My Carolina Kitchen

My first cooking success – Chicken Rosemary

2009-11-07T06:29:00.000-05:00

When I met my husband Meakin I couldn’t cook. Oh, that’s not quite true. I could hard boil an egg (put egg in cold water, bring to a boil, cover, remove from heat, drain twelve minutes later, rinse in cold water and peel) and I could make a good crusty cheese toast in toaster oven (lightly toast bread, cover with good sharp Cheddar, broil until bubbly), but I couldn’t make the gourmet meals he was accustomed to. Meakin told me, “You can obviously read because you’ve worked on your masters, so buy a cookbook, pick a recipe and give it a try. If it doesn’t work, I’ll take you out to eat.” It sounded like a good deal to me, so I found a recipe for Chicken Rosemary. Not counting the salt and pepper, it contained five ingredients and I recognized each one.

We’ve been married forty years this November and I’ve only had to take him up on the offer to eat out a couple of times because of a recipe disaster. An awful version of Millionaire Chicken comes to mind, but now that I look back at the recipe, I don’t know what I could have done with it to make it taste that awful, but it did.

Here’s an updated version of my first culinary success – Chicken Rosemary. Instead of using a whole, cut up chicken, I’ve used boneless, skinless chicken breasts. We grow rosemary in our herb garden, so there’s no need to buy the dried kind. I’ve also added sautéed mushrooms to jazz it up a bit. As a side dish, toss some asparagus and grape tomatoes with little bit of extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper and roast in a 400 degree oven about 8 minutes, or until the tomatoes just start to burst.

Chicken Rosemary

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed of all visible fat

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

8 ounces thickly sliced white button mushrooms

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed

1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary or 1 teaspoon dried

1/3 cup dry Marsala wine

Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper and set aside. In a non-stick skillet add two tablespoons of olive oil and sauté the mushrooms over medium high heat until they are brown and have given up their liquid. Season to taste with salt and pepper and set aside.

To the same skillet add the remaining two tablespoons of olive oil and sauté the chicken over medium-high heat until nicely browned on both sides. Sprinkle the chicken with the chopped rosemary and slowly add the Marsala. Cover and simmer over low heat for about 20 minutes, or until the chicken is tender and reaches 160 degrees on a meat thermometer. If necessary, add more Marsala to prevent burning. Serve very hot. Also good served over rice. Yield: 2 servings

CollectIn in Texas Gal has given me an award and I want to say a great big Texas thank you. I have a soft spot in my heart for Texas because that’s where I met my husband on a blind date and I first learned to cook. She’s a former quilt shop owner with a Masters in Studio Art.

Rebecca at Chow & Chatter has passed the Friendship Award to me. Rebecca lives in my newly adopted state of North Carolina. I guess that makes us both Tar Heels. She’s a Registered Dietitian and her blog is full of healthy, delicious goodies.

Thank you both very much. Happy Trails to you.

It’s my (blog) birthday party and I’ll go where I want to

2009-10-30T17:01:00.012-04:00

It’s my party and I’ll go where I want to, go where I want to, go where I want to. You would go too when it happens to you.

Welcome to My Carolina Kitchen’s first birthday. My other blog, Island Time in Abaco, is also one year old. I’ve decided to celebrate by taking you on a virtual trip down memory lane to a pink birthday party at one of my all time favorite places in the world - Wally’s Restaurant in Marsh Harbour, Abaco. Located in a pink and white Nassau-style Colonial villa overlooking the harbour, its grounds are dotted with pink hibiscus and bright rosy pink bougainvillea. It’s a balmy 75 degrees there today and I have friends waiting, so grab your passports, throw your sunglasses and flip-flops in straw bag, and hop on board. You take the window seat so you can so enjoy the view. Isn’t that a gorgeous private beach?

We’ll land at the Marsh Harbour International Airport in the northern Bahamas where we’ll take a taxi to Wally’s.

Hi ladies, it’s great to see you. How have you been? We’re meeting friends, so we’ll just go on in.

Hi Pattie, Penny, Barometer Bob. Hope we haven’t kept you waiting too long. I’ve brought along a few friends. Notice the Haitian art work on the pink walls. Even the tablecloth and napkins are pink. Wally's is one of the most upscale restaurants in the islands.

Every time we come to Wally’s the first thing my husband does is to give Wally's daughter Maureen, the owner, a great big hug. Hi Mo. Maureen attended the Cordon Bleu and returns to Paris each fall for a visit.

Hi Angie, our usual, please.

Here’s why we came – to share a bite of Wally’s special birthday brownie. One of their specialties, it’s a huge, sinfully rich brownie, smothered with vanilla ice cream, and covered in a dark chocolate sauce, rich whipped cream, and topped with a birthday candle. It comes with extra spoons, so dig in. The brownie is a little hard to see in this picture, but it's in front of me with the candle on it.

Before we leave let’s slip in the boutique and say hello to Angie’s daughter. Maybe I’ll pick up a cute swimsuit and one of those colorful pareos to match. Look around, I’m sure you’ll see something you can’t live without.

I hope you’ve enjoyed our trip to Marsh Harbour. Thank you Beverly of How Sweet the Sound for hosting this fun pink Saturday party. I’ve met so many fabulous people this year blogging that I now call friends. Thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart. Happy Pink Saturday.

These pictures were taken several years ago and reflect how the author remembers Wally’s and her friends.

Shrimp with Creamy Orange-Chipotle Sauce

2009-10-26T15:40:00.010-04:00

Shrimp with Creamy Orange-Chipotle Sauce is another easy and quick recipe from Cooking Light’s latest cookbook, Fresh Food Fast, 5 ingredients, 15 minute recipes. I love shrimp and always try to use wild shrimp. The cookbook says that the half-and-half and grated orange rind will create a citrusy cream sauce that tames the spiciness of the chipotle chili. While I agree to an extent, it was still a bit spicy for our taste, so I decreased the amount of cumin called for on the shrimp. Cooking Light uses very little salt, but I used salt on my raw shrimp along with the cumin.

I’m also not a big fan of cooking sprays, so I used a tiny bit of canola in the pan in lieu of the spray. My recipe is for two servings instead of four, but I used the entire sauce recipe because I tossed the sauce with the spaghetti and the shrimp, rather than just with the shrimp (as the original recipe suggested). They used regular half-and-half, which surprised (and pleased) me, since it was Cooking Light. I don’t like non-fat half-and-half because it contains corn syrup and an artificial color. I got a little carried away with the cilantro garnish, but here’s my adapted version.

Shrimp with Creamy Orange-Chipotle Sauce

Adapted from Cooking Light Fresh Food Fast, 5 ingredients, 15 minute recipes

¾ pound peeled and deveined large shrimp, preferably wild

¼ teaspoon ground cumin

Kosher salt

Canola oil

½ cup half-and-half

1 large chipotle chili, canned in adobo sauce

1 teaspoon grated orange rind

2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro, plus more if you want to use it as garnish

Hot cooked thin spaghetti or linguine

Toss shrimp with ground cumin and salt. Add about 2 teaspoons of canola oil in a medium-sized nonstick skillet, turn heat to medium-high, and sauté the shrimp 4 minutes or until shrimp are done, stirring frequently. Transfer shrimp to a serving plate and keep warm. In the meantime place the half-and-half, chili and orange rind in a blender and process until smooth.

To make the sauce, reduce heat to medium in the skillet, add half-and-half mixture to pan and cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add shrimp to sauce, then remove mixture from heat and toss with the hot cooked spaghetti. Serves 2.

Chicken with Tomatoes, Basil, and Feta served over Orzo

2009-10-22T14:47:00.000-04:00

This recipe for chicken with tomatoes, basil and feta comes from a Cooking Light special edition publication, Cooking Light 5 ingredient 15 minute cookbook with 136 recipes. It was on the news stands this past spring. I made a few changes of my own to the chicken, served it over orzo substituting almonds for the pine nuts and it was an instant hit in our family. Not only did it taste wonderful, it looked as good as it tasted, which is often not the case.

The 5 ingredient 15 minute idea must have been a success because they have expanded the idea and have a new cookbook – Cooking Light’s Fresh Food Fast with over 280 recipes.

When I first looked through Cooking Light’s Fresh Food Fast I thought it was a cross between Rachael Ray and Sandra Lee. Rachael because of the fast. Sandra Lee’s semi-homemade idea because the book suggests using, as an example, pre-chopped peppers, frozen rice, and bottled dressings, none of which I would normally use. However, because the chicken with tomatoes recipe was a hit, I decided to give the book a try, but with one exception. If a recipe called for bottled dressing as an example, I would simply make my own. Or with frozen rice, I would use my normal brown rice even though it takes 35 minutes to cook instead of ten.

I recommend the book if you are looking for dishes that require a minimum amount of time and effort and that are full of fresh flavors. In fact I like it so much that I will feature another recipe from the book in my next post.

Chicken with Tomatoes, Basil, and Feta

Adapted from Cooking Light’s Fresh Food Fast

2 6-ounce skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Extra virgin olive oil for sautéing

¾ cup grape tomatoes, halved

10 pitted Kalamata olives, halved

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

3 tablespoons crumbled feta cheese

1 tablespoon small basil leaves, torn

Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper to taste. Heat about 2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil in a 10” non-stick pan over medium high heat. Add chicken to pan; cook 6 minutes on each side or until done. Transfer the chicken to a serving platter and keep warm.

Remove the pan from the stove and let it cool a little. Meanwhile combine the tomatoes, olives, 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil in a medium bowl. Add the tomato mixture to the pan and heat over medium heat and cook 1 to 2 minutes or until tomatoes soften. Spoon over chicken. Top evenly with cheese and basil. Serve over Orzo with Slivered Almonds. Yield: 2 servings

Serve with Orzo with Slivered Almonds

Adapted from Cooking Light’s Fresh Food Fast

½ cup uncooked orzo

½ cup spring greens mix, coarsely chopped

2 teaspoons slivered almonds, toasted

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

½ teaspoon minced fresh rosemary

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Cook orzo according to package directions. I salted the water, which they didn’t suggest but I do not like pasta cooked without salt. Drain pasta when done. Toss the spring greens mix with 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, season to taste with salt and pepper, and toss with orzo and toasted almonds.

Several bloggers participate in a Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club. Among them include two of my favorite blogs, Val of More Than Burnt Toast and Helene of La Cuisine d’Helen. If you enjoy Cooking Light’s recipes as I do, you’ll want to check out their Supper Club by clicking to either of the above blogs. Val says they will also be featured on the Cooking Light blog site, Test Kitchen Secrets.

I’d rather be here today

2009-10-19T10:43:00.015-04:00

Today in the mountains of North Carolina we woke up to a frosty 27 degrees. I would much rather be on Elbow Cay in Abaco, where the current temperature is 75. We've also had a lot of rain this fall. It feels like fall slipped away almost before it got here and turned to winter.

To see more about the Abacos, please visit Abaco Escape, Sandy Estabrook’s gorgeous website which contains hundreds of beautiful photos of the area along with local information, including the beautiful deserted beach shown above on Elbow Cay in the Bahamas.

Pink Saturday & Awards

2009-10-17T01:00:00.052-04:00

Photograph by Kim Cornelison

This is the cover of Country Home, another magazine no longer in print. Frequently I’ll clip out decorating ideas from magazines. I love flea market finds, antiques and mixing old and new. While our house here is very traditional with wing chairs, ancestral portraits and old rugs, our little pied- a-terre in Florida has a more funky twist. I would love to find something for it like this cool crackled pink chest or the sassy painting of the girl. The fun is in the hunt, as they say.

Debbie of Dining with Debbie is a great gal that I met through blogging. She’s from Arkansas, my home state. She hosts Crockpot Wednesdays if you would like to join and she is also participates in the Pink Saturday fun, hosted by Beverly of How Sweet The Sound. She passed the Honest Scrap Award to me and I’m honored and pleased. Thank you very much Debbie. Because it’s Pink Saturday, I used the powers of Photo Shop to change the color of the Honest Scrap Award to pink. It’s really supposed to be orange.

Here are the rules as they were presented to me from Debbie:

- Post the (orange) Honest Scrap award on your blog. Present this award to seven others whose blogs you find brilliant in content and/or design, or those who have encouraged you.

- Tell those seven people they've been awarded HONEST SCRAP and inform them of these guidelines and ask that they link back to you.

- Share "Ten Honest Things" about yourself.

- This is the most important part. Use the “Orange” Honest Scrap Award, which is below. Please do “not” use the pink one. I changed the color from orange to pink just for Pink Saturday.

Original Honest Scrap Award

Here are a few things about me.

- I wake up in the mornings in a good mood, with almost no exceptions.

- I believe you’re as happy as you make your mind up to be.

- My given name is Suzanne, which I no longer use. I go by Sam, a nickname my husband gave me when we first met.

- If you believe that it’s possible to come back in another life, I would like to be either a singer or a wealthy person’s spoiled and pampered golden retriever.

- If I had to do it all over again, I would change only one thing: We would live in France for a while and remodel an old mas (farmhouse) in Provence.

- I think good manners are extremely important and are a part of learning to be a lady or a gentleman.

- I don’t like to drive. When we lived in the islands, we had no need for a car. We had a go fast, run-about boat (to take us to town) and a golf cart to get around on our tiny cay (a cay is smaller than an island), rather than walk in the heat to visit our neighbors. The cart was driven on a narrow, old coral road with not much traffic other than a few people walking along from house to house and a couple of other carts. Also, in the Bahamas they drive on the left, which took me almost the entire ten years we lived there to get accustomed to. When we returned to the states, Interstate 95 frightened me. It looked like the Daytona 500 with cars racing by on each side.

- By now, you've figured out I’m a blonde and for some reason I've had more than my share of "blonde moments" this week.

Here are some friends I’ve met recently. Tag, you’re it for the Honest Scrap Award.

Claudia ~ Journey of an Italian Cook

Kate ~ Serendipity

Maggie B ~ Normandy Life

The Quintessential Magpie

Diana ~ A Little Bit of Spain in Iowa

Collectin In Texas Girl

Pat ~ Mille Fiori Favoriti

Roz at La Bella Vita recently had an interesting post regarding commenting on blogs. I was one of the people who responded and she passed a wonderful award to me, amont others– the Nice Matters award.

Thank you so much Roz. I agree that nice most definitely mattera. Roz says there aren't any rules with this award, you don’t have to post it if you don’t want to, nor do you have to link back to anyone. I’ve been saving the Nice Matters award for the perfect time to say thank you to the right person. This week several people have gone out of their way to be nice to me, so I would like to say a big thank you to these three special friends and pass the Nice Matters award along to them.

Greg ~ Sippity Sup

Judy ~ Judy’s Kitchen

Beverly ~ How Sweet the Sound

Thank you Beverly of How Sweet the Sound for hosting this fun event. Happy Pink Saturday everyone.

Saying good-bye and au revior to my old friend Gourmet

2009-10-13T13:33:00.028-04:00

I was very sad to read Conde-Nast’s announcement that it would cease publication of Gourmet magazine after the November issue. I’ve read with great interest the recent stories written by people in the food world and their various opinions as to why a nearly seventy year old publication such as Gourmet would fold. While some have had controversial opinions that stirred up a bit of backlash and name calling on the internet, others reminisced about what made Gourmet what it was and those were a joy to read.

As my way of saying good-bye, I’ve included some favorite covers from my Gourmet collection.

The New York Times reported that one of the first things Gourmet’s editor in chief Ruth Reichl did after telling her staff that the publisher was closing Gourmet was to lock up the library with its collection of 70 years of cookbooks and typewritten recipes. Then she and her staff gathered bottles of wine and liquor from the office and held a wake in her apartment. Good for you Ruth. I hope you opened the good stuff.

The article went on the say that for an older generation it was a place where people learned how to cook and eat. “Gourmet was the only resource you had other than your cookbooks,” said Judy Walker, the food editor of New Orleans Times-Picayune. So true Judy. Gourmet was the first food magazine I subscribed to and we had to rely on our cookbooks. I learned my knife skills from the black and white drawings in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, one of my favorite cookbooks.

I don’t know if or when the lights will go out on Gourmet’s website or their archives after the transitional period, but here’s what they say: “The Gourmet.com website will remain available during a transitional period and access to Gourmet recipes will also remain available via sister site epicurious.com and the EPI Iphone application.”

I suggest you pop over to Gourmet’s Archives while you still can, because the archives contain a lot of good articles you won’t want to miss.

For example, Jacques Pepin’s tells Gourmet everything he ate and drank in a 24 hour period: “I love English muffins, so sometimes I’ll have half an English muffin with some jam that I might make, but that’s the most I would ever do for breakfast. [The voice of his wife, Gloria, in the background: “Corn flakes!”] Oh yes, I love corn flakes. I have them sometimes for lunch, but I haven’t had them in a long time.” Read more….

Or how about a charming story from Wolfgang Punk when he talks about fixing his children breakfast: “I have two small sons, Oliver and Alexander. One is four and one is two and a half. They come into our bedroom in the morning and say, “Papa, let’s make pancakes.” So I make pancakes and oatmeal for the kids. The little one prefers oatmeal most of the time and Oliver, the older one, eats pancakes.” Read more…

Laura Shapiro writes about what happened to James Beard: “Food lovers everywhere recognize his name, thanks to the James Beard Foundation and its well-publicized annual awards. But apart from the awards, usually given out around the time of his birthday, Beard has pretty much disappeared. He was a colossus in American cookery, and now he’s barely a memory. What happened?” Read more…

Can you name the twenty-five people who have changed food in America? It's in the Archives.

Good-bye old friend. I’ll miss you.

Celebrating Pink Saturday at the John C. Campbell Folk School Fall Festival in Brasstown, North Carolina

2009-10-10T01:00:00.083-04:00

Each year the John C. Campbell Folk School hosts a Fall Festival and I’m here to celebrate Pink Saturday. A group of bloggers from around the world get together on Saturday to celebrate everything pink and our hostess is Beverly of How Sweet The Sound. Today I’m here to find some pink, enjoy the craft booths and demonstrations and listen to some music.

Here's a friendly witch with bright pink feathers in her hat that highlight her Halloween costume.

I found more pink in a booth with gorgeous hand-blown glass sculptures. This glass platter was hand-formed by a talented local artist and is nearly 40 inches in diameter.

Last week I visited Crane Creek Vineyards and found a cute pink metal pig at their gate welcoming everyone to the tasting room. I believe I just spotted her sister. Don’t you love her? She’s aptly named “When Pigs Fly.”

Look at this cool airplane. Many years ago, when we were first married and before my husband owned his own plane, I would give him planes as a gift. Not the real thing of course - just stuff like wooden toy planes and collectables such as this beauty so I could say with great enthusiasm as I handed him his gift, “I bought you an airplane for your birthday.”

John C. Campbell Folk School sits on 300-acres in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in scenic Brasstown, North Carolina. The school offers a year-round roster of 860 sessions for adults in traditional skills such as basketry, calligraphy, batik dying, crafts, arts, music, dance, gardening, blacksmithing, and photography to name a few. In cooking, for example, there are forty-two different classes to choose from. The family-style meals provided during your stay feature organic produce grown on-site.

National Geographic Books listed the John C. Folk School as one of the 100 Best Vacations to Enrich Your Life. In their August 2009 issue Country Living Magazine featured an article, “Who says summer camp is just for kids?” about the school.

According to our local newspaper, The Cherokee Scout, more than 13,000 attended the Fall Festival, breaking all previous records from the past 36 years of the festival’s history.

Old time wood working – that little man bobs up and down as the artist works the machine

Broom maker

Blacksmith

Basketry & Wreaths – notice the beautiful dried pink hydrangea wreath

Caning

Metal sculpture – a glamorous rooster

Spinners

A grits grinding machine – you know I bought a bag or two for myself - Recipe for Shrimp & Grits

Food Alley

Forty different groups provided live music and dance

As part of the celebration of talented artists, I would like to introduce a fabulous blog I discovered through my Pink Saturday adventures, Fifi Flowers Design Decor. Fifi is a talented artist who believes life should be full of whimsy and fun. So do I Fifi. Do drop by and say hello and see Fifi’s incredible art work. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed. If you are a blogger and would like to join in the fun on Pink Saturday, be sure to contact Beverly for details. If you are interested in taking classes at the Folk School, call 1-800-FOLK-SCH for a free catalog or go to the John C. Campbell website.

Happy Pink Saturday everyone from the John C. Campbell Folk School in scenic Brasstown, North Carolina.

An easy dinner for houseguests - roasted chicken

2009-10-06T09:10:00.003-04:00

Roasted chicken is one of my favorite meals to prepare for guests. It’s easy and a crowd pleaser. We’ve had two different sets of houseguests in the last two weeks. First my brother-in-law and his wife were here for a long weekend and then friends of ours who bought one of our houses in the islands stopped by to spend the night on their way north to visit their son. I served the same meal to both couples – roasted chicken with homemade croutons and asparagus salad Brazilian with hearts of palm and grape tomatoes.

Recipe

I took two of my favorite roasted chicken recipes - Lemon Roasted Chicken with Croutons from Barefoot in Paris by Ina Garten and Grandmother’s Roast Chicken (Poulet Roti “Grand-Maman”) from Simply French, Patricia Wells presents the cuisine of Joel Robuchon and combined them into one. I love the simplicity of roasted chicken and lemons in Ina’s recipe and the sauce from Patricia Wells’ recipe is divine with its rich herb and garlic flavor. As you know if you watch The Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network, Ina and Patricia are friends so I’m sure they would approve of my combining their recipes.

I got the idea of combining the two recipes from a comment T.W. @ Culinary Types made on my post about Mark Bittman’s new Kitchen Express cookbook. T.W. said, “Sometimes, I will look at two recipes and try to come up with a hybrid.” I thought at the time that it was a great idea, so when I was planning the meals for our guests, I looked at both of these chicken recipes and said to myself why don’t you try combining them like T.W. suggested. And by golly, it was a success. Thanks T.W.

The homemade crouton recipe is from Ina. The croutons are prepared on top the stove and it’s so much easier because you don’t have to constantly check the pan in the oven to make sure they aren’t burning. I use this method of preparing croutons all of the time. Give it a try. I promise you’ll never eat another store-bought crouton again and it’s so easy they practically make themselves. Also make sure you use really good bread and good extra-virgin olive oil.

Roasted Chicken with Homemade Croutons

This is adapted from Lemon Roasted Chicken with Croutons from Barefoot in Paris by Ina Garten and Grandmother’s Roast Chicken (Poulet Roti “Grand-Maman”) from Simply French, Patricia Wells presents the cuisine of Joel Robuchon

1 (3 to 4-pound) roasting chicken

1 large yellow onion, sliced

Extra-virgin olive oil

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1 lemon, quartered

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1- 2 heads of plump fresh garlic, unpeeled, tops cut off

1 to 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary

Several sprigs of fresh thyme

6 cups (3/4-inch) bread cubes from a French baguette or boule

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Take the giblets out of the chicken and wash it inside and out. Remove any excess fat. Pat the outside of the chicken dry with paper towels, sprinkle the inside with salt and pepper and tuck the lemons inside. Brush the chicken with the melted butter and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Tie the legs together with kitchen string and tuck the wing tips under the body of the chicken. Put the sliced onions in a roasting pan, toss with a little olive oil and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Place the chicken on top of the onions and add the garlic, rosemary and thyme to the roasting pan.

Roast for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until the juices run clear when you cut between the leg and the thigh. Remove the chicken, onions, and garlic to a platter. Sometimes the onions may burn, but their flavor is good. Cover chicken with foil. At this point Patricia Wells places the chicken at an angle against the edge of an overturned plate, with its head down and tail in the air to heighten the flavor by allowing the juices to flow down through the breast meat. Then cover the chicken with foil, turn the oven off and place the chicken back in the oven with the door ajar and let it rest for at least 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat a large sauté pan with 2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil until very hot. Add the cubed French bread. Lower the heat to medium-low, season with salt and pepper and sauté the bread cubes, tossing frequently, until nicely browned, 8 to 10 minutes. Add more olive oil, as needed. When nicely golden brown, set aside.

For the sauce, place the roasting pan over moderate flame and scrape the bits that cling to the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Add juices from chicken that’s on the platter in the oven. Cook for 2 – 3 minutes, being careful not to let it burn. Discard any excess fat. Add 2 tablespoons cold water (hot water will cloud the sauce), white wine or dry vermouth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 5 minutes. Strain the sauce through a fine mesh strainer and reserve. Patricia Wells say straining the sauce makes for a finer, more elegant and smoother sauce and is well worth the effort. She believes it is this extra step that transforms an amateur’s efforts into a professional’s.

When you’re ready to serve, place the croutons on a platter. Slice the chicken and place it, plus any carving juices, over the croutons. Sprinkle lightly with salt and serve warm with the sauce. Yield: 4 servings. Excellent accompanied with Asparagus Brazilian.

Our friends from Abaco

Our friends arrived mid-afternoon. Around four o’clock I fixed a little pre-dinner pizza with smoked salmon. It’s one of my favorite appetizers and it’s adapted from Jacques Pepin.

Recipe

These were our two houses when we lived in the islands. They bought the one on the right, which we called Lazy Days. They’ve made some great changes to it, including a new dock and a white Bermuda roof, and renamed it Somewhere (from Over the Rainbow). An appropriate name don’t you think? Here’s a shot of the dock and our boat that we took from the front porch when we lived there.

Ending on a sad note, here’s a link to the story about Conde Nast’s closure of Gourmet magazine. It’s hard for me to envision life without this beautiful food magazine. It's probably the first food magazine I subscribed to. I will miss you old friend. How will Gourmets departure affect you?

Celebrating Pink Saturday at Crane Creek Vineyards & Winery in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Georgia

2009-10-02T12:31:00.069-04:00

On Saturday a group of bloggers from around the world get together to celebrate everything pink. Pink Saturday is sponsored by Beverly of How Sweet The Sound. In fact, it’s one of the reasons we came to the winery today – to enjoy a glass of pink wine. If you love pink salmon, be sure to visit Mary at One Perfect Bite. She prepared a yummy pink salmon chowder last Saturday and treated us to breathtaking (pink) photos of the San Juan Islands. If you would like to join in the fun, visit Bev and sign up for next week’s Pink Saturday.

We’re visiting Crane Creek Vineyards & Winery, which sits high in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Georgia, just a few miles from Young Harris, a quaint college town and in the shadow of Brasstown Bald, Georgia’s highest peak. Less than two hours north of Atlanta, it feels like it’s a world away. Sun kissed days, cool summer nights and rich mineral soils allow the winery to cultivate grapes with fresh, assertive aromas and concentrated flavors. In addition to blush and rose wine, they also produce a nice selection of reds and whites.

We stopped by their tasting room, housed in a charming old, yellow clapboard Georgia farmhouse that overlooks the vineyards and were greeted by a darling little metal pink pig at the gate. Inside we sampled a bottle of their Villard Noir, Blanc de Noir, 2008. Crisp and dry, it reminded us very much of the fabulous French rose wines we enjoyed during our trip to Provence a couple of years ago. While visiting with Chef David, he said he likes to serve this wine with figs and goat cheese drizzled with a little balsamic glaze. Sounds like a winner to me.

Crane Creek Vineyards is a great place for lunch. If you call ahead, they’ll prepare a cheese tray for you and customize it with various vegetable medleys or assorted antipasto meats. They also offer soup (today’s selection was Fresh Tomato) and a glass of wine.

On the grounds there’s a beautiful pavilion that’s perfect for parties or even a wedding, which sounds like a fantasy experience for a new bride to exchange vows in the vineyards and start a new lifelong journey with the one she loves.

Photo of wedding courtesy of Crane Creek Vineyards & Winery

Crane Creek is a member of the Wine Growers Association of Georgia. In December the association sponsors a Georgia Wine Highway Weekend. The participating wineries are all within driving distance of Atlanta, Asheville or Chattanooga. So if in mid December you’re feeling stressed-out and want to escape for a couple of days from the holiday hustle and bustle, the winery tour might just be the perfect weekend trip.

In addition to the winery tours in North Georgia, there’s hiking on the Appalachian Trail and plenty of trout fishing in the area. Crane Creek offers two lovely guest houses, one of which is located a few feet from Frogtown Creek, a branch of the Chestatee River, which is a certified Georgia trout stream. Regularly stocked with rainbow trout, it’s a trout fisherman's paradise.

We’re looking forward to Crane Creek’s upcoming Annual Harvest Day on Saturday, October 24, where they celebrate the completion of the year’s harvest with hayrides, grape stomping, winery tours and tastings. I’ll give Catawba a scratch on her ear and tell her I’ll see her on the twenty-fourth.

My husband Meakin raises a glass of this wonderful rose wine and we both wish you a very happy (and rosy) Pink Saturday from Crane Creek Vineyards & Winery located in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of North Georgia.

Houseguests for lunch and a secret to making good soup

2009-09-28T17:47:00.003-04:00

As you know from my previous post, it rained the entire weekend our house guests (my husband’s brother and his wife) were visiting. There’s nothing better for lunch on a rainy day than a good bowl of soup followed by a salad and perhaps a nap. Since our guests had an appointment to look at a house that’s for sale in the afternoon, we decided to save the nap for later and visit a local winery a few minutes away from the property they’re seeing with the realtor.

I believe I’ve found one of the secrets to making a really good soup. It’s how you sauté the vegetables. My mother used to throw the vegetables in without browning them first. While there’s nothing wrong with this and it does save a bit of time, if you brown the vegetables first your soup will have a much richer flavor. The second secret is to add the herbs and a little bit of tomato paste to the vegetables at the end of the browning stage. Here’s what I do. I start the vegetables on high heat, then quickly switch to low, season with salt and pepper, and cook them slowly until they are nice and brown taking care that they not burn. Then I add the herbs I’m using (thyme and fresh rosemary are my favorites) and a little tomato paste and cook the vegetables for a few more minutes until the tomato paste is blended in and begins to brown.

I adapted this bean soup from Pam Anderson’s Perfect Recipes for Having People Over. The mushrooms were my idea and I like using both the cremini and white button ones. You could easily leave out the prosciutto and sausage and substitute vegetable broth for the chicken used here and have a meal perfectly suited for a vegetarian guest.

White Beans & Sausage Soup

Adapted from Perfect Recipes for Having People Over by Pam Anderson

Olive oil

¾ pound of mild Italian sausage (or up to 1 ½ pounds as in the original recipe)

2 ounces thinly sliced prosciutto, minced

2 medium onions, cut into medium dice

2 medium carrots, peeled & cut into medium dice

2 medium celery stalks, cut into medium dice

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary

8 ounces sliced white button mushrooms

8 ounces sliced cremini (baby bella) mushrooms

1 quart chicken broth

3 16-ounce cans cannelloni or great northern white beans

Freshly grated Parmesan cheese for garnish

Remove sausage from its casings, crumble the meat (discard casings) and sauté in a ten inch non-stick skillet in a tiny bit of olive oil until nicely browned and fully cooked. Set sausage aside and wipe out the skillet.

Add about two tablespoons of olive oil to the skillet and sauté the prosciutto, onions, carrots and celery over high heat about three or four minutes until they begin to soften. Season with salt and pepper, turn the heat to low and continue to sauté until they are nicely browned, about ten minutes. Add the thyme, rosemary and tomato paste and cook for a couple of minutes, then remove the vegetables and set aside with the sausage.

Sauté the mushrooms in olive oil until nicely browned, seasoning with salt and pepper about half way through. Remove the mushrooms and set aside with the sausage and vegetables.

Smash the beans from one can with a fork, then add it and the remaining whole beans with their liquid to a soup pot along with the broth, vegetables, mushrooms and sausage. Cover, bring to a simmer, then reduce heat to medium-low and continue to simmer, partially covered, to blend the flavors, about 20 minutes. Turn off heat and let sit for 10 minutes for flavors to develop. Return soup to a simmer and serve. Can be made ahead and frozen. Before serving, sprinkle each person’s bowl with freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Makes eight servings.

Spinach salad with oranges and blue cheese

Make lemony vinaigrette by mixing together one part fresh lemon juice to three parts extra virgin olive oil and a dash of Tabasco in a jar with a tight fitting lid and shake well. Toss fresh baby spinach with the vinaigrette and top with fresh orange segments and blue cheese crumbles. Avoid buying pre-crumbled cheese; in my opinion it is dry and crumbling your own is well worth the effort.

This is the property they saw. One is of the pond in the summer and the other is of the barn after a fresh snowfall in the winter. As you can see the grounds were beautiful, but the house was on two levels and all of the rooms were extremely tiny. My husband and I have remodeled a dozen or so houses over the years and this one would be a major challenge.

Join us next time as we visit a local winery, Crane Creek Vineyards in nearby Young Harris, Georgia, and celebrate Pink Saturday.

What to serve house guests for breakfast

2009-09-24T13:26:00.039-04:00

This past weekend my husband’s brother and his wife flew down from Long Island and were our house guests. They came to take a look at our beautiful western North Carolina mountains to see if it’s a place they might like to live when they retire. If you watched the news over the weekend, you know that the entire southeast was drenched with rain and flooding. We live about a hundred miles north of Atlanta and within a fifteen minute drive of the northwest Georgia border and about the same distance from eastern Tennessee.

When we woke up Monday morning and watched the news from Chattanooga, the weather was so bad they listed the schools that were open rather than the ones that were closed because there were so many more closed than open. Knowing they didn’t want to miss their flight from Chattanooga that stopped briefly in Atlanta (where there was massive flooding) on the way back to New York, I decided to make something quick that we could eat for breakfast before we left for the airport. I choose Ina Garten’s Breakfast Fruit Crunch which I adopted from her Barefoot Contessa at Home cookbook. I used purchased granola, but Ina made her own and served her fruit crunch in parfait glasses. Since I didn’t have parfait glasses, I substituted martini glasses. I’ve never eaten granola with pineapple, but I found it quite refreshing. Feel free to substitute different fruit combinations, such as apples, pears, bananas and red grapes in the winter. Peaches or nectarines with blueberries, strawberries and kiwi would also be pretty. This recipe is my favorite breakfast for a guest in a hurry.

Breakfast Fruit Crunch

Adapted from Barefoot Contessa at Home by Ina Garten

8 to 10 strawberries, diced

½ cup blueberries

½ cup raspberries

¼ fresh pineapple, diced

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

2 cups plain Greek yogurt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 cups purchased granola, preferably flavored with vanilla

Combine the strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, pineapple and lemon zest in a bowl. Add 1 teaspoon cinnamon to the yogurt. If your granola isn’t flavored with vanilla, you might want add a little good vanilla extract, such as Nielsen-Massey’s Madagascar Bourbon, to the yogurt.

In four martini glasses alternately layer half the fruit, then the yogurt and sprinkle with granola. Top with remaining fruit and a few sprinkles of granola and a small dollop of yogurt. If you’re using parfait glasses which Ina used, you’ll be able to have two layers. In that case, alternately layer half the fruit, then half the yogurt and sprinkle with granola. Repeat with the second layer of fruit, yogurt and granola. Serves four.

Due to the terrible rains and flooding they were stuck in Chattanooga and then Atlanta for the better part of the day and half the night. Atlanta got 18” of rain in a 24 hour period and it caused $250 million in damage. A very sad situation for so many people.

We had a big, leisurely breakfast on one of the other mornings during their visit when we weren’t in a hurry. I served little turkey and sage breakfast sausages that I adapted from Emeril Lagasse along with scrambled eggs with tomatoes, fresh basil and cheddar cheese. I made the sausages in advance and froze them, which made breakfast easy on my husband, who volunteered to cook. One of his specialties is a Bismark (also called a Dutch Baby), and he made it with fresh raspberries, blueberries and plenty of powdered sugar for dessert. Dessert for breakfast? Why not?

Breakfast sausage with turkey, apples and sage

Adapted from Emeril Lagasse

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

1/4 cup finely chopped onion

1/4 cup very finely chopped Granny Smith apple

½ teaspoon minced garlic

1 pound ground lean turkey

1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage leaves

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon Hungarian paprika

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a 10-inch non-stick sauté pan over medium heat. Add fennel seeds and toast until golden brown in color, about a minute. Add the onions and apple to the pan and sauté until the onions are translucent and most of the moisture has evaporated from the apple, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add the garlic and sweat for 30 seconds. Remove from the heat and place the onion mixture on a plate to cool.

While the onion mixture is cooling, combine the turkey, sage, salt, pepper, paprika, cayenne pepper and nutmeg in a medium-size mixing bowl. Once the onion mixture has cooled, fold it into the meat mixture until blended. Form your meat mixture into small patties, which can be frozen on a sheet pan at this point if you wish or kept wrapped in the refrigerator for a couple of days.

To cook the patties, (thaw if frozen) heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a 10-inch non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add 4 patties and cook for about 3 minutes per side, or until cooked through. Remove from pan and serve warm. Repeat with the remaining tablespoon of oil and more sausage patties, if desired. Makes about eight small patties.

Val at More Than Burnt Toast made a similar breakfast sausage that I’m sure you would like. She used chicken and flavored it with pure maple syrup, which sounds absolutely divine.

Recipe

Stay tuned for lunch and dinner with house guests.

Falling in love with Mark Bittman's latest cookbook - Kitchen Express

2009-09-16T01:00:00.001-04:00

Award winning cookbook author Mark Bittman has done it again. He’s written another fresh and inspiring new cookbook - Mark Bittman’s Kitchen Express, 404 Inspired Seasonal Dishes You Can Make in 20 Minutes or Less, that has already become one of my current favorites

He’s taken a whole new approach from some of his other best selling cookbooks, such as How To Cook Everything, which has formally written recipes. He writes one paragraph instructions and talks you through the recipe, allowing you to do what you Mother did: add a pinch here and there and taste as you go. Don’t have an ingredient? Substitute what’s in your pantry or throw in some fresh herbs in you have them.

I can hear Mark’s friendly voice talking to me all the way through the book, like a big brother looking over my shoulder, offering suggestions but never in a pushy or bossy way. Perhaps it’s because his voice is so accessible to us on television and the internet. If you’ve ever once heard him talk to Al Roker on the Today Show about how easy it is to stuff a chicken breast, in the New York Times Food Section video when he first introduced his readers to Jim Lehay’s no-knead bread from the Sullivan Street Bakery in Manhattan in 2006, or trekking around with Mario Batali and Gwyneth Paltrow in the PBS series Spain – On the Road, you’ll know what I mean.

Heather of Girlichef first brought this new cookbook to my attention when she introduced it in her post, Souper Simple Tuna Bean Salad. She prepared the salad and served it, as Mark suggested, over chilled asparagus, but added her own touches including amazing black truffle sea salt. I thought to myself - I’ve made a tuna and bean salad very similar to this for years, but I’ve never thought of serving it on asparagus – what a clever and refreshing twist to an old favorite. And there my love affair began with this cookbook. Thanks Heather. I owe you one.

Here are two of my current favorite recipes, but I assure you my list of recipes to try is already long, starting with sophisticated sounding Seared Pork Paillards with Prunes and Olives and a yummy Tomato, Goat Cheese and Basil Strata. I’ve adapted the following two recipes to suit my taste and pantry.

Cajun-Style Salmon with Mixed Baby Greens

Adapted from Kitchen Express by Mark Bittman

Mix together the following blend of Cajun-style spices (or use a store bought Cajun spice mix): one teaspoon each paprika, coriander, cumin and dried oregano; one-quarter teaspoon each cayenne pepper and cinnamon. Add kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. Rub the spice mixture on the top of salmon fillets. Broil, spice side up, skin side down, or until desired doneness. If spice mixture begins to burn, turn the oven to 400 and bake until done. Serve the salmon on a bed of mixed organic baby greens that have been tossed with one part freshly squeezed lemon juice to three parts extra-virgin olive oil and seasoned with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Tuna and Bean Salad on Fresh Asparagus

Adapted from Kitchen Express by Mark Bittman

Whisk together 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice and 1 finely chopped garlic clove in a bowl. Add 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil or 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary (depending on the season), one 15-ounce can cannellini or great northern beans, drained and rinsed, 2 plum tomatoes, seeds removed, 3 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian flat-leaf parsley and toss together. Gently add one 6-ounce can of solid white tuna in water, drained and flaked or packed in olive oil if you prefer. Serve over freshly cooked asparagus spears.

Pink Saturday

2009-09-12T01:00:00.007-04:00

Beverly of How Sweet the Sound hosts Pink Saturday and I thought it would be fun to participate today. My husband and I were out on a leisurely Sunday afternoon ride a couple of weeks ago and couldn’t help but snap this photo. It aroused my curiosity. Do you suppose they painted their house pink first or painted their car pink first? Whatever the case, it has to be a one of a kind. This may carry the concept of matching shoes and handbags to a whole new level. I hope this free spirit owner of the pink house and a car to match brings a smile to your face and sunshine into your Saturday.

I first stumbled on to Pink Saturday visiting Plum Bush Cottage. Thanks Shirley and Beverly; this is fun. Be sure to click over to see some hot pink petunias in the coolest pink container ever at Shirley’s Plum Bush Cottage. Happy Pink Saturday everyone and enjoy your weekend.

A tribute to summertime, the Bradley County Pink Tomato and the early days of rock and roll stars

2009-09-08T06:04:00.002-04:00

It’s almost time to say good-bye to summer, although fall doesn’t officially start until September 22. Summer is my favorite season of the year, primarily because I love homegrown tomatoes. I grew up in the small town of Warren, in Bradley County in southeastern Arkansas. It was know as “the land of the tall pines and pink tomatoes.” Every year, during the second week in June, Bradley County celebrates with a Pink Tomato Festival honoring the Bradley County pink tomato, a special variety of tomato which holds the distinction of being Arkansas’ state fruit and vegetable.

In 1956 a small group of the town merchants and members of the Bradley County Chamber of Commerce, which included my father, decided to create an event to celebrate the tomato industry and help promote business in the area. The Bradley County Pink Tomato Festival was born. Since that one day event in 1956, the celebration the festival has grown into a week long affair and is one of the oldest continuous running festivals in Arkansas. A parade, complete with the governor riding in a convertible, and beauty pageant were added in 1957. The all-tomato luncheon has always been a favorite.

In fact this year in June of 2009 the residents of Bradley County set the worlds record for the longest BLT (bacon, lettuce and tomato) sandwich by making a 169-foot-long BLT, using 60 pounds of sliced Bradley tomatoes, 300 pounds of Arkansas Tyson bacon, 220 ounces of mayonnaise and 80 pounds of lettuce.

Photos courtesy of the Bradley County Chamber of Commerce

Over the years the market share for pink tomatoes has been eroding because supermarkets’ now rely on durable strains of tomatoes, picked green and forced to ripen after being removed from the vine. Thick skinned tomatoes are favored for this because they aren’t easily damaged in shipping. But we all know those supermarket tomatoes lack the flavor and texture of vine-ripened fruit. For Arkansas consumers, the vine-ripened pink tomato is still available in farmer’s markets and Warren continues to host the Pink Tomato Festival every June.

As I recall, about this same time as the merchants and chamber members were starting the festival, this same group of men put together the South Arkansas Fair & Marketing Association. One of the things I remember they did was to build a large pavilion where the farmers could bring their tomatoes to be graded and boxed for shipment and where the farmers could work with the various tomato buyers. The Fair & Marketing Association also hosted the Annual Bradley County Fair & Livestock Show.

My father was President of the Association when I was in about the seventh grade. He came home for dinner one night and announced that Otis Cash, one of the members, had a cousin named Johnny from nearby Kingsland who was an up and coming singer for Sun Records in Memphis, which was about the same time Elvis, the king of Rock and Roll, was recording for Sun and got his start in the music business. Johnny planned to bring a friend of his, another one of Sun’s recording artists named Jerry Lee, and they would be the entertainment for the Livestock Show that year. You’ve probably figured out by now I’m talking about Johnny Cash in the early years of his career. Johnny Cash went on to become one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century with early hits as “Folsom Prison Blues” and “I Walk the Line.” His friend was the one and only Jerry Lee Lewis who had just recorded two hits for Sun Records, “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and “Great Balls of Fire.”

Photo from New York Daily News

Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins & Johnny Cash surround Elvis Presley at Memphis' Sun Studios

It’s been years since I’ve thought about the Pink Tomato Festival or eaten a Bradley County Pink, as they are called. My father used to send us a case each year, but he’s been for gone twenty-five years and I probably haven’t been back to Arkansas but a few times since then.

Photo of Johnny Cash from Amazon.com

When my husband and I went to see the movie about Johnny Cash’s life, Walk the Line, a couple of years ago, I remembered that night in the fifties when he and Jerry Lee belted out their rock and roll songs around a grand piano on a stage in the rodeo arena in a sleepy small town in south Arkansas. My sister and I had pony tails back then and we probably wore our poodle skirts and saddle shoes as we sat in the front row in box seat at the livestock show of a small town rodeo along with our father watching rock and roll history unfold. Cash and Lewis went on to receive numerous awards and both were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Photo of Jerry Lee Lewis from Amazon.com

Life has strange ways of jogging your memory. Recently, through blogging, I’ve met a new friend from Arkansas, Debbie of Dining with Debbie. She has a wonderful food blog and while looking through some of her postings I found a series she did on “All About Arkansas.” I couldn’t resist catching up with my old home state and as I scrolled down past her post on President Clinton’s Library in Little Rock I found her Pink and more tomatoes post. There was the Bradley County Pink Tomato along with some great tomato recipes including tomato bacon jam (yummy), tomato relish and homegrown tomato juice from the Chef at the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion.

I wanted to come up with a way thank Debbie for her story on the pink tomato and helping me recall some memories from my youth when I remembered that Bella of Beauty Does Matter had given me the Splash Award which I had yet to pass on. The Splash Award is given to "alluring, amusing, bewitching, impressive, and inspiring blogs." Thank you so much Bella; I’m honored. Bella has a gorgeous blog and believes that choosing to surround yourself with beauty really does make a difference in life and I agree. She is currently featuring Happy Pink Saturday. What a coincidence that I’m passing the Splash Award to Debbie because of her pink post on tomatoes. So Debbie you’re welcome to pass the award along to up to nine blogs that allure, amuse, bewitch, impress or inspire you as much as you did me.

As I said earlier, summertime is my favorite time of the year and I’m really going to miss the homegrown tomatoes. What is your favorite time of the year and what will you miss most about summer?

Backstage with Julia by Nancy Verde Barr – a delightful behind the scenes look at life with Julia

2009-09-01T07:00:00.015-04:00

Photo from Julia Child & Company Cookbook

Backstage with Julia, My Years with Julia Child by Nancy Verde Barr is a lovely memoir of Barr’s years as Julia’s assistant. Barr worked for Julia for eighteen years on her TV shoes, cookbooks and articles, serving as executive chef for Julia’s live demonstrations and monthly features in Parade magazine and they became great friends. For foodies, this must have been a dream job. Her book is a delightful behind the scenes look at life with Julia and a “must read” for Julia fans such as myself.

Barr tells charming stories such as what it was like to go to dinner at the Childs. To Julia, “come for dinner” meant “we’ll cook dinner together first, then we’ll eat,” says Barr. Julia had a very casual manner of having guests cook with her, including the likes of Jacques Pepin or John Kenneth Galbraith, President Kennedy’s ambassador to India. They were all just cooks in the kitchen. With or without company, Julia’s meals were unpretentious. Unless someone brought an appetizer or the ingredients to make one, the only hors d’oeuvres were Pepperidge Farm Goldfish. Often dessert would be store-bought vanilla ice cream with very good bourbon drizzled on top.

The Childs preferred to eat in the kitchen unless there was a sizeable guest list and then dinner was served around their dining room table, which could seat twenty. Barr says Julia’s kitchen table was in the center of the room and permanently clothed in colorful Marimekko-style padded vinyl tablecloths. Can’t you just hear Julia saying to Barr, “We can just wipe them down. Whoosh!” as she made a quick wiping motion with her arm.

Photo of Julia’s kitchen from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History

When Julia moved to California from Massachusetts in 2001, she donated her kitchen to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and the exhibit is called “Bon Appétit.” Her husband Paul designed it for her in 1961 and for seven years the kitchen was the set for her television series. Millions, including myself, watched the shows. With her distinctive voice, I can remember her telling us to “shoot the wad” when buying the best ingredients and to “go whole hog” in fearlessly cooking them.

Photo from Julia Child & Company Cookbook

Julia didn’t like “crunchily undercooked vegetables,” as she called them. She told Barr, “I like my vegetables raw or cooked, but that in-between ridiculousness is inedible and I won’t eat them.” Way to go Julia – I totally agree.

Over the years Barr and Julia became friends. She simply adored Julia, but who didn’t? Julia had incredible energy and did not allow herself or others around her to use the T-word (tired) and it visibly annoyed her if anyone did. According to Barr, late one night after Julia had had an incredibly long day a woman approached her and said, “Oh, Mrs. Child. You did so much today. You must be exhausted.” The pathetic whine in the woman’s voice sent Julia into a stern, defensive stance. “I don’t exhaust,” Julia brusquely snapped back as she quickly turned away from the startled woman and lead Barr and her colleagues back to the hotel for a nightcap.

Barr says Julia’s total lack of pretention and nonchalance about her fame – how unaware she was of her own celebrity - surprised some journalist, many of which she invited over for lunch at her house. She says she can’t help but smile when she reads the account of how they expected to be served a gourmet lunch and instead got a tuna fish sandwich – albeit a very, very good tuna fish sandwich.

There are many more delightful anecdotes including how enamored Julia was with Charlie Gibson (currently the host of ABC's World News with Charles Gibson) and the magic that occurred between them on stage when she did her live spots on Good Morning American. Charlie once told Julia’s husband Paul, “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m in love with your wife.” “Not at all,” Paul said, “I’m in love with her myself.”

If you were in love with Julia and enjoyed the movie Julie and Julia, I guarantee you will love this wonderful book. I learned to cook from Julia and mastered my knife skills from the black and white drawings in her Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which I wrote about a while back. As Julia would say, “Bon Appétit.”

Broiled Salmon with Heirloom Tomatoes & Fresh Basil

2009-08-25T06:00:00.025-04:00

I originally found this recipe in Leslie Grover Pendleton’s fabulous book Simply Shrimp, Salmon and Fish Steaks. Leslie calls it sautéed salmon smothered in summer and it is definitely a summer dish to be made when the tomatoes are at their peak and the basil is fresh. It is healthy, easy to prepare and can be served warm or at room temperature. It truly is summer at its finest.

I’ve adapted Leslie’s recipe to our taste by broiling the salmon, which is our favorite method of cooking salmon and one we learned from Pierre Franey in The 60 Minute Gourmet. For the tomatoes I’ve used heirloom ones from our own garden. Cherokee Purples, Mortgate Lifters, Mr. Stripey and Brandywine are my favorites. Serve with asparagus or green beans with lemon and butter, as we have here.

Broiled Salmon with Heirloom Tomatoes & Fresh Basil

Adapted from Simply Shrimp, Salmon, and Fish Steaks by Leslie Grover Pendleton and The 60 Minute Gourmet by Pierre Franey

1 large vine-ripe tomato, preferably an heirloom

½ cup finely chopped fresh basil leaves

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 boneless salmon fillet, about 1 ½ lbs

Canola or peanut oil

Coarse kosher or sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Dice the tomato, season with salt and pepper and transfer it, along with all of its juices, to a bowl. Add the basil, lemon and 1 tablespoon olive oil and combine well. Let the sauce sit while preparing the salmon.

Preheat the broiler. Arrange the pieces of salmon in one layer on an unheated broiler tray or sheet pan, drizzle with a little oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. (I usually line the pan with heavy duty foil for easy clean-up). Place the salmon under the broiler about two or three inches away from the source of heat. Broil about 7 to 8 minutes or just until the pieces are cooked through. It is not necessary to turn the salmon. If it starts to burn, change from broil to bake and bake at 400 degrees until the salmon is done but still a little pink on the inside.

Slide the salmon onto a platter (with the skin side down) and smother, as Leslie calls it, with the tomato and basil mixture. Let it stand for at least 10 minutes to absorb some of the juices before serving. The salmon can stand at room temperature for up to 45 minutes or it can be refrigerated for up to 24 hours. Serves 4.

Kreativ Blog Award

I wish to thank Helene of La Cuisine d’Helene for the Kreativ Blog Award. I am deeply honored. She shares my passion for good food, is an incredible photographer and has some fabulous food on her blog. If you love good French bread which I do, check out Helene’s baguette or her post on Julia Child’s Mousseline au Chocolate.

The rules that accompany the award are:

1- Thank the person who awarded you

2- Copy the logo and paste it on your blog

3- Link to the person who nominated you for the award

4- Name (up to 7) things about yourself that people might find interesting

5- Nominate (up to 7) other Kreativ Bloggers

6- Post links to the blogs you nominate

7- Leave a comment on each of the blogs to let them know they’ve been nominated

I am passing the Kreativ Blog Award to some of my newest friends that I think you will enjoy as much as I do. Be sure to drop by and say hello.

- Laura’s Paris Cooking Notebook. Laura’s home base is Paris and she has incredible posts of her journeys and great food along the way. She grew up in Uruguay with a French grandmother. Don't miss her meal in the Loire Valley of France.

- Beauty Does Matter. Bella believes that surrounding yourself with beauty makes a difference in life, which I totally agree with. Her post of Loving Lavender is a perfect example along with the beautiful pink hydrangeas that greet you at the top of her blog.

- La Bella Cook, enjoying one recipe at a time. She is currently featuring Coquilles Saint-Jacques Provencale, one of my French favorites, but you’ll also enjoy the Spinach and Blood Orange salad with raspberry vinaigrette.

- Mystery Lovers Kitchen where six mystery writers, Avery, Julie, Jenn, Riley, Cleo and Krista share the blog and cook up crime…..and recipes too. They feature a weekly contest where they award $25 gift certificate to Williams Sonoma. If that’s not reason enough to click over, then their post Death by Chocolate -what a way to go, should get your attention.

Following rule number 4 of the award, here are a few things about me: I grew up in a small town in southeast Arkansas and graduated from college with a Bachelor of Business Administration, which during the sixties was considered a man’s degree. I was the only woman in all of my college business classes and, as far as I know, the first to graduate from the Monticello campus of the University of Arkansas with this degree. Obviously skipping a class was out of the question as my absence would have certainly been noticed. My first career was in management for what I call big league retailers, such as Federated Department Stores, Saks Fifth Avenue as well as Estee Lauder, where I had an opportunity to travel. Like many couples, we moved a lot with our careers and lived in many different places over the years.

Later I joined my husband in his business and we owned an industrial supply company where I was able to put my purchasing and marketing skills to good use. It was quite a change from face creams and lipsticks to pipe wrenches and screwdrivers. We retired early when my husband was fifty-three and followed our dream of living on a tiny tropical island in the Bahamas for ten years. There we had the time of our lives, but sooner or later one has to move back to reality and we now live, as you know, in the beautiful cool mountains of western North Carolina. I love anything French, adore Provence and collect early American antique furniture. I listen to classical music and Jimmy Buffet tunes. I am an avid reader, watch golf and tennis. I became a Nascar fan when we lived in the islands and some of the drivers and car owners brought their yachts and sportfish boats to a marina near us in the summer (little Dale is my man). .

Here’s an old publicity photo taken for the Houston newspapers when I worked for Estee Lauder in the mid seventies.

That’s me on the left with the short blonde curly hair standing next to then Houston Mayor Fred Hofheinz, whose father Roy Hofheinz (who also was a Mayor of Houston), built the Astrodome and created the Houston Astros. Standing between my two Lauder colleagues is New York City Mayor Abe Beam. New York City’s Tourism Directors had just chosen “The Big Apple” as their new advertising campaign and Mrs. Lauder created a fall line of apple colors to promote the new city logo and we’re showing it off to the mayors.

No Cooking Today

2009-08-17T15:34:00.010-04:00

There will be no cooking for me today because it’s my birthday. It’s also the day my husband Meakin proposed to me forty years ago at this beautiful fountain in Houston, Texas. This photo was taken by my husband the day he proposed and it’s faded somewhat and stuck in an old album, thus it isn’t as sharp as it once was.

The fountain, known as one of the Mecom Fountains, is at the middle of the five way intersection of Main, Montrose and Herman Drive in Houston, Texas, near Rice University and the Medical complex. It was beautifully lit at night but our photo of the lit fountain has seen the effects of what heat does to plastic album covers and is not worthy of showing. It is across from what was then the stately Warwick Hotel. The fountain is named after John Mecom, Jr., a wealthy and successful Houston oil and cattleman who, at the time, owned the Warwick Hotel in the background. Mr. Mecom also founded the New Orleans Saints NFL team in 1966 and was well known in the Indy car racing world with his Mecom Racing Team. Successful drivers such as A.J. Foyt, Roger Penske and Jackie Stewart drove for his team.

Since then the Mecom Fountains have experienced some bad times. In the fall of 2006 someone stole the 264 bronze canisters that lit the fountain. After staying in the dark for months, it got some help with floodlights from high atop the nearby Hotel ZaZa and is beautiful once again. Fortunately for us our marriage seems to have had a better fate through the years than the fountain.

I met my husband on a blind date. My roommate had a friend in the Army and he and my future husband, who was also in the Army at the time, came to Houston for a visit. He tells everyone he found me in the bargain basement at Foleys Department Store, which is true. I had been recruited off campus at the University of Arkansas to be in Foleys Executive Management Program and was an Assistant Buyer in Women’s Sportswear at the time. We lived in Houston during the early years of our marriage and, as a coincidence, later belonged to the fancy private club that had an outside glass elevator that took you to the penthouse club of John Mecom’s Warwick Hotel that overlooked the fountain where I said yes and we’ve lived happily together ever after.

Trout with Lemon Sage Butter Sauce and Provencal Potato Salad

2009-08-11T07:00:00.021-04:00

Trout fillets are one of the easiest and quickest fish to prepare. I liked to saute them in a non-stick skillet with the least amount of oil I can get by with. Pair them with a colorful potato salad and perfectly cooked green beans and you can have dinner on the table in well under an hour with a minimum amount of work. I’ve used fresh sage from my herb garden.

Whether you are visiting friends in Idaho who have a trout stream in their back yard, such as our friends in Island Park do,

or you catch mountain trout from the banks of the many beautiful streams and rivers, such as the Cullasaja, here in the mountains of western North Carolina

or you buy your trout at the supermarket, it’s perfect for a simple dinner.

Trout with Lemon Sage Butter

Adapted from Gourmet magazine

Soak trout fillets in milk for about thirty minutes. Remove and pat dry. Season the trout with salt and freshly ground black pepper and dredge lightly in quick mixing flour, such as Wondra. Sauté the trout in a small amount of neutral tasting oil, such as canola, in a non-stick skillet, turning once until they are nicely browned and done, taking care not to overcook them. Remove the trout and set aside. Meanwhile melt some sweet, unsalted butter in a small sauce pan. When the butter is melted, remove it from the heat and toss in a little finely grated fresh lemon zest and a few chopped fresh sage leaves. Drizzle the trout with lemon butter sage sauce.

Provencal Potato Salad

Adapted from Gourmet magazine

12 oz. small red or white potatoes, peeled or not, your choice

Splash of white wine, vermouth or hot beef broth

5 – 6 tablespoons good olive oil

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1/2 of a sweet red bell pepper, seeded and cut into thin strips

1 small red onion, thinly sliced

3 scallions, chopped, including some of the green tops

1 small clove of garlic, finely chopped

1/4 cup Kalamata olives, pitted and halved lengthwise

3 tablespoons drained and chopped oil packed sun-dried tomatoes

2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian flat leaf parsley

Cut potatoes into halves or quarters, depending on their size, and cook in gently boiling salted water until done, about ten minutes. Drain and toss immediately with a splash of white wine, vermouth or hot beef broth. Season lightly with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Quickly whisk together the oil and vinegar and pour it over the warm potatoes. Toss to coat. Add the bell pepper, onion, scallions, garlic, olives, sun-dried tomatoes and parsley. Toss potatoes again and let stand about thirty minutes. Check for seasonings and serve at room temperature. Makes 2 servings.

Asparagus Salad Brazilian with Hearts of Palm, Grape Tomatoes and Red Onion Slivers

2009-08-02T07:13:00.008-04:00

Asparagus with hearts of palm, grape tomatoes and slivers of red onion tossed in a lemony olive oil vinaigrette is one of our favorite salads. It’s easily put together in fifteen minutes or less and is very colorful on the plate.

Asparagus is one of the few vegetables where fat is better than thin.

Look for straight, fresh looking, bright green stalks with compact tips. Asparagus is usually sold in bundles. When choosing a bundle, I first look at the tips for freshness, avoiding those with tips that are open, and then I turn the bundle over and look at the bottom of the stalks. If the bottoms look old and dry like a stick, don’t buy that bundle. Asparagus continues to age and toughen after it’s been harvested, so the sooner you cook it the better.

Hearts of palm are vegetables harvested from the soft core of a palm tree and imported from Latin American countries such as Brazil and Puerto Rico and are sold in cans or jars in the vegetable aisle of the supermarket. They are ivory-colored with a firm texture. Their flavor is delicate and some say is similar to an artichoke.

To prepare the asparagus for cooking, snap off the tough ends as far down on the stems as they will snap off cleanly and discard. If stalks are thick, peel the lower portions with a potato peeler up to the tender part just below the tips.

Asparagus Salad Brazilian with Hearts of Palm, Grape Tomatoes and Red Onion Slivers

Serves 4

1 ½ pounds fresh asparagus, prepared for cooking as described above

Beef broth

2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 finely chopped shallot

Dash Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Dried tarragon to taste

Salt & freshly ground black pepper

6 to 8 slices of hearts of palm, sliced into ¼” coins

½ pint of grape tomatoes, sliced in half

One small red onion, thinly sliced into slivers

Lay asparagus down in a skillet that can hold them without crowding. Add equal parts water and beef broth to cover the spears, season with salt, cover the pan and bring to a boil over high heat. As soon as the water boils, remove lid and simmer on low about four minutes or cooked until the thick part of the stem can be pierced with a knife. Remove asparagus with a spatula onto a clean kitchen towel and roll gently to remove the water. Serve immediately or plunge the spears into an ice water bath to preserve their color.

For the vinaigrette, put the lemon juice, olive oil, chopped shallot, a dash of Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce and a good pinch of dried tarragon in jar with a tight fitting lid and shake well until blended.

Slice the asparagus in half and put in a bowl. Add the hearts of palm coins, the tomatoes and onion slivers, and toss gently with just enough vinaigrette to moisten. You may have some vinaigrette left over, in which case it can be stored in the covered jar in the refrigerator for several days. Season the salad with salt and freshly ground black pepper and let it marinate at room temperature for about 30 minutes before serving.

Fresh tuna two ways - Seared Tuna Steaks with Asian Coleslaw and Wasabi Aioli Dipping Sauce and a Tuna Tartare appetizer

2009-07-27T10:46:00.030-04:00

Fresh tuna is meaty and lean and one of our favorites. However, like any fish, it’s important that you have the freshest available. For tuna steaks, if you like yours rare, or even medium rare, be sure to choose steaks that are about an inch thick. A thin steak will overcook quickly and for us it’s a sin to overcook tuna. If you’re making tartare you can use a thinner piece because it’s going to be chopped. We like to serve our tuna steaks with a wasabi aioli dipping sauce.

I’ve prepared Asian Coleslaw as a side dish for the tuna steaks. This is a very versatile slaw and one of our favorites because it’s not sweet or dressed with mayonnaise. It could be called skinny slaw because it’s not full of the calories associated with mayonnaise. Sometimes I use an ordinary head of green cabbage and dress it simply with the vinegar, soy sauce and dark sesame oil and throw in some sliced scallions for color. Other times I’ll dress it up with the red peppers and snow peas as I have here. I also like to toast black sesame seeds in a hot skillet for a few minutes and add them to the slaw. It’s also good with finely minced fresh ginger and chopped fresh cilantro or a finely chopped jalapeno pepper for zing. I’ve even chopped peanuts and used them as a garnish. Let you imagination run wild here – almost anything goes.

Seared Tuna steaks with black and white sesame seed crust

2 (6 ounce) fresh tuna steaks, about one inch thick

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

One tablespoon each black and white sesame seeds

Salt and pepper tuna steaks. Dredge tuna on both sides with the black and white sesame seeds and briefly set aside. Heat a black, cast-iron skillet over high heat until skillet is almost smoking. Add tuna and cook one minute or so on each side for rare, 2 – 3 minutes for medium rare. Remove tuna from the skillet, let rest for a few minutes before serving. Serves 2. Serve with wasabi aioli dipping sauce if desired.

Wasabi aioli dipping sauce

We like our wasabi sauce with a kick to it so we use 1 ½ tablespoons of powder to 1 tablespoon of water. Most recipes call for equal parts wasabi powder to cold water.

1 ½ tablespoons wasabi powder

1 tablespoon cold water

1 teaspoon or more finely chopped garlic

½ cup best quality mayonnaise, such as Hellmann’s

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Dash of fresh lemon juice

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Mix the wasabi powder with cold water in a small bowl and set aside for about 30 minutes. Add wasabi powder to mayonnaise, then mix in remaining ingredients and blend well. Refrigerate sauce for thirty minutes for flavors to marry. Serve cold.

Asian flavored coleslaw

½ of a sweet, red bell pepper, thinly sliced

12 – 15 snow peas, cut in half lengthwise

Peanut or canola oil

½ head of Napa cabbage, thinly sliced

1 large scallion, white and green parts, sliced on the diagonal

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

2 tablespoons soy sauce, preferably low sodium

1 tablespoon (or more to taste) Asian dark sesame oil

Heat about a tablespoon of peanut or canola oil in a 10” non-stick skillet over medium-high heat and sauté red bell pepper strips and snow peas two to three minutes until beginning to brown but still crisp tender. Season with salt and pepper, remove from skillet and set aside.

Place thinly sliced cabbage in a large bowl, add scallion, vinegar, soy sauce and dark sesame oil and toss to blend. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add reserved pepper and snow peas and check for seasonings. Serves 2

When we lived in the Bahamas, tuna was on the menu frequently. This is a picture of my husband and his friends with their catch, still dripping with salt water. Tuna tartare is my husband’s specialty and he tastes and blends as he goes. If you haven’t caught the tuna yourself and know the freshness, tell your fish monger that you plan to eat it raw when you purchase it. He’ll either give you an extremely fresh piece or tell you he would advise against buying what he has. In that case, leave it at the store.

My husband has been making this tartare for years and it turns out that it’s very similar to the tuna tartare recipe in Simple to Spectacular by Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Mark Bittman. After reading their recipe, we’ve started to give it a few extra shakes of hot sauce and have included chopped chives, as they suggested. Be sure to make this at the very last minute or the lime will cook the tuna and make it mushy.

Tuna Tartare Appetizer

Cut 1 lb of best quality tuna into small cubes. Combine the tuna with 1/2 teaspoon or more (if you like it spicy) of hot sauce, such as Tabasco, a squeeze or two of fresh lime juice, 2 tablespoons good extra-virgin olive oil, Kosher salt to taste, and a tablespoon of minced fresh chives. Garnish with a chive blossom. Serve at once on neutral tasting cracker such as Carr’s or Stoned Wheat Thins or on thin slices of a toasted French baguette. Serves 4 as an appetizer.

Splash Award

I am extremely pleased that Sophie of Sophie’s Foodie Files has passed the Splash Award to me. This award is given to blogs that make a Splash. Thank you very much Sophie, I am honored.

Sophie lives in Brussels, Belgium, is a real foodie and presents lots of great food. One of my favorite recipes of hers is a Smoked Salmon Ricotta Wrap that she says makes you feel like summer when you’re eating them. They are a work of art with the soft pink salmon, white ricotta and bright green arugula and basil leaves. These wraps make a tasty and quick summer lunch.

Blogging has been such fun and has allowed me to find so many new friends with which I share common interests. Therefore I would like to pass the Splash Award along to two of my North Carolina friends, Kaye Barley and Vicki Lane.

Kaye’s blog, Meanderings and Muses, is always a bright spot in my day. She says her blog is where a conversation might last a day, a week, or a month and then pop back up again for another go round. If you love the sweet southern way of life, which I do, you’ll enjoy Meanderings and Muses. Kaye recently hosted a girlfriend get together and prepared, among other things, a wonderful country pate. If you’re looking for a great pate recipe, which, by the way, serves twenty to twenty five, be sure to check it out. It’s a keeper. We also both love The Pat Conroy Cookbook where Pat spins southern tales as only he can and shares some great seafood recipes.

Vicki of Vicki Lane Mysteries is the author of The Elizabeth Goodweather Appalachian Mysteries from Bantam Dell and is currently writing her sixth novel. She is a very talented photographer and gardener and her blog is filled with fabulous pictures of her farm, garden and flowers. Don’t miss her post on “Girls Just Want to Cook”. If you’re anywhere near Asheville, NC in September, which by the way is a gorgeous month here, Vicki is teaching a Writer’s Boot Camp for Popular Fiction. If you are a writer in process but you still have some questions, or if you've been thinking about beginning a novel, this is the class for you. For more information, click on to her blog.

In search of the perfect tomatoes for a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich

2009-07-20T09:57:00.027-04:00

Saturday morning we woke up dreaming of a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich for lunch made with the finest, freshest tomatoes we could find. We decided to go to downtown to the Farmers Market and see if they had some heirloom tomatoes, preferable Cherokee Purples, for our sandwich.

Every Saturday morning farmers, potters, artists, weavers and gardeners gather in downtown Murphy in the mountains of western North Carolina to sell their wares. It’s always a festive affair with balloons, kids waving posters in the street advertising a car wash, and this week the Marines were having a fundraiser. This is a typical small town in America on Saturday morning.

Our mission was to find tomatoes for lunch so our first stop was the organic food booth of Frances and Stephen of Candy Mountain Farms. They have gorgeous fresh produce and know their stuff when it comes to gardening. In fact Frances teaches an organic gardening class at the John F. Campbell Folk School in nearby Brasstown.

I could taste the bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich we would soon be enjoying for lunch as we purchased a couple of heirloom, dark ruby colored Cherokee purple tomatoes, a head of bright green Bibb lettuce with dew still clinging to its leaves and a bunch of just cut sweet basil from Frances. While at their booth my husband visited with a another gentleman who was selling juicy red tomatoes fresh from his garden, so we bought a few of his to supplement the small yellow Golden Jubilees we had picked earlier from our own garden. A trio of colorful red, purple and yellow tomatoes sounded perfect for our sandwich.

We can’t go to the Farmers Market without stopping by two of our other favorite booths to say hello. In small towns all across American such as this, everyone knows just about everyone. Our first stop after the tomatoes was The Secret Garden, a weaver who has gorgeous handmade scarves and shawls along with other goodies, such as a teddy bear looking very handsome wearing one of her beautiful sweaters. I mentioned how much I enjoy wearing the golden yellow shawl I purchased from her last year while my husband bought a bag of her fragrant lavender potpourri. We admired others handy work as we strolled over to say hi to Roy and see his pottery. I would love to have one of his dark red rectangular bakers, which would be perfect for lasagna.

There’s nothing that says summer more than a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich and a recipe isn’t required.

What is required is to use the very finest of ingredients and sit back and enjoy the results as the tomato juice runs down your chin as you take your first bite. We cooked thick applewood smoked bacon and made basil mayonnaise by mixing best quality mayonnaise such as Hellmann's with chopped fresh sweet basil, a dash of fresh lemon juice and plenty of freshly ground black pepper. This is not the time to use low-fat or inexpensive mayo. Remember, we said the very finest ingredients possible. Often we use sourdough toast for these sandwiches, but today we chose fat Kaiser rolls that we buttered and grilled.

Small town living doesn’t get any better than this on a beautiful Saturday morning in the mountains of North Carolina.

Duncan Hines, America’s first modern food critic and grits at the Old Southern Tea Room in Vicksburg, MS

2009-07-13T07:00:00.034-04:00

Duncan Hines, now known for his cake mixes, was a traveling salesman for a Chicago printer in the 1930's, but he was also American’s first modern food critic. At the time there was no interstate highway system in the US and only a few chain restaurants existed. Hines and his wife began a list of several hundred good restaurants that they enjoyed on their travels.

In 1935 he began selling a paperback book, Adventures of Eating, which highlighted his favorite restaurants and dishes that he personally enjoyed in cities and towns across America. The book gained in popularity and favorably recommended restaurants hung signs in their window that read “Recommended by Duncan Hines.” The Duncan Hines endorsement was highly regarded and he could make or break a restaurant’s reputation. His favorable opinion was considered as good as gold.

One of the restaurants that displayed the “Recommended by Duncan Hines” sign was the Old Southern Tea Room in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Vicksburg sits on the banks of the mighty Mississippi and its Civil War Battleground attracts many visitors each year.

A Pilgrimage is held each year and the gorgeous old antebellum homes on the tour polish their best silver and roll out the red carpet for thousands of visitors. In 1941 the Vicksburg Pilgrimage Committee persuaded Mary McKay, a local southern lady well known for her cooking skills, to manage a tea room as a civic venture for six weeks only with the building and all of its equipment to be lent by the civic-minded. The tea room was a success and Mary McKay kept it going with one hundred dollars credit and a “minus-a-door" stove that cost $7.50. After five years it was debt-free and one of the nation’s most famous restaurants. The Old Southern Tea Room proudly displayed the Duncan Hines sign as well as one from AAA. When Duncan Hines was interviewed on his return from Europe, a reporter asked him what was the first thing he wanted to do. He said, “I would like to go to the Old Southern Tea Room in Vicksburg, Mississippi and enjoy the Stuffed Garden Eggplant and Corn Pudding.”

We lived in Vicksburg in the eighties and loved it. It's a true southern city. There’s a cute story that our friend Rigby Maupin told about grits and the Old Southern Tea Room in Vicksburg’s Junior League Cookbook, Ambrosia. Rigby is a great storyteller and we enjoyed his sense of humor. Seems one morning, according to Rigby, a gentlemen and his family that were touring the city went to the Old Southern Tea Room for breakfast. Apparently the man wasn’t in the best of moods, because when his breakfast arrived he asked the waitress, “What’s this white stuff on my plate?”

“Grits, sir.”

“I didn’t order any grits and I’m not about to pay for them,” he said, getting more irritated by the minute.

“Fine, sir.”

“You apparently don’t understand. I didn’t order grits and I don’t want them on my plate.”

“Sir, no one orders grits at the Old Southern Tea Room. They just comes.”

And with that she flatly refused to take them off of his plate.

By the way, I've been on a short holiday with my husband and we didn't have internet access while we were gone. I missed every one of you and it's so much fun to be back home. While I was gone I read Molly Wizenberg's great book A Homemade Life. She has a friend who says the only reason he travels is for an excuse to eat more than usual. I agree.

Low Country Shrimp and Grits

2009-07-06T07:00:00.022-04:00

We were houseguests at a friend’s home on the outer banks of North Carolina several months ago and they served Shrimp and Grits for breakfast, elevating the morning meal to a higher level. So when we had houseguests recently, we prepared the same. The cheese grits topped with pink shrimp, browned bacon and mushrooms, garnished with shreds of green scallions make an elegant presentation. If serving for dinner, accompany with lima beans or sautéed cherry tomatoes.

If at all possible use fresh wild shrimp. They are vastly superior to the farm raised ones. In fact farm raised tiger shrimp have almost ruined my love of shrimp because of their inferior, bleach-like taste and mealy texture.

Low Country Shrimp and Grits with Mushrooms and Bacon

1 pound unpeeled, medium-size fresh wild shrimp

2 tablespoons lemon juice

¼ teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper

4 strips of bacon

2 tablespoons canola or other neutral oil

6 ounces sliced mushrooms, about 3 cups

1 garlic clove, finely minced

¼ cup chopped onion

¼ cup finely chopped sweet red bell pepper

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

¾ cup shrimp stock or chicken broth

Green tops of scallions thinly cut on diagonal for garnish

Peel & de-vein shrimp, saving peels. Combine shrimp, lemon juice, salt, and ground red pepper in a small bowl; set aside for 10 minutes and no longer than 20 minutes or the citrus will begin to cook the shrimp. To make the shrimp stock (which is really better than chicken broth), boil the shrimp shells in lightly salted water for a few minutes and strain; discard shells and retain the broth.

Place the bacon in a 10” non-stick skillet and cook over medium heat until it browns. Remove bacon from skillet, leaving 3 tablespoons drippings in the skillet. Reserve skillet for later. Crumble bacon when cool and set aside.

In a separate 10” non-stick skillet, pour in canola oil and heat over medium heat. Add the mushrooms to the hot oil and cook, tossing and stirring, until the mushrooms give up their liquid. Salt and pepper to taste, add the garlic and cook briefly, stirring. Turn the off heat and set aside.

Cook the onion and sweet red bell pepper in bacon drippings in the reserved skillet over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, about 10 minutes. Sprinkle flour over vegetables; cook, stirring constantly, about 2 minutes or until flour begins to brown. Add shrimp & shrimp stock; cook, stirring constantly, 2 to 3 minutes or until shrimp turns pink and the gravy is smooth. Do not overcook the shrimp. If gravy is too thick, add water or broth as necessary. Add the mushrooms, crumbled bacon and stir to blend.

To serve, place cheese grits in individual bowls, top with shrimp mixture in the center and sprinkle thinly sliced green scallion tops around the edges of the bowl. Serves 4.

Cheese Grits

1 cup grits, not instant

1 & ½ cups water

1 & ½ cups milk

1/2 teaspoon salt

6 ounces sharp Cheddar cheese, finely grated

Freshly ground nutmeg

4 drops hot sauce, such as Tabasco

Bring the water and the milk to a boil, add salt and gradually stir in the grits. Cook according to package directions. When thickened, remove from heat, stir in cheese, a dash of nutmeg, and 4 drops of hot sauce.

Quick grits will take about 5 to 7 minutes on the stove top and old-fashioned grits will take about 30 minutes, so plan accordingly. I learned a little trick about grains such as grits when we lived in the tropics. If you have those pesky little mealy bugs, store the grits in an air-tight container with a bay leaf.

If you love grits as much as I do, you’ll enjoy The Lee Brothers Southern Cookbook. I think I counted seventeen grits recipes in it not including chocolate ice cream grits, making it worth the read alone just for the grits. Matt and his brother Ted combine grits with everything imaginable – goat cheese, Clemson blue cheese, summer herbs, slab bacon and cheddar, fry them into cakes, but my favorite recipe of theirs is lemon grits which I like to serve with broiled or sauteed fish.

The Lees prefer old-fashioned stone ground grits to quick or instant grits. They take about thirty minutes to prepare, but they are much creamier than quick or instant ones. If you can find them, I recommend them highly. I learned from the Lees to use half milk and half water for the cooking liquid, which makes richer grits.

Join me next time as I continue my series on Grits and the South.

A trip through the Nantahala Gorge on our way to visit friends and have lunch at Zink American Kitchen, a popular uptown eatery in Charlotte, NC

2009-07-01T07:00:00.000-04:00

Last week old friends that we’d met when they were cruising on their sailboat in the islands near our home in Abaco invited us to visit them in Charlotte, NC. As we left our home in western North Carolina, the fog was just lifting in the mountains of Cherokee County.

Traveling about thirty minutes east on Highway 19/74, we entered into the Nantahala National Forest. The highway is a serpentine, narrow two-lane road that was once part of the Native American Indian Trail of Tears and winds it way beside the Nantahala River. The river begins high in the mountains and then flows through the Nantahala Gorge, which is narrow and steep. The word Nantahala comes from the Cherokee Indians and means land of the noonday sun. In some areas along the gorge, the sun reaches the ground only when it’s directly overhead. The Nantahala is one of the most popular rivers in the world for whitewater rafting and kayaking.

We arrived in Charlotte around lunch time. Charlotte is a vibrant, cosmopolitan city and a banking capital with the home offices of Bank of American and Wachovia as well as the hub for Continental Airlines. Our friends live in the city so they suggested we walk to Zink American Kitchen, a popular uptown restaurant. As we entered the restaurant we couldn’t help but be impressed with the thirty foot long zinc bar and the deep crimson décor. They told us on the walk over that the chef likes to take traditional American comfort food and reinvent it.

I knew I was at home when I picked up their extensive menu and noticed that they had a Grits Bar. They offer two grits selections as side dishes, or grits du jour as the French would say. I’m from the deep south, so how was I to pass up today’s grits with pimento cheese and ham? It was pure heaven for this little southern girl.

Inspired by Greg at Sippity Sup who does fabulous job with his different food series, such as tomato mania and burgers, I decided right then and there that I would do a series on grits.

My (current) favorite grits recipe comes from Southern Living magazine. It’s a Cheddar Cheese Grits Casserole that always gathers rave reviews. We recently served it for breakfast along with herbed scrambled eggs on wheat toast when we were visiting our family in Florida. Our nephew’s five year old daughter said when she returned to the kitchen with her empty plate, “that’s the best breakfast I’ve ever had.”

I cooked my grits in a soufflé dish, but Southern Living used an 11 x 7 casserole which would allow you to cut squares for serving. Sometimes I add fresh herbs, such as parsley and basil, to the grits mixture for flavor and color.

Join me next time as I prepare one of my very favorite dishes – Shrimp and Grits.