Potlikker

four basics for your first Juneteenth celebration

Two days until Juneteenth rolls around: June 19. If you're new to celebrating it, then there's cause for jubilation as it commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. So, it used to be more "functional" in that black leaders and good Samaritans instructed newly freed slaves about their rights and entitlements as citizens. Believe it or not, it's roots are in Texas and as they scattered to other states it evolved into different observances in different communities with food, singing, games, parades, and all kinds of events. 

image by Callie Richmond
from http://www.texastribune.org/texas-state-agencies/state-preservation-board/juneteenth-monument-capitol/

So if your community doesn't have it's own festival, you can DYI and read the Emancipation Proclamation aloud, sing "We Shall Overcome" & "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," recite Maya Angelous's poems, celebrate with family reunions, trace your ancestry, get wild with rodeos, and other events as well.

Food and eating are my focal points of any celebration and as you might have guessed, Juneteenth has several particular to its observance. 

Barbecue features prominently and is recognized by culinary scholars as originating from slave cuisine. The Juneteenth celebrations in Manhattan, Kansas function as a culinary tourist event given the popularity and reputation of pitmasters producing fare for the jubilation. And street vendors aka food trucks are popular at Juneteenth celebrations in Illinois according to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food & Drink in America (1st ed). Nearly a decade ago a celebration in Hartford, CT offered a Marcus Garvey salad, named so because it mixed red, green, and black beans mirroring the colors of the nationalist flag. 

Red is symbolic, but I can't find how or why; I've searched the library databases. Anyone know? Care to guess? A pop o'er to Wikipedia reveals the color's symbolism as: danger, sacrifice, passion, fire, beauty, blood, anger...and happiness in some cultures. The entry didn't list strength. So red foods and drinks are de rigueur. Strawberry soda pop, red velvet cake, red beans and rice, strawberry pie, etc. 

So, I'm breaking it down: Your Juneteenth menu, four basics, and then add a few extras--collard greens, skillet cornbread, cole slaw, maybe some mac n cheese?-- thus making it nutritionally sound and you'll be all set. 

• Barbeque
• Red Beans
• Red Velvet Cake
• Strawberry Soda pop 

You're all set for Juneteenth.

For more information, and, especially to find a Juneteenth celebration happening near you, visit Juneteenth Worldwide Celebration. Or check your local newspaper or tabloid. I found a few yummy looking recipes at Cinnamon Hearts, so you could visit there for smothered chicken, red beans, and a sweet potato custard recipe, among others. Actually you may have better luck searching twitter. Maybe next year there will be a Juneteenth celebration in my community. I'd like to help make that happen. And someday perhaps there will be a national Juneteenth holiday. 

best in show

Every year Holly Hughes reads hundreds, probably thousands of essays, articles, blog posts, and the like as part of her job as the editor of the annual Best Food Writing series published by Da Capo Press since 2000. I have the 2005 edition, and I know I didn't read it in its entirety and wonder, now, whether I've cracked its spine at all. 

Best Food Writing 2010 offers a snapshot of the issues and trends affecting eaters, cooks, and anyone involved in or interested in food. Hughes selected a great crop of writes to include in this edition. Names that those who study the subject would recognize: Molly O'Neill, John T. Edge, and many more. 

Organizationally Hughes started readers in the middle of a fight. "Food Fights" offers the best selection of writing on the issue that divides foodies quicker than a razor-edged cleaver: to eat meat or not, to eat locally or not, to review online or not. Admittedly, I got a bit heated up when I was immersed in writing that didn't exactly represent my point of view on food and eating. Certainly, it's only logical to read the opposition's arguments. They are good.

Jonathan Safran Foer writes about why he raises his children as vegetarians. I completely agree with his points. Vegetarianism is smart, it's better for the body, the environment, the animals. But it's a difficult choice unless you live in an urban environment whose diversity of products and eateries make it an easy lifestyle choice.

Rachel Hutton's piece on online reviews and how they affect eateries in Minnesota outlines the problems, universal problems, really, facing restaurants in the age of the online review. And Tim Carman's informative, and persuasively anti-Zagat piece, demonstrates Zagat's lack of relevance in light of services like Yelp, Urbanspoon and OpenTable. It's all about transparency, you see. Zagat keeps their ranking methodology secret whereas social networking website for foodies let anyone see the reviews and scores.

Personally, I rely on both. Zagat has never let me down, but the only two I've bought were for the same area, Miami & South Florida, 2007 and 2010 respectively. In fact, the 2010 tipped me off to an excellent Salvadoran restaurant El Tamarindo in Ft. Lauderdale. But services like Yelp are invaluable when I'm in the car in a foreign-to-me place and I want to locate an above-average meal within a mile or less, of my location.

"Dining Around" is the second section and it includes pieces written about specific dining experiences. I loved Patricia Sharpe's article "New Zion Barbecue." She lays out the history of a Baptist church in Hunstville, Texas that sells barbecue on the side. Sharpe's piece was probably my favorite of that bunch and reflects what I like to read about: Just folks serving just folks. Other pieces in the section focused on Tokyo, L.A., and sommeliers.

And while those articles were informative, descriptive, evocative, even, most failed to resonate with me and my experience. Frank Bruni wrote about egging on the sommelier at Le Bernardin's and threw around figures like $150 and $75 bottles of white Burgundy. Those bottles, those tastes in the mouth, are not something that the hoi polli would experience, me included. Just maybe it's fun to catch a glimpse of those fleeting moments of the grandiose lifestyle. For some people. 

Todd Killman's "The Perfect Chef" was first in the third section, "Someone's in the Kitchen." I loved it. Killman chronicled his obsession with Peter Chang, a Chinese chef whose wanderlust, or something, kept him hopping from restaurants all over the mid-Atlantic and southeast. Killman's descriptions of  Chang's food infected me, made me a believer, and I'd love to sample a few of those intoxicating, spicy dishes like the fried fish rubbed with cumin.

Reading Jeff Koehler's "Sardines!" reminded me of how I loved eating the tinned fish when I was a child. His quest for fresh sardines anywhere, everywhere he traveled convinced me that I, too, must eat fresh sardines. In the meantime, I'll browse my grocer's shelves and settle for canned sardines.

In that same section, "Stocking the Pantry" Molly O'Neill's profile of Frank Reese, Jr., who once modeled as the Marlboro Man, made me really consider the turkey. Reese breeds heirloom turkeys. His crusade to revive poultry breeds resounded with me and lit a spark of appreciation for his work on behalf of America's poultry viability.

I also loved reading Mike Sula's piece on "The Charcuterie Underground" which described Chicago's E & P Meats, a local company that makes bacon, sausage, and other meats in the owner's homes. It perfectly illustrates how USDA regulations work for big business, but don't address the special issues of the small, local, agricultural businesses. It reminded me of the excitement I felt when Ian brought home twenty pounds of locally-made sausage a few years ago. Sure, we get moonshine all the time, but sausage is something else. Also, my father is a meat cutter by day (preacher by night). And so I love reading about his industry.

Since we've reached the mid-way point in the book, and I'm still reading it, I'll end with that today and finish up my review with part two, tomorrow. I'm really loving this book. It makes me think. It makes me salivate. It inspires me, and I hope that once you read it, you experience the same effect.

Stay tuned.

smith's southern style cooking

As ever, I was late to the B. Smith party. Until I received the uncorrected proofs for her cookbook B. Smith Cooks Southern Style, she remained under my radar. She owned three restaurants in New York, DC, and Sag Harbor and expanded her brand to include a home decor collection, specialty serveware, and furniture. Somehow she found time to write two books on entertaining, as well. 

So how can a Pennsylvania native write with any authority on southern food? She absorbed southern culture from her parents and learned to cook from her mother and aunts and other relatives. This is a question I asked several times as I made my way through the proofs. 

Smith begins with a bang:  Country Style Alligator Sausage Patties and Gravy. This is not the only recipe using "game" meat. And Smith's interpretation is not the standard either. Beer-braised rabbit is tempting. Other game meats she includes recipes for are venison, frog legs, and turtle.

This is not your typical southern cookbook. Her objective is "to lighten up traditional southern dishes we love by revisiting the traditional recipes, unlocking old secrets to perfect taste, and creating new ones."  Perfect examples of these are her Vegetarian Etouffee and the Sweet Potato Salad with Orange Maple Dressing. And yet, she uses soda, or cocolas, which is a "traditional" quirky southern cooking thing. The Rootbeer BBQ Pulled Pork recipe is one.

Smith suggests pairings frequently and that's helpful. Say, the Cornbread Oyster Dressing with the Turkey. And this is one example that actually didn't work in the proof. I searched throughout for the Cornbread Oyster Dressing recipe and never found it. Hope they take care of that in the finished book. 

The book is arranged as you'd expect, by dish and the order in which it's served during the meal. Before the ingredients list there's usually a hefty paragraph where Smith includes an anecdote about how her female family members were always baking bread, or about John the butcher, or how she and her friends went gaga over mimosas when they were hot young things out for Sunday brunch. Not every recipe contains anecdotes. A good third, or more, possibly (I wasn't paying strict attention to it), were bland sentences about the history of grits or some other ingredient. Sure, that might be helpful for an audience who isn't familiar with southern food history, but for the rest of us, it's common knowledge. 

Getting a handle on Smith as a cook is truly difficult. She's heavily influenced by her childhood in the 1950s, especially her mother's reliance upon convenience foods ala Betty Crocker. Smith writes about the deliciousness of the "frozen cornmeal crusted whiting." Several of her recipes use already prepared items. Like boxed cornbread mix, or pre-baked pie crust shells.  Yeah, this is a turn off. And I had a hard time with these things as they appeared in the cookbook. It made me think that Smith was just inauthentic about food, but then I realized that we're all a little that way. We like our comfort foods. I prefer the Kraft mac n cheese with the orange powdered cheese sauce because it's quick and I don't have to think about whether I have the appropriate fresh cheese on hand.

It's hard to trust her, still, because she admits to eating very little bread. Not even liking it, really. She says that when she does eat bread, it can't be any old piece of bread. Inferior bread. But then she talks about Pillsbury Biscuits. Then she also provides a buttermilk substitute, which I think may be neat to try, especially if you want to try to eat more healthy biscuits. Oh, and while she enjoys making desserts for her family and friends, she doesn't eat it. 

The dishes I thought I'd probably make are: Southern Peanut Soup, Sweet Potato Salad with Orange Maple Dressing, Black-Eyed Pea Gravy, and Blackberry-Cardamom Cobbler with Creme Fraiche.

This book left me wondering about southern and foodie authenticity and raised more questions than it answered. Marketing it as a southern cookbook is probably wrong. While regional Western Pa. cookbooks don't have the came cache as do those from the south, I think it Smith could bring new respect to that area if she promoted it rather than adding another book to the southern food genre. Her coverage of each and every southern region reminds me of The Cheesecake Factory's approach to their menu. They have everything. You can find something to eat. There's no specialization. For example, in the section on soups, she jumps from Kentucky Burgoo to She Crab soup in the Low Country and then on to New Orleans.

Wrapping my head around Smith's eating was difficult, too. Her distance from bread and desserts indicated that she and I have very different priorities when it comes to eating. Her section on salads was quite good, and maybe that's where she excels. It just didn't seem clear to me who her audience for the cookbook was. You cannot be all things to all people, and I'm convinced that it would work better with a narrower scope and different focus.

je suis embarrassed

Laura informed me that she found Popchips at our Target. I feel so silly. Like, perhaps I didn't do enough research? A librarian performing half-assed research? It happens. I avoid the snack food areas of every store as a general rule, to control my poor impulse control, you see. 

It was an honest mistake. Let me explain: When I entered my zip code in the "get popchips" at their website, no results in my area were returned. You have brands of food stores scrolling to the right and you can click that-away. But then there's a disclaimer saying that you can find popchips at SELECTED Targets and Costcos. 

Naturally I assumed that did not include my Target. I live in an area where Last Temptation of Christ and that Madonna documentary, Truth or Dare, were never shown and where there was a trememdous hubub over Ludacris performing because of the "element" his shows attract plus associated violence and security problems --yet Kid Rock and his "element" are welcome? 

Digressions, digressions. 

Only right now, at this minute, the store locator feature isn't working, so I cannot quite the exact phrasing, which led me to believe that there were no Popchips in my immediate vicinity. 

Alas, Laura mentioned our Target only stocking the regular and BBQ flavors. Boo. Still no salt and vinegar available.

Every food finding occasion is for me, a saga. I swear.

smitty's in the bbq capital of Texas

Thank Heaven for Laura and all the tv watching she does. Somehow, on our drive from Austin to Victoria, Texas, we went right through Lockhart, the BBQ capital of Texas. She saw a show about Lockhart on FoodNetwork. I think I saw the same show a few years ago when a BBQ special feature comparing Carolina, Memphis, and Texas style BBQ featured Lockhart. It rang bells.

It wasn't until our return trip though, back from Victoria after helping a friend celebrate her wedding, that we stopped and ate at Smitty's Market. It was on the main road and thanks to Laura's fabulous recall, she identified Smitty's as the place to be/to dine.  She pointed to the parking lot and said something akin to "If it's full, it's gotta be good." We parked and walked inside and lined up. It was super hot. There's an open fire just inside the building where the cook the meat and sell it. Once you're up to the register, you tell the meatman how much of this and that you want. You pay, and then go inside to order and purchase sides and drinks. 

We split 1/2 pound of brisket and 1/2 pound of pork ribs. They slap a sheet of newspaper down, then place your order atop it. The meat is accompanied by white bread and/or crackers. We tried both. The brisket was moist and flavorful. The ribs were simply divine. Their BBQ sauce is reminiscent of the sweet tomato kind I can find in BBQ joints in East Tennessee. Laura is spoiled now. No other BBQ compares to Texas. She turns up her nose at everything else. It turns out that BBQ is bigger and better in Texas.

I forget what all kinds of sides they offered. That's slaw on the far left, potato salad in the middle, and beans on the far right. The slaw was okay. The mustard-based sweet potatoes were yummy. But the beans were mostly disappointing. We both expected cowboy or baked/bbq beans. Laura--who should write her own blog as much as she's featured on mine--thought they'd be perfect for a soup bean and cornbread supper, but that was not what we had in mind.

Here's a glimpse of Laura, you can see a bit of the inside of Smitty's. The "cafeteria" style dining room has 4-6 long wooden tables that bbq lovers find spots to park their rears while they eat. Laura picked an older gentleman to sit by. He looked harmless, she said. And he was. He snuck in a trip to Smitty's while his son finished up a Boy Scout backpacking trip at a nearby state park. He mentioned a bit about a feud that split the original BBQ joint in two and thus Smitty's was formed. Seems like BBQ wars occur in every state. I shared a bit about the one in SC with Maurice. Naturally he thought we were from there. I corrected him, said we hailed from Tennessee.

Here's the damage. We ate it all, folks. All but the beans. The amazing thing was that for under $12 the two of us ate our fill of meat, sides, beans, and then left with a scoop of ice cream each. I'd love to return to Lockhart, not just to eat at Smitty's again, but to try the other BBQ restaurants vying for the title of Best BBQ in Texas.

street food

Of late street, or festival food is on my mind. Surely because I got a copy of Street Food (2007). I've read it, and browsed its photos and recipes. But was slightly disappointed that everything inside is so exotic. Oh, that's not bad. But it's nothing I can relate to. It's beyond my experience. Thus, it's lovely to look at, but a fair number of ingredients called for within its recipes are not readily available in my local grocery store.

At first glance, this is one of those coffee table cookbooks. The author is Tom Kine, of London, and this is not his first book. There being a large Indian population in London, Kine forwent the travel to the far east and sampled Indian food on his own streets. Isn't that cheating, a bit? Surely the Indian food one eats in England has been Anglicized? Much as Mexican and Chinese food are dumbed down for us Americans.

I took the book along to my podiatric appointment; there's some funkiness in my foot and Blogless Amy recommended her seersucker-suit wearing podiatrist. I cannot resist a seersucker suit.  When the podiatrist saw what I was reading he asked what I was making for dinner. Unfortunately, I answered "Nothing from this book," quite because of the aforementioned reason of lack of access to ingredients.

Kine's book covers India/Sri Lanka. Always loved saying Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka. Then on to Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Southern Europe, and lastly the Middle East and North Africa. What's missing? Oh, the United States, of course. That made me wonder whether there isn't any tasty street food in our country. Having never lived in a metropolitan urban environment, I've never dined street-side from a vendor. But I saw those hot dog men pushing their Lucky Dog carts round New Orleans. Didn't get one. I mean, a hot dog pales in comparison to a po boy or a beignet.

Street food, in my experience, is associated with fairs and festivals. Of late, the turkey leg makes an ominous appearance at my local fair. They've always appeared at the more historic fairs, like the eighteenth century trade faire at Ft. Loudon. But the local fair has regular food: Hamburgers, fries, hot dogs, corndogs, and an assortment of deep-fried sugary things like Oreos, Twinkies, and other snack foods. Can't say I've dipped into that. And yet, my favorite festival food is one that I don't often indulge in anymore. The funnel cake. Funny that it's associated with the PA Dutch when I've always considered it the ultimate southern treat.

Over the weekend I spent two days hanging out at the Sycamore Shoals Celtic Festival where the fare leaned toward the Scottish. One of the vendors offered Scottish Eggs, which I didn't try. Fish and chips was another menu item.

Yet I went whole hog and tried the Haggis and chips. They cannot legally sell traditionally prepared haggis in the sheep intestine. So my haggis was a blend of meat with grain. I didn't ask for the specifics.

Next day Ian and I indulged in one of our most favorite things: The Corndog. These weren't footlong Fannie Farkles, but they were hot out of the deep fryer and easy to polish off.

Besides the emphasis on deep-fried, there were other vendors at the festival. Barbecue was on hand. Another tent offered wraps, gyros, taco salads. And there was a baker. I bought Eccles buns for my in-laws and had a scone with strawberries and cream for breakfast. It was good, but I'd rather not have strawberries swimming in sauce. There was no choice in the matter. Must say the scones were not as good as the ones that I make. But none of the baking was done on site. It was bagged up and ready to go home with a buyer.

But back to the book. One of the Latin American/Caribbean recipes is for Pudim de abobora or,  pumpkin pudding. It's almost pumpkin time. We love pumpkin here. And the recipe is super easy. I have the ingredients on hand, except for the light cream/half & half. It's baked in a ramekin which makes it super easy for portion control. I know what I'm making for tonight's dessert.

The photos and food styling in this book are awesome. Mouth-watering, even. And I love an index. It's a necessity in a cookbook. Instead of leaving you with just a bunch of recipes, Kine finds common threads among disparate cuisines and pulls them together in a series of menus compiled in the last few pages.  His anecdotes are fine, as well. The sensory descriptions are just enough to make you feel as though you're making a personal connection with the food and its people.

best bbq

Surely I'll sing the praises of Ridgewood BBQ until the day I die or the day they go out of business, whichever comes first. Ian and I drove to Bluff City on Wednesday for dinner. They close at 7:30 and if you're not in the door by then, you don't eat there. We arrived an hour or so before they closed.

Ian wondered why it wasn't busier. I reminded him that it was Wednesday night. Most good folks were in church. We heathen were out dining at that hour. My answer satisfied him.  He commented that they weren't in a hurry to serve you there. And we've noticed that the service has declined in the past few years. At least the food is still divine, and modestly priced, and those are two very good reasons to keep coming back.

Their pork bbq is the best. My favorite. What I grew up eating, really, and so their special recipe is what I consider best of all. I've tried other bbq sauces and found them lacking. Ridgewood's is tomato-based. There must be molasses in there. All sorts of other things, too. I lack the skill and knowledge to analyze the ingredients.

Coleslaw was off. Sometimes it is. Mom always said it depended on it's position in the crock. I didn't think it aged enough. Ian said it had aged too much. Lots of salt and pepper didn't season it up enough for me. So I buttered, actually margerined, up the crackers that came with. Next time I'll order the bleu cheese bowl. That's right. A big bowl of bleu cheese dressing that comes with crackers. You dip 'em and eat 'em.

And the fries? They were especially good. They don't come from a bag. And they aren't frozen, either. Sometimes they aren't deep-fried enough. They're still hard and a pale golden color. Fries are probably the only thing I liked cooked crisp, oh, bacon, too. Last week's fries were near perfection. That's right. Last week. I've worked on this entry for too many days. One of the problems is with photo uploads. Don't know what's up with that. But it stymied my progress in sharing this bbq manna.

Glorious beans. But I didn't capture their likeness on memory card. They were down the hatch and in my gullet lickety-split. I think most folks fix beans okay even if their bbq isn't great. Recall that adage about not saying something at all if it's not nice? Well, that's what I do with beans. There are other local bbq places, and even a Louisiana-style restaurant, whose food doesn't suit my tastes. But the nice thing I say about both places is: They've got good beans.

And the best thing about this bbq id that I'll eat the leftovers. I'm the Queen of Thrown Out Leftovers. I take them home with good intentions. Look at them in the fridge and decide that I'm not in the mood for that. By the time I'm in the mood, the food is out of date.  Their sandwiches are so big that I usually only eat half, and that equals a lovely lunch the next day.

edge's short history

AJC featured John T. Edge's Short History of 'Cue last week. It's essential reading, southern food 101. Then too, there's another Edge article where he discovers the archetypal ribs and chips joint: Archibald's Bar B Q of Northport, Ala.