advice

Cooking with Nathalie

/ momsequitur / Leave a comment

Nathalie Dupree has an issue with how the traditional, historic Southern diet is remembered.

This was a very typical dinner.

Sure, folks ate fat back, or streak o’ lean.  But it wasn’t a slab on a plate, it was in a big pot of greens.  And likely the only other food on the menu was a piece of cornbread.  The pork was the sole protein.  A meal didn’t contain  3 or 4 proteins, like fried chicken, ham, and fish.  Those were special occasion foods that most were lucky to eat once a week.

This is not how your average Southern family ate every day.

Life was not a fancy Southern buffet with 20 or 30 different foods.  Families made do.

When it comes to Southern food, cooking, and history, doyenne Nathalie Dupree knows her stuff.

Friday night I attended a cooking class at the Southern Season in Chapel Hill, taught by Nathalie.  There was quite a bit of laughter—she’s really funny.  But there was an equal amount of gasps and “Oh wow!’s”.  Because what Nathalie has forgotten, most of us would be lucky to know.

Here is just a small sampling of what I learned.

A little iodized salt will not kill you–and will prevent this.

1.)Did you know goiters, those thyroid-related neck growths from the mists of time are making a comeback?  The small amounts of iodine in table salt essentially eradicated them.  But since everyone has switched over to fancy sea salt sans iodine, doctors are seeing a resurgence.

2.)When you chop herbs, the smaller pieces fall to the bottom of the pile, so keep moving the pile around to get a uniform cut.

Change the season or the venue–try indoor cultivation.

3.)Speaking of herbs, ever wonder why the tender herbs like cilantro and parsley are a bear to grow, yield little, and play out quickly?    It’s because we don’t live in Maine.  All of those plants do great above the Mason Dixon in the summer.  But down here, not so much.  In actuality, soft, leafy herbs are a fall or spring plant.  Just make sure they don’t stay out overnight in a freeze.

4.)Okra has more protein than any other vegetable.  To eliminate the much feared and loathed slime, cook with acid, like vinegar, lemon, or even tomato.  Okra and bacon taste great together, as shown in the delicious cakes Nathalie made for us.

Here’s her recipe:

Okra Griddle Cakes

okra griddle cakes4 slices cooked bacon, drippings reserved

1 cup cooked okra, finely chopped

1 ½ cup self-rising cornmeal

½ cup all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

2 cups buttermilk (Nathalie likes old-fashioned, full fat buttermilk)

3 tablespoons butter, melted

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

Shortening or vegetable oil for frying

Sour cream (optional)

Finely chop the cooked bacon and okra.

Up to 2 hours before serving, whisk together cornmeal, flour, and sugar in a bowl.  Stir in buttermilk, butter and eggs until just mixed.  Add bacon and okra to batter.

Heat a griddle or large iron skillet until hot.  Add enough oil to coat the bottom.  Sprinkle on a bit of batter to test that the griddle is hot enough to sizzle (Nathalie says that you cook with your ears and your nose) and the batter is of pouring consistency.  Add more water if necessary, 2 tablespoons at a time.

Ladle ¼ cup batter for each griddle cake onto hot griddle and cook until the top of the cake is dotted with large bubbles and the bottom is light brown.  Flip with a large spatula, and cook until the other side is lightly browned.  Keep warm in a 200 degree oven on a rack over a baking sheet or serve immediately.  Continue with the rest of the batter until it’s all gone.  Serve hot with optional sour cream.  Variations:

Top with sour cream and a little extra chopped bacon and okra.  Or, substitute a little chopped turnip greens and hot pepper, a few chopped shrimp or crab in the batter for the okra and bacon.

5.)To check if potatoes are cooked and ready to be mashed, rub one between your fingers, they should be smooth.  If not return to the boil.

6.)Thanksgiving was never meant to be healthy.  Go for broke.  As Nathalie said, “When you’re dead and gone, you want them to lie in bed and say, ‘I wish she were here to make that’.”

7.)And season with love.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Thanks for your time

Things I learned in class

/ momsequitur / Leave a comment

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

“What did we know from scallions?”

She may not have known a whole lot about scallions, but Nathalie Dupree is a walking encyclopedia of culinary knowledge and history.

Friday night I went over to the Southern Season in Chapel Hill, and attended a cooking class given by the Grande Dame of Southern Cuisine; Nathalie Dupree.  And boy, was I taken to school.  Below is just a few of the many, many things I learned.

1.)Nathalie is kind, and very funny.  And she absolutely does not believe in giving yourself a migraine by stressing in the kitchen.  The history of Southern cooking is not fancy and fussy, it’s making do with what you have on hand.

2.)When you’re cooking a large meal, write a list of everything you need to do, so you’re not sitting down to dinner and realize you forgot the rolls.  Order the list by cooking time.

3.)Okra.  Cut it lengthwise, and toss in olive oil, salt and pepper.  Roast at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until colored and crispy.

To dice okra, treat it just like an onion.  Leave on stem, cut width and length-wise.  Then slice it into a dice.

4.)Thomas Jefferson, who was an accomplished and curious farmer, is the reason why there are so many varieties of peas and beans available to us.  Using a couple types, our first course was this delicious salad.

Corn and butter bean salad

corn and bean salad

1 pound shelled butter beans, butter peas, speckled peas or any combination, fresh or frozen

6 ears corn on the cob, preferably Silver Queen, kernels and juice scraped from cob

1 green onion or scallion, sliced, white and green parts

8 slices bacon, cooked crispy and crumbled

¾ cup mayonnaise (Good Southern girl Nathalie has a strong preference for Dukes)

4 tablespoons white wine vinegar

3-4 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme

Salt & freshly ground black pepper

Add the beans to boiling salted water, reduce heat and cook about 3 minutes.  Add the corn and cook 1 minute more.  Drain the beans and corn and run under cold water to stop the cooking and refresh them.  Drain again.

Gently toss together the beans, corn, onion, bacon, mayo, vinegar, and thyme.  Taste, then season.

Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least one hour before serving for the best marriage of flavors.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

*Variation: Substitute one pound package frozen white shoe peg corn or other whole kernel corn (see, I told you she doesn’t believe in getting all crazy in the kitchen about ingredients or technique).

5.)This is absolutely genius: Because it’s a summer crop in the north, and a winter crop in the south, flour grown in Northern climes are harder, ie; contain more gluten, which makes for stretchier bread dough (a good thing).  Southern flour is softer, which is much better for flaky pie crusts and biscuits with crispy crusts, and tender insides.

WhieLilly, Martha White, and Southern Biscuit are all from the south and therefore better for cake, pastry, and biscuits.

King Arthur flour is from Vermont, and thus is a much harder wheat, and really good for bread making.

Gluten is protein.  So, if you’re not sure how much gluten is in a particular brand of flour, check the nutritional label.  Flour with higher protein content per serving has more gluten.

Nathalie Dupree is my kitchen hero.  To illustrate her laid back cooking philosophy, I will leave you with one of her best lines from class.

“If it turns out great, serve it.  If it doesn’t; make a trifle.”

It doesn’t matter what the original plan was…anything can be a trifle.

Thanks for your time.

 

Going Postal

/ momsequitur / Leave a comment

“Make him your brownies!”

You could have knocked me over with a fish bone.  It was the kind of shock that you get when you come downstairs in the morning, and your dog is doing your taxes.  Or, your mom calls, and tells you she’s leaving your father, and running off to become a roadie for Metallica.  Or, the CDC has declared that the exercise which burns the most calories is napping.

That kind of shock.

A few years ago at the Crossroads Chapel Hill at the Carolina Inn, I met executive chef James Clark and his partner in culinary crime, sous chef Bill Hartley.  At each visit they treated me like family and filled me full of their delicious Southern vittles.  To me, those guys were the historic hotel.

A few weeks ago came the surprise.

I got a note from Chef—he and Bill had left the Carolina.  We made plans to grab some breakfast and talk about it.We met at Duck Donuts in Cary.  It’s a made-to-order shop which has hundreds of possible combinations with which to dress up fresh cake donuts.  They’re delicious—almost as good as a fresh, hot Krispy Kreme honey-glazed.

The boys informed me that for years they’d wanted to open their own eatery.  And until the chefs had exited Crossroads, it could be nothing but a daydream.

Planning and opening a new restaurant requires loads of blood, sweat, and tears.  And there was no way the boys could in good conscious continue working for, and getting paid by the Carolina Inn, and give it less than their best.

The location they’ve chosen is Pittsboro.  A mid-century modern building is their site.  The space used to house the town post office.  Because of this, the name they chose for their restaurant is Postal Fish Company.

postal fish

Their vision is a fish house serving the very freshest seafood.  Twice a week one or the other chef will make the trip to the beach to procure product.  They have sourcing relationships with the boat, Miss Kenyon, owned and captained by Wayne Marshon, and Renee Perry and Steve Goodwin’s Salty Catch, a supplier who fishes with pound nets, a humane procedure which allows the fishermen sort the fish, leaving the unneeded catch to be thrown back alive.

While discussing the type of fish available, Chef James mentioned dolphin fish.  This isn’t Flipper we’re talking about, it’s an actual fish that some folks call mahi-mahi.  We used to eat it on the beach in Puerto Rico.  They would pull it in, cut it into steaks, and throw it on the grill.  Even for a fish-o-phobe like me, it was a highly anticipated, crazy delicious meal.

I asked Chef James for a recipe, and like always, he said yes.

Chef James’ Grilled Dolphin Fish

dolphin fish

4ea 6oz Portions of Fresh Dolphin

2ea. Banana Peppers Diced

3 tab. Chopped Cilantro

2 tab. Minced Garlic

2 Tab. Minced Shallots

1/4 cup Grape Seed Oil

Juice of 4 Limes

1/2 Cup Cane Vinegar

Salt and Pepper

Excluding the fish filets, mix all ingredients together in a nonreactive bowl.

Once all mixed submerge Dolphin filets in marinated and let sit in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour but no longer than 2 hours.

Get your grill cherry-red hot.  Get a rag dipped in oil and clean the grill very good.

Pull the filets from the marinade and place on a plate and season with salt and pepper.

Take the remaining marinade and put it in a small sauce pot and place it on the grill to heat up.

Place the dolphin on the grill skin side up and allow to cook for 2 1/2 to 3 min. Once the fillets began to turn color and brown on the edges flip over and cook for additional 2 min.

When you’re ready to serve, spoon some of the heated marinade over the top.

Chef James is very familiar with my toddler-like fish palate.  So he’s promised to have fish sticks on his menu—of course, coming from him, they’ll be fish sticks in name only.  You know they’ll be fresh, sustainable, and expertly cooked.

I’m pretty sure that the Postal Fish Company won’t serve them with custard, and you can barely see the fish sticks, but I just couldn’t help myself.

Chef and company are looking to a Fall 2017 opening.

Thanks for your time.

Happiness by the Pound

/ momsequitur / Leave a comment

I really like a dish detergent that smells nice.  For a long time I used one that smelled like green apple Jolly Ranchers.  But it became harder and harder to find, until I had to look for another.

So there I was in Kroger, facing the great wall of dish detergent.  They were every color of the rainbow and every botanical aroma in the olfactory rainbow.

Then I spotted a bottle of creamy violet liquid.  And ever since the first grade when I saw purple socks on Donny Osmond, all shades of purple have been my favorite color.

It was Palmolive blueberry/almond.  I love blueberries.  By themselves or in stuff; don’t care.  Last weekend I was at Maple View Dairy and had their scrumptious blueberry ice cream.  I even have a small blueberry bush in my yard.  Unfortunately, it only produces about twenty berries—and I have to arm wrestle neighborhood birds for those.

This is Rodney.  He sucks.

Dumb birds.

Back at Kroger I unscrewed the cap and took a sniff.  It smelled just like sun-warmed blueberries, and lightly toasted almonds.

I took it home.  It’s become my brand.  The best is when I squeeze some onto a hot pan.  I get a face full of steam that smells like warm desserts stuffed with blueberries and almonds.

Which got me thinking…if hot dish detergent smells like something I’d like to taste, what if I baked something with the same ingredients, but without all the soap?  My nose was already convinced it was a great idea.

I decided to try the combo in a pound cake.  But I didn’t want it to be an ordinary pound cake.  The combination of blueberries and almonds remind me of hot summer nights out on the back porch, quiet country lanes, and small town farmers markets.

My pound cake would be an old-fashioned, traditional pound cake.  That means no leavening (baking soda and baking powder).  The bulk of the lift would come from the air beaten into the batter.  The NC state fair even has two different categories for the pound cake contest; one with leavening and a traditional one, without.

It’s also started in a cold oven.  The slower heating gets every last bit of rise out of it before the cake starts to set.

Traditionally, a pound cake was made with a pound of butter, flour, eggs, and sugar.  My recipe uses cups, ‘cause that’s just how I roll.  And the salt in the recipe is only for enhancing flavor.

Blueberry Almond Pound Cake

blueberry pound

Ingredients:

6 eggs

1 cup butter (2 sticks)

3 cups sugar + 2 tablespoons

3 cups all-purpose flour (divided)

1 cup heavy cream

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cup fresh blueberries

1-1 1/2 cup raw sliced almonds

big pinch of salt

Instructions

Generously grease and flour tube pan and set out eggs and butter to allow them to come to room temperature.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until smooth.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating for one minute after each addition.

Reserve 2 tablespoons of flour and sift the rest with the salt and add it to the creamed mixture alternately with the heavy cream, starting and finishing with the dry ingredients.

Mix until fully incorporated, and quite fluffy.  Stir in the vanilla and almond extract.

Toss the blueberries with 2 tablespoons flour to coat, and gently fold into batter.

Pour into prepared pan.  Sprinkle almonds on top, and then sprinkle 2 tablespoons sugar over.

Place in a cold oven. Turn the oven to 300 and bake for 80-90 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, but moist.

Cool for 20 minutes then remove from pan and flip back over so that almonds are on top.

Serve with more berries and ice cream.  Or, Spread butter on slices and toast in oven until golden brown.  You should get about 16 slices.  Store in airtight container.

Don’t let this cake intimidate you.  Remember, this is the way folks baked for millennia.  Only you have the advantage of an electric mixer.  In addition, you probably don’t have to milk a cow, or fondle a chicken for her eggs.

Thanks for your time.

Of Rice and Men

/ momsequitur / Leave a comment

I kept seeing it everywhere.

3 mags.png

Every month, without fail, I read three magazines cover to cover: British Cosmopolitan, Mad Magazine, and Our State (you’d think I’d be embarrassed by that admission, but, no, not so much).

I occasionally pick up other titles like InStyle, Family Circle, and the odd cooking magazine.

But I draw the line at those one-off, specialty food publications.  You know the ones; church supper potluck recipes, gifts from the kitchen, 200 recipes for hamburger, that kind of thing.

While I love specially curated culinary collections, they start at about ten bucks and go up from there.  I just can’t justify laying down that amount of cheddar for a magazine that I might only read once.

But lately, every time I’ve stood in line at a grocery or bookstore, this one publication was staring me in the face.  There was a stack of gorgeous, golden fried green tomatoes on the cover, and the promise of many more delights inside.

It was Southern Cast Iron, and after I saw it for the fourteenth time, I finally broke down and bought it.

I’m really glad I did.

It was no bait and switch rag.  It had tons of delicious-sounding recipes, and the inside was as gorgeous as the cover.

There was one story that really caught my eye.  It was an interview with Nathalie Dupree and co-author Cynthia Graubart about their book, Mastering The Art of Southern Vegetables.  This was actually before I knew we’d have a food chat.  Quelle coincidence!

They talked about the history of vegetables in the south, their philosophy, and their love of cast iron cooking.  Along with the interview were some recipes.

One was for okra pilau (unbelievably it’s usually pronounced “per-lou”—don’t ask, I’ve no idea).  Pilau is a Southern take on rice pilaf.

Regardless what it’s called, every rice culture has some kind of pilaf.  It possibly originated in ancient Persia, but traveled far and wide, and showed up in various cultures with names like, pilau, polow, and even paella.

Well last week I made it, and it was a huge hit.  It was simple, but full of flavor.  The Kid thought I had added herbs and spices, but the sole ingredients were bacon, rice, okra, salt and pepper.  Since the magazine has already printed it, I’m doing a pilau which is inspired by Nathalie’s tasty, tasty dish.

Pecan Pilau

corn pilau

3 tablespoons butter

1 cup pecan pieces

1 large yellow onion, sliced into half moons

1 cup white shoe peg corn

1 cup rice

2 cups water

Salt and pepper

Heat large cast iron skillet to medium.  Melt butter and add pecans.  Season and sauté until toasted.  Remove and set aside, leaving the butter.

Add onions, and reduce heat to medium-low.  Season, and cook stirring occasionally until caramel colored.

Turn burner to medium, add corn, and cook until there’s a little color on the kernels.  Add rice, and cook until the grains start to smell nutty.  Add water and bring to boil.

When it begins to boil, cover, reduce heat, and cook for 17-20 minutes or the water’s all cooked in.  Remove from heat, leave covered, and let rest for 10-15 minutes.

When ready to serve, add back pecans, and gently toss with a large fork.  Serves 4-6 as a side.

So, there you go.  You learned a new recipe and some history about rice.  And now you probably know way more about what goes on in the dim, chaotic crawl space of my mind than you ever wanted.

Thanks for your time.

Food Chat: Grande Dame Edition

/ momsequitur / Leave a comment

I, and anyone that eats my cooking owe her a debt.

Chefs James Clark, Amy Tornquist, and Jason Cunningham and many other chefs also owe her a debt.

The ‘her’ in question is Nathalie Dupree.

In 1986 a food revolution took place when Nathalie Dupree published her first cookbook; New Southern Cooking.

Traditional Southern cooking is the stew of European and African cultures with the crops and meats available in the South.  It’s the mélange that occurs when lack of funds is combined with surfeit of time.  Her book restored pride in the kitchen heritage of the South and introduced it to a wider world.

Nathalie took traditional Southern dishes and filtered them through the classical culinary training she received in London at Le Cordon Bleu.  She elevated it and transformed it from cooking to cuisine.  And along the way, became a legend.

So much so that in 2011 the premiere women’s culinary society, Les Dames d’Escoffier International bestowed upon her the title of Grande Dame.

As for me, her shows on PBS were my first exposure to true Southern cooking.  I watched her cook with love, pride, and skill.

The weekend of August 5th, Nathalie Dupree will be in Chapel Hill, at Southern Season for a Southern cooking class, and book signing.  Last week, I completely lucked out and had a phone chat with her.

If you’ve never been tele-taught by Nathalie, I highly recommend it.  She’s made hundreds of hours of television on PBS, Food Network, and the Learning Channel.  Many of her episodes are available on You Tube.

I asked her how she feels about the explosion of celebrity TV chefs.

She feels that when Food Network moved from cooking lessons to game shows, something was lost.  One of the few shows she watches is Ina Garten.  Which makes sense, because although one’s from the north, and one’s from the south, they both love entertaining, and respect food.

Besides, believe it or not, Nathalie was actually born in New Jersey, but so very raised in Dixie.

Always the teacher, she gave me some life changing lessons during our chat.

When you come in after a long day and are too tired to think or do what she calls the “pantry waltz” (great term, no?), she suggests keeping a list of easy meals which can be made quickly from on-hand ingredients.

On her list is shrimp and grits (her fave type is Anson Mill’s Bohicket, just like me) and scrambled eggs with cheese and a salad.  Another meal is something I’ve never had, but you can darn well be sure I’m going to very soon—Italian sausage sautéed with either apples or peaches, depending on the season.

She keeps a box of refrigerated pie crust handy.  Then when she has produce looking a little worse for the wear, or drips and drabs of this and that, she makes either a savory tart or even simpler, a free-form galette, a pie with the edges folded over the sides and baked on a cookie sheet.

And instead of a lattice top made of pie crust, shave a zucchini into ribbons and weave them into a lattice.

One of my favorite recipes is from her first book, New Southern Cooking.  Every Southern cook worth their salt and freshly cracked pepper should know how to make it.

Luckily, Nathalie generously gave me permission to share.

Old-Style Pimento Cheese Spread

pimento cheese

12 ounces grated rat or Cheddar cheese (rat cheese is an inexpensive local Cheddar-like cheese.  Hoop cheese fits this bill.)

2-4 ounce jars of  pimentos, drained

1 cup mayonnaise (Nathalie makes her own–but if you’re not up to that, a good quality store-bought like Duke’s, works)

Put all the ingredients in a food processor or blender and process until smooth.

I’ll let you in a shocking secret about Nathalie.

You know those Anson Mills grits she likes so much?

She cooks them in the microwave.  They cook no faster than stove-top, but it completely eliminates the danger of scorching.  Just mix up your favorites according to the directions, only mix them in a Pyrex bowl and nuke them on high.  Every 10-15 minutes give them a good stir, and keep cooking until they’re done.

And the next time you’re in one of the area’s many fine restaurants, enjoying fried green tomatoes, collards, or corn pudding, you now know you have Nathalie Dupree to thank.

Thanks for your time.

Food Chat: the Art of Southern Cooking Edition

/ momsequitur / Leave a comment

Years ago, Southern cooking was denigrated as the food you cooked if you didn’t know any better.  It was commonly held to be the food of people who had no money and no imagination.  The only thing everyone agreed it had was heart; and lots of it.

It was gathering around Grandma’s kitchen table for Sunday dinner.  It was ‘putting up’ summer vegetables in a kitchen that felt like the inside of a steam iron.  It was desserts that were full of love, fat, and sugar.

But then folks got busy.  In many households, both mom & dad worked all day away from home.  There just wasn’t time, energy or desire to spend all day in the kitchen turning out big, heavy meals.

And as time passed, there were fewer of those old-school grandmas left.  Those recipes and techniques were forgotten.  And we were all the poorer for it.

Then along came Nathalie Dupree, and everything changed.

In 1986 her book, New Southern Cooking was published.  And all that humble Southern fare was reintroduced to a new generation.  And this generation realized that home cooking, Southern cooking, country cooking; whatever you called it, was an important gift from our ancestors.  It was something to treasure and something in which to take deep pride.

It was better than the convenient meals we had traded it for.  Cleaner, tastier, and healthier—to mind, body and spirit.

On the weekend of August 5th, Nathalie Dupree will be in Chapel Hill at Southern Season to conduct a cooking class and a book signing (check their website for particulars).

Last Friday, I had the opportunity to have a telephone food chat with Nathalie (I tried calling her ‘chef’, but she quickly corrected me, “Everybody calls me Nathalie”.)

When I first became interested in cooking, I never missed her PBS show and have quite a few of her cookbooks.  She is one of my very first culinary mentors.

She’s a Cordon Bleu-trained chef, a renowned hostess, a savvy business woman, and a moving author (Get your hands on her essay, “Lover’s Menu”; it’ll break your heart).

She insists that her hundreds of shows; on PBS, The Learning Channel, and Food Network, were education, not entertainment.  And she’s still a teacher, who makes learning completely painless (and plenty entertaining).

She gave me a tip which I will use for the rest of my life when writing recipes.

Unless it’s a baking recipe (which is chemistry that relies on proper proportions for success); she doesn’t list an amount for salt and pepper.  You cannot season unless you taste.  And as the cook, you must taste and determine for yourself.

Nathalie generously gave me permission to share her recipes with you.  I chose one of her specialties; simple Southern vegetables viewed through the lens of a classically trained chef.

Green Black-eyed Peas, New Style

black eyes

2 cups fresh black-eyed peas, and snaps

4 cups boiling water

3 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons chopped fresh savory and/or thyme

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Place peas in a pot with the water and bring to the boil.  Add butter, and let boil for 20 minutes.  Add the herbs, salt and pepper.  Serve the peas hot and slightly crunchy in their “pot likker”.

Nathalie Dupree started the new Southern cooking movement.  She’s sold over half a million cookbooks.  Her cooking school in Atlanta has educated over 10,000 students.  She’s won two James Beard awards.

She rescued Southern cuisine and in doing so changed the way we all eat and cook.

Thanks for your time.

Seriously, Cornbread

/ momsequitur / Leave a comment

Durham, one of the most diverse, tolerant cities in the nation is my much loved home.  I wouldn’t trade living in the Bull City for anything.  It’s a funky, lively, friendly burg that is willing to give every person and idea a fair shake.

And yet, up until a few weeks ago I was guilty of a prejudice, which was acknowledged to anyone who cared to ask.  I had no patience for this particular belief system and harbored serious doubts about the character and stability of its adherents.

I love too.  Steaks, burgers, pork chops, scrambled eggs, bacon…

I’m not very proud to admit it but, I was utterly bigoted against all things vegan.  I was convinced it was the flavorless choice of persnickety, joyless, holier-than-thou people with whom I wouldn’t want to be stuck next to at a dinner party.  I mean, they can’t eat honey, but bread is okay.  Yeast is a living organism too, right?

But then, at Whole Foods, I discovered the moistest, most delicious cornbread I’ve ever eaten, and was completely flabbergasted to discover that it was vegan.

Whenever I eat something that I really like, I try to get the recipe to share with you, gentle reader.  If the answer is no, often I try to come up with a recipe which is inspired by what I’ve eaten.

I’d say my success rate is 85-90%.  Funnily enough, I’ve never had anyone offer the recipe but refuse permission to print it.

Getting this one was a little tricky.

Unlike an independently owned and operated business, or where the recipe is owned by the individual, Whole Foods has a corporate structure.  The bakers at your local store can’t just give out the recipes all helter skelter-like.

I was directed to contact Pat Parker, the baker in charge of 38 Whole Foods bakeries in the South.  He generously sent me the recipe for the corn bread.  But its arrival brought with it a number of new complications.

Being much more precise, professional bakers use weight, not measure.  Meaning instead of 1 ½ cups of all-purpose flour, it will be 6.75 ounces, or 180 grams, because to confuse things further for the home baker, sometimes recipes are in metric.

And, if a bakery is going to make something, say cookies, they don’t make a home amount like two or three dozen, it’s more like twenty dozen.  So then, the ounces in the recipe become pounds.

And that is what Mr. Parker sent me.

I converted the recipe to ounces, and reduced the amount by 75%.  But, I felt that after two such drastic conversions, that to convert to cups and tablespoons would be pure folly.  It would be like translating a novel from Russian to English, then putting the whole thing in iambic pentameter.  I was afraid that instead of making corn bread, you would get some kind of mutated abomination that would climb out of the oven under its own steam, and steal your car.

So, the recipe is in ounces.  But I don’t recommend attempting this unless you have a very accurate digital scale.  My scale is analog, and I’m too chicken to give it a go.

Whole Foods vegan cornbread

vegan cornbread

0.65 ounces Baking Powder

0.156 ounces Baking Soda

2.06 ounces Frozen Corn Kernels

7.75 ounces Yellow Corn meal

.25 ounce Egg Replacement

3.71 ounces Evaporated Cane Juice

4.45 ounces Canola Oil

6.2 ounces Pastry Flour

0.165 ounces salt

12.375 ounces Soy Milk

3.09 ounces water

Rub a couple teaspoons oil into cast iron skillet and put in oven.  Preheat to 375 degrees.

Sift together baking powder, baking soda, corn meal, pastry flour, and salt.

In a separate bowl, whisk together egg replacement, cane juice, oil, milk, and water.  Add corn kernels.

With wooden spoon, combine wet and dry until just mixed.  Do not beat. 

Pour into skillet and bake 15-20 minutes or just until it browns around the edges and center springs back when touched by finger.

Makes 1-10 inch skillet which serves 6-8.

So I will leave you with two pieces of information about me.

I’ve rethunk my whole vegan people/vegan food bias.  And, when I want some more of that fabulicious corn bread, I think I’ll probably head over to Whole Foods, and buy it.

cart

Thanks for your time.

 

Honey, It’s You

/ momsequitur / Leave a comment

So there I was, seven years old, laying on my stomach with my pants down, trying not to cry  while my friend’s mother tried to gently pull the stinger out of my butt.

When I was informed that after a honey bee stings a person, it dies, I thought it was a fitting punishment for the mortifying position into which it had thrust me.  But the bee was actually a victim of my adversarial relationship with gravity (I’d fallen keester first on it while the poor thing was just minding its own bee’s wax).

I may not have appreciated honey bees when I was a child, but I do now.

They’re actually much more useful and impressive than most people you’ll meet today.

Honey bees do two huge things for us humans.

In the US alone, they pollinate 14.6 billion (yes, I said billion, with a b) dollars of crops a year.  They are the sole pollinator of almonds.  Without their industriousness, countless crops would be greatly reduced.  If you think produce is expensive now, think about paying $50 for a head of broccoli—if you were lucky enough to find one.

And then we get to their sticky, amber-colored signature product; honey.

Before we even get to its yumminess and versatility, we need to talk about honey’s miraculous properties.

Unlike just about every other food you could name, honey never goes wonky.  Archeologists found honey in 2200 year old clay jars that was safe to eat and still yummy.

It has antibacterial and anti-fungal properties.  Put it on a cut—no infection.  Dab it on a zit, let it sit for 10 minutes or so and rinse it off.  The redness will go away, and in the morning, the pimple will be gone.

And it tastes so good.  The thing I love about honey is that not only will it sweeten anything it’s added to; it also adds its distinctive flavor.  And the flavor varies according to which flora the bees danced their pollination mambo.  The rule of thumb is; the darker the honey, the stronger the flavor.  My new obsession is buckwheat.  It has a surfeit of “honey-ness”.  It adds its uniqueness to all kinds of recipes.

Blueberry buttermilk chia seed pudding

blueberry chia

1 ½ cups low fat or fat free buttermilk

2/3 cup chia seeds

3 tablespoons honey

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Pinch of kosher salt

1 cup blueberries

Directions:

Place blueberries in a bowl and mash with a potato masher.

Put buttermilk, chia seeds, honey, vanilla and salt into the bowl along with the blueberries.  Whisk until fully blended.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Cover and refrigerate for three hours or overnight, until the chia seeds have swollen and softened to the size and consistency of tapioca. 4 servings.

Gramma’s Cough Syrup

cough syrup

Juice of 1 lemon

¼ cup honey

¼ cup Bourbon

Whisk together and drink at room temp, or spoon into hot tea.

Chrissy’s Dressing

chrissy's dressing

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 shallot

¼ cup Balsamic vinegar

1/3 cup olive oil (approx.)

Salt and pepper to taste

Put first four ingredients into a blender or food processor.  Blend ‘til smooth.  Slowly add oil until it is a dressing consistency.  Season, and taste for seasoning.  For best flavor, eat within an hour.  Makes about one cup.

And if you’ve never tried creamed honey, give it a go.  A schmear makes a piece of toasted multi-grain totally taste like decadent French toast.

You may have heard of colony collapse disorder.  They truly are in peril.  So, support your local honey bee.

Don’t sit on them.

Thanks for your time.

Patriotic Party Guest

/ momsequitur / Leave a comment

You can ask The Kid, and there will be full confirmation—I am a corny, kitschy, sentimentalist.

When Petey and I travel, we both love to do the touristy thing.  I’m the girl that would totally stop at World’s Largest Jack-in-the-Box (Middletown, CT), the Indian Death Tiki of Awesomeness (Maggie Valley, NC), and spend the night in dog shaped digs at the Dog Bark Park Inn (Cottonwood, ID) or beneath boulders at Kokopelli’s Cave Bed & Breakfast (Farmington, NM).

OMG, I love these things…

Each fall I literally do a happy dance in the grocery store the first time I see the mellow-creme pumpkins on sale (and don’t even start–they are a completely different confection from candy corns).

I buy one loaf of spongy white, Sunbeam or Wonder bread a year.  It’s used to make my annual Thanksgiving night, before bed, turkey sandwich.

My sweater is exactly like the one in the middle.  Yes, folks, it’s so bad they put it in a very famous Saturday Night Live sketch (I owned it before the sketch).

At Christmastime, I watch hours and hours of fifty-year-old cartoon and Claymation holiday-themed productions.  Each year, If not physically restrained by Petey, I would happily perch on Santa’s lap for a nice, long chat.  I own a Christmas sweater so ugly it’s illegal in 25 states and actually has functioning bells on it.

So when there is a barbecue or picnic for the Fourth of July, you darn well better believe that there will be food, beverages, décor and fashion in red, white, and blue.

For dessert, I buy Independence Day hued M&M’s and liberally scatter them, along with handfuls of broken pretzel pieces, on top of my dark chocolate, fudgy brownies.  And I serve Sundaes with homemade vanilla ice cream drenched in fresh cherry and blueberry sauces.

Blue historically, has been hard to find in savory foods.  I guess there’s blue cheese, and I like it fine, but it’s only blue because of mold; which isn’t really very festive when you think about it.

About fifteen years ago, the US was introduced to a colorful new spud.  Even though it’s known as a purple Peruvian potato, don’t be fooled.  Most of them are as blue as the moon in Kentucky, Elvis’ suede shoes, and a K Mart special.

Uncle Sam’s potato salad

red white blue spud salad

3 pound purple/blue potatoes

2 tablespoons olive oil

Juice of half a lemon

Salt and pepper

24 ounces Cherub baby tomatoes, left whole

8 ounces goat cheese crumbled

5 or 6 slices bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled

Leaving on the skin, cut the potatoes into bite-size piece and cook in heavily salted, boiling water until fork-tender (15-20 minutes).  When still hot, toss with 2 tablespoons olive oil and lemon juice.  Season, and taste for seasoning. 

Let cool completely then put into a large bowl with tomatoes.

Dressing

lemon herb dressing

Whisk together:

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1/4 cup lemon juice

2 tablespoons parsley, chopped

1 tablespoon fresh mint, chopped

1 tablespoon fresh basil, chopped

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Refrigerate dressing for at least two hours.

Thirty minutes before service, add dressing to potato/tomato mixture, a little at a time until the vegetables are lightly coated.  Gently mix in goat cheese.  Cover and let sit indoors at room temperature (not outside, where it’s hot, you don’t want a trip to the emergency room for dessert).

Before service, sprinkle the bacon on top.  This way it will still be crispy when eaten.  Serves 8-10.

And if you don’t get it together for the fourth, don’t fret.  This potato salad also works for Bastille Day, on the 14th.  Though, you should probably call it Frere Jacques potato salad.

Thanks for your time.