Cookbook Porn

Someone gave me something really rad last weekend.

A first edition of the Fireside Cookbook, by the illustrious James Beard. You can get reprints that are probably less yellow than the copy I have, but let me show you why you should grab the original:

HOW has someone on Etsy not ripped this off and printed it poster-sized yet? Or this:

Feathers tomorrow. Yeesh. Another:

I love how a coddled egg is a little baby egg with wispy hairs. So awesome.

The entire book is filled with tattoo/frame worthy pre-atomic art - no page goes unembellished. The recipes, while pretty odd, are interesting, in that "OMG people ate like that?!" way. Some, like the Cheese Croquettes recipe, or the Rarebit, or the several potato salad recipes (I II and III) are pretty unchanged, as are the homemade Mayo instructions (with variations - green, red, russian, tartar). But there are Molded Salad recipes. Multiple Pheasant recipes. And this little half-page:

People used to do such odd/awesome things to cukes. Since putting them on a pizza last summer, I've seen the warm cucumber light - try them sauteed, or in a calzone - I swear, it's awesome.

But yeah, me, some tomatoes, this bag of agar agar I bought last week, and a funky-as-hell thrifted Jell-O mold have an appointment, and soon. Stay tuned.

Call for Birders-in-Arms

Almost a decade ago, I started coming to Charlotte to see Erik.

It was the perfect case of fall-in-love-with-a-town-if-you-have-a-good-tour-guide syndrome - between he and his ex Whit, I got this awesome, rosy, ethnically diverse, enthused about independent bidnesses take on the Queen City that filed itself away in my future-plans brain lobe, and yup, here we are, permanently installed.

Lupie's, I remember, was a smack in the face. I'd never seen nachos that huge, or so proud to be the anti-healthy. Brunch at the Peaceful Dragon, that gorgeous Temple parked in the middle of the wilderness, with their individual French presses full of hellishly dark brew, vegan sausage, bringin' a little East to the South. Thrifting was fantastic, I'd always have a garbage bag to haul back to the city.

The Penguin, though, in 2002. Like the cool pre-hipster EV bars in NYC, but friendly. A jukebox that didn't have Is This It playing constantly. Burgers beyond gut busting proudly displayed next to the chili soy dog and the black bean burger. Just cuz you didn't eat meat didn't mean you couldn't hang with the bikers. Even then they were faux-bikers and rockabilly kids, but they were eating hummus! Moving on.

What I'm saying is that it was egalitarian without giving everyone a gold star. I always felt Ultimately Cool but Pantsless Comfy whenever we'd go, inevitably staying until several, or 4, maybe 5 pitchers had been chucked down the hatch. Swerving our way back across town, it was the reason anyone came to P/M, unless they were getting ink at Ace or meatloaf at Dish. Now you can't get a table for love nor money, but hey, I've got my fond memories. So it's going to break my heart watching it become the next Five Guys.

This isn't just anti-corporation me whining. This is cultural-fixture-defending, business-owner-rights-believing-in, P/M-loving me whining. Cloning the Penguin is just wrong, but it becomes loathsome when the kids that grew it from creepy, broken down bean into the Fried Pickle and Block Burger Castle get strong armed out of the way so that the Ballentines and Angry Chef can get the cut they feel entitled to.

So, I'm done. I'll sneak in for some pickles and dogs before the 24th, but that's it. It kicks ass that less than a block away sits the new place, 24hrs even, and that's where we'll be. You can keep your stolen Bird, Ballies. I'll be at the bar.

A short rant.

We have EarthFare. We have Fresh Market. We have Harris Teeters, 2 to every square mile, it seems. Bloom, check. Couple of TJ's. Food Lions and a small variety of lower-shelf grocery chains. A Dean&Deluca (hard for me to see this place chainified). Many Asian, Indian, and Latino grocery stores. One Japanese outpost. A G Mart. A local health food store chain. A smaller health food store swimming in cute factor.

But the grocery store scene in Charlotte sucks.

Back when I obsessively shopped at Fairway once a week (which was, pretty much, the entire 10 years I lived in the city) I knew I had it made.  It was free Culinary Arts school. Open 24hrs, I'd wander the isles between late-night drawings, learning the names of strange olives, cheeses from tiny towns in France, oils of mysterious origin. Always left with a bag of day-old bread (croissants the same price as rolls, a different kind each time, 50 cents each, until I settled on a favorite). Pickles were huge and satisfying. Piquillos before Saveur knew what they were. Coffee, fresh roasted, killer. Outside produce always a deal. Then they started in with the local stuff - upstairs, often, and pricier. Mushrooms from upstate NY. Cloth bound cheddar from just over the Vermont border. Strange eggplant varietals. Jams, jellies, chocolate. My food brain, and then my locavore food brain, had a steady diet of awesome.

So, call me spoiled, but when I walk into the SouthPark EarthFare, our localest of chain grocers, in the middle of the damn growing season, in the middle of a fertile state, surrounded by a multitude of amazing organic farms, and the only local offering is turnip greens and MAYBE some heirloom tomatoes for a gazillion dollars, it makes me want to tear my hair out. Sure, they have a couple of shelves on the end of Isle 1 with grits in a cute cloth bag and 15 different types of bar-b-que sauce. Yup, they stock goat cheese from 2 local sources. But, lame. Produce-wise, Harris Teeter does better.

You'd think that when something as awesome as Anson Mills exists, less than 80 miles away, people would have some Kakalaka pride and fill their shelves with anything and everything they offer. Not in CLT. Nary a product to be found. If I want to cook with Southern heirloom flour or grits, I have to order them off the internet. Or drive to Columbia. And I know there's more than just goat cheese being made in our state. It's just I have no idea where, or where I can buy some.

Reid's was the closest thing we had to Fairway, and while the comparison's a bit of a stretch, it's true - odd, small batch grains, great deli, knowledgeable staff, and in one way, they surpassed the big F - the wine selection was insane. But they closed. God, I hope they open again - maybe in cheaper-rent Atherton Mills? - because I'd hate to be forced to believe that we're the kind of town that can't support a non-chain grocery store (remember Talley's? Me too).

I love it here, don't get me wrong. But there are such gaping voids. The one that yawns in my face, constantly, is the grocervoid. I'd love to have a part in plugging that hole, but many have tried before, and failed.Which scares me. But then I see the Examiner covering the Harvest Moon truck, and watch as Grateful Grower's products pop up everywhere, and see every booth at the Yorkmont Farmer's market filled, and have some hope. Maybe it's finally time.

Fruit MRIs

How amazing is this? Magnetic resonance images of common (and not so common) fruits. Downloadable videos available too. Thanks, MetaFilter, for giving me something to ogle at today (and most others)

You know the Durian is my favorite. The crawly, eerie, fume-like qualities of the vid speak directly to my smell memory of durian shake.