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Tomorrow is MN State Fair Day in the Big Apple.   The 150 tickets are sold out and the route is set.

Since it looks like I won’t be making it back to MN for the real Fair I’m excited to get a few bites of genuine cheese curds and Sweet Martha’s Cookies.  That’s right; the MN crew hooked-up the real stuff this year.

I’ll be volunteering (tasks unknown), but I’ll be tweeting and following the day up with a post.

Ok, now everyone cross their fingers for good weather!

I’m sitting down to write this post with a glass of the most intense liquid to ever pass my lips.

Ardbeg Supernova 2010.  Unlike a normal bottle of scotch this one has a year on it.  Like a vintage champagne, the flavors of the limited release shift from year to year.

Before I talk about the Supernova, let me back-up and tell you about Ardbeg.  Actually, let me first start by talking about making scotch. Simply, you take some barley, you spray it with water to get it to begin germinating (sprouting). Once that starts you hit the barley with some heat to stop the germination. You get the barley sprouting because it converts starches to sugars that the little seed would use to grow but the distillery uses to make alcohol.  You stop the germination because there is some magic mixture of starch and sugar that makes a great scotch. In scotch, the heat comes from the burning peat (aka decayed swap vegetation–click on word to see pictures and learn more).  This burning peat imparts a peaty (swampy) and smokey flavor.  Next the stuff is mashed, fermented, distilled, and put in a barrel.

Hailing from Islay, a region of Scotland known for having smoky and peaty scotch, Ardbeg is the  peatiest and smokiest, even among the Islays.  They let a lot of the smoke from the burning peat get to the barley.   It’s a scotch lover’s scotch.

Ardbeg Supernova takes the peat to the next level.  The 10 year Ardbeg has a level of peat that is about 50-65 parts per million.  The Supernova clocks-in at over a 100.  Oh, and it’s 60.1% alc/vol, in case you don’t want to do the math that’s over 120 proof!

So what does this insane concoction taste like?  Well, a little water (just a little) is necessary to open up the drink and let you taste some of the hidden flavors.  Yes, it’s peaty–though less smoky than it’s bonfire smell would suggest.  But the high alcohol content means you taste on your tongue, in your nose, and in your sinuses.  You can feel the heat slide across the back of your mouth, down your throat and then up through your head.  As the taste rises there is something light and refreshing.  I know it’s a slap in the face of flavor, but after the first sip, it doesn’t feel that way.  There is so much more going on.  Things I can’t put my finger on until the finish.

And the finish.  Oh, the finish.  After a sip, you can just sit, for minutes and feel the flavors change in your mouth: waves of peat, dryness from the evaporating alcohol, hints of smoke, charcoal, brine, maybe some olive oil, and when I breath in a delicate sweetness.  In my mind, the finish of this fine drink is where 80% of the flavor can be found.

It’s not for everyone, but I’m unquestionably in love.  At a price tag that I could only justify as a post-bar present to myself and where a small pour can be enjoyed for over an hour the  bottle is sure to haunt my cabinet (occasionally calling my name) for some time to come.

It took me a long time to try Ramen Takumi.  I lived off of ramen in college.  You know the plastic wrapped square of noodles with the little seasoning packet.  It costs about 5 cents and while filling isn’t exactly a pillar of culinary excellence.  Or so I thought until Ramen Takumi changed my mind.  Ramen Takumi translates to artisan ramen, and the name delivers on its promise.

Every time I walked by Ramen Takumi, I couldn’t help but wonder how it was a restaurant could be dedicated to ramen.  Day-by-day my curiosity slowly wore me down.  I had to taste these noodles for myself.  When I finally walked through their door, everything I thought I knew about ramen was blown away.  After this first trip I was hooked and I had no choice but to throw the place into the regular lunch rotation.

From almost any seat you can see into the open kitchen where giant pots boil and simmer away with broths for the various dishes.  When sitting at the bar you can see the cook setting timers and dropping baskets of noodle into boiling water as he handles slices of meat on the grill.

Ramen Takumi offers up 11 varieties of its namesake dish with flavors including curry, miso, and sweet soy sauce.  Served with a ladle like spoon and a pair of chopsticks, each dish has its own flavor and mix of ingredients.  Unlike the bowls of ramen I knew before, Ramen Takumi’s come full of veggies, meats, and egg.  The curry ramen, with scallion, chicken, bamboo shoots, and ginger pickles, packs a great spicy punch.  The miso ramen is completed by slices of pork, scallion, bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, and corn, and has fantastically savory flavor.  Every heaping bowl is a delicious treat that satiates without leveling me in a food coma for afternoon class.

Finally, in addition to the ramen, the mochi ice cream is a must try.

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Ramen Takumi
90 University Pl
(between 11th St & 12th St)
New York, NY 10003

Who doesn’t love brunch?  And here in New York it’s practically an institution.  There is no better way to shake off whatever you got up the night before than a little grease or sweet paired with Bloody Marys or Mimosas.  But, with so  many great places to choose from, it’s a waste of an early afternoon to head back to a place that is OK at best–which is where Sette Park Slope ranks.  There was no single disaster when Meg, Stu, and I made our Saturday afternoon trip to Sette, but we were met with a seemingly constant series of missteps.

The restaurant is, without a doubt, aesthetic. The main dinning room presents an exposed kitchen, thick wood tables, and wine storage on the walls above the kitchen. On arrival,, we chose seating on the enclosed patio and got a table in a corner with a great view of Park Slope’s 7th Avenue and 3rd Street.  After being seated, we got water and some amazing raisin and walnut foccacia bread.

My disappointment with Sette started with our server.  He was a handsome man, with an intriguing accent (when he begrudgingly spoke),  who clearly didn’t want to be there and didn’t seem to care that we knew it.  Now I’ve worked in the service industry (admittedly only for a short time) and I appreciate that being a waiter is hard and often shitty job, but the active disinterest he showed our table was over the top: no  “how are you doing today?” and thinly veiled annoyance when we weren’t ready to order right away – and even annoyance at getting our  first round of all you can drink drinks.  Stu, always friendly, tried to warm things up by asking his name, which he gave half turned around sulking from the table.  Brunch is all about a fun times with friends but the server set the opposite tone, and a good friendly tone could have helped me over look the other problems with Sette’s brunch.

There were three choice for the unlimited drinks: a Bloody Marry, a Mimosa, or a Bellini.   All of which tasted fine, but were definitely on the weak side.

Sette’s brunch offers an antipasti and an entree, in addition to the unlimited drinks and the raisin walnut foccacia bread.  Both Stu and Meg ordered the ricotta fritters with fruit puree which were a complete home run.  Fried and the size of doughnut holes these little gems were moist, not overly sweet, and perfect when dipped into the fruit puree.  I ordered the seasonal melon, balsamic figs, and prosciutto.  I have fond memories of prosciutto melone from a past trip to Italy, so I may have had the bar set a little high, but I was very underwhelmed.  The  long thing slices of cantaloupe were under ripe, hard, and not sweet enough.  The prosciutto was fine.  The main problem came with the balsamic figs.  They were almost rock hard and were drowning in a super sweet syrup (balsamic reduction?) that would have been great on french toast.  The syrup was completely out of place in this plate and it flowed it’s way over to the prosciutto, overwhelming it and the melon with it’s toxin sweetness.

For the entree, Meg and I each ordered the poached eggs “Benedict” on foccacia bread with black forest ham and tomato sabayon (a sabayon is similar to hollandaise sauce, but without the butter–so in this case probably some egg yolks, sugar, and tomato puree).   Stu ordered the egg panini with fennel sausage and fontina cheese, but, being a vegetarian (yes, shock of shocks, I can be friends with a vegetarian), she ordered it with some onions and no sausage.

Stu’s entree was the first to arrive, with the onion, but also with the sausage.  The food runner or whoever it was that brought the entree was great though.   He apologized and took it back to the kitchen to get fixed.  While we were waiting for round 2 on Stu’s meal,  Meg’s entree arrived.  A few minutes later Stu’s panini made a return sans meat.  But I was still waiting on the my eggs Bendict.  So I asked the guy bringing out the food; he seemed confused and went to check with the kitchen.  He came back to the table and said the kitchen had never gotten the ticket, but it was making the dish now and it would be out soon.  A few minutes later, a nice woman, who seemed to be the manager, came over and apologized and assured us the food would be there soon.  After another few minutes, our elusive waiter stopped by to say the same, but started to run off as we were mid-sentence asking for a coffee and booze refill.  Finally, my eggs made it to the table.  Again, this wasn’t any huge disaster (thought I’m not sure how it seemed normal that I was only doing part of the prix fixe), but was just one of many things–especially the server’s attitude–that soured the brunch.

The eggs Benedict was good.  The picture makes it look unappetizing, but it really looked amazing.  The white on the outside of the eggs had a perfect cloud like appearance.  My one criticism would be that there was too much ham.  More precisely, the  ham formed a meaty shield for the bread so that when I cut into the poached egg the wonderful yolk ran over the ham on to the plate and didn’t get much of a chance to sink into the bread.  Also, foccacia bread, because of the the nature of its outside, simply isn’t that absorbent.

We got the bill.  When we left we passed the manager, herself seeming a little stressed. I knew that she knew about at least part of the problems we had.   She asked how everything was.  I just said “fine” and continued out the door.  I know I should have asked for something, a little off the bill etc., but I hate doing that, I feel that when the manager knows about these kinds of issues they should be proactive.

All-in-all I think I might have hit Sette on a bad day.  If I had to guess, here is what was happening: more than one of the waiters called-in or just didn’t show up, our server got a call that dragged him out of bed after a long night out into a crazy understaffed brunch rush.  The manager was struggling herself (she was out re-filling drinks) to keep things going.  But that wouldn’t change the food.  Like the excess ham on the Benedict’s foccacia , Sette is reaching a little too far.  It has some really great thing going for it, but some of the dishes are just over the top and should be paired back and simplified for a better result.

There aren’t a huge number of brunch places in the Slope, but there is no reason to risk a mediocre C+ when there are enough great brunches to be found (especially considering the endless number in the city).

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Today Meg and I braved Times Square to hit the new Pompeii exhibit.  One of the exhibit’s areas was a display of the kitchen tools and actual food found at Pompeii.  Between the 2000 year old bread and the ancient cooking instruments was a sign that talked about common eats in the region and era.  The most interesting menu item: dormice.

Yep, those crazy Romans would take a dormouse, put it in a clay jar, fatten him up, and eat him.  Eaten as appetizers, or as desserts, dipped in honey and poppy seeds, dormice were considered a luxury.  I’ve always been a fan of savory over sweet but I’m not sure that I’m ready for this on my desert plate.  (Okay, that’s a total lie, if I found this on a menu I would have no choice but to order it.  You know how I love savory desserts.)

The Dream

This will be more of a rant than a coherent post, but I have reason to be frustrated.  Again I’ve been tricked into trying a Cream Cheese Puff here in New York in hopes of re-connecting with my cheesy Minnesota roots.  As I talked about in my Delights Missing From New York I can’t seem to find a pure cream cheese wonton.  Today, I thought my luck had finally changed.  Walking home through Park Slope I saw a hand written sign outside a Chinese restaurant advertising cream cheese puffs.  No mention of crab or ragu polluting the glorious cream cheese.  But when I got home and opened the bag and took my first bite… wait for it…. FAKE FREAK”N CRAB! And the hunt continues.

The Holy Grail of Cookbooks

Friends, if you have ever listened to anything I said, listen closely to these words: go buy Good Meat. Do it right now, and buy me an appropriately priced gift of thanks at a later date. I bought this book for my brother and his wife for Christmas, and was pretty excited about giving it to them. Then I saw his facebook status later that week and it was something to the effect of “Spent my entire day drinking tea and reading my new cookbook”. Now, I’m a fan of cookbooks, but I have never been so grossly enthralled in one so as to give up a whole day in my weekend in order to read through it. But that is partly because this is not just a bunch of recipes sent to a bindery. It’s a holy tome of carnivorous cuisine! Each section (beef, pork, poultry, lamb, rabbit, etc.) contains a sub-section about the meat itself. You’ll find information such as discussions of the difference between grass and corn fed beef, sustainable models of protein farming, breaking down a side of beef into primal, sub-primal and butcher cuts, and suggested vendors you can order from. It’s truly, truly amazing stuff.

The following recipe is the best one I’ve had from the book so far, but that isn’t saying much since we only tried 3 recipes while down in Kansas (where my brother Allen, recipient of the book, lives) and I haven’t yet bought my own copy of Good Meat. I will say up-front, I am not a mustard guy. Especially the bolder, spicier mustards; I hate them in the same way I hate horseradish. This recipe opened my eyes. You will need

• 2 1/2 lb new potatoes, cut into 2 inch chunks (any small potatoes will work)
• 1 chicken, 5 lb
• 1 head garlic, seperated into cloves and skinned
• 1 bunch/package  rosemary
• 1 cup coarse/stone ground mustard
• 1/4 cup EVOO
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 2 tbsp heavy cream (pretty sure we left this part out, and it was still friggin awesome)

Heat the oven to 450. Choose a roasting pan that will hold the potatoes tightly together. The idea is to keep them from burning here. Remove excess fat from the chicken and place chunks among potatoes.

Strip the rosemary leaves from the stems, and rough chop them. Take 1/4 cup of the rosemary and set it aside. Now take half of the remaining rosemary and sprinkle it inside the bird cavity, along with some salt and pepper. The  rest of the rosemary should be scattered among the tatoes in the pan.

In a bowl or blender, mix together the 1/4 cup of rosemary you reserved, the mustard, olive oil and soy sauce until its a homogenous paste. Spread that over the bird. It’s supposed to be a nice, thick crust so don’t be shy with the mustard paste. GET IT ON THERE! Place the bird on top of the potatoes, and put the roasting pan in the oven. Bake for 30 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350. You need that initial high temperature period to really set the crust and get some browning action on the outside. Let it go at 350 degrees for another 60-75 minutes until a thermometer reads 165 in the thickest part of the thigh. When its done, let it rest 15 minutes before carving the bird.

Last step: drain the juices from the roasting pan and add to a saute pan along with the wine, place over medium heat. Allow that to reduce to about 1/2 volume. Remove from the heat and stir in the cream (again, we left that part out) then you can either serve in a gravy boat or just pour it over the potatoes as a dressing.

Howdy football fans! My deepest apologies for missing last weeks post. Words cannot express my sorrow, but I know you’ll forgive me. To make up for the absence, this week I’m posting my favorite Renzo Original of all time! I was going to save this one for the Super Bowl post because it’s so damn good, but here you go: Renzo’s Jumbo Skrimp Skewers!

This recipe came as a result of having a pound of jumbo shrimp, a grill, and a desire for spicy deliciousness. There may be an ingredient or two that might refine this recipe or add a little something, but all of the ingredients were what I had on hand at the time. The only reason I don’t make this every single week is because of how unfortunately expensive jumbo shrimp are. Sometimes I can find a bag of frozen jumbo shrimp for a few dollars less per pound,

These are about the right size

and when I see these things I pounce and stock up the freezer. Don’t try to substitute normal size shrimp for the Jumbos, they would be very dry and over-done by the time they get any grill marks and smoky flavor.

1 lb of Jumbo shrimp, the biggest you can find (peeled and deveined)
5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (damn Rachel Ray for tainting the acrnoym EVOO!)
3 tbsp fresh squeezed lime juice
1.5 tbsp white wine vinegar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground pepper
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp papeika
1 tsp red curry powder
5 cloves of minced garlic
2 serrano peppers, minced
1 large handful of chopper cilantro

Combine all ingredients in a Tupperware or ziplock bag and mix well before adding the skrimps, then let that marinate for 30 minutes or so. Do NOT let this sit longer than an hour. All that citric acid will essentially turn this into a ceviche and so the shrimp will be “cooked” before they even hit the grill. Take them out of the marinade and skewer them (if they’re really big skrimps you might not even need the skewers). Throw them all on a very hot grill (bright glowing coals or propane turned to high) and cook them for about 1.5 to 2 minutes per side. This is a delicate balance; you want a grill hot enough that you’ll get nice char marks with only about 100 seconds per side of the shrimp. They’re done when they’re opaque all the way to the center, which should match up with the cooking time above. Serve with whatever you like for a real dish, or just put the platter out in front of everyone watching the game for an appetizer.

I hate this guy. Only player to ever get kicked off a probowl team. Seriously.

VIKINGS PREVIEW SECTION:
I think our problems boil down to one main point: The O-line. It is horrid. Bryant McKinney is the most over paid (and overweight) player in the league, we can’t find a player to hold down the Center position for consecutive games, Loadholt might be good in a few years but he’s struggling right now, and Hutchinson is by far our best lineman but is past his prime. I know I’ve said recently that Favre is having problems with his arm, and I still think he is, but if we had a decent O-line we would at least be able to run the ball effectively when Favre is struggling to keep his head above water. As it is, there are practically no holes for AP to run through, Favre is getting destroyed  after every single passing attempt, and Randy Moss will never be a downfield threat because the QB has to remain standing longer then 4 seconds in order to chuck it deep!

The Packers are having huge injury problems, but their biggest strength remains they’re passing game and I think Aaron Rodgers is going to throw it at Lito Shepperd all game long. This week boils down to the simple fact that I don’t have confidence in our offense to put up more than 250 yards (only 190 last week!!!), and I think it’s going to take more like 400 to put this one away. Final Score: Packers 30, Vikings 17.

Again please.

Arthur’s Two Cents:
The jumbo shrimp sounds awesome.  Citrus and some heat?  I don’t see how you can go wrong.

The game:  I’ve been saying the offensive line is the main problem since our first game versus the Saints.  Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to have been any improvement in the last 6 weeks.  And with Greenbay leading the NFL in sacks I don’t see good things coming this week.  Farve needs a few seconds to let Moss get down field, let alone to be able to throw to him.  It seems that in each of the last two game Farve was able pull him self together and pound out about 5 consecutive minutes of solid play, regardless of the O-line folding like superman on laundry day. If he can do that twice this game, well we have a shot.

Given the GB injuries I foresee a lower scoring game: Vikings 9, Packers 12.  While this is going to be a painful match-up to watch, at least I have the Packs defense in fantasy to dull the pain.

BLT Dip

This week’s football food is an adaptation of a recipe from one of my favorite food blogs (besides this one), The Food in my Beard. There have been some really cool recipes over there, some of them far more ambitious than I am prepared for. He also seems to have a knack for coming up with dips, which are of course perfect football food. At one point I stumbled on his BLT Dip and it looked amazing so I gave it a whirl (check out the link, the pictures are what really inspired me to try it). Overall it was pretty good, with some awesome flavor combinations. There was only one problem: the mayo. I don’t know about you readers out there, but I am NOT a mayo fan. It’s one of those condiments I barely tolerate, sort of like sauerkraut or Dijon mustard. A little bit will usually help your cause, but a there is a very fine line between a little and way too damn much. And once you cross that line, you’re screwed. There is no going back so you might as well just throw whatever you were making in the trash, go brush your teeth and start over again.

In this case, it was not immediately obvious that this was a problem. I made a big batch of the dip for a game and everyone dug in. But after a few minutes all I could think of was the mayo flavor and mayo texture and it was just wrong. I ended up throwing a big tub of the dip out because there was just no way I was going to eat any more. This is certainly not a shot at the culinary skills of the recipe’s creator, just a personal taste thing. Anyways, I modified the recipe slightly to avoid a repeat of the over-mayo trauma I experienced. The recipe’s name? PTSDBLT Dip. It strays even farther away from religious adherence to the ingredients of a BLT, but its damn tasty in its own right.

[DDET Click for recipe!]

For the base of the dip, skin and pit two ripe avocados and drop them into a blender along with 1/3 cup of sour cream and 1/3 cup of mayo and the juice of half a lemon. Blend that until smooth and add to your serving dish. Add to that a carton of cherry tomatoes which you quartered, about 1 Tbsp of minced shallot, and half a pound of torn arugula leaves. I love arugula; it’s so peppery and unique for a green leafy vegetable. And this is a great recipe for it because you need something that will have a flavor capable of standing up to the creamy avocado/mayo/sourcream mixture.

The last thing to add is by far the most important: BACON. If I were you, I’d try to find something nice and thick cut. No Name makes pretty good bacon, and if all else fails most any butcher should have some top notch stuff. Cook up about ¾ of a pound of it, and just like for the Jalapeno Poppers, you want to cook it to fairly well done so that almost all of the fat is rendered out. Crumble that up and add it the bowl, then fold everything together. Finally, give it a taste and then add salt and pepper to your liking. By the way, this one definitely goes with sliced bread. It’s just too chunky and thick to pair well with chips, and with all that bacon the dip is plenty salty without adding potato or corn chips.

[/DDET]

VIKINGS PREVIEW SECTION

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!!!

We got Randy. What the hell is going on here? Imagine that you’re back in 2004 and someone says to you “Don’t worry about trading him to Oakland. He’ll be back in 6 years and, oh yeah, Brett Favre will be tossing him passes.” WHAT?! Your head might have exploded then and there. Allow me to use this opportunity to publicly declare my love for Zygi Wilf. This man is a god send and 90% of NFL fans wish they had an owner like him. My only concern here is that the ownership is going to shell out for player after player to try to win now, and then we falter in the playoffs and the stadium bill goes down in the legislature. That’s when I see good ol’ Zygi throwing his hands up and deciding to cut his losses.

As for this week, I’m afraid I don’t see good things; and that’s only partly because I refuse to be the homer who picks the Vikings every single game. I think jumping to a new team, combined with facing Darrelle Revis is going to mostly shut down #84. There are three other main things going for Jets next Monday: 1) The Brett Favre incarnation of the Vikings has been absolutely terrible on national television, with the sole exception being the annihilation of the Cowboys in last year’s playoffs. 2) I think coaching does matter in the NFL and if I had to rank these two coaches I would say Ryan is top-five in the NFL and Chilly is bottom-five. That’s not a good matchup. 3) The Jets are a bunch of blitz-happy motherfuckers. They are going to put a hurt on old man Favre, and send extra defenders from all over the field.

Final score: Jets 20, Vikings 17.

Arthur’s Two Cents:  Having Moss back in MN is going to be a game changer.  And for third round draft pick?!?!  Until the offensive line learns how to give Farve more than a blink of time in the pocket here is how see things.  Moss won’t be used for his very deep threat potential, but for more modest passes.  Farve will be able to trust him and have just enough time to find him quickly.  With AP on the field and Farve’s ability to find the some other recivers he won’t be triple covered like he was in his last year with the Vikes!

On the game versus the Jets, I don’t know if we can pull it off, but I think that we have a real chance.  Revis got hurt covering Moss, maybe that will get in his head a little.  I see the Vikes at 21 and the the Jets at… well we’ll see what our defense can do.

On the food:  this sounds like a great dip.  Meg is planning on making up some bread this weekend.  But, since this is a Monday game that I’ll actually be able to watch at home, I was thinking of breaking out the old deep fry and getting some homemade wings going.  Though this might be great for Thursday poker night.

My other thought is that that the high mayo version might work great not as a dip, but to use instead of boring plain mayo on burgers for grilling time.