I’ll Have the Usual

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Shannon

I'm still a little in love with Sam Malone.

I was still in the single digits for most of the illustrious run of Cheers on television, too young, really, to understand much about alcohol or why bars might be a good place to hang out. But even then, I loved that the characters could belly up to the bar and Sam or Woody would just slide a beer over to them while conversing about something entirely unrelated. I was a painfully shy child, and I hated having to talk to strangers (i.e. waiters) about what I felt like eating. A place where everyone knew your name and knew what you wanted before you even had to ask? It sounded heavenly to me.

Ever since, I’ve held in high esteem the archetype of the regular, but I’ve had a hard time putting on that mantle. My first attempt was during my weeklong summer sojourns at my grandparents’ house when I would accompany my grandfather to buy his morning paper. Every day, he stopped at a little joint called Rollin’s on the way home, and they always had a cup of coffee poured for him before he was fully in the door. I fancied that after enough times, I could just saunter in, spread my copy of Harriet the Spy on the counter and be served my grape juice straight up. But my grandfather was always too solicitous, worried that I was bored, and would nervously run down a list of items I could order in place of or in addition to my regular order. Geez, Grandpa, pizza at ten in the morning? You’re ruining our style here.

My usual lunch date. (photo courtesy of the sushi fruit hating Devin)

Even as I got older and outgrew my deathly fear of waitstaff, the stars just never aligned correctly for me to be a regular. Big cities, where I’ve lived most of my adult life, are tough for the regulars, because there are just too many restaurants with too many choices to commit wholeheartedly to the lifestyle of “I’ll have the usual.” Variety is what I love most about the New York dining scene, but sometimes you want to go…well, you know.

And then, just as I was beginning to doubt my potential as regular material, an avocado and cheddar sandwich came and tapped me on the shoulder. It’s a beautiful mess of cheese and sprouts and cucumber and mayo on multigrain bread. We met at the Broadway Gourmet Deli, just downstairs from where I work, and we rendezvous at least once a week. Mind you, it isn’t always an easy relationship. Continue reading →

The TLT: Summer Between Two Slices of Bread

Posted on August 9, 2013 by Shannon

Boy, do people love their bacon. Rarely have I come across a food that inspires such raw passion in people. Just this week, while a co-worker, Devin, and I were discussing the Powerball jackpot having reached astronomical sums, he said that if he won, he would throw me a cool couple million if I, a longtime vegetarian, would eat an entire pig. I’m not sure if this was meant to be some kind of gladiatorial entertainment or if he merely wanted to share his love of pork with the world. Devin did not win Powerball, so I guess we will never find out.

But that does not mean that I am immune to bacon’s charms. I have very happy memories of childhood summer dinners that consisted entirely of big BLTs and fresh ears of boiled sweet corn. To me, bacon is the taste of summer, and a curious package that my mom sent me while I was living in Cambodia helped me to recreate that taste in vegetarian form. Along with other comforts of home, like American magazines, was a shaker of something called Bacon Salt, completely vegetarian but very bacon-y. Bribing the postman to get that package out of hock might have been some of the best money I ever spent. I sliced some tofu from the market very thinly, sprinkled it with bacon salt, popped it in the oven, and boom…it was like I was back in Ohio. The Tofu, Lettuce and Tomato sandwich was born.

Over the years I have perfected the recipe, and I think it’s much tastier than the substitute bacon that you can buy at the grocery store. I will share it below for any bacon-loving vegetarians or anyone who is craving something a little lighter than pork on a hot summer evening. Make one soon while the sweet corn is plentiful and the tomatoes are at their juiciest.

Tofu Bacon Continue reading →

Mysteries of the Aloe Vera

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Shannon

The beast in its lair

Sometime last year, our next door neighbor gave us a nice, unassuming-looking aloe plant, which took its place among the potted plants in our bedroom. Jason happens to be very good with plants, but the voracity with which this guy grew was surprising, almost alarming in a “Feed me, Seymour!” kind of way. It pushed against other plants, snaking its way under their pots like it was some crazy octopus-shaped professional wrestler trying to trip its opponents with a showy move. Soon, I was hovering over all of our guests, trying to foist pieces of the plant on them for any touch of sunburn, any tiny insect bite.

But still, the thing grew. Noticing the Technicolor aloe beverages in supermarkets, I began to think, “Why not?” and started to poke around on the Internet to find out more about drinking aloe. What I found was a raging aloe controversy, with some people saying that it cures everything from diabetes to bed sores and other people saying that it causes cancer in mice. The truth, of course, probably lies somewhere in between. As best as I can discern, the more controversial component of aloe is the yellowish latex part, which is right under the skin of the plant and, in addition to possibly blocking your intake of potassium, is apparently a powerful laxative. Leaving bodily harm aside, that sounds somewhat unpleasant.

But the aloe gel that is in the center of the leaves sounded fairly innocuous and possibly even healthy. And what the heck? Maybe it would make me feel like a million bucks. So I decided to give it a go last night. Continue reading →

The Genius of Psychic Sandwich

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Shannon

Rupert Jee (from the Hello Deli website)

Allow me to be frank, dear reader. I haven’t been doing much cooking lately. I could make excuses, but I won’t bore you with them, and truthfully, it probably has to do more with summer torpor than anything else. But don’t think that food has not been on my mind. You know what I have been doing a lot of lately? Scouring the internet for clips of Psychic Sandwich.

This weird obsession started a few weeks ago when I heard a very brief radio clip in which a guy talks about why he loves David Letterman. His argument, as I remember it, was something about how it was worth Dave looking bored and basically phoning it in a lot of the time because every once in a while you end up with a moment of pure comic genius. And then he referenced this bit, entitled “How Many Guys in Spider-Man Suits Can Fit into Jamba Juice?” It’s worth watching:

I really like this clip, but even as I watched it, somewhere in the back of my mind the words “Pyschic Sandwich” repeated like a mantra. I haven’t even watched The Late Show for decades, but those two words kept surfacing with the clarity of those chimes they ring in meditation class. For those of you who don’t remember, in the mid-90s, Dave had a repeating comedy bit in which he would send an “intuitive” named Deborah Lynn into the Hello Deli and, blindfolded, she would try to divine what kind of sandwich Rupert Jee had just prepared. Though she was earnest to the point of seeming borderline autistic, she never once guessed correctly. And twenty years later, the words Psychic Sandwich floated back to me through the mists of time. Continue reading →

Farmer Dwight’s Blue Ribbon Cabbages

Posted on July 23, 2013 by Shannon

Once farming gets into a family’s blood, it sticks there obstinately. My great-grandparents owned a farm in southern Ohio. My grandfather, the original urban gardener, inspired new city ordinances in Cleveland with his tendency to grow corn in his small front lawn. And my father, though he worked as a financial consultant for most of my lifetime, was always nipping over to the empty lot next to our house to coax something out of the ground and to wage epic battles against the deer that were huge fans of his work.

That’s why I wasn’t really surprised to receive this photo last week, of my father proudly displaying one of his largest cabbages to date. (The photo, by the way, is no optical illusion; these suckers really are larger than his head.)

When I asked Farmer Dwight to share his cabbage wisdom with the world, here are the tips he gave me:

Pick a variety that will grow large heads. (You don’t want to be out of the game before you even start, people.)
Plant early, in April, before it gets too warm. (Frost? Bah! He spits in the face of frost.)
Pray that the varmints don’t eat the plants before they get a good start. (If your prayers go unanswered, you can also see Jason’s post from last week about warding off cabbage worms.) Continue reading →

Quotable Vegetables Puzzle

Posted on July 15, 2013 by Shannon

In all the plant kingdom, no food inspires more words of wisdom than garlic. Or so it seemed, at least, as I went searching for questions for our latest food puzzle. Everyone from Cervantes (“Do not eat garlic or onions; for their smell will reveal that you are a peasant.”) to William Shatner (“Stop and smell the garlic! That’s all you have to do.”) has been willing to offer up an opinion on the humble bulb, and a few have even extended their commentary to include other vegetables. Can you identify which vegetable has been removed from each of the quotes below? (Hint: The answer to none of these is garlic, and no vegetable is repeated.)

“_____ is nothing but cabbage with a college education.” –Mark Twain
“The day is coming when a single _____, freshly observed, will set off a revolution.” –Paul Cezanne
“For every _____ full of weevils, God supplies a blind grocer.” –Arabic proverb
“When General Lee took possession of Chambersburg on his way to Gettysburg, we happened to be a member of the Committee representing the town. Among the first things he demanded for his army was twenty-five barrels of _____.”—Editor of ‘The Guardian’ (1869)
“We kids feared many things in those days – werewolves, dentists, North Koreans, Sunday School – but they all paled in comparison with _____.” –Dave Barry
“A man taking _____ from a woman will love her always.” –Sir Thomas Moore
“My boy, the ‘quenelles de sole’ were splendid, but the _____ were poor. You should shake the pan gently, all the time, like this.” –Marie-Antoine Carême (Supposedly his last words, spoken to a favorite pupil, January 12, 1833)
“A cooked _____ is like a cooked oyster: ruined.” –Andre Simon
The ____ is “one of the earth’s monstrosities.” –Pliny
“The _____ is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent, not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. ____ are deadly serious.” –Tom Robbins
“Fatherhood is telling your daughter that Michael Jackson loves all his fans, but has special feelings for the ones who eat _____.” –Bill Cosby (1986)
“My idea of heaven is a great big _____ and someone to share it with.” –Oprah Winfrey

Don’t click continue reading until you’re ready to see the answers!

Continue reading →

Food for the End-of-Weekend Blues

Posted on July 9, 2013 by Shannon

Weekends are supposed to be relaxing, so the rumor goes. But come Sunday night, after the hiking, carousing, drinking, sunbathing, running, picnicking, sweating and entertaining with which many of us fill our summer weekends (several times over on long weekends), I don’t think it’s unusual to feel exhausted. That is how I found myself at my local Mr. Melon store on Sunday afternoon, staring into space and trailing zombie-like through the aisles, loath to cook anything, but feeling sharp pains in my stomach and wallet at the thought of eating takeout food one more time.

I had walked in with a vague plan of making a pasta dish that I like, but the asparagus was looking limp, the only walnuts I could find were in enormous tubs and neither Jason nor I could remember if there was any pesto left in the freezer. So I gave up on that one. I think, really, the only thing to do when you find yourself in this situation is to grab the items that kindle a tiny joy in your tired heart, which is how I ended up walking to the register with 1) Brussels sprouts and 2) rotelle pasta (or if you prefer—and believe me, I prefer—wagon wheels). Seriously, try to find a more cheerful pasta shape. That’s right. You can’t.

I am certain that you, dear reader, are just as capable of this sort of improvisation as I am, but I’ll post the recipe I came up with, just in case it comes in handy some muggy Sunday evening. The veggies make it fresh and light enough for summer, but the bleu cheese gives it a creamy decadence that will send you into a deep end-of-weekend slumber.

Bleu Wagon Wheels Continue reading →

Raw Food Surprises and a Journey to Bliss

Posted on June 25, 2013 by Shannon

Every year, Bonnaroo has a tent called The Academy, where you can learn vital skills like hula hoop making and spoken word poetry. Though I searched in vain this year for my favorite primitive skills guru, I did stumble upon a mother-daughter team giving a workshop about raw food called “Living Cuisine.” Okay, I know what you’re thinking, especially given what I just said about hula hoops, but I found Laura Button and Journey Button-Hale of Journey to Bliss Raw Foods really down-to-earth and engaging, and there were some surprises in the presentation that I thought were worth sharing.

Ditch the Labels—Laura still bristles at the idea of labeling someone according to their eating habits. “I’ll be a raw foodist when people stop brewing delicious beer,” she said. She made the point that you can have a vegan who eats a lot of processed crap every day or you can have an omnivore who eats mostly fresh vegetables and, occasionally, a grass-fed hamburger at a party; which one is healthier and eating more mindfully? Her point was that labels like raw foodist or vegetarian aren’t as meaningful as the day-to-day choices that lead people to eat food that makes them feel good. That (to a longtime vegetarian who occasionally and somewhat guiltily eats seafood) sounded refreshingly logical.

Laura on the Whole Foods blog

Rethink that Multigrain Chip on Your Shoulder—Whole Foods is a big, big corporation, which, to some folks, earns them an automatic Darth Vader rating on the Scale of Villainy. While I can’t speak to all of WF’s business practices, Laura did point out a pretty grand one, which is that they regionally stock small, local producers, giving them far greater reach. So if you’re at a Whole Foods in Tennessee or Georgia, you might see the Intentional Foods line that Laura and Journey produce. It definitely made me want to hunt around in my own Whole Foods for some small suppliers doing their best in my neck of the woods.

It Might Be a Good Idea to Eat like a Toddler—Little kids are weird, and they’ll do things like decide they’re not eating anything but watermelon for an entire day. While those “mono-meals” might be frustrating to parents, Laura pointed out that they’re probably much more in line with the way our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate, who found a food resource and exhausted it. Continue reading →

Batten Down the Hatches, Eatbox: Shannon’s Brief Return to Food Service

Posted on June 24, 2013 by Shannon

Jonathan, posing with his food truck empire

When Jonathan Coffman took over command of the Eatbox food truck and moved it to Jackson, Tennessee, nothing could have fully prepared him for the Sisyphean effort it would take to feed twenty thousand hungry Bonnaroovians at the Food Truck Oasis. First of all, festival organizers threw him a bit of a curve ball by asking him to fill the gourmet meatball niche at the festival, when he was more used to serving kebabs and burritos at much smaller events around Jackson. Undaunted, Coffman built a trailer filled with chest freezers. He rallied a small army of friends and family to staff the truck. He rolled thousands upon thousands of meatballs. And then he allowed me, a food truck novice, to wander into the middle of all of it, just because I asked.

My previous experiences in food service are dark-night-of-the-soul kind of material; I was truly one of the worst waitresses to ever spill a drink or drop a dessert at the Big Boy and TGIFridays of Mansfield, Ohio, and my tips usually reflected it. But Bonnaroo is all about new experiences, and I thought that working behind the scenes of one of the food trucks, preparing the food itself, might help to erase the memories of those old disasters.

Elbow room in a food truck is limited, but even so, there are a number of people working behind the scene at any given moment to get your food to you. I by-passed the grill and assembly positions (though, bless their sweet Southern hospitality, I think the Eatbox workers were prepared to let me do whatever I wanted in there) and apprenticed myself to Maria (non-Bonnaroo job: fourth grade teacher; favorite summer hobby: teasing Zeke, who was working next to her) at the topping station, where I figured I would do the least damage. Continue reading →

Yazoo Brewery: Teaching Us to Embrace that Tennessee Funk

Posted on June 19, 2013 by Shannon

yazoo hefeweizen

Our regular beer columnist, the incomparable Big Lla, is rambling the country in newly-wedded bliss at the moment, and though I am a poor substitute, I was pleased at the chance to write about Yazoo Brewery, a happy discovery that I made at Bonnaroo last weekend. Yazoo first caught my eye because it was the only Tennessee brewer slated to be in the Brooer’s Fest (Bonnaroo’s collection of yummy microbrew booths), and I always like tasting the local nectar. But my interest was further piqued when my brother-in-law Andrew called Yazoo’s Dos Perros “the most awesomest tastingest beer in Nashville.” Sold.

While sampling the Hefeweizen and Gerst Amber that were on tap at the festival, we caught up with Adam Jones, who, in addition to marketing the fine brews at Yazoo, has eyes so kind that he reminded me of a koala. Here’s more from Adam on hoppy experiments and Yazoo’s efforts to put the sour back into beer:

What’s your favorite Yazoo brew?
Honestly, the first one that I really fell in love with was the hefeweizen. It has such strong banana notes that it really grabbed me, and then when I started to work with them, I realized there’s no banana in it; it’s all the yeast. That really intrigued me and made me want to learn more.
I’m a big fan on the Hop Project IPA, too. The recipe of the hops changes with each batch. They use a little different combination, a little different hops each time, which gives it a different character and keeps you guessing—something new and fun each time.

Anything new coming up for Yazoo this summer?
We’ve actually just started a sour and wild ale program. It’s a series of beer called “Embrace the Funk.” Sour ales are brewed with a different strand of yeast that you usually want to keep out of your beer. But combined with other things—one of ours has cherries and currants—you get the sour initial taste and end with a malty finish, and it’s a big spectrum of flavor. We’ve got two on tap in the taproom now, and we’re bottling it soon. They’re pretty awesome.