Baked, Roasted, or Fried

Sunday, April 27, 2014

Restaurant Review: Paramount

It looks like the guys who brought us Trattoria Centrale and El Barrio have done it again. Recently, they opened Paramount on the corner of 20th St. North and 2nd Avenue North. For those of you who live in Birmingham, it's where the old Paramount yogurt shop used to be and before that—way back—the Paramount candy store.

How to describe it? The bar is a cross between modern industrial with a bit of steam punk thrown in. Exposed brick walls, old tire rims, and car garage lights strung from the ceiling complete the bar scene. But what really makes this place fun and unique, besides the food, is the game room next door.

There you will find a pool table, foosball table, skeeball, Galaga, basketball games, a pinball machine, and even a Street Fighter game, or something like it. In other words: 80s Throwback Heaven! Trust me, even in this day of complex games on your iPhone, you can’t beat a game of Missile Command or Ms. Pac Man.

Now let’s get back to the food. Yes, it’s bar food. But it’s so much more than that. For example, they have great hummus but with a twist. They call it Alabama Hummus, made from boiled peanuts! Because it has no “chick peas,” it’s safe for two bros to eat together after work. And it isn’t served with the usual dried, hard pita chips, but rather warm pita bread.

Another great appetizer are the Dixie Nachos, a creative twist on the ubiquitous bar snack. The Dixie Nachos are made with sweet potato chips with creamy slaw, bacon, mustard, scallions, and barbecue sauce.

But to me, the most brilliant item on the appetizer menu is the double dipped onion rings with fresh thyme, beer batter, panko, and horsey sauce. Not only do they taste amazing, but the guys have come up with a method that avoids what I call the “vacuum slide.”

Typically, when you bite into an onion ring, the whole onion slides out of the batter, leaving you with a big slice of onion hanging out of your mouth and your hand holding a hollow ring of batter like a Cicada shell. The guys at Paramount have solved this problem by cutting the onion rings into more manageable quarters. You bite into the ring and get onion and batter at the same time.

In my opinion, the best items on the menu are the hot dogs. These are not your 75 cent ball park specials, but knife and fork meals. My favorite hot dog, and perhaps my favorite thing on the menu, is the West Virginia, with house chili, slaw and yellow mustard. My next favorite item is a chicken sandwich called Going Back to Cali, with avocado, sweet peppers, basil-lime mayo on a wild yeast sourdough.

And of course, don’t forget about the hamburgers. You can’t go wrong with The Standard, with lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, horsey sauce, and cheddar. But my favorite is the You're My Boy, Blue. It's piled high with bacon, blue cheese, caramelized onions, and arugula. The sweetness of the caramelized onions, the sharpness of the blue cheese, the pepperiness of the arugula, and the smokiness of the bacon create a perfect flavor combination.

And all this great food is easily washed down by an excellent selection of Alabama craft brews like Good People, Avondale Brewing Company, Straight to Ale, and Back Forty.

And after you have had your belly-full of good food and beer, you can waddle over to the Galaga machine and burn off a few calories.

More information can be found at: Paramount

Monday, April 21, 2014

Hamburger!

We all have guilty food pleasures. Some make more sense than others. Believe it or not, I like the imitation crab meat you can buy in the grocery store; for some reason it reminds me of spring break in college.

Saw's Burger

But one guilty pleasure we can all agree on is a nice big, juicy hamburger. There are as many ways to prepare great hamburgers as there are opinions as to what makes a hamburger great. For me, however, I like it simple, yet classic: lettuce, tomato, red onion, American Cheese, ketchup and mustard. Occasionally, I like to mix it up with blue cheese and bacon or swiss and sautéed mushrooms.

Louis Lassen

The hamburger is an American original, though its origins remain disputed. The “official” version, if there is one, comes from the Library of Congress of all places, which has officially declared that Louis Lassen of Louis' Lunch, a small lunch wagon in New Haven, Connecticut, sold the first hamburger and steak sandwich in America in 1900. According to the Library of Congress, a customer ordered a quick, hot meal, but Louis was out of steaks. Taking ground beef trimmings, he made a patty and grilled it and put it between two slices of toast. While this story sounds apocryphal, it nonetheless comports with our sense of American pragmatism and can-do spirit.

There are burger joints in every town in America, each with its own legion of rabid fans. I’m not talking about the national chains, but the mom and pop joints. (Though everyone has their own favorite fast-food hamburger, even those who say they “don’t do fast-food.” Mine would probably be Five Guys, though I don’t really consider them to be “fast-food;” for true fast-food, I would have to go with Wendy’s.)

Saw's Soul Kitchen

Birmingham has some great hamburger joints. My favorite would have to be Saw’s Soul Kitchen in Avondale. (The name comes from a nickname of the owner, Mike Wilson—“Sorry Ass Wilson.”)

Avondale is an up and coming neighborhood; a casual culinary outpost in an increasingly foodie town. It’s nothing fancy, with maybe eight or nine tables inside and a few tables outside. Saw’s burgers are stacked high with lettuce, tomato, onion, and their special secret sauce. It is similar to other hamburger sauces you would find in Birmingham, slightly spicy and vinegary, similar to barbecue sauce. Hamburger Heaven, Demetri’s, and Milo’s have similar sauces.

My version of Saw's burger.

So what makes a good hamburger? It is simpler than one would think. Here are my eight tips:

1. Buy ground chuck that is 80% lean and 20% fat. Please do not get the low fat stuff and don’t, unless you live in California, get ground turkey. This is not a low-fat endeavor, nor should it. The fat holds the burger together and gives it its flavor. Besides, it’s not like you eat them every day do you?

2. Form the patties with a minimum of manipulation. Using your thumbs, put a dimple in each side. This keeps the burger from turning into a blimp while grilling. Generously salt and pepper the burgers (that’s all the seasoning you need—trust me) and place in the fridge for about two hours before you put them on the grill. Do not let them come to room temperature before putting the burgers on the grill.

3. Get that grill has hot as possible. You want Three-Mile Island to look like a ski resort.

4. Put the hamburgers on the grill. (OK, I know this one seems obvious….) Do not take your spatula and press down on the burger. This will force out all the juices and leave you with a dry burger.

5. If your grill has a cover, leave it open. If you close it, you will cook the burger before you can get a good char.

6. Now here’s the hard part. Leave the burger alone. He’s ok by himself. Go grab another beer and talk about the game with your brother-in-law. Once the burger gives a little without sticking, flip it over. Never flip more that once.

7. At this point, place the cheese on the burgers and close the cover—you can even turn the eat down a bit. Once the cheese is good and melted and dripping and about to cause a grease fire, remove and let rest for a few minutes.

8. As for the buns. I like kaiser rolls that I’ve brushed with melted butter and toasted on the grill.

Of course no hamburger is complete without french fries (more on that in a later post), but Lay’s potato chips will do in a pinch. Potato salad or even baked beans aren’t bad either. Of course, the drink of choice is a nice, ice-cold beer, preferably Miller High Life in my humble opinion. (Wine is never an option, even if it is a 1961 Château Cheval Blanc.)

I may run the risk of getting carried away here, but I think it is safe to say that the hamburger may be the perfect food. It’s inexpensive and easy to make. For most men, it’s the first thing they learn to cook, while they stand next to their old man with a beer in his hand who guides him in flipping that hamburger so carefully for the first time. Because the best hamburgers are made on an outdoor grill, they are best grilled in the summer. And when I shuffle off this mortal coil, the last sensations I will record, if I'm lucky, will be the sound of crickets in the early summer evening and the smell of hamburgers on the grill.

Sunday, April 13, 2014

History is Not Even Past in a City like Paris

One of my favorite movies is Midnight In Paris. For those who’ve not seen it, the movie takes place in both modern-day Paris and the Paris of the 1920s. The main character, Gil Pender (played by Owen Wilson) is engaged to Inez (played by Rachel McAdams). They are in Paris on a trip with her parents. Gil writes screen plays, but aspires for something more. He wants to publish a novel about a nostalgia shop. Not surprisingly, he wishes he lived in 1920s Paris. One night, his dream comes true, as a classic Peugeot pulls up and takes him away in time to a party where he meets Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and even Salvador Dali.

As an ardent fan of this movie, as well as the writings of Ernest Hemingway, I couldn’t resist a combination Midnight in Paris and Hemingway walking tour during my recent trip to Paris. Because the MIP stops on the tour are not particulary food or drinking related, I will focus more on the Hemingway aspect. Of course, no Hemingway walking tour would be complete without a few stops at the local watering holes!

Where Gil is first escorted to 1920s Paris

The first stop on the MIP tour—and the most important—was Saint Etienne du Mont, the church near the Pantheon where Gil is first whisked away to 1920s Paris.

We were famished and grabbed fish and chips at The
Bombardier just across the street from the church. Nothing seems more incongruous than eating fish and chips and mushy peas at an English pub in Paris! But when you’re an American who needs a break from classic French brasserie food and want a wee reminder of home (without going to McDonalds), then a trip to an English pub is close enough. It is also nice that everyone there speaks English fluently (even though almost all Parisians speak excellent English.) The servers are either from the UK (ours was from outside London) or have spent considerable time there (like my French server last year), so they understand idioms and the subtitles of the English language. This is why even if I were an expat in Paris and spoke fluent French, I would still seek out places where I could speak my native tongue.

The Luxembourg Gardens

After refueling, we headed off to the Luxembourg Gardens, Hemingway’s favorite place to walk and think—certainly my favorite garden in Paris.

After a stroll up the Avenue de de l’Obversatoire, we arrived at the highlight of the day’s walk: La Closerie des Lilas. This is a great brasserie and bar in Montparnasse, guarded by a bronze statue of Marshal Ney (Napoleon’s right-hand man) and, more importantly, frequented by Hemingway.

Me and Marshal Ney

It is rumored that Hemingway wrote The Sun Also Rises here. I was fortunate to sit at the same place at the bar where he sat (memorialized with a small brass plaque). And I must admit that I had one of the best martinis I’ve ever had. It helps that this is an “American” style cocktail bar, so you can be sure that you are getting the best of American spirits here. We noticed, in fact, that La Closerie des Lilas had one of the best selections of American bourbon and rye, something not always easily found in Paris.

Hemingway writes frequently of the Closerie des Lilas, a short walk from his apartment, in a Moveable Feast:

The Closerie des Lilas was the nearest good café when we lived down the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs in the top floor of the pavilion in the courtyard with the sawmill, and it was one of the nicest cafés in Paris. It was warm inside in the winter and in the spring and fall it was very fine outside with the tables under the shade of the trees on the side where the statue of Marshal Ney was, and the square, regular tables under the big awnings along the boulevard.

French cafe culture is fascinating indeed. There are several things I noticed. For one, lunch starts later for the French than it does for Americans. We typically arrived between 11:30am and Noon and the tables were pretty empty; by 1:00pm they were filling up; by 2:00pm, they were packed with French diners.

The next day we had lunch at Cafe de Flore, and while it was not around during Hemingway’s time in 1920s Paris, it would have been the type of place he would have haunted. Cafe de Flore lies on the fashionable Boulevard Saint Germain. It is decorated in the classic French cafe style with a tiled floor, mirrored walls, and long red banquets. Diners are served by a complex ballet of waiters in starched white shirts, black ties, and white aprons. They move quickly and efficiently, yet elegantly.

What makes a Parisian cafe such an institution, however, is its pace. While the waiters hustle about, the guests sit and eat and drink and talk deliberately. Time seems to stand still. And of course, a demitasse of espresso is a down-payment for a long-term lease to sit on the sidewalk and people watch throughout the afternoon.

One lease payment I don’t mind paying.

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Cooking in French

While in Paris, Laura and I rented a studio apartment. And while we could have stayed at The Ritz or the George V, as wonderful as that would have been, spending a week in a studio apartment provides a more authentic sense of what makes Paris so special. Besides, an apartment would give me an opportunity to shop Paris’s famous markets and cook dinner.

Our apartment was located at 10 rue Francois Miron in the Marais. The front windows looked onto a small square wedged between two imposing, yet classic, governmental buildings. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, it doubled as a market. The back window of our apartment looked onto the enclosed courtyard and the L’Eglise des Saints Gervais et Protais.

That Wednesday morning, the square looked no different that it did the day before. In fact, it was still wet from Tuesday’s cool rain. Had I been misinformed? Then slowly, around 11:30am, a dozen or so tents began to sprout. (Later, we discovered the Wednesday market is an afternoon market, so Parisians can shop on the way home from work.) By the time Laura and I had returned from a round of sightseeing and shopping, the market was in full stride. There were stalls selling vegetables, breads, cheeses, fruits, and flowers.

It was good for me that this was an afternoon market. We were having my dad and his significant other over for dinner, and I had not thought too hard about what to cook for dinner. In other words, I was a bit pressed for time.

I grabbed a head of lettuce and radishes for a simple green salad; potatoes and leeks for a potato leek soup; and haricots vert. The Wednesday market does not sell poultry, meat, or seafood, so I had to go to the supermarket to grab some chicken and lemons for the chicken paillard; a baguette (of course); some dijon mustard; and cheeses, cornichons, and charcuterie. I had what I needed for dinner. And while I was gone, Laura put out the fresh tulips we had purchased at the market.

Working hard on dinner.

I quickly discovered that cooking that evening would be a bit of a challenge. There was no oven to speak of. I think we had a microwave that doubled as some kind of convection oven contraption. Any serious baking or roasting was out of the question. I wouldn’t be deterred, however. And it really didn’t matter—this would be a simple meal.

I also didn’t have a food processor, immersion blender or, alas, a Vitamix to make a super smooth soup. Instead, I used the new knife I had purchased at E. Dehillerin earlier in the day to dice the potatoes and leeks in microscopic cubes and paper thin slices. Lots of salt and pepper and a little bit of cream and—voila!—I had ersatz potato leek soup!

I sautéed some haricots vert to go with the chicken pail lard along with shallots, butter, lemon juice, and white wine. For dessert, we had some very alcoholic sweets from a local candy store. In short, we were set for dinner in Paris.

It was a mild evening, so we kept the windows open. Candles, flowers, jazz on the stereo, and the rhythmic sound of the Parisian police car completed the scene. At one point, I thought: “How Parisian!” But it wasn’t really Parisian, any more than it was Italian, Spanish, American, or even Russian. We were doing what everyone likes to do: have a nice meal with loved ones and talk about the day. This time, the day just happened to have been in Paris.

Sunday, March 30, 2014

A Foodie's Trip to France

Today, I just got back from a week-long trip to Paris, France. As many of you know, I am an admitted Francophile, especially when it comes to French food and cooking. Over the next several weeks, this blog will focus on my trip. These posts will discuss French cookbooks on how to cook "American" (today's), Parisian cafe culture, drinking in Hemingway's bars, going to the market and cooking at home, and perhaps an attempt to understand why the French seem so obsessed about food.

Here's the first one in this Parisian Series, called:

Bubble Tea

The Parisians love books.There seem to be bookstores on every corner. And Parisians take them everywhere, into cafes and brasseries. One day after lunch, I stopped in a bookstore that looked promising. Instinctively, I found myself in the cookbook section of the store. Consequently, I found an interesting little book titled, 100 Recettes Made in USA (“100 Recipes Made in the USA”). After wondering why anyone in France would buy such a book (albeit it was only 5,95€), I was nonetheless curious to see what the French considered to be “American” food. The first section is called Sur le Pouce, which means “on the go,” I guess this is so because the French think Americans always move and eat (whether in cars or on our feet), rather than sit down for a languid noonday meal for an hour and an half with a bottle of wine. (Of course, they would be right.)

The first recipe is for making one’s own hot dog buns and hamburger buns. I’m not making this up. If you followed this recipe, it would take you about an hour and half to make ten buns. Perhaps the French don’t realize that Americans don’t make anything from scratch, much less hot dog or hamburger buns. And why should we? I doubt most French people make their own croissants or baguettes, for the simple reason that neither we nor they have the time. Even in Los Angeles, you can barely get to the store and back in less than an hour and a half. I can also think of a lot of other things I would rather do in an hour and a half rather than make hotdog buns: watch the first half of a college football game or enjoy a languid noonday meal with a bottle of wine. In the book, there are also recipes for making your own bagels, ketchup, BBQ sauce, and mayonnaise. Again, why bother? Just buy it at the store. That’s the American way!

The first section in the book also has a recipe for French fries! Aren’t these French? Isn’t it just a bit ironic that a French cookbook with recipes for American fast food has a recipe for French fries? Yet the most intriguing recipe was for something called “Pizza Hot Dog.” And while I did find a few “Hot Dog Pizza” recipes on the Internet, I still don’t consider this enough of an American culinary phenomenon to have been placed in a French cookbook on American food.

The next section is called Classiques Américains (“American Classics”). This section made a bit more sense. This section has recipes for such true American classics such as meatloaf, fried chicken, and chili. But then there are the outliers: pumpkin soup with cheddar cheese (not sure I’ve seen this one at Thanksgiving); Haitian soup; and something called Butte pastry.

The book also had a dessert section, which also provided to be no less interesting than the others with a few surprises thrown in. As one would expect, there were recipes for apple pie, pumpkin pie, brownies, red velvet cake, and chocolate chip cookies. But the book also had a recipe for pancakes, blueberry pancakes, banana bread, and corn bread, items that Americans typically don’t consider dessert foods.

The last section, Boissons (“Drinks”) contained recipes for milkshakes and smoothies. OK, I can see that, but what about egg nog? Most Americans don’t like egg nog, and when they drink it, it is only during the holidays. But then perhaps the most bizarre items in the cook book kicked in. Something called “bubble teas.” What?! They come in various flavors like sesame, coconut, and mint and contain tapioca. A little of Internet research revealed that these drinks originated in Taiwan and are somewhat popular in France. So, I’m not sure how this got into a cookbook claiming to be dedicated to American food.

Brillat Savarin once said, “if you show me what you eat, I’ll show who you are.” To expand upon that phrase, one could say that if I show you a nation’s cookbook, I could tell you about that country. That may be true, unless it’s in French and its a so-called American cookbook. I wonder what the French would have to say about our “French” cookbooks.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

36 Hours in Williamsburg, Virginia

A few weeks ago, I headed back to Williamsburg, Virginia, the home of my alma mater, the College of William & Mary. The purpose of the trip was to celebrate my birthday (referenced briefly in my previous post), or in this case my “birthday weekend.” It had been many years since I’d had visited the ‘Burg, much to the chagrin of the Alumni Association. But then again, it’s not like I can hop in the car for a Saturday football game: Williamsburg is 704 miles from Birmingham, Alabama, according to Google Maps.

Williamsburg is really not the town it was when I was a student there, particularly from a gastronomic perspective. Back then, it was delis, pizza, and ramen noodles (a hot pocket if it was a special occasion!). But then again, I was a college student, a demographic group not known for good judgment, much less good taste. The one fancy restaurant in town was The Trellis (still there, although under new ownership since I was a student). Of course, the only time you graced its doors was during Parents’ Weekend. And then you had to deal with your mom scowling at your wrinkled, beer stained button down, which constituted “dressing up.” Then there was Berrett’s Seafood (still there), but seafood is expensive so we only went there occasionally for happy hour. (This is where I had to instruct my best friend’s younger brother that slapping your hand on the bar and barking “barkeep” is the quickest way to get pegged as an underaged drinker!)

As I mentioned above, there were the “delis,” which served subs, hoagies, or grinders (depending on where you are from), but were also bars. (My favorite was Paul’s Deli (still there). My favorite sandwich was the “Sailor,” which of course brought about snickers when someone asked you what you were going to eat…. . (I never promised a PG-rated blog folks!) Right next door to Paul’s Deli was The Green Leafe, which may be my favorite bar of all time. My credit card bills were certainly testament to this fact. This bar was strict about carding, so it was the domain exclusively of juniors and seniors, which made it seem very grown up, especially when you would run into one of your professors on a Friday afternoon. Not for nothing was The Green Leafe known as the unofficial faculty club in a town where the university actually did not have one of its own.

And so it was with these memories that I arrived in Williamsburg on a Friday evening in March, twenty-two years after graduation. Would it hold up to my nostalgia?

Dinner that night was at a restaurant called The Fat Canary. Interesting name, no doubt. It really has nothing to do with an overweight yellow bird in a cage. It comes from an old colonial poem. When ships sailed from the Old World to the New, they would stop in the Canary Islands for supplies. Of course, one of the more important provisions was wine, which was referred to as “Canary.” The colonial playwright John Lyly penned a poem about canary: “Oh for a bowl of fat canary, rich Palermo sparkling sherry… .” And a rich bowl of Canary I had.

We started off with crispy Rappahannock oysters with sweet onions, tomatoes, and espelette pepper and seared foie gras, hazelnut toast, blackberries, and watercress. For my entrée, I had a heritage-breed pork chop, goat cheese soufflé, golden apple sauce, and grilled onion. Dessert was crème brûlée—one of my favorites! This was such a great meal, which gives credence to that fact that Williamsburg has become a food-lover’s town. (Not surprising because The Fat Canary is owned by the same family that owns the Cheese Shop, another venerable Williamsburg institution.)

The next morning we walked over to “Dog Street” for the weekly farmers market. Now there really isn’t a street in Williamsburg named “Dog.” “D.O.G. Street” is actually short for “Duke of Gloucester Street.” But “DOG Street” is how the locals refer to it. Now keep in mind that Williamsburg is both a tourist attraction and a college town. And students being students, we would take great delight in giving directions to “tourons” (part tourist, part moron) that referenced “Dog Street,” knowing that they would spend the better part of the afternoon trying to get back to their hotel, with two or three screaming toddlers in tow. Yeah, I know, it was a jerk move, but we were college students.

Anyway, back to the farmer’s market.

Williamsburg never had anything like this when I was a student in the Burg: fresh seafood, grass-fed beef, artisanal cheeses, and French pastries made by an actual French woman from Normandy. In short, a foodie paradise! And yet, we didn’t find a single thing for dinner that night, perhaps because it was the first market of the year, and produce was limited in availability.

By this time, lunch approached. We had lunch at the Dog Street Pub, a name which has probably clued in the tourons, much to the chagrin of the latest batch of W&M students. Great little gastropub, new to the ‘Burg within the last few years, with a good selection of craft brews. (We’ve come a long way from the days when Sam Adams was a craft brew.) I had endive salad with serrano ham, Stilton blue cheese, red peppers, toasted walnuts, and honey dressing. Yes, I know this is not typical pub food, but after the previous night’s feast, I had to had pace myself.

After a walk through Colonial Williamsburg, it was off to Trader Joe’s to get food for dinner. We never had a Trader Joe’s when I was a student, instead we had to rely on frozen dinners and pre-packaged food at the local Food Lion. But then again, we lived on pizza delivery and ramen noodles.

The Birthday Present

Dinner with friends is the best kind of dinner there is. My college friend Andrew and I had decided to divide dinner. He’s a foodie and loves to cook as do I. To avoid any tension in the kitchen, we each cooked certain portions of the meal, rather than one being the “sous chef” and the other being the “chef de cuisine.” This worked out well. Andrew prepared the chicken and beef, along with asparagus. The chicken and beef were accompanied by excellent pan sauces. I made pomme frites with my new deep fryer (birthday present!), glazed carrots, and Laura Robinson brownies for dessert. But the real treat of the evening was the leek velouté made with the Vitamix. I wrote about my leek velouté in a previous post made with an immersion blender. But I must admit that I’m now smitten with the Vitamix. This thing took my soup and turned it into liquid silk.

But the food at dinner, though good, was not the main attraction. It never is, or should be, when one has dinner with friends. This one was of the most enjoyable meals I’ve had in a long time. Over food and wine, we talked; we laughed; we reminisced. And the background music was Andrew and Janice’s two beautiful, precocious daughters being silly, telling jokes, and having fun getting to stay up late.

Sunday morning brunch was interesting, to say the least. The previous Friday, the fridge had died. We were fortunate to get a new one delivered on Sunday. Of course, this interfered with making french toast (by me) and a frittata (by Andrew), all the while trying to help the guys installing the fridge shut off the water. Thankfully, the mimosas helped us get through it.

Alas, it was time to head back home, which meant a car ride back to D.C. But first, we had to make a stop at Pierce’s Pitt BBQ. This is some of the best BBQ in Southeast Virginia. Having lived in Alabama for almost ten years now, this BBQ was a welcomed return to Carolina style BBQ. Plus you have to love a place that proudly proclaims its name as including “Pitt” with two T’s because . . . well, that’s the way it is.

Then it was back on the road for a quick drive to Washington, DC, and the flight home. Birthday weekend was over. I slept well on the plane. Good food and great memories helped.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Happy Birthday!

Keeping It Real in Colonial Williamsburg

This past Sunday was my 44th birthday. Fortunately for me, the celebration turned out to be a weekend-long affair (more on that in the next blog post). It started with a wonderful dinner at The Fat Canary in Williamsburg, Virginia, continued with a feast with friends in which everyone contributed their own talents, and concluded with Sunday brunch while helping a couple of delivery guys replace the refrigerator that died just as we were making dinner the previous night.

But there was also another birthday this past weekend. On Friday, March 7, this blog became a toddling one-year old! Consequently, I went back and looked at that first blog post on Thursday, March 7, 2013. This particular passage really struck me: "Not really sure where this blog will end up. In fact, I don't know even know where it will start." And though this blog is still a work in progress, I think it has held up pretty well (and if you think I’m being cocky about that, note that my editor, who is a tough critic, agrees with me).

It is also interesting to see how this blog has evolved. This blog, along with my cooking, has become more confident; more developed; and more unique as I have thought about what is interesting to me and to my readers, who I thank for their feedback and valuable input (again, my editor agrees!) A good cook, like any good writer, must find his voice. And more recipes, as I do hear that from my readership as well.

So, in honor of my blog's first birthday, here is my top ten list of my favorite blog posts and my favorite passage from each.

#10 Mastering the Art of French Cooking (March 9, 2013)

I wrote this one while sitting in a local coffee house on a cold March afternoon (on my birthday no less). I was leafing through Julia Child's cookbook, The Art of French Cooking, looking for something to cook for dinner for me and my two sons. It got me thinking...

So, I’m off to the store with my list that, with a little bit of wine and luck and Julia’s help, will be a great meal. If not, then I probably will not know it, nor will those who eat the meal with me. But then again, that’s the whole point.

#9 Food on the "Run" (April 10, 2013)

This one appeared shortly after my two boys and I had returned from Paris. Their first trip. This piece was along the same contemplative vein as #10, but with a bit of humor injected into it. I also poked some fun at my tendencies to "go native" when I travel. I started by noting that grabbing a baguette in America is not quite the same as grabbing one in France:

Well, the first thing is that I had to get in my car, rather than stroll down a tree-lined Parisian boulevard. Not quite as picturesque, but oh well. Next, I had to find a parking space whilst avoiding getting run over by a soccer mom on the phone in her 4,000 lb Yukon.

And then it hit me:

One of the things I will miss about Paris is more than just the food. It is good, but we make good food here too. It is how they have made food, and have cooked it, and have eaten it as a deliberate part of their lives.

#8 Cocktails Inspired by The Great Gatsby (May 4, 2013)

Ok, I must admit this one was probably the nerdiest blog post I ever did, though it is not immediately evident. A few days before I wrote this one, I listened to an interview on NPR with Mohsin Hamid, the author of How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia and The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Both of these novels are written in the second person, a very hard tense in which to write anything. So, I decided right then and there, you see, that my next blog post would be in the second person. Really, you don't believe me? Well read it. Why did I pick cocktails inspired by The Great Gatsby? It's my favorite novel, of course! And yes, writing in the second person is damn hard!

You get only three chapters in when you read about the first great party of the book—the one where Nick and us readers meet Gatsby for the first time. And throughout the book, we are introduced to champagne, gin, bourbon, and even absinthe.

And don’t forget that one of the most dramatic scenes in the book occurs at the Plaza hotel where Daisy, Tom, Gatsby,

Nick, and company have retired for some libations on a hot afternoon.

Oh that’s right you didn’t read the book....

Well, anyway, this is the scene where Daisy delivers one of her best lines:

“Open the whiskey, Tom,” she ordered. “And I’ll make you a mint julep. Then you won’t seem so stupid to yourself….Look at the mint!”

Ouch!

#7 Some Memories Are Best Served From a Can (January 27, 2014)

I wrote this one after just finishing Luke Barr's book, Provence: 1970, which is about his great-aunt M.F.K. Fisher's time in France in December 1970 with some of the culinary greats of her time: Julia Child, James Beard, and Richard Olney. This book made me channel my own inner-M.F.K. and got me thinking about how my relationship with food has changed since the 1970s, as well as America's:

We shouldn’t let that food-snobbery blind us to what was good about how we ate back in the 70s. I loved my Mom’s spaghetti, even if it come from a jar. However, is spaghetti from the “hot bar” at the local Whole Foods such a big improvement? And yes, vegetables came from a can, but are those kale-carrot smoothies made in a Vitamix a step forward? And with all the recent talk about GMOs and food dyes, gluten-free this and that, I can't forget the Technicolor glories that one could create with FDA Blue #6.

#6 Meatloaf: Score! (March 5, 2014)

Ok, maybe it was because I was getting close to my birthday again and getting a bit nostalgic, but I really like this one because it really takes me back home. And yes, you can go home again—at least on an empty stomach.

What goes well with meatloaf? Of course, any kind of starch will do. I like egg noodles with lots of black pepper and butter, but when I was a kid, the best, the absolute best, was mashed potatoes. Just imagine. It’s a cold winter’s night, and you’ve finished your homework early, so you can watch the latest episode of Mork & Mindy or Battlestar Galactica (the old one without the hot blond Cylon). You casually ask your mom “what’s for dinner?,” trying vainly to mask the trepidation in your voice—God, please don’t let it be liver and onions; I promise I’ll be nice to my little sister—and, after what seems like an interminable pause: meatloaf.

Score!

#5 You Say “Tow MAH Toh” I Say “Tow MAY Toh"(February 25, 2014)

I try and stay away from politics on my blog. This was probably the closest thing I've gotten to a rant about food politics, though you have to love the fact that it began by comparing the grocery-store tomato with Scarlet Johansson and the heirloom tomato with Charlize Theron (when she went "ugly" in Monster).

And while I don’t fault all these movements—they have their merits—they may be based on a false premise. Food has never, truly been “local” or truly “natural.” Even the most non-GMO wheat, corn, barley, or carrots ever grown are all derived from variants genetically modified over many generations in the ancient world. (Granted, we can do it a lot faster now and maybe faster than our bodies can adapt to the changes.) And food and flavors, like people, have always migrated from place to place. As Faser & Rimas state: “[a]part from inside a patch or two of Amazonian bush or a forgotten New Guinean gully, there’s no such thing as a purely regional cuisine. Promiscuity in foodstuffs is part of human nature.”

So, when food gets political, as it is wont to do these days, don’t forget that there never was a “golden age” where we were in harmony with food production. Of course, this is not to say we shouldn’t be mindful of the future—just don’t forget about the past. And don’t forget that “ugly” ain’t always better.

#4 Being in Love With Cooking is Never Having to Say You're Sorry (June 21, 2013)

This one came about after finishing Julia Child's memoir, My Life in France. The best piece of advice I got from that book is that one should never, ever, under any circumstance, short of food poisoning, apologize for how one's dish turns out.

My first attempt at hash browns is a perfect example of how bad things can get:

Everyone who loves to cook and cooks often will, at some point, make something that is simply wretched. Something just plain awful and which looks nothing like the one in that glossy photograph in the cookbook. For example, I recall one morning when I had this burning desire to make hash browns. After a cursory glance at a recipe, even before I had my morning coffee (big mistake!), I made something that only barely resembled hash browns—but if only hash browns were GREY!
* * *
So, we should all fight the urge to stress out about the meals we make and by all means, don’t apologize. It’s probably not as bad as you think. But, if it really is that bad, then the hell with it!. Just order a pizza!

#3 Barbecue (August 13, 2013)

This post was one of several (like Shine On) that was a true expression of where I'm from, and if there is one 2nd year resolution for my blog, it is to write more about the cuisine of the South. In my opinion, it is the only true indigenous American cuisine. Here's what I had to say about BBQ, but more particularly about where it is served:

Finally, a good indication of the quality of the barbecue served is the diversity of the clientele. Despite the South’s ugly past, barbecue joints and their cousins, the “meat and three,” are some of the most socially egalitarian eateries on the planet. You will find bankers and lawyers sitting next to construction workers and truck drivers. Whites will be sitting next to Blacks and Hispanics. They are all drawn to the same love: barbecue.

#2 Ho! Ho! And A Bottle of Rum! (December 23, 2013)

This one is #2 because: (1) it's about the Holidays; one of my favorite times of the year: (2) baking, what got me into cooking in the first place; and (3) a rum cake so high in alcohol, that my HR department won't let me bring it to work anymore!

Anyway, for adults, making rum cake is fun as hell. The trick, of course, is to buy more rum than you actually need to make the cake. (I prefer Myers's.) And trickier still is to stay sober long enough to finish it! So, after many years of baking during the holidays, I may have found something to stand the test of time. This year, I put on the faux fire on the TV; some Christmas music from Frankie on the stereo; fired up the oven; opened a bottle of rum; and made a rum cake. And if no one eats it, I don’t care. The holidays are about traditions we keep, even if they go unwanted.

Fruitcake anyone?

# 1 If You Want to Work in a Restaurant, Read this First (September 5, 2013)

This one is #1 simply because an old friend of mine who worked with me in a restaurant back in high school—who always wanted to work in the restaurant business and still does to this day—shared this with the staff at his restaurant. That was by far, the best compliment I've ever had about my blog.

And when I look back on those years, my memories of the kitchen are more dear. And I think I learned a lot more. I learned how to use a knife—I mean really use a knife; I learned how to have several things going at once; that wearing an apron and having plenty of kitchen towels on hand ain’t “girly;” being on time is important; and, finally, it is a damn hard job to get food on the table for several hundred people in a three-hour period. So, the next time your steak is not quite perfect, don’t forget how hard it is to work in the back of the house and don’t take it out on the front-of-the-house staff, because it wasn’t their fault.

Well, there you have it folks. The first annual Top Ten List of the year's previous posts. It was not easy, and I could have easily made it a Top Twenty List, but it's getting late here, and I have the next installment of Year Two to write. Bon appétit!