By Katie Foran-McHale

By Linda Brozyna, Emily Kesner, Hannah Shepard, Sarah Schupanitz

Doors Open Milwaukee

Tour Milwaukee’s hidden architectural gems during this annual fall event. From the observation deck of the U.S. Bank building to the David Barnett Gallery in a historic home on State Street, experience a new side of buildings integral to Milwaukee’s past, present and future.

Sunset in Sister Bay

Catch the best sunset Wisconsin has to offer while enjoying a Door County cherry juice margarita at Fred & Fuzzy’s in Sister Bay.

Paddle & Portage

Quench your thirst for outdoor competition in the heart of Madison. Start with a scenic 1.5-mile paddle on Lake Mendota, followed by a one-mile portage through downtown Madison. Finish with a 1.5-mile paddle across Lake Monona to Olin-Turville Park in this annual event.

Musky Fishing

More than 700 lakes and 83 streams in Wisconsin offer fishermen a chance to catch the elusive muskellunge, but don’t think it’s easy. Try your hand at reeling in the state fish and see if you can beat the average: 50 hours to catch one larger than 30 inches!

Racing Sausage Kabob

You may have been to plenty of Brewers games, but have you ever stopped to smell the sausages? Miller Park is home to the new Racing Sausage Kabob that lets you try all five Klement’s Racing Sausage varieties, served to you sizzling and skewered on a stick.

Cheese Days

What Wisconsin bucket list could be complete without cheese? One cheese curd stand said it goes through about 4,000 pounds of cheese during this biannual festival in Monroe. Complete with a parade and yodeling, Cheese Days is a quintessential Wisconsin tradition. Don’t leave without a picture — and be sure to say cheese!

By Valerie Klessig

By Lindsey Cohen

Lemon-Rosemary Olive Oil Cake

As suggested by Cathie Imes, Innkeeper of Arbor House

Just a sprig of rosemary...

Ingredients:

-       cooking spray

-       2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

-       3 cups all-purpose flour

-       1 ½ tablespoons finely chopped rosemary

-       2 teaspoons baking powder

-       ½ teaspoon baking soda

-       ½ teaspoon salt

-       1 ½ cups granulated sugar

-       ½ cup olive oil

-       ½ cup fat free milk

-       2 teaspoons grated lemon rind

-       ¼ cup fresh lemon juice

-       ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

-       ¼ teaspoon lemon extract

-       3 large eggs

-       1 cup powdered sugar

-       1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Coat10-inch tube pan with cooking spray; dust with 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour.
3. Combine 3 cups flour with rosemary, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.
4. Place granulated sugar and next seven ingredients (through eggs) in a medium-sized bowl; mix until smooth. Add to flour mixture and stir together until smooth.
5. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes and remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.
6. Combine powdered sugar and 1 tablespoon lemon juice, stirring until smooth. Drizzle sugar mixture over cake. Garnish with rosemary sprig if desired.

Yields: 16 servings. Serving size: 1 slice

By Emily Kesner

Wisconsin Cheesy Bread

Ingredients:

1 small onion

1 red pepper

1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

1 cup Evalon cheese

1 cup Fontina cheese

4 rolls or small baguettes

Olive oil

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Dice peppers and onions. Chop parsley. Set all aside separately.

On stove, heat olive oil to saute vegetables. Once oil is hot, add peppers and onions. Cook until onions are transluscent, then remove from heat and set aside.

Grate Evalon and Fontina cheeses. Mix parsley and sauteed peppers and onions into cheese until all combined.

Slice an end off of each roll and with a spoon, remove the middle of each. Be sure to keep the end.

Fill each roll with the cheese and vegetable mixture, then replace the end. Wrap each in tin foil.

Bake for 10 to 15 minutes. Serve warm.

By Valerie Klessig

Freshly harvested cranberries boast a deep crimson color. Photo courtesy of Visit Warrens.

1. The cranberry, native to North America, became Wisconsin’s official state fruit in 2004.

2. Cranberries do not grow in water but rather on vines in sandy marshes and bogs. They mature in fall, when growers then flood the beds and harvest the berries.

3. A cranberry bounces and floats because of its internal air-filled chambers.

4. The cranberry is Wisconsin’s number one fruit crop in terms of acreage planted and value.

5. Wisconsin produces nearly 60 percent of the nation’s cranberries annually.

6. For every 1,000 cranberries sold in Wisconsin, only about 50 of them are sold as fresh fruit to consumers. Most berries are used for processed products, such as cranberry juice drinks.

7. The average cranberry bed in Wisconsin is 39 years old.

8. American mariners brought cranberries on sailing voyages to prevent scurvy because the fruit is rich in vitamin C.

9. 2010 marked Wisconsin’s 16^thconsecutive year as the nation’s top cranberry-producing state.

10. Wisconsin produces more than 300 million pounds of cranberries annually. That equals the combined weight of about 1,250 adult blue whales!

By Katie Foran-McHale

Hinterland crafts elegant meals like this halibut dish. Photo by Katie Foran-McHale.

At Hinterland, an upscale restaurant in downtown Milwaukee that describes itself as “a new hub for contemporary American cuisine,” chefs create bold flavors and uncommon pairings.

Executive Chef Dan Van Rite is a practitioner of this philosophy, especially in terms of seafood-related cuisine. “I don’t do simple mashed potatoes with fish,” he said.

Instead, look for dishes like a wood-fire grilled cobia, which was featured as an entrée in a late October menu. The large-flaked, meatier fish is served with sweet potatoes, lentils, fennel and Brussels sprouts in a butternut squash purée.

The restaurant’s menu takes interesting turns with unique products and pairings that change frequently, similar to the way Van Rite has constantly been on the move for the past decade and a half. After graduating from the Western Culinary Institute in Portland, Van Rite moved from Oregon to live and work in Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Texas and New York.

Eleven years ago, however, Van Rite decided to bring his culinary expertise to Wisconsin, his home state, and here he has remained. After working five years at Hinterland’s Green Bay restaurant, he relocated to the Milwaukee’s Hinterland Gastropub in 2007.

Wisconsin has provided Van Rite not only with hometown familiarity and a stable job, but also quality seafood, despite the state not being known as a center for fish from coastal regions. “The quality can be just as good as living on the coast,” he said. “Just because you’re on the coast doesn’t mean you’re getting good seafood. It depends on who you’re buying it from.”

Shippers in coastal areas like Florida tend to pick better, fresher fish to send to cities like Milwaukee because of precarious shipping practices by air and truck that may take up to four to five days to arrive. Hinterland has also partnered with fishermen in Honolulu, Seattle and Portland, Maine to allow chefs to get fresh fish from their respective locales as frequently as twice a day. “When you’re dealing with seafood, you want it as fresh as you can get it,” Van Rite said.

Van Rite buys fish from more than 20 different purveyors, from Washington to Hawaii. He also frequents Empire Fish Company, a seafood wholesaler in Milwaukee that brings in product from Alaska, the Mid-Atlantic, New England and the Gulf of Mexico.

The wide variety of geographic locations makes an even wider selection of fish available to diners, who would otherwise be somewhat limited in their options. “Being in the Midwest, you get perch and walleye, that’s about it,” Van Rite said.

Executive Chef Dan Van Rite settled in Milwaukee in 2007, after years of moving around the country. Photo by Katie Foran-McHale.

Fortunately, Van Rite and his colleagues, who, unlike at most high-end restaurants, rotate their duties on a regular basis, provide frequently changing seafood options available from around the country that would put most Friday night fish frys to shame. Instead of Wisconsin’s traditional fish fry fare, which typically includes deep-fried, breaded cod with potatoes and coleslaw, diners with a more exclusive palette can try Hinterland’s pan seared Alaskan sablefish with fingerling potato, squash and pepper hash, served with cilantro aioli and red hot butter sauce.

Van Rite’s favorite dishes — cobia and sturgeon — have a meatier texture and flavor than most fish and are best paired with braised short rib and veal, respectively.

For seafood aficionados and aspiring chefs, Van Rite offered a few tips, seemingly simple but vital to what makes a good meal: Buy the freshest fish available from a respected wholesaler or shipper, and be sure to keep a watchful eye to prevent overcooking a fish, which leads to a dry, rubbery taste.

Working 12-hour days and preparing 50 to 60 meals a month — in addition to trading other stations with the other cooks, which include tasks like cutting fish, calling out orders and working the grill — Van Rite is content to be settling down at the Milwaukee restaurant, which he sees as an upgrade from his cross country travels. “I’m able to order and do what I want,” he said. “I’ve learned a lot more doing that than going from restaurant to restaurant.”

By Katie Teresi

Photo courtesy of YourLocalDave.

Wisconsin produces as much as 95 percent of the total ginseng production in the United States. Cultivation of the root began in the 1800s, and today there are around 200 growers in Wisconsin taking advantage of the state’s mineral-rich soil and compatible climates. With so much ginseng around, Curb thought you might want to know a little more about this popular herb.

Ying-Yang

There are actually two kinds of ginseng: Asian and American. The two are often referred to as a “ying-yang,” the Chinese philosophy of the universe being balanced by opposites. While Asian ginseng has a stimulating effect (the yang), American ginseng, like that grown in Wisconsin, is said to have a soothing effect (the ying). Together, they keep the body balanced.

What’s In a Name?

Folklore behind ginseng says that both American Indians and natives of China gave the root a name meaning “like a man,” because of its appearance. The herb is a gnarled, light tan root that is said to look like a human body with shoots as the arms and legs.

Rx Extraordinaire

American Indians used the ginseng they found for a variety of purposes. Iroquois used it in eyewash to treat eyesores in children. Smoking the root was said to cure asthma. Women of the Penobscot tribe took infusions of the root to increase fertility. The Delaware used it as a general tonic.

A Debatable Cure

The cure-all nature of American ginseng has continued into modern medicine, though its effectiveness is a debatable issue for medical researchers. There are currently arguments that it can be used to help combat stress, the common cold, flu, HIV/AIDS, dysentery, cystic fibrosis, vomiting, colitis, gastritis, anemia, diabetes, insomnia, ADHD, cancer, memory loss and aging!

There’s More?

The ginseng root has made its way into the non-medical realm. Consumers can find American ginseng in soft drinks, tea, soaps and cosmetics.

By Evan Benner

Few pastries rival the genuine ethnic experience provided by Danish Kringle straight from Racine.  Nowhere else compares in Kringle authenticity, ensured by competition among four bakeries for the mouths and hearts of locals and visitors alike. Each Kringle is attached to a family name, and with each name a family recipe tracing directly back to Denmark. Locals take as much pride in their favorite bakery as the bakeries do in their handicraft.

More than mere ingredients, Kringle’s authenticity begins with technique. From start to finish, each oval ring of flaky goodness takes three days to make something guaranteed to be gobbled up in a matter of minutes. For two days and nights, butter and flour are folded together over and over and refrigerated to set, giving the dough its delicate flakiness. This time-intensive process makes it difficult for even well-established bakeries to add Kringle to their inventory. Shortcuts tempt even the saintliest of bakers, but to stray from the tried and true methods would compromise what makes this delicacy so unique. Visitors from Denmark might be surprised walking into a Racine bakery to find Kringle in an oval shape, one small adaptation made to accommodate Americans’ desire for a higher filling to pastry ratio. Traditional Kringle is pretzel-shaped, pleasing Danes’ preference for more flaky crust. With more focus on fillings, bakeries in Racine took a step beyond the traditional almond filling, creating a host of new flavors, from pecan to apricot to key lime.

Kringle is not an efficient pastry when it comes to time and space. Bakers looking to optimize their ovens’ output would scoff at the flat and wide pastry. A tray that could make four coffee cakes would hardly be able to make two Kringle rings. Were it not for its dedicated customers, Kringle would be little more than a holiday special.

 Racine’s Bakeries

From the mid to late 1800s, Southeast Wisconsin became a focal point for Danish immigrants seeking jobs. The Danish Immigrant Museum in Elk Horn, Iowa, documents a claim by Eric Olesen, of O&H Bakery, distinguishing Racine as having the highest concentration of Danes outside of Copenhagen by the 1940s. Bakeries began sprouting up, mostly in the neighborhood known as West Racine, reaching a peak of 36 during the 1930s. Four bakeries have withstood the test of time, each with its own dedicated patronage.

Though ownership of some bakeries has shifted beyond the family namesake, the family recipes remain intact. Each maintains a claim to fame, a factor to distinguish among themselves. Bendtsen’s Bakery, the only bakery remaining in the original West Racine area, takes pride in being the longest family owned bakery in the city, spanning four generations since its establishment in 1935. Lehmann’s Bakery, more recently relocated to the village of Sturtevant, stakes its claim in having the “dough that made Racine famous.” Larsen’s Bakery boasts “Racine’s Original Kringle,” dating back to 1929, with its signature recipe passing hands with ownership and settling with the Larsen’s name in 1962. O&H Bakery, founded in 1949 by Christian Olesen and Harvey Holtz, is Racine’s fastest expanding bakery, now opening it’s fourth location.

All four bakeries stay true to the Kringle making technique, but what separates each from the others is their family recipe. On appealing to customers, Eric Olesen does not portray O&H to be “different,” rather he touts their philosophy of being “as good we can be at what we do.” Community members are somewhat spoiled by the convenience of its accessibility but can easily pick their favorite, which they take equal pride in.

Along with crediting Racine as the source of Kringle’s popularity, Eric boasts the city’s superiority in quality and authenticity. “Because Danish pastry, here in the United States for many years, was made and continues to be made in ways that aren’t even close to what Danish bakers intended it to be made as, this is a person’s opportunity to taste a Danish pastry that most closely resembles what Danish bakery immigrants intended as a good quality pastry.”