Falling for Fall

September Saturday post turned into word art, courtesy of www.wordle.net!

 

My office computer was updated this week, and as I poked around in different files, trying to find *something* to delete (I’m a certified text-hoarder who never deletes a word or a thought; just files it away for another time!), I ran across this little description that I wrote for a long-ago newsletter:

 

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In Western North Carolina, Autumn doesn’t arrive in a blaze of glory; it comes quietly, overnight, with an unexpected drop in temperature.  Mornings that were heavy and still with the last hot breath of summer give way to jackets at the school bus stop and rusty red apples peeking through the last of the leaves.

 

The mountains, swathed in the blue-green of long summer days, began to slip into something more comfortable against the chill in the air.  Threads of color—copper, scarlet, rosy gold—weave in and out until the hills are blanketed in a soft glow that reaches all the way up to the sky. 

 

Autumn smells like wood smoke; like the mixed-up county fair flavor of cotton candy and corndogs; like sweaters stored in cedar chests.  It’s time to bid farewell to the beach and the lake and bare feet; to welcome, instead, the comfort of flannel sheets and hot soup and the silvery spangles of a first frost.  The sun is still hot at midday, but already leaning away toward the shorter, colder days to come.

 

The bottom line?  Look for Autumn when you least expect it.  Like every other season in this region, it has tricks up its sleeves and it likes to show off its true colors.  Fortunately, those colors are usually breath-taking, so enjoy every minute of it!

 

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I don’t remember if this actually appeared in the newsletter or not, but I liked it and thought I’d include it here. It’s still true, and it’s coming true right at this moment all around me!

 

Fleeting Figs…

A fig in the hand…

Fresh figs are some of the most fragile and fleeting fruits I’ve ever seen. One website suggested you have approximately 12 hours from the time you actually dislodge the fig from the tree before you lose control of it (i.e. it turns to mush).

My fresh figs had a lifespan of about 48 hours all together, but many of them didn’t have that much staying power. I ate them, styled them for photographs, shared them with my family, then hit the fig-wall: time to do *something* with the fresh figs before they liquified and ran out of the basket.

I had dreams of caramelizing them and canning the results: tidy, pint-sized rows of golden-brown goodness lining the shelves of my kitchen, waiting to be opened up and spooned out over fluffy buttered biscuits while snowflakes whirl outside the window…but that involved finding canning jars, prepping figs, and dealing with my mother’s hippopotamus-sized pressure cooker, which I always assume will explode, showering anyone in the vicinity with glass shrapnel and geysers of liquid hot “figma” (like magma, only made of figs and sugar).

Freezing, then, was the best option. This still requires prepping the figs, but has no real opportunity to register on the Richter scale of my imagination. (“Asheville locavore blows a gasket–literally–in freakish home-canning accident!”) The fig-related websites (there are more than you might think) suggest boiling figs in a simple syrup before freezing. Hmm…sounds like I should just make fig sauce (like apple sauce, obviously, but with figs) and freeze that. I could still have the buttered-biscuit-snowfall-fantasy, even though freezer containers are 1) not as attractive as canning jars, and 2) even if they were pretty, they’re still hidden in the freezer.

I begin sorting figs, slicing off the stem end and “fig butt” of all those that haven’t either burst their skins or grown cobwebby white mold whiskers. (A fig is really just a fragile little bag of juicy fructose waiting to become a science experiment–eek!) There are still a lot of usable figs, and the ones that scare me go into a separate bag for the neighbor’s hog Brutus. (I’ve seen how and what he eats; I don’t honestly think he’ll mind a few fig whiskers.)

Once all the figs are in the pot, I add a cup or so of orange juice, the juice of one lime, a half-cup or more of brown sugar, a tablespoon of cinnamon, a teaspoon of dried orange rind, and a shake-shake-shake of an orange liquer for good measure (or “innacurate measure,” if we’re being technical about it). I turn the burner to medium and wait, stirring occasionally.

A couple of hours (and some adjustments to sugar and cinnamon) later, I have a pot full of beautiful fig sauce, boiled down to caramel-thick perfection, with a million golden seeds catching the light. So good, so worthy, as it were, of buttered biscuits on a winter’s day. As soon as it cools, I’ll put it in sturdy storage containers and bury it in the permafrost zone of the freezer. Pure fig heaven, waiting to be resurrected from from the depths of its artificially Arctic interment to live again at the breakfast table!

 

A Little Batty

Asheville’s City Building rises out of City-County Plaza like a frilly pink cake, or maybe a sassy lady dressed in frilly pink, rising out of a cake? In any case, the building is one of Asheville’s most interesting architectural offerings, and was designed and constructed in the early 1900’s by Douglas Ellington.

If I have my facts straight (and as a native, I always assume I do, which is a dangerous assumption!), Ellington also drew up plans for the Buncombe County Courthouse located next door to the City Building. If his design had come to fruition, Asheville would have boasted a pair of groovy, frilly Ellingtons in which to conduct city/county business and to attract even more tourists. It was not to be, however, and the courthouse remains a sober, gray, and very respectable rectangle standing stalwart next to its perky party hat of a neighbor. Sort of like The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit standing close to–but not quite touching–Auntie Mame.

I don’t know who said it first, but I wish it had been me: “The Courthouse looks like the box the City Building came in.” 

There are lots of interesting details about both buildings, but here’s my favorite: at night, in the summer (i.e. right now), the lights on roof of the City Building give off a pink-tinted glow that attracts every bug and flying beastie in the vicinity. I don’t know if the lights are actually pink, or if they just look pink because they’re bouncing off the building’s pink-tiled top, but the whole building is bathed in a peachy baby aspirin hue that you can almost taste. And with that mix of powerfully pink wattage comes moths-gone-mad, and that means…bats. Whirling and swirling and diving and thriving; bats gather around the City Building as if it boasted an all-you-can-eat Sonar buffet: sweep, snap, and swallow.*

Last summer, I spent some time in Austin, TX, which boasts the largest urban bat colony in North America (http://www.austincityguide.com/content/congress-bridge-bats-austin.asp). Although I enjoyed watching them pour out from under the Congress Street Bridge, I still felt that Asheville’s bats–dining in the ambience of the Ellington pink light district**–have the edge when it comes to style, if not numbers.

* I haven’t actually gone bat-watching in a while, so forgive me if times have changed and the City Building is no longer the hot (pink) spot for bats…

**Several breast cancer awareness programs use the term “pink light district,” and no offense is meant to their important work!

 

Smellovision!

   

One of the best things about summer? Driving around in “smellovision.”

This time of year in WNC (and probably lots of other places), the privet is blooming. Privet (as I know it) is a shrub that blooms with tiny white flowers that look like little stars and smell like heaven. (When fall rolls around, privet adorns itself with bunches of elegant blue berries that look beautiful in wreaths and arrangements, if you can rescue a few from all the fine feathered locavores that feed on them.)

Plenty of things smell good, but nothing smells any better than blooming privet–it’s sweet and fresh and just a teeny bit tangy, somehow. If a perfume atelier captured this scent, they could call it “Summer in a Bottle” and meet truth-in-advertising standards. If you could make tea* out of it, it would be like drinking liquid sunshine (with a splash of summer rain and a pinch of something fresh and green, just to keep you guessing).

I know we live in a mostly air-conditioned society, and on a 90+ degree day like today, it’s a pretty comfortable way to live. The next time you have to drive somewhere, though, try to forego the AC for an open window: see what you can smell. If you drive past a privet patch, even on the interstate, it will swirl through your car on a big wave of summer.** It won’t last–it’s not an air-freshener that swings from the rearview mirror–but it is a face-full of old-fashioned sweetness that speaks of stolen kisses behind the hedge that separated your grandfather’s house from the house of the girl-next-door. Faded flowers tied with a velvet ribbon and pressed between the pages of an old book. Summertime. And summer, and time.

Privet is a plain sort of name for such a pretty shrub, and it probably comes from the privet’s traditional use as a privacy hedge. (See? I told you that a hedge separated Grandpa from the girl next door!)  When it’s breezy, watch for showers of flowers to rain down all around you. It’s worth waiting for, like you stepped into an illustration from an old book of fairy tales.

Regardless of whether or not you find any privet , I hope you manage to spend a little time in smellovision–summer is truly something to sniff at.

*Caveat 1: Don’t make tea out of it-consumption of privet is for the birds. Literally.

**Caveat 2: The wretched reek of roadkill will also infiltrate your car when traveling in smellovision, but true smell-enthusiasts will assume the risk and trust in their own good “scents.”

 

Round Up…

Who loves you, baby?

1) Jimmy, one of the nice guys that runs Three Brothers Restaurant in Asheville, asked for my business card so he could call me when the restaurant plans to offer the hallowed Feta Burger special. He called last Thursday to let me know it would be the special on Friday–how’s that for customer service in this day and age? Needless to say, I made plans to go. Three of my office mates joined me and ordered the special, as well. (Warning: this post contains photographic evidence that may cause some readers to salivate!) 

2) A reader asked me about the pronunciation of huitlacoche:  It sounds like HWEET-luh-KOH-chay, more or less (emphasis on first and third syllables). Can also be spelled cuitlacoche and mean the same thing.

 

Cornbread (Part II)

Cornbread, continued:

 

The edges bubble a little where a thin halo of molten oil rises atop the batter.  The oven obediently opens its mouth to receive the offering, swallowing whole this ironbound flux of gritty meal, buttermilk and oil.  In 20 minutes, more or less (depending on my father’s covert attempts to eat it raw rather than wait for it to cook), my mother will once again arm herself with a ragged shield of half-melted Dacron loops (potholders earn their keep in her kitchen) and remove this freshly minted gold coin of the Southern realm.  She’ll flip it upside down onto the countertop where it slips from the pan with a steamy sigh of pleasure (which sounds more like a description of “porn-bread”, perhaps, but we are, after all, talking about an object of desire).

 

Four scores across the bottom (it must remain bottom-up to keep the crust from sogging) yield eight wedges of cornbread, with the biggest pieces cut again to preserve an illusion of excess.  Someone—usually my father—dances attendance on the process, hoping to score a bit of crisped crust or a handful of damp crumbs in the fallout.  Still nearly too hot to handle, the wedges are transferred into an elderly plastic basket lined with paper towels.  (I wish I could tell you it was a vintage basket, like the mixing bowls, but it has no such cachet—like my mother’s potholders, the basket is merely old and slightly melted from one-too-many close encounters with hot burners.)

 

We progress to the table (and I digress to the table, which is actually two tables bolted together in an attempt to provide seating for the original six members of my family, plus three spouses, two second-generation nephews and sundry friends and relatives that sometimes join us).  (The dog doesn’t get a seat, but she’s always there, woven in between our ankles, hoping for her own surreptitious share of cornbread.) We “turn thanks”—a phrase which puzzles those who’ve had the misfortune to be born in places where South is not spoken fluently—it’s a shortened version of the classic admonishment to “return thanks” or ask a blessing for the food we are about to eat, to the nourishment of our bodies to Your service, Amen.  Dig in!

 

My mother’s cornbread is the patron saint of the table; bestowing a blessing on soups and stews, beans and greens, this and that.  It’s a martyr, drowning beneath black-eyed peas and homemade salsa; a warrior, standing firm under the onslaught of spicy chili; broken and buttered, it’s a peacekeeper, inviting all-comers (whether you prefer your butter straight from the cow or squeezed from some heart-healthy blend of vegetables) to take and eat. 

 

The food is blessed; it’s passed the test and now my mother sits, at rest.

 

Best Dish in North Carolina

Hendersonville chef and restauranteur Scott Adams owns and operates Blackwater Grille (http://www.blackwatergrille.net/), which specializes in local Southern Highland cuisine. Scott and I go to school together on Tuesday nights (we’re both earning our Masters degree in Management & Leadership), and here’s the scoop on his “real life” when not in class:

Blackwater Grille is a contender in the North Carolina Department of Agriculture’s 2008 “Best Dish in North Carolina” contest (http://www.ncagr.com/markets/gginc/bestdish/index.asp),  which requires chefs to develop a  dish using local products. Western North Carolina has several finalists this time, so for those who don’t know NC extends further west than Winston-Salem, it’s an opportunity to come taste the region for yourself.

Blackwater Grille took second place last year in the Casual Dining category, and is the only independent restaurant to be named a finalist two years in a row. Way to go, Scott and crew!

Here’s the lowdown on Blackwater Grille’s entry for Best Dish (and yes, I asked for permission to describe it–didn’t want to spill the beans or upset the apple cart, or any other potentially damaging food-related cliches):

Scott’s presentation begins with a Blackberry Salad featuring a mix of local greens and herbs, applewood smoked bacon, goat cheese from Spinning Spider Creamery (http://www.southerncheese.com/Pages/spinningspider.html), warm blackberry butter (have mercy!) and a balsamic vinaigrette.

The main dish is a confit of rabbit with heirloom tomatoes, mushrooms and ramps (more details on each of these later), served with a side of spinach dumplings and roasted garden vegetables.

Dessert = a Napoleon made from nut breads (apple butter-walnut and pecan) layered with blackberries and strawberries grown at a local farm and berry ice cream (also made at the farm), and topped with a traditional Southern delicacy known as chocolate gravy. Don’t know about chocolate gravy? Where have you been all your life? 

I think I put on a few pounds just describing Scott’s culinary version of heaven-on-a-plate…can you imagine what the real thing tastes/smells/looks like? Let’s get on over to Blackwater Grille and see what’s cooking!

 

 

Three Brothers Lunch Special

Every town has a restaurant that’s been around forever, and the locals all know to eat there. Asheville may have more than its share of such places, but I’ve got Three Brothers on my mind–and palette–at the moment.

They offer a lunch special every day. I really like the spaghetti, the cabbage rolls, the occasional pastichio, etc.  The regular fare is just as good–their Greek salad is alive with feta cheese, the cold plate is everything you could want, and the lemon pound cake is downright famous. But, oh, last Friday–the world stood still for a moment in honor of the Feta Burger and my sybaritic (there’s that word again!) pleasure in consuming it!

Picture a white oval plate being carried from the kitchen toward my table. On that plate: The Feta Burger Special. It begins with a 1/3 lb. burger, and Three Brothers makes a darn good burger that smells and tastes like real meat that somebody actually hand-patted into a nice size and shape. The bun is pretty regular; white and of a size to complement the burger without too much overhang from either party. Although ordinary, the bun looks and tastes like buns used to look and taste in diners.

Next, a 1/2″ slab of feta cheese is applied to the burger. Not skimpy crumbles of feta that roll away at the first onslaught of incisors, but a SLAB of feta sliced straight from the block. Then comes a pile of grilled onions. Not too few, not too greasy, not too done. The onions are then topped with tomato–not a pitiful pinkish winter time tomato, but a sassy slice of a ripe red love apple. Can you hear my salivary glands kicking into high gear?

Surrounding this magnificent creation is a sea of French fries that look and smell and taste like fries used to look/smell/taste. Neither steak fries nor shoestrings, but a happy medium between the two.  And a pickle spear, which is as crisp and garlicky as anyone could want.  I look at my lunch companions, one of whom ordered the special and one who did not. Loser!

I carefully divide my Feta Burger into manageable halves so I can master all its components. I realize that it could be considered a feta patty melt, and the thought makes me shiver with delight. I’ve always wanted to like patty melts, but they were just too melty and greasy for me. The feta is firm and cool–it hasn’t formed the requisite cheese-slick that characterizes most melts.

Conversation ceases; this moment is about the feta burger. I come up for air only when the server asks if everything tastes okay. I can only nod. “Okay” is too weak a word for what I’m feeling.

It ends at last, and the plates are collected. I ask the server to please tell the owners to make this special a regular. I ask the nice lady at the register (who is, I believe, the mother and aunt of the two brothers and the cousin who now run the family business) the same thing. We talk about this special special all the way to the car and back to the office. I tell my sisters about it. I mention it on www.twitter.com. I feel downright locavoracious about this burger, and am already longing for it to reappear on the “special” board again.

 

 

Spring Saturday

I admit it: I haven’t posted in a while. Had a crisis of blog-confidence; didn’t feel like making the effort. Maybe now that spring is sort of here, I’ll perk up again.

Locally speaking, Asheville is well known for its Friday night drum circle in Pritchard Park. Show up with a drum, you’ve got instant friends. Show up with a hula hoop, ankle-length skirt and dreadlocks, you’ve got instant friends. Show up with a dog that’s wearing a hemp collar you wove yourself…instant friends. Show up with the police and a noise complaint because the drum circle is audible inside your high dollar condo overlooking the park…not so many friends.

Question: why did you spend a fortune on a condo overlooking a city park–one that’s known to attract things like drum circles–if you didn’t want to see and hear what happens there? Do your homework before committing, or you’ll end up fuming while others do their hempwork. (They’ll be fuming, too, but in an entirely different context.)

 

Local Snow…

If you don’t understand the phenomenon of snow in the South, you’re not indigenous to the land below the Mason-Dixon line…

Here are a few facts:

In the Asheville area (and we’ll keep it local; I can’t speak for everybody), a dusting of snow means you can still see the grass through it. A real snow = no visible grass; probably 3-4″ accumulation. Beyond that is cause for major excitement. 

Why do schools close and people assault the milk/white bread/hamburger meat* aisles? Because everyone in the mountains knows that A) most snow that falls here turns to ice and B) why not take advantage of a guilt-free day out of the office? I, for one, find it charming that we can justify staying home for snow–why pressure yourself and risk an accident when no one else (except non-locals) will be in the office that day? Be grateful for the miracle of snow and the ability to burn a sick/emergency leave day and just enjoy…

 Now, if you think Ashevillains can’t drive in the snow, you’re wrong. If it was just snow, we’d suck it up and go to work. Snow in this area, however, is actually ice-in-disguise, and nobody drives well on ice, regardless of the size/weight/knobby tires of your mammoth SUV. Our roads are narrower than the norm, which means a slip on ice can send you into the ditch or into another car. Our secondary roads** are curvy and “banked” and most of them don’t get scraped or salted, and it’s hard to keep a vehicle between the ditches when you’re operating on a slick, tilted surface.

Anyway, the point is: if it snows in Asheville, enjoy the postcard prettiness by looking out the window with a cup of hot chocolate near at hand. Don’t put said cocoa in your travel mug and run amok on the roads…stay home and visit friends on Facebook. I’ve come to realize that the work will still be there tomorrow.

*Milk/white bread/hamburger meat (or MWBHM) Alert: Whatever you fling into your buggy before a snow (beer and Twinkies, et al), it’s always classified as milk, white bread, and hamburger meat. Heaven knows what you’ll make with that combo, but it’s a time-honored tradition to label it thusly.

**Some of our primary roads, too. Try to drive the “Richard Petty Bridge” (I-40 East or West near the Ridgecrest Exit) at interstate speed when it’s icy…see you in the funny papers!