Hoppin' John

Tradition says that eating black-eyed peas on New Year's Day will bring you good luck. This is something that comes from the American South, and I know that other cultures also have their good luck traditions.

In Scotland, the first person who enters your house on New Years should be tall, dark and handsome. Red-heads are considered bad luck. Noisemakers and fireworks are believed to drive away the evil spirits. In Italy, lentils, which looked like old Italian currency, are eaten to bring riches.

But Hoppin' John, with its black-eyed peas, rice and pork, is the dish of choice around my house. I took the easy way out yesterday when I made it with canned black-eyed peas and rice in a pouch. I had two parties within a few hours, so didn't have time to simmer the beans for hours.

Here's the recipe: Saute a diced onion and green pepper until the onions are translucent. Cook about six pieces of bacon or some pork sausage, using the same pan. Add black-eyed peas, rice and simmer for 10 minutes. If you want, add some Tabasco or other seasoning. I saw a Hoppin' John salad which also looked interesting.

Happy New Year!

The World is My Oyster

...Which I with sword will open.— William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor

So many of my good food memories are associated with eating oysters. I can't remember eating them before I went to college at St. Mary's in Southern Maryland, but I know my mother's family loved raw oysters, so I am sure I must have.

St. Mary's had its own oyster beds in the St. Mary's River, and after regattas at college, we'd have big oyster feasts. The scuba club would dive for fresh oysters and we'd either eat them raw or steam them on a big grill. I still remember a big oyster party after the first-ever intercollegiate Windsurfing Regatta in the US.

Later on, when I worked at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, I learned all about harvesting oysters under sail on skipjacks, about the buyboats, and the whole oystering culture. I also ate plenty of fresh-from-the-Bay oysters during my tenure there.

After college, my best college friend, Mr. G and I would meet up between Christmas and New Years and eat oysters, a tradition we continue until today. Mr. G and I have been friends through thick and thin and back again. It's over plates of oysters and many beers that we've kept this easy friendship going.

I still have a scar on one hand from trying to shuck oysters more than 20 years ago. For years, a group of friends and I hosted a charity New Year's Eve party - the Crystal Ball. We always had fresh oysters, shucked by our friend George Hastings, the 2003 Guinness World Oyster Shucking Champion.

On New Year's Eve, Mr. G and I met up at Nick's Fish House on the lovely middle branch of the Patapsco River. You might remember that we went there on December 1st for dinner. Nick's is a great place for many reasons, not the least of which is that parking is ample and free, unlike the area around Cross Street Market, which we'd also considered.

There were two varieties of oysters on offer at Nick's - Blue Points and Chincoteagues. Blue Points come from Long Island and are much brinier than the Chincoteagues that we had. They were also much larger and waterier. The Chincoteagues were smaller and more well-formed. I must admit that I liked the Blue Points better - they taste like eating the ocean.

Happy New Year, Mr. G... you're the best!

Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto

As a thank you from Peak of Chic, I received a lovely little parcel from Atlanta. It contained some yummy goodies from Bella Cucina, Artful Food. I am a devout fan of pesto and I now was in posession of jars of artichoke lemon pesto and sun-dried tomato pesto.

The artichoke pesto was bright-tasting with just a hint of the lemon's sharpness. The sun-dried tomato pesto tasted like summer! Clear and clean tomato flavours along with a good olive oil and just a hint of garlic. I served the pestos with "home-made" flour tortilla chips and had some water biscuits so as not to compete with the pestos' stronger taste.

This afternoon, my siblings are meeting up at our mother's house to celebrate Christmas a little late. I've been tasked with bring the starters, so tried my hand at making sun-dried tomato pesto.

It's simple... a jar of sun-dried tomatos, good olive oil, garlic, parmesan cheese and pignoli. Actually, I skipped the nuts since my brother's allergic. Just put everything into the food processor and whiz it until it's a pasty texture. Make sure you add the oil from the tomatos because that will deepen the taste.

As for the chips, just buy either flour or corn tortilla flats from the store - you can get them anywhere these days. I got mine at the local Giant. Cut them into wedges and brush with a little olive oil. Sprinkle with sea salt and bake for 13 minutes at 300 F. The corn chips will be crunchier than the flour ones.

Dip. Eat. Enjoy. Repeat.

Check back soon for our oyster-eating adventures... a 25-year saga, and also Hoppin' John for New Years.

Sweeney Todd

This is kind of food-related... We saw Sweeney Todd at the Charles last night. My advice is eat before you go to see it, because you won't have any appetite at all after it's done.

I can barely watch TV commercials for razorblades because I am sure someone is going to nick themselves and bleed, I am just that squeemish. Why I thought seeing this movie would be a good idea, I don't know. I'd seen the stage production and remembered the great music and some of the funny lines. They removed the signature song from the movie, but the remaining songs were great. Of course, they're Stephen Sondheim, so they would be.

Although the film's ostensibly in colour, it looks black and white. Very dark, very gloomy, very deep. I was interested to see how they portrayed London's Fleet Street area, too. I have a friend who worked for solicitors there and I know the area a bit.

Clayton's Update

I heard last night that Clayton's, which I wrote about in September, has closed. I don't think that they could ever make up their minds what they wanted to be - a regular bar, a wine bar or a club. Our meal there was good, but the service was shockingly slow.

I, and lots of other people, wish they would bring back Sean Bolan's! It was just a great little place in the "Cheers" tradition of everyone knowing your name.

Wally World on Wash Blvd.

I hate Wal*Mart, but since it's the closest place to go for stuff like dogfood, printer cartridges, paper towels, and the like, I do go there sometimes. But I realllly hate the one in Port Covington, even though it's rarely crowded. I have behaved more badly there than any place I've ever been because of sheer frustration with the stupidity of the people who work there.

Like the time I put an Rx in and when I went back to get it, the desk wasn't open. So I went back the next day. They made me pay full price, because my insurance had expired the day before. Or the time the two women in front of me in the "12 Items or fewer" lane had more than 40 items between them. When I commented on it to the cashier, she got in my face about being racist.

So when T told me about a new W*M near the Home Depot on Washington Boulevard by I-695, I thought I'd mosey on down there, since I had to go to HD anyway. The new W*M is HUGE - measuring in acres, rather than square feet. It's got a full grocery store there and a Subway in the place. It's got more sections that you can believe.
But this pretty much summed up the experience for me.

Nick's Fish House

Last night was a rare opportunity to have dinner with friends who divide their time between Baltimore and Chicago and we wanted to go somewhere fun. Unfortunately, so did the 70,000 people who'd been to the Army/Navy game earlier in the afternoon. After much calling around Kit managed to find us a table at Nick's Fish House.

I have mixed feelings about Nick's... the owner is an old friend and the location is right on the water of the lovely Middle Branch of the Patapsco River (which sounds nicer than it is...), but in any season but high summer, the inside of the restaurant isn't a warm place in any sense of the word. I've also had some horrible meals there, but some good ones, too.

I was pretty surprised that Nick's wasn't packed after the game, and on a Saturday night, too. But we had a big round table, and a great waiter.

We started with a dozen Chincoteague oysters, some mussels steamed in garlic and a bowl of oyster stew. Now oyster stew only has four ingredients (cream, oysters & juice, salt and butter), but it can be watery and horrible and some people even add celery. This was a nice thick stew with lots of oysters in it, added at the right time, so as to be plump, but not rubbery. I LOVE raw oysters, and take the opportunity to eat them in the "R" months. These were small, but briney and good.

Everyone but me had a fish dish, including salmon, cod, catfish and rock. I had something called a Tiara (which was perfect for moi!) which was grilled veggies on foccacia bread. Everyone ate every bit of their fish and raved about it. We got pies for dessert and the waiter talked Kit into trying an espresso vodka, which she shared with Mr. Chicago... All in all, one of the better meals at Nick's.