Happy Middle of July! Today is the men’s final at Wimbledon. Racing is underway at Saratoga, where I am headed in two weeks, and at the Tour de France. Major League Baseball is racing, too, toward the trade deadline at the end of the month. So if you are a sports fan, this is a golden time.
Meanwhile, farmer’s markets up north are bursting with beautiful fruits and vegetables. In the South, it’s that “too hot to cook time,” when things slow down. This past week, I could appreciate that sentiment.
Usually when I write the newsletter, I give you a main story and several news items. But last week, I looked at the individual items that I collected and thought, “These could fill up an entire newsletter.”
So this week, you are getting a smorgasbord. Here in the States, we pronounce all the syllables. But in Denmark, it sounds something like “smear-borg” which is how I heard it pronounced on the Copenhagen episode of Somebody Feeds Phil.
So, here is a smorgasbord - or a buffet if you prefer - of news. We’ll kick off in my adopted home of New Orleans.
Dining Tips From Trombone Shorty and the Mississippi Vegan
Everyone in Ann Arbor is proud of Jen White. She was the All Things Considered host at Michigan Radio before she went to WBEZ in Chicago. For the past year, she has hosted 1A on public radio, the syndicated program that replaced the Diane Rehm Show.
On Thursday, Jen’s guest was Troy Andrews, aka Trombone Shorty. I’m a massive admirer. I discovered his music almost 20 years ago, before Hurricane Katrina. I’ve seen him perform live a dozen times. I’ve interviewed him and his team graciously allowed us to use his song Right to Complain from his break through album Backatown as the theme for our Changing Gears radio project.
Troy and I even share a favorite New Orleans restaurant. So I was delighted when Jen asked him about his top places to eat. As soon as his band returns from the road, he said, the first stop is Popeyes.
Although it’s now an international chain, the musicians don’t eat Popeyes in any other city, he says, because New Orleans Popeyes simply tastes differently. (As you might remember, I tested that theory and he’s right.) There is a Popeyes not far from his recording studio in the Lower Garden District, although you can’t swing a cat in New Orleans without hitting a Popeyes.
After that initial Popeyes run, Troy eats a po’boy at any number of places, including Parkway, Verti Marte and Cajun’s Seafood. He encouraged listeners to visit his home neighborhood of Treme to dine at Lil’ Dizzy’s (above), Dooky Chase’s and Willie Mae’s (currently closed after a fire.)
Troy himself does not cook - he says he tried during the pandemic but wasn’t happy with the result. However, he comes from an extended family that can put on a spread and he has a wide network of friends ready to feed him.
Meanwhile, you’ll find a guide to vegan food in New Orleans from the Mississippi Vegan, aka Timothy Pakran. In a city replete with meat and seafood, you do not find many purely vegan restaurants.
But vegan dishes are available all over town, as he explains. Vietnamese restaurants are a particularly good option and New Orleans has some vegan soul food.
https://www.mississippivegan.com/vegan-guide-to-new-orleans?fbclid=PAAaYKbMN62gqm41flNiqxBMFK_DjkHTOayhzPGiuF8CCRAbImrFA5jVqg2fQ_aem_AVZv9o6Y8REZo1uHTS0a5nogZMHiE61GX_lADRoC3LrBZmPhrkmVJBQUsdFlVCGOS7Y
Be sure to follow him on Instagram (@) mississippivegan.
All the books in Carmy’s stack
If you are watching The Bear, or have heard about The Bear, you know that it is dotted with culinary Easter eggs. One of them is cookbooks.
Every chef has cookbooks - it’s rare to go in their kitchens, offices and homes and not find a stack. Usually, they have some sort of relationship to the type of food they serve or the chefs that inspire them.
Carmy’s are a hodge podge of titles shelved in an almost incoherent fashion. (Please do not do this to books.) A number of food writers, including Kat Kinsman and Chandra Ram at Food & Wine, have tried to analyze their meaning in relation to his character.
I had a few thoughts looking over the list. First, I’m happy for the chefs whose books are included, like Vishwesh Bhatt, author of I Am From Here. But as Kat and Chandra found, the list only begins in 1941, with a French cookbook by Escoffier, and there is a second Escoffier title, from 1969.
There’s nothing that looks like your mom’s or grandmother’s cookbooks, such as The Settlement Cookbook, a Betty Crocker, Fannie Farmer or any mid-century entertaining books. (His mother, by the way, is played by Jamie Lee Curtis, who steals every scene she is in.)
There’s no original Julia Child, Joyce Chen or Graham Kerr, nothing reflecting the mid-20th century emergence of TV chefs. Apparently, Carmy’s education began in culinary school, and continued in restaurants in Europe and the U.S. where he worked, not in his Italian-American elders’ kitchens. I suspect they may have been cooking recipes that were handed down, not written down, so maybe they had little interest in American cookbooks.
Beyond that, the list seems carefully curated to reflect more recent trends in cookbooks, which is understandable for a contemporary television chef. But apparently, his customers never gifted him with quaint plastic bound titles and those fund raising cookbooks compiled by art museums and Junior Leagues. I always find some kind of inspiration in those.
Just in time for sweet corn season: Cornathon
This past week, the folks at 177 Milk Street offered a delightful set of sweet corn recipes to their Instagram followers. They put on Cornathon, a set of daily videos featuring the star summer vegetable.
https://linkin.bio/177milkstreet?fbclid=PAAaabo7HxPLA7jGdkFl4WyRLjyIubXjbiDNmXnmmLgaE3UOT7DtWiF654xqA_aem_AVYwpuHCTydTDuaHWnfraqOIC3hBnaa5bP5tCjZC_SpfqN_zsWSezlpFTckeCeGuckQ
The recipes and demos include Mexican sweet corn cake, variations on grilled corn,pickled corn and methods for cooking corn. You might want to book mark them (@) 177milkstreet to enjoy when your sweet corn arrives.
#WhitePeopleFood becomes a meme in China
Last week, NPR reported on a phenomenon that has gone viral in China: #WhitePeopleFood. Photos of western lunches, with simple ingredients like raw veggies, sliced turkey, toast, green salad and pita bread are showing up on social media.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/07/10/1185780577/this-is-not-a-joke-chinese-people-are-eating-and-poking-fun-at-whitepeoplefood
The bland looking food is a contrast to regional Chinese cuisine, known for spice, stews and layers of flavor. Some of it is posted by university graduates who studied in the U.S. or the U.K.
Teresa Duan, who went to college in England, initially missed dishes from her home in Hubei province, such as hot dry noodles, a specialty from the province's capital, Wuhan. The warm noodles are tossed with sesame oil, soy sauce and some tart pickles.
But with little time to cook, she began to embrace sandwiches and salads. "I found this food healthy and time-saving at the same time, and two or three years is long enough to change my gut flora to help me get used to this diet and begin liking it," she told NPR. Since moving back to China, she estimates about 70 percent of her meals are similar “white people food."
Vodka and pumpernickel in times of grief
My family has always loved pumpernickel. My aunt used to bring us loaves from Chicago and pumpernickel bagels are my perennial favorite (especially from Flour Moon in New Orleans). My mum talked about the traditional Latvian bread known as Rupjmaize which I have never tasted but is something close to it.
So, I wasn’t surprised to read in The Nosher that Russians eat black bread and accompany it with vodka when they are mourning a loved one.
Some people even leave a loaf of black bread on a grave, accompanied by at least a shot of vodka, if not an entire bottle. It’s considered a sign of respect, and remembrance.
Farewell to Anchor Brewing
Back when the term “craft beer” came into being, the first kind that many of us tried was Anchor Steam Beer. It had a more complex, fresher taste than big name beers like Miller, Budweiser and Schaefer.
Anchor Brewing is actually much older than the modern craft beer wave. It dates back 127 years to its founding in San Francisco. Fritz Maytag, of the appliance family, bought it in 1965 and transformed it into a cult favorite that pre-dated the flocks of specialty beers that followed.
But Anchor was sold in 2017 to Sapporo, the Japanese brewing giant, and now it is shutting down. Brewing has stopped, and whatever is in stores is all that is left.
“This was an extremely difficult decision that Anchor reached only after many months of careful evaluation,” Anchor Brewing spokesperson Sam Singer told CNN. He added that the “impacts of the pandemic, inflation, especially in San Francisco, and a highly competitive market left the company with no option but to make this sad decision to cease operations.”
So, pour one out for Anchor and cherish your favorite beers. Nothing lasts forever in beer land.
Keeping Up With CulinaryWoman
I’m always happy to see new subscribers and I am especially grateful to our paid subscribers, who keep the newsletter going. I don’t accept ads and there are no sponsors. CulinaryWoman is funded by you.
If you’d like to support CulinaryWoman, just click here to upgrade. You will get extra features all week and be eligible for giveaways of cookbooks and gadgets.
A reminder that I am regularly posting on Substack’s stream called Notes. These are short items and reposts of interesting work by other people. You find Notes via the Substack app.
Some other places to find me:
Email: culinarywoman@gmail.com.
Instagram and Threads: (a) michelinemaynard. I am not finding Threads to be that useful yet, so look for my posts and Stories on IG.
Twitter: still there although not that much now. Primarily (@) mickimaynard
Last announcement: during the pandemic, I operated the City Tips Vintage shop on Etsy. It’s back open and restocked with some cool items from my travels (the Apollinaris cafe match striker among them). Feel free to take a look and more things will be added.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/CityTipsVintage
Have a good week. I’ll see paid subscribers tomorrow with Red Beans & Advice, and everyone else next Sunday.