Thyme 2 Travel Productions completes their first ever Sizzle Reel

At 2 am this morning, Thyme 2 Travel Productions, TMK Productions, and Goldin Media completed the Sizzle Reel (Series Trailer) for a new food and culture TV series with hopes of one day hitting the National Broadcast arena. Who would have thought that in early 2010, I would move to Chicago, meet a talented TV editor as a roommate on craiglists (who would become my good friend and business partner), watch the movie Julie and Julia, realize that I needed a creative side project outside of work, and come up with an idea that has blossomed into a reality, 1 1/2 years later. BUT I can’t and won’t take all the credit. Without the creative talents of Sari Rosenthal, Ted Kay and Dave Goldin, it could not have gotten this far and I truly believe we have something that is gonna give other series shows out there a run for their money. The flow from beginning to now, although lengthy, has been somewhat of a smooth ride and now that the Sizzle Reel is ready to be seen, this is where it gets a little scary and uncertain.....it is becoming more and more real! ahhhhh! It’s now or never. We will be putting it in front of as many influential people as possible.

Who knows? Is it impossible? No. Is it reachable? Absolutely. Are we ready for what comes next? I hope so!!!

Please throw out some positive energy into the universe as we prepare to embark on a journey into the world of pitching reality TV entertainment.

P.S. We may be posting the Reel to our website in the near future so look for the world wide web premier soon. I will be sure to let you know!

Big thank you’s right now to my family and friends who don't think I'm crazy, believe it’s possible, and support my most-of-the-time, spontaneous and out of the ordinary decisions and ventures. Regardless of where this takes me, it truly means alot.

ALSO.....Shout out to Gerry Richardson Photography for helping me with my photos that have to go along with the pitch! She does such an awesome job and I am excited to watch her grow. Here are a few that Gerry took when I was back in Montana early this month.

You can also see more of her work and her contact info at: www.gerryrichardsonphotography.com

Berry Jam and Salsa

What to do with all those berries!?

With 9 pints of berries, I had to think of ways to use them before they go bad. I’m not sure I could eat them all in the next few days, at least not without a belly ache and several trips to the bathroom, so I decided to whip up some blackberry freezer jam and raspberry salsa.

Freezer jam is a piece of cake. All you need is jars, fruit, pectin, and sugar.

I mashed up about 3 cups of the blackberries, mixed them with pectin and sugar, and stirred it all up. Wahlah! Blackberry freezer jam! I sterilized some jars by dipping them in boiling water and poured the jam inside. One jar in the freezer and one ready to eat now!

With several blackberries left, I kept a pint in the fridge to eat fresh and put the other 3 in the freezer for a special treat later....perhaps blackberry pie or crisp or cobbler or ice cream or margaritas...the possibilities are endless! Stay tuned!

Now, on to the raspberry salsa. I didn’t really have a recipe so I played with a few different ones online and basically made my own.

Ingredients:

5 1/2 cups tomatoes (I used local heirlooms. YUM!)

2 1/2 cups raspberries

1 1/2 cup onions

4 or more cloves garlic

2 habenaro peppers (I only had 1 but added habenaro hot sauce)

2 T Honey

2 t salt

2 T lemon juice

Method:

I was hoping for a more roasted flavor which I’m not sure I achieved but I decided to roast the tomatoes, garlic, and habenaro pepper in the broiler until they were slightly charred. Next, I chopped everything up and put it all into a large pot.

After bringing the salsa to a boil and I let it simmer for about 30 minutes. I think it’s gonna turn out pretty good, if you’re into the fruity spicy salsa flavor. It's in the fridge now waiting to be dipped into with a salty corn tortilla chip.

This recipe made 4 pints and I should be able to plough through and share them before they go bad. You can obviously adjust this recipe to your taste buds and I probably would tweek it a bit next time depending on how it tastes after sitting for a bit.

There was also the option of canning but because I don’t have a canner and my pot wasn’t big enough to give them a hot water bath I’m kinda outta luck. I have actually never canned before so I will have to make that another project in the future. I was thinking of trying some pickling.

Yesterday I was dreaming of owning a big community industrial kitchen......awwwwww....keep dreaming...just for a little while :)

Yeah! I am so excited to be back into the making of local creations. I haven’t done anything like this since my Santa Cruz days and it feels so great! Can’t wait for apple picking!

Michigan Berry Picking Time!

It’s that time of year; local berries all over the place. Love it! I love the harvest season and I am determined to take part this year as much as I can. Today my friend Julia and I made our way to Michigan. We hopped in the car and only had to drive a couple of hours around the edge of Lake Michigan before seeing the sign for The Extraordinary Berry farm. It was awesome. We were the only pickers besides one other person and the bushes were full of delicious ripe berries. We had originally picked a spot from a site online but weren’t afraid to veer off course when we saw the billboard off the side of the freeway; we were happy we did. The owners Chuck and Coco McCallum have been there for 4 years and we were delighted to find out that they hadn’t sprayed the berries this season and they try their hardest not to have to. It is pretty difficult to find many organic berry spots in the area so this was next to best in the clean growing category. Julia and I grabbed a couple big baskets and picked for a over an hour gathering 3 pints of raspberries and 6 pints of blackberries each! I was most impressed by the blackberries and there balloon texture, size, and easy picking. I am having such a hard time describing the way that they felt in your fingers, other than small balloons, filled to the max, ready to burst.

We were sweating from the extreme heat and trying not to wipe or faces with our juicy stained hands but loving it. We could have picked all day! I could definitely be a farmer...or maybe a farmer’s wife so I can just harvest, prep and create things ;)

Our Harvest
Stained hands

My berries made their way back home with me in great condition and I’m all prepped to make blackberry jam and raspberry salsa tomorrow.

Thank you Extraordinary Berry farm. I will be seeing you again.

www.theextraordinaryberry.com

If you are ever interested in picking your own fruit around the U.S., go online to www.pickyourown.org. It’s a great site for seasonal fruit picking and offers information about farms all around the country.

Restaurant Review - Two Chicago Eats - Flying Saucer and Native Foods

Periodically I will be throwing some restaurant reviews on the blog....here are a couple that I hit up this week.....

Flying Saucer....delightful. A great breakfast place! It feels like a small little diner with the long, low bar counter with stools and small booth tables around the walls with the old vinyl chairs. So cute! The food was delish. They have breakfast bowls with brown rice, greens, mexican fixins and tortillas; pancakes both buttermilk and vegan; breakfast burritos; and several lunch items that I didn’t get a chance to check out. I will absolutely be coming back. Thumbs up to the UFO on 1123 N California Ave!

Native Foods...not so impressive. Although I like the thought of having a “clean food” place to eat, this vegan eatery boasted nothing but dishes with fake (housemade) meats of seitan and tempeh and not even spiced to perfection. I mean, I can get down with GOOD tempeh or seitan every once and awhile but it definitly has to have a good sauce to flavor it up. One thing that really drives me crazy in a place like this is that vegan DOES NOT HAVE to mean you have to replace all meats and dishes with tofu and pho-meats! They didn’t even have a regular bean burger; they had maybe one bean option; and most everything consisted of one of the fake meats. Come on! The “chain” feel was very evident as well and made me feel a bit like I was at a glorified vegan Quiznos. AND its in the middle of Wicker Park...one of the most hipster parts of Chicago. One thing that it did have going for it was the “boxed water”...Love it!

I couldn’tresist the picture. Overall, even though I appreciate the effort to be environmental conscious, the supposed attempt to use local and organic when possible and the mission of being healthy and fun, I was not impressed and will probably never make my way back. Sorry Native Foods....Thumbs down from me.

Garlic Prep in the Couch Surfing Scene

As I continue to couch surf and live out of my car, I am enjoying my gypsy-like lifestyle and planning upcoming activities. (Looking forward to moving back in with Sari though this weekend). With a couch to sleep on Friday night, I had a unique food experience opportunity before retiring to bed: prepping freshly grown garlic. I was staying with a good friend of mine and her boyfriend who live in a super cool warehouse loft; a place that portrays much of what I would like my own place to be like if I ever moved out of my car ;) Old wood floors, big windows, mismatch furniture, wide open spaces, decor with tons of character, and an all natural ambiance with evidence of food prep and preservation throughout.

This place, at the moment, will surely never be taken over by vampires. The garlic can be detected several yards down the hallway to the front door but I loved it! My friend’s boyfriend is the farmer of a community farm/garden here in the city and they are in the process of prepping his harvested garlic for resale. They have been peeling and preparing garlic every night for the last week and there isn’t an end in sight quite yet. I bet she couldn’t have asked for a more excited house guest to come over and join them in the “festivities.” Experiencing any new whole, unprocessed food prepping process is right up my alley.

When it comes to garlic, I have usually just grabbed a bulb out of the basket in the produce section of the grocery store or when I get real lazy or need several at a time I buy the stuff that is already peeled completely. This time it was “farm to table”.

He had planted a few heirloom varieties back in November and the harvest was ready in July. After the plants are pulled from the ground, they are hung up in a cool dark space to dry for 2 to 3 weeks. The garden he farms belongs to the Jane Addams Hull House association and he had hung the garlic to dry in the basement of the Hull House. The Hull House was Chicago’s first and the nation’s most influential settlement house turned museum and the association continues to work at improving social conditions for underserved people and the community. I sort of wished he would have waited to tell me that several stories of ghosts and hauntings have surrounded the Hull House and it is a main stop of many of the “ghosts in Chicago” bus tours. HELLO! We were going into the damp, dark, creepy basement! Needless to say we made it out safely with a basket full of garlic plants and none my pictures showed any signs of paranormal activity but just thinking about it was enough to give us all the heebie jeebies.

*** The Hanging Garlic.....see any ghosts?

After our quick self-guided ghost tour, we made it back to the house and started the prep work; first chopping off the bulb at the bottom of the plant, leaving a little horn extending out from the bulb.

***Bulbs still connected to the entire plant

Next, cleaning up the bulb by snipping the roots and peeling away the outside layer while being careful to leave at least one layer remaining to surround and protect the cloves.

If that last layer breaks leaving the cloves separately exposed, it is susceptible to fungal growth and therefore not really good for resale.

***BEAUTIFUL purple hue of the clean prepped bulb.....characteristic of the variety

***The prepping results

Have no fear! If the last layer is punctured, the cloves are fully taken care of. After being completely peeled, they are ready to be dehydrated, pickled, roasted, or cooked into salsas or tomato sauces.

***Yummy dehydrated and pickled cloves!

Let’s just say they are a pretty busy couple working on this years garlic harvest. Very happy to have been able to view the process and at least take part a little bit. I paid my rent in cloves that night.

Chicago's Taste of the Nation

Back in Chicago after my 6 week sabbatical and I’m already hitting the foodie scene. Last night I had the opportunity to attend the Chicago Taste of the Nation event held at Navy Pier. So awesome! As stated on their website, Share our Strength’s Taste of the Nation is the nations’s premier culinary benefit dedicated to raising funds needed to end childhood hunger. With this one goal in mind, each spring and summer, the nation’s hottest chefs and mixologists donate their time and talent to making this special event happen all over the country and 100% of ticket sales supports Share Our Strength’s efforts to end childhood hunger.

I was lucky enough to get one of the pairs of VIP tickets through the company I work for since we were a sponsor. Not too shabby when it’s $125 a ticket; feelin’ pretty fortunate. It was set in the large elegant ballroom and lakeside terrace at the end of Chicago’s Navy Pier and featured Michelin-starred and James Beard award-winners from the city of Chicago, popular mixologists in the cocktail scene and local fine wine and craft beer companies. A couple of the more well-known celeb chefs there included Rick Bayless from Frontera Grill and Stephanie Izard (winner of Season 4’s Top Chef and the only woman in eight seasons to have won), along with several other “Top Chef’s” from well-known high-rated Chicago restaurants. Stephanie’s restaurant, The Girl and The Goat, is excellent if you ever have a chance to go. It is on Restaurant Row on Randolph St.

My friend and I arrived a little late because I had to work until 7 but there was still food and cocktails to be sampled. We ran around to all the tables, making sure to check out as much as we could before they stopped serving. Each chef/mixologist and their assistants cooked and mixed behind their designated table and set out small plates or glasses of whatever their evening speciality was, while those in attendance strolled from table to table tasting all the extravagant samples either savory or sweet. So good! The theme this year seemed to be centered around seafood and corn, but mostly corn. Hell yeah, let’s use some of that corn that America produces each year at an average of 9000 pounds per acre on 13 million acres of land. Of course, we have to find ways to use it all so you find corn all over the place in the form of corn starch, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, ethanol, corn oil, corn meal....I could keep going but tonight, it was just corn, in it’s real true form. It was used to create special treats that were beautifully displayed. I love food art! I took so many pictures but I’ll spare you and only show you two of my favorite items of the night: Mercadito’s Taco Estilo Baja (Crispy Beer Battered Mahi Mahi on a small corn tortilla with Mexican Style Cole Slaw and Chipotle Aioli) and one of the restaurant’s (sorry didn’t get the name) Sweet Corn Pie with Candied Tomatoes. Both were amazing!

*** Taco Estilo Baja

***Sweet Corn Pie with Candied Tomato

***One of the mixologist stations

The night was filled with hundreds of people walking (or in our case, speed walking) around the ballroom sampling, jotting down there names at the silent auction and networking in the foodie scene. The grand finale was sitting out on the lakeside terrace of Navy Pier watching the fireworks that they set off every Wednesday evening. It was beautiful! A perfect warm evening by the calm water.

But it didn’t end there! During the fireworks, we ran into a guy from Groupon (another one of the sponsors) and were invited to the after party at a new bar called The Bedford in Wicker Park. It’s somewhat hidden entrance is at 1612 W Division St. and you walk through a big wooden door down into the former basement of the Home Bank and Trust Company. Remnants of the original 1920s bank, decorate the space making it look super cool. Part of the bar lounge area is in the old vault where you walk past the one-ton vault door into a room surrounded by safety deposit boxes. Quite a unique space.

*** Wall of Safety Deposit boxes

***Big vault door and entrance to part of the lounge

We had a couple cocktails (on Groupon's dime) and visited with all sorts of foodies and chef’s. We did run into the Chef/Owner of Mercadito and after telling him how we liked his food the best and I have been wanting to go to his restaurant for a long time but haven’t been able to get in because you have to make reservations a couple days in advance, he gave me his number and told me he could “probably” make it happen. Cha-Ching! (NO, it wasn’t a creepy gesture!) Very nice guy. I’m not sure why but I guess I decided I needed to take a picture with him too. Don’t know if I will play the “I know the chef” card but I will definitely be hitting up Mercadito soon.

***Me and Mercadito Man

All-in-all, although I wasn’t feeling the greatest when I woke up this morning, it was a great night in the Chicago foodie scene. What’s next?

***If you are interested in the event you can get more info on their website at: www.strength.org. If you ever get the chance. I definitely recommend attending some day.

Thanks...

to Share Our Strength's for putting on an amazing event

to my workplace for sponsoring for a great cause

to Groupon for the after party

Daniels County Fair

Rodeos, clown shows, carnival rides, music, car crunching, and fried food.....all contributions to the creation of the Daniels County Fair. Although it is slightly smaller than when I was a child, the ambiance, the smell, and the country feel still give me that exciting small town feeling. It used to be excitement about all the rides I was going to go on and all the fair food I was gonna get to eat once a year. Some days, friends and I would go on the carnival rides until we almost puked. Today, I almost puke just thinking about going on them. This time the excitement of attending the fair stems from the comfort of being home, seeing friends and family, and flashing back to all the fair memories of years long ago.

If you haven’t been to a small town county fair in Montana, you’re in for a treat. The fairgrounds fill up with carnival rides, booths, fair exhibits, a petting zoo, 4H animals, horse trailers and RVs. During the day, there is anything from rodeoing, to pickup truck mud bogging and a parade down Main Street. In the evenings, the grandstands are piled with people ready to take in three nights of action in the arena. They are entertained with the rodeo, a staged entertainment act either music, hypnotist, or magician show, and the oh-so-popular demolition derby. It’s not too often you get to see cars purposefully crashing into each other hoping to the be the last one still moving and running.

*** Demolition Derby Time

The rodeo is filled with steer wrestling, roping, and barrel racing, both adults and juniors. Even the little ones get there shot at riding a sheep around the arena for as long as they can hang on to those speedy creatures. It’s pretty cute to see them all geared up to ride, in anything from shorts, a t-shirt, and a bike helmet to full rodeo garb complete with chaps, vest, hat and gloves.

*** Little Mini Cowboys taking-in the rodeo action

Now the food....

Well, there isn’t the most nutritious of options but when has ANY fair offered anything but fried foods and special treats. I walked around to see the never-ending line at the hamburger stand where they make the best fried burger with fried onions in town. You can ONLY get them at a local baseball game or at the fair. (I do remember them being pretty darn good.) The local community clubs and organizations set up booths and sell slices of homemade pie, beverages, popcorn, nachos and the infamous fried bread. You can have a fried piece of dough with a little butter, cinnamon and sugar or piled with taco fixings to make it an “Indian Taco.” Another booth had fresh homemade batter ready to dip and fry plain hotdogs, cheddar hotdogs, jalepeno hotdogs or even snickers or twinkies. I never had the pleasure of tasting them but I hear the snickers is like a warm cookie. Twinkies? I don’t even like a twinkie when it’s not fried. (Side Note: Did you know that there are 39 ingredients in a Twinkie and only 4 or 5 of them are anything that resemble actual food? Check out the book “Twinkie, Deconstructed” by Steve Ettlinger. It’s pretty facinating. I just found out the factory is in Chicago....hmmmmmm, field trip?) And of course, the fair wouldn’t be complete with out the fried mini donuts, cotton candy and carmel apples. It could easily turn into a three day food binge of greasiness and sugar. Thank goodness, I decided that I don’t have to try it all in order to write about it. I don’t know that I would make it out of the coma I’d be in.

It’s entertainment and social networking. It’s THE Fair, it’s a part of the community, and it’s a family occasion that only happens once a year.

If you are ever in Eastern Montana the first week of August be sure to take part in this small town tradition.

Enjoy it!