From TK's Desk: Raclette

Its Alpine cheese season.

Welcome this magnificently melty cow’s milk cheese from Switzerland: Raclette!!Raclette is the cheese of legend, based on the story of a man from Valais by the name of Leon. One cold day, with food scarce in the open pastures, Leon heated up a piece of cheese on the open fire to ease his hunger and keep warm. He found the melted cheese had a transcendent flavor. It not only complemented other foods – it made a great, satisfying meal for his family. Popular since the Middle Ages, Raclette is still produced with milk from cows that are fed fresh grass in the summer and meadow hay in the winter.The word raclette stems from the French verb racler, or "to scrape.” This cheese is a staple in the Swiss & French Alpine culinary culture and has to follow strict regulations from the cows to the creamery to the finishing process (the affinage). Each raclette has to have an official quality mark AOP (Appellation d’Origine Protegée) which is reserved for traditional products with long-standing regional origins. Melt this cheese and serve it on top of anything from bread to cured meats, potatoes, pickles, or just about anything else. Enjoy raclette with a glass of Alpine wines, such as the Swiss Fendant, French Savoy, rieslings, or pinot gris. Not into wine? Try it with warm tea or other warm beverages.  Sold in our deli for $23/lb.

Sandwich Lab: 7 Things You Should Know About The Breakfast Club—Number 5 Is Pretty Self-Explanatory

The Breakfast Club is...

1. ...the first of nine sandwiches discovered during Sandwich Lab which will be offered as monthlong specials.

2. ...available through the first week of February.

3. ...haus-smoked turkey & pancetta with red onion, cilantro & cream cheese on a Lake Superior Bakehouse bagel.

4. ...a  delightful variation on the classic Smokehaus Club.

5. ...described by its creator as "unctuous, balanced and pretty self-explanatory."

6. ...the perfect sandwich to prepare any individual for a long day of detention.

7. ...eligible for "double-stamps" (in-store purchases only).

Resolutions: A 5 Things™ New Year's Special

New year, new blog formatting. My New Year's Resolutions are to incrementally upgrade my blogging skills, and 1080p.

The Intro

Welcome to 2019! There are many exciting announcements ahead this month alone, but we’ve been working so hard lately, that I’m just going to hit you with some fluff. I present to you: New Year’s Resolutions. With my commentary, of course, for clarification and jokes.

The Body

1. Joe — Joe has been a perennial seasonal employee of the Smokehaus for many years. This was offered to me at the end of his last NWS shift for the season: “I want to learn ‘Never Going Back Again’ on guitar. Oh, and run a marathon.” Joe presented a reasonable, goal-oriented approach to the topic, which is nothing less than I expected of him. We could all learn from Joe. However, I will never run a marathon.

2. Mary — “Complete the cookbook.” With the Winter product catalog under our belts, she is referring to the as of yet unwritten Northern Waters Smokehaus cookbook that has been haunting our dreams for years. This is very exciting news for me, since it means I’ll have a bunch of writing projects ahead of me and it effortlessly keeps this blog’s deeper marketing purpose on point. When I informed Mary of the latter detail, she seemed reasonably bummed that I wasn’t just concerned about her life and wellbeing. It’s a cold world we live in, Mary.

3. Greg — “Do more stuff with music. Instead of nothing.” Greg is a local music legend*, so there’s likely a bunch of people hoping he keeps up with this resolution. *command+f conley

4. Nic — “Wake up every day at six a.m.”Have you? “No. I’m kind of working up to it. Yesterday, I woke up at six-thirty. Today, seven-thirty. So I’m kind of regressing, but I’m trying. The alarm went off at six and I turned it off.” This sort of rambling, rollercoaster ride crash of an answer that toes the line between honest assessment of the shortcomings of such exercises and blatant off-the-cuff lie designed to entertain is precisely the reason I included Nic in my interviews.

5. Lucy — “What’s the context? What did the others say?” I let her know some of the other responses. She considered: “Consistently produce music: Now that I have the means to, I have no excuse.” This resolution was challenging to punctuate, but I am pleased with my work, and I’m always pleased to hear about people making time for art. What I’m trying to say here is I am pleased.

A Conclusion

So there’s my top five, in no particular order, and based on who happened to be around and open to answering my question.Here’s some honorable mentions.

1. Olivia — “I don’t do those.” Hey, I'm in the same boat. Maybe drink more water, but that's sort of an every day resolution.

2. Sam — “I don’t really do those. I’m perfect how I am.”That's the attitude (~*almost*~) all of us should take into 2019!

5 Things: End of 2018 Edition

Here we are, at the final 5 Things™ of 2018. Due to intense holiday exhaustion and an increasing desire to fall deeply into sleep and live off my fat reserves for a few months, I was just going to list our mail-order bestsellers and wax slightly poetic about each, but I remembered that we had an exciting year at Northern Waters Smokehaus, and perhaps this blog would be a perfectly suitable place to talk about it.

So because I am very tired and don’t want to choose between the two, here’s my compromise: For each bestseller, I’ll share an unrelated anecdote about our eventful year.

#5 — Salmon pâté. In the Spring of 2018, Casey Webb and the crew of the Travel Channel’s Man v. Food stopped by our deli for a day. As an employee, I really enjoyed the experience, because it reinvigorated my sense of pride in my work, but mostly because the spectacle distracted our customers and made for a very relaxed shift with a distinct lack of bad vibes (or, for the optimists out there, an abundance of good vibes). Leif made a Cajun Finn so beautiful it probably brought a tear to the camera operator’s eye, but it was at 6am, so I was not awake to verify that claim. I witnessed a minimum of eight takes of Casey popping up into the frame jiggling a whitefish side-to-side. Movie magic in action. The episode aired in June.

Leif!

#4 — Lake Superior lake trout. In August, we had the great honor of being selected to cater the Glensheen Gala. I’m going from memory here, but the gala’s theme was a sort of low-fantasy English garden party, and we brought down the house with lamb hand-pies, boursin endive boats, watercress & butter sandwiches, and an assortment of cheese and desserts. I spent most of the night making tiny dessert pies with chocolate, a whipped cream topping, and raspberry jam, but as the night died down, those of us staffing the gig got to stroll around the mansion grounds to carouse and enjoy the sights. 10/10 would love to do this again.

#3 — Traditional salmon piece. Eric started Northern Waters Smokehaus in 1998, which means we are doing what we do well enough to have celebrated the business’s twentieth anniversary this year. We did so in style with a double-header celebration which began at Hoops Brewing (featuring a line to the free food that wrapped around most of the bar and didn’t slow down) and ended at Rex Bar (featuring a lineup composed entirely of Smokehaus-affiliated bands). We are grateful for our community, which embraces us, supports us, and parties with us.

#2 — Salamini. The first official NWS product catalog is out, and it is sexy. The design team did such a great job that people think we must have outsourced our work, but the Smokehaus is packed so full of talented individuals that it was just bound to be good. Now that we’ve crossed this threshold, it won’t be long until a cookbook hits the shelves.

Cake by Lake Superior Bakehouse

(I said these were going to be unrelated anecdotes, but you should know that the holiday season completely cleared out our salumi stock, so we’ll be out until mid- to late-January. We offer our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.)

#1 — Whitefish. Our 2nd-annual Sandwich Lab was such a rousing success that we will be sharing nine new sandwiches and a new vegetarian (optionally vegan) salad with you throughout 2019. Sandwich Lab is a time to relearn and polish our sandwich making skills and to share our personal flavor creations. There will be more announcements coming very soon and plenty of social media content to absorb over the year, but I will say that the new salad changed my life, and while the sandwiches will be monthlong specials beginning in January, the salad is a new permanent fixture on our menu.

This is how we make decisions.

It has been a pleasure writing for you today. I hope you have enjoyed yourself, and I hope your resolutions for the new year are reasonably attainable, and that you attain them all.

See you next year!