Potlikker

a chef's life | chef & the farmer

Vivian Howard explores the south one ingredient at a time in the new PBS series A Chef's Life. She swore she'd never return to small-town North Carolina, but after her parents made a deal with her, she and her husband, "restaurant lifers", left Manhattan to open The Chef & The Farmer in Kinston about six years ago.

If you've traveled through eastern NC, you'll know, there's not much there. Most folks might see parts as they pass by on their way to the beach. But those parts are lovely, indeed. Corn fields, pastures, and charming roadside attractions infuse the show with a rural, authentic feel. Plus, Howard's delightful molasses accent invites viewers to the table and series from the start. 

A Chef's Life highlights NC's terroir. In the first episode--devoted to sweet corn--Howard talks to farmers, selects corn for her restaurant, and builds daily menus. Interspersed between these activities, Howard reminisces about growing up in Deep Run, a few miles down the road from Kingston, and the three block parade that everyone in the community comes out for. Note the corn float made from emptied yellow milk containers. Howard muses about raising twins, how she and her husband work together in the kitchen, picking and prepping corn, and tempting children with corn dishes. 

Halfway through the corn episode Howard demonstrates how to smoke corn as part of constructing a smoked corn relish. Most folks who watch food shows won't learn new kitchen skills, but you may learn new information about relishes and be compelled to try it for yourself after watching how easy relishes come together. In the south relish making was a means of preserving summer produce. Women canned corn and other veggies that they'd serve months later, thus brightening up drab winter fare. 

And then, a fire in the kitchen forces Howard and company to start over. 

Always drama in the kitchen. Lots to tune in for, so watch as more episodes air on your local PBS station. I support PBS, by the way (and public radio, too). But didn't receive any renumeration for fanning any flames on this fiiiiiiiiiire. Rolling my eyes. 

Didja miss me, a lil bit? 

 

knoxville redeemed or, the southern food writing conference

Let me state my bias upfront: I have strong feelings against Knoxville, for various reasons. First, those people believe east Tennessee ends and begins with it, so does the state government. Thus, we, in the rest of the eastern part of the state, a.k.a. the armpit, receive little to no state funding. Second, all the people who wanted to escape my hometown for the "big city" went to Knoxville, and they think they're living large. Poor things. Third, I have scads of personal animosity against UT both for myself and others who were done dirty by their ugliness and lack of integrity. 

Despite all these negative marks against Knoxville, I enjoy trips to their downtown by avoiding all the ugly sprawl that the rest of the city has "developed" into in the last twenty years and pretending the university doesn't exist--I close my eyes, stick my fingers in my ears, and chant "you're not there, you're not there, you're not there." Since roller derby is the only sport I enjoy, the non-existence of UT presents no problems for me.

However, after spending two days in Knoxville during the Southern Food Writer's Conference last week may have redeemed Knoxville's vile reputation--in my mind--, somewhat. Knoxville and its environs offers many lovely attractions for those food-minded persons. I'm slightly ashamed that I'm not more knowledgeable about the Knoxville foodie scene, but since it's 90 miles away, I think it's really out of my immediate scope. Yet, I can appreciate it.

The conference was delightful. The line up of speakers included Brett Anderson, Sherri Castle, Ronni Lundy, Fred Sauceman, Nathalie Dupree, Shaun Chavis, Jason Horn, Jennifer Cole, Cynthia Graubart, John Egerton, Jennifer Justus, Regan Huff, Jack Neely, Elizabeth Sims, Barbara Swell, and Fred Thompson. It was established in conjunction with the International Biscuit Festival, which I didn't attend, unforutnately, though I did eat several scrumptious biscuits while at the conference. Hope to be at the IBF next year though. 

Swag included a roomy, organic tote bag emblazoned with the International Biscuit Festival logo filled with foodstuffs.

The tipping point for me to sign up for the conference was that dinner at Blackberry Farm was included. Staying at Blackberry Farm is on my life list. I likely won't ever mark that off my life list because I married for love and not for money. Dining there was divine, I'll blog about it soon. And the other totally awesome experience was our group field trip to Cruze Farms, my new favorite dairy supplier. Wish they delivered as far afield as the Tri-Cities.

Besides introducing me to new sources of local food artisans like Benton, Cruze Farms, and Muddy Pond Sourghum Mill, the conference was a boon for letting me hob nob with other like-minded individuals. I learned so much from each session and made pages and pages of notes.  Immersion around other writers and food industry folks was dreamy. I didn't want to leave, and it firmed my resolve to change my professional circumstances to reflect a reality more in line with my dreams and interests than what I currently do.

So yeah, there is plenty to love about Knoxville. Their farmer's market, their re-developed downtown, their festivals and conferences, their artisianal farmers. Lots to love. Just ignore the other stuff I mentioned at the start and we get along right fine.

I feel so frickin' ridiculous, but just so you know, I paid my way to this food writer's conference, but I don't want there to be any question about it since those new FTC regulations make it clear that food bloggers/writers should be transparent in their relationships or affiliations with anything or anyone they "review," so according to the new FTC regulations, I received no other form of compensation for this endorsement of the conference, etc. 

come to cauliflower or, praise be to Whitney Miller!

Relying on stereotypes when thinking about a cuisine or foodway is too easy, believe me, I know. My first instinct with a vegetable is to batter it or bread it and fry it in a pan because that's how I learned to cook; it's what I observed from watching my mother and her mother and my father's mother (the one who worked as a beloved high school cafeteria lady for a few decades when they still cooked the food fresh, on-site. When I told the head of graduate studies that I wanted to write a history of cafeteria ladies he was unenthusiastic, to say the least, so I took nine more hours and wrote no thesis) as they cooked.

Oh wait, my mother's father was a cook in the Navy circa late 1940s-1950 so he taught me a few tricks, too.

To make a long story longer... Other than frying a vegetable my next "go to" is boring old boiling with a smidge of flavoring. That is until I learned to steam. Love that.

But this is about how Whitney Miller's cookbook Modern Hospitality: Simple Recipes with Southen Charm, taught me to think about vegetables in a new way. One of the first things out of my mouth when I talked to her was an apology for never catching her prowess on the first season of MasterChef on FOX which she won. I explained that with an almost-three-year-old daughter, we don't watch any "real" television. And then I asked her which dish in her shabby chic-styled (lovely photography and styling, too, by the way) cookbook she recommended for children.

The cauliflower casserole. First you roast the cauliflower. It was after that point that I had my roasting epiphany.

The Come to Cauliflower moment. Or Come to Roasting. Roasting is wonderful. Simple. So leave it and it's done. I love it. But you drizzle it with a bit of olive oil, too. So it doesn't burn.

But once I roasted the cauliflower and removed them from my oven I couldn't keep my hands off them, they were manna from Heaven. I didn't want to finish the recipe. I did.

It was gobbilicious good. I was home alone and I ate two or three servings straight out of the serving dish. That was no biggie. It's likely that it wouldn't have tempted either Ian or Elsa.

Besides the cauliflower recipe Modern Hospitality features some of the best mashups of southern dishes that I've seen. They're not the same old recycled recipes that appear in every southern cookbook published each quarter. You know what I mean. If you're as familiar with the southern cookbook genre as I am there's a new southern cookbook Bible out every few months that contains the "standards": grits, red velvet cake, cole slaw, fried chicken. Make your own list. Even if you weren't born in the south or even in a border state I bet you could compile a dang good table of contents.

For example, the Butter Bean Hummus isn't something found in every southern cookbook, neither is Cornbread Crostini. I loved the idea of her Bacon-Wrapped Brussels sprouts, but didn't get around to trying those quick enough. When I got to entrees I was disappointed not to find any game meat recipes, especially since her father is a hunter. He brought home deer, doves, and rabbits. And the deer was made all sorts of ways, the doves simply stuffed with bacon. But those recipes... maybe they aren't for company.

When you think about hospitality, which is the theme of Miller's book, one pulls out the floral tablecloths, dainty china, and heirloom flatware. And so most of the entrees correspond: mini meat loaves, Grandma's Sunday roast, Inside-out chicken pot pies. 

As for desserts, Miller pushes all my buttons by including two of my all time favorites: bread pudding and rice pudding. Her renditions are White Chocolate Bread Pudding and Vanilla Rice Pudding. She rounds out the cookbook with drinks, rubs, dressings, a pimento cheese recipe, and a few other tidbits.

So one of the things Miller and I discussed was the effect of Katrina on her family and community. She's a native of Poplarville, Mississippi which lies about 75 miles northeast of New Orleans. I love New Orleans. If I could move anywhere the city is in my top three, easy, for a number of reasons. I love the people: their diversity, their resilience, and their joie de vivre, and I love the food, the culture, and the architecture. I don't love the heat, humidity, or stench, but perhaps I could learn to live with those things. 

Poplarville had no water. No electricity. The Millers' neighbors had nothing. Nobody had stocked up or prepared for the worst, except for her parents. And so their home became a refuge,a center of hospitality, a center of hope and comfort during Katrina's aftermath because her parents made sure that every person in need had food and water. What a blessing it is to serve others during a fearful, frustrating, and hopeless time, especially when you have the resources to share. 

 

Cauliflower Mac n Cheese

• 8 cups cauliflower florets (about 1 head) 
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 
• 1⁄2 teaspoon kosher salt 
• 1⁄2 teaspoon ground black pepper 
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter 
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 
• 1 1⁄2 cups fat-free milk 
• 1⁄2 cup heavy cream 
• 3⁄8 teaspoon table salt 
• 1 cup grated sharp Cheddar cheese (4 ounces)

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Toss the cauliflower florets in the oil on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with the kosher salt and 1⁄4 teaspoon of the pepper. Roast until fork-tender and lightly browned in spots, 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from the oven but leave the oven on and reduce the temperature to 350°F. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a medium skillet over medium heat. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute. Gradually whisk in the milk. Simmer over medium heat, stirring frequently, until thickened, 2 to 4 minutes. Whisk in the cream and cook for 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to low and stir in all but 2 tablespoons of the cheese, the table salt, and the remaining 1⁄4 teaspoon pepper. Stir until the cheese melts, then cook, stirring often, until thickened, 8 to 10 minutes. Place the cauliflower florets in an 8 x 8-inch glass baking dish or four 10-ounce ramekins. Pour the cheese sauce on top. Sprinkle the top of the cauliflower with the remaining 2 tablespoons cheese. Bake until the cheese is bubbling, 20 to 25 minutes. Serve warm. Serves 4

Credit info: Modern Hospitality credit: Reprinted from Modern Hospitality by Whitney Miller. Copyright (c) 2011 by Whitney Miller. By permission of Rodale, Inc.

sweet no. seven, a garden & gun mention

I was tickled an unnatural shade of pink yesterday when I saw that Garden & Gun's Jessica Mischner named Potlikkery as one of her top ten Best Southern Food Blogs in the land. Landing on her list is the best news I've had in weeks, and it's been a real downer lately, except for having spent a week in New Orleans, and I'll be blogging about that soon.

If you don't know G&G, well shame on you. From the moment I spied the inaugural issue on the newsstand a few years ago, I subscribed, even bought gift subscriptions for my Daddy and a BFF. And for myself, of course. But I let mine lapse because I have this ongoing struggle with my mail carrier. I took it up with the postmaster, of course. 

We have an oversized mailbox because I receive large parcels, and being a librarian I'm particular about the state my journals arrive in. I don't like dog-eared, tattered, or creased covers and my mail carrier persists in creasing magazines down the center and using them as a tool to carry my small bits of mail inside.

G&G is a lush celebration of the better aspects of southern living. Lots of jaw-dropping food, fashion, guns, and hunting dogs. The photos make my fillings pop loosen onto my tongue and dribble onto the linoleum. Plus the articles are informative, well-written, and feature the best mixture of regional writing available.

And when it first appeared at my local big box bookstore's newsstand, they were confused about where to place it. The word gun threw them off, so they place it in with all the men's magazines. Actually, they're still confused about where it belongs, and it remains with the men's magazines. 

Naturally, I'm not shy about shouldering past the menfolk to pluck a copy off the shelves. Nor would I be shy about getting a girlie magazine should I be so inclined.

You'll be pleased to learn of G&G's Made in the South Awards. Entries are due by August 1, 2011. And categories range from food to sporting to fashion to home and each winner receives $500 plus being part of the Made in the South online boutique at taigan.com. For more information visit gardenandgun.com/madeinthesouth

the estimable pot

Sometimes publicists working at publishing houses send me unsolicited books. The Pot and How to Use it is one of those books. A first glance at the cover wrinkled my brow. "Roger Ebert?" How many more celebrity cookbooks will I see in my lifetime? Surely it discourages un-celebrity writers from approaching agents and publishers with book proposals.

Anyway, I read it, and I liked it. It was short, to the point, and he repeated the benefits of the pot on and on. Ebert sold me on the pot. I have a rice cooker that I use for rice and sometimes oatmeal. Ebert is the pot guru and suggests that everyone have a pot and cook with it, almost exclusively. The pot appeals to every demographic, forget about those with little space and little means, because Ebert's book and his pot philosophy are applicable to families and those with monstrous kitchens alike.

There are recipes in the back, but the first two-thirds of the book contains short chapters that motivate readers and cooks to buy a pot/rice cooker and experiment. The pumpkin soup intrigues me, as does the smoky split pea soup.Ebert isn't preachy, though he suggests eating a low sodium diet. The knowledge he imparts is common sense, if you think about it.

Cook anything in the pot. Put the things that take longest to cook in first, like beans, carrots, potatoes, then add the meats later. And at the last minute add delicate frozen now peas so that they will be slightly warmed but still crunchy and retain their verdant color. Plus, he encourages readers to make stir fry in the pot, which seems wacky, I know, but apparently works.

And he shared the names of two of his favorite sauces. One is Worchestershire, with which I am long-familiar. The other is Marie Sharp's Exotic Sauce and I shall have to try it. Both are low-sodium. Ebert references the wisdom of his Aunt Mary, who he said had two speeds in the kitchen, cook and serve, and intersperses her authority across chapters. It's rather a "what would Mary do?" type of device.

Apparently, and here I am late to the Ebert party, he has a blog where he expounds on the pot and answers questions about the pot. Included in two long-ish chapters are comments from readers of his blog which relate their experiences with the pot and thank him for promoting the pot because otherwise they would never have known its glories.

Naturally, I think of my pot in a different manner. Sure, I'd love to cook soups in it. Soup is all I want to eat these days. But, well, I guess the trouble with cooking soup on the stove top is that you can't go off and leave it all day to simmer and stew. For safety reasons using the pot makes sense. Wouldn't a crock pot work as well as or better than a rice cooker? And think about how much simpler it was in frontier days when cooks kept a pot of soup/stew hanging in the fireplace--not directly over the fire, of course, but to the side--and so there was always hot meal for all comers.

Thanks be to Roger for his love of the pot and his desire to encourage its love in others.

watch me. watch me eat.

If you're a serious student of food history, then you won't want want to miss Watching What We Eat: The Evolution of Television Cooking Shows. Kathleen Collins covers a lot of ground from the pre-television days of food personalities on the radio to the current crop of hot young thangs on the Food Network. Like I said, though, you've got to be serious about food history to dig into this book.

Collins breaks the book into three parts: The early period 1945-1962; the middle period 1963-1992, and the modern period 1993-present. The early period zeros in on radio shows, the work of home economicists to spread good health and kitchen hygiene throughout the land, the advent of James Beard, and introduces readers to Dione Lucas. 

I thought I "knew it all," about the history of food and media since reading Laura Shapiro's Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America a few years ago. In fact, Collins quotes Shapiro frequently. But, I didn't know it all. Far from it.

Julia Child, the Galloping Gourmet, and the Frugal Gourmet comprise the second section in which Collins also adds Joyce Chen and her show Joyce Chen Cooks to the mix. Collins credits Chen with introducing Americans to Chinese cooking techniques and ingredients.Reading about Julia Child is always a treat, but Collins confirmed that Child's show, success, and celebrity were all accidental by pointing out todays emphasis upon celebrity, the cult of personality, and the attractiveness quotient that cooking show wannabes must project.

Then, in the modern era Collins chronicles the establishment of the Food Network and why that was such a change in programming when most media outlets could not imagine networks devoted to a sole subject, which nowadays is de rigueur. Collins dips into Food Network and its stars. She charts Emeril Lagassee's failures and successes as he changed formats in his cooking shows. 

And for me, that was probably the section where I wanted more. Not more Emeril, but more about the individual chefs who have shows on the network. Granted, one could write an entire book about Food Network, but I felt that the complexities of their television cooks was not adequately addressed. However, Collins notes how sex interplays with cooking in the styles and shows of Nigella Lawson, who moans and groans as she tastes the fruits of her labor, and particularly how Giada de Laurentiis brought more male viewers to the network due to her bombshell looks and low-cut blouses. 

So if you want a meaty book to dig into that covers all aspects of the history of televised cooking shows, this is it. Collins contextualizes every television show by grounding it in the changes in diet and lifestyles that Americans adopted during that time frame. Her writing is good, spirited, and informed. Her training as a journalist is evident in her skilled writing and excellent research.

Quite after the fact, by visiting her website and reading her biographical information, I learned that she is a librarian. I was impressed with the back matter of the book, her detailed chapter by chapter list of references and selected bibliography were outstanding. Now I know why. Her index isn't shabby either. Yet, she referenced social class a few times in the book and I failed to note those pages. When I search the index under social class, class, SES, blue-collar, middle class, poverty, etc. I don't find those topics anywhere. Most readers won't criticize the index. So just pretend you didn't read this part.

succor in confections

Don't we all dream of escaping our soul-sucking jobs for what we were really meant to do? The numbers of people finding succor in the food industry grows each quarter, it seems. Everyone escapes cubicle nation for the kitchen. That is one of my dreams, too. The big one, the untenable one, is owning/running my own bookstore. How foolish is that given the advent of online book retailers?

And yet, my food dream revolves around opening a small restaurant that only sells desserts: pies, cakes, cheesecakes, tortes, etc. I stare longingly at vacant storefronts and imagine what the reality would be: That everyone in my small city names it their number one after-meal destination because no other restaurant's desserts could possibly compare to mine. Ah, dreams.

Gesine Bullock-Prado can tell you what the reality is. And her advice for those wanting to take similar flight is to start small and work in a kitchen to learn the ropes before taking on too much as the owner of a business. She quit her career in Hollywood with a production company and moved to Vermont to open a bakery and confectionery. After attending law school she entered the entertainment industry at the bequest of her sister, a famous actor. Dealing with the insincere, soulless people with whom she worked dragged her morale through the mud and left her wanting more satisfying work. 

Bullock-Prado lived a double life: Hollywood executive by day, baker by night. She spent more and more of her free time in her kitchen, cooking, as a means of channeling her creative talents into personal projects. When she "came out" as a baker, she drew a great amount of support from folks who loved her creations and that  reception caused her to consider a major life change.

Confections of  Closet Master Baker: A Memoir chronicles her days as the owner/baker of a successful bakery in Montpelier, Vermont. She gets up at 3:30 a.m. every day and tackles recipe after recipe. It sounds like sweet work though, squishing your hands in buttery croissant dough and inhaling the yummy sugary, yeasty aromas in the air.

There were so many things I liked about this book. First, it's so well-written. Her prose zips along the page. I gobbled up this book. Obviously, her skills in the kitchen are not her only talents. Her flair for writing is evident from the start. And her style/voice, is amazing, too. Describing it, well, really doesn't do her justice. Characterizing it as spunky or flirty might leave you with the wrong idea, like she's flip or irreverent. Perhaps it's that her whip smart wit and personality shines through on every page. 

The truth is that the book is a glowing testament to her mother's legacy. Bullock-Prado credits her mother's example as a master baker as propelling her toward a career as a baker. Likewise, the limits Bullock placed on the amount of sugar her daughters consumed made the confectionery an especially rebellious affair.  Her mother's death from cancer inspired  Bullock-Prado's change of focus. The strength of the mother-daughter relationship is revealed in the book's pages and will warm every reader's heart, because we all love our mothers and can relate so easily to the author's sentiments and her experiences as a daughter. 

There are three recipes I cannot wait to try: Golden Eggs, Carrot Cake, and Helga's Cake; named after her mother. Golden Eggs sound mouth-watering. Simply divine. Bullock-Prado describes them as originating from a "technique that made ordinary cake taste like donuts, without all the deep-frying." (13)

I'm always eager to try a new Carrot Cake recipe. The simple fact is that I've never made one and have never been gung ho about carrot cake. I've had scrumptious carrot cake a few times in my life, and that was when I lived, of all places, in Sitka, Alaska. The Backdoor Cafe had the best carrot cake, ever. Carol Rice Spurling promised to share her recipe when she finds it, but I shall make do with the one from Confections... until then.

Helga's Cake was originally called Orgasm Cake. Its a three-layer chocolate pecan torte iced with chocolate buttercream that her mother made. She was never a fan of it when she was a child. The first time she made it she described it as "a complicated piece of goodness," and essentially a sensual piece of cake. (217)

Another thing that I enjoyed about the memoir was the insight into life in Vermont. Bullock-Prado writes about her regulars. They are her dear friends. They are for whom she bakes. A criticism from one about her disappointment with a cherry pie causes our heroine to spend additional hours tweaking the recipe and learning how it went wrong. The problem, of course, was that she had not made it herself and one of her staff failed in one or two steps. Her customer raved with the next cherry pie and declared it the best ever. 

Learning about a baker who delights in the delight of her customers just made my day and made me wish that there were more craftspeople so dedicated to producing outstanding items. Bullock-Prado inspires the service industry to do better at serving our public and creating long-term relationships with them that inspire protracted conversations.

Cupcakes. There were no cupcakes. I suppose that was the only glaring ommission. But not everybody must make cupcakes. 

And I almost forgot this: Bullock-Prado is a tease. That's right. She launches into what I think is going to be a Vivian Ward moment. You know, Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman? When she enters the fancy shops and the women won't help her? Bullock-Prado sets up a similar situation. After living in Vermont for a while, she returns to Rodeo Drive with a gift certificate for a fancy-schmancy shop in hand. "The beautiful shopgirls weren't very nice the first time, and their replacements were exactly the bony prestige-handbag creatures I'd loathed when I lived there." (30) But then, once her friend introduced her as the one who made the macaroons he gave the shopgirls at Christmas, they were lovely and helpful.

Macaroons.

I expected a recipe for macaroons. I love macaroons. Bullock-Prado strung me along about forty more pages and that's when I learned that the macaroons are her lifeblood. It is one recipe that she doesn't share. Once those macaroons were profiled in InStyle magazine, Bullock-Prado was inundated with orders. She hires legions of high school students to help with each order. 

So the lack of macaroon recipe is the one glaring limitation of the book. But we all have to keep some secrets.

soda tax, let them drink water

This morning on NPR I heard a story about the proposed soda tax, which essentially, passes the cost on to consumers. Research shows 

adults who drink one or more soda a day are 27 percent more likely to be overweight or obese

And so the idea is to tax sodas all to hell to make sure that the fatties cannot afford it and cannot do more damage to their bodies. 

Monies generated by the soda tax, about  $150 billion in the next 10 years could be spent to make healthy foods more available or on education. The gubment is banking on those dollars to help with the healthcare overhaul on the horizon.

Taxing the consumer doesn't get at the root of the problem. Okay, perhaps it does, but in a roundabout way. Sodas are cheap. They are ubiquitous. Water, essentially free, but costly when bottled, lacks the "value added" of sodas. 

Who drinks sodas? It seems that everyone does, children and adults. But I'm more interested in regional and class differences. My theory is that poor people in depressed regions drink sodas because they're cheaper than juice and easier to find. Here are the stats from a recent study done on Californians, but what about the rest of the country?

Sodas are the proletariat drink and the poor will be burdened by these taxes. The burden should be shared by all Americans or none at all. Or, better yet, let's let large corporations shoulder a burden or two. Make Pepsico and CocaCola pay a tax to the government for each gallon of soda they produce. But, make sure that they don't pass the tax on to consumers. 

I don't have a horse in this race. I stopped drinking sodas a long time ago. I'd rather drink water, or iced tea. Sodas, even the diet ones that I might guzzle once or twice a year, are so heavy and cloying. They never make me feel refreshed.

But I don't think that soda drinkers should be burdened by added taxes. At some point, if you increase the cost of sodas, then eventually you price yourself out of the market and lose profits. 

Another quandary with no simple solution. Sigh.

my gruel disclosure

I've blogged about food for five years next month. And only in the last year have I sought out publicists and asked them for review copies of books published by their companies.

Prior to that, publicists found me, sent me press releases, and offered me copies of the books under their care. Some titles were not subjects I'd normally read. After stumbling through a few of those,  I decided to contact publicists directly so that I could get review copies of books that I have a true interest in reading.

The FTC wants to regulate what bloggers can receive for "advertising" a product on their blogs. It seems specifically aimed at Dooce and mommy bloggers. But that's just my perspective. 

Mothers, especially, have no value in our society, unless they're a celebrity mom or a MILF. And at that level, children of celebrities are commodities, or used for publicity purposes. There is no national paid maternity leave, no paid childcare. Families struggle financially in order to birth and raise children. 

Women become invisible once they become mothers. When I struggle to bring my daughter inside a store, or to exit one, nobody holds a door open, and I live in the "south." As an egalitarian sort, I expect men and women to help each other out in opening doors and offering to carry parcels and the like. 

Many mothers blog to develop a community that they're lacking in real life. If you didn't realize it, motherhood isolates women from our friends, our families. We don't have time or energy to visit. Our attention is preoccupied by the child learning to walk,  eat, drink, poop. Mothers also turn to blogging to share tidbits about their children's development with those distant friends and families; a documentary impulse. Then, another reason for blogging is so that their voices, so often drained by their sacrifices as mothers, are heard.

Arguments are made that if bloggers must disclose whether they've been compensated by a company mentions on their blog, then the same rules need to apply to big media. I agree. Many readers aren't culturally savvy enough to understand the subtleties of product placement in popular magazines. Sure, they recognize a full on advert, but they don't give a second thought to whether the Kitchen Aid mixer featured in the photo was comped.

Ron Hogan points out that we don't see congressional subcommittees formed about the "dispersement of each and every free book the New York Times Book Review receives." And what about all the freebies fashion magazines receive? All the food products that Shape receives then reviews, and promotes in their pages?

Other bloggers have made the point that we are approached by companies who want us to feature their products on our pages. So they want a mention, or they want to send us a sample of jerky, so we can write about it, get the word out. They're outsourcing their publicity work to us. Or maybe they want us to host a "contest" to generate comments about their product, then we're left with the uncompensated administrative work of contest business and mailing and shipping.

They imagine that a review copy of a book, or a sample of detergent is worth the thought, time, and effort it takes to create a blog post? Oh, there are crappy blogs out there, ones that surprisingly attract advertising dollars. The writing is poor. The reviews are laudatory, never critical. And the companies are onto that. They want bloggers to fawn. Bloggers fawn in gratitude for a freebie. And ya'll might think that free is the new black, but 

This blog was always a labor of love. It began as a documentary impulse. It provides information. Sometimes I review restaurants, products, books, etc. But 99 per cent of those are paid for by myself, because I'd still do it if I wasn't paid. Wasn't compensated. For. Five. Years. And I'm still not compensated. I didn't start blogging to make money. But now, when I see how other bloggers are theoretically raking in enough dough to quit their day jobs and being compensated for the swill they produce, well I get a little Oliver Twisty. I want to hold up my empty bowl of gruel and cry:

Please Sir, I want some more.

Making bloggers disclose when they're compensated is rather ridiculous. Seriously, if you have any sense at all, you can tell that the things Heather Armstrong mentions on her blog were sent to her for publicity purposes. Maybe she only blogs about the things she actually likes or uses. I don't know. I don't read her blog. I was mostly interested in her Australian Shepherd.

Is it a problem with credentials? What authority do mothers have? Do bloggers have? There's this sense that everyone blogs because they can and because it's a route to fame and fortune. And sure, it's a platform from which to launch oneself into an industry. Part of it, I'm sure, stems from the notion that that younger generation has that they're all great. Their expectations are not based in reality. 

So we know that 60 per cent of tweeters quit after a month. But what about bloggers? I read somewhere in the last few weeks, that the average blogger quits after four months (this suggests a year). They lose interest, don't develop an audience, or tribe, or don't make money. Only 5 per cent of bloggers stick with it.

Is it sour grapes? Is big media gnashing it's teeth over uncredentialed bloggers who, in their mind, brought traditional newspapers to their end? Nah. I think it's mismanagement. Failure to change and evolve as a business caused papers to fold. 

The other thing that I offer on potlikker/y, when it comes to book reviews, is that I'm a professional. I'm a published book reviewer. Not once. Dozens of times. Published in authoritative, print media. My day job as an academic librarian and my interest in book reviewing and writing have developed my skills in these areas. As the book review editor of my state library association journal, I also solicit review copies from publicists, and I don't get paid for that work, either. It comes under the heading "service," for tenure and promotion purposes.

Asking for review copies of books is different from asking the Ritz to bankroll your next vacation so that you'll give a favorable review on your blog and have all the other sheep who read your blog to baaaaaah baaaaaah baaaaaaah their way to booking their own vacay at the Ritz, too. So the FTC needs to have categories of bloggers whom they'll regulate. Or they need to shut up and attend to something really important. Focusing on mommy bloggers, which, again, is my perspective, is ugly.

Motherhood is impossibly hard work. The only compensation mothers receive is the state of bliss our child's laughter give us. Or learning to see the world again through fresh eyes. Those levels of compensation change as the child grows. And so, someday parents are "compensated" by seeing the fruits of their labors embodied by a full-fledged adult.

The state, the nation, does not compensate mothers for the sacrifices they make. For the workers they produce for the machine. For the soldiers they produce to fight in our dirty little wars. My argument is that corporate American ought to compensate people who make all the purchasing decisions for a household. And they ought to compensate bloggers who shill their products, too. And they ought to fund paid maternity leave, and pay for mothers who work their asses off at home so that there will be "consumers" to buy those products someday.

Cross-posted to my much-neglected personal interests blog, bekka.

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.