Every Recipe Has A Story

Now that bread is about 3 bucks a loaf, and much more if you like the rustic artisanal variety, it is time to try baking your own. It costs only about 35 to 50 cents a loaf to bake your own and it is way better for you. Buy stone ground whole wheat flour , as it contains the wheat germ - natural vitamins and minerals. The heat generated by steel rollers in the milling process for non stone ground flours destroys the germ.

I've been doing it for about ten years - mostly using my Great Aunt Sophia's recipe for whole wheat loaves, which includes stone ground whole wheat flour, unbleached white flour, scalded milk, a little brown sugar and molasses, salt, vinegar, oil, wheat germ, and some oatmeal, and of course yeast. If you understand the chemistry of bread baking you could make it from that list of ingredients.

Last night I made rye with whole wheat and white flour loaves. Dang it's good. It is hearty, nutty, earthy, with a nice crunchy crust and a soft chewy crumb( interior). The more you chew the more flavor you get. That is called depth of flavor.I used water. It is cheaper than milk.It was the first time I ever made rye bread. Also, it was the first time I ever sprayed the loaves w/ water before baking and a couple of times during the baking process. That's how you get the artisanal crusty exterior. Do it. It works.

In the old logging days around Floodwood( Gowan), there was large Finnish woman who worked in the woods as a lumberjack. She was a close friend of my Great Aunt Sophia. She baked similar loaves of bread, but this story has little to do w/ bread except for the nourishment and strength that she gained from eating it. It allowed her to compete on a level playing field with the men.

Balsam sap was a well known balm or dressing for an axe wound in the woods. It had antiseptic and adhesive qualities. It would glue the wound together and help it to heal. You didn't have to lose work time in the woods. You could keep on cutting wood. Every lumber jack knew about it.

It was on a day not unlike many others that Mary entered the woods, except for on that day she was a little more inflamed than usual with her chronic condition. As the sun rose higher , so did the sap in the maple and the balsam; as did as the burning and the pain of her hemorrhoids. It finally became unbearable.

Initially,it worked, this balsam sap; it was cool and it relieved the pain. Though not the tallest tree in the woods, it was almost immediately that Mary experienced the other property of balsam sap, the adhesive quality, and realized that she had made a mistake. She had glued her butt hairs together.

It was much later than usual that evening that Mary paid a visit to Sophia and explained her recent situation, the dilemma, and her failed solution. " I couldn't walk," she explained," and I had to crawl out of the woods. Don't tell anyone," she said.

Eat, And Let The Games Begin

Just about everyone Up North is fat. I was reminded of this again on Sat while at a volley ball tourney for my youngest in Rogers, which is not too Up North.

It's from eating stuff like "taco in a bag", or "walking taco" - doritos and taco meat and cheese in the chip bag. It's a great imaginative concoction, tastes great, fulfills this craving for the "fried and the fat"that we seem to have. It is all the rage at school sporting events. It will kill you. Don't eat it, unless you are 10 with a ramped up metabolism and you are actually playing in the volleyball game. Remember, you are sitting down for about six hours.

My menu for the occasion? Rye crisp and camembert. Red grapes. Plain yoghurt sweetened w/ honey. Grape, orange/ tea juice( green). It was complete and satisfying.Well, summer sausage from Thielen's too, and muenster cheese, and a apple. Ate every hour. The sausage and muenster was mostly for my grandson( 6 yrs). When you are eating whole grain and fruits, you can have some fat, especially if it's from France, and it's called camembert. They are not fat over there. Just bald w/ big noses. The guys that is. I love the accent, as on the Academy Awards. I wonder if you can get an accent like that if you eat enough camembert? And drink red wine from there, too?

I will let you know.

And the Oscar Goes To.....

Oscars last night. I had seen none of the movies that were up for best picture. A good show. I enjoyed Jon Stewart. Sure glad the writers are back - I had also watched the atrocious Grammy Awards earlier. We all need writers. They all need writers.

On the menu for the show? Chocolate chip cookies and espresso. I was fired up. Used the recipe on the chocolate chip pkg, but did one half whole wheat flour and hazel nuts. Really good and you're eating half healthy and don't have to feel guilty.

In the mid to late seventies I lived on Fremont ave south in the Uptown neighborhood. Next to the townhouse where I lived a guy was moving out. He was ramping his VW into a Uhaul truck. I talked with him. He was from St LouisPark, was tall, had long curly hair and was Jewish looking. I asked him where he was moving to. He said that he and his brother were going to California to be movie producers. I thought he was a delusional hippie. To this day I believe it was Joel Cohen, brother of Ethan, both of whom won 3 Oscars last night.

Lights, Camera, Napkin, Action

After many many years of residence in the ugly concrete bldg a little N and on the west side of #371 N out of Brainerd, Morey's(nee Fish House) is now a little bit N of the old location in a new shopping center. The blue of the old bldg preceded a similar blue of the new Guthrie Theater by many yrs. It was definitely one of the ugliest retail bldgs in the Brainerd Lakes area on the outside, but Steve and Ellen did a lot with what they had to work with. I had developed a special affection for it as one does w/ a dog that is so ugly it is cute. Inside was a different story. It was like stepping into a different world with a smell of salt air and fresh fish as if you were in Seattle or New Orleans or another exotic and fishy locale.

Under their direction it had evolved into a bustling fish and seafood market that was surrounded by the window and wallside tables of a busy market cafe. It was like it had ADD in good way with so many things going on at once. There was always too much to look at - from the fresh and smoked fishes and shellfish to the variety of deli salads and fishy concoctions to a symphomic collection of domestic and imported cheeses, sauces and condiments and crackers, breads, cookware knick knack and bric-a-brac, cards, silly gifts, books, magazines( if Shinders had a fish mkt...)....with a staff that was for the most part knowledgeable and majoring in multi tasking. And always busy with customers - multi tasking too - grabbing a quick lunch, picking up something for dinner, making impulse purchases because you couldn't not....something for the wife, the grandchild, a friend..." look what I found at Morey's...".

It was like being at the theater and you were in the play and the playwrite was Tennessee Williams or Shakespeare...like being in a Robert Altman movie. And your cup was filled to it's brim.

The new place. Gone is the cafe, the deli, and more...it feels like you got there just after the performance...something is missing. I still spent an hour browsing and perusing and could have spent more...and left w/ crackers, the always very good signature smoked salmon,fresh and creamy and wonderful camembert from France, shared some in the truck w/ my pup...got great help, sampled everything I asked about...friendly knowledgeable staff, some of the old feel, now in a trendy and pretty bldg, but I kept waiting for something more, for the play to start, the performance to begin.

After yrs of being in business myself I could figure out only one reason why I was in business - to serve the customer and to give him what he wanted. I know that they could cram an eat in deli counter there. Let's all go there and demand it, to see if Steve and Ellen will respond, to give us what we want. More time and eat in food at Morey's.

Hog Heaven and Fish too

I've visited two of the best Markets in the lake country this week. Thielen's, of Pierz, and Morey's of Brainerd. One for meats, one for fish. Both have been around for ever, which means they've stood the test of time.

Thielen's bacon has been written up in the New York Times. I must re-read the article( posted on the wall behind the check out counter at the venerable mkt), but as I recall it was a rave review. The bacon is lean as far as bacon goes, and they've got the salt and smoke and smoking time just nailed. It is one of the few "secret recipes" that should be kept secret, as the balance of the flavors is perfect. The cracked black pepper version is my favorite. The garlic bacon is my daughter's choice of the heavenly slabs, and a double smoked variety is also available.

I do not know the ethnic heritage of the Thielens, but Pierz is a strong German and Polish community, and I just know that some of the expertise/recipes have come directly from that old world tradition of sausage making excellence. Try it all from weiners and ring bologna to Italian all beef salami and a jalapeno cheddar summer sausage. A large variety of steaks, roasts, chops, marinated meats, and more are all displayed beautifully, with none of the new "fake" steak names that are extant in the big box super mkt meat departments. A friendly, well trained, knowledgeable staff that is never short. Any and all questions are answered and one of the butchers or sausage makers will step out from the back if you have "insider" questions like mine. Thoroughly clean and professional, it is a delight to shop there and then you get to eat, too. I would do it if I was a vegetarian.

Next post will include Morey's.

Roasting at Twenty Below

Tastefully Simple's recommendation on the box is that this cremy wild rice soup is "covenient for college students, and great for camping trips." Not really, at 90 minutes cooking time. It was good though, when I added by half a completely home made chicken dumpling soup w lots of vegetables to it.

But, it is apparently quite a successfull company.

Great weather for an old fashioned pot roast w/ chuck ( 3 lbs) and plenty of carrots and onions. They glaze and carmelize so nicely. Three hours total. Add the vegetables at about half way. Keep everything covered. Brown the roast in a little oil after you have seasoned it w/ salt, pepper, and garlic. Add 1 cup water and 1 cup wine(red or white) just before you put it in the oven. You could add rosemary and potatoes ( @ 2 hrs) to the pot/pan/roaster, too, to make it even more interesting and complete, and special. It is comfort food at it's best. The kind of food a body craves/ yearns for this time of the year when it is 20 below and the wind continues from the northwest.

If you are using venison, add bacon,( 3 or 4 strips thick cut) as you put it in the oven. Or larding, as DeGroot recommends, which I spoke about but have not tried. I promise to try it, and will let you know if it is worth the work. Where to get a "larding needle"?

Not Tasteful, Not Simple, Just Stupid

I am looking at a box of Tastefully Simple Creamy Wild Rice Soup Mix - " the food you love, the time you deserve." Directions call for 60 to 90 minutes of cooking. Thirty seven ingredients are listed on the box. That is not simple or time saving.

I think that Tastefully Simple is a home party food company, perhaps a form of multi level marketing. You invite guests to a host's home and cook from an attractive box, and get people to join and buy their food products, and in turn sponsor a food party and get someone to join, who sponsors a food party and gets people to join and so on.

What I have learned about cooking from a box is that there is usually a lot of salt and fat in the ingredients, and some poison, but it is usually faster than this wild rice soup mix from Tastefully Simple. Why anyone would buy this product is beyond me.

I am cooking it now. It is sticking to the bottom of the pan, even tho' I have it set on very low. I count somewhat fewer than 37 grains of wild rice in total. What is this product. Gawd I hate cooking out of a box.

Cream of wild rice soup ( always with chicken) is way over done, anyway. Every where you go, especially up north. What about a hearty broth loaded w/ root vegetables and others and plenty of garlic, and lentils or beans( any kind) and chicken if you really want it ( or any wild bird - pheasant, grouse, duck) and of course the substantial and nutty wild rice. It wouldn't be an artery clogger either.

De Groot on Venison and Chocolate

De Groot also writes of venison with chocolate sauce, first involving a 3 day "proper marinade in aromatic wine." The whole or half leg of venison(about 10 lbs) is first larded w/ 10" x 3/8" salt pork which has been marinated in dark rum. Larding makes sense in a lean meat, tho' I have never done it - after all, what would ground meat(burger) be w/o the fat ground in?

At first reading the recipe appears extensive and labor intensive, but essentially de Groot is marinating the meat in red wine and in the classic French mirepoix which is with carrots, onions, celery and parsley w/ the addition of "aromatics" which include bay leaf, cloves, garlic, and sherry vinegar. You make the sauce w/ the marinade and fruits like raisins and currants, along w/ some rum and unsweetened chocolate and a half pound of butter. Wow. This is indeed a sauce, distinctly sweet and sour w/ chocolate. He roasts the venison to med rare( 130 degrees).

I will try this recipe and report back. De Groot was an absolute perfectionist; recipes being done and refined many times untill they were just right. That, along w/ his heightened sense of taste(smell) may assure success. We'll see.

Roy Andries de Groot

If there ever was a food snob, he is/was Roy Andries de Groot. You have got to be good to be a snob of his caliber. His name was also Baron de Groot, for a while, before he became a U. S. citizen and a brilliant and renowned food critic and writer in America. He became blind when he was about 50 yrs old( 1965) as a final result of injuries suffered in the London Blitz during WW2.

So how do you cook and write if you are blind? With an assistant, of course. Do this, do that. Get this, get that. I imagine the sense of taste( including smell) would be greatly heightened. I met a woman who was his assistant - writer, cook, go- getter, Girl Friday - near Hillman, Mn of all places,( about 15 mi west of Mille Lacs) at a mutual friend's home, recently. He was so demanding that she quit after spending some months w/ him during the 70's in Paris and the Far East.

He writes of turtle and provides a recipe for soup in his 1966 book, Feasts For All Seasons. A rich and aromatic soup including allspice, basil, bay leaf, fennel, and sage among other ingredients, that is topped off table side with sherry.

I will be adapting his recipe to mine and serving it at Porky Pine during this Lenten season. Call ahead to see if it is available,. 320-277-9505.

Roy Andries de Groot died, tragically, in front of his wife and daughter of a self inflicted gunshot wound, in 1983 when he was 73 yrs old. My heart goes out to his family. Food, like many things I have discovered over the years, brings out the best and the worst in many of us. I hope that his family remembers the best.

Turtle Time

Fat Tuesday is done and gone. It is turtle eating time. Turtle is ok to eat during Lent if you are a Catholic. It is ok for others to eat it too, even Lutherans, Baptists, and Christian Missionary Alliance members.

The Catholic Church in Ohio has an exclusion for muskrat, which means that if you live in Ohio it is ok to eat muskrat on Fridays, though I don't feel that it is ok for anyone to eat muskrat anytime, really. Unless you do.

We were serving turtle last year on Friday nights during Lent in a cafe that I worked in near Pierz. Even the kids around Pierz like turtle. When teenage girls like it, you know that there must be something to it. We would get the turtle from a local meat mkt. Portions w/ bone and meat the size of drummies, which we would boil for about 2 hours to get tender. The drummie like portions would be cooled, dipped in beer batter and deep fried until golden, and served with BBQ sauce for dunking. Very good.

A turtle has at least 3 kinds of meat which correspond in color and taste to pork, duck and chicken. It is rich, and the broth from the boiling should be reserved and strained in order to make a soup with carrots and celery, onions, and green split peas and/or lentils.. An excellent soup that is a tradition in some New Orleans restaurants like Commander's Palace, where both Paul Prudhomme and Emeril have worked.

The Fox's Teeth Are In The Bunny, and Nothing Can Remove Them, Honey

Ouch. That's just like real life. Some things you can't go back and change. Like the results of last night's Super Bowl. I don't think a one of us is not happy for Eli Manning. The title is from a poem on The Writer's Almanac(MPR) this morning.

" Hi, honey, you're home" is a part of another.

"Real Age" also writes of "honey" this AM in the form of buckwheat honey. Dark and rich and sweet and better for you than lighter ones, they say - more phenols. Too strong of a flavor for some baking apparently, but it sure would be great in some breads. I will look for it. It would be wonderful in tea, too, and oatmeal.

Didn't Judy Collins sing a song about cooking w/ honey? - " We aaaall cook with honey......"

As the sweet of a glaze for ham and gamebirds w/ mustard, allspice, and apricot jam. Hot peppers for the fowl, too.

" Make Me Something I Like"

I want to remind you that I work ( cook) at Porky Pine Bar and Grill on Wednesday evenings ( 4 PM - 8 PM), and Friday days( 8 Am to 4 PM). On either shift, I usually do something special, or you can ask me to "make me something I like." I will ask you a few questions, and then I will do it.

Porky Pine is about 10 mi west of Onamia on Highway # 27. It is casual. If you want a good bottle of wine w/ dinner, you will have to bring your own. The corking fee is cheap. No one has ever done that, to my knowledge. I think it is free. Yes, it is. We Have Sutter Home, which is ok table wine. A decent selection of beers.

You can bring your own fresh fish.

The kitchen is clean. The refrigeration is good.

As Bob Barker used to say, " Come on Down."