Memorial Day 2011

I feel foolish saying HAPPY Memorial Day, when it’s an intensely sad day for many, as they remember their lost family members who have served in the military. I will say thank you to them and their families, though, and hope that their pride and love carries them through this day. This is a food blog, after all, so I must make a quick mention of these:

Aren’t they glorious? I made a new Twitter buddy the other day– Hi Shulie! – and after she asked fellow Tweeters for a barbecue sauce recipe (I gave her this one), she said she was looking for a hamburger bun recipe.

I was impressed! It never occurred to me before to make hamburger buns. It just never crossed my mind. Plus I have to admit I have never known anyone else to make them either.  And it was amazing that Shulie didn’t waste any time in putting together her barbecue. Gorgeous job!

Anyway, Angie gave Shulie this recipe from Jennifer. I tried it and, voila, real store-bought-looking hamburger buns. (That's a GOOD thing in this case.) 

I was SO thrilled with myself. Enjoy your barbecues, save some time to think of so many families’ sacrifices and, next time, I’ll tell you about a few up and downs (really, only ups) with this fantastic recipe. 

What’s even worse than Gwyneth Paltrow on the cover of Bon Appétit?

Here I go again with inflammatory post titles. But I just had to add a note or two to my last post about the new Bon Appétit. Before I answer that question – one last thing about Gwynnie -

I’m really trying not to be a GP hater just because she’s perfect. (And, actually, we know she’s NOT perfect, since her bones, although shapely, are brittle.) But let’s be honest – she’s an excellent actress, she’s beautiful (really, we can’t hold that against her), she seems to have a lovely family even if her children are somewhat oddly-named, AND, for whatever reason, there are lots of folks who want to know what she thinks about stuff – whether its diet, exercise or what handbag to buy.

I certainly don’t need to follow her world view (whatever that is) to get on with my life, but I choose more to ignore her than vilify her. In the case of her mug on the cover of Bon Appétit, it’s Bon Appétit who should be criticized. It’s as simple as this. We don’t want no celebrities on the cover. We want food, glorious food.

But there’s something that exasperates me even more than a non-food item on the cover. I’ve noticed this with House Beautiful too and I will not be renewing my subscription because of it, which I only got in the first place as a bonus to the FN Magazine and because Ina’s recipes were featured each month.

So what is the thing that gets me (really mad) about the new Bon Appétit?

When they put a headline on the cover (in that lackluster lettering and design that I spoke of before) AND there’s no page number with it and the table of contents doesn’t list anything resembling that story on the inside.

Here’s an example on Gwynnie’s cover:

“The Crispiest Chicken Ever!” Yeah! I want to know how to do that, especially since I just came back from the south. Tell me!

I go inside and read the ENTIRE table of contents, BOTH PAGES, THREE TIMES!!! Nothing! Then I think, okay, what story COULD it be in?

How about “Let’s take it outside!” about summer cooking? Nope, there’s something about embracing laziness and a picture with lots of kids.

How about in the Father’s Day feature? The table of contents just says there’s a dish that “looms large” in the author’s memory. Maybe the recipe is hiding there. NO! That’s about PORK CHOPS...with more pictures of kids.

OMG! This is getting annoying. The Seasonal Cook? No, that’s a strawberry story.

The Challenge? Nope, sriracha.

OH! Maybe HERE. The Party. No, no, no. That’s about grilled friggin’ lamb. This is seriously ridiculous.

WAIT! I’m SO dumb. I’ll check the recipe index in the back. Gosh, the print is small.

Let me get my glasses. Not good enough. Hold on! I need my magnifying glass.

Gosh, I really can’t make anything out. I have to call my next door 12 year old neighbor, Tommy, to come and read this for me. Tell me, Tommy! Is there a recipe for fried chicken in the index?!!

Chicken salad. That’s definitely not it.

Grilled chicken with PEACH barbecue sauce? Let’s look at that. Can you make out the page number? Oh, it’s a Gwynnie recipe and she’s using boneless, SKINLESS chicken breasts (of course, she is), so it’s not that.

The last chicken recipe, according to Tommy is “perfect pan roasted chicken thighs”. That really CANNOT be what they’re talking about, could it?!!

They say to cook it in a cast iron pan skin side down. (That’s revolutionary. NOT!) and the skin gets as crisp as bacon. You have to be kidding me!!!

They tout the crispest chicken in the universe on the cover and then they stick it a Fast, Easy Fresh feature which, in the table of contents, they describe as “Simple summer recipes from the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen”.

I thanked Tommy and tried to get him out of the house as quickly as possible, before I bedamned and blasphemed Bon Appétit‘s name.

Here is my message to Adam Rapoport:

Skip the celebs on the cover and concentrate on designing a cover that tells the reader WHERE the stories are.

Page numbers would help and the actual words in the table of contents that MATCH the cover would be an obvious solution. In fact, I know a 12 year old with enough common sense to organize that for you really easily and he wouldn’t even need supersonic reading glasses to do it.

Do You Like The New Bon Appétit Cover With Gwyneth Paltrow On It?

Frankly, I'm just trying to stir up trouble. I don't mind Gwynnie...that much. She’s a decent cook and, apparently, enough people think her recipes are good enough to put her on the The New York Times Best Seller list for 6 weeks.

Plus I don’t think it's fair to hate her just because there doesn't seem to be an area of life at which she doesn't excel. But do I want her mug on the cover of the 2nd new Adam Rapoport-edited Bon Appétit? No, not particularly.

They could put her FOOD on the cover if they wanted to, and have a few shots of her in her kitchen on the inside. But I don’t need to reminded of her perfection (not that there’s anything wrong with being perfect – not that I would know) on the cover. Also look at the portion size of her spaghetti and meatballs. 

That’s just plain annoying. AND those look like cherry tomatoes, not meatballs, in that midget-sized portion of pasta. (Oh, they actually are cherry tomatoes.)

Anyway, this is all just an aside to a discussion of the new Bon Appétit magazine. My buddy Tom wondered how I liked it.

First I have to say (and I'm finding this more and more) that I hate change. Don't you feel sometimes that NOTHING, which is supposedly improved, is ever as good as it was before? I’m really trying to think of something that's better and I can't. 

My old original Oster blender worked so much better than the three I've had since then. My original Robot Coupe food processor was the best I ever had until I had to get a new one, because I was moving to America and the plug didn’t fit. Raspberry Dannon yogurt has NEVER been as good as it was 20 years ago (not to mention being downsized in amount and upsized in price).

Totally new inventions are okay - my wireless mouse is better than my corded one and I guess flavored vodkas beat the plain ones every time and Twitter is cool. But when old things change, they often seem disappointing.

Now that I'm totally depressed, let's get on with it. So how do Bon Appétit fans feel about the new Bon Appétit? Do you like it as much as the old one? Or maybe you haven’t even noticed a difference…

The first issue looked suspiciously like something else I've had in my kitchen for a while now. It had the look of...sorry to say...The Food Network Magazine. That's not really fair, because I actually LIKE the FN Magazine, except for the feature about "cooking" from packaged, processed ingredients - like how can we make the best thing from a boxed angel food mix or whatever...(The best thing you can do with THAT is to leave it on the shelf!)

Anyway, the new Bon Appétit has perky new graphics and lots of white space on the cover. I actually had a marketing expert look at two covers - one old and one new.

 

He had a surprisingly strong reaction. He HATED the new cover (on the right). He said it was boring and unoriginal and it didn’t do the job of stimulating interest in what was on the inside of the magazine. He said the old cover took your eye from the upper left down to the lower right in a more organic way. And it peaked your curiosity.

Gosh! All I would have said was that the new cover looked a bit leaner, but I get what he meant. I guess it's Bon Appétit trying to be more Google than Yahoo, visually. (I AM the last person on the planet to use Yahoo, so you know I prefer a bit of clutter.) 

Also, THIS is weird. Here’s the first new cover again and then the next month’s with Gwynnie.

  

The size of the font is completely different. I know one is “The Italy Issue”, but why have the font so much smaller than the one with Gwyneth? If they’re trying to get me to adjust to a new style, then they shouldn’t change it in the second month!

The table of contents is kind of annoying, also. It’s in skinny letters against the background of a dramatic food picture, which makes it difficult to read. Arrgghh! 

But what about the nitty gritty of the magazine? The content.  

There seems to be a few more numbered lists – 30 Reasons We Like Italy; Top Ten Places Chefs Like To Go In Copenhagen. Those are better than the pull-out list in the latest FN Magazine of 50 Condiments. There ARE some good ideas in there, but mayonnaise with Old Bay seasoning is not one of them.

What I have always loved about Bon Appétit is very simple - the recipes. There seems to be more writing in the magazine now about food topics and people and places. That’s okay, but long time subscribers are going to be looking for what we could always depend on – great recipes that are possible (and not always easy) to make at home and that wow our family and friends. No list of favorite places can compete with that. 

Part One - Travel, Food, Friends And Collectables

Sorry that I’ve been away from y’all. We were enjoying the southern hospitality of friends in South Carolina and Tennessee. We visited them last year. Remember? (That was when we went to the superlative Blackberry Farm.)

Our buddies actually asked us back. H(usband) played golf, lots of golf, while I partied with my gal pals.

Southerners (even recently transplanted ones) are so hospitable. I wish everyone could have such great friends and spend a bit of time in these gorgeous parts of the country. I’m sure my friends wouldn’t mind if you dropped by to say hi. Just do me a favor and don't all go at once. Then I'm sure it would be fine.

We started our visit in South Carolina with A and G. They are the perfect hosts and make you feel that they'd be thrilled if you arrived one day and said you were staying forever.

One of A's and my first sojourns was to Greenville, South Carolina for Artisphere, a perfectly wonderful arts festival, featuring artists from all over the country.

Three of my favorite artists: Daryl Thetford's bicycle and graffiti-themed photography pieces, Deb Karash’s beautiful metal jewelry and Marie- Helene Grabman with her extraordinary Scherenschnitte, the traditional Swiss German art of intricate scissor cutting to form delicate pictures and patterns. Amazing.

A thought it would be nice to take a break from the art fair and take in a bit of opera. Yup, right off the main street she had planned a cultural break at the Peace Center, where they were screening a movie of the opera Giselle.

We went in a bit early and there was one other gal in the audience right in front of us. We sat down to look at the program – and A said, “Wait a second, this isn’t a movie of Giselle, THE OPERA. This is a movie of Giselle, THE BALLET!"

THANK GOODNESS, I said to myself. Not that I mind going to the opera, but I like to prepare myself, so I know what’s going on.

But listen to this – the woman in front of us turned around and said, “Wait a second, you mean this isn’t a LIVE PERFORMANCE of Giselle, the ballet?!!” So WE thought we were seeing an OPERA and SHE thought she was seeing a LIVE BALLET. Curaaazzzy.

But the real thing I accomplished in South Carolina was to start a bona fide collection of something that reminded me of a long-gone item my mother had.

And I have never really collected anything before, unless you consider cookbooks and clutter a collection. Oh, and cooking equipment. But don't you think of collections as things you don't really use? I know there are exceptions and my thingies CAN be used, but they probably won't be.

What am I talking about? Well, they go by different names, especially according to the one snotty Southerner I met in a second-hand store, but never mind about her.

They are called Silent Butlers. They are receptacles with a handle and hinged lid that in gracious homes were used for brushing the dining table’s crumbs into. For all the others, they were for emptying ashtrays from all around the house. (The idea is kind of gross that there are then empty, but still dirty, ashtrays all over the place. But ashtrays in any form are gross, I guess.)

There are hundreds of Silent Butlers on eBay, but, to me, the thing is to find them in person. Also they’re often used in conjunction with a Crumber, which can be a brush or flat bladed knife looking thing, but that’s beyond the scope of my quest.

Last year (also in South Carolina), we were in a little antiques shop and I saw my first one and I bought it:

Then just a few weeks ago in New Hope, I spied this and brought it home.

Last week, as A and I were driving down some local road or other in South Carolina, I saw a kind of rinky-dink antiques place and said let’s stop. They had room after room of old treasures. Actually, there was plenty of stuff that was just old without being treasured, but you know what they say about one person's treasure...

Anyway, in this ONE place, I found THREE Silent Butlers and each was a very different shape AND material. The cheapest one was $6 and the most expensive one was…well, actually, now I’m confused between what the actual price was and what I told H, but they’re not super-pricey. Here they are...the bulk of my collection:

Aren't they fun? (H had a different word for them.) We found one or two others elsewhere, but I suddenly remembered (or made up) the rule about not buying something if you didn't love it, so I left a couple in South Carolina for others.

I have my Silent Butlers (or whatever we decided to call them) strewn around the house with an elegant abandon, so that it looks like they’ve been in the family for ages.

Other than searching for little handled repositories, we also revisited Asheville, North Carolina, which is a really hopping place. We trollied around the city, seeing its 3 famous barbecue places, including Barack’s favorite place, 12 Bones Smokehouse, where the President actually stood on line with Michelle to order lunch. (The other two are Luella's Barbeque and Little Pigs BBQ.)

We had a different place in mind for lunch, though, which was one of my favorite stops - Tupelo Honey Café – the downtown location.

Wow, what a place. It looked like a downhome, kind of hippy, Southern outpost and the food…ah the food! Look at this menu!

We started with the best biscuits ever!

Then we (tried to) split the Shrimp and Grits and the Pulled Pork BBQ Plate.

We didn’t even make it halfway through. Too good!

The shrimp WERE a touch rubbery, but it was all about the grits, which had the very modern addition of goat cheese. The red pepper sauce could have been spicier, but it was a fine accompaniment to the creamy grits.

I loved the pulled pork and maybe it’s a Yankee thing, but I could have used a lot more barbecue sauce. Is that typically Southern where they are so delicate with the saucing? A really loved the jicama in the slaw, but again I would have liked more dressing.

I adored the corn, FRIED and slathered with lots of butter, salt AND Parmesan cheese.

We ended with the Boondock Beignets. Crispy, crusty from the cinnamon sugar, they were rich and gorgeously light at the same time. How is that even possible? There was something a bit strange though. I had been looking forward to the honey – the Tupelo Honey – for which the place is named and famous. They serve it with the Beignets.

BUT, listen to this, I didn’t LIKE the Tupelo Honey, which disappointed me AND relieved me at the same time – a jar was over ten bucks. It tasted kind of raw and underripe, sort of the way a green peach tastes. I dunno, I might be making that up, but, at any rate, no honey came home with me. Everything else was dynamite, though.

Here are some other things we ate in South Carolina:

Key Lime Pie

Pavlova

I can’t tell you the name of the restaurants where they came from because A made them!!! 

H told me A’s Key Lime Pie was tons better than mine. I said that was okay, because G’s golf was tons better than HIS!

On to Tennessee…

Part Two - Terrific Time In Tennessee

Tennessee offered quite a few opportunities (that’s the understatement of the year!) for great food with our friends M and RJ. Here are three particularly great places:

For a casual lunch, Bravo! was wonderful.

I decided to play the southern socialite from Blind Side (and also from that Jennifer Aniston movie - WAS it her? - where she’s the poor friend) and order a Cobb Salad with lots of variations, so much so that it could have been called a NON-Cobb salad.

Whatever you call it, it was good! The dressing DID come on the side, which I hate, but the poor guy probably thought I was so fussy about everything else, he didn’t want to risk it.

We had an excellent dinner – at The North Shore Brasserie. The restaurant features Belgian food and they’re known for their mussels. If (when) you’re ever near Knoxville, try them. I had the Mussels Mariniere. They were fat and juicy with the most delicious winey broth in which to dip the nonstop, warm baguettes served in their own little paper bags. Mmmm. I was up to my elbows, so no pictures.

We had an exceptional meal at the Foothills Milling Co. Restaurant. You wouldn’t necessarily think it would be that good from the outside, but, wow, was it!

    

You need a reservation. And it's not easy getting one. It’s the hottest place in Maryville, Tennessee. Actually, it’s the hottest place for miles around.

We started with a nice little taste of grouper, which is also offered as a main course with its panko crust and green onion remoulade.

H had the Fried Green Tomatoes, which were panko-coated and topped with a wonderful basil aioli, tomato chutney and goat cheese. They would make a meal on its own.

I LOVED the Fried Oysters.

They were perfectly fried, which made it perfectly easy to finish the whole plate. Crunchy on the outside, juicy on the inside.

The Rosemary Focaccia was wonderful and just in case you felt like you needed a few extra calories, it was served with a big scoop of whipped butter AND oil.

I ordered a second fried dish for my entrée. (We WERE in the South.)

It was the Open Face Crab BLT. OMG, it was almost overkill, except that each bite was so delicious you just had to (well, I had to) eat the WHOLE THING. (Actually, I didn’t touch the sourdough bread.) The crab, Benton’s bacon and buttermilk dressing were enough. We had visited Benton’s last year.

 

The desserts were something your mama would have made...if you had the best mama in the world. The Strawberry Shortcake was classic and perfect.

There was no hint of sweetness in the biscuit. That was saved for the juicy strawberries that were pooled on the bottom of the dish. One biscuit (or half maybe?) was on top of the strawberries, topped with a ginormous swirl of faintly sweetened whipped cream and then another biscuit. Oh my! It was strawberry shortcake heaven (which isn’t even my favorite dessert). 

This next dessert, the Buttermilk Pie, was fine, but it didn’t change my life.

But that’s okay, because the next dessert did.

Don’t kill me, but I didn’t write down exactly what I was eating, but look at this:

It was a square of a blondie-type crust, which was rich and nutty, with the most delicious I-can’t-remember-the-flavor-of-ice-cream and an extra crunchy cookie on top, with cream, lots of it, caramel sauce, nuts and powdered sugar. It was super-duper sweet (though not too much for me). And it was so uninhibitedly homey and down to earth that I could have staked a homestead claim right there and then on that very plate.

We did have some non-food outings. M and I went to the Titanic Museum in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

If you’re ever in the area, you have to stop by. They take you through lots of exhibits and actual relics of the ship. And before you go in, you’re given a card with a name and story of an actual passenger on the ship. In most cases, you’re not told the fate of your person until you reach the last room with a list of all the passengers and what happened to them.

The only annoying thing was that M got Madeleine Astor, who was married to the richest man in America, John Jacob Astor – a fact that every single guide, dressed in period costume as staff and servants on the ship, reminded us of…over and over again. They positively bowed and scraped to M as we made our way through the different displays. Okay, I got it. She was rich, really rich, and quite famous.

I, on the other hand, made my journey on the Titanic as Selma Asplund, a 3rd class passenger from Sweden. Her surroundings were somewhat different from Mrs. Astor's. For example, there were 2 bathtubs for the over 700 3rd class passengers - one for the women and one for the men. Incidentally of the 2228 passengers onboard (some sources say 2223), only 705 survived, most from the 1st class cabins. Happily, Selma did survive or I would have been really bitter…

Actually, the whole visit was really moving and the story of the Titanic was very affectively portrayed, Madeline Astor's among them. If you’re in the neighborhood, try to make time for a visit.

A few more fun things to see and try:

• The Knoxville Museum of Art and its Thorne Rooms.

 

Lookie here:

 

These are rooms filled with miniature furniture, like the most elaborate, perfectly decorated doll house you’ve ever seen. Amazing.

• The Southern Fried Chicken at The Applewood Farmhouse Restaurant.

I NEVER had such good chicken before. It had a thick batter and was fried to perfection without a trace of greasiness. Really! AND the chicken gravy - a flour-thickened milk based gravy - was too good to resist. 


Their apple fritters came when you sat down instead of bread.




And the apple butter was finger lickin’ good. I really understand these hackneyed southern phrases now.  

• One last place - Sevierville’s The Smoky Mountain Knife Works, which was kind of cool and freaky at the same time.

They had EVERY kind of knife imaginable, suitable for ANY task for which one might need a knife, plus a knife museum. More pictures here. They also have a first class housewares department.

I'm happy now that I know exactly where to go for all my Fried Chicken needs, as well as for a knife of ANY description.