Cracker Country

The third game was in Jacksonville. Now, I don't much care for the New South. The New South is all about Real Housewives, NFL expansion teams, and Republicans. It's about computer-generated "country" music, mega-churches and privatized prisons. It's Krispy Kreme and white SUVs and Nicky Haley.
The South I love is air so thick it's like breathing through a sponge. It's honeysuckle and old ladies in house coats selling tomato starts. It's Brother Claude Ely and Jim Graham and Edna Lewis.
It's stories my friend Cecil would tell about growing up a genuine cracker in south Georgia and north Florida. It's how Florida, or parts of it, really is a Southern state.
So there I was, determined to find the soul in Jacksonville, FLA. Turns out I didn't have to look too hard. Cecil grows misty talking about the seafood of his youth. Poorly lit cinder block buildings selling fried shrimp and oysters with a side of Frank's hot sauce. Yessir, sign me up.

Menu Oct 18, 2010
Fried Gulf shrimp with cocktail sauce
Hushpuppies with dipping sauce (glorified mayo, of course)
Cabbage-cauliflower coleslaw
Stewed tomatoes
Edna Lewis' green bean salad
Piper's Ican'tbelieveshe'sayankee Coconut cream pie

MNF New Jersey

The second night of our MNF season was Oct 11. The Vikings, led by the walking Greek Tragedy Brett Favre, went to the Meadowlands to play the New York Jets.

Of course I needed to make Italian food again, but it needed to be markedly different than the SF Italian. I did some research and discovered red clam tomato pie. I knew of white clam pie from Connecticut, and dreamed of it. Charred, bubbled crust, loads of fresh garlic and chewy, sweet clams from a hot, hot oven.
Red clam pie, it turns out, is essentially the same thing, but with tomato sauce. It's a Northern New Jersey thing, and apparently particular to just a few pizza parlors, and now, available in my living room.

I thought it sounded perfect. I used fresh littleneck clams, Fred's excellent tomato sauce, a lot of minced garlic, some wine and a good handful of parmigiano. I left a few of the clams on the shell for appearance. The tomato-y, garlicky, cheesy clams scraped off the shell with your teeth were like the best stuffed clams you ever had.

I also decided 2010 would be the year of the bar cookie. It frankly may continue in 2011. Every American region has a signature bar (meaning every American home cook has a few bar cookie recipes up his/her sleeve), they are easy to make, easy to serve--the whole pan plunked down between empty beer or wine bottles in the 4th quarter, and always so darn popular.
I don't like to push dessert on people on a Monday night, and somehow a bar cookie or two seems like not quite dessert. Just a nice fillip to end the evening.
Go Jets.

The menu:
Antipasti--stuffed mushrooms, salami, olives, smoked whitefish, ricotta salata, assorted pickles
Red clam tomato pie
Salad with Italian dressing (basically red wine vinaigrette with a little oregano and sugar)
Cranberry shortbread bars, in honor of New Jersey being a top cranberry producer

Red Clam Tomato Pie:
Use a wet, nicely fermented pizza dough. I'm lucky to bring home Grand Central's U-Bake dough. Stretch it thin.
Steam fresh clams with tomato sauce, extra garlic and a little wine.
Put all the clams, some still in their shells, on the pie with enough sauce to cover, but not enough to make soggy.
Top with a good handful of grated parmigiano.
Bake in a pre-heated 500 degree oven until it's bubbled and charred and really good looking.

Monday Night Football

I like sports in general, and love two in particular. Those two are cycling and football. I also love to have people over to watch those sports on TV. Naturally you have to feed those people.
My husband, Fred, and I have been watching the Tour de France since the mid 90's. About 5 or 6 years ago I started cooking dinners that reflected the cuisine of the region the racers were cycling through on that given day.
I'm pretty sure I stole the idea from Robin Rosenberg who's been hosting Superbowl parties featuring regionally appropriate food (from the teams' respective homes) for years. It's a great conceit; if you love to make food of all sorts it's nice to focus your efforts. And if you can do it for Cincinnati and Minnesota, say, you can certainly do it for the Savoie and Provence.
July is dedicated to 3 weeks of intensive French cooking. Sept-Dec, though, is football season, and therefore 17 weeks of American food.
In truth I don't host 17 monday night football (MNF) dinners. I'm ambivalent about football in September; I'm not entirely willing to let summer go, and football is, of course, synonymous with fall. Also, Sept can be spectacular in Oregon and California, and Fred and I are often backpacking or riding our bikes or in some other way trying to cram in the last of summer.
The 2010 MNF season at our house started on Sept 20, week 2, with New Orleans at San Francisco.
Sometimes I like to cook a specific, emblematic dish of a region, like, say, Cincinnati chili. Other times I'll come up with a menu that reflects my feelings or impressions of a place. San Francisco was the latter. Oh, I almost forgot-- in general the home team dictates the menu.
This year I thought about old Italian North Beach San Francisco.

The menu:
Fresh Pacific oysters with lemon
Bucatini with anchovy sauce
Green salad with lemon juice and olive oil (happily late Sept is still CSA season around here, so we had gorgeous, hearty, sweet and bitter farm greens)
Spumoni sundaes--vanilla and coffee ice creams (I strongly prefer coffee to chocolate) with chocolate sauce, toasted pistachios and boozy cherry sauce.

Anchovy Sauce:
For 1 lb of pasta slowly saute a couple lbs (3 or 4 good sized) of yellow onions, sliced, in a good amount of olive oil. Let the onions get soft and caramel-y. This will take 30-45 min.
Add a couple ounces of anchovy fillets, rinsed if salted. Smash a couple cloves of garlic and add to the onions. Mash the anchovies into the onions and garlic and continue to cook until the anchovies dissolve. Add lots of black pepper and season to taste.
Toast about 1/2 cup of bread crumbs, chop a big handful of parsley, and toss with cooked bucatini and onion/anchovy mixture. Add a little of the pasta cooking water if the sauce is stiff or stodgy.