Bogus Gold

Well this is the kind of thing that makes me shout spontaneous expletives!!

Restaurants come and restaurants go. Except, it seemed, D'Amico Cucina, which managed to maintain its lofty position at the summit of the Twin Cities' food chain for more than 20 years. No more. The luxury downtown Minneapolis restaurant, which regulars have long shorthanded to "Cucina," will serve its last dinner on June 27.

I am not shy in admitting I am ignoring the business angles here, since I can only assume this closing "makes sense" from there. I don't dispute that. I don't challenge that. I just hate the result.

Why? Because D'Amico Cucina can never be just a "business" to me. It will always be an experience ... an artistic assertion of the culinary order. You didn't go to D'Amico Cucina to be merely fed. You went to experience the culinary arts elevated to something... higher. Thankfully, in the Twin Cities, you can do that a lot of places now. But you know what? A lot of that is due to D'Amico Cucina...

...the restaurant's most enduring legacy might be its longtime role as an incubator of culinary talent. Its alumni have gone on to create the next generation of influential Twin Cities restaurants, including Tim McKee and Josh Thoma of La Belle Vie, Isaac Becker of 112 Eatery, Jim Grell of the Modern Cafe and a host of others.

As a pop culture metaphor, that's a legacy in Twin Cities dining not unlike saying the Beatles spun off the Stones, the Who, and Led Zep... I mean really.

You cannot even seriously TALK about food in the Twin Cities these days without reference to Tim McKee. La Belle Vie is far and away the best fine dining spot in town, which is where Josh Thoma adds to the McKee impact. And that doesn't even get into the handful of other top spots in town with McKee's name involved (Barrio, the new Cue, Smalley's Carribean Barbecue). Becker's 112 Eatery is pure gold and everyone knows it, even if it defies an easy niche. Grell's Modern Cafe is one of my personal favorite restaurants, and I eat there so often it's not even considered a special occasion. It's not a stretch to note that none of these would exist without D'Amico Cucina having been there developing its top talent in top of the line fashion.

What's more frustrating, food wise this was NOT a restaurant in decline!!

I personally LOVE what Chef John Occhiato has brought to the place. I've said before and I'll say once more, he's the best talent in that kitchen since Tim McKee. And I've tasted offerings from all the chefs since McKee.

Anyway I'm booking my final reservation for a restaurant that will undoubtedly be one of my all time favorites. I hope others do the same to give it a proper send off.

From: Sheldon Comics
Enjoy the giggle, peasants.

The truth is some of the chefs who earn the big bucks actually do know how to make dessert. And they are already well aware of "mom & pop" fare. It's one basis - among many others - upon which they build their dishes.

But laugh, you proletarian pie-eaters. Enjoy your delusions of thinking all those people dropping hundreds of dollars for a dinner are fools because your local diner has better food. It keeps you happy, and that's really important too.

More evidence (as if any was needed) that Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl is the best restaurant reporter AS WELL AS the best food critic in the Twin City Metro...

[Head Chef] Steven Brown parted company with Porter & Frye on Thursday. Erik Anderson, Brown’s longtime chef-de-cuisine, was then offered the job, but he turned it down because it’s not a cooking job, and what Anderson wants to do is cook.

Seriously. The head chef job at Porter & Frye is not a cooking job.

What kind of job is it? According to everyone I’ve talked to, it’s a bureaucratic and managerial job that forces the job-holder to be preoccupied with going to meetings and running financial reports. “They were undercapitalized when they opened, and they didn’t know what they wanted to be, and no one was watching the numbers,” one person close to the operation (who didn’t want to be named for fear of retribution) told me. “When the dust settled and they finally realized how much money they were losing, they started chopping people left and right. Every couple weeks someone got fired and there was a new manager.” The kitchen opened with five salaried employees. As of this writing, it has one: Anderson.

Bad news for foodies but serious reality for the business of running a restaurant. However, as a downtown dining consumer, I want someone to cover this who both knows what they're talking about AND catches the implications of the line they're being fed. Such as...

Personally, I find this situation maddening, not least because it really makes Minneapolis look bush league. P&F has been holding its own in a catastrophically bad climate—they did 200 for dinner the Saturday before last. The rap on it has consistently been: Great food, but horrible location and dismal service. Paton even agreed with my assessment. “I wouldn’t disagree,” he said. I fail to see how firing the chef is going to fix that.

Dara was "blogging" before we had a name for it. And she still does it better than anyone else on the Twin City food scene.

Chef Steven Brown is worth following wherever he lands, and hopefully that landing will be local. Porter & Frye? It may not be worth so much with Brown out of the picture.

Oh, and as for the character of Chef Brown? Dara captures a telling quotation from him on his loss of employment:

“Unfortunately, it just didn’t work out. Hopefully, the people that remain can continue to build on what we started. How do I feel? Aside from the feeling that the world is crushing my chest, fine. I cooked a dinner for Anthony Bourdain once, and something he said always stuck with me. He said, ‘I’m a mediocre cook who happened to do something that caught fire,’” Brown said. “At the end of the day, I feel blessed. I don’t have any regrets about my situation right now. I read about how 20,000 people are being laid off at Caterpillar, 5,000 at Microsoft. I’m mortally afraid I won’t be able to find another job, and I’m sure they all are too. All the accolades in the world don’t put bottoms in chairs, and as much as you want to think about artistry and creativity, it’s about money. So what I want to do now is acknowledge the great work we did, and feel grateful for my support system and my family, and hopefully find employment as fast as I can. I’m open to any and all opportunities. You can write that for me.”

Someone please hire this great talent before a larger restaurant market snaps him up. He's everything Minnesota's dining scene ought to be boasting about.

Hey there fellow time wasters. As is well known, I take my reality television seriously. Well, if not always seriously, at least obsessively.

Today I'll offer a brief primer into my favorite kind of reality show that does not include commentary from a snarky Brit, stoned ex-cheerleader, and portly catch phrase spouter... Reality Food shows.


Top Chef (Bravo)

This is the top of the Reality Food heap in just about every regard. Bravo knows how to produce reality shows like nobody's business, as that's just about the entirety of their original programming any more.

Unlike most other Reality Food shows, the emphasis here is truly upon finding a great chef. Through all the weird challenges and curveballs thrown at the contestants by the producers this show actually does a pretty good job at keeping the focus on the food. They look for quality, originality, knowledge of ingredients and cooking skills, and the ability to adapt to most any situation.

The commentary and criticism offered by the judges is frequently insightful even when it's devastating. The judging panel is chaired by Tom Colicchio, a real chef with as serious cheffing credibility as one could hope for. The challenges often get goofy but the judging in the end always brings it back to making great food.

The other nice quality of this show is that it does a good job screening for chefs with real talent. No other reality food show comes close to the level of cooking skill shown by the cheftestants on Top Chef. That said, being a Bravo show, there is always plenty of drama in the personality interplay of the cheftestants. Somewhat Big Brother like, all these chefs are sequestered together in a house, isolated from the rest of the world. It gets a bit claustrophobic and tense as the pressure builds at times. That gives the show its heroes and villains; it's comedians and drama queens. Consequently, by the end of the season there are serious fan favorites here to an extent not seen on other Reality Food shows.

If you watch only one Reality Food show, this is the one to choose.


Hell's Kitchen (Fox)

While the promotions for this show focus on host/chef Gordon Ramsay's profanity and insults, that's not really all this show is about. But it's also not really about the food - at least not much. This show is about the ability to work in and eventually run a top caliber kitchen under high pressure and with the highest standards. The interest is in seeing which contestants can't handle the pressure as the orders pile up, which don't have the cooking skills, and which can't handle the criticism. Anyone who has actually worked in a real restaurant will be able to attest that they may exaggerate the experience, but it's close enough to the real thing to draw real lessons from it.

Ramsay himself seems to hold all the contestants in utter contempt initially. The ones who make it about half way through begin earning his grudging respect. And by the end he transforms into a proud poppa effusive in praise for whomever manages to win. Imagine a boot camp complete with barking drill instructor intent on breaking down his recruits only to build them up again as proper soldiers... only set it in a kitchen and lose the weakest member each day until only one is left. That's Hell's Kitchen.

The contestants here are a mixed bag, apparently by design. There's always a couple of professional chefs tossed in with caterers, hobbyists, line cooks, and personal chefs.

It's a decent show if you have interest in how to run a restaurant kitchen, or want to learn creative new insults (I never realized calling someone a "donkey" could sound so demeaning); but it's not too deep on the food side.


Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (Fox)

Because of the success of Hell's Kitchen, Fox brought one of Gordon Ramsay's other BBC shows over to America, Kitchen Nightmares. The premise of the show is simple: Find a restaurant going out of business, bring in Gordon Ramsay for a week to try to turn it around, let the drama and hillarity ensue. Sometimes this works well. Sometimes it's almost painful to watch.

It should be noted that the BBC version of this show is quite a bit better than the Fox version. Fox, typical to stereotype, emphasizes anything with shock value, and lays on the family drama very thickly. This takes screen time away from the actual restaurant turnaround process. Fox also gives Ramsay the unrealistic advantage of several thousand dollars of cash to invest in the restaurant to help turn it around, which is something not many restaurants struggling to survive have lying around. The more understated BBC version didn't do this, and it made for a more compelling and real feeling show as a result.

Anyway, Ramsay is a wildly successful restaurateur, and this show demonstrates that a lot more goes into that than simply being a good chef. The restaurants chosen come in most any sort, from burgers to fine dining to ethnic cuisine. It doesn't really matter what style of food they're trying to sell as this is a show about how to run a business that happens to be a restaurant. Major emphasis on the business side distinguishes this from the rest of the Reality Food world. Also, this one is not a contest show. The "prize" is in the attempt to keep the restaurants from bankruptcy.

There's plenty of excellent advice offered here that many a restaurant owner should find helpful. That said, Ramsay definitely has his own preferences that come through as a bit cookie-cutter when you've watched enough of these.


The Next Food Network Star (Food Network)

You would think that if anyone "gets" how to make a compelling Reality Food show it would be this network. You would think that and you would be wrong. Half of the reason I watch this show is to see how badly they've mangled the contest angle here considering their ostensible goal of finding a "star" to give an actual television show to. Because this show is so bad at doing this, you wouldn't know that they've gone through four seasons already. Stars produced? One. Guy Fieri. And if you watched that season you realize he only narrowly made it, even though it was completely obvious he was the only one with any star potential in the lot.

And that's the thing that is so frustrating about this show. Based on the kind of challenges that form the basis of the show you'd think they're looking for someone who can cook excellent food really, really fast; and also able to improvise well in totally unfamiliar situations with no forewarning; and someone who can entertain a live audience; and someone who can innovate brand new dishes with unfamiliar ingredients upon demand. But in the end you find the winner doesn't apply any of that. The winner gets a show... a taped, half hour cooking show. They don't have to whip up things they don't know how to make. They know perfectly well what their set and equipment will be. They don't have a live studio audience. They don't have to start and finish a single dish in an alloted time. So how the heck to most off the challenges they put the contestants to even apply toward finding their "star"? They mostly don't.

And that makes this the most pointless and confused of the whole Reality Food world. Best leave this one alone unless you're really desperate for entertainment. I watch it so you don't have to.

Kind of overdosed on politics the past week, so no need to hit that well yet again today. Today I'm going to dial back into a topic that unites us (except for the times we have to agree on the toppings for a pizza) - food.

And there is important food news today which you're not going to read in any newspaper: tomato season appears to be over in Minnesota as of this weekend. No I don't mean we have a frost warning... not as far south in the state as the Twin Cities metro anyway. No, I mean this:



You see that extended forecast? You see those high temperatures? Those don't spell the death of tomato plants. But they do spell the death of tomato flavor.

Trust me, I've learned this by experience. One year I was able to keep harvesting tomatoes well into October, as temperatures fell but never quite enough for a killing frost. It wasn't worth it. They tasted pretty much like store bought tomatoes that had seen the inside of a refrigerator by then. All that explosive summer flavor was gone.

So here's my advice for any tomato lovin' Minnesota gardeners. Harvest anything that looks remotely ripe this weekend. Even those that are still a bit under ripe now should ripen up and taste more or less fine indoors.

The more ambitious of you can also harvest any that look fully grown but also fully green. In the past I have ripened these indoors as well. Not quite as full flavored as the vine-ripened ones, but better than store bought.

This year however I have another plan for my green tomatoes. Feel free to forward any special tips toward that plan my way.

Here's a fun little Labor Day exercise. You go through the following list and bold the items you've tried sometime in your life. You strike the items you would never try. If you're my middle child this list is almost entirely struck out. If you're me, well...

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Whenever I want to shake myself clear of my suburban existence, I head south from my Fridley home and drive down University or Central Avenue. In a few quick blocks I'm no longer in suburbia, but in the far more "authentic" neighborhoods of Nordeast Minneapolis (a.k.a. the Saint Paul side of the Minni-apple). Instead of fare like Perkins or Taco Bell, I'm suddenly surrounded by authentic ethnic fare like Emily's Lebanese Deli or The Gasthof zur Gemutlichkeit; venerable but excellent supper fare from Jax Cafe; The Holy Land Deli, home of the best gyros in town; Nala Pak (formerly Udupi), where resides the best south Indian cuisine in the area (and technically in Columbia Heights, but close enough to Nordeast to count). But one place I had always intended to stop in but never seemed to get around to was the well regarded Modern Cafe.

The Modern Cafe isn't exactly a hole in the wall, though it seems to draw its inspiration from such places. The decor recalls any American diner you might remember, in the cozy rather than seedy sense. When you walk in a sign beckons you to sit where you like and like where you sit. Plenty of intimate booths decorate the back wall, as well as a host of tables and seating at the bar/counter in front. Chalk boards advertising the wines offered by the glass line one of the walls, while a big fake blue marlin catches the eye on the wall behind the bar. It's a little quirky, and very comfortable as a casual dining setting.

We arrived early for a Saturday dinner, and had the place almost to ourselves at first, though it was packed by the time we finished. Our service, incidentally, was sharp and attentive in both cases.

Watching the diners arrive was a bit of entertainment of its own. They were as eclectic but also as "everyday" as the Nordeast itself; with diners ranging from parents with their (older) kids, to well coiffed couples dressed for a night on the town, to older "bridge club" looking collections of friends, to what looked to be a birthday celebration for someone's grandma. In short, people were drawn here for something other than "the scene." What was it that drew them?

The answer was quickly and affirmatively answered as soon as our first course arrived.

The menu is small, but regularly updated as the restaurant subscribes to the "fresh, local, and seasonal" philosophy. However the descriptions of the dishes are rather sparse, leaving you not entirely sure what to expect upon ordering (though our waiter was easily capable of answering any inquiries we made).

I started with a curious offering among the appetizer selections called "tomato bread." What arrived was a generous portion easily large enough to have been called an entree. Two toasted slabs of crusty bread were topped with thin slices of locally produced cheese (something like a mild swiss), and a generous portion of deliciously spiced pulled pork along with some spicy greens and a number of sliced heirloom cherry tomatoes. The flavors were all so fresh and vibrant I was instantly smitten. The bread had a nice crunch to the crust, and served as a terrific platform to let the other ingredients sing. The pork was salty and smoky and spiced with a nice peppery warmth. The greens were fresh and crisp, and the tomatoes surprisingly flavorful (and I am very particular about tomatoes). It was probably the best open faced sandwich I've ever had, and this was just the warm-up course.

My companion was similarly effusive in the praise she offered for the bean soup she started with, going so far as to insist I had to try a bite but greedily slurping it all up before I had the chance. Once again she offered much praise for the freshness of the seasoning, making comfort food into something new and exciting.

For our main courses I ordered the off-menu special of the night - a venison ragout served with gnocchi. My companion decided to go with the very basically described breast of chicken. As much as the starters impressed us, this was the main event that explained to me better than any review ever could why people flock to The Modern.

The venison ragout was a sensation. It had an almost Moroccan sensibility when it came to the seasoning - cumin, coriander, fennel, allspice, and so much more - but all the spices were so fresh and vibrant it somehow screamed "local" all the same. The gnocchi wasn't the usual soft buttery fare one might expect, but rather it was baked into a texture resembling a delicious cross between a pillowy biscuit and a dumpling. This was a spicy, hearty, comforting dish that left me wanting more. It was vibrant summer heading into the crispness of autumn on a plate. Had it not been so filling I might have ordered a second course of the stuff. It was that good.

The chicken breast enjoyed by my dining companion was sensational in its own way (this one I actually got a chance to try before it was devoured). It's in courses like this where a restaurant dedicated to serving the best quality locally sourced seasonal ingredients has a chance to shine. And shine they did. Everything about this basic course was a win. The chicken itself was cooked perfectly; the skin crispy and delicious, the meat tender and juicy. But the flavor told you this bird wasn't plucked from the shelf of your local supermarket. It had that intensely delicious flavor we only faintly remember from the days when chickens came from family farms rather than mass production. It was accompanied by similarly fresh tasting fingerling potatoes and white and green beans in a simple but perfectly executed buttery broth.

For desert we were already so full we were forced to share for fear of exploding. But the coffee panna cotta in chocolate sauce begged to be eaten and we had to oblige. Once again a simple dish perfectly executed. A fitting ending to a glorious meal.

A quick word about the wine - though not advertising itself as a wine bar, the Modern might as well be. This is a very wine-friendly restaurant. The wines by the glass had a definite direction toward different than the norm, yet excellent and food friendly. I started with a delicious citrusy Vino Verde and then enjoyed a spicy Garnacha. The prices for wine by the glass are fairly standard, running about seven dollars per glass on average. But the bottle prices here were incredibly good. This is not the typical "100% above retail price" restaurant markup. And what's more, they sell bottles of wine for half price (!!!) every Tuesday (yes, my calendar is now blocked out every Tuesday for the foreseeable future).

To sum up this review, I've been looking for a favorite restaurant in Nordeast ever since Bobino regrettably closed its doors. I can now say with confidence that I have found it. The Modern Cafe is the kind of restaurant you can visit repeatedly. It's familiar enough to offer comfort, but seasonal and innovative enough not to be boring. It's the kind of place you can take your "scared of haute cuisine" friends, as well as your Iron Chef junkies and all will have a great experience. When compared to the heights of fine dining, The Modern may not be the very best restaurant in town. But it might be the best neighborhood restaurant you'll ever find.

Girl-next-door Stephanie narrowly beat out angry-lesbian Lisa for the title of Top Chef, even as probably-better-than-either-of-them Richard "choked" by his own admission in the finale.

In defense of Richard: Stephanie's food looked great most of the season. But come on... Richard made an apparently delicious (according to some of the world's best chefs) bacon ice cream as his final dish. And this was an example of him choking. Stephanie may be Top Chef, but I think I'd make a reservation at Richard's restaurant over hers. Which is not to say the very next weekend's reservation wouldn't be at Stephanie's, because she's pretty consistently turned out amazing food as well.

That said, Stephanie was a pretty solid second choice for me among the other chefs for most of the season. And her first and third courses tonight had me salivating at my television screen. The wife and I were in solid agreement all week (actually for the past two) that either Richard or Stephanie winning would be totally acceptable. But it better not be Lisa. And yikes, did Lisa seem to come close.

Mind you I don't think any of these chefs is actually bad. They put them under ridiculous artificial pressures to simulate VERY less than ideal conditions almost every week. That's what the show is about: can you beat the pressure. I'll bet if I ate Lisa's food at a real restaurant I'd love it. But then I wouldn't be a very responsible reality show commentator, would I? We need our villains, and Lisa became that this season.

Anyway, good for Stephanie. And good for the Top Chef viewing public that we don't have to listen to them drone on another season about how a woman has never won Top Chef. Stephanie is woman! Hear her roar!

Maybe this will encourage women to charge back into the kitchen sending Gloria Steinem into an amusing fit. Probably not though.

On a side note, Hell's Kitchen looks destined for a female winner as well this year. My money is on Corey, but keep an eye on Christina.

To Whom It May Concern,

The recent addition to your "value menu," of a "Buffalo Crispy Chicken" sandwich was a pleasant surprise. However after trying said sandwich today I wish to register a complaint.

When I returned to my office cubicle for lunch today, anticipating the "buffalo chicken" as advertised, I was considerably disappointed. What you have marketed as "buffalo" chicken is merely spicy chicken. What's more, I noted that you chose to compensate for the rather dry meat by adding mayonnaise to the sandwich, even further departing from the "buffalo" genre.

Contrary to certain cute restaurant logos, Buffalo chicken, as a culinary item, is so named because it originated in Buffalo, New York. More specifically at the Anchor Bar, in Buffalo, New York. In other words it has a traceable origin. You can even buy the authentic original buffalo sauce, now mass-marketed by said Anchor Bar, online and have it shipped directly to you, as well as finding it in grocery stores nationwide. Therefore I find it implausible that your food researchers were unable to learn what "buffalo chicken" is supposed to taste like. Their decision to create a spicy sandwich lacking the "buffalo" flavor profile can therefore only be described as intentional deception.

Granted, the exact spices used in the Anchor Bar's formula are a proprietary secret. However restaurants around the country have been able to come up with reasonable approximations based on the flavor profile. As plainly as I can state it, your sandwich is not "buffalo" flavored at all.

Additionally, the spices themselves are merely one aspect of buffalo chicken. It is traditionally served with blue cheese dressing as and accompaniment. Therefore the sauce which ought to accompany your sandwich should, by all reasonable expectations, be of the blue cheese variety. Not mayonnaise by any means. I realize for mass appeal you may be forced to compromise and use some sort of ranch dressing. This latter compromise would be regrettable, yet understandable. But mayonnaise doesn't remotely fit the flavor profile one should expect in a "buffalo chicken" sandwich.

It would be a shame if your fine organization played a prominent role in debasing the term "buffalo" to mean merely "spicy." We all know what happened when the term "Cajun" became debased in such a manner. That's right, the Cajun Cook died. Do you want more death on your hands, Wendy's? Would you befoul your late founder's reputation that way?

Kindly correct the name of this sandwich and all will be well between us once again.

Sincerely,

Doug Williams

My reality television addiction is fed during the summer months by a trio of reality cooking shows: Bravo's Top Chef, Fox's Hell's Kitchen, and The Food Network's The Next Food Network Star.

Of the three Hell's Kitchen probably makes the best television, but Top Chef is far more food-centric. And since I tend to be hungry more often than I get the desire to work in a restaurant ever again I've come to prefer it.

Last night they had an interesting new gimmick as a lead in to the beginning of their third season. They pitted the top 4 chefs from each of the first two seasons against one another in a "which season was the best?" contest.

Things we learned:


Season 2 chefs remain completely hair-crazy.

Stephen from Season One is even more insufferably arrogant than Marcel from Season Two, but he's learned to use it in a significantly less socially debilitating manner.

Champion or no, Ilan still can't cook anything other than Spanish food.

Season 1 chefs actually have the ability to work together. That would be less impressive save for Season 2's chefs complete lack of ability to do the same.

After being unfairly dinged for using too much foam in the course of Season 2 (a review of the episodes shows he didn't do them nearly as much as he was accused), he has now let foam completely obsess his culinary style.

Tiffany's dishes remain as attractive to the eye as she herself is not.

Sam still seems far more competent in the kitchen than anyone else from Season 2. So much so that it's almost painful to watch the other three not have to take direction from him.

Dave from Season 1 is the gayest man I have ever seen arguing for a meat and potatoes culinary approach, eshewing considerations of style.

Season 1 champion Harold still hasn't opened his restaurant? Dude... the buzz you get from winning a national show only lasts so long. Try to get that open before the series is canceled.

I think I seriously underrated Elia during Season 2. I now think a Season 2 showdown between Elia and Sam would have made a better finale than any other.

We also learned that, save for Ilan trying to cook non-Spanish food (which, to reiterate, he cannot do) we would have had a tie. Because the winner of Season 1, Harold committed an unforced error, turning duck into some sort of lumpy brown thing in a bowl that did not impress. As it was, Ilan tried to cook something that sort of sounded appealing before realizing he didn't actually have the time to complete it. Then he tried to turn it into something else. And then - inexplicably - at the last minute he added a raw egg yolk. It didn't go over any better than that description sounded.

Anyway, this whole thing was a lead in for the upcoming Season 3. Looking forward to it.

Never let it be said my tastes run so hoity-toity I can't enjoy a favorite meal of the proletarian class - beer and pizza. In fact I am enjoying a late lunch of exactly this classic combination right now.

Granted, it's a micro brew-pub India Pale Ale, and a prosciutto and olive flat-bread pizza. But hey, at least I'm being me. I'm not pandering to some perceived rube-class by ... oh I dunno... pretending to be a huge country music and NASCAR fan, unlike some Connecticut raised, Ivy league educated pretenders with talk radio shows I could mention. But we'll leave that aside.

I've gotta plug this food though. The flatbread pizzas at Granite City Food and Brewery are a steal at 11 bucks. Generous portions, quality ingredients and truly fine beer to wash it down. I don't know when these things hit the menu, because they didn't have them last time I was here. But get ye to a Granite City and enjoy.

There's supposed to be some kind of football game on today. Sounds implausible, I know. It's February and all. The college football championship was almost a month ago, and the Vikings quit playing... oh... round the middle of November by the look of things.

Still... it's football. It's on television. I have to watch. Even if it's my brother's freakin' favorite team playing for the championship. Grumble.

But I'll let the Bears and Colts fans around here talk about the game itself. I'm going to talk about the game food.

I tend to avoid Superbowl parties because:

A. I hate parties.

B. Too many distractions from watching the game. And being the last meaningful football game until next September, I have to be able to soak up every tiny detail. I'm like a bear (pun definitely not intended) getting ready to hibernate.

But that doesn't mean dinner has to come in a box and get cooked in a microwave. I've got nowhere to go today. Plenty of time to cook some tailgate-ish food, and celebrate the nation's football holiday in style.

I've tried to master barbecue in the past. The real thing, not the Minnesota term for any food cooked outdoors on a grill. But real barbecue requires wood and smoke and frankly I've never quite gotten it right yet. Plus it's ten below with 30 below wind chills outside right now. Not real barbecue weather.

On the other hand, pork ribs are some of the best tailgate food imaginable, and I had a hankerin'. Good thing my kitchen comes equipped with an oven. Because while you can't make real barbecue in an oven, you can make darned good ribs.

I learned the technique from Alton Brown's Good Eats show a few years ago, and have used it to reliably make excellent ribs ever since. They blow away any of my experiments with smoke cookery so far.

Here's a link to the recipe, which I find awesome just as written. But the cool thing to get from it is the technique.

The basics of the rub are a ratio you can play with: 8:3:1. That's eight parts sweet, three parts salt, one part spicy. After that you add a pinch of this and a dash of that to your heart's content.

Like any rib-rub, you apply this generously. No... REALLY generously. You basically coat the thing in the rub, and then you let it refrigerate in it for a few hours. A couple of hours is acceptable.

The next technique is the braising liquid. Again, the one in the recipe is good. Here you're looking for that acid / sweet balance. But you can play with the ingredients in the same proportions for all kinds of flavor combinations. I've substituted bourbon for the wine but otherwise followed the same recipe today. Experimentation = fun.

You cook the ribs "low and slow" just like real barbecue, though in this case you're technically braising. The reason for the long cooking time and low heat is that the heat needs to break down the connective tissue in ribs just right. If you do it right it's tender, juicy, and flavorful. Mess it up and you either have very tough or very dry meat.

After a few hours you set the ribs aside, and pour the braising liquid into a saucepan. You reduce this until it's nicely thickened. This becomes the sauce for your ribs. And believe me, it is WAY better this way than anything you can buy in a bottle. Once again, take the time to reduce it right.

Then you coat the top of the ribs with a touch of the sauce and stick them under your oven broiler, just until it starts to caramelize. Take out the ribs, cut them into two rib segments, and toss them with the rest of the sauce.

After that you just bring a lot of napkins, a few wet-naps, and dig in.

Though I'm more of a wine than a beer guy these days, that just wouldn't feel like a tailgate. So I bought myself some Surly Furious, from the Surly Brewing company in Brooklyn Center, MN. I love Surly Bender, but have never tried this one before. It's supposed to be super-hoppy, which is what I was going for.

Anyway, as a result I'll be certain to enjoy the game even if the teams involved don't cooperate with that goal. Happy Suberbowling, and bon appetite.

Who was the first person to eat a clam? There's really nothing about a clam that convincingly resembles "food." It's a hard shell with something resembling phlegm inside.

And yet, at some point in history, someone put one in his mouth and swallowed it. Was culinary history made by the equivalent of that kid on your grade school playground who would eat a bug for a quarter? Was it more of a hazing incident that had a surprisingly tasty upside? Was someone starving on a desert island and it was either eat a clam or feed the seagulls with your own carcass?

Of course, when you think about it eating a lobster is even less probable. They look like giant sea cockroaches. They're even uglier than crabs, and that's saying something.

On the other hand, some sea creatures look like tasty food without even trying. Unfortunately these are called dolphins, and we're not supposed to eat them for some reason. But seriously... tell me you never thought about carving a nice juicy steak out of Flipper and tossing it on the grill. Forget your clichés about tasting like chicken. That has to taste pretty special.

Dolphins are supposed to be pretty smart. I'll bet they think about eating us all the time, so we shouldn't feel guilty about doing the same. It's not like thinking about eating a manatee, which I confess I do feel guilty for wondering about.

Tonight the dinner plan was duck breast in a cherry port reduction. But the wife didn't feel very well, so we put that off for tomorrow night. Interesting side-effect - Top Chef was on in the background while I tried to decide on my "on your own" dinner plan. And that evolved into...

Chicken breast seasoned with fresh tarragon, salt, celery salt, & white pepper; on a bed of butter & chive sauteed baby yukon gold potatoes drizzled in white truffle oil, and a mixed green / goat cheese salad.

Dayum! I can actually cook, when I have the time. Also, our pantry is apparently stocked more like that of an Iron Chef than that of a typical suburban home with young kids.

Of course, I knew that was obviously true already, since the first planned harvesting of our rhubarb and arugula crops are slated to accompany the fois gras in our freezer.

And yet some semi-sophisticated city dwellers fear the suburbs because the food isn't sophisticated enough for them. Tsk. They represent the urbanites who use restaurants like office workers use vending machines. Pshah! Learn to grow an herb or two and cook a chicken yourself and suddenly suburban homes are Le Cirque on a dime. Maybe not Le Cirque exactly. But at least better than the overpriced, waiting list fare offered at the majority of Minneapolis restaurants on a typical Saturday evening.

Put on your Sunday best, fire up the kettle, and whip up a batch of possum stew... or... um... lutefisk I guess. Ya' see, Minnesota's expectin' some sophisticated visitors...

Minneapolis Modern

There's more to Minnesota than extreme weather conditions and Prairie Home Companion. Suddenly, Minneapolis is the most exciting architectural hub in America, with brand-new buildings by the likes of Jean Nouvel and Cesar Pelli— and world-class restaurants to go with them.

It's actually a pretty nice article, from Food & Wine magazine. Mind you, I'm not sure how many people want to make this Borg-like monstrosity...



their summer holiday destination. Some very nice restaurant write-ups, though. Check it out.

Readers looking for commentary on current events will have to forgive me. My mind has drifted in a more culinary direction today... I'm in a cheese state of mind.

I like cheese almost as much as Wallace, from Wallace & Gromit. I've even been known to indulge in Wensleydale on occasion, though I don't claim it as a personal favorite.

Cheese is a wide world of flavors those of us raised on orange blocks of "cheese-food" typically have few encounters with before adulthood. (And to set the record straight right from the start, no Upper Mid-Westerners, fried cheese curds don't count.)

Today I'm going to take a tour of some of my favorite blue cheeses from around the world. The descriptions are being hijacked borrowed from the fun site Cheese.com. The tour begins after the jump...

Here's a new food and wine blog to keep an eye on because it is certain to be super-fantastic!

It is not the secret that the Manolo is something of the gourmand, and the food and the drink are often the topics of his undivided attention.

And so what could be better than to have the special place where we may come together to enjoy the fine food and drink and the pleasant and amusing company of our friends.

The Bogus Doug, he likes the Manolo's amusing grammatical stylings, but alas, he has never been too keen on the shoes. The Manolo Food blog offers the Manolo and the food and the wine and ayyyyyy!!! It is the happy day for the Bogus Doug.

So I was walking down 50th Street in Edina today, heading toward France Avenue to pick up a repaired bracelet for the wife, and I’m thinking, “Say, the Cake Eaters live near here.” Almost simultanously to the thought, the Cake Eater Husband appeared ahead of me on the sidewalk

We exchanged greetings. I mentioned that I was just thinking about him & the Mrs, & also thinking about the nearby wine bar that Cake Eating Kathy raved about (Beaujo’s) a while back. He mentioned that if I had a moment, I really should stop in just to check out the wine list, because it really was very good and changed often.

I hadn’t planned on making such a stop, but I did have a half-hour to kill, so I stopped in. And the wine list was indeed very good. 31 selections, 29 of which were available by the glass, half-glass, or bottle. Plus red or white wine flights. All at reasonable prices. I had time to sample a glass of something I’d never tried before as I checked it out.

Nice little interlude to my day, and totally unplanned.

Being a first-generation Minnesotan, carried to the shores of this blessed land behind the wheel of a Ryder truck on New Year's Eve 1992, I have slowly but steadily strived to adapt to the ways of my adopted homeland. It's been a long process, but not without rewards.

My relatives from elsewhere sometimes observe that I have successfully adopted Minnesota's curious accent (not to the extent portrayed in the movie Fargo, but then almost no one in this part of the state talks like that). I have vacationed "up at the lake," on a couple of occasions. I have dutifully mocked people from Wisconsin and Iowa. I have cheered on the Vikings and Twins, only to have them break my heart by falling short of their respective championships.

I still haven't made an ice-fishing excursion, or quite yet celebrated Minnesota's two most important unofficial state holidays: The fishing and deer-hunting season openers. But those are definitely on my to-do list.

But culinarily, I'm afraid I have been estranged from my fellow Minnesotans. Oh, I enjoy the state fish - walleye - well enough. I even enjoy pickeled herring (which my Scandinavian descended wife can't stand). But one hurdle always eluded me - Minnesota's unofficial state cuisine: hot dish.

To those unaccustomed to Minnesota, "hot dish" is the Minnesota terminology for "casserole," but it implies oh-so-much more. Hot dish takes on a semi-ritualistic role in Minnesota culture. It's the glue that holds together the church social, block party, and family reunion. Hot dish comes in all manner of shapes, sizes, and ingredients - but with the firm understanding that it is food meant for the whole family. No fancy-pants haute cuisine allowed.

Today I have passed this great hurdle to bond more closely with my fellow Minnesotans. Finding the largest zuchinni I have ever seen in my life in my own garden, I needed some way to use it to make a meal. Plenty of fresh tomatoes were around as well. The result? Cheesy Sausage Zucchini Casserole Hot Dish!

I forged prepared the hot dish in my own kitchen. Even as we speak it is baking in the oven.

Just another proud moment in the life of a humble immigrant, happy to have become a Minnesotan. Uf-da!

Tonight was one for the mental scrapbook.

Favorite babysitter for the kids, with no specific time she needed to leave and capable of putting the kids to bed herself.

The destination? Oceanaire - a restaurant I've meant to hit for ages.

The restaurant was perfect.

Service - best we've had in ages. The server was knowledgable, friendly, able to accomodate all our offbeat requests.

Food - exquisite. Seafood of this quality is a rare thing in the MidWest. And the prices weren't ridiculous either. I had 14 oysters of seven different varieties before moving on to the outstanding New Zealand Blue Nose Sea Bass. The wife enjoyed, in her words, the best Caesar salad she has ever had; followed by a genre defining Alaskan Hallibut. It was capped off with a perfect key lime pie for dessert.

Wine - Excellent. I was still in the midst of my Grey Goose vodka martini (perfect compliment to the oyster bar) when the wife decided to order a bottle of German Riesling from the Pfalz region. Wonderful food accompaniment, reasonably priced, available by the glass, and a bottling only available in restaurants.

Afterward we headed over to the Times Bar & Cafe to catch a little music, offered by the Wolverines. The jazz trio plus occasional vocal was nothing groundbreaking, but quite good. Their piano player is really something.

Word to Atomizer, I have reconfirmed that a Tanquery No. 10 Martini is superior to a Bombay Sapphire Martini, shocking as this news may be. In fact, I reconfirmed it twice.