Devilishly Good Dinner with “Dancing Man”

Hi all! Locavore Lady here with my weekly blog on local food. As many of you may know, Tuesday nights are special for my family as we host a weekly dinner for us and our friends. Our family goal of sourcing at least 75% of our meal with locally produced food became very easy last night as most of the food we had came from our backyard. We had some old friends from our time living in Madison join us and they brought the adult beverage, “Dancing Man” beer from New Glarus Brewery.

Some of you may be wine drinkers or beer drinkers or non-drinkers, I am a picky-drinker. I have a 2 beer/glass appetite with a 1 beer/glass body. Bummer, but that means I don’t drink just anything. Once in a while I will try something new but usually I stick to what I have enjoyed in the past. For me, that means drinking the local brews called “Spotted Cow” and “Fat Squirrel” from the New Glarus Brewery and occasionally, a hefe-weizen from Germany. I lived in Germany when I was in college and worked at an Irish pup there, where I really grew to love the various wheat beers Germans brew. I particularly liked the medium colored wheat beers that are served in enormous, curvy glasses designed to allow slow pouring of this large head producing beer. I have longed for a beer like the ones out of Baveria, Germany but have struggled to find one here that lives up to my memory.

Last night was a wonderfully surprising success at finding just such a beer. Our friend that brought the beer knew that I enjoyed wheat beers. He had worked in a bar as a younger man, thus knowing just how to pour and serve the traditional wheat brew. When he brought it in, I was a bit skeptical because of the name “Dancing Man” but as he was slicing the lemons, reaching for my enormous, curvy glasses, I knew this was bound to be good. He took each bottle out, gently rolling it until all the particulates on the bottom had been evenly distributed throughout the liquid gold, and then proceeded to pour, slowly, into the side-ways tipped curvy glasses, allowing a creamy, frothy head to form without spilling over.

Now, he had my attention. I couldn’t wait to try this intriguing beverage that visually, so closely resembled the heavenly German beers of my memory. As I lifted the beer to my face, I inhaled, deeply, the soft aroma of ripe wheat and the zing of lemon. As I took my first sip and let the ambrosia play across my palate, I was transported to a different time and place, where I had no one to be responsible for except myself and could sit and savor the moment without distraction. Truly, it was a wonderful sensation. I had to keep telling myself to slow down and drink it slowly, but in the hot, humid Wisconsin evening, cooking dinner over a hot, steamy stove, my beer glass was quickly drained of its nectar.

If you are wondering what our local food options were for our meal, you couldn’t get much closer than we did to 100% local food. We mixed up our home-grown ground beef with my husband’s Chabli Kabob spices and got out the skewers for some grill action. While several items came from area farmers’ markets, from our garden, I harvested super, sweet corn, yellow gold potatoes, tomatoes, onions and cucumbers for a medley of organic, chemical free veggie options. The potatoes were boiled just to the point of softness, left with their skins, mashed to crumbly perfection with just the right amount of Kosher salt, ground black pepper and finely chopped leek. This concoction was spooned on to wonton wrappers, folded over and sealed to form a triangular pocket called Boulanee. If I wasn’t hot from boiling the corn and potatoes, I was definitely hot after frying up the Boulanee pockets.

My husband then went on to make our garlic-mint yogurt sauce that we serve with almost every hot meal. The night before, Bashir and I had chopped tomatoes and cucumbers to make our Afghan Salata but decided to make a smaller, second batch for our guests that don’t enjoy onions so much. While we were prepping and cooking, and drinking, children went from the barn where newly hatched chicks awaited their love and attention to playing in the basement where it was much cooler. Soon, dinner was up and everyone was called to the table. Most of our regular foods were pretty new to our friend’s children who were game enough to give them a try.

Our sweet corn was the easy bet for food favorite with the children but the Boulanee was the winner in the end. The kabobs were popular with the adults and the Salata was enjoyed by all with Mint ice cream finishing off a delightfully delicious dinner with our friends and the “Dancing Man”. Leave me a comment on what your favorite beer is. Check out Local Dirt for a farm or farmers’ market near you. You might even find your favorite local brew on the site as well! Know your farm, trust your food and bring delight back to dinner again.