guest post: jshu

A guest post from my friend jshu. He's the apple, she's the tree.

When I'm on the road looking to do a little cooking for breakfast, I like to find a few simple ingredients and hunker down in the kitchen. Today I started with some butter wrapped in some attractive paper. Then I took a loaf of bread (pre-sliced) and used it as the main ingredient for Toast (put bread in toaster oven, set to medium, wait for ding, remove, put on plate with pattern that matches butter paper for a little extra flair). The trick here is to put the butter on the newly made Toast while it's as hot as it can be (I use a rounded knife that isn't sharp so I don't cut through the decorative butter paper).

guest post: SueShu

[This last guest post of the summer comes from the lovely SueShu, who can whip up dinner for twenty at the drop of a hat. Seriously. I've seen her do it. Here she suggests a delicious way to devour late-summer vegetables, and while her ever-optimistic son jshu suggested that eggplants are a turnoff to some and I should substitute "aubergine" for "eggplant" in this post, I've left SueShu's wording as is. Because if you don't like eggplants you haven't had them cooked properly, and this recipe would be the perfect place to start: On the grill!]

Grilled Eggplant With Tomatoes, Garlic & Cheese

When we returned from our family vacay in Western Maryland (during which not a single one of us had to cook a single meal), we found our garden had become a jungle. This is what happens when you don't pay attention to it for a week:


But, fortunately, there were some lovely fruits hiding in the overgrown mess:


Debaro, Cherokee Purple, and Striped German—varieties chosen mostly because I liked their names when I ordered the seeds back in March.

Also, fortunately, there were some nice little eggplants from our CSA, Colchester Farm, lurking in the fridge:


When I'd decided what to make with these, it was back to the garden to harvest some basil:


So, with these three things on hand (plus some feta or goat cheese—see below) here's what to do: Chop up the tomatoes to make a couple cups worth, add a couple tablespoons of chopped basil and/or parsley, and a couple cloves of garlic—in this case, a variety called Music, also from the CSA:


Mix it all together and let the flavors mingle while you slice the eggplants lengthwise into ½ inch slabs. (If using conventional, bigger eggplant instead of the Japanese variety, slice crosswise.)


Put the eggplant slices on a foil-covered cookie sheet (if you're lazy like me and don't want to have to wash that cookie sheet later), brush with olive oil, and sprinkle with sea salt.


Grill the eggplant for about 3 minutes per side. Put them on a warmed serving platter and cover with that foil, and let sit for about 15 minutes to soften. Remove foil and top with the tomato mixture, using a slotted spoon to leave most of the juices behind. Break up some feta or goat cheese over it all and serve—four as a main dish and six as a starter or side.

My plan was to take a picture of the dish before serving, but since we had a neighbor over for supper, I didn't remember until after we ate, so here's the "finished" version, which we had with local sweet corn:


This makes a great breakfast (cold) the next morning, although your garlic aura will remain with you through the day. But on the other hand, you won't be bothered by vampires.

From Martha Rose Shulman's column in the NYT, July 16, 2010. (She called it Eggplant on the Grill.)

the yachtsman recommends

[A recurring guest post in which the yachtsman recommends something.]

Allow me to Recommend

As the readers of Gruel for Dinner now know after my mother’s recent post, I was raised on a diet of food cooked in bacon fat. I have incredibly fond memories of eating my vegetables, yummy veggies like green beans, sauteed in delicious bacon grease, and there are nights I still dream about my grandmother Mo’s fried chicken, which was fried up in a skillet full of bacon grease. Some Muslims believe that if a person dies a martyr, he will be greeted in heaven by 72 virgins; I only hope that when I die I will be greeted by Mo and a skillet of her chicken.

In my adopted home of Vermont, where we thrive on the local, the organic, the free range, the hormone free, the cage free, and the antibiotic free, the food is delicious and, particularly this time of year, as fresh as fresh gets. But on occasion I like to feed my Southern heritage, which is one of many reasons why I love to visit my brother and his family in Boone, North Carolina.

On my most recent trip below the Mason-Dixon line, to celebrate my niece Lucy’s sixth birthday, my Southern sister-in-law arranged a trip to Shatley Springs in Crumpler, North Carolina. Crumpler is about 30 miles north of Boone, just a little beyond Meat Camp. For many years, Shatley Springs was famous for the supposed healing properties of its fresh mountain spring, and people from all over flocked to drink the magical waters. More recently, Shatley Springs’ family-style dining room is the place where the magic happens, and believe me, there is nothin' that food can’t heal.


Like I said, it's family style. For $15.50 you get all you can eat of the following:

• Fried Chicken—fried in bacon grease
• Country Ham—nothing goes better with chicken than pig


• Mashed Potatoes—so smooth, it's like eating clouds
• Creamed Corn—not a huge fan of creamed corn, and I am man enough to say it
• Green Beans—cooked in bacon grease


• Baked Apples
• Coleslaw
• Biscuits—I'm talking about Southern fucking biscuits that are so good, they make you want to kill someone
• Cream Gravy—made with bacon grease
• Sweet Tea—by the pitcher

And then, finish it off with cobbler and ice cream
• Strawberry Cobbler or
• Blueberry Cobbler or
• Peach Cobbler or
• Apple Cobbler or
• Do what my awesome sister-in-law did and ask to try all of them, and the waitress will bring you a massive plate of cobblers.


Let me be perfectly clear: The Yachtsman recommends Shatley Springs. As you know, I don’t recommend lightly, but this is without question worthy of my highest recommendation.


Travel details:

Here's the deal: There are cabins available for rent at Shatley Springs. What I'm trying to say is that Shately Springs is a destination resort. It’s the Disneyland of cooking with bacon grease. Fuck Mickey Mouse, I want Billy Biscuit.



Getting there: You can do what I did, and ride a motorcycle from Vermont to Crumpler,


or through Nancy and Udean’s Christian Tours you can book a Christian motor coach tour that makes a stop at Shately Springs. If you're unable to go by motorcycle with my sister-in-law, I can’t imagine a better way to arrive at the Mecca of Fried Chicken.

guest post: lucky lady & m. labee

[This week's guest post is by my sister, Lucky Lady, who makes the prettiest aprons you'll ever cook in, and the lovely M. LaBee, who I plan to one day kidnap and imprison in my kitchen, where he will spend the rest of his life baking for my pleasure. Lucky Lady and M. LaBee have teamed up here to...oh, you'll see. I will hopefully be back later this week with another delicious cold soup to share with you, but if I don't have time to post, Team Zucchini on Top, as they're called, tell me there's plenty more where this came from. And thank god for that, because it apparently takes a village to write a bl*g.]

Homage to Peanut

As you may or may not know, we (M. LaBee and Lucky Lady) are the godparents (well, we may have decided we were the godparents, not told anyone, and had him baptized on our own time, but who’s counting?) of a little dog called Peanut (you may know him as Chester Arthur Miller). It also turns out we are a guest-bl*gging superteam heretofore known as “Zucchini on Top.” Being that we are superbl*ggers and Peanut’s godparents, we decided to do a guest post in the little man’s honor. We looked high and low and found this charming book,


which had the perfect recipe for our homage to Peanut. So the two of us trotted on down to the farmers market to shop. Most of the ingredients we needed for the PupCakes have a very short growing season, but we managed to find everything we needed:


We started by making the bodies of the PupCakes with a special cake recipe called Betty Crocker Super M@%#t (for those of you who don’t know, for M. Labee and Lucky Lady the word moist is a lot like the word bl*g for our bl*g mistress—disgusting) to which we added eggs, oil, and water. Then, being the hard workers that we are, we mixed the batter by hand instead of using the beaters.


Next we filled the PupCake pan with batter:


Once the PupCakes were safely nestled in the oven, M.LaBee decided he needed to eat the batter that was left in the bowl. “What are you crazy? Have you ever heard of a little thing called Salmonella?" Lucky Lady asked. Apparently the answer was no, because here is what happened next:


Halfway through the baking of the cupcakes, the professional baker on the team (M. LaBee) decided the PupCakes needed to be rotated (who does this?):


The PupCakes came out of the oven in a blaze of glory not unlike the blaze that the Down East Dilletante’s car went up in, except that they weren’t on fire at all, we just wanted to give DED a shout-out and let him know we were thinking of him and his burned-up car.


While the PupCakes were cooling we went about the business of coloring the dough for Peanut’s appendages. This was a long and arduous process that involved lots of Lucky Lady yelling at M. LaBee things like “Hold her down!” and “More! Faster, goddamn it!” and “You are going to have to shake it harder if you want anything to come out.” All of a sudden it seemed like we were making a weird porn instead of dough, but we are a team that really likes to give it all we’ve got:


Then there was the rolling and cutting of said dough:


The end result of the cut-out dough pieces was weird and even a little gross looking, but we promise, it all comes together:


Halfway through the baking of the appendage dough we realized we were out of peanut butter, which we needed for the frosting (Peanut’s coat). So, much to M. LaBee’s delight and Lucky Lady’s horror we had to make a trip to Mac’s Market. It should be said that the village where Lucky Lady lives was without a grocery store for a number of years. Shortly after LL and her mister moved to the village, Mac’s Market opened with the promise of providing groceries. It didn’t, they lied. Lucky Lady thinks it is basically an overgrown convenience store but M. LaBee disagrees and describes this horrible store as “Nirvana” and the “Lady Gaga of grocery stores.”

This is a picture of M.Labee driving Lucky Lady’s car and laughing maniacally about his Mac’s trip windfall:


A hardhat Lucky Lady forced M. Labee to wear in this photo as punishment for being so gleeful about said trip:


Once home again, we focused on the frosting: We had to mix peanut butter with vanilla frosting in order to get the proper shade for Peanut’s coat:


Then we frosted those bitches:


Now, I bet you’re wondering how that is going to become a PupCake. Well, frankly, so were we. A bit of panic ensued, there was some yelling and running around, followed by a dog escaping the house. Once we had the dog safely stowed we put the PupCakes on some white paper to get a clean slate to look at:


Then magically, this happened:


PupCakes! We love you, Peanut!

guest post: His Momma

[This guest post is courtesy of my mother-in-law, who just happens to be one of my favorite people in the world, and also one of my favorite cooks. If you know her or have been lucky enough to eat at her table, I imagine she's among your favorites, too. And after reading this you'll see that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Or the bacon grease doesn't fall far from the bacon, is more like it, though my mother-in-law has been known to eat a piece of fruit, whereas my husband has not. And don't let her fool you: This woman can cook both Southern delicacies such as Oklahoma Ham Loaf and haute cuisine. Oklahomans: Please don't get mad that I just excluded ham loaf from the haute cuisine category.]

In Praise of…..

It is with fear in my heart that I sit down to add my writing to the esteemed group who have been tapped to write guest posts for the “summer bl*g.” I love my daughter-in-law, and as much as I love her, I love her blog…the humor, the pictures, and the tasty recipes. In fact, it is the highlight of my day when she posts, and the cloud that covers the sun when she doesn’t. Her culinary friends and family are erudite and sophisticated in their cooking, eating, and conversations about food, and the idea that I need to match them…intimidating. So, methinks, what do I have that is unique? Immediately I knew. BACON FAT!

I grew up in Oklahoma. It is the land of fresh vegetables, cooked until the grayness appears, and fresh slaughtered meats, fried. There is no real way to cook without bacon fat if this is your point of origin. My grandparents, in the small Oklahoma town where they lived, often rushed to the aid of a family whose home had been “burned out.” As I think of it, I have no idea why so many houses burned. It was a very small town; how many houses could there have been, really? But, it seems they often did burn (perhaps owing to liquor, which was illegal and therefore plentiful), and the neighbors rallied to provide the necessities. Ubiquitous among the clothes, blankets, and furniture, was a Crisco can of bacon grease. This was when the can was metal and did not bear the marks of either butter flavor or “do not fill with hot liquid.” Truth was, if one was to cook in those parts, one could not without an adequate supply of bacon grease. So, this flavor pervades my youth….and truthfully, my early years of marriage. I am here today to bring to you the wonders of bacon grease. Let me list its uses:

• Rubbed on the outside of potato skins before baking, it imparts a wonderful flavor and crisp skin
• Green beans sautéed in bacon fat before parboiling, with a bit of sugar added—sublime
• Biscuits, dipped in liquid bacon fact before baking—heaven
• And the ultimate Southern delicacy...CHICKEN FRIED STEAK WITH CREAM GRAVY

(To those of you who have just turned away in disgust I say, “Ye of little faith.” That is also what they say in Oklahoma at “dinner on the grounds” of the local Methodist church, but that is another story for another day.)

Here is the recipe. You must follow it faithfully for the proper results, a mélange of crispy coating and creamy white sauce. In fancy restaurants they laud the meat used, but the truth is that it makes no difference what the meat is once you encase it with coating, fry it up, and cover it with a blanket of white. In my family, cube steaks were the meat of the day.

Season the meat well (no chicken or veggie substitutes allowed) with season-salt and pepper. Mix flour in a separate bowl with more salt and pepper. (When you consider the cholesterol, think nothing of the sodium.) In another bowl, mix several eggs with whole milk, quantities being commensurate with the amount of meat.

In a cast iron skillet of good size heat a generous amount of bacon fat, say halfway up the side of the pan. (Oh, please, do not whine to me about where you get that much bacon fat. If you are eating this, you are having bacon for breakfast every morning and pouring the fat into your own Crisco can.) The grease (not oil, grease) should be hot enough to start to sizzle when the meat enters it, but not so hot that it burns rather than cooks.

Author's note: If you think I am cooking this so I can take a picture to show you, you are out of your mind. If I make it, I eat it. Therefore, these must suffice.

Well-seasoned cast iron skillet

One of perhaps six packages of bacon you will need to produce the quantity of bacon fat necessary. Note, I have eaten some of it...and don’t touch my Crisco can!

Dip each piece of meat in the flour mixture, then egg mixture, then back into the flour. There is no shaking here, as you want a thick coating to absorb every delicious molecule of bacony goodness possible. Into the hot fat each piece goes, but do not crowd. The temperature must remain level, and the coating must remain surrounded by grease in order to achieve the perfect golden crust.

After all the meat has been fried, the gravy must be made. DO NOT SKIP THIS PART. Any fool can fry meat. Pour off all the bacon fat but 2 to 3 tablespoons. (You can save this delicious grease, made even tastier by the beef juices, for another round of steak or Southern fried chicken.) Add some of the seasoned flour, enough to make a roux. (If you do not know how much this is, you should not be making this.) Stir it around until thoroughly mixed and beginning to bubble. Slowly add whole milk, stirring constantly until it is a creamy consistency. Too much milk and you have “race-horse” gravy; too little milk and you have a thick paste. Let it bubble for a few minutes until the floury flavor is gone. Pepper well and pour over the meat upon serving. It is good accompanied by mashed potatoes, fresh spring onions, sliced tomatoes still warm from the garden, and the green beans I mentioned previously. If you must, some biscuits to soak up the extra gravy will be acceptable, though in my part of Oklahoma, Wonder bread would do.

That’s it. I need to go and take a statin now.

guest post: my greek stepmother

[This is the first of a few guests posts you'll be seeing over the coming months, this one from my Greek stepmother, one of the best cooks I know.]

I’ve been fixated on sour cherries since last year when some friends told me they make the most delicious cobbler ever. I scored two quarts at a farmers market, baked that cobbler, and was in love. But when I returned for more, their short (two weeks? two days?) season was over.

This summer, when I spied trees laden with tart cherries at a local farm, I bought all the farm stand would sell me (believe it or not, there was a waiting list for those cherries)


and spent the next 24 hours pitting, cooking, and freezing the little darlings (frozen, pitted cherries are nearly as delicious as fresh), in hopes that maybe, possibly, this year I will eat my fill.

The chore was not easy. I mean, it’s not like lifting heavy rocks, but it still left me with a stiff back and neck. Each one of those soft, tiny orbs needed to be stemmed and the pit removed, preferably without damaging the fruit’s fragile shape. This job requires patience, at least three back-to-back podcasts of This American Life, and a superior ability to multitask so that when your granddog escapes out the front door midway through the process you can launch a search party (I’m looking at you, Chester Arthur Miller).


I acknowledge that I am one of those people who enjoys the obscure, the hard-to-get, the fleeting. That tiny character flaw has brought me more trouble more often than I would like to (or will) admit.

Sour cherries, however, are completely worth it.

As a reward for pitting all those cherries, I treated myself to a Sour Cherry Gin Muddler, courtesy of last week’s NYTimes.


Then I made Sour Cherry Clafoutis, a light, airy dessert that was perfectly complemented by the presence of tart cherries—delicious.

By the time you read this, the ridiculously short, fragile sour cherry season will probably be over, and I will be harvesting my freezer to try Claudia Roden’s Little Meatballs With Cherries.

Just to be completely clear, my freezer is chained and locked.

Note: I used Montmorency cherries, a variety of tart cherry that is bright red with clear juice; the other type is Morello, which are purple with dark, staining juice and more sour. Both are delicious and will work in these recipes; just wear a rubber apron when you pit the Morellos.

Sour Cherry Gin Muddler
From Melissa Clark at the New York Times, who calls this a cross between Kat Kinsman’s sour cherry cocktail and a classic aviation cocktail. I call it a delicious way to drink gin, which, to be completely honest, is perfect straight from the bottle.

1. Place three pitted sour cherries and a thin lemon slice in the bottom of a rocks glass. Add half a teaspoon or so of sugar and muddle until the cherries are smashed up but not pureed.

2. Pack the glass with ice and top with gin. Float a teaspoon or two of maraschino liqueur on top (or the juice from a jar of maraschino cherries, assuming you have high-quality ones without a bunch of dye and additives; which of course you do, if, like me, Manhattans are your winter drink of choice.)

Sour Cherry Clafoutis
From Gourmet Magazine, May 2008, created by Dana Cree of Veil, in Seattle

5 egg yolks
¾ cup sugar
¼ cup Amaretto
½ cup flour, sifted
½ teaspoon salt
3 egg whites
¼ cup sugar
1 cup heavy cream
About 2 pounds (1½–2 quarts) fresh sour cherries, stemmed, and pitted

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly butter a large baking pan (round is nice if you have one) and cover the bottom with cherries.

2. With a stand or hand mixer (I used a stand mixer, which was quick and easy), whip the egg yolks and sugar to a thick pale ribbon. Whisk in Amaretto until combined. Fold in the flour and salt. Set aside.

3. Whip the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Add the sugar and continue whipping until stiff and glossy. (I did this first because I was too lazy to wash the egg yolks off the beater, but if you, too, are lazy, proceed quickly with the rest of the whipping so it doesn’t sit around very long.)

4. Whip the cream until it forms soft peaks.

5. Fold the cream into the yolk mixture in two batches. Fold the meringue into the batter in two batches.

6. Cover the cherries with clafoutis batter, pressing slightly as you spread and encouraging the batter to fill any crevices between the fruit. Bake 20–25 minutes (more or less, depending on the size of the pan), until golden brown and set. Serve immediately (best) with vanilla ice cream, or even cold, which is surprisingly good as well.


[Hello, bitches, it's me again, here to let you know that I was lucky enough to both taste the clafoutis hot out of the oven and eat a leftover piece cold the next day. For breakfast, if you must know. I highly recommend it either way. Or even better, both.]