Kitchen Oddity

Wether you’re drinking from an heirloom silver cup or a...

Sat, 04 May 2013 16:14:36 -0400

Wether you’re drinking from an heirloom silver cup or a chilled jelly jar (like I am), I hope you have a wonderful Derby Day y’all.

Birthday Pie

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:23:00 -0400

When we were very little, my mama would tell my bobbleheaded brother and me that we would know when our birthdays were approaching by the explosion of butter-yellow daffodils (my brother’s) and the emergence of scarlet-striped pink tulips (mine) in our front yard.

Here in Savannah, I know, not by the tulips, but by the sudden scattering of neon green lizards from my tomato bush and the intoxicating smell of Miss Anne’s lemon tree blossoming next door.

My brother and I would ask for pineapple upside cake or lemon pie for our special days — funny, tropical requests from two kids who spent most of their childhoods in Kansas. We relished every tangy, sweet-tart bite as a sign of warmer weather and the squirt gun fights and swims at the neighborhood pool that would soon come with it.

Even though I don’t own a Super Soaker anymore, I still enjoy pineapple upside cake or a lemon/lime pie on my birthday, even if I have to make it myself.

The recipes for lemon or key lime pie in all my cookbooks and spring issues are tempting, but I always end up making the recipe my Mississippi-born grandmother passed down to my mama after she discovered key limes while living in Florida. Depending on what taste you’re going for, you can use lemon, lime or key lime juice, and it turns out perfect every time.

Crust

1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup sugar
6 tablespoons butter

Filling

1 can sweetened condensed milk
4 egg yolks
1/3 cup lemon, lime or key lime juice

Meringue

This year, I used the meringue topping recipe from the Glass Onion that includes a cornstarch stabilizer, which will help your mile-high meringue hold up until after dinner.

6 egg whites
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
3/4 cup of sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/3 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine crust ingredients in a food processor and press into a 9-inch glass pie pan. Bake for 6-8 minutes.

Whisk filling ingredients together in a mixer or a large bowl and pour into pie crust. Bake for 6 minutes. Set aside on a cooling rack.

For meringue, beat egg whites in a mixer until foamy. Add cream of tartar and beat until peaks start to become stiffer. Gradually add sugar and beat until “moderately stiff peaks” form.

Combine cornstarch, water, vanilla and salt in a saucepan. Cook over low heat until a thick gel forms this should happen in under 5 minutes depending on your oven.

Spoon cornstarch gel into egg white mixture and beat until very stable and glossy peaks form. Spoon over pie and use offset spatula to make mini peaks. Bake for 3-6 minutes or until meringue is slightly toasted. Sprinkle with zest.

It was a nostalgic ending to a dinner of ribeye alongside a romaine and homegrown chard salad with Bethesda Farm radishes and pecans Farmer Joe gave me as a birthday gift and new Vidalia onion-cheddar hoecakes.

Seasonal Snacking

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 09:44:00 -0400

Since it’s radish season here in Savannah, I’ve been bringing home beautiful bunches of the French Breakfast variety that students grow on the farm at Bethesda Academy. When it seems like a “treat yo’ self” moment, I break out a Ziploc baggie for some DIY butter piping and sprinkle with sea salt and chives that I’ve grown in a repurposed beverage bucket.

There’s just something about sliced scarlet radishes topped with a twirl of salty, herby butter that seems exotic and indulgent to me.

I’ve also been roasting Easter Egg Radishes with split baby Vidalia onions to eat alongside all the meat I’ve been able to grill since spring (more like summer: part one) has arrived.

On a side note, if you couldn’t tell already, I have a problem when it comes to tea towels. If you love the crazy- cute butter-print one above, you can find them at ShopSCAD, which sells student-created work.

Lately my favorite cooking-for-one meal is stone-ground grits...

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 13:12:10 -0400

Lately my favorite cooking-for-one meal is stone-ground grits with poached eggs, sharp cheddar, cherry tomatoes, avocado and whatever herbs are thriving in my container garden. It’s satisfying, easy and cheesy — coincidentally, three of my favorite adjectives.

Poaching eggs can be pretty intimidating, but these instructions from Thomas Keller in Bon Appetit are all that stand between you and fancy brunch-style eggs. I promise.

My Asheville adventure in Instagrams

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 12:46:00 -0400

I have come down from the North Carolina mountains, a land of craft beer, stunning panoramas and trout for breakfast. And if I learned one thing while I was staring at nature’s purple, er, blue, mountains majesty while sipping killer IPAs, it was that two days is not nearly enough time to take advantage of all Asheville has to offer.

A Southern-Fried Chicken BLT with Salsa Verde Black-Eyed Peas at the Tupelo Honey Cafe. I have to say my favorite part of lunch was the complimentary biscuits with buttery-sweet Tupelo honey.

A Sir Ryan the Pounder Session Ale, and a 1519 Pale Ale at Wicked Weed Brewing, which receives extra cool points for having both a fire pit and a cornhole setup.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a good picture of my meal at the dimly lit The Admiral in West Asheville where I had Fried Quail with a Texas Pete Glaze and Blue Corn Waffles over Sauteed Spinach. Afterwards we went to the legendary Thirsty Monk for some Belgian brews at their downstairs bar, which is completely devoted to the country’s beer. If you’ve never had the pleasure of sticking your nose into a tulip glass of Triple Karmeliet, I can only describe it as what I think Beyonce’s hair probably smells like.

The next morning we ate what I can confidently call one of the best breakfasts of my life at the Early Girl Eatery: mountain trout with eggs, stone-ground grits and biscuits. If only I could start everyday off that right.

Behold Biltmore, which is 8,000-acres of breathtaking scenery, architecture and staircases. Just the drive up to the house and a stroll through the first third of the gardens completely justified the Disney World-expensive ticket prices. The house itself would make a great set for a Southern version of Downtown Abbey.

We decided to eat our last Asheville meal at the White Duck Taco Shop in the River Arts District. We went whole hog since the most creative tacos you’ll find in Savannah are at Taco Bell. I ordered a Bangkok Shrimp with pickled cucumber and carrots and a sesame glaze along with a Duck Mole taco topped with crema, lettuce and rhubarb.

Justin with his Super Saison at Wedge Brewing Company, our last stop in Asheville. Both it and the Hellesbock Lager I tried were fantastically drinkable yet nuanced.

Did I mention they give you a big galvanized bucket of peanuts to shell while you drink and gaze across the river? Who could ask for more?

My friend Lee Heidel of Brew Drink Run just put up a new episode...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:54:00 -0400

My friend Lee Heidel of Brew Drink Run just put up a new episode of Cooking With Camille, his daughter’s outrageously cute cooking show. If you need something to brighten up your tax day, here is a link to watch her latest attempt at a strawberry pie — a girl after my own heart.

A return to real dinners

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 14:49:00 -0400

It’s spring time in Savannah, which means two things.

One, I will be spending tonight and every weekend till October falling asleep to the sounds of the “Cha Cha Slide” and “Play That Funky Music” courtesy of the wedding receptions held at the historic, uninsulated venue behind my house.

And two, I just finished my second year with the Savannah Music Festival, which means I’ve eaten almost exclusively Lance cheese crackers, granola bars, Parker’s pimento cheese sandwiches and the occasional leftover artist catering for the past three weeks.

While working 15+ hour days means being away from my kitchen more than I would like, it’s worth it to hear musicians and groups like Dr. John, Vincent Segal, Mike Marshall, Emmylou Harris, Julian Lage, Daniel Hope and Lake Street Dive. (Side note: if you haven’t heard Rachael Price’s voice, fix that.) And producing great education programs like Swing Central Jazz and Acoustic Music Seminar soothes any separation anxiety I might have in regards to my Vitamix or cast-iron skillet.

Still, it’s good to be back at my counter, especially with a bag of Sadandy Peas courtesy of the one and only Farmer Joe of Clark and Sons Organics. I’m quite the superfan of his Pink-Eyed and Crowder Peas, so I thought I’d give these a try.

Simmered with chicken stock, Vidalia onions, thyme, garlic, pimento powder, white pepper and molasses, they turned out to be the perfect side to a pork rib chop and pickled carrots for my first post-festival dinner.

I used Hugh Acheson’s recipe for Gingered Pickled Carrots, one of my favorites. When we all caught wind yesterday that he is bringing an Italian restaurant here to Savannah, we were all about as excited as this lady who found out she won $40 million instead of $40,000.

Since I’ve spent many nights shoving anything I can find like a piece of leftover chocolate cake and some cheese cubes into my face backstage just for the sake of sheer sustenance, I throughly appreciated sitting down at a table for some proper protein.

In other happenings, I’ve decided to commemorate my turning a quarter century this month with a trip to the oft-spoke of Asheville, North Carolina to see what all the mountainous hullaballoo is about.

I’m planning on stopping by the Tupelo Honey Cafe, Curate Tapas Bar and Highland Brewing Company. If you have any other suggestions, send me an e-mail or post a comment!

Instagram(s) of the Day

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 22:01:30 -0400

I can’t believe I forgot to share these Instragrams I took a few weeks ago when I visited my grandfather who lives outside of Orlando, Florida.

It’s definitely not the first time I’ve been to his modest, buttercream-colored house in a particularly sandy subdivision of Sanford, a jumble of orange groves, wildflower-dotted toll road onramps, trailer parks, gated tile-roofed mansions, chain restaurants and live oaks.

The past few visits, I would focus in on his ailing blue-eyed cat, his anemic azalea bushes, his arthritic movements. But this time, I didn’t. Beneath his neighbor’s leaning grapefruit tree, in his storage room and on pieces of typewritten paper, I found pieces of my Gramps and his humble home I hadn’t seen before.

Like these fuzzy, yet brittle, weather-worn lichens subsisting on air and rays of sunshine. They reminded me of him.

In the kitchen, he and my mama taught me how to segment a grapefruit with a serrated spoon. I twisted my face after slurping each piece from the tarnished silver, and he would laugh with labored breathing.

I still have one of those grapefruits wrapped in a plastic Publix bag in the fruit drawer of my refrigerator. It stays sentimentally numbed to time. I wish I could keep him that way too.

Farmers' market finds

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 14:44:00 -0500

In addition to readily-available pimento cheese sandwiches, real-deal BBQ and proper iced tea, one of the many perks of living in the South is having a farmer’s market in February.

While others are crossing off the days until their market’s opening in April or even May, I’m gleefully throwing brussels sprouts and pecans into my basket like it’s an endcap clearance sale on travel-size toothpaste and fancy shampoo at Target.

So here are my latest finds, photographed in cute dishes and vessels I don’t get to use hardly enough.

I hate to pick favorites, but I have a special place in my heart for Farmer Joe of Clark and Sons Organics at the Forsyth Farmers Market here in Savannah. Not only does he hand out such compliments as “you look like new money,” but he also grows the best pecans, collards, field peas and strawberries. You can’t help but buy a bag of his pink-eyed peas after he jokes that he missed them, and that’s why they’re not black-eyed.

I’m looking forward to sprinkling his pecans on many a spring salad and roasting them in the oven with his brussels sprouts (pictures above), balsamic vinegar and bacon, Barefoot Contessa-style.

For the upcoming March/April issue of Savannah Magazine, I talked to farmers Relinda Walker of Walker Organics and Bo Herndon of Herndon Farms about the Southern belles of produce, Vidalia Onions. Even though they may take different approaches to growing them, I respect them both equally for the backbreaking work they do in cultivating Georgia’s state vegetable — one I thoroughly enjoy throwing into just about everything I make at home from pickles to shrimp etouffee.

I love “Lil Bo’s” from Herndon Farms, which you can find at Fresh Market, roasted alone or with a garlic-lemon chicken.

I feel the same about these rainbow carrots from Relinda’s farm. They have a subtle, almost herbal-sweetness that works perfectly in almost-springtime cooking.

Finally, I found some of the season’s last strawberries, which I’ve been slicing up for salads, pies and smoothies. They’re awfully pretty in this Depression-glass berry bowl I found in a cabinet at my grandpa’s house while installing his toaster oven.

I am constantly looking for an excuse to eat ham biscuits. So...

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:52:06 -0500

I am constantly looking for an excuse to eat ham biscuits. So when I realized the Oscars were on this past Sunday, I went to work on a Southern-style spread to share with my mama, who happened to be in town.

With some help from the March issue of Southern Living and eggs from Bethesda Academy here in Savannah, it turned out wonderfully, and we enjoyed it while blessing many hearts over dress choices on the red carpet.

Here is what we had:

Buttermilk biscuits with country ham and red pepper jelly
Deviled eggs with powdered pimento and chives
Romaine salad with pickled strawberries and Georgia pecans
Pineapple-Rum-Tea Punch

Confession: this was my first time making deviled eggs, and I was beyond thrilled that I didn’t have to call them “deconstructed egg salad” to make up for appearances.

Instagram of the Day

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 15:33:00 -0500

I really hate to admit it, but I am an Instagram addict. I have said things to the extent of “that’s so Valencia” when referring to color schemes. I am not proud of this, but, henceforth, I am changing the Instagram of the Week segment to Instagram of the Day since I eat too many awesome things to limit it to once a week.

Anyhoo, pictured above is my lunch at Back in the Day Bakery: a caprese sandwich with an old-fashioned cupcake.

Instagram of the Week

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 18:52:00 -0500

I bought this kumquat tree for $15 from the sad plants section at Home Depot last summer.

The first time I had a kumquat, I sneaked one from a tree in a huge ceramic pot on the sidewalk amongst a jungle of crinums, ferns, palms, crepe myrtles and agaves on Hall and Howard by Forsyth Park. The owner didn’t seem interested in picking its fruit, so every now and then I would come back and have a sweet-tart pick-me-up on my walk home from downtown.

Then the for sale sign went up in front of the terracotta-colored house.

When I brought my own tree home I put it in a used Jack Daniel’s barrel and hoped it would hold on, and it looks like after fretting and fussing over it for months I might be able to harvest these homegrown Sour Patch Kids soon.

But I still miss my sidewalk tree.

Here’s a slice of my new favorite pie: Meyer Lemon...

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 15:49:00 -0500

Here’s a slice of my new favorite pie: Meyer Lemon Buttermilk Chess from the latest Taste of the South issue.

A combination of two classics — lemon chesss and buttermilk — it’s just as fantastic as the Black Keys and Dr. John’s GRAMMY performance last night.

Salsa crisis

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 17:07:00 -0500

I’d love to tell you all is well since I arrived back home in Savannah from my New York adventure, but it isn’t. The moss-draped oaks are still beautiful, Parker’s iced tea is still refreshing as ever and my street still smells like fried chicken and jasmine blossoms, but Sol, one of my favorite restaurants, is gone.

It was roughly last Friday I started to realize I would never enjoy a Bahn Mi shrimp taco ever again, nor would I ever have a pineapple mojito or more importantly those salty, crunchy chips with that mango-habanero salsa. It was enough to send me into a Latin-fusion panic attack.

But when life hands you lemons, you make lemonade. Or, in this case, when your mama gives you a Vitamix for Christmas, you try to recreate said salsa.

Initially, I was slightly terrified of my Vitamix. The instructional DVD, which features a woman with gleaming French-manicured nails calmly disintegrating whole heads of purple cabbage in nanoseconds and making smoking-hot soups in minutes, is mind-blowing. If you’ve never owned one, it can only be described as possessing the Old-Testament-style wrath of God in a home appliance.

Then this exchange happened thanks to Twitter.

Eventually, I did embrace the power, and after turning a marinara sauce into frothy tomato-garlic juice a few times, I have less of a fear and more of what I’d call a healthy respect for the Vitamix. With a few successful smoothies under my belt, I decided to see if I could make the mango magic happen on my own.

I’d like to say I was successful, but the taste remains illusive. Different ratios of mango to tomato to onion to cilantro to peppers, cooking the mango down, sweetening it — nothing I could think to do would conjure up that mystical flavor. I’m sure I’ll find what’s missing eventually, much like the miracle of Brasa’s green sauce, but until then there will be a sweet-and-spicy void in my life.

But it wasn’t all a wash. I did manage to come up with my own recipe that was exactly what I needed for the first Georgia shrimp tacos I’ve made since I’ve been home.

Mistake Mango Salsa

1 jar of mangos in light syrup (I used this for a little extra sweetness and for lack of crazy ripe mangos.)
1 habanero, seeded and roughly chopped
1 small tomato
1 handful of diced onion (sweet yellow or Vidalia)
2-3 tablespoons of diced pimento peppers
2 lime wedges
1 teaspoon chopped cilantro (optional)

Throw the mangos, tomato, habanero, onion, pimentos and the juice from the lime wedges into a blender along with half the the syrup left in the jar. Since your blender’s speed may differ, blend until small pieces of tomato remain. Add in cilantro, and blend until just combined. You can increase or lessen any of the above to your taste.

Instagram of the Week

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 15:51:00 -0500

Over the weekend, I was crazy fortunate to find an open barstool at The Ordinary in Charleston, SC.

Pictured: Baked Otter Island Oysters with Bottarga Butter, BBQ White Shrimp with Charred Bread and a Zissou cocktail (Smith & Cross Rum, Elderflower, Maraschino Liqueur, Lime).

Not pictured: The equally fantastic Beeliner Snapper with Pickled Mushrooms and Cape Beans, Carolina Gold Rice Pudding with Macerated Strawberries, and our cute bartender.

Conclusions: Can I please have a kiddie pool of the BBQ shrimp sauce? But seriously, Borttarga is my new favorite adjective, and The Ordinary is one of my new favorite restaurants of not just the South, but of anywhere.

How outrageously good can the Charleston food scene get? I’ll leave you to ponder that while I try to recreate that sauce.

Momofuku and mo' Intsagrams

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 14:09:00 -0500

A few days ago I could feel another subway-borne cold coming on, so I decided to retire to my mattress-sized bedroom with a feel-good double feature of Superbad and Julie and Julia.

Don’t hate.

While Superbad’s tomfoolery made me forget about my super bad aches and chills for roughly 90 minutes, Julie and Julia just made me super depressed. Oh, what I would give to fry up a chicken or make shrimp étouffée in my cast iron skillet. Oh, how I miss the colorful spines of my cookbooks that teeter precariously on a baker’s rack tower ready to topple over and knock me unconscious at any moment. Although I have all the capabilities needed in my Brooklyn rental to make bison chili and cornbread, my meal of choice at the moment, I have to get many of my culinary jimmies elsewhere.

Which lead me to the legendary Momofuku Noodle Bar. To be honest, I had managed the heck out of my expectations even before I waited in line outside in the cold for 20 minutes. What could possibly live up to that kind of hype? But my casual solo Sunday lunch indeed turned out to be the Flaming Lips concert of meals. The pork belly buns, have mercy, those pork belly buns…

Next, I ate the ginger scallion noodle bowl, which is big enough to feed a family of four, but so good I ate enough for three. And for dessert, I had the ritz cracker soft serv with strawberry jam, which was like reaching a higher level of sweet and salty enlightenment.

I have less than two weeks left of my internship at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. One of my favorite people at MSLO gave me these maple-chocolate candies featuring nature’s majesty that she found in Canada. While I’ll miss a lot of things about this place like eating a piece of a cake featured in a Macy’s commercial, catching a glimpse of Martha herself, or seeing words I wrote on a web page that says http://www.marthastewart.com… at the beginning, I can’t wait to be back home in Savannah.

I’m typically skeptical about holiday beers. They often taste like if someone fermented the seasonal section of a Pier 1 Imports. But ending the day with one of these Fireside Chats from 21st Amendment is definitely a treat.

Natalie Northrup and I were all ladylike and such during our lunch at Tea and Sympathy in the West Village. Even though I’ve been in Taco Bells bigger than this place, and like the tea party in Alice and Wonderland, you often move around to fit everyone in, we both had some proper fun drinking tea and eating mince pies.

After getting lost on the east side of Manhattan, I then got lost inside of Kalustyan’s, a cavernous grocery store with every spice and seasoning imaginable from Ajwain seeds to Za’atar. If you’re looking for Indian gooseberries in syrup or cassava crackers, this is your joint.

Finally and belatedly, here is my family’s Thanksgiving spread. Most of us were scattered across the country, so it was just my daddy, mama, brother and I. But, we did pretty well if I do say so myself, even if the predominant colors were beige and tan.

What I did on my hurricane hiatus in Instagrams

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 20:33:00 -0500

Even though Hurricane Sandy ruined everything two weeks ago, this past Monday was my first day back at my internship since the Martha Stewart offices were at one point in the middle of the Hudson River and subsequently without power or heat.

Since my time left in New York City is ending soon, I decided to venture out on the newly functioning F train, and see what all the fuss is about.

Here is an abridged version of my hurricane hiatus in Instagrams.

1. Hours before things, to use the parlance of our times, got real, weather-wise, I visited The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which also conveniently doubles as Hobnail Heaven, as seen in the photo above. But seriously, if you have an unending affinity, like me, for dishes and all things domestic, visiting the Luce Center Visible Storage in the American Wing is like being a NASCAR fan at Talladega.

2. During the storm I spent most of my time huddled against the furthest interior wall of my bedroom, which is coincidentally the same size as my mattress, ferociously reading Twitter updates from Mayor Bloomberg and becoming unexpectedly addicted to the Texas Football TV drama, Friday Night Lights. Together, Tami Taylor and I got through Sandy, and she is now my power animal, y’all.

3. I celebrated voting for President Obama via absentee ballot with a Nutella crepe at Crespella. It was delicious, just like his reelection.

4. I caught up with my friend Molly Roth at Four & Twenty Blackbirds in Brooklyn for some pie therapy. Here is my slice of maple-buttermilk custard; it’s hipper than I could ever hope to be.

5. I had a wildly expensive lunch at the Museum of Modern Art’s Cafe 2 before spending the next four hours attempting to view some genuine masterpieces and weaving through hordes of European tourists and Chinese students armed with point-and-shoot cameras. The top photo is of butternut squash soup with lentils and two chocolate chunk cookies; the bottom is a piece of bruschetta with buffalo mozarella and olive-pine nut tapenade and another with ricotta, sliced beets and tarragon.

6. I became moderately dehydrated climbing up and down all six flights of stairs at ABC Carpet and Home in the Flatiron District.

7. I made sure 30 Rock is a real place. Now I can fully picture Kenneth Parcell’s workplace.

8. I went to Williamsburg with Ben Dillon, a fellow Mizzou Tiger I’ve known since we were high schoolers hanging around the music scene in Wichita, Kansas. We tried to recreate our last trip to Williamsburg when we went to Brooklyn Brewery, drank $20 worth of beer tokens and stuffed our faces with mac ‘n’ cheese and pork at Mabel’s Smokehouse. Both places were closed, so in true Midwestern fashion we said screw it, and got some donuts.

9. I had a honkin’ piece of lasagna bolognese and a glass of red wine at Mario Batali’s cathedral for all things Italian, Eataly. Eating lasagna, drinking wine and staring at cured meat around noon happens to be a great cure for writer’s block and numerous other afflictions.

10. I fueled up for my walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to Washington Square at Smorgusburg, which is a weekend food market set up in the tabacco warehouse at Brooklyn Bridge Park. It would also serve as wonderful field research if you were studying the patterns of the the greater New England hipster. Lord, the Peter Pan collars and straw fedoras. Anyhoo, the food was some of the best I’ve had since arriving in New York.

First, I had two steamy buns from Bite Size Kitchen, one with braised pork belly, pickled jalapeno, cucumber, scallions and hoison, and the other with duck and other crazy good things I didn’t take note of because I was too busy eating them. Next I had fried anchovies Jersey-style (heads on) with paprika mayo and pickled carrots from Bon Chovie, and then I finished it all off with yet another donut because I have been asking myself “what would Liz Lemon eat?” far too often. This one was cafe-au-lait flavored from Dough, a donut shop with the adorable catch phrase “We fry in Bed Stuy.”

11. Now, that the hiatus is over, I spend spare minutes at work scavenging for free things on giveaway tables like cookbooks, seasonal Dogfish Head beer and imitation Nutella. Or I find time to taste test three different kinds of stuffing from the test kitchen.

Four weeks left…

Sandy and Southern souvenirs

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 19:14:00 -0400

Last week, I was standing in the hallway leading up to the clerestory at the MSLO offices. I was waiting for my first tag-sale — a miniature Black Friday where employees rush into a room and frantically buy leftover props, kitchenware, furniture and craft supplies that they probably don’t need instead of flatscreen TVs and faux cashmere sweaters that they probably don’t need.

No one knew that whatever was swirling over the Caribbean was going to put our building in the middle of the Hudson River in a few days time or if we had been allowed to go to work on Monday we’d all be frantically assembling some sort of flotation device out of artisan yarn and Christmas wreaths in the craft closet.

The first table I came to during the sale had antique state souvenir glasses - a moment you could equate to an extreme couponer finding 3 cent boxes of dryer sheets or Kel cradling a bottle of orange soda.

As I rushed over, I could see women picking them up and just as quickly putting them down. Their grandmothers weren’t from Corinth, Mississippi; they hadn’t seen billboard after billboard advertising beautiful Ruby Falls during road trips through Tennessee with their mamas. They didn’t watch a warm summer sunset on top of Petit Jean Mountain in Arkansas; they sure don’t buy their peaches in a strip club parking lot across the bridge in South Carolina.

Those are my memories — all for the low price of $5.

And days later as the storm passed over, I found myself staring at them on my coffee table like talismans protecting me against the howling wind, the falling trees, the exploding power substation in the distance. Later, I watched the very top of One World Trade Center go dark from my window. I tried to sleep through the constant drone of sirens, but I kept drifting back to those places.

Now, people are walking from lower Manhattan across the bridge to just exist or use the Barnes and Noble bathroom in the neighborhood where I’m sitting at a coffee shop being homesick, where it really doesn’t look any different than it did days earlier. Well, besides this tree…

It all makes you feel pretty guilty.

I’m not sure if I have anything too profound to say on everything that’s happened, nor am I sure if it’s my place. It sort of feels like walking into a losing soccer game in Spain when you’ve never been there before or being in a hospital room with a family you’ve never met nursing a loved one back to health.

All I do know is I wish I could give everyone in the tri-state a piece of pie and a hug.

The gritty city in instagrams

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 21:01:00 -0400

If you had asked me back in June what I would be doing now, living in Brooklyn and interning at Martha Stewart’s magic kingdom in Chelsea probably wouldn’t have been my first guess. But, here I sit with a complementary coffee mug from Human Resources and a Metrocard in my wallet.

Working at the MSLO offices is unendingly fascinating; however, living in New York is somewhat like being the polar bear at the St. Louis Zoo — I have everything I need to survive, but I’m still not exactly where I belong.

I feel this way when I step on a half-eaten poppyseed bagel (which is more often than you’d think) or when I want to stand on a crate of dill pickles at the Park Slope Key Foods and testify to the glory of Duke’s Mayonnaise. Instead of walking to work beneath a canopy of Spanish moss with the song of mockingbirds floating in my ears, I hurdle through space and time in a metal box and am left with my brain still jostling and lurching in my skull hours after.

And yet, there are signs of the South. Like the cheese grits available as a side on roughly 70 percent of the menus I’ve read; signs like the shrimp etouffee at Sweetwolf or this Arctic Char with succotash, pimento sauce and pea shoots I had at the Tipsy Parson, a European-looking pub with a bizarrely Southern-influenced menu.

Or the Alabama BBQ chicken tacos I had from the Mexicue food truck by Prospect Park, where there are so many toddlers it looks like a migrating heard of adorable wildebeest. There was also an unfortunate encounter with a greasy, chunky biscuit with sorry country ham at a certain other food cart manned by cableknit-clad hipster initially bewildered when I asked for a “ham biscuit.” For the sake of manners, they won’t be named.

Even though it isn’t always the Tenenbaum-esque wonderland I once thought it was, there are places like The Highline, which is the purdiest part of my hour commute. And, I still have to eat my way through the Chelsea Market.

In the meantime, I’ll enjoy the little things like listening to street cellists with babies, watching breakdancers at the 23rd and 8th subway entrance, counting down the days till the Rickshaw Dumplings truck is outside my building again, picking up Coal Miner’s Daughter from a real-life video rental store and wondering if that was a celebrity that I passed by or just an oddly proportioned person.

Green Truck Pub and Bell's Brewery combine forces

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 14:13:00 -0400

If you read last month’s issue of Bon Appetit, you know that it is the new dawn of the neighborhood joint. The starched table cloths, gleaming bone china and leather-bound wine lists as thick as Vogue’s September Issue that were once prerequisites for restaurant greatness are no more. Nowadays the no-reservations pizza place or the seafood shack down the street from your house has just as good a chance at a feature in The New York Times.

One of the best places to watch the casual come-up, in my opinion, is Green Truck Pub, here in Savannah, Georgia. Their grass-fed burgers with locally grown toppings, fries that put all others to shame and rotating craft beer selections have become something of legend around these parts, including the sometimes 30+ minute wait to enjoy them.

So when owners Josh and Whitney Yates told me about their idea for a Monday-night prix fixe dinner with beer pairings from the infamous Bell’s Brewery out of Kalamazoo, Michigan, I wrote down the tentative date on my Barack Obama calendar and counted down the days like a third grader in a Spiderman costume for Halloween.

That night has come and all-too-quickly gone, but let’s wistfully reminisce about it, shall we?

The first course was a pork belly belonging to an Ossabaw Island Hog raised by Revival Foods nestled in a hill of pink-eyed peas from Walker Organic Farm with a house- made BBQ sauce. Like Fall in the Low Country on a plate or the ultimate ham and beans, I could have walked away ridiculously happy having just had this and a Bell’s Amber Ale.

I wish I could go back to Minneapolis with this in hand and say to all the city’s meat-centric dude chefs, as if I were Moses come down from the mount, “Lo! This is pork belly!”

The salad course was mixed arugula and buckwheat greens with fingerling potatoes, a hard boiled egg and red onion pickled in Bell’s Oarsman with a lemon vinaigrette based on Julia Child’s famous version. Bell’s Oarsman is a tart session ale brewed with sour mash, and when it’s paired with that pickled onion, it’s like watching Kirani James and Oscar Pistorius trade tags at the Olympic Men’s 400 meter.

It’s what they do best: the burger. This time it was a cheeseburger with “Heat” cheese from Sweet Grass Dairy, which features Pasilla, Ancho and Chipotle peppers. Then there are the sweet potato fries and the spicy mustard made with dry mustard, brown sugar and Bell’s Two Hearted Ale. I like to think if John Mellencamp had been at this dinner and had the mustard, he would have instantaneously jumped on top of his table and started singing “Hurts So Good.” This is the meal that Bell’s Two Hearted was meant for.

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Finally, there was this small but mighty truffle created by local chocolate rock star Adam Turoni — a 72% dark chocolate ganache, part butter and part cream, infused with tobacco. The unexpected spice of the truffle combined with the much-anticipated sampling of Bell’s mythical Black Note, was to use the parlance of our times, crazy delicious. Black Note, like Paul Simon’s Graceland or Arrested Development, completely lives up to the immense hype surrounding it.

Flashback over.

An enormous thank you to Josh, Whitney and all the wonderful people of Green Truck, Matt Wells from Bell’s Brewery and all the folks who provided the ingredients that made the evening possible.

And never fear, now deeply, deeply depressed friends who couldn’t attend — I hear there’s another Monday Dinner in the works.