Scott Hutcheson

Dancing with a Hamburger

Twenty-three, that’s how old I was walked onto a dance floor for the first time. The bride and groom danced first, then the bride with her father and the groom with his mom. As the first few bars of the third song began to play the bandleader announced that this was the bridal party dance. I nearly froze. No one had warned me of this particular tradition. I watched as my fellow groomsmen took the hands of the bridesmaid with whom they had exited the sanctuary.

I had been paired with a lovely young woman, a friend of the bride. Feeling I had no other choice, I placed a hand on her waist, pulled her close, and whispered into her ear, “I am SO sorry.” During the three minutes that followed, my patent-leather size-ten, EEE’s must have stepped on her delicate feet at least three dozen times.

How is it that I had made it though middle school, high school, and college without dancing? Well, it wasn’t that I was a wallflower or shy around girls. I had slipped my hand around the waist of a number of girls and pulled them close in my day, just not on a dance floor; and at a party, I could work the room with confidence. The reason I had never learned to dance was because I had grown up Baptist.

In the grand scheme of things, having parents that didn’t allow their kids to dance probably didn’t cause much lasting damage. And I’m beginning to suspect, that being denied the experience of publicly swaying to music might have made me more sensitive to some of the everyday rhythms of life.

What for some might be routines, feels to me a whole lot like dancing. Preparing a meal in my kitchen, for example, feels a whole lot like what I think dancing is supposed must be like. Not a predictable box step but more like improvisational movement. The seasons too, feel very dance-like: the check-to-check slow dance of winter, the joyful tap dance of spring, the steamy salsa of summer, then the elegant waltz of autumn. The transitions from once season to another even have their own rhythm, the downbeat between the two upbeats.

As winter gives way to spring, I’ll be moving some of my non-dance dancing outside, firing up the grill and these meatloaf burgers will provide the perfect transition from the comfort food of winter to the many cookouts that warmer weather will bring.

I’ve tried to dance a dozen times or so since that wedding, even took a couple lessons. I still awful, my wife can attest to that. But I can cook and sometimes, especially when the right dish aligns with the season, I get a sense of what Fred Astaire must have felt like dancing with Ginger Rogers.

So, if you are looking for me on a Friday or Saturday night this spring, you won’t find me on the dance floor. You might find me, however, out in my backyard, dancing with a hamburger.    

Hickory Meatloaf Burgers with Sharp Cheddar

• 1 lb. ground beef
• 1/2 lb. ground sausage
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
• 2 cups crushed corn flakes
• 2 eggs well beaten
• Sharp Cheddar (slices or shredded)

Hickory Sauce

• 2 cups catsup
• 1/2-cup water
• 3 teaspoons white vinegar
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon liquid hickory smoke

Add all sauce ingredients to a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer. Let simmer for 10 minutes. Divide the sauce in two; half for brushing on the patties while grilling and the other have to serve with the burgers.

Preheat a grill to medium high. While it is heating up combine the meatloaf ingredients (beef, sausage, salt, onion, cornflakes, and eggs) in a large bowl and form them into eight 1-inch-thick patties. Grill for about 6-8 minutes, Turn the patties over, brush with half of the sauce, and continue grilling until cooked through, about five more minutes. Turn to brush the other side with the sauce then top with cheese. Remove burgers when the cheese has melted. Toast the buns, if desired. Serve with the other half of the sauce along with sliced onions, lettuce, pickles, and any other toppings desired. 

Turkey Talk: Recipe for Cranberry Brine

Primum non nocere. First, do no harm. This Latin phrase, or something close to it, shows up in both the Hippocratic Oath and Star Trek’s Prime Directive. The same principle holds in the kitchen as well. Start with quality ingredients, and then don’t mess with them...too much. As we enter the holiday cooking season this is especially sound advice.   

In full disclosure, when it comes to both my Thanksgiving and Christmas meals turkeys are my go-to main course and I’ve “messed” with them a lot. I’ve salted them, wrapped them up in a lattice of bacon, shrouded them with cheesecloth, buttered them under the skin, over the skin, and used all sorts of herb and spice combinations.

The bottom line is that a turkey doesn’t need much help to be a star attraction. The one intervention I keep coming back to, however, is brining. The reason these other techniques don’t add much to the bird is that the flavoring and other benefits that occur when you treat the surface of the turkey remains, pretty much, on the surface of that turkey. Brining, on the other hand, can spread flavor throughout the meat.

When brining, you soak the turkey in a salty liquid solution that pulls the natural juices out of the meat where it mixes with the liquid you’ve added. Then, the now-dry bird acts as a sponge and pulls moisture back in, carrying with it the flavors you’ve added. Honestly, a simple solution of salt and sugar does an amazing job of enhancing the flavor and resulting in a juicier turkey.  A few extras are just icing on the cake…or bird…or…never mind, you get the idea.

If you are a fan of the having a bite of cranberry relish with your turkey you may want to consider this recipe for cranberry brine. I recommend 100% pure cranberry juice rather than the “juice cocktail” you might be used to. You can usually find the 100% version in the natural foods section of your grocery store. Also, no need to worry about this turning your turkey pink. It may look a little tinted when you pull it out of the brine but you won’t notice it once it is cooked.

The following is my recipe for cranberry brine and some instructions on technique. Note that if you are using a frozen turkey, be sure the bird is completely thawed.

Cranberry Brine

• 1 gallons of cranberry juice
• 2-1/2 cups kosher salt

• 1-1/2 cups sugar

• ½ cup of candied ginger

• 4 tablespoon black peppercorns, coarsely crushed

• 4 tablespoon whole allspice, coarsely crushed

• 12 whole cloves

• 6 bay leaves
• 1 gallon water

• Bag of ice

To prepare the brine, combine in a stockpot 1 gallon of cranberry juice with the next seven ingredients (through bay leaves), bring to a boil. Cook 5 minutes until the sugar and salt dissolve. Let this cool.

Remove the giblets and neck from the turkey. Rinse the turkey and pat it dry with paper towels. Place the turkey in a large plastic cooler. Add the juice mixture and enough ice to raise the level of liquid so that it covers the turkey. Close the cooler and let sit for 12-24 hours. Put cooler outside if cool and check a couple of times to see if additional ice is needed. The cooler should remain cold enough so that ice does not melt. If the outside temperature is below freezing, move the cooler where it will not freeze.

After the brining, remove the turkey, discard the brine liquid, and rinse the turkey in cold water, and pat it dry with paper towels. After brining, the cooler should be cleaned with boiling water and bleach. You would not want salmonella to grow all winter and spoil your next tailgate. You are not ready to cook the turkey as you normally would. 

Orignially published in the Winter 2014 issue of B Magazine

Rosemary for Romance

Some of the myths surrounding the herb rosemary are a bit on the racy side. Legend has it that when the goddess Aphrodite emerged from the ocean, stepping foot onto the Isle of Cypros, she was greeted by water nymphs who draped her naked body in rosemary. That’s why its been called “dew of the sea.” As a result of its association with the goddess of love, beauty, and sexual rapture, the pungent herb has been considered for centuries as an aphrodisiac. Science seems to support the lore because rosemary has been found to increase the circulation of blood in the body making skin hypersensitive. Ooh la la!

I can vividly remember my first encounter with rosemary. It was nearly 25 years ago at a tiny restaurant outside Chattanooga, Tennessee when a waiter brought to the table a basket of golf ball-sized rolls, with an aroma of yeast and a pine-like scent I could not quite place. Out of the millions of bites of food I’ve taken in my lifetime, my first nibble of that rosemary-laced roll is one of the most memorable. Had I not already been in love (and married) to my dining companion, I would have undoubtedly fallen in love with her on the spot.

Although rosemary is a year-round staple in my kitchen, as the weather turns from summer to fall, I find myself craving it even more and reaching for it dried from the spice jar or freshly clipped from our backyard rosemary bush, and adding it to vegetables I’m roasting, chicken I’m baking, or using it in a number of other ways.

There does indeed seem to be something special about rosemary, it’s wafting into every nook and cranny of the house, building the anticipation of dinner to great heights. Whether its the myth, the science, or a little of both there seems to be a little more cuddling on the couch during movie nights that begin with a dinner in which rosemary is featured.

One of the great things about rosemary is that it can be added so simply to things you might already be planning to cook anyway. It doesn’t require any special preparation or equipment. Here are five of my favorite ways to use it.

Rosemary Baked Potato: Slice a raw russet in half and sandwich a generous twig of fresh rosemary between the halves. Wrap the whole thing in foil and bake as you normally would. The rosemary permeates every bite of the spud.

Rosemary Butter: Soften butter and whip in dried rosemary. Let the butter harden again and then use it to on your dinner rolls or a crusty loaf of bread. You can add garlic to the butter too if you like.

Rosemary Chicken: If you are roasting or baking a chicken, simply roast or bake it on a bed of rosemary by placing several twigs in the bottom of your roasting pan and then placing the bird on top.

Rosemary Skewers: Use sturdy rosemary twigs as skewers for shish kabobs. Use any meat and vegetable you like. Lamb, however, works especially well with rosemary.

Rosemary Au Gratin Anything: Rosemary loves cheese, especially strong cheeses like sharp cheddar or Parmesan. Adding fresh or dried rosemary to an au gratin of potatoes, cauliflower, or nearly any other au gratin-able vegetable adds a whole new level of flavor.

No need to stop with these five. Experiment away. I can’t guarantee that rosemary will bring romance your way but you never know. If you’re new to the herb, however, you just may start a lifelong love affair with it. One word of warning. It’s a bit prickly so cuddling with it on the couch on movie night might not be a good idea.

Originally published in the Fall Issue of B Magazine

The Remarkable History of the Key Lime Pie

Originally published in quality newspapers the week of May 23, 2011

It was sometime around the turn of the century. Not the one marked by the worry of the Y2K bug but the one before that. A fisherman got a sweet tooth and used what he had on hand to whip up a tasty dessert. Sponge fishing was a booming new business in South Florida but the margins were slim so the rations were meager on his boat – some sugar, eggs, canned milk, soda crackers, some nuts, and citrus fruit.

There, under the stars, this fisherman made the very first Key Lime Pie.

Word spread quickly among the fisherman and the cool tart pie became a staple on those fishing trips. One of these men, maybe even the one who made that inaugural pie, shared the recipe with some woman folk, one in particular.

We don’t know much about “Aunt Sally,” not even a last name. We do know, however, that she had a job as the household cook for Florida’s very first self-made millionaire - William Curry, aka Rich Bill. Mr. Curry came to Florida as a penniless Bahamian immigrant and made his fortune in the ship salvage business. Mr. Curry also had a sweet tooth.

Aunt Sally’s Key Lime pies became a staple at the Curry mansion and were often on the menu when William would entertain great men of state and industry. The rest, as they say, is culinary history.

Part of this story is history but much is conjecture about the origins of this dessert but its popularity for over a century is fact indeed. There are variations on this pie – graham cracker crust, traditional crust; Key limes only or run-of-the-mill limes. Most South Floridians are firm in their insistence of using only Key limes. Type of crust seems to be less important.

Here is a recipe using a saltine cracker crust and pecans, which is probably pretty close to what that first fisherman might have made. Key limes are hard to find in most parts of the country but you can usually find it bottled and it works very well in this recipe.

The string of people and events that make up the history of Key lime pie is fascinating indeed so when making this pie for family and friends you can tell them the story of sponges and fisherman, of Aunt Sally and Mr. Curry, and enjoy a delicious taste of history.

Key Lime Pie

Saltine Crust

• 3 egg whites (reserve yolks)
• 1 cup sugar
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 14 saltines, finely crushed
• ½ cup pecans, finely crushed

Preheat oven to 325'F. Butter a 9" pie plate. In a medium-size bowl beat the egg whites, slowly adding sugar. Continue beating stiff. Add the baking powder, saltines, and pecans, mixing to combine. Pour into pie plate and use a spatula to spread. Bake for 30 minutes and let cool on a wire rack.

Filling

• 3 egg yolks
• 2 teaspoons lime zest
• 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
• 2/3 cup freshly squeezed or bottled Key lime juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In an electric mixer with the wire whisk attachment, beat the egg yolks and lime zest on high for about five minutes or until fluffy. Gradually add the condensed milk and continue to beat three to four minutes until the mixture is thickened. Raise the mixer and add the lime juice slowly folding the mixture with a rubber spatula just until the juice is incorporated add the lime juice. Pour the filling into the crust. Bake ten minutes, or until the filling has just set. Cool on a wire rack, then refrigerate. Freeze for 15 to 20 minutes before serving.

Topping

• 1 cup heavy or whipping cream chilled
• 2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar

Whip the cream and the confectioners' sugar until nearly stiff. Cut the pie into wedges and serve very cold, topping each wedge with a large dollop of whipped cream.

Pop's Tarts

Originally published in quality newspapers the week of April 24, 2011

When they were younger, my kids used to beg for Pop Tarts. If our grocery cart got within two isles of the breakfast foods section their pupils would dilate, their arms would reach out, and they would begin their attempts at parental manipulation. It’s funny how I had to remind them several times a day to say “please” and “thank you” yet when lobbying for something they really wanted, they quickly transform into little masters of manners.

When “please” didn’t work, they resorted to the movie-tie in tactic, trying to convince me that pastries with a Disney Pixar character on the box were somehow even more delicious than the run-of-the-mill tart. Sometimes I gave in, most of the time I didn’t.

I can’t blame them. I love them too. Pop Tarts and I grew up together, both born in 1964. I spent many a Saturday morning watching cartoons while washing down two pastries with a cold glass of milk. My children and I are certainly not alone in our love of Pop Tarts. Over 2.7 million Facebook users are fans of the tasty squares.

My wife and I make it a parenting priority to help our kids make good food choices. We aren’t militant about it but we try to be sure most meals feature lean proteins, complex carbohydrates, and plenty of fruits and vegetables. Like most busy families, however, occasional carry-out pizzas, drive-through burgers, and Pop Tarts are seemingly unavoidable.

Every now and then, I attempt to make healthier, homemade versions of convenience-food favorites, like Pop Tarts. Making these foods at home allows me to control the ingredients that go into them and provides enough of a novelty factor, that they are almost always a hit with my boys. From a calorie perspective, my tarts are no better, I’m sure, than the grocery store version; but I feel better about using real sugar, real butter, and whole-wheat flour. There’s nothing in them that my kids can’t pronounce.

If you’ve got Pop Tart lovers in your house and an hour or so to spare, you might want to give this recipe a try and if there are kids around let them lend a hand.

Pop’s Tarts

Pastry:

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 3 tablespoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup spreadable fruit (I used strawberry)
• 1 egg yolk, beaten with two tablespoons milk

 Frosting:

• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons milk

Optional:

• Sprinkles

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a food processor combine the butter and sugar then add the eggs, one at a time. Sift together flours and baking powder and add to the butter and sugar, pulsing until a soft dough ball forms. Chill for one hour. Turn the dough onto a large floured surface and roll to the thickness of a pie crust, about an eighth of an inch.

Use a knife to cut out rectangles that are about 6” x 5”, roughly the size of two Pop Tarts side by side. Spread about a tablespoon of fruit over 1/2 of each rectangle, staying way from the edges. Fold dough over the preserves, push down at the edges, and trim up the edges with your knife. Place tarts on a greased cookie sheet and brush w/the egg yolk milk mixture. Bake for about 25 minutes or until just beginning to brown.

Combine the powdered sugar and milk to make a thin frosting, Use a pastry brush to apply to each pastry. While the frosting is wet, you may also want to top with sprinkles. This will make about 16 tarts. Wrap in foil and store in refrigerator for up to a week or in the freezer for up to four months. When ready to eat, toast like you would the store-bought kind. Frozen tarts may need a little extra time.

Roasted Vegetable Frittata

Originally published in quality newspapers the week of April 17, 2011

If you have not yet finalized your Easter menu, consider adding this simple yet elegant Roasted Vegetable Frittata to your plans. This frittata is great for breakfast, brunch, or lunch.

Eggs, as a symbol of new life, are part of the Easter tradition in many countries. In Sweden, for instance, the tradition is to eat hardboiled eggs the evening before Easter. Other countries, like Greece and Portugal, make braided Easter bread with hardboiled eggs, shell and all, placed within the braids. In Italy, the frittata is often on the Easter menu.

If you are not familiar with frittata, it is similar to an omelet or crustless quiche and like these other dishes, can have a wide variety of fillings. This is a two-step recipe, and the vegetables can be roasted up to two days before you plan to make the frittata. At our house, we like roasted vegetables so much I’ll sometimes roast a large quantity using some in a frittata, and eating the rest as a side dish next night or even use them as a pizza topping. Roasted vegetables are versatile and simple to prepare. Roasting caramelizes the sugars in vegetables and results in an amazing sweet-savory taste combination. Those listed in this recipe are some of my favorites and these quantities will be just about right for the frittata.

Roasted Vegetables

• 4 medium-sized new potatoes
• 4 carrots or one and a half cups of baby carrots
• 1 medium yellow onion
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 yellow bell pepper
• 20 (approx.) asparagus spears

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. To prepare the vegetables, rinse the potatoes, peppers, asparagus, and carrots (if using whole carrots). There is no need to peel the potatoes, but remove any areas where the potatoes might have started to sprout. Peel the outer skin of the onion. Next, cut all the vegetables into bite-size chunks and place them in a large bowl. Drizzle the cut-up vegetables with olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Using your hands, toss the vegetables until evenly coated with the oil, salt, and pepper.

Transfer the vegetables to a large cookie sheet, making sure that they are evenly distributed. Place the cookie sheet in the oven for approximately 45 minutes. At about the halfway point, use a spatula to move the vegetables around and turn them over. Continue roasting until they begin to brown evenly. Less dense vegetables, like the asparagus, may cook more quickly so remove them when they are done and let the other vegetables continue to cook. The roasted vegetables can be used immediately or stored refrigerated in an airtight container for up to two days.

Roasted Vegetable Frittata

• Roasted Vegetables
• 6 eggs
• Salt
• Pepper
• Olive Oil
• 1/4 Cup Parmesan cheese

Set the oven broiler on high and also heat to medium an oven-proof skillet (I use a well-seasoned cast iron skillet) on the stove top.

Crack the six eggs into a bowl, add salt and pepper to taste, and beat the eggs with a fork. Add to the skillet enough olive oil to cover the bottom and tilt the skillet so that the oil coats the sides. Next, add the roasted vegetables to the skillet. If the vegetables were prepared beforehand, allow them to warm up in the skillet then add the beaten eggs.

Shake the pan a bit to be sure the eggs settle all the way through to the bottom. Allow this to cook on the stovetop undisturbed until the eggs begin to set, about 5-7 minutes. Add the Parmesan cheese and transfer the skillet to the oven for 2 to 3 minutes until the eggs are completely set. Remove from the oven and use a spatula to loosen the sides. The frittata can be cut like a pie into six servings.

Looking Ahead to Easter (and recipes for a full Easter menu)

Originally published in quality newspapers the week of April 10, 2011

From a food-point-of-view, Easter is one of the big three events in the triple crown of holidays. There others being, of course, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Thanksgiving menus, it seems, have much consistency from family to family. Most have turkey, some sort of stuffing or dressing, and a favorite version of sweet potatoes. Christmas food traditions vary some but usually feature some of the same hearty cooler-weather fare as Thanksgiving.

Easter, as a celebration of spring and new life, calls for some lighter flavors. Growing up, the Easter Ham was the ever-present entree at our Easter table and it’s most often what I now prepare for my family.

Our menu this year will include Fruit Salad, Deviled Eggs, Chantilly Potatoes, Peas with Mint, and a Lemonade Pie for dessert. As you look ahead to Easter, maybe you are looking for some new ideas, Hopefully you can find some here.

Regardless of what’s on your table next weekend or if you even observe Easter, I hope you can enjoy and celebrate the onset of spring with friends and family and that some of these recipes will fit with your plans.

Orange Glaze for Easter Ham

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 8 1/2 ounces orange marmalade
• 1/2 cup whole gain mustard Dijon mustard
• 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1 orange, juiced and zested

In a small saucepan, melt the butter over moderate heat. Stir in the other ingredients and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Pour over ham and bake for the last hour of the ham's total baking time.

Chantilly Potatoes

• 8 whole Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and diced
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 3 tablespoon fresh chives, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Boil potatoes until tender. Prepare as you would mashed potatoes (I used a ricer) adding butter, 1/2 cup of cream, 2 tablespoon chives, salt, and pepper. Put into an oven proof dish that will still leave you about an inch of room at the top. Whip the remaining 1/2 cup of cream and spread on top of potatoes. Add the grated cheese and place back in the oven for about 20 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Garnish with the remaining chopped chives.

Peas with Mint

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup finely diced onions
• 1-1/2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
• 16 ounces frozen baby peas
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon fresh mint, chopped

Heat a medium saucepan on the low setting and add the butter. When it has melted add the onions and lemon zest. Turn up the heat a bit and cook gently until the onions are translucent but not browned, about five minutes. Add the peas and sir occasionally until they are heated through (about five minutes) then add the mint.

Lemonade Pie

• 1 prepared graham cracker crust (the kind in the aluminum pan)
• 1 small can frozen lemonade
• 1 can Eagle Brand condensed milk
• Juice of one lemon
• 2 cups of whipped cream
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest

To a large bowl add the lemonade, condensed milk, and lemonade and stir to combine. Fold in the whipped cream and then put into the pie shell. Let chill for several hours or overnight. Before serving garnish with lemon. 

Flirting with Spring (and recipe for BLT Soup)

Originally published in quality newspapers the week of March 27, 2011

There is a fine art to flirting and frankly I was never very good at it. The most effective arrow in my flirting quiver was that of humor. I could almost always make a girl laugh; but hey, so could Rodney Dangerfield.

Author Fran Greene wrote the book on flirting. Actually, she wrote the Bible. In The Flirting Bible she reveals all the flirting secrets: the smile, eye contact, maintaining a proper distance, body language, and the flirtatious touch with tips for both men and women. I could have used this book back in the day.

Springtime, it seems, is a time of year where flirting is at its peak and not just among humans. In my neck of the woods, the earth itself flirts with us during these early days of spring, teasing us a bit with a warm day here and there and giving us just a peek of color.

Warm spring days have me anticipating the bounty that will soon be growing out of our small backyard garden and a day in the 70s last week had be standing in the yard envisioning the tomatoes that will go into the ground in a few weeks. Unable to get tomatoes out of my mind, I settled for the next best thing to garden tomatoes, the canned versions at the grocery store.

One of my favorite ways to eat tomatoes is in a BLT but I will only eat them when tomatoes are in season. The produce-isle versions just don’t match up. Canned tomatoes, on the other hand, usually have great tomato flavor but you can’t exactly use them on a sandwich. I decided on a BLT soup instead, incorporating all the elements of the sandwich.

A conventional BLT is still a few months off but in these early days of spring, this soup fills the void.

 BLT Soup

• 6 strips of bacon
• 2 28-ounce cans of diced tomatoes
• Olive oil
• Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper
• 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
• 2 stocks of celery, chopped
• 2 medium carrots, chopped
• 1 quart of canned chicken stock
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
• 8 thin slices of a baguette
• Arugula

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking pan with parchment paper and place a wire rack on the lined pan. Lay the slices of bacon on the rack and place in the oven to cook for 20 minutes or until the bacon is crisp. Remove the bacon and the rack. Once cooled, crumble the bacon and set aside. While the bacon is cooking open the two cans of tomatoes and pour of the juice, reserving it for later. Using the same baking pan and parchment used for the bacon, pour off all but about a tablespoon of the bacon fat (you may not have more than a tablespoon). Dump the diced tomatoes onto the parchment-lined sheet and spread out into a single layer. Add salt and pepper and a drizzle of olive oil. Place back into the 375-degree oven to roast for 30 minutes.

While the tomatoes are roasting, heat a Dutch oven to medium-high. Add a tablespoon of olive oil and sauté the chopped onion, carrots, and celery. Add salt and pepper and sauté until beginning to turn golden. Add the chicken stock and reserved tomato juice and bring to a boil then reduce to simmer. Once the tomatoes are done add them to the pot along with the tablespoon of sugar and the basil. Add additional salt and pepper if needed.

Use an emersion blender to puree the soup to a smooth consistency. Switch the oven to broil and place the bread slices on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, and broil until golden. When ready to serve ladle soup into bowls, top with one or two pieces of the toast, a few leaves of arugula, and crumbled bacon. Makes about six servings.

Games, Grub, & Gladiators (and recipe for Spanakopita)

Originally published in quality newspapers the week of March 20, 2011

It is in our nature to love a good story and most of us got an early introduction to storytelling because of some adult in our lives who read to us or spun yarns of their own. Often our play took the form of story, imagining ourselves as the hero in some epic tale playing out in our backyards.

As adults, stories still play a prominent role in our lives. We learn about what’s going on in the world through stories reported by news outlets, we entertain ourselves with television and movies that makes us laugh, cry, and jump out of our seats. Friends tell each other stories, about our weekend adventures, what’s going on with our kids.

This week we find ourselves in the middle of what’s called March Madness and when it comes down to it, it’s the stories we’re mad for. Without stories there’s just a ball going through a hoop.

At its essence, a sporting event is a story that unfolds over the course of a couple hours and the NCAA tournament packs a lot of stories into just a few days. We’ll get caught up in the tales of heroes and villains, decades-old rivalries, emotional highs and lows, unexpected twists and turns, victories and defeats.

Like for the Super Bowl and other big sports events, many of us will be gathering with family and friends around our living-room big screens to experience together the thrills of victory and agonies of defeat and of course you can’t have a crowd without feeding them.

Food, sports, and great stories go back for centuries, even to the days of the Roman Coliseum. The Roman’s loved great drama and stories quickly spread about the feats of gladiator bravery. Like a Saturday in March, these tournaments were all-day affairs and the people got hungry. One crowd favorite was sold by Coliseum vendors was a savory Roman pastry similar to what we know now as spanakopita.

Fortunately our sporting amusements are less barbaric than they used to be and fights to the death don’t usually occur even among the greatest of rivals. Still, however, there is a great deal that is Roman-esque about March Madness. New heroes emerge, former victors fall, spectators demand sustenance, and great stories are born right before our eyes. Maybe a taste of ancient Rome will should find a place among our game-time snacks.

Game-Time Spanakopita

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 large yellow onions, chopped
• 2 (10 ounce) packages frozen spinach thawed, drained, and squeezed dry
• 1/4 cup finely chopped fresh parsley
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 8 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
• 4 eggs, beaten
• Kosher salt and cracked pepper
• 1 24-ounce package phyllo dough
• 3 sticks of butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Heat a nonstick sauté pan to medium-high and add olive oil. Once the oil comes up to temperature sauté the onions until softened. Add the spinach, parsley, and flour and cook for ten minutes or until most of the moisture has evaporated. Remove from heat. In a mixing bowl combine the feta, eggs, and salt and pepper to taste then incorporate the spinach mix.

Unroll the phyllo on a flat surface and keep it covered with a damp towel so it doesn't dry out. Cut the phyllo lengthwise into 3-inch strips, and recover with the towel. Use a pastry brush to brush a strip with melted butter. Place a spoonful of filling an inch from one end of the pastry then fold the end over the filling to form a triangle. Continue folding up the strip in triangles, like folding up a flag. Repeat using all the strips and filling keeping the triangles covered with a damp towel until all are ready to bake.

Brush the triangles lightly with butter, then bake on a parchment-lined baking pan for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden and crisp. Serve hot. Makes about 60 triangles.

Another Biscuit Please, Dr. Pavlov (and recipe for Charleston-style Cream Cheese Biscuits)

Originally published in quality newspapers the week of March 14, 2011

You’ve heard, I’m sure of the Golden Age of Hollywood, the 1930s and 40s, in which movies really came into their own. I wasn’t around during that time but I was for another era of pop-culture significance, the Golden Age of Saturday-Morning Cartoons. In 1966, the year I turned two, all three of the major networks began a four-hour block of children’s program each Saturday morning.

This was before the days of 100s of cable channels, which now includes entire networks devoted to children’s programming. Many a Monday-morning conversation around elementary-school water fountains were about the antics of Bugs Bunny, the Road Runner, and the other characters that inhabited that colorful world.

During the 1980s other programming began to slip into Saturday mornings and soon the era came completely to an end. For those of us of a certain age, however, Saturday mornings will forever be associated with cartoons.

For me, the Saturday mornings of my formative years have another association – biscuits. My stepfather, a Baptist minister, made biscuits by the dozens to take to the weekly Men’s Prayer Breakfast. I have a photo or two of me, sleepy-eyed and footie pajama-ed, sitting atop the kitchen counter helping him cut out the doughy disks. He would leave a few for the family, and my mother would bake them and serve them with gravy or sometimes apples fried in a cast-iron skillet.

Somehow, in someway, it seems my mind got hardwired, like Pavlov’s dog, so that cartoons remind me of biscuits, and biscuits of cartoons. With the first whiff of a hot-buttered biscuits, I think of Scooby, Shaggy, and the gang, in the Mystery Machine, careening down a winding road to go solve a caper. It works the other way too. If I walk through the room while my children are watching Hong Kong Fuey on the retro channel, my first impulse is to head to the kitchen to preheat the oven.

As a result of my obsession with biscuits I’ve catalogued a great many variations, found all across the U.S – flaky and cakey, lard and butter, thin and thick, buttermilk and regular milk? I’m an equal opportunity biscuit lover, rarely encountered a freshly baked biscuit I don’t like. I won’t even turn my nose up and some canned biscuits. Don’t, however, try to fool me with some sort of pre-baked, then frozen version. 

Last week life took me to Charleston, South Carolina, where I discovered yet another variation, the cream cheese biscuit. The other ingredients and overall technique is not unlike most other biscuits except that cream cheese is substituted for some of the butter. The result is a light and cakey biscuit with a double-doze of tang coming from the buttermilk and cream cheese.

The little King Street café in which I ate these delicious biscuits, had a TV turned to CNN. I asked my waitress if they got the Cartoon Network and if she would mind changing the channel. They did and she obliged.  

 Charleston Cream Cheese Biscuits

• 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1-1/2 cups cake flour
• 1-1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• ¾ tablespoon baking soda
• 4 ounces cream cheese, chilled and pinched into small pieces
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter cut into small pieces
• 1 cup cold buttermilk

Preheat oven to 450 degrees and line a baking pan with parchment paper. In a large bowl mix together the dry ingredients. Add the cream cheese and butter and use your fingertips to work it into the flour until it takes on a sandy look. Add the buttermilk and use a spatula to fold it into a dough. Turn dough out into a floured work surface and roll out to ¾ inch thick. Use a biscuit cutter to cut out biscuits, trying to use as much of the dough as possible. You can re-roll the scraps but the second batch will likely not rise as much as the first. Place the biscuits on the baking sheet and back for 12-14 minutes or until golden brown.