Innholdsfortegnelse for April - May 2009 i Taste of the South

PHOTOGRAPHER KAMIN HOYLE AND I SPENT THREE days happily exploring the eateries Robert St.John selected as the tastemakers of Jackson, Mississippi, for his article that begins on page 47 of this issue. With the aid of my friend and native Mississippian Jan McCraw, we crisscrossed the city sampling everything from salads to seafood to sweets in casual joints, upscale restaurants, and everything in between. I was impressed that several of the restaurants on Robert’s list have been in business for 20 years or more. The Mayflower Cafe is still in the Kountouris family after more than 70 years—wow! And Rick Olson founded Keifer’s Greek restaurant more than three decades ago. And who could forget Nick Apostle of Nick’s? He and his father before him have made an indelible mark on…

grandma’s favorite pound cake Yield: 16 servings Preparation: 10 minutes Bake: 1½ hours Cool: 1 hour 3 cups all-purpose flour ½ teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon baking powder 1 cup unsalted butter, softened ½ cup butter-flavored shortening 3 cups sugar 5 large eggs 1 cup buttermilk 1 teaspoon vanilla extract ½ teaspoon almond extract ½ teaspoon coconut extract PREHEAT oven to 325°. Spray a 10- inch tube pan with baking spray with flour; set aside. IN A LARGE BOWL, sift together flour, salt, and baking powder; set aside. IN A SEPARATE LARGE BOWL, beat butter and shortening at high speed with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, approximately 6 minutes. Reduce mixer speed to medium. Add sugar gradually. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.…

THE HISTORY OF THE JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI, restaurant business can be told by tracking the proliferation of one condiment—comeback sauce. New Orleans has Creole sauce, North Carolina has vinegar-based barbecue sauce, Tennessee has tomato-based barbecue sauce, and Texas has salsa. Mississippi has comeback sauce. It is the Queen Mother of all Mississippi condiments, the offspring of the incestuous marriage of Thousand Island dressing and rémoulade. Comeback sauce has its roots planted deeply in Jackson’s Greek community. Like that of many towns throughout the South, Jackson’s early culinary heritage is filled with Greek restaurateurs. They immigrated to this country during the early 20th century, worked impossible hours, overcame considerable odds, and opened small cafés staffed mostly by family members who had also made their way over looking for their slice of the American…

MY GRANDMOTHER, WHOM I CALLED MEME, ALWAYS HAD A large green Tupperware container filled to the brim with creamy oldfashioned slaw at our family gatherings. It was as big as a drum and scuffed from many years of use. The opaque lid, bent and twisted, always needed a bit of extra effort to achieve that patented airtight seal. As big as it was, its contents would last just the weekend. She served cole slaw with fried chicken, pulled pork, and vegetable-only suppers that included sliced tomatoes from the garden, long-cooked green beans in a salty broth, and sweet corn on the cob. In later years, we bought her a food processor, but it sat on the shelf as she continued using her old-fashioned hand-crank apparatus for grating. Made of stainless…

IN THE OSCAR-WINNING FILM IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, THE DEBONAIR Clark Gable leaned against a fence, nonchalantly nibbling on a carrot, in a scene that inspired the laid-back persona of favorite cartoon rabbit Bugs Bunny. Vegetable farmers everywhere can thank Bugs for making carrots cool with kids. Oblivious to the fact that carrots are actually good for them, they mimic the root-munching character with the classic line, “What’s up, Doc?” And good they are. This root vegetable, with a history that dates back thousands of years, gets its coloring from beta-carotene, an organic compound that is easily converted into vitamin A. One cup of these crunchy veggies contains an amazing 686 percent of the recommended daily allowance of the vitamin that aids in the prevention of certain eye ailments such…

Seeing Red In the February/March 2009 issue, there is a recipe from the Kudzu Bakery for red velvet cake. When I made this cake, there was barely enough batter for two layers, much less the three layers shown in the picture. Is there a mistake in the recipe? Also, the taste seemed off. —Judy Mullins West Virginia EDITOR’S NOTE: Cutting down a bakery formula is always an adventure and can require some trial and error. Unfortunately, in the process of cutting down Kudzu Bakery’s Red Velvet Cake from a formula for 19 cakes to a recipe for one, an error did occur— the recipe should call for ½ teaspoon salt instead of the 2 teaspoons printed. However, the recipe makes enough batter for two 9-inch layers or three 8-inch layers…

“IF YOU’RE GOING TO PLANT A BIG GARDEN, HAVING a planting party is a fun thing to do,” says Mike Burns of Burns Best Farm in Ringgold, Georgia. Since 2001, Mike and his wife, Denise, have been hosting an annual planting party at their farm just outside Chattanooga, in the northwest corner of Georgia. Each spring, these city-dwellers-turned-farmers invite their friends from Atlanta to drive up to Ringgold for the day (a distance of about 100 miles) to help plant the season’s produce. “We’ve done blueberries, blackberries, and last year our biggest project so far, 800 heirloom tomato seedlings,” Mike says. “We get to see friends, have fun, and share a meal. It’s just a good time for everyone.” Like many folks who live in the city, Mike and Denise…

SOMETIMES ONE LOOK IS ALL it takes. That’s the way Charles Park and his wife, Wendy, felt the first time they laid eyes on Beaufort, North Carolina, more than 18 years ago. The Charlotte native had gone to this historic town, located along North Carolina’s Outer Banks, to interview for a position as a chef at a local resort called the Cedars Inn. “We turned down the main street,” Charles recalls, “and by the time we were two blocks from the waterfront, we said, ‘We’re moving here no matter what.’” The couple had fallen in love with this quaint seaside town of Victorian cottages and churches. Fortunately, Charles got the job at the Cedars Inn. After the summer season was over, he and Wendy were ready to put down roots…

BOX GRATERS HAVE BEEN AROUND for a long time, and few people would have thought their basic design could be improved. Then, more than a decade ago, the task of grating and shredding food changed dramatically when Microplane of Russellville, Arkansas, introduced the first rasp-style grater. What makes this new generation of graters so unique is their grating holes. Rather than being punched into the metal as with old-fashioned graters, holes are created through a process known as photo etching, which uses chemicals to dissolve the metal, creating edges that finely slice instead of ones that tear or shred. The result: wispy strands of lemon zest, feathery flakes of Parmesan cheese, and grated chocolate as fine as fairy dust, all produced with a minimum of effort. Other manufacturers were quick…

Welcome, Spring! Pages 18–23: All linens and napkin rings from Bodrum Linens, 212-524- 2505, www.bodrumlinens.com; floral arrangement by Flower Stems, 205-731-4360, www.flowerstems.biz. Desserts Just Like Grandma’s Pages 24–31: Vintage mixer, vintage pie tin, milk-glass cake stand, and stack of dessert plates from Chelsea Antique Mall, 14569 Hwy. 280, Chelsea, AL 35043, 205-678-2151; vintage flour tin and milk-glass compote from Treasure’s Antiques, 4208 Dolly Ridge Rd., Birmingham, AL 35243, 205-969-3004; red and blue floral napkin from Anthropolgie, 800-309-2500, www.anthropologie.com. Location courtesy of Barbara and Ed Randle. Taste of Tradition: Slaw Pages 74–78: White ironstone luncheon plate from Treasure’s Antiques, 4208 Dolly Ridge Rd., Birmingham, AL 35243, 205-969- 3004; paper-plate holders from World Market, 877-967-5362, www.worldmarket.com; red platter by Fiesta, available at Macy’s, 800- 289-6229, www.macys.com. Location courtesy of Linda and Doug…

garden salad Yield: 6 to 8 servings Preparation: 45 minutes 2 (5-ounce) packages Bibb lettuce, washed, patted dry, and torn 1 (5-ounce) bag baby spinach, washed and patted dry ½ English cucumber, seeded and sliced 1 medium carrot, peeled and cut into thin strips 1 recipe Brown-Sugar-Glazed Bacon (Recipe follows.) 1 recipe Creamy Butter-Pecan Vinaigrette (Recipe follows.) 1 recipe Garlic Croutons (Recipe follows.) Garnish: orange segments IN A LARGE BOWL, combine lettuce, spinach, cucumber, carrot, and bacon. Serve with Creamy Butter-Pecan Vinaigrette and Garlic Croutons. Garnish with orange segments, if desired. creamy butter-pecan vinaigrette Yield: 2 cups Preparation: 30 minutes ½ cup unsalted butter ¾ cup white balsamic vinegar ½ cup mayonnaise ½ cup toasted finely chopped pecans 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley 1 teaspoon minced shallot ½ teaspoon…

The Savannah Cookbook is the sixth of Damon Lee Fowler’s cookbooks about Southern food. THERE ARE SPIRITS IN SAVANNAH all right, but not necessarily the kind you’re thinking of. Not the sort that flitter around in gardens good and otherwise but rather the ones served before and after dinner. Sometimes even before lunch. To be clear, we are not talking apparitions here. We are talking aperitifs. “The three essential elements of a Savannah table are rice, seafood, and alcohol,” Damon Lee Fowler says laughing, followed by an immediate, “Oh, don’t print that!” But who can resist such a delicious bon mot, as the early French settlers of Savannah might have said, and a conversation with Damon is peppered with them, especially when discussing his adopted hometown. A former architect who…

WHEN ALYCE BIRCHENOUGH MARRIED DOUG WOLBERT IN 1978, she received a Jersey cow as a wedding present, and that was the beginning of a wonderful adventure that led the couple to become Alabama’s first licensed farmstead cheese makers. The Jersey proved to be ill tempered, so they sold her and bought a Guernsey that was nicer. Alyce began learning about the art of cheese making, working her way through the Encyclopedia of Country Living and taking a course at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. By 1983, she felt ready to embark on a cheese-related career. The Sweet Home herd includes 15 friendly milkers with names like Melissa, Rosemary, and Patchouli, as well as calves and heifers. The cows are milked twice a day, and three times per week…

DAN BLUMENTHAL IS, PERHAPS, BEST KNOWN AS THE executive chef and co-owner of three of Jackson’s more popular restaurants: BRAVO!, Broad Street, and Sal & Mookie’s. He divides his time among the eateries, yet still manages to cook at home. He hosted Taste of the South for a lunch that’s typical of the late-night meals he prepares for himself. ▸Has your professional cooking affected the way you cook at home? Oh, absolutely. I’m just a lot faster; I don’t dawdle around. If I’m cooking a meal, I want it to be done in 30 minutes or less—everything that I have to do to it, anyway. If it has to cook all day, that’s one thing, but I want to throw everything in there in 30 minutes or less. ▸How often…

“I SHOULD BE FROM LOUISIANA because my heart’s in Cajun cooking,” says Lacy Thomas, a corporate tax auditor who makes his home in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. A man of many interests and boundless energy, he serves as Kentucky’s representative to The Sidewalk Astronomers, an amateur astronomy group, and he and his wife, Brenda, devote the second weekend of each month to the Red River Gorge Trail Crew. The dedicated volunteers work hard to maintain the trails in this unique geological area, and they reward themselves with delicious dinners around the campfire on Saturday nights. It’s here that Lacy perfected his spicy turkey burgers, cooked over a camp stove and served to an appreciative audience. “They couldn’t believe they were made from turkey,” he says, “and that’s what I wanted to do,…