Broward Palm Beach Food Blog

Champion Dough Spinning @ Yahoo! Video

This pretty matched set of cupcakes, one chocolate, one vanilla, and both with the most ethereal pink cream icing, comes from a place you wouldn't ordinarily think to buy your baked goods. But after you've tried on many lucite bangles and pillbox hats, bought a ruby-colored patent leather handbag to match those adorable kitten-heel pumps, and come to the sad recognition that a size 8 in 1952 was a good deal smaller than the 8s hanging in your closet, the goodies are waiting for you in cramped little kitchen at the rear of this 1920s house.

To find out where, hit the jump.   

--Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

My friend Peggy Jean was in town over the Easter holidays. Peggy Jean is a real Southern cook, which means that just about everything she makes calls for many pounds of butter, cartons of heavy whipping cream, half and half, bacon fat, salt, and variations on the theme of sugar (turbinado, honey, molassas). Peggy Jean is a cook who makes Paula Deen look like she's on the Mediterranean Diet. She made us a dinner of pulled pork shoulder, black eyed pea salsa, cheese grits, ground pork and sausage burgers, tea-cured grilled salmon, grilled pineapple, and green beans tossed with cured bacon ends that had been sauteed in turbinado sugar and balsamic vinegar. I did my part and made the cornbread. Then we ate an entire 8-layer yellow cake with chocolate icing and raspberry filling that Peggy Jean had also made up in her spare time. The next day, we put together the sandwich pictured above with leftovers: a pork burger topped with pulled roast pork topped with the cured bacon ends. We ate these with leftover grilled pineapple and Peeps. (Note: Peeps and pork shoulder are an inspired pairing.)

Addendum 4/16/09: check out Food & Wine's recipe for a double pork burger with bacon and cheese here.

Here follows PJ's recipes for pork shoulder and black eyed peas salsa:

Peggy Jean's BBQ Pork Shoulder (feeds 12 with lots of leftovers)

Preheat oven to 450

1 pork shoulder (5-6 lbs. We got a bag containing two 5 lb. shoulders at Costco for $14 and put one shoulder in the freezer)

For the marinade, mix well and set aside:
*Note: the marinade will be poured over the shoulder right before you bake it.
zest and juice of:
1 lime
1 lemon
1 orange
*note: save your leftover squeezed fruit for the black eyed pea salsa, below)
1 tbs fresh parsley
1 tsp. fresh thyme
1 tsp fresh rosemary
1/4 cup kosher salt (see what I mean about the salt?)
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tbs honey
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tbs sweet paprika
3 tbs apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tbs ground black pepper
1 tsp worcestershire sauce
dash of tabasco

Rub roast with olive oil and season with salt and pepper
Place roast in roasting pan and sear on all sides in 450 oven, turning as each side browns. Remove from oven and reduce heat to 300. Pour the marinade over the roast, cover with foil, and immediately return to the 300 degree oven. Bake for 3-4 hours, until pork easily falls apart when poked with a fork. **Note, we finished the roast on a covered grill, for about 15 minutes, to give it a nice smokey flavor.

Peggy Jean's Black Eyed Peas Salsa

Mix together and set aside:
zest and juice of
1 lime
1 lemon
1 orange
1 tbs each parsley, cilantro, thyme
1 family size bag of frozen black eyed peas, thawed (sold at Publix)
1/4 cup bread and butter pickles
1/4 cup pickled okra
2 diced ripe tomatoes or 1 container grape tomatoes, halved
1 bunch scallions, thinly sliced, mostly white part.
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp worcestershire sauce
1 dash tabasco
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp each: cumin, chili powder, paprika
3 tbs cider vinegar

Put black eyed peas in large pot with enough room to move around, and cover with water. Add half each of the used lime, lemon, and orange, cut in quarters. Add 2 tsp salt and 1/s tsp black pepper. Cook until tender but firm (al dente). Strain. Add the mixture of ingredients that you've set aside immediately and mix well. Can be served warm, at room temp, or chilled.

Sage Bistro and Oyster Bar 

2000 Harrison St,, Hollywood, 954-391-9466 

This swank new raw bar and French bistro keeps at least four kinds of oysters on ice, all flown in daily. You might find Blue Point, Kumamoto, Fanny Bay, Island Creek, or Barron Point. They're pricey, though, at $28 a dozen. (See the full review here.) 

650 N. Federal Hwy., Ft. Lauderdale, 954-462-0088 

It sounds just like what it is: a bayou oyster shack transplanted to Lauderdale. Order Louisiana Black Bay oysters freshly shucked, baked Rockefeller-style, fried, and stuffed into a poboy ($12.99), served with butter and blue cheese as "black and blues" or barbecued (all $8.99). Pair with a plate of fried green tomatoes.

Legislators in Utah are pushing to restrict restaurants that make mixed drinks in full view of minors, arguing that all those pretty, glittering bottles and delicious-looking garnishes behind the bar constitute a sore temptation, one that could lead youngsters to an unquenchable craving for Manhattans. Senate president Michael Waddoups says that the measure's necessary to protect the "safety and mental future of our children." Nevemind trying to decode that little phrase -- clearly kids who witness some heathen bartender flaming an orange peel are as liable to mental breakdown as any Iranian lad getting a glimpse of a passing female's accidentally uncovered ankle. The Devil, you know, is in the details.

If the law passes it would require restaurants to remodel their layout so the bar is effectively screened off from the dining room. Now I ask you, aren't you freaking grateful you weren't born in Utah? 

Waddoups adds that these semi-Draconian, post-Prohibition prohibitions are necessary because children's brains are undeveloped; thus they're more suceptible to alchohol damage. Seems like the kids aren't the only ones with the undeveloped brains here. On the other hand, if I hadn't watched my parents mix martinis from the time I was first able to burble out the phrase "twist, no olive" maybe I wouldn't be the unrepentant lush I am today. Go figure.

--Gail Shepherd