Category Archives: Food

May 13

An open letter to Alton Brown

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Dear Alton,

“Good Eats,” which recently wrapped production after 14 seasons, was one of the most inventive things ever seen on American television – funny, informative, and accessible. It was good for food, it was good for science, and it was just plain fun to watch. The show was, as far as I can tell, your own creation.

I knew that all good things must come to an end, and even though I was sorry to see “Good Eats” go, I looked forward eagerly to whatever your next project would be. I knew that you could do other formats. Your miniseries “Feasting on Asphalt” and “Feasting on Waves” were travelogues that, while different from “Good Eats,” were just as good.

You may still be planning something great. I hope so. But it worries me that you seem to be ramping up your participation in Food Network’s competitive cooking shows.

I will admit it – I was a fan of the original, Japanese “Iron Chef,” and I loved the first few seasons of “Iron Chef America.” They were goofy fun, and you were a perfect choice for “Iron Chef America,” bringing your wit and knowledge to a play-by-play role.

But food competition shows have become redundant, repetitive, and overblown. They’re part of the reason I rarely watch Food Network anymore, having sought refuge in Cooking Channel, which is what Food Network used to be. (It even airs “Good Eats” reruns.) And in a crowded marketplace of food competition, the only way to stand out is to try to hype and overhype the soap-opera, professional-wrestling aspects of the competition. I felt like “The Next Iron Chef” was a waste of your talents, and now you’re barging headlong into the long-standing “Food Network Star” (formerly known as “The Next Food Network Star”) franchise.

Alton, I realize you have to earn a living, but this crap is beneath you. It’s so far beneath you it’s not even funny. The promos refer to you, Bobby Flay and Giada DeLaurentis as “food icons.” Well, you didn’t become a food icon by hosting crappy “reality” shows, and if crappy “reality” shows are the future of your career, you won’t be a food icon for long.

Please figure out some way to move in another direction. We’re not waiting for the next Food Network star, prancing around the kitchen spouting Guy Fieri-style catch phrases. We’re waiting for the next “Good Eats” or “Feasting on Asphalt.”

Please, I beg you, move on – even if it means switching networks.

Apr 05

Pimento power

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OK, as promised earlier on Facebook, here’s my as-built recipe, adapted from Bobby Deen’s recipe, for pimento cheese.

Instead of half a green peppper and half a red pepper, I used a whole red pepper – and I roasted it, to give it a more pimento-like sweetness and consistency. I forgot to buy chives, and I had a leftover half an onion in the fridge, so I substituted a little onion. I wanted to also add a little parsley, but couldn’t find any.

I did not seed my jalapeño, because I wanted the heat. I got more than I wanted, actually.

This is from Bobby’s show “Not My Mama’s Meals,” and it’s supposed to be a lower-fat version of his mother Paula Deen’s recipe. I think most of the fat savings comes from using Greek yogurt instead of mayonnaise as the binder. The recipe calls for “low-fat” mozzarella cheese. I used reduced moisture part-skim, which is how much of the mozzarella on the shelf is labeled; there may be an even-lower-fat version that I missed, and if so I missed out on that particular part of the low-fat option.

I’m just giving you the recipe for the basic pimento cheese. Bobby’s recipe goes on to use the cheese spread in a grilled sandwich with a slice of tomato. I didn’t have any tomato and I didn’t feel like grilling the sandwich, so I just made it on plain bread.

It’s good stuff – but I wish I had bought something other than the Kroger store brand Greek yogurt. Even though it’s clearly labeled “plain,” it has a vague hint of vanilla. Oikos or Fage would have been better.

And I wish I’d seeded half of the jalapeño.

 

1 red bell pepper

1 cup plus a little more shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1/2 cup shredded mozzarella

2/3 cup Greek-style yogurt

3 T. finely minced onion

1 jalapeño, seeded if desired, finely minced

Salt and fresh-ground pepper to taste

 

Cut bell pepper in half lengthwise; remove stem, seeds and white membrane. Place halves cut-side-down on a baking sheet and place under a broiler for a few minutes until the skin of the pepper is black and blistered. Immediately remove the pepper halves from the oven and place them in a paper lunch sack, empty margarine tub or plastic container. Fold over the sack or seal the tub to hold in the steam as the pepper cools (it will help loosen the skin).

After 10 or 15 minutes, remove as much of the skin as you can; most of it will be blistered and pull away easily. Dice the pepper into pea-sized pieces.

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl.

Mar 30

Hello Mr. Chips

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I went to our local tortilleria this morning for a story – you’ll be able to read it next week – and returned to the newspaper with a big stack of hot, freshly-made corn tortillas. If you’ve never had freshly made corn tortillas, you don’t know what you’re missing.

I shared with co-workers, but even so there were some left over at the end of the day. This particular tortilleria uses preservative-free masa for his hot-and-fresh tortillas, so I tried to figure out how I might be able to use up the remaining tortillas. I recalled Alton Brown’s recipe for homemade tortilla chips. I did not have any limes or lime juice, so I seasoned the tortilla wedges in a mix of fresh-squeezed lemon juice and Tapatio hot sauce. Instead of letting them air-dry for an hour, as in Alton’s recipe, I used my dehydrator to speed up the process. Then I deep-fried them as per Alton’s recipe.

Pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Mar 07

Would you like to try our patty melt? Tough luck!

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Serious Eats’ hamburger blog, A Hamburger Today, gave a generally favorable review to the new southwestern patty melt being featured by Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. It’s payday, so I decided I’d splurge and get one for lunch.
I pulled into the drive-through, and the first words I heard over the speaker were, “Would you like to try our southwestern patty melt?” I didn’t mind the suggestive sell, since that’s exactly what I was already planning to order.
“Yes! Make that a combo, with — ”
“We’re out of the bread, so we’ll have to serve it to you on a bun.”
One of the definitions of a patty melt is that it’s served on bread or toast. That’s one of the things that make it a patty melt. Now, any restaurant anywhere can run out of an ingredient, but my question is this: Why, in the name of all that is greasy, would you suggestive-sell a product you happen to have run out of? Anyone?
I turned around (not an easy feat given the layout of our Hardee’s, but fortunately I have a tiny car) and went to Shelbyville Sweet Shoppe, where I ordered one of their small pizzas.
I went to the Hardee’s web site to fill out a comment form, and discovered they have a discount coupon for the burger. I do still want to try it eventually, and so maybe it’s better that I waited. But I just can’t get over the idiocy of it all.

Mar 01

A good dill for everyone

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The other day on Pinterest, I re-pinned a recipe for oven-“fried” dill pickles with a homemade ranch dressing in which to dip them. I also printed out a couple copies of the recipe for co-workers I thought might enjoy it.

One of those co-workers, Carol Spray, got around to making the stuff before I did – and she came to work this morning talking about how good it was, both the pickles and the homemade dressing.

Well, I didn’t want to be left out, so I made it tonight:

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Good stuff. The dressing is wonderful, and what you see in this photo is just a small portion that I poured out to use for dipping. There’s plenty left over to enjoy on salad. It tastes better a few hours after you make it.

Be sure and use the Panko bread crumbs—they have a different consistency than regular bread crumbs and work well for this kind of use. You can usually find them next to the regular breadcrumbs, but if not, check the Asian foods aisle (the ones I found are made by Kikkoman, the soy sauce people). Also, don’t skip the fresh cilantro, even if you don’t like the flavor of cilantro on its own. A lot of people don’t, but when you combine it with other ingredients, as in this recipe, it adds something wonderful.

Go get the recipe.

Feb 18

Haricots vertigo

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Well, I DVRed Wednesday night’s episode of “Nadia G.’s Bitchin’ Kitchen,” one of my favorites, and didn’t get around to watching it until this morning.

Meanwhile, I had a value package of chicken thighs. It was still pretty much frozen when I bought it the other day, so I just went ahead and threw it in the freezer when I got home. I moved it to the fridge Thursday, but that meant that once it thawed, I couldn’t refreeze it, so I needed to figure a way of using most of the thighs at the same time.

Then, this morning, Nadia G. had a recipe for a white chicken lasagna. It sounded good – but I mostly used it as a jumping-off point. Nadia simmered her chicken for two hours with Italian flat-leaf parsley, creating both the chicken and a broth. I used my pressure cooker and did the same thing in 10 minutes (once the cooker got up to pressure). Nadia also made fresh pasta; I went for dry. Not only was it more convenient, but by using a no-boil lasagna method (adding extra liquid and covering the casserole with foil until the end of the cooking time, when you uncover it just long enough to let the top brown) I had the chance to use a lot more of that deeeelicious homemade broth I’d just created. Nadia just added a little bit of the broth, for flavoring; since I was using it to hydrate the noodles, I needed to add a lot, which would give the dish a lot more chicken flavor.

Nadia’s recipe is pretty much just chicken and cheese. I didn’t realize when I went shopping just how much mozzarella the recipe called for, and I only brought back half that amount.  Anyway, I had already decided the recipe needed something else. I thought about getting some mushrooms while at the store but didn’t. Then, when I got home, I thought about the can of green beans I had sitting in the cupboard.

Green beans?!

I imagined the flavors in my head and it seemed like a match. I was afraid that the green beans wouldn’t be a good textural match and would squish out from between the noodles when the lasagna was served, and so I toyed with throwing them into the food processor and chopping them. But I decided to just let them go as is.

I picked up an envelope of chicken gravy mix at the store and used some of my broth to make it, to give the dish a little more body. I added garlic and Italian seasoning.

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It came out pretty well – not quite the creamy consistency of regular lasagna, and it did fall apart a little bit when I tried to serve it, but it tastes delicious.

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Feb 04

Hits the spot

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When Dave Thomas founded Wendy’s, according to his terrific but out-of-print autobiography “Dave’s Way,” he wanted to avoid the practice, common to some other fast food places at the time, of making up sandwiches ahead of time and storing them under a heat lamp so that they could be served quickly. He felt this detracted from the quality of the sandwiches and from the ability to customize them to the customer’s liking.

But Thomas still wanted to be able to serve customers quickly, even during peak hours. The solution he came up with was to have hamburger patties almost always on the griddle, ready to be scooped up and turned into a sandwich on order.

Typical business patterns make it possible to predict about how many patties you need to have standing by at a given time of day, but it’s not an exact science. Sometimes, a patty will be ready but no customer will be at the counter to order it.

Dave’s solution to that problem was a stroke of genius: he added chili as a menu item. Any patties not needed for hamburgers would be crumbled up and set aside for the next batch of chili.

I was going to stop at Sonic on my way to work today, but as I saw Wendy’s sitting there on Madison Street it occurred to me that the perfect lunch for a cold and rainy Saturday would be a big Wendy’s chili and a baked potato. Of course, the Wendy’s chili is even better with a couple of gold packets of that mysterious hot sauce they offer with it. I have, for years, insisted that they ought to sell the stuff by the bottle. I would buy it and put it on a lot of different things.

Anyway, the chili and potato are a perfect antidote to the weather. Well done, Dave.

Jan 21

Morning pies, evening fries

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You would think that, after spending four and a half hours in the kitchen at church this morning (see the bottom of this post for video) I wouldn’t be in the mood to do anything involved in my home kitchen tonight. You would be wrong.

You see, I’d been planning to make french fries tonight.

I’ve wanted for some time to try making real, good french fries. The consensus seems to be that you soak the fries in ice cold water for a good while, then you fry them twice. The first fry, at a lower temperature, cooks the fries through, giving them a nice fluffy interior, but leaves them somewhat limp. Then you take them out of the oil and let them come to room temperature. You crank the oil up to a higher temperature, and put the fries back in, quickly giving them a beautiful golden-brown finish.

WP_000047Most of the french fries you’ve ever eaten have been made with a variation on this approach – the difference being that the first fry takes place at a factory somewhere, after which the french fries are frozen and shipped to your supermarket or to the kitchen of your local restaurant. The restaurant finishes the fries off.

But the idea of freshly-cooked, start-to-finish fries from my own kitchen sounds better.

As I say, I’d wanted to try this for some time, and when I was at the grocery store yesterday I found Yukon Gold potatoes on sale, so now seemed like the time. I looked up a good recipe on line and found this one from Emeril Lagasse.

Meanwhile, I’d also been reading about the new Smashburger franchise in Murfreesboro. I haven’t been there yet, but I understand that one of their specialties is fries tossed in garlic, rosemary and olive oil. That sounded like a great way to enjoy my homemade fries, too, so I tossed them in a little rosemary, fresh garlic and olive oil.

I have to say, they came out pretty well.

According to Dave Thomas’ autobiography “Dave’s Way,” the process of bringing frozen fries to room temp before the final cook is known at Wendy’s as “slacking” them. I don’t know if the term is universal or exclusive to Wendy’s. Dave told the story of visiting a Wendy’s once with the man who succeeded Dave as CEO after Dave retired and concentrated on being the chain’s commercial spokesman. Not surprisingly, the manager rushed to greet them soon after they walked in the door – and before they’d gotten their food. The CEO immediately chided the manager for not slacking the fries. The manager sputtered a denial and said that everything in the kitchen was being done according to company policy. But when the manager returned sheepishly a few minutes later, he had discovered that there was a new hire in the kitchen who – as it turns out – had not been slacking the fries. The manager apologized profusely, but then asked the CEO how he could possibly know what was going on in the kitchen. Did he have an inside source?

The CEO replied that he heard the frozen fries hissing and spattering in the oil as soon as he walked into the restaurant. The room-temperature fries slip into the oil with much less noise. Dave used this story to praise the CEO and make the point that a manager has to be aware of every detail. This CEO was so connected with Wendy’s way of doing things that he even knew how a restaurant was supposed to sound, and a different sound indicated a problem.

Anyway, here’s the video from church this morning:

We made more than 50 quart jars of soup and about 20 apple pies. We’re also selling fudge and chess pies, but those were made by two different individual class members at home.
Dec 29

Please your customers, not your peers

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I was an early fan of Rachael Ray, then went through Rachael Ray burnout, but I have to say I really love the answer she gave to a question in an AV Club interview. Anthony Bourdain, who I really enjoy, used to use Rachael Ray as the personification of the dumbing-down of Food Network (the way I use Guy Fieri). Bourdain eventually shifted most of his wrath to Sandra Lee. Anyway:

AVC: There are people out there like Anthony Bourdain who do criticize that kind of “everyday cook” philosophy that’s on the food networks. But when I talked to Bourdain he said he can’t make fun of you anymore because you sent him a gift basket.

RR: Nah, he’s funny. I didn’t mind a bit either way. He’s also said a few nice things over the years. But you know what? Not everybody is supposed to like everybody on the playground. You gotta be thick-skinned about that. I love Tony Bourdain. I love his books, I love him, I love his attitude. I think he’s fantastic. Whether or not he likes what I’m doing that week in my life, or the food that I’m making at that moment, that’s Tony’s choice. It shouldn’t affect my decision about whether or not I like his work. Otherwise I think I’m being immature and mixing up the two. But regardless, that’s not my job and it’s not who I work for. I work for the people who do want that type of programming or do want to cook my type of food.

[snip]

But I think that people over the years have wasted so much time asking me about Martha [Stewart] or Tony and all this. I’m like, it’s never, ever, ever, ever, ever entered my mind for five seconds if somebody else wasn’t putting it there. 

I mean, those aren’t the people you work for. I am a waitress at heart. I work for the people that I’m there to serve …. I think that anyone who spends their life trying to make other people happy or impress their peers rather than their customers are going to have a very short-lived career.

Not bad advice.

Dec 22

Explaining ramen

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I was getting ready to watch “Christmas At Belmont,” a terrific annual Christmas concert featuring music students from Belmont University in Nashville (including my “It’s A Wonderful Life” co-star Keith Wortham, who said he’s in one of the choirs but doesn’t know if he’ll be visible on TV). The show is aired nationwide on public TV stations from one of my favorite places on the planet, the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. (I was there, in a tuxedo, the night it opened.)

Anyway, I turned over to WNPT a few minutes earlier and caught the last 10 minutes or so of “Volunteer Gardener,” a locally-produced show I don’t think I’ve ever watched before. It had the air of local TV programming, but a couple of things caught my eye.

It was a rerun; there were all sorts of references to spring and planting. I’m not a cold-weather person and this made me a little melancholy. I wish it were warm enough that gardeners were concerned about getting their seeds in the ground.

But the thing that really struck me was the cooking segment at the end of the show, featuring a woman from the University of Tennessee Extension in Nashville. As you well know, I love to cook and I love to watch Cooking Channel. So I guess I’m used to cooking shows and segments on TV that make certain minimal assumptions about the audience’s food and cooking knowledge.

This was not one of those segments. The woman was making an Asian-inspired broccoli slaw, with dry ramen noodles as an ingredient (they soak up moisture and soften as the salad sits before serving). The woman apparently felt she had to had to explain what ramen noodles were and how they were packaged, and she treated soy sauce and rice vinegar as if they were strange exotic substances that had just been flown in by space probe from the planet Neptune.

The recipe wasn’t necessarily a bad one (I’m not a big broccoli fan, but that’s just me). Food snobs notwithstanding, there are plenty of cases where it’s a great idea to use a processed food like ramen noodles as an ingredient in a homemade dish. And I don’t guess there was anything wrong with how the segment was presented; it just sounded really strange to me that she would make such low assumptions of the public TV viewer, especially considering some of the great cooking shows that air on Saturdays on public TV.

I’m not sure whose decision it was made to treat things this way. The woman at our local extension office who does food presentations has some great, sophisticated recipes, which I read with great interest when we publish them in the Times-Gazette. So maybe it’s the producers of the TV show who told this woman to assume that her viewers only cook with Bisquick and Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup.

Or maybe I’m just being a condescending jerk, which on reflection is the more likely possibility.