Smithy

Sorry for the confusion about permissions and access to the article. For those who are interested but can't access it, here's a brief summary: the Edna Lewis Menu Trail was organized by the Orange County (Virginia) Office of Tourism to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Edna Lewis Cookbook. The participating restaurants are all in the state of Virginia. The article discusses her widespread reach and influence in other areas, but this was cooked up (heh) to celebrate her roots. There are of course beautiful photographs of the dishes served by the participating restaurants. They all look like fine places to visit!

Elsie, did you ever report back on this particular Panetonne? If you did, I missed it. How were the strawberries and white chocolate with that?

I was on my own for dinner tonight; it's so windy and cool that I chose to stay in. My neighbors, hardier than I, ate outside but kept to themselves except for pleasant visits during the day. I had given him some of my homemade salsa yesterday, but have no idea whether they've opened and tried it yet. I dithered over how to cook the superburger I'd thawed, intending to cook it, two days ago. Finally I decided on Papa's pan in the oven, in hopes that the burger would cook nicely without spattering all over the kitchen. I still had to turn on the exhaust fan and ceiling fan, to keep the smoke / CO2 alarm from going off, but they shuffled enough air to calm the alarms quickly. This unglamorous shot shows the raw burger, on the left, and the finished burger, on the right. I flipped the pan once, over the sink, and didn't make too much of a mess. This even less glamorous shot shows dinner. A sublime salad and a ridiculous burger before I slathered it with mayonnaise. I really didn't want all the burger trimmings (bun, lettuce, tomato, pickle). A good food stylist would have, oh, put the burger atop the salad and drizzled the whole thing with some lovely sauce. I've looked around the Princessmobile. Can't find a food stylist anywhere! For the record, that method of cooking the burger in Papa's pan in the oven (at around 400, maybe 450F) worked pretty well. Not as well as over a campfire, but better than in a stovetop skillet.

If I read it aright, you just have to provide them with an email address. They'll start sending you email and of course you can cancel any time. I don't think it's an account where they charge you, as in a subscription. (I'm subscribed to their newsletters but not to the paper, either online or on paper.)

My San Diego friends introduced me to this crisp, minerally Sauvignon Blanc that they'd gotten at Costco. They bought several bottles on my behalf, and later I found the same wine at a Trader Joe's and stocked up again. I hope I'll be able to find it in Duluth.

@Maison Rustique, thanks for that! We've been to a HyVee or two in past years, I think in Iowa. I agree that they're wonderful stores. As for Asian stores near the metro Kansas City area: that sounds like fun, but I'd have to be a lot closer to the metro area and not pulling the Princessmobile. It's confession time: even though I made it into and out of the L.A. Basin with the Princessmobile, the idea of towing it through major metropolitan areas -- even on freeways -- still gives me the heebie-jeebies. There's a sweet spot for me that I'm still trying to learn to predict: which routes and times will have good roads but not too much traffic. The other day, on my way here, I took a series of county and state highways in order to avoid the Oklahoma City metro area. I got off onto the streets of a small town, thanks to conflicting GPS information and missing several turns. "Turn left on Main Street" and "Turn Right on Main Street" from 2 different voices is not something one wants to hear! My darling still could top it with one of his early trucking experiences in his 20's: somehow, he got going the wrong way on a one way street on Manhattan Island! Fortunately, it was the middle of the night. Fortunately, the police were helpful. Fortunately, the population of this country was less than half what it is now and traffic was never as heavy. But still...! It was quite the adventure, and he loved telling the story. It looks like a lot of people are clearing out today. I suppose, for those who don't have far to go, making a break for home would make sense. I think I'll have a spot of lunch: some of last night's ribs, I think. It's nice to have electricity so I can use the microwave oven.

<Cue Allan Sherman, singing "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah"> I decided to stay here in order to sit out, rather than drive through, expected rainy weather. Now that it's actually here, I'm wondering if I could have stayed ahead of it! But this is a nice place, and the die is cast, so I'll just plan on rainy-day activities. I'm glad I did my running around before the rain hit. I've never seen the campground this full, but my darling and I never were here -- or any other developed campground -- on a holiday weekend. Yesterday and the day before, it was lush, green and mostly sunny. The green spaces have been filled with people playing: disk golf, baseball or other forms of catch, volleyball (one man holding a toddler in one arm and making excellent hits with the other!) and other activities. Kids learning to bicycle or ride on scooters. Folks out on the lake, fishing or simply paddling and enjoying the sunshine. Folks fishing from the shore. Some sites have elaborate cooking setups. Some spaces have 3 trailers set up, with long picnic tables and multiple gas griddles. The cooking smells have been wonderful. I, having planned to only be here a couple of days, didn't bother pulling out the camp stove. I planned to use the campfire setup instead. And on 2 nights I've gotten a fire going, with one of my darling's superburgers thawed, only to have my kind neighbor come across the way with surplus food from their dinner! The first night it was breaded and fried catfish and hush puppies, with a nonsweet tartar sauce. Delicious. He showed me a picture of the catfish he catches and keeps. I think he said it's yellow catfish, as opposed to the channel catfish. He showed me a picture. Those things are huge! 30 pounds is a small one. He likes to go out and fish in the local streams after the rains, because the rain washes nutrients into the streams and the "cats" swim upstream to feed, then are stopped by the dams. I learned a bit about catfish from my neighbor, and why they may or may not be good eating. @Shelby often showcases fried catfish and makes it look good. The first time I ate catfish it was at a restaurant, and it was the last time I tried it for years. Nasty, muddy flavor. Tasted like a muddy bottom feeder and I couldn't see the attraction. Eventually I tried it again and found it wasn't necessarily bad. According to my neighbor, one has to clean the catfish carefully and remove not only the interrnal organs but also the dark meat surrounding the body cavity; that dark meat contains fats that will cause an off-flavor to the cooking oil. He says he still gets about 20 pounds of meat from a 40-pound catfish. Yesterday I built a fire again, had it going, and my neighbor came over with more food! He'd cooked an entire rack of ribs, and beans, and a potato dish, and it was just him and his wife. (Their kids had already gone home.) Again, delicious. He came over after I'd finished eating, while his wife was off at the shower, and we shared some wine and conversation. Maybe I'll get to that burger tonight, but it will have to be inside cooking I'm sure. Only one party was disappointed by yesterday's dinner.

Yes. Sooner or later, PJ will need to go out although he seems to have an iron bladder. When he goes out, so will I...that's part of the deal...and then I'll have to deal with a wet dog when we get back! Still, it's just rain here. There was thunder and lightning in the wee hours, but not right now.

There are some wonderful photos in there, and the labels / stories accompanying them are fun to read. Thanks for posting the article link.

I'm pinned down by rain today near Lyndon, Kansas; and weather permitting will be leaving tomorrow, so the market may have to wait. But what and where is it? I'm hoping to come back through here again! (It's very loud right now, but I bet it's even louder in Wichita, to my south!)

Here's a nice Washington Post article about a commemorative restaurant "trail" set up to honor Edna Lewis via food and cultural discussions. It's set to close this weekend, although the restaurants themselves are alive and well. I suspect they'll continue to reflect things they learned during this 2+ year tourism event. It sounds as though it would have been interesting and delicious. Has any of you been to these restaurants? The article should be unlocked. On the Edna Lewis Trail

@liuzhou's link works for me.

Yesterday morning, when I'd decided to stick around here, I thought to myself "Self, there are still 1-1/3 dozen eggs in the refrigerator. Time to do something with them." You see, I'd come from home with a dozen eggs...maybe more, I don't remember...and then not used as many as I'd anticipated. When my sister came to visit, we didn't get around to eating eggs either. @rotuts' comment about lavash making a good wrap has stuck with me. Somewhere since then, I'd seen a great-looking recipe online for spinach, feta and egg breakfast wraps. I couldn't find that recipe. What the heck. I decided to wing it. I got out 4 eggs, thereby emptying the 1/3 dozen from home, and whipped them up with a bit of half-and-half. I realized I had no spinach, but I did have broccoli florets. I chopped them finely. I pulled out some of that great Trader Joe's sundried tomatoes in olive oil and chopped them finely. The oil from the tomatoes would supplement the butter I planned to use for cooking. I looked around for an appropriate cheese to add. Hmm, here's a luxury cheese from home. Impulse buy. Never fished out of the cheese basket. Maybe it was time to try it? Nope. Hard as a rock. Really. For shame! I'll have to consult the "What to do with very hard cheese" topic for ideas. Better still, maybe someone reading this will chime in with ideas! Okay, how about this Cotija? Yep. Very nice. I probably could have crumbled it, but chopping was quicker. Okay, all set to go except for the pan. I was working inside. Note to self: pack a smaller skillet or two into this Princessmobile! I left all the nonstick pans behind, except for the large ones. I was a bit leery of using my cast iron skillet, even though it's well seasoned. The nonstick wok would have to do. It actually wasn't bad for this purpose, just bigger than necessary with the water-use excess that implies for cleanup afterward. I learned anew that I still don't have the hang of putting together wraps that will hold together. It's as difficult for me with lavash as with a tortilla! I made two wraps and gave them a bit of a sear in the skillet. That may have helped stiffen them, and definitely helped clean up stray oil in the pan. Breakfast yesterday was messy but good. The original article -- where the heck was that thing? -- had suggested these wraps as grab-and-go ideas, and I thought that sounded appealing for the rest of my road trip. The second wrap went into the refrigerator until today. Still messy, still good after I'd reheated it. I don't like cold eggs except the occasional hard-boiled egg, usually in something. This was no exception. It was even better with salsa. Definitely not a candidate for road food, though. After all that was done, I stumbled over the original inspiration: a NYT recipe I'd filed away a couple of days ago! Here it is, in case you're interested. It called for baking a frittata in the oven, then cutting it into squares and wrapping it. I was way off base on my recollection, but I'm pretty happy with the overall results. Except for my wrapping skills. (Incidentally, I've begun a running list of things to pack next time that I wish I'd brought, like a small nonstick skillet or two. There are a few things I'll be able to leave behind as well, but not many.)

@Ann_T: what a shame about the restaurant! I wanted to "react" with a sad face, until I read about and saw your breakfast. The story has a happy ending! 🙂

So, it looks like I have another grocery store tour for you! I drove to town to get a prescription refilled, refuel the pickup, and make sure my 4-footed family has enough food to get home. I discovered a wonderful grocery store called Cosentino's Price Chopper. They have a gorgeous produce section: ...and although I didn't need much, I had wanted spinach for a project I'll show you later. Their deli counter has a wonderful mural. If you didn't want to cook, or were pressed for time, you had plenty of options. And look at these sweet treats! I'm not sure I've ever seen cannoli in the wild before. These were gorgeous and tempting, though I didn't buy. There were some really good bargains on pork roasts. I thought of my darling, and how we'd probably have bought one or two of these if he were still around. In another area, they had seafood and specials ready to grill. I certainly didn't need anything. But I'm camped! And I have a fire pit! I bought a pound of shrimp. Frozen, peeled, deveined, good price. And baby "power greens" rather than just spinach. They'll do as well for what I need.

<Cue The Clash: Should I Stay or Should I Go?> In 3 days' travel I went from the windy desert of Arizona, through the high plateaus of New Mexico and the lower-elevation heat of Texas and Oklahoma, to mid-Kansas. A little over 1000 miles. I arrived at one of our old favorite camping spots: a campground developed by the US Army Corps of Engineers. If you look at the sky above the trees, you can see why I wondered whether to stay or go on today. If I had chosen to continue driving at roughly the same pace I had been, I might have stayed ahead of the predicted bad weather. Then again, maybe not. And this is a nice place. And I've put on 1000 miles (or so) in 3 days. So I'm staying. The travel nights gave me a lot of variety: 2 truck stops, before arriving at this campground. Truck stops are good if you can sleep through the noise. My rig is smaller than the trucks but may have unexpected protrusions, hence the traffic cones. So far, no problems. I hope that continues. I haven't, however, been inclined to cook or eat much. There's been lots of road food in the form of chopped vegetables, or sandwiches. I finally figured out that hoarding the last of my wonderful sandwiches from Wolfe's wasn't a good idea. Even that wonderful bread had its limits. So I ate half of it dried out, and grilled the other half in oil one night. I don't seem to have taken pictures. The night I arrived here, I began with a simple green salad, using some fine salad dressing I'd picked up at Wolfe's in Claremont. While I was eating the salad, I also was reheating some of the chicken and rice from when my sister visited. As it turns out, the residual salad dressing after I'd finished the greens went very well with that dish! I would be remiss if I didn't give some love to Subway. I know Subway is disliked in some quarters, but yesterday morning I picked up a foot-long special "not here long" sandwich that I wish I could remember. Rotisserie chicken, spicy ranch dressing. Probably jalapenos, onions and red bell peppers. I certainly asked for lettuce, tomato, spinach and pickles but left the rest as they suggested. It was quite good, and saw me through the day until I arrived and set up... ...and ate my chicken, rice and vegetables, and pondered whether to stay or go on the morrow. So far, I'm glad I've stayed.

What do you especially like about it? The cleanup, or does it make a flavor / texture difference?

Do you have your back issues, or did this pop up somewhere on a news feed?

The northern Visitor's Center has a full-blown grill and spacious cafe. This is what had caught my eye: Fry Bread! I've always wanted to try it, and never had the chance. I thought about just buying a piece of fry bread alone and bringing it back to the trailer, since I'm leery of other people's chili. I'm glad I didn't go that route. I ordered the Baby Navajo Taco. It turns out the fry bread is deep fried in canola oil. It was light, puffy, delicate and delicious: too soft to be able to pick up easily, so I resorted to flatware for it. The entire assembly was lacking...something...probably at least in part because the tomatoes were insipid. But the chili was pretty good, and I'm glad I had a chance to try the bread as it's meant to be eaten (hot and fresh). The bread was delicious. The cook told me that it's simply made from flour and water. That was a surprise, but I remember the bread that our Bedouin guide made under hot coals, buried in sand. I watched him make it by pouring a bit of water into his flour sack and kneading the resulting knot until it could be formed into a dough. It was also delicious. My darling thought that it had to have leavening of some sort, but I'm not convinced. We'll never know now. And...and there's a gift shop in that building. Now really...did you think I could get away from there without buying a cookbook? Actually, I'd thought I might...but no. The ideas look too good. And it's for a good cause or three.

I'm glad I stayed another day. If anything, the wind is stiffer now than it was, and it was a crosswind for my return trip to the Petrified Forest National Park. I hadn't been able to see the Museum or Visitor's Center at the northern end of the park, so today was a good day day to visit them. The Painted Desert Inn is now registered as a historical landmark. It was built in the 1930's and is a beautiful example of Southwestern Desert architecture of the time. It was originally built as a good stopping place for travelers, and has the old Fred Harvey restaurant and soda fountain to prove it. I don't know if I still have the cookbook, but the Harvey House Cookbook is entertaining to read, and to learn about the history of the Fred Harvey company. If the books are to believed, the "Harvey Girls" were a considerable influence on civilizing the American Southwest as the railroads worked their ways in. In addition to the discussion of the Inn and its Route 66 connection, there's a lot of space devoted to Native American crafts of the area. I was greeted in the first room by a gentleman who was busily threading beads to make jewelry. One table was filled with it. Gorgeous stuff. He said he'd been learning since he was a little boy, taught by his uncles. (Incidentally, I asked his permission before photographing him or his work.) When I asked about whether he just dreams up this stuff or works from patterns, he said he just starts working on whatever idea seems cool at the time. He also said he sometimes suffers from "writer's block". It never occured to me that a craftsman might suffer the same blank mind as a writer. There were also beautiful Navajo rugs of various sizes. He said his grandmother weaves them. I admired them, moved on in to the rest of the museum, and spotted this display. "Feel the raw wool!" Something I could touch! On my way back out I stopped to admire and touch the rugs on the table next to the jewelry. The blue rug has more turquoise tones than this picture shows. I fell in love with it. Finally I asked him, "If I were to buy this rug, how much mortgage would I have to take out on my house?" He laughed, said most people don't even ask (they just buy the rugs) and then said that particular rug is $4500. I'm not surprised. The workmanship is beautiful. The feel is beautiful. I'm glad they have customers who can appreciate and afford their work, and I said so. He appreciated that. He also said he'd never heard the "how much?" question put the way I just had. We smiled, bid each other good wishes, and I left. There is a soda fountain in that building, but I wanted something more substantial so I backtracked to the Visitor's Center for lunch.

What fun! I'm sure y'all had even more fun, being there together, but I've thoroughly enjoyed this trip report. Thank you for bringing us along!

My darling and I always found ourselves sitting somewhere for a day or two while weather cleared ahead of us. For some silly reason, I thought May would be different than Aprils past! 😄 And today, right now and here where I'm camped, it's utterly still, sunny and beautiful. (It was cool last night, though, to the point that the furnace ran a few times.) The forecast is for heavy wind again today, and it's already quite windy ahead of me. So I'll use this day to go see the museums and visitor center I missed a couple of days ago, and get myself ready to leave in the morning. No photo, but I just slugged down a large spoonful of yogurt with chopped nuts atop it. Maybe I'll eat a banana, maybe not. It's surprising to me how filling yogurt and nuts can be.

Once again, I find myself sitting and waiting for weather to clear ahead of me. No way am I going through this: When I pulled into this campground on Friday I'd originally thought just to spend one night. But I also wanted to see some of the Petrified Forest National Park, and I arrived here too late on Friday to do that. So I opted for 2 days. Then I looked at the wind ("breezy" as in gusting to around 40 mph) for the next several days and several hundred miles, and prolonged my stay even more. The wind is supposed to be a tailwind and could give me a good mileage push, but it still seems a bit dicey for my experience level. And there have been tornadoes just east of my proposed path home. And I don't want to drive through thunderstorms if I can help it! So here I sit, comfortably plugged into electricity and using the campground's water and sewer, and glad not to have pressing appointments at home. It's a busy campground, but I'm parked at the periphery next to an open field where the dog and I can run (him) or stroll (me). Near the entrance it's a different story. They have a nice little green space with picnic tables and a cooking shack. Here's their menu: I had to ask about "Petrified Toast" and was advised that it's basically a garlic bread toast. This area, close to the Petrified Forest, celebrates that connection. There are a few petrified logs here, and many in town. These are a fairly typical example of what I had thought petrified logs looked like. I got an eye-opener yesterday! But back to the campground and its cooking facilities. There's a group cooking shack that looks like a great place to throw a party. There are barbecue grills on pedestals close to where I'm parked. When I wrote about grilling the chicken I had one of them in mind. But it was already windy, and it's only gotten more so. The oven is safer and more convenient. Yesterday I packed a lunch and launched off to tour the park. It WAS windy...enough that any nincompoop standing atop a roof would have been blown off. I held a tight grip on my cell phone at some of the vista points. They overlook deep canyons, with pictographs below and telescopes for better viewing. I wonder how many hats have inadvertently been lost over the edges? (That's a petrified log at the bottom of the collage above. What's left of the root ball is nearly as tall as I am.) What I never knew about petrified wood before yesterday is that it can be spectacularly colorful. The colors come from the mineral impurities present in the sediments and waters that covered the logs during the Triassic period, when they were submerged and gradually mineralized. Note that tree rings and knots are still visible. I don't seem to have gotten any of the blue or green colors but they were there also. Jim Gray's Petrified Wood Company is a fun shop outside the park where you can see even more fine specimens, polished and cut and most for sale. Sorry, he doesn't seem to have a web site but you can Google the place and see some photos and reviews from others. They don't just have the rocks. They also have fossils, jewelry, Route 66 memorabilia, hats, and anything else you can think of designed to separate you from your money. I'd love to have one of their tables, but of course have no place to put it! I took a break and ate part of my sandwich. You've seen my sandwiches...loads of layers, pretty good. I'm still saving the last sandwich from Wolfe's for road food although I may need to reconsider that if I stay here much longer. When I got home, I reheated the last of the ribs and potatoes from my celebratory dinner with my sister. And I STILL didn't finish it all! I ate about half of that rib. The rest was today's late afternoon lunch. I won't need much dinner. (I just finished chatting with a couple who came this way from New York, on a 9-day trip. They were fighting that wind I mentioned, going into it. And they just missed a tornado in Kansas City a day or two ago, by an hour! I'm glad I'm staying put.)

In truth, my experimentation has been rather pedestrian. I have a nice sampler set of peppercorns, courtesy of a suggestion from @andiesenji years ago, that I've used a bit. (In case anyone's interested, it's this set by The Pepper Trade (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)). I find that I especially like mixtures of black, white and green peppercorns, freshly ground. Telicherry peppers are nice. Brazilian pink peppers are nice, in small quantities. But the biggest discovery for me was learning that freshly ground black pepper is nothing at all like the years-old, long-gone-stale, heavily used ground pepper in a can that my dear departed grandmother used on everything. 🙂 I still prefer white pepper, but fresh black pepper vs. stale black pepper was a revelation.

I am continually amazed at the talent, skill, artistry and no doubt patience that goes into those edible artworks! What are these colored handle-y things? Sponges for daubing color? Dipping sticks? Some fun form of lollipop? Something I haven't thought of?