Nibbles & Sips

Fun with food and beverages: recipes and opinions about what, how, and why we eat.

50 Shots of America–Maine

Sips
Bitter Berry

Have a drink with Louie the Lobster (a leftover party favor from my 30th birthday party where he and his buddies were Crawfish Impersonators--it was a Bayou-themed party)

The Pine Tree State became the 23rd state of the Union on March 15, 1820, as part of the Missouri Compromise in order to balance the number of slave and free states. Before that, Maine was part of Massachusetts.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, was a native of Maine and wrote one of my favorite poems ever (and I’m not much for poetry)

First Fig

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends–
It gives a lovely light!

It described me well, then, when I first read it in high school and still fits pretty well. Anyone who “likes to stay busy,” sometimes to the point of exhaustion, can probably relate.

She isn’t, of course, the only poet or author or “somebody” to live in or be from Maine, (the list is long and includes Stephen King, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Andrew Wyeth, Jonathan Frakes, Patrick Dempsey, and a whole bunch of folks whose names I don’t recognize but probably should) but she’s probably my favorite so far.

Bitter Berry

3/4 oz Gin
3/4 oz Cranberry Juice
1/2 oz Blueberry-infused Vanilla Vodka*
1 drop Angostura Bitters

*Soak a heaping tablespoon of dried blueberries in 4 oz Vanilla Vodka for a minimum of 2 hours. Muddling some of the berries increases the finished flavor.

Combine over ice and shake vigorously. Strain into a chilled cordial glass and garnish with three of the plumped blueberries on a toothpick.

I normally don’t go for garnishes on these little drinks but the blueberries are significant as well as the toothpick itself: Maine is the main exporter of both blueberries and toothpicks, producing 20 million of the latter each day at the Strong Wood Products in Strong, Maine.

And don’t be fooled by the name–this drink isn’t actually bitter. Tart, yes, with a strong flavor from the gin, alone, but Bitters tend to enhance and warm the flavor of a drink. Plus, there’s a common ingredient between Angostura Bitters and the state beverage, Moxie: gentian root. I would have named the drink Wild Moxie but the company sued a neighboring state’s soda company for infringement for having the name Modox–I’m just not going to go there!

Restaurant Review: Sabor Latino

Nibbles

I listen to a raido station with very little chatter–I prefer listening to music, not deejays, on my morning and afternoon drives. Advertising is still there, though, and sometimes that’s a good thing.

As is the case with Sabor Latino, a new Peruvian restaurant in Tallahassee, located near Millennium Day Spa on Kerry Forest Parkway.

Since we’ve only just started to hear their ads and the restaurant itself is still a little on the bare side, I’m guessing they’ve only been open for a couple weeks. Because of that I’m willing to be a bit more lenient of some things than a place that’s been open for several months. For instance:

  • Our waiter was young, very young, and could use some practice in general. We had to request napkins and silverware after the bread was delivered. And when I was signing the receipt he was all but bent over trying to either look at my signature to make sure it looked like my card (which he’d already returned) or checking out the tip I was giving him. Either way, personal space invaded.
  • Their menu is lengthy but only half the items have prices next to them and, therefore, available to order. Most places I would be really irritated by this, but it shows they have a goal but are starting slow. At least that’s what I hope they’re doing. Even though I’d be perfectly happy to see a 1-page, photocopied menu with a few good things rather than empty page protectors.
  • Prices of the items they do have available range from $10 to $20 for entrees, $6 to $8 for “entries”–what we took to mean appetizers, at least on Todd’s menu, mine was missing that page–yet they have bare tables; no linens or even the butcher paper treatment. That’s sorta inconsistent in my mind but, again, growing pains are to be expected.
  • A large flat-screen television was playing ID (Investigation Discovery) while we were there. Murder during dinner works for dinner theater, not so much this place.

Now that those little observances are out of the way, let’s get to what’s really important: the food!

We attempted to order the Sabor Latino Cebiche (a mix of fish and shellfish–the ceviche I’m used to) but they had run out. Instead we go the regular Cebiche which was simply fish “cooked” in lemon juice and seasoned with red onion and aji amarillo peppers.

Cebiche at Sabor Latino

Cebiche from Sabor Latino

Though “simply” hardly does this dish justice. I think the last time I had ceviche was at Melhana where I worked, briefly, after Culinary School. We served it as an appetizer (as we’d attempted to order this, but it came out after our entrees did) and I remember it being very good. This was amazing. The lemon juice was tart, yes, but it did wonderful things to the pieces of fish. The slice of potato and sweet potato were a nice touch, a Peruvian custom so I’ve read, and the lemon and peppers with the sweet potato are giving me ideas of side dishes to come. Yum!

Aji de Gallina from Sabor Latino

Aji de Gallina from Sabor Latino

Todd ordered the Aji de Gallina, a shredded chicken dish that looks like a curry but tastes… Peruvian? The “creamy yellow salsa” is a bread-thickened chili, broth and cheese sauce and it’s something I think we’ll be trying at home some day soon. One thing: the recipe I found listed pecans as part of the sauce (a lot of old sauces were thickened by bread and nuts) though we didn’t see direct evidence of it and Todd didn’t feel ill despite an allergy, if you are allergic to nuts you might want to ask before ordering this dish.

Bistec a lo Pobre from Sabor Latino

Bistec a lo Pobre from Sabor Latino

Since a lot of the dish descriptions included tomatoes, I ordered what appeared to be a safe yet tasty option: the Bistec a lo Pobre. Even though the menu description stated it was a simple dish I did expect more seasoning on the steak than just pepper. And while I was asked how I liked my steak (answer: medium rare) it was so thin it was overall medium with only the thickest part having a bit of pink. The sides were listed as rice, fried egg, fried potatoes and fried bananas. Still not sure where the bananas were supposed to come in (they were not on the plate and I chose not to ask our young server) but the potatoes, as you can see, were log cabin-stacked french fries. Which is fine, but not exactly what I was expecting.

The egg over the rice is the one thing I will take a little issue with. It’s one thing if this was more of a steak-and-egg meal but the menu states and my research confirms that Peruvian food features a significant amount of French influence. I recall days in French Classical class where we topped several things with fried eggs–the most memorable being a tower of crouton, supreme of chicken, asparagus, crawfish tails and fried egg. The point of this was to cut through all the layers, egg to base, and the yolk mixes in and makes an amazing sauce.

For this to work, you have to have a liquid yolk. The yolk on the egg I was served was over-medium. It should have been over-easy if over-anything; sunny side up would have been better.

Overall impression? Lots of room to grow but some serious potential. I hope they’ll still be around in a couple of months so we can go back and see how they’ve improved and to get some more of that cebiche!

Limoncello Diary, Part 1

Sips

The other week I read somewhere about someone making their own Limoncello. A virtual ear perked up at that–I’m always up for trying something new! Then Grace flat-out asked how to make Limoncello this weekend.

Oh, it’s on!

That was just the little nudge I needed to add lemons and grain alcohol to my shopping list this Saturday and away we go!

First, of course, I did a little digging as to the how to. I’ve found recipes that are done in a weekend all the way up to 3 months and a few points in between.

Limoncello is, essentially, a lemon-infused alcohol sipped after dinner in Italy. It’s fairly simple to make since you don’t need to distill or ferment anything, you just need the patience of a saint to let it sit for up to three months. While the recipes that suggest a weekend or week’s wait is all that’s require are, I’m sure, perfectly fine, the peanut gallery is actually very helpful in persuading me to do it longer, a la LimoncelloQuest.

***I should also point out that, should you play along and make your own Limoncello with me, that you can drink it at home and share it with friends but under no circumstances should you attempt to sell it without proper authority of the Bureau of Alcohol and whatever-else in your area. End public service (and save your ass) announcement.***

Ben over at LimoncelloQuest has been incredibly thorough in practice and documentation of his mission to create amazing Limoncello so I’m going to use his experience and the base for my forray into infused liquor, adjusting as necessary, though his recipe mirrors others I’ve found across the Internet with the exception of time involved.

All we’re using is the zest, so choose lemons based solely on their appearance. I know, I know, it’s not fair to the lemon’s inner beauty but we’re looking for thick skin so I think they can take it. Buy organic if you can. This will save you time cleaning off waxes and pesticides.

Prepping the Lemon Zest

Prepping the Lemon Zest

Zest the lemons avoiding the white, spongy pith beneat the surface. LQ prefers a microplane but I prefer a simple paring knife. Remove strips of lemon peel and then clean up any of the inevitable pith that tags along. Unless you know of a source of square lemons, it’s going to happen.

Mincing Zest

Mincing Zest

While I had no intention of reducing the zest to dust, I do believe if giving the alcohol ample surface area to harvest the cirtus oils from. Once cleaned of all pith I reduced the strips to small matchsticks. I briefly considered freezing the zest strips before slicing them up, going back to my recent observation about ice and zest, and I suppose you could shave off a week or two that way but for this go round I figured we could do it the long way to start.

Lemon, Meet Alcohol

Lemon, Meet Alcohol

I used 8 large lemons for the single 750 mL bottle of 151 Everclear (grain alcohol). Some folks think Vodka is a good base alcohol, others prefer a cleaner grain alcohol. Inside a 2 qt “cracker jar” I picked up at Wal-Mart that morning the lemon zest and the alcohol had their first handshake. The lid seemed fairly tight but it did have a cardboard insert rather than metal or plastic so I placed a piece of plastic wrap over the opening before screwing on the lid.

A Good Beginning

A Good Beginning

It’s going to be cozy for 45 days, give or take, before we add a quart of sugar syrup and let it sit for another 45 days. But for this first week we’re going to be swirling and shaking it around several times a day. We were surprised that within minutes the Everclear had taken on a yellow hue, certainly a positive sign!

Over the next 3 months I’ll be doing a check-in with the limoncello-to-be and post a photo every week so we can see how things develop over time. Once we get closer to the end (early October) and it’s time to start straining and tasting, I’ll do a quickie batch and Todd & I will taste the two and compare.

If you decide to play along and make a batch of limoncello alongside Todd & I, let us know in the comments.

And, in the mean time, turn those now-naked lemons into lemonade! 8 lemons yeilded a smidge over 1.5 cups of juice, a perfect amount to combine with a sugar syrup of 3/4 c sugar and 2 1/4 cups water, making a quart of lemonade concentrate to be combined with equal parts water, sparkling water, soda or (as we prefer) strongly brewed Earl Grey Tea.

Surprises Hide in Nebraska

Nibbles

I had the opportunity to visit Todd’s hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska, this weekend. I didn’t know what to expect, really, other than flatland and corn fields.

I was half right.

There’s a lot of corn up there, lining the roads almost as soon as you leave any metro areas, and wheat is plentiful, too! It blows around and gets to where it lines the streets, cornfields and even finds root in bushes planted at the cemetery (we were in town for the unfortunate reason of a funeral).

But Lincoln didn’t seem all that flat to me. Apparently it’s in a bit of a basin and there’s a gently rolling hill sort of quality to the parts that I saw (Lincoln and the highway to and from the Omaha airport).

Haymarket Square

Haymarket Square

While in town we had time to do some sight-seeing and the first place we stopped was the historic Haymarket District. Including the railroad station and several blocks of warehouses converted into shops, restaurants, galleries and lofts, it’s full of old, picturesque brick buildings that kept my camera and I happily clicking away. At least, that is, after we stopped into the From Nebraska gift shop to find batteries.

Licorice International

LicoriceWe mostly walked around and looked in windows, not really shopping (our checked bag weighed-in at 45 lbs, after all, not much room for souvenirs), we did see one store we just had to take a look it: Licorice International. How much licorice could there really be? Enough to have an entire store dedicated to it?

In a word: Lots.

They carry licorice candies from 13 countries, both the traditional black licorice as well as the licorice-like twists in a variety of colors–I even saw some licorice root available for sale!

Licorice International

Licorice International

We were able to taste an Kookaburra Strawberry Twist from Austrailia that was quite tasty, but I’m afraid I made a bit of a fuss when I saw monkey-shaped licorice. A squeal might have escaped my lips. I was even a bit giddy at the possibility of tasting one (turns out most of the items are available to taste if you but ask). The ears and such are traditional black licorice but the yellow muzzle? It’s banana flavored! And with a texture that reminds you of circus peanuts in the best possible way. Even though the Dutch Ape Head licorice only came in 1 lb bags, I had to buy them if only for the novelty factor. Imagine my surprise when we got home and found them utterly addictive.

The rear of the spacious warehouse at Licorice International is used for packaging and shipping orders that keep them quite busy, as I understand it.

“Knee High by 4th of July”

Corn

Corn Stalks

As mentioned above, cornfields are plentiful. We stopped by the family farm which was being rented and worked by a local farmer. Even though my own grandfather was a farmer and I’d seen his fields off and on, growing up, he dealt in strawberries, peppers and beans. Corn fields are another sight to behold.

The phrase ‘knee high by the 4th of July’ refers to a benchmark in the growing season. The corn was quite a bit higher from where we were standing; more like that line from Oklahoma–as high as an elephant’s eye. Well, maybe a young elephant.

Nebraskan Wine

As we wrapped up our tour of the Haymarket, we stepped back into the From Nebraska gift shop and were greeted by a wall of wine bottles. As the store purports to carry only items made in Nebraska, I was astonished to find so many different brands and types of wine available from around the state!

We noticed Plum and Rhubarb wine as well as the usual reds and whites, though the varieties were a bit foreign. The store appears to offer tastings and there were signs posted of various festivals in the area (one that morning, in fact, though it was a bit of drive to get to and too late in the day to start). There was also a map of the state that showed over 20 wineries sprinkled around the state (many accessible off of I-80) and half a dozen tasting rooms besides.

Our next trip up there will have to include at least a few of them!

A Trio of Local Favorites

With only 2 days in town we had a lot of nostalgia for Todd to catch up on. First was a Runza–a “loose meat and cabbage sandwich”–sold by a regional chain by the same name. Now, “loose meat” does not a appetizing thought create, yet that’s how I heard it described several times over the weekend. While it’s not incorrect, I prefer to call it a ground-beef and cabbage hand-held pie. Either way, it turned out to be yummy when we did get one after a trip to the Children’s Zoo.

Monkey & a Runza

Monkey & a Runza

Todd still maintains the bierocks I made for New Year’s Day were better but, frankly, I think it comes down to the seasoning. Runza seems to concentrate on pepper alone whereas we added ginger, paprika, nutmeg and caraway seeds along with cooking the cabbage in beer. We also didn’t cook the mixture until it was mush and sort of a grey color all the way around. There’s some benefit to homemade over mass production.

Another well-remembered spot was Vanetino’s. Known from their excellent pizza and rich tomato sauces, it wasn’t exactly as he remembered. The location we went to featured an extensive buffet that included barbecue, Asian and Mexican options in addition to pizza, pasta and salads. Something definitely gets lost with all that “variety” but we hear good things about the smaller locations and the pizza delivery.

Finally, a trip to the grocery store yeilded a salad dressing infamous with the locals: Dorothy Lynch. Diluted tomato soup is the primary ingredient in the sweet and spicy French-style dressing. This got packed in our checked back with the other over-3-ounce contraband and made it safely home. I think Todd is looking forward to salads this summer!

Did the Islands Relocate to Nebraska?

Sips
Whiskey Run Creek

Whiskey Run Creek (image borrowed from their Facebook page)

No, not quite.

The words St Croix on a bottle of wine from Whiskey Run Creek Vineyard & Winery refer to a hardy type of grape, one of several that can withstand Nebraska’s cold winters.

Who knew?

On a recent trip to Nebraska we didn’t have time to visit any of the 20+ wineries in the are but we were treated to a wonderful dinner at Todd’s mom’s home that included opening a bottle of 2006 St Croix.

The wine was a deep, dark red–almost like a port in color–with a hint of oak on the nose but very little of that woody taste in the wine itself.  The website describes it as having notes of cherry and plum–no disagreement here–and we can attest that it is absolutely divine with a good steak. It was a pleasure to drink and we hope to try it again on our next trip. (Unfortunately, Florida’s wine import laws are so draconian that they cannot ship wine to Florida. Harrumph.)