291 replies to this topic

[therese]

Good morning, y’all, and welcome to the party chez Therese.

As per the teaser, this week’s foodblog does indeed come to you from Atlanta, where I live with my two children (hereafter known as Girl and Boy) and husband (hereafter known as The Man). Girl is 11, Boy is 14, and The Man is old enough to know better.

Atlanta’s huge: the total metro population is about 4 million, and there are no physical boundaries to growth like rivers or mountain ranges, so people just keep moving (and commuting) farther and farther out of town. Atlantans can be divided into ITP (inside the perimeter) and OTP (outside the perimeter), the perimeter referring to the interstate freeway that encircles the downtown area and surrounding neighborhoods, separating it from outlying suburbs. The politically minded may note that these areas could be designated red and blue. I’ll let you figure out which is which.

We’re about as ITP as it gets, with home, work, school, and restaurants all in walking distance. The neighborhood’s called Druid Hills, the setting for the play/movie “Driving Miss Daisy”. The houses date from the 1920s, and because Atlanta has so little in the way of “old” buildings the neighborhood’s on the National Register as a Historic District. Charming, sure, buts lots of the houses need some updating, and ours (purchased in 1996) was no exception. So we remodeled last year, including an addition with a new kitchen, and this week’s blog will look at the finished product.

So, some encouragement for those of you presently involved in kitchen renovation, some ideas for those who are considering it.

But never mind all that for the moment: What’s for breakfast?





Dutch babies, that’s what. And even better, these Dutch babies are produced by my children, the aforementioned Girl and Boy. The first picture is right from the oven, the second is after the somewhat messy job of sifting powdered sugar on top. They are delicious (the Dutch babies, I mean, not the children) and a great weekend treat.



The Man drinks coffee in the morning whereas I prefer tea. He's not up yet, having played poker last night. I'm hoping he makes it out of bed in time for dinner.



I also eat fruit whereas he prefers, well, anything but fruit. This is not such a bad thing, as it means that I don’t have to share the fruit. Pomegranates are a pain to eat, but not so bad if you’re reading the newspaper at the same time. This one’s from California, but you can also grow them here if you’ve got enough sunshine (which I don’t).

[fou de Bassan]

Therese,
What a great way to start the day. I miss the South! Looking forward to reading your blog and seeing pics of the kitchen redo.

[Safran]

Good morning Therese! Looking forward to your blog. Breakfast looks yummy!! What's in it? Is it like a soufflé??

[therese]

Therese,
What a great way to start the day.  I miss the South!  Looking forward to reading your blog and seeing pics of the kitchen redo.

Thanks, fou. We've been really happy with the kitchen, and I'm looking forward to showing it off.

Some uninvited guests for breakfast:



They're eating bird seed that they've spilled from a bird feeder that's suction-cupped onto an adjacent window. You can't really tell from the picture, but the window frame the squirrel's sitting on is actually at the second story level (the green stuff in the background is an enormous azalea bush that's down at ground level).

[therese]

Good morning Therese!  Looking forward to your blog.  Breakfast looks yummy!! What's in it?  Is it like a soufflé??

It's an eggy sort of sweet pancake, flavored with vanilla. You start it on the stove top, pouring the batter into the pre-heated, buttered (Boy went a bit overboard on the butter) to make a nice crispy edge and then finish it off in the oven, where it gets puffy. It collapses quickly, and the texture then reminds me a bit of clafoutis, without the cherries.

[Jensen]

It looks like we're in for another great blogging week. I'm looking forward to dreaming about kitchen renovations...

[therese]

Spent today not taking pictures of my kitchen. In point of fact, I've barely even seen my kitchen today, as by the time I found out that I'd be blogging this week I'd already booked a lot of social time. I actually first heard that I'd be blogging from a friend (who is also active on eGullet---you'll meet her later), who sent me a message off-line saying that she thought it was really cool that I was blogging. To which I responded, "Sweet jesus, I'm what?"

Lots of food so far today. I'd arranged to meet a friend for lunch at noon. We'd decided on a Korean place that neither of us had been to before that specializes in fish:



Unfortunately they'd changed their hours, so I called my friend (who hadn't yet arrived) and we decided to go next door to:



We'd both been before, but it's a nice place. As per the sign you can do Korean BBQ there, but it's not what most people do there, at least not for lunch (there's another place down the road where we like the BBQ).

While I waited for my friend I relaxed with a:



Tables set with spoons (paper-wrapped bowl of spoon in foreground) and chopsticks only.

We had:











We ended up with a lot of leftovers. Fortunately my friend was willing to take care of them, because I've already got too many meals already planned. The friend in question is known here on eGullet as FoodTutor. Here she is in person:



After lunch we went to a Vietnamese bakery a couple of blocks away called Mozart Bakery:



I bought things for breakfast tomorrow AM:



The item on the plate was actually for Boy's dinner this evening, as The Man is taking me out dancing for Valentine's (and Girl has an overnight with a friend). It was described as containing sausage, but in fact was more like chicken pot pie/vol au vent sort of filling. Disappointing for him, but he still ate it.

Dancing this evening is to The Basin Brothers. The musically inclined among can check out some of their song on the "music" portion of the web site.

We don't know yet where we're eating. They usually serve jambalaya at the dance, but I don't know for sure if it's available tonight. So either we eat elsewhere first, or run the risk of a beer-only dinner. Hmmm...

[therese]

Oh, and I wanted to add that I'm happy to answer questions. In fact, the more questions the easier it is to blog, I think.

Gotta go brush my teeth right now, though.

[Pan]

Wow, looks like you had a 10-plate panchan at the Korean restaurant! That's a lot of side dishes!

What kind of pa-jun was that?

[jhlurie]

Wow, looks like you had a 10-plate panchan at the Korean restaurant! That's a lot of side dishes!

What kind of pa-jun was that?

Man are you getting ripped off Pan, if you aren't getting at least 10 panchan at your local Korean restaurants! Heck, usually you just keep askin', they keep bringin'.

[therese]

Wow, looks like you had a 10-plate panchan at the Korean restaurant! That's a lot of side dishes!

What kind of pa-jun was that?

Yep, quite the spread. Typical of panchan in Atlanta (I've not eaten enough Korean outside Atlanta to say whether it's particularly generous or not), at least in my experience. One of the tofu houses always give you some little fried fish (not tiny, about four inches long) that I like (and that my kids fight over---they give you one per person, but one of the kids always tries to score an extra one).

The pajun was hae-mool (mixed seafood). A little blander than I like, but then also a nice foil for some of the spicier things. I rarely eat the rice that comes with most dishes, so the heat can get a little overwhelming.

The fish was mackerel, one of my favorites. The restaurant features a number of large, shallow open fish tanks in the front lobby. Towards the end of our visit we noticed some guys come in with large styrofoam coolers, which they proceeded to empty into a couple of the tanks. On the way out we saw that they were flounder (or something that looked like flounder), trying mightily to turn the same color as the bottom of the tanks. Or maybe it just seemed like they were trying to turn the same color as bottom of the tanks. Maybe they were really just resigned to their fate.

[therese]

Man are you getting ripped off Pan, if you aren't getting at least 10 panchan at your local Korean restaurants!    Heck, usually you just keep askin', they keep bringin'.

Get the kids to ask for you. Very effective.

[Pan]

Wow, looks like you had a 10-plate panchan at the Korean restaurant! That's a lot of side dishes!

What kind of pa-jun was that?

Man are you getting ripped off Pan, if you aren't getting at least 10 panchan at your local Korean restaurants! Heck, usually you just keep askin', they keep bringin'.

Seven is enough!

Seriously, I go to Korean restaraunts only when I'm really hungry, because the panchan plus the dish is a really big meal.

[therese]

Turns out that they were indeed serving food at the cajun dance (which was great) tonight, a choice of crawfish étouffée or red beans and rice.

But we ended up getting Thai on the way over, at a place about a mile from our house. Better than many in Atlanta, so I can't complain.

My husband had tom kha gai followed by a really lovely dish of little lamb chops, nice and rare. Unfortunately the picture of the latter didn't turn out, so we'll have to make do with the soup:



I had nuer nam tok. I really like this restaurant's version, and have trouble ordering anything else when I go there.



Since I didn't have another savory course I indulged after the meal:

[TheFoodTutor]

Thai iced coffee? Looks delicious.

I have more than enough leftovers for several days from that lunch, plus I got several pastries from Mozart as well. Therese was disappointed that they didn't have the lovely boxes of small cookie assortments they usually have, because in their place they were carrying Valentine's day assortments of chocolates. I picked up a box of those for my boyfriend, and it's very cute. It reads, "Sweet Message - I wish you happy forever." Of course, it would have been even cuter if I'd picked up a box that actually had chocolates in it.

Great blog, therese. Was tonight your V-D, or are there more V-D festivities to come?

Edited by TheFoodTutor, 13 February 2005 - 04:41 AM.

[Swisskaese]

Great blog Therese. I used to live in Virginia Highlands and my sister lives in Alpharetta. Druid Hills is a great neighborhood.

I have a tip on how to get the seeds out of the pomegranate without staining your hands. Cut the pomegranate in half and gently wack the back of the fruit with a wooden spoon into a large bowl. The seeds should fall out. Then eat with a spoon.

You can also juice them and mix it with apple juice or orange juice. I mix it with mango juice.

Yum.

[therese]

Great blog, therese. Was tonight your V-D, or are there more V-D festivities to come?

More festivities to come.

And the iced Thai beverage is actually tea. It was prettier when it arrived, with the layers nicely separated, but I took a sip and stirred it a bit before remembering to photograph it. The restaurant's somewhat dimly lit, with red walls, so even after a bit of color adjustment that shot looks too red.

[therese]

Great blog Therese. I used to live in Virginia Highlands and my sister lives in Alpharetta. Druid Hills is a great neighborhood.

Cool. How long ago did you live in VaHi? We spend a lot of time there, though I don't think it too likely that we'll make it this week.

For the others out there, VaHi is another ITP neighborhood, mixed residential (mostly bungalows from the '20s) and retail shops and restaurants. A bit of a bar scene on the weekends, but it hasn't kept families with young children away.

Alpharetta, on the other hand, is about as far OTP as you can be and still be considered metro Atlanta. Lots of recent affluent development.

As for the pomegranates, I actually sort of like the tediousness of the task: sort of soothing, like needlework or cutting out paper dolls. Pomegranate juice is the antioxidant of the moment (well, the wave has probably crested) and widely available now. It makes a nice mixer with vodka---hmm, does that drink have a name?

[therese]

Breakfast today is the pastries I bought yesterday at Mozart.

Here's the cake, now unwrapped. As the nut in the middle indicates, it's walnut.



And here's the cake cut, along with a couple of cakes filled with bean paste:



The cake is nice, mildly sweet. The top and sides look like they should have marzipan in them, but don't taste of almond, so perhaps contain ground walnuts or some sort of bean.

The bean paste filling in the small cakes is very sweet, powdery/chalky rather than sticky. I do like stickier versions as well, but this sort is very nice with tea.

[Swisskaese]

Cool. How long ago did you live in VaHi? We spend a lot of time there, though I don't think it too likely that we'll make it this week.

19 years ago! I can't believe it has been that long ago.

[therese]

Okay, time to start talking about the remodel.

Some background: The Man and I both work at the same place, Emory University. He moved to Atlanta in 1982, I moved here in 1985 (for school), and we've both always lived within walking distance to work. When our present house came on the market we both fell in love with it, but knew that we'd eventually have to do some remodeling, as the bathrooms were original and the kitchen was truly scary (more about that later).

So we bought the house is 1996, and actually had a total of three different sets of preliminary drawings done over the next six years, none of them giving us quite what we needed (and one of them unworkable because we wouldn't have been able to get approval from the Hysterical, oops, I meant to say the Historical Commission).

In the end we realized that the only way to get what we needed was to extend the house towards the back. Our lot's deep and backs up to a golf course, so that plan takes maximum advantage of the view. The lot slopes off pretty drastically as well (Atlanta's actually in the piedmont of the Appalachians, so it's quite hilly), so it meant that we could extend the basement and create a two car garage (The Man's fondest desire, as it turned out). Many houses in in-town Atlanta have no garage at all, and attached garages are particularly unusual (and particularly prized).

So the size of the extension was dictated by the fact that we wanted a garage at the ground (basement) level.

Above that is the new kitchen (ground level with the front of the house), and above that is the new master bedroom and bath.

Along with the extension we re-worked the layout of the upstairs bathrooms and closets, and gutted the remainder of the house: all new electrical, plumbing, new roof, additional insulation blown into (plaster) walls, floors re-done. If we could think of it we did it.

The job took 7 1/2 months to complete, during which time we moved into an apartment. We'd been told 7 months, so all in all a very timely process, especially considering that the first couple of months were very rainy, slowing down some of the early work.

[M. Lucia]

Lovely blog, Therese. For those of us not to familiar with Korean cuisine, perhaps you could describe the dishes you had and what they consist of?
One of my favorite lunches as a kid was mango with coconut rice and thai iced tea, my mom didn't realize that they were really dessert!

[Susan in FL]

Welcome to eG blogland. Your sure are off to a great start. Enjoy!

[TheFoodTutor]

Lovely blog, Therese. For those of us not to familiar with Korean cuisine, perhaps you could describe the dishes you had and what they consist of?
One of my favorite lunches as a kid was mango with coconut rice and thai iced tea, my mom didn't realize that they were really dessert!

Therese mentioned to me that she's having just a bit of technical difficulty with her internet today, so I thought I'd stop in and let everyone know that she'll be back shortly. As far as the Korean food, the pan chan we were talking about, in the pictures indicating 10 small side dishes above, are little pickles and salads that come with everything you order, and they tend to be unique to the individual restaurant, with some dishes that are mainstays. Kim chee being very common - the spicy, fermented cabbage in the bottom-most right picture - and other types of pickled vegetables including cucumber, bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, spinach and even okra. Some times there are soy beans and, alternatively, boiled peanuts. There's also a whipped potato salad in one of the little dishes.

She's more familiar with the big pancake than I am, but it's very easy to like. Just a simple batter encompassing vegetables and seafood, which is cooked in that large cast iron pan until crisp (presumably well-oiled, but the fat content balances out when weighed against all the veggies eaten) and cut into wedges while it's still sizzling. The mackerel is very simply char-grilled, giving a flavor that complements the fish very well. And then there's rice, but not much need to eat it, since there's so much other food to eat, so no need to have a heart attack over whether to use your spoon or chopsticks for the rice, or whether you can pick up the bowl. . .

I really like Korean food a lot, actually, but no need for me to take over her whole blog or anything. . . She'll be back momentarily.

[docsconz]

Between the Korean, Vietnamese and Thai places you have started out with a lot of Asian food. Is that a preference or a coincidence? Are Asian cuisines particularly prominent in and around Atlanta? I wish good examples werre more readily available where I live.

[TheFoodTutor]

Between the Korean, Vietnamese and Thai places you have started out with a lot of Asian food. Is that a preference or a coincidence? Are Asian cuisines particularly prominent in and around Atlanta? I wish good examples werre more readily available where I live.

<Hoping therese will forgive me for responding in her absence> The Asian food available here is quite amazing, and it's a wonderful part of living here. Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese (though some Chinese restaurants here have variable quality), Malaysian and Japanese readily available, and even some Indonesian occasionally. Large Asian populations are scattered in various areas, both ITP and OTP, interspersed with a variety of Hispanic populations from Mexico, Cuba, Peru, Venezuela. . . just about anywhere. And then there is a large pocket of Indian restaurants, a single Bangladeshi restaurant, plus many markets for ingredients to make these cuisines. Outwards from the city, there are more European markets catering to Russian ex-pats and other enclaves of Czechs, Slovaks, some Hungarians and Polish immigrants. . . Great Persian and other Middle Eastern foods. . .

So, basically, lots of really great options if you like variety in your food. High-end European a little harder to find, no foie gras stands on every corner or anything like that. And probably the hardest thing to come by is really good Southern food in the city. She can tell you about that more than I can, definitely, and there are a few places that are very popular and/or serve authentic Southern dishes.

But you can pretty much find just about anything here, and there's more than enough to eat. Provided that you can sit in traffic long enough to get there, which is why some of us live intown.

Oh, but there's plenty of mediocre pap available, too. The trick is weeding that out.

[therese]

Finally back on line. Very limited web access most of yesterday. I could get to servers that I knew to be local (work and a few other sites), but otherwise pretty much nothing.

Much thanks to FoodTutor for posting to the thread in my stead last PM, and on with the show...

Between the Korean, Vietnamese and Thai places you have started out with a lot of Asian food. Is that a preference or a coincidence? Are Asian cuisines particularly prominent in and around Atlanta? I wish good examples werre more readily available where I live.

Both. As FoodTutor notes, there's an enormous ethnic mix here, much of it first generation. It can be a bit intimidating if you're not of that ethnicity (English marginal, unfamiliar food items, etc.) but of course also very rewarding. We were the only non-Asian (and I'd guess only non-Korean, but I didn't go around and take a poll) guests at lunch on Saturday, ditto the Vietnamese bakery. The Thai place, on the other hand, is in my neighborhood, and the clientele mix there is much more varied, with lots of university students, faculty, etc.

We eat Asian pretty frequently because it's easy to get a great meal, it's inexpensive, and it's generally pretty healthy. I'm also specifically interested in exposing my kids to different sorts of foods, not just at restaurants but also at home. On a recent shopping trip to one of the really big pan-Asian/Hispanic markets here, Buford Highway Farmers Market, Boy wanted to know what sort of dish one would make with pork uteri (on display in shrink-wrapped foam trays in the meat section, right between pork testicles and pork tongues). I told him that I had no idea, but that it was probably pretty chewy.

[therese]

Lovely blog, Therese. For those of us not to familiar with Korean cuisine, perhaps you could describe the dishes you had and what they consist of?

Heh heh. I would if I could. The hae-mool pajun and the broiled macker are as FoodTutor described them.

The assorted side dishes are all brought to the table without being ordered, and it just depends on what that restaurant has available that day. Some dishes more hot and spicy, some dishes more sour, some dishes more starchy. I usually recognize the base ingredient, but apart from that I don't have any particularly expectations for any particular item. Sometimes I don't even recognize the base ingredient---I've no idea what the strips of pale tan vegetable were, for instance. Some sort of root vegetable is as close as I'm willing to guess.

[therese]

When our present house came on the market we both fell in love with it, but knew that we'd eventually have to do some remodeling, as the bathrooms were original and the kitchen was truly scary (more about that later).

So what was it, precisely, that made the original kitchen so scary?

I'd actually seen the kitchen at two different times, the first time in the early '90s, when the older couple who lived here for over 40 years (rearing six kids) put it on the market. This house is still known in the neighborhood as the "So and So House", and one of the original kids (who is now old enough to have grandkids of his own) lives a couple of blocks away and we see him and his family socially. Most of the other kids ended up in the area as well.

The kitchen had originally been built for servants to work in, and it was a small and dark space when I first saw it in the early '90s. Seems like the walls were institutional green back then. It was located on the very back of the house, but there was no view at all towards the back yard and the golf course. A deck had been added at some point, probably during the seventies.

The young couple that bought it that first time brightened things up by replacing the back wall with French doors (that opened out onto the deck) and painting everything cream. But the doors were single pane glass, and because the kitchen was located in a sort of shed annex it was very cold in the winter. Oh, and they didn't cook. At all. Lovely people, but they never cooked.

Specific issues with the kitchen when we bought the house:

1. Thoroughly worn out pale yellow flooring (over several other layers of thoroughly worn out flooring, fortunately no asbestos).

2. Thoroughly worn out pale yellow countertops.

3. Cabinets poorly constructed and poorly positioned. I can't even begin to describe how badly laid out it was. Take my word for it.

4. Refrigerator smaller than standard, with no freezer. Awkwardly positioned, door opened the wrong way. I'm pretty sure that, over time, this arrangement would eventually have driven me insane.

5. Electric range on which only the two back burners worked. Oven worked on "broil" setting only. Have you ever broiled Christmas cookies? We had an outdoor gas grill that I used almost every night, as otherwise we might have starved that first year.

6. Shallow double sinks, finish nearly worn through.

We hadn't yet figured out what to do with the rest of the house, but in the interest of my mental health we decided to do an emergency mini renovation after we'd been in the house about year.

We ripped up the floor (to reveal boards, which we painted dark green), painted the walls and hideous cabinets (which we didn't replace, figuring it would give us incentive to proceed with the final remodel down the road, which it did) white, replaced the counter top (there was only one, hah hah hah) with dark green laminate, replaced the sink, replaced the dishwasher and dispos-all, switched positions of the range and fridge and replaced them with a gas version of the former and larger version (with freezer, opening to the correct side) of the latter.

We added a small breakfast bar with stools and some shelves and a pot rack and in the end it was actually pretty cheerful and pretty efficient. But still too cold, and with such crappy storage that I refused to buy small kitchen appliances of any sort.

No digital pictures of either the scary version or the interim version of the kitchen, I'm afraid. I'll look around for one that I might be able to scan.

[therese]

So this blogging thing is both fun and educational. So far I’ve learned that if you commit yourself to a blog your internet service will go down. Boy howdy, am I ever testy.

Another thing I’ve learned is that if you try and take photographs of highly reflective surfaces while wearing your pajamas you will end up with a lot of photographs of yourself in pajamas.

So, on with the kitchen…

Having finally scraped together sufficient scratch to foot the bill for the remodel we started working with an architect whose work I’d seen in a couple of other houses in the neighborhood. She had great ideas, and was as interested in maintaining the period feel and architectural integrity of the house as we were. She was also cool about incorporating my ideas.

We took three bids from contractors, and ended up going with the lowest (by far) of the three. We’ve been happy with his work, happy with the fact that it was done on time, and happy with follow-up/touch up sorts of things that we’ve needed over the last year. Very detail-oriented, very concerned with getting trim “just so”, fine with working from non-detailed architectural plans (saving us the trouble and money of having the architect draw them up).

I hadn’t planned on using a decorator at first, but realized early on that every minute I spent agonizing over twenty bajillion different light fixtures was another minute I wasn’t agonizing about something important, like food. He ended up contributing more to the design of the house than I’d anticipated.

I didn’t end up working with a kitchen designer at all, in large part because I already had so much input from the rest of the team. I didn’t really need much in the way of ideas, as I’d been thinking about what I wanted in my kitchen for years, and the layout aspect of it was straightforward. Since I went with all custom cabinetry I could communicate directly with the cabinet maker and get exactly what I wanted---stock or semi-custom would have made this approach problematic, I think.