Wisconsin Foodie

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This week on Wisconsin Foodie

I took a class in high school and I've done it ever since. I love it. We invite chefs to do a course meal with us. And I work directly with the chef to collaborate on a plate idea. And they collaborate with Dan about the food stuff. So all the menu is with Dan. Farm dinners are usually pretty difficult. This is probably the easiest farm dinner I've ever done. I mean, I know Luke very briefly. Working with him is a pleasure. Now me and Danny obviously work together. Karen, we've done dinners before.

Kyle

It's kind of like a chef playdate.

Dan

Yeah, no, it's great. People ask, "Who's the talented one?" and Kate is, in my opinion, far more talented.

Look at all these plates. - Kate

Yeah.

Kyle

Kate's plates. It's pretty precious and it's so singular and they're so, not rustic, but they have the human hand touch, your hands.

Kate

Yeah, they're all the same, but they're all different.

Kyle

Right, I like it. Like all of us. Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank

the following underwriters for their support

Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board representing the dairy farm families of Wisconsin, who fostered a proud history with generations of family-owned dairy farms. Working to sustain the state's economy through job growth and providing acclaimed cheeses and other dairy products. Every product tells a story and every story starts with a seed. Your story, your product, your company all started with an idea. Illing Company ensures you have the right packaging to help you proudly take your harvest to market. Illing Company is dedicated to packaging your vision. American Kitchen Cookware is proud to support Wisconsin Foodie and helping food lovers everywhere embrace their own culinary adventure. With cookware manufactured right here in Wisconsin, we're working every day to make people's lives better in and out of the kitchen. Employee-owned New Glarus Growing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends, only in Wisconsin, since 1993. Just a short drive from Madison, come visit Swissconsin and see where your beer's made. Milwaukee's landmark art deco hotel offers luxury accommodations, legendary hospitality, and world-class dining. Award-winning chef Jason Gorman's contemporary take on cuisine, paired with the hotel's "Roaring '20s" vibe, makes the Ambassador a must-experience destination. Society Insurance, small details, big difference. Edible Milwaukee magazine. Also, with support of the Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.

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car whooshing by

chickens clucking

beverage bubbling

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sizzling

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the following underwriters for their support

Welcome to Kinnikinnick Farm. How are you folks? - Good. Brought some beautiful weather with you, thank you.

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the following underwriters for their support

It's good to see you. Oh, this looks awesome. Yes, we have snacks and stuff down here. Hey, guys. Hi. How's it going? Hi, guys. Hi. I'm Dan and this is my wife, Kate.

Kate

Hi, guys. So we've been doing the plate collective now for almost four years. This is almost our fourth year doing it. I think this is our fifteenth. Yeah, it's been a lot. This is our first time doing it on a farm. First and foremost, I want to thank you guys very much. This has been a really great, gorgeous day. It's just been really beautiful. What we'd like to do though is to get you guys into seats and we're gonna start serving some food. Nice to meet you. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Ruthie. You are so welcome. We're in the country now, people. So we just left the freeway and drove through a charming little town called Clinton. But I have to be honest, I'm a bit trepidatious because we are leaving Wisconsin and heading to Illinois. But it's for a good reason. Dan Jacobs and his wife, Kate, created this thing a couple years ago called the Plate Collective. Dan's a terrific chef and his wife, Kate, is an amazing maker of these gorgeous, elegant, artistic plates. And they ask their chef buddies to come and each do a course. Today it's Karen Bell of Bavette and Luke Zahm of the Driftless Cafe. And even though we're stepping outside of Wisconsin, we're heading towards a really great meal, some earnest cooking, some terrific ingredients, and some gorgeous plates. Hi, Kate. - Hi. How are you? - Good, how are you? Look at all these plates. Kate's plates. Yes. So it's you and your husband, Dan, created this series. He's a chef, you're a potter. Is that the right term? - Yeah. - Yeah, okay. Have you ever argued, like, "I want to make this dish." "No, I want to make this plate." "No, that doesn't go on this plate." "Not that dish doesn't..." Has that ever-- A little bit. A little bit but not too much. He doesn't come up with too much crazy stuff. It's pretty precious and it's so singular. I am overexposed, so are you in this industry. We've been to lots of dinners where there's forethought and great food and so, but never where the plate, the vessel is constructed. And they're so, not rustic, but they have the human hand touch, your hands. Yeah, they're all the same, but they're all different. Right, I like it. Like all of us.

pottery wheel humming

Kate

I took a class in high school and I've done it ever since. I love it. It's relaxing to me. And it's a little crazy at times, but it's just something I never stop doing. So, the Plate Collective dinner, we invite chefs to do a course meal with us. And I work directly with the chef to collaborate on a plate idea, and they collaborate with Dan about the food stuff. So all the menu is with Dan. What we usually do is we have four or five chefs. Each chef takes a course. The chef then takes home all the plates from his course and uses them at the restaurant. For the restaurant or for the chef, it becomes a real easy way to get handmade plates without incurring the cost of a handmade plate. For the diners, they get to eat off of something that, you know, has a story and has its own-- It's basically, you're eating out of a little piece of art. Good morning. - Hey, guys. Hey, how are you, good to see you. Hi, good to see you again. - Good morning.

Kate voiceover

We'll meet. They tell me what they are thinking. I'll draw up some sketches, say, "What do you like about this or don't?" Now, I think I've seen, in some places, like the corn dish almost, and serve that in like four or five different applications that are really accessible, but also really reminiscent of that memory, that food memory.

Dan

I think colors can be really cool too with this, depending on how you want to click with the corn colors 'cause you could do, like-- And I wouldn't do, like, too much husk, 'cause those ends just break right off.

Luke

Right, right.

Kate

So I would just do, like, an oval. We have to meet pretty early 'cause it takes a while, obviously, to make the plates. I'll make a set of, let's say, 24 to 30. And then I'll send one to them before the dinner so they can play around with it. For Driftless Cafe, we did a corn plate. I rolled the texture with an actual piece of corn. I'm gonna do, like, yellows for the corn kernels. I'm not gonna do every single one, but I'm gonna do patches of yellow. You know, it's the same process, but every one comes out different. I don't have something I do specifically every time because I like to change it up. And then I'll put a clear glaze on top of that. I'll fire it overnight, like a full 24 hours, you know, to cool down and heat up and all that. And here they are finished. All glazed and ready to put food on them. These are for Goodkind, for Paul Zerkel and Lisa Kirkpatrick. These are for Paul and Lisa's plate. And these go inside of here. So it's like a pedestal in there. This is the last firing for the dinner. It's cutting it pretty close, but that's usually how it goes. There's Karen's plates. I did a white matte, and then, I took a brush and I old-school speckled it. And these are the take away cups. The take away cups that everyone will be getting. And the cocktail is served in these. They're all so different. I like them all. It's a different challenge each time. But I do make them to give them away, so I don't get attached to them. I'm making this for somebody else, but I want to love it, too. And it's cool to see them being used in the restaurants. These things are always kind of a little bit stressful. You know, you're dealing with a lot of handmade stuff that, you know, if you break, there's really no replacing this on the fly. But it's always a good time once we get everything there and start working. One time, I was doing, just getting stuff ready in the front and I heard this big crash in the kitchen at Goodkind, and I almost had a heart attack, and then they yelled out, "It was just something else." So I was like, "Ahh."

laughs

Kate

But that was the only scare so far.

Dan

Alright, good.

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Dan

I'm always nervous driving all the plates. Once all the plates are dropped off, I feel a little more at ease. It's different, like, when we're going to a restaurant in Milwaukee, like, alright, let's drive, whatever, 20 minutes back to the house. Here, it's, like, it's a two-hour round trip.

Kate

Who's second course? Second course is...

clicking tongue

Kate

Second course is Luke. Is you?

Dan

Luke. Then Paul and Lisa, then me and Dan. So these are my plates. I haven't seen these yet. That's super awesome. It's really cool, well, I mean, I wanted something that was just totally simple, and it's exactly what I wanted. It's a simple circle. So far, things look good. I just hope everybody shows up on time, because everybody's gonna have a curtain call. Sweet, kitchen coming together. No matter what, there's gonna be some sort of something. Everything's gonna get messed up at least once.

glass breaking

Kate

There goes that one.

Dan

Ah, first casualty of the day. My guess is that they'll be some stuff that I need to pick out. Lisa's supposed to text me a list of things to go rummage for. And I need-- We have a whole bunch of tropea onions that came back from the market yesterday. So if you wanna-- Really? I wish I would have known. David over-harvested, so. But I know Karen wanted me to pick a few baskets of cherry tomatoes for her, so I'm gonna do that. Lisa also wants to do some cherry tomatoes, so that would--

Susan

We have a few heirlooms. We just picked a couple.

Dan

Really? I'll take those. Yeah, this is the best part about doing this. Dave Cleverdon, who owns Kinnikinnick Farms-- Dave was the first farmer I ever saw. Like, that goes back to, that really goes back to when I was a young line cook at North Pond in Chicago. And it was kind of like those aha moments when everything clicks and you're like, "Oh, man, why have we not been doing this like this?" And it changed everything. I mean, I grew up in the city, so you ordered it from a produce company, or from your Ciscos or whatever. So yeah, no man, it created a love affair with farms. And Dave, I still buy from Dave to this day. So we're trying to dig stalks that have these little guys on them. When they go to pick the broccoli, they'll pick the tops, but they'll leave these side stalks sometimes, and that's actually what I want. People don't realize, like, broccoli florets are great, but the money is in the stalks. The stalks are delicious.

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Dan

Do a little broccoli stem and tomato salad here. I figure by one or two o'clock we'll start getting everybody kind of showing up. And most of these guys are professionals. They come pretty prepared.

laughing

Dan

Did you bring a deep fryer? I told you I was gonna. - That's amazing. I was like "I'm gonna bring a deep fryer to this thing." In the category of farm dinners, this farm dinner is outside of any category. It's the Plate Collective in Caledonia, Illinois, with Wisconsin chefs and great ingredients. It's gonna be good. Okay, everything is ready to roll.

Kyle

Hello, Karen Bell. - Hi, Kyle, how are you? - How are you? Good, how are you? - Nice to see you on this farm. Yeah, it's a gorgeous day. Two Milwaukee kids that came across the border. So what have we got here? Starting over here is some pickled purple broccoli, raw radishes, roasted marinated beets, roasted baby carrots, some pickled purple and yellow wax beans and picked green strawberries, roasted patty pan squash, and then some raw Sungold cherry tomatoes. In the middle is a carrot top salsa verde and pork bresaola. We have some white anchovies, and a pumpkin seed brittle. You did that all without a breath. That was like circular breathing. That was amazing. I know how good these radishes are gonna be.

Karen

Kind of mix and match. - Oh, that's nice. That's all summer in my mouth. Way to grab that season by the collar and just say, "Get beautiful on the plate."

That's right. - Kyle

Tastes good.

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guests chattering

That's right. - Kyle

So I wanted to do a form of a crudit platter. So I had the idea to have kind of a trough in the middle for the sauce to go in, and then the vegetables all around, and a little pumpkin seed nut brittle. Enjoy, guys. Luke Zahm. - Hey, hey. How are you? - Great, good to see you. Thanks for making the trip. Thanks for having us. We appreciate it. So now that you've crossed the border to cook here, what are you making? What's your course? When I think of the last weekend in July, or the first weekend in August, for me, as a kid from Wisconsin, it was always sweet corn. That was like the garden candy, basically. We have corn a bunch of different ways, actually, in this dish. We actually have a truffle corn puree. Then we have, going on the bottom, we're gonna go up from there, basically like a Massa cake. Because my good friends at Driftless Organics have been growing dried beans, we have some black bean succotash that we're gonna do, as well. St. Bridgette's Meadows has a 63 degree egg. We cooked that for one hour. Topped it with ricotta cheese and some corn shoots from Mushroom Mike out of Milwaukee and we're gonna call it a day. So corn, corn, corn, corn, corn. Starch, starch, and then a little protein. -

Luke

That's right. - Kyle

Exactly.

Kyle

Yeah, sure. It's like farm field proper food combining done gourmet and Wisconsin.

Luke

Or how many ways can you manipulate corn in one plate? I feel this thing is all inspired by corn. And I think this plate beautifully captures it. I'm going in deep and wide and big and egg yolky. And look at this. This is the second largest bite I've ever taken on television, and I'm happy to prove I can do it. Get some, nice.

Kyle

Yeah, that's really great. This course, this plate is a perfect pairing by the way.

Luke

Thanks man.

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Luke

Alright.

Dan

You guys ready to run?

guests chattering

Dan

It's a total honor, actually, to be here. To be able to cook with this crew, but what about what it's served on? I used a piece of corn to make all the texture on all the plates. So they're individually done

in dreamy voice

Dan

by love.

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Dan

So Paul and Lisa couldn't make it tonight. Their dog actually got sick at the last minute and they had to take the dog to the hospital. So we did pick up their food and kind of put together their dish the way we hope they think they wanted it.

laughter

Dan

We have beeswax, ivory char ceviche, and arugula grown at the farm here, Sungold tomatoes, tropea onions, picked today, and underneath that is a paprika broth. I would recommend pulling the disk off the top. The disk that's in the middle comes right off. So you could do that. You can do it that way, or you can eat around it. It's however you want to do it. There have been some exquisite courses before this. Sure. But this is probably the prettiest dish yet because it's multi-level and there's so much going on. I love it when Kate does this thing. Kate does these things where she takes a dish and has multiple uses for it. This dish probably has three uses. And we're gonna pop the top off right here.

Kyle

Oh, you just blew my mind.

Use number one

it's actually just a bowl. So we have a bowl full of broth here for you to drink. Then we have this little guy right here, which is basically--

A gorgeous pedestal. - Dan

Yeah. So you can do a little tiny something like this, like a little salad on top of it. And then you can flip it over and do a pudding inside of the concave inside. Come on, it's like a Swiss army knife of culinary acumen. It is very cool.

Kyle

So do I, like,

just-- - Dan

Yes. Like a big bowl of Japanese tea, only this is paprika-- It's spicy paprika broth so it'll be fun to watch. It's got a kick. - Yeah, thanks for that. I think what they're trying to accomplish with the dish is that you have the spicy broth that's counteracted by the cooling elements of the salad. It would be nice if I could have had those together. You can. Just pour them together.

Kyle

Tumble, tumble.

Dan

That's the thing about this dish, that it can be used in many ways.

Kyle

Okay. Mmm. Oh, wow.

Dan

So I think with everything together, that's the way it's supposed to be. That really with everything, wow, that's really good. That's really good. I'd like to say I made it-- I didn't. So I'm just gonna go with, you know, "I'm Lisa Kirkpatrick from Goodkind restaurant. "This is my husband, Paul Zerkel. And we are here to be here for Dan and Kate."

guests chattering

Dan

Gentlemen, this is your dish. This is the Dan-Dan dish. I am Dan Jacobs and that is Dan Van Wright. Hi. - Hi. We changed. This is your dish. Which component did you-- Who's responsible?

Dan Jacobs

Alright, so we have a smoky barbecue sauce and we have a tomato salad with broccoli stems. Hassleback potato, which is potato poached in butter, basically. -

Dan Van Wright

Dan Jacobs

We have some spigariello underneath with a little bit of soy sauce, Chinese black vinegar, and tropea onions. And then on top, we have our Koji-marinated and grilled pork shoulder. Oh, I like that. You went, like--

Jacobs

I'm really into this. We're like, we've been cooking on a fire all day. Feeling pretty animal-like, you know.

Kyle

Mmm.

Jacobs

First off, I want to thank Dave for letting us use the farm. Thank you very much.

applause

Jacobs

This was really awesome. And for you guys,

please

thank you very much for coming all the way out here. I know that it's not the easiest thing to do an hour-long drive, but I think it's real special to see places that your food comes from. And I think it's really fun. It's a good time out here. Thanks guys.

applause

please

Farm dinners are usually very difficult. This is probably the easiest farm dinner I've ever done.

Kyle

It's kind of like a chef playdate. Yeah, no, it's great. We get to play with wood. We get to hang out here, outside. Maybe it's a Wisconsin thing. The people are your family, kind of, and you don't even know them that well. I mean, I know Luke very briefly. Working with him is a pleasure. You know, me and Danny obviously work together. Karen, we've done dinners before. I'm glad you and Kate came up with this idea. I'm glad you married a really talented woman who makes beautiful plates.

Dan

I'm glad I married her, too. People ask, "Who's the talented one?" and Kate is, in my opinion, far more talented than I am. She has everything but the beard.

chuckles

Dan

You win there. Thanks, I win the beard. - Yeah, exactly. Thanks for doing this. We had such a blast being here, man. You bet. - Thanks, man. Today was awesome. I think usually they end up being awesome. Everybody liked the plates. Everybody liked the food. It's always good to see familiar faces that come back every time. So, yeah, and it was really special today because it was on the farm. You got to see where your food came from, who made it and the plate you ate off of, so it was pretty cool.

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Dan

We have crossed the state border, and you and Kate made us do this. I know. Yeah, I mean, we're kind of a Wisconsin-centric show. We're only like three minutes over the border, though. I know. And it's actually pretty arguable over here as to where the border actually is. I feel comforted that if I hit a good sprint in the right direction, I'm back in Wisconsin. So I have two Dannys here. Both Dans, but I really came to talk to the one in the red.

Jacobs

You can talk to the one in the red.

Van Wright

No, don't.

Jacobs

He loves having conversations.

Kyle

How do you square with cooking on a farm? Because I know you're kind of a rustic guy yourself. I am very rustic. I enjoy it. I mean, the smoke doesn't even affect you. You're like Superman. You're just like, "I can walk through walls." Look how red I am, Kyle. - That's a natural state. It's probably the ros you're drinking. Yup. Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank

the following underwriters for their support

Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board representing the dairy farm families of Wisconsin, who fostered a proud history with generations of family-owned dairy farms. Working to sustain the state's economy through job growth and providing acclaimed cheeses and other dairy products. Every product tells a story and every story starts with a seed. Your story, your product, your company all started with an idea. Illing Company ensures you have the right packaging to help you proudly take your harvest to market. Illing Company is dedicated to packaging your vision. American Kitchen Cookware is proud to support Wisconsin Foodie and helping food lovers everywhere embrace their own culinary adventure. With cookware manufactured right here in Wisconsin, we're working every day to make people's lives better in and out of the kitchen. 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 Swissconsin and see where your beer's made. Milwaukee's landmark art deco hotel offers luxury accommodations, legendary hospitality, and world-class dining. Award-winning chef Jason Gorman's contemporary take on cuisine, paired with the hotel's "Roaring '20s" vibe, makes the Ambassador a must-experience destination. Society Insurance, small details, big difference. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The Central Wisconsin Craft Collective. Something Special from Wisconsin Rushing Waters Fisheries. FAB Wisconsin. Edible Milwaukee magazine. Also, with support of the Friends of Wisconsin Public Television. For more information about upcoming Wisconsin Foodie special events, dinners, and tours, please go to wisconsinfoodie dot com. There you can sign up for our mailing list to be the first to know about our events and offerings. Also, get connected with us through Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.