Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Notes from the Beach

During a week at the beach, I got a lot of sun, swam a lot in the ocean and ate a whole lot of mediocre restaurant food.

OK, so I did have a couple of good dishes, and I did have great seafood boil that I cooked myself.

But once again I found beach restaurants underwhelming, to put it tactfully.

Here are a few observations:

I do not at all mind the proliferation of shrimp and grits on every menu of seafood restaurants. I think it’s a great dish.
It’s also a very simple dish, but, as with any simple dish, the devil is in the details.
Please, chefs and cooks, make the best grits you can, the creamy (but creamless) slow-cooked kind.
And please do not put cheese in the grits or on the shrimp.
And do not make a sauce, especially a cream sauce, to go over the shrimp and grits.
Cream and cheese are too heavy for the dish.
This dish should be lightly sauteed shrimp with a select ingredients, such as scallions, garlic, mushrooms and maybe bacon. The juices and butter from the sauteing make plenty of sauce to pool on and around the grits.

Most every restaurant steams seafood well.  You usually can’t go wrong with steamed clams, shrimp or the like.

Do not serve steamed seafood with either melted margarine or clarified butter. Whole melted butter is by far the better choice. Oh, and don’t forget a wedge of fresh lemon.

Of all the seafood offered at N.C. beach communities, the shrimp is mostly likely to be freshest because it’s most likely to be local.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Salmon, bathed in a buttery sea of verbiage

Menus fascinate me. Once upon a time, when I worked in Pennsylvania, there was a restaurant (far too expensive for me to ever really eat there) that actually had gilded verbs like “bathed” on it. Yes, they were describing food, not writing a romance novel. An editor has gotten to their menu, though - I looked online, and my, have things become more restrained.

Here, Noble’s Grille’s newish menu takes things the opposite direction; here, much of the menu’s built on the a la carte concept, and you’re given a chance to assemble your own meal from proteins, vegetables, starches and the like. The description is so spare - “scallops” - that I’ve heard confused diners turn to their waiters because they had no idea how those things were prepared. Like me, some people make their dining decisions based on the trimmings - interesting sauces and techniques, or sides.

A few weeks ago, I noticed Milner’s lunch menu. This time it’s the categories that caught my eye. Sandwiches have become simply “hand,” while salads are “cold,” appetizers “table” and soups are “spoon.” It’s clever, but almost too self-consciously so. As I read the menu, I’m thinking more about those categories than the food, and I don’t think any chef wants that.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Go USA, Go Chicken Wings

After three nights in a row of watching, oh, about six hours of Olympics coverage, my eyes are getting a little tired. I can’t explain my addiction to the Olympics. Maybe it’s that song...anyway, all I know is that once every four years I can’t stop watching sports I usually never care about...like beach volleyball.

Generally speaking I restrict my sports watching to college basketball, the Triple Crown and sometimes the Super Bowl commercials. I even worked out an extra 20 minutes last night so I could watch the end of individual eventing show jumping finals without leaving the gym, and the other night I had the TV tuned to women’s gymnastics as I watched live streaming of eventing on my computer. Help me!

On Friday, we had a few friends over for an Olympics opening ceremonies party. I considered making some homemade spring rolls or dumplings or steamed pork buns, but then I came to my senses and remembered that I’m a total novice at Chinese cooking. I made some spicy roasted hazelnuts and peanuts with five spice powder, star anise and cloves instead, washed down by cocktails that I made up on the fly with vodka and lemongrass and basil infused simple syrup.

Some guests brought Tsing Tao. The unexpected hit was these savory chicken wings that my dear husband made. We gobbled them up fast, hours before the torch lighting, before I could get a photo, licking our fingers as we critiqued Scandinavian countries’ outfits. These wings may not be totally authentic, but they are easy to make and baked, which makes them healthier. They are also totally delicious with a cold beer, salty, gingery and garlicky all at same time. Doesn’t watching Michael Phelps do all that swimming and winning make you hungry, anyway? He’d probably like these, even if their color is more bronze.

Dad’s Chinese Chicken Wings
Adapted from A Spoonful of Ginger by Nina Simonds

Yield: 6 servings

Marinade:
1 1/4 cups soy sauce
1 1/4 cups rice wine or sake
1 cup water
12 whole scallions, ends trimmed, smashed with the flat side of a knife
10 cloves garlic, smashed with the flat side of a knife
3-1/2 inch chunk fresh ginger, peeled, then cut into 10 slices about the size of a quarter, each smashed with the flat side of a knife

3 1/2 to 4 pounds chicken wings (about 20), rinsed and drained

Stir the marinade ingredients in a saucepan and heat until boiling. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes. Let the marinade cool slightly.

With a sharp knife separate the drumettes from the wingtips at the joint. Place all the pieces in a bowl or a deep pan and add the still-warm marinade. Stir to coat, cover with plastic wrap, and let the wings marinate overnight in the refrigerator.

Preheat the oven to 500 F. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and arrange the wings on the cookie sheets. Brush liberally with the marinade. Roast for about 40 minutes, turning once, until the wings are cooked and crispy brown at the edges. Serve hot, at room temperature, or cold.

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Coke’s Coming Out?

If you need more evidence that consumers’ interests in whole, natural foods are affecting big business, check out Coca-Cola’s latest announcement.

Apparently impelled by consumers’ desires for natural foods, or their avoidance of artificial ingredients, Coca-Cola said last month that Coke is in fact an all-natural beverage with no preservatives or artificial ingredients.

The statement was made in Great Britain, which along with Europe is way ahead of the United States in expressing a preference for natural foods.

Cathryn Sleight, the marketing director of Coca-Cola Great Britain, was quoted in The New York Times as saying, “When we talked to consumers about Coke, we realized they didn’t know that it has no added preservatives or artificial flavors. We felt it was important to reassure Coke drinkers of this fact.”

The company even has a Web site,www.letsgettogether.co.uk, where it answers questions (but doesn’t reveal anything significant) about the formula.

Coke has long said that it has never changed its original formula, which dates back to 1886. Still, the company never talked about it, other than to say it was a secret.

But apparently many consumers assumed that Coke had something fake in it.

In a way, this is really no big revelation.

Like all food products, Coke has its ingredients listed on the label: carbonated water, corn syrup (in place of the original sugar), caffeine, phosphoric acid, caramel for color and “natural flavorings.”

Of course, it’s the last ingredient that holds the secret, and we may never find out what those natural flavorings are. But the list does not have any preservatives or the vague “artificial flavorings” that the government allows food companies to use.

Still, Coca-Cola is making a point of telling people that Coke is free of preservatives and artificial ingredients.

It may not seem like much, but it is a telling sign of the way food companies are really taking seriously the consumers who want whole foods, and who want companies to follow envirnmentally friendly practices in general.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Please don’t super-size me

I type this as I sit here at my desk eating another lunchtime sandwich, getting crumbs all over my keyboard. This time it’s from Krankies. I love the sandwiches there - they are often vegetarian-friendly, but creative enough for carnivores - tapenade and manchego, gorgonzola, pear, arugula and walnut vinaigrette, egg salad with dill. They are also enormous. I can usually only eat half. I wish they’d sell them that way.

That’s why I think Whole Foods got it right when I recently noticed that they are now selling some wrapped sandwiches in petite versions. A small, savory chicken salad sandwich on a floury bun? Yes, please. They’re about half the size and price of the regular ones, which fits into a reporter’s budget and my appetite.

They were also selling tiny chocolate chip cookies yesterday for ten cents each. It’s a gimmick they apparently bring out the first Tuesday of the month. What genius. Who can resist a tiny cookie? Not the line of women lined up with bags of them in hand.

Monday, August 04, 2008

The Other Fried Tomato

Everyone loves to fry green tomatoes around here, and I can’t blame them.

But often that means that fried tomatoes are enjoyed onlyfor a brief period in the fall, when we pick those green tomatoes that will never have a chance to ripen before the first frost.

Sure, you can pick a green tomato now, but sacrificing the life of a ripe red tomato just doesn’t seem right to me.

Still, that does not keep me from enjoying fried tomatoes all summer long.

That’s because the fried tomatoes I grew up enjoying were red and ripe ones. My grandfather taught me to love this simple dish. He cooked it only for breakfast, and so do I.

The marriage of a fried red tomato with a sunny-side-up egg is a delicious one.

Now, these aren’t deep-fried or battered. Soft, juicy and ripe tomatoes can’t handle that treatment.

Instead, fried ripe tomatoes are pan-fried.

Take some thick slices, 1/3 to ½ inch, and generously salt and pepper them.
Melt a thin layer of butter in a large skillet over medium heat.
Then lightly dredge both sides of the slices in the flour, shaking off any excess. Lay the slices in the pan without crowding and cook until golden, about 5 minutes on each side.

Serve them alongside with lightly cooked eggs. The runny yolks of the eggs will form as great a sauce for the tomatoes as ever could be desired.

Friday, August 01, 2008

Another savory read

When I was making my list of savory summer reads, I completely forgot about Kathleen Flinn’s great memoir, The Sharper the Knife, the Less You Cry, until I was looking at the upcoming Bookmarks schedule. Bookmarks is an annual book festival put on by the Junior League. Flinn’s book is about her studies at Paris’ Le Cordon Bleu, the famous cooking school - oh yeah, she enrolled there after she got hacked from her corporate job (in London, so let’s not feel too sorry for her). Le Cordon Bleu has definitely gone commercial in recent years - there are branches all over the world. But the Paris school is still the mother ship (Julia Child went here). This is a book about self-discovery, love and self-re-invention.

Bookmarks is Sept. 13 at Bethabara Park.

More Hot-Dog Memories

After my July 30 Recipe Swap column was published, I got a surprise call from June Hutchins Beshears.

The column was about the hot-dog slaw served years ago at the Dine In Car on Liberty Street and consisted of the reminisces of Ralph Tuttle, who used to work there in the 1950s and now lives in California.

The call was a surprise because Beshears’ father and husband both were co-owners of the Dine-In Car at different points in time.
I had no idea that the owners were still in town or still lving.

Beshears was able to provide even more memories about this popular restaurant that is gone but definitely not forgotten.

Beshears’ father, John Hutchins, was not the original owner and Beshears couldn’t remember who was. He and Sid Williams owned the Dine In Car from 1951 to 1965. Her husband, Rex Beshears, and Jimmy Weaver took it over in 1965 and ran it till it closed for good in 1986.
John Hutchins died in 1973 and Williams in 1976, Beshears said. She added that Jimmy Weaver is around somewhere, and her husband was around, too — sitting right next to her in fact.

Rex still keeps the Dine In Car’s old grill in an extra room in their house after all these years. June has a brick from when they tore the building down in the early 1990s.

June said that contrary to Ralph Tuttle’s recollection, the Dine In Car favored Crown Mayonnaise, which sadly is no longer available.

The Dine In Car was a local hangout, through and through.

“After the Bowman Gray races, they’d come in there in droves,” Beshears said.

The early crowd would actually come inside to eat for breakfast or lunch, in one of the four booths or on one of the 15 or so stools. The evening crowd was just about all curb service, though.

Beshears said they employed 17 carhops in the heyday, with five or six working at any one time.

Watching the planes at Smith Reynolds Airport across the street was one draw — though it had a downside. “When the planes took of and landed, they’d fly right over the Dine In Car and they’d rattle the building,” Beshears said.

She laughed about all the young folks who used the Dine In Car’s gravel lot as a makeout spot. Others just liked to hang out to shoot the breeze.

“The boys when they had dates they’d go back to the Dine in Car and crow about their dates,” Beshears said.

The Dine In Car thrived in a time before the rein of the chains. “The Dine In Car was around before we had McDonald’s, but places like that eventually did it in.”

All this talk about hot dogs got me hungry.
When I have the craving, here are some of the places in Winston-Salem I’m likely to go:
P.B.’s Takeout on Hawthorne Road.
Kermit’s in Southside.
Pulliam’s in Orgburn Station.

I also like Skippy’s, downtown on Fourth Street, for an untraditional but impressive dog on a homemade pretzel bun.

(Larry Shoffner enjoys a hot dog at Kermit’s Hot Dog House in the 2005 photo above.)

Thursday, July 31, 2008

From the Table to the Beach

I’ve already had my beach trip this summer. It was very short, very sweet, and capped by one amazing meal at the Left Bank in Duck - gazpacho with crab and lemon mosto oil, I’m looking at you...though I’ve got another eye on a potato gratin made with tartufella cheese. Unless I’m lucky, I won’t be going back. But I love the idea of beach reads, pool reads and porch reads, just piles of great books to plow through in general, and oh, yeah, now the excuse is that it is hot. On the radio and in print, there’s scores of summer reading suggestions, so this time of year, my library hold list gets especially long. Of course I drool over food books, and at home, I’ve got about a shelf and a half devoted to food memoir and journalism, and these are just the books I’ve bothered to shell out some coin for. These aren’t cookbooks, per se, though some of them have recipes tucked among the stories. Here’s a quick list of the ones I think are keepers:

- My Life in France - by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme. Julia Child was in her late 30s and 40s when she moved to France, went to cooking school, started teaching American ex-pats the ways of soufflé, and published her legendary tome, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1, with two French collaborators. If that’s not inspiration to re-invent your life, I don’t know what is.

- Alice Waters and Chez Panisse - by Thomas McNamee. Alice Waters got started a little earlier than Julia, but she was equally important to reviving American taste buds. Legend has it that we have proper salad greens today because of her...once upon a time, she smuggled some mesclun seeds back to California with her on a trip to France.

- Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin. Novelist Laurie Colwin is/was Martha’s alter-ago (she died in 1992, so I guess the past tense is in order). Funny, light, Home Cooking includes essays such as “Easy Cooking for Exhausted People” and “Baking Bread Without Agony” and a handful of recipes that barely qualify as that, they’re so spare.

- Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl. Most of the food world worships at the altar of Ruth Reichl...such is the power you wield as the editor of Gourmet magazine. But I love her writing. That, and the fact that that she is so self-effacing as she nibbles on truffles and foie gras. She simply loves food - and you can hear the joy in her voice as you read her words. Some of her writing best in this book, where she leads us through the ridiculous world of being America’s most high-profile restaurant critic.

- The Man Who Ate the World: In Search of the Perfect Dinner. by Jay Rayner. Think of a softer, British Anthony Bourdain - perhaps a version of him soaked in brandy, kind of like a Christmas plum pudding - and you have Jay Rayner. The restaurant critic for the London Observer, Rayner travels from the big-name-chef franchises of Las Vegas to the secret top-flight restaurants of Toyko’s elite, all in the name of The Perfect Meal. Most of us will never have a $430 meal (that’s per person), so why not read about one?

What are your favorite food books (let your nerdy side shine!)?

Monday, July 28, 2008

Transforming Tomatoes

From time to time, I still get recipe requests from my predecessor here at the Winston-Salem Journal. Such requests are a testament to the reputation that Beth Tartan established in this community through over 40 years of food writing.

(I can’t help but wonder what Beth would think of a food blog on the Web.)

Sadly, the paper did not file her recipes in any meaningful way, so filling requests for long-ago recipes is a challenge to say the least.

Recently, though, I was able to stumble upon a recipe that a reader requested from 1979 for pizza sauce.

This makes a huge amount. Considering that it is tomato season and people can easily get their hands on 10 pounds of ripe, fresh tomatoes, I think it’s worth sharing.

I’ve updated the recipe slightly to reflect modern canning methods.

Unfortunately, the original recipe doesn’t say how much this makes. My guess is it is close to 7 pints.

If you don’t want to go through the extra step of canning, you could freeze the sauce instead.

For some other recipes using fresh tomatoes, see my July 30 story in the LIfestyles/Food section of http://www.journalnow.com

Pizza Sauce
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 medium onions, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
10 pounds tomatoes, peeled and cored
1 tablespoon dried basil
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon sugar

1. Heat oil in a large sauce pot over medium-low to medium heat.. Add onion and garlic. Cook until tender, but do not brown.
2. Chop peeled and cored tomatoes in a food processor or blender. Add tomatoes, basil, oregano, Italian seasoning, salt, red pepper, black pepper and sugar to pot.
3. Simmer sauce for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally.
4. Press sauce through a food mill. Press push through as much liquid and pulp as possible. Discard seeds.
5. Return sauce to pot and cook uncovered over medium-high heat until sauce thickens. Watch carefully and stir often to make sure sauce does not stick to bottom of pot and burn.
6. Prepare home canning pint jars and new lids according to canner directions. (For safety, to ensure the proper acidity and preservation, add one tablespoon bottled lemon juice or 1/4 teaspoon citric acid to each pint before canning.) Pour hot sauce into hot pint jars, leaving ½ inch headspace. Wipe jar rims clean, then place lids on. Add screw bands and hand tighten. Process 35 minutes in water-bath canner, following canner directoins. (The processing time gets longer for elevations above 1,000 feet. Consult a canning guide for details.)