Fab Pizza!

Last night my beautiful Italian friend Fabrizio & I made pizza. That is -- Fabrizio made pizza while I drank wine! I brought a white bordeaux for the occasion -- this one was dry and clean and gravelly, but not exceptionally flavorful. I think I prefer white burgundy.

The pizza, on the other hand, was mama-slappin' hot! I'm so impressed and inspired to rededicate myself to pizza making now.

We tried four different variations on two pans. On one side of the first pan he made a margherita pizza with an uncooked tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, salt, and fresh basil. The second side of the first pan had slices of fresh tomato, fresh mozzarella, salt and basil.


What I was particularly impressed with was the uncooked tomato sauce. What a revelation! I usually make my pizza by reducing canned whole tomatoes for about 5 hours over low heat. It results in a highly flavored and sweet sauce. It's thick, too - edging onto pasty. I've always been happy with it and gotten lots of compliments, but Fabrizio's uncooked sauce has converted me. He took a can of crushed tomatoes and added to it a bunch of quartered onion pieces. He didn't do anything with the onions other than let them infuse the tomatoes. And the flavor of the resulting sauce was wonderful - tangy and fresh and a perfect balance for the richness of the cheese. The crust was delicious, too -- who says you need a pizza stone? Fabrizio used two metal sheet pans slathered with olive oil.

In the second pan Fabrizio made one pizza with the uncooked tomato sauce, mozarella, red onion, and butter and another pizza with fresh mozzarella and mustard greens sautéed in red pepper and bacon.




Here's a surprise: I liked the red onion pizza the best! Who would have thought to drizzle butter on a pizza?! It was perfect. The richness of the butter brought out the cheese's milkiness and balanced the tang of the onion and tomato sauce. Cheers to Fabrizio! The mustard green pizza was very good, too - but Fabrizio was worried it was a little too salty. It was very hearty and the greens were perfect after cooking for about 30 minutes. So good! I had seconds rather than strawberry ice cream for dessert....

Fried chicken salad?

I think I may have gone a little overboard when I described Gus's Fried Chicken to my friend Nico. (Most amazing chicken in the world? Would it even be possible to defend that?) But no one had taken him! He's visiting from France and has been here for months, and not a single one of his friends has thought to take him to Gus's??? So, I took him today.

I know I've written about Gus's before, but it makes me happy to be able to say it's just as good as the the first time. The chicken was delicious, spicy, moist, etc. The beans and slaw were still standard.


I'd never tried the fried green tomatoes -- they were nice, but not amazing. They turned a little mushy inside their thick batter coat and were *very* greasy. Mostly what I tasted was the grease and mild vegetable-sweetness. I'll never understand why people don't just cut the tomato slices thicker.

One thing that changed for the better: the service was outstanding. Nico wanted mayonnaise with his fries but the first server I caught told us they didn't have any. But our waitress volunteered to look for some anyway. When she found it she brought it out in this little bowl and Nico was so happy! It was really sweet of her.

Protein & Fruit

Shawn is so amazing it makes me feel guilty. Look at what he made me for dinner:

arugula salad with strawberries, feta, and a honey-lemon vinaigrette.
This was my favorite part of the meal. The arugula's bitter peppery-ness played well with the sweetness of the strawberries. Straightforward salty feta and this *delicious* vinaigrette. Shawn tells me he makes it by infusing lemon into some oil then mixing it with the vinegar and honey. His version is so well balanced, and I guess that's the key to vinaigrette.


Seared sea bass with a baba ghanoush crust and little slivers of pepper.
Yum! This was a very generous piece of fish and Shawn seared it then baked it. The inside stayed so soft. You know how fish often flakes apart after you cook it? This one was so perfectly rare that the flaking was minimal. And the baba ghanoush was very tender and salty. I could taste the roasting as well as the earthiness of the eggplant. I wouldn't have thought to put it with sea bass, but it was nice. Shawn's restraint is evident in this dish: I would have been tempted to add citrus or something to offset the richness of the ghanoush. Shawn trusted the freshness of the fish to do this. He was right.

There was also a crème brûlée, but I forgot to take a picture of it. I wish I had, though, because I have a lot to say about this dessert. I'm a little exigent about desserts...only because I make them so often myself and don't usually prefer them to savory things. If I'm going to eat a dessert it had better be damn good. Shawn's crème brûlée is very good. I liked that the crust was nice and thin and crunchy (and didn't taste even the least metallic or butane-like). The flavor was nice, too -- though he claims there was lemongrass and ginger in it. I could only detect those flavors indistinctly and on the backend once it warmed up in my mouth. My only real complaint was the texture. Shawn added more egg yolk than a classic recipe would require. It made the color much richer and the crème thicker. -- Which was far from bad. It was lovely -- but less like a crème, which is distinct from gelatin-thickened desserts or flour-thickened puddings by it's delicateness. Like it's quivering between states. This one touched my tongue and got rolled around. My favorite crème brûlées melt there.

delta fair

I always have high expectations of fair food. And the Delta Fair totally delivered! Bryan and I had funnel cake, gyro, pronto-pup, and the most *outrageously* tasty cajun chicken-on-a-stick. Moist chicken, thick-cut onions, spicy salty seasoning, all fried in a crunchy brown oiled casing. And the best part? They gave us these little plastic packets of ranch dressing to squeeze onto our chicken while we walked! Whoa!

if you can't stand the heat...part four

This was very time consuming. Delicious, but I'm not sure I'd do it again. And I cheated on my rules. Or at least I bent the rules. The noodles need to be cooked, but I used the scalding hot water that comes straight from our tap. Only use so far for the kitchen sink water that goes from frosty to burning in 5 seconds.

Vietnamese Rice Noodle Salad (adapted from an epicurious.com recipe)

1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 red onion, quartered and thinly sliced

8 ounces firm dried rice noodles

1/2 cup fresh lime juice
6 tablespoons water
6 tablespoons sugar
5-6 tablespoons Asian fish sauce, to taste
1 teaspoon dried hot red-pepper flakes
1 teaspoon soy sauce, optional
2 teaspoons minced garlic, optional

1/3 cup chopped fresh mint
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 large cucumber, peeled, halved lengthwise, seeded, thinly sliced
4 green onions, thinly sliced
2 carrots, peeled, julienned
1 red pepper, julienned
1 cup bean sprouts
4 tablespoons chopped lightly salted cashews

Whisk vinegar and sugar in medium bowl to blend. Add onion and toss to coat. Cover and let stand at least 30 minutes and up to 4 hours. Drain, reserving vinegar mixture. Pile cucumbers, carrots and peppers in individual piles on top of onions and drizzle vinegar over, then drain again, taking care not to disturb the piles. Reserve 2 tablespoons of vinegar.

Cook noodles in large pot of boiling water until tender but still firm to bite, about 2 minutes. Drain. Rinse under cold water. Drain well.

Whisk lime juice, water, sugar, fish sauce, red pepper flakes and garlic and soy sauce if using in small bowl to blend.

Place finely julienned romaine lettuce in the bottom of a large bowl. Place noodles on top. Drizzle with reserved 2 tablespoons vinegar mixture and toss to coat. Pile the cucumber, green onions, carrot, red pepper, bean sprouts and onions into separate piles on top of noodles. Sprinkle with cashews and serve with lime juice mixture on the side for flavoring to taste.

Serves 6

if you can't stand the heat...part three

Taco salad: Toss together greens, chopped tomato, chopped red onion, sliced avocado, a small can of black beans and kernels from a couple of ears of corn. Toss with crumbled tortilla chips and dress with lime and chopped cilantro leaves.

if you can't stand the heat...part two

This salad was delicious, sated my protein craving, and required no cooking. Perfect.

Smoked turkey & black bean succotash salad

3 cups diced, cooked smoked turkey breast
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup fresh corn kernels
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1 cup diced bell peppers (any colors)
1/4 cup finely chopped red onion
3 cups arugula or salad greens mix

Dressing
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint (plus leaves for garnish)
1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
1/2 cup tomato juice
2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon sherry (or balsamic) vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil

Combine turkey, beans, corn, tomatoes, bell peppers and onion in a bowl. Whisk all dressing ingredients in another bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Add dressing to turkey mixture and toss to combine. Divide greens among 4 plates and top with turkey salad.

if you can't stand the heat...

Summer in Montreal means many things. There's the street festivals, the jazz, the volleyball, the smell of marijuana (everywhere), the tamtams...and the heat. It's not Memphis-hot, of course, but it's still respectable. And here they don't really bother with air conditioners. Luckily, Dr. DJ's apartment sits high above the city where the breeze from the windows keeps us cool - most of the time. Now it's more like a sultry box, much too close to the sun. And the kitchen's the worst part. It's unbearable in there. But if growing up in the South taught me anything it's that when the temperature starts up, you should wind down. The less work, the better. (And ice cubes don't hurt.) So, I've decided to swear off cooking for the duration of the season. Now that doesn't mean I won't prepare food - it'll just be without cooking it! No stoves, no ovens, and no grills. Nothing to raise the temperature in the apartment. A pretty neat little challenge, I think! Here's the first thing I tried:

Not surprisingly, a salad. But it was a delicious salad! And here's the recipe (adapted from one I found at epicurious.com):

**Palm and Avocado Salad**

For vinaigrette:
1 small garlic clove
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, washed and spun dry
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup fresh grapefruit juice
1 teaspoon honey
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup olive oil

For salad
a 14-ounce can hearts of palm, drained
4 California firm-ripe avocados
1/2 small red onion, sliced thin
1 large pink grapefruit, peeled and segmented
Boston lettuce leaves (from about 2 heads)

Make vinaigrette:
In a blender purée garlic and cilantro with lemon and grapefruit juices, honey, and salt. With motor running add oil in a stream, blending until dressing is emulsified.

Make salad:
Cut hearts of palm and avocado into 3/4-inch cubes and in a large bowl with a rubber spatula gently toss with onion, grapefruit, and vinaigrette until combined well.

Line 8 salad plates with lettuce leaves and mound avocado mixture on top.

memphis mary's

Janae asked me to go with her to Memphis Mary's in order to do reconnaissance. I'm not clear on why we needed to do reconnaissance, but I take pictures in restaurants all the time so I wasn't too concerned with the details. We told the waitstaff I write a food and travel blog. Misdirection through honesty is a specialty of mine.

The food: surprisingly good. I wasn't expecting much from a lesbian diner known primarily for its happy hour and contemporary dance mix. But it's solid.

We started with the spinach-artichoke dip that comes, unusually, with chips. The chips were outstanding: paper thin, crisp, warm, and lightly salty. The dip itself was well-balanced between creamy and astringent. The portions aren't large, but I only noticed because I wished I had some more dip after it was gone.

I specially requested grilled rather than fried shrimp for my po' boy. While the waitress was reluctant, she got it done. And it was a fine po'boy, this version firmly in the tradition of unfussy food. The bread was soft, not too crusty and grilled, which was a nice touch. Rather than the remoulade most places would serve with a po'boy, Mary's just uses a generous smear of tangy mayo. The fries were what really had me. Wow! Soft on the inside, crunchy on the outside, not too oily, lightly salted...and browner, more crisp than others. I liked the size of them, too: thick, but not steak-size. Perfect proportions!

Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken

I'm not much of a fan of fried chicken. To me, it's greasy, soggy, flavorless mush coating overcooked chicken. You can revoke my "Southern" card if you want, but fried food in general just doesn't do much for me. The flavor of the fat tends to overwhelm the flavor of the food. In almost all cases you would do better to prepare it in another way.

This is the opposite of how I feel about Gus's fried chicken.

There's something about how they make it that's alchemical. The crust is crisp and full of the flavor of pepper and spice, while the chicken stays moist and juicy. It's like they condensed the essence of chicken in there. Maybe it's special chickens...I don't know. But they just taste better than ordinary ones.


Other than the superlative chicken, the menu at Gus's is limited. They have enjoyable fried pickles and jalapenos, the pies are uninspired but not bad. Beans and coleslaw come with the chicken meal and are serviceable. I like to scoop up coleslaw with pieces of chicken lightly doused in pepper vinegar. Yum!

I go to the Gus's downtown, on Front & Linden. I'm told the location out east has more variety of vegetables, but I wonder why they bother. People come to Gus's for the chicken. Eating anything else is just a waste of perfectly good tummy space.

Jerry's SnoCones

Jason and I had been planning a trip to Jerry's Sno Cones for months it seems. We finally went the other day! First of all, it's a bit of a trek to get there. Way up in the north part of Memphis - 1657 Wells Station Rd. But it's worth it on a hot day. The place is so pink and yellow and square, like if communist architecture came to Portugal.





And it does feel a little post-apocalyptic with all the people in various stages of summer undress waiting around in the sun or slurping their food out of styrofoam cups. what saves it from being too morbid is the gratuitousness of the combination of sno cone with soft serve ice cream. It's called a "supreme" and it's very good. I tried mine with mango, orchid, and cherry flavors. They were all a bit sickly sweet, and *way* too much for one person to eat, but the texture on my tongue was pretty amazing. I'm told wedding cake is the most popular flavor...but i think next time I'll try lemon or coffee and hope it won't put my teeth on edge!

Jeanne & Thorsten's Wedding Cake

So, I'm back in Memphis now -- teaching some Philosophy, tearing up some floors, baking some wedding cake. This is my second wedding cake, and I was very happy with it. It looked beautiful thanks to Amanda and Jena's artistic touches, but it tasted excellent as well! Let's see...it was an almond cake with raspberry eau-de-vie buttercream filling and fresh raspberries. For the outside I chopped up a bunch of almonds very finely and mixed it with gold dust so that it would remind Jeanne of the sand on the Pacific.

Lemon tart with Raspberries and Rosemary

the lemon filling was loose.... there's something about these creamy-firm textured pies that's difficult for me. but it was delicious anyway!

a gustatory adventure

Maria and I started our day at Beauty’s Luncheonette. It was a little overpriced, but the atmosphere was swell and the food was tasty. I'm told there's usually a crazy wait to get a seat, but Maria and I just breezed on in. My pancakes were lovely, sincere versions and the blueberries were fresh-tasting. The syrup on the other hand...let's say it was more caramel-colored sugar water than maple syrup!

Anyway, Maria's spinach and red pepper omelet with hash browns was hearty and well-seasoned. But what's with all the brown cooked bits on the omelet? This may be a little exigent, but you lose much of the delicacy and softness of the egg when you let it cook so long (or at such a high heat). Brown bits on the potatoes, however...heaven!

Next, we drove up to the Jean-Talon market, one of the most exciting open markets I've visited. First of all, it's huge. Rows and rows of fresh fruit and vegetables - all arranged like bouquets -, then there's booths for honey, maple syrup, cider and ice wine, cheese shops, butcher shops, stands of cured pork and homemade sausage, all surrounded by a sea of flowers. Maria and I got hooked by the mangos, which I wouldn't have expected to be as deliciously floral as they were. One of the nice things about the Jean-Talon market is that the vendors will give you samples of their fresh produce. When we sampled the mango it was so wonderful I bought 6!

We had one more stop to make: Paul Patates. I read this was the best place to get hot dog steamies and the only place to get a homemade spruce beer float.Let me say: Yum! Everything at Paul Patates was delicious! Especially the spruce beer float. Spruce beer itself is very light and refreshing, with that tinny pine tone. What I especially liked about it is how the soft serve ice cream makes thin little ice crystals in the spruce beer. It's almost like eating a little brush of pine needles with snow on top!

Elvis...like a bad penny

Maria and I visited Old Montreal while she was in town. It's really a beautiful neighborhood, right on the water, with a mix of ornate European-style architecture and the rusted remains of port industry.


It's also become a bit of a tourist haven. Complete with a golden Elvis.

And we thought we got away from this guy!

What is it with those giant plastic cups, anyway? When people go on vacation, do they just expect those? Or is it the vendors? I guess they're onto something...it's probably only through drunken eyes that their rows of tiny Canadian flags, spoons, shot glasses and beavers could look good.

Something that did look mighty appealing to me and Maria were these:


Boules au miel, or honey balls. And they taste as good as they look! Some people were ordering them with soft serve ice cream on top, or chocolate syrup. Maria and I decided to go with simplicity. They taste like New Orleans' beignets (and with that almost indefinable vanilla richness that donuts never seem to achieve), but soaked in a very light honey rather than powdered sugar. The shop, le Volcan, also offers another Quebec specialty: beaver tail. I'm not quite sure what that is, but I plan on finding out soon.

The Fringe

There are so many things to do at the Fringe Festival, trying to relate it all threatens the coherency of a single entry. But I'll try anyway...coherency is an overrated ideal.

On St. Laurent the street food vendors stretched out like the ocean. Maria and I tried Jamaican patties, churros, fresh lemonade, Schwartz's sandwiches, chicken burritos, mango on a stick, and crepes with banana and nutella. But what we really wanted was to see some shows, preferably for free. So, we dropped in on a band from Austin playing in the Parc des Transameriques. We thought they were great...that is, until they stopped tuning up....

What we didn't anticipate was that the Parc des Transameriques would be the scene of something even less savory: The Cultural Gargantuan.

First off, we were tricked into going. I mean, they were offering free pancakes! Who can say no to free pancakes? In retrospect, I should have glanced at their pedigree. Had the pancakes been delicious as fluffy little maple clouds they still wouldn't have excused the display of rampantly poor theatre we endured for them. Unfortunately, the pancakes were so gritty and undercooked that they just added to our feeling of being swindled. I won't belabor the point: the "Cultural Gargantuan" was a vehicle for the production of "Fear of a Fat Planet" in which large, over-exposed women threw themselves around a stage and made out while eating bacon. We left after about 10 minutes.


In fact, if there's anyone wondering what the Fringe Festival in Montréal is all about, I think this poster kind of sums it up:


Got a run in your favorite pair of fishnet stockings? Well, sister, you're just going to have to wait until after the Fringe to replace them. Everyone's sold out.

We did catch a good show the next day, though: My Origami Motorcycle. The tale of one woman's motorcycle adventure across Canada to find her muse. Kind of a metaphor for Maria's life...except in her motorcycle adventure, when the bugs hit you, it doesn't hurt.

Spring Snow

DIY Pizza

So, I love pizza. It's one of those foods I just can't say 'no' to. There's a piece of pizza in my fridge right now I'm trying to resist eating for at least another hour. I thought writing about it would help, but it really just makes the pizza-lust stronger.

The good news is that I think I've channeled this love into a healthy new direction: making pizzas. The first thing I did was perfect the sauce. This seems like it should be complicated, but it's easy. Just open a big can of the highest quality tomatoes you're willing to shell out for (San Marzano, in my taste tests, deserved the hype), squish 'em a bit with your hands, then put them in a pot over very low heat for, like, five hours, lightly salting them before slathering them on the pizza crust. The only hard part is leaving them alone while they cook. When they start getting thick and sweet and filling your kitchen with delicious smells...you just want to eat 'em all up right out of the pot.

If you've managed to resist the sauce until it's done, then the crust is the next step, and it's a bit trickier. You really do need a pizza stone. (Comic interlude: I bought a pizza stone the other day and, of course, needed to season it. Before I had a chance to do it, though, Dr. dj's brother came by and we decided to drive over to his house to visit the new baby. So, I packed up all of my pizza making supplies thinking, 'oh, it'll be perfect. I'll get to try my first pizza out on friends who would probably especially appreciate someone else cooking for them right now. And all did seem perfect -- until I seasoned the pizza stone. There was smoke *everywhere*. And my poor friends had to take the baby down to the basement to avoid breathing it.... Luckily, the pizza tasted great, which I guess was slightly redeeming.) So, once you've bought and seasoned your pizza stone far from any newborns, you can make the crust. Here's my recipe, adapted from Giada de Laurentiis':

Pizza Dough

3/4 cup warm water (105°F to 115°F)
1 envelope active dry yeast

1 cup (or more) all purpose flour
1 cup (or more) whole wheat flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon honey


Pour 3/4 cup warm water into small bowl; stir in yeast. Let stand until yeast dissolves, about 5 minutes.

Brush large bowl lightly with olive oil. Mix 2 cups flour and salt in another bowl. Add yeast mixture, 3 tablespoons oil, and honey; mix with fork then hands until dough forms a sticky ball. Transfer to lightly floured surface. Knead dough until smooth, adding more flour by tablespoonfuls if dough is very sticky, about 1 minute. Transfer to prepared bowl; turn dough in bowl to coat with oil. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let dough rise in warm draft-free area until doubled in volume, about 1 hour. Punch down dough. (The dough can be made one day ahead. Store in airtight container in refrigerator.) Roll out dough into a circle the size of your pizza stone, starting in center and working outwork toward edges without rolling over them.)

So, once you've gotten your dough all rolled out, you can either transfer it to a pizza peel or take the very hot stone out of the pre-heating (425ºF) oven and quickly form the dough and top it before the stone gets too cold. It works, I promise, you just have to be careful not to burn yourself. It usually takes between 15 and 20 minutes to cook, but you should just keep an eye on it and turn it sometime in the middle of cooking.

As for the topping, well, you're only limited by your imagination. Fresh mozzarella works best, but the stuff is pretty expensive, so I think my next culinary feat will be making my own. Wish me luck!