eG Foodblog: Smithy - Clinging to Summer's Backside in Duluth

[Priscilla]

Nancy, your blog is great! There can never be too much detail about such interesting things.

(Your big pale tortoiseshell cat is beautiful. Of course the others are too!)

[LikestoEatout]

Thanks for all the good pictures. For 20 years our annual fall trip was to Grand Marais with variations on how to get there from the far west suburbs of Chicago. We haven't been in about 4 years now, your pictures make me ready to go! Thank you!

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Welcome, LikestoEatout! I'm trying to imagine the variations. Must have been at your end, unless you went around the lake?

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We have done the Circle Tour a few times but we vary the ways we go through Wisconsin. Now that 61 has been changed and widenend some, the traffic sure is crazy, I miss being able to pull over and walk along the shoreline. Have you ever noticed the chalet high on the bluff near the tunnel outside of Two Harbors? That's Jumerhof, owned by Jim Jumer of Peoria. My uncle did all the woodwork for him and I have had the chance to go up there, a spectacular view of Lake Superior. And to keep this food related, one of my favorite places to eat is Birch Terrace in Grand Marais.

[Milagai]

please explain "the braiser" where you made those

lovely looking potatoes?

it looks like its on the stovetop.

what is the pot made of? 

or are you using some other pot for this?

and more details on braising technique and recipe please?

milagai

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Hi, Miligai!

The pot is an enameled cast iron casserole, or braiser, I picked up on eBay a while ago, when Fifi hypnotised a bunch of us into buying Le Creuset in a very informative thread about the cookware. This particular braiser is from a brief period when LC was doing art deco style, and I've never seen another like it. (That makes me wonder if it's really LC, but what the heck - I like it, and it works.) When I first started making this style of potato, I did it in a covered sauce pan and it worked fine. However, I learned this winter that braisers really and truly do work better if they're made of a massive material such as cast iron, or clay - I presume because the braiser evens out heat fluctuations, but I don't know whether anyone's really figured it out yet. I highly recommend the eGullet Culinary Institute's course, The Truth About Braising: an eGCI seminar and lab. Several of us spent the week comparing techniques, cookware and results, and the ensuing discussion taught me a lot. The link I gave you is to the introduction, but from there you can go to the various lab sessions and question and answer sessions. The Q&A and discussion threads are still open, too, so you can take the course on your own, draw conclusions and continue the discussion.

I used this braiser on the stovetop of my electric stove. It could be done in the oven, but for something quick like this I find the stovetop more efficient. I scrubbed a dozen or so of the new potatoes I bought last weekend, leaving them whole. They went into the pot with 3 tbsp butter and 1/3 c. water. It's important not to use too much water, because if you do you'll have steamed potatoes with soft peels. The result is different. Simmer on low for about 20 minutes, then add a couple of cups of sliced carrots. Simmer until everything's tender, then toss all with a few tbsp. of chopped dill. I've had these stalks of dill standing in a vase in the kitchen, just for this purpose.

Why exactly the potatoes come out differently when braised, instead of steamed, I don't know. I do know that with only a small amount of water in that pot, it's pretty much evaporated by the time the potatoes are done. That leaves the potatoes with a buttery silky sauce in the bottom of the pot so that when you toss everything together it coats those tender-crunchy skins. When you bite into a potato it pops in your mouth like a grape and the buttery sauce mixes with the smooth young potato meat...oh, it's a treat! I'm not posting the recipe on RecipeGullet because it isn't mine to post, but this should give you enough to go on. Otherwise, I recommend picking up a copy of the New York Times Cookbook.

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thank you so much for all that info!

milagai

[Smithy]

Thanks for all the good pictures. For 20 years our annual fall trip was to Grand Marais with variations on how to get there from the far west suburbs of Chicago. We haven't been in about 4 years now, your pictures make me ready to go! Thank you!

←

Welcome, LikestoEatout! I'm trying to imagine the variations. Must have been at your end, unless you went around the lake?

←

We have done the Circle Tour a few times but we vary the ways we go through Wisconsin. Now that 61 has been changed and widenend some, the traffic sure is crazy, I miss being able to pull over and walk along the shoreline. Have you ever noticed the chalet high on the bluff near the tunnel outside of Two Harbors? That's Jumerhof, owned by Jim Jumer of Peoria. My uncle did all the woodwork for him and I have had the chance to go up there, a spectacular view of Lake Superior. And to keep this food related, one of my favorite places to eat is Birch Terrace in Grand Marais.

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Grand Marais has a lot of great places to eat. There's at least one good bakery on the way to Grand Marais, too, around Tofte or Cross Creek. I was sorry not to get that far up during this blog time.

[snowangel]

Thanks for taking me back to Russ Kendall's! Last time I was there was the Sunday after Thanksgiving on the way back from our annual Blue Fin Bay trip (four of us women who met in college). We noticed that in the bar area to the right of the counter that they were busy assembling shipping boxes; apparently they do quite a bit of mail order for the holidays.

Thanks, too, for reminding me of how much things have changed up there. We have been going to Duluth for many years. We have a good friend who lives right on the lake, and my mom worked at Peace Church for a bit over a year. When we visit our friend, we always cook in, and I'll have to remember to hit the markets you've mentioned. Last time I shopped there, it was at the Cub on the hill, and I was amazed at the selection of produce -- even Thai eggplants. It wasn't that long ago that you couldn't even get cilantro north of the Twin Cities.

Is that Grand Superior Lodge near Castle Danger? We stayed at some really old cabins at Castle Danger many years ago. I believe that that was one of the original resorts on Lake Superior and I recall reading that one of the cabins was dismantled and taken to the Historical Society. But, I could be wrong.

Is the bakery further up the shore you are thinking of at Blue Fin Bay? We've always wanted to eat at the Angry Trout, but like many places that far up, it's only open during the spring/summer/early fall.

Appreciate your showcasing one of the most beautiful areas anywhere!

[kayswv]

[

Hmm. Now I remember the old song "Two to Duluth", about the woman trying to buy train tickets, and the ticket master replying "Ta rum te dum te dum" to the hapless woman because he thought she was saying nonsense syllables. They sure knew how to write 'em back in the 20's.

There is another interchange in which the passenger asks, "Does this train go to Duloot?" and the conductor/ticket agent says, "No, this train goes toot, toot."

BTW, I have enjoyed your blog. My grandparents owned a small farm in Homecroft which I visited every summer until I was 12. Before that, they had 10 acres of raspberries off the Gotenburg Road and Grandpa was president of the St

Louis County Berry Growers Assoc. circa 1940.

Al (etoiledunord) posting under wife Kay's screen

[fifi]

Thank you so much for the explanation of that pot. I have never seen such a thing. Who knew that Le Creuset got into the art deco business. That is just about the coolest pot I have ever seen. You probably have a real collectors item there.

Thanks also for the smoked fish tour. I was not aware that smoked fish was such a big deal there. On the freezing question . . . I have friends in Bellingham WA and when I go there I have to go by Vis Seafoods and load up. They package the fish in the cryovac things and in that, it freezes very well. I found a hunk of smoked halibut that had gotten lost in the back of the freezer when I moved. It had been there about a year. It was fine. Keep in mind that I kept my freezer well below zero. I wouldn't expect a refrigerator freezer to match up. However, I would be wary of freezing it packaged any other way. Regular plastic wraps and containers are too permeable and you will get some freezer burn pretty quickly. You are also likely to get smoked fish flavored ice cream. (Voice of experience.) I don't know much about the Food Savers but if the plastic is very low permeability as I suspect it is then that should work ok. I just don't know. I have only frozen it in the cryovac it came in, unopened of course.

[Anna N]

While the opportunity still exists - thanks for a great blog!

[Smithy]

While the opportunity still exists - thanks for a great blog!

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Thank you! I'm glad you've enjoyed it!

[Smithy]

Thanks for taking me back to Russ Kendall's!  Last time I was there was the Sunday after Thanksgiving on the way back from our annual Blue Fin Bay trip (four of us women who met in college).  We noticed that in the bar area to the right of the counter that they were busy assembling shipping boxes; apparently they do quite a bit of mail order for the holidays.

Thanks, too, for reminding me of how much things have changed up there.  We have been going to Duluth for many years.  We have a good friend who lives right on the lake, and my mom worked at Peace Church for a bit over a year.  When we visit our friend, we always cook in, and I'll have to remember to hit the markets you've mentioned.  Last time I shopped there, it was at the Cub on the hill, and I was amazed at the selection of produce -- even Thai eggplants.  It wasn't that long ago that you couldn't even get cilantro north of the Twin Cities.

Is that Grand Superior Lodge near Castle Danger?  We stayed at some really old cabins at Castle Danger many years ago.  I believe that that was one of the original resorts on Lake Superior and I recall reading that one of the cabins was dismantled and taken to the Historical Society.  But, I could be wrong.

Is the bakery further up the shore you are thinking of at Blue Fin Bay?  We've always wanted to eat at the Angry Trout, but like many places that far up, it's only open during the spring/summer/early fall.

Appreciate your showcasing one of the most beautiful areas anywhere!

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That Cub is the one I go to most often, for the reasons you describe. Now there's a Festival Foods in town, and their selection is pretty good too - although still not up to Cub standards.

The cabins you stayed in may well have been the Star Harbor Resort cabins in Castle Danger, that were demolished to make way for the Grand Superior Lodge. I lived less than a mile from there at the time, but I've forgotten what happened to all the cabins. I just remember the funny quirky statue of the round-bodied little man with the top hat. I hope he's safely in somebody's yard. There are other cabins around the area too, that have been moved or destroyed, so you might have been in one of those.

I was thinking of someplace called something like the Cross Creek Bakery, but I don't know if that's right. They have, or at least used to have, a wallful of bread racks with boules and long loaves, all artisan styles made on the premises.

The Angry Trout Cafe specializes in seasonal foods and sustainable business, and they do an excellent job of it. They make a point of composting, recycling, that sort of thing. I think if you take something to go, you get a coffee cup that they picked up at a yard sale rather than some throwaway paper or styrofoam thing. Don't quote me on that; I might be thinking of somebody else.

[Smithy]

[

Hmm.  Now I remember the old song "Two to Duluth", about the woman trying to buy train tickets, and the ticket master replying "Ta rum te dum te dum" to the hapless woman because he thought she was saying nonsense syllables.  They sure knew how to write 'em back in the 20's.

There is another interchange in which the passenger asks, "Does this train go to Duloot?" and the conductor/ticket agent says, "No, this train goes toot, toot."

BTW, I have enjoyed your blog.  My grandparents owned a small farm in Homecroft which I visited every summer until I was 12. Before that, they had 10 acres of raspberries off the Gotenburg Road and Grandpa was president of the St

Louis County Berry Growers Assoc. circa 1940.

Al (etoiledunord) posting under wife Kay's screen

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Someplace, I actually have the music for that. I think the Depot Museum put together a music book called the Duluth Ditty Bag some years back, and I couldn't resist it.

It's been really interesting, writing about this place and having people like you pop up with memories about it from earlier years. It's fun to read the memories. Thank you.

[Smithy]

Thank you so much for the explanation of that pot. I have never seen such a thing. Who knew that Le Creuset got into the art deco business. That is just about the coolest pot I have ever seen. You probably have a real collectors item there.

Thanks also for the smoked fish tour. I was not aware that smoked fish was such a big deal there. On the freezing question . . . I have friends in Bellingham WA and when I go there I have to go by Vis Seafoods and load up. They package the fish in the cryovac things and in that, it freezes very well. I found a hunk of smoked halibut that had gotten lost in the back of the freezer when I moved. It had been there about a year. It was fine. Keep in mind that I kept my freezer well below zero. I wouldn't expect a refrigerator freezer to match up. However, I would be wary of freezing it packaged any other way. Regular plastic wraps and containers are too permeable and you will get some freezer burn pretty quickly. You are also likely to get smoked fish flavored ice cream.  (Voice of experience.) I don't know much about the Food Savers but if the plastic is very low permeability as I suspect it is then that should work ok. I just don't know. I have only frozen it in the cryovac it came in, unopened of course.

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Smoked fish ice cream. Hmm. No, I don't think I want to try it. Now that you mention it, I think the Northern Waters Smokehaus fish may be frozen when it's shipped out. It's certainly cryovac-packed and it keeps well, but they ship it in a styrofoam cooler with an ice pack, just to be sure. That's a bit of overkill when it's being delivered to someone up here in January, but it would matter for a shipment to Texas. Do you suppose packing it in a home food saver gizmo, then in a freezer bag, would do the trick? I don't especially want smoked-fish-flavored berries, either. Though who knows, maybe that could become the next North Shore fusion discovery.

Edited to add: I picked up that LC dirt-cheap because nobody else wanted it during the bidding. I guess it looked too odd. I like odd. I love a bargain.

Edited August 24, 2005 by Smithy (log)

[fifi]

That is the way Vis ships as well. They also keep their stocks frozen though you can get it in a refrigerator case in the store. It works fine. I put it in my freezer just as I receive it. I don't think the extra freezer bag would add anything.

What I don't know about the home food savers is if the film you buy is the same low permeability plastic that is used in the commercial models. I am not saying it isn't, I just don't know. I don't have one and I haven't researched it. I know there are some threads about them here but I don't recall if the discussion got that technical. If I find something I will post a link.

[Dianne]

Loved your blog, Nancy. The smoked fish had me drooling. Thanks for doing this.

Dianne Ross.

[snowangel]

Yes, it was Star Harbour. That was it. We stayed in cabin 13, at Castle Danger. It had quite the ring to it. My BIL made the most wonderful french toast up there one morning with sourdough from ACME in Berkeley.

We are thinking of different bakeries. I will need to keep my eyes peeled!

[mizducky]

Hmm.  Now I remember the old song "Two to Duluth", about the woman trying to buy train tickets, and the ticket master replying "Ta rum te dum te dum" to the hapless woman because he thought she was saying nonsense syllables.  They sure knew how to write 'em back in the 20's.

←

Heh. My hometown of Nyack NY doesn't even have a whole song of its own, but it did at least get a quick name-check in "Let's Get Away From It All" -- as in "Let's take a kayak to Quincy or Nyack..."

All those lovely smoked fish pictures have me drooooooooooling! I shall have to do something about that, and soon.

Very enjoyable blog! Thanks a bunch!

[Smithy]

So. Something may have eaten one of my cats. Russ and I have eaten our last foodblog dinner. And, just as I was about to post, the computer ate the post. I'll try again.

Cakewalk, this is for you, if you're still reading. Ice cream is easy. You want an ice cream maker. I'm still learning to use the Cuisinart ICE-50 (smaller than my ice-and-rock-salt job) but I know it makes good ice cream. Here are the steps, as done tonight.

Start with the ripest fruit you can find. 4 or 5 plums or nectarines are probably plenty. I did 6 tonight, and they were too many for my 1.5 qt machine. (Peel them, if you want. I only bother when they're peaches, with that fuzzy skin. Otherwise, I figure the peel adds interesting flecks of color.) Cut the fruit and put it into a blender. Add the juice of half of a lemon.

Blend it a bit, to get the juices flowing.

Add a cup of sugar. Blend it well.

Put the mix into the canister of your ice cream maker.

Add enough cream, half-and-half, or milk to come up to the "fill" line. On mine, it's someplace more than an inch below the top, but there's no "fill" line as such. You'll see why I know I put too much in, if you keep reading.

Start churning. At first, it will be this unlikely white color because of the cream on top.

Later, things will begin to mix. You'll see the colors even out, and the white disappear. That's fine. However, if you see the ice cream start to pooch out through the hole where you're supposed to be adding nuts, you added too much batter at the outset. This is kind of a retroactive warning - but you can learn, and change accordingly. For example, I now know to use less fruit and less cream.Someday, I'll have proportions as reliable as those for my full-sized ice ceam maker.

By the way - there's absolutely nothing wrong with the flavor. It's just that, if the ice cream migrates up through the hole in the maker, it won't stay in contact with that cold canister, and it won't get as creamy.

You can see that in this picture, where the ice cream is rather gooey. What this photo doesn't show is that the ice cream down inside the canister was quite firm. You need to NOT overfill the canister. That's all.

Put it in a separate container to set up in the freezer.

Soft or hard, it's darned good, and you can mess with the recipe to fine-tune it to your heart's content. Enjoy!

[Smithy]

Varmint, this one's for you, although you've probably gone to bed by now. I went into Silver Bay to find fish at Zup's, the local grocery store.

I mentioned upthread that Zup's has expanded tremendously. Here are a couple of interior shots. It's better now than the best Duluth store used to be. As it happens, a number of the Duluth stores have improved commensurately. However, as I learned today, Zup's still has the edge on some things.

Here's a sampling of their produce. I don't much like all the individual plastic wrap, but that doesn't change my admiration for the selection. Eggplant! and here, cilantro! As noted upthread, cilantro couldn't have been found north of the Twin Cities only a few years ago.

What I didn't get a shot of was the meat or the fish. Zup's makes their own sausage. They also smoke fish. What I'd forgotten was that they bring in fresh fish on a regular basis. There were beautiful herring, fresh, that I almost bought. I can feel another bout of samke harra coming on soon, and those herring will have the starring role.

Still...I had my heart set on walleye, and that's what I bought. It had been frozen. One knows, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that walleye that's been caught and frozen will not hold a candle to a walleye caught that day on the lake, dipped in batter and thrown into hot oil for shore lunch. It just can't happen. This walleye didn't come out of my lake today, but it came from this area. One does what one can.

First, I chopped up some pecans. My knife skills aren't good enough to keep pecans from walloping all over the floor without a containment system, so I use this plunger-chopper thingie.

I mixed up some egg for a batter, and thinned it slightly (but still too much, I think) with water. I mixed salt, white pepper, a touch of paprika and some dry mustard with the pecans. Each walleye filet was dipped in the egg batter then dredged in the pecan mixture, then thrown into a pan with a bit of hot oil (vegetable oil and butter) to brown.

After they'd browned I removed them to a separate plate and deglazed the pan to make sauce. Main deglazing liquid was meyer lemon juice, then dry vermouth, then a bit of water to tone down the tastes. After things had cooked down a bit, I added butter...then dijon mustard...then more water...then more butter..etc. to taste. Eventually it cooked down to something I liked, and I poured it over the filets after placing said filets on beds of mache. The final improvement was a drizzle of the vinaigrette I'd made for the salad. What was it: the vinegar? The garlic? I don't know, but that vinaigrette made the difference between "good" and "wow" on that fish and those greens.

Behold: pecan-crusted walleye filets with sauce, on mache.

The salad that went with it looked like this:

Here's the entire table spread:

Composed garden salad in the background. Good clean water in the blue glasses, Alderbrook OVOC Zinfandel in the clear glasses. There's a panade in the oven, but you can't see it.

Edited August 25, 2005 by Smithy (log)

[Smithy]

Why dinner is usually late around here:

There are always interesting distractions. Here, for your perusal as I wind (yank?) this down, are a few.

I went out to pick sorrel for the panade that's just now finishing in the oven, too late for dinner, and found this little guy.

After I came back in and was prepping some food, a hairy woodpecker was finally good enough to pose for a shot.

When one owns a young and energetic dog, there's always a certain amount of running around the yard to keep him entertained. Tonight, because I was cooking, he and Tab Hunter chose to spar inside the house instead.

Tab Hunter is nearly blind in both eyes - he can detect light, and that's about it, but he's over 17 years old and he is by golly not going to let some upstart dog push him around. They have grand fun sparring. They enjoy it equally.

Here they are, doing it again, with Blondie and Ichi-Ban safely ensconced on the rail. The food connection is twofold: first - it's hard for me to cook when this is going on. I'm too busy laughing. Second, that's a thyme plant below the younguns and on the table.

My Uncle John used to say that the day you stop learning is the day you start to die. I've always agreed with that sentiment, and admired my uncle for living it into his late 80's. I want to thank you folks for the things I've learned. By exploring this area to show it to other people, I've seen it with fresh eyes. I've learned little maybe-tricks like using pasta to stitch a chicken thigh shut. I haven't tried it yet, but I will. I've re-learned that I like smoked trout. I've read some wonderful memories of this area. I've learned about osage oranges/a.k.a. hedge balls. I've learned that there's even more smoked fish around here than I realized, of a greater variety. I've learned that there's more fresh fish to be had, too, than I'd realized, and that it doesn't require a major trek.

Thank you all for your encouragement and comments, for reading along and asking questions. It's been fun.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Edited August 25, 2005 by Smithy (log)

[helenjp]

Well, on the other side of the world, I'm just back from the fish-shop too!

Thanks for the wonderful picture(s) of your world, and if the only thing I learned was to eat plum icecream with red wine, it would have been well worth it, but in fact, there's been so much more...thank you!

[bleudauvergne]

Beautiful blog. Thanks for sharing your corner of the world. I particularly loved the ice cream.