Food Pictures from my Advance Skills 1 lab

Pear and endive salad 

koji rubbed steaks

Chocolate ganache tart and swiss meringue. 

Roast beef, artichoke, roast tomatoes and savory bread pudding. 

Apple galette, dulche de leche and vanilla bean ice cream.

my class plating lunch.

Rabbit fabrication1b

Rabbit is one of the most sustainable sources of protein we can consume.  I have been sharing this with our students for a number of years and finally we are starting to hear this around the globe.  This fall while in Copenhagen, Denmark I toured a urban farm and in the barn they were raising rabbits for consumption! Not only that but the tour was told, "rabbits are the most sustainable source of meat we can consume!" Validation at last! The video was produced by me over 6 years ago!

Tapping trees for maple syrup

Maple syrup is a great resource found in many parts of North America, it is natures way of supplying the new buds, on the trees, with water.  You are not going to take a lot of that water away from the trees if you are tapping them, the tree produces a lot of sap in the spring months.  The best part of learning how to tap into that magical tree is the pure syrup you have your house! Truly nature's gift! 

This year we tapped our silver maple and our box elder and I have been cooking sap for most of March! Tonight I cooked down another 4 quarts from the silver maple; thus far we have about 3.5 pints of syrup. I also just started cooking down our box elder sap, the sap from the box elder took a little longer to collect but I ended up with another 4 quarts from the box elder. Keep in mind we are talking about two different species of trees, but both fall into the maple family.  The two trees are still tapped and I will be checking on them today, 3-30-2019. I have been surprised to see the buckets full when I walk out to them but the weather has held causing the syrup to run. Basically, having a daytime temperature of 40 degrees f and below freezing at night will cause the sap to run. What I am finding in collecting the sap and cooking it down is the sugar content has varied each time I have cooked down the sap; the first taps I found it to be a darker syrup while the second tap collected is a more lighter color.  The flavor has also varied, the first tap definitely had a maple flavor (this is all from the silver maple), but the second round had a rich honey like flavor with a hint of butterscotch!  

This is the syrup from our first collection this year.

Our winter in Wisconsin (just like the rest of the US) was an interesting winter; the months November and December looked like drought years and January didn't look great.  Basically the snow fall was fair at best! February came and suddenly we were besieged with all kinds of weather, rain, snow, rain and ice! It was at that moment I had a feeling we were going to have a lot of sap! The moisture was definitely going to make a difference!

Our collection of sap and cooking it down for syrup is really just a hobby that we get to enjoy later.  We are not collecting vast amounts to sell or use but if we were, we would need to source other trees on the property! One of the factors for tapping a tree is the age of the tree; they should be around 40 years plus before you start tapping them for the prized syrup.  The bark should be well developed, keep in mind you don't want to harm the tree and causing disease to the tree from drilling tap holes.  The developed bark keeps the tree safe and you can fill in the holes fairly easily; younger trees with undeveloped bark creates an easy area for the tree to become diseased. This is why a lot of cities prohibit trees from being tapped, the cost of removing diseased trees and the spread of disease to the trees could be a costly. You should look for trees that are old enough, and trees that you can legally tap if they are not on your property.  Box elders are definitely a weed tree, thus I am not too concerned with tapping one that may be a bit young! Generally tapping trees in the maple family will work best and you can scout the trees during the summer months, looking at the leaves of the trees and the bark formation. Interestingly there are other trees that are tapped or the sap is taken from the tree through the branches; I have not tried these but apparently you can tap butternut, birch, sycamore and Douglas fir trees! The Douglas fir has the sap run from the tips of the branches.  I came across this information from James Beard award winning Sean Sherman's book, The Sioux Chef.

This year I did some research on tapping  methods and what I found changed everything in the way I tapped our trees.  The picture of the horse drawn carriage carrying syrup pots through the woods as the farmer collected syrup, may have been the way years ago, it's not today.  I believe the industry realized there were better ways to collect sap and the modern collection methods adopted were more efficient. Instead we now have a network of tubing running from one tree to the next and the taps are minimal at best causing less invasive issues with the trees and at the same time maximizing the collection efforts.  Instead of having a bucket hanging from the tree with a tap dripping into the bucket; you now see taps that are very small with tubing attached to the tap.  This method does not allow waste and at the same time keeps the sap fairly clean.  The industry also has syrup bags instead of buckets for collection. The bags are attached to a clip that has an area for the tubing to connect. I am not really a fan of this; what do you do with the plastic bags at the end of the season and are they even reusable? Instead I have buckets with lids that I drilled a 5/8 hole into and push the tubing through the holes. Prior to using the buckets I cleaned and sanitized them thoroughly, thus preventing any kind of contamination.  I have to admit transporting the sap from the trees to the house has been a pain but for now it is working out pretty good.  Keep in mind a 5 gallon bucket of sap weighs approximately 40 pounds! Lugging the sap as it is swishing around can be exhausting for an old guy!

Drill with 5/8 drill bit, rubber mallet for tapping the tree, food grade tubing, tap for the tree and a connector used to have two taps into the tree.

Cooking down the sap has also been a learning curve.  We have a 3 gallon pot that I cook the syrup in over a butane burner.  What I really need is a wider cooking vessel that will reduce the sap faster. What I have been doing is cooking it down in the pot and when it has reduced down to about half, I transfer it to a smaller pot and finish cooking it down in the house.  The key I have learned is that if you cook it too fast you can have sugar burn on the side of the pot, causing it to change the flavor and look of the syrup.  If you reduce it slowly you get less caramelizing from the sugar on the side of the pot and the flavor is truly from the sap. I am now taking the temperature of the syrup as it reduces and when it reaches a temperature of 219 degrees f it is ready to strain into the vessel you are going to store the syrup.  I have looked at the Brix level of the syrup and it has been around 66 on the brix scale. You can look up the scale for a better understanding but basically it is, "The Brix scale indicates the percentage of sugar in the maple syrup. The Baume scale is a measure of how dense the maple syrup is related to the density of water. The correct density for maple syrup is a minimum of 66% sugar (66°Brix/35.6°Baume)." https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjg0OnypqrhAhUSI6wKHa3pAVwQFjAFegQIDBAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.leaderevaporator.com%2Fpdf_files%2Fsyrup-hydrometer.pdf&usg=AOvVaw3V9Amh5nm3B0YRLp8bX07T

If you don't want to go to all that trouble you can taste the syrup as it cooks, definitely a bonus in cooking your own sap down! I would recommend not only tasting but to cool some down and look at the viscosity of the syrup, is it the right consistency?

Box elder sap cooking down in our shed.

The history of maple syrup is filled with all of kinds of legends! Most of the stories go back to the Native Americans.  I found this one and find it kind of interesting; A different legend, retold in The Atlantic Monthly’s April of 1896 issue, tells of a woman named Moqua. It states that she was cooking moose for her husband Woksis. When her boiling pot ran out of water, she refilled it with maple sap. The boiled down sap formed syrup in the pot. “History” Michigan Maple Syrup Association. Retrieved 5 December 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20110525093903/http://www.mi-maplesyrup.com/about/history.htm

Whether it is true or not? I bet that moose tasted pretty darn good!

At the end of the day I find that the goal to forage, and find foods that are right in our backyard to be interesting and fun to cook.  It is always an adventure and an opportunity to learn something new! Gaining new insight on not only finding foraged foods but gaining new insight on the best way to garner the foods and process them is fun! Cheers!

Food Pictures from my phone, after all I am a chef!

Mushroom-stuffed Rabbit Roulade, Confit, Celeriac-Potato Puree, Wilted Arugula and Shaved Fennel, Natural Sauce

Rabbit and trout

Duck Breast and Brussel sprouts

Raspberry mousse, pistachio Bavarian, Chantilly cream and berries

Chocolate ganache tart, vanilla bean ice cream, dulce de luche and berries

Roast rack of lamb, seared veal loin, croquette, artichoke and root veg medley

Arugula, endive and basic vinaigrette

Veal loin, capers, roast tomatoes

Chocolate ganache tort, meringue, caramel and raspberries

Panna cotta, apple gelee and cranberry

Bavarian, vanilla mirror glaze, chocolate and blackberry

Macarons, ice cream and berries

Losing our 29 year old Arab horse

“A horse is poetry in motion.”

Rhythm

Yesterday was a tough day. At around 9:40 AM, while in lab I received a call from Sara, my wife, to hear our 29 year old Arab was not doing well.  At that time he had been lying down and not wanting to get up. Sara was all packed up to head to a horse show and prior to heading out she was checking in on the horses in the pasture.  It was at that time she discovered the Arab.  It is with a very heavy heart we have to announce we have lost Rhythm to severe colic. Our decision was not easy; it was time, and yet we both struggled to find the courage to tell the vet it was time.

How do you put into perspective the idea of spending a good portion of your life with another animal? Rhythm was an Arab and he was 3 years old when Sara picked him up, our son was 2 years old and our daughter was 3 years old! Today our kids are 28 and 29 years old! The horse gave us many incredible experiences and he had his quirks; hoses were great big scary snakes or least we thought so, anything that ruffled or crunched was scary! The thing is, he did not have a mean bone in his body, and he was a gentle horse who just happened to have a loaded spring when frightened! Yes, that spring threw me a couple of times.  The list of riding adventures for this incredible family member is pretty long! Sara and Rhythm started doing endurance rides, they would trot rather briskly for about 25 miles a stretch in an actual endurance competition.  Sara and Rhythm camped together by themselves before riding in endurance competitions.  As a family one of my most interesting memories was when we were camping with our kids in the southern part of the state; we woke up to huge tornado warning, lightening was striking all around us, the wind was kicking up and we were racing to pack camp.  That horse was just as calm as could be, it was as if he was thinking to himself, “those crazy humans!” Turns out he had zero issues with the weather and we had no difficulty loading him into the trailer to leave that night.

Some of our recent adventures involved taking him and one of our thoroughbreds to the river for a swim! The Wisconsin River is no joke when it comes to the currents underneath, and yet, we took them out for a quick adventure! This particular part of the river has claimed the lives of a few over the last few years! One of my favorite adventures was our full moon rides through the neighborhood from the farm. We had a group of horse friends who, like us, enjoyed trail riding and so every so often we would all get together and ride on a full moon summer night.  It was always a thrill!  In recent years I started to, on a couple occasions, tack him up on my own and ride him by myself! I know, you probably thought, oh I thought you did this already, hey I am a novice in the equestrian world! Sara is the expert in our house!

In the end you realize or wish you could have taken him on one more trail ride or find just one last adventure but you realize it was too late.  He will be missed and I know we will look out into the pasture only to momentarily feel a pain in the heart as we cannot see him standing there. 

"To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go." -  Mary Oliver, Blackwater Woods