Durham's role in civil rights struggle documented in 'Counter Histories '

This weather-delayed event has been rescheduled for 7pm April 7.
Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina is proud to present "Counter Histories: Durham's Royal Ice Cream Sit-Ins" at Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.

Royal Ice Cream, Durham, is focus of
a documentary short in "Counter Histories,"
a project of the Southern Foodways Alliance

Because of the 1960 Greensboro sit-in that forced Woolworth's to set aside its policy of racial discrimination in the South, most people know that North Carolina figures prominently in the civil-rights timeline.

Fewer are aware, however, that Durham also played a pivotal role. Three years earlier, a group of eight African-Americans decided to challenge the segregation policy that limited them to buying treats at Royal Ice Cream's back door while white customers were welcomed to sit inside.

"We weren't sure what would happen, but we knew it needed to happen," recalls Virginia Williams, who shares her recollections in one of five documentary shorts that compose Counter Histories, a project of the Southern Foodways Alliance. "We knew it was time to test the establishment."

Williams will join Kate Medley, Durham photojournalist and producer of Counter Histories, at the rescheduled April 7 meeting of Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina (CHOPNC). Jesse Paddock of Carrboro, who directed the Durham feature, also will participate in the event at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill.

Medley says the focus on youth-led protests at segregated lunch counters was envisioned as a fitting way to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Civil Rights Act, which President Johnson signed just before Independence Day in 1964. The act made segregation in public places illegal.

The other films document events in Jackson, Mississippi; Rock Hill, South Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee and Cambridge, Maryland.

Medley produced the piece on Jackson, her hometown, where many still feel the scars of the especially brutal incident. "A lot of the racial tensions still are pretty raw," she says. "It's not something people want to talk about." 


Frank Blackwell photo of the brutal sit-in
at the Woolworth's lunch counter in Jackson, Miss.

Two weeks after the May 1963 sit-in at the local Woolworth's lunch counter, which commanded national media attention, NAACP field agent Medgar Evers was shot in the head after parking in his own driveway. His assassination galvanized national interest in racial discrimination in the South, leading to adoption of the Civil Rights Act.

"One of the underlying goals of the project was not to just tell a story of yesterday and stop the conversation there," says Medley, who discussed the film on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, in the context of youth leadership, with students at the North Carolina School of Science and Math in Durham. The school has a permanent display featuring part of the lunch counter at the old Durham Woolworth's, where a sit-in occurred one week after the more famous one in Greensboro.

"I asked, 'Can you imagine being among these people?' We're still facing a multitude of civil rights issues, but these young people are empowered to make change," Medley adds. "We were insistent in our mission that these films are very forward-thinking and relevant to 2014, 2015, tomorrow. We wanted the ideas to be relevant to what's happening in our world today."

This article first appeared in Indy Week.

April McGreger starts new year with ‘bucket list’ honor

April McGreger, author of Sweet Potatoes, will be the guest speaker of Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina (CHOPNC) at 7pm Wednesday, Jan. 21,at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill.

April McGreger

By any measure, April McGreger has enjoyed an enviable start to the new year.

Not that 2014 was too shabby, mind you. The popularity of her Farmer’s Daughter’s Brand pickles and preserves allowed her to give up long hours of working at farm stands and convert part of her thriving business to a CSA-style subscription service. And the daughter of Vardaman, Miss., the self-proclaimed Sweet Potato Capital of the World, published her first book – Sweet Potatoes, a volume in the Savor the South series from UNC Press.

But already this year, McGreger has been chosen to receive two Good Food Awards – one for her Strawberry Honeysuckle Jam and one in the pickles category for Sweet Corn and Pepper Relish.

“I've won other Good Food Awards, including their inaugural year in 2011,” McGreger says. “Honestly, I think I’m even happier this time. They get a ton more entries now, so I feel really proud that mine stood out.”

Blackberry Farm photo/Instagram

It’s a feeling McGreger will have to get used to. On Jan. 10, she joined a roster of culinary all-stars to prepare a course in the Southern Foodways Alliance Taste of the South event at Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tenn. She made a twist on one of the recipes from Sweet Potatoes, a chestnut and sweet potato pudding with sour orange marmalade and coffee cream.

“I had so much fun. It was definitely one of the greatest honors – and one of the few things I’ve really wanted to do,” McGreger says, adding with a laugh, “I guess it was a ‘bucket list’ item.”

In addition to making dessert for an A-List group of Southern food lovers, McGreger led a preserving class during the three day event. It didn’t occur to her until people started filing in that her students would include some of the people she most admires.

“It was very surreal,” McGreger says, recalling when she saw Birmingham chef Frank Stitt, Susan Spicer of New Orleans, and Ben and Karen Barker of Chapel Hill take seats. “My first thought was, ‘What in the world can I teach them?’ But everyone was very engaged and interested.

“They asked some really great questions so there was a lot of great back and forth. It was amazing to have been in the room at all, but to be leading the conversation left me speechless.”

Back home in Carrboro, McGreger has returned to the routine of making products for Farmer’s Daughter Brand customers. While some people assume winter is her down time, she is busy making sauerkraut and marmalades, the latter using an assortment of regional sour oranges from Louisiana and grapefruit and Meyer lemons from Texas.

“I really love citrus so I’ll be making all kinds of marmalades this year,” she says. “It’s also prime time for krauts and pickles. Jerusalem artichokes will be starting soon, and I’m making a beet-horseradish relish. Things do come to a stop right before strawberries return, but I’m still really busy right now.”

What little time McGreger has left to herself is poured back into her business. Fans can expect to see updates to the website soon, as well as new labels for Farmer’s Daughter products.

Cooking old-school with fire can teach much about modern foodways

Food historian Paula Marcoux will talk about how paying attention to historic cooking can improve contemporary home cooking at 7pm Wednesday at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill. The event is the season opening meeting of Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina (CHOPNC). Admission is free and Marcoux will sign copies of her book, Cooking With Fire: From Roasting on a Spit to Baking in a Tannur, Rediscovered Techniques and Recipes That Capture the Flavors of Wood-Fired Cooking. 

After a long humid summer, we all crave fall. Leaves already are beginning to change color and loosen. 

Pine straw soon will follow. So when those needles carpet your yard, do what Paula Marcoux does: Set them on fire.

“Some people are wary of digging a fire pit or cooking in the fireplace, but everyone seems to get the idea of cooking mussels with pine straw," says Marcoux, a food historian who shares her passion for primal cooking methods in her book,Cooking With Fire: From Roasting on a Spit to Baking in a Tannur, Rediscovered Techniques and Recipes that Capture the Flavors of Wood-Fired Cooking (Storey Publishing).

Pine-Needle Mussels from Paula Marcoux's website.

Marcoux made the dramatic meal for an episode of the aptly named Man Food Fire on the Cooking Channel. She's also made it several times during her book tour and recommends it as an easy way for newbies to try cooking with live fire.

Many people embrace it because there are no tools needed," says Marcoux, whose book includes step-by-step photos how to arrange the mussels and pine straw. "A lot of people say they want to jump right in and build an oven. I try to back them off from that and try less expensive or labor intensive methods. People with fireplaces have huge opportunities to try a lot of the recipes without making big changes or an investment."

Marcoux just led an extraordinary fireplace cooking presentation at Monticello, the Virginia estate of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was a lover of fine food and wine who is credited for introducing many European delicacies and cooking methods to colonial America. The original kitchen fireplace remains at the historic site but is not often used.

"One of the barriers is that no one wants to be the one to burn it down," she jokes. "But it's a really safe arrangement. With ordinary precautions, they can have a very vibrant exhibit there. I'm happy to know that I was a small part in possibly opening this up in the future."

Marcoux worked on the menu with Dr. Leni Sorensen, a fellow scholar who is cooking her way through The Virginia Housewife: or, Methodical Cook by Mary Randolph. First published in 1838, it is generally recognized as the first truly American cookbook. She followed its directions to prepare a sumptuous meal of roast leg of lamb, okra and tomatoes, sweet potatoes on a griddle and burnt cream, the latter being an Americanized crème brulee.

"It was an amazing, awe-inspiring honor to cook in the actual Monticello kitchen," she says. "It's a very simple hearth, and they also have a stew stove with air blowing up beneath it. It's a much more precise way of cooking and keeping temperature under control. I made a butter sauce on it, something you have to pay attention to."

While Marcoux cooks with an eye on history, Cooking With Fire is written for the modern cook who wants to broaden their understanding of cooking over an open fire. 

"It's surprised me how many people who have told me that they built a fire pit in their yard – and that they view it as a really nice feature," Marcoux says. "I think there is renewed interest because many chefs and bakers are going back to cooking with wood fuel. The flavor can't be matched any other way."

Marcoux is strongly opposed to cooking with a gas grill. "Using them always reminds me how much I hate them," she says. "Even the expensive ones just don't get hot enough. And if you use the lid, it steams instead of grills. The crappiest little hibachi and coal is better." 

If you don't have a hibachi and aren't keen on mussels, Marcoux suggests banking dry wood in an old kettle-style grill to get a taste of the live-fire cooking experience.

"They're not made for such high heat, so it will burn out" she warns. "But if you keep watch, people are always throwing away parts of old grills. I have quite a few, myself. I also collect heavy cast iron pans from people who say they are too heavy to use. If you don't cook directly on a grate, there's nothing better than a heavy cast iron pan."

And there's always your fireplace – or a friend's fireplace, if your home does not have one. "No one thinks to cook in their fireplace, but it won't destroy it to grill a steak or roast a chicken," she says. "You can learn quite a bit by cooking the way they did hundreds of years ago."

Pine-Needle Mussels

Excerpted from “Cooking with Fire” by Paula Marcoux, photography by Keller + Keller, used with permission from Storey Publishing.

In October, the pitch pines and white pines around our house drop a beautiful puffy mat of russet needles. It takes but a few minutes to gather up the pile needed to have this kind of fun. This is an irresistible introduction for newbies of any age to both cooking with fire and eating shellfish.

About 4 or 5 pounds of fresh mussels in the shell

6 to 10 servings, as an appetizer

1. Gather 1/2 to 1 bushel nice dry pine needles.

2. We like to set this up directly on an outdoor wooden table, but you can use a large board (say 3 by 3 feet) or a very flat large stone. Be aware that you will leave a pretty good scorching on whatever surface you select. Also look around before you start to make sure that you will not inadvertently set something else on fire; have a bucket of water handy just in case.

3. Place something small and stable in the middle of the board; a quarter of a brick, a small oblong stone, a half of a potato, cut side down, a small cube of stale bread . . . Arrange the mussels around it, leaning against the supporting object, with their pointy ends sticking upward. Continue arranging all the mussels in a concentric manner. Many hands make quick work and add to the fun.

4. Now let everyone scatter the pine needles evenly, and as deeply as possible, over the top of the mussels. Give a brief safety lecture, then take a single coal from whatever fire you have burning nearby and deposit it deep in the mountain of pine needles, directly on top of the little support in the middle. (If for some reason you don’t have a fire already burning somewhere, just use a match.) Stand back; these babies really go up.

5. That’s it. When the fire dies down, within the smoking ruins lies a tasty appetizer. Resiny-smoky, briny, delicious. I once tried offering toast and remoulade sauce as accompaniments, but was soundly rebuffed with cries of “they’re too good alone!”

6. If for some reason there’s a cool spot in the fire and some of the mussels don’t open, gather them up and rearrange them with new pine needles for a quick encore pyre.

Emily Wallace on the life and legacy of Eugenia Duke, creator of Duke's Mayonnaise

Emily Wallace will be the guest speaker for Culinarary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina (CHOP NC) at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill. The event is free and open to the public. (Note: The post first appeared in Indy Week).

Emily Wallace is that girl you sat next to in college, the down-to-earth brainiac who saw connections before you did and didn’t stress out when research papers were assigned. Even her doodles were more clever than yours.

Equally intrigued by vast cultural movements and minutia, Wallace quickly distinguished herself in the field of Southern studies— no surprise to those who knew her. She currently serves as communications director for the UNC Center for the Study of the American South and is editor of its acclaimed journal, Southern Cultures.

But what a relief it is to know that, like the rest of us, she can still be caught off guard.

As part of her ongoing research on pimento cheese—her master’s thesis topic, in which varied recipes say much about place and food politics—Wallace ventured last summer to Richmond, Va., to tour the C.F. Sauer Co. plant. It’s where Duke’s Mayonnaise is produced in faithful memory of its inventor, homemaker-turned-entrepreneur Eugenia Duke.

Duke’s mayo has stirred passionate debate over the years, especially during peak tomato sandwich season. Its otherwise mild-manned devotees have been known to argue over fences with neighbors, cast a wary stink eye at plates of deviled eggs at church suppers and even wear their heart’s desire tattooed on their sleeve.

“My drawing was nothing compared to what they showed me,” says Wallace, who reportedly blushed the color of ketchup to learn she was among an ardent subset of Duke’s lovers who expressed their affection via creative arts.

The slather that Duke created in the 1910s, years before women earned the right to vote, has a slightly sweet and distinctive tang from cider vinegar and became a signature of her fledgling Duke’s Sandwich Co. business. The woman-owned enterprise, which by then employed her husband, other family members and locals, expanded in 1923 to satisfy consumer demand for bottled, take-home jars of her mayo. In 1929, when the business became too big to manage independently, she sold it to Sauer. Duke later launched a similar operation in California, cleverly named Duchess Sandwich Co.

To many, Duke’s mayo is one of the things that define Southern cooking, both in homes and some of the most savvy chef-run kitchens. The familiar yellow-capped jar also tends to find a place in the refrigerators of Southern transplants, even among those who grew up elsewhere using Hellman’s or, bless your heart, Miracle Whip.

Wallace learned much about Duke’s and the strong set of emotions it inspires when she prepared a presentation on the topic for last fall’s annual symposium of the Southern Foodways Alliance, which likewise spotlights her creative drawings and informed writing. Her talk generated lively, point by point Twitter relays and spirited analysis. Joe Yonan, food editor of The Washington Post, later published her remarks under the headline Duke’s Mayonnaise: The Southern spread with a cult following. The story includes the recipe for a decadent chocolate cake that uses Duke’s in the moist batter.

Wallace will recount much of her research in a talk for Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina (CHOP NC). She also will share more recent discoveries from an interview conducted with Eugenia Duke’s great-granddaughter, who lives in Charlotte.

“She’s 86 or 87 now and she remembers how driven Eugenia was,” Wallace says. “I’ve learned a lot from her and have continued to stay in touch, which is rewarding.”

Andrea Weigl's 'Pickles & Preserves' gives food its staying power

This post first appeared in Indy Week.

Andrea Weigl will launch her book tour with events at 7pm Wednesday at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh and at 7pm March 19 for Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina (CHOPNC) at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill. Both are free and open to the public.

As surely as the college basketball’s Final Four leads to the return of Major League Baseball, the reappearance of farmers markets is about to spark the season of canning.

Those seduced by the magical transformation of fruit and sugar, or vegetables and pickling salt, know that early spring is a time of joy in North Carolina. Canning jars emptied over winter stand ready to be filled with long awaited rhubarb and strawberries, followed by peaches and berries and, of course, the cornucopia of all things pickleable.

A wonderful new resource is available for home canners, Pickles & Preserves, a book by Andrea Wiegl, food writer for The News & Observer. Perfect for novices and loaded with recipes that experienced canners will enjoy, it is part of the Savor the South series of single-topic cookbooks published by UNC Press.

While she remembers Grandma Weigl canning all sorts of practical foods, Weigl herself started preserving only about eight years ago. “It’s something I always wanted to do, and I was determined to teach myself,” says Weigl, who spontaneously purchased a canning pot and some basics at a hardware store. “I can’t remember now if I made strawberries first, or maybe peaches, but I was hooked.”

Weigl regrets disposing of a stash of her late grandmother’s canning jars—the aged contents had spoiled—but says that generous neighbors came to her aid when she was testing recipes for the book. “We have a neighborhood garden club that is more of a social club, and so many of the ladies gave me jars,” says Weigl, who figures she filled hundreds of them as she mastered the featured recipes. “That was so encouraging.”

Weigl felt like she needed the boost. Her daughter was not quite a year old when she started the labor intensive project, and it sometimes was a challenge to make pickles and preserves while balancing the baby’s needs and working a full-time job.

“I look back now and can’t even fathom how I did it,” she says. “I asked for a year to write the book because I need that to work with what was in season.”
Despite constant testing and a weeklong visit from her mother, during which they made more than a dozen different recipes, Weigl discovered at the end that she somehow managed to miss some key produce. That’s when she picked up the phone.

“I asked people for recipes,” Weigl says. “Sheri Castle was nice enough to share her corn and sweet pepper relish recipe.”

Weigl has nice friends. The book includes recipes from several acclaimed canners, chefs and cookbook writers, including Andrea Reusing of Lantern restaurant; April McGreger of Farmer’s Daughter; fellow Savor the South writers Debbie Moose, Kathleen Purvis and Sandra Gutierrez; and Jean Anderson, whose 1976 Green Thumb Preserving Guide was reissued by UNC Press in 2012.

Weigl is especially proud to include Anderson’s summery Yellow Squash Pickles, which she admits she can’t live without. “I absolutely love that recipe and never came across anything like in my research,” she says.

The book includes a useful guide to canning safety, which Weigl presents in accessible terms meant to encourage new canners to take up the practice.

“Canning can be intimidating, which is why I think I waited so long to try it myself,” she says. “If you have a better understand of the why we do certain things, there’s less reason to be afraid.”

Weigl is eager for the return of spring fruits and summer vegetables but admits that the short window in fall when Damson plums arrive is her favorite part of the canning season.

“I also look forward to honeysuckles coming back to make honeysuckle jelly,” she says, referencing the very first recipe in the book. “There’s something about finding your patch of honeysuckle and taking the time to pick four cups’ worth to make jelly that is really satisfying.”

Soft Refrigerator Honeysuckle Jelly

From Pickles & Preserves, a Savor the South cookbook by Andrea Weigl. Copyright 2014 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher.
Weigel suggests using the leftover honeysuckle infusion to make lemonade.

Makes 2 half-pint jars

4 cups honeysuckle blossoms, packed but not crushed, green parts removed, including leaves and tips
5 1/3 cups cool water
Juice of half a large lemon
2/3 cup sugar
4 tablespoons instant pectin (also called no-cook freezer pectin)

Place the honeysuckle blossoms in a large nonreactive bowl and add the water. Use a plate to weigh down the flowers so they’re completely submerged. Let sit out overnight.

The next day, strain the juice from the blossoms and reserve. Measure out 1 2/3 cups honeysuckle infusion and place in a bowl. Add the lemon juice.
Combine the sugar and pectin in a large bowl. Stir to prevent lumps of pectin in the sugar.

Pour the honeysuckle mixture into the bowl with the pectin and sugar. Stir briskly with a whisk for 4 minutes until the mixture is thoroughly combined and starts to thicken.

Lade the jelly into clean plastic freezer jars, seal with lids, and place in the refrigerator. The jelly will be soft set after 24 hours and will keep for one month in the refrigerator.

A Spoken Dish: Mini-documentaries capture evocative taste memories

Durham photojournalist and filmmaker Kate Medley will be the featured speaker of Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina (CHOPNC) at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill. The event is free and open to the public.

Kate Medley spends a lot of time in her car. As a photographer and filmmaker for Whole Foods, the Durham resident travels to visit stores between New Orleans and New York, pausing along the way to document farmers, cooks and culinary landmarks.

To pass time, she was thinking one day about community cookbooks, those tried and true compendiums that celebrate the best of locally-grown foods and the home cooks who prepare and serve them with love. These cherished volumes were once the cornerstone of church fundraisers and a go-to source for potluck dinner recipes. But in the current context of global online food communities and apps that provide technique tutorials on your smart phone, they seem out of step.

“I was really intrigued by a vision of what a community cookbook could look like today,” recalls Medley, a trained photojournalist, during a drive from Mississippi to North Carolina. “How could I apply the tools of my craft to a tradition that is especially celebrated in the South?”

The outcome was A Spoken Dish, a collection of taste memories and family traditions from diverse voices in Southern food and culture. She stayed close to home to launch the project in June 2013, choosing Chapel Hill teacher and cookbook writer Sheri Castle and Sean Lilly Wilson, owner of Durham’s Fullsteam Brewery, as her first subjects. The short vignettes range from one to two minutes.

In an especially endearing clip, Castle shows her pickling rock, pulled from the ancient New River and used by three generations of family cooks. She knows there are “perhaps more sanitary and conventional ways” of submerging food in brine now, but the treasured stone serves as her “good luck talisman.”

“I believe in my rock. It has history and place,” Castle says, adding it has a natural minerality that may help with the fermentation process. “So many quarts and gallons and crocks of good food have been made with this rock. Who am I to stop it?”

Medley knows how lucky she was to start with Castle, a natural-born storyteller who has shared tales of her Appalachian youth and exhaustive culinary research with major publications and institutions, notable the Southern Foodways Alliance (SFA). Wilson manages to draw a giggle from the otherwise silent presence of the filmmaker with a claim that he keeps a potato ricer in his back pocket. Through years of trial and error, he’s found it to be the best tool to extract fruit from paw paws and persimmons used to infuse his craft beers.

“Sheri and Sean both were gung-ho to be my guinea pigs,” Medley says. “They really brought it to the table. They helped me see what this project could become.”

Castle, who calls Medley an “observer of the first order,” says the documentarian was “wisely vague” when she pitched the concept. “With the camera rolling, she offered a few prompts and then turned me loose,” Castle says. ‘”We spent a juicy hour together and she whittled it down to five short cogent pieces, each a sufficient documentary.”

Sponsored by Whole Foods, SFA and Georgia Organics, the project has continued to grow. It features about 55 clips from men, women and even children from across the South. They describe with passion everything from how to make biscuits or cook a pig’s ear to post-Katrina life and horticultural literacy.

“It’s all about how we, by way of these Southern stories, celebrate the diversity of the South and the diversity of what lands on our plate,” says Medley, who films, interviews and lightly edits conversations for the website. “It’s really the same format as the community cookbook: someone’s favorite family recipe or memory with a few sentences about whatever puts it in a context that is meaningful.”

A new set of 35 segments will debut on March 6 with a reception at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art; they will be added to the website a few days later.  The new clips will expand the project’s scope to represent speakers from six states in nearly 90 vignettes.

Among them are Lolis Eric Elie, New Orleans native and author of the acclaimed Treme cookbook; Becky Currence, mother of Oxford, Miss., chef John Currence, on classic Louisiana gumbo; and Ray Robinson, owner of the iconic Cozy Corner Bar-B-Q in Memphis.

A Spoken Dish, which may next explore the Lowcountry of South Carolina, is just one way that Medley documents culinary culture. An exhibit of her photos, Southern Food from the Backroads & Byways, was shown in 2012 at the UNC Center for Southern Studies.

“Apart from the bread-and-butter of my job, I always try to have a few personal projects brewing that are exploring different factors of community storytelling,” she says. “There’s so much out there. I just need more time, right?”

Empanadas: A pie by another name

Sandra Gutierrez will be the guest speaker for Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina's (CHOP NC) launch of its fall event season at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 18, at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill. Snacks will be provided, including samples from Gutierrez's new book, "Latin American Street Food" (UNC Press).

Empanadas often feature savory ingredients, but this
simple recipe yields tender hand-held pies with
a filling of melted cream cheese and fruit paste.

A confession: I would sooner have pie than nearly any other dessert.

I spent hours, maybe weeks, cumulatively, gazing greedily at sweets featured like sparkling jewels in rotating display cases near the hostess stand in the diners of my New Jersey youth.  I was especially intrigued by the impossibly tall slices of lemon meringue pie and felt respect – no, giddy affection – for servers who managed to extricate slices without losing a single curl of toasty browned goodness.  

Today, I’m more inclined toward seasonal, two-crust concoctions stained with the volcanic eruptions of fresh fruit and sugar – not too much sugar, but just enough to leave a sticky trail on a plate that, if one is at home, one may lick clean without worry that some may tint the tip of one’s nose.

Another confession: I am a pie cheater.

No matter which respected chef or cookbook writer tells me how easy it is to make pie dough, I just don’t see the point. Mrs. Pillsbury has long been one of my dearest friends, followed closely by Mrs. Harris Teeter. With their able assistance, I have baked many pretty pies and rustic galettes that didn’t last long enough to fret over whether or not to refrigerate.

Now that we’re all friends, imagine me comfortably tucked into a stackable white plastic garden chair at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, where I arrived early last week to attend a launch event for my friend Sandra Gutierrez’s second cookbook, Latin American Street Foods: The Best Flavors of Markets, Beaches and Roadside Stands from Mexico to Argentina (UNC Press). Since I couldn’t daydream at the pie case, I pondered what I might write about for today’s #LetsLunch theme of pie. Now imagine my delight when I heard her describe empanadas – for which she’s currently drafting a definitive compilation to be published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang – as hand-held pies.

See where this is going? Follow me. As soon as I returned home I flipped through my copy of the book, which is beautifully photographed by Fred Thompson. I found what I was craving on page 234: Guava and Cream Cheese Empanadas. Si, mi amiga. Muy bien.

This is my kind of pie. It requires just four ingredients, two of which you likely have in your fridge. Instead of refrigerated pie dough, this calls for a visit to the freezer case for frozen pastry dough; ie, Mrs. Pepperidge Farm. Do not be confused or tempted by the phyllo dough, unless you want to repeat my crazed attempt to corral all those papery sheets and roll them into a 12-inch square. La gringa es loca.

While this no doubt would be heresy in Cuba (and most of Latin America), I substituted fancy packages of fig and plum paste I had hoarded in my cupboard for the guava. Be sure to crimp the triangular packets well to ensure that the fruit paste and cream cheese stays inside the pastry while baking. Mine leaked prodigiously, creating a surprisingly tasty mess that could be lifted in ribbons to top the meltingly delicious empanadas. Not the prettiest result, but hey – it’s all good when you’re eating pie.

Guava and Cream Cheese Empanadas (Empanadas de Queso y Guayaba)

Reprinted with permission of the University of North Carolina Press from LATIN AMERICAN STREET FOOD: THE BEST FLAVORS OF MARKETS, BEACHES, AND ROADSIDE STANDS FROM MEXICO TO ARGENTINA by Sandra A. Gutierrez. Copyright © 2013 by Sandra A. Gutierrez. 

In this classic Cuban turnover, nectarous guava paste meets tangy cream cheese and flaky puff pastry. Guava paste has a consistency similar to softened gumdrops—a bit pasty, very thick, and truly luscious when it melts. In a pinch, use the more readily available guava jelly. Make these pastries ahead of time and freeze them before you bake them; there is no need to thaw them. If in the middle of the afternoon you’re secretly craving one (or two or three!) of these decadent empanadas, simply throw them in a toaster oven, bake, and eat them to your heart’s content. It will be our little secret.

Makes 18 empanadas.

2 ready-to-bake puff pastry sheets (1.1-pound package), thawed according to package directions
10–12 ounces guava paste, sliced into 2-inch-long by ¼-inch-thick rectangles (see note)
10 ounces cream cheese, sliced into 2-inch-long by ¼-inch-thick rectangles
Egg wash made of 1 large egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 400°F. On a clean, lightly floured surface, roll out one puff pastry sheet to form a 12-inch square; using a sharp knife or pastry wheel, cut it into 9 (4×4-inch) squares.

Brush a pastry square with egg wash. Place one piece of the cream cheese on top of a guava paste rectangle and place the stack on the diagonal in the center of the pastry square. Bring the two opposite corners of the pastry together to form a triangle; seal the edges with your fingers and then crimp the edges decoratively using the tines of a fork. Repeat with the rest of the ingredients.

Place the filled empanadas on the prepared sheets and brush the tops with egg wash. Bake until golden, about 15–20 minutes. Serve them warm or at room temperature.

Note: If you’re using guava jelly, you’ll need 1 tablespoon for each empanada.

Deb Perelman's comforting food and advice generates huge success for debut cookbook

Deb Perelman will share her story and sign copies of  The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook  at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22, at Quail Ridge Books, and from 9:30-11:30 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 23, at Flyleaf Books with samples of breakfast recipes provided by Foster’s Market.

As the beloved author of the food blog Smitten Kitchen – and the best-selling cookbook of the same name – Deb Perelman serves up comforting advice and encouragement to millions of devoted fans who view her as a sort of patron saint of aspiring home cooks.

“It’s always a little surprising to do a book tour and meet people,” Perelman says during a recent call from her famously tiny New York City kitchen, where she creates and tests her recipes. “It’s like, OK, you are real people, and there are a lot of you.

“It’s totally surreal and fun,” she adds with a modest chuckle. “It’s nothing like I do in my regular life. Nobody applauds when I walk into my living room.”

Perelman is not a manufactured overnight success, but it is notable that the blog she started just 6½ years ago has more than 4 million subscribers and logs more than 7 million page views each month. Her book, released in time for holiday sales last October, competed well against titles by better-known authors. Richly illustrated with her own photos, it quickly sold out of its first printing of 80,000 copies.

It is now in its fifth printing. 

Interest is being punched up this week by Food52's annual Piglet Tournament of Cookbooks, where it is scoring an easy decision against another critically acclaimed work, Roots: The Definitive Compendium, by Diane Morgan. Fans are praising Perelman's accessibility and humor, as well as the clear directions and deep flavors of her recipes.

Perelman is beginning to get accustomed to the acclaim, but she never imagined it would happen so fast or on such a grand scale when she first launched her blog.

"I wasn’t sure what I was doing in the beginning other than really enjoying myself," she says. "I knew there was a readership. I knew I had ‘good numbers,’ but it’s hard to conceptualize what it meant to have millions of followers. It’s not an easy thing to make sense of.”

It makes sense to her fans. Perelman’s appeal is rooted in her low-key, you-can-do-it approach to cooking. Each recipe includes a headnote about how it came to be, why it’s great for entertaining or how even a fussy toddler will eat it – like her own 3-year-old Jacob, whose younger, bibbed countenance is seen chowing down with gusto.

Perelman’s pace quickens and her voice fills with excitement when she talks about developing recipes for her blog. “When I figured out that I could make chicken noodle soup in under an hour on a weeknight, I felt like I had to tell people immediately,” she says. “I love things that solve the dinner time drama.”

One of her favorite challenges is to remake time-consuming traditional recipes in ways that can be assembled quickly. “I made something great for dinner about three weeks about that I really want to share but haven’t had time,” she says of an Italian-style deconstructed stuffed cabbage. “It’s killing me to put it off. I’ve made it three times already and it’s really good.”

The stuffed cabbage recipe finally appeared on the Smitten Kitchen blog early this morning. If you're more in the mood for dessert, Perelman offers her take on a dessert classic.

Tres Leches Rice Pudding
Excerpted from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook by Deb Perelman. Copyright © 2012 by Deb Perelman. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Yield: serves 8

1 cup (180 grams) long-grain white rice
¾ teaspoon table salt
1 large egg
One 12-ounce can (1½ cups or 355 ml) evaporated milk
One 13.5-ounce can (17/8 cups or 415 ml) unsweetened coconut milk
One 14-ounce can (1¼ cups or 390 grams) sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup (240 ml) heavy or whipping cream, chilled
1 tablespoon confectioners’ sugar
Ground cinnamon, to finish

My list of rice pudding loves is long. There’s the Danish risalamande, with chopped almonds, whipped cream, and a sour cherry sauce, usually served at Christmas with a prize inside— one that I never win, not that I’ve been trying for thirteen years at my best friend’s house or anything. There’s kheer, with cardamom, cashews or pistachios, and saffron. There’s rice pudding the way our grandmothers made it, baked for what feels like an eternity, with milk, eggs, and sugar. And there’s arroz con leche, which is kind of like your Kozy Shack went down to Costa Rica for a lazy weekend and came back enviously tan, sultry, and smelling of sandy shores. As you can tell, I really like arroz con leche.

But this—a riff on one of the best variants of arroz con leche I’ve made, which, in its original incarnation on my site, I adapted from Ingrid Hoffmann’s wonderful recipe—is my favorite, for two reasons: First, it knows me. (That’s the funny thing about the recipes I create!) It knows how preposterously bad I am at keeping stuff in stock in my kitchen, like milk, but that I seem always to have an unmoved collection of canned items and grains. Second, it’s so creamy that it’s like a pudding stirred into another pudding.

The rice is cooked first in water. I prefer to start my rice pudding recipes like this, because I’m convinced that cooking the rice first in milk takes twice as long and doesn’t get the pudding half as creamy. Also, it gives me a use for those cartons of white rice left over from the Chinese take- out I only occasionally (cough) succumb to. Then you basically cook another pudding on top of it, with one egg and three milks— coconut, evaporated, and sweetened condensed— and the end result will be the richest and most luxurious rice pudding imaginable. But why stop there? For the times when the word “Enough!” has escaped your vocabulary, I recommend topping it with a dollop of cinnamon- dusted whipped cream, for the icing on the proverbial cake.

Cook the rice:  Put the rice, 2 cups of water, and the salt in a medium saucepan with a tight-fitting lid. Bring to a boil—you should hear the pot going all a flutter under the lid and puffing steam out the seam. Reduce to a low simmer, and let the rice cook for 15 minutes, until the water is absorbed. Remove the rice pot from the heat.
Once the rice is cooked, whisk the egg in a medium bowl, and then whisk in the evaporated milk. Stir the coconut and sweetened condensed milks into the rice, then add the egg mixture. Return the saucepan to heat and cook the mixture over medium-low heat until it looks mostly, or about 90 percent, absorbed (the pudding will thicken a lot as it cools), about 20 to 25 minutes. Stir in the vanilla extract, then divide the pudding among serving dishes. Keep the puddings in the fridge until fully chilled, about 1 to 2 hours.

To serve: Whip the heavy cream with the confectioners’ sugar until soft peaks form. Dollop a spoonful of whipped cream on top of each bowl of rice pudding, dust with ground cinnamon, then enjoy.

Cooking note: If you have 2 cups of leftover white rice, you can skip the first step, and jump in with the egg and three milks.

Audra Ang’s long journey to digest the cultural power of food

Like Dorothy on her journey to Oz, Audra Ang had an opportunity to travel far from her comfort zone to experience a world in which she had connections but felt like a stranger. The environment she experienced was just as bizarre in its extremes of hospitality and threat, and it took a long journey home to fully understand it.

Audra Ang

Ang chronicles the seven years she spent in China as an Associated Press reporter in her compelling new memoir, To the People, Food Is Heaven: Stories of Food and Life in a Changing China (Lyons Press, 2012). She will talk about her experiences - which vary from savoring home cooked meals and reporting about dissidents to spending weeks amid the heartbreaking rubble of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake - at Wednesday’s meeting of Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina (CHOP NC). The free talk gets under way at 7 p.m. at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, where she will sign copies of the book.

For one of her last assignments in China, before she returned to accept a prestigious Neiman Fellowship at Harvard, Ang was asked to write a story that would reflect the span of her tenure. “I came up with a few ideas that were all shot down,” recalls Ang, who recently located to Durham and works at Duke University. “I decided to just write what I wanted to write about, which was food.”

Ang realized that having food, and especially not having food, played a role in most of the reports she filed while abroad. It may have started with the novelty of a foodstuff not often consumed in America, but she quickly came to appreciate the satisfying burn of sweat-inducing spice and, later, the calming aroma of a hot meal amid sickening decay.

“I wrote four vignettes involving food, but I always felt there was so much more to the story,” Ang says. “The article always felt unfinished to me. It was the one thing I felt strongly enough to commit to the need to turn it into a book.”

Ang traveled from Boston to Berkeley to focus on the yearlong project. “It was the most emotionally difficult thing I’ve ever done,” she says, explaining that she retreated to a cottage where she would write all night, sleep from morning to afternoon, then start again.

She did not return to China during this period and instead relied on her reporter’s notebooks and thousands of collected photographs. They were especially valuable in drafting the difficult final chapter about the catastrophic earthquake. The 7.9 temblor provoked global outrage when reporters revealed that thousands of children needlessly died in the wreckage of poorly-built schools.

“The last chapter is my favorite, but I sometimes worry that it’s too intense,” says Ang, who details unfathomable horrors in a restrained tone that nonetheless makes a reader’s heart race. Woven throughout is the importance of food as more than mere nutrient.

“Food is a very central part of life in China. Indirectly, I think cooking and receiving food did help people to heal,” she says. She tells the story of a mother and her critically injured son, who at first refused to eat but eventually asked for his favorite meal of Kentucky Fried Chicken. “She knew it meant that he was getting better. It fills a bit of the emptiness you feel after so much loss.”

Ang’s own initial connection to the earthquake has a link to food. She and a photographer were having lunch hundreds of miles away when they felt the restaurant suddenly rock. They had been reporting about babies who died from ingesting counterfeit formula, but it turned out they were closer to the epicenter than other colleagues. Ang manages to condense their harrowing journey, and the extraordinary weeks that follow, in 46 mesmerizing pages.

Ang is taking a break from such intense writing and is unsure if she wants to return journalism, though friends predict she will.

“Right now, I’m pretty happy to have a relaxed, stable, boring life,” she says with a laugh. “I have a good job in a wonderful city. I am excited and grateful that’s there is so much great food in one area.”

While glad to have found delicious Chinese and Vietnamese fare close by, Ang says she is especially enjoying her exploration of Southern cuisine. She finds contentment in a place that celebrates both traditional foods and cutting-edge cooks.

“Food is a big part of living in the South, too,” she says. “I’ve found that it usually it takes a year to settle into a place, but I’ve met great such people, including people who are very involved in the local food scene. I can see myself being happy here for a long time.”

Finding a sense of place in a forgotten cuisine

John Martin Taylor will be the guest speaker for Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina (CHOP NC) at 7pm Wednesday at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill. He also will be singing copies of the 20^th anniversary edition of his book, Hoppin’ John’s Lowcounty Cookbook: Recipes and Ruminations from Charleston & the Carolina Coastal Plain (UNC Press) from 12-2pm Tuesday at Southern Season in Chapel Hill.

Much has been made of the rise in popularity of Southern cooking in recent years. There is endless speculation about the best way to make fried chicken and pimento cheese. And let us not, especially on a Sunday, debate whether sugar bowl is permitted to dance with the cornbread, or what constitutes real barbecue.

The commercial homogenization of modern Southern fare may lead some to believe that butter-laden sweets and bacon-wrapped, deep-fried everything formed the primary sustenance of our forebears, no matter when or in what part of the South they called home. In fact, many who lived below the Mason Dixon – and particularly those who survived the lean years after the Civil War – counted themselves lucky to have a plate of beans and rice for dinner.

The contrast between pre-war plenty and the deprivation that followed – including due tribute to the culinary contributions of freed slaves – is eloquently defined in Hoppin’ John’s Lowcounty Cooking: Recipes and Ruminations from Charleston & the Carolina Coastal Plain. Released to critical acclaim 20 years ago, the out-of-print classic has been reissued by UNC Press with a new introduction by author John Martin Taylor.

“It was important to me for the book to be published by an accomplished university press,” said Taylor during a recent call from his home in Bulgaria, where his husband is the country’s director for the Peace Corps. “It has a great home now and will help to preserve the food traditions of the Lowcountry.”

While Charleston is now a celebrated restaurant Mecca, Taylor said Lowcountry Cooking was written long before its status as a foodie’s dream destination. His research began unexpectedly in 1984 when he noticed a hand-sewn plantation cookbook from 1919 in a trash heap on a Newport, R.I., sidewalk. The discovery pretty much blew his mind.

“I grew up there but I didn’t even recognize this food,” Taylor said, recalling his astonishment. “When I was first writing about Charleston’s food history in the late 1980s, it was pretty much falling on deaf ears.  When I moved back to South Carolina in 1986, you couldn’t find stone-ground grits anywhere. With the exception of hunters, fisherman and farmers, people pretty much lost touch with the land.”

Lowcountry Cooking speaks to the essential question of what is local food and how it defines the lives of those who consume it. His engaging writing recalls the vivid sense of place established by Diana Kennedy and Paula Wolfert. In the manner of a rapturous nonfiction novel, you feel the pride of Mary Clare for her caramel cake as deeply as the humility of former slaves who made belly-filling, soul satisfying meals from the bounty of the land and scraps discarded by wealthy landowners.

“People were insanely wealthy,” Taylor said. “They were shipping 60 million pounds of rice every year and never dreamed it would end. They were not prepared for what hit them.”

In a sense, the cookbook addresses Reconstruction through the lens of rebuilding the ravaged foodways of the South. Food became a social equalizer, with rich and poor eating the same basic items that remained after the combined impacts of war and a hurricane that swept choking salt water into once thriving rice and cotton fields. Indeed, Taylor’s moniker of Hoppin’ John comes from the hearty rice and cow pea dish that became a favorite of both master and slave.

The book also draws clear distinctions between the traditions of Charleston and the humid, subtropical Lowcountry to other Southern cuisines.

“You won’t find any barbecue, the way you do in the Piedmont,” Taylor said. “Because of the climate, things grow there that do not grow elsewhere in the Carolinas. And because of the port, Charleston always had access to things like great olive oil and sherry and pineapples from Cuba.”

Taylor writes that his goal was to “present the sumptuous fare of antebellum Charleston for the modern cook” – a task that included denuding “authentic” recipes offered to him of such modern ingredients as canned soup and margarine.

While the book has been hailed as definitive – the New York Times raved that it “should be on the National Registry of Great American Food” – Taylor demurs that “this is not ‘Mastering the Art of Lowcountry Cooking.’

“It’s my version of the cooking of the time based on the records that remain,” he said. “The food reflected a great fusion of international flavors – especially those of Africa.”

Ports in the Lowcountry are believed to have been the entry point for between 40-60 percent of all Africans in the North American slave trade. In a more hospitable vein, it also was the landing point for immigrants of many faiths, who likewise contributed their diverse food traditions to what remained one of America’s 10 largest cities though 1840.

Before the Civil War, immense tables in Charleston’s fashionable plantation homes groaned with a gracious plenty raised and cooked by slave labor. Rich landowners regularly held grand soirees to ensure their position in society. This sort of conspicuous consumption is evident in menus that survived from the era – vast food orgies that featured not only the Lowcountry’s abundant natural resources but also imported delicacies that regularly flowed through the city’s bustling port.

Post-war poverty brought down the aristocracy, but such advances as the railroad and refrigeration – chilled butter! ice cream! – introduced new prosperity. Later, air conditioning and the highway system beckoned travelers, and corporate money helped to rebuild Charleston as a tourist destination with a renowned reputation for the arts and fine dining.

While Lowcountry Cooking contains about 250 recipes, Taylor said there is one simple dish that truly provides a taste of antebellum Charleston.

“The whole cuisine at once would have to be Chicken Country Captain, but it takes two days to make it right,” he said with a laugh. “But the composed rice dishes, the pilaus, really give you a sense of what defined Lowcountry cooking.”

Carolina Pilau

Published with permission of John Martin Taylor from Hoppin’ John’s Lowcountry Cooking: Recipes and Ruminations from Charleston & the Carolina Coastal Plain (© UNC Press, 2012).

Dishes like this one appear in various cultures as pilaf, jambalaya, and just plain chicken and rice. In Charleston and the surrounding Lowcountry, they started as pilau, but they’re often spelled perloo (though I’ve seen purloo, perlo and perlau as well). The word is pronounced “PER-lo,” “per-lo,” and “pee-LO,” but that o is a distinctive Charleston sound – and make--people not from here think we are saying “oo.” Some people say, “oo, la, la”; others say “oh, la, la.”

Serves 8

1 3½-to-4-pound chicken
2 quarts water
¼ pound (I stick) unsalted butter
1 large onion, chopped (about 1½ cups)
2 cups chopped celery
2 or 3 large tomatoes (about 1 pound), peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves or 1 teaspoon dried
½ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 cups long-grain white rice

Cover the chicken with the water and boil in a large pot, uncovered, for 30 minutes. Remove the chicken from the broth and reserve the broth. Skin the chicken and remove the bones, pulling the meat from the bones. Cut the meat into uniformly sized pieces. Set aside.

Melt the butter in a Dutch oven on the top of the stove, then add the onions and the celery and cook over medium heat until the onions start to brown, about 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes and their juice and the seasonings, adding a little more salt than you might think is necessary. Add the chicken meat, the rice, and 1 quart of the reserved broth. Cover, bring to a simmer, and cook slowly, without lifting the lid, for 30 minutes. Serve with a green salad and corn bread.