Varmint

Went to Nana's Chop House to celebrate my in-law's wedding anniversary. The space is open, with a great bar filled with lots of "pretty people" (including one blonde who had trouble keeping her endowments in her dress -- I'm serious, and Mrs. Varmint never noticed me staring over there). They had a nice jazz band playing with a strong vibraphonist. All of this is great, but it resulted in a noisy space becoming almost unbearable. This is the first time I've ever commented on a restaurant's choice of water glasses, but I love them. They're 20-24 ounce tumblers, and that size is fantastic for someone like me who drinks a ton of water at dinner. If you're not going to have someone constantly refilling glasses (which they did), then have bigger glasses! Oh, the food: we had an amuse of roasted beet salad with balsamico, EVOO, goat cheese and pistachio. Very simple, but good. I had an appetizer of seared scallops on potato, served with pickled okra and carrot. The scallops alone were ideal, but their sweetness didn't pair all that well with the pickled vegetables. Mrs. Varmint had an incredible gnocchi dish with butterbeans and a truffle sauce. I can only dream of making gnocchi that light! For my entree I had thyme-encrusted rack of lamb served with an aromatic and slightly acidic orzo dish, all with a foie gras sauce. This was the best lamb I have ever eaten, and the sauce just added to its unctuousness. The acidity in the orzo helped cut the richness of the dish -- beautiful! Mrs. Varmint had duck breast with spinach risotto, roasted vegetables, and a non-cloying blackberry sauce. Again, Chef Scott Howell showed off his talents of combining flavors that complement each other very, very well. For dessert I had an OK blackberry butter tart with mango gelato. It didn't dazzle me. Mrs. Varmint had some milk chocolate cake with a mocha ice cream that beat the pants off my choice. We drank a 2000 Avignonesi Montepulciano and a 2002 Giacosa Roero Arneis. The wine list is pretty decent, and their cellar is prominently displayed as you enter. Dinner for 8 people, including 6 bottles of wine, 4 beers, 3 dessert wines, and apps/entrees/desserts for all totalled $550 (including tax and tip, too). It was a good value, and I would gladly go again. Finally, I ran into Chrish Peel, owner of Enoteca Vin, on the way out -- I guess he was checking out the competiton!

Damn, Heather, I've always known how smart you were, but this puts you in Mensa territory!

This is the way I've always made my meatballs (that is, when I can use beef instead of turkey to please Mrs. Varmint): I go ahead and make the sauce. I then use ground round, egg, onion, bread crumbs, garlic, parsley, parmesan, and some of the pasta sauce. I don't fry the meatballs first, as we prefer to cook them in the sauce instead. This does result in some grease floating to the top of the sauce, but it adds more of a beefy flavor to it as well. These meatballs are tender and don't have that distinctive "pop" sound as you find when biting into a fried meatball. That's preferable to me.

Holly, I'll get you a dozen barbecue joints not far from I-40 well in advance of your trip to Oxford. Give me a few days.

First, I'm moving this thread to the Southeast Forum, because that's where it truly belongs. Second, and only slightly off topic, I'm wondering where much of the Southern cooking of my grandparents' generation came from? We're not talking soul food in the sense that has been discussed above, but more like the church covered dish type of cuisine. I need to check out my copy of John T. Edge's, A Gracious Plenty, as that book focuses on recipes from Southern church cookbooks. Anyhow, that type of Southern cuisine is fairly different from what is called soul food.

I'm handling the "Testosterone in the Kitchen" segment. Brooks will lecture on wearing the pants in the rest of the home, as Mrs. Varmint is the one who wields the chainsaw and nail gun in our abode.

Here's an older photo of that dumb ass tommy:

At Greek Islands... taramousalata (w/ bread) grilled octopus At Nuevo Leon... home-made corn and flour tortillas some sort of pork and (pinto?) bean amuse (I kid you not) guacamole queso panela (grilled plank of cheese covered in tomatoes and grilled veggies) queso and chorizo tacos de carne asada guisado de puerco some sort of lengua dish pollo en mole one other beef entree. and beer.

Dumb ass tommy. Are any of you going to let us in on what you actually ate?

What I didn't state clearly is you want to cook the pig over the coals, as the smoke created by the burning fat/etc. is as much a part of the taste as the wood smoke. Plus, mere smoking doesn't cook the exterior of the pig in the same fashion. As far as the tub is concerned, Mrs. Varmint doesn't eat pork, beef, or any other type of animal with fur. And she let me put the pig in the tub. What kind of man are you? By the way, expect your yard where you locate the cooker to get very, very messy.

Tommy's people don't let anyone take photos of tommy, if you know what I mean.

1. For hearty Chicago appetites, a 100 pound pig may not be enough, but it's what you have. Don't sweat it, but make sure you have enough sides. You won't be far off! 2. I can't give you an estimate of the amount of charcoal to use, as I use hardwood, but I'd guess you'd be fine with 80 pounds. Start a couple of bags in your cooker and have a separate grill to use as a firebox (a Weber kettle works great). You want to go very low heat starting out -- 200-230 degrees F for the first 4-6 hours, allowing the fat to slowly melt and drip onto the coals. Add a shovelful of coals to the cooker as needed, but don't let it get hot. And remember, this is barbecue, which means that it's a direct heat (albeit a cool direct heat). You want the fat and juices to drip onto the coals, and not just to smoke the pig. After you flip the pig onto its back, exposing the ribs, you can increase the heat a bit, but still try to keep it at 250F or so. It should take you about 8 -10 hours to cook the pig if you keep the temperature low. 3. If you have some firewood laying around, you can use that. If the wood is dry, you could soak it to get it to smoulder and smoke rather than burn. The choice of wood makes a small bit of difference to folks with refined barbecue palates , but oak, pecan, hickory, apple, maple, cherry or pear would all work fine. Stay away from mesquite -- it should never get close to pork. 4. When you flip the pig over, put a stick of butter on each shoulder/ham and work it around. After that's melted, you can baste it as you see fit, but don't expect it to have much effect on the overall flavor. 5. I brined my last pig for about 26 hours in a bathtub, and the results were extraordinary. Don't make the brine too salty, as you end up with salty barbecue! Instead of a cup of salt per gallon, make it about 2/3 a cup per gallon. A spice rub is fine, but don't go overboard. Let the taste of the pork shine through. That's the beauty of whole hog barbecue. Finally, once you've cleaned out the meat from the pig, get the grill good and hot. Put the skin back on the grill, with the outside of the skin faced down. Cook the skin until it's good and crunchy -- voila, pork brittle! It's divine. Good luck!

Please check out this post, as VaNC had a number of good recommendations. But I still think Port Land Grille is the way to go!

I'm working on a dinner at Vin for the eGullet crowd, but we do have some limitations. First, we'd need to do this on a Monday night in order to get the place to ourselves (unless we can get such a big crowd to justify closing it during the weekend -- good luck). Second, Chrish would provide us with some kick-ass Burgundies, which should make this good from the wine folks' perspective. Third, we'd need about 25 to 30 people to make this work. Finally, the cost would be steep, say, $70 a head (prepaid), but it'd be well worth it. If we were to do this, who'd be up for it? I'm thinking late Sept. to early October. For the out-of-towners, I could take you to an excellent barbecue lunch on Monday so you can get the best of both worlds. So, who's in?

Moon Pies are a staple in the Varmint household. We were going to deep fry some at the Pig Pickin', but we just never got around to it. I've thought of making some form of Moon Pie bread pudding before. It might be time to follow through on the idea.

Robyn- Brooks lives in Louisiana. Need I say more? They just do things differently there. Also, if you can do the work for less than a certain dollar amount, the local government doesn't get involved. Anyhow, this isn't even worth wasting our time on. Brooks comes from a family of lawyers and doctors, and some of them are even honest, too! So let's carry on.

I was actually served mead as sort of a surprise dessert "wine" at Gramercy Tavern several years ago. It was delightful, but I can't remember any other details (perhaps because of the 10 or 12 other wines I "sampled" that night).

By the way, the other point of Chrish's email is to promote Vin's current Brunello by the glass focus: I'm done shilling for CWC and Vin. At least for today!

I just received an email from Carolina Wine Company and Enoteca Vin owner, Chrish Peel (it's a mass mailing for CWC customers), but he included Don's review of Vin. Chrish's lead-in to the email was this: Followed by this: We're now trying to see if we can't arrange a special eGullet dinner at Vin. Stay tuned for details!

Your friendly eGullet lawyer chiming in here. Folks, we're working on some policies to address how members use eGullet to coordinate social events such as these, but I'd be derelict in my duties if I didn't inform each of you that eGullet and its management are in no way involved in the procurement of the van, driving it, or any other aspect of your transport to and from this event. This is solely the responsibility of the individuals participating in this discussion and those who choose to pay for and/or ride in this van, if so obtained. If you wish to continue this discussion, please understand that by doing so, you hereby release eGullet from any and all responsibilities related to your involvement with this event. Sorry to get technical with y'all here, but that's my job!

And this is a quiet weekend for the Hamakers! Strong, strong work, Brooks. Please tell us more about how the meat from the pig turned out, particularly the effect of the herbs in the brining process. We need to get Monsieur LSU some welders' gloves to pick at that pig. Damn, that looked like a mighty fine weekend.

Steven, I second Katie's nomination of the Frog Commissary carrot cake. I've made it at least a dozen times, and always -- ALWAYS, I SAID -- folks tell me it's the single best carrot cake. Trust us on this one.

Wouldn't cream soda with chocolate ice cream work well? It is chocolate and vanilla, you know.

Blenheim's red cap ginger ale with a lime/mint/rum sorbet. But adding sorbets is almost cheating. To make a true float, I think the frozen product must be frozed dairy concoction. Otherwise, it's just too easy.

OK, go here if you really want to put together 80s songs and food.