Antique Additions to an Old House

When I first bought the Roediger House back in 2003, my friends Jon and Karissa Piper encouraged me to take advantage of eBay to help me in furnishing it. That's where my great bedroom suite (see this blog entry, and see this one) came from. That's where my baby grand piano and club sofa and club chair came from:

That's where my first dining room table and chairs came from (and against the far wall one of two servers I also got from eBay):

That's where I got another sofa and an antique parlour set from:

As I've watched the renovation stages proceed for the last few months, with neglected rooms being restored and ready for furnishing, I've again turned to eBay to look for awesome beds from the same couple of sellers I'd had so much good luck with. Alas, though, none of the beds (while gorgeous and reasonably priced) seemed to, well, suit me. But I did find a couple of other things, so let me show you some other new additions to the Roediger House:

Not too shabby, my friends. Not too shabby.

A House of Drawers Divided

I love my kitchen but one of the hugely annoying organizational frustrations has been the wide, wide drawers for my ridiculous accumulation of silverware, utensils, and gadgets. Store-bought dividers are only somewhat helpful and seldom match what I need. They also slide around no matter the method I've tried to use to stabilize them. So guess what I had the good guys of Clemmons Flooring LLC do while they were working on refinishing trim and baseboards:

I had to lay it all out so I could come up with a plan to guide them.

They had to track down the right cut and width of maple.
But it works great and looks great too.

Ready for filling in.

The OCD in me is mighty happy with this.

The drawer by the sink needed help, too...

...as did this gadget-rich drawer.

Newly Arrived: Actual Beds!

Any and all guests and visitors to the Roediger House for the last 11 years have been treated as well as I could, but they've also slept on the floor. Well, on a mattress and boxspring on the floor. I didn't have any bedframes.

With all the motivation and energy to proceed with the extensive renovations these last few months, though, it made sense to work on those finishing touches like furnishing the recently upgraded rooms. With that in mind, I've now gotten a set of bedroom furniture for the Wyeth guest room and was able to put down the rug I got quite some time ago:

For the Van Gogh guest room, which is temporarily "off-line" since I've got all my boxed books and files stored in there, I have obtained just a new bed. It's been set up in my study temporarily:

When shopping for that particular bed, I also found I could pick up two more chairs to match the set of six in the kitchen eating area, which turns out to be awesome since I regularly have seven or eight around the table for dinner. This also means I can just keep one of them at the computer hutch in the kitchen when not needed at the table.

Roy G. Biv

The two houses just south of the Roediger House are both on the same tax lot and are divided up into apartments. They aren't in particularly great shape and it seems some of the apartments are always empty.

Wonder if that will change now that the one on the corner has been freshened up with a new paint job?

Workin' On It

Wonder what this is all about...?

Meal No. 1157: Teriyaki Chicken with Special Sriracha Sauce

This afternoon was the annual Winston-Salem Christmas Parade and tree lighting, and my location downtown always puts me in the staging area for it, since the route begins on the west end of Fourth Street right above the house. Sometimes it's a float, other times it is fire trucks or old cars, years ago it was the major and members of the city council, and this year it was a drum corps and the Thresher Queen.

Too bad the weather didn't cooperate more. Once the street was clear again, I was able to run over to Greensboro for a marriage celebration and Christmas party of a Guilford County School colleague, which put me home mighty late but I still wanted to put together a decent dinner:

This is a new recipe for me: teriyaki chicken with a sriracha cream sauce. I like my dark soy sauce so it's hard to tell that these are tender morsels of chicken. Here's a fun side note: Texas Pete Cha! Sriracha is made by the T. W. Garner Food Company right here in Winston-Salem.

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"Teriyaki Chicken with Special Sriracha Cream Sauce," from Amie, the Day-Dreaming Optimist. Her blog is A Meaning of An Optimist. A baked version of this recipe from Chelsea Lords can be found on the Chelsea's Messy Apron blog.

Meal No. 1156: Fusili Carbonara

I have a tendency to over-make pasta carbonara, especially when I'm doing a lot of traveling, because I can throw it together quickly and usually without having to go to the store. Today was another day where I ran short on time and needed to get some food on the table, and pasta carbonara based on guidance from my friend Monie Lawrence usually does us all right.

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"Pasta Carbonara," a recipe shared by Monie Lawrence of Raleigh, NC.

Meal No. 1155: Spaghetti with Yucky Spaghetti Sauce

I swear: I'm going to have to swear off Newman's Own spaghetti sauces as the starting point for meat sauce at my house. I had a pound of ground beef to use and not enough time, so I thought spaghetti might be tasty and quick last night. I always start off with a jarred sauce but this stuff was creeping me out with a harsh and dated tasting basil punch that took the wind out of my sails.

Meal No. 1154: Savory Beef & Broccoli Turnovers

Last night, when I made these delicious savory garlic beef and broccoli turnovers for the fourth time, I found myself much more comfortable with working with phyllo dough. I hope this is a giant leap forward for me in attempting other good recipes using it.

A key ingredient for these turnovers was unceremoniously discontinued by Kraft: the Philadelphia Cooking Creme that came in a small variety of flavors and with a big price tag. Fortunately, smart blogging kitchen gurus have worked out approximations--and even improvements--of it. I thought the garlic creme sauce was even better being homemade.

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"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.)

"DIY Cooking Creme," from Finding Joy in My Kitchen, 25 May 2011.

Meal No. 1153: Braised Chicken over Brussels Sprouts

Last night it was time for the terrific braised chicken and Brussels sprouts recipe shared with me by Donna Whitley-Smith. The guests seemed to approve of this dish, which I have found to be the universal reaction to it.

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"Braised Chicken and Brussels Sprouts," in Everyday Food, Issue 97, November 2012, p. 22.

Meal No. 1152: Pork Chops & Bourbon-Glazed Onions

Very little was left over from the massive and delicious Thanksgiving feast Thursday night, but there was some beef and horseradish sauce from which I could make a sandwich on Sunday:

As for the Sunday night dinner, here's a new take on pork chops that I took for a test-spin last night:

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"Perfect Chops & Bourbon-Glazed Onions," from Cuisine at Home, Issue 77, October 2009, p. 41.

Meal No. 1151: Potato and Cheese Soup

After all the good and hard kitchen labors for the days around Thanksgiving, I took a calm approach to the Friday evening meal for the holiday visitors of the house: potato and cheese soup.

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"Potato and Cheese Soup," from a cooking class at KitchenArt in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Meal No. 1150: Thanksgiving 2014

The general agreement around the table Thursday night (that's the time of the Thanksgiving meal at the Roediger House) was that this may have been about the best the food has ever been. My subsequent food coma attests to this.

Beef Tenderloin in Wine Sauce

Herb-Roasted Turkey Breast

Apple & Bacon Stuffing

Corn Pudding

Slow Cooker Sweet Potato Casserole

Layered Green Bean Casserole

My Plate in All Its Glory

The Gathered Crew
(captured at an interesting moment)

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"Oven-Roasted Turkey Breast," Betty Crocker: Holiday Entrées, Sides, Brunches, & More, November 2001, p. 22-23.

"Beef Tenderloin in Wine Sauce" (p. 296) and "Spicy Horseradish Sauce" (p. 295), from The All-New Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook. Compiled and Edited by Julie Fisher Gunter. Oxmoor Press (2006).

"Layered Green Bean Casserole," a long-time Jones family favorite.

"Sweet Potato Casserole with Pecan Topping," from Southern Living Slow-Cooker Cookbook,  (Oxmoor House, 2006), p. 234-235.

"Cornbread Stuffing with Apples and Bacon," from David Venable. Found online.

Meal No. 1149: Thanksgiving Morning Eats

With several folks staying over Thanksgiving Eve, I figured I'd better have something on the table to go with our morning coffee Thursday morning, so I made zucchini bread and sausage balls.

On this Black Friday morning, I served up more of these but added to it some cheese grits:

Meal No. 1148: Texas Red Chili Con Carne

The Thanksgiving holiday has arrived and it makes me happy inside and out. This is my favorite holiday, hands-down, and at the Roediger House, we stretch it into a multi-day celebration.

That's why last night, on Thanksgiving Eve, the tradition of having folks over for some grub and for games and/or karaoke and/or movies continued yet again. The frivolity of the Xbox ONE was counterbalanced by our serious dinner conversations, if this photo is of any indication:

Dinner was a slow-cooker beef-chunk chili called Texas Red Chili Con Carne, which came out still pretty spicy even though I tried to moderate the heat I was putting into it. I did have a chance to use up the last of the hot peppers brought to me by David Mearns of the Estate Plaster crew. The always-perfect Granny Wilson's cornbread was great again tonight, as were the creamy stuffed eggs.

Yesterday morning, I'd made up a batch of white chocolate-macadamia nut cookies to serve as our simple dessert:

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"'Texas Red' Chili Con Carne," by Diane Unger-Mahoney. In Cook's Country, June/July 2005, p. 10-11.

"Granny Wilson's Honey Wheat Cornbread," shared by Linda B. Dunlap in 2006.

"Creamy Stuffed Eggs," a recipe shared with me by Barbara Huneycutt of Crozet, VA.

"Premier White Chocolate and Macadamia Pieces Cookies," from Hershey's Mauna Loa. Found online at http://www.maunaloa.com/recipes/cookies.asp.

Meal No. 1147: Pan-Seared Pork Medallions with Ginger-Shiitake-Soy Cream Sauce

Friend, colleague, and former student Tim Schwarz is back for his annual Thanksgiving visit to the Roediger House. He arrived Tuesday evening just in time for me to serve up tender pork medallions in a ginger-shiitake-soy cream sauce over rice and with fresh steamed asparagus alongside. This was among the best versions of this popular RoHo dish. I didn't have room for one of the Monster Chip cookies from the few remaining...

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"Pan-Seared Tuna with Ginger-Shiitake Cream Sauce," from The Bon Appétit Cookbook by Barbara Fairchild, 2006, p. 398-399.

Meal No. 1146: Herb-Roasted Chicken with Savory Pan Gravy Turned Into Moravian Chicken Pie

Because I had already purchased a honking big Oven Stuffer Roaster, and the sell-by date was quickly approaching, I did double-duty this past Sunday night and cooked two main dishes. The second of these was the Tupelo Honey Cafe's herb-roasted chicken, which I set aside in order to debone and use the chicken with the Monday evening dinner.

With such delicious, flavorful, tender chicken on hand, it was a cinch to turn it into a Moravian Chicken Pie with some of that savory pan gravy on top. Alongside, baked sweet potatoes and seasoned green beans.

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"Herb-Roasted Whole Chicken with Savory Pan Gravy," in Tupelo Honey Cafe: Spirited Recipes from Asheville's New South Kitchen, by Elizabeth Sims with Chef Brian Sonoskus. Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC (2011), p. 136-137.

"Moravian Chicken Pie," adapted from a recipe by Mimi Patterson and published in Cooking with Grace: A Collection of Favorite Recipes from Our Congregation to Your Home by the Women's Fellowship of Grave Moravian Church in Mount Airy, NC (2001), p. 47.