Spring Beer Tasting

A recent gathering dedicated to craft brews featured a set of beers from Wisconsin paired with artisan cheeses and small plate appetizers...ahhh, the joy. The variations of craft beers provide a great complement to so many foods and Great Lakes Cuisine takes full advantage of such pairings. The most difficult part was setting the drinking [...]

In Praise of Smørrebrød

Nordic cuisine has ascended in recent years to join the culinary pantheon of fine dining, a welcome broadening of the traditional European references for modern American experimentation. Such a re-emergence of Nordic influences generates an interesting confluence in the Midwest, particularly in Wisconsin and Minnesota, where immigrants settled a few generations ago.  They brought with [...]

Grilled Cheese Sandwich #3

The cheese that started the experiments with Grilled Cheese Sandwiches - Carr Valley's Menage. If you missed them, here are Grilled Cheese #1 and Grilled Cheese #2. Enjoying the Menage before dinner one evening, the complex, grassy flavors combined with the creamy texture inspired this thought - What would this be like as a grilled [...]

Grilled Cheese Sandwich #2

The Second of a Three Part series. (Part One here) This grilled cheese was created for my youngest daughter.  It begins with bacon; Nueske's smoked bacon.   The extra slices from a Sunday morning breakfast inspired my youngest daughter to request a BLT grilled cheese. The tomato component was easy enough - adapting an oven-roasted tomato recipe [...]