Kermis

Kermesse, or kermis, or kirmess, is a Dutch language term derived from 'kerk' (church) and 'mis' (mass) that became incorporated in French and English. Its origins are originally associated with the mass said on the anniversary of the founding of a church (or the parish) and in honor of the Patron Saint.  Such religious celebrations were regularly held in the Low Countries, in Central Europe and also in Northern France, and were accompanied by feasting, dancing, drinking and sports. 

The Dutch-American Village of Little Chute, Wisconsin, has celebrated Kermis annually since 1981 with a street festival. The Wallonian settlements in Door and Kewaunee Counties have celebrated Kermis with traditional Belgian dishes and events for as long as anyone can remember.  

Traditionally, Kermis around here stretched over several calendar weeks as each small settlement - Namur, Brussels, Rosiere, Little Sturgeon, Forestville, Lincoln, Duvall and Casco celebrated the harvest and the life-giving bounty of food.  

I'm not of Dutch or Belgian descent - but we're celebrating our own Kermis here with With the last of our garden harvest and attending the annual Kermis festival at the local Belgian American Heritage Center in Namur.  Nothing better on a late summer afternoon than friends, neighbors, a couple of Trappist-influenced craft beers and some Belgian Church Lady food. 

Beginning in the mid-1800s and over three decades more than 5000 Belgian immigrants settled in several communities in the area.  To this day it constitutes the largest concentration of Walloon Belgians anywhere in the world outside of Belgium.  It's a national treasure.  But I digress.

Getting back to the subject of culinary traditions I happened-upon this short video published only a few years ago.  I'm sharing it as it is about the tradition of hog butchering in both English and Walloon.  Walloon is a national treasure around these parts as it's actually an endangered 'Romance Language' of the Langues d'oïl family - spoken primarily in the Wallonia region of Belgium.   

One of the elements of the past that is alive and well is a local favorite called Belgian Trippe.

Trippe (pronounced like: trip) is a sausage similar to a bratwurst but with a not-so-secret ingredient.  The thrifty Belgian settlers extended their pork sausage with the inclusion of cabbage.  Further seasoned with onion, salt, pepper, thyme, nutmeg and ginger it is made locally by Marchant's.

It's pretty good stuff for breakfast, lunch or dinner and you won't find it anywhere outside of northeast Wisconsin.

Here's a newspaper clipping from 1963 with a recipe for 60+ pounds of the sausage for serving at a Kermis - or Belgian harvest festival....

click on image for a closer look

The Garden Chronicles

It has been a terrific year for tomatoes; half the number of plants and just about the same yield at harvest.  I have a couple of San Marzano tomato plants that are not growing in rich volcanic soil in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius.  The are thriving in crappy, Door County clay soil and are absolute tomato factories.  Consequently, our diet features tomatoes at virtually every opportunity.

Tomato tart, tomato seafood stew, venison bolognese, caprese salad, you name it.  

Just the other day I found myself with about 5+ pounds of ripe, San Marzano tomatoes so I whipped-together eight pints of homemade salsa and canned it for winter use.

We all know the uncomfortable truth; that our lover affair with fresh garden tomatoes is a brief and fleeting dalliance.  Incredibly sensuous; and short-lived.  By the time January rolls-around and Ma Nature is hurling freezing sleet against the windows and temperatures hover in the single digits we all would consider felonious behavior to get our hands tomatoes such as these.  

Can 'em while you got 'em.......

Fall Feast

Quercus bicolor​ - the swamp white oak​ - is a North American white oak species​.  A key player in our overall reforestry plan we planted thousands of them decades ago.  Its acorn development follows a fairly consistent cycle, typical of white oaks, but with a few species-specific traits​.

Like all members of the white oak group swamp white oak acorns mature in a single growing season (roughly 4–5 months after pollination).​  Fertilized flowers begin to swell in late May–June​ and the acorns remain small through early summer.​ Beginning now the acorns enlarge rapidly.

The cap is distinctive​ - shallow and scaly​ - covering about one-third of the nut, often with loose, fringed edges.​  The acorns reach full size (about 1–1.5 inches long) in September–October​ and are light brown to chestnut brown when mature.​  They drop to the ground soon after ripening, and because they lack a dormancy requirement, they often germinate in the same autumn if soil conditions are​ optimal.​  They're ​dispersed mainly by gravity, squirrels, and jays.

​This species of oak tends to have high acorn production in mast years, but irregular cycles ​with bumper crops every 4–7 years.​  As a wildlife food source they're relatively sweet (low tannin) compared to red oaks, making them highly favored by deer, turkeys, duck​s and squirrels.

​I have an aux naturele bait pile.....

Comfort Food

There’s definitely a whiff of autumn in the air so I figured yesterday evening was a good opportunity to whip-up a batch of seafood stew.  

Sautéed onion, Conecuh Alabama smoked sausage, garlic, fresh sage, diced tomatoes, clam juice, garden tomatoes, fresh shrimp and cod, more sage, cracked pepper and sea salt. 

Comes together fast; 15-20 minutes. 

Pretty good chow if you can get it… 

 

Nixon

Not the late president, Tricky Dick, but a place to visit if you find yourself on the Gulf Coast.  

Recent travel to visit with family found us in Mobile Alabama for a week with an opportunity to become temporary Mobilians and soak-up the history, food and ambiance of this coastal city.

Set in a 1920s-era building that housed Nixon’s Drugs for decades, the restaurant embraces a nostalgic soda-fountain vibe—wooden bar, candy jars, retro ads—with a funky vintage flair. The menu features made-from-scratch sandwiches, wraps, quesadillas, and salads.  Standouts include the Nixon Sandwich (house-roasted roast beef, caramelized onions, provolone), TBS (turkey, bacon, Swiss, honey mustard aioli), and creative items like the seared tuna steak with wasabi aioli or Thai wrap with fried-onion crunch.

If you're thirsty there are 20 draft taps offering local, regional, and global beers and ciders, plus wines and creative cocktails like the Cherry Lime Rickey or Buzzed Brown Cow milkshake.

Nighttime attracts sports fans with multiple TVs, shuffleboard and pool tables adding to the fun.  Entrées are reasonably priced—around $11 on average—making Nixon’s a frequent local haunt.  

Best of all there are all manner of vintage pharmacy posters on display for your modern-day amusement.

 

If you're in-town; check it out! 

Breakfast For Dinner

Breakfast for dinner.  A couple nights ago.

Homemade, sourdough buttermilk pancakes accompanied by Marchant’s breakfast porkies and local maple syrup. 

BTW - the sourdough starter I’m using is from France, via a Michelin-starred chef in NYC, to Michigan, then Algoma to finally land in my kitchen. It’s about 20+ years old and enjoys pedigree and provenance. 

It’s primarily used for pizza dough but leavens a terrific loaf of bread and the best pancakes on the planet.  

Pretty good chow if you can get it. 

Raising a toast to Lactobacillus fermentation…

Stir Fry

Sometimes you just have to make stir fry.  It takes a wee bit of prep work but comes-together in its final form in a matter of minutes.  Serve with rice or udon noodles and top with crispy Asian noodles.  Low fat, lots of veggies and generally healthy if you skip an egg roll course.

We like shrimp but tonight it's boneless, skinless chicken breast.

Get your wok on the stove top with some oil heating and assemble all of your ingredients. 

Mise en place; starting a nine o'clock, stock, crispy noodles, chicken (sliced in thin strips), rice, diced green scallions, onions, carrots, bok choy (coarsely chopped), sugar snap pea pods, broccoli, water chestnuts (sliced) and oyster mushrooms....

Start your onions and garlic - soften, don't burn.  Add carrots....

Then your chicken.

Give it a stir and toss in the mushrooms and veggies.

Add chicken stock followed by a slurry of corn starch to thicken.

Serve on white, basmati rice topped with crispy noodles and chopped green scallions.

Enjoy!

Leftovers make for a quick lunch.  Pretty good chow if you can get it...  

 

Friday Food

In lieu of music this morning I bring you food.  Specifically, food from any number of vacations we taken both here and abroad.

Google Photo's AI feature feeds me unsolicited gems like this periodically.  Short video slide shows assembled from photos archived in the cloud.

Further evidence Google is a force for good.

And pretty good chow if you can get it....

 

The Garden Chronicles

As tough as gardening has been this year there have been several standouts.  Raspberries, asparagus and tomatoes.  Plenty of berries to pick and eat with the surplus frozen for the future.  You've likely been bored to tears with the spargel story.  And the tomatoes are doing terrific with red and yellow cherry varieties for snacking, San Marzanos for pizza and these beauties; all acquired from Sully's Greenhouse this spring.  

First time purchaser from this garden center and I guess I'll have to go back; namely because the heirloom beefsteak variety above can no longer be ID'd.  The name on the tag faded!  These are absolutely fantastic.

Anyway, my tomato plants are about half of prior years but the yield is good enough for some canning in my future.

Meanwhile there are BLTs to eat.

 Pretty good chow if you can get it.... 

Spargel Season

Three months ago I had a mild panic attack believing that my asparagus patch had given-up the ghost.  

Not so.  As it turned-out that bed continued to deliver fresh asparagus spears on a slow but sure basis for the next 3+ months allowing me the pleasure of fresh spargel a couple of times a week.

Me thinks this has been the last of it.

A couple of days ago I ate the last of this year's harvest along with a pork chop dinner.  

Just so you know, these bone-in, rib chops, from the local butcher shop, set me back $3.17.  A heckuva deal considering the price of groceries nowadays.

Fresh spargel sauteed in EVO and served-up with fresh-cracked pepper and sea salt really amped-up dinnertime. 

Same for baked tater and pan-seared venison, rare to medium rare.  Sauteed shrooms too.

Spargel season is short and sweet; and worth the patience.  Pretty good chow if you can get it..... 

You Are What You Eat

I recently made a run to Miesfeld's in Sheboygan to fetch the last batch of venison from the 2024 deer season.  It took a while for everything to be processed; yet it's completed. 

Garlic summer sausage, snack sticks, wieners and bacon.  Yes, there is such a thing as deer bacon.  

I had previously taken an additional batch of venison to Marchant's Meats in Sturgeon Bay to have brats and regular summer made.  Much faster turn-around.  And by the time you read this all but the shares belonging to a couple of hunters will have been distributed and likely found its way to a summer grilling session. 

In case you're wondering about the economics it works out like this:

Four deer skinned, cut and wrapped was $520; split six ways is $87 a hunter.  Everyone received a generous helping of steaks, chops and burger.  On top of that there was another generous selection of brats, wieners, snack sticks, summer sausage and bacon.  $560 total ($381 Miesfeld's and $179 Marchant's) split six ways is $93 a hunter.  All-in that comes to $180 a hunter.  And if you've been paying attention to the price of meat lately this is a decent deal; considering the overall yield.  (Note to self - take photos next time). 

I take payment by check or Zelle®.

Fun Fact:  Three additional deer were donated to the food pantry network of northeast Wisconsin thru DNR's deer donation program. 

The Taco Revolution

If it's Taco Tuesday and you have venison tacos...

There is a reasonably good chance that by the time Thursday rolls-around there are custom nachos on movie night...  

 

Lazarus Asparagus

A couple months or so ago I figured my asparagus was done-for.  As it turns-out not so much.  For a while every day or so I'd pick a spear or three to keep my diet German.  And while things have been tapering-off I'm still picking enough to include homegrown spargel in the vegetable line-up on at least a weekly basis.

I swear - I get-up, pour a cuppa joe, look out the kitchen window and there it is.  I grows overnight! 

Pan-seared salmon, brown rice and you-know-who.

Pretty good chow if you can get it.   

Healthy too..... 

Out Of This World Kimchi

On Thursday (July 24), NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, a flight engineer on the space station's Expedition 73 crew, spoke with the 125 participants from 39 countries in the International Space University Space Studies Program held this year in Seoul, South Korea. A medical doctor and a former U.S. Navy SEAL, Kim's parents immigrated from South Korea.

"I had a cargo mission come up that had some of my most favorite foods. So of course I had kimchi brought up. I had gochujang, which is a red pepper paste, and I had rice come up. So with those ingredients, and of course, some Spam, I was able to make my space version of kimchi fried rice. It wasn't as good as I could make at home, on earth, but in space you work with the best you've got, and I really, really enjoyed it," said Kim, after hearing that that the ISU attendees had also been enjoying the local cuisine.

Drum

Recent travel to visit with family found us in Mobile Alabama for a week with an opportunity to become temporary Mobilians and soak-up the history, food and ambiance of this coastal city.  A boat ride of the delta estuary provided an opportunity to take-in the waterfront, port facilities and Austal Shipyard up-close and personal.  Including this:  The USS Drum. 

Forward Torpedo Tubes

USS Drum (SS-228) is a historic Gato-class submarine of the United States Navy that served during World War II.  She was laid down September 11, 1940 and commissioned November 1, 1941.  Her builder was Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Maine and the boat's nickname became "Mighty Drum"

The Helm

Drum conducted 13 total (April 1942 – April 1945) war patrols resulting in 15 confirmed enemy ships sunk, totaling ~80,580 tons. Drum was the first U.S. submarine to conduct a war patrol from Pearl Harbor after the attack by Japan on December 7, 1941; earning 12 Battle Stars and a Navy Unit Commendation.

Electric Motors

She was decommissioned February 16, 1946 and subsequently permanently berthed on display at USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park, Mobile, Alabama.  Drum is the oldest WWII submarine on public display in the U.S.

 

 

Engine Room

 Fast Facts:

• The Drum survived depth charge attacks and serious damage multiple times.

• Her crew performed numerous daring attacks in Japanese-controlled waters.

• Despite being battle-hardened, no crew member was lost to enemy action during war patrols.  She is a Lucky Boat.

  

  Galley

Max Miller is an American YouTuber and cook known for being the creator and host of Tasting History, a culinary and history fusion web-show that recreates ancient or historical recipes and explains the history around them.

Being a crew member aboard a submarine during World War II was one of the most dangerous jobs in the US military with a fatality rate of over 20%. This, and the extremely cramped and uncomfortable quarters, were why the food aboard a US sub was really good. If nothing else, at least you had delicious food to keep you going.

In this episode Max takes a couple pages out of the Official WWII Navy Cookbook to prepare Swiss Steak with Mashed Potatoes.  These steaks cook up to be fall-apart tender and delicious, and the mashed potatoes have wonderful flavor, even if the texture is a little different from regular mashed potatoes. According to Max the spuds kind of remind him of the mashed potatoes he'd get as a kid in school, which were also probably made from dehydrated potatoes.

Winner, Winner.....

....whitetail dinner.

Pan-seared backyard venison (rare to medium), baked yam and freshly-picked spargel from the kitchen garden. 

A month or so ago I figured my asparagus was done-for.  As it turns-out not so much.  Every day or so I pick a spear or three to keep my diet German. 

BTW - my dog does all sorta tricks and commands for yam and spud skin treats. 

Pretty decent chow if you can get it.

Pro Tip: Rub your taters, yams and other tubers in bacon drippings before a hot bake in the convection oven. Trust me.....

Stinky Cheese

It’s True, Limburger Cheese Contains the Same Bacteria as Feet

Surface-ripened, aged, and famously malodorous Limburger is a 19th-century northern European cheese that was traditionally layered between slices of dark bread with raw onions and horseradish (or mustard) and washed down with a frosty beer.   

 

When the sandwich-beer combo came to Green County, Wisconsin, with Swiss and German immigrants, tavern-goers went for it in such a big way that it wasn’t until decades later, when saloons closed during Prohibition, that Limburger sales declined.

America’s lone-remaining Limburger cheese factory is in–you guessed it–Wisconsin! Chalet Cheese Co-op still makes and distributes more than a million pounds of the stinky cheese annually, and you can order an authentic Limburger sandwich at Baumgartner's Cheese Store and Tavern in Monroe.  

 

Learn more about the science of Limburger here. 

Winner, Winner...

...Chicken Dinner!

This recipe is more about method than anything else. And because there are only two ingredients the simplicity of this recipe is the key to its astonishing success.  

First, let's talk about the key player.  The bird.  In my humble opinion it is the chicken thigh that rules the Fried Chicken Realm.  Bone-in and skin-on. They are ridiculously inexpensive, plentiful in large family-sized packages and are endowed with the perfect ratio of flesh, skin and fat.  Bone-in resists over-cooking and imparts its own essence that is the pathway to real flavor,

To prep you thighs pat them dry with paper towels and place skin side up in your sink.  Anoint them liberally with fresh-cracked sea salt. 

Next, take your skillet and set it over a cold burner.  Place your thighs in the skillet skin side down with no heat at all.  More fresh-cracked sea salt on the skinless side facing up.  Cover and turn the heat to high for five minutes then reduce to medium low. Resist looking to take a peek.

At the fifteen minute mark remover the lid and rotate your thighs - do not flip - simply rotate them, skin side down, 180 degrees. If you have too much juice, water, moisture simply remove your thighs for a moment and drain and wipe your pan.  Return the thighs as they were and carry-on.  

At the thirty minute mark flip your thighs.  You will note that the fat has rendered and converted the skin into an obnoxiously golden state of crispiness.  Turn the heat down and allow to simmer another 15 minutes.  This will allow you to assemble your sides and accompaniments.   

Two ingredients - chicken thighs and coarsely-ground sea salt.

Bam!