One Great Late-Summer Salad

What does a summer with lots of heat and plenty of rain bring us? From what I've seen at the farmers' markets lately, it's definitely tomatoes and watermelon. Meanwhile, in my herb bed, the basil is waist-high and the mint is out of control. In the spirit of the old culinary rule "what grows together, goes together," here's a way to put them all together.

This recipe was adapted from the new book "Sara Foster's Southern Kitchen," in the summer 2011 issue of Edible Piedmont, which just turned up in my mailbox.

Watermelon-Tomato Salad With Shaved Feta and Handfuls of Mint

Serves 6 to 8

3 large heirloom-type tomatoes (about 1 1/2 pounds), cored and cut into chunks
4 cups cubed, seeded watermelon
1/2 cup fresh mint, roughly chopped
1/2 cup fresh basil, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
Juice of 1 lime
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup (about 2 ounces) feta, shaved or thinly sliced
1 lime, cut in wedges

Combine the tomatoes, watermelon, mint, basil, olive oil, vinegar, lime juice, salt and pepper in a large bowl and toss to mix. Cover and refrigerate several hours.

Just before serving, sprinkle with the feta and serve with lime wedges and sea salt for squeezing and sprinkling on top.

Photo: examiner.com

Welcome back cookbook giveaway

It feels like everything is starting over this week: Kids are back to school, and I'm back at work after a late-summer week off.

Let's celebrate by celebrating a new N.C. author. I interviewed Sandra A. Gutierrez of Cary back when I wrote about putting an international spin on potato salad for the Fourth of July.

Gutierrez' first book has just been released by UNC Press: "The New Southern-Latino Table" is a lovely, hardcover book with lots of color photos and recipes that celebrate the overlaps between Latin American and Southern food. Looking through it, I noticed her interesting take on pimento cheese, Pimento and Cheese Chilaquiles, a simple tortilla casserole made with a pimento-cheese inspired sauce. It would be a great recipe to keep on hand during the school year. You can assemble the casserole in advance, refrigerate it and back it when you get home.

Here's the recipe, and your chance to win a copy of "The New Southern-Latino Table." Email me at kpurvis@charlotteobserver.com and put "Southern Latino" in the message line. We'll hold a drawing to give away a copy on Thursday.

Pimento and Cheese Chilaquiles

From "The New Southern-Latino Table," by Sandra A. Gutierrez (UNC Press, $30). You can double or triple the recipe, and add cooked, shredded chicken or cooked ground beef.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

12 corn tortillas, each cut in eight wedges
Vegetable oil for frying
Salt
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 (14-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
Pimento Sauce (see below)
1 1/2 cups shredded queso fresco or Monterey Jack
1 1/4 cups sour cream
2 avocadoes
1/2 cup finely chopped cilantro

Line two baking sheets with cooling racked. Heat 3 to 3 inches of oil to 350 degrees in a large skillet with deep sides. Working in batches, carefully add the tortilla wedges and fry, stirring constantly, for 3 to 4 minutes or until crispy. Use a slotted spoon to transfer to the cooling racks and immediately sprinkle with salt.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a medium skillet, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium-high heat. Add tomatoes, salt and pepper; bring to a simmer, cover and cook 10 minutes. Stir in the pimento sauce and remove from heat.
Spread a third of the sauce in the bottom of a 13-by-9-inch baking dish. Top with half of the fried chips. Spread half of the remaining sauce over the chips, then spread with half of the cheese. Repeat layering, ending with the cheese. Press down on the tortillas with a wooden spoon (don't worry if some bread). Drop the sour cream by dollops over the top. Cover loosely with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil.

Halve, pit and peel the avocadoes and slice them thinly. Place the slices decoratively over the top of the casserole. Sprinkle with cilantro and serve.

Pimento Sauce:
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups roughly chopped yellow onion
1 cup peeled, seeded and chopped plum tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
2 (7-ounce) jars diced pimentos
1 teaspoon aji panca paste or hot sauce such as Tabasco
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a medium saucepan. Add the onions and saute 3 to 4 minutes, or until they begin to soften. Add the tomatoes and garlic and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add the pimentos, aji panca or hot sauce, water, salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and cool. slightly. Transfer to a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Return to saucepan and keep warm until ready to serve. Makes 2 cups.

One great potluck dish

What do you make to take? I found this in the premiere issue of Recipe.com, a new magazine (yes, a printed magazine with the name "dot.com") from Meredith that brings together budget-focused recipes from their other magazines, such as Better Homes and Gardens, Midwest Living and Eating Well. This one originally ran in BHG.

24-Hour Chicken Fiesta Salad

4 cups torn lettuce (iceberg, bibb or Boston)
1/2 cup (2 ounces) shredded pepper-Jack cheese
1 cup (or 1/2 of a 15-ounce can) of black beans, pinto beans or garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
8 ounces chopped cooked chicken or turkey (about 1 1/2 cups)
2 small tomatoes, cut into thin wedges
1 cup jicama (about 4 ounces) cut in bite-size strips, or 1 cup shredded carrot
1/2 cup sliced, pitted ripe olives
Chile dressing (see below)
3/4 cup crushed tortilla chips

Place lettuce in a large (2-quart) salad bowl. Layer ingredients in the following order: Cheese, beans, chicken, tomatoes, jicama and olives. Spread Chile Dressing evenly over the salad, sealing to the edge of the bowl. Cover tightly with plastic wrap. Chill for 4 to 24 hours. To serve, toss lightly to coat evenly. Sprinkle with crushed tortilla chips.
Chile dressing: Stir together 1/2 cup mayonnaise, 1 (4-ounce) can chopped green chiles, 1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder and 1 minced clove garlic.

Makes 4 servings.

Per serving: 444 calories, 26g protein, 17g carbohydrates, 32g fat (7g saturated), 73mg cholesterol, 460mg sodium, 5g fiber.

WFAE is raking you over the coals

I've always said Mike Collins is smokin' hot: Out of all the subjects "Charlotte Talks" has covered, the 30th anniversary show, which airs Aug. 22, is on grilling and smoking. They're looking for grilling stories and techniques to read during the show and post online afterward. The show also will be taped during a special open house Aug. 19. Get a link to submitting your questions and stories and get a chance at a ticket to the open house on their food blog, WFAEATS.

Friday food news roundup

• Tickets are on sale for the ninth season of Taste of the World, the East Charlotte food tour of international restaurants in the area around Central Avenue. If you've never gone, the tour starts at the Van Landingham Estate on The Plaza, circles around to three restaurants and ends back at Van Landingham with a dessert reception. This year's event is on Oct. 6. Tickets are $30 at www.charlotteeast.com. Yes, it's early, but the event is popular and sells out.

• Another event is coming up closer: The next Chow Down Uptown food truck festival is next Thursday, Aug. 18, from 5-9 p.m., in the parking lot on 7th Street across from the former Reids (soon to be known as 7Venth Market). This time, the event will include A Taste of the Market, with samples from some of the vendors who will be at 7Venth Market when it opens, a promotion for "The Addams Family Musical" and a screening of the movie, and the debut of Hamilton, the inflatable mascot for BBQ And Blues. After my visit to last month's rally, I'd suggest a few things: Bring cash - tasting a bunch of stuff can run up a tab. Bring a shade umbrella. Bring hand wipes. And bring an appetite.

• Harvest Moon Grille at the Dunhill has two local-foods events next week: On Sunday from 2-4 p.m., you can take a class in Korean cooking, featuring bulgogi, pork belly and kimchi. Tickets are $20. On Monday, the restaurant hosts its second guest-chef night with Charles Taft, vice president of the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. The dinner showcases rare and endangered livestock breeds and heirloom vegetables. (OK, he's not exactly the same as having Joe Kwon of the Avett Brothers, but ALBC does important stuff in keeping livestock diversified.) Dinner is $55 with a portion of proceeds going to ALBC. Reservations for dinner or the class: 704-332-4141.

(Speaking of food trucks, has anyone noticed that we've now had two food trucks stolen, the Harvest Moon Grill orange cart and the Lakeview Dairy mooing dairy truck?)

What's on your ideal food reading list?

While writing today's column about the new food-book reading club at Park Road Books, I was pondering the differences in food book styles.

There are cookbooks, and there are food books. Now, it is true that sometimes cookbooks can be food books. And sometimes food books have recipes. But there's an essential difference between the two. It seems to me that cookbooks are focused on how to make things. And food books are focused on . . . everything else.

Food memoirs. Food politics. Food novels. To me, Julia Child wrote cookbooks, and M.F.K. Fisher wrote food books.

I've offered plenty of cookbook lists through the years. Now I'm wondering: What five food books would be essential reading to you?

I'll start it off with two lists, mine and one sent to me by loyal and active food reader Ken Allen. My list:
A.J. Liebling, "Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris." One of the great -- and most humorous -- journalists writes about moving to Paris and learning to appreciate food in the 1920s. It's as much about learning how to eat as learning what to eat.
M.F.K. Fisher. Pretty much anything she wrote, although "The Art of Eating" is a good start.
John Thorne, "Simple Cooking." Erudite, curmudgeonly, comforting. Before any food blogger sets fingers on the keys, they ought to read the man who came before.
Laurie Colwin, "Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen" (and I'll cheat and add "More Home Cooking: A Writer Returns to the Kitchen.") I wake up every morning knowing that the best food writing essays ever written have already been written. And yet I get up anyway.
Anthony Bourdain, "Kitchen Confidential." Before the show, before the wars on everyone from newspaper food editors to Esquire writer John Mariani and the James Beard Foundation, before the attitude became a schtick, Tony Bourdain was a writer. A good writer.

And from Ken Allen: I'm thinking of Cross Creek Cookery, Pat Conroy's cookbook, Dan Huntley's barbecue book, among others. If I'm making a recipe from one of those, I have to double the amount of time it takes to actually fix the food due to getting distracted by the stories.

Anyone else have picks they'd share?

Keeping your diet on track

Holy cow! If you go to a farmers market this weekend, keep in mind the scene from this market in Thailand.

My thanks to Dean Mullis of Laughing Owl and cozy market locations at the Charlotte Regional Market, the Matthews Community Market and the Atherton Market, who shared this in his farm newsletter. (Hey, Dean, do you reckon Donnie is skinny enough to fit next to the tracks?)