Hi everyone,
After a wonderful adventure in tasting the Columbus Salames, olive oils, cheeses, vinegars, and, of course, the chocolate, back on the bus to the Kitchen Window.
While Chef Royal prepared a superb lunch, he talked about each of the dishes and the subtleties in bringing them up one more notch on the flavor level. Our luncheon menu included several of the items we saw or tasted at Great Ciao.
Hi everyone,
I’ve been away from my blog for awhile. With the end of our CSA season, it is time to post on fall and winter activities in the Minneapolis area.
This past Saturday my husband and I went on another field trip. If you read my blog during the summer, our last one was to Midtown Global Market and the result was Molly’s Midtown Market Salsa recipe.
The field trip we took last Saturday was quite a bit different. We are fortunate to have the Kitchen Window, in the Uptown area of Minneapolis, as a wonderful go-to spot for high quality kitchen items that are on your “required”, “must-have”, or “want really badly” lists. It is rare that we walk in that store without finding at least one thing from one of those lists. However, I am also content to wander around the store and add to my wish list.
The Kitchen Window also offers cooking classes, both participation and demonstration, as well as special events and food tours. The last weekend was an exceptional food tour - The Grand Ciao Market Tour. Because of Kitchen Window and Chef Royal, we had access to an incredible warehouse of gourmet and everyday goodies. The group of 20 participants, led by Chef Royal Dahlstrom, were taken to Grand Ciao, which is a distributor of superior quality food items purchased by many local restaurants and stores. It is not a place where you can just go and shop. It is for the trade only.
At Grand Ciao, Jeff Price, a former chef and now food marketing guru, treated us to tastes of wonderful cheeses, meats, olive oils, and vinegars. Before we tasted, we took a tour of the warehouse. Shelves of oils, vinegars, tomatoes (canned and dried), olives, fruits, sticks of tuna in olive oil, spices (the sweet scent from fennel pollen came right through the plastic packaging), salts, peppers, pasta, oriental ingredients, chocolate, and two separate rooms in the cooler. One room for was the meats and cheeses and a separate area for the cheeses that needed cool, but less humid air.
Hi everyone,
FIrst my apologies. No posts recently - the camera was acting up again and so were my sinuses. Ragweed season hit me pretty hard so writing was not high on the list of things to do lately.
I am back on track now and want to share the past couple of weeks with you. The weather has been up and down and back and forth. It is finally settling into fall. We are seeing lower day and night temps, so I am sure that first “official” frost isn’t far away.
Hi everyone,
What a difference a week makes – this week – warm, sunny, and breezy with a huge basket of food from our CSA, Crazy Daisy Farms.
Hi everyone,
Yea! The 2009 Blue Sky Guide is now available. I was so excited to see all of the wonderful offerings in this year’s guide.
Hi everyone,
Well, it appears that fall is early in Minnesota. The temps outside at 4:00ish yesterday were mid 60’s, clouds off and on, and a hint of a cool wind. The crops are changing again as Mother Nature plays her tricks.
Our basket was still filled with wonderful foods we will enjoy this next week. The tomatoes are gorgeous. Last week I made a wonderful sauce with all of the tomatoes I had in the house, plus some shredded zucchini. It will make a delightful sauce for lasagna.
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Hi everyone,
The weather is playing tricks again. We’ve gone from warm and steamy to cool weather with some days the temps only in the high 60’s and nights down in the 50’s. It saddens me because summer is moving away far too fast. It has also confused the crops a bit. So along with the drought conditions, the weather is much cooler.
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Hi everyone,
The weather has been strange and we are actually looking at rock hard ground again. The lack of rain is visible in our area. Not only on the farm, but in our yards and particularly in the areas where water conservation rules are in effect. In our community, we can not water lawns, unless you have a well.
So, on the farm, they have to work extra hard to keep the crops growing. It is interesting because it has not been exceptionally warm, just very dry. Even the 2 inches of rain they received last week was not enough to push the growth forward.
Hi everyone,
This was another week of more than our fair share. My goodness, the basket for week 8 of our CSA was filled to the brim. Lots of fresh corn, three small head of cabbage, cherry tomatoes and a gorgeous huge tomato named a Mortgage Lifter. It is an heirloom variety. We have fresh beets, tomatillos, jalapenos, banana peppers, basil, jalapenos, and cucumbers. I actually took everything out of the basket and put it on my island so you can see the bounty. Read the rest of this entry »
Hi everyone,
One can never have too many cookbooks or at least I don’t think so. To me a good cookbook is like a story. The author had a premise based on a personal liking or experience and wants to share with others. This is especially true with this cookbook. It is authored by the Madison Area Community Supported Agriculture Coalition.
