Random Article

If you care about me, or care about some of the same things that I care about (for instance, North Carolina, the city of Charlotte, or food), then please read this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/29/dining/in-charlotte-nc-democrats-will-find-a-growing-food-scene.html?_r=1 My friend Alexandra brought it to my attention recently and I am so happy that Charlotte is getting credit where credit is due for its food scene. Charlotte is more than the home of Bank of America, the Carolina Panthers, and the 2012 Democratic National Convention. And, for the Charlotteans, let’s not forget to support these businesses and show our appreciation that Charlotte has more to offer than forty-something Starbucks and the original Bojangles.

What I haven’t written

It has been about two months since my last post. During this time I have been grappling with whether I want to continue blogging or not. It is the typical head vs. heart dilemma. Quite honestly, I am still trying to figure it out. So, bear with me and I will keep you in the loop. But for now, here is a brief recap of my life for the past two months. This is primarily in pictures and if you will notice, the second half of the pictures are considerably better. It’s because I have a real DSRL camera now! It was quite a surprise to receive it and there is a learning curve but I love using it!  (Thanks Jerry!)

 

Lemon olive oil muffins. These sound kind of strange but using olive oil in baked goods has become one of my new favorite things. These were light and summery!

 

 

 

 

 

Lemon whoopie pies that I made with my host mom. Delicious and fun to make!

 

 

 

 

 

Food trucks, I am obsessed with them and Charlotte has them; therefore, the perfect lunch date with a friend from work.

 

 

 

Hiking adventure with a lovely friend at Mt. Mitchell, North Carolina’s highest peak.

 

 

 

I discovered a new taste for sprouted bread. And of course, its even better with peanut butter and blueberry jam!

I am so loyal to this stuff. Almost every single time I have gone to Ben and Jerry’s for the past six months, I have gotten Banana and Peanut Butter Greek Frozen Yogurt (I think you can see a common thread, I probably eat way to much peanut butter).

 

 

Making sprouted bread. Except it honestly didn’t turn out exactly as I planned (which means that I threw it in the trashcan in frustration). I tried to get fancy and make cinnamon raisin swirl sprouted bread. Note to self: stick to the recipe, whoever ever created it knows more than you do!

 

 

   Succulent garden. I love this! I made it in the mountains with my grandmother and now have it sitting on the windowsill in my dorm room. Nana said they are hard to kill….. only time will tell.

 

 

 

Baking with friends that I missed so much over the summer. The result: delicious chocolate pudding chocolate chip cookies

 

 

 

New experiences! For our anniversary, Jerry and I went up in a small plane (is it possible to get motion sickness from a plane? if so, then I had it) and he got to take the controls for part of the time. Very fun!

 

 

View of Lake Norman from the window of the plane.

 

 

Last weekend I got to see two great Braves games with Jerry and his family. I don’t know that much about baseball but it was really fun (I didn’t even have to pull out my Kindle that I brought for backup entertainment)!

 

 

 

Waxy monkey frog, my favorite of the 12 species of frogs and toads featured in an exhibit at the Georgia Aquarium. He literally looked like fake.

 

 

 

 

Fall is here! I wore a pair of wine-colored skinny jeans today (the picture distorted the color a bit, but imagine that they have a bit of burgundy in them). It was wonderful! Next come the boots and cardigans!

Ah, Simplicity

Everyone knows that cherry tomatoes are best when popped right into your mouth after picking, hot from the summer sun and exploding with the first bite. For years, my grandparents used to have massive cherry tomato plants in their garden. My sister, cousin, and I would go down to the garden with our grandparents and each fill up a small bucket with these bite-size treasures. My cousin and I would eat them with much pleasure (my sister was a picky eater), but I remember that she always would say she didn’t like regular tomatoes, only cherry tomatoes. I distinctly recall sitting in the back of my grandfather’s rusty, blue truck (which he lovingly called “Old Blue”) and eating handfuls and handfuls of tomatoes. We didn’t even bother wiping off the tomatoes before we ate them. In a way, I still enjoy them to this day unwashed, with a thin layer of red mud lending an earthy flavor and grainy texture to the cherry tomato. For me, this is summer. Cherry tomatoes are simple (I mean I don’t even have to wash them), sweet, juicy, and when freshly picked, hot. All of these adjectives also describe summer in my book.

 

Although I have mainly eaten cherry tomatoes in their raw form, I saw a recipe in Cooking Light the other day that was supposedly simple and included cherry tomatoes. It was a pasta dish and I was happy to see there was no marinara (I hate that stuff) but a good amount of garlic and olive oil (which are more my speed). I had noticed some whole wheat penne in the pantry. Although the recipe called for linguine, I figured I would try the recipe anyway. It was a keeper. I really enjoyed the roasted garlic and cherry tomatoes which were just starting to pop open from the heat. Although penne was not the easiest pasta to eat with chunky toppings, the taste was fantastic. I added basil and parmesan on top. The recipe was decidedly simple, it took me about thirty minutes to make the recipe but it wasn’t very much work, mainly just waiting on the pasta to boil. In the future, I think that this dish could also be good with other summer vegetables, like squash and zucchini. Less simplicity but a good way to use up these abundant summer veggies. Here is the link to the recipe. Enjoy!

I Heart CLT

I am living in Charlotte for the summer, in case you didn’t know. This week, I have taken public transportation everywhere and I feel as if I am a little bit more of a city gal. (However, I can’t wait to go home in a few days, pick our grapes, cook with vegetables straight out of the garden, play with my dog, grill out with my family on the back porch, read on a rocking chair on our front port, and walk around barefoot in the backyard.) Through this somewhat trying public transportation experience, I have found out that I love the light rail! Most people keep to themselves and there are a  few guys that are a little too friendly if you know what I mean, but there is air conditioning and it is almost always a pleasant trip. As a result, I have tried to go as many places I can to explore this week. 
Here are just a few of the adventures I have had: spur-of-the-moment trip to NoDa/Amelie’s with intern S, check, uptown to King’s Bakery for lunch with intern H, yep, to the Visulite Theater in Elizabeth to hear Erick Baker and Jill Andrews with interns A and H, uh-huh, random trip to Harris-Teeter, duh, and treating myself to a peanut butter blondie from Cloud 9 Confections in 7th Street Public Market, most definitely (it had been a rough day, I needed it). As you can see, many of these revolve around food, but I just wanted to take advantage of my week pass and I think I can say that I did. I am actually a bit sad that I can no longer use my weekly pass. While using the pass and exploring the city, it has made me love and appreciate Charlotte even more, the people, places, and even the relatively efficient public transit system.

Uptown Charlotte at night.

Last weekend I was fortunate enough to eat at two wonderful and swankier restaurants. Last Sunday, I reached a milestone; I ate at my tenth restaurant on the list of the “25 Best Restaurants in Charlotte”. Last weekend I ate at Halcyon Saturday night and at Customshop on Sunday for brunch. Because I have hit a small milestone, I have decided to start a series about my impressions of these places (although it may be interrupted by recipe posts to mix things up a bit). Eating at these one-of-a-kind restaurants in Charlotte has deepened my appreciation for the Queen City and made me love this place that I am temporarily calling home even more. In the restaurants, I can see the visions of their owners and I love the creativity, the attention to the quality and sourcing of ingredients, the array of different ethnic options, and welcoming atmosphere present in all of them. I will start with an overview of the last two of these restaurants that I have eaten at.
Customshop:

Left: scone with apple butter; right: huevos rancheros

This farm-to-fork restaurant in Elizabeth definitely was surprisingly not crowded for Sunday lunch at 12:45 but with the delicious food it is a wonder that there were few people there. The atmosphere is modern but simple with large industrial looking booths and tables as well as patio seating. Evidently the atmosphere is a bit fancier and more intimate for dinner when house made pastas are featured and are supposed to be quite a hit. We had a good server and the service was prompt. However, I specifically asked for my dish without beans and it came with beans anyway. Also, my grandfather ordered the Focaccia Panini but they had just run out a few minutes before (no worries though, he still enjoyed the short rib burger). Our meal began with crescent-shaped scones and apple butter. The mini scones were still warm and studded with dried fruit (raisins or possibly currants). It was a nice two bites to start the meal. The menu wasn’t huge but everything that I tried proved that the kitchen emphasized quality over quantity of choices. I ordered Huevos Rancheros. The roasted corn pancakes were light and served as a good base for the spicier and more vibrant flavors of the pico de gallo and sauce. The two eggs perched atop the corn cakes were cooked perfectly to my liking, poached and soft. My grandmothers ordered the  Blueberry & Marscapone French Toast and Spinach Salad, Scallops, Cottonmill Mushrooms & Warm Bacon-Mustard Vinaigrette. The French Toast was delicious and not too sweet, made with good quality bread and fresh, local blueberries. The spinach salad was a warm salad, with complex flavors from the carmelized onions, roasted mushrooms and tomatoes, and bacon. This isn’t a light, summery salad, but it was a delicious and filling meal. The scallops themselves were large and tender, seared on both sides to perfection. Customshop is known for their house made charcuterie which was listed on a blackboard by the door as well as local cheeses. Although I didn't get to try this, the wild boar was especially intriguing. I would love to go back and try their dinner selections and charcuterie/cheese selection.
Halcyon:

The outdoor seating area of Halcyon, tucked into the Mint Museum.

Another farm-to-fork restaurant, Halcyon is located uptown in the Mint Museum. The atmosphere is true to the vision of the restaurant. There are exquisite high tables with tabletops made of a cross-section of a large tree, showing the rings. The other tables inside are intimate but not stuffy. Jerry and I sat outside, which may have been a mistake considering the humidity and high temperatures that night. However, the seating was positioned to give diners a nice view of downtown. The chairs were large and slightly reclining, adding comfort and relaxation instantly. Even the silverware and plates were in keeping with the natural theme and added to the overall ambience. Our service here was excellent, from the warm greeting by the hostess to our waiter that treated us like old friends. However, I would definitely recommend making reservations; the restaurant filled up quickly after we came for our 6:15 reservations. We were first served some bread with specialty butters, basil and tangerine. These were different but equally tasty on the crusty French bread slices. The menus here are unique in that there are grazing (appetizers), grown (salads), and raised (main course meat) sections to the menu, as a well as a libations and dessert menu. Jerry and I decided to try several different things to try to have the best experience here. We started off with the Trio of Regional and Inspired Cheeses and the Hearth Skillet Cornbread. The cornbread came hot out of the oven in a small cast iron pan. The sweet, moist bread was studded with bits of salty country ham and a dollop of blackberry butter was melting on top. The sweet and salty combination was amazing and made for a unique twist on cornbread. We literally polished off the whole pan (this was when I started to feel full although Jerry tried to tell me there was no way I was full already) before getting to the cheese board. That night there was a goat cheese, an aged cheese (reminiscent of Swiss) with cocoa nibs, and a Stilton blue cheese with sliced apples, dried fruit, and a fruit chutney. The cheeses came from Asheville, Greensboro, and somewhere in Georgia; our waiter was very knowledgeable about where the cheeses came from and the flavors of each. We enjoyed them all but the one with cocoa nibs might have been my favorite, although there wasn’t a strong chocolate flavor. For our entrée, we ordered the Lardcore Quail which came with farro and greens in a delicious jus. The quail (it was the first time I had tried this delicacy) was fried to perfection. I normally do not even like greens but these were packed with flavor and the farro was cooked well, absorbing some of the jus from the greens. All of these components made a very interesting bite with complimenting flavors and textures. By the time, we finished the entrée, we were stuffed and unable to try one of the four desserts (they change daily) which I would have been hard pressed to pick from because they all sounded so delicious. Halcyon put a new spin on old southern favorites using local produce and the appetizers are especially quirky and fun.

Top: cornbread with blackberry butter melting on top; bottom: fried quail on top of greens and farro.

The Dog Days are Over

This week, summer has come in in full force. In Charlotte, the humidity has been oppressive and it has been just plain hot, with highs hitting the 90s almost everyday this week. On days like these,who feels like cooking? (Admittedly I still like steamers, hot chocolate, and hot tea in the summer, don’t judge.) But, I have to eat and I still want to eat well. So, here is the dilemma, stand over a hot stove sweating or stick with salads. But, alas, it doesn’t have to be this way! Although I have been on a smoothie kick lately (lots of super ripe peaches + blueberries +  yogurt= smoothie), I have also been obsessed with my host mom’s Eating Well cookbook. Herein was the answer. A meal that didn’t require much preparation or a long cooking time and wasn’t too heavy.

I discovered this recipe Monday, after realizing that I was starving. At 5:00 I felt confident in taking on rush hour traffic if it meant that I could get home to some nourishment. Needless to say, when I got back to the house, dinner was my first priority. I had picked up a beautiful purple Asian eggplant at the farmers’ market a few days before and thought there was a roasted veggie sandwich recipe I had seen in the Eating Well cookbook. I put my own spin on this sandwich and came up with one that I actually made again a few days later it was so good. It was still summery and light, using fresh produce but also substantial enough for a filling Meatless Monday dinner.

Roasted Eggplant Open-Faced Sandwich

Serves 1

1/3 Asian eggplant, sliced into 1/2 inch rounds

1/4 red bell pepper, cut into strips

1 tablespoon olive oil

Salt and pepper

1 Laughing Cow wedge

Pinch of crushed red pepper

1 teaspoon each of chopped fresh oregano, basil, parsley

Two slices of good whole wheat bread

Combine eggplant, red bell pepper, olive, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Arrange on a baking sheet and put under the broiler. Once eggplant and red pepper slices are browned and tender, which takes about 10 minutes, remove from oven and let cool. Meanwhile, toast bread until lightly browned. Then, spread with Laughing Cow cheese and sprinkle with red pepper flakes, according to taste. Chop eggplant and roasted red pepper into 1/2 inch pieces and mix together. Spoon thismixture onto each sandwich half. Sprinkle with fresh herbs.

Enjoy!

Coming up soon: I will tell about my recent trips to several “Top 25” restaurants in Charlotte. Mouth watering pictures included!

Can You Spell Tradition?

Every family has traditions, many of which center around holidays and food. My family goes to the Christmas Eve service at church and then to my grandparents house for dinner every year. Each member of my family’s birthday is also treated like a special holiday. We all get up early on that special person’s birthday to open presents and have breakfast; also, birthday celebrations absolutely must last at least a week or two, getting together with both sides of the family, the immediate family, and friends. I also shared traditions with my friends in high school. We went to a certain restaurant that served a bucket of in-the-shell peanuts on every tables. Now, with some of my friends I make very regular visits to Summit (THE hip coffee shop in Davidson). It is obvious that many of the traditions I share with the people I love center around food. And, I’m not sad about it.

Well, Jerry and I have officially coined a new tradition. So far, our tradition is only two years strong. Although this tradition is still young, we have no plans of stopping it. This Saturday we went to the Taste of Charlotte, a food festival celebrating restaurants in Charlotte. There we met some of my fellow intern friends and ran into other Davidson students, making this year even more fun. Fun fact: last year we spotted Michael Jordan at the festival. This year, no celeb sightings but the weather was far better, perfect for a sundress or shorts and no need for an umbrella.

Jerry contemplating his next move on the giant Connect Four board. We have each played too many games of Connect Four for one of us to best the another. Although we tied, it was still fun.

There are always random fun things going on other than eating, like the man that escaped from a straight jacket laced with chains, a soulful jazz band playing on the corner, cooking demonstrations, or an over-sized Four Square board. Oh yeah, did I mention the free samples? There are plenty of those although most of the good stuff you have to buy with tokens. All food ranges from one to three tokens. Tokens are 15 for $20. Jerry and I have learned from last year and were able to both eat our fill (although we did take advantage of EVERY sample) with just one cup of tokens. This is cheaper than most of our meals and the atmosphere made it a great way to kick off the summer.

Here is a sample of what I got this year:

Masala Dosa (3 TOKENS) from Woodlands Indian Cuisine (thanks to Jerry for holding the plate, I am no good at juggling a camera, camera case, massive pocketbook, every coupon or brochure that I passed by, and a plate). This classic Indian dish had a bright yellow and well seasoned potato filling wrapped in the equivalent of a crispy Asian crepe. One sauce tasted as if it was a cauliflower puree and was very silky and cool, especially compared to the red sauce which was served hot and had more of that classic Indian spice that I love! Definitely a good choice.

Muffaletta Slider (2 TOKENS) with Almond Cheerwine Pudding(1 TOKEN) from e2 Emeril’s Eatery which utilizes local, seasonal food. The muffaletta was made with capicola, which lent a richness to the slider, and tangy olive tapenade to balance the meat and cheese. I have always wanted to try this Cajun classic and this was a good first experience. The almond Cheerwine pudding was a cute and delicious end to the meal. It played on the classic pairing of cherry and vanilla, while also incorporating North Carolina’s favorite soft drink. Great way to finish the night!

After our bellies were full, we just walked around uptown and visited our favorite Harris Teeter. It is a slightly more compact Harris Teeter because it is located uptown and it even has an upstairs (although I haven’t been up there since it is reserved for wine)! We got drinks (I found out that dark chocolate almond milk is quite tasty and something I want to drink more of) and continued our aimless wandering.

The day after the food festival, Jerry and I were talking about it when he said, “Can you spell tradition?” I knew what he was referring to but had never heard of that expression. I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying,  “Yes, T-R-A …” and instead agreed that we would most definitely have to go again next year. Here’s to new traditions!

Lime Tartlets

I am a cake person, plain and simple. If given a choice, I would choose cake (especially if it is carrot, hummingbird, or red velvet) over about any other dessert. I love the texture of cake, the different flavors of icing that can be paired with it, and how it can even be eaten for breakfast on your birthday or special occasions. I appreciate that cake is associated with weddings (I actually did a whole research paper on the evolution of wedding cakes and their cultural values) and birthdays, can be made in all different sizes and shapes, and is so fun to make. This cake is what Jerry and I devoured after we got engaged and Rainbow Chip takes me back to many birthday parties.

But, to each his own. Jerry’s favorite dessert is key lime pie (although there is definitely some overlap, red velvet cake is a shared love). Key lime pie is a dessert that his grandma makes for him, the first dessert that we ate together (if I am not mistaken, although we didn’t feed each other or anything romantic like that), and it is what he had on a trip to the Florida Keys, made with fresh, local key limes. For Jerry, I will eat pie instead of cake. I figured that after over two and a half years of being together, it was time that I make him key lime pie. I put a spin on his favorite treat using ingredients that I had on hand and surprised him with it. I basically looked at a lot of recipes and then just improvised.

RECIPE:


These last several years, my interest in baking and all things food related has intensified and I have made a lot of desserts. But, after trying one of these lime tartlets Jerry remarked that it is one of the best things I have ever made him. This comment really touched me. Needless to say, I was on Cloud 9 for the rest of the night. So, this post is for Jerry as he enjoys the rest of his tartlets and I try to find other ways to show him I love him as well as he shows me.

Let them eat pie! Enjoy!