WV Gourmet

Please give this a read before you give your family salmonella.  It’s a great article about how all sorts of cooking methods are breeding grounds for bacteria.  They also advise you to be careful when deep frying a turkey, as it is a good way to either burn your house down or get some nice second degree burns, or both.

Much as I dislike the constant, nigh-insufferable mockney banter of my compatriot Jamie Oliver, I have immense respect for the man in a way that I don’t have for any other celebrity chef.

He’s a fine and (broadly) well-respected chef, proven by a successful set of restaurants, a clutch of TV shows that offer a real sense of delight in good ingredients and an appealingly slapdash approach to prep, and a decent collection of books. He makes Real Food.

But folks like that are ten a penny nowadays. Even just taking the Brit pack, there’s Nigel Slater, Nigella Lawson, and Rick Stein, all of whom boast comparable credentials and are less insufferable (to varying degrees). No, that’s not why Jamie Oliver has a special place in my affections.

It’s because of a TV series he made for the Beeb called Jamie’s School Dinners. Oliver, disgusted by the appalling crap that is shoveled into the waiting maws of British schoolchildren day after day, set out to reform the way school meals were supplied in Britain. He introduced local produce, fresh vegetables, ditched the pre-processed shit, retrained the school staff — and retrained the kids, too, when they turned their noses up at the vegetables he tried to feed them. Watch him take a boy of maybe twelve from point-blank refusing anything that’s not chips (that’s fries to you) to happily chowing down on greenery, and you’ll understand: he’s a great communicator, really cares about food, and has an infectious commitment to health and wellness that’s clearly genuine.

When I finished watching Jamie’s School Dinners, I moaned to my family for weeks. “Why can’t he come and do that here?” I said, wringing my hands at my stepdaughter’s tales of her struggles to find anything remotely healthy at school. Now, in a twist of fate that I’m still having trouble believing, he is.

Most of the folks I’ve been talking to about this show are worried that it’ll just be a flimsy attempt to laugh at all the great fat Huntingtonians, wobbling like great blancmanges from Hillbilly Hot Dogs to Fat Pattys, randomly shedding forgotten cheeseburgers from between their immense rolls of flab. Perhaps I’m naive, but I don’t think that’s his style.

School Dinners ultimately convinced Tony Blair to pour almost a third of a billion pounds into improving the quality of the horrific slop that’s served up in British schools. If Oliver can put together something even remotely like that here, it’ll be the best thing to happen to cuisine and health in the area (the state?) for years.

And if he can do that, I don’t care how much of his twaddle I have to sit through.

The Charelston Gazette is doing its “Best of the Valley 2009″ poll.  The voting is currently up for “Food & Fun.”  Some of the categories are categories where there could be some real debate, while others are set up for only one establishment.  An example of a legitimate category would be “Best Italian”: Some folks like Fazio’s, some like Leonoro’s, some like Soho’s, and all the “real Italians” like Olive Garden.  An example of a sham category would be “Best French Restaurant”.  I guess that there’s Cafe de Paris, but hell that place is still on its indefinite sabbatical.  I encourage everyone to go on there and vote for the places they like in the categories where such restaurant would fit and to subvert this stupid ass poll where appropriate by voting for Bennigan’s as “Best French Restaurant” and if you’re really feeling froggy, vote Impulse for “Best Meat Market”.

 Here’s the link to the voting: http://www.cnpapers.com/bitv/?category=food

Don’t ever change, West Virginia.

Dinner includes roasted pig, deer, deep-fried turkey, squirrel, bear, alligator, antelope, side dishes, desserts and drinks. Bluegrass music performed plus additional activities.

What do you think the side dishes will be?

An update on the WV beer bill (which would amend state code to allow the selling of craft beer up to 12%, instead of the current 6% cap).

It hasn’t been shot down yet!

In fact, it’s been sent off to the finance committee. Notorious pessimist and beer lover Chris Workman called this a “good sign”. Make of that what you will. I’m trying to avoid getting my hopes up, but it’s looking encouraging.

Rich Ireland, the Charleston Gazette’s beer expert, brings us word of the latest attempt to legalize beer with an alcohol-by-volume level greater than 6%.

House Bill 2719 has been introduced and is sitting idle in the House Judiciary Committee. This year’s bill is very simplified and to the point; West Virginia should raise the permissible alcohol limit to 12%ABV on “non-intoxicating” beer…West Virginia stands only with Mississippi in proclaiming our utter ignorance when it comes to modernization of our beer laws. We can change this very easily and with absolutely nothing but a positive effect on consumer choice.

As Rich says in his post, please call or write your delegates and ask them to support this bill. A similar effort last year was stifled for fear of arousing the ire of neo-prohibitionists conservative voters. Now the election’s behind us, perhaps this is the year where we can finally get this pointless loophole closed.