Spice is the variety of life – The Savory Spice Shop

Smell – Also called Olfaction (also known as olfactics; adjectival form: "olfactory") is the sense of smell…. For air-breathing animals, the main olfactory system detects volatile chemicals, and the accessory olfactory system detects fluid-phase chemicals.
(From Wikipedia).

There are some specific locations that a person can identify with the sense of smell alone. Certain bakeries or Italian restaurants immediately come to mind. There is pork store on Arthur Avenue in The Bronx – Calabria's – that smells like no other place on Earth. The soppressatas hanging from the ceiling give it that ambiance which can never be taken away. The aroma hangs heavy in the air, and when you walk in, you are completely inundated by it. It is a cloud of happiness and the anchor of memories.

Bob and Cindy Jones understand the concept and know what it feels like. They are are the proprietors of The Savory Spice Shop in Lafayette Village on Falls of Neuse Road, in North Raleigh, which opened earlier this year. Along the walls are more than 400 spice products. If one could smell colors, this would be IMAX™ 3-D.

"I gave up my suit and tie for an apron," Bob said one recent Friday afternoon. "And I feel better about it." A former IT guy for a big multi-national, Bob faced an employment crisis after a large-ish merger landed in him in the cross-hairs of outsourcing. After much thought and some prayer, he and his wife Cindy decided to look into franchising. The results were predictable.

"My wife and I talked and we said, 'what are we going to do all day? Sit in an office and look at each other.'" Then came the Aha! moment. The Savory Spice Shop in Denver had just started to franchise and they wanted in. The results have been quite good.

"So far this year, we're working to plan," he said. "We really have been blessed"

"The spices are ground weekly," Cindy told me. "We order on Monday and we get them on Friday. Everything's fresh."

But that's just the business back story. The front story slaps you in the face when you open the door – the amazing aroma of 400+ spices and herbs that come at you. And the beauty is not necessarily in their spices but their spice blends, ready-made in jars that can turn simple ingredients into marvelous fare. No thinking required.

"The nice thing is that we're learning from our customers," Cindy said. She recounted a customer who had recently gone hunting and came back with venison. The raw deer was turned into Venison Vindaloo. "Our customers feed us."

Area chefs have discovered The Savory Spice Shop. But don't ask me who. It's a secret.

I asked Cindy the obvious question: how long had she been a foodie? She responded with a smile, and recounted travels in Italy when she was in her 20s, and that she grew up in New Jersey in an Italian family. It was the place, she said, where her mother and grandmother cooked all day. That's just what they did.

"It's is an extension of our home," she said. "It's all about entertaining, about gathering around the table for a meal. That's where families gather, at the table." She looked off for a few seconds, and then turned back. "It's a feel good place." I nodded in agreement. She's right.

As I left, I picked up some Cantanzaro Herbs – sort of an Italian answer to Herbs de Provence. I walked out of the shop, and the smells receded into memory. The regular world had returned and I was confronted with the normal smells of North Raleigh next to a five lane thoroughfare, such as that is. But it's okay, I brought a little bit of happiness home with me in a jar.

The Savory Spice Shop

Lafayette Village

8470 Honeycutt Road, Suite 108

Raleigh, NC 27615

TEL 919-900-8291


Cuisine: A World of Spices

Rating: *****

Prices: $

Atmosphere: Aromatic

Noise level: Normal retail

Open: MON. – THURS 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM; FRI: 10 AM – 7 PM; SAT 10 AM – 5PM; SUN 12 PM -4 PM

Reservations: Come on, it's retail.

Other: Ask questions. They've tasted everything in the shop.

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








 

Alamance County and the best sandwich I’ve ever eaten – The Saxapahaw General Store

Once, when I was newspaper reporter, a colleague once explained that the name Alamance was derived from an old Indian word. It means "minimum wage".

That pretty much sums my feelings about my home; there is not much good that could possibly come out it.

As soon as I could, I left. Most of the people I know left. For that matter, most of the industry that had supported the county during my childhood left. The textile mills that used to employ half of town in my youth are long gone, decamping to places where the minimum wage is measured in cents, not dollars.

Most of the ancient old mills were either abandoned or bulldozed. A choice few, the ones with a river view, were condo-ed.

That happened in Saxapahaw.

Chef Jeff Barney

Amongst the rolling verdant hills is an old mill. Around the corner is the Saxapahaw General Store. There, you can by 93 octane and baby diapers. There's also a kitchen and in Jeff Barney's capable hands, it turns out some of the best food in The Triangle.

Yes, the best food in The Triangle. And they sell gasoline.

Her Imperial Majesty and I recently visited on an overcast Saturday and we're completely blown away. We split two sandwiches: the first was duck breast, with arugula, red onion and goat cheese with balsamic vinaigrette, the second was a sliced steak with provolone, onion and mushrooms. Served with duck fat fries, they were nothing less than spectacular. The duck was just slightly pink and perfectly balanced with the goat cheese, arugula and red onion. The steak and cheese with provolone had the right touches of everything. Almost everything appears to be locally sourced. The colors and smells of the place was a real 360 degree experience. The duck fat fries were a revelation. We sat in awed silence as we plowed through lunch. It was that good.

Is it worth the drive? Absolutely. Would I do it again? Absolutely. Would I recommend it to friends? If you live in The Triangle and have want of a great meal, wander around the rolling hills of southern Alamance County and finding your way to The Saxapahaw General Store is a no brainer.

And I can hold my head high because I can honestly say that the best sandwich I've ever eaten in my life is made in Alamance County.

The Saxapahaw General Store

1735 Sax-Beth Church Rd.

Saxapahaw, NC 27340

Phone: (336) 376-5332

http://www.saxgenstore.com/

Café Closed Mondays

Cuisine: Eclectic American

Rating: *****

Prices: $

Atmosphere: Crowded with local foodies who know

Noise level: Quick service crowded

Open: Hours: M-F 6:30-9:00; Sat 7-10 & Sun 10-8

Reservations: Nah.

Other: No table service. Order at the counter and wait. Quite a show actually. Outdoor seating is available.

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




 

A certain timelessness – Old Havana Sandwich Shop

Back in Hoboken, Her Imperial Majesty and I used to frequent a Cuban restaurant called La Isla. It is now internationally famous for winning a throwdown against celebrity chef Bobby Flay in a stuffed French toast war.

But we never went there for breakfast.

No, we went later in the day for what was usually a late lunch. There, we'd while away the afternoon, sitting in a sunny window, sipping on Cokes with limes and munching on Cuban Sandwiches.

A Cuban sandwich is a curious thing and for the pork averse, something to be avoided. Her Imperial Majesty and I have no such aversion and readily chowed down on La Isla's signature sandwich: slow roasted pork, ham, Swiss cheese, a pickle, mustard and the magic mojo sauce. Served Panini style, grilled and pressed, it's a magically crunchy mouthful of happiness that works so beautifully at so many levels.

Sadly – or not – we moved from suburban New York City to points south and lost that slice of culinary culture. The Cuban sandwich was merely a fond foodie memory from one of the epicenters of the Foodie Universe.

So maybe the New York Times was right in naming Durham one of the 41 places in the world everybody needs to visit during 2011. I certainly need to, probably weekly, if only to go to The Old Havana Sandwich shop on East Main.

One recent Saturday found us sitting by a sunny window, breakfasting on Cuban sandwiches and slow roasted plantains, chasing the whole meal with a steaming cup of café con leche.

It was crowded, filled with happy people enjoying the fare. At the Old Havana Sandwich shop, they do serve variants of the traditional Cuban sandwich. We didn't try them but you can. We stuck to the basics: a Cuban sandwich, roasted plantains and for dessert, a guava pastry. Everything was marvelous.

True to the righteous foodie form, they locally source everything. The bread comes from Guglehopf; the pork is locally raised. With a wide open kitchen, what you see is what they serve and what they serve is magical. Everything about it is authentic and real.

Maybe Hoboken is 500 miles away and Cuba is even farther and more problematic. But as long as we have the Old Havana Sandwich Shop, we don't really need either.

Old Havana Sandwich Shop

310 East Main Street

Durham, NC

TEL 919-667-9525


Cuisine: Cuban sandwiches to die for

Rating: *****

Prices: $

Atmosphere: Crowded with local foodies who know

Noise level: Quick service crowded

Open: MON. – FRI 7:30 AM – 5:30 PM; SAT 9 AM – 4PM

Reservations: Nah.

Other: Parking is problematic.

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




 

The Joy of Comfort Food – Breakfast for Dinner

Her Imperial Majesty is a wellspring of great ideas. I don't know if she had any before she met me, but since we've been together, they've never stopped. Her latest involved a novel I wrote some 15 years ago but never published. Her genius idea from Saturday night was to post the thing in snippets on its own blog and see if we can't gin up some interest. After all, there's no point letting it sit in a box, unread and dusty.

The day after, Sunday, we went to a party at Alex's place in Greensboro and met up with two other writers, Liz and Shannon. Shannon had just acquired representation for a memoir she was working on. That set the water wheels in my head spinning. I haven't had representation since the 1990s; why not take the novel, spruce it up a bit, and send it out. Maybe the time is right.

Ah, things have changed in 15 years. Back then, the internet was new. Nobody other than geeks like me had an email address. Submissions were laborious affairs that consisted of sending stacks of paper from wherever I was to wherever the agents were, with a self-addressed stamped envelope. It was a maddening process.

Ah, close your eyes and drink in the brave new world that is the 21^st Century, with all its technical doodads that make everything go faster and faster. No longer is it necessary to transport the paper that holds the idea, simply transport the idea electronically. At the mere touch of a button, rivulets of information cascade through the cloud and land as if by magic on the right person's desktop. The 21^st Century is pretty cool when it works.

So, in order to spruce up the manuscript, I needed to create a synopsis, a short overview of what the story is, what the themes are and what the characters do. That's what I did on Wednesday. In a frenzied eight and a half hour marathon session, I cranked it out – all 3,800 words of it – a river of words and ideas that fried my brain, leaving me completely exhausted and in no mood to cook.

But right then, Her Imperial Majesty had another one of her great ideas: breakfast for dinner. It was to consist of hash browns with onions, bacon and cheese, simmered in a bit of chicken stock and seared off in a hot skillet. The eggs were to be poached by the Queen in her own fashion.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
  
• Two left over baked potatoes, peeled
  
• One onion, coarsely chopped
  
• Two or three strips of leftover bacon
  
• ¼ cup chicken stock to deglaze
  
• Shredded cheese as a garnish
  
• Two eggs, poached
  
• Salt and pepper to taste
  

Technique

• In a skillet, pour the olive oil. Once it's hot, add your potatoes and cook for about 5 minutes
  
• Add your onions and sauté for about 5 more minutes or until caramelized
  
• Deglaze your pan with the chicken stock and cook until it reduces, making sure it doesn't stick
  
• Remove the pan from the heat and add your cheese. Cover for a few minutes to let the cheese melt.
  
• Plate with your poached eggs
  

I'm not exactly sure why I so enjoy breakfast for dinner. Maybe it's a throwback to my waiter days when I would get off work at midnight and the only place open was fast food (er, no, I don't think so) or a 24 hour diner serving breakfast. Whatever it is that draws me back to breakfast for dinner, I'm glad it does. With the simplest of ingredients and barest of technique, it satisfies at so many levels. It's the perfect food to think about when I've had to think about too many things.

Salmon with prosciutto and rice peel-over

Rice pilaf is an ancient dish and cooked and consumed in its various across northern Africa and the Middle East to India. Indeed, according to Wikipedia:

The English term pilaf is borrowed directly from Turkish, which in turn comes from (Classical) Persian
پلو, Urdu pulao (پلاؤ) and Hindi pulav, and ultimately derives from Sanskrit pulaka^[2]. Depending on the local cuisine, it may also contain a variety of meat and vegetables.

The American English term "peel-over" comes from her Imperial Majesty Junior and her name for any rice dish I create that has other stuff in it.

And that's all rice pilaf is—rice with other stuff in it. And it makes a marvelous side dish to almost anything. Here' I paired it with an old favorite, salmon with prosciutto.

Ingredients

Salmon

• 1 pound Salmon filets
  
• Thinly slice prosciutto, enough to wrap each filet
  
• Olive oil to coat the fish
  

Pilaf

• ½ cup white rice
  
• ½ cup red and green lentils, soaked for two hours
  
• ½ cup meripoix (diced carrots, onions and celery, available prepackaged at better groceries)
  
• 2 ½ cups chicken stock (low sodium is fine)
  
• 1 cup of spinach, roughly chopped
  
• 1 tablespoon of rosemary, roughly chopped
  
• Olive oil for sauté
  
• A pinch of salt
  

Technique

Salmon – roast in a preheated oven at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

Pilaf – In a two quart pan, sauté the meripoix in the olive oil for about 3 minutes, adding a pinch of salt. Next, add the rice and sauté for another three minutes. Next, add the lentils and 2 cups of the chicken stock. Simmer for about 25 minutes or until fork tender. Remove from the heat and add the spinach, the rosemary and bit more chicken stock. Keep the dish covered as the residual heat will wilt the spinach, about three minutes.

Plate and serve.

Das Kinder loved it so much, there were no leftovers. And it's a whole lot healthier than French fries. I just hope she remembers this when it's time for her to pick out my rest home.










 

Four mile Mike and the Lamb Sliders – Only Burger Durham

A friend of mine from the gym, Mike, has a hard and fast rule: he will not travel more than four miles for a meal, regardless of how good it might be.

Now, of course regular visitors to this space know I will travel an hour and a half in each direction for a really good burger; that ninety minutes of travel, even for a sloppy example of cholesterol laden paleo-burger is in no way too over the top. That supporting such retro haunts is one of the things true gourmands should indulge. He, of course, thinks my sojourns are silly (not that he would ever say that to my face) and would never embark on such a lark. And besides, it would violate his four mile rule.

In theory, he makes sense. These Calvinist times have chastened most. Traveling hours for even the best of hamburgers may come off as decadent, no matter how delicious. It makes sense to obtain some of the joys of life closer to home. As my father once opined, "one should take pleasure from one's own backyard, however humble".

The wages of such a temperate existence could very well be a life a rutted routine. Traveling well trodden trails to the same joints over and over again can become maddeningly mundane. Banality and boredom, walking hand in hand, cancel any culinary adventures. Perhaps, I should just stay home and cook spa cuisine, basking in the reflected genius of my own photogenic foodie creations.

Nah. Can't do it. There's too much good food just down the road.

And just down the road in Durham is something that has to be tasted to be believed: the lamb slider with tzatziki sauce and feta cheese at Only Burger. Brian and his staff have been the recipients of much attention before and not just from me. Her Imperial Majesty and I were big fans when he was just a food truck with an avid following. Apparently, the avid following has grown and he's added a brick and mortar location to augment his mobile empire.

Non-four mile Mike the Expediter, making sure everything
comes out right.

We popped in one recent Saturday and found the joint packed with a line out the door. We sidled up the counter (sort of like a bar) and watched his crack staff work their magic. Fries were done the right way, cooked twice in true Belgium tradition. The onion rings are enormous. And the lamb sliders?  They are, in a word, awesome. 

What always worked in a gyro, works even better in burger form. The balance of the tzatziki sauce with pungent feta against the lamb is incredible. They were also serving a Reuben burger with corned beef, slaw, pickle and Russian dressing which was good. The addition of the pickle, which is not traditionally on a Reuben sandwich, was a nice touch and added a bit of acid to balance the flavor.

But the lamb, oh the lamb. So good, so perfect, we're going back again this week. It's that good.

It is 21.86 miles from our gym to Only Burger in Durham. And while I know Mike won't venture out beyond his self-imposed four mile limit, I hope he does. Because it's that good.

Only Burger

Hope Valley Square 3710 Shannon Road,

Suite 118

Durham, NC

TEL 919-937-9377


Cuisine: Beautiful burgers

Rating: *****

Prices: $

Atmosphere: Crowded with local foodies who know

Noise level: Quick service crowded

Open: MON. - SAT. 11:00AM-9PM; SUN. 11AM-8PM

Reservations: Are you crazy?

Other: Cash, Visa and MC only – no AmEx.

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


 

Simplify, simplify – Chicken with Leeks and Barley

Food in 21^st Century America has become so complicated that it's now intimidating. I possess hundreds of dollars worth of very ambitious cookbooks that I've only opened once, and then closed as everything in them requires high technique I can't perform and exotic ingredients that I can't find.

The ever more exotic – both in terms or technique or ingredients – makes it's difficult for real people to prepare and eat good food at home. Thoreau's dictum – "simplify, simplify" – should be a clarion call to foodies. And if it's not for you, it is for me. Working with small armies of production assistants in sparkling, high-end kitchen sets, celebrity chefs make it look so easy. And after years of marinating ourselves in untold hours of Food Network programming, it has left all too many viewers with a case of learned helplessness. They can; we can't.

Which is rubbish. As my brother-in-law Enrico once said to me, while I was stirring a pot of something, "you think you are cooking the food? No my friend, you are not cooking the food. The fire is cooking the food."

It was truly an "Aha!" moment. All one really needs to make good, wholesome food is about seven ingredients with the appropriate garnishes. And heat. That's it.

The perfect example of a simple, wholesome dish is one I purloined from a magazine 15 years ago and kicked up a bit since: Chicken with leeks and barley. It features simple, easily found ingredients and a minimum of technique. It's also low in fat and high in flavor.

Software

• I pound of boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs
  
• I cup pearled barley (available as bulk foods in any number of local markets)
  
• I cup of chopped leeks, cleaned
  
• 1 cup of Meripoix – diced celery, carrots and onion about, 1/3 cup of each. This is available prepared and pre-packaged in a number of local markets
  
• 1 sprig of thyme, or more if you like (I like)
  
• 1 quart chicken stock – I use fat free
  
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
  
• Grated Parmesan cheese to finish
  
• Chopped flat leave parsley to garnish (purely optional – makes it look pretty)
  

Technique

• In a 2 quart Dutch oven, heat the olive oil
  
• Add meripoix and thyme sprig and sauté for three minutes
  
• Add leeks and sauté for three minutes
  
• Add barley, sauté for three minutes
  
• Add chicken, sauté for five to seven minutes
  
• Add stock a little at a time. Simmer for 40 to 50 minutes until barley is barely al dente
• Remove thyme sprig
  
• Add Parmesan cheese and stir
  
• Plate and garnish with flat leaf parsley if you're so inclined (I am)
  

The result is simple and tasty. One can even garnish the dish with a bit more chicken stock to make it a bit soupier and less stew-like if so desired. And if you don't count the garnishes, herbs, oil, and chicken stock, its seven ingredients with almost no technique.

And heat.