Krik's Picks

We usually grill fish at least once a week. Usually it’s salmon. But this week my wife bought a nice looking piece of mahi mahi. I had a little time this afternoon to peruse recipes on Epicurious and decide on a menu. I found two recipes that featured roasted tomatoes. In Minnesota, we haven’t yet reached the peak of tomato season. In fact, we have only harvested 3 cherry tomatoes off our tomato plants so far. But I have previously written about my sister’s method of roasting tomatoes and then freezing them for use throughout the year. So the fact is, I used some of the roasted tomatoes from my freezer rather than running to a market for fresh tomatoes tonight. The first recipe that piqued my interest was for Greek-Style Mahi Mahi . It all sounded interesting. But I’d already decided to grill the fish, and the recipe called for broiling it with feta, herbs, and mayo. Still, the recipe called for making a tomato relish that sounded like a nice accompaniment. So I made that part ...

When I started talking about my plans to retire, the most common question was – What are you going to do with your time? I assured everyone that I had a long list of things that I wanted to do in retirement. But the top 3 are read, travel, and cook. READ My last day at the office was July 2. On July 3 my wife took me to the Edina public library. Now, of course, I read a lot at work – e-mail, newsletters, periodicals, reports. But I can’t tell you the last novel I read. It had been so long that the library had deactivated my account, and Linda had to check out the book for me. The first book I read in retirement was The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo . After I finished the book (loved it) and got my library account updated, I took Linda’s advice and downloaded the Hennepin County Library app for my iPad/iPhone. I also downloaded Overdrive Digital Library so that I could download and read eBooks. I downloaded and now am reading the second book in The Girl series – The Girl Who Playe...

When my wife and I accepted an invitation to spend July 4 weekend at my sister-in-law’s cabin, we volunteered to help with cooking. Our assignment was dinner on Friday night. We decided on salmon as the main course. I went to the internet to find a recipe/menu that would be good and creative but relatively simple to make, recognizing that the kitchen at the cabin has some limitations. (And besides, we weren’t going there to spend the whole afternoon cooking.) Here’s what I came up with: Pan Roasted Salmon Steaks with Sherry Vinegar-Honey Glaze and Spicy Tomato Relish and Parsleyed Potatoes . It’s a Bobby Flay recipe that I found on Food Network web site. But, I made a few changes. 1. I decided to grill the salmon rather than pan roast it. But I mean really, Bobby Flay is known for his grilling technique. In fact, the show that this recipe came from was called “Hot off the Grill.” 2. My wife doesn’t like spicy food. So I left the red pepper flakes out of the Spicy Tomato Relish. ...

It’s great to have an innovative restaurateur like Hector Ruiz working in your city. He and his wife have succeeded in bringing creative, high quality Latin cooking to South Minneapolis, and my wife and I have enjoyed each of his venues. We were quite dismayed when El Meson, his first restaurant, closed late in 2012. We had enjoyed dining there often. Besides great food, he often had flamenco music and dancing as entertainment. (Click here for a review of El Meson.) At least we still had Café Ena , his second venue, which is another personal favorite. But we shouldn’t have worried. Not even 6 months after closing El Meson, Ruiz opened Rincon 38 . It’s in the same neighborhood as Ena. The word ‘rincon’ means ‘corner.’ The restaurant is located on the corner of 38th and Grand in South Minneapolis. It’s not even a mile from Ena, which is at 46th and Grand. Rincon 38 is a tapas restaurant. We met friends and scored a table outside. It was a gorgeous evening and a relaxing way to enj...

The first thing I did in retirement, after my last day at the office, was have lunch with my son. As a north Minneapolis resident, Ben is a fan of Victory 44 . He’s taken my wife there, and I’ve wanted to go. We planned lunch for a little later – 1 p.m. When I arrived, Ben had already gotten us a table. There were not a lot of people in the restaurant. A few were eating outside on the patio. But it must have been quite hot because after we’d been there for a while, a group of 5 or 6 people moved inside. When you go to the Victory 44 web site, you get a narrated video of the chef/owner talking about his background and approach to cooking and running the restaurant. We started out with coffees. Ben loves the coffee specials that are available. (He teased his wife that he’d be having better coffee than she that day.) There are several options on the menu, but he opted for the ‘Barista’s choice.’ I’m more of a straight up caffeine kind of guy. I just ordered the French Press. When the ...

When Bar Louie opened in Uptown last year, my wife and I were intrigued. At the time, we weren’t aware that it’s a chain. But it sounded like a fun time especially the outdoor patio. It took almost a year, but we finally decided to try their happy hour. Happy hour is a pretty good deal. We went intending to have one of their $7 martinis, which we did. They were good, and $7 is a pretty good price for a martini. But we actually had a little bit of a hard time deciding on which martini to order. Most of them seemed a little too fruity for our tastes, and we actually ended up getting pretty basic martinis. For food, we got one order of calamari and a roasted vegetable flat bread. We liked the flat bread better. It had a nice crisp crust and the vegetables were very tasty. The calamari was good too, but was a little too greasy and gave my wife a stomach ache later in the evening. We arrived early and had no trouble being seated at a table on the patio. We really liked our server. H...