Monday, monday...

Hi Moms and Pops! Well, the sun and spirits rose this morning after three straight days of downright miserable weather (see below). My weekend consisted mostly of hanging out at the fairgrounds, helping out with the Oyster Festival. Time was split between dispensing adult beverages and timing the Shuckers. I therefore didn’t get to observe any of the cooking aspect of the Festival, although I did taste some of the results. It’s amazing what people can think of to do with the humble oyster. Sometimes simple preps of simple food is a good thing – one of the entries in this year’s cookbook for instance has a recipe for “Cordoba Oysters over Lemon Scented Linguine”, with 15 ingredients. A nice dish probably, but maybe more to catch the judge’s eye than the consumer’s palate.

From the beer stand you can pretty much keep track of the attendees, and although numbers were held down by the miserable weather (see below), there were still more than we had feared. And, despite temperatures in the 40’s, the golden liquid poured from the taps almost continuously. Sam Adam’s Oktoberfest probably was the highest seller (only other options were Coor’s Light, Killians, and Blue Moon). Guinness was also available at another stand. I am always somewhat bemused by those customers who, upon finding that Bud Light is not available and only Coor’s is on the list, will turn and walk away. Discerning.

Being around the oyster shuckers (called “openers” in Europe) is always a fun experience. With a few exceptions, they are mostly the same set from year to year and they really enjoy themselves. Most work in raw bars, so if hands aren't holding an oyster knife, they probably are gripping a beer and/or cigarette. Very friendly folk. This year’s overall National Champion was Scotty O’Lear from Florida with a winning time of just over 3 minutes, resulting from actual opening time plus added penalty points for off the shell, cut, not completely released, or dirty oysters. I think he had just over a minute of added seconds, so the real shucking time was under two minutes. Try that at home with two dozen of the balky bivalves!

One of the experiences I will always remember from this year was standing at the back of a pickup truck with tailgate down, positioned behind the shucking stand, where the oysters are “prepared” for shucking (cleaning, knocking off doubles, etc.). It was bone chilling cold, the rain was coming sideways, we were in almost ankle deep mud, but we had freshly scalded oysters (propane cooker), hot sauce, crackers, and beer in plastic cups. Life can be good.

Left Turn

Another annual feature on Festival Weekend, is Tom Sietsema’s annual Dining Guide in the Washington Post Magazine. This year was the 10th edition and thank goodness it wasn’t centered on the economy, (value meals, early birds, etc.) but contains his 50 favorite restaurants. He also added another to the “four star” category, an Indian restaurant. The “four stars/superlative” are: CityZen; Komi; Rasika; Inn at Little Washington; and Restaurant Eve’s Tasting Room. All save Rasika (Indian) are “contemporary American” cuisine. Somewhat surprisingly, Michel Richard’s venues of Citronelle and Central garnered 4½ and 3 stars. Our old favorite Kinkeads didn’t even get listed. The ebb and flow of the restaurant world. Tom claims that over those 10 years, he has consumed 4000 restaurant meals. That’s more than one a day! Not sure the feeder is up to that level..

The Miserable Weather:



A busy week ahead, followed by yet another road trip!! Ee hah and an opportunity to

DFD

Fast Friday

After surviving nearly 3000 miles in 8 states without any particularly close calls for the Momster, it was nice to be welcomed back by St. Mary’s County drivers again. When I grew up and took driver’s training, we were taught that a double yellow line was not to be crossed. That is, black tires should not touch yellow paint. Ah, I was wrong again. Once again, in SMC traffic “laws” are treated as suggestions to be followed only if convenient. At the end of our main street, it “T’s” into Millstone landing which eventually meets Rte. 235 at the demon infested lights there (where they are alive and well, I can report). Anyway, our main road butts into Millstone at the top of a little hill with just enough slope that a car can sort of “hide” there and suddenly appear during your execution of the right hand turn. To avoid this, despite wanting to turn right, I always cozy up to the protective yellow line to get as much view down the hill as I am able. Well, such a stupid driver as I am, that forces anybody who wants to turn left onto Esperanza from Millstone to actually go way out of their way and turn left completely into their right lane. A much preferred path is to begin the left turn a couple of car lengths before the road, and get all four wheels actually on “my” side of the line, crossing all four tires on yellow paint. I have had to brake hard approaching the intersection to allow them to execute this turn. Another version is when you’re sitting at a major(ish) intersection wanting to turn left anxiously waiting for the light to turn. I always position myself well within the protective barrier of the double yellow line on my left, and back from the broad white line in front of me. When the green arrow releases the river of steel wanting to turn left in front of me, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve held my breath figuring “this is it!” as cars come within inches of my left front, sometimes getting a glare. Sigh…

On a more pleasant note, I happened on a little Scotch tasting last night. It was conducted by Gordon Wright, a near legendary distiller of single malt scotch whiskeys, who started “Alchemist” He was a charming host, and gave a very understandable little talk on the processes involved and why there is such a variation in single malts. What barrels are used for aging, the amount of peat smoke in the malting of the barley, barrel aging, and even the air (which I am not sure I believe) all result in the wide range of tastes and “nose”. I am not particularly a single malt guy, but I did find one I very much liked, called Bruichladdich (I believe roughly pronounced “broo laddie”. Prices can be pretty steep, but on the other hand, a bottle will last quite a while (with some restraint on the owners part), so maybe the cost per drink might be competitive with wine. We also tasted some very nice Armagnac, Calvados, and a Rum which was different than anything I’ve ever tasted. So much to learn, so little time..

And, this weekend is the annual Oyster Festival, home of the National Oyster Shucking Championships as well as the expanding “cook off”. It appears that the weather will supply typical oyster festival conditions, which usually results in rain and wind. But, oysters are a cold season food anyway, so come on out to the St. Mary’s County Fairgrounds and have a great time. Oysters any way you like them, and plenty of cold beer (I think including Guinness) to wash everything down. I’ll be in the main beer stand in the mornings and timing shuckers in the afternoon. After that I don’t know if I’ll

DFD

Goodbye to an Old Friend

One of the reasons the flutter’s basement is so crowded is that I have every single issue of Gourmet since 1994 stored there (along with Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, etc., etc.). So it was with some surprise and sadness that I learned my collection will stop with the November issue. I heard about it on our trip, but more pressing matters (like fried pickles, perch, and whitefish) kept it off the pages.

I’ve read a few articles on “why”, and while the immediate cause was lack o’advertising dollars in this economy, the underlying reasons maybe told more about us. Things like “too complicated recipes”; “stuff we don’t care about”; “articles about chefs we’ve never heard of”; were mentioned. As most loyal readers know, I ranked it right up there with the top of the magazines I get (Saveur secure in number one – I hope!) for offering in-depth articles and recipes for stuff I do care about. Ruth Reichl is an icon in the food world, although I will admit I won’t miss that stock photo of her grinning at me every month. I'm sure she'll find work if she needs it. Conde Nast, the parent company, elected to axe Gourmet while keeping Bon Appétit (Best Ten Minute Mains!) plus a couple of bride magazines, and some others. Stats are quoted that show the newsstand sales for Gourmet were down 25 percent, ad pages 32 percent, with less figures for the more plebian Bon Appetit, apparently saving it (for now).

There was also a piece in USA Today (hey – it was free at the Hotel, okay?) about Gourmet with little inset photos of Rachel Ray, Paula Deen, Sandra Lee, and Chris Kimball (I think for his “America’s Test Kitchen Show). Their take was that the food world is changing away from the “old timey” haute cuisine Gourmet approach. There’s a “dizzying array” of recipes available at your keyboard, along with specialty ingredients, blogs (I’m sure they mean this one), how-to websites and so forth. Anybody can be a food expert now. They also mention television resulting in “rocketing to stardom such cooking gurus (italics mine) as Rachel Ray, Sandra Lee, Paula Deen, Chris Kimball, Bobby Flay, and Buddy Valastro, the Cake Boss”. Who the hell is he? Paula "Y'all" Deen a guru? With her face on every chunk of Smithfield Ham? Not to me. Sandra Lee tells us how to do "Elegant meals partially made with store-bought or prepared ingredients". Oh, Goody. Sorry Mr. local farmer we don't need you - we got Kraft now! No mention of Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud, Jacques Pepin, Michel Richard, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Julia, or a host of others which provided the base for these fluff masters (excluding CK) to build on.

It also lists the 5 most popular epicurean titles on the news stand as (in order): Every Day with Rachel Ray; Cooking with Paula Deen; Cooking Light; Taste of Home; and Everyday Food. The last one is the only one I’ve ever seen. Thank God. Did I mention that Rachel Ray’s magazine is published by the Readers Digest empire? Fits, doesn’t it? Probably have a large print edition.

Chris Kimball wrote an article in the New York Post, talking about the plethora of amateur bloggers, instant cooks, and those star chefs that pretty well summed it up for me:

“To survive, those of us who believe that inexperience rarely leads to wisdom need to swim against the tide, better define our brands, prove our worth, ask to be paid for what we do, and refuse to climb aboard this ship of fools, the one where everyone has an equal voice. Google “broccoli casserole” and make the first recipe you find. I guarantee it will be disappointing. The world needs fewer opinions and more thoughtful expertise — the kind that comes from real experience, the hard-won blood-on-the-floor kind. I like my reporters, my pilots, my pundits, my doctors, my teachers and my cooking instructors to have graduated from the school of hard knocks”.

I can't improve on that, and, I’ll bet he
DFD

Reeling in the Years .. Last Chapter

After re-living my youthful escapades “up North”, we wended our way finally to East Lansing, my boyhood home (isn’t this riveting reading?) for our 50th High School Class reunion. Our last visit to East Lansing was for our last reunion, although the number escapes me at the moment. The sprawling MSU campus is still sprawling, and the town is showing its age, although a few of the shops remain. We took the opportunity check out my house at 258 Gunson, which given our mutual age is holding up pretty well.



A lot of the trees are gone and replaced by younger ones, but the street is still okay



With a tip of the hat to Mr. Wolfe, to some degree, you CAN go home again I guess..

We then began the purpose of the trip, the reunion. Friday night was homecoming for East Lansing High School, and we had planned to be in the parade



But the rainy weather canceled those plans (and the parade). Friday night began with a Pizza buffet at Coral Gables (still there) and our first chance to start re-acquainting ourselves with each other. I may have opined on this before, but it has been an interesting evolution of reunions culminating in this 50th. At first, say under 20 years, when we got together people pretty much stayed in the same cliques that they did when in high school. The jocks hung out together, the “in” social set of women who were cheerleaders kind of thing, and then there was the “nerd” crowd to which we belonged. Mostly ignored by the high profilers. But as the years do what they do to people, the edges got rounded (in a lot of ways), and you find out as always people are just people. Many have gone down different paths to various degrees of success, kids, changed marital status, and now we’re all friends. You get hugs from somebody who wouldn’t look at you in high school. It was a really fun time. Saturday night we had the dinner in the University Club on campus. There were tables with memorabilia on them,



some people brought our yearbook, pictures were taken, there were nice centerpieces with throwback stuff in them (the original Crackerjack boxes, for instance). There was no organized “program” although there were a few remarks made, but mostly we just socialized. The food was a buffet, but actually I’d have to say the food was good. There was some nice grilled flank steak, a glazed salmon dish, and I believe chicken. But the focus was generally on conversation. A fun time. Stuff like this



And we were honored to have our (State Championship) basketball coach join us, Mr. Gus Ganakas. Although he was Gus to us, some might remember that he was head coach at MSU from ’69 to ’76.



Again, as MFO said who would care about this stuff? Well, we did and as you know I sort of live my life on this thing, so wanted it to be part of the record. A highlight for me was catching up to one of my best friends in high school and finding out we still had a lot in common, and will continue to e-talk. Turns out he’s as much a beer connoisseur as much as I try to be about wine. In fact, he took a side trip to visit a brew pub in Grand Rapids as well as going to a special store there. His drive home will be with a full trunk.

So, that’s about it for “the trip’. Fun to see something different and re-kindle old relationships. Be sure to do it if you get a chance.

Roadie Notes:

Stats: 2733 miles, ~150 gallons of gas, 30 state license plates

Signs: Frog and Towed Towing Co.; Bedrock Liquors; Birdbath and Beyond; Pasties

Bumper Sticker: I survived cash for Clunkers

Quote: Speaker conversation overheard at a drive through at Fazoli’s: “welcome to Fazoli’s, I’m (Suzy) and I can take your order”.

Sights: Drive from La Crosse to Escanaba; seeing “aunt lee’s” store

Biggest Frustration: every day a new day trying to connect to the @#%$&&%@ internet

Foodie: Fried Pickles, Planked Whitefish, Perch, don’t worry about Butterburgers, Breakfasts at the Hungry Peddler (fer shure).


And through it all we

DFD

Reeling in the Years -- Chapter One

Although we're back in SOMD, the reports from the road will continue for a bit. That old "doing" instead of "writing"....

My mother had a sister, Leila Craig, my “Aunt Lee”. Their mother was a first generation Canadian, and both girls grew up in Michigan’s “Up North”, around Onaway, Rogers City, and Millersburg. Their father was a Scott/Irish photographer who made his living going around to the lumber camps taking photos of the crews and selling them as well as doing studio work in Rogers City. There were stories of him living “in the bush”, and eating blueberries to survive. Another story for another time. I am told that what sense of humor I retain probably comes from Frank.

The paths of the two girls parted, with my mother going to college in Mt. Pleasant and becoming a teacher, with the ordinary, plain, steady life style as you might imagine. Aunt Lee, on the other hand, stayed Up North, and lived quite a different life. She married my uncle, Bill (Barney) who was quite a character and an entrepreneur in and around Petoskey. They opened a linen store called "Barney’s Linens" in Petoskey and catered to all the expensive summer homes and residents in the area. So they moved around in those circles and “Aunt Lee and Uncle Bill” were quite well connected. They also had a store in Ft. Lauderdale, FL which they migrated to in the winter (this was before skiing was so big). Their specialty was fine linens, beautiful imported embroideries, Damask table cloths, napkins, monogrammed lush towels, and so forth. Every summer, I was allowed to go visit them for a week or so. There are many fond memories of fishing for perch on Crooked Lake, swimming in Walloon Lake, and having wonderful dinners of planked Whitefish in Julleret’s in Charlevoix. Uncle Bill had a brother named John who owned “Barney’s Bar”, and I spent many a night (probably without my mother’s knowledge) perched on a bar stool in Barney’s Bar listening to stories between Uncle Bill and his brother. Although I didn’t think anything of it at the time, I don’t think I ever saw Uncle Bill without a can of Budweiser in his hand. He was also quite the cook, and was legendary for preparing his “bittersweet chocolate sauce”. He guarded the recipe with his life, and I believe it went with him to the grave. Too bad.

So, after our lovely dinner in Harbor Springs and pleasant evening at Boyne Highlands we detoured a little bit and re-visited Petoskey as we hadn’t been there in we couldn’t remember how long. The original Barney’s Linens on Lake street, now the historic “gas light district” (thanks to Uncle Bill), is now Robert Frost’s



The Barneys lived in the apartment above the store (three windows) which you got to by going up several flights of stairs (door to the right over car). The land falls away toward Little Traverse Bay behind the store so the back side of the building had three levels. The basement, the store, and the apartment. Their back porch on the third floor had a lovely view of the bay, and again I spent many hours just sitting there with Bill and his Bud. The porch and the memories are still there:



As their business did well, they eventually moved across the street to a larger location located on a corner, now a furniture store.



Once again, they lived above the store with the same good views, but no porch. I missed that porch. MFO and I went in to the furniture store, and of course the current occupants didn’t know of the Barney’s or their successors Kalcheck Linens who bought the business after the Barney’s could no longer keep it going. Petoskey has changed, but there are still the memories of Buds, Perch fishing (and eating), Chocolate sauce, and Barney’s bar. If you have a chance to go there, be sure to visit the gas lamp district thank Uncle Bill



On the way down to East Lansing, we stopped off at another landmark in Grayling, Ray’s Canoe Livery. I had many float trips on the Au Sable River originating from there, as my father was an avid fly fisherman.





Cherish the moment, because sometime it will be the past.

It was nice to think of Aunt Lee and Uncle Bill and visit their legacy, and you can be sure they

DFD