Farm Feature: Wollersheim Winery

We were thrilled to have the chance to visit Julie Coquard at Wollersheim Winery recently. Julie's parents Robert and Joanne Wollersheim established Wollersheim Winery and Julie now runs it with her husband, Phillipe, a wine maker from the Beaujolais region of France.

The winery was originally founded by a Hungarian count Agoston Haraszthy in 1840 who followed the gold rush west and went on to become known as the founder of the California wine industry.

Here's a little about our time at Wollersheim:

Wollersheim has grown from producing 15,000 gallons in 1987 to now over 240,000 gallons a year!

Chef Dave with Julie and Liliana checking out the original wine cellar where they still utilize the traditional oak barrel process, with oak from both Wisconsin and France.

Although the majority of their fruit is from Washington State, Lily really enjoyed seeing the acres of grapes that are used for seven of their estate wines.

Wisconsin is so lucky to have a great family owned winery and if you ever get a chance you should definitely go to Prairie du Sac for a visit. It was a lovely afternoon for our family!

Farm Features: Hook's Cheese

The Liliana's family likes to know exactly where our food comes from. Come with us on a weekly tour of Wisconsin and surrounding areas to meet the people, places and animals that bring fresh, local food to Liliana's.

This week we are visiting Hook's Cheese. We've featured Hook's Cheese since we opened in 2007. We always offer them on our artisan cheese plate and frequently utilize their delicious options in salads, entrees and sometimes even desserts!

Here is Chef Dave visiting the Hook's at the Dane County Farmers Market last spring

So we were thrilled when the Hook's said they would show us around their cheese factory.

All the equipment is so big and shiny and clean!

yummmm.. imagine that whole thing full of delicious cheese!

They have a room just for all the ginormous holding tanks full of milk from local Wisconsin dairy farms. Did you know that the Hook's used to be contractors for a large cheese company but after years of doing everything in bulk, their love of cheese led them down a new delicious path to artisan cheese-making. Unlike the bulk cheese production they used to do, they can spend the time on every detail of each wheel and batch and try new and ongoing challenging projects all the time. Wandering through the factory we even came across a 20 year cheddar, due to be ready in 2015. We can't wait!

And a cooler room for the extra stinky cheese! I'm disappointed to see that we don't have any pictures of all the cheeses at different stages of turning into blue cheeses. I must have been too busy watch Lily realize it was stinky and make stink-face. Chef Dave, who loves blue cheeses, assures me it was a "good stinky"!

And they had another room full of completed amazing ready to eat cheese! Or, if you ask Lily, "they have cheese all the way up to the sky! Like, even taller than Daddy!"

They even sent us home with some cheese we'd never tried, so that's just an all around good day.

Farmyard to Fabulous: How we use the foods we've found

So we visited a farm and are thrilled to bring their product to our customers at Liliana's. Now we want to share with you where on our menu you can find it, and how you might cook that product at home, should you find yourself lucky enough to prepare these delicious foods in your kitchen.

On Wednesday we told you all about our family visit to Fox Valley Berkshire Pork. Our chefs love working with this high quality meat and finding new and exciting ways to utilize the products. (Lily loves their all natural hot dogs the best!)

So here is why we think Fox Valley Berkshire Pork is so great

In the 80's Americans went crazy for diet foods. Any food was inherently better if it contained less cholesterol, less fat, less sodium or less calories. Pork futures plummeted and the pork marketing board reinvented itself using "the other white meat" campaign. Commercial pork farmers bred the US pork population to be leaner and leaner to fill Americans demand for "less". Here's the problem: Americans started to wonder why pork didn't taste as good as they remembered it. Why wasn't it a little more filling, and little more tasty, a little..."more"?

Well, as you remember, pork farmers had spent over 20 years wrecking most of the US pork population by breeding it to be very lean and not very tasty. Innovative farmers like Bruce and Todd at Fox Valley Berkshire Pork have recently started raising pigs from the Berkshire line where they were smart enough to continue raising them the way they always have, healthy and yummy!

On our dinner menu, you can find Fox Valley Berkshire Pork in a number of dishes.
Jambalaya-Tomatoes, Andouille, Tasso ham, lardon and blackened shrimp with rice.
and these, available on our seasonal dinner menu, but may not be available forever:
Pork Chop-Huge 1-1/2 Berkshire pork chop with strawberry chutney, roasted red potatoes and fresh from our garden herb salad.
Pork Pasta- Pork pasta with peaches, cilantro, jalapeno and red onion with citrus sauce, topped with feta.


At lunch, try Fox Valley Berkshire Pork on these items:
Jambalaya- Tomatoes, Andouille, Tasso ham, lardon and blackened shrimp with rice.
and these, available on our seasonal lunch menu, but may not be available forever:
Pork Pasta- Pork pasta with peaches, cilantro, jalapeno and red onion with citrus sauce, topped with feta.
Berkshire Pork Burger-Fox Valley Berkshire pork, ground and mixed with herbs and spices. Grilled to order and served with guacamole and pico de gallo with Fire Lily aioli

Sneak Peek!
Our chefs are working hard to capture fall with the best that Wisconsin harvest season has to offer.
Fall menu (starting next week) will feature Fox Valley Berkshire Pork in at least 2 new ways:
At dinner:
Fox Valley Berkshire Pork Chop-with warm apple cranberry compote, swiss chard risotto and parsnip puree with chive oil

At lunch:
Turkey Bacon Sandwich-Turkey and berkshire pork bacon on a housemade roll with mixed greens, tomatoes and spicy aioli.

Here are Chef Dave's pork cooking tips:

1: When purchasing, look for marbling. A good cut of pork will have a nice mix of pink flesh and white fat.

2: If you can't find a nicely marbled cut, brining might help compensate.

-a great brine recipe is

-2 parts water

-1 part oil

-1 part apple cider vinegar

-1 part salt

-1 part brown sugar

- Fresh crushed garlic

- Fresh thyme

Combine in ziploc bag, add pork, squeeze out air, mush brine around pork. Let sit for one hour.

3: DONT OVERCOOK PORK. Know where your pork comes from, medium is fine.

4: When all else fails, let the Chefs at Liliana's prepare a delicious pork entree for you :)

Farm Features: Fox Valley Berkshire Pork

The Liliana's family likes to know exactly where our food comes from. Come with us on a weekly tour of Wisconsin and surrounding areas to meet the people, places and animals that bring fresh, local food to Liliana's.

Fox Valley Berkshire Pork

This post is being authored by Liliana's mom, Tiffany, because Fox Valley Berkshire Pork brought bacon back into my life after an 11 year void. And as we all know, bacon is a wonderful thing.

You see, I'm an animal lover. I became a vegetarian in high school and though I reintroduced some meats during the last few years, I was never able to find a source of pork where I felt confident that they were treated humanely during their lives.

Then I met Todd and Bruce of Fox Valley Berkshire Pork and I knew, 11 years later, I found it! Bacon!

So we picked a lovely day and drove out to the farm to meet the piggies.

Todd introduced us to all the pigs and how things work around the farm. And Chef Dave wore sandals to a pig farm. Oh yes. There was shoe scrubbing when we got home.

AND LILY MET A ONE DAY OLD PIG. Seriously. True love.

but piglet had to stay at the farm because part of why Fox Valley Berkshire Pork is so special is that the babies are milk-fed from their mamas until their sharp little teeth become too much for mama to handle.

when piglet starts teething on mama it will get switched to cows milk, which comes from their cows in the same farmyard, of course!

They had a nice little bunch of free ranging chickens to keep charlie occupied.

Our visit to Fox Valley Berkshire Pork was a lovely summer day on the farm, and gave me such a sense of peace. I love knowing farms like this really exist in the world. Not just as tourist field trip farms, but real food production farms that care for their animals and their environment in a loving and responsible way.

Bacon!

Tuesday Tasting Menu 11-9-10

It's officially Mustard Day! yum!

Liliana's Celebrates The Mustard Museum

If you haven't had a chance to stop in at the Mustard Museum's new location in Middleton, you owe yourself a visit. With more than 5,600 mustards from all 50 states and more than 60 countries, their collection of Mustard History is a sight to behold. From the exquisite Gibbons Collection of mustard pots to antique tins & jars and vintage advertisements, the National Mustard Museum is truly a shining temple to the "King of Condiments".

Tonight, Mustard Museum curator Barry Levinson will be at Liliana's for the 3-course meal. Be sure to stop over and say hi when you get a moment and tell him what you think of his mustards.

Please make your reservation online or by calling us at 442-4444, and let us know if you're planning on having the special 3-course chef's dinner.

Harris Lemberg will be playing piano jazz in the bar.

---

Three Course Chef's Menu
November 9, 2010
$30 for 3-course meal, wine flight $10 additional

1st course
Slimm & Nunne habanero horseradish mustard crepe
with frisee and beluga lentils and bleu cheese Dijon vin

2nd course

Slow-roasted mustard crusted pork loin
with root vegetables and mustard glazed potatoes

3rd course

Cranberry mustard pâte à choux
with blackberry whipped cream

Courses also available separately

Here Chef Dave and Liliana visit the Liliana's Restaurant "Friends of the Mustard Museum" plaque with museum curator Barry.

Princess Brunch

Come to our Princess Brunch to celebrate Liliana's 4th birthday!

Sunday November 7th from 10am-2pm.

Details available below (click to enlarge)

Wine Thursday

Have we told you about our Wine Thursdays? Here's this weeks Wine Thursday?

Don't miss this week's Wine Thursday, featuring two delightful Italian wines, presented by Bob Abendroth of Purple Feet Wines.

Wine Thursday - October 21 - 6-8pm This will be our third Wine Thursday, and we'll be highlighting two wines: the 2009 Torre di Luna Pinot Grigio and the 2008 Telero Negroamaro. We've created a couple of small food tastes to accompany these wines and to bring out the best in them: Crab and citrus salad (for the Pinot Grigo) Salami, fontina, and olive (for the Negroamaro) Tonight, enjoy a taste of both wines plus the small tapas, all for just $10. And then enjoy a full glass of whichever of the wines was your favorite for just $5 each. Bob Abendroth of Purple Feet Wines will be at the restaurant from 6 - 8 pm tonight to present the wines. --- 2009 Torre di Luna Pinot Grigio Trentino Alto-Adige, Italy Founded in 1905 , the Azienda Vinicola Lechthaler was the first winery in Trentino Alto-Adige to market estate bottled, premium wines both for the domestic market for export. The present owner is the Togn family, who continues to uphold long established winemaking traditions. The Togn family delivers with a continued pursuit of quality wines form Trentino and blends from surrounding areas that go into the successful Torre di Luna Pinot Grigio and Merlot. They select the best of the production, both grapes and high quality wines from the hills North of Trento. The actual size of the Azienda permits the utilization of traditional winemaking methods supported also by the rational use of modern technical equipment. Grape varietal: 100% Pinot Grigio Alcohol Content: 12.5% Tasting notes: Straw colored with green highlights. Delicate aromas with hints of pear, floral. Dry and full-bodied, discrete aromatic persistence, and a pleasant aftertaste. --- 2008 Telero Negroamaro Puglia Salento, Italy Puglia is home to many of the most fascinating expressions of Greek varietals that have dominated the Salento Peninsula for twenty eight centuries. The Cantele family is a leader in progressive technologies applied to traditional vines and for modern faces. Toward the end of the 1970`s Giovanni Battista Cantele and his wife Teresa Manara decided to consolidate 30 years of experience in the wine world of Northern Italy and bring their expertise to the region of Puglia, and Salento in particular, where they saw tremendous potential. Thus the winery Cantele was born, and during the 1980`s their two sons, Augusto and Domenico took over from their parents. From the beginning, the objective was to develop the potential of the local and historic varieties of Negroamaro and Primitivo and to work with the highly esteemed and adaptable varieties of Chardonnay, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. The construction of the new winery in Guagnano and the entry of Gianni, Paolo, Umberto and Luisa - the 3rd generation of the Cantele family - to the business has given a fresh new impulse to the company. Cantele is dedicated to scrupulous care of the vineyards, use of the very latest technology and the constant search for the production of wines the very highest quality. The new winery has been built in Guagnano, one of the most important wine-growing regions of Puglia. It follows the local architectural traditions of a farm house and thus blends in and enhances the beauty of the countryside. Grape Varietals: 70% Negroamaro, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon Alcohol Content: 13.5% Tasting notes: Vibrant ruby red in color, with ripe cherry fruit flavors and spicy overtones. Medium-bodied, round with soft tannins yet complex on the palate. --- Purple Feet Wines has an eclectic mix of quality wines, covering a variety of styles and price ranges, while emphasizing a strong quality-to-value relationship. Bob Abendroth Bob Abendroth was born in a small shack on the Orchard Country Estate in Door County, WI, which initiated his love for fine wines. He had to walk two miles through the snow to tend the vineyards as a young boy. Bob's wine career began as a consumer in his late 20's. He spent 10 years as a buyer of wine, spirits and beer on the retail side, and then left retail in November 2005 to join Purple Feet Wines. His favorite varietals include Zinfandel, Pinot Noir and Syrah for reds; Gewurztraminer and Riesling for whites. --- You'll have a tasting sheet and be able to vote on whether we should add the wines to our permanent wine list. Glasses of these featured wines will be offered at 50% off the normal pricing this Thursday, and will be 25% off the normal price through the following Wednesday. And then we'll start all over again next Thursday with two new wines. You an also purchase bottles of the wine on Thursday at 50% off our normal price to take home and enjoy there. And if you purchase a complete case (which can be split however you want between the two wines), you'll receive an additional 10% off. We hope you'll make this a Thursday tradition with us!