The man identifies himself as the “Bratmeister,” and his self-proclaimed expertise is why I’m in Wisconsin. The way a bratwurst absorbs the beer in which it simmers, I hope to absorb the Bratmeister’s knowledge in the ways of beer brats.

This can be risky territory, especially around members of that Midwestern tribe whose holy land is Sheboygan, Wisconsin, home of the Bratwurst Hall of Fame. Wisconsinites presume the right to hold forth on brats the way Memphians claim the right to lecture on barbecue. Bratwurst and beer are two things you don’t want to argue about with a Wisconsinite, especially as they relate to each other.

Wait, vegetarians, come back! This applies to you at least as much as to the meat-eaters. The technique described below will actually make tofu sausages edible.

Unlike hot dogs and many other cylindrical presentations of ground meat, bratwurst is a fresh sausage, which means it must be thoroughly cooked before serving. The time they spend in beer means less time for the brats on the grill.

“Simmer” is a strong word for the amount of heat the Bratmeister uses. Little bubbles form on the bottom of the pot, occasionally letting go and rising. Meanwhile, the volume of beer in the pan drops noticeably as it is absorbed by the swelling sausage.

“Since it’s already cooked when you take the brats from the beer,” explains the Bratmeister, “you could just serve it as-is and skip the grill altogether. But that would be gross.”

The grill’s job is to add flavor and browning to the already cooked bratwurst. On the grill, the brats lose their gray pall and come back to life with a juicy vengeance.

Some people speak of “parboiling the brats,” but this, I’m told, has never been done in Wisconsin. Such business can cause the brats to split, which is the ultimate no-no in bratology. A bratwurst is ready to serve when it’s cooked to the bursting point, swollen with juices but with the casing still intact. Never poke a brat, they say, to test for doneness. A gentle squeeze with the fingertips is all it takes. After grilling to the bursting point, most beer-brat chefs will place the brat in a fresh pot of hot beer and onions, often with butter, and hold it there until serving time.

Serving the brat on a hot dog bun can get you exiled from Wisconsin. A “hard roll,” crusty on the outside, soft and moist on the inside, is required. If you want to order real hard rolls, go to www.bratwurst.net. To order the current champion bratwurst of Wisconsin, go to www.miesfeldsmarket.com.

For dressing, don’t even think about yellow mustard. Only Dijon-style, please. As for the type of beer … well, these people are set in their curious ways.

“I like to use a high-end Budweiser,” says the Bratmeister. “You know, like an Old Milwaukee or a Miller Genuine Draft.”

My inner gourmet, however, rebels against the use of lesser beer in such an elegant preparation, so I bring an empty growler to my local brew pub and hand it to the bartender. When I tell him what it’s for, he hands my growler back, still empty.

“You need Old Milwaukee,” he says.

Only when I promise to run a side-by-side comparison with Old Milwaukee does he agree to fill my growler with the closest thing to a local equivalent, a light pilsner.

After lightly simmering my brats in separate pans of Old Milwaukee and microbrew pilsner along with black pepper, garlic, and onions (considered the holy trinity when cooking brats), I put my dueling bratwursts on the grill.

The Old Milwaukee brats have an appealing flavor that I could see getting attached to. I might need to join the Bratwurst Witness Protection Program for saying this, but the microbrew pilsner brats are richer, more complex, and a completely viable option as well.

I did not stop there. For many days, I simmer different brands of bratwurst in different brands of beer, always with the holy trinity. After this research, I feel confident in saying that different kinds of bratwurst will behave differently in different types of beer, and it’s definitely worth experimenting. Simmering in a dark, sweet porter, for example, might seem like sacrilege to someone from Wisconsin. But those of us not bound by tradition are free to play around with the options. Just be careful who you tell.

www.bratwurstpages.com

I have a copy of the classic tome Larousse Gastronomique: The Encyclopedia of Food, Wine, and Cookery, by Prosper Montagné. It’s written in a deliciously snooty Euro-crusty tone, with recipes that can take weeks to prepare. Salad, meanwhile, is relatively simple and quick, and its preparation is infinitely flexible. Montagné defines salad as a dish “made up of herbs, plants, vegetables, eggs, fish, and meat, seasoned with oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper, with or without other ingredients.”

While Montagné confirms that you can make a salad out of practically anything, there is a huge difference between raw things and cooked things. Today, I’m talking about salad that is raw and green, whose ingredients are in-season and alive, right here, right now. Montagné addresses this type of salad by quoting gastronaut Brillat-Savarin, who declared that a leafy salad “freshens without enfeebling, and fortifies without irritating.”

These words resonate profoundly in my belly as I sit here digesting the aftermath of a rite of summer, a creamed combination of items cleaned from my freezer: smoked salmon, corn, and basil paste, cooked with bacon, potatoes, garlic, and onions – what I call “Freezerburn Chowder.” It tastes good at the time, but now in the heat of the afternoon I feel like I could sleep for 100 years.

Indeed, food is about much more than how it tastes. It’s about how you feel after you swallow. In this respect, it’s tough to beat raw foods. And interestingly, what really brought out the flavor in my Freezerburn Chowder was the final garnish of cilantro and red onion, whose raw, living vigor cut through the heavy cream like the first dandelion sprouts of spring.

Speaking of which, many wild greens – often considered weeds – can add nicely to a salad if they’re picked in the young pre-bitter state before they flower, preferably from a shady spot. Dandelion, lamb’s quarter, purslane, even young thistle. Just be careful that you know what you’re eating and seek advice if not.

I used to think that salad was a good thing to eat at the end of a meal, when I’m too full to keep eating but I don’t want to stop chewing. Indeed, one challenge in making a full meal of salad is finding a way to fill your belly with it. But with enough extras on top, a salad can deliver complete satisfaction. And you can always serve it with bread.

When my dad makes a salad, the whole world stops. He enters a blissfully meditative state that would make the Buddha blush green. When Dad makes a salad, people rearrange their schedules to partake, waiting patiently as he carefully prepares and assembles the parts.

First he washes the lettuce, a combination of Romaine and Greenleaf, before cutting it into bite-sized chunks and spinning it dry in a salad spinner. He washes watercress and a small amount of Belgian endive, patting dry with a towel and then chopping.

He combines these leaves in a large wooden bowl and then tosses in a clove or two of pressed raw garlic to coat the leaves – this is very important! If you are a garlic lightweight, try rubbing the inside of the salad bowl with the cut end of half a clove instead.

Dad’s dressing is a vinaigrette of two parts oil to one part balsamic vinegar, with a little salt. For the oil, he blends a mixture of olive, safflower, and canola oils. He tosses the leaves in this and then tosses in tomato wedges (or cherry tomatoes cut in half), avocado wedges, and chopped onion.

He serves kalamata olives and feta cheese separately in bowls. If you toss these goodies in, they will end up swimming in vinaigrette at the bottom of the bowl, so it’s better to sprinkle them atop the tossed salad. This way, each eater can personally administer the goodies.

Dad’s salad is a perfectly balanced symphony of living flavor, the product of many years of ritual and refinement. I love it when I go home, but on my own I’m not so set in my ways. I let what’s available dictate what’s in the salad rather than shop for the same specific ingredients. I’ll throw in snap peas, or cucumber, or spinach. You can’t go wrong with salad mix, also known as mesclun mix, available these days almost everywhere they sell lettuce. I also play around with different types of oil and vinegar – mixing balsamic with cider or wine vinegar, for example – while keeping the oil/vinegar ratio roughly at 2:1. In the goodie department, I like pickled peppers and smoked salmon in addition to olives and feta. Whatever I do, I never skip the garlic.

After a meal of salad, your digestive juices will flow happily along as they distribute the raw life energy of salad. Freshened rather than enfeebled, fortified rather than irritated, you’ll be able to skip that food coma and stay awake to enjoy every last drop of summer.

At the salad bar these days, I forgo lettuce entirely. Nothing against lettuce, but where else do you have to pay $5 to $8 a pound for it? On the other hand, a plate full of Baco-Bits represents quite a savings over what it would cost to make bacon at home.

But alas, even I might find a full plate of bacon too much. So I build my salad around a whopping pile of the baby green that eats like a meal­ – spinach.

And I’m not the only one wolfing down spinach. In my lifetime, U.S. consumption has quintupled. Americans haven’t eaten this much spinach (2.4 pounds per year per capita, according to the USDA) since the 1950s, when Popeye gave the industry a boost.

Back then, spinach was usually eaten from cans. Today, Americans like their spinach fresh and young – although not necessarily in that order. Baby spinach is the nation’s new green darling, according to a recent Bon Appetit survey of diners’ favorite vegetables. People are buying pre-washed baby spinach by the bag, mostly grown in the Southwest. Me, I like my baby spinach. But it doesn’t compare to a succulent, dinnerplate-sized leaf, fresh straight from the ground.

In the same family as beet and chard, spinach is thought to have originated in ancient Persia (now Iran). Spinach arrived, via Nepal, in seventh-century China, where it is still called “Persian Greens.” Spinach didn’t hit Europe until the 11th century, when the Moors brought it to Spain. Known for a while in England as “the Spanish vegetable,” the name was shortened and modified to “spinach,” before Popeye lengthened it to “spinachk.”

Spinach’s list of nutritional qualities stretches longer than Olive Oyl’s legs. Vitamins, minerals, protein, fiber, folic acid, omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, iron, you name it – but if iron is what you are after, make sure to cook the spinach with lemon or some other acid, which makes that rust-prone nutrient more accessible.

Spinach does have one downside. According to the Environmental Working Group, spinach is one of the 12 common food crops most likely to be contaminated by pesticide residue. The most common pesticides found on spinach are Permethrin, Dimethoate, and – get this – DDT, which is known to cause cancer, birth defects, and reproductive damage.

Wait a minute … Wasn’t Dichlorodiphenyltri-chloroethane (DDT) banned in 1972? Banned for use in the U.S., yes. But we continue to manufacture and export it by the ton to developing nations. One of the reasons, arguably a good one, is DDT’s mosquito-killing power, which is a big help in the global fight against malaria. But it’s no secret that farmers in developing nations still use DDT on their crops, and the joke is on us when some imported spinach is found to contain significant traces of DDT. The other reason DDT is found on spinach is that it persists in the environment for years. Domestic spinach can still contain traces of DDT that was sprayed before 1972. Pesticides, so the saying goes, don’t know when to stop killing. Thus, more than almost any other item of produce, spinach should be purchased in organic form.

While most of the nation’s spinach is grown in California, Texas, and Arizona, this time of year it shouldn’t be hard to find organic spinach locally. The Farmer’s Market is the most obvious place, followed by stores that make an effort to market organic produce.

When heated, spinach cooks down remarkably. If you want to cook it at all, baby spinach can be tossed onto a dish as it’s leaving the stove, and the heat of the food will wilt it. But if you have a nice quantity of spinach, you might want to try the following Indian dish called saag paneer, which means “spinach and cheese” in Hindi. Fry half a cup of chopped onion or shallots in two tablespoons of butter. Add 1/4 teaspoon of salt and one tablespoon of garam masala, an Indian spice mixture available at many stores and online. Let this cook together for a few minutes, then add the equivalent of two bunches of spinach to the pan and half a cup of cheese curds. Season with salt to taste. Cook with the lid on until the curds are soft.

My final suggestion is something I call “Scrambled Spinach Omelet.” If you don’t eat meat, you can skip the pork belly and use oil instead. Otherwise, begin by preparing the pan with a strip of chopped bacon. While it’s cooking, add chopped onion and peppers, if you like those things. Meanwhile, beat as many eggs as you want to eat, beating in salt, pepper, and mashed or pressed garlic. When the stuff in the pan is almost ready, pour in the eggs. While the eggs begin to cook, drop little dollops of cheese (I like Brie, chevre, and/or Parmesan) on top of the gently cooking egg pancake. Add a whopping handful of baby or chopped spinach. When you smell the eggs starting to cook, stir the contents of the pan until the eggs are to your liking. n

I’m fascinated by cheese. How can the secretions of bovine and ungulate mammary glands transform into so many textures, flavors, and colors? Standing in the cheese section of the grocery store can be an overwhelming experience, and I wonder helplessly where to begin.

Last week, the store’s cheese purchaser had the answer. “Now is the best time of the year for fresh goat cheese,” he said, “because spring goat milk has the highest content of butterfat, protein, and sugar.”

He referred me (and my barrage of questions) to the Idaho cheese maker who gave him this information: Chuck Evans of Rollingstone Chèvre in Parma, Idaho. Rollingstone cheeses, made from the milk of their herd of purebred Saanen goats, have won top honors at many cheese competitions. In addition to the usual goat cheeses such as chèvre and fromage blanc, Rollingstone also produces an aged grating cheese called Idaho Goatster and a surface-ripened aged chèvre called Bleu Agé.

The word chèvre used to mean “she-goat” in Old French. If you can speak French, says Evans, then you roll the “r.” Otherwise, forget about it and just say “chev.” Today, chèvre is sometimes used as a generic word for goat cheese, but it usually refers to a specific type of fresh goat cheese that is soft, creamy, tangy, bright white, and sometimes spiced. Chèvre — and goat cheese in general — has shot up in national popularity in recent decades.

Long popular in Europe, legend has it that the American goat-cheese revolution started in northern California during the late 1970s, growing out of the partnership between Chef Alice Waters of Berkeley’s Chez Panisse Café and Sonoma cheese maker Laura Chenel. Waters put chèvre on the map with a salad that includes half-inch rounds of cheese marinated up to a week in olive oil, rosemary, and thyme. The cheese is then dusted with bread crumbs, warmed in the oven, and served atop a bed of baby greens with a vinaigrette of wine and sherry vinegars and whisked-in olive oil, salt, and black pepper.

Many people associate goats with small, cute farms run by small, cute milkmaids. There is some truth to this. But like many small things spoiled by popularity, many goat dairy operators have now become impersonal and industrialized, much like the cow dairy industry.

This has created a need for the category of “farmstead cheese,” which means that the goats were raised at the same place and by the same people who make the cheese. This lets consumers know that they are buying from a small-ish outfit, where quality control can presumably be assured from start to finish.

Unfortunately, the marketing advantages of labeling cheese “farmstead” have tempted some cheese makers to use the label even if they buy some or all of their milk. Rumors and accusations fly in the goat-cheese world over who is truly farmstead and who is a closet milk buyer.

The cheese purchaser has no doubt that Rollingstone is a true farmstead cheese. “They are one of our two suppliers who stop sending fresh cheese in the winter,” he says.

“If you want to purchase milk, you can make cheese all year long,” explains Evans. Big milk producers use hormones and play with light conditions to get goats to lactate through the winter. “It’s barely fit to drink, but you can buy it.”

Unlike the sweet and supple spring cheese made from milk designed to nourish young kids, fall cheese is aged and savory, with a summer’s worth of meals built into the flavor.

“Fall cheese is earthy,” says Evans, “so I serve it with earthy things, like borscht.”

Whatever you do, you should let cheese warm at least to room temperature before serving to maximize the flavor.

Playing with the possibilities of springtime, I mashed chèvre with chopped dates and made little balls that I wrapped in bacon (held together with toothpicks) and broiled at 350 until golden-brown. These morsels were a bit fatty for some tasters but perfect for others. All tasters were deeply impressed with the warm combination of date and chèvre.

Scrambled eggs with chèvre, minced garlic, and chopped fresh basil made for a superb breakfast. But if you like your eggs well-cooked, beware. The cheese imparts an undercooked appearance long after the eggs are done.

In the end, my favorite presentation was simply room-temperature chèvre and dried apples. Chewing them together, the flavors devoured each other. Simple, serious pleasure. •

If you want to learn more about cheese, here are some good books:

The New American Cheese by Laura Werlin (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2000)

The Cheese Course by Janet Fletcher (Chronicle Books, 2000)

The Cheese Plate by Max McCalman and David Gibbons (Potter, 2002)

Cheese Primer by Steven Jenkins (Workman, 1996)

For more info on Rollingstone cheeses or to order, visit http://homepage.mac.com/chevre/index.html.

The other day I was at home studying a seed catalog when my friend Spice dropped by to borrow my drill. She just bought her first house, and she’s tearing into it with the fervor of a young missionary on her first assignment: bathroom renovation, new fence, wall removal.

“Gosh,” said Spice, eyeing my ambitious seed order. “I’d love to grow a garden this year, but I won’t have time.” Thus she steered clear of my seed catalog and kept her life simple.

But I know something she doesn’t. One sunny Saturday in late May, the air will smell like drying mud and fresh flowers. The trees will have new leaves, birds will be singing, and Spice will be strolling the Farmer’s Market, where she’ll see various baby plants for sale: kale, peppers, cucumbers, herbs, and the all-time champion seductress of spontaneous gardeners, the tomato start.

Spice will buy some starts. It’s just so damn easy to buy a start and think, Stick this in the ground and get free tomatoes.

Thus, my advice to Spice: Yes, forget about seeds but prepare for the impulse garden. Clean out the garden spot abandoned by the previous owners. Turn the soil, mix in some manure and peat moss. Then, when the inevitable seduction occurs, Spice can take her tomato plant home, stick it in the ground, and get free tomatoes.

I’m able to say these things with such confidence because I am a student of gardens and of those who work them. This is complex stuff, so to help sort out the myriad personalities found in the fields of dirt, I’ve created the GardenGram System.

The GardenGram System is based on the popular Enneagram Personality Type Indicator System (EnneagramInstitute.com), which includes a personality test that places people into one of nine categories: Reformer, Helper, Achiever, Individualist, Investigator, Loyalist, Enthusiast, Challenger, or Peacemaker.

Not to be outdone, my GardenGram System places people into categories based on their relationship with their gardens. Here are some examples:

The Hardly Variety has little intention of doing anything in the garden and is perfectly content buying all food enclosed in plastic. This isn’t to say that he/she disapproves of gardening. It just isn’t his or her bag.

The Butterfly flits around the garden — often with beer in hand — while others are gardening. He or she plucks a weed here, a strawberry there, but mostly just hangs out. While the Butterfly may appreciate the importance of gardening, he/she ultimately uses the garden for its socializing opportunities.

The Workhorse is the opposite of the Butterfly. The Workhorse keeps moving, leaving a wake of change. Unlike the Butterfly, the Workhorse is able to garden and talk at the same time. And unlike the Butterfly, the Workhorse is able to also exist happily in a silent garden. Workhorses tend to create straightforward, functional garden plans, which they follow to completion.

I belong to the category known as the Big Planner. The Big Planner starts the year with grand ambitions, buying enough seeds to start a small farm. He/she fills many greenhouse trays with potting soil and grows many seedlings, which the Big Planner transfers to laboriously prepared beds. By the time summer rolls around, the Big Planner has lost interest in the jungle he also has created. Lettuce goes to seed, tomatoes split, and weeds choke the fields.

The Produce Rescuer is unable to bear the thought of waste. He/she rescues the abandoned produce of the Big Planner, only to have it rot in the back of his/her fridge. Like the Big Planner, the Produce Rescuer has a problem with following through (i.e., doing anything with the rescued produce). Not surprisingly, the Produce Rescuer is a strong candidate for co-dependency with the Big Planner.

The Humble Yet Spontaneous Garden Warrior is the category to which Spice belongs. She is a warrior because she attacks the task at hand and follows through to completion. For this reason, she is hesitant to bite off more than she can chew, and thus she remains humble. Humble Yet Spontaneous Garden Warriors, like Workhorses, can get a lot done. But unlike Workhorses, they are impulsive. That’s why I encouraged Spice to create the opportunity to grow a spontaneous yet manageable garden.

Hopefully, these examples will help you examine yourself and arrive at your GardenGram type. Once you know which type you are, you should be able to prepare for a rewarding growing season.

In winter, my thoughts inevitably turn to Siberia — and cabbage.

Sure, it’s cold in Siberia, but it’s really nice there

too. Lots of clean land and water, lots of really great people,

and lots of great things to eat.

In any Siberian meal, even in the dead of winter,

most of the items on the table are things grown, hunted,

or gathered from the land. Picture marinated

mushrooms, ginseng vodka, canned berries, as well

as all sorts of homegrown vegetable and animal products. Providing so much

produce in a two-month growing season is no mean feat, and it’s the reason that

many, if not most, Siberian homes have their own greenhouse.

I was there in March, which was many months after the end of the previous

year’s growing season. With next year’s plants barely up in the greenhouse, one

would expect March to be a particularly lean time of year in terms of local pickings.

But rarely in my life have I looked forward to meals like I did on that trip. In

addition to being experts at producing and procuring food, the Siberians know how to

keep it stored. The simple presentation of good-quality food hit consistent bull’s eyes

in my belly. Things like shredded raw carrots and raw garlic together, next to

some pan-fried trout (fresh from the lake), with potatoes cooked with homemade cheese, and beef

soup. And I’ll never forget watching people plop dollops

of mayonnaise into their bowls of soup.

Cabbage evokes Siberia nostalgia in me like little

else. Like Siberia, cabbage straddles the line between Europe

and Asia, from sauerkraut to Chinese stir-fry. Closer to

home, you can get some at the store, cheap.

Allow me to drop some tips for how to use cabbage.

The first tip is none other than the

aforementioned mixture of shredded carrots and garlic, with some

shredded cabbage mixed in as well and salt to taste. The

proportions are entirely up to you. It’s great as a side

salad, and it’s excellent fried in bacon grease — either as an

end unto itself or as a precursor to other things you

might add to that pan, like eggs or rice. You can also pack

this mixture into jars (make sure the salt content is

about two teaspoons per jar) and leave it in a cool place

with the lid loosely screwed on. Soon it will start to

ferment and bubble and in about 10 days will have turned into

a very tasty jar of sauerkraut. Once it stops

forming bubbles, tighten the lid. Your gourmet sauerkraut

will keep for months.

For a more Asian presentation, here is a recipe for

cabbage rolls with a tangy, peanut sauce. Keep in mind

that this recipe, while being very good, is still a work in

progress. Feel free to modify it in any way you see fit.

Sauté a large onion, diced, in oil.

Add half a head of cabbage and cook over medium heat. Once it starts to weep water,

put the lid on, but check and stir often. If it starts to dry out, add a little cider

vinegar and/or water. Make a mixture of mashed garlic, minced peppers, and curry

powder, and stir in a tablespoon, along with two tablespoons of soy sauce.

Get a package of spring-roll wraps, which are available in most stores. Follow the

directions for reconstituting them in water, and wrap the cabbage mixture into

rolls, folding the ends toward the middle before rolling.

For the sauce, sauté a medium

onion, diced, in oil. Add a tablespoon of tamarind paste, if you can get your hands

on some. (If not, proceed anyway, and maybe add something else that’s tangy.) Add

a diced hot pepper or two, four cloves of garlic, chopped, and one cubic inch

of ginger, grated. Finally, stir in 1/4 cup of soy sauce and

a half-cup of peanut butter. Cook 10 minutes on

low/medium heat.

Arrange the cabbage rolls on a plate and pour the

sauce over the rolls. They go great with vodka.