Category Archives: Food

Chunky Pork Shoulder Ragu

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Today I started on one of our favorite meals, Chunky Pork Shoulder Ragu. It’s from a wonderful cookbook titled “The Italian Slow Cooker” by Michele Scicolone.

This recipe is on page 67 and it involves browning a pork shoulder in olive oil, some onion, fennel, sage, rosemary and quite a bit of tomato. Then you place it all in your slow cooker for six hours. At the end of that time the pork shoulder comes out falling apart. You just need to transfer it to a pot, attack it with a fork, and it falls apart without much effort.

Here’s a photo of it about three quarters of the way through:

Chunky Pork Shoulder Ragu

Chunky Pork Shoulder Ragu

At the end I cooked up a bit of Rigatoni pasta and used it as a substrate for this Ragu. Altogether a wonderful meal, and yes, it made leftovers.

If you don’t have this wonderful cookbook in your collection I can recommend it at least for this recipe. I’ve included a link to B&N, so buying it there will go a long way in fighting the scourge of Amazon.com. 🙂

Julia Child Inspired Macaroni and Cheese

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Julia Child Inspired Macaroni and Cheese

Tonight I decided that I would make something that I am quite fond of,
and something that I came up with all by myself, as far as I know. This
recipe for Mac and Cheese creates a different dish than the other Mac
and Cheese dishes I’ve had in the past and it’s quite good. I’m an
ardent believer that anyone can cook, even those who do not think they
can or should. Everyone Can Cook.

Here’s how I set it up:

Ingredients:

2 1-pound boxes of Cavatappi Pasta (hollow corkscrew shaped pasta, uncut
elbow macaroni essentially)
4 cups of milk (any kind, probably good at 2%)
4 tbsp of Butter
6 tbsp of AP Flour
At least 1 pound or more of any kind of cheese you like

Procedure:

Boil the pasta until al-dente and drain and put aside. Get a deep
saucier, they are halfway between frypans and dutch ovens. Warm the
butter with low heat until it starts to bubble, just gently bubble. Then
add the AP flour in one shot. Stir like mad for about 2 minutes. Pour
milk into 4 cup plastic measuring cup and microwave for about 3-4
minutes (watch as milk can boil and take off on you and make a hell of a
mess) right before the milk boils and expands, take it out and pour it
all in the saucier on top of your roux (which is what the flour and
butter did together) and stir that for the next 4 to 5 minutes, bring up
the heat, and stare at it, boil is coming. Once the milk starts to boil,
add salt and pepper, a pinch and a few grinds of both. You now have a
finished Béchamel Sauce! Now you can augment it. You can add anything
you like to this sauce, it’s like culinary velcro. It’ll accept a huge
amount of cheese, various different kinds of cheese, whatever your
little heart desires. Start with about a pound, more if you like cheese
a lot. I wouldn’t go beyond 2-3 pounds of cheese. The sauce can also
accept any herbal additions, like Thyme or Parsley or even Sage if you
like. Rosemary is nice, but it’s really quite twiggy and resinous so
unless you got a huge hankering for Rosemary, keep that out. You could
also sweat-and-brown onions or garlic or even shallot. Keep in mind that
onion can take an insane amount of punishment but it’s cousins cannot,
garlic and shallot are very quick, say 20-30 seconds of sauté before
they are toast. You could even go with raw garlic or shallot, as they’ll
work their magic once they get to the oven. With the drained cooked
pasta, mix that with the cheese sauce in another bowl, prepare a
properly sized vessel for baking and spray Pam on it first, that’ll help
keep it from sticking to the surface later on. Get that oven up to 350
degrees and throw the mix in the vessel into the oven for half an hour.
When it comes out the top will be lightly browned and bubbly. If you
want more brown, leave it in longer. Timing is flexible as long as your
temps are right – if your oven doesn’t have an over thermometer, stop
reading, go to the market and get one right now.

It makes enough to feed two for almost a week. Four for half a week. Six
for two days. Eight to Ten well, say goodbye to it. 🙂

That’s it, that’s dinner. A little salt and pepper, maybe some garlic
salt, celery salt, or seasoned salt and you’ll be on your way. If you
are afraid of your sauce breaking (which is to say, falling apart into
oil, water, and assorted debris) don’t be. You’re cooking the entire
thing and the Béchamel has no time to fall apart. You can add various
other small amendments if this is really a huge concern for you. Ground
mustard, about 1-2 tsp is good to keep the fat and water together and it
doesn’t contribute any unusual flavors. If you are working with really
freakishly mishmashed cheese selections you might want to look into
adding Sodium Citrate to the sauce. This chemical additive can help keep
different cheeses integrated and it doesn’t affect flavor, appearance,
or edibility. Tread carefully, as sodium citrate is the path to
Velveeta. Now you know how velveeta is made, hah.

One thing to say, the roux made in the first steps is Julia’s roux. One
thing that I do is monthly or so I take a stick of butter, weigh it by
gram scale, and then cook it down until it’s bubbling and then add the
exact same weight of AP flour to that and cook for 2-3 minutes. You
don’t want to see it get any darker than white to blond to “yellow corn
kernel” color, and yes, for a roux the color is VITAL. White and yellow
are good, brown or red is good for other things, not anything like this.
Once it’s all cooked and unmercifully whisked transfer it to a bowl and
wrap it up and throw it in the fridge. You now have the worlds most
perfect thickener. It’ll thicken anything. It’s flavor neutral and very
handy. Just scrape a little out with a fork and you’re all set. The
applications are endless. You can make lump-free gravies, sauces, soups,
stews, or anything else that needs a little thickening power – just add
a little at a time and stir like mad. One thing about roux made with AP
Flour is that it only reaches maximum thickening power when the water
it’s in reaches a boil. Also, since it’s wheat flour and tossed with
water you will have a minute but present amount of gluten there. So if
you don’t like gluten, this isn’t for you.

If you try this recipe and like it, please leave a comment. I think
anyone can make this dish as it’s very forgiving if you make any
blunders. The only real OMG place is that roux in the beginning. A dark
roux will crap out on you and your Béchamel will either not form or
half-ass form and the color will be off and there will be more caramel
notes in the final dish. It’s still edible, but, just be careful of that
color.

Good Luck!

Restaurant Review: Seasonal Grille in Hastings, MI

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Several weeks ago Scott bought a Groupon for a new restaurant we had never even knew existed. It’s called “Seasonal Grille” and it’s in Hastings, Michigan. We had no clue as to where Hastings was as we’ve never been there before. Turns out that it’s on M–43, which is a rather circuitous state route here in Michigan. We live just off Gull Road and as it turns out, Gull is also known as M–43. We followed the road along, from Kalamazoo to Richland, then to Danville and finally to Hastings. Parking was not an issue as Hastings was about the same size as Parchment, MI – which is to say, very small. It reminded me a lot of Cortland, New York. The restaurant itself is on a corner lot and is very bright inside and has a lot of windows, making the approach very easy for us. The Groupon was a half-off deal for a bottle of wine, an appetizer, and a main course.

We were greeted promptly and seated as it was rather late, later than most people would dine so the atmosphere was more intimate and relaxed than it otherwise would have been if we had arrived during the dinner rush. The interior is modern and spacious with a well-stocked bar which serves as a large island in the center of the establishment. The first thing I noticed was the interior lighting. I’ve had a standing issue for quite a long time with most restaurants, including all of them in Kalamazoo, that restauranteurs believe that subdued lighting lends ambiance. It’s irritating. It’s not ambiance if you cannot see anything because it is so very dim inside! It was a delight to finally find a restaurant that pumps up the ambient light as well as features strong but well-diffused lights over each table. When one eats, you taste first with your eyes. Being able to see things, being well-lit, this is totally refreshing and I cannot express how much I approve and enjoy this dining environment. Other restaurants can take a page from Seasonal Grille when it comes to interior design and especially their generous lighting strategy.

We shared a large meatball appetizer which was about the size of a baseball. It was well cooked and had a very fine texture which we both commented on. The presentation was very nice and the speed from the kitchen was exactly what we expected. It wasn’t rushed out, and it wasn’t late, it was just right. There was a little fumble with our wine order as the bottle we selected was found to be out, but switching to another varietal wasn’t a problem. We both had ordered their “Taste of Italy” which was listed as Manicotti, Lasagna, and Chicken Parmesan for $14.95. This was one of their most expensive dishes on the menu and the price was another huge surprise. The order was finished by the kitchen and arrived, everything was piping hot and fresh and the colors, the texture, the taste, and the presentation were all spot-on. I still am shocked that they priced out that dish to $14.95. The prices, we both commented as we ate our meal, were remarkably low considering the quality coming out of the kitchen. I would have expected a price point around $16.95 to $18.95. That a good meal for such a great price can be had locally is quite nice. For dessert we decided to try their Cannoli. The presentation on the desert platter shows one cannoli, however the order is for two. We really ordered too much but the quality was still excellent, and since it wasn’t included in the Groupon that was priced out separately as it should have been.

Overall I was quite impressed with Seasonal Grille. It is a rather lengthy drive from Kalamazoo, but it is uniquely positioned, as it’s roughly half-an-hour from Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, and Lansing. If you are looking for a new place, or maybe find a new favorite place, I really recommend this restaurant for consideration. Hastings may be sneeze-and-you-miss-it, but this particular establishment certainly is not.

Great Cuppa

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It struck me that a lot of people might not know how to get into Tea like we have. I think a basic guide is in order to help everyone get going when exploring this wonderful new world that has opened up for us. The cost to get off the ground is very low and a lot of these hints will save you a lot of time and aggravation. I’ll break it down into parts you need, many of them are durable, and ingredients, then procedure to make a spectacular cup of tea (or coffee even) cup-by-cup.

What you will need:

1) Tap water is best if you trust it. Spring water if you don’t. Avoid special waters like SmartWater or squeaky clean like vapor distilled water. If you are loath to buy your water in a jug, then Brita or Pur is your next best bet. You want your water to be freshly drawn, but it’s not essential.

2) Boiling Kettle – It’s romantic to get a teapot and put it on the stove and wait for it to whistle. This doesn’t conserve resources and is expensive in natural gas terms to run. A far better (and safer) alternative is the electric automatic boiling kettle. The model I am fond of is the one I have at work, that’s the basic plain-jane Rival Electric Kettle. I bought it at Walmart for $12. You only need one that can boil water and turn off. If you wanted to get really frou frou about it, a kettle with a thermometer that could keep water at 200 would be ideal.

3) Next you need a Finum Brewing Basket. This item is really durable. It’s got a superfine mesh which you can put your loose tea or coffee in and then insert that into your favorite cup. It has a lid which you can use to top the device to keep heat from leaking out or you can use it to receive the basket after you pull it out of the hot water in the cup. Or both. It washes up with tapwater and needs no other cleaning. Be gentle with fingertips and avoid scratching it with fingernails. If you have tea or coffee compacted in this basket, you can tip it upside down over the trash and tap the bottom with a spoon and everything will come out neat as you please.

4) Cups. If you have a mug or cup you like, use it. Preferably no more than 6 to 8 ounces. A standard coffee mug will work just fine. You know it’s sized right when you put the Finum in it, the little plastic wings rest of the edges of the cup and the bottom barely if ever touches the bottom of the cup. I can really recommend Bodum Bistro Double-Wall Mugs for this, if you have a little to spend on nice cups. Bodum mugs are made of borosilicate glass, they are double-walled and insulate to keep your fingers from burning, they retain heat very well, and they clean up in a snap. They are also totally non-reactive.

5) Timer. You need any basic timer. Your iPhone has one built in, other phones do too. You need a way to reliably countdown from 3 minutes to zero for tea or 4 minutes to zero for coffee. If you can do that, you can also set your timer to 11m30s which is how long just-off-the-boil water takes to get from scalding to drinkable.

6) Looseleaf Tea or Coffee. You can get all your looseleaf tea mail ordered from our shop here in Portage Michigan. The shop’s name is Chocolatea and they have an online store with shipping options. Everything they sell is top-quality and I can personally vouch that if you buy from them, you will enjoy every minute of what you get in the mail. Tea is not like coffee. Tea isn’t a ticking time bomb. It doesn’t get crappy with age and it can keep for a really long time without degrading in quality. One tea, Pu-erh actually ages like wine and gets better with age, however the Pu-erh that Chocolatea sells is ready-to-rock-and-roll, so you don’t have to wait to enjoy it. If Coffee is more your thing I can recommend Dunkin Donuts Regular Roast as an acceptable coffee. Starbucks is okay, but it’s way too expensive for eh coffee. Really great coffee, at least that I’ve found can be ordered online from Death Wish Coffee. I can also personally vouch for this coffee as it is exceptional in character and packs a wallop of caffeine.

7) Gram Scale. There is a great little handy digital pocket scale at Amazon for less than $10. It’s got great resolution and a nice display and it’s small enough to be pocketable. Some people will tell you to measure tea by the teaspoon, that’s useless. Measure tea and coffee by weight! You’ll be much happier.

Procedure:

To make a great cup of Tea (everything but Yerba Mate) – put your empty Finum basket on your scale, set it to grams and tare it to zero. Then sprinkle in enough tea to get to 5 grams. Take the basket off the scale and put in your Bodum cup. Get your water to 200 degrees (or 212, it’s not really that much of a problem for everything but white teas, they’re picky at 160–170 degrees) and pour the water into your Finum basket in the cup almost to the brim. After that, set your timer to 3 minutes (10 for Yerba Mate) and watch it closely. Tea, like Coffee can oversteep/overbrew and you get a nasty cup of turpentine for your troubles. I can’t express it enough, timing is EVERYTHING. More than temperature, more than the water, more than anything else. TIME. If you are brewing Oolong you will notice that the tea is full-leaf and expands like a sponge when you steep it, so what looked like little natty bits ends up being a basket full of full tea leaves. After the cup of tea has steeped for 3 minutes, pull the Finum out, let it drip out for a few moments and put on paper towel or it’s lid. Don’t throw away your steeped tea! Then set your timer to exactly 11 minutes 30 seconds and start it. During this time the tea will go from undrinkably hot to PERFECT. You can at any time add sweeteners if you like. Splenda, Nutrasweet, Sugar, Agave Nectar, Honey, Simple Syrup, or even Golden Syrup are all great sweeteners for tea. I’ve found that Agave gives the end tea an odd flavor overtone, so tread carefully. I like my tea very sweet, so I use two packets of Splenda. You can sweeten anytime you please. After you’ve enjoyed your tea you can put the Finum back in your cup, get your water hot again and re-steep. This is called Gong-Fu, and is a well-respected tradition in China. All teas can at least re-steep three times before they kind of fall on their ass. The only notable exception to this is Oolong. Oolong can resteep ten to twenty times and the further you go, the more subtle flavors end up in your cup. A little hint, after the first steep, which is always at 3 minutes, each subsequent steep you can add a minute, up to 5. So steep 1, 3 minutes. Steep 2, 4 minutes, Steep 3, 5 minutes, Steep 4, 5 minutes. You keep going with that pattern and you won’t go wrong. If you’ve exhausted your Finum’s contents of their goodness save the remains in a cup or bowl. You can throw these remains on Hydrangea, Roses, or Blueberry bushes and the remains will contribute plant-friendly acids to the soil. Never throw used tea or coffee in the trash if you can help it. The remains shouldn’t be landfill, not when they can make acid-loving plants thrive.

As for Coffee, put your empty, clean Finum basket on your scale, tare it to zero and sprinkle in 10 grams of ground coffee. A standard grind will be fine, you’ll get a little camp-coffee or grit at the bottom of your cup as the solids drop out of solution, but it’s not unpleasant. When I drink the cup of coffee to 25% full I like to swirl the remains around which picks up the sediment off the bottom and then I drink the remains. If you like coffee and don’t mind a wee touch of grit, it’s not bad. If you can swing it, a grind set for French Press will be even better and have less grit in the end. I don’t have a grinder and I don’t really want one. I’m fine with standard yokel coffee with standard yokel grind. Get your water to boiling. I would let it sit for about 10–20 seconds off the boil in order to get it down to 205–210 degrees. If you can get to-order 200 degree water, that’s ideal. Pour the water in the Finum in your cup just shy of the brim (most coffee will wetten and then start to bubble and float, bring that wet ground coffee almost up to the brim but do not try to agitate it to help it along, that will ruin your cup of coffee) and set your timer for 4 minutes exactly. You may catch what smells like burning coffee, whatever you do, don’t freak out. It’s not really burning. When the timer goes off, pull the Finum out and rest it on it’s lid. Set your timer for 11 minutes 30 seconds and then add whatever sweetener you like. I prefer, again, two packets of Splenda. You will notice that the final brew has an oil-slick on the surface and the rim of your cup will look filthy. That’s an unavoidable consequence of brewing the coffee directly without the paper filter. The paper filter strips out a LOT of really great tasting compounds. After you have brewed a cup of Coffee, you have to toss the contents, there is no Gong-Fu with Coffee. Once it’s done, it’s plant food. The only thing left after a brewing is tannins, acids, and the chemical nasty that you don’t ever want to drink. Plants love it, you’re all done with it. The really handy thing with preparing coffee this way is you need nothing more than what you already have for tea and the Finum is made of non-reactive stainless steel so you can brew for your entire life and there isn’t any crosstalk between tea or coffee assuming you clean the Finum out well. Another nice part is you only brew the coffee cup-by-cup. This way, you get the convenience of a Keurig machine without the expense and the wasted plastic cup. The only waste from the design I use is the grounds or exhausted leaves and those are plant food, so nothing is really wasted.

Anyone should be able to get started for less than $50 depending on your tastes. The kettle is $12 ish, the Finum is about $12, the scale is $10, and the glasses are $25. That comes out to $59. If you have your own cups or mugs, you can slash that down. If you have a kitchen scale you can slash it further. I like the handy little gram scale there because it’s easy to toss in my backpack for when I go to work. The durable parts are just that, they should last a very long time. The Finum, if you take care of it, should last forever. The scale will eat batteries and the kettle might be lost if you are really mean and rough with it. One thing to note about the kettle, and all kettles are that if you decide to go with tap water, you’ll eventually scale up your kettle and either have to clean it somehow, scrape it down somehow, or replace it. If you pass your water thru a Brita or Pur filter (or in the case of my workplace, a reverse-osmosis undersink filter) then you won’t ever have to worry about that.

For your investment, and of course the looseleaf teas from Chocolatea or the coffee from Deathwish, You’ll get to enjoy some of the best tasting hot beverages possible. There are so many blends at Chocolatea it’s dizzying. Plus you’ll be patronizing American businesses. Chocolatea is in Portage, Michigan and Deathwish is out of Saratoga Springs, New York. I find that I love tea made this way, and Coffee? I actually like drinking it this way more than percolated or brewed in an expensive coffeemaker. There is something special about brewing coffee like tea, it seems more direct and honest somehow. I know that there are a lot more flavors and essential oils in the coffee that I brew this way, where coffee that passes through a paper filter loses a lot of it’s subtler features. I could also swear that standard coffee loses some of it’s caffeine. The stuff I make seems to have more punch to it.

If you don’t find what you are looking for on the Chocolatea online store just let me know and I can get it myself and ship it to you personally. Of course that offer really is meant for family, but I could be bought for the right price. If you are reading this and you are in Southwest Michigan, you owe it to yourself to visit Chocolatea in Portage. Everything they do is excellent, they are fair, kind, and pleasant to do business with.

If you decide to follow any of this, I would love it if you would leave a comment letting other people know how you got along with these ideas. Did they work for you? If you try it and you don’t like it, the only thing you might not be able to use is the Finum, everything else can be pressed into service doing other things.

Good luck and enjoy the tea and coffee!

Out of Place

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So when I walked into the local asian food market I definitely felt a sense of being a stranger in a strange land. I was clearly the tallest person in the market, as I walked around I realized that I couldn’t recognize a single thing on any of the packages. I was after ramen noodles and I didn’t think they would be too hard to find. After 15 minutes of wandering around the store I eventually did discover where the noodles were. What I found in the market that surprised me was that everything came in very strange sizes, initially it was all 11.3 ounces, so I originally thought that the issue was that they came in different metric values that made sense. After looking at the products I discovered that the metric values weren’t correct either, they were just very strange.

What added to my awkward feelings were that the market pleasantly requested that customers only purchase in cash. I did not have a problem with this, however I had to visit the bank first to get out $20, then make my purchase, then return to the bank and deposit cash. It wasn’t unpleasant as the bank was just around the corner from the market however it was a little funny.

As I drove off I realized that I could have just gone to Meijers markets instead and got what I was after all along. Now I don’t have any problem with patronizing the asian market however it would’ve been more convenient to visit Meijers and I could’ve saved the run around back and forth to the bank.

The next time I need a very special ingredient, of course I will go to the Asian food market for this purchase. For regular stuff I’ll just go to Meijers.

Special Note: This blog entry was 99% dictated using Apple’s newest OSX, Mountain Lion. I think it did a pretty good job. The only thing it didn’t get was special terms like “Meijers”.

Answering War

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Many things occur to me out of the blue when I least expect them to strike. It’s as if a part of me has been working on a problem, chewing on it, and when it reached a solution it gathers up all its paperwork and knocks on the front of my brain and says “Here, we’ve done all we can do, frontal lobe, here’s this for your consideration.” And I stand there in the middle of something really mundane and I’m stuck. I stop moving and much like when you open your door and find a brightly colored box with a bow on top, you spend all that time forgetting about what you were doing and stand in shock at the box. So it was with me earlier this evening.

Apparently a part of me was working on military strategy. Turns out part of the paperwork also included a method to cause a cease of conflict and effectively short-circuit a war, going from conflict, skipping over death, and moving to resolution. How you ask? I  was myself shocked at the answer and it comes from mother nature herself.

If you grow a very large amount of Cannabis Sativa, dry it out thoroughly and then set it on fire, then blow the resultant smoke out onto the battlefield, saturating every square inch with a thick white fog in about 15 minutes time all combatants will spontaneously stop giving a damn about whatever it is that they were fighting about and put down their weapons and sit down on the ground, some may lay down, others will likely lean back on their elbows. The key here is that every combatant will stop caring about killing and just want to “hang out” and “take in the majesty of this place, maaaaan” some may fall asleep and the rest will be overcome with feelings of euphoria, laziness, and extreme hunger.

Then, once you’ve smoked both sides until they have stopped fighting, you roll in hot dog carts, pizza carts, falafel carts, whatever. They go ding-ding-ing onto the battlefield and since everything is free (it’s war, this is what you pay for…) everyone is calm, feeling just fine thank-you-very-much, and the idea of getting a gun and killing someone else is about as far from anyones mind as humanly possible. You’ve just eaten five pounds of whatever and really all you want to do is take a nap.

Those that might be wearing gas masks will see the beatific joy and happiness on their fellow combatants faces and perhaps they’ll be encouraged to take off their masks. If not, then you still have to contend with an angry army, however if you continuously smoke them eventually any gas mask will saturate and stop working and people have to breathe. Over time, those that hold out with masks will just stop caring and get hungry like all the others.

This method would work perfectly for a peacekeeping force between two belligerent sides, so, for example, Americans versus Iranians – the United Nations peacekeepers cultivate millions of tons of dried cannabis sativa and start working on a smoker-gun and then we drop them into the middle of the battlefield and they just sit back with a beer in their hands, on a folding chair, making sure the machine chuffs out smoke nice and evenly. It doesn’t matter what your religion is, what you are fighting about, or anything. Once exposed to this smoke, nature will take its course. The course is not war, killing, or death – but rather just relaxing, taking in the sights, and wondering where the nearest falafel cart is.

I dare anyone to challenge this idea.

Wine Tasting

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I took this weekend, and extended it to include Friday and Monday and we’re spending it up in Traverse City, MI exploring the wine trail in the northern region of the lower peninsula again. We’ve explored this region before and have gotten to know many of the wineries and vintners in this area.

Yesterday we dove in and visited four wineries:

  • Blackstar Farms
  • Bowers Harbor Vineyard
  • Chateau Grand Traverse
  • Chateau Chantal

My experience in the first two was exemplary, the last two were abysmal. Now as to the why behind my experiences it comes down to how the tasting rooms were organized and run. Blackstar Farms conducted a very congenial tasting room and I quite enjoyed my visit. The pace was self-led and it provided me sufficient time to write in my wine journal.  The tastings here were free because we had retained the wine glasses we purchased the last time we visited. As for Bowers Harbor, this was a new experience for me, being happily surprised because the last time I was there I was so put out that I vowed I would never return to that winery again. The last time I was at Bowers, the tasting room manager didn’t listen to anything I said and just poured whatever they felt like pouring. Uh, no good. But this time? So much better! The new tasting room employee was wonderful. She was engaging and didn’t put pressure on us and listened to the wine order that I wanted and the wines I wanted to taste.

So, what about the last two?

Chateau Grand Traverse was very beautiful. It had a lot of curb appeal and a very impressive name. Big bold lettering, the stuff that marketing directors purr over. Once we got inside I noticed several things that were troubling from the get go. The wine tasting area was spooned up against their gift shop, which was top-to-bottom stacked with everything from snacks and dip-powders to books on wine. Very elaborate however rather distracting. Then as we approached the wine tasting bar a fellow greeted us (we won’t share names to protect the guilty) and immediately set the pace. The pace was best described as ‘breakneck clockwork’ as once we were settled and given a guide and a pencil we were under pressure to select six wines. The fellow behind the bar was one of a team and it became very clear that they had a script and a schtick to work from and they were playing it back to us. They might as well have been robots. The same jokes, the same affable smalltalk, over and over and over. There wasn’t even any attempt to mix it up even once, the script was that one-dimensional. The pace at Chateau Grand Traverse was a mad dash to the end. Just as you had swallowed the taste you had, Mr. Helpful was in your face making comments and analysis which trampled over the thoughts you were trying to form of the wine you just tasted. Wine is supposed to be savored and enjoyed, not chugged like cheap college beer. Our progression along the six free tastings was so rushed and harried that I gave up writing in my wine journal. What’s worse? They saw that I was writing yet cared not a jot that I may have preferred a slower approach. It was this that set me on edge, and so I decided that four tastes in that I was done. I was going to stop writing and stop thinking about Chateau Grand Traverse and after being told several times that “Number 14 is our BEST SELLING WINE!!!” I concluded that Chateau Grand Traverse was not, and never will again, get any of my money. Yes, their sweet Riesling was sweet, but it was also flat and dull. I could have mixed a simple syrup with grape juice and made something similar. So, whatever! After that I endured even more protestations from the staff that “Number 14 is our BEST SELLING WINE!!!” — Yeah! We got it! We aren’t buying it! And then our guide for the wine tasting just disappeared. He was replaced by another person, a woman who started us off on the same script and schtick all over again. If Chateau Grand Traverse was in the Twilight Zone, that would have done a lot to explain their dysfunction! Alas, I left Chateau Grand Traverse with the express desire to escape. Also I was filled with the urge to punish that winery for its rank obnoxiousness and rude behaviors, but instead of raising a stink I just left. I don’t want to go back. Yes, I was going to buy a bottle of their Chardonnay, but their staff made damn sure that wasn’t going to happen and thinking back upon it, it will never happen. In fact, if we do TC again, they will join the few other damned wineries we have abandoned. If we go, I won’t enter that establishment again. And yes, it was that bad.

As for Chateau Chantal, the wine tasting was okay, it didn’t suffer the same problems that Chateau Grand Traverse had, however their system for tasting wines wasn’t very conducive to a good tasting and this is because they categorize their wines by small black rhombus symbols, one symbol is for wines that you can taste for free and two are wines you have to pay to taste. You get three rhombus symbols, so three free tastes. You can’t taste-for-free their more expensive wines and those are all marketed as “Reserve” or “Select”. What can you taste? Basic wines that would have been good to drink out of boredom. The scores never broke 75 out of 100. So I tried three wines, all not very good, and at the end I didn’t taste anything that made me think that the “Reserve” or “Select” bottles were worth even looking at. If you are going to set a tasting fee, fine, but it’s far better, in a marketing sense to give your customers a sense of liberty by charging them some basic fee and letting them taste a handful of wines. If you want to make your customers really happy, set the fee to be the wine glass, then brand it and sell it that way, that way your customers are getting some small bit from you that they remember at home and they are more apt to try different wines. Paying discretely to taste “special” wines isn’t the way to go.

So, here’s a guide in a nutshell for what I think, from a customer’s point of view a wine tasting room should have:

  • The Wine Bar should be a centralized island or clustered along one side of the presentation space.
  • The staff should be friendly, scriptless, and be sensitive to the various approaches some people may wish to follow. The best way to assess how much interaction is important is to start with basic questions and ask the customers what wines they like the most. If the customer doesn’t know then you can ramp up your involvement and be more of a guide. If the customer does know, then proceed slower. If you notice the customer has paper, a book, or a journal, then slow the hell down. If a customer is writing about your wine, then that customer knows their palate and input from you should be limited to statistics of winemaking such as chapthalization, brix ratios, methods, and just one or two key points that are special to notice about what they are about to taste.
  • Tastings should ideally be with a small fee, between one to five dollars and if that’s the design then some token should be sold, a coaster, a wine glass, a wine charm, something. The best fee would be charged and then waived if the customer purchases a bottle of wine. That fact should only be revealed to the customer if they actually buy a bottle. Do not lead with “If you want to taste there is a fee, if you buy, we waive the fee.” Make the waiving of the fee a surprise to your customers. That will ensure repeat business, which is what you should really be after. One purchase does not a true customer make, repeat visits and repeat customers are the key. In a way, you should want to turn a customer into a fan. That’s where your value is!
  • Let your wine speak for itself. Do not let the tasting guide be a chatterbox. If the people coming to taste want a chatterbox, let them lead the guide forward, don’t start there!

I’m sure I’ll come up with more of these rules, so I may come back to this post and add to it, but these are some of the core things that wineries really should take seriously. It’s not enough to simply push bottles out the door, you have to engage with your customers and turn them into fanatics. The best way is with good wine, convivial and conservative wine tasting guidance and cultivate an air of happy engagement. If a customer feels welcome, feels like they are getting some basic respect and the wine is worth it, then they will no longer be simply customers, they will be fanatics.

Here’s a little example for you all, there is a winery in this region called Bel Lago. We walked in as new customers the first time we visited the region and now we are Bel Lago fanatics. We walk in and we pluck bottles off the shelf even before we arrive at the tasting bar because we know what we like and Bel Lago followed the basic rules and converted us from simple customers to fanatics. If you want to see how to run your wine tastings, visit Bel Lago. Feel the atmosphere and the environment there and learn from it. That is, if you want to sell wine and be successful. If not, then go to Chateau Grand Traverse and wind up their staff before their thinking parts run down.

Texas Cattle Die-Off Linked to Grass – USDA checking for mutations in grass that produced cyanide gas

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Texas Cattle Die-Off Linked to Grass – USDA checking for mutations in grass that produced cyanide gas.

So, GM-modified Bermuda grass eventually develops toxic properties? I can’t wait to see how the people who engineered this grass can spin this as a feature instead of a liability. I can’t help but notice the millions of years where cows ate grass without dying of cyanide gas exposure.

It’s almost as if GM modified grains are dangerous. Unthinkable! 🙂

Sticker Shock

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Today on lunch I decided on a whim to visit Sawall’s Health Food Store on Oakland Drive in Kalamazoo. This is a specialty store catering to the rich who want food that is alternatively sourced. That they cater to the rich is something I knew when I walked in there, expecting a little elevation in prices. But what I found really surprised me. I was looking at local distributors for the Medjool Dates that I so love and the Turkish Figs that I really enjoy as well. I didn’t really expect any local distributors to carry either so when I saw the Dates in both prepack and free-pick bins I smiled at finding another local distributor. Then I looked at the prices.

Sam’s Club has Bard Valley Medjool Dates on sale for $7.48 for a two-pound plastic bin. That’s $3.74 a pound. Nuts.com has Medjool Dates for sale at $7.49 a pound and Sawall’s sells Bard Valley Medjool Dates for $9.95 a pound! Obviously someone is getting the short end of the stick! Sams Club has probably leveraged a volume discount from the Bard Valley Dates grower, that’s the only bit that makes sense. So when Sams stops carrying my beloved Dates, and I bet they will as it’s listed as a “Seasonal Item” then I’ll be down to Nuts.com or Sawall’s. These prices are not prohibitive, but they are rather surprising and just seeing how the balance tips when you compare these local distributors and online distributors versus Sams Club really is a shock. $4 versus $8 or $10. If I didn’t know any better I’d say that Sams has the same screws on the date farmers that they have on the Pickle manufacturers, selling product for pennies on the dollar, at least when it comes to pickles.

As for the Turkish Figs? Nothing. At least locally. So Nuts.com will always be my vendor of choice at this point to obtain the figs that I really enjoy eating. It’s only prohibitive that I am not only paying $6/pound for the figs but also a UPS shipping charge of a few dollars more, effectively pushing my per-pound price of figs to about $10/pound. It’s not the end of the world, but it does mean I have to be careful and buy just the right amount so I can eat through them fast enough and not have to worry about spoilage, even in the fridge. I don’t really know how long Medjool Dates and Turkish Figs last in the fridge but I really don’t want to try my luck with such expensive treats.

At least in a pinch, if I really have to have them, at least there is Sawall’s, but the price… wow. It’s all a-blinky.