A Feast for Body and Soul at The King's Kitchen

I’m not sure how often I have ranted about the lack of fine dining, or even merely adequate dining, experiences in Madison, SD, my current hometown. I tend to rant frequently on this topic: blog or non-blog, private or public conversations. Our previous home in Ohio, on the outskirts of Columbus, was a mecca of fine dining establishments. We used to eat out an average three times a week, we now average twice a month. Definitely helps the budget, but trying out new restaurants and re-visiting favorites adds zest to our otherwise thrifty lifestyle. And it’s a nice break from the standard palate experienced in our own kitchen, which despite my vast cookbook collection and interminable hours with the Food Network, can still get a little jaded from time to time.

Returning home from Ohio to South Dakota with Rhett, our new basset hound (story for another blog post) I turned around a week later and flew to North Carolina to visit my daughter and son-in-law in Charlotte and my parents in Franklin. While in Charlotte, Elizabeth and Nate (daughter and s-i-l) took me to dinner at The King’s Kitchen.

Now, before I get to specifics on the dinner I need to clear my conscious a bit. I love gourmet cooking and dining. I will travel far and wide in search of required ingredients to prepare a new recipe and ensure my dinner guests a unique and different culinary experience. I loathe substituting ingredients, especially if I’m trying out a recipe for the first time. If the recipe says leeks, I want to taste leeks, not yellow onions. If the recipe says Hubbard squash, then I don’t want acorn, butternut, or pumpkin. After I get the feel for a recipe I’m all for experimentation, but for a recipe’s debut appearance in my kitchen, I want to know and taste as close to the original as I can get. In my view this honors the chef/recipe creator. This is usually and expensive approach to cooking especially if the ingredients are in anyway exotic or I have to make an extra trip or an out of the way trip to a specialty food store. When I lived in Morgantown, WV it was not unusual for me to drive to Pittsburgh, PA (destination: The Strip District) when I was planning a dinner party. (SideBar: I have to remember to tell you about the carry-out Tibetan dinner from the Himalayan Tibetan Restaurant in Pittsburgh when I hosted a party honoring the Dalai Lama’s birthday).

In the same way, when dining out, not all ingredients are created equal. In the hands of a talented chef, even the most humble ingredients can be elevated to new heights. I want that lofty experience now and then and I’m willing to pay extra for it.

But I confess, I feel guilty when I’m spending $14 a pound on wild catch Alaskan salmon when I know how many people can barely afford a can of generic tuna. Likewise, I know how to transform an ordinary Friday Night Date-Night with My Farmer-Architect-Husband into a romantic adventure even if our destination is Wal-Mart and we follow up with a fast food burger and a Coke. But I will never claim it’s the same experience as savoring bison tenderloin with a glass of vintage cabernet and the riverside view at the Wild Sage Grille in Sioux Falls. I don’t need that experience as a regular menu option, but every now and then it’s an experience that boosts my spirits.

So it was with great interest and a certain free-ing feeling when Elizabeth said she and Nate wanted to take me to The King’s Kitchen in Uptown Charlotte. The King’s Kitchen is owned by Chef Jim Noble and all profits from both the restaurant and catering go back into the Charlotte community. Chef Jim also partners with area ministries to provide training and employment opportunities. Not only did I enjoy an excellent dinner, I was making a contribution. Chef Jim also supports area farmers and buys local as often as he can.

The King’s Kitchen menu is billed as “new local southern cuisine.” I figured, if ever I was going to try collard greens, this would be the place. I ordered Aunt Beaut’s Skillet Fried Chicken, mac’n cheese, and stewed tomatoes, along with the collard greens. The appetizer – pimento cheese. All was excellent, although the stewed tomatoes were way too sweet for my palate. My first experience with collards was memorable. The taste was a little strong for me, yet I sensed they were excellently prepared, earthy with an undercurrent of tangy vinegar. The pimento cheese was a real treat, zippy, creamy, and a toothsome foil to the crisp buttery toast it was served on. I’ve had variations on pimento cheese before, but at the King’s Kitchen it was the best I’ve ever had.

I certainly recommend the King’s Kitchen. It’s worth going out of your way for. Chef Jim Noble gives us a rare and unique opportunity to enjoy the pleasures of the table and support his good works and the work of others in the Charlotte community. The King’s Kitchen is a concept that can and should be replicated in every community. I’m already figuring out how to bring the concept back to Madison. We may not have a four star chef in Madison, but we have people with need, farmers with fresh produce, talented cooks, and people with talent and abilities to bring it all together.

Alpha & Omega - or The Return of the Dakota Diner

I’ve experienced a hibernation of sorts these past few months. The muse was frozen I think. But the 24 hours that passes for springtime in South Dakota is history and summer is here in earnest. My writing-self has thawed out and is coming back to life.

Just like the gardens. Somewhere along about the end of April we had the last of the butternut squash from autumn 2010 (Butternut Squash Lasagna). The next day we had the first of the asparagus in Asparagus Risotto. Thick crunchy stalks heavy with the promise of garden’s bounty nestled in Arborio rice swollen with white wine and chicken stock and swept up in parmiggiano-reggiano.

Autumn squash and spring asparagus. The Alpha and Omega of the gardening life.
Now at the first of July we are full swing into broccoli, lettuce, spinach, and radishes. Hot weather started very late this year. But bad weather news for the strawberries – wet cold does not make for sweet, ripe, and juicy – is glory for the cool weather crops – the greens and the coles (broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi, and cauliflower).

I see the cycle of seasons more clearly here in South Dakota. Must be because winter is a definite season. Not the wishy-washy damp cold with an occasional burst of snow that I remember of Ohio winters, and even West Virginia winters. There is never ambiguity in South Dakota winters. Alas, spring is short-lived - . a quick sweet breath and poof! – it’s gone. Grab it quick because your next breath bears the heat of prairie grass baking in the sun.

The apple trees and peach trees we planted last summer are leafing out. They survived their first South Dakota winter. The elderly apple tree that’s been in the backyard for an indeterminate length of time has leafed out as well. No blossoms this year though. We had a bumper group of apples last fall. The elderly apple still wobbles perilously under the edict of my Farmer-Architect who is threatening to dispatch it if it can’t produce.

The fingerling potatoes I bought at the Sioux Falls Farmers Market last fall and then promptly forgot about in the back of the kitchen cabinet all winter put forth impressive shoots from their numerous eyes. They are coming to new life in the backyard garden, securely fenced in and safe from marauding squirrels with a taste for spuds.

The circle of life. I am so blessed to be living it every day on the prairie and in the gardens. And now I share it with you in my writing.

First Grade Soup and Crackers

Busy day at work. Proposal due today. One due tomorrow. Two due next week. And as usual when in the final throes of a proposal submission, a critical piece of paper is needed that requires me to spend an hour in a tizzy tracking down a bureaucratic document that likely no one will even give a second glance to. In this case, the required form will assure the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services that we, Dakota State University, are in total compliance with all applicable federal policies pertaining to civil rights and discrimination. I know we're in compliance, the State of South Dakota knows we are in compliance, everyone and their uncle knows we're in compliance, but without Form HHS-690, Health & Human Services is just not so sure.

With the form now safely on it's way to the vast and faceless bureaucracy in Washington, DC - which is undoubtedly snowed in today anyway - I could quickly take time for a fast lunch. Today's gastronmic destination: The Marketplace at the Trojan Center (aka the DSU Student Union). Ah - there it was Tomato Bisque Soup. A perfect lunch entree for a day that's minus 10 degrees. I filled the carry out container, and periloulsy negotiated my way across the ice and snow back to my office in Heston Hall.

Once at my desk I took the lid off my soup and the aroma of vine-ripened tomatoes and sun-drenched basil with a hint of garlic filled my office. A lovely counterpoint to the frost encrusted window through which an optimistic sun was making its presence known. Springtime and garden planting can't be all that far away now. I have sunshine and the seed catalogs to prove it.

In the meantime, I needed warm sustenance. I picked up the saltine crackers that came with my soup and as I started to crunch them up in their clear cellophane packet I had an instantaneous flashback to lunch at Warren Glen Elementary School, Lower Pohatcong Township, New Jersey. Yup - you guessed it, my alma mater. I heard Mrs. Hinchman's voice ring out over the table of ravenous first-graders "Don't you Boys break-up your crackers like that." Her voice was so clear, this could have happened yesterday.

There was always an issue on soup days because while The Girls would decourously open their packets, take out one cracker at a time, break it delicately into small pieces and drop it gracefully into the soup, followed by a wiping of hands on the napkin before picking up the spoon and quietly sipping the soup with the grace and delicacy of ingenues at the debutante ball. But The Boys? Their mission was to reduce the crackers to microscopic dust while still in the confines of the cellophane packet, rip the packets open with the force of a tsunami, thereby spraying their bowls, their neighbors, and half the table including The Girls trying to keep their dresses clean. (This was about 1959 after all!) This action would of course require them to lunge across the table, reach past 3 or 4 of their student colleagues seated to their right and left in order to purloin additional cracker packets, and repeat the process all the while accompanied by shoving, guffawing, pounding, and snorting. Feeding time at the zoo had nothing on these kids. "Boys! Boys!" Mrs. Hinchman would admonish. They would settle for about 90 seconds and then the entire first grade would be treated to a repeat performance.

I freely admit that my first grade experience was 52 years ago. I marvel how the smallest everyday experience stays with you. How the seemingly most insignificant act, the opening of a cellophane package of saltimes, can trigger such intense and vivid memories. I see Mrs. Hinchman standing at the end of the table, I see the boys being rowdy and obnoxious, I can even smell the tomato soup and taste the grilled cheese sandwiches our cook always made with hamburger buns. And I marvel at how happy this whole recollection makes me feel.

I have no doubt that when I am deep in retirement and I sit down to a bowl of tomato soup and crackers I'll remember this day in January 2011. I'll see the bright sunshine of the South Dakota winter sun, I'll see the proposal detritus spilled acoss my desktop and I'll hear the noises of the office just outside my door, the printer, the copier, and the occasional phone ringing. I hope then too I'll feel the satisfaction of the work I do. Maybe think that in the midst of everday living and ordinary experience, I will have made a difference.

Football, Politics & Pepperoni Rolls

The only thing more disappointing last night than the West Virginia Mountaineers loss to NC State in the Champs Bowl, was my dismal effort at making pepperoni rolls. I should have researched recipes long before last night. Or, alternatively, placed an online order to Chico's Bakery for a South Dakota delivery of Julia's Pepperoni Rolls. The superior quality of the bread makes these pepperoni rolls tops in my book. About a year ago I did order a dozen to introduce my prairie friends to this qunitessential experience of West Virginia cuisine.

To the uninitiated, a pepperoni roll is a neat, portable snack - or it could be the basis of a meal - that consists of pepperoni encased in bread dough and baked. Originating at the Country Club Bakery in Fairmont, WV, pepperoni rolls were a favorite of coal miners as they were filling, highly portable and did not require refrigeration. Pepperoni rolls have some variations such as with or without cheese, with or without peppers, served at room temperature, warmed, or split open and served hot with marinara sauce. Variations aside it is the quality of the bread and the quality of the pepperoni that elevates the pepperoni roll from a mere quick, cheap snack to a taste of Almost Heaven.

And this is where my efforts at pepperoni roll production failed. I used a hot roll recipe that was a little too sweet, and a little too rich from the presence of two eggs and 1/2 cup of sugar in a dough that had 4 cups of flour.

And the pepperoni? Alas here on the eastern prairie of South Dakota, authentic pepperoni is harder to find than a real Democrat. Mine was flat, insipid and totally lacking in zip and pizazz. Not that I want my pepperoni overly peppery and spicy hot, but it should be able to boldly distinguish itself from the bread, not unlike a real Democrat boldly speaking out against the South Dakota political status quo. The best quality pepperoni conveys passion, heat, and a gusto for living as it lies both united with, and at the same time, independent of the bread.

Kind of like a truly progressive political community where differences are abundant but respect reigns supreme. Thus allowing everyone to move forward and progress be effected.

But - I digress. Politically speaking. Just a little frustration leaking out from the last election. Not unlike the oozing of the pepperoni into the surrounding bread.

In my search for pepperoni roll recipes last night (my search began after my failure) and I found several fabulous web sites. First the Pepperoni Roll Home Page by Bob Heffner and second a wonderful source of pepperoni roll recipes and West Virginia blog: Chickens In The Road. Author Suzanne McMinn provides beautiful photographs as well as step-by-step recipes. Next time, I'm trying her recipe!

Reflections on Christmas Cookies & Traditions

My first Christmas as a bona fide ‘grown-up’ was in 1975. I was married to my first husband and was celebrating our first Christmas together. At the time he was in the Army and we were living in Frankfurt, Germany in a tiny rented apartment in the city. We were invited to Christmas dinner at Art and Mitzy’s home. Art and Mitzy were American transplants in Europe. Art had been a dentist in Milwaukee and was trying to launch a second career in the opera. Mitzy was a pianist. The holiday dinner would be filled with other transplanted Americans, musicians, businessmen, their spouses and children. My husband and I were the only ones with a military connection. I still remember quite vividly the conflict between feeling the adventure of a European Christmas and missing my own family Christmas traditions.

Growing up in New Jersey with a large extended family, I was blessed with rich memories of holiday gatherings filled with aunts and uncles and cousins. My mother was particularly attuned to relatives in the nether reaches of the family tree and friends of family members that were left hanging on their own during the holiday were usually found at the family table. Our house was filled with frolic and frenzy and especially great food steeped in festive traditions. My great-grandmother’s English mincemeat and plum pudding, fresh cranberry-orange relish, and most importantly – Christmas cookies.

In the pantry there was always a stash of cookies of every variety. Some were annual holiday standards and some were new recipes. For my mother it was critical that she always be prepared for drop-in visitors. Being prepared equaled “something to go with coffee” and at Christmas time that something meant cookies.

So for that first Christmas in Germany, absent family, or decorations, a tree or shopping, or snow, I latched onto the one thing I was convinced would tie me to long-standing family traditions – baking cookies. At that time I didn’t have the extensive recipe collection I do today so I combed my new cookbooks and holiday magazines for likely candidates. There is one cookie recipe I found that stands out today over 30 years later – Currant Cookies. I found the recipe in Family Circle magazine. The cookies are basically a shortbread cookie – lots of butter, very little sugar, plus lemon zest and currants flour. At some point over the years, I added my own variation by soaking the currants first in brandy, or bourbon, or some other flavored liqueur.

The recipe for Currant Cookies is really, really simple and yet, almost every time I make it, the result is a little different. Some years really outstanding. Some years – best forgotten. I’ve made Currant Cookies in Germany, in New Jersey, in West Virginia, in Ohio, and now I’m making Currant Cookies in South Dakota.

I got a head start on cookie making this year and found myself assembling the ingredients for this year’s batch of Currant Cookies about 2 weeks ago. I asked myself – how will they turn out this year? Moist and melt in your mouth? Or dry and floury? Will the lemon zest zing on your tongue? Will the currants be little pops of soft sweetness as you chew?

As I was creaming the butter I started thinking that Christmas traditions are a lot like these currant cookies. My own particular recipe has evolved over the years and yet is pretty simple: lots of Christmas music especially from the choral repertoire, Christmas movies, and even if I don’t haul out all the decorations each year, I always have lots of candles around the house.
I especially love the season of Advent with its countdown to Christmas in both the sacred, liturgical world and the commercial secular world. And each year, as the days of Advent tick by, I revisit my vast store of Christmas memories and traditions, revel in the happiness they bring and, at the same time, feel some uneasy stirrings that maybe this year won’t measure up to the glories of Christmas Past.

And somehow, just like my Currant Cookies, even when I follow the same recipe using the same ingredients and the same techniques, some years are outstanding and some - well let’s just say if they don’t make it into that vast store of memories, they won’t be missed all that much. As the days of Advent wind down I often find myself thinking that maybe this Christmas will be one that I don’t need remember. And that seems a little scary to me.

But then, each year I find myself sitting at the Christmas Eve service at church, hearing the story from the Book of Luke and singing the carols of old. And I think – what was I worrying for? So what if the traditions change from one year to the next, old traditions fade and new ones take their place? There is only one ingredient you need for the recipe that is Your Life - the knowledge that Christ was born, fulfilling God’s promise of love, redemption, and restoration. With that insight, that little scary feeling goes away and I am renewed, invigorated, and ready to take on any new variation that comes into my life

To All My Readers, I wish for you a Very, Merry Christmas!

Currant Cookies
¾ cup currants
1 cup butter, softened
¼ cup sugar
Peel of one lemon, grated
2 ¼ cups flour.

Plump currants in hot water, or use brandy, bourbon or liqueur to flavor if desired. Set aside for 10-15 minutes to allow currants to absorb flavor.
Cream butter and sugar until very light and fluffy. Stir in currants and lemon peel. Gradually add flour and stir until smooth.
Shape into one inch balls and place on greased cookie sheet one inch apart. Dip tines of fork in sugar and flatten to 1 ½ inch. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown around the edges.

Let's Get Real - Real Apple Cider That Is!

When did mega-food manufacturers start getting away with selling apple juice and calling it apple cider? My first encounter with this charade came back in October when a local business here in Madison generously volunteered to donate apple cider to the great Pumpkin Train event at Prairie Village. I thought that was an exceedingly generous gesture of support. Imagine my surprise when the cider arrived in 2 gallon plastic jugs from food purveyor, Sysco. Further imagine my surprise when the stuff that was poured out of the jug was a clear, golden liquid surprisingly like the stuff that I used to pour into my two year old daughter's sippy cup.

I don't mean to malign our sponsor's generous donation. No, I hold Sysco responsible as well as any other mega-food manufacturer that seeks to lure an unsuspecting public into thinking that mass-produced, homogenized generic food products are the real deal.

Last weekend, at a holiday party, one of the hot beverage options was hot cider. Ha! It was hot apple juice - without any cinnamon sticks or cloves floating in it to even try to masquerade as cider.

The final straw in my cider rant? This past Saturday our local grocery store, Sunshine Foods, was offering hot cider to early morning shoppers. How nice! And yet - I knew what was coming. To add insult to injury, someone forgot to plug in the pot and so what came out of the spout? You guessed it - cold apple juice.

OK - so if food regulations and guidelines say that your cider has to be filtered, pasteurized and adulterated, well alright then so be it. But don't try to pawn off that bland, syrupy, insipid apple liquid as apple cider. Call it what it is - liquified, sanitized, homogenized apple flavored liquid supported by an arsenal of chemical double agents.

Lest my readers have fallen victim to the apple cider conspiracy, let me remind you what authentic apple cider is all about. First - it is not clear; its cloudy and opaque. You can't see through it. It's not pulpy but it does have texture. Real apple cider fills your mouth the taste of crisp, cold , fresh apples. The best cider is tart, but depending on the apple variety used, can be a bit on the sweet side. In fact the very best cider is made with a variety of apples, preferably windfall apples from the orchard floor.

Now - and this is key - cider is pressed - not strained, filtered, and pasteurized. Those apples off the orchard floor? They come with natural flavor enhancements - leaves, stems, seeds, the odd blade of grass or two, and yes, best of all, the occasional worm.

I have a distinct apple cider memory from my days in West Virginia. It's late September and the West Virginia University Farm has started the apple harvest. Cider time has arrived. You had to take your own jug and get in line at the big barn where the cider press sat. As you waited your turn, you could watch the farm wagon dump the load of apples straight from the orchard into the press. A switch was flipped and the press began. The big squeeze with fresh cider streaming out the into the barrel and then funneled into your jug. Mere seconds from apple to cider. As the press squeezed and groaned the atmosphere in the barn filled with the crisp nose of clear mountain air, fruit releasing its succulent sweetness stored from the summer sun and then topped off with the icy freshness of autumn's first frost.

Watching the cider flow into your jug, you knew the best was yet to come. In about 10 days. The solids would gradually settle to the bottom of your jug and the texture and color of the cider would lighten up each day until the one magical moment when you took off the cap and you heard a soft, sibilant hiss. Your cider was starting to turn. Oh heaven sent joy! Now your nose took in whiffs of yeast and your tongue exploded with the subtle suggestion of vinegar in the making. This was when your cider was ready to stand up to the boldest recipes you can find like "Cider Stew." Beefy, tender, savory with carrots, potatoes, and onions, with the tang of cider lurking in the background. A stew that stands up to the coldest autumn and the heartiest appetites.

If you were thrifty and thinking ahead, you put a couple gallons of that fresh cider in your freezer ready to be pulled out for holiday entertaining. Sure anyone can mull some cider with spices and simmer it in a crock pot. But for me, I prefer Hot Apple Pie. This was a recipe given to me by a dear friend who - alas - I have since lost touch with. Let me warn you - this is not your grandmother's hot apple pie. Do not insult the recipe by using hot apple juice. Wait until next autumn, find an orchard where they are pressing real apple cider. And if you have to drive a way to find it, stock up on several gallons and put it away in the freezer. One taste of Hot Apple Pie - you'll be thanking me!

Hot Apple Pie

1 quart apple cider

3 whole cloves

1 cinnamon stick

Tuaca (a liquer, generally available anywhere)

Sweetened whipped cream

Heat cider and spices just to boiling. Add 1 1/4 ounces tuaca to a cup or mug. Top with a dollop of sweetened whipped cream.

Cider Stew

3 large onions, sliced

2 pounds stew beef, cubed

3 tablespoons flour

2 teaspoons salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/4 teaspoon thyme

1 cup apple cider

1 tablespoon ketchup

3 large potatoes, cut in chunks

4 medium carrots, cut in chunks

Brown beef and onions in oil or drippings. Combine flour and seasonings and add to beef and onions. Stir until all are well browned. Stir in cider and ketchup. This mix will deglaze your pan so be sure to scrape up all the crusty bits from the bottom. Add potatoes and carrots and cook until all ingredients are tender.

You can cook this on stove top on low, in a casserole dish in the oven at 325, or in a crock pot. Thicken the juices with a little cornstarch and water. Add a drop or two of Kitchen Bouquet (optional) to deepen color and flavor.

Original recipe found in Farm Journal Country Cookbook.

Image of the cider press from: www.beechhillartisans.com/Cider%20Presses.html