Mackenthuns

Yesterday evening, we stopped into Mackenthun's (Mak-en-toons), Minneapolis area's best local food offering. What do they have to offer? One word -meat.

We bought blueberry summer sausage, garlic summer sausage (to add to the the venison summer sausage we already have from the local hunters), cranberry turkey wild rice bratwurst (the best brats I ever had were this summer's blueberry wild rice brats from the same), German sausage, and Mackenthun's original brats.

We are freezing these to bring back to NYC with us. 

Tonight I am making a duck we picked up from the same. It's my first duck and have little idea what to do with it. 

If Your In For Some Cake Humor...

Although this is meatloaf, it's certainly disgusting, but I like the bacon diaper. See the cakes here.

What About All These Peppers

So many peppers, what to do? How can one eat all these Caribbean hots and Habeneros, and Hungarian hots?

I chopped up 6 or 7 of the sweet bells which have been turning yellow in the bowl. I added one habenero and two caribbean hots. My left hand, the holding hand, is still burning. I sauteed these with some xvoo and then added other veggies on hand. Over brown rice with chicken -all for the coming days' lunches.

But still have more peppers to use.

Horseradish?

I thought Marie had a recipe for beef with horseradish, but it was lamb with... Before I looked it up, I was at our local pantry and saw horseradish, and by God, they all looked like this! Really, this is what it looks like before it finds its way into a jar? Now, what do I do with this? Keep it clean.

Chicken And Rice, Halal Cart Style

In a time pinch, I grab the 5 dollar chicken and rice at the Halal cart outside of work. Today, I had an extra 5 minutes, so I went to 60th street, towards Columbus Ave. I saw another Halal cart and thought enough to give it a try. The first question asked after I ordered the chicken and rice was, "Plain rice or spicy rice?" Spicy rice, of course. The rice was darker and the meat was whiter than at the other cart. Hot sauce please, also thicker and darker.

This Halal cart chicken and rice was superficially the same meal as the cart outside of our building, but in taste and texture, another meal altogether. First, the rice was a basmati type, light and long -not the firm, short grain rice of the nearby cart. The rice was also white, not tinted warm and light red, but had been colored by the collection of spices added. It had hints of ginger, cumin and cardamom and was fire hot. The whole dish was less salty too, and without the reddish coloring on the meat. The light, loose rice and small chunks of chicken were harder to pick up with the plastic fork, causing me to eat much slower than I normally would (eating while working has led me to be a rapid eater, shame on me). The heat led my nose to run, fabulously hot was this 60th street cart.

Now I have it in my mind to try to get to try all the carts within 5 minutes. I'm glad that these Halal carts are not being trucked out of the same depot with the same ingredients and recipes. I've not been cooking much lately, in a cooking funk I suppose. I need some new inspiration, I need to have some new meals out.

The Chopper

This past week I moved my wife up to a residency program in "upstate" NY. We went grocery shopping at a place that chops prices. In order to participate in the chopping, we needed to wait on the line for both lottery tickets and the chopping card. It was a long line in this economically depressed area. So I began reading all the hanging signs with neighborly faces, women always, stating how much they chop off their grocery bill by shopping at the chopper. It started to make me feel uncomfortable -all this chopping. The goal in america seems to be to spend as little as possible on food. I know, I grew up this way. My father did the grocery shopping (or was that chopping?), and probably wouldn't let my mother because she would be extravagant in some way or another. He would clip coupons, go to double coupon stores, the whole nine yards of saving on food.

Anyway, the signs made me wish we were saving somewhere other than food. The attitude seems to suggest that calories mattered most, no matter what form. Get those calories cheap! What if the advertising, the zeitgeist of american food shopping was different? Can I tell you, I participated in the chopping zone! Oh, dear, get this one -its cheaper. Chop-chop! Let's chop those prices! I stepped into that environment and I became a chopoholic.

Back in NYC, I have stores that I go to because they are less expensive. A place called Golden Farms (they're all called 'farms' around my neighborhood) has the lowest price on Organic Valley milk (3.79 1/2gal) and Peace (whatever its called) cereals (2.99/box). I think they sell them close to cost just to bring in the customers! But I won't buy meats or much veggies there. I go to a variety of butchers or grocers depending on what I need. The farmer's market has the best vegetables in season, but the prices are much higher. I buy there anyway (Cortelyou farmers are less expensive than Grand Army farmers, but I am so eager by Saturday I go to Grand Army). I spend way more time shopping for food in NYC than I suppose I would if I lived in the suburbs or rurals.

When I was on residency, I found food in Wilton, CT to be really expensive, but completely ordinary. Was it because I had only one choice, one store? I hate food cards, where they sell your info as a trade for a deal on sliced mushrooms once every few weeks (like the chopper). In upstate and western NY, things are hard, it's been a bad economy for 30 years. But there are still many family farms across NY state. I hope they are producing more than corn and soy. If people are willing to spend more on food, locally grown can be a reality in season. If the lowest price is all that matters, then it's unlikely it will come from those farms. It would be unethical to have those upstate farmers producing for a NYC market, while those who live around them still buy frozen or shipped "fresh" from name-a-place. It will be up to the retailers to make the push for local, more expensive food in their stores, although I suppose there will always be a market for cheap food and those who will sell it.

Chop chop.