Spicin' up the mayo

So mayonnaise.

Bleh. Right?

Or just bland?

Or, as The (text-addicted) Baby Girl would say,     -__-

But here’s a spicy mayonnaise story to toss around at picnics this Memorial Day weekend. It involves the gentleman in the picture to the right.

I learned it this week just before I learned to make mayo, cuz a crackerjack reporter like me always finds the back story. (I'll teach you how to make non-bleh mayo next week.)

Anyway, there are three theories about the genesis of mayo, a subject of much dispute in France. Two, like mayo, are just    -__-.

But one goes like this: A decorated French nobleman and bon vivant, Vigneron du Plessis, Duke de Richelieu, was, in the mid-1700s, party to the siege of an English-infested place called Ft. Mahon.

(You see where this is going, but hang with me for a sec.)

Following a battle at Ft. Mahon, there was no butter or cream to make dressings for the royal (mon dieu!), so his chef turned to eggs and oil.

And voila! Sauce mahonnaise was born.

But here’s the cool thing about the duke, who was a skilled military leader and a great entertainer who . . . and here’s the kicker . . . had the odd habit of inviting guests to dine in the nude.

To think, mayo got its start from a guy dressed like that. Kind of makes mayo more interesting, doesn’t it?

Source: “The Food Encyclopedia,” by Jacques L. Rolland and Carol Sherman

Free Slurpees! No strings! Just straws!

No endless waiting for July 11 this year.

July 11. Get it?

7-11? Or, to be correct, 7-Eleven.

7-Eleven isn’t waiting for its signature date this year to give away free Slurpees. They’re doing that tomorrow.

All in honor of its new lite line of sugar-free Slurpees. Flavored by Fanta soda, they contain 20 calories in 8 ounces

Tomorrow is SlurpFREE Day. Tomorrow, May 23, from 11:00am to 7:00pm to slurp down a FREE Slurpee drink. A 7.11-ounce drink, of course.

Start your holiday weekend on Thursday night, whydontcha?

Remember how in college weekends sometimes started on Thursday?

Well, you can do that this weekend in a more, ahem, “sensible” way.

Start Thursday night from 6 – 9 p.m. with the Virginia Aquarium’s Sensible Seafood Fest, an adults-only event where you can stroll the Aquarium’s Bay & Ocean Pavilion (think petting rays and fish tank tunnels where you can go nose-to-nose with rockfish).

While in the depths of the aquarium, you can enjoy a libation or two (drinking with the fishes, if you will), sample foods from Sensible Seafood Restaurant partners and (with a nod to those school days) learn about regional efforts focused on restoration, sustainability, and environmental stewardship.

Admission is $35 each for members, $40 for non-members, includes all food plus beverage tickets. Click here for ticket info.app.etapestry.com/hosted/VirginiaMarineScienceMuseum/OnlineRegistration02.html
 

Genuine Virginia Country hams, done!

Sunday, Hamday, Tuesday.

That’s how this week started, when The Baby Girl and I zipped on out to Pungo to pick up our gen-u-ine Virginia country hams. (They are there on the table.)

Like falling leaves and the first crocus of spring, ham day, for us, marks the changing of the seasons. Each year, in mid-May, the hams that we started curing in December are smoked and ready to be brought home, shined up and then delivered to the big Memorial Day 4-H Club ham show at the 29th Annual Pungo Strawberry Festival.

See, we live in ham country, with a climate tailor-made for curing the hind end of the hog.

For centuries, Virginians have begun the curing process in December (traditional slaughter time) when the hams are salted and stacked in smokehouses. A couple of weeks later, they’re re-salted and re-stacked, and after a while more, washed, pummeled into shape and slung into cotton bags and hung from the rafters of smokehouses.

There’s an old saying that a country ham hanging in the smokehouse is like money in the bank. (More on the wisdom of that later.)

Ours hams were finished at the Vaughan family’s smokehouse, where Virginia Beach 4-H Club cure master Cal Schiemann tended fires fueled with planks of wild black cherry and oak.

Yesterday, all of us who participated in the Ham Project got a first look at our hams, and aren’t they gorgeous? An even cordovan color with a rich, smoke-ham scent.

I have to agree with Cal, who said that they are the “prettiest hams he’s seen.” And the best part – the eating – is yet to come!

The Baby Girl and I are both entering the ham show.

Make plans to check out all the Virginia Beach 4-H Club’s hams – and steers and sheep and hogs and such – at next weekend’s Strawberry Festival.

Ride the Ferris wheel, too!
 

10 bucks to chill 'n grill at Todd Jurich's Bistro

Diet, schmiet.

Here’s the hands-down best way to get ready for the summer – and the best way to spend 10 bucks this workweek – all in one.

Check out the Chillin’ & Grilln’ wine tasting on Wednesday (5/16) at Todd Jurich’s Bistro in Downtown Norfolk.

It works like this: You do the chillin' and they do the grillin'.

Good plan!

A dispatch from Chef Todd Jurich notes, rightfully, that this is the time of year when we want to chill out and grill out. We look for our wines to be fun, refreshing and downright cool.

You’ll sample picnic wines and patio ponders that are perfect when the heat is on – some standards, some exotics and some interesting reds that take to chilling.

Event starts at 6:00 pm. $10 in advance - Call 757-622-3210; $15 at the door

Vote local for Farm Mother of the Year

The first time I met Dee Dee Darden, I didn’t meet her at all.

She was somewhere out on her family’s 600 acre farm near Smithfield, atop a tractor, trying to beat the impending weather or darkness, I can’t recall which.

I had just sniffed out the gorgeous country hams hanging in the family’s old smokehouse just across the narrow road from the family’s old country store,circa 1951. (That’s the smokehouse in the picture and Dee Dee is standing beside her husband, Tommy.) When I saw her in person, in a denim top and jeans, I knew I had met one awesome, tough, hard-working, no-nonsense lady.

Perfect for Farm Mother of the Year. She's already a regional winner, but deserves the national title.

Dee Dee’s genuine.  She does everything that needs doing on the farm: bookkeeping, tractor driving, ham curing (1,000 of them every year), Darden's Country Store tending, cattle tending, school tours conducting . . . . She’s also finds time to serve on various agricultural boards AND was recently elected to the Isle of Wight County Board of Supervisors.

Other elections might have you stumped. This one’s an easy call. Click here to vote today. The deadline is tomorrow, Saturday, May 12.

The genetics of gardening

I met a man the other day that tends a quarter-acre of romaine lettuce out on a farm in Pungo. That’s a plot of earth the size of suburban yard.

But the man is not a farmer. Rather Mr. Wilson is a retired, high-ranking, Northern Virginia public education exec.

Mr. Wilson has plenty to keep him busy in retirement. He volunteers, he cheers his grandson’s baseball team and he takes two meals a day with his wife, Nancy, who has Alzheimer’s and lives in a nearby nursing home.

Still, twice a day most every day, Mr. Wilson drives out to his plot on Wink Henley’s farm to check his crop, which is planted in stages so that there’s always a few heads ready to be sent over to Henley’s farmstand at the Pungo stoplight.

The lettuces, which he moves from the hothouse when they are scarcely thumb-sized, grow to an enormous girth, as big as Santa’s belly. The leaves are green as emeralds and when the sun shines, some spots take on a silvery shimmer.

At harvest time, they are big and pretty enough to be bridal bouquets.

Mr. Wilson has tended these rows for 10 years, through the cold of winter and into the heat of late spring, bearing the expense of the seed and providing most all the labor. His yield – hundreds of heads that are sold for $1.50 a piece at the market – has remained constant throughout the years.

Yet, Mr. Wilson accepts nothing in return, unless you count the quart of strawberries he picks from the rows adjacent to his.

He can’t say exactly why he does it – but Mr. Wilson was raised on an Eastern Shore farm. He left farming to join the Navy, but for most of his life, wherever he has lived, he’s tended a plot of something or other.

I, too, come from a long line of farmers, gardeners, arborists and nurserymen. And I’ve never not had a garden – even when I lived in a sandy, sun-baked Nags Head neighborhood I still found a way to nurse a plot of tomato plants.

What propels people like me and Mr. Wilson to kneel into the dirt? Perhaps it’s genetic.  

Perfect mint julep -- three ways!

 What’s your pleasure?

Thunder Moccasin? Jake Mo? Daddy Long Legs? Daddy Nose Best? Or perhaps you say, “I’ll Have Another.”

These are horses, not cocktails, although wouldn’t it be cool if some talented mixologist made thoroughbred drinks named after the top contenders in the Kentucky Derby?

These are some of the 50 contenders; official field and post positions will be settled later today. I’m hoping that Sabercat runs because, well, I am a sabercat!

Regardless, I’ve already got my party on – hat chosen, silver cups polished, fresh mint and a stampede of friends on the way. Growing up, Derby Day was always a party in the Eaton household. As you can see from this picture, circa 1972, I’ve been a fan for quite some time.

This year, I’ll continue a tradition started last year with dueling mint juleps – the classic version and one made with mint iced tea. The latter is a hit with the “I-don’t-care-for-bourbon” crowd.

And I’ll be introducing a new element into my classic mint julep: Keep It Simple Syrup, an all-natural, spearmint-infused elixir made by a really swell gal in Richmond and available at Virginia ABC stores.

Below are recipes for all three versions.

Maker's Mark is my preference poison, but deep in the infield at Churchill Downs, they’re drinking the medium-cheap stuff and lots of it! (I speak from experience!) I prefer my silver cup and a linen napkin, thankyouverymuch. But glass works fine.

No red Solo cups at this party, please!

Mint-Kissed Juleps
1 oz. Keep it Simple Syrup
2 oz. quality bourbon
Mix both ingredients in a shaker with cracked ice. Strain into 2 old-fashioned glasses over ice.
Garnish with spearmint leaves.

Classic Mint Julep
4 fresh mint sprigs
2 ½ ounces bourbon whiskey (Maker’s Mark is yummy!)
1 teaspoon powdered sugar
2 teaspoons water
Muddle mint leaves, powdered sugar, and water in a Collins glass. Fill the glass with shaved or crushed ice and add bourbon. Top with more ice and garnish with a mint sprig. Serve with a straw.
Source: drinksmixer.com

Mint Julep Iced Tea
Makes 6 (8-ounce) servings

Brown sugar syrup
1 cup firmly-packed light brown sugar
1 cup cold water
1. Heat the sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Simmer for 6 to 8 minutes. Remove from the heat and cool. Store, covered, in the refrigerator.
Note: The syrup will have a medium-brown color.
Makes about 1 cup

Iced Tea
2 tablespoons (6 tea bags) mint tea
1 quart cold water
Brown sugar syrup
1 to 1 ¼ cups bourbon
2 ice cubes
Mint leaves
Confectioners’ sugar, optional

1. Place the loose tea or bags into a large glass container. Add the cold water. Stir well, and chill, covered, in the refrigerator overnight. Strain the tea through a fine sieve or remove the bags. Note: Strain the leaves through a sieve lined with a coffee filter.
2. Press the leaves or bags to extract all the liquid. Sweeten to taste with the brown sugar syrup, and chill, covered, in the refrigerator until serving time. To serve, pour the sweetened mint tea into a 2-quart pitcher, add the bourbon, and stir. Add the ice cubes and a few bruised mint leaves. Pour into ice-filled glasses, and garnish with mint dusted with confectioners’ sugar, if desired.
Source: “Celebrate Virginia!” by Rowena J. Fullinwider, James A. Crutchfield and Winette Sparkman Jeffery, Cool Springs Press, 2004

Free burritos, for . . . .

 Somewhere in my house is a snapshot of the Bob Family.

It was taken sometime during a surfin’ safari, circa 1985, to the Hatteras Lighthouse. For some funny, forgotten reason, my friends and I christened ourselves the Bob Family, and commenced to calling each other Andy-Bob, Ally-Bob, Diane-Bob and Quiche-Bob. (Guess who that last one is!)

The names stuck for years.

Anyway, being former Bobs won’t get us anywhere tomorrow when Pancheros Mexican Grill gives a free burrito to anyone named Bob, or any variation thereof. It's a relatively easy way to get a free burrito.

It’s part of the company’s weird “Save Bobs” campaign to revive the once-prevalent name, which is shared by Bob the Tool, the mixing mechanism that blends ingredients together before they are wrapped into a tortilla at Pancheros.

So, if you are a Bob, tool on over to the Virginia Beach Pancheros tomorrow for your due.

I’m pretty sure my Bob-ness isn’t worth a bean.

Strawberry sadness

Imagine you’ve been working on a project since August. Imagine that you’ve done a stellar job, better, really than you ever expected.

Then imagine that through no fault of your own, the whole thing goes kablooey.

That’s what could happen to strawberry farmers all across the region. They did everything right, starting with the August delivery of plants from a far-off nursery in Canada.

They kept the deer out of the fields throughout the winter and kept the frost at bay this spring, pulling gut-wrenching all nighters out in the fields tending to sprinklers.

All along, the weather cooperated, resulting in a 2012 crop of berries that are as pretty as anyone has ever seen.

Yet the farmers worry that a dotted line of rainy weather – rain today, sunshine tomorrow, a rainy weekend – will leave the fruits of their labor rotting in the fields.

I spoke with Wink Henley this morning. That's him in the picture, walking his Virginia Beach fields earlier this season.

Wink is the most senior of the Pungo strawberry growers. His prediction: tomorrow, Friday, will be an outstanding picking day. The fields will have recovered from last weekends picking and there will be berries aplenty. You'll be able to fill a bucket in no time flat.

But if nobody comes to pick, then nobody comes again over the weekend when the weather is supposed to be rainy, the gorgeous fat berries will likely rot in the filed.

It’s too sad, really, to even contemplate.

I’ll be doing my part. Will you do yours?

For a map of Tidewater U-pick strawberry fields, click here. Then scroll down to the bottom of the page.

If guilt isn't enough to get you out there, check out this new variety of berry some local farmers are growing. It's called Albion, and you can see from the picture here that compared to the more common Sweet Charlies and Chandlers, it's huge. The fruit that has a sort of sophisticated strawberry flavor.

I tried a few earlier this season and was mightily impressed. And everyone I shared them with fell in love.

With the berries, that is.