Scrabble Junior edition Cheez-Its! I don’t buy a lot of boxed or bagged snacks aside from tortilla chips. Tom, of course, loves to make his own crackers. So why the draw? They’re not local, they’re not good for you… blah blah blah. Please! SCRABBLE crackers don’t come along every day. As expected, they taste just like regular Cheez-Its, possess the same power of addiction as regular Cheez-Its, and have the same aftertaste as regular Cheez-Its. However, they taste much better than Scrabble pieces. In conclusion, what other snack affords so much fun? 

Thanks to Marcela for hunting down all of those Ts and Ms for us.

I would make sure she had one of these (via Design Milk).

Martha and I celebrated our anniversary at Restaurant Alma last month. Alma is well-liked in Minneapolis and I’m not going to add my voice to the chorus by writing a review; suffice it to say that its reputation is deserved. Instead, I’ll just document our meal for your vicarious pleasure.

Course One: Parmesan Flan and Bison Tartare

I ordered the parmesan flan, which came with artichoke hearts, a kalamata spread, parmesan shavings and maple syrup. I have never had a savory flan before but I thought it was a great way to do flan—biting into the flan I got that perfect creamy texture and a cream flavor but without sweetness; then my mouth was suddenly flooded with the flavor of aged parmesan.  All of the garnishes on the plate are natural pairs with parmesan so I had a lot of fun constructing different bites. Martha’s bison tartare was very subtly flavored (at least from the bite I had) but was well completed by the salad of greens and radish matchsticks that came alongside, adding slight crunch and bite.

Course Two: Beet-Ricotta Ravioli and Black Bean Fritters

Each bite of beet-ricotta ravioli had a light beet flavor that wouldn’t be off putting even to beet-haters. Every other bite also featured the zing of horseradish; my coarse palate would’ve been happy with a much stronger presence for the horseradish but I’m sure the way it was prepared was much more refined. In any case, beets and horseradish is a great idea, as is adding prosciutto, which gave a burst of salt. And I’m just a sucker for ham. The black bean fritters were very reminiscent of falafel, maybe even southwestern falafel.

Course Three: Gently Cooked Trout

Normally I am reluctant to order the same dish as the people I am dining with but the description on the menu and our waitress’s hearty recommendation drew both Martha and me to the gently cooked trout. The trout was not only gently cooked, it was perfectly cooked—very moist and not flaky (when fish gets flaky it is overcooked, in this writer’s humble opinion). It came topped with a red wine reduction and a mushroom sauce that tasted strongly of ham hocks. I was at first a bit surprised by this combination because it seemed like such a hearty sauce would overpower the delicate fish, but as it turns out trout is remarkably earthy itself. The sauce, while definitely hammy, only butted up against the side of the fish without ever overwhelming it. I noticed this kind of restraint in all of the dishes—the cooks at Alma are real masters of subtlety.

Dessert: Marieke Super Aged Gouda

With the dregs of our bottle of cava to finish and no desire to move anywhere soon after such a delicious meal, we decided to order a cheese for dessert. Experience has led me to be skeptical about Wisconsin cheese, but the Marieke Super Aged Gouda was exceptional. It had deep flavor, reminding me more of an aged parmesan than the rubbery, milky gouda you tend to get around here (when your cheese budget is not what it should be).

We left with that feeling of perfect satisfaction that good restaurants are able to impart—not hungry, not full and already wistfully remembering each bite (several glasses of cava probably didn’t hurt our feelings of goodwill). Restaurant Alma is highly recommended.

We started the day with a big breakfast of toast, sausages, coffee, and strawberry banana smoothies. Yum. Tom and I don’t eat enough fruit… we talk about this a lot without doing much about it. On my last trip to the grocery store, I decided to take action. Bananas and frozen strawberries make a great addition to breakfast or an after dinner dessert, and all the while you feel like you’re eating an ice cream treat. The strawberries I bought were organic, and naturally the recipe on the side was for a hippy-smoothie: add banana, soy milk, ice, and wheat germ. This made me laugh. Growing up my mom was always sneaking wheat germ into our food whenever possible. Wheat germ went into waffle and pancake batter and got sprinkled atop our macaroni and cheese. Tom said we had a bag in the fridge, but I couldn’t locate it so we skipped the wheat germ this time. Instead of milk, I added plain yogurt. Plain strawberries and bananas will do the trick, though. The only bad part? Having to clean the blender!

This afternoon we also made a trip to Trader Joe’s to stock up on wine (six bottles), beer, cheese (two kinds), and olive oil (also two kinds). While there, I couldn’t resist a bunch of orange-pink tulips for just four bucks. I thought I’d share:

Tom says they’re too droopy… but I like them just the way they are. Later we’ll be getting together with friends South of Minneapolis to enjoy some time outside with our lawn chairs and a frisbee or two. How are you celebrating or remembering today?

The sight of the Midtown Farmers’ Market yesterday morning was a little disappointing; it seemed like there were even fewer vendors than the past two weeks and nary a fresh vegetable to be seen. At least there are always tamales. And then suddenly, as we were settling down with our coffee and tamales to listen to some acoustic guitar covers, Martha spied something out of the corner of her eye:

Asparagus! I left Martha to guard the tamales while I b-lined for the farmer, lest someone swoop in and scoop up the last precious spear while I was breakfasting. The price of foodism is constant vigilance!

The farmer in question really had no need to do any selling—he had the only asparagus in the whole market and I was definitely going to walk away with some, no matter what he said. But this farmer was a wily one and knew how to turn a one pound sale into a two pound sale. As I approached and revealed my interest in asparagus, without saying much he handed me a green, tender shoot and indicated that I should eat it. “Raw?” I asked. He just nodded and I decided that was good enough for me. Raw asparagus is not something I have ever eaten before, but I don’t know why—the flavor was so fresh it was like eating green peas right off of the vine. Ever since becoming more aware of seasonality I eagerly await the arrival of asparagus in the spring, but only after biting into this fresh, green-tasting spear of asparagus did I really get it. You can get asparagus all year round from various states and countries in the supermarket, and it’s generally fine for roasting, but its flavor is completely bland by comparison—an entirely different vegetable. Asparagus at its best—fresh and tender in late spring—is something to get excited about.

Our farmer friend tempered my enthusiasm for eating the stuff raw by warning me that my stomach’s flora probably wouldn’t be able to handle eating a lot of raw asparagus. I’m not sure why this would be true but I took his word for it and have been serving it cooked (in every meal since returning home). But with the thinnest spears in a mug of water  on the kitchen table the temptation to reach over and eat one is strong.

This was the first fresh vegetable I have gotten from the Farmers’ Market this season. I will be out of town the next two weekends, but when I get back in June I am excited for the region’s farms to be into full production.

Saturday morning I headed to the Midtown Farmer’s Market for the second time of the year. Unfortunately, last week’s prayers for asparagus went unanswered; still no fresh fruits or veggies anywhere to be seen. According to their website, I shouldn’t expect fresh vegetables until the end of May. 

But just because there aren’t any vegetables doesn’t mean you can’t have fun at the farmers’ market! For one thing, there are delicious tamales and excellent coffee from Fireroast Mountain Cafe. Tamales and coffee is one of my favorite breakfasts; the spice of a tamal seems to make the coffee taste even stronger. All so burny and delicious. As is my habit, I opted for pork.

With no fresh vegetables in sight I was pretty sure breakfast was going to be the only thing I got out of the trip to the market, but as we were leaving one of the vendors of pickled goods caught our attention with the promise of free samples. And that is how we got to know Martha’s (a different Martha) Joy homemade pickles—asparagus, beets and okra. A note to vendors: if you get me to try a free sample, I am pretty much guaranteed to buy something from you, possibly out of a sense of guilt or to avoid offense. In this case, I really thought the pickles were good and picked up a jar of hot pickled okra. And Martha got to meet Martha!

If you live in the Minneapolis area, you may have noticed Common Roots Café is starting a garden behind (and around) two houses just behind the café. Much work has already been done: the two homes are undergoing major renovations, plenty of asphalt and contaminated soil were removed, and new topsoil and compost were brought in. A pile of wood chips meant for pathways awaits. But how to get it all in place?

Volunteers! The first volunteer day was this Tuesday. We enjoyed great weather for hoeing, raking, and shoveling: cloudy, grey, and cool. Even though it wasn’t an official volunteer day, I was back on Wednesday, this time in bright sun, to help some more. The forecast for Saturday morning looks promising; planting time is from 9 am–2 pm and a late-afternoon rain is predicted. Since our friend Peter is coming to town, we’ll be heading first thing to the Midtown Farmers’ Market and then back home with plenty of time to do some gardening. The plans for the garden, masterminded by Cathy (from Nature’s Nest Farm), include fruit trees, vegetables, herbs, and flowering plants—all to be used in the café.

I feel very lucky to have had a little part in this and hope to be able to continue to help as the garden progresses. If you’d like to keep in the loop on how you can help, try Common Roots’ events page, their facebook page (with photo gallery), or following them on Twitter @commonroots. 

I’m not usually one to make cookies (much to Martha’s dismay), but when Cook’s Illustrated claims to have created “Perfect” chocolate chip cookies, the boast could not be ignored. Cook’s is based on perfecting recipes, but their claims are not usually quite so bold; more along the lines of ‘Ultimate Coq au Vin’, ‘Perfecting Berry Trifle’, and #$@%ing Awesome Hollandaise’. Simply ‘Perfect’ is a higher claim and an outrageous one, all the more so when made about chocolate chip cookies, a recipe with a thousand variations and everyone’s mother’s is the best. Such claims cannot go untested.

A lot of people don’t like Cook’s Illustrated because they find their recipes a little too, let’s say, particular. I agree although am not bothered by it personally. This recipe for chocolate chip cookies was, however, atypically reasonable. There were no strange or overly fussy ingredients; just flour, baking soda, butter, white sugar, brown sugar, salt, vanilla extract, eggs and chocolate chips, with nuts optional. Just one kind of fat, no pastry flour and no need for vanilla beans.

The one part of the recipe that seemed a little, well, precious was also the point of departure for this recipe, when it went from standard to superfluous cookies: browning the butter. After melting most of the butter, you leave it on the heat a bit longer until it turns golden-brown. It occurred to me just how brilliant this step was as my apartment filled with the rich smell of toffee.

Another step seemed a little odd: after whisking together the wet ingredients, wait three minutes, then whisk for thirty more seconds, and repeat twice more. There are some who would balk at setting a timer and repeating this ritual, but in my experience resting batters and doughs can save mixing time, and it gave me time to do the dishes. I cannot testify personally as to whether you need to do this step, but I will defer to Cook’s. They test this stuff!

The dough came together really beautifully, leaving nary a dust of flour un-moist. At this point, Cook’s suggests dividing the dough into 16 portions  of 3 T each, either by measuring the individual tablespoons or with a #24 scoop. I decided I would out-Cook’s Cook’s by measuring the mass of my dough and dividing by 16, then using my scale to make portions of exactly the same size, by mass. I had 972 g of dough, which works out to 60.75 g per cookie. This makes pretty big cookies.

They go in a 375°F oven for 14 minutes, rotated once in the middle of baking. They come out looking and smelling good.

So, were they perfect? Without getting into all the implications of the word, these cookies are damn near close. Definitely the best chocolate chip cookies I have ever made. Nothing really stands out about the flavor, they just taste exactly like a chocolate chip cookie. What’s most impressive about these and any great cookie is the texture. The great cookie texture divide falls along people who prefer crispy cookies and those who prefer chewy. As I fall firmly on the crispy side, my first bite of cookie was a slight disappointment since the cookie was only chewy. I had made the mistake of breaking my cookie in half (for the photo, I admit) and taking my bite only from the center. For my next bite, I attacked both the edge and the center. And thus the genius of the ‘Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie’ was revealed: the edge was crispy enough to satisfy my needs and, my crispiness needs sated, I was free to enjoy the chewiness of the center. A chewy cookie lover would be so happy with the center that they wouldn’t object to the crunchy give of the edge. This cookie managed to create a perfect harmony of crispy and chewy without compromising on either. If that is perfection, then this was the perfect chocolate chip cookie.

The first weekend in May marks the opening of my farmers’ market of choice in Minneapolis, the Midtown Farmers’ Market. Because our national food media is so dominated by California and New York, I had all kinds of high expectations for tender asparagus, fresh peas and other spring goodies. As it turns out, that is unrealistic for Minnesota—we are only now starting to see sure signs that life will return to the fields, but evidently nothing is ready to eat yet. As far as I could tell nobody was selling fresh vegetables unless you count Honey Creek Farm, who were selling plants from which vegetables might one day grow.

Despite the lack of fresh produce, there were quite a few vendors. There was the usual group selling crafts, which I avoid (no offense to them, just not my thing). Brett Laidlaw was there with his real bread which I was very impressed to learn (last year) is all produced in a home oven. At least two vendors, who I didn’t recognize from last year, were selling home-canned produce.  Another bright spot among the new faces was the SalsaLady who was selling four kinds of homemade salsa: mild, green, chipotle and habanero. I’ve complained before about the lack of a good replacement for Jack’s salsa in Minnesota, but I think I may have found it and then some in SalsaLady. I bought a half-pint of the green salsa, but not for being very tempted by the chunky habanero.

Being that this was the opener, there was a slightly more festive atmosphere than usual (although, it’s always pretty festive). There was a petting zoo that featured a rooster who kept cock-a-doodle-doing as well as what I took to be an adult and baby goat. It’s more than a little perverse that upon seeing a cute baby goat the first thought in my mind is, “Mmm… I bet that cabrito would be tender.”

I had also heard that (Minneapolis mayor) RT Rybak was making an appearance to christen the activities. I must have gotten there a little early because he wasn’t speaking when I arrived. As I was leaving, however, I passed a pleasant looking white-haired man who, instead of doing the standard Minnesota greeting of averting his eyes looked at me and said “Hi, how are you doing?” I knew this had to be a politician! (I more or less answered with the standard Minnesota greeting, I’m afraid). Consultation with field guides upon my return home confirmed that this was a Rybak sighting.

Given the lack of fresh vegetables this early in the season, I left with just a few items. I almost always end up buying some form of meat from Chase Brook Natural Farms; in this case I was lucky as I was looking for a small chicken and those were just the kind of chickens they were selling. I am also a fan of the ground mutton from Native Oaks Farm; it has more flavor than ground lamb, none of the textural problems associated with mutton since it’s ground and is priced to move at $4/lb. Lastly, as mentioned before, I couldn’t resist a half-pint of the SalsaLady’s salsa verde.

Not exactly an impressive bounty, but it’s still a bit early in the season. I’ll be back next weekend—cross your fingers for asparagus!

I’ve read a lot about “IKEA hacks” online but I’ve never attempted one myself. In fact, it’s probably still true that I still haven’t. I had help (the hands you see in the pictures below are my friend Rod’s), and it was more of a careful edit than a hack. Last month I came home with two Frösta stools from IKEA. Though I liked the shape, I was dubious about their quality, considering past experience with IKEA’s wooden chairs (background: Tom bought four Ivar chairs for his apartment while we were still in college. We used them at our dining table here in Minneapolis [see left] until one collapsed under him when we had friends over for dinner last fall… we were able to return them as IKEA’s staff determined they were defective… since then we’ve been using two blue Steelcase chairs I got for $10 each at the University of Minnesota Reuse Center). I brought the Fröstas home with the idea of test driving one; I left the other in its packaging to make for an easy return if necessary. My hope was that they’d make for great extra seating when we have guests, but my hesitations proved correct. With four legs, the stool was really wobbly. And, even though I had tightened the screws really well, the individual legs wiggled badly. With a 90-day return policy ahead of me, I decided to hang onto the stools until it made sense to make the drive out to IKEA again.

The stool and its still-packaged partner sat in the corner of our dining space until I read this post at Door Sixteen. Anna at Door Sixteen has a great eye, and this time she featured several Artek designs, the company Alvar Aalto, his wife Aino, and two others founded in 1935 (Artek meaning Art + Technology). Many of IKEA’s designs are inspired by Modernist classics, but I didn’t know of Frösta’s “inspiration” until I read Anna’s post. It’s pretty clear (Left: Frösta, Right: Aalto 60):

Frösta is made of Birch, just as the 1933 Aalto 60 is; it’s the finish on the Swedish-Chinese stool that makes it differ from the Finnish one as well as the height. Frösta is just a bit taller than the Artek stool. And the price… we can’t forget about the price. When she learned about my project, Anna from D16 pointed out that Aalto also designed 4-legged versions of the stool (the E60) and asked if I might be tempted to leave them as-is. The wobbles were driving me nuts, though, and I kept thinking back to math class: 3 points make a plane! With 3 legs instead of 4, I expected to reduce the wobbles significantly. Then the idea of glue arose as a solution to the wiggles. This is where my friend Rod came in…

Once decided, I asked Rod if he wouldn’t mind helping me make the change, and he very graciously said yes, telling me to bring the stools to him straight away the following day. After seeing the images of the Aalto 60, Rod agreed it would be an improvement to lose a leg on each stool and quickly went to work. First he measured and marked each stool’s seat, using one set of original holes to guide him. We didn’t measure out 120° angles, instead Rod estimated it would end up being about one foot between the points. This turned out to be almost dead-on. With a 1/16th of an inch adjustment we had evenly balanced lines. Next he created the holes. To control the depth of the drill, Rod attached a piece of black tape around his bit to avoid going through the stool’s seat (you can see it in the picture below left). Clever, no?

Once the new holes were finished, it was time to attach the legs. Rod added some Gorilla Glue before attaching the screws to make sure they’d really hold.

The verdict: three legs are better than four. This was a major improvement. Thanks to Rod!