I like our local University meat salesroom.  You may have read about them on ChambanaMoms, where I was quoted lamenting letting the reader in on the UI meat salesroom because “you’ll all grab the good stuff before I get there.”  It’s true, this place has gotten very popular–for good reason!

The boss, Chuck, usually sends out the “meat mail” every Tuesday and Thursday to let everyone know what they have and what’s new.  Today he mentioned that they made some fresh chorizo.  If you know me, you know I love Mexican food, so I had to run down and try it.  Good thing I did, because there wasn’t much left (I forgot to ask if they had more in the back).

As you can see, it’s not the typical red chorizo that you’ll find vacuum-packed in the grocery store, nor is it the bland, over-salted store-brand crap.  This is a slightly different style, using fresh jalapeños and cilantro.  I took a link, removed the casing, and browned it up in a pan.  Once it was pretty much cooked, I tasted it.  It had a great fresh taste, and the cilantro really came through.  It’s not spicy-hot, but it’s miles ahead of any grocery store chorizo you could buy.  For chorizo, it’s quite lean, but it’s tender and not too finely ground.  Chuck knows how to make some good sausages.

It was good, but I realized what I really wanted a more paprika-laden chorizo, so after I tossed in a quarter of an onion, diced, I added some hot smoked paprika and some regular sweet paprika.  After the onions were cooked and the chorizo well-browned, I added two beaten eggs.  Heat up a few tortillas, sprinkle with a little cheese, and that was dinner.  I spooned it straight from the pan onto warm tortillas with a little salsa on top to add a bright kick to my tastebuds.

The first part of our Fargo trip includes a delicious, local meal at the HoDo Lounge in downtown Fargo.  One of the drinks we had included a locally-sourced rhubarb vodka.  I had already planned on visiting this winery, so this just added another reason to visit.

We headed out west, about 15 minutes from Fargo, to Casselton, ND.  While speeding along, we saw some plane doing maneuvers over the highway and adjacent fields.  It wasn’t crop-dusting, but flew what appeared to be maybe 10 feet from the ground and then climbed rapidly as it approached the highway.  Megan snapped this picture from the passenger seat.  I have no idea what this plane’s purpose was… maybe just having fun flying around on a beautiful North Dakota day?

We pulled in to historic downtown Casselton, home of the world’s largest can pile.  This thing is a towering 45 feet of old oil cans.  We didn’t get a picture, since it’s set back from the road and we had no idea what it was at the time.  Go to the site and learn all about its almost 80 years of history.

We pulled into some parking spaces outside of what ended up being the location of Maple River’s offices and retail operation.  Inside the small storefront was a single employee (maybe another in the back?) who greeted us warmly.  Along with their wines, they also sell a wide range of local products, including jams, jellies, honey, and all sorts of pickled things (we picked up some spicy pickled quail eggs).  We introduced ourselves and embarked on a tasting of most of the wines they produce.

Maple River specializes in fruit wines.  In fact, they only make one wine with grapes.  I’ve been consistently disappointed (and often disgusted) by fruit wines in the past, so I braced myself for the first taste.  Instead of cloying, sticky-sweet juice, it really was wine.  Yes, almost all of their wines are “sweet,” but by using great, local fruit and natural ingredients like honey, they achieve the complexity and maturity that other fruit wines seem to avoid.

Regarding their fruit, their rule is that 90% of their ingredients have to come from within 90 miles of the winery.  Their honey is locally produced, and they get a wide range of fruits from North Dakota and Minnesota, like mango melons, chokecherries (the North Dakota state fruit), and rhubarb (which I guess is a vegetable).  I asked about their production schedule, since their growing season is shorter than ours.  He said they freeze everything when it comes in, and that way they are able to produce wine all year long.  I don’t recall how many fermentation tanks they have, but it was a much larger operation than I expected.

But back to the wines!  We tasted everything, from the aforementioned chokecherry wine, to elderberry (one of my favorites).  They have some unique selections as well, including pumpkin wine, dandelion wine and lilac wine.  If you could imagine a wine tasting like the aroma of lilacs… amazing.  They do strawberry and raspberry wines that have the rich, deep flavor of the ripest berries.  They have so many more on their site with very well-written descriptions, and they do ship their wines if you are so intrigued.  We brought home a great selection, but this is a winery we’ll keep in the back of our minds for when we want something delicious and unique.

You may remember mention of the Maple River rhubarb vodka in the cat’s meow cocktail in the HoDo Lounge in the previous Fargo post.  Well, a couple doors down from the winery is the Maple River Distillery.  It’s a bit more sparse and the selection is smaller, but then again they just opened the distillery in December, 2009.  We didn’t go through a tasting, but we picked up a bottle of chokecherry brandy and their rhubarb vodka.  They also make some cordials, but we opted to not pick up any.  Sadly they don’t/can’t ship their spirits to individuals outside North Dakota, but you may be able to convince a local liquor store to order some in for you.

If you find some rhubarb vodka, here are some suggestions.

Go the strawberry rhubarb route:

• 2 oz. rhubarb vodka
• .5 oz. strawberry schnapps
• .75 oz. ginger-infused simple syrup
• juice from 1/2 lime

Stir everything together with plenty of ice, or shake and strain into a cocktail glass.

Our attempt at reproducing the cat’s meow had something like

• 2 oz. rhubarb vodka
• 1 oz. ginger-infused simple syrup
• orange juice, to fill

Fill a rocks glass with ice, add vodka and syrup, then top off with orange juice.  Roll the drink, or shake briefly, just enough to mix.

While at Maple River, we were also told about another drink that wasn’t on the HoDo menu.  It was called the Rubix cube (maybe Rhubix cube?).  We haven’t tried to replicate it, but it’s also made with the rhubarb vodka, some ginger ale, and strawberry-rhubarb ice cubes.  It was good, that’s all I remember.

You may have noticed that I recently joined the FoodBuzz Featured Publishers program.  One thing I get out of it is a chance for a little extra exposure, but since joining, I’ve heard about various opportunities to write special posts for various causes.  These “Top 9 Takeovers” are events where Foodbuzz asks all their Featured Publishers to post on a theme.  Then, for one day only, all the Top 9 posts reflect the theme.  This time around, it’s banana splits!

Electrolux and Kelly Ripa are partnering with Foodbuzz to raise money for the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund (OCRF).  According to the OCRF, ovarian cancer is the 5th leading cause of cancer death among women in the US.  Because symptoms are rarely matched with ovarian cancer, most women (81%) aren’t diagnosed before the cancer has spread.  The OCRF’s mission is to fund research to better detect and ultimately find a cure for ovarian cancer.  When ovarian cancer is detected and treated early, the five-year survival rate is greater than 92%.

Just for writing this post, they’ll donate another $50 to the Fund.  If you want to help out, visit Kelly Confidential and build your own banana split.  For each one you do (up to one per day), they’ll donate another $1 to the OCRF.

I’m not always a dessert guy, but this opportunity piqued my interest.  I wanted to create a banana split that was a little different from what you’d get at your corner ice cream shop.  I thought about the tropics, and I thought about Elvis.  I thought about bananas foster and pad thai.  It’s not traditional, but it was tasty.

I started with the defining element: a split banana.  Some small scoops of vanilla ice cream went on top, then I drizzled the whole thing with a brown butter caramel sauce, made super simply by browning some butter, adding in brown sugar, then a little cream to smooth it out.  The wackiest element is the dry peanut butter.  I made this fluffy powder by combining some creamy, natural peanut butter with tapioca maltodextrin (TMD is available on Amazon).  It’s pretty cool stuff, when you put the ultra-light peanut butter powder in your mouth it instantly dissolves into that sticky, peanut buttery taste and texture.  Then, feeling a little inspiration from pad thai, I grated some lime zest over the whole thing.  The color is great, but the citrus flavor also brightens up and enlivens the dish.

I only had two bananas, so I made one for me and one for my wife.  I think if I did it all again I’d add even more lime zest… or maybe squeeze some lime juice over the top.

Some facts and statistics taken from the OCRF page.  I have not and will not receive any monetary payment from FoodBuzz as a direct result of this post, but I do have a chance to be featured in the Top 9 on Monday, July 19th.

Our older daughter was going to attend a week-long Japanese language immersion summer camp in middle-of-nowhere, Minnesota (shout out to the camp, Mori no Ike, which she LOVED, offered through Concordia Language Villages).  Since we were driving and going to stay not too far away from the camp, we left our younger daughter to spend time with grandparents in the Chicago ‘burbs.  She got to enjoy some early 2nd birthday fun with them, as you’ll see in the picture on the right (she thought it was a cupcake just for her).

After seeing our daughter settled in to camp in Dent (a/k/a “middle-of-nowhere, Minn.”), we drove about an hour to the fine city of Fargo, North Dakota.  Before we went, we told people we were going there and they were all extremely skeptical that we’d find anything worthwhile to occupy ourselves for the week we were there.  It’s not a big city, that’s for sure, but like our little gem in central Illinois, it has a lot to offer if you look a little closer.

The first night there, we checked into our hotel, unpacked a bit and headed to downtown Fargo.  We walked around a while to see what was there and unwind from already being in the car for many hours that day.  We settled in to the HoDo Lounge, located in the historic Hotel Donaldson.  I had read about this place while planning some of our meals and looked forward to what they had to offer.

Opening the menu, we were greeted by a long list of local producers that they use.  Nearly every aspect of their menu was represented, flour, lamb, cheeses, and produce.  We ended up sharing a couple salads and small plates to get a good sampling of their offerings.

We ordered two salads, the first being a pretty standard salad made with organic greens.  We followed the recommendation of our server and chose the dressing made with a Minnesota blue cheese.  The dressing was balanced, not too creamy, not too much funk from the blue, and just enough to dress the salad.

The next salad seemed so odd that we had to try it.  Watermelon cubes meet shaved fennel, feta, and kalamata olives, dressed with a sambuca citron vinaigrette.  I wasn’t expecting to really like this, but it was a knockout!  The sweet watermelon and fennel really worked well together.  The feta and olives added some saltiness that somehow brought out more of the richer watermelon flavor.

Oh yeah, drinks!  We were in a lounge after all.  Megan had the cat’s meow, made with a local rhubarb vodka (more on that to come), ginger syrup, and orange juice.

I went with a classic gin martini, garnished with blue cheese stuffed olives.  It could have stood a little more vermouth, but I really enjoyed trying a new (to me) gin, Hendrick’s.

The walleye cake was our introduction to the understanding that this fish is everywhere in the area.  This cake was the best fish cake I’ve ever had, bursting with flavor and really featuring the main ingredient, walleye.  The slaw was light and crunchy, and the lemon caper emulsion should be bottled and shipped across the nation to replace any imitation tartar sauce we’re suffering with now.

Then we have meat, a house-made boudin blanc, made with pork and rabbit.  It’s been browned and served over a warm apple-studded choucroute and drizzled with a thick apple gastrique.  The sausage itself was so well-seasoned and moist, and the texture was spot-on.  I’m not a fan of sauerkraut, but this choucroute preparation was delicate and complex, not just in-your-face stinky cabbage (apologies to the kraut lovers out there).

We were still a bit hungry, so we chose a lemon tartlet for dessert.  The crumbly tartlets were filled with a delightfully tart lemon custard, topped with fresh berries.  The strawberry/kiwi jelly “cone” was a fun and tasty garnish.

All in all, it was a great meal and a fabulous way to start our vacation.  We had drinks here a few more times over the course of our trip, but we had to try some of the other restaurants in town.  I’ll be posting about more of our adventure over the next week(s).

Have you been to Fargo or anywhere around there?  Leave a comment and share where you ate and what you thought of the area.