Growing up, my fish experiences were limited to Fridays and fish sticks. But once I discovered Monahan’s Seafood, in the Kerrytown Market, an entire world opened up. Monahan’s sells everything from Lake Superior whitefish to Copper River salmon to a lobster salad that rivals any you’ll find in Maine.

His shop also carries a full line of smoked fish from Durham’s Tracklements, another Kerrytown shop that’s known nationwide for its quality products.

Along with those ingredients, Monahan’s provides recipes, and lately, it has been cooking fish for its customers. Its small cafe is always busy with diners sampling his chowder, stir fries, fish dishes and the special of the day.

His most popular special is easily his Baja Fish Tacos, available on Mondays. It’s a generous plate, at $8.95, featuring batter-dipped fish, with a slaw made from cabbage, yogurt, sour cream and cilantro. Some folks add hot sauce. Some others add a side of fries. Every Monday, Monahan’s sends out a tweet saying the tacos are ready. By 2 o’clock, they’re gone.

The Changing Gears team descended on Monahan’s recently for lunch and watched Monahan prepare fish tacos. Here’s a look at the video that Niala Boodhoo produced (the recipe follows).

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Baja Fish Tacos from Monahan’s Seafood in Ann Arbor, MI
1 1⁄2 cups shredded cabbage
2 limes (1 cut into wedges)
1⁄4 red onion, thinly sliced
2T Sour cream
2T Plain yogurt
1 1⁄2 tbsp. kosher salt + pepper to taste
2 tsp. chili powder
1 package Drake’s batter mix (available at the market)
1 12-oz. bottle beer
1 lb. boneless, skinless red snapper, pollack, cod or mahi-mahi cut into 2″ strips
Canola oil, for frying
8 flour tortillas
Cilantro, chopped
Mexican hot sauce (we like Cholula)

1. In a bowl, combine cabbage, red onion, juice of 1 lime, sour cream, yogurt, and cilantro; season with salt and pepper to taste (chill). In another bowl, mix together 1 1⁄2 tbsp. salt, chili powder, Drake’s (reserve a bit of the Drake’s for dredging) and beer to make a batter.

2. Pour oil into a 5-qt. Dutch oven to a depth of 2″; heat until a thermometer reads 375˚. Sprinkle fish with chili powder and salt. Dredge fish in a bit of dry Drake’s; shake off excess. Working in batches, dip fish in batter and fry until crisp, about 3 minutes or until golden brown. Transfer to a rack or brown paper bag set inside a sheet pan; keep warm in oven.

3. Heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Working in batches, add tortillas; cook, flipping, until warmed. To serve, fill with some of the fish and cabbage, squeeze with lime, and garnish with more cilantro and hot sauce. Repeat.

The Midwest’s food scene depends on its farmers. And those farmers depend on its restaurants, food purveyors and individual customers to stay afloat.

One place where farmers, chefs and customers gather every Saturday is the Green City Market in Chicago. The non-profit market began in 1998 in an alley outside the Chicago Theater. Now, white tents fill a lawn in Lincoln Park during summer Wednesdays and Saturdays, and the displays move indoors come November.

I’ve been a frequent shopper at the Green City Market during my time as senior editor of Changing Gears. As I’ve strolled through the displays, I’ve noticed that many the farmers are from my home state, Michigan. I’ve also noticed that many of those farmers are charging more than they could there. A basket of apples that might sell for $3 at the Ann Arbor Farmer’s Market fetches $4-5 here. A quart of raspberries that could go for $5 at home cost $7 here.

But behind every box of apples and every bunch of radishes is a story like Rene Gelder’s.

She run runs the Ellis Family Farm in Benton Harbor, MI. Three days a week, she drives as many as 215 miles round-trip to deliver products to six Chicago area markets. She has no farm stand or store at her 58 acre farm on the southwest side of the state. Without these outlets, she says bluntly, “we wouldn’t be farming.”

Once small farms like these had another option. They could sell at the wholesale market in Benton Harbor, the heart of Michigan’s fruit belt. I wrote about the market for The New York Times in 2007. But many of the farmers are now dwarfed by bigger purveyors who truck their wares to Benton Harbor, and much of the fruit these small farmers sell wouldn’t survive the trip from Benton Harbor to points across the country.

Farming has never been an easy life, and it has gotten harder in the current economy. Gelder says it takes her 12 to 15 weeks a year to sell enough produce, like apples, asparagus, and berries, to cover her costs. But the market season only lasts for five months. “We’ve got 20 weeks to make our living,” she says.

That’s something market goers don’t always understand when they complain about prices. “They get a pay check,” Gelder says. “I have to make all of it in 20 weeks.”

But Gelder has gotten support from the chefs who shop here. She sells some of 12 varieties of apples to the Hoosier Mama Pie Company, which has a shop in Chicago and sells its pies at the market. And she received a grant from the Frontera Farmer Foundation, established by chef Rick Bayless to support small farmers. The money paid for equipment she needed to prepare her strawberry crop, cutting eight to 10 precious days off the growing process.

She believes the market has helped educate Chicago shoppers about new possibilities in their kitchens. “People didn’t know what to do with asparagus and rhubarb,” she said. “There’s a whole new generation that’s getting it.”

Even if they aren’t cooking with the market’s produce, many Chicagoans are eating it in area restaurants. Mick Klug’s fruit is now listed by name at Bayless’ restaurants and at restaurants like Floriole, a French-inspired cafe in Lincoln Park.

Klug works side by side with his daughter, Abby, 26, at his Green City Market stand.

Abby Klug has degrees from Michigan State and Wayne State, and works part time as a school counselor in Bridgman, MI. But she wants to play a role in the family business, which has mushroomed since the Klugs began selling here. On his first trip to a market in Chicago, “my dad sent one person with 7 flats of raspberries. Now it’s his whole income,” says Abby Klug. The Klugs sell at six different markets in Chicago, which provides the opportunity to charge more than they would back in St. Joseph, MI, where the family has farmed the past 31 years.

“The demand is pretty high here to get fresh, local produce,” she said. But even brand-name fruit sellers can’t escape the economics of farming. “On a rainy day, we’ll sell half what we would on a nice Saturday,” Abby Klug said. “There’s a lot of risk involved.”

That’s especially true for the market’s newest participants. Two years ago, “I was one of the people with lettuce in my hand,” said Dave Dyrek, the owner of Leaning Shed Farm. “I’d think it was a little bit pricey. Now I think it’s worth it.”

Dyrek exemplifies the philosophy behind Reinvention Recipes. In 2004, the 49-year-old, who owned a heating and cooling business in Chicago, bought a 30 acre farm in Berrien Springs, MI, about five miles east of Lake Michigan. This year, he began selling at the Green City Market for the first time.

Leaning Shed Farm started out as a hobby for Dyrek and his wife, who liked to garden and thought it would be fun to grow their own organic vegetables.

But after a few years of offloading excess tomatoes on their friends, the Dyreks decided to see if they could farm for a living. Dyrek decided to focus on Asian and European varieties, such as mustard greens, the Chinese cabbage called Bok Choi, and 10 types of radishes, ranging in taste from peppery to sweet.

What he didn’t expect was “just the amount of work,” Dyrek said. “It’s dark in the morning. It’s dark at night.It goes on seven days a week. I’ve never worked so hard for so little money in my life.”

He gets help from his wife, his nephew and his nieces, and he’s been ribbed by some veteran farmers who questioned whether the newcomer could make it. But the teasing had the opposite effect. “The more they laughed, the more determined I was,” Dyrek said.

His venture has paid off in some high-profile customers. Dyrek sells to 30 different restaurants, including Alinea, whose chef, Grant Achatz, has ties to Michigan. Given that, Dyrek says he’s focused on making his reinvention a going concern. “I wouldn’t say this is for the rest of my life,” Dyrek says, “but it is for now.”
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For this week’s recipe, we turn to another Michigan farm, Seedlings Orchard, of South Haven, MI. Its owner, Peter Klein, is often on hand at the Green City Market as well as the Thursday night summer market in the parking lot at Zingerman’s Roadhouse in Ann Arbor. Klein is an evangelist for using fresh fruit in season. His sorbet has just two main ingredients: fresh fruit and simple syrup. If you have an an ice cream maker, this recipe will work for you. Let us know what you make with it!

Seedlings Sorbet

Simple Syrup
Bring 1 cup water and 1 cup sugar to boil.
Simmer until no sugar is visible.
Cool.

Sorbet
2 pints fruit
1 cup simple syrup
In a blender, puree fruit and syrup until smooth.
Freeze in ice cream maker according to directions.
Note: syrup quantity can be reduced according to fruit’s ripeness.

Fritz Pastry, an 18-month old bakery in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood, isn’t the kind of sweets shop you grew up with. Sure, it has the usual assortment of French specialties, like croissants and brioche, and there is a full line up of cakes, cookies, and tarts. But look a little deeper and you’ll find a whole slew of exotic lesser known pastries.

There’s Gateau Breton, a rich butter cake and Springerle, traditional German anise-flavored cookies. Fritz also makes a dynamite chocolate and black pepper cookie. But the stars are clearly the macarons.

Macarons, spelled the French way, and not to be confused with the dense coconut kind, are an airy meringue and almond flour based cookie, filled with butter cream. They’re everywhere in Paris, and they’ve also become Chicago’s current “it” dessert.

The depth and breadth of Fritz’s offering is a testament to the pedigree of Nate Meads, the chef and partner in Fritz. Mead was a pastry chef for some of Chicago’s top restaurants including Tru, Brasserie Jo and Blue Water Grill. Rather than work at another high-end place, however, Meads decided it was time to go out on his own.

When Meads left the restaurant world behind to open his own bakery, one of his goals was to expand Chicago’s pastry horizon. He started out serving traditional macaron flavors like chocolate, vanilla, and pistachio, just like you’d find in a typical Paris patisserie. While customers liked them, Meads figured he could take more chances. So, he reinvented his macarons, offering more exotic tastes like mixed berry and cardamom hibiscus (Fritz Pastry regularly tweets its macaron of the day).

Coincidentally, I’d tasted these cardamom hibiscus macarons at a party a few months after Fritz opened and they blew my mind. I’d wondered if someone had flown them in from Paris. The flavor was a mouth-tingling combination of Indian spice and tropical warmth.

It turned out they were made by Meads and flavored with a botanical spirit, Hum, made by local notable mixologist Adam Seger.

Seger, also a veteran of Tru, the Seelbach hotel in Louisville, and Chicago’s nuevo latino spot Nacional 27, is part of a spirits movement that is spreading across the upper Midwest. Some other standout companies include Koval , North Shore Distillery, and Death’s Door out of Wisconsin.

To make those distinctive mauve macarons, Meads was leveraging this bounty of local spirits — and producing the best local macarons I had ever eaten.

Nate Meads and Adam Seger

Meads and Seger got together recently in the tiny kitchen at Fritz to mix up a batch of Meads’ cardamom hibiscus macaroms, which Seger calls “Humarons.” Watch Meads at work, and then try them at home. Or, take the easy route and pick some up at Fritz.

HUMARON

500 g. almond flour
500 g. powdered sugar
180 g. egg whites
1 T Hum
½ c. water
500 g. sugar
180 g. egg whites

Mix first four ingredients in small stand mixer with paddle attachment. Bring water and sugar to 240 F making sure to brush down sides of pan to prevent crystallization. When sugar is at correct temperature, set aside to let the bubbles settle. Whip whites to soft peak using whip attachment. Pour sugar in a thin stream while whipping on medium speed in between the whisk and the bowl. Turn stand mixer on high until meringue is cooled. Fold into flavored paste and pipe onto a lined sheet tray. Rest for 10 minutes to form a shell. Bake @ 320 on low for 8 minutes(every oven is different so adjust as needed). Wait until cool, peel off, fill and sandwich.

HUMARON FILLING

4 egg whites
1 c. sugar
to taste salt
12 oz. butter (soft)
to taste hum

Place egg whites, sugar and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and whisk over simmering water until it’s hot to the touch and the sugar is dissolved. Place onto stand mixer and whip until thick and cool. Add butter a little at a time. After butter is incorporated add hum and season to taste.

Michael Nagrant, Changing Gears’ contributing food writer, is always hungry. Keep up with his eating adventures at Newcity and Hungry magazine

It used to be that when you told out of towners that you were from Ann Arbor, they’d reply, “Go Blue!” Now, they’re just as likely to say, “We love Zingerman’s.” From the original deli on Detroit Street, where lines stretch around the block on the weekends, the Zingerman’s empire has grown to include a bakehouse, creamery, coffee company, classrooms, catering business and mail order catalog.

The Roadhouse, which sits on the west side of Ann Arbor near Interstate 94, bustles morning to night, seven days a week. Its menu features big plates of American specialties, many featuring fruits and vegetables grown locally and especially for the Roadhouse.

The bar menu includes beers from microbreweries, varietal wines and cocktails, both classic and new inventions. This is a place where the staff, led by James Beard Award-nominated chef Alex Young, isn’t afraid to experiment.

In an exclusive video shot by Ann Arbor reporter Kate Davidson for Changing Gears, Zingerman’s co-founder Ari Weinzweig talks about Zingerman’s philosophy, and then bartender Lucy Carnaghi show us two versions of a Manhattan cocktail.

Zingerman’s Classic Manhattan

1 1/4 oz Jim Beam Rye
1 1/4 oz Vya Sweet Vermouth
3-4 Dashes Reagan’s Orange Bitters
1 Maraschino cherry, if desired

Combine the ingredients in a tall drinking glass or cocktail shaker. Add ice. Stir (do not shake) and strain into a cocktail glass. Add cherry, and serve.

Lucy’s Midnight Manhattan (created by Lucy Carnaghi)

1 oz Elijah Craig 12 yr Bourbon
1/2 oz Vya Dry Vermouth
1/2 oz Vya Sweet Vermouth
1/2 oz Heitz Cellars Grognolino Port
3-4 dashes Reagan’s Orange Bitters
1 Maraschino cherry, if desired

Combine the ingredients in a tall drinking glass or cocktail shaker. Add ice. Stir (do not shake) and strain into a cocktail glass. Add cherry, and serve.

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As her colleagues know, Lucy Carnaghi isn’t just a bartender. She’s also a poet.

As a lagniappe, here’s one of Lucy’s poems, aptly titled

Bacon
A veneer and a backbone
the pink and cream
of some happy hog reduced
to a delicate crisp of salt
and smoke.

Scented into memory,
I am thankful for the
backward looks it brings,
as though it is impossible
to eat in the present
the tongue to salt
flesh-touch

When I say flesh-touch
I mean
your food world
becomes mine
in bacon-bannered spectacle
the epitome of every breakfast
since man knew of cloven hooves
and pinky salt flesh

Look at the strips glimmer
under the lights of every diner
or mothers table,
every fine fine white table clothed
eatery.
Each knows the possibilities and pleasures
because when I say ‘veneer’,
Lord
when I say ‘backbone’
I mean, its all parts of each meal,
the salt and the flesh
sizzling in every American
tongue-memory.

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Are you a chef, a restaurant owner, a shop proprietor, a food creator? Send us your Reinvention Recipes, by email, to changinggears (at) umich.edu. Include a daytime phone number where we can reach you.

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You might call Barry Sorkin, chef/partner of Smoque BBQ located in Chicago’s Irving Park neighborhood, the James Dyson of barbeque. For, like the designer behind the bagless vacuum cleaner and the scary efficient jet-like bathroom hand dryer, it seems everything Sorkin touches, at least when it comes to smoking meat, he makes better.

Sorkin started out by reinventing himself. Uninspired by a job in corporate IT, he attended night classes at Chicago culinary school Kendall College. After earning a certificate, he and his future partners, weekend warrior pitmasters, asked themselves why there wasn’t better Southern BBQ in Chicago?  They planned, dreamed and traveled across the country studying the ways of America’s legendary grizzled pitmasters.

When he and his partners returned to Chicago, they wrote a BBQ Manifesto and opened up shop.  Almost five years later, they’re one of the best smoke shops in Chicago, if not the United States. In a culture where side dishes are an after thought, the Smoque crew went through hundreds of iterations to get baked beans studded with golden sweet caramelized onion and smoky burnt ends, zippy bright cole slaw, and creamy mac and cheese.

And of course, they needed a dessert. In keeping with their plan to be unique, they settled on peach cobbler, commonplace down South but a rarity in many barbeque places up north.

Instead of relying entirely on pie spices or flavor-sapping thickeners like corn starch, Sorkin re-imagined traditional peach cobbler by flavoring his with almond and concentrating the flavor of his peaches by reducing them in the oven. If you want to try your hand at Smoque’s reinvented peach cobbler, we’ve provided the recipe below.  If you need some help, check out this video of Sorkin making his cobbler in the Smoque Kitchen.

Smoque’s Reinvented Peach Cobbler

For filling

10 pounds peaches, sliced
4 lemons, juiced
1.3 ounces almond extract
2 tsp cinnamon
2 cups sugar

For crisp topping

4 cups granulated brown sugar
3 cups flour
3 cups sliced almonds
1.5 pounds cold butter
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons nutmeg
2 teaspoons salt

Method

Heat oven to 375 degrees. On a large baking sheet, line up 4 ounce foil containers in rows.

Roughly chop the peaches. Place in a large bowl Add juice, almond extract, cinnamon and sugar. Set aside.

To make crisp topping, in a second bowl, combine flour, almonds, cold butter, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Cut the ingredients together until the mixture resembles wet sand. Avoid using your hands, which can warm the butter (topping will wind up soggy and not crispy).

Put a generous portion of peaches in each foil container. The peaches should be heaped high, because they will soften during cooking. Cover with a thick layer of crisp topping. Repeat until foil containers are filled.

Bake for 35 minutes. Cobbler is good warm or cold.

Michael Nagrant, Changing Gears’ contributing food writer, is always hungry. Keep up with his eating adventures at Newcity and Hungry magazine

There’s nothing like a yummy peach cobbler — but this one has a twist. It’s from Smoque BBQ in Chicago, the first restaurant we’re featuring in Reinvention Recipes.

Come back to ChangingGears.info on Monday, when our food writer Michael Nagrant tells the story of Smoque and how it serves dessert with a surprise touch.

So tell us: where should we eat — in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and upstate New York? How about Ontario? What’s your favorite dish in Detroit, Cleveland and Chicago? Which farm markets do you recommend? Wineries, bakeries?

Likewise, tell us what we should avoid, too. For instance, I am Coney Dog-averse (she ducks to avoid outcry from Coney fans). But I’m always on the hunt for great smoked fish, like the kind I’ve had at Calumet Fisheries on the outskirts of Chicago. Some say the best only comes from the Upper Peninsula: right or wrong?

Post your suggestions here or visit our Facebook page. While you’re there, become a fan of Changing Gears. If we’re intrigued by your suggestion, we may ask Mike Nagrant to make it part of Reinvention Recipes. So, let us know where to go!

In my short stint in Chicago, I’ve found Mike to be an encyclopedia of the local food scene. Ask him for a recommendation, as I did today, and you’ll get a synopsis of the menu, the backgrounds of the chefs and a description of the atmosphere and prices.

His work has appeared in Saveur, as well as New York Magazine’s Grub Street blog. He’s a regular contributor to Chicago Magazine and the Chicago Sun Times, and the regular food columnist for NewCityChicago.com and CS-Modern Luxury. He also was — drum roll — an essayist in the Alinea cookbook by chef Grant Achatz that won the James Beard Award.

Recently, Mike wrote about the eyeball taco at Chicago’s Maxwell Street Market; reviewed the restaurant Kith and Kin; and looked at the intimidating yet fascinating sport of competitive eating.

Have an idea for Mike to pursue? Send it to changinggears (at) umich.ed and put “Reinvention Recipes” in the subject line.

P.S. wonder why we’re not running Mike’s photo? There are still some places in Chicago where he wants to eat and doesn’t want people to know he’s eating there. There’s always this idea, though.

Here’s an example. We sat outside this week for a birthday dinner at a lively bistro. Near our table, a brazier burned brightly as well-dressed guests chatted in the warm evening air.

The wine list featured a variety of intelligent choices, from crisp chilled rose to warm reds and sparkling whites. The special was pork belly, the raw bar included a choice of east coast or west coast oysters, and the frites looked fantastic.

We were not in Paris, or New York, or Chicago. We were at Zinc, on Euclid Avenue, in downtown Cleveland. Zinc, set a historic building, is one of the most recent editions to the city’s growing culinary scene, which is centered around the corner on Fourth Street. Here’s a piece that Dan Bobkoff recently did for our partner ideastream on Cleveland’s new restaurants.

I’m convinced that good food is essential not just to a city’s spirit, but to a city’s revival. Restaurant wise, Cleveland already rocks — and so can the Great Lakes region.

At Changing Gears, we’re going to spend time the next few years talking about chefs, food purveyors, farmers and others in the business as they work to make the region as well known for food as it is for industry.

Keep an eye on our site, because we’ll soon be featuring Reinvention Recipes from around the area – new twists on familiar classics. The first participants are sending in their dishes now.

(Food folks: if you’d like to participate in Reinvention Recipes, send an email to changinggears (at) umich.edu. We’ll provide more details.)

Cleveland’s food scene is getting a growing amount of attention. Anthony Bourdain set a segment of his No Reservations program on the Travel Channel here last year, which is how I discovered the amazing West Side Market.

The city’s culinary star is undoubtedly Michael Symon, who is among the ranks of the Iron Chefs on the Food Network program. His flagship restaurant, Lola, has become a stop for any foodie who comes to town. It was full by 12:30 p.m. on the day I had lunch there with staff from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, itself instrumental in Cleveland’s downtown revival.

Chef Symon also has branched out in the region by opening Roast in Detroit’s Book-Cadillac hotel, which stood empty for years before reopening in a multi-million dollar renovation in 2009.

If Cleveland has a food sage, it’s clearly Michael Ruhlman, the author of numerous books, including his newest, Ratio. Michael has a terrific Web site, and was always helpful to me when I was writing food stories for The New York Times, like this one about Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa.

Of course, Cleveland faces the same economic issues that are challenging the rest of the Manufacturing Belt, and Changing Gears will be exploring those in great detail.

But good meals and a rich entertainment scene can change the perception of a city, too. After all, visitors like me are going to be spreading the word. And we foodies love to discover new places.

Do you have some favorite spots in Cleveland? How about the rest of the Manufacturing Belt? Tell us about them.