Madison's Best Restaurant You've Never Visited

Remember the last time you walked past a restaurant kitchen? Edith Piaf was barely audible over the din of the line, as the grill man called out that the châteaubriand would be ready in "deux minutes." Remember how, after service, the bereted cooks would head out the back door, with knife rolls in their left hands, and volumes by Sartre or films by Godard in their right?

Yeah, neither do I.

Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Mexican army's victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla, and it's little secret that in this country, hard-working Mexicans and Latinos have become largely responsible for the success of the traditionally French professional kitchen. Meanwhile, their food has become an omnipresent US staple, with a vaguely "Mexican" restaurant on every corner and certain unnamed burrito vending corporations achieving market capitalizations of over three billion dollars.

The first problem with this development is that the vast majority of these nacho slingers produce food for norteamericano palates that doesn't remotely resemble that of their supposed country of origin. The second, more grievous sin is that the food they do produce generally sucks.

So on a day when you're looking to pay your culinary respects to a country that's done so much for ours, where's a befuddled Madisonian gringo to turn?

Why, Taqueria Guadalajara, of course. Located at 1033 South Park Street, the main dining room of this inconspicuous hole-in-the-wall sits about twelve people, and that's including the counter. But this is OK. There's a patio in back, and though you'll practically have to walk through the tiny kitchen to get there, it's well worth it. The food here is absolutely outstanding.

There are, naturally, tacos at this taqueria, and they also happen to be the best in town. Proteins range from the obligatory grilled pork and steak, both of which are nice, to the decidedly optional beef tongue and cheek, both of which are excellent. Yes, tripe lovers, that's available, too, in your taco or your menudo. Most surprising is the almost revelatory chicken. It's incredibly tender, perfectly moist, and wonderfully seasoned, to the point that even with such a strong menu, I can't visit without ordering at least one. It's a freaking chicken taco, and yes, it is that good. It needn't be mentioned that the tortillas are house-made and delicious, but it does bear stressing that the tacos sell for around a measly two dollars each.

Of course, Guadalajara offers other, non-taco choices as well, including sopes, tortas, and huaraches and larger plates like a chicken mole. They're all good, and they're all ridiculously cheap for the quality. I could go on about how great the cooking is, about the wonderfully authentic atmosphere, or about the consistently friendly service, but I'll save that for an imminent (and presumably glowing) full review. After all, I foresee many a summer afternoon of scrupulous "research" on that patio in my near future.

For now, just head to Taqueria Guadalajara, grab an horchata and a few criminally cheap bites, and celebrate this Cinco de Mayo by thanking Mexico for all of the great food and cooks.

Hands off

Recent years have been good to fans of high quality, locally produced food. Across the country, farmers' markets are on the upswing as demand for better ingredients swells among foodies, hippies, yuppies, and health nuts alike. Words like "salsify," "ramps," and "geoduck" are appearing on lips and menus in greater numbers than ever before, and sometimes customers actually know what they mean. I'm relatively sure that even Denny's features an heirloom tomato, organic basil, and fresh mozzarella salad alongside its signature (and oh-so-wittily designated) Moons Over My Hammy®.

It's just too bad that our government actively screws us all for lobbyist support and political capital in the Iowa caucuses.

On Saturday, the New York Times published an Op-Ed by Minnesota farmer Jack Hedin lamenting the policies of the United States Department of Agriculture with regard to small producers. In short, Mr. Hedin discusses how big backers of the Department's commodity farm program forward legislation that seeks to protect agribusiness and so stifles competition from local producers, limiting their production and ultimately passing the costs on to the consumer.

Protectionist policies of this sort help no one except for those who least need it. Take, for instance, our nation's recent infatuation with corn-based ethanol. Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, socialist or neocon, there's nary a voice to be heard that hasn't fallen for her seductive charms. But like Mr. or Ms. Friday Night, she looks a whole lot worse in the light of day after those tequila shots have worn off.

Our government insists that we subsidize an energy "solution" that pays political capital in corn-producing states and among well-meaning environmentalists who haven't done their research, but is ultimately inefficient and wasteful. As some 17% of this subsidized corn goes to ethanol (the USDA anticipates some 31% of US corn will be used for ethanol by 2016), corn prices increase, which in turn increases prices in directly related products, from tortillas to beef. Meanwhile, a relative scarcity of other produce develops as incentives encourage farmers to turn to corn, and that other produce becomes more expensive as well.

As an added insult, we as American taxpayers are spending our own money to subsidize politically vested ethanol corporations to the detriment of small farmers, better environmental solutions, and our own grocery bills. These subsidies are terrible for independent growers, terrible for food lovers, and terrible for consumers--especially Americans of modest means and the poor worldwide, for whom food and gas costs are a much larger part of their budget--but miraculously great for the Agcos, Andersons, and Archer Daniels Midlands of the world. Through our fine, career-minded representatives, we are literally paying these corporations to increase our own food and fuel costs.

Some might argue that this is an acceptable course of action if it means access to a renewable fuel source. And it might be, if these costs weren't unnecessary and idiotic.

There is no shortage of environmentally responsible alternatives. Brazil produces primarily bagasse-based ethanol that has a net energy yield approximately eight times greater than our corn-based "solution." They've been developing their ethanol policy for nearly thirty years, and their product can be imported cheaply--or could be, if we didn't use subsidies and tariffs to protect large-scale sugar and corn producers in this country. Alternatively, wind, solar, and other biomass solutions widely used in Europe work cheaply and consistently, and non-food ethanol sources don't cause artificial increases in food prices or competitive costs for small farmers.

As people who care about what we eat, we share in the responsibility of holding our politicians accountable for these inane and harmful practices.

To think that a few years ago raw milk and foie gras bans were the worst of our food worries. Thanks a lot, Iowa.

A Veritable Sausage Fest

Otto von Bismarck famously said that the less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they sleep. Then again, do you really want to take culinary advice from the man who refused to compromise with the National Liberals on the issue of expelling socialist agitators? We all know how that turned out.

It was thus largely out of spite for the Prussian Ministerpräsident that I spent the weekend turning my kitchen into a makeshift summoning chamber whence to call forth that blackest and most delicious of provocative meats. Armed with my trusty stand mixer, new meat grinder and sausage stuffer attachments, and a grimoire of allantoid evocations, I was ready to make the next step. No longer would I be among the unwashed masses of those who merely ate sausages. I would become one of the transcendent few, one of the keepers of the eldritch secrets; I would become a sausage maker.

For my first effort, I turned to the most traditional of all sausage fillings, the storied and magical pig. Little did I know what was in store for me. First, it's nigh impossible to obtain fatback in this city without a special order. Thankfully I keep an emergency reserve in my freezer for a third World War or zombie pig outbreak, but it's a shame that Madison doesn't have a butcher one can turn to at a moment's notice for something so fundamentally sublime as pork fat.

I also learned that seasoning is an interesting process when one is dealing with raw pork. To the fat and shoulder, I added a sautéed and chopped Granny Smith apple and an onion along with healthy additions of rosemary, marjoram, and sage. While it didn't prove a problem in the end product, I found the inability to taste throughout the process a bit frustrating; in fact, the entire operation felt a bit closer to baking than cooking, though your sausages hopefully won't melt if the seasoning is off. I have no doubt that this aspect of sausage making would punish inexperienced cooks but reward the cultivation of actual recipes.

Finally, if you're anything like me (which is to say that you don't know what you're doing), your virginal sausage making endeavor will be something of a mess. Forget the stately, lily-white appliance you've seen in the catalogs. My kitchen counter more closely approximated an estate administrated by a porcine Elizabeth Bathory. Casings slipped. Porky juices accumulated. The procedure of tying off links was, shall we say, inelegant.

The resulting sausages, however, were quite tasty. Better yet, subsequent efforts become quickly easier. Once the basic techniques are mastered, the process is simple and rewarding, and by the time I'd moved on to poultry, my kitchen bore markedly less resemblance to a medieval battlefield. (Except for the traditional rubber chicken, of course.)

With fresh and cooked sausages down, curing and aging will be my next step on the sausage maker's path. But for tonight it's boudin blanc--French style.

Boudin blanc

1 pound skinless chicken breast, cubed
1 pound veal shoulder, cubed
4 feet medium casing
1/2 pound pork fat, cubed (good luck finding it)
3 large onions, sliced
1 cup milk
3/4 cup breadcrumbs
1 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground white pepper
1 tbs chopped chives
1 tbs chopped parsley
2 large eggs
2 large egg whites
1 cup heavy cream
milk
water

Finely grind the pork fat, and render half of it over medium heat. Add the onions to the fat and cook slowly, covered, until translucent. Cool. Bring the milk to the boil in a saucepan and add the breadcrumbs. Cook, stirring constantly,until the mixture will coat a spoon, about five minutes. Cool.

Grind the meats and combine with the onions, fat, and other dry ingredients, mixing well with your hands. Finely grind the mixture, then beat thoroughly with a mixer or food processor, adding the eggs and whites. Continue beating and gradually at the cream.

Stuff the mixture into prepared casings and twist off into 4-inch links. (Don't separate the links.) Regrigerate, covered, for one or two days.

Prick the casing, and place the sausages in a large pot covered with a mixture of half milk and half water. Simmer gently for 30 minutes until cooked to 160 degrees Fahrenheit. Drain the links, cool, and separate. Then refrigerate, covered, for up to three days. Grill or pan fry until just heated through.

(This recipe is an abbreviated version of one from the excellent Home Sausage Making, 3rd Edition, by Susan Mahnke Peery and Charles G. Reavis. It's a great primer on basic techniques and has a fairly comprehensive selection of recipes. However, I've found the seasoning to be a bit light in the past, and will increase it here as well.)

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Leave it to politically minded Madison to focus more on the next leader of the free world than a holiday centered on eating, drinking, and decadence. Until one of the candidates voices his support for a 28th "Protect the Foie Gras" amendment, I'll be devoting my attention to king cake and beads.

So what's a celebrant to do? She could have gone to Crescent City Grill if it still existed. The solid creole restaurant that used to be underneath Luther's Blues? You know, Luther's? The place that's now a dance club? That would have been another good Mardi Gras spot. If it still existed.

Granted, Madison does has a few cajun and creole joints that miraculously remain extant, but you can probably do better at home. Remember that guy who wore a lot of white and liked to yell while cooking? His étouffée recipe is so good it will almost convince you he was a professional New Orleans chef before landing his TV gig.

If your kitchen comes equipped with a Frialator--or if you have far more patience in your sandwich prep than I do--there's that Louisiana favorite, the po' boy. If, on the other hand, you'd prefer to make a sandwich without the requisite drum of peanut oil (or view cooking oysters as the nefarious crime that it is), you can turn to that Central Grocery darling, the muffuletta.

In addition to the muffuletta round (or a round of Italian on which you've sprinkled sesame seeds), you'll need a quarter pound each of mortadella, ham, Genoa salami, Mozzarella, and Provolone, and a cup of that most elusive of muffuletta toppings, the olive salad. The subject of perennial mystery, the olive salad is the literal and metaphorical glue that holds this grande dame of Louisiana sandwiches together. But fear not. The Gumbo Pages claims to have the original, courtesy of New Orleans cook Chiqui Collier. (Be warned to bring extra revelers. Their recipe makes a stupid amount of the stuff.)

Of course, you're not compelled to cook at home. You can always try to woo passersby into exchanging gumbo for beads. Or you could head to Louisianne's, Etc. in Middleton, which is probably the second best bet for a more authentic night of pre-Lenten debauchery. They'll have costumes, solid French creole cuisine, and pianist John Chimes playing alongside the Natch'l Blues Band.

Downtown, offerings are slimmer, but the Great Dane is offering an all you can eat crawfish boil for $30. Doesn't sound terribly compelling? Lest your ancestors fear too much Gallic influence, they'll also be celebrating a beer fest at 8pm featuring the release of four seasonal Bocks.

We're still in Wisconsin, after all.

Restaurant Week, Ho!

(That's the interjection, by the way, not the noun.)

Yes, it's that festively delusional time of year again, when Madison pretends to be San Diego, and diners can convince themselves that visiting five restaurants at $25 a pop is somehow more economical than spending $40 at one of them. And what's a bottle of wine on top of each visit?


This Sunday marks the beginning of Restaurant Week, and several of the city's best restaurants will be showcasing samples of their fare in 3-course menus for only $25 ("prix fixed [sic]," as Madison Magazine notes in what is no doubt a subtle postmodern wink at transatlantic gastro-linguistics).

This year's offerings look better than last, with less Nitty Gritty and more L'Etoile. And while L'Etoile's price fixe isn't the most exciting of the group, the appetizers look superb between bison involtini and incredible onion soup. Besides, their execution is consistently flawless, and when will your next chance be to eat at the best restaurant in Madison for less than the price of something at Red Lobster? (Hint: some time shortly after hell freezes over and I actually eat at Red Lobster.)

Speaking of seafood (after a fashion), Sushi Muramoto is the obvious favorite in the Totally Uncreative But Who Could Possibly Complain?^tm category . All you can eat sushi. $25. Nobody cares that it's probably laden with mercury. Just bring on the otoro. There's also, like, ice cream and chowder, since I guess there are supposed to be three courses or something. Did I mention the all you can eat sushi?

Harvest, too, is keeping things simple and comforting, with fixed prix offerings of house-made tagliatelle, roasted chicken breast, and roasted beef short ribs. (Anything properly roasted is definitionally comforting, in much the same way that anything properly braised is definitionally fucking awesome.) This is, I think, a wise move, and a happy showcase for both seasonally appropriate cooking and Madison's characteristically unvarnished high-end dining sensibility.

In the other direction, Fresco seems determined to impress, with three selections available for each course, more balsamic vinegar than Lombardino's and Osteria Papavero combined, and aspirational entrées like "Organic Norwegian Salmon - King crab and tomato mashed potato, oven dried shrimp crust, crispy leeks, balsamic [see?] reduction." Will their Jean-Georgian ambitions dazzle, or will they be outshone by the more straightforward fare of Harvest, Muramoto, and L'Etoile? My Magic 8-Ball has a snappish prediction, but only time and $25 will tell.

The Ideal Cold Weather Drink

As is my wont, I was inclined to open with a quip about the temperature. I could have remarked in passing that a positive number on the thermometer was balmy for a Wisconsin January. Maybe a timely and relevant reference to Mortal Kombat was in order; between Sub-Zero and the "Toasty!" guy, that would be the stuff of comedy legend. But as I arrived home, my skin burning and head aching due to the temperature outside, I couldn't. It was just too damned cold.

I needed to warm up, and nothing does that more quickly or efficiently than the right beverage.

Like any good Madisonian, my thoughts turned immediately to beer, and on a bitterly cold day, there's no style I'd rather drink than that tsarist favorite, the Imperial stout. Regularly available choices from Wisconsin brewers are limited, but Amherst's Central Waters Brewing Co. makes a tasty iteration of the Impy in their Satin Solstice. From California, North Coast's Old Rasputin is even better. Full of roasty malts, chocolate, espresso, and a warming 9% ABV, you won't even mind the execrations of the Mad Monk emanating from your bottle. Best of all, this beer doesn't only ward off a chill, but also provides immunity to shooting, stabbing, poisoning, and drowning in the Neva.

The only problem with beer--along with perennial not-particularly-known-for-its-coziness favorite, wine--is that it's not warm. Even if you're a beer geek enjoying your stout at cellar temperatures, you'll notice that fifty-five degrees is substantially cooler than you'd like to be after having just escaped the Wendigo's icy grasp. More realistically, and almost certainly in my case, you'd be pulling the bottle out of the fridge, and unwilling to wait for it to warm up before you do. So my ideal cold weather drink would be warm to begin with.

There's that old standby in coffee. It's warm, rich, and roasted, but it's already pulling double duty as an after dinner sip and as an early morning Herbert West reagent. Besides, it's harder to lapse into a peaceful sleep in front of the fireplace when you're hopped up on caffeine like a subarctic Juan Valdez. (To be sure, a spike of whiskey will help with the fireplace problem, but only serves to highlight the drink's breakfast status.)

Spot of tea? It's warm, I guess. But c'mon. Tea? Not until we get something like St. Paul's TeaSource, at least. Even then, coffee and beer are going to be tough competition for the choicest pu-erhs. Chai, full of spicy, milky goodness comes closer, but the twisted horror of turning to a nigh equatorial South Asian beverage after stepping out of the negative twenty wind chill is too sickly ironic for even my decadent tastes.

No, as we so often do, I turned to that paragon of knowledge regarding all things comforting: Mom. Mom certainly wouldn't have been pouring us coffee or tea as we struggled out of our snow pants, and she sure as hell wouldn't have been serving up mulled wine or hot sake. No, Mom knew that winter's cruel grip was no match for that unsung St. Bernard of the beverage world, that rare breed which Quetzalcoatl called hot chocolate. While cognac dazzles on the slopes and Champagne mingles in the lodge, hot chocolate is out there every cold day, bringing marshmallowy warmth to children on leave from their snow forts.

Just be sure to make your own. This version is really easy, insanely rich, and my take on the sort of chocolate Camus, Sartre, and associates could have ordered at Les Deux Magots, if only they'd remembered their own mothers better. (That's right, Meursault, I went there.) Hopefully it will remind you of the Swiss Miss that kept you warm after those snowball fights, but taste way, way better.

The Ideal Cold Weather Drink (serves four people of average coolness, or one very cold person)
2/3 cup heavy cream
2/3 cup whole milk
1/4 cup sugar (consider more if you've decided to throw caution to the wind and use pure cacao)
5 oz. bittersweet chocolate or pure cacao, chopped (the more cacao the better, at least 60%)

Stirring, bring the first three ingredients to a bare boil. This isn't rocket surgery. Integrate the sugar, don't scald the milk. Then, over gentler heat (use a double broiler if you want--I won't tell) whisk in the chocolate until it's warm and fully incorporated. (That's warm. Not boiling. Don't boil it. You've been warned.)

At this point you should be able to fill four or five demitasses, preferably referred to as "tiny little coffee cups" for homeyness. Or you could fill one big cup and drink it yourself, which would be pretty great, too. Go nuts and add a sprinkle of fleur de sel or kosher salt on top. You know you want to.

Drink. Warm. Good.

In a word? Ideal.

Pass the Dolly, Please

At long last my dreams have come true. I can finally eat Dolly the sheep without breaking into the Royal Museum of Scotland.

Today, in a show of scientific hubris worthy of a Mary Shelley novel or Jerry Bruckheimer film, the FDA issued a release declaring that cloned animals and their offspring are safe to eat.

Which really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. While I'm no scientician, it makes a whole lot of sense that the process would be safe, given that a clone is by definition essentially an identical twin of the original animal.

Of course, that doesn't mean we won't be entering into outraged panic. And naturally, that panic has to an extent already begun. The New York Times reports Michael Hansen of the Consumers Union as one of the first. Hansen contends that the report “flies in the face of Congress’s wishes. It flies in the face of consumer wishes."

Never mind that this study has been going on for some seven years. Never mind that the National Academy of Sciences already came to the same conclusion in the hoary days of 2002, way back in that innocent, bygone era when Grand Theft Auto III was new and we didn't know that R. Kelly enjoyed urinating on young girls. And never mind that the studies involve peer-review by independent scientific experts in cloning and animal health. Some dude saw Episode II and doesn't want his lamb chops growing up to become a storm trooper.

I can't help but humbly reply.

To wit: keep your hands off my food, jerk.

Sadly, this isn't because I believe cloned animals will somehow improve society or taste better than their brethren who came from old-fashioned, inseminated-by-hand mommies. (Except for Dolly, of course. Historicity, after all, is the finest sauce.)

No, because of their difficulty to raise--and subsequent cost--cloned animals are largely intended for use as breeding animals through which desirable traits can be more quickly introduced than through conventional methods. In other words, it will allow large producers to continue doing what they've been doing even more efficiently, namely raising affordable, decent, and generally fine but unremarkable livestock.

If there's any danger at all, it is of increasing homogeneity within this arena, a homogeneity already well-established after thousands of years of animal husbandry. Grocery store cattle will be a little heartier, produce a little more meat, and taste largely the same, and I'll still suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune as Fountain Prairie's bone-in ribeye continues to elude me.

The far greater risk, where lovers of good food should be concerned, is giving the government more control over what we are allowed to eat. This same FDA has already forbidden us from drinking raw milk and from eating young raw milk cheese. Chicago has banned foie gras, New York has prohibited cooking sous vide, and morels were briefly illegal in California. Wisconsin law has even forbidden joint ownership of cows, lest you dare to drink their unpasteurized milk. ("We never should have let them do it in the first place," said regulator Thomas Leitzke in 2003.) While no one questions the wisdom of sanitation or labeling, prohibition of food items is an absurdity. Give us the information and let us choose.

If there is one thing the history of gastronomy has taught us, it's that food will not be contained. Fugu breaks free, mold expands to new territory, and wild mushrooms crash through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously. And that's a good thing. Humble yeasts have given us our finest beers and wines, buried vegetables transform almost magically into kimchi, and one-time throwaways like oysters and pineal glands have become revered in the pantheon of cuisine. Food finds a way.

Still worried about that cloned pig? Don't be. I have it on good authority that Newman from Seinfeld is overseeing the computer systems at the FDA's testing facilities, virtually guaranteeing our safety. Besides, when irregularities arise in the cloning processes, geneticists are already splicing in West African frog DNA to fill any gaps in the genetic structure.

It's a foolproof plan, really, and I promise we'll be OK. Unless, of course, they figure out how to open doors.