At Mughal Garden, customer service is our middle name...

I have good things to say about Mughal Garden, probably my favorite Indian restaurant in the city. They messed up something with my order last night (let's face it: that's going to happen to every restaurateur sooner or later). Far from squabbling, they not only offered to replace the meal at no additional cost, but they gave me a free dessert. You don't see that kind of service much anymore, outside of a pricey, high-end restaurant anyway. Also mind you, in all the years I've been eating at Mughal Garden, this is the first time it's happened. Nothing big happened, mind you. But it was a simple mistake that could happen in any kitchen.

What I am thankful for...

That I have food to eat. And that none of it is being prepared by this woman:

But is it gravy?

My youngest sister Samantha seems to live off the powdered "gravy" that you get in a packet. I rarely will touch it. It just doesn't taste very good. It's also extremely salty.

Now Alexis Madrigal at the Atlantic addresses the questions of what food engineers have changed gravy from drippings and flour to smooth, sleek and industrial - and lump-free:

You see, the problem with all gravies is that when you add starch to a watery, fatty admixture, the starch has a tendency to clump together. The flour inside the lumps becomes isolated from the mixture. Because the water can't reach it, it never dissolves. Home cooks can prevent this by simply stirring the mixture, but that required "considerable skill," as General Mills' Harold Keller put it in a 1958 patent application.

Madrigal continues to lay out the story of the de-lumpification of gravy. It's quite fascinating.But I still say powder gravy is nasty.

Weekend in the Crescent City Part 2: Social Action through Food

One thing I am happy to have seen during the conference in New Orleans took place in an area tourists rarely go - either the fun-seeking tourists or the "volun-tourists" coming down to do the important work of rebuilding after Katrina (there's still a lot to do). I went with some friends from grad school - way back when we were all in Riverside, California - to a block party in the 7th ward. Billed as "the largest gathering of anthropologists in the Seventh Ward—ever!" (and it probably was), it served as a small reception for a lot of small organizations within the American Anthropological Association. It was also a part of the Neighborhood Story Project, which uses neighborhood writers and photographers to tell the story of the culture and history of their neighborhoods.

The event was catered by the New Orleans-based Liberty's Kitchen. While it does a few things, those things all go back to their main goal, as stated on their website:

Liberty's Kitchen is an innovative, non-profit organization dedicated to transforming the lives of at-risk youth by building self-sufficiency and independent living in a supportive community where they learn life, social and employability skills in a culinary setting. Liberty’s Kitchen supports its programs with teaching-focused businesses: our working café and coffee house, catering business, and contract food services. These businesses are designed to give our students practical experience while helping to sustain our programs. We utilize private donations and community grants for the balance of our funding needs.

Among the ways they help at-risk youth: their coffee house - a real business where everything is made from scratch, and a school lunch program which benefits both needy children and the youths in their program who benefit from newly learned job skills.

Here's hoping that Liberty's Kitchen flourishes in New Orleans, and that more programs like this appear across the country!

Weekend in the Crescent City: A Trip to New Orleans

This past weekend I had the good fortune to go to New Orleans for an academic conference. I did not go down for vacation purposes, though I did get some good food while I was there. Of course. New Orleans is one of the great food cities of America. You don't need me to tell you that.

After checking into the Parc Saint Charles (the hallways are a bit musty but the room was fine and the staff very friendly - and hey, no bedbugs), I headed over to the anthropology conference, where my grad school adviser and his wife recommended to me the sweet and kicky Sazerac. This is the "official" cocktail of New Orleans. I rarely drink cocktails (I prefer beer), but I could've had another one of these. A little tingly and dare I say spicy on my tongue, the Sazerac is a combination of rye whiskey, Peychaud bitters, simple syrup, absinthe and a twist of lemon. The one I had was absinthe-free, but it was still warming and sweet.

Felix's

I met up with a few more friends from grad school, and we headed into the French Quarter for dinner. They suggested Felix's, the legendary cafeteria-style Iberville Street institution that serves a nice variety of po-boys, among many other things. After we shared a plate of raw oysters, we had our po-boys. Mine was the crawfish po-boy ($9): crunchy fried crawfish overflowing from a crosswise-cut thick loaf of French bread layered with lettuce and tomato and slathered with mayonnaise. You don't often find dinners in the French Quarter that are cheap and tasty and satisfying all at once, unless you know where to look. Look at Felix's.

A few more Abitas on tap later, and I was off to bed, blissfully unaware of the city-wide water problem that rendered the city's hotel and motel water supply (possibly) unsafe for the duration of my stay. Free bottled water for everyone!

I was up the next morning in search of a beignet from Café du Monde. That is, until I got there and saw a line almost as big as the Mississippi Delta. Since I didn't feel like standing there all day - I had papers to listen to and posters to read - I headed back to the conference for an overpriced bagel ($3). One of the better overpriced hotel bagels I have had, but still nothing to write (or blog-post) home about.

Mr. B's Bistro

I met my grad adviser again, this time for lunch (cheaper than dinner) at Mr. B's Bistro. A friend of a friend forced me to give my word that I would go here, and he also made me give my word that I would order the barbequed shrimp ($18 lunch, $25 dinner). It is not what you might think, which would still be tasty. To quote Mr. B's:

Here in New Orleans, barbecued shrimp means sautéed shrimp in Worcestershire-spiked butter sauce. We serve these shrimp with heads and tails on, so you need to dig in to enjoy. I highly recommend a bib.

The waitress insisted that I take off my jacket, and once she took it she tied that paper bib around my neck. I could have gotten the sauce all over my jacket, but here's the thing: I didn't get a drop of sauce on me! Not on the bib, not on my clothes, not even on my face. Yes, my hands were literally coated with the stuff, since I had to peel the shrimp. Not a problem; who from Baltimore doesn't know how to peel shrimp? But at least I can boast that the bib was unnecessary. Still useful just in case.


I begrudgingly must give props to their crab cake ($7 for one), which we ordered as an appetizer. I was surprised: the crab cake was not covered in bread crumbs, as so many crab cakes outside the Chesapeake - South, North and West - tend to be (blasphemous). But Mr. B's resembled the type of crab cake I am used to seeing in Baltimore, just with a few more bits of vegetable. It was about as good a crab cake as I've ever had outside of Baltimore - though I still prefer my own hometown variety.

I headed back to the conference, where I saw quite a few presentations (including some excellent ones about Mesoamerican archaeology given by friends). And of course, I bought some discount books in their book room. I was surprised at the number of food ethnographies out there, expensive though they were. I don't mean books about hunting and gathering. I mean books about modern day "foodies" and food culture.


I will look them up in the library later.

The Gumbo Shop

Like Mr. B's, the Gumbo Shop has its own cookbook. Should you flip through that cookbook, you will likely find more than just gumbo recipes. You will find all the Creole classics: gumbo, jambalaya, étoufée, bread pudding with whiskey sauce, and so on - and you can get most of them in large combo ($24). I chose that one: a choice of four items - a gumbo, an entrée, a side dish and a dessert.


My chicken andouille gumbo was deceptively small, but just filling enough.


I was not prepared for the voluminous plate of food that followed: a long oval plate of rich and thick shrimp étoufée and hearty red beans and rice, blanketing either side of a savory mound of jambalaya. It looked like a lot less food than it was. It was filling - very much so. My waiter came by assuring me that I shouldn't stuff myself (he almost sounded condescending about it, though I'm sure he didn't mean it that way). Along with this came an order of roasted garlic mashed potatoes. They were serious about the garlic: the dish really should be called "roasted garlic with mashed potatoes". This isn't a problem for me, since I thrive on garlic.


The dessert came out right quick, a soft and slippery mound of bread pudding with sharp and sugary whiskey butter sauce. I admit that I'm not used to New Orleans-style bread pudding. It was mushier than I had expected, though I could not get enough of it when covered with that hard sauce.

Good Friends Bar

I was quite stuffed, and had to get up early in the morning. But I had to make one very meaningful stop for me before I went back to the hotel: the Good Friends Bar. Almost ten years ago, during yet another academic conference, the Good Friends Bar was the first gay bar I ever set foot in, early in my coming-out process. I've been to more than a few gay bars in Baltimore, DC, New York, LA, Palm Springs, the Inland Empire, etcetera, but the Good Friends Bar started it all. Apparently, my college adviser remembered me leaving it, too, as he and his (then future) wife were passing in front and saw me stumbling out way back in 2001. This time there were the typical flat-screen TV's that just about every gay bar in America seems to have, playing the same few music videos. Both floors of this French Quarter gem serve alcohol, and on both floors you can get the local favorite Abita (Dixie Beer? Well the locals seem not to care much for it. And if you say you like it, or worse that it's better than Abita they will look at you as if you sprouted crawfish out of your ears).


I downed two bottles of the stuff and asked one man I found attractive - he was sitting there playing a game on his iPhone for some reason - for some directions. Had I not had to get up early, and had I not been stuffed, I would've stayed to talk longer.

The Praline Connection

The ride to the airport the next morning led me to seek out something for breakfast. I found it at the Praline Connection, which (to my surprise) serves things other than pralines. I got myself some grits and a piece of smoked sausage for about $6. I dumped some butter into those grits, and they were pretty filling.

Okay, not a lot of butter...

Not quite as good as other grits I have had, but it did the job. The smoked sausage was standard. This is airport food here, people. Gift shop food was also from the Praline Connection, this time from a praline-and-cookie-only stand. I bought a half dozen box to take back to the family for - *gasp* - $16. At least they were some high-quality pralines. The banana and bottle of water I got in my layover in Birmingham cost me $5. That's a $2 banana right there.

All said, I was so glad, and so lucky, to have gotten a chance to go back to New Orleans, and to have a legitimate, job-related reason to do so at that. It was also good to see the city thriving again after Katrina. Let's hope it continues to do so! And all the while I caught up with old friends, found a new (to me) cocktail, and visited some important spots for me. Let's just hope it doesn't take me another nine years to get back.

Other photos

Anthropologists in the mist (I've been waiting for years to say that).
What can I say? They like to drink.

That's a lotta hats

True dat!

A shrine to blues, jazz and R&B legends. Find Billie Holiday!

So... I guess this isn't Creole food?

In the book room. These folks sell academic-quality reproductions of human and primate fossil skeletons. They had a full scale model of a Neanderthal skeleton for almost $14,000. For various reasons, I didn't buy it.

Best way around that: keep nothing in your back pockets, and be a gay man or a straight woman.

I got a chill passing by the Superdome, for obvious reasons.

And flying over the Mississippi Delta, en route to my connection in Birmingham, and my overpriced banana.

Say it ain't so, Duff!

Somewhere in America, a small battery-operated motor embedded on top of a massive police car-shaped cake, has died. The Food Network is canceling Ace of Cakes:

The network says in a statement that the show's upcoming 10th season, which begins airing in January, will be its last. "Ace of Cakes" debuted in 2006 and has run for 116 episodes.

I am sad. Very sad. Especially since the Duffman, Mary Alice, Geoff and all the rest of the Charm City Cakes gang are really one of the only reasons I have left to even tune into the Food Network anymore (when I'm in front of a cable TV anyway). Sure, Bob "Tuschie" Tuschman says the Food Net is developing "new show opportunities" for Duff, but it just isn't the same.

Stay awesome, Charm City Cakes, stay awesome.

Snacking State-by-State: Alabama II - Fried Catfish - in Bacon Grease!

(Originally the second half of the complete "Snacking State-by-State: Alabama" post)

Perhaps I should have just chosen one - and for future states, that's pretty much what I will do. So to keep this from becoming the Fannie Flagg version of Julie & Julia here (and to actually use a recipe from her Whistle Stop Café Cookbook), I chose just one more recipe.

Snacking State-by-State: Alabama

Official Name: State of Alabama
State Nickname: Heart of Dixie
Admission to the US: December 14, 1819 (#22)
Capital: Montgomery (4th largest city)
Other Important Cities: Birmingham (largest), Mobile (2nd), Huntsville (3rd)
Region: South (Deep South, Gulf Coast); East South Central (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Gumbo; Corn Bread & BBQ
Bordered by: Florida & the Gulf of Mexico (south), Georgia (east), Tennessee (north), Mississippi (west)
Official State Foods: pecan (State Nut), blackberry (State Fruit), peach (State Tree Fruit)
Some Famous & Typical Foods: cornbread, gumbo, large mouth bass, catfish, pie (especially pecan and sweet potato), fried pies, mayonnaise-based BBQ sauce, fried green tomatoes

Catfish, as the "Alabama Food" website points out, is one of the most important types of seafood in Alabama. You grill it, you boil it, you bake it, and of course you fry it. Add to that how important a dish catfish is in the Deep South (and one of the less expensive, to boot), and such a favorite fish in Alabama, it just seemed like the obvious choice.

(Also, just for full disclosure: I've dated a few men from Alabama. Woof.)

The recipe: Fried Catfish

The ingredients for catfish fried in bacon grease. Yes, bacon grease

I had most of the ingredients for this delicious fish fry. In fact, the catfish was all I had to buy. That is, until I read the fine print: bacon grease. Fannie Flagg recommends frying the fish in bacon grease. Now, I am no stranger to bacon grease. My mother's mother (God rest her soul) used to cook with it, though apparently it took second place to butter or oil. I confess that I haven't cooked much with it in the past. I thought I would have to buy some bacon (What, I don't have bacon just lying around the house?) to make some up. No need: I had some in the fridge.

Again, the only ingredient I actually had to buy was the catfish (about $6/lb - 3 fillets ended up being a pound, enough to last me a few meals). This was enough to halve the recipe. Other ingredients I needed:

*bacon grease (noted - you must make your own, of course, by frying up bacon. I truly have no problem with that) - I still used the 1/4 cup that the recipe recommends
* 1/4 teaspoon of salt (check)
* 1/8 teaspoon of pepper (check)
* hot sauce (optional - I had no Tabasco, but "El Yucateco" was in my fridge, and that chipotle-based sauce packs quite a wallop as it is)
* 1'/2 cup each self-rising flour and cornmeal (white, I assume - check and check)

This is about as simple a recipe as you can get, but deceptively so. You can't just jump into it. Basically, you douse both sides of your catfish with salt, pepper and hot sauce, and let them sit for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat up that bacon grease - in a cast iron skillet, please - and prepare the flour and cornmeal. I was so tempted to add Old Bay, through sheer force of habit. It would not have been a problem really. Old Bay is almost as popular throughout the South as it is right here in its place of origin. But I figured I ought to stick to the recipe as written this time. Experimentation is for later.

When I was ready, I dredged the catfish in the flour and cornmeal, and fried it up. I have always been incompetent at keeping the flour on the fillet. Usually when I fry things, it comes right off. That's my fried green tomato problem, by the way.


And to some extent, the same thing happened here, as you can see. Oh well. I can't win everything. At least some of the dredging stayed on.

I honestly wasn't sure if my minimal amount of bacon grease was going to fry the fish through, especially in 8 to 10 minutes. Apparently, my brain confused "frying" with "deep frying" (Am I even qualified to write a food blog anymore?). The bacon grease was just fine for frying up two fillets of catfish. The third? I froze that to use later. Ten minutes later, the catfish - delicious, plump, a little golden brown and slightly crispy on the outside - was done.

This exercise made me realize just how much I have been missing by not frying more things in bacon grease, which imparts a nice bacon aftertaste to the catfish. Oh my. Fish with a bacon-y flavor? I just never would have thought to do this. The catfish is beautifully plump and flakes nicely. That's the wonder of cast iron cooking there.

Miss Fannie suggests that you pair the catfish "with slaw and hushpuppies and you have a meal fit for a king or queen" (p. 56). Honestly, folks, I didn't feel like making hushpuppies from scratch. Fortunately for me, I had picked up some hushpuppy mix with onion from the House of Autry, "The Choice of Southern Cooks since 1812" no less.

I had no cole slaw on hand, alright?

And so ends my hearty hop through the Heart of Dixie. My next project may be easier. Whereas there is no singular dish or food that pops to mind when you think of "Alabama", the same cannot be said for the next state on the list. When you think of "Alaska", you sure as hell don't think of catfish. You think of salmon.

Sources:

Flagg, Fannie. Fannie Flagg's Original Whistle Stop Cafe Cookbook. 1993: Ballantine Books, New York.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Alabama" page, the "Food" page of the "Alabama Guide.info" website, and the Food Timeline State Foods webpage link to "Alabama", which (surprisingly) says nothing about catfish. Damn Yankees.

Snacking State-by-State: Alabama I - Little Fruit Pie Heaven

(Originally the first half of the complete "Snacking State-by-State: Alabama" post)

For the first installment in this armchair tour of the 50 states, I start in the heart of Dixie itself. And if the Alabama Tourism Department can be believed, this has to be the perfect place to start, as they say right up front on their "Year of Alabama Food" website:

Eat. It's something we've all got to do. But in the South — and particularly in Alabama — it's something we love to do. (Alabama Tourism Department)

Snacking State-by-State: Alabama

Official Name: State of Alabama
State Nickname: Heart of Dixie
Admission to the US: December 14, 1819 (#22)
Capital: Montgomery (4th largest city)
Other Important Cities: Birmingham (largest), Mobile (2nd), Huntsville (3rd)
Region: South (Deep South, Gulf Coast); East South Central (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Gumbo; Corn Bread & BBQ
Bordered by: Florida & the Gulf of Mexico (south), Georgia (east), Tennessee (north), Mississippi (west)
Official State Foods: pecan (State Nut), blackberry (State Fruit), peach (State Tree Fruit)
Some Famous & Typical Foods: cornbread, gumbo, large mouth bass, catfish, pie (especially pecan and sweet potato), fried pies, mayonnaise-based BBQ sauce, fried green tomatoes

If you want a primer on Southern food, Alabama is the perfect place to get it. It's not easy to find a recipe that is specific to just Alabama (at least I haven't found one). Perhaps Fannie Flagg, Birmingham-born author of the ever-famous Fried Green Tomatoes, can give us some insight into at least that one famous and titular dish of her novel of the same name. Although John Shields promises that we in the Chesapeake fry up those green tomatoes too, I've never been able to do it quite well. I shouldn't feel so bad: Ms. Flagg also swears that she is not the best cook, always preferring to eat out when she was younger. She fesses up that she is no cookbook author:

My cooking skills are somewhat limited. To tell you the truth, I was surprised myself when my publisher called. (Flagg, p. 2)

And yet, she manages to produce a primer on the fabulous dishes of the South, as seen from the Irondale Cafe (there is no actual Whistle Stop Cafe) founded by her Aunt Bess many years ago. Again, it's difficult to choose one specific recipe. There is, literally, a dizzying array of recipes that come from Alabama, from pan-Southern classics such as pecan pie, fried chicken and sweet potato rolls to more specifically-Alabamian sweets such as the fried pie, which (in its American form) is said to have originated in Alabama. As such, I felt very much compelled to make some fried pies. I wanted to follow Fannie Flagg's recipe, but it called for a good amount of dried fruit. I opted out, half because I didn't feel like rehydrating fruit, half because I didn't have any lying around in the first place. But a quick internet search later and I found a delicious looking blueberry fried pie from the award-winning Homesick Texan blog (NB: fried pies are not just from Alabama), and the blueberries weren't dried at all. Since I have some blueberries and strawberries freezing a hole in my freezer, this seemed like the recipe to bust them out for.

The recipe: Fried Fruit Pies

For the pie crust, I put my nice new bag of White Lily Flour (about $3.99). I admit that I've never known if we have soft or hard flour in Maryland, but I've seen pastry flour and cake flour (including the ubiquitous Softasilk) in Baltimore stores many times. If these aren't "soft flour" then they are as soft as we get here. The White Lily came from Harris Teeter.

The wonderfully simple recipe I used from Lisa (aka, the Homesick Texan) - of lard (no lard here, so I used palm oil shortening), flour, salt and water - was bigger than I needed it to be, so I halved it. By the way, you really should roll out your own pastry crust - and the Amateur Gourmet's (friend's) recommendation for rolling it between sheets of wax paper makes it pain free and hardly messy at all.


The pie filling was slightly more complicated, if you consider grating lemon rind complicated: blueberries & strawberries (both from the freezer), cinnamon, lemon rind and juice, sugar, a little flour and water were all I needed to boil together before spooning it into 5" discs of pie crust.

Ahhhhh, what a freeing activity. The little Chinese-style bowl in the corner is about as close to 5" as I could find. Yes, I measured.

Seal it up and fry each pie up in a cast iron skillet with at least an inch of hot oil at 350°F for about a minute on each side. It's quick, it's easy - it's gorgeous.


And you should've heard the sounds coming out of my mouth as I was eating the leftover fruit filling that had gooped up on the side of the pot.

Sources:

Flagg, Fannie. Fannie Flagg's Original Whistle Stop Cafe Cookbook. 1993: Ballantine Books, New York.

Homesick Texan, The (Lisa, aka Homesick Texan). Easy as fried pie. Posted July 1, 2008.

Alabama Tourism Department. The Year of Alabama Food. 2005.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Alabama" page, the "Food" page of the "Alabama Guide.info" website, and the Food Timeline State Foods webpage link to "Alabama", which (surprisingly) says nothing about catfish. Damn Yankees.

Bad kitty, this is mah pot pah!

I don't know how the Food Network avoided the South Park treatment for so long.

Ep. 1414: "Crème Fraiche". Picture from 37prime.com

Tales from Dogfish Head Land

I am a fan of most varieties of Dogfish Head. Here's another one I have to recommend: their Saison du Buff, a collaboration among Dogfish Head, Victory Brewing Company and Stone Brewing Company. As the label says, it is an "ale brewed with parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme". It leaves a nice, light, crisp and, indeed, herbal flavor. Now if they could only do a basil-flavored beer.