Sandwich Lab: Of New Sandwiches and Menu Revisions

Beginning Monday, January 30th 2023, we’re adding three brand new sandwiches to our menu, moving a couple of sandwiches to the Secret Menu, and making a small improvement to a Smokehaus classic! By the conclusion of this blog post, we hope you’ll be thoroughly informed of these updates. The Secret Menu sandwiches aren’t going away entirely, they’re just going to be hidden, and at the end of this blog post, we’ll provide instructions for how to find them.

Blog post too long? Don’t feel like reading? Here’s a quick breakdown of key sections:

• New Sandwich Introductions: The Club-Mariner, mmMmm, and The Sunday Sushi

• Sandwich Update: The Gorilla

• Menu reconfigurations/Secret Menu: Big Dipper/Squealy Dan, The ‘06/The Phoebe

Onward to new sandwiches!

Back in November, we held our occasional Sandwich Lab training and menu development session. Six members of our staff each submitted a sandwich for peer review, and of those six contenders, the three highest rated sandwiches—based on Taste, Use of Ingredients, how the sandwich Highlights NWS, and the sandwich’s Feasibility—earned a spot on our menu: The Club-Mariner, mmMmm, and The Sunday Sushi.

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Introducing: The Club-Mariner

A club sandwich like you’ve never seen before! An homage to the Golden Age of comic books in what may be the Golden Age of sandwiches!

The Club-Mariner combines the flavor of land and sea, featuring the opulent pairing of Traditional Smoked Atlantic Salmon and crispy Smoked Pancetta, dressed with sweet hausmade quick pickles, lettuce, and a kiss of wasabi mayo on two slices of toasted white bread.

The Club-Mariner was the highest-rated sandwich at Sandwich Lab, and was developed by our in-haus graphic designer, newsletter writer, social media coordinator, and all-around cool dude, Zac.

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Introducing: mmMmm

(stylized as “mmMmm”)

If you’re wondering how to pronounce the name of this sandwich, just imagine yourself taking the first bite: Maple-sage Smoked Turkey, massaged with Sriracha & Hoisin, then toasted, sits atop a mayo-spackled hero roll, and is further dressed with thinly-sliced cabbage, red onion, pickled ginger, and cilantro. The sweet and spicy flavors dance on your taste buds, as the wave of umami pulses to a rhythm only you can feel. You can’t help but to proclaim, almost in song*, “mmMmm!” You might’ve wanted to say more, but your mouth is full and you do not want to rush this bite.

Deli manager and chief goofball Leif developed and pitched mmMmm to the Lab.

*That’s a glissando’d octave up and down of B, for any readers with perfect pitch, or any sort of musical background. Trust us, we tested it.

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Introducing: The Sunday Sushi

Another umami-bomb joins our menu, especially tailored to the “not too spicy” crowd! The Sunday Sushi doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it’s the first time a sandwich of its sort has appeared on our menu. The Sunday Sushi takes a classic Midwestern hors d'oeuvre, oftentimes nicknamed “Lutheran Sushi”, as its influence—savory sliced Smoked Berkshire Ham, brushed with scallion cream cheese, and wrapped around a dill pickle spear—deconstructs it, adds sliced cabbage, and puts it on a hero roll. This combination has graced many a Smokehaus sample tray and employee snack session, and now it’s available for your everyday nutritional needs!

Michael, our Mail Order Director and in-haus music festival aficionado, finally codified The Sunday Sushi into sandwich law before the council.

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Introducing: The (Improved) Gorilla

When Eric Goerdt speaks, we listen. And not just because he’s our boss, but also because he’s a rare intellect, a wellspring of knowledge and insight about food and life. So, when Eric said “The Gorilla should have pickles,” we listened. 

Henceforth, dear reader, The Gorilla will include sliced dill pickles as a base ingredient!

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In order to make room on our paper menus for The Club-Mariner, mmMmm, and The Sunday Sushi, we’ve folded two of our sandwiches into similar offerings. Say (sort of) goodbye to The Squealy Dan and The Phoebe! Before we explain the changes, please know that over the phone and at our ordering window, you’ll still be able to order both of these sandwiches by their original names! The changes will mostly affect your online ordering experience, or a newcomer’s navigation of our paper menus. We understand that this may cause some minor headaches, but rest assured, our staff is prepared to help you navigate the reconfigured menu.

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Reintroducing: The Squealy Dan has become a variant of The Big Dipper!

The Squealy Dan aka The Ol’ Standby aka The Smokehaus Staff’s Favorite Morale Sandwich bears such a strong resemblance to The Big Dipper that it’s only natural to combine them.

•The (new) Big Dipper has meat options: choose from Porketta, Smoked Pork Loin, or dry-cured Salami Mix.

•The (new) Big Dipper still comes with zesty three-pepper dipping sauce. This is an improvement over The (old) Squealy Dan, which notably did not include dipping sauce.

How to make your Big Dipper a classic Squealy Dan: choose Smoked Pork Loin or dry-cured Salami Mix as your meat, hold the green olives, and add black pepper.

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Reintroducing: The Phoebe has become a variant of The ’06!

The Phoebe is a Smokehaus spin on the classic deli sandwich known as a Rachel, which is itself a variant of the classic deli sandwich known as a Rueben. The Smokehaus spin on a Rueben is called The ’06.

The official changes to The ’06 are as follows:

•Meat options: Smoked Bison Pastrami, Corned Bison, or Maple-sage Smoked Turkey Breast.

•Cabbage medley options: hausmade Sauerkraut or hausmade Kimchi.

•Cheese options: Swiss cheese becomes the default. Cheddar cheese or provolone cheese are available as substitutions.

How to make your ’06 a classic Phoebe: choose Maple-sage Smoked Turkey Breast as your meat, select Kimchi, and substitute cheddar cheese.

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We appreciate your patience and adaptability as we enact these changes to our menu, and we’re excited to get these new sandwiches out of your thoughts and into your hands, mouths, stomachs, and hearts!

How to Cook Wild Rice

This basic recipe is for use with wild-harvested, lightly parched Wild Rice. NOT for use with the stuff that is jet-black. Wild Rice varies greatly depending on a variety of factors, but especially how it is ‘parched’ or in other words dried. Wild Rice that is a tan color will cook much more quickly and with less water than Wild Rice that is heavily parched and black in color.

Ingredients:

• 1 Cup Wild Rice

• 1-2 cups water (texture will be par-cooked with 1 cup of water, very soft with 2 cups- I prefer 1 ½ cups of water for slightly chewy ‘al dente’ rice)

• ½ teaspoon salt (or more to taste)

Gently rinse the rice by placing it in a mesh strainer and running water over it for about 30 seconds, or by putting it in the rice cooker bowl or pot you are cooking in and dumping off the water. You should see that the white kernel of the rice is poking out of the ends of some of the hulls.

Rice Cooker - Add the rice and your desired amount of water to the cooker and turn the cooker on. Once the cooker has stopped, check the rice to see if it is to your desired doneness. If it is still too chewy, add ¼ Cup more water and turn the rice cooker back on. If your rice is still not the desired tenderness, add another ¼ cup of water and cook again. Taste the rice for salt level and add more if you think it needs it.

Stovetop - Bring all ingredients to a boil. Cover the pot, reduce to a simmer and cook for about 25 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes or so. Check the rice for doneness and keep cooking if it is not tender enough. If most of the water has cooked out at this point, add a ¼ cup more and continue to cook. Keep checking for desired tenderness every 5 or so minutes until it is satisfactory. Taste and add more salt if needed. 

To steam in an InstaPot, add rice and water to the pot and cook on high for 10 minutes, then let it naturally release for 10 minutes before releasing the rest of the pressure. 

Easy additions to add to your rice before cooking: dried mushrooms, chicken stock or vegetable broth in substitution of water,  1 teaspoon of soy sauce or shio koji as extra salt/seasoning- more to taste.

Introducing: Michael Roberts, Mail Order Director

The days are getting shorter as each passes, and the holiday season is quickly approaching. What better time to shed some light on a new leader in the Smokehaus community? We’re pleased to formally introduce to you our current mail order director, Michael Roberts. In March of 2022, Michael stepped into the role to fill the shoes of Andy, our previous mail order director, who has made a horizontal move to director of wholesale, and works in close conjunction with Michael.

Michael began working at NWS in September 2018. During their four year tenure, Michael has developed a detailed and growing knowledge of the products we make, from suppliers to processes to the specifics of packaging and shipping, and they’ve done it all while maintaining their characteristic easygoing, laid-back, infectiously positive outlook and wit.

Put simply, Michael is the kind of person you like to be talking to, whether you’re customer or co-worker. Between their work in the deli, at catering events, and pop-ups, many of you are likely to have had such encounters. In addition to the forward-facing work, Michael has also paid their dues packaging hundreds (perhaps thousands?!) of boxes as a holiday season mail order elf, dug in the trenches alongside our prep department, and the occasional shift in the dish pit.

When they’re not at work, Michael likes to hang with their kid and go on hikes together, spend quality time with their dog and cats, jam to music (a little bit of everything, but especially bands like the Strokes, Karen O and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Chicano Batman), make memes, and attend/scheme-to-attend various music festivals—their favorite of which is Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, TN because of its deep-rooted sense of community during the festival and throughout the year. Michael lives life fully, hoping to have a good time as much of the time as possible.

At work, they were inspired early on by words from “a more tenured coworker, who was giving a speech about why every sandwich we make matters. That people stop by Duluth on vacation just to try our food. To see passion about detail, made it feel like an inspiring experience working at Northern Waters,” and find inspiration daily amongst their “very talented and unique” fellow Smokehausers, from Eric, because of “his leadership style and the passion he has for the work and product,” to the others scattered throughout DeWitt-Seitz Marketplace, “who all have their own little side hustles, from music to mobile saunas” and beyond.

Their favorite official and unofficial NWS offerings are the catering menu’s All-Season (Smoked Fish) Platter because “it looks incredible and never lets you down. Always a satisfying experience, and a beautiful centerpiece,” and a variation on the Banh Faux Mi “without the country pâté, sub turkey toasted with a hoisin-and-sriracha rub, and one line of wasabi mayo.”

Through their position as mail order director, Michael looks forward to guiding literal tons of Smokehaus products across the nation, to using their own creative spark and vision “to help the business grow and express itself”, and also to utilizing the Smokehaus’ platform to grow other local businesses, like Underwood Coffee in the “Everything But The Eggs Brunch Box”, Naturalight candles in this year’s upcoming version of the “Hygge Box”, and Native Wise wild rice in the “Big Lake and the Good Seed” gift box. “We’re in a position to help others grow while growing our own business.”

Michael is especially excited about the two new gift boxes this holiday season, the aforementioned “Big Lake and the Good Seed” gift box in collaboration with Native Wise, as it “gives back to Indigenous community, traditional food providers, and my own cultural upbringing” and “The Flavorhaus Box” a tribute to our deli’s segment on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. They are also making moves to add another sandwich to our growing list of Sandwich Kits in the not-so-distant future.

While the mail order team is currently just a small handful of folks, and Michael is involved with a majority of the day-to-day labor of the job, they’re excited to jump into the big picture work, from logistics to communicating with customers to shepherding the swelling numbers of mail order elves and keeping morale high during the intense holiday rush. Michael’s here for it. Your mail order experience is in good hands.

Online Ordering: How Did We Get Here?

via GIPHY

(Clip from The Bear showing what can happen if you don’t plan ahead.)

Here at Northern Waters we take customer service just as seriously as we do the food we make. And just like our food, we are constantly rethinking and refining our services in order to make them as good as possible.

In the beginning, the only way to order was in person at our tiny Canal Park deli. Often that would include a very long wait in line, followed by another wait after the order was added to the queue. Later, after several expansions (though our deli remained small) we were able to add phone orders to the mix. Eventually we also added online ordering capabilities, and we were really off to the races.

When the pandemic hit we closed our doors. We had to decide what to do, and fast. Do we close completely and wait it out, or do we find a way to keep delivering our delectable smoked delights to hungry loyal customers. It was a no-brainer. We went all-in with both phone and online ordering (as well as our own delivery department). And it worked! We were able to stay “open” while also keeping our customers and staff safe and healthy (and well fed). In fact the only reason we ever “closed” was to remodel our deli space in order to better serve this new model.

Eventually we were able to add Order and Pickup windows out on the deck, and start serving people in-person again, just like those early days. Even better, we were able to more than double the amount of seating and triple our sandwich making capacity. But now we were faced with both the familiar lines of people AND a “virtual” line of people ordering online. We were often opening up for the day with orders streaming out of the printer and pooling onto the floor. Not great. Again, we had to rethink and refine. This involved much trial and error, and many meetings with software developers and other food industry folks. Eventually we landed with the system we have now which, for us, is the best of many different worlds.

All of this is a long winded way to explain why you might have some difficulty placing your online orders during our busy season. We limit the number of orders were are able to take online so that we can give all customers the best service possible. Think of it more like reserving a table at a restaurant. There are only so many tables and only so much time. And you can order well in advance if you know when you will be visiting us.

We love talking with you in person, chatting about food, the weather, charcuterie, the greatest of Great Lakes, cheese, the weather some more, but mostly about food. And we also know that you might want to skip all of that and simply grab your order and go. We hope that all of our continued efforts will give you exactly the experience you are hoping for, and maybe some great tastes, too.