State-by-State Redux: X of X - A Julia Child recipe that does not feature butter, and an Ina Garten recipe that makes up for it

Here it is, the last State-by-State post after more than two years of this project chugging along.  And for this final State-by-State post, I am visiting some American classics that I haven't done for this series, and surprisingly even much in the history of this blog, which you know by now is also ending soon.  I thought it was imperative to visit some of these classics by using recipes from the Queen herself, Julia Child.  Oh, and also Ina Garten.

Snacking State-by-State Redux X of X: The United States

Official Name: United States of America
Nickname: none
Founded: July 4, 1776
Capital: Washington, DC
Other Important Cities: There are a lot of 'em.  Can we just leave it at that? 
Region: North America
RAFT Nations: All of them, except Moose (upper Canada)
Bordered by: Canada (north), Arctic Ocean, Bering Strait & Russia (northwest), Pacific Ocean (west), Mexico (south), Gulf of Mexico & Caribbean Sea (southeast), Atlantic Ocean (east)
Official US Foods and Edible Things: none
Some Famous & Typical Foods: see the previous two years worth of posts for this.  Also: apple pie, barbecue, hot dogs, hamburgers, fast food, and so on

Of all the famous chefs in American history, it's pretty safe to say that none rivals the importance of Julia Child.  I mean, did the Smithsonian Institution put James A. Beard's kitchen on display in the American History Museum in Washington?  I've been a few times, and I just don't get tired of it.

Child was, among all chefs, a pathbreaker in that she introduced the American public to the pleasures of an intimidating cuisine (French, not American) in as accessible a way as possible.  From her Mastering the Art of French Cooking to her long-standing partnership with PBS, her many books and television shows, and her co-founding of the American Institute of Wine and Food, Child left an important and lasting impression on American food [Smithsonian National Museum of American History (Behring Center), no date]

For my final State-by-State post, I am showcasing one of Child's more American recipes: the ever-popular meatloaf.  Yes, she had a recipe for meatloaf, which she considered it a cousin to the French pâté: "Since they are so closely related, I consider the one a variation of the other" [Child 2000: 53].  I had never thought of meatloaf that way, but I guess it is.  But I also did change this one up, not so much fiddling with the master so much as using a version that was "pre-fiddled with".  You see, I realized when planning this final post that I had used so many different meats over the past two years for this series: beef, chicken, pork, lamb, fish, shellfish, even buffalo, but not the one all-American bird that deserves extra attention in such a series: the turkey.  I left out any turkey recipes!  Yes, that idiotic bird that Benjamin Franklin would have made into our national symbol had the bald eagle not swayed other people instead.

Fortunately, I found a recipe that swaps out the pork in Child's recipe for turkey plus precooked rice.  I'm not sure of the actual provenance of this recipe.  Various sources attribute a turkey meatloaf to Mark Ladner of Del Posto restaurant, though I don't think this is the version in question.  I did find Child's meatloaf with the turkey and rice swapped in for the pork on, of all places, the CD Kitchen website.  Poster "AmandasMom971" [2012] provides the measurements for what is, otherwise, Julia Child's recipe.  To her credit, she does call it "Julia Child's Meatloaf" and doesn't pass it off has her own.

To further complicate things, I swap out the beef in her meatloaf for that tried and true "meatloaf mix" of beef, pork and veal.  Mixing all of those together still gave me some quite pleasant results.

To go along with this turkified version of Child's meatloaf, I thought I would add two important sides: mashed potatoes - for what is meatloaf without mashed potatoes - also from Child's Julia's Kitchen Wisdon: Essential Techniques and Recipes from a Lifetime of Cooking [2000], and a recipe for one more recipe that I have never made for this series or this blog, but has become an important part of the American food landscape: macaroni and cheese.  This time, however, I go with Ina Garten and her "adult mac & cheese" featuring tomato slices, Gruyère and cheddar.  A hearty and wonderful macaroni and cheese on page 202 of Garten's Barefoot Contessa Family-Style cookbook [Garten 2002]

The Recipes: Julia Child's Meatloaf (with Turkey) and Mashed Potatoes, with Ina Garten's Grown-Up Macaroni and Cheese

First, Julia Child's meatloaf that you will certainly not hate.

The Recipe: Julia Child's Meatloaf (with Turkey)

Assemble the following:

* ground beef (or in this case, "meatloaf mix", about $7 per lb at Whole Foods.  Child calls for two pounds of beef, but I settled for 1 1/2, which worked for me)
* turkey (about a pound, about $5 at Whole Foods, mixed with...
* white rice (I just got this in the hot food bar at Whole Foods while I was shopping for the other things)
* toasted bread crumbs (nothing faincy here, just a few toasted slices of plain old white bread pulsed in the food processor)
* onions (three that I got the day before at Waverly - I got about six in all for $2
* beef broth (I swapped that out for chicken broth á la Better Than Bouillon.  Yet another animal added to the mix
* eggs (in case you decide not to swap beef for chicken broth, this will help add chicken to your meatloaf anyway)
* Cheddar cheese ($5 for a block of the XXX Sharp Cheddar from Yancey's Fancy.  I got this at Wegman's.  This surprised me, since I've never heard of cheese in a meatloaf.  But Julia Child put it in there and I'm sure she knew what she was doing.  Don't forget to grate it)
* garlic (had it - again, I used the garlic paste from Trader Joe's that I had in the fridge, but stuck the head of garlic in the photo)
* salt & pepper
* various spices: oregano, thyme, paprika, allspice and bay leaves (had them all)

You will also need oil to sauté the onions, and a tomato sauce to pour over the meatloaf.  Look for more on that below.

First chop the onions and sauté them in a skillet.

Mix your bread crumbs with the onions.

Add the meatloaf mix...

...the turkey and rice (yes, that is rice)...

...the grated Cheddar and the eggs...

...and your chicken broth, salt, pepper and herbs and spices, holding off on the bay leaves which go on top of the whole thing.

Child suggests cooking a little bit of it in the skillet and tasting it to make sure it's right.  It's stuff like this, folks, that explains why her kitchen is in the Smithsonian.

Push it into a meatloaf pan (I used one with holes in the bottom and another pan underneath to catch all the juices) - Child suggests greasing it with butter (natch), though I used baking spray instead - and top it with the bay leaves.  Bake in a pre-heated oven for 90 minutes (until the juices run clear) at 350°F.

While that is in the oven, make the tomato sauce for the meatloaf.  Child suggests the sauce on page 30 of her book, which uses fresh ones.  I used canned San Marzanos instead ($4 per 28 ounce can), with chopped onion and basil, and reduced until thick.

Ninety mintes later, the meatloaf should be springy...

...and the sauce should be reduced and very intense.

Child's mashed potatoes go wonderfully with this: just boil some potatoes, add cream and/or milk alternating with butter.  I just used a hand masher.

The Recipe: Ina Garten's Grown-Up Macaroni and Cheese

As for Garten's luxurious macaroni and cheese (which, unlike the meatloaf, I halved), you should gather the following ingredients:

* macaroni (I got the Barilla variety for about a buck and a half)
* Cheddar (here I thought I'd run out of Cheddar.  I still have a ridiculous amount left over)
* Gruyère (I got the cheaper, mild kind at Whole Foods, about half a pound for $7)
* milk (fresh from the South Mountain Creamery stall at the farmers' market at Waverly)
* flour (had it)
* tomatoes (a few Romas from the supermarket)
* butter (had it)
* nutmeg, salt and pepper (had them all)
* bread crumbs (more than enough left over from the meatloaf)

Start by grating your cheeses.

Boil your macaroni in a large pot.

Melt that butter!

Once melted, whisk in your flour (exact measurements in Garten's recipe on page 202 of the Family Style cookbook)

Add the milk and whisk some more, then remove from heat.

Next, whisk in your shredded cheeses...

...and your nutmeg, salt and pepper.

Drain your macaroni and add this to the mixture, coating thoroughly.

Pat it all down into an oven-safe dish.

Then mix the bread crumbs with a little more melted butter.

Slice the tomatoes and place on top of the macaroni and cheese.

And then spread the bread crumbs over everything.  Yes, all over everything.

Bake in a preheated 375°F oven for about 35 minutes.

Though the meats were not exactly the ones she recommended, Julia Child's meatloaf still turned out to be lovely.  It's done for me what homemade sauce did for me for spaghetti: it made it taste good again.  As for the mac & cheese: it was good, though distinctly second fiddle to the meatloaf.  But a hot bowl of the mac & cheese alone (and it must be hot - lukewarm really doesn't bring out the flavors all too well) is still a nice thing on a cold day.

- - - - -

And that's it!  Fifty states, one territory, one federal district, plus several regions and an all-encompassing "America" post, and my Snacking State-by-State series is now - pardon the wording - history.  I have enjoyed learning about all the different ways of eating all over this country over the past two years and a handful of months.

• I've either learned or re-learned how to pick apart a lobster (Maine), a crawfish (Louisiana), a King crab (Alaska) and a shrimp (Florida).   I sought out easier ways to shuck oysters (Delaware, Mississippi and Virginia) and clams (Rhode Island).  Mind you, I already knew how to pick blue crabs (Maryland), duh, and Dungeness (Washington) was something I remembered from back in California.  
• I learned that Youtube is a great repository for how-to videos, on everything from frying bison testicles (Wyoming) to making Mr. Beer home brew as interesting as possible (Wisconsin), to making sushi rice (California), to mixing up your own Korean potato salad (District of Columbia) and so on.
• As far as my own state's food goes, I've learned just how much more Southern we are in our culinary history (note: panfried chicken, Smith Island cake) than we are Northern, though we still have that.
• I was also reminded that Lady Baltimore cake (South Carolina) has nothing to do with Maryland, no matter how hard John Shields or myself want it to be.
• I've learned a few new-to-me culinary terms: 
• bizcochito (New Mexico)
• buckeyes (Ohio)
• chislic (South Dakota)
• curtido (District of Columbia)
• funeral potatoes (Utah)
• halušky (Pennsylvania)
• hot chicken (Tennessee)
• johnny cakes (Rhode Island)
• knoepfla (North Dakota)
• mofongo (Puerto Rico)
• musubi (Hawaii)
• pemmican (Montana)
• pork roll (New Jersey)
• purloo (South Carolina)
• sofrito (Puerto Rico)
• St. Paul sandwich (Missouri)
• tapioca maltodextrin (Illinois)
• tourtière (New Hampshire)
• wojapi (Nebraska - this one and pemmican are both Native American dishes)
• I now know how to smoke pork butt  (North Carolina) in the slow cooker, as well as beef brisket (Texas), and how to smoke pork ribs (Missouri & Tennessee) in the oven.
• I learned how expedient and how expensive mail-ordering foods can be when you just cannot buy them locally - ahem, huckleberries, anyone? (Idaho)
• I learned that Miss Paula may claim that gooey butter cake for Savannah, Georgia, but they were making it in Missouri long before she caught wind of the idea.
• I still never got to make steamed crabs from Maryland or Virginia, Jamaican jerk chicken from New York, or apple pie from all over the country, but I do think I covered most of the bases.

And that closes the textbook on this culinary exploration of America.  It has been enriching, exhausting, expensive and fattening all at the same time.  And with that, I can now go to the supermarket secure in the knowledge that I don't have to root out any specific ingredient for any blog-related reason, anymore.  And to quote the master herself one final time, Bon Appétit!

Sources:

"AmandasMom971" (poster).  "Julia Child's Meatloaf".  CD Kitchen, posted 2012.  Copyright CDKitchen 2005-2013, all rights reserved.

Child, Julia.  Julia's Kitchen Wisdom: Essential Techniques and Recipes from a Lifetime of Cooking.  David Nussbaum, collaborator.  Knopf: New York, 2000.  Reprinted 2009.

Garten, Ina.  Barefoot Contessa Family Style: Easy Ideas and Recipes That Make Everyone Feel Like Family.  Clarkson Potter: New York, 2002.

Smithsonian National Museum of American History (Behring Center).  Bon Appétit! Julia Child's Kitchen at the Smithsonian.  Rayna Green and Paula Johnson, content and curatorial for website, Nancy Growald Brooks, editor (full list of website and exhibition credits can be found here).  Copyright 2002 - present, Smithsonian Institution, all rights reserved.

Some information also obtained from the United States Wikipedia page and from the Food Timeline State Foods webpage.

Tidbits - Mid-January Edition

Just a few notes, as the state-by-state thing is winding down and I have a little time to write about the places I've eaten at in the meantime.

* I've been getting a lot of good stuff at the farmers' market in Waverly lately.  I'm trying to stick to a new year's resolution of eating locally-grown or -raised food at least once every two weeks.  I've been better at this than I thought.  A few weeks ago I got tendergreen (a type of mustard green) which I made into a nice salad, and mizuna, a Japanese green that you can (apparently) pickle very easily.  The Little Grass Shack website shows how, among all the other info it gives about the versatile, easily-grown plant.

Also, look at what I whipped up from my loot from Waverly:

The other night I ate mashed sweet potatoes (definitely grown locally), fresh horseradishy-smelling turnips braised in butter, sugar and salt (probably grown locally) and kielbasa from South Mountain Creamery (made from locally raised pork).  Also note: I'm trying to eat less meat (not "no meat" - fool, please), so here is the kielbasa as a side dish to the turnips.

* Last week I found myself in Frederick, and after a day of conferences I decided to make it, finally, to Volt, the flagship restaurant of Top Chef's Bryan Voltaggio, a Frederick native.  Mind you, I do not have $85 just laying around to pay for a delicious three-course meal (that is, again, before beverages, taxes and tip).  Fortunately, Volt has a lounge menu with cheaper foods you can eat at the bar, so that's what I chose when hitting the bar at Volt.  The sleek bar usually picks up around 5ish, and I got there a little earlier.  While talking about Voltaggio's latest venture in the DC area (no chains for him - each of his restaurants is unique), the barkeep gave me a Flying Dog Raging Bitch, on tap ($7), locally made right in Frederick.  This went nicely with my order, a lush, buttery lobster roll ($12) on a homemade brioche bun, with kettle chips.  I don't usually eat a lot of lobster, and when I do it's usually in roll form.  This was a particularly lovely one, and it just went too fast for me.  All the more reason to go back to Frederick for another one?

* My friend Eric and I went out last weekend for a nice leisurely bite at the 13.5% Wine Bar.  I've written about it before, but just to mention how nice my latest meal there was, I have to give major kudos for the cheese selections the waiter made for us (five for $16), as well as the calamari, which  was the crispiest and most tender fried calamari I have had in ages (can't remember the price, but I think it was about $10).  Everything we had was delicious, I might add.

All You Need Is Aunt Sandy Claus

Christmas comes but once a year, but it's always "Cocktail Time"!

And of course, who could forget the Green Icing Monster "Heirloom" "Noel" "Cake"? You know: the one where she buys pre-bought cake as an ingredient for her cake!

Now don't that just SCREAM "Christmas"? Seriously, I can hear Christmas screaming right now. Merry First Day of Christmas, y'all!

Guy's All American Mess

Since I've been on hiatus, I didn't get to comment on Pete Wells' wonderfully awesome takedown of Rachael-Ray-on-crack-with-a-beard's Guy Fieri's new Manhattan restaurant, Guy's American Kitchen.  But if you have not read it before, you have to read it.  Favorite section:

Why is one of the few things on your menu that can be eaten without fear or regret — a lunch-only sandwich of chopped soy-glazed pork with coleslaw and cucumbers — called a Roasted Pork Bahn Mi, when it resembles that item about as much as you resemble Emily Dickinson? 

When you have a second, Mr. Fieri, would you see what happened to the black bean and roasted squash soup we ordered? 

Hey, did you try that blue drink, the one that glows like nuclear waste? The watermelon margarita? Any idea why it tastes like some combination of radiator fluid and formaldehyde? [Wells 2012]

Makes me want to stand by the window to watch, and then go somewhere much better to eat.  Assuming NYC is no longer underwater.

Dancing Queens!

Sometimes you just gotta be ridiculous.

 

BBQ Brisket for Hanukkah

Bobby Flay goes there.  Besides, who needs gelt when you've got BBQ?  Granted, it's a little difficult to play the dreidel game with, but still, it's BBQ!

An Aunt Sandy Post to get me back in the blogging mood

As stated in my previous post, I've taken a pause in mourning for my father.  It's humbling how many friends will show such kindness to you upon the death of a loved one.  I am quite thankful (and when the horrible day comes, I look forward to helping them out too).

Now that I am back and posting, I had to start with gratuitous silliness.  Yes, more Sandra Lee.  This was the Halloween episode I missed for much more important highlights, Lee's latest lameness (created by MrSuperProductions).  Scratch that: it's not lame.  Anything this absurd can not be described merely as "lame".  It is fabulous and campy in its horribleness.  And by that standard, Aunt Sandy has really topped herself.  Even the slightly out-of-sync audio just seems to completely work here.  She's slurring her words.  Apparently this show was mostly silly costumes and silly cocktails, and very few "recipes".

Please tell me the bunny rabbit thing at the very end means that she will never be cooking or mixing, ever again.

Fresh Air with Julia Child

Heads' up: NPR's Fresh Air is more interesting than usual this week, as it continues its food-related installments with a special Thursday rebroadcast of an interview Terri Gross did with the late, great Julia Child.  It's today, people - on WYPR and WAMU it's 3:00 - 4:00.  Or if you miss it, you can always listen to it whenever you feel like it at the Fresh Air website (audio available around 5:00PM on Thursday, September 1).

The Lady Goes A-Ridin'

As I've said elsewhere: What? The? Hell!?!?

Day at the Smithsonian / Meskerem (or, "Hey, where did all the Ethiopian restaurants go?")

My friend Gil came into town from California for a few days to visit his sister in Northern Virginia. Actually, most of his family came into town to do that. Since I was so close, we decided to meet up in DC for the day on Monday. Surprise, surprise! Gil's parents and brother came along. It was fine; they're a nice family. But it was comical to ask on the way home why they were almost an hour late meeting me at the West Falls Church Metro. Typical family stuff, the same ones that would inevitably make my family take forever to get there, too.

We first visited the Natural History Museum, and Gil's family wanted to see the gems and minerals first and foremost. This area has never really interested me as much as the more biological and anthropological exhibits. But with so much attention being paid to all the jewelry and minerals, particularly the Hope Diamond, I found them much more interesting than I ever did. I did, however, run down to take photos of the blue whale, which is finally back on display in the brand new ocean life hall, after being down for years. The giant squid is there, too.

Afterwards, we took a detour to the American History Museum, newly opened after years of being closed for remodeling. As with the first museum, we entered on the Constitution Avenue side - a must, since the lines are infinitely longer and slower through the Mall-side entrance. After the very inspiring Star-Spangled Banner, followed by Gil's family leaving (his father was tired), the two of us who remained spent some quality time in Julia Child's kitchen. The Bon Appétit! exhibit was one of the unchanged exhibits in the museum (First Ladies? Probably changed, but the line was even longer than the one for the Star-Spangled Banner, so we didn't bother with it). Among the highlights:

• the many simple tools needed to make classic French bread (quarry tiles? razor blade?)
• a looping cooking video showing Julia cooking with other chefs, including one chef who made a raw salad of olive-oil-drizzled thinly-sliced fennel, mushrooms and Parmesan (mmmm) , and a New England chef who just whipped out two unsuspecting lobsters and cut them in half before our very eyes - without flinching! (Well, the people in the TV didn't flinch anyway.)
  
• and my hitting my head on the Plexiglas in front of Julia's kitchen door.

Afterwards, we hit Adams Morgan, passing by some promising gay clubs in search of Ethiopian food. Gil was looking for a long-remembered favorite restaurant, but as we finally got into Adams Morgan, we couldn't find the restaurant. In fact, most of the Ethiopian restaurants we had remembered weren't there. There seem to be two on 18th Street near Florida Ave now: Awash, which looked like it had a primarily Ethiopian clientele, and Meskerem, a favorite of mine that has a very diverse clientele, though mainly non-Ethiopian from what I could see. We figured on going to Awash at some point in the future, but to Meskerem that night.

We got seated pretty fast at one of their many mesob basket tables. We settled on Harar Beer (about $5 each), which was light and thirst-quenching after a long day of walking all over downtown DC.

Oops! Forgot to turn off the flash.

With that we got an order of ground beef sambussas (about $4), which we knew were very much like Ethiopian samosas. These things were packed with ground beef, no skimping.

Flash back off. Yeah, this is the type of photo I get.

The main course was a two-person sampler platter of lamb, beef and chicken wots with various lentil and vegetable dishes. Words cannot describe how good everything was. We needed extra injera bread because there was so much food to eat.

Wot a Combo!

Among the highlights on a near-perfect platter:

• red lentils that tasted strongly of cinnamon
• pieces of chicken legs with meat on the bone, that we just had to give up and pick up and eat. But since it is custom to pick up everything with your injera, I held my chicken leg in a small piece of injera. This chicken wasn't dry or greasy at all, the way much chicken tastes I'm afraid.
• The lamb chunks were as good as the stew they were cooked in.
• There were big chunks of carrot that were soft as sweet potatoes, mixed in with some very flavorful pieces of potato.

All together, the price for the platter and the two beers came to about $43. I figured they must have charged us for the extra injera and perhaps the bottle of water that the waitress poured without prompting. After tax the price came to about $48. It didn't hit me at first, but Gil got out $45 and handed it over to pay the tab. "Well at least get the tip!" he said. (BTW: Thanks, Gil!) I whipped out a ten and we left, very full.

After dinner we had a nice long walk back to the Dupont Circle Metro stop, to work off all that Ethiopian food. It was a nice end to an exhausting yet enjoyable trip to Washington.

Other photos -

Souvenir Inaugural Metro Day Pass. I wonder who the guy in the photo is? Is he famous or something?

Ever wondered what a crystal of salt looks like really, really big? This is magnified 1.5 billion times

The line for the Star Spangled Banner exhibit (every Bawlamoron should know what that is). The line for the First Ladies' exhibit wasn't as long, but moved much more slowly.

Julia's kitchen wasn't the only one on display. This was a 1940's kitchen from a house transplanted to the American History Museum from Ipswich, Massachusetts.

This wasn't a joke. The inauguration is big business in DC these days. Taken on 14th Street, near Logan Circle.

CBS Sunday Morning Show

It just started - today's episode of CBS Sunday Morning is all about food - because this week is Thanksgiving. Topics include the US's fascination with celebrity chefs, a visit to McCormick in Sparks that starts a look at the history of some of our favorite spices (and their truly international pedigrees), ridiculously overpriced restaurants (making those truffles that sell for $999.99 a pound at Wegman's look positively "ghetto"), fasting for spritiual and non-spiritual enlightenment, among other things (I could only figure out a permanent link for the first story). There's also a collection of interactive food quizzes! And their "Are You Food Savvy" quiz isn't what you'd expect. Their first question reads thus:

Comparing low-carb and high-carb dieters, who lost the most weight at the end of a year?

I went against the conventional wisdom and got it right. It was one of three questions I correctly answered. Out of ten. I don't feel so savvy right now.

Am I now becoming that sort of person who watches CBS Sunday Morning? It's not the most exciting show. They can take a fascinating subject - King Tut, human trafficking, hip hop roller derbies, whatever - and make them so, well, not exciting. Just kind of blaaaah. Which is why I will probably switch back and forth between it and the Food Network, which is all food all the time.

Speaking of TV: didn't Project Runway kind of suck on Wednesday? I've been thinking about it and it's becoming a parody of itself already. I hate to see that happen to it because it really is better than most reality TV shows: it's a creative challenge, not one where you have to eat bugs, or sleep five people to a bedroom while trying to plan how to vote your roommates out of the house, or be crammed in gorgeous digs that a third world dictator's children fantasize about living in while a TV network that used to play music pays for your room and board while you intern at your dream job (Real World my ass). But this group is pretty silly. Which is why I was really left rolling on the floor when I skipped all the PR blogs and found this extra-bitchy review of Episode 1 by Dave White for the Advocate (the GLBT version of People). Leave it to a gay man to throw the best insults at a group of fashion design reality show contestants! I love this line; it kills me:

Elisa is creating something that looks like what would happen if Sigmund the Sea Monster shit out Celia Cruz. [links added by me]

Nuff said. Funny! Even funnier with visuals!!!

Take this:

Then add and then violently subtract this:


And you end up with this:


Funny, yes?