Quicke's Oak Smoked Clothbound Cheddar

In addition to exotic meats, Anshu Pathak sells cheese through an internet based cheese of the month club.  I visited him recently and he gave me access to his cheese locker where he keeps some cheeses for himself. He allows some of his personal cheeses to age longer because he likes the stronger flavors that result. 

I previously had tried some Quicke's Elderflower Cheddar from him that I really liked. In that previous post, I gave a little background on the Quicke's family that live in Devon, England, southeast of Bristol. This time I got some Quicke's Oak Smoked Clothbound Cheddar that had been aged at least 12 months. They take mature cheddar, then cold-smoke it using oak chips from their own estate. Anshu had allowed this particular approximate eighth-round to age even longer. It had a nice bloom on the outside which he had cut-off and then cut into smaller portions, one of which I took home with me. 

The outer bloom is cut-off using a cheese cutter.

Quicke's Oak Smoked Clothbound Cheddar

The taste of the oak smoked cheddar is very assertive, very cheddary, with just a hint of a crystal crunch, and a very pronounced smoky flower, but not overpowering.  

Judy had just come home from a retreat at St. Andew's Abbey, a Benedictine Monastery in Valyermo, on the back-side of the San Gabriel Mountains. She brought home a bottle of jalapeno extra virgin olive oil which I believe is made by a different monastery further north in California. We tasted it and it had a wonderful strong, almost smoky, flavor. 

I love the angel on the bottle.

As I thought about lunch, I decided to pair the oak smoked cheddar and the jalapeno olive oil in a salad full of bold and smoky flavors. So a cut up some red leaf lettuce; heated and then sliced up some bottled roasted red peppers; sliced up some avocado; roasted some white sweet corn on the cob with the jackets on on our outdoor grill, then cut the corn off using a knife; chopped up some sweet onion; broke up slices of the oak smoked cheddar; and then tossed them all together in a salad. I even added some cayenne pepper to my salad to give it more of a kick. 

The result was great. I love olive oil as a salad dressing and the smokiness of the cheese, the corn and the red pepper combined well with the heat of the jalapeno and cayenne pepper. 

Kegel's Inn - Milwaukee

On my drive up through northern Michigan and northern Wisconsin I became aware of the "Friday Fish Fry," it was on signs everywhere. It kind of dove-tailed with one of my goals on the trip which was to try walleye, a fish I'd never eaten before. I stopped and asked several places where I could find some walleye to eat and invariably they would say, such and such restaurant serves it Friday night at their fish fry. Well, unfortunately, I was not going to be in the area on a Friday night. In Eagle River, Wisconsin, part of the Land O' Lakes Region, it seemed like the perfect spot for eating walleye, so I asked at a gas station, at a place that sold smoked fish, and at a pub/restaurant that served fish, but no walleye. The pub people suggested a place five miles west of town, next to a lake, that they said would be serving it. So I drove out and found the place and was told they were serving walleye that night, but not for lunch.

Friday arrived and Judy, who had joined me mid-week, and I were in the Milwaukee area. I told her I wanted to eat the Friday Fish Fry somewhere. So she got on her i-Phone and googled the best Friday Fish Fry in Milwaukee and got a number of names of restaurants. From there we called several until we found two that served walleye and then picked the closest one: Kegel's Inn. We asked for a reservation and they said they were filling up and could not give reservations, so we drove over as quickly as we could. We arrived about 5:15 p.m., still very early, and cars and people were converging on the place like it was a Saturday afternoon football game. I dropped Judy off to get in line and parked about a block and a half away. Crazy. 

The place is huge, has a rock exterior and looks like it could fit in the German countryside. Inside everything screams German beer hall. Stained glass windows with beer hall motifs and steins and murals lining the walls. Incredibly, we had a 45 minute wait - at 5:15! A plaque on the wall noted that Kegel's was established in 1924 by John and Anna Kegel, Austrian immigrants. It was during prohibition, so it opened as a "soft drink parlor" but was actually a "speakeasy" with frosted windows to keep people from peering inside. They sold 20 cent whiskey and 15 cent home-brewed beer along with a free meal. The present building was completed in 1933 and prohibition was over, so stained glass replaced the frosted glass.

A nice article in OnMilwaukee gives some background on the Milwaukee Friday fish fry. Many of the European immigrants to Milwaukee were Catholic and consuming fish on Friday was a way of avoiding "meat" consumption. Milwaukee is right next to Lake Michigan, so fish is easy to get and cheap. Then, during Prohibition, "fish fries became a way for former alcohol-purveying establishments to stay in business. Many went so far as to conceal their illicit speakeasies beneath the intoxicating aroma of frying fish, offering free or low-cost fish to those who imbibed." Well, that is exactly the story of Kegel's Inn. 

A comment on Trip Advisor (which rates Kegel's as no. 74 out of 1,242 restaurants in Milwaukee) mentioned that many of the murals at Kegel's were painted by a German artist during the Depression for free food. 

The clientele was mostly older, except for us of course! We finally got seated and were given some wonderful salty and very strong rye bread along with some butter. I also ordered a cup of clam chowder that was quite ordinary. I ordered walleye and Judy ordered cod. Both were breaded and fried, over-cooked and tasteless. The walleye was better than the cod, but neither were very good. I loaded on tartar sauce and eventually catsup to choke it down. We also got potato pancakes along with apple sauce. The potato cakes were much different from any I've ever had - much less potato and more gooey and I did like them. 

walleye

cod

After anticipating the Friday fish fry for days and then waiting for 45 minutes to be seated, I could not have been much more excited to eat a meal.  That excitement ended in a big thud. 

One of my partners who does a lot of fishing went to law school in Ohio and he says he couldn't stand to eat the fish there. He quit trying.  A gourmet eater I know, who travels all over the country to eat at fine restaurants, told me that people in the Midwest don't know how to cook. All I can scratch my head over is why all those people wait all that time to eat that food. 

Given the above, I must say that the walleye I had at The Old Fashioned in Madison was very good, as was the rest of that meal. We also did have some good food in other places on our trip, but also had some that was quite mediocre. 

Wisconsin Smoked Lake Trout

Driving through the small town of Eagle River, part of the Land O' Lakes region of northern Wisconsin, I saw a business selling smoked lake trout and whitefish and turned in to look at it. The fish was in a small refrigerator and the proprietor pulled out a box of smoked lake trout and let me look in. Chunks of trout lined the bottom. I pointed to the chunk I wanted, which was plump and moist, and he went into a back room and came out with it in a sealed bag with a Bearcats Fish House label on it. 

Bearcats Fish House is located in Algoma, WI, on the east side of the Door Peninsula in Lake Michigan, the peninsula which creates Green Bay and separates it from the rest of Lake Michigan. It is a fair distance from Eagle River, but I assume the proprietor must have the fish shipped in. 

Several hours later that day, after hiking to the top of Timm's Hill, the high point in Wisconsin, I pulled out the smoked lake trout and opened it up. I believe it is not only the best smoked trout I've had, but perhaps also the best smoked fish I've ever had. It was oily, very moist, had a smoked flavor, but was not overwhelmed by it, and it had no dryness at all. 

Just looking at this you can tell it is very moist.

I made short order of it and now I am contemplating ordering some and having it shipped home. 

The Old Fashioned - Madison, WI

One of my goals while I was in Wisconsin and Michigan was to eat some walleye. Walleye is a freshwater fish native to Canada and the northern U.S. I didn't know much about it, and still don't, but I knew that walleye was available in the Great Lakes region I was going to be in. Earlier in my trip, while in northern Michigan and northern Wisconsin, I'd been asking regularly for a place I could find walleye on the menu, without success. Many places served it at their "Friday Fish Fry," but I was not there at the right time. 

Drawing of a walleye from here.

After Judy and I visited the Wisconsin State Capitol building in Madison, we visited the State Historical Museum across the street on the southwest side and happened to ask one of the clerks in the gift shop if she knew of a restaurant that served walleye. She thought The Old Fashioned did, just a block away on the northeast side of the capitol. She called and confirmed that they did and we immediately set out for it. 

A picture of the capitol as viewed from the University of Wisconsin campus near the law school. 

A closer view of the capitol from the night before where they had a concert on the capitol grounds.

I didn't know it at the time, but The Old Fashioned is the no. 2 rated restaurant in Madison on Trip Advisor (out of 735) and we would have one of my favorite meals of our trip there. The Old Fashioned focuses on serving Wisconsin style food, meats, cheeses, produce and Wisconsin specialties. It is a tavern and a restaurant, something we found commonplace there, and it was packed and slow, but worth the wait. 

True to its vision of Wisconsin specialties, we noticed they had hand-made beer-battered Wisconsin cheese curds. I'd had some wonderful Muenster cheese curds earlier and having the curds be breaded and fried sounded like a great variation. They offered several types of dip and we opted for smoked paprika and tiger, which has a little bit of a kick to it. The cheese curds came out hot and mushy and melted in the mouth. They were WONDERFUL. As they cooled down they lost some of their allure. When still real warm and mushy, they were something to dream about. 

I ordered the beer-battered walleye sandwich with shredded cabbage, shaved radish, and lemon caper tartar sauce on toasted bread. I chose haystack onion rings dipped in buttermilk batter as my side. The onion rings were salty, slightly crunch but still very moist and had incredible flavor. The walleye was moist, a mild white fish, and worked very well with the tartar sauce. The bread was a little crunchy from the baked butter coating the outside and served as a nice bit of slight crunch in comparison to the moist walleye.

Judy got a grilled vegetable sandwich with eggplant, portabello mushroom, roasted red pepper and zucchini, with goat milk chevre, and black olive tapenade, on toasted bread. The sandwich was thick with vegetables and very moist, unusual for a veggie sandwich. She also got rosemary potato salad as her side which was the only item we got that I thought was average. 

Amy's Gourmet Apples - Cedarburg, WI

About 20 miles north of Milwaukee is a town with an historic district known as Cedarburg. We spent some time going up and down the main street and discovered Amy's Candy Kitchen which offers incredible caramel apples in many variations. An assembly line of people was making the caramel apples just behind the counter, so we knew they were made there, then we each selected one from a display case in the front window. 

Four people assemble caramel apples behind the counter. A sign touts various news organizations and magazines that have recognized them. 

A counter display case with chocolate items other than caramel apples.

Judy and I each got a variation of the same kind, Belgian chocolate with cashews, hers was dark and mine was milk. 

They came encased in a special carton made specifically for them with a hole in the top for the stick. They tout the fact that the Wall Street Journal recognized their caramel apple as the best and their website gives a link to the Wall Street Journal article. We had them slice the caramel apples and we started to eat them on benches right outside and finished them the next day. Large Granny Smith apples are the base, then thick layers of caramel, chocolate and nuts are added. In the photo with a piece removed, note how thick the layers on the outside of the apple are. What's more, the coating stuck to the apple and did not fall off as it was being consumed. As I finished mine for breakfast the next morning, the apple was still crisp, tart and delicious. The slicing of the apple enabled me to pull off pieces in chunks and eat it a chunk at a time, with a nice combination of apple and layering in each bite. 

Information on the outside of the packaging.

Look at how thick the coating is. The cashews are embedded in the coating throughout which helps keep it intact.

I've never thought of caramel apples as something to ooh and awe over - until now. 

Timm's Hill - Wisconsin High Point

Timm's Hill, the highest point in Wisconsin, is located in Timm's Hill County Park, between Ogema and Spirit, just below Hwy 86. in north-central Wisconsin, a little more than 200 miles north of Madison. It is sandwiched between Bass Lake to the southeast and Timms Lake to the north. From Hwy 86 take Ring Road south and west and it skirts just south of Bass Lake. Eventually you turn right onto a one way road that bisects the park to the northeast and leads you just past the trailhead to Timm's Hill. Near the trailhead is a covered pavilion with tables and a functioning pump that provides fresh water. To the north is Ring School Road which goes just north of Timms Lake and provides nice views of the summit towers. 

Timms Lake, just north of Timm's Hill, from Ring School Road. The summit tower is visible sticking up in the center of the picture.

Another view of the tower from Timms Lake, this time a little more to the east. 

A telephoto view of the tower.

This sign marks the one-way road that leads to the trailhead.

The one way road is narrow, but goes through some lush green forest with a fair amount of water.

Trailhead information.

A trail from the parking lot goes up about a quarter mile and two lookout towers cover the summit. The older steel tower, is about 22 meters high and covers the actual survey marker which is mounted on a cement post at the base. It can be climbed, but it has a small metal ladder and is somewhat exposed, so I left it alone. A newer wood tower is 15 meters high and has a circular wood stairway that is safe and easy to climb. From the top you get decent views of the surrounding countryside. The top of the hill itself has an elevation of 1,951 feet, 28 feet shorter than the high point of Michigan to the north. 

Huge green trees shade the summit trail.

A large mushroom covers this downed log.

The summit towers are now just barely visible through the trees.

The view grows less obstructed.

The geographic marker.

The high point summit register.

The steel tower from the wood tower.

A view of Bass Lake from the wood tower. 

There is nothing particularly challenging about the summit, other than finding the time to actually drive there. It is in a very rural area. I visited on a relatively warm day and the mosquitoes were in full force.