What a Day at the St. Louis Art Fair!!! (Yes, they have great food too)

Years ago, my wife and I were eating dinner one night at one of our usual watering holes.  After dinner, I didn't want to go home.  My wife (being the girl about town that she is) remembered that there was an art fair going on in Clayton (a very nice, upscale village type area here in St. Louis).  I thought, "Sure!  I could use a nice relaxed and low key evening..."  When we arrived, I was floored at the thousands in attendance at the St. Louis Art Fair.  Seeing as we just had dinner, we didn't eat all that much (just the Steak Sliders from the Ruth's Chris tent).  I do remember being disappointed as there were so many other great looking culinary delights that we were just too full to dine on.

Due to travel schedules with my job, I haven't been able to go for 3-4 years and I was always disappointed.  This year, however, I was indeed able to attend and that we did indeed!  I'll admit, I am a novice when it comes to art appreciation.  Our formal living room is an homage to island life so I like to look at pictures of beaches and shells but that is pretty much the extent of my artistic taste.  What I was excited for was the food area of the art fair.

The food area displayed some great expressions from local St. Louis area establishments.  We dined on several offerings there including a Philly Cheese steak Egg roll (THAT'S RIGHT! --- Honestly, we had 2 of these), fish tacos from Milagro, a peppered tenderloin sandwich and a fantastic pulled pork tostada courtesy of the students manning Le Food Truck which is an extension of our local culinary school Le Cul Culinaire.  That latter was by far the best thing we had (although a close 2nd was the egg roll). 

The tostada was a great example of a culinary philosophy calls KISS --- Keep It Simple Stupid (okay, not just a culinary philosophy... but applicable).  It started with a scratch made corn tostada then it was topped with lettuce and tomato and a creamy ancho chile sauce.  That's it!  My wife and I LOVED it!

The bottom line is, if you are looking for good food in your area you don't need to just stick to restaurants.  Sometimes you need to eat outside a little to understand where your community is coming from in a culinary perspective.  I know St. Louis has an ever increasing food truck scene.  We even have a monthly event called Food Truck Friday's at Tower Grove Park.  At the end of the day, I just want to make sure we all experience our cities and what they have to offer and sometimes that requires a little out of the box thinking.  After all, we discovered this great culinary event that happens to be an art fair after we had dinner one night a few years ago.

That's it for today!  Follow us on Twitter @LifeGastronomic!

1111 Mississippi... More than just an Address

Yes, I am posting twice today.  My wife indicated to me yesterday that I haven't updated in a while so I decided that I would add a bonus review today of one of my favorite places to take my wife to lunch.  Consequently, I took her out to said restaurant on her birthday.  She deserves a lunch out on the town everyday just for putting up with me, but especially on her birthday.  Not just any restaurant would do for such an occasion.  So, of course, I took her to 1111 Mississippi (Eleven Eleven Mississippi).

For starters, the atmosphere at this place is just incredible.  When you walk in through the downtown loft style entrance, you are greeted with a simple hostess stand set with a backdrop of happy diners and an upstairs open air kitchen that overlooks the dining area.  I do feel for the wait staff her as they do have to traverse many stairs in a given shift, but if they get to eat for free, it is SO worth it.

The menu is really an homage to Americana.  It is upscale in nature but very approachable (especially for lunch).  While I have had many great items on the menu, including the Lobster BLT and their fish specialties, it is their Trio that really lights up their lunch menu for me.

The Trio is a "you pick" dining option that allows you to choose 1 each from the salad, soup and flat bread menus (small versions of each are provided).  Not only is it the perfect amount of food for lunch, it provides variety and the food is fantastic.

For my Trio, I always get the side salad, Shrimp and Corn Chowder and a variable flat bread.  The Shrimp and Corn Chowder is by far one of the best soups you can get in the entire city of St. Louis.  It is a creamy/brothy soup that includes sausage, shrimp and corn and it is perfectly sweet and savory.  By far, the best thing on the menu at 1111 in my opinion.  The salad is quite good too.  What makes it is the Strawberry-Champagne Vinaigrette.  I've tried to make this at home and have not even come close.  I would drink this salad dressing as a martini if given the chance.  It is wonderful.  Great also are the flat breads.  Recently, I had the Wild Mushroom Gouda flat bread.  It had a sweetness to it (like most mushroom raviolis do) but was countered nicely by the Gouda.  I left with a smile on my face and a full stomach indeed.

The most important smile was that of my wife.  After all, it was her birthday.  1111 is one of her favorite lunch spots as well (obviously given the occasion) and she shares my firm belief in the superiority of their Shrimp and Corn Chowder.

If given the opportunity to dine at 1111 Mississippi, do so and be glad.  You will be in for a large treat!

No more posts today, I promise.  Follow us on Twitter @LifeGastronomic and on Facebook.

Fantastic Apple Pie Recipe

My next door neighbor is a genuinely nice man.  He always says hello and gives me advice on how to tend to our garden and always has a flower cut fresh from his ready for my daughter when she plays outside.  Neighbors like this are hard to find anymore, but I am happy to say that I have one.  Earlier this week, we had a storm here in St. Louis and his beautiful apple tree had a branch broken during the windy and rainy day.  My neighbor, being the good guy that he is, brought us a bag full of Granny Smith Apples from the broken branch.

I do love apples but I was a little perplexed as this seemed like a lot of them and as I am sure that most people who know me would tell you, I am not a fan of wasting much of anything.  So my mind naturally gravitated to what I could make with that many apples.  Then it came to me... APPLE PIE!!!

As I usually do with my ideas, I scoured the Internet to research recipes and techniques and then molded them all together with a few of my ideas thrown in to come up with one of the best apple pie recipes I have ever eaten.  The result was a wife and daughter with enormous smiles on their faces as we enjoyed our dessert last evening.  I hope you enjoy too!

Adam's Apple Crumb Pie

Ingredients:

• 9-inch pastry shell, unbaked, chilled
• 1 cup sifted flour
• 2/3 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup soft butter
• 1/2 cup walnuts (almost any other nut will do fine here) 
• 6 cups peeled, sliced cooking apples
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Preparation:

Combine flour, brown sugar, salt, walnuts and butter; blend until crumbly then set aside. Mix together the sugar, Cinnamon, cloves, allspice and nutmeg.  Combine apples and sugar/spice mixture; mix gently to coat apple slices. Pack apple mixture into chilled crust. Sprinkle crumb topping over apples. Bake in 375° oven until apples are tender, about 50 minutes.

Yes, I put Cream Cheese in my Spaghetti Sauce!!!

Man oh man does it seem like more and more people are finding ways to use underutilized ingredients in their cooking.  Well, I definitely am an advocate of just that.  I hate wasting anything; especially food. 

A few weeks ago we had some guests in town and I ran down to the local bakery to get some bagels and cream cheese for them to have for breakfast.  Yes, I should have gotten my lazy self out of bed and made pancakes, but we are not a big breakfast family here.  Usually it is just cereal and coffee (except my daughter --- she gets whatever she wants). 

Anyway... back to my story...

Today I was making my usual Monday spaghetti sauce recipe for dinner tonight.  I came across the cream cheese in the fridge and I remembered my wife telling me something about how she liked the creaminess of a sauce I had made for her recently.  So, I thought, "Why not?" 

I took 1 tablespoon of cream cheese and finished my already outstanding spaghetti sauce with it.  I just tasted it and cannot wait until dinner time!  Here is the recipe:

Quick and Creamy Spaghetti Sauce

1 lb ground beef (I use ground sirloin)
1/2 white onion
1 green bell pepper
Salt to taste
1 clove of garlic
1 jar pasta sauce (any kind will do, I use Prego)
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1/4 cup chicken stock
1 Tbsp cream cheese


Start by browning the ground beef until it is 3/4 cooked through.  Add the onions and green bell pepper and season with salt.  Cook until they are soft (around 3-4 minutes).  Add the garlic and cook 1-2 minutes.  Stir in the pasta sauce, chicken stock and brown sugar.  Cook on low for about 10 minutes.  Stir in the cream cheese until well incorporated throughout the sauce. 

To serve, cook pasta however you would like or according to package directions.  Once the pasta is cooked, drain and poor the pasta into the sauce (never poor sauce over pasta... it works better the other way around).  Enjoy!

Note:  if you want to kick up the sauce, add about 1/4 cup of red wine after the onions and peppers cook and reduce for about 5 minutes.  It adds a lot of body to the sauce.

Out in the County

As I've stated a number of times here, I am a big advocate of reading up on things that you love.  Since food and drink is a big interest of mine, I don't often skip over an article or publication I run across that speaks to these things.  Recently, I was reading West News Magazine (a bi-monthly publication devoted to the residents of the West County area of St. Louis).  I was reading the latest dining review and was thinking about how this is the only local periodical that even remotely gets that there are residents in St. Louis that live pass the I-270 corridor. 

I remember reading the St. Louis Post Dispatch and watching Show Me St. Louis on TV and only 5% of the time (if any time at all) do they mention restaurants or establishments in West County.  Its almost as if the local media here in St. Louis think that the area west of 270 is considered it's own culinary jurisdiction.  Sure, I can read and article or watch a spot about any number of downtown area St. Louis restaurants, but can rarely see anything about some of the best St. Louis has to offer out here in the county.

True also is the fact that there is a distinctive line between "County Folks" and "City Folks" here and it goes a lot deeper than just what high school you attended (here in STL, people always ask you what high school you went to when they want to know what part of STL you are from).  County people don't typically like to venture to the city too terribly often unless there is a Blues, Rams or Cardinals game involved (or perhaps they want some free beer at the AB brewery tour) and City residents hardly ever come out to the county.  I realize that a tank of gas costs more than it used to and time is money, but aren't we all missing out on great experiences by staying confined to our area of town?

Some of my favorite restaurants in St. Louis are located in the city area.  I've dined many a time at establishments like McGurk's, Mosaic, Ambighetti's, 1111 Mississippi and PW Pizza.  If you've had the chance to eat at any of these great places, you know how awesome they truly are.  Still, there are great restaurants in county as well: Mosaic (same as the one downtown), Yia Yia's, Mulligan's and Veritas just to name a few.

My point is, everyone here in St. Louis needs to travel a little out of the geographic culinary comfort zone.  If we do so, we will be rewarded with fantastic food and a great experience.  So, City Folks: COME ON OUT TO THE COUNTY!!!  And County Folks: LET'S HEAD INTO THE CITY!!!  And St. Louis Media: PLEASE START COVERING RESTAURANTS IN THE COUNTY!!!  Deal?

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Easy BMW Salad (BMW - Bacon Mozzarella Watermelon)

In the past few years, I have discovered a crazy combination of flavors that I have thoroughly enjoyed and worked into my weekly dinners here at home.  Many of those flavor combinations involve bacon.  After all, who doesn't like bacon?  If you don't, then I don't want to know you.  It is un-American to dislike bacon.  Unless you're a pig, but I'm getting off subject here...

One of the best bacon flavor combinations is the melon.  There is something about adding a salty and crunchy consistency to some sliced cubes of watermelon.  The only things needed after that is the tanginess of a dressing and the creaminess of some good cheese.  Now that makes for a summer side dish that anyone can get behind.  Here is the recipe:

BMW Salad (Bacon Mozzarella Watermelon)

1/4 - 1/2 of a Watermelon
1 ball of fresh Mozzarella
4-5 Strips of Bacon
1 Tbsp White Wine Vinegar
1 Tbsp Honey
1 Tbsp Olive Oil

Prepare the bacon.  I use a wire rack and a sheet pan and bake it at 350 for 30-40 minutes.  Set aside.  Chop the watermelon into 1 inch cubes.  Do the same with the mozzarella.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the vinegar, honey and olive oil.  Place the watermelon and mozzarella in the bowl with the dressing.  Mix it together to allow the dressing to cover the mozzarella and watermelon.  Place in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.  Top with bacon and serve.

A VERY GOOD Birthday Dinner

My wife will tell  you that I am one that doesn't like to make a big deal about my birthday.  Sure, I like the occasional get together and time with family (and who doesn't like presents???) but for the most part, I just want to have a little me time with the family that day of the year.  One thing that seems to be a tradition anymore is the dinner out that evening.  My wife always likes to take me out to a nice dinner for my birthday and this year, she, my daughter and my parents did just that.

We visited my hometown of Lexington, KY over the weekend and dined a tremendous new (well... new to me anyway) establishment in the Beaumont Center area of town (not far from the very house I grew up in).  The name of the restaurant was Azur and it was a place that I found on the page of one of my Facebook subscriptions (The Bourbon Review --- also a good recommended reading area for bourbon lovers such as myself).  All I saw on my FB page was a picture of what had to be one of the greatest looking steaks I had ever seen.  Of course I clicked on it and the link took me to the picture and it's caption: Cowboy Ribeye Steak with bourbon salt rub.  I was sold.  I immediately emailed the restaurant's URL link to my wife and told her I had found my birthday dinner spot!

Let me tell you, I was not disappointed.  First off, they have truffle frites.  If you don't know what these are, boy are you missing out.  They are essentially french fries (frites is basically french for fries) that are covered in truffle salt (or sometimes actual shaved truffles) and a garlic aioli.  If you dine at any restaurant that has these, it may not even matter what the main course is.  They are just fantastic!  I of course had the frites along with the special appetizer which was an egg roll that contained chicken and smoked sausage --- also VERY good.  Then I moved onto the main course: THE COWBOY RIB EYE.

I ordered it medium as I always do.  It was perfectly seasoned and covered with pickled peppers which accompanied the meat extremely well.  It was served along side a side dish that has to be one of the single best side dish creations in the known universe:  Beer Cheese Whipped Potatoes (THAT'S RIGHT!).  Everything went so well together and yes I had that feeling I often refer to on this blog.  For those of you not familiar, it is that feeling of sadness when the meal is done.  You are satisfied yet sad that the experience is over.

As always, it was a great trip to Kentucky.  This one was just a bit better though thanks to Azur and my wife, daughter and parents for making it a truly wonderful birthday.

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