This summer special features some lovely local produce and the world-class, historically-significant, organic Carolina Gold Rice we get from Anson Mills down in South Carolina.

The main feature of the dish is the organic local Lion’s Mane mushrooms we’ve been getting from the fine folks at Stoney Creek Mushrooms. When the local Lion’s Mane come in, they’re huge—about the size of a head of cauliflower! The flavor is earthy, delicate, and delicious. The rice is less visually striking but no less delicious! It dates to the 17th century when it came to the Carolina coast from West Africa where it had been widely and skillfully grown for centuries. Carolina Gold (the name comes from its color when it’s still in the husk, in the field, shimmering in the sun) is the rice that made so many South Carolina planters wealthy, wealth that of course came via the unpaid labor of enslaved Africans.

West Africans were the tech minds that made the rice growing work. After Emancipation in 1863, the low yield/high labor of Carolina Gold, like most heirlooms, made it less appealing to farmers looking to make money and by 1920 it had completely disappeared from commercial sale. Seeds were found in a seed bank in Arkansas in 2000 and thanks to the folks at Anson Mills and a handful of others, it’s made a comeback. What we get from Anson Mills is field ripened (to bring out the rice’s natural full flavor), milled only when we order it to retain full flavor, and the germ (brush up on your grain anatomy here) is left in which a) makes it a perishable product and b) significantly enhances the flavor.

The crowning touch on the dish is the pesto. It starts with some beautiful, exceptionally aromatic, organic basil that’s coming in from a series of local farms, most particularly Tantré Farm in Chelsea and Tamchop Farm in Dexter. We take the fresh basil leaves and turn them into a pesto in the Roadhouse kitchen with olive oil, fresh garlic, Parmesan from Wisconsin, pine nuts, and a bit of Tellicherry pepper. The dish comes together beautifully—the gentle nuttiness of the rice, the herbal brightness of the pesto, and the delicate earthiness of the Lion’s Mane mushrooms. Swing by for lunch or dinner!

P.S. If you’re dining on a Tuesday, the Roadhouse offers any bottle of the 36 artisan American wines on its list at 30% off (this offer is extended every day for take-out orders!). The majority of the wines on the list are made by winemakers or wineries led by women or folks from underrepresented minorities—a great way to make diversity come alive in a practical and very tasty way!

P.P.S. We’ll be paying particular tribute to traditional African American foodways at the special dinner at the Roadhouse on Tuesday, September 12th. My friend, author and historian Adrian Miller will be the guest speaker and the event will be used to raise funds for NEW Center!

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Great, weekday meal for barbecue lovers

If Fried Chicken is the superstar singer on the poultry part of the Roadhouse menu, the Pit-Smoked Chickens would probably be the bass player. They’re happily in the background, grounded, steady, and really really good at what they do. And while that Fried Chicken is really really fantastic, I’ll offer that I eat far more of the Pit-Smoked Chicken. Honestly, it’s one of my favorite products in the ZCoB!

If it’s Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, give some thought to swinging by and picking up one of these exceptional oak-smoked chickens from the Roadhouse. I can say from a LOT of personal experience that they make an exceptional evening meal! A whole Amish chicken, rubbed with our freshly ground, farm-to-table Tellicherry black pepper and salt, put on the pit to smoke slowly over smoldering whole oak logs for about three or four hours. We’ve had them on the carryout menu for the last few years, during which time they’ve been a very regular item at our house.

All you need to do is call ahead to order one, then swing by the Roadhouse and pick it up. (You can also just come by, but we’re only doing a limited number of these every day so … if it were me, I’d order ahead to make sure I got one.) The Roadhouse crew puts a bit of butter atop the bird, then wraps it really well in foil so you can get it home in good shape. Best bet, I think, is just to unwrap and eat. If you want to heat it up, either stick it in a hot (350° F) oven in the foil for a bit, or you can microwave it (after you take it out of the foil!) for a few minutes if you want to go more quickly. Since Tammie and I eat dinner late at night, we did the latter, and it worked out just fine.

The big news here though is that you can now get the Pit-Smoked Chickens inside the restaurant for dinner. We’re still on that same limited-times and limited-days schedule—Monday through Thursday, dinner only, and, when we’re out we’re out. The beautiful oak-smoked, Tellicherry black pepper-dusted bird comes plated with side dishes that make it a great dinner and a great deal! Start out by snacking on a glass of those incredible single-origin peanuts we’ve been getting from Elisha Barnes in Virginia and a small salad. Finish the evening off with a scoop of that Roadhouse Joe-lato!

If you have leftovers, I’ll share that they’re awesome for adding to soup or salad, making into smoked chicken salad, or just nibbling on out of the fridge when you need a snack. Tammie and I take the bones that are left behind and boil them with an array of vegetables to make a magically terrific broth. (When we serve it, we drop on a spoonful of that IASA peperoncino!)

Once again, the Roadhouse only smokes a limited number of these pit-smoked whole chickens Monday through Thursday. They come out in time for dinner and it can’t hurt to order ahead and have us hold one for you. It’s hard to believe a chicken could be life-changing but this might be it.

More and more over the years people bring or send a Zingerman’s gift—a taste of Tree Town, it’s a terrific way to convey their own commitment to high quality and an easy way to share some of their connection with the community here in the Ann Arbor area. Sour Cream Coffee Cake, which we’ve been making for over 35 years now, is probably the most popular way to do that. Magic Brownies, which we’ve been making for almost that long, are another favored choice. I’d like to propose a third option, something that might well make for a great taste of Zingerman’s and Ann Arbor: the Bakehouse’s Chocolate Babka. While it’s not well known in the Midwest, in New York, Babka has long been a big deal. I tend to be a bit skeptical about trends in Tinsel Town, but folks on the East Coast could well be onto something with their regular Babka-eating.

While Babka is pretty easy to pronounce, it’s not easy to make. Melissa Clark, writing in the New York Times, says that:

Baking a chocolate Babka is no casual undertaking. The Eastern European yeast-risen coffee cake has 14 steps and takes all day to make. But the results are worth every sugarcoated second – with a moist, deeply flavored brioche-like cake wrapped around a dark fudge filling, then topped with cocoa streusel crumbs.

If you’re from New York, the odds are reasonably high that you’re well familiar with Babka. If not, you’re in for a treat. Babka is traditional Jewish “sweet bread,” akin you could say to a light-textured coffee cake, or maybe a bit denser piece of Italian panettone. It starts with a rich, slow-rise yeasted dough made with lots of butter, real vanilla, and fresh egg yolks. That in turn is sprinkled with chocolate “crumble” and orange-syrup-soaked raisins, all of which get formed into a fine looking swirled loaf, and then baked off to a golden brown with a sensual cinnamon-sugar crust. The Bakehouse crew adds a good dose of dark chocolate on top and rolled into the middle as well. It’s already got a LOT of loyal fans, and it seems to be gaining more momentum all the time.

Babka’s history? Its roots are in Eastern Europe, very likely indigenous to Ukraine, where it would have been a part of an ancient fertility symbol used in the matriarchal system once in place in the region. The old forms of the Babka were likely much larger, somewhere from the size of a modern day panettone on up to some a few feet high. The original name was likely “baba,” meaning “grandmother”; with the “modern era’s” smaller sizes the name shifted to the diminutive, “Babka,” meaning “little grandmother.” Up until the 20th century, it’s unlikely that Babka would have had any chocolate in it, since chocolate came from the Western Hemisphere and became popular in Europe only late in the 19th century.

Earlier versions of Babka would likely have been closer to the Eve’s Apple Babka we make at the Bakehouse (a special bake coming in August). For those who want to return to the older, more true to traditional type offering, this is it. Still, I know, chocolate is likely to take the cake. Susana Trilling, author of the excellent cookbook, Seasons of the Heart, and creator and cooking teacher extraordinaire of the Oaxacan cooking school of the same name once wrote me to say that, “… bar none, Zingerman’s Bakehouse makes the BEST Babka I have ever eaten!! It was incredible.”

The Bakehouse’s Chocolate Babka will be available all summer on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

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Cabbage Rétes (the middle one pictured above) is a favorite Hungarian flavor we discovered during our time in Budapest ten or twelve years ago. The strudel’s filling has just a few ingredients—cabbage, goose fat, salt, and pepper—but lots of flavor. Why goose fat? Geese are a favorite protein in Hungary, and it’s possible to find all things goose in the meat markets. Goose fat is understandably a commonly used fat. It adds a distinctive roasted poultry flavor to this savory treat.

In Hungary, what most Americans call strudel is known as “rétes” (pronounced “ray-TESH”). Over the last few centuries, there’s been quite an argument going on between Austrian and Hungarian historians as to who should get the culinary credit for the invention of strudel. Quite clearly whoever came up with this amazingly wonderful so-thin-you-can-read-the-paper-through-it pastry filled with most anything you can imagine—deserves appreciation from both sweet and savory lovers. Writer George Lang said that the strudel was actually a legacy of the Turkish influence on the region.

While strudel’s delicacy might reasonably be taken as a mark of something that started in high society, Lang let us know that, “In Hungary, strudel is a village specialty, and even in luxury restaurants it’s always a farmer girl from the provinces who’s hired to make it.” Others have called it “the pride of Hungarian cooks.” Tina Wasserman, author of Entrée to Judaism for Families, suggests that the cabbage rétes was a big part of Hungarian Jewish eating—the use of goose fat in this recipe in place of pork speaks to Wasserman’s write-up.

Speaking personally, the Bakehouse’s Cabbage Rétes is a longtime favorite of mine! Amy Emberling, co-managing partner at the Bakehouse said of the strudel-making process: “The dough is one of those wonders of the baking world that is rewarding to make. It’s like a magic trick!” A slice of rétes makes an easy meal, accompanied by a salad and/or soft scrambled eggs (as I did this week with a bit of fresh goat cheese from the Creamery and sprinkled with some Hungarian paprika). When she first moved here from San Francisco, many years ago, my girlfriend-farmer-life partner Tammie Gilfoyle told me that “the rétes are like God’s gift to the Bakehouse!” In the context of Robert Pirsig’s appeal for us to accept Quality as a universal truth, the rétes could then be a terrific example to prove the point—both subjectively (full-flavored and traditional) and objectively, it’s awesome!

Come by the Bakehouse May 5, 6, or 7, or call to reserve them: 734-761-2095.

P.S. If you want to make this marvelous rétes at home, the recipe is in Zingerman’s Bakehouse cookbook (on page 237)—the book is a great gift for Mother’s or Father’s Day, made even better maybe by pairing it with the new pamphlet on Zingerman’s food philosophy. Amy, Corynn, Lee, and LJ are working hard on getting a second Bakehouse book, entitled Celebrate Every Day: A Year’s Worth of Favorite Recipes for Festive Occasions, Big and Small, out this fall! Stay tuned!

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Sign up for Ari’s Top 5 e-newsletter and look forward to his weekly curated email—a roundup of 5 Zing things Ari is excited about this week—stuff you might not have heard of!