Bluff City and Home of the Blues

Memphis.

What side of this city did I see? Several, actually. I had two trips there for work, one in March and one in May. I met the nicest, funniest hotel staff at the welcome and valet desks both times. I observed the pieces of the city's history that residents refuse to let go, such as the trolley, the horse carriages, and bygone symbols of its fame and glamour, like the named music notes in the sidewalk.

I also experienced Beale Street, sort of. Not in the rip-roaring, guitar-wielding, flam-doozling way someone else might have (it was with work, after all), but bar-hopping and cooling my heels in the shade listening to the street hawkers and the wildly cacophonous competing music venues in the small space was certainly a unique experience. Plus, good company.

And oh yeah, I found plenty of good eats. I did my exploring online beforehand, as well as through friend networks. They all pointed to one place: Rendezvous.

The place was happily down-home, with random knickknacks, lots of tourists, and a we-don't-take-no-guff attitude at the front desk. Only open for dinner (not lunch) during the week- that was odd. Their specialty was most certainly the "Dry-Rub Ribs," but my coworker's brisket was mighty tasty too.

The ribs were pretty addictive, and quite unique- it's kind of like tasting a really salty food- all the crystals tingle in your mouth- but then you realize they contribute to a seasoned, earthy  flavor, not just salt. Who needs sauce, anyway?

It turns out the seasoning mix contains oregano (a main Greek spice) because the immigrant family that started the joint was from Greece! I love when food connects back to the travel theme...of course it always helps your food when it's got history and whole-heartedness.

Another place I had to stop at was The Little Tea Shop- I mean, come on. Tea. Home cooking. This was a place I found by reputation online. Their most touted items were the vegetarian turnip/ collard greens and the corn sticks: "crispy on the outside yet flaky and buttery on the inside."

The Little Tea Shop, in its position as a local institution/ legend, deigns to be open for lunch only. And its waitresses tend to be a little short (with their words, not their height), which I chalked up to cultural differences. Oh, and neither their cash register nor their credit card machine was working, so the woman at the front had her hands full trying to make change for people out of spare change she had in a PAPER BAG. It was wildly endearing, and made for a great story.

So, besides the barbeque (sort of) and Beale Street, what other sides are there to Memphis? Well, there are the fun new 'cuisine-y' type places popping up (Local Gastropub comes to mind as a place where we had great food, but slow service), and you've got your music history pathways to follow.
But my antennae went up as the cab driver from the airport said he knew how to direct us to "any number of diversions, from used bookstores to-"
"Hold up, did you say used bookstores?"
*Done.*

I found one or two downtown, and went on a bit of an adventure to Midtown, a short drive away from the downtown, and home to Memphis' hipsters and dive monkeys, to find another one, pictured below. Heaven! (Loved the quirky aisle caps consisting of chairs with vintage typewriters)

And how could I forget the fried chicken! Gus's Fried Chicken was very low-key, and although "Gus's World Famous Hot & Spicy Chicken" is its full title, I didn't find it spicy. And I'm a wimp, soooo... Gus's didn't have the kind of sustainable sourcing policy of the places I usually find on these trips, but the chicken was so tender and juicy, I went back twice!

Ohmigod, and just like in Omaha, TRY THE FRIED PICKLES. Gus's were entire spears, and had a spicy crunchy coating- dee-lish.





Besides these neighborhood attractions, a group of the people in town for the meeting had a fun round of friends' poker (no betting in the state) in the hotel lobby. It was EPIC.

Thanks for the memories, Memphis!

Will Run For This Soup

Full [seven] times hath Phoebus' cart gone round
Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground...

...since last I wrote anything here. It has been BUSY!

Lentil Roasted Garlic Soup with Chard

Not necessarily with cooking and baking, but with writing and dreaming and planning (also good things). Oh, and running. Yes, there has been an awful lot of running around here lately, due to my winning the lottery of DC runners: Cherry Blossom Ten-Mile Race on April 1st. In the spirit of spontaneity, I put my name in for the race in December, and heard back a couple of weeks later that I had gotten "lucky," and would have the rare opportunity to run 10 miles before most people had gotten out of bed on a Saturday morning. So I have been training, and the arm incident did not stop me for long.

As of this week, I've gotten up to 7.7 miles at a stretch, which took me 1 hour and 24 minutes. So, I'm getting close!

If I take a moment to reflect (tasting life in retrospection, as it were) on what voice inside me made me put my name on that list, I would say that running a race is a great example of setting a goal, devising a strategy, challenging yourself to meet your own expectations, and, I predict, feeling elated upon conquering what might have looked like an unconquerable mountain mere months before.

It's good practice, is what I'm getting at, for launching other types of efforts.

Consider this your encouragement from me, and let me know if you'd like more!

Now I see why they're called 'aromatic vegetables'...

Since I've been paying more attention to my digestion and eating habits lately (advisable when you rise early and run before eating), I've decided to try to go as vegetarian as possible in these last few weeks leading up to the race. In that vein, I made this recipe from The Daily Soup Cookbook, which has been bookmarked with a sticky note for-ev-er:
Lentil Roasted Garlic Soup.
The ingredients and procedure are below, modified for my special scaling-down (some in the fridge, some in the freezer) and wasn't-in-the-cupboard (only a puny amount of Puy lentils left, and didn't want to mix them) techniques:

• 1 whole head of garlic
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large white onion, chopped
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 2 teaspoons 1 tsp dried rosemary
• 2 1 Bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 pound 1/3 cup of french lentils
• 8 cups 4 cups vegetable broth
• 1 half of one 28-ounce can of whole tomatoes, drained and chopped
• about 3/4 cup chopped chard
• 3 Tablespoons 1 rough tbsp tomato paste
• 2 Tablespoons 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1/4 Italian Parsley, chopped

Pre-heat your oven to 450 degree F. When it comes to temperature, loosely wrap the head of garlic in aluminum foil and place in oven for 15-20 minutes, allowing it to roast. Remove from the oven, and let cool long enough to skin the cloves, placing the cloves into a food processor. Pulse to a near-paste. Set aside.
Heat the olive oil in a stock pot. When nice and slithery, add the onions, celery and carrots. Allow the aromatic vegetables to cook in the pot for 5-7 minutes, adding a slick more oil if necessary. Add the rosemary, bay leaf, salt and pepper, incorporating them into the vegetables. Allow to cook for 2-3 more minutes.
Add the lentils, broth, tomatoes and tomato paste to the pot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer, and partially cover with a lid. Allow to simmer for one hour.
After the hour, stir in the chopped chard, roasted garlic paste, the minced garlic and balsamic vinegar. Simmer for 5-7 more minutes in order to have the soup incorporate the new ingredients and wilt the greens.
Remove bay leaf and serve.
Serves 5-6.

Cabbage for a Cold Night, or Not-So-Cold

A far cry from the chemistry of tea but one could still consider it a comfort food:

Cabbage

I recently saw Simply Recipes' post on Buttered Cabbage with Caraway Seeds, and it sounded like simple, steadfast, hearty fare- perfect for a wintry night.
Only we haven't had many nights in the way of 'wintry' out here in DC lately. It has been abnormally mild. And the one cold night we did have in the past few weeks, of course, my friends and I were out dancing, not at home behind the stove. Of course.
But the mild weather didn't stop me- there was definitely cabbage at the farmer's market and I had definitely brought some home. Cabbage and sausage are a classic combination, didn't stretch the imagination too much there. But oh, what a good-tasting classic! That doesn't always happen, you know.

So let's not forget those standbys of the food world, those humble yet straight-A students in nutrition that are easy to make, dress up, modify, and above all, eat.
Yes, very easy to eat.

 

Next post to take a peek at that night of dancing fun and snow!

Creative Endeavor Year

 What a delicious last couple of days.

Beet greens rescued from limpness, crisped up with bacon goodness

With New Year's Eve on a Saturday and New Year's Day on a Sunday this year, some may have groused about losing days off work, but I made the most of the celebrations not being smooshed into a few tired late-night hours, only to be confronted with the office coffeemaker the next morning. Ha!

I successfully kick-started my Creative Endeavor Year! I've stated lately what I'm interested in, and how differently I want to orient myself, so you maybe have an idea what I'm talking about. No? Ok, then I'll go first with activities from the last few days, and then would you please chime in?

Lists. Yes, I made lists, in different places, on different-sized scraps of paper, and with overlapping topics. Maybe a little overzealous, but now I get to synthesize! Places I want to travel, places I might want to move, key areas of focus for my new work, my annual review, and goals. Totally exciting, right? Well it is for an introverted organizer.

Slowly Scrambled Eggs (you're allowed to zone out while scrambling!)

Writing. Yep- as the new tagline indicates, I'm going to let writing take up a lot more space in my life this year. The focus will be on this blog, as I navigate the transition, and on the novel, which will give me a product and some experience in creative process (little out of practice).

Outdoors. A long run, several moderate-length walks in the cool air- clearing the clutter that tends to clump onto my brain if I spend too much time inside. You know what I mean: meant-to-do's, errands, shoulda-coulda-woulda's. Unless these get out and on a list, they just hover over my shoulder and make me unproductive or regretful. For me, moving at some speed outdoors tends to banish these thoughts. I return refreshed, like my brain had been through a permanent press and spin-cycle!

Apple, cinnamon-sugar, and perhaps a little butter was involved

Back-to-Basics. Return-to-Roots. (I like alliteration, OK?) On NYE, I made my first loaf of bread in the bread machine I received for Christmas, and have been finding ways to appreciate the simple white slice since then. Today, I tried out my first batch of plain yogurt in the new yogurt-maker, and await the results tomorrow morning. While there are a lot of blogging cooks out there who know how to combine many beautiful exotic ingredients for amazing dishes, I like to take the more minimalist approach. Because really, life is what you make of it. So if you don't have pimenton de vera or spelt flour or fresh cilantro when the urge to create in the kitchen strikes, don't fret. Take what you've got, and figure out how to honor that. In fact, I think that'll be the philosophy for this Creative Endeavor Year.

Stale croissant, melted chocolate = uncomplicated souffle

I've been cooking pretty simply in the past month, both because of the desire for wintry comfort food and the need for something simply being enough. Call it an overworked metaphor if you like, but here are a few photos to inspire you to take a stab at this philosophy. Whatever you've got, honor that.

You may see several of the items listed in my Favorites List, which is no accident. What's on your List?

Good Chinese

October 28th.

Friends assembled for a fun foodie night out.

In Rockville, MD.

At A&J.

Much to my surprise, not 1 of our group, but 3 of our 4 knew some Chinese (yes, I was the neanderthal here), which made for some hilarity taking turns asking the waitress things....like: how do you say "to go" ?

It was a rockin' restaurant, with great variety, great flavor, and the decor was... well, the food was awesome.
To the left we have for appetizers Spicy Cucumbers and a dish with soybeans, greens, and bamboo shoots- a table favorite.
Below we have spicy beef soup on the left and congee on the right ('jook' for Koreans, and my first time tasting either). The Spicy Beef was too spicy for me, even with plenty of congee. The congee helped my mouth calm down, but on its own was plain to the point of paper paste. Not my favorite, but I'm sure it's best when paired with the right fiery dish (for someone who could handle it, that is!)

Sesame noodles, very tasty, being expertly tossed by Sabina.

We also sampled Ground Pork and Noodle, Potstickers (a different, fat-cigar shape), Thousand-Layer Pancake, Scallion Pancake, and copious amounts of fresh green tea, poured by each other as kind friends do. The Thousand-Layer Pancake lived up to its intriguing taste reputation- not sweet but not just grease, either- and stole my heart.

And there was no chance for dessert, we barely rolled ourselves out of there in time for making it to this pool hall/bar on Connecticut Ave for a scant hour before we were spent. Or at least I was!

So many good memories over Good Chinese.

Bake, Saute, Forage

Baked
Having received the bounty of undamaged ripe pears from my parents' backyard (thank you!), at first I waited. I indulged in a pear-chocolate hazelnut spread snack, but knew I needed to act on the other 3 pears-a-waiting before things got ugly. Enter convenient recipe.
Having bought poppy seeds on an impulse on my way back from Vermont, I now stood poised, wooden spoon at the ready, to make Whole Wheat Poppy Pear Loaf. I didn't have mini pans as the blog author does, so I made one big loaf, saved some for home, and again, contributed to the yumminess level at work.
Recommended.

Sauteed
As often happens when one bakes, there was a need for balancing out the sugar-butter concoctions with greenery. I was out of my favorite standby kale, but had branched out to what I think were mustard greens, but I'm not sure. Bought at the Bloomngdale Farmers' Market (so soon to close for the season! Boo!) from Snowbear Farm, I believe.

What I thought was really interesting here was the growth of little mini-leaves in the middle of the bigger expanse. It may be hard to see here, but they often came in pairs, on either side of the spine, like they had been pinned on. So fascinating, Nature... Anyway, so I shredded the alleged mustard leaves from their spines and used this recipe to guide me from Deborah Madison, whom I like a lot. I had cauliflower, I had greens, and I had potatoes, from my incursion further into the deep interior jungle of Scottish cooking (up next!)...

Some steaming involved, and sauteing...

La mise en place, bien sur...

The spices part (where hopefully I smell up the hallway, in a good way)...

And the greens part, where they all cook down to almost nothing...

Yum, very tasty and good texture. Added bonus: feeling virtuous and healthy.

Foraged

One chilly October night (I've had to turn on heat a few times), probably in the midst of reading, probably not having planned ahead as in the two instances above, I foraged in my kitchen for a picnic-type meal. I came up with leftover squash puree with pine nuts and parmesan, crusty bread, cheese slices, and chutney. Which is, sometimes, just what you need.

Added bonus: delight.

Highlights of Home in October

Highlights of October, after the Road Trip

Peach-Rhubarb Crisp with Walnuts and Pecans, riffed from this very good recipe, sharing counter space with the walnut fudge I picked up at Dakin Farm in Vermont, which has the byline, "What Vermont tastes like." Good, apparently.

Egg whites whipped a little too stiff for Orangette's Salted Peanut Butter Cookies recipe. I guess the hand mixer made things a little too easy...

These cookies were pretty different from others I've made: for one, salted peanut butter instead of unsalted, PLUS salt, PLUS milk chocolate. I typically trade that stuff out for dark chocolate, but for science's sake, I stuck with the spirit of these cookies.

For another thing, they were HUGE. Instead of a dainty teaspoon or a rounded tablespoon, Molly had us taking big 1/4-cup handfuls (I actually just used my hands and rolled it off like play-doh; it wasn't too sticky for that, thankfully).

And the third thing, as you saw above, was the separating of whites and yolks before combining. Now I've done that for cakes and things, but for a cookie? My efforts, while a little too enthusiastic, were not made in vain. As always, my touchy oven needed to be cut off in its cooking 25% earlier than the recipe said in order not to overcook the beauties, but then they came out, and I had way too many big, gorgeous cookies to hand to deal with!

So I took them into work, and two dozen disappeared in 2 days (I brought them in in two shifts, since we always have people working from home, and it seemed only fair to give everyone a chance). The other half dozen might have disappeared from the counter in that time...
Finally, returning to the savory world, I made this concoction- my first steamed (poached?) egg from Judith Jones' recipe for Steamed Egg(s) Nestled in a Bed of Greens. I really like her recipe-writing style. Something about it is so comforting, warm and reasonable. This felt great to eat, being so healthy and homey, and using up the last of summer produce I had stashed (tomato) plus the rare bit of fall bounty that had arrived (maitake mushroom, sprinkled on after this photo was taken). Happy Fall!