Pity the poor soul who's never had a fried pie...then buy him one.

You miss out on so much when you don’t spend time in the South. Case in point–fried pies.

I was traveling across Texas with two globe-trotting military experts. Every morning as we drove to a secure location just down the road from Fate, Texas, we saw it: a giant billboard beside the interstate proclaiming “fried pies.”

One of these worldly fellows pondered aloud, “I wonder how they fry the pies. Can you fry a key lime pie?”

Gracious. The man thought you submerged a whole, circular pie into the deep fryer.

Fried pies, y’all, are turnovers, I told them.  Empanadas. “You mean like hot pockets?” the other one asked, eyes wide.  Yessir, I do.  Where’ve you been?

The poor fellows had never had fried pies. They’d never even heard of them.  Might I add, neither of them were that young.  It seemed a shame. And I’d been craving fried pies since the first time I laid eyes on that billboard.

Seemed like fate was directing us to take that exit and dig in.

Two friendly young women were happy to tell me all about the pies.

We were in for a treat, and more treats than we’d anticipated. The Original Fried Pie Shop was inside a Baker’s Ribs off I-30 at Caddo Mills, Texas.

So first, we had a fine lunch of smoked pork and chicken, homemade green beans, and scalloped potatoes. The food was grand.

That's a pie shaper on the bottom right.

And then there were the fried pies.

Two friendly young women were making pies on site, so I got to look in and see what they do–mixing dough on a large scale but hand-making each pie, using a custom-fabricated pie shaper, then lowering a rack of half-moon shaped pies into the deep fryer.

A taste of chocolate fried pie

The range of flavors was impressive, not just meat and fruit pies as you might expect, but also fried versions of traditional cream pies such as chocolate and coconut.  One of the pie-makers told me she was making a chocolate test pie and that I had to try it. She didn’t forget and when it was ready, she brought me a piece to sample. It was fantastic.

Warm fried pie of the apple persuasion

But for my full-sized fried pie dessert, I went with the traditional apple.

When I was growing up, we frequented a barbecue restaurant in Deep Run, North Carolina, where they made fried apple pies. Those fried pies have always been the standard for me. They were odd-shaped, a little greasy, and outrageously good.

The Original Fried Pie Shop pie was different–a little fancier in its execution, lighter, not greasy–and possibly even better.

A bit of a chain but tasty nonetheless...

The Original Fried Pie Shop is a a franchise, as you can read on their website. I can’t hold it against them. Not when the pies are good and the people making them are friendly and committed to quality pie-frying. But if you know of another fried pie in the South you’d recommend I try, one you think is even better, I’m happy to break out the GPS and make the drive.

Bacon drippings, shaped and chilled

Some late night experiences leave you with regrets.  And some, it seems, leave you with an abundance of bacon drippings.  A friend and I have taken up the habit of making a bacon snack around midnight.

Good bacon, good bacon fat

We have a fondness for bacon from Caw Caw Creek.  And every bit as good as the bacon is the fat that’s rendered when we cook it.

For a while now, I’ve been experimenting with ways to use all those tasty bacon drippings–something beyond the way my mother uses them to season vegetables and for pan frying.  When we were kids, my sisters used bacon drippings instead of Hawaiian Tropic at the beach one day.  As people walked by, they’d say things like, “Does it smell like breakfast out here to you?”  In more recent times, I’ve saturated newspaper with bacon grease and used it to start my charcoal grill.

But I knew that was a waste of awesome flavor, so I started to wonder how I might use bacon grease for deep frying or in baked goods in place of lard.

Bacon drippings at room temp

The frying is a cinch: try making sweet potato fries in bacon grease and you’ll never want them any other way. The baking took a little trial and error.  To be successful, you’ve got to make sure your bacon drippings are thoroughly chilled.

It all came together for me when I started freezing creamy bacon fat in some little aluminum molds I had. I turn the frozen, shaped fat out on a plate, keep it in the refrigerator, and use it in place of or along with butter.  Cute, easy to cut up and measure, frozen bacon fat delivers flakiness instead of a greasy mess.

Unsuccessful caramelized onion tart--made with bacon grease that had not been chilled thoroughly

So far, my best results for baked goods have come with a butter/bacon fat combination of half and half.  I’ve made crispy biscuits and perfect tart and pie crusts. The crusts have been good with both caramelized onion tarts (also using bacon fat to jam-ify the onions) and fruit tarts.  If you give this a try, you may want to consider leaving out some or all of the salt in your recipe, or your biscuits and pie crusts may be too salty for your taste.

I’m also wondering if room temp bacon grease can be substituted for part or all of the oil in carrot cake or banana bread. I’m thinking yes–and looking forward to finding out.

Add another one: Use a tablespoon of bacon grease in the bottom of a saucier to pop popcorn. You will a) be frugal and b) taste a big improvement over oil! Possibly the best popcorn I’ve ever made–or had.

And another one: I fried chicken in bacon drippings this weekend and it was fantastic.

And yet another one:  Finally got around to the carrot cake. Substituted bacon grease for the oil in my recipe and it’s worked quite well.

Even the tulips were from a local farm.

“No reservation? We don’t have a table open until 9:30.”

Not what I expected to hear in Kinston, North Carolina, a place where people wait in line for barbecue but only make reservations at the country club for the Mother’s Day buffet.

That’s when I realized that Chef & the Farmer is like that quirky guy you’re crazy about: you’re shocked to find out that everyone else thinks he’s hot too.

Ever since I heard about it three or so years ago, I’d been reading more about Chef & the Farmer with each month that went by. I’d finally made it in. And now, really, no table?

“We do have open seats at the counter overlooking the kitchen.”

I didn’t even consult my companions.  “Yes, that will be great,” I said.

Like so many restaurants these days, Chef & the Farmer is (no surprise) all about the fancy farm to table thing. But this isn’t Chapel Hill, Raleigh or even Wilmington. This is a small town in eastern North Carolina where you expect to find tobacco auctions, not fine dining.  And I appreciate it even more because this is where I grew up eating farm to table every meal, every day–all the while wishing my godforsaken family could just drive into town and have dinner at Pizza Inn.

Turns out the restaurant’s chef, Vivian Howard, had a similar upbringing on a tobacco and hog farm in Deep Run, about halfway between my family’s farm and her present restaurant.  Now she’s sourcing food for Chef & The Farmer from our neighbors–people who used to grow tobacco just the way both our families did

Good wine and the best seat in the house.

My mother, niece and I took our seats at the pretty, rustic wood counter attached to the kitchen, ringside seats for watching the staff prepare meals. I wasn’t sure how my mom would respond to this. I could imagine her saying, “If I wanted to be in the kitchen, I could’ve stayed home and saved us the money.”

Niece Dish gives her review of the monkey bread with deviled ham.

But Mother Dish loved it. And for my nine-year-old niece (the only child in the restaurant) this was the perfect perch. Within minutes, she stopped badgering me to play Angry Birds on my iPhone. She was too busy quizzing the cooks about what they were cooking.

We started with a couple of glasses of wine–a pretty Riesling for Mother Dish, a wonderful Negroamaro for me.

Her smile only turned upside down when she realized she'd eaten it all.

And we ordered the monkey bread with deviled ham spread. The bread, made with cheddar and roasted red pepper, came out in a small cast iron skillet. I worried the bread would be heavy or heavy-handed with the cheese and peppers, but it was perfect and the deviled country ham as a hit.

My niece couldn’t get enough and spread more of it on the house-made bread our waiter brought out to tide her over.  Niece Dish held up the dish of deviled ham and demanded from the cook in front of her: “how do you make this?”  She took a slug of water and declared, “this ham stuff makes my water taste like blood.”  Then she grinned.  So apparently, that’s a good thing.

The magical risotto...

For her entree, Mother Dish had the shrimp and grits, and she was well-pleased with it.  Niece Dish had a side of macaroni and cheese. “It’s sweet,” my niece said, delighted.  After considering the hanger steak, I had chosen the Caramelized Spring Onion Risotto with a shitake, asparagus and leek ragout and a truffle/parmigianno broth. I’m so glad I did.

A basket of awesome housemade bread with creamy butter.

It is the kind of dish you can’t stop eating. You want to share it, and yet you want it all for yourself.  After you’ve finished, you swab the plate with bread, just not ready to believe it’s over. Then, days later, you wake up missing it and wondering how you and it can be together again.

I was still entranced by my risotto when a giant, Jenga-like tower of a dessert went by.

The Jenga cake

“Whatever that is, I’ve got to have it,” my niece, her mouth stuffed with mac and cheese, instructed our waiter.

The waiter looked at me. I nodded. So we three shared a 10-layer chocolate cake with caramel sauce and a chunk of toffee.

Full and happy, we drove home over the familiar country roads, remarking about our out-of-the ordinary experience. And talking about how soon we can possibly return. And agreeing that we’ll be sure to make reservations, because now I see, completely, why you need them.

Really, had I found charm at the Atlanta airport?

I’ve read the articles about good meals that food writers discover in airports, and they make me wonder what’s wrong with me.  Even though I’ve had a few bits of luck (Seattle, Baltimore, D.C.),  it’s not the norm. I assume it’s because I’m just not that clever.

So I didn’t want to get my hopes up when I stepped off the escalator at Concourse B in the Atlanta airport this week. But there it was, looking so gosh darned charming, a “sidewalk” cafe in front of a bookstore. White table cloths. Twinkling lights.  People lingering over glasses of wine and pots of tea as if they were at Laduree in Paris.

I had two hours before my flight might even hope to start boarding. I decided to give this Cafe Intermezzo a try.

I was led to a table inside, not far from the curving bar, a space with warm wood paneling, polished copper accents, and more white linens.  As I balanced my stuff in the spare chair at my table, I looked up to see the guy across from me accepting delivery of a giant piece of red velvet cake. I don’t get the fuss over that particular flavor, but I had to admit to myself: the cake looked pretty good. He swore it was and did an admirable job of polishing it off.

Can't remember the last time I was tempted--by food, at least--in an airport.

It turns out that Cafe Intermezzo isn’t just an airport concoction. There are two locations in the city of Atlanta. They’ve been around for 30 years. The airport version is their third and most recent. Cafe Intermezzo offers an extensive dessert and drink menu; we’re talking more than one hundred choices.

I resisted ordering cake or a cafe cubano, tempting though the idea was,  and decided on a glass of wine (a tasty Malbec) and something more substantial. I consulted with my waiter, Patrick, who said everything was really very good, then started telling me about the percentage of fat they use in their hamburgers.

I don’t believe I’ve ever had any waiter in an airport tell me that.  I ordered the burger and fries, my airport steak frites, out of sheer curiosity  As I waited for my plate to come out of the kitchen, I worried a little. The last burger I’d had in an airport had made me sick.

A plastic knife doing its best to blend in. Thank you!

Still, everything around me said “be hopeful”–the cloth napkins, the good wine, the selection of teas and espresso drinks, the steady parade of gorgeous pies and cakes.  And when I unrolled my napkin, even the flatware encouraged me–a real metal fork and the knife, required to be plastic, was a silver plastic that made it seem to be almost real.

At that very moment, I overheard Patrick talking about these plastic knives to the people at the table behind me: yes, he said, we have to use plastic knives because of security.  “And all the real knives in the kitchen are labeled with serial numbers,” he told them.  So  that’s how it works.

My burger was out next. The bun was a fresh, brioche kind of bun. The beef was juicy and full of flavor. The fries were okay, a little too much like those Burger King fries with the funky coating to suit me. But that was alright. The burger was more than enough to fill me up.

Hooray for a very good burger.

So, my burger was very good–and the atmosphere? Close to the friendly, energetic vibe you’d find in your dream neighborhood bistro and bar. I also have to commend the service: it was so thoughtful that I could have forgotten I was in an airport had there not been rolling luggage beside every table.

Waiter Patrick brought me the check, assuring me, “no rush. That’s just for your convenience.”  It was perfect timing, though, because I had to go.  And for once, I was sorry I couldn’t hang out in the airport longer.

Would it be crazy to think they have, say, crab on the menu?

Dear Baltimore, I’m sure your residents don’t eat crab three times a day. Or do they?

I just arrived here for an overnight assignment, after so many delays I feared my return flight might leave before I even landed.  Tired though I was, the prospect of my hotel’s restaurant wasn’t too appealing. I wanted to venture out into Baltimore, if only a half block.  With the concierge’s help, I did.

“I was hoping for some place I can walk to,” I told him.

“Do you like beer?” he asked.

I hesitated. Was this a trick question?

“Yes,” I said.

He handed me a card for a free beer and directed me to Luna Del Sea Bistro.  I admit, I did think he said “lunacy” at first, and that suited me just fine.  “It’s the place with the white lights in the trees,” he instructed me.  A bistro and white lights.

And of course, that was followed by, “They have excellent crab cakes.”

A free beer was the perfect complement to my expense account.

Which takes me back to:

Dear Baltimore, I’m sure your residents don’t eat crab three times a day.

Or do they?

I once spent a week here for a conference. I did eat crab three times a day. It was served at every meal.

I have strong memories of visiting Baltimore with my father. He was always keen to go to a place called Haussner’s, a restaurant that had fine crab cakes, but that I remember more because they had covered every inch of wall space with gold-framed oil paintings and kept a giant ball of string on the lowest floor.

The seafood trio--shrimp, scallops, and what was that third item? Oh yes....

My father, a great fan of the crab cake, had many theories about where to find them around these parts. He often insisted we go to some small town on the Maryland shore for the sole purpose of eating crab cakes for lunch.  (He also insisted that many of the people he saw around Baltimore were doubled over with syphilis, which we also scoffed at. Not long after he made that observation, a CDC report revealed he was right.)

How, exactly, did crab become the “unofficial mascot” of Baltimore?  Was crab responsible for the wild creativity of city resident Edgar Allen Poe? For instance, did crab at every meal inspire his famous “nevermore”?

Since I have no answers to offer, let’s turn back to the Luna Del Sea, which was a fine place for a crab cake, made with “95 percent crab meat,” my very good waitress Katya assured me in English spoken with an Eastern European accent.

I had the seafood trio–broiled shrimp, scallops, and a crab cake–along with a side of vegetables and a free Sam Adams beer.  The crab cake was plenty crabby and topped with a light cream and capers sauce, made even better when I gave it a good squirt of lemon.

The view from my banquette

The atmosphere was old school, comfortable and a little kitschy. I enjoyed my seat in a banquette, with plush pillow behind me.  Maybe locals come here. Maybe they don’t. It wasn’t among the restaurants on my Baltimore dining wish list, true. But it was the perfect antidote to a long day of travel, almost as convenient as dining in the hotel–but better, no doubt, and slightly more adventurous.

When there's no cheddar in the house....

A few years ago, I wrote a Food Network show that posed the potentially world-changing question: could you make real mac ‘n’ cheese on the stovetop that was (almost) as quick and easy as breaking open a box of Kraft?  And could that homemade version satisfy a box-mac-n-cheese-loving kid?

Brie, on a board made by Maine prison inmates.

I’m not the biggest mac ‘n’ cheese fan, and I like it baked with some of the noodles on top browned and crunchy, the way my grandmother made it.

It was lunchtime on a cold, rainy day and for some reason, I craved macaroni and cheese.   There was no cheddar in the house.  I wasn’t going to the market, and I was too hungry to wait around for an oven concoction.

I did have a huge hunk of mediocre brie in my fridge, a cheese so average I could barely bring myself to eat it. And bowtie pasta, eggs, butter, and milk. Could I make a brie version of stovetop mac ‘n’ cheese? Macaroni and brie?

I was sure I could and a quick Google search further convinced me–though the recipes I found were complicated and required oven baking.

Brie, peeled and cubed.

So, I searched out the old homemade-stovetop-recipe from the old show and made a scaled down version of it using brie.

First, I boiled the noodles (amount? two hands full). While they were cooking, I cut off a wedge of the average brie, peeled away the rind and cubed.

A little egg and milk....

I beat one egg with a quarter-cup of milk.

When the noodles were barely fork-able, I added a dollop of butter, the egg/milk mixture, and the cubed brie. I stirred this over low heat until it was thick and creamy.

Then, I dumped the entire glob into a bowl and topped with fresh ground pepper.

Everything in, for a stir and melt.

It was not bad–creamy and rich, but a little flat. I can see how adding a dash of mustard (the spice) or a splash of white wine could liven it up.  I kept wishing I had some crispy bits of bacon to toss on top.

I also wonder if the cream sauce would be better if thickened with a bit of flour instead of the egg. (I had used egg because 1) that’s what the tv recipe called for and 2) I wanted to add some protein to my lunch.)

When I crave macaroni and cheese again, in six months, maybe I’ll give it another go and experiment with these “improvements.”  Or not. Because, though I’m grateful to have food, truly I am,  I’m also hoping I won’t be cursed with another chunk of mediocre brie any time soon.

A teppanyaki standard-the onion volcano

“You know it’s bad when we’re excited to eat at a Japanese steakhouse.”

My colleague, Honey Pannacotta, had summed up the situation perfectly. We were on assignment in Orlando, Florida, based in a hotel across from the entrance to Universal Studios. The work had been grueling. We were grateful for any respite, any small comfort. Even a Japanese steakhouse.

The restaurant was chilly, so we asked for a table in a warm spot. The hostess took us literally. We were seated ringside, around a giant hot griddle.

Honey is a former Food Network host who has eaten at many of the nation’s best restaurants. She’s also traveled quite a bit of the world. “Have you ever been to one of these before?” I asked her.

“Once when my daughter was young. How about you?”

I had, when I was a very young 22. A boy took me there on a date. I was appalled.

But tonight, more mature and secure, I was looking forward to some silliness and stir fried vegetables. I hadn’t seen many vegetables in the last 72 hours. And with luck, perhaps there would be a gong.

Zucchini, not very Japanese, but very Japanese steakhouse

Right away, we were treated to what I suspected is the standard set of tricks: a stack of onion slices, their centers removed, then filled with oil and–whoosh–set on fire.  Eggs tossed and expertly cracked when caught on the edge of a spatula. Shrimp tails flipped through the air, into the chef’s pocket. I applauded. It was corny, but it was also a great release. I was having fun.

I was also curious about Japanese steakhouses and if there was anything even the least bit Japanese about them. Honey had no idea. A little research has turned up some information: this style of cooking is called teppanyaki. In Japan, teppanyaki is food cooked on an iron plate. Cooking western food on a teppan actually originated in Japan in the 1940s, but the cuisine was more popular with foreigners than with Japanese.  Even back then, the chefs were using the onion volcano as a highlight of their acts.

Benihana got things rolling in the United States, with an emphasis on the kind of tricks we watched at our table. It was definitely a dinner show–but then, that’s one reason people like to go, right?

Beginner chopsticks

It’s also Asian made easy–familiar ingredients and chopsticks with training wheels (well, actually with rubber bands and a hinge, making them easier to use).

But what about the food?

Ours was not bad. We both had shrimp that was a bit overcooked but fine. The stir fried vegetables were just what we wanted, but the meal was also odd. First, once you’d placed an order, there was no changing–of your order or of your seats. Honey had engaged a lovely Italian man in conversation.  He was seated to her right, but she had him sit between us before we placed our orders. Then when some gyoza arrived that we planned to share, Honey asked him to move back to his original seat. Our waitress was not happy–but our chef, a lovely man from South America, managed to handle the change with no problem.

Honey Pannacotta sharing a plate of gyoza with me.

There’s a lot of food coming at you. It’s served as soon as it’s cooked, so the timing is odd. Those of us who ordered seafood got our main dish right away. Those who ordered beef and chicken had to wait and wait.  For future reference, the surf and turf options on the menu might be the best way to beat this.

The most troubling part of the dinner was not the flying knives nor the amount of fat and soy sauce (plenty) that was used at every stage.  It was the cleanup of the hot griddle table while we were still digesting our food. A noxious steam emanated from the dish cloths; it smelled like a muggy wet mop and cheap cleaning fluid. Honey and I both thought we might be sick.

You can see a bit of the gong, on the left, and of course, the flaming cupcake on the right.

Once that subsided, we were once again happy customers, discussing how it would be fun to have a giant griddle surrounded by a table at home. I wondered if I could master the knife tricks. I vowed to myself to learn to toss and catch an egg on the edge of a spatula.

All that inspired, no doubt, by the fleeting fancy that comes with having a giggling good time. No, I do not care to eat at a Japanese steakhouse frequently but on this night, in this place, I’m very glad I did.  And yes, since there was a birthday girl among us,  there was a flaming cupcake–and a gong.

Standing by to make citrus reticulata sherbetus

Clementines are that bit of sunshine that gets you through the winter, I’ve decided.

For years, when I’ve spent winter weeks in Paris, I’ve loved that I could buy bottles of deep orange clementine juice at the corner grocery. At home, clementines are everywhere come December, in their cute little crates, making them a great fruit treat to take to a dinner host (surpassed for me only by the pineapple).

I’d bought a crate for myself and had been enjoying daily salads made of sunflower sprouts tossed with clementine wedges and toasted almonds, drizzled with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Then a family crisis forced me to be out of town for some weeks. When I returned, the clementines needed to be consumed or we’d have to just say goodbye.

Before the crisis, I’d though I might try making clemoncello–a variation on limoncello with clementines. But I wasn’t in the mood to bother with it. Life had already become too difficult, at least for the moment.  I was exhausted just by the thought of trudging over to the liquor store to buy Everclear.

So I decided to make a simple sherbet with my aging clementines.

Squeezing and squeezing and squeezing...

For sherbet, I generally follow a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated, but I’ve altered it a little. (Find my version here.) I began by mixing the zest of four clementines with 2/3 cup of sugar and a pinch of salt in a bowl.

That's a lot of clementines

Then I squeezed 2 cups of clementine juice in another bowl.  (I haven’t counted yet, but it’s a lot of clementines.)  I poured that into the sugar and zest and mixed until dissolved, then strained it all into yet another bowl.

I added a tablespoon of fresh lemon juice–and the last of my Woodford Reserve (about a tablespoon of bourbon), bringing a happy note to what would have otherwise been a sad goodbye.  I put the bowl in the refrigerator to chill a bit.

Bourbon keeps the sherbet from freezing too hard--and, of course, adds flavor!

I’d read that clementines are also known as seedless tangerines, and for the most part, my clementines didn’t have seeds. But one or two did–and they were humongous seeds to come from such a tiny orange. Had some randy bees been cross-pollinating with my clementines?

For part two, I whipped 2/3 cup of heavy cream in a large bowl. Yes, I know that ultra-pasteurized cream is hard to whip. It’s what they had at my neighborhood market. So I used my hand mixer instead of a whisk (and still felt as if my arm might fall off). At last, the cream was whipped. With the mixer running on low, I poured in the chilled juice, put into my ice cream maker, and let it churn.

Whipping the cream keeps the sherbet light.

While it churned, I googled for more information about the clementine. It’s the smallest type of mandarin orange, I read, possibly a mutation discovered by an Algerian monk named Clement. Or not. Clementines went into commercial production first in Spain, around 1925.

Fortunately for all of us, I didn’t have time to look for more information, because my sherbet was setting up nicely. I dipped an iced tea spoon into the spinning canister a couple of times.  So good–I think the secret is the combination of zest, fresh juice and a dash of bourbon. The sherbet is a pretty pale orange, very creamy, but be ready when it’s time to stop churning. It melts quickly. I had a chilled stainless steel bowl in the freezer, waiting for this moment. Sherbet in, save a scoop or two for me.

Sherbet from the grocery store is nowhere close to this good.

Clementine sherbet has less bite than orange sherbet, is a little sweeter and richer, just as I find bottled clementine juice in Paris to be. Or, if I were feeling a little drunk from less than a tablespoon of bourbon, I might call it a bit of breezy summer heaven on a chilly winter night.

P.S.-Even better on Day 2, which means it’s unlikely there will be a Day 3.

A bowl of snowy goodness

I’ve never understood the attraction of snow cream. In my experience, it always turned out a watery, milky mess.  Once I tried pouring maple syrup over snow, the way they did in Little House on the Prairie (the book is one of my major culinary influences, by the way), hoping to get some kind of frozen candy effect. Nothing.

A snowy day in the South is always a holiday.

Over Christmas, my mom was recalling the joys of snow cream in her youth. “We didn’t have ice cream all the time, so it was a real treat for us,” she said. Today, we have plenty of snow to burn, so I decided to set past disappointments aside and give it a go. I mixed sugar and a bit of vanilla bean into milk. I scooped up a big bowl of snow from my backyard. Then I combined to make a slushy. It was pretty decent, sort of a milky granita.

Which got me thinking about other possibilities.  How about espresso and snow?  Or bourbon and snow?  A day of experimenting lay ahead…

Creamy Greek yogurt and honey make great snow cream.

Greek Yogurt and Honey Snow Cream
I mixed a dollop of yogurt with a swirl of honey, then added a large scoop of snow and blended. Really good!  Much creamier in texture, and I liked the tang, which was a bit like buttermilk ice cream. In fact, I liked it so much, I had a second bowl.

Espresso Snow Cream
I really like espresso granita, which I first started making back in 2001 while working on a Food Network show called Cooking Thin.  I love to create parfaits, layers of espresso granita and lightly sweetened whipped cream. The granita freezes the cream just a little. It’s tastier than a lot of ice creams.

So I had high hopes that I could make an instant granita by combining espresso, a little of my leftover vanilla-flavored milk, and a big scoop of snow. It didn’t quite work–even though the espresso was strong, the snow watered it down too much. It tasted like a sad, cold cup of fast-food coffee. Yuck.

Gold Rush goes great with snow.

Gold Rush Snow Cream
As the cocktail hour approached, I pondered using snow to make a variation on the Gold Rush, the drink that cured what ailed me. Should I just use bourbon, lemon and honey plus snow? Or did it need milk in order to be a snow cream? Only one way to find out.

By this time, a heavy crust of ice had formed on the snow in my backyard. I pulled on my boots, cracked through the ice with a metal spoon, and filled up a fresh bowl with the fluffy stuff beneath.

Using snow in place of ice in a Gold Rush turned out to be a great idea–a lovely drink for a snowy day, absolutely.  I wanted to invite friends over to share in the discovery.

Well, officer, it started with this innocent little glass of snow....

Adding milk, however, is a bad idea. The only way I know how to describe the taste is creepy. I actually poured it out; yes, bourbon (well, just a little), down the drain.

Limoncello Snow Crema
As I rinsed my glass, I remembered that I had just the tiniest amount of my limoncello crema left in the freezer. It seemed like the perfect thing to use to make an adult snow cream–and it was. A couple of teaspoons mixed with a scoop of ice was like a delicious, boozy dessert. If only I had more limoncello on hand–though maybe it’s a good thing I don’t.

PS: If you’re concerned about whether snow is safe to consume (pollutants, bacteria, etc.), here’s an article that takes a look at that.

A souffle to banish the "my car's been towed" blues

I skipped down the steps of the hair salon, tossing my mane and feeling saucy….only to discover that my car had been towed.

Well, that little boost to the spirits was short-lived. Now, sleek hair be damned, I was trudging over to pay off parking tickets I didn’t know I had, then walking to my next appointment, then catching a ride to pay even more money to get my ride back.

By the time I got home, I needed some cheering up, the sort one might get from a quality bourbon, or, yes! A dark chocolate souffle!

Souffles, if you’ve never tried whipping them up, are surprisingly easy to make.

As Mr. DeSpoon can vouch, I’ve been known in restaurants to turn to my dinner companion and say, “let’s skip dessert and go to my house. I’ll make souffle.” Within 30 minutes or so of getting started, I’ll  take a few eggs from the fridge and a couple of pantry items and deliver a precious puffed-up-but-gooey darling.

So, forget a sensible dinner. Tonight’s meal is rising in the oven even as I type. Take that she-whose-name-will-not-be-mentioned and 30 Minute Meals!

I make my dark chocolate souffle like this:

First, set the oven to 350 degrees, and yes, turn it on.

The fluffy batter goes into a chilled dish and into the oven.

Then–

1–butter and sugar a small souffle dish. Put the dish in the fridge.

2-heat 3 tablespoons of milk, 2.5 tablespoons of sugar and a pinch of salt in a small saucepan, just until the sugar is dissolved. Turn off the heat, add a third of a bag of dark chocolate chips (or even better, 4 ounces of dark chocolate, chopped) and let the residual heat melt that.

3–separate 3 eggs, putting the whites in a large bowl for whipping. Temper the 3 yolks with a bit of the warm chocolate, then blend the eggs into the rest of the chocolate/milk/sugar mixture in the small saucepan.  Also stir in 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla.

4–Using a hand mixer, whip up the egg whites until they form soft peaks. In the early stages, sprinkle in a pinch of sugar to give it a little boost.

My souffle dish is too large, else this would have puffed over the top the way it's supposed to.

5–Lop a large spoonful of the whipped whites into the chocolate mixture, to lighten it. Then gently add the chocolate to the whites, and gently fold until blended–careful, not too much stirring.

6–Gently pour the whole caboodle into the chilled souffle dish. Sprinkle with a little granulated sugar if you want a crispier top. Then put the dish in the oven, bake for 20 minutes–then check. Ideally, you want it to be crispy on top but still gooey inside, and a minute or two makes all the difference. For example, I just left this very souffle in the oven for three extra minutes while I was typing this, and it’s not as gooey as it should be inside.

Dust with powdered sugar or not. Most important, eat promptly–and eat as much as you can manage just as it comes out of the oven, for that’s when it’s best. But don’t fret if you can’t stuff it all in at one time. After it falls, it’s still good–just more dense, like a flourless cake.

Eat at once! I cooked this one about three minutes too long; should be sorta runny inside and it isn't.

I first fell for souffles at a restaurant in Paris called La Cigale Recamier, where they serve savory and sweet souffles so you can make a meal out of the puffy stuff. A little gimmicky, yes, but it was also quite good. Making souffles came later, thanks to a simple recipe in the Jan/Feb 1997 issue of Saveur. I modified that dark chocolate souffle recipe (less sugar) and my version is the one I know by heart and make today.

I’m also partial to a recipe for cornmeal souffle from the Edna Lewis/Scott Peacock cookbook, The Gift of Southern Cooking.  That one is easy too, but does seem to take me a tad longer to prepare. It’s delicious served with a juicy pork roast or pork chops.

As for the souffle effect, I’m already feeling lighter–and there’s more waiting for me in the kitchen. Pardon me, while I finish my dinner. Yes, things are looking up.