LOCAVORE’S DELIGHT: The Series #30. Follow us as we explore the bounty of our region’s farms through the eyes and palate of our own Chef Jay Pierce.

I never knew, or even thought of, asparagus as a product of a farm. I didn’t give it much thought at all. It was a product of a can. Overcooked. Inedible. Eaten cold. Early in my career, working at NOLA in the French Quarter that opinion was confirmed: asparagus was one of those “no-nos” of wine pairing. As in, “you don’t serve cheese with fish,” and “you don’t serve asparagus with wine.” The vegetable’s high minerality clashes with almost any wine pairing (except a Grüner Veltliner, I later learned at NOLA, too).

One ingredient, three recipes: Serve fresh asparagus from the Farmer’s Market for dinner on Wednesday and Saturday and make soup from the discarded stems on Sunday. Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen recipes below.

Chef Jay Pierce eats Chef Jay Pierce eats asparagus straight from the garden at Foggy Ridge Farms.

That all changed for me in 2001 when I read an article in Saveur Magazine, about “Hadley Grass.”  The small Massachusetts town known as the former asparagus capital of the world is “still known as the best in the world” for the delightful spring sprout. (actually published online in 2007, but in print in 2001 [issue#50])

Learning that it wasn’t a wine-pairing dead-end and discovering the ease and deliciousness of grilled asparagus; I began to incorporate it into ever meal that I cooked on my grill at home, and it became the default elegant veggie to add to a dish when I was stumped.

Moving to North Carolina in 2006 ignited a new curiosity about the provenance of our provender. I started reading labels to find out where our food comes from. You almost never see asparagus from the United States. Which led me to think back on that article from 2001, and to understand: There is a season, a brief season for asparagus. Specifically, I began to think of asparagus as an agricultural product, something to be labored over and celebrated in its time.

Now, today, farming asparagus has become the emblem of sustainability to me. It takes three years to raise a crop that will feed you for 20. Guilford College’s Rock Star farmer Korey Erb uses asparagus as the logo for his farm. It’s not an easy thing to grow. You need to be patient. You harvest with a light hand. Take less now to have more later. And because it’s a perennial, the land you set aside for asparagus works just like a fruit orchard. You dedicate a plot. It’s a commitment between a farmer and his crop.

Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen uses asparagus from Meadows Family Farm.

Purple asparagus in the garden at Foggy Ridge Farms. Purple asparagus turns green when you cook it so try to eat it raw.

A field of green

The nature of the plant is that asparagus is a bush. What you’re eating is actually the new shoot of the bush.

Among the growing procedures: Per the “Farmer’s Almanac”

• Asparagus is planted in early spring as soon as the soil can be worked. The plant is grown from “crowns” (1-year-old plants).
• Asparagus does not like to have its feet “wet,” so be sure your bed has good drainage. For that reason, raised beds can be a good place to plant asparagus.
• Do not harvest the spears in the first year, but cut down dead foliage in late fall and side-dress with compost.
• During the second year, keep the bed thickly mulched, side-dress in spring and early fall, and cut down dead foliage in late fall.
• Cut spears that are about 6 inches in length at an angle.

In the third year, the bush produces more sprouts. And the farmer, the hobbyist, has to make a decision about when to stop harvesting at a certain point to have a bigger crop next year.

Asparagus is featured on the Spring in Our Step menu May 15 to July 2: Green Goddess Plate roasted radishes, grilled asparagus, boiled potatoes, Screech’s tomatoes and green goddess dressing

Raw asparagus for dinner Monday

• Store asparagus raw. You don’t want to store cooked asparagus, because the cooking process breaks down the cellular structure and it lead to spoilage faster.
• To make a raw asparagus salad, chop it up and create your own dressing. Use three parts oil (a neutral oil, such as Canola oil) to one part vinegar.
• Put all the ingredients in a mason jar, shake it up well, and shake it up, sprinkle it over, add salt and pepper.

Blanched asparagus on Wednesday

• Wash and clean the asparagus.
• Trim off the woody stems. If you bend asparagus, it’s going to naturally bend at the point where it’s most flexible. There’s a rigid part and there’s a flexible part. The woody part snaps off and is the much smaller part of the asparagus.
• Set aside all your woody stems to make asparagus soup at the end of the week (recipe below). It will keep, uncovered, about a week in the fridge.
• Bring salted water to a boil.
• Place trimmed, washed asparagus into water.
• Prepare ice bath.
• After the asparagus is in the pot for sixty seconds, remove it from the boiling water and place asparagus into the cold water.
• Let it soak in the ice bath for five minutes.
• Remove and towel dry.
• Either place it in a hot dry skillet, then drizzle with oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper; when it’s heated through it’s done. Or, place on an oiled grill and sprinkle with salt and pepper until it begins to wilt.

Chef’s note: thin asparagus doesn’t need to be blanched. Only standard and jumbo need to be blanched.

Asparagus soup on Sunday

We save all of woody stems and make asparagus soup. We simmer it down in some cream and put in it a little Parmesan cheese. Purée to get the flavor out. Strain the soup to remove the fiber (cellulose) and get all the flavor. There really is no recipe for it. So I encourage people to experiment on their own. Feel free to add more asparagus to ramp up the flavor and make it more subtle.

Cream of Asparagus Soup

1 pound asparagus
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 fluid ounce canola oil
1/2 cups chopped yellow onion
1 quart vegetable stock
1/4 pound diced, peeled potatoes
1/2 cups heavy cream
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground white pepper
1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves (or 1TBSP fresh)
1/4 pound Parmesan Reggiano cheese rind only
1 teaspoon lemon juice

• Wash asparagus and cut the woody part of the stalk off. Blanch the tops, shock in ice water, drain and set aside for garnish. Blanch the stalks for 5 minutes.
• Add hot asparagus stalks to a blender with first portion of heavy cream and puree, then strain reserving solids and liquids separately.
• In a pan, sauté onions in oil until translucent.
• In a large pot, add vegetable stock. Add all ingredients except pureed asparagus liquid and solids, stirring to incorporate. Add solids from asparagus puree and continue to simmer until potatoes are soft. Remove the Parmesan rind and discard. Puree the soup with an immersion blender.  Stir in asparagus liquid puree and then strain all through a large hole strainer.
• Garnish soup with cut asparagus tips.
• Makes 1 quart

LOCAVORE’S DELIGHT: The Series #29. Follow us as we explore the bounty of our region’s farms through the eyes and palate of our own Chef Jay Pierce.

Rhubarb is one of the most misunderstood ingredients on menus. You’ll see it at the grocery store, but it’s difficult to find at the Farmer’s Market (both Cary and Greensboro Farmer’s Markets say it’ll be a few more weeks before we see any). It’s a perennial, but not grown everywhere. It’s a vegetable, but used like a fruit.

The oxalic acid content of rhubarb makes the leaves poisonous, and the stem, delicious. While rhubarb is grown in some cold pockets in North Carolina, good rhubarb needs the ground to freeze, and grows best in Michigan and Oregon.

Try the Lattice-Crust Rhubarb Pie with Homeland Creamery vanilla ice cream available now at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen on the Spring’s Eternal Menu, now until May 14.

It’s a vegetable. In some places, a spring perennial. And is a key component of a delicious margarita, also adding to the confusion:

• It’s naturally sour, which is not the most preferred taste sensation in America – only slightly more popular than bitter. The sour comes from its oxalic acid content.
• It’s odd-looking. It’s a stalk. People don’t celebrate celery, or cardoons (another stalk that is an artichoke relative in thistle family) like they do cute fruits, like apples, blackberries and tomatoes.

What makes rhubarb a vegetable. Sugar content? 

Rhubarb is a vegetable despite its prescient use in fruit pies, jams, and coulis.

Fruit is something a plant produces to nourish its the seeds.. When you pick an apple you don’t kill an apple tree, but you do have to kill the plant to eat a vegetable. For example, if you pick an onion or a beet, you’re taking the whole plant with you. When harvesting rhubarb, you pull the entire stalk from the ground, and only harvest two at a time, leaving at least five stalks for the next season’s crop.

Why is it always appearing  with strawberries?

Spring is the most difficult time of year to eat fresh produce. Most plants have just begun to grow, and they are weeks from bearing edible fruit.

Rhubarb is one of the first edibles available in the spring. Its peak coincides with strawberries, so most people encounter rhubarb in one of three ways:

• Strawberry-rhubarb pie
• Stewed with an ice cream or custard
• In a jam or chutney

The lattice crust serves two purposes: One it’s cute, and two, it allows steam to escape.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie? Not so much.

In a strawberry rhubarb pie, I think the rhubarb plays second fiddle. Strawberries are celebrated. They’re super sweet and need contrast. You almost never see a strawberry pie on its own. There’s no complexity. It’s like a sugar bomb.

Rhubarb, when mixed with strawberries, gives you that sourness to balance the sweetness and the complexity.

I prefer to go all the way in the other direction and make rhubarb pie. No strawberry.

We make it with a lattice crust for two reasons: One, it’s cute. Two, it vents the pie so the filling can thicken up and the steam can escape.

A sour sweet

Whether you eat sour dishes to aid in digestion or you just prefer to end your meal with something less sweet, a dessert like rhubarb pie is always a welcome sight, with its delightful balanace of sweet and sour.

We do a couple of things here with rhubarb that you can start doing at home, too. Recipes posted below. 

• Rhubarb margarita
• Rhubarbecue sauce tastes like a sauce from down east and we put it on our grilled shrimp
• Stewed rhubarb — chop it up, sauté, deglaze with a little bit of water, dry white wine or sweet white wine. Sprinkle with sugar. Reduce and serve it with ice cream.

RECIPES

Rhubarb Margarita

1 fluid ounce Rhubarb Syrup (see recipe)

2 fluid ounces Tequila

3/4 fluid ounce Cointreau

juice from 1 wedge of lime

½ fluid ounce sour mix

1 wheel of lime

Salt rim of a martini glass. Add all ingredients (except lime wheel) to a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake vigorously and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with lime wheel.

Makes – 1

Rhubarb Syrup

1/2 pound rhubarb

1/4 cup water

1 cup granulated sugar

Wash and dice rhubarb to 1/4 inch. In a sauce pot combine rhubarb and water. Simmer for 10 minutes or until tender. Puree in food processor and strain through fine chinois, discard solids. In a sauce pot combine pureed rhubarb and sugar. Simmer until dime sized bubbles appear. Remove from heat and cool.

Makes – 1 1⁄2 cups

Rhubarbecue Sauce

1 2/3 pounds rhubarb

2 cups apple cider vinegar

⅔ cup water

3 ⅓ cups light brown sugar

1 teaspoon allspice

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Clean and chop rhubarb. Combine all ingredients in a sauce pot and simmer for 30-45 minutes or until rhubarb is completely soft. Puree in blender and strain through a medium-hole strainer. Discard pulp. Place puree in a sauce pot and simmer until dime size bubbles appear. Cool.

Makes – 1 quart

Strawberries, dandelion greens, asparagus, and rhubarb are all indicative of spring, but strawberries are the only item on the list that are grown in any significant numbers here in the piedmont. So what does that mean?

There are a lot of former tobacco farms in close proximity to Greensboro that have switched over to growing strawberries in the last 10 or 15 years. There’s a rather thriving business of pick-your-own-strawberry farms, too.

Find a pick-your-own strawberry farm near you at pickyourown.org

The first year we moved here, my family and I went out and picked strawberries until our hearts content. We filled two flat boxes full of strawberries. We came home, washed them up, ate a bunch of fresh berries, and then we were full. But we still had one and three-quarters boxes of strawberries left! They just don’t disappear.

You don’t want to see the fruits of your labor – your toiling in the field – go to waste. You can fill a mason jar full of the bruised berries and make your own vinegar; soak them in brandy; and, freeze a box worth of berries and save them until fall. Here’s how.

Fill a mason jar with bruised strawberries and make an infused vinegar for fresh grilled summer vegetables, or soak the berries in bourbon, brandy or vodka.

Make strawberry vinegar

Fill a mason jar with some of the bruised and overripe strawberries. Add red wine vinegar, cap it off, and let it sit for about a month.

Mash it up, then strain the berries out, and keep the strawberry vinegar/juice.

Add strawberry vinegar to grilled summer vegetables. Place lightly salted grilled vegetables on the plate and sprinkle with a little strawberry vinegar. It will remind you of spring, brightens the flavor, and adds a little zest to the bland expanse that is summer squash.

Strawberries on the rocks

Steep berries in a mason jar full of your favorite booze, such as bourbon or brandy. Let the jar sit for a few months. Purée, then strain out the berry mash.

It would be fine if you let the strawberries soak for a day, but I try to do things like that for a month or so.

Freeze strawberries to last you the whole summer

• Wash whole berries.
• Drain berries on a kitchen towel.
• Trim off the green part and any excessively white part.
• Set the trimmed strawberries on a parchment paper lined baking tray. Space them out so they don’t touch.
• Set the pan of strawberries in the freezer, uncovered, overnight.
• Then, collect the strawberries and put them in a ziploc freezer bag for long-term storage.

Materials needed: pan, knife, parchment paper, freshly picked strawberries, a freezer, and a ziploc bag for storage.

Use frozen strawberries for ice cubes. Eat them frozen for a sweet summer treat. Thaw them out and chop them up as needed for pancakes, or our special infused vinegar.

Materials needed: Freshly picked strawberries, parchment paper, a pan, knife, freezer, and ziploc bags for storage.

Line the baking tray with parchment paper.

Trim off the green tops.

Set berries on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Space out the berries so they don’t touch each other.

Greetings, salutations and craft beer libations to you and yours as we christen April – North Carolina Beer Month. The Old North State has tapped this month as the first annual event, toasting craft brews across the state from mountain to sea.

In the last five years, North Carolina has thrust itself onto the national craft beer stage, “with more breweries than any state south of Pennsylvania (73 and counting), according to the New York Times.” So we put together a few thoughts to guide you through this glorious month:

• How to drink a beer like a Boss (forget the frosted glass)
• How to choose the best foods for your beverage
• The long form ode to the long leaf pine, the state’s official toast
• Links and information to our NC Beer month events

“The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate. ” ― NC native O. Henry

April 1- 30 | Beer Companion Menu in Greensboro and Cary shows which NC Craft Beers we’d pair with Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen dishes.

• Cary NC Beer Month Beer Companion Menu
• Greensboro NC Beer Month Beer Companion Menu

April 18 | Beer School & Book Signing with Mystery in Cary

April 26 | NC Beer Lover’s Weekend at O.Henry in Greensboro features a grand, six-course Highland Beer Dinner and a “Cooking with Beer” Class on April 27. 

How to drink a beer like a boss

Know what you are drinking. Learn the differences between ales and lagers (most beers from NC are ales). Learn what to expect from certain styles, then explore styles that are comparable to those you enjoy. This primer on beer styles will go a long way to setting you up for success.

Temperature is everything. If you’re drinking from the bottle, warm up an ale a little bit with your hands. Lagers are great at refrigerator temperatures – around 40F. Closer to “cellar temperature” is the ideal temp for ale, about 45 to 50 degrees F. There’s a misconception that people in England drink beer warm, at room temperature — not true. They usually drink it at ale temperature, which is a little closer to cellar temp.

If you’re pouring the beer into the glass, warm up the glass from the outside. Just hold your hands around the glass, warm it up a bit. Your body can’t process the full flavors of cold things. That’s one big reason cheap beer is served ice cold: You can’t taste the undesirable flavors, your palate is numbed.

Pour down the center of the glass, about 3 quarters of the way. Let the head and beer rest, and let the carbon dioxide dissipate, because CO2 will mask the flavor too. Once the head goes down, pour in a little more. When you get down to the last swig in the bottle, swirl it around before you pour it into the glass to get that last bit of yeast settled at the bottom of the bottle.

Smell the beer. Taste it, roll it around your tongue and swallow, get the general impression of the beer. Don’t just don’t think in terms of bitter. Bitter might be the most recognizable quality but there are citrus notes and hops gives it a floral, vegetal flavor.

Pause. Take a bite of your food. Then take a sip of your beer and notice the difference because one changes the other.

Take notes. Keep a piece of paper and pen handy and take notes of the flavor. The right food with the right beer should be a “2 + 2 = 5 experience.”

April 1-30 and features festivals, beer tastings and dinners, beer specials and other events celebrating the state’s beer.

So what’s the big hoppin’ deal? A short history

2005 | The NC craze started when the Pop the Cap Law passed. Sean Wilson, a master’s grad from Duke University, led the movement. He and 34 of his closest friends started a petition to the state legislature to repeal the law that set an 6%ABV cap on the amount of alcohol you could put into beer (Sean went on to establish the plow to pint Fullsteam Brewery in Durham).

2005 – 2009 | As a consequence of this newfound latitude in producing and selling beer in NC, we had several entrepreneurs suddenly very interested in selling beer. North Carolina got a kind of late start compared to California and Oregon. The beer craze overtook the West coast in the 90s. We started around here sometime in the early aughts (2000s).

2009 – 2012 | What we lacked in timeliness, we made up for with enthusiasm. In the last five years there’s been a groundswell of groundbreakings on craft breweries. Five years ago there were about 20 craft brew houses, there are now 72, according to ncbeer.org

Fall 2012 | With exponential growth, last fall North Carolina Division of Tourism decided to christen April 2013 as the first annual NC Beer Month. They reached out to breweries and hoteliers and said, “please plan events for April because we’re going to do a national push.” So we did.

Chef Jay Pierce hosts beer dinners featuring NC brews in Cary and Greensboro.

We’ve been embracing the beer pairing dinner for over three years now. We decided the food here at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen is a lot more casual; and rich and spicy food goes well with beer. It’s what we enjoy drinking culinarily, and our dinners don’t compete with the events happening at our hotels.

Subscribe to Lucky’s Beer Month Twitter List: Our favorite NC brewers and bloggers to follow during beer month.

A word about taste: Location doesn’t affect beer; a brewer’s influences do.

West Coast is a style, usually used to describe a beer that is not British style. There is no NC beer style, but certain breweries are endeavoring to utilize local ingredients to tie their beer to the terroir (Fullsteam), rotate all of their offerings each season like a chef or designer (Mystery), brew Bavarian-inspired lagers (RedOak), or make solid beers in classic styles (Highland).

Click here to see Food Republic’s beer and food pairing chart

A perfect match: Pairing brews and food

Mostly, what a person looks for when pairing any beverage with food is a “True-to-style” beer/ wine/cider.

These classic styles, like a British-style IPA, a Milk Stout, or a Hefeweizen, were all developed over time to be part of daily life, meaning they go well with food; much like old world wines (which are often blended, as opposed to the California tradition of single varietal wines) were developed over the centuries to complement food, not to stand alone.

Similarly, many West Coast styles and anything with “Imperial” in the title — other than Russian Imperial Stout, which is a British style, that was exported to the Czars’ courts — is crafted to stand alone, and therefore more difficult to harmoniously pair with food.

Those bolder, hoppier styles tend to benefit from dishes that can match their intensity, but in a contrasting direction.

The beer supplies what the food doesn’t, and vice versa, in terms of being balanced on the
palate.

Infographic: Food Republic’s Beer Pairing Chart

And finally, the official North Carolina toast to go with your North Carolina brew.

“A Toast” The NC state toast
This toast was adopted by the North Carolina General Assembly in 1957.

Here’s to the land of the long leaf pine,
The summer land where the sun doth shine,
Where the weak grow strong and the strong grow great,
Here’s to “Down Home,” the Old North State!

Here’s to the land of the cotton bloom white,
Where the scuppernong perfumes the breeze at night,
Where the soft southern moss and jessamine mate,
‘Neath the murmuring pines of the Old North State!

Here’s to the land where the galax grows,
Where the rhododendron’s rosette glows,
Where soars Mount Mitchell’s summit great,
In the “Land of the Sky,” in the Old North State!

Here’s to the land where maidens are fair,
Where friends are true and cold hearts rare,
The near land, the dear land, whatever fate,
The blest land, the best land, the Old North State!

Ask anyone who’s met them, and you’ll hear, “I just love the Lee brothers. Those boys are so sweet!” They are at the populist forefront of this new southern food movement that we find ourselves in; with people like Linton Hopkins, Hugh Acheson, and Sean Brock earning all of the critical accolades. Because of all of these folks, our southern food tradition is alive and growing.

The third cookbook is the self-proclaimed “book they intended to write the first time.”

5:30 to 6:30 pm Thursday March 28, the Lee brothers will be hanging out and signing cookbooks in the bar at the Greensboro location. Books will be available for purchase. No admission charge. Tweet it up: Meet me in the bar Thursday, March 28 with the Lee Brothers.

Speaking the same language

Let me draw a parallel for you. Food is language. Latin can be studied and understood, and Latin is key to understanding lots of other languages, but there are no new words. It’s a classical language, but it’s not alive.

Well, there are folks who want you to believe southern food is a carved-in-marble type of work, where there are platonic ideals of what southern classics should be: Chicken and Dumplings is “x” and Fried Chicken is “y.”

The beauty of the Lee brothers – and this new wave of Southern cooks — is that it’s not just about recreating classics, it’s about reinventing things, coming up with new combinations of southern staples. The new “Charleston Kitchen” cookbook by the Lee brothers gets to the heart of this new southern foods movement.

Telling a good story

The first book came out in 2006 to critical acclaim. I got a copy of the book on a recommendation from Dennis Quaintance. It was this immense compendium of updated recipes of southern classics: Catfish Muddle, Devilled Ham, Fried Chicken, and Collard Greens.

This coincided with a time in 2007 when we were casting about here at Lucky 32 for a new identity for the restaurant. I needed inspiration. We knew we were rooted in the North Carolina piedmont, but we didn’t know we were going to be a southern kitchen.

With food, you have to figure out what language you’re speaking when you create dishes. Agree on the lexicon, and use the vegetables, traditions and touchstones within that lexicon, and the menu will tell a story.

The Lee brothers helped us tell that story, by showing the world how inspiring their own story was.

They started out selling boiled peanuts by mail order to homesick southerners (as they realized they were) from New York City.

Boiled Peanuts

They started out selling boiled peanuts by mail order to homesick southerners (as they realized they were) from New York City. Matt and Ted Lee went on to write about wine and travel for Martha Stewart Living and Travel + Leisure, before publishing their doorstop of a first book, which went on to win the James Beard award for cookbook of the year, as well as the Julia Child award from the IACP, in 2007.

Charleston Kitchen

Charleston Kitchen is the self-proclaimed “book the Lee Brothers intended to write in the first place.”

The first book was more of an overview of contemporary takes on southern traditions. The second book was a lighter, fresher approach to southern ingredients. This third book is more about the comfort food surrounding the brothers, as they grew up in Charleston. They reference the legacies of Charleston, talking about Clementine Paddleford and Edna Lewis and the legendary Charleston Receipts book, which strikes close to my heart.

It really is sort of recapturing their youth in book form. Seafood, like Shad Roe (fish egg) Low-Country Gumbo, She-Crab soup, and a Venison Dish with Mulberries that I look forward to creating for our dinner here.

Cheesecakes, Grapefruit Chess Pie, the cornbread pudding I look forward to making, peach upside down skillet cake sounds yummy, I’m also gonna make the sorghum marshmallows.

We’ve been looking forward to this new book of theirs for a while, so that we can invite the boys back to see the restaurant that they helped inspire, and to introduce them to a new legion of folks who love what we do.

Won’t you stop by next Thursday? Join us in the bar.

Tweet it up: Meet me in the bar Thursday March 28 with the Lee Brothers.

The Lee brothers in their natural habitat.

More about the Lee brothers.

Siblings Matt and Ted grew up in Charleston, South Carolina. When they left to attend colleges in the Northeast, they so missed the foods of their hometown that they founded The Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalogue, a mail-order catalogue for southern pantry staples like stone-ground grits, fig preserves, and, of course, boiled peanuts. When an editor of a travel magazine asked them to write a story about road-tripping their home state in search of great food, they embarked on a second career as food and travel journalists. They currently are contributing editors at Travel + Leisure and frequently write food stories for Bon Appetit, The New York Times, Fine Cooking and Food & Wine, among other publications.

Ted lives with his wife, the artist E.V. Day, in Brooklyn, NY; Matt, his wife Gia, and their two sons live in Charleston, SC.

St. Patrick’s Day is the one day of the year that people celebrate Scots-Irish history here — and they do it rather superficially. We like to dig a little deeper and say that we don’t do an Irish dish, or Scots-Irish dish just one day of the year. We do it more often — you just don’t know it until someone draws your attention to it.

There are three primary foodways that influence the food of the North Carolina piedmont. The African influence is most noticeable and rather celebrated. Less-celebrated is our shared German heritage – such as the Moravians in Winston-Salem with their smoked meats, sausages, liver pudding, cabbage, coleslaw, chicken pies, and cookies.

The third foodway is the Scots-Irish.

Celebrate the region’s Scots-Irish heritage at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen with our “Still Winter” menu. On St. Patrick’s Day, join us for braised, all natural Corn Beef, Mustard-Braised Cabbage, Buttermilk and Chive whipped potatoes (recipes below).

Scots-Irish migration

Scots-Irish is a bit of a confusing term in and of itself.

Our understanding is that these folks represent a group of people who left Scotland and the poor working and living conditions there for Ireland. Within 2 generations or so they found their way to the New World and settled in the Appalachian and Piedmont regions; about 100 years before the famine in Ireland sent a great wave of Irish to America in the 1840s.

In the Piedmont and Appalachian mountains they found a region that was both similar to their own in geography, as well as undesired by the English, who lived closer to the coast.

These folks began to carve out a hardscrabble existence that informs much of what we’ve inherited in the ways of food traditions in the Carolinas, one that today gets taken for granted.

Off the Chef’s Shelf: Learn more about the Scots-Irish influence in southern foods.

The Scots-Irish influence on the “Still Winter” menu

The end of winter is the most difficult time to eat locally sourced ingredients because the pickles and the salt cures are running out and spring has barely sprung. As winter gives way to springtime, our thoughts here at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen turn to our shared Scots-Irish heritage and their enduring foodways.

Scroll down for Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen’s Mustard-Braised Cabbage, Buttermilk and Chive whipped potatoes recipes.

Scots-Irish foods

• lamb
• salmon
• barley
• oats
• whiskey
• potatoes

“Still Winter” menu

Scotch Broth is a local lamb broth with pearled barley and vegetables.

Our take on the Corn Beef Sandwich (available during lunch only): we mixed chowchow with Creole mayonnaise to make it taste like 1,000 island dressing. But instead of sauerkraut, we use caramelized onions and mushrooms and cook it on a flat top grill with provolone cheese. So it’s kind of a cross between a Philly and a Reuben; centered around the corn beef.

Barley Risotto, which is nice and hearty and just happens to be vegan, with pickled leeks, roasted local mushrooms, confit garlic and crispy greens.

Pulled Lamb on Johnny Cakes features hickory-smoked Border Springs lamb on Johnny cakes with housemade ricotta. The Owensboro-style of barbecue traditionally involves mutton and very assertive seasoning. We’ve dialed the seasonings back a bit, as we substitute Border Springs Farm lamb in this dish that was developed in western Kentucky, which has its own Scots-Irish heritage.

Corn Beef and Cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen

The idea of offering Corn Beef and Cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day was proposed to us by a few of our guests, who saw that we were celebrating the foodways of the people around here in the Piedmont, and remarked to the effect that:

“This is the place that should have a Corn Beef and Cabbage special for St. Patrick’s Day. This is the place I want to come to have a meal and a pint of beer. I don’t want to go to a bar, I’ve outgrown that.”

We were already celebrating corn beef in our late winter menu, so it was a natural extension to add the Corn Beef and Cabbage special.

Maybe next year we’ll muster up the courage to prepare a proper Robert Burns Dinner for Burns night; that would truly be a tribute.

Tweet these recipes

Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen’s Buttermilk Chive Whipped Potatoes

6 pounds Idaho potatoes
1 pound unsalted butter
1 cup fresh chives, minced
24 fluid ounces buttermilk
2 tablespoons salt (or to taste)

Wash potatoes thoroughly. Peel and then steam until tender. Strain well.
Combine all ingredients in a mixer and combine until desired consistency.

Taste for seasoning.
Makes 8 cups

Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen’s Mustard Braised Cabbage

1 tablespoon canola oil
¼ cupyellow onion, diced
1 pound green cabbage, chopped
1 cup vegetable stock
1 ½ tablespoons Gulden’s mustard

Heat oil in skillet to medium high. Sauté onions until golden. Add rough chopped cabbage and sauté until shiny and softened, but not wilted. Add stock and mustard and simmer for five minutes.

Makes 3 cups

Your local county extension office can help you with soil tests, and provides free classes and information – including a monthly planting calendar – to start your own garden. Visit the North Carolina State University Web site, www.ces.ncsu.edu. Offices are listed by county.

Find your local county center
Wake County Extension Office (919) 250-1100
Guilford County, (336) 375-5876 

Karen’s tips

Karen Neill
Extension Agent, Agriculture – Urban Horticulture at North Carolina State University

Gardeners spend their lives trying to improve their soil — because we know that good soil is the foundation to a productive, prosperous garden. Here in the piedmont, we tend to have a very high clay content that makes our soil extremely sticky when it rains.

Consider the following soil prep tips:

• Make sure not to work your soil when it is too wet. The soil should crumble in your hand versus rolling in a ball.

• Adding organic matter is key. Compost, well-rotted sawdust and leaf mold are just a few examples. Add a four to six inch layer of organic matter to the existing soil and till in thoroughly.  Organic matter loosens the tight clay particles allowing air, water and roots to move through the soil.

• A soil test is also extremely important in finding out your pH as well as nutrients levels. Contact your county Extension office for information and assistance on soil testing.

• If the soil is too soggy consider raised beds. I am a big fan of raised beds for just this very fact. Using raised beds I can get a jump on the garden season versus my friends trying to garden in the heavy clay of the Piedmont. These beds dry out quickly and are easily accessible.

• Mulching garden beds also preserves soil moisture and keeps down weeds. Vegetable gardens may be mulched with herbicide-free grass clippings, compost, straw or other easily degradable mulch materials. Use caution with grass clippings or straw, they may harbor weed seed. In fact, it might be best to compost grass clippings first so they don’t mat down preventing water and air from entering as freely.

• It’s not too early to get your vegetable gardens planted.  English peas, carrots, leaf lettuce, mustard and radishes should be seeded now.

• Garden centers will also be bringing in transplants for other cool season vegetables such as cabbage and broccoli and don’t forget those onions sets or certified seed potatoes.

• Warm season vegetables can start to go in after the last frost which is typically around April 15th in the Piedmont. Season extenders can be used if you wanted to try and cheat mother nature.

• Go green. Enroll in the North Carolina 10% campaign. Through this program you pledge to spend 10% of your food budget to eating local foods. You can do this by growing your own but also shopping where locally grown or raised food is sold and /or eating at restaurants that also serve local foods. This program not only keeps dollars here in North Carolina supporting our local food economy but it also cuts down on carbon emissions when food has to be trucked in from hundreds of miles away.

Check out the Guilford County Extension web site for upcoming gardening classes: www.guilfordgardenaswers.org

Korey Erb at Guilford College farms.

Korey’s tips

Korey Erb
Guilford College’s Rock Star Farmer

Make plans. This is the time for making plans. Well-considered plans can often be the difference between a profitable farm and one treading water. Aggregating (or compiling) notes from the last two years into an Excel spreadsheet will help determine when and where to plant what in the coming months, especially if doubling one’s acreage under cultivation (from one acre to two).

Succession Planting. New plants are put in every two weeks, in an attempt to lengthen the growing season and hopefully outwit pests in the fields.

Clean up the greenhouse to prepare for starting summer crops from seed by the end of the month.

Decide on supplements. Soil reports are coming back, so deciding what supplements to till into the fields when discing under  winter cover crops in a few weeks (this winter’s wheat, was easier to manage than last winter’s rye) is done now.

Charlie Headington is a bio-diversity expert.

Charlie’s books and tips

Charlie Headington
Bio-diversity expert and gardener profiled in Carolina Gardener, BackHome Magazine and Our State as well as appearing on local TV. Most recently Charlie co-designed, built and directed the first Edible Schoolyard in North Carolina.

• Landscape with edible plants and herbs. Grow dwarf fruit trees and bushes, herbs, and flowers that attract beneficial insects. See Permaculture books and go to www.ediblelandscaping.com.

• Design your own landscape to reflect your values. Be willing to be different whether in the front or back yard.

• Build and plant a culinary herb spiral near your back door. Keep herbs handy and plentiful. See “Gaia’s Garden” for ideas.

• Start small, close to the house. Plant leafy greens and a few favorites. Plum and fig trees are reliable.

• Practice “no-till” gardening. Feed the worms and let them do the work of turning and fertilizing the soil.

• Plant or keep a “wild” or “sacred” space for all the other creatures. The Wildlife Federation has a program or design your own. Get a hive of bees!

• Eat from your garden during all four seasons. Grow the best food in the world all year long. Read “Four Season Harvest.”

• Supplement your home garden with food from the farmer’s market. Local or “slow” food tastes best and supports your local economy.

• Compost your kitchen waste and even your newspaper. Turn waste into “black gold.” You can even do it indoors with worms.

• Sit back and enjoy the beauty and abundance of nature. Ecological and organic gardening can take less time than you think.

Charlie is hosting an introduction to permaculture class at his home April 27. For more information email Charlie at charlie.headington@gmail.com

Mark Schicker’s farms hard to find foods for Chef Jay Pierce.

Mark’s tips

Mark Schicker
Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen server and farmer, Shicker’s Acre

Start Indoors. Garden Peas can be started as early as Valentine’s Day; and by the end of the month, start summer plants indoors, that will be transplanted outdoors.

Sharpen tools. Now’s the time to get your shovels and shears in good working order.

Till. Lime and other fertilizers or soil additives need to worked into the soil now.

Direct seed. Start radishes and kale directly in your garden, in the coming weeks, they can tolerate the temperature swings of winter’s transition into spring.

Transplant. Weather permitting, transplant winter vegetables that have been started indoors, like cabbage, broccoli, and kohlrabi.

Justin’s tips

Justin Leonard
Edible Schoolyard Garden Manager and Garden Educator at the Greensboro Children’s Museum

• Have a plan. Look up a planting calendar for our region. There’s a good one here at Southern Exposure.

• Be mindful. As the season progresses some of your plants might start going to seed/flowering—let them go. This is food and habitat for beneficial insects.

• Involve the whole family in planning, planting, tending, and harvesting.

• Invest in drip irrigation.

• Stagger planting dates for extended harvest.

• Enjoy! Have a party in the garden!

• Experiment. Plant something new to you. Try an heirloom variety—the growers at the local farmer’s market often have older varieties.

• Mulch around plants to retain soil moisture and keep weeds down.

Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen will serve the Persephone Cocktail on the Valentines Day menu February 11 through 16. For reservations, call (336) 370-0707 or make reservations online.

We travelled far south for this Valentines Day drink, all the way to Hadestown: The Persephone Cocktail

The Persephone Cocktail comes from two fascinations for me. First, I am definitely intrigued by Greek Mythology. Second, the recent fad of pomegranate everything. Pomegranate juice, dark chocolate covered Pomegranate; the six Pomegranate seeds that eventually gave us the seasons.

And I wanted something pink, a pink drink. Something the color of love’s first blush; the blush in the cheeks when someone’s in love. And I was thinking about all the great love stories — and Persephone.

When Hades, the King of the Underworld, kidnapped Persephone to be his Queen, he told her she couldn’t eat anything. If she did, she’d have to stay there forever.

While she was gone, her mother Demeter missed Persephone so much that she made Zeus persuade Hades to let her go. On appeal, Hades said that Persephone had actually eaten six pomegranate seeds, so he’d let her go for six months out of the year: One for each seed eaten.

For the six months Demeter has her daughter back, she makes everything bloom. The rest of the time, when Persephone is back the Underworld, Demeter is so sad that nothing grows in the winter season.

This drink celebrates Valentines Day and the soon-to-be return of spring.

PERFECT PAIRS: Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen Cocktails and Entrées

Persephone Cocktail and Veggie Ravioli

Pomegranate has a sweet, astringent flavor. The red Pomegranate liqueur is partnered with sloe gin – a wild plum relative indigenous to England. It’s not overly sweet. We also put a little pineapple in there. You get this really pink drink that reinforces the name blush.

Because the Veggie Ravioli is not very assertively flavored, the nuance of the cocktail can shine through. The cocktail’s acidity cuts through the richness of the cream sauce. The roasted vegetables make for a subtle and nuanced flavor in the drink. If you had chile peppers and pork, or filet mignon, it would be too strongly flavored to be a perfect pair.

Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen’s New Jersey Cocktail is inspired by a drink in David Wondrich’s book, Imbibe!

The New Jersey Cocktail and the Roasted Chicken Poppy Seed Salad

This drink is modeled after a cocktail in Imbibe! by David Wondrich. Named so because in Antebellum America, New Jersey really was the Garden State and where apples came from. Anything made with apples was generally referred to as “Jersey Style.” The name of this drink is more of a tribute to that legacy. It’s made with NC apple brandy, Foggy Ridge hard cider, bitters and a sugar cube in a champagne flute.

The Roasted Chicken Poppy Seed Salad is its perfect match: made with baby spinach; a Poppy Seed Vinaigrette; pears, goat cheese, and candied pecans.

Sazerac and Gumbo

Believed by many to be the first cocktail ever created (but not believed by everyone), our Sazerac (originally named after the brand of Cognac used) is made with, Jim Beam Rye, a touch of Absinthe, Peychaud Bitters, and a bit of sugar with an orange twist.

Antoine Amédée Peychaud was a Creole apothecary who settled in New Orleans and started mixing drinks in the pharmacy as a way for folks to take their “medicine.” Peychaud served his Absinthe and Cognac in an egg glass known as a coquetier, similar to a sherry glass.

The Big Easy Gumbo and the Sazerac are a perfect match; both in geographic proximity and hearty flavor.

Sazerac’s perfect match is Gumbo for their geographical proximity; they’re both from New Orleans, both heartily flavored. Sazerac smells like Anise and the gumbo has some assertive, vegetal qualities as well. The okra and roux is strong and it will stand up to the Sazerac.

We’ll be  featuring this pairing at the Whiskey school in Cary on February 23.

Check this out! Lucky’s “The Revolution” was featured in Cary Magazine recently as a “Local Signature Cocktail.”

The Revolution and Jambalaya

When I was in Orlando, Florida, the most popular thing for people to drink after work was a Makers Mark and Ginger Ale. I was never a big fan of that.

When Makers Mark 46 came out, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to mix it with some Ginger Liqueur?” So I called it a Swamp Mule originally because it reminded me of a Moscow Mule (Vodka and Ginger Ale).

I made one and served it to Karen Walker, the General Manager here at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen, and she said, “This is fantastic and I would never order anything called a Swamp Mule.”

So for the name, the drink made me think of having a new way of seeing the same old thing: It’s a revolution on Vodka and Ginger Beer, Makers Mark. Reminds me of that quote in the Wild One, when Marlon Brando’s character is asked, “What are you rebelling against?” And Brando says, “What do you got?”

Jambalaya has that creole seasoning and the andouille sausage with quite a bit of spice that will stand up to any kind of ginger revolution. But it also has some earthy notes and the rice, and the rice helps hold down the boozy nature of the drink.

Bayou Punch  & The Cornmeal Crusted Catfish

This is actually a reworking of the Philadelphia Fish House punch from David Wondrich’s book, Punch. We use it as a template with some substitutions. We make it with Mount Gay Rum, Courvoisier, Apricot Brandy, and Sour Mix.

It goes with the Cornmeal Crusted Catfish because it’s  crunchy and crisp; the orange and sour mix heightens the flavor of fish. The acidity of the punch cuts the richness of the grits.

Four or five years ago, sliders were everywhere. At the time, I said I’ll never do sliders as long as they’re on the menu at Burger King. When it’s ubiquitous, you’ve gotta have a really good reason to do it.

I was more interested in trying to figure out how to feature lamb on the menu. I’m pretty picky about a lot of things — especially lamb. At previous restaurants, we only served domestic lamb and it was head and shoulders above the rest.

Secondly, I couldn’t find anyone locally with enough lamb to supply a restaurant on a regular basis. Then I met Craig Rogers of Border Springs Farm. Craig’s lamb is a Katahdin-Texel cross and its taste is incomparable.

The Lambastic Slider is now a permanent pick on the Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen menu. As a starter, pair it with a medium body red wine, like a Cotes du Rhone, or Shiraz. Then choose a new seasonal entrée off the new winter menu.

We first served it like barbecue, smoked and pulled. I felt like it was a good way to present something that looked familiar, tasted familiar, but wasn’t familiar. If the guise, or the plating procedure is too substantially different than what people expect, then it takes more salesmanship.

So what if it had a different rub, and flavor profile, but it looked like pulled pork on johnny cakes? So we offered Pulled Lamb on Johnny Cakes, and christened it Ownesboro, KY barbecue.

Owensboro BBQ is a hyper-regionalized style known as mutton BBQ. The lengthy smoking process includes a constant mopping of the mutton with a salty mixture. Chris Chamberlain in Food Republic has a great story about it.

The lamb here was a modest success, but not overwhelming. But I believed in Craig, his story, and his food, and kept trying to figure out how to feature it.

Around that time Anna Mae Breads was making a believer of me. Shana’s (roller of Anna Mae Breads) personality was infectious and I knew that I wanted to support her business. I tasted five different kinds of bread that she made: Pullman loaves, sandwich rolls, dinner rolls, and slider buns; that was my Eureka! Moment. I knew we would make sliders. With her bread, and Craig’s mutton, we went on this slider kick where we explored all the different ways to construct sliders.

Lambastic Sliders came out of, “How can we feature Craig on this menu?” We made a lamb sausage topped with pepper jelly and goat cheese. Lamb is often served with mint jelly and the pepper jelly gives it a more southern kick, and the goat cheese is from down the road (Goat Lady Dairy).

Chef tips: Create your own slider

• Use a patty meat. Loose meats get a little too sloppy.
• We use Florida Bakery now that Anne Mae Breads has gone out of business. But you can use brown and serve dinner rolls.
• When you’re picking additional flavors, try to create a perfect balance between sweet, sour, salty, and savory. Balance spicy with sour or tartness. If it has a sour component, I like to balance with a little sweetness.
• Think of your favorite sandwich combinations and reference it with other ingredients.

Lusty Sliders feature housemade pork sausage patties with cranberry chutney and Lusty Monk mustard.

FYI: For your inspiration, consider our previous slider combos

Whistle Bite Slider with slow-cooked Bradds Family pork belly, Pig & Whistle sauce and green tomato chowchow.

A popular incarnation was the Throwback Slider featuring pork sausage, spicy mustard, and caramelized onions. The name is a reference to the original accoutrements of the hamburger.

Next was the Winter BLT Slider: pork belly, tomato jam, and the hearts of romaine. Because tomatoes aren’t good in the winter, we used tomato jam (we make a big deal around here about using good tomatoes). With the crunchy, bitter ribs of the romaine, it was awesome. Some folks were confused by the name, however, and it didn’t go over so well here.

For Thanksgiving, we did Madison Sliders with turkey sausage and cranberry chutney.

This winter we’ve featured Umami Sliders: pickled shiitake mushroom relish and Green Hill camembert cheese, in our first veggie slider.

Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen Hot Pepper Jelly recipe
We use locally grown chiles from the Guilford College Farm

1 cup red bell peppers
1 cup green bell peppers
1 cup Jalapeno peppers
3 fluid ounces white vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 box Sure Jell – 2/3 cup pectin

Wash peppers well and then chop. In a food processor, pulse peppers and 2 tablespoons vinegar three times for 2 seconds each. Do not liquefy. Transfer peppers to a sauce pot. Add remaining vinegar, sugar and salt. Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Stir in Sure Jell and simmer 1 minute. Pour into a labeled container and cool before using.

Keep refrigerated.

Makes: 1 pint

There’s so much talk out there about eating local, but I believe you can read local, too. Here’s what we’re reading about eating in the New Year.

NEW IDEAS in WRITING

Blind Pig in Asheville
blindpigofasheville.com

It isn’t so much a conventional blog as it’s a multi-media project. It’s visual arts, movie making and food with a dinner party component and I’m really intrigued by the promise of it. On the site, they’ll post a video underscored with great music, that announces a theme for a dinner or an event and a featured chef. You sign up. You put your name in the lottery, and if you get tickets, you’ll get an email the day before the event telling you where to be. So you don’t know what you’re getting into. You’re buying an idea.

Acorn Kitchen in Raleigh
acornkitchen.org

Acorn Kitchen is attempting to do something similar as the Blind Pig. They’ve only had one event to date. In college we used to say “everybody wants to go to a party, but nobody wants to throw one.” Throwing one implies that you have to clean up after it. But there’s such a food scene going on in big cities like London, San Francisco, Chicago, and people in other places want to recreate that food scene in their little corner of the world. Whether they lived there and moved here, or visited there, you want to recreate something cool in your own corner of the world, and that’s what I see this as an outgrowth of.

Four Coursemen in Athens, Georgia 
fourcoursemen.com

They did some TV shows for the Cooking Network. They have a house, and the house will only fit so many people, and they’ll invite someone to cook around a theme and they’ll cook it all in this little kitchen in the house. Someone is in charge of wine pairing. That dea of “guerilla dinners,” stripping away all the conventions of fine dining without losing focus on the food is intriguing.

COOKBOOKS

Southern Pies; A Gracious Plenty of Pie Recipes

Nancy McDermott has written maybe 12 cookbooks but her most recent ones are about southern cakes and pies. Crook’s Corner in Chapel Hill actually cooked their way through Southern Pies; A Gracious Plenty of Pie Recipes from Lemon Chess to Chocolate Pecan Pie, and Southern Cakes: Sweet and Irresistible Recipes for Everyday Celebrations. They would do a special dessert every day.

Sheri Castle’s first cookbook is arranged from a to z, apples to zucchini. You look up the ingredient to find recipes. The New Southern Garden Cookbook was recently published by UNC Press. It’s a smartly arranged, four-season’s cookbook. And the dishes are tasty!

Bill Smith, the chef at Crook’s Corner was recently featured in Our State Magazine, has a wonderful Carolina cookbook, Seasoned in the South.

Elizabeth Weigand lives in Raleigh and she has an Outer Banks Cookbook from which we draw our Crab and Corn soup. She also recently published a The New Blue Ridge Cookbook. She travels from Raleigh to Roanoke, VA to do recipe segments on TV, keep an eye out.

Southern Food by John Egerton. Without it, we wouldn’t be authentic. Have you had our banana pudding? It is his family’s recipe.

TWITTER

• Michael Hastings is the Food Editor of the Winston-Salem Journal @mhastingsWSJ
• Carl Wilson at the News & Record, Short Orders @Short_Orders
• Beer lovers @nctriadbeer
• Durham Foodie, Johanna Kramer, is an independent Food Writer @durhamfoodie
• In the Raleigh/Durham area, Triangle Localista @TriLocalista

BLOGS AND WEB SITES

Matt Lardie is a sustainable foodie and writes Green Eats Blog, and writes about “farmers, food artisans, trends, and lots and lots of cooking.”

Andrea Weigl writes for the News & Observer, her blog is called Mouthful.

Taste Carolina designs food tours in North Carolina.

Cecelia Thompson is a food writer based in Greensboro and writes Mod Meals on Mendenhall. She was also instrumental in helping downtown Greensboro lift its Food Truck vending restrictions.

The Gurgling Cod in Clemson South Carolina often writes about food, and it’s always thought provoking.

Eat My Words by Jill Warren Lucas is always interesting and now Jill is a regular contributor to Independent Weekly.

I always pay attention to Emily Wallace in edible Piedmont, Gravy and the Indy, and she wrote her master’s thesis on Pimento Cheese! Who doesn’t love that. Wonderful illustrator as well.