Robert Dean of United Liquors would like for all of us to eat duck with his selected wine, a 2005 Carpineto Dogajolo, and I think I might pick a duck up on the way home Thursday. But here’s a beef recipe from tastytuscany.com that sounds good and can be thrown together quickly. Serve it with buttered noodles and a green salad. 

• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 scallions, thinly sliced
• 4 beef flank steaks, about 4 ounces each, pounded to 1/4-inch thickness
• salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
• zest of 1/2 lemon
• 1/4 cup pitted and chopped black olives
• 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
• 1/2 cup beef stock
• 1 teaspoon sugar

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, warm the olive oil. Add the scallions, and sauté for 1 minute. Season the flank steaks with salt and pepper, and add them to the skillet. Sauté until they brown, then flip, and add the wine. Sauté until the steaks are cooked through. Remove the meat to a plate, and keep warm.

Prepare the sauce: Add the crushed tomatoes, lemon zest, olives, parsley, beef stock and sugar. Cover and cook for 10 minutes, stirring often with a wooden spoon. Serve the sauce over the steaks. Serves 4

Read my Whining & Dining column in tomorrow’s paper and find out about my dinner last week with Morgan Freeman. Yep. Morgan Freeman. You’d have to look long and hard to find someone less celebrity-obsessed than I am, but I gotta tell you: This was a thrill. He’s quite the charmer and I had a fabulous, fabulous evening. To top it off, the meal at Madidi in Clarksdale was excellent. The best tuna I’ve tasted, great softshell crab, good wine and excellent company all ’round.

Morgan was completely gracious to all the folks who came up with their digital cameras and at one point, I was snapping so many photos for people that I had no idea who the cameras belonged to. Bill Luckett, Morgan’s partner in Madidi and Ground Zero, was kind enough to invite me to join them when I called earlier in the week to check on the status of Ground Zero in Memphis (no date yet, but everything’s a go, he said).

I just got a call from my daughter, who was waiting on a parking place at Oak Court mall when someone else took it. She saw the people when she was walking in and said “I had my blinker on. You had to see I was waiting on that spot.” To which the son replied:

“If you weren’t a baby killing tree-hugger, I might’ve let you have it.”

First, she has a John Edwards sticker on her car, which doesn’t make her any of the above. Second, and this is what gets me, the mother said nothing to her teenage son! Man, if my daughter had said something like that to someone, we wouldn’t have moved until she apologized. (And that still goes, even though she’s grown.)

Then I check messages and had the nastiest phone call from a woman mad because I didn’t include her favorite ethnic restaurant on my dining list on Friday. As I said in the article, I’m sure I’ve forgotten some. But she’s accusing other restaurants on the list of being run by the Mafia, for Pete’s sake.

Why are people so angry and mean? Let’s relax everyone. Have a glass of egg nog. Take a few deep breaths. See your doctor about a prescription. Whatever it takes. Let’s have a little peace and goodwill…

Sorry, guys. It’s easy to let time slip away when you take a few days off work… I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving. It was another busy weekend for us, and I ended up with a cold and feeling blah. The holidays are so busy this year!

But here’s something kind of fun. At a party Saturday night a friend wasn’t eating his paella and when I asked why, he said he’d filled up on Ro-tel dip at his granddaughter’s birthday party that afternoon. That got a good laugh and got us thinking about all the different ways folks use Velveeta in the South. There’s even a Velveeta fudge!

So I’m soliciting Velveeta recipes and maybe this’ll turn into a story. My mother-in-law, by the way, was served Velveeta on white bread after giving birth to her children. Nothing has ever tasted as good as those sandwiches, she said.

So share with me. Tell me what you do with Velveeta processed cheese product.

Seems like I recall that someone talked about Totino’s pizza when we posted about “food we lie about.”

This is from AP: General Mills says it’s recalling almost five million frozen pizzas sold under the Totino’s and Jeno’s label because of possible E. coli contamination.
The company says the problem may come from pepperoni produced at
an Ohio plant. General Mills says state and federal authorities
have been investigating 21 E. coli illnesses in 10 states including
Tennessee.
Nine of those 21 people reported eating Totino’s or Jeno’s pizza
with pepperoni topping at some point before becoming ill. Eight of
the cases were reported in Tennessee.
Symptoms of E. coli can include stomach cramps and diarrhea.
People typically are ill for two to five days but can develop
complications including kidney failure.
—
Eds: The specific products in the recall, with SKU, include:
Totino’s Party Supreme, 42800-10700.
Totino’s Three Meat, 42800-10800.
Totino’s Pepperoni, 42800-11400.
Totino’s Pepperoni, 42800-92114.
Totino’s Classic Pepperoni, 42800-11402.
Totino’s Pepperoni Trio, 42800-72157.
Totino’s Party Combo, 42800-11600.
Totino’s Combo, 42800-92116.
Jeno’s Crisp ‘n Tasty Supreme, 35300-00561.
Jeno’s Crisp ‘n Tasty Pepperoni, 35300-00572.
Jeno’s Crisp ‘n Tasty Combo, 35300-00576.

Well, well, well–FINALLY. Sorry it took so long to get these pictures on. The first one is a “bacon tree;” the second a plate of catfish at Taylor Grocery (fantastic!); the next is an overall shot of the Viking luncheon on Saturday (which was, thankfully, a much nicer day for eating outside than Friday). And you all know that’s Shirley Corriher in the the last picture; it’s her delightful husband Arch who’s sitting with her.

OK, the food, after this brief detour: I had an appointment with my cardiologist today (I have palpitations and go in every couple of years to make sure everything is stable; nothing serious). I thought it was funny that he wanted to talk about the food I ate in Oxford before we got down to the issue of my health. I mean, how do you talk about eating pig ears with your cardiologist?

Anyway, the pig ears were fabulous, cooked by Frank Stitt. They were cut in small pieces, about a rough inch square, batter, deep-fried, and served with a dab of a mustard sauce. The North Carolina-style barbecue was also excellent, Donald Link’s deep-fried boudin balls out of this world. The only item I wasn’t crazy about was mutton, which was very tender but had a “gamey” taste, I guess you would say. I’m always surprised that people won’t eat lamb, which I love, but now I get what they mean when they say it tastes gamey. (I’ve always thought that sounded silly, since lambs are exactly fodder for fearless hunters, and now I’m saying the same.)

Refried blackeyed peas! Yum! I’m going to see if I can score the recipe for these and we can all forget about Hoppin’ John for New Year’s this year. Besides the horchata with Jack Daniels, which I only had a small taste of since I didn’t know it was even being served until I was almost ready to leave, that was what impressed me most about Thursday’s dinner.

Friday night was that great Taylor catfish, along with appetizers including the fantastic hickory catfish dip from Ajax Diner. The recipe I ran in yesterday’s paper was for a smoked catfish pate, which would have a similar taste, but the texture of the dip was creamier. If I can’t get the actual recipe (I’m hoping to include it in a story about throwing a $100 party for the holidays), I’ll come up with something very close. Beer that night was from Lazy Magnolia brewery in Kiln, Miss., and it flowed freely. Blue Mountain played outside, but I spent over an hour in the art gallery. First, some of the art in there was just gorgeous, but I was so taken with the owners that my husband and I couldn’t stop talking to them. Too much to talk about here, but they are truly interesting people. I’ll be writing about them soon. On a funny note, on Friday night when I was introduced to a restaurateur who will remain nameless, we chatted and when he meant to give me his card, he gave me his hotel key instead. It was truly accidental–he turned all shades of red and kept stammering before he finally just hugged my neck and told me he was sorry. I told him so was I, but my husband was in town that night… (just joking about that part).

It was Friday at lunch when Shirley and Arch ended up sharing a table with me. It was sort of funny. The Corrihers are from Atlanta, another guy at the table was from Atlanta, a young man from Athens, Ga. was there, the woman sitting next to me lives in Kentucky now but lived in Memphis for about five years. We all had a great time just talking about the south.

I just had a great time all ’round and I hope that EVERYONE will get involved with Southern Foodways. I can’t believe I’ve spent so much time writing about food, living just up the road, and haven’t been active. I plan to be from now on.

I’ve spent an hour from my home computer trying to post SFA pictures and they’re just not loading. I’ve got an appointment outside the office in the morning and I’ll be in around noon. I will do NOTHING until I get photos posted and tell you what I ate. We’ve had updates lately and I think we’re still a little buggy…

There was so much that I couldn’t even begin to get it all in the story and now I’m dashing out. But I PROMISE that I will post pictures and tell you more late this afternoon…

Martha Hays sent me a  sad note last night: Tuscany is closing Nov. 4. There’s an upside to this, but let’s take a minute first and think about what Martha and Glenn Hays have done for the Memphis dining community over the years. At La Tourelle, they gave us Erling Jensen, Gene Bjorkland, Stan Gibson and Cullent Kent. They gave us a lovely little spot for a French prix fixe dinner for years–and even after they switched to Tuscany, they gave us possibly the best creme brulee around (Grove Grill’s might be better; it’s hard to say). Don’t forget that they’re the same folks who gave us Cafe 1912.

And even though they’re quitting (they’ll continue to run Cafe 1912; no changes there), the Hayses are still giving Memphis a gift. Kelly English, a protege of John Besh, is taking over and opening a new restaurant in December. (English was the chef at Nawlins in Tunica a while back.) We’ll keep you posted.

Everyone give a shout-out to Martha and Glenn.

They shouldn’t be–I’ve got the full details–but I’m at home today and my notes are at the office. And, yes, I know I’m missing the movie crew in the newsroom, but I’ve got to have a day or two off to get caught up. (But if I get good movie stories, I’ll pass them along, anyway.)

Anyway. Mortez Gerani’s new restaurant opens for lunch on Tuesday. The menu is Italian and Mediterranean and lunch entrees are about $7-12. Dinner will follow, but there’s no date set. The wine list is great, but right now he’s still waiting for his liquor license. All this moves quickly, though. The restaurant (I have the name and the menu at work; sorry) is next to the Windjammer on Brookhaven Circle.

More details soon, I promise.