Kitchen Oddity

I am habitually behind on my food related holidays. So much so, that I almost missed a holiday celebrating one of my top five reasons for living: pie. 

Pie is a mystical dish that can reflect whatever dessert texture or taste you so desire and ail your cravings. It can be fruity, creamy, flaky, crunchy, sticky, fluffy, it’s endless. Whatever you want, there’s a pie for that. From cherry to strawberry-chili to grape to peanut butter macadamia nut to apple or pumpkin, a pie shell is a canvas that can be filled with innumerable flavors no matter how wrong or right.

If you’ve ever seen one of my favorite movies Waitress, you know how a pie can be an extension of your thoughts and emotions. I dare you to watch the trailer and not move it to #1 in your Netflix que instantaneously. 

So in honor of the day of pies, I made a banana cream pie. When I got home with a sack of bananas and cornstarch, I realized that it was perhaps a poor pie choice on my part because it wouldn’t set up till it was pie day no more, but I pressed on.  

Oh well. 

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees

You will need these items

Crust 

• 2 and 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup mashed banana (about 3/4 of one banana)
• 1/2 stick salted butter melted

Filling

• 4 bananas
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup corn starch
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 and 1/2 cups heavy whippin’ cream y’all
• 1 and 1/2 cups whole milk
• 3 large egg yolks
• 1/4 stick salted butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Now this recipe wants you to take a half of a whole vanilla bean, split it and add the seeds and for the cooking time add the whole bean. I think this would probably give the pie a certain razzamatazz, but it’s okay without. If you have $11 to spend on two Madagascar vanilla beans, do it. For those who can’t justify it, just add another teaspoon of vanilla extract.  

Ever since my mama got me a food processor, I have been hell bent on making crumbs out of everything I can find. Grinding up those graham crackers with the Cusinart instead of the bottom of my whisk was a certain thrill that I suppose only comes once in life. I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

One you have your 2 and 1/2 cups of graham crackers, combine them with the mashed banana, sugar and butter in the food processor or a bowl by some other means and press it into your pie dish. 

Bake the pie crust for 15 minutes and let it cool down entirely. 

For the filling whisk together the salt, sugar and cornstarch in a medium saucepan, then add the milk and cream over high heat while whisking. Whisk in your 3 egg yolks. If you are in possession of the vanilla beans, this is where you add the scrapings and the half bean in to the liquid. It will take around 6 minutes for the liquid to boil and pud… my verb for to become pudding. As in, the pudding has pudded in the present perfect tense. 

Anyway…

One your pudding has indeed pudded, put it in a bowl and let it chill in the refrigerator for an hour. You might need to stir it once to make sure the middle isn’t still warm. 

Layer the pudding and the sliced bananas to your desired banana flavor level and BLAMO, a pie is born. 

You can let the pie set up in the fridge over night, or you could just eat it now. No judgment. 

I hope that you had a happy pie day, but remember, everyday can be a happy pie day. 

Rest in Peace Jack Lalanne 

Hi there Kitchen Oddity readers, old and new,

If you’d rather just get to the meatloaf part, by all means go below this text. 

I really don’t know how to react when 1,000 people comment on something you wrote online. 

Yesterday, something incredible happened. Anthony Bourdain, one of my cooking heros and host of the Travel Channel’s No Reservations, somehow got ahold of my letter I wrote for Vox Magazine and responded to me in  a post on his blog. The letter, which was directed towards him, was about defending my father against what were some intense comments about him and his company, Cargill. 

If you read the chapter “Meat” in Tony’s latest book Medium Raw, you saw that he addressed Cargill’s top management in a hyperbolic, but, none the less, agressive manner. My letter was not intended to absolve Cargill from any of its perceived sins. That’s their job. I didn’t address the ammonia issue because I am not Cargill’s spokesperson, but I am my family’s.

I could tell you the truth about the ammonia issue. I could tell you that you have just as much of a chance getting sick from “artisan” hamburger made out of your own damn cow in your backyard. But would it matter coming from me? No. So, I asked Tony to actually talk to Cargill. 

I just wanted to correct the misconception that my dad doesn’t care about food because he’s feeding the world’s working class shrink-wrapped shit. Neither of those things are true. My family cares about food deeply, and I wanted to express that to give a more humanistic view of an executive at Cargill. I too have been guilty of seeing large corporations as single, evil entities, but knowing that real people run these businesses gives us more realistic expectations about what they’re trying to accomplish for better or for worse. 

I guess I was just trying to find some common ground. 

I’m not stupid. I know that Cargill is a loaded word. I also know how easy it is to be an armchair bully, but I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t say that many of those negative (if that’s the right word) comments kind of got to me. 

I know how lucky I am to have the family I have, for countless more reasons than my dad’s salary, and I know how lucky I am to have had opportunities to learn about food and cooking. But instead of feeling overwhelmingly guilty, I try to leave the world a better place than how I found it in the morning.

Until people understand the world is too big to be seen through one lens, progress on our food supply, and diplomacy and civility in general, will never happen. Until people can listen to the other side thoughtfully instead of sticking their fingers in the ears and running away, progress won’t happen. 

The last thing I want to say is if my mom and my grandma are still the only people that read every post a month from now, I’d be fine with that. I am sincerely honored that anybody else, even my friends, want to read what I write here, because there is a whole lot to read out there.  

With all that said….

Here is a package of hamburger meat I bought at the grocery store with Cargill’s identification number of EST 86G marked on the packaging.

Let’s make a meatloaf. 

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. 

You will need besides 1 lb. of ground beef…

• 1 cup of cracker crumbs
• 1 cup of milk
• 1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese
• 1 egg
• 1 Tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of garlic salt
• 1/4 teaspoon oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon basil
• The Godfather Trilogy soundtrack

Combine all the ingredients, preferably with your hands, until thoroughly combined. 

Put ground beef mixture in a square baking dish and cover with ketchup. Bake for 45 minutes. 

Make sure to subsequently enjoy it!

So far the only Chinese restaurant I’ve seen in Savannah is a brick building down the street with a red dragon painted on the side that looks mildly abandoned and, to use the parlance of our times, sketchy. 

Since I am trying to be overly cautious as I don’t know anyone here to save me, I decided I would make my own orange chicken courtesy of Simply Asia’s mandarin orange stir-fry sauce instead. 

The directions on the back of the package couldn’t be easier, and there is none of that marinating in the fridge overnight, having Martha Stewart-like foresight to deal with either. 

For the three cups of vegetables I added ginger, snap peas, mushrooms, bok choy leaves and basil. Pile some chicken and mandarin oranges in there and you’ve got yourself a deal. 

But do avoid this situation when shredding carrots…

Sadly, I had to loose a U.S.D.A. certified, choice cut of my thumb for this dinner, but as Sam Eliot once said in my favorite movie The Big Lebowski: “Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar eats you.”

I made brown rice to counteract the quarter pint of Talenti Dulce de Leche gelato that I put coarse sea salt on in a moment of unadulterated genius last night while watching “The Problem Solvers” episode of 30Rock. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. 

Next I made a basil smoothie for dessert. It may sound strange, but if you’ve ever had basil ice cream, you know what I’m talking about. It’s fresh and out of the ordinary. Basil also has antiviral and possible cardiovascular-benefiting properties. It’s no broccoli, but then again you don’t have to suffer the um, consequences of digesting raw vegetables with basil. According to African legends, basil also protects against scorpions. The positive qualities are endless!

To be honest, I didn’t really do any measurements when creating this. You could experiment with your own ratio of ice, vanilla yogurt, basil and sugar. I used about 7 basil leaves, but I wanted it extra garden-y tasting. Sugar is optional, but it sure makes it taste good. 

If you’d rather have someone take your hand a guide you through the sands of time, or in this case, a basil-flavored dessert, Giada de Laurentiis made a basil smoothie on her “Spa” episode where she enviously reclines by her pool on her own private Santa Monica estate with her BFFs. But she was smart enough to make a simple syrup for this smoothie, so that’s why she lives in Santa Monica and I don’t… among other reasons. 

If you haven’t visited No One Man Should Have All That Flour, get yourself over there right now, son. This is the best Tumblr since Bea Arthur Mountains Pizza. Along with food themed Kanye pictures, the blog is dedicated to rewriting Kanye West lyrics with food in them. 

For instance, this revisitation of Mr. West’s “Touch the Sky” 

Kitchen Oddity will be working on a submission of “Heard ‘em Say” as “Heard ‘em Saute”

 Also if you haven’t seen Bea Arthur Mountains Pizza, prepare to have your frown turned so upside down

That. Just. Happened.

With my crazy, almost annoying, sensitivity to caffeine, 30 oz. of coffee might kill me. At the very least I could remodel a bathroom, do 18 straight hours of pilates or potty train a border collie. 

Grocery shopping in Savannah still hasn’t lost its novelty. Every time I walk across the street to my neighborhood Kroger, I always find something that lets me know I’m not in Minnesota anymore like Pappy’s sassafras tea concentrate, Jack Daniel’s ground coffee, White Lilly Flour or Duke’s Mayonnaise. If you’ve ever wanted to see evidence of our free market in action, just look at the biscuit mix section. 

Tupelo Honey is definitely one Southern food that I’m glad to be near, and Savannah Bee Company has the best. I decided I would try out some of their other “flavors,” which they sell in a variety of sizes including a fancy lookin’ champagne flute. 

I tried the black sage and orange blossom honeys, and it’s crazy how different they taste. The orange blossom tastes much sweeter like liquid citrus candy, while the black sage is supposed to be herbal-tasting, which I can kind of see the more I eat it. It’s definitely my favorite out of the two. The black sage is like the Sharon Jones or the Aretha of honey, and the orange blossom is like the Diana Ross.

Also, can we talk about how they make Southern-flavored lip balm!

This stuff is the bomb dot com. Also, further schooling other beeswax lip balms, it comes in Mint Julep and Earl Grey along with Tupelo Honey. I’ve never been so happy to have a sinus infection because I have an excuse to use it every 3 minutes after breathing out my mouth all day. 

Rejoice good townspeople! You don’t have to be in Savannah to purchase these mystical, delicious items since everything is for sale on their web site. 

If you’re looking for a tea-lover gift, may Kitchen Oddity suggest this bundle of awesome…

For only $40, this box set is too legit to quit. 

And while you’re perusing all of the awesome offerings of Savannah Bee Company, make sure to do your part to save the honeybees in any way you can! You can put a mason bee house in your garden, not squish them when they accidentally come in your living room or even buy a tub of Haagen Dazs. 

In case you didn’t notice, which is highly unlikely, I love Paula Deen: a woman famous for saying such things as “And here goes our frosting, mayonaise and cheese…” and “After it comes out of the refrigerator, it’ll be as hard as my arteries.” One of my favorite moments in television history is the look she gives the camera when she’s about to deep fry a frozen square of homemade mac n’ cheese wrapped in bacon. 

Say what you will about her efforts to turn Velveeta into fudge and how much heavy cream she goes through a week, I still find her inspiring and comforting. Whenever I have to eat lunch at home quickly by myself before I go to class, I turn her show on, and I feel like I have a good friend eating with me. Her sincerity is unquestionable. 

A cardboard cutout of Paula and I a few spring breaks ago. 

Since I moved to Savannah, home of the Deen family, recently, I decided I would try my hand at shrimp n’ grits, a staple of Southern cookin.’

I decided to just post a picture of the recipe since Paula’s recipes are always easy to understand and follow. 

Another great Paula quote for your enjoyment: “And we’re gonna take - don’t be surprised - a half a pound of butter y’all.”

This is the mega awesome combination lemon-lime juicer my mama gave me for Christmas. If you don’t have one of these, you’re in for myriad revelations, friend. 

Apparently, I have a hidden talent for cheese grits. Who knew?

Notes of note:

Go easy on the lemon elements of this recipe, and if you decide to make cheese grits, I cooked mine with a mixture of chicken broth and milk. I also halved the recipe since I have no one but the ghost of Johnny Mercer who lives next door to feed. It turned out to be the right amount for two people. 

I hope I have encouraged you to embrace your inner Paula every now and then. Man cannot live off a black quinoa, agave nectar and what have you alone. 

Enjoy this video of the infamous deep fried, bacon-wrapped mac n’ cheese episode from Paula’s Home Cooking

Hello friends. 

I would apologize for not updating in close to a month, but after graduating from the Missouri School of Journalism, spending the holidays with my family in Minneapolis and moving to Savannah, Georgia for graduate school in the span of three weeks, it’s a wonder that I even found time to bake cookies yesterday. 

I live in a carriage house next door to Johnny Mercer’s childhood home in Savannah, and so far it’s been beyond bizarre waking up to palm trees and sunshine in January. I can’t even explain in words what the humidity has done to my hair, but it’s a small price to pay to live in one of the purdiest places in Amurrica. 

My landlords, who live in the main house about 20 feet from my livin’ quarters, were nice enough to find a new oven to install in my kitchen. 

BEHOLD! PUSH BUTTONS! A functioning timer! Oh joy, oh rapture!

To thank them kindly for improving my cooking life drastically, I decided I would make them some cookies. I went to the Gourmet cookbook my mama got me for Christmas and found a recipe for Pecan Sables. Since I am in pecan country during the tail end of pecan season, it seemed only fitting. 

If you watch 30Rock 25% as much as I do, you will recall the episode where Liz Lemon and Jack go to Georgia to find a new star for the TGS show. Liz complains about how everything in the South is just a little different, for instance when she is holding a bottle of Peppi Bismilk for her ailing stomach. I sort of feel that way when I walk around the Kroger grocery store near my house. I searched high and low for the normal pink carton of C&H granulated sugar, but all they had were bags of Dixie Crystals. I also find it humorous how you can find Jim Beam pancake syrup in about every building with food in it in Savannah. 

Here is the recipe for the Pecan Sables, which are rootin’ tootin’ dee-licious, if I do say so myself. 

Please, find these things

Spread the 3/4 cup pecans out on a baking sheet and toast them for about 5-10 minutes in the oven on 325 degrees (the same temperature you will bake the cookies at. Two birds! One stone!). The recipe says to pulse these pecans in a food processor with 2 tablespoons sugar, but I will tell you that if you are so frazzled from walking back and forth to Kroger four times because you keep forgetting things and end up using a Magic Bullet and forget the sugar, things will be fine. 

A note on the butter. The recipe says to use a high fat content butter. Like we’re talking 80 freaking plus percent of butter fat. I must concur, it is a good idea. Just say a couple Hail Marys and buy the stuff. Eat brown rice and edamame for dinner. It’ll be okay. 

Beat the butter, sugar and vanilla until it’s fluff-tastic and then beat one egg yolk in. Save the white in another bowl. Add your dry ingredients along with the ground pecans and, in the words of M.J., just beat it… until it’s combined. 

This dough is going to look like a bucket of sand, but when you squeeze it together it will hold together. The recipe says to roll out half the dough between two sheets of wax paper and cut out circles with a 2 inch cookie cutter. Because I didn’t want to go to Kroger for the fifth time to buy wax paper and explain myself to the sassy lady behind the customer service counter again, I did things the hard way and formed two inch patties out of the dough by hand. It turned out okay, but if you can manage the prescribed method, do it. 

Put the unbaked cookie circles on a greased up baking sheet and place a pecan in the center of each. Then brush them with the egg white, which you have beaten until it is fah-rothy. 

Bake for 10-15 minutes, and trust me, they are probably more done than you think they are. 

My mama, who is clearly the best mama in the whole word, also got me the illusive Kitchen Aid glass mixing bowl, complete with measurement marks and spout. 

Hopefully, this is the start of more tasty things to come this year.