I apologize for my lack of posting recently. Work and life have once again gotten in the way. Hopefully, I will be back this weekend with some more recipes and posts but in the meantime, I want to remind my readers of a few things.

First off, Saturday is the the Milwaukee “Cookies for Kid’s Cancer” bake sale. It is being held at Best Place at the Historic Pabst Brewery, in Milwaukee and runs from 1-4pm. My good friends, over at Burp! Where Food Happens have worked hard to gather together a bunch of local and Wisconsin food bloggers to pitch in for this event. Unfortunately, I have to work so I won’t be attending, but I am sending a long a few dozen of my Chocolate Crinkles with Raspberry Jam, and possibly a few other goodies. If you find yourself in the area please stop by, support and great cause, and walk away with some great tasting munchies!!

Other event is for all you barbecue buffs out there. Steven Raichlen will be joining the forums, over at Chef Talk, from May 26th-29th. This is a “not-to-be-missed” event for anyone serious about barbecuing and grilling as Steven has spent years researching and teaching about the art of grilling and barbecuing. He has also written numerous cookbooks on the subject, including one of my all time favorites, “The Barbecue! Bible.” I urge all my readers to click on over to Chef Talk, register for the forums (it’s FREE!) and be part of this great opportunity to learn a little more about backyard cooking. I hope to see you on the forums!!!

There’s something about county and state fairs that really strike a cord with me. Of course, there is all the food, most of it deep fried and none of it good for you, but it goes beyond that. In many ways, these fairs seem so “yesterday.” They seem to belong to a world long gone, where grandmas compete for blue ribbons with their pies and cakes, where young farmers parade their best livestock, and where carnies try to sucker unsuspecting passersby into parting with their hard earned cash for a chance to win some cheap, poorly made stuffed animal. It’s a place where salesmen still compete for crowds and where the art of hawking and barking is still alive and well.

This past week we headed down to Milwaukee (actually West Allis a Milwaukee suburb) to visit the Wisconsin State Fair and once again it did not disappoint. Wisconsin has deep roots as an agricultural state and the Wisconsin State Fair is all about showing off the best of its agricultural products. Of course, a good portion of the fair grounds are taken up with the livestock barns which are jammed packed with farmers and 4-Her’s all there to show off their best livestock, from cows, and pigs to ducks, chickens, rabbits and any other farm animal you can imagine. Dairy also takes center stage, Wisconsin still being one of the most important dairy and cheese making states in the country. Winning a blue ribbon at the Wisconsin State Fair is still considered an important award for many cheesemakers. (continue reading…)

Last night Wanda and I headed up to Appleton, WI to attend the first “Grilling with Beer” cook-off presented by Wisconsin Distributors and held at the Radisson Paper Valley Hotel. It may have not been the most romantic of dates, but we were childless for the next few hours and what’s not to enjoy about beer and grilling? The weather was perfect, warm but not too hot, and the courtyard of the hotel was filled with the mingled scents of grilling meat and charcoal. The cook-off featured 10 chefs, from various styles of restaurants. Each chef was to prepare at least part of their dish on grills during the event and each chef was given a specific beer which they were to use in the creation of their dish, as well as pour during the event. The beers ranged from the mundane such as “Bud Light Lime” and “Landshark” to quirky such as Bud’s newest, “Wild Blue” a blueberry flavored beer, to sublime such as the 2 offerings from New Belgium, “Fat Tire” and “1554.” The food too, ran the gamut from uninspired and poorly executed, such as the boneless rib on a stick that was so tough I couldn’t chew through it try as I might, to well thought out and perfectly presented.

Of all the dishes I tried, three stood out among the rest and 1 tried really hard but just fell short. That dish was a flank steak served with basmati rice and an Indian inspired sauce. Since they were pairing with an IPA (Indian Pale Ale) I thought the Indian influence would be nice, but over cooked basmati and the choice of beef made the dish fail. How often do you see beef in Indian cuisine. They would have been better off with Lamb, which would have been great, or even chicken or pork-anything but beef. The three stand outs that night were the “Urban Shrimp with a 3-1-2 Punch,” the Grilled Pork Eye presented by “Big Tomatoes,” and the Grilled Elk with New Belgium’s “1554.” The shrimp were butterflied open, stuffed with a sliver of jalapeno, wrapped in bacon then grilled and glazed with a sweet BBQ sauce accented with Goose Island’s 312 Urban Wheat Beer. It’s only failing was the couscous salad it was served on. The Israeli couscous had been over cooked and had turned mushy, so on my second trip up to try a shrimp I just tossed the salad aside and ate the shrimp. “Big Tomatoes” Grilled pork was sauced with a Pomegranate BBQ Sauce accented with New Belgium’s “Fat Tire” and served with Grilled Corn and Poblano Ragout. The grilled elk, presented by Stone Cellar Brew Pub had been marinated in “1554″ and served with 2 sauces and marinated artichokes all of which had included “1554″ in some way or another.

We never did get to see who eventually won, though my guess is the shrimp dish, as our time was running out and our daughter was waiting for us to pick her up. We reluctantly grabbed one last nibble, cast our votes for the people’s choice and headed home.

Although we live in Fond du Lac, WI it has been a number of years since we have attended Walleye Weekend, Fond du Lac’s biggest festival of the year. Walleye Weekend got its start in 1978, two years after Mercury Marine (the boat makers) started sponsoring the Mercury National Walleye Tournament, and important fishing tournament on the pro circuit and the largest walleye tournament in the country, attracting 300 teams. The tournament takes place on Lake Winnebago, on which Fond du Lac rests on its southernmost shore. In fact Fond du Lac means “foot of the lake” in French.

The festival that has grown up around this fishing tournament has expanded over the years and now covers most of Lakeside Park’s 400+ acres, offering a little something for everyone, from live animal shows to national music acts to local sports tournaments to family oriented activities of all kinds, and let’s not forget about the food. Food is the real reason for the Walleye Weekend festival. While the festival may not offered the large selection of foods that many other fairs do, what it does offered is standard Wisconsin fare, done up right. Of course, this being Wisconsin, the beer stands are plentiful and open with the opening of the festival each day, no waiting until noon here in Wisconsin. Got to love that! There’s roasted corn on the cob, funnel cakes, burgers and hot dogs. There is also the standard brat, to be found at every festival in Wisconsin, Walleye weekend being no exception. While not imaginative, it’s hard to be beat a good brat, grilled over charcoal, while walking around an open air festival. And what would Walleye Weekend be with out walleye. I ate a killer walleye sandwich made up of a 6 or 7 ounce piece of walleye set on a 6 inch sub rolls and served unadorned except for a smear of tartar sauce. While the fish was just slightly overcooked it was beautifully breaded with a light hand, providing a thin crisp crust which held the fish together. One of the local Kiwanis clubs also claims to serve the World’s Largest Walleye Fish Fry every year at the event, offering two sizes of walleye dinners, both of which are big enough to satiate even the most hungry. I did miss the Cream Puffs, another Wisconsin tradition at fairs. Whether I just missed them or they didn’t make an appearance I’m not sure, but I was looking forward to one. I guess I will just have to wait until the Wisconsin State Fair to satisfy that craving.

While Walleye Weekend has come and gone this year, set your calendars to visit next year. It runs on either the first or second weekend of June. Come and join the approximately 100,000 people who visit the event each year.