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Wednesday, November 20, 2024

Meal No. 3744: Pork Medallions with Dijon Mushroom Cream Sauce

Friday night saw three at the table for dinner, which after a two-year absence was a return to a long-time favorite of the household: pork medallions with dijon mushroom cream sauce. I still had two crowns of broccoli so roasting and spicing florets was a fine add-on.

Thanks to a tasty side dish I enjoyed on my recent trip to Senegal, I was of a mind to try making a variation of potatoes au gratin and tried out a new approach with Ina Garten as my expert guide. With plenty of cheese and an abundance of cream, with Gruyère mixed in and some finishing sharp cheddar on top, these supremely-thin potatoes discs were quite the show-stopped once it all came out of the oven and joined the plate.


Adapted from "Pork Medallions with Dijon Mushroom Sauce," by Frank Hollands [1937-2024] of Moorhead, Minnesota. Bake-Off Contest 37 (1996). Published in Pillsbury Classic Cookbooks' A Taste of the BAKE-OFF Issue from March 2001, p. 40-41. [Updated by Pillsbury Kitchens on 12 May 2005]

Based on "Potato-Fennel Gratin (half-recipe)," from Ina Garten. First published in The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, Clarkson Potter/Publishers, 1999.

Tuesday, November 19, 2024

Meal No. 3743: Roasted Salmon and Broccoli

On a dreary exceptionally chilly day of rain and downpours last Thursday, when it was a white-knuckled 3-hour return trip in torrential rains and minimal visibility, coming back from a day of work in the southern tip of Sampson County, I was content to take the easy way out with dinner. And the reward was doubled, since I could feast once again on roasted spiced salmon together with roasted spiced broccoli florets. Oh, just a smidge (or more) of dessert remained: homemade vanilla bean pudding. Too good for my tongue and too bad for my waistline.


"Vanilla Pudding," from the Food Network Kitchens.

Monday, November 18, 2024

Meal No. 3742: Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Barbecue

With three at the table last Wednesday evening, I was glad I'd brought out the slow cooker the night before and tackled the easy prep of a Boston Butt pork shoulder: the sensation was a happy one once in hand I had those easily pulled tender morsels of meat, well-sauced for cooking and boosted with another generous dollop of sauce once piled high upon a Brioche bun. Some slaw made in the spirit of my mother's recipe, and bulked up with some of my modern pantry's enhancements. It was a filling and comforting meal on a sunny but slightly chilly autumn night.

Sunday, November 17, 2024

Meal No. 3741: Cinnamon Roll Belgian Waffles

As Veteran's Day came to an end last Monday, I found myself in a breakfast mood at dinnertime. Perhaps also feeling a bit adventurous, because I sought out a tucked-away untried recipe. What emerged that evening was cinnamon roll waffles with a cream cheese glaze. It was all a bit heavy in the belly once supper concluded, frankly, and I'm not sure how soon I'll want to repeat this particular version.


"Mouthwatering Cinnamon Roll Waffles," from Alyssa Rivers of TheRecipeCritic.com. [Published 02 November 2021]

Saturday, November 16, 2024

Meal No. 3740: Cheddar Potato Soup

Oooooh...the weather Sunday a week ago turned miserable, with grey skies and mists and sprinkles and short rain showers (and even an odd flash of lightning that evening!). It utterly soured my mood after having enjoyed unseasonable gorgeous weather over that preceding weekend on the campus of my beloved UNC-Chapel Hill. But it also made clear that the best dinner option was something from the realm of soup, so in our bowls was cheddar potato soup with all its hearty goodness and soul-soothing feels. I didn't mind the special treat of the final slice of Atlantic Beach pie, even as stuffed as I was. In those chilly evening mists, making downtown's skyline difficult to discern, I still undertook my 3-mile stroll. It's the rare occasion when I hated failure more than I hated rain.


"Cheddar Potato Soup," from the Roediger House. Adapted from "Potato and Cheese Soup," from KitchenArt: The Store for Cooks [now closed] in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Friday, November 15, 2024

Meal No. 3739: Lamb & Mushroom Meatloaf

My gosh: when it's been almost 40 years since laying eyes on a dear college friend, the evening of the reunion simply cannot arrive quickly enough. That's what made me so very happy Thursday a week ago to hear the car drive up in the lot and behind its wheel to find the one and only Kelly Clark. The long gap in our UNC-birthed friendship is on my shoulders, thanks to a 14-year delay in responding to an email! Of course, because he moved to New York after graduating from UNC, and then lived overseas some of the intervening years, and now has nestled his family into quaint New England, it's not as though we're going to run into one another at the Harris Teeter.

I'd promised to make dinner and something that captured and spanned the state was the clever idea that drove the menu design. We'll head west for the main meal, borrowing from Asheville's Tupelo Honey Cafe, the source of the recipe for lamb and mushroom meatloaf and smashed sweet potatoes, pictured above. Roasted herbed asparagus joined the plates as well.

Dessert took us to the other end of the state, where might often be found the popular Atlantic Beach pie, our home state riff on key lime pie with lemon as the featured flavor. Tying the menu up into a neat bow is that this wonderful dessert gained national attention thanks to an NPR feature on Chef Bill Smith of Chapel Hill's Crook's Corner bringing it to the fore. It could not have been a finer evening, here in Carolina, and I'm glad we'll have more to look forward to on Kelly's frequent trips to nearby Greensboro.


"Lamb and Multi-Mushroom Meatloaf" (p. 150) and "Smashed Sweet Potatoes" (p. 128), in Tupelo Honey Cafe: Spirited Recipes from Asheville's New South Kitchen, by Elizabeth Sims with Chef Brian Sonoskus. Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing (2011).

"One Phenomenal Pie: Atlantic Beach Pie," from Chef Bill Smith. Published in Our State Magazine, May 2014. Also featured in "Found Recipes" on All Things Considered from National Public Radio, broadcast April 13, 2013. First made in the RoHo: July 2014.

Thursday, November 14, 2024

Meal No. 3738: Linton Hopkins's Bucatini Carbonara

It was an evening with Amy once again joining the dinner table Wednesday a week ago, and my disoriented self defaulted to a surprisingly remarkable and ever-so-simple dish: bucatini carbonara, based on an approach from Chef Linton Hopkins. This recipe has been a faithful entry in the Roediger House menu book since 2012. I've become comfortable substituting bacon pieces for the recommended diced pancetta, because of what I'm likely to have on hand. That accords as well with my southern roots, no doubt. We had our fill, and perhaps a bit more, glad for the chance to visit and talk and to laugh again for a while.

Also, I think we should all be glad I finally figured out what that faint unpleasant smell was that I was detecting as I passed by the open door of the butler's pantry.


Adapted from "Bucatini Carbonara," by Linton Hopkins. In Food & Wine, July 2009.

Wednesday, November 13, 2024

Maple-Buttermilk Pudding Cake

I tried out a new recipe for the Election Night watch party: maple-buttermilk pudding cake. I've been into pudding cakes lately, and this variation was pretty pleasing to us all. And I appreciate that some could be saved as leftovers, which I happily tackled the next day!


"Maple-Buttermilk Pudding Cake," from Sam Heyward. Published in Food & Wine, November 2005. [Updated Online: 07 June 2017]

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Meal No. 3737: Sausage Egg and Cheese Biscuits

Mookie and Kristen were here for Election Night, and before we watched everything go utterly and completely south, we enjoyed a southern-style breakfast for dinner. The crux of it was sausage, egg, and cheese biscuits, and then alongside were creamy stone-ground grits.


Buttermilk Biscuits,” from Megan Myers of Stetted.com. [Published 02 November 2022]

"Baked Scrambled Eggs," from Heather Johnson of TheFoodHussy.com. [Published 09 September 2019]

Guidance for making the creamy grits: Luquire Family Stone Ground Grits, milled in Greenwood, SC.

Monday, November 11, 2024

Treats for the UNCSA Students

Here's a follow-up to yesterday's post about the UNCSA film project that took place here the first weekend of November. While I wish I could have tackled more than just a couple of treats, I did want to let the film students know how welcome they were to be here. For me, that often will mean whipping something up in the kitchen. For their Sunday morning, I baked up some banana bread mini-loaves, and sliced them for easier distribution from the craft service table. I also made a huge pan of chocolate fudge, using a long-time favorite family recipe that my sister Janice brought home from college in the early 1970s. Those awesome young people were so kind in their compliments and warm in their expressions of appreciation. I wish I could have done more!


"Carolyn's Banana Bread," a recipe shared by former neighbor Lori Pilon.

Sunday, November 10, 2024

UNCSA School of Filmmaking

Perhaps I’ve peppered some past blog entries with my interest in, support of, and pleasure regarding the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and especially the School of Filmmaking. Over the years, I’ve truly loved attending the Third- and Fourth-Year Film Screenings, marvelous productions wholly created by incredibly talented students at this hidden jewel right down the street from the house. One of the delightful elements of watching those is to catch sight of familiar buildings, houses, and locales since they are almost always shot here in town.

When I bought the Roediger House over 21 years ago, when the institution was called the North Carolina School of the Arts, a Wake Forest University colleague put the bug in my ear that I should let the School of Filmmaking know that here was a house of a certain age that would be perfect as a shooting location for student films that might benefit from it.

I repeatedly missed opportunities to mention this to key people when I had the chance, and benign neglect stayed my hand at others. Maybe 10 years ago, one student stopped to ask me about and tour the house but ended up choosing a location closer to UNCSA. First, excitement; then, disappointment.

The very sweet threesome of film students who caught the attentions of Sumner and Scarlett back on a sunny Sunday afternoon in late August brought about the renewed hope we could be helpful to a team in search of a filming location. What that culminated in is documented through the photos that will populate the rest of this post, as I tell the fuller story of this marvelous experience.

On that August morning, I happily brought them in for a tour and gave them the link for the house website gallery. They brought more of the team back the following Thursday for a full tour, discussion, and questions of me, all to help them decide if this place would work for them. Early the following week, they sent word that they wanted the Roediger House to serve as their primary filming location. I was very glad we passed the audition.

Within days, they scheduled another team visit, checking out the specific scene locations, running through a few moves and actions to visualize them, taking lots of notes, doing lots of internal discussion, and asking me a host of questions to make sure they had a good read on the house as well as the limits of our ability to accommodate their needs.

As the weeks proceeded, it became the pattern that a small team would ask for some location scouting time, and they’d come over and spend a couple of hours. In the early going, that was largely about scenes and staging and camera shots; once those were increasingly certain, the students coming over also included production and tech crew members. The final two weeks leading up to the actual filming dates meant someone (or someones) from the production was here nearly every day.

Then came the big three-day shoot, November 2-4. Theirs was an intense schedule of 12-hour-plus filming days, starting at noon each day, and then wrapping up around midnight.

This was a most welcome interruption to the Roediger House routines, with the greatest challenge being how to manage dogs with their multiple trips outside and with their excitement at so many busy people!

But the film crew was great about coordinating and communicating: we would send word and they were able to then let me know of a good filming break or transition moment.

New discovery: film production crew members perform a cascading call-out to alert everybody we were passing through by saying: “The dogs are flying!” We all worked around one another, and the dogs managed their rare leashed restrictions, for the greater good of film!

It was a marvel to watch all this incredible talent in all the many respects and elements, fully displaying their efficiency and coordination and cooperation and focus and enthusiasm.

They are exceptionally well-trained but it’s more than that. They must themselves be exceptional, because that’s what it takes to be admitted into this highly successful program and institution.

Can I also mention how they interact with one another? They are professional and unfailingly polite. They commend and celebrate one another. They offer feedback and notes to one another in a manner that is always encouraging and supportive. They collaborate seamlessly not only on the production and tech elements of the execution but also every bit as well on the creative vision in process.

Particularly noteworthy was the number of “Thank yous” and “That was amazing” comments (followed by “Now let’s try…”) as they communicated needs or directions or changes or fixes or feedback. Two of many cherries on top: hearing crew members who already had their own task list also readily offering to help share the load born by other crew members; and the inspiring million moments of mentorship by older students to younger ones. Seriously. These UNCSA students are really phenomenal.

I am scared to begin naming names because all of them deserve so much credit. (They’ll be acknowledged when the film’s credits are rolled in May!) But a project like this depends entirely on its leadership, and the director (and co-writer) Hoffman West was a marvel to behold; the Director of Photography Grant Kaufman was a genius; we also loved Sophia Alvarez-Cabrera, Kayla Guilliver, and all the other dept heads…plus Hollyn Gambrill and Luke Penny as our point people leading up to and coordinating/communicating during the filming. Two absolutely lovely moms were here part of the time as well, and they deserve all the pride welling up within while watching Hoffman and Grant work.

UNCSA also has pretty strict policies and guidelines that the students have to abide by. Their safety policies, the equipment and vehicle management, and even the end-of-day curfew join the expectations for stunningly detailed production plans and processes and these emerging filmmakers were unfailingly faithful to all those.

This old house is full of antique clocks and quite a lot of furniture. Did it escape unscathed from those three 12-hour days of 45 UNCSA students in constant motion and so much stuff moved around and with all that equipment and all the art and props?

You would be amazed. Oh, a scratch here, a nick there...and less damage from a full film production than what is regularly perpetrated by the lovely cleaning ladies!

And a word of acknowledgement and enormous thanks is due to our neighbors, accustomed as they are to the cascading effects on our street from evening restaurant clientele but also special events like the Veterans Day Parade that had wrapped up just before the first day of filming. As soon as I notified them of the film production taking place here, Phil Neari of Neari & Associates said: Use our lot on the weekend! And Will Brown of AlarmQuest across the street said: Here is the code to our gate so you can use our parking area! And neighbor Natasha said: My driveway will be clear if you need it! Ah, but clear is not good for those big windows of the front doors, when you’re filming and have lights that reflect and a view of a parking deck, so they’ve got a fix for that:

My three-part “condition” when use of the house as a set location was first raised was as follows: (1) tell me whatever you need or how I can help; (2) if we seem to be a usable/workable site, please spread the word at UNCSA; (3) share with me a copy of the finished film.

It was worth it to take down the highfalutin’ modern video doorbell and to (temporarily) restore the original one present when I bought the house, just to add that much more authenticity to the film.

It’s a fair trade-off, because I learned that “All keys to monitor!” is a command for department heads on the production to get to their assigned places to view the monitor, just before the start of filming a scene; and the Art Department might just happen to refer to itself as “The Pretty Committee.”

This was just a fun and educational and invigorating and enlightening experience. To have the chance to be around all this talent, and all this goodness within these aspiring filmmakers, was a gift I had no right to ask for. But there they were at the very end, bringing forth a concluding gesture of enormous generosity:

Saturday, November 9, 2024

WiFi System Reset

This Saturday morning finds me back in my beloved Chapel Hill, joining other alumni brothers to support the initiation of new members into our fraternity. I’ve gotten behind on composing entries for recent happenings here, but I had a draft set aside from September that I knew I’d need at some point to upload, simply because this is the record of life and management of the Roediger House. And the governing compulsion is to have something to toss up every single day.

I really do enjoy how much of the household is integrated into a smart network, with voice control and routines and automation galore. When I got an updated cable modem, I thought it might also be a good time to refresh the WiFi network password and create a guest network, which ought to have been part of my original configuration, frankly. I did not anticipate what an enormous amount of time would be required to reconnect everything to the network: individual light switches, plugs, smart light bulbs, two security system homebases and a couple of the cameras (get the ladder, take them down, resync them, put them back up), the outdoor WiFi extender, the Nest thermostat, the Tempest weather station, irrigation controller, the Sonos devices, the Alexa devices, three printers, and who knows what else. For different smart device manufacturers, there’s a different app, which means different passwords and different tactics. As if it’s not time-consuming enough, quite a few resets failed and had to be re-initiated. For every device that had to be reset, it had to be rediscovered by Alexa and re-added into any of the understandably brilliant routines I’ve built. These are things we do to ourselves in intense bursts of frustration and time-suck because of how clever all these gimmicks seem. When it all works, it’s awesome. When it doesn’t, somewhere an angel’s wings probably burst into flames.

Friday, November 8, 2024

Meal No. 3736: Pork Burnt Ends

Perhaps those who know me best are aware that I like to jump onto these blog posts immediately, rather than trying to reconstruct things from my increasingly undependable memory. But it’s been quite a whirlwind over the last month, between work and travel and unusual events here at the house, and a seismic election to boot. But herein comes the requisite documentation of a meal that seems so long ago I almost do not remember it, from only last Friday: pork burnt ends with crispy smashed spiced potatoes. Both menu items were new recipes for me, and while my grill was a little hotter than I’d have liked, it still proved to be a tasty supper in the midst of lots of other activity.


Based on the following:

Thursday, November 7, 2024

Replacing the Downstairs Hot Water Heater

[Editor's Note: Here's a look back to September, with one of those blog posts that shows up as a way to help me keep track of key events of homeownership.] When the water was lukewarm at best and the power vent was running constantly, as we headed into the Labor Day Weekend, it was a pretty good indication that the downstairs gas water heater was having trouble. Installed and inspected in mid-2009, I preferred to think this 75-gallon workhorse still had life left in it. The pilot light was still alight, but the burner was not firing up except sporadically. It was time to call in the experts.

I called in two different plumbing firms that have both provided service here. So, if Google says the national average cost to replace my system is $3,000, why were all the estimates at least twice that? (I love my home but I sometimes I get a little overwhelmed by home ownership!) I do feel like there was once a world in which licensed service professionals tried to be thorough in examining and diagnosing problems and then coming up with the most cost-effective solution. In my early days of homeownership, I remember the guys saying things like: “If we can save you some money here, we’ll find a way to do it.”

Nowadays, it feels like these firms are owned (or inherited?) by people close to my age but who would rather get to retirement and a life living at the beach faster. How else to explain a lack of interest in figuring out the problem and instead jumping to the sales pitch for an $8,000 tankless water heater?

In the end, though, I know when I’m over a barrel (or a tank, as this case may be), and it’s not like I can live without a hot water heater for the master bedroom and kitchen and laundry room. I went with the plumber who seemed interested in why my old unit had begun to malfunction, and who’d actually replaced my first hot water heater back in the first few years I owned the house, before I’d done any renovation work on it. That happened on Friday the 13th, so now you know the biggest present I unwrapped for my birthday!

Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Cap'n Crunch Cookies

Let's leave the present moment and step back to Halloween night. For my own satisfaction, and also because there were people who would be coming to the house, I whipped up a late afternoon batch of Cap'n Crunch cookies. They were well-received, I'm glad to report. The current flavor of cereal was their Cinnamon Crunch version, but in the final cookie product, there was the barest hint of that much-loved spice.

The overwhelming tradition on this holiday is that we are not a regular stop for trick-or-treaters, but I had a fine tray of candy just in case.

With hopes it could be an enticement, I swapped out the usual porch lights and put in orange bulbs, and then I placed a couple of plug-in jack-o-lanterns on either side of the porch. The trendlines are set for this stretch of North Spring Street: if I buy candy, I'll definitely not have trick-or-treaters. But let's not leave this mention of Halloween 2024 without also noting what a stunningly gorgeous day it was, with a high around 79°F, with great breezes and a lot of sunshine.


"Cap'n Crunch Cookies," found online at The Capitol Baker, with credit going to The Sugar Plum Blog for inspiration and the source of the adapted recipe.

Tuesday, November 5, 2024