40 Percent off Flirty Aprons--May 31 Only

Do you like aprons? Do you love them? I do. I'm a bit of a collector. You can psychoanalyze me on that if you wish. But if you, too, appreciate their retro goodness, slip over to Flirty Aprons and pick out some for yourself, your hubs or your little chef-in-training. Women's, men's and children's aprons are 40 percent off if you place your order today (May 31, 2011) and enter the coupon code MAY40.* 

*I'm not sure if the discount can be applied to each apron you buy, or only one. Either way, you're still getting a nice bargain. Have fun shopping!

Gold Bug at the Beach

Since Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer, what better way to start the season than with fish tacos and juicy hamburgers fresh off the grill?

After a swim in the ocean and sunbathing on the beach, my travel companions and I headed to Poe's Tavern on Sullivan's Island, S.C., last week. The tavern is named after Edgar Allan Poe, one of my favorite authors. In 1827, Poe joined the U.S. Army under an assumed name, Edgar Allan Perry, and was stationed at Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island for 13 months.

Poe's menu brings me back to junior high English Lit. Half-pound hamburgers sport names like Gold Bug, Pit & Pendulum, Amontillado and Tell-Tale Heart. We tried the Raven, and it was a juicy burger bursting with all the flavor you'd get from a backyard grill.

The mahi mahi fish tacos were the perfect beach food. They're wrapped in flour tortillas and prepared with freshly shredded cabbage, pico de gallo and chipotle sour cream.

Feeling refreshed after our meal, we headed to Charleston for the next leg of our trip.

I Really Need to Try This

Chick-fil-A has a new limited-edition milkshake ... the banana pudding milkshake. It sounds like a winner. Just one question: Will they be bringing the peach milkshake back? I need to know!

Pucker Up!

A friend recently told me about an article she’d read that said people who love lemon are typically not chocoholics, and chocoholics often don’t care for lemon.

I love lemon. And I love chocolate. But given a choice between the two, lemon would be the winner.

All this talk of lemon made me think of the lemon meringue pie my grandmother used to make. And with Memorial Day coming up and it being the unofficial start of summer, what better time to enjoy the tart, refreshing taste of a family favorite?

Here’s my Mamaw Penry’s recipe, in case you want to give it a try.

Lemon Meringue Pie

1 8- or 9-inch graham cracker crust

3 eggs, separated

1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk

½ cup lemon juice

¼ teaspoon cream of tartar

1/3 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium mixing bowl, beat egg yolks. Stir in condensed milk and lemon juice. Pour into shell.

In a small mixing bowl, beat egg whites with cream of tartar until soft peaks form; gradually add sugar, beating until stiff but not dry.

Spread meringue on top of pie, to the edge of shell. Bake 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. Cool. Chill thoroughly, and refrigerate leftovers.

If It's Marked with an "X," You Know You've Made the Wrong Choice

A couple of evenings ago, we had a Savor South staff meeting of sorts. It was held, informally, at Carter Brothers in High Point, N.C.--the place Jason, Michelle and I first came up with the idea that would eventually be this blog. (We'll have to share that story with you someday soon.)

Along with our tasty suppers, we each ordered iced tea. Sweet iced tea for Jason and me, and ... get this ... unsweetened iced tea for Michelle! Of course, this is what Michelle always orders, and Jason and I always like to kid her about it--especially since she's a Southerner!

To differentiate Michelle's ungodly brew from ours, the waitress drew an "X" on Michelle's styrofoam cup. We joked that it was a sure sign of a bad choice.

Anyway, Michelle gave us the full story behind her tea preference. Apparently she loved sweet tea just as much as the rest of us, but felt it was too much sugar to consume all the time. That's a point of view I can agree with. But, Michelle, you gave it up forever?  That's some steely reserve right there.

Sweet Charlotte

When it comes to cooking, I usually don’t get too ambitious. I enjoy cooking the kinds of food I grew up eating—the ones that I, as a child, watched my mother and grandmothers making: soups … stews … casseroles … most anything fried. But lately, I’ve had a hankering to make one of these.

I don’t think I’ve ever come across a charlotte, Russe or otherwise, offered on a menu. They seem to be as scarce as hen’s teeth these days, but according to Southern Food: At Home, On the Road, In History by John Egerton, the charlotte was once considered a standard sweet in Southern kitchens. A recipe for one even appeared in Mary Randolph’s 1824 cookbook, The Virginia House-Wife.

Egerton notes that Randolph’s version was French in origin and more like a fruit cobbler. By the time that disruptive Civil War rolled around, the charlotte, he states, could be found in most Southern recipe collections. “As it evolved in the South,” Egerton notes, “charlotte russe was usually a molded and chilled pudding made with ladyfingers.”

While searching the Internet for the perfect charlotte recipe, I came across this one. Bananas Foster in charlotte form? Sounds mighty tasty to me.

Desserts are not really my specialty. I can make a bread pudding or a pecan pie or pound cake, but a charlotte? Well, I’ll no doubt need to do some planning akin to that of the D-Day invasion.

An Afternoon Snack

When I was in elementary and junior high school, I stayed with one of my two grandmothers each day after school. Being the studious, responsible adolescent I was, I always took care of my homework as soon as I arrived there.

Both my grandmothers watched Guiding Light (which was on from 3-4 p.m.), so whether I was at my Mamaw Lackey’s house or my Mamaw Penry’s, I finished my schoolwork while their “program” was on. Once the soap was over, they turned the television over to me. In my elementary school years, I usually watched Sesame Street, The Electric Company, and Mr. Rogers. In junior high, it was usually reruns of I Love Lucy, The Munsters, The Addams Family, or Bewitched.

But no matter what I watched, my grandmothers always made sure I had a snack. My Mamaw Lackey would sometimes have a fresh bread pudding waiting when I arrived (no raisins on my half!). Sometimes we would make a mayonnaise sandwich with just white bread and mayo. And sometimes she would pop some popcorn (in those days, before microwave popcorn, it was in a covered frying pan with oil), which she would always serve with a glass of tomato juice.

When I have mentioned having popcorn and tomato juice to my North Carolina-native friends, they immediately nod their heads in familiarity. When I’ve mentioned it to people who hail from elsewhere in the country, they offer me a puzzled look. They’ve never heard of such a pairing.

What I loved best about popcorn and tomato juice was the little “sssss” sound the popcorn would make when I dunked a piece into the tomato juice. The combination of flavors—buttery, salty, sweet, tangy—was just perfect. Even to a 7-year-old.

My Mamaw Penry always had a variety of sandwich-makings on hand. I loved (and still do) pimiento cheese. She is the person who first persuaded me to try olive loaf (which eventually led to my ravenous addiction to olives), but it was her grilled cheese sandwiches that stand out strongest in my memory.

I never actually watched her make a grilled cheese sandwich, but the finished product, which she always brought to me on a 1950s yellow-and-gray Harkerware luncheon plate, was creamy, buttery, toasty, and—needless to say—delicious.

I have, in the years since, determined that she must have put a thin layer of mayonnaise (always Duke’s) on the outside, as well as a very thin layer inside, before grilling. I even came across this blog post, which confirms my theory.

Now that I’m practically middle-aged (nearing 40), I sometimes wish I could come home from work, turn on a rerun of The Munsters and sit down to a snack of grilled cheese, popcorn and tomato juice.

Heck, I wouldn’t even mind doing some multiplication tables or reviewing my spelling words first …

Is Mexican Cuisine Considered Southern Food?

Happy Cinco de Mayo, y'all.

Really, the holiday means nothing more here than a chance to overdose on margaritas and chimichangas. But it has me thinking ... Is Mexican food becoming a part of Southern cuisine?

I'd say yes. It has been for a long time, actually. In the decidedly Southern (and Southwestern) state of Texas, Mexican-style cooking merged with local fare to create what we know and love as Tex-Mex. And while Tex-Mex has been around in some form or another for almost a century, the popularity of traditional Mexican food (both authentic and Americanized) has been growing in Southern states where the Mexican populations are also booming--namely, Georgia and the Carolinas.

So, will tortillas one day be considered as Southern as cornbread? I doubt it. Besides, it's not like Mexican restaurants are absent in other regions of the U.S. Still, the idea of Mexican food working its way onto the Southern menu is comida for thought, isn't it?