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Those of you with me since Easter will remember the fresh ham caper. This investigation led me on a merry chase from store to store to Amish Market and ended with moderate disenchantment when I realized that a fresh ham is just a big pork roast. The culinary balm to this bother was the discovery of the thing called “Maryland Stuffed Ham” which I fully intend to get down with next Easter.
But pork is a year-round preoccupation and right now I’m all about barbecue. Since my aunt programmed my t.v. guide to show only the five or so channels I actually get with basic cable I’ve discovered this show called “BBQ Pitmasters.” It seems to run on a virtual loop but it’s really only 16 episodes so far and I can’t wait to watch every one of them. Each episode involves three contestants trying to outdo each other’s bbq for a shot at the Kingsford Cup. The show is 46 minutes of pork porn. You just sit back and watch meat being injected, rubbed, and then basted til it is shiny plate of heaven. These contestants have dead serious conversations about things like “the money muscle.” Plus, It’s pretty funny to listen to them talk smack about racks and smokers and rubs and whatnot. I know it is not fashionable to say this but as a Northerner, I find their accents adorable!
It was BBQ Pitmasters that turned me on to a local festival called Pork in the Park right here in Maryland on the Eastern Shore. It’s a Kansas City Style competition held in April and I’ve already got it on my calendar. You’ve got to love a festival whose website counts down the days, hours, and minutes until its next festival. The website claims it is the “second largest Kansas City Barbeque Society Competition in the nation.” No word on who is first.
Obviously these people know how to party.
Who wouldn’t love a show with judges named Tuffy Stone and Myron Mixon? How could you resist the tagline, “Bring the Heat or You’re Dead Meat”? These kids aren’t foolin’.
As mesmerized as I am by watching bbq being made on t.v., I don’t really make it myself. I don’t have a smoker and my grill skills are remedial. As such, I like to avail myself of other pork products and, as such, I was at the market noodling around the meats when ham hocks caught my eye. And ham hocks led to salt pork. And salt pork led to smoked pork jowls and then I realized I was standing in front of a wall of ham. These are the jewels of the South. This is the perk to living just this side of Virginia: ham.
Aren’t they pretty? I resolved to familiarize myself with as many of these glorious products as possible. That is a tall order, so I better get crackin’. To begin, I picked smoked pork jowls and smoked pork chops.
Pork Jowl Bacon
The jowls I figure I will use like hocks and make some beans and hot boiled rice. The smoked pork chops I picked because while I was standing there dilly-dallying and artfully arranging hams for my camera phone photos like a weirdo a lady came along and helped herself directly to several packs of the chops. She just grabbed them casually like she gets them all the time and all the while explaining to her husband how she’s going to throw them on the grill but she only has one pack at home so they need some more, etc., etc…
This is kind of my modus operandi in the meat aisle. Any time I’m attracted to some strange cut of meat that I don’t know what to do with, I stand around loitering, essentially, until some lady comes along and picks up the meat I’m interested in. Then I pounce on her and ask her what she’s going to do with it and I get her to explain it as much as possible before she edges away from me. I’m sure it’s an unsettling experience for those ladies involved and for that I apologize, ladies. Fortunately, because of her running chatter with her husband, I got the information I needed today by simply eavesdropping — a moderately less invasive procedure for which everyone involved was grateful, I’m sure.
After she moved away, I saw the package claims these chops are ready in two minutes. I’m fascinated by this, so I’m in. I decide to make them with sweet corn and grilled peaches. We’ll see. It could be the start of something good.
Last winter I happened upon this sweet old-school Tupperware jello mold. How could I pass this up? I walked by TWO Tupperware devilled egg carriers to claim it. I just knew I had a jello mold somewhere in my future.
It has been hot as blazes here in Maryland, which got me to thinking about Creamello. Or maybe it’s Cream-ello. I’m not sure since it’s not a real word.
My grandmother, Nona, used to make creamello in the summers, particularly on the 4th of July, which also happened to be my grandfather’s (Bob) birthday, which means we would have creamello, chocolate cake (Bob’s favorite), and then probably a pie or non-chocolate cake for the rest of the crowd. Multiple desserts. That’s how the Hodgkinsons roll. It ain’t your birthday unless there are at least two cakes. We like variety.
So, creamello. I’ve never made it before and Nona has been gone for over 10 years now, so there’s no asking her, but how hard could it be? Doesn’t the name say it all? It’s Jello and some kind of cream, right? So, it’s either whipped cream or ice cream. A quick internet search showed me a “recipe” (can something with two ingredients, one of them from a box, really be called a recipe?) using one large box of Jello, 2 cups of boiling water, and a quart of vanilla ice cream. Here it is:
Strawberry jello with 2 cups boiling water
With a quart of vanilla ice cream mixed in, and molded
Now it’s in to the fridge overnight…
Dipped in hot water and ready to unmold
And viola!
Pretty, right? But, with all the mold seams, I wasn’t sure if this was the presentation side, so, I flipped it over.
I don’t claim to know molded jello but common sense tells me that can’t be the presentation side. So, back to the other side, and done.
Naturally, I tried a piece. It wasn’t bad. A little bland — not the Creamello I remember, so there’s work to be done there. I do vaguely remember Nona beating something into the partially set jello (the guesswork on the timing of which is what sometimes produced lumpy creamello), so I think I’ve narrowed down the process to the whipped cream version. I think this will produce a lighter, creamier, fluffier product which will suit my tastes better, anyway, so that will be my next try.
I’d like to tell you that I am going to try making my own jello, and I may, but in case you get tired of waiting for me, here are some links on how to do that. It looks pretty easy and I am sure it’s worth it if you like jello that much. This link describes the process as similar to getting fruit ready for jam or jelly. This link has a YouTube video showing you how to make regular jello (seriously? it’s boiling water and jello mix), but then it goes on with a recipe for your own fruit juice jello (crazy easy), and a recipe for vegetarian jello (also easy — just use agar agar flakes).
I don’t recall ever making jello (jello shots don’t count), let alone using a mold, but now I’m all about it. I am both attracted and repelled by the idea of adding things to my next jello mold — not the Creamello, of course, I’m not messing with that memory — but, friends, expect jello molds to start turning up at your parties. And don’t worry, I’ll try both sweet and savory so I’m sure there will be a jello mold for every occasion.
I’ve known about pit beef since the last time I lived in Maryland, and I had eaten it a couple of times back then. My response? Meh. It wasn’t smokey, like barbecue, or saucy, like barbecue. I confess, I didn’t get it. The few times I had pit beef it seemed like a dry pile of shaved meat on way too much of a bland roll. But, when someone I was talking to in California knew more about a pit beef place in Baltimore than me, someone currently living just outside of Baltimore, I decided to take the bull by the horns. So, I went to Chaps Charcoal Restaurant to find out what all the fuss was about.
Chaps Charcoal Restaurant sits in the parking lot of a, um, nite club called The Gentleman’s Gold Club. This is just a discreet way of saying strip club. The story, as told by Chaps, is that the owner of the strip club gave the pit beef shack to his daughter when she married because her new husband liked to cook so much. And pit beef gold was born. Both of these businesses have quite a bit of confidence in their abilities: Chaps alleges they have the “best pit beef, turkey and pork” in Maryland, and The Gentleman’s Gold Club claims to be Baltimore’s only “Upscale Gentlemans club” [sic]. The Gentleman’s Club goes on to note on their website that they are perfect for birthday, bachelor, and divorce parties.
As for Chaps, it has been featured on the Food Network show “Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives,” and also on the Travel Channel’s “Amazing Eats.” While I personally found the Travel Channel segment more interesting, Chaps seems more connected to their visit from Guy Fieri. Here is what you see when you walk in:
What a great time Guy seems to be having!
I was warned by my dining companion that Chaps meant serious business and that I better have myself together before I got to the counter. This included keeping my order simple, and to the point, so no When-Harry-Met-Sally-salad-dressing-on-the-side nonsense, you dig? Naturally, I poo-poohed this advice, but signage did decree “No split checks between 11:00-3:00,” which I couldn’t make sense of and since I had plenty of time while waiting in the long line, I puzzled through this, out loud, making friends all along the way, I am sure. The puzzle went something like this: why would they have a sign like that? Split checks are for people at tables who want to pay individually, not collectively, and yes, split checks can be annoying when a server is busy. But, since at Chaps you order at a counter, why would you split a check? You order and pay for what you want, and then the next person goes. That’s the point of a counter. How could Chaps have a big enough problem with split checks to necessitate a sign against it? I never did figure it out and since it was literally 100 degrees outside while we were waiting in line I figured I better let it go since that kind of heat produces a general fretfulness and fraying of tempers.
After I ordered — very quickly and clearly, mind you, I noticed another sign by the pick-up counter which said, “No Sniveling” which annoyed me because I don’t like it when pit beef shacks try to tell me how to behave. I think Chaps could try a little positive reinforcement instead, but I suppose they don’t need any advice from me when they have Guy Fieri on their side.
Pit Beef Combo: pit beef with Italian sausage on a Kaiser roll.
Here’s the thing: the food was good. I ordered a Pit Beef Combo, medium rare. The combo part is that they throw some Italian sausage on top. It’s served on a Kaiser roll, which was not too bready, much to my relief. I dressed it with some sliced raw onion and some tiger sauce, which is horseradish sauce mixed with mayonnaise. And it was very delicious.
One of the specials that day was called the Richman which I assume is a reference to Adam Richman from the Travel Channel. This sandwich was beef, turkey, sausage, and corned beef on a sub roll. Here it is, along with their fries:
The Richman: pit beef, turkey, sausage, corned beef
A quick look on Wikipedia (I know, I know) confirms that Baltimore pit beef is indeed different from barbecue because even though it is grilled over charcoal, it uses no rubs, marinades or sauces. Pit beef uses top round shaved very thinly and served on a Kaiser roll with the sliced raw white onion and tiger sauce mentioned before.
Well, Chaps, I have to say that even though I was predisposed to dislike pit beef because of my prior experiences, and predisposed to dislike you because you like Guy Fieri so much, I did thoroughly enjoy my pit beef combo. I would definitely do it again, which means I am on the hunt for more Maryland pit beef places to explore. Readers?? Please chime in!
As you know if you have ever talked to me for more than five minutes, I am almost fanatically in love with Northern California. I love Berkeley like other people love their sports teams, but without the numbered jerseys. Even so, there are many things I genuinely like about the East Coast. One of the things I have always admired is the annual pilgrimage to the beach. Or, what they call going “down the shore.” Going to the shore IS the summer vacation. You rent a house for a week and decamp to Jersey, or Delaware, or Maryland, or even as far north as Rhode Island (hey, Little Compton!). It’s fascinating.
It’s an intimidating process: the people, the traffic, the cost, the hassle. Everybody from all points west is trying to get to the main shore points, due east, on the same few handful of roads at about the same time of day on a Friday afternoon. But, once you make it, I have to admit it’s pretty awesome. You put on your suit, stuff your big canvas bag with towels and magazines and cold water that will quickly become warm and gritty with sand, and head out for the day. You roast in the sun, go brave the water, then roast in the sun, then go in the water, then go “walk the boards,” get a slice of pizza or some soft-serve, and go back to your towel which is now covered in kicked up sand from other people tromping by, and lay back down for another turn. That’s a day at the beach. A night at the beach is a whole other ball of wax which I actually don’t know much about. As a voyeur, I’m generally almost always a day-tripper.
City of Rehoboth Beach plaque with boardwalk, then ocean in background.
Fortunately, I went down mid-week in late June — the calm before the storm. The gloves come off right around the Fourth of July, so I made sure I squeezed in a quick visit before the real mayhem of summer. Rehoboth Beach is about 100 miles from where I live in Maryland, so it’s a bit of a haul for a day-trip, but I happen to enjoy that drive. I usually find some odd, interesting scenery, even if it’s just to marvel that in a road lined with signs broadcasting roadside BBQ chicken, they have always, mysteriously, either happened just before I rolled through, or are about to happen right AFTER I roll back out. Hmmm. The ever-elusive BBQ chicken stand.
This time, since it’s been three years since I made the drive, I went (unintentionally but predictably) off the beaten path and found this truism:
Then I found this lovely little bit:
And then this funny little bit:
Which I thought was either a tongue-in-cheek or an ironic/sardonic comment on the state of farming today, until I saw read the rest of the sign:
…which I then just found confusing and a bit ominous. The Eastern Shore has a long history of chicken farming, and Perdue Chicken plays a huge part in that history, for better or worse. And it’s mostly worse, from what I hear anecdotally. I’d like to look into this more in a later post, perhaps on another day-trip.
The tractor store I passed a few miles later was a very busy place which shows how big a part farming still plays in the economy of the Eastern Shore.
I only wish I could have taken a photograph of what I saw in my rear view mirror driving behind me as I passed this store — it was some sort of tractor, but up high off the ground with enough space underneath it through which a small car could pass! It looked like I was being pursued by some kind of tractor spider. This machine probably has a real name of which I, being urban — or, if not urban, at least not rural — know nothing about. That’s part of what I like about going to the shore: it’s weird to me. There’s always some funky store or funny road sign or strange man with a metal detector and head gear on to stimulate the imagination. You just never know what you’ll come across on these day trips.
Once you wander your way through these scenic photographic tangents and broach the Coastal Highway itself, you just need to find a good parking spot, so bring a roll of quarters — YES, QUARTERS, I kid you not, no credit card slots — for the parking meters — the TWO-HOUR parking meters, by the way, so don’t stray too far from your parking spot searching for the perfect quadrant of sandy heaven since you will be feeding the meter every 120 minutes.
For the uninitiated, the learning curve on the beach itself can be steep. The Atlantic waters are actually warm enough in summer that you can swim in them so, naturally, I thought the ocean was my friend. This is not necessarily so. I’ve gotten sucked underwater hard enough to lose my sunglasses on two separate occasions in water not much deeper than my knees (and that was 0 for 2, by the way: I did it the first time, then did the exact same thing the very next time). Lesson: don’t wear sunglasses into the ocean. Also, “undertow” is a real thing. Hmm.
But, if you can manage to keep yourself in one piece, you get rewarded by the sun beating down on you and the sound of the waves crashing into the sand, and the gentle call of shore birds circling above (or, un-gently, very, very close if some yahoo near you decides to feed them a piece of bread and suddenly you are surrounded by, no joke, three dozen gulls ready to peck your eyes out for a soggy piece of hoagie roll. DON’T FEED THE GULLS. You’ll start a bird war and they are really not as cute when they are all up in your face.).
And, sometimes you get lucky. You see things like a school of dolphins arcing by. Or, around happy hour, you’ll see extremely fit people lap-swimming — yes, lap-swimming! – freestyle through the ocean four times further out than anyone you were bobbing around blowing bubbles and doing dead-man’s floats with. Watching their smooth, efficient, horizontal strokes slice through one of the most powerful bodies of water on earth is really amazing, along with the respectful realization that it’s people like that who save people like me when we do foolish things like swim out too far or some other such nonsense.
Rehoboth Beach, DE
That is the recompense for your drive: a sunny day, gulls wheeling overhead, and the fun, happy feeling that comes from people relaxing. And soft serve. You could argue for salt water taffy, pizza slices, caramel corn, fudge –there are lots of things that come to mind when you think of beach boardwalk food, but for me, it’s soft serve. And in Rehoboth, it’s Kohr Brothers.
Kohr Bros., Rehoboth Beach, DE.
It was a rather (understatement) hot day, so my strawberry rainbow sprinkle cone incarnated quickly from this:
Pre-rainbow sprinkle bath
…to this…
Not even out of the hands of the soft-serve server and it’s beginning to slide…
…to this!
This cone/cup hybrid is a concession to the midday heat…
Ooh la la! Now, that’s hot. No matter, it was dee-licious.
In any case, more on food later (see my upcoming post “Of Shore Food, Which Is Great Fun”).
So, if you live within a few hours of the shore and you need to get away and clear your head, consider Rehoboth Beach for charm, or Ocean City if you want to get real about walking the boards, with all the rides and arcade bells and whistles that go along with that. You’ll meld into the crowds and watch generations of cultural legacy unfold around you as you become part of the undulating wave of another summer day at the beach.
And, if you do it, do it right: get a low-slung beach chair that you can wear as a backpack, bring a boatload of quarters for the parking meters, leave your sunglasses on your beach towel, and enjoy.
Sunset along Rt. 404 home from Rehoboth Beach, DE.
This gallery contains 23 photos.
Bean Pie’s trip to Cali (see previous post “Bean Pie Goes Traveling: Repository of Good Eats”) was inspiring, instructive, reinvigorating and reaffirming, but it’s behind me now. Well, almost. I wanted to catch y’all up on some photos. In three short weeks I managed to front load a boatload of yum. The San Francisco Bay … Continue reading
Barney’s Gourmet Burgers on Solano Avenue, Berkeley, CA
Left Coast, Best Coast, ‘Frisco, Bezerkely — whatever you call it, I’m a NorCal girl at heart. I’ve dropped the cats in the Philly ‘burbs for their summer vacay with The Fam (don’t feel bad for them, they’re living the high life complete with enclosed back yard and two bemused humans on door duty — thanks P and K!) and flown due west to chill Cali-style for a few weeks. Not surprisingly, I just may have time for a few good eats. You’ve missed out on the first week of good grub because I didn’t have my photog hat on properly, but I will try to catch you up.
Here’s what you missed. If you are in the area, check out the links and see for yourself:
Veggie Cheeseburger at Kwik-Way by Lake Merritt in Oakland. Doesn’t sound good, but it is. My favorite veggie burger, in fact, and I am not inclined to veggie burgers. Sort of a cross between a black bean burger and a falafel, it’s a mess of creamy, crunchy, cheesy goodness. Comes with bacon upon request! I hanker for hamburgers and it’s a blue moon that persuades me to deviate from beef; turkey, occasionally, chicken almost never, but this veggie burger came with a referral, and I am mighty glad it did so I am referring it on to you. You’re welcome.
Carnitas Burrito at Gordo’s Taqueria on Solano Avenue, Albany. Carnitas is really all you need to know. I’ve been coming here since middle school just about and could count on one hand the number of times there HASN’T been a line out the door. People say it’s not the same since the new crew came on (“new” being relative since it’s been almost 10 years, prolly), but it’s still one of the first places I go when I hit town.
Midwestern Burger at Barney’s Gourmet Burgers on Solano Avenue (photo above). Cheese,Thousand Island sauce, and a flying saucer sized onion ring. ‘Nuff said. Well, that and a milkshake. I don’t believe this was part of their regular menu, but I bet you could sweet talk your way into special-ordering one if you had to.
Black and Gold Sundae with a side of coffee, San Francisco Creamery, Walnut Creek, CA
New try: Black and Gold Sundae with a cup of coffee on the side at San Francisco Creamery in Walnut Creek. It’s not Fentons, which actually has its own Wikipedia entry detailing its illustrious history, including an arson fire and its mention in the Pixar film, Up, but I had to give it a whirl. Ever since Ortman’s Ice Cream Parlor closed (I, along with generations of other Albany High School students, did my time behind the counter there hawking sundaes and grilled sandwiches), Fentons has been the go-to for a seriously old-fashioned, genuine ice cream experience and it still delivers every time.
By the way, nobody calls it ‘Frisco so don’t be trying that noise if you visit. And, bring a decently heavy jacket. It’s Northern California, not Miami! Trust me.
Ever wondered what it’s like to put your life on hold and go back to school? Well, here you go. Here’s what I learned about myself and others:
It’s a huge sacrifice. Going back to school sucks, and this is from someone who loves school. Putting aside the actual expense for now (see below) let’s just look at the psychic cost to you and your family: you are working all the time. All. The. Time. Think of everything you like to do, big and small, and put that in a mental basket, along with the friends you haven’t called in months and the family members who are sick of hearing your constant whine about homework, and call it Collateral Damage. This is where all the people who used to think you were fun to hang out with reside.
It’s expensive. There’s the tuition, fees, books, uniforms, knives — all calculable. But most (well, at least many — not mine, fortunately) culinary arts programs are designed for full-time students. You move through in core blocks, no substitutions. You may be able to work part-time (good luck with that), which means you will reduce your current income by at least half, but try not to think about that or you will never feel like you can actually afford to do it. Suffice it to say there is lots more money going out, lots less money coming in. So take all the things you used to like — like going out for coffee, or lunch — chuck them into the Collateral Damage basket, and get used to feeling like a broke loser when your friends’ birthdays roll around. This is serious business for career changers/re-entry students who may have any or all of the following: kids, mortgages (or serious rents not involving three other roommates), cars made after 2005, and previous student loans. And while we are on the subject of students….
The Other Students. If you’re anything like me, you might think Other People are a huge pain to deal with, so try going back to school with them. I’m going to sort students into two basic categories here: 18-22 year-olds, and Re-Entry students. Based on my six years of teaching English Composition at the community college where I am now a student, and five years working in Residential Life at the college where I earned my Masters degree, college freshman are a marvel. I really like them. I really do, and I’m not just saying that. They are like bright, shiny pennies with the world at their feet and even though they might not realize it, they’ve got that precious commodity that you don’t realize you’ve lost until you see it in them: idealism. They are also, by turns, confused, excitable, strident, and brash, with a bored affectation that is laughably, and falsely, world-weary. Top it off with a dose of know-it-all zest that borders on mouthy, put them in a room with twenty other students, and call it Freshman Comp. Or Cooking 121. Or any other survey class where nobody knows nothing from nothing yet. Then ask them to do a boatload of work, and watch one-third to one-half of them self-destruct.
Except that I don’t want to self-destruct. I’m a Re-Entry student, and I mean business. So get outta my way. Re-entry students are their own glorious category. They are back for a reason. They’re not just taking classes to stay on their parents’ health insurance. The stakes are generally pretty high for this group — clearly, something is not working out right in their current career and they want a change badly enough to sacrifice for it, big time (see above). As a career-changer, I’m in this group. We’re focused, and driven. We want to know exactly what, when, where, and how. If you want to be around some serious students, take a night class. Those people really want it. A lady in one of my classes this semester has triplet infants at home. TRIPLETS. She knows how to work hard. I’d take her on my team any day.
Career changers don’t mess around, and this can be very off-putting to the other kidlets. But, sorry Charlie: I can’t afford to take three hours to do something that should take one hour. I spent two entire 75 minute class periods this semester making a poster — a POSTER – as a group effort. A POSTER. Which, by the way, ended up having not one, but two hand-lettered (who hand-letters a poster past sixth grade, for heaven’s sake? It’s not a garage sale) spelling errors on it by the end of class, so I had to take it and re-do it after class, anyway, which cost me another 45 minutes. Which reminds me…
Group Work. I hate it. Which brings me to…
What I learned about myself. “Overachievers” are not good team players. We’re precise. We’re prepared. We’ve read all the readings. We’ve done our production sequences. We think everyone should be taking this assignment/project/class as seriously as we do, and when they don’t, it bugs us because its our grade on the line, and that ain’t cool. I’ve gotten the definite impression that other students think we are a drag.
I’ve been called an overachiever at least a dozen times this year, which is funny since I don’t recall being called that before — not in undergrad, not in grad. Control freak? Yes. Micro-manager? Uh huh. Type A? Ok, although I don’t actually agree with that one. But “over achiever”? That didn’t come up until I hit community college…and something about it rubs me the wrong way. I take issue with the desire to do one’ s best being cast as a social or character flaw. Wanting an “A” isn’t overachieving. It’s just achieving, and I think it’s a pretty worthy goal. I admire people who take themselves seriously as learners and push themselves to do as well as they can in whatever it is they undertake. I respect that. So, big ups to overachievers!
I’m saying “overachiever” but I really don’t care for that term. It doesn’t sound nice, does it? Put “over” in front of anything and dollars to donuts it’s pejorative: over-dressed, over-done, over-the-hill, over-achiever. Its use implies there is something wrong with achievement and I think there’s something wrong with thinking there’ s something wrong with achievement. But that’s probably just me being over-analytical.
Summary: It has been a heck of a year. I would try to cash in on the ol’ “I laughed, I cried..” bit, but I don’t remember laughing much. What I do remember are hours and hours and hours of difficult, confusing, unfamiliar work forcing me to bend my brain around subjects about which I knew very little. It has been a year of pure, hardcore skill acquisition. Being out of my element, being back at the bottom, is extremely uncomfortable. Being wrong over and over again sucks — until the time you get it right; then you exhale and think to yourself, “Damn. Finally.” And that’s why you’re here, right? To do something new, and to get it right?
So, it’s worth it. If you are thinking about going back to school, think about all the things I’ve said. It’s quite a tally. Then, think about everything you would stand to gain. What will be your measure of success? The long term success of this endeavor remains to be seen, but to measure my short-term success, I table all the hassle and heartache of those sixteen week blocks and think solely of the academic experience itself: the adrenaline, the satisfaction, the flush of pride from succeeding in something difficult. Definitely worth it.
Stay tuned for Year Two.
It’s Finals Week and just in case you are wondering what a cooking school Final Exam is like: it’s hard. It’s like every other 5.5 hour lab class — make a million things all at once with a partner who may or may not know what is going on — but you do it by yourself (hallelujah!) and there’s a lot more riding on it. And you take a written part, too. Between the two parts — written and practical — you’ve got 300 points out of a 1,000 point class on the line. So get ready.
Example of brunoise dice cut (not my photo). In fact, these carrots are rather uneven. Good thing they are not being graded!
While I spent an inordinate amount of my allotted time dicing brunoise (why are they so TINY? It’s like trying to pick up glitter.) the exam went rather smoothly. We had to take a whole chicken, truss it, then fabricate it into its various bits and pieces.
Looks pretty, right?
Trussed bird
Fabricated parts
Next, we took a whole fish, and filleted that. This task is actually quite empowering. There is something really cool about taking a fish off the bone. In order to practice this over the weekend, I had to call around to find a place that carries whole fish. I wanted several, so they had to be cheap since each one is several pounds and I don’t have a lot of cash right now. I was already on the hook for the seven whole chickens I had bought for practice over the last two weeks. Obviously, Whole Foods was out, and Safeway and Giant don’t carry whole fish. Fortunately, this is Maryland, so there are seafood stores around. Would you believe I have never been into one?
I’m not sure how to explain these Eastern Seaboard seafood stores. They are a world unto themselves. I’ve never been in anything like it in California. They can be intimidating to outsiders, like me, who don’t know how to order anything. Like crabs. I didn’t grow up cracking crabs so when it comes to ordering crabs I clearly don’t know what’s up. I’ve lived in Maryland for 9 years off-and-on and I still don’t know how to order crabs — male, female, medium, large, extra large, jumbo, swamp dogs, dozen, bushel…goodness gracious. I just tag along with people who do know what to do and watch them eat crabs while I sit there holding my mallet with Old Bay all over my cold, wet, cut-up hands and fantasize about ordering food that doesn’t involve so much hard work.
My practice fish from the seafood store.
But anyway, this seafood store I went to was packed with people waiting for crabs. They all had deli numbers and were mulling around waiting for their bushel of swamp dogs, or whatever. It was crazy in there. It was like being at an auction. But as busy as it was, I got an appreciative glance when I told the fishmonger I wanted the fish whole.
Here’s how it went:
Me: “I would like three of those trout, please.”
Him: “Filleted?”
Me: “No.”
Him: “Gutted?”
Me: “Yes.”
Him: Heads on or off?”
Me: “On, please.”
Him (appreciatively): “Good for you.”
Me (like a dork): “Thanks! I’m practicing!”
So now that you know how the conversation goes, you can walk into a seafood store and order some whole, gutted, heads-on trout with confidence.
Here’s my little lovely, before and after.
Fish for the Practical — Before
I was so happy with my fillets that I patted them a few times before turning them in for inspection.
Fish for Practical — After
Finally, we subjected all these various cuts of chicken and fish to separate cooking methods. Here are the results:
Chicken and fish on the presenting grid.
Glamorous it ain’t, but it was interesting and satisfying to produce. I’m ready to fillet up a storm. And with my freezer stuffed full of various baked goods from my baking class, I’ve got a boatload of chicken to eat in the next week.
I went to, and walked away from, the Baltimore Food Truck Rally tonight. There were two cupcake trucks there, but that’s not why I left. I left because the lines were hecka long. There was a South Carolina BBQ truck there that I had wanted to check out. I heartily wanted a pulled pork sammie. So, I did actually get in line, but then I had some time on my hands and it got me to thinking about how when I was parking the car I had seen a place I hadn’t known existed: a place called HarborQue. And it just happened to be Carolina style BBQ. Some might call that Coincidence. I call it Opportunity. So I waved goodbye to the trucks and off I went.
The place was crowded with other food truck refugees. We are an impatient people. Of course Harbor BBQ had the pulled pork sammie, but after watching three people walk past me with the Loaded Carolina Fries, I changed my ordering tune. Pulled pork with bbq baked beans, cheese and jalapenos over french fries? Whaaaat? Is this how they roll in South Carolina, or is this a Balto. hybrid? Either way, they had me. And the pulled pork was delicious; tender and smokey, which I love. I sat out on their deck while other food truck people poured in. I listened in on their tales of long lines and sold out food while I made a somewhat respectable dent in this DelMarVa delicacy. I’m glad I found this place they call the “best barbeque on the Chesapeake.” I will definitely go back and I might do the Loaded Fries again, but next time, hold the cheese.
P.S. Did I mention that the last four numbers of their phone number spell PORK? I’m charmed. And, to make it even better, it is a BYOB — an East Coast concept that really grows on a person…
More to love about HarborQue: Hickory smoked pit beef, pit ham, brisket, chicken-and-ribs and a bbq sundae of which I’m not sure how I feel yet. Here’s their menu (click). They do tailgating and catering, too.
People, they are just tiny cakes. Same formulas, same frosting, just smaller. Why all the fuss? I like a cupcake just as much as the next person — well, maybe not, actually, since the “next person” is busy rhapsodizing about cupcakes with a passion that borders on fevered — but they have just a simple, transitory appeal to me: someone offers one to me, I accept it, I enjoy it (“Yay, nice couple of bites of cake!”), I move on. I don’t drive/bus/bike uptown/downtown/anywhere to find them. I don’t pursue them with a single-minded determination. I don’t plan a ladies lunch around them. In fact, the list of things I WON’T do for a cupcake far outnumbers the list for what I WILL do for one.
So the fact that Williams-Sonoma has rolled out a section on their website titled “The Cupcake Shop” says more to me about Williams-Sonoma than it does to me about cupcakes. Don’t follow the trends, Wms.-S.; set them. Surely there is life after cupcakes.
To quote Jacob Goldstein at NPR, as he explores the idea of what he calls the cupcake bubble, “Did they really think cupcakes were different than cake?” (See the short article, here, referenced in The Huffington Post.)
To be fair, some disagree. CNN Living entreats us to stop calling cupcakes a fad. Apparently, they are an industry. Click here to read that argument.
Well, goodness, now I just don’t know. Maybe if the box of cupcakes had three-dimensional sculpted modeling chocolate carvings of frolicking kittens I would mend my cupcake hatin’ ways…nope, still just a cupcake.
Whenever I try to explain the kind of baking I want to do, it always comes back to bean pie. So, bean pie is where I will start.
Bean pie seems to have Southern roots, but I know of it because I grew up not too far from a Your Black Muslim Bakery. I lived in Emeryville, California and at that time Emeryville was the raggedy jumble where the edges of Berkeley petered out but Oakland hadn’t quite picked up yet. We were the fringe, a slim section of San Pablo Ave. that was ratty but not necessarily dangerous. All the cars were junky and the houses had panache, which is what houses have when nothing matches and half your stuff comes from thrifting. Some of us were white, some Mexican, some black, but all of us were pretty broke and we all ambled along together, everyone pretty much minding their own business. That’s how it works on the fringe.
The Black Muslim Bakery was not much further down San Pablo Avenue from where I lived on 64th Street and it was a funky, run-down, exotic place to a kid fresh from the humid, lightning-bug summers of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. It wasn’t much but a tiny storefront with a counter where you ordered. They only had about 10 different things, and none of them made much sense: prune cake, honey carrot muffins, tofu burgers, fish sandwiches. And bean pie. All of the baked goods were cool, but it was the bean pie which fascinated me. My mom would bring back a bag of stuff from their “day-old” section and there they would be, in clear plastic bags with twisty ties and ordinary white mailing labels where the branding should be. It looked like the kind of stuff you would buy at a bake sale if the bake sale were run by plain-looking, somber women dressed in faded single-color caftans and elaborately twisted cotton turbans to hide their hair. Later they jazzed up their packaging a bit (see photo below), but I remember them from back in the day.
"Your Black Muslim Bakery" baked goods in later years.
Those baked goods were the good stuff to me. I loved their strange, stark packaging, and the way the whole ingredient list could fit in the space where someone’s address should go: “flour, oil, eggs, honey, baking soda, cinnamon.” That’s all it took. That’s all they needed to make it work. So simple, so elemental, and so good. The simplicity in the design became the footprint of baking for me.
Even from the day-old section we didn’t see those goodies too often and things got pretty crazy at that house in Emeryville sooner rather than later. It wasn’t too long before I was spending most of my time over in Albany, a 30 minute bus ride down San Pablo Avenue in the opposite direction. Albany — pretty, tidy, happy little Albany with the good schools and the nice librarians — was my ticket out of Emeryville, away from Oakland and Black Muslim bakeries, and bean pie.
As I grew older I would make my way over to the Black Muslim Bakery every now and again, but it was always a strange sort of experience. It wasn’t my neighborhood anymore, and it wasn’t my mom bringing the stuff home in a paper bag. Even so, bean pie was always in the back of my mind. I always thought that they were the coolest kind of baked goods even though they were more of a memory than anything else. The Black Muslim Bakeries had some bad years, then some very bad years, and then in 2008 they went under completely and were under investigation for corruption, torture, assault, murder, and more. Part of this long, sad, scandalous, tangled web was in the papers within the last year, but that’s a story for another day.
My mother, Sandra, in Oakland, California circa early 1980’s.
I was so tickled to discover the Facebook group, “Your Mom Is So Berkeley” last year that I submitted a short story and photo of my mom, Sandy — she was classic 1980’s Berkeley. Reading through some of the postings — especially the earliest ones from right around the time the group began — says more about our shared Berkeley experience than one person ever could. The group — and my mom’s photo — were actually profiled in a short article for NBC Bay Area on March 31, 2010.
Click here if you want to see the Facebook page and get a sense of the shared Berkeley vibe.
Welcome to Bean Pie And Baking.
This is a story about bean pie, and being twelve, and growing up on the fringes of Berkeley in the mid- 1980’s.
I was twelve when I came to California. My mom, Sandy, had moved out there a few years before with my brother, Frank. She had met a younger man, married, and bought a house in Emeryville, CA. The summer after 5th grade I joined my largely unfamiliar family. I looked out the window as the plane flew into Oakland and thought I had never seen such ugly, brown hills. Nothing but brown, bare hills to the right as far as I could see from my window seat. And to the left? Cold, dark water filled with metal cranes and stack after stack of enormous ocean shipping containers, all of it covered in a thin, hazy, dirty looking fog: the Port of Oakland. Anyone who knows summer in California’s Bay Area knows it runs counter to everything you think you know about summer: it’s not green, it’s not hot and it was certainly not like anything I had ever seen in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Mark Twain once said “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”
There were still free-boxes in Berkeley then — beat up cardboard boxes dropped off on sidewalk corners filled with used clothes and random discarded household items. There was a huge free-box at the Ashby BART station and it still soldiered on long after the other free-boxes died out. That was the spirit of Berkeley then — passionate, freewheeling, community-driven, and disarmingly odd. Berkeley-ites were a strident people of visceral politics and liberal social policies. Some had money; many had not but they all seemed to rub along together under the shared conviction of quality food: cheese, bread, coffee, lemons. People who couldn’t afford cable t.v. made space in their wallets for freshly ground peanut butter and hot cups of Peet’s coffee. Sandy was one of those people; we ate bologna sandwiches on home baked bread, but she ground her Peet’s coffee beans fresh everyday.
But we didn’t live in Berkeley. We lived in Emeryville, a place a ripple or two outside of the concentric circles of local demographics. Emeryville was full of warehouses, some deserted, some still limping along. The railroad tracks ran through Emeryville. In fact, most things ran through Emeryville, but only to get to other places. Despite its proximity to the Bay Bridge — literally five minutes from the toll plaza — Emeryville was an odd, scraggly, semi-depressed place. Perfect for people like Sandy.
Bean Pie and Baking 