debbiemoose

I, too, enjoyed "The Language of Baklava," a really warm and delightful book. I just got "Matzoh Ball Gumbo," a nonfiction book about Jewish food and cooking in the South and how, when Jews moved South, they had to reinvent many Jewish food traditions (ever heard of kosher BBQ in Memphis?). The book is nominated for a Beard. Darn. Forgot to get Kurlansky's oyster book for the beach trip tomorrow. Off to the bookstore...

I grew up in Winston-Salem, although I haven't been there to eat in quite a few years (and when I did, it was on visits to the parents, who would only eat at chains). But my impressions is, it's never been a big restaurant hot-spot. This may sound crazy, but my favorite stop for lunch, if I have time, is the Salem Tavern in Old Salem. Great Moravian Chicken Pie (no vegs in it), yummy pumpkin muffins. And it makes a nice trip break to stroll through the restored settlement, which I have always enjoyed. I think they're open for dinner as well and it's casual.

Oh, yeah - meringues! For some reason, I was thinking they had flour in them, but it's just egg whites. I have a very old recipe I cut out from somewhere long ago, for fried chicken using matzo meal, cinnamon and lemon that's great. If anyone wants it, I can dig it out. But I honestly can't remember where it came from.

My husband is Jewish; I'm not. His family has never kept kosher, until his sister married someone a bit more serious whose children have gotten more into it. My husband is always in charge of the dessert: the Chocolate Oblivion Truffle Torte from "The Cake Bible," which contains no flour, just eggs, butter and chocolate. The kids (now in college) will delay eating it because of the meat-milk thing, but they always want a piece held by for them. There will be 15 people this year, and I'm thinking we may need another dessert, although that cake's so rich you just need a small piece (my husband won't have time to make two cakes). I may try those Passover Chocolate Chip Cookies I found on the other thread. Or fruit sorbet sounds good, too. After 24 years, I've gotten used to everything on the table, except...that gefilte fish... BTW, my husband has used Callebaut chocolate in the past for the cake but is considering trying Scharffen Berger or Valhrona this year. Oh, one funny Seder story - one year, when we opened the door for Elijah, the neighbor's cat walked in.

Well, I fear I did not do Miss Lewis justice in my efforts with her Famous Coconut Lane Cake, but it was not for lack of effort - perhaps lack of ability, since I don't bake very often. But as a friend who tasted it said, anything with 1/2 cup of bourbon in the frosting can't be all bad! Despite containing 2 sticks of butter, the 3 layers were amazingly light and fluffy from the 8 beaten egg whites. My layers were lopsided, but that happens every time...that's why frosting was invented. The frosting reminded me more of what goes on a german chocolate cake in texture - very chunky with chopped pecans, chopped raisins and the coconut. I chopped the raisins (golden) and pecans in the food processor. I could not find unsweetened coconut, so used the frozen sweetened (thawed; I'm not THAT dumb). I tasted it, and it wasn't sweet, so I didn't change the 1 1 /2 cups sugar in the frosting. The recipe said to cook 12 large egg yolks, sugar and 1 1/2 sticks melted butter until it coated the back of a spoon. This may have been my problem. I thought it was coating, maybe it wasn't. Like I said, baking involves too much direction-following for my taste so I don't do it much. But I do love a coconut cake and wanted to try this. After adding the raisins, pecans and coconut, I let it cook a little longer than the 1 minute specified just in case the coconut was still cool. The result, even after cooling to room temp, was not real thick. There was no way it would stick to the sides of the cake (as in the photo at the Oprah web site where I got the recipe). So I just heavily coated between the layers and the top. Interestingly, even after the remainder was in the refrigerator overnight, it was still runny. User error, obviously, as they say. The result was a decadently rich flavor, if not the most attractive cake, with a big whack of bourbon. A neighbor came over to watch the Oscars and snarfed it up; the remainder I sent to work with my husband yesterday and he said there was about 1 little piece left at the end of the day (and there are only 10 people in his office, including a diabetic who shouldn't have been within a mile of this thing). The result: I am, once again, in awe of the skill and art of bakers, who must have a completely different mind than mine. And in awe of someone like Miss Lewis, who could cook everything well. I took photos but I can't seem to figure out how to get them out of iPhoto into this...will keep trying.

Hey, get a scanner and scan those recipes into your computer, throw out the paper! I'm in the Saveur-Gourmet camp, too. I dropped my Cooks Illustrated subscription but am thinking about renewing.

Well, maybe with a version closer to downtown, I'll give it another try. My last experience there (which, judging from what Varmint has written in the past, makes me wonder if I hit some disaster night) was not worth driving back out to North Raleigh.

I'm looking with lust at either the apple cake or coconut cake.

I am a novice at cocktail creation, so if this has already been posted, my apologies. And I didn't exactly come up with this. As part of an article I was writing on infusions, I talked with a restaurant bartender who infused gold rum with cinnamon, black peppercorns, vanilla bean and Thai chilis, then mixed the result with pear nectar. I did the infusion at home - for a fifth of gold rum, I used 1/2 vanilla bean, 2 cinnamon sticks (broken up) and about 3 or 4 peppercorns (whole, not crushed). I left out the chilies, because I didn't have them. Took a good 3 weeks to get a good flavor, and it's just gotten better as it has sat. Shake the pear nectar with ice. You might have to strain the rum as you use it if you shake up the debris at the bottom too much. I used the Looza pear nectar from the supermarket. Any advice for bar tinkerers? I want to come up with a great bloody mary. I plan to try the horseradish infused vodka mentioned earlier. But I'm not crazy about most tomato juices/mixers. Could I puree fresh tomatoes? I had a wasabi bloody mary that was awesome and the tomato juice base definitely was not a mixer - tasted very fresh. How about coating the rims of the glasses with something, like celery salt?

Boy, are you the cool-snack mom! All I had growing up was Little Debbie snack cakes.

The Siena's restaurant is quite good. Just down the road is Weathervane, the restaurant at A Southern Season. It's at University Mall - walkable, if it's not too cold. (Heck, what am I saying - y'all are from Vancouver!) I ate at Jujube for the first time Saturday and we enjoyed it, but I wonder if they'd have a hard time handling 12 people in a group. I would also veto 411 for the same reasons as Varmint. Carolina Crossroads is the restaurant at the Carolina Inn, and is good as well. It would be probably the most quiet environment of the restaurants mentioned so far. It borders the UNC campus, so if it's a nice evening, you could stroll through. Luckily for you, no basketball game that night, but there is one on Saturday Feb. 4 (UNC vs. Clemson).

I've not bought seafood there, but a food-loving friend of mine regularly gets fish there and is quite pleased with it. I believe Grand Asia makes tofu and soy milk as well. I'm not a big tofu fan, but I've been told fresh tofu is a whole 'nother animal and I should try it. I love going in that store and just wandering around. One day, they had the in-store radio tuned to a country station - what a hoot.

My grandmother, who made everything from scratch, used canned biscuits for dumplings, too. Since she was so particular, I can only assume that was the best approach. She left no recipe behind for anything she cooked - go get those recipes from mamas and grandmas NOW!

I can tell that demographic shift just in watching the shows. Commercial TV is first and foremost entertainment. Not being a 15-35 YO male, little on the channel appeals to me now. I guess my hope is that watching it may light some spark for cooking in young people, who will then go to people like Sara for real information. Thanks for being here, Sara. BTW, I know and have done some work for your friend Jean Anderson here in North Carolina. Debbie

What about brunswick stew? Isn't that a traditional Appalachian/mountain food? You can go with or without the squirrel. Ronni Lundy's cookbooks are good sources for Appalachian recipes. I know you'll do it up, Thomas! Or you could do an all-sugar theme: sugar snap peas, sugar-cured ham, Moravian sugar cake, beets (sugar is made from them)...

There is an unfortunate law in NC, enacted after the Jack in the Box e.coli problems, that a restaurant must cook burgers all the way through - no rare burgers. However, I've heard that if a place grinds its own hamburger daily, it can serve rare or medium rare. I don't know for sure if this is true, however.

That's a good point. I liked the desserts we got when last at Vin, but they are less comforting and more challenging. Oh, I got so excited about the coconut cake that I forgot about the other dessert we got: Coca-Cola Cake with salty peanut ice cream. Like the traditional peanuts in your co-cola! The cake was a very rich devils food type and was a perfect match with the ice cream.

My husband and I ate at Magnolia Grill on Friday night. It's one of the few places that I know going in that I will order dessert, because they're always good. I had the best coconut cake I've ever eaten. The recipe isn't in either of the Barkers' cookbooks, so I guess I'll have to try to wheedle it out of them.

My mother was into trashy desserts - the fruitcake made from candied fruit mixed with date nut bread mix from the supermarket. She would buy "flaming snowballs," vanilla ice cream rolled in coconut with fake holly and a red candle sticking out of the top. I still want one of those things every Christmas Eve! My grandmother in Statesville NC, on the other hand, never touched a mix. For Christmas she made coconut cake and lemon meringue pie. She'd run out of fridge space, so we'd drive up to see her completely empty screened porch (the porch furniture went into the basement Labor Day on the dot) with a glorious coconut cake sitting in the middle on a card table like a throne. I can still see it. She occasionally made mints, too - no marble slab.

A question about these cupcakes (and I'm not a big baker - those gorgeous flower-bouquet ones just sent me running for the liquor cabinet). Could those with the ganache be made day before serving? I'm thinking for a Christmas party, but I need a do-ahead.

I can't add anything about the food, Le Varm hit it on the head. However, when my husband and I went last month, we had a couple of great desserts that I would put on a par with any creative pastry chef in the area. One was pumpkin doughnuts served with a coffee cup of sweet cream sauce for dunking and the other was a fig tart with balsamic vinegar. Maybe the desserts are still up and down. I also love being able to get a different glass of wine with each course. My only gripe - and I have this gripe about many restaurants today - is why, why, why is it so NOISY??? At many new restaurants, the tables are so close together, music so loud and so many hard surfaces bouncing off sound that I have to yell to have a conversation. Now, the tables, that's probably because a small restaurant has to get as many people in as they can. But the other stuff... I hate to start sounding like an curmudgeonly old woman...

I agree that romantic must include a fairly quiet atmosphere, which is becoming increasingly hard to find in trendy new restaurants - they all seem too noisy to me. Or maybe I'm just becoming an old fogie Foursquare in Durham is in an old house, has good food and a nice ambience. Fearrington House is my and my husband's usual choice for a romantic meal. They have changed their menu - it's no longer a fixed menu but also offers a la carte.

Waraji is good for sushi, although I thought their soups and noodle bowls were a little salty. My husband and I often go to Kashin in Crossroads in Cary - it's close to our house and always a lot of Asian families eating there. Very small place. Good noodles on the menu, too. Speaking of Japanese, I was in San Francisco last month and went to a Japanese restaurant in, of all places, North Beach. The sushi was good, but what really knocked me out was the appetizer: tiny, little orange crabs, about the size of a nickel, deep fried whole. You just munched them like crunchy, crab-flavored popcorn. The chef said they were fresh-water crabs of some kind. Ever seen these around here? Yum!

True, true. Just wondering...are crawfish kosher?

As a Southerner and writer, I agree that it's a matter of the writer being willing to be open, absorb and try to understand the food and culture. I've read things about Southern food by Southerners that were cliched and superficial because they didn't dig deep enough. I believe you can have an advantage by being invested in a particular place - living there for a long time, having roots there, knowing some history - but it takes more than that alone. What makes me cringe is when writers from anywhere don't do the work and just skim the surface, or come in with preconceptions and just look for ways to have those preconceptions reinforced. On my first job at a small NC paper, a guy from Los Angeles showed up to work as a reporter (how he ended up there is a mystery) with a copy of Cash's "Mind of the South" and was convinced he knew everything there was to know about us ignorant yahoos. I'm not sure he learned anything in the short time he was there because he didn't want to. That having been said, when you start talking about ethnic/cultural matters, the history of conflict and mistrust between minorities and majorities comes into play. Language differences, too. Can we hear more about this food writing class? I'm doing a talk in a couple of weeks for a J-school assembly about food writing and maybe I could get some info.