Can it really have been all the way back in July when I last updated this blog? Shameful! Since my time in Madison, WI, yours truly has been out and about– eating around the Philippines, Hong Kong, and now back in sunny Southern California. Clearly, I can’t promise much, given how many other posts I’ve left by the wayside, but in the meantime… just a few of the things I put in my mouth this summer!

Kare Kare at Adarna Food and Culture, Quezon City

one of the vegetable and fruit stands lining the back streets of Quiapo, Manila

fresh papaya salad at Oody’s in Greenbelt 3, Makati

Shanghainese sesame pancake things (anyone care to enlighten me on the actual name?) from Shanghai Yat Pun Heung, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong

I’ll give you a proper update soon… I think.

My time in the midwest is soon coming to an end, but before I go I hope to get at least another two trips in to the Dane County Farmer’s Market. One of the largest in the country, the Saturday morning market around the Capitol building here in Madison puts all others I’ve frequented to shame (sorry, Hillcrest Farmer’s Market and Union Square!). It’s a pity I’m cooking for one these days, because every time I go I just want to scoop everything up. I’m going to miss it here, if nothing else about Madison. Plus, their weekly email newsletter is just too damn cute.

Some recent buys from this weekend, and a few pics from last month’s visit:

Half of a small loaf of cheese bread from the ridiculously popular Stella’s Bakery. Their “hot and spicy cheese bread” draws a huge crowd to their booth every week, and I finally got my first taste of this goodness yesterday. Cheese is baked right in… yum.

Some of the offering at Brunkow Cheese of Wisconsin. Folks flock to them for their cheese curds, flavored cheddars, and fried cheese. Split a block of six-year white cheddar with some friends– great, but I’m regretting not getting the 10-year cheddar instead. If your palate can take it, it’s so worth it.

a bounty of sugar snap peas. most of the vegetable vendors are actually Hmong and Lao refugees to the Midwest.

Yesterday’s haul included: aforementioned cheese bread and 6-year cheddar, a rhubarb turnover, baby bok choy, green onions, red onions, lettuce, and beefsteak tomatoes. Before I leave I’d like to pick up an Amish/Quaker pie, the crazy good jalapeno jam from The Summer Kitchen, and maybe even some honey from the loopy beehive hat-wearing vendor. We’ll see if I have the time for it, it’s crunch time now for school!

Things I’ve put in my mouth recently (sorry for the laundry list, it’s been a long couple of weeks ’round here):

(ice cream from the UW Babcock Dairy, eaten on the lovely waterfront Memorial Union Terrace)

(My labor of love: home-made kaldereta for a class ‘piyesta’/fiesta. Best thing at the spread, don’t meant to boast but my meat brought all the boys to the yard.)

(Amuse-bouche at Harvest. Bougiest dinner I will have had in Madison by the time I go. Worth it.)

(Table of shame: $1 mixed drinks at the Nitty Gritty. I don’t care if it’s “the birthday place,” you’re never catching me dead in there again.)

(The Wisconsin Benedict at the Old Fashioned. That would be a brat patty under the egg.)

(Lingering suspicions and pre-existing bias confirmed: not pizza @ Gino’s East, Chicago)

(neon green relish. a tubular meat’s under there, i think. @ Underdogg, Chicago)

(Most amazing mojitos at Blue Line Lounge in Wicker Park, Chicago. The coconut mojito and the Social- topped with champagne- are incroyable.)

Chicago’s Chinatown eats deserves its own post. Consider it added to the list of shit I haven’t blogged about yet…

Some people spend the nation’s birthday by grilling up hot dogs, throwing back some beer, and watching the fireworks. Always the subversive, I prefer my tubed-formed meat products the Filipino way, in the form of the sweet and sticky porky goodness of longaniza. Our semi-impromptu July 4th brunch didn’t disappoint– with enough pork, fried eggs, suka, tomatoes and rice to feed the masses. Some folks even represented with some home-made beef tapa. Sige what!

A little bit blurry, but I wanted to include a picture of the longaniza cooking. As with any fresh sausage, you have to make sure you’ve cooked it the whole way through. Standard longaniza cooking procedure: fill fry pan with longaniza and add water 1/2 way up the skillet. Boil until water’s all gone, approx. 30 minutes (and don’t forget to turn over the longaniza at least once!). When all you have left is the oil from the casings, then fry that shizz until the outside of the longaniza is nice and carmelized. What you should see when you’re done is this:

This batch was especially sticky– it was a local-ish brand called Oscar’s (I think) and it was pretty tasty! The meat was definitely fresh, and there wasn’t any added MSG or coloring like some of the mainstream brands (carried by Ranch 99 and larger “Oriental” stores esp. on the West Coast) have. I didn’t know what to expect, since I picked these up at a small store in Madison, but it was straight. I did notice that for the first time ever in my life, I didn’t have a single longaniza burp the rest of the day. If you’re a longaniza virgin, a longaniza burp is the signature (re)experience: after eating longaniza in the AM, you’ll usually burp a few times later in the day, and have the distinct taste of longaniza in your mouth afeterwards. It’s the meal that keeps on giving!

A few more pics of the rest of the breakfast spread before I run out the door:

(ugh, I don’t know why this picture is sideways, I’ve rotated and uploaded it 3 different times to no avail.)

The crowning glory: losilog, just before I added that Jufran banana ketchup (nectar of the gods) to the rice. Happiness in a warm plate.

Happy weekend, y’all!

Hey y’all! Once again, I dropped off the face of the planet and still am behind on updates. But hey! I’m in a new state for the summer and will be sharing with you all my crazy adventures in food and drink in Madison, Wisconsin! Try not to get too excited

Why Wisconsin, you must be asking. After all, yours truly is a bicoastal baby– I shuttle between the northeast and SoCal with reckless abandon– and have never been to the Midwest (not even Chicago!) before now. But I’ll be here, and for two whole months too, as I’m taking language classes at UW Madison this summer before jetting off to the Philippines with the hubs at the end of August. So until then, it’ll probably be Wisconsin all the time… and maybe with some Chicago thrown in too.

So, just to start: some greatest hits from this week’s noshing in downtown Madison:

Sirwota with injera from the Buraka cart, located on State St right at the mouth of UW.
One of the cutest things I’ve ever seen in street food: every day, all day, several mobile carts decorated like little houses sit at the main entrance to the UW campus, serving up foods and drinks from around the world. There’s a Puerto Rican/ Caribbean cart, the Buraka (the local Eritrean/Ethiopian restaurant) cart, a smoothie and juice cart run by an adorable Hmong woman, and a Chinese cart, among others. $7 got me this portion of sirwota, a beef stewed in a spicy sauce with potatoes, over injera. I wasn’t expecting greatness but I gotta say, it was pretty damn tasty. Good job, cart!

Brats with mashed potatoes, sauerkraut, and applesauce at the Great Dane.
The Great Dane is something of a local institution here in Madison. It’s a sprawling brewery pub, complete with a sweet game room with gorgeous wood pool tables and a damn classy shuffleboard deck (is it called a deck? A table? Whatever.) Given the omnipresence of brats in Madison, I figured I might as well order some here. They didn’t disappoint. Very clean and smooth filling, clean casing, and all around solid. The sauerkraut and mash were perfect, too. I wasn’t in love with the applesauce, because I just realized that I like the cheap Motts variety better than the real deal. So sue me. Some things you just get used to even if they are mass-produced and shelved!

I also had a very nice “Scotch-style ale” brewed by Great Dane in-house. Loved this. Nice and dark without feeling too heavy. It had a clean finish, with a hit of nut flavor without tasting like a nut brown ale or like a porter. I’ll definitely be ordering this if it’s on tap again the next time.

While I enjoyed my dinner, I noticed the food and beer selection at the Great Dane is a bit hit-or-miss. Some friends made the mistake of ordering their “Chai spice lager” which tasted nothing like Chai nor lager and totally like a jalapeno-flavored batch of pisswater. I’ve honestly never tasted a beer quite this intentionally terrible. The only thing I could say is: this is definitely a case of a brewmaster gone a little too far. Maybe he was stoned when he thought this up? In any case, stay far far away from any “spiced” beer here and stick to their regular line-up!

I also had two meals at Dotty Dumpling’s Dowry this week– the other, more oddly named, institution here in Madison. They’re known for their burgers, and they didn’t disappoint. A little on the greasy side, with regular old white buns, these little burgers do the job. They’re made of high quality meat, no muss no fuss, with a lot of different cheeses and toppings as options. The fried cheese curds– my first experience with cheese curds ever– were disappointing, but only because I expected them to “squeak.” Otherwise, they were also a yummy batch of friend deliciousness. To complete the trifecta of fried-ness, you must try the fried mac and cheese wedges. Seriously- these were YUM. Sadly, I have no photos of my meals here (two already, I need to slow down!) but they are forthcoming once some people decide to email me their copies. Ahem.

Something tells me that I’m going to have to try really, really hard this summer to be a healthy eater. There are definitely lots of fresh options available (and I’ll be posting about that next!), but the preponderance of cheesy and fried foods here is staggering, not to mention the wealth of local brews on tap. Good thing I’ll be walking everywhere (car-free summer!), but I think it’s time to invest in a good pair of running shoes, too…

Great Dane Pub
downtown Madison location:
123 East Doty Street
Madison, WI 53703
608.284.0000

Pop Quiz!

In the kitchen you see:
6 underripe bananas
1 black/ripe plantain

Which would you use to cook maduros?

Sometimes my husband makes mistakes. But God bless him for trying to make my crabby self happy! It did give me a nice laugh, that’s for sure

Hello, lovelies. Hope you’re all enjoying the holiday… I wish I could say I was, but alas, am down to the wire on a major project so have been working through the weekend. That being said, I did make time for a date night with the Mister on Friday, and decided to pop on over to the Linkery in North Park.

Linkery just celebrated their one-year anniversary at their 30th street location this weekend, but they’ve been around a bit longer than that. Since they opened in the old space, the Mister and I have been popping by every six months or so, to see what they’ve been up to. After our last visit in the fall, the Mister and I came to a sad consensus: that, despite its aspirations, the Linkery was just failing to excite us any more.

Lo and behold, they must’ve read our minds, because after this last trip, we’re more thrilled with the Linkery than we’ve ever been before. A big part of this is their expanded menu– where it was fresh sausage all the time before, they’ve now thankfully diversified, and with great success.

Win No. 1: Seafood!

Where the Linkery once had a huge black hole, they’ve now filled with some beautiful seafood. These Baja oysters were incredibly sweet and very clean- no briny flavor, no sediment. It was served with lime and three minuets- green garlic, and two others I’m forgetting just now. The ‘pink one’ was very nice– fruit based, I think. Six for $13

Score No. 2: More weird cuts o’ meat!

Pickled Pigs Ear. Yep, you heard me right. Hey, it was $2 and who doesn’t like an adventure? It was served with just a touch of hot sauce, a nice complement to offset the acidity of the pickling juice. I enjoyed these, but the Mister wasn’t a fan. I guess you have to be used to the texture of soft cartilage– a bit like tripe, actually.

The excellent Linkery blog had alerted me beforehand to the restaurant’s featuring of stone fruit throughout the weekend, so of course I knew we had to order this:

Hampshire pork lonzino, wrapped around raw Snow Queen peaches, with a bit of Brooks cherries on the side and a very light splash of olive oil. $7 for three pieces (the Mister ate one before I could snap the picture) and worth it– the pork was fantastic. I actually liked the pork better without the peaches, but eaten with the cherries. That stone fruit *was* beautiful, guys. Great find.

Finally, it was time for the mains. And this is where the Linkery has really improved the most. See, in past incarnations (or at least the previous times we’ve been there), the menu has primarily revolved around whatever three or four fresh links they had for the day– you’d choose your link(s), and a preparation- in a ‘picnic plate,’ as part of a choucroute, etc. There was a smattering of other options- I think a burger or two, maybe a few interesting sides– but that really felt like it. I could be wrong, but if there were other main dish options, they certainly weren’t interesting enough for us to remember.

But now it feels like a whole new game. Several vegetarian options, an entire section for burgers and sandwiches, five or six different main entree options (and not all featuring sausage!), a section for flatbreads… I could go on. Very exciting growth, and I was so excited to keep it light on the sausage for a change. I know, it’s probably sacrilege, but since the Mister’s been making his own sausage at home, I think I’ve been getting spoiled.

Oh, right. So back to our dinner. The Mister, consummate New Englander he is, couldn’t resist the boiled seafood:

This “lowcountry boil” was the priciest item on the menu, topping out at $29, but it was a whole lotta plate for that price. Lots of fresh manila clams and slamming shrimp, along with corn, two kinds of potatoes, and a heaping helping of corn bread. They did us right and served it on a large flat tin plate, with wax paper.

As good as that was, I think my entree was the stand out of the night:

Tulare cherry-braised grass fed beef ($20).

Forgive the graininess of the photo (it was dark in there!) and just try to imagine succulent cuts of organic beef, with a bit of a crust but falling -apart soft, in a sauce so delicate it could be an aus jus if not for the extra bit of sweetness from the Tulare cherries. The fresh baby carrots and red potatoes were roasted to perfection as well, and just…. damn. So friggin’ good.

I made it through about half of my dish before giving up, and would’ve left it at that except for the dessert menu. I just had to try the LICS:

And that would be a Lardo Ice Cream Sandwich. With a slice of carmelized bacon on top. Um. Seriously. I think that alone was a week’s worth of cholesterol and fat intake. It tasted a bit like olive oil gelato only, you know, made with animal fat instead. So much for healthy eating! But oh, so so worth it… or at least half of it.

The Linkery’s also built up their wine and beer list quite a bit since our last visit. They have a large selection of local brews and wine– very nice selection, and I enjoyed my Cucapá Obscura beer (from Mexicali) a lot. Nice brown ale in the German style, like Bohemia and other good Mexican browns.

At the end of the night, our grand total came out to about $130- not cheap, but not bad for the quality of food we had eaten. At the Linkery, all tables pay an upfront 18% charge, so they don’t accept extra tips. If tips are left, they donate it to a local charity. Sweet deal, I think.

I’ve always really appreciated what the Linkery’s been doing for the San Diego food and bar scene. They’ve always put local meats and produce first, and cook seasonally based on what’s available at market. Now that they’ve diversified the menu, we’ll definitely be back more often. And hey, you gotta love a restaurant that’s as keen on blogging as we fatties foodies are! Pay them a visit and let me know what’s on your menu!

The Linkery
3794 30th St
San Diego, CA
619. 255. 8778

Just came back from a massive fruit and veggie run at the Hillcrest Farmer’s Market, just a hop skip away from home. Though it was super crowded due to the holiday weekend, there was still plenty of beautiful produce when the Mister and I rolled in around noon.

Now, I never remember the names of the different farms selling at the farmer’s market (oops) but I do have my favorites– as long as their booth is in the right place, I know where to go! I saw some new(er) additions this time around- one of the standouts was Spring Hill Cheese Co., all the way from Petaluma. They put out tons of samples, and the goat cheddar and jersey garlic jack were delish. I held off on buying since I’ll be heading to the land of cheese pretty darn soon (I swear, I’ll get to telling you!), but I hope Spring Hill sticks around the farmer’s market for a while.

I think, though, I was most excited for this booth..

After dining at The Linkery on Friday night, where they were featuring stone fruits throughout the menu, I just needed more of these beautiful Rainier cherries. I also found some beautiful white peaches and snagged those up too. Seriously, having access to stone fruit like this in the spring and summer is one of my favorite things about living in California.

Just so you know how buck wild I got at the market today, here’s a list of the haul the Mister and I brought home:
- 3 Philippine mangoes ($1 each)– best kind of mangoes ever, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise
- bag of squash blossoms - another SoCal favorite
- 1 basket of garlic ($2/6 heads)
- six (beefsteak?) tomatoes
- bunch carrots ($2)
- bunch green onions ($1.50)
- red and green peppers
- 1/2 lb cherries ($2.50)
- 2 white peaches
- bananas ($3)
- 4 hass avocados ($5)
- small bouquet of wildflowers ($2.50)
- 2 10oz. flatiron steaks from Brandt Beef ($10 each)- also ridiculously amazing
-plus iced coffee from the Joe’s on the Nose coffee truck and the best fresh tamales in SD for a quick lunch.

Whew!

What’s your favorite farmer’s market, and what have been your best finds there?

Update: for farmer’s market newbies, a helpful video with tips for shopping your local farmer’s market is here!

I’ve vowed that this summer will be the summer of good eating. I’ve made a commitment not just to putting as much fresh, non-processed foods into my body, but to also be cutting down on red meats, fats, and all those yummy things that are no good for my waistline. It’s going to be a challenge, since this summer I’ll be living someplace well known for particular indulgences (more on that later!), but one that is long overdue! (I’ve been cooking tofu more and more often, people. This is huge.)

So, a fond farewell to you, yummy donuts at Donut Haven, that faded-pink Vietnamese-owned donut shop in the strip mall in Hillcrest. You were a lovely treat on occasional Sunday mornings, but you will have to go.

No more peeking into the glass counters, seeing what was new and fresh for the day…

Goodbye to walking in with the Mister, ordering two pieces each of the doughy deliciousness, and while carrying the red tray with sweets over to the table, being told by a very drunk and disheveled old white man that “of course you could eat all of that, since all women are greedy whores.” Ah, the memories, so sweet…

I will always remember trying to eat more than one donut or eclair or other treat at a time, and miserably failing… unless the donuts were plain glazed, in which case, I would emerge the champion. A battle for the ages, no longer.

Oh, Donut Haven. How much will I miss thee. Your donuts were so good that I would brave your perpetually burned, scalding-hot coffee served in tiny cups with no insulation, and the barrage of drunk bums that like to frequent you as well, any hour of the day and night. Goodbye, goodbye. I do hope that you’ll find new friends to replace me soon. Something tells me you already have…

Donut Haven
420 Robinson Avenue, Suite F
San Diego, CA 92103

Made a dedicated Twitter account for this here blog. Now you can follow my every meal. *shudder*

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