Upper Midwest Gourmet

Here comes warmer temperatures and hopefully a lot of snow melting!

We are really proud of our new training cafe, UP, along with many other improvements we have made to Upper Midwest Gourmet and Flamenco Organic Coffee Company in the past few months!

Please check out our newest Brewsletter – Volume 49 – Spring 2013

Also, please go to the Brewsletters Page on our website to download and read previous Brewsletters. They contain lots of useful information!

Enjoy and thanks again from all of us at UMG!

It is very, very, very important to have a well-trained staff running your cafe. The staff of your cafe are the people that your customers interact with most and are also responsible for the production of everything you offer. The quality and consistency of your drinks and food rely on having a group of individuals that know exactly what they are doing and more importantly why and how they are doing it. Another huge factor is that they are all making your products the same way to ensure that every customer has the same great experience every time they come back.

We feel that employee training is a necessary for any cafe or business for that matter. For example, we take part in the Specialty Coffee Association America classes all the time to learn about new industry standards in the area’s of Barista education, coffee brewing, coffee roasting, and a whole lot more.

There is always something that can be learned and implemented to improve your business and we want to help you gain that knowledge!

Our training cafe, UP Cafe, is now open and ready to schedule training sessions with your staff. If you use our Flamenco Organic Coffee we are more than happy to offer free training and recipe support. We can train in areas of espresso extracting, milk frothing, pour-over coffee brewing, Gold Cup drip coffee brewing, blender drink creation, gelato and sorbetto production, baking and pastry, and a whole lot more. The goal is to improve your business and have you producing the best available drinks in your area. We want to help you reach that goal!

Please Contact Us about setting up a time for training and would love to have you visit!

      These are so simple! I just prepared the crust then used our Fabbri Amarena Cherries in syrup as a filling.  After folding them up, it’s off to the oven!

Amarena Cherry Galettes:

yield: Makes 8 servings

active time: 25 minutes

total time: 3 Hours

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

2 tablespoons (or more) ice water

Blend flour and salt in processor. Add butter and blend, using on/off turns, until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add 2 tablespoons ice water and blend just until dough begins to clump together, adding more ice water by teaspoonfuls if dough is dry. Gather dough into ball; flatten into disk. Wrap in plastic and chill 1 hour. DO AHEAD: Can be made 2 days ahead. Keep dough chilled. Soften slightly at room temperature before rolling out. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Here, I divided the dough into four large portions (you could make 8 smaller ones, if you wish) and them out. I did rough circles of dough, filled the  center with Amarena cherries and folded the edges of the dough over. Make sure to pinch any cracks to that the syrup does not seep out. You could also use a tart pan or circular cookie cutter for a more precise look.

Bake galette 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 375°F and continue baking until crust is golden, about 30 minutes longer. Remove from oven. Slide long thin knife between pan and galette. Let stand at least 10 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature and enjoy!

The basic crust recipe was pulled from this galette recipe on Epicurious.

Fabbri North America‘s own Tom Trieschmann will be in the Twin Cites on Wednesday, August 29th for a fun and relaxed gelato/pastry training and demo at UMG.

Upper Midwest Gourmet

1901 Traffic St. NE Minneapolis, MN 55413

Office: (612)728-7208

The demo/training will begin at 10am.

Please RSVP to FabbriDemo@umgcoffee.com with what business you are with and how many people will be attending for lunch ordering purposes.

We would also like to focus the event on what you guys would like to learn about, so please let us know any ideas you have in your RSVP.

Looking forward to seeing you on August 29th, 2012!

(For additional event or Fabbri information, please Contact Us. Thank you.)

What a hot spring and summer we have had this year and we haven’t hit the really hot months yet! Let’s hope business continues to improve for everyone with these beautiful days!

The weather will be turning even warmer, though, which means cold drinks like iced espresso drinks, cold press coffee, smoothies, frappes, iced tea, and lemonade are going to continue to pick up. It also means that those of you that are making gelato will continue to see some serious sales increases.

We have been really busy making some serious improvements around here with a focus to better serve you, and want to let you all know again how much we appreciate your business!

Please check out our newest Brewsletter – Volume 47 – Spring/Summer 2012

Also, please go to the Brewsletters Page on our website to download and read previous Brewsletters. They contain lots of useful information!

Enjoy and thanks again from all of us at UMG!

We had a great time at Coffee Fest in Chicago this year! We had four booths in a row which finally gave us enough space to truly showcase our wide array of offerings. From gelato made with authentic Italian ingredients from Fabbri to our huge selection of cafe products to our own Flamenco coffee to one of our favorite customers, The Growling Rabbit, chatting in our booths and bringing some of their amazing baked offerings, also made with Fabbri, it was a total success!

We had a blast showcasing our Flamenco Organic Coffees on our new Chemex and Hario pour-over gear and were giddy to be able to pull our Matador espresso on a beautiful Synesso espresso machine.

Here are some pictures to enjoy:

Thanks again to everyone that made it to the show and visited us while attending. It was our pleasure to meet you!

(For pricing, Coffee Fest questions, or additional product information, please Contact Us. Thank you.)

Only a week or so to go until Coffee Fest!

That is why we are reminding everyone that we are in booths 100/102/104/106 at Chicago Coffee Fest next weekend. We will be making gelato on a Carpigiani Coldelite batch freezer and displaying in one of the new Ciam Pozzetti display cases. We will definitely be serving our award-winning Flamenco Organic Coffee along with a ton of other great products for you to check out and sample. Also, be sure to stop by and check out our Synesso espresso machine pulling our very own Matador espresso shots!

Here are the basics:

When – June 8th-10th 2012

Where – Navy Pier, 600 East Grand Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611

Registration Information

$30 per person.

Onsite Registration Hours: Trade Show and educational Classes
Friday & Saturday: 7:00am to 4:30pm
Sunday: 7:30am to 3:30pm

Show Hours:
Exhibition Hours:
Friday & Saturday: 12:00pm to 5:00pm
Sunday: 12pm to 4:00pm

Educational Training
Friday & Saturday: 8:00am to 6:00pm
Sunday: 8:00am to 4:00pm

If you have any questions about the trade show, please Contact Us.

We are very pleased to announce that we now offer the awesome Synesso Espresso Machines! That’s right, the The Cyncra™, The Hydra™ and The Hybrid™ are all available from Upper Midwest Gourmet.

We met a bunch of the great people from the Synesso company at SCAA, Portland and are really excited to be working with them. This opportunity to have what we consider to be the “best of the best” available to us is very cool and we even plan on showcasing one of these sweet machines in the new cafe, UP.

(For pricing or additional product information, please Contact Us. Thank you.)

There’s nothing quite like the nutty, syrupy sweetness of a good porter.  There’s nothing quite like the soft sweetness of  hand-crafted gelato. So, imagine if you will combining this two fantastic flavor sensations into one delightful frozen treat.

Lo and behold, Moka Porter Gelato made with Town Hall Brewery’s Porter and an assortment of Fabbri delipastes.

A match made in heaven.

For more information on this gelato experimentation at Fat Lorenzo’s see my full blog post.

That’s right, we are bringing pour-over coffee brewing to the forefront in the Upper Midwest and we want you on board!

We will be doing it with the help our newest offerings from Hario and Chemex.

Both companies make some amazing brewing devices and we are very excited to work with them.

Here are links to the Hario and Chemex products:

Hario

Chemex

(For pricing or additional product information, please Contact Us. Thank you.)

As many of you know, things always seem to take a little longer than expected to get up and running when opening a cafe.

UP will be an open to the public cafe serving Flamenco Organic coffee and espresso roasted on site, Italian gelato made fresh on site, and tasty baked goods and panini’s all made from local ingredients.

The best part for all of you is that this cafe will be our brand new fully operational training cafe and state-of-the-art showroom. We will be able to have you come in with your staff to get full company trainings. In areas like espresso, coffee, and gelato preparation, this can be very beneficial to everyone!

If you have any questions about the UP, please Contact Us.

Please enjoy this article about composting from Heather at Badger Brew Express in Rice Lake, Wisconsin that she wrote for the Twin Cities Coffee Guild.

ARTICLE – “Where Do Your Grounds Go? by Heather H. Haller”

Remember that UMG carries a bunch of compostable disposables like the Eco Products Green Stripe cold cups that Heather uses.

(For pricing or additional product information, please Contact Us. Thank you.)

Yes, it’s that time of year again when the trade shows begin. We are exhibiting in a couple of them that we would love to invite you to attend.

Our first show of the year is the Wisconsin Restaurant Expo being held in downtown Milwaukee on March 12-14th. That’s a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday show. We have been exhibiting at this show for over 10 years now and will have our usual spot on the floor with a 20 foot end booth. This year we will be highlighting our Flamenco Organic Coffees, Dr Smoothie 100% crushed fruit smoothie mixes, Mozo Chef shoes, Cappuccine, Big Train and a host of fine products from Amoretti including flavoring syrups, 100% fruit smoothie mixes, Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar and Martin mixes. We will have many other items on display as well including a 2 group espresso machine. We would love to see you there this year so stop by for an espresso, smoothie or martini (maybe all 3 mixed together!). We have a limited amount of FREE passes for Wednesday the 14th. Please contact us if that is a day you can make it.

Go to http://www.everythingfoodservice.org for more info on this fantastic show.

The second show of the year for us is Coffee Fest Chicago being held at the Navy Pier Convention Hall. This show is on June 8-10th (Friday-Sunday). We will have another 20 foot booth there highlighting many of our products including Flamenco Organic Coffee and are hoping to have a full display of Gelato on hand. For more info on this show and to register to attend, please visit http://www.coffeefest.com for more details.

Please stay tuned for more details on this show as we comprise them.

Hope to see you at one or both of these shows. We love to meet with our customers rather it may be the first time, or an annual routine. We truly appreciate your continued business and support and feel these show are a way for us to convey that to you.

Feel free to contact us for any further information on either of these shows.

Upper Midwest Gourmet now sells Mozo Shoes!

What is a “mozo”?

What is a “mozo”? In the time of pack trains and cattle roundups, a mozo was hired to help out with heavy work around the ranch, and was always on his feet. The spirit of the mozo inspired a footwear craftsman and entrepreneur to start MOZO®  in 1996. Today, MOZO makes revolutionary footwear for creative, passionate and talented professionals, shoes for culinary professionals who are artists, athletes and creators—not just cooks or servers. Any shoe that bears the MOZO name must be a shoe that we are personally willing to stand in and wear for 10 to 12 hours a day. Since making that promise, MOZO has set new standards for comfort, safety and durability for culinary footwear. MOZO is an approved footwear vendor for several leading industry partners. It is the combination of safety, comfort, and quality, which has advanced the brand rapidly since Deckers’ acquisition. 

(For pricing or additional product information, please Contact Us. Thank you.)

Summer has been really hot so far most likely meaning you are selling a ton of cold drinks! Let’s all continue to enjoy the sunshine and outdoor fun while we can.

Please check out our newest Brewsletter – Volume 44 – Summer 2011

Also, please go to the Brewsletters Page on our website to download and read previous Brewsletters. They contain lots of useful information!

Enjoy and thanks again from all of us at UMG!