The ComplEAT Kitchen
Welcome to the Tip of the Tongue Newsletter! Thanks to new subscribers and regular readers, especially those of you who are recommending Tip of the Tongue to their friends and subscribers!
On Sunday there is always this free newsletter , The ComplEAT Kitchen, about what is going on in my food and drink world, at SoFAB, at the SoFAB Research Center at Nunez Community College, and out in the world. Tip of the Tongue, my podcast, appears on Monday. This Monday I speak with Krys Malcolm Belc, author of What I Made for Dinner. And one or two more print issues appear during the week for paid subscribers.
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Tip of the Tongue is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Cooking: This past week I cooked the 2nd Annual 2 Points on the River Dinner. I shopped and cooked and had a wonderful time. The dinner takes place right on the Mississippi River in Wisconsin. (The other point on the river is New Orleans, which is where I am from.) The menu was nibbles and sazeracs. Then we had shrimp remoulade with Gulf shrimp, a salad with red-tipped lettuce, basil leaves, parsley leaves, and thinly sliced fennel with a vinaigrette dressing. Then a chicken picatta with peas and asparagus served with polenta. For dessert we had baba au Rhum that we flamed, because, why not? We ate a bread made with olive oil and rosemary with butter. And there was wine and with dessert - champagne. We ate with stemmed glassware, silver, cloth, and other niceties. It was a time. I am already thinking about the 3rd annual extravaganza. I am still on the road, so I am not cooking everywhere.
Reading: I am rereading Planet Aqua by Jeremy Rifkin. Besides just finding new thoughts in the book, I am very interested in the book’s structure. I am working on something that is in expository form, and I am doing some grazing reading. I am looking at how other people have written and explained their arguments so that they are grounded in a background and also make sense. Rifkin is a master at this.
And on this trip I am looking for community cookbooks as I go from place to place. I have one already. I hope that I find opportunities to buy more.
Watching: Did you miss our latest Dinner Party with Micki Maynard and me? Our special live guest was Kathy Gunst, Resident Chef on the NPR show, Here and Now. Listen to our conversation.
If there is anyone that you would like us to invite onto our Dinner Party, please let me know.
I’ll let you know when we schedule our next Dinner Party!
Gardening: I have not done any actually gardening on this trip. I have picked basil leaves and clipped the blossoms off of a potted basil plant to keep the plant from bolting. Mostly this past week I watched the river go by. It is definitely a different river here than in Wisconsin.
I watched the wildlife from purple martins to squirrels to buzzards and eagles.
Culinary Research Center at Nunez Community College: One of the most important aspects of the Nunez Culinary Research Center is its special collection of community cookbooks (The Randall Abney Family and Community Cookbook Collection). These are those books, often self-published by a nonprofit organization that is a support organization for a charity. It might be a hospital auxiliary or a church organization or a school. We have some charming community cookbooks from grammar schools with drawings from the students. The collection also includes personal family collections that are not for sale, but were gathered to share at family reunions and with children. And we have scrapbooks of people who have made collections of a lifetime.
In addition to the community cookbooks the Research Center has many pamphlets in its collection. One of them is A World of Good Eating: A Collection of Old and New Recipes from Many Lands. As the title page promises, it is “Published for the Enjoyment of Many American Families.” The book was published in 1951 and written by Heloise Frost. It is illustrated by Ellen A. Nelson. (She has also contributed the Nordic recipes.) Heloise has written this pamphlet that is full of recipes from around the world that are made with ingredients that are readily available in America.
Besides A World of Good Eating, Heloise also wrote a book called Early American Recipes: Being a Collection of New England Family Favorite Rules, Mostly Old, Some New, But All Smackin’ Good published in 1953. She also published a box of cards with recipes. The collection was called New England Note with Traditional Recipes from the New Enland Kitchen of Heloise Frost.
There are many interesting recipes in the book, but I have selected Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage. I am always on the lookout for red cabbage recipes.
Sweet and Sout Red Cabbage
1 large head red cabbage
4 tablespoons bacon fat
1 medium onion, chopped coarsely
2 tart apples, cored and sliced
½ cup vinegar (I suggest apple cider or red wine vinegar)
1/3 cup brown sugar
Remove the outer leaves and hard core from the cabbage and chop coarsely.
Heat the bacon fat in skillet and slowly cook the onions until tender. Add the cabbage, season, cover and steam 10 minutes. Now add the apples and ¼ cup boiling water, cover and simmer under low heat for 1 hour or until cabbage in tender. Add the vinegar and sugar, and continue to cook 15 minutes longer. Serve hot.
The sugar and vinegar amounts can be varied according to the tastes of your family.
If you or relatives or friends have cookbooks, pamphlets, old menus, or other remnants of our food culture, please consider donating those things to the Nunez Culinary Research Center when you clean house or do a purge. Our goal is to amass the largest and best culinary research center in the country right here in St. Bernard Parish. Help us grow this unique resource in St. Bernard Parish.
Want to join us in the quest? Just get in touch with me and we’ll find a way for you to participate. Just get in touch at lizwillia@gmail.com.