Mash tuns available, great price & quality

This just in! Mash tuns are now available at Siciliano's Market for the bargain-basement price of only $125.00 (+tax). We think it's a great deal for a great product, and we think our customers will agree. Here's Siciliano staffer Doug Dorda to say more about the features these mash tuns have to offer -- take it away, Chug!

Siciliano's Mash Tun Features

• False bottom to minimize dead space & maximize efficiency
• Stainless steel fittings to ensure maximum cleanliness & durability
• 10-gallon capacity to easily accommodate double batches or monster single batches
• Thick cooler insulation to maximize thermal capacity
• Ball valve to easily control flow rates
• Handsome I "pint glass" MI sticker
• All parts available for individual sale

We have several mash tuns currently in stock and, barring any blights down on the old cooler farm, we will continue to keep several in stock indefinitely. Feel free to stop in for a closer look or with any questions that you have.

See you soon!

Spring's Early Bounty: Wild Leeks

By Alexander Atkin

Wild leeks, also known by other names - ramp, spring onion, ramson, and wild garlic - can be found in forests from South Carolina all the way north to where the taiga forest begins in Canada.

Leaves

Among the first to shoulder out of the cold early Spring soil, leeks are abundant in forests all over West Michigan. Typically occurring in patchy oases, they are easily spied by their bifurcated broad green leaves which look somewhat similar to those of lilies.

Sheathed Leek

Though shallow-rooted, leeks are not particularly easy to unearth. A small garden spade will do the trick. When uprooted, the bulb is covered by a dirt-sodden sheath which is easily removed.

The exposed bulb; oniony goodness

While the entire leek plant is edible, the bulb is most prized. With a pungent garlic-onion aroma and flavor, these wild members of the onion family make a spectacular addition to any dish that might normally call for onions. If cleaned and refrigerated, leeks will keep for months. I usually have some left to enjoy all the way through to the fall, if I can manage to use them sparingly.

Chicago's Namesake?

Traveling the area near the southern terminus of Lake Michigan in the 17th century, French explorer René-Robert Cavelier named the area Chicago after the name given to wild leeks by the local natives. His naturalist noted the area's dense growth of the vegetable.

Foraging is a part of humanity as ancient as any other. Taking a few hours to walk in woodlands and find wild edibles is a rewarding experience, and a rare chance to reconnect to once-common traditions now nearly lost in the wake of modern civilization. Take care to follow a reliable guide as there are sometimes poisonous mimics to certain plants and fungi. However, wild leeks have no closely resembling species, so the risk of mistakenly bringing home something else is very low. If you wish to forage on private lands, be sure to obtain permission beforehand. No wild edible is worth dodging bullets.

Lastly, only take what you and your family can reasonably consume. You may come across patches of several hundred leeks, but there are areas of the country that have known exploitation and local extinction. A good forager always leaves some behind to maintain the species and natural balance of the ecosystem.

Siciliano's staffer Alexander Atkin lives and forages in Grand Rapids, MI, where the edibles are wild in more ways than one.

Vote BULL, Support Michigan Literature

By Chris Siciliano (with help from Tim Chilcote)

BULL: Men’s Fiction, a literary journal run by Buzz contributor and Michigan blogger Tim Chilcote, needs your help. BULL is one of five finalists vying for 100K in funding through the Dockers “Wear the Pants” contest. BULL needs YOUR VOTES*—one a day, every day this week—to win this unprecedented sum for an independent literary journal.

With your vote and $100,000 in-pocket, BULL will carry on the literary traditions of Michigan writers like Ernest Hemingway and Jim Harrison, and lend support to a new generation of talented Great Lakes authors. Ultimately BULL intends to grow into a full-scale publishing house, one providing good men (and women, too) with consistently good fiction, no different than the way our favorite breweries provide us all with consistently good beer.

I first met BULL’s managing editor, Tim Chilcote, in an English class at Western Michigan University. Tim and I were roommates in Prague during our time abroad (pivo anyone?), and roommates again in Portland, Oregon during our lean, post-collegiate years. I know Tim well and can say with confidence that no person is more deserving of this money and your vote.

I also happen to believe wholeheartedly in BULL's mission: simply put, to get men reading again. It's a worthy objective and one that, I admit, as a contributing writer to BULL, I have a personal interest in seeing pan out.

The campaign is run through BULL’s editor-in-chief, Jarrett Haley. He's the passionate lad in the video below (look for his mug on the voting page as well).

To learn more about the contest and BULL visit www.bullmensfiction.com or go straight to vote through the Dockers Facebook app: http://apps.facebook.com/dockerswearthepants/entries/21891

*A note from Tim: Unfortunately, voting takes place on a third-party Facebook application, so you need to “like” Dockers and allow Levi’s access to your most basic profile info. I would only offer that khaki pants are much more trustworthy than Facebook itself, so you’ve no need to worry any more than usual.

Recipe: No-knead spelt (50%)

By Chris Siciliano

Of the several interesting types of bread grain Siciliano's now carries, the one that currently excites me most is our organic spelt. Thanks to its relative friendliness to people sensitive (not intolerant) to gluten, this 8,000-year-old precursor to modern wheat is today a common alternative to regular white flour. However, deserving of more than just the "alternative" label, spelt can be a worthwhile, tasty addition to your regular cache of every-day ingredients.

Whoever spelt it, dealt it.

In Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes, Jeffrey Hamelman (who is to baking what John Palmer is to brewing) has this to say about spelt:

It has attributes similar to regular wheat in bread baking, such as a high protein level and sufficient gluten to produce breads with reasonable volume. It is nutritionally similar if not superior to wheat. Another important benefit of spelt is that it can be tolerated by people with certain wheat allergies.

Aside from the health benefits, we're finding that bread made from spelt has excellent flavor, a little nuttier maybe, a little sweeter than traditional all-wheat bread. The recipe below--equal parts fresh-milled spelt and natural white flour--produces both a crumb and texture comparable to that of similar all-wheat formulas. This is a hearty, healthy, feel-good-about-yourself kind of bread, good for toast and sandwiches of all kinds. (Please see this post here for a discussion and directions on using the no-knead method of bread baking.)

Formula

• 227 grams (8oz) "natural premium" white flour (or any good, non-bleached white flour)
• 227 grams (8oz) fresh-milled organic spelt berries (grind medium-fine to course; you should see bran flecks in the flour, and the flour should feel slightly gritty)
• 312 grams (11oz) water
• 10 grams (1.5 tsp) salt
• 1 gram (1/4 tsp) Saf-instant yeast

Notes & Tips

• Several sources suggest cutting back on water when using spelt flour. Hence the recipe above calls for only 11 ounces of H20 and not the usual 12. Apparently spelt hydrates faster and more thoroughly than regular wheat flour. Though I don't yet have enough experience with spelt to verify this, I can attest to the quality of dough this particularly recipe makes, regardless of the difference in overall hydration.
• If you've got designs on baking this recipe for a gluten-sensitive loved one, keep in mind that using one-half pound of wheat flour will likely negate the gluten-friendly benefits spelt otherwise has to offer.
• The last time I made this recipe, I doubled it and used half the dough to make pitas. This was a good decision. Pitas made from this recipe are chewy and incredibly flavorful, as perfect a compliment to sauteed onions, peppers, mushrooms, and feta (for dinner) as they are to peanut butter and bananas (breakfast). Recipe coming soon!

As always, if you have have tips, comments, questions, or concerns, please send them our way. Happy baking (and eating) everyone!

Spelt close-up

Harry Winston, Part VI

Our old friend Harry is back at it and only a day after his last post, which you can read here. Join him now as he attempts to explain what it is about Samantha Lowe that makes him so uneasy.  

After taking care of some rather nasty business in Chicago recently I unwound with a few pints of Alpha King at The Map Room then went to Gene & Giorgetti’s where I had a bottle of a second growth Bordeaux with a thick, dry-aged porterhouse. I went to the Art Institute the next morning and spent about an hour looking at a painting that I particularly like. What I find most striking about this portraiture is the way that Rembrandt used elements of light and dark, a technique called chiaroscuro. I’m going to employ this technique while painting the following portrait of Samantha Lowe.

The black background in the portrait contrasts sharply with the brightly illuminated face. It’s an extraordinarily beautiful, well-proportioned face, one side of which is bathed in light, the other faintly dimmed by shadow. The face has high cheekbones, a delicate, slightly upturned nose, and full lips that, when seen from differing perspectives, may present the barest hint of a frown, an indifferent pout, or a vaguely enchanting, somewhat mischievous smile. There are perfectly formed dark eyebrows underneath a snow white, flawlessly smooth forehead onto which drops a single curving wisp of coal-black hair. But ultimately it’s the eyes that you are drawn to. The eyes are dark and are surrounded by shadow. They seem dangerous, and if you look directly into them they in turn bore into you; if you merely glance at them the way you would glance at the sun, they appear to be focused inward, as if they were reflecting upon privileged, esoteric knowledge or, perhaps, some secret, unspeakable sorrow.

After Samantha Lowe walked into darkened bar from the late afternoon light she stood just inside the door and those eyes slowly surveyed the room. Jimmie was standing behind the bar and when he saw her he looked over at me, frowned, then went back to his crossword. The Crazy Hippie was asleep at a table and when he felt those eyes pass over him he suddenly snapped awake and blinked a couple of times before looking down at the floor. Two regulars who were playing pool stood with their mouths slightly open and I thought they were going to genuflect. But it was Charles Brewster’s reaction that was most puzzling. He had moved to the bar, and when Samantha looked at him he coolly returned her gaze and gave her a slight, almost imperceptible nod.

The Adventures of Harry Winston, Part V

Ladies and gentlemen, allow us to present the fifth installment in the continuing saga of one Mr. Harry Winston. Today we learn more about Harry's favorite barkeep, Jimmie O'Doyle. (Please click here to read last week's installment).

Jimmie O’Doyle has owned Beason’s for over thirty years. To survive that long in the bar business, especially a bar on the lower west side, you have to be tough and sometimes you have to be mean. Jimmie’s tough, sometimes mean, but he also has a soft side. I’ve seen him throw guys twice his size out of the bar, watched him kick the shit out of two drunken bikers, observed him in action with the sawed off pool cue and stopped him one night from killing some dude who came after him with a switchblade. But I also watched him pick up a dying butterfly off the sidewalk and gently place it in a patch of weeds beside the curb. I saw him wipe a tear from his eye one night while he was sitting at the bar watching a movie, and I’ve seen him fry up free burgers for the neighborhood bums. He used to run drink tabs for customers who were short on cash but stopped doing that after his ex-wife blew the whistle and the MLCC busted him.

His office has the ying/yang symbol painted on one of the cinder block walls. It took a week for The Crazy Hippie to paint it and Jimmie was so impressed that he gave The Crazy Hippie five hundred bucks. The Crazy Hippie lives upstairs in one of the apartments and Jimmie lets him live there for free in exchange for doing odd jobs around the bar. He does a good job fixing whatever breaks despite the fact that he has one eye, one leg, and three fingers missing from one of his hands. He was working as an upholsterer in the furniture factory across the street when he got drafted and after basic training he came home and married his high school sweetheart. He was in a jeep when it hit an anti-tank mine in Saigon during the Tet offensive. When he first came home he was just a little strange. It was after he couldn’t find a job and his wife divorced him that he went crazy. He’s drunk every day by noon but he’s not a mean drunk and there’s nothing about him that’s evil. The things that happened to him made him crazy but they didn’t make him evil. We all have the capacity for doing good and the potential for being evil. Like the ying/yang symbol on the wall in Jimmie’s office, we all have a light side and a dark side.

The second I saw Samantha Lowe get out of her car I should have gone into Jimmie’s office. I should have sat in Jimmie’s office for five minutes looking at the ying/ yang symbol and then my mind would have cleared. I knew when I first heard her voice that Samantha had a strong dark side but I didn’t realize how strong it was until I saw her. I try not to judge people but I found myself judging Samantha Lowe because she was evil. If you know someone has a strong dark side you should just deal with it accordingly. You shouldn’t judge them because you might have turned out the same way they did if the things that happened to them had happened to you. If you start judging people your rational mind prevents you from listening to your intuitions and then you might make wrong decisions. And when you’re in my business, making wrong decisions can get you in a lot of trouble.

Rowster: new American coffee? Lets hope so

By Chris Siciliano

A version of the following post is scheduled to appear in the May, 2011 issue of Recoil Magazine.

“Soft on the palate, with subtle undertones of blackberries.” To walk in on the above conversation mid-sentence, you would think Kurt Stauffer was not describing coffee, but rather his favorite bottle of wine or, more likely, this being Michigan, a new summer beer from Shorts, Bells, or New Holland Brewing. The fact is, Stauffer, expert coffee roaster and owner of ROWSTER New American Coffee, was describing his popular Burundi roast, and doing so with such delicious-sounding descriptors that all within ear-shot began to salivate like Pavlov’s dog.

Stauffer’s enthusiasm for good, let’s call it craft coffee, is matched only by Stephen Curtis’, sitting vice-president of Rowster and barista extraordinaire. One small-batch, custom roast at a time, these two are doing for coffee what others have been doing for craft beer for the last twenty-five years: reminding us that drinking and eating too need not be purely utilitarian activities, but can (and should?) be moments of complete transcendence and, for some, the culmination of years of study, obsession, and fervent attention to detail. Like the brewers at Founders, the bakers at Nantucket, the chefs at Winchester and Vivant, like any number of craft-anything pioneers across the city, state, and country, the guys at Rowster are hell-bent on achieving mastery in their chosen field, which, in this case – and lucky for us – just happens to be coffee.

Lucky too that Rowster moved recently from their original back-room location on Cherry into a spacious storefront in the up-and-coming Wealthy St. business district. It used to be you could only buy Rowster coffee by the pound for at-home consumption. Now, thanks to the new larger space, you can enjoy it by the cup as well. Just be sure to have a few extra minutes when you go. Rowster sets out no self-serve carafes to expedite service, nor do they have an honor jar for customers who don’t have time to wait. These things, though sensible, even appreciated in other coffee houses, would be completely out of place at Rowster, where each cup of coffee is brewed individually, to-order, and not until the customer asks for it. The decision to put quality above all else, including convenience, might sound like utter sacrilege to those who subscribe to the prevailing fast-food sensibilities of our time, but Stauffer and Curtis would have it no other way.

The single-cup, “clever coffee” brewing system employed by Rowster has several advantages. Nothing if not efficient, it delivers just about the smoothest, most well-balanced coffee you can find. It also ensures quality by virtue of freshness. (Like most things, coffee degrades the longer it sits around, not a problem at Rowster.) Again, the goal is not speed, but rather the enjoyment of delicate, naturally fruity flavor compounds otherwise locked within the coffee grounds. By catering exclusively to taste Rowster stays true to their governing philosophy: done correctly, a good cup coffee can (and should) be so much more than merely a vehicle for caffeine or sugar. It can be a culinary experience no less thought-provoking than a rare Belgian beer, yet no less accessible than, well, a cup of good coffee.

This philosophy informs not just their brewing process, but the roasting operation as well. Instead of over-manipulating the raw or “green” coffee bean to achieve some pre-determined end, Rowster uses the tools available to highlight and tease out the implicit character of the bean itself. It’s their opinion that exceptional coffee, like good wine, comes from careful production practices, sure, but more so from terroir – that is, the environmental factors in which the bean was grown. The region, the variety, the processing, the weather, these variables matter as much if not more than what Stauffer and Curtis can do on roasting day. In a sense, the guys do their best simply to get out of the way, letting the natural complexity and potential of the bean lead them where it will.

This is not to say they don’t have their own style. In the same way a microbrewery or winery or even a restaurant strives to establish a defining or overarching flavor profile, Rowster too strives to cultivate a unique identity across every roast in their bullpen. Their coffee, no matter the variety, tends to be on the lighter side, bright with sparkling acidity; this as opposed to the heavy-bodied, chewy coffees available from other roasters, which are no better or worse, just different. Stauffer likes to think of his roasts as “over-achievers”, coffee that pleases with balance and subtlety rather than boldness and brutish intensity.

In any case, it’s coffee worth checking out, by the pound or by the cup, both options are available. Espresso, cappuccino, and other drinks are available as well. ROWSTER New American Coffee is located at 632 Wealthy Street SE, two blocks west of Eastern.

Kurt

Steve

 The real star of the show