EatWisconsin

This is great list of the top 10 home cooking mistakes (it could be titled, Why Your Home Cooking Tastes Like Crap). In that top 10 list the author refers to salt and seasoning.  Check out this article on Slate.com about the different kinds of salt and whether they are worth using.   Not surprisingly table salt didn’t fare so well.

I also stumbled upon this great article about the Wisconsin Supper Club which liked to this site’s review of Ed Thompson’s Tee Pee Supper Club.

CRAP! Miller has had some success with its replacement of MGD Light with this horrible MGD 64, which means that it is unlikely that MGD Light, which I consider to be the best tasting light beer, will ever come back.   I bought a six pack of MGD 64 and while it tastes better than Michelob Ulta, the worst of the light beers, it still pretty much sucks.

The Farmer’s Markets are starting to get more and more items as summer moves along.  Here is a good article giving some tips on how to shop at a Farmer’s Market.

Anyone who wants to check out some delicious hot sauces should stop by the 23rd Annual Cedarburg Strawberry Festival and swing by the locally produced Man’s Best Friend Hot Sauce booth.

These sauces are unlike any you will find in the grocery store.  They use different blends of peppers, herbs, and sometimes fruit, wine or spirits to make and delicious unique sauces.  Even their Mutt sauces, which are experimental recipes made from surplus peppers are quite good.  One of my favorites was a hot sauce with pumpkin which was great in butternut squash soup or on chicken wings.  A bit of advice: if you find a Mutt Sauce you like, make sure you buy extra because supplies are limited and once they are gone, they are usually gone for good.

The festival will be held on these dates:
Saturday, June 28, 2008 10 am-6 pm
Sunday, June 29, 2008 10 am-5 pm
Admission to the festival is FREE!

The MBF Sauces booth will be on the Turner Street-Market Place at the corner at near US Bank.

For more details on MBF Sauces, check out their website which includes detailed descriptions of all of their sauces: www.MBFSauces.com.

Discolsure: In recent months this blog has captured the attention of people who want to send me stuff to review and/or publicize. I also get some invites to food and drink related events.  I don’t have any problems with this because if I dislike something I have no qualms about stating that even if it was comped.  Also, it gives me things to blog about.  I am more than happy to publicize press releases if I think its something people would be interested.

A couple of months ago  received an invitation to the Milwaukee launch of Kilo Kai, a new spiced rum  I couldn’t attend due to a prior commitment but they did send me a bottle to sample and I am happy to write about it.  But first some background information.

Kilo Kai is being produced by Brad Trayser/Apostrophe Brands, the people behind Effen vodka.  This rum is taking aim at Captain Morgan drinkers.  They are hoping that fans of Captain and Coke will change their drink to Kilo and Coke. The marketing strategy is aimed at getting the concert going and nightlife scene into their rum.  They have had some really good bands at their launch parties, including Pegboy in Oshkosh, Wisconsin (why couldn’t they have Pegboy here in Milwaukee??!!!  They are one of my all-time favorite bands.)  and are having roll out parties all over the country.   I’ll admit that I think that most marketing campaigns for liquor and beer are kind of stupid because they are almost always based on image and style, not taste and substance.  It seems as if the message is “you will look cool and get members of the opposite sex to be attracted to you if you drink our product.”  Kilo Kai’s campaign is really no exception, though they do reference how it tastes in their promotional materials.  I just don’t like their stupid slogans like “Take No Prisoners” and I don’t care if all of the dj’s, service industry types, and hipper than thou night club scenesters are drinking it (if anything that would make me not want to drink it).  I just care about how it tastes.

Kilo Kai tastes good.

I’ll admit I am not a hard alcohol guy.  I like the occasional gin and tonic and I am a fan of bourbon but I am a microbrew guy first and foremost.   With that being said, Kilo Kai was actually very tasty and is leaps and bounds better than Captain Morgan and Bacardi spiced rums.  It actually tasted good straight out of the bottle with no mixers and tasted great mixed with Coke.   It has a really nice vanilla aftertaste that lingers on the tongue and it doesn’t have the burn that the Captain has. There are definite caramel undertones and the spice isn’t as aggressive as in other spiced rums.  I also get some licorice notes.  The bottle is kind of cool looking with frosted glass and a black label with a skull logo.  As an ex-skateboarder, I liked the band of grip tape wrapped around the neck of the bottle even though it serves absolutely no purpose except to look cool.

Last night Adam Siegel, executive chef at Bartolotta’s Lake Park Bistro and Bacchus won the prestigious James Beard Foundation’s award for best chef in the Midwest region.  Lake Park Bistro is one of my favorite places in the City to eat and he deserves all of the accolades he is receiving.

Grant Achatz of Alinea in Chicago took home the top award for Outstanding Chef.

Wisconsin Foodie premiered on Saturday. It’s hard to judge a show when this episode was kind of a set-up/introduction to explain the concept of the show but it looks very promising and I hope enough people catch on to make this a regular show. If you read this blog I think you are their target audience.

The timing of the launch of the show is perfect as the “eat local” movement appears to be expanding beyond “foodies” (a term I am not too fond of) and into the mainstream. This show seems like it will focus on the food, restaurants, and people involved in Wisconsin foods kind of like a certain website you may know of :)

Their selection of interview subjects and features shows they have a good pulse of the Milwaukee Food Scene. La Merenda and Crazy Water are two of my favorite restaurants (and are creating some pretty exciting and delicious food) and it will be great to see those segments in more detail. Adding David Swanson of Braise on the Go (and formerly of Sanford) was a brilliant move. I think what he is doing with his cooking classes out in the field (such as at Pinehold Gardens in Oak Creek) is helping bridge the gap between customers and farmers. Anything that gets people thinking about where their food comes from is a step in the right direction.

Host Kyle Cherek has the enthusiasm and personality to carry the show and elevate it in the event of a dull subject matter or boring guest (though everyone in the first episode was very interesting on their own). Jessica Bell, the show’s wine expert (and sommelier at Bacchus) appears to have a way of explaining wine without making people with minimal wine knowledge (i.e. myself) feel like a complete idiot. It was also nice to see them taste and discuss Wisconsin’s finest winery, Stone’s Throw which I profiled back when it was hosted on Blogger a few years ago.

The Milwaukee Public Market serves as the home base for the show and the place where the live cooking segments will take place.

They touched on beer with the marketing guy from Lakefront Brewery and I hope they really expand on the awesome beers in Wisconsin. There are some Wisconsin microbreweries that are doing some amazing things yet are still flying under the radar. It would be cool to see them select a microbrewery to profile every episode or so. Then again I have always been more of a microbrew guy than a wine guy so its a truly selfish desire.

After Willard Romantini’s “Always In Good Taste” went off the air the only television source left for local food information is Wisconsin Food On Demand on Time Warner Cable (which incidentally shows old Always In Good Taste segments).  This show definitly fills the void left by the end of Always In Good Taste and takes local food shows to a new level in both production quality and content.  I would encourage everyone to give the show a try and if you do like it, let Channel 12 know about it.  Or even better, patronize the businesses that buy commercials during the show and let them know that you saw their ads while watching Wisconsin Foodie.

I received some additional information on the new Wisconsin Foodie TV Show, which airs this Saturday at noon on Channel 12 (WISN):

With the already-present national popularity of food, cooking and travel shows, Digital Cinematique Productions is proud to present the premiere of Wisconsin Foodie.

Debuting Saturday, May 10th, 2008 on WISN-TV - Channel 12, each half-hour episode dives into Wisconsin’s culinary world - profiling local food treasures and unique travel destinations. Wisconsin Foodie artfully blends all three show facets (food, cooking and travel) to create a national-style program, yet completely local and all about Wisconsin.

The goal of our show is to be a leading voice for one of our state’s greatest asset… food.

Every week, we will be traveling across Wisconsin featuring those with the same passion for food as we do - from local purveyors to small town diners and upscale restaurants. We plan to show you where your food comes from and how it gets from “out there” to on your plate.

The idea of the show started with one question: Who and where does our food come from? Everyday, thousands of Wisconsinites dine out, eating mostly fast food and unconscious to the culinary treasures surrounding them. Wisconsin Foodie will promote healthy, local, seasonal eating and the different eating styles that have permeated our habits and culture.

Check out this great story on Grant Achatz of Alinea restaurant in Chicago and his battle with tongue cancer.

Tomorrow the Journal’s new food critic, Carol Deptolla , will introduce herself.

She has been writing food columns for the Journal but I don’t think she has ever been a restaurant critic…and that may be a good thing.

Michael Ruhlman has a great article on salt and fat and how American’s are being misled and fooled into eating crap.

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CarbWells, SnackWells, Low fat, no fat, carb-free. These labels continue to trick unwitting (and to be blunt, stupid) consumers into thinking that somehow crap like Oreo cookies are good for you. This article explains the insanity and how the snack companies are trying to come up with another product that they can convince the public is “healthy.” The best quote from the article “ For a fickle public, each variation (of fad induced snack food) offers a fleeting hope that a junk food can deliver indulgence without consequences.“

I still know of people who avoid rice, potatoes, and tortillas because of the Atkins nonsense. The whole premise was just absurd but Americans, many of whom prefer style over substance (how else do you explain the current state of the music industry) figured “who gives a crap if my arteries are clogging, as long as I am thin.” Thankfully that fad died a fairly quick death.

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Some factory farms want to prohibit milk producers from labeling their milk and dairy products as “BGH Free” because they think it implies that the stuff with BGH (which does not need to be labeled as such) is somehow bad. According to the New York Times the makers of the hormones and the farmers that use it have embarked on a counteroffensive that includes pushing efforts by state legislators and state agriculture commissioners to pass laws to ban or restrict labels that indicate milk comes from untreated cows. This is complete insanity. They want to take the right away from consumers to make their own informed choices as to what they chose to consume.

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The food companies don’t give a crap about any of this. All they want to do is use the least expensive ingredients to mass produce food that consumers will pay a premium for. These are the same companies that were so angered with the findings that trans fat was horrible for you that food conglomerates Kraft and Nabisco joined a group of companies that spent over $1 million into studies that might yield more favorable conclusions about trans-fats.

Michael Pollan, one of the foremost authors on our food culture, has the best recommendation of all:

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

I think the Journal is never going to hire a restaurant critic and its time to start criticizing them for it.  Enough of this crap about it being to close to the death of Dennis Getto (he’s been dead since last July) to hire someone. Enough of these stupid articles talking about restaurants but not reviewing them.  Since July there have been several restaurant openings but the Journal’s only coverage is the Threeview in that stupid Shepherd Express ripoff, MKE.  The “reviewers” are amateurs who don’t have the background and knowledge to really give a good review, plus they only go once.  Taking cues from them as to where you should dine is about as useful as taking cues from some opinionated blogger. ;)