Miscellaneous: Funny Foodie Photos!

Lately I've been so wrapped up in work, singing and soccer (and other personal matters) that I've only had just enough time to do these State-by-State posts.  But with the wonder of my camera phone - which is actually much better than my Coolpix camera, can you believe it? - I've been collecting photos of some strange things I've been seeing around town over the past few months, plus one or two things that aren't strange but certainly are noteworthy.  It helps that I now have a working USB wire to connect it to the computer, so I can share this ridiculousness with you all.  We start way back in October.

Isn't this "Peeps for all seasons" thing starting to get just a tad bit silly?  (The Peeps Chocolate Cats, by the way, are foul. Taken at Harris Teeter in Columbia)

Suet is no longer out of reach, folks! Just stop by your local Wegman's.

Help! Santa's melting! (This should've been a submission for Cake Wrecks.)

Don't eat the blue snow.

DAMN YOUR EYES!

Now this wasn't silly.  After Dad passed we as a family decided to have a nice Christmas to remember him. Some things we did were old traditions, others were brand new.  This Bûche de Noël was one of the new ones, from Sugarbakers Cakes in Catonsville.  It was a tad pricey at $40 but it was lovely both to see and to eat.

Another new thing I did was only kind of new: a duck, made by following Alton Brown's specific procedures in his Night Before Christmas episode of Good Eats.  Complete with oyster cornbread dressing, it gave me months of duck fat and duck broth, plus an extra pound or two I am still trying to work off.  I would've posted about this around Christmas but my laptop chose that very night to die on me, and I didn't get it back from Acer until mid-January.

Back to the silly...

The If You Give a Kid a Cookie, Will He Shut the Fuck Up? book: a new twist on wise-ass "children's" literature.  Plus that dog book is pretty disturbing in itself.

A cookbook in a basmati rice bag - just what I always wanted!

And finally: "Doctor, quick! Save us from the glistening vampires!" (with his new companion, Cornholio, saving his bunghole from the Daleks)

Snacking State-by-State: North Dakota I - It's A Sioux Stew Revue

Prior to this post, my only exposure to North Dakota was Fargo (which, I might add, mostly takes place in Minnesota).  Watching Fargo give me no insight into the foods of the Roughrider State, and well it shouldn't.  Otherwise, I'd just be exploring Arby's and "Pancakes House".

Official Name: State of North Dakota
State Nicknames: The Roughrider State, The Peace Garden State, the Flickertail State
Admission to the US: November 2, 1889 (#39)
Capital: Bismarck (2nd largest)
Other Important Cities: Fargo (largest), Grand Forks (3rd largest), Minot (4th largest)
Region: Midwest, Great Plains; West North Central (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Bison; Wild Rice
Bordered by: Manitoba, Saskatchewan (Canada) (north); Montana (west); South Dakota (south); Minnesota (east)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: milk (beverage), northern pike (fish), chokecherry (fruit), Western wheatgrass (grass)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: wheat & milk (a leading producer of each), Native American (such as Lakota Sioux) foods (including fry bread, pemmican, foods using buffalo, etc.); buffalo, wild rice, chokecherries and other native foods; German,  Scandinavian and Russo-German foods (including borscht and knoepfla soup, etc)


North Dakota's cuisine features a few strong culinary traditions: northern Great Plains (such as Lakota Sioux), Northern European (such as German & Scandinavian) and Eastern European (such as Russian and Russo-German).  While there are surely other traditions, these are the big ones.  A very complete list of what to find food-wise in North Dakota comes from Thoughts from a North Dakota Ambassador blog author Sandy McMerty, the North Dakota Commerce Dept's Ambassador Program Director and self-proclaimed "chief cheerleader for the state of North Dakota".  She (with intern Stacey Loula) provides an extensive list of food festivals, finds and recipes from all over the state [McMurty 2011]

Of these, the foods of North Dakota's native peoples are certainly the oldest: Ojibwe/Chippewa, Assiniboine, the Affiliated Tribes (Hidatsa, Mandan and Arikara), and specifically the Sioux: Lakota, Dakota and Nakota. Many of the foods that the Sioux and other Great Plains peoples have eaten and still eat today (and will continue to eat in the future) have already been featured in this series: specifically wojapi and more than a few types of fry bread (the versatile staple of modern Native American cuisine), while others such as wahuwapa wasna (corn balls) will likely pop up at some point in the future .  One search for modern Sioux recipes also turns up a lot of recipes with buffalo, a very important animal in the Great Plains.  It was hunted and eaten there for generations, and of course is now raised as livestock.  So once again it's easy to find.

One search of the internet turned up many Lakota recipes that use buffalo.  Wendell and Nancy Deer With Horns offer a traditional Lakota stew that consists of just chunks of buffalo, wild onions and turnips - simple and delicious.  I went with a more modernized stew from NativeTech.org contributor "HLakota51", Hunkpapa Lakota (Standing Rock Sioux), who gives a filling "Grandma Connie's Buffalo Feast" using ground buffalo, corn, tomato and brown rice.  I thought of using wild rice, but sometimes my innovations don't work out too well, so no substitutions this time.

The Recipe: Grandma Connie's Buffalo Feast

For this buffalo feast you will need the following:

* ground buffalo (quite the feast indeed.  I picked up a pound of ground buffalo at the Waverly Farmer's Market - Gunpowder Bison had plenty of buffalo.  I picked up a pound of it for - gack- $9)
* corn (one can, about 80¢ at Harris Teeter)
* tomatoes (again, about the same at Harris Teeter)
* onions (had a few in the kitchen)
* brown rice (a few cups of it.  I bought it in bulk at Whole Foods for surprisingly little, only about $1.50)
* water (you will need this for the rice.  I had to add a little more than the recipe called for)
* all-purpose seasoning (I didn't have any of this around, so I threw a few spices together: rosemary, cayenne, oregano, thyme and sage.  In the end, I also added a few fancier, feastier things to the finished product: alder-smoked sea salt and Trader Joe's Flower Pepper, a combination of peppercorns and dried edible flowers, all ground together)

First, chop the onions.

I started to sauté the onion with some butter (not listed in the recipe)...

...and then added the buffalo.  Cook until brown.

Add everything else and simmer for half an hour.  I found the rice to still be hard after twenty minutes, so I covered it for the last ten.  The rice was still hard, so I added more water and cooked, covered, for fifteen more minutes.  Tender this time!

Once done, add the spices and stir.

One thing I can say about this buffalo feast: it is quite hearty.  With the selection of seasonings I used it turned out somewhat bland.  Had I used different seasonings that probably would have made a difference.  Again, adding the Flower Pepper and the sea salt made for a fascinating flavor.  It could go well with a little fry bread, or in my case some leftover naan.


Sources:

Deer With Horns, Wendell and Nancy. "Buffalo Recipes".  Deer With Horns Web Site, date unknown.  Copyright 1998-2012 Deer With Horns Web Site.

Diary of a Recipe Addict (Megan, blogger).  "Knoephla Soup".  Posted March 10, 2011.  Copyright 2011-2012 Diary of a Recipe Addict.

Germans from Russia Heritage Collection.  "History and Culture".  Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, 2011.  Copyright 2012 North Dakota State University Libraries.

"HLakota51" (username). "Grandma Connie's Buffalo Feast". NativeTech.org: Indigenous Food and Traditional Recipes. Date posted unknown. Copyright 2012 NativeTech.

McMurty, Sandy.  "Foods of North Dakota".  Thoughts from a North Dakota Ambassador.  Posted March 3, 2011.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "North Dakota" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "North Dakota".

Snacking State-by-State: North Carolina IV - Be Young! Have Fun! Eat Pepsi!

In 1893, Chinquapin, NC, native Caleb Branham developed the aptly named "Brad's Drink" in a small drug store in New Bern (also the birthplace of my cousin's wife, I might add).  Five years later, he re-christened his drink "Pepsi-Cola" after its key ingredients of pepsin and cola [PepsiStore.com, date unknown].  Over a hundred years later it has become one of the leading soft drinks in the world.  And just like that other cola soft drink, you can use Pepsi in various recipes.  They're just not as easy to find.

Official Name: State of North Carolina
State Nicknames: The Tar Heel State, The Old North State
Admission to the US: November 21, 1789 (#12)
Capital: Raleigh (2nd largest)
Other Important Cities: Charlotte (largest), Greensboro (3rd largest), Winston-Salem (4th largest)
Region: South, Southeast, Upper South; South Atlantic (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Crabcake; Chestnut
Bordered by: Virginia (north); Tennessee (west); Georgia (southwest); South Carolina (south); Atlantic Ocean (east)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: blueberry & strawberry (berries), milk (beverage), channel bass (fish), Southern Appalachian brook trout (freshwater trout), Scuppernong grape (fruit), honey bee (insect - again, for the honey), gray squirrel (mammal), sweet potato (vegetable)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: two - count 'em: two famous styles of BBQ (Eastern and Western or "Lexington-style"); other standard Southern foods, including (typically eaten with said BBQ's) cole slaw, hush puppies, sweet tea; pimiento cheese (the nation's leading producer); also the birthplace of Pepsi-Cola


North Carolina is a stronghold of Pepsi in a region of the country where Coca-Cola is Cing, er, King.  And while there are cookbooks and tons of recipes for using Coke as an ingredient, you can't say the same for Pepsi.  There is a handful of recipes that I could find online, tops.  Mind you, I am a Pepsi drinker - I grew up in a Pepsi household (though we still sometimes called it "Coke".  Ah well).  So I was surprised to have such difficulty finding Pepsi recipes.  Sure, I could take that Coca Cola cookbook that I used back in Georgia and just replace the Coke with Pepsi, but that's no fun.

I could only find a few recipes, most from the Sir Pepsi website, aka Andy's Pepsiholic Haven.  Most recipes were meat-related in some way, and I have had my fill of meat with pounds and pounds of Eastern and Western NC-style BBQ to go through (note: a Pepsi-based BBQ sauce recipe on Andy's website, which adds a can of Pepsi to vinegar and ketchup for a very unique Lexington-style BBQ sauce).  One more intriguing recipe was a Pepsi Cake - something like a Mississippi mud cake but with either a ganache-type frosting (see Andy's website) or a peanut butter frosting (note a recipe found by Jane & Michael Stern and posted on the Splendid Table website).

And then I found a recipe that particularly intrigued me on the website for Our State: Down Home in North Carolina Magazine.  In one series of recipes they make cake recipes using popular North Carolinian ingredients: a Krispy Kreme cake (yes, Krispy Kremes origniated in North Carolina as well), a Nabs cheese cracker cake (intriguing), a Pimento Cheese Cake (even more intriguing), and the following: a take on the lava cake flavored with Pepsi.

The Recipe: Pepsi and Peanut Cakes


These Pepsi and Peanut Cakes are individual cakes, not one big cake that you slice and serve.  And you will need a lot of ingredients, and a bit of time and coordination to mix them together.  It's not as difficult as it first appears: I got these done in an hour or two, while making pimento cheese no less.

You will need the following for these cakes, on the Our State website:

* Pepsi (duh.  Instead of the standard HFCS-y Pepsi, or even the Throwback Pepsi made with real sugar, I used Mexican Pepsi, also made with sugar and probably closer to what Americans were drinking way back when.  No peanuts in the bottles.  Like Mexican Coke, Mexican Pepsi costs about $1.50 for a 12 ounce bottle)
* flour (this recipe is gluten-free, so it suggests a combination of chestnut flour and gluten-free all-purpose flour.  You can exchange regular to gluten-free more or less at a 1 to 1 ratio, so I used plain old White Lily brand flour)
* brown sugar (had it)
* baking powder (same)
* Baker's chocolate (one 8 ounce box cost about $3)
* peanut butter (I didn't have any!  When I went grocery shopping I decided to get something, again, less HFCS-y, passing by the $2 jar for the $4 peanut-only in-store variety from Harris Teeter)
* cream of tartar (had it)
* peanuts (had them too)
* eggs
* white and powdered sugar
* vegetable oil
* milk (almost out)
* applesauce (I had none on hand, but no worries: the recipe tells you how to make some from fresh apples: just peel, core, de-seed and slice, and microwave for a few minutes with a little sugar and a little water or apple juice.  Mash with a potato masher, and voila: instant applesauce.  I've always hated applesauce but this stuff I cannot get enough of)
* salt (have it)
* vanilla (almost out of this too)
* whipping cream (to top with in the end)

You will also need 4" diameter ramekins, enough to make 8 cakes (so either eight ramekins or four that you will use twice).

Put peanut butter, brown sugar and applesauce into a bowl...

...and blend together with a hand held mixer.

Next add one egg at a time.

Next add the vanilla, and set aside.

Mix together your flour, baking powder, salt and cream of tartar.

You will add the dry ingredients to the batter, alternating with the milk.

Mixing away...

This is what your batter should look like.  Set aside your batter and prep the Pepsi.

You will next make a Pepsi reduction.  Pour the Pepsi into a saucepan...

...boil and reduce to about half the volume.

Take several tablespoons of the Pepsi reduction and  add it to roughly chopped (or hell, even unchopped) Baker's chocolate, nuking for 30 seconds at a time and then stirring, until...

...it looks like this.

Separately, heat up peanut butter, powdered sugar and more Pepsi reduction, and cream together.

I just used a spoon.

 Next you're ready to prep the ramekins (grease these down quickly with butter)

Start by filling each ramekin halfway with some batter.

Next, put a dollop of each the Pepsi-chocolate and the peanut butter-Pepsi combos in the center of the batter.

Then cover it with more batter, filling the ramekin almost to the top.

Put in a preheated 400°F oven for about 20 minutes.  They will crack like this.

Loosen around the edges with a knife and let sit for about five minutes.

Now for the whipped cream: whip it good, and add sugar and vanilla.

Mmmm.  Whipped cream.

Put a heaping dollop on your still-warm cake...

...sprinkle with peanuts...

...and drizzle with more of the Pepsi reduction.

This is one dense little cake, intensely peanut buttery - so much so, in fact, that I think it overpowers the Pepsi flavor a bit.  But it's there, in the chocolate and drizzled on top of the cake.  It is luscious but only when eaten warm.  Make sure you warm up any leftover cake very well and you will get your best results.

- - - - -

I am full of BBQ, pimento cheese and gut-busting Pepsi ad peanut butter cake.  Were I actually traveling for real from North Carolina to our next stop I think I'd have to jog part of the way to work some of this delicious food off.  But more awaits as we journey from the From the Mid-South to the Midwest, for Sioux, German and Eastern European recipes in North Dakota.  And yah, we won't be doin' Arby's.

Sources:


Barbecue Joint.  "Eastern North Carolina Barbecue".  Featured on the episode "Durham, NC" of the show $40 a Day (Rachael Ray, host).  Food Network, 2005.

Bowen, Dana.  "East Vs. West: North Carolina Pulled Pork".  Saveur.com, Issue #139: BBQ Nation.  Published June 16, 2011.  Copyright 2011 Saveur.com.  All rights reserved.


Goldwyn, Craig "Meathead". "East Carolina Kiss & Vinegar Barbecue Sauce & Mop". Amazing Ribs website. Last revised September 12, 2011.  All

Graff, Michael, Wendy Perry, and Teresa Williford.  "The Pepsi ‘N’ Peanuts Cake".  Our State: Down Home in North Carolina. Posted February 2012.  Copyright 2012 Our State.  All rights reserved.

North Carolina BBQ Society.  "Eastern Style Slaw".  Copyright The North Carolina Barbecue Society, Inc. 2009.

North Carolina BBQ Society.  "Piedmont Lexington-Style Dip".  Copyright The North Carolina Barbecue Society, Inc. 2009.

North Carolina Travels (NorthCarolinaTravels.com).  "North Carolina Barbecue".  Date unknown.  Matt Barrett's Travel Guides: North Carolina.  All rights reserved.

O'Dea, Stephanie.  "You Can Use Your CrockPot as a Smoker".  A Year of Slow Cooking.  Posted August 7, 2008.

Pepsi Store (PepsiStore.com).  "History of the Birthplace".  Date unknown.  Copyright PepsiStore.com and Pepsi-Cola.  All rights reserved.

Saveur.com.  "Lexington Pulled Pork".  Saveur.com, Issue #139: BBQ Nation.  Published June/July 2011.  Copyright 2011 Saveur.com.  All rights reserved.

Saveur.com.  "Lexington-Style Red Slaw".  Saveur.com, Issue #139: BBQ Nation.  Published June/July 2011.  Copyright 2011 Saveur.com.  All rights reserved.

Southern Foodways Alliance (Sara Roahen and John T. Edge, editors).  The Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook.  University of Georgia Press: Athens, GA, 2010.

Wallace, Emily.  "A brief history of pimento cheese".  Independent Weekly (IndyWeek.com).  Posted June 22, 2011.  Copyright 2012 Independent Weekly.  All rights reserved.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "North Carolina" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "North Carolina".

Snacking State-by-State: North Carolina III - It's the (Pimento) Cheesiest

Pimento cheese is one of those specifically Southern foods you see throughout the "proper South".  While Maryland has its ties to Southern cuisine - in terms of seafood, fried chicken, hams, familiarity with Moon Pies as opposed to whoopies, which are only newly popular here, etc - we are clearly above the culinary Mason-Dixon Line in terms of pimento cheese.  But like the sweet Yankee whoopie pie, the decidedly Southern pimento cheese has started to make itself very much known in Maryland and throughout the nation, busting waistlines all over.

Official Name: State of North Carolina
State Nicknames: The Tar Heel State, The Old North State
Admission to the US: November 21, 1789 (#12)
Capital: Raleigh (2nd largest)
Other Important Cities: Charlotte (largest), Greensboro (3rd largest), Winston-Salem (4th largest)
Region: South, Southeast, Upper South; South Atlantic (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Crabcake; Chestnut
Bordered by: Virginia (north); Tennessee (west); Georgia (southwest); South Carolina (south); Atlantic Ocean (east)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: blueberry & strawberry (berries), milk (beverage), channel bass (fish), Southern Appalachian brook trout (freshwater trout), Scuppernong grape (fruit), honey bee (insect - again, for the honey), gray squirrel (mammal), sweet potato (vegetable)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: two - count 'em: two famous styles of BBQ (Eastern and Western or "Lexington-style"); other standard Southern foods, including (typically eaten with said BBQ's) cole slaw, hush puppies, sweet tea; pimiento cheese (the nation's leading producer); also the birthplace of Pepsi-Cola

Emily Wallace, a native of the Piedmont North Carolina, writes for the Durham-based Independent Weekly about the history of what I might easily assume is a food she enjoyed as a child.  Pimento cheese, as she puts it, is "parading around as the nation's new It Girl" [Wallace 2011].  She points out that the hearty mix of cheddar cheese, pimentos and mayo (among other things) is a food that is both proletarian and bourgeois, appearing in lunch pails and tea rooms since the early 20th century:

Many people in the Piedmont, including my mother, briefly, worked in a textile mill. There, formalized meal breaks were largely disregarded by the 1920s, and workers were encouraged to eat on the job as they found time. To facilitate this process, sandwiches and crackers were sold at worker's stations by way of dope carts—wagons named for the caffeinated "dopes," or sodas they stocked. Of the sandwiches, which included other salad spreads like ham, chicken and egg, pimento cheese became the most iconic. Tasty, affordable and convenient, it nonetheless retained its status as a delicacy in certain circles. [Wallace 2011]

And wouldn't you know it, Charlotte, according to Wallace, is the nation's pimento cheese capital, and North Carolina the nation's leading producer of the stuff.  Also the home of one of my favorite supermarket chains (yes, those words actually came out of my brain) Harris Teeter, you will find a good selection of pimento cheeses there - notably Augusta's Creations, also out of Charlotte (they make regular and jalapeño pimento cheeses).

Pimento cheese is one of those foods for which every family has its own recipe, like crab cakes or chili.  The recipe I used - originally from Nan Davis - comes from the Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook, edited by Sara Roahen and John T. Edge.  It speaks to the popularity of pimento cheese that the very first recipe in the collection is a pimento cheese recipe.  Forgive me, Charlotte, but this recipe comes to us from Edge's home state of Mississippi - not exactly North Carolina, but a good recipe nonetheless.

The Recipe: Pimento Cheese

For Nan Davis' Blue Ribbon Pimento Cheese (recipe on page 5 of the SFA Community Cookbook) you will need the following:

* cheddar cheese (different recipes I saw also added some Monterey Jack, but every recipe I saw had at the least cheddar cheese, as bright yellow as you can get.  A 16 oz block set me back about $3 on sale at, yes, Harris Teeter)
* pimentos (you absolutely need these - a 4 oz jar is $3)
* mayonnaise (while the recipe calls for a homemade mayo, the recipe for which follows, I stuck with Richmond-based Duke's Mayonnaise)
* Worcestershire sauce (not every recipe will call for this, or any of the other ingredients that follow)
* sugar (just a tad)
* onion powder (I bought a small bottle for about $1.50)
* cayenne pepper (had it)

First, grate your cheddar cheese.  You could also cheat and buy it pre-shredded. Maybe that would've saved me some time, but this recipe isn't a difficult one to begin with.

I thought about adding a little leftover pecorino romano, though I only added a little.

Throw the shredded cheese in your food processor with all your other ingredients.  I had to do this in two batches.

Pulse until it is like a rough paste.  Add more mayonnaise if it's not soft enough.

This is a delicious, luscious and filling - very damn filling - pimento cheese.  I have enough to last me for a while, and that's after sharing half of it with friends.  I just have to face facts: this is going to gain me a pound or two.,  Grilled pimento cheese sandwiches for the next few weeks anyone?  Note though: I made this during Lent.  A grilled pimento cheese sandwich would be the perfect meatless meal, although I would enjoy it too much.


Sources:


Barbecue Joint.  "Eastern North Carolina Barbecue".  Featured on the episode "Durham, NC" of the show $40 a Day (Rachael Ray, host).  Food Network, 2005.

Bowen, Dana.  "East Vs. West: North Carolina Pulled Pork".  Saveur.com, Issue #139: BBQ Nation.  Published June 16, 2011.  Copyright 2011 Saveur.com.  All rights reserved.


Goldwyn, Craig "Meathead". "East Carolina Kiss & Vinegar Barbecue Sauce & Mop". Amazing Ribs website. Last revised September 12, 2011.  All

Graff, Michael, Wendy Perry, and Teresa Williford.  "The Pepsi ‘N’ Peanuts Cake".  Our State: Down Home in North Carolina. Posted February 2012.  Copyright 2012 Our State.  All rights reserved.

North Carolina BBQ Society.  "Eastern Style Slaw".  Copyright The North Carolina Barbecue Society, Inc. 2009.

North Carolina BBQ Society.  "Piedmont Lexington-Style Dip".  Copyright The North Carolina Barbecue Society, Inc. 2009.

North Carolina Travels (NorthCarolinaTravels.com).  "North Carolina Barbecue".  Date unknown.  Matt Barrett's Travel Guides: North Carolina.  All rights reserved.

O'Dea, Stephanie.  "You Can Use Your CrockPot as a Smoker".  A Year of Slow Cooking.  Posted August 7, 2008.

Pepsi Store (PepsiStore.com).  "History of the Birthplace".  Date unknown.  Copyright PepsiStore.com and Pepsi-Cola.  All rights reserved.

Saveur.com.  "Lexington Pulled Pork".  Saveur.com, Issue #139: BBQ Nation.  Published June/July 2011.  Copyright 2011 Saveur.com.  All rights reserved.

Saveur.com.  "Lexington-Style Red Slaw".  Saveur.com, Issue #139: BBQ Nation.  Published June/July 2011.  Copyright 2011 Saveur.com.  All rights reserved.

Southern Foodways Alliance (Sara Roahen and John T. Edge, editors).  The Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook.  University of Georgia Press: Athens, GA, 2010.

Wallace, Emily.  "A brief history of pimento cheese".  Independent Weekly (IndyWeek.com).  Posted June 22, 2011.  Copyright 2012 Independent Weekly.  All rights reserved.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "North Carolina" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "North Carolina".