Meal No. 4090: The Viral Ramen Recipe

The supper came early yesterday, as the week rolled to a close. I returned Thursday night from my final stretch of work travel for the spring and did not make it to the grocery. But that’s okay, because I’m still able to make an excellent bowl of ramen with (mostly) pantry staples. I had snagged an upscale brown rice ramen from Costco, which came out much softer and more silky. It was a nudge shy of too much once plated, and I licked my soy-sauced-lips happily.

I’d made a quick run over to Chapel Hill for a most excellent reason: my friend and fraternity brother Bryan and I met with the new student body president at UNC, a meeting of old campus leader minds with this bright and energetic new generation.

Then last night I indulged another happy tradition: attending screenings of Fourth-Year films at the UNC School of the Arts, not far from the house. Of course, the student films have been drawing me there since 2004, but now the productions are even more meaningful because the house has served as a location and especially because I want to support the amazing students it’s been an honor to get to know.

The auditorium was bursting with such excellent energy and glorious inventive spirit, and this old man was overjoyed to see so many of the young filmmakers who have worked on films (often more than one!) at the house. They applauded wildly for one another but also with good reason, given the quality of their final productions. The Fourth-Year projects are spread across two nights, an abundance of riches and so much talent and wondrous creative ideas. I'll catch the other half of this program tonight, which will include two films shot here. We truly are fortunate to have this university and conservatory here in Winston-Salem.

---

Based on "Viral Ramen Noodles," from Brian Gerwig [NC]. Instagram Profile: g_bque. [Posted 15 May 2024]

Meal No. 4051: Cheddar-Crust Chicken Pot Pie

As we approach the almost exact 40-year mark of knowing one another, my good friend and fellow UNC alum Kelly found his way back over to the house for a dinner visit last Tuesday night. Bearing a couple of fine gifts, the absolute best of which was his presence, Kelly joined us at the table for a supper of cheddar crust chicken pot pie and roasted herbed whole green beans. We were on the second of a couple of frigid-feeling days after the previous week's welcome warm-up, and I was absolutely committed to something that would be fully comforting. In this, there was success.

Tuesday morning brought welcome signs of our crocus resurrection, and I shall giddily celebrate Spring’s arrival especially after a January of winter’s enduring onslaught and about a thousand dollars sent to Duke Energy and Piedmont Natural Gas to cover it.

---

"Chicken Potpie with Cheddar Crust," from Food Network Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 8 (October 2011), p. 132-133.

An Overlooked Texas Sheet Cake

A discussion of recent desserts in the casual outdoor conversation space under the Bradford pear tree caused me to realize a rare failure to properly document, and this post is a belated catch-up so as not to miss a single culinary endeavor from the Roediger House kitchen. When friend and colleague and UNC chum Chris was here back on August 19, the dinner was followed by the longtime family favorite of Texas sheet cake (which in the Winston-Salem area is also called Scotch Chocolate Cake). But I didn't commit it to the blog, so here I shall rectify that oversight. This was something my mother used to make pretty regularly, and I particularly remember her generously sending me back to college at UNC after a home visit with a whole pan of it to enjoy (and share, if I were so inclined). That's what the first bite of it that night transported me back to immediately: imagining the desk cubby where I kept my foodstuffs in Avery Dorm, and digging into the luscious chocolatey sweet marvels of this faithful standby.

---

"Scotch Chocolate Cake," [in my world, also known as Texas sheet cake]. Credited to Susie Timmons. From "Popular: Cake Request Gets 22 Responses," by Michael Hastings, Food Editor of the Winston-Salem Journal. [Published 06 October 6 2010 / Updated 16 April 2021]

Meal No. 3904: Kung Pao Chicken

Tuesday evening brought another delightful visit from Chris, a UNC chum and fellow Argonaut in the Order of the Golden Fleece. With high hopes it might prove a satisfactory menu, I opted for a kung pao chicken stir-fry, and it seemed to satisfy. With that terrific combination of flavors, tender morsels of chicken, a suitable mix of onion and sweet bell pepper and asparagus, all with a saucy goodness to bring the rice bed together, we cleaned our bowls and found our way to seconds. Sweet Sumner, for his part, was happy to be close by as the leisurely dinner played out:

---

Very loosely based on ideas from "Kung Pao [Chicken]" (p. 80) with Szechwan Marinade (p. 28) and Spicy Peanut Stir-Fry Sauce (p. 27). In Wok Fast, by Hugh Carpenter and Teri Sandison. Ten Speed Press (Berkeley/Toronto), 2002.

Meal No. 3865: Filipino Chicken Adobo

It's a social week at the Roediger House, and Tuesday's frivolity involved the special treat of UNC chum Chris coming for dinner and an evening visit. Winston-Salem was a convenient stop-off for him on his way home from a long holiday weekend in the mountains, and it was good to see him. Dinner featured one of our house favorites: Filipino chicken adobo with brown rice and green beans, which seemed to all go over well. We then adjourned to the third floor for more conversation and catching up, a bit of bad television, and some enlightening conversation about our perspectives on and experiences with UNC's Order of the Golden Fleece.

---

"Introducing Chicken Adobo," by Bryan Roof. In Cook's Illustrated, March & April 2012, p. 6-7.

Meal No. 3834: Sheet Pan Beef Nachos

Given the chores I'd assigned to myself last Sunday, and with an evening visit by UNC-Chapel Hill colleague Chris Faison that evening, I opted for a doable simplicity at suppertime: sheet pan beef nachos. These are always rewarding, full of great flavors, seductively inviting of huge dollops of sour cream, and offering the bonus of decent enough leftovers. It was a marvelous visit with Chris, and he seemed to approve of the menu.

---

Sheet Pan Nachos seriously modified from "Loaded Sweet Pork Sheet Pan Nachos," from Elyse of Six Sisters Stuff. [Published 14 March 2018]

Taco-Style meat depended partly on "Crispy Beef Tacos," by Hilah Johnson. From HilahCooking.com.

"Homemade Chili and Taco Seasoning," from Jamie Lothridge of MyBakingAddiction.com. [Published 03 February 2011]

Copycat Starbucks Lemon Loaf

As we headed into the conclusion of a delightful latest visit with one another, my UNC buddy Kelly and I partook of a simple dessert offering: lemon loaf cake, in the style of what one might get at Starbucks. Freshly baked, properly lemoned, and sufficiently tamed so as not to be cloyingly sweet, this was a suitable palate pleaser to wrap up this latest terrific evening together.

---

"The Best Lemon Loaf (Better-Than-Starbucks Copycat)," from Averie Sunshine of AverieCooks.com. [Published 15 March 2019 / Updated 16 May 2023]

Meal No. 3823: Spicy Beef & Broccoli Strudel

Last Monday night was St. Patrick's Day, but the celebration at the Roediger House was focused primarily on St. Kelly, a fellow alumnus of the University of North Carolina and a long-standing friend of fine stature. He was making his third visit to the Roediger House over the last several months, since we reconnected after too long a separation, and it was another marvelous evening. On this occasion, I made the house favorite of beef and broccoli strudel. To go with it I had roasted cumin-coriander cauliflower, and a healthy dollop of homemade garlic-herb cooking creme sauce abated the extra heat I'd built into the main fare.

It was a lovely day, albeit a bit cool and breezy. I was glad for where I'd positioned a collective of camelia bushes, visible when I worked at the kitchen sink. Here are a couple of shots as their full blooms were adorning the small strip of back yard.

---

Adapted to puff pastry from "Savory Garlic Beef & Broccoli Turnovers," by Kirsten Renee Shabaz of Minneapolis, MN. Taste of Home, November 2011, p. 31. (Go to food.com for a copy of the original recipe.)

Strudel version inspired by "Chicken Mushroom Strudel," from Chef John Mitzewich of FoodWishes.com and AllRecipes.com. [Published 28 October 2022[

Adapted from "Make Your Own Cooking Creme," from CKolden and once available on epicurious.com. [Published 24 September 2015]. Other versions can be found at:

• Philadelphia Cream Cheese on Tumblr
• Finding Joy in My Kitchen
• Cook the Story

The RHA Report Project

It began with rooting around one winter afternoon last year in search of my trove of bank statements, hoping I’d turn up a checkbook cover to replace the tattered one I’d been using. But then I dug a little deeper because I also felt sure I had a copy of the first deposit slip for my savings account, started at First Citizens Bank in Buies Creek in 1972. Because the closure of that branch had at that time recently been announced, somewhere along the way I thought I’d probably put up some social media post about it, and I like digitizing things when I get a chance as another approach to long-term storage.

But a random box adjacent to my exploration had items that caught my eye: bound copies of the Final Report I wrote in 1989, summarizing the issues and events and philosophy from my year as president of the Residence Hall Association at UNC-Chapel Hill. I brought a copy out of the attic and sat down to read it and got all interested in it again...and dug into other saved files and looked into the current activities of RHA at UNC via their social media. Then I came across a mention from the UNC alumni magazine that the University Archivist had asked that graduates with student organization records share them with the Wilson Library Special Documents Collection.

In the quiet and still-dark of late winter last year, that set me onto a six-week project that wrapped up just as March was coming to an end and spring had at last emerged. I retyped the report (no saved digital version could be located and I probably couldn’t access it anyway after 35 years of advances in technology!). This let me fix a limited number of syntax and word choice issues but also I found myself with more to say, so I added footnotes for clarification, context, or editorializing, and then I also wrote up additional thoughts and included them as a new Appendix.

I pulled out my trove of saved files from the filing cabinet and discovered it’s actually not hard to use my multifunction copier/printer to sheetfeed documents for scanning. Now everything from my term has been digitized.

For somebody who felt like he got to be on the front end of website creation and management in the mid-1990s—and whose skills were not bad at that time—but who long ago got left behind by the enormous advances in coding and stylesheets and scripts, it’s always a delightful but foolish errand to reignite those pursuits. Long ago, I should have gotten a professional website for myself, for instance. But now there is not only a printed version of the updated report; a fully-developed web version of it, with all the supporting material and archived documents, is published for those who are interested enough to dig into it.

A significant shortcoming of my meager web design efforts is that the overall site is not great on a mobile device—I still have a long way to go with responsive design so that the layout adapts to small tall screen sizes. For now, it is pretty decent on a desktop, and that’s where I’ve left it. The original and printed versions were submitted to the Special Collections archivist at UNC-Chapel Hill and they have also archived the digital records.

A digitized report, scanned pdfs of all those documents, and a hunger to re-explore website design? A perfect storm for evening pursuits and whiling away weekend hours for about six weeks when the long end of winter slowly unfolded.

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.

Meal No. 3714: Chicken & Mushroom Strudel

The terrific opportunity to spend time with fellow UNC alums Margaret and Tathy when they came to town for the Bookmarks Festival meant a dinner together last Saturday night. On our menu: chicken and mushroom strudel and roasted broccoli florets. While I do like the recipe for that filling, I find myself considering ways to improve it and need to make some notes before I bring it back with some future supper. Still, the ladies were kind about what was on their plates and it was fantastic to get that extra time with them.

We saved room for some dessert: a tidy square of chocolate cake with chocolate ganache, and a big scoop of double chocolate liqueur ice cream. It was a suitable finisher to our evening of expansive conversation, ample wine, the glow of cozy candles, and the warmth of gathering and fellowship.

---

"Chicken Mushroom Strudel," from Chef John Mitzewich of FoodWishes.com and AllRecipes.com. [Published 28 October 2022]

"Double Chocolate Liqueur Ice Cream," by Kita Roberts. From her Pass the Sushi blog.

"The Best Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Ganache," from Averie Sunshine of Averie Cooks. [Update 08 February 2024]

Meal No. 3713: Mushroom and Shallot Salisbury Steak

Hot off the presses, once the latest issue of Bon Appétit showed up in the mailbox, came a new recipe for mushroom and shallot Salisbury steak, and when Kristen and Mookie came for dinner last Friday, we all got to find out how exceptionally delicious it was. My gracious, what glory: incredible flavors in the steaks themselves, a mushroom sauce to please us, the special treat of mashed skin-on red potatoes (this time with chives and bacon along with the sour cream and tons of butter)...and the fall-back to canned green beans.

The latest hurricane of 2024 had come ashore at the Big Bend of Florida overnight, and Helene proved to have a massive reach of unbelievable rain amounts. Here in Winston, we just got the brush-by, with steady rain fall and random occasional gusts of wind. By mid-afternoon, we were clearing. Those in the mountains to our west were not so lucky. No major damage around the house, and not as many small limbs and twigs to collect as I might have expected...but the second floor at the front of the house definitely had plenty of water coming through into the drip buckets.

About a block-and-a-half from the house, on the corner of West Fifth and Broad Streets, a tree took out the gas pumps awning and crushed a vehicle and landed on a beer truck:

The housecleaning ladies drove up as the weather was calming down, which was also well-timed because dear friends Margaret and Tathy arrived at day's end to spend the weekend taking in the awesome events of the annual Bookmarks Festival of Books and Authors. It was a quick in-and-out once they got here: dropping luggage, briefly visiting while I was doing dinner prep, and then off they went for the opening night activities at the Convention Center. Margaret and Tathy were excited to meet Stacey Abrams and Michael Eric Dyson, among others, for book-signings and meet-and-greet opportunities.

With all that activity, my plans around dinner for the visiting Mookie and Kristen had me making a quick return to vanilla bean pudding cake: after the more extensive clean-up from supper it was something I could throw together quickly enough to make sure we treated our dinner guests right.

---

”Mushroom and Shallot Salisbury Steak,” by Jesse Szewczyk. In Bon Appétit, October 2024, p. 18.

The return of late to this take on mashed red potatoes still being inspired by "Sour Cream and Onion Smashed Potatoes," by María del Mar Sacasa. In Cook's Country, February/March 2009, p. 9.

"Vanilla Bean Pudding Cakes," from Susan Reid. Published by King Arthur Baking. Recipe printed July 2017.

The New Handcrafted Entertainment Center

Ever since the attic was rehabbed into a third floor man cave and entertainment space, I’ve known that a necessary next step was getting an entertainment center for the main area where the television and speakers and supporting electronics are.

Thanks to the amazing craftsmanship and careful design considerations of my college suitemate Ronnie, who’s a damned fine carpenter and electrician, that dream is a very delightful reality.

With a floating set of shelves up top, and a sturdy wide bottom cabinet and shelves, it more than manages and accommodates all the necessary stuff that’s central to modern streaming life enjoyed also by people of a certain age...who still might watch DVDs or Blu-Rays or even old VHS tapes.

And while I won’t say it was a cakewalk, getting these two huge pieces in through the front doors and making the difficult turns of two flights of stairs was much easier than I’d feared!

Up top are places for the Sonos units and the WiFi router and the constellation projector, plus more space for media storage; down below is extra space for batteries and remotes, tucked away and out of sight in the handy drawers at the bottom. Ronnie made the shelves adjustable and we tried to leave plenty of room given that future TVs are likely to be even more ridiculous in size.

He’s been working on it in his shop since late winter, using some designs I worked up in a quiet spell during the summer of 2022. Time continues to get away from me: seven years' delay to even get around to coming up with some drawings to share with a carpenter; a couple of false starts with yet another for-hire carpenter who took the job and then never showed for it; and finally turning to my faithful friend Ronnie.

Ronnie's skill and his can-do spirit, plus remarkable patience and fortitude in helping achieve even the smallest “dream” elements of this set-up, means there is a gorgeous addition that’s incredibly functional and also rather a lovely sight to behold.

Above and below are those initial diagrams I put together.

Bringing in the two big sections, getting them mounted and secured, adding the drawer and cabinet hardware that matches what’s in Ray’s the Bar, cutting the wire and cable passthroughs, and turning around a couple of the outlets all took place on Friday, September 6th. Then Ronnie came back that Sunday and got all the upper portion’s cord and cable access completed and finished the trim work such as tying in the baseboards and running the shoe molding around. I am so thrilled with the final product and how perfectly Ronnie put it all together and completely honored my hopes for how to make it “work” and also be well-matched to the rest of that grand and gracious expanse of space. And here's a peek inside the mechanical room behind the entertainment center, where all the wires come through:

This has loomed for a decade as a necessary next step in creating just the right set-up in this room where so much time is spent. With all that equipment, and more wires and cables than I can keep straight, for so long sitting on or near a retired squat office table gifted to me by a colleague when I was on faculty at Wake Forest...it’s been hard to keep organized or clean—especially in a dusty old house with two dogs who manage to shed a fair amount. This is how it was all set up before the arrival of Ronnie’s elegant creation (and I'm embarrassed to look at it):

Meal No. 3603: Plain Old Oatmeal

Oh my gosh: what a great day last Friday was. It started with driving over to Chapel Hill and taking a spot behind the office of my all-the-way-through-school friend Margaret. Along with her boss, we strolled just steps away to the historic Carolina Inn, joining a band of hearty alumni and a handful of current undergraduates for the Order of the Golden Fleece Commencement Breakfast.

This was also my first in-person sighting in almost 30 years of Scott Peeler, Class of '93, who followed a few years after me as president of the UNC Residence Hall Association. Below is a picture he recently dug up of us at the same breakfast in, oh, around 1996...which might indeed have been our last time together. One of us has changed significantly.

After the breakfast, I drove over to Raleigh at the invitation of one of my graduate students from Wake Forest University, once more inviting me to come watch her teach and offer feedback. It was awesome to see her in action with her middle school students, and we had a delightful conversation (over drinks!) after school at a cool spot just outside Five Points. By the time I was home after that full and joyous day, it was oatmeal again, just plain old oatmeal, representing Meal No. 3603.