How to Throw a Party — MN Food Bloggers Style

Step 1: Find a willing restaurateur (in this case, Stewart and Heidi Woodman of Heidi’s).

Step 2: Make sure the fates collide so the party takes place at the same time amazing local hip hop artist Brother Ali is filming a music video at the same restaurant.

Step 3: Mingle with cast, crew and fellow food bloggers and eat delicious food.

Braised beef tongue.

Crab cakes.

Lamb meatballs.

Step 4: Add cocktails and liquor.

Ginseng and deer antler whiskey.

Ginseng vodka. All ginseng courtesy of Hsu Ginseng and Will Hsu (@wphsu)

Step 5: After many cocktails, make sure a festive crowd with cameras and an appetite encourages the chefs to demonstrate mad skillz.

Giant lobe of foie gras.

Step 6: Ravenously eat rich bits of foie with fig compote. Try to save some for event organizer Stephanie Meyer (@FreshTartSteph), fail miserably. Enthusiastically instigate chefs to utilize foie fat by cooking pork in it (genius idea, @MSPFoodie)

Step 7: Get pulled into sitting at a table in front of lights and cameras with “prop cocktails” and the director’s bottle of water while music video films with you in it.

Step 8: Bust out the big guns — deadly good moonshine from @MarkDewes and gecko and seahorse liquor straight from Vietnam.

Step 9: Dance party in the kitchen and the bar. (Those photos stay with me, just in case I need a favor some day!)

Step 10: Raise money for the Sojourner Project (the most important reason for the entire evening).

Step 11:  Go home, very late, shaking head, asking, “Whose life is this?!?” And wake up the next morning asking, “Did that really happen?”

Thanks to the kind, generous hosts Stewart and Heidi Woodman, thanks to the talented and incredibly patient (can’t emphasize that enough) staff at Heidi’s, thanks to Brother Ali for the chat and the opportunity, thanks to Stephanie Meyer for organizing it all and thanks to all the MN Food Bloggers for a truly one-of-a-kind evening.

Wow. Now, *that’s* how you throw a party.

Girls at the Fair

It was like a scene from “Sex and the City,” except this group of ladies was on the hunt for food (preferably fried) and our glam outfits were stained with warm blueberry sauce. We even had a gorgeous red-head and a Samantha.

It was an absolute pleasure to join up with blogger and foodie gals Kate (@KatentheKitchen), Stacy (@WolvesGal), Amanda (@SweetNSnazzy), Jen (@thewhlehrtdlife) and Samantha (@escinsider) for an afternoon and evening at the Minnesota State Fair. If you’ve never been to the “Great Minnesota Get Together,” it is certainly a collection of characters. It’s generally hot (though the temperatures during our visit were divine) and dusty. You will alternately walk through puffs of smoke and the wafting smell of grilled meat and have to watch out for the dreaded “poo shoe” in the smelly animal barns. We saw a man dressed in a banana suit and small town local legend the “Vanilla Gorilla.” For just one dollar you can get endless refills on all the milk you can drink (this is not a challenge recommended for hot weather). And for $40 you can buy a V-slicer from a man with a microphone over his ear that uses the word “amazing” in every sentence.

My first steps into the Fair this year were to the Daily building where a finalist for Princess Kay of the Milky Way was having her likeness carved in butter. The room was 40 degrees so she was wearing a snow suit and a sparkly crown.

Butter Sculpture in Progress

Then, the group tracked me down and we went straight to the food building. Visiting the Fair with a group of people is definitely the way to go because you can share bits and bites of everything and have room to sample plenty of food. We grabbed a few containers of the real cheese curds — hot, salty, crunchy and addictive — while on the hunt for beer. Across from beer we found the San Felipe Asian carnitas tacos. This sounds like it could be a strange and misdirected fusion. It *could* have been, but instead it was a fabulous mix of the best of both worlds. Wrapped in a spinach tortilla were tender, juicy pork carnitas with a crisp slaw coated in a sauce with a hint of wasabi. One taco fed five of us easily.

Satisfied for the moment, we headed off to see the baby animals in the Miracle of Birth center. It was impossible not to coo and squee at the fuzzy ducklings, soft lambs, naked and squirmy piglets and wobbly calves. After snuggling a four-day old lamb and a one day old snoozing piglet, we decided it was time to move on to see some agriculture.

Sleeping Baby Piglet. Can you Stand the Cute?

There is never a straight shot to anything at the Fair. You must wind through the lanes of people and there are endless distractions in the form of vendors, exhibits, buildings with mysterious noises and smells, rides and Midway games. One of the distractions that we couldn’t pass up was the Minneapple pie booth. We shared a pie with a flaky, crisp cinnamon-sugar coated crust and a naturally sweet and tender apple filling. Capped off with creamy and spicy cinnamon ice cream, it was a perfect treat. And it kept us fueled long enough to get to the Agriculture building. We toured giant crops that Samantha joked came from Chernobyl Farms. Case in point, these ginormous pumpkins:

It Really *IS* the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

We admired the seed art (also known as crop art, crotch art and see dart). Some of the pieces truly were spectacular and you couldn’t tell they were crafted using seeds. My favorite was this homage to Stacy and Clinton from TLC’s “What Not to Wear.”

What to Hang on Your Wall

We passed by the bee booth (which sometimes has a man in the booth with the bees) on our way to honey sunflower seed ice cream and honey lemonade. I love me some honey and I have no idea how I missed the honey lemonade in the past. It’s sweet, it’s tart, it’s flowery and full of honey flavor and it’s so refreshing. After several hours of walking, our feet needed a break so we checked out the amateur talent show and snacked on some peppery jerk fries from Harry Singh’s. Highlights of the amateur talent show while we were there were the “house band” and their wordless but energetic “Eye of the Tiger.” Lowlights: Someone sang, “My Heart Will Go On.”

One of the Impressive "Minnesota's Got Talent" Performers

We wandered around a bit more — beers and sangria were consumed. We saw a big green beacon in the distance and got some fried pickles to provide sustenance until we hit the International Bazaar. I’m no fan of pickles, but the breading on these was crunchy and substantial and the pickles were thick and not too pickley. Once we made it to the International Bazaar, we shopped our way to Holy Land where Kate enjoyed some kushari which confused us all — rice, lentils, macaroni, fried onions and tomato sauce. The rest of us enjoyed gyro on a stick, some falafel and grape leaves. The falafel was a little dry, but the grape leaves were tender and filled with rice and dill. Everything benefited from a slathering of cool, cucumber tzatziki sauce.

Our evening coming to an end, we found a table at the Blue Moon Diner and shared two dishes of sweet corn ice cream — one with bacon butter sauce and the other with warm blueberry sauce. This was the most amazing ice cream we’d ever eaten. Naturally sweet from the corn milk and cream, but not overwhelmingly sweet. The bacon butter sauce had nice chunks of salty, chewy bacon with honey butter overtones. But that blueberry sauce … it was fresh and wild and sweet and earthy and blue. So we shared another dish. Then another dish. Then another dish. Then offered to share our lottery winnings with their employee if he’d just tell us the recipe. Which he wouldn’t.

Exhausted, exhilarated and full, we all headed to our respective buses for the ride home. Though I think Stacy may have wisely grabbed some mini donuts for the road. I should have done that. I have no photos of the food we ate because we ate it too quickly, but it was a delectable culinary tour of the Fair with some great company. I say we make a date to do it again next year!

(front to back) Samantha, Amanda, Kate, Stacy and Jen. (Not pictured) Me. Hey, someone's gotta take the picture!

Best of the best: Asian carnitas taco, honey lemonade and that fan-flippin’-tastic sweet corn ice cream with warm blueberry sauce.

Kansas City Bites

Things I learned while visiting Kansas City, MO:
* Its neighbor, Kansas City, Kansas, is referred to as KCK.
* You are not, in fact, required to eat barbecue.
* It’s actually kind of difficult to find fountains in the “City of Fountains.”
* The museums may be small, but the collections are well-chosen.
* There are lots of great food options.
* Soccer games in 98 degrees with 80 percent humidity that end in a 0-0 tie are not the most fun thing ever, but watching two tow-headed toddlers enthusiastically belt out “God Save the Queen” is awesome.

We visited Kansas City with the express purpose of seeing a rare U.S. game played by K’s soccer team of choice, Newcastle United. Thankfully, we also have friends there or I’d have never braved the excruciatingly uncomfortable heat wave to make the trip.

On our first night, we decided to go to chef Celina Tio’s Julian. We’d seen Tio compete on both “The Next Iron Chef” and “Top Chef Masters season 3″ and were unsure of what to expect. Perhaps because of this, we were blown away by the honest, simple and simply delicious food we found. With their HVAC system on the fritz, the small dining room was really hot and stale (not helped by sitting directly outside the open kitchen window), but the heat was soon forgotten as we crunched our way through smoked chicken tamales with a spicy guacamole sauce and hush puppies with harissa aioli. The chicken tamales were melt-in-your-mouth delicious and the hush puppies, while a little too bready for me, were still nice and pillowy crisp.

Hush Puppies at Julian

I ordered the evening’s special of chicken and rice and K got the crispy pork shoulder with creamy polenta. Each dish sounded deceptively simple, but each was so fresh and bursting with flavor we were stopped in our tracks. The chicken and rice dish was creamy and popped with green herbs and sweet corn.

Chicken and Rice at Julian

K’s pork shoulder was rich and concentrated and the polenta was perfectly creamy. Best stand-in for traditional Kansas City bbq ever.

Pork Shoulder and Polenta at Julian

We capped off the meal with a light, tart and creamy buttermilk panna cotta with sweet fresh berries as its crowning glory. K had made a reservation for the restaurant online and the next day received an email from Chef Tio herself, apologizing for the heat in the dining room and the HVAC break down and making sure that we’d had a nice meal. Now *that’s* what I call service and follow-up!

The next day we visited the small, but lovely Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art where we enjoyed lunch at Cafe Sebastienne in the indoor conservatory which was like dining outdoors and enjoying the sun without the million degree temperatures. K enjoyed the pizza du jour (which, if I remember correctly had prosciutto and basil and oregano in the sauce) with an airy crust that somehow managed to also be crisp. I had a *large* portion of the fish du jour which was delicious and perfectly cooked, but has now slipped my memory as to exactly what kind of fish it was. It came with a very fresh and local veggie relish on top and sautéed spinach on the bottom.

That evening, we dined with friends at the tiny, *adorable* and homey Pot Pie. We all started with the steamed mussels. Well, almost all of us. One of our dining companions recommended them then admitted he didn’t care for mussels, but really liked to soak up the buttery brine they bathed in with big slices of bread. The liquid was divine and the mussels were lovely as well. I had trout and K had seared scallops. And, while it didn’t seem like a place that looked like the cozy back room of your country grandmother’s house could excel at seafood, the scallops were awesome.

The next day we visited the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art after lunching at one of the city’s hippest lunch spots — Blanc Burgers and Bottles. The beer list was the size of an encyclopedia and their burger list was nearly as comprehensive. I settled on a chicken caprese “burger” (really a chicken sandwich) with balsamic sauce and tangy goat cheese. It was GIANT and I only ate half the bun, but the sandwich was pretty good.

Chicken Caprese "Burger" at Blanc

Much more impressive was K’s choice of the $100 Burger (a burger stuffed with short ribs with foie gras sauce) and the bacon gouda fries we shared. The bacon bits were a bit too large and chewy to be supported by the fries, but suck it up, soldier … just pick up the bacon with your fingers!! Evil, evil goodness. K also really enjoyed the pickle which, he believed, was made with rice wine vinegar. And we both enjoyed sipping from the very strong cilantro pineapple margarita.

$100 Burger at Blanc

Bacon Gouda Fries at Blanc

We then met up with friends from Minnesota who happened to be traveling through Kansas City at the same time and accompanied us to the soccer game. We wanted something light before sitting in the tropics so we hit up Blue Koi where we enjoyed fried tofu with sweet/spicy awesome sauce (they don’t call it awesome sauce for nothin’), amazingly fresh, sweet and popping shrimp dumplings, spicy vegetarian lettuce wraps and a few curried noodle dishes. The portions were very generous and we were all really sorry we couldn’t take our leftovers with us, but didn’t feel they’d fare well in the sweltering car before we got back to the refrigerator-less hotel room.

Ours was a brief trip and, after two museum trips, one afternoon of sweaty shopping, meals with friends and a soccer game, we headed out the next afternoon. But before we left we couldn’t resist one more stop at Pot Pie for lunch where K loved his teriyaki beef sandwich and, from my ooey-gooey grilled cheese sandwich I learned that one should always put fresh thyme in melty cheese.

Thanks Kansas City for the memories, hot as they were. Should we visit again, we *might* just get around to eating that barbecue you’re so famous for.

Big EVOO Night

Ever sip olive oil from an ice cream parfait glass and want to call it Bob?

K and I hadn’t either until we got a last-minute invitation to Big EVOO Night at Cafe Levain this week. The event, sponsored by the California Olive Ranch with dinner prepared by Levain chef Adam Vickerman, featured dishes using various types of extra virgin olive oil from the company. I am a HUGE fan of olive oil and we use a lot of it. We just polished off a big bottle of arbequina — which, according to COR’s Mike Forbes is a fresh and fruity single varietal — from Spain. As a wedding gift, friends “adopted” us a tree in an olive grove in Italy and we just got a big shipment of Italian first cold press from our grove in Rosalia. When presented with the opportunity to spend an evening with the MN Food Bloggers eating an entire olive oil-centric meal from start to finish, we simply couldn’t pass it up.

We walked into Cafe Levain and the friendly wait staff greeted us with this:

Trio of Crostini

A trio of crostini featuring: Chicken liver pate with pickled rhubarb, anchovy and white beans. I went with the chicken liver and was pleasantly surprised that the slightly grainy and meaty liver went perfectly with the tart and sweet pickled rhubarb.

We were each presented with a glass of California Olive Ranch EVOO for a taste test. I have never slurped/sipped an olive oil before and I don’t intend to do it again. It tasted like — oil. If I remember correctly, this was the arbequina variety. However, when you dipped a piece of crusty bread in the little cup, you could actually taste the flavors in the oil: Fresh and fruity. Turns out I’m a dipper, not a slurper. Who knew?

EVOO for Sipping

We were privileged to be sitting with Kelli (from IHadaDeliciousTime.com) and her hubby David who are hilariously awesome. After the initial awkwardness of swigging oil from a glass with people you’d never met before, the conversation turned quickly to food and deliciousness and celebration and joy and grieving and parties and families and smoking pork and design and how salt doesn’t kill people, salt SAVES. We were already having a wonderful time and dinner hadn’t yet begun.

Being “food people,” we were pleased when the first dish was presented to us. Typically an amuse bouche is just one perfect bite to tickle your palate, but Vickerman took it to new heights with a cool amuse bouche soup of peas, kohlrabi, chives, grana padano and a drizzle of EVOO. It was like eating spring in a bowl and the veggies had come straight out of the Cafe Levain garden. So fresh. It was sweet, with lovely flavors of pea, nutty cheese, the occasional bite of chive and a silky ribbon of olive oil running through it.

Fresh Pea Soup Amuse Bouche

Mike from COR, spent a few moments explaining their sustainable “olive ranching” practices and their devotion to all things olive. He mentioned they’d even named a variety after their head miller, Bob. I was REALLY looking forward to EVOBob, but it turns out they called it “Miller’s Blend.” Bummer. The oil, however, was very nice and blended subtly into our next course: A farmers market salad with local mixed lettuces, buttermilk-tarragon vinaigrette, herbs, Donnay chevre cheese and candied nuts. While the radishes were too overpoweringly sharp for my taste, the salad had a just-from-the-Earth untouched quality — crisp and light, the goat cheese was smooth and tart and the candied nuts were the playful crunchy sweet companion.

Farmers Market Salad

Soon after the Sitka Sound (a large body of water in Alaska) Red King Salmon arrived. It was *perfectly* cooked, just seared on the outside and warmed through to the beautiful pink inside. The small Laughing Bird shrimp (sustainably caught in Laughing Key, Belize) were poached in the arbequina EVOO and everything sat on a bed of marinated white beans and grilled snap peas. I totally dug the grilled snap peas, with the little bit of char that just enhanced the natural sweetness.

Sitka Sound Red King Salmon

Not content to rest on his (talented) laurels, Vickerman followed the “surf” with some phenomenal “turf” — a charred beef hangar steak with fingerling potato confit, local mushrooms, balsamic and preserved lemon. I’m not a huge lover of steak, but this was honestly one of the best I’ve ever eaten. The meat had a deep, smoky flavor and the supple potatoes had a light blanket of slightly fruity, nutty arbosana EVOO in every bite. But the mushrooms — those meaty, perfect, crisp/tender mushrooms made the plate.

Charred Beef Hangar Steak

K actually finished the last quarter of my steak because I wanted to have room for dessert and, with just one more bite of meat, I wouldn’t have made it. And dessert was my favorite course and not to be missed. Who would have thought — a dessert course made entirely with olive oil?! It was brilliant. A tiny moist olive oil cake, buttery and vanilla-bean-flecked olive oil panna cotta, plate-lickable icy olive oil gelato with surprising specks of salt, a paper-thin crispy olive oil tuille — there were rumors of other MN Food Bloggers licking their dessert plates. I really, really wish I’d done that. As you can see, we were so excited about dessert we forgot to take a photo until we’d already eaten half.

Olive Oil Cake, Olive Oil Gelato, Olive Oil Panna Cotta and More!

As a blogger, I’ve never been to a sponsored event before so I thought about what I’d do if I *didn’t* like the product of the company sponsoring the dinner. I decided I would fully disclose that I received a free (kick-ass) dinner and would be entirely honest about my opinions of the product. Fortunately I’ve come away with an awareness of the California Olive Ranch products, their eco-friendly farming practices, their olive oil obsession that outshines mine and an admiration for the fact that they can offer a very high quality product at a reasonable price (about $11/bottle, depending on the variety). Thanks to Mike Forbes from the COR for the education, to Will Hsu for organizing the event, to Adam Vickerman and the amazing staff at Cafe Levain for the hospitality and to all the MN Food Bloggers for the laughs and a memorably great time. And a special thanks to K for picking up my blogger slack after I forgot a camera. He took the photos with his iPhone…just one of the 9 million plus things I love about the guy. That and he was willing to ditch our existing dinner plans (which included gianciale) for a last minute Big EVOO Night food adventure.

Vegas Bites 2011

You can get some REALLY bad food in Vegas — any fast food restaurant or $2.99 buffet (and there are a lot of those). You can also get some very good food in Vegas (see last year’s dinner at Bouchon as an example). While the city itself is a Hollywood movie set — inauthentic and a facade — many places have gotten smart about offering food that is reasonably priced and delicious and at least has the name of a well-known chef attached to it (either as a “menu advisor,” frequent visitor or anywhere in between).

We were in Vegas for K’s annual family reunion and part of the tradition is a pre-reunion dinner on the town.  K and I and a group of related reunionites dined at Comme Ca restaurant in the Cosmopolitan hotel and casino. I’d never heard of the restaurant nor had I heard of David Myers, the California chef and restaurateur who conceived of the place. It was a large, dim brassiere, nearly empty for dinner on the Thursday evening we were there. We sat at a large booth with a much-touted view of “Paris” (ha ha, as seen below). But while it seemed sparsely attended, the food was really solid, tasty and very reasonably priced.

View of "Paris" From Comme Ca (photo courtesy of Comme Ca website)

The server was young and seemed a bit out of her element, but the sommelier was knowledgeable and recommended the perfect bottle of wine at the price point we’d chosen. To begin, K had the duck confit — a rich, perfectly fatty leg of duck entwined with some greenery. I had the crab cake which was chock full of fresh crab and nicely crisp. There were hints of grassy dill in the cake and the red pepper remoulade added a nice little bite.

For the main course, K sunk into braised veal breast and a hot potato croquette, both of which he described as “frickin’ awesome.” I had the crispy skate with fresh haricot vert, lemon, brown butter and capers. The fish was beautifully tender and the preparation simple and excellently executed — with the butter flavor front and center.

Crispy Skate and Haricot Vert (photo courtesy of Comme Ca website

No one else at the table wanted dessert, but K and I dug in unapologetically. We shared a calamansi (a type of Hawaiian citrus) custard rolled in a shatteringly crisp tuille and accompanied by rice milk sorbet and candied citrus. It was easily the best part of the meal — elegant, tart and creamy, creative and light.

Because Vegas is a temple of indulgence, the next morning I decided to treat myself to a breakfast cupcake at the Cupcakery (in the lobby of our hotel). I was excited about this breakfast cupcake because how often do you get to eat a cupcake for breakfast!?? Never. Nearly all the cupcakes, however, were absolutely slathered in mounds and mounds of sweet frosting, which I did not want first thing in the morning so I went with their Good Morning cupcake (*of course* they had a breakfast cupcake). It was a simple yellow cake with cinnamon topping and a little glaze. It was also a very blah, dry cupcake. According to their website, “nobody makes (cupcakes) better or tastier than The Cupcakery.” That is a bold claim and, based on my experience, they are wrong.

We gathered up some family members (including the niece <age 4> and nephew <age 8>) and headed to the Border Grill in Mandalay Bay for lunch. The restaurant is HUGE and spans two floors plus an outdoor patio. K and I were delighted to see that their specials menu included the quinoa fritters and tomatillo ribs that were part of chef Mary Sue Millken’s recent appearance on Top Chef Masters. We’d recently tried our hand at both (ribs here and fritters here)  so we ordered the fritters to compare our version and the restaurant’s (we weren’t hungry enough to nosh on ribs sadly). The quinoa fritters were crispy and nutty and delicious, crispier than ours, but we don’t have a deep fryer. The Border Grill tortilla chips are hot and plentiful, with a sweet tomatillo salsa and creamy guacamole. After filling up on chips and quinoa fritters, no one was even hungry for the main entree, but I gamely charged through two small grilled fish tacos (good, but nothing to cheer about) and K made it through about half of his beef taquitos. It was very good upscale Americanized Latin food. The service was slow and erratic. After we’d received our quinoa fritters, the server brought over a dessert menu. Upon seeing the confused looks on our faces, he paused with a slight deer-in-the-headlights look. We told him we hadn’t even received our entrees yet so he stammered something about making sure we saved room for dessert then sprinted off to check on our lunch.

Mine was a brief visit to Vegas, but it’s always a delicious opportunity to check out some new food. Next year I’ll skip the cupcake and head straight to Jose Andreas’ hot restaurant Jaleo — where K went. Before I arrived in Vegas. And dined without me. Not that I’m bitter about him eating at the place I *really* wanted to dine at. Not bitter at all.

P.S. We are huge fans of the History Channel show Pawn Stars which is filmed at a Vegas pawn shop. We attempted to make a pilgrimage to the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop to check out the joint and meet the Old Man, Rick, Big Hoss and Chumlee. There was a very, very long line in the blazing desert sun. K’s cousin and his wife went earlier in the week, waited in line and got in. They said it was a small, grungy pawn shop and the guys weren’t even there. Just an FYI if you’re going to Vegas and hoping to strike it rich pawning some of your valuables with the Harrison fam.

A Winning Recipe for Rye Pierogies

My 80-something year old (she wouldn’t appreciate me broadcasting her *exact* age) Polish grandmother was bursting with pride when I told her I won W.A. Frost’s “Be the Chef” contest. After all, it was her pierogies that were the inspiration for the dish. Growing up, she made hers the traditional way — simple white flour dough, potato and cottage cheese filling, fried in lots and lots of butter. Then put sour cream on top. Those were delicious, but I put a bit of a twist on them to fit Frost’s contemporary American fare and who I thought their clientele might be.

So, here it is — the recipe for Rye Pierogies that won W.A. Frost’s “Be the Chef” contest in April:

Rye Pierogies with Smoked Salmon, Yukon Gold Potatoes and Dill Creme Fraiche

Dough:
2.5 cups all-purpose flour
2.5 cups rye flour
3/4 cup tepid water
6 egg yolks
3 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 – 1/4 tsp crushed caraway seeds (optional, add for extra “rye” taste)

Filling:
6 Yukon Gold potatoes
1/8 cup small curd cottage cheese (optional, I believe the chefs at Frost left this out)
1 pkg smoked salmon (preferably wild-caught Alaskan salmon)
salt and pepper to taste

Sauce
1 container creme fraiche
2 tb. fresh dill (more if you love dill taste)
8 cornichons (optional, for garnish)

8 tb. butter
4 tb. extra virgin olive oil

Pierogie dough: Sift flour together in large bowl, make well in center. Mix egg yolks and eggs in small bowl and pour into center of flour. Add salt and caraway, if using. Fold/cut eggs into flour with a fork adding water as needed. Knead dough with hands until firm. Form into ball. Set in bowl and chill 15-30 minutes. Lightly flour board, cut dough into several small portions and use a rolling pin or pasta machine to roll very thinly. If dough is sticky, lightly sprinkle with all-purpose flour. Using a pint glass (or glass of approximate size) cut dough into circles.

Filling: Cut potatoes into similarly sized pieces and place in boiling water until tender. Finely mash potatoes with ricer (leaving off skins), mix in salt and pepper. When potatoes have cooled slightly, mix in cottage cheese.

Sauce: Chop fresh dill and mix into creme fraiche. Chill until ready for use.

Assembly: Slice smoked salmon into small, thin slivers. Place 1-2 pieces of salmon in the middle of a dough circle. Place approximately 1 tsp. potato/cheese filling on top of salmon. Fold dough over filling (in half) and pinch ends together with fingers then seal with a fork. Boil a large pot of water, add salt and drop pierogie into water. Cook for 3-4 minutes until tender. Remove with strainer. Add butter and oil to saute pan and brown pierogie — 2-3 minutes per side. Sprinkle hot pierogie with salt and pepper, add a dollop of dill creme fraiche. Thinly slice cornichon for garnish. Serve hot. Makes approximately 36 pierogie.

You can make the pierogies ahead of time and freeze or refrigerate before boiling or make and boil the pierogies then refrigerate for a few hours before frying and serving.

Copyright 2011 LMK Morioka

The chefs at W.A. Frost made a fabulous interpretation of the dish and even the 8-year old nephew and 4-year old niece loved them! Enjoy in good health and know that both my grandma and me are smiling every time you take a delicious bite.

New York Bites — Our Final Day

The final day of our honeymoon was, appropriately, a Monday. We solemnly packed our bags and left them with the front desk staff at our hotel after we checked out. Then we tried to forget about it being our last day by heading to Discovery Times Square to take in the Pompeii exhibit.

All that history made us hungry so we hoofed it to the legendary Carnegie Deli just 10 minutes before there was a very long line outside. The walls were plastered with framed, signed photos of celebrities who’d enjoyed their gut-busting meals. The tables are lined up in long, communal lines and you become quick friends with whomever is sitting next to you. Seeing the GIANT portions in front of our neighbors, we opted to share two of the dishes the Deli is most famous for — matzoh ball soup and a pastrami sandwich.

Matzoh Ball Soup

Yes, that really is the color of the matzoh ball soup and there is not a speck of green in sight. It’s very basic, but also very good. Rich chicken flavor with light-as-air matzoh balls. How they accomplished this with matzoh balls bigger than a softball (I’m not joking), is beyond me. I guess that’s why they’re famous.

Pastrami Sandwich

Above is half of the pastrami sandwich and it takes up much of the plate. I didn’t even bother with the bread and just went for the warm, tender, peppery pastrami. It was my kind of sandwich — just good, simple filling and nothing like mustard or mayo mucking it up. Of course I couldn’t finish my sandwich half and our server seemed really disappointed in me. She helpfully suggested my already full stomach might have room for a glacier-sized piece of cheesecake and I had to politely decline. She was disappointed in that too. Kind of like when my grandma used to shake her head sadly and tell the grandchildren, “Well, I guess you’re not a member of the clean plate club.”

We rolled ourselves out of the Carnegie Deli and did some more exploring of the city. We stopped in at Eataly again for a little gelato snack and sat in the cold outside of the Flatiron Building watching the city go by. We meandered into Tom Collichio’s nearly empty Craftbar (it was 3:30 in the afternoon) where the friendly bartender made K a creative, flowery cocktail tempered with fresh sprigs of rosemary and  generously accommodated my requirement for an N/A ginger “martini” (which was super yummy).

Then we wound our way back to our hotel and caught our final taxi (then promptly got caught in traffic on the way to the airport in rush hour).

Now we love New York City. We want to visit again and explore all the neighborhoods we haven’t seen yet, to eat at all the restaurants we didn’t get the chance to taste.  Next time we’ll find the neighborhood gems, the hidden jewel boxes only insiders know about. We’ll hoof it around Harlem and Queens.

The Twin Cities can definitely hold its own, food-wise. We most certainly have restaurants and cocktail “alchemists” that are “New York caliber.” We don’t have to travel to the East Coast to find amazing, diverse and delicious food. But we’ll be back. For lots of reasons. And hopefully again sometime soon.

New York Bites — Day Seven

Crisp and sunny, the sun sparkled and the wind whipped as we walked towards the Brooklyn Bridge. Our plan was to get a slice at the legendary Lombardi’s Pizza (the first pizza place in New York City, founded in 1905) then walk over the bridge for a comparison slice at Grimaldi’s (which Zagat recently called the Best Pizza in New York). Others must have had this plan before we did because both pizza joints only sell whole pizzas — no pizza by the slice. Knowing we couldn’t polish off two entire pizzas, we scratched the pizza-off and went in for lunch at Lombardi’s Pizza.

A small, winding restaurant with basic, stereotypical Italian restaurant decor, Lombardi’s uses a coal-fired oven and simple ingredients to build their New York pizza. We went with the basic margarita pizza as a base — fresh mozzarella, San Marzano tomato sauce, romano and fresh basil — and we added house-roasted red peppers and crisp pancetta.

Goo-oood pizza! The crust was Goldilocks perfect, not too much bread, not too flat and crackery. It had a nice smoky char and was crispy, not mushy at all. The cheese was fresh and melty, the pancetta was salty with just enough crunch and the peppers were tangy.

Lombardi's Pizza

We spent the rest of our sunny afternoon wandering about Brooklyn, walking back over the bridge and shopping in SoHo (something I wouldn’t recommend on a pleasant Sunday afternoon, it was crazy packed with people). We walked miles and miles. Our feet ached and we had worn through our blister protection bandages. So we found dinner respite in Chelsea (the Meatpacking District). The calm siren song of Jonathan Waxman’s Barbuto beckoned us into what is clearly a neighborhood hang out.

We had nearly front row seats to the bustling open kitchen and were fascinated by the precision of the chefs in their respective jobs. In no time our salumi plate came out with thinly shaved prosciutto de Parma, sweet and fatty mortadella, salty coppa (cured pork collar) and a savory rosemary foccacia.

Plates are set up to be family style and we shared a little bit, but mostly devoured the dishes we’d each chosen. We watched the “meat chef” baste K’s roasted chicken in the open fire oven. The skin was shatteringly crisp, the chicken substantial and tender and the salsa verde was an herby green garden of goodness.

Roasted Chicken and Salsa Verde

We did equally share the crispy potatoes with parmesan and rosemary, which were simple and magnificent. If they were baked, it’s nearly unbelievable because they were so crunchy. If they were fried, they were greaseless.

Crispy Potatoes with Parmesan and Rosemary

I had some of the best, most pillowy, achingly supple gnocchi I’ve ever enjoyed. The spinach was earthy and the peas were a perfect green snap. The entire dish was presented in a simple butter sauce.

Gnocchi with Spinach and Sugar Snap Peas

I have no idea how we made room for dessert, but we just couldn’t say no. We shared the chocolate  Budino (thick pudding) with whipped cream and blood orange sorbet. The Budino was so dense that if we’d tipped the dish over not a drop would have fallen out. It was creamy and packed with really good chocolate flavor. It would have been too sweet, but the fresh whipped cream mellowed it out in a dreamy way. The sorbet must have been made from blood oranges that were picked, squeezed and frozen that same day it was so incredibly fresh.

A pleasant, rollicking atmosphere, great and cordial service, a neighborhood location and simple, but amazing food was enough to make us forget our sadness that we were leaving New York the next day.

New York Bites — Day Six

Saturday was a grey, rainy mess of a day in New York City. The subways were clogged with damp people and drippy umbrellas. We spent the morning winding our way down the spiral of the Guggenheim Museum. It’s a pretty small museum, which surprised us both, and it only took about an hour to take everything in. But an hour was all it took for us to be hungry for lunch. And for that we stuck close.

The museum has a fine dining restaurant called The Wright which has, incidentally, recently won a big design award. It was small, but comfortable and definitely high style. To start we shared pan seared blue fin tuna with a phyllo dough “garden,” sesame aioli and toasted pine nuts … mostly because we wanted to know what a “phyllo garden” was. The tuna was perfectly (read: barely) cooked. The toasty, sesame-coated veggies were a cool and fresh crisp inside the warmer crisp of phyllo dough. Pretty and delicious.

Pan Seared Tuna and Phyllo "Garden"

K was tempted by the pan seared trout with fennel orange marmalade on a saffron “cloud.” There was the perfect hint of saffron over the lovely fresh fish.

Pan Seared Trout and Saffron Cloud

I had something I’m rarely tempted to eat — a lunch salad. But this was totally my kind of salad — a bit of fresh greenery and huge pieces of cool lobster tossed with a tart/sweet blood orange vinaigrette. Little pieces of cold fingerling potatoes were tucked amidst the lettuce. This was a salad that begged to be eaten slowly to truly enjoy each mouthful of decadent lobster.

Maine Lobster Salad with Blood Orange Vinaigrette

After such a light, but indulgent lunch, we felt ready to skip to our next destination, but cold winds and spitting skies put a damper on our exploratory spirit. We made our way to Chelsea Market to do a bit of shopping. While there I got a serious doughnut craving. Despite having about six bakeries in the building, none of them had doughnuts and my craving went unfulfilled (for that day and the rest of the trip since all we could find were Dunkin Doughnuts. I can get those sub par doughnuts at home).

We went back to the hotel to change out of our soaking clothes and warm up then it was off to Tribeca for dinner at Restaurant Marc Forgione, brain child of the newest Iron Chef. From the photos on the website, it looks like a rustic, intimate, candlelit place. In person, it is very large, loud and not at all intimate, but is, indeed, candlelit. The place was definitely bustling and not particularly relaxing (but I think that had more to do with the loud tables of people sitting right next to us, they were hard to ignore). One whole wall has personal photos, memorabilia and information on Marc Forgione. It was interesting, but bordered on an annoying temple of self-congratulatory celebration. Fine line.

We got started with two bites — peas ‘n carrots and artichoke soup. The peas and carrots were kind of bland and pureed like baby food, but the artichoke soup was full of flavor and played over different parts of the mouth. I’d eat a whole bowl of that.

Peas 'n Carrots and Artichoke Soup Starters

We shared some crispy pork belly and it was melt-in-your-mouth tender and had a good crunchy crust.

Crispy Pork Belly

K scored BIG TIME with the special of the night — the Chef’s burger. It was 28-day aged ground rib eye with smoked bacon, homemade pickles and ginger ketchup and crispy potatoes. I was not feeling well this night and wasn’t able to enjoy a great deal of food, but I’d give just about anything to go back in time, feel better and eat this burger. The one bite I had easily made it the best burger I’ve ever tried. K agreed. The meat was so juicy and beefy and the taste just kept getting better and deeper and smokier with each bite. And those tiny toasty potatoes, delish.

Rib eye Burger -- Chef's Special

I went a small, safe route with seared scallops and white asparagus. The scallops were so fresh I could still taste the ocean in them, but other than that it was a pretty unspectacular dish. Really good, just no big deal. I have more to say about that one bite of burger than my entire dish.

Seared Scallops and White Asparagus

For dessert we got fresh from the oven, hot, melty, sweet chocolate chip cookies with a shooter of icy whole milk. It is to my eternal regret that I could only eat one bite of burger, half a cookie and take two sips of milk. I want to go back to Restaurant Marc Forgione (maybe on a weeknight when it’s not quite so busy and crowded) and eat every last bite of an all American meal of that Chef’s burger and some chocolate chip cookies.

After dinner, we sprinted through the rain across the street to a really friendly neighborhood pub where we watched the New York Red Bulls soccer game. It was the of night that, if we’d been home, might have kept us indoors on the sofa. But what a cozy way to end a soggy day.

New York Bites — Day Five

We only had one Friday during our New York visit so we figured we should kick-start the weekend. But the day was grey and cold and windy and we felt twitchy and unsettled after our visit to the site of the World Trade Center. We ate lunch at a local panini place across the street and, despite the bustle of construction and office workers going about their daily business, the whole area felt like it had a dark cloud over it — not hope, good spirit and redemption as I wished it would have felt.

We shook it off and took the ferry to Ellis Island, cruising past Lady Liberty on our way. Ellis Island was fascinating and it boggled my mind that my great grandfather saw the same sights as he came into this country as we saw that day. If you participate in no other “tourist” activity in New York City, we would both highly recommend Ellis Island. After a walk around Wall Street (blah), we bundled up against the weather and headed for a fabulous Friday night dinner.

Morimoto — in Chelsea/the Meatpacking District — is definitely reflective of its namesake Iron Chef. It is as large as the chef is intimidating. The staff is precise, but very friendly and accommodating. The architecture and decor are beautiful and exacting. The food was beautiful and classic, but with amazing playful twists.

K and I shared two starters: Smoked salmon “ravioli” with dill foam and salmon roe and lobster fritters with citrus aioli. The salmon ravioli arrived buried under foam, we weren’t even sure it was in there! But the foam was diaphanous and had just the slightest hint of dill (thankfully, since it is not my favorite herb). The salmon was smoked and plush and the entire dish was light as air.

Smoked Salmon Ravioli

The lobster fritters were hot, perfectly fried (no grease) and accomplished an amazing feat — an impeccable, sweet chunk of lobster was encased in the batter, but the two didn’t seem to be touching one another. Delicious! And the citrus aioli added just the right amount of creamy zest.

Lobster Fritters with Citrus Aioli

As for our entrees, K had the big score of the night with his sea bass and avocado tempura. The fish was like butter and appeared lacquered with the accompanying broth. I’d eat avocado tempura all day, every day — it’s like crisp fried whipped cream! UPDATE: After looking at the menu on the website, it turns out what we thought was avocado tempura was actually Japanese eggplant tempura. Anyone who can make eggplant taste like that kind of heaven is some sort of magician. For the record though, I’d still eat avocado tempura all day, every day.

Sea Bass with Avocado Tempura

My entrée was also great, but paled in comparison to K’s home run. I had the yellow tail tuna buri bop. It’s a hot stone bowl with rice, veggies, an egg and raw tuna. The server put the slices of fish along the side of the bowl while mixing the ingredients in the middle into fried rice. The fish was cooked well, but had a very strong fish taste. The rice had a good crust to it, but it was a pretty tame dish. Tasty, but nothing super exciting.

Ishi Yaki Buri Bop

Dessert was another exercise in tempting the taste buds. The pastry chef had created a basil lime sorbet for the evening and it was presented on a block of ice. The sorbet was strongly flavored — bold lime crashed into anise basil, all to great effect. The flavors were so aggressive we could have gone with just one or two scoops instead of three.

Basil Lime Sorbet

But my favorite dessert, in the top two of our entire trip, was the soy milk souffle, tofu cheesecake and maple ice cream with maple sauce. The soy milk souffle was hot and puffy and had such a creamy, mild nuttiness to it we wanted to drink it! The tofu cheesecake (which, it turns out, contains no tofu, but more soy milk) does have the texture of clouds of whipped tofu, but with a gentle sweetness. The maple sauce and ice cream were sweeter than the desserts themselves and were charming accompaniments.

Soy Milk Souffle, Tofu Cheesecake and Maple Ice Cream

Eating at Morimoto was like a fun adventure meal, the world’s classiest “happy meal,” I guess. The food gave a peek behind the chilly exterior of Morimoto into the place where he’s giggling quietly because he threw you a culinary curve ball and you loved it.