Pimento Cheese and other Schmaltz

The Verdict on Interpretations of Southern cuisine staples, Pimento Cheese,  Cornbread and
Fried Chicken; Can a Yankee-born-Korean-American do it better?

It has been an exciting week in my kitchen.  My in-laws were visiting from Tennessee by way of North Carolina.  My husband accompanied them on NorCal adventures to the Wine Country and Google's galactic headquarters.  We ate at Greens overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge.

These folks have been on some kind of liquid diet since Christmas and have lost phenomenal amounts of weight.  They reveled in In-and-Out burgers, and not just because of the Biblical citations on every piece of packaging.  Ever in search of in-family approval, I decided to go all out on their farewell dinner.
   
Starters: a taste-off of pimento cheeses.  Edward Lee's, the Korean-American chef at 610 Magnolia in Louisville (that's Louvul),  versus Scott Peacock/Edna Lewis' Alabama/Virginia version.  Interesting results:  my husband, nephew and sister-in-law all went for the Peacock/Lewis version because it reminded them of their Aunt Ethel's.  My brother-in-law, bless his heart, went for Edward Lee's.  He felt it had a certain kick.  Men and hotness, observes I.
   
Next was Ed Lee's Dark Braised Lamb Shoulder and his Lardo Cornbread.  Everybody went berserkers.  In my bro-in-law's family, they dip corn bread in milk for breakfast.  He was ecstatic.  Whatever my leftist, Yankee reputation may have been before last night, I am redeemed!
   
Side dishes and desserts were a collection of random recipes gleaned from my serious weeding of Gourmet back issues, and other snatches.  Not the same excitement.
   
The next Big Thing was the call from my son, reporting on the forced slaughter of a rooster in the mountains of Pennsylvania.  He didn't think he could do it, but when told that the dog-wounded fellow had to be put out of his misery, my son screwed his courage to the sticking place.  With the wrong end of the ax he stunned the bird, and with the proper end guillotined him below the ganglia, avoiding the dancing headless rooster act. (Was there some consulting of Google Search to find out the proper location?)  He felt rather virtuous until he found himself listening to "Mack the Knife."
   
I contemplated his chivalry as I begin separating two chickens into drumsticks, thighs and wings to make Edward Lee's Adobo Deep Fried Chicken on one hand, and cut-up breast pieces for Scott Peacock/Edna Lewis' brined and buttermilk-soaked-shallow-pan Fried Chicken on the other.  I did a terrible job.

Nothing like the third century BC butcher to one of the early rulers of China, a description of which, I had sent to the writer, Frances Lam, in honor of his pieces on the last Chinese BBQ chef and Dry Aging of Beef:

Cook Ting was cutting up an ox for Lord Wen-hui. As every touch of his hand, every heave of his shoulder, every move of his feet, every thrust of his knee — zip! zoop! He slithered the knife along with a zing, and all was in perfect rhythm, as though he were performing the dance of the Mulberry Grove or keeping time to the Ching-shou music.

“Ah, this is marvelous!” said Lord Wen-hui. “Imagine skill reaching such heights!”

Cook Ting laid down his knife and replied, “What I care about is the Way, which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now — now I go at it by spirit and don’t look with my eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop and spirit moves where it wants. I go along with the natural makeup, strike in the big hollows, guide the knife through the big openings, and following things as they are. So I never touch the smallest ligament or tendon, much less a main joint.

“A good cook changes his knife once a year — because he cuts. A mediocre cook changes his knife once a month — because he hacks. I’ve had this knife of mine for nineteen years and I’ve cut up thousands of oxen with it, and yet the blade is as good as though it had just come from the grindstone. There are spaces between the joints, and the blade of the knife has really no thickness. If you insert what has no thickness into such spaces, then there’s plenty of room — more than enough for the blade to play about it. That’s why after nineteen years the blade of my knife is still as good as when it first came from the grindstone.

“However, whenever I come to a complicated place, I size up the difficulties, tell myself to watch out and be careful, keep my eyes on what I’m doing, work very slowly, and move the knife with the greatest subtlety, until — flop! the whole thing comes apart like a clod of earth crumbling to the ground. I stand there holding the knife and look all around me, completely satisfied and reluctant to move on, and then I wipe off the knife and put it away.”

“Excellent!” said Lord Wen-hui. “I have heard the words of Cook Ting and learned how to care for life!”

No, for sure, I am a hacker.  I did carefully render some chicken fat for one of the side recipes.  But tomorrow, when the two methods of frying chicken are stacked up against each other, the cuts may not matter so much.

The guests and the event are what matters now.  Five years ago, we hosted an engagement party for this couple, who were married in San Francisco in that break-in-the-clouds when it was possible.  Here we are five years later, getting to celebrate the new DOMA-free-stability in their lives!  My own nephew will join us to be inspired by their pioneering efforts.

   
Did I mention that one of the guests is Georgia born, so able to do this Judgement of Paris thing on the chicken thighs and breasts?  Ed Lee's lardo cornbread, with some added kernels of sweet corn, Peacock/Lewis Tomato Gravy, Ed Lee's updated Ambrosia,  (No, Mom, no canned Mandarin Oranges.) and Ed Lee's Togarashi Goat Cheesecake will complete the menu.  And lots of champagne from that Napa Valley tour.

 
And all sent forth with the best of intentions.