Turkey Rice Chowder

I decided this year that I'm not really enamored of turkey. It always tastes the same, no matter whether you brine it, slather it with butter (under or over its skin), rub garlic and herb butter beneath its skin, stuff it or leave it unstuffed. However, it sure makes a delicious soup or chowder. You can use up a lot of leftovers in this soup including any uneaten veggies. This year I even stirred in some leftover gravy.

Turkey Rice Chowder

Start by Making Broth: Toss the roast turkey carcass into a pot. Cover it with cold water (about 8 cups). Add 2 onions, quartered; 2 stalks celery, chopped; 2 carrots, chopped; 3 cloves of garlic; 1 bay leaf; salt and pepper. Bring to boiling; reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours. Strain, saving broth.

Turkey Rice Chowder

2 1/2 cups water
3/4 cup wild rice (I used a wild rice blend), rinsed, drained
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 oz. sliced pancetta or bacon, chopped (about 1/2 cup after cooking)
1/2 oz. dried mushrooms (I'm in the Midwest, so I used a combo called Northern Blend) reconstituted in 2 cups boiling water or 8 oz fresh mushrooms, sliced
2 cups diced carrots and celery (2 stalks celery, 2 carrots)
1 medium onion, chopped
1/3 cup flour
10 cups Turkey Stock (I used turkey broth, plus water from soaking mushrooms; add chicken broth, if necessary to make 10 cups)
2 to 4 cups chopped cooked turkey meat
1 teaspoon dried crushed rosemary
1/4 cup leftover gravy, if desired
Salt and pepper

1. To cook rice: Bring water, rice, and salt to boil in medium saucepan. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 45 minutes. Drain; set aside.

2. In a large pot or Dutch oven, cook pancetta for 5 to 8 minutes or until crisp and brown, stirring occasionally. Remove pancetta and drain on paper towels. Add mushrooms to pot and cook for 5 minutes. Remove from pot. (Add a splash of olive oil, if necessary.) Add carrots and celery; cover. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add onion; cook and stir for 2 minutes. Stir in flour and cook for 1 or 2 minutes more. Sir in mushrooms

3. Carefully add turkey broth, turkey, rice, pancetta, and rosemary. Bring to boiling, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir in gravy, if desired. Heat through. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Thanksgiving Dinner, Dorm Style

Ever wonder what Thanksgiving in a dorm room looks like? Here's a shoutout to the gals and guys at NYU's Third North for this delicious glimpse. Daughter Madeline's contribution was a first for her - the turkey gravy. My heart was in my throat for her. It has taken me years to get the hang of the process. There must be 50 ways to glop it up, and I should know, speaking from experience.

The NYU gang had the Macy's Parade in the morning, so in Texas, I was calmly stirring my gravy hours before Madeline would step up to the pan. This was good; I could time certain steps (how long should you cook the drippings and flour paste before adding milk?) and send her tips. My version was an especially good batch this year - practice does help. I wished Madeline was home to taste it, but I was glad she sampled her first Macy's Parade from the actual event, not the TV. I sent her a long, incoherent text message that probably read like a tearful mom being a sap.

In my head, I thought I'd just make another batch of gravy when it was time for her to start, so we could stir it up together. Well, it didn't work out that way. Madeline got started on her own, and that's how it should be - what time in the kitchen is all about. She did call mid-process, and it felt good to be on the other end of the line, like a Butterball Hotline counselor imparting the wisdom of the ages.

She took her lumps; I kept mine in my throat. She had to get off the phone; I couldn't expect her to listen to me while pouring and stirring - if you're the gravy maker you know what I mean. It is a delicate process.

I trudged outdoors for some firewood and kept telling myself "it's just gravy, it's not a college essay. Get the salt and pepper right, and what's not to like? Hungry people will eat it." I give her snaps for even attempting it.

Later as I was stirring the fire, she called to say that everything was fine.

Good gravy. Everything was fine.

So Thankful

Jeanne and Mamma Mia are in our kitchens today,

wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving

with all the trimmings and carefree gravy.

(Photo of Grandmother Daisy's matches from the Manor House in Moorestown, New Jersey in 1959, "Where Cooking is an Art . . . and Eating a Pleasure." Repurposed by John H. Ostdick)

The Great Croissant Tryout

Turkey and gravy are the stars of Thanksgiving, but oh, the look and feel of fresh homemade bread. Maybe you like rolls, cornbread, croissants, pumpkin bread, the options are endless. Sometimes I just make them all so everybody finds something they love.

This year I was thrilled to get the rare opportunity to make bread for someone else's table in a land far away. The Rules of Hoyle and a respect for privacy prevent me from saying who the bread is for, but know this - it was important enough that I needed to hold tryouts.

I knew the form would be croissants, but which ones? I usually make this showoff bread with a sourdough starter, and the results are deeply flavorful because sourdough starters involve long fermentation times, which give the flavor enough time to develop. For some reason the sourdough also makes a softer dough; it's easier to roll out and gives a nicer risen shape than a straight yeast dough, the results of which look more rustic. No idea why the chemistry works that way.

So which version would be good enough to produce bread that could be shipped overnight?

For the tryout, I practiced with a straight yeast method using active dry yeast, and I learned an important lesson. Good thing it was a practice run. I followed the croissant recipe exactly as given save for one key difference. If you substitute active dry yeast in a recipe calling for fresh yeast, you must proof the yeast first in warm water. You can't mix the dry yeast in with other ingredients, as the recipe states. I knew this; I knew it was wrong when I started. But I swear I'd seen bakers add dry yeast into other ingredients without proofing first. And here's why. Instant dry yeast (also known as "Rapid") can be added this way. Active can't. So my first batch of croissant dough never rose. You know it won't rise in the baking, either, because it feels like a wet book of pages. A dough that's alive has an energy you can feel in your hands; it's springy to the touch and much lighter.

I repeated the recipe using Rapid dry yeast (no proofing), and while that was underway, mixed a batch using the sourdough starter. The bakeoff was on - and the winner is shown above - the sourdough version.

I learned something else, too. I had a few croissants from the yeast batch and a few from the sourdough batch, so I placed them on the same baking sheet. The yeast recipe calls for baking at 350. The sourdough calls for 400. Could it make that much of a difference if they both cooked at the higher temp? As it turns out, it does. The sourdough was golden and swelled beautifully. The yeast croissants were charred and weathered. There's likely an explanation of why this happens in Peter Reinhart's definitive book The Bread Baker's Apprentice (Ten Speed Press, 2001). No croissant methods in there, but loads of "this is why" background that enrichs every baker's understanding of extraordinary bread. That's where I read about the differences in behavior for active, rapid and fresh yeast.

Now if I could just test out the effects of "cold in the hold" as a box of croissants flies north for the holidays.

Oh sure, I hedged my bets. Made a batch of flatbreads for the shipment, too.

No rising to the occasion.

(Photo: Pepper Croissants on Parchment. By John H. Ostdick in the Singing Wheat Kitchen)

Turkey Gravy

It's just gravy. But it's a requirement for Thanksgiving dinner. This is one of my go-to recipes. You can make it in less time than it takes to go to the grocery store and study the offerings of gloppy gravy in jars (usually laden with sodium and pretty flavorless.)

Admittedly this gravy recipe is from Better Homes and Gardens website. Again. Can't help myself. Used to be a food editor there and I know the amount of testing that is done in the Test Kitchen before a recipe is ready for public consumption. This one's a winner. I've never added the extra butter. And sometimes I skip the milk and just use broth.

http://www.bhg.com/recipe/sauces/rich-pan-gravy-for-turkey/

My Friend Pumpkin Bread

Let's get into pumpkin bread. It's one of my earliest memories of my Grandmother Mimi's cooking, rich, dense, good for the soul and great with a cream cheese icing. Mimi used to make it inside of coffee cans, so it came out round, like the shape of canned cranberry sauce. How I do miss the round shape - who saves coffee cans anymore?

There are many variations of the classic recipe that uses canned pumpkin. Dallas super chef Stephan Pyles makes a cross between a pumpkin bread and a gingerbread using candied ginger, molasses, oranges and dark corn syrup in his book The New Texas Cuisine. It's very good but Mimi's gingerbread is another classic recipe I've preserved; I like to keep the two separate.

Part of the attraction of using old recipes the way they were is to smell the air and remember how it used to feel standing by your grandmother's stove. Pumpkin bread this time of year is such a cheerful companion. It goes well beside a fire in the fireplace, or with a cup of tea in the afternoon as the light gently draws away. It never disappoints.

My wonderful friend Susie gave me an excellent loaf of pumpkin bread last year, and if memory serves, she wrapped it in a new dish towel, a grand idea that saves on wrapping paper and is reusable long after the loaf is gone. This loaf has the approval of both our college sons, and they both have good taste. I asked her to share it, and she did. Now that I see it, I realize it's nearly exactly the same as Mimi's.

The addition of chocolate makes it all Susie's.

Pumpkin Bread


31/2 cups sifted flour (tip from Mama Mia: If you don't have time to sift, use a whisk on it)

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon cloves

1 teaspoon cinnamon

3 cups sugar

Sift together the ingredients above. Then add the following:

4 eggs

2/3 cup cold water

2 cups or 1 can pumpkin

1 cup oil (Mama Mia tip: use 1/4 cup oil and 3/4 cup applesauce)

Mix until blended. May add 1 cup chocolate Chips if desired. (Yes, yes!)

Pour into 2 loaf pans (9x5) that have been greased and floured. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until toothpick comes out clean.


Mama Mia Tip: Don't try to bake this in one loaf pan or your son will graduate college before it's fully baked. If you have coffee cans, go for it, but use more than one.

(Photo from Peter's Market at the Weston Center in Connecticut)

Taste This Angel Food Cake

Spouse and I have recently gone on a bender with the chocolate from Newman's Own Organics. He snapped up the Milk Chocolate; I've waltzed with the Orange Dark, which I whistled over in the One Sassy Tart post. Remember that our willingness to consume large quantities of choc is all for the sake of research -with the view that life is too short to waste on lifeless and heartless imitators.

If you've got a dozen eggs and a good orange, may I make a recommend? Try this at home: a chocolate version of an angel food cake that was considered a favorite of OSCAR-winner Paul Newman's.

Toothfully, we thank the Newman's Own Organics team for another wonderful way to use their product.

DAD'S FAVORITE CHOCOLATE ANGEL FOOD CAKE


This cake is light as air, low in fat, and very easy to make. The trick is to prepare all the ingredients in advance.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

1 cup all-purpose flour

11/4 cups sugar

12 egg whites

1/2 tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. lemon juice

3 tsp. vanilla

11/2 3-oz. dark orange chocolate bars or 3 1.2 oz. Newman's Own Organics Dark Orange Chocolate bars

1 Tbsp. orange rind


Grate 11/2 3-oz. or 3 1.2-oz. Newman's Own Organics' chocolate bars on a cheese grater.

Sift 1 cup all-purpose flour. Then sift flour three more times with 1/4 cup sugar and 1/2 tsp. salt. Sifting onto wax paper makes it easier. Separate 12 egg whites (easily done by cracking egg into hand and allowing whites to run through fingers). Allow egg whites to reach room temperature (15 minutes). Beat whites until frothy. Add 1 Tbsp. lemon juice. Beat until soft peaks form. Sprinkle sugar lightly onto whites 1/4 cup at a time and continue beating at medium speed. Sift 1/4 cup flour/sugar mixture over whites and gently fold in by hand. Add

3 tsp. vanilla and 1 Tbsp. grated orange rind. Alternate flour/sugar mixture and grated chocolate until incorporated. Make sure to fold in gently to avoid reducing volume of egg whites.

Tip: I find it best to use your hand with your fingers spead to fold in the ingredients. It's more effective than using a spatula.

Pour into clean, dry tube pan and bake for 45 minutes until lightly browned. Knife inserted into center should be clean when removed.

Remove from oven and invert pan. Allow to cool 1/2 hour to 45 minutes. Run knife around edges and center of tube to remove.

Serve with strawberries and lightly sweetened whipped cream or for real decadence serve with hot chocolate fudge sauce and ice cream.


Mama Mia adds: You can finely chop the chocolate if grating gets out of hand. Sometimes when you get down to those last little hunks of choc, well, you know, it can be hard to grate all the way. Keep going. The results are worth it!

(Photo taken with Cosmos from our yard, atop Grandmother Mimi's antique marble turtle table, by John H. Ostdick)

A Rose Gets in a Jam

Remember our discussion about edible flowers? In the post "Please Don't Eat the Daisies," Jeanne told you which flowers are safe to use in foods. If you raise your roses organically, without synthetic fertilizers or herbicides, why not play with them? I said I would ask a certain woman I was interviewing as to whether she ate the flowers from her garden.

To my delight, Nell Newman gave me a wonderful tip.

"I do refrigerator jam, where you make a sugar syrup. I cut up strawberries, I put them in a pan, I put some sugar in, I put a little bit of water and maybe a little tiny bit of lemon juice in, and I just simmer it, I don’t jell it, and I turn it off. If I’ve got a good rose, I’ll take one rose bud and pull the petals off and just chiffonade them into the warm jam and push it under and mix it up. It makes the color even more red with the essence of rose, and it’s so delightful. It's lovely."

She makes it sound so beautiful, like life in an English tearoom, somehow. Nell is the president and co-founder of Newman's Own Organics, and she's chief taste tester for the more than 150 products her company makes, all with certified organic ingredients. She spends a lot of time visiting farmers markets and talking with growers; she's passionate about the natural world and living a "slow food" lifestyle, taking the time to sit down with the family and have a nice meal - cherishing the food as much as you cherish the people you serve it to. (By the way, you can learn more about "slow food," there's an organization.)

We talked about roses in particular, and she is old school when it comes to a good rose.

"I only plant roses that smell good. I am appalled that the rose industry has bred the scent out of every rose. It’s mind-boggling. They’ve actually finally now bred the scent out of the purple rose. It’s taken them 40 some-odd years."

Bloomin' idiots.


(Photo by John H. Ostdick)

Christmas in Connecticut

This time of year I love to go into my gleaming kitchen and pop in a tape of Christmas in Connecticut. Watching Barbara Stanwyck try to fake her way through a career in food writing lifts my spirits, and my bread dough seems to enjoy her capers. It always rises to this occasion. In another life, I actually had my Christmases in Connecticut, and none of it looked like anything depicted in the film, but who wouldn't be drawn to a horse-drawn sleigh and a home with a fireplace taller than the Christmas tree? I've never had a boss like Sydney Greenstreet - the publishing lions just weren't that entertaining - nor an Uncle Felix who owned a restaurant around the corner who could bring me mushroom omelets while I worked.

Sigh, I love this black and white and tinseled version of the holidays. Christmas always looks more beautiful in black and white, I don't know why.

Just the other day I was taking a whirl at making a pain de mie I'd seen Julia Child do on television. To get the loaf rectangular, or sandwich-shaped, Julia placed a cookie sheet on top of the pan and a brick on top of that to keep the dough from rising in the oven.

For this I knew I better watch Ms. Stanwyck try again to fool the public with her Martha Stewart expertise. As dough cleaved to my fingers, I heard her say "I took crisp lettuce, romaine, and crinkly endive from my own garden for my husband’s favorite salad. For this I made a rich, creamy blue cheese dressing." Oh my! She was growing her own salad greens, just like we encourage today. This isn't a new concept. And it was during the war years, so rationing made gardening a good idea.

Oh wait, she wasn't really doing it, she was inferring she was doing it. Barbara, Barbara. You don't really have a horse-drawn sleigh at your beck and call either, do you?

Some of the lines in the movie get past me, for example, I have no idea what a potage Mongol and a roast goose Bernoise with walnut stuffing are - and that's for a Connecticut Christmas dinner. I did a swift search on the web and found a blog called "Cooking With the Movies," and Leischa! What do you think? They've got a good overview of all the dishes mentioned in Christmas in Connecticut.

Why did I show an image of my Christmas cactus on top of my sister's skater skirt (really from Christmas in Connecticut), instead of Barbara Stanwyck flipping flapjacks on Christmas morning? Because images of Hollywood stars, whether they are real housewives who cook or not, are rights protected.

I gotta dash. I think there's a horse-drawn sleigh outside with a driver, some jingle bells and a quick exit strategy. I'll be back, though. I have more favorite holiday movies to flip through.

Turkey Talk

OK. I'm not a WalMart shopper, but they have cheapo turkeys this year, Butterball, no less. Since I'm on the recession budget, I couldn't resist. Bought two.

Last year I did a butterflied turkey. Well, actually, the butcher did the butterflying for me, but you can do it yourself with a good pair of kitchen shears. Mark Bittman says so in his 45-minute turkey recipe.


First I massaged the big bird with butter laced with garlic and herbs, spreading the mixture oh-so-carefully and grossfully between the skin and the meat. Then I put the flattened turkey in the roasting pan, sprawled out and gangly. It was done in 45 minutes, maybe an hour: the skin all golden and crunchy; the meat dribble-down-your-chin moist.

Served it with roasted chunks o' sweet potato and onion wedges, tossed with cooked-till-crisp prosciutto. And dressing, of course, and all the other sides. The turkey wasn't centerpiece worthy, but who carves the turkey at the table, anyway?

Pretty Cheeky

Don't you just love the soundtrack to "You've Got Mail?" Just watched that movie for the first time in years. Once owned the music on a cassette tape. Wow!

But, more to the point: I was recently issued a challenge...in the form of pork cheeks. Pork cheeks? Pork cheeks? Who could resist splitting 10 pounds of fresh Niman Ranch pork, umm, cheeks?

My friend and fellow food editor, Stephen Exel, had an orgasmic experience with Sugo while in New York recently. Nope. Not a person. A rich, slow-simmered sauce—Italian. So he HAD to recreate it. With pork cheeks. He bellied up to his porkiest pal, purveyor of the aforementioned Niman Ranch products. "You gotta buy it in 10-pound lots," the guy tells Stephen.

So Stephen calls me, knowing that I'm a sucker for a food challenge. He tells me the Sugo story. I'm intrigued, and agree to buy half of his cheeks. We talk about a pork-off, but somehow I'm the only one who cooked. Stephen stashed his cheeks in the freezer. Mine begged to be braised. I cobbled together a buncha different recipes I stumbled across and ended up creating a simple concoction that was fall-off-the-bone tender...except there was no bone. Eye-rollingly rich and fatty and saucy.

And, yes, Stephen was invited to dinner. No picture. In our haste to try it, I forgot to take a picture.

Jeanne's Pork Cheeks

2 lb. pork cheeks, boneless

2 onions, cut in wedges
4 cloves garlic, squished through garlic press
2 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 15-oz. can tomato sauce
1 cup red wine
1 teaspoon gray sea salt and five-pepper blend (or salt and pepper)
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon thyme

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Brown the pork in a large Dutch oven over medium high heat. Stir in remaining ingredients. Bring to boiling; cover and place in oven. Cook for 3 hours.
2. Serve pork and sauce over hot, cooked pasta or creamy polenta.

One Sassy Tart

It's a glorious day when the baking you want to do can be justified as "research" for an upcoming story assignment. I love rooting out details that enrich a story - I really love tasting the details, smelling the details, finding the essences that makes a story authentic.

Imagine my grinning jaw when I decided to test the "Drowning Pool of Praline in a Chocolate Tart" recipe tucked in the back of Paul Newman's book In Pursuit of the Common Good. The subtitle is: Twenty-five Years of Improving the World, One Bottle of Salad Dressing at a Time. Aha! So what's a sweet tart like this doing in a place like that?

Written with his partner A. E. Hotchner, Newman's book is a wonderful, witty read packed with delicious anecdotes and quotes like this one:

"Whenever I do something good, right away I've got to do something bad so I know I'm not going to pieces." The book reminds us that the famous salad dressing started out as a lark, a way to poke fun at how traditional dressings hit the stores in a tightly controlled and competitive marketplace.

This is not a book review, the subject is a sassy tart - and the reason I got into book was that I was scheduled to speak with Nell Newman, Paul's daughter, who co-founded Newman's Own Organics with Peter Meehan. The tart recipe contains one of her signature products - Orange Dark Chocolate - 100% premium organic chocolate.

Research time!

The buttery crust has a shortbread-style crunch that plays well opposite the chewy caramel - and the orange note in the chocolate a delightful counter to the caramel sweetness. This is an elegant dessert best served tableside, not for a tailgate, because you don't want it softening up. I've included the recipe's history here, exactly as it was provided to Dueling Margaritas (and we thank you!).

A DROWNING POOL OF PRALINE IN A CHOCOLATE TART


Our (Newman's Own Organics) organic chocolate came up the big winner when Kaija Keel of Los Angeles used it to win the $50,000 Grand Prize in the Ninth Annual Newman's Own/Good Housekeeping Recipe Contest. Kaija, a professional artist, created this heavenly dessert by combining her own creativity with the recipes handed down by her grandmother. She named it A Drowning Pool of Praline in a Chocolate Tart as a salute to Paul Newman's 1975 film. Kaija donated her prize money to the Delta Society in Los Angeles, an organization that trains therapy animals for the critically ill and physically challenged. She and her dog Garbo are enthusiastic volunteers. The Delta Society will use the prize to expand its training programs to reach even more people.


Tart Shell

3/4 cup butter ( 1 1/2 sticks) softened

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup confectioners' sugar



Praline-Chocolate Filling

2 bars (3 ounce each) Newman's Own Organics Chocolate, (Sweet Dark Chocolate or Sweet Dark Chocolate or Sweet Dark Chocolate with Orange Oil), broken into pieces

3/4 cup heavy or whipping cream

1 bag (9 1/4 ounce) caramels, unwrapped

1 1/2 cups pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped


Preheat oven to 375 F.


Prepare Tart Shell

Pulse together all tart shell ingredients in a food processor until they form moist crumbs. Sprinkle crumbs in 9-inch tart pan with removable bottom. Press together to form crust on bottom and up sides; prick dough all over with fork. Line tart shell with foil and fill with pie weights, dried beans, or uncooked rice. Bake for 25 minutes. Remove foil and weights and bake for another 15-20 minutes until golden. Press crust with back of spoon if it puffs, and loosely cover dark spots with foil.


Prepare Praline-Chocolate Filling

Combine chocolate and 1/4 cup cream in 1-quart saucepan. Melt, stirring frequently over medium-low heat. Pour chocolate mixture, reserving 2 tablespoons, in bottom of cooled crust; spread evenly. Chill 20 minutes (chill reserved 2 tablespoons also).

In 2-quart saucepan over medium-low heat, heat caramels and remaining 1/2 cup cream until melted and smooth, stirring occasionally. Sir in pecans and quickly pour over chocolate layer. Spread evenly.

In 1-quart saucepan, over low heat, heat reserved chocolate mixture 1 to 2 minutes, stirring until melted, or microwave 10 seconds. Using a fork, drizzle in zigzag pattern over top of tart. Chill at least 1 hour. Store in refrigerator.

Makes 24 servings

Mama Mia's note: The bars are available in 3.25 oz. and 2.25 oz. sizes, so buy 2 bars if you're using the bigger bars for the chocolate sauce, or 3 bars if you're using the smaller size bar. Depending on your fridge, you may need more than an hour to "set" the tart, so make this recipe ahead of your serving schedule. We popped it in the freezer a few minutes to finish the job.

Zoot alors, Jeanne, you must "research" this recipe.

PS: Can't show you the tart. We "researched" it fully. Thus you get the alternate photo from my kitchen.

Road Food, Good Food

When we travel the USA by car, we usually have at least two sources of info on where to pull over when hunger strikes, Eat Your Way Across the USA and Road Food, Good Food. Before the Food Network show Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, these authors led the way on where to find a good diner. I've always felt there was room for even more guidance, though, because times change, and so should some of the diners featured in the books.

It's wonderful the diners have operated since the Jazz Age, but some out there are definitely showing that age factor, from the tired and slumping staff to the chipped coffee mugs and bruised eggs. Tradition is one thing, but flavor and a friendly face still matter, so we don't make return trips to "since 1937" diners who don't uphold their standards. (Disclaimer: My books may be old, so no disrespect intended to the authors.)

For a recent spin up through Arkansas to Tennessee, I took Guy Fieri's books, based on his TV show. This isn't shilling on my part here. His latest book More Diners, Drive-ins and Dives explains the lengths to which the research staff checks the background on diners - talking with local foodies, chefs and business contacts, looking at health department records, reading press coverage, vetting the freshness of the ingredients and reviewing the stories of the owners. Even after all the effort and due dilligence, if the food isn't good as Guy bites into it during taping, he just might walk out. It's happened.

"I’m not going to tell you on Triple D that something’s good if it’s not good. Why am I gonna lie to you? I don’t need to sell out for this. As soon as I start eating food that I can't support, the show suffers. I’m only going to give you the real deal," he told me. And why feel that way? Because he knows people like me are getting into cars all over this country and driving to places he's talked about. His credibility is on the line.

So if you motor to a place featured on the show, you have a reasonable expectation of tasty satisfaction. Just make sure before you leave home that you know where you're going. We had poor instructions (off the Internet) that caused us to miss not one but two potential barbecue stops in Memphis, Tom's Bar B Que and Marlowe's Ribs. We never could find the I-55 turnoff toward Jackson, Miss., as we traveled west on I-40, so this may be a signage issue. Memphis is often snarled up with traffic - then there's the "we're committed now" travel across the Mighty Mississip bridge that shoots you into Arkansas. No going back.

A longtime fave with some diner drivers that's off the highway in Nashville is Loveless Cafe, where the Grand Old Opry stars used to hang out after shows. Loveless is not in the Fieri books, but it is in Eat Your Way Across the USA. On this trip, I didn't have this book with me, or we wouldn't have wandered around in the dark at rush hour in NashVegas (as my son calls it), eventually giving up. Now that I'm home and I've looked it up again, I see that I wrote "Exit 199, Charlotte Pike" in my Eat copy. Apparently I've been lost before, and as I said, it is off the highway; you gotta know where to go. Eat called it a "country-western diamond in the rough," so it may never be up to the "freshness" standard of a Triple D stop, even with its "brittle-crusted fried chicken on red-checked tablecloths, and hot buttermilk biscuits served with homemade blackberry and peach preserves."

Apparently ham is the pride of the Loveless kitchen and yes, I do love a good slab of country ham. Wasn't to happen on this trip, though, ham it all!

I mention the Loveless because of a great quote I once got while stopping there (and not getting in, the crowd was so thick). At a nearby gas station, I asked the attendant, "Where do the locals eat?"

"They eat at home," he drawled.

Mama Mia! Pizza in the Parking Lot

Is what you see what you get when you visit one of the joints featured on the Food Network show Diners, Drive-In and Dives? That's the question we set out to answer while in Knoxville, Tenn., for Homecoming 2009 at the University of Tennessee. We had copies of Guy Fieri's books, which are based on the TV show. Guy raved about the freshness of the pizza dough - made from yeast and flour and left to rise overnight, none of this frozen business at Pizza Palace. Totally authentic, made-from-scratch Italian food, he said, made by the sons of the original founders, who were Greeks. But would we find the same thing? After all, having Guy Fieri at your drive-in could mean that he gets the absolute best. How would we fare, a carload of Texans? We picked up our own College Guy (age 20) and found our way to the Magnolia Avenue parking lot, where you really do pick up the phone and yes, order a pizza.

We asked for two things, based on Guy Fieri's lead: pizza (with pepperoni, that's the way my son Hunter rolls) and onion rings, which arrived covered in an amusing, tall foil wrap that made them look like a beehive. The verdict? Yes, s'wonderful. I've tasted a lot of pizza crusts in my day, and the difference in this version was remarkably fresh. All of us talked about the cheese, too, as good as if they'd made it on the premises, from goat's milk given by willing goats in the back yard. It was hot, it was cheesy, it was saucy, I could only eat two slices - it's that rich. Ever notice how with mediocre pizzas, you eat more than you should to fulfill a craving that never gets satisfied?

Onion rings - it's a bigger order than 3 of us could handle - and needed salt but that's personal preference. If you get 'em, bring a crowd to share them.

Our server wanted to know where we were from, since locals don't usually sit in the parking lot; they come inside. The seating is quite limited there, so you decide. I did march in and shout "ef-haristo" (Greek for "nice to meet you!"), but the new owners were in the back, behind the scenes. The line staff gave me a big smile and a wave, knowing I meant well.

Go again? Yes, definitely. Fresh taste, high funk factor, friendly staff, what's not to love?

Fieri told you so, and I concur.

BeautyBerry

My BeautyBerry Bush caught some snow last month. Was surprised to see you have that same bush, Mama Mia! One of my favorites!

Thinking Organically

Sometimes you follow a train of thought and find that it moves you. In reverse. As seasoned reporters we like to reach the end of the line and tell you everything we found, but sometimes we end up moving backward, gaining momentum the other way. That can be a good thing, because discovery doesn't have a fixed point like a hash mark on a ruler - you can find a morsel of news at the beginning, middle or end of a story. Sometimes you can't even find where the story begins.

Today I interviewed a woman who has built a thriving organic products business. I wanted to "warm up" on the subject so I didn't sound like a cabbage head when I talked with her. To get ready for the call, I started reading USA Today's story about how the First Family is bringing a new sense of flair to the White House. A simple phrase jumped out, that Michelle Obama is touting the benefits of organic food. Hold it! That's my subject. Let's go deeper.

I followed a train of thought to the White House blog, which carried a story about Michelle starting the White House Kitchen organic garden project with help from schoolchildren back in March. Yes, I remember seeing press coverage on that. Wonder how it's going? That led me on a Google search of how the garden grows, and according to the White House blog, in June it was doing well enough to host a harvest party. Lots of produce was making its way into the White House kitchen and to area centers via donations. Terrific!

Then I followed a thread to a story at the end of  July (moving forward in time here)  that this wonderful project, which Alice Waters of Chez Panisse fame has encouraged for a long time, has hit the proverbial muddy water. I found myself veering off onto Lesley Stahl's 60 Minutes interview with Waters, with a video link on the LA Times site, and I hung out in this delicious world for some time, thinking what a champion Alice Waters is to encourage consumption of foods grown locally and organically and to launch the Edible Schoolyard project.

But all too soon, I left Alice's Restaurant and found a story that reports the soil in the White House garden is full of sewage sludge, and this makes the garden's future a bit murky. That led me back to the White House blog, where I couldn't locate any story in response to the report about the garden's health.

Back and forth, back and forth this muddy story goes. You try to do a good thing at the White House like start a garden to demonstrate responsible eating, good stewardship of the land, nourishment of a nation, and it wilts. Or does it? Now I've found another story that challenges the quality of the story about the soil. Which is in better shape, the story or the soil? I don't know.

This is a shame. We outta be able to grow lettuce and turnips at the White House without a dustup. But here's something interesting: In the 60 Minutes interview, Waters made a statement that has stuck with me. She didn't get into the world of organics and sustainability as a mission when she started out, she says, she was just looking for products with flavor. Naturally, she found that products grown locally, without pesticides, and without long truck rides tasted remarkably better.

I say let's send Alice to Washington to sort out the garden. Even if it turns out the garden doesn't qualify to keep the label "organic," there's an important lesson here about supporting locally grown crops and teaching schoolchildren that underneath that frilly green top is a carrot underground worth going for.

Let's not lose the ground we've gained.

There's a Rose in My Soup

Excellent tip on how to make the rose petals into candied flowers, Jeanne. I had not heard this before, but I have seen rose petals used in a pasta dish. Here in Dallas, we girls have the Neiman Marcus cookbook No Jacket Required in our kitchens. It has a recipe called Rose-Lime Pasta: butter, lime juice, Parmesan cheese and 2 organically grown roses. May I call your attention to the passionate book Like Water for Chocolate, in which the heroine Tita prepares Quail in Rose Petal Sauce (and calls for 12 roses, preferrably red)?

And I quote, "When Pedro tasted his first mouthful, he couldn't help closing his eyes in voluptuous delight and exclaiming: "It is a dish for the gods!"

What a delicious notion, and if we're ever at a culinary impasse, I suggest we cook our way through Laura Esquivel's "novel in monthly installments." It's gorgeously written and would help us spice things up a bit. Cut loose. Shed tears with our onions as well follow her recipes, romances and home remedies.

It's fall in Dallas, so we still have blooming roses, as you see in this shot from my daughter's bedroom window, compete with curvy garden hose. 

This week I'll talk with a woman who's passionate about organic gardening and has turned her metier into an outstanding product line. Let's ask her how her garden grows, and whether she eats the flowers.

Please Don't Eat the Daisies

Fall mums and kale both are edible. Daisies aren't.

That said, I would never eat mums or any other flowers from a florist or garden center because of the potential pesticide residue.
But if you grow your own and don't apply any toxic sprays or fertilizers, then munch away. I once used yellow mum petals to create a "sunflower" on top of a chocolate cake. The sunflower's "seeds" were mini chocolate chips surrounded by a circular pattern of mum petals. It was a little painstaking to place each of those petals (use long-handled tweezers which you can find at the hardware store), but the finished cake sure made a sunny statement.

Rose petals plucked from your yard right now are good too (again, as long as they haven't been sprayed). Despite the cold weather in Iowa, my roses are still happily blooming.

For a sparkly effect, you can make crystallized flowers to decorate cupcakes, cookies, or cakes. Brush clean, dry petals of roses or any other edible flower, with an egg wash (made of pasteurized egg whites or meringue powder) and sprinkle with very fine baker's sugar. Let dry. Decorate away.

Seems like spring and summer are the best times for plucking edible flowers (violas, pansies, lavender, nasturtiums, and my favorite: signet marigolds. They're teeny blossoms in vivid reds, oranges, yellows. Who knew marigolds were edible. Taste 'em. You'll be surprised at the different flavors of different flowers. Spicy, peppery, and sweet.

How many more months til spring?