Category Archives: Omnivore

Prosciutto, Asparagus and Swiss on Toast -An Easy Easter Appetizer

Posted on by
2

I’ve been missing my blog!  We’ve been busy visiting Mexico, hosting visitors, working and waiting for the snow to melt.  Here’s a tasty and easy appetizer I made this morning that was inspired by Elsa’s Ham and Asparagus Toasts by Rachael Ray with a few tweaks– I used deli slices of prosciutto and Swiss cheese instead of ground ham and fontina, less butter and smaller slices of bread.  These tweaks made the assembly easier, less expensive and more appealing, I think.  It is easy to leave the prosciutto off of as many slices as desired to make this appetizer friendly to vegetarians.

Asparagus Procuitto and Swiss Toasts on ourwaytoeat.comIngredients:

  • 1/2 pound thin asparagus spears
  • 1 baguette, cut into 3/4-inch slices
  • 2 tablespoons of butter, melted
  • 2.5 tablespoons grainy Dijon mustard
  • 12 slices of Swiss cheese from the deli, halved
  • 1/4-1/2 pound of thinly sliced prosciutto from the deli

Method:

1.  Snap the woody ends off of skinny spring asparagus and steam for 2.5 minutes in salted, boiling water, then run the asparagus under cold water to stop the cooking.

2.  Slice a baguette into 3/4 inch slices.  Arrange the slices on a sheet pan, and toast the slices 6 inches below the broiler in the oven a minute or two.

3.  Mix 2 tablespoons melted butter with 2.5 tablespoons of grainy Dijon mustard and brush over the toasted bread.

4.  Top each slice with a pile of prosciutto, a halved sprig of asparagus and a half slice of Swiss cheese.

5.  Return the sheet pan to the broiler and watch carefully.  Remove when cheese is melted.  Season with ground black pepper and serve on a platter.

I brought the platter to my family’s weekly Saturday morning coffee gathering, and came home with an empty platter.  Success!

 

 

 

 

Chef Shack Food Truck at the Mill City Farmer’s Market in Minneapolis

Posted on by
6

We visit the Saint Paul Farmer’s Market every weekend that we’re in town.  We had friends visiting from out of town last weekend, and so we decided to change up the routine and venture out to the Mill City Farmer’s Market to check out a different market and sample a much-buzzed Twin Cities Food Truck that parks there on Saturday mornings.  We weren’t surprised to find that the Mill City Farmer’s Market is a great place for crowd watching, beautiful produce and good eats.

The Mill City Farmer’s Market is tucked between the Guthrie Theater, the Mill City Museum, and the Gold Medal Flour elevator and the condominium building that houses Spoonriver, my favorite restaurant in Minneapolis.  The Mill District and nearby Saint Anthony Main, which is directly across the wonderful pedestrian-only Stone Arch Bridge over the Mississippi are two of the most fun pockets of Minneapolis to stroll through.  I love their lively atmosphere and unique architecture which reflect the area’s evolution over time from a riverfront industrial district to the cultural center of the city.   Even though I love visiting these places, this was our first trip the Mill City Farmer’s Market.  Although the vegetable stands were overflowing with organic veggies, it is much more than just a place to stock up on heirloom tomatoes.  People gather, music is played, there are artisanal cheeses, chocolate and baked goods, handmade clothing, furniture and other art for sale.  The space was packed to the gills by mid-morning with strollers, camera-wielding bloggers, Iphone-ing instagrammers, gawkers, some shoppers and people like us who are there to eat.   

Once we toured the market, we joined the lengthy line at the Chef Shack food truck.    The line moved quickly.  It gave us just enough time to peruse the chalkboard menu.  Bjorn ordered a Walleye Sandwich and a bag of the Chef Shack’s renowned Indian-Spiced Mini Doughnuts for the group to share for dessert.  As you can see, the sandwich consists of a meaty walleye fillet, fried crispy and served on a fresh baguette with lettuce, tartar sauce and veggie trimmings.  Bjorn confirmed that the sandwich was one of the best he’s had.  The four of us devoured the mini doughnuts so fast that I couldn’t even take a picture.

Our friend Ben was out for adventure.  When he placed his order for Beef Tongue Tacos, the guy handling the cash register told him that he eats a Beef Tongue Taco every week he loves them so much.  The meat eaters who sampled the tongue confirmed that it was a dense, beef flavor and texture, more offal-like than muscle-y.  There!  You can see the tongue poking out from below the corn!  The vegetarian in me says “eek!” and the foodie says “cool!”

I swung by the Spoonriver food stand and purchased a refreshing glass of unsweetened Mango Iced Tea.  Their Cucumber Water and Watermelon-Basil water were also beautiful and looked refreshing.  It was very tempting to try a savory Spoonriver crepe, but I wanted to stick to the Food Truck option for today.

I was the sole vegetarian in the group.  I ordered the Sweet Potato Tacos, one of several vegetarian offerings from the Chef Shack.  They were tasty.  I piled on some of the house-made garnishes available in tubs: pickly cukes and cauliflower, a dill pickle and some slaw.  I am a sucker for garnishes.  The double-layered tortillas were extremely fresh and delicious.  I was glad to have the second tortilla layer, because the bean-corn-sweet potato mixture in the tacos was on the watery side, though wonderfully flavorful.  The tortilla kept it all contained.  I crumbled a little fresh feta from Singing Hills Dairy, purchased in the market on top–I won’t lie, I do prefer veggie tacos with cheese.

Our friend Jenny ordered a grass-fed, all-beef hotdog and also piled on the house-made condiments and garnishes.  One of the Chef Shack chefs greeted us at the condiment table, and asked us cheerfully if we found what we needed.  Yes, we certainly did.  We walked away from the market, plopped down on a flat rock that served as our seating and table and enjoyed a wonderful, unique and tasty lunch.

I’ve visited a handful of food trucks in Minneapolis and Saint Paul and this was by far the best food truck meal I’ve experienced to date.  This is the sort of truck that justifies its existence.  The food simple, inspired and is as good or better and more fresh than many restaurants, served casually, quickly and is perfect for outdoor eating on the go.  If you find yourself in Minneapolis on a Saturday between the hours of 8 and 1, I highly recommend a trip to the Mill City Farmer’s Market followed by a delicious lunch from the Chef Shack.  Delish!

The Summer Sandwich // Simple Dining, Al Fresco

Posted on by
1

This post is one part ode to one of my favor summer meals and one part cautionary tale.  I figure that this blog is about my life, including some of the great meals in it, so I will start with a brief account the day when I spent inadvertently spent $17.72 on 0.57 lbs of cheese.  [Oopsie.]  

It was a typical Saturday morning.  We started our day at the Saint Paul Farmer’s Market.  I determined my mission that day was to purchase the components of a summer sandwich for our lunch.  At the time, our garden still had a few weeks to go before it would have much to offer us.  I bought vegetables, bread, and then we left the market and looped our way up Grand Avenue to the Saint Paul Cheese Shop. That place is pretty neat. Sampling is encouraged, so we tasted several paper-thin wisps of cheese the cheesemonger shaved neatly off of several wheels of cheese and dropped into our extended hands from the forked tip of the blade of his cheese knife.  I let my guard down.  It is atypical for me to make a mindless splurge without glancing at the price per half pound.  I was in a cheese-induced stupor when I asked for a small wedge of Marcel Petite Comte raw cow’s milk cheese from France, and a wedge of Terchelling Sheep’s milk cheese from Holland.  I’m sure there are people who routinely spend far more than this on cheese in any given week.  I’m not knocking it and I might do it again at some point. The difference will be that I do it intentionally.  As a consolation, at least the cheese was very, very good.

Whew. Now that I’ve made that confession to my friends and readers, let’s make a sandwich!   A Summer Sandwich is quite simply a sandwich with any combination of meat or vegetarian meat substitute, seasonal vegetables, cheese and sandwich spreads piled on top of nice bread.  

I sliced a grainy loaf of bread and served the bread and cheese with our own cheese knives on wooden cutting boards.  We eat most of our meals al fresco on our patio.  It has been 90+ degrees farenheit there lately, but it is still very pleasant in the shade of a Maple Tree canopy.

I filled a platter with sliced cucumber and tomato, garden lettuces, piles of deli turkey and tofurky, along with bowls of mayonnaise and grainy dijon mustard, and placed salt and pepper shakers on the table.  The secret to the perfect summer sandwich is bringing out whatever looks good and fresh, and let each person assemble the sandwich they desire.  

If Freud were here, he’d say, “a sandwich is never just a sandwich.”  It is the meal I ate on pebble beaches out of a cooler with my parents camping in Door County, Wisconsin in grade four.  It is the BLT’s that beckoned numerous cousins, Uncles and Aunts to my Grandma’s farm house every July when the tomatoes were all ripe at once.  It is the meal of lettuce, ham, turkey, tomato and cheese sandwiches on good sandwich bread that we shared with friends from Edmonton, Winnipeg, Saint Paul and Minneapolis on a lakeshore in Northern Minnesota after a long, hot day on the lake last year over the 4th of July long weekend.  It is the halved baguettes piled with cheese, sliced tomato and a pile of pršut [for the meat eaters] that we ate on a secluded pebble beach a few months ago in Croatia.  

What is one to serve on the side?  Well, nothing—any decent summer sandwich is in itself, a square meal.  Or, if the mood strikes, some salty-crunchy potato chips, leftover potato salad out of the fridge, deviled eggs or summer fruit would all be the perfect compliment.  On this particular day we rounded out our plates with bright, rainbow radishes that were too pretty to slice or even to remove the stem.  Sure, they could have been thinly sliced and piled on the sandwich, but they were refreshing, spicy perfection and a visual treat perched on the side our plates.  

A Summer Sandwich is simple perfection.  No matter what fresh fixings are available, where you are, or what time it is, a sandwich satisfies hunger.  A sandwich feeds a crowd with varied tastes, comes together easily and is a perfect meal to eat outdoors on a hot July day. 

And the cheese?

We’re still working our way through it, and savoring every little morsel–we figure it cost us about 8 cents per crumb.

A Taste of Two Great Twin Cities Patios: El Norteño and Ngon

Posted on by
3

In the summer we spend almost all our downtime at home on our patio that Bjorn built the first spring we had our house.  We eat here, entertain here, do our internetting, gaze at the garden, plan our trips, rehash the day, daydream, read and occasionally we even get up to pull some weeds.  I am serious when I say that I could spend 10 hours a day here from the minute spring arrives until the fall chill takes hold.  Some days, I do exactly that.  Still there are days when nothing is better than to have someone else cook for us and to return to our haunts from the days of apartment living when patio-dining was our best excuse to spend time outdoors.

I rank Salut on Grand Avenue, the Happy Gnome, and W.A. Frost best patios in Saint Paul for great food and drink.  Relaxing through a meal while tucked into a private corner of these outdoor rooms is a magical summer escape.  Sweeneys and Billy’s on Grand have solid bar food and are happening and fun.  Anyone who has ever set foot in Saint Paul, Minnesota at dinner time in the summer already knows about these fixtures.  This means they’re always busy.  Today, I’m going to share a taste of two patios that have a certain popularity, but are a little lesser known.  As a regular at Ngon and El Norteño who likes to be able to march in and sit right down at an open table, I had to think twice before tipping my hand.  In the interest of encouraging the success of restaurants I like, I’m going to give their patios a public shout-out.  For an escape and a reliably tasty meal, the patios at Ngon and Norteño are hidden gems.

Ngon Vietnamese Bistro – 799 University Avenue, Saint Paul, Minnesota Telephone:  (651) 222-3301

I’ve mentioned Ngon on my blog before.  We keep returning to Ngon and enjoy the authentic and inventive Vietnamese cuisine.  Their use of local and sustainable meat and produce, their stellar selection of exclusively local beers and their house-made charcuterie that Bjorn has enjoyed on earlier visits have proven to contribute to consistently tasty meals.  We found that we equally enjoyed these aspects of the restaurant when we dined on the patio behind the restaurant, hidden from the world by high fences and shaded from the early evening sun by grapevine-wound pergola.  We entered Ngon through the front door which was a bit of an experience in inaccessibility due to the construction of the light rail on University Avenue.  We requested a spot outside and were directed out of the restaurant and back to the sidewalk through the side door and then into the private patio through a gate under a mosiac sign showing the restaurant’s name.  The hostess informed us that we could not have soup on the patio–it is too hot for the servers to carry this out.  When I heard this, I was a little disappointed.  I have ordered Hủ Tiếu with egg noodles almost every time I eat at Ngon.  I am in love with this steamy bowl of squiggly egg noodles and thinly sliced carrot and daikon, halved brussel sprouts, grape tomatoes, whole green beans and bok choy, all still-crunchy, swimming in a light, tasty, clear vegetable broth.  With a little encouragement by my wise husband, I got past my Who Moved my Cheese? moment and realized that change is good, and its high time I venture out into the rest of the menu because it was way too nice to eat indoors.  Now that I’m thinking about it, maybe eating a huge bowl of hot soup on a 90 degree evening wouldn’t be be too many people’s idea of a good time!?We arrived hungry so we started our meal with crispy Vietnamese egg rolls, a crunchy, freshly-fried indulgence filled with vegetables and mushroom served with a little pickly shredded carrot and daikon.

I settled on Bún, a rice vermicelli salad with organic greens, cucumbers, bean sprouts with a generous amount of saucy fried tofu, garnished with more pickly shredded daikon and carrot, herbs and peanuts.  It was refreshing, tasty and totally solid, but won’t oust Hủ Tiếu from its position as my Ngon favorite.  Bjorn ordered braised pork shoulder with basil pasta which he thought was very good.  I didn’t manage to get a photo.

El Norteño – 4000 East Lake Street, Minneapolis, Minnesota Telephone: (612) 722-6888

The patio at El Norteño is similar to all the others I’ve mentioned in that it is secluded.  This particular patio wins hands-down for its foliage and flora, which is well-tended– obviously by a green thumb.  There are potted plants bursting with herbs and flowers and thriving perennials layered several feet deep around inside the entire enclosure which creates a wonderfully lush atmosphere for a relaxing meal.  There is plenty of room on the patio.  The food is straight-forward, authentic Mexican fare.  Tacos, burritos, enchiladas, flautas, tostadas and fajitas with chicken, pork, beef or veggies, served with beans, rice, fresh vegetables and traditional sauces.  It is simple.  Norteño isn’t going to win awards for culinary ingenuity, but the food hits the spot.  The servers who also seem to cook, are few in number, so they aren’t going to win praise for attentiveness and speed, but when you are sitting outside on a gorgeous night, sipping a Dos Equis Amber, eating chips and fresh salsa while waiting for your food to arrive, who is in a hurry, exactly?  El Norteño is licensed for beer and wine only, so wine margaritas are on the menu, but none with tequila.  The only other limitation we’ve faced is our ability to gauge whether El Norteño will be open during dinner hours.  With no website to check, we figure it out by taking a quick drive to Longfellow, and end up at the Birchwood, which is nearby when we’ve guessed wrong, which seems to be about half of our attempts.  Though simple, their food tastes fresh and has good flavor.  This is where I go for Mexican comforts- the lightness of lettuce and tomatoes, rich guacamole, warm fresh tortillas, the energy-giving amino acid balance of rice and beans, and seasoned meats for Bjorn.  

If you’re stuck in the Cities for the 4th of July and need a break from air conditioning, a tasty meal on a patio a little ways off the beaten track is the place to find yourself for lunch or dinner.

Anticipating Early July

Posted on by
4

The beginning of July is perhaps my favorite time of year.    Sandwiched between Canada Day and Independence Day is my birthday.  We spend this span of celebratory days at the lake.  

There is so much that I look forward to in these precious days away from work and the city.   We will spend hours in the outdoors, boating, swimming and lounging in the lake with family and friends all around.  We will sleep in tents on the lakeshore and roast hot dogs, veggie dogs and marshmallows on a nightly bonfire.  On the fourth of July we will drink gallons of Koolaid and eat an impressive, all-American spread at my family’s annual fourth of July Pot luck.  There will be plenty of joking with cousins, Uncles and Aunts, and there will perhaps be a competitive all-ages game of volleyball with plenty of serious showing of bravado with spikes and high-fives.  In the evening, Bjorn and I will venture into town with my cousins, spread out blankets on the grass, and eat candy and popcorn while we watch the fireworks.  These are our traditions, some life-long, and others, new.  The mood is celebratory, welcoming and lighthearted, and the attitude is “the more the merrier” when it comes to inviting guests, savoring summer pleasures together and finding new ways to have fun.  This year we’re planning to dance up a storm at the Park Rapids street dance and rodeo dance during my cousin’s band Tree Party‘s nightly gig.  This is our way of celebrating our two countries, my birthday, our family and our friends and savoring the simple glories of summer.  These are the days that make our lives rich.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Above are photos of my Mom’s flower garden and potted plants taken a few weeks ago.  I am looking forward to morning tours of my parents’ garden and yard with a cup of coffee in hand.   I can’t wait to see how things are growing and in bloom.  I am hoping that a green thumb is hereditary.

Celebrating our 3rd Anniversary at Chase on the Lake

Posted on by
Reply

We’re celebrating our 3rd anniversary today.  It is fun to look back on our wedding day which was such a perfect, awesome and fun-filled kick-off to our married life.  We worked hard to fill the day with thought and meaning.  We were surrounded by awesome family and friends who traveled far and wide.  It turned out to be one of the greatest days–special from start to finish.  It was pretty much perfect–except for my bangs in the above picture… not sure what happened there.  What has followed has been wonderful.  Married life is a fun adventure!  Thank you Bjorn for 3 great years!  I am grateful for every day I share with you.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

A few weeks ago, we found ourselves in Walker, Minnesota for a friend’s wedding.  Walker happens to be the town where our wedding reception took place at a historic resort and hotel, Chase on the Lake.  With our anniversary approaching Bjorn suggested that we have dinner at Chase to start the celebration early.  Good call Bjorn! Our meal was fabulous.  We dined on the patio overlooking Walker Bay on beautiful Leech Lake, and had one of the best restaurant meals we’ve had in while.  We started with a 2009 Pinot Noir, which has proven to be a good vintage.  Bjorn had Surf n’ Turf– a New York Strip steak bathed in herbed butter and served with garlic mashed potatoes, roasted root vegetables and an impressive pile of crab legs.  Bjorn cracked into the crab legs with gusto.  We learned in Croatia, the only way to approach the shelling of shellfish is with gusto.  I had a brightly flavored pesto fettuccine with veggies and a caesar salad.  The meal was tasty!  We enjoyed being in the place where the celebration began and raising a toast to all the fun we have ahead.  Cheers!

Cheeseburger Salad and Deviled Eggs with Dill

Posted on by
3

Summertime is a season and a mindset for me.  It is a season to avoid being booked and busy as much as possible, to allow time to be free to savor summer’s simple pleasures.  Over the weekend, this included a trip to the Saint Paul Farmer’s Market, a meal outside on the patio at a favorite restaurant, picking a few weeds in the garden, inviting my cousin over to hang out in our back yard, working up a sweat doing yard cleanup, going to the pool for a swim and sitting in the sun porch listening to rumbling thunder and watching rain pour down, giving our garden a thorough soaking.

The summer mindset is also reflected in the food we eat.  We like to eat outdoors in our back yard on the patio as much as possible.  The availability of a great variety of fresh produce at the market and from our garden shapes our menu.  We make frequent use of the grill.  Grilling has the multiple benefits of allowing us to cook outside on the patio, avoid heating up the house and further influences our food choices toward simple, classic summer fare.

One classic summer food staple that I’m thrilled to see back in vogue are deviled eggs.  Why wouldn’t these re-emerge and get trendy?  They are perfect, tasty bites, extremely simple and they can be made with all kinds of interesting ingredients.  I’ve seen deviled eggs with crab meat, bacon, capers and even caviar-topped deviled eggs on food blogs and restaurant menus.  I like a classic deviled egg the most, and I don’t follow a recipe.  I boil, cool and peel the eggs, mash the yolks and mix in minced onion, a little grainy Dijon mustard and just enough light mayo to make them creamy.  I attempted to pipe the filling back into the egg white halves from a pastry bag, but I chose too small a tip to allow the filling’s grainy mustard to squeeze through, so the piping experience started out with a few pretty, piped deviled eggs, then an explosion, followed by me filling the rest of the eggs with a teaspoon.  Garnish is a must, especially with the teaspoon egg filling-method.  In the off-season, I’m still a fan of a sprinkling of paprika, but in the summer, chopped chives or dill are my go-to garnish.  I call the dill from our garden “Electric Dill” because it is so bright and fragrant, and the dill flavor just pops- electric!

Today was one of those days that I was half-way between two dinner ideas.  Bjorn had thawed some lean ground beef raised by his uncle, and I had a hankering for a veggie burger with all of my favorite burger toppings, but also a salad.  From what I’ve been reading, it is better not to eat bread and high-glycemic, addictive [delicious] carbs at every meal.  The idea of a Cheeseburger Salad was born.  I am sure I’m not the first to think of it.  Mine ended up somewhere in the realm of California Burger meets Mushroom and Swiss, but the topping possibilities are only limited by your imagination–avocado, fried egg, pickles, sauerkraut and crispy bacon all come to mind.  The basic premise is to deconstruct your favorite burger, up the veggie count, leave out the bun, and have yourself a great salad. 

Bjorn grilled up a burger for himself, and a veggie burger patty for me, and topped both with thinly sliced provolone cheese.  We sautéed mushrooms with some onions on the grill’s side burner, and served the burgers and sautéed mushrooms and onions on a bed of lettuce leaves with sliced tomato from the market.  As a dressing, we used a little leftover creamy taco sauce that I mixed up for another meal which consisted of smoky chipotle and garlic salsa mixed with a little light sour cream.

We rounded out the meal with a few bright red radishes from the farmer’s market.  We are both obsessed with farmer’s market radishes at the moment.  They are brighter and spicy, and of no comparison to most radishes I’ve tasted from the grocery store.  I’ve been keeping a bowl in water in the fridge so that they are ready for snacking and ready to be served at any meal, including breakfast!  I cannot wait until radishes from our garden are ready to eat.

I’m sure I’ll make Cheeseburger Salads again, and will certainly make more deviled eggs.  Even with the richness of a deviled egg, and melted provolone, the meal felt just little lighter.  After the deviled egg filling vs. piping bag incident was cleaned up, the meal came together quickly, giving us time to sit back and watch the cardinals hanging out in the grass.

Davanni’s Hot Hoagies to Welcome Home

Posted on by
5

We’re back!   We spent time abroad, off the grid –away from email, Facebook and our blog–with some of our best friends, seeing a fascinating new corner of the world.  We came back revived, our eyes opened, and something I am calling our “sea mind” awakened.  We had a superb vacation.

We remain fully inspired by our travels upon arriving home.  At the same time, an 18 hour travel day to get here, Bjorn’s suitcase spending the night in Paris without us and diving back into work jet-lagged has had us in “catch up” mode for a little while.  Our “welcome home” meal was a good old sub sandwich, a Hot Hoagie from Davanni’s, to be exact.  Davanni’s is a low-key pizza and hoagie joint that started in our neighbourhood in 1947.  They deliver, so we are frequent customers.  This particular evening, we dined in.  We both ordered our go-to sandwich, a Turkey Bacon Chipotle for Bjorn and a Veggie on wheat for me.  We enjoyed these tasty, simple sandwiches served on a plastic plate and washed them down with a bottle of 3.2 beer.  Travel and time with friends clears out mental fog, reminds us of who we are and want to be, renews appreciation and gratitude for friends, our house and garden, our lives, our hobbies, traveling, jobs and family time immeasurably.  I plan to share it!  To make that easier, in development are a dedicated Facebook page, a private host for the blog, and a renewed desire to enjoy life to the fullest and keep it simple.  We’re glad to be back.

A Taste of the Birchwood Cafe

Posted on by
2

Birchwood Cafe - 3311 East 35th Street, Minneapolis, MN Telephone:  (612) 722-4474

I think a taste of one of our favorite neighbourhood restaurants will serve as a fitting end to this series of posts of our recent restaurant experiences.  I am reasonably certain that Birchwood Cafe is one of the most-mentioned local restaurants on this blog.  That is because we like it, we go there a lot and we find the food at the Birchwood to be reliably good and often inspiring.  The Birchwood is just the sort of restaurant we are so glad to have only a few minutes from home.

The Birchwood Cafe is nestled in the Seward neighborhood, a primarily residential area just across the Mississippi River from our neighbourhood in Saint Paul.  In addition to its quiet neighbourhood vibe, there are a few things that make the Birchwood a major draw for us.  They use and highlight local produce, they serve great local beer and they offer inventive, in-season food that suits a vegetarian-omnivore couple to a T.

The Birchwood’s permanent decor is spare.  There are a few quotes that aptly convey Birchwood’s philosophies permanently visible on the windows and wall.  Otherwise, the walls are plain white, and display works by local artists that are rotated periodically.  Currently on display are paintings by WACSO, an artist that I recognized immediately from a few posts that have appeared on Heavy Table, a wonderful Twin Cities blog about restaurants, food blogs and all things food-related in the Cities and around the region. 

WACSO stands for Walking Around Checking Stuff Out.  WACSO’s art captures Twin Cities places and happenings and the people enjoying them in brilliant colour and just enough detail to accurately convey the motion, mood and feeling of the moment portrayed.  I hope I’ll own a WACSO some day, or at least be one of the sketched figures in one.  I recommend checking WASCO art while it is on display at the Birchwood if you are in town.

We do quite like the Birchwood.  While the list of the Birchwood’s merits is long, there are just a few characteristics about the Birchwood that aren’t necessarily my favorite that I suppose I will mention.  The first is, you stand in line and place your order at the counter.  Maybe the Birchwood has chosen not to serve customers at the table due to space constraints.  I can see that.  I can also understand having customers come by the deli counter where there is a moderate selection of prepared salads, artisan-quality grocery items to take home and ready-to-eat items that they want you to see.  For me, I always order something from the menu, very often the nightly special, and so there isn’t a lot to gain, and some relaxation is lost in the experience of standing in line to order, paying, getting my drink, not forgetting my table marker and finding a table and then settling down to enjoy being out to eat.  I will say that the servers who bring out your food almost make up for the lack of table service by being consistently efficient and friendly.  The other issue we’ve run into and learned from is that the place is popular and rather small so it gets pretty jam-packed.  This has all but eliminated us as breakfast and brunch diners on the weekend — we just aren’t people who enjoy the madness of waiting for a table while others slurp their orange juice, Surly Coffee Bender and down their muesli and perfect scrambled eggs in order to clear out and give us a seat.  At the end of the day, I compare a good neighbourhood restaurant to a person you love who isn’t perfect (meaning everyone) — you take the good with the bad, you accept idiosyncracies and unique attributes and overall you are always way more pleased to have them in your life than not.  Great people and restaurants don’t have to be perfect to be exceptional and well above average.  

What in the world am I waiting for?  How about the great meal we had recently at Birchwood’s weekly Saturday night Pizza Party!?  The deal is this:  2 pizzas and a pitcher of beer or a bottle wine for $30. These are artisan-made pizzas with fresh, local toppings and high-end local brews, so let me tell you, this is a great deal.  Above is Bjorn’s delicious pizza, topped with house-smoked turkey breast, carmelized onion puree, mushrooms, cauliflower, kale, cheddar and provolone.  I thought it looked yummy, cheesy and full of plenty of interesting toppings.  Bjorn thought it tasted as good as it looked.  

My pizza was topped with spring vegetables: fiddleheads, asparagus, red beets, garlic spread, cheddar, provolone and a sprinkle of tangerine oil.  I loved this pizza.  Other than garlic, I have never tasted any of the ingredients on a pizza before.  Cheddar and provolone are two of my favorite cheeses, they aren’t on pizzas very often, but they really worked.  It turns out that they all belong on a pizza and they all make me want to top our homemade pies a lot more irreverently.

The most noteworthy of the toppings on my pizza were the fiddleheads.  Fiddleheads, ramps, and morels are all the rage in the Twin Cities foodie-world and blog universe.  I have yet to try ramps.  I have eaten morels, and while I love going to check my secret spot for spoils, I don’t honestly love them as much as other mundane mushrooms.  Fiddleheads?  Now that is a wild crop that I can get behind and seriously work at foraging to eat.  I’d describe a fiddlehead as a tiny curled end of a fern about to unfurl; roasted on a pizza it had the flavor of mild asparagus and texture more pleasant and tender than roasted asparagus or green bean.  One more reason to get going on transplanting some of my Mom’s abundant ferns from her garden to ours!

As we walked away from the familiar Birchwood Cafe onto a quiet neighbourhood street, I thought of how glad I am to end this series about our recent restaurant experiences at one of our regular spots, that I confidently recommend and am glad to have close by.  The Birchwood Cafe does vegetarian and omnivore-friendly local food right, and we’re so glad to have this place in town.  If you are one of our regular readers, thank you.  It will be a quiet few weeks while we voyage far and wide to see good friends and new horizons.  Come back in early June to see what we have to share!

Mother’s Day Breakfast

Posted on by
Reply

Lest my readers think that I’ve quit cooking, I am taking a break from my series on our recent restaurant experiences to share a peek at our breakfast this morning.

I am one of the lucky kids who got to be with my Mom in person this weekend and because I really am one of the lucky ones, my Dad and Bjorn were there too.  My parents and I have always been a tight-knit little trio, and I’m thankful every day that Bjorn has made us into a fabulous foursome.  We get along well.  My parents drove us around town yesterday helping us finish some last-minute shopping for a big trip we depart on this Wednesday.  We enjoyed some nice meals out, good talks, some time in the yard and somehow when they left, the house was a little neater and better decorated.  I have a wonderful Mom!  Thank you!  

This is a day that we make a point of showing the precious women in our lives– our mothers, grandmothers, friends, cousins, aunts, mothers-in law and grandmas-in law — how much we love and treasure them.  I dedicate this post to all of the kids celebrating their Moms today, and to all of the Moms who I hope are feeling loved and getting treated to something special.  For my Mom, the woman who lives an inspired life and spends her time making it beautiful and going to the end of the earth for the people she loves — thank you for showing me how I want to live.  Thank you to all of the Mom’s in my life for being the true examples of love, courage, generosity, inventiveness, selflessness and of course, awesomeness!  I know some amazing Moms, and I have one!  You are all a blessing!  

Being a good daughter is easy with my parents.  Sometimes when they visit, Bjorn and I prepare a fairly elaborate repast so that they get in on our cooking adventures.  In contrast, one of the highlights of this weekend was recovering from the shopping expedition (shopping is not my forte) with beer and Cheetos and chips and salsa on the patio.  Not only do we get along, but my parents like to do pretty much the same thing we do on a Saturday afternoon.  They are easy-going which makes them good parents and good guests.

Even with a pre-trip fridge-purge going on I still managed to make breakfast.  It is Mother’s day, after all.  When I got up, I ran out to the yard and snipped some things that went to seed last year and grew up on their own:  dill, chives, lettuce and a radish.  I won’t get the veggie garden planted until after we’re back from our trip, but that hasn’t stopped it from shaping our recent meals of its own doing.  

I rinsed the garden produce and let it dry and decided to make a salad.  For the salad,  I rinsed and drained a can of chickpeas, sliced a cup of grape tomatoes, a ball of fresh mozzarella and a few bunches of baby spinach from the farmer’s market that I had washed and dried and torn into bite-sized pieces.  I tossed the veggies, cheese and chickpeas in a quick vinaigrette made of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, chopped chives and dill, a shake of Mrs. Dash, and some fresh ground black pepper.  

I made some cinnamon-raisin toast and poached eggs.  I also made bacon in the oven, which is the best food preparation idea since sliced bread.  You simply place bacon on a rack on top of a rimmed baking sheet and place it in a cold oven.  Turn the temperature to 400 degrees farenheit and check the bacon after 12 minutes.  Between 12 and 20 minutes the bacon will be done to crispy perfection, or at least that’s what the omnivores reported.  

This afternoon I headed out to the back yard to hang out with the bright red cardinals to let the growing things be my muse.  

We aren’t sure what we are doing to attract these noble red beauties to our yard, but we love their company and their song, and we hope that we won’t scare them away.

One of the things I picked up for our trip when I was shopping this weekend was a watercolour sketchbook and a small handful of watercolour pencils.  I haven’t done anything more than doodle in a margin for ages, so hopefully I can shed some rust and relearn a few tricks from high school art classes.

Our Iris are doing well.  My iris is truly an heirloom.  The Iris were first planted in the yard in the house where my Grammie was born, they moved several times with my Dad’s family in the 1960′s and ’70′s before being planted in the back yard of the house I grew up in.  They bloomed there for about 18 years and then they moved south to my parents home on the lake in 1995.  Last summer I transplanted 20 or 30 bulbs to our back yard.  

You won’t be hearing from me much or at all for a few weeks, but when we’re back, we’ll have seen some new horizons and have stories and inspiration to share.  In the meantime, above is a sketch and an observations of our Iris.  You never know, I might manage one more post before we leave…

Here is a little peek at how things come together around here.  We live, I snap a few pictures and sometimes sketch one in watercolour and then put it all on the laptop with my words and thoughts and hit “publish”!  It is a fun and happy life.