It is the Hearth and Vine Cafe's Blueberry Salad with pea shoots, baked ricotta cheese, honey, candied pecans and chive blossom verjus. If you read that description, wouldn't you order it? They had me at verjus.
It was lovely, and fresh, and tasted like summer on a plate. I recommend ordering this beautiful salad (plus one of their wood fired pizzas) and then find a table out on the patio.
After lunch, walk over to the tasting room to sample wines from the Black Star Farms vineyard. When you've made your choices, walk outside and around to the back of the building and visit Leelanau Cheese. You can buy the freshest cheese around to go with the wine for tomorrow's dinner.
See, aren't you having fun? This is the Leelanau Peninsula at its best.
I had to show you these lovebirds - caught in a shadow at a local wine bar/cafe.
It was a gorgeous Fall day in northern Michigan (sunny & cool with blue sky and puffy white clouds) and my Mom and I decided to drive to Black Star Farms to have lunch at "Vine & Hearth."
After we ordered our roasted beet salads (and cheesy sandwiches - yum!), we relaxed and looked around. We noticed this cute couple in their late-twenties seated at the long oak bar. They were huddled over a menu trying to decide which wood-fired pizza to order. The lighting in the restaurant happened to cast their shadows onto the oven.
Later as they sipped their wine, they watched their lunch bubble and crackle as it cooked in the fire in front of them. So romantic!
Ahhh...there is nothing like love and pizza.
Have you ever tried raclette? It is a delicious and mild semi-firm cheese that originated in Switzerland.
The Leelanau Cheese Company, located at Black Star Farms, won the American Cheese Society "2007 Best in Show" for their Aged Raclette. What an accomplishment!
Raclette is from the French word "to scrape." I was at a northern Michigan food & wine event and saw the prized cheese-maker herself cranking a Girolle Cheese Cutter around the wheel of raclette. She was serving individual blossom-like tastings with crackers and a glass of wine. Can cheese be gorgeous?
