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