Food
Friday, October 30, 2009
It's the next-to-last night of the North Carolina State Fair, and my friends and I are stalking the fairgrounds in search of deep-fried butter. Everyone we've talked with claims that it's here, but no one's actually seen it.
Since Oprah Winfrey shared the flash-frozen sticks covered in batter with her audience at the Texas State Fair earlier this month, everyone has wondered if it will make its way to North Carolina. And rumors are flying around. "It's like the Loch Ness Monster," says James Rice of the booth Rice's Corn and Lemonade. "Everyone claims they've heard it's here, but no one's seen it."
It wouldn't be surprising if deep-fried butter showed up. I remember when I was a kid and saw news reports about this new novelty item at the fair called "fried dough." Even at a young age, it seemed weird that you could sell something that was the basic ingredient of most pastries by itself if you just deep-fried it.
Today, fried food forms the basis of most of the fair's cuisine-the official blog for the fair is even called "Deep Fried." As one wanders from one end of the fairgrounds to another, they might encounter the aforementioned fried dough, along with fried Oreos, fried candy bars (Snickers, Three Musketeers or Milky Way), fried pickles, fried strawberry cobbler bites, fried banana pudding bites, fried pecan pie, fried alligator tail, fried PB and J, fried Twinkies (also available frozen and dipped in chocolate) and the ever-popular fried cheeseburger on a stick.
The sticks are particularly important. The gourmands are like civil engineers of grease; if there's a way to get something on a stick, they'll find it. It's simply a matter of shoving a splint of bamboo through some flash-frozen consumable before coating it in the batter of choice (usually cornmeal), and sending it on to the cauldron of trans fats.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Personal chef and singer/bassist extraordinaire Shirle’ Hale Koslowski is no stranger to television – she did a cooking segment on News 14 for a while until she was replaced by some dorky guy. But this latest development is just surreal.
Koslowski, who plays in the Durham band Free Electric State with her husband David, will appear Monday, Oct. 26 on the “Rachael Ray” show, which airs in the Triangle at 10 a.m. on WTVD.
A wine rack that Shirle’ made out of coffee cans will be featured in Ray’s regular "Double Duty Tips" segment. It turns out that a production assistant on Ray’s show spotted it on Shirle’s “Rockin’ the Stove” blog.
“I got this email, like, two months ago, in the morning,” Koslowski says. “I thought it was spam. I’m sitting here in my office, laughing, and going, ‘Hey David, check out this piece of spam I just got from The Rachael Ray Show.’” David thought it was “junk,” too, but when Shirle’ examined the return address, she saw that it was from Oprah Winfrey’s company. So she wrote back, and the segment producer called her within minutes.
A script was emailed to Shirle’, and David shot the footage that outlined the steps for making the wine rack. The producers will edit it down to a one-minute segment that will likely include David as well, enjoying a glass of wine with his wife.
Shirle’ is still just surprised by the whole thing.
“I had no idea that anyone subscribed to my blog, other than friends and family.”
By the way: Free Electric State plays tonight at Tir Na Nog in Raleigh with The Poles and Gross Ghost. And Shirle’ is hosting a vegan brunch at Durham’s The Pinhook on Nov. 8 from 12-2 p.m.
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