[Excerpt from our Zingerman’s Newsletter July-August 2011, view the whole article here]

1. Tamworth Bacon from Herb Eckhouse
In this case, I suppose, the paradox isn’t really mine — Herb Eckhouse is another Jewish guy who’s been happily having his way with cured pork for probably nine or ten years now. His cured ham, pancetta (unsmoked Italian-style bacon), and guanciale (cured pork jowl) are all consistently excellent. And now, he’s added one more amazing product to his porketoire — this time it’s a bacon cured from the bellies of specially raised Tamworth hogs.

As was the case with Alex, and the very fine beef from Cornman Farms, the Tamworth is a very long term project. “This bacon was really an act of faith,” Herb told me as we were getting ready for Camp Bacon this spring. “Four years ago we made a few legs of Tamworth prosciutto to see what it would be like. It was totally delicious. In fact our buddy Bruce Aidells (chef, and author of Bruce Aidells’s Complete Book of Pork) said the Tamworth pork was as good or better than any he had had anywhere — Spain, Italy, you name it. This one was better! Unfortunately, when we went back to get more meat, we couldn’t find any. The breed is classified as “threatened” and there aren’t that many of them to be found — just a few here and there. Russ Kremer who is one of our favorite — probably now our favorite — pig farmer because he really does offer his pigs a place to roam outside on the hillside once they are out of the nursery is also is a Tamworth enthusiast. He has Tamworth lines that he has kept free of the modern pig breeding that has made pork too lean and caused the animals to become prone to stress. After four years of asking, begging, pleading, cajoling, guilt-tripping, and visiting we finally got a Tamworth program going with him. Our first delivery was October, 2010. Now we buy all of the legs and bellies he’s got!”

Having done a fair bit of research over the years while writing Zingerman’s Guide to Better Bacon, I can tell you that a lot of the old sources list the Tamworth hogs as hogs that were bred specifically to have their pork cured up into bacon. Herb told me pretty much what other sources have said as well — the belly meat from the Tamworth is supposed to be particularly tender. It’s also known for having a near perfect balance of fat and lean, and its flavor gets particularly sweet during the maturing.

You can of course do pretty much anything you like with the Tamworth bacon — it’s easy to fry up lightly with eggs, put on BLTs, chop and toss with pasta or whatever. The key of it for me is that the fat is super rich, almost buttery in texture. Given that Herb has even more practice preparing it than I do, I asked him for his input. “I like it very lightly cooked at low heat.” Perhaps even better still is that you can eat it raw, just as you would pancetta or prosciutto. Since we make and preserve it the way we do all our meats — drying it to remove the moisture — it is shelf stable. You can enjoy “bacon sashimi” if you want. “When you eat it without cooking it,” Herb said, “you can really taste the sweetness of the meat. But in a way, I guess, the light cooking is kind of the best of both worlds — the succulent melted fat with the sweet meat flavor. Because it is dry-cured and has a low water content, the fat has a lower smoke point so however you cook it, we recommend doing so at low heat. We use no sugar, dextrose, molasses, or any sweetening of any kind, yet that bacon is sweet. I love eating it — surprise! Probably, as important as anything is the soft, smoky, very clean, no burn aftertaste — it just lingers. We use only pork, sea salt, and spices [black and white pepper, rosemary, bay leaf].”

Herb’s right — it’s excellent on an antipasto plate. Great diced up, lightly fried and then tossed with pasta (put the pasta right into the hot fat with the bacon, pour into warm bowls and then grate on a bit of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and plenty of black pepper.

2. Owens Creek Tuscan Varietal Olive Oil
A great story, a great oil, and a great cause all in one nicely labeled green glass bottle. This is the second oil to arrive on our carefully curated shelves from Walter Hewlett’s Owen’s Creek Ranch out in the Central Valley of California. I’ve written a lot about Walter, his oil and his work in recent newsletters so I won’t go on at length here. If you want the full, in depth, essay, by all means email me at arizingermanscom and I’ll send it your way tout de suite. The long story in its short form isthat Walter Hewlett is the son of Bill Hewlett of, you know, Hewlett-Packard fame. More relevantly in the moment though, he’s also the grandson of A. Walter Hewlett, who, while far less familiar to the average American than his supremely famous business building son, contributed mightily to the science of cardiology here at U of M and then at Stanford in the early years of the 20th century.

I met the modern day Walter Hewlett at the Deli last year. He was back in February to do a class on his oil at the Deli and also on campus at U of M. In short, Walter’s a super nice guy who’s got literally something like six graduate degrees (computer musicology is my personal favorite). He’s also a past marathon winner, concert viola player and, most recently, a very good olive oil producer. Clearly, underachieving is not a big problem in the Hewlett family. Despite everything though, Walter is very down to earth, very kind, very generous, and very, very excited about this oil. Both it, and the work in cardiovascular research, are his causes, and he very clearly cares deeply about each.

In sync with the spirit of generosity that’s so important in all the work we try to do, Walter decided that he would donate $4 from every bottle of the oil we sell to fund research at U of M’s Cardiovascular Center. Hard to argue with any of it — good oil, good guy, good cause. We’ve been getting the Owen’s Creek oil that Walter makes from Sicilian varietals for about eight months already and I’ve been a big

fan of it throughout. Just recently we’ve added a second oil to Walter’s wonderful repertoire. This time, it’s Tuscan varietals that are turning the trick. Really lushly green, more peppery than the other, a bit more of the artichoke and green tomato elements that are a hallmark of Tuscan oils. Great on salads, bruschetta, steak and sautéed swordfish or pretty much any other full flavored dish.

3. Sun-Dried Tomato Spread from Tunisia
I know that sun-dried tomatoes may seem like yesterday’s news. Given my aversion for things that seem to slide into the world of trendiness, I can’t say that I’d ever have listed anything made with sun-dried tomatoes on a list of my favorite things. And yet… here they are. This sauce is simply way too good to go forward with this list and not have it on here. Having eaten about a jar a week for the last few months… how can I keep it off? I can’t let popularity stand in the way of something really good to eat. While the sun-dried tomato sauce may be new here, the topic of Tunisian food definitely is not. If you’ve been around here much at all over the last few years you’ve likely heard me go on at GREAT length about how much I LOVE the harissa sauce from the Mahjoub family. Seriously, I’ve written thousands of words on the subject, have done a dozen different recipes that use it and recommended it to hundreds if not thousands of customers who, like me, love fantastic, full-flavored, well-balanced, hot and spicy stuff. The revolution earlier this year has certainly changed the political landscape, but harissa still rules the Tunisian table just as handily as it always has.

Of late though I’ve also fallen in love with this other amazing sauce that the Mahjoub’s make. This time it is, as you know already from the title, their sun-dried tomato spread. It’s not surprising, I suppose, that I’d fall for it as hard as I have — all the things I love about the harissa are also at play here. Organically grown tomatoes, peppers, and garlic from the family’s farm, all of which are hand-picked and then naturally dried in the sun for nearly a week, ground to a paste and then blended with ground dried coriander and a touch of caraway and then rounded out with some of the family’s own organic extra virgin olive oil. Both sauces are most definitely delicious; both are very ersatile; both are incredibly complex in flavor; and both are really well balanced. I could, have and will eat both in very large quantities. I keep a couple jars of each in my pantry at home. Truly I don’t want to run out; either one, with almost any other set of ingredients, is enough to make an otherwise average meal into something special.

All that said, the two sauces are not the same. What’s different, I suppose, is the relationship between the heat and the sweet. Where the harissa is happily very hot with a touch of tomatoey sweetness to round out its edges, in this one the tomatoes — hand-seeded and then literally dried in the sun for seven days — take it all up a notch. I know that sun-dried tomatoes over the years have reached beyond the point that I really look forward to seeing them anywhere, but this stuff is so good that it’s changed my outlook altogether. Think of how deep in flavor and intense a really great, vine-ripened tomato will be when you dry it in the sun for a couple of days and all its natural liquid evaporates and then you’ll start to have a better idea of what this stuff really tastes like.

Like the harissa you can do pretty much anything and everything with the Mahjoub’s sun-dried tomato spread. I love it on cheese sandwiches, pastas, and in tuna salads. Mix it with the Creamery’s handmade cream cheese or some barrel-aged feta from Greece. It’s great with eggs — spread on fried egg sandwiches, on the side with scrambled eggs, or spooned gently atop a newly poached egg (along with a bit of olive oil). Really fine with fresh fish — I’m particularly sweet on using it with swordfish, shrimp or squid. It’s beautiful on a BLT too — while you’re waiting for those first Michigan tomatoes to show up at the market this is a great way to get some intense tomato flavor into play. It’s pretty fantastic on a sandwich with fresh mozzarella. And the truth is that it’s really good with fresh tomatoes too — the rich, intense but still subtly spicy sweetness of the sauce is actually a great counterpoint to the poignancy and high notes of fresh tomatoes in their natural raw form. Add a spoonful to your homemade tomato sauce. Truthfully you could just spread it on toast — I do it regularly. A bit of olive oil on the bread first, then some of this spread on top and you’re ready to rock! So there you go, mundane as they may seem to those “in the know,” these jars of Tunisian sun-dried tomato paste are really probably one of the best new things I’ve eaten this year.

4. Jo Snow Syrups
Continuing on this path of products I probably wouldn’t have thought I’d be excited about, I’ll add in this line of really extremely darned delicious syrups made by Melissa Yen in Chicago. In truth, there’s probably not a huge amount to say except in a slightly understated and down to earth, fun way she’s infusing some seriously good, nicely balanced (there’s that theme again!) flavors into these anything but simple syrups. She started making them a few years back when she had her own café in order to more easily infuse the flavors she was after in her coffee drinks. She wanted a lot of flavor, customers wanted them quickly, together the result was this set of seven or eight different syrups. Honestly, every one of the ones I tasted was excellent. We’ve got at least three of ‘em on hand right now at the Next Door for coffee drinks and Italian sodas and on the shelves in the Deli for you to take home. I have a feeling though that other Jo Snow stuff will appear across our organization so watch for ‘em at a Zingerman’s business near you. You can spot them on the shelf quickly thanks to light-hearted, eye-catching, spirit-lifting graphic design work of Melissa’s friend, Jennifer Mayes. Right now we’ve got:

Fig, Vanilla and Black Pepper — given that I love all three of these, it should come as no surprise that this one is my personal favorite. No paradox here — not even sure what more to say… figs, vanilla and black pepper. I’m in.

Café de Olla — a tribute to the much loved (south of the border) Mexican coffee combination — brown sugar, cinnamon, molasses and a bit of a nice orange extract. Particularly good, as per the name, added to your coffee.

Ginger Passion Fruit — exotic, enticing, exciting, light, tropical and pretty much every other adjective you’d associate with a blend of fresh ginger and passion fruit. ‘Nuf said?

I could give you a lot of specific ways to use them but really the bottom line is that they’re all good in all the good ways you can think of. You can start your list with using them to make Italian sodas — just add sparkling water, stir and sip. Drizzle over fresh fruit, gelato from the Creamery or whatever other good ice cream you might have decided to buy. Melissa likes them a lot in cocktails, or at the least she must think about it a lot — for each syrup she rattled off at least two or three drinks in which they’d be great, and all of them, even to my purist’s palate, sounded really good darned good. Let’s see… then there’s French toast, pancakes or crepes. Coffee drinks. Yogurt. Hot tea. Iced tea. Hot chocolate. Polenta or oatmeal for breakfast.

5. Dulcet Moroccan Mustard
It’s been a while since I got so excited about a mustard that I wanted to eat it right out of the jar. Add to that the fact that flavored foods generally aren’t really my thing and it’s actually fairly surprising that this jarred mustard from Oregon would make my top summer foods list. But sure enough, I’ve been eating a lot of it, sometimes, truly, just with a spoon straight from the jar, regularly over the last few months. If mildly exotic mustards are at all up your alley I’d angle to get access to a bit of this stuff ASAP.

I’ve never really thought about mustard as a snack food, something to eat by the spoon, or something that I’d design a meal around. But here I am on my fourth jar of the Dulcet Moroccan Mustard in the last month. I’m not sure exactly what it is about it that’s got me going so much. It could be something about North Africa — I have been incredibly high on the harissa, couscous, olives, and sun dried tomato spread, etc. from the Mahjoub family. Maybe the Moroccan spices Dulcet founder Pam Kraemer has in her mustard are working some comparable southern Mediterranean magic on me. More likely it’s just that she’s done what I think very few people ever achieve — a touch of heat, a hint of sweet, a bit of slightly exotic spice all adding up to an exceptional balance of flavors.

Dulcet’s Madras Curry Mustard is only slightly behind the Moroccan on my list of good things to have in the house at all times this summer. Same basic concept, same well orchestrated blend of organic spices. Both are built off a base of organic dijon mustard, a bit of cane sugar and plenty of interesting spices. I’ve been eating them both with pretty much everything other than ice cream, and, now that I think about it, a small dab atop some vanilla gelato from the Creamery might actually be really good.

In either case, you might wonder what you do with this marvelous southern Mediterranean spiced mustard? It’s really good on salads, fish, cheese, egg salad. . . I’d happily serve it next to steak, pork chops or grilled chicken. I served it with some broiled salmon the other night and that was darned good, too. Mix it with a bit of yogurt or fromage blanc and it would be a very nice sauce. Ham sandwiches, grilled cheese. I can’t tell you it will change your life, but I will tell you it’s made eating more interesting all through the simple act of opening a jar!

6. Dunbarton Blue Delicious Blue Cheddar from Wisconsin
While we have a lot of cheddars and a lot of blues on the cheese counter at the Deli, we don’t generally have any blue cheddars; other than an occasional English farmhouse wheel that unintentionally veers off into the blue, these two categories really don’t mix. They certainly sit politely on the cheese shelves, probably eying each other’s differences, but respectfully staying out of each other’s way. Sometimes though, breaking out of the old molds makes sense. And that’s what Chris Roelli is doing with Dunbarton Blue. While it has all the good characteristics that everyone who works here is always excited to have in an old style, handmade cheddar, the whole thing is taken up a notch or ten by Chris’ clever and considered move to introduce blue mold to his mix. The result is remarkably good! In under a year the Dunbarton Blue has gone from being essentially unknown to one of the most sought after and highly regarded American cheeses on the market. In fact, response has been so strong that the Roellis are basically selling everything they can make — I feel fortunate to have some on the cheese
counter.

Dunbarton Blue isn’t just a good cheese; it’s also a really nice story. Chris is actually the fourth generation of his family to make cheese. His great-grandfather, Adolph Roelli, came to Wisconsin from Switzerland back in 1903. (Actually the family name in the Alps was Rolli, but it was anglicized at Ellis Island.) Adolph originally opened a grocery store, but the other farmers in the area discovered that he also knew how to make cheese — a valuable commodity in a state whose population of dairy cows was growing faster than that of its people — and invited him into the local co-op to work the curd. His son, Walter Roelli (no relation to the Virginia colonist) added milk hauling to the cheesemaking and the family business was basically born. The Roelli’s success was challenged though as industrial cheese standards started to take hold in the second half of the 20th century. With all the pressure on price and next to none on quality, the Roelli’s finally gave in — they closed the cheese plant in May of 1991.

For about fifteen years, they lived on the milk hauling. But Chris, who was just out of school when the factory closed, was determined to get back into it. Keeping his plans quietly to himself he started to make cheese again in 2006. Working originally from a 53-foot trailer next to the cheese plant, he tried his hand at a number of different cheeses. As is so often the case, one of the things he was experimenting with, a blue cheddar that most everyone else probably would have told him to stay away from, is the one that won out. Basically the boy hit a home run — Dunbarton Blue is probably one of the hottest cheeses on the already “hot” Wisconsin farmstead cheese scene. Like I said, Chris is selling everything he can make so I feel fortunate to be able to get some here to have on our shelves. It is as it sounds: very much the flavor and texture of a young, natural-rind, farmhouse cheddar — fairly firm and densely textured, mellow but rich and very nutty — along with the big earthy, bass lines of a good blue. You can eat Dunbarton Blue any way you like — I’m good mostly with eating it as is, a plateful of
fresh fruit and good thick slice of Roadhouse bread along side. But you can of course put it on salads, burgers, steaks or just about anything else you like as well.