Category Archives: food

In Which I Cover Patriotism, Fashion, Newspapers and Fresh Spearmint

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I am staging a protest here. Care to join me? In the spirit of the recent Fourth of July celebration, let’s refuse to be bullied into thinking it’s fall. (And if you still have a few fireworks, please move them away from the gas grill — do not ask why I’m confident this is good advice.) Let’s stand up for our rights to enjoy the remaining two months of summer without feeling pressured. Know what I mean??? I’m talking to you, Fashion Industry! It’s early July and I haven’t even worn all my leftover faded sundresses and stained  ratty tank tops stylish new summer clothes you convinced me to buy this past January when there was 6 inches of snow on the ground. It’s 99 degrees today, yet here you come with your seductive ads, glossy catalogues and insistent pop-ups: “New Fall Styles Are In!” “Get Ready for Football Weekends” and the always alarming “It’s Time for Back-to-School Shopping!” Excuse me, but no. It is not. Besides, when I actually am looking for corduroy jeans and black wool turtlenecks, you’ve gone on to shorts, sandals and beach cover-ups. So enough already. Let’s throw off the shackles of fashion tyranny and demand the right to shop for clothes when they’re actually in season! Who’s with me? We’ll organize a march at the mall. Hey, if foodies can fight for season choices, then so can we.  But … you know … now that I’m thinking about it … while we’re at the mall, would you mind if we waited a couple of minutes before marching because I saw this really cute transitional sweater there the other day and the sales clerk said she was getting in the first batch of knitted scarves and …

And to prove that it’s still summer, here’s a photo of the table my mom set for our Fourth of July family get-together. She’s the queen of holidays and has an incredible storehouse of linens, plates, glasses and serving pieces in almost any color you need. Sadly, she did not pass this creative design-ability on to me, although I do honor Christmas by bringing out coffee mugs with snowpeople on them. So there. What I really like about this photo, however, are all the little clues it has about my family. For instance, the spearmint sprigs on the applesauce came from Older Daughter’s garden that she optimistically replanted after the April 27 tornadoes carried her carefully nurtured seedlings away. My mom loves mint-flavored applesauce because her mom made it when my mom was little. Then there’s the potted centerpiece that my brother brought — the blossoms can be added to the flower bed and the plastic container recycled. And, finally, notice the newspaper in the back corner? I grew up thinking that it’s the most natural thing in the world to eat breakfast and read the newspaper and know what’s going on in the world before you headed out in it. And I still do.

The Captain Gets Crackin’

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It’s true I started this grandparenting adventure three years ago with grand dreams of all the wonderful stuff I was going to buy Capt. Adorable. Luckily, his parents — Older Daughter and Best Son-In-Law Ever — knew better. They’ve created a home where the simple pleasures are valued more than the Toy of the Day.  And really, what else does the 3-year-old Captain need for an afternoon of family fun than a $2 bag of unshelled pistachios? At least that’s what I was hoping when that’s the present I brought to their house recently because grandmas always bring presents. And it was a hit on all levels. First there’s the joy of bypassing the bowl Grandma Kacky conscientiously set out and simply dumping the whole bag on the table. Then there’s the careful consideration of each nut, carefully assessing its ease of crackability and gauging the likelihood for one or both halves and/or the nut itself to go flying across the room when opened. When it comes to the cracking part, extreme concentration is required — and even sometimes requests for some help from above. Finally, there’s that lovely salty and green-nutty satisfying crunch that makes all that hard work worthwhile. Well … for the Captain, anyway. After going through about two-thirds of the bag, he hops down and is ready for the next adventure — building a pirate ship out of the couch cushions, maybe? — but I have to hurry and find the broom and other cleaning supplies before the Captain’s parents come home and find the huge mess we made so I can impress them with my grandmotherly housekeeping skills.

I’d Like a Yellow Submarine to Go, Please

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One of my new favorite places is Yellow Deli in Chattanooga, Tennessee. For one thing, it’s just fun to say. Go ahead — try it right now: “Yellow Deli.” See? You can’t say it without smiling. And you can’t eat there without smiling, either. This is the place to, literally, feed your inner hippie. I mean, I’m all for any restaurant that lists “sprouts” as an add-on to your sandwich, offers homemade granola for breakfast and would rather pour you a cup of mate instead of coffee. (The very thought of “mate” instead of coffee horrifies me, but, you know, I celebrate diversity.) Think Bob Dylan meets Sgt. Pepper and then Alice Waters invites everybody over for tea with her friend Arlo Guthrie. Or maybe that’s just my own personal fantasy. But there’s definitely a 1960s-70s vibe here, and there’s a reason for that. A Chattanooga couple founded the Yellow Deli  in 1973 as “a place where people from all walks of life could come and touch a living demonstration of God’s love in those who served them.”  (http://yellowdeli.com/) Things got a little rocky at times — read both the “History” portion of the website and the Wikipedia entry for varying accounts — but there’s no denying that the Yellow Deli in Chattanooga serves fresh and delicious food along with a warm and casually funky atmosphere. Both my 76-year-old parents, my 20-something-year-old daughters and my three-year-old grandson Capt. Adorable loved it — and there aren’t many places where we all feel at home.  The inside is meticulously clean — an admirable feat considering all the rustic wood and handmade touches — the outside is gorgeously landscaped and the whole place is like getting a hug from your best friend. If your best friend could make a Hibiscus Fruit Cooler with sweet-potato pound cake. And don’t look for “Men” and “Women” signage when it comes to the restrooms. I think the Yellow Del’s all-inclusive sign pretty well sums it up.

Can I Get A “Yum?”

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One of summer's perfect pleasures: Fresh strawberry shortcake topped with homemade whipped cream sweetened with homemade mint syrup and fancied up with a fresh mint sprig. This was dessert at Older Daughter's house recently. I'm headed back very very soon.

Let Me Eat Cake (Pops) & Donuts!

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Hmmm … is there anything better than a sweet not-good-for-you-at-all treat? No. There is not. And lately I’ve gotten to sample some especially yummy treats. On the left, how about some cake pops? My friend Susan C. was the first person I knew who ever made cake balls. That was about two years ago, and now that everybody’s got them, I sort of think she invented them. And now we’ve gone on to cake pops — fun little round bites of moist cake dipped in candy coating and sprinkles that you don’t even have to get your fingers messy when you eat them. Our neighbor brought these over to us to thank Husband JP for bringing in her garbage can when she forgets — he’s thoughtful that way. And then, on the right, we have a box of  Chattanooga’s Julie Darling Donuts. These are absolutely positively without-a-doubt the best doughnuts ever — with the possible exception of a hot just-glazed plain Krispy Kreme. I don’t know what’s in them that makes them so good but they are so good. I have to slice pieces off over the course of several days so I don’t just dive in. Julie Darling even showed me how good a true jelly doughnut can be. I never liked the usual version — a glop of tasteless gel-like colored stuff in the middle — but Julie Darling’s jellies are stuffed full of the real thing and the contrast of tart strawberry puree with the sweet icing and rich doughnut is simply … perfect.

Five Senses — Yum! (Sung to the Music from the Red Robin Ad)

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Oh my goodness! Husband and I recently had a wonderful meal at Five Senses restaurant in Murfreesboro, Tennessee quick overnight trip, and after a late and satisfying lunch on the way at Miss Annie’s Rustic Park Restaurant and Beer Garden in St. Joseph, Tennessee, it was later in the evening before we started thinking about eating again. (Oh, who am I kidding? When we’re on the road, I always think about eating.) The ‘Boro has some great choices, and since we still mourn the loss of downtown pizza place “Tomato, Tomato,” we picked its upscale sibling Five Senses. Or, rather, JP picked it and I agreed. It was either Five Senses or Red Robin, and while I always enjoy working my way down a tower of fried onion rings,  we made the correct decision here. We went with small plates instead of entrees and so started with three appetizers: fried oysters, Readyville Mill grits and a crabcake, all flavorful and with lovely sauces and little salads.  Then Husband JP had a wedge salad, which he was delighted to see came in deconstructed form so he could play with his food, and I had a salad with fresh local lettuce. And then, dessert. Oh my oh my.  Usually creme brulee is my go-to, but JP talked me out of it with a suggestion to try something new. Thank you, dear sweetie, because this trio of sorbets — pomegranate, mango and pink grapefruit on crispy lace cookies “glued” to the plate with homemade whipped cream — was absolutely divine. Every bite was cool, creamy, tart or sweet. And, honestly, to tell the truth, as much as I adore creme brulee and would eat it every day except that it’s like 10,000 calories per bite, the best part is the contrast of the crunchy sugar top with the smooth richness underneath. When that’s gone, it’s still good but bordering possibly on sameness. However, every bite of this sorbet — every single bite  — was an adventure. As it always is when I go out with my husband.

Food: The Don’t-Go-Anywhere-Near-This and the What-Are-You-Waiting-For?

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Think fried. Think crunchy. Now think onions. Doesn’t that sound as if it would be a lovely combination — sort of like fried onion rings without all that pesky finger-licking grease?  That’s what I first thought when I spied these “Onion Chips” at the Fresh Market in Huntsville, Alabama, recently: “Chips made out of onions! Genius! Why didn’t someone think of this sooner?” But the answer to that question was clear after one bite: No one had done this before because it’s a horrible idea. At least this version is. You know how when you accidentally eat some of the inedible onion skin and it literally tastes like paper — paper that tastes really really bad? Imagine that in crispy form and you’ve got these onion chips. Yuck. It’s sad that somehow the concept of fried onions got messed up so badly. I couldn’t even think of anything to do with them after everybody I forced to taste them politely declined to have any more. I mean, there’s your sign, right there. I’d thought about grinding them up for breading crumbs or salad add-ons or something creative like that, but these don’t even deserve a second life.

So to offset such food awfullness, go out and buy/borrow/read/look at/check out Martha Foose’s new cookbook, “A Southerly Course.”  Martha is a Mississippi native and personifies the best of the Magnolia State — open-hearted, generous, adept at storytelling, skilled in the kitchen and wrapping it all up with a wry sense of humor and an appreciation of all the cultures and heritages that make up today’s South. And the recipes are absolutely wonderful: Bacon Crackers. Sugarcane Sweet Potatoes. Honey Pear Salad. Pickled Crawfish Tails. Summertime Spaghetti Squash. Peach Shortcake. Dandelion Cracklings. And the photos! Gorgeous food close-ups using heirloom china and vintage linens combined with hometown shots of the Foose folks  —  Martha even reveals her messy refrigerator door — make this cookbook seem both a food-feast and a friend’s scrapbook.   But “A Southerly Course” is more than a collection of user-friendly yummy recipes. Martha knows that the soul of good cooking is the love that goes into every spoonful — the sharing of good times with family and friends, the sharing of laughter around the table, the sharing of priceless memories with those you care about. Now, that is Southern cooking, Mississippi-style.

Safe from the Storms

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For the past few days, we’ve had storm evacuees at our house: Older Daughter with our son-in-law and 3-year-old grandson, Capt. Adorable. Their neighborhood in Huntsville, Alabama, lost power and water from this past week’s deadly storms, so they headed east to stay with family for a few days. Husband JP and I got to have them first! Oh my cookies, you know it was blissdom to have the Captain (and his parents, of course) at our house. We played trains. We looked for trains. We crashed the wagon. (This only means I pull him around town in the red wagon I pulled his mom around in 25 years ago and I go really, really fast. When appropriate, of course.) We walked to the drugstore for an ice cream cone. We went to the doughnut shop and bought doughnuts. We chased the kitty cats. We ate oranges. We cracked pistachios. He taught me how to play Dinosaur Train games on the computer. He showed me a “castle” I didn’t even know was in our town. We went to the park. We went to a playground. We jumped, bounced, slid, tickled, crab-walked, ran and swung. I didn’t have time to do official workouts while they were here, but every morning I felt as if I’d done Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred, Level No. 3. Twice. Consecutively. But also I got unlimited kisses, hugs and flowers from the Captain. It’s been a long time since I’ve had such a gorgeous bunch of hand-picked blossoms. That’s worth a few aches and pains, I think. And at the end of a week when unbelievably violent weather has, tragically, ripped families apart, I’m humbly grateful that it brought our family together in safety.

Is It Live? Or Is It A Pumpkin?

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I just want to know: Is it the pumpkin that’s live? Or the bar? And how does one tell if a pumpkin is live, anyway?

Meat and (Fried) Potatoes

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In an effort to impress y’all with how healthy and local and slow-food I am, I usually post photos of beautiful fresh vegetables that I’ve lovingly and barely cooked to release the best flavor and most nutrition. And I do eat like that. Mostly. Sometimes. Occasionally. But sometimes you just have to have meat. Such as these beautiful steaks my middle brother grilled this past weekend as the family gathered to celebrate the April 16 birthdays of our oldest and youngest members: It was my dad’s 77th and my nephew’s 1st. So, as always in the meat-atarian Wood clan, we marked the occasion with tender and juicy beef. Capt. Adorable — 3-y ear-old son of my vegetarian older daughter and her husband — could not get enough.  My husband also is a fan of meat, such as these warm and melty Philly-style sandwiches we get at United Steaks restaurant in Corinth, Miss. We’ll always say, “Remember, we can just order one sandwich and split it,” but we’ll forget that plan as soon as we’re at the counter and smell the cheese and hear the onions sizzling. But we do share our sides — I always order the hand-cut potato chips and he always orders the fries. Vegetables, you know.