Posts filed under ‘Good Times and Special Events’
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
Dinner with “The Lee Bros. Charleston Kitchen”
Ted Lee, Executive Chef Colin Bedford of Fearrington House, me, and Matt Lee, after the marvelous dinner Chef Bedford and his team prepared on March 14th, featuring Matt and Ted’s recipes from “The Lee Bros Charleston Kitchen”.
Ever since I first heard about the Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalogue in which Matt and Ted Lee offer an abundance of Southern ingredients and foods both by mail order and online, I have been a big fan of Matt and Ted Lee. (About that catalog: It’s simply wonderful. I adore it even though I live right here in the South. They actually welcome your phone call to talk about your order, and they’ve been shipping APO for 15 years, so if you have dear service members with a hankering for Southern delights, here’s a fine option.) But I digress. Next thing I knew they were hosting a food-centric radio program, writing for magazines, and working on their first book. The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook , published in 2006, brought Southern food and cooking out onto the national stage in new ways. Southern food hasnever gone backstage since, because it’s just that interesting and just that good.
Their second book, The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern: Knockout Dishes with Downhome Flavor, came out in 2009, to wide acclaim, and I’ve enjoyed reading their words and recipes in publications including Bon Appetit, Fine Cooking, Food & Wine, the New York Times, and Travel + Leisure. They have been working on this latest book ever since, exploring and celebrating the food, cooking, people and traditions of Charleston. You could say that they have in fact been working on this one for decades, given that it shares their personal story of food, people, and life in Charleston, South Carolina. The Lee Bros. Charleston Kitchen opens the screen door and invites us all into their kitchen to explore, appreciate, and understand a little bit about the city they know deeply, love completely and proudly call home.
I like the way Matt and Ted Lee introduce their third book on their website HERE: ”The Lee Bros. Charleston Kitchen is our most personal book yet. With these stories and recipes, we show you what it was like to grow up here and how the food life of Charleston helped make us the cookbook authors we are today. We introduce you to our friends who make living in the Lowcountry so delicious, as well as important figures from the city’s culinary past, who inspire us to have fun in the kitchen.”
Heading in to the Lee Brothers’ Charleston dinner at Fearrington.
Matt and Ted Lee launched their book tour in Charleston, of course, but one of their very first stops was here in the Triangle, the portion of Piedmont North Carolina including Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary, Pittsboro, Hillsborough and everything in between. They did book-signings at some of our local indie bookstores (Quail Ridge/Raleigh and the Regulator/Durham, and a sold-out cooking class at Southern Season in Chapel Hill. I signed up for their Charleston dinner at Fearrington House, located south of Chapel Hill, about halfway to the town of Pittsboro, NC. Though it’s a mere eight miles from my home in Chapel Hill and the UNC campus, the big silo and grazing cows around what was originally a dairy farm convey a pleasing sense of leaving my everyday suburban life behind. Home to Fearrington House Restaurant and Inn, along with two other restaurants, it also includes McIntyre’s Books
Since last fall, Fearrington and McIntyre’s have been hosting Books & Cooks, a series of culinary events centered on a guest author who shares stories and signs books, while Chef Bedford cooks up a meal from the featured book. I’ve enjoyed Books & Cooks events with Jean Anderson, Nathalie Dupree, Rebecca Lang, and Frances Mayes. For April, the Cooks & Books guest author is me, celebrating my first book Real Thai: The Best of Thailand’s Regional Cooking.
The Lee Brothers’ Charleston Dinner on March 14th began with a lovely introduction of Matt and Ted Lee by my friend Marcie Cohen Ferris, assistant professor of American Studies at UNC Chapel Hill and the author of Matzoh Ball Gumbo: Culinary Tales of the Jewish South. Fine wine pairings by Fearrington’s Wine Director Max Kast added great pleasure to the meal.
First Course: She-Crab Soup. Divine.
A fabulous little treat: Rice and Ham Croquettes with Tomato Sauce
Spectacular centerpiece of a most memorable meal: Smothered Pork Chops and Brussels Sprouts with Benne and Bacon
Sweet Potatoes with Sorghum Marshmallows, passed at each table, family style. So good.
Pineapple Cornbread Pudding with Vanilla Ice Cream. Lovely finish to our Charleston feast. What? Oh, the Take Home listed on the menu above? The Homemade Benne Wafers, packaged and ready to transport share with family? Well, let’s just say that I hope my family is not reading this post because no such delightful, crisp and elegant treat crossed our doorstep that evening.
Chef Colin Bedford came out to talk about the menu he had chosen and the particulars of preparing each dish, after which all three took questions.
Home with my signed copy, I started reading the very next day. The first thing I cooked was one of the desserts: Hugenot Torte. The recipe called for a 2 quart baking dish. Not having same, I went with a nine-inch square pan, causing my dessert to have more surface area and less depth. My family adored it, as did I. Ice cream was not required, but it did extend the delectable pleasures of this apple-pecan dessert.
The March meeting of CHOP NC (Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina) a few days later gave me reason to return to the book for snacks. I made Hugenot Torte again, because it is so simple to cook and rewarding to share. People just love it, including me. This time I went for a whipped cream accompaniment — again, unnecessary, but ice cream would have melted and I wanted CHOP NC folks to have as much razzle-dazzle as possible.
The Lee Brothers’ Hugenot Torte, a Charleston classic dessert, batches one (oven and with ice cream) and two (with whipped cream and the feet of a CHOP NC member awaiting the opening of the CHOP NC Snacks Table on March 20, 2013). I took home an empty, shiny-scraped clean pan, and a lot of whipped cream. Nobody cared about it — they just wanted to eat Hugenot Torte, plain and simple and good.
I also took a platter of these fantastically good Pecan Cheese Wafers from Lee Bros. Charleston Kitchen. These deliver the goodness of traditional Southern cheese straws. They are streamlined to be made up in food processor and then rolled out and cut like sugar cookies rather than the extruded from a…an extruder? A cookie press, which creates classic cheese straws’ beautifully detailed corrugated tile form. These were incredibly good and popular. These Cheese Pecan Wafers and a plate of deviled eggs? Perfect Portable Party Food, especially if you, like me, prefer not to bring anything back home.
American Shad, from US Fish and Wildlife Service
I also took great interest in Matt and Ted’s extensive coverage of shad, a Southern springtime culinary pleasure. These beautiful fish are anadromous, which I had to look up and learn that this means they move away and come back. Born in fresh water upstream from the Atlantic Ocean, they swim down to the ocean for a salt-water fish’s lifetime, and then swim back up to their homeplace for spawning, in springtime. This is when shad and shad roe are caught and savored for a few weeks, as in right now. I posted about shad roe last month, which you can see right HERE. After reading the Lee brothers’ handsomely illustrated section on shad and on salt-baking whole fish, I went back to Whole Foods where I had found the lovely roe, and there were beautiful whole shad, with roe inside. That post is coming soon. (It was some work and worth it and really good.)
On my list for future cooking after a good, leisurely perusal of the recipes in this excellent book: Frogmore Stew. Country Captain. Smoked Egg Salad on Toast (I think I can smoke things in my wok. My friend Grace Young, Poet Laureate of the Wok, will know about that…). Conch Fritters. Fish in Parchment, Edna Lewis’s way. From Fearrington’s Chef Colin Bedford’ Charleston menu, Smothered Pork Chops with Brussels Sprouts Bacon and Benne, and She Crab Soup. Forgot Shrimp Butter. There’s more, but this is a good start, I do believe.
While things are simmering and baking, I will keep reading about the people and history of Charleston, from the authors of a classic Charleston women’s club cookbook, a shad-master, and the queen of shrimp boats, to a legendary Italian composer, a waterman dedicated to sustainably harvesting stone crab, and the trio of longtime employees who have bought a beloved French cafe from its fixing-to-retire owners in 2010 and have kept it cooking everyday lunches. Then there are loquats, jerusalem artichokes, guinea squash and the guinea fowl of Lamboll Street, the latter a lively flock of guinea vagabonds who can be observed in a very cool short video right HERE. You might want to treat yourself to another short video, the trailer for this book, which is, again, three minutes plus of wonderfulness and an introduction to what the fuss is all about. That’s right HERE.
If you’d like to cook up a few Lee Brothers’ recipes from their first two books, check out the three on their website, which didn’t come together but would certainly go together, to make a wonderfully indulgent and memorable meal: Frogmore Stew (no frogs are ever harmed in the making of Frogmore Stew); A New Ambrosia, and Red Velvet Cake. Those three recipes are right HERE.
Two of my friends have written about Matt and Ted Lee on their excellent blogs, which I delight in following. Here are their posts:
“A Charleston Loquat Grows in Raleigh” by Jill Warren Lucas on “Eating My Words”
(This next post refers to Jay’s sold-out Lee Brothers dinner at Lucky 32 on March 28th; you can’t actually sign up cause it’s history.)
For the remainder of the spring and into the summer, Matt and Ted Lee will be rolling along the highways and byways sharing this heartfelt book on tour. To see where they’re headed, check their website for the latest details.
The Lee Bros Charleston Kitchen
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.
“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!
Midnight Snack on My First Night Back in Bangkok: Thai Rice Soup/kao tom
Arriving at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport long past 11:00 p.m. on a July evening, I transformed from a drowsy denizen of giant metal flying machines into a dazzled and grateful traveller, amazed to actually be standing on solid ground at my destination: Thailand. Like the magnificent red and gold doorway greeting placed to greet passengers stumbling in from the jetway, this handsome sala on the concourse reminded me that I was back in Thailand, where visual celebrations of Thai culture enliven everyday places and moments.
Murals like this vision of a lotus pond and another with a still life of mangosteens, durian, rambutan, pineapple, lychees and other Thai fruits lined the gleaming cavernous passageways leading into the main terminal. Had I not been on a moving sidewalk, I would have tried to photograph every one. The restrooms featured flourishing orchids, duplicating their lovely presence in the mirrors.
Even the boards informing passengers where our luggage could be picked up tickled me, with the listings of arriving flights. Nothing so familiar to me as Denver, Philadelphia, Boston, and Miami; there I was in a place where jets zoom in from Guangzhou and Hanoi, Seoul and Macau, Vientiane and Hong Kong, Manila and Singapore. I easily found my refrigerator-sized rolling suitcase, cleared customs speedy-quick, and found the taxi stand, where I was soon paired up with a driver who stowed it handily in the trunk of his small sedan and headed us off toward my hotel.
To my delight, the trunk of his taxi not only accomodated my massive suitcase but also held a sticky-rice serving basket, his old-school lunchbox, tucked over to one side. This pleased me: Some things continued as I remembered them from 37 years ago. The sparkling airport, the elevated expressway, and the highrise Bangkok skyline visible from the taxi confirmed that much had changed since 1978, when I departed from Bangkok’s original Don Muang Airport, at the end of my Peace Corps service in 1978.
The taxi driver’s lunch and the night markets we passed now and then as we sped through the city reminded me that while I had eaten fairly recently on the airplanes carrying me from North Carolina to Atlanta, to Tokyo, and then to Bangkok…..
….I had not dined to my heart’s delight, nor had I enjoyed even a morsel of Thai food. I considered asking the driver to drop me off at one of the night markets, but given my massive suitcase and carry-on’s, such nimble and spontaneous actions were not on the menu.
But once I arrived at my hotel, checked in, and got settled in my sixth-floor room with river view, I spied the Room Service Menu. And did I see the magic words, “24-Hour” Room Service Menu? I did indeed. This made me so happy. But what to choose? Laab Mu (minced pork salad with Thai herbs? Tod Mun Plaa (deep-fried fish cakes with cucumber salad)? or Gaeng Peht Beht Yahng (red curry roast duck)?
Well, none of the above, since the “Not available after midnight” caveat applied to my moment in time. But turning the page, I found the perfect supper, the ideal late-night Thai comfort food: kao tome, rice soup. Much as I love jook, Chinese-style rice soup made by slow-and-long-simmering of raw rice grains in lots of water to create a lovely porridge, I absolutely adore Thailand’s version, made by simmering cooked rice into a clear but hearty and comforting soup.
Kao tome comes with seasonings, some added and some on the side as kreung brung rote, or flavor-adjusters. Vinegar with chilies, fish sauce, dried ground red chilies, and sugar are the basic, standard offerings. My soup already ‘dressed’ up just right, with chopped cilantro, green onions, crispy garlic fried in oil, and minced pickled radish scattered on top, enhancing the finely chopped pork dropped into boiling water during cooking to make soup.
Even though kao tome is a meal in a bowl (especially popular with those recovering from or en route to a hangover), I ordered myself a plate of rice and nahm plah prik, fish sauce with finely chopped fresh hot chilis. My feast arrived in about 20 minutes, the amount of time it took to turn rice into kao tome. Finishing touch: a Singha beer, Thai-style, with ice, the way I like it, so the heat doesn’t warm it up.
While I ate my first meal back in Thailand, I thought of many late-night kao tome meals taken at the restaurants along the major highways, where air-conditioned Thai tour buses stop halfway through their all-night express runs in to Bangkok from up-country cities and towns. At first I found it odd that the buses stop around 1:00 a.m. at a designated restaurant and travel center, so that everyone can get off, shop a little, use the facilities, and then eat a bowl of kao tome which is included in the price whether you eat it or not. But what a good idea: The drivers can stretch and have a bit of ‘lunch’, and what a boost to my ability to fall asleep for the remainder of the trip, awaking just as sunrise informed us that the bus was nearly to our destination. So many good memories, often food-centered, each one leading me to another. It was after 2:00 a.m. by the time I set my tray out in the hall and went out to my balcony to enjoy the river view.
I can’t share my supper with you, but I can let you join me on the balcony of my hotel room for a taste of the sights and sounds of the Chao Praya River very late at night. Click HERE for a peek via my Vimeo files. I thought I was too excited to fall asleep, but once I turned off the light, I drifted in to a sweet, sound sleep. For me, kao tome works every time.
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
Video Visit to a Great Little Cafe Near Bangkok’s Royal River Hotel
A tall cool Thai iced coffee, brought to my table at a small, delightful Bangkok cafe, one which became instant headquarters for many of the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers gathered at the Royal River Hotel during July for Peace Corps Thailand 50th Anniversary celebrations. Check my blogpost HERE about my first meal there, a fantastic lunch made even more delightful by the company with whom I shared it: Ellie and Paul, two PCV’s I met during my Peace Corps Thailand time.
CLICK HERE for the video tour of the restaurant, featuring other wonderful Peace Corps folks and a beauty shot of ‘kai jiow‘, Thai omelet with the original Sri Rachaa Sauce on the side. Other PCV friends include Linda, Carolyn, and Pat. More names coming. And I will find out the name of the restaurant. I took it for granted, because there it was, coming and going many times a day. If you’re coming in toward the hotel, it’s on the right, about halfway up and just before the small canal. Here’s the Royal River Hotel website, with which to find the lane, Soi Charansanitwong, off Rajwithii Road at Krung Thon Bridge, west bank of the Chao Praya River, Thonburi Side.
CLICK HERE for the blogpost with photos of our meal.
Thai iced coffee delivers a particular pleasure, as it’s seasoned with roasted spices and made superstrong, generously sweetened and enriched with my favorite, evaporated milk. This was one of many food-moments in which I found things I remembered from my long-ago Thailand days unchanged, unspoiled, still fantastic and still right there, woven into everyday Thai life. Look for Thai coffee powder in plump cellophane bags in Asian markets, if you’re hankering to try it at home. Iced and with milk, it’s ‘cah-fey yen‘. Iced without milk, it’s ‘o-liang‘.
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