Locavore’s Delight: How to boost the local economy in 3 delicious courses
LOCAVORE’S DELIGHT: The Series # 10. Follow us all summer long as we explore the bounty of our region’s farms.
We are missionaries spreading the gospel of supporting local food-producing families. We believe that the nearer the farm to the fork, the better the flavor. And we also believe in putting our money where our mouth is.
NCDA
Each year the NC dept of Agriculture hold its “Best Dish in NC” competition to promote restaurants and chefs who feature more locally-produced food on their menus and to tell the stories behind the food.
Two years ago, we were honored to be named a finalist for our dish of Carolina Catfish over creamy grits, served with collard greens.
This year we decided to pull out all the stops and create a three course tasting menu to showcase more dishes, and to tell more stories.
June 20 through August 21, 2012, our “Suddenly this Summer” menu features a special “Locavore’s Delight” tasting menu. The special menu includes fresh ingredients from our North Carolina farm friends.
In the pages of our blog, you can find the stories of some of our farm friends who provided ingredients for this menu, and in the coming days we’ll share more stories about the ingredients that we’re excited about and the folks who produce them.
Where else can you enjoy sturgeon and truffles, from North Carolina no less.
LOCAVORE’S DELIGHT: The Series # 9. Follow us all summer long as we explore the bounty of our region’s farms.
by MOLLY MCGINN
Holding a handful of farm-fresh raspberries is a rarity in the Piedmont area. All were scooped up over the weekend off the Farmer’s Cart at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen. Locavore’s rule number one: Be quick. We’re expecting to restock this week with raspberries fresh from North Carolina’s only organic Pick-Your-Own Farm, Plum Granny Farm.
Dirt Farmers
Lucky 32 made an unseasonably early trip west to Plum Granny Farm last week. Raspberry picking season officially begins at the end of July and runs through August. But you won’t find many around here. The delicate berries thrive in cooler weather.
“Your location is beautiful, the vista is incomparable and your travails are honest,” we wrote to farm co-owners Cheryl Ferguson and Ray Tuegel after a recent trip to the farm. Named after the old timey Applachian nickname for the Passion Flower, Plum Granny, the farm “specializes in items that other folks around here just don’t grow,” he says.
Attribute that to the farm’s 140-year family history and penchant for good soil. Located near Hanging Rock, co-owner and family-farmer Cheryl Ferguson “grew up on this farm and her father, grandfather and great-grandfather all practiced the art of cultivation on this soil.” Ray Tuegel’s Kansas-farming roots “raised him amid the most beautiful soil that has ever been seen.”
“Their approach (Cheryl and Ray Tuegel) to farming is to nurture the soil and the land to return it to its optimal state,” according to the farm’s literature. “Building the soil with leaf mulch, compost, cover crops and manure is helping them produce better and healthier crops. In just a few short years, Cheryl and Ray have seen some major changes in the vitality of the soil as well as in variety of birds and other fauna that frequent their farm.”
And if you’re looking for raspberry recipes: stop.
We are firm believers in eating something this wonderful out of hand. Anything you do to them (heating, chopping, pureeing) or mix with them will dilute their flavor and diminish your delight.
Straight from the farm: A note about Raspberries from Cheryl Ferguson and Ray Tuegel
“In the piedmont [raspberries] are a bit out of their comfort zone. They do much better in the mountains because they appreciate and need cooler weather.
“The yields for Piedmont-grown berries are about half of that in the mountains. That is probably a major reason people don’t grow them as much here. Another factor is that raspberries are not as well known in this area as are strawberries, blackberries and blueberries.
“That lack of knowledge also translates into not knowing how to grow the crop. We like both challenges.
“We love to educate consumers about our products and to share what we have learned with other growers – either farms or backyard gardeners. We give talks for garden clubs, Reynolda Gardens and have been part of the CFSA Sustainable Ag Conference tour and have served as ‘Ask the Experts’ for the CFSA newsletter.
Pick up a farm-fresh hand full of Plum Granny Raspberries at the following locations:
Old Salem Farmer’s Market Web site
Saturdays, 9 am to noon
Corner of West and Salt St., Winston-Salem, NC
Cobblestone Farmer’s Market facebook
Tuesday, 10 am to 1 pm
Corner of Third and Patterson St., Winston-Salem, NC
Plum Granny Farm on Pick-Your-Own days Web site
Check Plum Granny’s Web site for available times and dates. Raspberry picking season begins at the end of July through August.
1041 Flat Shoals Road, King, NC
Buckets of blueberries, crepes, cakes, and Edna Lewis
LOCAVORE’S DELIGHT: The Series # 8.
Follow us all summer long as we explore the bounty of our region’s farms.
Sunday just concluded our participation in the semi-annual Triangle Restaurant Week and one of the featured desserts was Edna Lewis’ Blueberry Cake from her book, “The Taste of Country Cooking.”
Edna was a spiritual mother in my research of southern foods for Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen. Her recipes call for “fresh, local” foods. And right now, Edna, we’ve got buckets of blueberries on the Farmer’s Cart.
Giant specimens from Bill Stevens in High Point on the cart outside the restaurant in Greensboro. In Cary, we have blueberries from Lewis Farms in Rocky Point. And yes: We have issues (thank you eatocracy.com) and every dollar spent on a blueberry from a local farm is a vote for the local farming economy.
Cast a vote for local blueberries:
Fresh blueberries are best and frozen are acceptable as substitutes.
If you must use frozen, freeze your own.
Place whole, washed blueberries on a parchment lined baking sheet and place in the freezer.
When they’re frozen, transfer blueberries to a ziptop plastic bag.
Thaw what you need when you want to make our blueberry crepes (recipe is below).
Also this weekend — in both the Cary and Greensboro locations — is the last opportunity to enjoy Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen’s blueberry crepes, so we’d love to encourage you to pick up some fresh blueberries off the Farmer’s Cart and make your own at home. Also, opportunities are dwindling to take your kids (or yourself) to a pick-your-own blueberry plot. Check this website for more info: pickyourown.org
Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen Blueberry Filling for Crepes
Makes 4.5 cups (18 cups)
2 lbs of fresh blueberries (8 lbs)
2 tsp orange zest (8 tsp)
2 tsp lemon Zest (8 tsp)
2 tbsp juice from orange (½ cup)
½ cup granulated sugar (2 cups)
¼ cup corn starch (1 cup)
Mix berries, zest, and sugar in a small stock pot. Stir until ingredients are well mixed. Add juice and cook over medium heat until sauce just starts to bubble – approx. 10-15 minutes. Dissolve cornstarch in water. Reduce heat and add cornstarch slurry and blend well. Allow to cool before filling crepe shells.
Place 2 Tbsp filling in each crepe shell and roll up. Calculate three crepes per person and arrange in a casserole dish. Bake in 350 degree Fahrenheit oven until heated though and browned on the edges. Remove to serving plate and garnish with sprinkled powdered sugar and more fresh berries.
Edna Lewis Blueberry Cake
2 cups fresh blueberries
⅓ cup granulated sugar
⅓ cup water
1 tsp cornstarch
¼ cup water
2 cups all purpose flour
¼ tsp salt flakes
4 tbsp butter
1 fresh, local egg
1 cup Homeland Creamery Milk
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 tbsp baking powder
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
⅓ cup granulated sugar
Combine 1/3 cup sugar with 1/3 cup water and blueberries in a medium saucepan; simmer for 3-5 minutes, strain berries and reserve for cake. Return liquid to a pot and return to a simmer. Combine cornstarch and ¼ cup water. Drizzle slurry into simmering juice and cook until syrup consistency is achieved. Set aside.
Sift flour and salt into a mixing bowl. Add butter and blend until mixture resembles cornmeal. Beat egg and mix in milk; add to dough, stirring all the while. Add vanilla, continue stirring; add baking powder, mix well. Spoon into a buttered 2″ half hotel pan. Scatter drained berries over the top. Combine remaining 1/3 cup sugar with cinnamon and sprinkle over the top.
Place in 425 degree Fahrenheit oven and close. Turn oven down to 375 and cook 25 minutes or until center is done. Serve slices of cake with reserved syrup.
Follow us all summer long as we explore the bounty of our region’s farms.
“I just love the way they celebrate vegetables in the south,” says Alice Waters, who helped start the Edible Schoolyard program in Greensboro in 2010 — the only affiliate program to the Berkley, CA campus in the nation.
“But instead of a ‘meat and three’ it should be a ‘meat and 10.’ ”
She was referring to the south’s historic “meat and three” menu style, used here at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen. It’s a soul-food approach, offering a long list of vegetables for side dishes, and the promise of “glorious vittles served with the utmost informality,” as defined by food writers Jane and Michael Stern.
What Alice is saying is that we need to eat more vegetables.
In the summer, basil is a prolific green. Synonymous with summer pesto. Despite basil’s abundance in the summer garden, this member of the mint family is rarely used fresh in most kitchens, which is an insult to its fine cross between licorice and clover flavor.
It’s most often over-done, over-used, too dry and in a jar on the spice rack. As a culture we’ve lost a touch with fresh herbs, and we substitute for dry herbs because we do weekly grocery shopping instead of daily shopping.
Basil, parsley, and mint could easily be added to the list of offerings to the “meat and three menu,” to up our vegetable wattage to 10. With fresh herbs on the list, we could up it to 20.
There’s a way to change that.
“I believe that our children are influenced by more than the homes they grow up in. If we want to change something — like our child’s diet — we need to have more conversations with schools and the people who feed children,” one of our chefs said.
The sign in the garden says, “We let our plants ‘go to seed’ so we can collect and replant.
That’s also why, when possible, we get basil, kale, spinach — whatever grows in abundance — from the Edible Schoolyard in Greensboro.
The garden and exhibit has a school outreach program and buses kids in from outer areas to learn how to play in the dirt again.
“The Edible Schoolyard receives over 100,000 visitors per year,” said Justin Leonard, Garden Manager at the Edible Schoolyard. “We focus on the seed to table cycle (planning, planting, caring for, harvesting, cooking, eating, cleaning up, composting) as a tool for food empowerment. Children are involved in every aspect of the garden and we try to have lots of items that they can eat out of hand.”
The thing with basil, is that when you plant it, you don’t really know how much you’re going to get. There’s often a surplus.
The sign in the garden says, “We let our plants ‘go to seed’ so we can collect and replant.
Use more basil
Pick up a brown paper sack full of fresh, locally grown vegetables on the Farmer’s Cart and use a little fresh basil in your home kitchen.
Caring for basil Selected from Food Lover’s Companion, p. 47
Choose evenly colored leaves with no sign of wilting.
Refrigerate fresh basil, wrapped in barely damp paper towels and then in a plastic bag for up to 4 days.
Or store a bunch of basil, stems down, in a glass of water with a plastic bag over the leaves (refrigerate in this manner for up to a week, change the water every 2 days).
To preserve and dry fresh basil, wash and dry the leaves, and place layers of leaves, then coarse salt, in a container that can be tightly sealed.
Alternatively, finely chop the clean basil and combine with olive oil and water. Freeze in tiny portions to flavor sauces, salad dressings, etc.
Suggestions
If your kids eat salad, toss a little fresh basil in with the greens.
Add it uncooked to your roasted squash, tomatoes.
Add fresh basil to a cheese pizza. Fresh mozzarella, fresh tomato sauce, and basil, that’s it. If your kids love tomatoes, then basil is going to give them a little zing.
One age-appropriate note: Basil is a stronger herb, more appropriate for children who enjoy a stronger taste, so don’t be discouraged if the younger ones don’t take to it. They’ll grow into it.
COMING UP:
Friday, we’ll post Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen’s Pesto Sauce and Chicken Tomato Basil
Soup recipes.
Follow us all summer long as we explore the bounty of our region’s farms.
Ralph “Screech” Sweger is an affable guy who always lights up with a smile when regaling you with stories of the folks who love his produce.
His favorite may be the one about the young girl who buys five miniature English cucumbers from him each week at the Pittsboro market.
She unwraps each one (he wraps them in plastic to prolong freshness, instead of waxing them, like big growers do) and licks each one, before re-wrapping it.
When he inquires about her peculiar ritual, she replies that licking them is the only way to prevent anyone from eating HER cucumbers.
The passion and care that goes into Screech’s greenhouses and his produce at Screech Owl Farms is evident in every tomato that we get from him. Each one embodies the platonic ideal of what a tomato should be, in color, shape, aroma, and flavor.
Heart-shaped tomato from Screech Owl Farms
His non-certified organic greenhouse may replicate ideal growing conditions for each crop that thrives therein, but enclosed systems such as these have their own bugaboos, such as parasites.
We civilians may think of meat-eating insects as threats to our well-being, but they are the good guys when it comes to greenhouses.
Plant-eaters like thrips and aphids–with the menacing nicknames such as thunderbugs and sap suckers–pose a serious threat to the welfare of the tomato plants inside this hothouse.
Screech’s handy pest guide for protecting his hothouse tomatoes and vegetables.
This diligence pays off in the end, you can taste it.
Swing by the Farmer’s Cart to check out the produce at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen in Greensboro and Cary, and you may see some of Screech’s cucumbers or tomatoes, or even some of his poblano or Anaheim peppers. Try them out.
Just know that Screech’s tomatoes won’t be here all summer, he plans to harvest his last greenhouse tomato just as field tomatoes in our corner of the world are hitting their stride. He’s got to till in some leaves and get the soil ready for tomato plants for the fall.
If Screech is growing it, then the flavor will be outstanding.
All of the sandwiches and burgers at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen (except the Meatloaf sandwich) currently feature the Screech Owl Farm tomatoes.
LOCAVORE’S DELIGHT: The Series # 4. Follow us all summer long as we explore the bounty of our region’s farms.
Hothouse tomatoes in a Liquor House Salad. Lashings of mayonnaise on the perfect BLT. Tomatoes are a transcendental experience in the summer. Screech Owl Greenhouse in Pittsboro, NC, is where we are getting the most luscious hothouse tomatoes you have ever tasted.
Ralph “Screech” Sweger
Ralph “Screech” Sweger is utilizing biodiesel to heat the greenhouses, so that the plants are fooled into believing that they are thriving in the midst of summer. This has been going on at Screech’s farm since October of last year. Folks-in-the-know have been slow to spread the word for fear of others scooping up the prized tomatoes. They’re quietly picking up Screech’s tomatoes at the Siler City, Pittsboro or Western Wake Farmers’ Markets. We are honored to be offering the best tomatoes in town, months and weeks before field tomatoes find their groove. Pick up a few of Screech’s tomatoes from the Farmer’s Cart outside the Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen restaurants and try them for yourself. Tasting is believing.
Cold tomatoes
This week’s recipes showcase uncooked tomatoes at their peak. We should also mention that the best use of a ripe tomato is on a sandwich. Schmear the bread with mayonnaise (pickled ramp mayonnaise, if you have it), salt and pepper the tomatoes and top with another slice of bread. We’ve got a diagram of our favorite sandwich here, rendered by our friend Chip Holton (to accompany our story on said sandwich on the Southern Foodsways blog).
“After all, a BLT is all about the tomatoes’ sweet acidity heightened by the luxuriousness of the mayonnaise; the bacon plays second fiddle by contributing smokiness and salt (not so much fat, because the best BLTs feature crispy bacon). A slice of cheese would throw the entire thing out of whack. Ultimately, by reducing the ingredients to their base properties, and arranging them thoughtfully, the resulting sandwich can be a transcendental experience.”
Cucumber-Tomato Salad “Liquor House Salad”
1 ½ pounds cucumber
1 pound tomatoes
1 2/3 cups white vinegar
1 ½ tbsp sugar
3 ½ tbsp Soy Sauce
Wash, peel, seed and slice cucumbers. Wash tomatoes and cut into wedges. In a bowl, combine all ingredients. Allow to sit at room temperature for 1 hour before serving. Makes 4 cups.
Tomato Mozzarella Stack
4 tomato slices
3 slices fresh mozzarella
.5 oz chiffonade basil
1 tbsp balsamic syrup
7 pinches flake salt
7 pinches fine black pepper
1 tbsp scallion oil (or for an extra adventure, use garlic scape oil)
Season both sides of each slice of tomato and mozzarella with salt and pepper. Alternate layers while stacking in center of a medium round plate, starting with tomato and ending with tomato. Drizzle scallion oil in a circle around plate; drizzle balsamic in zigzag over stack and garnish with chiffonade of basil.
Slow heat to summer: Green Garlic Confit from Plum Granny Farm
LOCAVORE’S DELIGHT: The Series # 3.
Follow us all summer long as we explore the bounty of our region’s farms.
This weekend is the unofficial start of summer. We all want a table outside where we can spend hours talking with friends in the temperate weather, eating good food cooked in a cool oven for hours while we waited for the timer out-of-doors. Today, we shares a recipe for celebrating this spring’s slow rise to a hot summer: Green Garlic Confit.
Find some fine Green Garlic specimens on our Vegetable Stand outside Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen in Greensboro and Cary; picked fresh from Plum Granny Farm in Capella, NC.
Green Garlic
Confit Green Garlic
Known for its subtle, earthy flavor, smear this late-spring garlic bulb confit on freshly grilled or toasted bread. Save the confit oil and toss with salad, or use it as a dipping oil with bread.
1 lb garlic green bulbs, about 12 bulbs
1 8 x 8 inch loaf or banana bread pan
Lower grade olive oil, such as pomace oil
Clean the green garlic bulbs. Trim off the leafy green top (save for your chicken broth), and leave a 4-inch stem above the bulb. Peel off the garlic’s tough outer skin, much like you would peel off the papery layer from an onion or garlic bulb.
Place the the prepped green garlic tops in the loaf pan. Pour in pomace oil, or a lower quality olive oil, over the garlic bulbs, using just enough to cover the bulbs.
For a gas oven with a pilot light, set the pan in the oven to cook the garlic and bulbs for 4 hours, or overnight. For an electric oven, set the temperature to the lowest possible setting and set the pan in the oven. The confit process is about turning up the heat as slow as possible, up to 212 degrees Fahrenheit without going over 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
Let the bulbs cool to room temperature. Remove the garlic bulbs and place on a plate with fresh rosemary. Save the remaining oil and season with fresh salt and pepper to use as a bread dip.
Green Garlic
Green garlic is harvested before the head divides into cloves, and is usually the result of farmers thinning their crop by picking every other plant to allow the remaining garlic to expand into the vacated space (much like spring onions). This young plant has a milder taste than the mature garlic that is usually encountered. Green garlic is usually available at farmers markets or directly from farms growing garlic. The “season” for green garlic is usually brief, toward the end of spring.
Start with a pound of fresh Green Garlic from the Farmer’s Cart outside Lucky 32 Southern KitchenTry this: Cook Green Garlic bulbs over a gas stove. Place bulbs directly on the burner and gently char the greens.
A wild recipe: Ramps harvested by hand in the Appalachian Mountains for this month’s Chef’s Feature
LOCAVORE’S DELIGHT: The Series #2.
Follow us all summer long as we explore the bounty of our region’s farms.
It took 5 years, a 4-hour ride in a London taxi cab, and a tradition as old as the Appalachian Mountains to make this Pickled Ramp and Mushroom Relish. And it’s all for you this month at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen in Greensboro.
The prized perishable in the relish is the wild ramp. The heirloom vegetable still grows in abundance in the wet hollows and ravines of the Appalachian Mountains.
Favored in high end restaurants for its scarcity and garlic-onion flavor, getting your hands on a batch of ramps either takes some extra scratch – up to $25 a pound – or a sense of adventure.
Ramps are slow to divide and propagate. Its life-cycle is 5 years from stem to seed, and because ramps prefer the steep mountain side near ravines, they can only be harvested by hand.
Good thing Lucky 32 has a taste for adventure. We were recently a special guest at Foggy Ridge Cider and hunted ramps with Diane Flynt, co-owner of the community-friendly cider farm. Read about the ramp adventure here.
Taste the adventure and the spring tonic known as the ramp in this Pickled Ramp and Mushroom Relish.Ask for the Chef’s Selection of Fresh Fish, a special item on the right side of the menu.
And to get the full adventure flavor, try our new New Jersey Cocktail, made with Foggy Ridge Hard Cider or their First Fruit Cider, now available by the glass, made from apples grown in close proximity to these wild ramps.
Pickled Ramp and Mushroom Relish
Pickled Ramps
1 cup red wine vinegar
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 tsp peppercorns
1 bay leaf
1 pound ramps, cleaned
1 tbsp sea salt
Wash the ramps under cool, running water. Drain the ramps well and place them in a mason jar. Combine the vinegar, salt, sugar, and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the bay leaf, and peppercorns. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the ramps in the mason jar and let cool, sealing tight and transferring to the refrigerator.
Pickled Ramp and Mushroom Relish
Yield= 1 qt
2 pounds shiitake mushrooms, weighed with stems
2/3 cup canola oil, divided
2 tsp black pepper
1/3 cup tamari
½ pounds pickled ramps
1/3 cup pickling brine from ramps
Trim stems from mushrooms (and use when making stock). Julienne mushroom caps. In a large mixing bowl, combine 1/3 c oil with tamari and pepper; add mushrooms and mix well. Distribute mushrooms evenly on a baking sheet and cook in a 350 oven for 7-9 minutes, or until partially dried. Chop ramps finely (white and green parts); combine with mushrooms and remaining ingredients.
Learning to forage for ramps with Diane Flynt of Foggy Ridge Cider
LOCAVORE’S DELIGHT: The Series #1.
Follow us all summer long as we explore the bounty of our region’s farms.
by MOLLY McGINN
If we were in Canada right now, salting this pan of wild ramps, we could get arrested.
In Quebec, ramps are considered a threatened species. The appetite for wild ramps is so widespread, and the vegetable is so scarce, that it’s illegal to hunt the strappy, grayish green cousin to the onion. But here, salting ramps in a kitchen on a mountain top is a legal rite of spring. We’re in the deep back country of the Appalachian Mountains in Dugspur, Virginia.
Ramps are among the many heirloom vegetables still growing wild in the Appalachian Mountains. Cherokee and other Native American tribes hunted ramps here, and, thanks to their conservationist nature and a sparse population of community-minded Appalachian Farmers, such as Diane Flynt, this area is still rich in ramps.
Diane is co-owner of the community-friendly cider farm, Foggy Ridge Cider. Each spring she invites friends, chefs, “people I care about,” to hunt ramps, she says.
Diane makes the Hard Cider in the New Jersey Cocktail, and the First Fruit Cider, now available by the glass, at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen.
“I like to help people understand the whole picture,” Diane says about hunting ramps. “This has been going on ever since people first lived in these mountains.”
There is one, rather serious threat to a ramp hunt, she says.
“Lesson number one: know your poison ivy,” Diane says.
For Native Americans, ramps were the first edible green after a long winter of eating dried and smoked meats. The “spring tonic” is a shot-full of nutrients with the same disease fighting properties of garlic, and ramps are high in Vitamin A and C.
High-end restaurants will pay as much as $25 a pound for ramps. Foodies and chefs prize the green for its scarcity, and unique, onion-garlic flavor.
The ramp life cycle is about 5 years from seed to harvest, and they prefer the steep, vertical mountain ridges near ravines and rivers.
Find them by the look of the strappy leaf, grayish-green, and dusky. Or by smell. Ramps are pungent.
Ready for the hunt? Keep a few key things in mind:
1. Know your poison ivy. “Leaves of three, let them be.” Ramps can grow in the same shady areas as poison ivy.
2. Bring a change of clothes. When you go home, take off your clothes and drop them into the washer. For clarification, see lesson number one.
3. Get the right tools for the job. You should have a ramp hoe, and a sack or basket to carry the ramps.
4. To find ramps, look for a “lily of the valley” grassy leaf above ground and a scallion, garlic-like bulb below ground.
5. Dig, cover, and conserve. Harvest only a few ramps, and when you do, put back the soil and cover the ground.
6. Oh, the odor. Store ramps in the trunk of your car on the ride home, or a well-ventilated area, such as a flat-bed truck. If you must travel with ramps in the back seat of your car, leave the windows open, or pick some honeysuckle to hold under your nose for the ride home.
Ramp hunting tools: A ramp hoe and a sack or basket to carry the ramps. For some reason, our chef thought it was a good idea to bring a hammer.The grass-like, lanky, garlicky green grows best on the steep hillsides of the Appalachian Mountains, near ravines and streams. Its unique life-cycle — 5 years from seed to stem — makes it a non-commercially harvested vegetable.Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen Line Cook and Kitchen Supervisor Rene Campos uses a ramp hoe to harvest the vegetable.To find ramps, look for a “lily of the valley” grassy leaf above ground and a scallion, garlic-like bulb below ground.Chef salts ramps on a pan, seasoned with olive oil and pepper.A few sides, pulled fresh from Diane’s garden: Virginia asparagus, garlic, and purple asparagus.Bon Appetit! The veggies were served with Border Springs Farm lamb (raised less than thirty minutes from Diane’s farm) and Voodoo Sauce that we brought for just such an occasion.
Corn Beef Sliders on Anna Mae Rolls. Catfish Pate’ on ciabatta crostini. Hickory-Smoked Rappahannock River oysters with house-made kimchi. “Cherry Wheat” Spiked Red Velvet Cake. We take a quick look back at pics from a recent Beer Dinner to help you get ready for the next one, Monday, May 7, 2012 in Greensboro, NC.
“This is just an example of the way we blow minds at beer school. Education with a mission,” our Lucky 32 chef says.
Beer & Cheese School Monday, May 7, 2012 at 6:30 pm in Greensboro | Sign up and reserve a seat.
Cost is $30 per person (plus tax and gratuity)
Advance reservations are required
Limited seating, so please reserve today by calling 336-370-0707
Make some Purple Sweet Potato Chips, from fresh local ingredients available this month on the Farmer’s Cart. The chips are pictured with the Corn Beef Sliders below.
Hickory smoked Rappahannock River oysters in an NC-bibb lettuce with daikon-carrot kimchi topped with caesar dressing Carolina Catfish pate’ on ciabatta crostini from Loaf Bakery, marinated baby vidalia onions, and crispy capers (fried)Carolina Catfish pate’ on ciabatta crusting from Loaf Bakery, marinated baby vidalia onions, and crispy capers (fried)Corn beef slider (hormel all natural corn beef, local shittake mushrooms, caramelized onions, with green tomato chowchow, creole mayonnaise and provolone) on Anna Mae Cheddar Chive Rolls with purple sweet potato chips“Cherry Wheat” Spiked Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese frosting and cherry wheat coulis drizzled on top
