The Men Who Influenced the Way I Cook – Father’s Day 2014

Pork Medallions with Capers

For Father’s Day I wish to honor some of the men who influenced the way I cook. My husband Meakin would fall at the head of that list. When I met him, the extent of my cooking skills was meager to say the least. Meakin grew up in a gourmet family and his father Jim was an executive in New York City with a three martini lunch kind of expense account and ate in all of the top restaurants in the city. Obviously I had a lot of catching up to do. Meakin told me if you can read you can cook. “Give cooking a try,” he said, “and if you make something we can’t eat, I’ll take you out.” It sounded like a good deal to me and it worked out well.

Meakin’s Dad Jim

Jim was a tremendous influence on the way I cook. In the early seventies he was the one who first introduced me to the different varieties of lettuces available at the markets, such as romaine, spinach and varieties of baby lettuces. It was Jim who taught me how to make a French vinaigrette, now a staple in my kitchen. An avid cook himself, Jim dreamed of his own cookbook and during the fifties and sixties wrote down many of his favorite recipes in pencil on lined paper and stored them in a 3 ring binder. In 2002 I took those faded copies and typed them into a Word document and, along with Meakin and his two brothers, we were able to have Jim’s cookbook “published” for the family. Needless to say he and all of us were thrilled.

I would like to share one of Jim’s recipes that he created after his cookbook was finished. He put together this very flavorful dish for us one day when we were visiting. In honor of Father’s Day, may I present my father-in-law Jim Hoffer’s pork medallions with capers.

Jim's Pork Medallions with Capers

Pork Medallions with Capers
Jim Hoffer – serves 4, 3 slices each
Printable Recipe

16 ounces pork tenderloin, cut into 12 slices
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon oil
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons (or more to taste) chopped fresh rosemary
½ cup apple juice, preferably organic
½ cup water
1 tablespoon drained small capers

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Slice pork tenderloin into 12 medallions and between pieces of wax paper, pound flat. Season on both sides with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a non-stick 12” skillet and brown the pork slices, taking care not to crowd the pan (may have to do in batches), turning once, until almost cooked. Remove the pork slices to an ovenproof dish.

Add chopped garlic to the hot oil in the skillet, sauté for a minute, then add the flour and stir to make a roux, then add apple juice and water and stir until incorporated. Pour the sauce over the pork slices and bake for 15 to 20 minutes.  Remove slices to a serving dish and sprinkle with drained capers. Taste the sauce for seasonings, correct as necessary, then spoon over pork and serve right away. Easily doubled or tripled. French Potato Salad, recipe here, makes a nice accompaniment.

Craig Claiborne's Shrimp & Grits

Craig Claiborne

One of the most popular posts on My Carolina Kitchen is Craig Claiborne’s Low Country Shrimp and Grits, link here to the post and recipe. Early on in our marriage Jim gave me a copy of Craig Claiborne’s The New York Times Cookbook, complete with notes above his favorite recipes. The New York Times Cookbook sold over three million copies and was eventually translated into seventeen languages.

“Craig Claiborne was the founding father of the American food revolution. From his first day in 1957 as the food editor of the New York Times, Craig Claiborne was going to take his readers where they had never been before. Claiborne extolled the pleasures of exotic cuisines from all around the world, and with his inspiration, restaurants of every ethnicity blossomed.

So many things we take for granted now were introduced to us by Craig Claiborne— the Cuisinart, chef’s knives, crème fraîche, arugula, balsamic vinegar, even the salad spinner. He would give Julia Child her first major book review. He brought Paul Bocuse, Paul Prudhomme, and Jacques Pépin to national acclaim. He turned home cooks such as Marcella Hazan, Madhur Jaffrey, & Diana Kennedy into stars.” - from Amazon.

To read more about Craig Claiborne and his influence on the way we eat, I highly recommended a fascinating book apply named about his life – The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat: Craig Claiborne and The American Food Renaissance, available at Amazon and bookstores everywhere.

Morrison Wood's Chicken Marengo

Morrison Wood

My first cookbook was With a Jug of Wine by Morrison Wood, one of Jim & Meakin’s favorite cookbooks. Born in Chicago, Morrison Wood was the author of “For Men Only!” a syndicated column for the Chicago Tribune. I’m on my fourth copy of the cookbook and I still go to it often.  Many of his recipes are of French origin. In my opinion Morrison Wood was one of the best at writing an introduction to a recipe and an inspiration for today’s writers. Like Ina Garten, his recipes always worked. One of my all time favorites in Jug of Wine is Chicken Marengo pictured above, the famous French dish invented by Napoleon’s battlefield chef to celebrate Napoleon’s success in northwest Italy in 1800. You may remember this dish – link to post and recipe here. Chicken Marengo is one of the most popular dishes on the blog.

Morrison Wood's Chicken Country Captain

Another great from Morrison Wood is Chicken Country Captain, a Southern dish filled with spices and a Low Country’s favorites. You’ll find it served in restaurants and home dining rooms throughout the southern cities of Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia. Both lay claim to this Southern classic, which may have been brought to America by a ship’s captain ferrying spices from the Far East. Link to post and recipe here.

My husband Meakin

I’ve obviously saved the best influence for last – my husband Meakin. He is the one that inspired my love of cooking in the early days of our relationship. He and the cookbooks I read, including Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, taught me how to cook. Our philosophy has always been that “we do everything together.” My Carolina Kitchen will celebrate its sixth anniversary this fall and I don’t know what I would do without him. We share responsibilities in the kitchen and work together as a team. I have always found food prep relaxing, so it is I who does the most of that.  Because of my persistent back pain in recent years, Meakin steps in and does a great deal of the actual cooking when I can no longer stand or I get tired. I choose the recipes, style the plates with Meakin’s sharp eyes closely watching, and then he painstakingly photographs each dish. Afterwards when I’ve finished writing the posts, I depend on him for the final critique before it goes live. Without Meakin’s help there would be no My Carolina Kitchen.

Cheers to all of the men who inspire our cooking! 

For all the dads out there, Happy Father’s Day. Have a great weekend everyone.  

This will be shared with Foodie Friday at Rattlebridge Farm, Miz Helen’s Country Kitchen Full Plate Thursday, and Foodie Friday at Simple Recipes.    

Remembering Foleys and Their Fabulous Cheese Spreads

Cheese spreads are one of my favorite appetizers. These are two old favorites that have been in my repertoire all of my married life. They were inspired by the deli, located in the downtown store at Foleys’ department store in Houston. One has a sharp cheddar base with a bit of heat and the other a blue cheese flavored with port wine.

Foleys, one of the grand department stores in downtown Houston on Main that occupied the entire city block plus the parking garage across the street, was an institution, where generations of Houstonians shopped. The downtown store was like a city with its nine floors, plus a full basement that housed the budget departments. Foleys was one of the first buildings in downtown to have a tunnel that allowed people to get to the parking garage without having to wait to cross the street. You could buy everything your heart desired there. The escalators were state of the art and they whisked you up from the basement through the entire store all the way up to the ninth floor and were by far the fastest escalators I’ve ever been on in my entire life. At Foleys you could find fashion attire for the entire family, select bridal china and silver, purchase your baby’s first shoes, furnish your entire home from linens to a dining room table, or outfit your house with major appliances and televisions. During your visit you could have lunch in one of several restaurants, or browse for the latest best seller in their well stocked bookstore, while waiting for your prescription to be filled in the pharmacy.

Going to Paris? Foley's travel agency could book your flight while you shopped for luggage and got a trendy hairstyle in the beauty salon. Perhaps you are only in town for a short time with a very long shopping list and very little time – a personal shopper will be dispatched to your rescue. Men could leave their car in the auto department of the parking garage to be fitted with new tires while they shopped for all of the latest in sporting goods & golf clubs or checked out the newest advances in cameras. On the way down to get his car, perhaps stop at the Men’s Grill for lunch with the guys. Many generations of Houston children sat on Santa Claus’ lap and told him what they wanted for Christmas after making their selections in Foleys extensive toy department. And of course you could purchase their fabulous cheese spreads which I loved so much in the deli.

I began my career at Foleys in the downtown store, recruited off campus in the late sixties from the University of Arkansas where I was working on my masters, to join their executive management training program in fashion merchandising. At that time women weren’t in management positions in business, especially in the South. I envisioned a world where women had the same opportunities in the business world as men. Unfortunately there weren’t any Sheryl Sandburgs telling us how to “lean in” or role models such as Marissa Mayers, currently the CEO at Yahoo, showing young female college graduates how to climb the corporate ladder. A career in fashion merchandising was one of the only places that I found that welcomed women into the fold of the business world, and men for that matter, without prejudice based on race or sexual preferences. Foleys & Federated department stores were what I call “the major leagues” in the business and there were plenty of women role models to be found in management there. I consider my experience at Foleys as a way of finishing graduate school and the lessons I learned there were invaluable throughout my career.

Their blue logo 

In my early career, my whole life revolved around Foleys downtown. I found my husband at Foleys, or as he tells it, he found me. As a trainee on a break, I sat about six stools down at the same lunch counter from Mohammad Ali, generally considered among the greatest heavyweights in the sports history, as he and his manager and a friend were sipping sodas, acting like normal, everyday shoppers.  The omelet king Rudy Standish, who earned that title by making omelets for JFK’s inaugural breakfast and later flipping his famous omelets for Princess Diana, demonstrated his famous pan in the fifth floor Azalea Terrace dining room.  As a young cook I was so impressed that I rushed to the house wares department and bought his pan in harvest gold (remember harvest gold?) and made my very first omelet. When the astronauts returned to Houston after their walk on the moon and were honored as local heroes with a huge parade in downtown Houston on Main Street, I stood with my friends and waved and threw confetti from the rooftop of Foleys.

When I joined Foleys it was a part of Federated Department stores. They prided themselves in customer service. In the downtown store, lunch hour for office workers from the surrounding buildings was from twelve to one o’clock and the store would be packed with shoppers. Twelve to one at Foleys was called “Holy Hour.” Every executive from the CEO on down was on the sales floor assisting customers during twelve to one o’clock and there were no exceptions or excuses for ever missing Holy Hour. The customer came first and was always guaranteed satisfaction. As the story goes, a young boy once told his mother, “I wish I had gotten the measles at Foleys. Then I could have taken them back.” After I left, Foleys changed ownership and continued to build more branches throughout Houston, then on to other cities in Texas and the southwest. Towards the end once again they became part of the Federated group. Soon all of the Federated stores, with the exception of Bloomingdales, became Macy’s stores.

I am still in shock that this past September the downtown store was imploded (link here to pictures) and a downtown Houston landmark went up in smoke. As one Houstonian said, “They blew up Foleys. What’s next, the Astrodome?” The Astrodome, once dubbed the 8th wonder of the world, was the world’s first multi-purpose domed sports stadium and had just been completed when I moved to Houston, fresh out of college. As I write, the fate of the aging Astrodome is unknown and may just become a part of history too, just like downtown Foleys.   .

Of course Foleys deli in the downtown Houston store and their fabulous cheese spreads that I adored are a fading memory and a part of their demise. Foleys had several versions of cheese spreads and I’ve tried for ages to get the original recipes with no luck, even when I worked there. Over and over again I experimented with them, tasting the originals alongside my own, and finally created these as close as I possibly could to the originals. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do. These are spreadable cheeses and you don’t want the consistency to be too thick or dense, hence the use of cottage cheese.

Foleys Cheddar Cheese Spread
My rendition from My Carolina Kitchen

8 ounces extra sharp cheddar cheese, or a combination of cheddar and Edam, cut into ½” cubes & chopped in a food processor for about 30 seconds to 1 minute (yellow cheddar is recommended for color)
8 tablespoons small curd cottage cheese, or more if necessary
4 tablespoons mild to medium Mexican picante or taco sauce (not the chunky kind)
6 tablespoons chopped jalapeno peppers, seeded and ribs removed
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh Italian frying pepper, plus more for garnish

Pulse cheddar cheese cubes in a food processor, then add the cottage cheese and picante sauce. Process once again with all of the peppers. If the mixture is too thick, add a little more cottage cheese. Taste for seasonings. Should be mildly hot but not overly hot. Can add a dash or two of Shirachi if you wish, which was unknown to me at the time or leave some of the seeds in the jalapenos for a spicier spread. Will keep several days, covered, in the refrigerator. Best served with thin, crispy Finn Crisp, 100% rye crackers, which I always bought in the deli to go with their cheese spread.

Printable recipe

Foleys Blue Cheese Port Wine Spread
My rendition from My Carolina Kitchen

8 oz sharp Cheddar cheese, cut into ½” chunks
2 oz cream cheese, cut into ½” chunks, we used low fat
2 oz blue cheese, crumbled into chunks
4 tablespoons small curd cottage cheese, we used low-fat
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon port wine
Chopped green onion tops, 4 – 6 tablespoons

Pulse cheddar cubes in a food processor for about 30 seconds until it begins to crumble. Add cream cheese, blue cheese, cottage cheese, garlic salt, Worcestershire sauce, and port wine. Continue to process until the mixture resembles a spread. Add the green onion tops and process until smooth. Will keep several days, covered, in the refrigerator. Serve with crackers or crudités.

Printable recipe

I want to add a PS to this. The Foleys I describe is the downtown store in Houston. Many of the things I remember about the downtown store were sadly not in the branches.

If you would like to read more about the history of Foleys, Lasker Meyer, the son of one of Foleys original owners who became President and later CEO, has written a very comprehensive history in his book, Foley’s, a part of the Images of America series. The Department Store Museum has some great photos of various department stores, link here. You also might enjoy The World of Department Stores by Jan Whitaker, link here.

Do you have a favorite department store that brings back memories for you?

This will be shared with Foodie Friday at Rattlebridge Farm, Miz Helen’s Country Kitchen Full Plate Thursday, and Foodie Friday at Simple Recipes.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Childhood Christmas Memories

Beverly of How Sweet the Sound is our hostess for Pink Saturday and this week she’s asked us to post about our childhood memories of Christmas.

I grew up in Warren, a small town in southeastern Arkansas, and my family had a jewelry store where I worked at Christmas from the time I could barely see over the counter until I left home after graduating from college to pursue my own career. My grandfather Weiss left Kansas at the turn of the century and arrived in Warren on a horse-drawn buggy after riding the Cotton Belt Railroad to the end of the line in a nearby dusty Arkansas town. On arrival in 1905 he found three newly established lumber mills and decided that they would insure a growing town, so he took his diamond ring and used it to finance his dream of owning his own jewelry store. He was also an Optician and a fine watchmaker and it wasn’t unusual in that day for a jeweler to be an Optician as well. A few years later he married my grandmother Turner, a local girl. Her grandfather was one of the original pioneer families that came directly to the Arkansas territory when their ship landed from England in the early 1840’s at Charleston Harbor in South Carolina. My father followed in my grandfather’s footsteps and was an Optometrist as well as a jeweler. His store was a fixture on the square in Warren for seventy-five years.

Weiss Jewelry was considered to be a Guild Jewelry store, meaning it sold fine jewelry such as diamonds, watches, gem stones, clocks, sterling silver, leaded crystal, fine bone china, Dresden Porcelains, as well as novelties and top quality costume jewelry. During the roaring twenties the store stocked brilliant comb sets that flappers desired and brides counted their friends by the cut glass wedding presents they received from Weiss Jewelry. During the Great Depression my grandfather saved every silver dollar that was spent in his store, knowing the sacrifice the person made to part with such a valuable coin during hard times to buy a loved one a special gift.

Photo of Weiss Jewelry circa 1930’s with my grandfather in the foreground and my father in back with customers

Every July my father went to the Dallas Merchandise Mart to purchase for the Christmas season. He took great pride in decorating his windows for Christmas and the Santa above, shown on my mantle at home, is a perfect example of one he might have chosen for his windows. He also had exquisite taste and wanted each present from his store to represent an elegant gift. It had to be wrapped (at no cost to his customer of course) in expensive foil paper, tied with a gorgeous bow, and be a thing of great beauty for the giver to present to the lucky recipient. A gift from Weiss Jewelry was meant to stand out among all of the others. As a young person, I was a junior bow maker and later, as a teenager, I “graduated” to the back-up gift wrapper.

The jewelry business has an unspoken rule about gifts, much like a confidentially agreement with a lawyer or accountant. For example, if Doctor So-in-so comes in and looks at an expensive diamond watch, the jeweler would never say, “Your wife Helen would love that.” Just as your accountant knows your income, your jeweler knows about the other woman. Confidentially is a lesson I learned at an early age.

If any of you have ever worked in retailing, you know that it’s made up of very long hours and hard work during Christmas. I remember going to the post office on Christmas Day with my father after we had opened our own presents at home to see what had arrived a bit late that needed to be gift-wrapped and delivered by us at the last minute to a waiting customer. During the season my parents were always exhausted and, as a child, Christmas just meant hard work and long hours to my family. My parents missed the rounds of holiday cocktail parties and social events. My mother decorated our house on Thanksgiving Day, took my sister and myself to the big city the next day to shop for our gifts, and worked at the store for the remainder of the season. On Christmas day right after dinner, she took our tree down and put away all of the Christmas decorations.

“Why don’t we leave our tree up like other families do?” I asked my mother one year. “They don’t take theirs down until after January first.”

“I guess I’m just sick of seeing it, Sissy,” she said. “I’ve had enough of Christmas.”

I said I would never follow in their footsteps, but of course I did. After college I went into a management training program of a large Federated Department store in Texas and worked long and tiring hours just like my parents. At Christmas time all I could think of was going home and putting my feet up because they were killing me and I was exhausted. As a young bride, it’s amazing my husband put up with me. From the day after Thanksgiving until early January I was either at work or asleep.

All through my childhood I promised myself that when I grew up, if I didn’t work in retailing at Christmas, I would throw the biggest, most elaborate party I could and invite all of my friends. And I would also keep my Christmas tree up until January like everyone else did.

Photo from the Martha Vick website of the exterior of the mansion

Many years later my husband Meakin and I lived in Vicksburg, Mississippi. It was in the late eighties, with my retail career was behind me and a job with more civilized hours, we decided it was time to have our first “big” Christmas cocktail party. We had just remodeled a darling but tiny cottage on Confederate Avenue in the old Civil War Military Park. Although it was lovely, it was much too small to host a cocktail party of the size I had in mind. I was fulfilling a dream and my list consisted of at least fifty people. Fortunately two of our friends had a beautiful home that specialized in hosting big parties and they were both gourmets themselves. Our friends Bill and David owned The Martha Vick House, a gorgeous one story Greek Revival antebellum mansion on Grove Street that they had lovingly restored. Dating back to 1830, it was built by Martha, the daughter of the city’s founder, Newett Vick, and constructed of beautiful hand-made pink bricks with plaster covering the inside walls. I thought it was the perfect setting for the big cocktail party of my dreams.

Vicksburg is a black-tie kind of town and Bill and David know how to throw a big bash. Out comes their huge set of antique Havilland fine bone china and gobs of brightly polished sterling silver. They set up an elaborate buffet table in the dining room complete with lots of silver candlesticks holding tall glowing tapers. A florist friend artfully composed a gorgeous holiday creation for the center of the table. The food that evening included a large footed, ornate cut glass bowl overflowing with jumbo Creole shrimp that had marinated in a garlicky paprika Remoulade sauce. A large holiday ham glazed with bourbon and brown sugar sat high on a pedestal on a large silver tray with sliced freshly roasted turkey breast below it accompanied by homemade biscuits for making your own sandwich, a bowl of spicy pickled Black-eyed Pea Caviar (here’s my version) surrounded by dark party ryes, Tuzzi dip (a cheesy, spicy sausage mix) with crispy chips, asparagus spears decoratively placed on a tray with an aioli dipping sauce in a small Paul Revere silver bowl, a generous platter of Vicksburg tomato sandwiches (no party in Vicksburg was ever considered complete without tomato sandwiches and homemade mayonnaise) and piles of decadent, rich crème puffs and tiny pistachio wafers, both handcrafted by Bill. I'm sorry I don't have a photograph of our Christmas buffet, but below is a spring dinner party in the dining room of the Martha Vick House so you can get a feel for the dining room and see the lovely antique china and glasswear.

Photo of a spring dinner party in the dining room from the Martha Vick website

At the time we belonged to a private club in town, so we hired two of the bartenders we knew from there to tend bar. It was great because they knew what everyone’s favorite cocktail was - who wanted their martini extra dry or up, who drank scotch & soda, and which lady loved gimlets. This was in the day that people had cocktail parties at home. Today many people entertain their friends in a bar or restaurant after work and everyone comes casually dressed and drinks wine or beer. It also seems that no one has their own special drink anymore. I truly miss these kinds of cocktail parties. There’s something special and elegant about getting all dressed up and sharing cocktails and chit chatting with your friends at home (even if it is someone else’s home) that you can’t duplicate in a restaurant or bar. But - the very best part of this particular party was all we had to do was arrive on the night of the party dressed and ready to celebrate.

Photo of a cocktail party from the Martha Vick website

During that same period of time one of my recipes won the National Catfish Contest. Our friend Laurin, the Foods Editor of the local paper, called requesting an interview and pictures for the paper. As we visited, she said, “Sam, I assumed you didn’t know how to cook because you and Meakin always throw catered parties.”

Well Laurin, I think catered parties are the very best way to have a big cocktail bash for fifty or so of your best friends and I highly recommend it for a busy lifestyle, even if you do know how to cook. All you do is arrive a wee bit early, have a cocktail and relax with the owners Bill and David. When the door bell rings, greet your friends warmly while dressed in your finest black-tie attire standing beside the lovely marble top table in the foyer with a huge Christmas tree loaded lights twinkling in the background.

Photo of the foyer during Christmas from the Martha Vick website

But this is the most important part - have fun yourself instead of rushing around refilling the buffet or heating food in the kitchen. Mingle with your guests and enjoy the scrumptious food that someone else has prepared. After your last guests leaves, have a nightcap and discuss your plans for next year’s party and forget the dishes. Now that’s my kind of cocktail party. I consider it my childhood Christmas dream come true.

For additional ideas on how to throw a cocktail party, including how to stock the bar, Southern Accents can tell you everything you ever wanted to know. If you are ever in Vicksburg, Mississippi, The Martha Vick House is open for tours 364 days a year (closed for New Years Eve when they throw their own bash for friends).

Please be sure to drop by and say hello to Beverly at How Sweet the Sound where you’ll find links to other Pink Saturday bloggers and read about their childhood memories of Christmas. Happy Pink Saturday everyone.

It’s my (blog) birthday party and I’ll go where I want to

It’s my party and I’ll go where I want to, go where I want to, go where I want to. You would go too when it happens to you.

Welcome to My Carolina Kitchen’s first birthday. My other blog, Island Time in Abaco, is also one year old. I’ve decided to celebrate by taking you on a virtual trip down memory lane to a pink birthday party at one of my all time favorite places in the world - Wally’s Restaurant in Marsh Harbour, Abaco. Located in a pink and white Nassau-style Colonial villa overlooking the harbour, its grounds are dotted with pink hibiscus and bright rosy pink bougainvillea. It’s a balmy 75 degrees there today and I have friends waiting, so grab your passports, throw your sunglasses and flip-flops in straw bag, and hop on board. You take the window seat so you can so enjoy the view. Isn’t that a gorgeous private beach?

We’ll land at the Marsh Harbour International Airport in the northern Bahamas where we’ll take a taxi to Wally’s.

Hi ladies, it’s great to see you. How have you been? We’re meeting friends, so we’ll just go on in.

Hi Pattie, Penny, Barometer Bob. Hope we haven’t kept you waiting too long. I’ve brought along a few friends. Notice the Haitian art work on the pink walls. Even the tablecloth and napkins are pink. Wally's is one of the most upscale restaurants in the islands.

Every time we come to Wally’s the first thing my husband does is to give Wally's daughter Maureen, the owner, a great big hug. Hi Mo. Maureen attended the Cordon Bleu and returns to Paris each fall for a visit.

Hi Angie, our usual, please.

Here’s why we came – to share a bite of Wally’s special birthday brownie. One of their specialties, it’s a huge, sinfully rich brownie, smothered with vanilla ice cream, and covered in a dark chocolate sauce, rich whipped cream, and topped with a birthday candle. It comes with extra spoons, so dig in. The brownie is a little hard to see in this picture, but it's in front of me with the candle on it.

Before we leave let’s slip in the boutique and say hello to Angie’s daughter. Maybe I’ll pick up a cute swimsuit and one of those colorful pareos to match. Look around, I’m sure you’ll see something you can’t live without.

I hope you’ve enjoyed our trip to Marsh Harbour. Thank you Beverly of How Sweet the Sound for hosting this fun pink Saturday party. I’ve met so many fabulous people this year blogging that I now call friends. Thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart. Happy Pink Saturday.

These pictures were taken several years ago and reflect how the author remembers Wally’s and her friends.

A tribute to summertime, the Bradley County Pink Tomato and the early days of rock and roll stars

It’s almost time to say good-bye to summer, although fall doesn’t officially start until September 22. Summer is my favorite season of the year, primarily because I love homegrown tomatoes. I grew up in the small town of Warren, in Bradley County in southeastern Arkansas. It was known as “the land of the tall pines and pink tomatoes.” Every year, during the second week in June, Bradley County celebrates with a Pink Tomato Festival honoring the Bradley County pink tomato, a special variety of tomato which holds the distinction of being Arkansas’ state fruit and vegetable.

In 1956 a small group of the town merchants and members of the Bradley County Chamber of Commerce, which included my father, decided to create an event to celebrate the tomato industry and help promote business in the area. The Bradley County Pink Tomato Festival was born. Since that one day event in 1956, the celebration the festival has grown into a week long affair and is one of the oldest continuous running festivals in Arkansas. A parade, complete with the governor riding in a convertible, and beauty pageant were added in 1957. The all-tomato luncheon has always been a favorite.

In fact this year in June of 2009 the residents of Bradley County set the worlds record for the longest BLT (bacon, lettuce and tomato) sandwich by making a 169-foot-long BLT, using 60 pounds of sliced Bradley tomatoes, 300 pounds of Arkansas Tyson bacon, 220 ounces of mayonnaise and 80 pounds of lettuce.

Photos courtesy of the Bradley County Chamber of Commerce

Over the years the market share for pink tomatoes has been eroding because supermarkets’ now rely on durable strains of tomatoes, picked green and forced to ripen after being removed from the vine. Thick skinned tomatoes are favored for this because they aren’t easily damaged in shipping. But we all know those supermarket tomatoes lack the flavor and texture of vine-ripened fruit. For Arkansas consumers, the vine-ripened pink tomato is still available in farmer’s markets and Warren continues to host the Pink Tomato Festival every June.

As I recall, about this same time as the merchants and chamber members were starting the festival, this same group of men put together the South Arkansas Fair & Marketing Association. One of the things I remember they did was to build a large pavilion where the farmers could bring their tomatoes to be graded and boxed for shipment and where the farmers could work with the various tomato buyers. The Fair & Marketing Association also hosted the Annual Bradley County Fair & Livestock Show.

My father was President of the Association when I was in about the seventh grade. He came home for dinner one night and announced that Otis Cash, one of the members, had a cousin named Johnny from nearby Kingsland who was an up and coming singer for Sun Records in Memphis, which was about the same time Elvis, the king of Rock and Roll, was recording for Sun and got his start in the music business. Johnny planned to bring a friend of his, another one of Sun’s recording artists named Jerry Lee, and they would be the entertainment for the Livestock Show that year. You’ve probably figured out by now I’m talking about Johnny Cash in the early years of his career. Johnny Cash went on to become one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century with early hits as “Folsom Prison Blues” and “I Walk the Line.” His friend was the one and only Jerry Lee Lewis who had just recorded two hits for Sun Records, “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and “Great Balls of Fire.”

It’s been years since I’ve thought about the Pink Tomato Festival or eaten a Bradley County Pink, as they are called. My father used to send us a case each year, but he’s been for gone twenty-five years and I probably haven’t been back to Arkansas but a few times since then.

When my husband and I went to see the movie about Johnny Cash’s life, Walk the Line, a couple of years ago, I remembered that night in the fifties when he and Jerry Lee belted out their rock and roll songs around a grand piano on a stage in the rodeo arena in a sleepy small town in south Arkansas. My sister and I had pony tails back then and we probably wore our poodle skirts and saddle shoes as we sat in the front row in box seat at the livestock show of a small town rodeo along with our father watching rock and roll history unfold. Cash and Lewis went on to receive numerous awards and both were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

As I said earlier, summertime is my favorite time of the year and I’m really going to miss the homegrown tomatoes. What is your favorite time of the year and what will you miss most about summer?

Broiled Salmon with Heirloom Tomatoes & Fresh Basil

I originally found this recipe in Leslie Grover Pendleton’s fabulous book Simply Shrimp, Salmon and Fish Steaks. Leslie calls it sautéed salmon smothered in summer and it is definitely a summer dish to be made when the tomatoes are at their peak and the basil is fresh. It is healthy, easy to prepare and can be served warm or at room temperature. It truly is summer at its finest.

I’ve adapted Leslie’s recipe to our taste by broiling the salmon, which is our favorite method of cooking salmon and one we learned from Pierre Franey in The 60 Minute Gourmet. For the tomatoes I’ve used heirloom ones from our own garden. Cherokee Purples, Mortgage Lifters, Mr. Stripey and Brandywine are my favorites. Serve with asparagus or green beans with lemon and butter, as we have here.

Broiled Salmon with Heirloom Tomatoes & Fresh Basil

Adapted from Simply Shrimp, Salmon, and Fish Steaks by Leslie Grover Pendleton and The 60 Minute Gourmet by Pierre Franey

1 large vine-ripe tomato, preferably an heirloom

½ cup finely chopped fresh basil leaves

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 boneless salmon fillet, about 1 ½ lbs

Canola or peanut oil

Coarse kosher or sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Dice the tomato, season with salt and pepper and transfer it, along with all of its juices, to a bowl. Add the basil, lemon and 1 tablespoon olive oil and combine well. Let the sauce sit while preparing the salmon.

Preheat the broiler. Arrange the pieces of salmon in one layer on an unheated broiler tray or sheet pan, drizzle with a little oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. (I usually line the pan with heavy duty foil for easy clean-up). Place the salmon under the broiler about six to seven inches away from the source of heat. Broil about 7 to 8 minutes or just until the pieces are cooked through. It is not necessary to turn the salmon. If it starts to burn, change from broil to bake and bake at 400 degrees until the salmon is done but still a little pink on the inside.

Slide the salmon onto a platter (with the skin side down) and smother, as Leslie calls it, with the tomato and basil mixture. Let it stand for at least 10 minutes to absorb some of the juices before serving. The salmon can stand at room temperature for up to 45 minutes or it can be refrigerated for up to 24 hours. Serves 4.

Kreativ Blog Award

I wish to thank Helene of La Cuisine d’Helene for the Kreativ Blog Award. I am deeply honored. She shares my passion for good food, is an incredible photographer and has some fabulous food on her blog. If you love good French bread which I do, check out Helene’s baguette or her post on Julia Child’s Mousseline au Chocolate.

The rules that accompany the award are:

1- Thank the person who awarded you

2- Copy the logo and paste it on your blog

3- Link to the person who nominated you for the award

4- Name (up to 7) things about yourself that people might find interesting

5- Nominate (up to 7) other Kreativ Bloggers

6- Post links to the blogs you nominate

7- Leave a comment on each of the blogs to let them know they’ve been nominated

I am passing the Kreativ Blog Award to some of my newest friends that I think you will enjoy as much as I do. Be sure to drop by and say hello.

- Laura’s Paris Cooking Notebook. Laura’s home base is Paris and she has incredible posts of her journeys and great food along the way. She grew up in Uruguay with a French grandmother. Don't miss her meal in the Loire Valley of France.

- Beauty Does Matter. Bella believes that surrounding yourself with beauty makes a difference in life, which I totally agree with. Her post of Loving Lavender is a perfect example along with the beautiful pink hydrangeas that greet you at the top of her blog.

- La Bella Cook, enjoying one recipe at a time. She is currently featuring Coquilles Saint-Jacques Provencale, one of my French favorites, but you’ll also enjoy the Spinach and Blood Orange salad with raspberry vinaigrette.

- Mystery Lovers Kitchen where six mystery writers, Avery, Julie, Jenn, Riley, Cleo and Krista share the blog and cook up crime…..and recipes too. They feature a weekly contest where they award $25 gift certificate to Williams Sonoma. If that’s not reason enough to click over, then their post Death by Chocolate -what a way to go, should get your attention.

Following rule number 4 of the award, here are a few things about me: I grew up in a small town in southeast Arkansas and graduated from college with a Bachelor of Business Administration, which during the sixties was considered a man’s degree. I was the only woman in all of my college business classes and, as far as I know, the first to graduate from the Monticello campus of the University of Arkansas with this degree. Obviously skipping a class was out of the question as my absence would have certainly been noticed. My first career was in management for what I call big league retailers, such as Federated Department Stores, Saks Fifth Avenue as well as Estee Lauder, where I had an opportunity to travel. Like many couples, we moved a lot with our careers and lived in many different places over the years.

Later I joined my husband in his business and we owned an industrial supply company where I was able to put my purchasing and marketing skills to good use. It was quite a change from face creams and lipsticks to pipe wrenches and screwdrivers. We retired early when my husband was fifty-three and followed our dream of living on a tiny tropical island in the Bahamas for ten years. There we had the time of our lives, but sooner or later one has to move back to reality and we now live, as you know, in the beautiful cool mountains of western North Carolina. I love anything French, adore Provence and collect early American antique furniture. I listen to classical music and Jimmy Buffet tunes. I am an avid reader, watch golf and tennis. I became a Nascar fan when we lived in the islands and some of the drivers and car owners brought their yachts and sportfish boats to a marina near us in the summer (little Dale is my man). .

Here’s an old publicity photo taken for the Houston newspapers when I worked for Estee Lauder in the mid seventies.

That’s me on the left with the short blonde curly hair standing next to then Houston Mayor Fred Hofheinz, whose father Roy Hofheinz (who also was a Mayor of Houston), built the Astrodome and created the Houston Astros. Standing between my two Lauder colleagues is New York City Mayor Abe Beam. New York City’s Tourism Directors had just chosen “The Big Apple” as their new advertising campaign and Mrs. Lauder created a fall line of apple colors to promote the new city logo and we’re showing it off to the mayors.

No Cooking Today

There will be no cooking for me today because it’s my birthday. It’s also the day my husband Meakin proposed to me forty years ago at this beautiful fountain in Houston, Texas. This photo was taken by my husband the day he proposed and it’s faded somewhat and stuck in an old album, thus it isn’t as sharp as it once was.

The fountain, known as one of the Mecom Fountains, is at the middle of the five way intersection of Main, Montrose and Herman Drive in Houston, Texas, near Rice University and the Medical complex. It was beautifully lit at night but our photo of the lit fountain has seen the effects of what heat does to plastic album covers and is not worthy of showing. It is across from what was then the stately Warwick Hotel. The fountain is named after John Mecom, Jr., a wealthy and successful Houston oil and cattleman who, at the time, owned the Warwick Hotel in the background. Mr. Mecom also founded the New Orleans Saints NFL team in 1966 and was well known in the Indy car racing world with his Mecom Racing Team. Successful drivers such as A.J. Foyt, Roger Penske and Jackie Stewart drove for his team.

Since then the Mecom Fountains have experienced some bad times. In the fall of 2006 someone stole the 264 bronze canisters that lit the fountain. After staying in the dark for months, it got some help with floodlights from high atop the nearby Hotel ZaZa and is beautiful once again. Fortunately for us our marriage seems to have had a better fate through the years than the fountain.

I met my husband on a blind date. My roommate had a friend in the Army and he and my future husband, who was also in the Army at the time, came to Houston for a visit. He tells everyone he found me in the bargain basement at Foleys Department Store, which is true. I had been recruited off campus at the University of Arkansas to be in Foleys Executive Management Program and was an Assistant Buyer in Women’s Sportswear at the time. We lived in Houston during the early years of our marriage and, as a coincidence, later belonged to the fancy private club that had an outside glass elevator that took you to the penthouse club of John Mecom’s Warwick Hotel that overlooked the fountain where I said yes and we’ve lived happily together ever after.

Have You Ever Thought of Entering a Cooking Contest?

Have you ever thought of entering a cooking contest? Some of the big contests offer large dollar prizes. There are three major national contests: The Pillsbury Bake-Off, the National Beef Cook-Off, and the National Chicken Cooking Contest.

The Food Network shows the cooking contests from time to time. I happened to catch the Pillsbury Bake-Off the other night. It was exciting to watch the contestants compete for the grand prize, which is now up to one million dollars.

It reminded me of the time I was the Mississippi finalist in the 40th National Chicken Cooking Contest. I was awarded an all expense paid trip to the competition where participants are introduced to the audience as the state winner. With a banner draped over your chest, you walked out feeling very much like "Miss America". Everyone had their very own kitchen. A flag was provided that each contestant could raise or lower, indicating whether they were available for conversation and questions while preparing their dish.

My dish was Chicken Breasts stuffed with Goat Cheese. Goat cheese in 1993 was a fairly exotic ingredient. Many people stopped by my booth with questions.

We lived in Vicksburg, Mississippi at the time and our city newspaper’s food editor, Laurin Stamm, accompanied me, along with my husband Meakin, to the contest. She actually presented my dish to the judges for tasting. Although I did not win the grand prize, she said they "didn’t leave a bite."

It was an experience of a lifetime and the contests treat you like royalty. I won’t soon forget it. If you have ever considered entering a contest, I think the key is to send in as many recipes as you can. Your odds are much greater that way and you never know which recipe will be the most appealing to the panel. There are many smaller contests, which is how I originally got started. I urge you to give contests a try. You never know what might happen.

Here is my entry. Goat cheese is easy to obtain at any grocery store. For the health conscious, goat cheese or chevre has half the fat of cheddar, cream cheese or Brie. Although in appearance it resembles cream cheese, its wonderful tang sets it far apart.

Recipe: Chicken Breasts Stuffed with Goat Cheese, Sun-dried Tomatoes & Rosemary
Excellent served with Green Beans and Sautéed Cherry Tomatoes

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts halves (1 1/2 lbs)
4 oz. fresh goat cheese
4 whole sun dried tomatoes (not packed in oil)
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped or 1 1/2 teaspoons dried
1 very finely minced clove of garlic
1 large egg, beaten to blend
1 cup fresh bread crumbs
2 tablespoons melted sweet butter
Mushroom sauce - recipe follows

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pound chicken breasts between sheets of plastic wrap to a thickness of 1/4" using mallet. Bring 2 cups of water to boil; add sun dried tomatoes & remove from heat. Let soak 4 minutes until soft. Remove from water, pat dry & finely chop. Combine tomatoes with goat cheese, rosemary & garlic. Spread cheese mixture lengthwise over center of each chicken piece. Roll chicken up & tuck short ends in and secure with toothpicks. Dip chicken in egg, allowing excess to drip into bowl. Roll in bread crumbs, shaking off excess.

Place chicken in baking dish that has been lined with aluminum foil. Pour 2 tablespoons melted butter over chicken & bake until cooked through, about 20 minutes. Remove from oven.
Remove toothpicks from chicken, cut rolls crosswise into 1/2" thick rounds. Fan chicken on plate, spoon mushroom sauce over & serve immediately. Serves 4.

Mushroom sauce

Sauté 1 cup fresh mushrooms, thinly sliced, in 1 tablespoon olive oil in a non-stick 10" skillet over medium high heat until tender. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Add 1/2 cup chicken broth & 1/2 cup dry white wine (or substitute more chicken broth) to mushrooms & reduce until about 1/3 cup remains. Remove from heat & add 1 tablespoon cold sweet butter. Stir to blend.

Cooks tip for making homemade bread crumbsThere is a real advantage to making your own crumbs instead of buying the pre-packaged ones, which can have an unpleasant preserved taste. Use full tasting bread, like a sourdough or a French baguette. Simply tear the bread into small chunks and grind in a food processor or blender. For a more delicate crumb, trim the crusts first.

Recipe previously published in The 1993 Chicken Cookbook, a Dell publication.

Learning to cook by the book

I was raised in small town America. Alan Jackson’s country hit Where I Come From It’s Cornbread and Chicken is an accurate description of the cuisine of southern Arkansas. My mother was a good cook and made her own bread, thick blackberry jelly and rich homemade mayonnaise. She rolled handmade pastry dough and filled it with fresh apples for pie and made bran rolls or cornbread everyday. Our cuisine was based on the seasons, just as the fancy restaurants practice today. We had home grown tomatoes, corn right out of the fields, freshly picked strawberries and beans by the bushel bought direct from the farmer. I shelled enough purple hulled peas in my day that I had purple thumbs for a week. It felt like I spent my entire summer vacation with a newspaper on my lap shelling beans until the bushel baskets were empty. The only problem was my mother never let me to do a thing in the kitchen except watch so I never learned to cook.

After I graduated from college I moved to a large city and was on my own. As a departing gift, my mother gave me a large red version of her bread bowl so I could make her homemade bread, which she never taught me how to make. When I met my husband Meakin in Houston I could prepare college kid food such as cheese toast, pimento cheese sandwiches and tuna noodle casseroles, but that was about the extent of my cooking skills. Meakin grew up in a gourmet family. His father was an executive in New York City with a three martini lunch kind of expense account and ate in all of the top restaurants in the city. It was a far cry from my cornbread and chicken, and I couldn’t even cook that.

Meakin told me if you can read you can cook. "Give cooking a try," he said, "and if you make something we can’t eat, I’ll take you out." It sounded like a good deal to me.

My first cookbook was With a Jug of Wine by Morrison Wood. It was one of his dad’s favorites. I flipped through the book and chose Chicken Rosemary as my first dish to prepare for my new gourmet boyfriend. It had seven ingredients and I recognized all of them, so it sounded doable to me. Meakin was very pleased with the results. I had prepared my very first successful meal.

Meakin and his Dad had a tremendous influence over my taste in food. I had an adventuresome palate and was willing to give anything a try. As a couple we cooked together. In addition to Meakin, Julia Child, Craig Claiborne and Pierre Franey were my teachers. You might say I cut my teeth on such classics as Mastering the Art of French Cooking, The New York Times Cookbook and The New York Times 60-Minute Gourmet. I learned knife skills from black and white drawings in Julia’s cookbooks. The Hoffers ate well. Food and cooking became our combined hobby and our passion. I’ve progressed to winning cooking contests and writing food columns.

How people learned to cook is fascinating to me. I hope you will share your story. I look forward to your comments. Bon appetit.

Sam the cook and writer

Welcome to my blog. My name is Sam Hoffer. I live in Murphy, North Carolina and write a food column, From My Carolina Kitchen, for the Cherokee Scout newspaper. This blog is a supplement to my column. I am passionate about food and have never met a food I didn't like. I live to eat and love everyday. My day revolves around my husband and food.

I am a member of the North Carolina Writers Network and active in it's affiliate Netwest.

My husband Meakin and I retired to live in the out islands of the Bahamas for ten years on a tiny private cay in the Abacos called Lubbers Quarters. It was a very special time of our lives and one we won't forget. I am in the process of writing a lively memoir, Living on Island Time, Retirement in Abaco Spiced with Food, Friends and Rum. It's a travel adventure including the wonderful friends we made as well as building a home, boating and fishing, entertaining and, most importantly to me, food.

Stay tuned and check again for some of my favorite recipes and pictures in future posts.

I look forward to your comments and input. Welcome to My Carolina Kitchen. Bon appetit.