It’s only Wednesday and this week is looking mighty special so far!
First, a group of fabulous humans have collaborated on a project which explores Southern identity through its foodways. The result of their efforts, A Spoken Dish, debuted this week and the internet is in love. So am I. I’ve watched many of them and am trying hard to resist so I don’t run out and have to stop. The good thing is-looks like they’re working on more!
This spectacular series of vignettes got me thinking about my own ties to Southern food. It got me thinking more specifically about where my love of Southern food has taken me.
For instance, as a double Yankee, spending most of my life in NYC and Massachusetts I did not have my first BBQ rib until very recently. My grandmother’s cornbread recipe, is polenta. That is not to say I denounce my New England/NYC heritage, I will wax poetic on some fried clams, and sing about pizza if you’ll let me.
But back in 2007 a little dish I’d never heard of called Pimento Cheese ended up changing my life. It sent me on a path I am still forging, what I imagine could one day become my own Southern identity.
Wild, right? Well, fortunately there is an organization for folks like me.
Who find home to be not the place I came from, but a place I’m still moving towards, a place I am still learning about and figuring out. A place shaping me, but allowing myself and others like me to help continue to shape it, as it constantly evolves.
The Southern Foodways Alliance hits Richmond this week for its Women, Work and Food Summer symposium. There will be much eating and drinking. There will be celebrating and learning.
There will be truths discussed, some heavy and some light, all lyrical.
There will be connections made and friendships forged.
That to me, is why I am so grateful for my place at their table.
Look, I know this sounds crazy, but that first bite of spicy, mayonnaise laden spread was a catalyst in my search for meaning. It led me not only to the SFA, but to many incredible people, to self discoveries, and thankfully to creative realizations and pursuits which continue to this day.
It helped me to discover how deeply food defines us. How it connects us and how it gives us our sense of place. Even if that place is very unexpected.
It set me on a path toward home. I’ll let you know when I get there.
I started Food Punk to create a space to celebrate food and music. Where else could I herald the magic of both Ramps and Pusha T? Cooking, like music, is an art. Both can be visceral, sensory experiences that transport, inspire and define us. I’ve often found that those who play with knives are also into ‘deep cuts’ of another nature. It is in this spirit that I bring you this series: HEARD! highlighting the music enthusiasts behind the line, the bar, the pass and the pen.
Owen Lane is Chef/owner (with his wife Tiffany) at Magpie in Richmond. He is a master of sausage and you should stop by Magpie first chance you get to sample his work. I’m happy to call him my friend.
What was the first live music performance you attended?
Skid Row opening for Aerosmith in like 89.
(Editor’s note: I too saw this tour!)
What was the most recent?
Alice Cooper and Iron fucking Maiden so awesome! Been wanting to do that since I was ten (thanks Doug!!)
What album/artist changed/defined/etc your life?
I would have to say Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti. The Rover, Ten Years Gone, Sick Again… I mean, come on!
Do you have a musical equivalent to a guilty pleasure?
Guilty pleasure? Easy! Bryan Adams. Summer of 69, Run to You,
Cuts like a Knife and then obviously Cougar-Jack and Diane
What album is your go to for when you wanna smash stuff and life is sticking it to you?
Smashing shit…. This was a tough one. Because I usually try not to smash shit anymore but I would have to say Metallica anything before the Black Album. Preferably Ride the Lightning or Kill em All or Ministry’s Stigmata
What album is your go to for fist-pumping-this-is-the-best-ever-happy times?
Fist pumping good times easy AC/DC Let there be Rock the whole album- can’t go wrong!
What is on your turntable at home right now?
The Sword, Apocryphon and Legendary Shack Shackers
Music is so powerful and moving, you cry in happiness or sob in defeat. Food and music go hand in hand for me. It can change the tempo of my kitchen at the drop of a hat. I would have to say one of my favorite things is a kitchen to myself listening to whatever I am feeling that day and singing as loud as I can. That’s a good day!
Music in the kitchen a must! Nothing better than having a great night, and then a certain song comes on and the kitchen turns into a sing along. Sing alongs in my kitchen- there have been many. Beck’s Debra, Biz Markie’s Just a friend and anything Springsteen or Scott H. Biram to name a few.
It all started with a ham sandwich.
As I devoured my ham and pimento cheese sandwich in the car, recently purchased from Edwards’ Ham Shoppe, in Surry, Virginia, I thought of all the ham sandwiches that they were responsible for.
That would be about three generations worth.
S. Wallace Edwards was a ferryboat captain in 1926, carrying folks over the James river. He sold sandwiches to his passengers using ham he salt cured and hickory smoked on his farm. By the 30s, it wasn’t just folks going from Surry county over to Jamestown who were ordering these cured hams, but also tourists of the recently opened Colonial Williamsburg, who were having them shipped all over the country.
Sam Edwards III
Sam Wallace Edwards, grandson of S. Wallace, is a third generation cure master.
His family has been dry curing and cold smoking since those ferryboat days. Their methods go back to Native Americans, who taught the colonists how to preserve meat with smoke. Though instead of preserving deer, the settlers took a cue from the Spanish (who brought pigs to America) and went with the widely available (see Hog Island) pig instead. Sam’s father took his grandfather’s three employee operation and grew it to the pig processing facility it is today, selling 50,000 hams a year.
Being just down the road from industrial pork giant, Smithfield, Edwards ran into the problem of being lumped in under the more well known, but far lesser quality moniker. Sam started asking chef’s to put ‘Edwards of Surry’ on their menus when using his hams about the time that folks started becoming more conscious of eating locally.
hamhocks
“If you start off with better tasting pork, that’s going to make a better product 18 months later.” says Sam as we tour the plant. Edwards sources their pork from Heritage Foods a company partnering with a network of farmers who commit to pasture raised, antibiotic free, certified humane, heritage breed animals.
“We go out once a year to the farms to see where and how they’re raised, and what they are being fed. We are trying to help these farms raise the pigs the way we think they should be raised.”
hanging hams
Sam tells me that it’s not always easy to convince farmers that have been raising pigs the same way for generations, taught by their daddy and their daddy’s daddy, that there are better methods to raise pigs. Fortunately more and more farmers are becoming aware of humane, quality focused practices and there is no shortage of suppliers.
At Edwards’ the country hams go through ‘seasons’ replicating the curing process as it was done hundreds of years ago. The hams are buried in salt in the chilly Winter room, then they are moved into a more temperate 50 degrees in the Spring room, after that its 7 days in the Summer room where they are hickory smoked before finally moving onto the 90 day aging process. In some of the rooms I notice hams hanging, separate from the group, and with different tagging.
“Oh that’s just us trying out new things.” Sam says with a definite mischievous look in his eyes. “We are always experimenting.”
smoking
sausages
Surryano
“For our Surryano, we like Berkshires. They have the right marbling, the animals are handled better, they are not stressed out. People laugh at me when I say that. But I’ve tasted stressed out pork and there is a difference.”
What is Surryano you ask? It’s a playful name for their version of Serrano ham of Spain. The peanut fed Berkshires go through the curing process and are then aged over 400 days to achieve that deeply concentrated pork flavor. I am the lucky recipient of a package of see-thru slices of Surryano and once home, after savoring at least three slices straight out of the package, I heat a sliver gently over toast at Sam’s suggestion.
The creamy fat melts into the bread, permeating it with a supple smokey salt. The rosy meat does harken to Jamon or Prosciutto but it’s a different, distinctive flavor. Much like many American cheeses that are crafted in European styles but maintain their own American character.
Thankfully, it looks as though the Edwards’ tradition of curing and smoking hams and sausages will continue to be passed down. Sam’s children are still young and have plenty of time to learn the business.
“I can see myself working well past 75″ Sam says “Only because, well what’s that saying…You don’t call it work if you like what you do, and I do enjoy what I’m doing.”
This past Monday I was delighted to be a part of Nicole Taylor’s radio program Hot Grease. Nicole and I chatted about RVA’s food scene and then she talked with Janine Bell, founder of the Elegba Folklore Society about Richmond’s annual Juneteenth celebration.
Get on board with Hot Grease, lots of archived shows!!!
If you’d like to listen to the RVA show you can do so here.
I started Food Punk to create a space to celebrate food and music. Where else could I herald the magic of both Ramps and Pusha T? Cooking, like music, is an art. Both can be visceral, sensory experiences that transport, inspire and even define us. I’ve often found that those who play with knives are also into ‘deep cuts’ of another nature. It is in this spirit that I bring you this series: HEARD! highlighting the music enthusiasts behind the line, the bar, the pass and the pen.
Bill Corbett, makes dessert for a living at San Francisco’s Absinthe, his job is to leave you with a lasting impression. “I’m a pastry chef, we are the relief pitchers of the food world”.
What was the first live music performance you attended?
The first live show I ever went to was The Cult. It was all over from that point, I instantly saw the power of live music. It was New Year’s Eve at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. The entire arena went dark and a spotlight came on and in it Billy Duffy started playing the beginning of She Sells Sanctuary then the drums kicked in and the entire place lit up.
After that I wanted to see every show I could get to. I would skip school to wait in line for tickets to Lollapalooza, Ministry, Guns N Roses/Metallica, etc. Then I started going to shows at the larger clubs and discovering bands just as they were blowing up like Rage Against the Machine, Quicksand, Tool and The Flaming Lips. From there the shows kept getting smaller and smaller as I delved deeper into punk/hardcore and indie music. We were putting on and attending shows in community halls, living rooms, cafes, the basements of Chinese restaurants, record stores etc. The theory was “Keep it small, keep it loud”.
What was the most recent?
The last show I attended was Kylesa and Blood Ceremony at Slim’s on May 25. That was a crazy week here in the Bay Area, I went to three shows but I probably could have gone to nine or ten.
What album/artist changed etc your life?
Hands down Fugazi is the band that had the most influence on me. In on the Kill Taker and Repeater changed my life. It was the summer of 1993, I had just finished high school and I was mostly into “alternative” music at the time, pretty much everyone on the Lollapalooza tour. A friend of mine gave me a tape with Repeater on one side and In on the Kill Taker on the other.
We went to see them play at RPM Warehouse in Toronto on September 9, 1993. The opening acts were Mudfish and Shudder to Think and the show was $6(CDN). They didn’t have merchandise for sale, the show was all ages, there was no light show. These guys weren’t out to make huge profits, they were just there to share their music. It blew my mind and they were a force to be reckoned with live.
That show led me down the path of trying to find out more about underground punk and the DIY movement in general. The more I learned the more I fell in love with the ideas, the people and especially the music of that broad scene. They were recording their own music, starting their own record labels, printing their own shirts and posters, booking their own tours through a network of people and connections built on a lot of trust. It made me realize how much power we as individuals actually have and how much we can accomplish if you just put in effort and invest yourself in a community. That world they introduced me to is still and always will be a huge part of my life.
Do you have a musical equivalent to a guilty pleasure?
There is definitely a lot of 80’s rock that I love that I probably shouldn’t, but I don’t feel guilty about it.
Here’s a short list:
What album is your go to for fist-pumping-this-is-the-best- ever-happiness times?
AC/DC’s Powerage is one of my favorite records of all time. Bon Scott had such swagger, you don’t see front men/women like that so much anymore. Also, Hot Snakes’ Automatic Midnight. The combination of John Reis and Rick Froberg is always amazing, from Pitchfork to Drive Like Jehu to Hot Snakes they can do no wrong together. Speaking of John Reis, I also am a complete fanatic for Rocket From the Crypt, and their album Group Sounds never fails to make me happy.
What is on your turntable at home right now? Or the last album you listened to on computer MP3 etc?
The last album I was listening to was the Torches to Rome LP that came out on Ebullition Records. I also just got a hold of Red Hare’s Nites of Midnight that just came out on Dischord records.
Music is powerful, it brings people together, it can unite and connect them. I listen to a lot of music, I definitely lean towards faster and heavier but I listen to music from almost every genre. Music has helped to shape me as a person and that flows into the food I make, the decisions on where I get ingredients from and where the money I have control over goes and who it supports. From an artistic perspective I’m trying to constantly find balance between ingredients and flavors. How loud are certain ingredients and how subtle should others be? Which are there for support and which are there for the solo? We’re always talking about flavor notes. Food and music bring people together, and that’s probably the greatest reason I’m so passionate about both of these things.
How do you listen to music?
I mostly listen at work from my ipod or through LastFM, torturing my cooks. I’m also usually wearing headphones and listening to music on my commute from home to work, although lately it’s mostly listening to my own band while I try to write lyrics. In the kitchen, depending on my mood, a lot of catchy rock, punk and metal. Metallica, Slayer, Hot Snakes, Rocket From the Crypt, The Bronx(first album), Doomriders, Old Man Gloom, Russian Circles, Torche.
Sometimes it’s hip hop or doom or new wave.
“I love discovering the roots of a genre of music. I love the lineage of things, whether it’s food or music.”
Being able to trace back a recipe for instance, is amazing to me. It’s a dream project of mine to trace back a lot of the recipes that I use today. I use a brioche taught to me by Sam Mason who was taught by Jean-Louis Palladin, and that’s pretty insane to me. It makes me feel like I have a duty to do great things with that recipe.
That kind of thing always blows me away. The same applies to music. Who came before The Sonics? That’s what I want to know. Who was the musician playing dirty, gritty rock and roll faster than they should have been? That’s punk, that’s where it all comes from, and I want to know about it.
Do you have any desert Island jams?
AC/DC- Powerage
Fugazi-Argument
MC5-Kick Out the Jams
One Day in RVA is a series on the fabulous folks who enrich our city on the daily.
Who are you really?
I founded GayRVA.com back in 2009. I sold my multimedia baby to RVA Mag last year. I just launched Kevin Clay PR which allows me continue working for social justice causes while exploring other passions like food and art.
What did you do today?I started my day by meeting at the Gay Community Center of Richmond with City Council. One of the council members is patroning a Pride Month proclamation and working on a few other ways to make Richmond more inclusive for the LGBT community.
I stopped for lunch at my favorite downtown spot Citizen. The place was packed, so I picked up a butternut squash torta with curry cashew butter and a celery root slaw. Seriously – this is one of the best sandwiches in town and it pairs nicely with buttery grits.
On my way to the office, I drove by Blanchard’s Roast Lab. My boyfriend Andrew helps with their packaging and logistics (and also has a music blog of his own at RVA Playlist!)
Andrew at Blanchard’s
On Thursdays, Blanchard’s also hosts a lunch break with a food truck and samples coffee.
I’m currently running my business out of the Corrugated Box Building with a desk borrowed from my friends at CO+LAB Multimedia. It’s a creative environment with plenty of tech-minded folks and is a sweet escape from the home office. Plus there’s Camden’s Dogtown Market downstairs if I ever need a snack. I love a snack.
After I wrapped a client meeting, I went to catch a dinner cabaret with Alaska from Ru Paul’s Drag Race and unfortunately encountered some frozen lasagna.
I couldn’t write a guest post for Food Punk with a disappointing dinner entrée, so I compiled a list of my favorites in RVA :
The bar scene and cocktails at Pasture are top notch. Bartender Beth Dixon makes you feel at home. Grab a Surry with smoked ginger, lemon juice and bourbon.
My neighborhood standby is New York Deli. They have the best fries in town (with Russian dressing!) but more importantly, owners Demetrios and Hamooda have the best stories.
I love Wednesday nights at Lady Nawlin’s. Get the grilled oysters. Dane and Adam take great care of you.
Oysters at Lady Nawlins
I love the down home feeling of Garnett’s. Lox on Boston brown bread is a winning combo.
And speaking of baked goods winning, I usually spend my weekends dreaming about dessert. Last weekend, I made it over to the South of the James Market for one of Mrs. Yoder’s Donuts and I’ve also been known to walk from the Fan to Church Hill for a slice of pie at WPA Bakery.
I’ll walk 500 miles for a pastry. It’s a reward for the exercise!
Editor’s note: Thanks Kevin for that great list of RVA food recommendations! And… also for this picture of you with a bear, that I love and must include!!!
It’s wonderful to watch Richmond grow into what I believe will be the next-great-Southern-city-food-destination. Pasture has done a phenomenal job hosting Off Broad Appetit these past two years. I’m proud of the food community here and honored to have so many gifted cooks visit.
Chef Justin Brunson of Old Major Masterpiece Delicatessen and Denver bacon Company & Jason Alley of Pasture and Comfort
Andre Hueston Mack of Mouton Noir Wines
Rob Newton and Kerry Diamond of Seersucker. Nightingale 9 and Smith Canteen
Adam Sappington of The Country Cat Dinnerhouse and Bar
This summer the sultry heat won’t just be coming from Richmond’s usual weather!
Meet Burny F. Gibbons, my new burn barrel.
What is a burn barrel you ask?
A burn barrel makes real wood coal to use to cook real whole hog pit BBQ.
Real pit barbeque means cooked with wood, nothing else. Wood means flavor. It provides a steady supply of embers to then spread around beneath the pit so you can control your temperature. You pack it with wood, as it burns, embers fall to the bottom and then you keep adding the coals to your pit and cook a hog slow and low at a steady heat that you control for many, many hours. Not only is it a tradition in many regions to cook whole pig this way, it is a skill, one usually passed down for generations.
This summer this Yankee city mouse is going to attempt to teach myself how to cook a whole pig properly, the way that the kind and gifted pitmasters I’ve met do. I’m not saying it will be great BBQ right off the bat, but I figure it’ll be a start and hopefully with patience and practice (read: lots of time for drinking and eating in the backyard) I’ll eventually get it right. I’m going to start small and work my way up to a whole hog hopefully by mid Fall. (gulp)
I’ve got Burn-y next up is the pit. I’ll keep you posted!!
To make a burn barrel, you need:
a 55 gallon (or larger) drum (mine was food grade)
some rebar
a drill and saw that will cut through metal (or some sweet pals that own these things)
and in my case a friend who is not afraid of the 15 Black Widow spiders who made their home in the drum while I wasn’t looking
To construct:
stand drum up open end
drill a few of holes around each side just above the bottom rib, lined up
Insert rebar through the holes,
Cut a hole in the bottom the barrel just below the rib big enough to stick in a shovel.
When cooking out side with fire always, always, always have a fire extinguisher nearby!!!!
I started Food Punk to create a space to celebrate food and music. Where else could I herald the magic of both Ramps and Pusha T? Cooking, like music, is an art. Both can be visceral, sensory experiences that transport, inspire and even define us. I’ve often found that those who play with knives are also into ‘deep cuts’ of another nature. It is in this spirit that I bring you this series: HEARD! highlighting the music enthusiasts behind the line, the bar, the pass and the pen.
Travis Milton is chef at Comfort restaurant here in Richmond, VA. When I first met him, he was wearing a Misfits T- shirt and had enough pimento cheese to feed 300 people.
What was the first live music performance you attended?
This actually took more thought than I had planned, I thought for the longest time it was Huey Lewis and The News. Last week I was looking through some pictures from my childhood and realized it was actually Ray Stevens at the Appalachian Fair in Gray TN.
What was the Most Recent?
I don’t get to go to as many shows as I used to, it really makes me feel old. I went to see Alkaline Trio at the National. I’ve known the guys in the band for a while now, I used to cook for them as well as some other punk bands when they’d come through VA. It was a good show, it took me back to my 20′s, and afterwards the bass player and I sat outside the bus and discussed how old we all felt these days.
What Album/Artist/ changed your life?
This one is tough, I feel like there has been one of these for every step of life evolution. I listened to alot of country when I was young, growing up in Appalachia there’s music everywhere. You could walk down old dirt roads and hear old timers picking banjos and playing guitar on their porches. Bluegrass and old country will always be close to my heart, but the band that really flipped my lid was Thin Lizzy.
Phil Lynott is like a saint to me, his lyrics are so “heart on his sleeve”. Black Rose in particular blows my mind, songs like “Got to Give it up” and ” My Sarah” are so beautiful and honest lyrically. Gary Moore just kills it on guitar, the last song Roisin Dubh is amazing. Its got this amazing Irish, kinda bluegrassy riff with dueling leads that is mindblowingly good. They are so under-rated in the world of rock and I really do feel rock music lost an absolute great when Phil past in 86.
Do you have a musical equivalent to a guilty pleasure?
Guilty Pleasure: Ask anyone that has ever worked for me, and they will all tell you .38 special. I just can’t help myself, you can often see me playing air guitar on the cooks line or serenading the bartenders when “Caught up in You” comes on in the restaurant. I feel like I shouldn’t like them, but sweet goodness the redneck in me just comes through and I can’t help but love the hell out of it.
What album is your go to for when you want to smash stuff or life is s ticking it to you?
Reign in Blood by Slayer, if I ever mention I’ve been listening to it, its been a bad day in the kitchen……….
What album is your go to for fist-pumping happiness this is the best happy times?
Its probably a tie between Van Halen 1984 and Destroyer by Kiss, I still get giddy like a kid when I hear the opening guitars on Detroit Rock City, and the same goes with Panama.
The first question I ask a prospective hire is what kind of music do you listen to. Obviously this has no bearing on whether I hire them or not, but you can tell a lot about someone by their answer. I hate when someone tells me ” I listen to everything”, I call Bullshit!! It is a cop-out answer, I listen to many different genres but I could never answer that question that way. I kinda bear the torch of being one of the few true lovers of hair metal. It never really mattered much to me until I left my restaurant. I had put everything I had into it, time, money, emotion, strength, absolutely everything. I was a shell of a person, I thought my dream was over and I had nothing left in the tank. This is gonna sound corny as hell but, I started listening to Hair Bands. Everything in the world of 80′s Metal is Awesome. Its all about getting drunk, getting laid, partying and just being awesome.
My musical taste obviously does not end with Hair bands, I love early 80′s punk: Misfits and anything Keith Morris, Alt country or whatever you’d call it, is special to me: The Drive By Truckers and The Bottle Rockets are staple of my day. I sing constantly on the line.
Music really is necessary to every aspect of my life, I once halted opening brunch one Sunday by 5 minutes because I hadn’t had a chance to hear “Sunday Mourning Coming Down” as done by Johnny Cash.
Desert Island Jam?
Probably a tie between Static Age by the Misfits ( If Hybrid Moments was the only song I could listen to the rest of my life I’d be a happy camper) and the Iron Maiden’s Number of the Beast (to me it’s the most perfect album start to finish ever)
Do you remember last year’s event at Pasture with all the great chefs and wonderful regional food and VA wines and of course all of the money that was raised for Feed More? WELL, IT’S HAPPENING AGAIN! Tickets are on sale now and the line up features even more wonderful chefs from all over the country. I’m most excited about one chef in particular and I felt the need to explain why.
While last year’s chefs mostly hailed from the South, this year features culinary masters from Oregon, Colorado, DC, NYC and my personal favorite BROOKLYN! Rob Newton of Seersucker and his partner Kerry Diamond opened their Southern restaurant (Ok, ok, he’s from Arkansas) the very week I left Brooklyn in Carroll Gardens mere steps from my old apartment. I still have yet to eat there-BUT- I was able to partake of Chef Newton’s Southern delicacies at Big Apple BBQ last summer and his food was phenomenal! I believe there was sorghum laced fried chicken and gumbo and deviled eggs. I may have that wrong, as I was in a food fueled stupor of glory. I tell you, you need to put your appetite in front of this gent.
Those of you who attended the Virginia Wine Summit in Oct of 2012 may have sat in on the Uncommon Wine Pairings panel, where Rob was a featured panelist. And if you can believe this, all the way back in 2011 Seersucker was featured in our movie Pimento Cheese, Please as one of the many NYC spots singing the praises of Southern food. Now that is a Brooklyn/RVA connection that cannot be denied.
I’m really looking forward to having these chefs in Richmond. Some you may be familiar with, some I’m sure you are not, all of whom I enjoyed reading about for this post. Heck, I looked them all up so you don’t have to! Read on:
And we mustn’t forget our own Jason-mother-effin Ally! The hardest working man in RVA food! Jason has been hustling to put RVA on the map for years and I’d like to thank he and Richmond magazine and all of the sponsors for bringing this event to us again. See you there Richmond!!!
