Our GM Tim’s favorite wine producer, Abe Schoener, was gracious enough to stop by the shop for a private tasting recently.  If there was a poster of Abe crushing fermented grapes at his vineyard, Tim may have put it up in his office.  And let me tell you, Abe does only a handful of these across the country. So to say we felt incredibly blessed is an understatement.  While visiting, we tried a number of rare wines from Abe’s vineyard.  But one stood out above the rest.

We are fortunate enough to now be carrying the 2009 Hudson Vineyards Androkteinos from The Scholium Project.  This isn’t something you’ll be able to find at your local Binny’s folks as we are one of the only retail shops in the Midwest to be carrying this wine.  Abe produces only some 2,000 cases of wine annually which allows each release to be rare and special.  There are some which never see the light of day due to the wine not reaching the standards that Abe has established for the Scholium Project.

On a recent Monday afternoon off (here’s where your jealously might kick in), we gathered after a meeting to do a tasting and get everyone’s feedback about our new Spring wines. What stood out most to all was the incredible fragrance the wine gives off. The dark fruity notes really shine through and discussions of pairing this with some of our hand-pulled mozzarella, Tumalo Classico or TCHO chocolate came to mind.

If you’re looking to give a special gift to someone who loves wine, or just want to add something to your collection……the 2009 Androkteinos is for you.  The New York Times ran a great piece on Abe a few weeks back that we recommend in the link below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/magazine/the-fearless-risk-loving-winemaker.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&

For more of an in-depth look, give this a read:

http://www.scholiumwines.com/2009_andro.html

As I grew up, the food memories I gathered got stronger and more varied.  I remember the first blueberry I every picked and ate fresh off the bush in New Hampshire. I was 5.  The first time I caught and ate a fish, fried for shore lunch in Canada, I was 7.  The strange and wonderful textures and flavors of headcheese in Germany, I was 8.  

In 1985, my family traveled throughout Italy for just about a month.  I was 9 years old and ready to eat “real” Italian food.  My experience with Italian, like most American kids growing up in the 80’s, was not what would be called authentic.  Spaghetti with meatballs, eggplant parmesan and the green shaker of Kraft parmesan cheese was Italian to me.  I could not wait to see what Italians really ate.

 Driving from our home in Germany and after an overnight stay in Switzerland, we arrived in Italy.  My first food memory of the trip came just outside of Milan.  We stopped to fill the car with gas and to get a snack.  I opted for an espresso and pastry.  While I don’t remember the pastry, the coffee is still with me to this day.  The thick, rich, caramel colored crema.  The almost overpowering aroma of the dark roasted beans as they were ground.  And the taste!  Wow!  I could not describe it then and still can’t to this day.   

As we traveled on that summer I would encounter many more firsts and encounter some truly wonderful food.  Trout in Vicenza.  Tiny cockles in Venice.  Fresh sardines along the Adriatic coast.  Carbonara in Rome.  Real Italian food!

The memories of the food I ate that summer are as fresh as if it happened just last year.  Remembering the food brings back all the places we went to and people we met along the way.

I know what you’re thinking:  “Isn’t that a lengthy story?” Yeah, it is. Keeping track of your place in the story can be tough, especially if you’ve consumed a cocktail (or two) while setting the dinner table. This is where the Haggadah comes in to play. The Haggadah tells the narrative of the exodus from Egypt in the form of blessings, rituals, songs, and questions. Everyone participates in the reading, ensuring that each person at the Seder table gets a chance to speak about slavery, unleavened bread, symbols of the Seder plate, and the approaching spring.

Don’t worry; it’s not as tedious as it sounds. The Haggadah also commands you to drink four glasses of wine before dinner starts, which can lead to some hilarious slurring during the yelling of the ten plagues (the fifth plague, pestilence, generally causes a ruckus at my house). While the plagues are good fun (I’ll admit it, I love hollering about destruction), my favourite part of the Haggadah is the invitation of Elijah to the Seder table. Traditionally, the table is set with an extra place setting that is not to be used by dinner guests. The Haggadah commands us to open our doors and invite the world outside to participate in our celebration; Elijah is the symbol we invite to join us in our ritual.

The most common set of symbols present at Seder dinner are focused on the Seder plate.  All the items present on the Seder plate intertwine with stories in the Haggadah. It is the plate where all Seder meals begin, and the Sunday dinner we’re doing at Panozzo’s is no exception.

Chef John is putting a new twist on the symbolism of the Seder plate by creating a plated, and actually edible, first course. A Slagel Family Farm duck egg takes the place of a hard-boiled egg.  Shankbones are tough to eat; let’s have bone marrow instead. Parsley will be properly seasoned, instead of dipped in overly salted water. Nuts and dried fruit will make an appearance, horseradish as well. But who knows what it will look like- we’ll all find out at dinner.

Seats are still available for our Seder dinner on Sunday, March 24th. Eight courses, with wine pairings, for $100 per person. Call us at 312.356.9966 to reserve your seats.

Portland is a great destination for food. Every grocery, market or deli we visited had a respectable offering of locally made charcuterie, bread and cheese. My favorite spot was a place called Cheese Bar. The owner, Steve, really geeks out on local handcrafted foods, and he turned me on to several delicious cheeses and some great Portland-made small format salumi.

One of the cheeses I tasted at Cheese Bar was a Pecorino Toscano style, made at a small dairy named Black Sheep Creamery, located just over the Washington border. It was delicious, and it seemed like a good fit for the Panozzo’s case, so I called up the cheesemaker to arrange a tour. Really, it was that easy.  This is part of what I love about local food: I can call the number on the package, and a farmer answers the phone.

Black Sheep Creamery is a seasonal dairy, meaning they milk their Ewes only while they are on pasture. Milking and cheesemaking starts shortly after the lambs are born, and continues until the weather turns colder in the fall. When the Ewes’ diet is mostly pasture, the milk (and therefore the cheese) is so much more delicious. It turns out our visit was timed perfectly: right in the middle of lambing season. When we showed up, everyone was hard at work. The owners Meg and Brad were kind enough to show us around and share some stories with us. What cool people. What an inspiring place. While our hosts went back to their work, Laura and I went to visit the new lambs. Some helpers
from the neighborhood had an elaborate nursery set up in the barn: several pens, each with lambs of different ages. The newborns were learning to bottle feed, and two people were sitting in the hay, keeping a close eye on their progress.  They were all smiles and quiet voices, and they handed us each a lamb as soon as we walked in.

Believe it or not, some food still comes from places like this. In fact, it is often the best kind of food you can get.

Come by Panozzo’s and ask for a taste of the cheese I brought back: Tin Willow Tomme. Also, keep an eye out for more handmade foods showing up in our artisan case soon, including a Robiola from Colorado and a small format salami from Portland.

Cheese first, with Toma from Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company.  First, let me explain the word ‘farmstead’. This translates as “from the farm,” meaning that the cheese is made on the same land where the animals have grazed and been milked. This process greatly increases the cheeses’ terroir.  Terroir is a French word describes the taste of a cheese (beer, wine, meat, etc.) when it has taken on the flavors of the region, or growing site, that it was produced in.  All of that to say that this cheese is awesome! This Toma has a smooth texture with a buttery, mildly grassy tang. It is made from the milk of 3^rd generation Holstein cows that have grazed on organic pastures.

Next step is the meat pairing, with Creminelli’s Wild Boar Salami. This salami is made from field harvested Texas boar and pork belly, seasoned with a touch of clove and juniper. The Boar meat makes for a leaner, tangier product with a deep, rich color. Creminelli, the company that produces this exceptional meat, has been making Salumi in Italy since the 1600’s, and opened its United States store in 2006. Creminelli is guaranteed to be great quality because of the specific ground rules they have set for all of their ingredients, animals, and production traditions.

Last, but not least, beer. New Holland Brewing Company’s Golden Cap Saison Ale from New Holland, MI.  This beer is New Holland’s interpretation of traditional farmhouse ale, which they brew mainly with Spelt (an ancient form of wheat).  The beer has high carbonation, and a pale, straw color with a palate of fresh cut hay and cracked pepper.

Each of these fabulous products would be great if enjoyed on their own. Or, you can do it the way we would, and have all three together.

Bellwether Farms Carmody

This cheese makes a beautiful pairing with the Pear with Honey & Ginger preserve from Quince & Apple out of Wisconsin. To make an evening of it, include Jasci Atteso Pecorino.  A medium-bodied white wine with cooked lemon flavors like curd and marmalade, it tames the ginger in the preserve and brings out the citrus tang in the cheese.

Grayson, LQ Copa & Pranqster

Grayson is a unique, raw Jersey cows’ milk cheese with a bright orange washed rind, modeled after the famous Taleggio.  It is being produced in southwestern Virginia on Meadow Creek Dairy from the cows’ springtime milkings.  The cows that produce the milk for this cheese are born out in pasture and spend their time grazing on the variety of grasses grown on the farmland. This diet makes for a very rich, fudgy-textured cheese with a deep yellow color coming from high levels of beta-carotene (a pigment found in grass and veggies).

Though the originality of this cheese makes it easy for Grayson to stand alone as an appetizer or cheese course, a little beer and charcuterie would work perfectly.  I highly suggest the Panqster golden Belgium Ale we have from North Coast Brewery and some thinly sliced LaQuercia Coppa.  With these three products in tow, you are bound to have a delicious evening!

Roberta’s – Few places are as inherently cool as Roberta’s, which will, of course, lead to its eventual demise among true foodies in NYC.

Roberta’s rooftop garden provides much of the produce and herbs used by the restaurant. (And don’t forget Tiki Disco Sundays!)

Roberta’s is in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, a neighborhood of starving artists, fair trade coffee shops and razor wire-protected tractor trailer lots. Roberta’s, opened in 2008 by a trio of musician friends, is the land-locked culinary cousin of Pirate Radio. It’s a jerry-rigged, mish-mosh of a restaurant set in a virtual landfill of cinderblock buildings, corrugated steel, 9-foot fencing and old shipping containers. One shipping container now houses an internet radio station, Heritage Radio Network, which is devoted to segments on sustainability, artisan cheese, craft beer and the like. Another houses the restaurant’s bakery oven.

Sustainability is Roberta’s mantra, and the restaurant’s yard space teems with hoop gardens and planting beds. The grow-your-own philosophy now extends to a 40,000-square-foot rooftop garden in Long Island, which is run in part by the Roberta’s crew. Restaurant legend (Chez Panisse) and food activist (Edible Schoolyard) Alice Waters was so enamored with the efforts of the Roberta’s gang that, during an unannounced visit, she cut them a check for $1000 on the spot to help with build-out costs.

Childhood friend/documentary film maker/former Vibe and Time Out New York editor, and Brooklynite Joe Angio (with Ellen Panozzo) steered us to Roberta’s. Nice call!

But eventually everything comes back to the quality of the food, and Roberta’s holds its own with any million-dollar kitchen. Known for their creatively topped wood-fired pizzas, Roberta’s doesn’t miss with antipasti or entrees either. We shared a beautiful purslane salad with blueberries, buttermilk dressing and Bayley Hazen Blue. Scallops with carrot, yogurt and pistachio butter were equally nice, as was charred octopus with cucumber, avocado and radish. The pizza (housemade sausage, fresh tomato relish and rainbow chard) was everything it promised to be.

Definitely worth the trip!

There is no denying the amazing array of foodstuffs produced on the Italian peninsula and the surrounding islands.  In fact, some are irreplaceable!  Small production olive oils (although they are making some impressive stuff in California these days), balsamic vinegar from Modena, anchovies from Sicily, bottarga from Sardinia, San Marzano tomatoes, & Parmigiano Reggiano, just to name a few.  However, I’m almost positive that if some of the best chefs and restauranteurs in Italy were transplanted to Chicago today, they would not import everything from their native land.  They would seek out the farmers, ranchers, cheese makers and producers closest to them who are raising and producing the best and freshest foods with the highest standards of care and integrity.  That’s what Italian food is all about…the ingredients.

When I started searching for products we would stock at Panozzo’s, I started in my favorite category of all…cured meats!  I did a few Google searches for artisan cured meats in the Midwest, and a company called La Quercia kept popping up.  I dug a little deeper and found out that they were making prosciutto…in Iowa!  La Quercia owners Herb and Kathy Eckhouse  had lived in Italy (in and around the Parma region) and had intensely studied the art of making prosciutto with some of the best producers in that area.  They took this knowledge back to Norwalk Iowa and began making prosciutti (and eventually other delicious salumi) from locally and sustainably raised hogs.  I respected their dedication to their craft but I’m not going to lie, I was still a little skeptical.  I mail ordered some of their product, specifically their 100% heirloom Berkshire breed prosciutto Rossa.

The moment I sliced into that ham I was amazed and I became an instant fan.  It was so delicate, buttery, and beautifully marbled.  It reminded me a little of the slightly sweet and salty balance achieved by the San Daniele hams produced in the Friuli region. The La Quercia ham had something else…it’s own identity and uniqueness.  This is something Herb and Kathy have been able to capture in all of the La Quercia products.  I knew we had to not only carry their products, but feature them in our store.

When I first reached out to Herb and expressed my interest in selling their hams, he couldn’t have been more gracious and accommodating.  I’m proud to say we were the first to bring La Quercia into the Chicago market.  That fantastic and personal relationship still remains today, and we’re truly honored to support the incredible food and  people behind La Quercia.  On any given day, the Panozzo’s deli case will house La Quercia Prosciutto Rossa, Speck Americano, Prosciutto Piccante, Pancetta, Guanciale, Lardo, Coppa, and our newest addition, Acorn Edition Prosciutto.

On June 12th, Bike Chicago will take over the Jay Pritzker Pavilion for a showing of “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure”- an ultimate tale of good vs. evil and a man-boy’s love of his bike. Throw in the hilarity of Pee Wee’s cross-country travels… you’d be silly to miss it!

Stop by Panozzo’s on your way to the park and pick up snacks from all over the country- just like Pee Wee would have if he hadn’t been so consumed by that bike. La Quercia prosciutto from Norwalk, IA; pickled veggies and spinach dip from River Valley Kitchens (Burlington, WI); and Chef John’s porchetta crescentina. Top it off with a bottle of Arneis from Palmina (Santa Ynez, CA) or the Makor Sangiovese (Santa Barbara, CA) and dinner is served.