Devotay

Sorry if I'm too late, but you said you wanted to catch a game. Try the Mudville Pub, across Thames from the Marriott. It actually has a beer garden IN RIGHT FIELD of a large ballpark. Good burgers, too.

Thank you, Ronnie. Long as I'm talking about my home town, lemme throw a few faves of my own out there: Mekong (in c'ville) - ya gotta try this BBQ pork sandwich wth the vietnamese cucumbers on a baguette - awesome, and cheap too! Thai Spice on Gilbert Street - I've never been to Bangkok, but this is some of the best Thai I've ever had - right up there with TAC Thai Quick in Chicago Sam's Pizza - Actually, Pagiliai's has the best pizza, but SAM'S has the best calzones and a really good, spicy dipping sauce. Takanami - JM Chen is right to recommned this place. Although the entrees can be a bit pricy for me, they're always dang tasty and the sushi there is unmatched in the area. Very cool fish tank too. Saigon to Bangkok - just a block from Mekong, it's like the restaurant on the moon - great food, no atmosphere. Get the Vietnamese pancake, the squid salad, and the papaya chicken. The Motley Cow - just around the corner from my joint. Very small restaurant with a very small menu, dinner only, food's always fresh and creative. The Lincoln Cafe - OK, half an hour up route 1 in Mt. Vernon, but still well worth a mention here. Bring your own wine and enjoy some of the best, most innovaative food in eastern Iowa. Iquana's Cafe - North Liberty. here's the thing, ordr a pitcher of beer and four glasses for your table. You get the full pitcher, and all the glasses are full too. They's never have to advertise. Now if they would just pour some better beers... John's - not a restaurant, but still worthy of note. This family-owned grocery has been an Iowa City institution for more than 150 years. John's has, by far, the biggest and best wine selection between Chicago & Denver. 1500 select wines, over 450 beers. Good fried chicken in their deli, too.

JM- very sorry you missed us this time around, we're all celebrating Devotay's big win! The readers of the Iowa City Press-Citizen have voted Devotay the BEST RESTAURANT IN THE AREA, and runner-up for MOST ROMANTIC. This after the readers of the Iowa Source, last March, voted Devotay the BEST RESTAURANT IN THE REGION, MOST ROMANTIC and MOST UNUSUAL ATMOSPHERE. (read about it at our website) I know, I'm bragging, but I can't help it. I'm awfully proud of my crew. Thanks for the endorsement, JM! Hope you'll be back soon

Soul Veg on the south side has some extremely vegan fare (and this is coming from an an avowed meat-eater)...but that could be the exception that proves the rule. ← Check out another exception at Dragonfly, in Columbus, OH Awesome food that convinced this omnivore

I am certain those were nasturtium leaves. I grow them, and they are delicious. A little peppery, great in salads, and the flowers are wonderful too. Awesome post, Jo. I hope you'll pardon me when I imitate you.

I would have taken her to Lula Cafe - best lunch in Chicago.

Ron, How can you possibly neglect The Dane County Farmers' Market in Madison, WI? Best dang FM in the country!

For the regional cuisine part of your trip, make sure you catch some of these places! Farmers: Rock Spring Farm Chris and Kim Blanchard, family, and friends 3765 Highlandville Rd. Spring Grove, MN 55974 563.735.5613 www.rsfarm.com Restaurants & Markets: Restaurant Alma 528 University Ave SE Minneapolis, MN 55414 612.379.4909 www.restaurantalma.com The Angry Trout Café Chef George Wilkes P.O. Box 973 Grand Marais, MN 55604 218.387.1265 www.angrytroutcafe.com Café Barbette Chef Ty Hatfield 1600 W. Lake St. Minnapolis, MN 612.827.5710 www.barbette.com Heartland Chef Lenny Russo 1806 St. Clair Ave. St. Paul, MN 55105 651.699.3536 www.heartlandrestaurant.com Lucia’s Restaurant & Wine Bar Chef Lucia Watson 1432 West 31st St (at Hennepin) Minneapolis, MN 55408-2605 612.825.1572 www.lucias.com St. Paul Farmers’ Market Locations throughout the city May - October www.stpaulfarmersmarket.com Surdyk’s Wine, Liquor, Cheese 303 East Hennepin Ave. Minneapolis, MN 55414 612-379-3232 www.surdyks.com Café Zander 525 Selby Avenue St. Paul, MN 55102 651.222.5224

I hope that you will consider the wide range of restaurants operated by the New England Culinary Institute. Loads of information about them is available at http://www.neci.edu/restaurants.html

I was proud to have been interviewed for the PBS Websitefor the show, aboutthe importance of the Slow Food Movement and how it is applied in day-to-day life. looking forward to the rest of the show

Enough with Chicago already! GO LUCIA!

That reminds me, there is also a Shepherd's Way Dairy in Minnesota that suffered a devastaing fire (arson). Read about how to help here.

'Fraid you'll need to leave the AI neighborhood for genuine Mexican, but there's a lot to be had. Chicago is a very easy city to get around, so go exploring! Carnitas Uruapan 1725 W 18th St, Pilsen 30 years makin pork ion the Michoacan style. They'll give you a taste before you order. La Oaxaquena 3382 N Milwaukee Ave, Kilbourn park Awesome spoes and ceviche La Pasadita 1132, 1140, and 1141 N Ashland Ave, Noble Square 3 locations practically right next door to each other, they have awesome tacos with no fillers like iceberg lettuce. Just meat with chopped oinions & cilantro. La Quebrada 4859 W Roosevelt Rd, Cicero Try the catfish - filete de chipotle Restaurante y Pozoleria San Juan 1523 N Pulaski, Humboldt Park As the name imples, get the pozole Salpicon 1252 N Wells, Old Town Upscale, contemporary Mexican, menu changes weekly Adobo Grill 1610 N Wells, Old Town Guacamole, tableside. Ixcapuzalco 2919 N Milwaukee Ave, Logan Square Chef Geno worked with Rick Bayless (Topolobampo/Frontera grill) for 12 years Nuevo Leon 1515 West 18th St, Pilsen Very possibly the best, most genuine Mexican in Chicago

Well, I'm usually a bottom-line kind of a guy, and the current batch of Clos du Val wines were awesome to me. If the filtration kept it from being even better, well, that's a shame, but they are awfully tasty just as they are.

Since I don't know as much about the procedure as perhaps I should, I did a little searching and came up with this: Read the whole paper here @ the American Vineyard Viticulture and Enology Lab

I'm looking for both! I need people who are living the ideals - members or not, making a living that way or not. The movement is about seeing to it that it remains possible for people to enjoy the wide variety, the bounty of foods that nature provides, rather than the standardized flavors being foisted on us by corporate agribusiness and Madison Ave. The book is about the people who see some logic to that and the other ideas the movement puts forth. Very few if any people actually live fanatically by each and every tenet of Slow Food, but my book will tell the stories of those who are doing it to some degree.

Jeni, I had your ice cream at North Market when I was researching there last July. Womderful stuff! What a wild array of flavors! I'll be back in Ohio this summer for research and to visit friends & family (small world - I grew up in Columbus!) Please PM me at your earliest convenience, I'd like to include you in my book.

Curious. I didn't know about that until you brought it up. A google search yields nothing by Parker about Clos du Val. Even stranger is that a search of the forum like this one on Parkers website revealed that no one there is talking about Clos du Val either.

After I ran that story in my column last week, Clos du Val's marketing guru, Holly Myers, wrote to say thanks and to add:

Without question, my biggest pet peeve is "...to perfection." Usually as in "grilled to perfection"... "A 10 ounce black angus beef tenderloin, grilled to perfection, with..." OK, so the other steaks aren't grilled to perfection? Just this one? What about the fish? I've actually seen the words "boiled to perfection" on a menu.

I'd be happy to explain, but there's really two things going on here. First of all there's the formal, worldwide movement. Recognizing that the enjoyment of wholesome food is essential to the pursuit of happiness, Slow Food U.S.A. is an educational organization dedicated to promoting stewardship of the land and ecologically sound food production; reviving the kitchen and the table as the centers of pleasure, culture, and community; invigorating and proliferating regional, seasonal culinary traditions; creating a collaborative, ecologically-oriented, and virtuous globalization; and living a slower and more harmonious rhythm of life. You can learn a lot more about the movement at places like www.slowfoodusa.org www.slowfoodforum.org www.terramadre2004.org www.unisg.it/eng/index.htm But really, the idea is far simpler than that. Slow Food is about linking pleasure and food with awareness and responsibility. To figure out whether what you are eating is slow food, just consider this: If it is raised with care, prepared with passion and served with love, then it is slow food.

It began simply enough. A Frenchman named Bernard Portet, with the backing of American John Goelet, began to search the world for new vineyard land that would be suitable for growing great classic grapes. After searching 5 continents, it was the perfect climate and soil of what is now called the Stag’s Leap District of California’s Napa Valley. Then undiscovered as a wine-growing region, Goelet & Portet would eventually make these Carneros hillsides famous. The first of their wines to gain attention was a 1972 vintage Cabernet which Portet made from purchased grapes because his new vineyard was too young to yield. It scored well at a tasting in Paris in 1976, then 10 years later the same vintage won the rematch of that classic tasting, demonstrating that Portet and Carneros could produce outstanding wines that aged with grace and dignity. No one was surprised. Portet has wine in his blood. His father was régisseur for no less than the legendary Bordeaux estate Château Lafite, and would take the boy through the caves and vineyards at a very early age. Today Portet is considered one of the visionaries, a founding father of the Stag’s Leap District. Using the proprietary fruit of Australian-trained Vineyard Manager Al Wagner, Portet makes some of the most consistent, top-flight wines in the Napa Valley. All their labels have the same joyful logo, with swirls surrounding three naked women. Nothing too risqué here though. The women are the three graces of Greek mythology, Aglaia (Splendor), Euphrosyne (Mirth) and Thalia (Good Cheer), three things you’ll find inside each bottle of Clos du Val as well. As is becoming a custom in California, Clos du Val’s wines are divided into 3 tiers: classic, estate and reserve. The concomitant rise in price though these tiers is due to increasingly careful hand-selecting for fruit and smaller, more carefully attend batches. Their just-released 2002 Cabernet is about $28/btl; $308/cs, while its sister the 2000 estate, called “Stags Leap District Oak Vineyard” is about $62/btl; $682/cs. The 1999 reserve could set you back $100/btl and $1100/cs, but absolutely worth it if you have the means. For those on more modest budgets, the classic 2002 Cabernet is a great choice for a romantic evening with your sweetie. Full of ripe cherry fruit, with just the right amount of oak and a nutty coffee finish, this is the best California Cabernet (in this price range) I have tasted this year. Take a bottle home, light a candle, and serve it with this Jamon-stuffed Duck Breast with Brandied Cherries 2 duck breasts 2 ounces Jamon de Serrano 4 ounces Demi-glace 2 ounces brandied cherries, drain and reserve brandy Salt and pepper, to taste 2 sprigs thyme, for garnish Using a sharp boning knife, split the breasts from the side to make a small pouch in each, and sprinkle lightly with salt, inside and out. Stuff with the Jamon, then sear over high heat, skin-side first, in a dry sauté pan. Deglaze with the reserved cherry brandy (WATCH OUT! Remove from stove first, BIG FLAME!), then simmer to a glaze. Add the demi-glace and simmer until dick reaches desired doneness (medium-rare is best). Add the reserved cherries at the last minute To serve, bias-slice the duck breast and fan out on a small plate, then spoon-over the demi-glace. Garnish with thyme and serve immediately.

Sam 'n' Ella's Roadhouse

Hello all. I have occasion to be attending a Slow Food conference in Oxford, Mississippi at the end of March. It has come to my attention that there might be a few people there who know a thing or two about barbecue. I'm looking for the best local hole-in-wall joints. Flavor, tradition and authenticity are all that matter. Wouldn't mind hearing about other (non-BBQ) eateries as well

TM - have you been to the cheeseplant norht of Cresco? Nice folks there, great price on the cheese ($5/lb!), and there's a honey producer right across the road. For finding Schwarz und Weiss in Iowa City, and Northern Prairie's full line of goat cheeses, try John's Grocery's newly expanded selection that compliments their best-in-the-state beer and wine selection. Also, of course, both of these cheeses are on my menu