Dear chocolate friends, This month seems quiet in comparison to the last few. Since January, we've introduced a new chocolate almost every month! Askinosie, Taza and Amano are getting to be household names around town, and I can't imagine the truffle case without the Aztec, Lemon Basil and Lime Truffles from our friend Cathy at Chocolate in Chelsea (Manhattan, not Michigan!)

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Australia today is a pretty happening place, but that's really a pretty recent phenomenon; in the 1950s the now massively hip-hopping city of Sydney had only 800 total hotel rooms. (By comparison, Ann Arbor — hardly a world capital — has 4000!). Culturally, Australia's got this really weird mix of totally middle class solidity with kind of wild, whacked-out, slightly California-esque aggressiveness. Australians certainly do their fair share of partying; and yet people are so modest that not all that many years ago someone climbed up to paint a bathing suit onto the partially exposed rear end of the little girl on the Coppertone billboard. And, to this day, no one seems to find it odd that cocktail sausages are sold in nearly every shop under the name "little boys."

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"To feta aficionados there is no comparison between artisanal, barrel-aged feta and the tinned feta produced in huge automated factories all over the Balkans. Wood breathes, and the barrel can't be hermetically sealed, so the skill of the cheese master determines the quality of the final product." — Diane Kochilas, "The Glorious Foods of Greece"

For those of you who've been shopping, eating or working around here for a long time now, I should just tell you up front — I'm on one of my campaigns again. I seem to get on one every couple years. Usually my push is prompted by a passion for a food that I think, at its best, is really great, but is so misrepresented or so misunderstood by the marketplace that most folks out there are unknowingly missing out on something really special. Usually, it's a food that I think is also really accessible, something everyone who likes to eat good food can and will enjoy, but one that's been dissed and dismissed so much so that few people ever get to try it in its prime state. Right now, it's good feta that's found its way to the front of my mind. And my cooking. And the campaign is under way.

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If this is the first you've hearing about this news, here's the scoop: One of our favorite sources for full-flavored cured pork products, Herb and Kathy Eckhouse's La Quercia, in Norwalk, Iowa, began the first of its kind Acorn Edition project this past summer. Their idea was to locally source organically raised, heirloom hogs of the Berkshire breed, and supply the already happy pigs with plenty of acorns to eat. The Eckhouse's intention was to use this pork to make a variety of high quality salumi for a subscription-only Acorn Edition. The Deli was one of only two retailers in the country to subscribe, alongside an illustrious list of chefs, and the salumi coming out of the Acorn Edition is some of the best available in America, albeit in very limited quantities. So far, we've received guanciale, which came and went really fast, pancetta and lardo, which we have strictly limited quantities of. There's also a bit left of the rillettes we made out of the bits and pieces of fresh pork and pork fat.

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I have to admit that I approached my first scheduled meeting with Charmaine and Reuben Solomon in Sydney last year a bit skeptically. Bottled curry sauces aren't really something we do a whole lot here at Zingerman's, and there are more than enough of them already available in the US, so I figured I'd go to the appointment more as a courtesy than anything else. Man, was I wrong. These are really excellent Australian products made by great people with a great story, and I'm really excited to have them here in Ann Arbor. Charmaine and Reuben Solomon are probably in their early 70s. They're very intelligent, entertaining, totally down to earth, funny, fine, welcoming, creative people. Although I'd never heard of her before the meeting, it turns out that Charmaine is actually extremely well known for her books and teaching work — she's spent about three decades writing and teaching about Asian food, and she's done over 30 books on the subject. As I started mentioning her name to other key folks in the food world, it turns out most everyone I talked to knew her work well. She's really one of the best teachers on the subject anywhere.

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Every spring we get the chance to transform employee and guest perceptions of really great Asparagus. This season shouldn't be any different. Already Zing employees have been out to our secret little asparagus patch and harvested close to 150 lbs. That's right, we have a dedicated crew of cooks, sales people and marketers out picking asparagus every 3 or 4 days. Picking our own asparagus lets us be the end-all be-all on quality of asparagus. Freshness, size, color and maturity are the quality points we look for in the field. It gets harvested, washed, cooked, sold and served all by the same folks.

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