tammylc

I swore I wasn't going to eat until the brunch today, but then I saw one of Donna's cupcakes in my kitchen, and I couldn't help but pour myself a glass of milk to go with. Speaking of the bar setup (thanks, Katie!), here's an approximate list of what I mixed up during cocktail hour: Gin 1 Aviation 2 Aviatrix 1 Mademoiselle 1 Juliet and Romeo 1 Basil Gimlet 1 Shiso Gimlet 1 Vesper 1 Kachumber Kooler 1 Clover Club 1 Songbird Rye 1 Scofflaw 1 Daywalker 1 Trinidad Sour Rum 3 Mai Tai 2 Mojito (one virgin) Brandy 2 Jack Rose 1 Apple Cart Tequila 1 Tomato Kiss 1 Maximilian Affair I think that's about it. It was a very gin-y night, but that seems appropriate for high summer...

The feast is done, the kitchen is clean, and everyone has gone back to their hotels and houses. Everything was delicious, and for once we didn't have twice as much food as we needed - only about 1.5 times, maybe... Here's the menu, hopefully others will get pics up soon. Chilled poached shrimp with basil oil and corn/tomato salsa (Alex) Beets with fennel, blueberries, and a bit of "real Spanish cheese" (tammylc) Potato-kale shooter with chorizo cream (Kerry Beal) Hake en papilotte with oyster mushrooms, dragon carrots, shallots and zucchini (Edsel, tino27, torakris) Duo of rabbit - leg confit and pasta with mustard cream sauce, and saddle cutlet with pickled zucchini and onion and a honey glaze (malawry) Grilled leg of lamb with fattoush salad (SamIAm & Joyce, Chef Crash) For dessert we had the usual groaning board buffet, featuring raspberries topped with lemon chiboust (Kerry Beal) and a cigarette cookie (malawry), freshly made baklava and semolina-cheese pastry (Chef Crash), chocolate truffles and bark (Kerry Beal), chocolate cupcakes (boagman's +1, Donna), and a bit of Achatz pie company four berry pie (Alex). I probably forgot something or someone, but there was a lot of wine, and I'm tired! Apologies if i left anyone on the cooking crew out! I only listed the person "in charge" up above, but tons of people pitched in to help prep and cook and plate and serve, so it was definitely a team effort, and thanks to everyone.

Foodie Field trip report 9 of us headed out in 2 cars to Dearborn to explore some of the area's Middle Eastern specialities. We started with a fantastic lunch at Al-Ameer. Again, more food than we could possibly eat. (I told them we only wanted family platter #1, not #2, grrr...) Then a visit to Super Greenland Market, where we found a wide assortment of middle-eastern and regular grocery items. Including the oddly named Spanish Cheese (we got the one that claimed to be "real spanish cheese), which we have no idea what we're doing with yet. But there was an entire refrigerator case filled with it at the market, so it must be popular in Middle Eastern cooking. Anyone have any ideas? After that it was two bakeries - New Yasmeen and Shatila. Shatila was our favorite (and everyone else's too, I think), and malawry and prasantrin waited on line for quite a while to get their mixed trays of baklava and other pastries, one tray of which will be put for our dessert at today's feast. Others of us got some of their fantastic ice cream to try (the pistachio was delicious, although not quite as good at Jeni's in Columbus, OH). And we wanted them juicing sugar canes - that was cool. Then we piled in the cars again to hit the restaurant supply shop, were several of us picked up things we just couldn't live without. Edsel, Malawry and I swung past the airport to pick up Fat Guy, and arrived home just in time to get ready to (ugh)... go eat more food! Edsel got pictures of all of this, I'm sure he'll post them when he gets time.

Those of us who are going on the Foodie Field trip to the restaurant supply store and Middle Eastern shopping in Dearborn will be driving right past the airport, probably some time right around then. So it will probably make sense for some car of us to save you a seat and detour through the airport. Send me flight etc details to me via email, okay?

Szechuan banquet was amazing! So much food, all of it delicious. After that we stopped into Morgan and York, a great wine and gourmet food shop located right next door. Now we're at Pacific Rim, where I'm drinking a Japanese Mojito - ginger infused rum, muddled mint and shiso, and yuzu-lime juice. So delicious!

This has just been the planning thread for the Gathering. Please use the report thread to post pictures, reports and etc of the weekend. See you all in a few hours!

T-Minus 3.5 hours until our first Gathering event begins, so I figure I'd start a thread for us to post reports, pictures, and whatever else to! I'm leaving work now to go meet up with Alex. Malawry should be cruising in in a couple hours. See the rest of you at dinner!

For those considering attending SELMA tomorrow morning, here's pertinent bits from the email blast about tomorrow's menu: **************************** Times, they are a changin’ over at Taste our Goods. Nora has already taken off on her whirlwind-life-world-tour and Suzy is about to go research her memoirs as well. New TOG boss Elena will join Suzy in the kitchen for her last performance: * Georgian cheesy bread – a yogurt dough filled with egg and yummy cheese. Served with grilled eggplant and slices of heirloom tomatoes. * A summertime quiche - with tomatoes, basil, summer squash and red peppers. Served with Sunseed organic melon. And then we have the pleasure of hosting the traveling team from Food and Water Watch. The gang includes chef Rocky Barnette who will be gracing us with a third special: * Savory yeasted waffles – with herb roasted chicken and apricots. Served with a bit of melon and ‘maters. Don't forget our fruit seasonal regular breakfast choices: Waffles with peaches or blueberries and Lisa’s peach bread pudding. So what the heck is this FM@SELMA thing anyway? FridayMornings@SELMA is your local-foods breakfast salon. The suggested donation for breakfast is $12 - $15. All proceeds go to the farmers and producers of your food and our small farms-small farmers initiative. FM@SELMA is here for you every week 6:30 to 10:00 am. Check out: Repasts, Present and Future for more information. Early arrival is suggested for those on the go (we get wait-listed around 8:30). FM@SELMA is all-volunteer. We need your help to sustain this local-foods breakfast salon. Read Lisa’s Repasts blog to get all the dish.

Oh noz! Crossing fingers.

Contact info - I've gotten phone numbers and etc from a few of you, but if you haven't sent me your contact info (email, phone) please do so in case we need to get in touch. My phone number is 734-276-3215 if you need anything. Looking forward to seeing everyone!

Coffee Workshop Sign Up Torakris (2, then 1) Sam Iam & Joyce (1 & 2) Alex (1 or 3) ChrisA2 (1 or 2) Edsel (1 or 2) Kerry Beal (1) prasantrin (2 then 1) Malawry Chris Hennes (maybe) I'll pass the numbers and preferences along to Allen, maybe he'll be able to work in elements of 1 and 2 for you! And I expect there won't be a problem adding folks at the last minute if others would like to join.

Sounds like we have at least 3 people interested in the coffee workshop, and an empty time slot Friday morning that'd be perfect for coffee. If anyone else is interested in joining in, please let me know so I can tell Allen how many to expect. The tasting will be free of charge, and Allen is suggesting that we do one of the following (and thinks that option #1 would be the most fun): 1. take 1 coffee brew it 3 ways (drip, chemex, vacuum, press) - compare 2. take 1 coffee - sample roast it to 4 different shades and taste 3. taste 3 different single origin espressos. I'm going to declare this to happen at 10 am, so that people can go to SELMA for breakfast if they want before heading over to Zingerman's Coffee Company. And it will be done in time for people to join us for foodie field trip activities in the afternoon if desired. I'll put Zingerman's Coffee Company on the map. Note that it is in the same light industrial strip that includes Zingerman's Bakehouse and Zingerman's Creamery, so if you want to check out those places as well, that's a good chance to do so. And for any true Zingerman's aficionados out there, please note that if you visit all three of these, you'll be 3/5 of the way to completing the Zingerman's Tour de Food. Add stops at the Roadhouse and the Deli to your day and you'll get a free t-shirt at the end of it.

Many people bring their own knives, and as you say, any special equipment that you like. We do have a very well equipped kitchen at the venue, so we have all the basics. We will use some of the feast money to buy beverages for Saturday evening, but people often will bring a beverage to contribute, like a special bottle of wine or something. That's not required, but is something you can do if you like. Similarly, some people will bring along food items they've made or purchased that they want to share, either as part of the Saturday meal, or as pre-dinner noshing. If you'd like to cook on Saturday, we'll talk Friday night about gathering at the Farmer's Market to shop, or if you shop on your own, just save your receipts and I'll reimburse you for expenses. (Insert Tammy's usual rant here about "think small, there are many courses!") But all you really need to bring is yourself!

If no one wants to step in and lead Tom's bread workshop, that would give us another possible slot for the coffee tasting if people other than Alex are interested. I'd also like to again put out the idea of doing the Jiffy Mix Factory Tour. It's been my experience that factory tours are a really fun thing to do, and this could be a neat Friday morning activity. We are growing short on time to put new activities together, but is there anyone who wants to offer another workshop in that Friday morning slot? Or are there other kinds of outings that you'd like me to try to organize? I'd mentioned visiting some farms upthread, but that didn't attract much interest. We could of course just have a leisurely day, or head out on our Foodie Field trip early.

Allan from Zingerman's Coffee Roaster contacted me to see if people would be interested in him running a coffee tasting during the weekend. I know we did this on the last Ann Arbor Gathering, and we have a lot of the same people, but I thought I'd throw his offer out there. If anyone is interested, please let me know ASAP - I'm still working on times with Allan, but Friday or Sunday afternoon seemed the most likely possibilities.

Thursday dinner at Chia Shiang - 7 pm Friday Bread workshop - starts at 8:30 am goes until about 12:30 pm. Foodie Field trip - We'll discuss this at the Thursday and Friday dinners and plot ourselves a plan - probably 1-ish Dinner at Grange - 7 pm Saturday - People who want to shop as a group should meet at the Farmer's Market at 9 am for best selection, but we can negotiate this on Friday depending on how late we end up being out on Friday. I am planning to offer a little cocktail hour at 5 pm-ish on Saturday - I'm no Violet Hour or Velvet Tango Room, but I've been having a lot of fun with mixology this last year and will have a fun menu of offerings. I assume we'll sit down to eat around 7-ish on Saturday, but we'll negotiate that based on number of courses and etc. Sunday - Brunch is at 11:30 am.

Thank you for the update! I did receive your ticket payment, thank you. I'll be giving the chef at Grange special request info tomorrow - Dance eats fish/dairy/eggs, but no other meat, right? If anyone else has special food requests, now is the time to speak up!

Lebanese peasant foods and pastries sounds awesome to me. Welcome! I'll PM you the information.

Nowhere in Ann Arbor is very formal, comes of being a college town. Certainly some people dining there dress up a little, but as long as you don't look raggedy pretty much anything goes. Definitely NOT a jacket's required place.

We have no shortage of excellent choices for all your cured meat needs. Ann Arbor is a cook's paradise - we have really excellent shopping, and you'll be able to find most anything you'd want here. Not to mention things you didn't know you wanted because you didn't know they existed.

The map is fixed now. I kept thinking that looked wrong... Google bug on that location, but it worked right if i entered the address manually. Thanks for pointing it out to me.

I've created a map with all of the locations for the Gathering. It's here. You'll be able to generate directions from wherever you're staying to the events of the weekend.

I wanted to make chocolate dipped but pitted stem-on cherries for a dinner last year, and did them with the paperclip trick. Really wasn't too difficult once I got the hang of it, but I did lose a couple, so it was good that I had more than I needed.

eGullet's PM system seems to be flaky right now. I was just sending out a reminder to people who've not yet paid that I need you to do that ASAP. My mail won't come until later this afternoon, but if your check isn't there, please use PayPal as described in the individual message I sent to you. I want to report final numbers to restaurants on Monday. In case we have further PM problems, it would be most useful if everyone could email me with their email address and phone number, just in case! My email is tammylc at pobox dot com. Thanks!

Well past asparagus - with such a warm spring, we were done asparagus by the second week of June! There were some peas the last time I was at the market, but that was a while ago. Fortunately, Real Time Farms comes to the rescue! Here's a list of everything that was at the market yesterday morning: http://www.realtimefarms.com/market/ann-arbor-farmers-market The Wednesday market is smaller than the Saturday market, so you can look back to the previous Saturday, or wait until after this weekend for the most up-to-date listing. I should also note for market lovers that there are several other marketing options while you're in Ann Arbor. There is a Thursday evening (3 pm to 7 pm) market outside Zingerman's Roadhouse that has some interesting vendors. For anyone going to SELMA Friday morning, a local farm does CSA distribution there on Friday mornings, and has a farm stand with extra produce. Also, my neighbor Kate has a farm just a couple miles from Great Oak and is growing some exotics like (fantastic) microgreens and edible flowers that aren't readily available at the regular market, as well as more standard stuff. She's promised me some baby golden beets for next weekend if I want them. I'll get a stock list from her mid-week next week and post it here so we can reserve some items. She's planning to come out and join us for a while on Saturday, but probably can't stay for dinner. I'll be putting together a Google Map with all these locations, etc.