An Abridged History of Smokehaus Mail-Order

September 15, 2023

Northern Waters has been shipping since the beginning, when Eric was operating out of the Spirit Business Center in Superior, WI.

The University of Minnesota Duluth was our first mail order customer, and with the help of a shipping service located in the same business center, we shipped hundreds of boxes to the university’s alumni network around the country (and we still do—UMD remains one of our largest and most loyal customers. We love you forever!) and from there, mail orders snowballed, as recipients requested similar shipments for their loved ones.

What began as simple shipments of smoked fish, grew alongside our growing menu of smoked meats and sundries, and followed us along to our current location in Canal Park.

The next (huge) boost in our mail order sales arrived alongside the debut of our spot on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, which brought national (and international!) attention to our humble, still very sparsely-staffed, deli. Quickly, it seemed like everyone wanted a taste of NWS, and better yet, those who couldn’t make the trek to Duluth could have it shipped right to their front door. Our nationwide shipping, ever a mainstay of the business, grew such that sales during the month of December rivaled entire Summer tourist seasons! (Furthermore, re-runs of our Triple-D appearance often yield a boost in mail order sales of Salamini and Smoked Whitefish, to the point that we factor the re-airings into our production schedule.)

Mail Order Elves hard at work mid-pandemic

Andy (former M.O. director, current Wholesale Coordinator), Hannah (former M.O. elf, current Catering Director), and a bunch of boxes.

And since then, mail order has never really slowed down. Individual buyers and corporate customers both local and national have made our exquisite hausmade products a regular part of their personal shopping and gift-giving toolkit.

Meanwhile, our Mail Order department has been directed by a succession of talented teams and individuals, each using their particular skillsets and vision to grow, organize, re-organize, and reinvent the department into its current form; to lead and inspire the holiday “Mail Order Elves” to seasonal success packaging thousands of boxes over the course of a small handful of weeks; and to provide our customers with the best, most authentic service possible. It’s a tall order, and we’re grateful to those who have been a part of this journey, at every stage.

As a family-owned, locally oriented small business, we’ve done our best to remain humble, uphold our values and integrity, and continue to produce (and ship) renowned smoked fish and meats of the highest quality! Special thanks to Michael and Ollie, who are guiding Mail Order and Corporate Orders respectively during our deli’s big move into the basement of the DeWitt-Seitz Marketplace. Next week we’ll be sharing final updates to our nationwide shipping and announcing an end-of-September Last Hurrah mail order sale (name tbd).

Michael (current M.O. director) vacuum packing a staggeringly small volume of smoked fish.

5 Ways We Save On Waste

February 21, 2020

Improving sustainability and reducing food waste should be a goal of any restaurant (or deli), and with the proper planning and creative thinking, isn’t terribly difficult to accomplish.

In your home kitchen, you’ve surely found that certain undesirable or inedible parts of food—carcasses, stems, papery vegetable skins, et cetera—make some of the best broths and stocks, and the burnt bits clinging to the pan are the basis of the most flavorful sauces. And of course organic material properly handled eventually yields nutrient-rich soil. One can extrapolate this philosophy to many areas of food production and life in general.

We need to move away from the idea that the unaesthetic, or not immediately necessary, parts of food are bad, or “waste,” or in some capacity destined for the trash. Today, let’s look at the ways we at NWS make the most of our food production. We’re not a perfect example of sustainability and optimization in food production, but we’re always looking for ways to innovate and improve.

Crostini/Croutons.

Bread—it’s gotta be fresh, right? For a sandwich, we wholeheartedly agree with you. That’s why we methodically cycle through frozen loaves of our haus-baked Pullman rye and white bread loaves, and bake off hero rolls and haus-baked ciabattas steadily throughout the day.

But sometimes there’s a slow few days, or too many heroes and ciabattas for a slow evening. Sometimes the closers like to bring a few rolls home, but relying on that just isn’t sufficient.

The solution was simple—throw them into freezer-ready bags, and let them dry out in the deep freeze. The moisture-sapped bread, though somewhat tedious to cut through, is primed for making crostini and croutons.

Cut them to the appropriate size and shape, spread them out in a single layer on a sheet pan, dress them with olive oil, garlic powder, coarse salt, and dry thyme. Bake at 350°F for 10-15 minutes (know thine oven!) rotating the pan once at the halfway mark. Guess what: You’ve got crostini (or croutons!)

Smoked Salmon Pâté.

We could make our smoked salmon pâté exclusively with whole pieces of smoked salmon. That would be fine—in fact, it would be good. It would also mean we’d need to order and process twice as much fish.

Somewhere along the line we found an elegant solution to this problem. We prep Cajun, Traditional, and Black Pepper & Coriander smoked salmon daily for our sandwich line. Only the finest slices of that smoked salmon end up in sandwich portions.

(An adjacent category is the salmon that, during the kippering process, just becomes overwhelmingly moist and practically falls off the skin. This salmon is great for eating, but doesn’t look as nice as a gift, or on a platter, or as we’re placing it on the scale to weigh it.)

This is more for ease of use on our end of things than it is for the customers receiving the sandwiches. It all tastes roughly the same, and some would even argue that the seasoned belly-fat scraps taste a little bit better.

That’s why they end up in the pâté. The “scraps” of “waste” from prep are oily and have a steeper ratio of seasoning to meat, and most importantly, they’re not going in the garbage. Additionally, we have the flexibility of making smoked salmon pâté on a daily basis (if need be) without needing to take salmon out of our fish case.

By the way, our debut cookbook, which is currently in development, will feature a recipe for making NWS Smoked Salmon Pâté from a single chunk of Traditional Smoked Atlantic Salmon, so you can take matters into your own hands!

Snack Stick Ends.

The main problem with selling our non-fish snack sticks (Bison Buddies, Big Jims, and Royales With Cheese) by unit price ($3/per, $2/per, and $2/per respectively) is the need to make those units a consistent side. This means we cut about 1/2” off of each stick. These ends get vacuum sealed and tossed in the deep freeze. To combat this mountain of cured meat nubs, we’ve implemented a handful of plans.

1.) When we have cheese curds, we package cheese curds and meat nubs and sell them out of the Grab & Go case.

2.) Sometimes we just package meat nubs with each other and sell them out of the Grab & Go case.

3.) Frequently, Patricia will have an awesome pasty idea that utilizes some of the meat nubs, and I bet you can guess where we sell them.

4.) And, of course, they make great fodder for sample platters in the deli.

Dip Sauce.

The zesty three-pepper sauce we serve alongside our Big Dipper sandwich is not only delicious—it is also very clever. Preservative liquids may not make the tastiest beverages, but they’re basically water, salt (sometimes sugar), vinegar, and seasonings, so they can easily be repurposed.

Our Royale With Cheese snack sticks include pickle juice in the recipe to emulate the pickle slices on a bacon-cheeseburger. The dip sauce contains a sacred/secret ratio of the following—liquid from the roasted red pepper can, liquid from the pepperoncini (pickled sweet yellow peppers) tub, and a healthy dose of sriracha.

Sure, it’s easy enough to just dump such things down the drain, but next time you’re thinking about dumping your kimchi juice, or pickle juice, or what have you, down the drain—think again. There’s seasoning potential with which to experiment.

Fish Skin Dog Treats.

The skin of your smoked fish is not garbage. We used to compost them, but recently we’ve had a change of heart. Pets love fish skins—certain mushers in the area have even come to us asking for fish skins to feed their sled dogs.

However, keeping those skins around in our cooler is poor management of space. Again, the solution is simple: Bake them. You can do this quite easily with your own leftover fish skins.

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Scrape the excess fat and meat off of the fish skins and place them on a baking sheet in a single layer, scale side up. Bake them for 10 minutes, rotating the pan at the halfway point.

After they cool, you’ve got some shelf-stable snacks for your pets. They break into smaller, bite-sized pieces easily, and animals love them.

If your animals have plenty of treats, or if you’re living in an animal-free zone and still want to make the most of your fish skins, just salt them (with coarse sea salt) right out of the oven, while they’re still hot. Now, instead of animal treats, you’ve got a nice little salty snack, or salad topping, or whatever you might want to do with a crispy, salty fish skin.

How do you save on waste in your kitchen? We'd love to know. Leave some love in the comments.

5 Things: January 31st, 2020

January 31, 2020

Here we are, already one-twelfth of the way through 2020. It's going by so quickly. Let's not tarry: Here's a snapshot of our week:

Eric's been out of town (and will be for a bit longer).

Beyond being a great boss/leader/guru, Eric is a family man. While he's been down in Iowa, helping out with family things, we've been doing our best to just hold it together. Eric, if you're reading this, we miss you!

In his element; in his favorite shirt.

We're rearranging our sandwich menu.

The sandwich menu is verging on out of control—and we're adding eight sandwiches to it within the next two months, including six next week. With that in-mind, our amazing illustrator and creative director, Flo, has been out of the (extremely distracting) office all week, re-hand-painting (and color-coding) a large portion of the menu.

The Smokehaus wouldn't be the same without Flo's amazing eye for food-styling, design and illustration. Thank you, Flo, for everything you do!

A few Flo fishes

Hannah and Andy have been emptying out the 3rd-floor office.

All the walls on the left hand side (pictured below) are coming down, and being replaced with more cooler space—and maybe a desk for Andy—while the rest of us cram into the new office space, at least until the renovation is complete and equilibrium is attainable.

Here's a short pictorial tribute to this office:

Walkie-talkie codenames.

Apologies to everyone else who has to live with us in the DeWitt-Seitz Marketplace—we are the weirdos walking around the building with walkie-talkies, making up codenames like "Cougar," "Meltdown!," "1225," and "Hot Snake," to communicate with each other while we transition between office spaces.

If you run into us in a crowded elevator, it's okay to look away and pretend we're not there. We understand.

Codename: Leify Greenz

Sub-list: What I would bring to the game day celebration.

Maybe you love the sport and maybe you just love the food—Either way, enjoying time with friends and family is never a bad thing. You're spending your time on a deli and smokehouse's blog, so you likely have a decent handle on setting up a snack table, but you might be looking for something special (or easy—or both) to take your game day snack table to the next level. Well, we've got options.

My recommendations, based on what we currently have in-stock:

All-Season Fillet

Let's face it: smoked salmon is what we're known for. The All-Season is our ultimate party favor—all the flavors so no-one feels left out; easy to prep (we've even got card with helpful instructions in our deli); food for fingers, forks, or your favorite crackers. One fillet is probably enough for everyone at the party to get a chance to enjoy it.

Salumi

Thin-sliced dry-cured meat—packs a lot of flavor into each bite and goes a long way. Right now we have Salamini, Saucisson Sec, and Spanish-style Chorizo in spades.

Snack Sticks

Whether you keep them full-length or cut them up into itty-bits, these snack sticks are guaranteed to please, for any palate—Bison Buddies have a little bit of kick, Big Jims remind me of ground beef and taco seasoning browning on the stovetop, Royale With Cheese are a bacon-cheeseburger in a stick, and Smoked Salmon Sticks are made with delicious sockeye salmon and tied together with buttery goodness.

The Usual Suspects

Two delicious hausmade cheese spreads and an exquisite salmon spread—just dip in your knife or cracker, then place immediately in mouth.

Cheese Spread

Honestly, our entire cheese selection is a fairly safe bet, but this spreadable cheddar is guaranteed to appeal to everyone.

That's all for now! See you next week. If you're still itching for more NWS content to imbibe, check out this week's series of Sandwich Lab blogs.

Sandwich Lab: The Catbus and The Sorta-Torta

January 30, 2020

The two Sandwich Lab specials we'll be talking about today share a common thread—attempts at encapsulating favorite food experiences using the ingredients readily available at our deli. One to a savory Japanese pancake, the other to a staple of Mexican lunch menus.

Emma and Patricia have each come up with creations that blend components we've had all along into sandwiches that stand out from our other offerings. Without further ado, let's take a closer look at The Catbus and The Sorta-Torta.

The Catbus

The Catbus is an okonomiyaki-inspired sandwich that's named after an iconic Studio Ghibli character, and as such, it is pure Smokehaus sandwich menu in intention and execution: an attempt to recreate a favorite food experience with ingredients we have on-hand, paired with a pop-cultural reference for a name.

Okonomiyaki, a savory Japanese pancake sometimes referred to as "Japanese pizza," translates to "grilled as you like it." Haus-baked Prince Myshkin rye bread, toasted alongside red onion and kimchi, dressed with mayo and sriracha, and garnished with cilantro is undeniably how we like it: simple, savory (prepare to come face-to-face with the subtle power of fish sauce), and just a little spicy.

The Catbus joins our menu on Monday, February 3rd, alongside Alᚦings Considered, the Sorta-Torta, and the Salmon Melt.

The Sorta-Torta

The Sorta-Torta is a bright new addition to our sandwich menu. Between the slices of Spanish-style Chorizo, fresh jalapeño, sriracha, and black pepper, there's plenty of spice to wake up your taste buds, with hausmade cumin slaw, mayo and cheddar cheese to balance the scale.

This sandwich is like no other on our menu, and that's just how Patricia planned it.

Spending many of her years on this planet in the Twin Cities, around plenty of places that offered fantastic tortas, she wanted to see what she could use around the Smokehaus to recreate that experience. A few standard torta ingredients are absent or remixed—aficionados will notice the lack of refried beans, and choosing a hero roll over pan francés—hence, the "sorta," but there's no need to dwell on what this sandwich isn't, because it's tasty as heck.

The Sorta-Torta joins our menu on Monday, February 3rd, alongside Alᚦings Considered, the Catbus, and the Salmon Melt.

Thanks for tuning-in yet again to this series about the upcoming additions to our sandwich menu. We hope you are too—whether you'll be visiting our deli tomorrow or in a few months, they'll be here for you.

We're so dang excited to share all these new sandwiches with you next week, but let's not forget about the returning favorites from last year's Sandwich Lab cycle—the Wagner and the Sebu-Chan

WHAT IS SANDWICH LAB?

A STORY PILFERED FROM PAST BLOGS.

*Bum bum*

IN THE DELICATESSEN SCENE, NEVER SHAKING UP YOUR SANDWICH MENU IS CONSIDERED ESPECIALLY HEINOUS. AT NORTHERN WATERS SMOKEHAUS, THE DEDICATED DELI EMPLOYEES WHO INNOVATE ON THE SANDWICH MENU ARE MEMBERS OF AN ELITE SQUAD KNOWN AS THE SANDWICH LAB. THESE ARE THEIR STORIES:

AT NORTHERN WATERS SMOKEHAUS, OUR WORK IS PLAYING WITH FOOD. THAT MEANS SOMETIMES, IN THE LINE OF DUTY, WE STUMBLE UPON AN AMAZING COMBINATION OF INGREDIENTS THAT EVOLVES OVER SEVERAL SHIFT-MEALS INTO A NOTEWORTHY NEW SANDWICH. OTHER TIMES WE UNCOVER A MORE EFFICIENT WAY TO BUILD A SANDWICH, OR WE SWAP AN INGREDIENT ON A CURRENT MENU ITEM. SANDWICH LAB IS AN ANNUAL GATHERING OF OUR STAFF TO REFINE OUR SANDWICH-LINE SKILLS, TO COME TO AGREEMENT ON ANY CONTROVERSIES, AND—THE BEST PART—TO INTRODUCE OUR PET SANDWICHES TO THE GREATER SMOKEHAUS COMMUNITY.

NOTABLE SANDWICH LAB FINDINGS FROM PREVIOUS YEARS INCLUDE THE CEDARS’S SECRET, THE PURPLE RANGE, AND THE PORK LION. LAST YEAR’S SANDWICH LAB HAD SO MANY GOOD SANDWICHES THAT WE COULDN’T DECIDE ON JUST ONE OR TWO TO ADD TO THE MENU, SO WE DECIDED TO GIVE THEM ALL A CHANCE TO SHINE, AS MONTH-LONG SPECIALS.

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