Food is Memories

It's a pretty terrific lunch that makes people change their evening plans.

Unlike last year, I hadn't bothered with Fire, Flour and Fork at all this time around. That is, at least until today's irresistible lunch, poetically dubbed the 100 Meter Journey.

Unlike some people there, I immediately got the reference, having seen the film "The Hundred Foot Journey" last September at the Bowtie.

So I knew about the story of an Indian family (and their talented son who cooks) having to flee their home and restaurant due to political unrest before landing in France to open a restaurant, hilariously named Maison Mumbai, across the street from a one Michelin star French restaurant run by the imperious Helen Mirren.

I recall fondly that there were two romances, the young (attractive and earnest Indian chef and bike-riding French sous chef) and old (uptight French widow and garrulous Indian widower) to remind us that food and love go hand in hand. The lesson? Fine cuisine is not an old, tired marriage but a passionate affair.

The upshot of the movie was simple: food is memories.

So when I saw that Amour Wine Bistro and Curry Craft were combining forces for this 100 meter journey as part of FFF, I wanted some of that passion.

Arriving as a singleton guaranteed that I'd be seated with whomever had room for me, which negated any chance of sitting with any of the people I saw and knew.

Fortunately, though, it landed me at a table with familiar faces, two handsome guys I've repeatedly met around town at wine dinners and restaurants, where they welcomed me in. Another stray joined us and we were four.

I knew from past encounters how much fun these two can be, as evidenced by their favorite parlor game when at Lemaire. It's called "Wife, daughter, hooker?" and they play it any time they see a younger woman with an older man at the Jefferson.

Good times.

Today's journey began humorously with Kir Royals and Amour's French owner Paul welcoming us to, "Fi - ah - I hate that word - fi-ah, flour, whatever it is!"

Whatever it was, we were about to find out.

Our first course of shrimp and grits "Pondicherry," which was Curry Craft's chef Mel Oza's sassy take on the southern staple, set a high bar for the rest of the meal. Using upma with aromatic spices instead of grits, he'd created a fresh take on a ubiquitous standard.

Savoring it with Cave de Beblenheim Heimberger Pinot Blanc, I polished it off right down to the tasty nasturtium leaves adorning the plate.

My table companions had already been to multiple FFF events and proceeded to regale me with details about them, both food and people-wise. Someone mentioned that at the afterparty at Pasture last night, the chef had roasted a whole pig.

"That's right up Jason's alley," one of the guys commented, not realizing until the words came out his own cleverness given that Jason's last name is Alley. Hearing about the dinner at L'Opossum, I wasn't the least surprised to hear of the giant statue of David on the roof or the marquee name guest.

But all conversation ceased when cups of French onion consomme arrived, a crusty circle of a giant crouton atop each one and paired with another Beblenheim, this time a lovely, dry Riesling that set off the savory soup to perfection.

The last few spoonfuls of Chef Rob's soup-soaked bread were nothing short of sublime.

We were knee-deep in conversation about eating out habits - trying new places versus craving familiar favorites - when cordial glasses of Calvados sorbet arrived, fetchingly garnished with apple slices. Our table must have been very, very good because we each got two.

Okay, so they actually had a few left over and we were happy to sip more Calvados.

Sadly then, one in our group had to leave (prior engagement involving flowers), reducing us to a trio, but the loss was his.

The room was considerably louder by that point, no doubt due to several rounds of wine but also, maybe, because it was a gloomy, gray day outside and we were all comfortably ensconced inside with this parade of French and Indian-influenced food to keep us happily occupied.

Familiar faces continued to stop by my table on their path to the bathrooms, spurring discussions of thrift store dresses (hers and mine), over-priced oysters and why it's easy to skip certain restaurants.

Slow-roasted salmon with Allepy spices melted in our mouths (was that a hint of Pernod?) but just as gorgeous were the accompanying root vegetables - radishes, leeks, local carrots -and the decadent cardamom-ginger emulsion they were swimming in, washed down with Jean Sablenay Touraine Sauvignon Blanc, a seductive sipper.

By this point, we were probably three hours into our lunch and had already learned that chefs are terrible with microphones.

As we began each course, the chef who'd prepared it (Rob of Amour or Mel of Curry Craft) would talk about the dish, barely speaking into the mic and completely unintelligible from our perch in the back. But Paul, the former DJ, was a master with the mic talking about the wine pairings, projecting his voice to the rafters, even to us.

Cue disco ball. Some jobs just require an experienced DJ.

Our first red wine, Chateau Michel de Montaigne Bergerac 2012, delivered black fruit and spice, an ideal pairing for beef bourguignon with a veal demi-glace and the most adorable miniature fresh vegetables I've ever seen, truly tiny.

It was about then that my seatmate looked at his watch, wondered aloud about making his flight to Texas tonight and made an executive decision to reschedule.

For that matter, I was starting to reevaluate my own plans to go out tonight. It was already obvious that it would be well after 5:00 when this lunch finally wound down, so perhaps I should reconsider 6:00 plans.

After all, we hadn't seen the dessert cart - more lyrically labeled "le chariot de desserts" - go by yet and this Cremant d'Alsace wasn't going to drink itself.

On the cart's first pass, we snagged Lilliputian chocolate sea salt caramel creme brulees and what resembled chocolate bar bells: dark chocolate covered coconut sorbet and chocolate-covered marshmallows connected by a wooden skewer.

As owner Paul put it, "If you don't like chocolate, you're in trouble." I was in the opposite of trouble.

On the cart's next trip by, we got Chef Mel's take on a sweet course, which included rice pudding and got us talking about what an old-fashioned dessert it was.

"In my family, on Fridays, we used to have steak, Cold Duck and rice pudding," my seatmate recalled fondly. "When I got a little older, they even gave me some Cold Duck." Some parents can be so cruel.

The point of his stroll down Memory Lane? "I want my rice pudding," he announced and, let's face it, that's not something you hear every day.

And of course Chef Mel hadn't made a lackluster rice pudding. No, this one had Indian spices blended in and a compote of figs, pistachios, cardamom and red wine surrounding it. Fabulous and, I'm willing to bet, as far removed from my new friend's childhood rice pudding as imaginable.

We also had little ramekins of kulfi flavored with cacao, chilis and rose petals, a beautifully balanced marriage of unlikely flavors that ended lunch on a high note.

By this time, Paul and Mel were cracking wise about their inspiration for the lunch, joking that in lieu of flying in an Indian chef for FFF, Paul had brought in Mel from east Carytown's Indian neighborhood two blocks away.

I've heard it said that fine cuisine is a passionate affair, not an old, tired marriage. Today's lunch ably demonstrated that some people can go at it for five straight hours and keep things exciting.

And if you don't like that kind of action, my friend, you're in trouble.

One and Done

Still firing, still flouring, still forking.

In a repeat of yesterday, my friend shows up at the crack of 9:30 so we can walk over to the Library of Virginia for day two of food curiosity. The weather has turned noticeably cooler and the sky threatens rain so I bring along my umbrella.

Our first course offering today is "At the Counters," a screening of two documentaries about lunch counter sit-ins in the '60s.

"If We So Choose" chronicles the non-violent sit-ins ("You can't put out a fire with fire") at the Varsity Grill in Athens, Georgia.

"The Richmond 34" told a story much closer to home about the VUU students who staged demonstrations and sit-ina (resulting in the first mass arrest of the Civil Rights movement) at Thalhimer's lunch room.

A marcher's protest sign said it all: "Don't blame the police. Thalhimer's swore out the warrants." Truth.

A panel of four - the Athens documentarian, a VUU history professor, a Thalhimer and an original member of the Richmond 34, Elizabeth Johnson Rice - each gave their take on the events for a fascinating look from all sides.

My next stop was "Founding Foodies" with author Dave DeWitt, who took numerous tangents ("And then there was a scandal" about dating a student when he was a college professor) in talking about how Washington (a farmer with money), Jefferson (a gardener with debt) and Franklin (retired at 30 after creating the post office system) all had vigorous interest in food and wine.

Among the interesting food topics he discussed were the history of barbecue (begun as a cheap way to feed crowds at political rallies), how Jefferson was the first to import a pasta machine, and how peacocks were the "feast" bird before turkeys.

Among the tangents he took were Jefferson vowing not to remarry when his wife died (hence the affair with 16-year old Sally Hemmings), how De Witt got a free pellet smoker out of Yoder Company and how using a conventional wood smoker cut into his sports-watching time. Yawn.

Leaving FFF behind, we walked over to Lucy's for lunch where a cheeseburger salad was just what I needed after yesterday's all-day small bite eating. The music was funky, a Doris day movie was on the screen and the crowd was low-key. Perfection.

My last class, "Getting Gnudi," was with Mike Isabella of Graffiato whom I'd never heard because I don't watch TV so haven't seen "Top Chef" (which he claimed was a nightmare fueled by over-drinking by the judges and crew).

His plan was to make a quick and easy meal - Ricotta and goat cheese gnudi with shallot/tomatoes sauce -that we could make at home that would taste as good as his.

Being from New Jersey, he pronounced onion as ung-yin and meatball as meat-bowl. He told a story of a line cook under him using a dull knife to chop chives and throwing that knife in the garbage and telling the guy, "We don't use dull knives here. Get out!"

That line cook now works at the French laundry, for which Isabella jokingly took credit.

His advice boiled down to two things: with cooking, all you need is love and pasta water should be as salty as the ocean. Got it.

Once through with his Italian wisdom, Friend and I made one last stop in the big tent for coffee (her) and chocolate (me) before walking home in a fierce wind, light rain and uncomfortably cold temperature.

It's hard to believe that only four days ago I was in the ocean in a bathing suit.

And so my Fire, Flour and Fork foray comes to a close. I'll give its creators credit, they did a fabulous job of planning, organizing and executing two days and nights of varied and mostly compelling programming.

One thing that came up again and again with people I talked to was that this event is going to be huge next year while this year, everything was manageable, interesting and easy to navigate. The consensus is that next year and going forward will be overcrowded and far less enjoyable as attendance grows.

It makes me glad I got to be an FFF virgin. Hats off to the inaugural weekend of what's sure to become an unwieldy monster with time.

That said, it was a distinct pleasure to be fired up and forked.

Food, Glorious Food

Being food curious can take all day and night.

First of all, it starts at the crack of dawn, meaning my fellow Gemini showed up at 9:30 to collect me and walk over to the Hilton Garden Inn and check in for Fire, Flour and Fork's Friday extravaganza.

People were clustered around the coffee station like it was mother's milk. When forced to, I can get up at the butt crack of dawn (though I'd prefer not to) but coffee's not what I'm looking for at that hour. Or any hour.

Our first session of the day was called "Relish Fork" with Paul Virant of Chicago's Vie restaurant talking about pickling and preserving ("Eat what you can and can what you can't") and Jamie Coffey of Williams & Sherrill making jam. Spoon jam, to be precise.

I'd never heard of spoon jam, but soon learned that it's jam made without using a hot water bath, meaning that the strawberry freezer jam I made for decades probably qualifies. Jamie's version was far more nuanced than mine, using raspberries, the juice of an orange, honey, sugar, orange zest and thyme.

Best of all, he passed around a jar of jam and little wooden spoons inscribed RVA for us to taste his beautiful jam with. When the jar was passed to me, the woman next to me told she loved my shoes. "I would wear the hell out of those." I assured her I do. Cute and comfortable wins the race.

As a lovely parting gift, Chef Virant passed out miniature jars of apple butter, pleasing me no end and sparking memories of childhood. Whenever one of my sisters or I would ask Mom for a snack, she always offered bread and apple butter.

You'd think I'd have gotten tired of it by now, but well-crafted apple butter still speaks to me. And I have to assume Chef Virant knows how to make some apple butter.

Our next session was "Biscuits of the South" for two reasons.

One, it was being given by Ronni Lundy, a founder of the Southern Foodways Alliance, and two, growing up with my Richmond grandmother living with us meant she made biscuits at least two or three times a week. Biscuits are in my blood and probably my DNA.

She began by holding up a bottle of sweet sorghum syrup and saying, "I'm gonna show you how little hillbilly children are introduced to it. It's a gateway drug," before pouring a third of the bottle into a bowl where several sticks of softened butter awaited.

Once she'd turned the yellow butter golden brown with sweet sorghum syrup, we received little ramekins of it with a biscuit. My first thought after one bite was how those hillbilly mothers had cut out a step. I always smeared my breakfast biscuits with a thick schmear of butter and then a layer of strawberry jam for sweetness.

A biscuit with sweet sorghum syrup delivers both sweet and salty in one application. Brilliant!

Lundy talked about how sweet sorghum syrup tasted of terroir, like wine, picking up mineral notes and changing from season to season.

"It's hard to make a bad biscuit and it's an art to make a good one," she informed us, saying light hands and soft wheat flour are essential. She critiqued the biscuits we were eating as having too much chew inside instead of fluff. Also, bacon grease makes great biscuits (duh).

Baking lessons aside, she also provided cultural history (cat's head biscuits are called that because they're big, like a cat's head) such as why farmers' wives made small biscuits in the morning. That way, everyone at the breakfast table - family and farmhands- got one biscuit to start eating while the next batch baked.

She talked about how when self-rising flour was developed, the public didn't embrace it, but mountain women did. Before, they'd had to measure their own leavening agents into the flour and now it was done for them.

I know my grandmother, who used no measuring to make her biscuits, took to self-rising flour from the day it came out. When she moved in with us, it was the first time I'd ever seen it.

And I could totally relate when she shared John Edgerton's axiom about how you could always tell a southerner because when biscuits were put on the table and most people took one, a southerner would take two and butter them both at once while the biscuits were still hot.

I am that person despite not being born a southerner. I suppose that comes from having a southern grandmother in the house making biscuits three times a week. I want hot, liquid butter oozing out of every bite of biscuit.

The question and answer period took us all over the place. Chef Colin Perry (and his epic mustache) of Montreal's Triple Crown Dinette (who makes 500 biscuits a weekend) was in the audience and fielded a question about adding pimento cheese to biscuit dough and why the results had been varied.

A guy in the row in front of us with a serious southern drawl raised his hand and observed about things such as pimento cheese additives, "That's not a biscuit." No indeed.

Someone asked about molasses versus sweet sorghum syrup and before she addressed that, Lundy turned to the pimento cheese maker and asked politely, "Was your question answered? Because I'm going to go down a road here."

"It's a dirt road," the southerner drawled and I laughed out loud.

After her explanation, a women told a story of meeting a couple who'd been married for 40 years, yet the wife complained that her husband still ate biscuits wrong.

Seems he would break them in half and spread his sweet sorghum syrup inside the halves while the wife was positive that the correct way was to stick your finger into the side of the biscuit to create a hole and pour the syrup in.

Forty years and that poor woman still hasn't been able to train her man how to eat a biscuit properly. I think there was a life lesson more than a culinary lesson there.

Two classes behind us, we were glad when it was lunch time, taking the secret side door to the giant sampling tent set up on Sixth Street to gobble Belmont Butchery sausage (and watch butcher Tanya debone a whole pig), Gearhart's chocolates, Rapphanock oysters, and a host of other locally made food items.

At the Virginia wine tasting table were Veritas, Pollack, Barboursville, Keswick, North Gate and Grace Estate, the latter two new to me. It's impossible to keep up with all the new Virginia wineries in spite of my best efforts.

It was inevitable that I'd run into people I knew and I did - the former co-worker, the beermiester, the kitten lover, the baker, the low key mover and shaker -  and the consensus was that FFF had been meticulously planned and executed so far.

From there we went to the John Marshall ballroom where ZZQ was serving up their Texas style barbecue. Once I'd procured a plate of brisket and potato salad, I found a seat at a table of strangers, only to have the guy across from me ask, "Aren't you Karen? I think Prabir introduced us a few years ago. Don't you write a blog called I Could Go On and On?"

The woman to his left assured me that he has an unbelievable memory and does this all the time. Meanwhile, I had no problem finishing off my plate while chatting with them about their screen-printing business, which sessions they'd attended and where we were all heading next.

I'd found it impossible to pass up "Oyster Fork" with Mike Hutt of the Virginia Marine Products Board, an unabashed cheerleader for Virginia oysters.

I've done several stories on Virginia's oyster industry so while I knew almost everything he told us, a few tidbits were new to me.

The governor has declared November Virginia oyster month.Seventeen tons of oyster shells were collected last year in Richmond from festivals and restaurants (such as Lemaire, Heritage, Saison and Dutch & Co.). They love our oysters in Asia.

After being shown how to open oysters, they let us loose on two trays of bivalves, one of buttery oysters from the Rappahannock and the other seaside oysters tasting like a mouth full of ocean water.

He suggested we begin with the less salty ones, but I already know I prefer saltier so I did my damage there and damn, these were some of the briniest oysters I've ever had. Delicious.

I will give these guys credit, though, the oysters were served with no accouterments - no cocktail sauce, no lemon, no mignonette - so you were just tasting oysters and water, no adornments. If there were any oyster virgins in the room, it was the equivalent of dropping them into the deep end of the pool.

After I'd gorged on the sea, Gemini and I cut out. We weren't skipping class exactly, but we wanted some down time to assess and regroup, finding it at Saison market for a happy hour glass of Vino Verde.

Then she was off to home and hearth and I got cleaned up to go to someplace I never thought I would despite smelling it for years: the inside of the 1911 C.F. Sauer factory on Broad Street.

Walking up to the check-in desk, the woman looked at me and feigned surprise. "You, again?" FFF humor.

Being the punctual sort, I got herded into the first tour group along with a guy who'd been at my lunch table and the oyster class. When I asked what had brought him to FFF, he said simply, "I love food."

With a little probing, he shared that he'd worked in restaurants for years (including with Sean Brock back in the day), although he was no longer in the business. It's an addiction some people never get over.

Our tour guide was Sauer's marketing director and she took us up and down old staircases to see the workings of the company who puts out the spicy scents on Broad Street.

Walking in to the building, we saw a charming, wood-framed window, above which hung a sign saying "Information." I was thrilled when she told everyone to deposit their cell phone in the back room because no cameras were allowed. I was the only one who didn't have to divest myself of a device.

Sauer tours are quite a rarity, it seems.

She showed us a framed collection of awards Sauer's had won, asking if anyone had read "The Devil in the White City," (which I had) set in the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

It was at that fair that Sauer's had won their first award for purity in their products.

Walking past vintage wooden doors, a break room with library chairs and tables and machinery, we heard how Sauer's was the first to bottle extracts and the only company still using glass bottles.

All the equipment was original to the building as was the sign, "Think! This equipment pays your salary. Take care of it."

We learned that in terms of what they produce, it's predominantly pepper, garlic and cinnamon. We heard about how they still cold soak their vanilla beans in grain alcohol while other companies use a sped-up heating process much like percolating coffee.

Speaking of, the aroma of the warm, vanilla room was sublime and while others got overheated, I could have listened to her talk there all night and enjoyed that scent and temperature.

When we saw huge sacks of MSG, we all guessed it was for Asian markets, but learned that MSG is extremely popular in the American southeast. Who knew?

Filing past the president's office, we looked in to see green leather furniture, painted portraits of past Sauer presidents (it's always been a family owned business) and a fireplace mantle with one of their most popular products, jars of Duke's mayonnaise, adorning it.

After that, we stood in the office area for a Q & A, learning that in all its years, Sauer's had never laid off an employee, even during the world wars and the depression. Now, that's impressive.

Outside in Sauer's rose garden, our group was offered whiskey-based Boulevardier cocktails and hors d'oeuvres to accompany them, all under the scenic glow of the Sauer's vanilla sign, which now meant a whole lot more after 28 years in Richmond because I'd learned why their vanilla was such a big deal.

One of the Sauer men sat in a windowsill outside, sharing colorful stories about his great-grandfather's racing car habit, how they got the city to let them replace the rotting windows facing Broad Street and that multiple bands had asked to have their picture taken in front of the vanilla sign.

FYI: The answer is always no. The reason he gave was who knows what their music is like? Or if they're going to be naked in the picture?

Purity, remember?

My final FFF stop of the day was Hardywood for the Festival of the Hungry Ghosts, a dine-around with local chefs.

For this portion of the never-ending FFF day, I was to meet a favorite couple who'd just come from "Spice Poker" at Curry Craft. Clearly their stomachs were bigger than mine.

Arriving before they did, I caught a few songs by Full Moon Fever, a Tom Petty cover band playing tonight as part of the "Night of the Living '70s" bill. It was particularly appropriate since it was the show I'd have attended if my friends hadn't offered me their extra FFF ticket.

When they finally showed up, full of apologies for their tardiness, I wasted no time in going inside to eat from the tables of local chefs.

As I was savoring Julep's goat stew over pumpkin, I was handed the last of Magpie's beef tongue skewers. Heritage's pumpkin gemelli with brown butter, kale and mushrooms impressed even this non-pasta lover. One chef described Metzger's trotter torchon as "an orgasm in my mouth." Blue Goat's rockfish and cooked peanuts was an unusual take on a familiar fish.

But I think my favorite was Secco's head cheese with celery slaw, a pitch perfect marriage of fat and acid.

Although beer was part of the affair, that held no interest for me, so I passed on my beer tickets to a favorite record store owner whose costume resembled a Monopoly character.

Lots of people had come in costumes, and many were clever. One friend started to explain her group's costumes and stopped. "Oh, you don't watch TV, you're out living life, so you won't know about this show."

A guy I once worked with and his girlfriend came as farm to table, him with a table draped over his shoulders, her in overalls with a pitchfork.

The one that baffled us was the girl with romaine leaves on her breasts. We puzzled and puzzled over it until I came up with a guess. Maybe she was supposed to be lett-tits.

Since we had to know, one of us went up and asked her. When I told her what my guess was, she laughed loud and hard. When her boyfriend arrived, I told him my theory and he laughed even harder. Turns out she was going for Bibb lettuce.

"But yours is so much better," she laughed. "That's what I'm coming as next year!" Who knew I was so clever?

By the time I got around to trying desserts -sarsaparilla pudding with toasted pumpkin seeds, tres leches cake, pistachio cookies with dark chocolate and fig, and pumpkin cheesecake - some chefs had already run out of their desserts.

That was okay because we were ready to move on, this time back to Curry Craft for our private after-party.

There I found a music friend at the bar, a beer rep swooning over wine and the dear friend who'd donated his FFF ticket to me tonight. After a while, a couple of restaurant owners.

Everyone wanted to hear about my FFF classes today and I obliged with tales of jam and biscuits, oysters and spices.

At one point I looked over at a friend, who'd been up since 6 a.m. this morning, and pantomimed sleeping. He pointed at me and then himself and nodded.

When I got up to say my goodnights, the male half of my couple date registered shock. Explaining that I'd been up since 8 - unusually early for me - and had another day of early morning classes tomorrow, I was leaving.

"Yea, you look tired and that never happens," he said, clearly surprised. Just this morning, a friend had e-mailed me about tomorrow night, saying, "Your energy is unrelenting!"

Honey, you've never seen me after fifteen hours of being food curious. I gotta say, being out living my life is far less tiring.