QVC: In the Kitchen with David

ITKWD or “In the Kitchen with David” is the top rated cooking show on QVC that sells everything you could EVER want, need, dream of or not even know you need! I’d seen my friends Brandon Branch and Mrs. Paula on the show along with other authors and cooks I know or have read and always thought that such an opportunity would be so fun. Y’all, it was!!!

The opportunity presented itself several months ago and the lead time was an amazing process. Conference calls, trips to Pennsylvania for training, recipe selection, planning, planning and more planning all took time and energy to build up to the big day. If y’all are every by chance in the West Chester, PA neck of the woods, stop in and take a QVC tour – it is unbelievable in size, scale, logistics and production!

David Venable is a terrific host – warm, jovial and Southern too! Such a trait was a relief, considering that my recipe selection involved Mac-n- Cheese, Fried Okra and Sour Cream Biscuits! And, not to brag – never mind I’m bragging – my food was awarded THREE “Happy Dances” from David himself – tied for the record! Grown-up Dirt Cake, Cornmeal Catfish, Chocolate Ganache Poundcake – y’all I had enough food there for Pharaoh’s Army to feast! The food stylist and kitchen crew did an amazing job bringing my recipes to life and staging the table too! I LOVED that after the quick eight minutes of air-time, the camera and production crew descended on the table and feasted in a frenzied fashion! They kept going on and on about how good it all was… I simply told them to come on Down South for more!

 

The build up to air-time, the prep, the planning and the travel were all worth it! I hope y’all caught a glimpse of yours truly on ITKWD on QVC – it was the chance of a lifetime! I am so thankful for such an opportunity and hope to have another chance one day. Until, then, I’ll be cooking from Dinner on the Grounds and dancing a “Happy Dance” or two of my own… and maybe cooking from the pans I ordered and slicing, dicing, chopping and chiffonading from the knifes I bought too! Ha!

Iron Skillet Peach Pie

This peachy keen series has been a real peach y'all! I could (and do nearly) eat peaches nearly every meal, every day!

Early August is here and the close of peach season in my neck of the woods is drawing nigh. Thankfully 'maters and peas and other summer produce will take us into an Indian Summer and then, thankfully into fall!

I have two sets of iron skillets - one set for savory cooking and one set for sweets. There's hardly anything better than a good iron skillet, but there's hardly anything worse than a peach or apple or berry pie that tastes like onions and gravy! Trust this Farmer, keep a sweet skillet handy so you don't serve onion/gravy flavored peach pie at a dinner party!

Mimi was the source - of course - of any of my iron skillet prowess. She taught me about cooking with them, in them, seasoning them and even bringing a rusty one back to life. She told me that if the house caught on fire, grab the silver and family photos - the skillets will be just fine!

So here is one of my favorite pies in an iron skillet - peach! Followed closely by apple and bringing up the rear would be my pineapple upside cake. The iron gets so hot that the cake or pies cook quickly and give your crust some crunch and substance. Besides tasting absolutely divine, these desserts are beautifully presented in their skillet caches - one less dish to wash and allows for easy reheating!

I'm a firm believer that pies are best two ways - first out of the oven upon their baking's completion and secondly reheated in the oven. Both methods are followed by generous servings of vanilla ice cream of course. Casseroles, spaghetti and lasagna are better reheated in the oven the next day too sans vanilla ice cream!!!

As the peach season draws to a close (I'm gonna stock up on a couple late season varieties to put up), I think this dish is lovely salute to summer and Southern cooking! If you can't make it or bake it in an iron skillet, you may need to think about what you're cooking!

Enjoy y'all!

Recipe from A Time to Cook – Dishes from My Southern Sideboard

Photography by Helen Norman

2 piecrusts*

12 or so peaches, peeled or skin on

3 ½ tablespoons minute tapioca

1 scant cup sugar

½ teaspoon almond extract

2 tablespoons cinnamon, divided

3 tablespoons drawn butter

1/8 cup vanilla sugar**

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Roll out the piecrusts, lining the dough into a deep-dish iron skillet. Reserve the second crust for the topper; cut out leaf shapes or weave a lattice if you’re feeling crafty.

Mix together peaches, tapioca, sugar, almond and 1 tablespoon cinnamon in a large bowl; set aside.

Add peach mixture to the pie pan and then start your leaf topper. Begin in the center and work outwards, covering and layering the leaves in rough concentric rings. If not using leaf shapes, just cover the pie and seal the top edges to the bottom crust with fingers or a fork.

Glaze the top with the drawn butter and then sprinkle with a mixture of vanilla sugar and remaining 1 tablespoon cinnamon. If the top is a solid piece, cut a couple of slits for ventilation. Place pie pan on a baking sheet in case of spillovers, and bake until golden and bubbly, about 1 hour. If you want it pretty for serving, let it rest; otherwise, dig right in! Peach mush tastes just fine!

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream – or homemade crème fresh.

*Use Tart Dough recipe, page 164, or your own favorite recipe. Otherwise, a store-bought piecrust is one of the best inventions around.

**Vanilla sugar is sugar infused with a vanilla bean pod. After scraping clean a vanilla seed pod, insert the pod into a sugar container and allow the essences of the two to meld together. Keep adding pods and sugar as you use the two and you’ll have vanilla sugar for years!

Farmdale Inspiration

This a rendering of the Leroy Post Office, Leroy, Alabama - Big Napp's hometown.

 

My cousin, Julia Harwell Segar, captured in watercolor and pencil the very essence of this timber framed, metal roof clad building back in 1977 - five years before I was born. This painting has hung at my Mimi and Granddaddy's house my entire life, yet it wasn't until design classes at Auburn would I learn that roofline was a "clipped hip" type of gable... I just knew I liked the look of it.

When I first saw Spitzmiller and Norris' rendering of Farmdale Cottage, I knew it was meant to be the "look" of my home. Farmdale boasts a prominent center gable with a clipped hip: a feature I've longed for with that sense of longing a home can bring to a Southerner's nostalgic mindset. And I didn't tell my architects this either - serendipitous and divine perhaps...

We are a people influenced by our people. Genetics don't lend us eye color and balding patterns alone, they give us our taste and even design prowess I think. An artist friend of mine who moved from The South after college said longingly that he "thought Southerners were innately good artists and designers. It's in blood. Just look at their homes!"

I concur with my friend. My family has a saying we refer to as "seed corn." Meaning, that an ear of corn can drop "seed" or it's kernels and generations can sprout forth from there. Yet, the seed corn may produce exact genetic replicas or maybe even different versions. Taller stalked, longer leaved, speckled kernels ... Whatever the outcome of the seed corn's germination, sometimes something really interesting happens a generation or two later.

I love cooking, design, blue and white china, gardening and walking down our country road (not running mind you). I love my family and love feeding them. These aren't unique qualities by any stretch, but my great-grandmother, Eugenia Tate Granade, loved all these things too. These exact same things.

I'm her seed corn. Though I never knew her, my affinity for birds, love of country, bucolic landscapes, admiration for pansies and violas and nandina berries and walks in the country are directly from her. Big Napp has always told me I reminded him of his mama - one of my highest complements and honors.

Mrs. Genie Granade is my great-grandmother of mention while Jeanie Granade Farmer was my mother - a little more seed corn for y'all. Mrs. Genie loved writing too - and was a stickler for grammar. I get that from her too. Mrs. Genie would quickly correct anyone out of love, for she loved the King's English and her students too much to speak incorrectly. She believed as I do that it is absolutely and perfectly wonderful to be from towns like Leroy or Perry or Hawkinsville - just don't give those towns a bad reputation with your speech! I've terrified too many friends with grammatical corrections. I'm not a grammar saint by any measure, but I do believe that folks do not know they're using the pronoun "I" incorrectly - it's a rampant epidemic!!! Another post for another time y'all.

Mrs. Genie walked everyday from her small farmhouse to the Leroy post office. She also drank one small "co-cola" everyday too. This several mile walk was her exercise, and she tread this path nearly year round and well into her twilight years. Akin to Miss Elizabeth Bennett's belief in the nobility of walking the English countryside, Mrs. Genie's jaunts to the post office were parallel in her belief too that these walks were enlightening, dignified and superb for one's mental and physical well being.

Now, as Farmdale Cottage is taking shape, I'm seeing the roofline come to life and can't help but be reminded of the Leroy post office. Maybe this seed corn has indeed sprouted up like his great-grandmother in a landscape he loves and surrounded by family too. And maybe, just maybe, if I look down my country road with hope and whimsy and nostalgia, I might see Mrs. Genie walking towards Farmdale. I'll have a "co-cola" in a small glass bottle awaiting her.

Farmdale Cottage – an Introduction Y’all!

A while back, I sold my house in Kathleen. My plan was to move into my family’s home in Perry and promptly begin building. Promptly/Two-Years-Later I have begun building. I did manage to publish A Time to Cook and Dinner on the Grounds in the meantime… and open my store and office in Downtown Perry. Thus, the last couple of years haven’t been that unproductive! The last year in particular has been tough too with some major familial changes too – we lost both my Mimi (maternal grandmother) and my Mama (my mama) within a year. But, the Good Lord giveth when He taketh and Baby Napp came to us all just before Mimi and Mama’s passing – and not a moment too soon!

 

What this Farmer needed was a fresh start in an old place. A new house to call my own and start over in a sense – a new house that would be home for not just me, but the homeplace for my sisters, Maggie and Meredith, and their burgeoning families. We Farmer “chillrun” needed our own nest to fly back to. A new nest full of promise and hope and happiness for the “new normal” that has become our lives. It is with that macabre humor yet hopefully positive spin I present to y’all “Farmdale Cottage.”

 

“Farmdale Cottage” is the name of the new nest for yours truly and for my sisters to call home. It sits within a dale in the woods of my family’s land in Perry. My aunt and uncle are literally on the same property. That means for all our family gatherings and holidays, we will all be like Christopher Robin – deep in the hundred acre wood! We will all be together for those times most importantly, but we can all be together in our own beds… who am I kidding, we all end up piled together like we did as children. Some things never change!

 

A little history…

When I was fourteen, Mama and Daddy took us to visit the “Centennial House” in Atlanta. It was the 1996 Summer Olympic Games and Southern Living had built said house under the design of Spitzmiller and Norris. Over the next eighteen years, I would stalk the streets of Buckhead and eagle-eye homes I just new Robert Norris and Rick Spitzmiller had their hands on. Their website became a beacon of design hope and a resource for inspiration and good taste. Never did I imagine that this dream team of architects and their amazing firm would be designing my very own home!

 

As a designer, an editor-at-large with Southern Living and an author, I have the marvelous opportunity to travel The South and visit fantastic homes and charming towns. Of course, I end up meeting awesome people too, thus my Christmas card list grows with each story assignment or book tour! One day though, I was home in Perrydise perusing through a nearly ancient copy of a Southern Living house plans book I had grabbed from the grocery check-out line years ago. I’m a bit of a magazine hoarder (first step is admitting right?) and I stumbled on a plan for a cottage designed by Spitzmiller and Norris. It was a Coastal Living plan but still in the SL fam. Anyways, I looked and looked at that plan and kept thinking that the house seemed so familiar. “Had I been there?” I kept asking myself. “Was this a showhouse I toured and just don’t recall?”

 

The house was simply meant to be my house. It felt familiar and “homey” simply just looking at it from the pages of the magazine. I knew this was the cottage for me! The home for this Farmer to build in his dale! A short time later, I find myself in the Atlanta HQ of “Rick and Bobby’s” architectural firm – becoming fast friends with their team and the two principle architects as well. Anytime a group of Southerners bands together to talk about architecture, homeplaces, family and paint colors, you know it is going to be a fun time! I couldn’t be any more thrilled with the plans, for Robert took some of my crazy ideas and integrated them into the plans. He thus revamped the SL plan for yours truly and made the house plan my new home’s plan. And, don’t be too surprised if this little project ends up in the magazine… I’m just saying… wink, wink, nod, nod.

 

Each day, I annoy and distract my builders (my pals with Wall2Wall construction out of Hawkinsville) with questions and ideas (I tell them that they’re not “change orders” but “ideas for improvement”), and I wake up like I did as a young boy excited for Christmas morning – but now to see the house’s progress and not what Santa brought. But… if  Santa is reading, I’m sure I can be really, really good from now until Christmas and maybe I can get those andirons I’ve been drooling over? Or maybe some more pecky cypress beams? I digress…

 

If any of y’all have ever built a home, you know it is a PROCESS!!! A tedious and slow process but then some things come at you so fast you almost have to close your eyes and point! You have to pick out appliances, wood selections, plumbing fixtures and all sorts of things you never imagined in a jiffy and then wait 3 months! Yes, my day job is designing and making my clients’ homes and gardens lovely places to call home, but when it is MY house I have a tough time! The cobbler’s kids never have shoes and the designer’s house is a mess! Ha! Thankfully, I have a FABULOUS design team at JFI, so they love helping me I’m sure! Ha! I entice them with peach ice cream and cobbler from Lane’s and then “oh yeah, we’re just going to stop real quick by Farmdale…” At least they get some cobbler right?

 

I did enter the project with a few things I knew I wanted and would not settle – unless that pesky ol’ “b” word raised its ugly head…budget! I knew I wanted a metal roof, board and batten siding stained dark, a brick foundation with large semi-louvered panels, old brick floors where I wasn’t using heart pine, heart pine countertops, painted brick somewhere and true, working shutters. Knowing that, I then have to focus on other elements, but KNOWING for certain some of the key components to the home is very settling. Knowing a few major elements is like having a North Star to keep you focused and on target.

 

So, here is a rendering from my fantastic friends at Spitzmiller and Norris of “Farmdale Cottage.” I’ve catalogued pictures along the way, so stay tuned to the “Farmdale Chronicles” for updates on the house. I hope y’all enjoy this series. I’m going to need your support to get through it and get into it!!! Can’t wait to host my first dinner party! Until, then, the construction continues… “Lord willing and the creek don’t rise!”

Amaretto Peach Bake with Honey-Lemon Olive Oil Cake

Almond and peach flavors are totally apropos for one another – probably because they’re cousins! Peaches are in the almond family. Just take a gander at a peach pit’s inner pit or the blossoms even – you’ll see the family connection for sure! I won’t bore you with the horticultural nomenclature, Latin naming, bark similarities and inner cambium layers of their trunks: just trust me – they’re related!

My sisters and I had the best extension of siblings with our first cousins growing and still do today! Something about having your own playmates from your own family tree is so fun. Growing up in a small town, we often were mistaken as “oh he’s one of those Brantley kids” or “she’s that Farmer girl isn’t she?” and for the sake of not splitting hairs, we’d just answer “ yes’m or yes sir” accordingly. We’ve always been glad to be the from the same tribe!

The kissin’ cousins in this recipe are the amaretto cookies, almond liqueur and the peaches. They are a household of flavor all to themselves! I can remember my Mema, my great-grandmother, and my Mimi, my grandmother, being the most temperate of ladies – “lips that touch wine shan’t touch mine!” was often exclaimed. Yet, there was always a bottle of almond liqueur, grand manier, sherry or Lydia Pinkum cough syrup somewhere in the pantry or medicine cabinet! I guess they had to say such an expression because they married Baptists. I digress…

Taking inspiration from close relations, my Amaretto Peach Bake in Dinner on the Grounds is that familial combination of flavor relations baked together with the freshness of the season and complementary tastes. Plus, it couldn’t be an easier dessert (or breakfast) for the summertime. I even serve it with ice cream, whipped cream or even with a side slice of cake! However you decide to serve it, just make sure you have plenty! You’ll realize how MANY cousins you have when you make a dessert like this!

Amaretto Peach Bake with Honey-Lemon Olive Oil Cake

Recipe from Dinner on the Grounds – Southern Suppers and Soirées

Photography by Emily Followill  

Amaretto Peach Bake

4 peaches, halved and pitted (peeled, if desired)

1 1/2 cups amaretto liqueur

2 dozen small amaretto cookies, crushed

8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter

Whipped cream, optional

Mint or basil for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place peaches in baking dish, pit side up. Fill each pit with a heaping tablespoon of cookies and top with 1 tablespoon butter.

Pour amaretto around peaches, making a vat of liqueur.

Cover loosely with foil and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until peaches are completely soft.

Serve with whipped cream or ice cream.

Garnish with mint or basil. I love the essence the basil gives off with the warm peaches.

Farmer's Note: I like the keep the skin on because it helps the peaches hold together. 

Honey-Lemon Olive Oil Cake 

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups plain yogurt (not low-fat)

2/3 cup olive oil

1 cup honey

1 teaspoon good vanilla

2 heaping tablespoons grated lemon zest (from 2 large lemons)

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

2 1/2 cups flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9-inch springform pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk eggs lightly. Add yogurt, olive oil, honey, vanilla, lemon zest and juice, whisking till combined. Add remaining ingredients and whisk until just smooth and no lumps remain - but do not over whisk though. 

Pour the batter into the cake pan and bake for 60-70 minutes, until a tester comes out clean (cover with foil if the top is getting too dark toward the end). Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes; remove from pan and let cool completely.

This cake will stay fresh for several days, well wrapped.