Wisconsin Foodie

– Luke: This week on Wisconsin Foodie: - Tony DiMaggio: Everything I do here is I grow herbs, the very, very best quality I can.

I select varieties that maybe they don't produce the most, but they're the most potent and most flavorful.

– Luke: So the reason that I'm out here today, Tony, as you know, I have a restaurant.

I also have a chef who is so accomplished.

I wanna find teas today that I can take back to Mary and we can create food around.

– Tony: Awesome.

Where's the prettiest tulsi plants?

I know these plants are perfectly ripe now because you see the petals are starting to fall off.

- Mm-hmm.

- And then they're super loaded with bees.

I bet there's 5,000 bees in this field right now.

– Luke: Easily.

This is beautiful.

- Oh, look at that color.

- Oh, that's delicious.

– Tony: Right?

Refreshing; perfect for a hot day.

– Luke: I'm hoping that you'll come down and join us for dinner.

- I'll be there.

- Here are two base ingredients.

Where does your creative mind go?

– Mary Kastman: I don't know.

I wanna make a pancake with this.

I wanna grind some of it up and use it as a spice in a savory pancake.

A lot of times, people just gravitate towards mint as something that's for sweetness, but I'm always like, "How do I add that warm element to this dish?"

- I'm gonna take some of those chickens from St. Brigid's Meadows.

Do a quick and dirty brine with that Angel tea.

Kind of get those flavors infused in there, and all that, like, sweetness and richness.

[glasses clink] - Luke: To the tea!

– Mary: Cheers!

– Luke: To the connection, to the sense of shared community.

Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following underwriters.

- The dairy farmers of Wisconsin are proud to underwrite Wisconsin Foodie and remind you that in Wisconsin, we dream in cheese.

[crowd cheers] Just look for our badge.

It's on everything we make.

- I'm going out to pasture with the cows this morning.

– Announcer: At Organic Valley, we're on a mission to save small family farms.

– Farmer: Tasting pretty good?

– Announcer: And you can join us.

– Farmer: [laughs] Girlfriend's on a mission.

– Announcer: Organic Valley.

- Twenty-minute commutes.

Weekends on the lake.

Warm welcomes and exciting career opportunities.

Not to mention all the great food.

There's a lot to look forward to in Wisconsin.

Learn more at InWisconsin.com.

- Employee-owned New Glarus Brewing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends, only in Wisconsin, since 1993.

Just a short drive from Madison, come visit "Swiss"consin and see where your beer's made.

- Wisconsin's great outdoors has something for everyone.

Come for the adventure, stay for the memories.

Go wild in Wisconsin.

To build your adventure, visit dnr.wi.gov.

- With additional support coming from The Conscious Carnivore.

From local animal sourcing to on-site, high-quality butchering and packaging, The Conscious Carnivore can ensure organically raised, grass-fed, and healthy meats through its small group of local farmers.

The Conscious Carnivore: Know your farmer, love your butcher.

– Luke: Additional support from the following underwriters.

[relaxing music] Also with the support of Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

[upbeat music] We are a collection of the finest farmers, food producers, and chefs on the planet.

We are a merging of cultures and ideas, shaped by this land.

[sizzling] We are a gathering of the waters, and together, we shape a new identity to carry us into the future.

[glasses clinking] We are storytellers.

We are Wisconsin Foodie.

[dreamy music] - I'm Tony DiMaggio.

Welcome to Sacred Blossom Farm.

We are in Gilmanton, Wisconsin, which is in southwest Wisconsin, about 45 minutes from the Mississippi River.

And so I moved out here to beautiful Wisconsin so I could be near my family, and I started Sacred Blossom Farm.

I've been farming here.

This is my seventh season now.

And I really love what I do.

I'm so happy to have this work and this life, and I'm so glad to share what I grow with all of you.

Everything I do here is I grow herbs, the very, very best quality I can.

I select varieties that, maybe they don't produce the most, but they're the most potent and the most flavorful.

And I do everything by hand with the intention of doing the absolute highest quality.

I grow ashwagandha, tulsi, lemongrass, lemon balm.

I dry and process apples.

I grow, dry, and process beets, stevia leaf, a variety of mints.

And about 30 more things.

[chuckles] About a quarter of my production is wild harvested, and that's some of my favorite stuff I do.

These, a lot of things are wildly abundant here.

Raspberry leaves, nettles, and I love in the springtime going out and harvesting those.

It's one of my favorite things to do.

I go all over these farms, all up and down the valley, and collect those.

One of my favorites is raspberry leaves, is where they pop up, is on areas that were logged heavily.

So they come and go in different patches and they'll get logged.

And then about two, three years later, it'll be thick with wild raspberry.

And then three, four, five years later, it's gonna be gone.

It doesn't matter if I harvest it or not.

Yeah, raspberry leaves could not possibly be any better than this.

Today is a magical day for this.

If you look at these close up, there's not a single bad leaf in here.

Everything's a perfect, immaculate green.

And this is something you just take and eat all day long.

I eat a ton of salad, but never on a plate.

Always just going around the fields and the woods, eating a little of this and a little of that.

I think that's how the original salad was, no?

One thing I love about what I do is it's so exceptionally varied.

I never do the same thing two days in a year.

Wild cherry bark is a phenomenal flavor that I love putting in my sleep time tea.

This corner of the farm, about a quarter of the trees are cherry trees, and those cherry trees all end up in the tea.

So what we're going for is just under the outer dead layer.

You can see here, this stuff is awesome.

Then we get down to the xylem and the cambium.

It's all awesome, awesome stuff.

Oh, I wish you guys could smell this.

[sniffs] Oh, it smells better than any cherry pie I ever had.

[dreamy music] Need a hair of breather.

[dreamy music] - One of the realities of owning a restaurant is that you never hit the top of the mountain.

There's always areas and room to grow.

One of the weak spots of the caf is our tea program, specifically our herbal tea program.

And I actually just recently learned that there's an herbal tea maker right here in Wisconsin, almost in my backyard.

So today, we're gonna walk through Sacred Blossom with owner Tony, and he's gonna show us how to make some tea.

But also, he's gonna allow me to take the tea back to the Driftless Caf where I, with Executive Chef Mary Kastman, will create some dishes that are based on these new flavor profiles for a completely unique Wisconsin dining experience.

So the reason that I'm out here today, Tony, is, you know, I have a restaurant and I also have a chef who is so accomplished.

I wanna find teas today that I can take back to Mary and we can create food around.

- Awesome.

- You know, I wanna find things that really speak to the heart of why you grow tea.

- Yeah.

– Luke: Right here.

– Tony: Let's see, where should we start?

Where's the prettiest tulsi plants?

The biggest, fullest, prettiest tulsi plants.

So this is tulsi, and I actually have a tea that is just this herb here.

We'll try it later.

- Wow.

- Right, kind of blows you away.

- So at first, it's intensely floral.

You get hit with the sweetness of flowers, [inhales] but then, you get the little backing of, like, the basil and the anise.

You know, there's that kind of curated anise.

[inhales] - Well, it's just so rich.

- Mm-hmm.

– Tony: I love growing it.

It does super well here.

It's just beautiful.

It makes me just happy being around it.

Now basil, in general, which this is related to basil, you wouldn't want the flowers on it.

– Luke: Mm-hmm.

- But for me, it's very clear, the flowers are a big part of the medicine of this plant.

- Sure.

- And I know these plants are perfectly ripe now because you see the petals are starting to fall off.

- Mm-hmm.

- And then they're super loaded with bees.

I bet there's 5,000 bees in this field right now.

– Luke: Easily; I mean, it's electric with bees.

You walk through it and it drowns out the wind.

It drowns out everything.

Even your own thoughts.

It's so concentrated, which speaks to having a healthy biome.

I mean, it really is quite remarkable to be in a field literally teeming with life and energy.

– Tony: And it's perfectly ripe right now too.

– Luke: Hmm.

– Tony: Ready to go; ready for a teacup.

Tulsi is a separate tea.

I have just a tulsi tea, but it's also an important element in my Tiger tea.

And here's the other important part of the Tiger tea is the ashwagandha.

- Oh, sweet.

- So these are just itty bitty baby plants now.

By the end of the season, they'll be this big.

I talked a little bit about how important it is to have plants growing everywhere.

If plants are growing, the soil's getting better.

If the soil's exposed, the soil's getting worse.

So I use this middle row here to plant poppies.

They're ready to be harvested now.

They're perfect; they're beautiful.

They're shading out the weeds.

They're conserving moisture for the ashwagandha.

Now this week, we'll come pull these out and free up the ashwagandha and they're gonna get huge.

- Sure.

- Ashwagandha is, along with tulsi, the most important herbs in the Tiger tea.

And that's something everyone can drink every day.

Not like coffee to give you a crazy energy spike, but just build energy day after day.

And that's what I drink every day.

Tiger is the go-to tea for a lot of people.

It's really good.

– Luke: Well, talk to me about the flavor profiles of a Tiger tea.

Like, what is it that you're looking for to go along with that energy?

- Yeah, so tulsi is the main flavor.

I also have hyssop in there, which complements the tulsi very nicely.

And then lemongrass.

- Cool.

- And those are the main flavors that really come out.

- Awesome; is there a specific type of tea that you would just offhandedly suggest to pair with food?

I mean, like, herbal tea.

– Tony: Angel.

- Angel?

- Angel; every time.

So Angel won first place at the Chicago International Tea Festival.

It's my iced tea.

Everyone loves it; it just tastes great.

And it has the mint and the fennel.

So good for digestion.

Again, excellent iced; Angel every time.

And this would be the thing to have at your caf.

– Luke: This is beautiful.

- Oh, look at that color.

- Man, I definitely get, like, herbal aromatics.

Whoa, that's delicious.

– Tony: Right?

- That's delicious.

- Refreshing; perfect for a hot day.

- Mint, for sure.

And that was the aromatic that I was getting.

You get stevia; I can feel that one in there.

But it's really nicely balanced.

- Right, and so it's less than 2% stevia, and has other sweet ingredients too.

Milky oats, fennel, apples, elderberries, lemon balm all contribute a little bit of sweetness.

And then the beets give it the nutrients and that beautiful color as well.

- That's great.

- And it's good hot, it's good iced.

- No, this is totally, totally quality.

- And no new sugar in it either.

- Right.

- One of the things that brought me into herbal tea is, you look at the beverages people drink, right?

Sodas, alcohol, sports drinks, they're all bad for you.

– Luke: Yeah.

– Tony: When beverages could be an important, really healthy part of the diet.

So that's one reason I love doing this.

This next one we're gonna try here is Tiger.

So Tiger is... about 30% tulsi, but it also has the ashwagandha, ginseng, lemongrass, and hyssop.

– Luke: Okay.

- So this is perfect for people who want to replace coffee, for people who want to avoid coffee.

Like, a great kind of daily ritual.

Try that, see what you think.

- So on the nose, I get the tulsi again.

I'm starting to pick up on that.

[chuckles] Mmm.

- I'm definitely getting the earthy smell from the ashwagandha.

- Yeah.

So again, I get that nourishment, that feeling that you're talking about, that warm... You still get some of the aromatic sweetness of, like, the tulsi.

But there definitely is, like, more of an umami one, an umami play on this.

- Mm-hmm.

Ooh, I love it.

That might be my favorite.

Definitely what I drink the most of.

- Of the Tiger?

- Yeah.

- Yeah, I can see that.

- You can't go wrong with it.

- Yeah.

- You know.

Where coffee, ooh, I'm, I drink a little coffee, but it kind of throws off my whole day.

– Luke: Does it?

- If I drink coffee in the morning, I need a nap in the afternoon or more coffee.

– Luke: Sure.

– Tony: This last tea we're gonna try, the chocolate mint, is special for you.

I went and got every single mint tea they have at the supermarket before I committed to growing this.

And I grew eight types of mint tea and I got my herbs, they were from storage.

They were, you know, eight months old, and oh, my goodness, you could tell which one was mine in a blind test.

Just not even close.

[Luke laughs] Now, this variety of chocolate mint isn't the most robust grower, but for me, it's not about producing the most volume, but, like, these really spectacular teas.

So anyway, this tea is pretty hard to grow, but it's so worth it.

– Luke: I love mint tea.

– Tony: Okay.

– Luke: I mean, that was kind of, like, the staple growing up 'cause I grew up in a big coffee household.

But like, if you were feeling under the weather, you wanted that warm beverage before bed, it was always mint tea.

- So is there such a thing as too minty?

- I don't know; maybe.

- You know, to each his own.

For me, I think this is pretty intensely minty.

- Yeah.

- But I've talked to a lot of mint tea lovers and they say, "Oh, this is it."

- Yeah, right?

- And I would never have a cup of just mint tea myself.

- Really?

- Well, it depends; again, for a headache, for indigestion, you can actually drink a cup of this tea.

- Oh, that's delicious.

- Sit down and you feel it in your system very strongly.

It's not your average cup of mint tea.

- No, you might not get this one back.

[both laugh] Mmm, that is so good.

I mean, you're right.

It's like, there's a slight astringency to it that, it's kind of the same thing that I love about drinking coffee.

You know, how the sides of your tongue, your bitter receptors, if you think about where that mint is sitting right now, it's really lighting up those same sensors for me.

And I love that cooling, almost mentholated feeling that you get when drinking mint tea.

Doesn't matter how hot it is outside.

Drink some good mint tea, and it'll bring the...

I think it's all psychosomatic, but it'll bring down your internal temperature.

I'm pretty sure that Chef Mary and I can figure out ways to highlight and accent.

And I know that she's going to be absolutely over the moon to play in these flavor profiles.

And I'm hoping that you'll come down and join us for dinner.

- I'll be there.

- All right, that sounds great, man.

- Cheers.

- Cheers to you.

Nice work, farmer.

[relaxing music] I thought it would set up a really fun shoot today if we got Farmer Tony's teas in here, the Sacred Blossom, and kind of played and you did your version of what Mary Kastman does.

And I do my version of what Luke Zahm does as two professional cooks under the same roof, in the same place.

With the Angel tea, what is it that this speaks to you when you translate it into Mary Kastman speak?

- I think for me, tea is such a ritualistic thing in the Middle East.

I have limited travels there, but it is such a part of hospitality.

This tea definitely speaks to me in that way.

It's this warming sweetness.

It's sort of that hospitality aspect that like, I try to remember every day when I'm here, you know.

It's something that reminds me of like, "I want to eat."

You know, when I drink this tea, it does make me want to eat something 'cause it's warming.

All of those warming elements are warming up the belly.

[relaxing music] - Luke: So the other tea that I really wanna share with you is the chocolate mint.

I love that golden brown color too.

– Mary: Yeah, it's beautiful.

I like this because you could really pair this with something sweet or you could pair it with something savory.

It's got a nice bitterness at the end too.

I really like that finish.

- Here are two base ingredients.

- Right.

- We have the Angel tea with its levity, its warmth, all those beautiful, you know, milky notes.

The sweetness that is inherent in this tea.

And then we have this mint tea that is a base.

It's a solid foundation to work from.

- Right.

– Luke: Where does your creative mind go?

– Mary: I don't know.

I wanna make a pancake with this.

I wanna grind some of it up and use it as a spice in a savory pancake with squash.

Because I really want some nigella seeds in there 'cause it's gonna play with a lot of other spices.

I want some Aleppo chili in there and I want that warm mint.

'Cause I'm gonna use this more as a warming spice than a sweet spice, you know.

I think that a lot of times, people just gravitate towards mint as something that's for sweetness.

But I'm always like, "How do I add that warm element "to this dish without using something like cinnamon that's gonna overpower allspice?"

And mint is always my go-to for that.

So I'm thinking a really delicious squash pancake with some of this chocolate mint tea in there.

And yeah, some other things.

And then pairing it with the tea as well, I think will be great.

Gonna do a little bit of tomato brown butter, which also plays really well with that mint.

So I think it's gonna be really nice.

– Luke: Mm-hmm, awesome.

So the Angel tea speaks to me in ways that I think are really unique, and I love being able to work that ingredient palate into what I'm doing.

So I think today, I'm gonna take some of those chickens from St. Brigid's Meadows and I'm gonna use the chicken thighs.

I'm gonna brine it, do a quick and dirty brine with that Angel tea, kind of get those flavors infused in there and all that, like, sweetness and richness.

See if I can't capture that through the seasoning process.

The part of this taping that really spoke to me was that sense of connection.

When we were in Farmer Tony's tulsi basil field and there were, it seemed like, an infinite number of honey bees, and they were fat with pollen, and those bees and the electricity that they created, I think it was the most connected I've ever felt on a farm shoot.

It just felt like everything was working there.

So I think I'm going to take some of this Angel tea and work that back into the honey and do a little bit of honey that's been infused and steeped, a little bit of hot sauce with that.

Sear off those chicken thighs.

Make 'em really crispy on the outside with that skin.

Make them absolutely luscious on the inside.

And then find a couple other ways to tie that Angel storyline back into that sense of connection.

You know, we have the Angel worked in in a lot of different ways.

I smoked the beets with Angel tea and hickory.

I infused honey with the Angel tea and some chilies.

And then we actually sauted the Brussels sprouts and the chicken with Angel and brown butter.

[relaxing music] - Tony: Hey, nice to see you guys.

– Luke: Good to see you, Tony.

– Tony: Ooh, looking good, guys.

– Luke: Takes one to know one.

[all laugh] To the tea.

– Mary: Cheers!

– Luke: To the connection, to the sense of shared community.

- Thank you, guys.

– Luke: Thank you.

Chef Mary and I really, really tried to put not only, like, the ingredient sets of the tea into these dishes, but that connection and love, that overwhelming feeling of experience that I got walking through your fields and how amazing that process was and how I've carried that with me now back into the restaurant and hopefully channeled it into something that's really, really delicious and amazing.

- That makes me so happy, man.

I'm so excited to try this.

– Mary: I really just took the chocolate mint tea and ran with it as an, and kind of approached it as a spice that I incorporated in a savory vegetable pancake using some summer squash.

And so it's inside the pancake, also garnishing the top there.

Served with a little tomato brown butter and some seasoned yogurt and radish salad.

- So the mint's throughout the pancake and in the garnish as well.

– Mary: Mm-hmm.

- Wow.

Wow.

That's a flavor bomb.

The flavor profile that I get, like, it starts out and you get all these, like, delicious notes.

Of course, it's savory.

So that tomato brown butter carries it.

But then, on the end, on those final notes, as that richness is kind of fading away, that mint comes in, and it's so refreshing and adds so much levity.

It's delicious.

– Tony: The texture is so good too.

– Luke: Mmm.

I'm blown away.

I mean, I get a chance to see your food all the time, Mary.

And this... is sublime.

It's truly, truly delicious.

I love how all these ingredients kind of work together.

– Tony: So what do we have going on?

Let's try the chicken.

– Luke: The chicken!

So this dish, the homage to Angel, the smokiness on that beat with the Angel and the honey.

And I love that contrasting crunch.

I mean, it's not really cooked, it's just smoked.

So you get a little bit of that, that levity that creates that super interesting bite.

But I get the heat from the chili.

– Mary: Yep.

- I get the aromatics outta the Angel.

And I gotta say, that fennel in that Angel tea with that honey, that push-pull... Mmm, so good.

- I think the smoked beet is brilliant.

It's such a nice accompaniment to that tea.

It really just brings that out.

It ties it all together.

Really, really good.

And the textures of everything here.

- It was such a treat for me.

You know, I'm used to a lot of people making tea with my food, but to make food with my food.

Like, what a special, what a special thing.

Took me hundreds and hundreds of iterations to get this Angel flavor just how I like it with all the 13 different herbs in there and brought out in this chicken.

It's like a whole 'nother level.

- Well, it's truly an honor to be able to work with such great ingredients and great people.

So with that being said, cheers.

- Cheers!

[glasses clinking] - To the tea.

- To the tea.

- To the chefs!

- To the farmers.

[snap] [relaxing music] - Did you ever think that you were gonna be sitting down with television cameras in your face when you got into the tea game?

- I suppose it never crossed my mind.

[all laugh] The most medicinally potent part is the root.

You wanna try a nibble?

- Yeah, man, of course.

[bright music] [root tearing] - Arthur: Keep it in your hand.

- It looks good in person, but on TV, it might look funny.

- I just wanna know, do I have something in my teeth?

Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following underwriters.

- The dairy farmers of Wisconsin are proud to underwrite Wisconsin Foodie and remind you that in Wisconsin, we dream in cheese.

[crowd cheers] Just look for our badge.

It's on everything we make.

- I'm going out to pasture with the cows this morning.

– Announcer: At Organic Valley, we're on a mission to save small family farms.

– Farmer: Tasting pretty good?

– Announcer: And you can join us.

– Farmer: [laughs] Girlfriend's on a mission.

– Announcer: Organic Valley.

- Twenty-minute commutes.

Weekends on the lake.

Warm welcomes and exciting career opportunities.

Not to mention all the great food.

There's a lot to look forward to in Wisconsin.

Learn more at InWisconsin.com.

- Employee-owned New Glarus Brewing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends, only in Wisconsin, since 1993.

Just a short drive from Madison, come visit "Swiss"consin and see where your beer's made.

- Wisconsin's great outdoors has something for everyone.

Come for the adventure, stay for the memories.

Go wild in Wisconsin.

To build your adventure, visit dnr.wi.gov.

- With additional support coming from The Conscious Carnivore.

From local animal sourcing to on-site, high-quality butchering and packaging, The Conscious Carnivore can ensure organically raised, grass-fed, and healthy meats through its small group of local farmers.

The Conscious Carnivore: Know your farmer, love your butcher.

– Luke: Additional support from the following underwriters.

[relaxing music] Also with the support of Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, where you'll find past episodes and special segments just for you.

[whimsical music]