Tag: Food

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Turn the Page

Last year, Melissa and Kjeld Petersen were lured to Memphis by barbecue. This year, they are moving from Portland, Oregon, to the Bluff City to start Edible Memphis, a quarterly food magazine scheduled to hit stands later this month.

“My husband loves barbecue, and taking a trip to the barbecue festival in Memphis had long been on his list,” says Melissa Petersen. The couple finally made it last May. And while they had fun at the cooking contest, they were also impressed by the then-weeks’-old Memphis Farmers Market downtown and a dinner at Wally Joe.

Because Kjeld had cooked at the James Beard House, he was interested in local chefs who had done the same and tracked down Wally Joe.

“We have eaten at many great places around the country, and you know how it is with chefs when they eat out. They are very hard to please,” Melissa says. “Our dinner at Wally Joe is still one of our top three all-time favorites, and we would have never expected to find that in Memphis.

“We were strolling in front of The Peabody and just looked at each other and said, ‘This feels really good. I think we could live here,'” Melissa recalls.

Food is the couple’s passion, and food is the driving force behind their move to Memphis. They settled in Portland three years ago after meeting “on the job” in San Diego. Kjeld started his cooking career with a summer job in high school, which turned into a career that now spans 30 years, including stints at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel and the California Culinary Academy. He is an advocate for using regional and local foods in restaurants and a strong supporter of farm-to-chef programs.

Melissa learned to cook because in her family the rule was that whoever cooks dinner didn’t have to do the dishes. She went to culinary school after running the marketing departments for software companies for more than a decade. She has cooked for several top southern California food businesses, including the award-winning Waters Fine Catering in San Diego.

In Oregon, the couple started Wild Plum, a catering and fine-foods business, and became involved with Edible Oregon, a food magazine similar to the one they are bringing to Memphis and similar to the ones published on Cape Cod, and in Boston, Atlanta, and more than a dozen other U.S. cities.

The magazine was started as a quarterly newsletter in Ojai, California, five years ago. Food enthusiasts and co-founders Tracy Ryder and Carole Topalian set out to educate people about food in Ojai, a farming and artists’ community in a coastal valley. More specifically, they wanted to create awareness of local foods by focusing on how people shop for, cook, eat, and relate to the food grown in their area. The newsletter included stories about farmers, produce, and markets.

When Saveur magazine included Edible Ojai in its annual “Saveur 100,” a list of favorite restaurants, food, drink, people, places, and things in 2004, Ryder and Topalian received countless phone calls from like-minded people who wanted to start a similar newsletter. Ryder and Topalian established Edible Communities (www.ediblecommunities.com) within the year. Their goal was to help people set up similar publications. With the assistance of entrepreneur Steve Hock, whose father developed the Visa card, the two created a workable business model that allows them to support the start-up of new magazines while not interfering with the local focus.

“When we first visited Memphis, we had a feeling that something is happening here,” Melissa says. “You have this rich history, the amazing Southern Foodways Alliance right at your door, and a community with many people who remember eating vegetables right out of their parents’ or grandparents’ backyard garden. And then there is this renewed awareness in locally grown and produced foods within the community and among local chefs — it just seemed like the right time for Edible Memphis.”

The first issue is scheduled to hit local bookstores, restaurants, coffee shops, and food outlets in late April. “We are working very hard to get this first issue out on Earth Day, which is April 22nd,” Melissa says. Articles were written by local writers, farmers, chefs, and others. An annual subscription to the magazine (four issues) is $28. However, production costs are carried mostly by advertisers, who in turn agree to a certain number of magazines in their stores. Store owners can decide to sell those copies or make them available free of charge.

www.ediblememphis.com

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

On the Job

The Peabody’s Capriccio Grill has hired Brian Barrow to be its new chef de cuisine. Barrow, a California native, began his cooking career in his late 20s after leaving his family’s construction business. He attended Johnson & Wales University’s College of Culinary Arts in Miami and stayed in Florida after graduation to work for the Ambassador Hotel in Fort Lauderdale and Do & Co International Event Catering.

As executive chef for all of Do & Co’s domestic operations, Barrow was responsible for a staff of 138 that catered events in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami. Barrow soon built a reputation for being able to shape any kitchen into an efficient operation that consistently turns out great food.

At Capriccio, Barrow will be cooking up prime steaks and chops, and he’ll be starting a series of quarterly wine dinners.

Capriccio Grill, 149 Union (529-4199)

Sheri McKelvie is the new pastry chef at the Inn at Hunt Phelan.

McKelvie, who worked for the now-defunct City Bread bakery, started La Morinda, her own wholesale bakery, two years ago. She supplied European-style crusty breads to area restaurants, including the Majestic Grille and the Inn at Hunt Phelan as well as local coffee shops and delis. Stephen Hassinger, who heads Hunt Phelan’s kitchen, plans on having McKelvie bake at least some of Hunt Phelan’s breads but wants her to focus on pastries first. The position was vacated by Heather Ries, who has taken a position as personal chef to a local food entrepreneur.

The Inn at Hunt Phelan, 533 Beale (525-8225)

The Viking Cooking School is offering two not-so-everyday classes in April.

The Essential Wine Series, starting on April 2nd, is a six-week course designed for the wine lover who wants to learn more. The series was developed for Viking by Karen MacNeil, chairwoman of the wine department at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley, star of the PBS series Wine, Food & Friends, and author of the award-winning Wine Bible. The first two-hour session focuses on wine tasting — what you should look for in a wine, how to know if a wine tastes the way it should, what makes great wine great, etc. The next five sessions focus on specific wines: crisp and aromatic whites, elegant and earthy reds, as well as sparkling and dessert wines.

The price for the class, including a copy of The Wine Bible and a wine aroma wheel, is $399.

Roland Mesnier, former executive pastry chef at the White House, will be at Viking on April 13th for a demonstration class about presidential desserts.

Mesnier grew up one of nine children in a small village (population 140) in France. He began his culinary career at age 14 in a French pastry shop and traveled extensively to learn recipes and techniques from other countries. During his career, he has worked at pastry shops in Germany and at hotels, such as the Savoy in London, Georges V in Paris, and the Princess Hotel International in Bermuda. In 1979, first lady Rosalyn Carter recruited Mesnier from the Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, Virginia. His career at the White House spanned 25 years.

During his years at the White House, he worked endless hours, one time making 1,500 cookies without assistance and another time preparing half a ton of fruitcake, also by himself. When he retired in the summer of 2004, Mesnier had created hundreds of desserts for state dinners, teas, parties, and receptions, without ever making the same dessert twice.

The price for the demonstration class, which runs from 6:30 to 9 p.m. on April 19th, is $79.

For more information on both classes, visit vikingcookingschool.com.

Viking Cooking School, 1215 Ridgeway (763-3747)

Back by popular demand are the Saturday-morning cooking classes at River Oaks Restaurant. Chef Benjamin Vaughn and local guest chefs will focus on preparations that can easily be re-created at home. In the first class on April 7th, students will learn the culinary basics, a course that will continue the following week with the next level. Then it’s classes on sushi, elegant and easy desserts, shopping like a chef, knife skills, tapas and martinis, and the ultimate spring dinner party.

Classes are $30; lunch included. Reservations are required. River Oaks Restaurant, 5871 Poplar (683-9305)

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News The Fly-By

For Beer! For Whiskey! For Ireland!

CREDIT: Jarek78 | Dreamstime.com

As much as I love the color green, spilled green beer has a tendency to stain the floor. For this reason, not as many pubs as you might think sell the stuff on St. Patrick’s Day. But people who take real pride in their Irish heritage come prepared.

A few patrons at Celtic Crossing in Cooper-Young did just that, bringing bottles of green food coloring to dye their beer. They were happy to share with the other patrons, assuring me that the best way to celebrate all things Irish is through imbibing Technicolor beer. I had to admire their resourcefulness, even if I was the one handing them their beverages instead of the one drinking them under the table.

It was St. Patrick’s Day, and I was a server at an Irish pub.

All kinds of people walked in the door that morning. A group of 20-somethings arrived with babies in tow, jokingly ordering whiskey to get the tots started early. One young man showed up with an inexpertly clipped moustache and a black bowler hat, claiming to be James Joyce. We even had a professional leprechaun.

Things got hectic around 1 p.m., when a group of Irish step dancers ages 7 to 15 filed onto the pub floor and began shaking the foundation. When an 8-year-old boy began dancing with two girls, both with ringlet curls and rainbow-colored dresses, he was greeted with rousing applause.

“Look at that little pimp!” someone shouted. The kid grinned without missing a step.

During the dance, the restaurant became packed with Irish and non-Irish alike, eager to partake in any excuse to drink to their heart’s content. Instead of pushing my way through the crowd, I found it easier to walk through the side door of the restaurant, round the patio, and come back in the front door. Going up the steps was tricky, as I had as many beers as I could hold without my arms collapsing under the weight. My feet started to hurt around trip 30.

Only once was I effectively blocked. The crowd was close around me, a table obstructed my immediate path, and to my right, the step dancers were kicking their legs into the air. I was carrying 12 beers and my arms were getting tired. I needed to get through.

I ducked under a table, avoided the dancers’ legs, and came out the other side without spilling a drop. My customers loved it. Luckily for me, most of the tables at the restaurant are a comfortable three-and-a-half feet high.

My mission that Saturday: to help hundreds of Memphians celebrate their Irish heritage. Judging from the happy staggers of my customers as they walked to their cabs, I think I can say that I succeeded.

Even if they did have to bring their own green food coloring.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Checking In

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Penny McGraw, who headed the kitchen at the Brooks Museum’s Brushmark for several years, has recently taken a position with Starwood Hotels & Resorts to be the executive chef at the Westin Hotel downtown, which is scheduled to open in May.

After leaving the Brushmark last year, McGraw briefly took charge of the kitchen at McEwen’s on Monroe before she decided to pursue her dream of owning her own restaurant.

What McGraw had envisioned was a small neighborhood restaurant with a great wine bar and simple, affordable food — a place where lasting relationships with customers can be built. “I’ve been to so many great neighborhood restaurants like that in Chicago,” McGraw says. “I always thought of the concept as affordable fine dining.”

McGraw was close to taking over an already-established restaurant in Midtown, but the deal fell through. And though she’s taken the position at Westin, McGraw hasn’t given up owning a restaurant so much as postponed it. “It’s just not going to happen now, and I’m really lucky to have gotten this opportunity with Westin,” McGraw says. At the hotel, she will oversee the food for banquets, meetings, weddings, and special events.

Westin Hotels and Resorts was founded in 1930 as Western Hotels, an alliance between two hotel competitors who happened to have breakfast at the same diner one morning and decided, over coffee, to work together. As the hotel group began to grow from a hotel chain with 17 properties in the Northwest to a world leader with more than 120 properties in 24 countries, it began to set standards for the hotel industry. It was the first to offer 24-hour room service, develop in-house training for executive chefs, and implement comprehensive credit-card reservation and checkout systems.

The Westin Memphis offers rooms for guests with special needs, and almost an entire floor is designed for the extra-tall, so that NBA players staying there don’t have to feel like they’ve entered a dollhouse. “It’s really amazing,” McGraw says. “The standard that most people are used to gets taken to a completely other level. I have a state-of-the art kitchen and full creative freedom, and the NBA players who choose to stay here have larger beds, bathrooms, and door frames.”

The hotel’s restaurant is the Daily Grill. Spence McMillan, who most recently cooked at Grill 901 in Collierville, will be the chef, and Neil Heaslett, a New Orleans native who most recently worked for Brinker International Restaurant Chain (Chili’s, On the Border Mexican Grill & Cantina, Romano’s Macaroni Grill, and others), will be the restaurant’s general manager.

The Daily Grill — which will feature popcorn shrimp, spinach-artichoke dip, charbroiled steaks and chops, braised short ribs, cedar-plank salmon, chicken potpie, and meatloaf — has its roots in a Beverly Hills restaurant opened in the ’80s called the Grill on the Alley, which prided itself on being a “bastion of straightforward classic American cuisine.”

The Grill on the Alley became one of the L.A. area’s hot spots, and its founders decided to make their concept available to a larger crowd and thus developed the Daily Grill. It opened in Brentwood (a fashionable L.A. neighborhood) and spread through California and, after merging with Magellan Restaurant Systems in 1995, throughout the United States. The Grill’s trademark is big portions of classic American cuisine for affordable prices.

In addition to the Daily Grill and special-events catering, the Westin will offer its guests the option of dining at a lobby bar, which will serve lighter fare. There will be a Starbucks as well.

The Daily Grill is scheduled to open on April 9th, with the hotel ready to accommodate guests on May 1st.

The Westin Memphis, 170 Lt. George W. Lee (334-5900)

Wendell Price of Wendell’s World Beat Grill has opened Wendell’s 24/7 Nouvelle Soul Bar & Grill in the space that used to be Las Magaritas Mexican Bar and Grill inside the Artisan Hotel at Union and McLean in Midtown.

Price, a native of Texas, inherited his love of cooking from generations of passionate cooks in his family. After serving in the Navy, Price settled in Los Angeles, where he was a sought-after caterer and where he eventually opened a soul-food restaurant called Ya Mama’s. He opened Wendell’s World Beat Grill in Memphis’ South Main Historic Arts District in the summer of 2002.

Wendell’s 24/7 offers breakfast, lunch, and dinner as well as a buffet and room service. It’s open from 8 a.m. to 1 a.m.

Wendell’s 24/7 Nouvelle Soul Bar & Grill, 1837 Union (729-2442)

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

In the Meantime

Interim opened this week in the space formerly occupied by Wally Joe restaurant. Interim’s executive chef is Wally Joe protégé Jackson Kramer. On board with Kramer are: general manager David McWhorter, who until recently worked in a similar position at the Grove Grill; bar manager Chris Williams; sous chef Brian Ellis, who helped to get Boscos in Little Rock off the ground; and lead cook Duncan Aiken, who most recently worked for Stella and is in the process of opening his own restaurant downtown.

As to the future of a restaurant named Interim — Fred Carl Jr., founder and CEO of Viking Range Corporation and former majority owner of Wally Joe restaurant, doesn’t want to keep it a secret that the place is for sale. Carl would consider maintaining an ownership position with the right “operator” so long as he remains in the background, as is the case with the three restaurants he owns in Greenwood, Mississippi (Delta Fresh Market, Mockingbird Bakery, and Giardina’s).

Interim aims for a slightly more casual dining atmosphere than Wally Joe, with a menu that appeals to a wider range of customers. Appetizers and salads range from $5 to $14 and include oysters on the half shell, macaroni-and-cheese casserole with country ham and herb and Parmesan crust, and a Caesar salad topped with grilled chicken or fried oysters. Entrées start at $15 and include grilled beef tenderloin with garlic mashed potatoes, broccolini, fried onions and red-wine sauce or blue-cheese butter; bow-tie pasta with sage pesto, roasted tomatoes, radicchio, and Fontina cheese; and sesame-crusted salmon with glazed baby carrots, taro root purée, and miso sauce.

Interim is open Monday through Saturday at 5:30 p.m. for dinner only.

Interim, 5040 Sanderlin (818-0821)

After much anticipation, Spindini, Judd Grisanti‘s new restaurant in the South Main Historic District, is opening soon.

The concept is “simple, elegant Italian,” but in true Grisanti fashion, Spindini can’t be summed up so easily. For one thing, Grisanti has rediscovered an ancient way of preparing his dishes (and one that fascinates so many males): cooking with fire. In this case, the fire is smoldering in a $30,000 custom-built, wood-burning oven that is the center of attention from every point in the restaurant — aside from Grisanti, who’ll be right there shoving food in and out of the oven using a multitude of pedals. Even the wood — red oak and hickory — is chopped on the premises by the chef himself.

Spindini seats 120, and the kitchen takes up approximately 500 of the 3,900-square-foot space. But just outside the back door is a walk-in cooler that could easily fit the family sedan. A private dining room for up to 20 people is in the back of the restaurant, with more space for special events in a building next door. There’s a parking lot with 50 spaces on the north side of the building, and 100 feet of South Main frontage will be transformed into a patio in the early spring, and that might still not cover it all.

The restaurant’s interior, revamped in a contemporary style by archimania, mixes shades of black and charcoal with copper and earth tones. Most seating is banquette-style with a few free-standing tables near the oven. The bar and the “chef’s table” (the bar around the oven) offer seating, and flat-screen televisions will keep diners in the entrance lounge entertained.

The restaurant’s atmosphere is laid-back, with a $5 martini bar, live music some nights, and early hours for dinner. Appetizers include: beef and tuna carpaccio; Miss Mary’s salad; bacon-wrapped spiedini (skewered) shrimp; and Grisanti’s oysters Rockefeller soup. Entrées include: trout stuffed with apple-wood smoked bacon, tarragon, and Yukon-gold potatoes; Tuscan beef steak; double-thick pork chops with herbed gnocchi, cremini mushrooms, and shallots; and a variety of pizza and pasta dishes, such as lobster ravioli, smoked chicken fettucini, and white pizza with potato cream and portabella mushrooms. Diners can also choose from original Grisanti family favorites, such as spaghetti with Grisanti Bolognese, ravioli Mezzo Mezzo, manicotti, and eggplant Rollatini.

Spindini is open daily from 4 p.m. for dinner only.

Spindini, 383 S. Main

siba@gmx.com

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Dessert Done Light

You really love big, splashy desserts, don’t you? And you’re a little scared of them too, right? Scared to try to make one; scared of what it will do to your waistline?

We all are. And Nick Malgieri has a couple of messages for us. “A lot of good desserts are naturally low in calories,” he says — and, yes, you read that right. “Not everything has to be as rich as an 800-calorie slice of cheesecake.”

And then there’s this: “Baking isn’t science. You don’t need to put on your lab coat and sterilize everything. Sometimes, when people are writing about food, they think that describing a complicated process adds a veneer of credibility or scientific accuracy. I don’t know where that came from.”

To tackle these two myths, Malgieri has teamed up with healthy-cooking author David Joachim to write Perfect Light Desserts (Morrow, $29.95). The subtitle suggests the book’s twofold mission: “Fabulous Cakes, Cookies, Pies, and More Made with Real Butter, Sugar, Flour, and Eggs, All Under 300 Calories Per Generous Serving.”

On Wednesday, January 24th, Malgieri will do a baking workshop at the Viking Cooking School.

To create the book, Malgieri drew on his personal collection of some 8,000 cookbooks and 60,000 recipes, one dating back to when he was 6 years old: his Sicilian grandmother’s recipe for arancini di riso, or rice balls. He speaks Italian, French, and German, so he draws information from several cultures.

Perfect Light Desserts pretty much takes you by the hand and shows you how to bake; in fact, How To Bake is the title of an earlier Malgieri book, which won the James Beard Award. With this one, he starts with a discussion of equipment and ingredients, all of them “familiar to the home cook and easy to find in the average supermarket.” Malgieri says he’s “big on plain old ingredients. People have to be able to get what I used so the recipes have credibility.”

He also gives basic instructions on things like how to measure flour. (You should spoon it into the measuring cup, to avoid compacting it.) He also discusses how long to beat egg batter, choosing the right pan, and even specific brands to look for and why.

He insists that the low-cal angle isn’t a gimmick.

“There are no artificial ingredients in the book,” he says. “The most ‘far-out’ thing is reduced-fat dairy products. Sometimes it worked out that it wasn’t necessary to omit more than a small percentage of the fat to make our 300-calorie goal. One of the custards is even made with whole milk and whole eggs!”

If that surprises you, Malgieri had a few “a-ha!” moments of his own working on the book.

“You can really achieve excellent flavor and texture with reduced fat,” he says. “We have a Viennese caramel custard, for example. It has caramel inside and out, and a four-ounce portion is only 250 calories and five grams of fat. And you only have to make minimal alterations in the pastry-dough recipes to lower the amount of fat enough.”

The 125 recipes are divided into chocolate, cakes, pies and tarts, puddings/custards/soufflés, fruit, frozen, cookies, and sauces. And each one comes with amazingly detailed directions as well as serving instructions, storage suggestions, possible variations, and complete nutritional information.

The overall message of the book is “get this stuff, do it this way, and you will get this amazing dessert with this amount of stuff in it.” Sprinkled throughout are mini-essays on topics such as “Get the most from spices and herbs,” “Egg alternatives,” and “Lower the carbs — keep the flavor.”

Neither the book nor the dishes lack style. It’s a beautiful volume, with an eye-popping cover shot of the Old-Fashioned Raspberry Tart (236 calories per serving). Another stunner is Mary’s Cappuccino Brûlé, a coffee-flavored custard baked in a coffee cup and topped with a fluffy meringue that’s browned so the whole thing looks like a cappuccino.

There are also more grounded offerings: a Ginger-Lover’s Pound Cake, Vanilla Bean Chiffon Cake, Old-Fashioned Chocolate Pudding, and Lemon Yogurt Mousse.

At Viking, Malgieri says he will bake three low-cal cakes (fat-free devil’s food cake, raspberry mousse cake, and a blueberry crumb cake) as well as three non-light cakes: a “pull-out-all-the-stops chocolate cake that’s so chocolatey it’s like an enormous brownie,” plus a Dutch apple cake and an Italian buttery hazelnut cake.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

New Traditions

CREDIT: Courtesy of Reinaldo Alfonso

My Thanksgiving tradition began four years ago, when my parents came to visit from Germany. Of course, Thanksgiving being a wholly American holiday, Germany doesn’t observe it, but like many other countries, they do celebrate the harvest.

I was trying to find a way for my parents to meet my friends and decided on a Thanksgiving brunch. An eclectic mix of Russian, American, Mexican, and German friends came, and even though my parents haven’t been back this time of the year, the tradition carried on.

Jose Gutierrez, chef/owner of Encore and a native of France, has lived in the United States for more than 30 years and has cooked his share of traditional Thanksgiving meals. But he can’t get excited about toddler-size turkeys and sweet cranberry sauce.

“I cooked a Thanksgiving dinner for somebody once, and I made this great cranberry sauce,” the chef explains. “Not too tart, not too sweet — just right. The people who ate it said it was the worst thing they’d ever eaten, and they tried to fix it with sweetener. That is just gross.”

A Thanksgiving Gutierrez-style is a gathering of friends and employees who have no place to go and probably a turkey ballotine for dinner. For the ballotine, the turkey is completely boned (skin saved), the meat is cut into small cubes, stuffed back into the skin, tied, rolled up into a bundle, and either braised or roasted.

“This is a really great way to prepare turkey if you know how to de-bone it, because it will take a lot less time to cook and won’t get dry” Gutierrez says. “Your friends won’t think that you don’t like them because you made them eat dry turkey, and you don’t have to eat turkey leftovers that last until Christmas. That makes everybody happy.”

Konrad Spitzbart, executive pastry chef at The Peabody and a native of Austria, enjoys the American Thanksgiving foods. “I typically work on Thanksgiving Day, so I cook for my family the next day, and we have all the traditional foods — green beans and sweet-potato casserole, turkey with stuffing. It’s one of my wife’s favorite holidays.”

Courtesy of Reinaldo Alfonso

An Alfonso family holiday spread

Erling Jensen, chef/owner of the eponymous restaurant and a native of Denmark, gets to take the day off from cooking and enjoy his mother-in-law’s Thanksgiving food. “I like all the traditional food, and my mother-in-law is a pretty good cook,” Jensen says. “More important than the food is that everybody comes together to have a good time.”

Even though there is no equivalent holiday to Thanksgiving in either Austria or Denmark, there is food for the winter holidays.

The traditional Austrian holiday meal is simple — sausage and cabbage, Spitzbart says.

“A typical holiday meal in Denmark is a seated dinner of either roasted goose or duck with caramelized potatoes, apples, and jellies, and ‘Ris Allamande’ — rice pudding with whipped cream, chopped almonds, and vanilla and sweet cherry sauce — for dessert,” Jensen says.

Chez Philippe chef de cuisine Reinaldo Alfonso is of Cuban descent and grew up in Miami. Alfonso’s family has observed the Thanksgiving holiday ever since Reinaldo can remember. “We usually don’t do the traditional Thanksgiving dinner, maybe a little here and there for the American family members who have married into this big Cuban family,” the chef explains. “But in the end, it will turn into a big party. My dad will be in charge of the music, and everybody will be eating, dancing, and chatting.”

Cooking chores in the Alfonso family are split “equally.” The men are responsible for roasting and watching the pig, all the while playing dominos and having a few drinks and a cigar or two. “The pig is a huge affair,” says Alfonso. “We pick one at the beginning of the year, and the farmer will feed and raise it for us until we pick it up.”

After the pig is slaughtered, it’s marinated in mojo (oregano, cumin, onion, garlic, lime or sour orange juice, olive oil, and pepper) for two days before it’s roasted in a carefully crafted backyard pit from dawn until dusk.

None of the Alfonso family pig goes to waste. The blood is saved to make morcilla, Cuban blood sausage, and the family argues over who gets to eat the crispy roasted ears.

The women in Alfonso’s family take great pride in preparing everything but the pig. “My mom often adapts several American classics and infuses them with Cuban flavors,” he says. The result are such dishes as “Congri Oriental” (black beans and rice cooked with pork), corn casserole with Caribbean pumpkin (calabasa) and chorizo sausage, tamales, pumpkin fritters, Cuban bread, and candied yams glazed with rum syrup and a cinnamon meringue top as well as pumpkin flan.

Even though Alfonso is looking forward to eating plenty of his favorite foods, the company is just as important. “It has been a while since I was home for Thanksgiving and spent time with my family. This year, it’s going to be a big surprise because my mom doesn’t know I’m coming.”

Maybe I should keep an eye out for two Germans on Thanksgiving. I might be in for a surprise myself.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Do French Fries Make You Strong?

My husband, Warren, is a really good cook. He’s also an archaeologist who often goes on digs for weeks at a time, leaving the monkeys — Satchel, age 4, and Jiro, age 2 — and me to fend for ourselves. Prior to my husband’s most recent departure, I got my hands on a list of places where kids eat free (or almost free) from MemphisLovesKids.com. I organized it by day and came up with a plan to get the monkeys a free meal every day for a week.

When I told Warren about my plan, he said, “You are probably going to get sick.”

Monday: CiCi’s Pizza

We arrived at the CiCi’s in Poplar Plaza shopping center at 5:45 p.m. The monkeys and I paid our $9.24 and hit the buffet line.

According to a large sign, CiCi’s uses “100% real mozarella, freshly prepared sauce, freshly made dough, and garden-fresh vegetable toppings.” Equally admirable was the salad bar that had lettuce other than iceberg and several enticing pizza toppings. There was also fusilli pasta that came with a choice of red or Alfredo sauce, garlic bread, and cheese bread.

The pizza bar had 16 varieties of piping-hot pies ranging from pepperoni to Hawaiian. Desserts included brownies sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar, apple cinnamon pizza, and strudel. The monkeys were psyched.

Satchel had four pieces of cheese bread, one slice of pepperoni pizza, some plain pasta with Parmesan cheese, and 1.5 brownies. Jiro had two slices of pepperoni pizza, two Hawaiian Punches, and one brownie. I had a small salad and three slices of pepperoni pizza.

Satchel asked, “Mama, does pizza make you strong?”

“Yes,” I said proudly. “Pizza has something from all five of the food groups.”

CiCi’s Pizza, 3474 Plaza Avenue, Suite 1 (452-6225)Buffet hours: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. dailyChildren 3 and under: 99 cents; child buffet: $3.18

Tuesday: McAlister’s Deli

The McAlister’s kids’ menu offers seven choices: toasted cheese sandwich, PB&J, Mac’s Dog (a hot dog), kids’ nachos, ham-and-cheese sandwich, turkey-and-cheese sandwich, and cheese pita pizza. The sandwiches come with chips, and everything comes with Teddy Grahams (which I hid from the monkeys). Drinks are extra. While the kids’ meal prices were pretty fair ($1.19-$2.75), I have to admit, having to pay for drinks took a little bit of the fun out of the “free-ness.”

Satchel chose nachos, and Jiro chose pizza. (He was rallying for day two at CiCi’s the whole drive over.) I ordered the chicken Caesar wrap.

When I looked at Satchel’s plate, I felt very embarrassed by the cold, hard reality of the nachos. Jiro took one look at his pizza that was “covered in blood” (as Satchel noted) and went right for the chips and dip. Satchel insisted on a piece of pizza in return. As he was about to take his first bite of Jiro’s pizza, Satchel said, “Ooh fly!” I shooed it away but not quickly enough. He said, “I can’t eat it now that the fly puked on it.”

Then he turned his attention back to his own plate and asked, “Do nachos make you strong?”

I carefully considered my answer in light of the fact that he had nothing else to eat. “Um, sort of,” I said.

McAlister’s, 3482 Plaza Avenue in Poplar Plaza (452-6009)Kids eat free Tuesdays after 5 p.m. (two kids per adult)

Wednesday: IHOP

I had informed Satchel that we were having breakfast for dinner at IHOP. He excitedly asked, “Does that mean we get dinner for breakfast?”

When we pulled into the almost empty parking lot at 5:45 p.m., I was a little shocked. The only other times I’d been to IHOP (Sunday morning or the wee hours of the weekend), it was packed. Several large window signs pictured chocolate-chip happy-face pancakes and declared, “Kids Eat Free All Day Wednesday.”

The kids’ menu was a paper placemat with pictures of each item, things to color, and activities to do. I asked the monkeys to point to what they wanted. Jiro immediately pointed to the chicken strips, and Satchel predictably pointed to the chocolate-chip happy-face pancake.

I didn’t want to eat since I was planning to attend a party later in the evening, but I had to in order to get a free kids’ meal. I brought my mom along so that both monkeys could eat free. I figured I should stick with breakfast and ordered the Migas (eggs, tomatoes, cheese, jalepenos, and tortilla strips). My mom ordered the chicken-breast dinner.

The monkeys busied themselves with the crayons and the menu activities. Jiro quickly grew bored and attempted to swing from the low-hanging light fixture above our table. When informed that this was not appropriate, he let out several shrill protests that made me happy that there were very few people around.

When the monkeys’ food came out, Jiro took one look at Satchel’s chocolate-chip happy-face pancake and lunged across the table. Satchel blocked him, and more shrieking ensued. Eventually, we were able to convince Satchel to share, and he cut off an entire eye and half the forehead for his brother.

“Mama, do pancakes make you strong?” Satchel asked.

I opted for the truth: “No, but you had a really good lunch, so it’s okay.”

Once everyone was done and we were paid up, I enthusiastically said, “Now that we had breakfast for dinner, let’s have broccoli and apples for dessert!”

IHOP, 2060 Union (725-4448)Kids eat free all day Wednesday (one kid per adult)

Thursday: Piccadilly

My friend, Andria, caught wind of my “kids eat free” spree and decided that she and her 3-year-old, Miss M., would meet us at the Piccadilly cafeteria at 6 p.m. At the boys’ school, I’d run into our mutual friend Shiloh and invited her and her 2-year-old daughter, Lydia, along too.

We arrived to find the place bustling with lots of kids, lots of seniors … lots of everybody. The line for food was long but not too long. Satchel immediately ran up to the glass to see what treasures were lurking behind it. He pointed at the black-eyed peas and said, “Ooh, I want some of those beans!”

When we got to the front of the line, Andria, Shiloh, and I looked at each other and simultaneously groaned. The food selection started with dessert. Blue Jell-O was the first thing, followed by cupcakes with pink and blue icing and sprinkles.

I had no intention of blowing our almost-free meals on extras. I asked the server if dessert was included with the kids’ meals, and, to my amazement, she said yes. Jiro wanted both a cupcake and Jell-O but eventually went with just the cupcake. Satchel happily chose chocolate pudding. As we made our way toward the entrees, Satchel immediately zoned in on the fried chicken. “What about fish?” I asked hopefully.

“No. Chicken!” he said.

Then Jiro piped in and said, “I want chicken!”

As my friends and I were ordering, Jiro looked at me and said, “I need to go pee-pee.”

“Can you hold it?” I asked. He nodded yes, but two seconds later said no. I looked around at the scene and wondered how I was going to manage leaving mid-order. Thankfully, Shiloh agreed to order the sides for me.

I rushed Jiro to bathroom as fast as I could and got us back in line in time to get rolls and drinks. When we got to the end of the line, a nice woman was waiting to help me carry our trays to a table.

Then, as if things couldn’t get any better, both monkeys sat down and started eating. Jiro really wasn’t interested in anything besides his chicken. Once it was gone, he set his sights on the cupcake.

He had a couple licks of icing and decided it wasn’t all that. Then he started looking at me with pleading eyes and mouthing a word I could not understand. After a few minutes of me going, “Huh? Wha?” he grabbed my hand and led me back to the food line to where the blue Jell-O was.

“Jelly!” he said.

Once back at the table, a waiter came over and gave everyone a balloon. Satchel was clearly making up for the week’s lack of nutritional dinners. He ate his chicken, all of his mashed potatoes (and gravy), and broccoli. Then he ate half of my green beans and almost all of the black-eyed peas I’d ordered at the last minute, remembering his initial request. Then he looked at Shiloh and said, “Can I have some of your salad?” It was amazing. Finally he ate his pudding. When he was done, he calmly said, “I need to poop now.”

Piccadilly, 3425 Poplar Avenue (324-6442)Kids’ meal: 99 cents to $1.99 on Thursdays and 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays

Friday: Time-out

Warren came home for the weekend, and I just couldn’t motivate myself for another restaurant visit. Our choices for Friday were already slim (and far away): Gus’s Fried Chicken in Bartlett or the American Café in the Wolfchase Galleria. We opted to stay home and eat spaghetti, salad, broccoli, and bananas.

Saturday: Hooters

Baby’s first visit to Hooters: Jiro with a hot dog and crayons

At 1:30 p.m., Hooter’s had a pretty decent crowd. There were 20 to 30 men of various ages parked in front of a wall of TVs. Most of them were drinking beer and just hangin’. I was the only woman present (not on staff, that is), and we seemed to be the only people taking advantage of the “Kids eat free on Saturdays” offer.

I read the kids’ menu upside down from Jiro’s placemat as he began coloring: “Chicken wings, chicken strips, burger, grilled cheese, hot dog, PB&J, fish & chips. What do y’all want?”

“Fish & chips!” Satchel said.

“Hot dog!” Jiro said.

“Nobody wants chicken? They are famous for chicken!” I said.

“Okay, I’ll take chicken strips,” Satchel said.

“Why not try the chicken wings?” I prodded.

“Okay,” he said most agreeably.

Next I set about figuring out what I was going to eat. Thanks to the buxom ladies decorating my menu, everything looked good. (I also noticed that Warren was taking an unusually long time to order.)

Finally, I decided on the Hooters cobb salad. I thought for sure that Warren would get the wings, but he went for the chicken-breast sandwich (“Hold the chicken and the sandwich,” as The Office‘s Steve Carrell would say.)

Our food came out pretty swiftly, and the monkeys wasted no time descending on the curly fries.

Jiro asked, “French fries make strong?” as Satchel listened in.

“Yep,” I said as I avoided Warren’s stare.

Warren’s chicken breast was voluptuous and literally falling off the bun. My cobb salad, with buffalo chicken, was actually rather delicious. I tried to get Satchel to eat his wings, but after one bite he said they were too hot. Jiro took his hot dog out of the bun and squawked when he saw bun remnants sticking to it. Once Warren removed them, Jiro ate a few bites before chucking the rest of it across the table.

While we settled the check, I asked the manager why they offered a “Kids eat free” day when none of the other Hooters do.

“Uh, I don’t know. I can call corporate,” he said. He started walking away and then turned back. “This store was opened by a guy with four kids. I think he started it.” He caught his breath and continued, “The manager now has one kid and one on the way.” I smiled at him and nodded. “It’s good for business and good for the community,” he added. “Not everyone around here is that well off, so it helps people afford to eat out.”

I thanked him, gave our very attentive waitress a nice tip, and headed toward the car.

I joined Warren and the monkeys who were already strapped in their car seats.

“Did you like that restaurant?” I asked.

“Yes!” they hollered.

“What did you like best?”

“The curly fries!”

Hooters, 2653 Mt. Moriah (795-7123)

Kids eat free all day Saturday

Sunday: Checkers

I noticed the “$.69 Cheeseburgers, Shakes, Hot Dogs, Wed & Sun” sign on Monday night on our way home from CiCi’s. I’ve never been to Checkers before, but I figured that had to be a pretty good deal. Since I was on the last day of my “Kids eat free” week, I hadn’t eaten all day, and I just happened to have a car full of kids, I decided to try it out.

“Who wants a milk shake?” I asked the monkeys and their two cousins.

“Me! Me! I do! Me!” they responded.

“Anybody want a cheeseburger?”

“Yes! I do! Yes! Yes!” they responded.

I pulled up to the window and said, “I’ll take five chocolate shakes and five cheeseburgers.”

“I want vanilla,” my 10-year-old nephew said.

“Me too!” said my 5-year-old niece.

“And me!” said Satchel.

Before Jiro could chime in, I amended the order. “Make that four vanilla milk shakes and one chocolate. And five cheeseburgers.” I thought for a second. “Make four of those plain. No, just ketchup.”

“I like ketchup and mustard,” my nephew said.

“Okay. Four with ketchup and mustard and one with everything,” I said.

The voice in the box was annoyed and confused.

“Can I have French fries?” my nephew asked.

“There will be no French fries,” I said.

“Why?”

“They aren’t 69 cents.”

I pulled up to the second window and handed over $6.98. (I think they forgot to charge me for one shake.)

The worker handed me the shakes, and I immediately began putting the straws in. “They’re kind of small,” my nephew said.

“Well, it’s 12 ounces more shake than you had a minute ago.”

He couldn’t argue with that logic.

Epilogue

Although the “Kids eat free” week was fun for the monkeys and kept me from cooking, it caused me much distress in the breakfast and lunch department. I was working double time to sneak in fruits, vegetables, and milk. I’m not sure what most of the restaurants we visited have against fruit or vegetables with a kids’ meal or why they have candy machines everywhere, but clearly, when kids eat free, you get what you pay for.

Stacey Greenberg is a Flyer contributor and writer of diningwithmonkeys.blogspot.com.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Gentlemen, Start Your Deep Fryers

In Southern culinary circles, pork barbecue might reign supreme, but fried catfish and grilled hot wings are quickly gaining ground.

Case in point: former barbecue champ Randall Hearn, who, now that summer’s over, is spending a lot of time with two good friends: fellow cooking enthusiast Doug McGee and his Presto Fry Daddy deep fryer.

As the Bohicas, Hearn and McGee have been entering food competitions for nearly two decades, first making the rounds at barbecue cook-offs, then moving to catfish, chili, and hot-wings challenges. This week, the duo will be showing off their cooking talents at the 150th annual Mid-South Fair.

“Our name is an acronym for ‘Bend over, here it comes again,'” says McGee, who explains that they borrowed the term from black conservative radio host Ken Hamblin. “We called and told him that we’re gonna make him the honorary president of our team, but since he’s a Yankee, we’re not gonna let him cook.”

“We won the Memphis In May Barbecue Cooking Contest in ’96,” says Hearn, who admits that frying catfish is much easier than sweating over a barbecue pit for days on end.

“There were a lot of extra hassles about cooking barbecue and way too many politics,” McGee says, citing presentation requirements and out-of-pocket expenses as the two main reasons they abandoned the pit for the deep fryer.

The rules of the game at the Mid-South Fair seem rudimentary in comparison to the elaborate rituals that surround Memphis In May. For starters, the competition at the fair is determined by blind judging, meaning that there is no presentation involved. To further level the playing field, each team is given the same product — Pride of the Pond catfish filets or store-bought chicken wings. What combination of seasonings they decide to use and how they choose to cook their entries are the only variables.

“Flavor matters,” Eddie Harmon bluntly states. A judge in the hot-wings, chili, and catfish competitions for the last 10 years, Harmon says that he’s seen a little bit of everything at the fair.

“It’s all according to taste. With the catfish batter, some people make it hot, some make it mild. I’m always looking for a good flaky catfish that has a clean taste. If a fish tastes like fish, it’s not gonna be any good. With the wings, it’s the flavor of the sauce. Once again, everybody cooks ’em different. Some are sopping with sauce, and others are barely wet. Some people bake ’em, some fry ’em, and some brown ’em in a skillet. Some people put greenery around their entries, but most judges will immediately discard every bit of that. We eat a small cup of food from each competitor, and in between, we’ll eat cheese or grapes to cleanse our palates,” he explains.

Hearn uses the same recipe every year — cornmeal instead of flour, salt, a little bit of spice, and a secret ingredient which, he says, “gives a little kick” to the mix. He forgoes a buttermilk soaking to dredge the fish filets in the batter and instead immediately plop them into the Fry Daddy, which is bubbling with regular vegetable oil.

“It’s pretty much how my dad cooks it,” he says. “Most people don’t put enough salt in the batter, and they get bland fish. Or they don’t cook it long enough — you’ve got to keep it in there until it floats.”

For the hot-wings contest, McGee will bypass the deep fryer for a charcoal grill. “I take the skin off and then marinate the wings in a special sauce,” he says, refusing to elaborate on the ingredients. “When they’re cooking, I put more sauce on. They’ll stay on there for 15 or so minutes. I have it down pat,” he says.

Each contest has a total purse of $600 to be split between first, second, and third place winners, but for most competitors, it’s all about the camaraderie.

“You’ll see a lot of couples cooking together. The women doing all the prep work, and the men standing over the grease,” Harmon says.

“I like to win, but it’s more about hanging out,” McGee confirms.

“It’s the same folks every year, which is fun,” says Hearn, who confesses that at home he’ll only fry catfish once or twice a year, usually in the weeks leading up to the Mid-South Fair competition.

“It’s a lot of trouble,” he says. “Most of the time, we’ll drive out to Millington to eat at Miss Sipp’s.”

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

How You Slice It

Downtown is distinctive for many reasons — the river, the art galleries, urban living, and pizza. Yes, pizza. Within a short stretch, there are a number of restaurants offering various styles of pizza that are so tasty and unique, downtowners may never order delivery again.

Alice’s Urban Market is on South Front Street, just around the corner from the train station. Andy Grooms, the owner and a former employee of Pizza Hut, introduced pizza to the menu in February after he bought a 700-degree oven. Some of his pizzas are named after popular television characters such as Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha from Sex and the City. (Carrie didn’t sell and had to be taken off the menu.) Others he’s named for locals, such as businessman Andy Cates. When asked how someone might get a pizza named after them, Grooms quickly replies, “Give me a hundred bucks.”

Alice’s staff makes the crust daily, and it is really stellar. The crust makes traditional pizzas like the Plain Jane (cheese) and the Andy Cates (pepperoni) shine. However, there are also several unusual pies to choose from, like the Pedro, which is composed of chorizo and crawfish with sautéed onions, roasted red peppers, mozzarella, and pepperjack cheese. Call ahead 15 minutes and pick up a fresh, hot, New York-style pizza at Alice’s Monday through Saturday from 4 to 9 p.m.

Across the street from the train station is the Arcade Restaurant. Though most popular as a breakfast spot, the Arcade provides something of a salve for those who are lamenting the closing of Pie in the Sky. The Arcade and Pie in the Sky have an intertwined past, and many of the pizzas the Arcade serves are reminiscent of those that were served at Pie in the Sky. At the Arcade, the Downtowner has garlic, ricotta, tomatoes, pesto, artichoke hearts, onions, and calamata olives, much like the former Moon Pie. However, this reincarnation is much cheesier and saucier than any slice at Pie in the Sky. (The entire crust was covered in sauce rather than swirled.) Keep in mind the Arcade closes at 3 p.m. Saturday through Thursday, so if you get a hankering for one of their pizzas for dinner, you better hope it is a Friday when they stay open until 8 p.m.

Hop on the trolley and go one block north of The Orpheum to the Majestic Grille for their signature flatbread. The Majestic specializes in grand food at a great price, and the Spicy Shrimp flatbread is a steal at $6. The sauce and the cheese are good but nothing out of the ordinary. What makes this pizza great is the hearty serving of shrimp on top that is smartly combined with roasted onion and oven-dried tomatoes. It is plenty big and can easily be shared with a friend. The flatbread with pulled pork, barbecue sauce, caramelized onions, and mozzarella is also a hit with customers.

Next door to Majestic is Bluefin, which specializes in “edge” cuisine, a style of cooking that is on the cutting-edge and combines the freshest and most exotic ingredients in one dish. Bluefin offers a variety of edgy pizzas. The current favorite is the Spicy Tuna pizza. The crispy crust is drizzled with Japanese Kewpie mayonnaise, which has a sweeter flavor compared to regular mayonnaise, and Thai Sriracha hot sauce. On top is a sprinkling of bite-sized cubes of raw tuna, grape tomatoes, red onion, and nori. The nori, which is shredded and oddly very cheese-like in texture, is the real star of this dish. The Wild Mushroom pizza with pancetta, caramelized onions, smoked gouda, and red wine demi is Bluefin’s second most popular pizza. The smoked salmon pizza, featuring capers, red onion, quail egg, and goat cheese, is also worth a try.

Over at the Peabody Place shopping center, Encore offers daily pizza specials, all of which are made with a fresh and crispy crust akin to pita bread. The Braised Short Rib pizza features a tomato and onion fondue sauce, fresh mozzarella, incredibly tender and juicy short ribs that have been braised for 24 hours in Beaujolais, and a fresh spring mix. The end result is more like an open-faced sandwich than a pizza, and it literally melts in your mouth. Other daily specials include a garlic ham pizza and Pizza Margherita.

Finally, just a couple blocks away, in the old Café Samovar spot, is Meditrina, which specializes in Mediterranean fare. The Coca is a Spanish-style pizza made with a yeast-free crust that is a cross between a pastry and a cracker. The toppings vary daily depending on the chef’s mood and what ingredients are available. Normally, the sauce is made from pesto, and the topping is fresh-roasted Ripley tomatoes and goat cheese. Other recent toppings have included grilled asparagus, roasted chicken, smoked salmon, and capers. The Coca is a very popular lunch dish and is served with a side salad. It’s just enough to make you full but not fade into a food-induced coma.

Alice’s Urban Market, 513 S. Front (575-9979)

Arcade Restaurant, 540 S. Main (526-5757)

The Majestic Grille, 145 S. Main (522-8555)

Bluefin — Edge Cuisine and Sushi Bar,

135 S. Main (528-1010)

Encore Restaurant and Bar, 150 Peabody Place,

Suite #111 (528-1415)

Meditrina, 83 Union (523-9625)