Week Three Takeaways

Here’s we learned at the Charleston Academy during the past week of Winter 2021 classes:

Besides spending time together, having fun, creating fabulous smells, getting dinner ready for tonight and tomorrow, we are also connecting kitchen to kitchen and making our worlds a friendlier place. Hang out with us to add sparkle and substance to your week. (Spots are still open for the last three weeks of winter semester — Register HERE!)

Lebanese Lentil Soup - The secret to making the soup extraordinary? 

Guest teacher Youmna Squalli says to always, always rinse the lentils and rice three times. I was a witness; the water ran clear the third time. This soup is light, fresh, fantastic. Next week Youmna takes us to Morocco for Hrira, a whole meal in a bowl!

Dinner Party Strategy - Are Covid dinner parties possible, even fun?

Why yes, they are! Last minute invitations are often the best. People who come are in the mood. Outside parties are cool, literally and figuratively. Consider buying a heated vest which charges on your pocket phone charger. Serve heart-warming food to keep bodies from cooling temperatures (i.e. dishes from Weeks One and Two: bowls of gumbo, cassoulet, onion soup or bolognese…or perhaps some from future classes: paella, tagine, chowder, shepherd's pie.)

Ragu Bolognese - How do you turn a fabulous sauce into pasta perfection? 

Toss the drained (best quality) pasta into the simmering ragu sauce. Then add just a little softened butter plus a little bit of freshly grated parmesan cheese. Toss together until mixed. Serve immediately with extra freshly grated cheese to pass. 

What are people saying about Week Three?

• Thank you for the Academy — I love your online classes and how you share your many talents. You’re a gem!

• These classes are a delight!

• I love these classes so much! I’m already in another Zoom — crazy day!

• My house smells amazing and cannot wait until 6 pm!!!

• What a lovely way to spend the afternoon.

• Thank you so much for today's dinner party class! Really fun and inspirational!

• I took two pages of notes. THANK YOU!

One Action Dinners, Part Three

One Action: OPEN YOUR LIQUOR CABINET. 

Cook with gin, vermouth, tonic, bitters & more. Those bottles can do more than fill cocktail glasses. Let the elixirs flavor your dinner food, too. Last week’s Academy project (finding fun anyway possible) was cooking with booze, using tablespoons and cups, not shot glasses. Still consuming alcohol but with emphasis on creativity and sophistication. The alcohol gets burned off so dinner is still child friendly. And the aromas are divine, as Mae West might say... 

Beefeaters & Beef

Beefeaters is more than a foundation for martinis and G&T’s! Smooth, silky and juniper scented, gin and beef is a marriage made in a pan. Sauté salted and peppered ribeyes over high heat. When steak is almost to your liking, pour in the gin and turn down the heat. Add a couple tablespoons of butter. While the gin and butter swirl together, turn the steak over a couple of times in the sauce. Remove steak to cutting board, slice, plate and pour gin sauce over steak slices while the juniper aromas are still strong.

Vermouth & Quail

The Vermouth bottle has been getting a workout. And when friends drop off quail, I quail with delight. After a quick flour dusting, sauté the birds in olive oil over medium high heat. When browned on one side, flip over. After both sides are brown, pour in vermouth. (our new favorite is Dolin.) Simmer until quails are cooked, throw in a tablespoon or two of butter, fresh thyme leaves, coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper. Done!

Vermouth & Savory Scones

When making ham and cheese scones (no yeast required) add equal parts vermouth to crème fraîche along with enough butter to satisfy fat requirements. To find out more, schedule a virtual scone class at the Academy.

Tonic’s Many Uses

Besides delivering a tiny hit of quinine, that lovely bitterness that mixes so well in cocktails, tonic can be whisked into flour (to the consistency of sour cream) making a batter for fried zucchini slices. Even children enjoy these green vegetables enclosed in crisp. After turning golden brown in very hot oil and draining on paper towels, use a generous hand when sprinkling coarse salt over the fried pile, because salt is a taste accelerator. 

Don’t forget the bitters lurking in your refrigerator…

Who doesn’t love nuts? Add a healthy dose of Angostura when you make spicy nuts. 

Roast 2 cups of unsalted nuts — a mixture of nuts is especially yummy — at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Combine 1 tablespoon of Angostura bitters, 1 tablespoon brown sugar, 1 tablespoon honey, 1 tablespoon butter, 1 tablespoon chopped rosemary, 1/2 teaspoons of cayenne pepper and cinnamon and finally, 3 teaspoons of coarse salt. Mix with warm nuts. Serve with cocktails. Reheat extras for tomorrow and the next day and the next…or toss in a salad for crunch.

And desserts love liquor too.

You can flambé, scent, and build flavors with booze. Flame Bananas Foster with rum, make Grand Marnier or dry curaçao souffles, add tablespoons of sweet vermouth to macerate fresh strawberries for shortcake. 

Inquire about Academy classes to learn these techniques & other spiritual matters. During the past few weeks we have learned how to hold your hand, guide you step by step, answer all questions and even look into your cabinets, examining mixing bowls and knives. Real learning takes place when you do all steps on your own!  It’s not watching and wishing. It’s watching, doing, producing and tasting, together. Best of all, it’s hanging out with your friends and completing an activity!

One Action Dinners

We love Churchill’s Action This Day! campaign. He believed in getting the extreme priorities done daily. (Everything else was relegated to Report In Three Days...)

At the Academy, we take Churchill’s quote in a culinary direction because feeding people is an extreme priority. We like the idea of one step at a time towards delivering dinner tonight. Sometimes it’s too difficult to focus on more than a single action during times of distress.  

Know that some of the tastiest meals are the simplest. Here is a dinner menu made up of one action items, all delicious:

• Had Enough Cocktail - Pour soda water over ice. Sprinkle a few cocktail bitters on top. This is a perfect drink if you decide to reduce alcohol but still want the illusion of a cocktail.

• Roast Chicken - Liberally sprinkle the outside and inside with coarse salt, freshly ground pepper and Herbs de Provence. Stick chicken in 425-degree oven for 1.25 hours. Done!

• Fennel - Cut fennel bulb in quarters and save the fronds. Toss in oil. Place in 425-degree for 1.25 hours. No turning. To serve sprinkle the crispy roast fennel with S&P and lots of reserved fennel fronds. Delightful! 

• Sweet potato - Wash sweet potato. Put in 425-degree oven for 1.25 hours. Cut and let diners load potatoes with butter, creme fraiche, sour cream — any or all. Their choice! 

While looking through the fridge and figuring out what to make with what’s inside, remember that often the simplest things are the best.  Sometime all it takes is ten minutes and even less ingredients to deliver a meal you can proudly serve to anyone in need.

• Eggs + Butter = Omelette

• Jars of cherries + Angostura bitters = Old Fashioned

• Parmesan + Heavy cream + Fettuccine from the pantry = Alfredo

• Olives + Anchovies + Capers + Tomatoes + Spaghetti from the pantry = Spaghetti alla Puttanesca 

• Sour cream + Buttermilk + Herbs + Lemon = Dressing for a wedge of lettuce with crispy bacon

• Sour cream + Yogurt + Lemon zest and juice + Garlic = Creamy sauce for meats of all kinds…

@#$%&! #’s are difficult right now. Looking at a scale (going higher), looking at a bank account (tanking), all information that leads to even more numbers — faster heart rates. Let’s lower that beat by counting breaths, counting numbers in a recipe, counting projects to be done in the house and the times it takes to do them, counting how many times our children and other inhabitants living at home ask, ‘What is there to eat?’ (Actually don’t count that last one but the Academy has solutions for that too.) 

For all of us it comes down to one number, ONE. One step at a time, one day at a time, one problem solved at a time. But make that one into a smart choice. Make that into One Action Now.

Turkey Talk for November VIE

“It’s time to elevate the ordinariness of the daily dinner. My experience from marriage and mothering, from listening to Charleston Academy students, and from accepting invitations to other people’s houses, is this: If you never use your dining room or you do so infrequently or only on big occasions, and if your family only grazes according to their individual schedules with eyes attached to a screen and not on each other, then you will be sorely disappointed. This goes not only for Thanksgiving but also for decades later. The nightly meal is a small but mighty vehicle of opportunity. Your table can be jam-packed with inspired learning — a classroom for watching and doing — and realizing what to be thankful for: manners, nutrition, and bonds, among other things. Eat enough dinners at the table, and you and yours will become aces at many social skills.”

Suzanne serves up her wisdom for Thanksgiving (and every other meal of the year, big or small) in the November issue of VIE Magazine HERE!

"The Architecture of Dinner Party" for August VIE

George Best & his signature champagne stack, 1968. (We won’t tell you NOT to try this at home!)

“If you are asking yourself, Why bother? Let’s just go to a restaurant, STOP! The delights of a private dinner party cannot be replicated in the public arena. No waiting, no crowds, no loud party next to you. No feeling that you have to give up your table before you’re finished talking or eating dessert. At home, you can linger as long as you want under flickering candlelight. You can set your own pace, free from any pressure to give up your seats to those waiting.

You can and should move your guests wherever you please. Summer is for drinks on the balcony and dinner in the garden. Winter means cozy cocktails by the fire and dinner in the candlelit dining room. Spaces help set up moments that soothe, excite, and seduce, creating an atmosphere for meaningful conversation...”

Read the rest of Suzanne’s latest article for VIE Magazine, all about the careful construction of a good old-fashioned dinner party, HERE on their site!

Charleston Academy in Cosmopolitan

“And remember: In a sea of square-shaped biscuits, always make a heart-shaped one.” -T.A.

In her article “This Instagrammable Hotel Will Make You Forget Literally All Your Responsibilities,” Taylor Andrews writes about “errrything you have to do when you stay at The Beach Club, no matter what time of year you go….”

And guess what #7 on her list happens to be? “Learn how to throw a Southern Dinner Party. [The Dean] taught us how to throw a proper dinner party that included creating the perfect fluffy biscuit and shrimp and grits, but you can organize any sort of etiquette or cooking event with her if you’re interested in a different kind of Saturday-night rendezvous.”

We loved having Ms. Andrews visit while in town. Read her complete list via Cosmopolitan HERE!

A Dinner Party in Twenty Minutes

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie: the opposite of a twenty minute dinner party.

What happens when you invite guests for 6:00 PM, but then you get so involved at work that when you look at the time on your computer, it says 5:35? Can you get dressed & made up, set the table and cook dinner in just twenty minutes? The answer is, YES. (The Dean learned this by accident one recent Monday night.)

Here’s what to do:

Resist the urge to immediately call guests and say all of a sudden, you're not feeling well. The Dean knew her menu included seafood stew, a salad, roasted peach halves with bourbon for dessert. What she didn’t know was what to wear or where everyone should sit...

5:35. Turn the oven on broil, put a dutch oven over medium heat and add a slug of olive oil. 

5.37. Slice two large peaches in half, fill them with a spoonful of sugar and a slug of bourbon, and put the four peach halves in a sauté pan over high heat. 

5:37. Roughly slice a large red onion and place in hot Dutch oven with a few whole garlic cloves, peeled.

5:41. Place sauté pan of peaches under broiler. Put timer on ten minutes. Stir onions.

5:43. Exit kitchen, with onions on medium heat and peaches under broiler. Run three flights upstairs while deciding what to wear.

5:44. Put on one outfit. Decide that looks wrong and put on another shirt. Try to do some quick make up. Whatever!  

5:50. Race downstairs to the smell of caramelizing onions (another way of saying they are on their way to burning, but haven't quite. Instead, just perfectly caramelized which means extra flavor.) Stir onions and add a jar of tomato sauce. 

5:52. Take out bag of defrosted shrimp and bag of calamari from refrigerator. Realize that even though they have been in the fridge since morning (because you are so organized and an excellent planner) no actual defrosting has taken place...

5:53. Put bags of frozen shrimp and calamari in a bowl and run warm water over bags, saying a little prayer that by 6:25 they will actually thaw!

5:55. Take out four silver forks, knives, spoons, shallow bowls, dessert plates, olives, two different kinds of bourbon and cocktail glasses. 

6:00. READY TO ROLL! Doorbell rings, guests arrive.

The Dean then explained the situation, garnering laughs and offers to pitch in. Cocktails? One guy choose bourbon, one guy soda water, one woman white wine. High-alcohol beer for the host. While cocktails were being organized and poured, the Dean threw together the famous Academy croutons while tomatoes and onions simmered on low, the peaches came down to room temperature, and seafood (still) thawed in the sink. Finally, where to eat? Decision: a movable feast. One small garden table for Stew. Another small garden table for salad. By the time the mosquitos started biting, everyone moved inside for dessert of roasted peaches and chocolate bars at the dining table.

Perfect!

"A Delicious Idea" with Lucy Cuneo

The Dean thoroughly enjoyed making a Valentine's Day lunch with the inimitable Lucy Cuneo, including a rustic roasted pepper tart and Academy salad, featured over on her blog. Here's a little video of the kitchen action, edited by Lucy (and shot by her husband. : ) 

Read the full post, including recipes, HERE on lucycuneo.com. Thanks LC!

So Long Tomatoes

Photo by Landon Neil Phillips for CAoDP.

Invariably there is an abundance of tomatoes at the end of the season. Now is the time to take a day and several bushels of the fruit to make sauce and can juice for the months ahead. A classic seafood stew in tomato sauce couldn’t be easier, quicker or more delicious. It makes a fantastic weeknight, work night, school night dinner. And once you've tasted homemade tomato juice, you will be ruined for any store-bought version. Concoct the world’s most delicious Bloody Mary on football weekends or for a weekend brunch... 

Tomato Sauce

We give no amounts in this recipe because you do not need any! Only common sense. In a large pot over medium heat, sauté a chopped onion until translucent, add a few cloves of sliced garlic and continue cooking until caramelized. Fill pot halfway with coarsely chopped tomatoes and continue cooking uncovered until thick, about 45 minutes. Add course salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. When sauce is cool, pour into Ziploc bags to freeze. 

Squid Stew

Squid Stew is our new favorite go-to stew, but any shellfish or firm white fish will make it delicious. Scallops, clams, shrimp, Dungeness crab, Alaskan King Crab (flesh removed and cut into long pieces), monkfish (tastes like lobster), are all fine on their own, but if choosing is too difficult, combine for a tasty treat. This recipe is loose because it's up to you to decide how many olives you want, how much garlic you like (for us: plenty!), ditto with the capers. 

• 2-3 cups Tomato Sauce
• 3/4 lb. Squid tentacles 
• 1/4 lb. Squid tubes, sliced 
• Garlic, coarsely chopped
• Capers in liquid
• Black olives, pitted
• Oregano 
• Pepper

 In a large, heavy-bottomed pot over high heat, sauté garlic, capers and black olives in olive oil. When brown, add squid tentacles and tubes, plus two or three cups of tomato sauce to cover. Turn heat down and simmer until liquid reduces and squid is done, about ten minutes. Never overcook squid! If you do, they turn to rubber bands. Serve in a shallow bowl with a large crunchy crouton on the side. 

Mrs Alice Wanner's (1869 - 1958) Tomato Juice

It was pretty radical stuff to drink tomato juice in Mrs. Alice Wanner’s day. Tomatoes weren’t eaten much before she was born, still recovering from their reputation amongst colonists as purely decorative. (Legend even has it that Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson ate an entire basket of tomatoes on the steps of the local courthouse in 1830, simply to prove to onlookers that they would not send him into fatal convulsions with their poison, as expected.)  So Mrs. Wanner was obviously a domestic diva. This recipe is courtesy of her great-granddaughter, Kathy Phillips, and makes about ten quarts:

• For the juice, you'll need thirty pounds or more tomatoes. This all depends on how juicy they are; you may need as many as fifty pounds. Wash tomatoes, trim off stems and any dark spots, quarter. Fill a large pot and bring to boil. Boil hard for ten to twenty minutes, until they are soft and liquid-y. Meanwhile, sterilize quart-sized Ball jars and heat flat lids in simmering water.
• Put Foley food mill or a tight weave strainer over a second large pot. Ladle in tomatoes and crank mill, or use ladle in strainer to mush and push until all juice goes into pot, leaving behind skin and seeds. Keep doing in batches until juice fills pot. Bring juice to boil and then ladle into sterilized, seasoned Ball jars to about 1/2" from top. To each jar, add: 1 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. celery salt, 1 tsp. sugar, grind of black pepper. Remove bubbles. (Use a teaspoon and go around the edge of the top of the juice where bubbles collect. Then wipe the rim clean, plunk on the flat lid, and screw on the ring.) 
• Place fresh lids on jars, tighten ring, and set aside to "ping." Then they are sealed and will keep up to about three years. Beyond that they start to lose flavor. This process of cooking tomatoes and making the juice will be done many times, maybe four or more depending on the size of the pots you are using. So use big pots. 

For a Bloody Mary, simply add vodka, Worcestershire, lemon wedge and dash tabasco. Top with to Ms. Wanner's fine juice!

Dinners for Three

The Dean loves a good trio. The chicest dinner party she's attended of late happened in NYC, hosted by a super busy deputy director of a major institution (a friend whose identity shall remain a secret, as always.) Somehow, this doyenne finds the time to cook, set a glorious table, pour champagne, and even, in Summers past, fill a kitchen shelf with bottles of her put-up tomatoes, peaches, plums -- which just proves the Academy's number one discovery: the busiest people in the world somehow manage to get the the most done.

Enter this beauty's house and her dinner is nearly prepared, but not quite. Genius move! The guest sees the host in action and the house smells heavenly so taste buds tingle. The entertaining atmosphere becomes cozy, soothing, comforting, exciting, relaxing all at once because you are hanging out in the kitchen. Who wouldn't fall in love? 

Her no fail hors d'oeuvres? More genius! Chips and cashews. No work, easy peasy.  The water bottles on the table? Genius again! This exotic lady collects interesting shaped liquor bottles and when the alcohol is finished, keeps the beautiful bottles filled with water in her fridge. 

The Dean loves peeking into powder rooms, whether she needs to use one or not. These tiny rooms reveal so much. Her's was moody and sexy with a dimly burning candle, scented not too sweet. (Cloying candles are a major turn off, if you don't already know.) The dark aura would make anyone appear beautiful. Here's a tip -- if you want all your guests to feel glamorous, then the powder room is a tool in your arsenal. 

Back to the guest number...three is just perfect. You will have a chance to really get to know someone if one is unknown. Or, if you are old friends, then you can really catch up. Dinners for three are less work, easier to clean up, and deliver huge returns. Relationships glue together by the end of the night. 

Thank you my NYC Secret Lake Diver.

Dinner Parties Gone Wrong

Wondering what to do when a dinner party goes south?

• DON'T do what Bravo’s Southern Charmers did at Thomas Ravenel’s: look and linger. When a train wreck happens, move fast A.S.A.P. Of course it’s mesmerizing to watch an explosion, but the smart money doesn't. They leave and want no part of a coming disaster. They run, run, run out the door if they are guests who have the option to do so...* 
• DO "keep calm and carry on" if you find yourself host to a train wreck. The Dean once had a guest who threw a tantrum right at her dinner table. The conversation involved politics (might well happen this year, beware!) Said guest lost his cool and bolted. If this happens to you, there is a positive -- people will never forget the evening. To keep things from following suit, simply pretend like nothing happened. The rest of the guests are waiting to see what you do. Guests take their cue from their captain.

*Luckily behavior this bad is a reality on reality shows only and not likely to occur at any real life dinner party. 

Spring on the Table

What is the color of money, of envy, of Spring? 

The answer: a perfect party theme!

Antique soup plates...

antique dinner plates...

Ted Mueling salad plates (complete with bugs!)

& a silver chalice, to reflect it all.

The Dean decided to give an all-green dinner party in honor of both the weather and the surname of an esteemed invitee. So, green plates, green cocktails, green foods became the theme of the night. Luckily the guest of honor was amused. His eyes twinkled when he heard that a theme was involved, and twinkled even more when he heard that the theme was no doubt his favorite color.

Generally themes are too silly to be discussed (with the exception of Halloween), but a green theme is not too serious. Maybe a little silly, but so what? It’s fun! Anything to please a guest, and any excuse to serve margaritas at cocktail hour.

MENU

• Middle Eastern Watercress soup
• Roasted King Salmon, with chive sauce, spring onions & sautéed asparagus
• Micro-green salad with tiny croutons
• Roasted pears with crunchy pistachios, saffron and green cardamon sauce

The centerpiece? Greens snipped from the public park across the street. Shhh...