I was born in Maryland and spent my first thirty years living there, first in the Appalachian Mountains, then on the Eastern Shore, and later in suburban Washington. After a year in South Carolina, I moved to Georgia in 1977. I soon met another park ranger who worked in Florida. She was a wonderful woman who became my best friend. then my wife, and soon the mother of our three children. I spent over eleven years working in the historic city of Savannah, Georgia, and on the moss-draped sea islands nearby before moving to Atlanta.. In 2007, I retired from the National Park Service and a career dedicated to preserving and interpreting resources and themes in the cultural and natural history of the United States. It was a most rewarding experience. Today, I enjoy living in the rolling hills and woods of the Appalachian Piedmont east of Atlanta.
Indeed. There really is a national day for that delicious beverage staple, the dry martini. It is a classic though, no vodka allowed. Wikipedia has an informative post about the drink, including a few recipes. The information there may be useful but there is no finer discourse on the martini than Judge Robert Bork's 1996 article in National Review. Thanks to columnist Kathryn Jean Lopez you can enjoy it here.
For me the perfect cocktail calls for some perfect jazz. Today we'll enjoy a cut from John Coltrane's album, Blue Train, released in 1957. It may be sixty years old but it still sells well and consistently ranks among the top jazz albums of all time.
When it's time for dinner and relaxing afterward I suggest the 1963 album John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman - also an all-time top ranked album - in addition to another martini. This combination must only be enjoyed with the one you love. No better way to enjoy the progression of the evening and the close of National Martini Day.
Yes. There really is a national day for that delicious beverage staple, the dry martini. It is a classic though, no vodka allowed. Wikipedia has an informative post about the drink, including a few recipes. The information there may be useful but there is no finer discourse on the martini than Judge Robert Bork's 1996 article in National Review. Thanks to columnist Kathryn Jean Lopez you can enjoy it here.
For me the perfect cocktail calls for some perfect jazz. Today we'll enjoy a cut fromJohn Coltrane's album, Blue Train, released in 1957. It may be sixty years old but it still sells well and consistently ranks among the top jazz albums of all time.
When it's time for dinner and relaxing afterward I suggest the 1963 album John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman - also an all-time top ranked album - in addition to another martini. This combination must only be enjoyed with the one you love. No better way to enjoy the progression of the evening and the close of National Martini Day.
Yes. There really is a national day for that delicious beverage staple, the dry martini. It is a classic though, no vodka allowed. Wikipedia has an informative post about the drink, including a few recipes.
It's after dinner here in the eastern U.S. and about time for a relaxing drink if one is so inclined. If so, here is some perfect jazz to accompany the progression of Friday evening and the close of National Dry Martini Day.
Enjoy.
n.b. John Coltrane's Blue Train, released in 1957, consistently ranks among the top jazz albums of all time. Another fine jazz album for even easier listening is John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, released in 1963 and also ranked among the very best jazz vocal albums of all time.
There isn't much to say about today's subject. One needs to feel the dough as it's hand-mixed. Hear the fruit and sugar bubbling on the stove as it reduces into a thickened filling. See the pattern of the lattice work take shape across the filling in the pie shell. Smell the aroma of berries and pastry baking in the oven. Taste the product of your culinary skill and nature's unforgettable sweet berry bounty. Downright sensational.
Below is the recipe we've enjoyed most in the last thirty years. It comes from The Southern Heritage Pies and Pastry Cookbook (1984), one of a series of nineteen books in The Southern Heritage Cookbook Library published by Southern Living.
Blueberry Pie
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon plus 1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 cups fresh blueberries
2 tablespoons butter
Pastry for 1 double-crust (9-inch) pie
Combine sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a medium saucepan, stirring well to remove lumps. Add berries; mix well. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is thickened and bubbly. Add butter, mixing well. Set mixture aside and let cool.
Roll half of the pastry to 1/8 inch thickness on a lightly floured surface; fit into a 9-inch pie plate. Pour cooled berry mixture into the pastry shell.
Roll remaining pastry into 1/8 inch thickness. Cut into 3/4 inch wide strips, and arrange in a lattice design over filling. Trim edges; seal and flute. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees, and continue baking for 30 minutes or until crust is golden brown. Yield: one 9-inch pie.
The Southern Heritage Cookbook Library has served us well over the years. It's filled with classic Southern recipes, foodways history and personal anecdotes, and scores of photos and illustrations from Southern archives. I don't understand why this series isn't republished for a new generation of cooks. If you find the cookbooks at a yard sale for a dollar or two, grab them. You won't be disappointed.
Today is Monday of Christmas Week. It is a quiet day in the Christian calendar, a day without a festival or commemoration. Six days of Christmastide with its feasting and celebration are behind us and we have six more days to experience. At this midpoint we'll enjoy a feast day of another kind...
... and music to match. The Boar's Head Carol dates from 15th century England. The presentation and feast it describes likely has pagan origins as do many of our Christmas traditions. In the U.S., restoration of this traditional whole pig roast, complete with apple, appears to be strong among churches and colleges. Here is a bold treatment of the carol by Steeleye Span and Maddy Prior:
The boar's head in hand bear I,
Bedeck'd with bays and rosemary.
I pray you, my masters, be merry
Quot estis in convivio (Translation: As many as are in the feast)
CHORUS
Caput apri defero (Translation: The boar's head I offer)
Reddens laudes Domino (Translation: Giving praises to the Lord)
The boar's head, as I understand,
Is the rarest dish in all this land,
Which thus bedeck'd with a gay garland
Let us servire cantico. (Translation: Let us serve with a song)
CHORUS
Our steward hath provided this
In honour of the King of Bliss;
Which, on this day to be served is
In Reginensi atrio. (Translation: In the Queen's hall)
As promised, it's time to share the Thanksgiving verdict on Skipjack Oyster Dressing. It say it was a strong positive in spite of the detractors complaining about that awful smell coming out of the kitchen. My response is that ever-so-popular phrase, "What difference does it make?" For the neophytes, it was a minor hit. For the hopeless gastronomes, a feast.
August in the Country - The Seashore Winslow Homer, 1859
Science tells us that salt has been a part of the human diet for many thousands of years and, at the far end of those years, food was gathered for its nutritional value. Now some new research at the University of York has concluded that adding a bit of garlic mustard to your charred meat and fish was an important foodway practice as early as 7,000 years ago. Who could resist an evening around a quiet fire on a beach cooking shellfish dressed with a bit of salt and mustard garlic? Thanks to Instapundit for the link to the story. Readers may also enjoy the story about Ice Age peoples and their taste for fish. It's at the bottom of the link.
Some things just never change - only difference is the scale.
St. Croix Sugar Mill Pre-20th century, artist unknown
My first serious encounter with rum didn't involve a bottle or a drink. It was 1966 and I was hiking across St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands with the intent of documenting the remains of its many sugar mills. Over the next forty years, my career returned me to St. Thomas and St. John many times where I became more familiar with the most famous byproduct of sugar production.
Though not really a staple in our household, we've come to enjoy rum occasionally. Today, we pour it in the summer to make classic mojitos when there's fresh mint in the garden. When it's time to entertain on the porch or patio, it's time for Pusser's Painkiller. Makes for a fine dessert all by itself and doesn't need to be powerful to be enjoyed.
And who would think rum could make for a refreshing read? It's true. In 2007, Wayne Curtis, author and contributing editor of The Atlantic, used the subject to write a history book. My wife and I both found And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails one of the most enjoyable informal histories we'd read in years.
What better way to celebrate National Rum Day than sinking into a comfortable lounger with drink in hand and a good book. Atlanta's high temperatures are expected to set an all time low maximum somewhere in the low 70s so it's far from mojito or Painkiller weather. This is a hot buttered rum day - and if it gets much colder in the den there'll be a warm fire to enjoy as well.
In honor of last night's dinner guests, the Birkholzes:
Fish and seafood boils are popular foodways in many parts of the country. The regional variations are as striking and numerous as the definitions of the regions and subregions themselves. In the lower Chesapeake Bay area, where I lived from the age of nine into early adulthood, we had a variety of seafoods including oysters on the half shell and fried, as well as clams and assorted fish. The signature of the Bay table was the blue crab, often enjoyed at "crab feasts," be they a gathering of five or five hundred. A steamer, blue crabs, apple cider vinegar, and plenty of Old Bay seasoning. Haven't attended a crab feast in the Bay area in almost forty years, but the wonderful aroma remains fresh in my memory.
It wasn't until the late 1970s that I attended my first seafood boil in the Lowcountry or Sea Islands of the South Carolina-Georgia coast. There's no doubt this food had its origins in the Gullah-Geechee culture among the residents of African descent who have occupied these islands for generations. Cast your net for shrimp and crabs, gather corn and potatoes, slice some sausage, throw in a few onions and seasonings and dinner is ready in about an hour. Not only is dinner quick, you can clean the table in a flash because the food is dumped in the middle of a table lined with plastic trash bags and covered in newspapers. No need for plates or utensils either. When everyone is through, just roll up the debris and dump it in an outside trash can.
Lots of Lowcountry folks use propane cook pots so they can make a big batch of boil outside in the garden, a picnic park or at the beach. We're satisfied using a four-gallon pot on the stove for up to about eight servings unless you add extra shellfish as we often do. If you want to take a journey to the Sea Islands without leaving home, here's what you need:
To prepare four servings:
Dump the following ingredients into two gallons of water:
1/3 cup of Old Bay
Six cloves of garlic, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
One shot/shake Tabasco sauce
One lemon, halved, then squeezed over the pot and dropped in
Bring the pot to a boil and add the following:
One pound Kielbasa sausage, quartered
Twelve medium red potatoes
One Vidalia (sweet) onion
After ten minutes, add:
Four ears sweet corn, halved
Four blue crabs
After eight minutes, add
Two dozen mussels
Two dozen cherrystone clams
2 1/2 pounds uncooked shrimp
After four minutes - the shells are open and the shrimp is pink - drain the pot and scatter the contents on the table while your guests gasp in awe of your talents.
Lowcountry boil pairs nicely with beer. Fresh-brewed ice tea works as well, but it's a distant second. Cole slaw makes for the perfect side. Warm French bread spread with garlic butter - real garlic, real butter - adds a nice complement to the seafood. Around our house, we accompany the feast with the music of Savannah's favorite son, Johnny Mercer. This bit of Mercer magic evokes images of his childhood spent at the family's summer home at Vernon View, about ten miles south of Savannah.
OTR admits to being a junk food junkie in an earlier time and place. A food junkie he remains; however, the quality of the junk vastly improved. Nevertheless, this report about the fate of the Hostess Twinkie unsettles him greatly as he has fond memories of Twinkie encounters from the distant past. How many of us have arrived at work to find a package of Twinkies in a Havahart trap sitting on our desk? The Twinkie may soon disappear, but its history will go on forever. We can only hope that the union makes the right decision.
OTR admits to being a junk food junkie in an earlier time and place. A food junkie he remains; however, the quality of the junk vastly improved. Nevertheless, this report about the fate of the Hostess Twinkie unsettles him greatly as he has fond memories of Twinkie encounters from the distant past. How many of us have arrived at work to find a package of Twinkies in a Havahart trap sitting on our desk? The Twinkie may soon disappear, but its history will go on forever. We can only hope that the union makes the right decision.
