Love local food? Put your money where your mouth is

OK, Charlotte, it's time to step up to the plate for local foods. After launching in the Triangle earlier in the year, Funds to Farms is coming to Charlotte from 6:30-8:30 p.m. May 12 for a dinner at Triple C Brewery, 2900 Griffith St. (off South Boulevard and New Bern).

Funds to Farms is a micro-funding program for beginning farmers and food entrepreneurs, supported by Slow Food NC, the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association and The Abundance Foundation. The idea is that you pay $20 for a dinner (prepared here by chef Craig Barbour and Roots.Good.Food.) During dinner, you'll hear pitches for projects from three farmers or food entrepreneurs.

People attending the dinner get to vote on who gets the money, which comes from the money you paid to eat.

It's simple and straightforward, and it gets money in the hands of people who have immediate plans to use it to get a food business going. It's similar to the SOUP events going on in cities like New York, Philadelphia and Detroit, where people get together over a bowl of soup and raise money for community projects.

Co-sponsors in Charlotte are Edible Charlotte, Slow Food Charlotte and the Atherton Market. Get tickets here: fundstofarms.com. Go forth and sow some good.

One Great . . . sweet treat

Rushing around to get  ready for my annual church women's retreat in the mountains, I was running down the list of preparation: Extra wine (check). Sloppy clothes (check). Something to do while everyone else knits (check).

Something sweet to share . . . uh oh. And I certainly didn't have enough time to do anything elaborate. I grabbed a recipe I had seen recently on the website Serious Eats, originally taken from a blog called Shugary Sweets: Caramel Cracker Bars. I had all the ingredients on hand, it took next to no time to make, and it had all the requirements for sharing: Sweet, salty and chocolatey.

With a couple of modifications to make the directions clearer, I had something to take -- and a keeper recipe.

Caramel Cracker Bars
Adapted from www.seriouseats.com.

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, plus extra for pan
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 cup lightly packed light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup milk (nonfat worked fine)
About 3 tubes Ritz crackers (about 80; Townhouse would work too)
1 cup butterscotch morsels
1 cup semisweet chocolate morsels
3/4 cup peanut butter

Line a 13-by-9-inch baking dish with foil. Coat lightly with about 1 tablespoon butter (or nonstick cooking spray). Place a single layer of crackers on the bottom, not overlapping. (It's OK if there's a little space between them.) Set aside.

Melt 1 cup butter in a saucepan over medium high heat. Stir in the graham cracker crumbs, brown and granulated sugar and milk. Heat, stirring occasionally, until it's bubbling around the sides. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and cool 1 minute.

Pour half of the caramel mixture over the crackers in the prepared dish and spread evenly with the back of a wooden spoon. Top with another layer of crackers and the second half of the caramel mixture. Top with a third layer of crackers. Place in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.

Combine the butterscotch and semisweet morsels and the peanut butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Heat, stirring, until smooth. Remove caramel and cracker base from the refrigerator. Pour the melted chocolate over the top, smoothing to cover completely. Chill 4 hours or overnight before cutting.

YIELD:  About 40 small squares.

How do you make a sweet potato into pasta?

For my column this week, I wrote about Dustin Wigglesworth and Joseph Siccardi, two Johnson & Wales University students who had made a dish at a recent S&D Coffee contest that used sweet potato pasta.

Seriously, the pasta is as simple as it gets. While I watched them make it, I gave a try to making a video showing them making it. Dustin and Joseph are students, and when it comes to video, so am I:  I lost a little bit of the video in the middle and had to fill in with still pictures. But I think you'll get the idea.

The recipe is so simple, it's not really a recipe: Just cut sweet potato into very thin strips using a vegetable peeler or a mandoline. If you want it to look more like pasta, trim the edges straight. Then saute the strips in about 1/4 cup butter for 2 or 3 minutes. Add a drizzle of maple syrup and a sprinkle of salt. Remove the strips from the skillet with tongs and use the leftover butter to saute something to top the pasta.

But if it helps, here's the original recipe that inspired them, from Atlanta chef Richard Blais.

Potato "Linguine" With Conch and White Wine

From "Try This at Home," by Richard Blais (Clarkson Potter, $30). Blais originally made this on an episode of "Top Chef" that involved catching and cooking conch on a beach. Instead of simmering their strips of sweet potato in broth and butter, Dustin and Joseph used butter only, although they sometimes add a little chicken broth if the butter cooks away too quickly.

3 large russet potatoes, peeled
1 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 pound fresh conch, minced, or 1 1/2 cups chopped, shucked cherrystone or whole small white clams
1 tablespoon fresh oregano
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/4 cup dry white wine
3 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Grated zest and juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup toasted bread crumbs

Using a mandoline or a very sharp long knife (or a sharp vegetable peeler), cut the potatoes lengthwise into long, thin sheets (as thin as possible -- ideally, you should be able to see through them). Stack the slices a few at a time and cut them lengthwise into 1/4-inch-wide ribbons.

Pour the chicken stock into a large skillet and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Add the potatoes and butter and cook until the potatoes begin to absorb the stock, about 4 minutes. Add the conch, oregano and chiles and cook until the potatoes are al dente and most of the stock is absorbed, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Pour in the wine and toss the potatoes gently until it evaporates. Stir in the parsley.

Divide the "linguine" among four warmed shallow bowls. Squeeze some lemon juice over each bowl and top with a sprinkling of bread crumbs. Serve immediately.

One Great . . . simple Japanese custard

I'm always drawn to unusual food names. My first bite of smoked salmon on a chewy roll came because I was intrigued by the words "lox" and "bagel."

This time, a new word caught my eye while I was flipping through  "How to Boil an Egg," by Rose Carrarini (Phaidon, 2012): Chawanmushi.

Chawanmushi? I finally discovered it's a cross between soup and egg custard, and it's a favorite comfort food in Japan. Made with vegetables and sometimes seafood covered a simple mixture of egg and broth, it's steamed -- mushi -- in a tea cup, called a chawan.

The crazy thing is the way it turns out: I got a layer of very soft custard similar to fresh tofu on top of broth, all studded with bits of vegetables. Spring vegetables such as green peas, green onion and asparagus are  perfect with the soft texture. For a dinner or lunch for one or two people, it's easy and adaptable.

Chawanmushi With Spring Vegetables
Adapted from "How to Boil an Egg," by Rose Carrarini.

2 eggs
1 cup vegetable or chicken stock, or dashi
1/2 teaspoon shoyu or regular soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Pinch of cayenne pepper
3 or 4 stalks asparagus, trimmed and cut in bite-size pieces
1/4 cup frozen green peas, rinsed to thaw
1 spring onion, diced
Fresh herbs, such as chives or thyme leaves (optional; garnish)

LIGHTLY MIX the eggs with a fork, being careful not to beat them so much they're frothy. Stir in the stock, shoyu, sugar and cayenne. Place a sieve over a small bowl or large measuring cup with a lip and pour the egg mixture through to strain and break up the protein in the eggs.

PREPARE the vegetables and place in one or two small, heatproof bowls or cups. Carefully pour in the egg mixture, completely covering the vegetables. Place a pot with a few inches of water over high heat and add a rack or steamer. Place the bowls on the steamer and cover with a dish towel, then cover the pot with a lid.

STEAM for 2 minutes on high heat, then reduce heat to maintain a gentle simmer and steam for 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the custard comes out clean. Serve hot, or refrigerate and serve chilled.

NOTE: Tender vegetables like asparagus or mushrooms will cook in the custard, but tougher things like diced carrot should be cooked a little first.

Riddle me this: What does Alton Brown want you to ask?

So Alton Brown is coming to Charlotte on Saturday night, as part of the N.C. Science Festival. The format of the evening is Q&A.

Having seen His Science Geekness handle audience questions - most recently at the Southern Foodways Symposium last October, where he lectured on barbecue - I know that he is very good at questions. Even answers. The boy gives good answer.

Still, I started to wonder, as someone who asks a lot of questions, what questions he wishes you would ask him.

So I called and asked Alton a few questions about questions. First, the questions everyone ALWAYS asks (so don't bother asking these):

1. Will you ever compete on "Iron Chef"? Absolutely not. "The answer is positively no. I don’t want anybody to have a shot at my job. If they do it as well as me, I’m vulnerable. I’ve spent years perfecting that aura.”
2. His favorite episode of "Good Eats." He doesn't have one. "I always just make something up."

OK, so if you want to have fun and engage him with a good question, try one of these:

1. What's his least favorite thing to cook? Everyone always asks his favorite thing to cook, but no one ever asks what he can't cook. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you. I hate making coffee. No matter what, my coffee isn't very good. I thought for a long time that I did (make good coffee). But I have, in fact, given up." He thinks the problem is too much experience: "My taste in coffee has improved over the years. I have had really good coffee made by really good barristas (not Starbucks, by the way). I dread making coffee."

2. Anything about flying. "I love it when people ask me questions about flying, because I'm a pilot. I love to get pilot questions. That's me up there, pulling levers and stuff." Yes, by the way, he will fly himself to Charlotte. Keep watching the skies, kids. (And yes, that is him up there, literally, at the top of the blog. Doesn't he look all serious and stuff?)

3. "No one ever asks me who the biggest influence has been on me. Not as a cook, but as a filmmaker, which is what I consider myself first and foremost. I used to direct TV commercials. Deep down, that’s what I am and that’s how I think of myself. If someone comes up behind me and says 'hey chef,' I look around to see who else is there." (I didn't say they'd be interesting questions, just questions he wishes you would ask.)

And finally, as a bonus round: Tell him I told you to ask him what he always keeps on the stove. He mentioned it while we were talking. But I bet he doesn't remember, so here's your chance to Stump the Geek.

Enjoy, and welcome back to Charlotte, Alton.  

Want to go see him? Tickets range from $32.50 to $150 (a VIP thing, with extras). Buy them through the them here at Blumenthal site.

A Texas barbecue snob tours the Carolinas

The buzz in the barbecue world for the last few weeks has been the appointment of Daniel Vaughn as the  full-time barbecue editor of the magazine Texas Monthly. In food-writing and barbecue circles, this is  akin to suddenly being granted a magical golden coin and a free pass to every casino in the country.

Vaughn, a smart and funny writer (is that sucking up hard enough, editor Dan?) tweets as @bbqsnob. And while he certainly knows his Texas 'cue, some of the other barbecue worlds had escaped him. So as any good researcher would, he hit the road last week to smoke over how we do it here in the real land of barbecue. Many of us were following along via Twitter. 

Of all the gifts the gods might give us, to see ourselves as others see us. So I gathered his tweets in one list. Dropping a few to keep it focused and adding a little translation here and there (@redblank is photographer Nicholas McWhirter), here's a look at how Vaughn saw us:

Tuesday, April 10:

1. Hey North Carolina -- I'm boarding a plane soon and I'm coming for all your Cheerwine & Fullsteam beer. What else should I be drinking in NC?

2. @redblank and I @dfwairport waiting to go whole hog all over #ncbbq. (That's gotta be the most obvious BBQ pun.)

3. Salt Lick at DFW Airport. The brisket was actually better than my meager expectations. Great beans.

4. Chopped beef, sauce and bun. Salt Lick at the airport. Will this be better than #ncbbq? I hope not.

Wednesday, April 10:

1. Hog skin at B's in Greenville, NC. This is how to start a #ncbbq tour.

2. Feasting at B's BBQ. Chicken incredible and the pork was great too. Very little smoke but freshly . . . .

3. I kid you not, after a meal at B's BBQ w/@redblank, I approached the owner outside. Just as I said we're from TX a bird shit on me.

4. Small tray at Skylight Inn in Ayden. Adding the cracklings into the chopped meat is brilliant.

5. The capital spire & the pork tray at Skylight Inn.

6. No AC at Wilber's in Goldsboro, but the service is very friendly. Before entrees we learned of our server's recent surgery up in Greenville.

7. Hash tags so far in Eastern #ncbbq - #humility #oak #collards #proudtradition #family #hospitable #cashonly

8. A snack at Wilber's. I love this slaw w/a hint of horseradish? and the pork's good too.

9. After just a single day of #ncbbq, I must say NC Brunswick Stew < GA Brunswick stew by a mile or six.

10. @joeperryintx At what sort of establishments would one happen to find this 'livermush' you speak of?

11. Barbecue, NC was named by a man from the West Indies who saw fog ocming off the narrow creek and thought it looked like a BBQ pit.

12. Pleasure meeting Pastor Williams at the Barbecue Presbyterian Church in Barbecue, NC.

13. Pork platter at Smithfield ain't bad but pales in comparison to that fried chicken.

14. The pork sandwich at Smithfield Chicken & BBQ illuminated by the Chrysler 200 dome light.

15. Ingested way too much pork today, but back in Raleigh and @johntedge said I should make room for dessert @poolesdinner. How late y'all open?

16. My digestive track is yelling back at you right now.

17. @johntedge @poolesdiner. Redemption rye and bruleed bananas headed my way. Maybe a nightcap at Fox Liquor.

18. Excellent banana tart at @poolesdiner to cap off the night.

19. Piggly Wiggly empanadas from Calavera in Raleigh featuring NC smoked pork. You'll want to eat these.

Thursday, April 11:

1. Day 2 of the #ncbbq quest. Headed west today.

2: First stop in the Piedmont. Short Sugar's in Reidsville.

3. Minced on the sandwich, chopped on the tray at Short Sugar's.

4. First red slaw of #ncbbq trip. Stamey's in Greensboro. Tastes like cocktail sauce mixed w/cabbage, in a good way.

5. Sliced plate, chopped sandwich, Brunswick stew at Stamey's.

6. Those are hushpuppies and they are superb.

7. Thanks to @grillgirl we made sure to get a chili dog w/slaw at Stamey's. Outstanding.

8. The pit house at Stamey's in Greensboro. Expansive and cleaner than most pit rooms I've seen.

9. In the car and ready to leave Stamey's then see @dennyculbert's photo of the outside brown pork & peach cobbler. Back inside.

10. Peach cobbler at Stamey's in Greensboro.

11. The outside brown at Stamey's, aka what was missing on that earlier smokeless sliced pork plate.

12. Outside brown: #ncbbq = fatty brisket: #txbbq. . . . If you don't ask for it, you probably won't get it. But it's the best thing off the pit.

13. @johntedge The first bite of outside brown at Stamey's was a revelation. It turned a ho-hum day of BBQ into one full of possibilities.

14. A little more outside brown from Bar-B-Q Center in Lexington. Great stuff.

15. More wonderful outside brown at Lexington Barbecue #1.

16. Maybe the best cracklings and sauce of the trip at Lexington Barbecue #1. This place is great.

17. I'm sure you've seen it before, but here are the iconic pit room stacks at Lexington Barbecue #1.

18. Burning hickory in the fire pit at Lexington Barbecue.

19. Look what we found at Cook's BBQ south of Lexington. Brisket & ribs combo. Couldn't resist.

20. Asked for outside brown. Got the inside, frown. At Cook's BBQ south of Lexington.

21. Allen & Sons in Chapel Hill toes line between E & W NC. Pork shoulders, but w/ vinegar sauce untainted by ketchup.

22. Finally found great NC Brunswick stew at Allen & Sons. Really, the whole meal was great.

23. Enjoying a Highland Gaelic Ale at (Crook's Corner in Chapel Hill). Come by and say hi.

24. Too full,  but maybe a late night empanada.

25. Meeting & talking w/ John Shelton Reed in NC was a pleasure. Drinking sazeracs in his living room while discussing his new book on NOLA? Wow.

26. Once again, we had pie for a nightcap. @chulegre (Bill Smith of Cook's Corner) makes a mean key lime pie w/ a saltine crust.

27. After a day in the east for #ncbbq it's all about whole hog, clear vinegar sauce, mayo slaw, collards, oak and cash only.

28. After a day in the west for #ncbbq it's all about pork shoulder, red vinegar sauce, red slaw, fries, hickory and credit cards accepted.

29. After hearing all the jawing about West v. East in #ncbbq - The state is united under a banner of pork, vinegar, cabbage and hush puppies.

Friday, April 12:

1. This morning means goodbye to #ncbbq and hello to #scbbq with first stop in Hemingway, SC three hours away. Tired.

2. Hello South Carolina! I was not expecting to be welcomed by a giant sombrero hoisted on a tower.

3. It's all about the hog and pepper sauce at Scott's BBQ in Hemingway, SC. Incredible stuff.

4. The only way to cool the burn of Scott's sauce is to just keep eating, or take a swig of Red Rock soda.

5. I've been getting requests for recommendations on NC BBQ joints. I spent 2 days there. @bbqjew has spent his life there. Follow him.

6. Generous tray of food for $12 at Brown's BBQ in Kingstree. Good eatin'.

7. The first gasser pit we've encountered this far on the tour. Brown's pit in Kingstree.

8. Scott's in Hemingway -- all wood cooking, slaw and beans only. Brown's uses gas & has 15 sides, like this catfish stew.

9. I wasn't expecting the BBQ sandwich at Cooper's in Salters to come wrapped in plastic & be warmed in the microwave.

10. A well-cooked hog sopped in a great sauce can still taste good, but you can taste the difference at Scott's.

11. Cooper's Country Store in Salters, SC. Come for the historic building, then go to Scott's for BBQ.

12. McCabe's BBQ in Manning has a spicy vinegar based sauce similar to Scott's w/some of the smokiest meat in Carolinas.

13. Sweatman's BBQ. Our only mustard stop of the #scbbq tour.

14. Ended the #scbbq tour on a very high note by sharing a seafood tower @eattheordinary (Mike Lata’s new Charleston restaurant, The Ordinary).

 PHOTO: Eater.com.

Stupid kitchen tricks: The potato slice guide

What's a stupid kitchen trick? It's one of those things that someone shows you that make you slap yourself on the head and think, "Why didn't I think of that?" (Put down the knife first, though.)

I had that reaction the first time someone pointed this one out to me. You know how annoying it is when you're slicing things that are naturally a little wet -- potatoes, pickles, carrots -- and they stick to the blade of your knife? Don't knock them off: Use them to make uniform cuts. When you lift your blade and a slice is sticking, use that as a guide to show you where to place the knife for the next cut.

Simple, and kind of stupid. But handy.