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An exciting venue is making its way to the shores of Suttons Bay this summer, as the area hosts its first Blues Festival. Graciously stepping into the role of Jazz Festivals past, this one-day event summons the best of Blues and brings it center stage to Leelanau County. What participants can expect to see and enjoy is an extravaganza of stellar music complimented by local eats, wine and cider, and even Moomer's will bring ice cream to cool off the smokin' summers blues sets.

The line-up for the Blues Festival includes: Harper, Sneaky Pete, Pete Fetter's Electric Band with Sonny Landreth as the headliner. Sonny brings an unusual sound to the festival, and coordinators are particularly excited to share his performance.

Though I am no blues aficionado, nor have I ever seen Sonny Landreth in person, watching some video clips of this outrageous talent was enough to make me want to salivate. A guitar is a guitar, right? Not exactly. Sonny has created his own style of slide guitar playing, employing both his hands but using his right hand in an almost conductive manner, he appears to be "telling" the guitar what to do, and amazingly--she complies! To lovers of blues and seasoned musicians, Sonny's accolades come straight from the top--Eric Clapton. No one will be disappointed. Seeing this man perform will drop the jaws of even novice blues fans.

I jokingly made a comment to some friends the other day that "blue" was the official color of Leelanau County; the joke seems to have some staying power and the Blues Festival brings yet another shade to the already prolific palate: blue water, blue sky, blue stones, and now--the Blues Fest! The origins of Blues music, an African-American history in the south, spreads its infectious rhythms to our region; this unique and rich area is gifted with the good fortune of people that appreciate music and art at big city caliber. This festival offers another chance to experience the magic of Blues music, set against the backdrop of a gorgeous Northern Michigan lakeside town, enriching our region with another brilliant hue of blue.

The festival is schedule for Saturday, July 25th, from noon until 9pm. Tickets are widely available at local retailers or online at http://www.suttonsbaybluesfestival.com/; organizers are holding the tickets at $20 advance/$25 door, making the show accessible to everyone.

The annual Cedar Polka Festival runs Thursday through Sunday (July 2-5). Highlights include a parade on Saturday at noon, softball tournament, a polka mass and (of course) polka under the big, big tent with the big names of polka.

Thursday, July 2, 2009
The 28th annual Cedar Polka Festival begins with the flag raising ceremony at 5:00 p.m. Music and dancing begins immediately after the ceremony. Musicians, Frank Moravick, from Cleveland, OH and Jimmy K, from Strongville, OH with rotate playing until 1 am.

Friday, July 3, 2009
Music and dancing beings at 2 pm with Jimmy K playing until 5:30. Roger Majesti, from Mosinee, WI and Frank Moravick will play alternately until 1 am.

Saturday, July 4, 2009
Polka Fest Parade beings at noon at the Solon Twp. Hall. All participants should be at the Solon Twp. Hall by 11:30 am sharp.

Music and dancing begins at 2 pm Roger Majesti playing until 5:30 pm. Polka Music Sound from Davidson, MI with alternately play with Larry and the Larks from Ada, MI until 1 am.

Sunday, July 5, 2009
Polka Mass celebrated with Bishop Cooney begins at 11 am under the tent. Music and dancing resumes at 1 pm with Polka Music Sound and Pan Franek and Zosia.

Admissions (per person)
Thursday - $5.00
Fri. & Sat. - $10.00
Sunday - $5.00
3 Day Pass - $20.00
Ages 13-20 - 1/2 price when accompanied by parent
Ages 12 & Under - Free when accompanied by parent

Bands subject to change. Space available for rent on the tennis court.

For Info Phone: (231) 228-3378 or (231) 228-5562

The photo is Polka Dancing in Krakow by beastiekeith.

Check out the Library of Congress Local Legacies

and the Leelanau.com/map Cedar Polka Fest location

If the old adage is true--"you are what you eat"--then you are destined to be a delicious and beautiful bounty, for that is what Leelanau County offers this summer. The best of what Leelanau grows will be available to you at one of the five farmers market locations in our area. While most begin in mid-June, the Suttons Bay market set up last Saturday.

The Leelanau Farmers Market is kicking off its 9th year and adding Northport as a new market location. This means you will not have to go far to find some of the superior food offered by our region and if you happen miss one, check the schedule and take a short drive to one of the other towns. Soon there will be snow peas and strawberries, maple syrup and honey--everything that reminds you of summer and how good it is to be here and alive.

A comprehensive guide to the local offerings, from U-pick strawberry fields to local wineries, is summarized in the annual Taste the Local Difference guide which is available throughout the region.  The guide includes farms and winery listings, CSA contacts, addresses, phone numbers and an index to seasonal food availability. A kind of phone book for food.  No need to shuffle through the yellow pages--just pick up a guide and start eating!

Check out the season schedule and find the market closest to you.

2009 SEASON -- location, dates & times:

Empire (downtown near the Post Office)

Saturdays, June 13 - September 26, 2009  9am - 1pm

Glen Arbor (downtown, behind the Township Hall)

Tuesdays, June 16 - September 1, 2009    9am-1pm

Leland (parking lot across from The Bluebird Restaurant)

Thursdays, June 18 - September 3, 2009   9am - Noon

Northport - NEW IN 2009! (at The Depot, next to the marina)

Fridays, June 19-September 18, 2009  9am - 1pm

Suttons Bay (corner of Lincoln & Broadway, at skating rink)

Saturdays, May 16 - October 17, 2009      9am - 1pm

Here's an essay from James D. Sprattmoran to shake things up a little...
This evening after work I walked on the hillside among poplars and basswood looking in the leaf-fall for morels. In an hour I filled a mesh bag with thirty and came home and sautéed them in butter and olive oil and sprinkled them with sea salt and parsley with a splash of chardonnay and savored these first flavors of spring. As I walked I thought of how avaricious I become searching among deadwood. I always want more and more, and must remind myself the handful I gather is enough for one meal; any more will simply turn my taste and ruin my appetite.

The first cherries blossomed today, a muted white against the freshets of green upwelling from the warming earth. The orchards, hazed with bloom, undulate over drumlins, this brief ecstatic explosion that will be gone in a week. I see the farmers have the hives on the hills hoping the bees will be warm enough this year to do their work.

With these first warm days, temperatures over seventy, we turn out into the world in our spring colors and pale skins, seeking the celebration of others. Lingering on the stoop or the office steps, we chat about whatever comes to mind, our spirits coursing with the season. Like snakes, we slough our winter selves---sometime soon it will happen to you, your eyes will go opaque and your skin will feel too tight and you’ll have to rub against something abrasive to get it to split and then you’ll writhe and wriggle to extricate yourself from what garbed and girded you all winter. Sudden, we look around and everyone fills radiant new skins—dazzling, spectacular.

With May I suffer a strange melancholy—not that I want the dark days back, but I understand why most suicides occur once the weather warms. There is something oppressive about so much sun and light—the desperate desire to fill every moment with activity. The manic impulse to live as rampantly as the frogs and songbirds, tulips and plum blossoms. I think of the irony of Emily Dickinson’s “heavenly hurt.” Hell, when all the world is breaking open before our eyes, it seems antithetical to continue in such staid conditioning. Better to throw off fetters and frolic. Perhaps the Celts knew the power of such jubilation when they celebrated Beltane, lighting the bonfires and dancing and swooning all night into summer.

With the changing season gas prices rise and the pressure of economic uncertainty abates a bit. Soon the gardens will be fruiting: asparagus, strawberries, rhubarb; then greens and snow peas; suddenly the gardens will blaze with poppies. Maybe it is easier to withstand hunger when the world is green than when no leaves grace the trees. Or maybe the news has changed, or the timbre in the newscasters’ voices. Maybe the end of the world is still a ways away and we can all keep on keeping on. After all, the swine flue turned out to be less swinish than anticipated. Instead of annihilation, we wake and go to work and have to pay the bills.

The other day my friend and I spoke about how time is conditional: sometimes compressed, sometimes telescoped, depending on light and love and the many arbitrary exigencies we encounter on waking. This May, the light fills the lakes past dusk and I feel I can linger as evening falls; after all I know at fifty I have an finite number of evenings left to me.

Photo: Into the Woods by jimflix

Here's the first feature from our new writer Cherie Spaulding - please say hello and welcome to Leelanau.com!

It's springtime once again in Northern Michigan, and not only have daffodils broken through, confirmations of morel mushrooms are arriving daily. For a few short weeks, folks flock to the woods in search of this elusive, edible mushroom.

Morel mushroom taste delicious, this is no secret, but the season itself is a sort of cultural absurdity. The "hunters" protect the whereabouts of their source as if it were the location of the Holy Grail. If you have ever wondered who your true friends are or just how well you have transferred your status from "down-stater" to "local" you find out pretty quickly during morel season.

Unfortunately, the toughest part about morel season is not deciding how to prepare this earthy delicious fungi; nor is the greatest challenge identifying them from other common mushrooms. The most difficult part of morel hunting is locating and claiming your own special spot, relatively secure from open-mouthed paper sacks and the hungry claws of hunters. Once you find one and finally sink your teeth in, you won't regret a single moment spent in pursuit of this earthly goodness--morels are divine!

As eager as you may be to fry up a fresh pick, consider a few pointers from avid hunters in our region:

1. KNOW YOUR SHROOMS. Learn to identify the "true morel" before you head in to the woods, or at least make certain you have the real deal before you serve them for dinner.

2. PROPER COLLECTING RECEPTACLE. Avid hunters insist on using a potato or orange bag--something netted, with holes--for collecting. A paper bag is fashionable, too, but purist prefer that pickers leave a trail of spores falling through the holes in the bag. (I recently read that the mushrooms begin to decompose almost immediately if they cannot "breathe," so collecting them in a plastic bag is poor practice, but would suffice in pinch.)

3. LEARN THE LOCATIONS. An oak forest will probably never produce a morel, so say the experts; be sure to look for ash, maple, elm, poplar, and apple trees, commonly referred to as "host trees." Morels may be found in surprisingly varied soil conditions, near sandy dune or swamp. Returning to the exact location year after year may or may not produce satisfying results. Generally a successful location one year will breed abundance the next, but one never knows. That is why they call this little bugger--elusive--one just never knows exactly where to look.

4. GET PERSONAL. One of the most successful hunters I know spends a significant amount of time on bent knee. Once you discover one morel, there are bound to be others, so staying calm and surveying the surroundings often proves the most productive tactic. When a morel is spotted, hunt around, but tread lightly. Many morel have been overlooked, or worse yet--squashed--in hasty anticipation of potential finds.

5. LEAVE A TRACE. Besides stealing someone's favorite spot, the greatest mushrooming faux pas one can commit is to pick the mushroom--root and all--from the ground. Instead of this method, break the mushrooms stem and leave the remaining stem and root in the ground. The idea, I think, is to leave a few spores for the next year, but other hunters gauge the abundance of the area by what remains, and there is still a strange satisfaction in knowing that you missed them by only a moment or two. (Do not leave garbage in the woods, however.)

6. BE SAFE! This applies to ALL aspects of the hunt: searching, finding, identifying and eating. Use a compass in the woods if you have no sense of direction (or even if you do.) Take friends or tell someone your plans. Have a snack and water handy, and a jacket never hurt.

7. BE CONSIDERATE.

8. HAVE FUN! Most important facet of all.

Salmon Fillets With Morel Mushrooms

Ingredients:

• 3 Tbsp. butter
• 5 shallots, minced
• 18 ounces morels, trimmed, cleaned and sliced
• 3/4 cup bottled clam juice
• 3/4 cup dry white wine
• 3 Tbsp. whipped cream
• 2 tsp. chopped fresh tarragon or 1/2 tsp. dried
• 6 8-ounce salmon fillets
• fresh lemon juice
• 2 Tbsp. butter, melted

Melt 3 tablespoons butter in heavy large skillet over medium heat. Add shallots and sauté 2 minutes. Increase heat to medium-high. Add Morels; sauté until beginning to brown, about 8 minutes. Add clam juice and wine; boil until liquids have almost evaporated, about 20 minutes.

Add cream to mushrooms; boil until thickened, about 1 minute. Mix in chopped tarragon. Season with salt and pepper.

Preheat broiler. Arrange salmon skin side down on broiler pan. Brush with lemon juice, then butter. Broil until just cooked through, without turning, about 6 minutes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Transfer to plates. Spoon Morels over.

Serves 6

Ready for my closeup (Leelanau Cheese) by Andy McFarlane

News from the Week

News from the week was just all events with stories on the Empire Asparagus Festival, Saturdays at the Lakeshore in May, the Manitou 2009 Music Festival and the Exposures 2009 Opening Reception. There was also a cool Cherry Blossoms photo from  leelanau2010.

The Week's Weather

We finally got those April showers in the last week of the month - seemed like more rain than the other 3 weeks. Not sure if they'll bring May flowers, morels or both!

April 23, 2009: Light rain & 50s (57/24)
April 24, 2009: Sunny & 80! (82/43)
April 25, 2009: Thunderstorms & low 70s (73/39)
April 26, 2009: Light rain & 40s (50/39)
April 27, 2009: Light rain & 70 (73/43)
April 28, 2009: Scattered showers & upper 40s (51/36)
April 29, 2009: Sunny, breezy & 60s (66/29)

Explore Leelanau News & Events

Get more events (and add your own) at the Leelanau Calendar. Check out today's weather and the Leelanau News Archive from April 2008.

Check out the Leelanau Almanac for the Week of April 16-22, 2009 and the Leelanau Almanac for the Week of April 30 - May 6, 2009.

The 6th Annual Empire Asparagus Festival will be held May 15-17, 2009 and features a slew of asparagus-themed events including a fun run (or walk),  Asparagus recipe contest, the Asparagus Parade, chalk art, music & dance and kids games. New this year is the Asparagus Eats/Wine and Beer Tasting. You can get all the details on the tasty eats and drinks below!

Much more Asparagus Festival info from the Empire Chamber.

You'll also want to check out a writeup on the Asparagus Festival from the Traverse City CVB and Stalking Local Asparagus in Empire from MyNorth.com. The Traverse City Record-Eagle had a nice story on the 2006 Empire Asparagus Festival (40 gallons of asparagus soup served!)

Here's a link to an article on asparagus from Taste the Local Difference.

(more...)

Wild Kitchen is a new feature from Timothy Young, owner and chef at Food for Thought. Be sure to visit their web site for great organic and wild harvested gourmet products food products. If you have any questions or comments, post them below in the comments or email timothy@foodforthought.net.

Okay, there is still some snow in the woods, but it's time to start thinking about wild leeks.

4 potatoes (red skin)
4 slices bacon
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons white sugar or rice syrup
1/3 cup water
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1/2 cup diced wild leeks (bulb and leaf)
1/4 cup diced red pepper
salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add potatoes; cook until tender but still firm, about 15 minutes. Drain, cool and chop.
2. Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain, crumble and set aside. Reserve bacon fat.
3. Add leek whites to bacon fat and sautee until translucent or just beginning to brown.
4. add the flour, sugar, water and vinegar to skillet and cook over medium heat until dressing is thick.
5. Add bacon, potatoes and green sliced leek greens to skillet and stir until coated. Cook until heated and season with salt and pepper. Serve warm or cold.

Photo by Brian Confer

Smelt season is here! Wikipedia's smelt entry explains:

Smelts are a family, Osmeridae, of small fish found in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. They are common in the North American Great Lakes, and in the lakes and seas of the northern part of Europe, and run in large schools along the coastline during their spring migration to their spawning streams.

It is one of the few fish that sportsmen are allowed to net, using dip nets, either along the coastline or in the streams. Some sportsmen also ice fish for smelt. Smelt are often fried and eaten whole.

In Michigan and other Great Lake states of USA, "smelt dipping" is a common group sport in the early spring months (when the stream water reaches approximately 4°C, 40-42f). Fish are spotted using a flashlight / headlamp (the best smelt dipping is in the middle of the night from 10:00pm - 2:00am) and scooped out of the water using a dip net made of nylon or metal mesh. The smelt are cleaned by removing the head and the entrails. Fins, scales, and bones of all but the largest of smelts are cooked without removal.

Never had smelt? You might want to head over to the 49th Annual Smelt Dinner next Friday (Apr 3) from 3-8 PM or until the smelt runs out! It takes place at the cedar Town Hall and is sponsored by the Cedar Rod and Gun Club.

My favorite smelt have always been at the Blue Bird and for dipping, Fishtown as a kid and Shalda Creek now - anyone have anything to add? Post it in the comments!

Photo: Smelt dipping near Houghton, MI April 2006

Eat, Drink & Be Merry on BlogTalkRadio is presenting a couple of Leelanau experts in their show this afternoon about Delicious, Healthy & Earth Friendly Foods at 2:30 PM TODAY.

You can tune into to listen to a diverse panel that includes folks including Timothy Young, President & Chef of Food For Thought and Mimi Wheeler, Owner & Chocolatier of Grocer's Daughter Chocolate. If you'd like to call in, the number is (914) 338-1784.

Photo: Wild Leeks (as in Wild Leek Relish) from Food for Thought