The on-going chronicle of all things related to the George and Laura Roediger House (c. 1905) in the historic Holly Avenue Neighborhood of downtown Winston-Salem, NC. More info and pictures can be found at RoedigerHouse.com. [Mobile users: CLICK TO SEARCH the blog.]
It was a bit of a rush job last Friday as I tackled the worthy goal of creating a dessert without having properly planned for it. To the rescue in this fraught moment was Meyer lemon pudding cake, a heavenly beast with an angelic appeal and a divine reward nestled on each heaping spoonful.
You might say we were enraptured.
It was dinner for three this past Friday night, and on the menu was a delectable sheet pan of beef nachos, along with a fresh batch of lime crema. (The helpful shortcut of the evening was pulling a vacuum-sealed bag out of the freezer to drop into the sous vide, because this taco meat was prepped a while back when I was caught with too much fresh ground beef.) It was immensely satisfying and left us barely enough room for the lighter dessert that followed, which will be described in a subsequent blog entry.
Taco-Style beef adapted from "Crispy Beef Tacos," by Hilah Johnson. From HilahCooking.com.
"Homemade Chili and Taco Seasoning," from Jamie Lothridge of MyBakingAddiction.com. [Published 03 February 2011]
"Easy Lime Crema," from Lisa Bryan of DownShiftology.com. [Published 22 April 2020]
Let me begin by noting how incredibly nerve-wracking it feels when it’s time for one of those really big purchases, which describes how I finished out 2023. My faithful and much-loved 2010 Volkswagen CC (pictured above, a couple of days after I bought it in late 2009), now clocking in at just over a quarter million miles, had begun showing its age with more than its outdated appearance. With work travel, it had become occasionally temperamental and I knew it was time to think about a replacement before it required a major repair that could make very little sense given how long in the tooth it has grown.
I started my research at the beginning of November and included a fairly wide range of vehicle brands, although I saw that Volvo and Genesis could be eliminated pretty quickly given the pricey cars they have to offer! Between reliability ratings and customer satisfaction surveys, it wasn’t hard to rule out several more of the manufacturers. And after three Volkswagens in a row, I might have hoped something in their lineup might catch my eye, but I came up with naught...and I’m well aware of how expensive they can be to maintain. In the end, it was clear that the Toyota Camry was far and away the top choice. Although I’ve pined away for a Honda Accord since I was 16 years old, it wasn’t even a runner-up.
Once I did my deep dive into the Camry, its features, and the various options, I ended up with four key criteria that were, for me, non-negotiable. With Edmund’s and Cars.com and Kelly Blue Book and Consumer Reports as my resources (and finding Carmax and Carvana unenticing and expensive), I started reaching out to Toyota dealers, with my clear “musts” for what I’d be willing to even talk about. Six dealers from Rock Hill, SC, to Danville, VA, were quick to begin emailing boilerplate messages and calling repeatedly...even though none of them had the car that I wanted.
For instance, after so long with a car whose exterior color was ‘meh’ from the get-go, I wasn’t interested in one of the prevalent and preferred exteriors that the modern public seems to demand. Perhaps I elevated that consideration higher in the priorities than was necessary, but on this I was firm. I also decided it needed to be a looker in other ways, even if driven by a hunched-over old man with thinning grey hair. I especially wanted the most up-to-date safety features in a high-quality reliable car that would be comfortable for the less-frequent travel I still undertake.
And a hybrid: I was ready for the high mileage of a well-regarded hybrid. So here is the new vehicle for the Roediger House: a 2024 Toyota Camry Hybrid XSE, a bit over-loaded with a too-long list of added features and various extravagances that were the extra cost of getting the right match to my key criteria. Given what I wanted in the color and trim I preferred, I had to track it down myself, in Lexington, KY.
At the risk of sounding a tad dramatic, it really did turn out to be the true story of a needle in an enormous haystack, with the added tension that it was apparently the only needle in current existence. The four criteria I arrived at on my “must” list were present in only one car in the entire country, as best I could determine.
Trust me: I searched far and wide. The roller coaster of working out a deal in the mad rush of the dealer’s year-end push when you’re three states away and you can’t get there to help with their 12/31 deadline and hoping it doesn’t sell in the meantime and waiting through the holiday...I was happy and relieved and all the more certain of the choice once the pieces fell officially and certainly into place that first Tuesday of the new year.
On January 3rd, with a one-way rental car and a cashier’s check from the bank, I made the six-hour drive to Green’s Toyota of Lexington and returned with this beauty.
Toyota can certainly call it “Cavalry Blue” if it wishes, but in this household it shall henceforth and forever be termed “Carolina Blue.” Might it be a bit garish, given that what dominates the automotive world these days is that limited but clearly popular palette of white, black, grey, and silver?
Maybe that is precisely the point. The photo above is from a recent day at the Roediger House, which captured that limited color palate in stark fashion, methinks.
This counts as the second entirely-online car purchase negotiation I’ve made in my life, with the other an email-only transaction while I was teaching a course for the University of Virginia at their Richmond Center, all the way back in 2002. I might have been a distracted instructor that time, while the sales guy in Raleigh went back and forth with me till we arrived at an agreeable price. This most recent purchase was not so very terrible, even though the dealer temporarily backed out of the deal we’d made, in hopes they could notch a sale before that magical December 31st date. I’m glad they couldn’t move it that weekend, and now it’s here to move me in safety, comfort, and style. And with quite a few bells and a generous supply of whistles.
Part of the joy of the holiday is the appearance of snackable goodies well-suited to the spirit and mood and well-matched to small cravings outside of mealtime. Above is pictured a sampling from the second batch of pimento cheese, using my own contrived version of this Southern goodness popularized by and associated with South Carolina. Below is a tortilla chip with a fine dollop of the simple spiced Southwestern dip that’s been a forever favorite here:
Next up is the Christmastime staple of sugared peanuts, something my mother always had on hand for the family at Yuletide and also was part of the grand spread on the dining room table for her famous Christmas Eve ham biscuit get-together.
While they are not my thing, there was a special request made for date nut balls, and I obliged with a standard batch adorned with plenty of powdered sugar.
We can round it out with another of my own contrivances, my best attempt to bring home the enticing and irresistible white dipping sauce often found in the Mexican restaurants of Virginia when I used to do so much work up there.
That’s what I was “giving” in the season of joy. But I also had a pretty big get. More on that in tomorrow's blog post.
"South Carolina-Style Pimento Cheese." Recipe worked out by me, based on Sharon's Palmetto Pimento Cheese.
"Southwestern Dip," in Betty Crocker Monthly Recipes, December 2001.
"Sugar Peanuts," long a staple of holiday gatherings in the Jones Family household. Recipe from my mother.
"Date Nut Balls," from Allison M. Jones. Similar to "Mama Rosa's Date Nut Balls," from Debbie Spivey of TheMountainKitchen.com.
"Mexican Restaurant White Dipping Sauce," a recipe worked out by me, sampled by Spring Street, and approved of by all.
The huge demolition and rebuild project that led to a wholesale replacement of the simple small old kitchen and sad little bathrooms back in 2008-2009 did not result in full replacement of everything. For instance, the butler’s pantry room was rebuilt to its original dimensions, but upgraded with hardwood floors, electrical outlets, and removal of an unnecessary window. Another carryover from the original kitchen was to have a new door but it was hung on its original swinging spring hinge. Alas, over time, when the retractable top piston hinge would sometimes stick, the door would fall over. It finally weakened the bottom hinge brace enough that, on one fateful afternoon, the door fell over and the break was complete:
Fortunately, the duo of Jami and Zeb Raines at Southern Raines Customs came through with a welding repair so that I could return that swinging door to full service. (Actually, I think Zeb completely recast it.) That was another one of my to-do tasks that eventually would have been drawn from the Quarantine Task Jar. Admittedly, as with so many tasks around here, it still took a few more months to rehang that door after reattaching the hinge plate. But as of December 20, 2023, it once more became operational.
In honor of the beginning of the New Year, the ideal meal choice was the long-time family favorite of New Year's Day meatballs. The faithful starchy side of company mashed potatoes was obligatory as well, one might say, and I settled for canned green beans to finish out the menu. Well received by the small cluster at the table, with enough left over for a couple of next-day lunches...it was a fine first meal of 2024.
We retreated to the third floor for another movie night afterwards, with Meg 2: The Trench as the goofy action-packed light fare on the bill. That's when dessert appeared, having by then had time to cool and set up into a perfect creamy consistency: Meyer lemon pudding. Lordy, we all fantasized about having a 55-gallon drum of that each to ourselves.
"New Year's Day Meatballs," from Carol Fultz in Indiana (Recipe received in 2001).
"Company Mashed Potatoes," a Jones family favorite.
"Meyer Lemon Pudding," by Sue Moran from The View from Great Island. [Published 10 January 2020]
I'm easily persuaded by a good sale on Boston Butt pork shoulders, and the timing last weekend was perfect since Saturday was a great gathering of seven for Collins Against Humanity gametime, then dinner, and then a movie night upstairs featuring Barbie. Overnight slow cooker Cuban Lechón Asado, boosted with my homegrown Mexican chipotle street taco BBQ sauce, was the star attraction. The very popular avocado cilantro lime sauce was slathered freely onto homemade burger buns that came out mostly all right, and the Mexican coleslaw was full-flavored and spicily soothing.
I really have been tickled with how wonderful this burger bun recipe has been, with consistently outstanding results and without a lot of muss and fuss to it.
Everybody was required to stick around after the movie so that I could push in front of them that day's fresh-made Meyer lemon bars with a shortbread crust. Lordy, those rascals were pretty terrific. We tackled them with gusto. Since Gern couldn't join us, I don't think he minded Amy bringing one home for his apparent enjoyment, according to this photo she sent later:
"Slow Cooker Cuban Lechón Asado," from Cory Fernandez of TheKitchn.com. [Published 10 December 2022]
"Beautiful Burger Buns," from Ellen "Moomie" Dorsey of King Arthur Baking. See also the accompanying blog post, "Burger Buns with a Beautiful Backstory," by PJ Hamel. [Published 28 June 2021]
"Mexican Chipotle Street Taco BBQ Sauce," a Roediger House original recipe. [First Made 08 May 2023]
"Cilantro Lime Sauce," from Alexa Blay of Key to My Lime. [Published 04 September 2019]
Mexican Coleslaw assembled using:
"Lemon Bars," by Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa. Published in Barefoot Contessa Parties!, Clarkson Potter Publishers, 2001.
A special request over the holidays was for a batch of Vierling Saloon cream of chicken and wild rice soup, so I happily obliged. A rotisserie chicken from Costco made shorter work of the prep, and some time Friday afternoon allowed me to knock out some of the easy advance steps. Also marvelous was that the three at the table were easily and reasonably pleased just to belly up to the bowls, so no other foodstuffs were necessary. And here comes more whiny honesty from me: the fact that it was yet another bone-chilling grey day, absent any substantive sunshine, with harsh breezes and brief pointless showers...a soothing bowl of stew was just outstanding.
"Vierling Saloon Cream of Chicken and Wild Rice Soup," formerly offered at the Vierling Saloon in Marquette, Michigan. Another online version of the recipe can be found at Miss Mary's Blog.
For the final Wednesday evening of December (and of 2023!), the main feature at dinner was mini meatloaves (meat loaves?), easy to throw together, full of good flavor, warm and soothing as we were still stuck in a grey chilly weather pattern. I'd made and liked this muffin tin meatloaf recipe for the first time this past summer and am wondering why I was so long delayed in bringing it back! Company mashed potatoes were perfect alongside, as well as nicely charred broccoli florets...but apparently the meatloaf minis' sauce was a particular hit with the five folks at the dinner table that night. Any who wanted some of the previous evening's peasant bread were welcome to it—I'd warmed slices in foil while other things were baking.
It wouldn't seem right to have company visiting from Virginia and Oklahoma and not find a way to also produce a dessert. I'd already secretly made and stored away brown sugar cinnamon ice cream, so to go with that I tried a recipe for butter blondies with white chocolate morsels. They turned out great, I might add.
"Mini Meatloaf," from Lauren Allen of Tastes Better from Scratch. [Published 20 February 2023]
"Company Mashed Potatoes," a Jones Family favorite.
Based on "Applebees Copycat Maple Butter Blondies," by Momma Cyd of Six Sisters' Stuff. [Published 20 February 2016 / Updated 10 November 2022]
"Brown Sugar Cinnamon Ice Cream," from Heather Tullos of SugarDishMe.com. [Published 11 September 2015]
And here we are opening up the first page of the first chapter of the brand new year, so all best and warmest greetings to all for a most marvelous 2024. Speaking of years, I guess a year is long enough to wait between batches of the ever delicious chicken and corn chowder that has a nice collection of fans in the Roediger House crew. That's what was served back on Boxing Day for a gathering of nine, for a dinner held in the dining room. I'm pretty sure it's been better than it was that night, but in general it's hard to mess it up too much.
To make it a more rounded meal, I did bake up a couple of loaves of peasant bread, with a marvelous exterior crust and a super-airy interior with a wonderful chew, and the softened butter already in small servers around the table made it easy for all of us to slather a bit on our slices.
Dessert was a red velvet sheet cake, now made for the second time, but it did not measure up nearly as well. My corner piece was dry, and the frosting was all too thin...and both of those features are quite a departure from the much more positive experience I had the first time I made it during Summer 2022. Oh well. You win some, and you lose some.
"Indiana Corn and Potato Chowder," by Brannon Soileau from his restaurant Maize, An American Grill (formerly of Lafayette, IN). In Indiana Cooks!, by Christine Barbour and Scott Feickert with photographs by Tom Stio. Bloomington, IN: Quarry Books (2005), p. 64-65. You can find this, and quite a few other Indiana recipes, if you scroll to the bottom of this article: "Indiana Can Cook."
Peasant Bread adapted from "My Mother's Peasant Bread," by Alexandra Stafford of AlexandraCooks.com. [07 November 2012 / Updated 06 January 2022]
"Red Velvet Sheet Cake with Mascarpone Cream Cheese Frosting," from Lara, The Classy Baker.
Oh, the Christmas Feast! Monday night felt like the right time to bring out a particularly special meal and, while I'm at it, why not throw in a couple of new recipes? A small standing rib roast, well-seasoned and slow-roasted, was the main attraction, and it was pretty stupendous. A very nice pan sauce emerged to go with it, thanks to a few extra steps once the skillet was released from its roasting role. I tried a new recipe for potatoes au gratin, whose roots are traced to Julia Child's Dauphinoise Potatoes, rich with Gruyère. They were also rather awesome. The third item should have also been outstanding but could hardly hold a candle to what else was on the plate, but then again, I'm unlikely to turn down roasted asparagus spears. A low-key easy-going Christmas Day found a suitable wrapping up as the small crew gathered at the dinner table.
"Standing Rib Roast (Prime Rib)," from Nagi Maehashi of RecipeTinEats.com. [Published 13 December 2021 / Updated 14 December 2023]
"Potatoes au Gratin (Dauphinoise)," from Nagi Maehashi of RecipeTinEats.com. [Published 20 December 2020 / Updated 12 December 2023]
With all the good food of the Christmas holidays, I needed one meal that felt at least a little healthy. That occurred this past Sunday evening, with sous vide garlic-spiced chicken breast, served over a power greens mix topped with homemade creamy Caesar dressing. That dressing is not one of the healthy elements.
One might argue that salad also proved well-aligned to the marvelous weather we enjoyed on that Christmas Eve afternoon, with sunshine and a high of 65°F. After the cold spell that had overtaken us while the downstairs heat was on the fritz, and with a multi-day rain event set to begin, I'm glad I could partake of some of that nice outside time as a most temporary and all-too-short reprieve.
Based on "Easy Lemon Caesar Salad Dressing," by Kim Hardesty of lowcarbmaven.com.
Saturday night's supper was another round of skillet beef stroganoff, a regular go-to for how easy it is to throw together and how dependable is the outcome. With fresh shredded sharp cheddar cheese and a sprinkle of parsley to finish it off, the three bowls were also finished off pretty quickly.
Based on "Beef Stroganoff Hamburger Dinner in a Skillet," by Emeril Lagasse. Found online at The Food Network and also on Emerils.com.
The evening meal on the Friday before Christmas is a testament to the appeal of a relatively new particular recipe: tomato and corn pie. I headed down this path during the summer abundance of cherry tomatoes, roasting those tomatoes and benefitting from the lush leaves of basil growing in the kitchen garden. When I came across an evolved recipe progression traced to a Gourmet magazine article, it proved to work just fine even with store-bought vine-ripened tomatoes and dried basil from the spice rack. So that's what we sat down to as last weekend commenced, together with salad and a creamy garlicky Caesar dressing. I stuck pretty directly to the instructions this time, even opting to make it a double-crust pie, even though that denied me the added pleasure of a roasting effect on the tomatoes. It was all quite good.
As we worked our way through a ninth morning without downstairs heat that day at the Roediger House, I was once again glad for the potent heat generated in the spacious fireplace in the kitchen, with an early morning lighting of Fire No. 89. I kept it fed till the middle of the afternoon, even as more prevalent sunshine helped push the downtown temps outside towards the low 50s. It was key to making my beloved kitchen hospitable enough for me to engage in a few joyous rituals of cooking and creations, even while I was wrestling with the frustration that the first floor HVAC system had been out of commission so long.
Ah, but then came the good news mid-day: a call from Webb Heating and Air Conditioning, Inc., letting me know the blower motor had at last arrived and a technician was dispatched here promptly. Cristina and Maria were already here cleaning but the tech and the ladies managed to work around one another, thank goodness. In the scheme of things, it didn't take him too very long to get the heat up and running again. By late afternoon it was feeling pretty warm...by contrast!
Finally, let's note the dessert from that evening, a much-loved family favorite for almost a half century: chocolate pecan pie. Retaining just enough pleasant lingering warmth once dinner was dispensed with and dishes all washed and downtown walk undertaken, this pie is one of my favorites. It's why I'm surprised I didn't make it for the first time in the new kitchen until 2013, and in the intervening decade, it's only shown up five times prior to this year. Thus far in 2023, this is its second appearance.
Pulled together and based on the following evolving recipe history:
Based on "Easy Lemon Caesar Salad Dressing," by Kim Hardesty of lowcarbmaven.com.
"Chocolate Pecan Pie," a Jones Family favorite since at least 1980, if not before. Also known as "Blender Pie," the recipe came from the late Lib Keith, whose hair-cutting business at her house was where our hairs got clipped for quite a few years.
"All-Butter Pie Crust," from King Arthur Test Kitchen of King Arthur Baking. See also "Butter vs. Shortening: The Great Pie Crust Bake-Off," by PJ Hamel of King Arthur Baking. [Published 23 November 2013]
Another new treat has found its way to the Roediger House: tender sweet cinnamon biscuits adorned with an eggnog vanilla glaze. Inspired by what was once a much-loved offering from Bojangle's before they opted instead for the quite-inferior "Cinnamon Twists," these amazing sweet somethings had to be enjoyed as pairs...there was no stopping at just one. This was the evening sweet treat last Thursday, on a day when I had a lunch meeting and did not cook dinner.
Within the endeavor was good advice for biscuit-making that the recipe author credited to my own faithful guides and mentors from Cook's Illustrated. I suspect I'll have to dig that back out and use it for some future batch to go with a tasty breakfast or perhaps dinner sometime.
Late that Thursday afternoon, as the kitchen area remained in the mid-50s, I struck a match to the season's first fire, perhaps a fitting tribute to the Winter Solstice. This was Fire No. 88 since the kitchen addition was built. By 8:30 pm, it was a more endurable 64°F in that space, helped quite likely by the hot oven that baked up those amazing treats. I do love a wood-burning fire, but I prefer for it to be an added delight instead of a fundamental and basic need (as in: 8 days without heat downstairs). Still, to be able to work and function freely, fully focused on the joys of a new kitchen creation, was a salve for the stresses of the moment!
Bojangle's Copycat "Cinnamon Biscuits with Vanilla Icing," by Whitney Reist of SweetCayenne.com. [Published 03 November 2021 / Updated 11 March 2023]
Last Wednesday, while the house remained well-chilled downstairs (thanks to the problem-plagued heating system originally installed by Barnette Heating and A/C, Inc., of Mocksville, NC), a one-bowl comfort meal was called for: biscuits and sausage gravy, that basic southern specialty that once featured prominently on Roediger House menus. Although the store-bought frozen biscuits were pretty disappointing, I'm glad I'd not lost my touch with the gravy itself, which was pretty terrific.
