We’ll be feasting on ham and potatoes with salads and enjoying mead mixed with plum wine, and our traditional flaming plums and cherries over ice cream for dessert.

Then we will retire to the Plum Room for stories where many accounts of the legend of the Burning Plum will be presented.

In short, tonight we celebrate friendship, as we do every year at this time.

Let the Night of the Burning Plum commence!

It was a freebee, a chance to go as a local blogger and review the restaurant for advertising purposes. Before I get into the review proper, let me say that Shane, a manger there, made a brilliant move having a group of local bloggers come out and eat there for free and write reviews. It shows that the management there understands that the way of the future is the web, and that local bloggers are a great source of positive publicity.

Of course it could have backfired. We could have hated it.

<backtrack to 2003>

My wife and I had a favorite restaurant in Peoria. We loved it. When we wanted something special, we went there, to Dominick’s. It was great. Pasta, steak, great service, beautiful decor. We loved it. And it closed.

Since then, we’ve found local places we liked at different times, and in different moods. But we’ve not found a place that I considered “fine dining” in all the ways I liked to replace Dominick’s since it closed.

Until last night.

I showed up a little before 7 and sat down and there were already a half dozen bloggers there. I’ve met quite a few local bloggers at blogger bashes and such before the evening, but none of them were there. Another 3-4 showed up before we got started and it was a good group.

I have this habit of sitting in the middle of a group and trying to take part in all the conversations. It never works but I keep trying. I didn’t write down the names or the blogs represented, but the ones I remember are Morton Malaise and Keep Passing the Open Windows (I’ll add more when I remember them).

I ordered an IPA to start out and looked over the menu. After some discussion with my neighbors at the table two of us decided to split the Calmari, which was the best I’ve had to date. It often is a little too chewy for me, but this was just perfect. I also got to try some of the Crab & Artichoke Au Gratin and some of the Escargot.

All of the appetizers I tried were fantastic. I would try any of them again, and I would have loved to try the Mushrooms or the Brie.

Then the salad came. I ventured out and had the Pear Salad, which came with dried cranberries, bleu cheese, walnuts and a strawberry vinaigrette.

I wasn’t sure how the tastes were going to work together, but since it was the most out of the ordinary, I had to try it. They had a house salad, and a spinach salad, and a Caesar–but I had to try the Pear.

I wasn’t disappointed. The amount of dressing on the salad was just right for my taste, and the flavors of the varied ingredients were just fantastic together.

With dinner I ordered a bottle of the Ridge vineyard Geyserville (2006 vintage) Zinfandel. We shared it around the table, and it was one of the finest Zins I have had–ever. They mentioned changing the wine list soon, and I hope that they keep the wines from that vineyard.

After a great deal of deliberation (they had veal and duck on the menu which I have a hard time turning down) I ordered the Rack of Lamb. It was cooked exactly as I had asked and served with asparagus and their 30 Layer Potato Au Gratin (a specialty) and everything was just beautiful. And flavorful. And delicious. And…. I loved it. I saved some to bring home (the wife couldn’t come) but I enjoyed every bite.

Dessert was the only mildly disappointing part–and only because I didn’t ask my questions before I ordered. I had the Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie, which isn’t made on site. For a dessert purchased off site, it was still pretty good, but had I asked before I ordered, I would have had the chocolate mousse with Chambord glaze. I tasted my neighbor’s and it was just lovely. Definitely getting that next time. Enjoyed the dessert nonetheless and ordered a Booker’s (neat) to go with it. This is a small batch bourbon not often found in local restaurants, and I enjoyed it greatly.

I was thoroughly impressed with everything (and the decor was nice too!) last night, and will certainly be back. Probably next month for my anniversary.

Thanks for the invite, Shane! It is one of the finest meals I’ve had, and rivals some of the restaurants in big cities like DC. I’ll be back as often as I can afford it.

And you bloggers that didn’t take him up on the invite–Shame on you! You missed out on a great meal and a great time.

Two25 is a great local restaurant and a credit to Peoria. Be sure to check it out soon!

Our default restaurant is Kelleher’s, but I was in the mood for something different, or even new. TC reminded me that we had talked about trying Richard’s on Main for a while now and still hadn’t.

We parked in front of the restaurant, arriving a little before 8, and got a prime parking spot. We rooted around for change before realizing that meters don’t need to be fed in the evening–a good start for our dinner!

The place was pretty empty (it’s Monday after all) and we decided to get a table rather than sit at the bar and be distracted by the football game.

Our appetites have been changing, and we’ve finally decided that it’s a better investment to not buy two entrees and end up taking half of both home, or overeating (we’d both like to lose weight). So after perusing the menu, we settled on splitting the fried portabello caps (hand breaded, we found out later) and the Ribeye with sautéed mushrooms. TC’s cutting back on carbs so we chose cottage cheese for the side order. Oh, and I had an Erdinger’s draught.

The beer was bigger than I expected, and Erdinger’s is a wonderful wheat ale (Bavarian) that I very much enjoy. Light and tasty. (My friend Ralph turned me on to it). The food arrived and we dug in.

The steak was prepared perfectly, and was tender and juicy and mmmmm so good. The mushrooms were very good, served with a side of ranch dress sing.

I liked the decor, it’s a beautifully done basement with tin ceiling tiles. I could have gone for the game being a bit quieter, but it was not as noisy, even then, as Kelleher’s would have been.

We’ll be back.

I had four helpings of salad. Usually I pass on it.

Fresh vegetables make a huge difference, and I’m glad to have friends who share their gardening surplus with us. We’ve not been home at the right times and ambitious enough to get veggies of our own, but have enjoyed greatly the generosity of others in that.

Mmmm. Fresh tomatoes.

Oh and there’s fresh salsa in the fridge too. Mmmm.

Health: Better Safe Than Sorry – US News and World Report
Andrew Stout’s farm in Carnation, Wash., is one of the most successful small organic farms in the country. Each week, Full Circle Farm delivers fresh lettuce, green peas, spring garlic, and spinach to 17 farmers’ markets in the Seattle area, as well as to dozens of restaurants and retailers, including Whole Foods Market. Some 2,400 boxes of produce a week go out to families who have bought a share in the farm’s riches. His customers are counting on getting freshness and taste-and also on Stout’s care when it comes to hygiene. “Bacteria exists everywhere,” he says. So he keeps the manure pile away from the packing shed, tests the water used to irrigate and wash vegetables, and keeps an eye on his workers to be sure they wash their hands. “I’m a food provider,” he says. “You want to do the absolute best that you can.”

The rapidly growing passion for locally grown produce from farmers like Stout and his wife, Wendy Munroe, is one sign of just how nervous Americans have become about the state of food on their plate.

Holy Cow! Whole Foods Linked to E. coli Outbreak – The Checkout
Whole Foods initiated the recall after Massachusetts health officials investigating a cluster of E. coli illnesses discovered all seven victims had bought meat at Whole Foods. The chain pulled ground beef from some of its stores on Wednesday. The Nebraska Beef recall was announced late Friday night.

The first article I linked to above is one I read about a year ago while in Arizona visiting my parents, the second is one I saw on my Google homepage this morning.

Food. It’s the stuff we take in that God has designed to give us energy, life, health, and enjoyment. Certainly God could have designed a “more efficient” way for us to get our calories in, but food was given for enjoyment, for feasting. And we miss it when we fast–turning us back to Him.

But food lately has become a knotty issue, as these two articles point out. Food can be dangerous. It can give death almost as easily as it brings life, because it can carry with it many dangerous things that exist in our world since the fall. Most people in our nation look for the FDA and the USDA to guard the quality and safety of the food supply. But can they? I mean, short of inspecting every single food item before it hits your grocery store, is that even possible? And what would that do to the tax cost of food? And is it even their job?

The first article talks about a growing movement of buying food that is local. Food that you know where it came from. Certainly that doesn’t eliminate safety concerns, but doesn’t it make them smaller than a federal agency ever could? In the old days people would buy meat from a butcher that they knew, who bought the meat directly from a farmer that they probably knew as well. The grocer? He carried vegetables and such from local farmers also. And so on.

Do you know where your food comes from? Have you ever asked they guy at the meat counter where those chickens were raised and what they were fed? He probably doesn’t know. (As an aside, I have had conversations with people at both Alwan and Sons and Pottstown Deli locally and I got an answer, and usually it was someplace I could find out more about if I wanted to.)

If you don’t know where your food comes from, you are at risk. Maybe not huge risk, but since the largest organic food vendor (Whole Foods Market) in the United States just had meat issues, I don’t think you can even say that buying organic makes you safer.

But if you grow your own veggies or get them from a friend or neighbor or a local farmer–they’re likely to be safer, and at least you can ask more questions about what they grew near, what fertilizer was used, etc. And if you take responsibility for your consumption purchases, you will always be better off in the long run, and safer. We buy most of our meat directly from local farmers and prefer veggies from the same, when we can get them. (Here’s a link to a video of a chicken plucker that we got to help with, and help a farmer, who gave us a sizeable chicken for our work).

And you just might help a local business thrive instead of a big box.

So if you don’t know where your food came from, think about it, and consider changing that. If you do–good job!

I’m sure I’ll have more to write on this later, but be careful what you eat, especially if you have no idea where it’s been.