Each week on This Bites, dining critic Ann Christenson from Milwaukee Magazine and Radio Milwaukee’s resident foodie Tarik Moody dig into the city’s culinary and restaurant culture to help you find new spots, old favorites and the best ingestibles around Milwaukee.
We’ve all heard that phrase from the headline used in culinary circles, especially in recent years. “Farm to table” signals a commitment to quality, local ingredients used in dishes served up by restaurants and other eateries — some of which take that commitment very seriously by being at the actual farm itself.
Ann wrote one of her helpful guides to this farm dinner phenomenon for Milwaukee Magazine, and that’s where we start this week’s episode of the podcast. It’s a conversation that’ll conjure up the sights and smells (hopefully not quite all the smells) of farm life as we highlight just a few of the places that put a plate in front of you featuring items grown and raised not too far from you.
The dinners we discuss, as well as the full list Ann put together, require you to travel outside Milwaukee. But we stick close to home as the episode continues, going just up the hill from Fiserv Forum to Pilot Project Brewing, which will host two upcoming events, one of which is quite close to my heart.
Last December, I organized the inaugural “Brown Black & Brews: The Fifth Ingredient” event featuring regional Brown- and Black-owned breweries. It’s back for another round Saturday, Aug. 26, with several returning participants and a couple new ones setting up at Pilot Project to offer samples and share their stories. We’ll talk about it a bit on the podcast, but you can also head over to the event webpage for tickets and more info.
If you’re in the mood for something more immediate happening at Pilot Project, stop by from 5 to 9 p.m. today and Saturday for the Avli Mezze Pop-Up. You might recognize that name being attached to the soon-to-reopen location in Brewers Hill overlooking the Milwaukee River. At Pilot, Avli’s will offer a menu of four Greek small plates as a preview of what we’ll find when the new spot opens its doors.
Also in the episode, we head west to Madison for a dairy lover’s dream and a lactose-intolerant person’s nightmare. The University of Wisconsin’s Center for Dairy Research is looking for “expert tasters” to sample cheese, pizza and other dairy products — and will pay 15 bucks an hour on top of the food benefits. Unfortunately, the application deadline will have passed by the time the episode posts, but we couldn’t NOT talk about this.
We’re always accepting new and returning listeners, so keep coming back for more episodes and share with any friends who would like what we’re dishing out. Also, please subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen if you have a moment. Thanks.
