They say it’s spring, but a cool gloominess has persisted here. I did my usual egg balancing trick for good luck on the twenty-first. I’ve been doing this since the seventies, I think. I can’t remember any details of how I got started, but it may have been in the kitchen at La Résidence. In any case, it seems like tempting fate to stop now. March felt like everything was on hold. There were suddenly lots of vaccinations, but not quite enough to turn everyone loose. Days were longer, but not much warmer. Restrictions are being relaxed, but people are caught between being skittish and bursting out of their homes like maniacs. Last week, I attended my first dinner party in over a year. All of the guests were vaccinated. Lively conversations lasted until late evening. It was as refreshing as waking up from a long, satisfying nap. Which, if you drop the “satisfying” is sort of what’s just happened to all of us.
Enough of looking back. What are the plans of the food community for the spring? Again, let me start by saying that my research is pretty much confined to bicycling around downtown Chapel Hill and Carrboro where I live. Readers should investigate their own neighborhoods to see what’s up, especially small, independent places. It looks to me like there are lots of them around the edges of town now.
As winter dragged on many places that had been closed only one day a week added a second. Usually, it’s Sunday and Monday. Conversely warming weather has places with established outdoor dining areas considering adding days of on premises seating as regulations permit and the weather allows. Akai Hana, in Carrboro is already open Tuesday through Saturday and has a nice outside dining area. La Résidence opens on Thursdays in the evening and adds brunch on Saturday and Sunday mornings. They remodeled their patio during the lockdown. It’s covered, spacious and has pretty lighting. They will introduce their Spring menu on the Wednesday after Easter. Crook’s Corner, its patio well known for the fountain and gardens, has takeout on Wednesdays and Thursdays and adds on premises dining on weekends. They have also added a Saturday brunch.
Lime and Basil, Lucha Tigre, and The Pig are sticking to takeout for now but check because things will change quickly. Sam says you are welcomed to eat your pickup food at the picnic tables out front of The Pig. Likewise, Vimala is now inviting you to sit in her courtyard at the Curry Blossom Café, but you must still order online. You include your table number when you order. Her selection is extensive.
Other spots have added “take and bake” or “heat and eat” items to their takeaway menus. The Root Cellar has introduced Micro Meals, five different dinners designed to hold well and be used on different nights. Kitchen offers a weekly take-out dinner on Saturdays, but occasionally adds Kitchen à la Minute during the week. Imbibe, which has elevated takeout to a high art has added a dinner for four, ready to cook and with instructions, that can be ordered for Monday nights when they are closed. At Neal’s Deli, another place that really has takeout down, you can order meats and salads in larger quantities as well as their usual ready to eat biscuit and sandwich menu. Finally, Glass Half Full which has offered weekly menus that you can finish in your own kitchen all the while, has reopened its wine shop. I stopped in last week to check it out. They have a million selections. I had the good fortune to rediscover Lillet Rosé, which I had forgotten about. (Serve it with an ice cube and some orange peel.) You can also buy olive oils, all kinds of vinegar, anchovies and anchovy paste, olives, salts, baking supplies and some takeaway foods, both ready-to-eat and to finish at home.
After all of this, perhaps instead of including a recipe, I should just urge everyone to stop cooking at home and go for take-out with an extra nudge toward places owned by my colleagues from our Asian community. But Easter is coming up, so how about a ham?
For some reason, here in the South, we recook hams that are already ready to eat. Everybody bakes “ready to eat” hams all the time. People insist on baking, or sometimes boiling and then baking country hams, which in other culture might be eaten without any cooking at all as prosciutto or serrano. This recipe is for a ready to eat, or as Cliff Collins down at Cliff’s Meat Market would say, a tenderized ham. It’s hard to find a small one, so cook this for a crowd.
- 1 tenderized ham
- Whole cloves
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- ½ cup Dijon mustard
- ¼ cup maple syrup
This recipe could not be simpler, but you have a couple of choices to make along the way. Some hams are skin-on while others are partially skinned. For the partially skinned ones I dot the top all over with whole cloves right away. Use a sharp boning knife to pierce the meat then insert the pointy end of each clove. If the ham comes with skin, I wait until the last hour to do this. Follow whatever the cooking instruction on your ham are. Usually, they will suggest 20 to 25 minutes per pound at 325°, so you are talking about either all day or overnight. Put the ham on a rack in your roasting pan. Put an inch of water in the pan. If the pan doesn’t have a lid, cover the ham with buttered kitchen parchment, and then foil.
Remove the covering for the last hour of baking. Increase the oven temperature to 350°. Make a paste of the last three ingredients. Add extra sugar if it seems to thin. For a ham with cloves, carefully spoon on the glaze. Since the ham is hot it will want to run off, so make several passes. You might save some for a second basting in a half an hour.
For a ham that still has its skin, you should be able to lift this off now without much effort, using a knife and tongs. Set the skin in the pan beside the ham. It will turn into cracklins. Scrape away some of the fat that was revealed when you removed the skin. It will be melted, so this will be easy. Keeping in mind that the ham is hot, dot the top with cloves and then spoon the glaze all over it. Again, it will want to run everywhere.
Allow either kind of ham to brown a little. It should rest at least an hour out of the oven before slicing, but of course, it will be good cold.
“Just The Bill, Please” is a regular column on Chapelboro.com penned by local culinary legend Bill Smith. Born and raised in New Bern, Bill Smith spent 25 years heading up the kitchen in Crook’s Corner — and over the years, he accumulated the accolades to match his incomparable takes on classic Southern food.
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