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Welcome to My Website
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“The fields surrounding the towns and groves were plentifully stored with Corn, Citruels, Pumpkins, Squashes, Beans, Peas, Potatoes, Peaches, Figs, Oranges, etc.”
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– WILLIAM BARTRAM, Travels of William Bartram, on Seminole crops in Florida, 1773
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It's a Date!
- Saturday, November 12: From 12 noon onward, I’ll be at A Southern Season in Chapel Hill for a pre-Christmas signing of my cookbooks, not just the two latest – Falling off the Bone and A Love Affair with Southern Cooking (a James Beard best cookbook) – but also earlier cookbooks from the line-up at left, among them the award-winning Food of Portugal and Process This! as well as The New German Cookbook with its cache of Christmas classics: Stollen (fruit-and-nut yeast bread), Vanillekipferl (Vanilla Crescents), Zimtsterne (Cinnamon Stars), Lebkuchen (Ginger Cookies), and Pfeffernüsse (Peppernuts). There are Christmas favorites in A Love Affair with Southern Cooking, too – Bill Friday’s famous Peanut Brittle, which he demo’d on his popular UNC-TV show Carolina People, and his wife Ida’s amazing fruitcake – an old, old family recipe. There’ll be samples to taste, so do stop by and say “hello.”
Breaking News:
- PBS has just begun airing Season Two of my long-time friend Sara Moulton’s Weeknight Meals – 20 shows in all. To quote Sara’s website, “The theme, as always, is getting dinner on the table during the work week although we also taped a few special shows including Thanksgiving 101.” Sara solos on 13 shows and welcomes guests on the remaining seven, among them Ming Tsai, the awarding-winning chef/proprietor of Blue Ginger in Wellesley, MA, as well as the awarding-winning host/executive producer of PBS’s popular Simply Ming. For Sara’s new PBS schedule, check local listings.
- After more than a year of research, recipe testing, and writing. I have finally finished my latest cookbook for Wiley – From a Southern Oven: The Savories, The Sweets. There are more than 150 recipes in all – the humble, the haute, the colonial, the contemporary. My reason for writing this particular cookbook was to prove that contrary to popular belief, not everything pulled from a Southern oven is achingly sweet. There are dozens of savory recipes in this collection – meats, fish, fowl, and vegetables. Most are surprisingly easy, many are elegant enough for company, and all (she says modestly) are delicious. If all goes as planned, From a Southern Oven will be published next fall (2012). And like Falling Off the Bone, my previous Wiley cookbook, it will be a handsome hardcover with page after page of the luscious food photographs for which this New York publisher is known.
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Q & A
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Q Everyone’s been raving on and on about how brining meats makes them
incredibly tender. But the pork chops l brined were so tough I had to hash
them before we could eat them. Did I do something wrong?
– C.C. Johannsen, Minneapolis
A There’s a world of misinformation out there about brining and much of it, I’m
afraid, has been perpetuated by those who know little about food chemistry (my major at Cornell). So when and how did it all start? I believe it began in the late ‘80s shortly after William Morrow published my Food of Portugal (still in print and still going strong). The brined turkey recipe in that book caught the public fancy and in no time, thinly disguised versions of it began appearing in print and online – sans credit. Soon major magazines were into brining big time, so, too, free-lance food writers, some of whom intimated that they were the first to discover the magic of brining (hogwash!). Now let me set things straight: Though brining does increase the succulence of roast turkey and chicken (the salt seals the pores and tightens the skin so the savory juices stay inside the bird), it does not tenderize pork chops or any other skinless, butchered cuts of meat. Quite the contrary. Have you ever eaten a slice of country ham bounced in and out of a hot skillet? Might as well take a bite of shoe leather. So limit your brining to whole, skin-on birds. If you’d like to try the recipe, which in my opinion ignited the brining craze, see Maria Eugénia Cerqueira da Mota’s Roast Stuffed Turkey on p. 158 of my Food of Portugal. It’s the best roast turkey I’ve ever eaten and it’s now my Thanksgiving staple. I think you’ll like it, C.C.
Q I am looking for cookbooks of Portugal. Are any of your cookbooks printed in
Portuguese? I need one as a gift.
– Jane McKnight, Far Hills, NJ
A Hi, Jane - My Food of Portugal is available in English only but Cozinha Tradicional Portuguesa written by my dear friend Maria de Lourdes Modesto is available in Portuguese. It used to be sold at the Tucha Gift Shop on Ferry Street in Newark - three or four blocks down from the train station on the left-hand side near Lisbon Liquors. You might also find it online. Happy hunting!
Q After 50 years of marriage, my husband Tom asked me to make a sweet potato cobbler like his mother’s!!! It was made with sliced sweet potatoes and
a pastry crust. He was inspired after eating at The Old Place near Siler City. I don't remember ever seeing or eating one, but am intrigued by the project. Any experience with sweet potato cobbler? Everyone loves your books that I have given them . . . me, too.
– Kathy Snead, Asheboro, NC
A Have a look at the Surry County Sonker on p. 274 of my Love Affair with
Southern Cooking, Kathy. This cobbler-like dessert is often made with sweet potatoes (see recipe headnote) and this might be what Tom's thinking of. I'd just substitute sweet potatoes for the apples – measure for measure.
KS Thanks, Jean, for your quick response to my question. I think we are on to
something!! Tom is from Rockingham County -- almost next door to Surry. I
suspect the Sonker crept across the county lines. It sounds like what he
described and I will give it a try when I have people around to eat it -- the
last one I tried became breakfast the next morning. Bad for the waistline!
Am looking forward to your new book. Sounds like my kind of food!
LETTERS AUTHORS LOVE:
“Tonight I made The Doubleday Cookbook's Magyar Chicken Paprika -- again!
Many times I make the Fudgy Saucepan Brownies and have even passed down that
recipe to a new generation.
“It all started when I was a temp with the Doubleday editor of the cookbook in 1976
and at the end of my time there I was given a copy of the cookbook. Here I am more
than 30 years later often using The Doubleday Cookbook for general information
and some favorite recipes. Tonight I said to myself that with the internet I might
actually get the chance to thank you for a wonderful cookbook. There are many
great cookbooks out there but very few that can give you so much general
information. It is a gem. THANK YOU!”
– Barbara, New York, NY
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Autographed Book Plates:
If you’d like an autographed book
plate for any of my books, just let me know. Please specify
which book and to whom it should be inscribed.
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- Biscuits tough?
- Cakes lopsided?
- Jellies won't gel?
- Gravies lumpy?
If so, contact me and I’ll
attempt to solve your thorniest culinary nightmares.
I love nothing more than playing "recipe doctor" and
have occasionally been "on call" for the Food Network, Gourmet, and
other national magazines.
Click
here to contact Jean
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| Site-Seeing |
A favorite website: |
http://joycebramwellphoto.com
For centuries, artists have captured the beauty of fruits and vegetables in oils, pastels, and watercolors. But today’s artists are as likely to grab a camera. I’m not talking about magazine food photography though much of it approaches fine art. When I first saw the food photographs of Joyce Bramwell, all I could say was, “Wow!” She zeroes in on her subjects – way in to emphasize their singular form, texture, and color – the thorny tip of an artichoke, perhaps, a halved fig with its rosy flesh laid bare, an upside-down mushroom. She blows her pictures up – way up – and mounts them for gallery exhibits. Speaking of which, from now through the first week of November, Bramwell’s intimate portraits of fruits and vegetables will be gracing the walls of Magnolia Grill in Durham, North Carolina, and if you’re in the area, I urge you to make a dinner reservation – not only to see Bramwell’s ravishing food photographs but also to taste the award-winning cuisine of Chefs Ben and Karen Barker: http://www.magnoliagrill.net/ . P.S. Bramwell also focuses her camera on favorite flowers with equally dramatic results.
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Food friends' websites: |
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Elissa Altman
www.poormansfeast.com/
Georgia Downard
www.reelcookingproductions.com/
Roy Finamore
www.tastycentral.com/
Kitchen Gadget Gals
www.kitchengadgetgals.com
Nancy Harmon Jenkins
nancyharmonjenkins.com
Barbara Kafka
www.bkafka.com
Sally Belk King
www.sbkproductions.com
Deborah Madison
www.deborahmadison.com
Nick Malgieri
www.nickmalgieri.com
Sara Moulton
www.saramoulton.com
Arthur Schwartz
www.thefoodmaven.com
Kim Sunée
kimsunee.com/blog
Paula Wolfert
www.paula-wolfert.com
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