dsm Dish - February 21, 2025

The best way to spend about $100 at Gateway Market

By Wini Moranville
Wandering around Gateway Market with chef/partner George Formaro is a little like having a culinary compass pointing the way to epicurean lodestars at every turn. While it was hard to narrow down his many terrific recommendations during a recent visit, we refined the list to focus on products that make cooking and/or hosting better and easier, with a few delightful and unexpected twists here and there.

Below is a list of what Formaro calls “foods that go right to the soul.”

Fishwife Mackerel ($9.99): This boldly flavored, premium-quality tinned fish is perfect for snacking or salads. “It’s probably my favorite item in the store right now,” he said.

Banyuls Vinegar ($19.99): Sure, it’s great in salad dressings, but Formaro also loves this sweet, oak-aged French Mediterranean vinegar for deglazing or as a finish to roasted vegetables.

Sunday Night Premium Dark Chocolate Sauce ($10.49): Formaro loves the whole line of Sunday Night premium dessert sauces. “A younger me would have dragged these into the bedroom,” he said. These days, he enjoys them drizzled over ice cream or baked goods.

Blue Diamond Pecan Nut Thins ($5.79). Formaro enjoys using these as a dipping cracker for the Sunday Night sauce. The combo makes a great sweet-savory treat when you don’t need a big-dessert blowout.

Bob’s Red Mill Farro ($8.99): “When I eat this nutty, chewy ancient wheat grain, I feel like I’m doing something great for my body.” He uses it in soups, stews and pilafs. (My own tip: Try it in my French farro pilaf with dates and walnuts.)

Salsa Macha ($11.99): A Mexican chili oil with nuts and seeds. While drizzling it over tacos is a classic choice, Formaro also enjoys it on sandwiches and cheeses, particularly fresh mozzarella. He says we’ll be seeing this condiment a lot more in the future.

Better Than Bouillon Premium Roasted Beef Base ($7.49): A deeply savory and concentrated base that’s perfect for soups, gravies or stews. “It even works as a base for French onion soup.”

Carmelina San Marzano Tomatoes ($5.79): “It really blows my mind how tasty these are.” Cook these sweet Italian tomatoes with olive oil, garlic and onions for a great pizza or pasta sauce.

Jamie’s Hive-to-Table Raw Honeycomb ($13.99): This pure honey makes a lovely addition to a cheese and charcuterie board.

Rustichella d'Abruzzo Pasta ($8.99): “It tastes like something my Italian mother would have crafted by hand.” Learn more about this life-changing pasta.

HU Dark Chocolate Almond Crunch Chocolate Bar ($6.99): “This paleo-friendly dark chocolate has a slightly bitter edge — it’s perfect for ‘clean’ snacking.”

Longtime food journalist Wini Moranville also covers the Des Moines food and dining scene at winimoranville.substack.com.

Quick Bites

The Iowa Restaurant Association Education Foundation plans to host more than 150 high school culinary students at the EMC Expo Center on March 4, when individuals and teams will compete in the Iowa ProStart Invitational. The winners will receive scholarships for post-secondary education and will go on to represent Iowa in the National ProStart Culinary and Restaurant Management Competition.

South Union Bread Café, the popular sandwich shop in downtown’s historic Temple for Performing Arts reopened this week after renovations that expanded the dining space and added new ceilings and floors. Read more from the Des Moines Register.

Stouts, Sours & Oysterfest, in North Liberty, brings in thousands of fresh oysters from the coast each year in late March. Oysters are having a moment in Iowa, according to Little Village.

Des Moines Athletic Club is a new sports bar set to open in the ground floor of the Equitable Building in “late 2025,” according to owner Nick Tillinghast, who also owns Good News Darling, Hello Marjorie, and Secret Admirer under the hospitality group Des Moines Does Things. Follow our Restaurant Radar for future updates.

Flora will stay open late, from 6-9 p.m., on Fridays during the Dome After Dark series at the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden.

Events

Thursday: A Roaring '20s Wine Flight, presented by Winefest and the West Des Moines Historical Society, showcases a mix of 2020 wine vintages and 1920s-inspired bites prepared by chef Jacob Schroeder at the historic Jordan House in West Des Moines

Feb. 28: Carve & Sear: A Rollins Lodge Feast offers a delicious opportunity to learn how to prepare prime cuts of meats, guided by chef Jake Miller of the Artisanal Food Co.

March 5: A Wild Wild West Des Moines Annual Dinner is set for the Val Air Ballroom, hosted by the West Des Moines Chamber of Commerce.

March 7: The Wine, Food & Beer Showcase offers samples from more than 30 area restaurants, caterers, wineries, breweries and distilleries at the downtown Marriott. All proceeds from the event, which started in 1985, support the Des Moines Metro Opera’s statewide education and community engagement programs.

March 20: Savor Moxie, the monthly five-course dinner event at Moxie Kitchen + Events, takes place on the third Thursday of every month. The March menu isn’t posted yet, but the “Ides of March” theme suggests some sort of delicious treachery.

March 28: A Southern-style Seafood Boil will wash up on the Rollins Mansion terrace, complete with shrimp, andouille sausage, crawfish and even corn on the cob, plus music from The Other Brothers.

Rivalries heat up annual chili cook-off

By Chris Diebel

Each winter, my friends Matt McQuillen and Kim Wall host a chili cook-off. It’s a spirited gathering with a mix of guests — some who cook and others who simply eat and, more important, judge.

Any style of chili is fair game. They’re all up for consumption alongside Kim’s now-famous “chilicuterie” display of every imaginable topping (pictured below). Sure, you’ve sprinkled your chili with shredded cheese, sour cream and Fritos, but have you tried Bugles or Funyuns? You should.

There’s more on the line than bragging rights. There are three trophies in the form of carved wooden spoons marked “First,” “Second” and “People’s Choice.”

For the second year in a row, I’ve teamed up with my friend Justin Glisan to submit an entry. Last year’s effort included ground beef, bacon, three types of beans, dried and fresh chili peppers, Modelo Negra beer and a bit of honey to tame the heat. (I’d picked up the Modelo Negra tip from a Frontera Grill chili recipe by the Chicago chef Rick Bayless.) Justin and I worked all morning on our entry, finishing it on his Traeger smoker for added nuance. And when the hour of judgment came, we placed second, narrowly losing to a chili Josh Dreyer based on a recipe from Garden & Gun magazine that includes a splash of bourbon. I hate to admit it, but it was delicious.

So for the last 12 months, I’ve been stewing about our loss. This year had to be bolder! During my research, I found many recipes that called for a bit of chocolate or coffee. I get the nod to mole, the Mexican sauce that often contains chocolate, but it seemed like that could get out of hand quickly. Instead, I came across Grind Espresso Shot, a Caribbean rum blended with espresso. My gut told me it would add some of the subtle hints to chocolate and coffee that I wanted without inadvertently turning the chili into dessert. Just three quarters of a cup added a delicious depth that balanced the spicy heat.

I visited La Tapatia Mexican Grocery to peruse the dried chilis, opting for ancho, guajillo and pasilla. Once reconstituted and pureed, each pepper contributed earthiness and subtle heat without blowing guests’ heads off. For the meat, Justin and I chose a mixture of ground beef and diced chuck roast. A chunky trio of beans — pinto, black, and red kidney — stewed for hours in a Dutch oven, melding with diced poblanos, green chilis, jalapenos, onions, garlic, fire-roasted tomatoes and beef stock.

After the chili simmered long enough for the meat to become tender, I hauled the Dutch oven to Justin’s house, where he smoked the chili for three hours. He added a side pan of beef stock to steam alongside the chili, to keep it from drying out.

It was a delicious labor of love, but had we done enough to win the top spoon? Alas, we placed second again.

Justin’s wife, Maggie, beat us with a New York Time recipe for Firehouse Chili Gumbo that uses steak sauce. It was quite tasty and had a Sloppy Joe quality we all decided would be delicious in a stuffed pepper. Kim Wall came in third with a smoked white chili that used a turkey stock she created from Thanksgiving leftovers.

As one friend told us, “Always a bridesmaid, never the bride.” Now, with a second-place spoon in each hand, I’ve already started plotting for next year. Perhaps I should follow in my friend’s footsteps and simply browse the pages of a favorite culinary publication? Nahhh. While I may turn into the chili cook-off’s Susan Lucci, it sure is fun to overthink a recipe while cooking with friends.

Find the full recipe for “Chris & Justin’s Second Place Chili” at dsmDish.com.

Hang on, Lachele’s Fine Foods fans: The wait is almost over. The diner’s roomy new spot in Highland Park is hosting an open house 5-9 p.m. Saturday before its official opening on Thursday. According to Susan Stapleton at the Des Moines Register, chef Cory Wendel plans to serve just a few of the popular burgers from the original Ingersoll location, plus an expanded menu that includes chicken and dumplings, beef and noodles, beef stroganoff, hot beef sandwiches and other retro comfort foods.