kpurvis

Last September, after landing at LaGuardia in the dregs of a hurricane (one of the ones that started with an f. Although they all start with an f, come to think of it ), I celebrated my return to terra firma with Shake Shack. The custard machine was broken, but I was happy to be alive, so settled for an incomplete experience. Today, I landed again after flying over another effing hurricane, so I figured perhaps that broken custard machine was unfinished business. Like a foodie Kafka character, I'd be doomed to repeat the same experience every September. So I made my way back to the shack, had a double shack burger and a coffee shack. I mean, shake. Hopefully, the gods are sated and the spell is broken. Now if I could just figure oout how to could stop a blizzard in December by repeated stops at Grey's Papaya. . . The burger was a bit pinker than I expected, by the way, but the slice of roma tomato was worthy. I also usually skip tomato on sandwiches, partly because I'm so often disappointed, and partly because of several painful experiences in which a whole slice of beefsteak ended up on my chin. Girls shouldn't have red beards.

Ow! Bourdain, stop standing on my head! Or at least wipe your shoes for once. And it should be noted that the esteemed Mr. Bonne won two awards -- 1st and 2nd in the internet category. He's beside himself, apparently.

Which experts would those be, Rich? The "experts" I've seen are predicting $4, not $6, with $3 the only price known for certain here in the Southeast. Yes, it's a scary situation, but there's no reason to incite panic.

It also went quite nicely with the scallop and corn burgers I made Saturday night. You think we get all this information from a single tasting?

Heck, hon -- I just did a phone interview with the Loco Pops woman in Durham, too. (Yes, she'll stay open in winter. She's planning special winter flavors.) And I won't mention the bottle of Saison DuPont that's sitting on my desk right now. Research never stops.

He's a regular of customer of Brawley's, one of the many beer collectors around here. Just fyi, Mike Brawley says he'll probably ration what he has available for the first few weeks. Although a few places started lining up supply in advance, distributors expect it to take about a month before they have regular stocks of the new stuff. The beers also have to get label approval, although apparently, retailers will be able to offer them anyway. If the label gets blocked, they'll have to take the beer off the shelf, but they can sell it until then. However, since most of the beers have been sold in other states, no one expects a problem.

North Carolina allows wineries to buy a $100 permit to ship. South Carolina allows a $400, two-year permit. It doesn't matter whether the winery is in-state or out-of-state.

You can get that now. North Carolina passed a reciprocal state law a couple of years ago.

First of all, if it was 25 years ago I am suprised that you remember it, as you couldn't have been more than two or three. You can still do it. ← Aw, Mr. Brooks, how you do flatter a girl. I was on a beach date with the teaching assistant from my freshman philosophy class. And I was 21, officer. I swear. He was a great philosopy teacher, too: I don't remember much about Kant or Descarte, but he taught me to make my first bernaise. Definitely worth a semester's tuition.

When I moved to Tallahassee, where mullet is a way of life, I wasn't all that impressed with smoked mullet at first. Thin, leathery sheets of dry fish chunks -- I didn't get it. Then, on a beach trip to Alligator Point, I had the chance to eat fresh mullet that was pulled from a seine net, gutted and dropped right into hot oil, minutes from the ocean. It was a revelation. I don't think you're allowed to do that anymore, this was 25 or so years ago. But I'll never forget it. 'Course, now that I'm older and wiser, I know that pretty much any fish pulled straight out of the ocean and eaten within minutes is a miraculous thing. I was a young lass at the time.

The problem also is transportation. I did a series for my newspaper several years ago on the lack of supermarkets in low-income neighborhoods. In America, the people with the most access to transportation (people with reliable cars and the money to put gas in them) have the shortest trips to supermarkets, which are usually over-represented in their neighborhoods. The people with the least access -- people who are dependent on public transportation -- tend to have the longest trip to a market. The markets in their neighborhoods usually stock food that is poor quality, high in fat and sugar, and far more expensive. That can be changed, but in every example I found of a successful supermarket that came into a lower-income area, it usually took about 10 years of community activism to make it happen. When it does happen, it pays off -- customers are incredibly loyal. But it's a battle to convince stores there profits to be made from selling good-quality, fresh food to people with incomes below $50,000 a year. Sorry, didn't mean to go off on a tangent. I know that doesn't have anything to do with Julie's piece. We now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion . . .

Well, my only guesses on pork pudding would be: 1. Could it be liver pudding? As I mentioned, I come across livermush called liver pudding in other areas of the Carolinas, including South Carolina. 2. Or, could it be what a lot of people call barbecue hash? Hash usually has "liver and lights" as key ingredients, and I've had old timers tell me their mothers cooked it for breakfast. I've also got a story on barbecue hash I could send you. Basically, hash is whatever was leftover after you prepared a pig for pit barbecue.

Shelby, N.C., is the home of livermush. That's actually about 50 miles from Charlotte. It's the home of the yearly livermush festival. Yes, it is essentially scrapple. Makes sense if you know the migration patterns of the 19th century. The Great Wagon Road from Philadelphia brought German settlers to Western North Carolina. Bob Garner also has a credible theory for why that gave N.C. two styles of barbecue. I wrote a whole story on livermush once. Even tested recipes for things made with livermush. (In the interest of journalistic integrity, followed up with a column admitting to the world that I detest liver.) I also had to get up at 3 a.m., after flying back on a late-night from Seattle, to go watch it being made. A great moment from a food-writing career: Seeing an industrial-size kettle on one side of the room, I wandered over, stretched up on my toes and peered over the side. Behold: a sea of pig snouts smiling up at me. The moment is etched in my mind and floats back up when anyone starts talking about the "glamour" of food writing. Don't know if I could post a whole link, as that was a few years ago, but I could probably send a copy to you if you were interested, Holly. A couple more tidbits: In North Carolina, there is a "mush/pudding" line. On one side of the state, it's called livermush. On the other, the texture is smoother and it's called liver pudding. I'd have to look it up to be sure, but I seem to recall the dividing line is the Yadkin River. And the greatest livermush moment in Charlotte history, of course, was the arrest of the Baghwan Shree Rajneesh, who was nabbed at the airport here while trying to flee the country. In jail, he supposedly partook quite happily of the standard inmate breakfast fare: Fried livermush and grits.

Thanks for the report, Jeni. Sounds like it would worth the investment, especially since I have the luxury of a deep freezer for storing the canister.

I've been considering investing in the KitchenAid attachment. Does anyone have feedback on it?

Actually, the mushroom tale has been discounted. Swishing mushrooms in water and then draining is fine. First person who clued me in was Lynn Kaspar, and I've seen tests that disprove it since then. If you let them sit in water, they'll probably soak up some, but since most fruits and vegetables are mostly water to begin with, they won't absorb much. That whole "wipe your mushrooms" idea is a time-waster, and about as logical as the medium they're grown in.

Popsicle, no one will (or should) chastise you for that. In my work on a book on funeral food, one of the best stories was from Alicia Ross, who told me about her grandmother's "death shelf." It came from a time when women routinely kept spare casseroles and a spare coffee cake in a special area of the deep freezer, ready to go when someone needed it. The act of making food now and tucking it away in the freezer might be a comfort to you. That's one of the biggest motivations behind funeral foods: They give us something to do, some concrete action, when our hearts are aching and we feel like life is out of our control. So cook away. Make the food you want to be there. When my grandmother died, the grandchildren in her town, Atlanta, took great pleasure in making her special dishes so we'd be able to share them again as a family. When my dad died, my brother and I competed over making the deviled eggs. Of course other people brought them -- but making our own was an act of family solidarity.

Thanks, Theabroma. Duni mentioned as something she remembers from Bogata, and Taco also remembered it as something done in Mexico City. Apparently, he researched it a couple of years ago and was able to find information on it. The Spanish name was one of the things I'm trying to find, because that will probably make it easier to track it down. I've done quite a lot of research on these foods, and it intrigued me that I've never seen this one described before.

I'm working on a book on funeral foods in various cultures. Recently, I interviewed a husband and wife team of restaurateurs in Dallas. She's from Colombia and he's from Mexico City. Both recall "emotion cookies" from their childhoods. As they explained it to me, you get a plate of almond-flavored shortbread cookies. Each cookie has a different flavored topping. The toppings are vivid flavors -- he named lavender, orange peel, cinnamon, a whole list of different things. You sit down with a cup of hot chocolate and then you choose a cookie with a topping flavor that reminds you of a moment with the person you've lost. As you eat the cookie, you reexperience the emotion that the smell or taste invokes. It's a way of communing with the person. He described as being almost like a seance, intended to evoke the person's spirit through an emotion that reminds you of them. I've done quite a lot of research into Dias de Las Muertos rituals, but I've never seen anything like that. I'd love to know more, if anyone has experienced this or has come across any reference to it. I'd appreciate any suggestons for source material. And certainly recipes!

Thanks, Wendy. I thought that was Le Bernadin, but I never trust my memory. Especially when I'm overwhelmed by something that good.

I'm amazed at the quality of food given how many they have to serve at the journalism dinner (I think it must be at least 300)... and it all goes out at once... a good variety of dishes and nicely paired with the wines ← In my opinion, the food at the awards gala Monday night was the best it has ever been. Some of my personal highlights: D'Artagnan's "dream cassoulet" with foie gras and truffles, the braised veal cheeks, Nancy Silverton's almond croissant dessert, and one of the very best, most orgasmic things I've ever eaten: Egg shells filled with caramel custard, maple syrup and flakes of sea salt. Sorry, don't have my notes with me to remember exactly which restaurant did that dish, but I think it was Le Bernadin. My personal highlight from the awards presentation itself: 89-year-old Willie Mae Setton, a fried-chicken maker from New Orleans, being helped up the steps to the stage by her granddaughter and Lolis Elie, then standing up there with her medallion and bursting into tears. Forget the glitz and glamour and controversy: That's what awards are for. To let people like Mrs. Setton know that their contribution is valued and honorable.

What about the United House of Prayer for All People on Beatties Ford? It's replaced the old McDonalds Cafeteria as the quintessential Southern cafeteria line. K&W also has a huge following and a certain appeal, for their vegetables alone. It's based in Greensboro, but the Charlotte location does big business. On the dishes you have to have on a meat-and-three line, I'd add baked chicken, which I find even more often than fried chicken, and chicken and dumplings. Turnip greens turn up as often as collards, and mac and cheese is a must. Personally, I have a soft spot in my heart (and unfortunately, around my belly) for the UHOP's coconut pie, which is weepy enough to soak the crust with syrup.

There absolutely are, Holly. Since it's not really a codified recipe, it's one of those things people throw together however they like. I've had it (and made it) both of the ways you describe, but the best I ever had was when Todd Townsend here in Charlotte was the chef at Palatable Pleasures. He did cheese grits with Wisconsin sharp cheddar and stirred the shrimp into the grits, serving it almost like a loose risotto in a wide bowl. It was similar to the way John Currence does it at City Grocery in Oxford, except I don't recall that Currence's was cheese grits. In fact, Todd's version was about the only one I've seen that relied on cheese grits. There's a new direction for the thread: Cheese grits, sublime or sacrilege? Discuss . . .

In that case, while you're in Chapel Hill at A Southern Season, you should go around the corner into Carrboro (the distance from CH to Carrboro is the space of one block) and go to the Weaver Street Market, which is like a locally owned Whole Foods. On Saturday morning, early, the Carrboro Farmers Market is a must-visit, although you'd need a local to tell you if it's up and running yet. The Carrboro Market was one of North Carolina's original grower-only markets and it's still the inspiration for many of the best tailgate markets around the state. Unfortunately, it's pretty cold here yet, though, so it may be too early in the year for it.