Distinction food edit

FOOD ISSUE

FOOD 2015

$5.95

DISTINCTIONHR.COM

VOL.29

BISCUITS!

DISPLAY UNTIL NOVEMBER 15, 2015

The star of the South

Virginia Beach

Virginia Beach

Virginia Beach

Virginia Beach

ALANTON $4,200,000

ALANTON $3,495,000

ALANTON $2,750,000

NORTH END $2,490,000

Virginia Beach

Suffolk

Virginia Beach

Virginia Beach

GREAT NECK POINT $1,499,900

BARRELL POINT ESTATES $1,400,000

NORTH END $1,395,000

GREAT NECK POINT $1,399,000

Norfolk

Virginia Beach

LARCHMONT $1,195,000

WESTIN RESIDENCES $1,1,95,000

Williamsburg

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Gloucester

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Suffolk

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Virginia Beach

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Suffolk

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Two private dining rooms for business meetings and holiday parties. Book early!

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22

departments

Food 2015, Vol. 29

72

31 46 53 14 Editorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Letter 16 Hit List 18 Essay // Issues of taste 22 The hard life of the blue crab 31 Five chefsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; last suppers 46 Chocolate worth going mad for

12

FOOD 2015

53 Biscuits: the star of the South 66 A biscuit handsomely situated 72 Gathering for a fall harvest dinner 83 Recipes from the dinner 90 Parting Shot

Weight Management • Bariatric Surgery Center of Excellence • Blue Cross Blue Shield Blue Distinction Center

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You First.

Food 2015, Vol. 29 Distinction uncovers the very best of what our region has to offer.

Kelly Till ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Clay Barbour EDITOR Jennifer Fenner CREATIVE DIRECTOR EJ Toudt CREATIVE DIRECTOR Erica J. Smith COPY EDITOR Arjen Rumpel ADVERTISING DESIGNER CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Lorraine Eaton, Alison Johnson Ben Swenson, Diane Tennant, Michelle Washington Mary Architzel Westbrook

PHOTOGRAPHERS Adam Ewing, Keith Lanpher; Kerry Cesil, assistant.

Eric Lusher, Todd Wright

ILLUSTRATOR Wes Watson VIDEOGRAPHER Hyunsoo Leo Kim CREATIVE CONSULTANT Mike McMahon PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT Shea Alvis, Rhiannon Hastings, Mike Jeter

SPECIAL THANKS Dylan Wakefield of Pendulum Fine Meats “Farmer John” Wilson and chicken handler Taylor Proffitt of New Earth Farm

Hello, friends.

I was on a date once with a lovely lady who admitted something so shocking, so wrongheaded, that I simply couldn’t take her seriously for the rest of the evening.

She told me – without an ounce of shame – that she hated biscuits. Biscuits!

Who hates biscuits? They’re delicious. That’s not opinion, that’s fact, borne out by science, good taste and my grandma. Anyone who thinks otherwise … wait, where was I going with this?

Oh, right, food; it drives us, consumes us, defines us. What we eat, and how we eat it, says as much about us as what we wear or where we live. Food propelled our evolution, and if those angry chef shows are any indication, it may hasten our demise.

My bad date came to mind as I worked on this issue of Distinction, our second annual food edition. How could it not? Biscuits play a large role this year.

Our brilliant epicure Lorraine Eaton goes behind the scenes in some of Tidewater’s best kitchens to see who makes them and how. And writer Ben Swenson profiles a local restaurant taking them to new heights.

Of course, this issue serves up more than just biscuits. Coastal Grill owner Jerry Bryan provides readers with a fabulous feast in a great location – the prime rib was so tenderlicious that I ate myself into a meat coma – and essayist Mary Architzel Westbrook takes a humorous look at our food culture and how we fetishize what was once simply sustenance.

Michelle Washington gets some of our best chefs to consider what they’d eat for a last meal.

And Diane Tennant’s fantastic piece on blue crabs will make you realize that it’s a small miracle anyone ever gets to eat one.

This is a lot to digest, I’ll admit, but every bite will be tasty. So dig in and enjoy. Just remember my grandma’s advice: Don’t fill up on the biscuits.

Clay.Barbour@pilotonline.com

14

FOOD 2015

ADVERTISING INQUIRIES Local advertising manager: Shaun Fogarty, 757.222.3890, Shaun.Fogarty@pilotonline.com Regional advertising manager: Don Blankinship, 757.222.5504, Donald.Blankinship@pilotonline.com

EDITORIAL INQUIRIES Clay Barbour, 757.446.2379, Clay.Barbour@pilotonline.com

SUBSCRIPTION INQUIRIES 757.222.5538 or order at DistinctionHR.com. $22 a year.

Virginian-Pilot home delivery subscribers receiving Distinction incur a $1 charge for delivery.

BACK ISSUES: Order at Store.PilotOnline.com Distinction is published by The Virginian-Pilot, a Pilot Media company.

FOOD ISSUE

FOOD 2015

$5.95

DISTINCTIONHR.COM

VOL.29

BISCUITS!

DISPLAY UNTIL NOVEMBER 15, 2015

The star of the South

See everything h in this h issue, shop h the h items, watch related videos, share for free with your friends.

MAKE IT TRULY YOURS WITH...

MY

Style

CUSTOM SOFAS FROM $999 CHOOSE YOUR STYLE CHOOSE YOUR PIECE

by Rowe Furniture

CHOOSE YOUR FABRICS AND FINISHES

esprit-decor.com 110 KEGMAN ROAD WEST CHESAPEAKE, VA

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MON - SAT 10 AM - 5PM

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P| EAT | SHO

OCTOBER

So maybe you’re tired of nuts. We got you covered. Head down to the Oceanfront for the annual Virginia Beach Craft Beer Festival, where you’ll find more than 80 craft beers from more than 50 breweries. And since it’s October, we’re guessing there will be a few featuring pumpkin. Tickets are $25 on Saturday, $20 on Sunday (more at the gate). To get details: BeachStreetUSA.com.

THE WATER DOG IS OPEN.

the Wasserhund Brewing Company on Laskin Road in Virginia Beach. The brewery opened in August and offers some tasty beers, including the delicious Citrus Honey Wheat and the seasonally appropriate Dunkel Lager.

And if you’re hungry, don’t

worry: Wasserhund cooks up great wood-fired pizza.

Check WasserhundBrewing. com.

THE “OLD SQUARE” FOR OLD SQUARES.

The Vieux Carré – or “Old Square,” a nickname for the French Quarter – was invented in 1938 at the Hotel Monteleone and features rye whiskey, Hennessey, Benedictine, sweet vermouth, cognac and a dash of both Peychaud’s and Angostura bitters.

Get one soon. It will make your Old Fashioned taste old-fashioned.

See VoilaCuisine.com.

PLAY

OCTOBER

8-11

If you’re feeling impatient and really want to enjoy some new beer, we suggest you head over to

GO NUTS IN SUFFOLK This month is all about the nuts in Suffolk. Not talking family. Talking legumes.

Maybe you missed the Peanut Fest Queen’s Banquet, or the parade and the race, but there’s still time to enjoy the event itself: the city’s 38th Peanut Festival. The event, at the Suffolk Executive Airport, is free. Parking, however, costs $15. It’s family friendly, with rides and contests and competitions, which we can only assume involve consuming mass quantities of everybody’s favorite nut. For more info: SuffolkPeanutFest.com.

Looking for a stiff drink to warm those cold bones?

We suggest you make your way to Voila, the French bistro in Norfolk’s Freemason.

Bartenders there make some of the best mixed drinks in Tidewater. The one that has captured our attention lately is the Vieux Carré.

OR STAY HOME AND MIX YOUR OWN

and has a nice bite. We enjoyed a few (too many) of these during Distinction’s dinner there.* Pretty sure you’ll enjoy them, too.

Especially if the weather is too nasty to go out. This drink, from Matt Sopata at Coastal Grill, is made with r ye

THE BOULEVARDIER The Coastal Grill people like to barrel-age these liquors in charred oak for eight weeks. Barrel or not, here you go:

Use a bottle each of Rittenhouse Rye whiskey, Dolin rouge sweet vermouth and Campari. Stir 2 ounces and strain over ice in a rocks glass. Garnish with an orange peel. *

What we ate between sips, and how to make it: See Page 72.

THE BEST WINGS IN VIRGINIA BEACH NEW! KAYLA WINGBACK BED ENJOY SPECIAL FALL SAVINGS OF 15% THROUGHOUT THE DESIGN CENTER.

V I R G I N I A B E A C H 4 6 7 7 C O LU M B U S S T R E E T 7 5 7 . 4 2 2 . 2 2 4 2 M O N . – S AT. 1 0 A M – 6 P M S U N . 1 P M – 5 P M Sale going on for a limited time only. Some exclusions apply. Ask a designer or visit ethanallen.com for details. ©2015 Ethan Allen Global, Inc.

ESSAY

TASTE

by MARY ARCHITZEL WESTBROOK illustration by WES WATSON

When I was 7, I went to lunch alone with my grandmother. Nana, my mother’s mother, was a chic woman. Glass perfume bottles lined her bathroom vanity. She wore pantyhose every day. She stood only about 5 feet 2, but she had an air of discernment – taste – that gave her authority. She terrified me.

Sitting with a linen napkin on my lap, my back flat against the high-back chair, I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich. Then, reflecting on Nana’s order and how she’d tweaked the chef’s standard chicken salad to better reflect her palate, I added, “With Velveeta, please.”

Nana and the waiter laughed. I flushed.

“They don’t serve Velveeta here,” she said.

She didn’t offer the insight unkindly, but her comment marked the first time I understood that food can identify you, label you, just as surely as the handbag hanging from the crook of your arm.

A couple years ago, I remembered that lunch after frantically preparing dinner for new friends, people I wanted to impress. This was a worldly group, so I attended to details with care: craft beer, cheese with a hard-to-pronounce name, local greens, homemade bread, fresh butter, and some thick slab of meat that, in its lifetime, had grazed happily in an open pasture. The dinner was a success, but later I felt dissatisfied. By the time I finished loading the dishwasher, I’d figured out why: I hadn’t bragged 18

FOOD 2015

about my food savvy. After days of prep and imagined conversations (“This is local…” “This is antibiotic-free…” “We discovered this while we were in Buenos Aires…”), the night simply flowed. No talk of terroir. No cooing over hops.

No sighing about the latest food documentary.

I was like a student who had crammed for a final only to learn that everyone in class got an A. If I couldn’t preen, what was the point?

In the years since my childhood, when I feasted on bite-sized pizza bagels, microwaved burritos and tuna noodle casserole topped with crushed potato chips, I’d become a food snob.

I had company: a whole class of self-proclaimed connoisseurs with opinions on the virtues of Himalayan salt, the proper shape of French lentils and the art of molecular cooking. I read in-depth profiles of celebrated chefs, reviews of exquisite, faraway restaurants.

I made condescending comments about the time it takes food trends to reach the area, and I followed food bloggers who wrote poetically about finding the ideal Microplane grater for making macaroni and cheese. The more I learned, the more insufferable I became. Food was less about nourishment and more about one-upmanship: “I read that.” “I tried that.”

“I’m over that.”

That’s not to say there’s anything bad about the emergence of small, regional farms or my own growing interest in the health and envi-

ronmental issues related to our food supply.

I enjoy supporting businesses and restaurants that specialize in local food. I get excited about a crisp fall apple, a late-summer tomato, a slice of salty, watery handmade mozzarella. Still, I now try not to confuse my interest in food with some higher level of thinking, or enlightenment. After all, the politics of food are real, and if you have enough to eat in this world, you’re among the lucky.

And, sometimes, food is just food – not an indicator of your taste, not a thing to fret about or fetishize. Most of my favorite meals lately – hot dogs on our back deck, peanut butter and jelly in the park, cheese and crackers with friends – are about the people and the place as much as what ends up on my plate.

Toward the end of her life, Nana lived in a nursing home with a dimly lit dining room that served beige, soft food. For variety, my mom and I would take her to a chain restaurant for lunch. By that time, and to her bitter regret, Nana had traded pleated skirts and patent leather flats for fuzzy track suits and sneakers. I was in graduate school then and usually in a rush but I’d hurry to meet them, often arriving frizzy-haired and sweaty on my bike. We were a long way from our linen-napkin lunches. We’d sit together and, on good days, laugh and laugh. I don’t remember what we ate.

Y O U R H O M E S AY S A L O T A B O U T Y O U .

W E ’ R E H E R E TO L I S T E N .

Your home is a reflection of you. Ferguson’s product experts are here to listen to every detail of your vision, and we’ll work alongside you and your designer, builder or remodeler to bring it to life. Request a one-on-one consultation with us today.

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Unfathomable numbers of blue crab eggs hatch in spring in the southern Chesapeake Bay. One female crab alone may release as many as 2 million eggs, whose larvae are swept by wind and waves out to sea.

Called zoeas, these microscopic crabs-to-be look like some fantastic imagining of a steampunk artist, all sharp beaks and spikes and hinged tails and gigantic eyes. They molt seven or eight times during their first few weeks of life (assuming a fish hasn’t already eaten them), each time shedding the outer shell and emerging a little larger and a little more crablike.

Some of these megalops, as they are called once they develop tiny claws and legs, return to the Chesapeake Bay, borne on water or, sometimes, hitching rides on jellyfish. Bull calls them “the lucky few.”

“If you have the right winds, if you have the right tides, a number of them can wash back into the Bay,” he says. “They start to move up the Bay, where they’re breakfast for black drum, they’re lunch for red drum, they’re snacks for striped bass – the entire food chain preys on them.”

Blue crabs, it seems, are delicious right from the start.

As they grow, they migrate north, seeking shelter in underwater grasses and in rivers. A crab shedding its hard outer shell is known first as a buster, then a peeler. It emerges soft and weak and, while its shell stiffens, looks for a place to hide. Watermen are happy to provide this with a trap called a peeler pot, since soft-shell crabs are considered a 24

FOOD 2015

ALLEN PARKS HAS BEEN CRABBING MOST OF HIS LIFE, WHICH AT THIS POINT IS 37 YEARS. THIRTYEIGHT BUSHEL BASKETS FULL OF BLUE CRABS ARE STACKED ON THE ELIZABETH JOY, NINE BELOW THE STATE LIMIT. VIRGINIA BEGAN SETTING SUCH LIMITS IN 2012, AFTER CRAB NUMBERS DROPPED IN THE BAY. delicacy. Often battered and fried, they are eaten legs, shell and all.

“They encounter the peeler potters in the spring – April, May and June,” Bull says. “That is their first step toward becoming lunch.”

Blue crabs that evade the peeler pots face other trials. Males prefer lower salinity water and may hang out in tributaries, where they encounter blue catfish. These fish, native to the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio rivers, were introduced to Virginia waters in the 1970s for recreational fishing. What seemed like a good idea at the time has been bad for crabs and many other species, as blue catfish are indiscriminate feeders, growing up to 100 pounds on a diet of whatever fits in their mouths.

Small crabs may also be eaten by larger crabs, because they’re cannibalistic, Bull says. Hiding in underwater grasses is not as easy as

“It’s a hard living,” says Allen Parks, who owns and runs the Elizabeth Joy. He’ll get $150 a bushel – but figures a city seafood store would get $250.“If I got those kind of prices,” he says,“I’d have it made.”

before, because those grasses are struggling, too. The amount of submerged vegetation in the Bay is a fraction of what it was before pollution degraded the water. Grass beds have still not recovered from huge amounts of rainfall and sediment washed into the Bay by Tropical Storm Agnes in 1972.

Pollution can also lead to dead zones in the Bay, where the water does not contain enough dissolved oxygen to support life. In those places, crabs can suffocate. Sometimes they flee the water, seeking to breathe. These frenzied mass evacuations are known as crab jubilees.

“If you survive as a larval blue crab, the deck is stacked against you,” Bull says. “And that is in a good year. If it’s a bad year, you’ll run into an unexpected population explosion of some predator. In 2012, they ran into puppy drum. It was like the ultimate all-you-can-eat buffet for them. Puppy drum had a very good year and the blue crab had a very bad year.”

Puppy drum become red drum. As they grew that year, they fed voraciously on blue crabs. The attack of the puppy drum was unusual, Bull says, and no one is quite sure why there were so many. In 2010, recreational fishermen reported catching about 28,600 puppy drum in Virginia. Two years later, 2.5 million were caught.

The Bay’s crab population plummeted from an estimated 765 million to 300 million, male and female. That still sounds like a lot. But Early, early morning on the Chesapeake, aboard the Elizabeth Joy, out of Tangier Island.

Clams, above left, are bait for hard-shell crabs; Matthew Wheatley prepares traps.

scientists have calculated that, because crabs are eaten by so many predators, the Bay needs 215 million spawning females alone to support the species and everything that depends on it. In 2012, the Bay had just experienced its best blue crab birth rate in two decades. Then: “Three-fourths of the juveniles went ‘poof,’ ” Bull says.

Still, the lucky few blue crabs persist. As summer progresses, they move up the Bay and mate. In the fall, the females head south again, to the higher salinity waters where they prefer to spawn. All along the way, on the journey up and the journey back, they are tempted to enter traps. Depending on the time of year, those traps may be baited with menhaden or clams (to catch hard-shell crabs), with a live male crab exuding pheromones (to catch breeding adult females) or with nothing (to lure peeler crabs hunting for shelter).

“The estimate we have is that Virginia sets, per day, 400,000 to 500,000 crab pots,” Bull says. “Maryland sets more than that. They run the gauntlet of a million crab pots set throughout the Bay.” For those that survive, winter finally arrives, the season when blue crabs burrow into the mud and go dormant. It is not true hibernation, but their wants and needs are few until spring comes again.

These are the victors.

“They have won the crab lottery,” Bull says. “They have survived an entire year.”

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In spring they awaken. The females release their eggs, millions of them, and the cycle starts again for Callinectes sapidus, translated from Greek and Latin as “beautiful savory swimmer.”

A

bushel basket sits on the dock at Cape Charles, half full of crabs whose shells are olive green and bright cerulean blue, some flaunting orange-red claws – the bright colors that earned them the “beautiful” part of their name. A few raise their pincers as a warning – their last warning, as it turns out. These crabs are to be raffled off and eaten in just a few hours, to raise money for a playground in this small town near the southern tip of the Eastern Shore.

Three measuring tools lie on the railing outside the harbormaster’s office, precise to the thousandths of an inch. A big crab is a lucky crab.

Virginia allows the harvest of peeler crabs when they reach 3¼ or 3½ inches, depending on the time of year, well before they are old enough to reproduce. Male or immature female hard crabs must be at least 5 inches. There is no size limit on adult females.

The crabs in the basket are larger, donated from this April day’s catch by crabbers entering the “Big Jimmy” contest.

Crabbing has an extensive vocabulary. Jimmies are males.

She-crabs, also known as sallies, are immature females. Sooks are adult females. Peelers are molting crabs whose new shell has developed under the old, hard one, and a soft-shell has completely lost that hard covering but not yet toughened up. Sponge crabs are females carrying eggs.

In the market, a whole new identification system takes over – and it may vary from place to place. Jimmies are graded as small, medium, large, jumbo or colossal/heavyweight, and also as No. 1, No. 2, etc.

Soft-shells come in hotel, prime, jumbo and whale grades.

The largest jimmy in the basket is 7.243 inches from side to side – a colossal – when Allen Parks docks the Elizabeth Joy, out of Tangier Island, and brings in a competitor. A small crowd gathers to watch harbormaster William “Smitty” Dize and assistant Barbara Michaux apply digital calipers to the crab.

“I don’t think he’s gonna do it,” Parks says, but the measurement is 7.411 inches: a new leader.

He takes the news with a grain of salt. He says he’s seen another crabber, yet to come in from checking his pots, land “a monster” that morning.

Parks has been crabbing most of his life, which at this point is 37 years. Thirty-eight bushel baskets full of blue crabs are stacked on the Elizabeth Joy, nine below the state limit. Virginia began setting such limits in 2012, after crab numbers dropped in the Bay. “It’s a hard living,” Parks says as he waits to sell his catch to Lindy’s Seafood of Maryland. Each bushel, he says, will bring him $150.

“If you went to a seafood store in the cities, I bet it’d be every bit of $250 for a bushel. If I got those kind of prices, I’d have it made.”

The National Marine Fisheries Service says the Chesapeake’s commercial catch of blue crabs in 2013, the latest year for which statistics 26

FOOD 2015

Justin Gaspard and other Virginia watermen use pots loaded with bait; Marylanders use pots, too, but also baited trotlines, since pots aren’t allowed in tributaries.

were available, was worth $73.9 million to watermen, with 48 million pounds of blue crab landed.

Because they are so important, they are protected, managed and regulated by two states and multiple agencies – in Virginia, the Marine Resources Commission; in Maryland, the Department of Natural Resources; in the Potomac, which crosses state lines, the Potomac River Fisheries Commission. The states work together but are free to set their own regulations.

Virginia watermen most often use pots to harvest blue crabs. Marylanders also use pots but, because those are not allowed in tributaries, there they use trotlines, long lines with multiple baits. Crabs are netted after grabbing the bait.

In Maryland, much of the catch is large male crabs, which prefer the lower salinity of the upper Bay and its tributaries. The harvest of egg-bearing females is prohibited, but few of those are found in Maryland anyway. Virginia, which has the higher-salinity water and preferred spawning grounds near the mouth of the Bay, has more females. The state does allow the harvest of sponge crabs, but a 1,000-square-mile sanctuary and closing of the winter dredge season is intended to protect them. The Potomac River Fisheries Commission set a limit this year of 12 bushels of female crabs a day, between April 1 and June 30.

A packed basket ready for sale. In the afternoon, Allen Parks and the crew of the Elizabeth Joy will unload the day’s catch and take on empty baskets, ready for tomorrow.

As the afternoon ticks on, trucks begin backing up to the dock for the day’s catch. Parks unloads his full baskets, reloads with empty ones, and casts off his boat just as the Shanna and Brandon, out of Onancock, docks with the monster, five minutes before the competition is to end.

“Good Lord almighty! Wow!” exclaims a bystander.

“Holy cow!” Dize says, reading the calipers, and he measures again just to make sure, before dropping the jimmy into the raffle basket.

“What have you got?” Parks shouts as he sails past.

“Eight point zero nine nine,” Dize shouts.

“Oh, my Lord, you got him,” Parks calls back, as Dize lifts the basket lid to let another waterman look.

“See him in there?” Dize says, and the waterman says, simply, “Jesus!”

T

he biggest blue crab on record from the Chesapeake Bay was 10.72 inches across and weighed 1.1 pounds.

A big crab may be a lucky crab, but for the past several years, the luck has run out. Scientists in Maryland and Virginia count crabs each winter to help managers set harvest limits and tweak other regulations. In 1991, the survey showed 828 million crabs in the Bay. Of that, 227 million were females old enough to spawn. Since then, numbers have dropped,

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sometimes precipitously, to a low of 251 million crabs in 2007, with only 89 million of those being females that might spawn.

After low counts in 2004 through 2007, the federal government declared the blue crab fishery a disaster, and the states took drastic action. The harvest of female crabs was cut 34 percent. A deepwater sanctuary was expanded to cover almost 1,000 square miles of the Bay in Virginia. The winter dredge fishery, which allowed watermen to scrape dormant female crabs out of the mud, was closed. It has never reopened.

The regulatory changes worked, Bull says. The number of spawning-age females climbed to 246 million in 2010. But three years of unfortunate, uncontrollable events sent it plunging again.

In 2012, there was the invasion of the puppy drum. In 2013, there were puppy drum and cold weather kills. In 2014, the hard winter froze more than a quarter of all blue crabs. As a result, that year’s winter survey showed only 69 million females of spawning age left in the Bay. “If we get down to 70 million spawning females, you are in danger of a stock collapse, which is a catastrophic event that would take decades – I can’t even contemplate it,” Bull says. “It would be catastrophic culturally, economically, environmentally. More mamas mean more babies. It’s as simple as that.”

The harvest was cut by 10 percent, and daily bushel limits set for commercial crabbers, among other measures.

Again, the protection worked. This year’s survey, released in late April, showed “moderate improvement” in the blue crab population, despite the killing cold of winter. The number of spawning-age females rose 46 percent to 101 million – better, but still far below the target of 215 million. The number of juvenile crabs rose 35 percent.

The number of crabs Baywide is now estimated to be 411 million, half of what it was in 1991.

“We need to remain cautious,” says Rom Lipcius of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. “The good thing is we’re bouncing back.

The bottom line is, we can be optimistic.”

Blue crabs are notably resilient, he added. They produce a new generation each year, millions and millions of zoeal blue crabs that, if they’re lucky, grow quickly to adulthood, producing millions and millions more just like them. Along the way, they support watermen, the processing industry, restaurants and home cooks.

“Crabs serve an important function within the Bay and the ecosystem,” Bull says. “They are a prized consumer good. And they are tasty, as I recall. My own personal policy is I don’t eat crab cakes when the abundance is down.”

But lots of people do. Blue crab is the largest single-species crab fishery in the world, worth nearly $300 million to the national economy.

The latest crab count is middlin’ good news.

“It’s not doom and gloom but nobody is jumping up and down saying it’s wonderful,” Bull says. “We need to keep this train on the track. If Mother Nature will give us a break, I’m very hopeful we’ll see a big jump in the stock.”

That would be delicious news.

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Eat’em Tasty they may be, but eating a steamed crab is a lot of work.

First, the crab’s legs must be snapped off. The back legs, used for swimming, are discarded. Only the two front legs, with their large claws, contain meat, which is reached by cracking the hard covering with fingers or metal crab pliers.

Then the “apron,” or abdomen, must be removed.

In males, the apron is long and pointed, said to resemble the Washington Monument. In adult females, the apron is rounded with a dome on the top, said to look like the national Capitol. In immature females, the apron is V-shaped.

Once the apron is peeled back and snapped off, the top and belly shells can be pried apart. The exposed gills are then removed from the soft insides to reveal the meat, which is pried out and eaten on the spot.

Crab processing plants do the hard work for consumers, providing lump crab meat to stores and restaurants. Diners should be aware of what they’re getting, advises Rom Lipcius of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

Anything advertised as “Maryland-style crab cake,” whether on a menu or in the freezer case, is not necessarily made from blue crab, he says. “Style” means they may include imported crab meat from Indonesia, Venezuela, Mexico or other places.

If in doubt, he says, ask.

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2745B 274 5B

LASTSUPPER Sydney Meers has answered the question many times during his 40-year career: What would he eat for his last meal?

Every time someone posed it, Meers, owner and head chef of Stove in Portsmouth, thought a little more about it. Eventually the idea seeped into his other passion, painting, and led to the creation of a piece titled Second to the Last Supper, which depicts what Meers

imagines the help ate before serving the meal in that famous work by Leonardo daVinci.

“It’s a spoof on a lot of things,” he says, including the tradition of fattening a young animal – lamb, sheep, tiger cub – termed a “fatling,” then slaughtering it for food.

Meers’ ruminations on his last supper grew into a multi-course feast, specific down to food sources and preparations. He and

by MICHELLE WASHINGTON photography by TODD WRIGHT

other chefs have long contemplated the question, over drinks or at the end of dinner service.

We asked some local chefs, including Meers,what they wanted in their bellies when they head to heaven. Those suppers ranged from haute cuisine to comfort food. Their answers will make you think.

And maybe a little hungry. >>

CHEFS

M Y E E N E D R Y S S It’s an awful lot of stuff I make here because I never get to eat. I’m always cooking.

So it would be things I like to eat here plus a few things from the Gulf Coast, where I’m from. I would do a four-course meal.

When it’s your last one, you don’t want to leave real quick.

I would start out with pimiento cheese, my crackers with turmeric and cumin and Smoochie Bear ham. With the ham I would have raw oysters from the Gulf Coast.

I usually get the ones right there between Gulfport and Biloxi.

Then my second course would be 10 to 15 jumbo shrimp. Gulf Coast brown shrimp, and I would have that done into my shrimp and grits. I’d serve it with homemade sausage, pickled Tabasco peppers, and fresh-picked heirloom tomatoes.

Main course: On one side I have wreck fish – fish that hang out in shipwrecks and floating debris. They live off spiny lobsters and crustaceans. They love plankton. It’s like rockfish on steroids.

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Each one is about 3 feet long. I’d cut it in filets 2 to 3 inches thick. Get it like a mediumrare steak. Saute in equal parts butter and lard – we make it here, no preservatives, by pouring it off from rendered pork belly. I’ll get that going in a saute pan. Throw in porcini mushrooms to brown and serve over the fish.

On the Delta we do a short-grain rice. I like it.

Steam it off and it becomes like a sticky rice.

Take a fork and loosen it up. Toss with May peas with scallion and butter.

On the other side of the plate I take garden tomatoes, cucumbers, vinegar and arugula and toss with salt and pepper. Take house-aged beef, start it in a pan to sear, then I like grill marks to give char flavor. I’ll slice it about a half-inch thick. It makes for a delicious salad.

Dessert: Sextuple truffle. It uses all the kinds of chocolate. You spend your life on it so it’s well worth it. I’d serve it with espresso chocolate chip ice cream and chocolate sauce.

I’d pour myself a glass of Booker’s whiskey with four ice cubes. And that’s it.

2745B

S E T E A R N O I R It’s the simple things that chefs gravitate to.

It’s something that’s fundamental, familiar.

My last meal would be fried pork belly.

Pork belly, any which way. With rice, an overmedium egg and seaweed paper – nori – for crunch and flavor.

In the Philippines pork belly is called lechon kawali. You cook it covered in oil and weighted down. Then you eat big chunks of pork belly with white jasmine rice.

I grew up in the Philippines. I lived there until I was 12. I was there when the volcano erupted (June 1991). We moved here in 1993.

We lived in Austin, and I worked there in Asian and Japanese restaurants. When we were sitting around, playing this Last Supper game with my fellow chefs, it was always something with an egg. It’s a sauce, a protein, delicious,

amazing – everything you need is within that egg. Maybe it comes from my experience as a child. I loved a fried egg and rice.

Nori, I got that from developing as a chef in a Japanese kitchen. It’s healthy, salty, crispy, perfect. It adds umami oomph for me.

To drink I would have a big glass of not-ice water, room temperature. In the Philippines there’s not a lot of ice. … I was dumbfounded at how much ice Americans would use for drinks.

Literally I picture my last meal just … shoving food in my mouth and gulping it down with water.

I would eat it at home – the Philippines, Austin or Virginia. Really I would shame eat it in my bed, with the TV on. My whole family would get in bed with me.

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CHEFS

I L L W I A N I M V S L A I would like to keep it pretty light; that way I would have a better chance floating on up to heaven.

I would like roasted, salt-crusted local rockfish, served with some of Dave & Dee’s organic oyster mushrooms and a lemon beurre blanc sauce. That’s a dish I love for a couple of reasons. I’ve prepared it several times with another chef friend of mine. He’s in the Outer Banks; we eat it on vacation.

I’m from England; I never had it until I came here. Beurre blanc sauce: I was classically trained in French cooking in England. Lemon beurre blanc sauce is a reduction with white wine and shallots, and you whisk butter and lemon into the sauce.

As a kid I was scared of mushrooms – there are toadstools and poisonous mushrooms. But in London I’d work in these crazy kitchens and the other chefs forced me to eat things.

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At that point I’m pretty sure the diet wouldn’t matter so I would like to add some mashed potatoes … and some Southern fried chicken for dessert. Fried chicken, it’s usually a great hangover cure.

Or maybe a sherry trifle. In England it was a luxurious dessert, a really special treat. Cake, and then a layer of something like Jell-O mixed with sherry, and the cake is soaked in that, and then a layer of whipped cream. You know, my sister Allison makes a good trifle. I stay on her good side.

I would like to be sitting at a table on the edge of the beach, probably somewhere like the Cayman Islands. I’d eat with Eric Ripert, Daniel Boulud, Marcus Samuelsson, and my favorite fellow Englishman chef Marco Pierre White.

And my wife. She would kill me if she wasn’t invited. And then I’d be dead twice.

CHEFS

E I N Y H E O N R D N O R Is it fall? Is it spring? Even if they’re my favorite thing in the world, I’m not going to ask for strawberries in the winter.

The first thing I’m going to do is think of what’s really good right now. If it’s in the fall it would have to be chicken and dumplings.

In the spring it would be pasta with peas and asparagus, and strawberry shortcake.

Summer: Corn, succotash, butter beans.

(No protein?) Not in summer, when it’s everything vegetables. Caprese salad. … You always crave what you don’t have. My brain’s in summer. Soft-shell crabs, and I’m anxiously awaiting corn.

Winter: Rockfish. Oysters. Kale. It’s not that I crave kale. But I’m always inspired by the time of year. But ultimately, hands down,

my grandmother’s chicken and dumplings.

We moved to Norfolk when I was maybe 5 or 6; my sister is two years older. So we would go see Grandma out in Great Bridge.

She would boil chickens to make stock.

We would help her pick the chickens and the meat. My grandma would roll out the dumplings, and my sister and I would help her put them into the pot.

That was life on the farm.

To drink: definitely wine. I’m a Napa Valley cab (-ernet) kind of guy more than Old World French.

For dessert, I’m a simplist: I love ice cream, well made. It’s my all-time favorite dessert.

I love vanilla, a good, well-made Madagascar vanilla bean ice cream.

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CHEFS

R A B D R S E H P A R W A H I tossed all these ideas around, the fanciest ingredients. But if it’s my last meal I want to be comfortable.

I think my meal would be outside where you can hear the ocean. My family has a beach house here on the Outer Banks, and we love having dinner outside on the deck where we can hear the ocean. We take the table right out there.

There would be the best corn on the cob, drenched in butter, and butter beans cooked with lots of smoky pork served with the broth. Butter beans are probably my favorite food. They are so often poorly cooked that I made it a mission to figure out how to cook them perfectly. I add Benton’s bacon – I love that heavy, smoked presence.

I’d want the freshest of seafood masterfully fried outdoors with a spicy Old

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FOOD 2015

Bay mayonnaise something or other. It’s a guilty pleasure, just for me, when you have this array of seafood – soft-shell crab, shrimp, clams.

For dessert, my mother’s pecan pie.

We would have epic bourbon – Pappy Van Winkle or Jefferson’s Reserve wheated bourbons. The wheat gives them an easy drinking smoothness. You taste vanilla and honey – not the real sweetness, just the reminder. … and the best rosé. I just love it. It’s the perfect wine for so many occasions.

I’d want to be surrounded by my family and best friends. My wife, Laura, my children, Connor, 11, and Taylor, 7 … and probably about 40 other people.

I guess if it’s going to be what I want, I’m doing the cooking.

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PROFILE

E IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD (about chocolate) WORLD

by ALISON JOHNSON photography by ADAM EWING 46

FOOD 2015

E ACH BLACK MAMBA COOKIE is 3 inches wide and close to an inch deep, with a glistening, deep brown surface covering a moist, gooey inside. At room temperature, it’s like fudge. Served warm out of the oven, it’s more like pudding.

Pick one up and you’re immediately struck by its weight, the result of thick, dark chocolate packed with chocolate chips, espresso, walnuts and pecans. If you were prone to romanticism, you might also attribute its heft to its history.

Chef Marcel Desaulniers’ over-the-top dessert holds a lifetime of love that began in his mother’s kitchen in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. Victoire Desaulniers was never too busy, or too broke, to bake for her six children, even after her husband died young. Her sweets helped her only son survive the Vietnam War, inspired his unconventional recipes and ultimately helped make him famous.

Now 70, Marcel jokes that he should be retired. That was the plan, anyway, when he sold the Trellis Restaurant in 2009, after 29 years as a co-owner of the Williamsburg landmark.

But the national-award-winning chef and cookbook author could not escape the urge to whip up decadent treats.

So, in April 2012, he opened MAD about Chocolate, a 20-seat café about a block from Merchants Square that offers light lunches, gourmet drinks and some of the best desserts in the region, including those Black Mambas, which, like all of his creations, are made without mixes or preservatives.

“It’s just the good stuff, nothing fake,” he says. “It tastes … intense, how chocolate should.”

MARCEL’S COOKIE CREATIONS are piled neatly in a glass display case, beneath a flowery sign that spells out “YUM.”

The Black Mamba, top, with Marcel’s favorite, his mom’s chocolate chip cookies – recipe tweaked only a smidge.

There are Golly Polly Doodles, fudge balls stuffed with peanut butter and coated in sparkles; W&M Tribe Cookies that mix white and milk chocolate, green pistachios, and lemon zest marinated in vodka; Bourbon Oatmeal Cookies that burst with plump raisins and cranberries; and brownies as tall as a piece of cake, with two layers of ganache, a filling made by boiling heavy cream and pouring it over chopped Belgian chocolate. “The hot cream melts the chocolate and it becomes velvety,” says Desaulniers’ wife, Connie, an artist who helps run the business. “It’s like magic.”

Customers at the bright, whimsical space, filled with Connie’s paintings and tabletops decorated with kaleidoscopes of colorful glass pieces, also can order savory cheesecakes with veggies and meats, nutty chicken salad, and French roast coffees, teas and sipping chocolate, served hot or cold.

Marcel, a trim man who calls himself an introvert, is an artist, too. He “paints” with high-end Belgian and French chocolate, ordered through an international gourmet foods distributor in Northern Virginia. The blond and dark varieties arrive in bags of round pearls or pistoles, flat pellets that he snacks on daily.

“One handful,” he says, tossing a few into his mouth with a sly grin. “Well … maybe two or three. No other desserts, though.”

As a child, Marcel happily dug into his mother’s fudge, caramels, cakes and cookies.

His parents, Eugene and Victoire Desaulniers,

were born to French Canadian parents who had recently moved to Rhode Island from Canada. Money was tight, so Victoire learned to make her treats using less expensive ingredients, often replacing pricey vanilla extract with liquors gifted by customers of her husband’s dry cleaning business. (He didn't drink.)

Things got tougher for the family after Eugene died of a congenital heart condition at age 42. Victoire was just 37. Marcel, the second oldest child, was 10 – old enough to work. His after-school paper route earned the family $10 a week, a fairly sizable amount in 1955.

As a high school freshman, he landed a restaurant job washing pots in a tiny, stifling room. “It was brutal,” he says. He later hitchhiked to another restaurant 12 miles away, where he waited tables, learned to make spaghetti sauce and chicken salad, and illegally tended bar.

The teenage Marcel didn’t aspire to a career in food. He wanted to be a mortician, mostly because he admired the crisp black suits worn by local funeral home workers. But he had no money for post-secondary education, and a restaurant boss who spotted a cooking talent offered to cover the $5,000 tuition at the Culinary Institute of America, then in New Haven, Connecticut. Marcel graduated in 1965.

Drafted into the Marine Corps, he served from 1966 to 1968, including 13 months in Vietnam. There he saw combat in the northernmost region of South Vietnam, and he

As a child, as a Marine in the Vietnam War, as a chocolatier – Marcel has always been around the love of baking.That was his mother’s gift; with six children, she was widowed at 37.

and his buddies treasured the packages of his mother’s chocolate chip cookies that arrived at least once a month. Mrs. D’s Chocolate Chip Cookies, on his café’s menu today, remain his favorite treat.

War was terrible, but the Marines were a good fit for a hard worker. “I had no problems keeping my mouth shut and following orders.

And I like things organized,” he says, glancing around the café, where cookbooks, wines and aprons are perfectly stacked for sale.

A post-Vietnam job at a New York City hotel led to a 75-cent-an-hour banquet captain position at the Williamsburg Lodge in 1970, followed by an assistant chef spot at the Cascades Restaurant. Marcel quickly rose through the ranks. After several more restaurant stints and six years selling food to distributors, he and two partners opened The Trellis in 1980 in Merchants Square. The restaurant was a success almost immediately, and his profile rose in short order.

TWO YEARS AFTER OPENING The Trellis, Marcel created what would become his calling card, Death by Chocolate, an insanely decadent seven-layer cake that took him from respected chef to dessert star. The cake gave birth to a chocolate-themed cookbook of the same name that won a prestigious James Beard Award for Best Baking and Desserts Cookbook in 1993. It also spawned a television cooking series on The Learning Channel.

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PROFILE

Marcel has published 10 cookbooks, seven focused on desserts, and racked up multiple personal and restaurant honors, including more James Beard awards – as Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic States (1993), Best Single Subject Cookbook (The Burger Meisters, 1995) and Outstanding Pastry Chef in America (1999).

But today, the intimacy of his little chocolate café is what is most rewarding to him.

Though quiet by nature, he is charmingly engaging with customers, quick with a smile.

His neat gray hair and well-trimmed mustache just add to his dignified air.

Marcel works as president and executive chef. Connie is the general manager. They employ one full-time worker, baker Alton Boyd, and nine part-timers. Marcel arrives by 6:30 a.m. daily to meet with Boyd, place orders, handle finances and prepare lunch entrees and fresh lemon vinaigrette salad dressing. Boyd and several assistants do most of the baking, usually following recipes from Marcel’s cookbooks.

One of the cookies is brand new: The Big Russ, made with dark chocolate, fresh orange zest, and chunks of caramel and coconut, debuted in September. It’s named after Russ Brown, the William & Mary football player who died last year of leukemia. Brown’s family bought the naming rights, so a percentage of money raised from the cookie’s sale goes to the school’s athletics department and a foundation fighting the disease.

As with all of his recipes, Marcel spent a lot of time working on the Big Russ, tweaking the ingredients to get them just right. He vigilantly inspects all of the supplies used at the shop, whether they’re from a food distributor, local farmer’s market or the café’s own little herb garden. “If a product is not up to our standards,” he says, “I return it or I don’t use it.”

Except for artisan bread from a Richmond bakery, food is cooked in two convection ovens and on a four-burner stove at the café, a 1,000-square-foot facility with an adjacent storage center of similar size. “We do a lot in such a little space,” Connie says.

Marcel also keeps the menu small and simple, one of his tips for all chefs. “That way, 48

FOOD 2015

BLACK MAMBA COOKIES Makes 18 cookies.

A classic from MAD About Chocolate. Toast the pecans and walnuts ahead of time, and expect a cookie batter, not a dough.

INGREDIENTS 1 pound semisweet baking chocolate, coarsely chopped 3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped ¼ pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into ½- ounce pieces ½ cup all-purpose flour ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder ¼ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt 4 large eggs 1 cup granulated sugar 2 tablespoons instant espresso powder ½ cup semisweet chocolate chips ¼ cup pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped ¼ cup walnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

PREPARATION 1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2. Melt the chopped semisweet chocolate, unsweetened chocolate and butter in the top half of a double boiler or in a medium glass bowl in a microwave oven, and stir until smooth. Set aside.

3. In a sifter, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. Sift onto a large piece of parchment or wax paper.

Set aside.

4. Place the eggs, sugar and espresso powder into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle. Beat on medium speed for 4 minutes until the mixture is thickened and slightly frothy. Add the chocolate and butter mixture and mix on medium to combine, about 1 minute.

5. Use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Operate the mixer on low while gradually adding the dry ingredients; mix until incorporated, about 45 seconds. Scrape down the sides of the

bowl. Add the chocolate chips, pecans, walnuts and vanilla extract and mix on low to combine, about 10 seconds.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and use the spatula to finish mixing the ingredients until thoroughly combined.

6. Use 3 heaping tablespoons of the batter for each cookie and portion 6 cookies, evenly spaced, onto each of 3 nonstick baking sheets. Place 1 baking sheet on the top rack and 1 sheet on the center rack of the oven and bake for 18 minutes, rotating the sheets from top to center halfway through the baking time (at that time also turn each sheet 180 degrees). The third baking sheet may be placed in another 325-degree oven or held at room temperature and then baked after the first 2 sheets are removed from the oven.

7. Remove the cookies from the oven and cool to room temperature on the baking sheets, about 15 minutes. Store the cooled cookies in a tightly sealed container.

the ingredients stand out,” he says. “Use only the best. Love what you do, and take good care of yourself.” He preaches “The Three E’s”: empathy (for customers and employees), eat well and exercise.

At home, Marcel does yoga, stretches, walks and reads, mostly nonfiction. He also delights in his family, from his mother, nearly 98 and still living in Rhode Island, to his

daughter Danielle, a food consultant and personal chef raising his two grandsons in Washington state (Marcel’s own son died in a car accident in 1994, at age 21). He just doesn’t have time to cook lunch for Connie anymore, as he did every day during his brief retirement.

“At my age, I suppose I should be doing less,” he says, stealing another handful of pistoles. “But I am having too much fun.”

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BISCUITS

THE HUMBLE STAR OF THE SOUTHERN SIDEBOARD

by LORRAINE EATON photography by KEITH LANPHER

A

lone biscuit rests on a silver tray in my kitchen window. It’s been there for three years. Maybe more. I could still eat it if I liked.

It’s hardtack, the most archaic and basic of the genus, made with flour and water and an optional sprinkle of salt. Portable, nonperishable and somewhat nourishing, these palm-sized, rock-hard squares sustained soldiers and sailors for centuries. Some food historians date them to ancient Rome. An exhibit of hardtack from 1861 (and edible still!) is a permanent part of the American Civil War Museum in Richmond.

But blessedly, biscuits evolved.

They became a staple throughout the region after the Civil War. Big mills sprang up across the Midwest and South, providing the cheap flour that made it possible for them to be “quickly prepared and served hot, three times a day, even in the most modest of southern homes,” American food historian Marcie Cohen Ferris explained in her book The Edible South.

Their recipes passed from mother to child like heirloom silver. And today, they’re a point of pride for home bakers and a calling card for restaurants, gracing the glossy pages of magazines and starring in network television shows.

They’ve even gone retro-cool. There’s a biscuit-only restaurant in Norfolk, and recently, a sommelier described for me the flavor of a Champagne as having a “hint of biscuit.”

Which it did.

But behind all the glory, they’re still just biscuits. And few places in this world have a better grasp than Tidewater on what makes a good one. Here, five area chefs share their takes on the humble star of the Southern sideboard.

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JANE'SSWEETPOTATOBISCUITS

J

ane Gibson, a self-described “Southern cook,” never imagined she’d one day own a sweet potato biscuit empire. But here it is, in a downtown Franklin storefront, where she and two employees roll out thousands of biscuits each week to satisfy the cravings of customers as far away as California and Afghanistan.

This year is the 10th anniversary of Jane’s Sweet Potato Biscuits, which got its start when she offered to make Christmas cookies for a local bed-and-breakfast owner. He suggested that she instead make a signature sweet potato biscuit to serve at the inn.

“I’d never made one, but I was pretty good at making bread,” says Jane, 62. “When you grow up in the South, bread is just part of your life.”

It took six weeks to create what the innkeeper thought was a good recipe. Jane began turning out dozens of biscuits each day from her home. Word spread about her sweet, spicy, dense – and somehow still light – treats. She delivered a few dozen to The Peanut Patch Gift Shoppe in Courtland. Orders mounted. She won designation as a Virginia’s Finest product, started supplying local Taste Unlimited stores, and quickly outgrew her small kitchen.

Today Jane has expanded her line to include a buttermilk-cheese version – hearty 3-inchers made with dual Vermont cheddars, best when served with a slice of summer tomato. Those new biscuits – and the two employees – are about the only thing that’s changed.

“They’re absolutely still made by hand,” Jane says. “I don’t want to go mechanized.”

Sweet potato biscuits, dense yet airy: Jane Gibson, Franklin, aided here by Shanika Carter.

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BISCUITS

BLUE PETE'S

F

orty years ago, on the banks of Tabernacle Creek, hush puppies gave way to sweet potato biscuits.

The rambling, low-slung restaurant opened in 1972, when Pat Ricks converted a Back Bay beer joint into a white-tablecloth, date-night dining destination in backwoods Pungo. At first, Blue Pete’s served hush puppies alongside dishes such as lobstercrab casserole and bouillabaisse. But “to serve a good one, you had to cook it to order,” Ricks told a Virginian-Pilot reporter in 1979.

He switched to sweet potato biscuits, and cut them square instead of round to speed the process. They became a Blue Pete’s calling card.

Word spread. The Los Angeles Times published his recipe, and the biscuits starred in a full-color spread in Ford Times, a popular travel guide published by the motor company.

Today the restaurant is owned by 28-year-old twins and Pungo natives Nicholas and Aristotle Cleanthes. And once again, Blue Pete’s sweet potato biscuits, served free as soon as guests are seated, are a calling card.

On this Sunday morning, Nicholas lounges on an overstuffed sofa in the rustic front room, amid mounted ducks he and his brother shot and an enormous set of moose antlers, talking biscuits.

Sweet potato biscuits, redefined: Nicholas and Aristotle Cleanthes, Pungo.

“I can’t tell you what’s in them,” he says. “I can only say that they’re made at night, with love and time and patience and consistency.”

Instead of an ingredient list, he offers a peek into the kitchen where pans of unbaked ball-shaped biscuits await a turn in the oven. Scoop biscuits, he calls them. They’re made every day, he says, sometimes twice a day, and on a busy weekend Blue Pete’s might tear through 1,000 of them, maybe more.

Yielding to relentless interrogation, Nicholas divulges that they are made with local sweet potatoes and that the recipe calls for buttermilk.

But he’ll say nothing more.

I split one open straight from the oven. Browned, rough-textured tops gave way to an ultra-sweet, sweet potato flavor and an interior speckled with spud.

Curious about the evolution of Blue Pete’s biscuits, I make a batch of the original owner’s recipe. Those rolled biscuits have a more refined look, taste less sweet and have not a whisper of spice.

Two owners, two riffs on a standard.

“We knew that sweet potato biscuits have been a staple here as long as it’s been open,” Nicholas says. “My brother and I wanted to do our own thing, but still keep the memories alive.”

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BISCUITS

SMITHFIELD INN I

n 1875, about the time those new mills began grinding out cheap flour, an African American grocer named Alexander P. Ashbourne patented a spring-loaded biscuit cutter designed to turn out nine biscuits at a time.

Mozell Brown, biscuit baker at the historic Smithfield Inn for 50 years, will have none of that. It’s just past dawn when she plops a belly of yeasty dough on a flour-strewn, stainless steel counter. When she flattens it with her fingers splayed wide, the belly springs back even before she starts in with a large metal rolling pin.

Mozell aims in one direction, putting some weight into it, then rolls in another, then picks up the circle of flattened dough, flips it over and does it again.

An empty brandy snifter seems oddly out of place on the narrow shelf above where she works. She reaches for it, swirls the lip of the glass in flour, and thud, thud, thud, just like that, turns out 15 perfect biscuits.

“I’ve just always done it this way,” says Mozell, 76, as she walks across the kitchen to where two fryer baskets hang above vats of oil warming for lunch orders of fried green tomatoes and soft-shell crabs.

To speed the second rising of the dough, she balances a sheet pan of 42 fresh-cut biscuits atop them.

Mozell makes 200 biscuits every shift, usually three or four days a week. They have a local following and have earned national acclaim.

On the restaurant wall hangs a framed glossy photo from Fortune magazine of Mozell and her biscuits.

Everybody – me included – asks, “How do you make them?”

Her family’s secret recipe: Mozell Brown, Smithfield.

The recipe was handed down from her mother, Nannie Ricks.

Mozell no longer cooks in a wood stove, and has stopped using lard, but the formula remains essentially unchanged and secret.

“How long will they cook?” I ask when she opens the French doors of the oven and slides in a pan.

“When I cook, I just cook it till it’s done,” she says. “Isn’t that crazy?”

A bit later, when the aroma of baking bread incites serious hunger, she pulls a pan from the oven and sets it on the counter. The regiment of rounded tops is honey-hued and when she slathers them with butter, they beckon like sirens.

“Would you like one?” she asks.

“Oh, yes, please!”

“With butter?”

I start to say no, thinking that buttered tops are butter enough. But before I say so, Mozell splits the biscuit in half, dips a brush into the container of melted butter and slathers on more.

“Ham?” she asks.

Well, I am in Smithfield, the ham capital of the country. So, yes, ham. “Please.”

She reaches into a lowboy cooler, stuffs a generous pile of translucent slices between the biscuit halves and places it on a plate with a doily. I take a bite. The warm bread is yeasty and slightly sweet. The ham has a salty snap, tamed by the sweet and the buttery balm.

“Is it good?” she asks.

With my mouth full, I blurt out the first thing I think.

“Mozell,” I say. “This makes me glad that I live in Virginia.”

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HARPER'S TABLE

I

n 1883, the White Lily flour mill opened in Knoxville, Tennessee, helping post-Civil War bakers turn out biscuits that were the opposite of hardtack – fine-crumbed and pillow-like, with lily-white centers. For generations, loyalists would use nothing other than White Lily, which was – and still is – made solely with soft red winter wheat, strenuously sifted.

But despite a Southern upbringing, Harper Bradshaw, chef-owner of Harper’s Table in Suffolk, prefers flours that contain a blend of different types of wheat and have a higher gluten content, which yields a sturdier offering. “Biscuits are like barbecue,” he says. “People have strong opinions.”

He got started making his signature biscuits by dumping a heap of run-of-the-mill all-purpose flour into a stainless steel bowl and adding a hunk of lard, two key elements in the recipe he devised after endless trial and error. Along the way, he tried White Lily, but “I like some gluten,” he says, while rubbing the flour into the lard with flattened palms, in one direction only, sloughing paper-thin sheets of dough into the bowl. “I want a biscuit that won’t fall apart.”

With an hour before the start of dinner service, cooks prep softshell crabs, cut croutons and measure balls of sticky tortilla dough destined for plates of fried oyster tacos. And as he blends flour and lard, Harper, who once worked with Mozell Brown at the Smithfield Inn (and may be one of the few outside her family who know the recipe), reveals other keys to his tall, buttery biscuits: chilled everything, including the flour and lard; rounded spoonfuls of baking soda; using his

Buttermilk biscuits, traditionally Southern – yet not: Harper Bradshaw, Suffolk.

hands rather than a rolling pin to make sheets of dough; and, perhaps most important, keeping that gluten in check.

“I could do this all day long and never compromise the gluten,” he says, continuing to rub flour into the lard. Only when liquid is added does the gluten go to work, making the dough tougher, bit by bit.

“Hey gluten, we’re here!” he says, pouring chilled buttermilk over the mixture. He mixes it with a slotted spoon and then turns the sticky mass of dough onto a stainless steel counter dusted with flour. Using a scraper, he folds the dough over and over until he achieves a square mass with a perfectly smooth surface.

Most bakers would reach for a rolling pin, but at this point Harper uses his hands to pat out a disc, all while monitoring the texture of his dough, which gets firmer every time he touches it.

“I need to get this taken care of pretty quick,” he says. “The gluten is already doing its thing in here.”

After cutting biscuit rounds from the sheet and laying them in a pan, he gingerly folds the scraps together to make a second set.

Hot from the oven, Harper’s perfect pan of biscuits with buttery yellow tops and tan edges shows the slightest bit of variation. Biscuits cut from the second sheet of dough are just slightly more compact, a difference only a gluten-attuned chef would notice.

He makes the biscuits by hand every day his restaurant is open, never resorting to a machine for help. “I tried it once when I was young,” says Harper, 34. “It’s the hands that make the difference from one biscuit to another. Sometimes, there’s not a shortcut.”

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COTTON SOUTHERN BISTRO

C

otton Southern Bistro’s chef is just back from New York City, where he took in a Morrissey/Blondie concert and checked out an impressive roster of restaurants. Now, back in Virginia Beach, Jeff Brown is returning to his roots.

Standing at a cramped stainless steel counter near the back door of his Hilltop location, he pulls on a pair of thin kitchen gloves.

They snap at his wrists, right where full-sleeve tats begin winding toward his shoulders. “Baking is not for anarchists like me,” he says.

To bake his restaurants’ signature buttermilk biscuits, the self-proclaimed “Culinary Overlord” has no choice but to conform to standard ratios of fat-to-flour-to-liquid that are as old as baking itself.

He dutifully measures his flour and dumps it into a stainless steel bowl, and then grasps a frozen block of high-fat butter.

“Grated by hand, that’s the secret,” he says as butter shavings fall into the flour. He stops exactly four times to fluff the mixture with both hands. Coating each bit of butter is another secret to his achingly flaky biscuits.

Jeff, 43, grew up in Chesapeake in a grease can-on-the-back-of-thestove kind of household. His father was a police officer and his mother

His childhood nanny’s recipe: Jeff Brown, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach.

worked at the phone company. So, Mary Rogers, nanny to Jeff and three brothers, ruled that stove.

“She raised all of us, and whipped us, too,” he says.

She taught Jeff to cook – first eggs, then chicken and dumplings, and later, biscuits. And though he would go on to graduate from the Culinary Institute of America, the nation’s premier cooking school, and train at the French Laundry in California, one of the world’s finest restaurants, he never found a biscuit he liked better than Miss Mary’s.

She passed before he opened the first Cotton Southern Bistro in Chesapeake in 2011. That still saddens him. He’d like her to be right here in the kitchen with him, although she might have something to say about what he occasionally does to her recipe. He’s added a chicken base, and horseradish and bacon. Once he even added ramps, but never again.

Jeff hands me a biscuit warm from the oven. Buttery, crunchy tops, bottoms and corners with just a hint of salt give way to fluffy white centers.

“This is just a go-to dough,” he says. “It’s a canvas. It’s unbeatable.”

It’s a gift.

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MISS MARY'S BISCUITS from Cotton Southern Bistro

As a boy, Chef Jeff Brown learned to make biscuits from his nanny, the late Mary Rogers of Chesapeake. He still makes them the same way, although he riffs on the recipe, adding all sorts of flavorings, and encourages home cooks to do the same. He prefers European-style butter, 83 percent fat (Cabot’s).

INGREDIENTS 4 cups all-purpose flour 3 tablespoons baking powder 2 tablespoons sugar 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons salt 14 ounces butter, frozen 2 cups buttermilk, divided PREPARATION 1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar and salt.

3. Using a box grater, grate frozen butter into flour mixture, tossing after each quarter-stick of butter to coat butter shards with flour. Toss 64

FOOD 2015

to combine.

4. Stir in 1¾ cups of the buttermilk and, using large strokes and stirring from the bottom up, stir just enough to combine the mixture into a crumbly mass, 20 to 25 strokes. If dough does not come together, stir in more buttermilk a tablespoon at a time, just until the mixture barely holds together.

5. Dust a clean work surface with flour. Scrape dough onto the surface, gather into a ball, and gently knead with the palms of your hands about 10 times, just enough to form a cohesive ball. Sprinkle a little more flour onto dough and gently roll or pat to an even ¾-inch thickness.

6. Dip a 2½-inch round biscuit cutter in flour and, punching straight down without twisting, punch out the biscuits. Punch rounds as close together as possible to use as much dough as possible in the first roll.

(Re-rolled dough is always chewier.)

7. Place biscuits on a greased baking sheet. Bake 20 minutes total; at 10 minutes, check and rotate the pan 180 degrees.

8. Let biscuits rest 5 minutes before serving. The resting time allows the steam inside the biscuit to finish cooking the center.

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BETWEEN COMFORT FOOD AND ADVENTURE

(SITS HANDSOME BISCUIT)

by BEN SWENSON photography by KEITH LANPHER

At an old, nondescript intersection in Norfolk’s Park Place sits a boxy onetime corner store with a roof the color of marigolds, and sails that shade picnic tables outside. Inside, a flurry of hands mix flour, water, butter and sweet potatoes, creating a bold new take on a venerable staple.

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At Handsome Biscuit, the biscuit is neither a standby delivered to tables by the half-dozen nor an entree daintily grasping a thin slice of ham. Here, the namesake transcends its traditional role and becomes instead a vessel delivering an experience.

Restaurateurs John Porter and David Hausmann have carved out a niche with a concept that bridges the pleasure of comfort food and the spirit of adventure. The two chose biscuits when they launched in 2013, Hausmann says, because they were looking for a way to create original sandwiches, and biscuits fell within their abilities. Hausmann had more than five years’ catering experience, and homemade biscuits were often included in the spreads he offered. “You run with what you do well.”

The base of it all: the sweet potato biscuit.

BLEU BLAZER Fried chicken with spicy pickled red cabbage and blue cheese dressing

HELLA FITZGERALD Fried chicken with bacon, cheddar and red-eye sausage gravy

A.C. SLAWTER Pulled pork barbecue, apple coleslaw and Lupo hot sauce

DILL NA NA

Potato onion frittata and arugula with dill mayo

PROFILE

Hausmann, bushy-haired and bearded, is former co-owner of The Boot, a popular Ghent eatery that closed in 2011. He brings the culinary chops. Porter, tall, sandy-haired, chatty, is the businessman. They’re both dreamers.

“We’ve always aimed to bring energy to the culinary scene,” Porter says.

And they have – in a big way. In 2½ years, Handsome Biscuit has become one of Tidewater’s most-talked-about kitchens. A line often snakes out the front door, and not because the place is tiny. The sandwiches have been featured in national media. Handsome Biscuit’s success has spurred Porter and Hausmann to open three more eateries, Toast, Field Guide and Dear Dandelions, which also have proved popular.

Of course, the foundation for their success was laid by the simple sweet potato biscuit – soft and golden, a trace of the tuber’s flavor.

Their biscuit is as wide as a saucer, and half that tall – or would be without all the sandwich filling. There’s a gentle sweetness about it, and a cushiony spring belies the fact that this biscuit is firm enough to cradle the sandwich’s ample contents. In a frenzied corner of Handsome Biscuit's kitchen, these come to life four dozen at a time, emerging from the oven every 30 minutes. In a week’s time, Handsome Biscuit serves as many as 5,000 of them.

Hausmann and Porter considered offering other types, maybe cheddar or rosemary. “But in the end,” says Porter, “we only have 600 square feet.” So as Henry Ford might say, you can have any kind of biscuit you want, as long as it’s sweet potato. That’s OK, though, because the magic of the place comes from what they do with those biscuits.

Take the A.C. Slawter (a spin on the name of the jock in TV’s Saved by the Bell), one of 10 biscuits listed on the chalkboard menu that hangs between the small kitchen and the even smaller dining room (an embellishment; there are 12 seats). A pile of pulled pork occupies the broad chasm between biscuit top and bottom, slow cooked with Dr. Brown’s Black Cherry soda, covered with apple coleslaw and Handsome Biscuit's own hot sauce, Lupo, which gets its flavor from several ingredients, including gochujang, a Korean fermented red pepper paste.

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The biscuit is at once familiar and novel, an approach Handsome Biscuit takes with nearly all of its dishes: the Bleu Blazer melds fried chicken, spicy pickled red cabbage and blue cheese dressing; the Dill Na Na combines a potato onion frittata with arugula and dill mayonnaise.

Porter and Hausmann pride themselves on pushing boundaries, not just piling biscuits high but stuffing them with several extraordinary flavors. “We get really excited about other cuisines,” Hausmann says. “We’re making a Southern food, but does that mean we can’t explore something like curry? No.” Although they’re eager explorers, Porter and Hausmann never stray too far. Handsome Biscuit is, after all, a biscuit joint, where people should be able to pick up affordable, tasty food.

Aside from the 10 standard sandwiches, diners can choose from six sides and four desserts.

The owners talk often about “freedom from choice,” that is, not offering too many, which can be mildly stressful when folks just want to eat. And keeping their menu small helps keep costs down. No menu item exceeds $6.50. “When there are 50 choices on the menu,” says Porter, “you know that each item isn’t getting the individual thought and attention that it deserves.”

For the Handsome Biscuit team, focusing on a small, specific lineup of good menu items lets them pursue other priorities, such as sourcing ingredients locally. They get sweet potatoes and greens from the Eastern Shore, mushrooms from Southampton County, assorted vegetables from a Virginia-based cooperative.

There’s the constant tinkering, too. The crew offers a rotating special every week, an effort to bring new ideas to Handsome Biscuit.

Small teams of employees devise the recipes, source ingredients and figure the amount a biscuit should cost. An example: The Heartbreaker, made with banana, Nutella and bacon.

But underneath all those incarnations of modern cuisine is a humble biscuit, a constant that grounds these dishes in a rich legacy. And that, say Porter and Hausmann, is their goal – to create food that’s both timeless and exciting.

“We’re not thumbing our nose at tradition,” Porter says. “We’re embracing it, and using that to bring positive experiences to the table.”

Twelve seats and 600 square feet inside – and 4,000 to 5,000 biscuits served each week.

Those making it happen include Raymond Braza, top, and Brittney Rymer.

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FALL HARVEST DINNER A dinner without company is like dancing alone.

It may fulfill a need, but it’s not much fun. Likewise, a dinner party of any size is something of a partnership. One side frets over every delicious detail, decoration and assigned seat. The other side has but two responsibilities: Enjoy the food and be interesting.

That certainly wasn’t a problem on this evening, when 12 guests from across the region gathered at the barn behind the Coastal Grill in Virginia Beach for a feast.

The conversation was raucous; the food a culinary journey, from savory vegetables to tender prime rib; the night a perfect beginning to the long march of fall.

Guests included Caroline McCartney, Lisa Howard, Ben and Jenny Willis, Jim and Krista White, Clay Barbour, Alicia Guerrero, David and Stephanie Batten, and Keith and Kelly Till.

Explore the menu, with recipes starting on Page 83. dinner designed by CHEF JERRY BRYAN styling by BATTEN INTERIORS photography by KEITH LANPHER

Jerry Bryan, above, owns and runs Coastal Grill.

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RECIPES

ON THE MENU

For our Fall Harvest dinner, recipes from Jerry Bryan’s team at Coastal Grill photography by KEITH LANPHER

BONE-IN PRIME RIB

Be ready to fire up both oven and grill. Serves 12-14.

INGREDIENTS 16- to 18-pound bone-in rib-eye ¼ cup kosher salt ¼ cup freshly ground coarse black pepper 10 bay leaves 3 sprigs of rosemary PREPARATION 1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. Place rib-eye on large sheet tray, bones down, fat side up.

3. Sprinkle salt and pepper evenly across the top of the rib-eye; then follow with rosemary and bay leaves equally.

4. Place on bottom rack, uncovered, and cook for 20 minutes.

Reduce heat to 325 degrees and cook for 2½ hours or until internal temperature reaches 120 degrees (rare).

5. Take out of oven and let rest for 10 minutes.

6. Place rib-eye on a hot grill (preferably charcoal or wood-fire) and cook until internal temperature is 130 to 135 degrees (medium rare).

7. Remove from the grill and let rest for 10 minutes before slicing.

8. Discard bay leaves.

HORSERADISH CREAM INGREDIENTS 2 cups sour cream 1 cup prepared horseradish, drained (reserve liquid) ½ cup diced shallots 1 tablespoon Worcestershire Salt and pepper to taste PREPARATION 1. Whisk ingredients in a medium mixing bowl.

2. If too thick, add a bit of the liquid from horseradish.

3. Salt and pepper to taste.

Recipes by Chris Reynolds, executive chef, and Morgan Phipps, pastry chef.

DISTINCTIONHR.COM

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RECIPES

CRACKED PEPPER AND PROSCIUTTO DEVILED EGGS If you don’t have Frank’s RedHot, Texas Pete or Kim Kim can substitute.

INGREDIENTS 12 hard-boiled eggs, chilled ¼ cup cracked peppercorns ¹ ³ cup mayonnaise ¼ cup Dijon mustard 1 tablespoon Frank’s RedHot cayenne sauce 2 tablespoons sriracha 2 tablespoons lemon juice 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce Salt and pepper to taste 2 ounces prosciutto, chopped into 24 pieces ¼ cup chopped fresh chives PREPARATION 1. Peel, wash and halve eggs.

2. Empty the centers into medium mixing bowl. Dip the tops of the whites into cracked pepper.

3. Into the mixing bowl add mayonnaise, Dijon, Frank’s RedHot, sriracha, lemon juice, Worcestershire, and salt and pepper. Whisk together.

4. Put the egg mixture into a piping bag. Using a straight tip, fill each half.

5. Garnish with prosciutto and chives.

BEET-BRINED DILL DEVILED EGGS Green relish can substitute for the cornichons.

INGREDIENTS 12 hard-boiled eggs 1 can red beets 2 cups white vinegar ¹ ³ cup mayonnaise ¹ ³ cup Dijon mustard ¼ cup cornichons, diced small (about 2) ¼ cup lemon juice 24 sprigs of fresh dill; more for garnish ¹ 8 teaspoon salt and pepper Chopped parsley for garnish PREPARATION 1. Peel and wash eggs.

2. Pour beet liquid into large container and add vinegar. Submerge eggs into mixture and chill for 1 hour. (Reserve beets for use elsewhere.)

3. Halve eggs; empty centers into medium mixing bowl. Add mayonnaise, Dijon, cornichons or relish, lemon juice, dill, and salt and pepper. Whisk together.

4. Put the egg mixture into piping bag. Using a straight tip, pipe the filling into each egg.

5. Garnish with dill sprigs and parsley.

At work: left, owner Jerry Bryan, executive chef Chris Reynolds, sous chef Mark Lam and, above, pastry chef Morgan Phipps.

WHOLE OVEN-ROASTED GARLIC Serves 4.

INGREDIENTS 4 bulbs whole garlic 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 1 tablespoon sugar Salt and pepper PREPARATION 1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2. Leave garlic whole and cut off the top third of each. Peel away the loose papery skin, but leave bulb intact.

3. Place bulbs into a shallow baking dish, cut end up, and drizzle with olive oil. Then sprinkle on sugar and a pinch of salt and pepper. The excess oil is enough to lubricate the pan. Cover with aluminum foil.

4. Bake 1 hour.

WHOLE ROASTED CAULIFLOWER INGREDIENTS 1 head cauliflower Water 4 ounces unsalted butter (1 stick) Salt and pepper to taste Chopped parsley, optional PREPARATION 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Trim stem and leaves off cauliflower and cut stem so the cauliflower lies flat.

3. Place in shallow baking dish and fill with water ½ inch up the sides.

4. Roast uncovered for 1 hour.

5. Place butter in small pan on high heat. When butter starts to brown, take off heat and drizzle on top of cauliflower.

6. Sprinkle with pinch of salt and pepper. Add chopped parsley for color.

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RECIPES

FRIED SPOT

Start the bacon sauce after you fry the fish. Frying times vary depending on size of fish, but it typically takes 2-3 minutes. Serves 6.

For the fish INGREDIENTS 6 fresh spot 4 cups milk Canola oil 3-to-1 mixture of cornmeal and flour Salt to taste PREPARATION 1. Scale, gut and gill the spot. Rinse thoroughly with cold water.

2. On each side of the fish make 3 scores evenly across, from just behind the pectoral fin to the tail.

3. Soak in milk.

4. Heat oil to 350 degrees in a deep fryer or large pot.

5. Remove fish from milk (do not pat dry) and dredge in cornmeal mixture.

6. Shake off excess and slowly lower fish into fryer head first, holding the tail.

7. To test for doneness, bend fish at the scoring; meat should be cooked all the way to the spine.

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FOOD 2015

8. Place on dry paper towels or cooling rack and salt lightly.

For the sauce INGREDIENTS 1 pound slab of bacon (sliced slab if whole is not available) 2 ounces unsalted butter (½ stick) 3 tablespoons bacon grease 6 cloves garlic, chopped 2 lemons, zested 1 tablespoon chopped parsley ¼ cup lemon juice 1 teaspoon kosher salt PREPARATION 1. If using whole-slab, trim off rind and cut into uniform batonnets (¼ inch by ¼ inch by 1½ inches). If using regular bacon, cut into half-inch pieces.

2. Place in large skillet and render until golden brown on all sides.

3. Separate bacon from grease (do not discard grease).

4. Into a small saucepan place butter, bacon grease, garlic, bacon and lemon zest.

5. On high heat, stir ingredients until garlic starts to brown.

6. Throw in chopped parsley, followed by lemon juice and salt.

7. Pour evenly onto the fish.

RECIPES

PUMPKIN SPICE POTS DE CREME Garnish with white chocolate caramel corn clusters (recipe follows).

INGREDIENTS 1 quart heavy cream 6 ounces white granulated sugar, divided ¼ teaspoon cinnamon Big pinch of nutmeg and allspice 5¼ ounces egg yolks (about 8 to 10 large eggs) ¾ cup pumpkin puree

HATTERAS CLAM CHOWDER INGREDIENTS 1 pound bacon (half applewood-smoked, half regular) 1 ham hock 2 bay leaves 6 garlic cloves, sliced thin ½ bunch celery, medium dice 1 large yellow onion, medium dice 12 cups chopped clams in brine (or, if canned, about 2 51-ounce cans) 9 cups water 2 Idaho potatoes, peeled 2 large carrots, peeled ¹ ³ cup fresh thyme leaves; more for garnish Salt and pepper to taste PREPARATION 1. Cut bacon into 1 centimeter (about ½ inch) slices (rondelle cut) and place in large pot.

2. Add bacon, ham hock, bay leaves and garlic.

3. Render the bacon on medium-low until crispy, continually stirring to keep bacon from sticking.

4. Add celery and onion; sweat until translucent.

5. Add clams and water. Stir, turning the heat up to high.

6. Bring chowder to boil for a couple minutes, then turn it down to medium-low, again stirring.

7. Simmer for 30 minutes.

8. Meanwhile, dice the potatoes and carrots into ½ centimeter (about ¼ inch) cubes (macedoine cut). Add to the pot when the 30 minutes is up.

9. Let chowder boil again, this time for 5 minutes or until potatoes and carrots are al dente.

10. Remove from heat and stir in thyme.

11. Salt and pepper to taste.

12. Garnish with small pat of butter and a sprig of fresh thyme.

PREPARATION 1. Set oven to 325 degrees.

2. Boil heavy cream with 4 ounces of sugar and all the spices.

3. Separate egg yolks from the whites and place in large steel bowl with 2 ounces of sugar. Discard whites or use elsewhere. Whisk yolks until slightly lighter in color.

4. When the cream comes to a boil, temper it into the egg mixture: Slowly pour it into the egg and sugar, whisking constantly until they are combined. If you see egg chunks, just strain the mixture when you are done combining them.

5. Add pumpkin puree and mix with wooden spoon.

6. Portion mixture into ungreased dishes of your choosing. Put them into deep pan and place on middle rack of oven.

7. Fill pan with water – warm or hot – to ⅓ the height of the dishes and bake until custards are slightly jiggly, but set (typically 30 to 45 minutes).

8. Remove from oven and cool.

9. Serve chilled, garnished with caramel corn.

WHITE CHOCOLATE CARAMEL CORN CLUSTERS For the caramel corn, Morgan Phipps prefers Cracker Jacks.

INGREDIENTS 1 cup coconut, toasted 1 cup cracked macadamia nuts, toasted 6 cups caramel corn 3 cups white chocolate, melted 1 cup dark chocolate, melted ¹ ³ cup cocoa nibs (or mini dark chocolate chips) PREPARATION 1. In a large saucepan, toast the coconut and transfer to a large bowl.

2. Toast the cracked macadamia nuts next and add them to the bowl.

3. Add the caramel corn.

4. In a medium to large saucepan or in a microwave-safe bowl, melt the white chocolate. Pour it over the dry mixture and toss until everything is coated.

5. Lay out on flat sheet tray covered with parchment.

6. Melt the dark chocolate and drizzle it over caramel corn.

Sprinkle cocoa nibs on top.

7. Set in a cool, dry place.

8. Break up into clusters and store in airtight container.

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Delicious Seafood starts here!

Join us and enjoy our family’s passion for great seafood at Dock of the Bay Seafood Restaurant.

Dine-in • Carry-out or Private parties!

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