BrentKulman

Over the years, I have noted three major styles of pizza: New York style thin crust Sicilian style thick crust Chicago style deep dish I'm not sure where to categorize the Dominos/Papa John's/Pizza Hut varient which is a thicker crust and, to my palate a poor facsimile of the real thing. In any case, I have not spent a lot of time exploring this topic in great depth, but I suspect that you might be able to categorize the styles (and their sub-varients) more effectively. So how do you divide up the world of American pizza? What are the major styles and who are the top practitioners of each style?

That's awesome news. Charlotte has been lacking a top flight local java joint since David Brinkley's son/son-in-law (?) left town a few years ago. I was beginning to think that the caffeine counter-culture would be permanently Stariboued into submission in this buttoned-down corporate town.

I have been a long time fan of yours dating back to around the time you published The German Cookbook, so I am very happy to have the chance to have a virtual conversation with you. I'm quite curious about your view on the state of German cuisine in the United States. My experience dates from the Yorkville scene in the 1960s, where there were a number of great German restaurants. Now, you can barely tell that there once was a thriving German community in that area and the remaining German restaurant, I have read, is not much more than a tourist stop. Elsewhere, around the country, most German restaurants that I have visited appear formulaic and uninspired. While my experience is clearly limited and probably uninformed, I am curious as to your perspective on German cuisine in this country, particularly as in the restaurant trade. Having travelled to Germany earlier this past year, I experienced a number of excellent dishes that I have never seen over here. I was particularly impressed by schweinhaxen, which in our BBQ-crazed country, ought to be a very popular dish over here. I am also a big fan of blood sausage, which is another dish that I never see on restaurant menus. Looking forward to your comments.

Chef Shogun - I think you will find that Post Road may be very different from the others. I just tried it last night at a beer tasting and had a discussion about it with the brewery representative. I noted that their Pumpkin Ale did not have the "pumpkin pie spice" characteristics of other Pumpkin Ales that I have tried. He said that they use real pumpkin in the process while the other breweries use a syrup. He also noted that this was a deliberate attempt to recreate a colonial recipe rather than to brew to a holiday seasonal style.

You might be interested to know that the owners of Ben Thanh come from the same family as the owners of the place on Shamrock (Lang Van).

Those of us in the southeast can enjoy the top rated Pumpkin Ale, according to the vote tally at beeradvocate.com, Cottonwood Pumpkin Spiced Ale, which is brewed in Mooresville, NC (just north of Charlotte). Among the pumpkin ales receiving over 25 votes, here is the ranking: Cottonwood Dogfish Head Smuttynose Post Road New Holland Buffalo Bill's Blue Moon (Coors) Shipyard

I went to Blue Mist several years ago and had the same experience. My most vivid memory was watching the flies climb up the windowsill while I was eating my food. I also seem to recall they were out of chopped and I had to have the Q sliced, or maybe it was the other way around. The odd thing about the place is that if you go around the back, you will see their detached smokehouse and can watch the pitmaster stoke the wood fire. I've never been back but always thought I might give any log burner a second chance. Sorry to read your disappointing report.

Coca Cola??? Funny, I always thought it was Co Cola. Who knew?

Raspberry newtons....yum!

You may be thinking of Kudzu on Broad which, sadly, burned down a few months ago.

In fact, I'll be at Lexington #1 tomorrow for dinner after a trip to Winston-Salem. Haven't been there in a while, so I'm looking forward to packing the cooler with some take out. My freezer supply of from various BBQ joints around the state is running low!

Carpe Diem is wonderful - thanks for tossing that name into the ring. Pewter Rose is also very good, but wouldn't make my top tier. I've only been to Ethan's once, and was disappointed in the service, although the food was fine. Too bad, as I know people who swear by that place. I'm curious about Dakota's. Some people that are really into restaurants recommended it about five years ago and then a year later they had struck it off the list. So even though it is only ten minutes from my home, I have never been. I'd love to hear more about it.

Far too much is made, in my mind, about the difference between eastern and Lexington style sauces. The amount of ketchup used in most Lexington style places is so miniscule that you would have a hard time identifying it as an ingredient. Both sauces should have a consistency that is not much thicker than vinegar. Lexington sauce will have a little more body, but not much. I agree that you should keep the sugar to a minimum. Both sauces should be so vinegary that you wouldn't want to taste them on their own, and that is the principal difference compared to what your guests will be expecting. These Carolina sauces are just used to moisten the pig and bring out its natural flavor. When you start adding a bunch of ketchup and sugar, you will bring attention to the sauce and that is not the point. When you think of it this way, there really isn't a "wimp" factor in choosing Lexington vs. eastern, because you just sprinkle a bit of sauce on the meat. You don't coat it like a sundae or dress it like a salad. If you've ever had collards or turnip greens and sprinkled them with pepper sauce (basically vinegar in which whole peppers are floated), that's the idea. In fact, you need to get you a mess of collards to cook up for this pig pickin'. Remember to cook them twice.

I think your sauces sound fine. To be truly authentic, however, since you are doing the whole pig you ought to consider an eastern NC BBQ sauce. (In Lexington, they only cook the shoulder; in the eastern part of the state, they cook the whole hog.)

Get in your car and head northeast from the University area to Lexington for BBQ. Don't even bother looking for good Q in Charlotte because it's not to be found. Be forewarned, however, Lexington-style Q is not what your girlfriend is used to getting in Memphis. The sauce, in particular, is very different and is just used to moisten the meat. What you get in Lexington is a smoked shoulder and it will either be chopped very fine or sliced, which sometimes means pulled and sometimes means sliced. The slaw will be red as it is mixed with Lexington-style BBQ sauce. If you like burnt ends, make sure you ask for the "outside brown" meat. Here is a website that provides is a good guide to the places in the area: The Lexington Collection With respect to northern Italian, I'll stand by my earlier recommendation of Salute on Providence Road.

I'm no expert on liverwurst or braunschweiger either, for that matter, as I really don't care for the stuff I do have a question, as there are some liver products that I do like. One of them is called liverwurst, coincidentally, and is found in German butcher shops. It looks like a kielbasa, only has the typical grey-brown liver color. You cook it by placing it in water that has just reached the boiling point and then taking the pot off the stove and letting it sit, covered, for about 20 minutes. Then you slit open the skin, remove and eat the contents, which are like a coarse pudding in consistency, and throw away the skin. It's very similar to blood sausage, if any of you are familiar with that. Does anyone know more about this kind of liverwurst and why the term liverwurst refers to so many different kinds of products in this country? (If you look over the websites of several of the midwestern German butchers you will see what I mean by the variety of items that are called liverwurst and liver sausage.)

I'm going to nominate this for the best thread ever on eGullet award. If there is an eSaver fare from Charlotte next weekend, I might just have to crash your party to provide an official North Carolina sanctioning for the event.

I am interested to hear how the pig hock is prepared. When I was in Munich earlier this year, I discovered Schweinhaxen, which is fresh pig hocks cooked on a rotisserie grill until the meat is fall off the bone tender and the skin is crispy. With all the barbeque fanatics in this country, I was amazed that this dish is not more popular over here. Most of the pork hocks over here are sold, pre-smoked, in stores as ham hocks. They are very salty and are used, here in the south, to flavor green vegetables. Most German restaurants, at least in this area, if they list Schweinhaxen on their menu at all, serve it braised, which is hardly worth the effort to cook or eat, in my opinion. Perhaps the problem is that it takes a special rotisserie grill to serve Schweinhaxen in quantity, but I'm not sure. In any event, looking forward to your report.

Calm down, calm down. He mentions the pushcarts and the delis, doesn't he.

Despite our disagreement on BBQ (one of the favorite pastimes of a certain class of NC residents), I'm happy to agree with you on the recommendations of both Barrington's and Arpa. I'm also a big fan of Sonoma Bistro, another downtown (uptown ) spot. Another great new place is Salute, an Italian restaurant which uses organic ingredients wherever possible.

Sorry, but I have to differ with you. Neither Spoon's nor Bubba's is a log burner, which is a pre-requisite for making great BBQ. As a result, both of them produce a fairly bland facsimile of true NC BBQ. Unfortunately, Charlotte's BBQ scene is truly lacking. The best BBQ in the area can be found from the roving BBQ buses (Red's is one) that park in different locations around town each day. I have also heard good things about Gone Hog Wild and Harper's (which apparently contracts with a farmer in rural NC to smoke their BBQ), but I cannot provide a first hand report on either.

I believe that Bonterra was written up in a recent edition of Bon Appetit as one of the top places in the US for a splurge meal. I recently posted about Bonterra's chef, Blake Hartwick, at the end of the thread below: Recipes from Bonterra Here is some more about Hartwick: Food around Carolina on Bonterra's Blake Hartwick

I presume you meant egg whites. I have often frozen egg whites without adding sugar or salt first and have never had a problem - other than defrosting them in the microwave which I don't recommend. Why do you add salt or sugar?

Frankly, I think that the Long Island whites are better than their reds, but I'm not a Merlot drinker. I'm in the "anything but Merlot" red wine camp so I'm not the best person to evaluate whether Long Island has become or should be synonymous with Merlot. From my personal bias, while Merlot may have mass appeal, it's not the grape I would choose to define a region. With apologies to those of you who love Merlot, it's like selecting to be the "iceberg lettuce" or "red delicious apple" capital of the world.

I'm interested, depending on the date and my schedule, as my wife and I would have to drive from Charlotte.