Empire State South (and Thoughts on Food)

Champagne taste on a beer budget. That’s the story of my life. Though, it’s funny, about the only thing I have “champagne taste” about is food. I don’t care about name-brand clothes, designer shoes, luxury cars and all that stuff. I just love good food. And I love to travel and eat good food. When I fantasize about winning the lottery, it’s about travelling, dining out, having free reign at food specialty stores and ditching my cat-scratched, kid-stained sunken sofa. (And, maybe getting a new house with a spacious kitchen and fancy stainless steel appliances. But, I digress …) However, what I consider "champagne food" isn't really champagne and caviar. Really, I hate caviar. I'm talking about good quality, delicious, artfully prepared food. I especially enjoying dining out because I don't have to do any cleaning! It's just about relaxing and trying new foods ....ahhhh.

The choices I’ve made in life haven’t brought me lots of money, and I’m okay with that. I have a wonderful family, great friends, and have been able to spend a lot of time with my kids and forge a career path based on what I love to do, not what I have to do. However, it’s nice to fantasize and it’s nice to treat yourself every once in a while. The other day I had a doctor’s appointment in the same building as Empire State South, the Atlanta restaurant in which Hugh Acheson is a partner. It’s frequently listed as one of the top restaurants in Atlanta and very much at the forefront of “New Southern” or “Farm to Table” cuisine. My husband and I ate there once before on our wedding anniversary. With dinner entrees in the $ 20-35 range, it’s definitely a special occasion place for us.

Empire State South (photo from website)

Since I happened to be there around lunch time, I thought I would treat myself with a to-go lunch that I could take home and share with my husband who was working from home that day. In Atlanta, for the most part, traditional fine dining is dead. Empire State South reflects what "new fine dining” looks like. The focus is not foie gras and fancy cuts of meats – it’s grits, collard greens, pork belly and sweetbreads – down-to-earth ingredients that are faithful to Southern culinary traditions. The décor is tasteful, simple and comfortable. There’s a coffee bar and self-serve pastry table for those who want to grab and go. 

The lunch menu featured items like a Veal Breast Sandwich ($13), North Carolina Catfish ($15) and a veggie plate ($15). Ever budget conscious, I went for the cauliflower soup ($7) and a jar of pimento cheese with candied bacon and toast. Then, I kind of lost my mind a little on the pastry table and could not resist a coconut cupcake, golden raisin fennel scone and a phatty cake, two ginger cookies sandwiched with vanilla mascarpone. Pastry chef Cynthia Wong is a wonder worker. The kindly bar keep rang me up and my total was $22.68. Then I forgot to get my parking validated which was another $7. Oops!

I got the “feast” home and was somewhat disappointed with the portion sizes. The $6 pimento cheese was in a to-go container the same size of one that normally holds salad dressing. The soup would not have filled one of my regular dinner bowls. The scone, while delicious, was $3.50. Had I gone to Taco Bell, I could have eaten a whole meal for that much! But, I don’t even like Taco Bell and I know that their food is terrible for me. In my opinion, a buttery scone is much better than cheap, greasy ground beef. So, herein lies the dilemma – why does food that is good (i.e. not processed, filled with preservatives, over-salted and MSG-ed) cost so much more? Further, are the prices charged by restaurants like Empire State South fair? Of course, it’s a free market economy and a restaurant can charge whatever they want. And I know it is expensive to own and operate a restaurant. This fascinating Creative Loafing article/timelapse video provides a great inside look at how the restaurant runs -- and all the people that it takes to pull off a successful operation.

My to-go lunch from Empire State South.

Basically, I’m conflicted – and that’s why I’m writing this. Maybe I'm like the old lady arguing with the cashier about the price of bananas: "What? 49 cents a pound is an outrage!" I'm sure that I don't get out enough. Maybe I’m the product of a generation of Americans who think big portions=value.  Finally, maybe I’m a teeny bit resentful that I can’t afford to eat more often at the restaurants of all these chefs I admire. (Yes, I'm whining.) But, if we expect attitudes about food and value to change, good food has to be accessible to those without a lot of money. Of course, the onus is on those without a lot of money to put a higher priority on food. There is a mental hurdle to get over -- the hurdle that puts low cost over high quality. There's a Boar's Head radio commercial that I keep hearing with a tagline that rings true: "Compromise elsewhere."

At the end of the day, I’m just thankful that I can cook and that I can make my own cauliflower soup if I want to. I think the ability to cook and love of good food is one of the best gifts my mama gave me. I’m also thankful that home cooks are more empowered than ever with television cooking shows, millions of blogs and cooking Web sites and cookbooks by people like Hugh Acheson who have a passion for sharing their knowledge and philosophy with others. I wish the world could be more equitable and that our food economy would make sense, but at present it doesn’t. Maybe it will be so one day. Until then, I'll keep cooking, counting my pennies and being thankful for those times when I do get to sit down and enjoy a nice meal prepared by someone else.

What do you think? Can you relate? I’d love to hear from you!

Cooking Like a Granny Woman

Southern cooking has certainly been in the news lately. One of the hot names on the Southern scene these days is Hugh Acheson. I jokingly call him my chef crush. If you watch Top Chef, you no doubt know who he is. He’s the self-deprecating, tattooed Canadian turned Southern chef and a judge this season on the show. 

Hugh started to gain national attention in the early 2000s when he opened his first restaurant, Five and Ten, in Athens, Georgia. Really, his cooking put Athens on the culinary map. Atlanta restaurant critics were so smitten that the Atlanta Journal & Constitution named Five and Ten the 2007 Restaurant of the Year – even though Athens is 70 miles away. The James Beard folks were pretty smitten, too. Since then, Hugh and his partners have opened up a wine shop and two other restaurants – the National in Athens, and Empire State South in Atlanta. Hugh has also recently published a cookbook, A New Turn in the South: Southern Flavors Reinvented for Your Kitchen.

Hugh and his wife Mary, A New Turn in the South

I was thrilled to receive a copy to review a few months ago. Much to my delight, it is a sturdy hardback chocked full of recipes and gorgeous photos. I’m a sucker for pretty cookbooks – and this one is pretty. It also features Hugh’s handwriting, quirky illustrations and just generally funny commentary. For instance, the preface to his cornbread recipe: “Cornbread should not have sugar in it. That’s cake.” To me, the cookbook represents everything I believe Southern cooking should be – based on fresh, local, quality ingredients that are simply prepared, inventive, but with a nod to tradition.

Recently, Hugh wrote a piece for CNN’s Eatocracy in response to the Paula Deen hoopla where he provides the best definition of Southern food I’ve come across lately:

Southern food is a celebration of the people within the community, using the agrarian bounty that is constantly around them. It pays homage to the past but is a constantly evolving, ebbing with the seasons and flowing with the constant progression of the South. It is a foodways that really has had a much stronger emphasis on vegetables and sides than huge portions of proteins, and one that is healthy if we show off the diversity of our crops and cooking styles.

As to claims that Southern food is inherently unhealthy, he responds: “Southern food did not make the South unhealthy, rather a broken arrow of cookery did, one that is ultra-processed, trans fat laden, lard fried, and massively caloric. That’s not how I eat, and I eat Southern food pretty much every day of my life.”

Preach it, Hugh! If you flip through one of my favorite rag-tagged old church cookbooks, and you can witness the broken arrow of cookery. There are recipes for chicken and dressing that call for whole hen, a pone of cornbread and cold biscuits – but there are even more casserole recipes that call for canned chicken, canned condensed soup and other pre-packaged ingredients. What happened? The short answer – we’ve left the farm, become disconnected from seasonality, been sucked into a messed up food economy where a bag of chips is cheaper than a bag of potatoes, had our taste buds dulled by too much sugar and salt in processed foods, and, most of all, fallen for mass-marketing’s message: “You don’t have time to cook.”

Lest some accuse me of being a food snob, I have been known to heat up a frozen pizza from time to time. However, as we begin this new year, I’m trying to be more conscientious.  My new mantra: “Cook like a Granny woman.” Where I grew up, Granny was not a derogatory term. A "Granny woman" was not just a grandmother, they were the pillars of the community. Before the age of Google, they were the go-to people for any practical question. Questions like, “How do you skin a chicken?” or “How do you birth a baby?” I was fortunate enough to know three of my great grandmothers. What I remember most about them is the smell of their houses. They had that “old” smell mixed with the lingering aroma of something cooking. 

Maybe the solution to our health problems as a region (and as a nation) is to live the Granny lifestyle.  Yes, Granny cooked with butter, lard and bacon fat. But, Granny worked in the fields, walked three miles to church, did the washing on a scrub board, milked the cows and chopped wood. At the end of a long day, Granny would heat up some beans and cornbread left over from dinner (which was really lunch) and maybe would supplement that with some baked sweet potatoes from the garden and a tall glass of "sweet milk." Nothing fancy, but nothing from a can or mix.

Maybe that’s the key to defining “real” Southern food – local ingredients, simple preparations, and as much as possible, cooked from scratch. Hugh Acheson’s cookbook definitely fits that bill. Granted, Hugh is no granny, but I think most of the recipes in A New Turn in the South would be granny approved. (It’s as if Granny traveled the world and got a little fancy.) The recipes are very approachable for the home cook– Southern classics like deviled eggs, fried green tomatoes with pickled shrimp and fried chicken. However, you’ll also find recipes like Risotto with Okra, Country Ham, Boiled Peanuts and Ramps – dishes that take local ingredients and combine them in ways that are unexpected. I made Hugh’s Sorghum Sweet Potatoes for our “Granny Dinner” last night. I took a leap of faith combining jalepeno with syrup and orange zest, but I have to say it was delicious. That’s the kind of cooking he does. Seasonal, homey, but full of surprises.

Our "Granny meal" - boiled cabbage, cornbread and Hugh's sweet potatoes

Sorghum Sweet Potatoes

From A New Turn in the South by Hugh Acheson, Clarkson Potter Publishers, 2011

3 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes

1 teaspoon kosher salt

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 red jalepeno chile, minced (I used one piece of pickled jalepeno because it’s all I had and I didn’t want it too spicy for the kids)

¼ teaspoon grated orange zest

½ cup heavy cream (I used 2 percent milk and a little half and half to lighten it a bit)

¼ cup chicken stock

2 tablespoons sorghum or maple syrup

¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Place the sweet potatoes in a large pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, season with ½ teaspoon of the salt, and cook until tender. While the sweet potatoes are cooking, melt the butter in a saucepan and when the butter bubbles and froths, add the jalepeno and the orange zest. Cook for 1 minute, turn off the heat, and then add the cream. Set aside.

When the sweet potatoes are fork tender, drain them in a colander set up in your sink. Let them drain completely and then pass them through a ricer or mash them well with a potato masher. Add the flavored cream, chicken stock, sorghum, nutmeg and remaining salt. Mix well and transfer to a nice serving bowl.