In dutiful service of the carrot

I’m just now getting around to writing the home office, mostly out of vacation laziness. It’s the fifth day in Germany, and boy am I worn out.  I’m worn out because in lieu of a bike or a gym I had to resort to jogging with Hannah and Becky.  I’m not made for jogging. At least the weather is so far removed from the St. Louis July that working up a sweat jogging is a nice way to stay warm.  Anyway, as you would expect, I’ve had my fair share of beer and pork products.  I don’t know which is more exciting for me, the variety of good cheap beer or the various wursts, cold cuts, and miscellaneous meat products avaliable.  I would love for Todd Geisert to try the mett, ground salted raw pork and see about getting that in the store.  No really, I’ve had it twice already and I’m fine.  Getting back to the beer, what a revelation.  The variety and price is what impresses me.  Half litres of good beer for the same price of Stag, and you can drink on the street. The concept of limited release, 20$ single beers people buy to hoard and resell on ebay is a foreign concept, however the local grocery store just introduced and imported beer section featuring among others, The Brooklyn Brewery and Firestone Walker.
I guess I didn’t mention it earlier, but we’re here in Dortmund, in the northwest part of Germany, in the state of Nordrhine-Westfalia the most populated state in the nation.  We’re very close to Cologne, Dusseldorf, Essen, Munster, and you can travel easily between the cities by train. Yesterday we were able to travel for free to Dusseldorf to drink some altbeer at the Uerige brewery. Anyway, Dortmund is supposedly the beer capital of Germany according to our native host Andy and there is certainly no shortage of beers and places to drink them.  The most familiar to Americans would be DAB which is sold at Local Harvest.  Others include Kronen, Brinkhoffs, Hovels, Stifts, Ritter, Dortmunder Union, Bergman, Hansa, and some more I haven’t tried.  They all fall within the “Dortmunder” style, a variation of pilsener.  But, if you go up the road to Cologne or Dusseldorf, you will get a city specific different style that I will go into later.  Today we leave for Brussels where we’re going to get a completely different perspective on beer.
Depending on the communication technology situation, I will update from Belgium.
In dutiful service to the carrot;
George

George Travels to Germany

Well I’ve been lazy again, or rather my time has been linked to the whims of others, so I haven’t written for a while.  So I will review the last week.  We spent three nights in Brussels, staying at a lovely bed and breakfast, or rather a couple of spare rooms in a lovely house, in a lovely part of town.  So many beautiful buildings in Brussels: see what happens when you don’t start a world war and people don’t have to bomb all your lovely old buildings.  But let’s get to the important part, the beer.

The first bar we went to was the Moeder Lambic.  Despite the initial uncertainty about communication we managed to get right into Belgian beer, sampling draft lambics and paging through the giant bottle menu.  Next, walking and walking and walking; a lot of walking, a museum or two, and then the Cantillon brewery.  Cantillon, which also calls itself the geueze museum, is an unassuming place in the middle of a somewhat less than touristy part of town,is one of the few traditional producers of geueze and lambic.  Just walk inside and you’ll see that this is no modern brewery.  It smells like old wood and yeast and there are cobwebs everywhere, but they make some world famous beer.  Gueuze and lambic are spontaneously fermented beers that age for years in wooden barrels and are sour, deliciously sour.

The next stop of interest in Brussels was the Delirium Cafe.  They hold the Guiness record for most beers for sale at one time 2004, and the beer list is like a phone book.  I won’t go into detail, but I had some cellared beer you’ll never find in the U.S.: oh, and I got good and saucy. The next day we drove to the town of Beersel just outside of Brussels to go to the Drie Fontinen Brewery, another famous maker of geueze and lambic.  They were on vacation and the Oud Beersel Brewery had just closed an hour before we got there.  Oh well, we met some really nice locals at a bar and they directed us to a grocery store with a great selection.  We stocked up and drove to Aachen, Germany.

Aachen is nice border town which houses Charlemane’s cathedral and Germans.  Nice place.
We got back to Dortmund Saturday and now we are focusing on wedding plans.  Last night was the poulterabend, a prewedding party with both families.  We drank, we ate and we all took turns smashing plates and various ceramics at the Cafe Banana.  Good times.
-george

Week of March 19th – Dinner Specials at Local Harvest

Our weekly dinner specials:

GREEN PLATE: Carrundos – Vegan tamales wrapped in rainbow chard over pickled red cabbage & carrot salad. – topped with a pecan arugula salsa verde.

TROUT: Panseared Missouri trout over a bed of greens with toasted black walnuts & red onions – topped with a blueberry dressing.

BEEF: Missouri Kobe sirloin Kabobs served with a sweet potato German salad with a green tomato relish

SOUP: Beef & Vegetable

*Menu items subject to change throughout the week

Rock The Vote: Local Harvest Cafe For Best Vegetarian!

Local Harvest Cafe has been nominated by St. Louis Magazine for their annual A-List Reader’s Choice Poll 2012.  LHC is in the category for Best Vegetarian!  Let’s get the vote out and show St. Louis what’s up!

STLMAG’s A-List Reader’s Choice Poll 2012

Maddie Earnest Featured In This Month’s Issue of FEAST

Photography by Jonathan Gayman

Local Harvest Co-founder, Maddie Earnest, is featured in this month’s issue of FEAST Magazine as part of a discussion on the “current state of the culinary industry and its future.”  Go Local Harvest!

Tastemakers Interview: Maddie Earnest

it’s for the kids.

twice a month I get the pleasure of working with Discovering Options and about ten grade school kids. it is loads of fun!

so when Charmaine (the lovely and inspiring director of this after-school program) asked me to participate in an event in September, I jumped at the chance.

Iron Kids is going to be a great party with appetizers, drinks, and a competition of dishes that the kids helped create. Come by and help these kids get the support they need!

-clara

 

(Discovering Options is always looking or Mentors or Volunteers, please call 314-721-8116 to get started)

You say, “Tuh-may-toe.” I say, “Delicious!”

There in season, in our shop, and straight from the bi-state!

Besides being juicy, vibrant, and down-right scrumptious, tomatoes are bustin’ at the seams with nutritional goodies.

Vitamin C: 1/2 cup (about a handful) of diced ‘maders provide 20% of the recommended daily dose of this notable immune booster

Lycopene : This fabulous phytochemical shields cells from nasty free radicals, protects the skin from sun damage, and promotes prostate health

Zeaxanthin: Another wacky-sounding compound floating in tomatoes prevents macular deterioration by shielding eyes from UV rays…you see???

Did I mention this fruit is low in fat and high in fiber?

Try tomatoes:

• On your breakfast sandwich (especially with greens and goat cheese spread!)
• Sprinkled on your salad
• Dipped in Ah!Zeefa or house-made hummus (great gluten-free substitute to chips)
• Stacked with mozzarella, basil, and olive oil (or Balsamic vinegar)
• Blended in a simple red sauce