Bacon Press

Memories of Grandma

2007-08-21T15:20:00.000-07:00

All quiet on the blog front in the last week, I know. Where my motivation went, I’ll never know.

I do know that if I don’t plant my butt in front of a computer more often and actually start typing, I won’t be getting to the Asheville part of my road trip until December! Geez.

And yet, this post has little to do with my road trip and everything to do with missing my Grandma, whose grave and old home I visited while back. I realize this blog is mostly about food, but I was going through three years worth of papers stuffed into boxes last Sunday and found a copy of an interview my mother did with my grandma shortly before she died.

Let me testify: if you don’t do something like this (an interview) with your own family, you might regret it. I simply wasn’t around my grandmother enough to learn the things mentioned in this interview on my own. And, unfortunately, she died during a period of my youth where I busy trying to get away from my family. I rarely spoke to her by phone since she was hard of hearing, and most of our conversations had to be done face to face.

So, this interview means a lot to me. It’s one of the few pieces of my grandmother’s life I have left, and I cherish it more than anyone could ever know. No amount on earth could ever be worth what these few paragraphs mean to me.

Note: The following is written the way my grandma spoke, as transcribed by my mother. Since she was speaking to my mother, “your grandpa” and “your daddy” refers to my great-grandpa and grandpa respectively. Last names have been replaced with initials...just because. Translation of uncommon terms provided in parentheses.

A little more background: My grandmother, Nellie, was born up in a holler in Relief, North Carolina, in an area of the Blue Ridge Mountains her family had lived in for several generations. Despite being unable to read or write, she provided for her large family and worked hard all her life, growing and preserving food, cooking, sewing, cleaning, and raising young’uns.

Some, ahem, interesting things you might notice in the interview: drunkenness, marriage between cousins, race mixing, bootlegging, wild game hunting, and child labor. It is likely that a few folks reading this today will frown upon some of these things, much as people did back then. It is also likely that my grandparents didn’t give a shit what those people thought, so long as they minded their own damn business. I’m comfortable in saying that I’m of the same mind.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I can remember back when I was 3 years old. The way we played, we’d go to the branch (creek), get rocks and build play houses. We’d travel the mountains...we’d go for miles back in the mountains, a playin’, pick up chestnuts, and I’d lay on the hillside in the brush...make grasshopper cages (you do this with grass needles), and I’d look far away, playin’ alone and think, someday, how I’d want to be in those places…go places. And the first train I’d seen, I was up on a hill where my daddy worked in the corn and I’d watch the train as it passed by. When we left the mountains, the first river I’d ever seen we’d moved to Erwin. I was 9. My daddy bought a T-Model car, so he’d take us to a movie. The first show I’d seen was scary. It scared us all...about a woman with big eyes. Yeah, we’d make trips. My Daddy worked in a shop making parts for trains. He made $4.50 an hour. That was good money back then.

The way we washed clothes, we’d boil water, drop some clothes in, take ‘em out and put ‘em on a stump from a sawed off tree. We’d use boat paddles, they called ‘em bats, and we’d bat our clothes. You could hear everyone down at the branch batting their clothes. We’d make our own soap out of lye and meat skin, hog meat skin. People would bathe in it, too. We’d put it in a big iron kettle and cook it until it became thick. We’d have to wait ‘till it cooked, then cut it in blocks.

When I was 12, we moved to Elizabethton where my daddy worked in a silk factory. I took care of Bob. (Her nephew.) He was a baby.

They wouldn’t let me go to school. The truant officer would come around and they’d tell him that I was older...didn’t have to go. I worked in the house. They always used me as a slave. Well, I used to sew and make my own clothes by the time I was 13. You can imagine what my clothes looked like!

Thirteen, that’s how old I was when I’d stay with people…I’d take care of those who were sick. I’d cook for them, clean their house, dust, wash clothes. They paid me $2.50 a week. After awhile, we moved to Johnson City...I was 14. Well, I done the same thing there. I’d wash their clothes on a wash board. I’d take care of 4 or 5 young’uns. And you know the kind of pleasure I’d see? Me and a bunch of girls would start walking the road. There wasn’t many cars back then. We’d walk for miles, and we’d laugh and carry on. Every so often, there’d be a T-Model pass and we’d holler at them. And next we’d, ’bout 4 or 5 of us, walk to the country church hoping to find a handsome boy...never could find any. We’d stay at church and walk home in the dark. We were never afraid.

Your grandma always stayed at home. She went to church a lot. Her and my daddy argued all the time. That was back in the Hoover days. We liked to starved to death. When my daddy got the job at the Foundry, we lived a little better. They made steel parts for trains, cars. I’m trying to remember how old I was when I met your daddy...about 16. I met him at King Springs. There was a spring and there was a dance hall built over it. We’d go there on Sundays and sit. The way we dated, we’d go for walks...to friends houses. We’d go to the cow pasture and practice football. I was 22 when we got married. He went into the Army about 17...served 3 years the first time. We had 3 young’uns when he had to go in again. Jane was about 2 years old. He stayed in one year...he went overseas. That was when he got his leg broke.

Back when we lived in the mountains, my daddy got mad at my mother...said he’d just kill himself. And they had a place where they hung hogs over at the house. We looked over there, us kids. My daddy had his legs over that pole and his head hangin’ down and his arms just a-shakin’...had us kids cryin’. Then another time he said my mammy didn’t love him…he got drunk. He said he’d just leave. He went up in the holler. My mammy got his brother and they went up on the hillside where they could see up that holler where those legs was, and they saw his heels. He had his head hung down in the branch. He was drunk...cussing. They dragged him out, carried him to the house. They put him to bed to sober up.

Another time, he and my mammy got into a fuss. He wasn’t drunk then. He told her he’d just leave. Well, when he went outside, he took his gun off the rack...said he’d just kill himself. The moon was full that night and the cows had been feeding out in the yard that day. We heard a shot go off. My mammy took out, running. My daddy hadn’t shaved in 2-3 days. He shot up between his hat. He fell in a cow pile. My brother ran out to him...he ran his hand up underneath my daddy’s head. He said, “Yeah, mom he shot himself. Here’s his brains under his head.” So my mom passed out and my brother had to carry her in. My daddy got up and walked in with him.

My Grandpa M came from Cherokee. He was raised there…he was Indian. He was in the Civil war. He died when my oldest sister was born. Grandpa H was 104 when he died. He was Dutch. My grandma M and Joe H were brother and sister. Grandpa H was a preacher. My mother was 12 when they married.

Grandma M...when they moved to the mountains, they had to sleep in the woods at night. They had to hide their personal belongings in the bushes because the Rebels came through. They’d (the Rebels) take cows and anything away. There was a woman who lived there and always knew when the Rebels were about to invade. She’d let everyone know so they could hide their things. The Rebels found out about her, and she was shot in the chest. She had a little girl.

My grandpa got shot. They threw him up in a wagon, and they drove through a thicket, and he worked his way off the wagon and escaped. He crawled to a haystack and stayed there for 3 weeks. He got well enough to go home. They came and got him…took him back. A drove of them went through again, back to the river. They shot the democrats and buried them in the river bottom. That was the end of them.

My grandma thought he was coming in one night. She had a bullet that had come out of one of the soldiers who had been killed. She looked out the window and saw a white horse coming. There was a man on it. She ran to meet him. The horse reared back. The dogs were barking...her little sister was clinging to her. She went back to the house. She sat at the chimney corner and watched the man on the horse. When grandpa got home, he took the bullet and threw it away. She didn’t see the man on the white horse again. He was dead. It was his bullet...the one that killed him.

My daddy and mother used to make moonshine. They’d sprout the corn to make the beer. They kept it hid from us young’uns. Between 2 bedrooms, there was a wood stove. Somehow, they dug a place in the floor that led to the basement. They had a stove pipe that leg through. We didn’t suspect anything...the stove pipe would never get hot. In one bedroom that had canned food, and behind those is where they stored the jugs of moonshine.

There was a sawmill near the house. They’d haul out lumber and had toe sacks (potato sacks) filled with straw for the workers to sit. They’d throw them in the yard. My mother would put half gallons of moonshine in those sacks. The workers would haul the sacks on the trucks with the lumber. She’d get the money from the sacks. That’s how they made a living in the mountains.

They got tired makin’ moonshine in the basement, so they’d put us kids to bed early and decided to make it upstairs using the fireplace. It blew up! My mother was burnt. She went to the doctor the next day. He told her the sparks from the fireplace caused it. She didn’t tell him what they were doing. We didn’t know this until we were much older. We never knew while they were doing this. That’s why my daddy was getting drunk. When your daddy was living we went up toward Relief, but couldn’t get to the back roads that would lead us there.

At Christmastime my daddy would ride the horse to Bakersville to buy Christmas. He’d buy stick candy, fruit. That was one Christmas. I can remember one time my daddy bought my sister and I a doll. We went barefoot in the wintertime. We were happy to get shoes for Christmas. When we wanted a doll, we’d make our own with tied rags and charcoal for eyes. We didn’t have toys.

They’d grow late cabbage. They’d dig a ridge and bury the cabbage heads leaving the roots sticking up. We’d have cabbage all winter. They’d dig holes with straw in them and keep potatoes that way. We’d have Hanover potatoes for all winter. We’d eat birds. My daddy would catch them in a trap, and my mother would cook them in a big iron pot over the wood stove. We’d have gravy from that. They called them snowbirds. We ate a lot of wild meat...like groundhogs, squirrels, rabbits. There were none of the disease back then in those animals. They’d kill sheep, too. They called it “Mutton” meat.

Love Always,

k.

Let Me Show You Something!

2007-08-10T10:36:00.000-07:00

After leaving Calabash, we arrived in Carolina Beach - a small and somewhat impoverished beach town with a military base nearby. The town is on an island, called Paradise Island, and is within the greater Wilmington area. This is where we wanted to go for two reasons: the obligatory beach visit and to see carnivorous plants in their natural habitat.

The food was secondary on our agenda during this part of the trip, but we did find one seafood restaurant worthy of a visit from the pork mobile called Bowman's. Although it wasn't up to Calabash standards, it was the best meal we ate between a so-so barbecue joint on the island and a mediocre restaurant in downtown Wilmington.

This post is all about vacation pictures, so enjoy!

Tall, Long Needle Pines - Green Swamp, NC

Sarracenia flava, aka Yellow Trumpet Pitcher Plant

Venus Fly-Trap

Common sundew, aka Drosera intermedia

Celebrate the moments of your life

k.

The One True Calabash

2007-08-09T11:19:00.000-07:00

There are two towns in North Carolina that will lead you to believe you have died and are seated at the Pearly Plates.

Depending on your religion, you’re either in barbecue heaven (Lexington, NC) or seafood heaven (Calabash, NC). There’s a third heaven for all you fine lovers of livermush (Shelby, NC) - but don’t bother telling anyone, lest you feel inclined to sit through the lip curls and squinched faces.

Unfortunately, Shelby wasn’t on our itinerary this last road trip. I’ll discuss Lexington later on, but let’s talk about Calabash: the myth and the reality.

Myth? Whachu talkin’ bout Willis?

The prevailing myth in the Carolinas is that one can say their cuisine is Calabash without actually being from Calabash. In fact the name, “Calabash”, and the term, “Calabash-style”, has been bandied about by any and everyone serving deep-fried seafood from the shores of the Outer Banks to the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Yet technically, if it isn’t from the town of Calabash, it isn’t real Calabash seafood.

"Calabash" Restaurant in North Myrtle Beach, SC

Why they do so is obvious: Calabash has the reputation for delivering simple, fresh, and delicious seafood (mainly fried, but offered as boiled or broiled as well) with a distinctive style. For a restaurant to say it serves “Calabash-style” seafood conjures up images of nets teaming with fish just hauled off a boat and ultimately delivered steaming hot to your table. Actually, those boats are quite real in Calabash and are literally down the street from the restaurants.

I’ve mentioned previously my own upbringing as a North Carolinian raised in a food environment that was more pizza than pinto beans; more burgers than barbecue. Like many Southerners of their generation, my parents were products of the last half of the 20th century and none too excited to worship at the feet of tradition. Music-wise, my Dad listened to the outlaw country of Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson rather than traditional bluegrass, while my mother distanced herself from her Appalachian roots entirely in the soothing sounds of Chuck Mangione, Anita Baker, and Kenny G.

Despite this, my parents were huge Calabash-style seafood fanatics. Being in the mountains, we often got our fix from the only two fish camps in the area – one in the boonies near Leicester and another sitting on a lone highway between Swannanoa and Black Mountain; neither of which are still in business.

My parents not only loved (still love) seafood, but their love of the ocean and all things associated with it left an indelible mark on me; so much so, I’ve lived by the sea since I left home.

My parents weren’t perfect (neither was I), but they tried. One thing is clear: they done right the minute they set me down in front of that red and white-checked plastic tablecloth covered table and introduced me to the deep-fried holiness of popcorn shrimp, deviled crabs, and hushpuppies.

For me, coming to Calabash was not only a great stop between Charleston and the Wilmington area, but it was also a pilgrimage to a culinary shrine and a tribute to the tastes and loves of my parents. I won’t deny that there was also a quest for authenticity – to say I had been to the source, to experience “the real”, and to judge it for better or worse.

It’s a helluva weight to put on such a small town. It’s an even bigger weight to put on one restaurant in said small town, and yet something tells me the Calabash Seafood Hut, much like Atlas balancing the weight of the sky on his shoulders, is use to such challenges.

We rolled into the town of Calabash shortly before noon, stopping at the first second hand store we saw. After browsing through the dusty old clothes and even dustier old books, we asked the clerk where River Road was. Oddly, she had never heard of it. Two older women who were shopping overheard us and we asked if they were local. When they said yes, we asked them: “where is River Road?” They seemed stumped and asked us where we were going. When we said the Calabash Seafood Hut, it was as if all of a sudden the clouds opened up and a beam of light shone down.

“Oh, just go up to the stop light and turn right! You can’t miss it! We’re getting ready to eat across the street from there.”

So much for Mapquest.

After disembarking from our pork mobile and entering the restaurant, we seem to arrive between the fishing boat captains leaving and the “spending our grandkids’ inheritance” crowd following behind us. Our waitress gave us a moment to look at the menu while she brought out a basket of hushpuppies to start with.

Important Side Note: You know, in the Carolinas someone is always making a big deal over who’s barbecue is the most authentic or tastiest. And yet, consider the lowly hushpuppy.

Hushpuppies vary wildly from region to region, cuisine to cuisine. Sometimes they are perfectly round, sometimes they are oblong, and sometimes they look like a Ferran Adria experiment gone wrong. Some have onions in them, while others do not. Some are savory and some are sweet. Some are mostly cornmeal, some are partially corn meal, and some are mostly flour.

I’ve noticed that hushpuppies served with barbecue tend to consist mainly of corn meal and contain no sugar, while hushpuppies served with seafood tend to have more flour and contain some sugar. These bits of fried bread are dense and soft on the inside while crunchy and slightly sweet on the outside.

If you ask me, that’s a damn delicious combination, dangerous for any diet.

When it came time to order, Bruce and I basically ordered the same platter; a platter loaded with deviled crab, shrimp, oysters, whiting, cole slaw and french fries. Bruce, not an oyster fan, substituted scallops instead.

Our plates of food arrived not long after we placed our order, along with a pitcher each of sweet and unsweet tea. Sitting on the table were bottles of ketchup, cocktail sauce, and Texas Pete hot sauce – not that I needed to use much of anything with seafood this good.

In fact, things weren’t as good as I remembered: they were better. And why shouldn’t they be? Here I was in Calabash having real Calabash seafood and it was rocking my world! The seafood was lightly breaded, crisp, and hot. Each bite was a clean, fresh, succulent, and rich rebuke to all pretenders and challengers to the throne.

The best part of this whole experience was sharing my love of deviled crab with Bruce. Deviled crab was definitely a favorite of mine growing up. I ordered it, along with boiled or fried shrimp, every time my parents and I stopped by the fish camp. Deviled crab is definitely a specialty of this region and I honestly don’t think it’s available in California (though I could be wrong). Naturally, Bruce was hooked.

In general, deviled crab is blue crab that is cooked, stripped of meat, that meat is added to bread crumbs and spices, it is all stuffed back into the shell, and then it is deep fried. Not only a cool presentation, but OOOHH so good.

So good, in fact, one doesn’t have time to truly appreciate its beauty before it’s all gone.

In a way, I’m glad Calabash seafood isn’t available where I live. First of all, watching my weight would be damn near impossible (it’s already difficult having Little Lucca just down the peninsula). Second, I appreciate having to travel for good food. I don’t want everything to be everywhere, and often is the case where some dish I enjoyed in one place (such as a Cuban sandwich) is brought to another (San Francisco), and those who make it never get it right. I just end up disappointed and wanting to travel.

I guess the lesson here is that good food waits for you. It stays in one place, welcoming you to come back for more.

You just have to know where to go.

k.

I'm Cranky and Gassy

2007-08-03T20:07:00.000-07:00

It's been a hell of a week.

I was watching Dr. Phil the other night instead of writing for this blog and I think I have something explosive in me. Not from the beans, but anger management stuff. Actually, I'm not getting enough sleep and I think it's making me cranky. Added to that, I just haven't had the time to do what I love to do: like take hikes, such as the one I took above in Morgan Territory near Mount Diablo about a month ago.

Or even write about food!

Well, I promise I'll have something for you next week, if not sooner.

In the meantime, be sure to check out some of my other writing that goes more in depth about my quirks, temperaments, and deeply disturbing family issues. You can read it all HERE.

Chek u latr, playa hatr

k.

Simple Food

2007-07-27T18:04:00.000-07:00

Don’t be fooled into thinking I’m an expert on Appalachian cuisine.

No...I’m an expert on Big Macs, sweet and sour pork, and pepperoni pizzas. Appalachian cuisine is something I’ve had to learn about in adulthood, and in San Francisco, despite having grown up where I did and having grandparents born and raised in the deep, dark hollers that blanket the region like a patchwork quilt of red brick churches, apple orchards, and moonshine stills.

The few carry-over foods from my grandparents to my mother to me, I abhorred. Pinto beans and string beans were about as bland and uninteresting as you could get to a young boy use to plates of meatball-topped spaghetti and “barbecued” cheeseburgers. So, I’ve had a lot of learning and unlearning to do, especially about foods I eschewed in favor of Generican (generic American) food. Why I do so is complicated and conflicted; I am a motherlode of neuroses for any therapist or preacher to mine.

Have you heard of shucky beans? Or leather britches? Well, me neither until recently. String beans I have heard of. In fact, I spent many summer afternoons stringing them only so my mother could throw them in a big, dangerous pressure cooker and have them ready for Sunday supper.

Well, shucky beans or leather britches are string beans – what most people out here call green beans – that have been dried. Actually, string beans are hard to come by in California. Most of what we get are those ubiquitous Blue Lake beans; a stringless variety developed in Oregon in the early 20th century and once only popular amongst canners. Nowadays, Blue Lake beans are the de facto green bean of both the supermarket and farmers’ market shelves and, frankly, the lack of variety annoys the hell out of me.

Oh sure, sometimes you’ll find Romano or Kentucky Wonder beans for sale at the farmers’ market. I saw some last Tuesday at the Ferry Building for $5 a pound. You’ll also see the yellow wax bean and haricot verts on occasion, which I’m sure are lovely in their own way.

Other than what I’ve mentioned, you will not see in California any bush or pole bean that is a heirloom variety or even a common Southern variety, like the creasy (or greasy) bean. Heirloom tomatoes we have out the wazoo, but don’t expect to see heirloom green beans – even at the food porn palace.

I’ve decided to experiment and make my own shucky beans using that lowly and common Blue Lake bean; a gentle $1 per pound. I’m not really dogging it; I do enjoy the flavor of Blue Lake beans. It’s just that I still have the urge to pull off a string and the fact that these are stringless makes me feel as though I’ve been robbed of an important culinary tradition.

Is this really progress? That these stringless, uniform beans dominate the market stalls?

Anyway, shucky beans are made by first washing the beans to remove any residual dirt or whathaveyou and then riffling through them, picking out the misfits and snapping off the ends simultaneously. It helps to have animal oversight available while you do this in order to catch your misses and offer up advice on when the cat box needs changing.

Then you take a needle and thread (I double up the thread) and “string” the beans by pushing the needle through the center of each bean and collecting them towards the end of the string. I find that having a horizontal work surface, like a cookie sheet, to work on is helpful. As far as what kind of string to use: I used both dental floss and polyester sewing thread and didn’t experience a problem with either.

After about 2 or 3 feet of this green bean garland, tie off the strings at the end and then tie the whole thing to form a loop. It’s now ready to hang and dry.

If I had a shady front porch that was screened in, I’d hang them there. As it is, I live the dirtiest part of town by a bridge with no protected porch to sit on, string beans on, sing an old ballad on, or even pet my old coonhounds on.

Instead, I have a whale rib hanging from my ceiling and a small fan plugged into the wall adjacent to it. This is where I will hang the beans to dry for the next month. A small desk fan I’ve set up near the beans is turned on to circulate the air around the beans so that they don’t mold, especially since I have them drying out of the sunlight.

My cats are fascinated by the hanging beans at first. And then, like with all things (excluding shoelaces and paper bags), they grow bored and ease back into the jaded, lazy bums that I love so much.

After a couple of weeks, the beans are dry enough so that I can turn off the fan and let them dry for another week or two. Now’s the time to decide whether to put them in storage (a paper bag works well) or to cook some up. Of course I’ve decided to do both!

Most people will say to soak the beans overnight after you’ve washed them. They also will tell you to add salt after you’ve cooked them and both of these ideas I don’t necessarily disagree with. However, I sometimes suck at following instructions.

What I did, instead, was take about 2 cups of dried shucky beans (or 1 string of them) and rinsed them off. Next, I brought 2 quarts of water to a boil and then added 2 teaspoons of salt. Next, I added the shucky beans and let that boil for approximately 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

While the shucky beans were boiling, I heated a slow cooker (or Crock pot, or whatever you want to call it) on high with half a cup of water already in it. After boiling the beans for 10 minutes, I removed them from the heat, let it cool for a few minutes, and then added everything, plus a country ham hock, to the Crock pot.

Once covered, I left it alone to cook on high for 6 hours.

After 6 hours of cooking, the beans were tender and rich. They, along with the meat on the ham hock, were soft, tender and rich, as was the broth they cooked in. Perhaps it was the cured flavor of the ham coming through, but everything had a strong umami flavor. Drying the beans really does concentrate the bean flavor while also allowing the slow cooking process to work its magic.

Using a slotted spoon, I removed the beans from the broth onto a plate. The broth I ended up taking to work the next day for lunch. I flaked off the meat from the hock to garnish the beans and that was it – no seasoning necessary.

Of course, what better to go with a side of shucky beans than a sliced fried Country Ham and a freshly made buttermilk biscuit?

I’m not one to toot my own horn (or am I?), but I’m pretty sure Bruce and I were the only two souls in this city of 750,000 to have a plate of shucky beans, country ham, and biscuits that night. That’s pretty presumptuous - sure - but I also know this town pretty well, and this type of cuisine and the people who'd serve it aren’t very common here.

And there’s a certain mix of feeling both special and lonely while enjoying a meal like this – a conflicted feeling.

But perhaps I’m just complicating things again.

It’s not that complicated.

k.

Pleasantville

2007-07-20T17:05:00.000-07:00

It's funny what a little bit of water between us will do.

Everywhere I've been, such has been the case. In Tampa, we joked that St. Pete was home of the newly wed and nearly dead. San Franciscans have some weird hang up about traveling to the East Bay for any reason, but think nothing of traveling 3 hours to Lake Tahoe for the weekend. Jersey isn't really Manhattan and Manhattan isn't anything at all like Brooklyn – just ask your neighborhood Hasid.

And I'm sure you can go to Charleston and have a great Charleston experience, but I'm really glad we made it over to Mount Pleasant. Unlike Charleston, Mt. Pleasant is smaller, greener, and once off the main highway – actually pleasant. Imagine huge oak trees with Spanish moss swaying in the breeze, large historic homes, friendly locals, and breathtaking views of Charleston, the Charleston Harbor, and the coastal wetlands that surround it.

Back on the highway, Highway 17, one encounters a unique phenomenon – unusual even for the South. Scores upon scores of sweetgrass basketmakers and their makeshift shacks line the highway for miles; most shacks are empty, but a few basketmakers are out selling their wares – or at least trying to.

I imagine prices for sweetgrass baskets aren't as high as what I paid in the Old Market in Charleston, but then again I find it hard to complain. Whether you spend a little or a lot, your money goes to keeping this community of folk artists and their craft alive, so whatever they charge and whatever you spend – it's worth it.

Also worth it: Gullah Cuisine.

Like Hominy Grill, we had planned on eating here and I'm glad we did. Our dinner at Gullah Cuisine is what dragged us over that great suspension bridge and got us to explore Mount Pleasant. Perhaps Gullah Cuisine should get some kind of recognition from the local Chamber of Commerce, because we patronized at least 3 additional local businesses simply because we were there – foodie tourists that we were.

Despite what you may have heard or read, the Gullah/Geechee culture and language is very much alive and flourishing. While the culture is strongest and most prevalent in such places at the Sea Islands or in smaller coastal towns between Charleston and Savannah, its presence in the Charleston/Mount Pleasant area is palpable.

And palatable.

The cuisine of the Gullah community maximizes use of regional food resources, namely rice, corn, legumes, okra, and especially seafood. Classic lowcountry dishes like Purloo (a rice casserole), Hoppin' John (black-eyed peas and rice), and Shrimp and Grits are indicative of the culinary creations developed out of the African American experience in the lowcountry.

While you can't throw a stick down Meeting Street without hitting a plate of Shrimp and Grits, finding Gullah food cooked by Gullah people for non-Gullah customers is slightly more difficult. Lucky then for two white boys from Frisco there is one well-known restaurant right off Highway 17.

Gullah Cuisine, the restaurant, is housed in a modest, one-story brick building just a few miles down from those basket sellers I mentioned earlier. An awning stretches out over the front entrance and hanging plants dangle from around the periphery of it. Across the dark green canvas are the words "Gullah Cuisine – A Lowcountry Restaurant".

The interior is tastefully done in shades of beige and tan with framed paintings hanging on the wall and ceiling fans turning slowly overhead. White curtains and blinds struggle to beat back the late afternoon sun and heat that washes over the front of the building.

Our waiter is a tall young man dressed in a casual white button up shirt and black slacks. He has the longest eyelashes I've ever seen and for a moment I'm transfixed by them. We're here at a weird hour on a weekend and besides us there is only one couple in the entire restaurant. Eyelashes man and a cook are running the show and our waiter juggles several jobs all at once. Back in the kitchen you can hear plates and pots clash and clang, water shooting out of faucets into metal sinks, and the faint sounds of a garbled radio. The waiter occasionally swings open the rear kitchen door and shouts back questions and order changes to the cook. The cook's response is patient and final.

Our appetizer arrived not long after he took our order, along with a small plate of corn muffins. In hindsight, I guess Bruce and I ate a lot of fried green tomatoes on our trip. This didn't occur to me until now, but I reckon we were pretty eager to stay on course in picking what we thought were the most easily recognizable Southern specialties. So, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Gullah-style fried green tomatoes with ranch dressing.

While Hominy Grill takes a contemporary approach to traditional lowcountry dishes, Gullah Cuisine keeps itself squarely rooted in traditional soul food and the cuisine of the Gullah people. Here, green tomatoes are dipped in a thin batter containing various spices common to Gullah cuisine and fried until they are soft and a light yellow-green in color. The tanginess of the tomatoes and spiciness of the batter contrasts well with the cool and creamy dressing. The crisp crust of the batter gives way to a hot and tender green tomato.

A tall, cold glass of sweet tea doesn't hurt neither.

When our entrées arrive, I wondered why anybody would even bother to eat at those big box restaurants. Why, indeed, when fresh, hot, and authentic food can be found at a locally-owned business such as this.

Bruce's plate came with two large crab cakes, Gullah rice, and fried okra (came out after the picture was taken). Blue crab is the specialty in this region and 2 weeks after we were there Mount Pleasant was having a blue crab festival. His crab cakes were chock full of crab; more crab than him or I have ever seen in a crab cake. In addition, the Gullah rice was quite tasty, somewhat spicy with the odd shrimp thrown in, and smoky from the sausage added to it.

My two deep-fried whole soft-shell blue crab were battered and spiced with the Gullah spice, which gave them a little bit of a zip. Ummm, can I just say these crabs rocked my tiny, little, insignificant world? Just thinking about them now gives me shivers up my spine. Cooking soft-shell crab is no easy feat: these were cooked perfectly. Along with my soft-shell crab, I had a side of succotash (good, but nothing spectacular) and Hoppin' John, spiced with the same smoky sausage used in Bruce's Gullah rice. I've made Hoppin' John before, but mine always had a more black-eyed pea-to-rice ratio. I liked the fact that this Hoppin' John was more rice-heavy, but mostly because I regretted not ordering the Gullah rice (I think we have a house specialty here).

This being our second fabulous meal of the day (the first being lunch at Hominy Grill), I began to wonder if this day could get any better. After we paid our tab and said our goodbyes, we got in the car and headed up towards that shopping center we saw earlier – the one with the movie theater.

We were just in time to catch Spider Man 3.

Stuffed, we reclined in our highback movie theater seats; the theater was mostly empty. I propped up my feet on the seat in front of me and waited for the movie to begin.

This is what vacation looks like.

k.

Roundtrip Ticket to Hominy Grill, Please

2007-07-18T13:24:00.000-07:00

To know the lowcountry, one must see the lowcountry.

So, for Tammy Faye's sake, get off of those interstate freeways and get straight onto one of South Carolina's Heritage Corridors – it's the only way you'll ever see those Beautiful Places and Smiling Faces you keep hearing about.

We took Highway 78 into Charleston from Augusta, which sent us through some great little towns with fabulous old homes and commerical districts, past swamps and rivers and old graveyards accessible only by dirt country roads.

This is the country white European settlers thought they could tame, but was too wild, too tough, and too malaria-ridden. The people most suited to this environment were Africans brought over in the slave trade, and everywhere in the lowcountry one feels and sees hundreds of years of black American history.

The crown-jewel of the lowcountry - "arguably" would say Savannahians - is Charleston, a city graced (at least for white folks) by a strong, mosquito-hatin' breeze, cool summer temperatures, and a top-notch port and – conversely – cursed with earthquakes, draconian preservation laws, and the world's worst sidewalks (hope you're feeling better, Aunt Patty!)

To be sure, Charleston is a tourist town and summer abode for the rich. Grand old homes stretch for many city blocks in the southern part of town and provide for hours upon hours of green-eyed, house-gawking by married women and gay couples. Tourists flock to this area and the areas surrounding the old town, centered on the Old Market, with its numerous vendors – the most interesting and authentic of whom are the sweetgrass basket makers/sellers.

But Charleston is also home to many students, military families, and other working class folks – some of whom live in dilapidated 150-year-old homes in the northern section; homes which are too old to tear down and too expensive (and mired in bureaucratic red tape) to improve. This, actually, was one of the most interesting sections of Charleston which we found driving into town by way of Highway 78/King Street.

It was in this part of Charleston where we found perhaps one of the most exciting and distinctive of all restaurants in the New South. That restaurant is called, simply, Hominy Grill.

Hominy Grill is located in an old, stand-alone building that formerly was a barber shop. Separated by distance from the tourist area, it survives and thrives on reputation alone. Judging from the quality of their food – at least from our experience – that reputation is well-deserved, and then some.

It wasn't by accident that we came across Hominy Grill. Even before we left the tarmac at SFO, I had known this restaurant was a must-eats destination in the city of Charleston. However, I did not expect it to be as good as it was.

On our visit, we lucked out and missed the lunch rush literally by a few minutes. It had just finished clearing out when we were seated at the window box seat next to the front entrance. Bright difused light from the tall plate glass windows flooded the main dining room with its high ceilings, flat white vertical wood slat walls, and decorative tin ceiling tiles. Dark exposed wooden floors and tan-stained wooden furniture offset the stark brightness of the walls and centered the gravity of the room towards a comfortable middle. Bluegrass music played quitely in the background, perhaps a wink and a nod to those who would define "classical" music another way.

Right away we were casually greeted by a hostess and then seated. Soon after, a young waitress with the most charming Southern accent – and perhaps being a college student herself – introduced herself, informed us of the specials of the day, and took our drink orders. I guess I should mention that, at this part of the trip, anything other than sweet tea for me was out of the question. Bruce, being a true Californian, insists on drinking his tea unsweetened – partially out of taste, partially out of regional chauvanism (I kid).

Despite many of the wonderful things on the menu to choose from, I had made up my mind ahead of time to try the Country Captain, a "sauteed chicken breast in a tomato-curry sauce with currants and toasted almonds over jasmine rice." I had made country captain before (remember?) and wanted to see what the competition was serving. Plus, Hominy Grill was the only lowcountry restaurant I could find serving this classic lowcountry dish (yeah, I know – what the ???)

Another classic lowcountry specialty was the Shrimp Purloo, which is what Bruce decided to order. This dish is a sort of a gullah rice casserole with chicken, andouille sausage, and jumbo shrimp.

Before we got to the main courses, however, we've gotta talk She Crab soup, which is a wonderfully rich, buttery and creamy soup pureed with fresh blue crab meat and (what some call) the crab butter blended in, plus with a noticeable little dab of sherry eased in. Now, for some of you who don't drink and are terrified (as I often am) of consuming anything with alcohol, let me put your minds at ease. This soup is safe – but then, we all have our tolerances, so if having soup with a touch of sherry is going to psyche you out, it's better to go without.

But you should see what you're missing.

The other appetizer we enjoyed were the fried green tomatoes, which were fat slices that were uniformly breaded and quickly fried in oil, hot enough to brown the outside while just warming the tomato without overcooking.

Tradionally, fried green tomatoes are cooked at lower temperatures and they develop that tangy, almost citrusy, cooked flavor. These were left as close to their natural state as possible and is exactly what "putting a twist" on traditional Southern cuisine is all about.

To some of the purists, this might have seemed as odd as the homemade ranch dressing that accompanied the slices, but I'd like to think of Hominy Grill as a place were the old and the new are allowed to interact – while also creating some wonderfully good food.

Don’t' think Bruce and I held back – there's one more appetizer I need to mention, and this one really takes the cake! The shrimp and okra beignets with salsa and cilantro-lime sour cream were, literally, to die for. No, seriously, I felt my nipples harden as I took one bite of these hot, rich morsels. The combination of cool and warm, of savory and sweet, of heavy and light, of tangy and rich: it was all represented in just a few bites.

Let me show you what a bite of one of these can make one do:

Scary, isn't it?

Emotionally, I was just warming up to the main course. Our plates arrived quickly from the kitchen and it was one of those times where arriving at the tail end of the lunch rush really pays off. Hominy Grill's Country Captain, I'm proud to say, kicked my country captain in the ass – and I'm still taking lessons. The chicken pieces were tender, but it was the sauce which really stood out. Dark and rich, it was sweeter and less spicier than your typical curry house dish, while the almonds and currants seemed to drive this dish down a road nowhere near Brick Lane.

The shrimp purloo was hearty and satisfying; the smokiness of the sausage, combined with the chicken, shrimp and rice, spells out in flavor the wonderful mix of cultures and ethnicities that makes the lowcountry such a unique place in America. Surround that powerful concoction in a bright and spicy tomato-pepper sauce and you have the foundation of what makes a restaurant, like Hominy Grill, so important and so necessary.

Enjoy this food. Enjoy it with every bite. Don't worry about making room for pie. YOU WILL make room for pie, cake, or whatever you damn well like.

Generally, I look down upon dessert. Too often, dessert attempts to be the piece de resistance of a spectacular meal, only to be the Hershey's kiss of death. For me, I want my meal to culminate in a fireworks-exploding climax centered around the main course.

But y'all (lower chin quivering – eyes watering), you have got to try this damn pie. This is how I want dessert. This slice of buttermilk pie takes all of the love, all of those days spent walking together on the beach, and wraps it in its cool, soft but solid arms and holds you steady - giving sweet kisses on your lips. And then getting kind of freaky with the whip cream, but it's all good.

Equally as tender, loving, and a sheer joy to behold is the excellent coconut cake. I will say this: I grew up eating some of the best coconut cake in the world and this is definitely up there. Everything that should be in a cake is here: moist, rich, not too sweet, not too overpowering with just enough coconut flavor, you have to wonder which came first – the nut or the cake?

It would be a shame to spoil this moment by bringing up the subject of cost, but I think you'll be happy to know that this moment of dining pleasure and enlightenment won't enlighten your wallet or purse. Hominy Grill, for the quality and service, was so affordable Bruce and I seriously discussed flying back to Charleston in 6 months just to eat at Hominy again.

It was that good.

k.

Rambling 'Round

2007-07-16T13:52:00.000-07:00

I think I've found my calling.

Frankly, the idea of pickling peaches sounded weird. However, I was unprepared for how good these weird sounding peaches actually were! While I didn't grow up eating pickled peaches, I became interested when I started to learn more about Southern cuisine and saw several mentions of them - along with recipes.

I have to say: it's highly unusual for me to can sweet things, or even can at all. I've canned cucumber pickles and sauerkraut, but never really sweet things like jam, preserves or fruit packed in syrup. However, after my first try with pickled peaches, I think I may be on to something.

If you are preserving or pickling peaches, you better do so while they last. Right now we're in full swing of the season and peaches can be found in abundant supply at low, low prices - especially here in California, where we actually grow more peaches than the state of Georgia does.

For my first attempt at pickling peaches, I used the common round, yellow-flesh, clingstone variety you can find almost anywhere. While these peaches are visually more appealing, I decided the second time around to use the white-flesh Saturn or Donut peach one can find in Asian markets, mostly since they are flat and can fit more easily into a quart jar without having to cut in half.

Right now, you can find these peaches from anywhere between 79 cents to one dollar per pound – if you know where to look. It should be noted that the peach is native to China and didn't really become popularized in America until the late 19th century.

It should also be noted that I would like to now burst into song:

"The peach trees they are loaded,
The limbs are bending down.
I pick 'em all day for a dollar, boys
As I go ramblin' 'round."
As I go rambling 'round."

"Sometimes the fruit gets rotten,
Falls down on the ground,
There's a hungry mouth for every peach
As I go rambling 'round, boys
As I go rambling 'round."

That was two verses from an excellent Woody Guthrie song written from the perspective of a migrant farmworker. Peaches are a big business in California and the work of harvesting them is grueling, hard work.

Bruce worked picking peaches one summer when he was in high school. First, you had to be at work in the field by 5AM in order to work during the coolest part of the day (in the Central Valley it can get well above 100 on an average summer day). Next, you have to wear layers upon layers of clothing, not because of the weather, but because the peach fuzz - if it were to get on your skin - would cause such irritation it would drive you insane.

We can never overstate the sheer endurance and strength it must take for farm workers to do their job, day in and day out. Every time I eat a strawberry, a peach, or an apple, I try to think of the agricultural worker and thank them for doing the tough work so I don’t have to.

Not that canning peaches is a piece of cake, mind you.

It’s time consuming and requires that you concentrate on the work at hand, but thankfully it’s easy enough that anyone can do it. First you start off with the peaches.

By the way, the recipe I used for my pickled peaches came from the Lee Bros Southern Cookbook, which I recommend not only for this recipe but for so many essential down-home recipes either in their pure form or, to the tsk-tsk of a few, kicked up a notch. So they put cream cheese in their pimento cheese spread – big deal!

I started with 10 pounds of washed Donut peaches and they filled 5 quart jars. By the way, you want to make sure your canning jars and lids have all been washed in hot, soapy water and thoroughly dried before you begin. That way they are ready to go when you are.

We begin by skinning our washed and cleaned peaches in a pot of boiling water. By the way, you want your peaches to be uniformly firm and without a lot of soft spots. You can skin a group of peaches all at once in a large pot, but I prefer to work with one peach at a time. If I had help and we were doing a lot, I’d do multiple peaches in boiling water at once.

When the water is at full boil, dunk the peach (or peaches) in and boil for 1 minute. Have ready a bowl of ice water and a large enough container to hold the skinned peaches in when you’re done. After 1 minute in boiling water, dunk the peach in the ice water and then remove. The skin should slide off, but if it doesn’t go ahead and use a knife to peel the rest of the skin off. Reserve the skinned peach to a container.

By the way the peaches I used didn’t brown after they had been skinned and sat a while, but if you are worried I’ve heard you can add salt to the boiling water bath and that minimizes the browning on peaches (or you could rub them in a mixture of lemon juice and water).

Once you’ve skinned your peaches, start the syrup in a large pot. The syrup consists of 6 pounds of sugar, 6 cups of apple cider vinegar, 3 tablespoons of cloves, 3 tablespoon of chopped crystallized ginger, and 6 – 10 sticks of cinnamon. By the way, you’ll have plenty of syrup left over after canning your peaches. If you want, you could save it and use later in sparkling water drinks – like you would using Torani syrup.

Stir the syrup ingredients together and turn the burner up to medium-high. When the syrup comes to a boil, reduce the heat to medium or medium-low and continue to cook on a low boil for 20 minutes.

Next, add peaches in batches large enough to just fill the surface of the pot and cook for 8 minutes over medium-high, making sure to roll them so that they cook evenly on all sides. When they are done, reserve them to the quart jars you will use to can them in. Grab some of the cinnamon sticks and put those in the jars as well.

While you are cooking the peaches, you will notice that the peaches you have reserved in the jars have sunk down and have released some of their juice. Keep that in mind since you will be able to add more peaches to the jars. Try to minimize free space in the jar as much as you can while keeping the peaches whole and not completely smashed down. You may also cut some of the peaches in half to fit more in.

Once you have filled the jars, ladle in the syrup and cover – leaving 1/2 inch of air space at the top. Wipe the edges of the jars with a clean, damp papertowel, then seal and screw on the rings, but do not tighten. In a large enough pot that has very hot (but not boiling water) in it, carefully add the jars of peaches and then cover with more water so that there's at least a half-inch to an inch of water above the top of the jars. Bring this to a boil (it could take some time). Once it is boiling, be careful to watch that it doesn't over boil and process for 15 minutes.

After time's up, remove the jars with a jar-lifter by pulling straight up and gripping the middle of the jar rather than the top. Always lift straight up and down. Let the jars cool on wire racks and carefully wipe off the water from the tops of the jars.

As you'll see, if you haven't really packed the jar with fruit you'll have a big gap at the bottom that's just syrup while all of the fruit is sucked up near the top. You'll have that gap anyway, but if you've done a good job packing the fruit in, it shouldn't be too wide.

After the jars are cooled, you can make labels for them – or not. What I did was I took leftover paper fake money Bruce bought in Chinatown a long time ago and, using a spare lid, traced around the lid and cut out the shape.

Then I unscrewed the rings, placed the round pieces of paper on the lid, and then screwed back down the rings. Pretty cool, heh?!

This is about as fancy as I get, y'all.

k.

More Than Meets The Eye

2007-07-13T10:22:00.000-07:00

"When you can do the common things of life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world."
-George Washington Carver

I see that the Redneck Games just happened in Georgia, and along with the customary bobbing for pigs feet, a horseshoe throwing contest using toilet seats, and the grand belly-flop in the mud contest, many a Confederate Battle Flag adorned the bodies and hoopty mobiles of the event participants.

Photo by Flickr user xthylacine

I, along with most people, take it for granted that it's all in good fun – we see it as poor white Southerners poking fun of themselves. The inclusion and widespread display of the battle flag at the event, however, is interesting on many levels, since it is a real and powerful cultural and political symbol. After all, here is the flag that for many Southerners represents "heritage" and "pride", despite meaning the exact opposite for millions of Southern black and white descendants of slaves and Union soldiers/sympathizers.

Here is that heritage, in all of its pride and glory: sunburned, drunk, and face down in a pool of mud. It is perhaps one of the most artistic displays of mass social commentary to occur in the United States on an annual basis – a sort of trailer fabulous Dadaist movement for the Bubbas and Britneys of the finger-lickin' good set; unwitting progenies of Marcel Duchamp all.

Photo on the left by Flickr user xthylacine

To the prim and proper (read: rich) Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy, it is no doubt an embarrassment; Dixie's muddy laundry for all the world (read: Yankees) to point and laugh at. To this end, the landed - and yachted - gentry have taken up the display of the Stars and Bars, as opposed to the battle flag, to distance the trash from the treasures of Southern heritage.

And of course, to many black and white Southerners who find the battle flag and all that it entails to be an ugly reminder of slavery, racism, and the lost cause of the plantation owners, here it is – yet again – broadcast to the world straight from the heart of Dixie. The battle flag of the Confederacy: which is illegal to desecrate as a political statement in the State of Louisiana, but whose "pride and heritage" it purports to symbolize was noticeably absent when poor (and mostly) black refugees of that state were left to die after Hurricane Katrina struck.

To ignore the battle flag and its legacy would be wrong. However, when viewed through the lens of the Redneck Games, the battle flag is transformed and reclaimed into something distinctively unusual and, even more, distinctively Southern. Disassociated for one day from its political and social history, the sun and sweat-soaked flag – clinging to the bodies of "rednecks" (another term for white undesirables) - becomes a symbol of Southern "make-do with what you've been given"; an affirming philosophy that transcends race and class in the South and is the true legacy and pride of all Southern people.

You and I both know that adaptation is a common, but remarkable, human trait, but Southerners have always been so dang good at it – most especially, the poor people of the South.

And that brings us to Boiled Peanuts.

Slavery introduced the peanut to North America and, most importantly, the American South. It was brought with the West African slaves who previously acquired it from the Portuguese who brought it from Brazil. And it was an African American man, George Washington Carver, who popularized the peanut's properties in revitalizing depleted soil where unrotated cotton crops once grew.

Peanut farming, in addition to hog farming and sweet potatoes, was not only instrumental in sustaining the agricultural economy of the South, but it became an important cash crop for former slaves and other poor Southerners who relied on subsistence farming. For these reasons, it has sustained a strong foothold in Southern culture and cuisine, especially in the cotton growing regions of the South.

It was in these regions where I first encountered the famous boiled peanut. Often, it was when my family drove through the coastal plains and lowcountry of the Carolinas from our home in the mountains, on our way to the beach. Boiled peanuts still remind me of white sand, long pines, and suntan lotion – although not necessarily in that combination.

It's good to see that peanuts still provide a living to many people in the area. Granted, selling "p-nuts" from the side of the highway won't be the road to riches, but it sure beats being a wage slave at the local WalMart.

Boiled Peanut stands are certainly a highlight of any trip to the South. It use to be that one only encountered such stands closest to the coast, however that one - being me - has discovered boiled peanuts as far inland as the mountains of north eastern Georgia.

Each vendor has his or her own specialty – which means unfortunately I have seen "BBQ P-Nuts" for sale. On our way to Charleston, on Highway 78 outside of Summerville, we ran across Poppy's P-Nuts stand, ran by a lovely older lady known simply as "Nana" (as in grandma). I could see her little Viking trailer from the distance - a small baby blue dot that, as we got closer and could read the sign, beckoned our stomachs (at least mine anyway) to stop and sample the wares.

Visually, everything about Nana's boiled peanut trailer is everything you could ever want in such an operation: compact (yet spacious), portable, and hella tight with that funky-funky retro look about it.

Nana was even cooler than her trailer and we spoke at length about her, her daughter in Bakersfield, and Southern California in general – which she described as "H – E – double L". I have to disagree with her on that point – SoCal has a lot of beauty and nice people – but she is right in saying that Californians have worse manners. As a resident of this state for the last 14 years, I rarely hear someone say "yes, sir" or "yes, ma'am", and let's not even bring up driving, okay?

Anyway, Nana was dishing out the peanuts while shooting the shit with the locals who'd stop by (and us as well) and by the way, you didn't hear it from me…but have you seen a certain someone's new boyfriend? Girrrrll!

If I lived in the area, I'd stop by Poppy's everyday just to hear what was going on!

Boiled peanuts are such a popular snack food in the South that one can often find a steaming pot of them next to the pickled eggs and "fresh brewed" coffee in most convenience stores and gas stations. However, I prefer to support the smaller stands – it just feels right.

I trust the flavoring more in smaller stands. Despite not really knowing what "K-Jun" flavored is suppose to mean, I trust that Nana's K-Jun boiled peanuts are better than most and hasn't a huge amount of toxic ingredients (perhaps this is where faith overrides better judgment?) I know for sure her ham-flavored boiled peanuts are safe, but I went with the plain, all natural ingredients (salt), regular boiled peanuts – just peanuts, water, and salt.

Boiled peanuts generally are sold by the pound and won't set you back too much ($2.25). They come to you warm and slightly hot and when you peel one open and suck that warm mushy salty peanut out with its juice it's like crawling into a warm bed on a cold night. Umm-umm, I think I've died and gone to heaven!

Adaptation never tasted so good.

k.

That's Not Cooking, That's Shopping!

2007-07-11T17:23:00.000-07:00

Manners will get you places money can't.

Nevertheless, it will cost $86 to have an aged country ham sent from East Tennessee to your home in Northern California.

And that's Ground. Figure in $10 to have it sliced by one of the few independent meatcutters around who'll risk the fine the Health Department will impose if caught and you're looking at almost a Benjamin to enjoy some of the finest country ham money and manners can buy.

Oh, I almost forgot.

Look what came in for ME today!

Go Kevin! It's your birthday! But not really! Squeal anyway!

This 14-pound beauty is a smoked country ham aged for 13 months - made with love, care, patience and a whole lot of skill by the fine folks at Benton's Smoky Mountain Country Hams in Madisonville, Tennessee.

Benton's was first recommended to me by Mary Beth Lasseter of Southern Foodways Alliance when I had inquired about non-Smithfield country hams. Then, when Bruce and I were dining at Early Girl Eatery in Asheville, North Carolina (a review is in the works), I couldn't stop ranting and raving about their country ham – which had been the best our whole time in the South. Turns out, they were serving Benton's country ham!

Country ham and biscuits at Early Girl Eatery - early May 2007

Frankly, before our Southern Fried BBQ Road Trip (yes, I can say that with a straight face) it had been a little difficult trying to convince Bruce to go in with me on a whole country ham. Of course wouldn't you know that, while on our trip, Bruce ordered country ham - and seconds, and thirds – at every opportunity he got!

When it came time to place our Benton's order, it was like "Bruce, I was thinking about ordering..."

"Okay."

Two weeks later and BAM – in walks my UPS guy; him and I, we're like this (crosses fingers).

As I mentioned earlier, good luck in finding a meatcutter/butcher who'll run the risk of slicing your whole ham for you. Honestly, I'd love to tell you who cut mine and shamelessly plug their business – they deserve it – but occasionally THE MAN tunes in here...what up, Mang! However, I would recommend inquiring with the smaller, more established meatcutters in your city or town – especially those who normally service a specific ethnic clientele.

I had my ham sliced somewhat thinly (about 1/4") to fry, with the end pieces left in larger chunks for stews, pinto beans, collard greens, and leather britches (dried green beans). I contemplated bringing a biscuit cutter along with me and having the guy cut the ham into slices that would perfectly fit on each biscuit, but I didn't want to seem pesky.

Anyway, they were so nice to take my money – and I mean that in a completely non-snarky, snarkless, asnarkful way.

Getting the ham home was the easy part, despite having to carry 14 pounds of smoked pork on my back down the Walled Corridor of Death By Human Trampling – aka the western sidewalk side of Sansome between Bush and Sutter. Following the advice on the suggestion/recipe sheet that came with the ham, I'm keeping the ham covered in canola oil and stashed in the fridge. Apparently, this will preserve the ham for up to a year – but we'll be lucky to have any left by the end of August!

I love these gallon-size plastic containers! They're actually recycled pretzel containers.

Now, if you will excuse me: I have more important matters to attend to.

k.

Dogma Personified and I Will Not Cotton To Your So-Called "BBQ"

2007-07-03T21:50:00.000-07:00

Being Southern-born and bred does not automatically make one an authority on barbecue, bluegrass, the Civil War, or Hee Haw.

I do, however, loves me some Hee Haw.

I thought I knew more than enough about all that when, in fact, I didn't know squat – especially when it came to barbecue. I guess I'm like (or was like) the majority of Americans who believe barbecue is something you do, not something that just is. What barbecue means to almost everyone I know is to whip out the Weber charcoal or propane gas grill and "barbecue" hamburgers and hot dogs. Or perhaps it means to take pieces of marinated or dry-rubbed meat and grill them directly over a hot fire (or a hot broiler) until it's smoky and charred.

Then drench it with a thick and spicy tomato-based sauce which is super-sweetened with brown sugar and that's "barbecue" or "Bar-B-Q" or "barbeque" or "BBQ". With such fast and loose criteria every fair-weather, backyard, dottering fool is a barbecue pit master.

Tomorrow, on the 4th of July, there will be lots of folks "barbecuing" but most will not actually be serving barbecue. That's because, despite the misappropriation of the term, true barbecue is meat (notably pork) slow-cooked for hours over indirect heat and over hardwood coals, preferably hickory. Especially in North and South Carolina, barbecue means pork and pork only, and it's never marinated or coated with spices beforehand. In fact, North Carolina has a law which states anything packaged and sold as barbecue must be pork slow-cooked over hardwood, otherwise it must be sold as "cooked pork".

If it sounds as though I'm being inflexible and dogmatic with a touch of butt-ache well, that's because I am. As all new converts to any religion would be - because, friends, I have been to the mountain top (literally). I have made my pilgrimage to the barbecue holy land and I've come back to share the good news with you.

That news is: barbecue is Slow Food. It is a tradition and skill, not to be messed around with. It is a way of life upon which reputation and family honor is at stake; a heritage and art form passed down from generation to generation. To equate the work and cuisine of people like the late Wayne Monk, Wilber Shirley, or Pete Jones with your average backyard griller or, worse, some obscenity calling itself "Korean BBQ" is nothing less than defamation – and it shouldn't be tolerated by anyone who remotely thinks of him or herself as a "foodie".

I'm sorry, but I won't budge on this.

Grilling is not barbecue. Barbecue is not a verb.

Damn.

Only in Georgia is barbecue a radio station – WBBQ to be exact – which is what we listened to traveling down that long, green, tree-lined corridor on our way to Charleston, stopping in Augusta for lunch. Originally our plan was to stop at Hot Foods by Calvin, which looked promising as we approached the restaurant and discovered it was in a run-down part of town; many fine restaurants often are. However, upon pulling up to the front door, we discovered to our disappointment that it was closed for renovations.

The convenience store beside Hot Foods By Calvin did have a bathroom we could use and more pickled eggs and boiled peanuts than you could shake a health department violation at, but we decided to keep looking. We were, after all, guided a magical plastic pig.

After passing through Augusta, with its quaint downtown and downhome adjoining neighborhoods, we were back on the road and just crossing the South Carolina border. It was Sunday afternoon, so not much was open in the way of restaurants. It was then that we noticed a large and welcoming restaurant on the side of the road called Bobby's Bar-B-Q Buffet, and it was open.

Should we stop? Please – you had me at "buffet".

I have to admit, I was a little nervous at first. Here we were, two wayfaring strangers, about to enter this huge log cabin looking restaurant in which the only diners seemed to be very old, very white, and very conservative looking senior citizens. They could've wheeled the corpse of Strom Thurmond out of that place and I wouldn't have batted an eye.

Of course, it all made sense once I found out Bobby's has a special discount for churchgoers – just show them that day's program schedule from the church of your choosing (Seventh Day Adventists welcome on Saturdays.)

Bobby's Bar-B-Q is a large and clean establishment. The pig theme is in full effect here, as is the Southern habit of ancestor worship as manifested in the Confederate War Hero shrine which greets you upon arrival.

Because it's a buffet, you pay what is essentially an entrance fee ($8 or so) which buys you a sturdy styrofoam plate, a plastic fork and spoon, and all of the food and sweet tea one can possibly consume without exploding – although some leakage may occur.

I was way in over my head here. Bobby's had more pig on a buffet spread than I've ever seen before and/or since. We're talking ribs, cracklins, fried pork chops, chopped barbecue, pulled barbecue, and things I never even knew existed and, hell, I'm a regular diner in Chinatown!

Hushpuppies, fried pork chops, pork ribs, chopped barbecue, cole slaw (hidden underneath pork chops), collard greens

They also had the best hushpuppies, which had more of a true corn flavor than most of the hushpuppies we would have later. In fact, Bruce says they were the best hushpuppies of the entire trip.

The fried pork chops and ribs were good, but nothing memorable. Same applies to the collard greens, mac and cheese, and baked beans. The fried chicken was excellent – to my amusement. I never fail to get a chuckle out of restaurants who promote some star attraction while the real attraction, often something as simple as a side order, goes completely ignored by everyone but the customers.

In contrast to the fried chicken, which was crisp and savory, the slaw was soft and sweet – and I do mean sweet. It was to be the first of many sugary-sweet, bright bright green sides that go for slaw in these here parts. To some, this type of hypersweet cole slaw may seem odd but trust me, it works well as a counter-balance to the more heavier foods like the fried chicken or barbecue.

Barbecue-wise, the contender was the fine chopped 'cue against the South Carolina-style, mustard heavy, pulled pork. Clearly, the mustard-sauce pulled pork immediately won me over, despite being a little dry.

Baked beans, fried chicken, a pork rib, hushpuppies, pulled pork (South Carolina style)

Lucky then that a bottle of extra mustard sauce was sitting at the table, alongside a bottle of Texas Pete hot vinegar sauce that no self-respecting barbecue restaurant goes without. Other table accoutrement included the customary roll of paper towels for napkins, which made us feel right at home.

We are not complicated peoples.

Banana pudding, pulled pork, chopped pork, hash

The other winner here was what I thought at first was Brunswick stew but turned out was hash. Hash is a specialty in the upstate part of Georgia and South Carolina and is a thick stew made with finely chopped barbecue and/or beef. Some of that mustard sauce goes into the hash along with the meat and what you essentially have is "barbecue" stew. Hash is cooked in huge pots for hours, developing a deep, rich flavor – slow food for the hungry mass of churchgoers and those rank strangers among them.

By mid-afternoon this place was clearing out; bellies full, waistlines extended, Holy Spirit called for - often in vain. Me, on the other hand, I've yet to finish my second cup of banana pudding: the Southern man's Creme Brulè.

I've decided my diet is over.

And I need another plate.

k.

Praise the Lord and Pass the Biscuits

2007-07-02T17:23:00.000-07:00

It's hard to get a feel for a city when you're only staying there overnight.

It's even harder when that city spreads out 132 square miles, with a metropolitan area four and a half times larger. Nevertheless, our stay in Midtown Atlanta was surprisingly pleasant; downtown and urban, but within close walking distance to large, palatial homes with large, old trees swaying in the Southern breeze. I say "surprisingly" because we didn't actually pick the location of our hotel based on its reputation or environs of the surrounding area, but rather how close it was to the Silver Skillet restaurant.

In fact, staying in Midtown was convenient for both dinner at the Varsity and breakfast at the Silver Skillet, especially if you happen to be paying the mortgage on one of those large and palatial homes – you may just have to eat there come the first of every month!

However, consider this a blessing in disguise since the Silver Skillet was and is everything I hoped it would be and more. It is what we Californians (who know the difference) often refer to as a "coffee shop" but what others often refer to as a diner. In fact, the Silver Skillet, in all of its pride and glory, is the Southern cousin of every fine coffee shop I've stepped into in my travails as a bona fide dive connoisseur.

It's appeal isn't lost on the locals. On a bright and early Sunday morning, when many fine citizens of Atlanta are still praising the Lord and passing the collection plate, you'll find Atlanta's other fine folks praising the lard in the pecan pie crust and passing the plate of butter here at the Silver Skillet. Not that the church folks don't stop in afterwards – that lard and sweet buttery goodness isn't lost on them neither.

Finding the Silver Skillet was easy as pie, especially when guided by our psychic pig/trip mascot whose divination powers in finding pork or pork products borders on the miraculous and just plain freakish. That little plastic pig hanging from our rental car's rear view mirror pointed us in the general direction of the restaurant and, despite getting distracted by the occasional whiff of bacon in the air, guided us to the shiny-car-filled lot of the Silver Skillet.

Once seated, the choices were daunting. I praised my higher power that we were seated in a booth, otherwise sitting at the counter would've placed us by the signs and menus hanging near the kitchen beckoning us to try the Fried Catfish, the Ham Steak, the Country Ham Steak, the Roast Beef Sandwich, the Fruit and Ice Box Pies, and something curiously called a Dutch Salad which, at least in San Francisco, could mean anything you might imagine and everything you'd never ever want to.

There are greater hazards in life to consider when curiosity gets the better of you.

One of those hazards could be the actual act of dining at the Silver Skillet if you're a supporter of Jesse Jackson, Senator Hillary Clinton, or anyone or anything to the Left of, say, Justice Antonin Scalia (who says there are no Italian fascists left?). Nothing, unfortunately, says you have arrived in a certain pocket of the Deep South better than these, ahem, choice words posted near the front counter, alongside a picture of Senator Clinton's head crudely pasted onto a dairy cow proclaiming her the first case of "mad cow" in New York:

"Women do not belch, women do not snore, women do not fart – therefore they must bitch or they will blow up."

Perhaps it just seems ironic to me that at the Silver Skillet, all of whom one sees doing the work are women – women who, according to this tasteless attempt at humor, are little more than bitching nags. It also doesn't escape my attention that, with the exception of one couple (a man and a woman), everyone in here is white – despite the fact that Atlanta is majority black. Could it be that Jesse Jackson is actually respected by the majority of black people in the South and, perhaps, still hated by the decaying old stalwarts of racial segregation?

But I’m not here to judge the politics of the owners or the people who eat here. However, I will say this: In the South, I think one of the reasons one doesn't see as many political bumper stickers on cars is that, for the most part, politics is "don't ask, don't tell." Or rather, "don't ask, don't offend." Running across something so opinionated here at the Silver Skillet seems to me to be an oddity of some sort, almost as odd as the retro feel and look of the restaurant itself.

And yet, for what it's worth, this is what makes the Silver Skillet not ordinary. Frankly, ordinary is boring.

It's definitely not a gourmet experience, but the Silver Skillet has what one needs in a solid breakfast, namely the Four Food groups: carbs, protein, fat, and hot coffee. Bruce and I basically ordered the same: eggs, grits, slices of country ham with red-eye gravy, and biscuits. He passes on the red-eye gravy, which is a thin sauce made by deglazing a skillet with black coffee.

The biscuits here are otherworldly. If you missed church to come here, you may just find Jesus between the butter and the biscuits. They are that good – fluffy and tasty and scrumptious in a way that is hard to describe, and why bother – can I just have some more please? All of the things we know about, which foods to avoid for example, if you want to live a long happy life – all of that stuff just flies out the door here.

Silver Skillet: just another two words for "nothing left to lose"?

Yes: you are going to have grits, and you're going to have them with butter and sugar. They're going to accompany your highly salty country ham, which you're going to eat with your non-certified, pretty damn unfair trade black coffee gravy or perhaps sandwich in between lard or Crisco-saturated, highly processed white flour biscuits. Please don't forget the cholesterol-rich eggs from chickens who've never seen the outside of a massive hen house, because they'll coat the lining of your stomach when you've decided to down yet another cup of that strong black coffee.

Right about now you'll start to piece together why there are so many churches in the South, and why at least one is always a hop, skip, and ambulance ride away.

The biggest reason: forgiveness.

Second reason: Death – and if you've noticed anything about Southern culture you'll notice that "death" tends to be a recurring theme, in particular "death", "sin", "guilty pleasures", "Heavenly retribution" and, most especially, "revenge". Because if the biscuits, grits, and ham doesn't shut you down like a gin joint in a dry county, the pecan pie just might.

It's true, Kevin: you didn't need that piece of pie, but it was brought to your table with such grace and kindness – how could you refuse? Why, that would be plain rude! And after all, you did order it. Admittedly, in the South it's odd to eat pie with breakfast, however I was afraid if I ordered the banana pudding someone might think I was weird, or God forbid a liberal!

Indeed, what would've raised a disapproving eyebrow or two would have been demanding Universal Healthcare to go with my slice.

But the Lord, He does work in mysterious ways.

k.

Hi-Five Back At Ya!

2007-06-29T15:55:00.000-07:00

Oh, it's Friday. What the hell.

INSTRUCTIONS: Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so:

1. Blair’s Boys
2. Harmonia’s Cuppa Tea
3. Vaguetarian Tea Room
4. Sugar and Lard
5. Bacon Press

Next, select five people to tag:
1. Sly Stone
2. Jack T. Chick
3. Thomas Pynchon
4. J.D. Salinger
5. John Hughes

What were you doing 10 years ago?

Working in a bookstore. Drinking lots of vodka.

What were you doing 1 year ago?

Checking out of detox and staying away from authors.

Five snacks you enjoy:
1. Dried mango
2. Tamari-roasted almonds
3. A can of sardines
4. Beef jerky
5. Hard-boiled eggs

Five songs that you know all the lyrics to:
(which one doesn't belong?)
1. I Am A Poor Pilgrim Of Sorrow – Traditional
2. Moonshiner – Roscoe Holcomb
3. Love Has Brought Me To Despair – Traditional
4. That's Not My Name – The Ting Tings
5. Been A Long Time Travelling – Almeda Riddle

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
1. Crush things. Anything.
2. Lucrative investments in Eastern European leopard-print textiles and Asian plastic wrap markets.
3. Sit back, watch non-profit fundraisers grovel for money, pit one against the other, touch cold clammy fingertips together and laugh an eeevil laugh.
4. Complain some more.
5. Buy gun, buy land, buy flea-bitten dog, buy mobile home, act crazy.

Five bad habits:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5. Procrastination.

Five things you like doing:
1. Road trips.
2. Vegging out with Bruce, watching a good Sci-Fi movie/show.
3. 9 O'Clock pie runs (in theory, as well as practice)
4. Cooking for large groups
5. This.

Five things you would never wear again:
1. Paisley (umm, hello?)
2. "Unique" body piercings
3. Pink bouffant wig with the nun costume
4. Split-toe "ninja" shoes
5. Bomber jacket (Soooo 90s!)

Five favorite toys:
1. Thumb-sucking Moncheechee doll
2. Transgender Ken Doll (with accessories)
3. Crying "My Lil' Pony" doll
4. MUNI bus Transformer (Decepticon)
5. Lawn darts.

Why I Hate The Smell of Mario's Baked Ziti

2007-06-29T10:21:00.000-07:00

(Just a bit of fun. I'll get to the southern food this weekend.)

I can't believe they ended The Sopranos that way.

Nevertheless, I loved the ending. "T", Carm, Ajay, and...that Meadow! Guess what Meadow?? I have trouble parallel parking too!!

(I can't tell you how many times I had to back-up, pull-forward, pull-out, and back-in last night! It's maddening! It's enough to make one go all "Cleaver" and stuff.)

All of them – together, in of all things: a dive! How frickin' wonderful is that?!

But wait! It gets better. They went out with one of the coolest Journey songs ever! "Did he just say ever?" Ooohhh yes I did! Not only is Journey a local band, acceptable to consume as they fall within 100 miles of my music-shed, but they totally rock (in that power ballad, poppy, falsetto, guitar solo way). "When the lights, go dowwwn, in the Cit-tayyy...."

Tear.

Anyway, there WE were, the ______ Street Glorified Crew, all neighbors, watching the last episode of The Sopranos that we'll ever watch together again (excluding re-runs). This has been our cosa nostra thing every Sunday for the last 4 years. Oh! the laughs, the tears, the joys, the federal indictments we've all shared with Christopha, Sil, Adrianna, the evil Janet, crazy Uncle June, Johnnycakes, and the Russian from the Pine Barrens; all over good food, wine, Gentleman Jack, and lately ice tea (for me).

For the final episode, I thought we'd go out like we came in – with a big ol' dish of pasta cooked the Italian-American way. Instead of just following my instincts and cooking with the knowledge I've picked up over the years, I decided to consult an Italian-American – or rather, his cookbook.

Now don't get me wrong: I like Mario Batali as a television personality. Granted, I don't know him personally but he sure seems like a nice guy (although, historically, the only fat guys who wore brightly colored rubber shoes were clowns, but such are the times we live in).

Speaking of, that baked ziti recipe in Molto Italiano smells like dirty clown feet!

The ingredients sound innocent enough: tomato sauce, béchamel sauce, penne pasta, cheese, breadcrumbs, some mild Italian sausage (disclosure: that's something I added). It looked great in my casserole dish. But on the way over to Laura's, Bruce and I were like: "Dammmnn! Is THAT the ziti?"

Truly, it smelled like Mario's unwashed Croc's – with extra toe funk thrown in. Although the ingredients were completely fresh and not out-of-date, this specific combo of ingredients gave the casserole the distinctive smell of something festering past its prime. Could it be the cheese? I only used parm and mozzarella. Couldn't be the sausage, could it? The combo of béchamel sauce and tomato sauce duking it out like Tony and Phil Leotardo over who'd run garbage collection in Newark?

I don't know.

The good news is that it tasted fine; good even. My neighbors thought it was great, although Laura was a little startled over how heavy it was as she lifted the casserole dish from the oven, where it had finished cooking.

Of all people, I realize that often things that smell (hmmm, how should I put this?) nasty often taste wonderful and complex. Mario's Baked Ziti is no exception. But perhaps next time I'll omit the béchamel sauce or try a different recipe altogether.

In the meantime, I'll have to try Mario's other

(roll credits)

k.

Carbs and Carburetors

2007-06-22T10:30:00.000-07:00

Right about now, I imagine most of my loyal readers – all 5 of you – are pretty damned pissed and are basically like "what the F?!" that I seemed to have dropped off the face of the planet, never to be seen nor heard from again.

As you should be.

I don't know what happened. Well, actually, yeah I do.

It's taken me a while to feel comfortable writing again and being in the headspace to do it. A lot has been on my mind lately – stuff that has nothing to do with food. Okay – and then there are things, like watching my weight that has everything to do with food – but not in the way that I feel needs to be shared with the blogosphere.

There is such a thing as Too Much Information. (I know you'd never expect to read those words from me!)

Lots of internal introspection, lots of soul searching, and oh: I bought a car. It's an old VW and it's the first car I've owned in 14 years and I've been just a leeettle obsessed with it. My last car, which I'll call "Precious Baby 1", I sold before I left Florida and took a Greyhound bus out to California. I haven't owned a car since, so it's kind of weird to use the phrase "my car" with the actual word "MY" in front of the word "car". I usually do a double-take and then ask myself if I just had a Matrix moment, a senior moment, or something similar.

Such...is life? You can see why I haven't been too concerned with writing about food. There are more important things – things like low carbs and carburetors; a 36 year old body that needs some interior work, a few parts replaced, and a tune up – and a 34 year old body that needs roughly the same, plus an injection of dark chocolate every now and then (purely for the antioxidants, y'all.)

I've got a big weekend coming up (if you're watching the parade, look for me in contingent number 86!), but afterwards I'll be back to my normal – or normal for San Francisco – self. And yes, I do plan on telling you all about my trip, starting with Charleston and the Lowcountry.

Just hang in there.

I promise I'll come through for you.

k.

Got R Dun

2007-05-23T08:29:00.000-07:00

Greetings Lovers of Pork;

Or pork-related products;

Or pigs in general;

Or not.

We landed at SFO last Saturday and boy are my arms tired. I'm not joking: carrying luggage for what seemed like 5 miles through the mega-sprawl that is ATL can be exhausting, especially when you get stuck finding a gate that isn't accessible by people mover or by tram. In addition, the whole trip back I had a freakin' killer headache, my stomach felt like shit, and it felt like someone smacked my ears with the palm of their hands.

I was beat.

And going through pork withdrawal.

I'm better now and once I get into the hang of actually writing again, I'll be posting each and every glorious detail of Bacon Press's Southern-Fried Bar-B-Q Roadtrip 2007. Even though I'm a little out of practice with this writing thing and it feels like there's way too much information swimming around in my head, I feel inspired by my trip and hope to share some of the food and places I enjoyed while careening in an economy rental car through the South with Bruce, a plastic pig hanging from our rear-view mirror, and a Piggly Wiggly potholder beaming out our rear window to those people I cut off outside of the Asheville Mall parking lot.

Before I start with the food, some observations:

1. The flying experience:
Okay: I just hate flying. I also hate hospitals. Flying is like the equivalent to being stuck in a hospital where upon arrival some orderly sticks a finger up your butt and rushes you through the door before you've had a chance to regain your composure. As with hospitals, I'm eternally grateful that the people with whom you most often come in contact with also happen to be the most disgruntled, lowest paid, and with the biggest fucking chip on their shoulders both sides of the Mississippi. That said, at least we're "safe" – the elimination of the customary airplane meal alone has saved countless lives from food poisoning.

2. The Dirty South:
My KINGDOM for one simple, ordinary PAPER towel in the men's bathroom in South Carolina and Georgia! Instead, I get these infernal electric blow dryers. Guess what? I frickin' hate those things! I know it seems more environmentally friendly to do away with paper towels, but those dryers drive me bat-shit crazy! It's not like I use a whole lot. Just one (1) to dry my hands – and with that one (1), I use to open the door with, promptly throwing in the closest trash receptacle as the door is closing behind me. I never get my hands dry using electric dryers, no matter how fast or how hard I rub them. I just end up wiping them on my clothes. And then I have to touch, with my freshly clean and bare hands, the same door handle someone who just left without washing his nasty-ass greasy grubby paws after God-knows-what business he's been up to, thereby contaminating MY hands with billions of virulent, microscopic germs...!!!

(Please Jesus make it stop.)

God help me, I will mow down a pristine old-growth wilderness corridor just to avoid having to touch that goddamn door handle after washing my hands!

3. Pawn Shops and Liquor Stores:
People of the South: What is your obsession with pawn shops? And really – how many do you actually need in one square mile? Is 5 enough? How about 10? Are your asses really that broke that you speak with more regularity to the pawn shop owner than to your own baby's mama? I have seen more pawn shops on one small stretch of highway to last me for the rest of my life. "Mega Pawn", "Patriot Pawn", "Beach Pawn", "Everyday Pawn", "Pawn Pawn": Please, give it a rest and just keep your stuff. What gets me is that you guys advertise your dirty laundry with all of the pawn shops…and then try to hide the words "liquor store" from public view. But every Bub from the lowcountry to the high knows what "ABC" stands for and if he can't read, South Carolina makes it easy with those big-ass red dots covering the building. Why, that aint nothing but a booze bulls-eye!

4. "Git R Dun"
Actually, I kinda like it – and my cousin Joey cracked me up saying it. But it doesn't look as cool on your truck's rearview window as you think it does.

Especially parked outside of a pawn shop.

5. Total miles driven:

1,805

6. Total number of Waffle Houses actually seen from the road (not counting how many off-ramp locations actually passed):

44

7. Rough number of pounds gained by Kevin, mostly from sweet tea and biscuits:

3 - 4

k.

Tour Diary - Wilmington, NC

2007-05-09T15:13:00.000-07:00

Gawd!

We are moving really fast through the South, but not so fast that I feel like we're missing a whole lot. First, I'd like to take back what I said about Southern drivers. They're not slow or bad. I think that was just a bad experience in Atlanta. If anyone is slow, it's Bruce and I. We've been following the letter of the law when it comes to driving since we'd hate for the pork wagon to land n hot water. Speaking of, we'll be in barbecue country tomorrow and if you see this vehicle parked in the area -find us and chat us up.

I should start off by saying that there's no way I can do justice writing about any of the places we've eaten or been while I'm on vacation. It will have to wait so that I have time to think about the places and write about them fairly and in my usual style. As it is now, we're staying at lot of places without wi-fi and we're going at line the various cafes we can find with free wi-fi. By the way, thanks to Port City Java in Wilmington for letting us use the wi-fi!

I want the whole country to have free wi-fi NOW! Come on already! Instead, Bruce and I are braving hurricane-like weather to bring you this check-in...which shows you how dedicated I am to my readership.

I love yall!!

Speaking of hurricanes, we've had weird weather ever since we arrived on the coast but it has made for some interesting adventures. Today we went hunting for carnivorous plants deep in the Carolina State Beach preserve and literally had to run from the middle of a savannah back to the visitor parking lot before we were caught in the middle of a heavy thunderstorm. And while Charleston was GORGEOUS, it was also windy as hell and colder than a witches tit.

By the way, Charleston *is all that* - and a bowl of grits.

It's a beautiful old city with tons of character and friendly locals, like Sean at City Lights Cafe on George Street. Stop by if you're in town and grab a cup of java - you'll be glad you did!

Also, Bruce and I have decided that we're to fly to Charleston each day from San Francisco to have dinner at the Hominy Grill. Despite eating phenomenal food since we've landed at ATL, the Hominy Grill really stands out as one of the best places we've eaten thus far. This place rocks!

Shrimp Purloo at Hominy Grill

But besides the excellent Lowcountry cuisine to be had at the Hominy Grill, we've eaten high and mighty on the hog at:

= The Silver Skillet in Atlanta - awesome grits, country ham with red-eye gravy, gooey good pecan pie, and biscuits so sinfully delicious one bite will make your head spin and say things to a priest that'd make Linda Blair blush.

= Bobby's Bar-B-Q - We stumble onto this place outside of Aiken, SC after we got all the way to Hot Foods by Calvin in Augusta and found it closed for renovations...Ahhh! Nevertheless, I'm sorta glad it was since Bobby's was truly a unique experience. The short and skinny: actually no one was skinny in that place - this was South Carolina mustard-based barbecue buffet heaven. Highlights include pulled and chopped bbq pork, kickin' hushpuppies, banana pudding, cracklins, Brunswick stew, soft-serve ice cream, and fried pork chops.

= Nana's boiled p-nuts stand - side of the road Highway 78 outside of Summerville: Say hi to nana and her daughter in Bakersfield, CA. Stop by and get some hot boiled peanuts in 3 different flavors: regular (just salt), cajun, and ham. By the way, all you Californians could stand saying "yes sir" and "yes mam" a little more often in Nana's opinion. Just sayin'....

= Hanks Seafood in Charleston - Yummy she-crab soup, tasty shrimp and grits, roasted grouper on lobster/rock shrimp/leeks/sweet corn risotto, fried shrimp and calamari.

= Hominy Grill - Love this place! High, high, highlights include fried green tomatoes, rockshrimp and okra beignets, shrimp, chicken and sausage purloo, country captain(!), and the best slices of coconut cake I've ever had and the best slice of buttermilk pie I've never had.

Oh yeah: and I'm sweating sweet tea at this very moment. I think I've finished off 3 gallons so far. In fact, we stopped by Piggly Wiggly and you can buy sweet tea by the gallon there.

= Gullah Cuisine in Mt. Pleasant - A very cool place with a very friendly waiter; definitely a place to visit if you're ever in the area. Bruce had the crab cakes with gullah rice and fried okra and I had the BEST friend soft-shell blue crab with succotash and Hoppin John. At this point, I think I'd kindly trade the citizens of Charleston/Mt. Pleasant our dungeness crab for some of their blue crab...at least for a little while.

= Calabash Seafood Hut in Calabash, NC - Crisp and lightly breaded fresh and fried seafood at its best! Shrimp, oysters, sea scallops, whiting, and deviled crab to die for; all made the better with a basket of hot fried hushpuppies and homemade seafood cocktail sauce with a great horseradish bite. Loved this place!

Deviled Crab and friends at the Calabash Seafood Hut.

= Bowman's Seafood in Carolina Beach - Fish...again! We're going seafood crazy while we're here on the coast, but that's (mostly) why we're here. Bowman's was recommended by our motel manager and it was a great choice. Not as great as the Calabash Seafood Hut, but then those are pretty high standards to live up to. By the way, I think Bruce is hooked on deviled crab. I don't blame him - it's always been my favorite as well.

= A&G Barbecue in Carolina Beach - Okay, so I lied. We're here at the beach and we had to have barbecue. A&G is near where we're staying and it's a great local barbecue spot. Straight forward Eastern Carolina style barbecue, although not cooked over wood on a spit as some of the better places do. Nevertheless, it's the beach and this is probably the best place for barbecue in the area. Great Brunswick Stew, cole slaw (made with sweet pickles as an ingredient), fried yellow squash and okra, and chopped and sliced barbecue.

Okay! Does it seem like we've gone hungry?!

Yeah, we basically are rolling from one town to another on our full bellies. We're leaving the Wilmington area tomorrow and we're not sure where we're going tonight. Probably seafood...although there are lots of interesting restaurants in Wilmington.

I'll try to check in sometime this weekend or perhaps next week. Stay posted and I promise I'll do a proper review slash write-up slash blog post when I get back to the bay area.

In the meantime, can someone please hand me a paper towel?

I haven't seen one in the men's room since we landed!

(I guess I should be more eco-friendly - but I'm a total germphobe.)

Over and out.

k.

The Dirty Dirty South

2007-05-05T23:01:00.000-07:00

Okay, so the plane ride wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.

It's late here in Atlanta so I won't go through all of the stuff about the airport other than it was disturbing. We have a very disturbed method of transportation via air in this country and I don't doubt people are noticing and flying less...which is why my roundtrip fare on United from SFO to ATL was roughly $250.

As soon as we left the airport in our rental car (newly christened the "pork wagon" until we come up with something wittier) the level of nervousness and stress diminished as we headed through downtown Atlanta on Peachtree Street. First of all, Wow! Everything is green here!

Summers in the South are green, which I forgot after so many summers in dry, yellow California. And there are lots of trees in Hotlanta, which is actually mild and warm-lanta today. The air is balmy here and electrified with far off thunderstorms. People drive slow...but bad, like California on Xanax. Are the buildings taller than in SF? Or do they just appear that way from being more spread out?

Well, enough chitter chatter...I'm hungry!

We're off to the Varsity!

This place was better than I expected. Okay, let me rephrase that: the food is just okay, but the atmosphere is great and the constant sing-song call of "what'ya have, next please, what'ya have??!!" was more classic than the Coke signs that tower over this part of town.

I knew the Varsity restaurant would be big, but they could erect a movie screen in their parking lot and show double-features on this lot. It, weirdly enough, also seems to be quite the Saturday night hangout spot for horny white teenage couples and the odd shitkicker looking for a staredown contest.

The thing about Atlanta is that there is room to spread, and the Varsity spreads its customer seating out in huge rooms here and there. There's a cool section of the dining room built over the parking lot that harkens back to 60s moderne (don't quote me on that).

This place does bill itself as the world's largest drive-in and they could very well be right. I've been to a lot of drive-ins and nothing I've been to until now has been this stadium-like. Things in America are bigger as a matter of virtue, but this is just reeedickulus. This place has the staff of, like, 20,000 or something.

On the flip side, the actual portions aren't that large. I started off with a chili cheese slaw dog, a cheeseburger, and a large sweet tea. First of all, I loved how the sweet tea was so sweet it was just...just...SWEET. No tea about it, just sugary sweet - which actually was what was needed to cut through some of the grease of Bruce's onion rings that I kept stealing. In addition to the onion rings, he had a double bacon cheeseburger. At one point, still giddy from the sugar rush and being here at the Varsity, we both decided that this wasn't enough, so I went back to get more.

Varsity Round Two: Barbecue pork sandwiches. At $2.80 each, these were a little too small and the pork wasn't especially interesting. Kind of like the stuff I remember from High School. Of course, I went to high school in North Carolina so I'm not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing. I think as long as you have a cigarette afterwards anything's good in NC. Oh, did I mention the onion rings and hot fried apple pie? These were the (greasy) bomb!

BTW, the pork wagon smells like a damn dirty ashtray and I'm waking up at the buttcrack of dawn tomorrow and spending as much of my vacation money on whatever amount of Febreeze it takes to exterminate that god-awful stench.

After the Varsity, we headed over to Krispy Kreme on Ponce de Leon Street which was totally happening at 10:30 on a Saturday night. Lately I've been running into a lot of Californians who say they don't like Krispy Kreme. Maybe this is a regional thing. The people in Atlanta: they like Krispy Kreme.

When I was a teenager, Scott, Tony, Patches and me would lay out of school, bring along a cold 12, fire up a J, grab a dozen glazed Krispy Kreme donuts and innertube down the Swannanoa.

At this Atlanta Krispy Kreme, I have no reason to believe these folks aren't blitzed out of their freakin' minds.

k.

Bacon Press's Southern-Fried Bar-B-Q Road Trip 2007

2007-04-25T19:25:00.000-07:00

I've been practicing my Southern accent.

Sort of.

There are so many, but the one I'm practicing now is slightly twangy, not heavy, and for the most part generic. I'm also trying to speak more slowly, which is hard for me to do. I can't help it: I speak fast, eat fast, walk fast...and type a little too fast, which might explain why some of my past blog posts seem to ramble on and on without nary an end in sight.

In this respect, I am the king of Too Much Information.

I'm not sure what all of this is suppose to accomplish. I mean, whose good graces am I suppose to fall in to? My family loves me regardless of how I speak. And I stopped doing things to please my mother long, long before I left Asheville, North Carolina.

Heck, I can't walk past 10 people in downtown San Francisco without some of them looking at me like I ain't right, so you know I won't be blending in with the local Good Ol' Boys and them fine Southern ladies. I imagine they'll be casting a suspicious eye on me the second my foot hits the ground because, like Jesco White, I am the devil hisself, but with a hybrid California accent.

Whatever.

This is America and I don't have to blend in or conform to anyone's standards. Remember? "Rugged Individualism"? I'm gonna wear my white tube socks at dinner and my tight thrift store polyester blends and freak you out with the tattoos on my hands, arms, and legs – and I'm gonna talk fast with my worldly ways, cuss on Sunday and bulge my eyes, and if that gets your goat then it's been brought.

Kiss the goat, Dixie. I'm touring the South with a vengeance only a prodigal Southern freak can deliver. Bruce, with his full beard, olive skin, and that black cap he wears looking like a Muslim, is coming along and with him as my co-pilot it will be the Freak and the Muslim puttering from town to town in a fuel-efficient economy-sized car. Let's just hope we're not the inspiration for the sequel to Mississippi Burning.

First stop:

1. Hotlanta!

Nostalgic stop number one. I can't believe how many times, through snow, rain, and freezing temperatures, I drove to Atlanta when I was a lonely punk rock teenager in search of my people. I use to park my VW beetle behind some building in Little Five Points and attempt to sleep in the back (it's then, and only then, that one truly realizes how small these cars are). Many sore backs later, I never really found my people, but I did see a few great bands like the then-unknown Screeching Weasel (only 14 people showed up) and the Exploited. Jesus, there was so much Aqua Net Super Hold in the hair of that audience a stray match could've blown the building off its foundation.

The difference between then and now: my hair isn't green and Punk, actually, is Dead. Believe me - it is. The Internet killed it (I'm not lamenting this). Also, my eternal search for what makes me happy has shifted from my ears to my stomach.

It's there that the spirit of punk lives, menu locked in clenched fist – stage diving it's way from one meal to another, and often landing smack dab in the center of the pit. If punk had a menu, it might look something like what you'd find at The Varsity or the Silver Skillet – two of the places we're checking out for our brief first night in ATL.

"Whad'ya Have?", as they're fond of saying at the Varsity, is music to my ears and I'm liable to say "give me everything!" if I'm not careful. Chilli cheese dogs, slaw dogs, and the best onion rings in Atlanta are all to be found at the Varsity, and like any good punk rock club, it's open past midnight and it's all-ages. After being treated worse than a prisoner and a subhuman terrorist by the staff at SFO and the airline industry – a fact of life for any American who must travel by air in the United States – I'll need a slaw dog to take the edge off.

In the morning, the Silver Skillet; which I'm guessing will be one of those classic American coffee shops/breakfast joints. Judging by the photos I've seen on their website (luckily the Internet hasn't killed dives), it could pass for the Golden Coffee Shop.

And then we hit the road. We're taking a leisurely drive through the Peach state and passing through Augusta, where you'll find us experiencing the Southern/Soul goodness that is Hot Foods by Calvin for lunch.

After that:

2. Charleston

The civil war started in Charleston and South Carolina was the first state to secede from the United States. There's a lot of tourism that revolves around plantations and the Confederacy here, but I'd rather skip those as we're here for only two nights and frankly I'm glad the Plantation Owners/Confederates were defeated, because slavery is fucked up. Nevertheless, the city of Charleston is much older than the Civil War and has a rich and diverse history, and of course is a hot bed of regional cuisine, notably Lowcountry and Gullah cuisine. Lots of food to try here but only a limited amount of time. Some of the food I'm hoping to try: She Crab Soup, Shrimp and Grits, Country Captain, Frogmore Stew, Boiled Peanuts, Oysters, Purloo, and other lowcountry goodies.

After Charleston, we head up the coast on Route 17, through the town of Georgetown, through Myrtle Beach, and eventually to Calabash where we're having lunch. Calabash is a big gastro-tourist destination, most notably for their fresh, fried shrimp, oysters, and other seafood. This is hushpuppy country. "Calabash-style" seafood is a big draw at the Fish Camp restaurants scattered throughout North Carolina, but here we're going to the source. I can't wait!

Next, we're off to:

3. Wilmington/Carolina Beach

Okay, the real reason we're here isn't the food. But it is about food. Actually, it's about plants that eat insects. We're headed to Carolina Beach State Park to see carnivorous plants in the wild. These plants include Venus Flytraps and Trumpet Pitcher Plants, which we've never viewed in the wild before (although we own and grow several species ourselves). Again, it's all about going to the source, and the last remaining native habitat for Dionaea muscipula is within 150 miles of Wilmington.

As well as being plant geeks for a day, we're going to enjoy the beach and swim in the ocean, which is something we can't do here in SF (too cold). I hope no one laughs at my he-breasts, aka man-maries; they're quite embarrassing.

There is a barbecue joint near where we're staying, but we may opt for seafood. We're leaving it up in the air at this point. Besides, we're going to be in hog heaven the very next day as we make our way from the Wilmington area up to Goldsboro for Eastern-style barbecue at Wilbur's. Wilbur's Barbecue is legendary for their "cue" and it would be a shame to be in this part of NC and not stop to enjoy one of the finest representatives of Eastern-style NC barbecue, which is known for it's spicy-tangy vinegar and hot pepper sauce.

It will be a real East Meets West challenge that day as we travel through the state, bypassing all major towns and cities in order to make our way to the capital of Western-style NC barbecue:

4. Lexington

There we will eat dinner at the famous Lexington Barbecue #1. Lexington is a real barbecue lovers town, so long as you prefer barbecue in the Lexington style – whole hog slowly roasted and smoked over wood, chopped and served with a ketchup-based barbecue sauce.

And yes, we are traveling here all the way from California just to eat Carolina barbecue. All else is secondary. We'll probably eat barbecue for breakfast, hit the road, and scoot on up to Winston-Salem to check out the old Moravian settlement and that cool-ass Shell station and then eat lunch at Bell and Sons Cafeteria, which supposedly serves the best fried chicken, beef stew, and banana pudding.

From here it's kind of up in the air whether we'll go through Mt. Airy (and check out Snappy Lunch), but we'll probably wind up somewhere in Virginia around Galax (one of the stops along the Crooked Road) before we head to where we're staying for the night:

5. Shatley Springs

Here, we'll be deep into the Appalachians and surrounded by the Mountain South culture. Besides the dirt-cheap accommodations and cool surroundings, we'll be enjoying the fantastic food at Shatley Springs Inn. We're talking country ham, biscuits and gravy, and a wide array of Southern home cooking. I think we're going to try and make the live bluegrass show up in Galax on Friday night and then check out the farmers' market in West Jefferson on Saturday morning. Expect ramps sightings!

For the next two days we'll be seeing my family down in:

6. Morganton

And I have these days marked on my calendar as two big black squares. Seriously though, I'll be glad to see my cousins and aunts/uncles and, oh yeah, my Mom and Dad. On Mother's Day I'll be in Hickory laying flowers on my grandmother's grave, and then probably eating barbecue somewhere later that night.

After the family stuff, we're headed up to

7. Asheville

Which is where I grew up.

Asheville's an anomaly in the South in that, being primarily a resort town for wealthy non-Southerners, academic transplants, and New Age hippy anglo detritis, it doesn’t have a regional cuisine in the way that Charleston, Calabash, Lexington, or even East Tennessee does. Sure, it sits in the mountains and is an urban Appalachian town, but it's never been known for it's Appalachian or Southern cuisine.

I grew up eating food from China Buffet, Pizza Hut, Wendys, Western Sizzlin' steakhouse, Long John Silver's and TGIF-type establishments. Ashevillains prefer chains, like the Olive Garden or Joe's Crab Shack, and thankfully for them these places have a smoking section because this is the fucking Tobacco State after all. Bucking North Carolina tradition, beef is favored over pork (I know: shocking; worse than being vegetarian). Those who don't prefer chains prefer what they ate before they moved from San Francisco or Raleigh or some other Vortex town: Burritos, "Irish pub" food, vegetarian con-Fusion, sushi, Thai, Vietnamese, and duck confit – all at San Francisco prices (there's even a restaurant called "Bouchon" – lame).

And yet, for a town busy boasting how "with it we are, Man", it is incredibly insular and small-towny, as evidenced by the membership requirements necessary to enter many of the nightclubs and bars. No one boasts of having the oldest restaurant, like a Tadich Grill or Fior d'Italia would, because A) they probably don't see that as a positive attribute, B) no one knows or cares, and C) there probably isn't one older than 50 years, despite the town being over 200 years old.

Like most of the South, many of the bars and restaurants are closed on the "Lord's Day" and a just a county or two over it's completely dry. Buying booze means succumbing to the hours of operation of the state-run liquor stores, instead of just moseying on in to Safeway whenever you feel like. And drug testing for jobs that don't require working with kids or operating heavy machinery is common (by the way, drug testing doesn't weed out the alcoholics.) Until the Supreme Court struck it down recently, certain kinds of sex between two consenting adults in the privacy of their own home was illegal in North Carolina (including such liberal bastions as Asheville and the Research Triangle) and those caught doing so were punished as first class felons. North Carolina was also dragged kicking and screaming out of the Dark Ages by the Supreme Court when the high court ruled miscegenation laws were unconstitutional in 1967.

Only in the South can you have a population that professes to despise government interference but who live, breathe, and beg for it at every hour of every day.

And only in easy-breezey Asheville can you have such contradictions as being a liberal Red State town in the middle of the foodie South but without a regional cuisine to call your own. Land of The Contradictions: I once knew a melungeon who was a White Power skinhead. His girlfriend was Jewish.

Anyway, foodwise we're winging it here (no, not Buffalo Wings, although I'm sure at least one Asheville restaurant boasts of having the best). We aren't going to Asheville to eat. We're going there because it's a beautiful area and there are lots of things to see and do. Yeah, we'll do the Biltmore House (on whose land I was caught trespassing once) and we'll drive the Blue Ridge Parkway. The downtown is very walkable and they do have a few good antiques stores.

After Asheville, we're back to:

8. Atlanta

For half a day. There are a few bookstores we've been meaning to check out and I'd like to find a good lunch counter/pharmacy soda fountain before we leave.

We leave ATL at 7AM and are back at SFO at 9:30 AM.

At that point, I'm heading straight towards the first Chez Panisse glass of tap water, loaf of good bread, cup of dark coffee, plate of chow fun, or glass of unsweetened ice tea I see!

k.

Delta Blues, Part 2

2007-04-18T12:26:00.001-07:00

I frickin' love the California Delta!

It reminds me of Florida and the laid back culture you often find there. Of course, like Florida, there are all kinds of subcultures at play in California. The Delta culture in California is also down-to-earth, slow, laid back, outdoorsy and just a little bit countrified and loose. Could you call it somewhat redneck?

Well, yeah.

Left: Not Redneck, Right: Oh. Hell. Yeah!

That's probably unfair to some since "redneck" has all sorts of negative connotations, like being as worthless as a broke dick dog. Sure, some folks in the delta are straight-up redneck from the bottoms of their soles to the back of their necks, and that's apparent from some of the floating trailerparks you see ever so often. However, many Delta denizens are neither redneck nor poor.

Take for instance Conrad Hilton, whose home we dropped anchor outside of and relaxed for a couple of hours a few weeks back. Surely this is one of his many homes – this one in particular is where he has a great spectacular bash every 4th of July which draws many a mullethead and coldneck from the 1,000 miles of waterways that make up the delta region.

Avoid Arrest

Or take for instance this guy. Your average Joe Schmoe couldn't afford a bitchin' boat like this – with the snazzy name on the back – working behind a register at the local Stop and Rob.

Sugar Daddies don't grow on trees, you know.

A Pussy Wagon on Water

Bruce's brother doesn't do bad neither. He also owns a boat, which he lives on. It's nice knowing someone who lives on a boat docked somewhere in the Delta. You can go fishing, swimming, or get really drunk and puke your brains out in the water. The best part of all three: minimal clean up.

Speaking of fishing, the Delta is a great place to cast a line if you're an angler. Right now, there are plenty of people fishing for Striper (no, not them). Striper, or striped bass, can be caught year round but the best time to fish is in the spring. You can fish for striper in the bay as well, although any striper over 35 inches shouldn't be eaten unless you want to seriously raise your mercury levels to life threatening levels. Striper and sturgeon are both great local fish to catch and eat, but you should only do so twice a month, or once a month for pregnant women and children (see Delta Advisory Sign).

The day we were in the Delta, we weren't there to fish, which meant no freshly-caught seafood for dinner. Instead, we ventured out in a smaller, single-engine boat to check out a couple of local dives. Boats, large and small, seem to be the preferred method of travel in these parts, and no matter where you go there's a boat hitch convenient to shopping and dining. People around here really live on the water.

The first place we checked out was Happy Harbor, which boasts of having the "best damn pizza in the West". Umm, yeah.

Pick Up Dog Poo

Something tells me that's probably an exageration, even for the Delta. Perhaps it could be that, besides a dirty dog and an even dirtier old drunk, the only other person in the restaurant was the waitress/bartender. Nothing on the menu (hamburgers, sandwiches, pizza) looked particularly good or interesting here (trust me – I'm not picky) so we left.

Since that was a bust, we hopped back on the boat and sped over the choppy delta waters to our next destination. It wasn't the most luxurious ride, especially when you have wind and water pummelling you and you're trying to hold on for dear life. However, it is the quickest way to get around and, sure, it's a little fun.

Our next stop was Moore's Riverboat. Moore's is a pretty large restaurant with both inside/outside (covered) seating and a bar. I'm sure the bar is a great place to do shots after a long day out on the water, and it seemed to have a regular crowd of Delta characters. If I still drank and lived close by, I'd probably hang out at Moore's on occasion (although, being an alcoholic, I'm not sure that's a good thing).

The restaurant had pretensions at being something fancier, but its delta charm (coasters propping up crooked tables) blew that right out of the water. That, and the dead bugs on the wind/spray shield which lines the perimeter of the deck. The bathrooms were clean, which made up for the sticky tabletops.

Our waitress was a cute little teenage girl who, bless her heart, just couldn't get anything right...but that's okay! I'm chillaxin' on the delta, so it's all good.

The one thing that was disappointing overall was the lack of fresh, local seafood both at Happy Harbor and Moore's. The fish and chips at Moore's is heavily breaded (and probably not fresh), while the Dungeness crab and shrimp in my crepe were unrecognizable after being drowned in an ocean of something close to a bechamel sauce. Plus, I've eaten plenty of frozen vegetables in my day, but this green stuff on my plate was just wrong.

Left: Crab and Shrimp Crepe, Right: Chicken "Cordonne Bleu" with Lasagne(?)

Considering the price of the entrees (most over $14), you should tie up your boat, jump in your car, and drive over to Al the Wops for a steak sandwich. After eating in so many city dives (and nicer restaurants), I can tell every single one of you out there reading this now that you CAN serve better food at these prices and still have a viable business. Besides, you know places like this make a killing on alcohol sales...skimping on the food is lame.

But whatever. The delta isn't a foodie destination (that I know of), but the fishing is great and if you know the right people, like the Hiltons, you can probably scrounge up a great meal.

I still love it though.

Definitely some of California's Gold (thank God I haven't run into Huell!)

k.

Slow Down Ahead

2007-04-11T08:08:00.000-07:00

FYI,

Like I just explained over at my other blog, things are getting hectic, busy, crazy, and just a little downright scary for my schedule lately. I'll post as much as I can, but it will likely slow down until I'm back from vacation in mid-May.

I'm working like hell to accomodate your reading pleasures, but I've got other stuff to do - stuff that pays the rent, stuff that doesn't require a keyboard, and stuff that makes people happy in other ways.

I'm scrambling to get "stuff" done all through April and then I take off the first weekend in May to the South. I'll try to check in while I'm on the road, but our Southern-Fried B-B-Q Road Trip is going to be a whirlwind tour of 4 (FOUR!) states.

Yowwwzaaa!

Anyway, keep it locked for the next 2 months and I'll post when I can.

Thanks,

k.

On-Ramp(s)

2007-04-05T19:08:00.000-07:00

Good news.

I got the zit to pop.

Let's talk food, shall we?

You know how, for a period, I was getting all Southern and countrified on your candy ass? Yeah, I guess we all get a little nostalgic for the place(s) we grew up every now and then. Trust me - I never thought I'd look back fondly on the place I left. I left for a reason...I hated it.

Okay, maybe hate isn't the right word. Basically, to use an analogy, I'm a tree. I'm a tree that was planted in a small pot, like a bonzai. I had to uproot myself and move to a bigger pot, and then actually to a wide-open field, in order to grow to my full size and be a happy tree. You know, like in a Bob Ross painting.

Some trees don't mind the small pots. In fact, some do better in confined conditions than they would out in the open. From the perspective of this tree, those smaller pots have a certain charm about them – but from the inside, it sure didn't seem that way.

BTW, I am a master at analogies.

Even though I grew up in the Mountain South, I never knew or appreciated the joys of ramps – aka wild leeks. However, I do have faded memories of pulling up wild onions from a field and eating them on the spot. If what I ate were ramps, I'll likely never know - since these are early memories of mine, memories that inhabit the same corner of my brain as knocking down sugarcane with my pal Douglas.

I'll be in the South next month, but unfortunately (due to my schedule) I'll be missing the ramp festivals that happen every Spring throughout Appalachia. But guess what?

We have ramps in Northern California!

Yeah, they grow wild. I found them for sale at Far West Fungi last Saturday. I think I surprised the manager, Ian Garrone, when I enquired about purchasing some. He must have been concerned with how quickly they'd move. According to him, the ramps are foraged in the wild around Arcata and Mendocino County. He also said they just started carrying them and that they should last for a couple of months.

Far West Fungi is one of my favorite places to shop in the Ferry Building. In my opinion, most of the shops in the Ferry Building are a bit pricey and unnecessary. However, there are several places I patronize that, while not cheap, are reasonably priced and well worth a visit by people who cook - namely, Prather Meat Co., Far West Fungi, Acme Bread, and sometimes Cowgirl Creamery. Oh, yeah – and the free chocolate samples at Recchiuti are always on my route.

Right now, ramps at Far West Fungi are priced at $20 per pound (I know, probably only worth it to you die-hard hillbilly transplants like me). However, as the season progresses, the price will fall to an average of $16 per pound – maybe less. Half a pound of ramps are enough for 2 people, especially if you serve them with eggs, fry them with bacon, and/or serve them with a side of pinto beans.

Ramps are a member of the onion family and they, as anyone who's ever eaten one or been around someone who has, are quite strong in flavor and aroma. If you love both garlic and onions, ramps are the perfect vegetable for you. The whole thing is edible, although the roots are usually discarded. They are usually dug up with a special instrument known as a "ramp hoe" who, when not harvesting ramps, is usually found in truck stop parking lots turning tricks.

Ramps are commonly fried in bacon grease and served with corn bread. They're also eaten with eggs. Ramps, cornbread, pinto beans, cured pork – this is traditional, American peasant food specific to the Appalachian Mountain region. This is the cuisine of my forbearers, which sadly is lost and unheard of to many members of my generation. My cousins, like myself, grew up with McDonalds, Hardees, and Burger King. We, like our parents, often eschewed cornbread and pinto beans for Sweet and Sour Pork, chimichangas, and stuffed-crust pizza – or the dominant pseudo-multiculture of American cuisine.

That is why, tonight, I'm cooking up these ramps with a vengeance. Indeed, the South shall rise again – only this time we prefer it does so covered with a sheen of bacon fat, and without exploiting and dividing poor whites and people of color for cheap labor...duh!

To prepare the ramps, wash under water very well. The leaves of the ramps often hide little grains of sand and dirt within them, so right when you think you've got them clean, wash once more. Afterwards, cut off the root ends. Next, cut the white parts of the ramps from the leafy green parts and then cut those into 2" pieces. Reserve to a glass or metal bowl.

Once those are prepared, fry up some bacon in a cast-iron skillet set on medium heat. It could be turkey bacon if you keep Kosher, Halal, or just don't like pork, but if you're vegetarian I suggest skipping this step altogether. I'm cooking up Wellshire Farms bacon bought from Whole Foods. This is a weird brand; their linguica is odd and overly smokey while their bacon has this black edge on it. Fortunately the bacon tastes good, but it's hard to tell when it's done or when it's just burnt.

Anyway, when the bacon is crisp, reserve to a paper towel lined plate. Once cool, cut the bacon into 2" strips and set aside.

Using the rendered bacon fat in the skillet, fry the white parts of the ramps. If you're vegetarian, you can substitute olive oil for the bacon fat. Once the ramps have softened up, toss them onto the leafy greens and then raise the heat to medium-high.

When the oil starts to smoke, remove from heat and spoon little by little onto the ramps to slightly wilt the leaves. In the other areas of the Appalachians – like the eastern part of Kentucky - they use lettuce in this recipe and call it Killed (or Kill't) Lettuce.

Using a pair of tongs, mix thoroughly and then season with a little salt and pepper. Mix in the bacon strips and then serve onto plates.

What an easy and quick dish to prepare! Once you get a taste of these, you'll see why they have such a strong following. It's surprising how flavorful and assertive this springtime vegetable can be. And it certainly has the ability to overshadow traditional, mild spring vegetables like artichokes, asparagus, celery, and fennel.

Perhaps the best part is you won't have to tell your friends and family that you just had big ol' plate of fried ramps.

They'll smell you coming.

k.

Feeling Blah Today

2007-04-03T11:22:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling a little under the weather today.

I don't know if it's because I'm really sick or it has to do with the bridge demolition happening next to where I live. After 70 odd years, part of the Bay Bridge is being torn down to make way for a more seismically safe structure. In one respect, it's interesting - in that history-in-the-making sort of way. In another, it's a major pain.

Who knows what toxic crap I'm breathing in day after day? Not only is this bridge demolition likely hazardous to my physical health, my mental health has been getting quite a work out. Pounding day in and day out has kept me in a constant state of agitation and the only thing that's helped has been staying away.

Oh yeah, and I've got this huge zit on my face that's deep under the skin. If it doesn't go away soon, I'll have to take off work, go to the doctor (and deal with his incompetent staff) and pay the visiting fee, only so I can go see a dermatologist, pay another visiting fee, and then who knows.

I'm crossing my fingers, washing my face, and moisturizing like hell.

In the meantime, I'm catching up on my reading.

Have you heard about the US Department of Agribusiness's new regulations regarding organic standards as it applies to small farmers in developing countries? Salon has a great article on it, basically saying the new regulations favor large plantations (gee, Republican-controlled USDA - go figure) and may discourage smaller growers from becoming certified organic. Basically I agree with the folks who say that the labeling is part of the problem and that cash-strapped coffee or banana growers should consider alternate labeling/marketing methods.

I buy my green coffee beans, which I roast at home, from Sweet Maria's - who has their own oversight process in determining who they buy coffee from. I still prefer to purchase organic when I can, but I understand that many farmers walk the organic walk, but can't afford to talk the talk.

One of the comments on the article led me to a great site about the USDA's mandatory ID tagging of all livestock and farm animals. Did you know about this?

Apparently, to satisfy the importers of American beef after Mad Cow was first detected, the USDA (working in concert with Big Meat...I just like to say that) now requires that all ranchers, homesteaders, and basically anyone who raises animals for food or as pets (just large animals like horses) must tag their animals with a radio-chip that can trace the farm of origin. The website, NoNAIS.org, is written by one of the farmers most affected by this new regulation and provides several examples of how the National Animal ID Program fails to safeguard food from contamination, does nothing to prevent Mad Cow Disease, and works to protect the profit of, ahem, Big Meat, while unfairly burdening the small farmer/rancher with needless costs and bureaucratic red tape.

There are bigger questions, however, to consider - which is the widespread dependence on "spychip" technology to solve common problems or for financial gain. One of the great things about our country is that the right to privacy against governmental intrusion is written into the Constitution (although it's not absolute). So is the right to be happy.

I've always liked that idea: that we have the right to be happy. And part of being happy is that the Man has no right to stick his nose into our affairs whenever it suits him.

Those rights we are born with, or gained through immigration and citizenship, are constantly being attacked by the powerful and greedy - or those who wish to be - in this country. It is our duty to protect our nation's physical health when it comes to food and water, but it is also our responsibility to protect our mental health and stand up against those who seek to subjugate us to further their personal ambitions.

k.

Beautiful Atrocity

2007-04-02T00:00:00.000-07:00

The sun is setting on Dago Mary's.

This old-school Italian restaurant sitting on the lonely edge of the Hunters Point Shipyard is at ground zero for one of the largest redevelopment projects in San Francisco apart from the UCSF campus at China Basin. Unless the restaurant, working in tandem with the developers, can find a way to incorporate itself into the overall scheme, single-family townhomes will stand where this historic landmark does now. And going in just down the street, the new 49ers stadium...maybe. That still remains a pipe dream for the city's establishment.

The land on which Dago Mary's sits has been owned by the Lennar corporation for over two years now, yet only recently has there been serious talk regarding Dago Mary's impending demise. However, things haven't been going so great for Lennar as the redevelopment of the Hunters Point shipyard appears to be one big, nasty boodoggle for any and everyone involved – except Dago Mary's. Much of the drama can be summed up in two words:

Superfund Site.

The problems associated with the redevelopment project are numerous. Compounded with the standard NIMBYism and opportunism disguised as "community oversight" – a trait which the citizens of the Bay Area have mastered - the site sits partially on and next to a brownfield contaminated with many decades of toxic materials; neither the current owner nor previous one willing to take full responsibility for it. The conversation follows:

"Are you going to clean it up?"
"No, I thought you were."
"I'm not going to clean it up."
"You made the mess."
"It's not my mess now. It's your mess."
"Well, how am I suppose to clean it up?"
"Got me."
"Well, what do you suggest I do?"
"For all I care, you could build a football stadium on it. Caveat emptor, homeboy. Caveat fucking emptor."

Until recently I'd never heard of Dago Mary's. I find this odd considering not too many restaurants are left which use ethnic slurs in their business name. I thought Al The Wop's in Locke was the only one left in California (other than the sole-survivor of the Sambo's chain in Santa Barbara). One would think everyone in San Francisco knew of Dago Mary's, but apparently it remains well under the radar of your average Yelpster – a creature too timid to venture beyond 3rd and Cesar Chavez, but whom feels qualified to be the 240th reviewer of an average sausage counter in the Lower Haight.

Dago Mary's began as Mary's Venetian Villa and was quite the swanky place in its day. The decade was the 1930s and "Mary" was Mary Ghiorzo. According to the current owner of Dago Mary's, Joe Ursino, the term "dago" in reference to Mary was one of fondness, rather than disrespect – which, as anyone who knows anything about American history can tell you, not only is likely but one of the peculiarities of multicultural America.

Mary was a grande dame and savvy restauranteur, and at the time everybody who was anybody was seen at Mary's. Politicians courted her and were courted by her. Diners would taxi out from the downtown for seven-course dinners that cost less than their cab ride ($1.35). Floor shows were common as bands serenaded the evening crowd. In essence, Mary was the American version of Louisa Trotter – only she was real.

That's Mary, in the center.

Mary gave the people of San Francisco everything they could ask for in a great place to eat, dance, drink, and hob-nob, and when the opportunity to spruce up the restaurant presented itself in the form of a Peninsula estate auction, she jumped on it. It just so happens that the fixtures she bought in that auction, fixtures which remain in the restaurant to this day, are just a few of what's left of the grand Linden Towers mansion, formerly in what is now Menlo Park.

Linden Towers was a mansion built by James C. Flood, dubbed one of the "Bonanza Kings" and who made millions off of the stock market during the height of the Gold Rush. No expenses were spared as Flood poured money into his white Victorian-era castle. As often is the case with New Money, tacky, gaudy, and overkill are always the new black. Flood's mansion was derided by his neighbors as a "beautiful atrocity", although that didn't prevent the Flood family from raising two generations of children there. Unfortunately for James, he died less than 12 years after Linden Towers was built.

Bummer.

Linden Towers

After awhile, the mansion fell into the hands of the James L. Flood, upon whose death in 1924 it stood empty and in 1936 its contents put up for public auction. Among the buyers was a feisty little woman from Hunters Point who smelled strangely of fennel sausage and marinara sauce, and who - I imagine - had a mouth on her that could make a sailor blush.

Mary embellished her establishment with many of the fixtures from the old Flood mansion (note: not the Flood Mansion on Nob Hill.) These fixtures include a carved marble mantle-piece and exquisite hand-carved wood panels which frame the wetbar, doors, entryways, and windows.

The dining room space is large and open, and suprisingly not too shabby. Despite the location and the unkempt exterior of the restaurant, the table settings and other small details (like the calla lillies) look as if someone has made an effort to make this a comfortable dining experience.

Perhaps that someone is the guy who waited on our table the night Bruce and I were there. This guy, whom we found out later is the cousin of the owner, began by saying that there was no menu per se, but that the menu was a "verbal" one. He then began to list off some of the dishes he could make for us, something like a sausage and pepper dish with pasta, or if we wanted he could whip us up something with poached salmon.

Now, come on: who wouldn't find that just a little bit charming – or at least funny? It was like having a personal chef; "by the way, while you're at it, could you throw in a few mushrooms and maybe some parsley?"

Better yet, this is exactly the same personal, makes-you-feel-at-home, service I'm sure Mary was famous for. It's nice that some things haven't changed.

However, some things have. Price for one thing – a plate of pasta and sausages was $15.50. That's quite a leap from the 1930s, but considering how much food there was, its hard to complain.

Not only was there a generous portion – perhaps too generous for your average person – but the food was exactly what you'd want in a comforting plate of pasta: freshly cooked rigatoni swimming in a thick ragu of sliced bell peppers, chunky tomato sauce, and large hunks of Italian sausage. The parmesan cheese sprinkled on topped wasn't really necessary; it was obviously that pre-shredded stuff. But I don't know...that probably adds to the home-cooked experience for some of y'all.

While Bruce drank ice tea, I had a glass of tap water...since it's free. Dago Mary's has always served customers water from the tap, which puts them lightyears ahead of Chez Panisse.

Besides a young Latino couple sitting behind us, Bruce and I were the only ones dining. It felt a little strange, sitting there in this virtually empty, old place surrounded by history (perhaps, about to be history), looking out through the window across the bay to the Port of Oakland – just underneath the restaurant land scraped and graded for new construction. Old baseball team photos of the San Francisco Seals hung on the wall by the restrooms; many of them brandishing the hurried scribbles of men who have long since passed away.

I asked our server if it was true that they were closing at the end of April. He gives me that facial expression – you know, the "what, me worry?" look – and then attempts to blow off the question. "Everything is still up in the air", he says.

"But we're not going down without a fight."

Somehow, I don't think Mary would either.

k.

Who I Am: Revealed!

2007-04-01T10:20:00.000-07:00

By the time I've posted this many of you will have already learned of my secret. It's been all the rage on those Hollywood gossip blogs and I think it's time for me to come clean.

You see, the truth is, all these years I've been hiding my identity out of fear. Fear of rejection. Fear of approval. Fear of reprisal. And just plain fear of the unknown.

My life is driven by the machine of industry. The industry of stardom. An industry that negates the soul and packages human beings as mere skin flash.

But there comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!

That is why today, my friends - my loyal Bacon Press readers - I must reveal who I am.

I am....

Kevin Bacon.

Whew! That feels so good!

That's all for now, but I'll keep you posted on how this madness all sorts itself out.

Until then, yours truly...

k.(b)

Outing the Dutch

2007-03-29T18:33:00.000-07:00

As with coffee, the tradition of quality bread making has been a consistent of San Francisco culinary culture since the first 49er mixed flour and water together to ferment, and the first Frenchman opened the first business to bake it.

That Frenchman was Isidore Boudin, who opened San Francisco's first bakery in 1849 on Dupont Street, or what is now Grant Street in North Beach. By 1856 there were over 63 bakeries in the city, or one bakery for every 900 residents. By this time, large swaths of San Francisco had burned down multiple times, not by forgetful bakers, but by thieves and criminals. If you think running a small business is hard now, you have no idea.

These bakeries were the first to produce the famed San Francisco Sourdough, a variety of sourdough bread unique to the Bay Area and whose reputation as a fine bread is known the world over. When most people think of San Francisco bread, they don't think of walnut rye or herb slab or the nine-grain concoctions you see on display in some of the City's finest bakeries – they think Sourdough.

But what if I told you there is another type of bread that is just as prevalent, and just as loved, in the San Francisco Bay Area – and in it's own way, just as unique? It's called Dutch Crunch, and it's reputation as a Bay Area sandwich bread is matched only by sourdough.

Like your typical sourdough loaf or baguette, Dutch Crunch didn't originate here, although the name probably did. In the Netherlands, it's known as Tijgerbrood and sold in the UK as "Tigerbread". It gets its name from the color and texture of the crust, which is striped with dark brown crunchy spots with light blond bread peaking out from underneath. The crust gets its flavor and texture from washing the top prior to baking with a mixture rice flour, butter, yeast, sugar, and salt. The final product is a mildly sweet, light and fluffy white loaf with a somewhat crunchy, savory crust.

The first time I had a sandwich with this bread, I fell in carb-love. Being a transplant from somewhere else, I felt lucky that I could see and taste this wonderful bread with the unspoiled expectation of an outsider. Of course when you're new to a place, everything seems so unfamiliar that you just lose track of what's different from the place you left and where you are now. Pretty soon, you just take for granted that things are like how they are – until something reminds you that, no, things and stuff and life outside of the Bay Area are – in fact – not the same.

So imagine my surprise when I discovered that, outside of the Bay Area, Dutch Crunch bread is relatively unknown – not only in California, but in the rest of the United States as well. What remains a mystery to me is not so much how or when it got here, but why it never really left.

From what I gather, Dutch Crunch bread was introduced in the Bay Area (no, not by Dutch immigrants) sometime in the 1960s or 1970s and quickly caught on with specialty bakers and delis. According to the owner of the Italian-French Bakery in North Beach, he seems to remember it first being introduced by the now-defunct Parisian Bakery, which until recently had been the second oldest bakery in San Francisco. At the time Dutch Crunch was introduced, the Parisian was owned by Boudin Bakery. However after a quick survey of Boudin's current bread line, it doesn't appear that they sell it.

The Italian-French Bakery

I called up a few of the best and well-established sandwich makers in San Francisco and the Peninsula to ask where their Dutch Crunch comes from. Darby Dan's buys their Dutch Crunch from the venerable Wedemeyer Bakery, started in 1936 in San Francisco. If you've ever been anywhere downtown San Francisco you are probably familiar with Wedemeyer's delivery trucks, which drop off freshly baked breads to many of the downtown cafés and delis.

The person at Little Lucca in South San Francisco didn't know where they got theirs, while the guy at Colombo's in Pacifica would only say they get their Dutch Crunch from a local bakery; "it's a trade secret". You go, Colombo's!

Even more mysterious was the owner at Roxie Food Center in the Mission who – after wanting to know "who is this?" – would only say his Dutch Crunch is made by his "brother-in-law". Yeah, riiiigggghhhtt.

Great, old Italian delis like Lucca in the Mission and Molinari's (and their sister store, Mastrelli's) still keep it in the community and buy their Dutch Crunch from the Italian-French Bakery, which started producing it 25 years ago. Today you can walk into the bakery and walk out with a loaf of Dutch Crunch for $1.60 that will feed several people.

The Italian-French is a great, old, neighborhood meeting place and piece of small-town, Old World charm in San Francisco. The ladies who work there have an undeserved reputation for being curt, which may or may not be true, because I've never experienced it. However, you also must realize that the Italian-French is at ground zero for the close-knit (Italian) culture of North Beach; a culture that, to some extent, is insular but which has to sometimes interact with tourists and looky-loos (that would be me).

The bakery, ovens and all, has been around 100 years and so have the ladies (okay, that was cheap). All kidding aside, it's a wonderful place to buy all kinds of baked goods and it holds its own against other neighborhood competitors.

However, to really get the full Italian-French Bakery Dutch Crunch Experience, you must go to a real Italian deli and order something up. While there are lots of great delis in the hood (like Palermo), I'm keeping it old school today and heading over to Molinari's.

I've had a love/hate relationship with Molinari Delicatessen in the past stemming from the long lines and (occasionally) the service, but I still keep coming back -if only for the best deal on the best salame in the Bay Area. Actually, part of the reason I like Molinari's so much has to do with the fact that they've purposely been confusing non-Italians with the spelling of "salami" long before it was cool and trendy.

There are several things you need to know before stepping up to the counter to order a sandwich at Molinari. The first is that you need to take a number, and thank goodness because I hate unorganized counter service.

Second, after you grab a number/ticket, you must pick out your own sandwich bread, which is already cut and sitting in a bin near the back of the store. If you want to be polite, use the metal tongs provided to pick out your bread, or use your hands if you want to keep it real (nasty).

I use my hands.

After fumbling around the bin, touching every single piece of bread before you get to the one you want, present the bread (Dutch Crunch, in this case) to the man behind the counter after he calls your number. Today I ordered the North Beach Special ($7.25), which is loaded with prosciutto, provolone, sun-dried tomatoes, and sweet (but spicy) red peppers. It's pricey for a sandwich, but please...just take a look at it.

There's a lot of good food here, and for the price it sure beats some of the rabbit food you pay $10 for around these parts. Best of all is the bread. This bread is so buttery on top and crunchy, plus it has a little of that sweet flavor going on, that I feel no remorse in wrecking my low-carb diet plan. If you're going to consume white bread, you might as well go all out with a big sandwich made with Dutch Crunch.

k.

(The reason for this link is just because. However, I guess I was mistaken when I said previously that the good weather had passed us by. Get out and enjoy the weekend!)

Follow up to "Where I Stand"

2007-03-28T13:41:00.000-07:00

Below is a list of San Francisco restaurants (total: 315) who belong to the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, per their website.

Not all GGRA members support the lawsuit against the city, so to be fair you may want to ask.

k.

536 Sutter
A16
Absinthe Brasserie And Bar
Academy Grill (California Culinary Academy)
Acme Chophouse
Ajatea Cafe
Alfred's Steakhouse
Alioto's Outdoor Crab Market
Alioto's Restaurant
Alive
Amici's East Coast Pizzeria
Amphora Wine Merchant
Ana Mandara
Andale Mexican Restaurant
Andalu
Angelina's Deli-Cafe & Catering
Ansonia Hotel
Aperto Restaurant
Aqua
Ararat Mediterranean Tapas
Arlequin Food To Go
Asia SF
Asqew Grill
Atrium (San Francisco Marriott)
Aziza
Azul Bar & Lounge
B44
Bacar Restaurant
Baraka
Barracuda Japanese Restaurant
Bayside Sports Bar and Grill
Beale Street Bar & Grill
Beard Papa
Betelnut
Betty Zlatchin Catering
Big Nate's Barbeque
Bistro 350
Bix
Blowfish - Sushi To Die For
Blue
Blue Mermaid Chowder House and Bar
Bobo's
Bob's Steak & Chop House
Bocadillos
Boudin Bakery
Boulette's Larder
Boulevard
Brazen Head Restaurant
Breezy's
Briazz
Bruno's
Buena Vista Cafe
C&L Steakhouse
Cafe Bastille
Cafe Claude
Cafe de la Presse
Cafe Divine
Cafe Eight
Cafe Maritime
Cafe Pescatore
Cafe Venue
Caffe Espresso
Caffe Museo
Calzone's Pizza Cucina
Capp's Corner
Capurro's Restaurant & Bar
Careme Room (California Culinary Academy
Caruso's
Castagnola's Restaurant
Catch
CAV Wine Bar
Chaya Brasserie
Chefs Association of the Pacific Coast, Inc
Chez Maman
Chez Papa Bistrot
Chic's Seafood Restaurant
Chouchou
Chow
Chowders
Cioppino's on the Wharf
Circa
Circolo Restaurant & Lounge
Citizen Cake
Citizen Cupcake
City Blends (San Francisco Marriott
Cityscape Bar & Restaurant
Cliff House
Clown Alley
COCO 500
Couleur Cafe
Cozmo's Corner Grill
Crab House at Pier 39
Crustacean San Francisco
Daily Grill
Dante's Seafood Grill
Delfina Restaurant
Dolores Park Cafe
Don Ramon's Mexican Restaurant
Dosa
E&O Trading Company
Eastside West
El Raigon
Ella's
Emporio Rulli at SFO
Emporio Rulli Gran Caffe
EOS Restaurant & Wine Bar
Extreme Pizza
Farallon
Farmer Brown's Restaurant
Faz Cafe
Faz Restaurant
Ferry Plaza Seafood
Fifth Floor
Fior d'Italia
Firewood Cafe
Fishermen's Grotto #9
Fleur de Lys
Florio
Fly Trap
Fog City Diner
Foreign Cinema
Fourth Street Bar & Deli (San Francisco Marriott
Frog Hollow Farm Market
Garden Terrace (San Francisco Marriott
Garibaldi's Restaurant
Globe
Goat Hill Pizza
Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant
Gourmet Pacific Catering
Grand Cafe
Green Chile Kitchen & Market
Greens Restaurant
HanaZen Yakitori & Sushi Bar
Harrington's Bar & Grill
Harry Denton's Starlight Room
Harry's Bar
Hawthorne Lane
Hayes Street Grill
Hemlock Tavern
Hog Island Oyster Company
Home
Hooters Bar & Grill
Hotel Majestic Dining Room
House of Prime Rib
Houston's Restaurant
Il Fornaio
Incanto
Jack Falstaff
Jardiniere
Jeanty at Jack's
Jitney's Bar & Grill
Johnny Foley's Irish House
JT's Island Cafe
Julius Castle Restaurant
Just Desserts
Kelly's Mission Rock
Kokkari Estiatorio
Kookez Cafe
Kuleto's Italian Restaurant
La Folie
La Mediterranee
Le Central Bistro
Le Colonial
Le Zinc
Lee's Deli
Left at Albuquerque
Lemongrass Thai Cuisine
Les Joulins Jazz Bistro
Levende Lounge
Lime
Liverpool Lil's
Louis' Restaurant
Lou's Pier 47 Restaurant
Luella
Luna
Luques Restaurant
Magnolia Pub & Brewery
Maharani
Malacca
Mantra Restaurant
Market Bar & Restaurant
Market Street Grill
Martin Macks Bar & Restaurant
Masa's
MATRIXFILLMORE
Maverick
Max's Market (Max's Chain – includes Opera Plaza & Sweet Max's)
Maya Restaurant
Medicine Restaurant
Memphis Minnie's BBQ Joint
Mezes Restaurant
Michael Mina
Miette Patisserie
Millennium
Mistral Rotisserie Provencale
Modern Tea
MoMo's San Francisco Grill
Moose's
Mozzarella DiBufala Pizzeria I
Namu Bar & Restaurant
Neptune's Palace Seafood Restaurant
Nick's Lighthouse
Noe Valley Bakery & Bread
Nonna Rose Seafood Trattoria
Nopa
North Beach Pizza
One Market Restaurant
O'Reilly's Holy Grail
O'Reilly's Irish Pub
Original Joe's
Ozumo
Pacific Catch
Palio d'Asti
Palio Paninoteca
Palomino
PANoRAMA Baking Company
Paradise Pizza & Pasta
Paragon Restaurant
Park Chalet Garden Restaurant
Park Chow
Pasta Pomodoro
Pat's Cafe
Pauline's Pizza Pie
Pazzia Caffe & Trattoria
Perbacco
Perry's
Pier 23 Cafe
Pier Market Seafood Restaurant
Piperade
Pizzeria Delfina
PJ's Oyster Bed & Big Easy Lounge
Plouf
PlumpJack Cafe
Pompei's Grotto
Ponzu
Postrio
Puccini & Pinetti Italian Grill and American Bar
Puccini Restaurant Group
Puerto Alegre Restaurant
Ramblas Tapas
Recchiuti Confections
Regalito Rosticeria
Restaurant Jeanne D'Arc
Ristorante Milano
Ristorante Umbria
Rose Pistola
Rose's Cafe
Roy's Restaurant
Rubicon
Samovar Tea Lounge
Sam's Grill
San Francisco Brewing Co
San Francisco Coffee Roasting Co
San Francisco Soup Company
Sanraku
Scala's Bistro
Scoma's Restaurant
Sea Breeze Cafe & Restaurant
Sellers Market
Shanghai 1930
Specialty's Cafe & Bakery
Squat and Gobble Cafe & Crepery
Stray Bar
Swan Oyster Depot
Sweetie's
Tadich Grill
Tad's Steak House
Taqueria El Zorro
Tarantino's Restaurant
Tazza D'oro
Teatro ZinZanni
Terzo
Thanh Long
The Bar
The Beach Chalet Brewery & Restaurant
The Blue Light
The Butler & The Chef Bistro
The Cheesecake Factory
The City Club of San Francisco
The Cosmopolitan
The Elite Cafe
The Franciscan Crab Restaurant
The Grove
The Independent
The Liberties Irish Bar & Restaurant
The Magic Flute Garden Ristorante
The Oak Room
The Page
The Ramp
The Slanted Door
The Stinking Rose
The View (San Francisco Marriott
Thinker's Cafe
ThirstyBear Brewing Company
Tia Margarita
Tommy Toy's Cuisine Chinoise
Tommy's Joynt
Town Hall
Trader Vic's
Trattoria Contadina
Tres Agaves Mexican Kitchen & Tequila Lounge
Triptych
Tsar Nicoulai Caviar Cafe
U Street Lounge
Union Street Catering (Perry's
Upton's Catering
Village Pizzeria
Waterfront Restaurant
Whiskey Lounge
Wipeout Bar & Grill
Yank Sing Restaurant
Yankee Pier SFO
Zao Noodle Bar
Zingari Ristorante
Zuppa

The End of Pinkbagging?

2007-03-28T09:26:00.000-07:00

Not so fast.

The legislation approved yesterday by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors only targets large supermarkets (Safeway) and pharmacies (Walgreens).

Chinatown appears to have escaped the ban.

And, actually – I'm kinda glad. Pinkbagging is a unique San Francisco cultural phenomenon. When you see me walking down the street, looking kind of ruffled, loaded down with pink bags from Chinatown, you know I just fought, clawed, and pushed my way to the best 59 cent-per-pound motherfucking fava bean in this whole motherfucking city.

Granted, I DO use cloth bags - often. In fact, when headed out to Whole Paycheck and the big chains, we always grab our cloth bags and proudly pony them up when it's time to check out.

Do you see that smug look of self-satisfaction on our face?

It's real.

Do you see that token we acquired from bringing our own bag and just put into the Friends of the Urban Forest donation jar?

It's real too.

(Okay Whole Foods, I've got to give you props for that!)

This legislation would make San Francisco the first city in the US to ban non-compostable plastic bags from stores of any kind. This is why so much of the country hates us. We're like the ball-hog on the basketball court. Always stealing the limelight – trying to do everything before everyone else. We're not cooler than LA or New York; not as well-dressed or as rich. And we certainly don't have as many nice and interesting restaurants. But, little ol' San Francisco really knows how to stir up the shit.

It's true. We are a city of kooks. I'm a kook, and proud. I'd like to consider myself part of the kookistocracy - not quite part of the Kookgeoisie; that's a level only attainable by the Frank Chus of the world.

If anything, this ban will be a boom for the grant writers who fund the reactionary, anti-environmentalists – some idealists, most just media whores. Sit back and listen to the cash roll in as they begin jumping in their chairs claiming the road to hell is paved with a ban on plastic bags. They'll be funded by the employers of Kristin Power, whose claim of rising prices as a result of the plastic bag ban is actually true – media whores and fake "experts" cost money.

I'm an environmentalist. But I'm also a skeptic.

Logically, I'm not sure how much of an impact banning plastic bags from large stores will have on the environment. Already, the supermarkets affected by the ban are promising to switch back to paper – which they've always had but never bother to offer anymore. However, there are a lot of good points to be made that paper isn't necessarily better for the environment than plastic.

Also, what affect will the ban have when so many other businesses remain exempt? Wouldn't it be just as good for the environment to require all downtown office towers to completely shut off their office lights each and every night? Or to reduce the number of street lights in the city? Even better, to switch conventional street lights over to solar-powered ones?

I remain a skeptic, but a supportive one.

Just keep your do-gooder claws off my pinkbags or I will rock your world like Lola Montez!

k.

Where I Stand

2007-03-27T20:49:00.000-07:00

In San Francisco, a small minority of restaurant owners are up in arms over legislation passed by the City of San Francisco last November which requires all small businesses to not only provide their employees sick time/sick pay, but actually mandates that they pay into a city-managed fund allocated to pay for their employees' healthcare. In addition, the minimum wage goes up this year, which upsets many business owners who rely on paying their workers the least amount they can get away with.

Although this legislation equally affects all of San Francisco's small businesses, the restaurant industry alone has been the most vociferous opponent of these changes.

Those leading the charge belong to the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, an industry lobbying group which recently spearheaded the failed campaign to oust popular Board of Supervisor Chris Daly from office. In 1936, the GGRA was formed in San Francisco to represent restaurant owners during the height of wide-scale union activism, led primarily by the dockworkers of the ILWU, but which affected workers all over the city. In those days, San Francisco was known as Labor Town, and only 2 years prior San Francisco had undergone the largest general strike in American history. All union workers went on strike, including restaurant workers - who in those days outnumbered non-union workers in San Franciscan eating establishments.

Today, just a small number of restaurants workers are organized – the majority are low-wage, uninsured young workers, immigrants, and single women (many with dependents). The steps taken by our local government to improve the healthcare and livelihood of these workers – the majority of whom work behind the scenes in kitchens of every kind – is notable and supported by the majority of San Franciscans, such as myself. We've come a long way from the days when the mayor of San Francisco kept a portrait of Mussolini in his office and was known for giving the occasional Fascist salute. On the other hand, the men and women who staff the kitchens of San Francisco are in worse shape than their predecessors of 73 years ago.

With this in mind, I'd like to pose a set of smart-ass questions and snide comments of my own. Are you with me?

Okay.

GGRA threat #1: The Empire Strikes Back

Let's discuss the actual size of the GGRA. You guys claim to represent 800 small businesses in San Francisco and imply that they are willing to go on "strike" for one day to protest the implementation of the healthcare law.

Actually, I went to your website and counted each and every business listed in San Francisco. There aren't 800. Not even close. At the most, there are over 300 – roughly. Many of them are chains or haute cuisine establishments with multi-million dollar budgets – not the small businesses you'd have us believe. Where are the Chinatown restaurants? Where are the Mission taquerias? Where are the coffee shops?

There are thousands of restaurants in this city. There are even more independent, small, Mom and Pop businesses. At the most, your association represents a small, but vocal, minority of San Francisco businesses. Not only would a "strike" hurt the profit margins you guys shed crocodile tears over, not to mention the folks who actually do the work for you, but it will tarnish your image – and image is everything to a restaurant.

Think: Dennys.

In the event of a one-day pseudo strike, there are some who are prepared to visit your establishment the next day and not purchase anything. Instead, they will use what they would've spent on food and drink to tip out your staff, making sure you don't see a fucking dime in the process.

I'm not sure I agree with this tactic. Personally, I'm not stepping foot into a GGRA-member business until the lawsuit is dropped or defeated. And even then, who knows?

GGRA threat # 2: The Sky Is Falling...With Chains

You claim that local government makes it hard for you to run a business. You say that if implemented, these new quality of life laws will drive small independent businesses away and San Francisco will become a town of chain restaurants.

Hmmm, that's interesting considering how many of your members are chains or might as well be. Shall we name them?

Amici's East Coast Pizzeria
Asqew Grill
Beard Papa
Boudin Bakery
Briazz
Chaya Brasserie
E&O Trading Company
Extreme Pizza
Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant
Hooters Bar & Grill
Houston's Restaurant
Il Fornaio
Lee's Deli
Max's
North Beach Pizza
Paradise Pizza & Pasta
Pasta Pomodoro
Puccini Restaurant Group
Roy's Restaurant
San Francisco Soup Company
Specialty's Cafe & Bakery
Squat and Gobble Cafe & Crepery
The Cheesecake Factory
Trader Vic's
Zao Noodle Bar

GGRA threat #3: We Have To Raise Prices or Show Me The Money

Food prices are going up all over place as it is. You guys have been raising prices silently for years to match inflation and the standard cost of operating a business that everyone has to pay (including workers when they don't get a raise). When the price of gas goes up, do you threaten a one day strike to buck the oil barons? When it costs more to run those fancy halogen bar lights, do you threaten PG&E with a lawsuit?

Oh, I see. You just like to beat up on the Mexicans who wash your dishes.

(Thought so.)

You're alright with picking on the little guy, because you know he's the only one you can successfully bully. I wouldn't be surprised if some of you even threatened to call the DHS to coerce your immigrant employees into supporting this lawsuit.

Fact is, you've been raising prices...because cocaine is a hell of a drug. Maybe you could start handing out a few of those rolled-up Benjamins you use to blow dust up your nose to cover the expense of having a healthy, drug-free workforce. I guess greed is a hard habit to break, which is why The Man had to step in and force you to do the right thing. Running a modern-day plantation isn't easy I know, and this lawsuit of yours is simply a pale imitation of the South's secession when The Man threatened to abolish slavery.

Actually, The Man is tired of picking up the tab for you.

Because you don't cover your workers' healthcare expenses, or provide a "sick-free" environment, the City and County of San Francisco must absorb the cost of your people coming in to the emergency room for basic services. Because they had to work and couldn't stay home to rest and recover, minor, treatable illnesses become life-threatening and we, the taxpayer, have to pick up the hospital expenses of your workers.

Either way: someone's paying.

You just want to pass the buck on to us, because it so obviously puts another one in your pocket. You want government to subsidize your business. Socialism for the restaurant owners of the GGRA, but not for the workers.

How about this? Fuck you.

Big Picture #1: Sickness

Quick: How many of you want to pay a lot of money to catch a bug that will make you deathly ill? How many of you want to work around someone who's coughing virus-ridden droplets of saliva up on you?

I do! I do!

If Jose or Jane can't take the time off of work to get over the flu or whatever ungodly virus is making the rounds, they will pass it on to their coworkers and YOU, the diner. Sick leave is a harm reduction measure that the restauranteurs of the GGRA have continually opposed. It reduces the amount of sick people floating around in the general population by kindly asking that they stay home if they, or their children, are sick – and it gives them an incentive to do so. People who make the minimum wage (or something like it after rent, food, and other expenses are subtracted from their gross pay) cannot afford to miss work. They must have the security of sick leave, otherwise they will make choices that, in the end, affect all of us.

These restauranteurs who don't want to pay their workers to stay home if they're sick: what are they saying about their clientele? That they don't care if you get sick? Just pay up and pray that you aren't infected by the hostess?

Bottom line: They don't care about you getting sick, or the health of their workers. They only care about what's in their wallet.

After all we've seen them do and oppose - shouldn't that be obvious by now?

k.

San Francisco: Catching Crabs, Eating Clams

2007-03-26T22:29:00.000-07:00

Ah! The fog, cold, and rain are back!

Were you guys able to enjoy the little sunny break we had? If not, you're SOL until May.

Welcome to springtime in San Francisco. We have a few gorgeous days at the beginning of March and then we get hit with a few weeks of ugly, I mean ugly, weather in April. You've really got to get out and enjoy the good stuff while it lasts.

A word to the wise – don't waste the good days in the city by staying indoors. My coworker just had a friend come out to visit from Ohio for a week. Not only did her guest not want to go out at night, but she also spent the majority of her time sleeping until 3 PM. What a waste.

Maybe some people see nothing wrong with sleeping their lives away – and I can't say I blame them. Apparently these people also care nothing about looking like they've got a lick of fashion sense when stepping out to a nice restaurant or social event. However, take heed: this town is no place to sleep in late, especially on sunny days. Nor is it okay to go clubbing in one of your gem sweaters, unless of course you're Leslie Hall and you're glamorous (I know I am)!

This is still the City That Knows How.

And on cold, foggy days, this is the city that knows how to keep itself warm, happy, and satisfied with a big bowl of steaming hot, mildly spicy cioppino.

Forget Rice-A-Roni; what San Franciscan you know eats that stuff? Cioppino is the original and authentic San Francisco Treat. A thick, hearty tomato-based seafood stew chock full of Dungeness crab, clams, Pacific cod, shrimp, and whatever happens to be fresh that day. This dish is old school – no doubt old school SF Italian– but San Franciscan through and through. The only accompaniment you need with a bowl of cioppino is a huge hunk of crusty sourdough bread and you have a complete, rib-stickin' meal.

Cioppino ("ch-pee-no") is truly a Made In San Francisco dish. Like most things uniquely San Franciscan, it's a transplant – brought over by Genoese fishermen and adapted to the Bay Area's unique and local ingredients. These Italian fishermen dominated the fishing trade (thanks to laws they passed which pushed the Chinese fishermen further upshore) in the late 1800s, when Fisherman's Wharf was the site of a fishy-smelling gold rush of sorts.

One of these immigrants from Genoa went on to start the Bank of Italy, which managed the fortunes of those fishermen and by shear luck, survived the Great Fire and Earthquake of 1906. Because of such, the bank grew leaps and bounds and is today known to most San Franciscans as the mega-evil Bank of America.

Love-ly.

I'm fond of cioppino because it's a crazy delicious seafood stew, but also because it's one of the first dishes I ate where I knew, sitting there in front me, was something unique to my newly adopted home (this was a couple of years after I moved to the Bay Area). My first and, as far as I know, only experience eating cioppino was/is Bruce's homemade cioppino. Bruce isn't Italian, but he could play one on TV and no one would ever know the difference (he also gets mistaken for being both Jewish and Muslim, which is dangerous no matter which side of the Wall you live on). He's actually part Portuguese, part Greek, and part honky – which, oddly enough, describes a lot of Southern European/Mediterranean ethnicities. I'm pure honky, which as most people know, isn't very pure at all; especially those Southern honky varieties. Oh, where does the time go?

Although cioppino's hella expensive to make, lately I've felt that I needed to hunker down and start writing about this great place I live in, and I wanted to start with a dish that is near and dear to my heart. I know you guys read a lot of blogs out there; I read a few as well. One of the things I hope to get when I click on a food blog from, say, Washington DC or Cleveland is a feel for the place the author lives in – you know, living vicariously through someone else's eyes, ears, stomach, and so on, so on, etc.

Sometimes I don't think that happens enough with Bay Area food bloggers, most especially: yours truly. Hell, I don't think that happens enough with food bloggers in general, although that guy over at The New Diner certainly has something special going on (I just wish he would start writing again). That's why for the next month or so I'll be focusing more on San Francisco and SF Bay Area "stuff" here at Bacon Press.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING RECIPE CONTAINS INSTRUCTIONS AND PHOTOS ON KILLING LIVE CRUSTACEANS.

Crab Cioppino Treganza A la Bacon Press 2007
Serves 2 for roughly a week (or 6 to 8 at once)

Okay, I know this is a lot of food to make but cioppino is one of those stews that you just have to make a lot of and hope to hell you have friends and neighbors who are okay with coming over to eat and taking some home with them. Could you cut this recipe in half? Probably. Will I? Probably not.

I can eat lunch for free all this week just on cioppino leftovers alone. And how many of your coworkers do that? Not many. I know – I asked.

First you should know this: the recipe for cioppino isn't written in stone. There are variations depending on who you ask, what their preference is, and what type of fish or shellfish is in season. Dungeness crab is a given. So is the tomato-based sauce. From there, you're pretty much free to improvise with the seafood and the consistency and flavor of your sauce. I've seen premade jars of cioppino sauce for sale in certain supermarkets. Perhaps some of them are worth trying? I don't know. But before you waste $50 - $60 worth of seafood on a $5 jar of sauce, you better test it first.

The recipe I'm using is not Bruce's. It's from an out-of-print cookbook called San Francisco Firehouse Favorites, published in 1965. Despite its age and the era it was written in (still fresh on the heels of bad 1950s cuisine), it has some remarkably good recipes contributed by – wait for it – real San Francisco firefighters. I'll talk more about the book in a future post, but for now I present you with the recipe submitted by SFFD Art Treganza, Airport Rescue Company No. 3, and slightly modified by me.

Ingredients
5 medium-sized leeks, thinly sliced
6 large celery stalks, finely chopped or sliced
6 medium-sized carrots, finely chopped or sliced
1 ½ cup flat-leaf parsley, chopped
4 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 large 28-ounce can chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon dry thyme
2 – 3 tablespoons chopped fresh sage
2 – 3 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
2 live dungeness crabs
2 pounds of clams, well scrubbed
1 pound of medium prawns, raw (with or without shells)
2 pounds of Pacific cod (or similar white fish) fillets
½ cup of dry white wine
1 tablespoon of pepper, freshly ground
Salt to taste
(not included here: 2 to 4 tablespoons tomato paste)

Dungeness crab season in the Bay Area lasts between November and June, peaking sometime in January. When buying a crab, note that one typically weighs between 2 to 3 pounds and should look lively (even frisky) and have all or most of it's legs. Also take note of its tank environment, inspecting it for cleanliness. Buying live crab ensures that you're getting the freshest meat available, as crab meat quickly deteriorates after death. I bought my live crabs at Ranch 99 in Daly City for $5 per pound. This is a great price for live Dungeness crab. On the flip side, cooked Dungeness crab at Mollie Stones sells for $8 per pound, or basically the price you pay for having someone else do the dirty work for you.

I also bought my clams (you can use any kind) at Ranch for $4 per pound. When buying clams, make sure the shells are completely closed, unless you see the actual clam moving about. Open shells with no movement means the clam is dead.

When you get home, fill up a large container for both the crabs and the clams and pour in enough Kosher salt so that the water tastes like the ocean. Do this hours before you begin cooking and carefully place the crabs and clams in each. Warning: crabs are dangerous to a certain extent, so always use a pair of tongs when handling them.

Also be sure to cover the container the crabs are in – it's possible they could climb out. By placing the clams and crabs in water this way, you not only keep them alive longer but some of the impurities from the previous tank they were in is potentially flushed away.

Now lets make the cioppino sauce!

In a large, heavy bottomed pot (at least 12 quarts) add olive oil and heat on medium high until hot. Then add the onions, celery, and carrots. Increase heat to high and cook, stirring frequently until mixture has cooked down significantly. Next add the chopped garlic and 1 cup of the parsley and stir for another minute or two.

Next, add the 2 cans of chopped tomatoes. Alert: product placement! I use Muir Glen organic chopped tomatoes as I find it's the best canned tomato product to cook with (oh, how I wish they paid me!) After adding the tomatoes, fill up both cans with H2O and add the water to the pot. Also: add the herbs and pepper (optional: you could also add chopped chili pepper flakes for that extra wowee).

Stir glamorously and then reduce to a simmer. Cover and let simmer for an hour and a half.

Let's revisit those crabs, shall we? First, friends, we must discuss this killing business.

Frankly, it's unavoidable in this situation – so how best to do it if it really bothers you? And actually, if it bothers you then I'm glad to have you as a reader because I think it should bother you. It bothers me. Part of being human is that we are hard-wired to empathize with the suffering of other living things. If we, through whatever method or reason, become incapable of feeling the pain of others, then we are truly denying our magnificient potential as human beings, and that's not healthy or sane. To feel for others is natural, it's instinctual, and it's part of this grand evolution to which we belong.

But we do have to eat, and we – in this case – are not vegetarians. The best way to minimize the suffering of the crab is to anesthetize it and then kill it quickly. This can be done first by taking the crabs from the holding tank (or the container you've used up to this point) and placing them in the freezer (Harold McGee suggest using ice water). Here I've placed them in a cloth sack and tied the top. Once I've gotten them in the bag and have it placed in the freezer, I keep them in there for at least an hour.

You may be surprised when, even after an hour, you take them out and they are still moving. Crabs are able to tolerate the cold waters of the Pacific – your freezer is only slightly colder. The cold forces the crab into a semi-dormancy and dulls its pain receptors. This, however, doesn't kill the crab.

To quickly kill it, turn it on its back while still using the tongs to hold it. On its belly, there is a triangular flap that points towards the crab's head. Lift the flap back and hold it down (you may need two people to do this). Towards the top of where the flap was, there is a small indentation.

Using a small screwdriver (or chopstick) and with a good whack, penetrate the crab's body until you hit the other side, but without going through the shell. Now quickly jack the handle back so that the tip of the screwdriver is towards the front of the crab. This kills the crab.

Afterwards, turns the crab over a sink so that the body drains its retained water and fluids. It's now ready to cook.

First, add the crab to the cioppino sauce and then add the clams which you have scrubbed and drained. Bring back to a simmer and cook, covered, for 30 minutes.

When the crab is cooked, remove it and add the cod and prawns to the pot. Cook, covered, an additional 10 minutes on simmer. While that's cooking, pull off the crab legs and reserve to a bowl.

The crab (obviously) will be hot, so careful not to burn yourself. However, this can be done without doing so. After you've removed the legs, clean the body of the crab by separating the upper and lower halves of the crab. Once you've pulled off the top, discard the top shell and wash out the yellow "crab butter". Pull out the lungs and discard them as well. Next, pull out the crab meat from the body and add to the bowl containing the legs.

When the cod and prawns have finished cooking, add the crab back to the pot - plus the wine- and simmer another 5 minutes.

We're done, people.

All that's left is to ladle into bowls and sprinkle with parsley (if you like). Of course, don't leave out the bread! Acme Sour Batard is the best fucking sourdough in San Francisco so you better go grab you a loaf.

One last thing: this stew came out a little more "vegetable-ly" than I prefer. It really should have more of a pronounced tomato flavor. So, right before you add the seafood, I suggest adding a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste to beef up the tomato flavor. Also, a little heat in this stew would go a long way, so feel free to add some cayenne or chili flakes to the sauce.

Hey! And there you have it!

San Francisco Cioppino! Straight from an old San Franciscan and written by a new-ish one.

If you aren't able to make this at home - or live too far from one of the many regular cioppino feeds - you could always take the next plane to SFO – only I'm pretty sure Art Treganza won't be there to greet you. And of course, you would have my high expectations to live up to.

I'd be so disappointed if you came out here and slept the whole time!

k.

Fast Food Smell

2007-03-23T09:56:00.000-07:00

There's a certain hour of night
At dusk
When the air has settled
And no one's around
Things are quiet
All but for the traffic in the distance
Nighttime colors are vivid
Peach, white, blue and red
And the smell of fast food on a passing breeze
Is the loneliest smell in the world

The acrid smell of all things fried
Is the tell-all fragrance
Of being stranded
Abandoned
Forced to fend for one's self
In a world so cold it will freeze you to the bone

Something those guys developed in the lab
And put in the food
Has the ability to create angels at dawn
And demons at night
A trick on the mind
Maybe unintended
But one that's as real as the blisters
On your hands and feet

I curse the smell!
It poisons my spit!
It crushes my spirit with its
Uniforms and dirty mops and
Steam, grease, and sounds of locking doors

I take no solace in distancing myself
From the smell of fast food
The stench of the familiar that catches me alone
Vulnerable and often tired
And flattens out the world
The way no other smell can
Just when I need the world to be sweet and round
Like a peach

k.

Rule Baltannia

2007-03-21T00:00:00.000-07:00

In May I'll be traveling to the South with Bruce to visit places I've never been, eat food I've never eaten, and see some of my relatives, including Mom.

But while my ticket says Atlanta, GA, I find myself dreaming it says Heathrow instead.

Unfortunately, I can't afford to visit both places this year, so instead I'm participating in Becks and Posh's St. George's Day Fish & Quips food blogathon, celebrating the joys of English food.

My contribution to this anthology of all things Anglo:

Balti cuisine.

Originating in the 1970s, Balti cuisine is an Anglo-Asian culinary phenomenon relatively unknown in America and on the Indian Subcontinent. It's birthplace centers in what now is referred to as the Balti Triangle of Birmingham, England; a one-mile area comprising over 50 restaurants, or balti houses.

Birmingham, or Brum, is England's second largest city and its most industrialized. Following the post-war economic boom, it experienced a massive wave of immigration from the Indian Subcontinent (primarily from Bangladesh) of men and their families looking jobs in factories and foundries. This migration, in turn, has made Brum into the least racially homogenous of all of England's core cities. Conversely, the rest of England is whiter than sour cream.

Today, tourism is one of Brum's largest industries – in part because of the fabulous abundance of balti houses, but to a large extent the waves of Duran Duran salmon who swim up-stream each year to spawn underneath the Birmingham Rotunda.

I haven't been to Birmingham or, for what it's worth, to me neither. But I have been to Brick Lane in London.

Brick Lane, in the historic East End, is a one road curry extravaganza full of restaurants and barkers who, if chosen, will lead you by the hand to their home restaurant where they will likely receive a commission for the 15th fickle tourist of the day.

Once seated in one of these dives, you will be handed a menu that will list a sikhload of dishes that you, if you're an American like me, will be clueless about and had no idea even existed. First, you must choose between balti, madras, bhuna, vindaloo, jalfrezi, rogan, dopiaza, and biryani. After you've settled with one of those categories, you must decide if you want chicken, lamb, vegetable and, in the rare case, beef. It's a daunting array of menu items that, if you're a newbie to the Brit-Asian curry/balti house scene, could make you scream bloody bhangra.

For example, check out the differences between a standard British Asian restaurant menu and an Indian American one. At first glance, they seem unrelated. However, upon further inspection many of the dishes are the same. It's as if the Brits say "give me the cuisine first and the ingredients second." Whereas Americans will say "I care more about the ingredient first, and just do with them whatever sounds good." Frankly, I prefer the British method since it automatically focuses on the essence of the cuisine rather than the details.

But you know, that's just how Americans are. So hung up on the details, they can't see the food for the cuisine – or the quagmire for the Iraq.

Anyhoo, Brick Lane in London is also in the middle of Banglatown and as such - and as Balti cuisine has migrated from Brum to London and beyond - has quickly become the Balti Belt of Banglatown. Balti houses abound and balti-style dishes can be found in most restaurants.

To be certain, Balti has become Britain's top curry house fave, leaving Chicken Tikka Masala still scratching in its dust.

There's some speculation as to where the word "balti" (as it pertains to the cuisine) comes from. Some say it's a region, others say it's a type of cooking vessel. I happen to think it's short for "Count Baltar", the evil cyborg in the original Battlestar Galactica series who was fond of terrorizing the rag-tag fleet of human survivors from the comfort of his flying saucer – which coincidentally (or is it?) has the wok-like appearance of what balti dishes are cooked and served in.

It's safe, however, to assume that the word balti in this context is a, ahem, Briticism – much like Chicken Tikka Masala and even the word "curry" itself.*

*Note: The English word "curry" has no direct translation into any of the 15 or more languages found on the Indian Subcontinent and is thought to be a British bastardization of the Hindi words "karai/karahi", which is the wok-like cooking vessel used to make a balti.

I am not an expert on balti by far. However, from what I can tell, balti dishes are medium-hot, somewhat dry, curries based on curry spices, lots of onions, meat (often chicken or prawns), and tomatoes. Most of the ingredients are prepared in advanced and then assembled quickly in a hot cooking vessel similar to a wok. Unlike the standard side order of basmati rice, most balti dishes are eaten with naan (bread).

For my homemade balti experience, I consulted several different websites with recipes, information, and history and I looked at a few different online restaurant menus. None of the South Asian cookbooks I own (all, except one old Curry Club cookbook, published in the US) contained a balti recipe, so I used the best one I could find online.

I've got to be up front with you – this is perhaps the best curry recipe I've ever made. And, seeing as I just dined at Shalimar on Polk Street yesterday and had the closest approximation to balti (Chicken Karahi) they have, this dish is far superior.

I'd like to thank Brett and his friend Brian for posting this recipe. I have fine-tuned it to my tastes and preferences and will share it with you...right now!

Chicken Balti for Yanks and Ex-Pats
Serves 3 - 4

Stage 1 ingredients
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 cup chicken stock
2 – 3 cloves garlic, grated
2-inch piece of ginger, grated
1 rounded tablespoon of tomato paste
2 teaspoons curry powder (Ship Madras brand)

Stage 2 ingredients
2 boneless, skinless whole chicken breasts, cubed
1 humongous yellow onion, diced
Plenty of vegetable cooking oil
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 teaspoon salt

Stage 3 ingredients
2 teaspoons of grated fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 large green jalapeno, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped green onion
Balti Masala comprising a mixture of 1 teaspoon of each: ground turmeric, cumin, 1 bay leaf and 1 black cardamom.
1 teaspoon of cayenne powder
½ teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoons of ground fenugreek
1 teaspoon of Garam Masala
1/2 cup of chopped, fresh cilantro
2 medium tomatoes, quartered

Brian's recipe calls for frying the chicken first. However, I'm modifying this recipe by making the curry sauce first.

Stage 1: The Curry Sauce

Add the 2 tablespoons oil to saucepan and turn the heat to medium-high. When hot, add the diced medium onion, turn the heat down to medium and fry until the onions soften up. Then, add the garlic and ginger and saute for a minute or so. Next, add the curry powder and cook an additional 2 minutes. After, stir in the chicken stock, remove from the burner and allow several minutes to cool. When cool, process in a food processor or blender until smooth and then return to the saucepan. Next, stir in the tomato paste and bring to simmer; simmer for 5 minutes. When finished, cover and keep warm.

Stage 1 3/4: The Naan
Look, it makes no sense to try and replicate a tandoori oven in your kitchen. Trust me: I've tried.

Instead, turn your oven to it's lowest setting and pick up your phone. Dial the number to your closest Indian/Pakistani restaurant, order the naan (usually around $1 - $2 for a large piece) and go pick it up. Better yet, have it delivered. When it arrives, turn off your oven and stick the bread (wrapped in foil) inside to keep warm while you finish your curry.

Stage 2: The Chicken and Onions
Add a cup or so of oil to a wok and heat on high. When slightly smoking, add the chicken and stir fry in small batches, using a slotted spoon to stir and remove the pieces. Make sure your chicken pieces are somewhat dry before you put them in the hot oil, otherwise you'll get a lot of splatter. When the chicken pieces start to take on a golden color, remove to a large bowl or plate.

Next, pour out most of the oil leaving 2 to 3 tablespoon in the wok. Then add the onions and stir fry until they start to become transparent. Add the curry powder and 1 teaspoon of salt and fry another minute or so. Add the chicken stock and stir, making sure to scrape off "the love" from the bottom and sides of the wok. Keep the heat on high and reduce the liquid to a thick sauce, banking the chicken pieces up on the side of the wok if needed.

When finished, remove the mixture to a large bowl or plate and wipe off the gunk from the wok with lots of clean, dry paper towels.

Stage 3: The Balti
"Arrange all the ingredients near to the cooker as the process requires almost constant attention once started."

Heat 2 tablespoons of cooking oil in a wok set on medium heat and fry the jalapenos and green onions briefly. Next add the garlic and ginger – stir a few times - then add all of the dry spices. Careful not to burn the spices: if you need, remove the wok from the burner and continue to stir. Oh, and you may want to open some windows.

After cooking the dry mixture for a few minutes, add the Stage 2 ingredients and mix. Then, add the Stage 1 (curry sauce) ingredients and cook for an additional 2 minutes. Lastly, add the tomatoes and half of the chopped cilantro and cook until the tomatoes start to soften.

That's it.

To serve, spoon into bowls or, if you have them, karahis and serve with plenty of naan. No additional chutneys or relishes are needed.

I'm sorry...what's that?

Oh yeah: TYRA MAIL!

Proceed to the living room. There you will find your favorite reality game show, America's Next Top (quickly forgotten) Model, just coming on the telly. This balti was made for ANTM. Not because the dish is low cal – trust me, eating too many pieces of naan with oily baltis will turn you into America's Next Top Waddle ("kiss my fat ass!").

No, it goes with this show because balti cuisine is exactly what you want to be eating when suddenly confronted with important life questions such as:

Do you think Brittany's fake?

Behold! Crucial mysteries of the universe revealed:

Life doesn't make sense sometimes.

ANTM is balti. Twiggy: balti. Nigel Barker: motherfuckin' crazy balti.

Miss Jay: not balti. Miss Jay is just a big silly drag queen, but I love her anyway.

Bacon Press readers: the judges have decided. This chicken balti will proceed to the next round to see who will become America's Next Top Balti.

Will you?

k.

Chiquita's Banana Boat

2007-03-20T09:51:00.000-07:00

Day-o!!

Day-ay-ay-o
Daylight come and he wan' go home
Day, he say day, he say day, he say day, he say day, he say day-ay-ay-o
Daylight come and he wan' go home

Work all night on a drink a'rum
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
Stack banana till the morning come
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)

Come, Mr. Tally Mon, tally me banana
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
Carl Lindner, Chiquita Executive

Come, Mr. Tally Mon, tally me banana
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)

It's six foot, seven foot, eight foot, BUNCH!
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
Six foot, seven foot, eight foot, BUNCH!
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)

Day, he say day-ay-ay-o
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
Day, he say day, he say day, he say day, he say day, he say day
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)

A beautiful bunch a'ripe banana
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
Hide thee deadly black tarantula
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)

It's six foot, seven foot, eight foot, BUNCH!
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
Six foot, seven foot, eight foot, BUNCH!
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)

Day, he say day-ay-ay-o
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
Day, he say day, he say day, he say day, he say day, he say day
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)

Geographically Challenged Grocer

2007-03-19T19:37:00.000-07:00

The Whole Foods market at 4th and Harrison employ people in their produce department who need a fucking City College course in World Geography.

I realize that ever since Michael Pollan shamefaced John Mackey into purchasing locally grown goods, Whole Foods has made a special effort to source their products and have, consequentially, made a big to-do about it to their customers.

I appreciate that.

However, like the pay difference between the average WF worker and John Mackey, the concept apparently must be repeated 19 times before it trickles down and enters the consciousness of their produce workers.

Case in point: Yesterday I walked into Whole Foods to purchase some fruit and a few veggies since, unfortunately, I missed the weekend Farmers Market. I wanted apples and/or pears even though I realize they are at the tail end of their season. Out of the many pears for sale, only one variety indicated that it was organic, but they were imported from Argentina. The rest were conventionally-grown American pears but at higher than conventional prices.

I mean, geez: I could've just gone to Safeway.

So, deciding against pears, I went to the apples. Conventional apples are notorious for harboring large amounts of pesticide residue, so if there's one thing to go organic on, it's apples.

While there were more organic choices in the apple aisle, all except one indicated they were from Washington or Oregon. I purchased a few Golden Delicious apples which were labeled (by Whole Foods) as grown in California. Note: I purchased them because they were grown in California. The stickers on the apples didn't say where they came from (except to say "Produce of USA") but they did say "organic" and had a website address.

Later on, I booted up and connected to the Net; went to the website and found out these apples were, in fact, grown in Washington.

Whatchu Talkin' Bout, Willis!?

But wait! It gets better.

While I continued shopping, I wandered over to a nice display of red bell peppers. Now, I realize bell peppers aren't in season yet, but if they're locally grown in a greenhouse, I'm okay with that. I started looking at the peppers, which were packaged three per bag under the Whole Foods 365 label. Again, the Whole Foods signage claimed they were California-grown. However, marked clearly on the bag for all to see were the words "Produce of Mexico".

There was a Whole Foods produce worker standing next to me, so I nicely pointed out the mistake to her. I'm sure that no matter how nice I was about it (I'm always as sweet as pie!), I came off like an asshole. Not that she could care – she didn't say or do anything except try to pull out the offending sign.

No "sorry, our mistake". No "oh, we're training someone new". Nothing. Nada. Not that I was expecting a royal bow and a plea for forgiveness, but a simple reply would've sufficed.

I hope I'm not overreacting but I feel there is a serious problem here.

It's called Fraud. It's called False Advertising.

And it's just lame.

Whole Foods' image in the mind of many is favorable, although that's somewhat hard to believe when you take into account their stagnant stock price. Perhaps that's due to the fact that for many people, "Whole Paycheck" isn't a term of endearment; they will eventually switch over to cheaper alternatives if and when given the chance. There are other negatives about the size and structure of the company that I won't elaborate on. However, if the inconsistency and indifferent customer service at the Whole Foods at 4th and Harrison in San Francisco is indicative of the company at large, I can't imagine them growing fiscally any time soon.

Service, reliability, and trust still count for something in this world.

k.

PS I wasn't going to mention how God-fucking-awful the service in the meat department is at this store, but I will say these two words: gender discrimination. Check it out.

A Rumination on Mercaptan

2007-03-08T16:02:00.000-08:00

The weather's picking up and Spring is peeking its pretty little head out from underneath the clouds. A lot of springtime foods are hitting the market shelves, including everyone's favorite, asparagus, and consequentially there's a lot of chatter in the food blogosphere ranging from recipes, tips, anecdotes, and ramblings on this tender veggie.

I'm glad this vegetable is finally in season as it's easy to prepare, super nutritious, goes with anything, and super deelish.

But.

I am OVER this pee smell!!!

No. I'm serious.

It has been twenty-four hours since I last ate asparagus – quickly blanched, cooled in ice water, drained, and served with a dollop of dill garlic sour cream sauce – and my pee is still freakin' reakin'! Yuck!

I swear - it's instant too. Like, five minutes after the last bite, I'll run to the bathroom and shoo! there it is. It's embarrassing in social situations where you have to pee standing next to someone else, which is bad enough anyway since close proximity is an instant pee blocker for many guys, including yours truly.

To make matters worse, the part of San Francisco I work in was without water for over an hour today, which meant the toilets wouldn't flush. I pity the fool who had to smell my pee; I am truly sorry – but if the choice is between smelly pee and doing away with one of my favorite vegetables, the stink is going to win hands down.

According to WebMD, the main cause of asparapee is our dear old friend sulfur - whose greatest hits include "That Rotten Egg Smell", "Garlic Breath", and the classic "He Who Smelt It, Dealt It". Furthermore, research studies indicate that some people produce the smell while others don't, while some lucky folks are incapable of smelling asparapee in the first place.

Normally, one would assume this tiny parcel of knowledge would be of no Real World use – that is, until you find yourself in a Port-a-John at the Stockton Asparagus Festival, praying that the last person who used it wasn't French and the guy standing next door is Ari Gold of Tel Aviv.

I'm sure there are some people out there who dig the smell of asparapee. Like, in their warped and twisted minds, it's the smell of Natural Things, and things that are "natural" are supposed to be holy, pure, wholesome and such. But please, spare me the crunchy, hippy bullshit. If I could take a pill for asparapee, I would do so in a New York minute. Because asparapee is just, plain, GROSS!

There are two things related to me that you never want to be on the receiving end of: 1) an envelope I licked shortly after eating a handful of almonds and 2) restroom privileges shortly after I've asparapeed.

Otherwise, we're good.

k.

Cry Me A River

2007-03-02T16:50:00.000-08:00

This has not been Afghanistan's motherfuckin' 21st century.

In fact, the last half of the 20th century was pretty shitty as well. Pretty soon, Turkmen parents will point to their neighbors to the south when scolding their children about how comfortable they have it – the Central Asian version of "unless you want to end up like little Johnny down the street, you better eat your damn mac and cheese before it gets cold".

Afghanistan is a land of stark beauty, and as such it bears the curse of beauty. It has existed century after century, burdened with the jealousies of her many lovers. I'm sure she's thought once or twice of just going gay, as if that would solve her problems. Sorry to inform you my dear, but the gay community has its share of nuts as well.

Starting in the late 1970s, Afghanistan was caught in the middle of a dying Cold War epic played out by the former Soviet Union and the United States. This idiotic feud started in Southeast Asia and worked its way northwest until, like Southeast Asia, the warring tribes of communism and capitalism accomplished absolutely nothing except to make a few rich men and warlords richer, and everyone else fucking miserable.

Out of the ashes was born a new kind of odious "ism" – Islamism; a worldview and system of societal control that takes cues from the Soviet system (authoritarianism) and right-wing American evangelicalism, puts them in a blender, and comes up with a stiff mixed-drink that will get you totally wasted on God, guns, and glory – quite literally.

After the fall of the Soviet-backed government, Afghanistan fell to the Islamists: those unlovable rapscallions we know as the Taliban. During their short-lived rule, the Taliban rode Afghanistan hard and put her away wet – in the process destroying the largest statues of the Buddha left in the world. All I can say is that if after we die we find out the Buddhists were right and everyone else was wrong, karma will be such a bitch for those fools.

As if waking from a bad dream to find your home on fire, Afghanistan entered the 21st century caught holding the September 11th bag for Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The invasion and bombing of the country by the US succeeded in achieving two things: 1) it temporarily drove the Taliban into hiding while 2) bringing attention to the world that the Afghan version of the pimp hat is made with fetus fur.

Work it, gangsta!

Now, as if things couldn't possibly get any fucking worse, Mother Nature just has to go stickin' a big ol' rusty shank right in the kidneys of everyone's favorite Afghani-cisco restaurant, The Helmand.

What happened? Landslide, that's what happened.

Everyone likes to talk about earthquakes (and in fact, we've had a lot lately) and California, but landslides consistently do the most damage. The Helmand occupied one of the three buildings on Broadway recently red-tagged due to a landslide that happened behind them last Tuesday. Besides taking out the Helmand, it put a strip club and a decent Chinese restaurant out of business, as well as forcing 120 people temporarily from their homes.

The Helmand has been my favorite Afghan restaurant for years.

Actually, it has been my only Afghan restaurant for years.

Nevertheless, it's right up the street from where I work and for ten bucks, it has (or had?) the best lunch buffet in the area. Since it's been a while since I've eaten there, I really can't wax poetic about the food except to say that it was like a combo of two of my favorite cuisines – Arabic and Indian, with a little Turkish-Greek thrown in (okay that's actually four).

My favorite dish was a savory baked pumpkin dish with yogurt, as well as some of their curries. Sam reviewed it a little while back and can provide a far better review of the food than I can here.

The Helmand was a total freak of nature on Broadway. A few doors down is a strip club next to a head shop specializing in bongs, sneak-a-tokes, and fur-lined handcuffs. Across the street and to the left, another strip club. Across the street and to the right, quarter booths. Across the street and down the hill, a shop which specializes in preggers porn. Also in the neighborhood, lots of housing and an elementary school. And a pizza parlor.

This is why SF has the rep it does.

But the Helmand co-existed peacefully within the scheme of Broadway's pooniverse. It was an oasis of white tablecloths, sparkling water glasses, moody lighting, serene music, and waiters in tuxes smack-dab in the middle of a neighborhood that invented the word "skank". As much as I feel for the residents displaced by the landslide, I am actually very sad to see the Helmand go.

Actually, our last parting wasn't a particularly happy one for me. I was totally stressed out and just wanted the peaceful tranquility only an all-you-can-eat Afghan buffet can give you. I walked into the restaurant, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the light, when I saw a packed house. I waited around awhile, but no one was leaving. Like a jilted lover, I stormed out in anger – spitting and cursing: "Damn this worrrrllllddd!!!!"

I should know better. Never leave a friend, a loved one, or a favorite restaurant in anger.

They could get hit by a bus. Or fall through a roof. Or damaged in a landslide. And then what would you have of your last moments together? There's no need to suffer through this tragedy, and yet here I am.

Hopefully, the folks who own and run the Helmand will recover from this setback and open shop again soon. Still, I should've appreciated the place more when it was around. Now all I have left are sweet and savory Arabic-Indian-Turkish-Greek memories.

Chalk it up to yet another catastrophe to hit the poor people of Afghanistan.

k.

The Captain Goes Down With The Ship

2007-02-19T11:30:00.000-08:00

I'm not a world traveller.

Not by far. I've been to New York once, Tijuana briefly, and to the UK for 2 weeks.

I loved England and Wales. If I wasn't going back to the South this summer on what will be a Southern-Fried Bar-B-Q roadtrip with Bruce, I'd go back in a flash. England was cool, and Bruce and I quickly adapted to the local culture – you wouldn't believe how many bad drivers we gave the finger to!

L: Safeway in Tewkesbury, R: The town of Ledbury

Of course, we tried to blend in with the locals as much as we could, even going to the local Safeway in Tewkesbury to grocery shop. The English Safeway had some similarties with the ones we have here, but with a few obvious differences; I think of it as the uncircumsized British cousin who likes Gunther and wears trainers. Besides the fact that you could readily buy black pudding and Scotch ("picnic") eggs or that the cashiers sit down, your Safeway Club Card doesn't work, and they don't even accept coupons (what the fuck?!), there were tons of unusual canned foods, such as Chicken Tikka Masala; furthermore known as CTM.

Before we arrived in England, I had no idea the grip CTM had on the British palate and psyche. I'd always regarded the dish as a great Indian restaurant standard - like Saag Paneer - but little did I know that CTM is the British equivalent of Mac and Cheese. Or, actually, their CTM is our Sweet and Sour Pork. Except, more so.

I'm finding it difficult to analogize.

Anyway, other things are different as well, such as if you or parents are originally from the Indian Subcontinent you are often referred to as "Asian", whereas Asians to us are those wacky and lovable folks of which some are currently getting their Gung Hay Fat Choy on.

Happy New Year, yall!!!!

The majority of immigration from the Indian Subcontinent to the United States has historically been Punjabi (and those who identify with pre-partition India), while immigration to Britain has historically been Pakistani (also Punjabi) and Bangladeshi. In the popular Western mind, the people of Bangladesh are famous for two things: 1) a bad ass, all-star benefit concert organized by George Harrison that would inspire dozens of future imitators, and 2) working their powers of fusion cuisine to come up with a dish that would lure drunken British yobboes into their Brick Lane restaurants long enough to a) sell more alcohol, b) pass off expired chicken covered in a thick and spicy gravy, and c) seek revenge on those white bastards for bringing their shit into Southall.

Okay. I may be embellishing that last part.

Still, what's not an embellishment is the fact that Chicken Tikka Masala was Made In England, not the cities formerly known as Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. And yet, the Brits aren't alone in their love of bastardized chicken curry dishes because while I say "toe-may-toe" and you say "toe-mah-toe", Brits say Chicken Tikka Masala and we say Country Captain.

Huh?

I said Country Captain.

That's right: long before the Brits were claiming CTM as their national dish, black and white cooks in the American South were slangin' and servin' chicken curry...Lowcountry Style, beeyatches! This is no "which came first: the CTM or the Country Captain" debate. CTM wasn't even a blip on Churchill's radar when a Mrs. Bullard of Warm Springs, Georgia was knocking FDR's socks off with a hot and hearty dish of Country Captain.

What is arguable is the origin of Country Captain and who first gave it that goofy sounding name.

What we do know is that the dish known as Country Captain likely originated during the time Charleston and Savannah were two of the major Atlantic ports of entry for everything from slaves to spices. Starting in the late 17th century, international trade made Charleston (and later Savannah) into one of the wealthiest cities in America. British trade routes to India, in particular the city of Madras, introduced exotic spices to the New World through these ports; spices which found their way into the regional, indigenous cuisine.

A Country Captain, according to the research of Linda Stradley, was a British Army officer stationed in Bengal, India of which a dry chicken curry, made with onions and curry powder, is named for. Curry powder, like CTM, is also a British creation and likely one of the first convenience foods brought back from India by returning soldiers. After the invention of curry powder, canned CTM was just one slippery slope away.

Technically, then, Country Captain was and is the British-American predecessor to CTM since both Savannah and Charleston were once British colonies – Charleston being the namesake of King Charles II (unfortunately, not one of England's most stellar monarchs – rather like the Bush of his day).

For the most part, it never really left where it took off. To this day, Country Captain remains a dish most Americans, even most Southerners, have never heard of. It is a lowcountry specialty that, at one time, spread throughout the South but, like many old-timey recipes, has diminshed in popularity. Eerily, the largest consumers of this colonial-era, military dish may be perhaps our own Armed Servicemembers consuming Country Captain in the form of MREs ("Meals Ready-to-Eat") while stationed in Iraq.

Is it just me, or is that a little weird?

Right. Just me.

To prepare myself for our upcoming Southern-fried roadtrip, I've been preparing some of these Southern and lowcountry specialties and when I came across the name Country Captain, I just couldn’t' resist.

While there are a lot of recipes out there, I finally decided on going with the recipe in the book The Gift of Southern Cooking by Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock. Edna Lewis, who passed away at the age of 89 a year ago this month, was one of the greatest transplanted (to NYC) Southern chefs around while her co-author, Scott Peacock, is an impressive Southern chef in his own right.

Before I get started on the recipe, I should warn you that I didn't follow it precisely. Don't be surprised. Do most people follow any recipe precisely?

If there was a Family Feud category where you had to name the top three types of instructions people partially follow, recipes and diets would rank second and third, respectively. At number one would be – survey says – "lay the weapon on the ground, step away, and keep your hands where I can see them."

However, I do recommend checking out the book and following their recipe precisely. And while you're at it, check out the others because this is a really great book.

COUNTRY CAPTAIN

Ingredients:

1 4-5 pound chicken, cut into pieces
1 tsp thyme
1-2 tsp salt and pepper
6 slices of bacon
2½ cups chopped onion
1 cup chopped celery (keep the leaves for later)
2 cups diced green bell pepper
1 Tb chopped garlic
2 14-ounce cans chopped tomatoes
2½ Tb curry powder
1/3 cup currants
2 bay leaves

First, if you don't have curry powder, I suggest you go to your local South Asian or Middle Eastern grocery store and buy some. You could make your own, and if you do – well aren’t you just fucking special. However, I keep curry powder around for in a pinch (pun alert). The last curry powder we bought was from a fabulous Assyrian grocery store in Modesto called Babylon Market - up there with my all-time favorite markets. The curry powder is called "Ship – Madras Curry Powder" and comes in a little green can.

The label on the can is written in both English and Arabic, but don't let that tempt you into believing this is something exotic. When read properly, the Arabic side of the can translates into "Mrs. Dash".

The side of the can lists the ingredients, just in case you need to know if one of them will screw with your allergies. By the way, cassia is just another word for cinnamon and if you eat this curry powder raw, you will die a horrible, painful death – but not before you bleed out the eyes first.

Okay!!

So, let's start by cooking our bacon. The bacon will later be sprinkled on top of the finished dish, but while we're cooking it, it doesn't make sense to me to throw out all of that good bacon grease. After it's finished getting all good and crispy, reserve the bacon to a papertowel-lined plate and add a little bit more vegetable oil (or bacon grease if you have it) to the pan. On medium-high, brown your chicken pieces without crowding the pan. This will be done in several batches.

Once the chicken is browned (but not cooked all the way through), reserve it to a plate and tent with aluminum foil to keep warm.

Now it's time to make the curry sauce. Pour out most of the grease from the pan (here, I'm using a cast-iron, enameled dutch oven), saving a tablespoon or so in the pan. Toss in your onions and cook for several minutes until soft. Next, throw in your celery and peppers and cook for another 5 minutes. Then in goes your garlic – again, cook and stir for another minute.

Next, add your 2 cans of chopped tomatoes (I use an organic "no salt added" variety), plus half a can of water, and stir. Partially cover your pan, pot, dutch over, whatever and simmer on medium-low for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

When your 10 minutes are up, stir in your thyme, curry powder, salt and pepper, bay leaves and currants. Cover tightly and simmer for an additional 30 minutes. Somewhere close to the end of this period, heat your oven to 350F (180C, or gas mark 4, if you wear trainers).

Your sauce is done when the neighbors upstairs are pounding on the floor, begging you to stop killing them with the aroma of fragrant spices as they drown in a pool of their own saliva.

The next part is simple: take your chicken pieces and fit them into the dutch oven, making sure to cover them as much as possible with the sauce. Once they're arranged, cover them and bake for approximately an hour and a half. During this time, wash your rice and have it ready to start 25 minutes or so before your chicken is done. Also, bring your chutneys out of the refrigerator and let them warm to room temperature.

I think you'll be pretty happy when you see the results. If you have guests around, this makes a perfect one-pot dish to serve up. In fact, you could probably make this in advance to take to a potluck where you'll both wow and amaze your friends with this tasty, but mild, chicken curry that has such an interesting story behind it.

But the real test is whether or not it's any good, so let's serve some up, shall we? First, spoon up a serving of basmati rice – I'm lovin' that basmati rice (carbs and all). Then spoon over a little bit of sauce, a chicken piece, maybe a little more sauce, a little bit of sumpin sumpin, some chopped bacon pieces, and some chopped celery leaves.

Maybe a little bit of Madras Onion and/or Mango Ginger chutney on the side...

Yeah, that about does it.

Down the hatch!

k.

PS - Again, Happy Chinese New Year! It is the year of the Pig, and we at Bacon Press plan on going HOG WILD this year! Our birthyear is in the sign of the Ox, which we already read means will travel a lot and make lots of money, but will spend most of it. I'm okay with that!

PPS - If you're wondering where the hell I've been, you probably don't read my other blog – of which I'm close to being finished with my current series and will probably start writing more here.

PPPS - Just because I can.

Pimento Cheese Pals

2007-01-22T20:43:00.000-08:00

In lieu of your standard Bacon Press post, I wrote a poem/song about my childhood, my best friend Douglas, and that Southern staple, that Carolina Caviar – Pimento Cheese.

It's not every day I write a poem/song for you all, but I figured you deserve it - what, with the weather, the stuff going on in the world, and all.

Enjoy!

-----------------------

Momma bought pimento cheese down at the store
Brought it home stuck it in the frigerator door
Momma said "eat a little, I gotta run back out
Daddy's gone to sleep, you youngin's better not shout"

Pimento cheese, pimento cheese, why you that way
Coming inside from a long hot day
Staring back at me with that look in your eye
One more pimento cheese sandwich and I think I'm gonna die

Dogs out back they bark and they bite
I've seen one eat its doodie, you know that aint right
Daddy's gonna raise them, sell them for a little pay
I'd rather have pimento cheese than doodie anyday

There's my pal Douglas, he does as he please
His momma's crazier than a bucket of pimento cheese
Plays out all day and into the night
Cause the family's too poor to afford electric light

He's my best friend, we're brothers by blood
Blood's thicker than water, me and him are like mud
His sister's damn ugly, they're too poor to sneeze
But he can always have some of my pimento cheese

Playin' in the woods or jumping through the crik
Knocked down some sugar cane with a couple of sticks
Drankin' soda pop before dinner time
He's got a Mella Yella, I'm drinkin' Cheerwine

Now we're grow'd up I wonder how he's been
I haven't seen him since "Elvira" was Top 10
Up on Yellow Gap live these memories
Of my good little buddy and pimento cheese.

k.

January Market Report: Ferry Bldg Farmers' Market

2007-01-20T14:55:00.000-08:00

So did you spend all of your money in Chinatown?

Well then, you probably shouldn't go with us to the Ferry Building today. However, there is an ATM conveniently located inside which will charge you the cost of a small cup of Blue Bottle coffee to use, if you want.

The Ferry Building Farmer's Market was small and manageable today, which is how I like it. Oh, there are many locals who come to shop but there are often gawkers and tourists crowding your way, taking pictures, talking on their cell phones, pushing strollers, and just being a nuisance. Guess which one I was?

That's right!

GAWK AWAY!

-----------------

First, the Fruit:

Citrus again!

Navel Oranges - $1.99 per pound

Organic Apples, which if you're going to spend the money on organic, apples are your best bet since they tend to be the most heavily contaminated with pesticides conventional fruit crop.

Pink Lady and Granny Smith - $3 per pound

Hey! Look! I've never seen Cherimoyas here before!

If they're still around next week I'm buying some!

Cherimoyas - $5 per pound

Next up are some kiwis. These seem to grow everywhere in the San Joaquin Valley now and often you find them at fruit stands or even for sale in front of someone's home. We pulled off the side of the road a few weeks ago in Manteca and bought 6 for $1. They probably weren't organic, but then they probably weren't sprayed either.

Organic kiwis - $2.50 per pound

Asian pears out the yin yang...

Yali Pears - $3 per pound

Asian and
Non-Asian pears
Live together in perfect
Harmony
Side by side on my Farmers
Market
Fruit case
Why don't weeee-eee-eee???

Shinko and Bosc Pears - $3.90 per pound

Persimmons – the scourge of the Central Valley. You can't throw a pear without hitting a persimmon tree in California. Like zucchini, people who live in and around the Modesto area practically give these away in the winter time. They're more prevalent than meth labs and car thieves – and that's saying a lot!

Fuyu persimmons - $3 per pound

-----------------

Let's move on to Vegetables, shall we?

Can you believe peppers are still being sold?! And quicker than you can say "Mexico", I say "No! Palo Alto!". These are grown just a few miles south from here at Happy Quail Farms. These may be the last peppers we see until June, so scoop 'em up while you can.

Brussel sprouts from Iacopi farms. Their produce is usually pricey no matter what time of day or year it is, but if you want to buy in season direct from the farmer (and not from someone hired by the farmer to work the stand), you'll appreciate what they sell here. They usually have pretty good beans in the summer, and their brussell sprouts are always good.

Onions for sale at Star Route Farms. I didn't get find out how much these were, but they look pretty nice.

Interestingly enough, last Fall, a couple of stalls down from Star Route at the Knoll Farms stand, I saw RAMPS for sale. I haven't seen Knoll Farms at the market the last 3 times I've went, but I'd be interested in seeing if they're selling ramps again and what price they're going for. As you know, ramps are mainly harvested in the wild during the Spring in Appalachian mountain communities, where there's also usually a Ramp Festival. I had no idea they could be grown in California.

Moving on...

More onions (leeks), broccoli, and kale.

I love the texture of Kale

Carrots, carrots, and more carrots galore!

Baby bunches for $1

Large bunches for $2.50

And, of course, turnips.

"Tokyo" turnips - $3 per bunch

Left to right: Rutabegas, Black Radishes, Green Turnips (and Parsnips on the upper right)

Sam, over at Becks and Posh, served up some Watermelon Radishes once. They're very attractive, but I've never eaten one. You'll have to ask her how they are.

Watermelon Radishes - $2 per pound

And last but not least, Golden Beets.

On that note, I think I'll end here. Have a great weekend!

k.

January Market Report: Chinatown

2007-01-19T19:58:00.000-08:00

NOW IT'S TIME!

FOR THE FIRST EVER!

...market report.

Getcher spending money out because we here at Ye Olde Presse are now speaking to YOU, (fill in your name): the consumer, the target demographic, the household decision maker, the "lady of the house".

rrring! rrring!

Bacon Press: "Hello?"
Caller: "Hello, may I speak to the lady of the house?"
Bacon Press (in deep, gravelly voice): "Speaking."

What's in your wallet? A maxed-out credit card, a Hamilton, and a few Dead (First) Prez, you say? Well, don't fret, cause we're going pinkbaggin' in the mighty CT!!!!

Chinatown, BFFs!

Ah, Chinatown! How I love thee! Let me count the ways:

"Burberry" handbag for Mom: $15
Nightmarish, overcrowded bus ride: $1.50
Sound of old lady hawking the most righteous loogie: Priceless

Hmmm, what else do I like about Chinatown (food-related)? I like how there's not one large market that dominates with a few smaller scattered here and there, which is what Clement Street is like. The best part about food shopping in Chinatown are the many, many hole-in-the-wall markets, some smaller, some larger, but none of them imposing. In a way, it's almost as if the entire northern section of Chinatown is one big outdoor market.

There are times, from season to season, when you walk into or past one of these tiny shops and they – and only them – will have the best lychees or the best asparagus or some really cool, exotic, and delicious variety of peach which you've never seen before.

And then there are times when everyone will have the same "new" thing. When that happens, it's a really special time to be in the neighborhood. The whole place will be buzzing with enthusiasm for whatever's new...such as it is right now.

For the last week or so Korla Fragrant Pears - imported from a remote western region of China - have been all the rage, with even the chicken shops on Grant hawking them alongside chicken feet, necks, and whole birds.

Actually, I hear poultry and pears go together like birds of a feather.

Of course, my eyes immediately lit up when I saw these babies – not because I knew what they were, but because I knew what they weren't: the familiar.

And unless you're hanging in a window or still twitchin' in Jackson's grocery sack, Chinatown is no place to be a chicken about the unfamiliar. So I bought some, washed one, and cut it open.

What I discovered was a mildly sweet, extremely crisp, and insanely juicy, delicious piece of fruit. It's like biting into a crisp watermelon and tastes nothing like the pears I’m use to. These will be great to have around while they last, which I hope is a long time. Prices average at around $1.50 per pound. By the way, thanks to this guy's blog, I know more about these Johnny-come-latelys. Thanks Michael!

Korla Fragrant Pears (left) and Royal Beauty Ya Pears (right)

Even when we're talking about pears shipped halfway across the world, it's still all about freshness in Chinatown, which is my other favorite reason to shop there. Chinatown, other than the UN Plaza and Ferry Building farmers markets, is often my measuring stick for what's fresh and available in season. One of my co-workers, like a lot of people I'm sure, seemed to think nothing grew during the winter until I reminded him that fresh citrus, pears, kiwis, root vegetables, and all kinds of dark green leafy vegetables were at their peak (at least in Northern California).

By the way, crack is not now, nor is it ever, in season.

By now all of you know about the crapilicious weather we've had in California that's caused 1 billion dollars worth of damage to the state's citrus crops. That's a lot of orange sorbet. Enjoy your lemon custard and Duck a l'Orange while you can, because the Governator's declared a state of emergency in the Cahlee-fornee-ah counties hit hardest by the freeze and that means citrus prices could double.

On the flip side, stone fruit growers are enjoying a bit of schadenfreude at the citrus growers' expense and sitting pretty as a peach.

As for now, tangerines and valencia oranges are at $0.69 per pound.

As bad as the weather's been here, there are other parts of the country (and world) that's been worse off...and here's hoping you all are okay and coping with whatever Mother Nature throws your way.

Among some of the other edibles for sale:

Taro root and jicamas are plentiful and all look very good.

Left to right: small-variety taro, jicamas, large taro (could be tapioca? not sure), Kotobuki (Japanese) sweet potatoes

A lot of Cantonese dishes use taro either as a filling for dim sum or added to a stir fry. Of course, most Hawaiians use it for poi and some fancier places use it as a crispy fried side dish. Jicama is used mostly in Latin/Mexican cuisine.

I like to eat jicama (pronounced "hee-cuh-muh") shredded or chopped into salads with lots of lime juice, jalapenos, and some type of sweetener. If you haven't had it before, it's really crisp with only a hint of sweet flavor. It's mostly water, so it's a good vegetable for those trying to watch their caloric intake.

Jicamas and Taro

Obligatory Jicama side story:
I once lived with a crazy white girl (yes, in Berkeley) who got lost in the middle of Mexico with a friend and all they had to eat for 3 days was a large jicama. True story!

Also in season are water chestnuts, which are crisp like jicamas, but a little crunchier, watery, and sweeter.

Foreground: Water Chestnuts

Like jicamas, they have to be peeled before you can eat them. However, once peeled, you can keep them submerged in water in the refrigerator for a few weeks and they'll be just as good as the day you bought them. Water chestnuts are mandatory when making the filling for potstickers and give stir-fry dishes that certain I-don't-know-what.

Then there are your standard Asian veggies that always seem to be in season: bitter melon, Japanese eggplant, long beans, garlic and ginger, etc. This being California, many farmers who specialize in Asian vegetables have a virtual year-round growing season, especially since many of them are located down south around Fresno and the San Fernando Valley area.

The eggplants here looked pretty good.

Left to right: long beans, bitter melon, eggplant

What the heck are these?

Oh, it's arrowroot.

They're for sale at $0.99 a pound.

Along with turnips, daikons are in season and look particularly nice. Daikon is very versatile and can be eaten raw, pickled or cooked.

Daikon (left) and Garnet Yams (right)

I bought a huge one the other day for under a dollar, chopped it, boiled it in salt water, drained it, and then mashed it with butter, pepper, and cheese. Better than mashed potatoes! And unlike turnips, which have a tendency to be slightly bitter when cooked, daikons are very mild.

Leafy greens are on sale and abundant, including bok choy, pea tendrils, watercress, mustard greens (Chinese people salt preserve these like sauerkraut and use them in recipes as "preserved vegetable"), napa cabbage, and gai lan - aka "Chinese broccoli".

The variety of greens in Chinatown can be confusing if you don't speak the language, but there aren't too many surprises when it comes to the flavor of leafy green veggies, so I encourage you to buy "blind".

In the meantime, you can check out this cool PDF document that lists the Cantonese names for some of the green veggies for sale.

Actually, this link might be even better.

Whew! That was quite a market report!

Are you guys exhausted? I am.

If you're hungry and want to get something cheap, greasy, and tasty to go, check out Louie's Dim Sum on Stockton.

It's a total dive (like most Chinatown "dim sum to go" joints) and looks sketch, but for $5-even you get a big box of assorted dim sum, including large portions of siu mai and the chive/minced pork dumplings (gow choy gow). As long as you don't come for the har gow, you'll find that the dim sum here is fairly decent and the women who work there helpful and kind. There's a nice, young Chinese woman who sometimes works behind the counter who speaks perfect English and can help answer any questions you have. If she's not there, point to the plate on the countertop and tell them you'd like one (or two?)

From this point, you're on your own.

k.

The Most Important Meal of the Day

2007-01-14T11:07:00.000-08:00

Until recently and for the most part, I've never been big on grits - so let's just get that out of the way.

However, things may change. You never know.

Back when I lived at home and when Mom use to cook, I ate grits more regularly because that's what she would make, usually with lots of butter and brown sugar. I think my mom figured out early on that if you add fat and sugar to practically anything you could make anyone happy. Because of an earlier bad childhood experience, my Mom took this notion of happiness to the extreme and put quite a bit of weight on her son, so much so that I became pudgy from all the biscuits, french toast, and grits she would make.

She, on the other hand, was and is so skinny she makes Karen Carpenter look like Mama Cass with a ham sandwich and a bag of chips.

Even though I don't eat grits regularly, I do keep them around – partially for the sentimental value and partially because I like an abundant and diverse pantry.

This morning I started off with my usual cup of coffee and added grits to the menu, since yogurt and eggs are starting to bore me. Grits are real easy to make and clean up after. But most importantly, they are hot and comforting and hearty, which is perfect for such a cold day here in the city.

I frickin' love this bowl!

And, yes, it is so cold it could freeze a witch's tit. I know. I saw a wiccan in the bulk foods aisle at Rainbow – tit: frozen.

At least it's not cold and raining. I've had a pretty serious hole in my right shoe that I keep ignoring...until it rains; and then it seems to suck up moisture like a sponge.

Anyway, back to the witch's tit: Rainbow Grocery is where I bought my grits. Most of the local stores that stock grits only have the instant stuff, but Rainbow sells the Arrowhead Mills variety which requires a longer cooking time. Of course, longer is relative here – it only means 5 minutes. I think, though, that if I'm going to get serious about grits I need to go to the source, and that means going to the South. Fortunately there are a few old-timey mills in the South that still sell grits to the general public. And fortunately there is the Internet, where we can place an order online or at least find a telephone number.

Here are a couple of places I'm checking out.

I'm also exploring new sources for sorghum, which is a sweetener I'm using as a substitute for sugar on my grits. The taste, color, and consistency of sorghum is somewhere between molasses and honey, with it leaning closer to honey than molasses; only not as sweet. I know it's hard to describe, but the flavor is wonderful and you should really try it.

The sorghum I have now I bought at a natural foods store in Half Moon Bay a few weeks back. When I got home to investigate the sorghum maker, their website had been removed and a Google search proved fruitless. I'm not worried about the sorghum - I'm sure it's fine. But unless there's another local place that has a web presence or something which explains to me who makes it and how it's made, I'm going to buy my sorghum from small, Southern producers.

Sorghum is grown in California (Bruce had some on the ranch he grew up on) where it is called "milo", but it's mostly used to feed livestock. The plant is actually native to Africa and was brought to the Americas in the mid-19th century. It became popular as a sweetener in impoverished regions where farmers had a limited growing season or land and because the price of granulated sugar at the time was higher than most people could afford. Sorghum production declined sharply after World War II with the rise of sugar derived from sugar beets and corn syrup which, if you've ever read Michael Pollan's book "The Omnivore's Dilemma", you know is used in everything.

Today only a small number sorghum syrup producers remain and almost all of them are "family farmers" – or small businesses. The practice of growing and producing sorghum for syrup has diminished so much that it's listed on Slow Food USA's "Ark of Taste" as an endangered food.

Oh my goodness, am I still talking about sorghum? My damn grits are getting cold!

Grits are real easy to make. In fact, they're just as easy to make as polenta.

I was going to make a joke about how polenta is to grits like Oxycontin is to Hillbilly Heroin, but actually polenta and grits, while similar, are not the same. First of all, I have never known any Southerner to eat yellow grits. All grit-eaters I've ever met eat grits made from white corn. If you are the exception – well, bless your heart! The classic Lowcountry dish, Shrimp and Grits, is also made with white corn grits...usually.

You could use grits to make grilled "polenta" triangles for your fancy canapes, since the Italian term "polenta", like "pesto", is more interchangable with other ingredients, such as farro or bulgar. However, traditional grits are made with white grits, not with rolled oats, wheat (otherwise known as "farina"), or yellow corn.

Left: Polenta, Right: Grits

If you were in a bind and had to use either/or, I'm sure you would do fine. The only physical difference between the two, other than color, is that grits are usually de-hulled (using an alkali solution, like lye) before they are ground.

For the most part, they cook just the same.

To make grits, measure out half a cup of grits, plus a pinch of salt, per every two cups of water. Bring your water to a boil and then stir in the grits.

Reduce the heat to low and simmer covered for 4-5 minutes, stirring once or twice.

When they get to the consistency of a (I hate this word) "gruel", or better yet "jook/congee", they're ready to eat. The taste of grits on their own isn't anything to write home, or a blog entry, about. The taste is pretty bland, with perhaps just a mild hint of corn flavor coming through. I'm not saying they're tasteless, but you do have to have a pretty sharp palate to appreciate grits by themselves.

The butter and sorghum definitely kicks grits up a notch. Like salt on a tomato, the addition of sweet and buttery raises the flavor profile of grits considerably and allows them to truly shine.

The last thing you should know: eat grits while they're hot, because cold grits are about as comforting as wet socks.

And don't even get me started on wet socks.

k.

The San Francisco Full-Flavored Holiness Biscuit Church With Signs

2007-01-13T13:49:00.000-08:00

Finally!

Finally, I've gotten this biscuit thing down. I think I have finally mastered the art of biscuit making (I know what you're saying: "yeah, so have I – it's called popping open a can of Pillsbury").

No, I'm talking real biscuits. High-caloric, high carb, high fat and damn good biscuits – so good your tongue will slap your front teeth out!

The best part: you don't have to use shortening. But you do use butter – real butter. And believe it's butter, not any of that "I can't believe it's not" stuff. F*&k that! Once you've had these biscuits, you'll be saying "I can't believe these aren't illegal!"

"Well, why do I care about biscuits?", you might wonder.

Oh, excuse me, but can someone please let this fool know that properly made biscuits are the pinnacle of traditional American cuisine and that if you don't know biscuits and jam with lots of melted butter or slathered over with sausage gravy, you cannot call yourself a lover of life, food, culture, Little Baby Jesus in a Manger, the Jewish G-d, Allah, the Dalai Lama, and Oprah Winfrey?

To put it bluntly, if you want to live to see tomorrow, you better start making them biscuits a little bit better than what you've been making them. I'm tarred of eating sloppy, slimy biscuits!

Well, enough biscuit blabber. Let's get to biscuit making, shall we?

Here are the tools you'll need:

A pastry cutter, preferably one with a wooden handle – (forget the food processor, I've tried that)
A biscuit cutter
A sturdy wooden spoon
A large glass or ceramic mixing bowl
Measuring spoons and cups
A wire wisk
A cookie sheet
A microwavable dish
A basting brush
A Silpat
A saucer
A timer
An oven
A large work surface (or a large wooden cutting board)
An apron
A Bluegrass or Old Time music CD or MP3

And here are the ingredients you'll need:

2 cups of All-Purpose flour (plus a little extra on the side for dusting, etc.)
1 rounded (almost 1 ½) tablespoon of baking powder
1 stick of Sweet Cream butter
1 teaspoon of salt (small grain regular, plain, not kosher or from the sea or some fancy gift shop in Monterey)
1 cup of regular, full fat milk

Here are the tips you'll need:

Keep everything cold
Keep everything floured
Keep your oven hot

First of all, when making this recipe, there are no substitutions. If you want to substitute an ingredient, spend countless hours of your own time and your own money and own sweat perfecting your own goddamn recipe. This is not a "healthy" recipe and this is not a motherfuckin' buttermilk biscuit recipe, so look somewhere else if that's what you want. (Sorry, I think I must be channeling the Fruitcake Lady or Samuel L. Jackson.)

Do you know the trouble I've seen to get to this point? Don't modify my recipe, fool!

Are you ready? Do you have your apron on? Are you ready to rumble?

Start your oven. 500 F. Yes, I said 500. But before you do, set your rack to the middle/upper-middle position.

Start your CD or mp3 player. Play loud enough to scare or simply annoy genteel, Lite Rock neighbors.

Put your silpat onto your cookie sheet and put it somewhere handy.

Next, take your stick of butter and slice all but 1 tablespoon into thin slices, placing the slices on your saucer and then sticking the whole thing in the freezer.

Put that leftover butter in a microwaveable container and melt it (1 minute should be plenty).

Let's measure out our flour, shall we? 2 even cups, sifted. Next, sprinkle the baking powder over it, then the salt. Using a wire wisk, wisk the dry ingredients very well for a minute or so to ensure that they are evenly distributed.

Grab that pastry cutter I told you about. Most brand-new pastry cutters cost around 5 or 6 dollars, no matter whether you buy it at Bloodbath and Beyond, the Dented Chef, or Sur La Table. If you pay any more than that, you're a sucker. Here's what one looks like.

Take your pastry cutter and about half of the butter that's been in the freezer and "cut" the butter into the dry ingredients as a quickly as possible without making a mess (please, use common sense – don't go buckwild). Next, cut the rest of the butter in.

Take your milk out of the fridge, measure out a cup, and dump it all into the mixing bowl while stirring everything with your wooden spoon. Keep stiring until the liquid has been absorbed (it might look a little wet, but that's okay – we're not making bread, we're making biscuits).

Flour your work surface, your biscuit cutter, and especially your hands very well. Leave a small mound of flour nearby in case you need it.

Dump the dough from the mixing bowl onto the work surface and pat out. Next fold over one or two times and then pat out again, but only pat out so that the dough is roughly 3/4" thick. Cut your biscuits by pressing down quickly and then pulling straight up. At no time do you EVER twist!

I use the large round biscuit cutters. You could use smaller, you could use square, you could use an old soup can – probably. Personally, I thought the investment of buying real, basic, round biscuit cutters (came in a set of different sizes, actually) was a good one for me. You may consider the same one day, if you haven't already.

Drop your cut biscuits onto your cookie sheet/silpat. It's okay to re-pat the dough until you've cut all the biscuits you can, plus I usually throw the little leftover piece on the sheet as well. Next, brush the tops of the biscuits with the melted butter (remember? That stuff still in the microwave?) and set them in the oven.

Next, set the temperature of the oven down to 450F and set your timer for 15 minutes.

Get out your jam, your conserves, preserves, jellies, butter, country ham, or whathaveyou. The biscuits should be ready to take out of the oven when your timer goes off. When the biscuits are golden brown and ready to take out, don't bother putting them in a pretty basket - just dig right in!

Eat these while they're hot because they're not as good cold. Don't burn yourself!

When you get good at this, it should only take about 30 minutes to make and the people you make them for will worship the ground you walk on.

I'm actually trying to get a few more worshippers myself. I have this idea of starting my own snake-handling church here in San Francisco, only we're going to add large dogs, sea lions, stray bullets and Muni drivers to our list of deadly things God can shield us from. We're going to baptize people in the Vaillancourt Fountain (after we've spray-painted some stupid shit on it first) and then cast out demons in the picturesque, victorian Garden Court of the Palace Hotel. Don't worry – we'll be a gay-affirming church. Just think of us as freakier Unitarian Universalists with a death wish and insatiable appetite for High Tea.

San Francisco is very much a cult-loving town, so I should have no trouble getting up a congregation, especially if they're enticed through my temple doors by the smell of freshly baked biscuits.

Repeat after me:

The biscuit is Righteous.

The biscuit is Knowledge.

The biscuit is Truth.

The biscuit is Salvation.

The biscuit is Supreme.

So say we all.

k.

PS: I'm still getting the hang of this message moderating thing, so I apologize if you left a message and it didn't get posted right away. I just discovered where on Blogger they're located to approve/reject. Oh, and I'll probably just turn off the moderation thing and deal with the spam eventually - but I thought I would test it out to see if it was a pain or if it helped.

By The Time I Get To 2007

2007-01-01T14:25:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, Bacon Pressers!

I hope everyone had a great time last night, as well as the last 364 nights of the old year. Not too hungover I hope! If you are, probably shouldn't go here.

Bruce and I stayed home, as usual. But you know what? That's okay. I got to put together my new smoker/griller that Santa brought me for Christmas while Bruce has been furiously engaged in worshipping his brand-new shiny false idols: his Mac and iPod.

Champagne did not flow, but there was plenty of Seltzer to go around as we watched the festivities happening less than a mile away via Channel 4, broadcasting live from the Hyatt Regency.

The Hyatt. You know, the one with the spinning restaurant at the top? Here's a tip: take drugs - lots of them - and go there. Don't buy anything – there's no need. Just say you’re a tourist and want to check things out. When no one's looking, lean your back against the interior wall and stand in one place.

Oooh! Wha? Huh? The restaurant...your feet. Moving!? Yee-uh!

Bacon Press Tip for the New Year: Spinning restaurants and controlled substances are definitely your best Entertainment Value.

Don't attempt this, of course, on New Year's Eve.

Question: Can someone please explain to me why being crushed, stepped on, shoved, groped, and doused with cheap beer on by the drunken masses is fun (unless, of course, you are one of the drunken masses)?

While you're at it, can you please tell me why that jackass Gary Radnich has a job? Hands down my most hated local television personality. It use to be Malou Nubla but I guess her nasty diva ways finally caught up with her.

It's enough to make me scream, "Thuy Vu, Where Are You??!!!"

But enough belly-aching. Let's get down to the real reason for this post:

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS!!

You hate them, I hate them, we never accomplish them, we always forget them, and then we make them again! That to me is what makes you and I so special.

Our ability to follow through with empty promises.

My New Year's Resolutions probably should be to lose more weight and stay sober. It's been 7 months since I last took a drink and since August I've lost 40 pounds by cutting down on the carbs and walking more.

However, in the last week or so, I've gained 3 pounds by literally going hog wild. I'm not really surprised by the weight gain because lately I've been eating big plates of pasta, handfuls of cashews and peanuts, cornbread, fried chicken, biscuits with butter and jam, lots of chocolate, lots of Bruce's homemade caramels, ice cream, French fries, cheeseburgers, pizza, pizza, and more pizza, bad Chinese food, cookies of all kind, pumpkin pie, apple pie, trifle, a monte cristo sandwich, a fried pimento cheese sandwich, and this fried ham and cheese club sandwich at Sam's Coffee Shop in Half Moon Bay.

Sam's is on my list of Asian-owned Coffee Shops and Diners that I'm doing research on (but still looking for an angle to write about) for Dive. I noticed when we were in Sam's that I had devoured one section of my sandwich before I realized I had done so. I was so busy scarfing down food as fast as I could, and so zoned out, that I didn't even hear Bruce ask me how it was. In fact, he started eating faster as well, getting some sort of contact eating disorder just by sitting across from me.

It was then that it dawned on me: "Wow, this scarfing down food thing is really out of control." I needed someone, the food police, whoever, to draw their guns and say "sir, drop that fork and step away from the table – step away from the table, sir. And keep your hands where we can see them." I can't believe how ravenously I behave at the table. Man, this is just too weird.

So, Resolution Numero Uno: Eat More Slowly.

This actually seems harder than it sounds, at least for me, because when I sit down sometimes this other part of my brain, perhaps the reptilian, brain stem part, just takes over and BAM! I'm eating not for pleasure but for something else. I have to be honest though – I have tried to slow down before, but somehow I end up eating faster and faster until I'm back where I started – inhaling food.

Maybe part of my problem is that I'm a stimulation and instant gratification JUNKIE. Maybe I AM eating for pleasure, but also for some crazy hyper-adrenaline, eating orgasmic experience that some damaged part of my brain just goes berserk over and says "more, more, MORE!" It seems as though no matter what is in front of me, I will use it, abuse it, and go for seconds, just say the word. The food shovelling thing, like the alcoholic thing, may be just a small symptom of a larger problem.

Perhaps by acknowledging this sympton I'm literally biting off more than I can chew.

But I'm not licked yet.

I also notice that I actually eat worse when I'm at home. Okay, maybe "worse" isn't the right word; how about "inconsistent". When I'm away from home, like at work, I already have what I'm going to eat planned for the day. The only wild card in my daily schedule is what I'll eat when I get home. Usually, because I've eaten sensibly for most of the day, I feel free to eat whatever I want (within a range of foods) when I get home.

This has helped me lose weight.

Full-Fat, Reduced-Fat, Same Great Flavor Me

However, when I've been at home all day, I often can wind up eating a huge amount of food or none at all; all depending on whether I was busy doing things or not. If I'm busy, I can go almost the whole day without eating. Of course, what else is home for other than relaxing, so yeah, I do try to do things like cleaning and laundry and cooking and working on this blog when I'm at home but I also just want to do NOTHING, except eat. Since I have a greater desire to do nothing while I'm at home, it makes more sense (from a healthy diet position) to spend more time outside of the home. If I can't or don't want to spend more time outside of the home, then my only other option is to strictly control what I eat at home.

And that brings us to Resolution Numero Dos: Spend More Time Outside, or Crank Things Up At Home.

And maybe cranking up the diet thing at home is what I need. Cause, you see, it's pretty easy to control what you eat at work when your work schedule limits the amount of free time you have. Faced with unlimited free time (idle hands, the devil, etc.) mixed in with a little boredom, watching what you do or eat becomes much harder. I guess I just haven't realized that until now.

Which, finally, brings me to my last resolution.

And since luck comes in threes, I give you Resolution Numero Tres: Realize Important Shit Earlier.

I can't tell you how much I've suffered due to my own stupidity because I failed to realize important life lessons too late. It's one thing to say, "I promise to eat better, be a better person, help that person cross the street, be more generous, enjoy life more, pay my taxes this year, call my probation officer when I'm suppose to, and drop the weapon when ordered to by a police officer."

But let's be honest: We're just looking backwards. We're looking at those things we should've done – looking at our past with 20/20 vision – when what we should've done was do things right from the get-go.

Being a failure in life is an okay lot if you're, say, a poet or an artist or a writer or a local broadcast news/entertainment celebrity. However, most of us aren't professional failures; we don't fill out any special IRS forms, write off business expenses, get a work visa, or even contract out on a consultant basis. We can, and do, fail – fail ourselves, fail our friends, and fail our New Year's Resolutions – without ever being formally acknowledged in print, radio, or television by anyone, anybody, or anything.

What I'm trying to say is that I guess what we all should do, what I should do, and what you should do, is stop and look around and realize the important shit now so that you, and me, and all of us can try to fail just a little bit less this year, at least until we get paid for it.

Right, Malou?

k.

Food Porn Friday - 8

2006-12-29T11:02:00.000-08:00

I'm baaaack!

Well, kinda. How about some good ol' fashioned Food Porn?

Yayyy! I know you're excited too!

I've been cooking a lot of Southern food lately (no, not Southern California) and trying to eat in season as much as possible. So that's what you'll see below. Also, I've temporarily turned on this comment moderation thingy, NOT because you all are bad kiddies, but because there are a few folks out there getting paid to post URLs and we here at the Almighty Press aint down with that.

Still, if you've got something to say, say it (don't spray it).

Just to check in with you a little: My mind is completely sucked into the cuisines of the Appalachian South. It's all I've been thinking about (other than Asian-American-owned Coffee Shops and Diners). In addition to canning stuff, eating cornbread, and saying "Well, I'll BE!", I've been clogging around the house when no one's around to see me AND I've started volunteering to help with the SF Bluegrass Festival (happening in February) and have already met some cool and interesting people!

By the way, does everyone have their blackeyed peas and collard greens ready for Monday? Well, you better get going! Even in San Francisco, it is impossible to find these two things the closer you get to New Year's Day. Whole Foods down on 4th Street still has blackeyed peas in their bulk section (they were on sale when I bought them). They also have organic collard greens on sale for 99 cents a bunch (but it'll take several bunches to make just a little).

Okay! Enough yapping! Bring on the Porn!

Fried Boneless Pork Chops with Gravy and Roasted Turnips

Fried Chicken Breasts and Skillet Cornbread

I should add that it's fried in duck fat that I saved from when I last roasted a duck.

Oh, and it's not really food related, but my cousin recently sent me a photo of Grandma and Pop when they were young and in love. I'm posting it only to make me happy.

And yes, those are Pop's ears (I didn't inherit those, thank god).

k.

Country, When Country Wasn't Cool

2006-12-07T16:52:00.000-08:00

I don't know what it is, but lately I've been missing the place where I grew up.

Actually, I do know what it is. It's the holidays. And it's cold.

I wouldn't call this feeling I have being "homesick" because California is my home – specifically San Francisco. But after living here for so long I sometimes forget that I no longer have to unpack my winter clothes when the temperature falls below 55 (okay, maybe a heavier coat and a scarf). Or that when there's a chance of precipitation, there's likely a chance of snow – and likely a chance of busting your ass on a cold and icy sidewalk.

I guess most of all I miss the mountains I grew up near. Although I was born amongst the rolling hills of North Carolina, I grew up in the mountain town of Asheville (population 70,000 - not counting bad Floridian drivers).

My mother's family's (the side I'm closest to) history in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia goes back several generations. My grandparents, like their parents before them, came out of a mountain culture that was more diverse and interesting than most people realize.

100 years before "race mixing" was decriminalized in the South, my great-grandparents were the product of an interracial marriage between a Cherokee Indian man and a Scots-Irish woman.

And, contrary to popular misconceptions about Southerners and the Civil War, many Appalachian and Piedmont Southerners were not sympathetic to the secessionist cause and either fought for the Union or deserted the Confederate army (which they were often forced into). In my family alone there are stories, culled from memories and passed down from generation to generation, of when the Rebels came through the hollar, looting and pillaging homes and towns.

Later, when Johnson City (where my grandparents met) was known as "Little Chicago", my family was well accomplished in moonshining and rum running. In fact, it was rumored that Pop had a still hidden back in the woods 'til the day he died.

I only wish he could've taught me some of the tricks of the trade before he passed away.

Granma and Pop

Growing up, I came to know two sides of the South, best represented by my parents' families and the food they enjoyed. My mom's family represents the poor, but proud, mountain people who are a live-and-let-live, mind-your-own-business bunch; a people descended from the original Scots-Irish settlers, as well as folks from around the South who fled to the mountains to escape ethnic cleansing, slavery, religious persecution, or the law.

Politically they were Lincoln Republicans, as were most Southerners who had no interest in slave owning. Their accents are softer and rounder and in contrast to the harsh twang of what I think of as the plantation, cowboy, or Georgia peach farmer accent. They say things like "crik" for creek, "poke" instead of sack, "hollar" for hollow, and transform the "ah" sound in words to "aw" (ex: Grandma = "Granmaw") and the "air" or "eer" into "arr" and "err" (ex: hair = "harr", cheer = "cherr").

Their cuisine is whatever could grow in short seasons and could be preserved through the winter; things like Country ham and bacon, wild game (venison, boar, trout, snake, and yes possum), apple and blackberry preserves, corn, hot peppers, wild herbs and plants, grits, and lots and lots of pinto beans.

There was a period when I was a kid where my mother would cook - this was the first and last time she would ever remotely be interested in food. Besides plenty of French toast sprinkled with cinnamon and powdered sugar for breakfast, and sometimes grits with butter and sugar, many a-evening was spent consuming large quantities of homemade biscuits and pinto beans.

I hated pinto beans. I hated the shape, the texture, and most of all, the taste. But what was truly repellant was watching my dad drown them in ketchup before shoveling them down his throat.

Had I known these were the glory days of my mother's cooking, I would've tried harder to like the bowl of cold beans set before me. Red flags should've been raised just by all the Tang we drank. How was I to know that a few years later if it wasn't microwavable or didn't require mixing a package of this with a can of that, it didn't come out of our kitchen?

I loves me some granmaw!

Lately I've wondered if my current interest in food stems from another facet of my upbringing that I'm still rebelling against. I hope not. I hope that this is something I truly enjoy, because rebellion is so tiring - even when it's warranted.

If my mom is truly the antichrist of homecooking, I want that to be her thing. Support, but not agree with. And not try to change.

Besides, I think she only felt she had to cook because it was expected of her – whether from herself or my dad's family.

Flying a kite with my dad behind pappaw's house.

My dad's family leans more to the side of the German settlers who populated much of the Piedmont area of North Carolina and is the reason I grew up Lutheran. When I think of what most people consider "Southern" – including some of the stereotypes – I think of my dad's family.

Politically they were Democrats, as was most of the South until the mid-20th century political shift in which Democrat became Republican and Republican became Democrat. Their accents are more flat and drawn out. They say things like "ah-ur" or "eye-ur" for hour, "caint" for can't, and over-emphasize and draw out "y" sounds in words by saying them as if their mouth was always smiling.

Unlike either side, I do not have an accent. I lost it long before I left the South, and was even accused of being from California by a stupid, white trash, oaf of a class bully while still in the seventh grade – as if it was an insult.

While I identify more with my mom's side of the family, it was with my dad's family that I spent many summers bailing hay, watched Pappaw skin a rabbit he'd trapped, listened to him holler for the cattle to come in, ate persimmons growing from a tree in his yard, strung beans and shucked corn for canning, and had many sit-down Sunday dinners after church, right before watching football on TV.

Pappaw, cousin Jason, and me at the 1982 Worlds Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee. This photo shows pappaw at his happiest.

Seasons in the Piedmont are slightly longer and warmer than those in the mountains. Here, the food is more abundant, more diverse, and the people are often better off financially than mountain folk.

The Piedmont and Coastal areas of North Carolina are what people think of when they think of most Southern food. Here you'll find plenty of cornbread, breaded and fried seafood, biscuits and gravy, livermush, pimento cheese, Cheerwine, Sundrop, sweet tea, pickled beets, fried okra and yellow squash, chow chow, Texas Pete hot sauce, Moonpies, hushpuppies, black eyed peas and collard greens on New Years Day, and of course, barbecue.

In North Carolina, barbecue is a regional thing divided by Eastern and Western styles. Not to be confused with actual geographic boundaries of the state, "western" barbecue in North Carolina falls into the ocean somewhere in the vicinity of Winston-Salem, which is in the middle of the state. The difference between Eastern North Carolina barbecue and Western North Carolina barbecue is the addition of one ingredient to the dipping sauce – ketchup.

Not coincidentally, ketchup is the only difference between Republicans and Democrats in North Carolina as well.

Ketchup-induced fit on pappaw's porch.

In Asheville, where I grew up, barbecue in my house was divided up by a pre-Applebees type of establishment called McHenry's on Tunnel Road where we would delight in the babyback ribs, and Little Pigs Bar-B-Q, a true barbecue dive up the road from Asheville High that served the typically-NC minced barbecue pork, baked beans, and cole slaw one would expect.

For the most part barbecue wasn't on my parents' radar, so whenever we ate out you could usually find us at Western Steakhouse or some fried fish shack with plastic, red gingham-patterned tablecloths and huge plastic pitchers of sweet tea in the boonies of West Asheville or Swannanoa. However, the few times we did go out for barbecue, Little Pigs was one of the places we'd frequent. Forever has it stood out in my mind as the quintessential Southern barbecue experience. Of course, those are childhood memories, so maybe I'm projecting a little too much on a place I haven't eaten at since I was 12.

Regardless, I can't tell you how happy I was to stumble on one of those goofy "sign generators" someone made using the Little Pigs sign.

I would be corny for me to say that finding this is "a sign" of things to come, so I'll go ahead and say it. I think this sign is a sign of things to come. More barbecue, more Southern food, calls from Mom, and a strong chance of a trip back to the South all seem to be in the cards.

For the time being, I'll stick to reminiscing – sans accent.

k.

Short Order Holiday Message

2006-12-05T11:00:00.000-08:00

Dear Bacon Press and Dive readers:

Ahhhh. The holidays and the New Year are quickly approaching.

With them comes much anticipation, much celebration, and much stress – in fact, a lot of stress. Because of these things, I'll be cutting back significantly on posting until it's all over. As you probably have noticed at Dive, I haven't posted anything since October!

Sorry about that.

However, I haven't thrown in the sanitary towelette yet! My fingers are just as greasy today as they have ever been….it's just that my keyboard has been less so.

Is that too much information?

Anyway, I've got lots in store for the next year – though hopefully I'll have a post or two for you between now and then. In the meantime, keep posted using that "rss" thing you do or just click back over here on occasion.

If I don't talk to you between now and then, have a happy holiday season, have a great New Year, and get stuffed (with joy and good food)!

See you soon!

k.

Food Porn Friday - 7

2006-12-01T00:01:00.000-08:00

Easy North Carolina-Style Half Picnic Shoulder
(from the Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook)

"Well, I'lllll Be!"

This looks like Le Creuset abuse, but don't worry - it washed right off.

Hushpuppies and Mashed Sweet Potatoes optional...

k.

Food Porn Friday - 6

2006-11-24T17:56:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving Dinner at Karen's Bed, Breakfast, and Beyond

Bruce's Pumpkin Soup with Pumpkin Seeds and Grated Gruyere Cheese

Everything, other than Lori's Green Bean Casarole, lovingly prepared by Karen: (clockwise from top left) Candied Yams, Green Bean Casarole, Herbed Dinner Roll, Stuffing, Roasted Winter Vegetables, Roast Turkey and Gravy, Mashed Potatoes.

k.