Great Taste

Art and food: Thursday nights at the Walker

Tonight is Grand Opening for Gather by D'Amico, located in the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

As an opening highlight, special small plates will be introduced by D'Amico Executive Chef Jay Sparks and offered on the restaurant's menu through this month.   

The small plate series will continue on the first Thursday evening of each month and will feature top Twin Cities guest chefs, including Alex Roberts in July and Isaac Becker in August.

Other than Thursday nights Gather by D'Amico will be open Tuesday through Sunday for lunch, and will feature "globally inspired American cuisine"  by executive chef Josh Brown.  Fare includes a salad of warm salt-roasted beets with asparagus, pistachio, parmesan, and saporoso vinegar; halibut with spring onions, favas, and morels; barbeque beef short rib banh mi sandwiches; and buttermilk marinated chicken with artichokes, sweet peas, chard, and burrata. 

More info from City Pages: http://blogs.citypages.com/food/2011/06/gather_a_first.php 

And the Walker's website: http://info.walkerart.org/visit/dining.wac 

Lefse to love

Imagine: Fresh, very light lefse, spread with just the right amount of softened butter and brown sugar, rolled up a few minutes ago, and served to you.

Imagine: Just the right balance of textures and sweet and savory flavors. (So simple, yet so hard to come by.)

Look no further than Monica Brossard's stand at the Rochester Downtown Farmers Market on Saturdays.  

Isn't Minnesota nice?

Fun 'n' easy snack for Stuperbowl Sunday

Do you loathe football? When looking at the TV do you scratch your head and wonder as you gaze upon bunches of grown men running into each other and falling down?

Great Taste will keep your secret.  

Duck into the kitchen with the kids and have a roaring good time of your own making soft pretzels. No special ingredients required except perhaps yeast.

Soft Pretzels

One package dried or one cake yeast
One- and one-half cups warm water
Three-fourths teaspoon salt
One and one-half teaspoons sugar
Four cups all-purpose flour
One egg, beaten
Kosher salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In large bowl soften or hydrate yeast with warm water. Add salt and sugar. Blend in flour and shape into soft, smooth dough. Do not let rise. Cut away strips of dough, roll into pencil-thin ropes and twist into pretzel shapes.

Place on cookie sheet that has been dusted with flour. Brush pretzels with egg and sprinkle with salt. Bake about 15 minutes or until pretzels turn light brown. Serve immediately with a honey mustard dipping sauce or one of your favorite spicy-sweet concoctions.

Yield: Three dozen or more pretzels, depending on size

GG

Weekend suggestion: Break out the 00 flour and make genuine Italian pizza

The groundhog saw his shadow; winter will be long.* But you can make the most of indoor time by creating  authentic Italian pizza for family, friends--or just you.

Ingredients are key to great results. Fine milled 00 is excellent for pizza dough, and 00 is reportedly coming in this week at Zzest Culinary Market, Rochester:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rochester-MN/ZZest-Culinary-Market-and-Wine-Cafe/220478320390

Here is a fascinating, in-depth pizza making tutorial:

http://slice.seriouseats.com/jvpizza/

Also: pizza-making-in-Minnesota discussion on Chowhound:

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/124995

Hava sum fun, amici.

*Of course, in Minnesota, just six more weeks of winter is terrific news. But the implication is that spring is a long way off.  

GG

Rah-rah catapults to culinary major leagues--with Zzest

Rochester, when it comes to good food you're no longer in the rookie league.  The October 23rd reopening of Zzest Culinary Market & Wine Cafe hit one out of the ballpark. It's a whole new culinary scene.

Great Taste has just one little concern.  Is this a dream?

Salts, peppercorns and spices; honey varieties; chutneys and preserves; mostardas; sauces (including mole); chocolates; ice creams; olives; many types of oils; vinegars; truffles; pastas; risotto rices; specialty crackers; and quality soup mixes are among the foodstuffs to be discovered in LeeAnn Zubay's Manhattan-esque food emporium. The store's new and much larger location, across the road from Apache Mall, also houses a cafe due to open later this month.

At the center of it all--literally and figuratively--are the cheese cases. Shoppers will find a large assortment that is not comprehensive (there are few, if any, cheeses found at the supermarket) but includes artisan domestic cheeses such as Prairie Fruits Farm's liquid center Ewe Bloom, made in Champaign, Illinois, and Coupole ash-ripened goat cheese in a miniature wood crate from Vermont Butter & Cheese Company. Humboldt Fog of California is featured, natch, as well as major 2009 award winners SarVecchio Parmesan and Crave Brothers Mascarpone, both from Wisconsin.

We haven't even started mentioning the imports.       

If you aren't already en route to this little piece of foodie paradise, consider multi-grain and olive loaves and French baguettes shipped in from Tribeca Oven bakery on the East Coast. Or specialty supplies like cutting boards or copies of Culture, the cheese aficionado's glossy magazine. 

Culinary Market, previously located in the heart of Rochester at First Avenue and Civic Center Drive, is now, at 1190 16th Street, a longer trip for some, but it has easier parking.

Info: (507) 424-0080; open Tuesday-Saturday 10 am to 8 pm.

LeeAnn Zubay, how can we thank you enough?   

Does GT have to wake up now? Is this some kind of belated Halloween prank?

But it's true....In rah-rah Rochester, Minnesota.

In the land of Jesse Ventura and Al Franken, in the land of the SuperTarget and Sontes, anything can happen....And it has!  

Best bread basket in Rochester?

Did you ever go to Michaels Restaurant not for steak but because you craved avgolemono soup? (Great Taste has....)

Or perhaps you preferred salad over fish at Pescara?

How about when the bread basket is so deliriously delicious that you fill up before the entree arrives?

Great Taste asks: Which Rochester area restaurant has your favorite bread basket?

Add to, disagree with or support our short list:

Jasper's Alsatian Bistro, Rochester

Prescotts Grill, Rochester

Famous Dave's, Rochester and Owatonna, among other locations (We have a weakness for corn bread.)

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Think flat ... bread

There's a flat bread for whatever mood you're in at International Spices & Grocery in Rochester. 

Injera, lahvosh (Armenian cracker bread), pita and hambasha are some of the round, thin Middle Eastern/ African breads that are fun to pick up and experiment with. I like hambasha, a sweet bread, with cardamom tea; other breads are perfect for dips, sauces, stews or wraps.

Pita can be toasted with olive oil and salt to become a chip. Pita chips, toasted or fried, are a key ingredient in a popular Levantine salad called fattoush. During my recent trip to Marin County, north of San Francisco, I encountered fattoush as a specialty of the house at critically acclaimed Insalata's, a Mediterranean restaurant in San Anselmo. If you'd like to make fattoush, mayoclinic.com features a recipe for it.

Or just enjoy the staff of life all by itself.

International Spices & Grocery, 125 E. Center Street (507) 288-8007.

"Artisan, crusty bread" comes to market

The Rochester Downtown Farmers Market is best known for fresh produce. But the selection of home-baked goods is impressive--and may be more diverse than ever.   

'We sold out of sourdough in the first two hours," says Susan Waughtal of the bread sold by her family at  outdoor market's first two Saturdays this year.    

Wood-fired organic white sourdough boules and batards are a creation of Waughtal's daughters Cadence and Sara Nelson, and husband Roger Nelson, a Rochester-based architect.

The family also makes and sells almond-studded, braided pulla; cardamom rolls; shortbread; chocolate truffle cookies and macarons. This Saturday they're featuring German walnut beer bread with rosemary--  recommended by Waughtal for canapes and tea sandwiches, or simply for mopping up stew.

"Response has been really positive," says Waughtal, 51, an artist and writer. (Among other projects she freelances for the PB.)

Roger, 51, designed and built the family's clay oven, and helps to man the market stand. Cadence, 22, and Sara, 24, assist with baking and with Nelson/Waughtal's sustainable Squash Blossom Farm.

More info at  www.squashblossomfarm blogspot.com