Dig IN - 2013

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending my 4^th consecutive Dig IN at White River State Park.  I luckily had early entry (thanks to Dig IN for giving me free tickets in exchange for being a gastronaut).  One thing I decided after the last couple of years, is getting in that extra hour is key to beat the crowds.

However, even if you came with regular entry tickets this year, I don’t think the crowds were as bad. In fact, I think this was probably the best Dig IN yet for several reasons. This year they actually intentionally sold fewer tickets (like 1000 fewer!) and it made all the difference. There were lines, but not like I have seen in the past. And while a few places ran out of food before the end of the day, I haven’t heard of it being a big issue (as I have in the past). There were a lot of people, but it wasn’t so overwhelming.

A few of my faves

Also, I really think the food was overall the best of any year. There were no dishes that seemed repeated too much and there were very few things that I didn’t enjoy.  This was a particularly hard year for me to pick favorites because so many things were good (and I ate SO much).  A couple of the highlights for me were the pork torchon with pickled vegetables and micro herbs from Craig Baker of the Local, the little berry bruschetta that came alongside the pho from Chef Roberts of Meridian, and the bacon and white cheddar grits from Chef Muro of Valley Kitchen & Bar. That little crisp, thick piece of bacon was amazing.  I also really enjoyed the chanterelle vegetable bisque for Duos food truck. It was a hot day to eat hot soup, but it was worth it. I appreciated cooling off after that with the nearby “My Dad’s” Sweet corn popsicle from Nicey Treats.

The VIP tent had some extra special plates of goodness from Bluebeard, The Libertine, Recess, and Cerulean. Hubby and I particularly enjoyed the duck rillettes bun with pickled watermelon, shallots and aioli from Bluebeard. What a great little flavor combo.  All of the food in that area makes buying a VIP ticket completely worth it though—it was all really good (not to mention the cool, larger portable bathrooms).

VIP

Several of you mentioned your favorites to me on twitter and instagram (and I didn’t get to try all of them, but I did get most of them).  From the word on the street (or the social media) the favorites I picked up on were the pulled pork fritter and watermelon shooter from Chef Russo of the Severin Bar and the meatballs from Chef Davey of Courses Restaurant (at Ivy Tech). Please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong! I can’t wait to hear what your favorites were (and hope I didn’t miss too much).

One of the things that I really like about Dig IN is that year after year, they figure out what worked and what didn’t and make improvements. I think they are pretty golden on the set up of the food and drink tents.  Last year, there were shortages of water and this year, I thought that was perfected with big icy barrels of water bottles scattered throughout. I also loved that they were making a real effort to recycle and compost everything (even though it was a little complicated making sure you got everything in the right container, I made a real effort and even had a volunteer thank me for doing it exactly right).  One complaint I heard quite a bit though was that there just weren’t enough of the trashcans. That's easily solved for next year though.

As far as other improvements, the only other thing I saw (and experienced) was problems with the lines for checking in/will call etc.  The lines were not clearly marked and many people (including me) were shuffled into several lines before getting to the place they needed to be.  I think that’s an easy fix though, and even with the confusion, only cost me about 10 minutes.

All in all, I am very impressed to see the way Dig IN has grown and matured, but has maintained a desire to stay at a manageable, personal size. The crowd was big, but yet seemed friendlier at its slightly smaller size—I know I ran into a lot more people that I knew this year. It just seemed more social somehow. I appreciate that Dig IN maintains its famer-based, hyper local food focus and that every person has the opportunity to personally interact with chefs and producers. I think that’s the point of Dig IN and I hope it continues that way.  

The food was better than it has ever been, the weather was great as usual, and I even enjoyed several beers—I particularly liked the Special K Kolsch from the Bier Brewery. Another thing you have to credit Dig IN with—getting me to try more beer. Somehow, the weather always inspires me to drink beer.

I would love to hear from you all to hear about your favorite bites and drinks…was this your first year, or are you a veteran like me? Let’s hear your thoughts! 

Dig IN

A Taste of Indiana

www.digindiana.org 

Dig In 2012

I tweeted a lot about this year’s Dig In, so I am going to keep my post fairly brief and just talk about a few of my favorite dishes from this year (in no particular order) (and I didn’t get to try every single item, although I did try a lot of them).

Goose the Market’s “walking taco”

You can always count on something interesting from Chris Ely of Goose the Market and Smoking Goose and this year was no exception.  (You can also count on some of the longest lines there). You got a little paper bag full of tender goat meat and some crunchy cracklins on the bottom—the “tacos” had a bit of seasoning in the form of some chopped onions, but mainly you got to add toppings yourself.  There was tomatillo salsa, a creamy sauce, corn pico de gallo, cilantro, cabbage slaw (the things I remember off the top of my head).  I put a little bit of most of the things on and really enjoyed it.  And I am sure goat is certainly a meat that a lot of Indy people might not have had before.

Brad Gates Catering Bison Succotash

This dish included a decent portion of slow cooked bison shoulder with lots of great local (and crispy fresh) veggies—corn, cabbage, green beans and tomatoes.  I thought this was one of the dishes that had the most varied flavors and the meat was also super tender.  As it turned out, it was one that had quite a line later in the day as well.

Late Harvest Corn Salad

I loved Late Harvest’s corn, walnut, goat cheese, and housemade pancetta salad.  The pancetta was nice and salty and I really enjoyed that this dish also had a bit of acid to it—there was a lot of rich food to eat at Dig In, and this one stuck out to me because it was different and was a really nice combination of flavors.  I may have to try and recreate this one at home.

Chef JJ’s Sweet Cheeks

This was a dish that was somewhat similar to Brad Gates’ dish, but made with pork—and I loved the crunchy bits of falafel on top.  Few dishes could really give a good crunch under these circumstances and this one was really good.

Duos (Food Truck) Goat Cheese Quesadilla

This was probably my favorite vegetarian option and I really enjoyed that it was also something totally different from pretty much everything else. It was a potato, mustard green and goat cheese quesadilla.  You definitely need to like goat cheese to like this one, but I love goat cheese and thought it was really good.  I liked that there were veggies being used that weren’t the corn, tomato and green beans that were in a lot of dishes (and I love all of those things as well, don’t get me wrong).

I got to go as a VIP (I was given 2 tickets for my work as a gastronaut), which meant we got in the gates at 11:00 and didn’t have to wait in line for much of anything, which was really nice.  Overall, our impression was that the food has continued to improve over the course of the 3 years that Dig In has been around. My general observations about the food this year--tacos and chilled soups were the most popular dish and many people tried to come up with novel ways to serve the food that didn't require a spoon or fork, which was nice since you are walking and eating. (Which reminds me, the little tortilla filled with pork and seasoning from Indiana Downs was also really good--see pic below.)

The good news is they ended up selling out all the available tickets, which was a goal I know they wanted to achieve and it makes me happy that so many people were excited to eat local Indiana food. The downside, from what I saw and have been hearing, is that the lines got really long shortly after 12 and remained that way for most of the afternoon.  Apparently several chefs also ran out of food by 3:00 or so.  I am not sure what the solution is, but hopefully they will get it all worked out by next year (although there will always be lines I think).  I know I really enjoyed my day and nearly everything I ate.

So what were your favorites? And what was your experience like?

Dig In

A Taste of Indiana

www.digindiana.com

Dig In 2011

This past Sunday hubby and I attended the 2^nd annual Dig In at White River State Park.  I’m excited that we have gotten to go to Dig In since its inception last year (here’s my post from last year).  I now have a goal of collecting a nice set of Dig In glasses from each year.

I was very impressed to see that the organizers certainly paid attention to how things went last year and made some great improvements.  First of all, last year the food booths were all lined up next to each other and as people walked in, they just started going to the booths in order causing a giant line going out the front entrance.  This year they set up separate little groupings of tents that had 6-9 providers (food and beer/wine samples).  Then if you wanted to purchase a glass or bottle of anything to drink, you went to a central tent to do that.  Last year the beer and wine were sort of crammed into one tent, making it hard to get to some of them.  I was amazed how much better the access to everything was this year (although when it got busy, there were some long lines).  You also got a passport so that you were only supposed to sample things once (with a few bonus samples in case you wanted 2 of something really good).  This was a good way from preventing the same people from repeating certain items too much I guess.  The way the booths were set up, the lines sort of spiraled out from each area too so that two lines didn’t back into each other so much.  They also made a nice attempt to be more eco-friendly using compostable plates and having recycling bins scattered throughout (too bad no one was paying attention to how the bins were labeled). Also, the weather was perfect.  

There were several new chefs preparing food this year, but I was sad to see several that were there last year were not there this year. But I ate a ton of stuff (who needed dinner after all that?) but did not hit everything, so please let me know what I missed if you think there was a standout that I didn’t talk about.  Here were some of my highlights in no particular order:

The crispy pulled pork with braised beans, rendered bacon and pork jus, hickory syrup and pork flavored foam from JW Mariott chef Brendon Cheney.  All of these things were layered and served in a little shot glass.  The pork was tender, but I liked all the other elements mixed in there too (sorry, I already started eating when I thought to take a picture).

The smoked turkey and ginger sausage with blueberry mostarda and root veggie kraut on a bun from Smoking Goose/Goose the Market chef Chris Eley.  I loved the flavor of the sausage although the casing was so firm you couldn’t really bite through it.  We sort of squeezed out the inside and it tasted great.  I also liked the way they wrapped the little bites in a paper wrapper making carrying around a plate or anything else with unnecessary.

The duck and goat cheese dumplings with sweet and sour peach sauce from Brad Gates Catering chef Brad Gates.  The dumpling was tender and the somewhat sweet sauce was great with the goat cheese. There was a nice crunch from some cabbage in there as well.

The “My Dad’s Sweet Corn” chowder from Circle City Sweets chef Roger Hawkins.  I have talked about this soup before and really enjoyed it, but I loved the way they added texture to it by adding some fresh corn kernels and bacon on top (which is exactly what I did last time I bought a quart at the Farmer’s Market—added fresh corn and some crispy prosciutto).

The Gunthrop Farms pork tacos with all the fixins’ from Restaurant Tallent chef Dave Tallent.  The tortillas were grilled, the pork had a nice amount of seasoning and I liked that they let you add as much corn and tomato relish, hot sauce and slaw as you wanted.  It was a tasty little taco.

The Sun King braised duck with arugula, roasted corn poblano and goat cheese crème fraiche with heirloom tomato hot pepper sauce served on flatbread from Indigo Duck chef Joseph Hewett.  I appreciated that even in an outdoor event, the restaurant took the effort to put together a somewhat complicated dish.  The duck was tender and I liked getting a little bit of greens.

The bread pudding with caramel sauce and a bit of whipped cream from Keltie’s Restaurant chef Keltie Sullivan Domina.  Just when I thought I was full, my lovely husband brought me the bread pudding.  The bread was warm and soft and the caramel sauce thick and sweet.  A perfect way to end the food portion of the day.

So these are just a few highlights. I know I personally ate much more this year and I really enjoyed myself—and I think the attendance was up substantially from last year. I even managed to find some Indiana wine that wasn’t too bad (I usually find it too sweet on the whole).  I think the event improved by leaps and bounds from its first year to its second, and I look forward to seeing how it goes next year.  If they were asking my advice, here are a few improvements I would suggest:  Make water available, even if it is for sale.  There was only one place to get water that we could find and it was in the very front of the event near the entrance.  I was with someone who brought her children and finding bottles of water was a bit of a challenge.  Also, because parking near the entrance filled up in the first hour or so, it would be great if they had people checking people in/handing out over 21 bracelets near the zoo bridge entrance as well.  Finally, if they are serious about recycling, they need more of those special recycling bins with the tops that only fit bottles and cans (there were some there I noticed).  Anyhow, those are my 2 cents.

I would love to hear everyone’s thoughts about the event as well as what your favorite things to eat were (or what you thought of the other activities like the speakers).  Did you go last year? Did you see improvements? Come on, let’s hear your thoughts.

Dig In
A Taste of Indiana
http://www.digindiana.org/

Zoobilation 2011

It has been a couple of years since we’ve been to Zoobilation, but we were able to get there this year—it’s always fun to people watch at this event, particularly later in the evening.  I also ate a ton of different things, but here were some of the highlights that stuck out in my mind:

Tilapia ceviche from Adobo.  Maybe because it was so hot, but the cold dishes were hitting the spot.  This ceviche was light and limey with a hint of heat from jalapeno, and had a perfect slice of avocado on the plate. 

Shrimp, octopus and tuna ceviche with avocado, cucumber, cilantro, tomato, soy and yuzu from H20. It was served on a tortilla chip and the flavor was great.  I also like that it was easy to eat—not so big that you made a mess, and it was easy to walk and eat it.  Handling your drink and a plate with a fork got to be a little challenging sometimes—especially when you are trying to take pictures of it on top of everything else.  And I noticed it is on the menu tonight at H20, so you can go check it out yourself if you want.

Lobster voodoo from Ruth’s Chris. These were two small pieces of deep fried lobster tail that were coated in a spicy voodoo sauce.  They had quite an impressive set up with deep fryers behind the booth.  This was one hubby went back to for 3 helpings throughout the night.

Baked snow crab rolls from Sensu.  These were nice bite sized items as well—just one piece of a sushi roll with snow crab and Dynamite sauce (chili, garlic and mayo) and crunchy bits of tempura.  It was rolled with rice paper.  This was a really nice bite as well—and I was excited to get to try this because we had just been to Sensu and almost ordered this on their menu and hadn’t.  (P.S. Look for my full review of Sensu on Monday).

Dessert-wise I had several things I really liked.  The sticky toffee pudding from R Bistro was outstanding—sort of like a dense spice cake topped with a caramel sauce. (This won one of the best of the best awards.  I also really enjoyed the dark chocolate tartlets which were filled with caramel and sprinkled with sea salt from Circle City Sweets and the chocolate cake shooters with buttercream frosting and a bit of raspberry from Cakes by Cathy—that may have been the moistest cake I have ever eaten.

Circle City Sweets

I was happy to see a lot fewer sliders than 2 years ago when we went. There was a really good variety of different types of things served in different styles.  I didn’t eat every single thing there, but I got a pretty healthy sampling of most of the things.  It was also fun to see a lot of our City’s great chefs all together in one place. 

If you went, tell me what you liked or didn’t and your overall impressions of the night.  It looked like a lot of people were having a lot of fun, even if they were all pretty sweaty!

Zoobilation 2011 (next year’s date is June 8^th)

Indianapolis Zoo

1200 West Washington Street

Indy, 46222

317/630-2001

http://www.indianapoliszoo.com/

Dig*In 2010

Yesterday, hubby and I attended the first Dig*IN event at White River State Park. Dig*IN was an event featuring growers and chefs from Indiana (mainly from Indianapolis, but there were some exceptions). There was also live music, discussion panels, cooking demonstrations, and wine and beer tastings. The chefs all prepared small dishes highlighting Indiana meat and produce and with the price of your admission, you could eat what you liked (a la Zoobilation if you have been, although there was much more focus at Dig*IN on local producers).

For an inaugural event, it seems like this event was quite a success. The crowds were large and the weather was great (if not a little too hot, but who's complaining?). People seemed very excited about the event and the enthusiasm showed. We couldn't stay for more than a couple hours, and of course, I mainly hit on the food part of the event (go figure), so I am just going to comment on a few of my favorite things I ate. There was so much to taste, but these are the ones that stand out in my mind (and I didn't get to try every single thing as a few booths ran out of food while we were there, or else the lines were just too long). If you were there, and partook of more of the other parts of the event (speakers, etc) I would love to hear your feedback. I would also love to hear your favorite food items as well (like I said, I missed a few!).

Some of my favorite things:


Peach smoked pork shoulder with peaches and blueberries on a crispy fried wonton from the Indiana Downs Restaurant (pictured with the little mini burger from Joseph Decuis. We'll get to that one in a minute.): The lady who was handing this out, said, "it's peach smoked pork, honey!" when asked what was being served. I have to say, this was one that took me by surprise coming from a local horse racing track. The pork was so tender it practically melted in your mouth and the sweetness from the fruit was great with it. And the wonton stayed crispy the entire time adding nice texture. I have now added this place to my list for sure. And I have never bet on horses, who knows, maybe it will be fun too!

Mini Wagyu beef burgers from Joseph Decuis: This place has been on my list already for awhile and now I know, for good reason. What a yummy little morsel--super tender grilled Wagyu beef burgers with goat cheese mousse and a spicy ketchup. Just the smell of these things grilling was a huge lure.

Tamale from Chef Steven Unrue of Tasting-A Wine Experience: These little rounds of tamales had a great corn flavor (surprised not to see more corn at this event) with spicy salsa and sour cream. This dish was different from most of the other things, and was quite well done. Again, another restaurant I have not yet been to that has moved up the list.

Lamb Sausage from Chef JJ's Backyard: This was a yummy piece of lamb sausage that were marinated in Indiana beer and then smoked on the Big Green Egg. The sausage had a great smoky flavor and was topped with a yogurt sauce. I enjoyed the tangy sauce combined with the rich, smoky meat. (Check out all that sausage cooking on the egg!)

Tomato/Goat Cheese from Chef Thom England and Ivy Tech Culinary School: This was simple but had a great combo of super fresh flavors. It was one slice of tomato, a dollop of soft goat cheese, slivers of basil and, the thing that made it shine, smoked salt from Hickoryworks. The smoky salt added just a bit of crunch and the nice salty edge that tomatoes love so much.

Watermelon Jalapeno Ice from H2O: What a great refresher on such a hot day. Tasted like pure frozen watermelon with just a hint of spice from the jalapeno. It hit the spot.

I could go on and on, and as I said, I didn't get to try everything, but these were my highlights. I think this event was a great way to showcase the amazing bounty Indiana offers and I hope to attend many more in the coming years. And don't forget, if you were there, tell me what you liked, or didn't, and what were your overall thoughts on the event. I would love to know.


Dig*In
A Taste of Indiana
http://www.digindiana.org/