Southend Tailgate is sort of back

Spring must be getting closer. The SouthEnd Tailgate Market will be back from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday in the patio at the Common Market, 1515 S. Tryon St.

Vendors expected: Windy Hill Farm (eggs and pasture-raised pork), Coldwater Creek (various vegetables, sweet potatoes, garlic and beets, plus Cackleberry eggs, queso fresco, yogurt cheese and "a very young Parmesan"), ostrich stuff from Bird Brain, artisan bread from Dukes Bread, prepared foods from Savory Moments and pickles from Bill the pickle man.

Manager Lynn Caldwell says the market is running every other Saturday for the moment.

CIAA has soul and Delilah Winder

Hillshire Farms is giving Charlotte some more love tonight. Hillshire sponsors the annual Hoodie Awards in Las Vegas, where several Charlotte restaurant owners have gotten the Best Soul Food title in the past. Last year's winner was Sadie's Soulful Southern Experience.

To celebrate the 2010 Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association tournament -- otherwise known as the popular CIAA, going on right now -- Hillshire sent chef Delilah Winder to town. Besides being spokesperson for Hillshire, she owns six Delilah's Southern Cuisine stands and Bluezette, a Latin/Caribbean/soul restaurant in Philadelphia. Oh, and her Seven-Cheese Macaroni and Cheese was named the best by Oprah Winfrey.

On Wednesday, she went to Sadie's to cook with owners Tamara Thompson and Joseph McGuire. Tonight at 5 p.m., Winder will cook for families at Charlotte Emergency Housing. CEH usually houses 14 families, or about 50 to 60 people a night.

What haven't you cooked this winter?

The latest sprinkling of snow didn't stop me from checking the herb bed this morning to see if the first sprigs of mint are up. They're not -- yet. But it won't be long.

Which has led me to look in my freezer and wonder: What favorite winter dish haven't I made yet? In spring, I really focus on eating my fill of asparagus before it's gone for the year. In summer, it feels like there are a certain number of corn cobs I need to gnaw before I know I've done right by the season.

Winter is the same way. My favorite dishes to cook are winter dishes. I'd hate to get to short-sleeve weather without meeting my quota. I won't get to make them again until I get out the sweaters.

I feel like I'm still short on pot roast. I've made a few, but I haven't done the red-wine one yet. I've made baked ziti a couple of times, and I've had several good soup adventures. But I haven't met my winter quota for macaroni & cheese, and I haven't made a single batch of coq au vin.

Help me out here. I'd love to hear which dish you have to make before the robins come back.

Gardening, cooking and composting: Mmmmm

Add these to your spring calendar:

Hoe, hoe, hoe. David and Mary Beth Blackley of Renfrow's Hardware want to teach you how to plant an all-year garden. The class is $20 (not including all that stuff you'll be tempted to buy from Renfrow's), and it's 6:30-8:30 p.m. March 4 at Renfrow's, 188 N. Trade St. in Matthews. To sign up, e-mail refrowshardware@windstream.net or call 704-847-4088.

Learn to cook a family-style Sunday supper at Mimosa Grill, 327 S. Tryon St.. Lineup includes Lowcountry Chicken Chili, almond-crusted flounder, grilled beef tri tip and strawberry cake. 10 a.m.-noon March 6; $35. Call 704-343-0700.

It's not too soon to sign up for the May 1 composting class (leaf-based and worm-based) at Friendship Trays, 2401 Distribution St. It's 9:30 a.m.-noon May 1 and costs $30, including worms. (Mmmmmm. Wormy.) Bring your own gloves and newspaper. (Newspaper? What's that?) Deadline to register is April 23. E-mail mifflinpjenkins@yahoo.com or call 704-446-6252.

Perdue hatches a new product

I needed to grab a package of skinless, boneless chicken breasts last week to test the Garlic Lime Chicken recipe. Pawing over the packages, I noticed a new label on the Perdue chicken:

"USDA Process Verified: All Vegetarian Diet, No Animal By-Products, Humanely Raised, Raised Cage Free." Since the chicken breasts were reasonably priced, at around the $5 or so I'd expect to pay for three big pieces, I grabbed a pack. It was good, although it's hard to say whether it was noticeably better, since it was swimming in lime-butter sauce.

This morning, Jim Perdue dropped by The Observer to explain that label, the Verifiably Good program. "We're going back to basics," he said. Perdue spent three years working with the USDA to come up with a program for raising their chickens that meets the federal standards for all of those claims.

Perdue made it clear that what he was really interested in was chicken quality. Good feed and better conditions result in chicken that is more tender.

But he also understood that we consumers want some things, too. We want labels with claims that mean something, rather than "fresh" describing chicken that's so close to frozen you can rap on it with your knuckles. We want our chickens raised in conditions that don't break our hearts or turn our stomaches. And yes, we want a reliable product that doesn't cost so much we have to choose between buying chicken and making a house payment.

Besides reading the label, you can go to http://www.perdueverifiablygood.com/ and find definitions for all the standards on the label.

Keeping the price the same as their old "All-Natural" labeled chicken was important to him, he said. "You know, with this economy . . . " Yes, I know. I really do know.

North Carolina is the site for the new product's rollout. Why here? Well, it's the largest state where Maryland-based Perdue has operations. There's a Perdue cooking plant in Concord, processing facilities in Lewiston and Rockingham, and plenty of chicken farms that are under contract to Perdue.

"And my wife is from here," he said. She's a native of Rocky Mount, and they both went to Wake Forest. (Yes, he has a sister named Beverly Perdue, he's not related to the Beverly Perdue in the governor's mansion.)

To mark the rollout, the company is holding a contest, open to N.C. residents only. Make a video of yourself cooking Perdue chicken and you could win $500 in cash and $520 in coupons for the product. Get details on that at Verifiably Good Web site, too.

Winter market makeup day

I'll confess: The only reason I made it to both the Matthews and Charlotte Regional farmers markets in the snow and ice on Saturday was because my writer compadre, Andrea Weigl, had come over from Raleigh just to go to the Charlotte markets. Never tell a Pittsburg native it's going to snow: She just looked at me like a terrier and said, "So?"

So, we went. And a few farmers went, too. Come this summer, when I'm standing in the middle of the Matthews market with sweat riddling my brow, I will enjoy looking at my feet and remembering when I stood on the same spot ankle-deep in snow.

Just because I got out, though, doesn't mean many other people did. A handful of farmers picked and came out, laughing along with the even smaller handful of customers. But a lot more farmers picked and then couldn't get out on the roads. So there will be a couple of makeup market visits.

Today at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market, a bunch of local growers will come to join the weekday regulars from 1-5 p.m. That's at 1801 Yorkmont Road. And I hear that on Wednesday from 4-6 p.m., several farmers plan to be at the Matthews Community Farmers Market site in downtown Matthews, off N.C. 51.

If it snows this Saturday, I'm sleeping in.

Lent is coming faster than a bacon turtle

Just a little inspiration to start your Monday, from the Web site A Hamburger Today, via Serious Eats. You can avert your eyes, or you can find directions for the bacon turtle cheeseburger at http://klg2a.blogspot.com/