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Hello Garlic Fans!

MN Garlic Festival will offer a unique culinary experience this year with a cadre of renowned Minnesota chefs converging at the festival cafe, “The Great ‘Scape”.

All six chefs were named as Minneapolis/St. Paul Magazine’s “Restaurateurs of the Year”, which honored them for their commitment to local farmers, organic and traditional methods, and environmental awareness. Not only will they be preparing dishes in the cafe, but some will also present cooking demonstrations (schedule below).

The Festival Chefs for 2007 are:

Mike Phillips, The Craftsman <www.craftsmanrestaurant.com>

Chef Mike Phillips spent some time traveling and eating in other parts of the world, and then started cooking in area restaurants such as the Modern Cafe and the Walker Art Center. His interest in sustainable living, organic quality, and European cooking techniques are an integral part of the cuisine at The Craftsman.

Alexander Roberts, Restaurant Alma <www.restaurantalma.com>

Though born in Buffalo, New York, Alex’s formative years were spent in Minneapolis, working in local kitchens in high school and through college. In the early 1990’s, Alex moved to New York City, where he attended the French Culinary Institute. Upon his return to the Twin Cities, he opened Restaurant Alma, advancing his commitment to organic, sustainably produced food. Just this year, Alex was nominated for the prestigious James Beard Award as “Best Chef in the Midwest”. His new rotisserie, Brasa, is now open at 600 East Hennepin.

Lucia Watson, Lucia’s Restaurant & Wine Bar <www.lucias.com>

Chef Lucia Watson is the proprietor of one of the Twin Cities’ favorite neighborhood establishments, Lucia’s Restaurant & Wine Bar. A third generation Minnesotan, Lucia pursued her cooking passion at the School for American Chefs with Madeline Kamman and received her first level Master Sommelier certificate.
With two critically acclaimed books to her credit, Chef Watson has been honored with many awards over the years, including three nominations for a James Beard Award, and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy’s “Commitment to Community Award”. In addition to her work with the Farmers Youth Project, she lectures and teaches nationally and locally, often in support of sustainable food.

Phillip Becht, The Modern Cafe <www.moderncafeminneapolis.com>

Winner of the City Pages “BEST STAR-CHEF EXPERIENCE IN A RESTAURANT” award, Chef Becht is a very “hands-on” cook at the 1940’s style Modern Cafe.

Tracy Singleton, Birchwood Cafe <www.birchwoodcafe.com>

Voted City Pages “Best Vegetarian Restaurant” in 2000 and “Best Vegetarian Friendly Restaurant” in 2003, Tracy uses fresh local organic ingredients for her vegan, vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes at Birchwood Cafe, with an emphasis on simplicity, seasonality and buying local.

Russell Klein

Well known for his past work at W.A. Frost & Company, Chef Klein’s first cooking job was at Remi in New York City, and he studied with Cyril Renaud at La Caravelle and Fleur de Sel. With an obsession for local ingredients and high quality, Klein has championed local cheeses, and extended the concept of working with farmers by focusing on small, artisanal producers.

“The Great ‘Scape Cafe” (garlic lovers know that the “scape” is the flower stalk on certain garlic varieties that is in itself a delicacy) is MN Garlic Festival’s al fresco restaurant. Diners can choose to enjoy their meals, with foods from each of the chefs, at adjacent outdoor locations including the Concert Tent and the Chef Demonstration Tent. Most of the food is very local, with much of it actually being provided by farmers who are involved with the festival. It’s not uncommon to see cafe manager Greg Reynolds, an organic vegetable farmer who supplies several of the best restaurants and co-ops in the Twin Cities, shopping around to various booths at the festival, buying food that will be on someone’s plate within the hour.

Three of the festival chefs will present a cooking demonstration during the afternoon. Here is the schedule:

1:30 - Lucia Watson
2:30 - Alex Roberts
3:30 - Russell Klein

A family-friendly event with a full slate of entertainment and activities, MN Garlic Festival is sponsored by Sustainable Farming Association of MN <www.sfa-mn.org>, with a mission to support and promote family farms, vital rural communities and a healthy environment in Minnesota.

We’ve also had some marvelous vendors come aboard. You can choose from (or sample them all):
- Mexican food with the official Garlic Fest salsa
- Italian meats
- the official Garlic Fest pizza
- Garlic jelly
- a wide selection of frozen treats, and yes, garlic ice cream
- healthy fruit drinks and pop, and fresh lemonade
- root beer floats
. . . and lots more!

Details:
Event: MN Garlic Festival
Date: Saturday, August 18, 2007
Hours: 10:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Location: Wright County Fairgrounds, Howard Lake, MN
Admission: Adults - $5; Pre-school kids - free; Kids 6-12 yrs. - $3
Parking: $1
Contact: Jerry Ford, Festival Director, (320) 543-3394, jerry@marienne.com
Website: www.sfa-mn.org

Just stopped into the Mill City Café and discovered that, among other things, they have Surly Cynic on tap! To bad I had to go back to work, or I guarantee they would have sold 2 or 3 of those delicious citrus undertone having pints of heaven. Wow, is that even a sentence? Who knows.

For lunch I enjoyed a really nice riff on the cuban sandwich. Very affordable. $7.95 and it came with a green salad! I love that. Provolone cheese was melted over a concoction of ham, roasted pork, pickles, and a few jalapeños, and inserted in to a soft, but not so soft, baguette. Well done, good people in the kitchen.

I was very tempted to order the pasta special, some kind of mixed veg with truffle oil, for a whopping 6.95. I bet it was good…

Oh, and delicious coffee!

I will be back, for sure.

-shogunmoon

Mill City Café

-shogunmoon

Picosa Website

Beer is personal though, and my personal reasons for loving this beer may not jive with your own.

Let me start by addressing my take on microbrews. Love them. If I see a Bell’s product, I generally order it. Thing is, more often then not, I never order more than two. Why? Too hoppy! If I am burping and hiccuping after two beers, I am going to be switching to something sensible, like the venerable Amstel Light. Or I will just cough up half my paycheck and start drinking Stella Artois. (Though I do not care for the stupid Stella promo glasses… just gimmee a pint glass! If I wanted wine, I would order it, dig?)

This bring me to a point I would like to make… namely that the Microbreweries do not seem to make a habit of brewing lighter beers like lagers. Drinkable beers. Summit is the prime offender. The IPA is, in my humble opinion, not very good. After two IPA’s, I feel like I just ate a cheap Chinese buffet. I am a guy that generally eats and drinks locally when I can, but Summit IPA? I am going to get a Heineken. Sad but true. That said, I do REALLY love the Scandia.

Thankfully Surly has entered the scene. Both the 331 Club and Grumpy’s NE have it on tap, and God bless ‘em for it. Grumpy’s has even been known to test out some of Surly’s more esoteric beers from time to time. I remember ordering a Surly there once, and ending up with some kind of Lambic, fancy glass and all. I like both the Bender and the Furious, and will always order them on site.

SO, here is where I get to the point.

Last Monday. Happy Hour. Grumpy’s downtown. I ordered a Stella (or something like that) because it was hotter then hell, and the folks I was meeting decided to sit outside! I do not have central air… when it is 90 degrees out, I am going to be sitting at the coldest bar I can find. Anyhoo, in the heat, I was not in the mood for the usual glass of Bender, or one of the Bells Products. Ponied up the $4.50 or whatever it was for the privilege of drinking “Belgium’s finest.”

(Editors Note: Author is referring to Stella as Belgium’s finest, how shall we say, a tongue and cheek way.)

Turns out, my friend Dave had ordered a Surly. When the ‘tron brough him his glass, I was deeply skeptical. Compared to the Bender and the Furious, the hue of the beer was very light. I was confused. So I asked.

Turns out, he had stumbled upon a new (well, new to me) Surly ale, called Surly Cynic. It is a beer made in the tradition of the Belgian Saison, though the folks at Surly Brewing are very clear that they are not trying to recreate classic Belgian Beers note for note. This style has been around a long time. Though it is a summer beer, it was brewed in the winter and stored until summer because brewing in hot weather proved to be inconsistent. Much like the IPA, it needed to be strong enough to not deteriorate during lengthy storage. Thusly, we have a lighter beer, but still strong in both flavor and alchohol content.

So, how is the Cynic? GOOD! I absolutely love it. Hoppy? Yes, BUT. Not burp and hiccup after three swigs hoppy. Delicious fruity undertones? Check, but again, with a delicate hand. This is a beer you can actually eat with seafood. Halibut with a gut buster like Summit IPA? No gracias, amigo. This is the beer you want when you order a nice delicious fresh herb filled Vietnamese dish.

This is simply the best beer I have had in a long time. Fantastic.

Anyway, at the moment., the only places that I am aware of that have it on tap are Sea Salt, Grumpy’s downtown and NE, as well as Mac’s Industrial Bar. Some of the nicer liquor stores in town have the stuff in cans as well. You can also visit the brewery itself on Saturdays from noon till two and pick up a growler.

If anyone encounters the stuff, let me know. I will keep a standing list.

-shogunmoon

List of bars the carry Surly (not necessarily the Cynic.)

List of Liquor Stores the carry Surly.

Thanks to our beer loving readers, I have the beginnings of a list of bars that have the Cynic on tap. Note, the list above from the Surly website has a full list of those that carry the Bender of the Furious. The following list is Cynic specific.

Here is the list of bar’s known to carry the CynicAle:

Grumpy’s NE
Grumpy’s Downtown
Mac’s Industrial bar (My apologies, all I could find was the MySpace page… let me know if there is a better link! Great bar, and fun bar menu.)
Acadia Cafe (I must say, looking at the website, that I need to drop in here fast.)
McKenzie
Blue Nile (City Pages link)
Sea Salt Eatery
Mill City Café

Special thanks to commenter al for the heads up on several of these awesome Surly supporting Bar’s.

And I agree with commenter Ben, Surly does make the best brew around.

Happy Drinking!

Here’s a little piece I wrote for access&engage - it will also be in the RAKE’s arts quarterly in August. Woot woot!

The Unexpected Pleasures of Art Shopping at the Farmer’s Market

]]> http://www.ginandphonics.com/2007/07/12/farmers-market-not-just-for-breakfast-anymore/feed/ http://www.ginandphonics.com/2007/06/17/black-chicken/ http://www.ginandphonics.com/2007/06/17/black-chicken/#comments Sun, 17 Jun 2007 19:35:32 +0000 mose Television http://www.ginandphonics.com/2007/06/17/black-chicken/ I enjoyed the season 3 premier of Top Chef, especially the elimination challenge. For those who have not seen it, the challenge consisted of a table laid out with several exotic types of meat (or proteins, which seems to be the defacto term to use in hip culinary lingo). Half of these came from land animals and half from sea animals and the idea was to create a surf-and-turf entrée using an item from both categories. Most of these ingredients were all from animals that I had heard of like alligator, kangaroo, sea urchin, and snake. However, there was one that I had never heard of: black chicken.

According to Wikipedia, the Black Chicken, or Silkie, is a variety of chicken that originated in Eastern Asia. Their skin, bones, and flesh are entirely black. I have not seen black chicken on any Twin Cities restaurant menu, or witnessed it at any market - Asian or otherwise. I would be curious to know if anyone has tried it.

Yes… Little Szechuan has booze… otherwise. Yum!

Why, you might ask? I mean, besides the good selection of seasonal produce, a very workable selection of fancy cheeses, and the fact that they stock the excellent and reliable De Cecco Pasta despite it being neither local nor organic?

This is an aside, but know this Friends: until Shogunmoon has time to do testing on his own and/or access to fancier italian pastas, he does not use anything but De Cecco! I am not kidding about this. Believe me, I am not a person that has much brand loyalty as a general rule, but this stuff can be counted on. The only other brand loyalties I have are for this line of Misono knives, Lip Ivo and Levi’s.

Anyway, I was having the I-forgot-to-shop-for-easter-dinner blues, and found myself thinking the following Easter morn- Hmm, what can I create out of the limited grocery offerings of the local Walgreens?

Luckily Christie, in a stroke of either complete genius or complete naiveté, figured it was worth checking to see if Eastside happened to be open. Me? I didn’t think there was a chance in hell. Lord knows, @#$# Rainbow and Lunds were closed. Bastards.

The Eastside was wide open, ladies and gentleman. And busier then I have ever seen it. I was able to purchase some De Cecco pasta, Taleggio cheese, almonds, and some locally farmed cream and butter. Mac n’ cheese baby, shogun style. It was GOOD.

Anyway, Northeasters, we are quite fortunate to have such a first class establishment in our midst. You will be doing yourselves a favor by patronizing this would-be Northeast institution.

Now, if we could just get a decent bar on Central Avenue…

-shogunmoon

Eastside Food Cooperative
http://www.eastsidefood.coop/
2551 Central Ave. NE
Minneapolis, MN 55418
Voicemail: 612-788-0950

Funny article….

I would agree, anyone demanding to “see the chef” or trying to order some off-the-menu item during a busy dinner service is probably a putz. heh.

-shogunmoon