You sound like an idiot, just so you know.

I've heard some people say that we midwesterners have no accent, especially us South Dakotans. Tom Brokaw was the anchor for NBC Nightly News. He didn't have an accent. Right?

Well, just because most people don't run around here talking like extras from the movie "Fargo" doesn't mean that we don't seem to have certain proclivities to abuse the beautiful thing that is the English language. For instance, some people have a seeming inability to pronounce a "g" at the end of most, of not all, words that end in "ing." "We went runnin' down to the pool to go swimmin!" Hate that.

So, what does this have to do with food? I'm getting to that. If there is anything as "Sioux Falls" as two-fer burger night on Tuesday, it's the powerful urge to add "'s" to the end of any restaurant name. Sure, there is McDonald's, and Minerva's, and Foley's. Unfortunately, around here we also have Bracco's, Inca's, and Spezia's. Honest to goodness, I've seen other businesses near 57th and Western advertise their location by stating they are behind Bracco's.

Come on, pay attention. Bracco is not a bar and restaurant founded and operated by Bruno and Barb Bracco and their kids Billy, Bruce, and Bobbie. Inca is the name of a native Central American culture. It is not a surname. Same with Spezia- whatever the hell a "spezia" is. La Spezia is a location in Italy.

Anyway, do yourself a favor and quit adding the possessive "'s" to the end of every restaurant name.

Bring out your dead!

It's been kind of a tough year on a few restaurants here in River City. The free market is kind of a bitch. Let's tally a few things up.

Joey's Seafood is now sleeping with the fishes. It wasn't that hot anyway, as mentioned previously.

Buffaloberries closed with its owner reportedly planning on doing more catering and "education." Ummmmm, ok.

Hoageez, a Philly cheesesteak joint over on 57th and Marion closed. Actually, that location is proving to be a bit of a Bermuda Triangle. This was the former Big City Burrito location, then Hoageez, now Inca Express. Maybe the good folks at Inca can break the curse.

Keg Chicken, East Side location. I'm not quite sure what happened with this one. In my opinion, Keg is the definitive fried chicken experience here in Sioux Falls. From the report in the local daily paper, it sounds as if another venture made the Keg folks an offer they couldn't refuse. We'll see what transpires. At least Keg is still open on the West Side, to satisfy the old fried chicken cravings.

Taste of India. This may be the what the fork of the year. I mean seriously. Dammit. The place wasn't long on decor or ambiance, but the food was divine. Being able to get really great Indian food here was a real plus and made me feel like I don't necessarily live in the middle of nowhere.

I have a sneaking suspicion that we aren't done with casualties in the coming year. There are a couple of places that I am unsure how they stay open. We'll see.

Thanksgiving Turkey: Post Game Commentary

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's been a few weeks since Thanksgiving. Things have been busy. But still, I think about that turkey a lot. Every year I scour cookbooks and magazines researching new ideas and techniques to make the most memorable turkey of all time. Every year I try little twists, and talk to many of my foodie friends who tweak their own turkey techniques to see if anyone has struck upon the perfect trick.

Here are a few of the various techniques and ideas I have tried, or that I know others have tried through the years:

• Wet brine. Find a container large enough to allow the whole turkey to soak in a salt/sugar/herb/spice solution, at a safe temperature of course for a couple of days. The idea here is that the salt in the solution actually activates small electrical charges that relax tissues and allow them to absorb some of the flavorful solution. I've never tried this because it sounds like a major PITA.
• Dry brine. A/K/A salting. Several days ahead of cooking, mix yourself up a salt/herb mixture and rub it all over that bird inside and out. Seal it up in a big bag and let it sit in the fridge. When I do this I turn the sucker over a few times to let gravity work WITH me for a change. You rinse it all off and let it dry before cooking. Like wet bringing, the general idea is that the salt draws out some moisture which the bird re-absorbs after mingling with the herbs, etc.
• Roasting bag. Do I really need to explain this?
• Brown paper bag. Same as plastic roasting bag, but a more eco-friendly approach.
• Breast up.
• Breast down. Making gravity work with you, again. Supposedly juices drip down into breast and not out of it.
• Slow roast. Use a temperature somewhere around 325 degrees.
• Hot roast. Roast closer to 500. Incidentally, this is rather how Thomas Keller makes chickens and trust me, that's a damned good roast chicken.
• Different parts. Separate the breast and cook it separately from the thighs and legs and back. Breast meat is done at about 160 degrees, but dark meat should go to 180.
• Ice the breasts. I am aware of a technique that calls for icing the breast meat with a plastic bag full of ice for 20 minutes or so prior to cooking to give the dark meat a head start on the cooking.
• Butter under skin. Some people whip up some compound butter and shove that under the skin.
• Butter on skin. The lotion of choice in flavor town. I might rub some on myself some day.
• Beer can turkey. Roast vertically with a beer can, probably Foster's in this case, inserted in the poultry's kiester so the liquid in the can (beer, wine, Tab, water) simmers and steams out into the cavity.
• Deep fry. I bet that's good, but I don't think I want to play with that much oil at that temperature since I really like to drink between basting the bird.

All these choices!! What to do??

After a lot of years of playing with this stuff I have reached the following conclusion: I'll be forked five ways to Fuddrucker's if any of this actually makes a difference. No kidding. Short of marinating a turkey for days in a strong marinade, I am not sure a person can significantly alter the taste of a turkey.

But all is not lost, here is what I think you can control- skin crispiness and bird moisture. If you want a crispy skin, you definitely need to think about cooking a little hotter and might even consider letting the turkey sit open in the fridge a good 24 hours before the cook to let the skin dry. Want moist? You might have to sacrifice the skin crispiness and should probably be working with a covered roaster or a bag. You might even think about breast down. Why not? If you want to hit the holy grail of crisp skin and moist meat, that is all technique, baby. Watch your temperatures and be prepared to tent the bird to keep it from getting too brown. You might also consider your cooking device and consider the benefits of steam in an oven or a ceramic grill. It takes a fine combination of temperature control, a little moisture, and a watchful eye.

No matter how you cook a Thanksgiving turkey, the point is to eat the meal with friends and family and enjoy the bounty of being together. Make a few new side dishes, but keep most of the classics on the table to keep the memories of dinners past alive.

All this talk of turkey has made me hungry and has me thinking of Christmas dinner. And that means prime rib- another ingredient notoriously susceptible to multitudes of cooking technique.

Breathe, my friends. Breathe!

Last night was the first night of the long-overdue implementation of the smoking ban. And what a great night it was!

The evening happened to find me at a local establishment for some beers and dinner. Ok, I was at McNally's. If you've read previous posts about McNally's, you might know I am generally a fan of the place. Good food. Good Guinness. Great atmosphere. Not so good air quality in the past. I have been there on nights when people were smoking and it wasn't too bad, and I have been there at times when it was downright horrible.

Ironically, I stopped by there on Monday night, as well, and observed a number of patrons having what appeared to be one last cigar. The place wasn't packed by any means, but a number of the people there were enjoying a cigar.

Last night, completely different deal. How nice. And probably nice for McNally's. The place was pretty full for dinner on a Wednesday night.

I am sure the ban is going to have different affects on different places. I think the business of a few places will actually improve. It worked for BW3 a long time ago.

It is certainly working well for me. Love the fresh air.

The "new" Hy Vee sucks

I had a chance to visit the "new" Hy Vee store at 57th and Cliff this past weekend. If this is supposed to be an improvement over the Sunshine that previously occupied the space, I am yet to see it. Honestly, Sunshine wasn't much to crow about, but they did have a few nice things that Hy Vee didn't, like honestly priced meat that isn't wrapped in mini-gas chambers.

Amazingly, the same people that brought the Taj Mahal of grocery shopping to Sioux Falls at 37th and Minnesota have apparently managed in one acquisition and "remodeling" to immediately establish the weakest link in its Sioux Falls chain. Maybe Hy Vee just got this location going to make 26th and Sycamore look more glamorous.

Whatever. It sucks. I could go on and explain myself, but no sense in being too negative. Check it out and see if you agree.

The Food Chains

For some time I have been observing what I have come to call the over-homogenization of food. You really cannot go anywhere and not, more or less, find exactly the same things. Is that good? Is that bad? Maybe some of both. However you feel about it, the trend is here to stay.

So what am I talking about? Well, if you live here in Sioux Falls, you have probably eaten at Texas Roadhouse, Applebee's, Granite City, Outback Steakhouse, McDonald's, Ground Round, Olive Garden, etc. Chances are, if you have traveled you have, or could have, eaten at the same places. The fact that you can get about the same thing, about everywhere, disturbs me a little.

To cut to the chase, let's start with something near and dear to my forking heart: Beer. Let's go way back. Far enough to a point in time where people will wonder how old I might be. Once upon a time, there was a beer brewed in a small town, outside Denver, called Coors. It was distributed in Colorado and a few other western states like California and Wyoming. If you lived in South Dakota or Minnesota, you couldn't get Coors, which probably made you want it more. You had to wait until your no-account brother in law brought a case or two when he came back for a family reunion at Lake Poinsett. Naturally, everyone treated the dumb jackass like a hero and ohhed and ahhed over the deliciousness of the contraband beverage. Well, Coors finally got here, and how many people do youknow that main-line the Banquet beer? Exactly.

Same thing happened recently with another beer from Colorado, Ft. Collins to be exact: Fat Tire from New Belgium. Good stuff? Sure. As good as it was when you had to bootleg the stuff in? Not so much.

Now, you can get a beer that was only available for those rare trips to Texas- Shiner Bock. It's on tap at the Attic, and probably a bunch of other places around town.

My point is, these few beers used to seem much better when they were forbidden fruit. Something to be enjoyed on a trip to Houston or San Antonio, or a special run to Beulah, WY, to pick up a case of Fat Tire. Now, you can pick them up at Hy Vee.

I swear, the day Yuengling shows up on tap in Sioux Falls, I might just stick a fork in my eye.

Looking at the whole beer experience makes me think of the food. It seems we, as people, always want what we don't have, and the few times we get it, it seems so much better than anything else. If Coors, Fat Tire, and Shiner Bock don't prove that, I don't know what will. But the same thing is likely true for food.

Case in point. If there is one thing people have come to enjoy over the last 5-10 years, it is big Mission-style burritos. These thigh-sized suckers were born in San Francisco, but as it turns out, no one exactly has a patent on 1200 calories of grippable foil-wrapped meat, cheese, beans, rice, and goo. Enter Qdoba. But alas, I am yet to hear from a Qdoba patron who does not decry the fact that the almighty Chipotle has not yet made it to our fair city. "Ohhh, Chipotle is soooo much better than Qdoba! The flavors are better." Well, the jury is out on that one, kids. Been there. Done that. Good? You bet. I was starving and badly in need of a bottle of cerveza because I had already been at the damned Mall of America for 10 minutes. End all be all of big forking burritos? No. Sorry. Did it taste better because I can't get one on the corner of 57th and Louise? Probably.

My point is, I sometimes think some of this stuff tastes better because it is a special treat. You cannot get it at home and, when you are out of town, unless it is for non-stop meetings, this stuff is a treat. When it comes to town, not so much. When was the last time you ordered a straight Coors on tap? See?

This is what I mean by overly-homogenized. Everything is getting to be too "the same" everywhere. Granted, it is nice to occasionally find a safe place to eat, where you know exactly what you are going to get before you go in, but is that really what life is about?

Take a chance, and eat local, my friends. Find places that are not franchises. Eat somewhere that is not advertised in an airline magazine in the seat-back of the plane. Go somewhere you haven't heard of. And soak it up. It will always taste better than a Coors on tap.

RIP: Joey's

The local daily paper is reporting that Joe's Seafood has closed. It's always somewhat sad when we lose a dining option in Sioux Falls, but with all due respect, this one comes as no surprise.

I had a couple of meals at Joey's over the few years it was open. Nothing particularly bad, but nothing particularly good. Overall, a sort of Red-Lobsteresque kind of meal. The times I was there, I thought the service was a little spotty and the beverage choices, particualrly the wine choices were less than stellar.

Ok, one story. A couple of years ago, a friend and I were dining at Joey's. We decided to order mussels as an appetizer. When they appeared, at least a third of them weren't open, which is not really a good sign. We ate the ones that had opened and they were fine. Returning to check on us, the server offered to take the unopened ones back to the kitchen to receive a little more steam time so they would open. Now, anyone who knows why shellfish, like mussels, don't open when they are cooked. If you don't know, it's because shellfish should be live when purchased. When they are cooked, they open. If they don't open, they were dead when they went into the pot and no amount of further cooking can reverse that process. If you are daring enough to pry one open and consume it you will find yourself remembering that particualr meal for a very long time. Very long. Anyway, I was amused to overhear the conversation in the kitchen about the possibility of re-steaming more mussels. To the manager's credit, he offered us a whole new order, which was very nice.

We need more seafood in this town. Good seafood. The sushi places prove it is possible to lay hands on very good fish. Now we just need someone to make the jump on preparing and presenting it properly.