The common term in our vernacular is champagne, but the French get a little pissy about us genericizing their name like Kleenex. Spanish speakers call them cavas, the Italians call them spumante, the French outside of the Champagne region call them crémant, so let’s just stick with calling them sparkling wines.

No matter what country they hail from, the quality of sparkling wines is rising, and it’s now hard to argue that the “real French thing” is the best for the money. With your wallet in mind, I’ve assembled a motley crew of labels under $30 per bottle, most under $20. Cheers and Happy New Year.

Barefoot Cellars Chardonnay Champagne Extra Dry Apricots and raspberry flavors make this inexpensive California bubbly taste like fruit cocktail without the heavy syrup. Great balance of sugar that will please most palates. $8.

Grandin Brut Loire Valley From another great region for sparkling wines in France the Loire Valley. Full-bodied that smacks of smooth almond butter. If you like them less tart, this one’s for you. Amazing value. $10.

Lindauer Brut New Zealand Damn, those Kiwis can make fantastic wine. Just as good as the French, at one-third the price. This is the best deal out there for dry sparkling wines this year. Very dry with firm acids, citrus, and a gorgeous creamy mouth-feel. $12.

Argyle 1999 Brut Willamette Valley From Oregon comes a refreshingly citrus, toasty, minerally sparkling wine. Has some great oomph to it and finishes clean. $14.

Codorníu Pinot Noir Brut Cava This pink Spanish sparkler bears the earthiness of a pinot noir, mixed with a crisp, tart strawberry. Very light-bodied and easy to drink. $14.

Jean Baptiste Adam Crémant d’Alsace Brut This French sparkling wine comes from the Alsace region, making it a bargain. Toasty citrus, with plenty of fizz. $18.

Mumm Napa Cuvée ‘M’ For the sweeter sparkling-wine fans out there, here comes a doozy. Rich and fruity with strawberries and peaches. Hints of vanilla and caramel as well. $18.

Prestige Mumm Cuvée Napa Valley Clean and spicy, smelling coolly like wet slate. Citrus and mineral define the flavor. $18.

Roederer Estate Brut Anderson Valley From California. Full of toasty yeast, lemon, and green apple. $20.

Mumm Cuvée Napa Blanc de Noirs Brut Zesty and tangy sparkling wine with fresh strawberries coming to the party. Crisp and light. $22.

Duval Leroy Brut Champagne A French, full-bodied, tangerine-y, citrus number. Great deal. Yeasty and floral too. $26.

Oudinot Cuvée Brut Refreshing raspberry with loads of action on the tongue. Kick-ass fruity finish. Quite yummy. $29. •

The question lingers: were the little filth-mottled peas just asking for a beating? Did they have a smart mouth? Could it be that they just don’t listen? Or maybe those tiny, dirt-flavored legumes, common as they are, find comfort and security in the occasional bout of minor but nevertheless disfiguring physical abuse? No matter how you prepare the humble black-eyed pea, that time-honored New Year’s staple seems an unlikely harbinger of wealth and good fortune. It’s a poor man’s comfort and bruised at birth. But every year, after the last drops of champagne are gone and the worst hangover is nursed to a dull throb, we eat these little beans for good luck. Why in the world?

The sympathetic magic at work in most New Years’ traditions is fairly obvious. Of course, you want that special someone beside you at the stroke of midnight because beginning the New Year with a warm, wet smooch wards off romantic entropy and ensures that love will linger for at least another dozen months or so. The cupboard should always be full on January 1st, because a leanly stocked larder — according to tradition — means belts will have to be tightened and budgets carefully managed in the coming year.

Those who hope to grow their capital holdings over the next 12 months shouldn’t remove anything from their home on New Year’s Day. They shouldn’t take out the garbage, sweep out the dust, or even, um, flush. In a best-case scenario (regardless of one’s sexual orientation), the day’s first visitor should be a tall, dark-haired man bearing a small token of affection: A bottle of wine is perfect, but even an evergreen sprig will do the trick. If all of these rituals are observed and the magic works, then unexpected riches will flow into the house.

And then there’s the tradition of the pauper’s pea.

Black-eyed peas, whose origins are speculative at best but which may go back to Africa, India, or perhaps even China, swell during the cooking process, creating a vague metaphor for prosperity. At least that’s the best explanation I’ve found for why the dish is thought to be lucky. If served with rice and some sort of pork product, so much the better. Some black-eyed pea experts say that consuming the peas in any form or quantity will guarantee good fortune throughout the year. Others (professional bean counters, no doubt) claim you’ll enjoy one 24-hour period of good fortune for each and every bean you eat. Most black-eyed traditions, however, are supremely capitalist and quite literally tied to the concept of raking in cold hard scratch.

Throughout the Deep South, black-eyed peas are prepared with turnip greens, which allegedly represent folding money. In Texas, where people tend to be a bit too literal-minded, they substitute cabbage or (disgustingly enough) actual dollar bills. The most common monetary tradition, however, is to hide a shiny new dime in the pea pot. Everyone who partakes in the feast can expect good luck, but the person who finds the dime will enjoy an especially large slice of the economic pie. If they don’t choke to death first. Searching for hidden treasures in a New Year’s dish dates back at least to the Romans, though instead of searching for money in a pot of beans, it was more likely that the pre-Christian reveler would be searching for beans hidden inside a holiday cake. These pagan hide-and-seek traditions were assimilated by early Christians and continued through the Middle Ages, becoming most closely associated with 12th Night (January 6th) and the Feast of Fools. The King Cake, an Advent tradition wherein a doll representing the baby Jesus — a stand-in for the more pagan baby New Year — is hidden inside a circular pastry, is a direct descendant of these ancient rituals. The round cake now represents a crown and Christ’s divinity, but the circle also represents completion, eternity, and the New Year. Eating circular food has always been considered lucky, and in many European countries, doughnuts are still consumed on New Year’s Day for the same reason.

Now that you know a bit more about why we eat the battered bean, here’s a Memphis-meets-New Orleans recipe for Hoppin’ John, the luckiest of all New Year’s dishes.

Ingredients: 1 cup rice cooked in chicken broth (seasoned with a sprig of thyme); 1/2 pound andouille sausage; 1 onion diced; 2 cloves minced garlic; 1/2 cup green bell pepper, chopped; 16 ounces black-eyed peas, cooked and drained; 1/4cup of your favorite barbecue sauce; 1/2 pound barbecue pork shoulder, chopped. Salt, pepper, and Tabasco to taste.

Preparation: In a large saucepan brown the andouille, then add the onions and celery, cooking them until they are clear. Stir in the rice, black-eyed peas, barbecue sauce, pork, and seasoning.Serve immediately, with or without a dime, depending on your fear of choking. Serves 4-6. •

Giving up meat isn’t easy, and when many vegetarians finally get past their meat cravings, they stop there, content with a diet containing dairy and eggs. But a couple of Memphis sisters want to help people take it to the next level. With their recently formed group, Vegan Sisters of Memphis/Black Vegetarian Society of Tennessee (VSM), they hope to spread the word on the physical and mental benefits of giving up animal by-products, while giving the small local vegan community a united voice.

Through workshops, seminars, retreats, and one-on-one counseling, Bastet Ankh Re and Raminyah Netri Men-t will teach people how to become vegan (no meat, eggs, dairy, or animal by-products in food, clothing, or other products), how to stick with the diet, and how to avoid certain foods that can cause long-term health problems. On December 18th, they’ll be at Wild Oats lecturing on “The Hazards of Sugar and Salt.”

Re and Men-t formed the Vegan Sisters, now five members strong, in August after realizing how hard it is to live a vegan lifestyle in Memphis. There hasn’t been a restaurant exclusively catering to vegetarians and vegans since One Love Soulful Vegetarian Cafe & Juice Bar closed earlier this year, and most other local restaurants offer very little to vegans.

“There’s a chicken place on every corner here, unlike in New York where there’s a health-food store on every corner,” says Men-t, who moved to Memphis after spending her youth in Chicago and her college days in New York City. “You’ll have a chicken store next to a shoe store next to another chicken store next to a gas station that serves chicken.”

The sisters say it’s this kind of atmosphere that makes it so hard for Southerners to kick the meat habit. They hope their group, open to anyone with an interest in living vegan, will soon offer members discounts at the few local vegan-friendly restaurants and health-food stores, as well as discounts to workshops and seminars. Re says a Web site is being constructed, along with a toll-free vegan helpline.

Their upcoming workshop at Wild Oats will encourage vegans to take their diet to another level. VSM isn’t simply about helping people give up meat and dairy. They’re promoting a diet of healthy foods and an active lifestyle. Salt and some sugars are still considered safe foods for maintaining a vegan diet, but they say they’re unhealthy and should be consumed as little as possible. Their workshop will address the health risks caused by consumption of sugar and salt, how processing strips salt and sugar of nutrients, and what products to use as alternatives. At the end of the workshop, they’ll be serving a vegan meal, sans the sugar and salt.

“You have a lot of vegans who only become vegans because of animal rights, but for us, it’s about both animal rights and health,” says Re. “We’re telling people to stay away from the salts, the sugars, the microwave meals, and the enriched foods. When labels say ‘enriched,’ that means they’re stripping everything and then adding vitamins to it.”

As for the health benefits of a vegan diet, the American Dietetic Association says vegans and vegetarians are less likely to develop cardiovascular disease, a variety of cancers, hypertension, diabetes, and osteoporosis. But Re emphasizes that vegans must take vitamin supplements, especially B-12 and calcium.

The sisters realize going vegan can be a challenge and giving up salts and sugars is even more difficult. After all, they went through the same process themselves just a few years back. Men-t says she went completely vegan in 2001 after flip-flopping between being a vegetarian and an occasional meat eater for several years. She was overweight and wanted to fulfill her dreams of becoming a holistic health practitioner. As for Re, she made the change so her children would never have to. She now has one vegan child and another on the way.

Men-t also has a child she’s raising vegan. Since the sisters have so much knowledge on maintaining a vegan diet during pregnancy, despite food cravings, they’ve started a program under the VSM banner called “Mother’s Keepsake,” which offers support to expectant mothers who want to go vegan or are already vegan and need help sticking with it through their pregnancies.

“We’re not trying to turn anybody [into a vegan]. We just want to open some minds and provide some options,” says Men-t. “You don’t need that seven-ounce sirloin as the main dish. We want people to live healthier, longer lives.” •

The Vegan Sisters of Memphis will discuss “The Hazards of Sugar and Salt” at Wild Oats Natural Marketplace (5022 Poplar Ave.) on December 18th at 2 p.m. Cost is $10 and includes a meal. For more information, e-mail the Vegan Sisters at bevegan@healingus.com.

Chef Erling Jensen will be spearheading the annual March of Dimes Signature Chef’s Gala at The Peabody hotel December 12th. Jensen and chefs from the Grove Grill, La Tourelle, Café 1912, Felicia Suzanne’s, Mélange, and many others will be on hand to discuss their signature dishes. Proceeds will go to the West Tennessee chapter of the March of Dimes, which raises awareness about birth defects.

“Erling Jensen is the featured chef because he’s so active in organizing the event,” says Cindy Conner, a volunteer for the Chef’s Gala.

There will be an auction, music from the Gamble Brothers, and comedy from Lenny Clarke.

The March of Dimes hosts similar dinners in other cities, but this one, says Conner, is one of the organization’s premier fund-rasing events nationally. “It usually sells out. It was one of the top 10 last year.”

The cocktail hour will begin at 5:30 p.m. on the Peabody’s mezzanine level where guests can peruse auction items. Tickets cost $125 per person. Call 385-8580 for reservations.

As part of its continuing wine-dinner series, Grill 83 in the Madison Hotel presents a four-course prix fixe menu on the second Tuesday of every month.

“We have a featured wine every month, but December is special,” says Erica Fleming, catering sales manager. “The price is $65, so it’s a little more expensive. We serve our bone-in tenderloin as the entrée. Paradise Ridge wines will be featured, and the winemaker will be there.”

For the December 14th dinner, chef Antony Field will also prepare baked oysters Arcadian. The entrée will be accompanied by grilled vegetable risotto and brandy mushroom sauce followed by a white chocolate mousse with mixed berries for dessert.

The dinner begins at 7 p.m. in the Iris Ballroom. For reservations, call 333-1209.

The Baking Boutique, 5846 Stage Road, puts the icing on the cake. This Bartlett business specializes in candy making, cake baking, and decorating supplies, but it also offers classes.

One of the first classes, perfect for the holiday season, is “Build Your Own Gingerbread House.” The two-hour class begins at noon on December 12th and costs $10, plus $12 for supplies.

“We will supply extra candy, because if the students are like us, they like to eat candy as they go,” says owner Shannon Hamlin, who teaches the increasingly popular skill of cake decorating.

“Going into the early ’90s, people ran out and bought cakes and let somebody else do the work. Now they’re stopping and taking time to learn to decorate and coming up with some of the most beautiful cakes I’ve ever seen. Some do it for personal satisfaction, and some go into business for themselves,” she says.

She and her husband, Scott, opened the store November 22nd, though he still maintains a full-time career with the Navy as a human-resource officer.

“He handles all the business, and I’m in charge of everything creative,” says Shannon, who has been decorating cakes since age 19.

The Hamlins have also created a signature series of chocolates to buy in the store or to learn to make at home.

“People can learn to make chocolate-covered cherries, peanut butter cups, or any kind of candy you can buy in the store,” Shannon says.

For more information, call 372-8779.

Another recently opened business in Bartlett, A&R Bar-B-Que, will celebrate its grand opening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony December 17th at 1 p.m. The new location is in the Stage Coach Collection, 7174 Highway 64.

It’s time for the Holiday Tasting and Gift Fair at Wild Oats Marketplace December 11th, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. This annual open house lets the national grocer showcase its whole-food products while customers get ideas for holiday menus and entertaining. •

Back when people actually cooked as opposed to simply heating products as they do now, stock played an important role in the kitchen. Stockpots provided a sumptuous basis for an endless variety of dishes; when liquid was needed, stock was used to make sauces and gravies, soups, stews, and other types of potage.

A good stock is the foundation upon which great meals are made. Sad to say, nowadays most people use canned broth or bouillon cubes instead, which is like listening to Reba because you have no Patsy. If you care about the quality of your cooking, you’ll want to make your own stock instead of having to resort to miserably bland and over-salted alternatives.

Chicken stock is perhaps the easiest to make and the best for general use. Whenever I cut up a chicken, I take the wingtips, the back, the neck, and the giblets I don’t use (I always eat the liver) and store them in the freezer in an airtight container. (If you’re one of those people who buy chicken only as boned and skinned strips of breast flesh in a neat little plastic-covered Styrofoam packages or if you’re too fastidious to cut up a chicken in the first place, don’t even bother.) When I have enough scraps put away, maybe two or three pounds, I’m ready to make chicken stock.

Put such scraps as you’ve accumulated in your designated stockpot; whatever you use should be nonreactive, preferably stainless-steel. Add enough water to cover, a couple of stalks of celery, one or two carrots, a turnip, two onions (all coarsely chopped), two bay leaves, a clove or so of garlic (smashed), a smidgen of thyme, and about a handful of roughly chopped parsley, stems and all. Simmer this mixture until the liquid is reduced by at least a half, skimming the scruff off the top as you go. This takes awhile; in the meantime, have a beer or two, listen to some Jimmie Rodgers, and write Loretta a fan letter. Then drain off the liquid and return it to the pot. Simmer the stock down until it’s a rich amber color. At this point, it’s not a good idea to add salt because you’re going to season whatever dish you use it in later. When the stock has a good flavor, strain it through a sieve, cool it on the counter for a while, then set it in the refrigerator to chill. If it’s still warm when you set it in the refrigerator, set it on a rack or put a spoon under the container so air can circulate underneath to cool it quicker; otherwise, it might spoil.

Once the stock chills, you’ll end up with a bottom layer of sediment and a layer of jellied stock covered by a layer of yellowish fat. Scrape off the fat with a spoon and store it separately in the freezer for use later to make matzos or potato pancakes. Then spoon out the gel, being careful to avoid as much of the sediment (which should be discarded) as you can, especially if you plan to clarify the stock for consommé or clear soups.

Stock keeps well in the refrigerator for a week or so, but it’s best to just go ahead and freeze it. Use whatever size container you find appropriate for storing your stock. I’ve heard that some people freeze stock in ice trays and store the cubes in plastic bags, but I suspect people who do this are annoyingly obsessive, since this is troublesome, and besides, what if, in a moment of absent-mindedness, you happen to pop a cube of frozen stock out of the tray and into your scotch and soda? I store stock in whatever containers I’ve saved from supermarket products like yogurt and sour cream, pliable ones about a cup in size with a lid that seals well.

Chicken stock is great for everyday use, but for holidays, I buy a whole stewing hen and poach it long and slow with the usual vegetables and herbs. Both the meat and the broth go in with day-old cornbread and other ingredients (most notably, rubbed sage) to make dressing.

Take stock in your cooking; it pays off. •<

Susy and I were rolling out of the mountains after an almost perfect day. We had taken a scenic drive along the river, picked fruit on a farm, walked to a waterfall, eaten lunch in a historic lodge, and ridden the chairlift to a panoramic viewpoint. We had stood above the clouds and looked out over mountains, forest, desert, and city. Then we had plopped ourselves back in the car for the ride back into town.

Just before the forest gave way to RV parks and mini-golf courses, we saw a sign that read “Rainbow Trout Fishing, next right.” Well, I thought, what better way to end a day in the mountains than by catching a nice rainbow for dinner? We could come into town and tell our friends, “That’s right — beautiful scenery, fresh fruit, sky-high adventure, and we caught some fish!”

So off the highway we went and right into a trout farm. I can’t say I honestly expected a twisting mountain stream with an old coot loaning out fly rods, but something a little more romantic than a trout farm would have been nice. There was a smattering of tin sheds, a trailer or two, and a bunch of small, round ponds.

We walked up to a teenager at a folding table and announced we’d like to catch some fish. He hardly lifted an eye as he gave us two rods, a little box of live crickets, and a white plastic bucket. “The ponds are sorted by how big the fish are,” he said. “Whatever you catch, you have to keep. You pay by the size. The lunker pond is over there.” He pointed, without looking, to the farthest pond.

He was hardly a wizened guru, but, hey, I told Susy, let’s go catch some fish! We decided a few foot-long fellas would feed us and my roommate nicely, so we headed for lucky pond #7. I took out a cricket, gaffed the poor bastard onto the hook, and handed the rod to Susy. I grabbed another cricket for my hook, and I was thinking that maybe someday it’d be nice to come back with a fly rod and go hook a two-foot lunker, when all of a sudden I heard a little shriek from Susy. I looked over, and the tip of her rod was bouncing around like a car antenna with a flag on it.

She settled down and reeled it in, and in a few seconds, there was a trout flopping around on the side of the pond. Susy made a whimpering sound as I tossed the squirming fish into the bucket. “Well,” I said, “that was easy.”

I went back to my rod and tossed the cricketed hook into the pond. I was about to tell Susy that I’ll show her how to catch a big fish when, bang, there was a fish on my hook. I didn’t even have the chance to play it! I reeled it in, and then there were two dying fish in our bucket. It had been less than three minutes.

Susy had a look of disbelief on her face. “Do they feed these fish?” she asked. I loaded up another cricket and cast it out there, and this time two fish practically jumped out of the water to hit it. Four minutes, three fish. “They must not feed ’em,” I said. “I think we could tie our car keys to shoestrings, and these fish would hit it.”

We looked at each other, then at our haul. Three fish is what we were thinking for dinner, and there they were. At the farm, you can’t catch just for pleasure. As the boy told us, you catch it, you keep it. “So,” I said, “I, uh, guess we’re done.”

We took our bucket over to the cleaning table, and the three fish — which just moments before were hanging with their buddies in pond #7 — were gutted and beheaded on a bloody slab by another uninterested teenager. We forked over about 17 bucks, and we were on our way. Another day of sport fishing.

As we got to the car, Susy stopped and said, “I’m not really 100 percent on this.” I had to agree. That wasn’t fishing; it was harvesting. It was the same challenge we’d had picking strawberries.

We drove on back to town and went to the grocery store for the rest of our ingredients. I had to shake my head when I saw fresh rainbow trout on ice, for about the same price we had just paid. At home, my roommate wanted to hear all about the day, and she lit up when we produced the fish. “You guys caught those?” she said, with wonder in her voice. “Well,” Susy said. “Yeah. We caught ’em.”

Without saying it, Susy and I decided to latch onto my roommate’s enthusiasm. We went up the river to the mountains, had a great time, and caught some trout for dinner. Now let’s cook the poor little bastards. n

Trout Amandine

1/2 cup sliced almonds

1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted

6 large trout fillets

Salt and pepper to taste

Dried thyme to taste

Milk

All-purpose flour

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley

Lemon wedges

Sauté almonds in butter in a large heavy skillet until golden brown; do not let butter burn. Transfer to a bowl and set aside. Sprinkle fillets with salt, pepper, and thyme; dip in milk and dredge in flour. Fry fillets in hot oil (360 degrees F.) in skillet over medium heat until golden brown, turning once. Drain on paper towels. Transfer to a serving platter; sprinkle with almonds and parsley and drizzle with any remaining browned butter. Serve with lemon wedges. Yield: 6 servings.

Secure can opener onto can. Twist, twist, twist. Upend can to loosen contents. Nothing. Shake, shake, shake. Plop.

There! The cranberry, in very saucy form, makes its holiday appearance. But what is it about this red, quivering mass, still so perfectly can-shaped? Why the cranberry? Why does it become so much more prevalent at this time of the year?

Cranberries are a fall fruit. Harvesting begins shortly after Labor Day and continues until the end of October. Thus, fresh cranberries are available just in time for the holidays.

In the early days, cranberries were handpicked. Now, there are two common methods for harvesting: wet-picked and dry-picked. Most cranberries are wet-picked, which requires that the cranberry bogs be flooded so that a water reel, known to farmers as an egg beater, can move through the bogs, beating the water to shake the ripe berries off the vine. The berries, which contain little air pockets, float to the top and can easily be herded onto a conveyor belt. Cranberries harvested this way are used to make sauces, juices, jams, and jellies. Only a small amount of cranberries gets dry-picked, using a machine that rotates through the vines to collect the berries. These berries — described as tasting both bitter and sour — are sold in stores as fresh fruit.

The cranberry has also been called the bearberry and the bounce-berry. It follows then that cranes like to eat them and bears do too. (For the record, cranberries actually do bounce. Bouncing them on the floor is a way to check their ripeness and freshness. If they bounce, they are good to go.) Cranes build their nests in cranberry bogs, but it is also believed that the berry’s name may stem from the fruit’s flowers, which dip down and resemble the head of a crane. The first recorded use of the word “cranberry” was in a letter written in 1647 by a missionary named John Eliot.

The cranberry is one of only three commercially important fruits that originated in North America. (The blueberry and the Concord grape are the other two.) Ironically, however, cranberry sauce is one of the most dreaded side dishes to the Thanksgiving turkey and Christmas ham.

It is unclear if cranberries were served at the first Thanksgiving in 1621, because there is no complete record of the foods that were shared. Some say cranberry sauce was widely introduced by General Ulysses S. Grant, who ordered it served to Union soldiers during the siege of Petersburg, Virginia, in 1864. The first commercially canned cranberry sauce was available in 1912, when the Cape Cod Cranberry Company introduced its Ocean Spray Cape Cod Cranberry Sauce to the market. The company later merged with other cranberry growers to become Ocean-Spray Corporation.

Although the thought of yet another year at grandma’s house with canned cranberry sauce may give some people the chills, there are many other, truly delicious ways to include cranberries in a holiday meal (whole cookbooks about cranberries have been written) — cranberry orange relish, cranberry eggnog tart, cranberry ginger chutney, cranberry winter pudding, cranberry vodka punch, and “pemmican.” Pemmican is a cake that was made by Native Americans as a food reserve and source of protein and vitamins during the cold winter months. It consisted of fat, dried deer, bear, or moose meat, and fresh cranberries, which were pounded together and then dried.

Come to think of it, canned cranberry sauce doesn’t sound too bad after all. •

by Simone Barden

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FOOD NEWS

by Sonia Alexander Hill

Linda Waller, former owner of Puck’s near Overton Square, has opened her newest restaurant, the Azalea Grill, in a residential neighborhood near the University of Memphis.

“We [had] a soft opening,” says Waller. “After we get the kinks worked out, we may have a grand-opening event January 1st.”

She and partner Jimmy Skefos named the restaurant after the flowering shrubs that were blooming when they first looked at the property, which is located at 786 Echles. They spent many hours remodeling the building, which got its start as a mom-and-pop grocery and has been a number of restaurants over the years. Waller added a piano bar with a baby grand for nightly entertainment.

“It’s a magical building,” says Waller. “It’s such a hidden treasure in this little neighborhood.”

Waller describes the menu as “casual American dining with French influences” and says the grilled rack of lamb with roasted garlic and plum sauce was a popular dish among guests at the restaurant’s opening on November 16th. “The other thing everyone loved was pistachio-crusted sea bass with a sour cherry and Zinfandel glaze,” she says. “We also have free-range chicken and vegetarian specials. For dessert, vanilla cheesecake is one of my favorites with strawberry poached in Riesling and rosewater or chocolate whiskey cake with fresh whipped cream.”

In addition to owning Puck’s, Waller, who trained at the New York Restaurant School, also has worked at Café Society and Mantia’s.

“I’m a third-generation chef,” says Waller, whose grandfather was the executive chef for the Saddle, a restaurant located in the Admiral Benbow Inn in Memphis. “I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I’ve worked everywhere.”

The Azalea Grill is open Tuesday through Saturday from 5 to 10 p.m. For more information, call 452-0022.

NEW YORK MIXOLOGIST Nick Mautone, au-thor of the newly released book Raising the Bar: Better Drinks, Better Entertaining, will tap the keg at Boscos’ Monday-night Happy Hour Club on November 29th.

Mautone is the resident mixologist at New York’s Gramercy Tavern and owns his own restaurant, Trina, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

“He will tap the keg at 5:30 p.m. and give a brief demonstration with a few drinks from the book,” says Melody Meyer of Artisan, the book’s publisher. “Nick is a foodie and a bartender, so he’ll be answering questions about holiday entertaining.”

In Raising the Bar, Mautone shares his favorite recipes and tips for stocking a home bar and entertaining.

The free event is presented by Davis-Kidd Booksellers. Boscos is located at 2120 Madison. For more information, call 432-2222.

Get in the holiday spirit with Christmas in Collierville December 3rd-6th. Festivities at the town’s historic square kick off Friday with a parade at 7 p.m. Saturday is filled with shopping, entertainment, horse-drawn carriage rides, and, of course, a visit from St. Nick. New attractions this year include an ice-skating rink, a reading of the book The Polar Express aboard the square’s vintage train car, and an outdoor screening of It’s a Wonderful Life. The movie, along with hot dogs, s’mores, and hot chocolate, will be served free in Confederate Park.

“We set up the movie screen on the gazebo, so everyone can bring lawn chairs and blankets,” said Amy Sax, executive assistant for Main Street Collierville. “There is no fee, but we’re asking people to bring nonperishable food items for the Collierville Food Pantry, which serves people in need. During the holidays, it’s especially important to help keep that stocked.”

The weekend culminates with “A Dickens Dinner” at Seasons at the White Church on Sunday and Monday evening. Guests can step back in time and enjoy a dramatic reading between courses of roasted turkey and flaming Christmas pudding. The Collierville restaurant will feature a quiet holiday setting, complete with servers dressed in Victorian clothes. The five-course menu will feature recipes passed down through the Dickens family and adapted by chefs Sam Long and Brian Harwell.

Tickets are $40 per person. For reservations, call 853-1666.

Cakes ‘•’ Things, once located in the Midtown Co-Op, has a new home at Valenza Pasta, 1329 Madison.

Business partners and longtime friends Barry Huddleston and Chris Turney, along with wedding coordinator Johnny Hardaway, primarily design wedding cakes. However, the shop also features fresh-baked pies, cheesecakes, cookies, and holiday pastries. •

“Chefs and Chiefs,” the annual benefit that helps support educational programs at the Chucalissa Archaeological Museum, will be held at Chez Philippe in The Peabody hotel at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, November 14th. Chez Philippe’s Jose Gutierrez will be joined by other chefs, including Karen Carrier of Automatic Slim’s, Cielo, Beauty Shop, and Another Roadside Attraction catering, Nick Vergos of the Rendezvous, Erling Jensen of Erling Jensen restaurant, and Stan Gibson of the University Club of Memphis. New to this year’s event will be chefs Lee Craven and Trish Berry of Madidi, the upscale restaurant in downtown Clarksdale, Mississippi, owned by actor Morgan Freeman and attorney Bill Luckett.

Native-American cuisine will be served, and although the dinner’s setting is swank, the event is geared toward a comfortable come-as-you-are atmosphere. A silent auction and a flute performance will entertain guests.

“Some people donate things they find in the attic. We encourage Native-American items, but we accept anything,” says Charles H. McNutt, president of the Friends of Chucalissa and a retired archaeology professor from the University of Memphis. “We have some things that go for $30 and some that go for $3,000.”

Tickets for the event are $150 per person. For more information, call 452-7554.

Colder weather means “Soup Saturdays” at Memphis Botanic Garden’s café, Fratelli’s. Every Saturday through mid-December, restaurant owner and chef Sabine Baltz will prepare four homemade soups from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

“Every week the soups will be different,” Baltz says. “If it’s successful, I may continue it after the first of the year, while it’s cold outside.”

On November 13th, featured soups include butternut squash, cream of asparagus, old-fashioned chicken with dumplings, and Italian wedding soup. All soups will be served with toasted asiago bread.

In addition to “Soup Saturdays,” Fratelli’s also holds “Tuesdays on the Terrace.” On the last Tuesday of the month, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., Fratelli’s will host a wine tasting and serve finger foods. On November 30th, the theme will be “Pansies and Pinots.” The cost is $20 or $15 for members.

Fratelli’s still serves the paninis and focaccia that were the trademarks of the downtown deli before it moved to the Botanic Garden last spring.

Baltz likes the new site, which is centrally located in East Memphis. The garden also offers a beautiful backdrop, especially when it’s warm enough to enjoy the terrace.

“It’s really kind of an overlooked little jewel,” Baltz says.

Midtown has a new choice for Middle-Eastern/Mediterranean food: Boogey’s Bistro, 288 N. Cleveland.

“Especially in Midtown, people love the fresh hummus and falafel,” says manager Nikki Melton. “It definitely has a Midtown flavor. We’re casual, relaxed, and we welcome all people to come.”

The restaurant opened in September and is owned by Terry Digel and Najeh Salim. Salim, a native of Jerusalem, is the primary chef responsible for creating dishes like the restaurant’s specialty, shwarma.

“Shwarma is turkey thighs that are seasoned and cooked on the rotisserie, then shaved and served on homemade pita bread,” Melton says. “We also have lamb dishes served with rice and salad and hummus made fresh every day and some vegetarian dishes.”

In addition, the menu features such American favorites as hamburgers, fries, and salads, and Digel makes homemade desserts. The restaurant is open daily from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

A $5 raffle ticket will win a dinner for two a month at 12 participating restaurants in DeSoto and Shelby counties. The funds will benefit First Book — Mid-South, a branch of the national organization that helps provide books for children of low-income families.

“Each certificate is a little different depending on what the menu is. For one restaurant, it might be $75, or for another it’s two entrées and two drinks,” says Eileen Saunders, co-founder of the local First Book. “There’s a wide range of restaurants like Bonne Terre, Timbeaux’s, and McAllister’s in DeSoto County and the Magnolia Grill, Capriccio, and Brontë café in Memphis.”

Tickets can be purchased through November 30th at the Book Haven, 579 Goodman Road, Southaven, or by mail at Table for Two, P.O. Box 1796, Southaven, Mississippi, 38671. The drawing will be held on December 8th. For more information, call 662-404-0816.

Following the 4 p.m. performance of excerpts from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado by the Ole Miss Opera Theatre November 14th, Café de France will be serving desserts and coffee at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens. For more information, call 761-5250.

I was in the front yard when my buddy Thumper drove by slowly. He tossed something out his window at me.

“I’ll see you tonight,” he hollered, speeding away, as I held out my hands to catch the flying package.

It was a dressed and frozen rabbit, which I placed, still wrapped in plastic, in a big bowl of hot water to thaw. I had all day to decide what to do with it.

At a fancy restaurant, I recently saw rabbit on a menu, roasted with tarragon and rosemary. I was struck by how this preparation resembled the way one might prepare chicken. Indeed, the tastes-like-chicken comparison surpasses only the rabbit’s mating capacity in the annals of rabbit cliché.

But why, I wondered, would a rabbit taste like a chicken? A rabbit is a mammal, like a cow. A chicken is a bird. My farmer friend Bob doesn’t ask why. “Rabbit’s a little drier,” he says, “not as fatty. But you can do anything to rabbit that you would to chicken. We always have some rabbit stock simmering on the stove.”

I scoured the Internet in search of interesting ways to cook rabbit. The best site I found was http://diju.tripod.com/Rabbit/recipes.html, where I was tempted to try “Beer-Butt Rabbit,” in which open cans of beer are stuffed with chopped garlic and onions, and the rabbit, rubbed in spices, is draped over the beer cans on a grill. But I had only three cans of Pabst left, and I didn’t want to split the last one with Thumper.

Another recipe read, “Grill for two hours, or until legs and wings wiggle freely.”

Was that an avian slip or are the front limbs of rabbits really called “wings”?

I settled on a recipe for braised rabbit with prunes. If you want the recipe exactly as it appeared, you can find it on that Web page. I modified it in a few key ways, substituting breadcrumbs for flour, adding whole garlic cloves, and most important, I swapped fresh plums for prunes.

Plums! Now is the season, and my little tree is finally producing fruit. How could I go to the store and get dried plums (aka prunes) when plums hang ripe on the tree? Okay, technically, plums and prunes are not exactly the same. Prunes are a type of plum that is usually dried. But I’m not here to split hairs; just rabbits.

I cut off the arms and legs (which really did resemble wings), drumsticks, and thighs. I sliced across the long torso, through the vertebrae, until I had manageable chunks. I treated the liver and heart like everything else. First, I seasoned the meat with salt and pepper and dredged it in breadcrumbs. In a large cast-iron skillet, I melted four tablespoons of butter on medium heat and slowly browned the rabbit parts. Once everything was brown and crispy I placed it all in a big cast-iron pot and added two cups of chicken stock. Then I added two pounds of fresh, split, and pitted plums (more plums would be fine). Finally, I added the whole cloves of a head of garlic and another 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs. I stirred it all together and baked it with the lid on, stirring occasionally, at 375 for about 2 1/2 hours, or until the rabbit was falling-off-the-bone tender.

Thumper came over with a container of fresh feta cheese. We made a salad while the rabbit cooled to an edible temperature.

It was an Atkins evening of rabbit and salad vinaigrette, which complemented each other beautifully. The best part was the liver, drenched in plum sauce.

Thus began my exploration of the plum. The next day I marinated salmon in soy sauce, garlic, and ginger. Meanwhile, I cooked some chopped bacon and fresh plums and a little cider vinegar. When the plums dissolved, I added the salmon and the marinade to the pan and fried it home. Ooo la la.

Yes, the plum and the rabbit have taught me plenty. But there is so much more to know. If anyone ever tries “Beer-Butt Rabbit,” please tell me what it’s like.

“It’s almost a revolution, what’s going on in New Orleans’ kitchens today,” says Chef Joseph Carey, founder and chief instructor at the Memphis Culinary Academy, whose new book, Creole Nouvelle, explores the latest trends in New Orleans’ oldest cuisine.

Carey was born and raised in New Orleans. He became a combat photographer and journalist while serving in Vietnam. When his hitch was up, he moved to San Francisco, where he lived for 16 years, opening a series of restaurants, including a Creole place in Oakland.

“I left New Orleans and only went back after many years away, so I saw it with brand-new eyes,” he says. “I saw it as a person from the outside.”

What Carey saw in New Orleans was a brilliant cuisine stunted by an excess of tradition and menus that were increasingly submissive to the tourist dollar. But in the San Francisco Bay area, that crazy quilt of colors, cultures, and lifestyles that clash and coalesce in unexpected ways, Carey wasn’t oppressed by tradition or hemmed in by tourists with expectations.

“I found this place called the Housewife’s Market in downtown Oakland,” Carey says. “It was like a European marketplace. There were butcher stalls with meat. There were stalls with fresh produce, good cheeses, fresh seafood from Louisiana, crabs, and shrimp. There was even a guy who made his own sausage: andouille and boudin blanc. Before I found this place, I didn’t know there had been a huge migration of blacks from New Orleans to Oakland. But there was, and since I was running a Creole restaurant, this was absolutely wonderful for me.

“So I was able to get all of these great ingredients. Then I started changing some things. I started learning more Asian techniques,” he says. “I started taking jambalaya, which is traditionally a baked rice dish, and preparing it as a stir fry. I kept trying more and more things, and I started to really like what was happening with all of these changes.”

Another change: Carey moved to Memphis in 1984 in order to open the Memphis Culinary Academy.

“There were already too many schools in San Francisco. And there was nothing in the middle of the country. There wasn’t even a school in New Orleans,” Carey says.

He has also opened several restaurants over the years, including the Cafe Meridian and the King Cotton. And now comes the cookbook, Creole Nouvelle, which was released this month, and two more books are in the planning stage.

In Carey’s hands, King cake, the blandest of all New Orleans’ desserts, takes on a new life. The cinnamon-laced filling is rich and creamy, and the semisweet dough leans heavily in the direction of brioche. His seafood gumbo is almost airy, emphasizing the herbed stock, the shrimp, and the crab over the charred, nearly chocolate flavors of traditional brown roux.

“Most of the recipes for gumbo start ‘First, you make a roux.’ Then you throw everything into the roux,” Carey says. “In classical French cooking, you add the roux last. That’s what I do. And I use a lighter roux [so you can treat the gumbo] more like a soup.”

Even the decidedly blue-collar oyster po’ boy, a soggy French loaf stuffed with battered oysters and slathered in mayo, is given a glamorous makeover in Creole Nouvelle. Crispy fried oysters are served open-faced on an onion roll with an aïoli spread, shredded romaine lettuce, and just a dash of Tabasco. Compared to the original, it almost seems healthy.

To round out his book, Carey has included traditional Creole recipes twisted into something new by some of New Orleans’ most creative chefs. Anne Kearney of Peristyle, Susan Spicer of Bayona, John Harris of Lilette, Donald Link of Herbsaint, and Peter Vasquez of Marisol have all contributed to the recipes collected in Creole Nouvelle.

When Louisiana cooking became a national rage in the 1980s, buoyed by the marketing savvy of Paul Prudhomme and the syndicated success of Justin Wilson, the flavors were mostly Cajun.

“Cajun cooking is a bit more rustic. I like to call that kind of cooking ‘down home New World French,'” Carey says. Creole cooking is more refined and less fiery.

New Orleans was founded by French colonists in 1718, and “Creole” is derived from a word meaning “born domestically.” Creole cooking, which absorbed elements of Spanish and Italian cooking, was America’s first fully realized domestic cuisine where Old World techniques were applied to the endless supply of nontraditional ingredients available in Louisiana. From the beginning it was defined by chefs working in restaurants, not by people cooking at home.

In Creole Nouvelle, Carey and his guest chefs expand the Creole palate by extending the list of ethnic influences. The results: crab and coconut soup, boudin-stuffed quail with fig sauce, and brazed duck on a buttermilk biscuit with blood-orange marmalade. And that’s just for starters.

For more Carey and Creole Nouvelle, watch local bookstores throughout November when Carey will demonstrate recipes and sign copies of the book.