Smitty

I have been very happy with the wild rice I have gotten in the past from Earthy Delights. They source it from Manitoba and sell it by the pound (around $10 per + shipping) under the name Canadian Lake Wild Rice. Here is a link to a blog post detailing the provenance of the rice along with a recipe for Wild Rice Cakes, Earthy's e-commerce store can be found at earthy.com

Don't know much about the Cleveland dining scene but I do know the Greenhouse Tavern is outstanding. It's casual and festive yet dignified which sounds right up your alley. At the end of the meal you can buy a round of beer for the kitchen. When you do they bring you a six-pack and send you bounding down to the basement kitchen ringing a large bell to a rousing ovation.

Two thick planks of bacon

Our latest abomination, Duck egg, bacon, spinach, smoked cheddar, and a grassfed beef patty on potato and carmalized onion focaccia.

Dear Lord. If I send you a check, will you send me some of that? Name your price! My mouth is watering just thinking about it and the uses to which I could put it! It's enough to make me buy a smoker. Here are the cloves of garlic for the next week's batch of tots. We've got 150 pounds of 'tater peeled and par-fried. The plan is to make a batch big enough to last us the whole week on our off-day tomorrow. Here are some onions that I am going to try the same process with. Thinking about doing a BBQ spice tot with the smoked onion powder and pepper jack dipping sauce. Those photos were taken about 4 hours into the smoke. They each got about 6 more hours before we pulled them and placed in the oven. Tomorrow by about noon we should have some delicious powders

Dear Lord. If I send you a check, will you send me some of that? Name your price! My mouth is watering just thinking about it and the uses to which I could put it! It's enough to make me buy a smoker. Still trying to get ahead on so many things right now. The batch of powder that I need to chop and mix for tomorrow night's tots is drying in the oven as I type. If we ever get in front of things enough to have extra "Magic" I would love to mail it our to you.

Agree with kayb - that's a fantastic idea. Do you have a preferred wood? And more directly on topic, I'll be stopping by to get that sandwich if I'm ever in your neck o'the woods. We mostly use a mix of oak and maple because they are the most readily available up here. We occasionally get cherry. We would like to use more hickory & mesquite but it just isn't practical. Tough to find around here and too expensive for the amount of wood we use.

Faygo is a soft drink that originated in Detroit (we are in Michigan and try to use only MI products). It is made in virtually every flavor under the sun these days and is the most widely available budget soda here in the Great Lakes region. What we carry is their small line (6 varieties) of glass bottles in "classic" flavors. This line is made without HFCS. As to where you might locate them in Florida I have no idea but as I'm sure you know there is a sizable population of former Michiganders in the Sunshine State. I would bet that it is available somewhere for the northerner looking for the taste of home. Actually, here is a form on Faygo's website to inquire about whow to locate their products outside the Midwest. Cheers

The tater tots are my monster right now. I created them, now I am faced with curning out 40 to 60 five-and-a-half ounce servings a day. For the first time in our week since opening I am actually ahead on them. 113 portioned servings are sitting in the deep freeze and 50 more pounds of potatoes are peeled and diced. My jumping off point for the recipe and process was this very informative blog post at Serious Eats. We make smoked garlic powder by smoking peeled cloves for about 12 hours then finishing them in a low oven overnight before grinding. The stuff is absolutely delicious, I have taken to calling it "Magic Jesus Powder." The tots also get minced fresh rosemary (today's batch was oregano because we didn't have nearly enough rosemary for the size batch I was doing). As I've learned, every detail is important when trying to get the familar consistancy. Dice the potato too big and there won't be enough swelled starch & oil to hold the mixture together. Too samll a dice / overcooked / not cooled quickly enough? The texture is way too close to mashed potato. The first couple of thousand I piped by hand (and I am still feeling it in the mornings). Then I found this little beauty: It works like a caulk gun. Attach a pastry bag at the end and fire away. Freeze on a sheet trey and package once frozen.

I just helped open an "artisan dinner." This is the meatloaf sandwich (yukon gold mash, red onion marmalade & blue cheese on a black pepper focaccia), along with an order of my handmade tater tots (smoked garlic and rosemary with an asiago dipping sauce)

Crispin makes an Extra Dry that is readily available around here. It is in a black can with gold type. I am also lucky enough to live about 20 miles from Uncle John's. Many bars even have it on draft, especially in the summer.

We try to walk that line with the chorizo tacos at our food truck. We aggressively spice the pork and top it with a mole verde of smoked tomatios/onion, queso fresco & cilantro. The mole and cilantro are sweet & cooling while the fatty/creamy queso coats your mouth. We also finish each one with a few segments of supreme lime to get a burst of acid in there too. We're proud of them, we all eat them every day and they are a good seller.

I would enjoy that job. Great looking sandwiches, whose the tiny lady? Not sure. That picture was taken by a customer & posted to our Facebook page. It was the only picture I could find of that sandwich except a really bad one someone posted to foodspotter.com

I work for a food truck that specializes in obscene sandwiches. Here are a couple of my favorites from this season. Smoked pork shoulder, grilled apple, braised cabbage & pickled peppers [On the right] Smoked leg of lamb (rolled with salsa verde), heirloom tomato, chickpea & mint Smoked brisket, pickled peppers & onions, chev, parsley Smoked pork belly, (pork fat) seared haloumi, tomato, kale Those were all one-off specials. This one is from our everyday offerings; the Pollo Torta: chicken, queso fresco, black beans, pickled tomatios, cilantro & avocado with a pork stock based dipping sauce

Lower Michigan, the local favorite here is the honeycrisp.