This is an actual photo of Budapest, not an artist’s idealized rendering. It looks like it’s made of daydreams and spun sugar.
The Kid is on vacation this week—in Budapest.
In a phone call home, we discussed goulash.
Our version of goulash.
In our family, goulash is a stew-like dish made with hamburger, roasted garlic, mushrooms, tomato, and pasta of some sort. It’s filling, tasty, reheats like a dream, and with a dollop of sour cream is practically perfect comfort food. In other areas of the US, various iterations of this dish are known as American chop suey, beefaroni, and curiously, Johnny Marzetti.
A plate of the real thing, from a restaurant in Budapest.
The Kid informed me that our goulash has nothing in common with true Hungarian goulash (which I knew) and it’s the national dish, served mainly on special occasions (which I didn’t know).
But the US/Hungarian dinner dichotomy got me to thinking.
What is wrong with us as a nation that we take a perfectly good ethnic dish and pervert it into something the citizens of the dish’s birth country wouldn’t recognize it if a pan of it was dumped over their heads?
And goulash is the tippiest tip top of the culinary iceberg. If a national dish can be changed so profoundly that the only thing left in common with the original is the moniker, we, the people have probably done it.
Take, for example, spaghetti and meatballs. It is true that Italians eat both spaghetti and meatballs, but never together, and certainly not like we do. Meatballs are neither the size of cantaloupes, nor served on pasta. And they sure as heck never break spaghetti in half before it goes into the pot. Serving or consuming cheese from a green can in Italy will get you serious prison time, where they never, ever serve spaghetti and meatballs.
Authentic street tacos of carnitas, white onion, and cilantro. Like a dog, I could eat these until they kill me. But what a way to go.
Mexican food in general, and tacos in particular. Nowhere in Mexico does anyone serve shredded lettuce and cheddar cheese on a traditional taco. Or ground beef. Or seasoning from a glossy envelop manufactured in a Scottish company in Maryland. Taco shells are not even a thing. And those u-shaped, bland, crispy shells from a cardboard box would just make a Mexican abuela (grandmother) cry and pray for our very souls.
Why ya gotta make Gramma cry?
In elementary school they made something they called chicken chow mein. It was a glue-y, stew-y dish of chicken and celery served over rice. A handful of noodle-shaped cracker things were thrown over the top for crunch. I, and many of my classmates loved it. We were little kids though, so what did we know from international cuisine?
Chicken chow mein ala Central Elementary school.
But the only thing that lunch tray ambrosia truly had in common with the authentic Chinese dish was the chicken.
This is the real thing. Check out the crispy noodles.
It’s not even a rice dish. Traditional chow mein is made with egg noodles. They are fried so they’re crispy and crunchy in spots. This, I imagine are where those canned crunchy noodle things came in.
This product alone made him a hero to generations of schoolchildren and stoners everywhere.
The one man that arguably put more chow mein in more American bellies than any other single person is Jeno Paulucci, a second-generation Italian who founded the canned Chinese food company, Chun King, in the 1940s. He seasoned the food with Italian flavors, in an effort to make the taste more familiar to the European palate.
This mania to morph traditional recipes has almost become a national joke, a kind of twisted point of pride. At a bicentennial dinner attended by Paulucci, President Gerald Ford summed it up by asking, “What could be more American than a business built on a good Italian recipe for chop suey?”
Ladies and Gentlemen, President Ford.
Many of these Americanized, sanitized dishes are favorites from our childhood. So, eat them to your heart’s content. But would it kill you to at least sample the authentic food that inspired them?
C’mon, you know you wanna…
Thanks for your time.
Flavor NC production observation, day two:
Here’s something that will give what follows some context; a generous portion of my blood is composed of caffeine. Whether it’s an expensive fancy coffee beverage, a glass of my homemade sun-tea that’s so strong Petey and The Kid call it jet fuel, or chocolate so dark it absorbs surrounding light, my engine runs on that stimulant of the jacked up, jittery gods. Without it, I am a cranky toy, with failing batteries, and a belligerent headache.
The attached building contains two of my favorite summer items—air conditioning and homemade ice cream. Charity loves to use freshly harvested produce for it. We’ve just missed the blueberry sweet corn, but the fresh watermelon ice cream becomes part of the shoot.
After visiting the okra field, we drive to the farm annex where the fields went on as far as we could see. One portion was full of countless plants heavy with different varieties of ripe tomatoes. Purely as research I ate a couple; sweet, and warm from the sun.
Next was summer squash of different shapes and colors. Then were pumpkins, a few for cooking, but most were purely ornamental, including ones that were pale green and covered with what looked like warts. Our host Ashley said they were perfectly suited for jack-o-lanterns and Halloween decoration.
We concluded our visit back at the farm stand. Lisa and Charity did a shot that culminated in biting into a raw piece of okra.
And nope, it didn’t taste like chicken.
On breaks, The Kid brought all kind of things home from college.
As a consequence, we only had salads every couple of months, and in between there would usually be a couple of times where I purchased greens and mushrooms for salad but then something would come up and a week later I’d end up face to face with slimy malodorous lettuces and ‘shrooms that had a decidedly gangrenous quality.
The Kid, however, advocated a much more casual, spontaneous approach. This included buying a row boat-sized container of mixed greens from Costco or BJ’s, a log of goat cheese, and some ready-to-go protein to toss into the mix (I butter-toast and salt a couple pounds of pecans every few months and mix them with dried fruit. It keeps in the fridge for weeks). It’s dressed with a bottle of ready-made dressing; I love Trader Joe’s balsamic.
Then there was the time my very own shine-hauling mini Richard Petty pulled into our driveway with six or seven cases of homemade pomegranate mead. Transporting this quantity happens to be a felony in most of the states driven through on the way home.
The mad scientists at Whiskey Kitchen serve it on sliced heirloom tomatoes speckled with crispy-fried okra, all resting on a shallow pool of their homemade pesto aioli. But before any of this happens, they lightly cold smoke the burrata, which gives it a flavor that compels one to just.keep.eating. 
Their pesto is delicious, with a sauce-like consistency. This makes it much more versatile, and a silky coating for pasta, unlike most, which can be greasy and is prone to separate.
If you haven’t been to downtown Raleigh in a while, very interesting things are happening. There’s unique shopping, museums, and NC legend and lore. I strongly suggest a trip in the near future that includes a stop at Whiskey Kitchen.
The weekly independent paper I freelance for, IndyWeek has posted 
Thanks for your time.
Petey had one piece of advice: “Make sure you’re quiet when they’re filming.”
The co-hosts make dishes that are NC authentic, tasty, and original, or twists on old favorites. After making hundreds of recipes, it gets tough to come up with new ones, so they count on reader submissions.
We also have a few cold salads. So, I sent in my high-country potato salad, with broccoli and cheddar cheese.
I wrote back, thanked her, and told her I was (at that time) a food writer at the Herald Sun. She then wrote back, telling me that she organized the specialty food contests at the State Fair. Would I be interested in acting as judge for a few of them?
Thanks for your time.
There’s this story I heard years ago.A woman was making brisket for dinner. And, like always, she cut two inches off before putting it into the oven. Her daughter asked why.
Life is full of things we do that make little to no sense, but we do it because nobody thinks to ask Gramma, “Why?”
The first one was about the lady’s room.
Ah, but at Whiskey Kitchen there is no bathroom Gordian knot. There is a giant hook hanging next to the sink in the lady’s room. It should become federal law that every public restroom must have a giant hook hanging next to every sink—it just should.%20Tree%20Nuts%20Allergy2_be393267b3cf384a92feec434cc119f8.jpg)
But those nuts bring more issues than a Batman comic. Not only are there lots of people with nut allergies, these allergies are nothing to mess around with. Allergic people have died from kissing someone who had recently eaten nuts. Even eating food prepared in kitchens with nuts can cause adverse reactions.
Fried okra’s delicious. But, if you’re a fork user, you chase the little nuggets around your plate. If you go commando and use your fingers, you get covered in ranch.
1 tablespoon Basil
Cut all herbs finely, by hand. Combine half in the blender. 
This column came very, very close to not happening. And if I were less ham-handed and herky-jerky, it would have happened, but would have been a very, very different column.
My two favorites are British Cosmopolitan; a slightly more grownup version of our own US Cosmo. And the other title is one my big brother Homer introduced me to, and I’ve been reading for at least forty-five years—Mad magazine.
But I love reading fashion and beauty columns. I’m convinced if I read the right combination of words, I’ll morph into somebody gorgeous and fashionable, like Vivien Leigh, or Grace Kelly, or Audrey Hepburn. Or maybe even someone born within the last seventy-five years.
Some suggestions are really smart and effective, like warming my eyelash curler before using, or lining my bottom lid with white to make the whites of my eyes brighter.
Some tricks sound good, but you don’t know for sure until you try it yourself.
But a few were clumped together, so I opened my eyes wide and used the wand to separate the ones that were stuck together. When I was almost done on my second eye, I accidentally jabbed myself. It smarted and watered for a minute, then felt okay.
It didn’t work. By this time, it had gone from irritating to, “there’s a family of giant porcupines, they’ve moved in under my lid, and now they’re having a huge dance party/housewarming in my eye.”
This space has evolved into my confessional. The embarrassing, the disgraceful, the hurt-y; if there’s a red face and burning ears involved, I’m there and have probably recounted it for you, Gentle Reader.
These days it takes a lot more to set the blush scale into motion. I’ve come to terms with my lack of both grace and tact. But there’s still one category where I’m a tad insecure.
I used to really enjoy sauerkraut mixed with grocery store onion dip. I 
I’d drain them, toss into a saucepan with a too-large dollop of margarine. Then I’d drop in a couple slices of American cheese food, and cook until it was a gloppy, homogenous mass.
I decided to use my go-to veg preparation.
Par-cooked veg
Bring the saucepan to a rolling boil. Slide vegetables into water and cook until the colors are bright, and you can just smell them (4-7 minutes-ish).
When you’re ready to finish them, put them in a skillet (don’t overcrowd). Then you need a couple more items.
Put everything into the pan along with a pinch of salt and pepper, then cover. Cook on medium-low until the veg is tender-crisp. Remove cover and let cook until the liquid’s gone. For a tender vegetable, like peas, remove from heat as soon as liquid’s gone. For harder veg, let them cook until they pick up some browning.
This is a very versatile method which gives you plenty of ways to customize. The biggest thing is to not overcook them. If you went to all the trouble of getting fresh, keep it fresh.
Thanks for your time.
And, that’s the point of the piece this week: old school books.
A Confederacy of Dunces, by James Kennedy Toole. The story of the book’s publication is almost as compelling as the plot of the novel itself. Eleven years before the book was published, the author committed suicide in part because of his inability to interest any publishers in his life’s work. After his death his mother found a copy of the manuscript and made it her mission to introduce her son’s book to the world. It was finally published by LSU Press in 1980 and won the Pulitzer Prize.
The story is about Ignatius Jacques Reilly, a clueless babe in the woods, and his misadventures in his home of New Orleans. It’s funny, and touching, and the easiest Pulitzer winner you’ll ever read.
If you’re on vacation, stuck in a car, or hiding from the heat, pick up a book that you might not normally try—maybe one of these. And if it stinks, go talk to a bookseller. Preferably one of the independent persuasion. Or, go to the library; they’re cool, and librarians adore talking books, too.
That’s probably the most famous line in The Sixth Sense, the most famous movie from the mind of M. Night Shyamalan, whom the entire Matthews family band delights in calling, “M. Night Shamma-Lama Ding-Dong”. His movies are famous for their twist endings. And, with twist endings, comes the risk of someone giving the ending away, which is what Andy Richter, Conan O’Brian’s sidekick, did. This was a couple of years after the movie came out, but he still caused a huge ruckus.
When it comes to a twist ending, I love it. But I also hate it. And very often I’ll ruin it for myself, even as I am fully aware that I’m also draining all the fun out of it. I’m the same way about presents (both giving and receiving). Many of my gift recipients get them weeks before the actual event because I just can’t wait. As a child, there were many gifts for which my surprise was feigned and looked like they’d been rewrapped by a little kid with both frantic subterfuge and guilty haste. 
But, the twist, the fancy footwork which demolishes expectations, I love it. Shirley Jackson’s writing, The Twilight Zone, and later, The Night Gallery, all are excellent examples of the literary head fake. Horror lends itself to a big, surprising reveal.
Yield: 9-12 bar
Pour sweetened condensed milk in even layer on top of white chocolate chips- if necessary, use extra two tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk to fill in bare spots.
The twists here are the procedure, which makes it more of a layered construction, the lemon juice to eliminate any artificial flavor from the cake mix, and the white chocolate chips which give it a pop of flavor and texture.
Thanks for your time.
bull city mom 