Catering to Charleston

On this cold and gloomy day the mind wanders to the warn, ocean blown streets of Charleston and the gentility that comes to mind.  Frances Hamby was the premiere caterer in Charleston, South Carolina.  Hamby Catering is still the cater to call for everything from bridge luncheons to elegant weddings.

Since Hamby catered most Charleston events, it has been said that more than one dowager existed almost exclusively on Hamby's food.  The menus are so ubiquitous that walking into an event, most women can tell which catering plan the hostess had opted to order.

Fran Hamby began in the "business" when she catered her daughter's wedding reception.  It was so successful that the elite of Charleston began to call Mrs. Hamby wherever they needed a party.  The rest, as they say, is history.

After years of being "The" caterer to Charleston, Mrs. Hamby collected her recipes in Catering to Charleston.   The book is filled with recipes and tips for successful events.  It is interspersed with poems and recollections from Elizabeth Bullock Godfrey, a close friend and lifelong Charlestonian.  Both food and history fall off the pages and while it is true that most every kitchen in Charleston has a copy of Catering to Charleston most people in Charleston simply call up Hamby.

Sadly, we are not in Charleston.  If there is a quintessential Hamby recipe, it might just be the shrimp paste.  We admit that the term "shrimp paste" seems a tad unappealing, but it is quite magical.  While the recipe suggests serving with crackers, it is the essential ingredient in shrimp sandwiches.  A thin layer on very white bread that has been denuded of any speck of crust and cut into a three bite serving.   Dowagers aside, this is a diet we would be happy to live on.

Mrs. Patrick's Shrimp Paste

1 pound medium sized shrimp, cooked, peeled, and deveined
1/2 teaspoon salt or to taste
1/4 teaspoon celery seeds
1/4 teaspoon minced onions
Juice of half a lemon
1/4 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
1/2 cup mayonnaise or more to bind mixture
Assorted mild crackers

In a food processor, coarsely chop shrimp.  Combine together shrimp, salt, celery seeds, onions, juice and Tabasco.  Add mayonnaise and store until mixture holds together.  Cover and refrigerate.  Serve with mild crackers.

Ah to be in Charleston.

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My Beverly Hills Kitchen

Alex Hitz's book, My Beverly Hills Kitchen has that "old school" feel to it without being the least bit stuffy or dated.  It has that Craig Claiborne, James Villas, and Lee Bailey feel about it and rightly so.  Hitz has that erudite, well-travel, socially connected vibe about him, but whether in Paris, London, or Timbuktu, one can take the boy out of the South but one can never take the South out of the boy!

Seriously, who doesn't love a book featuring a big platter of fried chicken next to grand mama's silver? We would definitely party with this guy.  And we would have a good time, too. The book is a perfect storm of Southern classics like shrimp and grits with some biscuits thrown in along side some very French cooking things like a hollandaise from Escoffier.  Hitz likes to name drop, but rarely gives much detail other than he got this recipe from so and so  or he ate this dish with at her house.

His Osso Buco is one such dish.  He mentions that several years ago in LA.  (Los Angeles and not Lower Alabama) EVERYONE served osso buco.  He served it a dinner party, Betsy Bloomingdale served it and Prince and Princess Rupert Lowenstein served it at lunch.  He is somehow connected to the Rolling Stones which gives us an extra name or tow to drop.  And still, it is a fine recipe.

Osso Buco

3 pounds veal shanks with bones
1 teaspoon salt, divided
½ teaspoon ground black pepper, divided
5 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons salted butter, divided
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 cups chopped onion
1 cup sliced onions
½ cup diced carrots
½ cup diced celery
2¼ cups red wine
3½ cups chicken stock
¼ teaspoon dried thyme
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Gremolata (recipe follows)


Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Season both sides of the veal shanks with ½ teaspoon of the salt and ¼ teaspoon of the ground black pepper.

Place the flour in a medium mixing bowl and toss the seasoned shanks in the flour until they are coated. Shake off the excess flour and reserve the ribs.

In a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter with the oil. When the foaming has subsided, add the shanks to the skillet.

This is the most crucial step: Brown, and I mean brown, the shanks in the butter and oil on all sides until they are crusty, about 15-20 minutes. You may have to do this in batches. Do not crowd the pan, or you will steam the meat instead of browning it. Pay attention, as this is truly the most important part of this recipe. Transfer the browned shanks to a 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking dish and let them cool.

Remove the burned oil and butter from the skillet, and let the skillet cool slightly.

Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons butter in the skillet over low heat, but do not let the butter burn. The skillet will be very hot.

When the foaming has subsided, add both the sliced and chopped onions and sauté for about 2 minutes, until just slightly translucent, and then add the carrots and celery. Sauté for 10 to 12 minutes until the vegetables are just barely soft.

Transfer the cooked vegetables to the baking dish with the shanks, and then pour in the wine and stock. Add the remaining ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon black pepper, and the thyme. Top the dish with a bay leaf in the middle.

Cover the baking dish tightly and bake it for 2½ hours.

Remove it from the oven, uncover it, and remove the bay leaf. Remove the meat and pour the liquid and vegetables into a heavy medium saucepan. Place the saucepan in the freezer for about 20 minutes and then skim off the excess fat. Reduce the oven heat to 300° F.

After you have skimmed the fat, place the saucepan on the stove over high heat and boil it until the sauce thickens, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the parsley.

Put the shanks back in the baking dish and pour half the thickened sauce over them. Cover the dish tightly and put it in the oven again for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Remove the shanks and uncover them. They should be falling off the bone by now. Heat the rest of the sauce in a heavy saucepan over a medium heat.

Turn to oven to broil. Broil the shanks for 5 to 7 minutes, until they are caramelized, and then let them rest for about 5 minutes before serving. Top with gremolata, and pass the remaining sauce with the shanks.

NOTE These are infinitely better if all the steps through the baking are done the day before serving.


Gremolata

2 tablespoons lemon zest
2 garlic cloves, peeled
4 sprigs parsley
1 teaspoon olive oil
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions:
In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade, process all the ingredients until a paste forms. Serve the Gremolata on top of the Osso Bucco.

Recently Hitz has been adding his recipes to the pages of House Beautiful, not to mention they ran a spread on his beautiful house.  Do check him out.

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Heritage

Cormac McCarthy wrote a handful of serious, literary novels that were largely unread.  Several thousand books were printed, several hundred sold, and the rest were pulped or remaindered.  Nearly 27 years after his first novel was published, he gained widespread fame with the publication of All the Pretty Horses.  After years of toiling in obscurity, McCarthy found himself reading to packed houses.  Everywhere he went, people came up to him and told him they had been reading him for years and loved his work.  He was polite but in interviews he was honest.  He would say there is no way in the world that all the people who swore they read his book for years, actually read them.  If they had, McCarthy correctly surmised, he would have sold more books.

I was a rabid fan of Sean Brock before he was mentioned in the New Yorker, before Lucky Peach was a magazine, before he went to Scandinavia, before Husk, before PBS, before James Beard Awards. Like Cormac McCarthy, I am sure many people say that to him, but it is true. 

Brock is the father, brother, son I never had.  He know not to put sugar in cornbread, he can spot a crowder pea at forty yards, and he has thick Southern dirt under his fingernails and he is proud of it.  Needless to say, I have been waiting for this book for a long time, years....
Frankly, I often wished he would keep his butt home and write the damn cookbook instead of traveling the world being the culinary star he has become.  Finally, his book was published.

In it, he pays homage to the producer who provide him with the raw materials of the kitchen.  It is beautiful, but it is a tad chefy. (I lied, it is a lot chefy.)  Still, the boy can make some cornbread.

Cracklin' Cornbread

4 ounces bacon, preferably Benton's

2 cups cornmeal, preferably Anson Mill's Antebellum Coarse Yellow Cornmeal

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/2 cups whole-milk buttermilk

1 large egg, lightly beaten

Directions: 

Preheat the oven to 450°F. Put a 9-inch cast-iron skillet in the oven to preheat for at least 10 minutes.

Run the bacon through a meat grinder or very finely mince it. Put the bacon in a skillet large enough to hold it in one layer and cook over medium-low heat, stirring frequently so that it doesn’t burn, until the fat is rendered and the bits of bacon are crispy, 4 to 5 minutes. Remove the bits of bacon to a paper towel to drain, reserving the fat. You need 5 tablespoons bacon fat for this recipe.

Combine the cornmeal, salt, baking soda, baking powder and bits of bacon in a medium bowl. Reserve 1 tablespoon of the bacon fat and combine the remaining 4 tablespoons fat, the buttermilk and egg in a small bowl. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients just to combine; do not overmix.

Move the skillet from the oven to the stove, placing it over high heat. Add the reserved tablespoon of bacon fat and swirl to coat the skillet. Pour in the batter, distributing it evenly. It should sizzle.

Bake the cornbread for about 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Serve warm from the skillet.

I was overjoyed that this book was finally published.  It is his rock star chef opus. But I am glad it is out of the way.  I long for that other cookbook in Sean Brock, the one that his grandmother would pick up and move to the shelf because she had the recipes memorized.

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Barbeque'n With Bobby

What makes a great pit master?  Well, in Bobby Seale's case you found the Black Panther's, disrupt the 1968 Democratic Convention, go to jail, get arrested again and again and -- oh yes, make really great barbeque.

Well it may not be the most conventional resume for a cookbook author, but it may be the most interesting.What can one say?  Even revolutionaries gotta eat.  Don't for a moment think that you are going to get some ribs spread with Kraft Sauce stuck in an oven.  This is Bobby Seale. The man knows his 'que and there are no shortcuts.  His "quick" barbeque sauce has 18 ingredients! 

Pork is not the only white meat out there.  Bobby grills chicken, turkey, game hens, fish, and beef.  His marinades, rubs, and sauces are complex and involved -- he leaves no stone unturned. 

While the cookbook was published in the late 1980's, it has a very modern feel.   Much of his attention turns to sides and vegetables to accompany the barbeque, though many would make fine meals, in and of themselves.

Seal if fond of "goobers" and points out that the goober is a generic African word that refers to nuts in general, not the peanut in particular.  In this recipe the goober of choice is the black walnut.

Goober Carrot Raisin Slaw

4 medium sized carrots, washed and finely grated
1 cup cabbage (white or red), finely grated
1 1/3 cup raisins
1 cup crushed black walnuts
1 cup mayonnaise or salad dressing
1/2 teaspoon each ground black pepper, onion parsley salt (or to taste)
Parsley for garnish

In a 3- or 4- quart bowl, combine and mix together grated carrots, cabbage, 1 cup raisins, and walnuts with mayonnaise or salad dressing.  Season to taste with black pepper and onion parsley salt. garnish with bits of fresh parsley and the remaining 1/3 cup of raisins.

 As Bobby Seale says,

"Thousands of culinary experts, particularly in the South, guard and keep their secret recipe methods.  I happen not to be one of them."

Take him up on his barbeque knowledge.

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A Good Heart and A Light Hand

This is a wonderful African American cookbook from 1968.   It was compiled as a fundraiser for the Fund for Alexandria, Virginia.  The recipes are from the Ruth Gaskins' Collection of Negro Recipes.  Like so many women, Gaskins learned to cook from the women in her family, her mother and grandmothers and the other women of the community.

Gaskins writes:

There is something special that every negro knows that I can only call "the Negro Welcome."  In Alexandria, Virginia, where I have always lived, I can go into any Negro home at any time and know that I am wanted. I don't have to phone first and I don't have to wait for a special invitation.  If I feel like seeing a friend, I'll go, and it it's meal time, I'll draw up a chair and eat. There'll be enough food, because we always cook for the friend who might drop by.

While the language might seem old, the sentiment is one we should all try to live by, the ability to welcome people into our homes and to always have food on the table.

The recipes in this book reflect many old Southern recipes, including a favorite of the Duchess of Windsor, Pork Cake. In addition to the cake, there is a nose to tail approach for the pig. There are vegetables and pickles and a potato wine.

A favorite accompaniment to pork or chicken is the sweet potato.  Baked is good, but fired is better!  According to Gaskins, these are served at special occasions.

Spiced Sweet Potato Balls
3 large sweet potatoes
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon each: nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon
1 cup chopped nuts
flour
fat for deep frying

Scrub potatoes to remove all dirt.  boil them with the skin on until tender.  Peel and mash.  Beat in butter, salt and spices until fluffy. fold in the nuts. Shape into balls. Roll in flour. Fry in deep fat until browned.

These sweet potatoes would welcome anyone.

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Spoonbread and Strawberry Wine

There is not a single member of Norma Jean and Carole Darden's family that you want to hang out with.  While most of them are gone now, they live on in this delightful cookbook and memoir.  Spoonbread and Strawberry Wine was one of the first cookbooks to combine recipes and reminiscences in one book.

The book was seven years in the making as the sisters collected recipes and stories from family members in Alabama, Virginia, North Carolina, and Ohio.  Not only did they have recipes, but they had great stories as well.  Their grandfather, Papa Darden was born a slave who went on to be a successful business man and the vintner of the strawberry wine. 

Aunt Maude was a matchmaker who not only arranged marriages, but organized the weddings, too. A frequent visitor at Tuskegee, she was friends with Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver.

Aunt Lil, an octogenarian when interviewed didn't remember much about food, but she had a great recipe for Violet Vanishing Cream.

While the recipes are wonderful, the family photographs are a treasure. Published in 1978, the photographic reproduction is not great, but the photos are elegant and offer a glimpse into the lives of the family in the stories.  Family in this book is that extended Southern family that might not be connected by blood, but by an even deeper bond.  When the Darden's father was interning at Tuskegee, he met nursing student, Mattie Winner.  When he landed in New Jersey, he talked Mattie into leaving Texas and becoming  his nurse.  Soon she talked her sisters into joining her in the North.  Their house was often a holiday gathering place.

One of our favorite vegetable is the lowly rutabaga.  Perhaps if we began to call them yellow turnips, they might grow in popularity.  This is a Thanksgiving recipe from one of Mattie's sisters.

Waltine's Mashed Turnips and Carrots

1 large yellow turnip
6 large carrots
3/4 stick of butter
1 medium sized onion, diced fine
2 tablespoons sugar
2-3 teaspoons salt

Peel and quarter the turnip.  Pare and halve the carrots. Bring water to a rapid boil and toss in the vegetables.  Cook rapidly until completely tender.  Drain and mash with potato masher.  In a second pan melt butter and add diced onions.  Saute until tender and translucent.  Add the butter and onions,sugar and salt  to the mashed vegetable, blending well.

Who doesn't love a cookbook with a fine rutabaga recipe!  If you are in New York, Norma Jean Darden is still cooking up a storm. There is a catering company and two restaurants, named after Miss Maude and Miss Mamie.

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Soul Food

Soul food is like pornography, you know it when you see it.

But very often, seeing it and explaining it are not mutually inclusive.  Then Adrian Miller came along with his book Soul Food.  Miller is about as good as anyone at explaining what soul food is and why it is so important.  This is especially necessary at a time when "Southern cooking" is becoming so prevalent that every city from Juno to Jackson Hole thinks they can throw a piece of chicken on a plate with some greens and claim to be soulful!

Readers of this blog know that my "go to" guide for soulful, Southern is Granny Clampett from the Beverly Hillbillies, who knew a thing or two about chitlins, grits, and crawdads. Food used as fodder for jokes in the 1960's now finds its way to restaurants across the country. (and before you e-mail, yes, I know that Granny was actually Daisy Moses, a Clampett in-law and not an actual Clampett, but she was often referred to as Granny Clampett.  Let me also say that I am delighted to find so many Beverly Hillbillies sticklers out there, but I digress...)

It is hard to extricate food, class and race from discussions of soul food.  It is very easy for these issues to be glossed over or generalized to the point of common clichés.  It is the great strength of Soul Food to move the discussion forward.  Miller acknowledges the easy generalizations.  He addresses them, then shifts the discussion to  a larger context, both historical and culinary.  His chapter on chitlins is a prime example.  Walk into an old-fashioned Southern, soul food, "meat and three" restaurant in the South and the food will be remarkably similar.  However, one can tell immediately if the owner is African-American by the inclusion of a single dish -- chitlins.

Miller points out that the "face" of nose-to-tail cooking is a Brit, Fergus Henderson.  Henderson has been lauded for his revolutionary approach to eating whole animals, but a subway ride to Harlem (or a drive to any Southern city) would turn up dozens of cooks using snouts, ears, intestines, and tails.  (Once again, I digress but if Daniel Boulud would put squirrel on his menu, just saying...)

Miller dispels that common notion of "white folks wouldn't eat it" by pointing out that chitlins were considered rather high end cooking to the likes of Hannah Glasse.  Still, for both races in the South, there is a classist stigma to eating chitlins.  Of course, that same classist mentality was prevalent in West Virginia where children were laughed at for eating ramps which are now selling for $15 a pound in Brooklyn. 

Historic nineteenth-century Southern cookbooks were devoid of chitlin recipes regardless the race of the author.  Miller finds chitlins recipes in Freda DeKnight's 1948  A Date With A Dish. Miller notes that while DeKnight offers introductions to other recipes, there are no headnotes to the chitlin recipes.  (I cannot confirm this as A Date With A Dish is a book I have been searching for in it's jacked, first printing, but when I find it it is always out of my price range, but again, I digress...)

Miller writes:

"Chitlin eating among whites went private or entirely underground..."

I know that when I go to the Florida Avenue Grill and order chitlins, there is a a definite pause before taking my order.  While I haven't cooked chitlins, I have watched my Mother cook them.  I don't recall either experience being private or underground, but who knows? 
 I say screw class, screw race, lets all get together for a big old chitlin whoop-de-do.  

But first, you need to grab a copy of Soul Food, the worthy winner of a James Beard Award.  And for more info check out Adrian Miller's blog.

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The New Southern Table

We have been waiting for Brys Stephens The New Southern Table and it finally arrived.  We know what you are thinking:  "There is nothing "new" in Southern."  Well, we would have to say you are so wrong.  Look at that big red "NEW" in title and we will tell you how it applies.

When you say "Southern" food we think, collards, crowder peas, okra, sweet potatoes, peaches, lima beans...and so does Stephens.  Southern cuisine is built on the ingredients that come form the ground.  If Southern cooks have a fault, it would be taking these ingredients and cooking them the same way week in and week out.  We cook them the same way mama cooked them.  Mama cooked them the same way her mama cooked them.  And so it goes.

Check out the Piggly Wiggly.  They will have okra, sweet potatoes, and lima beans just like mama's did.  But check again.  They will have coconut milk, fish sauce, habaneros, pomegranate, and on and on.   Brys Stephens has spent a lot of time roaming those grocery isles and thinking of ways to make the familiar, new.  He has done a great job.

Take a look at okra.  My mama grew up in Alabama and spent much of her adult life in the cold, dark North.  She would beg grocers to get in a mess of okra.  Often when she did get it, it was a mess, but she was undeterred.  After all that effort, she made okra two ways.  Sliced and fried into chewy almost black rounds and steamed on top of field peas into a slimy mush.  Needless to say, okra was never a favorite.  Then one day, we saw an okra recipe from Africa.  The recipe kept the stem end in tact and thinly sliced the pod in long vertical strips.  When fried it resembles calamari.  A simple variation in slicing made all the difference.

Flip through The New Southern Table and you find recipe after recipe of the familiar turned on its head.  There is perloo with quinoa, purple hull tabouleh, and watermelon pudding Sicilian style to name a few.  And what about the okra?  According to Stephens this recipe is simple and concentrates the flavor.  It sure beats those little blackened nuggets.

Roasted Okra with Olive Oil, Lemon, and Sea Salt

2 pounds okra, any tough stem ends trimmed away and discarded
3 tablespoons olive oil
Sea salt
Lemon wedges

Preheat oven to 450F.  In a bowl, toss the okra with the olive oil to coat.  Arrange the okra in a single layer on a large sheet pan.  Roast 8 to 10 minutes, or until bright green, barley tender, and brown in spots.  Serve immediately with sea salt and lemon wedges.

Those who believe they just know it all about Southern cooking, be prepared to be wrong. 
 The New Southern Table will make you a rock star in the kitchen from Alabama to South Carolina and all those Yankee states out there, too.

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Savannah Seasons

Several years ago the popular book in the zeitgeist was 1000 Places to See Before You Die.  There were pyramids, mountains, camel races, and culinary adventures.  One of those culinary adventures was a visit to Savannah’s Elizabeth on 37^th.   It is definitely one of those 1000 places.

After running a small restaurant in Atlanta with a loyal following and building a large law practice, the Terry’s decided they wanted a different life for their daughters so they uprooted to historic Savannah.  Elizabeth on 37^th is housed in a stately old home.  Elizabeth Terry and her family live upstairs.  The restaurant is like walking into a friend's dinning room. 

After a series of accolades including the l995 James Beard Award as Best Chef in the Southeast, Elizabeth Terry with her daughter Alexis, wrote Savannah Seasons.  Before it seemed like such a remarkably “hip” idea, Terry sifted through old cookbooks, recipes and garden notes at the Georgia Historical Society.  She studied Savannah’s rich food history from scuppernongs to fig preserves, from juniper berries to Madeira, from Africans to Native Americans, gathering a deep understanding of the ways food impacted history.

Like many a great cookbook, the recipes in Savannah Seasonsseem to be both old and familiar and cutting edge, simultaneously.  There are pickled onions – with cranberries.  There is a simple broiled fish – in a cinnamon marinade.  There are turnovers – with oysters and horseradish.  Take these exact recipes and update the format of this book and reviewers would rave about such a “new” take on Southern cooking.  

So take a new, old look at Southern fare, like this gumbo.

Hearty Okra Gumbo with Chicken and Shrimp

6 chicken thighs, roasted and shredded, bone and skin discarded
1 cup minced onions
3 tablespoons minced garlic
2 small yellow squash, cut into ¼-inch dice (1 cup)
2 cups sliced okra
4 cups Basic Chicken Broth
1 (14-ounce) can diced tomatoes in juice
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons olive oil
¼ cup cored, seeded, and minced green bell pepper
¼ cup minced fresh basil
1 pound large raw shrimp, peeled and deveined (12 ounces)
2 teaspoons hot chili sauce
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
½ teaspoon salt 

In a soup pot, combine the chicken, onions, 2 tablespoons of the garlic, the yellow squash, okra, chicken broth, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, and bay leaves. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes, until the vegetables are very tender. Remove the bay leaves. Set aside.

Just before serving, reheat the soup, then warm the oil in a large skillet and sauté the green bell pepper, remaining garlic, basil, and shrimp until the shrimp are just pink. Add the hot chili sauce, the lemon juice, salt, and the contents of the skillet to the hot soup.

Elizabeth Terry retired from the restaurant, but her spirit of generosity and rich southern hospitality live on.

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Southern Living Little Jars, Big Flavors

This weekend I got an e-mail from a friend who was in a proper hardware store.  She said she found 1/2 gallon Ball jars and commented that she hadn't seen jars that size in a long time.

Indeed, if there is a canning "trend" out there in the air it is for small jar canning.  Rarely these days does anyone can much more than a pint?  I recently bought some jars that were 9 ounces and when I got them, I thought they were too big for most things.  If you grew up in the South, you are probably familiar with long shelves of canned good that your grandma "put up."   Today smaller is better.  Grandma still has long shelves of jams and pickles; they are just smaller and easier for you to take home!

After all these years of chronicling Southern living, Southern Living has published its first book of preserves.  Southern Living Little Jars, Big Flavors enlisted non other than Virginia Willis to write for this book.   Now as often happens with this blog, we were sure, SURE we had written about Virginia Willis' book, Bon Appétit, Y’all.  Well, evidently, we were remiss.   How did we not write about a Southern, French book?  We sincerely apologize for this and will make amends soon.

We do, indeed, love our canning books. There have been tons of them published recently, from the very basic to the overly complicated.  Like many Southern Living cookbooks, this one is grounded in the basics.  If you want summer's berries in a jam next spring, this book will show you how.   But what if you just want to make some jam for a Valentine's breakfast?  This book will also give you a range of refrigerator recipes, that a quick and require a minimum of equipment.

In Alabama, we always had jars of pickled vegetables in the refrigerator.  I never thought much about how they got there, nor about how easy they must have been to produce, since I never remember any grand process for making them.  When I saw Virginia Willis' recipe for Confetti Pickles, I remembered how wonderful those crisp, tangy vegetables were as a compliment to dinner, and how simple they were to make.   They are the essence of little jars with big flavors.

Quick Confetti Pickles

1 English cucumber
1 medium-size yellow squash
4 Tbsp. canning-and-pickling salt, divided
1 long, slender medium carrot
2 pink, purple, or red icicle radishes or 10 standard-size radishes
4 dill sprigs
1 cup cider vinegar (5% acidity)
¼ cup sugar
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. dill seeds

1. Wash vegetables. Score cucumber and squash lengthwise with a fork, leaving furrows in the peel on all sides. (This makes scalloped edges when vegetables are sliced.) Trim stem and blossom ends of cucumber and squash; cut into 1⁄8-inch slices. Place in a colander in sink; sprinkle with 2 Tbsp. salt, and toss gently. Let drain 30 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, peel carrot, and cut carrot and radishes into 1⁄8-inch-thick slices. Toss together with drained cucumber and squash.

3. Place 2 dill sprigs in each of 2 clean (1-pt.) jars or nonreactive containers with lids. Pack vegetables in jars, leaving ½-inch headspace.

4. Bring vinegar, next 3 ingredients, remaining 2 Tbsp. salt, and 2 cups water to a boil in a 1½-qt. stainless steel saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring until sugar and salt dissolve. Pour hot vinegar mixture over vegetables to cover. Apply lids. Chill 24 hours before serving. Store in refrigerator up to 3 weeks.

Don't delay!  Make up a jar or two of theses this week.  

Virginia Willis has a cool site here.  Her new feature on the FoodNetwork.com is called Down Home Comfort. 

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Pickles, Pigs & Whiskey

 If I see one more rail-thin chef with a radish tattooed on his ass and FOOD tattooed across his knuckles going after a piece of kindling with a pair of tweezers and removing a splinter of said kindling and setting on top of a dime-sized dollop of pond scum foam sitting in the center of plate the size of a old LP and telling me it's the entrée, I will freaking scream.

Don't get me wrong, I like a little pond scum foam as much as the next gastronaught, but at some point we just need something to eat.  Something like Pickles, Pigs & Whiskey.  Think about it...it's cold, rainy and all you have had today is coffee.  Would you choose Door #1 -- A musty, dry-aged kindling over a pond scum foam, gathered just his morning; or Door #2 --Barbecue and Bourbon?

Pickles, Pigs & Whiskey is the first book by Big Bad Chef, John Currence.  It's about damn time.  The subtitle claims that the book contains: Recipes From My Three Favorite Food Groups. Yes, this is a cookbook, but it also a look inside the mind of chef who really, really loves food and understands that food needs a lot of people around before it is actually, food.  It reads like a diary or perhaps a love letter to the South with some recipes thrown in.

One immediately knows one is in good hands when an iron skillet sits on the front of a cookbook.  Rest assured, no one in their right mind would ever put pond scum in grandma's iron skillet.  Full disclosure, many of these recipes are quite "chefy" in that there a lot of ingredients and several steps, but don't be discouraged.  For instance, the pickled deviled eggs; clearly, before one can devil them, one must indeed pickle them.  Don't despair.

Perhaps our favorite element of this book is the playlist.  Next to cookbooks, we love our tunes more than anything.  In Pickles, Pigs & Whiskey, not only does one get great recipes and fun-filled stories, but a huge playlist of really great music.  I am told that said playlist is available on Spotify, but I still don't really understand how Spoitfy works, but if you know, do head over there and check out the playlist.  In the meantime, when you find a recipe you want to make, don't forget to crank up the tunes.


One of our favorite tunes is Poncho and Lefty by Emmylou Harris.  It is the featured song for a nifty punch and you know what all the Federales say...

Bourbon Milk Punch

4 ounces whole milk
2 tablespoons half-and-half
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 ounces Buffalo Trace bourbon
4 teaspoons confectioners sugar
Freshly ground nutmeg, for garnish

Pour the milk, half-and-half, vanilla and bourbon over cracked ice in a cocktail shaker.  Spoon in the sugar and shake vigorously.  Pour into a large old-fashioned glass, sprinkle nutmeg over the top and serve.

Now get out there and buy this book.  And now, in honor of the Big Bad Chef, I am going to say something I have never, ever said before -- Hotty Toddy.

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Great Baking Begins With White Lily Flour

About 10 years ago, I was heading back to DC from Alabama and I got stopped for speeding.  This would not be that unusual.  There would, however, be one thing to take into consideration.  I never came back from Alabama without a food-laden car.  It was as if there were no grocery stores in DC.  The policeman, simply didn't understand why I had 10 bags of White Lily Flour in my car.  He assumed the worst.  But after digging through the corn meal and the grits and cases of Tab, he sent me on my way with a mere warning.

A week or so later, a chef friend was in my kitchen surveying the bags of White Lily and asked, nonchalantly, if I might be opening a bakery.  Well, if I was to open a bakery, I would use nothing but White Lily Flour.  Of course, nowadays, White Lily Flour is produced in some Yankee wasteland.  I recently found an authentic bag of White Lily, milled in Knoxville.  It was about 6 years old, so I am not sure its Southern mojo was still intact, but I couldn't bear to toss out that bag.

Over the years, White Lily has put out several cookbooks.  Great Baking Begins With White Lily Flour is my favorite.  white Lily gets its prized baking characteristics from a soft, red wheat.   The flour is milled from only 100% pure winter wheat.  This soft winter wheat has a lower level of protein as well as a lower gluten content.  To accentuate the baking quality, White Lily uses a finer grind than most flours.  White Lily was always east to spot because the bags were a pinch larger due to the fine grind which made the flour weigh lass, so more was needed to make a full five pounds.

For White Lily, great baking requires specific attention to detail.  Here is the White Lily recipe for biscuits, with all the notations one would have learned at Mama's knee, spelled out.

Famous White Lily Biscuits

2 cups White Lily Self-Rising Flour
1/4 cup shortening
2/3 to 3/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.  Place Flour in mixing bowl; ad shortening.  With a pastry blender or blending fork, cut shortening into flour until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Mixing by hand tends to soften the shortening making a sticky, difficult-to-handle dough.  Blending the fat completely with the flour or using a liquid shortening produces a mealy biscuit rather than a flaky, tender one.  Gently push the flour mixture to the edges of the bowl, making a well int he center.  Blend in the milk with a fork till dough leaves sides of bowl.  Too much milk makes the dough too sticky to handle: not enough milk makes the biscuits dry.  Do not overmix.

Turn dough onto lightly floured surface. Knead gently 10 to 12 strokes.  A short period of kneading develops biscuit structure and evenly distributes the moisture to make the biscuits more flaky.  On lightly floured surface pat or roll dough to slightly more than 1/2-inch thickness.  Cut with a 2- or 2 1/2 biscuit cutter, dipping cutter into flour between cuts.  Press the cutter straight down to get straight sided evenly shaped biscuits.  Be especially careful not to twist the cutter of flatten the cut edges.  Transfer cut biscuits to an ungreased baking sheet.  For crusty-sided biscuits place about 1 inch apart.  For soft-sided biscuits place biscuits with sides just touching.  Reroll scraps of dough and cut into biscuit shapes.  Bake in 500 oven for 6 to 8 minutes, or until golden.  (If sides touch, bake biscuits for 8 minutes; bake 6 to 7 minutes if sides f don't touch.)

That is how you bake biscuits.  Now go forth and get those biscuits in the oven.

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Two Unpublished Gems or...

Why the South is Different.

I love reading about chefs reading.   It is a good way to get find out what makes a chef great, what inspired them to start cooking, and what inspires them now.   Eater has been doing a series called The Cookbook Shelf where they interview chefs about cookbooks. 

Almost a year ago to the day, I read How to Read Cookbooks by Linton Hopkins.  He talked unsurprisingly about Larousse Gastronomique.  He also spoke of Umberto Eco's criticism and Morton Adler's How To Read A Book.  Lord knows I immediately wanted to drink with him.

Hopkins wrote about reading two unpublished works by his friend Bill Thomas.  He gushed about Thomas' book on Geechee cooking, The Foods of Georgia's Barrier Islands and on the book he edited about Cherokee Cooking.  It was like throwing down a gauntlet.  I was determined to track down copies of these works if there was any way to find them.  You know, the Internet is a terrible thing to waste.

First let me just say that Bill Thomas is a rather common name.  There are a lot of them out.   Undaunted I tried book titles, finding that the geechee cookbook was actually The Foods of Georgia's Barrier Islands.  Finally I found a reference to a talk Doctor William Thomas had given many years ago on Cherokee cooking and there was a contact to buy the book.   I tracked down the contact and found a telephone number.

Here is where our story takes the "Why the South is Different" turn.   The number was for a copy place.  In may a small Southern town the newspaper office had copy services and office supplies. 

I called.  I asked about the book.  Just a minute the voice said and then another voice.

"Oh, honey, we don't keep those in stock.  When Doc Bill needs 'em he just calls us and we print them up for him.  Wait just a minute...Here's doc Bill's number.  You give him a call and see if he needs us to print some up."

I said thank you, ma'am and she said I was more than welcome.  I dare say Kinko's is not going to give you someones telephone number nor will they be telling you that you are more than welcome when you ask a question!

 I called the number and left a message.

The next day I got a call from Doc Bill.  Yes, he is indeed a real medical doctor.   We spoke for nearly an hour about food, Southern culture, and gardening.  We talked about the five varieties of okra I was growing and he discussed how important it was to actually grow the plants.  Then he said, "You know you can eat the blossoms."

I can't remember when a culinary idea had left me so in awe.  For years I had ignored the okra blossoms while gingerly picking squash blossoms to stuff.  What an idiot I had been. This is my quick and easy go to recipe for stuffed okra blossoms.

Lucinda's Pimento Cheese Stuffed Okra Blossoms

8 okra blossoms, gently washed with the stamens removed
1 cup pimento cheese
1/2 cup panko
1 cup flour
1 cup sparkling water

 Oil to fry heated to 350

Mix the pimento cheese and panko and gently stuff into the okra blossoms.  Mix the flour and water, stirring constantly to avoid lumps; it should be rather runny.  Dredge the stuffed blossoms into the batter.  Lower into the oil and fry till golden, about 2 minutes.  Drain on a paper towel.

One of the reason's that recipes don't have a copyright, is because mac and cheese is well, mac and cheese.  You didn't invent it.  Most food out there you didn't invent.  So maybe Dominique Ansel did invent the cronut, but really it is a croissant cut with a donut cutter, not exactly Marie Curie discovering radium, but I digress... No doubt Linton Hopkins will be serving MY okra blossoms before long.  I thought I invented Pumpkin and grits only to find it in The Foods of Georgia's Barrier Islands. 

Pumpkin and Grits

5 cups of boiling water
1 1/2 cup grits
1/2 tsp salt

Fry 6 pieces of breakfast bacon or thin slices of ham in margarine or oil.  Add to the grits along with q cup of cooked pumpkin or 1 can of pumpkin, not pumpkin pie mix.  Add a bit of sugar about 1 tablespoon and some black pepper.  Cook stirring often until cooked. 

While I might not have invented them, they are a great side dish for pork or chicken and pretty good all by themselves. 

Like any other tradition, passed down from generation to generation, ideas and information often get lost.  It takes people like Doc Bill to gather it and write it down and keep it safe for me and for everyone else.  We owe him a great debt of gratitude.  Frankly, I think it is time for someone out there to publish Doc Bill's extensive knowledge on the terrior and traditions of North Georgia.

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Seasonal Recipes From The Garden

For a long time my cable provider didn't provide a PBS station.  It seemed weird, no PBS, but I learned to live it.   After changing providers, I suddenly had PBS again.   I started taping P. Allen Smith and watching his gardening show.  

Like most of those "gardening" shows, there is more looking at gardens than actual gardening going on.  Smith shows fields where he planted thousands of crocus bulbs.  I once planted 200 crocus bulbs with  two friends.  We planted for about three hours.  You do the math!  Smith has a small 600 acre farm that he keeps beautifully manicured.  Seriously, all by himself?  Well, that is the way of garden television. 

Anyway, Smith published a cookbook several years ago, Seasonal Recipes From The Garden.  Truth is I might have been more interested in the pictures of the 600 acre farm than the actual recipes and I do have a bias as Mr. P. and I share a birthday. 

Seasonal Recipes From The Garden is exactly what it bills itself as, a collection of recipes cooked from ingredients that might come out of any garden.   It is a solid, simple cookbook featuring recipes from Smith's family and from many of the chefs and cooks that he know around the Little Rock, Arkansas area where he is located.   Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with solid, simple recipes.    Martha Hall Foose described recipes as being "approachable as a handshake."  "This is not a cookbook that will leave you thinking, "Wow, why didn't I think of that!"  It does offer up solid recipes with a garden flair.

On a trip to California, Smith found a merlot and pomegranate juice.  He loved it, brought it back to Arkansas, ordered more, convinced his local grocer to carry the product and then it was discontinued.  He set about to recreate that lovely flavor and turn it into a sorbet.

Pomegranate Merlot Sorbet

3 cups bottled pomegranate juice
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 cu water
1 cup melot wine
1 cup sugar

   Combine all the ingredients in a medium nonreactive saucepan, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.  Continue to boil the mixture for approximately 45 minutes, reducing it by about half to a syrup consistency.  Remove the syrup from the heat and let it cool to room temperature.

Transfer the syrup to an ice cream maker, and process according to the manufacturer's directions.

Transfer the sorbet to and airtight container and store in the freezer.  Remove the sorbet from the freezer and let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

We love sorbet and fruit and wine so this is a win win win.

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Tasia's Table

I am totally convinced that I have written about this book.   I waited months and months for it to be published.  It was on my waiting list forever.  How did I not post about it?   I am here to rectify that over site.   Largely, because Tasia Malakasis was featured in the new issue of Country Living.  I said to myself, Self, you love that book and you did a great post.  But I looked and couldn't find it.  I am going crazy!!

Anyway...

Malakasis has a great story.  In this great migration back to the farm era, she was a forerunner.  Here is the the Cliff Notes version.

Small town Alabama girl makes it big in NYC.
She goes into her local cheese shop and finds a chèvre from Alabama.  
Becomes obsessed.  
Visits the cheesemaker.  
Harasses the cheesemaker till they let her intern at the dairy.  
Buys the dairy and moves back to Alabama.   
Makes a fine cheese.
Then writes a cookbook.
But not, "The End."

Malakasis is Greek but also Southern and with lots of goat cheese around, she has managed to write a cookbook that encompasses all the parts of her life.  There is a recipe for moussaka right along side a recipe for grits and goat cheese.  While the recipes rely on a lot of Belle Chèvre, there is a definite Southern breeze flowing through them.  If you have ever complained that all Southern cookbooks are basically alike, this is one that will change your view.

Take the sideboard staple, potato salad.  Here it becomes a warm and unctuous side.  It looks like potato salad but with a classy twist.

Warm Potato and Belle Chèvre Salad

2 lbs Fingerling Or Yukon Gold Potatoes, cut in 1” dice 

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/4 cup dry white wine 

Clove garlic, minced

Salt and pepper to taste 

1/4 cup sour cream

1 medium red onion,  diced 

1/4 cup fromage blanc

1/2 cup fresh parsley 

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cup Belle Chèvre Confetti 

4 tablespoons red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons fresh tarragon

Steam potatoes until tender. Drain and toss with with wine, salt and pepper. Add cheese, onion, and parsley. Stir together remaining ingredients. Toss with potatoes and serve immediately.

To read more about the Country Living article, head over to Lucindaville.

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Smoke & Pickles

Since I have been having a terrible month, my FFF (faithful foodie friend) Anne, sent me a cookbook.   It was the highpoint of my month!   She sent me a copy of Smoke & Pickles by Edward Lee.  I must admit that Edward Lee is not a chef that I have ever been really fired up about.  This book might have just changed that.   While Southern food is defined by a bunch of different ingredients, one thing that people often leave out of the equation is the story. 

A big bowl of collard greens is just that.  But tell me who made the bowl, how they were cooked, which family member cooked them in which pot, where they were picked, who owned the land during the War Between the States, and you have yourself a big bowl of Southern collards.

So what is a Korean boy from New York City doing running a Southern restaurant in Kentucky?  That is a story.  The story begins like most cooking stories do, in a kitchen with a mother or grandmother.   Then there was tossing out Korean barbecue to make some extra money, but when a noted chef walked in and the food was sub par, Lee had to rethink the whole thing.  Then there was a fluke call from a friend who said come on down for the Derby.  They always need cooks and you can watch the race.  He went and stayed.

For a boy who grew up in a Brooklyn tenement, he sure can tell a good story.  His love of the land is positively palpable and his respect for the things that grow and roam that land are evident.  He has managed to keep all the things his grandmother taught him while expanding the culinary framework of old southern tradition.  He does it beautifully.  And the boy knows his bourbon! 

Jalapeño-Spiked Bourbon Julep

4 to 6 fresh mint leaves, plus a sprig for garnish
1 ounce Jalapeño Simple Syrup (recipe follows)
Crushed ice
2½ ounces bourbon
Splash of club soda
A jalapeño slice for garnish

Place the mint leaves in the bottom of a julep cup, add the simple syrup, and gently bruise the leaves with a wooden muddler or a wooden spoon. Add enough crushed ice to fill the cup almost two-thirds of the way. Add the bourbon and stir gently, then fill the cup almost full with more crushed ice. Top with a splash of club soda. Garnish with the mint sprig and slice of jalapeño and serve immediately.

Jalapeño Simple Syrup

1 cup water
1 cup sugar
2 jalapeño peppers, chopped (seeds and all)

1. In a small saucepan, combine the water, sugar, and peppers and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Turn off the heat and let steep for 20 minutes.

2. Strain the syrup and allow to cool. Keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Next time you throw a party, break out this recipe and nice jar of kimchi!  

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The Tammy Wynette Southern Cookbook

The death of George Jones made us troll our collection to find this gem, The Tammy Wynette Southern Cookbook.  Now Tammy penned this little cookbook after she and George had long split, but one simply can't think of George without a passing thought of Tammy.  

"As many of you know already, I was born on a sharecropper farm in Itawamba County,Mississippi.  We had no running water, no indoor plumbing, and no stove.  We cooked over an open fireplace with water drawn and handcarried from a nearby spring.... In the years that have passed since then, I've preformed on every continent, in hundreds of cities, and in nearly every state in the U.S. ...I've entertained in the White House numerous times, and before other heads of state, in addition to preforming in some of the most famous concert halls in the world.  Yet, despite all these honors, my roots are pure rural Mississippi."

While she admits to gathering many of her recipes from her grandmother, she is not adverse to a bit of 1950's kitchen helpers.  There are Ritz crackers, cake mix, tons of canned soup and even some canned asparagus.  A good third of the book is dedicated to dessert.  There are chocolate pies, chess pies and cobbler, with eggs if times are good and it plain ol' berries when they are not.   

There is not a lot of exposition to these recipes.  Either you have it or you don't.  This cake was passed on to her by some friends.  

Jell-O Cake

1 box cake mix (yellow or white)
3/4 cup Wesson oil
4 eggs
1 small box of Jell-O (any flavor)
3/4 cup milk

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes in tube pan.

We believe that the ingredients should be thoroughly mixed before dumping into the tube pan.  And the tube pan should probably be oiled and lightly floured.   Simply close your eyes and think of the possibilities with all those Jell-o flavors.   Close your eyes and see Tammy waiting for George at the Pearly Gates, Jell-o Cake in hand.

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Mastering The Art of Southern Cooking

This weekend, Nathalie Dupree and Cynthia Graubart won the James Beard Award for American Cooking  with their behemoth Mastering The Art of Southern Cooking.  Not only is it a cookbook, but it makes a great DIY project.  Just add four rather sturdy  legs and you have a lovely martini table ( or should we say mint julep table?) to sit beside your settee.  It has been said that about 300 pages was cut from the manuscript which now stands at over 700 pages.

There are those that have taken offense with the "Mastering The Art" title, and while it might cause one to think of the legendary Julia Child, there are nearly a thousand books featuring those words in the title, so you need to get over it.  Dupree worked for two years when Graubart signed on to assist and then the pair worked another four years to bring the book to fruition. In the midst if the process they published  Southern Biscuits in 2011.  In researching Mastering The Art of Southern Cooking, they had already amassed 35 biscuit recipes!

Needless to say, there is not much of anything left out.  There are some things in the cookbook that don't really strike me as totally "Southern" like Yorkshire Pudding Popovers, but then there is Okra Pilau.  There are lots of grits, plenty of pork and enough desserts to send you into a coma.  When we wanted to pull out a recipe, we felt the same kind of overwhelmed that Dupree felt in the early stages of research.  What to do??  Well this is an old, new Southern favorite.

Mississippi Caviar

3 (16 ounce) cans black-eyed peas, drained

1/2 cup finely chopped green pepper

1/2 cup finely chopped red pepper

3/4 cup finely chopped hot peppers

3/4 cup finely chopped onion

1/4 cup drained, chopped pimento

1 garlic cloves, chopped

1/3 cup red wine vinegar

2/3 cup olive oil

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

Salt

Hot sauce

In a large mixing bowl, combine peas, bell peppers, hot peppers, onion, pimento and garlic.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the vinegar, oil and mustard and pour over the bean mixture; mix well. Season to taste with salt and hot sauce. 

With a wooden spoon or potato masher, mash the bean mixture slightly. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Drain the caviar well before serving.

 If you want to totally immerse someone in Southern cooking, this book is the best place to start.   Congratulations on the James Beard Award.

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A Time To Cook

We have always loved Lee Bailey and have long lamented his passing.  At a time when "Southern" seems all the rage, one just needs to look back at Bailey's lovely collection of books to find the deep roots of the South.  Recently, however, we have found someone that just may be a likely successor to Bailey's easy style and Southern charm in the person of James Farmer III.

His new book is a cookbook, A Time To Cook.  In a market swamped with cookbooks claiming to be authentic Southern cookbooks, Farmer's roots reach deep in the red clay of the South.   We were delighted over at Lucindaville, to find the Church had elected a Southern pope since he chose Francis I as his name.  Jame Farmer can spot Francis I at a hundred paces.  He knows that cornbread cannot be made without an iron skillet.  And he tells a wonderful story about his grandparents having a contest to see who made the best cornbread using almost identical ingredients.   It is a wounder of cornbread that given the exact same ingredients, no two cornbreads would be alike.  A Southerner knows these things.

Every recipe has a story behind it.  Every woman that ever offered up a recipe is graciously thanked and given full credit, even if Farmer has tweaked them a bit.  We love our collards here, but we tend to like cooked down for several hours.   As a raw coleslaw ingredient?  Why not.

Collard Green Coleslaw

A small bunch (8-10 leaves without ribs) or ½ bag (8 oz.) washed and cut collard greens
½ medium head green cabbage
2 green onions
½ bunch flat-leaf parsley
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
Mayonnaise
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper


In a food processor, process collard greens, cabbage, onions and parsley in batches until finely chopped, being careful not to over process.  Move each batch to a large bowl.

Dissolve sugar in vinegar in the microwave. Add  the greens and toss to mix well.

Add mayonnaise to suite your taste, and mix and moisten.  Season to taste with salt and pepper. 

When browsing his websites, we found this picture.  We have a similar flat whisk.

It  is a cherished possession.   My great-aunt Ruth used it to whip cream.  It was one of the most effective tools in the kitchen and seeing this bowl of whipped cream brought back memories from our Alabama porch.  You, too, can follow James Farmer III at his website. 

This boy can cook.  He can also garden, mix drinks and make lovely wreaths.   He is one to watch.  We are already waiting for the next cookbook!

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Fire In My Belly

It is no big surprise that I watch Top Chef.  Frankly, I find most of the chefs that compete, total tools.  OK, I do know that conflict makes for good television, so much of what we see is edited to make the contestants look as slimy as possible.   That being said, there have been really only a handful of contestants that I really, really loved.  Kevin Gillespie was one of them.   I was so glad to find out that his stint on Top Chef had landed him a cookbook deal.  Fire In My Belly has been on my wish list since it was first announced.

It did not disappoint.  The cookbook is what a real cookbook should be, an extension of the cook who put together the recipes.  Gillespie has stated that the cookbook is the most personal thing he has ever done.  In fact he has said he surprised even himself when he read through the book and realized how many personal stories he offered up.

Fire In My Belly offers up such chapter headings as "Foods that I thought I Hated" and "Food + Fire = Delicious."   While Gillespie's food is fun and inviting, it bears a truly authentic look at the South.  Not the precious, overly sentimentalized South, nor the reality television stupider-than-thou trend.  Giellespie recently articulated his position to Eater:

"There are so many people who think the entire South is Gone with the Wind, and the reality is that that's not true at all. My family is from the mountains, and that Appalachian culture is very, very different than the plantation culture of the Deep South. They're both Southerners, they both hold the right to claim themselves as such, but they're very different worlds, and I guess I felt it was time to showcase the other world a little bit more because it's more my personality, it's more of who I am."

The world of Kevin Gillespie is filled with family, history, and a really great meal.   Here is a favorite:

Woodfire Grill's Sage-Battered Mushrooms with Cheddar Fonduta

10 oz. of large cluster Oyster mushrooms

8 oz. sharp white cheddar cheese

1 ½ cups heavy cream

white pepper, a couple grinds

Salt

Canola oil for frying

½ cup of Cornstarch

½ cup all-purpose flour

1 Tb. Of fresh sage leaves, chiffonade

1 tsp. of rubbed sage

1 cup of cold soda or seltzer water

1/3 cup Candied garlic syrup

1.     Trim the tough root ends from the mushrooms , leaving the clusters as intact as possible. Set aside.

2.     Cut the cheese into ½ inch chunks and place in microwave safe bowl. Loosely cover with wax paper or parchment paper and microwave on 50% power until the cheese softens but doesn’t completely melt, about 30 seconds.

3.     In a 2-quart saucepan bring the cream to a boil over medium-high heat. Stir in the cheese, a couple of grinds of white pepper and a small pinch of salt until everything looks smooth. Keep the fonduta warm until you’re ready to serve it. If you need to hold it for more than an hour, it keeps warm best in a double boiler.

4.     Heat the oil in a deep fryer to 350 degrees F. Place a cooling rack over a baking sheet.

5.     In a large bowl, whisk together the cornstarch, flour, fresh sage and dried sage. Add a few ice cubes to the club soda and swirl to chill. Remove the ice cubes and whisk the club soda into the cornstarch mixture to form a smooth batter, working with one mushroom cluster at a time, dip and swirl the cluster in the batter to completely coat the mushrooms. Let excess batter drip away, then drop the clusters, one by one, into the fryer and fry until crispy, about 2 minutes. Using a spider strainer or tongs, transfer the fried mushrooms to the rack and immediately sprinkle with salt.

6.     For each plate, spoon one-quarter of the fondue in the center, drizzle with the garlic syrup, then mound one-quarter of the fried mushrooms on top.

For candied garlic syrup: (makes 1 ¼ cup)

1 cup sugar

1 cup cider vinegar

3 whole heads of garlic, each clove peeled and trimmed (approx. 30 cloves total)

In small nonreactive saucepan, stir together the sugar and vinegar and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and cut the heat down to low; cook until garlic is golden brown and soft, about 30 minutes. Store the garlic in the syrup mixture, covered, in the refrigerator.

As Eater noted, Gillespie recently left the Woodfire Grill to start his own restaurant from the ground up.  Gunshow is set to show off his rough and rustic Southern cuisine.  We can't wait.

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