'Tis the Season -- Christmas Ribs

With the holidays upon moi, it seems I must cook and cook large. With the NC horde ready to decent upon my humble abode, what can be done? Surely a huge, sticky lasagna would work, filling my kitchen with the sweet smells of tomato-y, cheesy happiness?. Perhaps some variant on Syndi Lou Who's (who's no more than two) roast beast? How about we cling to some of our Hebraic roots and order Chinese?

Nah, not happening.


Her Imperial Majesty Le Grand Dame likes my ribs. Das Kinder likes my ribs. So ribs it is, or more correctly was.

It's a simple recipe using three different spice blends from my friends Cindy and Bob at The Savory Spice Shop, specifically:

1. Black Hills Barbecue Seasoning,
   
2. Team Sweet Mama's Kansas City Rub, and
   
3. Brown Sugar & Spice Honey Ham Rub.
   

Bring your ribs to room temperature, then apply the Black Hills seasoning first. Give the meat about 10 minutes or so to rest, and then apply TSM Kansas City Rub. Give yourself another 15 minutes or so, then finish with the Brown sugar rub. After another 15 minutes, slide the ribs into a 275 degree oven and cook four to five hours or until fall-off-the-bone tender. I usually lay them on a cool-ish fire in the ole Weber Kettle for 30 to 45 minutes to give them a bit of char and dash of smoke.

That takes care of the ribs themselves, but what about the 'Que sauce. This is a variant of something I've used before. The star ingredient is Coca-Cola™ and that makes this truly southern.

• 1 16 ounce Coca-Cola™
  
• 1 28 ounce can pureed tomatoes
  
• 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
  
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
  
• 1/2 cup cider vinegar
  
• 2 1/2 teaspoons white balsamic vinegar
  
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
  
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
  
• 1 teaspoon salt
  
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
  

Combine everything in a sauce pan and simmer for 30 minutes or until it reaches your desired thickness. 

Serve with baked beans, baked potatoes and the best cole slaw you can come up with. Mine comes from Hursey's in Burlington, NC. 


Merry Christmas, y'all.





 

The Pizza Variations vol. 1 -- Schnitzel Pizza

In a world beset with overly complicated moderne interpretations of classic fare, the invention of yet another gourmet this or that comes off as an excuse to bloviate about one’s heightened sense of taste.  It’s as if people wish to trumpet their incredible good taste as a methodology to transform one’s self into the local culinary celebrity. In the post-Food Network™ world, it’s like bragging about your humility.

However, the dictates of the 21^st Century have prompted at least some of us to combine genuine classics from the old country and transmute them into something a bit more handy. The classic steak and potato dinner has become a burger and fries, simply because one can’t make a left turn in a Volvo station wagon and eat a baked potato.

This dish combines one of my favorite dishes – Weiner schnitzel – with the all purpose utility infielder, pizza. I’m not sure why it came to pass, but I am certain that a televised sporting event was involved.

Hardware:

• 4 thinly sliced pork cutlets
• 1 cup pizza sauce – canned is okay
• 8 ounces mozzarella cheese
• a few sprinkles of parmesan cheese
• 2 eggs
• bread crumbs
• thinly sliced red onion
• Pizza crust – can be pre-made
• Fresh basil

Technique:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F - with a pizza stone or pizza pan
The star ingredient: The Pork cutlets

• Heat a saute pan with olive oil
• Cook pork cutlets first - scramble one egg in a bowl, measure a cup of bread crumbs in a bowl.
• Dip cutlet in egg wash, then bread crumbs and sauté in pan - 3-4 minutes each side.
• When done, let rest, then thinly sliced cutlets.

Assembling the pie

• Mist crust with olive oil
• Spread pizza sauce over crust – I used Don Pepino
• Add mozzarella cheese
• Add parmesan cheese
• Add red onion
• Place cutlets toward center of pizza - leaving a hole for where the egg will go.
• Cook pizza for 7-8 minutes.
• Remove pizza and crack egg in the middle - leave yolk whole. Add fresh basil.
• Place back in oven for 1 minute
• Then set to broil for 1 minute
• Remove, let set a few minutes - then cut into slices – the yolk should be runny.

Easy, fun and artistic. The perfect way to enjoy a schnitzel dinner while standing up and watching the Hometown Heroes best the Bad Guys From Out of Town.

 

Something about this time of year – Kosher Coke

This time of year bring back a lot of memories or people. Some remember the Easter times of their childhood, while others look back at Passovers from long ago. What I like about this time of year is that one can buy Kosher Coke.

Yes, Coca-Cola comes in both non-kosher and kosher formulations. In case anybody is interested, you can buy kosher Coke products this time of year. It means they're made from real sugar and not corn syrup, since corn isn't kosher. Tastes like an old time Coke from our collective childhoods. It's a good and guilty pleasure. Typically, the caps are a different color from what they normally bottle. From Wikipedia:

Kosher Coca Cola produced for Passover is sold in 2-liter bottles with a yellow cap marked with an OU-P, indicating that the Orthodox Jewish Union certifies the soda as Kosher for Passover, or with a white cap with a CRC-P indicating that the certification is provided by the Chicago Rabbinical Council.

While the usual Coca-Cola formula is kosher (the original glycerin from beef tallow having been replaced by vegetable glycerin), during Passover Ashkenazi Jews do not consume Kitniyot, which prevents them from consuming high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).^[9]

Even sugar-based formulas would still require certification of both the formula and the specific bottling plant, as the strictures of Kashrut on Passover are far higher and more complicated than usual kosher observance.

 

 

The greatest thing since beer in cans –- Kicking up stuffed pasta

The first real chef I ever dealt with was Bradford Hendrix at the now defunct Bert's Seafood Grille in Greensboro, NC and he did things I had never seen before: he prepared sauces in the sauté pan on top of the stove. The technique was described as "ala minute". Essentially what he did was build a sauce in the pan after whatever was cooked, is cooked. At Bert's, it was all manner of fish and shellfish.

It was explained to me that this was traditional French technique. Typically, Brad would take shallots or something similar and throw that into a hot skillet in which he had just sautéed the main dish (scallops, say). Once those got sort of brown and sort of happy, he would quickly de-glaze the pan with white wine and add the rest of the ingredients. Sometimes mustard and half and half (dijonnaise); sometimes peaches and half and half (peche). The result was always marvelous and got the necessary "ooh and aahs" from the guests, which in turn would earn me the tips I needed to fund my graduate school lifestyle.

The same things can be done with stuffed pastas to wonderful effect. Here, we have some stuffed pasta from Trader Joe's and am pairing it with a simple shallot and spinach cream sauce.

Ingredients

• Some sort of stuffed pasta – I used Trader Joe's goat cheese and tomato. You can use anything.
  
• I diced shallot
  
• 1 handful washed and dried spinach, coarsely chopped
  
• ¼ cup white wine or stock – I used white wine here but you can use anything appropriate
  
• ¼ half and half
  
• A couple of turns of olive oil for sautéing the shallot
  
• 1 teaspoon Cantanzaro herb Blend or something similarly Italian
  
• ¼ Parmesan Cheese
  
• Salt and pepper to taste
  

Technique

Cook the pasta according to the directions. Here, you really do want it al dente, since you're going to essentially cook it again in the sauce. In a sauté skillet, heat the oil until it shimmers, then add the shallot. Cooked for a few minutes or until it starts to brown. Add the spinach and cook until it's just wilted, about three minutes. Deglaze the pan with wine or stock, scraping the burnt bits off the bottom with a spoon or tongs. Next, add the half and half and reduce for about a minute or until thickened. Then add the cooked pasta, Parmesan Cheese and herb mixed, stirring lightly to coat. Turn off the heat and cover for a minute or two. Plate and serve with additional parmesan cheese.

Its looks like you took all day, but it's really quick and super easy ("super easy" – am I channeling Rachel Ray
instead of Brad Hendrix?). Serve with a salad and what you have a simple weekday meal.

Bon appétit!

The fallout from too much – slow cooker spinach lasagna v. 1.0

Das Kinder turned nine this week. There was much rejoicing.

There were parties (plural). There were brownies. And doughnuts. And pancakes. And shopping extravaganzas. And a sleep over in which there was very little sleeping involved.

Das Kinder, with her stout nine year old constitution, came through with flying colors. Her Imperial Majesty and I, not so much; we're old and need sleep, or at least downtime. We decided that last night was to be Downtime. The tradition of a big Saturday night foodie throw down was to be postponed. This Saturday night was to be mindless and as pre-fab as possible.

She of Good Ideas nicked this recipe from a magazine left in her office. We've kicked it up a bit. What we like is that we could essentially prepare dinner at 2:30, then put it and ourselves on automatic until it was ready. Mindless is as mindless does. Or in this case does not.

Ingredients

• 2 packages frozen cooked and chopped spinach, thawed and water squeezed out
  
• 1 cup ricotta cheese
  
• 1 cup sliced fresh mozzarella
  
• ½ cup grated parmesan (Use the good stuff. It matters here.)
  
• 3 cups of marinara sauce (You can use homemade, we didn't. Thank you Mr. Newman.)
  
• Uncooked lasagna noodles – do NOT use the no cook variety
  
• 1 tablespoon Cantanzaro herb blend
  

Technique

Thaw the spinach. Do NOT cook the spinach, simply thaw it.

Mix it with the ricotta, Parmesan and Cantanzaro herb mix

In your crock pot, start your layers, sauce first, then uncooked noodle, then spinach / cheese mixture. Top with thin sliced mozzarella. Repeat. On the top, finish with a layer of sauce and Parmesan cheese. Now here's the tricky part: set your slow cooker on low for 4 hours, and walk away. Take a nap if you want.

After four hours, you'll be treated to a plate full of gooey loveliness.


 

 

 

 

 

When bigger does not mean better – A case for The Meat House

A large, new (and I won't name it) super market opened on Six Forks Road, across the street from Her Imperial Majesty's office and the local Chick-Fil-A. It was foretold to be what North Raleigh needed; the cornerstone of a new culinary identity that the zip codes north of Interstate 440 have wanted for years. It was to be, in short, 40,000 square feet of green, environmentally friendly Foodie Paradise.

No longer would people like me need to drive inside the beltline (or to Chapel Hill or Durham) for the ingredients we need to live and cook The Good Life. Produce would be fresh, organic and beautiful. Breads would be artisanal. Meat and seafood would be humanely and locally raised. The building itself was to be "Green", conserving rainwater in cisterns for later use. Customers were encouraged to bring their own re-usable shopping bags. Carry out from the "hot bar" would be served in bio-degradable paper to go containers instead of plastic or Styrofoam.

So I went there during the opening weeks and joined the throng. It looked less a crowded supermarket and more a crowded but well lit nightclub. Parking was problematic and once inside, people were everywhere. Sure, the lettuce looked great, but it's was all wrapped and served up in plastic bins. Nobody told me that re-usable shopping bags are a great place for e. Coli to breed. And the paper "to go" containers? They got soggy after about 20 minutes.

Green and environmentally friendly? I'm not so sure. It felt more like a conceit, a way of gift wrapping gluttony so that it was more attractive, or at least, less ugly. It is sort of like believing that baby foxes and unicorns come out of a Prius' tail pipe: one can drive a car and still "Save the Planet " through thoughtful and conspicuous consumption. It's amazing that one can sell moral vanity at a premium, but perhaps there is no other way to sell it. Its parking lot is full.

Scott Morra and a selection of cowboy rib steaks.

I remember the way it used to be. There was a place in Madison. NJ, down the road from where I lived called Esposito Brothers. They had the most beautiful meats and cheeses with a smattering of fresh produce – everything one needed for dinner save the wine, which had to be sold a "Package Store" down the street. One could walk in and walk out with a feast in 15 minutes. Talk about paleo food, this was truly Old School.

Such a thing exists today in North Raleigh. At the corner of Millbrook and Falls of Neuse Road is The Meat House, a glorious throwback to the butcher shops of my youth. In it, wide selections of beef, pork, lamb and poultry are laid out behind glass cases. The produce is NOT wrapped in plastic. There is no vainglorious preening about how they're saving the environment. The owner, Derek Wilkins, first saw the concept while visiting family in Maine. He went with his brother to pick up dinner and was blown away.

"I stood there awestruck," he said during a recent phone conversation. "[My brother] picked up the meat, the veggies and the beer and we were gone. I just couldn't get the thought of The Meat House out of my mind."

Derek and his father Craig own both Triangle locations of The Meat House (the other is in Cary). It is, to quote Derek, "'the modern re-visualization of the neighborhood butcher shop". At 3,500 square feet, it's not nearly as big as the (unnamed) behemoth on Six Forks. And that is a big selling point.

"One of the important things about The Meat House is that you can get in and out and 15 minutes," he said. And he's right. Because it's not so big, I did get in and out in 15 minutes.

The concept originated in New England and is franchised across the US. They currently have 26 locations. What they carry is dinner; prime and top choice meats, veggies, and sides. They also carry a wide array of pre-marinated meats that are ready for the grill or skillet.

"We make it very simple," he said. "We've done a lot of the prep work for you."

So, is it the second coming of Esposito Brothers in Madison? They've actually done it one better. The Meat House sells wine and has a classically trained sommelier on staff in the person of Lawrence Kobesky, to help with the pairings of wine with dinner.

In the end, it is an old school butcher shop. But it's also more. It's like a convenience store for foodies. It works because it's simple and unpretentious, unlike some other grocers in the city. And the meat is truly magnificent.


Two Triangle locations:


1225 Kildaire Farm Road
Cary, NC 27511-5523
(919) 465-3082
 
5045 Falls of Neuse Road
Raleigh, N.C. 27609
(919) 809-8914.

Dinner and A Show – Kanki Japanese House of Steaks and Sushi

Jeff "Lee"* does five shows a night on an average Friday night. And they are shows. He stands over his tappanyaki
and cooks for 10 guests, with flash and flourish and quite a bit of daring do. Streamlined and choreographed, he executes every movement flawlessly, much to the delight and applause of his guests.

Jeff is a chef at Kanki Japanese House of Steaks and Sushi. And while he normally does his shifts at the Old Wake Forest Road location, he does pull shifts at Crabtree Valley Mall.

"Maybe at Crabtree, I do 10 or 11 tables," he said in between scenes of The Fire and Food show. "I'll do five or six tonight."

One recent Friday night, Jeff did dinner for the extended family unit on the occasion of Her Imperial Majesty le Grand Dame's "29^th" birthday (wink, wink) and he was flawless. As he moved through the various preparations, he chatted, joked and generally entertained the assembled. All things considered, he and his dishes came off quite well.

For the un-initiated, tappanyaki steakhouses originated in Japan in the 1940s, but didn't really appear in The States until Rocky Aoki, a Japanese wrestler who qualified for by did not attend the 1960 Summer Olympics, opened the first Benihana of Tokyo in New York City. Typically, chefs grill beef, chicken, seafood along various vegetables and rice while guest sit tableside and watch the whole thing happen.

Our group had a smattering of everything: Thomas the Intrepid had a combination, as did our new friends, Ryan and Joy. Her Imperial Majesty had chicken, while I had steak. Le Grand Dame had a perfect cooked piece of Tilapia, while my sister Mary Catherine and her genius child, The Magster, did chicken and shrimp, respectively. Das Kinder ate everything that came her way.

The dishes that come off the tappanyaki, while not terribly exotic in today's post Food Network sensibilities, are hot, fresh and delicately seasoned. Given the semi-rigidity of the format, Jeff and his colleagues do quite well.

While my foodie friends may scoff, a good time was had by all. And in a certain sense, Kanki, and all the other tappanyaki steakhouses are paleo, if only in a sort of Mad Men fashion. Call it kitsch but for me it works as least as well as Jeff does, which is to say, pretty darn well.

*Not his real name.

Kanki Japanese House of Steaks and Sushi – three locations

North Raleigh

4500 Old Wake Forest Road, Raleigh, NC 27609

PHONE:  919.876.4157      FAX:  919.876.7699

 
Durham

3504 Mt. Moriah Road, Durham, NC 27707

PHONE:  919.401.6908     FAX:  919.401.6843      TAKE OUT:  919.403.TOGO

 
Crabtree Valley Mall (Lower Level)
4325 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh, NC 27612

PHONE:  919.782.9708      FAX:  919.787.4524

Cuisine: Pre-fusion Asian / Paleo Japanese

Rating: *** ½

Prices: $$$

Atmosphere: Tappanyaki steak house.

Noise level: Quite a bit, this is show business after all.

Open: Various, check individual location for hours.

Wake Forest Road and Durham locations:

LUNCH HOURS:  Sun Noon - 3:00      Mon - Fri 11:30 - 2:00    Sat Noon - 3:00
DINNER HOURS:  Sun 3:00 - 9:30    Mon - Thu 4:30 - 9:30    Fri 5:00 - 10:30    Sat 3:00 - 10:30

Crabtree Valley Mall location:

Monday - Thursday: 11:30am - 9:30pm
Friday & Saturday: 11:30am - 10:30pm
Sunday: Noon - 9:30pm

Reservations: Yeah, you should.

Other: Communal seating at the tappanyaki grills, Think if it as a way to make new friends.

We rank restaurants in five categories: 

***** Extraordinary – Intense attention to ingredients and preparation and devoid of pretense. Everything's right.

**** Excellent – Attention to ingredients and preparation; in down scale environs, something that’s true to its DNA.

*** Above average – Good but not great. Or, as Her Imperial Majesty says, "I'm not that crazy about it".

** Average – Will do in a pinch but not worth a journey.

* Fair – Don’t bother, as it probably has a help wanted sign in the window, which is always the harbinger of a bad time on the horizon.

 

 

Paleo Swedish – Koenigsburger Klopps

I once handed my card to a pastry chef from Durham.

"Paleo-culinary ethnography?" She laughed and walked away.

Yeah, well.
Paleo-culinary ethnography is what I call American food before it became fashionable – before the Food Network and even before Julia Child. I do try to take it seriously. I do own a dozen or so cookbooks that are older that I am. And I do stick my proboscis into them trying to excavate something interesting in order to turn back the clock. And in spite (or despite) of the levity I generate in the professional foodie community, I will endeavor to persevere.

Nosing about one of my 29 (wink, wink) year old mother's cookbooks, I happened on a recipe for Koenigsberger klopps – Swedish meatballs. This household has a fetish for nearly all things Swedish – both a Volvo and a Saab in the garage, a bottle of Absolut in the freezer, and Dux to sleep in upstairs – and this Pre-Eisenhower recipe works well steamed potatoes and green beans.

Ingredients

Meatballs

• 1 pound ground beef
  
• 1 pound ground pork
  
• ½ half of a large onion, grated
  
• 5 egg whites, well beaten
  
• 1/3 to ½ cup breadcrumbs
  
• Sal, pepper, and nutmeg to taste
  

Sauce

• 3 cups water
  
• ½ onion grated
  
• 4 bay leaves
  
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
  
• 1 teaspoon of salt
  
• 1 tablespoon of peppercorns
  
• 1 tablespoon of allspice berries
  
• ¼ cup balsamic vinegar
  
• 1 tablespoon flour
  
• 5 egg yolks, beaten
  
• 1 lemon sliced
  
• 1 tablespoon capers
  

Boil the first six sauce ingredients for 30 minutes, then strain and bring to a boil again. Add the meatballs in batches and cook for about 15 minute. When they're done, remove them from the water and onto a warming plate. Once all your meatballs are done add the vinegar to the water. The add the flour slowly, whisking the mixture. Slowly whisk in the egg yolks until thick. Serve the sauce over the meatballs.

Looking back at this recipe, it's easy to see why people of that generation didn't live all that long. A nice meal like this, topped off with an unfiltered Lucky Strike, is not exactly the way to make it to triple digits. Still, it does spin the clock backwards offering a glimpse of what America was like when life was simpler and we weren't so jaded; a time when men wore hats, women wore dresses and the world in general and the dinner plate in high relief specific didn't seem so dangerous.




 

That which I know not – Vimala’s Curry Blossom Cafe

I've worked in a lot of restaurants. Mediterranean. Chinese. Mexican. High-end seafood. Low-end burgers. I've sold wine by the bottle and vodka by the case. I've served falafel to vegans and prime rib to everybody else. I've waited on senators and wine critics and drunken Russians and NFL footballers. I even authored a book on how to do it: The Art of Waitering; a Practical Guide for College Students.

I know an awful lot about an awful lot of food from an awful lot of places. But one thing I don't know anything about is the cuisine of India. It's a huge hole and I need to fill it.

Indeed, India itself is a bit of a mystery. My knowledge of India is limited by my professional experience and that lives in the software universe. Some of my coders are from The Bangalore. Four Mile Mike has conference calls to Poon a few times a week. He refers to those as "Chickens and Pigs" for reasons too difficult to explain here. In summation: everything I know about India either derives from "if then, if else" function calls or strained memories of Gandhi, a movie made about a justly great man who quite famously did not eat.

Her Imperial Majesty is no knowledgeable scholar on the subject either. But she is a person Who Has Good Ideas and recently insisted that we trek to Franklin Street in Chapel Hill to Vimala's Curry Blossom Café. On the way over, she told me the back story; it was irresistible. For some 18 years, Vimala Rajendran has hosted community dinners out of her home and her food could be found all sorts of progressive events. To quote from her website: "Her food has shown up everywhere, from protests across the region to weddings and private parties to the Weaver Street Market lawn and Johnny's in Carrboro."

Her street cred established, she opened her space where Sandwich used to be. When we arrived on Saturday night, there was a line some 40 minutes packed with locals. The smells were exotic and intoxicating. When we got to the counter, we ordered and took an inside table in a corner as all the patio seating was taken. About 20 minutes passed before an avalanche of food appears at our table.

We ordered Beef Thali, Dal, Tandoori Chicken, plantains, and vegetable Samosas. Overall, everything was spicy but not terribly hot, as often happens in Indian restaurants I've experienced. Here, the Thali was rich and flavorful. Served with Dal, they complimented each other well. The Tandoori Chicken was nicely seared but still quite moist, which came as a bit of a revelation. The plantains were battered, then fried and were quite different that any others in my experience insofar as they were not sweet. Instead, the batter featured black sesame seeds and they were served with a sweet yogurt dipping sauce that was marvelous. Most interesting were the Samosas, which proved to be light and flaky yet substantial – and interesting trick for what is essentially a dumpling. Indeed, there was so much food at the table, that a good bit of it came home, which was a good thing.

There is much to recommend in Vimala's Curry Blossom. The dishes presented are perfectly simple, yet expertly prepared. There are no distractions like a pretentious setting or trend-oid waitrons. It is, in short, an exaltation of street food, which is something near and dear to my heart. It may very well serve as the opening steps in my Passage to India.

Vimala's Curry Blossom Cafe

431 W. Franklin St.
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
inside the Courtyard
Phone: (919) 929-3833
E-mail: vimala@curryblossom.com

Cuisine: Indian street food done right

Rating: *****

Prices: $$

Atmosphere: Very relaxed and true to its DNA.

Noise level: Nothing out of the ordinary.

Open:

Tuesdays through Saturdays 11:30a to 2p & 5p to 9p. Come out 9p - 10p for drinks after serving hours.

Reservations: Not necessary.

Other: Counter service. Expect lines.

We rank restaurants in five categories: Extraordinary***** Excellent**** Above average*** Average** Fair*






 

Leftovers 101 – Moroccan Rice pilaf with chicken and dried apricots

So this chicken walks into my house and asks what's for dinner. I say, "I'm not sure, will you be staying for dinner?" The chicken says "sure". So he stays for dinner. And he stays the next day. Then, he's leftovers.

Anyone can be a great culinary artiste if cost is no object and every possible ingredient is at one's fingertips. But that's not where creativity comes from. Our ancestors made more with less, as perusal of almost cookbook printed during The Depression will illustrate. (I have one that even has instructions on how to build a wood or coal fire for your cook stove.)

In the Third World, very little meat is stretched into a very satisfying family meal by adding staples, like rice and beans. This dish is an amalgamation of several recipes and whose construction was based on the ingredients at hand, save a small, $3 dollar packet of Marrakech Moroccan Spice from The Savory Spice Shop. The result is simple and easy. Think of it as 10 ingredients + 1 pan + 50 minutes = dinner.

Ingredients

• 1 cup white rice
  
• 1 quart chicken stock (you probably won't use it all)
  
• ¼ cup dried apricots
  
• 2 tablespoons dried cherries
  
• 1 cup meripoix (dices, onions, carrots, and celery in equal amounts
  
• I left over chicken breast, de-boned and coarsely chopped, about ½ pound
  
• ½ cup dried English peas, soaked overnight
  
• I tablespoon Marrakech Moroccan Spice blend (cinnamon, turmeric, cardamom, ginger, anise, allspice)
  
• Zest of one orange
  
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
  

Technique

Heat olive oil in deep skillet with lid or Dutch oven. Add your meripoix and sauté until soft, about 5 minutes. Add rice and sauté until slightly brown (that makes the rice taste nuttier). Add 2 cups of chicken stock and drop the lid on the pan, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes or until mostly done. Next, stir in your chicken and your dried fruits and let cook for another 10 minutes or so. Then add the peas, the spice mix and the orange zest, stirring to blend. Remove the dish from the heat and let stand for a few minutes to let the aromatics in the spice blend and the orange zest to release their happiness and give the dish its full flavor.

Bon appétit!




 

Seven ingredients + 25 minutes = dinner – Italian sausage and just wilted spinach

I believe in simple. Simple has made my fortune. And I raised my daughter in the Simple Fashion.

No, no, no. I can't channel Don Corleone this early in the morning. That's more for a late night, after Peter Clemenza says, "leave the gun, take the cannoli." After all the noise in my life has subsided, the world can devolve from its current 21^st Century complexity and become simpler and sepia toned.

My faith in the simple is reaffirmed every time I attempt to watch a Food Network show that pits chef against chef, going mano a mano with a panoply of exotic ingredients and over the top techniques. I gnash my teeth and start fingering the remote to fund something more useful for my brain to consume.

Sure, I get that these programs are really a sort of culinary fantasy; that it's really a window into an alternative, foodie-themed universe. I fully buy into the willing suspension of disbelief that I, with the right tools and ingredients, can transform stuff brought home in plastic bags from the grocery into high art. And I can do it with the same élan in which I channel The Don: "I'll make him an offer he can't refuse".

But alas, such culinary excursions rarely happen and it usually comes down to one salient fact: it's too much trouble. Sure, I probably could do it, but I just don't want to. I want simple, as much for mental clarity as for ease of preparation. There is enough noise in my life and I just don't want to work that hard for a plate of food.

The magic number in this dish is seven. It's so simple one can watch a movie and still pull it off.

Ingredients

• 1 large yellow onion, diced
  
• Three cloves garlic, minced
  
• 2 bags pre-washed spinach
  
• 1 pound sweet or hot Italian sausage – I like sweet sausage, but you can do what you like. Turkey sausage would work as well.
  
• 1 cup chicken stock
  
• Parmesan cheese to taste
  
• 2 cups dried short pasta – farfalle or orecchiette works nicely
  

Technique

In a large pot, boil your pasta to al dente. When it's done, drain it. That's it.

In a large skillet (with a lid), sauté your onion with a bit of olive oil (yeah, I know, it's not listed in the ingredients but come on). When they're soft – maybe five minutes later – add your sausage and cook until brown, about 10 minutes. When they're done, remove and set aside to cool. At this point, add the spinach and the garlic, toss a bit to mix things up, then drop a lid on it and let it go for about five minutes. While it's wilting, cut your sausages into small, bite size pieces, maybe as thick as your little finger. Add them back to the spinach mixture, then stir in you chicken stock and let it reduce for a couple of minutes. Next, remove the pan from the heat and add the pasta to the spinach / sausage mixture. Toss with a bit of Parmesan and your favorite Italian herbs – I like the Cantanzaro Blend from The Savory Spice Shop – and drop the lid one more time for a couple of minutes to let everything get happy, then plate.

Net result: dinner for four, with two dirty pans and zero exotic ingredients or techniques. It's as simple as leaving the gun and taking the cannoli.


 

It is what it is and that’s all it is, but what it is, is my mother’s favorite – Captain Stanley’s

There is a perfect comfort in knowing exactly what to expect. One goes to The Restaurant. One orders The Usual. It arrives in The Proscribed Time. It tastes exactly like The Last Time and The Time Before.

It can be called consistency but it's really more than that. McDonald's is consistent. Wendy's is consistent. But one can't really call those restaurants. They are, in reality, small factories that churn out food and sell directly to the public.

Not that there is anything wrong with them. In traveling through strange cities on the way to someplace else for very serious reasons like business trips, they can be the difference between some minor sustenance and nothing at all. There is nothing worse than a meal of mystery food before a four hour C-level business development meeting. The sword of Damocles is a giant dollar sign and its trigger is the festering lunch one hastily ate and is desperately trying to keep down.

Sadly, I digress. This was all about her Imperial Majesty Le Grand Dame's favorite lunch in the world and this piece should center on that.

When my parents used to take us to the beach, the trip to Calabash was de rigueur; it was something we simply had to do. The first shrimp I ever ate all those years ago was a battered and fried affair. As a mere child, I remember the shrimp boats at their docks, the smells of the sea air and the ever present aroma of the fried shrimp. There were literally mountains of teeny-weeny little shrimp coming out the various dockside kitchens. Pop would pick out a promising looking place and we'd go in and order. The portion that arrived on my Dad's plate always looked like half a football. He loved it. I loved it. What's not to love?

Alas, getting that style of seafood inland – a hundred miles from the shrimpers – was something nearly impossible to contemplate in my youth. When my parents moved to Raleigh, they found this place and it solved the problem. Shrimp had been abstracted away from the ocean. There was no need to venture down Interstate 40 to back back and get The Usual..

Recollection: the first time Her Imperial Majesty and I ate there, Das Kinder was a toddler. We met the Paternals at the location in Garner. When we sat, we promptly ordered and our food arrived – steaming hot – in a little less than a minute. I remembering remarking at the time that I had waiting longing in a fast food drive thru.

This is not high end gourmet, nor is it "oh-so-trend-oid." The cuisine is old school fish camp, and very much what it's like at the hundreds of fried fish joints that dot the North and South Carolina beaches. And what is striking is that over the years is that it has been a model of consistency.

I got what I always get: Calabash-style popcorn shrimp. For those readers unfamiliar with the concept, it's essentially very small de-shelled and deveined shrimp, battered and fried in peanut oil. While not terribly healthy and certainly an acquired taste, what they serve at Captain Stanley's is as good as it gets and easily the equal of anything at the coast. My mother got what she always gets, the fired tilapia. It too was a flawless example of fish camp fare; lightly battered and perfectly fluffy. Her Imperial Majesty is not of these parts and ordered the broiled salmon. It too was a flawless execution. Everything was served with a choice of two vegetables, a seemingly bottomless basket of hush puppies and a seemingly endless river of sweet tea.

Truly ethnically Southern? You betcha'. Consistently yummy? Absolutely. High end gourmand? Nah, that would go against its DNA. No, what it is, is an institution. It stands athwart the rip tides of culinary faddishness and delivers something very near and dear to my heart: paleo-seafood. It is as simple as when I first tasted that first fried shrimp all those years ago. It has stayed perfectly true to its DNA and that's why it rates four stars in my book.

Captain Stanley's Seafood Restaurant

One location

3333 South Wilmington Street

Raleigh, NC 27603 | (919) 876-8662


Cuisine: Old school fish camp cuisine

Rating: ****

Prices: $$

Atmosphere: Very relaxed

Noise level: Nothing out of the ordinary

Open:

North Raleigh Hours:

Mon - Thurs:		11:00 am		-	2:30 pm
		4:30 pm		-	8:30 pm
Fri:		11:00 am		-	2:30 pm
		4:30 pm		-	9:00 pm
Sat:		11:00 am		-	9:00 pm
Sun:		11:00 am		-	8:00 pm

South Raleigh Hours:

Mon - Thurs:		11:00 am		-	2:00 pm
		4:30 pm		-	8:30 pm
Fri:		11:00 am		-	2:00 pm
		4:30 pm		-	9:00 pm
Sat:		4:00 pm		-	9:00 pm
Sun:		Closed

Reservations: I wouldn't bother.

Other: Come hungry. Leave sated.

We rank restaurants in five categories: Extraordinary***** Excellent**** Above average*** Average** Fair*


 

Magical Goat Cheese – The Celebrity Dairy in Chatham County

Her dad bought the farm as a speculative investment years ago. When they moved there, they lived in a 10 foot by 30 foot trailer while they renovated the 1830s log cabin. They would need to as it had no indoor plumbing or modern amenities. It was, in essence, a wooden tent.

That was the genesis of the Celebrity Dairy in Chatham County, locally famous for their varieties of goat cheese which sells at area farmers markets and ends up on the menus of hot chefs throughout The Triangle.

Run by Brit and Fleming Pfann (pronounced "Fan"), the Celebrity Farm sprawls over 114 acres and features goats, chickens and even llamas. It all sounds pretty much like the perfect hippie fairy tale. Husband and wife – sick of the corporate rat race – bail out to Green Acres to make artisan goat cheese and live a neo-hippy, oh so happily and very much off the grid, ever after. It would make a great screenplay. And the beautiful thing, that's sort of what happened.

In the late 1970s, Brit was an engineer for Bell Labs working on Defense projects and commuting to Guilford Center. His wife Fleming was an artist working in textiles. He changed jobs, which exacerbated his commute from Guilford County to Research Triangle Park. All that time, he was working on the farm. One day though, there was a rumor that downsizing was coming to the company. He volunteered to be "on the list." As it happened, it worked out.


"Being laid off was great," Brit said. "I was too busy to come to work anymore."


Before the Pfanns took over the farm in the 1960s, the land was a used for subsistence farming, meaning people grow what they will eat. It sounds romantic. The reality is much harder; it's a hardscrabble life. By the 1970s, the farm had been abandoned by the owners who apparently fled to the cities for "real" jobs.

Brit and Fleming moved to the property in the late 1970s and bought goats to help clear the land. Fleming, who has a lifelong allergy to cow's milk, tried drinking goat's milk on the suggestion of a friend.

It worked.

Fleming decided that there could be other uses for Goat's Milk and decided to try her hand at making cheese, although she didn't know how to do it. This being the low tech early 1980s, she decided to do an analog document search the only way it was available: she went to the Siler City Public Library. It didn't exactly work; she was rebuffed.

"She asked the librarian for books on cheese making and was told that they only had 'proper research material' and none of that hippy stuff," Brit said with a laugh. "She was told they had research on 'genealogy'. So she went to the Pittsboro Public Library, where they did have books on cheese making."

Recipes in hand, the Pfanns started to make their now famous goat cheese. But the first forays weren't that – how to put this – tasty.

"The initial batches weren't always edible, so we feed them to the chickens," Brit said.

But perseverance prevailed and now Celebrity Diary Artisan Goat Cheeses are available at two local farmers' markets and all five local Whole Foods Markets. As of today, there are some 80 milking goats making more than 112,000 gallons of milk yearly which yields some 1,200 to 1,400 pounds of Celebrity Goat Cheese. The cheeses comes in multiple flavors, such as dill, apricot and chocolate (editorial comment – it rocks!) There's also a Bed and Breakfast for those seeking a wee bit of the rural lifestyle and a monthly dinner on the third Sunday afternoon of every month.

"It truly is a labor of love," Britt said.

The Celebrity Dairy

114 Celebrity Dairy Way

Siler City, NC 27344

Tel. (919) 742-5176, for toll free reservations call: (877) 742-5176


Cuisine: Eclectic American

Rating: *****

Prices: $$$

Atmosphere: Bucolic

Noise level: Country quiet

Open: Call for details

Reservations: Oh yeah. You can't just show up.

Other: This is a working farm, not a tourist destination. Their cheese is available at The Durham Farmer's Market, The Carrboro Farmer's Market, and all five Whole Foods locations in The Triangle.

We rank restaurants in five categories: Extraordinary***** Excellent**** Above average*** Average** Fair*


 

Goat Cheese from Chatham County -- Celebrity Farms

Celebrity Farms is opening up its barns for visitors and for farm direct sales of their oh so fresh, oh so yummy offerings this weekend. Folks, you can't get any more fresh or any more locavoire than this. I'm sure there will be lots of baby goats available for pictures. Her Imperial Majesty, Her Imperial Majesty Junior and I will be there tomorrow. Details here:

http://www.celebritydairy.com/events/events_main.html