Check out Serious Pie manager, Kelly Schneider and her daughter, Quincy! They won Best in Show at Seward Park Community Center’s annual Halloween Party this year! So cute!! Happy Halloween, everyone!!
Star Noodle, in Maui, is probably the best food on the island! New since last year. Aloha!!
“The SFA’s mission is to document, study, and celebrate the diverse food culture of the changing American South…grounded in the notion that food is a lens through which a region and culture… can be embraced and understood.” (From the SFA blog)
When Sean and I decided to attend the 13th Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, and learned that this year’s theme was “The Global South,” we didn’t know what to expect. In fact, we worried that we had missed all the really good topics, and now the SFA was casting about for oddball themes. But this was not the case. The Global South, which one speaker (Valerie Erwin of Geechee Girl Rice Cafe) summed up by saying: “The South is more than a location,” turned out to be a fascinatingly rich and surprisingly deep exploration of the “influences of places and people on Southern culinary culture,” including:
Cuba through a Southern Lens- Little Havana in Miami
Chinese grocers in the Mississippi and Arkansas Deltas
The fate of Vietnamese shrimp fishermen on the Gulf after the spill
The spread of VIet-Cajun restaurants in California
Tamales as poetry, history, and lunch
Cajun, Croatian, and Vietnamese shipping communities in Biloxi
Speakers included food world luminaries like Francis Lam, a senior editor and writer for Saveur and a senior writer for Salon, who speaks as skillfully, entertainingly and lucidly as he writes, and serious academics like James Peacock, professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina who completely pulled us in with his abstract sounding topic of Grounded Globalism. (Many SFA presentations took place in the Lyric Theater, photo top.)
Food writer, cookbook author, and director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, John T. Edge (always called John T, never just John), is the beloved ringmaster of the Symposium.
The SFA Symposium is a unique combination of academics, socializing, dining, and partying. The presentations ranged from scholarly dissertations to poetry readings, music, and art installations. Over three hundred people attended this year, most of them from Southern states, and many of them repeat the experience year after year. Yet, surprisingly, there seems to be no clique-ishness, no insider-outsider. This is possibly the most welcoming group I have ever encountered. Food world luminaries in attendance this year included Paul Kahan of Blackbird, Avec, and Publican, Ted Lee of the Lee Brothers Southern Cookbook, and Ari Weinzweig of Zingerman’s. Also attending, our food writer friends, Leslie Kelly, who seems to know everything about Memphis BBQ, and Brad Parsons, who seems to know everything and everybody in the food world.
The menu for the tamale lunch (small photo above left) we enjoyed on Friday, October 22, which was prepared by Eddie Hernandez, Jon Sanchez, and Yewande Komolafe:
Confit of quail tamales with sweet potato salad
Collard green tamales with cracklins and refried black-eyed peas
Butternut squash bread pudding
(Photo middle right: t-shirts for sale at the SFA: “Make Cornbread Not War” and “Gravy” baseball hats)
Fresh white truffles and Barolo, a sensory sensation.
I was the lucky recipient of an extremely aromatic nodule of white truffle that Tom had flown in for a special dinner. His favorite source for these gastronomic gems is Urbani Truffles Online.
I rushed home to get the stock boiling so I could make risotto as I had been taught by a restaurateur in Parma. His technique is to finish with a bechamel chock full of Parmigiano Reggiano which results in a warm, decadent bed onto which you shave the truffle.
When the truffle shaving hit the heat, the earthy, sexy, humus-y scents are out of this world. My adorable wine merchant husband showed up with a bottle of Mascarello Barolo that was a pitch perfect accompaniment. The experience reminded me that the glorious, symbiotic, regional cuisine pairings exist for a reason.
After arriving at the airport in Memphis, Tennessee, on route to Oxford for the Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium, (I’m linking you here to a great recap of the Symposium on the SFA blog), the Tom Douglas team (which consisted of Sean and Julie Hartley, myself, and honorary team member, my Mississippi-born and raised friend, Coleen Heberer), impatient and eager for our first taste of Memphis BBQ, made our way to Central BBQ, easily accessible right off the highway. (If you click on the Central BBQ link, be sure to watch the video from Flipside Memphis.)
Central BBQ was typical in most ways of every BBQ experience we had in Memphis and Oxford- sweet and courteous counter people with lovely Southern drawls, and ultra casual atmosphere with paper plates, picnic tables, and plastic cutlery. Also typical was the speedy service. This food is not cooked to order after all, it’s been cooking for 12 or 18 hours ahead, so your paper plates heaped with food arrive almost instantly after you order.
Coleen and I split a small slab of baby back ribs, half and half- meaning half dry (spice rubbed) and half wet (bbq sauce). The ribs were delicious, for me the best of the trip. I couldn’t even decide which I liked better- the dry or the wet. (Usually I like dry because they sometimes overwhelm you with sauce at BBQ joints- but these were perfect.) I was amazed that the slab came out uncut- with only a feeble plastic knife to cut them. However these ribs were so tender the meat just about fell off the bone- you could have pulled them apart with your hands! The spicing was just right and every bit of fat was rendered away. Sean had a plate of mixed meats and Julie had a pork sandwich. Central BBQ was my favorite BBQ experience of this trip. (Food writer Leslie Kelly, a Memphis BBQ expert, later told me the pork sandwich is really the thing to order in Memphis. So next trip to Memphis, I’ll focus on that.)
We drove into downtown Memphis and stopped at the Peabody Hotel for a look at their famous ducks (though unfortunately we had just missed the ducks’ red carpet stroll from the lobby fountain to the elevator that takes them up to their night time home on the hotel roof.) Then we walked around Beale Street for awhile to try to digest our Central BBQ meal before heading off to Charles Vergo’s Rendezvous BBQ.
Rendezvous is the FAMOUS Memphis BBQ place. Even our rental car guy mentioned we should head over there. The space is huge and cavernous and packed with diners. I don’t think you’re allowed to visit Memphis without stopping here. Tom Douglas had recommended the lamb riblets, so that’s what we ordered, plus a small slab of ribs- spareribs this time, not babybacks. The lamb riblets were good with a nice charcoal char. I liked the spareribs but found them a bit greasier than Central BBQ’s babyback ribs and less tender. The little cups of coleslaw and beans were both delicious. At this point, with very full stomachs and sauce glazed lips, we got back in the rental car to head to Oxford for the Symposium.
Pumpkin pie was always done by my mother and later my older sister for Thanksgiving and sometimes Christmas. It was never made just to have pie in my childhood home. I always liked it better the day after baking. In fact it was a special treat to get a small piece the morning after the holiday (but only if I could beat my sister to it.) I’ve always been a fruit pie baker, and then recently added pecan to my repertoire, but thought the pumpkin pie contest at the Tom Douglas company Harvest Party was just the inspiration I needed. Since Martha Stewart cured my fear of pies, I turned to her for recipes and decided on a very basic pumpkin cream pie. It was going to be a very busy weekend with a home Husky game, so I had to plan my baking strategy. Pie crust was mixed and in the refrigerator Friday night. Saturday morning I would blind bake the shell, make the filling, bake and chill (since I remember liking the pie better the next day.) Then Sunday, make the topping.
It was fun to see all the pies made by our staff and how creative people were with presentation and flavors. A total of eleven pies were entered and the judging panel awarded prizes in four categories:
Best Presentation- Sean and Julie Hartley
Best Crust- Pamela Hinckley
Best Filling- Me
Best Overall Pie- Courtney Smith
We are home at last from the Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium after missing our connection at O’hare which caused us to spend the night in Chicago. Sean (TDR Operations Manager) and his wife, Julie, and I tried to make the best of this delay by seeing a little bit of the Windy City. (Windy City indeed, because high winds closed the airport causing us to miss the flight.) The next morning, we thought we had the opportunity to have breakfast at Rick Bayless’ newest joint, Xoco, and we did get close enough to take a photo (top, left), but, sadly, discovered it was closed on Monday. Julie said, “I was calm about missing our flight to Seattle, but I almost cried when we realized Xoco was closed, and we weren’t going to get to try the churros.” At heart, we are always foodies.
Starting at the ending, the last BBQ we tasted in Memphis was at Jim Neely’s Interstate BBQ, (photo top, middle) conveniently located on the way to the airport. Neely’s has a drive through window, and we did see a pick up truck zip through for some ‘Q. Inside, we were seated in a typically casual space, adorned with photos of the Neely family. Our BBQ, also typically, was served on paper plates and we were given (gigantic) red plastic glasses of ice water.
(Photo top right:) These are spareribs, not baby backs. They were exceedingly tender with good tasting sauce. The beans and coleslaw were tasty as well. Even though we only had a short time to spend at Neely’s, we managed a few bites of a warm sweet potato pie. Then off to the airport (Memphis, Tennessee, is the closest airport to Oxford, the site of the SFA Symposium), then the unscheduled overnight in Chicago, and, finally, home to Seattle.
The Symposium, in Oxford, Mississippi, which started Thursday evening, October 21 and ended early Sunday afternoon, October 23, was amazing- even better than we had hoped- and I will try to gather my thoughts and photos for several posts. Every day of the Symposium was full of surprises. Who knew that some of our favorites would be videos by Chingo Bling, a Mexican-American Texas rapper, or a poetry reading of “Hot Tamale Charlie” by Greg Brownderville, of Pumpkin Bend, Arkansas, or a hip night time art show called “One Night Stand,” at the Ole Miss Motel, where each artist exhibited work in a funky, rundown motel room, complete with a bed or two, or a fascinating and scholarly lecture on the African origins of rice in the American South that made us feel like we were in graduate school? And I haven’t even started talking about the eating and the drinking! More to follow; stay tuned.
The day after tomorrow I will be heading to Memphis with Operations Manager, Sean Hartley, and his wife, Julie, and a good friend of mine, Coleen, who was born in Mississippi. We’ll spend the late afternoon and early evening in Memphis, then we’ll head to Oxford for the Southern Foodways Allliance Symposium. I am very excited about this trip, because I think Southern food is one of America’s most important regional cuisines (probably the most important), and, with the exception of New Orleans, I have almost no experience of the South. So, over the course of these next few days, I will be busy soaking up every bit of Southern food culture I can get. ( I hear the catfish fry in Oxford is a high point- not to be missed.) The photo above, of a bbq sandwich at Flora Payne’s BBQ in Memphis, is courtesy of food writer Leslie Kelly, who will also be at the Symposium.
This is the burger on Day 5.
This well done Palace burger which we have left sitting on ET’s desk for 5 days now as a Happy Meal experiment, is getting even drier, and it really does not look like something you would want to put in your mouth. The fries look pretty bad. Tom commented, ” I think I’m winning,” because he predicted that the burger, if well cooked and dry with no condiments touching it, would just continue to dry out and not decompose or decay- at least not anytime soon.
This is day four on our Palace Burger experiment.
The burger looks a little darker and dryer, not too tasty looking. The fries look pretty bad. But it doesn’t look like it’s going to decompose- at least not anytime soon.
Unless you think we are off our rockers, here is yet another post about the scientific credibility of the “Happy Meal Project,” this time from the New York Times’ blog, Diner’s Journal.
For the “Happy Meal Project,” a New York artist, Sally Davies, bought a Happy Meal from McDonald’s back in April, transferred it to a china plate, and left it out at room temperature, photographing it periodically, as reported on Eater (You can even watch a video!). Six months later, the Happy Meal does in fact seem indestructible.
At least our Palace fries are deteriorating faster than the McDonald’s fries.
RSS SubscribeWelcome to Family Meal, a blog that examines all things new and noteworthy in the world of food, wine, and dining.
At family meal, otherwise known as staff meal, there’s no hierarchy; you’re breaking bread with your friends. For those 30 minutes, everyone is equal- and hungry. Family meal is our version of the water cooler- but with better food.
I’ll be sharing my thoughts, tips, and observations, and, in the spirit of family meal, I’ve invited our creative, energetic staff- everyone from line cook to bartender to bookkeeper- to have a say. I hope you’ll add your own comments and join in the conversation.
-Tom Douglas
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