Southern Comfort: A New Take on the Recipes We Grew Up With

124 Pages·2012·4.38 MB·English

by  Allison Vines-Rushing

Copyright © 2012 by Allison Vines-Rushing and Slade Rushing
Photographs copyright © 2012 by Ed Anderson All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a
division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.tenspeed.com
Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Random House,
Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Vines-Rushing, Allison.
Southern comfort : a new take on the recipes we grew up with /
Allison Vines-Rushing, Slade Rushing.
p. cm.
Summary: “The much-anticipated debut cookbook from two of the most admired and
innovative young chefs in the South, with 100 recipes featuring their refined, classically-inspired
takes on the traditional Southern food they grew up with”— Provided by publisher.
1. Cooking, American—Southern style. I. Rushing, Slade. II. Title.
TX715.2.S68V557 2012
641.5975—dc23
2012012084
eISBN: 978-1-60774263-0
Prop Styling by Angie Mosier
v3.1

CONTENTS
OUR STORY
BREAKFAST AND BREADS
COCKTAIL FARE
SALADS
SOUPS
VEGETABLES
PASTA AND GRAINS
FISH
MEAT
DESSERT
BASICS
SOURCES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
INDEX
MEASUREMENT CONVERSION CHARTS

T I L V -R ,
HIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO DA OU INES USHING
.
THE SWEETEST LITTLE DISH WE HAVE EVER CREATED

OUR STORY
WE MET IN THE KITCHEN OF A RESTAURANT called Gerard’s Downtown in
New Orleans. It was the fall of 2000, we were both cooks and we fell in
love. Six months later, we purchased two one-way tickets to New York
City on the City of New Orleans train and away we went. We each
landed jobs and rented a tiny one-room basement apartment in Brooklyn
complete with a patch of dirt in the back. We planted a garden and felt
like the two luckiest people on Earth.
Working in New York was more mentally and physically exhausting
than we had imagined, but our Southern stubbornness prevented us from
giving up. We also had our little Brooklyn refuge, where on late nights
after work (Slade was at March and I was at Ducasse), wine revived our
tired bodies, and we created dishes and wrote menus sprinkled with
comforting memories from home. Funny how soon those ideas would
come in handy. After only a few years in New York, we became head
chefs of a tiny restaurant in the East Village called Jack’s Luxury Oyster
Bar.
Finding ourselves at Jack’s was serendipitous to say the least. At the
time, Slade was chef de cuisine at a little French restaurant in the Flatiron
District called Fleur de Sel, and I had just left Ducasse to take a break
from the stress and plan our wedding. I applied for a job as a barista at
the recently opened Blue Goose Café, armed with a ridiculous résumé
that included all of my restaurant experience from the last ten years—
starting with Kenny Roger’s Roasters in Coral Springs, Florida, and
ending with Alain Ducasse. Jack Lamb, the owner of the Blue Goose,
checked out my résumé and said he wanted to hire me as the chef of a
new restaurant he was opening. I was a bit taken aback, but saying no
was never my strong suit. I said yes, but told him I was getting married
in August—to which he replied, “Then we will open the restaurant in
September.” I immediately called Slade to tell him I had gotten a job,
but as a chef. He asked me if I had lost my mind.