Introducing “In the Oven”
A recovering food writer and a photographer head south in search of women chefs with stories to tell, traditions to share, and meals to cook
This October, the 16th annual Southern Foodways Alliance (SFA)Symposium turns its attention to women, work, and food. Its mastermind, the writer and educator John T. Edge, asked me to speak about female chefs of the South, which is a little daunting, since I’m a native New Yorker who hasn’t spent much time below the Mason-Dixon line. He has provided me with the perfect opportunity and excuse to cross that border, and to meet some extraordinary people in inspiring places.
I’ve invited photographer Melanie Dunea, creator of My Last Supperand the Medium column, “You Are What You Read,” to come along and take portraits of the women I’m interviewing and will feature in the presentation I deliver in Oxford, Mississippi this fall.
To coincide with the symposium, I’ll be posting my profiles and Melanie’s photos of these chefs on Medium, in a series titled “In the Oven.”
This week, Melanie and I hit the Southern road in search of our subjects (and vittles). As a preview of what’s to come in October, we offer a travelogue of our journey through (some of) the American South.
Day 1: New York, Raleigh and Chapel Hill
Dawn breaks and I’m up, realizing that I should have set my alarm an hour earlier than I did. Somehow, I make it out the door in time and head out to LaGuardia Airport where, at the security checkpoint, I notice two things that give me pause. First, there’s the sign telling me that snow globes are not allowed through. (Is this a common problem, then?) Next, there is one of the very worst offenses a human being can commit: wearing flip-flops aboard a flight. I don’t want to see your bare feet. I especially don’t want to see them unprotected on the dirty floor of an airport and then splayed out on the plane. Fungus among us. Unable to keep my thoughts to myself, I ask one of the TSA dudes what he thinks about this foot business. He quietly agrees with me. We giggle. And still, people may not bring their snow globes back home to Atlanta or Charlotte or Detroit, but they will walk through their front doors in the flip-flops they wore on their flights back.
I get to the departure gate, D3, and wait for Melanie, who has warned me that because she has all of her photography gear, including lots of electronic equipment, she’ll probably be frisked. I just pray she’s wearing proper shoes.
Melanie turns up, toes covered, and starts trying to figure out which of the nearby cafes sells Balthazar Bakery goods, because she has her priorities in order. She also observes that with a simple change of carpet and lighting, this Terminal D could really be something.
We’ve both brought travel-buddy gifts for each other. For me, a copy of Albertine Sarrazin’s novel Astragal, which, appropriately, begins with a young Parisian woman’s prison break; it’s the book Patti Smith has toted around for forty years. The artist penned the introduction to the latest edition, and Melanie has brought me a copy signed by Ms. Smith, who’s one of my heroes. This is incredibly thoughtful and makes the present I’ve brought — a scented candle — pale in comparison. (Note: You should always have one of these in your bag if you’re going on a business trip or any kind of potentially tiring adventure; it makes every hotel room, no matter how shabby or depressing, feel a little more luxurious, and it leaves the clothes in your bag smelling nice too.)
We board our plane, and wait — an hour — to take off. “If you don’t like my landing,” our chatty pilot says as he welcomes us, “keep it to yourself; if you do like it, tell me. I love praise.” The baby in the seat behind us goes from wailing to loudly cooing. The baby’s mother coos back, louder. Melanie hands me a pair of earplugs. I’m so glad she’s here.
“I liked your landing,” Melanie says to our pilot as we disembark at North Carolina’s Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU). Baggage claim delivers up our bags; as usual, I feel a great sense of relief and the desire to give my suitcase a hug for having made it through.
Melanie picks up our wheels from the rental folks, and — first things first — gets her navigational guide, “Garmin,” installed. She refers to this Garmin character as “love of my life,” who “speaks to me in dulcet tones, and only gets obstreperous when ignored.” Garmin does seem pretty awesome. She gets us to our first destination, a coffee spot on the edge of Raleigh.
Whenever I travel, especially when I’m on a work-related mission, one of my first orders of business is to find the best coffee my destination has to offer. All it takes is a tweet to Oliver Strand, also known as Ristretto by his caffeine-addicted following. I let him know where I’m headed and he puts out the espresso signal. People are so quick and generous with their recommendations and responses. The clear winner, in these parts, is Jubala Village Coffee, which proudly brewsCounter Culture’s beans and turns out some tip-top breakfast. The so-called “sweet biscuits” live up to their name, thanks to local dairy farmHomeland Creamery. If you take a scone recipe and add buttermilk, you get tender-crumbed biscuit with a brown-n-crunchy top. At Jubala,they serve it with homemade jam — raspberry-blackberry is the current flavor.
That’s not all. Ben, Austin, and Kyle, the on-call baristas, decide we can’t leave without tasting their Liège-style waffles (the dough’s made fresh, daily). They do them plain, with tiny beads of pearl sugar on top, or with a dollop of Big Spoon peanut butter.
Here it is with peanut butter, in case you were wondering about that:
Energized and well-fed, we let G lead us to Deep Run, which lies just beyond the town of Kinston, so we can interview Chef Number One (we’re keeping the names under wraps, for now).
A few hours later, on our way to check in to the hotel in Chapel Hill, we’re flagging. Were we still in Kinston, we’d have some excellent culinary options — Chef & The Farmer or King’s Restaurant (where you should order the “pig in a puppy”; that’s pulled pork sandwiched between two hush puppies, FYI). We were not. So instead we pulled up to a gas station where, out front, a young man was selling boiled peanuts, homemade ice cream, and fresh (but unripe) peaches. Peanuts were procured. So was some soda, in the convenience store next door.
Back in the car, Melanie hits the gas.
Finally, at 7 p.m., we check into our hotel in Chapel Hill. But we’re not done yet. I’ve made plans to visit chef Andrea Reusing at her restaurantLantern, where I’ve wanted to go ever since I interviewed her, from New York, over two years ago. Dinner was the warmest welcome. Andrea and I caught up over wine, oysters, tempura-fried soft shell shrimp (you can eat the entire thing, from head to tail), crab cakes, assorted pickled vegetables, and, for dessert, a floral, citrus-steamed yuzu pudding with the ripest of blueberries, and a cherry panna cotta flavored with the stone fruit’s pits (yes, they contain cyanide, but we’re not dealing with a dangerous dose).Two of Andrea’s friends, a pair of gents (from New York City, coincidentally) joined our party, as did Melanie, who stopped in for a post-dinner drink. However many glasses and much merry-making later, we realized how weary we were, and called it a night.
