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? 

 

obsessed: america's food addiction

Even though I'm a fan of Mika Brzezinski's books, I haven't seen her live on Mornin' Joe. My television watching is of the binge sort; a season of The Killing, or Breaking Bad, or Orange is the New Black. Had to check: It airs 6-9am. 

Loved Knowing Your Value. Stumbled upon it front-faced out in the business section at big-box bookstore--I don't shop indies in my small city because we don't have indies in my small city. And Brzezinski's book, that book, is so chockablock full with excellent advice, that I took two pages of notes from it that I share with my Intro to Women's Studies students--yeah I teach about identity, justice, and equality, as well as information literacy, as my day job--in the weeks we talk about work in and outside the home. That's always my topic to cover, but they aren't so interested for some reason.

But, I digress. Obsessed: America's Food Addiction--And My Own, is a self-explanatory title, folks. You can figure it out, but I'll give you a synopsis. Its genesis was a conversation Brzezinski and her best friend, Diane, another woman in broadcasting, had that pushed their friendship to the edge. 

If you don't know Brzezinski, she's a gorgeous, size 2 blonde, ambitious, mid-forties woman with two daughters. And her friend Diane is a bit older, no children, whose career isn't as high profile as Brzezinski's. Plus, Diane weighed about 250 pounds. Brzezinski flat out told Diane that she was fat and that she loved her and didn't want her to die and that she needed to lose 50 poundsm more or less. 

But that wasn't all. Brzezinski confessed her own food obsession. How she thought about food constantly from the moment she awoke each morning. How she exercised and pushed her body mercilessly. How she disciplined her mind so that she wouldn't overeat, wouldn't indulge in the foods that she really craved.

The women's ongoing conversation and personal food histories are interwoven within the chapters of the book within which Brzezinski captures the state of our freaked out relationship with food today. Between the two of them, they're tried every fad diet in the USA. She explores fat phobia by visiting Yale's Rudd Center and seeing how the Fat Phobia Scale works and watching fat bias in action. 

She shares information about the changing eating habits of American families. Depending on how well versed readers are, much of this is not new, such as American homemakers relying on processed and canned foods more so in the 1950s and 1960s. And how this has snowballed to the point that today

Cooking from scratch seems to have become a hobby for a small group of people and a chore that the rest of us no longer bother with. 

Too, we're aware of food science and we biologically respond to foods that have added sugar, fat, and salt: we become addicted to them, like methheads. Brzezinski includes interviews with several recovering food addicts, case studies, if you will, making her argument more persuasive: Michael Prager, Ashley Gearhardt, and Brian Stetler all dealt with food cravings and won, eventually. 

Reading about sugar in our diets was most illuminating. I considered whether there was a tipping point that our bodies could or could not metabolize. Thankfully, I don't drink sugary drinks, which are mentioned as the worst offenders. But learning about how hard the liver works to break down fructose, plus its potential link to cancer is worrisome. Dare I mention obesity, diabetes, etc. I think y'all know all that, right? 

As the book progresses, Diane loses weight and exercises while Brzezinski adds weight and tries remaining at 135 which is her body's set point. She visits a nutritionist who suggests she add more protein to her diet for satiety since she rarely feels full after eating her spartan diet. She solicits dieting advice from persons successful at maintaining weight loss: Frank Bruni, Padma Lakshmi, Jennifer Hudson, Nora Ephron, and others. 

One of the last chapters was most important, especially to me, "Teach your children well." Modeling healthy eating when your own habits aren't that fantastic, what a conundrum? One exercise in the book uses a points system to help children understand the quality of different food choices; you rate the food from one to ten.

What works best for me/us is not buying high fructose corn syrup items, but then my husband buys and brings home those items.

Duh.

Brzezinski uses her platform to open the conversation about this topic with her audience and widen it to other audiences and readerships. It's an excellent introduction to what's going on with our food and why we should be more mindful about what goes into our mouths. Afterall, it is our very lives we're talking about. We should be mindful about what we eat, when we eat, why we eat, and how we eat.

cocktails in the [dry] workplace

Earlier this week my library closed half a day for training. That's my workplace, the academic library. We need lots of libation and lubrication after a day here. It's not the work, or the population we serve. It's the politics, the red-tape, you know how it is. The actual connecting with students and serving them is fantastic. 

Part of the morning's FUN was when several of us shared our passions with our colleagues.Topics ranged from making a gorgonzola cream sauce from scratch (with bonus wine pairing) to Japanese cinema. And my passions are many, that is why librarianship is a perfect pairing for me. What occupies much of my time these days is twitter and television.

Haven't found an engaging book. My kitchen is so depressing spending time cooking in it would send me into such a downward spiral and my spirits are so low about other things in life that fast food solves the "must eat" problem in a pinch at this moment. Wish it wasn't so. But, enough about that!

Nevertheless I presented two topics to the training organizer: twitter or cocktails. 

She chose cocktails. 

I schooled my people on the origins of the word, OED origins, where it developed in the USA, and the best cocktail experience: New Orleans, at the best bar Carousel Bar, at the best hotel, Hotel Monteleone. Filled them in about Tales of the Cocktail, an entire week devoted to mixology, seminars, awards, panels, and trends in cocktails, such as how bartenders use the martini glass to concoct drinks called "martinis" that are not martinis.  

Naturally, these are my opinions--that is, about New Orleans being the penultimate cocktail experience. You may disagree. And I'm open to your suggestions and willing to travel and barhop in other cities for research purposes.

I've swilled excellent cocktails elsewhere but touring from bar to bar in New Orleans cannot be beat. New Orleans kicks ass. The people are fantastic, the camaraderie cannot be beat. Oh, except for that Mother's Day shooting. Long exhale. 

And remaining at the Carousel as it turns, turns, turns, and line-item ordering down its extensive menu isn't a bad idea either.

In my very limited time, I educated them about the sanctity of the martini (gin + vermouth) and threw in a delicious Dorothy Parker quote and had them recite how James Bond likes his.

Don't think they appreciated the Parker quote. Bunch of prudes, really. In the past, my boss asked me to tone down my snark and one student found me disturbing (okay so she didn't love The Walking Dead like I do). I'm okay with being myself. Jesus loves me just as I am. Letting my freak flag fly. No self-censorship here.

Twas delightful, plus I plugged my new fav, Cardinal Gin and told them it was an essential purchase for their drysink. Since we're a dry campus (except for when the president pours it behind closed doors for his big donor cronies) I couldn't stream samples. In closing, I suggested they remember to drink like a Gatsby.

Perhaps I piqued their interests about cocktails. There was one question about whether I'd sampled the Jonge Bols from my colleague native to The Netherlands. Sadly, no. I reiterated my search for Pisco and how it isn't distributed in the southeast and how I traveled to central Florida to buy a bottle to re-create Marvin's fantastic Pisco Sours from the Carousel. 

all apologies soup

Never-mind the three month absence. That's what this soup recipe is clearing up. The crippling fatigue I felt all fall, which prevented me from blogging, and cooking anything of note...well, the blogging about it part, at least, wasn't because of a lingering flu, like I imagined. 

My blood pressure soared to heights it never reached when I was pregnant. Too much stress at home. Too much stress at work. 

Last night I made this yummy roasted cauliflower, mushroom, and arugula soup. I based it on Ina Garten's roasted potato leek soup, which I made about two weeks ago. Successfully, I might add, all but fore the crispy shallots.

Where the heck am I supposed to find shallots?

And I'm gonna shout it out to the world: I LOVE LEEKS!!

During my down time--I took about two weeks off from work after Christmas just to do nothing-- I kept the Food Network on in the background and reveled in the Barefoot Contessa. 

Surely, that I what I hate most about being a "working woman" well, one who works outside the home, at least--I don't get to watch back-to-back episodes of Barefoot Contessa everyday on Food Network. That might be my real dream, afterall.

Btw, my mom gave me BC's newest cookbook for Christmas. I bought two pounds of carrots and a bunch of marscapone to make that carrot cake recipe. BUT, then my labs came back from my PCP visit and my cholesterol is SO high that I don't know if I dare make the cake or not. 

That's why the soup. Trying to reform my fried and fatty food ways. Eat more fiber. I've always eaten good fats. Methinks it's the too much eating out that drove my cholesterol sky-high...during the deep-fatigue months of autumn. Also, I have inherited high cholesterol.

But enough about that. You came for the recipe, right?

Hope I can remember it. Much of my cooking is by feel and taste; not exact at all. 

All apologies soup

One head of cauliflower, rinsed & cut up
One container of mixed mushrooms, rinsed
handfull of arugula, rinsed
salt & pepper to taste
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated
64 oz organic chicken stock (two boxes)
1/2 cup half & half
2 cups whipping cream
3 tablespoons olive oil, separated
1 cup white wine, separated

Heat oven to 400. Spread cauliflower evenly on baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and 2 T olive oil. Roast about 40 minutes. Check every 10-15 minutes and turn. At last 10 minutes douse with 1/2 c white wine and sprinkle arugula over top and let it wilt. 

As your cauliflower is roasting you can be working on the mushrooms. Saute mushrooms with remaining olive oil in Dutch oven. Pour in one box of chicken stock and let simmer about 15 minutes, then add half & half. Stir and continue to simmer. 

At 40 minutes, remove baking sheet from oven. Be sure to wear an oven mitt. Scrape cauliflower and arugula (and leavings) from baking sheet into Dutch oven and stir to incorporate everything into the soup. Add whipping cream, nutmeg, wine (I used a Toad Hollow Chardonnay I had on hand and it was divine, though Sauvignon Blanc is typically suggested for cooking purposes), and second box of chicken stock. Simmer another 10-15 minutes until ingredients are warmed together. 

You could always use a hand-blender to pulverize this into a thicker, condensed soup, which is what Ina Garten recommends with the roasted potato leek soup this is based upon. But I prefer a more rustic soup with hearty pieces of cauliflower floating around, more like a stew. 

white jacket required

One of my favorite kinds of culinary memoir to read is what I've dubbed the "corporate-to-culinary" or "grey-suit-to-toque" realizing where one's true passion and/or vocation lies. But Jenna Weber's White Jacket Required: A Culinary Coming of Age Story departs from that right out of the oven, because she bypasses the corporate job entirely. Instead of seeking a Fortune 500 job after graduating from the College of Charleston she heads straight for Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Orlando, Florida and is up to her elbows in Meat Fabrication before she can say "not by the hair of my chinny chin chin." 

Another odd thing about Weber, who is decidedly NOT odd as you get into the meat and potatoes of her memoir and learn about her life, is that she isn't going into debt at Le Cordon Bleu to have kitchen underlings snap to and say "Yes, Chef!" and "No, Chef!" at her every whim. Her culinary aspirations are writing about food, not creating it or serving it. 

She wants to do it well, and with authority. And so she seeks a chef's education and this basis for understanding her subject in a way that many food writers do not. Certainly we must admire and respect her for her noble goal. It's an approach I would take if I was young, unmarried, childless, and at the beginning of my career. 

A glimpse at her daily life reveals her mornings at culinary school interspersed with evening shifts as a hostess at a restaurant, negotiations with her childhood friend and roommate who is attending police academy, and occasional dates with her long-time---and older boyfriend-- with whom she has a committed and long-distance relationship with. 

What is a typical day, or course at culinary school like? Undoubtedly each person's experience is different, colored by her personality, classmates, instructors, the setting, and the events culminating in her life. So while Weber captured many typical scenes you might expect, such as hours spent in commercial kitchens replicating recipes until they were perfect, or taking copious notes as her instructors lectured, or working in teams with classmates with whom she got on well (or did not), there were many details specific to her life that make White Jacket Required a timeless rendering of a woman's journey seeking identity. Another thing we learn about Weber is her determination. She takes up running despite the excruciating pain it leaves her body in. She plows through and continues running. With such moxie and determination, readers understand that Weber will easily make it through Le Cordon Bleu and any other trial she must overcome.

Weber's skills improve as we read each chapter, but ultimately she discovers that the Culinary Arts program leaves her dry. Dealing with meat and the other portions of the curriculum leaves her dispirited, and it's not sinking her hands into the bread making course that her spirits rise and she finds her passion. Fortunately, she easily switches to the Baking and Pastry Arts Program and though she has many challenges to meet, she does so readily and cheerfully. 

I loved reading about the time she spent in Napa, which she writes about near the end of the book. And since it's where she currently lives it's nice to know that dreams do come true, smiley face, smiley face. 

Dozens of recipes are tucked within the book's chapters. I made First-Day-of-Class Biscuits because I had a yen for biscuits and the recipe intrigued me: pastry flour in biscuit dough? Granted, I have Nathalie Dupree's mammoth book on biscuits, Southern Biscuits (As If there are Western Biscuits, Northern Biscuits, New England Biscuits? Pah.) but haven't made any from it, yet. These were so so. I credit my failure as a biscuit maker rather than Webber's recipe. And, that I used unbleached whole wheat flour. I don't stock any other kind in my larder. Somehow biscuits don't taste as yummy unless they're made with bleached flour; simply my preference for incorporating more healthy ingredients in my home.

Weber's publicist shared the recipe for Pumpkin Whoopie Pies which she said was available for reprint, so I'm sharing it herein: 

Reprinted with permission from White Jacket Required: A Culinary Coming-of-Age Story © 2012 by Jenna Weber, Sterling Epicure, an imprint of Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

Pumpkin Whoopee Pies
By Jenna Weber,
Author of White Jacket Required: A Culinary Coming-of-Age Story

Makes about 18 whoopee pies

These cookies are very rich, almost like a cupcake, so I suggest saving this recipe for a special occasion or a rainy afternoon. The cookies are best the day you bake them; if you keep them for too long they will become a bit gummy and soft. They would also be perfect with cream cheese frosting in the middle, or on their own, sprinkled with a dusting of powdered sugar.

For the buttercream filling

1 egg white

2 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups powdered sugar, divided 

¾ cup shortening

For the cookies

2 cups brown sugar 

1 cup canola oil

1½ cups canned pumpkin 

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder 

1 teaspoon baking soda 

1½ teaspoons cinnamon 

½ teaspoon cardamom

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon ground white pepper 

1½ teaspoons ground ginger

Make the filling: In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, combine the egg white, milk, vanilla extract, and 1 cup of the powdered sugar, then mix on high speed until the mixture is creamy and light. Add shortening and remaining cup of sugar, and whip on high speed until very light, about 8 to 10 minutes. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 325°P. and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Make the cookies: In a large bowl, blend together brown sugar and oil with a spoon until well combined. Add pumpkin, eggs, and vanilla and continue to stir until smooth.

Sift together flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and spices, and then add to the wet ingredients, stirring only until combined (be careful not to overmix).

For best results, spoon batter into a piping bag with a large tip and pipe mounds of batter (about 1 tablespoon each) of batter onto the lined sheet tray, about 3 inches apart. (If you don't have a piping bag, use two large spoons and space the batter in the same way.)

Bake cookies for about 10-12 minutes, until they begin to turn golden. Let cool completely before sandwiching cookies together with the filling.

Cookie sandwiches will keep in a sealed plastic container at room temperature for a few days.

The above is an excerpt from the book White Jacket Required: A Culinary Coming-of-Age Story by Jenna Weber. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Reprinted with permission from White Jacket Required: A Culinary Coming-of-Age Story © 2012 by Jenna Weber, Sterling Epicure, an imprint of Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

Author Bio
Jenna Weber, author of White Jacket Required: A Culinary Coming-of-Age Story, is the author of the highly successful food blog Eat, Live, Run. In 2007, she attended Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Orlando, Florida. White Jacket Required is her first book. She lives in San Francisco, California. Go to www.eatliverun.com for an up-to-the-minute look at Weber's world of food.

For more information please visit http://www.eatliverun.com, and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter

I received a review copy of Weber's memoir from her publicist, just to let you know, so I'm in accordance with the new FTC regulations, but otherwise, I received no other form of compensation for this review. It's just what I do. I love to read. I love to write. And I love to share my opinion.

making piece, bring on the pie

Every few chapters or so Beth M. Howard alluded to her pie crust recipe, mentioning how it was a simple ratio, not even a recipe. How, it's not even complicated at all, that you follow a few guidelines, and voila, you have pie crust. She wrote about flour and fat and water and salt I kept waiting for a semi-exact recipe to appear, since it was a book about pie memoir.

And since she learned it from a retired pastry chef from the merchant marines... omg, what a story. What a recipe! It's a great as all the recipes I never learned from my grandfather who was a cook in the Navy. Wonder if he can recall any of those? Interestingly he did all the scratch cooking at his house while my grandmother cooked from cans and boxes, except for her pineapple upside down cake. I don't think he ever naked. Mostly he cooked savory. But I digress...

Sometimes I surprise myself by my reading habits. Used to be I was impatient and flipped back and forth in a book. As a teen I skimmed a book's last page or too, just to be bitchy, but that was was fiction. In reading Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Pie I expected recipes and thought they'd appear randomly inserted between chapters. Must be having a mid-life moment because I failed to turn to the back of the book to check for recipes. They were there!

A good deal of the book isn't so much about pie, though it is a central and recurring theme of the book. It's about Beth Howard and how she killed her husband. Oh, I'm being dramatic. She thought she killed him. He was a hard-working German man whom she never saw. She desired a more intimate relationship, but that wasn't possible because he loved his work more, perhaps? She asked him for a divorce and he keeled over: Read the book. Imagine an irreverent Year of Magical Thinking meets American Gothic, Road Rules, and my favorite-- pie. Howard lives in the American Gothic house, don't you know? Ultimately pie is what keeps Howard together. It keeps her sane. It gives her something to focus on. It is her passion. And she follows where her passion leads her. 

Making Piece serves as a manifesto for grievers everywhere: Immerse yourselves in pie-baking and you will know peace (and piece, may I slice a piece of peace for you?). It's an interesting concept, pie baking as a balm for grief. Howard followed her bliss, made pie documentaries, judged pie baking contests at the Iowa State Fair, traveled across the country in an RV, and landed in Iowa, a few miles from her childhood home, near the Dibble House, in which she resides and operates a pie stand, Pitchfork Pie Stand, summer weekends.

Following her, and her dogs, on this transformative adventure zig-zagging through several states--Texas, Oregon, California, Arizona, and Iowa is never boring. What I loved the most is her idea that "the world needs more pie." Pie making, eating, sharing as a means of world peace. Lovely sentiment. I agree. Can't we all just get along, bake pies, eat pies, and live in harmony? Read Making Piece, it's a lovely book with pie deep down at the heart of it all. 

Normally I'd be at the American Library Association's (ALA) annual conference in June, which is in Anaheim this year. And guess who sits on a panel? Beth Howard. Would be lovely to meet her, but I won't be going to ALA this year because we had unexpected things come up (like Ian's hospitalization) and no money to go. Drat. Another time. Maybe I can wrangle a [work] trip to Iowa later this summer and pony up to the Pitchfork Pie Stand for a personal pie of my own.

I mentioned a few posts back that I'd grown ovaries and decided to make pie crust from scratch rather than rely on my old standby the Pillsbury pie crust from the dairy section of the grocery store (although sometimes I use another brand whose name I've forgotten, it's wholesome and organic and is stocked at Earthfare, my favorite place to shop, and no, they don't pay me to endorse them). And Howard's crust was the main contender for such a pie crust. 

Working it up was easy enough. Getting it to tacky stage was....meh. What do I know from scratch pie dough? But who cares? Because what does it matter, really? At the Southern Food Writing Conference I attended a few weeks back in Knoxville, Nathalie Dupree talked about wasting the makings for biscuits, just a few cents, really, and what does that matter in the long run, when it comes to building the best darned biscuit you can? So, my mindset changed thanks to Dupree, and experimenting with pie crust to get it right isn't such a big whoop. Or is that whup? 

Nevertheless, after dividing my dough into two balls and rolling them out, one did better than the other, so the better of the two I used for the base dough and the worse of the two I let Elsa cut with cookie cutters to make a "fancy" top instead of a full top. My favorite pie is peach, blackberry, and blueberry. Can't recall if I've shared the recipe here before. And I'm never exact with it--with exact ingredient amounts, anyway.

The worst part about making the pie crust was that my head was pounding as I mixed the shortening and butter and flour and "fluffed" in the ice water. But, we were invited to a Memorial Day barbecue and I didn't want to arrive empty handed. I wanted to bring pie. The guy who invited us, a dear old friend whom Ian and I have known since sixth grade, was an Air Force veteran, and it turned out that his father was, too. So I was doubly pleased to have made pie for these two men and their family. We also had strawberry shortcake and banana pudding. So quite the triumvirate of desserts that day!

8 or 9 organic peaches, peeled and sliced thinly

pint of blueberries, washed & picked over
smaller container of blackberries (1/2 pint) I didn't pay attention, washed & picked over
1/2 cup of flour
1/3 cup of sugar
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon candied ginger
1T freshly squeezed lemon juice
1T butter 

Preheat oven to 450 F.

Combine the fruit in a large bowl. Add flour, stir together. Add sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, stir well. Add candied ginger and stir well. Pour contents of bowl into pie shell and distribute evenly in shell. Sprinkle lemon juice over filling. Slice pat of butter into small pieces and distribute evenly around pie.

Then at this point you'd top with another crust or do a criss-cross crust, etc. Or if you had a very wide in circumference bottom crust, you could fold it over the filling in more of a rustic pie-type style.

Bake for 35 minutes with crust covered with aluminum foil so that it doesn't turn too dark. Then remove foil and bake for another 10 minutes (45 minutes total), or until crust is the shade that you prefer.

Luckily my forgetting to throw in the dash of salt didn't have any real effect on the crust's taste. There was less than a piece that we brought home. But, I must do better at perfecting my crust-making skills by the next pie I make. 

Because I am a major pie fan, and I love memoir, and this book featured two of my most favorite elements, I contacted the publisher and they sent me a review copy of Making Piece. Just letting you know, so I'm in accordance with the new FTC regulations, but otherwise, I received no other form of compensation. 

pie it forward

After oodles of years relying on pre-made Pillsbury pie crust dough I decided to make it from scratch. Isn't it about time? My kitchen philosophy is fairly well-balanced. I'm no--oh gosh, I can't think of her name, the woman who saves time by making everything with pre-made, processed canned goods and cookie dough--Sandra Lee. Yep, that's her. But I do uphold some standards in the kitchen.

Totally scorn her approach to time-saving measures, but I'm okay with using Pillsbury pie dough. Perhaps because my mother does it, and she declares that it's almost as good as homemade. So if Mama says... The other bit is that making pie dough from scratch always sort of scared me. Now, I didn't really do it completely from scratch like Beth Howard says to do in Making Piece, which I'll review soon.

But when I read the ingredients in Gesine Bullock-Prado's hand pie dough (milk and sweetened condensed milk) I was sold. Her new cookbook is Pie it Forward: Pies, Tortes, Galettes & Other Pastries Reinvented. And she uses a food processor to construct her pie dough. Since I need every opportunity to build my Cuisineart skillz, I was all for trying it out and luckily met with success.

Actually another seasonal event had some role in which recipe I chose, the Berry Hand Pies: The availability of strawberries. Strawberry season arrived at the end of April in east Tennessee and Scott's strawberry booths appeared in parking lots throughout the region. My friends and I who love the strawberries kept each other apprised of where those vendors appeared and whether there were workers selling pints, quarts, and bushels.

Once we pulled into the parking lot of our neighborhood farmer's co-op, Elsa selected which strawberry quarts she wanted. At home I weighed how many we needed according to the 170 g requirement from Bullock-Prado's recipe: just 10. So the rest of the recipe was totally awesome. Read these ingredients and see for yourself: sugar, lemon & lemon zest, finely chopped fresh rosemary, sea salt, and fresh raspberries. The filling's taste was simultaneously zingy and savory.

Elsa wanted to help roll the dough, but I let her brush the egg wash. That seemed more appropriate for her skill level in the kitchen. There was plenty of leftover dough to nibble, for both of us. Yum. 

Each recipe is everso tempting due to Tina Rupp's photography. Her change of vantage point and the mixture of close up and distant perspective offer readers a variety of images resulting in a dynamism that keeps us interested in seeing what treat our "sweety pie" will delight us with next. The real shame is that there aren't photos for every recipe.

And that's my big criticism for this cookbook, and every cookbook. I know including photos for each recipe drives the cost up. But I'm also more likely to try a recipe if I can see it. If if looks like something I'd like to eat, then I'll try it. I'm that way with desserts in restaurants. I love when they push the dessert truck out for show and tell. It helped with decision making. 

And that's the question: Which recipe is next? Which pie dough will I attempt? Shall I try a sweet or savory pie? Oh my gosh. I cannot decide. 

By the way, according to the new FTC regulations, I received a review copy of this book from the publisher, Stewart, Tabori, & Chang, but received no other form of compensation.

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.

peachberry pie + secret weapon ingredient

Cake used to be my favorite dessert. But maybe the past five or so years, pie beats cake's fancy pants in my book. In my kitchen, too. Oh, I love to bake a cake, but I love to bake and eat a pie.

Normally I shy away from making a pie crust from scratch. I'm still working up to it. I use the pre-made Pillsbury pie crusts, but this time I tried the all-natural kind found at EarthFare. I forget which brand they sell. But, I didn't love them. Don't get me wrong. They were flavorful. But, they were wimpy. Didn't hold the pie's contents in as well as the artificially flavored/colored and preservative-packed Pillsbury brand that I'm accustomed to. Then again, this pie was ultrajuicy.

White peaches and blueberries I bought at our farmers market. Super yummy. Super sigh. My mother's pies were standard apple pie. Or possibly plain peach. She wasn't the mashup type when it came to melding the fruits and berries together.

My first job out after graduating from high school was as an historical interpreter at Rocky Mount (lookie, it's the eighteen year old me!). It's one of those pioneer log cabin places that demonstrate fireplace cooking. That's where I learned all my fireplace cooking skills, too. One of my co-workers there, Anna Jane, inculcated me into the ways and means of dutch oven cooking, as well as the sweet combination of peach and blueberry baked together in the juiciest of pie forms. I learned well at her elbow. When we run out of fossil fuels and revert back to campfire cooking, I won't be starting at square one.

I'm one of those cooks I read about last night. Creative Nonfiction has a food issue and one of the articles is an interview with Ruth Reichl wherein she talks about the difference between women cooks and men cooks. Men are about gadgets and measurements and finished products; women are about process. So rather after I threw my pie together and decided I'd blog about it I figured I should deconstruct my process in a receipt.

Peachberry Pie inspired by Anna Jane

Preheat your oven to 350-375 depending on how your oven heats (hot or cool).

You'll need two nine inch pie crusts.

Sprinkle a teaspoon of all purpose flour in the pie pan before lining your pie pan with one pie crust. This eases removal of your pie from the pie pan after it bakes and cools.

Rinse and pick through your blueberries and cast off any weepy ones or unripe ones or stems.

1 quart of blueberries less about 1 1/2 cups (sorry this is imprecise)
4 white peaches peeled, pitted, and sliced
2 T crystalized ginger (the secret ingredient I add to most every fruity pie I make)
4 T butter, sliced into small pieces
3 T all-purpose flour
1 C sugar (you could add more if you like a sweeter pie, I don't)
1/8 t salt

Combine fruits in a medium bowl. Add the flour, sugar, salt, butter, and ginger, and fold gently into the mixed fruit. Pour this into your pie crust. Place other pie crust on top of this and pinch together the two crusts. I don't have the best technique, so I can't give you any pointers here. Pop into your oven and bake approximately 45-55 minutes.