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.

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.

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.

Bacaro is the kind of place where you can get the best seafood, local meats and produce, all prepared with great care and skill.  The seasonal menu changes regularly, and I’ve never had a bad meal there.  It’s expensive for the area, but it really is worth it.  I always look over the menu, but more often than not, if I have the time I’m going to get the tasting menu.  This time, we got the wine pairings for each course.  I can’t claim to be an expert in the realm of oenology, but I appreciate the thought that goes toward choosing wines to pair with dishes.  I don’t remember most of the wines, so I won’t go into detail on what was served with each course, but it suffices to say that they all worked very well.

I didn’t bring pen and paper, so we’re going off my recollection of everything.  I’ll try to share as much detail as possible, but if I get something wrong I’d be happy to correct it.  I tried emailing Thad with some questions about some dishes, but I got no response.  I don’t understand why a business like Bacaro would have an email address on their site if they don’t respond to messages. Edit: I got a response from him AS I was writing this post.  Go figure.  He’s been extremely busy with a Prairie Fruits Farm dinner and, well, everything else that goes with running a restaurant.

Anyway… on to the meal.

First up is the amuse bouche, a bite to entertain your mouth and get you ready for the gustatory pleasure that awaits.  Tonight’s amuse was house cured salmon with pea tendrils and radish.  Salty, fishy, with a little crunch, it made me thirsty for more.

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The first real course of the tasting menu was an appetizer course of burrata cheese with porcini mushrooms and garlic scapes.  If you’ve never had burrata, you must seek it out.  It’s cheese curds and cream encased in stretched mozzarella.  This dish sets that sweet, creamy cheese against light aromatic porcini mushrooms and the slightly pungent flavor of the scapes.  It was served with a dry prosecco, whose effervescence really brought the dish home.

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For the fish course, we have the scallop.  Bacaro, in my mind, gets some of the best seafood in central Illinois.  It’s not wasted on them either, because they cook it very well.  This succulent scallop was seared and placed atop a bed of little beets (ETA) from Spence Farm and chunks of almonds.  The combination of beets and scallops was new to me, but they did work well together.  Sweet, earthy, salty all combined fabulously.  I wish I could get scallops this good.

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For the pasta course, we have gnocchi with morel mushrooms and arugula.  The gnocchi were a bit dense and overworked, but they were crisped a bit to add more flavor and texture to the otherwise very soft dish.  The morels were very nice… I wonder how Thad gets them so late.  The height of the season is in the early Spring.

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Then we have the light entrée course, another excellent piece of seafood.  This time, it’s halibut, served over fresh fava beans and topped with a salsa verde.  He didn’t serve it with a nice Chianti, but it was served with a red wine if I remember right.  The fish, again, was browned beautifully and seasoned well.  The favas fell short, a little undercooked and bland.  The herby salsa verde on top added a punch of flavor to the dish–I remember parsley, garlic, and citrus.

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After that, we are on to meat.  This tender medallion of filet is served over chanterelle mushrooms, cubed potatoes, and spinach.  Drizzled around the plate is a fruity balsamic reduction that makes me want to throw away any bottle of A-1 that might be lying around.  The meat was cooked through so evenly I wondered if it was cooked sous vide, (ETA) but it’s just a combination of a C-Vap oven and grilling the exterior.  The even sear around the outside, which was seasoned liberally, was remarkable.  Aside from the meat and the reduction (which were expertly cooked and seasoned), the rest of the dish was not executed as well as I’d hoped.  It lacked seasoning, and the potatoes seemed an afterthought.

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As a bit of a break in the action, transitioning to post-meal conversation, we were served a cheese course.  The cheese was great, the strawberry jam was amazing, but the bread was, to my taste, a bit stale.  My wife will tell you that I am overly sensitive to staleness, but maybe it was the humidity tarnishing the otherwise-tasty bread.  It was of no real concern though, as the pungent cheese (cow’s milk, but I don’t remember what a French Petit Livarot) elated my palate.  There was one tiny downside with the house-made strawberry jam… there wasn’t enough!  Yes, it was probably the appropriate amount, but I just wanted more because it was so good and complemented the cheese nicely.

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Finally, we have dessert.  A creamy chocolate terrine crowned with cherry ice cream and drizzled with chocolate syrup.  Most of you probably already appreciate the combination of cherries and chocolate, but this was my wake-up call.  The chocolate terrine was soft and yielding, like a moldable ganache, (ETA) thanks to a slight addition of gelatin, that coats your mouth with dark chocolate.  The ice cream, studded with whole cherries, was flavorful enough to match the chocolate in intensity.

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Some of the other dinner guests in our party did not get the tasting menu and tried some of the on-menu desserts.  One seemed to have a piece of the same magical chocolate terrine as my own dessert, but topped with a chocolate(?) ice cream and macadamia nuts(?).

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Another dinner companion got a slice of cheesecake.  I have no idea what flavor it was, but here’s a picture.

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If any of the guests from the party visit this post, it would be great if you posted your impression of the meal, especially if you didn’t have the tasting menu.

The meal wasn’t perfect, but it was really good.  I have to hand it to the kitchen, who handled our large group amazingly well.  In a group of 13(!), we had 6 doing the tasting menu, two of whom requested no meat (they got a soft-shelled crab instead of the filet).  Our server, Evan, deserves a shout-out for doing a really good job of serving all of us.  I expected our group’s service to be shared across two servers, but only in delivering plates was Evan given any assistance.

The tasting menu is expensive… and that’s why it’s not something we do all the time, but even the regular menu items are well-prepared.  The food at Bacaro comes out of having the highest quality ingredients.  Some dinner companions ordered some of the fresh oysters they had on hand (served with a yuzu mignonette), and they were both smiling with delight.  If you go during the right time of year, you can get dishes with white or black truffles, ramps, or morels–all highly seasonal, prized ingredients.  We are lucky to have Bacaro in this town as a resource for those who can and want to indulge in fantastic food.

yogurt, miso porridge

Think about the foods you love and think about how they’re made.  If you’ve read Michael Pollan’s  you will already understand the difference between how modern versions of old foods like yogurt are different from what our (great-)grandparents ate.  Modern products labeled as yogurt are often made “yogurt-like” with additives that add texture or mouth-feel and flavored with artificial flavors and too much sugar.  Fat-free yogurt is a poor attempt at latching onto the public’s fear of fat, and doesn’t behave the same as the real thing.  Real yogurt, made from raw milk and natural bacterial cultures is good stuff.  There are even different types of cultures that can be used to make everything from watery to stiff yogurt to a slimy, mucus-y substance like the Nordic specialty, viili.  There’s a video showing what the texture is like… watch it if you dare.

chorizo (front L), salami (front R), sauerkraut (rear R)

The whole premise of this tasting event was to take a trip back a thousand years or so to taste foods made in traditional ways.  There was homemade miso, with some mixed into a porridge.  I really liked how the funky umami flavor of the miso dispersed into the creamy porridge.

There were two sauerkrauts on the table, provided by Dan H. Schreiber.  One was a plain cabbage sauerkraut (which I, regrettably, didn’t try) and another one made with mostly white cabbage but colored deeply with beets.  Sauerkraut is often made with unnecessary additives, rendering it much less healthful than the original fermented formulation of cabbage and salt.  Dan’s is all-natural and tasted fresh and still crunchy.  Sure it was sour from lactic fermentation, but it was a wonderful flavor unlike any sauerkraut I’ve had before.

The meats were, of course, provided by the masterful meat manipulator, Laurence, of This Little Piggy fame.  The chorizo was a solid interpretation of the Spanish cured meat, but the salami was my favorite.  I was told it was a fennel salami, but the peppercorns in it gave little bursts of peppery kick when you met one.  It’s the kind of salami I could munch on all night.

raw milk, scary!

Then there were the dairy products.  This is where the crazy regulators get all antsy in their seats just wishing they could barge in the door and tell us how un-pasteurized milk is dangerous stuff and pour bleach all over everything in sight.  Fortunately this is purchased directly from a farmer who cares about preserving the 1000 year old food that comes out of his cows’ udders.  I was able to advocate for raw milk that night, convincing another attendee that she could drink raw milk just fine, despite her lactose intolerance.  You see, raw milk still has all the stuff that is needed to digest it, including some bacteria and enzymes like lactase (which is what LI folks can’t produce enough of).  I was really happy with the milk, and will definitely be obtaining some in the future.

raw milk cheddar

The other delightfully raw dairy came in the form of a raw milk cheese made by the same aforementioned farmer.  It was a cheddar style, and was by no means a refined, commercial product.  I imagine this is cheese that he makes with extra milk he has for his family to enjoy.  With some age, maybe heavier salting, this could be great cheese.  As it was, it was amazingly light from lack of age, but the flavor of the milk was concentrated.

There are no pictures of it here, but there was a selection of Dan’s chocolate as well as a mint fudge prepared by his business partner, Bill.  If you haven’t heard, Dan is already in the process of finding the right equipment and the right space to start up his own micro- (nano-?) chocolate factory right here in Urbana.  He’s already started making certified (i.e. by the health department, so he can sell it in retail stores) chocolate, drawn up business plans, and by the time I’m writing this who knows what else he’s accomplished?  Keep an eye on his blog to find out all the latest.  Congrats Dan on all that you’ve accomplished so far, and all the success that is sure to come!

This event was “sponsored”, supported, and publicized by the newly resurrected Prairie Table organization.  Prairie Table plans on holding more events like these, tasting excellent locally available products, as well as many other community-building opportunities.  I am already involved with them and hope to be a part of bringing more local food opportunities to the community.  If you’re in the Central Illinois area and are interested in hearing more, go to the website and look around.

EDIT: Of course there are so many things that I’ve nearly forgotten, like home-brewed beer (the stout was tasty).  If anyone in attendance remembers something I didn’t, please let me know!