Gunternation

Looking through all the pics from Christmas. So much good eating: a lovely ham cooked in Cidona a la Catherine Cleary (with Highbank Orchard Syrup), plates of Christmas cookies, spiced beef and spiced pies and spiced beer. But this is my favorite picture. I don’t even like most of the veg in this pan, but they look so lovely and simply perfect, putting on their Christmas best.

This year the Irish Food Bloggers Association organized a holiday cookie recipe exchange. Bill and I love baking Christmas cookies, so I eagerly signed up. I was paired in the recipe exchange with Evin from Evin’s Cooking Peas & Q’s. Turns out Evin is a fellow American, so knows a cookie from a biscuit. And her recipe uses US measurements which is handy enough for me.

Evin sent me a recipe for one of her friend’s cookie traditions. First thing you’ll notice about the recipe is that it contains potato chips. Then you might wonder who Gladys Lum Bower is.

These cookies go together very easily. This is a flexible recipe; I used twice as many pecans for the heck of it, and the cookies turned out great. I used golden caster sugar and Kettle Chips potato chips. I’m not sure we would have identified the potato chips if we didn’t already know they were there, but the chips do add an extra bit of crunch. These cookies have a nice crumble and taste of butter and pecans. They are similar to a pecan sandie, which is great because I like pecan sandies.

I don’t know who Gladys is, but she makes a fine cookie.

Gladys Lum Bowers’s Pecan Crunch Cookies
1 cup butter, softened (of course) [225 g]
1/2 cup sugar [100 g]
1 tsp vanilla [5 ml]
1/2 cup finely crushed plain potato chips [?? g]
1/2 cup chopped pecans [50 g]
2 cup flour [240 g]

See Evin’s take on my recipe from the swap: Frosted Oatmeal Cookies.

Today Bill and I dined at Skinflint with some fellow food bloggers and had the opportunity to chat with its proprietor Joe Macken, and I’ll tell you, he charmed my culinary socks off.

Joe’s well known in Dublin eating circles as owner of beloved Jo’Burger and its sister droolstaurant Crackbird. He’s got memorable hair and has probably been described as “larger than life.” Dublin is lucky to have him. Because Dublin is lucky to have his food. I’ve been to Jo’Burger only once. It’s just not in my orbit, but I remember being quite happy with my burger, which doesn’t always happen in Dublin. We’ve visited Crackbird a number of times, and were very impressed, even when it was just a fleeting pop up.

I said then that “Crackbird is quirky, but it’s the kind of quirkiness that lives in service, ultimately, to the food (along with admittedly some self-knowing hipness)….“  And that’s what struck me when talking to Joe today. He’s mad creative and his persona is definitely present in his restaurants, but foremost Joe loves his food. And he makes other people love it too.

We started our lunch with Aperol cocktails, as you do, followed by a trio of bread and dips:  brandy chicken pate, beetroot caviar, and hummus. The pink peppercorns in the pate bring an aromatic note to the richness of the liver. The beetroot caviar was a lovely balance of sweet and savory, and is a gorgeous jewel red. The hummus was garlicky, which is how we like it!

Lovely refreshment

Then we ordered our pizzas. We ordered almost every pizza. There are 10 set pizzas on the menu, each named after the mother of a staff member. One of our party went for the daily meatballs, which today were lamb. (Check twitter for the daily meatball.) I ordered the Lil which is Boyne Valley blue, poached pear, sweet pickled onion and cream. Yeah. Bill chose the Tess with pulled pork, fennel seeds, braised fennel and marscapone. The table also saw some amazing combinations like roasted garlic confit, toasted hazelnuts, tomato, Fontina and spinach & butternut squash, rosemary, ricotta, capers and espelette.

My Lil with blue cheese and pear

The pizzas at Skinflint are grilled, which is a great method to create a thin crackery crust (reminded me of crust on a pizza we had Rome). Joe invited us in pairs into the compact kitchen to watch the lads prepare the crusts, which are made with 100% Odlums flour fermented for three days, then run through a cool machine from Italy that stretches out the dough, and coated with some semolina. Then the dough goes onto the grill and is dressed with its toppings, and after a minute or two is ready for serving. A quick enterprise which is good for hungry diners and kitchen throughput alike.

The Eithne with butternut squash and capers

I recommend going to Skinflint with six to eight friends so you can taste all the pizzas. It was hard to pick a favorite. I was almost overwhelmed by all the amazing flavors on our table. I’ll say braised fennel stands out as a genius pizza topping, and Bill was quite taken with the butternut squash and caper combo. My pizza was a perfect celebration of the love between pear and blue cheese, and Joe is proud to be using Boyne Valley blue which is a goats cheese blue. A stronger blue, but right at home on that pizza. I also liked the housemade Mexican chorizo, and roasted garlic is another brilliant pizza topping. Pizza is all about bringing flavors together to create greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts-Super Flavor, and these pizzas are super. Especially drizzled with Skinflint’s Firebee honey infused with chile. Seriously, this honey should be given out to school children to teach them about the good things in life. No wait, perhaps it should be a reward for becoming an adult. Either way, it’s great.

Everything's better with spicy Boyne Honey

Skinflint and Crackbird are filling a much needed place in Dublin–casual, excellent food that has an identity. Joe is committed to making Irish food with Irish ingredients and he’s no where near stopping, and we couldn’t be happier.

And as always, great fun to dine with fellow bloggers Aoife from I Can Has Cook, Aoife from The Daily Spud, and Catherine from The Runcible Spoon, and we had some handsome partners along as well.

Bill and I were  thrilled to finally try A Winter’s Ale from 8 Degrees Brewing. This delicious, lightly spiced ale was perfect with our pizza.

Mucho thanks to Joe and staff for a terrific time.

This year we were home for Thanksgiving. Home in this instance was Bill’s childhood home in Huntsville, Alabama.

We typically have two must-eats when we’re in Huntsville: Pork BBQ from Gibson’s #2 and fried catfish and hush puppies at Greenbrier. We knew we didn’t have time for a trip to Greenbrier this visit, but Bill’s mom, Peggy, said she’d have Gibson’s BBQ waiting for us when we arrived Wednesday evening. When Bill’s brother Joel heard about the Gibson’s plan, he had a better idea. I’ll smoke a pork butt for them, he said. Only one problem. Joel lives three hours away in Montgomery and wouldn’t be driving to Huntsville until Thursday. So, Joel overnighted the pork on dry-ice to Peggy’s and indeed it was waiting for us when we arrived. And it was truly remarkable. Pork BBQ in Northern Alabama is typically eaten with a vinegar and cayenne pepper sauce alongside a vinegar slaw. Joel had included sauce in his package, and Bill’s other brother Danny had brought over a bowl of slaw, so Bill and I feasted! Sorry Gibson’s, but I’m dining at Gunter’s from now all. All those Gunter boys can cook!

Not only did Joel smoke the best pork BBQ I have eaten, he smoked our Thanksgiving turkey. He brined the turkey with apple juice, orange juice, nutmeg, ground cloves, peppercorns, brown sugar, and kosher salt and smoked it over fruit wood for a few hours, finishing it in the oven. The turkey was perfect–moist, flavorful with tasty skin. He also brought up some of his lovely homebrew, a summer ale with honey and a hint of orange. It was sunny and 74°F/23.3°C, which passes for a summer day in Ireland, so summer ale was not out of place.

The Meal (clockwise from top left): Sweet Potato casserole, turkey, ham, Brussels sprouts with pancetta, jalapeno corn casserole, cornbread dressing with gravy, jellied cranberry sauce, cherry fluff; not pictured: field peas, dessert

I haven’t traveled all the regions of the US eating Thanksgiving dinners, but I imagine two things identify our Thanksgiving meal as Southern: 1) more than one casserole and 2) cornbread dressing. First of all, we call it dressing. Academics may debate the difference between stuffing and dressing–some say stuffing is cooked inside the bird, dressing outside–but I think they are basically the same thing. Cornbread dressing is a fave from both of our childhood Thanksgivings. A few times Bill has experimented with different types of dressing and savory bread puddings, but we keep coming back to cornbread dressing.

Sweet potatoes are a Thanksgiving staple, and for years were topped with marshmallows, but somewhere along the way everyone discovered that you could top sweet potatoes with a butter, brown sugar and pecan crust, and it has been a standard for a couple decades. This particular incarnation was straight from Paula Deen in all of its buttery glory. The potatoes are baked to intensify the potato flavor. A souffle mixture with egg is topped with the sugar crust, and this stuff is good y’all!

As amazing as Joel’s turkey was, I really enjoyed several slices of ham. Smoked ham is rare in Ireland, and I just love it.

The Brussels sprouts were Bill’s contribution. In 1998 Bill made a Thanksgiving Menu from Food & Wine Magazine which included Brussels Sprouts pan roasted with shallots and pancetta. These sprouts instantly became a must-have Thanksgiving dish for us, and have made more than one Brussels Sprouts convert. As many times as Bill has made this dish (it’s not just for Thanksgiving!) these were some of his best. The shallots and sprouts were browned and nicely caramelized and silky with pancetta “flavor.”

Our beloved Brussels sprouts

The corn casserole was new this year. I didn’t get the recipe but it must be similar to this one that mixes corn, cream cheese and jalapenos together and bakes them. (See the full recipe.) Can’t really go wrong with that. A spicy dish is welcome amongst all the rich foods on the T-day table.

Of course we had jellied cranberry sauce. I’m a purist when it comes to that can-shaped condiment.

And Cherry Fluff.

How does one describe Cherry Fluff? Does sweetened condensed milk, a can of crushed pineapple, chopped pecans, cool whip and a can of cherry pie filling paint a picture? It’s sweet and tart and fluffy and completely frivolous. In other words, a fab holiday food.

We love Cherry Fluff.

Along with cornbread dressing and Cherry Fluff, Bill had specifically requested field peas, so Joel cooked up a mess of them with a ham hock. I’m not a huge fan of field peas, but Bill was thrilled.

Fresh Apple Cake

This is the recipe (more or less) as passed to Peggy by her friend Myrtle.

Fresh Apple Cake

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees°F/180°C /gas mark 4.
2. Mix apples and sugar thoroughly.
3. Add oil, nuts, eggs and vanilla and stir.
4. Mix dry ingredients together and add to apple mixture. Stir.
5. Bake in a greased 13 x 9 inch pan for 1 hour. Remove from oven and leave cake in pan.

1. For glaze, bring brown sugar, butter and evaporated milk to a hard boil for one minute.
2. Pour immediately over cake.

And for your viewing pleasure, 50 seconds of Bill and me discussing Thanksgiving at this link http://www.rte.ie/tv/iwitness/. Look under the archives for the 24 November episode.