Vesna Vuynovich Kovach: Published Work

A fork in the road: 14 ways to start eating sustainably

2010-03-01T09:56:00.001-06:00

A version of this article appeared in Brava magazine, March 2010.
A version that is not targeted to a local audience appears here on my cooking instruction website, how-to-cook-with vesna.com.

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach

The journey of ten thousand miles begins with a single bite.

Many of us think we need to change the way we eat: that we should eat less processed food, less junk food, less food on the run, and maybe just plain less food.

But increasingly, it seems the entire food system could use some serious adjustment.

More and more, we’re taking notice of some troubling facts. Too much our food comes from thousands of miles away, so that it takes lavish amounts of petroleum just to get it to our plates. Too much of it is elaborately packaged, generating lots of trash. Too much of it is produced by agribusiness operating on an enormous scale, even as our own Wisconsin family farms continue to shut down. Too much of it is peppered with pesticides and herbicides, and grown in biologically “dead” soil soaked in chemical fertilizer. And too much of it comes from animals that really could be treated better.

A lot of people – many of them right here in southern Wisconsin – have been working very hard for decades to change this dismally inefficient, environmentally devastating, unhealthful shape of things. Recently, movies like Food, Inc. and author Michael Pollan’s bestselling books, In Defense of Food and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, have brought mainstream attention to these issues. Sustainable eating, a phrase being heard more and more these days, is one popular description of the multi-featured groundswell of grassroots response by concerned eaters and growers to all these issues.

“I like to say ‘ethical eating,’” says Miriam Grunes, executive director of Research, Education, Action and Policy on Food Group (REAP), the Madison-based organization behind efforts like Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch, which brings locally produced food into schools, Buy Fresh Buy Local, which helps forge relationships between restaurateurs and farmers, and the Farm Fresh Atlas, which maps sustainable food producers throughout the state. “‘Ethical’ gets people thinking about all the things we’re talking about a little more quickly, like fair trade. Organic is an important issue, for instance, but it’s not the only issue.”

Here in Madison, with the nation’s largest farmers market, world-class restaurants that make a point of pride of naming the farms that supply their ingredients, and an abundance of organic and artisanal farms, cheese makers, breweries, bakeries and more all around us, we’ve long been at the epicenter of what many see as a revolutionary movement. In September, when Michael Pollan gave a series of talks here that drew crowds of up to 5,000, he described our town as “one of the important fronts in [the] battle to change the American way of eating and growing food.”

Pretty weighty stuff.

In fact, it might seem a bit overwhelming, wondering how to start. You might worry: Is this just one more thing for me to feel guilty about not doing right? Do I have to give up my favorite foods? Can I still shop at the supermarket? Can I ever eat out? Do I have to slave for hours in the kitchen? Do I have to start a garden and get dirty? What if I don’t have time to shop at the farmers’ market – and what would I do with the weird stuff I bought there, anyway? And the expense! Will I go broke trying to live on whole, fresh, natural, locally produced food?

Relax. Breathe. That’s not what this trip is about. If you want to change the way you eat, some of the area’s sustainable food leaders have shared their insights and advice for making some tasty transitions, one forkful at a time.

1.Pay attention. The first step is just to increase your awareness. Let yourself wonder all sorts of things whenever you shop or order out. Where did it come from? How did it get to you? Who handled it? How did it get to look the way it does? Could your great-grandmother have made this out of raw ingredients? Or does it look like a factory and lots of patented technology is required to make it? Where will the packaging and the scraps go after you’re done with your meal? Let your mind become accustomed to drifting along these directions. Any concrete measures you decide upon will connect naturally and easily to your train of thought.
“When you go to a supermarket, don’t just go in a daze,” suggests Barbara Wright, owner of The Dardanelles restaurant and a past president of Madison Originals, an association of independent restaurants. “Don’t throw things into your cart in zombie mode. Look around. You might notice, ‘Oh, those red peppers, that looks good to me.’”

2. Start small, and make delicious discoveries along the way. “Don’t try to change everything overnight,” advises chef Leah Caplan, the chief food officer at Metcalfe’s Market at Hilldale and that store’s local-food liaison. “You can start up with one meal a week using ingredients from this area. If on Wednesday night [you] usually have roasted chicken and mashed potatoes with some spinach, come to the grocery store, buy a local chicken, some local potatoes and spinach. You’ll notice a definite quality difference. Snug Haven grows spinach year-round in hoop houses. This time of year, with the frost, it’s candy sweet. If you taste that side by side with spinach from California or South America this time of year, there’s virtually no flavor to the shipped spinach.”

3. Read labels. Make it a habit not to put anything in your cart until you’ve consciously chosen to accept each ingredient. You can go a long way by choosing just two or three key offenders to avoid, without needing a chemistry degree. Try crossing these two off your shopping list: monosodium glutamate (MSG) – which adds a quality known as umami, or “tastiness,” but also makes you crave more food while deadening your palate – and high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a highly refined substance metabolized differently from traditional sugar that’s drawing fire for possibly contributing directly to today’s obesity epidemic.

4. Shop for ingredients, not meals. If you’re concerned about price, this is the best way to turn the equation around to your favor. For instance, if you take microwave-ready lunches to work, the “all-natural” equivalents will be pricier. But if you prepare meals from scratch – say, a chef’s salad, pasta salad or lasagna – you’ll be able to swap in the finest local ingredients and come out even or ahead.

5. Learn to cook. Treat yourself to sturdy pans and quality knives, a cutting board you find beautiful, whatever will make it easier and more enjoyable to create your own fantastic food. “Take some lessons if you’re jazzed by that idea. Get cookbooks, if that’s what you like. There are so many great angles for getting into this,” says Terese Allen, food editor at Organic Valley Cooperative, who’s written several cookbooks celebrating the pleasures of local food, most recently co-authoring The Flavor of Wisconsin. “Give yourself permission to keep it simple. I like to think in terms of what I call repertoire dishes: an omelet, a pizza, a rice dish, a soup. I can think, ‘OK, this is pasta night,’ and any week of the year I can make a dish using seasonal ingredients. It doesn’t take that much more time to smash some cherry tomatoes in the pan and add some basil leaves, rather than serving something with added ingredients and a shelf life of thousands of years – and sometimes is not all that convenient.”

6. Choose local products. Many Madison grocers identify these. Metcalfe’s has won national awards for its “Food Miles” program locating “anything within Wisconsin or in a 150-mile radius from Madison,” explains Caplan, with signs like highway markets. “For instance, Capital Brewery is 5 miles.” Similarly, Williamson Street Grocery Cooperative names the local farms that grow its produce and labels local items throughout the store. If your supermarket doesn’t highlight local products, talk with the manager or drop a note in the suggestion box.

7. Join a CSA. Purchase a share of a farm’s annual harvest through community-supported agriculture (CSA), and you’ll get a weekly box of fruits and vegetables for nearly half the year. Some programs provide add-ons of local meat, cheese, eggs, honey and fair-trade coffee. “This food is picked within 24 hours,” says Keira Mulvey, director of Madison Area Community Supported Agriculture Coalition (MACSAC), which helps consumers and farmers find one another. “It’s the connection between you and the grower that’s important to us, You get a whole bunch of newsletters with recipes and a little bit of a deeper understanding of what’s going on at your farm, what kind of drama is going on with the animals and the machinery. You can visit and be a part of on-farm events – pesto festos, corn boils. It’s not just a farm visit; it’s a visit to the farm that’s producing food for your family. That’s a fun way to engage with your food.”
If you don’t cook much, “you can split a share” with a friend or neighbor, Mulvey suggests. MACSAC’s cookbook, From Asparagus to Zucchini, will help you figure out what to do with that kohlrabi, or fennel, or whatever unfamiliar treasure might be in season. “The beautiful thing about CSAs is, it pushes you to try things you might not otherwise,” Grunes says.
Incredibly, Physician’s Plus, Dean, Unity and GHC pay you up to $200 in cash when you present your CSA receipt. “That’s a recipe for good health,” Grunes says. Interested in learning more? Visit MACSAC’s CSA Open House March 14 at the Monona Terrace.

8. Shop at farmers’ markets. A cornerstone of the local food movement, this is the place to find food diversity like you’ve never imagined and bright, fresh flavors unmatched by foods bred for long storage life and shipping hardiness. “When my sister had carrots right out of the field, she said, ‘Wow, this is a carrot, but it tastes so much better.’ Even within the simple potato, you can find a wide variety of flavors and textures. You’ll be able to find that typical Russet, but also purple, blue, fingerling, Yukon gold.” says Claire Strader, the farmer at Community GroundWorks, an educational facility on Madison’s Northside that includes a certified organic farm producing food for a vendor stall at the Northside Farmers’ Market, a CSA and several grocery stores. “People might not realize they can find a wide range of food,” Strader says. “Why not go shopping at the farmers’ market first and then swing by the grocery on the way home for everything you didn’t find? You can get meat, honey, eggs, milk, cheese, fish, baked goods there. You’re not going to get Pop Tarts there.”
New to the scene? “Ask to go with a friend who’s familiar with that market, as a sort of tour guide. People have favorite foods and favorite vendors,” Strader says. During the growing season, there’s a market every day of the week somewhere in or near Madison. REAP’s Farm Fresh Atlas, available online and in print, will help you find one that’s convenient to you.

9. Cook with friends. “If you’re working on it together and it’s kind of a social thing, it’s just so much fun,” Allen says. “I have neighbors who are in a vegetarian cooking group, and they make meals for each other. Make it a group thing!”

10. Grow something to eat. “Gardening is my favorite thing to do, but it isn’t for everybody,” Grunes admits. If you want to dip a toe in, “herbs are a great way to start. You can do it in a window box. Just snip off what you need; you won’t have a whole cilantro package going bad in the fridge.” Tomatoes are fairly easy to grow, also, and the payoff is big. “A warm tomato from right out of the yard – it doesn’t get much better than that.” Or any more local.

11. Visit a farm. Make an outing of it. Take the kids; go with friends. Several local farms offer “U-Pick” apples, strawberries, pumpkins and more. “I’ll take a vacation and go to Bayfield and pick blueberries with friends,” says Allen. “I may spend more money to get blueberries that way, but I’m getting so much more out of it. It’s not a dollar-for-dollar item-for-item kind of thing.”

12. Patronize independent restaurants serving local food. Chuck Taylor, president of Madison Originals and owner of The Blue Marlin, says, “You’re supporting your neighbors” when you choose an indie eatery, especially one that makes food from scratch and deals directly with farms. “The money stays local. It’s not going to a prescribed purveyor or to buy sauces made in some group kitchen somewhere. We would like to see that money stay in the community.”
But do we, as a nation eat out too much? Barbara Wright says, “If you’re eating out because you want to spend time together laughing about things, enjoying each other’s company, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, ever. Even if it’s at McDonald’s.” The problem, she says, is in “disordered eating.” She explains, “People ordering something and bolting it down while on their way to the next thing, shoveling food into their stomachs, that’s the problem.”

13. Get informed. Read books like In Defense of Food or Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions. Get on the e- mailing lists of organizations like REAP and Community GroundWorks so you can take advantage of upcoming events where you can learn about and enjoy local foods, and even find volunteer opportunities.

14. Have fun! “This is one of the few habits you can change that can be really, really deliciously enjoyable,” says Allen. “You don’t have to give up anything. There’s so much potential and variety in the world of food. The goal isn’t to get to 100 percent sustainable, or local, or seasonal. It’s to add that in. It’s not all or nothing. That’s not life. That’s not what this movement is about.”

How to start eating sustainably?

2010-02-04T06:55:00.004-06:00

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava Magazine
March 2010

You've heard the reasons why we need to change the way we eat. The average forkful of food travels thousands of miles from field to table, even when the eater is in the heart of farmland. Feedlot animals are crammed some 50,000 deep, devastating the environment with their waste products, while factory-style agricultural has transformed our plant food supply into what is, practically speaking, petroleum products. Meanwhile, eating locally grown foods and humanely treated, pastured animals, preparing meals from fresh, whole foods, eating at locally owned restaurants -- especially those that serve fresh, local foods themselves -- is good for local economies, good for the community, good for your health and your waistline, good for the environment, good for all the plants and animals involved.

So how to get started? Do you have to give up your favorite foods? Do you have to plant a garden and get dirty? Is it going to be more expensive? Where do I get real food, and how hard is it to find? Do I have to learn to cook? Do I have to spend every free minute in the kitchen? Is my new food going to taste weird?

Find out in the March 2010 Brava Magazine.

The hidden face of domestic violence

2010-01-11T07:23:00.007-06:00

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach

In Brava Magazine, February 2010

What kind of woman gets herself into an relationship with an abusive man, and stays even after he becomes violent? What do friends and family typically advise her as the entanglement develops? What does an abused woman look like? How prevalent is domestic abuse, and how bad does it usually get?

I was shocked by what I learned when I explored these and other questions for my article, "The hidden face of domestic violence," for the February issue of Brava Magazine. In the article, I present the stories of tree Madison-area women who tell, in their own words, how they found themselves enmeshed with intimate partners who beat, manipulated and dominated them, even as friends and family -- and even a university dean, in one woman's case -- saw only the charismatic, assertive men who presented a positive front to the outside world.

To learn more about how domestic violence develops and how you can keep it from happening to you -- or your daughter -- visit DAIS (Domestic Abuse Intervention Services, a Dane County, Wis. nonprofit) or the Family Violence Prevention Fund.

Growing Strong

2009-05-01T15:25:00.008-05:00

Claire Strader, farmer-about-town, brings organic agriculture into the heart of the city

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
Around the Table
This unpublished article was scheduled to appear in the May 2009 issue of Brava Magazine, which suspended publication for several months in 2009 when it changed ownership.

Related recipe: Spinach Salad

Urban vegetable gardens are tucked away in backyards everywhere. But an entire certified organic working farm right in town? That’s a lush surprise.

Welcome to Community GroundWorks at Troy Gardens, a 31-acre site on Madison’s Northside. The five-acre farm produces “well over a hundred varieties of fifty different vegetables,” says farm manager Claire Strader. The farm is just one program among many in this unique organization. “There’s no other development in the entire country that combines farming with community gardening, with prairie and woodland nature restoration, with kids’ gardening, and all the educational programming that’s part of each of those areas, with housing,” Claire says.

It was 2001 when Claire rolled up her sleeves, worked with volunteers to clear the land, and planted “some squash, potatoes and tomatoes.” Today the farm generates about $100,000 annually through sales of sprouts and herbs at local groceries, a farm stand that operates Thursdays May through October 4 p.m. – 6 p.m. on the 500 block of Troy Drive, and CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture) shares, whereby members receive a weekly box of bounty throughout the harvest season. All 120 shares for 2009 have been sold out since early spring.

Claire gained national attention earlier this year when a farming couple in Illinois launched a competition for nominees for the position of “White House Farmer,” in the hopes that the administration would respond to urgings from the sustainable agriculture movement to till up at least a bit of the 18 acres of manicured lawn surrounding the presidential manse. Out of more than 56,000 votes cast for 111 candidates, nearly one in five went to Claire. She won handily.

VVK: What does your victory mean to you?

CS: It was very exciting while it was happening. I think it’s not so much about me as about this community. In south central Wisconsin, we’re tuned into, we care about the local agriculture movement. When this idea was put in front of people, they got in touch with their friends around the country, around the world, and said, vote for this person – she grows food here. Will Allen [of Growing Power Inc.], who came in fourth place, he’s from Milwaukee.

VVK: What happens now?

CS: The whitehousefarm.com group is still working on a packet to send the administration. The Obamas have put a garden in, but I haven’t heard anything about a farm or a farmer.

VVK: How did you get into farming?

CS: I started out studying biology and genetics, then switched to philosophy and women’s studies. I wanted to think more carefully about how I exist in the world – building shelter, making clothes, growing food. I thought the best way to learn would be to go work for an organic farmer. I worked for a farm run by man and his wife the summer I graduated from Wellesley. He was great. I loved working for him.

VVK: What brought you to Wisconsin?

CS: I sought out a farm run by women. I wanted to learn everything – to run the Rototiller, to fix things – regardless of my gender. I found Luna Circle, which was then in Gays Mills, and was there four years. We built a straw bale house, dug a well, lived off the grid. Later I went to UC-Santa Cruz for an apprenticeship in ecological horticulture and learned new things, beekeeping, orcharding. I decided that I wanted to work for a nonprofit, to do farming and education. I sent applications all over the country, and wound up becoming Troy Garden’s first employee.

VVK: It seems unusual, traditionally, for a woman to be a farmer.

CS: One of the things we learn in women’s studies is that agriculture across the world, historically, has been the domain of women when it’s on a small scale. For their own use, or for small-scale selling. I feel like women are a natural fit in this world of small-scale agricultural production, with organics and sustainable agriculture. Men not excluded – there are plenty of men here and across the world involved in it.

VVK: I noticed that women were the top three vote-getters – 40% of all votes cast – in the competition for White House Farmer nominees.

CS: For me, that does fit in. Also, none of us are traditional family farmers who own a farm. We’re all associated with education and broader mission statements. For me that makes sense as well.

VVK: How is the farm, and your job as a farmer, influenced by being part of Community GroundWorks at Troy Gardens?

CS: I’m not just the farmer, I’m also project coordinator. In the winter my job changes and becomes more internal to our organization -- writing grants, raising money. It’s hard for family farmers to devote a lot of time to education. Fewer farmers are offering internship programs; more are just hiring employees. Because of the nonprofit, we have the opportunity to do that. I really like training future farmers.

VVK: How is the current economic climate affecting the organization?

CS: Our programs are very strong, like the Kids’ Garden, things people see. It’s much harder for us to raise money for the salaries, the administration. This is true generally for nonprofits, but these days that piece of our organization is being much harder hit.

VVK: What’s the most challenging part of your job?

CS: Worrying constantly about the financial stability of the organization as a whole. We rely on individual contributions. It’s a lot lot of work to get the word out and solicit contributions, especially right now, for obvious reasons. I work really hard, and it’s tough to worry about financial things on top of all that.

VVK: Do you live nearby?

CS: I’m about a mile from the farm. I have a garden at home.

VVK: What! You farm all day, and then you garden when you get home?

CS: My partner, Sarah, pushed for it. We really like having food outside our back door. We have about 12 fruit trees and 40 asparagus plants. I’m experimenting with strawberries and raspberries. We’re ripping out the front yard for more dry beans. We’re committed to not buying any vegetables. Sarah is a woodworker and our next project is to build a solar food dehydrator for leeks, tomatoes, broccoli, all kinds of things.

VVK: What’s your favorite crop to grow?

CS: Carrots. They’re delicious, they store well, you can get lots of different colors, you can eat them raw or cooked. And they’re not easy to grow. They’re difficult to germinate, and it’s not easy to give them what they need to get that shape. I like that I keep learning.

VVK: How about the toughest crop?

CS: Corn is really hard for me. I have a lot of luck with popcorn, but sweet corn...! There are insect pests that are very difficult to deal with. I keep trying.

VVK: What projects are you working on now at the farm?

CS: We’re raising money for a passive solar greenhouse. We’re partnering with the UW for their first hands-on organic agriculture class ever at our land-grant university; students will work at the farm. We have lots of applications for our intern positions, including people who want to come back for another year, people from Michigan and Illinois, and even an applicant from France.

It’s a small farm in the scope of things. I’m honored and proud that there are so many people who hear about it and want to be involved.

Each month in her column “Around the Table,” freelance writer Vesna Vuynovich Kovach profiles women who are influential in Wisconsin foodways: cooks and bakers, farmers, teachers, authors, activists and more.

Spinach Salad

2009-05-01T13:00:00.002-05:00

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
Around the Table
This unpublished article was scheduled to appear in the May 2009 issue of Brava Magazine, which suspended publication for several months in 2009 when it changed ownership.

Related article: Growing Strong: Claire Strader, farmer-about-town, brings organic agriculture into the heart of the city

Field-fresh spinach is intense with spring flavor and abundant right now at a farmers’ market near you. If you’re only familiar with the frozen and canned stuff, or even with the bags of wan, imported leaves found on the produce aisle, you must experience this local treasure.

“Do not discard the stems!” Claire says. “Taste them. They are the sweetest part of the plant. Be sure to include them.”

Spinach Salad

6 to 8 ounces local spinach
1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, sliced into thin half-moons
2 to 4 ounces feta cheese
many kalamata olives, pitted

Wash spinach. Rip into bite-sized pieces.

Saute onions in the olive oil until translucent. Pour the onions and the small pool of hot olive oil over the fresh spinach. Top with crumbled feta cheese and kalamata olives. Toss lightly so the spinach wilts just slightly. Serves one for a meal or more as a side dish.

Sweet Love

2009-04-01T08:08:00.006-05:00

Based in the strength and wisdom of kith and kin, up-and-coming pastry chef Sally Jarrett whips up witty treats and comfort sweets at Restaurant Magnus

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
Around the Table
in Brava Magazine
April 2009

Related recipe: Sally's Mom's New York Cheesecake

“You can put a steak in a 500 degree oven and it will be done twice as fast, but a cake will not bake faster,” says Sally Jarrett, pastry chef at downtown’s esteemed Restaurant Magnus.

That’s the simple answer to something that’s always perplexed me: why is it that, on cooking competitions like TV’s Top Chef, contestants get most flustered about dessert?

But Sally likes a challenge. As a culinary arts student at MATC, she found herself responsible for the dessert in a team cooking competition at the annual Wisconsin Restaurant Expo. “We won first place. [It] made me realize that desserts were going to be a significant part of my life from then on.”

Now, at just 22, Sally is responsible for making the dizzying array of sophisticated sweet treats always available at Magnus, including an extensive dessert menu that evolves with the seasons, plus a steady, sparkling cascade of specials.

VVK: What are some of your favorite creations?

SJ: Empanadas are a savory dish; I twisted it around and made caramel-apple empanadas with candied pecans and a spicy cider syrup. Chef Leo [Leonardo Guevara] helped me out a lot with finding a puff-pastry dough that would work with the way I envisioned it the dish. Some were too dry and hard to roll out, or hard to shape around the apples. It was challenging, but worth it.

There are so many things you can do with simple ideas, too. Like a cheesecake. Right now we have lemon blueberry, peanut butter with chocolate crust and pineapple rum. All different variations on my mother’s recipe.

VVK: Is she sort of your unofficial off-site collaborator?

SJ: We call each other all the time and share recipes. We’re always trying new things and bouncing ideas off each other. We’re best friends, especially now that I work at Magnus. She helps me with so many little details, I don’t even know.

The first time somebody ordered a personal wedding cake, I’d never made and iced a layer cake before! Mom talked me through it. I had the phone on my shoulder, and she told me how to run the spatula in hot water to make the icing smooth, how to to put the layers together with dowels.

VVK: Did she influence your career choice?

SJ: She was a stay-at-home mom, always cooking and baking, making jams and jellies. She got the kids involved – peeling vegetables, helping with cookies. Mom always had a huge garden. I remember peeling a lot of apples at the end of every summer. Later she got a job at a bakery and I waitressed there and did a little bit of prep cooking. My mother taught me to work really hard, be responsible, take action, but I didn’t think food would be my career.

I went to the UW-Madison for a year, then transferred to MATC, where I found the culinary arts program. It was so different from anything at the UW, and I’ve always been a hands-on learner. I discovered that I had a huge passion for food that I didn’t know about.

VVK: Who else has influenced you?

SJ: My boyfriend, Darren, whom I met in the culinary program and work with at Magnus. We bounce ideas off each other, and he’s a huge help in keeping me grounded. I think that having my significant other at work -- such a stressful environment -- makes it much easier to relate to each other. We know what each other goes through. I think that makes it easier to be more sympathetic and understanding towards challenges that we face.

VVK: What lessons have you learned in your work?

SJ: Simple is better. This Valentine’s weekend, when we were really, really busy, I made a cute little arty dessert, very intricate and complicated. It looked like sushi. I made a chocolate dough and rolled it out. I filled it with jasmine rice pudding and tropical fruit dyed purple with hibiscus. I served it with kiwi sauce, like the green wasabi that’s served with sushi. It didn’t sell. The other special that weekend was a warm chocolate cake with peanut butter ice cream. We sold a lot of that!

VVK: What’s your favorite thing about your job?

SJ: Chef Leo has given me so much freedom to experiment. He’ll order any product I need for the specials I want to do. And he’ll let me fail. My first night, I made a batch of sponge cakes. I didn’t know you have to take them right out of the pan, or they keep cooking. They shrank to half their size! He just said, “You see, you should ask more questions. Well, can you do it again?” I said, “Yes, Chef!” and made another batch that night.

Each month in her column “Around the Table,” freelance writer Vesna Vuynovich Kovach profiles women who are influential in Wisconsin foodways: cooks and bakers, farmers, teachers, authors, activists and more.

Sally’s Mom’s New York Cheesecake

2009-04-01T06:32:00.000-05:00

Around the Table
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
in Brava Magazine
April 2009

Related article: Sweet Love: Based in the strength and wisdom of kith and kin, up-and-coming pastry chef Sally Jarrett whips up witty treats and comfort sweets at Restaurant Magnus

Sally’s mom, Sarah Jarrett tweaked this recipe for years, not knowing it would someday end up on the tables at one of Madison’s finest dining spots. “It’s something everyone can do at their own home, and a good base for flavorings,” says Sally. She recommends the sweet potato variation --“It was a good seller” -- for “a wonderful, earthy flavor.”

Sally’s Mom’s New York Cheesecake

Crust
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup sugar
pinch salt
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Butter bottom and sides of a springform pan. Line bottom with parchment paper. Mix together dry ingredients. Add melted butter and mix until incorporated. Press into bottom of pan.

2 pounds cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 eggs, plus 1 yolk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup sour cream
1/4 tsp salt

Mix cream cheese smooth with stand or handheld mixer. Stir together cornstarch and sugar. Pour into cream cheese mixture. Mix until well incorporated. Add eggs one at a time, mixing each in well. Add vanilla, salt and sour cream. Mix just until incorporated. Pour over crust. Bake on a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil. Bake at 350 F until a toothpick comes out clean, about 1 hour. To prevent cracking on top, try not to overbeat or overbake, and loosen the edges as soon as you remove it from the oven. “Definitely don't eat it until it's been refrigerated for at least six hours, preferably overnight,” says Sally.

Variations:
Lemon: Add zest and juice from three whole lemons along with sugar and cornstarch.
Sweet Potato: Reduce cream cheese to 1 1/2 pounds. Substitute half the white sugar for brown sugar. Add 3 cups cooked, pureed sweet potato.

Ale Asylum’s Hathaway Dilba

2009-03-01T20:44:00.003-06:00

This microbrewery partner gets the beer out the door

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
in Brava Magazine
March 2009

Related recipe: South of the Porter Chocolate Cake

In the spring of 2006, a sign reading “Ale Asylum” sprouted in the front yard of one of the low-slung buildings scattered amidst the airfields and shipping depots along the broad corridor of Stoughton Road leading north of town towards the interstate. A brand-new microbrewery and table-service deli was open for business.

The four friends planting their life savings in the endeavor knew they were entering a field as crowded as their surroundings were sparse – craft brewing businesses are legion in this part of the Midwest. Now, scarcely three years later, Ale Asylum has become a formidable presence on the local microbrew scene: omnipresent at summer festivals, available in bottles at close to 125 stores and on tap at more than 80 bars and restaurants, all the while serving up booming business at the cozy tap room and eatery onsite.

Hathaway Dilba, originally a fashion designer (her line of custom coats, Volante, was featured in this magazine’s premiere issue in 2002) and later a fitness instructor, is one of the Ale Asylum’s four partners, along with brewmaster Dean Coffey, Glenn Schultz and Hathaway’s husband, Otto, a graphic artist.

“I had total faith in our product. I had faith in every part of my body,” says Hathaway (friends call her Hath), “but still it surprised me how fast we took off.”

VVK: What’s the secret to your success?

HD: A lot of it is Dean. He won many awards at Angelic, and he had a following. Glenn plays a significant role. He’s part of our sales force, he’s our face at festivals, he’s brought in other investors and he’s an amazing handyman.

Our name is a huge factor. People say, “Did you just say … ‘asylum’?” And alphabetically, our beers will appear at the top of lists at bars.

VVK: All your names and branding elements are powerful and catchy – Big Slick Stout, Ambergeddon – with strong logos. Who does that?

HD: Otto is is my hero because he can run the business operations and come up with our branding and creative work as well. He was assistant brand manager at Planet Propaganda. One could say that he has the perfect combo of right and left brain.

Everything we do, names and labels, have to get approved by the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. We had trouble with our slogan, “Fermented in sanity.” We had to point out that it said, “sanity,” not “insanity.” We wanted to name a porter “Disporterly Conduct,”and use handcuffs in the logo. They said no. But our Ambergeddon logo has guns, and that got passed. A lot of our artwork is controversial.

VVK: What do you do?

HD: Event planning, marketing, cooking and working for events. I love working on the bottling line. The camaraderie of it. It’s kind of like diapering your baby; you want to do it yourself. And you have to move pretty fast! I like putting the bottles in the boxes and seeing them put on the truck. It’s the end result of so many people’s work. I don’t ever want to take it for granted.

I’m not involved in the chemistry, which is very complicated. The bottling line is the way I can be involved. I love it. Being the only woman back there, it’s fun. I’ll cook at home and bring in lunch for the crew, or muffins. They call me “Mama Bear.”

VVK: How come no full-service restaurant?

HD: All the years my husband worked in the restaurant industry, he learned what a pain in the butt a hot kitchen is. He said, “You know what? Let’s just have a pizza oven and a deli.” Saves a lot of money in insurance, too. We figured keeping our restaurant simple was a really smart move, so we could focus on getting the beer out the door.

VVK: Have you won any awards?

HD: We’ve won a variety of best-of-show awards at area beer festivals. We won a bronze for Madison Magazine’s Best of Madison brewpub in 2007 and 2008, even though we’re technically not a brewpub. We’re a microbrewery.

VVK: What’s the difference?

HD: Even though Ale Asylum has a bar/deli as part of our business structure, the majority of our sales occur offsite, from beer distributed to area bars and liquor stores in the form of kegs and cases.

VVK: How much beer do you guys make?

HD: About 375 barrels a month. We go through about 40 of those in the tap room. One barrel equals 2 kegs [125 pint glasses each] of beer. We produce around 65,000 bottles per month. We have about 10 people on staff.

VVK: What’s your most popular beer?

HD: Hopalicious, an American pale ale. It’s bold in hop flavor without being bitter, which makes it a great beer for experienced drinkers and novices alike. Across the Midwest there’s been a dramatic increase in demand for hoppy beers.

VVK: What’s your personal favorite?

HD: I love our Sticky McDoogle Scotch Ale. It’s just fun. It’s got a little kick to it. it’s smooth, and for me it’s got a little curtain of caramel in it. Very popular with women. We supplied the beer for the Arthritis Foundation, a nonprofit gig. There were mostly women there, and the Scotch ale went so fast I had to order more from the brewery.

I love the Hatha-Weizen. I love the citrus note – it’s not in your face; it’s not too tart. It goes with everything. My favorite thing is to drink it on the beer patio the first warm night.

VVK: That’s named after you – a play on “hefeweizen,” or wheat beer, right?

HD: I feel very honored because my husband named a beer after me. I’m both touched and excited because that is my all time favorite beer that Dean makes. I'd be lying if I didn't say that it’s my favorite name.

VVK: Do you ever miss the fashion business?

HD: Fashion always played a special part of my life, and I have deep respect for the industry. I still follow it. But I don’t miss working in the business. It wasn’t the correct template for me. I’m glad I did it, though, because I never would’ve known.

VVK: Tell me about your involvements outside the Ale Asylum.

HD: I do philanthropy on the side, which I really enjoy. I’m involved in a group called Womenade of Madison that holds events supporting different organizations that are not so well known. At the Children’s Theater of Madison, I chair the education committee and am the board secretary. I was just invited to join the executive committee of A Fund for Women, and my first gut reaction was, oh my gosh, what a fantastic honor.

I go crazy unless I have projects and a lot of stuff to do. I start to have an identity crisis.

VVK: Have you always been a craft beer fan?

HD: I’m a novice, kind of a beginner beer geek. I’m not on the brewers’ guild like Dean and Glenn. When people are discussing beer while they’re drinking it, I like hearing it. My favorite thing is sitting in our bar and watching someone sip our beer and watching a smile come over their face. I like that moment.

I love listening to Dean talk about beers. When he has a beer out, it’s such a special moment. He’s so passionate about what he does – I get excited when he’s excited. If he’s talking to a beer-geek friend, he’ll talk in complexities. To me, he’ll tone it down. He’s really good that way.

VVK: What’s the atmosphere at your place?

HD: A biker once told us, “I love the décor – it’s like a martini bar, but with balls!” I call it industrial chic. It’s a diverse customer base. One night I saw a motorcycle dude sitting next to a business dude next to somebody who could have been a punk rocker, with tattoos up and down their arm. Older married couples will pop in for a night cap. We have a lot of Air Force guys coming in off duty. They love flying over the place – their landing strip is very close to us. They’ll do wing tips and stuff like that for us when they fly over.

We don’t have TVs. We’re very proud of that. We get killed on Packer Sundays and Badger Saturdays. But we don’t want people just staring at a TV. We want there to be discussion, conversations, like the bars of yesterday.

VVK: Might you expand into more locations?

HD: Right now, no. It would really take away from our focus.

VVK: So what’s next for Ale Asylum?

HD: We’re thinking about putting up our own grain silo this summer. That will look cool to the pilots when they fly overhead!

Each month in her column “Around the Table,” freelance writer Vesna Vuynovich Kovach profiles women who are influential in Wisconsin foodways: cooks and bakers, farmers, teachers, authors, activists and more.

South of the Porter Chocolate Cake

2009-03-01T20:39:00.001-06:00

Around the Table
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
in Brava Magazine
March 2009

Related article: Ale Asylum’s Hathaway Dilba: This microbrewery partner gets the beer out the door

“What I like best about this cake is the actual process of making it. It’s easy and relaxing,“ Hath says. “Porter adds a velvety richness that pairs well with the chocolate and spices.”

2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup Contorter Porter, heated just to a slow boil
1/3 cup powdered sugar

Grease and flour a 13" x 9" x 2" baking pan. Heat porter over medium high heat, removing from heat as soon as it comes to a slow boil. “The trick is to do it slowly and to keep an eye on it. Otherwise you'll have big mess on your hands when it boils over,” warns Hath.

Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and ground cayenne in a large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. Beat at medium speed for two minutes. Stir in porter. Batter may be thin. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 35–40 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely by placing pan on a wire rack. Once cooled, shake powdered sugar over top.

The Education of Anne

2009-02-01T20:19:00.004-06:00

How a school principal from Sheboygan learned to cook Sicilian – and run a restaurant

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava Magazine
February 2009
Column: Around the Table

Related recipe: Rigatoni Mare Monti

“We are not just following a recipe. We are articulating a family heritage,” says Anne Nause, who does nearly all the from-scratch Sicilian cooking at her restaurant, Sole Sapori, on Mount Horeb’s Main Street, where “the core recipes come from family traditions.” She explains, “Food traditions [within] any culture are similar,” but “they take on the flavor personality of the people who create them. That’s what sets us apart.”

Anne cares so strongly about continuing the culinary legacy of this family that she left her lifelong career in education – with a Master’s in education, she had long been a school principal and was working at a central office level, pursuing certification as a director of curriculum when she bought the restaurant in 2003 – to devote her professional life to this cause.

But what makes this all the more unusual is that, in the case of this particular German-Norwegian native of Sheboygan, the family in question is not her own.

VVK: How did you first get involved with the restaurant?

AN: My youngest daughter, Maddy, was waitressing for the Vitales [Sam and Celina Vitale, who founded Sole e Sapori, its previous name, in the 1980s]. She was a gymnast and needed a sub for her shift. She couldn’t find anyone to work for her, so she asked me if I could do it. Since I had never waitressed I was a bit apprehensive. I went with her one night and she showed me around before my big debut. All went well and I was surprised to have people actually give me cash! What a riot – all you have to do is give them food and you get cash. I was hooked. I subbed for her all through her gymnastics season and even picked up my own shift when another waitress quit.

VVK: To go from pinch-hitting and part-timing to switching careers – that’s quite a leap. How did it happen?

AN: I decided to become a restaurateur because I could see the potential in the restaurant and did not want it to close. It was that simple. Albeit capricious.

Celina frequently asked me if I would like to buy the restaurant, but I was passionate about staying in education. It wasn’t until many months later, after Celina and I became quite close, that I heard her speaking to her family in Sicily. Although I didn’t speak a lick of Italian, I knew she was planning to move back. I asked her [about it]. “Ya, ya,” she said, “I go.” I said, “What about the restaurant?” She replied, “I close.”

When you live in a small town it’s heartbreaking to see things close. [Back home] there had been a restaurant we used to frequent. When it changed hands the new owners changed the restaurant and it subsequently closed. I just didn’t want to see that happen in Mount Horeb.

VVK: What was your training like?

AN: I asked Celina how long it would take me to learn everything. She said, “Two weeks. First week I cook, you watch. Second week you cook, I watch” Brushing her hands, she declared, “Done.” Sam and Celina are brilliant. They set up the recipes in a way that made it possible for one person to cook for the entire restaurant without skipping a beat. I would attribute the distinctive flavors of the core Sole recipes to a set of consistent ingredients. To say much more would be letting out the big secret of what is behind the sauces.

In my first week, I watched and took notes. It was literally hands on. That’s the measurement system we used: hands, spoons, “glugs,” some, a little. I was just relieved to find out [Celina and I] had the same size hands!

VVK: How is the Vitale way different from the cooking you knew before? How has your relationship with food transformed?

AN: In my life growing up, I was introduced to lavish-ingredient, multi-course cooking that would take a whole day to prepare. My mom and grandmother were incredible cooks and dinner was a major event while I was growing up. I used to think great food had to take forever to make, and if it didn’t come from James Beard or Julia Child it just wouldn’t be good enough.

I’ve always loved to cook, to eat and to interact with food in general. The Vitales introduced me to a whole new way of thinking. Now, I have a hard time following a recipe without translating it into something new. I can look at an ingredient, picture, or recipe and integrate it into something uniquely my own. Cooking is freeing and expressive.

VVK: Have you added your own touches to the menu?

AN: Some modifications and additions. Some were experiments that were so delicious we had to keep them on the menu. So far we have been very fortunate – our regulars are thrilled with the maintenance of the original recipes and excited about the addition of the new.

We make our own garlic crisp crackers for our homemade dips, all inventions of mine. A weekend special I make which people are clamoring to have added to the menu is a chicken sun-dried tomato and roasted garlic lasagna with béchamel sauce. Also just put together a clam and mussel dish – we call it Crostaceo alla Pomodoro – that’s fresh mussels and clams with chopped tomatoes in a spicy garlic wine sauce. It’s beautiful, with the clams and mussels in their shells. Today I’m experimenting with a panettone layer cake with almond paste and a light cherry flavoring in the cream layer. I just like to play around with food.

VVK: You’ve done a lot with the interior, too.

AN: I definitely wanted the rooms to stay rustic – no straight walls, lots of texture, rich colors for the front room. The back room is more of an indoor “garden room” – lots of windows, lots of plants. The second remodel added space that was formerly vacant, unheated, storage area. We made a small, private dining room with leather-like finish on the walls – dark and intimate, deep merlot with a dark brown frottage finish, with large, dark, wooden tables. We added a lounge with a fireplace and small bar. For the larger banquet room I wanted an Old New York speakeasy feel, cream, espresso, black and white.

VVK: How do you like being a business person?

AN: I think my enthusiasm and love of the place really does translate to the overall experience. How other people feel about the place – as long as I’m not losing money – is far more important to me than making piles of money and feeling like I’m taking a short cut. Five years ago Sole was predominantly a pizza and spaghetti carry-out business. Now most of our business is dine-in. It’s a place where couples go, where friends like to meet. I’ve even had a few proposals and one small wedding.

When the business was small, it was a piece of cake. It’s time to find someone who can take on some of the load. As it is, there is not a single moment in my awake time – unless you count showering – that I’m not working. Accounting, bills, remodeling, cook planning, party planning, ordering inventory, putting inventory away. I do 100% of the prep work: bread, meat sauce, marinara, tiramisu, specialty desserts, appetizers, pizza dough, and pizza sauce. Currently, I also do all the cooking. Name it, I do it. I’m looking for help, so if you know of anyone, call me.

VVK: What are the biggest difference between your old career and your new one? What do you miss?

AN: I was passionate about education, versus being excited about the restaurant. I miss the feeling that what I’m doing on a daily basis is needed and important to the world. I am glad to leave behind the feeling that I can never do enough to change the world for some children.

As a principal, you’re middle management and it can be frustrating. At the restaurant, it is mine. My ideas, my work, my success or failure. I like being able to have an idea and see it to fruition, or modify it as I see fit.

VVK What do you love most about what you do?

AN: When people go out of their way to tell us how delicious the food is. How surprised they are when they walk down the long hall and are transported to another place, another time and it’s both beautiful and delicious. I love to know that people really appreciate the handcrafted goodness that makes Sole unique.

Each month in her column “Around the Table,” freelance writer Vesna Vuynovich Kovach profiles women who are influential in Wisconsin foodways: cooks and bakers, farmers, teachers, authors, activists and more.

Rigatoni Mare Monti

2009-02-01T20:10:00.003-06:00

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
Around the Table
in Brava Magazine
February 2009

Related article: The Education of Anne: How a school principal from Sheboygan learned to cook Sicilian – and run a restaurant

Here’s a single restaurant serving of one of the most popular dishes at Sole Sapori. “Shrimp, mushrooms, garlic and fresh tomatoes sauteed in olive oil and served with rigatoni on a bed of fresh spinach.” The shrimp is a quintessentially Sicilian ingredient, and the marinara is a Vitale hallmark. “This is a pure Vitale,” she says. But you’ll have to sub in your own favorite red sauce – Sole Sapori’s marinara is a family secret!

Rigatoni Mare Monti

Mare Monti Sauce:
1–2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon capers
1 clove garlic, crushed and chopped
2 mushrooms, sliced
1 fresh Roma tomato, sliced
pinch fresh oregano
3/4 cup marinara or pasta sauce
5 large, raw shrimp

For the plate:
several fresh spinach leaves
rigatoni pasta, freshly cooked
Pecorino Romano (grating cheese)
lemon pepper

Heat a small sauté pan over medium-low heat. Add oil, capers and garlic. Sauté for a minute or two to meld the flavors. Increase heat to medium and add mushrooms, tomato and oregano. Cover and cook about 5–8 minutes, or until tomatoes and mushrooms are soft enough to chop with a flat-edge wooden spatula. Add marinara and stir.

Meanwhile, line your plate with a bed of fresh baby spinach. Place a serving of pasta atop spinach.

Just before you’re ready to serve, add shrimp and cook through until shrimp are pink and done, taking care not to overcook them. Top the pasta with the sauce. Finish with some freshly grated Pecorino Romano and a dusting of lemon pepper. Enjoy!

Jam on -- and on

2009-01-01T19:32:00.004-06:00

It’s always summertime inside Lee Davenport’s little glass jars

Around the Table
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava Magazine
January 2009

Related recipe: Tabula Rasa Panna Cotta

“You can put it on a shelf and open it in winter and it will transport you back to summer with one bite.”

That’s why Lee Davenport makes jam. And jelly. And preserves, conserves, fruit sauces and all those other ways of compressing summer sweetness into a glittering jar of spoonable delight.

“You can take some really delicious fruit and make it taste even better,” says the 36-year-old proprietor of Pamplemousse Preserves, of her passion for preserving. “I personally can’t think of many things in life as rewarding as turning a pile of raw ingredients into a row of jewel-toned preserves. But maybe that’s just me.”

There’s also the appeal of “keeping a dying art alive,” says Lee, who is a New York State native with a B.A. in psychology from SUNY-Plattsburgh. “I like a lot of vintage and old-fashioned things. I like making things by hand.”

Around the Table caught up with Lee Davenport once before, in early 2005, when she was running a food cart downtown that featured a creative, from-scratch menu. “It was tons of work and I didn’t really have much of a life the summers that I did it,” Lee says of her decision to move on to Pamplemousse. “Most people who run food carts either have restaurants or it’s a family affair.” Earlier culinary credits include baking at L’Etoile and Sunroom Cafe.

Today Lee jams with local and/or organic ingredients -- she even grows her own black currants, rhubarb and tomatoes -- using recipes that call for little or no commercial pectin and far less sugar than ordinary preserves. She sells at farmers’ markets, through her new Web site (pamplemoussepreserves.com), and at the gourmet shelves of L’Etoile’s Cafe Soleil, Fork and Spoon, Fromagination and Washington Hotel Coffee Room. Her treats are on the menu at Bradbury’s downtown.

This winter she and two fellow market vendors launched a new venture, CSP&B (Community-Supported Preserves and Bakery, accessible through Lee’s website). It’s modeled after community-supported agriculture (CSA), whereby market farms sell shares of their produce, then supply boxes of veg throughout the growing season.

“This is like a value-added CSA,” Lee explains. “Our tag line is ‘keeping your pantry stocked with hand-crafted staples throughout the seasons.’” Twice a month CSP&B shareholders receive a unique assortment of bread, butter cake and pastry from Mary White’s Honey Bee Bakery; kraut, kimchee or other fermented vegetables from Andy Hanson’s Kindly Kraut; and Lee’s preserves. “Opening a CSP&B box is like Christmas because of that element of surprise. You don’t quite know what’s going to be in the box, but you’re pretty sure you’re going to love it,” says Lee.

VVK: How did the idea for CSP&B come about?

LD: The summer I was a cook at Harmony Valley Farm, I read an article about a woman in Minnesota who had taken the CSA concept to the next level by making salad dressings and other prepared foods from things she grew. That summer I went a little crazy preserving the harvest and I thought a CSA for preserves might be a way to make some money doing something that I loved. I asked Andy and Mary to join me because we all needed a way to keep making money through winter when the outdoor markets stop. We all source as many local ingredients as we can, and we can help people eat local year-round.

VVK: How has customer response been?

LD: People have been wowed by the boxes so far. If things go well, we plan to add other Wisconsin products such as yogurt, honey and kombucha.

VVK: What makes Andy’s krauts and pickles special?

LD: A lot of people say they don’t like kraut, but they haven’t had kraut like Andy’s, which is a natural, wild ferment. It is a live food, and so good for you. It’s fresh and crunchy. I actually eat ferments as a stand-in for salads in the winter.

VVK: How about Mary’s Honey Bee Bakery?

LD: The baked goods are made the same day they’re delivered. I think Mary is one of the most talented bakers in Madison. She uses freshly ground flour from Cress Springs, organic ingredients and whole grains. Her breads are always tasty but I love her tartlets the best.

VVK: Where do you make the products that go into the box?

LD: Andy and I still share a [commercial] kitchen and Mary is currently working out of Sophia’s Bakery. We’re all licensed.

VVK: What have some of the box combos been so far?

LD: Mary has done a whole wheat bread, cornmeal bread and wild rice bread. Chocolate hazelnut tartlets and apricot bars. Plum cake and apple cranberry cake. Andy had several kinds of kraut and a radish kimchee. I’ve sent tomato jam, black currant preserves, blackberry preserves, raspberry preserves and Summer Fruit Medley. I recently made some pumpkin apple butter and I have lots of cranberries to work with. [When I] run out of local fruit I’ll probably make marmalades and Coffee Caramel using Just Coffee.

VVK: Who’s buying, so far?

LD: We each have a little bit of a fan base so most of the early adapters are already familiar with our products and want to keep getting them in the winter months. Before the CSP&B there was really no way to get all these treats year-round.

VVK: You tell a wonderful story on your blog (welcometomypantry.blogspot.com) about a milestone incident that got you preserving fruit.

LD: I used to live right downtown on Wilson St. I went out for a jog and found [a fallen] limb full of plums. I took them to Mifflin Coop to have them weighed. I don’t even remember what I made from them, but most likely plum butter. I still have other apple and plum trees that I glean from around town. I have always been a frugal person and I hate waste. This sometimes gets me into trouble because I can’t say no to free fruit and sometimes end up wasting it because I don’t have time to deal with it all. If I didn’t have to work for a living I would start a gleaning organization to work with farmers to get more unwanted produce to food banks.

VVK: How much jam do you make?

LD: During the busy summer months, I make several hundred jars a week. I spent a lot of time this summer acquiring fruit.

VVK: What kinds do you make, and which are most popular?

LD: Every season I add more of my own creations like the Elderflower Wine Jelly, and Coffee Caramel. I just like to play around with flavors. [Most popular is w]hatever I happen to be passing out samples of. To try them is to buy them! The tomato jam was the big hit of this summer. I don’t think I had a single person who didn’t like it.

VVK: What are your favorites?

LD: Pear Chocolate, and Apricots with Pinot Grigio. I had never really liked apricots before I made this. I think that unless you get a perfectly ripe apricot right off the tree, they are improved by cooking. This tastes how you would imagine the best apricots should taste.

VVK: What advice would you give someone who wants to give home canning a try, but who might be afraid that it’s too dangerous or complicated?

LD: By the Ball Blue Book and get cracking. If you know how to read a recipe, you can learn how to can. I don’t know where this fear comes from. There are so many more things we do on a daily basis that are so much more risky!

Each month in her column “Around the Table,” freelance writer Vesna Vuynovich Kovach profiles women who are influential in Wisconsin foodways: cooks and bakers, farmers, teachers, authors, activists and more.

Tabula Rasa Panna Cotta with Pamplemousse Preserves

2009-01-01T17:35:00.000-06:00

Related article:
Jam on -- and on: It's always summertime in Lee Davenport's little glass jars
In Brava Magazine
January 2009

Here’s a panna cotta recipe Lee likes to hand out at the farmer’s market because, she says, “it’s simple and elegant and it’s a great blank slate to serve with my preserves.” At the market “I had it paired with rhubarb passionfruit preserves. It would also be great with any of the berry preserves -- Summer Fruit Medley, Trio of Berries, raspberry.”

Lee’s version of the classic Italian treat (literally “cooked cream”) is “a little lighter and tangier” with the addition of yogurt.

Tabula Rasa Panna Cotta with Pamplemousse Preserves

2 tablespoons water
1 1/4 teaspoon unflavored gelatin
2 cups whipping (or heavy) cream
1 1/4 cups yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup sugar

Sprinkle gelatin over water in a small bowl and let stand for 10 minutes or until softened. In a small saucepan, combine sugar with one cup of the cream and bring to a simmer while stirring. Remove from heat. Add softened gelatin. Stir until dissolved.

In a separate container (preferably one with a pouring spout, like a one-quart Pyrex measuring cup), whisk smooth the yogurt, vanilla and the remaining cream. Pour in the hot mixture and whisk smooth. Divide among six ramekins, tea cups, or small bowls, pouring 1/2 cup into each. Refrigerate uncovered until cold, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Serve panna cotta right in the ramekins or invert onto plates. To invert, set ramekins into a pan of hot tap water for 30 seconds, making sure water doesn’t get into them. Run a knife around the inside edges and turn onto dessert plates. Remove the ramekins. Top with preserves.

It's Greek to Her: Beth Fatsis of Atlantis Taverna

2008-12-01T20:51:00.003-06:00

Married into a Greek family, apparel designer Beth Fatsis now runs Atlantis Taverna

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava Magazine
December 2008
Column: Around the Table

Related recipe: Kleftiko, Clay-Roasted Lamb

Beth Fatsis, co-owner of Atlantis Taverna in Sun Prairie and Plaka Taverna in downtown Madison, and former operator of the the Athenian Garden food cart on the UW-Madison Library Mall, never expected her life to turn out so Greek.

“My first Greek food was trying spanakopita – spinach pie – and baklava during the 70s at a small health food store in my hometown [Chatham, in upstate New York]. I had never seen filo dough before and was intrigued at how thin it was and how expertly it was layered,” she remembers.

In 1983, with her brand-new degree in apparel design, Beth headed for Dallas to break into the thriving clothing industry there. She made patterns for various dress manufacturers, created custom wedding gowns and dance costumes, and started a wholesale and retail maternity clothing business.

Then, in the mid-1990s, she met Telly Fatsis. He had come to Dallas straight out of college too, around the same time as Beth, to work in the restaurant business. But now, after a divorce, he was headed home to his native Madison, where he was soon to open Cleveland’s Diner downtown. After two years of long-distance dating (“I was in a building lease for the business and wasn't going to break the lease,” says Beth), she moved up here, they married, and the rest is Greek food history.

Today, Beth, 47, could vie for a spot on both Top Chef and Project Runway – the famed reality-TV competitions for cooks and fashion designers respectively – and rewrite My Big Fat Greek Wedding from the point of view of a non-Greek woman who joins a Hellenic clan. Of that flick, Beth says, “The focus on food is definitely not an exaggeration. A family dinner can easily be a party for 30 people – and there will still be leftovers.”

Vesna Vuynovich Kovach: How did you feel making the switch from fashion to food?

Beth Fatsis: I was ready to get out of apparel. It's not glamourous like the magazines lead you to believe. It's hard for the little guy to compete with the big corporations who have access to cheap labor. It became stressful – trying to guess what people would buy, investing money each season and hoping the customers liked your product, [dealing with] damaged merchandise and returns.

The restaurant business “looked so easy”– ha, ha – when Telly was doing the breakfast/lunch thing. I wanted to do something new.

VVK: In 2006 you opened Atlantis Taverna. This summer you reopened Cleveland’s Diner as Plaka Taverna. How did you and Telly transition from a diner and a food cart to this more fully realized Greek dining experience?

BF: The Cleveland’s space was available [in 1995]. However, it [had been] known as a breakfast/lunch diner for decades, and Telly chose to keep the same theme. He wasn’t ready to plunge into a full-service dinner restaurant with a bar. A Greek restaurant was a distant goal.

The food cart was a low-overhead means of expanding the business and getting into selling Greek food. I ran it for five years. I enjoyed the street vending and the people, but the physical work got more and more difficult as I got older. Lifting, hauling, packing, unpacking, hitching the trailer twice a day. The festivals were profitable, but they usually involved 16-hour days of work. A lot of people think that a food cart is a fun sideline business. But it is a business just like any other. You can't treat it like a bake sale. Telly and I wanted to open another restaurant and I couldn't do both the cart and the restaurant.

VVK: What makes Greek food special? What do you like about it?

It’s healthy, and the herbs blend nicely. It’s typically not hot and spicy. I also love garlic, which is abundant. It can go as simple as a tomato-feta-cucumber plate drizzled with olive oil, or as complicated as a moussaka (eggplant casserole) with all its processes.

The Greeks still don’t have the massive transportation system we have in this country, being as mountainous as they are. You will find that a Greek dish will differ according to the region in which it has evolved. Telly’s family is from the Peloponnese region in southern Greece, so most of the cooking at the restaurants reflects that.

There is a lot of overlap between Greek food and that of Turkey and portions of the Mideast and Eastern Europe. Populations migrate, empires rise and fall, and food traditions get adopted by different cultures. The recipes generally evolve around what products are readily available in the villages. Olive trees are plentiful, so olive oil is a staple. Spanakopita (spinach pie), dolmades (stuffed grape leaves), moussaka, eggplant salad, kebobs, pita bread – these are some examples of foods found not only in Greece, but in neighboring regions as well.

VVK: How do you and Telly work it, running two Greek restaurants in neighboring cities?

BF: He runs Plaka; I run Atlantis. We don’t do well together working side by side. We discuss ideas – marketing, menu ideas. But in the end, we each make our own decisions. It’s a lot easier to manage the responsibilities when you only have one restaurant to focus on.

VVK: Is there a difference in what the two communities want?

BK: Definitely. We sell a lot of gyros and fries in Sun Prairie. We get more families with children, so we also offer burgers and pizza, with a Greek flair, at Atlantis. The Madison palate tends to be more adventuresome than Sun Prairie’s.

VVK: What’s the most popular dish on the menu?

BF: At Atlantis, it’s probably the Mama’s Homebaked Combo, a combination of the moussaka, the pastitsio, green beans, rice pilaf, and feta cheese. Our falafel and spinach pie combos are popular as well. 
VVK: What's your favorite dish on the menu?

BF: The moussaka. You can taste the cinnamon and cloves in the meat sauce, as well as the fresh parsley. The béchamel (cream) sauce on top is really its own separate entity with a hint of nutmeg, yet when you take a forkful of the moussaka you get the whole combination at once. It’s hearty and filling, and has a pleasing blend of spices. I also love eggplant.

VVK: How would you compare and contrast the two spots?

BK: Atlantis has brighter colors and lots of foliage. More of what you’d think of when you say “Mediterranean.” In reality, though, the tavernas in Greece are pretty rustic. Plaka is smaller and more intimate than Atlantis. It has a more rustic feel, with the distressed tables and the darker colors.

In Greece, we collected menus from several of the restaurants we visited, knowing that we’d want to take elements of those menus and use them here. We also took notes on the décor of different tavernas. Telly’s aunt and uncle used to own a taverna in their village in Greece, a neighborhood place with an uncomplicated menu. The pork kebobs on our menu are named after Telly’s uncle, “Theo Pavlo” – “Uncle Paul.”  
VVK: The murals on Atlantis’s walls are beautiful. Can you tell more about them?

BF: I did all the artwork myself. The real-life villages really do look a lot like the mural: plain rectangular buildings without a lot of frills. The style of the artwork is playful, which is the mood Telly and I wanted to create in the dining room. Not too serious.

VVK: There’s an element in the mural depicting an episode from your cart vending days. Down at the Library Mall, you had a conflict with a street musician that got into the news. I understand that, after complaints by you and several others, he was issued a noise citation that was eventually overturned.

BF: A two-and-a-half hour dose of the piccolo daily is very unnerving, due to the high pitch. Other musicians who got there earlier in the day, were greeted with loud piccolo music played over their music. Employees in the buildings nearby were distracted by the shrill sound. Piccolo Man included in his repertoire the national anthems of Thailand, Greece, and Jamaica, because those food carts all complained.

If you look at the mural at Atlantis Taverna, you’ll see I painted a “tribute” to him in my mural. It’s not a compliment to his character. I used a very fine brush and painted a scene inside a church that most people don't even notice is there unless I point it out. It was my way of closing that dispute.

Each month in her column “Around the Table,” freelance writer Vesna Vuynovich Kovach profiles women who are influential in Wisconsin foodways: cooks and bakers, farmers, teachers, authors, activists and more.

Kleftiko

2008-12-01T08:55:00.000-06:00

Clay-roasted lamb with roasted potatoes and tomatoes

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava Magazine
December 2008
Column: Around the Table

Related article: It's Greek to her

How does Greek-American Christmas dinner look at the Fatsis home? “We have turkey just like most everyone else, but there will also be roast lamb next to it,” says Beth. Americans tend to think Greek food “is all lamb,” she says, but really it’s “only for special occasions like Christmas or Easter. Spanakopita will be on the table, too, and sometimes moussaka or pastitsio (beef-pasta-tomato casserole. There’s usually a bottle of ouzo (licorice-flavored liquor) available for shots. Homemade bread, feta cheese, and a Greek salad are all staples. There’s a whole buffet of desserts, Greek and American both.”

This slow-roasted lamb dish comes from the island of Cyprus, and its name, “kleftiko,” “comes from the word kleftes, or robbers,” explains Beth. “Legend has it that Greek mountain-dwelling freedom fighters had to steal their food in order to survive. To avoid detection, they slow-cooked in underground ovens covered in clay. We use a commercial clay roaster, aluminum foil and an oven. It’s especially tasty because it seals the moisture inside the meat while giving it a crispy outside.”

If you don’t have a clay oven, says Beth, “a regular covered roasting pan would work. However, a little water – about 1/4" – needs to be put in the bottom of the pan. Add water as necessary if it evaporates.”

Kleftiko
Clay-roasted lamb with roasted potatoes and tomatoes

2 pounds lamb meat (filets, leg, loin chops, shoulder or rack), divided in four pieces
juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon dried marjoram, finely chopped
1 tablespoon dried thyme, finely chopped
2 pounds small potatoes
1 scant cup olive oil
3 large tomatoes, sliced
3 bay leaves
salt
freshly ground black pepper
butter

Sprinkle the lamb with lemon juice. Mix marjoram, thyme, salt and pepper together and sprinkle over meat. Brush oil over four large pieces of aluminum foil. Lay a piece of lamb in the center of each and wrap. Place the four wrapped lamb pieces in a clay roaster, following manufacturer’s directions for pre-soaking the pot. Cover and bake at 300º F for three hours.

Meanwhile, peel and wash the potatoes. Make a few cuts in each. Place in a separate roasting pan and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Pour olive oil over them and dot with butter. Place sliced tomato on top of potatoes. Add a little salt and pepper and the bay leaves. About an hour before lamb is ready, put potatoes in oven and roast until golden brown. Serve lamb and potatoes together on a platter.

Earthly Delights: Josie Pradella's TerraSource Chocolates

2008-11-01T12:29:00.005-05:00

Josie Pradella’s TerraSource Chocolates promote local self-reliance and are good for the planet, too
A shorter version of this article appeared in Brava Magazine
November 2008
Column: Around the Table

Related recipe: Raspberry Truffles

Josie Pradella, all grown up and with a serious career as an air management specialist at the DNR, meditated.

She wanted to follow her bliss, but how? Which way lay bliss? And then she remembered.

Mud pies.

“I had an image of a childhood phase I went through that was absolute rapture for me,” she recalls. “Making mud pies and foraging very locally for colorful leaves, flowers and other found objects.”

In that meditative clarity, Josie perceived the magical element that engaged that part of her soul that reveled in the dark, the gooey, earthen-rich and natural: chocolate.

“I’ve always loved baking chocolate desserts, especially for friends and dinner parties,” Josie says. For years, she had hosted “truffle-making parties for friends around the solstice holiday.” From mud pies studded with leaves and flowers to chocolates filled with fruit purees and tea infusions: what could be a more fitting evolution?

And thus was born TerraSource Chocolate Gourmet Chocolates, LLC, specializing in handcrafted chocolates using local fruits and flowers. The business is a comprehensive expression of Josie's values and her point of view: All the ingredients are either local, fairly traded and/or organic: the product line is completely free of animal products; the locally produced boxes are made from plantable paper embedded with wildflower seeds.

TerraSource started up in October 2007, and already the chocolates are available at A Room of One’s Own Bookstore, Bunky’s Café, Carl’s Cakes, The Dardanelles, Fair Indigo and Sentry at Hilldale, Jenifer Street Market and Mother Fool’s Coffeehouse, or via the Web at terrasourcechocolates.com. In the temperate months – but not in the high heat of summer – Josie vends at the Westside Community Farmers Market outside the DOT as well.

VVK: What are your chocolates like?

JP: Except for the Pecan Praline, all the chocolates have a blended center that combines the major fruit puree or tea infusion with chocolate, so they’re all kind of dense and creamy. Teas to date: Jasmine Green Tea, Masala Chai Tea, and Scarlet Tea.

VVK: No plain chocolate, or bar chocolate?

JP: No, as other local chocolatiers already do solid chocolates and bars.

VVK: You use local products like rhubarb, blueberries and red, black and golden raspberries. What are some others, and how did you find them?

JP: I’ve made most connections through the local farmers markets and food conferences. One of my best finds was Carandale Farms in Fitchburg. They grow unusual fruit crops for Wisconsin’s climate, such as aronia and seaberry. These are two super-nutritious fruits. Aronia looks like a cross between a large blueberry and small concord grape – very dark with a more grainy texture. It has three times the anti-oxidant value of blueberries. Seaberry has a mild citrus flavor and is very bitter by itself. It has a gorgeous golden color and seven times the vitamin C content of lemons.

In quite a few of my chocolates I use liqueurs and spirits, such as Lemoncella and rum made by Yahara Bay Distillers.

VVK: Are you able to buy local products in sufficient volume?

JP: As small as I am at this time, yes.

VVK: How much of what you use is organic?

JP: This question quickly gets complicated. The off-the-shelf products I buy, such as sugar, vanilla and teas, are certified organic, which means that they’ve gone through a formal registration process and are validated by a qualified third party. Often local growers use organic practices but can’t afford to become certified organic. I love working with these growers because their ethics are in the right place and they have wonderful products.

VVK: Tell me about the chocolate itself.

JP: I source the chocolate from two different producers. One is certified fair trade; the other is fairly traded, which means they adhere to fair trade principles but have not gone through the expense of a certification process. The cocoa comes from Columbia (single origin), Costa Rica, Peru, the Dominican Republic. I blend to get around 70% dark chocolate for my shells, going for some complexity on the palate without being too bitter.

VVK: What's your most popular chocolate?

JP: Probably the aronia because it’s so different. People like to have a unique experience and it’s fun to be able to do that with food.

VVK: And your personal favorite?

JP: Pecan praline. Heavenly with the dark chocolate around that nutty center. Great texture! It started out as a caramel, but with the vegan ingredients it became more granular and delectable.

VVK: How come you made your entire line vegan?

JP: Butter and cream are big in most gourmet ganache fillings. I wanted to offer something delectable to those who have food sensitivities so they can thoroughly enjoy a quality product like everyone else. At this point my intention is to offer only vegan products because it [helps] so many of the animal-free, lower-impact on the planet issues that people are concerned about.

By sourcing locally, we also have less impact on the majority world who often starve as they grow cash crops for large companies to export. They can’t eat that stuff and don’t have much land to subsist on. Choosing vegan ingredients lowers much of that impact.

VVK: How about bee products?

JP: Nope. I use maple syrup instead.

VVK: Your business is so green! Tell me about that.

JP: I am determined to exemplify what’s possible as a green business: to build local relationships, add value to locally grown products, procure eco-friendly packaging and print, bank locally and use other local professional services such as Web hosting and graphic design, and give back to the local community. My next goal is to offset the carbon emissions from my production, delivery and shipping practices.

VVK: I understand you’ve been active for years with organizations that promote environmental responsibility and local commerce and food systems.

JP: I co-founded Wisconsin Partners for SustainAbility (formerly the Wisconsin Sustainable Futures Network) back in 1999. Four years ago I helped cofound the Dane County Buy Local Initiative, now known as Dane Buy Local. I’ve been exploring local self reliance pretty fully the last several years.

VVK: Do you have a marketing or business background?

JP: I wish! I do the best I can with what makes sense to me; then hope the overall message can be refined and condensed for greatest effect. I took several courses at UW-Madison’s business school and have a rough business plan.

VVK: What's your favorite thing about what you do?

JP: Having the opportunity to converse with people about the eco aspects, then having them just physically enjoy indulging in the product. It becomes a full mind-body experience. The Westside market has been wonderful. People really want to learn about the products they’re buying. Grab ’n’ go is not part of their philosophy.

VVK: How about your least favorite?

JP: Part of the chocolate-making process involves vigorous shaking and tapping of the molds to coax out air bubbles. It’s noisy and disruptive to an otherwise peaceful process.

VVK: How did you learn your craft?

JP: Being invited by David Bacco to view his chocolate-making production when he was at CoCoLiQuot, for which I am eternally grateful. Getting a degree from the Ecole Chocolat. Experimenting with recipes and using friends and co-workers as guinea pigs.

VVK: There are some other chocolatiers in town. What sort of community is it?

JP: My experience, with the exception of David Bacco, has been that other local chocolatiers pretty much keep to themselves. When I approached several to do some research and try to learn about the local market and avoiding pitfalls as a new business owner, I didn’t get very far. That’s unfortunate, because I think we all do better when we help one another. I know I feel honored when someone thinks I know enough about a topic to ask me questions about it, and I want to share the knowledge. This experience is also an important factor in my commitment to make TerraSource as transparent as possible. So I list the partners I’m involved with on the Web site and have a short profile on each of them, along with a link to their Web site if they have one.

VVK: What are some chocolate challenges?

JP: Tempering is a very exact science to get that nice shiny, glossy exterior. One degree off and the chocolate comes out looking dull or streaky. It’s pretty unforgiving.

Another great challenge – some business don’t want to carry product with a relatively short shelf life. Because they have no preservatives or other added ingredients, they only last about two weeks. It’s the filling I’m concerned about keeping as fresh as possible. Right now I’m developing a system to track the dates that chocolates get delivered and to whom, and to stay on top of keeping the stock fresh at the various merchants.

VVK: How big is your operation?

JP: I’m making around 400 pieces a week. No employees. I do it all!

VVK: Where do you make the chocolates?

JP: Carl Loeffel, the owner of Carl’s Cakes, is a dear friend and wanted to support my vision of creating this business. He truly has made this effort possible. I’m lucky to have access to Carl’s Cakes kitchen when they’re not doing their bakery production, nights and weekends. Overall, I have the place to myself Saturday afternoons and Sundays.

VVK: Regulations prohibit you from using your home kitchen?

JP: That’s correct. I’m certified as a food handler working out of Carl’s Cakes’ kitchen.

VVK: So what’s next for Terrasource?

JP: I’ve gotten a request for a mint chocolate from a market-goer and will be experimenting with that as the next potential flavor. I’m working on more tea infusion flavors. If Carandale or some other grower has more superfood fruits, I’d love to get those into my chocolates as well. A future vision is to work more with edible flowers, such as rose geranium, and get even more creative with green packaging.

VVK: What do you like most about chocolate?

JP: It’s bliss on earth.

Raspberry Truffles

2008-11-01T05:27:00.004-05:00

Recipe from Earthly Delights: Josie Pradella's TerraSource Chocolates
In Brava Magazine
Column: Around the Table
December 2008

Look no further than these simple truffles, with their “dense, yet creamy” texture and “outstanding flavor” for your homemade holiday gift project this year. Josie says, “They make great holiday gifts. Packing and shipping are no problem as long as they’re not being sent to places where it gets hotter than 75 degrees. For those places, I recommend including a freezer pack in the mailer to maintain freshness and consistency.”

Want variety? Host a truffle-rolling party, as Josie did for years before going pro. “People would prepare different flavors of ganache [filling] in advance. We’d eat and drink, and then roll truffles and assemble various assortments from among those brought in. Everyone got to take home one or more boxes of hand-made truffles to hoard or share for the holiday.”

Raspberry Truffles

2 cups fresh (or frozen and thawed) berries
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon any berry liqueur
8 oz. semisweet (or darker) chocolate (for filling)
8 oz. high quality chocolate, 67% or higher cacao content (for dipping)

Press fruit through a sieve to remove seeds. Blend resulting puree and sugar. Heat to dissolve sugar. Remove from heat. Add liqueur. Very gently melt filling chocolate. Stir fruit mixture into melted chocolate until emulsified (completely mixed and appearing homogenous).

Chill in refrigerator two hours, then scoop and roll into 1" balls. Very gently melt dipping chocolate. Dip truffles in melted chocolate and let set on tray. Enjoy!

Eating in Madison A to Z

2008-10-01T17:50:00.003-05:00

Blogger reviewers Nichole Fromm and JonMichael Rasmus are crunching through the alphabet
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava Magazine
Column: Around the Table
October 2008

Related recipe: Grandma's Pickled Beets

So a mathematician and a librarian walk into a restaurant, and one says to the other.... No, wait, they’re not at the restaurant. They’re trying to figure out where to go out to eat and they can’t decide. OK. So the mathematician says, “Let’s eat in every single restaurant in town in alphabetical order.” The librarian goes, “I’ll mind the alphabet, but you track the statistics.”

Oh, right, and it’s the twenty-first century. So they blog it.

The punch line is Eating in Madison A to Z (www.madisonatoz.com), the “dining diary” through which married couple JonMichael “JM” Rasmus and Nichole Fromm –paraphrased above – have been chronicling their meals out since their first entry, A8 China, in May 2004.

As of this writing, they’re early in the Ms (Main Depot, Maharani, Maharaja, Madtowne Fried Chicken....). But even through they’re still years away from Zuzu’s, their site, which accepts no advertising, is becoming one of the top resources for restaurant info locally – in a town with one of the most restaurants per capita in the U.S..

Fresh, personable and articulate, with just the right sprinkling of humor, the A to Z entries are fun to read, and the discussions that follow in the comments are likewise engaging. Like potato chips, it’s hard to stop at just one review. You can browse alphabetically, or by the letter grades Nichole and JM have assigned (A–F, and Honor Roll) – or even by Coke vs. Pepsi service. And, as Nichole explains, “Many times restaurants don't have a good online presence so our posts are frequently at the top of the Google search results. We get about 300 visitors per day with half coming from such searches.”

VVK: How do your professions inform your approach to the Madison A to Z project?

NF: Librarianship is more and more about navigating and inhabiting the online world, so being a librarian has been useful for me getting the techie side of things going. It also helps my writing in that it comes naturally to me to be as comprehensive as I can, source my info properly, admit lacunae in my knowledge and fill gaps when necessary.

JM is great at maintaining our lists, compiling fun statistics about grades and costs, and figuring tips. He works at the Wisconsin Lottery, where he calculates odds statements and analyzes sales data.

VVK: Do you ever eat out of order, and then just adjust the posting date so that the blog stays tidy?

NF: Oh no! We never, ever eat out of order for the blog.

VVK: How often do you eat out?

NF: About six to eight times per month for the project. We rarely eat "off list."

VVK: Do you spend more money eating out now than you used to?

NF: We go to some high-end places we wouldn't have been able to justify before. But for every white tablecloth dinner there are dozens of coffee shops, which brings the average cost per plate to $10 or so. Very doable when you take into account that this is our primary spendy recreation – replacing movies, bars, Franklin Mint chess sets, etc.

VVK: How would you describe your philosophies of food?

I live to eat, and JM eats to live. I seek out new things whenever possible. JM is much more utilitarian. The food-as-fuel approach. These were sticking points at the start of our marriage but now they're counterpoints.

VVK: I notice you give out more As, fewer Bs, and more Cs than JM.

NF: Interesting! I wasn't even aware of my weird U-shaped grade curve. JM hypothesizes that maybe that since I feel more strongly about food, I'm more likely to give high marks to that which I enjoy and low marks to that which I don't, whereas he's more a middle of the road, bell-curve kind of guy.

VVK: Who does what for the blog?

NF: We tag-team. We both take the photos. I usually write the first draft, then JM punches it up with the funny, and I copyedit. I curate our Flickr photo stream and the Google map of where we've been, and do most of the site maintenance. JM watches our statistics and minds the comments.

VVK: Which reviews get the most attention?

NF: The negative reviews, unfortunately. But it's true that they're more fun to write and more fun to read. We try to avoid cheap shots but sometimes can't resist.

VVK: What kinds of comments do you like and dislike?

NF: I love hearing about other peoples' positive experiences. Since we only go to a place once, we can't really be balanced. So it's great if another diner can point out a house specialty, or maybe clarify something we wrote. It's all part of what we hope is becoming a community, a place for people to talk about food.

Spam and troll-droppings are our least favorite comments. Trolls are commenters who set out to be rude and ruin the online conversation. Off-topic, off-color insults are rare but they happen sometimes.

VVK: How has your approach to reviewing evolved over the four years you've been at this project?

I like to think we've gotten better at describing the food such that readers get a vicarious experience. Reading some of our earlier stuff where we basically say, “It was good,” makes me cringe.

VVK: Which reviews are you most proud of?

I like the ones where we go beyond merely talking about the food, as with Bean Sprouts. [The review included commentary on the ethics and implications of sneaking vegetables into children’s meals.] Whenever we can get a laugh, that also makes us happy.

VVK: Have your standards and expectations changed?

NF: Our standards (such as they are) have crept up, perhaps, but we try to evaluate a place on its own terms, according to what it's trying to do. That's why a little diner like Cottage Cafe can win our hearts as easily as a special-occasion place like Harvest.

VVK: Some restaurants you've reviewed have closed since you reviewed them on Madison A to Z.

We think we might have a curse - some of our very favorite places have closed. R.I.P. Allie B’s, Bull’s BBQ, China Palace, Cleveland's, Francois’, Fyfe’s, Gaston’s, Jada’s and Luckenbooth.

Some locations are just deadly. Good luck to the new taqueria coming in where Donut Delight, Mediterranean Delight and Bamboo Hut have all come and gone.

VVK: What's been your most unusual eat-out experience so far?

NF: ChinMi in Verona stands out as the most surreal: a truck stop family restaurant plus sushi, where you have to walk through a convenience store to get to the dining room.

VVK: So far, what's your favorite restaurant in Madison?

NF: At Bradbury’s I love how focused the menu is. They just do crepes and espresso drinks and they do them very, very well. Ma-Cha has a quiet, meditative atmosphere where you can really slow down and enjoy time alone or with friends. And Kennedy Manor feels like a secret time warp. Upscale yet hospitable, there are regulars around but new folks are treated well, and the food is classic but not stodgy. The whole place has an aura from the 1920s and the food really rewards the trip.

VVK: What about when new spots open in earlier letters of the alphabet?

NF: If we did not go back [between letters] for the make-up letters, we would reach the end of the project and still have a ton of restaurants to visit, which would be a pretty big letdown. Plus, people want to hear the scoop on new restaurants.

VVK: Any alphabetizing challenges?

NF: When we started this project the first place on the [Isthmus online restaurant database] was 24 Carrot Café. JM pointed out that would make calling [our site] "A to Z" inaccurate. "Zero to Z," while alliterative, is not quite as catchy. We debated, and ended up alphabetizing numbers as if they were written out, though this is contrary to library filing rules.

Another point of contention is initial articles like El, La and Le. I wish I'd thrown my librarian weight around and insisted that we refile the ones with initial articles (and put L'Etoile in the E's, for example). But the restaurants we eat at would not match the dining guide we use and that seems a little capricious when you've already committed yourself to eating in alphabetical order. Six or seven straight Mexican places when we got to "La" was a little much, though.

Grandma's Pickled Beets

2008-10-01T05:50:00.001-05:00

Related article: Blogger reviewers Nichole Fromm and JonMichael Rasmus are crunching through the alphabet
In Brava Magazine
Column: Around the Table
October 2008

Says Nichole: “Beets seem to be popping up on more and more restaurant menus, which is great for anyone who loves the earthy, sweet gems. My mom gave me this quintessentially "Sconnie" [Wisconsonite] recipe. When her mother in Milwaukee put on a Sunday lunch spread, the beets would be on the relish tray alongside the ever-present ham, Kaiser rolls and potato salad. These refrigerator-pickled beets are also a great accompaniment to liverwurst and onion sandwiches. You can get fancier with this recipe by roasting the beets with rosemary or using tarragon or other spice-infused vinegar.”

Grandma's Pickled Beets

1 bay leaf
5 whole cloves
1 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1 bunch farmer's market beets (5-6 large or 9-10 small)

Cut off the beet greens, leaving some of the stem. Wash beets, then wrap in a foil pouch or place in a covered baking dish. Roast at 400F for 30 to 40 minutes, until fork-tender. Let cool. Peel. Slice into bite-sized rounds. (Alternately, use drained, canned sliced beets and skip the roasting step.)

Place the bay leaf and cloves in a 1-quart glass jar with a lid, and put the beets on top of them. Bring vinegar and sugar to a boil in saucepan, turn off heat, and stir just until sugar is dissolved. Pour vinegar and sugar into the jar and let cool a bit before putting on the lid. They are ready to serve once fully chilled, though the flavor will improve over time.

Keep refrigerated. These will last several weeks. Serve on their own, in salads, or as part of a classic relish tray with gherkins, olives, and crudites.

“Do carrots grow on trees?”

2008-09-01T18:00:00.000-05:00

Raising awareness and bridging the gaps between farm and table: REAP’s executive director Miriam Grunes

Around the Table
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
in Brava Magazine
September 2008

Related recipe: Kale Crisps

Farmers, chefs, grocers, producers of artisan foods, artists, activists and more: on Saturday, Sept. 20, the Food for Thought Festival will unite these diverse groups during its 10th annual celebration of local, sustainable food. Highlights include cooking demonstrations and possibly live competitions, talks including a keynote speech by urban agriculturist Michael Ableman, local bands and children’s activities. The site is, aptly enough, right next to the farmers’ market on the Capitol Square, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.

“It’s a really great festival,” says Miriam Grunes, executive director of REAP, the local nonprofit group behind the event. “It’s so fun for me to watch hunger prevention sitting alongside environmental activists sitting alongside foodies who just love culinary delights sitting next to culinary historians. It’s an amazing networking opportunity.”

Since the mid-1990s, REAP (Research, Education, Action and Policy on Food Group; www.reapfoodgroup.org) has fought to bring awareness to the environmental, economic, and social issues surrounding food production and preparation, arguing that local is best on all these fronts. Today, with “green” and “locavore” (a person who eats only locally grown food) emerging as buzzwords of the decade, REAP is riding a rising wave of awareness.

Begun by a handful of volunteers, REAP now employs a staff of four and manages a myriad of projects including publications, educational programs and foodie events. Earlier this year it graduated from its patchwork of home offices to move into a professional space on Wilson Street downtown.

In her early years with REAP, Miriam squeezed in 25 volunteer hours a week alongside her full-time job at the Biodiversity Project (a national nonprofit located in Madison) and her responsibilities as a mother of two small children. “I really had three jobs,” she explains. Landing REAP’s first first paid, full-time position in 2004 allowed her to cut that down to two.

VVK: How did you become so passionate about sustainable food?

MG: I’ve always loved being a gardener. Having my hands in the dirt. I stopped eating meat way back in college, having read Diet for a Small Planet. It seemed, there’s something wrong with the way we raise meat. There’s no reason I need this in my life. The hippie aspect, brown rice and stir fries -- I always just lived my life that way, not thinking that was going to become my life’s work.

That moment came when I had kids. I started thinking about the “corporatization” of food, the fact that kids can recognize over 200 corporate logos but can’t identify vegetables. My interest in food and sustainability and health drew me into volunteering with REAP.

VVK: What’s the climate for the work REAP is doing?

MG: Right now there’s a perfect storm of awareness from the food contamination scares and soaring prices. Food prices are scaring people, and they should. Food’s been too cheap. Farmers haven’t been paid what they should be. All this is forcing people to ask questions about their food. Where does your food come from?

Suddenly we’re not having to explain the whys. Now we answer the hows. How do we pay the farmers a living wage? How do we feed everybody? How do we make sure everyone has access to fresh, local food?

VVK: What’s the greatest challenge to REAP’s goals?

MG: We’ve devolved so far so fast. As recently as 50 years ago there was still infrastructure that supported eating locally. That’s just completely gone.

VVK: REAP’s newest program, Buy Fresh Buy Local Southern Wisconsin, pairs eateries with local food growers. How is going?

MG: It’s showcasing chefs’ and farmers’ relationships in a way that tells the story, helps restaurants do more, feel good about doing more, make a profit. We never have to explain to restaurants about why should they buy local, what the point is. They just want to know, “How do I do it?” We have now have over 23 restaurants involved, and we’re adding more all the time. Some say, “I’m really going to concentrate on increasing my local dairy use, because I already have good relationships with produce farmers.” Others say, “I’m going to start with a side dish vegetable.” It’s a lot of opportunity to make incredible impact.

VVK: Then there’s the Farm Fresh Atlas, a directory of local farmers, dairies, honey producers, orchards and farmers’ markets. It’s so beautifully done and has such a wealth of information.

MG: People really use it. Farmers are grateful for the marketing tool. The transition we’ve seen in the last few years just wonderful. I remember standing at farmers market, just begging people to take it. Now people virtually attack us! We’ve released the seventh annual edition, and we’re having such a blast with it.

VVK: What it’s like working with children through REAP’s farm-to-school program, Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch?

MG: They’re a little grossed out by the notion that food doesn’t come packaged. There are kids that don’t know that a carrot is a root. They thought it might grow on a tree. You tell them it grows under the dirt, and they’re a little bit É “Eeew!” But when they can get their hands into the dirt and pull it out, the response is immediate. You have to convince them to wash it first!

You’ve got to get kids back out and experiencing life in all its forms, learning the idea of life in the soil. Through field trips to farms, wildlife restoration. Pulling that all back together is really powerful. Will all these kids grow up to be healthy consumers as adults? We don’t know. But we know that without it, they don’t have a chance.

VVK: How do you share your ideals with your own children?

MG: We have traditions of always going strawberry picking in the spring, always going to an apple orchard in the fall. There’s seasonality. Food isn’t just something that comes packaged from an anonymous source. I just try to keep as much balance as possible and hope something will stick. My daughters are now 15 and 11. I just hope they grow to be passionate and kind and responsible and good adults.

VVK: What kind of food do you cook and eat?

MG: I cook pretty simply. I belong to a CSA [subscription farm]. My box comes on a Thursday and I have to be inspired by it. The produce tells you what needs to be done to it. I have a great big garden in my backyard and four chickens that lay eggs for us. We have an abundance of eggs from the chickens. That’s great for vegetable frittatas.

VVK: You live in the city. How do your neighbors respond to the chickens?

MG: I do have one hen that’s a little squawky. But now the neighbor across the yard has got some chickens, too!

Each month in her column “Around the Table,” freelance writer Vesna Vuynovich Kovach profiles women who are influential in Wisconsin foodways: cooks and bakers, farmers, teachers, authors, activists and more. “I believe the social, celebratory, expressive aspect of food is one of the key things that makes humans human,” Vesna says. “The scientists ought to put it right up there with bipedalism and speech. All animals eat, but for us, the eternal quest for flavor and form is woven deep into who and what we are. That’s why I love to write about people who love food.”

Vesna’s work on food and other topics has appeared in publications including Wisconsin Trails, Isthmus, Madison Magazine, Corporate Report Wisconsin, and Dane County Kids. She was formerly editor-in-chief of Erickson Publishing, and was the original editor of Brava Magazine (then known as Anew).

Kale Crisps

2008-09-01T16:00:00.000-05:00

Around the Table
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
in Brava Magazine
September 2008

Related article: “Do carrots grow on trees?” Raising awareness and bridging the gaps between farm and table: REAP’s executive director Miriam Grunes

The grand prize winner of last year’s Food for Thought Festival was this sustainable snack with crunch, submitted by Jessica Weiss of Oregon, Wis. “My kids can’t get enough of these!” says Miriam. “I add a little cider vinegar when tossing the kale with olive oil. Gives a nice sparkle to the flavor.”

Kale Crisps

1 bunch kale, washed and dried in a cotton towel
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt
cayenne pepper (optional)

Cut stems from the kale stalks and set aside for stir fries or other uses. Tear leaves into 2- to 3-inch pieces and place in a large bowl. Drizzle in the olive oil. Toss kale with your hands until all is lightly covered with oil. Spread kale out on one or two large baking sheets. Don’t pile up; keep in one layer. Sprinkle with salt and cayenne (if desired) to taste. Bake until crispy, 10 to 20 minutes.

Check frequently as they can go from crisp to burnt quickly. Hissing and popping sounds while baking are normal. Transfer crisps to a bowl and enjoy.

Big flavor from Sow Little

2008-08-01T18:33:00.001-05:00

Terry Cohn and Michael Johns harvest “raspberries when you least expect them”

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
Around the Table
in Brava Magazine
August 2008

Related recipe: Raspberry Jam

Raspberries. They’re not just for summer anymore.

When Terry Cohn and her husband, Michael Johns, learned about the experiments out east at Cornell University, where researchers were growing winter raspberries in greenhouses walled with layers of clear, plastic draping, they knew they’d found the niche crop they were looking for.

After all, says Terry, “We love raspberries.”

In 2001, the couple’s home business -- buying and selling used scientific equipment -- was suffering due to overseas outsourcing of manufacturing. To find a new source of income, they looked to their land: the 5-acre former farm within the city of Madison that they’d bought in 1991, meaning to build a warehouse.

“We wanted to use our land as one of the last farms within the city of Madison. We talked about trees and perennials,” says Terry. Then they learned about extended-season raspberries being grown at Cornell. “They were reported to be outstanding and able to command a good price.“ They realized, with excitement, they already had the foundation for an off-season raspberry farm in their own backyard.

“We had a family garden via survival of the fittest,” Terry says. “We would plant hundreds of plants and vegetables, heavily mulch them because we had no time to weed, and [get] a wonderful harvest.” Included in the mix was “a raspberry patch from plants that we rescued from the property across the road that were to be plowed under for development.”

They saw the potential for a state-of-the-art, environmentally friendly, operation with good demand. “We wanted to produce the highest quality raspberries without using herbicides and pesticides and make them available to local chefs and individuals at the time of year when raspberries were shipped to the Midwest from California, Chile and Mexico.”

Terry dusted off her scientific training -- she majored in in biology and botany in college before becoming “the first physician’s assistant in Madison,” as she say, and later earning another degree in computer programming -- and she and Michael devoted themselves to learning about off-season raspberry farming. And Sow Little Farm was born.

“We first put up a plastic cover that was supported by electrical conduit, the ends covered by tennis balls, over our raspberry patch in November 2002 and heated it with a kerosene heater to keep the plants alive,” she remembers. “One of us would turn it on around midnight and the other one would get up at four in the morning because the fuel only lasted for four hours. Our daughter Leah thought our lives were like getting up with a newborn.” The hard work paid off: “The raspberries were protected, sweet.”

Now all they needed was customers. “We wowed Odessa Piper. She was our first chef customer,” says Terry. A titan in the world of local-produce fine dining, Odessa then owned L’Etoile restaurant on Madison’s Capitol Square. “I did a blind call. I explained how we had extended the season of the raspberries. She was excited and tasted them.” After that, she says, “we would bring small amounts, one to two half-pint containers every week or twice a week, whatever we were able to harvest from our small patch. I would bring a little basket carefully wrapped with a towel. Tory [Miller, then L’Etoile’s chef de cuisine and now its owner] would taste them and I would wait for his reaction. His face would light up and that made my day.”

That first chef connection led to many more. “Odessa encouraged us to expand and have other chefs taste our berries,” says Terry. Today, Sow Little Farm grows seven varieties of raspberries, which they’ve harvested as early as May and as late as December. Some they sell to individuals via e-mail (sowlittlefarm@gmail.com), but most are destined for the fine restaurants in Madison, Chicago and more where chefs clamor for the plump, juicy berries ripened on the cane.

“There’s never enough for the demand,” says Terry.

VVK: What’s the usual season for raspberries?

TC: Most home gardeners tend to grow summer-bearing varieties that ripen late June, early July. Large growers tend to grow fall raspberries that begin ripening mid-August and end with the first frost.

VVK: What's the secret to off-season harvests?

TC: We grow summer and fall varieties, experimenting with staggering their ripening by pruning and [controlling] temperature in the high tunnels. Once the canes are leafing out and starting to form flower buds, we don’t let them get below 34 degrees. The houses get very warm even in the winter, so we have to open windows to keep the plants below 45 degrees while they are dormant.

VVK: What’s a high tunnel? Is it a sort of greenhouse?

TC: It’s a structure of bent metal tubing connected to steel posts driven into the ground, and a wooden baseboard. It’s covered with two layers of plastic with a space between inflated by a small blower. Ours have recycled windows and doors on the end walls for air circulation. We have six high tunnels totaling about 7,000 square feet. Our favorites have a gothic, pitched roof, as opposed to a Quonset shape, and has sides that roll up the entire length.

Putting the huge sheets of plastic on the high tunnels can only be done when there’s no wind. We’ve had great help from groups of friends and family when we got to that stage. Each time that the task was completed, we would look at each other beaming, feeling like we’d just completed a barn raising.

VVK: How did you learn to do all this?

TC: Through our own experiments, attending workshops in Canada and Penn State, and consulting Professor Marvin Pritts at Cornell University. Getting help from our local extension agents. Bob Tomesh from the UW Extension helped orchestrate a visit of farmers from the country of Georgia to our farm. We also had visitors from Tasmania who were researching high-tunnel raspberries as part of a Winston Churchill grant.

VVK: What are some of the restaurants that use your berries?

TC: L’Etoile, Harvest, Wisconsin Cheesecakery, Bishop’s Bay Country Club, The Madison Club, Sardine, Cocoliquot, Lombardino’s, Oconomowoc Lake Club, Gilbert’s Restaurant in Lake Geneva, Michael Fields Agricultural Institute in East Troy, Hot Chocolate and North Pond, both in Chicago, and others in Madison and between Milwaukee and Chicago.

VVK: How are they to work with?

TC: The chefs that I work with are wonderful. They are flexible with [our] availability. They understand that what we do is labor intensive and the product is superior to getting raspberries from California for half the cost.

VVK: What do you love about raspberries?

TC: Raspberries are sensuous and delicious. We love it when we say raspberries and we notice people’s eyes get dreamy and their mouths form a smile.

VVK: What’s your favorite way to enjoy raspberries?

TC: Eating them fresh and noticing how long the flavor lasts in our mouth.

Raspberry Jam

2008-08-01T13:33:00.003-05:00

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
Around the Table
in Brava Magazine
August 2008

Related article: Big flavor from Sow Little: Terry Cohn and Michael Johns harvest “raspberries when you least expect them”

“This recipe evolved because we didn’t like how sweet most raspberry jams are. We like seeds in our jam and don't like it when it is thick like Jell-O,” says Terry. “Most recipes call for either more sugar than fruit or equal amounts. With less sugar, one experiences the true flavor of raspberries.” Terry tinkered till she achieved “the perfect tart-sweet combination” that’s perfect in PBJs, mixed into yogurt, or spread between layers of Linzertorte or chocolate cake.

Raspberry Jam

8 full cups crushed raspberries
5 cups sugar
1 box Sure-Jell pectin
1 teaspoon butter

Mix Sure-Jell with raspberries. Bring to a boil. Add sugar. Turn down heat and continue to cook on a low boil for 10 minutes.

To test for doneness, put a spoonful on a plate and refrigerate for about 10 seconds or until cooled. If the liquid on the spoon pours right off, continue to cook. Keep testing every three minutes until the liquid on the spoon just clings to the spoon and is slightly thickened. (The jam will thicken more after cooling.)

Turn off heat. Skim off foam.

Put jam into clean jars, leaving about 1/2 inch space to the rim. Clean the jar rim and seal with new canning lids that have been simmered in water. Tighten rings on the jars.

Boil in a water bath for 10 minutes. Remove jars to cool on newspaper. You’ll hear the lids pop when the seal forms.

Let cool 24 hours, then remove the rings from the jars.

It’s fun to make a splendid cake

2008-07-01T19:11:00.004-05:00

Award-winning decorator Suzanne Daly teaches you how

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
Around the Table
in Brava Magazine
July 2008

Related recipe: Homemade Fondant

“I’m here to take take the fear out of fondant,” announces Suzanne Daly.

She’s addressing her students at one of the Wilton Method cake decorating classes she teaches at the Vanilla Bean, the baking supply shop on Odana Road on Madison’s West side. It’s the first night of the four-session course in fondant, and there’s a thrill of excitement in the room – perhaps a bit of intimidation, too. During a round of introductions, students explain why they’re here:

“I’ve dabbled in fondant, but I’ve never covered the cake.”

“I make wedding cakes for friends, and they all want fondant.”

“My husband is coming back from Iraq, and I want to make him a special cake. It’s got to be fondant.”

So what is fondant? Essentially, it's a a doughy sugar paste that you roll out like pie crust, then drape and shape right over your cake. The main ingredients are forms of sugar: confectioners’, glucose and glycerin. “It’s like Silly Putty, or play dough,” Suzanne explains. You can also roll out decorations, forming ribbons or using cookie cutters and other gadgets to punch out shapes, and apply them to the fondant-covered cake.

The smooth, sophisticated look of a fondant-coated cake is unmistakable, and it looks difficult to achieve. But Suzanne is reassuring, and – as she leads a hands-on demo, kneading coloring into a lump of fondant, rolling it out, embossing it with vine designs, draping it over a cake and affixing flowers and leaves – she’s convincing, too.

“It’s just a really neat medium to work with,” she says as she shapes and cuts the soft, doughy material. “It’s very forgiving. If you make a mistake, you don’t have to throw it away. You can work with it over and over. Just ball it up and re-roll it.” Suzanne says students have told her they’re worried that fondant is delicate and will rip easily, but the substance is robust and cooperative to the touch. “If it gets dry, you just add a little shortening. If it’s too sticky, you add a little cornstarch and powdered sugar mixture. You can store it in the refrigerator for a month, double wrapped. ”

Suzanne, who has won best in show at numerous county fairs in Wisconsin and Illinois, has been decorating cakes for 30 years and teaching for twelve. She belongs to professional organizations including ICES (International Cake Exploration Societe) and Dairyland Decorators. She keeps up with the latest trends and techniques through studying trade magazines. These days, she says, fondant is what just about everyone wants on a cake these days, even if they don’t know it.

VVK: At your bakery, Suzanne’s Sweet Artistry, what’s the big trend in wedding cake these days?

SD: Approximately 75% of the wedding cakes that I make are covered in fondant. My brides pull out every bridal magazine, and all the cakes they show me are fondant. They’re surprised when they try it – they aren’t sure if they like it. It’s the texture that’s unusual, like eating a soft Tootsie Roll. People aren’t used to chewing their cake. But they typically go with it.

VVK: It is unusual. More like eating candy than cake.

SD: I tell people if you don’t like to eat the fondant, that’s OK. You can just peel it off! I put a layer of buttercream frosting underneath. You can actually keep a cake that has fondant on it much longer than one that just has the buttercream. Once you’ve got the fondant on the cake, that cake will last three to four days. The buttercream keeps the fondant soft, and the fondant protects the cake from from drying out.

VVK: Which is easier to work with, fondant, or regular buttercream frosting?

SD: With buttercream, it’s more technique: practicing your consistency, practicing your pressure. Squeezing the frosting out of the bag. Holding your bag in the correct position to make sure it turns out exactly the way you want it to.

With fondant, you cut it out and put it on. It’s a different skill. You can do a lot more, make a lot of different things. Truly, fondant is something that anyone can do. Young kids can do it. Older people can do it. And the possibilities are endless.

Those of us who are cake artists, we will walk into a store, and we’ll see something that’s meant to be used for something else, and we’ll figure out how to use it in fondant. You know all those little paper punches? I use those for fondant. You punch out the little designs and put them on your cake.

VVK: You showed a photo of a delicate carnation in the class, with the paper-thin petals – it’s just out of this world.

SD: Very simple.

VVK: But it looks hard!

SD: That’s the illusion of it. You can make something that’s just exquisite.

VVK: How did you get into cake decorating?

SD: At an early age I realized just how happy I could make people with my cake creations. Growing up in a family of seven gave many opportunities to make cakes and desserts. After 18 years in banking, I realized it was time to retire from that career and take my “serious hobby” to the next level. I am very blessed to have found my passion and have the ability to make a living doing it.

VVK: What do you enjoy most about it?

SD: I enjoy the creative outlet that it provides to me. Taking someone’s idea and interpreting that idea into cake form is very satisfying. Also, for me it’s a stress reliever. There’s nothing better at the end of the day than to bake cakes and decorate.

I’m always looking for new ideas and techniques to learn. Then the fun is incorporating what I have learned into an edible work of art!

VVK: What’s your most popular course?

SD: The basic Course I class. It covers everything from frosting the cake to making borders and different flowers, including roses – most of the basics needed to simply decorate a cake. I teach Wilson Method classes. The advantage is that Wilton Industries provides lesson plans, equipment and tools to purchase to make all of the techniques needed to decorate a cake.

VVK: What are some of the reasons students sign up for cake decorating classes?

SD: Many want to make cakes for children’s birthdays. Some want to make a business of it, but once they realize that you have to have a separate state-inspected kitchen, it deters some of them from that idea. But they can still learn how to make great cakes for their friends and family.

VVK: What would you tell someone who’s worried their homemade cake won't look as nice as a professionally made cake?

SD: One thing that your children will always remember is that you made their birthday cakes for them. To a child, the cake is great, no matter if the frosting was smooth or the decorations weren’t perfect.

VVK: What was one of your favorite cakes?

SD: My three-year-old nephew, Zach, wanted a combine cake. He’s obsessed with tractors and farm implements. Instead of making a cake in the shape of a combine, I decided to make an interactive cake. It was decorated as a corn field with the look of some of the corn already having been picked and some still standing. The corn was made by first piping the green stalks with a round tip and then topping each stalk with yellow frosting piped with what’s known as the “grass tip.“ I then placed a purchased kid’s combine with movable wheels on the cake, lined up with the unpicked rows of corn. When he saw the cake, he knew exactly what to do. He took the combine and pushed it through the corn rows! No one minded that their piece of cake may have been missing some frosting. That is the beauty of cake decorating. It’s just frosting!

VVK: How about one of your most challenging cakes?

SD: The president of Swiss Colony had a niece that was getting married, and I was commissioned to make a wedding cake. She wanted a white fondant cake that had white fondant bows coming all the way down the front of it. Sounds fairly simple, except for the size. The bottom tier was three feet in diameter, but then you have to take into account the sides, so we’re talking rolling out almost a four-foot piece of fondant. Well, I didn’t have anything big enough to roll it out on. I told the gentlemen who were helping me that we needed to go find something. We went out into the bakery, and what we ended up finding was a conveyor belt – pliable, yet thick enough that it would support the weight of all that fondant. So we took this big piece of conveyor belt and rolled the fondant out onto it. It took five of us to lift that piece of fondant up and over onto that cake. There was probably almost 150 pounds of fondant on that cake!

VVK: When I see some elaborate cakes, like on the show “Ace of Cakes,” they’re not even appetizing anymore – I start to wonder if they’re even food, and if not, what are they?

SD: I guess that's why I consider myself more of a decorating purist. I do want to have as much on the cakes to be eaten as I can. That show certainly shows how you can take decorating to an extreme. I see that type of decorating as [for] an artist who uses cake as a medium. I consider myself a baker who uses different techniques to enhance the look of my creation.

To me, the basic, fundamental objective is to have a cake that tastes great – and looks as good as it tastes.

Homemade Fondant

2008-07-01T19:11:00.002-05:00

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
Around the Table
in Brava Magazine
July 2008

Related article: It’s fun to make a splendid cake: Award-winning decorator Suzanne Daly teaches you how

If you like scrapbooking or playing with modeling clay, you’ll love this fresh approach to decorating cakes or cupcakes. Glucose and glycerin – as well as ready-mixed fondant – can be purchased at a baking supply shop like the Vanilla Bean, or a craft store.

Homemade Fondant

1 tablespoon unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup cold water
1/2 cup glucose
1 tablespoon glycerin
2 tablespoons shortening
2 pounds sifted, powdered sugar
few drops flavoring – almond and vanilla are good choices
few drops food color

Combine gelatin and water and let stand until thick. Heat gently over double boiler until dissolved. Stir in glucose and glycerin. Next, stir in shortening.

Remove from heat just before it’s completely melted. Stir in flavoring. You can add coloring at this point if you want it all the same color, or knead in coloring as desired later.

Let cool. Place half the sugar in a bowl and make a well. Add the glycerin mixture. Gradually stir in, and then knead in remaining sugar. Knead until smooth and pliable. If too dry, add shortening; if too sticky, add powdered sugar.

“Fondant can be rolled out with a rolling pin, and many different shapes can be cut out of the fondant using cookie cutters,” says Suzanne. To prevent sticking, dust rolling/cutting surface with a mixture of cornstarch and powdered sugar. “You can also purchase edible food markers at the Vanilla Bean and kids can write or draw on the fondant to make it uniquely their own!” Let your imagination run wild with ribbons, bows and pleated drapings.

Note that any fondant you don’t place flat against a buttercream-frosted cake surface will become porcelain-tough overnight.

For more photos and instructions, visit Brava's special online feature this month, Cake Decor Made Easy.

Fish fries, food and folk

2008-04-01T17:35:00.001-05:00

Janet Gilmore reads food as folklore

Around the Table
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
in Brava Magazine
April 2008

RECIPE

In the spirit of the alternative storylines of folk tale, Janet provides a parallel telling of three ways to stuff and bake a big fish. One comes from her fieldwork among the commercial fishing families of Green Bay -- from a woman there named Eileen Behrend -- and one comes from the recipe on p. 230 of the 1946 edition of The Joy of Cooking. The third is Janet’s own method, which is, turn, influenced by her childhood. “When I was growing up, a family friend regularly went charter fishing off the Oregon Coast,” Janet remembers. “He sometimes offered us a nice, big, whole salmon -- a cause for celebration.”

However you choose to follow the narrative below, start with Janet's recommendation of “a fresh, whole, big-bodied fish like Lake Michigan whitefish, Lake Superior lake trout or a wild-caught salmon from the Pacific Northwest,” and don’t stop till you get to the happy ending: a splendid main dish that’s brown and crispy outside, and delicately flaky within.

Baked and stuffed whole fish

One whole 3- to 5-pound fish, cleaned (Janet keeps the head and tail on; Eileen doesn’t)
A few strips of bacon (Eileen only)
Stuffing:
1 1/2 cups bread stuffing cubes (Janet uses sourdough or rye crumbs)
At least 2 tablespoons chopped onion (Janet uses more; Eileen uses “a lot”)
1/2 cup chopped celery (Joy, and Eileen)
2 tablespoons chopped parsley (only if it’s on hand, says Eileen)
1 or 2 eggs, beaten (Joy, and Janet)
Salt, black pepper and sage to taste (Eileen)
1/8 teaspoon paprika, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (Joy, and Janet)

Combine stuffing ingredients. “Stuff the fish loosely and mass any extra along the opening to the cavity,” Janet says. Eileen sews the sides together with a coarse needle and thread. Place fish on a generous length of heavy-duty foil laid over a shallow baking pan. If head and tail is on (they can extend past the pan’s corners), loosely wrap foil around them. If you’re using bacon, lay it over the body of the fish.

Bake at 400° F for 1 to 2 1/2 hours, depending on fish size, until, as Eileen described, “nice and brown and crispy on the outside” and “white opaque all the way through.” Joy says 350°, but “I suspect [400°] will more effectively dry out the fish,” says Janet. “I look for a flaky, dry texture.“ Transfer to serving plater, foil and all.

ARTICLE

What is folklore? If you just thought of embroidered vests, flowing skirts and circle dances, or tales of talking trees and fairy princesses, forget it.

Folklore is everything that you and your folk know and do and make that nobody else quite gets.

Janet Gilmore, who teaches courses at the UW-Madison that explore food as folklore, explains: “It’s traditional artistic expression in small groups. Every group you can think of – a school group, work group, church group. A family. In every one of those environments there’s esoteric information, insider knowledge, that you learn in order to navigate. You usually learn this informally – across generations or from peers – and you use it in artistic expression of who you are.” And how we deal with food, she says, both in daily life and on special occasions, “is definitely folk knowledge.”

Originally from the state of Oregon, Janet earned a master’s and a Ph.D. in folklore from Indiana University. There she met her husband, Wisconsin native and fellow folklorist Jim Leary. For decades, the pair travelled through the Upper Midwest on contracts with organizations like the Michigan State Museum, Manitowoc’s Maritime Museum and the Smithsonian Institution, gathering information about customs and culture, working with museum collections and exhibits and presenting their findings at folklife festivals and academic conferences.

Today both are faculty members at the UW-Madison, where Jim, now the director of the Folklore Program there, helped create the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures. Janet, who’s published a string of papers in peer-reviewed journals based on her fieldwork among commercial fishing families of Wisconsin and Michigan, is an assistant professor of landscape architecture and folklore. She’s also been featured on radio and in print as an expert on the history and social meaning of Wisconsin’s Friday night fish fry traditions.

VVK: How is food a form of folklore?

JG: Food is expressed through a bounty of expression, through stories, words, sayings, songs. There are the religious rituals that use food symbolically, whether it’s Holy Communion or the Passover, where you deal with a series of symbolic foods as you reenact the story of Exodus in your home. The bitter herb for slavery, the ground nut mixture for the mortar of the pyramids -- these things transport you to a different time and place.

Then there are the material traditions involving food. Food is something that we need. But how do we make decisions about what’s going to be acceptable as a foodstuff? How do we extract it from nature? How is it presented on a table? What’s the fast and feast cycle?

VVK: Isn’t that pretty much uniform across the country?

JG: If you interview people you’ll find out pretty quickly they don’t all follow the same routine. For instance, there’s a perception that everyone celebrates Thanksgiving about the same way. In my Festivals and Celebrations class last semester, we talked about three or four main ways just of dealing with the turkey. Some families have the big table-side carving ritual. Who carves the bird says something about the family hierarchy. Some will focus on how the turkey is cooked – they’ll try all sorts of techniques for making it more juicy and flavorful, brining, deep-frying. Immigrant families will get a turkey, as part of becoming American, but they might not know quite what to do with it, and it can end up a little strange. It’ll be over on the side, a symbol, and the real feast will be their own ethnic celebration foods. Then there are families where they have a turkey because they feel they have to, but it’s not featured. They might cook it the night before, to free up the oven. They might even slice it up and serve it on a platter.

VVK: What! They won’t have a whole bird on the table? I find that disturbing, somehow.

JG: Yes, and that’s what happens in my class. Students are so emotionally involved with their family food traditions, that it becomes difficult to separate out their feelings and approach this subject objectively. That’s what attracts people to food – it’s emotional. Students look at their family and their food experiences, and they start to see all the expressions of loving relationships. But also, food has this fundamental purpose. So I say to them, OK, if all you’re doing is expressing love, can you take the food out of the equation and still express the love? And that really bugs them.

But that’s what I like about studying food. When you start talking about food in an academic way, it doesn’t distance you from the food. It just engages you more. What feeds me is that my students are interested in all this, too.

VVK: I’ve heard you say that we’re unaware of a lot of our folk food knowledge. Like when someone gives us a handwritten recipe card with basically just a list of ingredients, a temperature and a time. My friend shared with me her mother’s carrot cake recipe, and it occurred to me that people from a different culture might have a hard time ending up with carrot cake from just that card.

JG: Exactly. Most cookbooks leave a lot out, but you don’t notice that. You bring your own knowledge to it, your esoteric knowledge of what the food is supposed to become. People think a recipe is all you need, but it really isn’t. The more experience you have, the more you can figure out. When a cookbook tries to fully explain everything, there’s so much writing. Yet it never has quite enough information.

VVK: Do you ever get tired of giving talks about Wisconsin fish fries?

JG: Never. I love it. Except that people expect me to be able to tell them what’s the best fish fry in Wisconsin. I tell them, it’s your favorite fish fry. Because it’s not really about the fish. It’s about seeing the people you know, socializing while you stand in line. Your tavern, your church, your VFW hall. Find one where you feel comfortable, and keep going. It will become yours. I know people who go to a different fish fry each week, looking for the ultimate. They’re missing it.

VVK: What draws you to working with the commercial fishing families of Wisconsin and the U.P.?

JG: The joy they have in that life, like nowhere else. Pacific coast fishing families would tell me, “My kids hate fish,” or “Fish is the last thing I want to eat after a day on the boat,” or that they won’t eat fish for days before an event, so they don’t smell. Here, everyone eats fish, everyone cooks, everyone fishes. They figure out how to cook fish out on the boat, using the heat of the engine. They go ice fishing. Children know when the streams will run with different types of fish. It’s a reason for a party, to have a fish boil, or to get the smokehouse going and smoke a hundred pounds of fish, share it with everyone, and wind up with just ten pounds for themselves. They can it, they pickle it. They’ll set out a jar when company comes. It’s wonderful. Families stay in that region, even though times are hard, economically, because they love the life. It’s an inland maritime culture.

My goal is to write some books about these fish foodways, as much for the people I’ve interviewed as anything. It’s their lives. And so many European immigrant traditions that haven’t been researched, and the fish foodways of the indigenous peoples. I’m probably not going to be able to do all of this in my lifetime. I hope I can inspire my students.

VVK: What’s the state of folklore today?

JG: It’s accepted as an academic subject more and more. Folklore is about looking at artistic expressions that aren’t endorsed by the official culture. At what’s expressed by people who aren’t powerful. Everybody participates in folk culture. As long as there’s a group, there’s folklore, because it’s how people interact and how they express themselves.

Sugar River Dairy: Active local culture

2008-03-01T19:53:00.004-06:00

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava magazine, March 2008
Column: Around the Table

Recipe: Fruit Salad

In case anyone hasn’t noticed, our state has something of a reputation when it comes to milk. We’ve got nearly 1 in 4 of all the nation’s 65,000 dairy farms, over a hundred cheese-making plants, and plenty of artisan producers.

But a few years back, Ron and Chris Paris noticed a giant hole in the market for small-scale, specialty dairy: practically nobody local makes yogurt commercially. They decided to fill that void with great product of their own, and Sugar River Dairy -- one of only three artisan yogurt makers in the state -- was born. Today, Chris and Ron’s all-natural yogurts, cultured naturally and made without thickeners, colorings, or any of the other additives found in mainstream brands, can be found on the shelves of food markets all over the area, as well as at their booth at the Westside Community Market.

VVK: Do you two have a background in dairy?

Chris Paris: Ron grew up on a farm on the edge of Madison across from Lake Farm Park in Oregon. He got a degree in dairy science from the UW-Madison and held various jobs in the ag industry. My family transplanted to Madison when I was three, but my parents have rural roots in Kansas and Missouri. I’m actually a teacher -- degree from UW-Madison in dance education and early childhood development. In 2004 I went 24/7 with Ron and Sugar River Dairy.

VVK: What was involved in starting up your dairy?

CP: Lots of startup costs and issues. We planned the building and built it 10 steps from my back door. It took two years of planning to find the right equipment and setup. Small processing equipment came from Israel. Everything we could find was meant for big production. The biggest challenge was trying to get a machine to dispense one ounce of fruit on the bottom of a six-ounce cup. Lots of trial and error on that.

VVK: How much yogurt do you produce?

CP: One and a half tons per week, or 3,000 pounds. That’s about 1,700 six-ounce cups and 1,400 24-ounce cups of yogurt. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to most yogurt manufacturers. But we’re often able to make our yogurt one day and deliver it the next. Probably the freshest yogurt available!

VVK: Where does your milk come from?

CP: We use non-homogenized milk from two local, single-source, small farms that don’t use rBST and sub-therapeutic antibiotics. We believe that keeping it simple and clean keeps it healthy. We process it quickly and get it to the market.

VVK: How about your culture?

CP: Our culture comes from a local company. There are huge companies around the world that manufacture cultures. They are very sophisticated and very technical. Some won’t sell to small manufacturers like us. There are small companies who will deal with our minimal needs. We’re lucky to have just such a company in Madison.

VVK: Different yogurt brands can taste very different. How did you come upon the blend of culture that you use?

CP: Different blends have different tastes because of the pH’s they work best in. Ours has a mild, pseudo-American preference. It allows the flavor of the fruit to come through and has worked very well for us. Most European and Middle Eastern countries seem to prefer a more tart, acidic taste. Americans are used to mild and sweet flavors. That’s beginning to change now that we have access to a lot more variety.

VVK: I’ve made yogurt at home by adding a little yogurt to milk and keeping it warm, but it never comes out as solid as I’d like. And I can’t keep it going for the next batch. What’s your secret?

CP: We use freeze-dried culture in the same amount every batch for consistency. Real yogurt doesn’t need additives, but it does require help to absorb all the liquid in the milk, like raising the temperature and holding the milk to denature the proteins. We also incubate in the cup so we can retain the original texture without adding stabilizers. The added, unnecessary stuff doesn’t make real yogurt better -- though it makes it travel long distances well

VVK: What’s the most popular flavor? Do you have more in the works?

CP: Raspberry in six-ounce cups. I’d love to do exotic fruits like locally produced aronia [chokeberry] or black current, but the difficulty lies in the processing. Most fruit processors are in California. We’re looking for a Wisconsin or midwestern processor to work with.

VVK: What happens to the cream after you remove it from the milk to make your yogurt lowfat? I understand you’ll be using it in your own line of sour cream soon.

CP: It gets made into butter, but not by us. Sour cream is getting closer. It’s a different culture, and it takes more time and a different temperature. In larger quantities it can be tricky. We really wanted to have it out by now. Seems like everything takes longer to organize when most of our time is spent in production or delivery.

VVK: Is there any chance you’ll be coming out with a whole-milk yogurt anytime?

CP: Whole milk yogurt is on the way. We just need cups printed -- that’s another story, and two months of waiting. Research is clear about the differences between good versus bad fats, but people mostly focus on the word “fat.” They tend to equate fat with calories, and nutrition is a lesser issue. There’s also research indicating that non-homogenized milk may be healthier.

VVK: What else is next for Sugar River Dairy?

CP: A new delivery truck!

Fruit Salad

2008-03-01T07:56:00.001-06:00

Recipe from Active local culture: Chris and Ron Paris update Dairy State tradition with their natural, artisan yogurts

Fruit salad

Fresh fruits
Vanilla yogurt
Optional: raisins, almonds, and/or sunflower seeds

Choose a combination of two, three or four fruits. “Very simple.“ says Chris. “Go local or regional if possible. The only frozen I use are those I freeze myself -- strawberries!” Cut in chunks about the size of ice cubes, or use a melon ballers. Arrange atop vanilla yogurt in individual serving dishes.

Fruit combo suggestions:
Apples, pear and cherry
Watermelon, cantaloupe and muskmelon
Thimbleberry (they’re like raspberries, but bigger and softer), grape and blueberry
Mango, guava and strawberry
Pineapple, banana and clementines or tangerines

Let them eat bread

2008-02-01T19:28:00.000-06:00

For celiac sufferers, Holly Beach provides gluten-free alternatives

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava magazine, February 2008
Column: Around the Table

Recipe: Gluten-free Valentine’s Day Sugar Cookies

White or wheat? For perhaps as many as 1 in 133 Americans, the answer had better be “gluten-free.” And not just for toast, but for every sort of bread, pizza, muffin, pastry, cookie and pasta. Not to mention beer, imitation crabmeat, soy sauce, vitamins, medicine, envelope glue -- absolutely anything made with wheat, barley or rye.

That’s the estimate given by the National Institutes of Health of those of us who may have the genetic autoimmune disorder known as celiac disease. When a celiac sufferer ingests gluten, a protein in those common grains, the immune system attacks the lining of the small intestine, rendering that vital organ incapable of absorbing nutrients. No matter how much the person eats, they become malnourished. Results can include bloating and gas, fatigue, anemia, osteoporosis, seizures, mouth ulcers, infertility, emaciation or obesity -- and that’s just the short list.

In this country, where awareness among the medical profession is, mercifully, growing, celiac patients have gone years before being correctly diagnosed. An article in USA Today tells of a girl who didn’t grow an inch between the ages of eight and 16 -- when she was finally diagnosed with celiac disease and told to stop eating gluten.

The good news is that the small intestine can usually heal over the course of a few months, and the body can once again receive desperately needed nutrients. The bad news is that there’s no known treatment for celiac disease. Patients must abstain from wheat, barley and rye products for life. The amount of gluten present in just 1/48 slice of bread -- scarcely a crumb -- has been found to trigger an attack.

Lucky for Madisonians with celiac -- and also for those with gluten intolerance and wheat allergies, which are separate medical conditions -- there’s Holly Beach and her Silly Yak Bakery, located right next door to her (whole-wheat) Bread Barn on Mineral Point Road.

Since the early 1990s, Holly owned and operated a bakery in Rochester, Minn., which is, coincidentally, the home of the world-famous Mayo Clinic, a leader in medical research and treatment. In 2000, around the time celiac awareness was beginning to pick up, a patient from out of town dropped by the The Bread Baker asking if they might, perchance, carry GF (gluten-free) bread. Then another, and another. “I had never heard of the disease before customers started coming in and asking for GF product,” Holly explains.

For a baker with a B.S. in health education (UW-La Crosse, 1983), this was a call to action. But there were technical difficulties in creating wheat-free bakery goods. “My first attempts were miserable bricks and I backed off for a bit,” Holly remembers. “ But people were still asking for GF product. I could only say ‘I’m sorry’ for so long.” She rolled up her sleeves again, and didn’t stop until she had perfected some great gluten-free loaves. Then she found how hard it was to bulk-order the special ingredients she needed.

“I remember sitting in my office and crying after another failed attempt to locate ingredients and thinking about all the celiacs that had to deal with finding safe food every day,” she says. “Everyone had the right to walk into my bakery and enjoy bread!” She persisted, and soon, Holly had a gluten-free mail order business up and running “through referrals from the Mayo Clinic.”

Then, in 2004, a serendipitous business deal with the owner of Madison’s Bread Barn led to Holly’s buying that bakery and moving, with her husband, Miguel, to Wisconsin. “It was time for a change in our lives after each living 20 plus years in Rochester,“ she explains. “It all clicked. Within four months we had sold my Rochester bakery and townhouse and purchased the Bread Barn and a townhouse in Verona -- all during the holiday season.”

And then there was this: “I knew that by just being in a larger city I would be able to bake for more people with celiac disease.”

Vesna Vuynovich Kovach: How did you come up with your bakery’s name?

Holly Beach: “Silly Yak” is a play on words for celiac. Having celiac disease can be overwhelming, especially for children and parents. I wanted to lift the cloud, so to speak, and put some fun into celiac.

VVK: What led you to baking to begin with?

HB: My Grandmother Nelson was a very gifted cake baker and decorator. I spent many hours watching her create her beautiful cakes. My passion at that time was eating the delicious “cake crumb toppings” that came from leveling off the tops of her cakes. [After college] I moved to Rochester and opened a bicycle store. After 12 years I switched gears -- ha! -- to running a whole-grain bread bakery.

VVK: What’s most challenging about gluten-free baking?

HB: Gluten is the stretchy protein in wheat which allows the bread to expand like a balloon. Unfortunately, this is the culprit for people with celiac disease. We use xanthan gum [a specially fermented corn syrup] along with eggs to replace it. Over the years I’ve been able to develop bread that has a delicious, yeasty smell and taste, with loft and a soft crumb. Muffins and cookies are not so difficult, although they have their naughty moments.

Working with GF ingredients can still be unpredictable and we often scratch our heads in the kitchen wondering, “Now, why did that happen?” when we didn’t change the recipe at all!

We have been getting more requests for GF products that are also casein free, egg free, and yeast free. All of this takes so much time to develop.

VVK: What are some other ingredients?

HB: I try to use many high-protein and high-fiber grains such as amaranth, quinoa, sorghum, Montina [milled Indian rice grass, which is native to Montana] and buckwheat. Lack of fiber is a big concern for most people with celiac disease. I find that the community here in Madison is much more receptive to these grains. However, the Classic Rice bread is still our best selling bread. I’m very proud of our breads and the rave reviews that they get.

VVK: I’ve read that cross-contamination is a serious issue for celiac patients -- hamburgers can’t be cooked on the same grill as buns, fries can’t be fried in the same oil as breaded foods, and so forth. Since you’re running a whole-wheat bakery as well as the Silly Yak, how do you manage?

HB: When I first started baking GF, I set up strict handling procedures. All ingredients are in separate containers and kept in a separate area of the store. Separate utensils and pans are used, and washed and sanitized before each use. All surface areas are sanitized and covered. Each month I randomly test GF products for gluten contamination. By randomly testing products, I’m able to check our safe-handling techniques. We have not had a failed batch to date.

VVK: How does your Silly Yak business compare with your whole-grain operation next door?

HB: Forty percent of our total gross is from GF sales. In 2005 GF sales were only 10% of our total sales, so you can see that GF is growing substantially.

VVK: Who are your customers, and how do they find you?

HB: Our GF customer base is mostly local with about 30% being mail order – and that percentage is growing monthly. We get customers traveling through the area, and regular out-of-towners as far away as Chicago and Dubuque who stop in on a monthly basis. Our customers find us through Internet searches, word of mouth, and referrals from the Mayo Clinic.

To my knowledge, my oldest customer is 98 and hails from New York. My youngest is three years old and loves our snickerdoodle cookies.

VVK: Do your customers tell you of their health journey -- their struggles with celiac?

HB: Some customers come in with heavy shoulders, overwhelmed with the diet changes that they must make. Some are angry. I try to instill in my staff an understanding ear. Our job is to make life just a little bit easier for them.

Some of the most heartwarming moments for me are when customers come into the store and the tears start streaming down their faces. They can’t believe the selection! Some customers haven’t had pizza for over 20 years. And then to be able to offer them gluten-free beer [Lake Front Brewery’s New Grist and Budweiser’s Red Bridge]! Oh my gosh, they think they’ve died and gone to heaven. Also very moving for me was sending GF packages to soldiers in Iraq for Thanksgiving.

VVK: What are your personal favorites?

HB: The banana muffin! We make it with sorghum flour, and it just hits the spot without being too sweet. My staff loves our GF pizzas and we have been known to make large pizzas on a GF bake day for our own ravenous consumption. I also enjoy grilled cheese sandwiches with the tomato-feta bread and Reubens made with our Bavarian bread.

VVK: Any other great connections you’ve made in Madison?

HB: Very special to me is my collaboration with Bunky’s Café on Atwood Ave. in Madison. [Co-owner] Teresa Pullara-Ouabel has been very supportive of the celiac community and prepares wonderful pizzas and main-course Italian dinners that are gluten free. She is super high energy and helps keep me going mentally when I’m starting to bog down.

Gluten-free Valentine’s Day Sugar Cookies

2008-02-01T18:33:00.000-06:00

Recipe from Let them eat bread: For celiac sufferers, Holly Beach provides gluten-free alternatives
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
Brava magazine, February 2008
Column: Around the Table

Holly says, “So many of my customers miss baking. Gluten-free ingredients can sometimes be so difficult to work with, but this is a very easy recipe and rolls out really nice. Families can have fun together creating these. Don't tell your friends that these are GF! They'll be asking you for the recipe.”

Mix together:
3 cups rice flour mix*
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon xanthan gum
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Cut in:
1 cup chilled butter, cut in small pieces
1 egg
3 tablespoons buttermilk or milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Blend well. Chill, if desired. Roll out on rice-floured surface to 1/8" to 1/4" thickness. Cut into valentines or shapes. (This dough works for any holiday!) Bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes, until a light touch to the center of a cookie does not make a dent. Edges may become slightly golden, depending on thickness.

Sprinkle with sugar before baking or frost after cooled. Yield: About 2 dozen 2" cookies. Store in a sealed container in a cool area. “They freeze great!” says Holly.

*Rice Flour Mix: Use Holly’s GF Flour Mix (available at Silly Yak Bakery) or another GF mix of your choosing. (Check the label to see if xanthan gum is already included.)

Tops in Toffee

2008-01-01T07:26:00.000-06:00

Nilda Molina Miller’s quest for perfection in confection

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
Brava magazine, January 2008
Column: Around the Table

Recipe: Chocolate Caramel

The kitchen thermometer. That was the revolutionary tool that candy makers of the 19th century used to unlock the secrets of plain table sugar, which can break down and reform into hundreds of variously flavored and textured molecular compounds. It all depends on precisely how far it’s heated and how it’s handled as it cools, and you need a thermometer -- and a dependable stovetop -- to manage that.

In fact, just about all the sweets we’re familiar with today are Industrial Revolution-era inventions: caramel, fudge, fondant, peanut brittle, peppermint drops, taffy, butterscotch. And then there’s toffee, that toothsome marriage of flame-hot butter and sugar beloved by the British since at least 1825, yet nearly unknown in the States outside the occasional tooth-defying encounter with the rocky slab at the core of a Heath bar.

Local chocolatier Nilda Molina Miller is busting down that particular bonbon barrier with the homemade toffees she sells at the café she opened a year and a half ago on E. Johnson Street, in the historic string of storefronts at the intersection with North Street. Unlike what she calls the stereotypical “teeth-breaking” English toffee, her chocolate-coated specialties are browned-buttery rich, with a decisive crunch that collapses pleasantly into a crumbly play of complex, nutty shades of sweetness.

Originally from Chicago, Nilda spent several years as a police officer with the City of Madison, but she yearned “to do something creative and possibly make a career out of it.” After getting a thorough grounding in the science and art of modern confectionary through Ecole Chocolat, an online professional school located in Vancouver, B.C., Nilda began tinkering with toffees, striving to create the ultimate, buttery, crunchy, melt-in-your-mouth treat.

Today Nilda’s Chocolates features a complete line of toffees, along with chocolate truffles and bar chocolate, all individually handmade by Nilda herself. Customers can take home wrapped treasures or enjoy them on the spot with a cup of coffee or tea in the cozy interior of this Art Nouveau-era shop done up in shades of -- what else? -- chocolate and toffee.

VVK: How did you get interested in toffee?

NMM: I always loved toffee as a child and I knew I wanted it to be one of my signature chocolates. I wanted to concentrate on creating a chocolate that wasn’t common in other local chocolate stores.

VVK: How has the Madison reception to toffee been?

NMM: The response has been amazing. Part of the experience is educating customers on toffee if they've never had it before. But the deal sealer is giving them samples! There's nothing like seeing a customer’s reaction for the first time when they bite into a toffee.

VVK: How do you get your toffee to come out the way it does?

NMM: It's the ingredients, and the way that I cook it. Exactly how is a secret. I worked on it a long time! Once I established my base recipe, I was able to add other flavors to come up with my line of toffee, currently nine different flavors.

VVK: What's your favorite item?

NMM: The “Nina Blues” toffee. A dark, slightly intense chocolate surrounds the toffee, which is combined with dried blueberries from Door County and roasted cocoa nibs. It goes well with a cup of coffee and it reminds me of me -- dark, slightly intense and complex!

VVK: Your family is from Puerto Rico. Does that culinary heritage contribute to the sweets and candies you make?

NMM: To a certain extent. I like to use spices that are used in Puerto Rican dishes -- anise, cinnamon, coconut milk, pineapple and mango. I also look at some of the dessert dishes as inspiration for coming up with a new flavor, or name for my chocolates. One of my truffles is called “Cafe Con Leche.” It’s a milk chocolate ganache flavored with freshly brewed coffee, dipped in milk chocolate, and sprinkled with bits of coffee beans. The “Caribbean Goddess” truffle is made with a Venezuelan dark chocolate. Instead of the traditional cream, I use coconut milk in the ganache and combine it with bits of dried pineapple and mango.

VVK: What's your favorite thing about what you do?

NMM: I get to create chocolates and make a living from it!

Chocolate Caramel

2008-01-01T06:41:00.000-06:00

Recipe from Tops in Toffee: Nilda Molina Miller’s quest for perfection in confection
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
Brava magazine, January 2008
Column: Around the Table

Caramel is cooked at a high enough temperature that the crystals of its cane, corn and milk sugars break apart -- “caramelize” -- and reform as toasty brown, creamy goodness. It’s an easier project for the home cook than toffee, which cooks far hotter.

1 cup unsalted butter
2 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup light corn syrup
14 oz. sweetened condensed milk
2 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Add sugar and salt. Stir thoroughly. Add corn syrup. Stir. Gradually add milk and stir until all ingredients are mixed well. Add chocolate, stirring constantly until completely melted. Continue to let the mixture come to a boil, stirring constantly. You may have to wash down the sides of the saucepan with a pastry brush dipped in water to prevent the sugar from crystallizing.

Place a candy thermometer in the pan and cook until it reaches about 246-248° F (the “firm ball” stage), depending on how firm you like your caramel. Remove the pan from the stove and stir in the vanilla extract. Pour the caramel into a baking pan lined with parchment paper, allowing extra paper to fold over the sides of the pan. Cool to room temperature. Lift the parchment paper with the caramel out of the pan. Cut the caramel into squares and enjoy as is, or dip them in the chocolate of your choice.

Spunky and self-made: Sandra Lee

2007-12-01T06:18:00.000-06:00

How Sandra Lee’s escape to Wisconsin led to sweet, Semi-Homemade success

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
Brava magazine, December 2007
Cover story

When Sandra Lee was 15 years old, she looked her mother straight in the eye and announced that her future would be a good one.

She got the beating of her life.

Sandra left home that day. Exhausted from spending years as the primary caretaker of four younger siblings, emotionally spent from the thankless ordeal of rescuing her mother after a suicide attempt that nearly succeeded, shaken by a rape attempt by her former stepfather, and now more bloodied, black and blue than she’d ever been before, the teen fled for shelter with her boyfriend’s kindhearted family.

Sandra didn’t know it then, but she was only a few months away from the haven that would change her life forever: Wisconsin.

Today, it’s hard to imagine the 40-year-old Sandra Lee as anything other than the celebrity lifestyle expert she’s become. Her upbeat persona has led many to suppose that her success was effortless, her upbringing comfortable and coddled.

She’s the CEO of Semi-Homemade, Inc., the New York Times bestselling author of a string of cookbooks bearing the Semi-Homemade name and a guest lecturer for Harvard Business School conferences. She’s an entrepreneur who for years ran an industry-award-winning business based on do-it-yourself window-treatment gadgets she invented using clothes hanger wire. She’s a tireless worker for charities including UNICEF, Project Angel Food and Share Our Strength, and a trustee of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

But she’s probably best known as the chipper host of Food Network’s popular show Semi-Homemade Cooking. For each strongly themed episode, Sandra personally develops an array of recipes including her signature “Cocktail Time,” dramatic “tablescapes” that incorporate anything from garden ornaments to dime store props for 3D effect, a complete overhaul of the set’s dressing and even a coordinating wardrobe for herself, sometimes with multiple costume changes. She’s done this over 200 times since the show’s debut in 2003.

She balks at the suggestion that the themes express who she is: “It’s not me coming through. It’s not job to dictate what you should like and what you should not like. My job is to show you, if this is your taste, this is how to put it together with the minimum of time, effort and expense. Because I’ve already done it every which way there is to do it. By the time it’s on the air, it’s perfect.” The sheer volume and scope of projects covered in each show can seem overwhelming, but, Sandra explains, “No one’s going to make everything that’s in any episode. You might see one thing and say, ‘I can do that.’”

Sandra is known for an exuberant cooking style that uses lots of brand-name mixes, jars, seasoning packets and cans, for her full-throttle ruffles-and-lace decorating, and not least for a blazingly sunny disposition. This last, paired with her willowy, California-blonde good looks, seems to have predestined her success as the upbeat multimedia juggernaut she’s become. But her background of poverty, abuse and family hardship tells a different story.

In her newly published memoir, “Made From Scratch” (Meredith), Sandra recounts her rocky upbringing. Born to teenage parents, at the age of two she and her younger sister were deposited at the Santa Monica home of her father’s mother. There she spent her happiest childhood years. “Grandma Lorraine,” whom Sandra called “Mommy” at that time, worked hard to make home a special place to share with loved ones. She kept an immaculate house, cooked good food, made crafts with the girls, took them to church. When it was time for celebration, she went all out making decorations and treats, playing on a shrewd inventiveness that made the most of the slim paycheck she earned working at a cafeteria. Sandra lovingly recalls the simple foil pie pans she upturned to make “grand, shiny silver cake pedestals” at birthdays. The lesson in repurposing mundane objects would serve Sandra well later in life.

At six, when Sandra's mother and new husband took the girls to live in Washington State, the peaceful rhythms and special celebrations were gone, replaced by chaos, mess and violence. By the time Sandra was eleven, her stepfather was gone and her mother was immobilized by depression. Sandra took over the household responsibilities, buying groceries by bicycle, rationing food stamps through the month, cooking, cleaning, minding four children, raising extra money by selling bunches of flowers she picked from empty lots, dodging her mother’s beatings and admonitions that she wasn’t helping around the house enough -- and going to school, where she hid her bruises from the school nurses.

Just before her sixteenth birthday, Sandra left Washington for the Onalaska townhouse her father shared with his girlfriend. “I got there just in time,” says Sandra, speaking from her recently adopted city of New York. “If I hadn’t gone to live in Wisconsin, we would not be having this interview. I would not have become the person I am. There’s a sensibility in Wisconsin and the Midwest that’s wonderful. The values and morals are really prevalent in the society. ”

Her father’s household, too, dissolved into domestic violence, but Sandra believes Wisconsin life saved her. “The kids in Washington were doing drugs, but Wisconsin was a very different environment. There was really no bad crowd to get involved with.”

Grandma Lorraine helped Sandra find her own apartment in Onalaska. “It was the best and the worst time in my life,” Sandra recalls. “It was the first time I was really on my own and had to just focus on myself, to be still -- which was just odd and awkward. On the other hand, it wasn’t the chaos I was used to in my life in Washington. I was more peaceful and serene. I didn’t have parental guidance or supervision, but there was also this quiet environment. Being able to grow. I read. I focused on school much more. I was the entertainment editor, and in charge of advertising at the school newspaper. I joined cheerleading.”

Here Sandra says she developed the distinctive aesthetic of her show’s coordinated set dressing, tablescapes and wardrobe. “It’s very matchy-matchy, just like Wisconsin. When you’re in cheerleading, your hair-bow matches your purse matches your book cover. Everyone matches. All the time.”

Unaccustomed to what seemed like loads of free time, Sandra went to work, too. “My first jobs were at Hardee’s and Penny’s Shoes. Then I went to the pet store in the LaCrosse Mall. The work ethic and the support and the understanding -- Wisconsin was just a super terrific place to be.”

Then there was the food. “I experienced different foods in Wisconsin that I never had before. Brats were one, which I loved immediately. Sunfish was another -- I love sunfish to this day. Just flour and salt it, then saute in butter.”

After high school, Sandra headed to the UW-La Crosse to study physical therapy, “a great way to help people -- I got that from taking care of my brothers and sisters.” But the girl who once helped support her family selling value-added wildflowers found business classes more riveting. “Five of us got together and opened up an ice fishing shop, you know, on paper. You had to do per-square-foot dollars and figure out employee scheduling, everything. After that class, I said, ‘OK. I want to own my own business. This is just too much fun.’”

Cocktail Time, as well as the show’s occasional grilling segments, she says, comes straight from her experience of “grilling, cocktail waitressing and bartending at the Holiday Inn on Mississippi River. I learned to grill on that deck grill, in a very small space. I definitely learned creative cocktails on the deck. We’ve shot 200 themes. Who else could pump out 200 different cocktails? You need the expertise of being a Wisconsinite.”

In college Sandra also discovered the pleasures of entertaining for friends. She had no money, but as she had learned from Grandma Lorraine, “there’s no reason things can’t be special, no matter what your budget” (this attitude would later become central to the Semi-Homemade philosophy). So she learned to improvise in the kitchen. “I would make ‘Boone’s Farm Strawberry Shortcake,’ she recalls. “All you do is just simmer thawed-out strawberries, macerated in Boone’s Farm Strawberry Wine. Let it all melt together -- the alcohol cooks out. That was the only thing we could afford.”

It took several years, a lot more life experience and an intensive course at Le Cordon Bleu’s Ottawa campus for all these elements to coalesce into the overarching concept of “Semi-Homemade.” And when it did, the message resonated with millions of homemakers. No publishing firm would touch her first book, “Semi-Homemade Cooking,” so Sandra self-published. The book became a grassroots phenomenon, and soon major publishers and the Food Network were lined up to get Sandra -- and her Semi-Homemade brand -- on their team.

“Semi-Homemade was really created so that the busy homemaker would have the time to sit down with the family,” Sandra explains. “It’s the solution to bringing the family back together at the table, without sacrificing quality or taste. It’s 70-30, right in line with how your grocery is laid out -- all the ready-made products in the center, and the 30% of the perimeter has the bakery, fresh meats, and produce.”

But some critics argue that 30% homemade is 70% short of real cooking. The New York Times review of the first Semi-Homemade cookbook was scornful. Members of Internet forums make gleeful sport of her menus and recipes, disdaining her advice to, for instance, stir together ready-made ranch dressing with sour cream and hot sauce to make a dip for deep-fried olives (she specifies buying them already stuffed with blue cheese) in tempura batter mix. The contempt doubles at her examples of repurposing, as when the strained-off olive liquid plays a role in Cocktail Time.

Sandra bristles at such attitudes. “They need to quit, these purists, being condescending. I take offense, and I take offense on behalf of millions of women who are working. Who want to take five minutes to sit down with their family. Or to look nice. Taking a shot at Semi-Homemade is absolutely ridiculous. They’re not even taking a shot at me; they’re taking a shot at those women.”

She continues, “Everything I do on the show, I ask first, does this work for Colleen Schmidt [Sandra’s best friend from college] of Fredonia, Wis., who’s on her second marriage and is raising two children? Does this work for Kimber Lee, who’s got no nanny to help her? If it doesn’t work for them, then it doesn’t work. Anything that creates helps create time and a platform for good family values should be greeted with open arms.”

Sandra sometimes has to fight this battle on her own show. For this year’s Christmas episode, a producer nixed a centerpiece of white, powdered-sugar doughnuts adorned with “tiny blue candies that you stick in the holes of the doughnuts,” Sandra explains, and draped with blue fruit leather, all affixed to a craft styrofoam cone.

“They didn’t want me to do this doughnut tree. It was drop-dead gorgeous! I just think the woman in charge didn’t understand what it’s supposed to be about. I said, ‘I understand that it’s not New York, L.A. sophisticated,” Sandra says, her voice becoming hot as she recounts the skirmish. “I said, ‘It’s not about you. It’s about what Colleen Schmidt Wayberg will use to make the holidays easier, better, faster.’ That’s what Christmas is supposed to be about. If you did that at your holiday party, everyone would say, ‘You are so clever!’” The producer relented.

“They don’t even know how to tell me, ‘No,’” Sandra says.

It’s a bit boastful, but that’s OK. Years ago, Sandra Lee decided to look straight in the eye of someone who wanted to beat her down, maybe for good. You wouldn’t expect her to back down now over a doughnut tree.

Anna Alberici carries on the tradition of Madison’s Little Italy at the Greenbush Bar

2007-12-01T06:16:00.000-06:00

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
Brava magazine, December 2007
Column: Around the Table

Recipe: Anna's Cannoli

Anna Alberici was just a child when the bulldozers came. Her family’s home fell with the others in the neighborhood -- with the grape vines, flower gardens and tomato patches, the groceries, churches, spaghetti houses and taverns. Gone was the multiethnic enclave bounded by West Washington Avenue, Park Street and Regent Street, the territory once nicknamed Little Italy. Anna’s neighborhood, the Greenbush, or the “Old Bush,” was a target of the 1960s’ zeal for “urban redevelopment;” the area, with its rich history, was cleared for new concrete megastructures.

A few buildings along the north side of Regent Street survived the wrecking ball. One was the Italian Workmen’s Club, which ran a bar downstairs. Today the club, still in existence, rents that downstairs space to the much-loved Greenbush Bar, owned by Anna and managed by Gretchen Hils, Anna’s life partner. “When I saw that it was for rent [in 1993] I jumped on it,” says Anna. “It seemed like a natural for me to be in that space. “I remember going there with my family.”

VVK: What do you remember about the old Greenbush neighborhood, and what it was like when everyone had to leave?

AA: Even though I was only 10 when we left, I miss it. I really did love it. I wish it were still there. Often when I drive past the area where I lived I think about being a kid, what the neighborhood looked like, how I felt. There were several small grocery stores. All Italian and everyone knew everyone. I would be sent to the store for a pound of salami and “Mr. Frank” would slice it to order, put it on our account and send me home.

I just remember what a huge change it was when we moved. I hated it. My mom was very sad. The older folks really had a hard time when they had to leave. The rest of the people scattered about.

VVK: How does the establishment tie in with the area’s past? What makes it special?

AA: I named the bar in tribute to the neighborhood. It fits into the old tradition of the old Greenbush neighborhood in that we serve Sicilian cuisine. Most of the Italians in the old Bush were from parts of Sicily.

I think what makes the Greenbush special is the coziness. You go down a flight of stairs. Before you get to the door you can smell the food and hear music, talk and laughter. It's warm and inviting, especially on a cold winter night. We pay special attention to not only the quality of the food but also the drink. We have a "top shelf" rail, great wines at a good price, lots of bourbon and scotch as well as local beer.

VVK: What led you to the culinary trade?

AA: My mother was a great cook. She also cooked in restaurants all of her adult life. She was born and raised in the Greenbush neighborhood and cooked in almost all of the Italian restaurants at some point. At home she made traditional Sicilian meals. She loved cooking and we loved eating.

I feel lucky to have acquired a taste for things like Sicilian olives, snails and garlic -- and lots of it -- at an early age. It shaped my love for food that is simple, tasty and wholesome.

VVK: The Greenbush is known for its commitment to local, sustainable food products. What’s behind that?

AA: I remember as a child how good meat and poultry products in this country were. And how that changed in later years. Now I buy all of my non-processed meat -- everything except pepperoni, salami and prosciutto --from Pecatonica Farms in Hollandale, Wis. Their meat is all natural and free range.

We are totally committed to using local and buying local as much as possible. This is the way I eat at home and I feel it my duty to serve that kind of food to my customers. The flavor of local, organic and naturally raised food is so outstanding. I think it is also all local businesses to help other local business survive. We need to support each other. The chain restaurants are out of control and they don't serve our community except in the area of employment, which is good, but ….

VVK: What’s your favorite dish at the Greenbush?

AA: Spaghetti and meatballs. It is comfort food to me. The recipe is pretty much what I grew up with.

VVK: What’s your favorite thing about what you do?

AA: Simply cooking. I love it when I’m alone in the kitchen and preparing whatever it is I'm making that day. It's kind of Zen for me.

VVK: What’s ahead for the Greenbush?

AA: I hope that the Greenbush can keep growing. We often consider opening for lunch, but parking in the day is an issue. I'm currently on a steering committee for the Regent Street south campus area redevelopment. I think it will be great to get Regent Street on the track of more businesses and more of a neighborhood rather than just a busy street.

Anna's Cannoli

2007-12-01T05:47:00.000-06:00

Recipe from Anna Alberici carries on the tradition of Madison’s Little Italy at the Greenbush Bar
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
Brava magazine, December 2007
Column: Around the Table

One secret to this Italian classic is to wait until the moment before serving to fill these ethereally crispy tubes with a rich, creamy filling of your choice. “Sorry, I can't give you our restaurant’s cannoli filling recipe,” says Anna, “It's top secret!” This chocolate chip variant is “a basic recipe, similar to my mom's -- every Christmas she would make a platter full.”

Shells
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tablespoons sugar
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon brandy
1/3 cup red wine or more as needed
Vegetable oil for frying
Special equipment: 3 or 4 metal cannoli tubes, available at Fraboni’s or online.

Blend together dry ingredients in a food processor. Turn off machine. Add wet ingredients. Process until dough forms a ball. Add more wine if it’s too dry. Wrap in plastic wrap and let sit one hour. Roll onto a floured surface to about 1/16th of an inch. Cut out 3" circles. Wrap a circle around each tube. Brush some water or egg white where the seam overlaps and press together.

With the dough still wrapped around the tubes, deep-fry in 350º oil for about two minutes, turning as they cook. Watch the heat and never leave them, as they cook quickly. Remove to paper towel. When cool, remove from tubes and repeat until all dough is used.

Filling
3 cups whole milk ricotta cheese, well-drained
1 1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup chocolate chips
chopped pistachio nuts

Blend together ricotta, sugar and cinnamon in a food processor. Stir in chips. Fill shells with a pastry bag and garnish the ends with chopped pistachio nuts.

No column

2007-11-01T06:30:00.000-05:00

I didn't have an Around the Table column in Brava magazine for the month of November 2007.

Kristi Genna mixes it up at Genna’s Cocktail Lounge

2007-10-01T06:12:00.000-05:00

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
Brava magazine, October 2007
Column: Around the Table

Recipe: Berry Mojito

Kristi Genna was doesn’t remember the day her father, Frank, opened Genna’s Lounge in 1964 – she was only three years old at the time. But she knows its role in Madison’s cultural history as one of a cluster of taverns that earned a little stretch of University Avenue downtown the sobriquet “the Bermuda Triangle.” They say the unwary could become lost for days wandering the Black Bear, the 602 Club, Bob and Gene’s, Jocko’s Rocketship – and Genna’s.

In the 1980s, after graduating from the UW-Madison armed with a degree in communications arts, Kristi headed for Chicago “to pursue a career in television and film,” she says. She soon found work in commercials, but when her father fell ill, she found herself spending weekends in Madison helping with the bar.

“It became obvious that I couldn’t remain in Chicago and continue helping my father during his illness, so I moved back to Madison,” she says. “I ran the bar by myself while my father was ill.” After Frank’s death in 1987, ownership passed to Kristi. “Since then, I have never looked back. I am a proud bar owner, and this is what I do.”

In 1993, Genna’s moved to its new location on the Capitol Square, in a historic building that Kristi’s husband, Jack Williams – “with the help of a few loyal patrons,” as Genna’s Web site says – renovated completely.

Today Genna’s combines family tradition with urban sophistication, leading the way in cutting-edge mixology and authentically rendered classic cocktails.

VVK: What are your earliest memories of the family business?

KG: My father would take my sisters and me to help him clean the bar on Sundays. He provided incentive by telling us, “You know those drunks always drop money on the floor.” We later realized that he threw money on the floor as a little treat for us to find.

VVK: Did you think you’d be involved in the operation someday?

KG: Actually, my father refused to let me work at Genna's while I was at UW-Madison. I told him that he didn’t have to pay me – I would just work for tips. Without his permission, I started helping out the bartenders. As business began to increase, over time most of his bartenders left.– they didn’t care for the younger clientele. With more business and a smaller staff my dad conceded that he needed me there. He never put me on payroll, but he always helped me pay the rent. I think in the end he was happy I pushed it.

VVK: Do you still see patrons from those days?

KG: We often see people who once frequented my father’s bar. They usually express some degree of surprise that Genna’s is still operating, even if in a new space. They tell colorful stories about my father, whom I have learned over the years was quite a character.

VVK: Tell me about your passion for this business. What role do establishments like yours play in life and culture?

KG: I believe that taverns, if run correctly, provide a great service to society. People are social animals, and throughout history, we have gathered at meeting places to share our stories. The ancient Greeks and Romans certainly knew the value of gathering over wine to discuss life, art and philosophy. I think Genna’s has provided just such a meeting place over the years. The value of skilled bartenders is not only serving good drinks but also listening to the patrons’ stories as well as contributing their own.

VVK: How has Genna’s – and the Madison lounge scene – changed over the years?

KG: The old Genna’s was a classic hole-in-the-wall Wisconsin tavern – a “shot and beer” bar. Genna’s today retains that classic atmosphere, but the new space allows us to be so much more.

We helped bring the modern cocktail lounge to Madison. Just before the move, I hired Kitty Bennett, who was then head bartender at L’Etoile, to teach our bartenders the art of mixing classic cocktails at drink-making seminars. In 1993 very few people ordered martinis, but we continued offering specials. I persuaded my friends and regulars to try them. Genna’s became one of the few lounges in town serving Martinis, Cosmo[politans]s, and Manhattans.

The current set of bars serving finely crafted cocktails grew around us, and I am proud to have been part of that evolution. Genna’s still offers cocktails that are known to be some of the best and most unique in town. Our Bloody Mary is second to none, and where in Madison can you order a Pimm’s Cup?

We also offer a vast selection of microbrews and hand-crafted beers. Ten years ago, we couldn’t give away a Belgian beer, and now they’re quite popular.

VVK: What’s your secret to success?

KG: Genna’s staff certainly has been a large part of our success. An excellent staff tends to attract other people of the same caliber. And once these professionals are in place, they must have the freedom to be themselves. They help foster an atmosphere of individuality, creativity and free expression. People work better when they know management will support them and back them up. Our staff really is like family.

VVK: What’s the most difficult aspect of the business?

KG: Maintaining the equipment and infrastructure. If it weren’t for my husband Jack, I don’t think Genna's could have made it. Jack built this bar, and he has maintained it and kept it operating for over 20 years.

VVK: What’s been your biggest surprise?

KG: That my marriage has not only survived but thrived. I work alongside my husband every day and it really has been a great experience. After 17 years of marriage we still have so much fun together.

Berry Mojito

2007-10-01T04:53:00.000-05:00

From Kristi Genna mixes it up at Genna’s Cocktail Lounge
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
Brava magazine, October 2007
Column: Around the Table

This fruity rendition of the classic rum refreshment is “our Saturday Farmers Market special,” says Kristi. You can swap in frozen berries for fresh; let thaw first. Barspeak translations? A traditional “jigger” is 1.5 liquid ounces, or three tablespoons. To “muddle” is to crush in liquid. A bartender’s muddler “looks like a tiny baseball bat,” Kristi explains. “In a pinch the end of a wooden spoon or any flat-ended object 1/2" to 1" in diameter will work.”

4 or 5 raspberries
6 or 7 ripped-up mint leaves
1 to 2 teaspoons sugar
A splash or two of seltzer water
1/2 jigger fresh lime juice
1 1/2 jiggers Mount Gay Rum

Put raspberries, mint, sugar and a splash of seltzer water in the bottom of a 10 ounce glass and muddle till all is mashed up. Fill glass with crushed ice. Pour the rum over the ice. Top off the glass with seltzer water. Stir up the concoction and garnish with a sprig of mint and wedge of lime.

Megan Ramey’s MoCo Makes Willy Street Go-go

2007-09-01T07:52:00.000-05:00

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
Brava magazine, September 2007
Column: Around the Table

Recipe: Stuffed Olive Whipped Cream Cheese

Who would think a new convenience would be something a foodie could get excited about? Forget any associations you might have with sterile atmosphere, flat lighting and stale Pop-Tarts. 30-year-old Megan Ramey calls MoCo Market, which she opened this spring on Williamson Street, a “lifestyle store.”

Ramey’s brainchild is a bold reinterpretation of the classic quickie mart that integrates environmental and employee sustainability, commitment to community, and gorgeous design. The luxurious, dark-stained flooring is fast-renewing bamboo; the paint is non-toxic; there’s furniture and paneling made from reclaimed wood. Upscale offerings include alternative magazines, microbrew beers, a rotating selection of international and regional wines, fruit sushi, organics, locally raised bacon. There’s whole-bean Anodyne Coffee, roasted in Milwaukee, and a beverage cooler featuring exotic offerings like bottled kombucha tea and Coca-Cola, aesthetically bottled in old-fashioned chunky green glass.

Even the advertising is alternative: for MoCo’s TV spot, a hip minifilm complete with production credits, Megan sought out animation students and talked a local band into letting her use its music.

After earning a degree in fashion merchandising from the University of Georgia, the Madison-born Megan came back to the area for a job at Land’s End, and soon enrolled in the UW-Madison’s MBA program. MoCo evolved through the course of her studies. She knew she wanted a retail business, and, she says, “I knew that food must be incorporated somehow. My life revolves around food and I love eating. My family is large. One side is Swedish and the other side is German. We live to eat, drink and be merry as much as possible.”

VVK: What's the philosophy behind MoCo?

MR: MoCo is essentially a convenience store that caters to urban dwellers on the go. Urbanites tend to pride themselves in knowing cutting-edge design, music, pop culture, travel and politics, so I tried to bring together all the products that would communicate these facets of life.

Many of my friends love to find new food or retail products that are amazing, and then we tell one another about them. The same goes for [finding] companies that care about more than their bottom line – are they in business to achieve more than making money? When we find those that have strategies that impact people and the environment in a positive way, we tell each other about them. I wanted MoCo to be one of those companies and to hopefully set an example for others.

VVK: MoCo is different from any other convenience store I've ever been in – the vibe itself is unique, and it goes beyond product selection.

MR: You feel as if you are transported to an international destination because of the modern design. Customers tell us that MoCo reminds them of places that they have visited: Tokyo, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Italy. We have modern communal-style bench seating towards the front so people can eat in the sunlight coming through our huge windows while people-watching. All of our groceries are housed on minimal, chrome metro[-style] shelving. Japanese minimalism is the design theme.

Most importantly, MoCo’s interior feels good to be in. My best friend, Mary Bolger, who is LEED-certified [Leadership in Energy and Interior Design], was in charge of creating the magical feeling of the store. She definitely shared my vision for what the store needed to be: “eco-modern.”

VVK: MoCo has the distinction of being certified by the Green Restaurant Association. How did that come about?

MR: While researching an environmental strategy for food retailers during an MBA class on sustainability and ethics, I came across GRA and loved their certification process because it not only centered on food preparation and sales, but also involved community and interior design.

VVK: How did you come up with the market’s name?

MR: I wanted “convenience” to be a part of the name, but I also wanted a four-letter name. “Modern” is what brings the convenience aspect into present day. So I shortened both words to their first two letters and combined them. I love the name because people confuse it with MoMA and MMoCA, which are both beautiful museums.

VVK: What's your favorite MoCo-made food item?

It’s a tie between the sushi and the smoothies.

VVK: What innovations haven’t worked out in the way that you expected?

MR: I thought that music CDs were going to make a comeback. I, for one, really miss having a hard copy of a music library. We still have CDs, but they are listed on eBay, also. I don’t rely on in-store sales. They are mostly used to help shape the image of MoCo – that we’re passionate about music.

VVK: What role do you see MoCo as playing in its Willy St. neighborhood? Have you given thought to additional locations?

MR: Willy Street is my neighborhood and is by far the best one! Where else in Madison is there such a sense of community? I lve knowing my neighbors. The Wil-Mar neighborhood also seems to have the most professionals who bike or walk to work. Plus, the idea of there being a central park one day is so very exciting. I cannot wait to watch Madison and the eastside over the next five years from this vantage point.

I am having trouble finding another neighborhood in Madison where people are outside and community oriented as much as Willy Street. People tell me there is a neighborhood in Milwaukee that would eat MoCo up!

Stuffed Olive Whipped Cream Cheese

2007-09-01T07:03:00.000-05:00

Recipe from Megan Ramey’s MoCo Makes Willy Street Go-go
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
Brava magazine, September 2007
Column: Around the Table

This easy spread combines the smooth lusciousness of cream cheese with the savor of a stuffed olive. “When it comes to my passion of cooking, I love combining unlikely ingredients,” says Megan.” The idea of an olive cream cheese came from a friend who used to work at a café in Door County. Whipped cream cheese is so much better than regular because it’s easier to spread and feels good in your mouth.”

1 block cream cheese
1/2 cup skim milk
stuffed olives, as many as desired (Megan recommends Santa Barbara Olive Co.’s sundried tomato, blue cheese, or jalepeno stuffed varieties.)

Megan says: “Simply throw cream cheese, milk and as many sliced olives as you like into the bowl [of an electric mixer]. Mix until the mixture reaches your desired whippiness! Serve with bagels, veggies or crackers.”

Jan Deadman: The new look of Home Economics

2007-08-02T22:16:00.000-05:00

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach

Column: Around the Table
Recipe: Spaghetti Squash with Meat Sauce
A version of this article was published in Brava magazine, August 2007

Until this spring, Jan Deadman used to be what used to be called a home ec teacher. But let’s back up a little.

A 1963 graduate of East High school, Jan earned a degree in home economics at UW-Stevens Point. In 1972, she joined the faculty of her high school alma mater as one of seven teachers in the home economics department. By the time she retired this year, 35 years and several thousand students later, she’d lived through some enormous changes, both in her field and in the cultural – and culinary – life of Madison and the United States.

First of all, her department got a name change: it’s now “family/consumer education” – FCE for short. And, although its staffing has gone down to three teachers over the years, it’s evolved into one of the school’s most vibrant fields.

Once widely seen as a stodgy single-sex subject that prepped girls for homogenous, housewifely futures, today’s FCE teaches boys and girls a wide variety of life skills and professional development tools for the modern world. “It’s so much more than just cooking and sewing. It’s child development, medical occupations [including a CNA (certified nursing assistant) program], fashion and design,” says Jan. “I believe we have the strongest FCE program in the city.”

East’s foods classes are among the school’s most popular, although funding is a problem. “We had to drop about 200 students from taking foods next year because we don’t have the teacher allocation, or the budget for that matter. Foods is an expensive class to teach,” Jan explains.

Jan says the popularity is due in part to the new cool that cable’s Food Network has brought to cooking and the food trades – a new culinary arts course is debuting this fall. But it’s also because of changes in the classes themselves. Over the years they’ve come to celebrate creative cookery and ethnically diverse culinary heritages, appropriately enough at the school that Jan describes as having the most diverse student population in town.

It wasn’t always this way. In 1972, Jan remembers, “things were pretty regimented, not flexible at all. We had to wear aprons and hair nets. We cooked only very, very simple things: plain biscuits, plain muffins. Now, if kids decide they want to do a special kind of food preparation from their country or cultural background, in a sense, they’re the experts. We learn from each other.”

Let’s back up just a little more – about a century – to appreciate just how very far home ec/FCE has come with regards to kitchen creativity and ethnic food traditions.

Late in the 19th century, a pioneering New England chemist named Ellen Richards decided it was time to modernize one of the most crucial skills ever developed by humankind: the areas of knowledge and skill long known – and disdained – as women’s work.

This happened to be the era when the pantheon of serious academic disciplines as we know them today – biology, chemistry, history, mathematics and so forth– was being shaped in universities across the Western world. At the same time, science and sanitation promised to improve working-class life in cities that had become crowded and polluted over a century of industrialization.

Richards, the founder of home economics (she was also MIT’s first female student, and later its first female instructor), was determined to elevate the practice of clothing, feeding, and creating a comfortable and sanitary household. “Home economics stands for the ideal home life for today unhampered by the traditions of the past [and] the utilization of all the resources of modern science to improve home life," she said in 1904.

With the support of the chemists of the day, who were just discovering the existence of vitamins, early food processors, who were sharply aware of their own interests in a nutritionally aware public, and other social progressives, a new academic discipline was born, one centered around the household sciences. Unfortunately, the most logical name for this field – “economics,” Greek for “rules of the household” – had recently been taken by a bunch of money-focused men who had somehow managed to ignore everything about households that had anything to do with women. Hence the addition of “home” to economics, and the word was transformed into what, perhaps, its meaning should have been in the first place.

There was a dark side to the movement, though. In those days, as today, waves of immigration brought seemingly endless change to the American cultural landscape. But back then, ethnic culinary traditions (Iike spicy flavors) and customs arising from urban and rural working classes (like stews and other one-pot meals) – were believed to be unhealthy, unclean and downright ignorant. Home ec textbooks throughout most of the twentieth century featured straightforward dishes seasoned with little besides salt and pepper. Over the past several decades, mercifully, attitudes have changed.

VVK: What do modern FCE foods classes cover?

JD: We study global issues relating to food. Also, we prepare foods from the ethnicity of the kids in the class. One week this spring we did soul food: fried chicken, barbecued ribs, collard greens, macaroni and cheese from scratch. Dessert was sweet potato pie. After that, we did an Asian lab – we have a lot of Hmong students – with egg rolls, spring rolls, stir-fried rice and green papaya salad. Also, we have many students with Scandinavian roots. We get someone to demonstrate lefse [a traditional flatbread]. We make Swedish meatballs and have a smorgasbord kind of thing. Chef Sabi [host of a local television food show] graduated from East in the late 1980s – he comes in and talks about Mediterranean diets and does demos for the kids.

VVK: How do the students respond to unfamiliar foods?

JD: I think kids today are very respectful to trying new things. Madison has so many wonderful different kinds of restaurants – I think the kids take that for granted. Whatever it is, I insist that they at least try it. One dish – I’ll never forget this one – was from a Japanese family. Mother and student prepared an eight-course Japanese meal, including octopus marinated in soy sauce, a typical appetizer in Japan. That was a real stretch for me. I did try it. But because it was raw, I told the class they didn’t have to. I said eating raw meat or fish was something people in our culture had a real problem with. I didn’t want parents calling to complain that I was making their children eat raw meat! The student was grateful for the kids who did try it. He understood.

VVK: Besides more tolerance and more interest in cookery, what other changes have you seen in students over the years?

JD: Less time is spent in food preparation and we are distinctly at risk of losing favorite family recipes. Cultural specialties risk extinction. Plus, many families do not eat together. I see that as very sad – a huge loss for everybody.

A major problem, then and now, is that most students don’t read the entire recipe when cooking. Two boys were doing a final cooking project – a cake recipe – and they were not to ask me any questions. After about five minutes they came to me and said they were all done. I couldn't believe it. I went to their kitchen, opened the oven, and to my surprise, they had put all their ingredients in the cake pan and put it in the oven. There sat the whole egg, the chunk of butter, all the dry ingredients. Nothing had been mixed. They had just read the ingredients and thrown it all together! Many students then and today just don’t listen and that perhaps is the beginning of the problem. I do think it’s worse today.

It seems there were fewer people, especially young children and teens, with weight problems back then. People in general were more physically active. There wasn’t the total media overkill on appearance, especially for young girls and teenagers. The whole issue of thinness and eating disorders was unheard of back then. Therefore we must work even harder to … convey the understanding and practices that will promote wellness as young people choose the habits that will follow them throughout their lives. Unfortunately, many middle school FCE programs have been eliminated. I see the consequences when we get high school students who haven’t had any experiences with food preparation or nutrition concepts.

Now we have the emphasis on organic, and organic is expensive. At least half of my students qualify for free and reduced lunch. Food choices then become a matter of what is more reasonably priced and will feed the most.

VVK: What was one of the most memorable meals you prepared as a class?

JD: When the kids wanted to do a Thanksgiving meal. I agreed. Then I realized: I’m going to have to put this turkey in the oven at 4:30 in the morning! We had a full, sit-down, Thanksgiving meal at 8:30 a.m., with cranberry relish, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, stuffing. Just totally a traditional menu.

There were no leftovers. So many of the kids in the class weren’t going to have a meal like this for the real Thanksgiving. They couldn’t afford it. A lot of people in Madison don’t know that exists in our city.

Spaghetti Squash with Meat Sauce

2007-08-01T22:12:00.000-05:00

Recipe from Jan Deadman: the new look of Home Economics
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach

Column: Around the Table
Published in Brava magazine, August 2007

“The easiest part of my job is just getting kids excited about new things,” Jan says. “There’s so much wonderful produce around in the fall, so I decided I’d demo this, because they just couldn’t believe you could start with squash and end up with spaghetti. And, why go through the work of making sauce from scratch? It was really fun to watch – because I knew they would like it!”

This nutrient-packed main dish demonstrates some of Jan’s most important classroom lessons: “I try to present a reasoned approach to nutrition and wellness, one of balance, variety, fresh over processed, with an emphasis on fruits and vegetables. Supporting local vendors, grocers, farmer’s markets and the like.” In her classes, Jan also emphasizes “trying new and different foods, keeping informed by reading and the use of critical thinking skills – and being informed consumers!”

Spaghetti Squash with Meat Sauce

1 medium spaghetti squash
1 pound ground turkey or lean ground beef
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
8 ounce can stewed tomatoes, undrained
6 ounce can tomato paste
1 cup water
1/2 cup dry red wine
3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning or
1/2 teaspoon each dried basil and oregano, plus a pinch of thyme

Leave squash whole. Puncture it in several places. Put it on a baking tray and bake at 350 F for 30 to 35 minutes. Cut open. (Use hot pads to hold the squash, and avert your face to avoid steam.) Scrape out and discard the seeds. Scrape out the squash and fluff with a fork into separate strands. Squash is cooked when strands are translucent rather than opaque and are easily separated.

Brown meat, with no fat added, over moderate heat. Drain and discard any melted fat. Stir in onion and garlic. Cook and stir until onion just starts to brown. Stir in remaining ingredients except squash. Cover and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes, then uncover and simmer until meat sauce is thick.

Scoop spaghetti squash strands into four serving bowls. Top with meat sauce and sprinkle with grated Parmesan or Romano cheese.

Herb farmer Jill Yeck builds a rewarding life of fragrant leaves and gentle living

2007-07-01T21:07:00.000-05:00

In Brava magazine, July 2007
Column: Around the Table
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach

Recipe: Lemon Verbena with Peaches

Some years ago, I found myself shifting from vegetable to culinary herb gardening, largely because the latter is just so darn easy. No worries about pushing sacks of overabundant crop on co-workers and friends, or combing the garden for rotting, bug-eaten veggies. Drying and freezing the harvest are simple tasks with virtually no cleanup, and the results take up little storage space. Holiday gifts of beribboned dried sprigs or frozen pesto are laughably easy to assemble, compared to how well received they are. (“You grew this yourself?”)

In fact, just rubbing a sun-warmed leaf between my fingers and breathing in the resulting explosion of essential oils is enough incentive for me to grow any fragrant herb, whether or not I expect to ever use it in cooking. That’s why herb gardening has become my favorite kind of all.

But, inconveniently for me, culinary herb plants typically get little shelf space at nurseries or market vendor tables. So I was thrilled to discover farmer Jill Yeck, with her wide selection of kitchen standards and offbeat varieties at the Northside Farmers’ Market, where I like to bike on summer Sundays.

Jill is the proprietor of Harvest Moon Herb Farm, a small greenhouse business located about halfway between Stoughton and Deerfield. ““There’s something magical about picking an herb that you’ve grown and immediately tossing it into a dish,” she says. “Fresh herbs from the garden have a unique, invigorating taste that you cannot get from dried. Even store-bought, fresh-cut herbs have lost some of their flavor by the time they get home.”

Jill sells her wares at farmers’ markets at Madison’s Northside, Eastside and Westside markets. “We specialize in culinary herb plants that people can plant in a garden or pot. We also grow plants that attract butterflies,” she says. This spring, after three years on the waiting list, Harvest Moon was admitted into the grandmama of them all, Dane County Farmers’ Market on the Capitol Square, where she now sets up between W. Wash and M.L.K. Boulevard. “It was exciting,” she says, smiling at the memory of her first Saturday morning there. “I sold out of so many plants in one morning.”

At home, Jill is fulfilling her longtime dream of “living gently on a few acres” with Harvest Moon, which she named after the 1992 song by Neil Young. Ponds, a creek, beehives, a vegetable garden – and of course, a greenhouse and outdoor garden for the herbs – form the idyllic setting where she can create what she describes as “a peaceful, beautiful and safe atmosphere providing a refuge to look within.”

VVK: What’s your enterprise all about?

JY: Harvest Moon Herb Farm is a place of peace, healing, and wholeness. Our mission is to provide healthy, unique potted plants, and to provide knowledge on how to grow, use and enjoy plants in both practical and meditative ways. People who participate in this farm – both creators and visitors – can connect with our source on a physical level as we commune with the beautiful Mother Earth and all the abundant wonders provided.

I enjoy connecting with people at the farmers’ markets, and talking about gardening, herbs and the meaning of life. I also enjoy the quiet, meditative times I can spend in the greenhouse and gardens. I appreciate the simple pleasures of the earth.

VVK: How did you get into growing herbs?

I’ve enjoyed cooking and gardening since childhood. These activities, along with eating good food, were an important part of my family in Normal, Ill. Living in Thailand in the early 1980s (my former husband was a Peace Corps volunteer, so I followed love and became a teacher in Udornthani, Thailand), I fell in love with Thai cooking. At that time herbs like cilantro, Thai basil, and Thai peppers were hard to find [back in the U.S.]. I began growing them so I could prepare authentic Thai food.

While living on Long Island [in the 1990s] I was canoeing with my family down the Peconic River when I spotted a beat-up, hand-painted sign that read “Herb Farm.” We pulled the canoe ashore to find a beautiful, peaceful, greenhouse business. I picked up a brochure and a curry plant. The next week I felt the energy of the place pull me back. I became an apprentice and worked there for seven seasons, in food production – herbal jellies, vinegars, salsa – educational workshops and festivals as well as weeding, planting and plain good living. All women worked at the farm. The community we developed supported each one of us.

In 1994 – at that time, I also taught workshops on herbal and cooking topics at several venues – I [began making] herbal egg dye kits using ingredients like nettles, annatto and red cabbage and selling them to Whole Foods and local gourmet-type shops and health food stores. We moved to the Chicago area, where we put up a greenhouse in the back of our suburban home. For four years I sold organic herbs at local farmers’ markets. In 2004 I moved to Utica, Wis., and Harvest Moon Farm found its home.

VVK: Do you work outside the farm, as well?

JY: I have a full-time adjunct faculty position in the Educational Psychology department at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, one hour and 15 minutes from my farm. I teach classroom management and discipline to all the elementary education students – the focus of the course is relationship building, community and nonviolent communication. My last class in the spring is the week before farmers’ markets begin.

VVK: Can you describe your operation? Are your herbs organic?

Every morning I thank the plants for enhancing my life. On the practical side, I use organic methods on the farm which includes no sprays or synthetic fertilizers. I hand mix my soil using the finest ingredients. I was certified organic in Illinois but I decided the paperwork and cost wasn’t worth it. I continue to do things in the same way as when I was certified.

I start some seeds in the basement using grow lights. I have a 13' x 44' heated greenhouse and a small field to grow perennials. Most of the seeds I get from catalogs, but my favorite seeds are ones that friends share with me.

VVK: How many types of herbs do you carry, and what are some of them like?

I grew over 60 types of herbs and flowers this spring. The most popular include basil, lavender, rosemary and thyme. The more unusual include pineapple sage, Valentino basil – my favorite basil – sorrel, scented geraniums and orange mint. Lemon and cinnamon basil have a tad of the flavor of their names. Thai basil has a bit of an anise taste. Fino Verde basil has a stronger flavor and is good for drying. Genovese is the basic pesto basil, although all can be made into a pesto –– pesto simply means “paste” in Italian. Napolitano and Valentino are large-leaf types of basil; both have a typical sweet basil taste;

I particularly enjoy trying new things. My customers know that they can find unusual varieties of herbs. Many enjoy cooking and know that there’s nothing like fresh-cut herbs from the garden. Others just like the texture and aromas of the different plants. Gardening herbs is a sensual experience.

VVK: What misconceptions do people have about growing their own culinary herbs?

JY: That it’s difficult to do. Growing herbs is easy and rewarding. And food never tasted so good.

VVK: Are you ever surprised by what herbs become popular? How about herbs you think will be a hit, but just don’t take off?

JY: Orange mint is very popular. Since it’s an aggressive plant, like other mints, I thought that people would shy away from it, but that’s not the case. I really like sorrel – it’s easy to grow and makes great soup and sauces, but it’s not one of the popular herbs at the markets.

VVK: I’m mystified that stevia – the plant that natural, no-calorie sweetener is made from – doesn’t fly off your table. The one I bought from you last year was a great conversation piece in my garden because of the sweet-tasting leaves that you could roll up with mints and lemony herbs to make on-the-spot flavor combinations.

JY: The plant in the pot isn’t as attractive and it’s not hardy here, so many were afraid to try it. This year I decided to not grow it and disappointed a few stevia converts. I’ll bring it back next spring.

VVK: What plans do you have for the future of Harvest Moon Herb Farm?

JY: I hope to make the farm a place where people come to enjoy the gardens, an herbal walk, an herbal lunch, a workshop. The workshops I would teach would include herb gardening, butterfly gardening, cooking, herbal cosmetics. I’d also like to expand into yoga, nonviolent communication, painting, pottery, poetry – really, anything that someone has a passion for and would like to offer.

Lemon Verbena with Peaches

2007-07-01T07:16:00.000-05:00

Recipe from Herb farmer Jill Yeck builds a rewarding life of fragrant leaves and gentle living
In Brava magazine, July 2007
Column: Around the Table
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach

“Lemon verbena is amazing!” says Jill of this, her favorite herb of all. “It makes a great tea, and it can be minced into fruit salads or tossed into the bath for a relaxing soak. I just love smelling it while wandering the garden. In tropical climates it’s a bush. It’s a tender perennial, so it needs to go in the house in winter.”

Desserts featuring the crisp, refreshing quality of this intensely lemony herb were all the rage in Victorian times. This example is “also great with blueberries, strawberries or other fresh fruits,” Jill says. If you can’t find lemon verbena, try substituting another lemony herb – or, in a pinch, juice and zest from a fresh lemon.

2 tablespoons fresh lemon verbena, plus additional leaves for garnish
1/4 cup honey
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
Fresh peaches

Process honey and lemon verbena in a food processor for about one minute. Add cream cheese. Process until smooth. Cut peaches in half and remove pits. Place a dollop of the cream cheese mixture in the hollow of the peach. Garnish with lemon verbena leaves.

Hooked on Cheese: World champion Julie Hook and her artisan curd creations

2007-06-01T21:09:00.000-05:00

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava magazine June 2007
Around the Table

Recipe: Pineapple-Cheddar Casserole

When Julie Hook signed herself “A friend in cheese” in an e-mail to me, I knew she was my kind of people.

In fact, for 31 years Julie and her husband, Tony, co-founders of Hook’s Cheese Company in Mineral Point, have been best friends in cheese – to each other, to the small, sustainable dairies whose milk they buy, to patrons of many of the area’s finest restaurants including L’Etoile, the University Club and Blackhawk Country Club, and most certainly to all the cheese-loving shoppers in the area who appreciate quality local products made with passion and pride.

One of only a handful of licensed female cheesemakers in Wisconsin, in 1982 Julie became the first – and so far the only – woman to win the coveted World Championship Cheese Contest, bringing home the title of “Finest Cheese in All the World” for Hook’s Colby. Over the years, Hook’s cheeses have also won first place at the American Cheese Society awards, the Cheese Shop of Beverly Hills competition, the Wisconsin State Fair Governors Cup and more.

VVK: You and Tony celebrated your 35 wedding anniversary this May and you’ve run a business together for over three decades. How do you share and divide the responsibilities in your business?

JH: We’ve always worked side by side. Whatever needs doing, whoever has time just does it – we’re both licensed Wisconsin Cheesemakers. We’ve been working together so long it just seems to flow.

VVK: How did you get started in cheesemaking?

JH: In 1970, Tony began apprenticing at a small cheese factory in Barneveld. He got his cheesemaking license in 1972. In 1976, we formed Hook’s and moved our young family [the Hooks have two children, Shawn Hook and Melyssa Schroedl] to a small rural cheese co-op in Mineral Point. Together we made cheese, hauled milk and hauled out the whey, seven days a week, starting at 4:00 a.m. Little by little I learned from Tony how everything was done. We outgrew our rural cheese factory and in 1987 purchased [our current] factory in Mineral Point.

VVK: About how big is your operation, and what types of cheese do you make?

JH: We make up to 100,000 pounds of cheese per year – cheddar, Monterey jack, muenster, brick, baby Swiss, a good aged Swiss and a variety of flavored cheeses with garlic and onion, pepper, pesto, tomato basil, bacon, dill, smoke and horseradish. We also make a whole milk cheese we call Sweet Constantine, based on a Parmesan recipe.

Tony loves experimenting. He’s always trying new cheeses, new twists to his recipes and new techniques. In 1997, when we started making blue cheeses, there were not many places in the U.S. making it. We wanted to make a high quality blue that could be as good as any European blue. We think each of our blues is a little different – and yet as good as or better than – their European or American competition. Together we’ve created four different kinds: our traditional Danish-style blue, Tilston Point (a washed-rind, pungent blue), Blue Paradise (a double-cream blue) and a creamy gorgonzola.

We love to try new cheeses. When we make a new cheese we have a perfect place for taste testing: the Dane County Farmer’s Market, where we sample out all of our cheeses.

VVK: I’m curious about aged cheeses. Can any kind be aged? And what gives 10-year cheddar that distinctive, delightful, little crunch?

There are actually many cheeses that can age wonderfully – Parmesan, Swiss, cheddar. In general terms drier cheeses can be aged if they’re made properly, and moister cheeses cannot, because they break down faster and this usually gives the moister cheeses some off flavors. The bacteria and the enzymes in the cheese break down the proteins. Eventually the milk sugars (lactose) and the calcium come together to form the [crunchy] calcium lactate crystals which you find in many aged cheeses.

We age our cheddar cheese in curing rooms at just the right temperature and humidity for a slow curing process. Every few months each batch is taste tested to ensure that only the cheeses of the highest quality are saved to age. Each batch ages a little differently, and through tasting we pick just the right ones for aging long periods of time – seven, 10 or 12 years. Some people say once it gets to a certain age the flavor quits changing, but so far we haven’t found that to be the case. It keeps changing and getting more flavorful and better through 12 years.

We have a cave about eight feet underground that we cure our blue cheese in. It’s built into the hill where our factory is located. It’s kept at cave temperature and humidity, but it’s not a separate cave dug into the ground.

VVK: Tell me about the milk you use and the cows it comes from.

JH: We’ve worked with the same dairy farmers for the past 30 years. We have small farms – 11 to 60 cows – that supply us with high quality milk. Quality has to start at the farm in order to make great cheese. All of our farmers use sustainable methods of farming and have their cows out on pastures from May thru October. They have all signed an agreement with us that they will not use rBGH.

VVK: Traditionally, women made cheese at their farmsteads, but until recently almost all professional cheesemakers have been male. Why, do you think?

JH: Nowadays there are many more women in the cheesemaking profession. It’s a very physical job. In an average day a cheesemaker lifts, flips, carries and moves several hundred pounds of cheese. There are heavy salt bags, boxes and liners to be moved. You climb inside bulk tanks to wash them and pray you don’t slip. Everything has to be scrubbed and sanitized. It’s hot work in the summer and the old rock walls of the make room get really cold in the winter. You always have cheese to label and cheese to cut. And you have to wear an UGLY hair net! It’s not very glamorous. It sure saves on expensive work clothes, though!

VVK: What changes have you seen over the years in people’s awareness and appreciation of local, artisanal cheeses and other sustainable products?

JH: Not too many years ago most of the cheese produced and sold in this country was mild and without a lot of flavor, but things have changed, People have a real appreciation for high quality artisan cheeses. Even children have experienced palates. More people are looking for more variety and stronger and more varied flavors. Cheesemakers are changing – making more varieties and aging cheeses longer to fulfill these needs.

People want to know how their food is made and where it comes from. Everyone is becoming more educated about what they put on the table and in their bodies. That’s what makes shopping at the Farmers Market so special. You’re buying directly from the producer – it couldn’t be any fresher. People are asking questions and learning from us. And the producers are learning what people want and their concerns.

VVK: What’s your favorite way to enjoy cheese?

JH: Cheese fondue is delicious and a fun family event. You can’t have hot apple pie without Hook’s Ten Year Cheddar melted over the top. Give me a plate of Hook’s aged cheddar cheeses and all four of our blue cheeses – at room temperature – and a little of our son’s homemade ice wine. Kick off your shoes and enjoy! That’s the best.

VVK: What does the future hold in store for Hook’s Cheese?

JH: We’ll keep making cheese as long as we’re able. Who knows – maybe there will be a grandchild in the future that will want to take over. What’s around the corner for Hook’s Cheese? That’s what’s so exciting – not knowing!

Look for Julie and Tony’s delicious cheeses at the Dane County Farmers Market (In front of the glass bank), Willy Street Co-op, Sentry, Whole Foods, Brennans and many other markets, or call Hook’s Cheese at 608-987-3259.

Pineapple-Cheddar Casserole

2007-06-01T07:43:00.000-05:00

Recipe from Hooked on Cheese: World champion Julie Hook and her artisan curd creations
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava magazine June 2007
Column: Around the Table

“This is one of my family’s favorites,” says Julie. “My daughter, Melyssa, and I make it a lot. It’s wonderful to bring to a potluck – a great side to burgers, hot dogs, barbecue, chicken and pork. I just love it because it mixes the salty and the sweet together.” Julie notes that any cheddar aged at least one year can be substituted. “Anything old enough to melt and not be stringy. But your taste buds just explode with the Hook's 10-Year in the recipe!”

3/4 cup granulated sugar
6 tablespoons flour
2-3 cups Hook’s 10-Year Cheddar, shredded
2 (20 oz.) cans of pineapple chunks in their own juice
1-2 cups cracker crumbs (Julie uses whole-wheat Ritz)
1 stick butter, melted.

Drain pineapple chunks, reserving juice. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a medium casserole dish. In a large bowl, combine sugar and flour. Stir in Hook’s 10-Year Cheddar. Add drained pineapple. Stir until ingredients are well combined.

In a medium bowl, combine cracker crumbs, butter and pineapple juice, stirring until evenly blended. Spread crumb mixture over pineapple mixture. “I like to put some extra crumbs on the top,” Julie says. Bake 30 minutes, or until golden brown. Can be reheated, or even served cold: “It’s one of those recipes that get better in the fridge.”

Blogger Vanessa Balchen finds an international audience for her online journal of fresh, local whole foods

2007-05-01T21:15:00.002-05:00

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava Magazine, May 2007
Column: Around the Table

Recipe: Strawberry Scones

The other night for dinner, Vanessa Balchen made snapper, and according to her, it was “the best fish I’ve ever made.” So she told the whole world about it.

“I rubbed it down with a mix of garlic, canola oil, cumin, and smoked paprika and then cooked it in a really hot pan with just a bit of oil,” she announced. She even took an enticing photo of her luscious entree, served on a salad bed of mache – “You should have seen me at the market when I realized they had it?it was rather embarrassing to be that excited about a leafy green” – and dressed with a sauce made from “a few dried berries, some fresh ginger, and a splash of white vinegar – so tasty I could have eaten it with a spoon,” and accompanied by “tender and flavorful artichoke served with an espresso cup of melted butter and coarse French gray sea salt. Delightful and oh, so decadent.”

That’s a typically exuberant, intensely first-person excerpt from Vanessa’s web log – “blog,” for short – WhatGeeksEat.com. And she’s not the only one out there chronicling breakfast, lunch and dinner on the Internet. Vanessa’s snapper entry credits recipes found on two other blogs as the basis for her menu, and considering today’s varied, vibrant, food “blogosphere,” that needn’t come as a surprise.

Though political bloggers might be the ones most often mentioned in the mainstream news media, food bloggers abound, ranging from cookbook authors and world-famous chefs to home cooks and enthusiasts of all types. One directory site, foodblogblog.com, lists over 1200 online journals that document and celebrate the philosophy, history, cultural significance and preparation of food.

Dedicated food blogger Vanessa Balchen, 46, is a marketing specialist by day who lives in Middleton with her computer programmer husband, David, and their two sons, Alex, 14, and Dexter, 12. Originally from Sullivan, a small town in central Illinois, Vanessa met her husband at college, Southern Illinois U at Carbondale. “I studied creative writing and English with an emphasis on poetry,” she says.

The Balchens lived in the San Francisco Bay area for 13 years, but, Vanessa says, “the schools were awful and Dave had a five-hour commute.” In 2000 they read about “the great quality of life in Madison” in a New York Times article. Just two months later, they were Midwesterners once more.

VVK: Why do you blog?

VB: Last year I started blogging because I was playing games on my computer. I figured if I had time for that then I finally had time to write for fun again. I love everything about blogging. I love the cooking, the technical tinkering and design improvements, writing it, marketing it. I love it all.

VVK: Why blog about food?

VB: Most of the food I make is original or an adaptation of an existing recipe. I've always cooked this way and I've always enjoyed it. But when we wanted to eat something again, I couldn't recreate it because I didn't write it down and I have a horrible memory for details. Now I have a written record of my recipes, I get to write – which is something I enjoy immensely – and if people want to read, then they can.

For me it's all about local, fresh ingredients. I buy directly from the farmers whenever I can. My blog features the food we eat and the people who grow it. I cook simply because the superb products I get don't need much to bring out their fresh, robust flavors. I have a list of my local sources on my blog and I'm always looking for more. I never worry about the safety or freshness of our food when I know where it comes from. Having a relationship with the people who grow your food is the best way to approach food, it's very satisfying and it's a win-win sort of situation.

Q: Who reads WhatGeeksEat.com?

I have about 200 readers a day now and I've been consistently growing since I started last September. People find my blog through comments I've left on other blogs, links from other blogs, and blog portals. Many of my readers are fellow food bloggers, and others are just people who like to eat well. I have readers from all over the world, and I always find that surprising. I'm always amazed by the praise I get – nothing but love and kindness has been coming my way.

VVK: How much time do you spend working on the blog?

VB: I probably blog everything we eat. I work on it about four days a week, anywhere between one to three hours a day, depending if I have research to do or if I need to leave comments on my blog or elsewhere. I also spend time marketing it by linking it to blog portals.

VVK: What makes your blog special – how does it stand out from other food blogs?

I'd like to think that it's my fabulous content. I've purposely tried to infuse my cooking, writing, and photography with who I really am at this point in my life. I attempt to be humorous, although I'd be the first to admit that my brand of humor is pretty silly. I think my blog design is attractive and easy to use. I work hard on all of this and I think it shows. I like playing with the HTML and PHP code. I've been able to learn a lot of new things over the past six months and that's a huge bonus. It helps that I'm computer literate and married to a genius programmer.

VVK: About that? in the popular imagination, the stereotypical computer geek eats like my former boss from my days working at a small Internet company – his four food groups were cereal with milk, Doritos, mixed nuts and delivery pizza. Your site’s very name, WhatGeeksEat.com, is a declaration to the contrary.

VB: I've always hung out with geeks who like to eat well and were willing to cook for it. In college, in SF and the East Bay, and now here in Middleton and Madison. I don't think it's that uncommon. Cooking is a process and it can be analyzed and improved upon. I've also noticed that there are a lot of geeky food bloggers.

VVK: What has surprised you the most about your blogging experience?

VB: Everything about it surprises me. The growth of my readership, the flexibility of my family to accommodate it, the enormous amount of pride my husband has in me, the new things I learn and how it keeps stretching my brain.

VVK: What do you see as the importance of the greater blogging phenomenon?

VB: Blogging has the potential to replace mainstream media. It's interactive, it's a community and it's dynamic. A blog can react to current events, while print media has a much longer cycle. A good blog is intelligent, well-written, informative and entertaining – which is also true of what good print media is. Blogs just move faster and with much less overhead.

VVK: When you write, who do you imagine your audience to be?

VB: I really don't imagine an audience at all. I try hard to write in my voice and I'm very honest about the food I make. If I don't like something or it turns out to be a complete wreck then that's exactly what you'll read on my blog. The pictures are there to honestly represent the food. I don't do anything special to the food and I have no plating technique – it is what it is. I guess I'm trying to show how easy and satisfying it can be to cook whole foods that are produced locally.

VVK: What are your plans for WhatGeeksEat.com?

VB: I'll keep blogging and I'll continue to improve my blog, and my writing and cooking. It’s fun and creating the blog and feeding it with content is quite satisfying.

I'm learning to share myself with my readers. In real life, I'm kind of shy. But through the written word, I can be more myself. My readers know quite a bit about me and that's good. It lets us all feel connected. Plus, I'm enthusiastic about what I believe in: buying local, supporting sustainable agriculture, being honest and enjoying life.

Strawberry Scones

2007-05-01T21:13:00.002-05:00

Recipe from Vanessa Balchen, Food Blogger
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava magazine, May 2007

“I'm posting a scone recipe monthly. The whole family adores the strawberry scones at Lazy Jane's Cafe and I'm obsessed with recreating them at home,” says Vanessa. This version – her “third iteration,” as she puts it in appropriately geeky terminology – is creatively adapted from Baking With Julia by Julia Child and Dorie Greenspan. “Lazy Jane's scones are denser and toothier. Mine are very light and almost fluffy. I do love the freshness of mine and the strawberriness – I just would like them to be a bit more substantial. And so the quest continues.”

3 cups all purpose, unbleached flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 sticks of cold, unsalted butter cut into tiny pieces
1 cup half and half
1 tablespoon plain yogurt
12 frozen strawberries, sliced

Preheat oven to 425° F. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar. Add butter and work it into the flour mixture using your hands. Don't overwork the flour and butter.

Stir yogurt into half and half and add strawberries. Add this to the flour mixture and mix gently to form a dough.

Turn dough out onto lightly floured counter. Pat into a square about 1/2 inch thick. Cut into squares and place on a parchment-covered cookie sheet. Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Allow to cool for five minutes and then glaze with a mixture of 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, and a splash of orange juice.

Barbara Wright of the Madison Originals

2007-04-01T21:27:00.001-05:00

Owner of The Dardanelles is a true “original” who also represents 40 locally owned Madison restaurants
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava magazine, April 2007
Column: Around the Table

Recipe: Tortilla Dardanelles with Aioli

“Local, independent restaurants are where the flavor is,” says Barbara Wright, president of The Madison Originals, a non-profit association of over 40 restaurant members. “It’s where the cutting edge of regional cuisine is found – where it was born and where it’s preserved.” What makes local eateries so special? “The owner is almost always in the house. There are real chefs in the kitchen, who hone their skills nightly and stand behind their food. Owners buy locally and know their suppliers, often with relationships that span decades. The food is prepared with skill and love, from foods selected for their nutrients and flavors.”

In the three years since the birth of Madison’s chapter of the Council of Independent Restaurants of America (CIRA), Madison Originals has been increasingly active in the community, holding golf outings, charity events and even a lively chef’s battle at the annual Madison Food & Wine Show. Earlier this year, the Originals organized Madison’s first annual Restaurant Week – “wildly successful,” says Barbara. And the group’s quarterly Madison Originals Magazine showcases local businesses, services and attractions of all types.

This month, Around the Table talks with Barbara Wright, who, along with being president of the Madison Originals, serves on the board of directors of CIRA. A 54-year-old native Chicagoan with a lifetime in the culinary trade, Barbara has owned The Dardanelles restaurant on Monroe Street for over a decade.

VVK: What is the Madison Originals all about?

BW: We are a confederacy of independent owners who have formed a union to promote the idea of local dining. This is our guiding philosophy.

Independent restaurants are an integral part of the neighborhood, of the community. We know our customers and they know us. We create intimate places where you can come back again and again and find the same good food and the same warm reception. We train employees – in a positive and supportive environment – real culinary skills that stay with them a lifetime.

Independent restaurants have been suffering from the onslaught of chain restaurants not only moving into town on their own, but also lured to surrounding towns by the dozen by developers and city councils. We get no subsidies or special financing. No one pays to build roads up to our doors. We put our life savings on the line and live our dreams. The Madison Originals has created a network of friendships and support to help us do all of this.

VVK: How did the Madison chapter get started?

Three years ago, Marcia and Patrick O'Halloran, the owners of Lombardino’s Restaurant, saw a sticker on the door of a Kansas City restaurant while on vacation. They were told all about the Originals idea from the owners, and brought that idea back to their colleagues in Madison. The response was overwhelming. New restaurants join every month.

Last spring the board of directors of Dine Originals [CIRA’s trademarked name for its national network of associations] came to Madison and loved it! They were most impressed with the farmers’ market and our local network of farmers and suppliers. In many ways, Madison is way ahead of the curve. We have a great life here.

VVK: Tell me about Madison Originals Magazine. It’s so good looking, and such a celebration of local food and more – I always keep my copy for months.

BW: It’s one of our many successes. It has been so well done that other chapters around the country have been looking into publishing one just like it. It helps us to promote the many events we do each year.

VVK: How did your restaurant, The Dardanelles, come to be, and what does it mean to you personally? I understand it wasn’t always an easy road.

BW: I started the Dardanelles Restaurant in 1996 with my then-husband and two Turkish partners. We had such high hopes. We were excited about bringing the fresh taste and colorful flavors of the Mediterranean cuisine to Madison. We wanted to create the warmth of Mediterranean hospitality here on Monroe Street. We all worked hard to build the interior and set up the restaurant.

When we opened, I worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week. We all were new at our jobs, and we trained, altered and rearranged as we went. Although I had talked to my husband and my partners about the huge amount of work starting a restaurant could be, they were overwhelmed. My partners fought with each other in Turkish and wanted to work only a few hours a day. They were the owners, they said, not the slaves of the business. My then-husband wanted to make profits right away, even when other restaurant owners explained that profits came later.

Within the first year, my partners were gone and my husband and I, married 25 years, had separated.

The business continued to grow and I worked hard to keep it growing. Today, I have a wonderful, supportive staff. Youssef Amraoui, whom I married three years ago, runs the kitchen with finesse. He is a Moroccan culinary school graduate – originally from a nomad family in the Sahara Desert near the border between Morocco and Algeria – who came to Madison after a stint at the famous Memphis Peabody hotel restaurant, Chez Phillipe. We continue to create new and classic cuisine from all over the Mediterranean region for all our friends in Madison.

To learn more about Madison Originals, visit www.madisonoriginals.org. The Dardanelles is located at 1851 Monroe St., Madison; (608) 256-8804.

Tortilla Dardanelles with Aioli

2007-04-01T19:44:00.000-05:00

Recipe in Barbara Wright of the Madison Originals
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava magazine, April 2007
Column: Around the Table

Ask for a “tortilla” in Spain, and you’ll be served a cool wedge of potato omelette that’s fragrant with olive oil and garlic – not a Mexican burrito wrapper. Both words derive from “torta,” a flat, round cake.

“Spain’s cuisine has been shaped over hundreds of centuries by a succession of invaders – Phoenicians, Roman and Moors,” says Barbara. Their culinary influences are still felt in the delicious traditional foods enjoyed today.” This recipe is for a brunch favorite at The Dardanelles, where they like to top it with Kassari cheese – from Greece, farther east along the Mediterranean’s shores.

1 cup olive oil
1 waxy potato, cut in small cubes
1 small onion, thinly sliced
3 large eggs
1 sweet red pepper, cut in thin strips
1 clove garlic, diced fine
1 cup fresh spinach
Salt and pepper

For aioli, mix together:
1 cup real mayonnaise
1 teaspoon crushed garlic

Beat eggs in small bowl with 3 teaspoons water until lemon colored. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside. Heat olive oil in a nonstick skillet or sauté pan on medium heat. Fry potatoes until cooked but not brown. Drain oil and set aside. Add onions, pepper and garlic to pan. Sauté for three minutes until aromas are achieved. Add egg mixture and spinach, submerging spinach in the egg and cook one minute, then use spatula to loosen from bottom of pan and guide uncooked egg to sides. When solid, cover the pan with a plate. Hold plate with a hand and turn pan over to invert tortilla onto plate. Return uncooked side to skillet by sliding from plate to cook on second side. Cook two to three minutes more. Watch out for hot oil when turning the tortilla in this way!

Serve hot or cold. Garnish with aioli and black olives.

The Wisconsin Supper Club Idea: A great state tradition thrives at Toby’s

2007-03-01T21:31:00.002-06:00

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava magazine, March 2007
Column: Around the Table

Recipe: Toby's Supper Club's Super-Secret Salad Dressing

What’s a supper club? If you have to ask, you’re probably not from around here – and here’s what you need to know. No, supper clubs don’t have memberships (just like night clubs). No, they’re not open for lunch – they’re not called “lunch clubs,” now, are they? And if you want to look like an old hand at supper clubbing, head straight to the bar to order your meal. You’ll be seated when your salad comes out.

Supper clubs were born during the Prohibition Era, when alcohol was forbidden by an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That’s right, for 13 long years sipping a beer was a federal offense. Not a popular law in Wisconsin. Soon, resourceful citizens throughout the state had opened out-of-the-way establishments along clandestine – er, peaceful – wooded roads, cleverly labeling them “supper clubs.” In those days, “club” evoked a respectable gathering spot for gentlefolk; just the opposite of the wicked connotation of “saloon” or “bar.” And supper sounded like a legitimate reason to go out. Thus was born a culinary tradition that still thrives throughout the region.

Toby’s Supper Club, on Dutch Mill Road near the intersection of Stoughton Road and the Beltline, which evolved into a supper club through the 1930s and ’40s, is a vibrant example of the form, serving authentic supper club eats alongside cocktails so classic they were in fashion when the old fashioned was a new fashion. (In fact, that happens to be Toby’s number one mixed drink.) This is no retro-chic retread: Toby’s is the real thing.

Sisters Roxanne Peterson and Rhonda Frank run the club, which has been in their family since the late 1960’s. We talked with owner Roxanne about Toby’s yesterday and today.

VVK: How and when did Toby’s Supper Club get started?

RP: In 1933 [the final year of Prohibition] Harden Davis and his wife, Iva, built a barber shop here. The rumors were that bootleg booze was sold out of this barber shop – Toby’s kitchen today. In 1939, an addition was made to the building and the barber chair was moved out into a quarter of the dinning room. I have a customer who lived across the street and remembers having french fries and getting his hair cut by Harden.

In 1940, it was sold to Lester and Ruth Galvin and made into more of a restaurant. In 1945, three couples – Weedpohl, Dohaney and Curtis – made it into a supper club and named it Toby’s. In 1950, Toby and Lila Curtis became the sole owners.

VVK: What was Dutch Mill Corners like in days past?

RP: It was Madison’s entertainment center! At that corner there was Simon’s Log Cabin, where the Park and Ride is now. Jack Simon was known as a bootlegger in Prohibition time. I remember riding my bike with my mom and sisters to have lunch during the day, and we had many dinners there. There was the Beacon, where Arby’s is now – a bar and dance hall owned by George Dunn. My dad frequented it in the 50s.

On the other side of 12 and 18 was Oren Rimes’ Supper Club, later known as Nate’s, then Baker’s Dutch Mill. Further down 12 and 18 were Charlie’s Bar and Noble’s Supper Club. There was also a bar called the Cat and the Fiddle, and the Old Dutch Mill.

VVK: How did your family come to acquire Toby’s?

RP: In 1956, my parents built a home around the corner. I still remember my first dinner at Toby’s. It was my fourth birthday. I had the shrimp and a kiddie cocktail, and I thought they were both awful! I love the shrimp now. I remember that my dad painted Toby Curtis’s car, and when he would come to see my dad he would always bring us candy. In 1960, Toby passed away. Lila ran the business until 1969, when my parents bought it. Lila worked with my parents the first year and passed away in 1971.

In 1972, my dad made an addition to the building. When he knocked down a wall to make the new addition, inside we found newspapers with headlines of Prohibition being lifted, Ringling Brothers Circus posters, two sealed, full, Prohibition gin bottles and an original Toby’s menu. The perch plate was 35 cents. – 75 cents for the dinner. A T-bone steak was 65 cents and shrimp was $1.35 Lobster was $1.75.

VVK: Did you always plan to make Toby’s your career?

RP: I went to school to be a nurse so that I wouldn’t have to work at the restaurant the rest of my life. But now I’m the owner! I also work as an R.N. at Meriter Hospital, and at the Lasting Skin Solutions clinic I do aesthetic procedures – lasers, dermal fillers, Botox procedures. Between these two jobs I probably work 50 hours a week. I’d have a hard time choosing which job I like the best. Nursing is very rewarding for me, as is working at the restaurant. People tell me I work too hard, and I say I work a lot but I have never worked hard. The day that I work hard is the day that I don’t like what I do.

I started washing dishes at the age of 11 when my mother worked at the restaurant. I never thought that I would still be here 42 years later. After my parents purchased Toby’s, I eventually moved up the ladder to waitress. When my parents divorced in 1972, I became the manager. At that time I was married with two children and had just completed my L.P.N. degree at MATC and was starting a new job at Madison General Hospital, which is now Meriter. In 1976 I went back to school at UW Madison for my B.S. in nursing.

VVK: What other family members work at Toby’s?

RP: Rhonda’s worked at the restaurant for the last 37 years. We’ve never had an argument. She says it’s because I‘m the boss, and I say it’s because we’re a great team and we’re great friends.

Rhonda’s son, Tony, has worked at Toby’s for 13 years. He’s been our icon bartender for the past ten years. If you’ve ever been to Toby’s, you’ll know Tony and he will surely remember your drink. Sara, Tony’s significant other, has worked at Toby’s for eight years. Rhonda’s daughter, Danyelle, has her own hair and massage therapy business, and she fills in at Toby’s when needed. My daughter Kelly has worked here for the past 23 years, minus the six years she went to college [out of state]. She fills a variety of roles and is the employee’s go-to person in my absence. My son, Chris, has worked at Toby’s on and off over the past 23 years.

VVK: How has the boom in chain restaurants affected your business?

RP: We offer an old-fashioned, nostalgic atmosphere that the new franchises cannot reproduce. At Toby’s we have never advertised. We’ve relied on word of mouth. I credit my dad for telling me a long time ago, “Don’t worry about what the competition is doing. Just take care of your own business and you’ll be fine.” We’re seeing the generation of adults coming to Toby’s because they had dinner here as a child. They’re now bringing their children.

VVK: How about the smoking ban?

RP: We’ve lost a few good friends and customers because they can’t smoke inside. But customers comment how much they love the smoke-free environment. We’ve been very fortunate that the smoking ban has not affected our business overall.

VVK: With all the fads in dining over the past few decades, how has Toby’s menu changed over the years?

RP: Thirty-eight years ago, we added pork chops, frog’s legs, and cod to the menu. We’ve added some appetizers, a New York Strip on Saturdays, and Rhonda’s Wednesday night special, which is different every week.

VVK: You haven’t felt pressure to update, to follow new trends?

RP: No. We use the same dressing recipes and food preparations handed down from the original owners. To this day we use the same cast iron skillets that have always been at Toby’s for hash browns. The same cast iron skillets for pan-fried chicken. We got a new grill and stove in 1996. At that time our cook Margaret remembered when Toby got his first new stove in 1956. She had cooked on that stove for 40 years, and continued to cook on the new stove for another four years. She passed away at the age of 72.

VVK: How about trends in cocktails?

The most popular mixed drink that we make is the old fashioned. In more recent days martinis and Manhattans have become more popular again. Tony is known for his famous key lime pie martini. He will not give out the recipe, not even to me. Toby’s offers a large variety of beer. In 1969 our biggest selling beers were Budweiser and Pabst. In 1972, when Miller Lite came out, it became our number one selling beer and remains so to this day.

VVK: What’s the secret to Toby’s continued success?

RP: We’ve maintained our quality and consistency in preparation of food. When people come to Toby’s they get what they expect and what they remember. They’re recognized by our staff. The same staff is always there. One Friday night, a couple had come in, who Rhonda had waited on for years. When they walked in the door they’d see Rhonda and nod at her, and she’d put in their order. On this particular Friday night, Rhonda wasn’t there. Tony and I asked if they’d put their order in – it appeared that they’d been waiting a long time. They replied that they weren’t sure what to do because Rhonda wasn’t there. They didn’t know how to put their order in. “Rhonda always knows what we want,” they said.

VVK: It sounds like you have a really solid community of loyal customers!

RP: We have people that have been coming to Toby’s since the 40’s. Last summer, some customers told me they were there for the 50th anniversary of their first date. One of our oldest customers, Charlie, passed away in 2006 at the age of 98. He was actively coming to dinner at Toby’s with friends. His wife, Lou Lou, lives at Skaalen nursing home and is 102 years old.

Toby's Supper Club's Super-Secret Salad Dressing

2007-03-01T21:00:00.001-06:00

Recipe from Around the Table: Toby's Supper Club
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava magazine, March 2007

At first, Roxanne was reluctant to reveal any of the recipes that have been Toby’s secrets for over half a century. When I told her that folks these days think salad dressing is something you buy from a big company at the supermarket, she agreed to share this recipe, a favorite at the club. It’s basic; it’s just right; it’s honest American home cookery. Good stuff. “People bring in their own jars for us to fill,” says Roxanne. “I make this by the gallon. I’ll scale it down for your readers.”

Toby’s Supper Club Super-Secret Vinegar and Oil Dressing

1 1/2 cups of salad oil
1 1/2 cups cider vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons whole oregano
1 tablespoon garlic salt
2 cloves garlic
1 small onion

Combine all ingredients in a blender pitcher. Blend. Keep refrigerated. Makes one quart.

Linda Clash brings classic Soul to Madison’s South side

2007-02-01T21:40:00.002-06:00

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach In Brava Magazine, February 2007
Column: Around the Table

Recipe: Fried Green Tomatoes

There’s something good cookin’ in the South Park Street area, one of Madison’s most culturally diverse neighborhoods. It’s home to a summertime farmers’ market, a variety of ethnic specialty grocery stores and great eateries offering authentic culinary traditions as far-ranging as Indian, Mexican, Vietnamese – and now, with the mid-2006 opening of Jada’s Soul Food, classic Southern Americana.

Offering down-home fare like fried catfish, smothered chicken, homemade baked macaroni and cheese, cornbread, sweet potato pie and more, Jada’s is packed with customers who long for a taste of the South, and for down-to-earth, wholesome, home-cooking quality.

Self-described “die-hard foodies” Jackie and Linda Clash (JAckie + LinDA = “Jada”) decided to open the restaurant only after they’d built themselves some security in the form of a first business, a residential and commercial janitorial service “that was easy to set up and get going,” says Linda. But serving up good food has been their target ever since they noticed Madison’s potential for soul food.

“Jackie was driving along Rimrock Road one day a few years ago when he saw a sign outside a restaurant that said, ‘Soul Food served Sundays,’ says Linda, a 36-year-old Madison native. “He went inside, but the owner said they’d discontinued it after the cook left. So Jackie volunteered. The response was overwhelming.”

Jackie was no stranger to the kitchen – he’d grown up working at his parents’ restaurant, Shorty’s Soul Food on the south side of Chicago, as well as cooking for his four siblings at home. He’s also an alumnus of MATC’s pastry arts program. “He’d been working on his recipes since his early days at Shorty’s and looking for ways to make it better,” says Linda. For her part, Linda had helped her best friend, the owner of the now-defunct Southern Flavor, with catering events in the early 1990s. The Clashes realized that with their experience and their love of food and cooking, they could take the soul food concept far beyond a weekly gig. They decided to work towards opening their own place.

Today, with their Dirt Destroyers business going strong, the Clashes work hard to keep up with booming business at Jada’s, where Jackie cooks and Linda manages catering and customer service. And right across the street, still cutting hair at Style & Grace at 83 years old, is Linda’s father, Taylor "Smitty" Smith. “He was the first African-American barber in Madison,” says Linda. “He and my mother, Helen, are still active members at Second Baptist Church. They’ve been in Madison 65 years!”

VVK: What has been your biggest surprise so far connected to this business? What have you learned along the way?

LC: Our diverse customer base! It is such a blessing to see people of different races and from all walks of life stopping at Jada's for a good meal. We understand and cherish the fact that Jada's was a God-given blessing from conception, and we know that lots of restaurants don't receive the kind of response we have so early on. We don't take anything for granted!

VVK: What do you think is the appeal of soul food, especially yours?

LC: When food is cooked with love, people respond to that. Every dish at Jada's has lots of love behind it. Every recipe is something Jackie and I love. It wasn't placed on the menu for any other reason. We will always serve food that has meaning for us. This resonates with our customers as well. I can't count the number of times I've had customers reminiscing about food they used to love as a kid, or something their mother used to make them when they taste our food. That's why we do what we do.

VVK: What do people encounter for the first time at Jada’s, and how do they respond?

LC: Greens! That has become our soul food icebreaker. Anyone that comes in looking to try something new, I always steer them in the greens direction. Our collard greens have so much flavor, and come three different ways – vegetarian, with smoked turkey, and with smoked pork – that there’s bound to be a connection with just about everyone. We occasionally offer a collard and turnip mix, but for the most part, we serve collards. Jackie and I love collards! We buy local produce from the farmer's market when it’s in season.

VVK: I read in Isthmus that Jada’s is the only place in town serving up chitterlings. You know, I’ve heard about them all my life, but I don’t really know what they are.

LC: For seasoned soul food eaters, the chitterlings (pronounced “chit-lins”) are the number one draw at Jada's. People are pleasantly surprised when they find them on the menu. We always sell out! Chitterlings aren't that complicated to prepare, they’re just time consuming. Most customers love that they don't have to do the grunt work at home – we've already done it for them. I'm going to keep the identity of chitterlings a secret, and encourage people to come in and ask! I find that just about every cuisine has its own type of unique item that you just won't find anywhere else.

VVK: Smothered chicken sounds delicious – what’s that like?
LC: Smothered chicken is fried fresh, and then smothered with gravy. It remains crispy in the gravy because we fry everything fresh at Jada's.

VVK: What’s the difference between your fried chicken and what people are used to these days from fast food chains?
LC: Our chicken is a wonderful, well-kept secret! Our technique is unique, and the reason you won't find any fried chicken like ours in Madison is because it never sits under a light. All of our meats, with the exception of chitterlings and ribs [these are slow-cooking foods], are prepared right when you order it. You can always call or fax in your order for faster service, but we will never change that particular practice.

VVK: Somebody on an Internet forum said your cornbread is Northern-style because it’s sweet, even though you specialize in Southern cookery. What’s your philosophy on cornbread?

LC: I'm not sure if it's a Northern or Southern practice, because I've been served sweet cornbread countless times when I visit the South. I like both sweet and savory cornbread. Our cornbread muffins are sweet, but our cornbread dressing in gravy is not. Our dressing is like Thanksgiving stuffing. The gravy is chicken- and turkey-based, and made from scratch.

VVK: What’s been the biggest challenge been in making Jada’s a success?

LC: The long hours. Jackie and I realize we need to be as hands on as possible in the beginning, so we make it a priority to not sweat the small stuff. We are committed to making sure we steward our time wisely. You may see our children playing at the restaurant!

VVK: What plans do you have for the future?

LC: We have so many plans for Jada's! There may even be a joint venture cooking up in our near future – stay tuned to find out. Jada's Soul Food and Catering has some wonderful things in store for Madison. We are here to stay!

Fried Green Tomatoes

2007-02-01T19:54:00.001-06:00

Recipe from Around the Table: Linda Clash of Jada's Soul Food
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach In Brava Magazine, February 2007
Column: Around the Table

Related article: Jada's Soul Food

A savory, golden brown crunch through to a tangy, subtly sweet, juicy center: that’s the essential fried green tomato experience. “This recipe was perfected last summer when my craving and quest for fried green tomatoes led me to preparing them almost every day,” Linda says. “These will definitely be on Jada’s menu this summer!”

With the right combination of ingredients and a methodical approach, you can produce this classic Soul Food dish in your own kitchen. “The key is being completely prepared before you begin the cooking process,” she says.

Fried Green Tomatoes
recipe from Linda Clash, Jada's Soul Food in Madison, Wis.
3 or 4 large, firm, green tomatoes
2 cups vegetable oil for frying
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup self-rising flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon garlic powder, paprika, and onion powder
1/2 tablespoon ground black pepper

Slice tomatoes 1/4 inch thick. In a skillet, heat the oil over medium high heat. Set out two bowls near the stove. In one, place the buttermilk. In the other, mix all dry ingredients. Dip each tomato slice in the buttermilk, dredge it in the dry mixture, and place in the skillet – gently, so as not to spatter hot oil. Repeat until there are several slices in the skillet, but with plenty of space around each. (Overcrowding the skillet will drop the oil’s temperature, yielding a soggy, greasy result.) Fry approximately two minutes on each side, or until golden brown. Remove to a plate; then dip, dredge and fry the next batch. Serve immediately.

Recipe: Quindins de Yá-Yá

2007-01-01T06:36:00.000-06:00

Coconut upside-down treats

Recipe from Around the Table: Eat Smart travel guide series
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava magazine, January 2007

This Brazilian favorite is “like a rich, satisfying macaroon,” says Joan, “with rich, golden yellow tops.” Included in her first volume. Eat Smart in Brazil, it’s a delicious fusion of African cookery with the European sweet tooth. In Brazil’s colonial days “the young girls of the plantation mansions, or casas grandes, were addressed as Yá-Yá by the slaves,” says Joan, who suggests using the leftover whites in egg white omelettes. (Or, save towards Betty Arp’s 13-whites Angel Food Cake, given in “Around the Table,” June 2006!)

1/4 pound butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
9 egg yolks
1 cup coconut, freshly grated*

Preheat oven to 350° F. Cream the butter and sugar, mixing well. Add yolks one by one, stirring well after each. When the sugar is completely dissolved, gently stir in coconut.

Lightly grease a shallow muffin pan and fill to a depth of 1 inch. Set into a baking tray containing about 1/2 inch of water and bake for about 35 minutes, making sure the water doesn’t boil over into the muffin cups. The quindins will be lightly browned on the surface.

Cool. Carefully loosen the edges with a knife before inverting the muffin pan over a flat surface. For best results, Joan recommends unmolding each quindim (the singular ends in “m”) one at a time.

Fresh coconut? You can do it!
Sorry, but shredded coconut from a bag won’t work here. Says Joan, “It doesn't have the same taste, consistency or moisture.” Fortunately, fresh, whole coconuts are available in the produce aisle of nearly any supermarket, and armed with Joan’s simple – if a bit adventuresome – method for getting at the tasty innards, you’re on your way to a heavenly coconut flavor and texture that just can’t be matched.

Heat the coconut for 10 minutes in a 350°F oven to crack it. Using potholders, remove from oven and place in a large metal bowl on the floor. Cover with a towel and hit the coconut with a hammer to break it completely open. Separate the coconut meat from the outer shell, prying with a dull knife if needed. Use a vegetable peeler to scrape away the thin brown skin that clings to the white coconut meat. Grate the meat in a food processor. “Whatever you don't use of the grated coconut, you can freeze for later use,” Joan says.

Joan Peterson's Eat Smart travel guide series

2007-01-01T06:33:00.002-06:00

Combining a passion for travel and a love of all things gourmet, Joan Peterson transforms travel for foodies abroad.

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava Magazine, January 2007
Column: Around the Table

Recipe: Quindins de Yá-Yá

With her Ph.D. in zoology and post-doctoral degrees in molecular biology and biochemistry, Joan Peterson was enjoying a successful science career at the UW-Madison. She left it all behind to write books about how to eat well abroad.

After one hard-earned overseas vacation meal too many in restaurants packed with other tourists all carrying the same guidebooks listing the same small handful of eateries, Joan decided to do better research next time. So when she and her husband, David, were planning a trip to Brazil, Joan started assembling a list of menu entries she might encounter there, and an accompanying glossary of culinary terms.

As she learned about the cultural influences shaping the country’s many cuisines, Joan found herself adding a history of the place. Next came sections on the culinary variations among the nation’s distinct regions, recipes for trying out the tastes ahead of time, guides to the supermarkets and open-air stalls of Brazil, and even contact information for international goodwill organizations.

Joan’s pamphlet had become a full-length travel guidebook, Eat Smart in Brazil (1995). Since then, she’s followed with guides to good eats in Morocco, India (co-authored with Indu Menon), Indonesia, Turkey, Poland, Mexico and, most recently, Peru (co-authored with Brook Soltvedt, the series editor). Books in the series have gone into multiple printings and editions, won various awards, been given out to passengers on international flights, and even been used as supplemental textbooks in college language courses.

Today, as well as working with her daughter, Susan Chwae, at Ginkgo Press, which Joan founded to publish the first book, Joan directs the Travel Publishers Association (which she also founded) leads her own culinary tours to Turkey, India and Morocco, and is active in CHEW (Culinary History Enthusiasts of Wisconsin), of which she’s a founding member.

VVK: Of all the countries you’ve written Eat Smart guides for, do you have a favorite?

JP: I've been to over 70 countries, and the winner is Turkey. In days of old, the royal chefs tried to outdo each other to create culinary masterpieces for the Ottoman sultans, and some of these dishes are still being made today for us lesser mortals. The rich meat and fruit combinations, the silky eggplant dishes and the regional countryside dishes that are so nourishing and cleverly conceived are exquisite. Not to mention the wide array of desserts pulled together from ultra-thin dough, or from dough threads. And every bit of food served comes with an enormous dollop of hospitality.

[On my first visit] I especially loved the pre-dinner tidbits – meze – served with lion's milk, the anise-flavored native brew called raki, distilled from grapes. The liquor is clear until ice and water is added, whereupon it turns white, hence the “milk” moniker. “Lion” because it packs a wallop.

VVK: Are culinary traditions alive and well around the world, or are they struggling?

JP: The culinary traditions – local, regional and national – of foreign destinations seem alive and well despite the intrusion of fast food joints, which have, in many destinations, become the "in" place for kids to celebrate a birthday. One of the strangest observations for me was in Marakesh, Morocco, where the McDonald’s was frequented predominantly by French tourists.

VVK: What advice would you give someone who is going to visit a foreign country and would like to get the most out of it, culturally and culinarily?

JP: Eat where the locals eat – typically in small family restaurants off the tourist path – to eat what the locals eat. For the most part, ignore the restaurant suggestions in major general guidebooks. Try to eat in homes. Some families thrive on inviting foreigners to share a meal with them, which also allows them to practice their English. Join an organization like Servas International [a non-profit network of hosts and travelers], for home stays or day hosting.

Take along an Eat Smart guidebook, and read it before the trip! Learn the names of traditional and regional dishes beforehand so you can order them from a – probably – “Englishless” menu. Choose ahead of time some you want to try. Learn some useful phrases to use in the markets, like "What is this?" Take photos of foods new to you – after inquiring if it’s OK.

Have a large appetite. Come with curiosity, an open mind and willingness to try new and sometimes pretty bizarre – to us, the visitor – foods, beverages, spices and seasonings.

VVK: One of the most astounding things about your books is how very many foodstuffs are completely new to me, like the fruits in different countries. What’s one of the most interesting and unusual you’ve found?

JP: The ice cream – sahlepli dondurma – made with powdered orchid root – sahleb – is still the most amazing food item to me. It’s one of the culinary delights of Turkey. Not only does it remain frozen at a higher temperature, 40 degrees, but it takes on an incredible taffy-like elasticity. Colorfully costumed street vendors show it off, pulling and stretching it into ropes two to three feet long with long metal rods.

VVK: Have you encountered things just too weird to eat?

JP: Many weird foods can be found if one treks far off the path, but in general tourists are unlikely to encounter them. I never have eaten anything weird, [like] the big bats sold at the markets in Sarawak [in Indonesia.] As an informed food writer, I do know about them, and could give you more examples. But the purpose of my books isn't to emphasize the weird. I write the guides so that eating in foreign countries is a more satisfying cultural experience for travelers.

I know food oddities make good copy, but emphasizing them does turn some people off and make them hunt down American fast food joints instead of getting to the heart of the culture through the food when they travel.

VVK: What have you learned in the process of writing and producing these books?

JP: I've learned how rewarding it is to interact with people of a different culture. The subject of food kindles the warmest relationships. I have experienced over and over again that it's the cuisine that takes us to the heart of a culture.

VVK: What’s your favorite thing about what you do? The most difficult?

JP: I especially enjoy researching and writing the chapter about the culinary history of a country. The most difficult part is that there are so many countries to write about and so few years in a lifetime.

VVK: Where are you going next?

JP: Sicily. It’s a fabulous island that many visitors to mainland Italy don’t include on their itinerary and should. It experienced a different history than the rest of Italy and its delicious cuisine reflects this.

Swiss Savings

2006-12-01T19:49:00.001-06:00

How bakery buff Angela Anderson rescued New Glarus’s delicious legacy

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava magazine, December 2006
Column: Around the Table

Recipe: Original New Glarus Bakery pfeffernusse spice cookies

In 2004, re-opening the New Glarus Bakery was a dream come true for Angela Anderson, its new owner. But something was missing – something critical to restoring the true spirit of the old bakery.

It was the old notebook. Where was the New Glarus Bakery without it?

Filled with irreplaceable Old World recipes for breads and pastries, the book had passed down through the string of families who had owned the bakery since 1910. With its help, the sturdy ovens deep within the small-town storefront spent the twentieth century baking traditional Swiss and German staples and treats – pumpernickel rye loaves, potato bread, nut horns, springerli, honey stick cookies – for delighted townsfolk and tourists alike.

But during the brief tenure of the bakery’s most recent owner, the book had simply gathered dust in a desk drawer. Longtime recipes – and staff, too – were swept aside for a more modern, industrialized approach. That proved to be a losing strategy. Without dedicated artisans baking heritage goods from scratch, the small business sputtered and shut down.

Angela, an IT professional who had dreamt of one day owning the bakery ever since she’d worked there as a high school student in the early 1990s, now saw her chance to turn things around. Determined to revive the once-proud institution, she bought the business, then tracked down and rehired the previous crew. The shop was about to change hands; everything was coming together. But then the book disappeared.

What to do? The bakery had already failed once without its prized recipes. How could Angela succeed? The newly rehired bakers struggled to reconstruct the old recipes from memory. But the chance to completely restore the town’s beloved tradition – and it had seemed so certain – seemed to be lost forever.

Then came a call that changed everything. A computer whiz friend had deciphered the information on some old floppy diskettes Angela had found in the office.

It was the book! A previous owner, Harold Weber – with his wife, Nancy, he had run the shop for a quarter-century – had typed up every recipe. And a century of tradition narrowly escaped extinction.

Today Angela and the rest of the bakery’s skilled, enthusiastic staff supply the town, tourists and Internet shoppers from all over the nation with authentic, all-natural New Glarus Bakery goodies baked from scratch. “It’s my dream. I love it,” she says. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.”

Vesna Vuynovich Kovach: How did you get interested in baking, and in the New Glarus Bakery in particular?

Angela Anderson: When I was a child, I’d help my mother and grandmother bake. They would always make cookies, bars and cakes from scratch. I even remember rolling out cinnamon rolls one summer. My mother was always whipping up something in the kitchen.

During my junior year in high school, my sister-in-law, who had worked at the bakery, thought it would be a great idea for me to apply there. So I did. It was like becoming part of another family. We all worked very well together. Customers loved the New Glarus Bakery – for its products, service and cozy, warm feeling. People would drive miles, sometimes several states away to come here.

I realized early on that it was the made-from-scratch aspect as well as an image of high quality products served through many generations that made this bakery a strong, stable business as well as one of the focal points of New Glarus. Today, there are very few scratch bakeries. The ones I knew closed because the tradition in the family ran out.

VVK: The bakery went up for sale in 2001, after the Webers had owned it for some 25 years. Did you think about buying it then?

AA: I told my husband when we got married in 1997, “I have two goals in life: a house in the country, and to own the New Glarus Bakery.” He said, “Sure, whatever.” I knew someday the Webers would want to sell and the idea of having the bakery close just crushed me. But when it came up for sale in 2001, he didn’t want to move. We were living in Janesville and working in Beloit. He said it was either him or the bakery. I chose him. That time.

My mom bought me a little ceramic bakery. She said, “This is in remembrance of what your dream was.”

Then, in 2004, my mom brought me an article from the town paper. She told me, “I know your bakery dream is long gone. I don’t know if I should even show you this. But I thought you should know about it.” It said the New Glarus Bakery was going into foreclosure. I read it, and then I re-read it. I read that article for two days straight. I knew it was my one golden opportunity. I knew the next person to take it on wouldn't let it go. I couldn't bear the idea of non-traditional New Glarus Bakery products being made here, or worse, someone bringing in already-made products like at the grocery stores. It just wouldn't be right.

I wanted to see the bakery back to where it was when Howard and Nancy [Weber] had it. They continued to build an outstanding reputation for 25 years. I also saw what happened to the community when the bakery closed. It was a sad state.

Three weeks before the foreclosure sale, my husband told me to pick up divorce papers.

VVK: It sounds like you spent your adult life pining for the New Glarus Bakery. Why did you leave the area and go into a different field?

AA: I guess I went into information technology because at the time the IT field was a hot career. I also received my BS in business admin, and an Associate’s Degree in computer science. All my experience at the wheel plant, I call my boot camp for running a business. After about 5 years I had managed the systems that were the fundamentals of running the plant – production control, human resources systems, preventative maintenance systems, financial planning and accounting systems.

My closest friends knew I secretly wanted to have a business of my own – and that business was the bakery. I talked about it a lot. Business plans developed in my head over the years on how I would run it. I even planned out production schedules and devised sales figures based on the amount of items I remembered we would sell on a daily basis.

VVK: Tell me about your famous New Glarus Bakery stollen, your special holiday bread. It sounds just marvelous!

AA: We take light and dark raisins, and soak them in rum. There’s almonds and spices and a log of marzipan [almond paste] that runs down the center of the loaf. After they’re baked, we dip them in butter and roll them in powdered sugar. Then we shrink wrap them on a gold board and freeze them.

The freezing is an important part of the curing process It takes at least a month for the flavor to develop. We’ve eaten them right off the cooling shelves, but we just looked at each other and said, “This has no flavor!”

Last year we shipped 3,000 loaves all over the country, and Hawaii and Canada. This year we’re baking 960 – that’s 80 more than last year – for Byerly’s and Lunds, an upscale grocery chain in Minnesota.

VVK: Now that you’ve had the bakery for a while, what have you learned there?

AA: I have trained with mostly my bread maker in the traditions of making our hard-crusted breads, like you would find in Europe. I enjoy working with all my bakers and learning from them. Baking is definitely an art. You can throw somebody a recipe, but it’s the art, the skill, the creativity that you need to make a formula into something edible. It requires a sense of taste and above all, patience. It’s a work of art.

Original New Glarus Bakery Pfeffernusse

2006-12-01T18:51:00.000-06:00

Recipe from Swiss Savings: New Glarus Bakery

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava Magazine, December 2006

Literally translated as “pepper nut,” these walnut-shaped treats are named after the Pfefferlanden – “Pepper Lands” – an old German nickname for the spice-rich Far East. “The dough is very thick and dark, and has a spicy taste of cloves, cinnamon and anise,” says bakery owner Angela Anderson, who generously shares here the bakery’s century-old recipe. “It’s difficult to compare the flavor to any other cookie. We only make these at Christmas time, and include them in our ethnic cookie sampler.”

1 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon ground anise (or more, depending on your taste)
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup molasses
1/3 cup water
1 teaspoon baking soda
6 2/3 cups all purpose flour.
Melted butter and powdered sugar, for rolling

In large mixing bowl, cream together shortening and sugar. Add eggs and spices. Combine corn syrup, molasses, water and baking soda. Add to creamed mixture. Using mixer, add 3 cups of the flour. Add the rest of the flour and mix by hand. The dough will be very stiff. Use your hands to shape round balls of dough into balls about the size of small walnuts. Place on greased baking sheet. Bake at 400° F for 6 to 8 minutes, until lightly brown. Dip cookies in melted butter and roll in powdered sugar. Yield: 300 cookies. These freeze well.

A Fish Tale: Kathy Hughes

2006-11-01T19:59:00.001-06:00

Once an at-home mom, Kathy Hughes has become president of a thriving business – and one of Madison’s foremost fishwives

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava Magazine (formerly ANEW), November 2006
Column: Around the Table

Recipe: Day-Boat Scallops with Citrus Beurre Blanc

When you’ve spent most of your adult life as an at-home mom, what do you do after your three children grow up and your husband retires? Do you (a) retire to the suburbs of Miami and learn to play canasta and shuffleboard, (b) weep over your better half’s lack of enthusiasm for all those household chores he now has time for or (c) co-found and preside over a bustling family enterprise that guarantees 12-hour workdays, incessant business phone calls during your off-hours — and all the halibut you care to eat?

For Kathy Hughes, president and co-owner of Hughes Seafood, the answer, to her surprise, was (c).

When her husband, Mike, retired as a lieutenant with the Madison Police Department, he took a job at a fish market because, says Kathy, “He couldn’t stand doing nothing.” Soon after, their son Josh became assistant manager at the Seafood Center located inside the Brennan’s Market on University Avenue. Then, came an unexpected offer that changed everything. When Seafood Center declined opening a new branch in the Brennan’s going up on Watts Road in early 2004, the Hugheses were invited to start their own seafood shop there.

Hughes Seafood was born, with Mike as vice-president and Josh as secretary of the new company. “We set it up that way at the beginning because our banker suggested it. That’s the joke in our family – they’re all working for me now,” says president Kathy, with her customary easygoing laugh. Business took off, and went to another level this summer with the opening of a second branch inside Brennan’s University Avenue location, the site of Josh’s old job. (The Seafood Center currently has locations in Brennan’s on Whitney Way and in Willy St. Coop.)

VVK: Did you ever see yourself in this sort of role?
KH: Never. I never thought I’d be doing this. We used to have a life. Now all we do is work. It’s a lot of hours. But most of it’s fun. The customers are my favorite part of it.

VVK: Have you always liked seafood?
KH: Yes. I love to smell like fish. I’m kidding! Cooking has always been my hobby, and I’ve cooked quite a bit of seafood in my life, so now it’s fun to be a little more creative with it. I love experimenting. I make all the spreads we sell: smoked salmon, crab, crabby cheddar. I come up with recipes to give out to customers. I want them to be happy with their purchases and come back for more. I do the book work and the ordering. I’m kind of always looking for new products to put on the shelf.

VVK: What’s the secret to your success?
KH: We never keep anything in our case over 72 hours, ever. We bring fish in six days a week, always in small quantities. We try to just bring in what we think we’ll need for that day. If our fish has any odor, it’s out the door. Our place never smells like fish. There’s no reason for that. You can tell when fish is fresh: you’ll never smell it. Fresh fish is all shiny — it doesn’t look tired, or separated and falling apart. Several people have told us they’ve gone back to eating seafood since we came along.

VVK: How do you know?
KH: You don’t. It’s a very difficult business, to be honest with you. The potential for waste is there. With the Badger games and the Packer games, you have to be very careful. We want to have something for people who are going to entertain. But once the Badgers play, there’s going to be no one in the store. None. If you figure 80,000 people go to a Badger game, that’s a lot of the people in the area.

We follow the weather reports closely and try to figure out what people are going to be doing. Will they be grilling? Using the oven? If it’s going to be cold on a game day, we do more business because no one will be at game. It’s exciting and challenging to try and guess what people are going to buy every day.

VVK: I suppose you encourage customers to use their purchases right away.
KH: Definitely. Why would you want to buy ahead? People will tell us on Wednesday, we’re planning to prepare this on Sunday. No, no, no, no, no! You might as well buy frozen fish from any grocery store. Although we do have a gentleman who comes in every week and buys $100 worth of fish to freeze and use throughout the week. All these different types — a little less than a pound of each, just for him and his wife.

VVK: A lot of people are concerned about mercury in fish these days.
KH: Yes, it is safe to eat fish. The USDA says 12 oz. per week is OK, even for pregnant women. It depends on the variety. Cod, halibut, salmon, they’re fine. The big game type fish – swordfish, tuna – those are the type that you don’t want to eat an overabundance of. We do have people who eat nothing but fish. They vary what they eat. We also carry freshwater fish that come out of the Great Lakes: walleye, lake perch, whitefish. It’s all in the size of the fish.

VVK: Another concern is the environmental impact that fishing is having worldwide.
KH: With new regulations going into place, I think prospects are good. Most of this is so well regulated, because the fishermen themselves don’t want to lose their livelihoods. For instance, there was a big deal about Chilean sea bass recently. That’s a certified fish that now is sustainable. We’ve found that it’s all tagged and run through the USDA. They’re taking bigger fish from deeper in the ocean, they caught the fellow who was doing most of the poaching, and it’s no longer on the nonsustainable list.

We try to buy wild as much as we can of everything. Many people think farm-raised is better for the environment, but in general, it’s the opposite. We do not carry farm-raised anything, except certain types of shrimp. We always get shrimp that has not been treated with chemicals, as far as we know. That gives it a mushy texture, and almost a chemical taste. They have to list it on there, but I’m not always sure that everyone complies. That’s why you have to know who you’re buying from.

VVK: The humanitarian issue of keeping live lobsters in tanks has been in the news recently.
KH: We’ve just never even considered doing that. It never made sense to me. As soon as they put those rubber bands on a lobster’s claws, they can’t eat. So a lobster in a store might have been sitting in that tank, shrinking, for a two to three weeks. The fill goes down – that’s the amount of meat in the shell. Most people buy frozen lobster from us. We do bring live lobster in if you order it the day before.

VVK: What do you do with product that can’t be used?
KH: We’re helping to sponsor a man from Monroe in the Iditarod [an annual dog sled race held in Alaska]. We felt terrible throwing this stuff away. Then we heard about this fellow, a 62-year-old man named Benny Stamm, and thought, Okay! We freeze all our trimmings, and he picks it up for his team of dogs every two weeks. And we take donations for him. We have pictures of him and his team on display.

VVK: What advice do you have for seafood novices, like me, who are intimidated by the idea of cooking fish? It’s not cheap, and I’m afraid I’ll just wreck it.
KH: A good way to start cooking any type of fish is baking. Just a very basic recipe: olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Stick to the rule of 10 minutes per inch of thickness at 400°. Remember about carry-over cooking after you take it out of the oven. The biggest mistake people make with fish is to overcook it. It gets a stronger flavor and becomes dry.

You want it to be moist and tender. It should still be medium in the center when you take it out. That’s the trick. And it’ll be perfect.

VVK: Have you been surprised by what’s popular and what’s not?
KH: We used to think striped bass would be a big thing, but we hardly every sold any. Then I brought in baby octopus once, sort of as a joke. It sold out. Now we sell out of it every single week. People from Japan, China and Italy like it, and people who have traveled there. They sauté it in olive oil.

VVK: What’s your personal favorite?
KH: My absolute favorite of all time is halibut. I love the texture and mild flavor. I like it baked, grilled, every way. But my favorite way is to grill on an alder plank. It turns a gorgeous, gorgeous brown color on the top. Alder gives a much milder smoke flavor than other woods. A cedar plank is good for salmon, but alder is perfect for halibut. I just started doing it this way since we opened the store. Everything we bring in I try to cook at least once. I’ve tried a lot of new things. Not baby octopus – yet.

Day-Boat Scallops with Citrus Beurre Blanc

2006-11-01T18:28:00.001-06:00

Recipe from Around the Table: Kathy Hughes of Hughes Seafood
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava Magazine (formerly ANEW), November 2006

If you’ve ever had scallops that were mushy, chalky white and flavorless, chances are they spent up to 10 days on a board a fishing boat, soaking in phosphate preservative. Day-boat scallop fishers, by contrast, bring in the tasty bivalves daily, as their name suggests. Kathy recommends serving these fresh beauties with roasted asparagus and pine nut couscous.

Day-Boat Scallops with Citrus Beurre Blanc
One dozen day-boat sea scallops
salt and pepper

Season scallops with salt and pepper. Set a heavy-bottomed saute pan or a nonstick skillet over high heat. Heat a small amount of olive oil. Add scallops and sear for 3 to 4 minutes per side. Serve with Citrus Beurre Blanc, below.

Citrus Beurre Blanc
2 tablespoons butter
1 shallot, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup orange juice
1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
1/4 cup cream
Chopped chives for garnish
Salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste

Melt butter in a sauce pan over medium heat. Add shallot and garlic. Sauté briefly, but do not brown. Deglaze with white wine. Bring to a simmer and reduce by one-half. Add orange juice and thyme. Continue to simmer and again reduce by one-half. Add cream. Reduce until slightly thickened. Season with salt, pepper and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. Spoon over scallops. Sprinkle with chopped chives.

Vivian’s Mom’s Apple Crisp

2006-10-06T18:09:00.001-05:00

Recipe from Green's Pleasant Springs Orchard

This deceptively simple recipe is endlessly variable. That’s because local growers can supply you with scores of apple varieties to choose from, each with its own flavor profile and unique balance between tart and sweet. Some types are only available for a couple of weeks out of the year, so no matter how often you make it, it’s “great throughout the season. Easy and tasty,” says Vivian. “I often suggest combining two or three varieties of apples when making a pie or apple crisp,” she says, to get the fullest, most complex-tasting result.

4-6 cups (about 5 medium to large) apples, sliced and cored
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup oatmeal (quick or old fashioned)
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/3 cup butter or margarine, softened

Place apple slices in a buttered 8" x 8" glass baking dish. Mix together remaining ingredients and sprinkle over the apples. Bake at 375°F for 30 minutes. Enjoy. This recipe can easily be doubled in a larger baking pan.

An apple a day

2006-10-01T20:04:00.001-05:00

You’ll never run out of new tastes to try from Vivian Green’s orchard

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In ANEW Magazine, October 2006
Column: Around the Table

Recipe: Vivian’s Mom’s Apple Crisp

You can often find Vivian Green at the center of a crowd, enthralling eager shoppers with information about the wares that fill her farm market stall: apples. Lots and lots of kinds of apples, bins of fruit ranging from deep red to green to rosy pink. “We have more than 1700 trees with more than 65 varieties,” she says of Green’s Pleasant Springs Orchard, the farm she’s owned and operated with her husband, Dick, since 1977. And she can tell you what you want to know about every single kind.

“Gala is the most sweet,” she says, “Lodi is the most tart. It’s good for cooking. Braeburn is tart and sweet. Blushing is one of the Jonathan-Gold crosses. It’s hard and crisp, bitter tart, with a little sweetness. Mutsu is crisp and sweet.” Some, especially antique and heirloom varieties, taste better than they look. “Sheepnose is ugly, but it’s tasty and tart. Smokehouse is green with gray streaks – it looks terrible but it makes a great pie. Then there’s Spitzenburg, Thomas Jefferson’s favorite apple,” with a flavor that’s been compared to pineapple and a cinnamon aroma, sensational for out-of-hand eating. But its homely appearance – “orange with gray spots,” says Vivian – is probably why it’s fallen out of favor over the centuries.

VVK: How do you find apple varieties? How do you decide what to grow?

VG: We attend conferences, trade shows and field days sponsored by Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan fruit and vegetable growers. At these programs new varieties of apples are introduced. We can learn about the problems they have found growing them and taste them as well. We select from those that interest us and give them a trial. Our orchard is constantly changing with us trying out new varieties and removing older or less productive varieties.

We tried Granny Smith, but they ripened so late, it didn’t work out. Pink Lady is definitely out for Wisconsin, but breeders have come up with early-ripening Fujis, and we are growing a variety called "September Wonder" Fuji which ripens at the end of September.

I don't know if it’s global warming or what, but for the last several years, we’ve still been picking apples into November. Ten years ago that was not possible. As a result, we’re ripening late varieties like Braeburn and Goldrush now.

VVK: What are some of your favorite apples?

VG:. We like a balance between sweet and tart with a great crunch. Some favorites that fit these characteristics are Ginger Gold, Golden Supreme, Honeycrisp, Swiss Gourmet, Sonata, Suncrisp and Keepsake, to name just a few. Many varieties are all-purpose apples, both good to eat and also great for pies and sauce.

VVK: How do you control pests?

Having a chemistry background, I don’t want to use any more chemicals than I have to. Dick’s masters degree is in environmental education. When we began our orchard we looked into how to grow apples in a way that was safe for the environment and also produce them economically. We use a program called Integrated Pest Management. We set pheromone traps, female sex hormones to attract the male insects. We then count the population and determine when the population is at a threshold and a spray is needed.

Insect scouting with a hand lens is ongoing from April to October. There are helpful insects. Lacewings eat aphids. Ladybugs – real ones! – are good. And some wasps are very helpful.

We also have a weather monitoring station. It measures degree days and wetness hours to help monitor fungus diseases. It’s the fungus that gets you. Insects are pretty controllable. But the fungus just doesn’t allow you to go chemical free.

VVK: You’ve been in the news lately for helping to found a new farmers’ market, the Westside Community Market, after you and some other longtime Hilldale Farmers’ Market vendors were turned away in 2005.

VG: Not returning to Hilldale after it had been our major market for 29 years was a shock. Our customers were disappointed and encouraged us to find an outlet for our apples on the West side of town. [The Greens, Madison Sourdough and JenEhr Family Farm] along with a community member began the Westside Community Market, Inc. It is a vendor-run market. Both vendors and the community came together to bring back the friendly, community gathering that the [Hilldale] market had once had. The Westside Community Market has easy, accessible parking and lots of friendly vendors with a wide variety of products. I am pleased to be the market manager this season.

VVK: You vend there and at the Dane County Farmers’ Market. Can people come straight to the farm?

VG: We have U-Pick of common varieties like McIntosh, Cortland, Gala, Jonathan and Macoun beginning mid-September. We give tours of our orchard beginning in early September through October. The walking tour includes education about growing apples and picking apples, seeing the varieties of apples in the orchard, and eating fresh, washed apples in addition to an indoor tour of washing/grading equipment and cider-making.

VVK: Can you tell me about your unpasteurized cider?

VG: We produce our unpasteurized cider in a state-of-the-art facility which we designed and installed in 2002. Each week we blend eight to 14 varieties of small, washed apples – it changes week to week as varieties change. I encourage persons concerned about pasteurization to simply heat the cider to boiling and then turn off the heat, chill and enjoy. You do lose some of the flavor, but only minimally.

VVK: Some farms that I’ve visited have no loose apples for sale – you can only buy a big sack of a single kind. I want to try them all, but I’m just not in the market for a truckload of apples!

VG: We allow our customers to select as few or as many as they want. We will not pre-bag apples.

VVK: With so many types of apples at the supermarket, why buy direct from the orchard?

VG: Our customers have found that apples purchased from apple growers are fresher, have greater variety, and have none of that wax [commercial apples are usually coated with shellac or a similar agent] to give the apples shine.

Out-of-state apples are picked too early – they have to withstand shipping and they don’t want them to be easily damaged. But they haven’t reached their full peak of flavor and moisture. You can’t let an apple be itself when it has to be shipped long distances and stored in walk-in coolers for months.

We pride ourselves in the quality of what we sell. We think an apple has to develop its complete flavor. If you really care about fruit, you’ll wait until the fruit is ready.

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Green’s Pleasant Springs Orchard, located at 2722 Williams Drive near Stoughton, can be reached at 873-4096. The Westside Community Market is held Saturdays at the Hill Farms DoT parking lot on Sheboygan Avenue and Wednesdays at the Westgate Mall parking lot on Segoe Avenue. The Greens' e-mail address: apples247@tds.net

Mollie Katzen comes to Madison

2006-09-01T20:13:00.004-05:00

Renowned chef and cookbook author brings her vegetable love to Madison’s Food For Thought Festival
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach

In ANEW Magazine, September 2006
Column: Around the Table

Recipe: Apple-glazed Acorn Squash Rings
Recipe: A Sparkling Sweet Potato

Ah, food, glorious food. The flavor! The aroma! The justice!

Justice? What’s that got to do with food?

A lot, in a world teeming with side-by-side surplus and famine, where a few agribusinesses boom while thousands of family farms go under, where most of what we spend on food goes not to farmers but to middlemen and merchandisers, and the average morsel travels thousands of miles from farm to plate, even in this day of soaring petrol prices. How extreme can the situation be? Recently several Florida produce growers were convicted of forcing hundreds of workers into “involuntary servitude” – slavery.

So if you like to eat and care at least a whit about the thousands of humans (and other beings) who help you do it, the eighth annual Food For Thought Festival off the Capitol Square, held during the Farmers’ Market Saturday morning, Sept. 16 (plus panel discussion the night before – details at reapfoodgroup.org), is for you.

This year’s theme is “Just Cooking," with the double meaning intentional. “It’s a way of looking at food that considers the health and wholeness of all the people and systems who produce and consume it,” says Miriam Grunes, executive director of REAP, the group organizing the event. “It also means making healthy, local ingredients available so everyone has access to foods that are fresh, minimally processed, locally and/or sustainably produced, flavorful and nutritious.”

Of the two world-class keynoters slated to speak, give free cooking classes and sign books, one is Anna Lappé, whose most recent book, Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen, encourages readers to “joyfully and deliciously embrace our responsibilities as world citizens,” says Grunes.

The other is veggie cookery superstar Mollie Katzen, one of the best-selling cookbook authors of all time. Mollie’s first book was 1977’s instant classic Moosewood Cookbook, followed by The Enchanted Broccoli Forest and many more cookbooks. Her achievements include a long-running cooking show on public television, awards for illustration and design, a seat at the Harvard School of Public Health’s Nutrition Roundtable and a place in the Natural Health Hall of Fame.

In advance of her upcoming first trip to Wisconsin, Mollie spoke with us from the Berkeley, Calif. home where she’s lived for 21 years.

VVK: You helped put vegetarian cookery on the map. But you’re not a vegetarian yourself?

MK: If you go through my books, I never made an argument for vegetarianism. I said, if you want to eat less meat, here’s what you can cook.

I love low-on-the-food-chain food – nut butters, grains, beans, fruits, lots of vegetables. But being a vegetarian? To me it’s completely a nonissue. I don’t agree or disagree; it’s a very personal choice. But it’s irrelevant to your health. It doesn’t answer the question, what are you nourishing yourself with?

I think the early health foods movement was a lot about not eating this or that. People would say, “I’ve stopped eating meat.” And their friends would say, “Oh, good, you’re healthy now!” And that would be the end of the sentence. You’d wake up healthy the next day. It was a culture of denial. I don’t want to eat remorse food. I want fresh, delicious food. Food that’s about, “How can I make this as delicious as possible?” It doesn’t have to be fancy.

I’ve witnessed many vegetarians who are simply non-meat-eaters, without a single vegetable or fruit in their day – who subsist on high processed-carb diets with very little or no protein and very little or no fiber or fruit. And some meat-eaters are incredibly fit and healthy. It depends on what is actually eaten – not on what is not eaten.

VVK: What about the ethics: can meat to fit in with a just way of life? Can there ever be a regular place for bacon and burgers on the ethically aware table?

MK: Absolutely. There is sustainably raised meat. Humans have been omnivores all the way back in time.

VVK: Natural foods has become a big-money industry, but much of is in processed foods supporting the American lifestyle of prepackaged meals and quick-access snacks, not fresh ingredients that people take home to prepare lovingly.

MK: It's the result of people's perceived time-crunch issues. Nobody says, I don’t have time to watch my favorite TV shows, or surf the Internet. They just do it. Some people spend more time watching the Food Network than actually preparing food. I don’t know what that blockage is about. But a lot of that goes away when you fall in love with cooking.

VVK: Fall in love?

MK: I don’t want to make it sound like I’m talking about some mystical thing. I mean making a commitment, devoting time to your relationship with food. Love is manifest by making time for someone or something, make space for that in your life. That’s almost a working definition of love. When you love someone, what do you do? It’s the same as with any hobby, or a love for literature.

That’s really the key to dealing with a lot of our issues around food. Get closer to it, learn the craft. People who come to my classes, it’s the main barrier that keeps them from cooking more vegetables. They don’t have a comfortable relationship with a knife. I tell people, make friends with the knife. Keep it sharp. Practice.

Look on this as a craft, a really fun craft. Walk away from your kitchen. Then make it into a place that’s pleasant for you to be in and reconstitute that relationship in your life. Get a couple of really good tools. Find a knife that you really bond with – that you can have fun with.

Unfortunately, time to cook and focus on healthy and organic cooking has become a luxury. If you’re a harried mother, broke, with three children under age 5, and you pass McDonald’s with a chicken sandwich under a dollar, I’m not going to lecture that person. Although the irony is that for many people there’s a huge savings cooking at home.

VVK: Your cookbooks for children are so helpfully written and laid out, and the food is real eating, not kiddie novelty stuff. I think they’re ideal for anyone, any age, who wants to learn to cook. But if you’re an adult trying to cook with kids – how do you stay patient?

MK: Cook with children for fun, not for a meal or for a goal. "Process over product," is my motto for cooking with young kids. Children become more interested in fruits and vegetables when they get a chance to encounter them pre-plate, as in the garden – ideal! – or the farmers' market. Children also are attracted to things they get to prepare themselves, so let them make a tasty sauce to dip vegetables in, and you'll be amazed how their relationship to the vegetable will improve.

VVK: Do you have any words of encouragement or support or inspiration for moving to a more fully engaged relationship with food?

MK: Go to the farmer’s market and get things that look beautiful to you, whatever it is, and just bring it all home. Then put it all out. Get your tomatoes and strawberries and arrange it all in little bowls. Just stare at it. And just eat it. Plain. Cut up some tomatoes and maybe tear up some basil leaves on them. Do as little as possible. And that’s cooking.

Recipes
Thirty years ago, when Mollie Katzen published her first, groundbreaking, cookbook, meatless meals tended towards “big, heavy entrees” with “thick sauces that would bury or mask” the veggies, she recalls. Today there’s “more flavor, less fuss, more subtlety.”

“The produce is better,” says Mollie. “Cooking knowledge is more sophisticated. People are into drizzling a little of this or that rather than concocting something. You can get high-quality toasted nut oils, rice vinegar, balsamic vinegar, Meyer lemons, fresh herbs.” Simple preparations can be dazzling and delicious, especially when they’re made with top quality ingredients: just choose a veg and roast, grill or braise it. Then finish simply – drizzle, glaze, make a reduction from the cooking liquid or sprinkle on some coarse salt.

How easy can it be to create a fresh and fabulous dish this way? Check out these recipes (edited for space) from Mollie’s latest, Eat, Drink and Weigh Less (Hyperion, 2006), co-written with Walter Willett, M.D. of the Harvard School of Public Health. Then get down to the farmers’ market on the Square on Sept. 16, and pick up these autumn ingredients in peak season on your way to the Food For Thought Festival. [See top of this article for links to the recipes.]

Apple-glazed Acorn Squash Rings

2006-09-01T18:14:00.001-05:00

Related article: Mollie Katzen Comes to Madison

“Simple and sweet” – Mollie Katzen

1 acorn squash
3 Tablespoons (or more) apple juice or defrosted concentrate

Slice one (unpeeled) acorn squash into 1/2" rings. Remove seeds. Arrange on a foil-lined, lightly sprayed, baking sheet. Bake at 375° on oven center rack. After 15 minutes (or when squash is fork-tender), remove from oven and drizzle or brush with apple. Heat broiler to 500° and move oven rack to highest position. Broil just a minute or two, until squash tops begin to brown. (Watch carefully – they can burn quickly.) Remove from oven. If desired, glaze with a touch more apple. Serve hot, warm or at room temperature.

A Sparkling Sweet Potato

2006-09-01T07:55:00.000-05:00

Related article: Mollie Katzen comes to Madison

“Utterly divine” – Mollie Katzen

A Sparkling Sweet Potato

1 sweet potato (about 6 oz.)
1–2 Tablespoons fresh lime juice (or to taste)

Microwave sweet potato 3 minutes on high. Turn over and repeat. Insert fork into center to check for doneness. Cook more if needed. (Or oven-roast at 375° until fork-tender, about 1 hour.) Remove and let cool. Peel. Transfer to a bowl and mash with a fork. Mash in 1 tablespoon of the lime juice and taste. Add more lime juice as needed. Serve warm or at room temperature – or reheat in microwave and serve hot.