Garlic and Onion

Organic vs Real

Jul 21st, 10 / 5 Comments

Ok, here is the deal, we need to fix a misconception. An organic label does not mean good for you. In fact it doesn’t even mean it’s Real Food. (Yes I capitalize Real Food, it’s that important to me)

Real Food refers to unprocessed food that your grandparents would eat. Apples, peaches, milk, eggs, fresh pasta, and chicken legs are all Real Food. Organic Dextrose, Organic Strawberry Flavor, Rice Bran Extract, Sodium Citrate, and Monocalcium Phosphate are not Real Food.

Guess where the not Real Food ingredients are found. In Nature’s Path Organic Toaster Pastries.

All organic means is that the ingredients that are grown to produce the product was raised organically. It doesn’t mean the food is healthy or real.

Real Food

Future of Street Food

Jul 20th, 10 / 0 Comments

I recently was selected to do a presentation on street food in Minneapolis at Give and Take. I’m kind of obsessed and have been following the scene about as closely as I can. It’s blossoming like crazy here and I can’t wait to see what next year brings. The number of new vendors at the different markets is inspiring. Hopefully we can get the laws in Minneapolis to be little less stringent soon so some of the great vendors at the markets can setup and serve us delicious food all spring, summer, and fall.

But, that’s not the purpose of this post, the purpose is to share this video with you. It’s awesome, inspiring, and makes me want to storm city hall to force them to lift some of the restrictions they placed on mobile food vendors. I’d love to see one of these parked on Nicollet Mall.

via Andrew Zimmerman

Street Food

Purple Veggie Curry

Jul 8th, 10 / 0 Comments

Last week I looked in my fridge and cringed. Not because I had any weird things growing inside it, but because I had a lot of vegetables I had purchased over the last few weeks that were on the verge of going from fridge to compost bin. This wasn’t acceptable so I immediatly set to work trying to devise a dish that would use all of them.

I decided to give curry a try. I hadn’t made curry in months, and I usually make it with chicken, but I was determined to make it vegetable only for a couple reasons. One, I try hard to eat little to no meat during the week and two, I didn’t have any meat at home and I didn’t want to go to the grocery store.

I didn’t do anything too complicated. I started out sauteing some garlic and onions in a bit of olive oil. Added in about a quart of chicken stock, and then added potatoes, carrots, beets, snap peas, swiss chard, beet greens, cabbage, and some mustard greens.

I sauteed the mustard greens in some butter and white wine prior to adding them to the curry to eliminate some of the bitterness. I also tried to leech out a little bit of the dye from the beets to hopefully reduce the coloring in the curry, I was worried that the purple from the beets mixed with the yellow from the curry seasoning would make extremely ugly colors. Luckily I was wrong and the beets pretty much overpowered the curry seasoning. The flavor of the beets was the biggest win though, the earthiness combined with the curry seasoning was fantastic.

So there you go, simple, delicious, and a good way to use up any excess veggies you might have laying around. I recommend beets in curry, and anytime you can create a dish using three different types of greens, you know things are going well.

Home Cooked

Uptown Market

Jul 7th, 10 / 1 Comment

Some of my favorite places are Farmer’s Markets, there is something about the bustle of people, the sun shining (or the rain falling), the smell of cooking food, and the sight of fresh locally grown produce that makes me smile. I tend to visit multiple markets every weekend during the summer and take pride in being familiar with all six of the larger Minneapolis Markets. They all have unique personalities and they are all a lot of fun.

The most recent market to get my attention has been the two year old Uptown Market. It started last year and was only a monthly market. This year, they started running every Sunday, and I’ve been there since the opening helping out and of course eating the food and taking pictures.

The Uptown Market isn’t just a food market, it’s also a craft market and a street food cafe. It’s dog friendly, starts and runs late so it’s also hangover friendly. The vendors aren’t always the same, some come every weekend, others once a month, or even less frequently than that. It’s fun seeing the ever revolving vendors, especially the artists, displaying their wares, and selling their products to their neighbors.

One of my favorite produce vendors is Laughing Stock Farms. Their produce is fantastic, and they always have suggestions for their customers on what to do with it. They are by no means the only food vendor there, but for various reasons I’ve become a weekly customer. Even if it’s just some spinach and carrots I know I’m getting great local veggies.

The food is of course one of my favorite parts of the Market. The vendors include, The Magic Bus Cafe, Chef Shack, Foxy Falafel, Big River Pizza, and She Royal Deli. Their is also a coffee vendor and a corn roaster most weekends. Some things you might eat if you stop by.

Duck egg hash from the Chef Shack. This is also known as Hangover Hash and it lives up to it’s name. Lots of great vegetables top with a very tasty duck egg.

This is the St. Pauli Girl pizza from Big River Pizza. They are a mobile wood fire pizza parlor, and they make a really good pie. This came topped with crush tomatoes, arugula, basil, onions, and sausage.

Finally we have the wake and bake dog from Magic Bus Cafe. A all beef hotdog topped with a fried egg, harissa, and cilantro. I didn’t try it this time, but I will be soon. It looks great. They also have tofu dogs available without egg for those who are meat averse.

In addition to those highlighted, Foxy Falafel is making one of the best falafel sandwiches in the area. If you like falafel, you owe it to yourself to check her out. She Royal Deli is a mobile Ethiopian cafe that is fantastic. I tried a taste last week and I was almost ready to order myself a full meal even though I was stuffed.

I’m not quite ready to crown Uptown Market my favorite market in Minneapolis, but it’s close, and the fact that it’s my neighborhood market makes it really great. If you stop by earlier in the day you are likely to see me, so say hi.

Uptown Market/11-5 Sundays through September 29th/29th and Lyndale/http://uptownmarket.org

Marketing

Gastro Non Grata – Vagabond Vacation

Jul 6th, 10 / 0 Comments

One of my favorite series of events in Minneapolis over the last year has been Gastro Non Grata. I attended it for the first time in late winter at the Triple Rock Social Center. It was a night filled with tasty treats and good music. The latest incarnation of the event took place a few Sundays ago at First Avenue. It was the first time they had hosted an event in that large of a space and they did a fantastic job.

The event took over the entire venue, the Main Room, 7th Street Entry, and The Record Room. Between the music and the food it was hard to sit still. Throw in the beer and it is one of those events that I drool over.

First a bit about the food, I started the evening by grabbing a delicious sandwiches created by the Chefs at Spoonriver. It was a Duck Liver Pate Bahn Mi. As a close neighbor to Quang’s Restauranta and Jasmine Deli, I have a pretty strong opinion on Vietnamese sandwiches, and this one might have been better than anything I’ve had at those two places. Spicy, lots of crunch, and the liver pate was insanely good.

The next delectable treat came from Sea Change. It was a Sea Trout rilette and it was incredible. Smokey, creamy, and very rich. It was a great way to cut the spice from the Bahn Mi.

Next up were oysters from Coastal Sea Foo d. There isn’t much to say about these other than yum. Giant fresh oysters served with hot sauce, and another sauce whose name I forgot to write down(edit: it was a Mignonette sauce, and it was better than the hot sauce). Unless you hate seafood, there was nothing about these that wasn’t fantastic.

Along with these three things, the chefs at Craftsman made fresh hot dogs which were fantastic. Unfortunately, I forgot to photograph them before devouring mine. Dessert was provided by the fabulous Cake Eater Bakery. I had an orange creme cupcake and a Vietnamese Coffee Cupcake. Both were borderline criminally delicious.

I will admit I wasn’t overly impressed with the beer selection. Not that it wasn’t good, but it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Northern Brewer was providing free samples of a couple beers though. One was a chamomile wit, which was fairly decent. My favorite though was the stout they had available. This was very dark and full of great flavor.

Once again Gastro Non Grata proved to be one of my favorite events during a crazy weekend. I only wish they would have them on Friday or Saturday nights so I can stay later and enjoy all the music. Thankfully I got to try all the food and it was well worth the price of admission.

More photos, including music acts, available on Flickr.

Out and About

California Eating

Jun 1st, 10 / 1 Comment

So I failed at writing about my food experiences while I was in California. It was equal parts being busy, having a horrible network connection at the hotel, and not eating quite as well as I expected. I still ate really well, but it wasn’t the gastronomical delight I intended it to be.

So here is a quick run down of some of the meals I did really enjoy while I was in California.

Caterpillar Roll, this was very good, it had eel and some other vegetables I’m having a hard time remembering. The part that really stood out for me though was the avocado topping it. It was some of the best I had tasted. Buttery, flavorful, and really put this roll over the top. This was from a little strip mall joint that was within walking distance of the hotel.

Tacos, specifically steak and fish. The steak was kind of blah, not exciting at all. The fish on the other hand was really good. Mahi Mahi, pico, cabbage, lettuce, and a sauce that was just the right combo of spicy and savory. To top it off they were 2.25 a piece on Tuesdays. This was from Cronie’s sports bar which was the one place in town I found with extra innings so I could watch the Twins.

Seafood Burrito, this was from a little hole in the wall Mexican place across the street from the office. It was fantastic, a little dingy, an open kitchen, and a serve yourself salsa bar. The burrito was stuffed with rice, beans, shrimp, and fish. Topped with cheese and cheese sauce. It was huge, dwarfing the biggest Chipotle Burrito.

Richard Roll, tuna, lobster, and shrimp. Wrapped in sesame paper and deep fried. Serve with sesame, sweet sauce, and Sriracha. This was fantastic. I’d never had sushi deep fried before, and it was really good. It warmed the outside and gave it a satisfying crunch while leaving the fish perfectly raw and tasty. This was from another hole in the wall place by the office. I was the only one in there when I ate and ended up chatting with the chef about soccer. He was the one that recommended this roll.

This was my favorite meal of the trip. It was a cold seafood platter and it was huge. You had to have two people to order it and it was a good thing they make you do so. Calamari, oysters, mussels, shrimp, smoked salmon, king crab, and ceviche. It was really tasty. I also ordered a cup of clam chowder before the meal and that was really good as well. The place we were at was called Paradise Cove and it was right on the beach in Malibu. Nothing quite beats eating really good seafood while drinking a beer and looking out over this.

Travels

Street Food, Bacon, and Nom Nom

Apr 30th, 10 / 2 Comments

Last weekend was a little crazy on the food consumption. I probably ate enough on Saturday alone to feed four children. It was a lot of fun though, and though I definitely needed to bike a lot this week to even put a dent in the scale I do not regret it at all.

Saturday started with a visit to the Chef Shack and the debut of Foxy Falafel. If you don’t know about Foxy Falafel you should familiarize yourself today. It’s a venture by my friend Erica to bring tasty falafel to Minneapolis. Even if you’ve had falafel in the past and thought “meh”, give her a try. This is her Falafel, notice how it’s bright green inside? It’s the way falafel should be done.

I also hit up the Chef Shack for some Indian Spiced Doughnuts, and their newest dish, a curry that was incredible. Carrie and Lisa are back and I’m really excited.

After experiencing the street food of Minneapolis, I headed home to start on part two of my day, making a dish for my friend Nicky’s third annual BYOB(bring your own bacon) party. I made a pizza with a crust stuffed with bacon and cheddar, topped with bbq sauce, scallions, more bacon, and more cheddar. I was happy with the results. Other highlights at the bacon party included bacon wrapped asparagus, a bacon log (bacon wrapped around sausage), bacon chocolate, and bacon popcorn. It was definitely a fat and salt filled afternoon.

Following the bacon party, I headed off to my next event. My friend Sarah had made a trip to Wisconsin earlier in the day and had picked up some garam marsala cheddar. In a moment of genius, she stuffed meatballs with the cheese and served it on top of homemade egg noodles topped with a garam masala infused tomato sauce. To say it was delicious is probably an understatement. I think everyone I’ve described this dish to has drooled on their shoes.

Following that was even more food, this time a cheese plate that we referred to as dessert. As someone who appreciates savory more than sweet this was an excellent way to close the evening. It contained Lemon Thyme Ginger Raw Milk Cheddar, Domestic Gouda, Merlot Parmesan, and smoked blue cheese. My favorite was the Merlot Parm, but the smoked blue cheese still owns my taste buds. It’s was an experience that is hard to describe. Overpowering is about the only thing I can say, but delicious regardless.

Out and About

Welcome To Garlic and Onion

Apr 30th, 10 / 1 Comment

My initial plan with Garlic and Onion was for it to be a cooking blog. A place I would write about the pizzas, pastas, breads, burritos, and other things that I make. I even threw around the idea of choosing an ingredient and making three dishes that utilized it in an attempt to expand my cooking horizons.

The problem with this is that currently I’m not passionate about cooking. I’m still passionate about food, but I spend more time enjoying other people’s efforts than I do expending my own efforts making food.

So, I’m launching this site as a straight-up food site. No crazy concepts, no ambitious cooking projects, just food. This will include food from restaurants, bars, backyard barbeques, friend’s dinner parties, family gatherings, or my own kitchen.

I’m launching this site today because I’m spending the month of May in California, and the fact that I’m going to be dining out for almost every meal is a little crazy, even for me. This way I can use this blog as inspiration to keep searching for the best food I can find and make sure I keep a record of where to eat and where not to eat when returning.

So, welcome to Garlic and Onion. I look forward to keeping your taste buds awake and highlighting the best food I can find, in my kitchen or elsewhere.

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