Uniform of the Day: Teaching Weekend, Williamsburg.

I'm off for a two-day teaching weekend at the College of William & Mary. It's my second trip down to Billsburg to teach and there is a welcome break in the weather with predicted temps of 65F both Saturday and Sunday. So packing will be easier. And, I'll be driving the convertible.

Travel shoes will certainly be Top-Siders, but I'll likely wear the Allen Edmonds Black Hills oxfords in class -- they offer some welcome support that the Sperry's don't since I'll be standing on poured concrete floors for seven or eight hours a day. Classes are casual, so jeans, cords and OCBDs are in order. I'll carry a crew neck sweater, a cotton sweatshirt, and a Harrington jacket in case it's cool at night. Given the line of thunderstorms that are predicted to roll across the entire eastern part of the U.S. this afternoon, I'll have an umbrella to hand. And, of course, I'll pack a J. Press Harris Tweed blazer; well, just because. I'll likely wear the Submariner 5513, but the 1950 Waltham A-17 will be in the bag, too.

Rustic Tomato Soup

We're pretty much snowed in on the East Coast. The District of Columbia got hammered last night, and we had about a foot plus of snow at the house this morning when we woke up. It's a perfect day for tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches--after shoveling out the cars and the walk.

Out in the back yard. 

Here's what you need:

About one and one half pounds of fresh tomatoes or at least a 28oz can of chopped tomatoes

Two medium onions, thinly sliced
Basil

Stock (chicken or vegetable) or water

Salt and pepper

Rice

Olive oil

Heat a tablespoon of oil and a tablespoon of butter in the bottom of your soup pot. Add the onions and let them cook until they are very soft, about five minutes. Don't overcook.

While that's happening, if you're using whole tomatoes, you'll have to prepare them: score the bottoms with an X, drop each tomato into boiling water for about 15 seconds and remove promptly. The skins will just pull away. 

Then, chop the tomatoes roughly and add them to the soup pot with the onions, some chopped basil, salt and pepper--a little garlic can't hurt here either. 

Preparing the tomato and basil.

Let all of this cook for about ten minutes and prepare some chopped rice. (If you haven't done this before, it's pretty simple: put a couple ounces of rice into a dry pan over medium high heat, stirring regularly until the rice begins to brown a bit. Then either crush it with a mortar in a pestle or run it through the small food processor.

Chopped Rice

Once the tomatoes have cooked down a bit, add a pint of stock or water. I used chicken stock because it was handy. 

Just before I added the stock.

Stir well for a couple minutes, then add the chopped rice. Bring this all to a boil--stirring pretty regularly--reduce and let simmer for 15 minutes. It's ready to serve in a primitive or rustic fashion right now. You might want to give it a spin with the vertical blender to make it smooth. Some people add a bit of cream. 

Grilled cheese sandwiches (sharp NY cheddar 

on sourdough), and rustic tomato soup. I'm happy. 

A foot of snow in the back yard. Harry's happy.

Zuppa di Pesce

Somehow, and I'm not really sure how, food and women seem sexier in Italian. Let's not dwell on this for too long, but this is a fish soup, and it simply sounds more interesting as zuppa di pesce than as fish soup.

Here's what you need:

Fish
Scallops or squid (calamari, see....)
Mussels or clams
Tomatoes
Onion
Garlic
Seafood stock (or make your own, see below).
Celery
Olive oil
Fresh spices: basil, thyme or marjoram
Salt and Pepper

The seafood: I used some Sea Bass, Bay Scallops, and Mussels. The wine is an Orvieto. 

If you're using prepared fish stock, move along. If you're making your own stock, here's what you'll need: some fish heads, maybe some shrimp shells, water, crushed garlic, chopped parsley, olive oil, oregano, onion, vinegar, salt and pepper--a glass of nice white wine (subtract this amount from the water) can't hurt. Prepare the tomatoes by slicing an X on the bottom of each one, coring it to remove the base of the stem, and dropping it into boiling water for about 15 seconds. Remove promptly and remove the skin, then slice thinly. Now put the fish heads into a pan with the rest of the ingredients and heat. Add a quart of water. Once the fish heads and the tomatoes are cooked fully, sieve the broth and set aside.

For the soup, prepare two pounds of tomatoes as above. Cover the bottom of a soup pot with olive oil and warm. Add a thinly sliced onion. Once it begins to brown just a bit, add crushed garlic and a thinly sliced stalk of celery, plus the spice --dried or fresh, but fresh is best--I used marjoram, and some black pepper. Stir and let cook for a few minutes, then add the tomatoes. Stir and let this cook for a few minutes then add a glass of white wine -- I used a very nice Orvieto and later served the same wine with the soup. Let all of this cook for a while until the tomatoes are almost pulped. Next, add about a quart of your fish stock.

Not quite ready for the stock. 

You're ready now to complete the meal. Add the mussels first. Bring the soup back to a boil, then add the fish and scallops (or calamari....). Reduce the heat to simmer, cover and wait about five minutes. Once all the mussels have opened, you're set. Sprinkle some chopped parsley over the top and serve with bread, salad, and wine. We served with an Orvieto, but a lighter red would have served nicely, too.

Just before the parsley went on. 

Veal Piccata

Technically, this dish is Costolette al Marsala because we're using cutlets rather than scaloppine. But the technique we're using is for piccata, so we'll fudge the difference and call it Veal Piccata. Piccata is another relatively simple dish one can spend a long while perfecting. The challenge is in using flour and not letting it become gelatinous.

Here's what you need:

Veal cutlets
Salt and pepper
Lemon
Flour
Butter
Marsala

I served it with some shitake mushrooms and haricots verts with shallots and slivered almonds.

Ask your butcher for some very thin veal cutlets. Then, when you get home, pound them even thinner. To do so, wrap each cutlet in wax paper and pound it with an empty wine bottle. Why an empty wine bottle you ask? So you are careful not to break either the bottle nor the meat. Season the cutlets with salt, pepper, and lemon juice and dust them lightly with flour. Then start work on the other parts of the meal. You'll see why soon.

Just flattened and ready to season. 

Par-boil your haricots vert. Bring a pan of water to a boil, drop in the beans. When they change color to a bright green, pull them out and douse them in ice water to stop the cooking. Dry and set aside, nearby. Finely chop a shallot and thin slice (or use already sliced) almonds. Add these to a pan with some olive oil and maybe a little minced garlic. Let these cook until the shallots are translucent and the almonds are browning on the edges. Add the beans, cover and turn off the heat. The beans will come to the proper temperature and be ready to serve in a few minutes. 

Almonds, shallots, and garlic almost ready for the beans. 

While the almonds and shallots are cooking, put some butter in a pan and melt it. Add the mushrooms, salt and pepper them to taste, let them cook slowly -- about eight to ten minutes is sufficient -- cover and keep warm. 

Once these tasks are completed you can start the veal. Put a good sized pat of butter in the pan, enough that when it melts it will cover the entire pan, over medium heat. Add the cutlets and brown them on both sides -- this will happen quickly. Add a 1/4 cup or so of Marsala, let it bubble and dislodge any brown bits, mix it with the remaining butter. Then add about half that amount of chicken stock and stir these to form a nice pan sauce. When heated through, serve the cutlets with the sauce. 

This all happens quite quickly, so I didn't have a chance to take any photos of the process. Here's the end result. 

Served with a very nice Rossola. 

Shrimp and Grits

I grew up in the South, so grits are a part of my life in ways that only Southerners can understand. Shrimp and grits is a dish that is most associated with the low country of South Carolina, although it has now spread across the country. It's not a terribly complex dish, but it's also one that can take years to perfect. I'm still working on it.

Here's what you'll need to start:

Shrimp--I use the biggest ones I can find, mostly I suppose so I have to clean fewer.
Some andouille sausage
Stone ground grits
Chicken stock
Onion
Red capsicum pepper
Garlic
Scallions
Butter
Parsley
Salt and pepper

Some things you might want to add in future evolutions:

Some cheese for the grits -- try asiago.
Some additional spices to add with the shrimp -- cayenne pepper, cajun spices, other?
Bacon instead of the andouille.
Some cream to add to the grits.

Don't forget to wash and remove the sticker from the capsicum. 

You're going to cook the grits separately from everything else, so you'll need a pot for the grits and a skillet for the rest. But first do your prep work. Dice a medium onion, finely mince a clove of garlic, julienne a red capsicum pepper, chop a couple scallions (mostly just the green part) and finely chop some parsley to sprinkle over the entire dish at the end. Slice a couple sausages (a quarter to half a pound) into small half or quarter disks. Clean (shell and devein) your shrimp, leaving the tails on.

Start your grits. Most stone ground grits are prepared with the a very simple mix of four parts water to one part grits: I used a cup of grits, a big pinch of salt, and four cups of water. Bring the water to a boil, slowly stir in the grits, lower the heat to medium or medium low and keep stirring until the mix becomes slightly creamy, then cover and simmer for about ten minutes. Stir once or twice during that period. Add a quarter stick of butter at the end and stir well. If you're adding cheese, grate about four ounces, if you're adding cream measure out about two ounces, and stir it in about five minutes before you're ready to serve.

While the grits are cooking, add a little olive oil to a skillet (cast iron is best here) and when it's hot, add the sausage. Let it cook through and crisp the edges a bit. Once it's done, pull it out and set aside. Add the onion, garlic, and capsicum, cook until the onion is translucent. (If you're adding any additional spices, add them with the onions, &c.) Add a half cup of chicken stock, bring to a boil to dislodge any brown bits. Return the sausage to the pan to re-heat, add the shrimp and the scallions; stir to mix and then cover for three to five minutes until the shrimp are just cooked through.

Just before adding the shrimp. 

Put your grits in bowls and and the shrimp, sausage and sauce over the top. Sprinkle some parsley over the dish, salt and pepper to taste, and serve.

Almost ready, just need the parsley. The observant will note that I omitted the scallions. Yep, I simply forget it at the store. The dish suffered only a bit. 

It goes well with a crisp white. We often serve either with a Viognier or a Chardonnay.

Essentials: Maine Hunting Shoe

The Maine Hunting Shoe is the principal icon of perhaps the most iconic of trad clothing stores, L.L.Bean (yes, yes Brooks Brothers, J. Press, the Andover Shop, O'Connells..... I know....). Designed by Leon Leonwood Bean himself, it was L.L.Bean's original product. Although today it is likely more often worn out of the fields than in, the shoe is ubiquitous in New England, widespread in the rest of the northern half of the U.S., and well known in the South.

An ad from a mid-1980s L.L. Bean catalog. 

It seems to me that the shoe came to be part of the trad essentials pantheon as it spread out of its home in New England--much like the Bass Weejun and the Oxford Cloth Button Down shirt--as staples of the prep school wardrobe. 

Although Mr. Bean's original shoe was, at 16" tall, nearly knee high. Customers began asking for and ordering lower cut versions of the shoe. 

This is from the Fall 1969 catalog, just a few years before I got my first pair. (For winter wear the Cold Proof Arched Innersole is highly recommended.)

Today there are at least 50 different models including moccasins, 6", 8", 10", 12", 16", slip on boots, thinsulate lined, shearling lined, tops in tan, brown, red or bison leather, waxed canvas... the list goes on and on. 

There are, of course, two basic models: the Maine Hunting Shoe an the Bean Boot. I wear the Shoe because it's more trad(itional), I suppose, and because the Bean Boot didn't exist when I began purchasing this shoe. The differences are slight. L.L. Bean says the shoe's sole is somehow designed to help you feel the forest's floor better. Eh. Still, I wear the shoe rather than the boot. I have to admit there is something about the little tag on the back of the heel -- I like the font used on the Maine Hunting Shoe better than that on Bean Boot. Details. 

Fresh from a walk with the hounds in Rock Creek Park. 

Since I'm not a hunter, I wear my shoes mostly to walk the dogs or out and about when I'm in casual clothing. I own two pair: a tan pair of 10" shoes that are at least 20 years old (kept here at home in DC); and a brown pair of 10" that are only a couple years old (at home at the cottage in upstate NY). I always keep a pair of pile inserts in the boots for added warmth for they are NOT very warm. Thick socks help, too.

Often imitated, never duplicated. The Maine Hunting Shoe in its natural habitat--ice and mud.