Or alternate title: “Too tired to write anything too meaningful today.”
If in Sandpoint, check out Evans Brothers Coffee. Then let us know what you think. We received an e-mail from the guys running it, and their coffee sounds intriguing. Plus they do the whole organic and fair trade thing, so you can feel good about yourself going there.
The Spokesman ran an article about a “bring Trader Joe’s to Spokane” Facebook group. Trader Joe’s is nice and all, and as a business it’d be good to have in Spokane. But as far as our choices in where to get good food, aren’t Huckleberry’s and Main Market Co-op, et. al. better?
We’re hearing good things about the Hop Shop on 3803 S Grand. Has anyone checked the place out yet?
Chaps is pretty much tripling its size.
An Ethiopian restaurant, Queen of Sheba, is opening in the Flour Mill.
A somewhat little known fact, at least to me, is that Julia Child lived in Oslo, Norway for a while during the late fifties. This, before the oil-billions had hit, was not much of a gourmet city, and Child apparently had some issues settling in until she started experimenting with Norwegian seafood. Gravlaks would later become a staple recipe of hers, which might explain why so many Americans think the dish is French.
All of this is really neither here nor there, I suppose, but after watching Julie & Julia the other night (and an entertaining movie it is) the idea came to us to make the classic Norwegian dish, rømmegrøt. “Rømme” means sour cream, grøt “porridge.” Hey, it’s good, and simple to cook:
Ingredients
5 dl sour cream (should originally be Seterrømme, though I’ve never seen anything exactly like it in the US. Just use the full-fat stuff.)
2 dl sifted flour
5 dl milk
Salt to taste
Put sour cream to a boil for about 5 minutes on medium heat. It will thin out significantly.
Add 1 dl flour and stir until smooth.
Simmer. You are supposed to simmer until a layer of butter start forming on top, but I haven’t been able to do that, likely because of the type of sour cream I used. Instead, let it simmer for 20-25 minutes. At this point it will become fairly pasty.
Stir in rest of the flour.
Slowly stir in the milk.
Simmer for five minutes, and stir in a bit of salt to taste.
Serve with cinnamon and sugar on top. If you actually get some butter out of the thing, the spoon that into a container when it appears, and add it to the dish when serving.
Now, the second reason we decided to undertake the rømmegrøt was the following video from a Norwegian TV show called Alt for Norge—All for Norway. In it, Americans with Norwegian heritage—you know the type, the ones that will call themselves Norwegians—who have never visited Norway compete to be the most Norwegian of all. In other words, it’s a freakshow.
In the video the “Norwegians” get a chance to try rømmegrøt, and… Well… I suppose the producers of the show made sure to pick out a few contestants that were raised on McDonald’s. Two points to anyone who can point out the Seattle competitor.
If “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” filmed in Spokane/CDA what restaurant would you want to see on Guy’s show?
Establishments on the show are typically independently/locally owned (not a chain) restaurants that are turning out really great food from scratch for not a whole lot of money.
Twitter followers helped contribute these suggestions, thanks @BrownesAddition @Pieces_of_Red @evehogard @bblohowaik @MAsh187 @onemoreryan @natetwits. If you have another suggestion feel free to add it in comments. Pick up to four answers on the poll.
Give those crafty Sandpointians this: they know how to put together a decent dressing. Like many, however, Team SFB prefer to make our own dressing, usually out of kefir yogurt. It therefore came as a surprise to see that Litehouse now has its own yogurt kefir series.
Of course, “surprise…” I guess it stands that the only logical reason for them doing this, is that they want to follow in the footsteps of the glorious Team SFB, and make our kind of dressing. It only makes sense, and we will carefully consider being spokespersons when the offer inevitably arrives.
But I digress.
The bleu cheese kefir dressing tastes pretty similar to their regular dressing; borderline identical, in fact. It might be a bit thinner, but still has chunks of bleu cheese in it. It might not be amazing, but it’s still pretty good, and worthy of dipping some homemade hot-wings in. (Although put some crumbled up bleu cheese in it to spike it up a bit.)
As for the kefir part, it also has its advantages, particularly for metabolism and digestion. And if you have an intolerance of dairy, this dressing might just be OK for you. Hey, kefir is great, and its advantages should be preached!
