Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Learning the Slow Way

If you didn’t see the May 25 story about the BBQ Boot Camp, check it out.

The weekend camp drew about 20 folks to Camp Hanes in Stokes County mainly to learn the low and slow ways of traditional barbecue.

The North Carolina Barbecue Society sponsored the camp and it included such pitmasters as Bill Eason of Marshville and Patrick Cleghorn of Badin (pictured above with some pork ribs).

Campers learned to cook whole hogs, butts, ribs and loin, as well as salmon, chicken, beef tenderloin and more. They also learned to make such classic sides as slaw, baked beans, black-eyed peas and cornbread.

A Saturday meal consisted of seven meats and seven sides. Now that’s what I call a feast.

The whole hog was kind of the main event, though, and at least some of the campers stayed up Saturday night to keep an eye on it and attend to the coals.

Jim Early, the president and founder of the society, already is planning another camp this fall. That will be down on the coast, in Duck. Early has ambitious plans to eventually expand the camps and tie them with such other events as fishing tournaments.

I think he needs more people to eat all this food that the campers cook!

I had the opportunity to taste some of the food at lunch Sunday. And it was some good eating: pulled pork, ribs, chicken, slaw, black-eyed peas, butter beans, baked beans, jalapeno cornbread, pimento cheese and banana pudding. Whew! It took me three full plates just to sample everything.

By the way, this camp is nonpartisan: Both Eastern and Lexington styles are taught. Future camps may even feature pitmasters from Kansas CIty and other places.

For more info, check out http://www.ncbbqsociety.com.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Life (and Eats) on the Farm

The other day at a farmers market, Pfafftown farmer Gary Owen handed me a brochure called Tastes of the Piedmont.

I hadn’t seen this before. The reason, it turns out, is simple: It just came out this spring.

Tim Hambrick, an agent of the N.C.Cooperative Extension Service in Forsyth County, said that the Forsyth office and those of four other counties put together the brochure to help consumers connect with area farmers.
“If people call up asking for a strawberry farm, we can send them that, and it will tell them where all kinds of other farms are, too,” Hambrick said.
Brochure lists 64 places. Some are group farmers markets, like the one Saturdays at the Dixie Classic Fairgrounds. Most, though, are individual farms, such as the Hedgecock Strawberry Farm in Kernersville, pictured above.

The other counties included in the brochure are Stokes, Randolph, Guilford and Davidson.

The full-color brochures are free. They’ve been distributed to chambers of commerce and other places, but people also can get one by calling an Extension office. The number in Forsyth is 703-2850.

The brochure also can be viewed or downloaded online at www.co.forsyth.nc.us/CES.  It’s a big file, though.

Speaking of farmers market, my column on May 27 will talk about my impressions of the new farmers market at Krankies Coffee. Be sure to look for it in the paper or at www.journalnow.com.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

A Summer Film I Can Sink My Teeth Into

Summer movies are usually about muscles and mayhem - not exactly what I want to spend my clams on, though I made an exception for Star Trek. I’m interesed in more hedonistic flicks. But this year, I’ve got Julie and Julia to look forward to.

If you’ve been living under a stock pot, Julie and Julia is the book based on the blog written by a burned out office worker who spent a year cooking her way through Julia Child’s classic, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1. And it’s also based on My Life in France, Julia Child’s autobiography.

Both books were great, so here’s hoping that the movie will deliver. It opens in August.

My mom gave me the 40th anniversary edition of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1 for college graduation. Maybe not the most typical cookbook to send a new graduate into the world, but that’s my family. And not as impractical as it sounds - my husband and I still use her recipe for basics like beef bourguignon, coq au vin, onion soup, potato and leek soup, and souffles. Julia taught me how to make an omelet, too.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Ahoy! It’s Chocolate Chip Day

Friday, May 15, is National Chocolate Chip Day. Who knew?

By coincidence, I just learned about a taste test of chocolate-chip cookies conducted by Consumer Reports.

The test included 13 popular brands.

The favorites were Health Valley and Keebler Chips Deluxe Original—and the latter costs about half as much as the former.

For details on CR’s test findings, see the Journal’s May 20 food section.

In celebration of National Chocolate Chip Day, here are a few bits of trivia, courtesy of Yahoo!:
—31 percent of searches for chocolate-chip cookies are by people age 17 and under.
—75 percent of searches are by females.
—Top chocolate brands searched recently were Godiva, Hershey and Nestle.

And the most-searched recipe for chocolate-chip cookie? You guessed it, Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookie.

(Photo from Nestle USA)

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Wine Festival Season Gets Under Way

I tasted my way through most of the bottles opened Saturday at Salute! the North Carolina Wine Celebration.

I had lots of OK and not-go-sood quaffs, but plenty of good wines, too. You can’t go too far wrong with riesling in this state.

I got to talk with lots of wine lovers at the festival. If you missed it or I didn’t get a chance to talk with you, check out my column in May13’s Winston-Salem Journal or at http://www.journalnow.com.

By the way, people always ask me how I taste my way through so many wines in one day. The most important thing is to not swallow no matter how much you like what’s in your mouth.

Sip and spit, sip and spit.

It also helps to stay really well hydrated with frequent water breaks, and to stop every hour for a snack.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Passing Mustard

I got a funny press release from Kraft Foods, the makers of Grey Poupon, today, May 11, about “Dijon-gate.” It included an open letter to President Obama requesting pardons for anyone ordering a burger with Dijon mustard.

Obama “made news” last week when he and VP Biden dropped in on Ray’s Hell Burger in Arlington, Va., for a surprise lunch out in the real world.
Obama apparently asked for Dijon mustard on his cheeseburger, which got the folks at Grey Poupon all excited.

I found it interesting that the unspoken premise in the press release is that most people usually order yellow mustard, not Dijon, with their burgers.

Well, I’ve had quite a few burgers with Dijon over the years.  And though I currrently prefer a brown mustard such as Gulden’s,  I wouldn’t think twice about someone who smeared some Dijon on his burger.

Now hot dogs are a different matter. I’ve tried brown mustard on dogs, and well it just doesn’t seem right. Yellow mustard, it must be.

By the way, you can read the letter to Obama at www.greypouponpardon.com.

(Photo from The Associated Press)

Friday, May 08, 2009

The Pate of the South

May is Pimento Cheese Month, and as the temperature rises, I get in the mood for the pate of the South.

It makes a great snack, lunch or dinner. Sometimes I even eat it for breakfast.

I tend to keep my pimento cheese simple —not too many ingredients and not too much mayo.

Below is a recipe I like. Sometimes I vary it by using Worchestershire sauce instead of hot sauce. Sometimes I skip the green onions.

Do you have a favorite recipe for pimento cheese? Send it along!

Pimento Cheese
1 pound sharp Cheddar cheese, grated
6 ounces jarred pimentos, drained and chopped, or 1/2 to 3/4 cup chopped roasted red bell peppers (See Note)
8 tablespoons (1/2 cup) good-quality mayonnaise
1/4 cup minced green onions
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
A few drops of hot-pepper sauce

In a large bowl, combine cheese, pimentos, mayonnaise and green onions. Add a generous amount of black pepper, and a few drops of hot-pepper sauce to taste.

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Prize Pie

Taste of the Town, a fundraiser for Family Services, Inc., held a Kentucky Pie Contest this year. I got to be one of the judges for the contest, and I really enjoyed the Triple Chip Race Pie.

The pie was made by Jim Gilbert, a co-owner of http://www.coupons4Winston.com.

Gilbert had never made a chocolate-nut pie like this, but he winged it pretty darn well.

Triple Chip Race Pie
1 unbaked pie crust
½ cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 eggs
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/3 cup butterscotch chocolate chips
1/3 cup white chocolate chips
½ teaspoon Madagascar bourbon vanilla extract
1½ cups chopped pecans
2 tablespoons Puerto Rican rum

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix the cooled melted butter with the eggs in a bowl. Add flour and sugar. Beat until well mixed. Stir in chips, vanilla, pecans and rum.
3. Pour mixture into pie shell and bake 30 to 35 minutes until set. Cool before slicing.

Chicken Soup for the Soul, Winston-Salem style

Sometimes, I get a little obsessed with a dish or two. When I came back from France last year, it was garlicky lentils and salad Lyonnaise. The year before, it was New Orleans’ barbecue shrimp, with Pimm’s Cups to wash them down (or drink as a cocktail - I’d actually rather have wine with the shrimp, or the Lousiana beer Abita).

Right now, my husband and I are renovating (on the cheap, on a tight budget and all ourselves, so slowly) our kitchen so I’ve been a little unambitious there lately. With half the new cabinets in, and half the old cabinets there and in pieces, things are too crazy. The new dishwasher is still in its box, in our dining room, and there are drawers with odds and ends in them stacked in our office because there is just no where for them to go right now. No, right now, I’m obsessed with a restaurant dish that speaks completely of coziness and home - chicken tortilla soup at La Botana.

I know I talk about La Botana a lot, but owner Rigo Valazquez makes one killer tortilla soup that I can’t get enough of. He serves the smooth, slightly grainy broth in a large, shallow bowl, and topped with sour cream, hot, crisp tortilla strips and lots of fresh avocado. The soup is rich, yet it has this undercurrent of freshness, perhaps lime? Oh, boy. And on a chilly, rainy night like tonight, it would sure hit the spot. It’s not on the regular menu, so you’ll have to ask if the kitchen can make it for you. I hope for your sake the answer is yes.

Friday, May 01, 2009

The Incredible, Affordable Egg

Back last fall, when I was writing about money-saving ideas for food during the recession, I mentioned eggs as a good choice for protein for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Compare the cost of two or three eggs to a serving of just about any cut of meat, and you’ll see why it makes sense to eat more eggs when money is tight.

The American Egg Board confirmed that yesterday in a press release I received. It priced out three egg recipes and all of them came out at under $1 a serving.

One is just a “coffee cup scramble” of two eggs and cheese, at 46 cents a serving.
Another is a spinach, ham and cheese omelet, at 98 cents a serving.
The third is apple-cinnamon oatmeal with egg and milk beaten into it to give it a “boost,” at 96 cents a serving.

You can get all those recipes in the recipe section of http://www.incredibleegg.org.

(Photo courtesy of the American Egg Board)