When I moved to the nation’s capital from South Carolina, I knew that I could not afford to live, the way I had back home, on the water or in trendy neighborhoods with shops and restaurants. Perhaps I could have rented or purchased a much smaller house, but I really wanted an extra room for my guests. I also wanted access to public transportation and nearby parks, where my dog could run and play. So my partner and I bought a house in a...
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Some of the following essay appeared in The Washington Post on January 17, 2007: Going Whole Hog Here we are in mid-January, the month of ascetic resolutions, and there’s only one diet book among the top 50 national bestsellers. Fatty cuts of pork, lardo, and bacon sales have increased dramatically in restaurants the past few years. Ten years ago, the only place you might see the words “pork belly” were in stock market reports, futures in this...
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KAREN HESS November 11, 1918 — May 15, 2007 Here’s my very personal essay about my relationship with Karen Hess, a version of which appears in the Fall 2007 Gastronomica. For more about Karen, see John’s Work. Karen gave me this photograph of her and her beloved husband John. I’m sorry to say that I don’t know who took the photo. I also am not sure who took this other...
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A version of the following article originally appeared in Fine Cooking. Cat-head Biscuits Most southerners grew up, as I did, eating lard biscuits, light and flaky, yes, but seldom bigger than a fifty-cent piece or a silver dollar — and not too tall, either. When the fast-food joints got wind of the popularity of the humble quick bread some twenty years ago, they started serving a biscuit that barely resembled those of my youth. Filled...
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from Hoppin’ John’s Lowcountry Cooking Before Hurricane Hugo roared into Charleston on September 21, 1989, a native persimmon tree said to be the oldest in the country (indeed, in the world, since native persimmons only grow in the New World) gracefully shadowed the lawn of Peter Manigault’s old house in Ansonborough, a few blocks north of my home and bookstore. It was over 80 feet tall before the...
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The following essay first appeared, in a slightly different form, in Country Home magazine. It’s about my relationship with pocket knives and kitchen knives, though today, living in a post-9/11 Washington, I no longer carry a pocket knife because it seems you can’t go anywhere without passing through a metal detector. I feel naked without...
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