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How do you like your Fried Bologna Sandwich?
A couple weeks ago Mary and I visited a fairly new barbecue joint west of Toledo, Ohio, for lunch on a Saturday. We were going to head to the Frog Leg Inn that evening so I wanted to eat a fairly light lunch. I’d had a hankering for a Fried Bologna Sandwich for a while and was pleasantly surprised to see a version in the joint’s menu, so I went ahead and ordered one with a side of onion rings. When it arrived a saw a thick slice (better than 1/4″) of fried bologna under a toasted slice of Texas Toast. However, when I picked it up the bottom piece of toast felt a little odd. Flipping it over one thought hit me: Apparently the cook thought they were serving a kid. That bottom piece was actually a heel from a completely different loaf of bread. And there was a single slice of American cheese melted in there.
I didn’t complain … Mary’s food had arrived as well and we were tired after a hot day. So I ate the sandwich, along with the (apparently) McCain brand of “onion rings”. Mary did get a Pulled Pork BBQ Sandwich with beautiful thick-cut (1/2″ thick!) fries from whole potatoes, so we’ll head back there.
But that sandwich stuck in my craw. I had to have a good one.
When I was growing up (and even later) a Fried Bologna Sandwich was a couple thin pieces of bologna, normally Oscar Meyer, cut at the edges so it wouldn’t bubble, fried quickly and served on Hillbilly or Wonder bread. I liked the concept of what I had at the barbecue joint as a more mature version of the sandwich, even though I hadn’t gotten it that way.
This morning Adam and I went to the Meijer in Monroe, Michigan, looking for a good bologna in the deli. We found they carry the Detroit-made Kowalski brand of bologna in large loafs, so I had them cut me three pounds fairly thick. We also snagged a couple loaves of Aunt Millie’s Texas Toast to serve it on. Once we got home, we slowly fried the bologna on the electric griddle at about 275 degrees F so it had minimal bubbling and curling. We then served two slices on the toasted bread with a couple slices of Meunster cheese and some Hellman’s mayonnaise, along with a side of Kettle chips.
Yeah, that’s some good stuff, and really hit the spot that other sandwich couldn’t fill. Later this week I’ll probably make another and add lettuce, sliced tomato, and maybe even some good, thick bacon cooked in a skillet under a bacon press.
How do you like your Fried Bologna Sandwich? C’mon, you know you do!
A couple 1.5 lb bricks of National Coney Island’s Hot Dog Chili Sauce with a package of Koegel Viannas.
Yesterday Sylvia Rector of the Detroit Free Press published an article promoting the fact that Meijer stores in the midwest are now carrying Hot Dog Chili Sauce from National Coney Island of Roseville, Michigan. Since a lot of what I do is all about Michigan-based foods, and of course hot dogs and coneys are high on that list, I had to head to the nearest Meijer to grab a couple of the bricks of sauce. Besides, both our oldest boys work at the southeast Michigan Meijer distribution center and we have to help keep them employed …
The National Coney Island web site does offer complete coney kits in a styrofoam shipping box, including buns and their own brand of hot dogs, and also offers the sauce bricks and hot dogs separately. But as per Ms. Rector’s article, Meijer is only carrying the sauce. According to their web site, National‘s hot dogs are, “Natural Casing Hot Dogs (the ones that snap !!!)” To get a similar action I picked up a package of my old coney standby, Koegel Viennas, which have a natural lamb casing. For the buns I grabbed an eight-pack of Aunt Millie’s brand which are used in many coney shops in this area.
When they decided to say this sauce is packaged as a “brick” I imagined it was packed like one of those bricks of coffee grounds in a foil wrapper. The reality is that the sauce is in a plastic tray with a plastic seal across the top having the artwork, nutrition facts and recipes printed on it. The two recipes are:
COOKING INSTRUCTIONS: For CONEY SAUCE, Add 1-1/2 Cups Water. For CHILI CON CARNE Add 2 Cups Water and Chili Beans. Cook to a Minimum Internal Temperature of 160°F.
With a 1.5 lb brick of the Hot Dog Chili Sauce, you’ll end up with just over 2 lbs of “CONEY SAUCE”.
My previously-described definition of the “brick” package really would have worked well for this particular product. I dumped the 1-1/2 cups water into a pan, cut the seal off the package of chili sauce, grabbed a spoon, turned the package over, over the pot and … nothing. The sauce didn’t move. I squeezed the sides of the package a little to loosen it and it finally came out in a solid chunk. Yup, pretty much a brick.
I turned the heat on low and broke up the brick of sauce with the spoon. After about 5 minutes a lot of the sauce had softened up. However, as I’d not used a non-stick pan the sauce started to harden on the bottom of the pot fairly quickly. I’ll use a non-stick pot next time to solve that problem.
It took about ten minutes for the sauce to soften completely, at which point I set the burner almost off just to keep the sauce warm. The consistency of the sauce is quite good. It’s not almost puréed like some commercial sauces are. There are good chunks of actual meat in there, giving it a nice body, and it has a great color as well.
I grilled up some of the Koegel Viennas, nuked the buns a bit and put the whole of it together.
This is a very mild hot dog chili/coney sauce. It’s a nice compliment to a full-flavored hot dog. Our opinion is that the National Coney Island Hot Dog Chili Sauce is very reminiscent of an old-style diner coney sauce, the kind of thing you’d get at the counter of a place that might have had a real soda fountain at some point. This isn’t a Flint-style, Detroit-style or even a Jackson-style sauce. The National Coney Island Hot Dog Chili Sauce is it’s own thing, and that’s what makes it good. I can easily see myself topping this sauce with a bit of raw sauerkraut the next time I serve it.
Thanks, Meijer. We’ll certainly be back for more.
What it’s all about; Ribs, at the 2009 competition
Once again Mary and I have been asked to be judges at the Experience West Oakland BBQ Cook Off. This is the same Memphis BBQ Network-sanctioned event we were judges at last August at the Rock Financial Showplace in Novi, Michigan. This event feeds into the massive Memphis in May national BBQ competition, and it’s an honor to be part of it.
This year’s Experience West Oakland BBQ Cook Off is part of what is now known as the Novi Palooza – Beer, Bands and BBQ event. From the email we received, “In addition to the BBQ cook off there will be a full day of family events, live bands, a casino tent, a volleyball tournament, games, and more!” If you live in the area or would like to attend the event it will be held on July 31st and August 1st. Weapon enthusiasts may also be interested in the Novi Gun & Knife Show which will take place at Rock Financial Showplace the same weekend.
A Fast Eddy’s by Cookshack Series 300 competition smoker being used by one of the 2009 teams in Novi.
We had a seriously great time at the 2009 BBQ competition. While the competition last year was all ribs and will likely be ribs again this year, the judges’ training we’ll attend this time will apparently be for all three types of judging: Ribs, shoulder and whole hog. We’d been wanting to learn all three categories but due to some communication errors for the August 2009 training we were only allowed to study the rib portion of the competitions. I already get the impression this time that, that particular issue won’t exist and that we’ll also study shoulder and whole hog.
On occasion I’m asked if I compete, or when I’m going to start competing in BBQ competitions. I can cook up a shoulder or rack of ribs quite nicely, receive regular compliments on how good they are with a nice “bite” to them, and have served up numerous racks of spare ribs to a waiting public on the Lake Erie beachfront on the 4th of July. So what’s my problem? Frankly, I have yet to put together my own sauce. One of these days I might have to buckle down and create one. If and when I do, will competitions be far behind? We’ll see …
My kids have been busting their butts all day long. The day started with a knock at the bedroom door. On the other side was 13-year-old Ryan. In each of his hands was a large mug of Biggby Michigan Cherry coffee, a mug each for Mary and I. He’d brewed it himself and to tell you the truth it was pretty darn smooth.
Later in the morning Ryan made me breakfast, one of his top-notch Poached Egg Sandwich on Toast dishes. He decided a few years ago, probably at age 10, that he likes poached eggs more than any other cooking type. He started by nuking them in the microwave but now occasionally poaches them on the stovetop as well. He’s also mowed the loan and helped his sister with some things today.
15-year-old Briahna is normally quite the princess. We’ll hear, “I can’t do dishes I just had my nails done!” But even after spending three days at the hospital with Mary and I during the latter part of this week while I dealt with another episode of The Nosebleed From Hell, Bri has washed the walls and doors upstairs and down the carpeted stairs, vacuumed the carpeting, steam-cleaned it, and power-washed the back deck. We’ve now replaced her phone, which she’d lost at either the hospital or the hotel she and Mary stayed at.
17-year-old Adam just plain kicks ass. He’s done all our shopping this weekend (multiple trips), done most of the work installing a 2.1 GPM pump on the city’s flower pot watering tank in the back of our van, taken my convalescing self on a short walk on the long pier (thank God not the other way round) and anything else we’ve needed.
For Father’s Day dinner this evening Adam put together and grilled these beautiful stuffed burgers, which were stuffed with cheddar, sweet onion and bacon. Briahna also created the fruit salad of watermelon, strawberries, pineapple, kiwi, blueberries and blackberries. The meal was superb, and I’m very proud of my kids for all they do for us just out of love.
We don’t see my 20-year-old Aaron too much unless he’s not working. He works long hours in the refrigerator that is the produce area of the Meijer warehouse just north of Monroe, Michigan. Meijer is a Michigan-based department store that originated the concept of mixing a department store and full grocery. They do it so well the chain has 180 stores in the midwest. Mary’s oldest, Caleb, works at the same warehouse but in the frozen foods section, wearing many layers during work even in the summer months. And her youngest, John, is that most-excellent Marine of ours, stationed at Quantico. These three young men are sorely missed on days like today, and I always wish the best for them.
Gifts from these same kids are right up my alley: Assorted truffles, milk chocolate, dark chocolate with infused chili extract, and some new book from some guy with goofy lips who supposedly knows something about food. Ok, so that is the one thing I actually requested … it completes my Bourdain collection. Mary bought me two books, “Why a Daughter Needs a Dad” and “Why a Son Needs a Dad”, and of course Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles” on Blue-Ray. What could be better?
I have great, wonderful, amazing kids and I love all of them very much. I hope they know that. It’s important. Happy Father’s Day? Yes, I had one, thanks to these kids!
Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there.
Many of you know my dad passed away late December in 2008 at the tender age of 85. I’ve written before of his signature dish, Eggs In A Frame, and of his despising melted cheese in any form even though I have a photo of him eating pizza. But while I’ve posted a lot more about mom regarding her cooking techniques and recipes, I really haven’t spent a whole lot of time discussing dad’s cooking techniques. And the Eggs In A Frame dish is really his only recipe that I’m aware of.
That’s because dad really didn’t cook much that I can recall. Why?
Because when it came to cooking or even doing dishes, that was mom’s job.
Dad was a classic child of the farming communities of the 1920s and 30s. The menfolk, if you will, headed out into the fields or the livestock barns and worked their butts off. Meanwhile, momma and the girls would be inside taking care of the cooking and cleaning. That’s just how it was. Dad told us he would look forward to coming home to find a couple slices of thick, buttered and still-warm bread on a plate in the kitchen as an after-school snack. Of course, that was after the 4-mile walk from school so he was pretty tired, ya’ know?
Early in my own life I do recall he had his outdoor cooker. However, it wasn’t much. No matter what time-period I think back to, there was that Hibachi. He always had the little cast iron version, set on top of a 2′ square concrete block set on its side on the patio. He would use both wood and charcoal to fire it, along with paper and lighter fluid. Dinner then was hot dogs and burgers, with the burgers being rather thin and kinda dry. Still he tried so it was good. He might also put a can of baked beans on the grates to heat as a side dish.
One time, when he was finished and was getting ready to clean that Hibachi, he set the grates on the patio tile to dump the coals … and promptly put all of his weight on the still-hot grate. He had to peel that grate off his foot before going to see the doctor. I believe he probably still had that scar when he passed away.
For most of the time they lived in that house from the late 1950s onward, dad had a rather active garden. I remember being directed to go out there to weed, or pick beans, or help plant the corn. There was always the corn and beans, along with onions, carrots, cucumbers and peas. Dad also dabbled in potatoes and peanuts. One gentleman from the GM plant dad worked at wanted to plant some lima beans but no one would let him use their garden space as he was black. So he ended up planting at our house, to which I owe my love for those limas. But I do hate gardening.
Dad wasn’t a hunter (I haven’t hunted a single day in my life) but he fancied himself a pretty good fisherman. He had a lot of old fishing poles, a couple casting reels, a fly-fishing reel or two, and even a couple bamboo poles we could tie lines to. We’d go to one of the “fish farm” ponds up on old US-23, but mostly we went to what was then Wildwood Park, a Michigan State Park south of Flint. We’d rent a canoe and head out for perch, trout, bass … whatever we could find. We’d get it home and mom would either cook it up, or wrap it in foil for the freezer only to throw it away a couple years later after it ended up with some bad freezer burn.
In the mid 1970s Dr Walker diagnosed dad to be hypoglycemic. Dad mis-interpreted the diet page to mean he was supposed to eat six times each day, including a half head of lettuce. This made for dad occasionally eating way more than he could handle, and ending up being miserable by the end of the day. None of us had the heart to sit down with him and explain it correctly.
When it came to restaurants dad had a tendency to seek out some seriously good family places. We had a tradition on Friday evenings of heading out for dinner at a restaurant and then we’d go to the grocery store for the week’s shopping. (Dad always disappeared to the meat department and spend the whole time shopping finding six packages of meat.) On occasion we’d go to a Flint coney place or Haloburger for a deluxe cheeseburger. But dad’s penchant for finding good family diners was unmatched. As it turned out, dad was finding Greek-owned places that had become all the rage for what was “real food”.
Dad would have a real issue later on when prices started climbing above $3.50 per entrée. He felt no meal was worth more than that, and that particular price-point, along with the demise of Hamady Bros. grocery in the Flint area, marked the beginning of the end of our Friday night family tradition.
While I was in college I asked dad when he was coming to Columbus to visit. He said he’d have to ask mom, to which I said I wasn’t asking about her. After a pause dad mumbled, “I’ve never been anywhere without your mother.” He came down to Columbus by himself for a four-day weekend during which he enjoyed a Bahama Mama at Schmidt Sausage House, and some good ribs. Later during my own US-based travels with the Navy I got dad to eat some more “exotic” foods outside of his Veal Parmesan comfort zone, such as crab legs, and steak that wasn’t always cooked to be well done. In the years after my divorce he’d eat chilled taco salad, my oven-roasted potato salad, Tex-Mex breakfast burritos, and even some good Hungarian food.
In the last few years before his death the old softie, who fought the savage “Japs” in WW II, acquired a taste for both Japanese and Americanized Chinese foods, happily visiting the Chinese buffet in his hometown many times.
Helping him eat a couple last meals in the nursing home, I got to thinking about what I was feeding him. Obviously it cost a bit more that $3.50 for the whole meal from the nursing home kitchen. I doubt he would have liked that at all.
Happy Father’s Day, dad, I miss you, my friend.
The finished crab cake sandwiches. Zack and Chris ate these two.
I hadn’t really planned on making crab cakes for Memorial Day. But I’d been looking for these cans of Phillips crab meat for some time and when I found them to be available at Meijer in Toledo last week for $10/can, I went ahead and bought these two cans. Phillips Foods in Baltimore, Maryland, has been processing crab since 1914 and has operated Phillips Seafood Restaurants since 1956. Phillips crab meat and other products are used in better restaurants across the country and is some of the best available.
While an enlisted individual in the US Navy I spent over six years living near the Chesapeake Bay. My oldest son was born at NAS Patuxent River in Maryland, while Adam and Briahna were born in Chesapeake and Norfolk, Virginia, respectively. Of the many things I remember about living in that area, enjoying the fresh seafood is something I miss the most.
One of the more fun activities out there is a Crab Bake. Co-workers would buy bushels of steamed Chesapeake Bay crabs seasoned with Old Bay, the trademark seasoning of the area. We would spread newspapers out on tables and just dig into the crabs, enjoying every last morsel and finishing more bushels than I can recall. It was always the kind of “picnic” I could get into.
The crab meat in these cans is Indonesian wild-caught claw meat instead of the leg meat most people are used to. More brown in color than leg meat, claw meat also has a stronger flavor. This allows it to stand up better to seasonings and other flavors in the mix. It’s really ideal for something like a crab cake.
For these particular crab cakes the recipe on the back of the can calls for Phillips Seafood Seasoning. Unfortunately for this recipe, Phillips Seafood Seasoning is largely unavailable in the midwest. This I replaced with the venerable Old Bay. I also doubled the amount of dry mustard in the recipe. Why? I like mustard, that’s all.
I also made sure to use real mayonnaise, real unsalted butter and ground mustard instead of dry mustard. To me, these just add to the overall flavors.
Chris and Zack in the rain this evening doing a live piece on water safety at the Luna Pier beach.
While the resulting crab cakes each only use 1/4 lb of crab meat, each of us, 13abc reporter Zack Ottenstein and videographer Chris Henderson, along with myself, could only eat one sandwich each. The flavor of the crab cake is extremely good and the inside meat is nice and tender. But they’re very filling, we were simply full and none of us could eat a second sandwich right away.
I may be able to eat one now …
About to fold the crab meat into the rest of the mix.
Phillips Crab Cakes
(from the back of the can and modified)
serves 4
Ingredients
1 egg
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp dry mustard
2 Tbsp mayonnaise
1 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp prepared yellow mustard
1 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1 tsp parsley flakes
1 tsp Old Bay seafood seasoning
1/2 cup plain bread crumbs
1 lb crab meat
Preheat an oven to 375 degrees F or set a skillet on the stovetop. Combine everything but the crab meat. Fold in the crab meat, then form into cakes. Either bake the cakes in the oven or pan-fry them in the skillet in a little melted butter. Serve on good buns with mayonnaise, lettuce and sliced tomato.
Note: The school lunch programs in this country and others irk me to no end. Administrators want to save money, federal and state authorities want to legislate the Hell out of it, and meanwhile the kids are driving to McDonald’s or finding a “chip shop” because the school lunches aren’t what they remotely like or even want … and are some of the most bland meals around. Here’s my take on current events.
A serving of Chuck Tender Wellington made by Damien, a 2008 student at the high-school-level Penta Career Center in Perrysburg, Ohio, in Chef Denise Schaefer’s Foodservice class.
This morning in the UK’s Guardian, health correspondent Denis Campbell reports on some schools wanting to lock down students’ choice of heading off-campus for “junk food binges”, such as finding a “chip shop”. (What’s a “chip shop”? Most are members of the UK’s National Federation of Fish Fryers. Yeah, I definitely would have loved to have had one of those British Fish ‘n Chip joints near my high school. Damn straight I would have. That stuff is the best. Of course my parents would have ended up broke …)
Anyway, from the article:
Much of the junk food that pupils are buying at chip shops, burger bars and kebab houses breaches official healthy eating guidelines and contains potentially harmful amounts of salt, fat and calories. The quality is way below the nutritional standard of the Jamie Oliver-inspired meals now served in England’s schools … Rob Rees, chairman of the [UK's] School Food Trust [said] “Given how tasty, nutritious and affordable school meals are these days, I want fewer parents to subsidise their children’s eating beyond the school gates at lunchtime. If they have money it should go into school meals and not the high street. Parents are unaware of the quality of school meals these days.”
In a [British] word … Rubbish. “[B]reaches official healthy eating guidelines”? Oh, c’mon, like Rob Rees never heads to a chip shop or has a burger … “Jamie Oliver-inspired meals”? Don’t get me started.
My own comment on the article itself reads as follows:
School lunches have never been that good, so kids have never liked them. And the privatization of the lunch programs only indicates more of an assembly-line approach. Don’t give the kids a choice, and the school food will end up like military shipboard fare, “because they can”. If school administrators actually cared about the kids’ lunches, they’d do something real and long-term about it in such a way the kids wouldn’t want to go somewhere else.
On Facebook this morning, once I posted the link to this article and included my comment with the link, Chef Tom Reinhart of the Real Cool Cooking School in Grand Haven, Michigan, had this to say:
I agree Dave – while some (Slow Food USA) advocate for congressional action – this is a matter best managed by the parents, school boards and administration.
I’m in full agreement with Chef Tom. There are only certain aspects of a school lunch program which can be legislated outside of any local level whatsoever anyway. The National School Lunch Program provides Income Eligibility Guidelines for reduced price meals. Looking at the charts provided on those pages, it’s instantly noticeable that there’s an inherent mess. The chart takes higher costs in Alaska and Hawaii into account, but is far from helpful where other local and regional costs of living are concerned. Providing “Income Eligibility Guidelines” without taking COL into account is rather biased toward a particular class of people. Homer says, “D’oh!”
Another part of the National School Lunch Program is the Menu Planner for Healthy School Meals. Chapter 3 of this gem of a book contains some interesting info:
If you serve “Hamburger on a Bun”… …and the student does not have the choice of taking either the hamburger or the bun separately… this counts as ONE menu item.
If you serve “Hamburger Patty” and “Bun”… …and the student can choose one or the other or both… this counts as TWO menu items.
A minimum of three menu items must be offered: an entrée, milk, and at least one side dish … You are planning lunch with NSMP. Will the foods you have chosen count as one menu item or two? How you serve them is the deciding factor … In the examples below [on page 81], foods are listed in two columns. The first column shows foods that will be served together as a unit. These will count as one menu item because students cannot choose to take only some of the foods.
In other words, on a whim, at the spur of the moment, a menu planner can cheat and say, “Well this hamburger is going to have to be two menu items, the patty as a meat and the bun as a bread, because Flo has the measles and I’m playing Farmville.”
Chapter 6 of this same document strongly emphasizes “low fat” cooking for school lunches. There’s a chart on page 174 which offers substitutions in cooking to make something low fat. It covers replacing milk with skim milk, eggs with egg whites, cheddar cheese with mozzarella, and sour cream with low-fat yogurt.
Here we get into the real cruxt of the matter, the serious issue with the problem of school lunches: Why do school lunches have to be so friggin’ bland? I know I can tell the difference between cheddar and mozz, between sour cream and yogurt, definitely between 2% milk and skim, even in a finished baked good. Are these people who wrote this thing honestly believing the kids are naive enough to not be able to tell the difference as well? I know my kids can tell the difference. I’ve seen them do it. Adam will even make suggestions bordering on the subtle. Ok, they’re downright subtle. This chart of substitution suggestions is simply ludicrous.
Now … believe it or not … the food at the eateries is going to be tastier than what’s at the school. Those outside eateries are going to use fat … which renders flavor… and, God forbid … salt, which also adds flavor, and we need salt anyway … and both fat and salt are fine in moderation … Yes, I know, it’s absolutely horrible to feed kids food having actual flavor. What’s the world coming to … what was I thinking …
Another simple fact is this: Any restaurant, be it near a school or not, is likely going to spend more on ingredients per individual meal than what the school lunch program itself provides for a meal for a student. There’s not enough funding for the schools to compete with local eateries, and competition would be good in that regard. In fact, competition is probably exactly what the schools need to, oh I don’t know … stay competitive. You can’t compete with the pros, people, unless you actually spend real money just like the eateries do.
As for locking down schools at lunchtime, here’s where the rubber meets the road leaving the school grounds. Kids know what they like. They know what energizes their palate and, if-and-when the school food is bland and the school is offering nothing they want, they should not be forced to eat it anyway. I’m reminded of “Oliver”, his fellow orphans, and the gruel, while the headmaster and school board ate like kings in an upper room of the orphanage. Kids have rights too. Don’t even start to think that same way. It’s cruel to the kids. Caning is next in the curriculum, right? Thought so.
 On the left, Kentucky Corn Pudding from Mary Jewett Pochodzay’s recipe, which she made while director of the school’s cafeteria in Paris, Kentucky.
Here’s what would make school lunch programs reasonable:
1) Hire Jamie Oliver: Not. No one individual or government agency should be telling any cafeteria worker how they’re doing things wrong. It’s the legislators and administrators who have ignored real issues enough to get us to the problems we have now anyway, not the cafeteria folks.
2) Better-fund the National School Lunch Program and account for regional costs of living. If you’re going to compete with local eateries, you’d best be prepared financially to do so. Don’t complain when your food is sub-par and the kids want to go somewhere else.
3) At the same time, find better funding at the local level in addition to any state or federal funding. Every little bit will help with competing with local eateries.
4) Get rid of the waffling within the National School Lunch Program‘s policies and guidelines, and the “Make it bland, no one will notice”, and “You can call a burger two menu items if you want, it’s no biggie.” Thats crap.
5) Make food that tastes good to kids. Gee, ya’ think? How difficult or “expensive” is it to take a grilled all-beef hot dog (which is easy to cook on a flat grill), throw it on a decent bun, and top it with a sauce made of good tomato sauce, real ground beef and a couple spices? Throw some roasted potato cubes on the side, an apple and a carton of milk, and what kid wouldn’t polish it off? Kid-friendly menus that don’t blow the nutrition or financial budget are not that hard to do.
6) Make regional foods those kids will like. In Detroit give them a Detroit coney. As an adult visiting the schools in Paris, Kentucky, with the cafeteria’s director, I’ve eaten a school lunch of baked ham and black beans that’s a regular meal on their menu. In Chesapeake, Virginia, I’m sure they’d like a little more fish. This kind of thing is not difficult, either. The hard part is keeping the administrators out of the kitchen and letting the cafeteria director make those regional decisions.
7) Buy local when you can. The food will be better, more nutritious, and if you’re buying directly from a farmer or packer, probably less expensive for better quality goods. And you may be even supporting the parents of some of your own students as well.
A serving of chicken and zucchini over spaghetti with a side of vegetables, made by students in Penta’s Culinary Arts program.
8 ) Let kids be in on the decisions of what they’re served. Golly, ask the clientele what they’d like. Novel idea, eh?
9) Quit privatizing school lunches. It turns the cafeteria into an assembly line loaded with people who are not local and who don’t know the kids they serve. When I was in elementary school in the 1960s and early 70s, the ladies in the cafeteria lived in our neighborhood and took care of us as best as they could given the budget they had. As they were serving their own kids too, it made a huge difference in quality.
10) Learn and respect that kids have rights as well as you do, and that limiting their choices by locking down the school at lunchtime will only create dissent and disrespect. It’s a school, not a jail. If your cafeteria cannot compete with the local eateries, then fix the cafeteria. It’s not the fault of the eateries or the students themselves. It’s your fault. Take care of it and quit whining.
Here’s one more thing: If you’re not local and you can’t help fund school lunches at the federal, state or local levels, make some noise anyway. But don’t go into any school and tell the people in the cafeteria what a horrible job they’re doing. I hate when people do that …
One of our “standard” meals in the six years Mary and I have been together has been a fairly traditional meal of Polish Kielbasa and Pierogi. We served this meal at our small wedding in late 2004, our wedding reception in mid-2005, to the administration of the Village of Carleton, Michigan, during Luna Pier’s portion of the 2008 Mayoral exchange, and countless other meals around those.
Today, for Mary’s dinner for Mother’s Day 2010, I think I finally got it right.
Sautéeing the pierogi and onions is the simple part. I use Michigan-made pierogi from Polish Harvest, an old-style manufacturer in Hamtramck, Michigan (yes, where Paczki were brought into the U.S.) I sautée the pierogi in real, unsalted butter over medium-high heat and pay really close attention to which pierogi are done and which aren’t. As they’re done (not all at once) they go into a glass casserole in a 225-degree F oven for holding.
The Kielbasa has always been the rough part. Traditionally the sausage is braised in a German-style beer in a high-wall skillet on the stove. For larger groups, we’ve gone with slow-cooking in old-style roasters at about 225 degrees F, with plenty of beer included in the sausage. But to me, there was something else that might have been done to make it just a little more traditional for today’s “Americanized” tastes.
This morning, on a whim, I picked up a 6-pack of Samuel Adams Boston Lager. The Polish Kielbasa for this batch was handmade by our friends at Kilgus Choice Meats in Toledo, Ohio. Before noon I dumped a couple bottles of the lager in with the three pounds of Kielbasa and set it in the fridge. After draining it this evening, I simply grilled it over medium heat.
That’s really all it needs. With the casing nice and crisp, the tender meat of the sausage really let the lager come through in a good balance with the flavor of the pork. The pierogi were also crisp on the outside and, as they were potato and cheddar, were tender on the inside and worked well with the sautéed onions.
Will I cook this meal this way again? Absolutely.
57 years ago today my parents were married in Flint, Michigan. For as long as I could remember, my mom made a simple yet traditional roast beef dinner in one of those navy blue oval roasting pans about once each month. But she did it the old way. She’d place the roast in the middle of the pan, then add water till the roast was covered. She’d then add cut onions, carrots and potatoes around the roast, then place the cover and “roast” it at 350 – 375 degrees F until the roast beef fell apart.
Yup. She basically boiled it. I loved my mom (and dad) very much. But the boiled roast beef tasted better when I slathered it with French’s yellow mustard before eating.
Mom and dad both passed on last year before their 56th anniversary. I’d made a proper slow-roasted beef roast for them a couple times and they couldn’t believe how flavorful it was. It doesn’t take much: Just roast it slow, and keep it out of the juice. Oh, and make sure to forget about the water. Sorry mom …
A simple yet traditional roast beef dinner can be an amazing thing. Meijer had some beef roasts on-sale yesterday that were about 2 inches thick so I went ahead and snagged one, along with some kohlrabi and baking potatoes.
Here’s how I do it: For a 5:30 pm dinner I started at 11 am, preheating the oven to 200 degrees F. I then sliced six stalks celery and six nice-sized carrots. I cut onions and kohlrabi in half, then quartering the halves. Dumping all this into the oval roasting pan made for a layer of vegetables about 1.5 inches deep. I then seasoned both sides of the roast with plenty of Kosher salt and fresh-ground black pepper and laid it on top of the veggies.
Why lay the roast on top of the veggies? My roaster doesn’t have a rack, and the veggies work well in physically supporting the meat. The veggies then slow-cook in the juices from the roast, while still having a nice “bite” hours later. I learned this from that Guy Fieri dude, and it works really well.
I put the cover on the roasting pan and placed it in the oven by 11:30 am. I then wrapped the baking potatoes in aluminum foil, punctured them a few times deeply with a fork, and placed them next to the pan on the oven rack so they would also slow-cook for six hours.
The roast simply slow-cooks and is fall-apart good, with a nice rich flavor. The veggies still have a good “bite”, especially the kohlrabi. And the potatoes don’t get overdone at all.
Even if your parents are gone, make sure to continue their traditions, especially those having to do with food. Your parents raised you on certain foods and meals, and those meals are part of who you are. As in the Navy, when it comes to even the simplest family traditions, always “Carry on”.
Are deep-fried artichoke halves something you’d expect to find in a restaurant at the end of a building which also contains a truck stop? A truck stop on a freeway as busy as I-75, at the first real town between industrial cities such as Toledo and Detroit?
Probably not. But here in Luna Pier, Michigan, such a restaurant opened this morning. The owner of the Sunoco station, one J.R. (no last name), has aptly named the place Luna Kitchen.
For a truck stop restaurant, Luna Kitchen has a rather agressive menu. Breakfast sandwiches are rather normal, with the most impressive offerings being the meat (bacon, ham or sausage) egg and cheese sandwiches. Lunch gets a bit more complex, including a Luna Burger (two patties stuffed with cheese), a Thai Turkey Salad, and some small pizzas with toppings that include shrimp or artichoke. Dinner is even more fun, with real rotisserie chicken, whole fried fish or, if you’re so inclined, a turkey leg.
But the more interesting items are the sides, which include the above artichokes, yellow rice, zucchini fries, Fried Green Tomatoes, and other deep-fried items such as banana pepper rings, pickles, cauliflower or, as shown below, deep-fried eggplant.
Finally, there are currently five real fruit smoothies, which contain no ice or dairy products. There’s the Luna Surf (orange juice and banana), the queasily-named JuneBug (strawberry and banana), Sunshine (pineapple, orange and banana), Kiwi Tide (strawberry and kiwi) and Pure Strawberry (ummm … guess …) Here, Sonya and Julie (or is it Julie and Sonya? I dunno …) are seen making JuneBug and Luna Surf smoothies for Mary and I.
So how’s the food? The deep-fried artichoke halves are already favorites of mine. The artichokes aren’t overdone, so they’re not soggy in any way. This means they also have a nice, rich artichoke flavor, which I was really looking forward to. (The things are going to become addicting for me, I can tell already.) The eggplant was a little on the soggy side but not too much. Considering the real opening isn’t until Monday May 3rd (although you can go in already), this will likely be corrected.
But the smoothies were just wonderful. Thick and rich, and 100% fruit, I do believe the medium-size 20 ounce serving will end up as a problem in the morning. Maybe I should have shared …
To get there: The Sunoco station is east of exit 6 off I-75 in Michigan, six miles north of the Ohio line. Luna Kitchen is in the east end of the Sunoco building.
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