In This Installment:
Oven Polenta Recipe
Cornman Farms Creole Spice Blend
There are more than ten different businesses in the “Zingerman’s Community of Businesses” and Cornman Farms is the only one that’s (slightly) outside of Ann Arbor. It’s located in Dexter, Michigan, just west of Ann Arbor and that’s where they host luscious, gorgeous yet comfortable and intimate weddings at their century’s old farm.
If anyone’s intersted in tying the knot (my brother and his betrothed are doing just that in a couple months), then I highly recommend it. But we’re here for the food and that all starts with the chef, Kieron Hales. I’ve known Kieron for nearly twenty years by now and we’ve watched either grow up and start families all around the same time. I try not to compare myself to him too much because it makes me feel like a bump on a log, but let me tell you a little about what Kieron, his co-managing partner Tabitha, and all the crew out at Cornman Farms are creating.
Chef Kieron grew up in England and began working in Michelin-star restaurants at the age of 13—but these days there’s nowhere he’d rather cook than here. For him, the cultivation, preparation and enjoyment of food is deeply personal. What he can’t grow in his lovingly tended chef’s garden, he sources from local farmers and vendors he trusts—something he believes makes food more meaningful.
With every dish, Chef Kieron aims to create flavors that evoke emotion and feelings of home. Finding inspiration in his mum’s handwritten recipes, his years in world-renowned kitchens and his collection of 8,000 cookbooks, he creates meaningful menus that you’ll always remember.
Inspired by Ballymaloe in Ireland, Cornman Farms’ garden is probably Chef Kieron’s second-favorite space, just steps from his farmhouse kitchen. The four-season garden is both functional—growing vegetables and herbs for use in the culinary staff’s creations—and educational. During our FarmHand Programs or on event days, Chef Kieron loves to show visitors how his garden grows, and impress upon them how much better food tastes when it’s grown on-site, with loving care. Throughout the year, our seasonal menus are based on what is growing in our own garden as well as at other local farms. What is not used during harvest, we preserve by pickling vegetables and making jams, chutneys and sauces for use in our winter menus.
That’s the abridged version of Cornman and Kieron, but many of the foods they make would work well in any club and in all our fridges and pantries. This Creole Seasoning is a blend of paprika, black pepper, salt, onion powder, celery seed, cayanne, garlic powder and oregano. It has heat, but there’s a bit of sweetness that rises up in the finish while providing a mild amount of “cheek perspiration”—at least that’s what I call it when something is kinda spicy hot and makes the area right below my eyes gently sweat a little. I’ve been using it over scrambled eggs in the morning and I’ve even mixed a couple teaspoons with olive oil and vinegar to make a vinaigrette that was spicy but very good.
Of course, it’s great with all proteins, too, like fish, chicken, steak, pork chops…treat the seasoning like a dry rub and massage it into your choice of meat before grilling or cooking and let the wonderful red color and spicy flavors come alive.
Maccheroncini di Campofilione Egg Pasta from Italy
Most of the pastas we feature on our shelves are made from straight up durum wheat and water. They’re toothsome, a little nutty, some are a little bready even—they’re all delicious.
We don’t have a ton of egg pastas on our shelves, however, and that’s my bad because there are definite differences in flavor and texture; but you’ll use them the same way obviously because they’re pasta!
So, a couple things about the “normal” pastas we sell. As I meantioned they are made from semolina (durum wheat) flour and water and then extruded through bronze dies that give the noodels a rougher edge that’s great for holding onto sauces. It’s also, heartier, less brittle, and holds its shape better after being dried. When cooked, it’s rich, chewy, firm.
Egg pasta on the other hand is made from white flour and eggs. It’s smoother, nearly silky in its texture and dare I say more delicate. That means it’s better for more refined dishes with simplier sauces or fewer ingredients, perhaps. I tend to use these types of noodles with thinner sauces or even cold noodle salads for a picnic or something.
If you’re lucky enough to have access to good seafood this time of year, I’d use this pasta as a bed for serving shrimp or scallops or something with flavor that doesn’t want to be overpowered or weighted down.
Trenary Cinnamon Toast from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
One corner of the world were we usually DON’T find new flavors is our beloved Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Though it’s connected to Wisconsin geographically and I happen to know that many Yoopers (what we call people from the Upper Peninsula) cheer for the Green Bay Packers over the Detroit Lions the U.P. is very much Michigan and very much a naturally beautiful place. It’s wilderness, pure and simple, dotted with small towns that popped up during the loggin and mining booms back at the turn of the century (1900s, not 2000s).
One of the groups that settled in the U.P. hailed from Finland and they brought a lot of their traditions and cuisine with them. Some of those immigrants settled in the logging town of Trenary and they opened up a bakery—back in 1928. At the time they made a sort of rusk that was a popular snack and treat for the folks working out in the woods. A ‘rusk’ is a dried out bread or biscuit or cracker. When my kids were teething they would gnaw on simple rice rusks, but there’s a long tradition of them throughout history. Hard tack crackers, for instance. It’s a way of preserving bread long after it was baked. You could take your food on the go.
Well, up at the Trenary Bakery they made it sweeter. They would bake a sweet white bread, cover it with cinnamon and sugar and bake it again. The Finns call it Korppu. Local fans started calling it Trenary Toast. I’ve been calling it my favorite go to snack and mid-day pick me up. They are perfect with a cup of coffee or pot of tea and I really enjoy them when I need something sweet. They also make for a great appetizer if you slather some cream cheese on top or fresh farmer’s cheese. You can even drizzle the top with honey. Actually, that’s sounding more like a dessert than an appetizer. Set out a bowl of the toast with some cheese an salami, pickles, and nuts. That sounds more like an appetizer.
Macadamia Nut Baumkuchen from Hawaii
I’m obsessed with baumkuchen. It’s odd, delicious, unique, and a worldwide phenomenon, yet I was yesterday-year’s-old (or thereabouts) when I first tasted it. Now I’m in. All we had to do was find someone who made it.
Of course you need a special oven to make baumkuchen and there’s not many of them around these parts. Not exactly something I can convince the folks at Zingerman’s Bakehouse to make, so when I first encountered the unique setup while visiting Disney’s EPCOT with my family last December I knew I had my work cut out for me.
Invented in Germany and made popular in Japan at the turn of the century, baumkuchen is made by pushing layers of batter onto a spit that slowly turns inside said specially designed oven. A thin layer of cake develops and then another layer is applied, then another, and another until there’s 15-20 layers or more. It takes constant attention from the baker and the process can last nearly two hours to get the finished cake. Off the spit, it’s sliced into discs, revealing the layers of cake like rings of a tree (baum = tree, kuchen = cake) and the mildly sweet cake is enjoyed with tea, coffee, after school, before school, whenever! It took me a minute to make the mental connection between baumkuchen and “the tenenbaum “O, Tannenbuam” from Christmas time but my nearly 50 year-old mind finally made the trek!
Now that I had fallen for the cake, I needed to find someone that made it here in the states; in short there’s not a lot of baumkuchen ovens around these parts, so we cast our net far and wide. We got lucky and found German bakers—Marie & Markus—living in Hawaii and making baumkuchen there from local, organic ingredients. Their macadamia nut baumkuchen is lightly sweet, a little floral, soft, and just a little nutty. Packaged in a tin, it looks a little precious, which is exactly what it is.
And though I keep evoking the holiday season, this cake is great all year long (though I’m darn sure I’ll be bringing these special treats in for the holiday season as well, so if you love it this time around look for them in December). With tea, coffee, even a crisp glass of wine after a meal with some nuts and fruit. It’s just a wonderful treat. I love it and I hope you do, too.
Psyche Olive Oil from Greece
When it comes to olive oil I still only have one aim: that it tastes good. Not that it tastes like it’s from Tuscany, Italy or that it’s delicate and tastes of olives like it’s from Provence, France—no, it simply has to taste like what it is and taste like where it’s from. We call that terroir in the food/wine world and it basically means things taste like where they’re from; the soil, the wind, the rain, the bugs and the wildflowers that grow nearby…all of those variables add up to make something taste like a place, right down to the salinity of the air that blows in off the sea.
A simple goal would (one would imagine) lead to success more often than not, especially when you’re talking about a place like Greece—which proudly boasts of being the inventors of olive oil in the world. You’d think it would be easy to find great tasting olive oil in the “land of olives” but after thirty years in this business I’m here to tell you it’s harder than it seems. Heck, it’s harder than it ought to be if you ask me!
If you recall back in the early 2000s, Greece was in financial trouble. Something like 25% of the workforce was looking for work and leaving the country. After a couple years of instability they figured it all out, but it took some doing and during that time folks started returning to the land. It seemed like everyone in Greece had their own olive trees, all they had to do was pay someone to harvest, press, and bottle them for export…simple enough, right? Well, the troubles hardly led to a boon in olive oil exports, but there have been a handful of small time operators who are doing things with intention and purpose. I think that’s the best way I can describe the folks behind “Psyche” olive oil: they’re doing this on purpose.
For one thing there’s the packaging which doesn’t excatly have shelf-appeal, as they say in the marketing world. But it’s functional. It packs flat, blocks all light from damaging or oxidizing the oil inside, and the spout at the end keeps any air from entering the package. It’s easy to use and takes the best care of the oil inside. So it might be utilitarian, but it’s very good at what it does. It saves space, it’s sustainable, it’s better for the oil and better the environment leaving behind a smaller carbon footprint than glass for instance. And it does a great job of keeping the oil inside as fresh tasting as when it was pressed.
It’s made from 100% Koronecki olives (the major olive of Greece) that are all hand harvested within 24 hours of being pressed. You might hear those sorts of stats a lot when it comes to olive oil: how did they pick the olives and how long did they sit around until they were pressed for oil? Once olives have been picked from the trees, they begin to break down (oxidize). You don’t want the olives to be too mushy or getting rancid when you press them because those off flavors could ruin the whole lot. In order to avoid even the threat of the oil going rancid, most folks will harvest the olives when most of them are still immature and on the trees. The more gentle they are when they harvest the olives (by hand is best, but there are also mechanical means) the less chance that the olives will be bruised in the process and bruising leads to rancidity (everything leads to rancidity!). So you have to harvest quickly, gently, and all at once without letting it be damaged by heat or sun or oxygen or all of the above!
This oil is peppery, it’s grassy, it’s bold. It’s great for summer salads and stands up to summer grilling. It’s an excellent oil in an easy to use package and I hope it becomes a favorite of yours in the same way I’ve come to really enjoy using it in my own kitchen.
Red Flint Corn Polenta from Wisconsin
To some, polenta is a cold weather dish best served to warm you from the inside out. To others, polenta is just grits and we’re all acting too fancy. I think both camps are correct, which is why I’ve been enjoying this polenta made exclusively from Red Flint Corn and milled by our friends at Meadowlark Organics in Ridgeway, Wisconsin.
First off, let’s get the redness out of the way: it’s more like it’s yellow with flecks of red. But the farmers behind Meadlowlark Organics grow the red flint corn right there on their own property and then mill it after being ordered. They can mill it up anyway you like, but when it comes to polenta you can consider it to be finely ground and then the flour sifted and removed. I’ve tried a few different versions, but I think their polenta is really special (and it’s won some awards here and there, so we must know what we’re talking about). Making polenta is as easy as stirring over heat and not stopping till you like the flavor and texture. You can make it into a porridge and enjoy it for breakfast or serve it as a side with lunch or dinner. Or you can make it into porridge, let it cool in the fridge and then cut it into fingers or smaller pieces that can be pan fried or deep fried or simply baked later.
I’m going to include Meadowlark’s recipe for making Oven Polenta now because it’s one of the easier ways I’ve used to make polenta. The best part is you don’t have to stand infront of the stove and stir for an hour! You can serve this polenta as a side or as the base for other dishes. But since it’s so hot around the country right now, I recommend making a batch, letting it cool in the fridge and then finding other ways to play with the polenta in the days that follow.
Oven Polenta Recipe
serves 4
Ingredients:
1 cup of Red Flint Polenta
4 1/2 cups of water
2 Tbs butter
1 tsp salt
4 oz finely grated aged cheese, like parmesan
Instructions:
- Heat oven to 325 degrees.
- Bring water to boil in an ovenproof sauce pot.
- Slowly stir in the Polenta using a whisk to prevent lumps. Let mixture come to a boil and begin to thicken.
- Stir in the butter and salt, place a lid on the pot and place in the oven.
- Bake for 30-40 minutes, until polenta is tender.
- Remove from oven and vigorously stir polenta until it is smooth and thick.
- Add cheese, stir until smooth, season with salt & pepper
…and then like I said you can pour the polenta into a casserole dish or sheet pan to cool and then be cut and served later. Wanna make it thicker/richer? Swap out half the water for chicken stock or even milk.
But to make something truly of the season, shop around your own garden or farmer’s market and bring home what’s fresh and interesting. Make the polenta, saute the veggies you find and serve on top. Delicious and simple (and those are two of my favorite food adjectives).
Crispy Crunchy Banana Chips from Cambodia
You know, some of the “new foods” we fall for are straight forward, tasty snacks. That’s a big category to be sure, so in order to justify loving snacks as much as fancy condiments we all like to include unique chips and snacks in general with cheeseboards and charcuterie boards and basically any opportunity to entertain. And that’s not just the Midwestern boy in my coming out that loves Summer Sausage as much as Sauccisson Sec Salami, it’s very posh to enjoy a great glass of wine with simple crunchy snacks. Anyone that’s had a Spanish potato chip knows I speak the truth…snacks can be a centerpiece.
Especially when they’re as crunchy and tasty and purpose driven as these baked banana chips from Cambodia. Bananas are sliced and slowly baked at low temperatures to expel all their moisture in order to be preserved. The other happy thing that happens with slow baking is the sugars get concentrated and the sweetness gets highlighted…but there’s no added sugars! So you get a crisp, crunchy, clean, sweet, banana chip that eats like something more savory without leaving you feeling heavy or weighted down by saturated fats!
Open the bag and serve with a crisp wine and the other snacks in this installment. It’ll be a very pleasant way to end the day.
John’s Local Honey from Ann Arbor, Michigan
I have two goals with this honey:
- To share a honey with you that I like and think is worth sharing
- To put in a plug for you to find your OWN local honey and use that with your cooking, condiments, etc.
So let’s say a few things about local honey first. Sometimes I take for granted that not everyone spends their time researching food and makers and tasting and retasting and tasting food again to find one you love. Local honey should catch your attention at the farmer’s market and I highly encourage you to pick some up because it’s one of the best, natural ways to stay healthy you can find at the farmer’s market.
You see, all flora is local and the flowers that are around where you live are the ones that most irritate your immune system and can make you sick. But much like how a vaccine works (in science, not internet conspiracies) if the body has a little bit of the “bad thing” like pollen that causes allergies it can figure out the best way to fight it off naturally and stay healthy. The pollen around where you live (as an example) is different than the stuff coming off the trees around me here in Michigan, so we’re exposed to different irritants. If we eat honey made from local bees who are using the same local pollen than it’s like we’ve been specifically exposed to the local irritants and we can figure out how to stay healthy as a result. So it’s not just that honey is “healthy” in microbial ways or even antimicrobial ways, but local honey actually has the ingredients your body needs to figure out the best ways to stay healthy amidst all the irritants around us.
I hope that makes sense…I’m not the type to run stuff through an AI filter to make sure, but having been surrounded by honeys from all over the world and heard some version of that explanation a thousand times, I’m pretty sure it does.
All that ‘local honey’ information is helpful to you, though, if you buy and eat local honey! Most of you aren’t living around Ann Arbor, Michigan where this honey was made, so all that doesn’t really apply. I think it’s a delicious honey, regardless, made from a variety of flowers growing around our little burg in the last few months and I highly encourage you to use it everywhere (drizzled over the polenta also included in this installment, for instance, is a fine idea for a sweet dessert).
Then, when you use up the last of this honey you can take yourself down to your local farmer’s market or food store and find a honey made near you. Taste through the lot to make sure you like them, but if you’re hoping to find health in the jar as much as flavor: make it a local honey.