Preservation Vacation ’08 & ’09
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New York Times Restaurant Critics Get the Last Bite
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| “First let me introduce myself. I’m Craig Claiborne, and this is Julia Child.” Photo: Scanned from A Feast Made for Laughter |
“And to tell the truth, I was bored with restaurant criticism. At times I didn’t give a damn if all the restaurants in Manhattan were shoved into the East River and perished. Had they all served nightingale tongues on toast and heavenly manna and mead, there is just so much that the tongue can savor, so much that the human body (and spirit) can accept, and then it resists. Toward the end of my days as restaurant critic, I found myself increasingly indulging in drink, the better to endure another evening of dining out. I had become a desperate man with a frustrating job to perform.” — from ‘A Feast Made for Laughter’ by Craig Claiborne, New York Times Dining editor and restaurant critic, 1982
While there have thus far been no reports of departing New York Times restaurant critic and newly-minted memoirist Frank Bruni tipsily pressing ham against the windows of the Second Avenue Deli, rolling members of the Cipriani family for spare change and Bellini drippings, or skulking through the catacombs at Ninja New York, randomly alarming the goofily hooded servers, it’s not as if he’s going silently into that last bite.
They rarely do.
How to cook a cow head in New York City
There comes a time in every girl’s life — when she’s ripping open the long-braised skull of a short-lived calf in order to better wobble out its beer-marinated brain — that she smiles contentedly and realizes she loves her life an awful lot. Then she goes for the eyes.
Well OK, not every girl’s life — but at least those of a troika of squeam-free dames including Hill Country’s executive chef and cookbook author Elizabeth Karmel, Homesick Texan writer Lisa Fain and lucky, lucky me. And it all happened because of Twitter.
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Planting 7/11/09
Spilanthes / Paracress – Nichols |
Summer Savory – Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds |
Coriander – Sgaravatti |
Salad Burnet – Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds |
Green Purslane – Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds |
Cumin – Nichols |
Vanilla Grass – Thyme Garden |
Wormwood – Seed Savers |
Prezzemolo Gigante – La Semiorto Sementi |
Culantro Eryngium – Nichols |
Papaloquelite (Summer Cilantro) – Nichols |
Sesame Bene – Nichols |
Chervil – Page’s Seeds |
Cilantro – Nichols |
Fenugreek |
Caraway – Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds |
Hungarian Breadseed Poppy – Renee’s Garden |
(Old Chives) Chinese |
Paula Deen, Y’all!
Paula Deen may be television royalty, but the queen of Southern cuisine wasn’t born with a slew of books, a suite of restaurants, a trio of TV shows or a line of gourmet goodies to her name. In fact, at age 40, the Emmy-winning cook was a struggling, single mother who not only hadn’t yet started down her career path — she was afraid to even walk out her front door. She and her husband Michael Groover sat down for a video interview with me to share the story of her remarkable journey and his delicious life with Paula Deen.
AOL Food: Who taught you how to love food?
Paula Deen: I don’t know if I can say one person that taught me the love of food. My Daddy certainly loved food. My grandmother certainly loved food. She loved food so much that that was she and my grandfather’s business. They were in the food and lodging business, so food was going on all the time. My mother was a fabulous cook and my daddy over-served himself many, many, many times on my mother’s cooking. My brother loves to eat so I’d almost say it’s a family affair.
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Smoked Lemonade
I’m stingy with my smoke.
Not in a "don’t bogart that can, man" way. Just that if I’m going to go to all the trouble of stoking a hardwood lump charcoal fire, obsessively monitoring its low-‘n-slow-ness for a goodly chunk of the day, feeding its greedy gut with beer-soaked mesquite and hickory chunks at half-hour intervals all for the sake of an albeit fabulous brisket or pork shoulder, I’m gonna want a bit more return on the investment.
Here’s where foil pans of salt, cherries and lemons come in. Since lid-lifting is anathema to efficient meat smoking, I use natural intervals — when I’m replenishing coals or chips — to slip trays of salt, halved lemons, limes or de-stemmed cherries onto the top rack of my Char-Griller barrel smoker. As I’m almost comically obsessive about not letting the temperature crest 225 degrees, there’s not much fret about losing juice to evaporation and the flesh and rinds pick up the deep, mellow flavors of woody smoke.
Sweet, smoked cherries lend a low, charred note to a perfect Manhattan and long-smoked Kosher salt on the rim of a Margarita glass creates a luscious, briny wash with every sip.
But when life hands you smoked lemons, there’s really just one thing to do.
Smoked Lemonade
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Cheerwine Ham
Ever whip up a dish that’s so madly yummy you wanna feed it to everyone you’ve ever met? This is one of those.
Yup, Easter’s already hopped on by, but who says that’s the only ham-appropriate occasion? We’d unexpectedly received a smoked, bone-in ten-pounder as lagniappe for being loyal grocery store shoppers, and while we were old hands at prepping its hard, salty country cousin, we’d never actually baked and glazed a city ham. We’ve long been inspired by Aretha Franklin’s ginger ale doused Queen of Soul Ham and have heard tell of a Coca-Cola ham or two, though have never had the pleasure of sampling one.
A tad loath to leave the house and brave the holiday supermarket fray, we took stock of what was on hand. Diet drinks weren’t gonna cut the mustard, husband would flip if we drained his precious Pepsi stash, tonic was a tad depressing, then lo and behold — Cheerwine! We’d hauled back cases of the distinctive cherry soda when last we hit the Tarheel State, and had been holding out for a special occasion to dip into the stash.
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Seeds — Cucurbits
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Type |
Name |
Producer |
H |
O |
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1 |
Squash |
Butternut |
Seeds of Change |
|
Y |
|
2 |
Squash |
Spaghetti |
Seeds of Change |
Y |
Y |
|
3 |
Squash |
Yellow Crookneck |
Seeds of Change |
Y |
Y |
|
4 |
Squash |
Buttercup |
Seed Savers Exchange |
Y |
|
|
5 |
Squash |
White Bush Scallop |
Fort Berthold |
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6 |
Squash |
Spaghetti |
Fort Berthold |
|
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7 |
Gourd |
Balsam Pear Bitter Gourd |
Evergreen Y.H. |
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8 |
Gourd |
White Gourd (Winter Melon) |
Evergreen Y.H. |
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9 |
Gourd |
Bitter Gourd (White Bitter |
Evergreen Y.H. |
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10 |
Squash |
Italian Largo |
Conway |
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11 |
Zucchini |
Garden Spineless F1 Hybrid |
Page’s Seeds |
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12 |
Squash |
Tardiva Di Napoli |
Bavicchi |
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13 |
Gourd |
Birdhouse Gourd |
Ferry Morse |
Y |
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14 |
Watermelon |
Allsweet |
Ferry Morse |
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|
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15 |
Watermelon |
Moon & Stars |
Seeds of Change |
Y |
Y |
|
16 |
Watermelon |
Red Seeded Citron |
Seed Savers Exchange |
Y |
|
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17 |
Watermelon |
Small Shining Light |
Seed Savers Exchange |
Y |
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18 |
Melon |
Sharlyn Honeydew |
Seeds of Change |
|
Y |
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19 |
Melon |
Ananas D’Amerique A Chair |
D. Landreth |
Y |
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20 |
Pumpkin |
Jack Be Little |
Fort Berthold |
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|
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21 |
Pumpkin |
Small Sugar |
Seeds of Change |
Y |
Y |
|
22 |
Pumpkin |
Casper |
Page’s Seeds |
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23 |
Pumpkin |
Early Sugar or Pie |
NK Lawn & Garden Co. |
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Stained Cookbooks
I’m not gonna lie — I’m rough on my books. There’s a school of thought treating the physical manifestation of the written word as a sacred object, and I fully respect that. However I, for one, shove an old copy of “How to Cook a Wolf” into the bottom of my bag with the notion that at some point it’ll sustain me on an overextended subway ride. I read “The Devil in the Kitchen” in the bathtub, A.J. Liebling over a lunchtime reuben, and good gosh a-mighty are my cookbooks covered in shmutz.
But hey, it’s thematic goo; “Molto Italiano” is spattered in tomato sauce, “Pie” — seen here — is all a-smear in lard, “Charleston Receipts” in Otranto Club Punch and “Staff Meals from Chanterelle” slicked with a fine mist of rendered rind bacon. To my mind, these books are being honored, used, proven. Should these books at some point have a subsequent owner, they’ll know what’s been tested, made and made again.
Still, am I dishonoring the object or the authors when I’m getting the books all mucky? I posed the question to Matthew Lee (whose book “The Lee Bros. Southern Cooking” I’ve doused in all manner of pickling brine), and he noted that he and his co-author, his brother Ted have debated pre-mucking-up copies of their book to nix the blank canvas factor. The recipes therein are warm of heart and humble of origin, so it’s not out of character, but would, say, a gellan-gumming of Grant Achatz’s “Alinea” be a crime against the rather expensive and exceptionally lovely object?
Do you keep your cookbooks in pristine condition, or do you just accept page stains as collateral damage?
Originally published on Slashfood
Biscuit Mission ’09
Have I mentioned that I have a bit of a thing about biscuits? I’ve been spending the bulk of ’09 with my hands crumbed up with lard and flour in an attempt to loft my biscuits heavenward.
It’s started to work. Here’s why.
Follow Biscuit Mission ’09 at Slashfood.