Posts filed under ‘Family and Friends’
Take a “Stand Against Racism” Today, with the Wonderful YWCA!
Charleston SC Stand Against Racism 2012: 38 organizations formed a human-chain across the Ravenal Bridge. I love the closeup — can you imagine the sight of all these people joining hands, literally building a bridge? Yes!
Way on back in 1970, when certain people were in the process of graduating from high school (High Point Central High School: Go, Bison!) the national organization of the YWCA took a look at where we are as a nation and a culture, and chose to put the elimination of racism at the top of its purpose in the world. This means they took the bold, unpopular and challenging step of acknowledging that racism exists, thrives, and flows through our national identity and actions every day.
University of Massachusetts students’ Stand Against Racism 2012. Is this a good-looking bunch of young people? Yes, it surely is. Do I feel GOOD about the future of our nation and our planet when I see them smiling at us? Yes, I do.
They were right: Racism existed, thrived and flowed along back then, just as it still does today. I do not like that fact. It makes me anything but happy and proud. I do not want that fact to be a fact; I do not want it to be true. But just like the balance in my bank account and the presence or absence of disease in my body, it is a reality, a fact, an issue that affects my world, whether I want it to or not. I can ignore it; I can deny its existence; I can speak disdainfully about those who see it and say its name. What I cannot do is make it go away simply because I dislike it and wish it were not real.
Stand Against Racism 2012 performance at Isaac Dickson Elementary School, Asheville. These kids are superstars and I know they got a standing ovation!
Click this link to find a STAND AGAINST RACISM event near you, nationwide!
http://www.standagainstracism.net/search.php
Facing racism and looking it in the eye isn’t easy. Racism provides power and benefits to many people and organizations. It is a weapon with multiple parts and functions. Those who use it and value it do not want to give that up. Racism is a big bully, and big bullies seldom rush to quit their bullying ways. What we can do is change our behavior in response to bullies. There are way more of us than there are of them, but until we open our eyes and see who they are, who we are, and how we have been stuck, we remain on their team.
I love these students at Avail High School in Achorage Alaska, making their Stand Against Racism 2012!
Stand Against Racism is a day to say “No!” to injustice, and to unplug the power cord of hateful, blaming, disrespectful double standards that privilege some of us and dump on the rest of us. There is a great big “US!” out there, but not a visible one, not an “US!” based on color, ethnicity, religion, ability, gender, sexual orientation, size, concepts of beauty, or anything we can see or name or blame. We’ve been taught to identify on phony grounds, clinging to the visible and buying a storyline about groups, about who matters and who’s to blame. It’s basic Bully stuff, and it works as long as we let it.
How do I love the ladies of the Worcester Senior Center of Worcester Massachusetts? With all my heart. Stand Against Racism 2012 at the WSC!
The YWCA gets it, and they are giving us the opportunity to start where we are, use what we have, and do what we can, to undermine, dig up, weed out, reboot, and cook up a recipe for the dish we want to be eating; to plant seeds for the garden we want to be tending and using for food. We can stop going along, accepting, ignoring, and allowing the bullies to rule and win.
Look at these young people, showing up to show the way! Members of “Latinos Unidos” from Waubonsee College in Sugar Creek, Illinois, making their Stand Against Racism 2012. Sugar Creek is Sweet!
Silence means consent, folks, and with racism and all forms of injustice and oppression, there is no neutral ground, no third location. We have been comfortable with Going Along, Allowing, Ignoring. All we have to do is get comfortable with the truth; get good at speaking up a little and acting as if there is enough for everyone and as if the Golden Rule were the way to sort all this mess out. Because it is.
Taking care of business at the Kiwanis Club of Rochester New York, sitting down to conversations and connection during their Stand Against Racism 2012. I vote YES! for this Kiwanis Club!
Part of the power of racism lies in its Giant Invisibility Cloak (yes, I am a Harry Potter Fan). Those who benefit from it and work to perpetuate it operate best in silence and behind the scenes. Talking about it and calling it out starts out feeling hard, difficult, nasty, sad, painful, negative, and hopeless. When someone speak its name, bring it up, act as if it existed, we’ve been carefully taught to react as though this very action, this simple act of Facing it and Naming it IS racism. We’ve been schooled for 300+ years at every level to ignore and deny racism, so it’s easy to stay stuck in the comfortable (though only for some of us) place of No Such Thing. And that right there is why we’re still stuck, and where we can step onto the Good Road of seeing it, saying it, and stopping it.
Now I am not saying that the students of Buncombe County Community College in Asheville NC win the Grand Prize and Wizards’ Cup trophy for Stand Against Racism 2012. I’m just saying that this is but one of THREE events they presented last year, and that one event involved students, faculty and parents cooking and sharing food that presented their cultural stories for a Diversity Lunch. My, my, my. What could you cook up for SAR 2014? Or this weekend?
We can do this, and the amazing encouraging beautiful secret is that it is easy. It is simple. It is worth a bump or two or three of discomfort as we find our way and learn the dance steps. Everyone will not like it. Everyone will not say, Yay! Hooray! You are right! But as you look at the people you are joining, you will be glad to find yourself in such good company. And as you look at the people who are not happy with you, those who insist that Racism either never existed; did but doesn’t exist now; exists somewhere else but this thing right here that SEEMS a tiny bit racist is actually a ‘joke’, ‘prank’, or ‘misunderstanding’; exists but is actually the fault of the people who are naming it and calling for change; etc. , as you look at those people, you may say to yourself, “Yikes! These are not my people! I want out of this club pronto!”
Who are your people? People like these folks in groups all around the USA who joined Stand Against Racism events last year, starting on the last Friday in April, thanks to the National YWCA. These are just a handful of them; people all around the country jumped in and made their own plan to take a Stand. Aren’t they beautiful? Can you imagine how much good has come from each and every action, group, decision made in private thanks to this Day? It’s on again today, and you can check here for an event in your area; or just check the Stand Against Racism website and Facebook Pages and #StandAgainstRacism on Twitter to see who’s doing what where when and how.
I would LOVE to see anything or hear about anything that you do today or find today or all weekend, there are activities ongoing with today as the launching pad. Leave me a comment here on this post. Or send me a picture or a note care of nancie AT nanciemcdermot DOT com . I will share it here and on Facebook with your permission; or keep it to myself if that is better. Your call. Thank you for reading this, on a beautiful spring day.
Click this link for the YWCA’s Stand Against Racism web page, which has all the scoop,
including more photos like these I shared here; a video; and locations for 2013 SAR events:
http://www.standagainstracism.org/about.html
Click this link for the FACEBOOK Page for Stand Against Racism to see what’s cooking all around the country today and through the weekend, at more than 3000 sites and locations. Post your own pix and commentary — these are your people and my people!
https://www.facebook.com/YWCASAR
Shad Roe Southern-Style for Springtime #LetsLunch
What I was looking for was rhubarb, that rusty-red oddball harbinger of spring here in North Carolina. Planted in big patches out by the pathway to the summertime garden, rhubarb stalks poke up early and beckon cooks to make pies as a farewell to winter and “y’all come on in!” to the blossoming sunshine season sometime between mid-March and mid-April. Not this early, however, not even at my local Whole Foods where fresh rhubarb shows up around this time of year.
Meandering past the fish and seafood counter at my local Whole Foods, I spied a Southern springtime specialty which had not even crossed my mind: shad roe. The biggest member of the herring family, shad (Alosa sapidissima) are anadromus, like salmon, sturgeon, smelt, and striped bass: born in fresh water, they swim downriver to live in the ocean until time to spawn. Then they migrate back upriver during their spawning season, which in the case of American shad, is spring. Treasured by native Americans, shad has been valued both as a tasty (albeit very bony) fish and as the source of shad roe, which are pan sauteed, simmered in cream, and scrambled with eggs among other preparations. They grow to about 2 pounds/24 inches, and live for about 5 years in the wild.
Though I’m a North Carolinian born and raised, and though my fascination with and affection for traditional old-time foods in general and Southern heirlooms in particular, I neither knew about nor tasted shad roe until last year at Crook’s Corner, where my friend Bill Smith puts it on his menu each spring
American Shad (Illustration from collection of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
But there it was, carefully arranged on ice in a row of flame-red glistening lobes, beautifully accented with slices of lime. The nice young man who helped me recommended pan frying it with bacon and serving it with grits. The words ‘bacon’ and ‘grits’ gave me the green light to make the leap from sweet to savory, from rhubarb to shad. Heading to my Southern food bookshelves, I found abundant information on shad, from John Martin Taylor (Hoppin’ John’s Lowcountry Cooking); John Egerton (Southern Food); Jean Anderson (A Love Affair with Southern Cooking); Damon Lee Fowler (Classical Southern Cooking); and Eugene Walter (Time-Life Foods of the World: The American South). My friend Bill Smith’s book “Seasoned In the South” contained a recipe as well. I’m sure there’s more, but by that time I was ripe and ready to get this beautiful and beloved food to the stove and the table.
It was a matter of frying up some bacon (or side meat or pancetta) and keeping the grease hot grease for cooking onions and the shad roe in the rich salty gifts left in the skillet.
Cooking a pot of grits, which takes about 30 to 35 minutes — good to start the grits and let them simmer and soften up while you cook the bacon, onions and shad. These lovely grits were on the shelf in the same grocery store, in a charming cloth sack with recipes on the back….Note the big nubby texture and colorful nature of good old time grits. Such a pleasure to cook and to eat. I plan to try the shrimp and grits recipe right on the bag….
While the grits were cooking, I fried the bacon and then the sliced purple onion in the same grease. Once the grits were done, I covered them and set them on the back burner while I finished up the shad roe.
Here’s my one ‘set’ of shad roe, a pair, which I gently separated just before cooking, and dredged lightly in flour. The flour was absorbed by the time I got them into the pan. They need gentle handling, but not too a wildly fussy degree. I let them get nice and brown before turning, as you want to minimize turns. Here below is my finished dish. Very hearty and very satisfying. All the recipes I saw recommended big portions for each person — to me, this is more of a go-with, Asian style. Half a set with lots of grits onion and bacon was plenty for me. I wouldn’t mind some scrambled eggs on the side, matter of fact.
Bill Smith’s Shad Roe with Red Onion, Bacon, and Grits
I’ve adapted Bill’s recipe, from Seasoned in the South, here, using bacon instead of side meat or pancetta, and trading in the lovely wilted salad he includes in his recipe for good ol’ grits, which I had on hand and longed to sample in the classic (fried fish or seafood + grits) combination. I loved it — rustic, homey, a little bit wild. If you love liver pudding/liver mush, ultra aromatic and blue-veined cheeses, and durian, as I do, you are a good candidate for shad roe fan-dom. Shad roe shares the texture of grits, making the pairing especially pleasing. While this Southern treasure shows up in spring, it seems to me a rustic, hearty, basso bye-bye from wintertime, unlike asparagus, rhubarb, lamb and other standard primavera pleasures. I had only one pair/set of shad roe, so the portion above has a more modest serving of grits and onions than this recipe.
4 pairs (or sets) of shad roe
Ice water
(Cooked grits, to serve 4 people, hot and ready to serve)
1/2 pound side meat, pancetta or bacon
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 medium-sized red onion, peeled and cut into strips. (about 2 cups)
1/3 cup chopped Italian parsley
4 tablespoons lemon juice, plus chunks of lemon for garnish and extra seasoning
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
Rinse the pairs, also known as ‘sets’, of shad roe gently. Place them in ice water to firm them up. (They are encased in a membrane that you want to leave intact, but sometimes there are extraneous veins and connective tissue that you should try to carefully remove. In a large skillet, cook the bacon, or dice and render the side meat. Remove the cooked bacon or side meat to a plate. Make sure the grease is still nice and hot, and add the thinly sliced purple onion. Cook, turning and tossing often, until the onions are softened, shiny, and fragrant. Add the parsley and toss well. Transfer onions to the plate alongside the bacon, and set aside.
To cook the shad roe: Heat the bacon grease in the same skillet over medium-high heat. (If using side meat and it seems a little skimpy, you may augment it with butter or oil. Mix together the flour and salt. Prick the shad roe a few times on both side with a straight pin. (I Nancie did not do this. No pin handy, plus I plumb forgot. No problem ensued.) Dredge the shad roe sets in the flour and shake off the excess. Fry in the grease, turning once, carefully, about 3 to 4 minutes on the first side and 2 or 3 minutes on the second side. They will brown a little. Be careful because sometimes they will pop, especially toward the end of cooking. When they are hot through, remove from heat.
Pour a generous portion of the grits onto a serving platter, or into a large serving bowl. Place the shad roe on the grits. Break or crumble the bacon into nice chunky pieces. Arrange the crumbled bacon and the purple onions alongside the shad roe on the grits. Squeeze lemon juice over the shad roe, and garnish with additional lemon chunks if you have them. Serve hot.
Serves 4
#Let’s Lunch is a worldwide-web-based circle of food writers who blog about a theme each month. This month the theme is Daffodils and other (edible) signs of spring. Grab a plate and go see what my friends in the #LetsLunch circle have served up on their various blogs for your reading/cooking/eating/dreaming pleasure:
Don’t forget to check out other Let’s Lunchers’ daffodil/spring/life dishes below! And if you’d like to join Let’s Lunch, go to Twitter and post a message with the hashtag #Letslunch — or, post a comment below.
Annabelle‘s Red Pepper and Eggplant Confit at Glass of Fancy
Anne Marie‘s Zihuatanejo (Or Veal Shank Redemption Sammy) at Sandwich Surprise
Cheryl’s Singaporean Barley Water at A Tiger In the Kitchen
Grace‘s Meyer Lemon and Mandarin Citrus Bundt Cake at HapaMama
Karen‘s Wasabi Tuna Steak at GeoFooding
Linda‘s Brassica Fried Rice at Spicebox Travels
Lisa‘s Salad of Chargrilled Sourdough, Tomato and Haloumi Cheese at Monday Morning Cooking Club
Lucy‘s Carrot Souffle at A Cook and Her Books
Monica‘s Roses and Eggplant at A Life of Spice
Rebecca‘s Goat Cheese Panna Cotta with Mango Foam at Grongar Blog
And leave me a comment on what spring means for you in the kitchen and at the table. If spring gives you ideas and inspirations for food and cooking, leave me a note about that in the comments.
My Apple Pie Recipe, Easy as Pie
My wonderful young cousin Erika Sue got in touch late last week, asking if I might have a recipe for making an apple pie. Matter of fact, I did, and I decided to make one and take pictures, so that I could pass along the closest thing to going over and sharing the pleasures of making an apple pie with her in her kitchen. (Only distance and time kept me from doing that right now, and I hope to be cooking with her and all my dear cousins out in beautiful Oregon some time in 2013.) Here’s what I did in words, and in pictures after the words are done.
Please note that the pie crusts, the sheets of pastry I’m using here, came not from my hands but from the grocery store refrigerator case. I know how to make piecrust, and I can make them using butter, shortening, lard, canola oil, or combinations of these. I learned how to do so over many repetitions, and I agree with people who say it is easy and that anyone can do it. I also agree with people who say that it is difficult, challenging, frustrating, and impossible. To me, both those statements are true. I love making piecrust from scratch, and I love setting out a prepared crust and jumping right in with the part that matters most to me: what goes inside and makes a pie a pie.
The question to ask is: What is your goal? If you want to learn how to make piecrust, here are three excellent places to learn how, the third one being a gluten-free piecrust.
http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/perfect_pie_crust/
http://www.nothinginthehouse.com/p/nothing-in-house-pie-crust-recipe.html
http://glutenfreegirl.com/gluten-free-pie-crust/
If your goal is to make a wonderful pie, and making piecrust seems difficult, scary, or time consuming in terms of this particular pie-making endeavor, you have my blessing to go get ahold of some piecrust from the grocery store fridge or freezer, or your pastry-making friend or relative, and then get started on making a wonderful pie.
This post is about making a wonderful, homemade, you-can-do-this apple pie. If you would like to do a most satisfying and rewarding baking project with young helpers, apple pie making is one of the very best. I love making apple pies, alone and with helpers, skilled and unskilled, my age, younger and older. I love eating them, and I hope you will, too. Here we go!
Nancie’s Old-School Everyday Apple Pie
I started out with 6 – 8 tart apples, which around here are usually granny smiths. I peeled them, and set out the ingredients and tools I needed in addition to apples and piecrust. Sugar, cinnamon, flour, salt, measuring spoons, and knives. About pie pans: They’re all good. If you have the option to be choosy: Ovenproof glass pie pans, are my favorite, since you can see whether the crust is browned and done on the bottom, and because they cook evenly. But any regular pie pan/pie plate will work fine.) Here’s the recipe in words. Photos follow in order. Happy baking, and let me know how your pie comes out!
2 sheets of pie crust, homemade or storebought
6 to 8 apples (green ones such as Granny smith), about 3 pounds, yielding 6 cups peeled, cored and sliced apples)
¾ cup sugar
3 tablespoons flour
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons cold butter (plus more butter to rub on the crust after baking)
Heat the oven to 425 degrees F. Drape the bottom piecrust sheet into a pie plate and fit it evenly, so that the top edge is even and there are no air bubbles. Lift and position it – try not to stretch it to fit.
Peel the apples. Cut out the cores and slice them medium-to-thinly. Measure out a generous 6 cups of apples. Place them in a large mixing bowl.
In a medium bowl, combine the sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Stir with a fork to mix everything together evenly and well. Cut the cold butter into small bits.
Pour the sugar mixture over the apples, and use your hands or two big spoons to toss them and coat them evenly with the spiced sugar mixture. Scoop the apples into the piecrust. Place the bits of butter all over the apples. Mound the apples up high in the center and low on the sides, so that the crust is exposed on the sides.
Gently place the top crust over the apples and arrange it evenly. Tuck it in and press the two crust layers together well. Trim the edges so that the edges are fairly even all the way around. Tuck the crust under and press to seal it well. Use a fork or your fingers to press and pinch together the edges of the pie crust so that it is sealed.
Using a sharp knife, cut steam vents evenly around the top crust. Place the pie in the 425 degree oven for 20 minutes. Then reduce the heat to 350 degrees and continue baking for 30 to 45 minutes, or until the crust is evenly browned on top, browned on the bottom (try to check but don’t burn yourself doing this; carefully!), fragrant, and bubbling with syrup through the vents on top.
Remove gently rub cold butter over the top crust to enrich it a bit. Then let the pie cool a little. Serve hot, warm or at room temperature. Makes one pie.
The crust tends to brown quickly around the edges. I make a collar out of foil. Make 4 strips of foil, about 3 inches wide. Fold them together, end to end, to make one very long strip. Before baking, Fit this strip around the edges of the pie, curving and pressing so that it covers or tents the crust all around the edges, but leaves the top center exposed. Pinch to fit, loosely. Then set aside.
When you lower the temperature to 350, remove the pie and place it on the stove. Very carefully, with a potholder or dry kitchen towel handy, place it around the top edges of the pie and press the loose edges together. Return the pie with its loose foil collar to the oven and continue baking until done.
Apple Pie, fragrant and delicious, made from apples, sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt, butter, and two sheets of piecrust. Ice cream and or whipped cream are never required, but only add to the pleasures, should you be so inclined. I am so glad that my wonderful cousin Erika Sue asked me this question this particular week. I loved making this pie, and I will love it even more if you end up making one, too!
Rebecca Lang: Around the Southern Table, and Sweet Potato Casserole, Mini-Marshmallows and All
Rebecca Lang’s “All Things Sweet Potato Casserole” will be on my own Southern Thanksgiving table this year. Like me, she knows this classic could run right over and fit in among the desserts. Like me, she considers that a compliment, and not in any way a flaw…
Holiday season is in full swing in my world, and while the food and cooking are not the only focus, they have always brought me great joy. For me, getting in the kitchen to cook and serve big holiday meals has always been a pleasure and a worthwhile gratifying form of work. Not everybody feels this way, and thank heavens for that! Those of us who love the food and cooking part need people, lots of people, to come over and sit down and eat what we’ve cooked up. My friend Rebecca Lang ‘s beautiful, practical and delightful new cookbook, Around the Southern Table: Coming Home to Comforting Meals and Treasured Memories centers us on a powerful, moving truth: sitting down to eat at the table with people we care about matters. While the book positively glows with gorgeous images of irresistible food, I love her invitation to notice the gift of sitting down to eat, of having food to cook and people to share it. She writes movingly from the heart about the tables in her own life, and all that has happened around those tables. Read her essay HERE:
After being a fan of Rebecca’s, I loved meeting her at the BB&T Charleston Wine + Food Festival in 2011. I count on her book Quick Fox Southern: Homemade Hospitality in 30 Minutes or Less for busy weeknights and sudden covered-dish supper inspirations. I love her attitude toward food and cooking in general and Southern food in particular. She seems to love what her grandmother did without putting old-time kitchen ways into a museum or a temple. She cherishes her beloved maternal grandmother’s antique oak table with abundant leaves for extending it, but it’s the people and the moments that matter. Reading her words reminded me of precious tables in my life: the formica-covered kitchen tables in my grandparents home, the card tables where the kids were seated during the big dinners of my childhood, woven mats spread out on the kitchen floor in Thailand, even the t.v. trays in the den with the plaid sofa and the wood paneling. Spectacular meals, modest ones, hilarious ones — Decades, many decades down the road of my life,I still remember meals and people and occasions clearly, long after menu details have faded away.
This fall Rebecca came to town on her book tour for Around the Southern Table. In addition to teaching cooking classes and television appearances, she was Guest Author at a Cooks and Books event at The Granary in Fearrington Village. Co-hosted by Fearrington House Restaurant and McIntyre’s Books, the events include lunch, a signed book, and the opportunity to listen and visit with the author over a meal. Fearrington’s award winning Executive Chef Colin Bedford and his team served up a memorable luncheon from the pages of Rebecca’s book.
Forgetting my plans to write about the feast, I dove right into my Marinated Asparagus and Pecan Salad, eating it all it up without taking a photo for you to enjoy here. Thinking fast, I maneuvered my copy of the book, open to the photograph of that very salad alad as featured in the book. Bonus! You can pretend you too got to enjoy Rebecca Lang talking about the book as we sat right there at the table with her, enjoying her recipes.
The Main course? Got it. From then on, I was focused. Atlantic Shrimp on Yellow Grits. Magnificent, as tasty as it was lovely on the plate.
Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie made for a marvelous finish to an exquisite meal. Rebecca’s company and conversation made it even more satisfying.
My favorite aspect of sharing this meal with Rebecca was hearing details and stories about how she got started in her work in the world of food. This involves my hero and friend Nathalie Dupree, whose new book you will be hearing about here soon. Read the introduction to Around the Southern Table, written by Nathalie, to learn the the story. Read this, too, for more on that story, from Rebecca’s wonderful, excellent-recipe-filled blog.
I’m writing this post with Thanksgiving on the near horizon, and for me, sweet potatoes have been crucial beloved items on the Thanksgiving table, all my life. Each year I read numerous disdainful references to sweet potato casseroles with mini marshmallows on top. I silently pretend that I too, am shocked, SHOCKED! at the persistent affection for this dish around the land. But there it is, in Rebecca Lang’s lovely, elegant book, photographed handsomely and spoken of with pride! Yes! Me, too! I made her recipe, and mine is not as pretty but it is mighty tasty. I think stirring in or sprinkling on chopped pecans and raisins would be a good thing to do, and I might at a tad bit more sugar myself. So glad I have this book for this week, for all the rest of this year, and for the new year(s) to come. Here’s to good times at your table1
Rebecca Lang’s All Things Sweet Potato Casserole
4 1/2 cups mashed baked sweet potatoes (about 4 pounds whole)
2 large eggs
2/3 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and divided
1 1/2 cups crushed gingersnaps (30 cookies)
3 cups miniature marshmallows
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine potatoes, eggs, next 5 ingredients, and 1/2 cup of the melted butter in a large bowl. Beat at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth. Spoon into a lightly greased 13 x 9-inch baking pan.
2) Stir remaining 1/4 cup melted butter into crushed gingersnaps. Top potato mixture with marshmallows and the gingersnap mixture in alternating crosswise rows.
3) Bake at 350 degrees F for 28 minutes or until marshmallows are lightly browned.
Note: To bake sweet potatoes, place on a baking sheet. Bake at 375 degrees F until tender, about 45 minutes for small potatoes, 1 hour for medium potatoes, and 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1 hour and 25 minutes for larger potatoes.
From “Around the Southern Table: Coming Home to Comforting Meals and Treasured Memories” by Rebecca Lang. Oxmoor House 2012. All rights reserved.
“Pretty Is as Pretty Does”: On Beauty and How We See It
I have many reasons to be grateful for the opportunity of following Shauna James Ahern via social media. She’s the one in the middle in this photo, taken by fellow food writer Maria Minadeo Raynal of Fresh Eats At Home HERE, during a fantastic lunch at NOLA, one of Emeril Legasse’s fine restaurants in August 2011. We were attending the International Food Bloggers Conference in New Orleans. I’m on the right, and on the left is my friend Merry-Jennifer Markham, whose blog, The Merry Gourmet HERE, I dearly love to read.
I love reading Gluten Free Girl and the Chef, the blog she and her cool talented husband Danny write, HERE, and I delight in following her on Twitter @glutenfreegirl, as well as on Instagram and on Facebook HERE. I adore her photos, spirit, and commentary, and I’m honored and tickled that she and Danny are my friends.
But the gift that keeps on giving is her reading list — Shauna has been known to post an article or two on her Facebook page, and whenever she does, I know it’s time for a little read-up. Yesterday she posted “The F Word” in Allure Magazine, by journalist and author Jennifer Weiner. Shauna’s friend commented under the Facebook post, providing a link to The TODAY Show’s Tuesday blogpost, “Too Fat for TV? Anchor fires back at critic; outpouring ensues” , featuring News Anchor Jennifer Livingston of WKBT in La Crosse Wisconsin.
Today brought another extraordinary, moving and powerful story around the same topic: Women, beauty, size, appearance, judgment, perfection, how we look, how other people see us, and how we see ourselves. I find all three stories deeply moving, inspiring, difficult to read, and impossible to forget. This is so important, and it comes right home to me, because 1) I deeply believe that how we look outside matters very little, and how we are inside matters a lot; and 2) I catch myself every day, judging my own self as bad and wrong over my size, my shape, my weight, my hair, my skin, my outsides. I do not like this about myself, and I work on it. It takes me about 5 seconds to come back to the truth, that this is the wrapper and I am the treasure, that how I look is one small item on the grocery list of who I am and what I am worth (“wonderful!” and “a fortune beyond measure!”) But it’s a habit, an attitude, that I do not love and wish I could shake, for good. In the meantime, I remind myself and re-tune the radio station of my frantic chattering mind to the truth channel: “Here I am. I look good! Here we are. What a gift! A privilege. A blessing.” The old saying I grew up with, “Pretty is as pretty does”, is corny, and trite, and absolutely the truth. I agree, and I am working on bringing that home in my attitude toward myself.
With other people, it’s easy for me to see beauty; real beauty, not the “supermodel/world’s sexiest man” version. The teacher, the mom, the dad, the guy at the Post Office with kind words and big laughs, beaming old folks, my friends… I’m thankful for having 20/20 vision when I look around the world.
I truly do not understand the disdain, contempt and ridicule we dispense about people over their sizes and shapes; nor do I get the worship and value we place on those who meet-and-exceed the mainstream standards that we have for beauty. That we judge this shape as good and that shape as bad; having hair on our heads as better than being bald; youthfulness as more charming than age? Well, so it is. There we are, at least for now. And as I said, I work on my attitude toward and love for my self, daily. But the open contempt? The ridicule? The blame, dismissal and active hatred for people whose bodies are larger than what we consider ‘right and good’? The absolute conviction that they are lazy, inferior, and that it’s about character? That I do not understand, not at all. I do not accept it, and I need to say so, out loud, in writing, whenever I encounter it. I’ve been letting it go by. It makes no sense, and I want it to stop. I want us to stop it.
Here are the three stories, in the order in which I came across them (thank you, Shauna) — finding the third one in succession today convinced me that this is worthy of some time and thought and action. Read one or all three, or just consider these things on your own. I would love to hear what you think.
Jennifer Livingston
News Anchor on WKBT La Crosse WI
“Too Fat for TV?” TODAY show coverage and NBC News Blog by JoNel Allecia
“The Mom Stays in the Picture” on Huffington Post/Parents
For a delightful tale about the 2011 IFBC in New Orleans conference, read my friend Gwen Pratesi‘s post on her gorgeous blog BunkyCooks HERE.) I’ll close with a second photograph from that hilarious, fascinating and delicious lunch with three good friends and fellow travellers on the food road. It’s a little blurry—no, actually, it’s just flat-out blurry (taken by me, same camera as above…) but I wanted to get my friend Maria Minadeo Raynal’s photograph in here, too. This photo is not perfect. None of these women is perfect and if you know anything of me, you’ll not be surprised that I’m not perfect, either. But aren’t they beautiful? Aren’t we beautiful? Beautiful day, beautiful lunch, beautiful women.
“Under the Tuscan Sun Dinner” at Fearrington House with Francis and Edward Mayes
Autumn nudges me toward reflection, and tonight I’m remembering a recent evening full of delights. The time was sunset, two weeks ago today; the setting, the lovely Fearrington House Restaurant, an extraordinary restaurant, inn, and residential community located just a few miles south of Chapel Hill. The occasion was irresistible for me: A dinner with Francis and Edward Mayes, authors of The Tuscan Sun Cookbook: Recipes from Our Italian Kitchen, published this spring by Clarkson Potter. Executive Chef Colin Bedford‘s cooking is brilliant, unique, and satisfying; I adore Frances Mayes’s books and blog; Fearrington House is incredibly beautiful and comfortable; with all that in mind, my expectations were high. As you can see from my smile in this photograph of me with Frances, Edward, and my friend Keebe Fitch, (proprietor of McIntyre’s Books in Fearrington Village), the evening exceeded them, by many a country mile. We’re still in that luscious seasonal window where the sunlight and temperature make eating outdoors a pleasure, and that is what we did, from a welcoming flute of prosecco on the patio to a farewell glass of Badia Coltibuono Vin Santo at our table in the Garden Terrace, as twilight dwindled to darkness.
Fearrington House Wine Director Max Kast’s pairings enhanced this memorable meal. Here is my glass of Antinori Orvieto (2010), poured to accompany the exquisite first course:
Potato Ravioli with Zucchini, Speck, and Pecorino (page 86)
Our main course, Braised Short Rib (page 129) with Garlic Flan (page 158), Green Beans with Black Olives and Gremolata (page 159), with Mormoria Chianti Colli Senesi (2006)
Dessert was Lemon Hazelnut Gelato (page 182) with Panna Cotta (page 187), and Massimo and Daniela’s Wine Cake (page 204), made with pine nuts and vin santo. That wine was paired with the dessert course: Badia Coltibuono Vin Santo.
Early in the meal, Frances spoke about food and cooking in Tuscany. She remembers their early days in the kitchen of Bramasole, their home in Cortona, Italy, when a door placed over two saw horses served as their table. Twenty three years later, they have a sturdy and permanent table, but not a fussy, laborious approach to cooking. Like their Tuscan friends and neighbors, they focus not on length or complexity in cooking, but rather on improvisation and on primo ingredients. No measuring cups or spoons in a traditional Italian kitchen; but if you are like me, you will gratefully note that the cookbook provides those pesky measurements for those of us who might need an assist on the way to intuitive cuisine. For the short ribs, she noted that she and Edward like to cook ‘too much’ when they make this, doubling the recipe so that they will have plenty left for the following day. When we raved about the garlic flan, she noted that the book includes a wonderful garlic soup (page 94); the recipe sounds simply delicious, and is also simple to prepare.
The book’s dedication warms your heart — a two-page salute to the friends and neighbors who have made the Mayes’s life in Tuscany such a feast. Photographs and stories throughout the book season the recipes, making you eager to cook Fiorella’s Red Pepper Tart, Ivan’s Pear Agnolotti with Gorgonzola and Walnuts, Placido’s Steak, and Slivia’s Ricotta Tart. Here is the butcher handing you a taste of proscuitto. A beaming woman in apron and kerchief is proffering a basket of eggs, and then two people with a rabbit; this one, you must see for yourself. Marvelous. Add a sprinkling of ingredients (shallots, asparagus, mushrooms, figs) and images of the recipes, both in progress (pesto) and ready for the feast (Fritto Misto, and Rich Polenta Parmigiana with Funghi Porcnini). I predict you, too will feel compelled retire to your reading chair to savor the book, or the kitchen counter to cook up the food.
My first endeavor was the fig and walnut tart. You’ll find the recipe in The Tuscan Sun Cookbook on page 201. From the crust, pasta frolla (page 192) to the finished tart, which was lovely to look at and a deep pleasure to eat, I loved making this dessert. For a sampler of four recipes (Fried Artichokes, Guisi’s Ragu, Chicken with Olives, and Strawberry Semifreddo) available on the web and sauced with luminous photographs from the book, visit publisher Clarkson Potter’s “Recipe Club” by clicking HERE.
To visit Frances Mayes’s website, click HERE.
To read her blog, Frances Mayes’s Journal, click HERE.
To read an interview with Frances Mayes in the Washington Post, click HERE. (It’s written by my friend Domenica Marchetti.)
To find out more about this glorious book, click HERE.
To order The Tuscan Sun Cookbook: Recipes from Our Italian Kitchen from Indiebound, click HERE.
Fearrington House “Under the Tuscan Sun Dinner” with Francis and Edward Mayes
Autumn nudges me toward reflection, and tonight I’m remembering a recent evening full of delights. The time was sunset, two weeks ago today; the setting, the lovely Fearrington House Restaurant, an extraordinary restaurant, inn, and residential community located just a few miles south of Chapel Hill. The occasion was irresistible for me: A dinner with Francis and Edward Mayes, authors of The Tuscan Sun Cookbook: Recipes from Our Italian Kitchen, published this spring by Clarkson Potter. Executive Chef Colin Bedford‘s cooking is brilliant, unique, and satisfying; I adore Frances Mayes’s books and blog; Fearrington House is incredibly beautiful and comfortable; with all that in mind, my expectations were high. As you can see from my smile in this photograph of me with Frances, Edward, and my friend Keebe Fitch, (proprietor of McIntyre’s Books in Fearrington Village), the evening exceeded them, by many a country mile. We’re still in that luscious seasonal window where the sunlight and temperature make eating outdoors a pleasure, and that is what we did, from a welcoming flute of prosecco on the patio to a farewell glass of Badia Coltibuono Vin Santo at our table in the Garden Terrace, as twilight dwindled to darkness.
Fearrington House Wine Director Max Kast’s pairings enhanced this memorable meal. Here is my glass of Antinori Orvieto (2010), poured to accompany the exquisite first course:
Potato Ravioli with Zucchini, Speck, and Pecorino (page 86)
Our main course, Braised Short Rib (page 129) with Garlic Flan (page 158), Green Beans with Black Olives and Gremolata (page 159), with Mormoria Chianti Colli Senesi (2006)
Dessert was Lemon Hazelnut Gelato (page 182) with Panna Cotta (page 187), and Massimo and Daniela’s Wine Cake (page 204), made with pine nuts and vin santo. That wine was paired with the dessert course: Badia Coltibuono Vin Santo.
Early in the meal, Frances spoke about food and cooking in Tuscany. She remembers their early days in the kitchen of Bramasole, their home in Cortona, Italy, when a door placed over two saw horses served as their table. Twenty three years later, they have a sturdy and permanent table, but not a fussy, laborious approach to cooking. Like their Tuscan friends and neighbors, they focus not on length or complexity in cooking, but rather on improvisation and on primo ingredients. No measuring cups or spoons in a traditional Italian kitchen; but if you are like me, you will gratefully note that the cookbook provides those pesky measurements for those of us who might need an assist on the way to intuitive cuisine. For the short ribs, she noted that she and Edward like to cook ‘too much’ when they make this, doubling the recipe so that they will have plenty left for the following day. When we raved about the garlic flan, she noted that the book includes a wonderful garlic soup (page 94); the recipe sounds simply delicious, and is also simple to prepare.
The book’s dedication warms your heart — a two-page salute to the friends and neighbors who have made the Mayes’s life in Tuscany such a feast. Photographs and stories throughout the book season the recipes, making you eager to cook Fiorella’s Red Pepper Tart, Ivan’s Pear Agnolotti with Gorgonzola and Walnuts, Placido’s Steak, and Slivia’s Ricotta Tart. Here is the butcher handing you a taste of proscuitto. A beaming woman in apron and kerchief is proffering a basket of eggs, and then two people with a rabbit; this one, you must see for yourself. Marvelous. Add a sprinkling of ingredients (shallots, asparagus, mushrooms, figs) and images of the recipes, both in progress (pesto) and ready for the feast (Fritto Misto, and Rich Polenta Parmigiana with Funghi Porcnini). I predict you, too will feel compelled retire to your reading chair to savor the book, or the kitchen counter to cook up the food.
My first endeavor was the fig and walnut tart. You’ll find the recipe in The Tuscan Sun Cookbook on page 201. From the crust, pasta frolla (page 192) to the finished tart, which was lovely to look at and a deep pleasure to eat, I loved making this dessert. For a sampler of four recipes (Fried Artichokes, Guisi’s Ragu, Chicken with Olives, and Strawberry Semifreddo) available on the web and sauced with luminous photographs from the book, visit publisher Clarkson Potter’s “Recipe Club” by clicking HERE.
To visit Frances Mayes’s website, click HERE.
To read her blog, Frances Mayes’s Journal, click HERE.
To read an interview with Frances Mayes in the Washington Post, click HERE. (It’s written by my friend Domenica Marchetti.)
To find out more about this glorious book, click HERE.
To order The Tuscan Sun Cookbook: Recipes from Our Italian Kitchen from Indiebound, click HERE.
September 11: Gratefully Remembering New York Times “Portraits of Grief”
Yesterday was serene and sunny here in North Carolina, an easy early-fall day. Schools opened three weeks ago, and summertime feels distant, even though it’s barely a week since the heat and vacation-mood faded away. New York City feels distant too, in place and time. I thought about 9/11 now and then throughout the day, not because of news coverage or conversations, but more when I was writing the date on checks at the grocery store and post office, or glancing at an e-mail message. I like remembering that day. It still feels heavy, sad, resonant. For me, remembering and acknowledging September 11th feels comforting. I don’t need immersion or analysis now, but I like remembering.
What I kept thinking about was not so much the planes, the images of smoke billowing and flames and of people rushing to rescue or trudging silently away. I think about what came afterward, and kept coming, for many months, long after the transition from emergency to tragedy began.
I think about “Portraits of Grief”, the lovely, on-going series of small obituaries in the New York Times. Times writers contacted the family and friends of the people who didn’t come home, to interview them and learn a little bit about that person, what they liked to do, where they came from, why they were missed.
The reporters requested a photograph and then wrote up small pieces: an anecdote or two, a tribute, a mini-history. Those pages of vignettes were medicine for me, profound and sweet and poignant. I loved those little chapters, small windows into each person’s life lifting each person up up so I could see them just a tiny bit before letting them go, one by one. I got just a glimpse of who we’d lost: how they got through the day, what they liked to do and where and how. It was profound on-going comfort, made from words gathered up and chosen with compassion, thoughtfulness, humor, generosity. Over the phone, I imagine, it was two strangers sharing a story, connecting, doing a job, and putting out the results for anyone who needed it to read.
Throughout the fall, I went and bought the paper from a coin-operated box. I usually took it to my favorite coffee shop, a quiet place tucked back in the woods where I like to work, read, do the crossword puzzle and pay bills. I would sit with a cup of their marvelous coffee and read each profile, one by one. Sometimes they made me grin, or think, or sigh. Often I would cry, just a little bit, not over any one story, but over all of it. I loved reading them, counted on it, and rarely missed a day. I devoured news coverage of 9/11 in the paper, and less often on television; but that was completely separate. Mostly, I bought the New York Times and read “Portraits of Grief”. It helped a lot.
I am so thankful for this idea, which must have bloomed out of unimaginable shock, sorrow, confusion and desperation. My gratitude still wells up, for every reporter and editor, for copy people and printshop people and place-paper-stack-in-metal-box people. I am thankful for the family and friends who shared their dear ones with reflections, stories and pictures. I am in their debt, still, all of them. What a simple, brilliant, beautiful, respectful, compelling idea. What an extraordinary group effort to make it happen, and keep happening, day after day, week after week, month after month. For me, it never became sloppy, or routine, or old. I never stopped needing to read it, and they never stopped gathering, writing and publishing the stories.
I looked online yesterday, and there it was. I knew it would be, and I am so glad. There’s a book, which I will want to get, but not yet. There is also a newer project following up with some of the families and friends, including video. I looked at a couple and they were wonderful, too. I will be going back there to read and view these stories. I’m glad it was all on newsprint in black and white at the time, and I’m glad it now lives online, with movies and sound and color. Now I’m ready for that, too.
To read Portraits of Grief, click HERE.
To read and see Portraits of Grief Redrawn, with video and updates, click HERE.
To read the story of “Portraits of Grief”, published on December 31, 2001 as the Times moved from daily publication to weekly publication of the section, click HERE.
To read a post by Pam Spaulding and see a beautiful photograph of the Twin Towers she took during a visit to New York City in July of 2001, click HERE.
Happy 100th Birthday to the Hughes Family and Pine Knot Farms: A North Carolina Century Farm
I’ve been a fan and a customer of Mr. Stanley Hughes and Pine Knot Farms since we moved home to North Carolina from Southern California in 1999. His family farm out in Hurdle Mills, 12 miles north of Hillsborough, produces a marvelous organic harvest which he sells to area chefs and to the public at the Carrboro Farmers’ Market. His justifiably famous sweet potatoes first caught my attention, as I am a fool for them in any form. His yearlong bounty of tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers and yellow squash, canteloupes, strawberries and watermelon, collards, kale, and Swiss chard have kept me coming back, stopping by the table where a visit with him and his wife, Linda Leach, feeds my spirit just as their vegetables brighten my kitchen. I wrote this story about Mr. Hughes in Edible Piedmont’s Winter 2009 issue. “Stewards of the Land” included him among six Piedmont North Carolina farmers profiled HERE . Pine Knot Farms’ website is right HERE. 
This past Saturday, I joined hundreds of friends, fans, customers, neighbors, and family members on the 100-year-old Hughes family farm, to celebrate its centennial birthday, which brought designation as a North Carolina Century Farm. From the day in 1912 when Mr. Hughes’s grandfather purchased the farm, it has been in continuous operation, its 125 acres supporting the Hughes family for one hundred years. What a reason to celebrate, and what a fine celebration they created on a gorgeous, late-summer afternoon. Here’s a small peek at a big, bountiful, joyful gathering in rural Orange County, NC. 
My friend Diane Robertson congratulates Linda and Stanley on their great success, in organic farming, growing and running a successful small business, and in throwing a fantastic memorable party! 
An abundance of friends-in-farming stopped by, including fellow vendors at the Carrboro Farmers’ Market, Alex and Betsy Hitt of Peregrine Farms. Here’s Alex with Stanley. I got to visit over lunch with my friends Kate Medley and Emily Wallace, feasting on an astounding and extensive repast of old-school family-reunion-quality cooking. Here’s my plate; my initial plate, actually. At 12 o’clock, you see a fried chicken leg teetering atop candied yams (sweet potatoes cut into french-fry sized chunks and cooked with butter and sugar). To the right, chicken and dumplings, just like my grandmother made them. Next is “beantown”: greenbeans/stringbeans, field peas (maybe crowders, or lady peas? Please do leave me a comment if you can set me straight here, or just have an opinion about it), and butterbeans, both of which are cooked with corn. Next set is lima beans/butterbeans cooked with curls of streak o’ lean, a beloved porky seasoning meat which is kin to bacon but with the big accent on the fat, and red peas. The grand finale is chicken and country ham, the latter cooked by host Linda Leach, who didn’t let the challenges of putting on this grand, extensive party keep her from cooking up two peach cobblers, a country ham, and more. 
I loved it when a young family member walked out to greet me as I came up the driveway, handing me my program in the form of a cardboard fan, the kind we literally prayed for when sitting in my grandparents’ church on a July Sunday, back in the days before air conditioning adjusted the summertime for us.
Fried chicken, and a big pot of chicken and dumplings, made by Miss Linda’s mother. Below is Miss Linda’s country ham. I wish I had some right now.
Butterbeans and corn.
This tobacco barn right out front is an original building, with an old washtub, a washboard, and other pieces of farm history decorating the wall.
Pieces of the farm’s past arranged inside the big, beautiful ‘shed’ where the crowd lined up for food and enjoyed shelter when rain showed up a time or two. I loved the Hershey’s cocoa can made from metal, the coffee mill, Cheerwine or RC Cola bottle, irons, and a Lodge Cast Iron cornbread skillet. 
This school desk came from the old schoolhouse which stood on the farm property. Family elders and longtime neighbors reminisced about schooldays there. The piece of wood on top of the desk was used in planting tobacco. Elders recalled (and demonstrated by pantomime right there by the desk) poking the seeds down into a hill of dirt as they worked a row, planting the new crop.
I find this so beautiful and profound. I also find it poignant: I cannot begin to imagine how tired people must feel walking home after another day of ‘working tobacco’, in the blistering, merciless heat of a North Carolina summertime. This is how the tobacco was prepared to be placed in the tobacco barn to cure.
This broom was made by Stanley Hughes’s father, who grew the plants he used in the summertime, dried it in the fall, and crafted the brooms during the winter when the outdoor farmwork took a backseat to the weather.
It was the sweetest, easiest day. As things wound down, I was standing out back talking with Mr. Ricky, Hughes-family friend, neighbor, and pitmaster, who was working the gigantic smoker on which he had cooked a whole pig (starting at 5:00 a.m.). Looking up, I noticed what I interpret as commentary from the universe on the occasion, the celebration, and the location.
The Southern Foodways Alliance‘s oral history collection includes interviews Carrboro Farmers’ Market vendors. My friend Kate Medley (and lunch buddy, see above) recorded an wonderful interview and video with Mr. Stanley Hughes, which you can enjoy on the SFA website HERE
Pine Knot Farms 1912 – 2012. Going strong, growing strong. To the next hundred years!
Summer Farmer’s Market Vegetable Plate “Nicoise” with Spoonbread for #LetsLunch
This cookbook and reference guide by my good friend Sheri Castle delivers everything you need to make the most of the produce find throughout the year. Visit Sheri’s website HERE. Learn about the book and/or buy book HERE. 
Charissa‘s Curried Roasted Cheddar Cheese Cauliflower Soup, Gluten-Free at Zest Bakery
Juliana‘s View from Les Halles Farmers Market at Chicken Scrawlings
Linda‘s Farmers’ Market Fruit Galette at Spicebox Travels
Linda‘s Zucchini or Cucumber Quick Pickles at Free Range Cookies
Lisa‘s Eveleigh Farmers’ Market (in Australia!) Winter Salad at Monday Morning Cooking Club
