- Announcer: This week on Wisconsin Foodie : - My name is Sarah Jo More.

We are in the Main Grain Bakery in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

- Baking like this is becoming a lost art.

- Artisan sourdough takes time, energy, and time.

We definitely like to have fun and experiment.

That's kinda where TOAST comes in, you know, those flavor combinations are really fun to work with.

- Cheers.

- Cheers.

- Christian Czerwonka: Father Fats is a small plates, tapas-style restaurant based on seasonal, local foods.

All right, so today we're doing the smoked, roasted pork nachos, came off the smoker a little while ago.

- Ooh, I've never met a plate of nachos that I didn't like.

So I'm a... - Hopefully, you'll like these ones.

- I'm sure I will.

This is delicious.

- Appreciate it, thank you.

- Announcer: Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following underwriters.

[upbeat music] - The dairy farmers of Wisconsin are proud to underwrite Wisconsin Foodie , and remind you that in Wisconsin, we dream in cheese.

[crowd cheering] Just look for our badge.

It's on everything we make.

- At Organic Valley, our cows make milk with just a few simple ingredients: sun, soil, rain and grass.

And grass, and grass.

- Yee-haw!

Organic Valley Grassmilk: organic milk from 100% grass-fed cows.

- Employee-owned New Glarus Brewing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends, only in Wisconsin, since 1993.

Just a short drive from Madison, come visit Swissconsin and see where your beer's made.

- Wisconsin's great outdoors has something for everyone.

Come for the adventure, stay for the memories.

Go wild in Wisconsin.

To build your adventure, visit dnr.wi.gov.

- From production to processing, right down to our plates, there are over 15,000 employers in Wisconsin with career opportunities to fulfill your dreams and feed the world.

Hungry for more?

Shape your career with these companies and others at fabwisconsin.com.

- With additional support coming from the Conscious Carnivore.

From local animal sourcing, to onsite, high-quality butchering and packaging, the Conscious Carnivore can ensure organically-raised, grass-fed, and healthy meats through its small group of local farmers.

The Conscious Carnivore: Know your farmer, love your butcher.

- With additional support coming from the Viroqua Food Co-op, Central Wisconsin Craft Collective, Something Special from Wisconsin, Crossroads Collective, the La Crosse Distilling Company, as well as the Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

[upbeat music] - Luke: We are a collection of the finest farmers, food producers, and chefs on the planet.

We are a merging of cultures and ideas, shaped by this land.

[sizzling] We are a gathering of the waters, and together, we shape a new identity to carry us into the future.

We are storytellers.

We are Wisconsin Foodie .

[paper tearing] - Sarah Jo More: Coffee's on.

First, I have to get hot water, then I have to load the oven, there's so many things to do.

I'm just gonna take three orders quick.

My name is Sarah Jo More.

We are in the Main Grain Bakery in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

We've been here for 10 years.

We really wanted to focus on whole grain, handmade, from-scratch, local, fresh ingredients.

Best friend, for real.

[chuckles] We do sweet treats, granola, we do wholesale for local restaurants, and we started with and still do all sourdough bread.

I personally eat sourdough bread every day.

We definitely like to have fun and experiment.

That's kinda where TOAST comes in.

You know, those flavor combinations are really fun to work with.

[bell dinging] - Woman: 32?

- There's a lot of love in our baked goods, yeah.

[funky music] - All right, apron for you, right over the head there, and then you get to do the rest.

- Thank you so much.

- You're welcome.

- What are we doing this morning?

- Okay, so first we're gonna degas these.

Do you want me to do this first one?

- Yeah.

- And then you can do the second one.

- Show me what's up, yeah.

I don't want to, you know, cramp your style at all.

- No, no, no.

Okay, so water on the table so it doesn't stick to the table or we'd have ourselves a mess.

- Yeah, okay.

- Dough scraper.

We're gonna pull these away from the side, flip, slam.

- Boo-yah.

- Okay, so I'm lifting and pulling this.

- Okay.

- So it's kind of like a rectangle, and I'm just folding it.

- Sure.

- And just kind of letting the air bubbles escape.

Flip.

[dough plops] - Back in.

- So that the fold is on the bottom.

- So this is this is degassing.

- This is degassing.

- And why is this important in the baking process?

- Well, then we got air bubbles all over the place and we want a few, but not a lot.

- Sure.

- So this is like, when you like, punch your loaf.

- Yeah.

- Instead of punching it and it's so intense, we're just gonna like slowly be like, "Let me help you get those burps out."

- Sure.

- Make sense?

- It's like, okay, so it's like burping a loaf.

- It's burping a loaf.

- Can I give it a try?

- Yes.

- Awesome.

Do you want me to do it again?

- No, no, I think I got it, we'll see.

- One second.

- You can critique me.

- Next, Asiago up.

- Ooh.

- I'm gonna give this back to you.

- That one's been gassed.

- Okay, so water first.

- Water first.

- That's, I would say that's the perfect amount of water.

- That's the perfect amount of water?

- Seriously.

- Really?

- Yes.

- Good.

You know, I didn't want too much, too little.

Now we're gonna go in-- now you were actually kinda violent when you were pulling this thing off the side.

- Yeah, you don't wanna be a baby.

- Oh, don't be a baby, okay.

- Yeah, this is perfect.

- Oh, everything's coming up roses from me this morning.

- Yep, 10 out of 10 and... [Luke laughing] - Yeah, all right.

Now we're gonna take it-- - Flip her.

- Flip, boom.

- Nice, look at that.

- Give it a second.

- That came right out.

- All right.

What's actually in this dough right now?

- This is white flour, durum flour, dried thyme, Asiago cheese, filtered water, and Celtic sea salt.

- Sweet.

- That's like, that's plenty.

- Oh, that's plenty of touching?

- Yes, totally, it's good.

- Stop handling all the bread, Zahm.

[Sarah Jo laughing] It feels great.

- Yeah, it's not bad.

- You know, baking like this is becoming a lost art.

- Yeah, I mean, you have to feed it and fold it and there's, you know, you don't just throw yeast in a bowl and call it a day, and in an hour you've got rolls.

Like, in two days you have a loaf of bread.

- Sure.

- Artisan sourdough takes time, energy, and time.

And a lot of people don't have the time.

- Sure.

[timer beeping] - All right, she's ready.

Do you want to unload it?

I'm gonna challenge you.

- Oh, yeah.

[laughing] - I would fit like three or four on this peel, four if you're dangerous.

- Four if I'm dangerous?

- Yeah, three to be safe, maybe.

- That's right, I am dangerous.

- I know, you have to then walk like a mile to the bread rack.

- Okay, great, here we go.

- Yeah, go that way.

- The parade of loaves, oh my God, hey oh!

If it wasn't for my obnoxious personality, could I get a job here, you think?

- Eh.

- Eh?

- Eh, we'll think about that, no.

I don't have enough energy.

- Great, what's next?

- You wanna load this oven?

- Yeah, let's, I mean, put me to work.

Why is the bread in a basket?

A cloth-wrapped basket now?

What's the theory behind that process?

- Yeah, so basket, cloth, rice flour so it doesn't stick.

You can easily flip it out.

It just is to hold its shape.

So I'm gonna put four on here at a time.

- Okay.

- Space them out a little bit.

We're gonna do four slashes.

- Yep.

- Nice and deep, and I'm just using this top part, the sharp tip.

This just allows them to not burst open and make it unpleasant to look at.

So I'm gonna put two in the back, and then we'll put the next four in.

Okay, let's switch.

- Okay, cool, here we go.

Like, this literally is a razor blade on the end of a stick.

- Yep, that's all it is.

- It allows that carbon dioxide when we're baking to escape.

- Nice, you see how this one was like, okay, and this one's like, yes!

- Right, I'm gonna have to warm up.

- Yeah, of course, you have to like, you know.

- All right, now up.

- Perfect.

- Is that good?

- Yeah, that's great.

- A little cooler in the front of the deck.

- Perfect.

- Sweet.

- All right, shut her.

And we're gonna do six seconds of steam.

- Six seconds of steam, what's the steam do?

- That is what gives it the shine and the good crust on the outside.

So a lot of times at home, people will bake and they'll put like a little bowl of water on the bottom and they'll pour it in right when you're putting your bread in your oven at home.

Okay, so six seconds of steam.

She hot.

- Yeah, right?

- All right, and that's it.

- That's it?

Now we're baking bread.

- Yeah.

- Boom, blow it up.

- So 25 minutes and we will take her out.

[dreamy music] - Okay, so we are, right now we're shaping, we're shaping dough.

What's the final product that we're working with here?

- So this is gonna be a bagel with Parmesan cheese, black pepper, and rye.

And we actually make a bread similar to this called the Black Pepper Parmesan Rye.

- Cool.

- So we decided to do it in bagel form and see where it takes us.

So you're part of the experiment process.

- The experiment process, that's great.

I feel like that's been my lot in life.

[Sarah Jo chuckles] - Well, and even if I tried to make these at home, it just wouldn't be the same.

- Why?

- It's like the temperature in here, the oven that we use, the equipment that we use, the... you know, everything.

- Mm-hmm.

- It just wouldn't be the same.

- Sure, it's kind of like the affinage, like the process of cheese that you need the cave to really season it.

- Yep, you need the setup, okay.

- Sweet, that was fun.

- That was like, a blast.

- Wasn't it a good time?

- Yeah, that was so good.

Okay, so these have been sitting for at least five minutes.

So we're going to just start from the beginning and work our way to the end.

- Okay.

- Shaping these into bagel form, and then we're gonna put them on these sheet pans.

- Great.

- So there's one for you.

- Okay.

- There's one for me.

- Woman: Can you bagel me?

- Bagel me.

So we're gonna roll it maybe a foot long, and I'm gonna wrap this around my hand.

- Okay, sweet.

- And then I'm gonna roll it, get those seams together.

[Luke laughing] That's it.

And actually, this is called the bread party.

- This is the bread party?

- Yeah.

- Oh, that's awesome.

- Yeah, the bread party has started.

And we call it the bread party every day.

- Really?

And we write BP on the board if you are doing the bread party or not.

- Nice.

- Yeah.

- Bread party, hey.

- So right now you would say, "Bagel me."

- Bagel me!

[laughing] [tinkling music] [upbeat guitar music] - So you know how you can tell if this is done?

- No.

- Okay, this kind of hot, but you flip it over, [tapping] tap it, and it's hollow.

[tapping] If it doesn't sound like that, and you'll know like, working with bread more and more as you will, when you work here.

- Yes.

[both laughing] That, you know you just can like, feel it.

You're like... - Yeah.

- You just, after a while, you just know, and I don't even know how to explain that.

- No, no, I get it.

Again, like so much of baking is tactile.

It's like, based on feel.

One of my favorite things actually is when this is still hot.

- Oh yeah, oh nice.

This is very rebellious.

- Yeah, this is beautiful.

- I know, wouldn't you say it's perfect?

- I would say that this is pretty darn close to perfect.

But I gotta give this a taste.

- Wow, I'm just like, really into this ripping bread.

- Yeah, it's very... - The crunch.

Oh, that crumb.

- I know, well, I mean like, that's one of the parts of eating really good bread.

- Should we cut this, to see like, the true crumb?

- Yeah, let's do that.

That's gorgeous.

- Yeah, not bad.

- I think it kind of goes without saying that great bread actually equals great toast.

And as these flavors cool and kinda had a chance to mellow, the ability to heat it back up and then gussy it.

- Right?

- With whatever you see fit.

- We'll gussy it up.

- Show me your gussy fingers.

[laughing] - We're gonna gussy up toast real nice.

- So that's tonight, we get to gussy up toast?

- Yep, 6:00 to 8:00.

- Fantastic, I'll be back for sure.

- We're gonna crush it.

- Thanks.

[gentle tinkling music] - So what type of toasts are we gonna make tonight?

- Okay, so we have four different varieties.

We're gonna do two right now.

We're gonna do a cream cheese, caper, prosciutto, pickled cucumber, and dill.

And then we're also gonna do our whipped goat cheese, our fig filling, our fig jam spread, and then candied pistachios.

Okay, let's do the prosciutto.

- Mmm!

- So warm toast, just came out of the toaster.

- Yes.

- A couple of these puppies.

You know, when you make toast at home, like, get creative and have fun with it.

- You know, sometimes I just don't feel like a sandwich is a good idea.

- No.

- I want toast.

- Yeah, you just want toast.

- Walk me through this sweet one.

- All right, so this one, we're gonna do our fig spread.

These are dried figs that we boil in water, orange juice, and a little bit of salt.

- Yum, and you get that little citrus hint there with the orange juice.

- Yeah, you do.

- Yeah, you do.

- So this is whipped goat cheese.

So we cream goat cheese and then slowly add heavy cream to make it a little fluffy.

- Sure, this looks amazing.

And I love the fact that there is like a decidedly savory element, but then there's also that kind of sweet, luxurious, like Wisconsin, yeah, fun.

- And figs are good.

- Oh yeah, figs are good.

- Yeah.

- Should we give these things a taste?

- Yeah, you wanna, should we cut 'em in half?

- Yeah.

- Let's do triangles.

- Okay.

- Oh, yeah.

- Oh, yeah.

- That's nice, and I'm eating this too.

- You're gonna eat this too?

Yes, of course.

Cheers.

- Cheers.

[laughing] Mmm.

[Sara Jo laughing] - The fact of the matter is, it's just delicious.

- It's just simple.

- Dang girl, but that bread is beautiful.

- Crispy.

- Mm-hmm.

Round two, I'm excited about this one.

- You are?

- Well, I think that this is a very, like, that's almost more traditionally toast.

- Yeah.

- I feel like, you know, a cup of tea.

- Oh, yeah.

- Maybe a Manhattan, some Scotch or whatever.

You know, something to like really accentuate all that fruity, big-flavor jamminess of the orange-macerated figs and that goat cheese, which is delicate and tart.

And then that kind of crispity-crunchity of those candied pistachios.

I don't know if I can wait anymore, are you ready?

- Cheers.

- Boo-yah, cheers.

- I could eat figs all day, every day.

- Mm-hmm.

That is my jam.

On point in Stevens Point.

[laughs] - Oh, God, sorry.

Classic.

[Luke laughing] Point me to toast.

- Mm!

[laughing] - Thanks for having me in.

- Yeah, you're welcome.

[dreamy music] - Christian Czerwonka: And I actually go home smelling like a piece of campfire by the time I'm done with this.

Dogs love me.

It's like I'm like one big meat bone.

Gonna let those smoke for probably a good five, six hours until those are just nice and glazed and kinda coming off the bone.

We get the bourbon barrels that Central Waters uses.

And we actually get the whole barrels.

We then chop those up into little, smaller pieces.

We actually take those and throw those right into our fire.

Kinda helps add a little smoke to it.

Any apples that fall off the tree, we have two apple trees and a couple pear trees here in the patio.

So we'll take those apples, and also kind of put those right in there as well.

Kinda get some apple flavor on the meat as well.

So it's yeah, it's a process.

Early start in the mornings, but I like getting up early so gonna fill the downtime with good smells.

- Luke: I have the honor and privilege to sit down today with the co-owner and chef of Father Fats in beautiful Stevens Point, Wisconsin, Christian Czerwonka.

Good morning, Chef.

- Good morning.

- Tell me a little bit about Father Fats.

- Sure, Father Fats is a small plates, tapas-style restaurant based on seasonal, local foods.

- Are you from this place, where'd you grow up?

- Grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Which I thought was a small town until I came to Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

And at a young age, I had just got into the kitchen.

I ended up going to culinary school right out of high school and I ended up hooking up with Chef Emeril.

Started out at the bottom at his restaurant NOLA in New Orleans.

I find myself using a lot of the techniques and flavors that I used down there here on the same foods that we have here.

Good 30-plus years' experience under my belt.

- That's incredible.

I feel like I really want to try some of this.

Would you be down for stepping back in the kitchen and cooking for a little bit?

- Definitely, man.

- All right, great.

- Let's do it.

- Awesome.

- All right, so today we're doing the New Orleans firecracker shrimp.

It's a traditional dish served down south in New Orleans.

And you start by searing our shrimp.

We're gonna add our tomatoes, fresh-chopped garlic, a little fresh herbs.

Gonna sear those herbs and that shrimp all together.

A little bit of white wine.

[sizzling] Gonna swirl that around, deglaze the pan.

Firecracker butter, [tongs clattering] kinda coats the shrimp nice.

I'm gonna serve that with some Main Grain sourdough that we toasted.

Top it off with our butter sauce.

[tongs clattering] That's our firecracker shrimp.

- Oh, this looks delicious.

- All right.

- Nice.

- Enjoy.

- Awesome, thank you, brother.

- Yeah.

- I will.

Oh, this looks beautiful.

I see, you know, a lot of those dried herbs, peppercorn.

Really starts like the whole, almost the drooling process for me.

I can't wait, actually.

Mmm.

Ooh, that's got some heat on it.

The peppercorn and the cayenne, the granulated garlic, the onion powder tends to get you.

And it doesn't get you on the front of your palate, it gets you towards the back.

Quietly, the star of the show is this Main Grain bread.

The little bit of crunch, the little bit of chew, the little bit of salty, the little bit of sour, really takes the shrimp dish over the top.

This is well thought-out and well-executed.

- This next dish we're gonna be doing is a smoked, roasted pork nachos, which just came off the smoker a little while ago.

Take that pork, we kind of shred it.

Okay, we're gonna season that, a little Southwest seasoning, which has some chili powder, cumin, paprika, salt, pepper, all right?

Got a little chopped garlic, a little chopped tomato.

Gonna go a little bit of olive oil.

I'm gonna start by sautéing our pork first.

[sizzling] Gonna go with some tomatoes.

[sizzling] We'll get that nice and mixed well together.

Toss it and get all that pork fat kinda coming out of the pork also kinda going into the dish.

We're gonna add a little bit of stock.

All right, we're gonna deglaze that pan there, and get all those good flavors out of the pan and into the dish.

All right, we're then gonna take our pork mixture there.

We'll put that over top of our corn tortilla chips.

All right, after that, queso sauce.

Put that all over top there.

All right, then we're gonna garnish it with some sweet corn and black bean relish.

We also have some fresh pepperoncinis that we pickled with some red onions.

Put that on top like that.

And there we have our roasted pork smoked nachos.

Queso sauce, pepperoncini relish, and black bean salsa.

- Ooh!

- All right.

- I've never met a plate of nachos that I didn't like, so.

- Hopefully, you'll like these ones.

[laughs] - I'm sure I will.

- All right.

- Everything's been great thus far, thanks man.

- Appreciate it.

- Of course.

One of the things that I want to say about the food here: all of this is super approachable, and I think that's really important.

So many times in like fine dining, it's easy to look at food and feel like you can't have a connection with it.

And that's one of the things I really appreciate about this.

This is the essence of good, approachable food.

And it's one of my favorite types of dining.

[upbeat music] That is super good.

Falling apart tender.

A little bit smoky.

Wow.

- Hey.

- How's it going?

- Great, this is so good.

- Thanks.

- It's an experience.

- Yep, you know, lots of local, fresh ingredients.

You know, like I said, the pork that we had on the smoker there a little while ago.

- Yeah, well I think this place is much, much better for having you and your family here and representing the local farmers and the food culture of Stevens Point, man.

- Thanks.

- This is delicious.

- Appreciate it, thank you.

- Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

- Yes, there it is.

- Super aggro with this.

Rawr.

- Oh my God, that scared me.

I didn't know that was you.

[Luke laughing] - Oh my God, what!

- Juggle bagel.

[laughs] I saw when I came in here tonight that there was a Zahm, an homage to me, which toast is that?

- I don't remember.

[both laughing] - Announcer: Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following underwriters.

[upbeat music] - The dairy farmers of Wisconsin are proud to underwrite Wisconsin Foodie and remind you that in Wisconsin, we dream in cheese.

[crowd cheering] Just look for our badge.

It's on everything we make.

- At Organic Valley, our cows make milk with just a few simple ingredients: sun, soil, rain, and grass.

And grass, and grass.

- Yee-haw!

Organic Valley Grassmilk: organic milk from 100% grass-fed cows.

- Employee-owned New Glarus Brewing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends, only in Wisconsin, since 1993.

Just a short drive from Madison, come visit Swissconsin and see where your beer's made.

- Wisconsin's great outdoors has something for everyone.

Come for the adventure, stay for the memories.

Go wild in Wisconsin.

To build your adventure, visit dnr.wi.gov.

- From production to processing, right down to our plates, there are over 15,000 employers in Wisconsin with career opportunities to fulfill your dreams and feed the world.

Hungry for more?

Shape your career with these companies and others at fabwisconsin.com.

- With additional support coming from the Conscious Carnivore.

From local animal sourcing to onsite, high-quality butchering and packaging, the Conscious Carnivore can ensure organically-raised, grass-fed, and healthy meats through its small group of local farmers.

The Conscious Carnivore: Know your farmer, love your butcher.

- With additional support coming from the Viroqua Food Co-op, Central Wisconsin Craft Collective, Something Special from Wisconsin, Crossroads Collective, the La Crosse Distilling Company, as well as the friends of PBS Wisconsin.

- Are you hungry for more?

Check us out on YouTube.

Make sure to hit that subscribe button so you can be the first to see new and unique videos, as well as browse past episodes.