Snacking State-by-State: Florida Part 2A (The Southern Half) - Un sandwich simplemente no es un sandwich... si no es cubano

We now head farther south into what is probably considered “Yankee-occupied Florida”. The southern half of the state is home to great cultural diversity and a unique cuisine all its own. It's Key limes, conchs and Cuban sandwiches in this post! First a review of where we are.

Official Name: State of Florida
State Nicknames: The Sunshine State
Admission to the US: March 3, 1845 (#27)
Capital: Tallahassee (8th largest city)
Other Important Cities: Jacksonville (largest city), Miami (2nd largest), Tampa (3rd largest), St. Petersburg (4th largest), Orlando (5th largest)
Region: South, Gulf Coast; South Atlantic (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Cornbread & BBQ, Crabcake, Gumbo
Bordered by: Alabama (northwest), Georgia (north), Atlantic Ocean (east), Caribbean Sea (south), Gulf of Mexico (west)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: Key lime pie (pie), orange (fruit)
Some Famous & Typical Foods: Cuban food (southern Florida), Key lime pie, seafood (stone crab, shrimp, conch, crawfish, etc), alligator (northern Florida) typical Deep Southern foods (northern Florida), foods of New York/New Jersey especially Italian & Jewish (southern Florida)

Miami, Palm Beach, Fort Myers and such bring armies of retirees from New York, New Jersey and parts north to settle or vacation. Emigrés from outside the proper South have brought their own rich food traditions with them. For instance, Florida's Jewish community has grown over the past half century mostly due to immigration from the North. Please remember: the history of Jewish Florida begins in the 1760’s, and not in the 1960’s when (according to FloridaJewish.com) the state’s Jewish population grew dramatically from a mere 25,000 two decades earlier, to well over 175,000. Today there are about 750,000 Jewish Floridians, the country’s third largest Jewish community and the largest in any Southern state.

Immigrants also have flooded into Florida from outside parts from many parts of Asia, Latin America and (especially) the Caribbean. Florida’s Cuban community is notable among these, and it has had a major influence over Miami’s cuisine. Florida’s Cuban-American population is close to 900,000 - by far the largest in the US. Like Florida’s Jewish population, its Cuban population predates the 1960’s. However, the turmoil of the Cuban revolution in 1959 spurred much more migration from Cuba to Florida. The influence on Miami’s food is very distinct. Take the famous Cuban sandwich (sandwich cubano or sandwich mixto): ham, roast pork and Swiss cheese, sandwiched into a piece of Cuban bread and fried. I looked at many recipes for the Cuban sandwich, and while they all share those things in common there are enough differences that you cannot just use them interchangeably.

The recipe I finally went with comes from the Three Guys From Miami. Brothers-in-law Jorge Castillo, Glenn Lindgren and Raúl Musibay celebrate all things culinarily Cuban, and their Cuban sandwich, as it exists in south Florida, seems pretty darn authoritative. They give lots of tips about what each component should be like, and a history of the sandwich, dating at least back to the 1930’s if not much earlier.

The recipe: Cuban Sandwich

As the Three Guys suggest, this is a fairly simple sandwich, and well loved - as Glenn Lindgren notes - “it’s a combination of ingredients that are almost universally loved”. The most difficult part is the grilling, which is not at all difficult.



You will need:

* ham lunchmeat, thinly sliced but not shaved (preferably a sweet one. I got a brown sugar one for about $2.50 for a ¼ lb)
* roast pork (again, I got the lunchmeat version, about $3 for a ¼ lb)
* Swiss cheese (baby Swiss if you can get it - I got lacy Swiss cheese, not quite the same, for about $2 for a ¼ lb)
* Cuban bread (this was the difficult thing to find. It’s difficult to find in Baltimore, so I went with a French batard loaf. The Three Guys recommend French bread but specifically say not to get a baguette)
* mustard and pickles (have them both)
* butter (for frying as well as for buttering the inside of the loaf
* The authors specifically state the following: DO NOT USE MAYONNAISE.


In the Three Guys’ recipe, you need to halve and butter the insides of the bread, and then stack everything in the bread in the following order: ham, roast pork, cheese, pickles.


If using mustard, this should probably go on next. Close the thing up and fry in butter in a pan for two to three minutes on each side, until the cheese is melted and the bread is golden brown.


And while cooking, you must not forget this very important step: weight down the sandwich with something heavy. It could be a brick wrapped in aluminum foil, or a bacon press, or another cast-iron skillet like I used. I tended to hold mine down.

Like so.

This is quite the filling sandwich. One batard of bread yielded two massive sandwiches for me, each of which I cut in half to get four meals out of the experience. You think I’m going to eat the whole damn sandwich in one sitting?


Sources:

Castillo, Jorge, Glenn Lindgren and Raúl Musibay (Three Guys from Miami). “Cuban Food Recipe: Sandwich Cubano”, published 2004. Copyright Three Guys from Miami, 1996-2011. Originally from the book Three Guys From Miami Cook Cuban (Jorge Castillo, Glenn Lindgren and Raúl Musibay), Gibbs Smith: Layton, UT: 2004.

FloridaJewish.com. "Florida Jewish History”, publish date 2010. Copyright FloridaJewish.com 2010.

Voltz, Jeanne, and Caroline Stuart. The Florida Cookbook: From Gulf Coast Gumbo to Key Lime Pie. Random House: New York, 1993.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Florida" page and other pages, and theFood Timeline State Foods link to "Florida".

Snacking State-by-State: Florida Part 2B (The Southern Half) - When life gives you key limes...

Before leaving Florida, we head as far south as we can go in the lower 48 - the Florida Keys.

Official Name: State of Florida
State Nicknames: The Sunshine State
Admission to the US: March 3, 1845 (#27)
Capital: Tallahassee (8th largest city)
Other Important Cities: Jacksonville (largest city), Miami (2nd largest), Tampa (3rd largest), St. Petersburg (4th largest), Orlando (5th largest)
Region: South, Gulf Coast; South Atlantic (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Cornbread & BBQ, Crabcake, Gumbo
Bordered by: Alabama (northwest), Georgia (north), Atlantic Ocean (east), Caribbean Sea (south), Gulf of Mexico (west)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: Key lime pie (pie), orange (fruit)
Some Famous & Typical Foods: Cuban food (southern Florida), Key lime pie, seafood (stone crab, shrimp, conch, crawfish, etc), alligator (northern Florida) typical Deep Southern foods (northern Florida), foods of New York/New Jersey especially Italian & Jewish (southern Florida)

The so-called “Conch Republic” has a few of Florida’s unique dishes. Note, for example, conch, which you can make into fritters (grind the conch up first) or use in a salad (as Jeanne Voltz and Caroline Stuart recommend you do). You just have to find it first. It’s not always available this far north. Some well-stocked seafood markets have it (try Lexington Market or DC’s Maine Avenue Seafood Market, or occasionally H-Mart). A far easier thing to find is bottled Key lime juice, which you will need to make that most famous of Floridian desserts, the Key lime pie.

The recipe: Key Lime Pie

To make Florida’s state dessert, I went back to Voltz and Stuart’s bible of Florida foods for the recipe and the history of the pie. Originally it was not even cooked - the citrus in the key lime “cooks” the eggs in the pie so that you’re not eating a raw egg pie. Today many cooks recommend baking it a little. You will need to do this for the meringue and the crust anyway, so just to be on the safe side.

Though this was the most time-consuming dish to make, it is rather simple in terms of the number of ingredients. How you use them makes it not such an easy recipe. Here’s what you need:


* one pie crust, either pastry or graham cracker (I went the latter route, making a crust from graham cracker crumbs, butter and sugar)
* 4 eggs, separated (prices vary)
* a 14 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk (About $2.50. Remember NOT to get evaporated milk. It will not work.)
* ½ cup Key lime juice (even though you can find a bag of Key limes at Harris Teeter for about $3, it’s much easier to get a bottle of Key lime juice. The only brand I could find was Nellie & Joe's "Famous" Key Lime Juice for about $4.50.


Don’t use regular old lime juice if you can help it. Key lime juice has a distinct, more complex flavor. Otherwise, you’re just making plain old lime pie. That’s not such a bad thing, but it isn’t Key lime pie.)
* regular boring ol’ “non-Key” lime (for the juice and the rind. The juice will go into your meringue)
* sugar (to add to the meringue you will put on top of the pie)

First, make the crust if you haven’t already done so.


Next, you will need to mix together the egg yolks (a little beaten), the condensed milk and Key lime juice. Stir until thickened, and then bake in the pie shell for about 15 minutes at 350.


While you do that, whip up the meringue. I’ve rarely made meringues in my life - I had not made one in years actually. This time it did not exactly come back to me, so I had to refresh my memory through the wonders of the internet. Remember that meringues whip up faster and easier with room temperature egg whites. Beat it at a medium setting until foamy, and then add the lime juice (Voltz and Stuart also recommend cream of tartar), beat more, and then a few tablespoons of sugar at a time until stiff peaks form.
“Seal” the edges of the pie with the meringue - I also put a decorative dollop in the middle - and bake for 15 more minutes. I decided to cover mine with lime rind after I took it out.

Ready for baking

I have not eaten much in the way of Key lime pies before. In fact, most of my citrus pie experience is of the lemon meringue variety, with those nasty “glop in your mouth” meringues you get on your store bought pies. My meringue was soft and even a bit chewy, a trait I don’t get to enjoy in many meringue pies. I hope to experience this more. The meringue cuts the tang of the Key lime very nicely for a filling and (forgive the term but it really is the most fitting) decadent eating experience.


My visit to Florida is done. Next I head back up I-95 to the home of Coca-Cola and Paula Deen, the ATL and the, er, SAV? Anyway, the Peach State is coming up. I’ve got Georgia on my mind. (By the way, does Augusta have a super-nifty acronym like Atlanta does?)

Sources:

Castillo, Jorge, Glenn Lindgren and Raúl Musibay (Three Guys from Miami). “Cuban Food Recipe: Sandwich Cubano”, published 2004. Copyright Three Guys from Miami, 1996-2011. Originally from the book Three Guys From Miami Cook Cuban (Jorge Castillo, Glenn Lindgren and Raúl Musibay), Gibbs Smith: Layton, UT: 2004.

FloridaJewish.com. "Florida Jewish History”, publish date 2010. Copyright FloridaJewish.com 2010.

Voltz, Jeanne, and Caroline Stuart. The Florida Cookbook: From Gulf Coast Gumbo to Key Lime Pie. Random House: New York, 1993.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Florida" page and other pages, and theFood Timeline State Foods link to "Florida".

A few random bites: late March edition

In like a lion and out like a cold, wet lamb: that's March for you. Just a few items as we ease slowly into spring.

1) I recently boiled peanuts (you'll read about it in a few weeks). It's hard to find raw peanuts in this area, though you can find them at Giant. I have decided to try growing them myself. I've rented a second garden plot in the city, which I hope to start clearing this weekend. Most of it will be for straightforward vegetable and herb planting, while a section of it will be purely experimental. We are about as far north as one can go and still hope for some success in growing peanuts. Let's see how it goes.

2a) I spent this past weekend in Rehoboth with a large group of friends (Some of you are reading - thank you again for a fun weekend! I'm already looking forward to next year). I ate out at a few places. One place where the cupcake trend hopefully continues is the Cake Break on First Street. For $6 (each for $3) I got two fascinating cupcakes.


My favorite one was their Guinness cupcake: a cupcake with Guinness Stout baked into the batter, and topped with frosting infused with Bailey's Irish Cream. This was evil. Evil, I tell you. And so good. The other cupcake was their Rehoboth Beach cupcake which I must only describe as "adorable" (oh God, I hate myself for saying that). It was made to look like a crab crawling out of the surf onto the sand. The crab tasted good too.

2b) While the best food was that which my friends made (again, kudos on the gumbo, Jim & Ralf), the best restaurant food I had came on my way out of Reho. La Tonalteca (note: their website is less than impressive) is a southern Delaware franchise of Mexican restaurants that had some pretty good Mexican food, some of the best I have had this side of the Mississippi. I got one of many of their lunch specials, an enchiladas poblanas, two enchiladas covered in mole poblano.


Everything about the enchiladas was delicious - these were no warmed over sorry excuses for enchiladas. As for the rice and beans: even in California, it is rare for me to find rice and beans that are worth eating, much less finishing. The rice was fluffy and soft and the beans were smooth, and neither was too salty. This may be a go-to stop on my way out of Rehoboth the next time I head down, especially at $6 for the whole thing.

3) A few weeks ago I saw the cleverly named Naanwich from Sukhi's, at Whole Foods. The one I got was a simple helping of tandoori chicken inside a folded-over piece of naan bread. While I wouldn't buy this all the time, it is convenient and tasty, the chicken soft and flavorful enough to not be a waste of time, and the naan pleasantly soft and chewy.


4) And finally, this from Churchville, Harford County:


And remember: Haste makes Waste Waist... get bigger!

Co?! Nr Festiwal Polskich!?

It's true: The Sun reports that after 40 years there just isn't enough money to fund it this year. Now where'm I get my pierogi fix on? Seriously though, it's a sad sign of how the economy is hitting local governments, as the city, strapped for cash, raised fees for the organizers of this and all other festivals in the "Showcase of Nations" series. FestAfrica also opted out.

But even though all is lost for 2011, there may be a Festival next year - at the Fairgrounds. Hopefully it can come back to Patterson Park and the Pulaski Monument at some point in the future, accordion in tow.

Snacking State-by-State: Florida Part 1B (The Northern Half) - It's the only kind of tea that matters

As I said in the last post, the barbecued shrimp goes well with a certain ubiquitous Southern beverage that you simply can never find unsweetened. But it's just "tea" in the South.

Official Name: State of Florida
State Nicknames: The Sunshine State
Admission to the US: March 3, 1845 (#27)
Capital: Tallahassee (8th largest city)
Other Important Cities: Jacksonville (largest city), Miami (2nd largest), Tampa (3rd largest), St. Petersburg (4th largest), Orlando (5th largest)
Region: South, Gulf Coast; South Atlantic (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Cornbread & BBQ, Crabcake, Gumbo
Bordered by: Alabama (northwest), Georgia (north), Atlantic Ocean (east), Caribbean Sea (south), Gulf of Mexico (west)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: Key lime pie (pie), orange (fruit)
Some Famous & Typical Foods: Cuban food (southern Florida), Key lime pie, seafood (stone crab, shrimp, conch, crawfish, etc), alligator (northern Florida) typical Deep Southern foods (northern Florida), foods of New York/New Jersey especially Italian & Jewish (southern Florida)

I admit two things: 1) I hate drinking unsweetened iced tea; 2) Diabetes runs on both sides of my family. So usually I just grab some Splenda or Sweet & Low and put that in my tea. But once in a while you just have to have the real stuff. This recipe is even easier than the last, and takes far less time.

The Recipe: Iced (Sweet) Tea

For (sweet) tea, you'll need:


* quart size tea bags (I used Luzianne, but any tea bag will do.)
* sugar - I added a cup for a little more than 3 quarts.
* water - lots of water (I started with about 3 quarts, and then added a little more at the end to top it off)

Boil the water and steep the tea bags as usual.

Wow. This is hard.

Even harder.

But here’s the important thing: add the sugar while the tea is still hot. Also note that most recipes call for much more sugar per quart than this. Some recipes I’ve seen call for a cup of sugar for every 2 to 4 cups of water.


This is the sweet stuff here, a dessert you can drink.

Next we head south with the snowbirds, retirees and Golden Girls to explore what the southern half of the state has in store food-wise.

Sources:

Voltz, Jeanne, and Caroline Stuart. The Florida Cookbook: From Gulf Coast Gumbo to Key Lime Pie. Random House: New York, 1993.

Some information about the diversity of Floridian cuisine comes from the following websites, in addition to the Voltz and Stuart book:

Essman, Elliot. “Florida Cuisine”. Life in the USA, 2010. Copyright Elliot Essman 2010.

Rattray, Diana. “Florida Cuisine - The many flavors of Florida”. Southernfood.About.com, publication date unknown. Copyright 2011 About.com

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Florida" page and other pages, and theFood Timeline State Foods link to "Florida".

Snacking State-by-State: Florida Part 1A (The Northern Half) - It's shrimp! But is it barbecue?

Next on my armchair trip around the country is the Sunshine State. Florida is the southernmost state in the Lower 48, an eclectic mix of Dixie, Yankee and so many immigrant cultures and cuisines (notably Cuban). It will be difficult to limit myself to just a few recipes this time if I want to truly represent the diversity of this state.

Official Name: State of Florida
State Nicknames: The Sunshine State
Admission to the US: March 3, 1845 (#27)
Capital: Tallahassee (8th largest city)
Other Important Cities: Jacksonville (largest city), Miami (2nd largest), Tampa (3rd largest), St. Petersburg (4th largest), Orlando (5th largest)
Region: South, Gulf Coast; South Atlantic (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Cornbread & BBQ, Crabcake, Gumbo
Bordered by: Alabama (northwest), Georgia (north), Atlantic Ocean (east), Caribbean Sea (south), Gulf of Mexico (west)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: Key lime pie (pie), orange (fruit)
Some Famous & Typical Foods: Cuban food (southern Florida), Key lime pie, seafood (stone crab, shrimp, conch, crawfish, etc), alligator (northern Florida) typical Deep Southern foods (northern Florida), foods of New York/New Jersey especially Italian & Jewish (southern Florida)

Like California, Florida has a varied and unique blend of cuisines that reflect the history and diversity of the state.

• There are various regions, influenced by their long history of Native American, Spanish, African and English foodways.
• The northern part of the state is the more traditionally Southern part of the state, with notable Creole and Cajun influences from further west.
• The central and southern parts of the state aren't really considered "Southern-with-a-capital-S" anymore, thanks to the massive influx of emigres from the Northeast (Perhaps there are but a few New Yorkers who haven't made a joke about their uncle in Boca Raton.) That doesn't mean Florida's food traditions have gone out the window, but they have been influenced.
• The Florida Keys have a food tradition all their own (and Jimmy Buffet to boot). Some of that tradition has spread statewide and even nationally (Key lime pie, for instance). Others, for practical reasons, have not (the mighty conch - I tried to get a hold of some but I just never could get around to it, and it is not the cheapest seafood to buy when you do find it in the Mid-Atlantic).
• Florida also has a diverse set of immigrant cuisines, notably from its Cuban, Haitian, Dominican and Puerto Rican communities, as well as traditions from all over Latin America (Mexican, Nicaraguan, etc) and Asia (Cambodian, Vietnamese, etc).
• Florida is one of the great seafood destinations of the country - again, the aforementioned conch is but one of its famous delicacies. There’s the stone crab, which unlike our own blues do not have to be killed in order to enjoy them. Instead, the legs are harvested and the crabs are thrown back to grow new ones. And then there’s red snapper, mackerel, oyster, clam, etc.
• Finally, Florida is one of the important centers of citrus production in the US, specifically in terms of its oranges. But note again the famous Key lime. [bulleted information compiled in part from Voltz and Stuart 1993, Elliott 2010 and Rattray 2011]
  

The true diversity of Floridian food did not strike me until I got a hold of the informative and excellent Florida Cookbook: From Gulf Coast Gumbo to Key Lime Pie by Jeanne Voltz and Caroline Stuart. Voltz and Stuart are two chefs and scholars who have thoroughly researched Florida’s food regions and represented the complexity of each. And they make sure that recipes from every part of the state shine in their cookbook. For this State by State post, I tried out three recipes (okay, four including a beverage). Two of those come from Voltz and Stuart.

There is enough diversity (and stuff to write about) in the foods of Florida that I am going to go the same route I did with California: one post this week, another post next week. This week I am focusing on northern Florida, the "Southern" half.

Northern and Central Florida - the Panhandle, Jacksonville and into Orlando - is generally agreed to be Dixie’s southern frontier. You can see this in the food: many (Deep) Southern classics are common in this part of Florida, from barbecued oysters and shrimp to cheese grits and straws, and from iced tea - the assumed-to-be-sweet kind - to blackened alligator to boiled peanuts (look for this last one in a future post), One recipe that jumped out at me was a barbecued shrimp recipe that smacked of one I ate last year at Mr. B’s Bistro in New Orleans. They gave me a bib to keep from splattering myself, but little do they realize I’ve been peeling shrimp for years, and I know how not to make a mess. I don’t like mess. This recipe was a more Floridian take on this Gulf Coast classic. Or at least it should be a classic if it isn’t already.

The recipe: Florida Barbecued Gulf Shrimp

Barbecued shrimp is by no means “grilled” shrimp - but we all know the difference between “barbecue” and “grill”. It is shrimp that is cooked for a while in a barbecue sauce that you make yourself. Voltz and Stuart discuss the recipe, titled “Linda’s Barbecued Shrimp”

Peel-your-own shrimp recipes are popular all over the South, but nowhere more than in the Florida Panhandle, where you’;re never far from the Gulf. Caroline [Stuart]’s sister and brother-in-law, Linda and Bill Virgin, worked this one out for easy entertaining. The advantage of this recipe is that the sauce can be made ahead of time; the shrimp are then added to the sauce and cooked in the oven, rather than on top of the range, freeing the cook to join the party. [Voltz and Stuart p. 81]

Hopefully I do justice to the author’s sister’s work.


What I needed for the recipe (which I halved):
* 2 ½ lb raw shrimp (mine were Texas Gulf shrimp, smallish and pink but, yes, raw, that I bought at Cross Street Market in Federal Hill for about $7 a pound - in the end, an expense of $17, easily my priciest expense for this project thus far)
* 2 sticks butter (had, but didn’t realize this and rushed out to buy some anyway. Duh. An extra $3 I don’t have to spend on butter in the future)
* 1 onion (about 60¢)
* 2 cloves garlic (had it)
* salt, pepper, paprika (smoked in this case), chili powder, brown sugar (had all of them)
* Worcestershire sauce (same)
* ketchup (I was out, so I had to buy a bottle - $2 from Trader Joe’s, without the corn syrup)
* liquid crab boil (First off, I had to stop shuddering from the idea of boiling a crab, anathema to anyone from these parts. Once I did that, I sought out liquid crab boil and, surprise of surprises, Giant had none, just powdered crab and shrimp boil, “Chesapeake style”. I later found Zatarain’s Liquid Crab Boil at Harris Teeter for the same price, about $2.50. The description of what you could do with it made it sound like liquid Old Bay. Man, wouldn’t that be somethin’...)
* prepared (yellow, in this case) mustard and Tabasco sauce (had them)

This recipe has a lot of components, but is ridiculously simple to make, as our author’s sister hints at. Melt the butter in a pot - in this case, my Dutch oven-like pot - and then throw in everything else but the shrimp for 10 minutes.

Just throw it in. Go ahead.

If you’re not saving it for later (in which case you would refrigerate it), throw in the shrimp, washed and drained, for about 30 to 45 minutes. The authors say to either bake it or cook it in the Dutch oven (my pot). I did the Dutch oven, which made stirring a much less painful and hot task.


There, wasn’t that easy?

I cannot tell you just how messy and how wonderful this shrimp is. That $17 was well spent, because it kept me from spending more money doing takeout all week. Though my shrimp did not absorb the sauce as much as Mr. B’s Bistro’s shrimp did, a simple swirl in the rich sauce solved that problem. I dare say that the sauce itself is almost as much of a highlight of this recipe as the shrimp. The authors recommend croutons made from Italian or French bread to sop up the sauce. Buy a soft baguette, slice it into slices of about ½ inch, drizzle olive oil, garlic powder, kosher salt and parsley flakes, and throw them in your toaster oven until toasted to your liking.
These barbecued shrimp go very well with iced tea. You know the kind.

Sources:

Voltz, Jeanne, and Caroline Stuart. The Florida Cookbook: From Gulf Coast Gumbo to Key Lime Pie. Random House: New York, 1993.

Some information about the diversity of Floridian cuisine comes from the following websites, in addition to the Voltz and Stuart book:

Essman, Elliot. “Florida Cuisine”. Life in the USA, 2010. Copyright Elliot Essman 2010.

Rattray, Diana. “Florida Cuisine - The many flavors of Florida”. Southernfood.About.com, publication date unknown. Copyright 2011 About.com

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Florida" page and other pages, and theFood Timeline State Foods link to "Florida".

The Cheesiest Contest for Grilled Cheese Sandwich Month

From Dara Bunjon at the Baltimore Examiner and Dining Dish: if you make the best damn grilled cheese sandwich, she has the perfect contest for you: a Grilled Cheese Sandwich cooking contest at the Mount Washington Tavern! One of the categories is for the home chef. Get your recipes in by April 1 for the chance to compete with two other home chefs, in front of a lucky celebrity panel, on April 10 from 2 to 4. From the Tavern's website:

Now is your chance to prove that you have the very best grilled cheese sandwich in Baltimore. Enter our home cooks’ Grilled Cheese Sandwich Cook-Off competition. Those interested can submit their original grilled cheese sandwich recipe for the chance to “cook-off” on Sunday, April 10 as the Tavern hosts their 1st Annual Grilled Cheese Cook-Off competition for the professionals and the home cook!

So if you have a very special grilled cheese to show off to grilled cheese lovers all around town, this is the perfect chance to do it!

Meatless Friday #2

Today I had better success eating meat-free. Lunch today was a sushi roll at Howard Community College. Do I remember the days when schools did not serve sushi. Those were less interesting food days.

Because it's St. Patrick's Day

Yes I'm late posting. I didn't make anything for St. Patrick's Day. No time. So instead I'm posting this video from the Kojo Nnamdi Show's YouTube page. Here Irish chef Cathal Armstrong of Restaurant Eve in Alexandria, discusses Irish food traditions, including the origins of the Irish pub and just how different St. Patrick's Day is in Ireland as opposed to the rest of the world: no green rivers, no green beer - hell, no drinking. It's more like Thanksgiving, so Armstrong says, a real rite of intensification. Pubs are typically closed, and many people go to church., And green beer has always annoyed me anyway.

Because it's National Pi Day

My pie of choice today is a Key lime pie that I made last week for an upcoming post about the foods of Florida (wait for it around the start of April). Homemade is definitely better than the store-bought stuff.

And now for the special hymn for the day. Let us now calculate the circumference, diameter and area of my 9 inch pie: