(The King macks down) 

It is well-known that, during his life, Elvis was notorious for the ecstatic screams he provoked, in a variety of public and private situations.

It was fun to get a piece of that action yesterday, during the Link’s commemorative dinner for Elvis’ birthday. The menu included not only culinary homages (meatloaf, fried peanut-butter-banana sandwiches with Tupelo honey, extravagant use of bacon throughout), but also the A-list cuts from the Spanish Oak Ranches steer that recently graced us with its grass-fed goodness.

The shouts and screams that I witnessed came from guests in the thrall of six-ounce filet mignons wrapped in house-cured Blue Butt pork bacon, paired with Weiser’s Farms’ heirloom potatoes and bok choy from the Seeds @ City College garden. Cruising past their table, I was stopped by one enthusiastic gentleman who, after considerately swallowing the morsel he was savoring, said,

“Let’s get you in on this conversation. Why is it that grass-fed beef tastes SO MUCH BETTER than any other kind of beef?”

I considered my answer, but he had not finished.

“I mean,” he said, “I’ve been grilling my @ss off for years! And this guy”–here he pointed to his friend, who blushed modestly at the credit–”introduced me to you guys and the whole grass-fed thing, and it changed my life. No, really,” he insisted, “you changed my life! Because it’s not about some theoretical, esoteric, ideological…” His voice lilted, his arms began to wave like a prophet’s.

His lovely companion laid a restraining hand on his arm, saying gently, “Reel it back in.”

But I was feeling his vibe, and told him so.

“Just–my question is–” he said, “why don’t more people know about this?”

“The times are a-changin,” I quoted. “And maybe in a few years, for our children’s children, it won’t be theoretical. It’ll just be normal.”

He held out a fist for me to pound. “That’s right,” he said. “Keep the faith.”

Over the top, you might call it. Sure. But when was the last time you connected ideologies over a piece of meat?

1) Mass-market hamburger is full of ammonia-laced byproducts from beef slaughterhouses (aka “pink slime”), but apparently the ammonia doesn’t actually kill the pathogens as well as the hamburger people thought it would.

2) Ammonia brain need McNuggets STAT.

That is all.

UPDATE: Berkshire pulled pork starts Monday, not Sunday.

We’re rolling out a few cool new things today that I’m very excited about.

• We made a batch of pulled pork with 100% Berkshire breed pastured pork from Metzger Family Farm in Seneca KS. Our sandwich will feature that starting Monday and for at least a few days.
• Similarly, we made a sausage, Klobasa, with the same pork. This the first time we’ve made a sausage or pulled pork with 100% Berkshire pastured pork, so we’re excited to compare the flavor of both to some of the other breeds and farms we’ve used.
• Pork belly lovers, a chance to try something new! The same cut off a cow is called “beef navel”, and we switched the pork belly confit dish to beef navel confit, to compare and enjoy. It’s Brandt beef from Brawley.
• We’re once again featuring pastured young lamb from Rinconada Dairy in Rinconada, CA (I was there yesterday and clarified that they consider themselves Rinconada, not Pozo or Santa Margarita).

I was in the Central Coast this weekend visiting with producers, with photos and blog posts to come shortly. I can say that we will have some spectacular stone fruit this week, particularly from Rocking Chair Ranch in Kingsburg, CA and Remick Farms in Reedley CA.

I picked up a copy of Imbibe magazine today, and noticed three (!) articles that relate to stuff here:

• An article on “urban wineries”, which doesn’t mention San Pasqual winery here in San Diego, but it could have!
• A brief piece on Dublin Dr. Pepper — made with sugar, not high fructose corn syrup — which we proudly carry.
• A survey of “the best new coffee cities”, which of course includes the Raleigh-Durham area and our friends at Counter Culture Coffee.

Also in the news recently, a New York Times article on Brazilian wine, such as the RioSol we recently resumed carrying.  I found this article via The Zinquisition blog.

Here’s the scoop on today’s menu, courtesy Michael’s in-house email (posting internal emails makes the blogging exceptionally easy!):

Pretty much all the drinks stay the same, except we’re 86 Supplication.

Smoked beef ravioli is gone and is replaced with a cold salad of beans, beets, and our house cured chorizo.  The idea was brought to us by regular Matthew Rowley, author of the book “Moonshine”.  Matt’s a food writer who particularly loves his cured meats (like most of us), so he is always really interested in seeing what we’ve got going on here at the Link.  The salad Matt told us about would be made with judiones, which are gigantic Spanish white beans, but we couldn’t find any on short notice, so we used our pinquito beans and fava beans.  His salad is at least there in spirit.  The beets and beans are cooked and then chilled, and the chorizo is rendered out some to give the entire salald a little more flava.

The fish dish is the same, loro chato, or parrotfish.  Loro chato literally means flat parrot in espanol.  The fish is so named not because of its bright colors, but because it’s teeth are fused in the front, forming a beak like that of a parrot.  If we haven’t cut ‘em all up, I’ll show you one when you get here.  Taste-wise, the fish is really flakey and reminds me of sole.  Also, posole (in the menu description)  is another word for hominy, which is another way of saying “imbibed corn kernels”.

Leg of lamb is gone and replaced with a smoked half chicken from Fulton Valley farms.  It’s still served over the succotash, but the sauce is now a whole grain mustard sauce.

Chili is gone and replaced with the lamb mulligatawny.  To make it more of an entree, the kitchen folks are going to whip up some house naan bread to served along side.

The steak now comes with the chimichurri sauce, which is an Argentine pesto, and if wikipedia isn’t lying to me, it’s actually named after some Irish guy!  How ’bout that?  The potatoes on the steak will change tomorrow.

For snag, we’ve got the Carribean jerk Chicken (allspice, onion), Cincinnati (that’s how you spell it), and the Smoked Boerewors.  Cincy will be replaced by the Jagdwurst, which is the German hunter’s sausage and tastes like a hot dog.

That’s all, folks!

Michael

This is the first in a series of posts about a few days visiting different farmers and producers in Iowa, including several from whom we’ve bought pork. Additionally, my perceptions are certainly informed from previous trips to the state, of a more social nature. Everything here is just my observation as an outsider; I’m sure I’m missing many subtleties and in several instances I may be just plumb wrong. Caveat emptor.

A Backdrop in Two Tones

What stands out more than anything about Iowa is how different it is than any other farming area I’ve visited. Different in appearance, different in what people talk about, different in emotional temperament.

Its physical distinction is the most obvious. For most intents and purposes, Iowa grows two crops and two crops only: corn and soybeans. The two crops make a useful rotation with each other (a patch of ground will grow corn one year, and soybeans the next year, which is less harsh on the soil than growing the same thing year after year on it), and complement each other in a nutritional sense (corn a collection of sugars/starch, soy a source of protein). But there’s something unnerving about driving across hundreds of miles and seeing only two crops, and meeting dozens of farmers and only talking about two crops.

Monoculture — or, in this case, duoculture — is a risky enterprise, in the biological sense. A single disease or a change in the environmental system can wipe out everything, since everything is invested in a narrow slice of the biological world. Monoculture is also risky in the economic sense — a whole state with its livelihood invested in two crops — and in a social/human sense — the farmers are all invested in the same economic indicators and farm-related social issues. In all of these aspects — crop stability, economic growth, social interaction — this area has been robbed of the benefits of simple, natural diversity of species, action, and interests.

Iowa hasn’t always been this way. Many of the people I talked with, people in their 50’s, remember clearly when these farms they grew up on had a variety of crops and livestock, and were farmed in traditional methods. That changed in the 1970’s, for one reason: the US goverment changed it.

Earl Butz, the US Secretary of Agriculture in the 1970’s who was ultimately forced from office in scandal, changed the farm laws during his time in office to ensure that, even in the face of inflation, American food would be plentiful, available, and cheap to the consumer. He did this by creating a subsidy system which rewards maximum production of corn and soybeans, at all times, by everybody. His goals — cheap food in the American supermarket — have been realized to an amazing degree. The only other shift required was a change in the definition of “food.”

Corn, as we’re discussing here, is field corn. Field corn, as harvested, is not really something humans eat. Field corn has to be processed in order for us to eat it. And processed it is. Pretty much every sweetend product on the mass market, such as sodas and candy bars, uses “high fructose corn syrup”, an output of corn processing. All those unpronounceable ingredients you read on the labels of crackers, cookies, bread, ice cream, energy bars, and so on — they’re all parts of processed field corn and soybeans.

Mr. Butz accomplished his goal. Amercian food is cheap and plentily available, as long it’s assembled from the byproducts of field corn and soybeans. Calories purchased in the center of the supermarket (processed food) are crazy cheap, as is meat from animals fed corn and soybeans. Fresh produce and naturally fed meat are much more expensive.

Leaving aside nutritional questions, this would seem to be an good situation for both consumers and producers: calories are cheap, no one is starving, and the farmers have a guaranteed source of income and can farm their land for generations.

But it doesn’t work that way for the farmers, because there’s a catch. Field corn is a commodity. It’s traded by the pound, and quality and taste doesn’t affect the price. Price is driven entirely by supply and demand.

With a commodity, increased production drives prices down. Which means that, farming for a commodity market, the principal way to make money is not just to increase your yield per acre, but to increase it more than your neighbor. This is because, as average yields increase, the price drops in general. To do well, everybody has to outpace the average increase in yield. And everybody can’t outpace the average. It’s a game where, for every winner, there has to be a loser.

Every farmer, then, is in a competition with every other farmer to do whatever it takes to outpace the mean increase. In this environment, the folks who make money are the companies who can help farmers increase yield, whether by selling certain genetically modified seeds, chemical fertilizers, equipment or so forth. Since, if your neighbor buys a yield-increasing device, you have to buy it, and probably more, just to stay at the median, which doesn’t even make for an increase in income.

Ultimately, the producer is working harder and harder to keep up, while the finacial gains of overall increased yields find their way to the suppliers of seeds, fertilizer and equipment.

In this environment, the average farmer would lose money if not for the government subsidies. These subsidies then cover enough make it not necessarily an overt cash loss for most folks. In fact the subsidies are clearly tuned exactly to make it just barely worthwhile for the maximum number of farmers to farm, without anyone actually doing well.

Faced with working ever harder and making no more income, farmers of course look for other ways to increase their income. Several options exist:

1. Achieve economies of scale, also known as “get big or get out.” This is a recurring mantra as many farmers feel pressure to step up their scale to huge levels, or just quit the land their family has farmed for generations. I didn’t meet anyone totally happy with either option.
2. Extract value from the land. This might, for instance, take the form of completely giving up on crop rotation (growing “corn on corn”) and risking extreme degradation of the soil; or allowing pollutants to accumulate on the land. Some folks have apparently been pursuing this option, to the profound disappointment of their neighbors who value the land as a common resource, and who don’t like living next to bottomless pits of manure and pig urine.
3. Add value to the crops. The primary way that Iowans add value to their corn and soy crops is to turn them into meat. Specifically, pork. Thus, many farms have a small section set aside for corn processing units called “pigs”. Fortunately, the waste of these corn processing units (known as “manure”) is useful as fertilizer, and the amount of land can balance with the number of pigs. Of course, in this environment, where everything — pork and corn — is a commodity, and yield is everything, all economic incentives motivate each farmer to squeeze as many pigs as possible into the smallest space possible. And since meat quality isn’t important (and beating the average yield increase is paramount…talk about keeping ahead with the Joneses!) new technologies which allow more squeezing, and more meat from less corn, are widely adopted as soon as they are developed. If these measures require pumping the pigs full of antibiotics or cutting their tails off so that other pigs don’t eat them under stress, well, no matter. It’s a commodity…all pork is priced exactly the same.

The crazy thing about the pig business is that since it, too, is a commodity business, the same economic rules that rule corn farmers start to apply to their pig farming — increase yield more than the next guy, or go broke. So pork farmers are faced with the same options for their pigs: adopt economies of scales (building after building with tens of thousands of pig piled on a tiny footprint), extract value from the land (dumping huge amounts of toxic pig wastes), or add value to the pork (somehow bring it out of the commodity market).

Thus we arrive at the following situation: Hardworking people, attempting to make enough to keep their family’s land, farming only two crops they can’t eat and maintaining buildings packed with pigs they don’t want to eat, while their suppliers make good money. I honestly can’t say anyone I talked to in this situation really had much enthusiasm about it.

As a result, lots of farmers are trying to figure out how to get out of the commodity market and into a market that respects the value of doing things well. (Side note: this is where you, the Linkery diner, enter into the picture…as someone who can help, by caring about the ingredients you eat. I basically talk to a lot of farmers as a representative of a community that is willing to pay a premium for thoughtfully raised food).

On my visit, I learned firsthand of many approaches different folks are taking, in an attempt to move from producing commodities into what they call “niche” markets. Over the next five or six Iowa posts, I’ll introduce these people and relate these different approaches. Each person and approach is interesting and thought-provoking in their own right.

Yesterday, we got in a new fish I haven’t heard of: parrot fish.  Wild caught off of Mexico.  It’s fantastic tasting.

Michael and I went to Catalina today to get some more.  Parrot fish must derive its name from its coloring, which has this bright blue gradient like a parrot.  Cool.

Hi Friends,

This week’s “highlights” are a little different, in that I’m not going to mention the delicious ingredients we are getting in this week (like the first wave of California peaches). Instead, I want to let you know about some stuff we’re offering day in, day out, that you might be interested in.

Because we try to source our ingredients, particularly our meats, from specific farms where we personally know the farmers and their methods, it’s a constant challenge to meet our mission of providing real food at prices where you can come in casually and grub. Real food is always going to be more expensive, but we are working to offer day-to-day dishes along with the more posh ones. Sometimes I think that we forget to let people know that part of what we do.

With that in mind, here some details about a few things on the less fancy side of our menu, that you might like. They’re all priced so that you can have the dish and a bottle of beer or glass of house wine for around 20 bucks, including table service and tax.

* Serving BBQ is tricky — there are so many opinions about what makes barbecue “authentic” or what the best kind of BBQ is. With that in mind, we set out to develop a dish that could become an authentic pulled pork sandwich for California, as opposed to imitating another region’s style. What we came up with is pork shoulder (from Iowa, though) rubbed with spice and slowly smoked over Central Coast (of California) red oak, which imparts a great sweetness to the meat. The barbecue sauce is made with whatever local beer we have handy, and with jus from the smoker. We serve the pork on a jalapeno-cheddar roll made in the artisan style by Bread on Market. Along with a little salted coleslaw. This plate is $12.50.

* One of my favorite ingredients we keep in the house is olive oil from Rancho Cortes in the Guadalupe Valley. It’s not just because to get it, I have to go to my favorite restaurant (Laja). It’s also because of the rich fruitiness of the oil. We dress our herb salad in this oil and nothing else, and put some (often local) citrus on the plate to add enough acid to balance it out. $9.50.

* Sausage Tacos. A favorite around here for two years, we now use fresh handmade tortillas from a local Mexican market, which in my opinion cranks it up a notch. $11.50

* Our goal with our burger is, eventually, to have be a dish where we personally know the farmer or artisan that made every item on the burger. We’re pretty close…so far we’ve got the beef (Brandt Farms, we grind it), the bacon (Vande Rose Farms), the cheese (Winchester Farms, though we’ve only met them over the phone), the bun (challah from Bread on Market, downtown), and the real ranch egg (Wingshadows Hacienda). We just have to work on finding specific farmers for the rocket, the tomato, the onions, and the pineapple. And it tastes good, too — I particularly like the richness of the ranch egg mixed with the burger. $13.50.

* Everyday veggie stuff: we’ve settled on a group of vegetarian mains to go with our rotating “market” vegetarian dishes. Portobello tacos, vegetable lasagna with house-made pasta, roasted acorn squash with couscous and veggies, Portobello burger (vegan or vegetarian). (Heck, or with bacon.) $11.50-$13.50. We rotate stuff around every now and then, but that’s where we’re at now.

***

* OK, I will mention just a couple things from the market menu - our house cured meats have been coming out fantastic, including peperoni made from grassfed California beef from Old Creek Ranch in Cayucos, and Spanish Chorizo; We’ll have a grilled peach salad with that first batch of California peaches I mentioned earlier; Joe made an awesome pork-and-duck terrine that we still have available; and the spring flavors of sweet corn and organic English peas from the farmer’s market really complementpork loin perfectly. The menu changes daily now, so even next week is hard to predict, but there’s lots of good stuff right now.

* Links at the moment: Fresh Polish, Chicken Curry, Chinese Pork and Shrimp, Smoked Kasekrainer. Rey says future links this week will include Boerwors and Merguez.

* For those who don’t know, we have the good fortune to be able to offer cask-conditioned beer all the time. (If you’d like to learn more about cask-conditioned beer, check out our blog post from a year or so ago, at http://thelinkery.com/blog/?p=185). Tuesday, the cask is Stone IPA, and probably by Wednesday we’ll tap a cask of Pizza Port Carlsbad’s Good Grief English Brown Ale. This is going to be great, Pizza Port makes so many divergent styles of beer, and they’re all fantastic, particularly on cask. Starting Thursday we’ll run both handles of cask beer, and add Green Flash Le Freak on cask to the mix. Le Freak is a Belgian-style Imperial IPA.

* When the Good Grief is finished, we’ll move on to American Amber Ale from Lightning Brewing, on cask. On draft right now we have Walker’s Reserve Porter (from Paso Robles) and Pizza Port’s Amigo Lager. Next up is Old Numbskull from Alesmith.

* Tolosa Pinot Noir from the Edna Valley starts this week by the glass. This winery was my favorite discovery on my last trip to the Central Coast, and we’re excited to offer this wine.

* This summer weather is perfect for happy hour - from 5:00 to 6:30 every day we feature a selection of light-bodied beer, wine, and mead for $2.75-$3.75. Of particular note is Virgin Island Pale Ale, a super-refreshing and mildly hoppy beer with mango essence. They make the stuff for this weather.

* Speaking of weather, the A/C combined with the windowshades seems to be doing a good job keeping it cool. Last year, before we got the shades, we had some hot ones, but we’re cautiously optimistic for this summer, now that it’s stayed cool in here through the last few days.

* Coming up: Carolina dinner, Tuesday May 29. We decided to make this a little smaller than the last dinner, it’ll be 4 course meal, including beverages, for $45. (If you signed up for all three of the first dinners, it’s $40). Email me at jay@thelinkery.com for more information or to make ressies.

* Lastly, we have meatloaf right now. I know there are quite a few fans out there.

We’re open every day from 5pm until at least 11pm. Thanks everyone for being part of the Linkery community!

Best,
Jay

On cask: Stone IPA.  On draft: Ballast Point Victory at Sea Imperial Porter with vanilla and coffee, aged in syrah barrels.  Also on draft, Trumer Pils.  In bottles, Red Barn summer farmhouse ale (saison) from Lost Abbey, and Stone Ruination.

Wine: Mapema malbec is back in the house after a brief absence.

Cane Creek Farm (Mebane, NC) is where we’ve been getting rare breed pastured pork, including Ossabaw breed pork. Cane Creek is also where Renee went to work after completing her graduate degree and leaving the Linkery.

Grazing at Cane Creek Farm

Renee left the farm this weekend to move to New York City (not on a farm), but Cane Creek is doing really well. They are in the midst of a move to a larger location (sounds vaguely familiar) which will help them achieve greater finanical stability (also sounds familiar). Eliza has been selling so much pork and feeder pigs that it looked to me that she’s actually running fairly low on inventory.

Cane Creek’s intrepid staff completes invoicing for the day

At Cane Creek’s new farm, she’ll be partnering with a local rancher that specializes in grassfed beef. They can share some overhead including distribution and marketinng costs.

This heritage breed of chicken is called a Buckeye.

In addition to getting to see Eliza, Renee and Betsy, I learned a little more about Cane Creek’s operations and the challenges they face as they grow into a new location — challenges we hope to be of at least a little help with. We also bought a fair amout of Ossabaw-breed pork and Red Devon-breed grass-fed beef. Lastly, we talked about the possibility of us buying heritage breed feeder and/or feeder pigs from Eliza and having them shipped to farmers closer to the Linkery, who would feed the animals out.

I know there’s quite a few of you who like to come in for that.

Hi Friends,

We just wrapped up the Ballast Point Brewmaster seafood dinner — mad thanks to Colby, Yuseff and everyone at Ballast Point, and of course to our own Rey and crew who worked tirelessly to put together a six-course menu for the event — and are looking forward to some fun new stuff this week.  I’m en route to the Carolinas right now, working to keep procuring lots of great pasture-raised heritage pork.  And maybe to find some cool stuff for the Carolina dinner we’re going to have at the end of the month!  (Email me if you’d like to reserve a spot.)  In any event, here’s what’s going on at the Link this week.

* As many of you know, whenever we can serve Old Creek Ranch meats, it’s a real treat.  There’s so little of their meat available and it can be a logistical challenge to get it, so we’re really happy when we have it on the menu.  Starting today (Wednesday), we’ll be featuring a starter with Old Creek Ranch beef brisket.  Old Creek Ranch beef is all-organic, and 100% grass fed on rangeland overlooking the Pacific near Morro Bay.  This is the rare opportunity to eat (relatively) local beef that is grown completely outside of the industrial food chain.  And also to support Old Creek Ranch, who are right out there in the movement for sustainable agriculture.

* From the farmer’s market this week we’ll have fava beans from Rutiz Farm in Arroyo Grande, which will complement our wild local fish, and Oro Blanco Grapefruit from Bernard Ranches in Valley Center, which will be served with our coulotte steak (yeah, it’s back!) from Brandt Farms in Brawley.

* Our kitchen are making “chicken and biscuit”, kind of a deconstructed chicken pot pie, this week.  With Fulton Valley Farms chicken, and it’s really tasty.  It should be available Wednesday for at least a couple more days.

* Rey is putting together a “cinderella meatloaf” — that’s the closest English-language term we could come up with for a country pate.  Country pate has been one of those secret dishes we make every now and then, just write it on the chalkboard and then really eat it mostly ourselves.  Because we really like it but pate comes in so many different forms that a lot of folks are reluctant to order it, cause they don’t know what they’ll get.  The country pates we’ve done so far really have been more like meatloaf — delicous and kind of, er, refined, meatloaf — than the “spread with a knife” pate that one sometimes gets.  So that’s what to expect.

* We’ll have ceviche from ono fish, at least on Wednesday.  I’ve tasted it and I think it’s the best we’ve done yet.

* Our pickled eggs are getting a lot of good feedback!  We pickled some real ranch eggs from Wingshadows Hacienda in Warner Springs — if you’ve never had a pickled egg — or if you’ve only had commodity eggs pickled — I urge you to try one.  They’re delicious. We also use the ranch eggs on our burger and you can taste the extra richness.

* A reminder that we now have happy hour! From 5pm to 6:30pm every day, we offer some light refreshing drinks at really low prices.  For instance, Virgin Islands Pale Ale (refreshing ale with mango essence) $2.75, Trumer Pils (genuine European Pilsner brewed in Berkeley) $3, and Amigo Lager (Pizza Port’s Mexican-style lager, when available) $2.75.  Plus Pinot Grigio for $3.75 and sparkling mead (akin to champagne, but with different flavor overtones ’cause it’s made from honey instead of grape juice) for $3.75.

* The cask lineup at the moment: Stone Smoked Porter, Ballast Point Even Keel Session Ale, Green Flash Le Freak Belgian Style Ale, Lightning Brewery American Amber Ale, and Stone IPA. One or two of these will be available over the next week or so, depending on how fast we go through stuff.

* The official “Favorite Band Of The Linkery”, What Made Milwaukee Famous, is playing at House of Blues on Thursday, May 3rd.  I’ve seen them at the Casbah and at Spaceland in Silverlake, and both times they were excellent — it definitely helps that they write brilliant pop songs and are super-talented musicians.  Anyway, if you’re looking for a great concert to go to in the next couple weeks, this is one I know of that should be just that.  I know a few of us will be there, too!

* We’re changing the menu daily now, so we get a lot of stuff in later in the week, that we don’t even know about when we send this email out.  We’re going to try to keep the online menu updated daily, starting Wednesday around 5pm.  We’ll see how it goes.  You may just have to come in to see what’s what.

* Lastly, as summer comes up a lot of folks are hosting events and receptions of various kinds.  If you’re interested in having the Linkery cook food for your event, let us know.  We can put together finger food for a cocktail reception, bring hot dinners for an event, or even grill on site using our large Santa Maria Barbecue.  For more info, email me at jay@thelinkery.com.

We’re open every day from 5pm until at least 11pm.  Thanks everyone for being part of the Linkery community!

Best,
Jay

Rey’s got the menu set for the Ballast Point dinner on Tuesday.  It is:

• Wahoo ceviche with mint and grapefruit in yellow pepper broth, paired with Wahoo Wheat
• Mussels with tomato and lemongrass in fragrant coconut broth, paired with Even Keel San Diego Session Ale (on cask)
• Big Eye Poke with soy, lemon oil and cucumber and parmesan crisp, paired with Big Eye IPA
• Wheat encrusted sculpin, braised rainbow chard, and mango apricot salsa, paired with Sculpin IPA
• Mahi Mahi (Dorado) over grilled California asparagus with crispy taro, paired with Dorado IIPA
• Warm Imperial Porter chocolate cake, with olive oil gelato and syrah syrup, paired with Victory at Sea Imperial Porter brewed with vanilla and coffee and aged in syrah barrels

As of yesterday we were under a dozen spaces left.  The dinner starts at 7:30pm Tuesday, and it costs $55/person plus tax and service charge.

It’s big: 10% ABV to match the 10th Anniversary.  It’s also delicous.  Watch out.

Hi friends,

We’ve got lots of amazing stuff to share with you, from all over California and beyond. Here goes:

* Over the last few months, we’ve established a good relationship with Old Creek Ranch in Cayucos, CA. Old Creek Ranch is a very progressive, sustainable farm which raises organic 100% grassfed meats, pastured pork, and citrus and avocados without pesticides. Their season has started again and we’re happy to say we have all-natural, sustainably farmed, grassfed California meat in the house. We’ll start with…

* Goat! We have hand made curried goat sopes, served with avocado salsa. This is 100% grassfed, pasture-raised California goat from Old Creek Ranch. We didn’t have a lot of rain this season, so the meat has a really lean profile. Goat has such a strong, delicious flavor, too, and it’s great curried. We’re really excited to be serving this dish. There’s a limited supply of this dish, after that we’ll move on to Old Creek Ranch lamb.

* Speaking of “limited supply”…hello, Reuben Tuesday! As many of you know, last time we made corned beef, we drastically underestimated the demand for corned beef. This time…we made a lot. We’re celebrating by offering our acclaimed Reuben, with house-made corned beef, on Tuesday April 17th. From 5 to close (or until we sell 100 or so sandwiches, whichever comes first).

* Rey’s Carribean-style fish dish was so good last week we’re holding it over one more week. This week, we’ll serve it with wild Mexican yellowtail. (The dish includes pan-seared plantains, quinoa, and pineapple mango salsa.) It’s a perfect match with Virgin Islands Pale Ale, a mildly hopped pale with mango essence. I really like this dish and this pairing.

* Speaking of fish, don’t forget that the Ballast Point brewmaster’s dinner is Tuesday, April 24th — in less than two weeks. We’ve started getting reservations but there are still slots left. It’s going to be mentioned in the Union-Tribune next week, so I expect it will fill up quickly after that. The dinner is 6 Ballast Point beers and a 6 course tasting menu by Rey. Where the beers are named after fish, the fish will be featured on the matching dish. We’ll also have Even Keel by Ballast Point on cask, and a special dessert brew of Victory at Sea Imperial Stout, brewed with coffee and vanilla, and aged in syrah barrels. The whole dinner, including beer, is $55 for all six courses, plus tax and service. Send me an email at jay@thelinkery.com or call the restaurant at 619 255 8778 between 2pm and 6pm or between 10pm and 11pm, to make reservations.

* Pork belly lovers: you won’t beleive how good the pork belly confit is this week. We’re serving it with organic clementines which are from the garden at San Luis Obispo, the first crop of the season — super sweet!

* Three great cask conditioned ales this weekend: 1) San Diego Brewing Company’s “Admiral Baker’s Best”, a medium English bitter (a mild beer), a real treat to feature a cask from Dean at SDBC! 2) Firestone Walker’s “Bravo” Imperial Nut Brown, a 10% ABV nut brown which has been aged for a year in oak, will go on Thursday, and 3) Stone’s 10th Anniversary IPA (also 10% ABV), will go on when the Admiral Baker’s blows.

* Speaking of Firestone Walker, we visited the brewery and brewmaster Matt Brynildson this weekend, and we were incredibly impressed with the brewery, the beers, and everyone’s hospitality. There’s a reason Firestone’s beers are so popular in the Central Coast. Actually, there’s lots of reasons. We’ll be featuring some of their beers for a while so be sure to try them out. Particularly this Imperial Nut Brown!

* To celebrate the inevitable, Death & Taxes will go on draft this weekend. That’s Death & Taxes schwarzbier (”black beer”, a dark colored, light bodied lager with rich flavors) from Moonlight Brewing in Santa Rosa. It’s considered one of the best schwarzbiers around, and I agree. We make trips up to Santa Rosa just to get this stuff and it’s worth it!

* We’ve also got Walker’s Reserve Porter on draft, from Firestone Walker. This is a mild, oak fermented porter which is great. And Lunatic Lager, also from Moonlight Brewing.

* Sausages this week: Chaurice, Linguica, English Bangers, Pad Thai Pork, and Chicken Cranberry Pecan, to start.

* Heirloom tomatoes have come in to season from Jamie Farm, we have those available now. And Central Coast strawberries. I’m told the kitchen’s new shortbread cookie dessert is pretty good, too.

* Chelsea dreamed of a sandwich, and the kitchen is serving it. Organic California asparagus, poached real ranch egg, mixed citrus aioli from Santa Barbara fruit, and frisee, on onion-rye bread from Bread on Market. If you’re a carnivore, we toss on house made pancetta.

* We picked up some Santa Maria Red Oak (courtesy F. McClintock’s Restaurant, a Central Coast institution — thanks!) and have started smoking our pulled pork over it. We’re making progress to defining a “California pulled pork” style, which is our goal. Personally, I love eating this dish…I need to cut back!

* Alexander’s Restaurant has opened across the street from us. So far I’ve had their pizza, which is delicious. Come by and check them out, they’re nice folks and the space is lovely.

* It’s Ray @ Night this weekend, the big North Park festival on Ray Street which happens the second saturday each month. A lot of folks come to the event and then have dinner and drinks on our little corner. Hope to see you!

Thanks everyone for being part of our Linkery community.

Best,
Jay

On Thursday, in addition to Admiral Baker’s Best, we’ll offer a real treat from Firestone Walker. This is their Imperial Nut Brown (10% ABV), aged for a year in oak.

Brewmaster Matt Brynildson was really excited about this cask, and we are really grateful he shared it with us. We’re excited to share it with you!

Here’s a picture of Matt:

And a couple pictures of the uber-cool Firestone Union, where they actually perform primary fermentation in oak barrels:

I forgot to mention some lovely strawberries we picked up at the SLO farmer’s market on Saturday.  The kitchen folks were planning to serve them with gelato tonite.

More coming in the next days and weeks: clementines, kiwis, grassfed beef, lamb and goat, pasture raised pork, Edna Valley Pinot Noir, and Central Coast cask beer.  Details to come.

Hi Friends,

We’ve got so much going on this week a lot of it I’ll just mention and then put a link to the blog where I explain more.

* We’re introducing a neat new craft beer for the summer, Virgin Island Pale Ale. The brewers are from St. John, US Virgin Islands, and I met them a couple months ago when I visited St. John. This bottled beer is made under contract by Shipyard brewing in Maine. The beer is a medium-bodied pale ale with subtantial hop character and a mango infusion. It sounds crazy, but it’s super refreshing and delicious. And perfect for hot weather. Rey put together a carribean style dish this week to match it, local fish grilled and served with pan-seared plantains and mango-pineapple salsa. For more details go to: http://thelinkery.com/blog/?p=442

* We’re starting a series of chef’s dinners (and/or Brewmasters dinners) the last Tuesday of each month. This month starts with a brewmaster’s dinner from Ballast Point brewing, in which we match each beer with a fish of the same name as the beer. In other words, Wahoo Wheat with wahoo, Big Eye IPA with big eye tuna, etc. The full lineup is Wahoo Wheat, Sculpin IPA, Even Keel (on cask), Big Eye IPA, Dorado IIPA, and Victory at Sea Imperial Porter with vanilla and cold-brewed coffee, aged in syrah barrel. It’s a six course dinner, and Rey is having fun putting together dishes to match, in which the main ingredient is predetermined! (Kinda Iron Chef like.) All dinners will be $55/person plus 18% service charge and 7.5% tax. To sign up, send me an email at jay@thelinkery.com or call the restaurant (starting this Thursday) between 3pm and 6pm or between 10pm and 11pm. We’ll take your info and get back to everyone in the order they called, to confirm and to process payment. The subsequent two dinners are a Carolina farm dinner (May 29th) and a Central California dinner (June 26th). If you sign up for all three dinners at once, it’s $150/person. For more info: http://thelinkery.com/blog/?p=443.

* Local and regional produce is really coming into its own now. As a result we have market dishes this week like an heirloom tomato salad, local asparagus soup, and grilled steak with california asparagus, local oro blanco grapefruit and pixie tangerines.

* Grilled Duroc pork chop is available for a few days. This week it comes with sauteed ramps, oyster plant, and lemon thyme reduction.

* Last week’s stuffed acorn squash dish was so popular that it wandered over to our permanent menu. This week’s “market” vegetarian main dish is a tamale filled with Paso Robles white chard and shitake mushroom, served with black bean salad.

* The kitchen folks are working on a chicken and pineapple terrine this week.

* We are revamping our catering and banquet/special event program. If you’re interested in having us help you out at any event, please contact me at jay@thelinkery.com

* We’ve made a few changes to our wine list the last couple weeks, now we have a new Aussie Chardonnay called Milton Park, a new California Merlot called Franco, a Vinho Verde imported by Broadbent, and more.

* Our dessert wine list is greatly expanded, with multiple Ports, Madeiras, and a sweet Italian white. Come in and check it out.

* On cask right now is Stone IPA, which will switch to Lightning Fulminator soon. On draft is Moonlight Brewing Twist of Fate and Amigo Lager from Port. Bottles of Stone’s Imperial Russian Stout just arrived, too.

* Last month you donated $743 to Avert HIV/AIDS Prevention, as part of our no-tipping policy. That’s a per-week record for us, congratulations! This month’s charity is the Aja Project, which is an afterschool photography program for refugee kids in San Diego. We’ve got lots of information about it in the restuarant, so check it out — it’s a great program. For more details on the charitable donations front: http://thelinkery.com/blog/?p=441

* We’ve made so many changes at the restaurant the last couple months, a lot of people have been asking me about them. I tried to recap them all and explain a little of what to expect in the future in this blog post: http://thelinkery.com/blog/?p=439

* We still have sparkling mead by the glass, from Heidrun Meadery in Arcata, CA. This is an amazing artisan beverage which reveals the essence of honey by fermenting away its sweetness and creating a dry sparkling wine defined by the overtones of the particular honey varietal used. Right now we’re pouring mead from Alfalfa Blossom honey, then we’ll switch to Eucalyptus Blossom honey.

* House made corned beef will be ready within days, keep an eye on the blog to see when it hits the menu. http://thelinkery.com/blog .

* Next week we’ll be featuring grass-fed/pastured Central Coast meat and Central CA produce, so prepare yourself for that goodness.

We’re open every day from 5pm until at least 11pm. Thanks everyone for being part of the Linkery community!

Best,
Jay

We’re starting a series of dinners the last Tuesday of each month. We’re luck to kick things off this month with what is going to be a really fun and delicious one: a Ballast Point Brewmaster’s Dinner.

Colby Chandler, brewmaster at BP, suggested this to us: a dinner which pairs Ballast Point beers with the fish of the same name as the beer.

Here’s what the lineup will be:

• Wahoo Wheat, paired with wahoo
• Sculpin IPA, paired with sculpin
• Even Keel (on cask), paired with some sort of barnacle, mollusk, etc.
• Big Eye IPA, paired with big eye tuna.
• Dorado IIPA, paired with mahi mahi (dorado)
• Victory at Sea Imperial Porter, with cold-roasted coffee and vanilla, Syrah barrel aged, paired with something TBD for dessert.

We obviously haven’t fixed exactly each dish, but it will be six courses with matching beers, for $55/person plus service charge and tax.

The next two dinners will be:

• Carolina farm dinner, May 29th. Featuring pasture raised meats, artisan cheese and more from the Carolinas, and dishes inspired by Carolina cuisine, with paired beer and wine.
• Central California dinner, June 26th. With pasture-raised and grassfed Central Coast meat, traditional artisan food items, Central CA cheese, California stone fruit, and, of course, California wine and beer.

Each dinner will be the same cost, $55/person. If you reserve all three dinners in advance, it’s $150/person total.

To reserve a spot at these dinners, send me an email at jay@thelinkery.com, or call us (starting Thursday) at the restaurant (619 255 8778) between 3pm and 6pm or between 10pm and 11pm.

We’ll take your name and phone number, number in your party, and a good time to reach you. Then we’ll call everyone back in the order they called us, and confirm with them and process payment.

We’re excited that we’re able to host this event, and we hope you are too!

When I went to St. John earlier this year, probably the biggest (and coolest) surprise about the island was to discover that it has its own craft brewery! The island is home to only about four thousand continuous residents, plus a substantial tourist draw and (I think) a few hundred mainlanders/expats (not sure of the proper nomenclature), many of whom work there seasonally.

The brewery is called St. John’s Brewers. Most of the bars and restaurants offer their Virgin Island Pale Ale, which seemed to be the only craft beer available on the island. The brewers, Cheech and Kevin, were hosting a party at Rhumb Lines one of the nights we were there, so I got to talking to them about what they did. At that point I had been drinking VIPA pretty much noon to night, so I was already a big fan.

What the brewers look like after I’ve had a few

Basically, they are friends who moved to the Virgin Islands from Vermont for a season, and did some homebrewing while on the island. They realized there was a huge demand for craft beer there, even just among the expats who were working there and at the places they worked. So they contracted their VIPA for production and bottling to Shipyard Brewing in Maine, and also opened their own brewpub, “The Tap Room” with a very small production brewery, just big enough to brew for on-site sale, special events, and the St. John market for draft beer. (I think there are only two places in St. John with draft systems).

Talking with Cheech and Kevin, and visiting the Tap Room, it was clear they are the kind of folks we like to work with. The kind of guys who close their bar on a Sunday to go play kickball across the street (apparently, Kevin was focused on avenging the fact that he had been picked last the previous game, despite having played intercollegiate soccer at University of Vermont). And I loved the beer as being a very light, refreshing and interesting (infused with mango!) session beer. I really wanted to bring their beer back to North Park.

Now, a cool thing about all this is that, while St. John feels like another country, it’s all part of the US of A, so it’s a lot easier to distribute, even to the West Coast.. And, in fact, St. John’s Brewers had started working with BevMo to get the goods into stores in California. So over the last couple months we’ve been able to get a few cases ourselves, too. I think the only places it’s available outside of the islands are some BevMos in California and some Northeast States. And, now, the Linkery.

This beer comes in 12 ounce bottles, is light bodied and perfect on a hot San Diego day. It’s got a wallop of a mango nose from the added fruit extract, which in flavor is surprisingly balanced out by the notable hop character. It may not be something for every beer purist — I think the Padre is afraid I’ll make him drink another one — but it’s both interesting and delicious. We haven’t really told anybody about it yet but we blew through a six-pack or two, just among ourselves.

To highlight the beer this week, Rey is putting together a Carribean style fish dish, of grilled local fish with plantains, quinoa, and pineapple mango salsa. If the good weather continues it’ll be just like we’re living on a tropical island.

Coda: right before we left, we took an awesome sail on Captain Carter’s 47′ sloop over to Jost Van Dyke, an British Virgin Island with a population of a few hundred people Where we stopped at Foxy’s and had a pint of their house brewed beer. Which was fantastic! However, that’s a whole ‘nother country — probably a lot harder to import.

Hi Friends,

Lots of fun stuff this week, including local produce, new dishes, new wines, great beer, and sparkling mead.

* Mulligatawny is an Anglo-Indian soup-like dish that Joe used to make a lot when he worked in New York. He and Rey put together a version for us this week that features curry lamb. I tasted it and love it, I think it will be the most popular dish of this menu. It’s a starter dish, as our soup o’ the week.

* To match, we have a new wine this week, a white Portuguese Vinho Verde from Broadbent. Apparently Vinho Verde is going to be all the rage this summer, given that suddenly this year all of the wine companies we work with have been showcasing them to us. We tasted several, including some that were a bit cheaper, but this one stood out. Vinho Verde is a really dry, slightly effervescent wine from Portugal that will go great with our warm weather and our food — and can stand up to the stronger spices we use like those in the curry. (And, I think, our stronger sausages and the pulled pork sandwich).

* The wild mushroom pie was so popular we’re going to offer it again this week, this time as a starter. This is a vegetarian dish composed of wild, foraged mushrooms that we got from the Bay Area, on a puff pastry bed topped with microgreen red beet leaves.

* California asparagus are in season now, and of course tastes great. We’re putting them with a grilled flatiron steak from Brandt Farms in Brawley, along with a salad of local citrus.

* We’re back with pork chop, from Vande Rose farms, which we’re serving this week with smoked mustard, local white chard and Rainbow Crunch carrots from Brawley.

* Rey keeps making terrines. We’ll have the pressed pork (with preserve of local kumquats) for a little while, then we’ll switch to a lamb terrine he’s working on now.

* A feature veggie main dish this week is a roasted acorn squash stuffed with Israeli couscous and choppped vegetable salad. And for a vegetarian starter, we’re again offering a buckwheat noodle salad with cabbage, carrots, shitake mushroom, and a house made peanut dressing.

* As always, we never know what local fish we’ll have until we go down to the fishmonger, but we’re looking out for tuna, maybe bluefin or yellowfin, today. We do know that we’ll be able to serve it with organic fava beans from Camarillo, marble creamer potatoes, pearl onions, and house made bacon (which we can sub out for broccoli if you’re not a bacon-lover).

* Sparkling mead was such a hit we brought a couple different kinds of mead this week, and selling it by the glass. By the glass, we have mead made from alfalfa blossom honey from Nevada, and we also have mead made from Eucalyptus blossom honey. Thes meads are made sparkling in the same method as Champagne, and the flavors are dry, like brut bubbly. Except that the flavors of mead come from the overtones of honey, without the sweetness, as the sugar is converted away during fermentation. The result is a rich, dry bubbly with a depth and complexity of flavor one rarely sees with wine at this price.

* Alesmith X is on cask right now — this is one of the most astounding casks we’ve had. I love Alesmith X, which has the strong, floral hop aroma of an IPA, but with the light bodied drinkability of an extra pale ale. All these qualities are enhanced on cask, plus there’s an extra element of creaminess added to the beer as well. I’d say “watch out”, except fortunately it’s only

* On draft, we’re pleased to offer “Le Freak” from Green Flash, which is their Imperial IPA done in a Belgian style. I find that the hoppy character of the Imperial IPA melds nicely with the sweetness of the Belgian yeast and makes for a very drinkable and tasty huge beer. We also have Amigo Lager from Pizza Port as our perpetual happy hour beer at around 3 bucks.

* Sausages this week include Mexican chicken, Greek, Linguica, Argentine Chicken, and a new and improved smoked Kasekrainer.

* Coming up the next few weeks: California grass-fed beed and pastured pork, and Ruebens return.

* Lastly, a special “welcome back” shout out to our friends with the Padres, who return soon after what must’ve been a grueling, warm stay in the AZ. We’re all looking forward to Opening Day in SF Tuesday, and at home next week.

Thanks everyone for being part of the Linkery community!

Best,
Jay

Specials tonite: Wild Boar Canneloni and Chorizo-Stuffed Squid, both starters.

Featured beverage: sparkling mead (honey wine) from Heidrun Meadery in Arcata, CA.  

Ale on cask: Pizza Port Wipeout IPA

Beer on draft: Amigo Lager (Pizza Port) and Stone Smoked Porter (Stone Brewing)

Well, apparently we need to increase our corned beef production by orders of magnitude (if possible).  Our Thursday allocation of Reubens has already sold out.   Friday’s probably won’t last long into the night, either.  Saturday, it goes without saying, is questionable too — we’ll have some at noon, but I’m not sure how long beyond that. 

I promise we will make a bunch more corned beef as soon as possible, and let everyone know when it’s ready.  I apologize for underestimating the amount we needed.

The fascinating presentation and discussion by John Mackey (CEO of Whole Foods) and Michael Pollan (writer of The Omnivore’s Dilemma) from a couple weeks back is now available on webcast at webcast.berkeley.edu.

If you’re at all interested in where your food comes from and the quality and history of what you eat — this is an amazing presentation and discussion.  The presentation part is by John Mackey, laying out his vision of the state of food as a complement to the vision Pollan laid out in The Omnivore’s Dilemma.  It’s followed by a discussion between the two of them.

The event was held on campus at Cal, and sold out faster than a Phish reunion concert at halftime of Big Game.  It’s a really compelling and invigorating exchange of ideas and addresses a lot of what we’re attempting to accomplish here.

No, not a 70’s movie classic.  Three things on offer tonite: Poor Man’s Imperial IPA on cask, Lightning Fulminator Weisser Bock on cask (both handles working, yo), and super fresh mullet (aka Lisa Rayada) from Mexico served with rocket pesto, jicama slaw, and grated purple cauliflower — very South Beach. 

Hi Everyone –

It seems like every six months we undertake major changes at the Linkery in order to keep improving. Here at the two year mark, it’s no exception. We’re hard at work on Linkery 4.0.

Our entire kitchen team — Patrick, Glenn, Joe, Ernesto, Michael and new fearless leader Rey — have been working hard to improve the way we do things so that 1) we can keep putting together better and better plates featuring our market fresh produce, fish and unique meat; 2) all of our link plates and “bistro” dishes thoroughly embody our passion for delicious hand made food; and 3) every dish we serve reflects our commitment to quality, no matter how busy we get. It’s all simple stuff in concept but as we grow it takes a lot of hard work and creative thinking — we’re really lucky to have these folks willing to put in the effort to make it happen.

Over the next few weeks you’ll see some changes, big and small, as we look to make these improvements to our restaurant. I think you’ll find the results encouraging — and of course we welcome your comments and emails! Let us know what you think. Rest assured we remain passionately dedicated to offering fresh, flavorful food, the highest quality ingredients, and neighborhood-friendly prices.

(As a side note, I do have to brag that we were mentioned in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday as a place to get cask-conditioned ale. How cool is that? Anyway.)

OK, so here’s what we’ve put together for this week:

* We’re changing the format of our menu a little, to highlight what we do with the unique ingredients we have in at the moment. These dishes now have their own page, our “Market Selections.” Mostly this is the stuff I talk about in these emails.

* I’m mentioning a vegetarian item first: this week we’re serving green papaya and butternut squash with grilled tofu and lime-dressed glass noodles, Red Fresno chiles, pomelo, toasted peanuts and cilantro. It’s an Asian influenced dish which I think folks will really like.

* Another vegetarian deliciousness: curry potato quesadillas in a whole wheat tortilla with tzatiki drizzle. A starter.

* Are baby back Duroc pork ribs vegetarian? No? Even if they’re in a Vietnamese glaze and served with Indian greens and fried spring garlic from Arroyo Grande? Well, if it’s not vegetarian, it’s still something I want to eat. Our kitchen folks are slow-cooking these ribs and I’m told the meat will fall off the bone when you look at it. (OK, I made that up. But I am told they will be tender and great.)

* A “pastured” feature this week is ham and ale soup. The ham is Ossabaw breed from Cane Creek Farms in Mebane, North Carolina, an old-fashioned sustainable farm which raises pigs that wander around with goats and chickens and so forth. I think the ale is double-dry-hopped Levitation but I need to confirm that.

* We’ve got local Moro blood oranges and organic red onions from Camarillo, and they both will go great with Vande Rose pork tenderloin. We’re pickling the onions, too. And serving it all with sorrel and rocket. And dressing the greens with bacon vinaigrette.

* We’re going to be featuring both flat-iron steak and hanger steak this week — depends on what day you visit. Hanger steak is a great steak which is valued for its flavor and tenderness — it says so on Wikipedia! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanger_steak) I think it tastes pretty good, too. What also tastes good is a creamer potato salad with artisan bacon, grilled Italian pearl onions and chimichurri sauce, all of which will be served with the steak.

* Pulled pork sandwich this week — house smoked, of course, with Flanny’s BBQ sauce. On a poppy seed bun, with tidewater coleslaw (that means coleslaw with a little saltiness) and house made pickles.

* Michael and Rey are going down to our fishmonger early in the a.m. to get whatever’s local and super fresh. We’re thinking we’ll serve it grilled with rocket pesto, grated purple cauliflower, and jicama slaw.

* Last week’s beet salad was so popular that we’re offering again, with minor changes. Check out the local Oro Blanco grapefruit it comes with — that’s cool stuff. The house made pancetta with it, that Michael made, is pretty darn good, too.

* Links this week: Italian chicken, Smoked Polish, Mexican Chorizo, Weisswurst, Polynesian Pork, Boudin Blanc (white pudding), and more. Remember that we make and serve links on a more or less random basis, so if you have your heart set on something, call first.

* New link plates: we’ll be bringing more variety to how we serve our links. Every week we’ll have several unique plates built around a link. These link dishes are large-tapas/small-main sized and feature a link with a couple complementing sides. Each dish will change as the links change. This week’s are under wraps until Thursday afternoon (in other words, we’re still making stuff up).

* Our Choucroute dish and our Picnic Plate are being combined into a supergroup dish that offers the best of both. In other words the Picnic Plate now comes with braised sauerkraut and melted cheese. Or you could look at it that the Choucroute can be ordered with one link, or with two links and house cured meats. Either way you look at it, it’s delicious. We’re calling it the Alsatian Picnic Plate.

* We have a sensational new wine from Portugal — A Douro from the winery Quinta de Crasto. We bought a lot of this wine, something we normally don’t do for a wine we sell only by the bottle. But this is so good we think it will join Mapema Malbec and the Preston Zinfandel as go-to bottles for many folks. The flagship wine from Quinta de Crasto — this wine’s “big brother” — has been ranked in the top 100 wines in the world. This Douro isn’t at that price level but it has great balance and flavor and we are very excited to be able to offer it. I think anyone who tries it will become a believer. (Plus I know we still have some Douro fans from when we offered the Quinto de Roriz!).

* We also have a great new white wine we started offering in the last few days. It’s from Snoqualmie Vineyards in the Columbia Valley (Washington State), and it’s a great American Gewurztraminer that has a touch of spice and citrus overtones but only a touch of sweetness. It’ll go super with spicy foods, or salads, or on its own. Plus, it’s made from certified organic grapes — no pesticides, no chemicals.

* Amancaya Malbec from Lafite Rothschild is back. We’ve had a lot of requests for it.

* Beerwise, on cask — did you happen to see the article in the WSJ on cask ale?? — we have Pizza Port Poor Man’s Double IPA (aka San Diego Pale Ale. I think we need to find one nomenclature and stick with it. The San Diego Pale is a cool schtick but Imperial IPA is pretty convincing too). We also have Fulminator Lager on cask from Lightning Brewery as well. That’s been described to me as most similar to a Weisser Bock, like the Hopf we poured for folks on our anniversary a couple Sundays ago.

* On tap we have Moonlight Brewing’s Twist of Fate, an English style bitter I simply love to drink. Moonlight isn’t local — they’re out of Santa Rosa — but we’ve come to really enjoy working with Brian Hunt, the brewer, and in particular his beers. It’s a tiny operation and we’re happy to be able to bring this beer to our community, as it is not often offered in town. Michael brought it down from the brewery himself a couple weeks ago.

* There’s another great Moonlight beer that we *don’t* have — but is on tap at Hamilton’s Tavern in South Park (30th at Beech) right now. “Bony Fingers” is, I believe, their Halloween black lager. (I don’t know why it’s available right now, but hey — make hay when the sun shines!) It’s amazing to drink, I had two pints last nite and would have had dozens if I could handle it. I recommend checking it out if you can.

* We also have Green Flash Nut Brown on tap — this is always popular with everyone — and when that goes we’ll replace it with Moonlight’s Lunatic Lager. (I had one of those last nite, too, and I recommend it as well!).

* Limited/seasonal bottles: The Maharajah Double IPA from Avery, and also Avery’s New World Porter. Speaking of Avery, I think I haven’t done a good enough job of turning the world on to the hoppy but rich dark goodness that is The Czar Imperial Stout. If you like stout at all — check it out. It’s great.

* This week is Ray at Night on Saturday. Come on by if you’re going over to check it out. If you’re not going to check it out, consider doing so. Ray at Night is fun. Check it out at http://www.northparkmainstreet.com/promotion/ray.htm or at http://www.rayatnightartwalk.com/ or at http://www.rayatnight.com/ .

* Someone asked me if the corned beef is getting itself ready for next weekend. Rest assured that it is. And the small cask that’s lying out on the counter is Speedway Stout which is conditioning itself for Super Black Velvet Thursday next week. Stay tuned.

* Lastly…new desserts! Rey is still experimenting with them, so they’ll change from nite to nite this week. Enjoy.

We’re expanding the size of our team in order to keep up with business, so you’ll keep seeing a few more new faces working with us here. Don’t hesitate to welcome them to your place! And thanks again for being part of our Linkery community.

Best,
Jay

I just got back from a weekend in Los Angeles, and have the following notes:

• Father’s Office is inspirational.  They are acheiving for “neighborhood tavern” what we hope to achieve with “neighborhood restaurant.”  They serve delicious food including rotating specials with farmer’s market ingredients; they offer a great beer selection (we had a Craftsman 1903, a Deschutes seasonal, Russian River Perdition, and Alesmith X); their wines, though limited in selection, are properly maintained and thoughtfully selected; and their service is fast and knowledgable.  (For what it’s worth, we’d like to be as excellent as they are while also offering table service, a full, coursed dinner menu, and a more extensive wine menu.)
• A.O.C. was great fun, and reasonably priced.  Stylish while casual, with excellently prepared small plates, interesting wines and awesome cheeses.
• Apparently we didn’t corner the market on pea tendrils from the Santa Monica farmer’s market.  At least two of the menus I saw — including Father’s Office — featured them prominently on at least one special.
• I finally got to have an Uruguayan wine — a Tannat — and it was great.  I’m looking in to see if I can get it to carry at the Link.

A few readers may remember that when we visited the Fulton Valley Farms processor in December, Fulton — while totally transparent in their processing operations — informed us that for “biosecurity” reasons we couldn’t go visit the chicken farms themselves. That was frustrating, since we really want to know what “free-range” chickens means to Fulton Valley Farms.

Well, we were lucky to meet Sandra Ouellette on our trip to Brandt Farms, and Sandra now represents Fulton Valley Farms — a decision she made only after visiting the farms herself and verifying that they met her standards for humane and thoughtful treatment of animals. Plus, she took pictures. She graciously gave her permission for me to share the photos with you. Here are a couple that I thought give a good sense of the operation.

Apparently the chickens also have access to the outdoors, however, according to Sandra, when she was there it was so hot — Fresno in the summer — that neither person nor poultry had any interest in being outside. In any event, it looks to me that the chickens really do have room to walk around freely, even inside. Similar to Brandt, it’s not pastoral, but it’s obviously a step up from the minimum standards of factory farming.

UPDATE: You can read the story here for the next few days.  (Thanks to Ken B. for sending me the link.)

This weekend’s Wall Street Journal has an article on real ale which is a great read. And I don’t just say that ’cause they mention the Linkery as a place to get cask beer. Though we dig that, too.

* Hophead Red from Green Flash, on cask (we’re driving up to the brewery in a few minutes to get a tour and pick it up)

* Ruination Double IPA on cask

* $2.25 glasses of Canella Prosecco

* We’re cracking open a 3L bottle of Hopf Weisser Bock from Bavaria

* House made pastrami wrapped around Red Dragon cheese from Wales

* Pork Belly 6 ways

* Return of Tofu al Maiz

We open at 5pm today (Sunday)!