While most office workers don’t enjoy getting new pens or computers for their job, people in the culinary world get the joy of geeking out over the tools of their trade.  We spend copious amounts of time trying to find obscure handmade knives and pans. The hunt is most of the fun and it usually ends in a celebratory lunch at some new found hole in the wall.

As some of you know I’m a total sucker for baked goods and like everything else I’m a complete snob about my desserts.  For a town with so many bakeries, frankly the majority of them blow. Bland, boring and poorly executed is pretty much the norm at these places.  Now, let me go out on a limb here and say that I have no place to talk.  I can’t bake, really, don’t even attempt to have me help make cookies.  Thankfully a couple bakeries have recently opened up and are firing on all cylinders.  Don’t expect any reviews, not my game.

You can pretty easily figure out where I got this monstrosity called a Malted Pretzel Cupcake. Don’t know if they make them all the time, its the first time I’ve seen them.  All I can say is F#$K!! There are no descriptives to describe the combination of all my favorite things on top of a spongy cake, pretzels, salt and butter.  Don’t be surprised if I wind up dead with two of these pastries on my person, one half eaten in my mouth the other shoved down my pants.  Too much? I think not.

What to do on a Friday with no work? What to do, what to do…..Well I like to ruin other peoples work schedule by dragging them out to “lunch”.  It all starts innocently enough and then I spring the trap.

“Oh, look where we are, we might as well go see whats new in the Binny’s beer section”

Its like I’m like the high school football jock who’s car just happens to stop running at Make Out Point.  Not that I wanted to make out with Mike, just eat Al Pastor Tacos. Well, one thing led to another and we ended up perusing one of the best beer isles in the city.

Now I’m not one to promote chain shops but this Binny’s has one of the best beer managers around, Adam.  One simple question turns into a half hour conversation and running up and down the isles pointing out all his new favorites. Frankly, this guy is way to into beer.  Mike and I both are completely sick of over hopped beers (you hear that 3 Floyds!!).  So our mission now is to find new varietals we haven’t tried yet.  Now, if you are not yet aware German beer is cheap. Not crappy cheap but really tasty and priced for those of us who don’t have “real” jobs.

You’ll hear about the other beers I bought later, but first I’ll go the German route.  I like bock, marzen, schwartz bier, etc… So in keeping with this tradition I picked up a Schlenkerla Urbock Smokebeer (spell check don’t like that one).  Now it says “smoke beer”, and Adam told me the Urbock was the less smoked of the 3.  After pouring the first ounce in the glass it smelled like somebody lit a campfire in my kitchen. I hate to make the analogy but this is literally tastes like a bacon beer. It has a sugary/fatty mouth and the smoke is straight hardwood.  You get used to the flavor after a couple sips but the first waft is pretty intense.  Is this a session beer? Hmmmm, maybe but I could see the smoke getting annoying after awhile.  Am I going to tell you what to eat it with? NO! I don’t care what you eat it with!

Go by and say “hi” to Adam.  You can’t miss him, long hair, blue Doc’s and a lip ring, everything your stuffy local wine merchant is not. I’ll post up about the other oddities I got later, one of which might be the last bottle available in Chicago!

“I don’t care where it comes from! I’m sick of summer produce, get any fall products you can!”

Produce Manager of a large unnamed “wholesome” market chain.

I’ve spent the past week writing a scathing editorial on people cashing in on the “local food” craze.  I called people out (not by name), criticized business practices and praised others.  You may be asking yourself “where is said modern day Watergate”.  Well, unlike Bernstein and Woodward I tossed it. Crtl-A + Delete is very cathartic.

Why did I delete it? Very simply, I don’t care.  Its not that I don’t care about supporting small farms or helping local producers, because I care very deeply about that.  What I don’t care about is money.  Frankly thats what it all boils down to. These people are out to make a buck by cashing in on a buzz word, and we can’t blame them.  Most of these unnamed businesses/restaurants are in it for their bottom line and thats how the industry works. Profits usually come before quality.

But guess who comes out loosing in this little game, the consumer.  Not only do we get duped into paying more for products that don’t come from where we think, but we loose the confidence to shop for these products.  Do yourself a favor and help out the small guy, it’ll make you feel better, might even clear up your complexion.

I’m done being preachy. Consider yourself lucky.

Yeah, yeah.  I know we haven’t been posting, we do have real jobs you know, well sort of real jobs.  Ok, they aren’t “real” jobs by most people’s standards, but we love ‘em and frankly they are much better then sitting behind a desk all day.

 After a veeerrryyyy long day on my feet I was supposed to come home and jump on the bike for an hour and a half, well at least according my coach.  Needless to say I turned on the TV and cracked a beer instead, I don’t think my cyclocross season will suffer.

Fantome is not a brewery you get to see very often.  Coming from Florida I had actually never seen it till I moved to Chicago.  The brewery is located in the Ardennes, the French speaking southern portion of Belgium.  What really sets this place apart isthe fact that its run by one person, Dany Prignon.  One guy. One guy brews 750 liters at a time, hand bottles, corks and caps. And I’m sitting here thousands of miles away drinking a beer that is barely available in the country of its origin!  Amazing.  Mr. Prignon brews a couple different styles most of them falling under the “farmhouse” flag.  This particular bottle is a Printemps, but this blows away any other summer beer I’ve ever had.  Now, I’m not going to give some rediculous tasting notes, because:

A) You don’t taste things like me, or anyone else for that matter.  Don’t believe tasting notes. 

B) I want you to go out and find this for yourself.  Half the fun is running around town trying to find a bottle and cracking it open.  Who knows you might hate it, I can think of worse things you could blow 14 bucks on.

C) I’m just plain lazy and my treasure chest of adjectives include such gems as: yummy, weird, holy crap and the always popular, good.

Drink beer, enjoy it.  Smaller producers are more available then ever, support them. Next time you take a road trip stop into the local Stop & Rob and see if they have anything fun, local or foreign.  You’d be very surprised what you can find at some shops.  If you live in a big city please head over to your favorite beer monger and spend a couple hours just drooling over the selection.  I do.

P.S. Please excuse the terrible picture. I’m not used to my point & shoot.  The DSLR was out of juice.

I had a gentleman at the cheese counter the other day who told me an amazing amount of times that he didn’t like “Rockefeller” cheese. After plenty of confusing minutes, I settled on the idea that he meant Roquefort cheese.                

Certainly this fellow wasn’t implying that there was a cheese named for the famous fossil fuel tycoon? Clearly he was speaking of the cheese that Pliny described in his writings as hailing from the mountainous region of France, close to the Mediterranean Sea…Roquefort-Sur-Soulzon.

The lore that follows this cheese is that a young shepherd girl enjoyed her lunch of cheese and bread one day in the caves of Cambalou. Leaving her lunch behind, to chase her flock perhaps, she found it a few weeks later when she returned to her favorite lunch spot and discovered what we cherish today, Roquefort.

Very simply, blue cheeses are a style of cheese that has had a mold introduced to the curd or the mold is abundant in the aging room/cave. After the cheese has been shaped and possibly cured, it is pierced to allow air to interact with the mold. The end result is the lovely green-blue veining that laces itself throughout the cheese. The most common molds used for blue cheese production are Penicillium roqueforti or Penicillium glaucom. Is this the same penicillin that Sir Alexander Fleming developed in 1928? Indeed our penicillium based molds do share the same familial line that birthed the ever-potent antibiotic, although the mold in our favorite blues harbor only a small amount of antibacterial mold compared to the dosage of your local chemist’s pill.

What is unique to the caves of Cambalou is the mold. The cheese makers would age rye bread in the same caves that they would ultimately age the cheese. After a few weeks of being in the caves, the bread would have been completely impregnated with this special mold. It was then ground to a fine powder and mixed into the curds before being hand ladled into the forms. At this point the cheeses would be pierced, returned to the caves and matured to perfection.

First American Billionaire…Classic French Sheep’s milk cheese? I see how easily confused you could be.

After posting about my lust for some Lumpe yesterday, guess what we ate for lunch today!? Yep, you guessed it.  Paired with a sugary  version of Orangina called Solo it makes for great lunch.  The Lumpe is a sausage focused hot dog not one that derives its flavor from gobs of condiments (not knocking Chicago’s beautiful contribution to the world).  The sausage has some of the best casing “snap” out of any I’ve ever had.  Its a lighter flavor then the US hot dog and an ever slightly larger grind.  With a little bit of mustard this snack disappeared in a matter of seconds.  As an aside, you can actaully also order this with a topping of small cold water shrimp mixed with mayo. Weird, I know.  Haven’t tried it yet but its on the agenda.

I’m spending some time in Oslo with the family, my Father’s hometown.  I’ll be hones, Norway is not known for its culinary prowess.  We had dinner up on the Holmenkollen which is a large hill 900m above the town, famously known for a brutally large ski jump. The dinner menu was the usual “quick food” in Norway, open faced sandwiches and fish, all good but I wasn’t feeling it.  Then a glorious beam of light shown upon the wall and revealed a hidden part of the menu.  Out of the back the chef brought out exactly what I’d been looking for.  A large plate of sliced cured meats, scrambled eggs and potato salad! There was a bit of sour cream on the plate to help cut the saltiness but frankly I didn’t use it.  The Fennelar was perfect and that is frankly where my knowledge of the products stopped.  There were two types of cured blood sausage, a salami with a very distinct herb I couldn’t place, and a ham sliced slightly thicker then normal which gave it a nice chew.  

My next mission…..Lumpe.  A foot long hot dog in natural casing, boiled and then wrapped in a flat bread made from potatoes.  Of course there is good mustard involved.