Corned beef hash is such a Northern thing. I don’t know why.

I realized this a few years ago at a church breakfast. We arrived and went down the food line and there was corned beef hash. I was instantly intrigued, but everyone around me was decidedly not. You could practically read their minds: “What is that strange pink substance? It looks like dog food.” Nobody ate the corned beef hash, which was a very unchristian thing to do.

Come to think of it now, you can hardly find a corned beef in the supermarket. It’s as though they stock them for the people who move here from Michigan or New York, who are made fun of when they pick one up. “Yankee, Yankee!!!” You can almost hear the taunts. So I hope I’m not chastised when I admit that I love corned beef and the resulting hash from the leftovers. Nothing is easier to cook.

For the corned beef, you just put it in a casserole dish, add a bottle of beer and enough water to come halfway up the meat and stick it in a 320 degree oven for a few hours until the corned beef is tender. I don’t add cabbage or potatoes to the casserole dish because they come out mushy. Oh, oh, another very non-Southern thing to say. We generally love our mushy vegetables. They’re going to drum me out of the corp.

So after you have your first round of corned beef, then you get to make the hash. The best part. If you want to gild the lily, add a poached egg on top. Dang it. Another Northern thing. They’re going to take away my license or my tub of lard. I think I’m going to have to eat this in the closet.

Corned Beef Hash

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 cups Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into small cubes

½ yellow onion, diced

Salt and pepper to taste

2 cups cooked corned beef, diced

1 tablespoon butter

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add to potatoes and sauté for about 10 minutes, flipping them as they turn brown. Add the onion, salt and pepper to taste, and continue sautéing until the potatoes and onions are both golden brown and potatoes are cooked through. Add the corned beef and blend thoroughly. Finish by stirring the butter into the mixture.

(Note: To just make this extremely Northern, we always have English muffins with our corned beef hash.)

Her critics, including Anthony Bordain, are giving her all kinds of grief for promoting fattening food for all of her career and then making money off the fact that she got sick, partially, from being overweight. I watched the interview Al Roker did with her on the Today Show. In the trade, you would call that a softball interview. It almost looked like he was afraid of her. And truth be told, she didn’t come off very well either. She insisted that away from the camera, she eats in moderation. No, Paula, if you are fat you are not eating in moderation. And, in fact, Paula Deen has referred to herself as fat many times. If you’re going to be fat, own it. She also looked defensive and guarded, not like the Paula Deen I’ve come to know and love.

She also said that she’d learned of the diagnosis three years ago. She didn’t explain why she didn’t reveal it until she had a drug deal. That sounds bad. A pharmaceutical contract. But you know what? People are allowed to make money in this country. If Corbett Canyon called tomorrow and offered me a gazillion dollars to shill for their Sauvignon Blanc, I’d be on the next train to Napa Valley.

What has gone largely unsaid in all of this is that what Paula Deen has been doing for the last ten years is not new. Southern people have always eaten fattening food. We just used to have a better way of working it off. Paula Deen did not invent fried chicken or sweet potato casserole or pecan pie. She might have eaten too much of it, but she didn’t invent it. In the South, we love our collards stewed with ham hocks for hours, our green bean casserole with cream of mushroom soup, our squash casserole gooey with melted cheese, and our cocoanut cake, heavy on the cocoanut.

If you think anything with a pound of butter or a cup of heavy cream in it is a crime, then don’t make it. I make fattening things all the time. I just don’t eat a bucket of it. Tonight, I’m making hot chicken salad. It has a ton of mayonnaise and shredded cheese in it and it’s topped with crushed potato chips. So sue me.

I’m using Paula Deen’s recipe. If you want to know what a real crime is, it’s Paula Deen’s magazine, which I subscribed to for exactly one year. If I had to venture where Paula’s gone wrong, it’s in endorsing way too many suspect products and splashing them all over a poorly produced magazine.

But let’s all remember this. There is a 90 percent chance that any Southern cook and maybe cooks everywhere have at least one Paula Deen cookbook. It is also highly likely that they have at least three Paula Deen recipes they make over and over again. Like the hot chicken salad. It’s damned delicious. So let’s give poor old Paula a break. Let’s remember how many years she’s been entertaining us on TV. Let’s not get our panties in a wad over her selling a few drugs. And don’t leave off the potato chips on the hot chicken salad. Don’t make me come after you.

Andrew Knowlton, who is some kind of editor for the magazine, made a trip to Nashville to see his friend, Dan Auerbach, singer-guitarist for the Grammy-winning band the Black Keys (which I’ve actually never heard of but that’s o.k.) and I must say they hit all the right places. They spent a lot of time at City House, which is just so delicious it ought to be illegal. They hit Capitol Grille, also high on my list. They took a trip to Nolensville to eat at Martin’s BBQ, which has previously been immortalized on this blog. They took the obligatory trip to Prince’s Hot Chicken to get their heads blown off and, AND, they had fried chicken livers at Arnold’s.

There is a lot of fancy food in Nashville but when you can appreciate the fried chicken livers served in a cinder-block building with cracked linoleum floors and silverware so old its warped, then you’ve impressed me.

The article is great (check out the cool Hatch Show Print) and there’s a fun video attached (although every traffic shot in the video looks as though they just kept circling downtown over and over again).

The chicken livers. I am devoted to them. I like Arnold’s, but my husband makes the best. Simple. Cornmeal, salt, pepper, chicken livers. Shake all of that up in a brown paper sack. Get a cast-iron skillet full of vegetable oil screamingly hot and drop the livers in. Stand back. The pan will sputter. Cook until golden brown. Eat with ketchup.

A moment back in time. It is 1959 in Evanston, Illinois. Two little girls are starving. Eating canned asparagus and lumpy oatmeal with skim milk. STARVING. And we walk to Mr. Pottinger’s store. We see them on the rack and we know there is a slim possibility that starvation will be averted. Hostess CupCakes. So beautiful. So decadent. That swirl of vanilla icing tempting us. The Twinkies. So merry. So moist. So irresistible.

Oh, please, please, Mother Dear. Please buy us some CupCakes and Twinkies. Yes! We open the package of CupCakes. We cleverly peel off the icing in one piece. Chocolate fondant? Yes, of course. So sophisticated. So delicious. How can they only charge 10 cents for these incredible confections? We lick the icing out of the center and then consume the rich devil’s food cake. Ahhhhh.

The Twinkies. People who make fun of Twinkies should have their income taxes audited. The delicate cake surrounding the rich vanilla cream. So soul-satisfying. My sister and I walk home to face our broiled halibut and hominy. But our stomachs are dancing. We will remember this. We will remember this….

Fifty years later. I have just read the news that Hostess is facing bankruptcy for the second time. I walk into the Daily’s Convenience Store and buy a package each of CupCakes and Twinkies. I come home and eagerly peel off the plastic packaging and take a bite. I must admit, washed down with a little Cabernet Sauvignon. Yes, my tastes have matured. But not that much. They are still utterly delicious.

“Well, that kale post won’t go down in history as your greatest,” Mark said supportively. Thank you, dear. How kind of you. That’s alright. More kale for me.

Now then, how about a lovely pocket of dough stuffed with ground beef, raisins and olives? What do you think about that? Not displaying my Southern roots? How about the fact that empanadas come from South America. And the first time I ever had them was in Charlotte, North Carolina, while I was renovating my kitchen. What an ordeal that was.

So I bought my first house, a 1929 bungalow, in Charlotte. The former owners were taxidermists. You don’t want to know, but it took three weeks to fumigate the house. The kitchen was a disaster. And so I decided to renovate it. I hired a construction company that said it would take about four weeks. The first day of demolition I came home to the construction foreman who offered that we had a little problem. “What?” I say. “Look up,” he says. I look up. The entire ceiling is gone. When the workmen started removing the cabinets, the ceiling fell in. Four weeks became three months. Three months of me keeping all my food in a cooler. Since wine took up about three fourths of the space, I had to get take-out a lot. Which is why I found empanadas at a gourmet take-out place nearby.

If you think the combination of ground meat, cinnamon, raisins and olives is strange, just give it a chance. It’s a standard flavor combination in much of the world. Don’t like green olives? Use black ones or leave them out entirely. I don’t care, you kale haters. Your taste is already questionable to me.

Empanadas

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

½ cup red onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, diced

½ teaspoon cinnamon

½ pound ground chuck

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon smoked paprika

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1/3 cup chopped tomatoes

1/3 cup golden raisins

1/3 cup chopped green olives

1 ball pizza dough

1 egg, beaten

Heat the vegetable oil in a skillet over medium high heat. Add the onion, garlic and cinnamon. Cook for about a minute, and then add the ground chuck and salt. Saute until the meat is browned. Add the tomato paste, tomatoes, raisins, and olives. Combine thoroughly, reserve and let cool completely.

Divide the pizza dough into four equal portions. Roll each into a circle. Fill half the circle with ¼ of the filling. Brush the edges of each circle with the beaten egg. Fold and crimp the edges to seal in the filling.

Put the empanadas on a baking sheet and brush tops with remaining beaten egg. Bake at 425 for about 20 minutes or until the empanadas are golden brown.

No, don’t run away! Don’t click over to that other food blog you like so much! Stay here, I beg of you. This won’t hurt. I promise.

Kale is what’s for supper if you’re a vegetarian in January. It’s apparently the only thing that grows in the dead of winter, like the big dark green leafy weed it is. Well, it’s not a weed. It’s a member of the cabbage family that doesn’t grow a head. But, it’s also related to wild cabbage, which you could call a weed. If you go to the farmer’s market in January, pretty much all you will see are farmers selling kale, radishes, sweet potatoes and winter squash. It will be that way until April.

Since the Mayhew New Year’s Day menu required some sort of green, and because the green of choice was kale, we had a lot left over. You can’t just buy a couple leaves of kale. You have to buy a mess of it, as we say in the South. So here’s what you do and I promise you will actually seek out kale after you try this: just saute it. Don’t cook it until it’s mush as we Southerners love to do. Just give it a quick dip in some olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

One of the great magic tricks of the culinary world is cooking any kind of greens. You will start with a skillet full to overflowing and think you’ve got way too much in the pan. Within minutes, you’ll have enough for three servings, if that.

Sauteed Kale

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

1 pound kale, sliced into thin ribbons

2 garlic cloves thinly sliced

Salt and pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil over medium high heat in a skillet. Add the vinegar and the kale. Stir constantly to start wilting the kale. When it is reduced by half, add the garlic slices. Continue cooking until the kale is completely wilted but still a vibrant green. Add salt and pepper to taste.

I think I’ll have a drink. Be right back.

There now. Just a wee glass of Cabernet. It’s five o’clock somewhere. Not here. But somewhere. I will get to the Swedish meatballs in a moment. After I wallow a bit more. Such an unattractive trait, wallowing. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

I think I’ll play a little World of Warcraft. I started playing this stupid game because of my boy, so we could communicate while he was away. He stopped (wisely) and I am now addicted to my Night Elf Mage and Dwarf Death Knight. Yes, you all had better watch your p’s and q’s or I’ll send Denholm the Death Knight after you. He’s heavily armed, even if he only reaches your knees. A little gratuitous violence and looting will make me feel better. Did I tell you that Noah once rang up an $800 phone bill calling his friends from World of Warcraft? He said he didn’t realize long distance costs money.

Okay. The wine is mellowing things out a bit. Blurring the edges.  Meatballs. Let’s speak of meatballs. He ate all of them. Noah ate all of them. Actually, that’s not true. He ate all but four of them, which I took to work. Resentment. Maybe if I work up just a little resentment. Over meatballs. How pathetic.

Seriously, I was on a comfort food kick over the holidays and remembered how much I adore Swedish meatballs. With the lingonberry jelly, of course. The recipe I used is from the Food Network Magazine, which published an approximate match to the famous Swedish meatballs at IKEA. Of course, we in backwater Nashville do not have an IKEA so I have no idea why they would be famous for meatballs when they sell furniture. But apparently they are. Here’s the link.

The meatballs and the New Year’s Day pork loin sliders were by far Noah’s favorites over the holidays. The meatballs are seriously addictive. He wanted more to take back to school, but I ran out of time after I made the potato salad, tuna salad, pesto pasta, and meatloaf that he also requested. Maybe I’ll make some now. And send him a photo. Ha, ha. I have Swedish meatballs and you don’t. That’s so immature.

Stop it. I think I’ll go play WoW now. Get into a dungeon group with three anonymous 14-year-olds and just rip it. And watch the clock.

“Majah,” which Noah has started calling me because he is immersed in his Russian studies, “can we go to Costco for some snacks to take back to school?” Snacks. Like can’t you just get some of that room temperature cheese and sausage stuff at the convenience store? We need cases of snacks? Your dorm room is the size of a  pet crate. Where are you going to put cases of snacks?

We go to Costco. A 24-pack of ramen noodles in Styrofoam cups. Three giant bags of chips. A case of microwaveable ravioli, Sun Chips by the gross. This does not count the 48-bag box of sausage biscuits, the hummus and the nan bread he wants that Costco does not stock. It will be a busy weekend provisioning the boy for the frontier of Knoxville.

“Can I have a Polish dog? son of Majah asks. Of course, my little babushka. You can see Russia from the Polish dog counter. A few minutes later, we exit Costco. The Bank, which is Majah, is $167 poorer, not counting the Polish dog.

But that is not all. That is simply the convenience food son of Majah needs for the harsh Siberian winter of East Tennessee. There are also the home-made provisions requested: roast pork loin, pasta with peas and prosciutto, tuna salad, potato salad, pig candy and sausage balls.

I realize I am the enabler here. Catherine the Great Enabler. I could pack him off with a jar of Cheez Whiz and be done with it. But I am Majah. Queen of the Styrofoam cooler. Where is my damn crown? I’ve left it somewhere in the chips aisle at Costco.

Alex is coming to supper. I just love Alex. He’s one of Noah’s best friends and he is an adventurous eater. I am in the last throes of two weeks of doing absolutely nothing and enjoying it immensely. So going to the supermarket is just not going to happen. But since I am an excessive food purchaser, there’s plenty in the house. I just don’t know if it goes together.

Pizza. I’ll do pizza. I have the dough. I have a pound of bulk hot sausage. I have peppers. I have onions. I have cheese, although sharp Cheddar rather than mozzarella. What I don’t have is sauce. I briefly consider going naked. Not me. Just no sauce on the pie. And then I think of one of the South’s most classic condiments, of which I have a precious plenty. Red pepper jelly.

Spicy and sweet. Yes. Alex watches as I spread the red pepper jelly on the dough. I can see those wheels turning. He’s not sure about this. I’m not either. But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt if this just sucks, Alex will gamely wolf it down and tell me it was absolutely delicious. As I said, I just love that boy.

It is just absolutely delicious. The combination of the spicy sausage and the sweet jelly is addictive. The assertiveness of the Cheddar plays well with the sausage and jelly. I get the ultimate complement from Noah: “We can have this again.” And we will. In 10 minutes the entire pie is gone. Every blind hog.

Sausage and Red Pepper Jelly Pizza

½ pound bulk hot pork sausage

1 medium green pepper, diced

½ medium red onion, diced

1 ball pizza dough

Red pepper jelly

2 cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese

Preheat the oven to 550 or as hot as it will go.

Fry the sausage until it is crumbly and nicely browned (don’t just cook the sausage until it’s no longer pink – actually brown it). Set aside. In remaining sausage grease, sauté green pepper and onion until it just begins to soften.

Roll out the pizza dough to about 12 inches in diameter, dusting it with a bit of flour if it sticks. Spread a generous amount of red pepper jelly on the dough. Top with cheese and then the green peppers, onions and sausage.

Bake for 7-8 minutes or until the crust turns a nice golden brown.

Notes: A pizza stone is a great tool for making pizza in the oven. If you don’t have one use a cookie sheet and adjust the shape of the pizza accordingly. Publix and Trader Joe’s have great pre-made pizza dough. If you don’t have either purveyor, get pizza dough from a local pizza shop.

Palmiers are the easiest thing to make and they look like you’ve spent hours doing them. All you need is a sheet of puff pastry, which you can find in the dessert freezer section, and whatever you want to fill them with. For the sake of this demonstration, I used store-bought pesto, ham slices and freshly grated Parmesan cheese. I’ve always hated those blogs that show you photos of every step in a recipe like you’re such an idiot you can’t figure out how to put something in a bowl and mix it up. But this probably requires those photos, so here goes. If I don’t have enough to say, I’ll just ad lib while I put the photos in.

Start out by thawing the puff pastry, but still keeping it cool or else it will be hell to roll up when that step comes. Lay it flat on a cutting board or your counter and spread a layer of pesto on it. Then follow that with thin slices of ham and the grated cheese. Did I ever tell you about my worst New Year’s Eve date ever? I got “fixed up” (always a bad sign) with a guy who lived across the street. Kevin Herbert. I hope he doesn’t read this. Zero personality. We went to a college “party” at which there was no booze, which is entirely the point of New Year’s Eve. I couldn’t wait for midnight so I could get out of there. We won’t even go into the kiss. Yuk.

So, after you spread your puff pastry you want to roll it up halfway from either end. If you let the pastry get too warm stick the entire thing in the fridge. Otherwise, it will just be a mess and you’ll be mad at me. Here’s the pastry rolled up halfway. Now you just roll from the other side so you have something that looks like a palm leaf, which is the other name for these things. When you get done with that, cut them into half inch pieces.

This is what the palmiers look like rolled and cut. So, did I ever tell you about my best New Year’s Eve date? I’m going to get in trouble here but it wasn’t with Mark. By the time I met him, I was kind of over New Year’s Eve. It was with my first real boyfriend, Tommy, who took me to this swank restaurant at Redington Beach. Steak and champagne and a pretty good kiss at midnight on the beach. That’s what I’m talking about.

Now all you do is bake them at 400 degrees for 12 minutes or until they’re puffed and golden. You can serve them warm or at room temperature. The great thing about palmiers is that you can stuff them with anything. Butter, brown sugar and chopped pecans for a sweet version. Or roasted red pepper pesto, prosciutto and fontina cheese for another savory one.  So, sad to say, New Year’s Eve is not a major holiday at the Mayhew house. Yes, I have a bottle of champagne that I will crack around the time that Greenland rings in 2012. I will watch Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin celebrate in Times Square because I’m just so tickled at how thoroughly she embarrasses him. And then I will hit the sack. Woo-hoo. What a wild woman I am.  I almost forgot. One last thing. Before I go to bed, I will put some coins outside the front door and then bring them back in on New Year’s Day. I have no idea why I do this, but it is required of all good Southern women and if you don’t you will have hell to pay the whole next year.