On the Road Again

Chez Lula was closed on Wednesday. I had places to go. And go I did. The day was definitely not food-oriented, but some of the high points will still make for fine reading. I’ll include what we ate, just so I don’t lose you.

LA and I started the day with the saltiest breakfast burritos either of us have ever eaten. Thank you, Sonic! But we were off, headed towards the NC Zoological Park in Asheboro. Neither of us had ever been, and we’d both heard fantastic things about the zoo. I can sum up the zoo in three words: plants and butts. In the North America section, we saw pretty much nothing but animal butts. We did get to see otters being fed whole fish and hard-boiled eggs. Otters look like they have thumbs, but the zoo worker and LA both advised me that they do not. I still think they do. The Africa section involved many more animal fronts, as well as a carousel and some ostrich eggs. I guess it was ostrich day—I rode one on the carousel, took a photo of a real one, then I even hatched out of an egg.

Grumpy, tired, and with sore feet, we finally left the zoo. Interesting side note, you cannot get a straw at the zoo, because they are “dangerous to the animals”, but you can get a spoon. Go figure.

We headed back to Asheboro to hit up Biscuitville for LA. Sadly, they were closed by the time we arrived. We got some sweet tea and bad directions, then were off to High Point for the World’s Largest Chest of Drawers. We stopped at Kosta’s Family Restaurant in Archdale, which may not have been the best idea. I did like their macaroni salad, since it wasn’t as sweet as most varieties I’ve eaten. LA still thought it was too sweet. The braised chicken was bland, the barbecue was fine, and the gravy both gave us what Morgan Spurluck delightfully referred to as “the McGurgles”. The waitress seemed afraid of both of us, but we did overhear the best conversation of all time. The woman behind me informed her friends that “I’ve just had my third eye transplant. Well, really just my cornea.” She proceeded to tell them all about her corneas and the long list of ailments from which her husband suffered. As we left, LA asked the waitress how far we were from the World’s Largest Chest of Drawers. She was not familiar with it, but told him she did know about the World’s Largest Chair in Thomasville. Not helpful. (Besides, it’s the World’s Largest Duncan Phyfe Chair. I suppose that makes a difference.)

We did ultimately find and photograph the World’s Largest Chest of Drawers, although the directions we had were wrong and I nearly wrecked the car trying to turn around to get to it. Completely worth it. We continued north to Winston-Salem to our next destination—the Shell station shaped like a shell. After much map consultation, we found the Shell station. Completely worth driving around lost through a not so great neighborhood for five minutes’ worth of photos.

We spent another 45 minutes driving around in all directions before accidentally ending up in Old Salem. We had hoped we would, but we don’t have a stellar record of actually finding our true destinations. Old Salem and Salem College are both interesting and beautiful. I took way too many photos to post here, so I recommend going there post haste to check it out for yourself. If you’re reading this from somewhere other than NC, I’m sure there is an interesting historic site in your area.

By the end of all our shenanigans on the highways and biways of NC, we were…

That's Just Poppycock!

Every once in awhile, I’ll come across a recipe that looks so delicious, I can’t wait to try it. In this case, I wanted to try it immediately, but dragged my feet a little because I knew it would be a little bit of a pain in the butt. I was right, but it was so worth it!

The September issue of Bon Appetit magazine contains a recipe from Colt & Gray restaurant in Denver. Why couldn’t Colt & Gray have opened when I still lived there? I would’ve been there every night for their bacon and cashew caramel corn. Alas, they were not, and I was left to make it myself.

Bacon and cashew caramel corn? I saw the recipe title and my heart skipped a beat. I read it to LA, and I think his may have skipped a beat, too. Everyone loves caramel corn and everyone loves bacon (except you silly vegetarians who are missing out on the “meat candy”), so how could we not love bacon caramel corn? As far as I’m concerned, the cashews are just filler. The bacon and caramel are the real stars.

I bought all of the necessary ingredients, a bit horrified at the thought of actually having to cook popcorn in a pan. I grew up in the era of microwave popcorn. Now that I don’t have a microwave, I have to go old school. I was justly pleased with myself when the popcorn came out unburned and fully popped. The patron saint of popcorn popping must have been watching over me.

I’ve made caramel enough that it doesn’t even phase me, but there’s still a small voice at the back of my head that says “It’s going to crystallize and you’re going to have a bit pot of rock candy.” Take that, little voice in my head—my caramel was perfect!

The hardest part was waiting for the popcorn to cool enough so it wouldn’t burn off my fingerprints. Once it cooled, I couldn’t tear myself away from it. It’s sweet, it’s salty, it’s spicy, it’s the best caramel corn ever. I would describe it as Cracker Jack for adults, but that would be selling the bacon caramel corn short. Even though it will take 3-4 pans, the task of making caramel, and having on the oven in the middle of summer, I still recommend making this popcorn. You’ll never eat Fiddle Faddle again.

For the recipe, click here.

Lunch in Paris

Cooking for someone else is always more fun than cooking for just myself. Besides, when it’s just me, I always end up with a fridge full of leftovers that I don’t eat in time and forget to freeze. The worst part is having to clean out the fridge when I remember the leftovers. I’m still working on a budget, so many of our meals involve some element of leftovers in disguise. Such was the case of the leftover bechamel.

I love bechamel sauce, but I can never get it to come out right. Since it did so for the lasagna, I wanted to make sure I used every last drop of it. My favorite use for new or leftover bechamel? Croque monsieurs. A croque monsieur is basically a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, then topped with bechamel and cheese and broiled, so the top is bubbly and brown. My mouth waters just thinking about it.

I marched myself up to the supermarket to get ham and bread. Can’t really have a ham sandwich without those. Swiss cheese was on sale. Today would be my day! Sandwich fixings obtained, I headed home.

I woke my slumbering roommate by informing him that Chez Lula’s kitchen was open, but only has one seating per meal. If he wanted lunch, he’d better drag his rear out of bed. According to the whiteboard, lunch would be croque monsieurs and a green salad, but I had more leftover magic up my sleeve. I chopped up the leftover “driest potato ever” and fried it with salt and garlic.

Blearied-eyed and on the phone with the NC Employment Security Commission, LA came to the table. He was greeted by a bubbling sandwich, some crispy garlic potatoes, and a green salad. Due to his conversation with “Tomas”, all he could manage for the sandwich was a thumb’s up. But he scarfed it down when the call ended. Creamy, cheesy, hammy, delicious were his descriptors. I overcooked the sandwiches a little, but the dark brown crust was hidden by the bechamel. Lunch was a hit.

Croque monsieur is probably one of my favorite things to eat. You can find it in Paris either with or without the bechamel, but I definitely prefer it with. Otherwise, it’s just a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. To make a good croque monsieur, I use Swiss cheese and Virginia-brand ham (honey ham and that boiled crap both make it taste funny). Also put a little smear of Dijon mustard on the inside of one slice of the bread. One of my former significant others said it wasn’t a real croque monsieur unless it was on a croissant. I think 40 million Frenchmen may disagree. Every recipe I’ve ever seen calls for white bread. But don’t even think of making it on wheat bread. Trying to make this a healthy recipe is really missing the mark.

LA loves to try pretending that he doesn’t like whatever it is that I’ve cooked. He didn’t even bother with this one. He was open in his love for this sandwich. I should probably stop all this cooking…he’ll never move out.

Dinner for Two

While the Pigs and Potatoes endeavor doesn’t constitute a total failure, I was shooting for a slightly more impressive dinner using the three leftover spinach and garlic chicken sausages. I still had three containers of figs just waiting in the fridge to go bad, but I wasn’t entirely taken with the idea of a fig and chicken sausage casserole, although a variant of that was mentioned in my beloved Meats cookbook (chicken and peach casserole). The answer was lasagna.

Ok, I’ll admit I didn’t make the entire lasagna from scratch. I had half a box of lasagna noodles, plus a jar of spaghetti sauce that was just taking up precious space in my pantry. I’m sure I could’ve made both, but I did need to get rid of some surplus. Since only LA and I would be eating the lasagna, and neither of us are very good at leftovers, I made it in an 8”X8” pan, rather than the typical 9”X13”. We’d still have more than enough lasagna. My concern wasn’t the quantity, so much as the quality.

The chicken sausages were Target’s Archer Farms brand. LA felt they were the only bright spot of Pigs and Potatoes, so I assumed they would be good in the lasagna. I also like a bit of creaminess in my lasagna. This called for a bechamel (white) sauce. Luckily my milk still had a few days of life left in it, which saved me a trip to the supermarket in the rain. Bulking up the lasagna was the job of some wilting spinach I also had sitting in the fridge. I could saute that and add it as a layer. At least it would go with the sausages.

Finally came assembly. I chopped up the chicken sausage (I didn’t really want big pieces of it), added it with the standard ricotta/egg mixture, plus my jarred sauce. The spinach was the next layer. The final layer was bechamel and a heavy covering of mozzarella. I would like to take a moment to toot my own horn as well. I never measure when I make a bechamel. I just dump everything in and hope for the best, which I never get. My bechamel is always too thick and often tasteless. Today it came out perfectly. I was quite proud of myself.

I wrote up the evening’s menu on the dry erase board stuck to my fridge: figs, prosciutto, and goat cheese in phyllo tartlet shells; chicken and spinach lasagna; and oatmeal raisin cookies. I could pretend it was a real restaurant (Chez Lula).

We paid minimal attention to the fig and prosciutto tartlets. The golden, bubbling mass in the oven was our primary interest. I doled out “manly”-sized portions to both of us, and we dug in. LA made what I thought was the “I don’t like it” face. He finally admitted that he liked it but wanted to come up with a description more involved than “It’s good”. He finally came up with “It’s so good it makes me want to eat it on both sides of my mouth, even though I know I can’t.” I’d forgotten about his broken tooth. He ate the creamy top layer first, although I was saving this for the last. I always save the best part of my meal for the last bite. Neither of us finished the gigantic portion, even though we gave it our best efforts. LA was saving room for an oatmeal raisin cookie. I was sparing my self from a sense of gluttonous shame.

Before the cookies had even cooled, LA was sneaking one. “Best oatmeal cookie I’ve ever had.” Considering the dough has been in my freezer forever and I don’t even know where I got the recipe anymore, I was very pleased. I had sprinkled them with a little Fleur de Sel before baking, to give them a salty bite to offset the sweetness. I thought the touch added something. Based on the way in which LA inhaled three, I don’t think he had a chance to notice the salt. The inhalation of the three was compliment enough.

We’ve had two dinner services at Chez Lula: a potato stuffed with a sausage and a full 3-course meal involving lasagna. The second was definitely the more popular. I’m already planning future meals. Chez Lula is back in business and hopping, even if it’s only for two people.

Misadventures of the Clueless Tourists

LA and I are the goingest people I know. We travel almost as much as Pope John Paul II, although, sadly, we don't have a Popemobile. Occasionally we have a plan, but usually the plan sort of craps out somewhere on the highway and we end up miles and hours from our destination.  Some people may call it "lost", but we like to see it as an adventure.

I informed LA to put on his fancy pants and get ready to go to lunch at the 3rd best truck stop in America (or maybe in North Carolina, I couldn't remember which the sign had said). We drove north and didn't see anything which even resembled the 15th best truck stop in America. We kept going. We passed Salisbury. We passed the exit for Winston-Salem. LA said we may as well just go to his dad's house for lunch. In Virginia. I accepted defeat and turned around at a gas station in Lexington. We bought Cheerwine cake to stave off hunger. Two asides: I love Cheerwine cake, and Bryan, the cashier at Judy's Food Mart, was great. He told us all about the new scented Silly Bandz they'd gotten in. After agreeing on the friendliness of the people of Lexington, we settled on lunch in Winston-Salem.

Back south we went, figuring we could just have lunch in Atlanta if all else failed. The exit for Winston-Salem was closed! Now where are we supposed to have lunch? I saw the sign for the Historic Spencer Shops and NC Transportation Museum, then cut across two lanes of traffic to get off the highway.

We ended up at Our Place Cafe in Historic Spencer Shops. LA wanted to sit outside. He would later regret it. The waitress was very friendly, even explaining to us the renovations to the apartments upstairs. My patty melt was delightful. LA's enjoyment of his turkey club ended when a fly journeyed in and back out of his mouth. He was the one who picked outside.

Down the block is Bucky's Produce. Not to be missed! Handwritten signs throughout inform you that Bucky's has the most expensive produce in town. They may need to take a marketing seminar. Apparently, if you can find it cheaper somewhere else, that's your problem. LA left with a knitted donut pin cushion, and I with a recipe booklet called Southern Pot Pourri. The booklet was 10 cents, but she threw it in for free because of the donut purchase. I was less interested in the recipes than in the racially stereotypical stick figures on the cover.

Includes a suggested menu called "The Germans are Coming"

We bid adieu to Mr. and Mrs. Bucky and ventured back the the NC Transportation Museum. For those of you who say there's nowhere to take your kids, you should stop your bellyaching and head to Spencer. I'm no train fanatic, but the museum is great! For starters, it's free, which always adds to a museum's greatness. For $6, you get a highly informative and fun ride on an old locomotive. LA had never ridden a train before, so that made the trip even better. We saw the Wright Brothers' plane, old cars, and flight attendant uniforms from the 1960s. From the "gift station", I obtained the dining car menus for lunch and dinner from 1976. I talked LA out of buying the engineer's hat. We also learned a lot about trains. (Did you know that, when a train comes to a crossing, it blows its whistle two long times, a short time, and another long? And that all train whistle signals are standardized throughout the US and Canada? I live near a train crossing and have verified Point #1. And now you've learned something, too.)

Sadly, there are no photographic records of this journey.  LA and I both forgot our cameras.  We didn't think we'd need photos of the truck stop.  Next time, we'll take the cameras.  We've learned our lesson: we will never end up where we actually planned to go.  But the day ended up even better for it.  Had we found the 3rd best truck stop in America, LA wouldn't have had the pleasure of his first train ride, and I wouldn't have had the pleasure of seeing him eat a fly.

Pigs and Potatoes

With LA back in my guest room, I now have a captive audience/guinea pig for some experimental recipes. I have a number of them in mind, but I decided to start slow. I'd found a wonderful-sounding recipe in the classic cookbook Favorite Recipes from Southern Kitchens: Meats.  What's not to love about a book called Meats?

The recipe? Pigs and Potatoes. This recipe has everything that I look for: catchy title, short ingredient list, easy instructions, and the promise of an unusual dining experience. The ingredients called for are simply baking potatoes and sausages. The instructions were easier said than done: bore a hole in each potato with an apple corer and jam a sausage link into the hole. Bake until done.

Sounds easy enough. We picked our potatoes, ensuring maximum girth for the hole-boring. Next came the sausages. Spinach and garlic chicken sausages sounded tasty.

Breakfast sausages would be about the same diameter as the holes created by the apple corer. The chicken sausages were not. With a lot of elbow grease and laughter (and a little squirting from the sausages, I finally got the sausages into the potatoes and into the oven (at 425 degrees F for 45 minutes).

The smell that filled the house had us eagerly awaiting the ring of the timer. The potatoes were finally done and we dug in. The sausages were very good. Redolent of garlic, light-tasting, and not at all greasy. Surprisingly, though, the flavor of the sausage didn't permeate the potato. Not even a little. LA liked the sausage, but added, "This is the driest potato I have ever eaten." I rationalized it by saying that a normal baked potato would have butter and sour cream to help out with the dryness. LA wasn't buying it.

Beigest meal ever.

I haven't given up on Pigs and Potatoes. We'll be having it regularly until I can make it edible. Next time will be with Mexican chorizo. I say a greasy sausage will make for a better potato. LA prefers the word "moist". Either way, I see a lot of Pigs and Potatoes in our future.

Pumpkin and Spice and Everything Nice

I'm not normally a huge proponent of Walmart (although I am there at least three timer per week), but I am advising everyone to put down whatever you are doing and head there right away.

My nearest Walmart has been undergoing "renovations" for two months now. As far as I can tell, "renovations" actually means "moving everything around on a daily basis so that I can never find what I'm looking for". The one constant is the candle aisle.

I often stop to smell all the candles, hoping for one, just one, that smells so good that I can't live without it. I finally found it.

Walmart's Mainstays brand Pumpkin Spice candle is my New Favorite Thing. The smell envelopes my entire living room and makes me feel as though I'm living in a pumpkin pie. And the small one is just $1! Plus, it comes in a jar, so it's portable and you don't even need a candleholder.

The only downside is that my New Favorite Thing is causing me to crave autumn and all the things that come with it. Like pumpkin pie. Until autumn officially arrives, I'll just be burning my pumpkin spice candle.

If you aren't a big fan of pumpkin pie (God forbid!), they have other scents too, like hazelnut, Cinnabon, and something involving cotton.