Sept. 17, 2004

Our favorite restaurant: September in Michigan

As you might imagine, we eat a lot of meals in restaurants, and by summer's end we're always ready for a long string of evenings at home.

Fortunately, this is precisely the best time of year for turning home into one of our favorite restaurants. The fishing is at its best. Fresh sweet corn fills the bins at the farm stands, and local tomatoes are ripe and ready. Early apples have begun appearing, and with luck there are still plenty of blueberries and blackberries. There are herbs a-plenty, and the wineries are beginning to sense that the late-season sun could make it a good year, indeed.

So we spent our Labor Day weekend sampling the delights of this marvelous menu.

By that time, Graydon had resumed fishing a few times a week out in East Bay, and just before the weekend had brought home two nice lake trout. With that as a foundation, we built a weekend's worth of treats--fresh, pure and so local that we found them all within a few miles of home. We're sure that wherever you live in Northern Michigan, the resources are every bit as good in your neighborhood.

On Friday night, we grilled one of the trout fillets. After soaking it an hour or so in milk, we blotted it dry, brushed it with oil, seasoned it with some herbed "Miracle Blend" sea salt from Alden's Mill House, and then grilled it over a very hot fire. Three minutes flesh-side down marked, and then three more skin side down finished it. While Graydon was at the grill, Sherri steamed green beans from Friske's Farm Market in Atwood and tiny redskins from the weekly Elk Rapids Farmers' Market.

We topped the fish with some hot, sweet salsa of finely diced, fresh peaches from Altonen Orchards tossed with chopped red onion, tomato, cilantro, and jalapeno--an adaptation of mango salsa recipes in our book from Frankfort's Coho Café and Andante in Petoskey. All this went very well with some semi-dry Riesling from across the bay at Peninsula Cellars. Their semi-dry Riesling is known throughout the wine world as among the best.

And for dessert, Sherri made a blueberry tart. What a banner blueberry season we've had! They were still available after Labor Day--plump, sweet, tart, flavorful enough to enjoy by the handful from a bowl.

On Sunday we had another fillet, grilled the same way but topped with lemon juice and some fresh dill from the garden. The stars of this meal were fresh corn and tomatoes. The peaches-and-cream corn from Altonen's farm stand had been picked that day and was fresh and sweet enough to eat uncooked the way so many Midwestern farmers do. We just plopped it in boiling water for a minute to develop flavor and help butter melt on it. The tomatoes were from Wells Family Farm; we just sliced them onto a plate and sprinkled on some chopped fresh basil leaves, salt, pepper, and a few drops of oil. We had another wine from right across the bay, Chateau Chantal's Pinot Grigio, and another tart, this time with apples from King Orchards in Kewadin.

We thanked God for three-day weekends, because on Monday we still had plenty of fish and local produce left. Taking another recipe from our book, we prepared the fish the way David Beier makes "Trout Hemingway" at his Walloon lake Inn. The secret is fresh, local fish. "It is essential," Beier says. "By the time an Idaho trout makes it to Northern Michigan, it's too late."

First, we sautéed the trout, flesh side down, in butter for 2-3 minutes to brown it. Then we oven-roasted it on a lightly oiled cookie sheet, flesh side up, for about 15 minutes at 400 degrees. Meantime we made a topping for the fish by sautéing some shallots and mushrooms in butter, splashing in some lemon juice and brandy for the last minute or so, and seasoning with salt and pepper. With the fish we had steamed broccoli from the Wellses, and a vinaigrette salad of baby greens and cold, boiled baby beets that came from Sage Meadow Farm near Torch River, sprinkled with corn kernels shaved from a leftover ear the night before. We crossed both bays this time for Black Star Farms' Arcturos Pinot Noir, and L. Mawby's "Fizz" made a happy ending for our weekend with blackberries from Guntzviller's in Elk Rapids.

But wait! What about Saturday? Well, we had company. So we made them a tomato pie--thick layers of tomato, mozzarella, Leelanau raclette, minced garlic and basil.

There's still some summer left, and it looks as if the salmon will be running late this year, so go for it. It won't be long before we're down to pumpkins and apples. There's plenty of time later for all those good restaurants.