The House of Pizza (that is, the “Original House of Pizza” on John C. Calhoun Drive) in Orangeburg, SC, is definitely my favorite. I’m not any kind of pizza connoisseur, but this place has consistently delivered pizza that I loved growing up: Granted, it is thus probably a sentimental favorite. It was a fixture for birthday dinners treated by my aunt and uncle when I was a teenager. It has a large Greek house salad that is good for sharing before the pizza comes. The Coke is exceptionally good (sweet–lots of syrup?). There are a lot of other interesting things on the menu (e.g., souvlaki), but every time I go I have to order a pepperoni and mushroom pizza, which I never regret: It always has lots of cheese and a thin crust. I don’t usually eat the edge of a pizza crust, but I do here. When my wife, who grew up in Orangeburg, and I return home to South Carolina, this is one of several spots we like to visit regularly.
(The others, for other posts, are Dukes BBQ by Fire Station No. 2 and Sub Station II. Also, my wife liked to get boneless chicken from the Chinese food restaurant that used to be an old Hardees across from McDonalds further south on John C Calhoun Dr. With four “must-have” meals out plus whatever my mother had planned to cook for us–hopefully fried chicken–we had to start rotating where we went when we only came down for a weekend.)
There are three nominees for my favorite fried chicken. In chronological order, they are as follows:
1970s – Rachel’s in Ehrhardt, SC. Â My family sometimes went there after church on Sunday when I was little. It was a family-style restaurant in a beautiful, white, old house with a wraparound gray porch. I remember in particular two things–one was once chasing a lizard around the concrete steps to that porch, and the other is the fried chicken being the highlight of any visit. I once went back to the kitchen and saw it being cooked on the stove in huge cast-iron pans. It was a long time ago, so I don’t recall what made it so good, but I do remember it was delicious.
1980s – Zach’s cafe on the campus of Wofford College, Spartanburg, SC. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, lunch could be a tight fit for any student who had one class ending at 12:20 and another starting at 1pm. To relieve some of the pressure on the cafeteria during that lunch crunch, they started offering lunch at the small cafe across campus near the (now old) football field. One of their dishes which I tried not to miss on the days it was served was fried chicken. The chicken breasts were large, juicy, and remarkably flavorful. I wondered for a couple of decades how they got such a good flavor throughout the meat, which was good not just by the skin but well on down to the bone.
2000s – Home. When I was growing up, my mother always let each child pick what he or she wanted to eat on his or her birthday. For a while my choice was always steak, particularly when Dad started marinating them in Italian dressing before grilling them. As a teenager, quantity became more important and I switched to Mom’s spaghetti. After I moved to Boston for grad school, though, I started requesting Mom’s fried chicken. Mom had given me her old electric frypan when I moved away. I used it in our first apartments mostly for French toast, pancakes, and fried chicken. I did most of the cooking, but on my birthday, my loving wife Debbie would oblige me with fried chicken, even though she didn’t like how grease splattered all over everything, made the apartment (later, house) smell greasy, and required a lot of attention and time for turning and adjusting the temperature while it cooked in several batches. We started with my mom’s recipe, who had in turn gotten it from her mother-in-law (with the addition of garlic salt, courtesy of my grandmother’s cook). Somewhere in the 2000s, I started using brine for some pork and chicken recipes on the grill. This led to brining the turkey I roasted for Thanksgiving as well as the realization that this was probably the source of the flavor I had enjoyed in the fried chicken from Zach’s at Wofford. In addition to this leap in the flavor of the chicken, my wife also purchased a large Fry Daddy, in which she could deep-fry a whole chicken all at once, more quickly, with less splatter, and without any need for turning and temperature adjustment. Whereas before having Debbie’s Fried Chicken was a once-a-year occurrence on my birthday, now sometimes I come home from work or a bike ride to be delightfully surprised by the aroma of chicken frying–e.g., simply because chicken was on sale at the store. Between the flavor, the frequency, and the availability, I have to give the nod for the winner to DFC.
As an aside, I note that Debbie making fried chicken is certainly an exception to the “10,000-Hour Rule”. Making chicken on average only about 1.1 times for 15 years (maybe 20-30 hours) in 2006, she was definitely an expert by then.
The turkey which stands out is one my mother made (of course) when I was around 9. She used a turkey cooker that I think she inherited from her mother-in-law. The cooker was like a miniature oven with a glass top that sat on the counter–like a turkey-sized, rectangular crock pot. That year’s turkey was very flavorful and very juicy. Shortly after that year, she started using cooking bags and/or her microwave oven to make her turkeys. She also became a hypertension nurse in later years, and her use of salt went down dramatically. Some turkeys were still good, but none stood out like that particular year’s.
My own mother-in-law uses a similar old cooker now, despite a fancy convection oven, and she produces similarly tasty results.
Runner-up #2 would be my own turkey from around 2000-2001. I started cooking turkeys in 1989 when Debbie and I celebrated our first Thanksgiving together in her junior-year college apartment. I hit my stride at the turn of the century with a few nicely juicy birds. What really made them stand out, though, was the dark, rich gravy. Some mom–Debbie’s or mine–couldn’t believe it had not been enhanced with something to turn it brown, but mostly it was the result of basting the bird with real butter and de-glazing the pan to make the gravy. My roast turkey with stuffing and gravy recipe, which I’ve followed with varying success since, is in an off-blog post on this site —http://joeyhand.com/docs/turkey.html.
My next turkey project, though, is to barbecue the bird–split it open and cook on a slow grill for 5 hours or so. I might try it for Christmas–Debbie and her father seemed up for it, and her mom had just wanted to freeze their Thanksgiving leftovers and serve those along with a new ham, but we nixed that idea. The danger is if it doesn’t come out good, it puts a damper on Christmas dinner. Also, there’s no stuffing or yummy, rich, dark-brown gravy. Still, I’d like to try it soon.
A few years ago, I heard an NPR Thanksgiving-themed broadcast about historically-accurate alternatives to turkey. The alternative advocate argued along the lines of, “How often do you go to a nice restaurant and order roast turkey when it’s not Thanksgiving? Never, because it’s a dry, hard-to-cook meat.” Although I prefer turkey, I have to admit he did have a point: I never order turkey in a restaurant–with the exception of an occasional deli turkey sandwich. The recommended options, which would have been available to and possibly also eaten by the Pilgrims, were leg of lamb, salmon, or capon. Lamb and salmon are intriguing, although I don’t plan to try any of them any time soon on the fourth Thursday in November.
The best shrimp I had was at the No Name Restaurant on the pier in Boston around 1992. It was in a garlic-white wine sauce with carrots and cauliflower, but what really stood out was how tender it was.
My parents, who love seafood, were up visiting us while we were in grad school. My wife, who did not like seafood then, ordered a hamburger steak and got an openly-skeptical, but good-natured, look from the waiter. I have been back to Boston a few times since but have not been back to any of the pier restaurants since they are kind of tricky to get to. I might also note that Anthony’s Pier 4 was out of our price range at the time.
This is the first in a series of posts describing a running list of Best-something’s I’ve kept in my head over the last 20 years or so.
The first entry that I can recall is for best Chinese food, which was at Panda’s, in Ball Square in Somerville, MA.
It was a favorite of my wife (then fiancée) when I moved up to the Boston area in 1991 for graduate school, and I quickly became enamored of the fried rice with sweet and sour pork. The fried rice had a smoky flavor, possibly from sesame oil, that I haven’t found anywhere else, and the sweet and sour sauce contained pineapple, onion, and bell pepper. I don’t care for bell pepper, but the rest was memorable.
After we got married and moved out to Waltham, we tried other Chinese restaurants in Waltham and Newton, but each time Debbie asked, “So how is it?”, my very-consistent-but-truthful answer was, “[One of ‘Ok/Good/All right’] but not as good as Panda’s.” After two years in Waltham and one year in Durham, NC, saying “not as good as Panda’s,” we went back to the Boston area on vacation and made sure to get some sweet and sour pork from Panda’s. Again, my wife asked, “So how is it?” Despite three years of buildup, I finally answered, “Surprisingly, as good as Panda’s. Just like I remember.”
Unfortunately, a later trip to Boston (and reconnaissance on Google Streetview) revealed that while there is still a Chinese restaurant there, it’s not Panda’s.
Tonight at supper, Pete complained that he didn’t want to eat his squash because he didn’t like squash. Hard for most parents to imagine, I’m sure. I commented, “The parenting books say that if your child says he doesn’t like something, he should try it 15 times before you stop forcing it on him. 15 times!”
Pete made a funny face, laughed, and said “Parenting book?!?!!” thinking that I was pulling his leg that there would actually be A Parenting Book. Apparently, to a 9-year-old, a book on parenting is just a big joke. At which point Debbie, who procures our vast library of parenting books, went and pulled one from the shelf that seemed relevant to the conversation at hand, “Kid Cooperation: How to Stop Yelling, Nagging & Pleading and Get Kids to Cooperate.” … Frankly, with a title like that, I have to admit I’m more with Pete’s “You’re kidding me, right?” reaction. But Debbie turned to one of the 5 pages flagged with Post-It notes, and read a few items from the list, “Reminder Page – Cooperation” [p. 55]. I particularly noticed the next to last one, “Use Humor,” which actually works pretty well with Pete.
I walked in to the bookshelf and grabbed several more off the shelf to show Pete there was actually more than one and then read the titles:
“Perfect Parenting. Obviously, Daddy’s got this one down pat. Look, there’s even a bicycle on the cover because a perfect parent rides a bicycle.”
“When We’re in Public, Pretend You Don’t Know Me: Surviving Your Daughter’s Adolescence So You Don’t Look Like an Idiot and She Still Talks to You. … Ok, this one, I think the secret is not to use so many words and you don’t look like an idiot.”
Villa della Luna 5-pc place setting (plate and bowl recalled)
After using the same everyday plates and dishes since I was in grad school and Debbie was still an undergrad, we decided to get some new dinnerware about two years ago. We browsed the Pfaltzgraff outlet over in Burlington, but could not find a pattern we both liked. Last year, we decided to make a more concerted effort as our Christmas present to each other. After going around to several department stores, we had found exactly one pattern we both liked, but agreed it was too expensive. Browsing more online, I found the Villa della Luna pattern by Pfaltzgraff. It was bright and a little more showy than what Debbie and I had been considering, but when she saw it, she immediately agreed that it was for us. After looking at actual pieces in a local store, I made a last-minute run to the Burlington outlet the night before we left for Christmas in SC. When I got there, they had some very pretty blue salad plates in addition to the square salad plates Debbie had admired. Not only were they attractive, but they were on sale, so I bought a half-dozen of them as a bonus Christmas surprise for Debbie, in addition to a ‘traditional’ set for 12–dinner plates, square salad plates, and soup/cereal bowls (who needs mugs?)–that we had agreed on.
In SC, Debbie had another dinnerware surprise in addition to the blue salad plates. We showed my parents the one place setting we had brought down for that purpose. My mother then showed us the Christmas present she had intended for us–a ‘new’ set of the pattern she had given us 17 years earlier that she had found in a local antique/used-furniture store.* On the bright side, the new pattern did give my mother a whole new realm of gifts that she likes to give.
Then, in the spring, I read about a recall of the Villa della Luna plates and one of the two patterns of soup/cereal bowls. We called the store, but they said they did not have any information about when or if new plates/bowls would be available. We then had to decide whether to 1) return everything, in case the pattern was discontinued, 2) return just the plates and bowls for a credit to use against new plates in a different pattern, or 3) hold on to them until we knew more about Pfaltzgraff’s plans for the pattern. We chose #3–wait and see.
In the summer, we heard they planned to make the plates again in October. In October, we saw a new dinner plate one the website where there had been no dinner plate, but it was very plain compared to the one we had. However, after eating off an assortment of mismatched plastic plates for six months, we were ready for some real plates. I took a half-day off so that we could go to the store together to see the new plate and other, similar patterns and to return our recalled pieces.
Before we went, I called the Pfaltzgraff store and their recall hotline, where I found out that 1) they planned to have the original pattern available (hopefully without the lead and cadmium) before Christmas and 2) the Pfaltzgraff outlet stores were closing and had everything 40% or more off. (Future purchases could be made online.) We ended up returning our recalled pieces for a TBD credit, hoping to get a 1-for-1 swap when the new pieces are available. We took advantage of the 40-60% off sale to get more assorted, non-recalled Villa della Luna pieces.
Caramel Swirl dinnerware
Just before we left, Debbie peeked in a separate room where they had some deeply discounted merchandise. At first nothing interested us, but in the back were some really ugly dishes in a brown Caramel Swirl pattern that looks straight from the 1970s. Somehow, thinking of them in our 1969 ranch house made them irresistable–sort of like slowing down when passing a car wreck for some people. At only $1.58 per plate, we ended up buying 8 plates and 4 pasta bowls so we could have real plates for the next six weeks, as well as appropriate tableware when we haul out the fondue sets.
*Incidentally, this was the second time we told them about something we had just bought for ourselves only to have them say they had just gotten a different version for us. The first was after we got Coppi Dog, and they had just gotten a cocker spaniel that they ended up keeping.
I’ve decided that mahi mahi is a flavor sink. Like a heat sink, it absorbs flavor in such a way the flavor seems to disappear. I’ve had it only a few times, but always at good restaurants. Every time, I’ve been underwhelmed by the taste, or lack thereof. Not only does the meat itself have no taste, but it seems to absorb into a tastelessness any sauce added to it. Last night, I had a plate of fish & chips, with malt vinegar. The chips/fries were great, and the fish–mahi mahi–was cooked well. Still, it seemed to soak up all the vinegar with very little returned as taste.
