But Mama Always Put Vodka in Her Sangria!: Adventures in Eating, Drinking, and Making Merry

by Julia Reed

  NOTE: These can be assembled either the day before or on the morning of a party and kept on a cookie sheet in the refrigerator. They can also be frozen before baking. Pop them into the oven straight from the freezer; just be sure and allow for a longer baking time.

  BLACK-EYED PEA SALAD

  ( Yield: 8 servings )

  3 cups fresh black-eyed peas (frozen is fine in a pinch)

  1 ham hock or piece of slab bacon

  1 teaspoon kosher salt

  3 large ripe tomatoes (preferably heirloom), cut in a generous dice, or 1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved

  1 small handful of basil leaves, cut in a chiffonade (you want at least ¼ cup)

  1 bunch scallions, sliced, including the pale green part

  2 teaspoons cider vinegar

  ½ cup homemade mayonnaise (see here)

  Freshly ground black pepper

  Place the peas, ham hock or bacon, and ½ teaspoon of the salt in a medium pot, cover with cold water, and bring to a boil. Simmer until peas are just tender, which should take anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes—keep checking. Drain peas and set aside.

  While peas are cooking, place tomatoes in a large bowl and sprinkle with remaining ½ teaspoon of salt and let sit for at least 20 minutes. Do not discard whatever juices the tomatoes have thrown off. Add peas, basil, scallions, and vinegar and mix well. Fold in mayonnaise and pepper, and taste to see if more salt is needed.

  To serve, you may add another dollop of mayo on top and sprinkle with more basil chiffonade, or a sprinkling of the green parts of the scallions, or both.

  NOTE: This will be runny if the tomatoes have thrown off a lot of juice, but that’s what the fried cornbread or the calas are for. The mayonnaise turns pink with the tomato juices and reminds me of the ketchup my mother used to inexplicably put on top of Ernestine’s black-eyed peas! This is also good with baked cornbread, including Harriet’s Cornbread. Either way the hot bread is terrific with the room temp—or cold—pea salad.

  HOT WATER CORNBREAD

  Adapted from The Gift of Southern Cooking

  ( Yield: About 20 pieces )

  1½ cups white cornmeal

  ¾ teaspoon salt

  ¾ cup or more boiling water

  Cooking oil for frying

  Put cornmeal and salt in a mixing bowl and stir to blend. Pour boiling water over and stir until well blended. It should be the consistency of mashed potatoes. If it’s too thick, add more boiling water.

  Pour about 3 inches of oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan or deep skillet. Heat oil slowly to 340 degrees. Spoon the batter by rounded tablespoonfuls into the hot oil. Cook for 3 minutes or longer, until golden. They may turn over by themselves; if not, turn once. Drain on paper towels and serve hot with butter.

  NOTE: The main thing is to make sure the oil is hot enough, but not too hot. Test fry one piece and slice or break it open. If it’s golden brown on the outside but still a little grainy and raw on the inside, the oil is too hot; lower the heat a tad.

  STEPHEN’S CORN CALAS

  ( Yield: About 10 calas )

  Lard, olive oil, canola, or vegetable oil for sautéing (you may also use half butter, half oil—the oil will keep the butter from burning)

  2 ears fresh corn, cut off cob

  1 small onion, diced

  1 tablespoon garlic, minced

  1 cup cooked white rice

  1 bunch green onions, sliced

  ½ cup flour

  2 teaspoons baking powder

  1 egg lightly beaten

  ¾ cup buttermilk

  Salt

  Freshly ground black pepper

  Heat lard or oil in a skillet over medium-low heat, and add corn, onion, and garlic. Cook until the onion is translucent and lightly golden. Cool slightly and combine with all remaining ingredients in a large bowl and mix well.

  In a heavy-bottomed frying or sauté pan (preferably a well-seasoned cast-iron skillet), heat about 1 ounce of fat and spoon in about 2 ounces of batter per cake, being careful not to crowd the skillet. They should look like plump pancakes. Cook until the edges begin to appear dry, then flip and cook for another couple of minutes until calas are cooked through.

  8

  Purple Passion

  I once read an essay by historian Bernard Lewis, the West’s leading scholar on the Middle East, in which he quoted a fourteenth-century Persian writer on the subject of eggplant: “One day when Sultan Mahmud [who reigned from 998 to 1010] was hungry, they brought him a dish of eggplant. He liked it very much and said, ‘Eggplant is an excellent food.’ A courtier began to praise the eggplant with great eloquence. When the sultan grew tired of the dish he said, ‘Eggplant is a very harmful thing,’ whereupon the courtier began to speak in hyperbole of the harmful qualities of eggplant. ‘Man alive,’ said the sultan, ‘have you not just now uttered the praises of eggplant?’ ‘Yes,’ said the courtier, ‘but I am your courtier and not the eggplant’s courtier.’”

  I come to you as the eggplant’s courtier. I love it. I love it in Greek moussaka, Provençal ratatouille, and Italian Parmesan. I love the Creole version stuffed with seafood and the Levantine baba ghanoush. According to Alan Davidson’s invaluable Oxford Companion to Food, eggplant originated in India and was first mentioned in a fifth-century A.D. Chinese text on agriculture. I am grateful that so many cultures have since embraced it, although it took awhile. The Moors brought it to Spain and the Arabs brought it to Italy, but until about 1500, most Europeans considered it inedible, grew it only as an ornamental plant, and gave it derisive names. One of the many that stuck was eggplant, due to the fact that the varieties first introduced to the continent were purple or white in the shape of eggs.

  The late, lamented Russian Tea Room paid homage to eggplant’s roots in a delicious appetizer called Eggplant Orientale, a not-all-that-Asian cold dish comprised of cooked eggplant, onions, tomatoes, capers, and ketchup, but it was delicious on the restaurant’s black bread, and one of my favorite things about the place—in addition to the caviar, the Moscow Mules, and the unparalleled people watching, of course. I once saw Mike Nichols lunching in one of the half-circle booths with Carly Simon, and a year later, when I went to see Nichols’s film Working Girl, Simon was singing the theme song.

  At Galatoire’s in New Orleans, the eggplant is fried in thick strips and is always served with little bowls of powdered sugar to mask the eggplant’s supposed bitterness. The seasoned bread crumbs do that already, but my husband makes an excellent sweet and sour dipping sauce by mixing Tabasco and a little white wine with the powdered sugar until it’s creamy. My mother fries her eggplant in crushed Ritz cracker crumbs, which is slightly decadent, but really, really tasty. In Spain, fried eggplant is frequently served as a tapa. There is a particularly good version at La Trucha in Madrid, but my favorite comes from El Churrasco in Córdoba, where it is fried amazingly lightly and served with salmorejo, the thick Andalusian tomato soup, as a sauce.

  The big question about eggplant has always been to salt or not to salt. Some people insist that it will be too bitter if you don’t salt it first to draw out the juices. Most scholars today say that was necessary only with primitive varieties, but there’s another good reason to do it. Eggplant soaks up a whole lot of oil and if you salt if first it will break down the cells so that the flesh won’t absorb as much when you cook it. If you do choose to salt it first, cut it in slices or cubes according to how you intend to prepare it, lightly salt the pieces, let stand in a colander for thirty minutes, and pat dry before cooking. In two of the following recipes, there are methods already incorporated to rid the eggplant of both its sponginess and its bitterness (if there is any). And in the recipe from Daniel Boulud, the eggplant is roasted whole, so that any bitter juices will drain off while it’s cooling.

  Boulud’s recipe, by the way, can be easily adapted to incorporate other seasonings and is one of the many reasons he is such a genius as a chef. He made it for my friend Jason Epstein and me one impromptu night in Jason’s kit
chen. It was so simple to prepare and so delicious I couldn’t get over it. Instead of the cumin and onion and duxelles below, I sometimes mix the eggplant with a half cup each of chopped fresh coriander, plain yogurt, and toasted pine nuts, along with a couple of cloves of garlic mashed to a paste. But you could try anything: minced ginger and scallions sautéed in sesame oil, for example, along with a dash of soy sauce.

  As for the eggplant salad, it’s one of my go-to hot-weather menu staples. A few summers back, I think I served it at every dinner party I gave, along with grilled tuna or lamb, and an easy white bean salad whose only ingredients in addition to the beans are chopped sage, crumbled Gorgonzola, and olive oil.

  However you decide to prepare your eggplant, be grateful that the Europeans came to their senses, stopped calling it names, and toted it over to the New World with them (though much of it also came via the African slave trade). Thomas Jefferson grew it in his garden at Monticello, and we Americans, still courtiers in some regards, have been growing—and eating—it ever since.

  FRIED EGGPLANT WITH SALMOREJO SAUCE

  ( Yield: 4 to 6 servings )

  FOR THE EGGPLANT

  1 large eggplant (about 1½ pounds)

  4 to 5 cups whole milk

  ¼ teaspoon salt

  1 cup fine yellow cornmeal

  1 cup all-purpose flour

  Vegetable oil for frying

  FOR THE SAUCE

  Three ½- to ¾-inch-thick slices country bread, crusts removed (about 1½ cups torn into pieces)

  1 pound ripe tomatoes, skinned and seeded

  1 garlic clove, minced

  ¾ teaspoon salt, plus more to taste

  ¼ cup fruity extra-virgin olive oil

  1 teaspoon sherry-wine vinegar (preferable) or red-wine vinegar

  To prepare the eggplant, peel it and slice across into 1⁄8-inch-wide slices. Combine 4 cups milk and the salt in a large shallow baking dish and add the eggplant. Add enough of the remaining milk to cover the eggplant. Let soak at least 30 minutes before cooking. (You can do this several hours ahead and refrigerate.)

  Meanwhile, to make the sauce, soak the bread briefly in water and squeeze dry. Place the tomatoes, garlic, and ¾ teaspoon salt in the bowl of a food processor and puree. With the processor running, gradually add the bread, process until smooth, and drizzle in the olive oil. Add the vinegar and taste for salt. Transfer to a serving bowl and set aside.

  Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Mix the cornmeal and flour in a pie plate. Pour the vegetable oil into a skillet to a depth of 1 inch and heat until the oil quickly browns a cube of bread. Remove the eggplant from the milk but do not dry. Quickly coat the slices with the cornmeal and flour, patting to make sure it adheres well. Slide the slices into the oil and fry until golden (a few minutes), turning once. Drain on paper towels and keep warm in the oven while frying the remaining slices. Serve immediately, accompanied by sauce.

  NOTE: The sauce is also very good on its own, served as a chilled soup and garnished with sieved hard-boiled egg and chopped Serrano ham sautéed until crisp in a skillet with a bit of olive oil.

  DANIEL BOULUD’S EGGPLANT WITH CUMIN

  ( Yield: 6 servings )

  2 medium to large eggplants (about 2½ pounds total)

  2 tablespoons olive oil

  1⁄3 cup chopped white onions

  1 tablespoon minced garlic

  2 teaspoons ground cumin

  1 cup finely chopped white mushrooms

  Salt to taste

  Freshly ground black pepper to taste

  Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Pierce the eggplants in several places so they won’t explode, place in a greased baking pan, and bake until soft, almost to the point of collapse, 35 to 45 minutes. Cut in half, cool for 15 minutes or so, and drain the juices. Remove the skin, finely chop the flesh, and set aside.

  Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions, garlic, and cumin, and cover and cook for 3 minutes. Add the mushrooms, cover, and cook for 5 minutes. Add the eggplant and salt and pepper to taste. Cook gently for 20 minutes, or until moisture evaporates. Check for seasoning.

  GRILLED-EGGPLANT SALAD WITH FRESH MINT

  ( Yield: 4 to 6 servings )

  3 eggplants (about 1 pound each)

  2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for brushing eggplant slices

  Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

  3 medium white onions, peeled and chopped

  One 28-ounce can peeled tomatoes, drained and roughly chopped

  1 cup firmly packed, roughly chopped or torn fresh mint leaves

  2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

  Prepare a very hot charcoal fire, or preheat the broiler.

  Heat a pot of salted water to boiling. Meanwhile, cut the top off each eggplant and a thin slice off the bottom. Peel a wide strip of skin off two opposite sides of each eggplant. Holding the eggplant vertically, slice it lengthwise into 1⁄3-inch-thick slices, so that each has a thin border of peel.

  Plunge the eggplant slices into the boiling water for 2 minutes. Remove, pat dry, and brush lightly with olive oil. Place directly on the grill (or on an oiled cookie sheet beneath the broiler) in a single layer. Turn frequently, every 2 minutes or so, to make sure the slices don’t burn. They are done when they are sizzled brown on the outside (they will be crusty in places, but that’s what you want) and just tender within. Season both sides with salt and pepper and transfer to a cutting board. Cut into pieces about 1 inch square, place in a large bowl, and set aside.

  Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a pan over moderately high heat. Add the onions and sauté for 3 minutes, then add the tomatoes. Cook for a few more minutes; season to taste. Stir into eggplant. Add the mint and balsamic vinegar. Mix well.

  NOTE: This is also delicious tossed with pasta, along with about 8 minced anchovy fillets and/or some pitted Niçoise olives. Keep the salad cold or at room temperature and toss with hot spaghetti or linguine.

  9

  Burger Heaven

  When I was fourteen years old and a few months shy of the age at which you could then get your driver’s license in the state of Mississippi, I wrecked my mother’s car. I was sober and it was daylight, but when I backed the big old Buick Estate out of a friend’s driveway, the front end somehow swung into a tree. Like everyone else in the Mississippi Delta, I’d been driving since the age of eleven and I thought I was a pro. Clearly, I was not. My parents were out of town, so the first thing I tried to do was get the car fixed, an endeavor that was a bit of an overreach. One, it was a weekend; two, I had no money.

  So I did what I thought was the next best thing. I got a job, one that I hoped would make me appear so noble I would avoid getting grounded over the unauthorized use and subsequent wreckage of the “wood”-paneled wagon. I went to work behind the counter at our local McDonald’s. A school friend who worked there told me that the manager was a “nice guy” who didn’t mind hiring girls slightly younger than the age that the federal government wanted them to be. (We will not dwell on his possible motivation—at that moment, I was grateful.)

  When my parents arrived home, I was decked out in my navy-and-powder-blue zip-front polyester pantsuit embroidered with a golden arch and then I showed them the car. Unamused by both dent and outfit, they grounded me anyway. Worse, I was forced to use my initial earnings to pay for the repair. I was furious that my ruse hadn’t worked. But then a funny thing happened—I started to love working at McDonald’s. I loved the camaraderie and the jokes and the hustle. I didn’t mind that every time I went into the walk-in cooler I came out with hair that smelled like Big Mac sauce. I didn’t mind greeting the customer with a smile and suggesting a hot apple pie at the end of an order like we had been coached a thousand times to do. I didn’t even mind covering for Melvin, the alcoholic manager who mixed bourbon into one of the Coke dispensers for his own sipping pleasure, and I still hope I didn’t serve one to an unsuspecting toddler or member of A.A.

  On
ce I paid for the car, I was free to buy my own LPs and eight-tracks (this was a long, long time ago) and a whole closet full of clothes (including an incredibly chic brown velvet suit and a pair of Charles Jourdan pumps I wish I still had). By this time I’d finally become a legal driver and drove myself to work, which meant I was also buying gas and the soft packs of Marlboro reds I had stupidly started smoking. After a year, I was ready to move on, which was a good thing, since the owner of the franchise was forced to pay a hefty fine to the feds once it was discovered that his manager was hiring underage employees.

  I still occasionally crave a McDonald’s burger—Big Mac sauce is to me like Proust’s madeleine. It reminds me of high school and my beloved Mustang convertible and the Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne songs I listened to on my way to and from manning the counter. It reminds me of the silver-and-turquoise ring and Clarks Treks I wore with my uniform to show off my “cool chick” cred and the satisfaction I got from the simple act of punching a clock on time. I learned a lot of stuff in my own private Hamburger College, not least of which is the importance of keeping it together no matter what it is that you do. I don’t ordinarily quote Snoop Dogg, but in this instance he happens to be on the money: “If it’s flipping hamburgers at McDonald’s, be the best hamburger flipper in the world. Whatever it is you do, you have to master your craft.” This also is why I get seriously irritated when I walk into a fast-food enterprise and I am not greeted with a smile. Or worse, no one suggests to me that I add a hot apple pie with my order, ma’am. I don’t want one, but I do know the rules and if I can follow them, anyone can.

  These days, most of the hamburgers I eat I make myself. And, like the Big Mac, my burgers are all about the sauce—I keep everything else pretty simple. I am not a fan of piled-on, complex fixings—bacon, sautéed mushrooms or onions, avocado, whatever—that are always too plentiful for the bun and too overwhelming for the meat. In this, I am not alone. The brilliant Eric Ripert once told me, “I love a burger you can take in your two hands and taste all the ingredients in one bite without having it spilling out all over you.” He is even a fellow fan of McDonald’s. “It may sound crazy coming from a French chef,” he told me. “But I think they have the right idea when it comes to size and proportion and classic toppings, so I’m inspired by that—I just use better-quality ingredients.”