What's for Dinner?

Image Courtesy of Tania Lee

Everyone, everyday, asks themselves, “what’s for dinner?” The Deans will prove once and for all that cooking for your family is the second most important thing you can do.  We are still working on number one. Our students come together over bubbling pots and simmering stews and our alums and book fans are armed and ready to tackle satisfying even the most persnickety palates.

Morning

Nobody has the time or desire to make a flaky croissant first thing in the morning.  The Deans are here to tell you that you can make far more delicious biscuits yourself.  Well, the Deans do and so should you.  Smeared with your own homemade preserves or filled with ham or melted butter- this treat is a love letter to your family first thing in the morning. 

THE ACADEMY'S SOUTHERN BISCUIT

Makes 12 to 18, depending on size of biscuit cutter

INGREDIENTS

3 cups self-rising flour, preferably White Lily    

1 tablespoon baking powder              

1 teaspoon salt                         

1/2 teaspoon baking soda      

1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into 4 equal pieces       

1 1/2 cups whole buttermilk      

1.  Preheat oven to 500 degrees F.

2.  In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.  Using two knives or a pastry blender, cut the butter into the flour until it forms pea-size pieces.  Add the buttermilk and stir with a wooden spoon until the dough almost forms a ball.

3.  Place the dough on a silicone baking mat and begin folding up the sides, right and left, until a ball forms.  Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough to 1/2-inch thickness.  Fold one side of the dough into the center and then fold in the other side.  Roll out again and refold in the same manner three to six times.  (Each roll and fold creates flaky layers within your biscuits.)  Roll out one final time until the dough is 3/4-inch thick.

4.  Cut out biscuits with a 2-inch biscuit cutter or an inverted glass.  Place the biscuits on a nonstick baking sheet.  Gather the scraps, re-roll, and cut out more biscuits until all of the dough has been used.  (At this point, you can cover the unbaked biscuits with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 24 hours, or freeze up to 3 weeks.)

5.  Bake until lightly browned on the top and bottom, 10 to 12 minutes.  (Bake frozen biscuits at 425 degrees F for 25 minutes.)

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Image Courtesy of Tania Lee

Noon

Lunch is when the Dean’s genius is in evidence. Transforming last night’s dinner into a healthy and satisfying lunch is our specialty. Almost any leftover - fish, fowl or meat - can be placed between two pieces of crisped bread and made into a wonderful meal for lunch or a simple dinner.  Chicken Salad is the perfect meal for eating at home, taking to the office or putting in a tart shell for an elegant lunch party. 

CHICKEN SALAD

Take the leftovers of your roasted chicken and create a variety of meals using simple ingredients found in your refrigerator.  

• Carve out an avocado and place the chicken mixture and avocado inside the shell to transport to work. 
• Wrap your tasty leftover chicken inside a crepe and marry with mushrooms and Parmesan cheese.
• Take thick slices of sourdough crisped in hot olive oil and layer with roasted peppers, shaved red onion, and your leftover chicken mixture.

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Night

We’ve heard every excuse why a home cooked family dinner is not possible - every single one. Stop yakking at us about this. All stews benefit from a night in the refrigerator and a reheat the day of serving.  The minute you walk in the door, put a pot of water on to boil to make rice, pasta or boiled potatoes to serve the stew over and dinner can be ready in 20 minutes, far less time than gathering everyone up and going out.  Below is the Deans favorite stew.  To take it even one step further, pair your stew with beer you’ve bought at Charleston's Beer Exchange or your local brewery.  

LAMB SHANKS

Serves 4      

INGREDIENTS                                                              

4 Lamb shanks                               

Onion, chopped

Thyme

Red Wine

Salt & Pepper    

1.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

2.  Sauté lamb shanks in a little olive oil in a sauté pan, over high heat, to lightly brown each side.  Remove shanks, season with salt and pepper, and place in stock pot.

3.  In remaining oil, sauté onions until lightly browned.  Place onions in stock pot.  Cover lamb shanks with red wine and thyme and simmer for 2 hours.

4.  Eat right away, make in the morning, or the day before (even tastier).  

*You can stretch one shank to feed three people by shredding the cooked meat.  Reheat in the wine sauce and use the meat and sauce for pasta another time.  Dean-licious.

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You can find all of these recipes and more by visiting us at the charleston academy. 

What Shoes Are You Wearing?

Jackie Onassis knew that being properly dressed for every occasion is the ideal.  Not over, not under.  Just right.  Unless you are a professional chef, you have most likely given no time to the shoes in which you cook. We teach you how to live a beautiful life and this blog is about your shoes in the kitchen.

The Deans know first hand that cooking starts from the ground up, literally. Dean Pollak used to wonder why three days after she spent a day baking bread her legs ached, and she was only 30. Every day she was playing two hours of tennis, and of course those four children never left her side, but the day of bread baking was the breaking point. It took her a long time to look down and realize it was the shoes in which she was standing for six hours that was the genesis of the problem. Dean Pollak can say with authority that after three years of baking in flat thonged leather sole Jack Rogers that these are not baking shoes. 

There are so many obstacles to getting people back in the kitchen that if aching legs are one of them, we are never going to see the resurgence of domestic bliss that we are so longing for. Most girls love their shoes- starting at a young age.

Different recipes, however, call for different types of shoes.  

If you are putting out chilled champagne and pitted olives for your paramour then those five inch Louboutin's with the stacked heel are the perfect choice for this amount of cooking.

If you are cooking anything that involves boiling water, oil or sauce, then long pants and closed toe shoes are mandatory because if the liquid falls on you it's better to scald your pants or shoe than your skin.

If you are going to spend multiple hours standing in the kitchen then sneakers are your choice.  You can slip into a more sexier shoe before the meal is served.  Here we are showcasing the Adidas Stan Smith Sneaker.

If you are taking our advice completely to heart and feel that you are going to live in your kitchen, then go ahead and install a cork floor. If that is not an option there are floor pads to put in front of your sink and stove. You may want to try this one-- GelPro Elite. If you have wood floors you are in luck but you still may want to augment with these pads.  We know from our own experiences that the worst floor surfaces for the kitchen are marble, stone and brick. No matter how good they look, they will reek havoc on your legs. 

Living a beautiful life starts from the ground up and we hope you continue to build your foundation one step at a time.

Never Say This

At some point you will end up saying something dumb or regrettable. The following list is by no means exhaustive, but the Deans have heard the following comments in the last year, so we want to help you avoid these monstrous pitfalls. We promise you, with our own ears, we have heard them all. 

2014 Top 7 Off Putters

Never let the Deans hear you say the following:                                                                                                                                                                               

No. 7 “Sorry, I have to cancel. I've got a different event."                                                               This is just rude and no host wants to hear that their event is not on the top of your list.  This excuse trumpets both indifference and a lack of social awareness, and marks you as a person who waits for better offers. 

No. 6 "You look so tired".                                                                                                                   We may think we look great, and hope we always do, so to hear we look tired is a total buzz kill. 

No. 5 “Can I bring my child to your party?”                                                                                          If you have children the host knows this so if your host wanted your child, they would have invited him or her in the first place.

No. 4 “The sliced tomatoes were fantastic”.                                                                                     This is a perfectly generous statement when the meal is simple and the tomatoes are outstanding. However, if the sliced tomatoes are placed next to an obviously labor intensive dish, then the comment will stick in the ear of the host. Dean Pollak made a timbale from Giuliano Bugialli's cookbook and the new girlfriend of an old friend raved about the tomatoes which took 30 seconds to slice and stayed silent about the piece de resistance. Dean Pollak is rankled. 

No. 3 “I just found someone online. Can I bring him or her to your dinner party, even though I haven't me them in person myself yet?"                                                                                           Hell no!

No. 2 “Your living room is too hot. Can we move to another room?”.                                   Arranging the flow of an evening from room to room is not arbitrary, If we have you in a certain room, it's because we want you in this room.  If you are uncomfortable at our house that is your problem, not ours.

No. 1  A guest is asked what he or she wants to drink. The host replies that quaff is not available. The guests retorts "Well that's what I want" or "I can't believe you ran out".  Both these statements put us on the spot and make us feel ungenerous. 

The Two Most Dreaded Words in the Western World: School Lunches

The only person we ever knew who liked making school lunches was Dean Pollak. She relished what the others of us despise. She even took it to irritatingly dizzying heights: homemade breads, hand pulled mozzarella, organic apples picked by virgins –- even she can’t believe what a dork she was. Not until years later she discovered that her children never ate those lunches, and were further burdened because they couldn’t trade them with anyone else either. Today they would kill for those lunches but not back then.

So, what are the rest of us to do? Dean Manigault has her children join her at the store so they can select what they will actually eat, not what she wants them to. You can’t have your child starving all day, neither can you have them eating lunchables. If they truly adore Oreos above all other cookies, let them have an Oreo but counterbalance it with a piece of fruit. Let them choose, just not the entire lunch. Compromise is key.

Lunchtime...

Starting in kindergarten make your children invest their own time and energy making their lunch the night before so there is no time crunch involved in the morning. 

Even though her mom is a Dean, Gigi Manigault's favorite mac and cheese recipe is not her mom's, but from local chef, Robert Stehling, from Hominy Grill. Maybe because Robert's daughter, Carson, is Gigi's classmate, or maybe because this is the best mac and cheese recipe ever? The Deans use Yeti's thermos cup to keep the mac and cheese at the optimal temperature until lunchtime because Gigi does not like the cold mac and cheese, and we doubt anyone else does either. 

An alternate version to the classic mac and cheese is our cheesy rice recipe which provides just as much cheesy satisfaction.

Beginnings and Endings

We simply cannot be on call for you people 24 hours a day.

This summer we begin our mornings with sliced peaches and strawberries and iced coffees. Sometimes we need a kick and grind black pepper into our fruit. Have the Deans lost their minds? Certainly not! Originality is in our DNA. While everyone else ups the sugar content, we prefer spicing things up. Black pepper and creme fresh bring fruit to a level you cannot imagine on your own. If you don’t agree, the Deans will hang up their aprons. 

We start our evening around 5:00 p.m. or 6:00 p.m. by signing off and creating dean-lious cocktails for ourselves. We always garnish our drinks from our pickle pantry. While in our pantry deciding on our perfect peppery pickle, sometimes we grab a jar of our homemade jam to create a tasty tart with which to end the evening. Since we usually keep homemade pie pastry in the freezer (we always make two pie doughs at a time, one for now, one for freezing) it takes no time to defrost (Charleston is HOT this summer), roll out, and fill with jam. Keeping the summer vibe going!

The Salad Question

No less than the venerable and esteemed Dick Jenrette, formally of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, and Classical American Homes, was thoroughly distraught on when to serve his salad. If the Deans had come a moment later, Dick’s salad leaves would have completely wilted.

At first, salad service may seem like a not so difficult problem to solve but immediately upon reflection, the Deans realized that Dick was right. There are many aspects to consider. Salad means many things to many people.

In restaurants the custom is to serve salad before dinner because it is a light and easy first course.

Some always want salad with their food, hence the salad plate. It sits off to the left awaiting to fulfill its purpose.

However, if you want the elegance and grace of the Deans (and frankly who doesn’t?) you must serve your salad after the meal. Its better for the dinner’s timing, conversation, and digestion, not to mention, it is the perfect time to serve a little bit of cheese. When can that be wrong?

The Deans solved the salad question once and for all. 

A few seasonal salad recipes to try and Discover more recipes from the Deans here!

Mind if I Stay a Few Days?

This is the wrong way to phrase this request.  The proper question is, "I would love to see you, are there any days in August that are convenient for you?" Never ask for more than 3 nights. EVER! The only exception to this rule is when the person has a whole guest house.  

They might be able to tolerate one or two extra days.  But we wouldn't suggest pushing it.  Your host becomes a prisoner in his own bedroom, and the guest is unaware.  Your guest wonders why you stay in your bedroom all the time, and the host wonders why you never vacate his favorite chair.  Always, always, always leave people wanting more of you.  The stench of you overstaying is impossible to scrub clean and will taint a friendship.  And don't forget, if you haven't been able to pick up copious dinner checks, you cannot go overboard with the thank you gift.

Etiquette Quandaries

What to do if you forget to invite a good acquaintance to a large party?

OR

If your friend invites someone you have told them has done you wrong?

The Deans have been in the lab for days and have come up with solutions for these two all too common problems. We are solutioning these problems in much the same way. If you have forgotten to invite someone to a large party, or your best friend has invited your worst enemy over, the path for both these is the same and is possibly the most frustrating of all. You must do nothing. Your best friend is free to invite whoever she wants to her house, even though you think her judgment is poor. You may alter your opinion of her and undoubtedly your feelings have been hurt but you are not allowed to say anything. Similarly if you ever point out to person that you forgot to invite them, you are making them suffer twice. Dean Pollak has occasionally felt so guilty that she forgot someone, upon seeing the person she asked them why they didn’t come. She blames the mistake on the US Post Office. Dean Manigault may try to blame the problem on spam but up to now she has always kept her mouth shut and said nothing. In both these instances we feel too many words will only exasperate the problem. The Deans are women of action so this is not always easy for us, in fact sometimes it feels impossible but we feel the council is sage and correct. 

Bamboozled Into Situations

When you are a third wheel and you know it, how do you get out?

You have several options here, but your path is clear.  You must extricate your self as soon as possible.  As we now live in an age of constant communication, you could have another friend come meet you and peel off with him.  You could feign a headache and grab a taxi home.  You could say you need to leave because of some home emergency.  Just be sure you leave.  Don't "tough" it out.  You will find yourself feeling lonely and depressed and who wants that?

Slightly high people want the party to keep going and won't take no for an answer. How do you leave?

Dean Manigault considers herself an expert in the arena of departures.  The best way to get away from people who do not want you to leave is to not tell them you are leaving.  Simply rise and pretend you are going to the restroom or a different room, then sail out the door.  The revelers that are left behind won't notice your absence until you are long gone.  If the doorway is in plain sight, pretend you are getting something from your car or grabbing a pack of smokes from the bodega down the street, and assure them you will be right back.  Your friends will just be jealous that they did not leave with you.  No one has ever woken up wishing they'd had one more.

A tip Dean Pollak has heard is to leave your coat in your car with your chauffeur. This way, when it's time to leave, you can zip away without finding the coat room.

When someone asks which date in the future are you free to come to dinner, after you have already declined their invitations several times? What is your answer?

Wasting your precious time on unwished for social engagements is robbing yourself of your most valuable commodity.  Time inevitably becomes our most treasured asset.  If a person or couple won't leave you alone about a forthcoming date, dig your heels and become emphatic.  

Use anything at your disposal. My spouse is traveling so much, we cannot make a definite plan. Not sure what my schedule looks like that far in the future. Some people are literally tone deaf. Keep singing your song until they hear you.

What happens when same sex partners come for dinner?  Do you seat boy girl boy girl or throw that out the window?

We are in the dawn of a new age and therefore new rules are needed. Boy/girl, boy/girl cannot be honored if there are not enough boys and girls.  Don't fret. Just seat your table in the most spark igniting configuration and sit back and enjoy the show.

How Many Courses to Serve?

The Deans are always advocating that more is more, except when it isn’t. A good example of when more is definitely not more is the number of courses to serve at a dinner party. You’ve worked so hard, you are such a great cook, your house is so pretty, surely your guests want to be treated to all the delicacies in your arsenal. Because who wouldn’t? The Deans will tell you who wouldn’t. The very people you hoped to impress the most, your invited guests. Just as creating food and ambiance is an art form, so is conversation. To maintain a zesty repartee is fun, exhilarating, well worth the effort, and exhausting.

Three courses are as much as any guest can handle. This is really a case when you want to leave people wanting more. A guest at your dinner table is a hostage until you set them free. Once dessert has been served your guests know they are free to go, which in turn makes their lingering feel like a choice, not a chore. Hosts and guests alike will feel happy and relaxed when everyone lingers at the table with an extra glass of wine instead of after four (or gasp, five!) courses, when all guests bolt for the door at the earliest opportunity leaving a bewildered host in their wake.

Mea Culpa

The Deans sent out our SOS and the Academy mailroom was flooded instantly.

We were not alone! Our guilt has been assuaged because you all have done far worse than we could even think of doing. We are pussycats compared to some of you. One student missed a dinner with a reigning Queen, while yet another transposed Friday and Saturday for a black tie Gala in their honor. While the couple had a romantic dinner for two on Friday with the anticipation of the gala on Saturday (pre-cell phone) they got back to their hotel room to find the police and a private detective because everyone assumed something fatal must have happened to them.

Debby Marlowe, from the Wine Shop, says a no show requires immediate attention. Send a bottle of a famous name wine by special courier the next morning with note: BYC-Beyond My Control- I so regret not being there.

Perhaps our favorite is the simplest and most personal. A writer who wished to remain nameless met the host face to face and said, ‘I have no excuse.’ She owned up to her mistake, gave a heartfelt apology and promised to do better in the future. When she was invited back, she was the first one to arrive with a lavish to modest gift and a party all night attitude.

Our newest fan club President, Celeste, offers up the following advice:

‘Darlings, I do have the perfect solution and it is elegantly simple. Go to Taffin and buy a candle (we love) for the unrequited hostess. Be sure it is Senteurs d' Orangeraie. It is an unbelievably luxurious fragrance that evokes a hint of remorse, the perfect gift. Simple. –

Ta, Celeste’

Down to the Quick: Walk Tall

divas1

Now begins a new series, Down to the Quick (as in: "Things that Make you Bite your Nails"). The Deans have been there, they know nerves, and this series will represent two distinctly different solutions to the social challenges we all face. Without further delay, then...

For months Dean Manigault has been looking forward to a two-day junket in New York City. For the first time since her wedding, she has two big events to go to on two consecutive nights. The dresses are packed, the shoes re-heeled, the blow-out appointment confirmed. What could go wrong? This: her date canceled and she realized that instead of her best friend being her escort and companion, she would now have to walk into two different and enormous parties by herself, all dressed up with no one to go with. Instantly, her mind turned to canceling her trip.

Luckily, she was not alone when she got the news. Dean Pollak was simply amazed. How could she cancel? In Dean Pollak’s opinion the only thing that changed was that she would not be fettered to her date all night and could flit from person to person. The thrill of the unknown invigorates Dean Pollak and she has laid it down that if Dean Maniaugult cancels she is a wuss. She gave Dean Manigault the game plan for a sure fire life-changing evening. The three principles: (1) Don’t sit down or you’ll be trapped. (2) Go right to the middle of the room. Do not stand near the bar or food (almost as much as a quagmire as sitting down). (3) Look for a person standing alone, or a friendly face and introduce yourself. The point is not to attach yourself to someone, the point is to move from person to person making real conversations or connections. How does Dean Pollak know this works? She goes into every event convinced she is going to meet someone fascinating and so she always does. The mindset is as important as anything else.

Which Dean would you follow?