It is with a heavy heart that I write this post. The project had started as experimental meat preparation with a cut of beef that rarely makes it past the grinder, the chuck flap. Between acquisition of this really nice cut of beef, preparation of the beef, and writing of the post, the owner of the ranch at which the grass fed cow was raised, Frank Morgan of Q7 Ranch in Marengo, IL, passed away suddenly. I did not know Frank, but I had grown to love his work from navels to shanks to neck and now to the chuck flap and all things in between.  My family’s sympathies and condolences go to Frank’s family and loved ones. 

As happens when you have a butcher that you know and trust, when I walked into Butcher and Larder last week, Rob approached me with a cut of meat that I had not seen before. As last year with the belly chop, lamb neck, beef neck bones, and most recently, the mutton neck, there are things that Rob has suggested that are not commonly used parts of the animal that would not fall into meat curing or offal related dishes, but rather butcher’s cuts. At first I was hesitant to blog about these because I was worried about losing the blog’s focus, but the more that I thought about it, the more I wanted to feature these types of projects. After all, the real focus on the blog has evolved from bacon making and tasting to meat curing and ice cream making to DIY production and consumption of local food that flies under the radar. We will give it a shot and see how it goes. Please give feedback as you see fit.

Back to the beef; the cut that Rob brought out resembled a beef cheek from the world’s largest steer, but I did not recognize it. This cut, the chuck flap, from just past the short ribs, is usually ground into burgers, but he had done some research and wanted to do a little testing to see how best to use it. Suggested cooking methods indicated that it should go past medium rare and that BBQ/braise might be a good test. Given that our family is small, I decided to split the cut into two pieces and get creative both braising and smoking.

For the BBQ piece, I wanted something a little different than just regular BBQ beef. I have been playing around with some sauces from the Momofuku cookbook lately and had found one that I liked on nearly everything – Chang’s ginger scallion sauce. Doing a reverse search, I worked back to one of his ssam that resembles kalbi made from hangar steak. I used the flavors from this dish with half of the chuck flap and then instead of searing the beef, as was done with the hangar, I smoked it, basically making a smoked kalbi.

Admittedly, it is dangerous to riff on one of the biggest riffers in the cooking world, but it was smoked beef that had soaked in a deliciously sweet and salty compound. As long as I watched it, it would at least approach delicious. The cut had some nice fat on it, but I would not consider it to be a fatty cut. Even though it is from around the short ribs, it resembled to me the cheek (as mentioned above) and the brisket flat, but with less connective tissue than both. In smoking it, I would treat it like a brisket flat and if I smoked this too long, it would likely dry out. After a few hours over hickory, I pulled the beef from the smoker and put in foil with an additional quarter cup of the marinade (reserved before applying to raw meat) for an hour to rest.

Once the hour was up, I sliced the beef and served it with the ginger scallion sauce, caramelized onions and sriracha using lettuce as the burrito wrap. It had a very beefy, almost offal-y, flavor and the smoke was more of a massage than a punch. The beef took the marinade well, but was wasn’t overrun by it. It was good, but the texture was a little bit dense for ssam.

My original thought was to braise the chuck flap in pho broth and top it with sprouts, chilis, and mint, but after going with the Chang-style smoked Kalbi, I wanted something a little more different, and a little less Asian, for the braise. I went Southwestern with a chili and beer braise.

After applying the rub of my chili powder (9 chilis this time) and cumin then letting it permeate for a few days, I treated this half like a beef cheek. I seared the flap, deglazed the pan with some New Glarus Krystal Weizen and braised the beef for a few hours. When my wife walked into the house, she let me know that it was very nice of me to make her chili on that cold day. I informed her than she was only half right. The flap had a nice crust, but had a lot of give to the touch. The beer had taken on a deep red color from the chilis and had reduced down to a thick sauce at this point. I was surprised that the beef had not released much fat, but that was no matter. It smelled ridiculous.

I served the beef with quinoa and topped it with cilantro as well as pickled jalapenos and red onions. With the heat and depth from the chili and a little bitterness from the beer, the sweet and sour pickle and the fresh herbs really rounded out a great plate of food. We liked the smoked kalbi ssam, but we loved the chili and beer braised flap. I was tempted to simply shred the beef turning it into almost a chili porridge, but I resisted and was glad that I did. The texture was perfect. The dense nature of the cut really held up well to the braise in a way that kept it from being stringy while keeping it completely spoon-able.

After these two experiments, I would say that without hesitation that this cut is a “can’t miss” in the flavor department, but texturally it might need a little TLC. You likely don’t want this cut grilled unless it is ground. If you BBQ it, you might be better off starting it on the smoker and finishing it in the oven taking it to just over 200 degrees internal temp and chopping it. However, this cut finds it groove – actually turning a challenging texture into something positive – when braised.

Finally, and again, these types of cuts are typically ground or tossed and I am so happy that Rob thinks to challenge that notion in these experiments. I am even more thankful, and now sad, that farmers like Frank put such care into their animals that a supposed scrap cut can hold so much flavor and deliciousness. It is a testament to him and his crew that even the humblest cuts on their animals are so vastly better than prime cuts at your local grocery. I hope that he knew that while many did not know him personally, so many appreciated his life’s work and found value in what he did.

As Incanto is a wonderland for my tastes and Collins was nice enough to lead me down the path, I “crowdsourced” the hell out of the mutton neck. While it is not customary for me to detail weeknight dinners, I wanted to start a new feature on this blog with cooking “butcher’s cuts” as an example of how having a great butcher will open your eyes to new and delicious meals. I would describe butcher’s cuts as a cut that is not typically found shrink wrapped at the supermarket or even in the case at your Whole Foods. Think of it this way, ten years ago, you would have never found pork belly, lamb breast, or short ribs in the grocery case, but yesterday I walked past all three in the same case at the Kingsbury Whole Foods.

This entry is also an example of why I love the comments that I get here and how I’d love to get more ideas of the cool food projects you, as readers, have done.

This mutton neck was sourced from Slagel Farms through the Butcher and Larder. The size was bigger than the lamb neck, but not by a margin that I would have expected. I knew that mutton may carry a slightly gamier flavor than lamb as it is a more developed animal, but I love lambiness, so that was no deterrant in this case and that the texture would be less tender, which given the cooking method also was not going to deter me.

To start, a few days before cooking, I salted the neck and added chopped greenery (fennel, parsley, mint, and rosemary) and let the neck cure uncovered in the fridge until meal day. Around lunch time, I tossed the neck in a casserole in a low oven (275 degrees), covered, for 5-6 hours. About 4 hours in, I squeezed a half lemon over the mutton. With about an hour to go until dinner, I cranked the heat to 450 and roasted the neck until the outside was crispy.

The neck was sauced with a quick emulsified salsa verde. I typically like a looser salsa verde as I served with the smoked lamb shoulder in September, but in a pinch, using a blender as I did, will do and will give you an emulsified sauce. The layer of fat on the outside had turned into crispy, molten mutton flavored burnt ends and the interior was melty and tender. The meat, after resting for 10 minutes, was easily separated from the spine and served with baby kale braised in vinegar, chiles, and garlic and turnips. The burnt ends feature is the likely advantage over the “braise and blast” technique and I can assure you that I would go through this entire process for a forkfull of these burnt ends. The remainder is delicious as well, but the crispy edges with the molten center will blow your mind.

After eating octopus at each visit to Taxim and again at Vera, I was itching to cook the cephalopod, but was alway intimidated by the beast and scared to put a plate of rubber bands in front of my wife. While Taxim and Vera do it right, I have had my fair share of mutilated, rubbery flesh and, given that I have never cooked it, did not want to do the same. I was researching how cooked octopus behaves and which method involved the most flexibility in cooking time with the least amount of risk.

At the same time, I have also been working on some ideas for cold cooked appetizers for an upcoming party with some picky eaters. With this I thought that a really nice counterpoint to a cold pork terrine would be a seafood terrine. In my research, it came to my attention that cooked octopus has a releases a ton of gelatin which would make it a natural candidate to be cooked, pressed, and made into a terrine.

I started with a whole head-on octopus. Notice in the picture above that the octopus is about three feet in length. I was expecting to have far too much octopus to set in the terrine, even with removing the head. After removing the head and the beak from the octopus, I cooked the octopus. A pot of water with carrots, onion, celery, bay leaf, fennel, and a cork (wive’s tale for tenderization) was boiled. The octopus was dunked into the boiling water for 15 seconds and removed. Then the water was returned to the boil and the octopus was dunked again three additional times and on the last dunk, the heat was lowered and the octopus was simmered for forty minutes.

Once the forty minutes was up, I pulled the octopus and put it in a bowl to cool for a few minutes. The picture above shows the steam rising from the newly compacted beast. Once I saw how the tentacles had contracted, I changed my plan from molding the octopus in a terrine to rolling it in clingwrap and compressing it. Before this, I cut the tentacles, seasoned them with salt and pepper, threw a few pinches of fresh parsley, and arranged the tentacles on the clingwrap fat end to thin end. Using a basic roll and twist technique, I used the clingwrap like a sausage casing and compressed the octo-sausage under three cans of pressure overnight.

The next day, I had an oblong disc of octopus that was firmly set in its own natural gelatin. It sliced easily and was seasoned well. I was really happy with the flavor, but surprised at how tender the terrine was. I had grilled the head for a salad the night before and it was tough as hell, so I was extra concerned about the tentacle terrine. The texture was really excellent – dense and meaty, but not chewy. Each slice was a singular piece which was a great comeback and contrast to the mutton head’s terrine. The really cool aspect to this terrine is obviously the appearance. With the white and dark tentacle pieces appearing like a mosaic, the dramatic appearance is only helped by its own deliciousness.

As a sidenote, I served the terrine with a cool gremolata that I put together from ingredients on hand. I had picked up a buddha’s hand and really love the floral, citrusy flavor. I added minced garlic, fresno, and mint to the buddha’s hand and it really accented the fresh aspects of the octopus. Combined with the meatiness of the octopus, this fresh addition, along with olive oil and Maldon salt made the bite complete. Despite all of the trepridation, this was by far the easiest terrine that I have ever put together and for someone looking for a show stopping dinner party canape, you could do a lot worse.

It is playoff time again. I am not going to say too much about it because I am superstitious, but the Packers are my team and they play today. Last year, the playoff charcuterie of choice was a Wisconsin classic – and a year-end top 3 dish – Braunschweiger made by the Butcher & Larder. I understand this year’s version is in the works, but the Packers game won’t wait, so I took matters into my own hands.

I did not venture into Braunschweiger territory, maybe next week, if applicable, but I did make a batch of kielbasa, another Sconnie classic, and took it one Sconnie level higher by making the sausage from some Wisconsin wild venison harvested by my Sconnie father. In the North Central parts of Wisconsin where my father grew up and still hunts, the late fall butcher offerings nearly always include Northeastern European sausages made from venison scraps acquired by butchering the local deer shot during the two-week hunting season. Kielbasa is an Eastern European sausage usually hailing from Poland or the Ukraine. It is typically smoked and made from beef and pork with heavy garlic flavors. Kielbasa with kraut and potatoes is a popular Sconnie dish in supper clubs and on family tables. Venison kielbasa certainly would not be out of place in the butcher cases in towns like Willard, Marshfield, or Abbotsford.

The process that I used took a few days, yet required very little work. They are one level simpler than andouille and, while the cache isn’t the same, these smoked sausages, in prime soup and kraut season, have so much utility. Step one is making the forcemeat which does not differ greatly from making regular sausage. I have seen kielbasa emulsified and not, but I didn’t want to over manipulate them, so I simply did an extra few turns in the paddle mixer with non-fat milk powder instead of whipping it in the food processor, like I did with the serrano, olive, sherry sausages.

I stuffed the sausages and then let them dry under a fan until the outsides were completely dry. The sausages at this point turned from bright, deep red to a dark, ruddy brown color. However, I knew that by drying the sausages, the smoke would take to them much better. You can still apply smoke to an undried sausage, but the venture will be far less successful. Finally, I hung the sausages on an impromptu smoking stick and smoked them until the internal temperature reached 155 degrees over hickory.

After a few ventures into smoking sausages, I have figured a few things out that have helped the process that all occur after the work is done. First, I take the sausages directly from the smoking sticks and dunked them into a pot of ice water to cool them as quickly as possible. This tends to eliminate, or at least limit, the wrinkly sausage phenomenon. Next, I hung the sausages on the smoking stick over the sink at room temperature for three hours. Instead of keeping the sausages in butcher paper in the fridge, hanging the sausages at room temperature has helped enhance the color of the sausages get that deep brown, red color that professionally smoked sausages develop. I am relatively certain that neither of these practices does much for flavor, but if you can enhance the appearance with easy steps, why wouldn’t you?

The flavors of this kielbasa are a great combination of marjoram, garlic, and smoke. While typically in Wisconsin, I believe that butchers try to obscure the flavors of venison, I did nothing to mask the flavor of the game and you get the taste of venison in the sausages. I supplemented the venison roast with trimmings from the heart from a recent project. Along with some of the fat around the heart, I used 20% of total weight in pork belly to add some much needed fat to the sausages to keep them juicy and the texture correct. You can certainly add more, but I like the venison to be primary. I made some quick kholrabi kraut to go with the kielbasa with cider vinegar and mustard. It was a taste of home.

By game time, a good bit of these sausages will be eaten. I certainly hope that making them brings the Packers luck in their playoff game and hopefully games in the few weeks, if they are so lucky. If you are rootless, football-wise, give a little Go Pack Go.

• 2 lbs. venison (I split mine 28 oz. trimmed venison, 4 oz. venison heart trimmings)
• 8 oz. pork belly
• 1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
• 2 teaspoons freshly ground pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon pink salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground mustard
• 1 teaspoon dried marjoram
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1/2 cup nonfat dried milk
• 1/2 cup ice water

Step one: Ground venison and pork belly twice through small plate of your meat grinder. Make sure that both are very nearly frozen before grinding and keep grinder parts extraordinarily cold.

Step two: Add remaining ingredients besides milk powder and mix until sticky in your stand mixer with the paddle attachment.

Step three: Add milk powder and mix with paddle attachment for another minute.

Step four: Stuff sausages immediately. Tie sausages into rings, so that they can be hung.

Step five: Dry sausages until casings are dry to the touch.

Step six: Hang sausages on a dowel or smoking stick and hot smoke sausages until internal temperature reaches 155 degrees.

Step seven: Immediately drop sausages into ice cold water bath until cooled. Hang on smoking stick at room temp for 3 hours. Make sure to do this over the sink or over something as they may drip a bit.

Step eight: Consume or store.

I am not sure at which point that I had worked with meat enough to predict when something is not right before the moment occurs when you know it isn’t right. This was certainly one of those times and maybe the first of which that felt more like experience than paranoia. I had such grand plans for a bright mutton terrine, but before the mutton went into the terrine, I knew deep down that the dish would be only half of what I wanted.

Rob at the Butcher & Larder had mutton in the shop and I stopped in to discuss meeting Paul Bertolli (yes in the span of a year, I met Polcyn, Ruhlman, and Bertolli – living in Chicago has many advantages) and, while there, asked about the head. Mutton head is a sight to behold. Quite different than a pig’s head, which looks, frankly, like a pig, mutton head has been stripped of ears and skin and left with crazy, bulbous eyes and crooked black teeth. And little else. This was my first clue.

The second clue happened after I completed cooking the head. I had braised the head for a few hours with water, red wine, oregano, black pepper, rosemary, salt and cumin. Lambiness was in the air, but when I took the pot from the oven and began to pull the remaining meat from the head, there wasn’t that trademark stickiness to it.

Yet I continued to pull the cheeks, peel the tongue and gently remove the brain as the stock from the braise reduced. There wasn’t much meat, maybe a little over a cup, but it was tender and juicy, just not sticky. I added chopped tongue and brain, along with kalamata olives, fresh rosemary, and orange zest as garnishes and scooped the mixture into a terrine topping with reduced stock. I applied 1 quart of yogurt’s worth of weight on the terrine press and let it chill for 3 days in the fridge.

The third clue came when I removed the terrine from its dish and it lacked that certain feeling that a good, solidly put together terrine has, which is dense with a little bit of bounce. This terrine was light and firm, but no heft or bounce. I was concerned, but I followed instructions of wrapping the terrine tightly and slicing with a thin, hot, sharp knife only to have the terrine behave as I knew that it would, but hoped that it would not. It was not crumbly, but it did not slice well.

Making the fact that the natural gelatin was not sufficient to jell-ify the terrine worse, was that the flavor was fantastic. I love lamb and this mutton was assertively lamb-ish, but the orange, rosemary, and kalamata flavors brightened the terrine immensely. It was delicious and such a damned disappointment. Why did I not buy mutton trotters? Would the neck have provided sufficient gelatin? Ugh. So close to an amazing and original terrine with vibrant colors, textures, and flavors, but what I was left with was 2 quarts of delicious mutton stock and essentially a mutton head “salad” that was extremely tasty, but not beautiful. It is one thing to screw up a terrine in a complete failure, it is another to have very decent concept and bad execution.

Nothing to sneeze at, but I felt that thinking it through and listening to my instinct would have gotten the terrine to work. It does not come close to rivaling some of the bigger failures in food projects that I have made and not posted (i.e. the spicy pickled asparagus or the smoked duck and dried cherry sausages which were historically bad), but in this case, I wanted to post. Not only to document how things don’t always work, but how things can go wrong, but not all the way wrong. ”Ideas in progress” could be a category here. This idea will work and I will make it work soon, but it didn’t work this time and it was not a waste. It was strike one. Not wasted money or time because between the stock and the messy terrine, there is more deliciousness than some of the projects that were deemed wildly successful, but there is disappointment because this was close to a massive success, but wasn’t.

I had no idea if this would work. In fact, until I dropped them into the lard, I was sure that it would not work. Fresh skin is one thing. I knew how those would behave, but serrano ham was already heavily salted and dried for almost a full year. The skin was completely different than regular pork skin, it was like one of those old plastic sheets on which I used to make Christmas cookies when I was kid. Yet a second after dropping the skins in the lard, I was happy to see that cracklins could be made from the last “dregs” of a ham.

This skin was the last remnant that I had of the wonderful serrano ham from Bessie the Hog. After using the last of the meat to make Ferran Adria’s peas and ham and the last of the bones for making serrano stock, I was left with the skin. With hopes of making cracklins for the first time, I worked the skin in the same way as I would regular fresh pork skin with hopes that life could be pulled from the dried skins.

First, I boiled the skin for a few hours. Not to be too general time wise, I boiled the hell out of the skin until it felt fragile when I handled it. For the serrano skins, that took upwards of 2 hours. After it was cool enough to handle, I scraped all of the goodness from the inside of the skin, in some cases getting a cooks treat of rehydrated serrano ham. Then I cut the pieces into rectangles and dehydrated the pieces in a low oven overnight. When they were ready, they were no longer bendable and were strong enough where I doubt that they were breakable.

When ready to make an attempt at cracklins, I heated a pot with about an two inches of pork and bacon fat at the bottom. When hot enough to fry, I dropped some of the pieces of dehydrated skin into the fat and they instantly poofed. I was so pleased. After another 30 seconds in the oil, I scooped the cracklins onto some draining paper, sprinkling them with a combination of smoked sea salt and pimenton.

Maybe it is that no cracklin beats the cracklin fresh out of the lard, but these were flat out tremendous. Frankly, besides the cracklins eaten at the Publican here in Chicago, I have never been impressed with puffed pork skin. The ham taste was right on, the texture with extremely crispy and airy, but until I added the Co-op Too Hot Jack O’Lantern Sauce (with chocolate habanero), it was not complete. Once the hot sauce hit the cracklin, it was perfect. You had the essence of dry cured ham, but hidden behind the taste of great pig was the sharp vinegar-y hit of heat from the habanero sauce.

Extrapolating the ability to make cracklins from ham rind, I would estimate that bacon skin cracklins are delicious, country ham cracklins would be delicious, and porchetta skin cracklins would be delicious. Making the serrano ham skins into cracklins just opened up a whole new world of fried pork skin. Act accordingly.

Being a city dweller, despite growing up in Wisconsin, I am predisposed to being skeptical of anything suburban. I had heard good things about Inovasi in Lake Bluff, but just haven’t made the effort to get out there. Everything that I hear is that the chef out there, John des Rosiers, has serious talent. He also has serious ambition as he has opened several small take-home outlets called Wisma. When a new Wisma opened a few blocks from work, I could no longer ignore. When I got there, they were putting their first package of bacon on the shelves. It was almost like they were waiting for a sucker like me.

Granted, it may sound crazy, but I am over the bacon craze. Not that I have ever ridden the bacon wave, but seeing menus with simple bacon additions to whatever you want is just sad. Bacon is a great thing, but as I mentioned on here recently, I find ham to be more interesting and versatile. That doesn’t mean that I won’t be doing bacon tastings, someone has to do it and it might as well be me.

The bacon was good and definitely worth a try. It probably is not top tier bacon, but it is certainly better than most. Here are some pros and cons of the Inovasi/Wisma bacon:

Pros

• A rare thin sliced bacon: Everyone loves the thick cut and there are bacons that need the thickness, but this bacon is thin, and thus easily crisped. That is a lot of the battle.
• The belly is from Becker Lane: A well treated, semi-local belly is always appreciated. The pork is clearly the star here and the striations of fat and lean are beautiful.
• The proximity to work: Let’s say that I need bacon…wait, I have pounds in the freezer. Now, let’s say that you need bacon and you work downtown, where is there high quality bacon? Nowhere until now.
• The bacon is very balanced: Nothing too over the top, but still a very high quality product.
• The bacon is beautiful: Unlike other packaged local bacons, Inovasi/Wisma took care to have even cuts and good packaging, even if they are the same food saver bags that I use.

Cons

• There is little flash: Just not a whole lot to set it apart. Still, you can’t fault it for being consistently good.
• This bacon is expensive: $14 per pound and listed on front of the package as such. I understand the pork is expensive and that having most of the pros above costs money, but $14/lb. for bacon is excessive, to me.

All in all, if I am eating bacon that I don’t make and don’t have shipped to me, I’d opt for Nueske’s or Butcher & Larder, but right after those two, Inovasi would be a great choice. If I want thin sliced bacon and cost isn’t an issue, Inovasi would certainly be the choice.

Four rashers out of a possible five.

Nose to Tail Greens & Peas (assorted meats clockwise from top: ears, tail, tongue, snout)

Before meeting my lovely bride, I had no tradition on New Year’s Day. We watched football, but nearly every New Year’s Day was spent the same way as my Christmas Day – in a car. Granted, my interest in food as a cultural touchpoint had not been piqued, but I was unaware of the traditions of cotechino & lentils or greens and black-eyed peas. The first New Year’s Day that she and I spent together, her mother was visiting and prepared a New Year’s meal of cheese grits,  collard greens and black-eyed peas. I did not understand the significance until she explained after the meal, but I would never spend another New Year’s day without eating collard greens and black-eyed peas.

One of my resolutions for 2012 is to learn more about classic Southern cooking and food traditions. Through some cursory research and discussions, I found that there are folks who are very particular about mixing different types of greens and how there are particular ways of cooking different types of greens. These details are what I am interested in learning more about.

While I don’t believe in singular paths to a destination, knowing the ethos of a cuisine is important to understanding the culture. For now, I prefer having multiple types of greens in the pot (this year was mustards, turnips, and collards) because I like the varied texture. The turnip greens cook the fastest, the mustards next, and finally the collards. By the time dinner is ready, the turnip greens are nearly mush, the mustards are cooked through, and the collards have a bite.

With this, I settled on John Martin Taylor’s general formula for Greens and Black Eyed Peas and made very slight adaptations to fit my style. After making fabada, I had two pig tails leftover, both smoked, but one ham cured and one bacon cured. Taylor outlines that ham hocks would be the appropriate cured meat for black-eyed peas. I figured that the ham cured tail would be a great stand in. He also specifies that smoked neck bones should be used for collards. With a bacon cured tail, I knew that I had something similar, but I wanted to add something north of the haunch, so I went all the way to the front with the snout of the pig.

I headed off to the butcher to acquire the snout. As Rob took the entire pig’s head and put it through the band saw, he giggled a little and mentioned that he wished that Chris was around to witness the request and delivery of a snout. The ear was attached loosely, so along with the snout, lower jaw, and a bit of the tongue, I picked up an ear. This was now both literally and figuratively nose to tail greens. Since Taylor outlines smoked pork neck, I would smoke the snout over hickory, but before smoking the snout, I decided to bacon cure (using the Fleisher’s cure) it and the ear.

Waking up on New Year’s day, I was excited to get started, but realized that after cooking the hickory smoked snout for hours, there may be a chance of teeth or bones leaking into the potlikker. In an effort to prevent the issue rather than correct it, I bagged the snout in cheesecloth (after snapping the photo below).

After the greens and peas finished cooking, I stripped the meat from the bones and added it back to their respective pots. The amount of meat taken from the snout was really surprising and the ratio of greens to meat was a solid 3 to 1 which is more than usual for me and closer to optimal. The meat from the snout is amazingly varied texture-wise and a small piece of tongue adds another texture altogether. Not surprisingly the flavors are almost identical to the bacon made this fall and, while I really do not like the food marketing of face bacon, that is what it tastes like.

The beans, unsoaked, were cooked by the book and came out just how I like them, cooked though, but not mushy. The tail added a richness as well as a smokiness that had been missing in prior versions that have included either bacon and/or turkey legs.

As always, I was concerned about the transformation of whole animal eating from utility, thrift, flavor, and texture to machismo and novelty, but there is too much sticky delicious evidence of the former to for me to fall into the latter area. To boot, once the snout is chopped and shredded, the texture is unbelievably similar to the best carnitas that you’ve had.

The greens were better than any that I have had which is to say that the greens were good, the pork was salty, smoky, and tender and the potlikker was exceptional. To me, if you don’t drink the potlikker, you are missing out on the best part and more than likely, we cannot be food friends. Potlikker is not only the best part about cooking greens, but it might be the favorite “soup”, “gravy” and “sauce” that I make at home, so you’ll understand if I ignore you when you request a slotted spoon to serve up your greens.

Note that John Martin Taylor’s classic book is available on Google Books, but is more than worth your dollar to purchase a hard copy. It is one of my favorite cookbooks in my collection and resides on the shelf of distinction.

Happy New Year to all of you. If you haven’t noticed, I did a small relaunch with some design changes and a big update of adding a real domain to the blog. You can still access it in the same way that you do now, but the new URL is frombellytobacon.com if you want to update your shortcuts. Please let me know how you like the new look of the place and let me know if there are any projects that you’d like to see in the new year.

Additionally, I hope that everyone had a safe, happy, and extraordinarily fun New Year’s Eve. While NYE, Valentine’s Day and the like bring out the dining equivalents of Christmas/Easter church goers, we are year 2 into a tradition of having dinner at The Butcher & Larder where we were joined this year by Wendy, Ellen, Krista, and a host of others.

Rob, Allie, and Chris put on an absolute show. We were served what I consider to be the best meal that they have ever prepared for us at Mado or at B&L. Last year’s NYE was like a club of deliciousness hitting us in the face, but this year’s menu showed a lot of finesse along with some brute cooking force.

I usually do not do a blow-by-blow of dinners here, but some of the highlights of this one will likely pique the interest of many. We started with a charcuterie board of salame cotto, lardo, and country ham. Ordinarily the lardo, shaved into thin strips, would have been the star here as it was amazing, but the country ham, sourced from Bare Knuckle Farms over 18 months ago was maybe the best ham that I have ever had. Better than Benton’s, better than Serrano, better than Prosciutto, and better than a small bit of Pata Negra Iberico that I have had. It is really the first example of charcuterie that I could actually taste what the animal was fed, which in this case was fruit from a orchard near to Bare Knuckle. It was well-balanced and an amazing bite.

The second course was the sledgehammer course. There was a play of Oysters Rockefeller with bone marrow topping the roasted oysters. There was a killer tartine of whipped lard and cured mackerel. The citrus balanced the richness of the lardo and the texture of this dish was really tremendous. Finally, and most decadently, there was the carpaccio of beef wrapped around bourbon cured foie gras topped with shaved black truffle. If it sounds decadent, take your vision and enhance it by 10, it was amazingly rich, but when you dine with butchers, expect great meat and the beef was more of a star here than I expected. Really amazing. I know that the presentation wasn’t what Rob and Chris wanted, but to be honest, people were grabbing for this stuff like people grabbed for Beanie Babies at Walmart on Black Friday 1999. Presentation may have been wasted.

Next was the “vegetable” course. We had a beet salad with sliced pickled tongue. Typically, I find that beet salads with goat cheese to be a dependable choice, but one with a very limited upside. Adding the slightly pickled tongue gave it some texture, acid, and, to boot, convinced a friend that tongue can in fact be delicious when prepared with skill and care. Also part of this course was a traditional French dish of radishes, sea  salt and butter – except the butter was whipped beef suet. To me, it tasted like a french fry sitting atop a radish. Really interesting combination and a great example of why eating a meal at a butcher shop is how the pros do it.

The final savory course was fresh pancetta, smoked polenta, and roasted fennel. I saw the fresh pancetta as a nod to Tom Colicchio, who served pork belly when no one else would and called it “fresh bacon”. This was similar except the belly was rolled, spiced with pancetta spices and roasted rather than braised. The juices were used to cook the fennel which had cooked to a point where the natural sugars gave it an almost maple-like flavor. The polenta, usually a part of a dish that I leave on the plate, was in direct competition with the roasted fresh pancetta. The smoke coupled with the creamy, sweetness of the corn, from Three Sisters, it would have sufficed as the main event, but paired with the ultra-savory pork, it was a great treat.

Special mention goes out to Allie who put out three desserts that rank among my favorite ever. The classic shortbread, which is my “last meal” dessert, was amazing as usual, but the marcona nougatine and chestnut souffle stole the show. A souffle prepared in coffee mugs in a butcher shop would have been the best thing that I ate in 2011 had I waited to post the list until today, but if it is beaten for best of 2012, I would be very, very pleased with whatever takes it down. All of this done while managing to entertain and care for cute little Avery with help from Rob. I rarely pull out the term “best”, but if someone else in Chicago is putting out dessert with the same amount of soul and care as Allie does, then I want to hear about it.

Looking forward to 2012, look for some more ventures into the American South, look for more dry curing of whole muscles, and, as mentioned above, let me know what you’d like to read more about. Be well and have a very happy new year.

Last Year's Winner: Fried Rabbit from Mado (photo by Dan Schleifer)

Making my list of favorite Chicago restaurant dishes of 2011 was particularly divergent from previous years for a number of reasons. 2008 and 2009 were years of exploration. Like the first year you had an income and lived near record stores, your collection went from Dylan, the Beatles, the Pixies, the Clash and every artist on the Singles Soundtrack to obscure singles from Neutral Milk Hotel, the Beta Band, Gomez, and A Tribe Called Quest. The whole world is at your finger tips and everything is new and awesome. 2010 was a year of deep diving and expensive, epic festivals. I had built up enough experience in 2008 and 2009 to know what to look for and had established go to’s that were putting up exciting dishes on a weekly basis. I also had the time, resources, and inclination to invest in tickets to multiple dining events where I could eat 25-30 dishes from the best chefs in Chicago. Then comes 2011, during which there were a number of big developments.

Mado closed – Yes, my favorite restaurant closed  in 2010, after a Halloween blowout, but the hole remained well into 2011 where my better half and myself would wander the landscape looking for soulful restaurants  that grabbed our heart the same way that Mado did. Nearly a year later, we think that we may have found one (see #2). On the flipside, we now have an absolutely amazing butcher in Chicago and Rob and Allie have a lovely little bundle that they now have some time with whom to spend.

We took a kid-free road trip to San Francisco – Our week-long trip West reopened my eyes to what Chicago does well and what it does not. There is a strong civic, almost defensive, pride to the Chicago dining scene that causes us to go other places expecting to look down on the city’s scene. We found the opposite to be true in San Francisco which really is an amazing city to visit as someone who loves food, coffee, and wine. We found ourselves saying, “Man, if Chicago had something like this, it would absolutely kill.” From the local food market in the Virgin Terminal at SFO to the Blue Bottle/Four Barrel/Ritual coffee roasters and shops to the Ferry Building Market, it seems like areas that Chicago is making strong efforts to improve are already excellent in San Fransisco. The general dining scenes are great in both cities and the excitement around new things make the comparison unfair, but we do not have multiple amazing coffee roasters/shops in town (we have a great roaster and a great shop, but not the same). Having real food at an airport is certainly not here despite the addition of Frontera Fresco to ORD. Finally, we do not have a central market that has much of the best in higher profile artisan food makers. The French Market is where we thought it would happen, but it clearly isn’t happening there. San Fransisco, to me, is the yin to Chicago’s dining yang and you could go months and eat delicious food every day in both spots, but there is little overlap.

In the traditional restaurant scene, we dined like kings (and queens).  While our lunch at Chez Panisse was delicious and memorable, our dinners at the French Laundry and Incanto are worth exploring in more detail. We had just finished a short hike through Muir Woods on our way from San Fransisco to Napa when an unidentified caller came up on my phone. It was the French Laundry asking if we could make it in at 9:15 that night, as we had been wait listed since seats were up for reservation. Without skipping a beat, I confirmed, although in voice an octave higher than normal due to excitement. We arrived super early since we were coming from Sonoma, so we walked through Yountville stopping to enjoy the restaurant’s garden which was spectacular. The garden was one of the most serene, complete, and well-organized of any utilitarian, non-ornamental garden that I have ever seen. We would find out at dinner that it was no mistake as the attention to detail, however outlined in Ruhlman’s chronicling of Thomas Keller, still shocked us.

Once seated, we made our way though classics and newer dishes. It was the best meal that I have ever had – better than L20 under Gras, better than Schwa, and, despite recent rankings, better than Alinea. If I included individual dishes on this list, 4 of the top 5 would likely be from the French Laundry. There were dishes where we had little idea of the starting point, but loved, and others where the roots were so lovingly clear and we adored those as well. A few classics that stood out were the “Oysters and Pearls”, “Halibut”, and the “Coffee and Doughnuts”, which is the only dessert that I have had anywhere that could approach Allie Levitt’s shortbread. The newer dishes that stood out were “Mitts of Lobster”, “Rabbit Sirloin with Favas and Speck”, and “Calotte de Boeuf”, which was where the light came on for me. The eye of beef dish showed me why I was enjoying each dish so much, it was that attention to detail paired with an obsession with never missing the big picture. The beef was so meltingly tender without being stringy or mushy, but the simple dice of carrots were identically sized and each individual pea, which were grown across the road along with the carrots, were each halved perfectly. Despite all of this attention to minutiae, the dish still had amazing amounts of soul and tasted like it was grandmother-made. It was the attention to detail in each dish, but without being a sterile, cold meal that made it such an amazing evening.

Contrasting to the tidal wave of detail keeping at the French Laundry was the stark rusticity of Incanto. The casual nature was welcomed at this point, however. Given the profile of Incanto with meat-lovers, I was surprised to see that it was a simply decorated restaurant in the middle of a residential neighborhood away from the hustle and bustle. There was no pomp. We arrived and were seated immediately. The menu was a dreamland of rustic Italian dishes filled with interesting ingredients, not simply meat, despite the reputation. Since we had spent much of the day touristing around town, we were hungry and ordered accordingly, starting, as we did for much of the weekend meals, with olives. We moved on to a few vegetable plates, then pasta dishes, and finally finishing with venison liver with cocoa and lamb heart tartare.

It was exactly what we missed about Mado and, in fact, for the Chicago crowd, the best way to describe Incanto is Mado on steroids. The flavors and vibe were similar, but amplified. The pasta was made in-house skillfully and the sugos, both duck and pork, were amazing. The meats were pristine and seasoned well. It was our last meal in the Bay Area and it was a great counter balance to the opulence of the French Laundry.

I got healthy - Our February ended on a sad note with our beloved Mojo passing too soon at 8 years old. With mortality on the mind, two daughters under two, and way too much food in and on my stomach, I decided to get real about my health. Having always been a substantial man, from my days as an offensive lineman in college (and after) to being a professional working 80 hours per week at my desk in my twenties (and after) to being an advocate for eating delicious foods as much as and as many times as possible. My body composition had reached a critical point and I made up my mind to take responsibility.

Fearing that I was making a move that would leave hobbies of charcuterie making and tasting as well as eating well in the back room, I looked to some foodishly inclined people who lost substantial amounts of weight and looked how they did it and remained happy (thank you for inspiration Art Smith, Nate Appleman, Joe Bastianich). Using some general rules, I managed to take control of my input and output and lose a substantial amount of weight. I made a list of things that I ate and really liked and things that I ate that I could give or take. I reduced the former and eliminated the latter and filled in, when needed with vegetables. Being someone who cooked came in really handy. Never did diet food or some Rocco DiSpirito recipe using Splenda and butter substitute spray cross my lips. There are too many healthy, natural foods to mess around with making half-assed food because that is what I was used to eating. I took up running immediately and about a month into it, healthier living became a habit.

I still eat lardo and sausages and bacon, but I don’t eat them every day. I still blog about things that are delicious and unhealthy, but eat them less. I no longer use the excuse that I love food too much to be less fat. During the “dieting” time, I ate at the French Laundry, Chez Panisse, Incanto, and all of my favorite Chicago places. Devouring everything, just not all of everything. I don’t intend to condescend and tell you that it was easy, because it wasn’t. It was insanely difficult and, at times, unpleasant (as was I, at times), but not a moment goes by that I wish that I didn’t do it. That is really my tipping point, I wanted to be less fat more than I wanted that next bowl of ice cream. Two-thirds of a year later, I am two-thirds as big as I was then and I do not intend to ever go back.

I met the “Charcuterie” team – In the fall, I attended a demo, that I not-so-humbly take some responsibility for setting in motion, with Rob Levitt and Michael Ruhlman. On top of getting his new book and getting it signed (it is weird to get books signed, but I get them signed to me and one of my daughters, that way when I kick off, splitting the books is easy – not to mention that if my folks got the great chefs of my childhood to sign my name into their books, I would have started cooking much earlier), I was able to speak with him and ask questions. It was a charcuterie geek’s dream and, accompanied by meeting Brian Polcyn at Baconfest 2011 and Thomas Keller in December 2010, completed the Charcuterie team cycle.

With those considerations in mind and without further pomp, here is this year’s list:

10.) Peruvian Ceviche and Roasted Chicken – D’Candela

It is out of character for me to pair two completely unrelated dishes from the same restaurant in my top 10 list, but this combination was perhaps the restaurant dish that I ate the most in 2011. It is a fantastic combination of a beautifully roasted rotisserie chicken combined with the tart freshness of a ceviche of mixed seafood from a standout, if out-of-the-way, Northside Peruvian joint.

There is no official combination here, but since, if I am getting takeout, I get this  as much as possible (and they know my name, face, and order embarrassingly enough) and serve it as a plate with a chicken quarter and ceviche mixto, unofficially at my house, it is a combination platter. The photo above shows it as I eat it. At home and together, as it should be.

9.) Broiled Mackerel – Ginza

In an area with a Rainforest Cafe, Joe’s Stone Crab, and about 10,000 American Girl bags, you would never expect to find such a cool little place like Ginza. Ginza, in all of its dingy, fake wood-paneled charm, serves what I consider to be one of the  two places that I get to only every now and again and every time I leave, I wonder why I don’t go at least once per week (Nightwood being the other).

This mackerel is a lunch special and is best enjoyed quietly sitting alone at the bar after slurping through some of the most diverse complimentary soups given out at a divey Japanese restaurant. Sometimes noodles, sometimes veg, and sometimes meat, but never boxed miso soup with precut chunks of tofu, it is a soup that you don’t just eat because it is there, you eat it because it is good and Chicago is a cold place. The mackerel is fishy, no doubt, and the crispy skin isn’t for your tilapia and pinot grigio loving aunt. The fish is never dry, but never too oily despite the crispy skin and is austerely served with rice, a slice of lime and tomato, and shredded cabbage. Did I mention that the skin is crispy?

8.) Strada – Longman and Eagle

Brunching is not my favorite. Mixing a bad crowd (if there is a meal with more attempts at substitution, enlighten me. It has to be terrible to serve or cook because it is annoying to even listen), subpar coffee, and food that is usually no better than you get at home. But brunching at Longman and Eagle cannot be more different from the typical brunch at the Bongo Room (Rant: How is there still a line there? Do people not realize that all you need to do to make (insert kitschy flavor) cupcakes into (insert kitschy flavor)  pancakes is alter the ratio of fat/egg/flour? Most cupcakes suck. So do the pancakes that taste like them).

We’ve ordered the Tete de Cochon Open Faced sandwich, which is as good as the dinner dish on last year’s best of list, but even better was the Strada. This savory bread pudding included sausage, pumpkin, apple, dates, and Gruyère, baked in a large ramekins and topped with a sunny side up egg. The blend of egg, bread, fruit, meat, and cheese was a great middle ground for me since I have such a hard time deciding between sweet and savory breakfasts. It easily qualified as the best brunch item that I have had since the waffle at the Publican and registered as a real surprise as far as flavor combinations go.

7.) Scallops with pumpkin brandade, pecans, fried brussels sprouts, and pomegranate – Girl and the Goat

Given the sheer number of ingredients, this is another out of the ordinary dish for my liking, but it was clearly the best dish we had at the much-lauded Girl and the Goat. I had ordered the dish reluctantly because I do not find scallop dishes particularly captivating, but the pumpkin brandade piqued my interest.

And I am glad that it did. The odd harmony of flavors and the play on textures was really great. The scallop was perfectly done and the rest of the dish was tremendous. I was expecting to be let down at GATG, because I loved Scylla and this seems to be the antithesis of what Izard did there (not to mention the wave of fame for the persona rather than the food that has painted, maybe too negatively, my perception of the Goat), but we had a really good meal there and this dish was the leader of the pack.

6.) Tai Gan Hunan Style – Lao Hunan

Being perfectly honest, this selection was made in part due to the photo availability of the tai gan hunan style rather than merit. Not because it was not worthy of being a top dish, but rather that the four dishes that we had at Lao Hunan were all worthy of number 6 here and I simply could not decide which was my favorite. The tai gan hunan style, famous hunan chili in black bean sauce, and ground pork in sour beans have all been discussed at length among those discussing Lao Hunan and they are really amazing new Chinese dishes in a landscape that could use something new, but the smoked wild duck, which hasn’t really gotten the same love, was also simply fantastic, if a notch lower on the Scoville Scale. The dishes from Lao Hunan are addictively spicy. You will sweat. Your nose will run. You may cry a little.

With that much food and that much heat, the only dish of the four that we finished at the table was the tai gan, which is a cold plate of crunchy, tart pickled vegetables doused in chili sauce. I absolutely adored the spicy and tart playing off each other in a way that I had not seen in other Chicago Chinese dishes. For me, I would order all four again, but I would not miss the tai gan or the hunan chilis in black bean sauce no matter what. In fact, given the price range and the hours of operation, I implore you to close your browser and getting to the red line for some sweat worthy Hunan cuisine.

5.) Merguez Flatbread with anchovy, raisins, yogurt, and orange – Avec

If Avec took reservations or wasn’t so damned good that it was always packed, we would go all the time. Actually, I would guess that the preceding sentence might be the one most uttered in the Chicago food community along with commenting on how jack-assy the seats are at Avec. The place makes food that makes me crazy every time I go, which isn’t often enough.

The flavors are so off the charts and the beer list so good, that if I have an early Sunday afternoon without the kids, you know were to find me (or at least where I want to be). There are several dishes that you can simply read off the menu and people simply know these are the classics from Avec and others that you read and wonder how they’ll make it even mentionable. While this dish is probably on the next rung down from a classic, this merguez flatbread has so many amazing flavors that smack you in the face that reading merguez flatbread doesn’t do it justice (which is why I added the other ingredients in my description). The sweetness from the orange and raisin are a great balance to the salty anchovy and merguez. The tartness from the yogurt is a great element as is the crunchy nature of the flatbread. If you’d call it a pizza, it would be beat out its neighbor to the North at Great Lake for best pizza in America.

4.) Tom Yam with Beef Balls and Tender – Aroy Thai

I have probably eaten close to 100 meals at Spoon after living around the corner for years, but had never walked the half mile east to Aroy in all of my time in Lincoln Square. Spoon’s Naem Khao Thawt ranks as one of my favorite things to eat anywhere and anytime, but this soup has converted me to an Aroy man.

This hot and sour soup will put sweat on your brow and has tons of flavor complexity with lemongrass and chili and even a great amount of textural complexity between the broth, soft meatballs, and tender beef. Despite the placement on the menu in the soup section, it is a complete meal and I have never left Aroy without at least a pint leftover. On a cold day, I can think of few things that I’d rather eat.

3.) Braunschweiger – Butcher and Larder

It is no secret that I am a Sconnie and when Rob pulled this out for Packer playoff time last year, I had to get a chub. Frankly, it was the best meat or meat related product I have had from the Butcher and Larder, which is really saying something, or anywhere else for that matter in quite a long time. There wasn’t a single bite a the meat-a-palooza of Baconfest 2011 that would make me even pause before choosing the smoked liverwurst. After having Rob and Chris’s liver mousse over the years at Mado, I knew that their touch with liver farce was what I looked for as a standard when I tried out new offal dishes and smoking it only made it better.

These extra wide chubs of spreadable smoked liverwurst were there and gone quickly, but they stuck in my mind like little else. I find little objectionable about their liver work, as mentioned above, but smoking the chub seemed to round out any of the really strong liver-y nature of the mixture. You are left with a back and forth between the sweet minerality of the liver and the savory smoke. Since the Butcher & Larder opened, there have been many high points with their charcuterie – the mortadella is the best that I have ever had, the Lil’ Johnnies were ridiculously good, and the summer sausage is one that would make any Sconnie the envy of the pot luck – but this braunschweiger is the best of the bunch by a country mile.

2.) Head on shrimp, garlic, and chilis – Vera

This is where things got interesting. Vera, the new West Loop Spanish wine and sherry focused small plates restaurant opened by Mark and Liz Mendez, got far less press leading up to their opening than other places, but once they opened, praise was everywhere. We bellied up shortly after the opening and we were blown away by the focus and simplicity. It seemed as if every dish was conceived, tested, perfected, and then one more thing was taken off of the plate, but only in the best way. The dish that left us wanting to order another was the shrimp, garlic, and chilis.

I am not sure who, between my dining partner and myself, decided to order the nondescript shrimp, but once they arrived at the table with their heads on with garlic and chili wafting over the plate, we both kind of let a giggle out and went in hands first. The table next to us stared as we maniacally went through the shrimp leaving the heads for last and promptly (and messily) dispatched of the really good stuff in the heads. As mentioned above, we have been looking for a safe haven since Mado closed and Vera is as close as we have gotten. Maybe it is the husband/wife team or the clear love and care for ingredients, but something about Vera tells me that they will do very well and we’ll be in as often as possible.

1.) Fava Beans with Preserved Lamb and Yogurt – Taxim

The first crack that I had at this dish was on a night that I was looking for something similar to the favas, treviso, and parmesan that I had at Mado in Spring of 2010. A little searching found that Taxim, a restaurant that I had tried a few times and liked very much generally, but could not understand why nobody noticed this place, was serving favas with preserved lamb and yogurt. The dish did not sound like what I had wanted. I wanted something fresh and light highlighting the favas in a raw preparation, but what I had gotten was so much more. It was a dish that I would return to Taxim to have more times than I care to admit, sometimes coming in just to order this.

This Year's Winner: Fava, Preserved Lamb, and Yogurt (photo by Ron Kaplan)

The favas were cooked lightly which actually enhanced the most basic flavors of the favas. The preserved lamb provided an intense savory lambiness, but the ratio of fava to lamb was such that the intense flavoring was more of a seasoning element than anything else, like a lamb salt. Finally there was the yogurt which defies explanation. It is so good, that I cannot do it justice. The creamy texture of the yogurt, the al dente favas, and the small crispy/tender bits of lamb created great textural contrasts to a dish proved to be a near perfect bite to me.

As a whole plate, this was the best that I had in 2011 in Chicago.

I would be remiss to omit some of the great bites that I had in 2011 that were not restaurant dishes, but still stand out as memorable.

Uplands Cheese Rush Creek Reserve – After our last trip to Italy, my opinion on American cheese was down to zip, which for a kid from America’s Dairyland is a sad story. There was good cheese to be had and we like Roelli and Widmers, but certainly nothing adventurous and boundary pushing and certainly nothing that was earth shattering. Cypress Grove Chevre was the only cheese that we saw in restaurants where the makers were really trying. After buying a wheel of the Rush Creek Reserve for my bride on Valentine’s Day, those thoughts went out of the window.

These rind edged canisters of rich, funky fondue-textured cheese could please the snobbish cheese snob and the humble Sconnie tavern rat in the same swipe of crusty bread. It was the best cheese that I have ever had.

Christmas Chilis and Black Beans from Three Sister’s Garden — I spend a lot of time walking around the Green City Market with my daughter and there are few things that I found that we liked more than visiting with Kathe Roybal of Three Sister’s Garden.

If there were two things that I liked better than visiting with Kathe, they were eating her black beans and Christmas Chilis, often together. The chilis are fruity and spicy like no others available locally. Their vibrant colors drew in my daughter, but the flavors made them an addition to nearly every savory dish from June to November. The beans were incredibly earthy, but still retained a really clean flavor. The Rancho Gordo beans that I brought back from California never stood a chance.

Cox’s Orange Pippin Apples from Nichols Farm — In a staunch effort to avoid the Honeycrisp, a perfectly fine apple which has been elevated by strong marketing and trendification of heirloom produce to a status defying its real value, I tried nearly every variety of apple that I could try at the Green City Market and found many that I liked, but none that I loved like I did the Orange Pippin.

The beauty contest isn’t likely to be won by the russeted orange pippin, but the aromatic and delicious apple carried the most complex and delicious flavor of the over 30 that I tried.

Dark Matter and Anodyne Coffee — While above I bemoan the lack of a true coffee scene in Chicago, I list these two midwestern roasters as shining beacons in a sea of boring beans. I feel that Intelligentsia and Metropolis are too big and commercial to take the same risks and provide delicious small batch roasts that got them to where they are now. Asado makes a fantastic cup in shop, but their beans haven’t made hit me in the same way.

Dark Matter in the Ukranian Village and Anodyne in Milwaukee both make amazing cups of coffee, in shop, and make beans worthy of making a similar cup at home. I’d be happy to put either up against the San Francisco roasters that we visited and see how it turns out.

To wrap up, attached are past lists for perusal.

2010:

2009: