Lambic) w/ Brie
5. Hoegaarden (a Witbier) w/ French Mimolette
6. Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere (a Farmhouse ale) w/ Epoisse
7. Delirium Tremens (a Strong Pale Ale) w/ Barrel Aged Feta
8. Anchor Old Foghorn Barley Wine w/ Maytag Blue

The cheeses (clockwise from 12 o'clock:
mozzarella, feta, chevre, gruyere, Mimolette, brie, blue, and Epoisse)
The beers (1-8 from the left)

It was interesting to take more time than I usually do smelling and tasting the beers and comparing them with and without the cheese. I wasn't very fond of the New Holland Lucid and Bass Ale, both seemed overly bitter. I liked the Delirium Tremens and the Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere a lot. The cheeses that accompanied them (the Epoisse and the aged feta) were good matches in my opinion. Flavors in both the beer and cheese were enhanced. My favorite of the tasting was the Hoegaarden white beer. I loved the spiciness of it. The Mimolette that it was pared with reminded me of aged Gouda, with a similar nuttiness and crunch. The cheese brought out the fruity qualities in the beer. In the tasting pavilion I found the Michigan beer brewers. My favorites there were the Whaleback White from Leelanau Brewing Company and Nicie Spicie from Shorts. I liked both of these even more than the beers from the tasting. I guess I had a hidden desire for spicy beers. I went shopping last night at Vince and Joe's Market in Shelby and found Whaleback White and Delirium Tremens. I also picked up Jolly Pumpkin's Calabaza Blanca and Biere sur Lie's Blanche de Namur (with licorice!). I can't wait to try the new two.

Michigan Brewers at the Epicurean Classic:

Leelanau Brewing Company

Shorts Brewing Company

Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales

New Holland Brewing

My Epicurean Adventure Part 1, Farmer's Market Inspired Cooking

In the next couple of days I'm going to try and pour out some of the information in my over-saturated brain. (Where do you find a pensieve when you need one?) I'm full of new ideas because last Friday and Saturday I went to Traverse City's Epicurean Classic. This was an event that I was covering as a Foodbuzz correspondent. The amount and variety of food related content on Foodbuzz is outstanding. I'm happy to be a part of their community (and thrilled that they got me into this!) The Epicurean Classic did not disappoint. The classes were informative and diverse. The most difficult part was deciding which classes to attend. I've decided to write in three parts to share what I found most interesting.

My very first presentation also was one of my favorites. The theme was Farmer's Market Inspired Cooking. The chefs were Eric Patterson and Jennifer Blakeslee who are co-owners of The Cook's House restaurant in Traverse City. Opened the past April, The Cook's House is a 20 seat restaurant with the mission "to use, promote and celebrate local sustainable foods." They couldn't have picked a better place to do this! I love the availability and quality of food that Traverse City provides. It was a small but not insignificant factor in our move. Together the chefs prepared three dishes and went through some of the thought process that lead them from market to table.

Their first plate was tempura vegetables on a mixed green salad. Fairytale eggplant, nasturtiums, celery leaves and zucchini flowers were tossed in flour, then coated with a light batter and fried. Patterson suggests rice flour or Wondra for the tempura batter. The greens were dressed with Black Star Farms vert jus and olive oil. Zingerman's Detroit Street Brick (I've previously mentioned my adoration of this cheese) and sliced honey crisp apples completed the salad.

The second plate was pan fried lake trout with creamed corn and braised greens. The corn was fresh sweet corn from a place called Halls, blended together with onions (previously softened) and whole milk. The greens were kale and tatsoi braised with chicken stock and more onion and finished with butter. The trout was placed on top of the corn and greens and garnished with fleur de sel.

The final dish was a dessert soup made from Charantais melon (French breakfast melon). Fresh melon and melted Moomer's vanilla ice cream were blended together. The seasoning was adjusted with salt and balanced with ver jus. A scoop of matching melon sorbet was added for contrast in temperature and richness. Nasturtium flowers added as garnish after a suggestion by an audience member. The chef wished he had some lemoncello as well.

Throughout the presentation tips were given on how to develop a dish and a meal from a market shopping trip. The ones I felt were most valuable were:

-Don't be set in a menu when you shop. Look for what looks the best. Be choosy about your ingredients.

-Build onto the first ingredient to create your dish. Think about what else is available that would combine well.

-Keep things simple, do less to your ingredients.

The food was delicious and very much the style of food I aim to cook and eat at home, with the exception of all the dairy. The flavors were simple and vibrant. My favorite was the melon soup. The fragrant melon was highlighted beautifully. It probably wouldn't be even half as good with Tofutti though :( I'd love to have a meal at the restaurant, especially during the winter. They're confident about surviving the Michigan winter and hope to stay 90% local throughout. They've made plans with local greenhouses, including the one at Black Star Farms.

Links:
The Cook's House Restaurant

More thoughts from Chef Eric
Grand Traverse Insider Article on The Cook's House

Zingerman's Detroit Street Brick (Buy some, you won't be sorry! I'm pouting over coming home without some myself. The Ann Arbor ladies have it good and can pop into Zingerman's anytime.)

Bookmarked Recipes: Cookie Wrapped Figs

I really loved Clumbsy Cookie's Fig Week. My favorite recipe was the cookie wrapped figs. She wrapped Chinese five spice flavored dough around a fresh fig and baked, glazed and topped them with pistachio nuts. So, I picked up some figs and gave the recipe a try last week. I wanted to keep the purple color (and I'm lazy) so I didn't bother to peel my figs but I did trim the tough stems off. I substituted Earth Balance for the butter in the dough. The five spice powder made it very fragrant. My dough was a little hard to handle in the rolled out circles but pinched together and covered the figs easily. I liked how the figs inside cooked and dried out slightly but still remained much moister than a cookie made with dried figs. They reminded me of spicy, two-bite fig pies.

I'm adding this to Bookmarked Recipes, an event started by Ruth's Kitchen's Experiments. This week's host is Ning from Heart and Hearth. Visit her site on Monday, September 22nd to see the round up of tested recipes. You can see this week's round up at Passionate About Baking.



Clumbsy Cookie's Spiced Cookie Wrapped Figs
Clumbsy Cookie's at it again, this week it's inside out smores!
(I'm going to have to stop going here before I gain 50 lbs!)
My Honey Mustard Tofu recipe
Ning's version of Honey Mustard Tofu on Heart and Hearth.

Heartnut and Wild Rice Salad and a Blogger Potluck

Ever unable to resist a new food, especially something local, I picked up two bags of heartnuts recently. Toted as "A delicious heart shaped walnut for every special occasion" they looked a lot like shag bark hickory nuts. That and the sketch of a hammer hitting a nut on the bag should have tipped me off to their impenetrability. I collected hickory nuts with my parents as a kid and we'd have to smash them between two bricks to get the darn things open. Unfortunately, I was too enthusiastic about bringing a new local ingredient to a Michigan foodblogger potluck I was attending this past Saturday. I had settled on making a wild rice salad.

My wild rice salad is inspired by the one they sell at Oryana, a co-op in Traverse City. I change the recipe to suit what's seasonal but always have nuts for richness and crunch. I had Romeo, Michigan peaches, sweet corn and onions from just down the street, mint from my garden and wild rice from Minnesota. I figured the heartnuts would be ideal to create a salad that was almost all Michigan-based, all Midwest at least. I got to cracking on Saturday morning while my rice simmered.

Now, no standard nut cracker is going to free these nuts. A hammer along with one of the granite counter top samples I just received was required. A concrete surface, flat stone or brick would have worked as well. It took a couple of well placed hits from the hammer right on the nut's seam to split them open. Inside the nut and cavity are a beautiful heart shape and the flavor is that of a mild walnut. Alas, very few of the nut meats come out as a intact heart but I can see how they wouldn't want to market them as "broken heart" nuts. More than half of the shells split perfectly and I'm saving them to see if I can't come up with a craft project for them. Perhaps everyone will get heartnut ornaments for Christmas?

Somehow, I managed to get through my two bags of nuts by the time my rice was finished cooking, only smashing my thumb twice. I can be a tad clumsy so that's not a bad record for me. The pound of nuts yielded a little over a cup of nut meats. I toasted them and tossed them into the salad. The blogger get together was a lot of fun. All of the food was excellent! Our host was Shayne from fruitcake or nuts. She and her husband had a grill set up with pizza fixings and her sauce was outstanding! The conversation was entertaining and I decided not to worry about taking pictures. You can visit the other blogger sites to see if any decent pictures came out. I'll have the attendee list at the end of the post. Here is my contribution:

Wild Rice Salad
I change the ingredients in this to suit what's seasonal. The basics are cooked wild rice with a nut, something sweet, something crunchy and a basic vinaigrette. I left out mustard for this peach version but see the end of the recipe for some of my other variations.
Makes ~6 cups

6oz (1 cup) uncooked wild rice (or 4 cups cooked)
2/3 cup nuts, toasted
1 cup sweet corn kernels (~1 cob)
1 peach, diced
1/3 cup diced red onion
4-5 tablespoons lemon juice (~1 1/2 lemons)
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1/3 cup chopped fresh mint
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper to taste

-Bring 4 cups water to a boil. Add in the dry rice, 1/2 teaspoon salt and simmer, covered loosely, for 45-55 minutes. Drain, then cover for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork. Allow to cool slightly.
-Add the red onion, 4 tablespoons of lemon juice, olive oil, mint and parsley to a large bowl with 1/2 teaspoon of salt, a couple of grinds of black pepper and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Stir together.
-Add the rice to the bowl and toss to coat.
-Fold in the nuts, corn and peaches and taste for seasoning. Add more lemon juice, oil, salt and pepper as desired.
-Serve cold or room temperature.

Variations:
-My version of Oryana's salad: dried cherries, pecans, smoked baked tofu, no mint and 1/2 teaspoon of mustard.
-Halved red grapes, apples, and walnuts with all parsley, red wine vinegar and a 1 teaspoon of mustard added to the dressing.
-Caramelized onions, cubes of roasted winter squash, fennel, basil and mustard.

A bag of heartnutsHeartnuts in the shell
A nut seam side up, ready to crack
A perfect heartnut nutmeat, in the shell, cracked in the shell and empty shell
The best part, heartnut shells make great cat toys! A bonus shot of Abbie

The foodbloggers I met, by their blognames:
fruitcake or nuts
Una Bouna Forchetta
Could you hum a few bars?
The Hungry Masses
Diana Dyer, MS, RD
Four Obessions
Mother's Kitchen
Teacher in the Hood
All the Michigan foodblogs I've found. I'd love to know about more!

More about Heartnuts:
Heartnuts.com
An image of a heartnut tree
Fennville, Michigan Heartnut Grower site (under construction)
Oikos Tree Crops* a Kalamazoo nursery that sells heartnut trees
*This post took so long to complete because I browsed at Oikos for over an hour. I'd like a Noah's ark special from them, two of everything please!

Trying recipes and professing my love for Cousin Jenny's Pasties

I just got back from Traverse City, Michigan where we went to check on the progress on our new house. This means I don't have any new recipes to share though I have had some excellent food recently. For Labor Day, I tried out some bookmarked recipes from other bloggers. I made an eggplant dip from 64 sqft Kitchen that was wonderfully smoky and so creamy. I'm not a fan of eggplant dips like baba ghanoush because of their texture but this was great! I figured Alex wouldn't be interested in this so I made it with real dairy yogurt. I also used some homemade harissa from my father which made it a special collaborative effort. My family gobbled it up! A damp lemon and almond cake from Technicolor Kitchen was the other recipe I enjoyed. The cake was moist with a tender crumb and a strong, bright lemon flavor. I made mine with Earth Balance instead of butter but otherwise kept the recipe the same and it still worked beautifully. Even Alex had a piece and liked it. I was thinking that it would be good with lime too because I love lime and almonds together. See the end of the post for links to the recipes.

In other news, our trip up to Traverse to the building site earned me the material samples for the kitchen. I now have samples for the different woods and glazes for the cabinetry and the Silestone colors I'm considering for the counter tops. I can stare at them to my hearts content and almost imagine it finished! I'll also be taking them around to look at tile for the back splash. The kitchen designer gave us a drawing of the final layout that I hope to share soon. I'm extremely happy with how it turned out. It is going to be my dream kitchen!! I hope I'm worthy of its magnificence.

On our way out of Traverse we stopped at my favorite pasty shop, Cousin Jenny's. I know it's probably heretical to name a non-UP pasty shop but I just love these! The pastry is very flavorful and flaky and they have these brilliant veggie pasties with globs of cream cheese and cheddar mixed in with the root vegetables, cauliflower and broccoli. It was cold and raining and so deeply satisfying to have a hot pasty on the ride home.

I hope to have something that I cooked now that I'm back but until then here's something for the cat fans.

The only previously unrevealed 4 legged member of our family,
old man Nelson licking his chops.

Spicy Eggplant and Yogurt Dip Recipe on 64sqft Kitchen
Damp Lemon and Almond Cake Recipe on Technicolor Kitchen
My Key Lime Pie Almond "Truffle" Recipe
Roadfood.com Review of Cousin Jenny's Cornish Pasty Shop
And if you haven't heard the new Foodie Blogroll site is up and looks great! Stop in a waste an hour (or four) browsing all of the great foodblogs.