Edible Memphis Issue 47 - Spring 2020

edible MEMPHIS FOOD, FARM, AND COMMUNITY IN THE MID-SOUTH

LOVE, SANDWICHES, AND BI BIM BOP FOOD INDUSTRY EMERGENCY FUND COMPOST NATION Member of Edible Communities

N O. 47

SPRING 2020

edible br ooklyn

TELLING THE STORY OF HOW THE CITY EATS AND DRINKS • NO. 52 SPRING 2018

THE

Drinks ISSUE

BOTTLING LIQUID COURAGE MAKING SPICEBUSH FIZZ BIOINTENSIVE ORCHARDS BOOM IRISH BARS’ FLUID IDENTITY A BREWERY-FERMENTARY-JUICERY IN ONE Member of Edible Communities

Complimentary

edible COLUMBUS THE STORY OF LOCAL FOOD

Member of Edible Communities No. 39 | Winter 2019

edible east end

Celebrating the Harvest of the Hamptons and North Fork

No. 36 High Summer 2012

TasTy B&B’s Hand-PrEssEd TorTillas long island livEsToCk FarM-gEnEraTEd PoWEr

US $5.00

WinEs FroM onE WoMan, PalMEr and MErlianCE MEal-WorTHy golF CoursEs Member of Edible Communities

edible

edible

m a n h at ta n

long island TELLING THE STORY OF HOW LONG ISLAND EATS

TELLING THE STORY OF HOW GOTHAM EATS • NO. 30 JULY�AUGUST ����

NO. 10 FALL ��� 5

THE

TRAVEL ISSUE

REAL GREEK YOGURT LONG ISLAND CITY BEER CRAWL THE KINSTON KRAWL IN NORTH CAROLINA CONNECTICUT SENSE MEMORIES WHAT ARE BLUE POINT OYSTERS?

GOAT MILK SOFT SERVE CONSCIENTIOUS CATERING

US $5.00

CATCHING THE BLUES

Member of Edible Communities

edible

Issue 45

Spring 2020 MARIN & WINE COUNTRY

Celebrating the harvest of Marin, Napa and Sonoma counties, season by season

edible

N O. 45

FALL/WINTER 2019

MEMPHIS FOOD, FARM AND COMMUNITY IN THE MID-SOUTH

FAMILIAR FACES KITCHEN QUARTERBACKS CLASSIC COCKTAILS UNSOLICITED ADVICE

ANDERSON VALLEY • LOW PROOF SPIRITS • BLACK VINES MEMBER OF EDIBLE COMMUNITIES

Member of Edible Communities

Explore a world of local food through the magazines and websites of Edible Communities. We’ll introduce you to the chefs, farmers, brewers, home cooks and others who inspire and sustain local flavors across the US and Canada. ediblecommunities.com

Stay up to the minute on all things edible at: ediblecommunities.com Subscribe here: ediblesubscriptions.com

LOCAVORE BEER Member of Edible Communities

SEEDING CHANGE AT RIKERS ISLAND

WE RECYCLE 100% OF In 2019 we composted more t

?

WHAT YO

U G I V E U S.

han 1.5 m illion pounds of food waste.

Did you know:

40% of the residential waste stream is compostable.

p Mem e l b a Join n sustai the movem ent toward a more

his.

Get your first month FREE when you mention this ad.

compostfairy.com

rendezvous

DID YOU

KNOW 40% OF THE RESIDEN

E? Call ABL901-523-2746 T S O COMP or view full catering S I M STREA E T S menu at hogsfly.com A W TIAL

from our basement

your team Let us take something off your plate!

Prices starting at $3.50/person Pickup, delivery and full service available Minimum 15 people, no maximum Charlie Vergos Rendezvous

@RendezvousMemphis

@Rendezvous_Ribs

ediblememphis.com 1

contents 5

LETTER FROM PUBLISHER

BY BILL GANUS • PORTRAIT BY EMMA MESKOVIC

6

LETTER FROM EDITOR

BY STACEY GREENBERG • PORTRAIT BY EMMA MESKOVIC

7

CONTRIBUTORS PAGE

BY EMMA MESKOVIC

8

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

HOW LOCAL FOODS BECAME LOCAL Thoughts from the kitchen

24 EDIBLE YARDS

FOOD, NOT LAWNS

Growing vegetables curb-forward

BY HEIDI RUPKE • PHOTOGRAPHS BY BRANDON DILL

28 KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL

ALL’S FAIR IN LOVE AND SANDWICHES— AND BI BIM BOP

The little-known link between Kwik Chek and Sam’s Deli

BY ERIK ALLGOOD • PHOTOGRAPHS BY BRANDON DILL

32 GROWING UP

INSPIRED BY BINGHAMPTON

Inspire Community Café serves up nourishing food, economic justice, and a warm welcome for all

BY ERIKA CAIN • PHOTOGRAPHS BY MEKA WILSON

BY DON GAINES • PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICHAEL BUTLER, JR.

11 TRASH TALK

HOW TO JOIN THE COMPOST NATION ILLUSTRATION BY REBECCA PHILLIPS

12 CULTURE

COOKING FOR THE SAKE OF REMEMBERING My mother’s kimchi fried rice

36 MEET THE MAKER

CAMINOS DE MICHOACÁN

These fresh-baked goods offer a taste of Mexico on Macon Road

BY ALEJANDRO PAREDES • PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANDREA MORALES

40 EDIBLE INK

PRETTY, TASTY MEXICAN PASTRIES

BY ALEJANDRO PAREDES • ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARTHA PARK

STORY, PHOTOGRAPHS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY ERIN KIM

16 FARM TO TABLE

MORE MARKET, LESS GROCERY

A five-day meal plan and farmers market shopping list from a local cookbook author

BY AMANDA TORRES • PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICHAEL BUTLER, JR., AND JEAN CHOI

23 GUIDE

MID-SOUTH CSA GUIDE ILLUSTRATION BY EMMA MESKOVIC 2 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

42 (BEST) MEMPHIS FRIDGE

GREELY AND RAMONA SONIN MYATT

Making a general store a home for two artists in West Memphis

BY STACEY GREENBERG • PHOTOGRAPHS BY RICHARD LAWRENCE

46 LOVE LETTERS

A LOVE LETTER TO THE WEST MEMPHIS APPLEBEE’S (WAIT, WHAT?) Sometimes, you need to relax your principles

BY AMBER CARSWELL • PHOTOGRAPHS BY BREEZY LUCIA

edible MEMPHIS spring 2020 PUBLISHER Bill Ganus bill@ediblememphis.com EDITOR IN CHIEF Stacey Greenberg stacey@ediblememphis.com ART DIRECTOR Emma Meskovic emma@ediblememphis.com COPY EDITOR Manda Gibson AD SALES Ali Manning partner@ediblememphis.com DESIGN AND LAYOUT Chloe Hoeg chloehoeg.com FOLLOW US Facebook: Edible Memphis Instagram: @ediblememphis Website: ediblememphis.com Every effort is made to avoid errors, misspellings and omissions.

If, however, an error comes to your attention, please accept our apologies. Thank you. No part of this publication may be used without written permission of the publisher. © 2020 All Rights Reserved.

ON THE COVER Sue Reyna has owned Kwik Chek in Midtown for almost 30 years. Page 28. Photo: Brandon Dill

ON THIS PAGE In some front yards, flowers and vegetables grow side by side. Page 24. Photo: Brandon Dill ediblememphis.com 3

73

20

VENDORS

EVENTS

APRIL 25 - OC TOBER 31

Saturdays, 8 a.m.-1 p.m.

BEEF · PORK · DAIRY · CAGE-FREE EGGS · HONEY · RICE · GRITS · BAKED GOODS · CANNED FOOD · PRODUCE · ROASTED COFFEE BEANS · MORE 4 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER

Portrait: Emma Meskovic; Other photo: Bill Ganus

I

’ve procrastinated (as usual) in writing this note. And, though I have suffered the wrath of Stacey Greenberg, our editor in chief, I have gained a few more days of insight (which is certain to be outdated by the time this is published) into the rapidly evolving sense of uncertainty for many in our community because of COVID-19. Through our digital platforms, Edible Memphis has been sharing best practices and community updates to support our industry partners as well as our readers. Please follow us and stay in touch as we figure this out together.

As you practice an increased awareness of personal hygiene and public health risks, let me challenge you to control what you can and intentionally shape some of the environment in your personal spaces. Six years ago, Jessica (my wife) and I scattered wildflower seeds into the 10-inch strip between our sidewalk and curb, and have been rewarded annually with five months of flowers (and a beautiful buffer from the street traffic).

Every year since, we’ve whittled back the grass turf and added natives, pollinators, edible plants, and beds and containers to hold them all.

This year, let’s all try to grow one new thing. You might start with a seed (giant sunflowers, wildflower mixes, lettuce), a seedling (rosemary, basil, okra, heirloom tomatoes), or something much older (I recently splurged on a beautiful Fukien tea bonsai from nearby Brussel’s Bonsai in Olive Branch).

I find a lot of joy in simple experiments with raised beds or planting in containers. It’s hard to go wrong with pollinator gardens or edible plants, and the city is full of experts to help you get started. If you don’t know who to ask around town, send us a message on Facebook or Instagram or email partner@ediblememphis.com.

I can’t wait to see what you plant. Please tag @ediblememphis and use #growonething. • BILL GANUS Publisher Follow: @billganus

Stopping to smell the flowers—and eat the front-yard veggies—is a favorite summer pastime of my daughter Layla and her two younger brothers. ediblememphis.com 5

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

T

6 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

We have started a GoFundM e that can be accessed by workers whose hours have been curtailed or eliminated because of this crisis and who are not being otherwise compensated.

Our food industry businesses already operate in one of the riskiest sectors of the economy, and the current crisis has come for them first.

If you’re one of those whose job and income are less disrupted—please help.

Visit GOFU N DM E .COM /F/ M E M PH ISFOODWORK E R S for more information.

STACEY GREENBERG Editor in Chief Follow: @nancy_jew

Portrait: Emma Meskovic; Other photo: Stacey Greenberg

here were strawberries at the Jones Orchard stand during the last official Cooper-Young Community Farmers Market.

It was such a wonderful and welcome surprise.

A ton of people showed up early to show their support and to stockpile local goodies. It was more people than are normally there at 9 a.m., and definitely more than should have been gathering. The lines were staggered with people trying to keep a healthy distance. Conversations were had from many feet away, and kept short. There was as little touching as possible—of bags and produce. There certainly was no hugging. Face masks were worn, hand sanitizer was readily dispensed, and a hand-washing station was in full operation.

Farmers will still be allowed to make “drop-offs” in the First Congo parking lot until the crisis passes, and one told me he would come until the cops told him not to.

I’m enjoying the sweet taste of the strawberries I purchased and holding on to the belief that they will be there again next week, officially or not. Farmers are coming up with ways to stay in business—pre-packaging their goods for pickup, delivering doorto-door, and banding together with other farmers to streamline these new systems.

The same is happening in the restaurant industry. Vacuumpacked meals to go, contact-free pickup, beer deliveries… Each day brings a new idea, a new innovation. Miles Tamboli launched a mobile deli that’s not only selling menu items from his restaurant, but goods directly from the farmers who supply the restaurant.

From the restaurants that aren’t able to stay open, we’re seeing the owners donate their food stores to places like Caritas Community Center & Cafe, where there is a free takeout family meal Monday through Friday. There are virtual tip jars, GoFundMe sites for industry workers (including one we started), and the hope of some state and federal assistance.

This undeniably hurts, and many of us likely will carry some scars. But by focusing on the ways that we can all pull together (yet stay away from each other!), we can hopefully come out a little better for it.

Please continue to support the local food system in whatever ways feel safe for you.

We will continue to share the stories. •

Erik Allgood is a freelance journalist, teacher, writer, producer, and performer who has lived in the Mid-South for almost a decade and loves it. He resides in Memphis with his girlfriend and will gladly take any food recommendations, sandwich or otherwise, especially around the downtown area. @erikallgood

Michael Butler, Jr., loves everything Memphis.

His goal is to show the beauty in Memphis that others overlook. He’s a photographer, videographer, Memphis tee collector, foodie, lover of tacos, and mayor of South Memphis. @_one901

Erika Cain is a communications vet with chops in writing, public relations, graphic design, TV, radio, and brand strategy. She is a skilled storyteller and has been a trusted adviser to executives and companies for almost two decades. Erika founded GIRL 24, a business mentoring initiative to help build a culture of gifted and ingenious female leaders. She is a spouse, mom, speaker, community volunteer, and member of Junior League, and loves dissecting brands. @ecain_co

Amber Carswell is an Episcopal priest who works in downtown Memphis. She lives across the river in West Memphis with her wife, two dogs, and an unruly backyard garden. @carswell.amber

Jean Choi is a Los Angeles-based nutritional therapy practitioner, recipe developer, and food photographer. She blogs at What Great Grandma Ate and is the author of Korean Paleo. @whatgreatgrandmaate

Brandon Dill has found a home in Memphis.

When not planning road trips with his wife or building blanket forts with his two daughters, he likes to take pictures. His photos have appeared in the The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and others. @bdillphoto

Don Gaines is a native of Ripley, Tennessee, and moved to the Memphis area in 2016 after layovers in Searcy and Little Rock, Arkansas, and Springfield, Missouri. You might see him staffing the farmers market booth for LuLu's or carrying a sheet tray full of vegetables from a local farmer. If he’s not on a bicycle or tending to his home garden with his wife, you'll find him in a kitchen somewhere trying to make sense of everything. @thatvegandude

Erin Kim spends her time barista-ing at Vice & Virtue and working in freelance illustration and photography. She likes photographing urban scenery and the people she meets every day. Her illustrations range from coffee-inspired concepts to celebrities. @oneofakim7

Richard Lawrence takes pictures in and around the city of Memphis and the Mid-South. @sundayinmemphis

Breezy Lucia is a Memphis transplant from Kansas City, Missouri. She’s a queer photographer and filmmaker living in Midtown. When she's not using a camera, she's baking bread or making fermented beverages. @breezylucia

Emma Meskovic is the queen of all trades at Edible Memphis. You can find her posting on social media, managing print files, designing ads, or editing the website. You can also find her standing on a chair, taking photos of her food, and proclaiming, “Sorry! This is my job!” @emmamesk

Andrea Morales is a producer with the Southern Documentary Project at the University of Mississippi. She’s Peruvian-born, Miami-bred, and Memphis-based. After years of existing in spaces heavy with the constructs of socioeconomic binaries, her work moves with the hope of observing the things in between. @_andrea_morales

Alejandro Paredes is an audiovisual journalist and producer. In 2014 he visited Memphis for the first time and fell in love with the city.

He has been involved in many initiatives to promote Latino culture, such as Cazateatro Bilingual Theatre Group, Ruta Memphis, and New Mix FM. @panarkista

Martha Park is a writer and illustrator from Memphis. Her work has appeared in Granta, Guernica, The Rumpus, MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, and elsewhere. @marthaepark

From pencil to the pen tool, Rebecca Phillips is a full-time artist in the city of Memphis. @rlwphillips

Heidi Rupke finds pleasure in maintaining the practical skills her grandmothers loved: quilting, gardening, keeping chickens, and cooking from scratch. She enjoys biking around Midtown with her family and will drop everything for a good plate of Japanese-style pickled vegetables. @rupkeheidi

Amanda Torres is a neuroscientist, cookbook author, blogger, owner of The Curious Coconut website, and co-owner of Mobius Theory.

She develops allergen-friendly recipes, writes science-backed educational articles, and photographs Memphis with a surrealist perspective. @thecuriouscoconut

Meka Wilson is a Memphis photographer who focuses on her subjects’ rawness and natural beauty. She works with nonprofits, restaurants, and others to capture photos and videos. She loves the positive response she gets from clients when they see the finished product. @pixbymeka ediblememphis.com 7

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

HOW LOCAL FOODS BECAME LOCAL Thoughts from the kitchen

L

BY DON GAINE S • PHOTOGR APHS BY MICHAEL BUTLER , JR .

ooking down at the bowl of Indian-inspired crowder pea and tomato masala with long-grain rice, I felt pretty proud of myself. Here was a dish inspired by a place and culture thousands of miles away but, save a few exotic spices, executed with an almost entirely local roster: peas and tomatoes from home gardens in Ripley, Tennessee; coriander and jalapeño from my own garden in Memphis; onion from Lockard’s Produce in Ripley, Tennessee; chilis from Green Leaf Learning Farm in Memphis; and rice from Two Brooks Farm in Sumner, Mississippi. Despite all of this localness, I realized only a few parts of this meal had roots in this continent: the tomato and jalapeño.

There’s an idea of Old World and New World foods. For people inhabiting most of the land in the western hemisphere, our food falls into the New World category. This name comes from European exploration at a time when they believed the world consisted of Europe, Africa, and Asia; there’s nothing particularly “new” about this land we inhabit. New World foods constitute the foods, crops, and animals found natively in the lands of the western hemisphere. There are plenty of Old and New World foods lists out there, but let’s focus on a few that have really come 8 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

to mean something to us in the South, and the stories of how those foods became localized.

What’s now referred to as the Columbian Exchange began the process of foods, animals, people, culture, and disease being taken from the Old World to the New World, and vice versa. It was with the forcible exchange of people to the Southern part of the United States that we began to see the proliferation of foods we now consider quintessentially Southern. Foods like black-eyed peas, okra, and rice all came to the South via Africa.

Black-eyed peas, purple hull peas, crowder peas, cowpeas— they all belong to the same family, and historians believe they likely made their way to Africa via India. African slave traders often packed these foods for the Middle Passage to keep their miserable human freight alive. Upon arriving to this land, it was the skilled labor and knowledge of these enslaved Africans that led the way for wealthy, white Southerners to become even more wealthy and societally important. There’s an immense amount of pain and beauty wrapped up in the fact that these African foods won out at our tables and in our land. When African cooks entered white homes, they brought these foods with them. As

culinary historian Michael Twitty says, “The man and the woman who became enslaved enslaved the palate of those who enslaved them. From feijoada, to jambalaya, we flipped it on ’em.”

The majority of rice we consume in America is some Asian variety. However, America got its taste for rice from West African varieties that proliferated under the highly skilled Africans forced to farm it here. Too often historians have looked back on the work of African slaves as “unskilled,” but this forced labor literally created millionaires. That, I believe, takes some skill. In the past decade or so, there has been a resurgence to protect and grow these rice crops again, particularly Carolina Gold rice. However, as is too often the case, the folks who never got any reward for their skills still aren’t getting much with this revival.

Before white Europeans started forcibly importing Africans to this continent, there was another group of people whose contribution to Southern staples is often overlooked. I’m referring to the indigenous people who inhabited all of this land and knew the New World as their world. The varieties of fresh tomatoes and corn we spend all winter dreaming of wouldn’t exist without the centuries of indigenous cultivation.

Today it seems there’s no shortage of tomato varieties at our late spring and early summer markets, but GMO giants have staked a claim on corn, making native varieties scarce.

Indigenous people knew hundreds, if not thousands, of corn varieties, but I’ve rarely encountered more than a handful from local growers. Of those few varieties, most of them are sweet corn, with the dent and flint varieties seemingly relegated

Don Gaines and Debra Lockard share Don’s Purple Hull Masala at the Cooper-Young Community Farmers Market, where Debra sells Lockard’s Produce from her family farm. to industrial agribusiness. What a shame. It’s hard for me to think of a food more Southern than cornbread, and while we in Memphis can buy locally milled corn, you might find that the corn used is more chemistry than nature. Small-plot farmers in Mexico are keeping the genetic diversity of corn alive, though, and scientists have taken note. It’s believed that, among the millions of small-plot farmers, there are billions of genetically diverse corn plants.

What does all of this mean for us today? Personally, I can’t eat a bowl of Whitton Farms purple hull peas or grind my homegrown Cherokee White Eagle corn in the Corona mill (made in Colombia) without thinking of all these stories.

When I buy sweet potatoes from Debra Lockard, an African American farmer and owner of Lockard’s Produce, it feels like a step forward. I believe that we must acknowledge the history of these foods and learn to view them as precious, vital, and a tool of reconciliation.

It’s fascinating to me how that one meal of peas and tomatoes could spark so many thoughts and emotions. It reminds me of our humanity, our shared experience. It reminds me that this lens of food through which I’ve come to view the world is also telling the story of us as people. The story is weird, amazing, complicated, broken, and problematic—just like us. ediblememphis.com 9

PURPLE HULL MASALA Makes 3-4 servings

INGREDIENTS 1 teaspoon whole coriander seed 1 teaspoon ground cumin ¼ teaspoon turmeric ½ teaspoon garam masala ¼ teaspoon chili powder ½ teaspoon ground fenugreek ⅛ teaspoon cinnamon 2-3 tablespoons high-heat oil 1 cup diced yellow onion (about ¼ of a large onion) 3-4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped 1-inch chunk of fresh ginger, finely diced ½ hot jalapeño or 1 mild jalapeño, finely diced ¼ cup loosely packed chopped cilantro, including stems 2 ½ cups fresh or frozen peas (purple hull, black-eyed, crowder, etc.) or 2 ½ cups dried peas that have soaked for at least 2 hours 1 14.5-ounce can of no-salt-added diced tomatoes, or 5-6 medium-sized fresh tomatoes, peeled and diced 2 cups water (or unsalted vegetable stock) 1 tablespoon lemon juice Salt to taste

DIRECTIONS Heat a wide sauté pan over medium-low heat and add the coriander to toast for approximately 1-2 minutes.

Add the oil, onion, garlic, ginger, and the other dry spices. Add a dash of salt at this moment and a little more oil if needed.

Sauté on medium-low heat for 5-6 minutes or until the onions start to brown a little.

Once the onions have browned, move quickly, adding the chopped cilantro, jalapeño, and peas. Salt this a little more.

Next add the tomatoes and give it a stir, salting a little more.

By salting in increments, you should end with a well-salted dish. Taste as you go to prevent adding too much.

Add 1 cup of the water/stock, bring this up to a boil, cover, and reduce to a simmer for approximately 15 minutes, stirring occasionally (5-minute increments are great if you need a starting point).

Remove lid and continue cooking approximately 10 more minutes. Some of the water should begin evaporating at this point. I like to stir the dish and also use the backside of my spoon to mash up bits of peas and tomatoes. It will add to the thickness.

10 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

When approximately ¾ of the liquid seems to have evaporated, start adding the remainder of the water in small increments, stirring, slightly smashing and allowing some of the liquid to evaporate before adding more. (If using fresh tomatoes, you may not need to add this extra bit of liquid. Check peas for tenderness as an indicator.) Check again for salt, and add as needed.

Check the peas for doneness and, if needed, add a little more liquid. Cover and allow to cook a little longer, until the peas are tender.

When the peas are tender and there’s a silky, stew-like quality, remove from heat and stir in the lemon juice.

Serve with your favorite rice or bread, or alone. Garnish with fresh cilantro. •

CO M P O ST

E AT

FRUITS & VEGGIE

FRUITS & VEGGIES

GET

G RO W

FRUITS & V

S

SOIL BACK

EGGIES

WHAT TO COMPOST

WHAT NOT TO COMPOST

• shredded newspaper

• cardboard

• meats & meat scraps

• tea bags

• fish & fish scraps

• fruits

• vegetables

• eggshells (shells only)

• nut shells

• coffee grounds & filters • used napkins

• stale bread

• leaves, straw, & hay

• yard & grass trimmings

• houseplants (non-diseased)

• flowers

• dryer lint

• sawdust & woodchips

• bones

• fats, lard, & oils • dairy products

• eggs (shells OK)

• pet waste & litter

• diseased or infested plants

• chemically treated yard waste

• ashes (not coal)

• coal or coal ash

• black walnut tree leaves or twigs

WONDERING HOW TO GET STARTED? You can learn how at compostfairy.com. No yard? No worries. The Compost Fairy will deliver an airtight, sealable bucket with liner and welcome kit. The Compost Fairy offers weekly pickups and delivers a big bag of finished soil in the spring and fall. You can also purchase your own container and drop off your compost at the Compost Fairy’s bins located at the Cooper-Young Community Farmers Market year-round, at the Memphis Farmers Market from April to October, and at the South Memphis Farmers Market all day, every day.

IL LUS T R ATION BY REB ECC A PHIL L IP S

ediblememphis.com 11

CULTURE

Cooking for the Sake of Remembering My mother’s kimchi fried rice STORY, PHOTOGR APHS, AND ILLUSTR ATIONS BY ERIN KIM

12 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

“It had been a dream of mine to learn different family recipes from the woman I shared so much with but had never known.

—ERIN KIM

When she needs to connect more deeply with her Korean roots, Erin Kim always turns to kimchi fried rice. ediblememphis.com 13

I

was born near Seoul, South Korea, and came to the United States at six months old. I’m a Korean American adoptee.

Growing up, I never cared about cooking because I was a stubborn tomboy who volunteered to mow the lawn over learning how to make homemade biscuits or fried okra. I grew up eating a lot of pot roast with carrots and potatoes, or spaghetti on toast. My school lunches were turkey sandwiches with chips and zebra cakes. Rice came out of an instant, microwavable bag, and sugar was sprinkled on top. Cabbage was mostly sautéed with black pepper and a little salt.

Fried rice was something we ate at the one Chinese buffet in the next town over, and I never cared to touch it. I ate my eggs scrambled and never wanted to try anything too foreign.

Being one of the only non-white people in my town, county, and family, I eventually learned that running from difference was not an option. I was 19 when I first tasted tangy and salty kimchi, crispy toasted seaweed, beautiful fluffy rice made in a cooker, freakin’ Spam, and so many more staples. In college, I roomed with a Korean friend who cooked different dishes, and we blasted K-pop while we enjoyed flavors of the motherland.

Everything seemed so shiny and beautiful. It felt right.

Most of my Korean American “assimilation” came from Google or TV. I’d been learning how to speak Korean and cook different Korean dishes, as well as studying cultural understandings, when I did a biological search at age 21. It had been a dream of mine to learn different family recipes from the woman I shared so much with but had never known.

When I looked in the mirror, I felt like I could be Kim Sang Hee, the name I was given at birth.

However, when I learned that

14 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

my birth mother had passed away 10 years earlier from kidney failure, all of my inspiration to understand my Koreanness died as fast as it was born.

It’s taken several years to feel safe exploring my ethnic roots again, but it’s always kimchi fried rice that I ease into. Smelling sesame oil, washing the rice, and having certain sweet and sour flavors hit the tongue seem to be the closest connection I will have to my mom for now. For me, it’s important to understand the recipes from the past in order to authentically cook with the present’s differences.

When I cook at home or with friends, I cook for the sake of remembering. Whether it’s reminiscing about the past or savoring the present moment, I want good memories to linger on the tongue.

Kimchi Fried Rice Makes 2 servings Kimchi Fried Rice (김치볶음밥 or kimchi bokkeumbap) is a staple comfort dish for most Koreans. It can be made with pork belly or Spam, or without any meat. Personally, I always make it with Spam. The saltiness hits differently, and the Western presence in the Eastern dish is a reminder of my own journey. Spam was introduced to Korea during the Korean War, and I am from Uijeongbu, a city that has a U.S. military base. For those who are just starting to dabble in Korean food, this is a fun introduction to staple flavors.

INGREDIENTS 3 cups steamed medium grain white rice (best made a day in advance or, if fresh, cooled for at least 10 minutes) 2 garlic cloves, minced ¾ cup kimchi, chopped 1 cup Spam, diced small 2 tablespoons gochujang* 1 teaspoon gochugaru* (Korean red chili) 3 tablespoons kimchi juice 1/2 tablespoon sesame oil 1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil

FOR GARNISH Toasted sesame seeds Scallions, thinly sliced Toasted seaweed, shredded Sunny-side up eggs *Add gochujang and gochugaru according to your preference.

The suggested amounts are a middle ground for those who enjoy the staple flavors but don’t want too much heat.

DIRECTIONS Using a medium cast iron pan or wok, add vegetable oil over medium heat. Add chopped garlic and kimchi. Stir fry for one minute. Add Spam, gochujang, and gochugaru and cook for another minute, until slightly browned.

Add rice and kimchi juice. Mix thoroughly until well integrated. Remove from heat and add sesame oil. Mix one last time. Split into two portions and garnish with toasted sesame seeds, scallions, toasted seaweed, and a sunny-side up egg. • ediblememphis.com 15

FARM TO TABLE

MORE MARKET, LESS GROCERY A five-day meal plan and farmers market shopping list from a local cookbook author

BY AMANDA TORRE S PHOTOGR APHS BY MICHAEL BUTLER , JR ., AND JE AN CHOI

16 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

O

ver the spring and summer of 2019, I wrote my second paleo cookbook, Fast & Flavorful Paleo Cooking. Each week I bought the majority of the ingredients used to make the recipes for the book at the year-round Cooper-Young Community Farmers Market. To show how easy meal planning at the farmers market can be, I am sharing a five-day meal plan—with a main dish and a vegetable side from my cookbook for each day—and a shopping list.

We are incredibly lucky to have a farmers market that is open every single Saturday morning all year. The offerings at the Cooper-Young market are so diverse and robust that it is possible to do all, or at least a very large chunk, of your grocery shopping for the week there. That’s what my husband and I have been doing since we moved to Memphis in 2015, but we’ve made it a point to try to buy as much food as we can from our local farmers markets since about 2008. If you’re used to relying on grocery stores and big box stores, it is definitely a transition to switch to shopping at the farmers market, but it is not hard to do.

There are so many benefits to buying as much of your food as you can from local farmers. First, the flavor and freshness of the food simply cannot be beat. Once you eat farmers market celery, carrots, tomatoes, eggs, and meat (especially chicken), you’ll think the stuff at the grocery store is bland and boring.

Second, you reduce your toxic burden since the vendors at the market take pride in using little to no pesticides or insecticides.

Some are Certified Naturally Grown, and others adhere to organic practices without official certification. There’s evidence that produce grown this way is more nutritious, and there is also evidence that plants that have been nibbled on by insects have higher levels of health-promoting phytochemicals like polyphenols and other antioxidants.

Third, it’s much more sustainable and eco-friendly to buy food that has been grown locally and not flown or shipped from across the country or from overseas. Industrial agriculture monocropping practices are seriously bad news for the environment and soil health.

Fourth, you’re supporting your local economy and making a real positive impact in the lives of small business owners who are also your neighbors. One of my favorite parts of shopping at the farmers market is getting to talk to the people who are growing the food that nourishes my family. I’ve become dear friends with these amazing people over the years and look forward to the conversations we have every Saturday morning.

At the Cooper-Young market every weekend, you’ll find a whole slew of vegetables and fruit, of course. But you’ll also find pasture-raised meat from happy and humanely treated animals, seafood, eggs, mushrooms, coffee and teas, and dairy products. There also are prepared foods, made-from-scratch breads and pastas, herbal tinctures, and goods from many artisans. If you’ve never been, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to see just how much it has to offer.

Every week Memphian Amanda Torres—author of Fast & Flavorful Paleo Cooking—spends most of her food dollars at the year-round Cooper-Young Community Farmers Market. ediblememphis.com 17

WEEKLY FARMERS MARKET MEAL PLAN TUESDAY MONDAY

Pork Tenderloin Medallions with Horseradish Pan Sauce

MediterraneanHerbed Lamb Burgers with Tzatziki Sauce

Colcannon Sautéed Radishes with Greens 18 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

Here are a suggested main dish and side dish for each weekday, plus recipes for Friday’s dishes.

The rest of the recipes can be found in my latest cookbook, Fast & Flavorful Paleo Cooking.

THURSDAY WEDNESDAY

Brisk Borscht Lemon Garlic Chicken Skillet with Wilted Lettuce Spiced Beet Greens Mushrooms with Gremolata

ediblememphis.com 19

ROASTED CARROT FRIES WITH CARROT TOP CHIMICHURRI Serves 2 to 3

FRIDAY PERSIAN HERB FRITTATA (KUKU SABZI) Serves 4 to 6 Kuku sabzi is an herb-packed frittata that is traditionally eaten to welcome the arrival of spring in Iran. This version adds some cruciferous leafy greens to maximize the nutrient density. You can easily adapt this recipe to suit your tastes and experiment with using different herbs and greens. It is a fantastic way to use up any leftover, partial bunches of fresh herbs and takes only about 15 minutes to prepare.

INGREDIENTS 6 large eggs ½ teaspoon ground turmeric ½ teaspoon fine Himalayan salt ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 2 large cloves garlic, minced 1 cup (24 grams) finely chopped fresh parsley leaves 1 cup (16 grams) finely chopped fresh cilantro ½ cup (26 grams) finely chopped fresh dill 1 cup (67 grams) finely chopped arugula or kale 1 or 2 green onions, thinly sliced 1 tablespoon (15 milliliters) extra-virgin olive oil

DIRECTIONS Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs with the turmeric, salt, pepper, and garlic. Use a spoon to stir the parsley, cilantro, dill, arugula (or kale), and green onions into the eggs to create a thick mixture just barely held together by the eggs.

Heat a 10- to 12-inch (25- to 30.5-centimeter) oven-safe skillet for several minutes over medium heat until hot. Pour in the olive oil and swirl to coat the bottom of the pan. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and use the spoon to spread it evenly. Cook until the edges are just set, about 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer the skillet to the heated oven and bake until it is set in the middle, about 7 minutes. Test by shaking the pan and watch to see if the center wiggles. Broil on high for 1 or 2 minutes if necessary.

Cut into 6 slices and serve immediately. Store leftovers in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Reheat in a 350°F (180°C) oven for about 10 minutes or until warmed through, or serve leftovers chilled.

20 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

Carrot greens are such a neglected vegetable. Did you know that they are very similar to parsley, and in fact are closely related? That makes them wonderful to use in a chimichurri, which is traditionally made from parsley and used as a condiment for steak in South America.

When you can find a bunch of carrots with the greens intact, grab them up so that you can make this bright, fresh, herbaceous sauce that pairs perfectly with roasted carrot fries! Serve it with a steak so that you can use some of the chimichurri there, too. This colorful, tasty dish will be on your table in about 30 minutes.

INGREDIENTS FOR THE CARROT FRIES: 6–7 medium carrots (about 1 bunch) 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil ¼ teaspoon fine Himalayan salt Freshly cracked black pepper, to taste

FOR THE CHIMICHURRI 1 cup (60 grams) chopped carrot greens, thick stems removed (about 1 bunch) ½ cup (120 milliliters) extra-virgin olive oil 2 tablespoons (30 milliliters) red wine vinegar or coconut vinegar 1 teaspoon fine Himalayan salt, or to taste 1 tablespoon (14 grams) minced garlic (about 1 small head or half a large head) ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)

DIRECTIONS Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

To make the fries, cut the tops off the carrots and set them aside for the chimichurri. Peel the carrots and cut them in half crosswise.

Take the bottom, thin halves and cut them in half lengthwise. Take the top, thick halves and cut them lengthwise into quarters. This will give you spears that are about the same size. Place the carrot spears on a metal baking sheet and drizzle with the oil. Sprinkle the salt and pepper on top. Use your hands to rub the oil and seasonings onto every carrot spear. Spread them evenly on the baking sheet, ensuring they aren’t crowded. Roast the carrot spears for 15 to 20 minutes, turning them halfway through cooking.

While the carrots are roasting, make the chimichurri. Massage the carrot greens, olive oil, vinegar, and salt together with your hands in a bowl until the greens release some of their water and they soften. Stir in the garlic and pepper flakes (if using). Serve the carrot fries with the chimichurri on the side as a dipping sauce, or spread it on top of each serving. •

SHOPPING LIST PRODUCE • 2 bunches of carrots with greens attached • 4 heads of garlic (spring garlic, or green garlic, works) • 1 head of escarole or red leaf lettuce, or other flavorful lettuce • 2 pounds beets with greens attached • 3 pounds potatoes

MEATS, EGGS, AND DAIRY • 1 pork tenderloin, 1 to 1¼ pounds • 1 container of freshly rendered lard or ghee • 2 chicken breasts, or 1 large whole chicken, broken down and legs and wings reserved for other recipes in the book

• 1 bag of arugula

• 1½ pounds grassfed ground beef

• 2 medium and 1 small onion

• 1 container of yogurt

• 2 small green cabbages

• 1 dozen eggs

• 1 bunch of green onions

• 1 package of bacon

• 2 small cucumbers

• 1 pound ground lamb

• 1 bunch of radishes with greens attached • 1½ pounds mushrooms, any variety • 1 bunch of chard, kale, or other leafy greens • 1 large bunch of fresh dill • 1 bunch of fresh cilantro • 2 bunches of fresh parsley • 1 bunch of fresh mint • 1 sprig of fresh rosemary

FROM THE GROCERY STORE (OR YOUR PANTRY/FRIDGE) • Dijon mustard • 1 shallot • Prepared horseradish • Finely ground Himalayan salt • Black pepper • 5 lemons, preferably organic • Rubbed sage • Ground turmeric • Extra-virgin olive oil • 1 can full-fat coconut milk • Mayonnaise • Apple cider vinegar • Paprika

DIG IN!

You can find Fast & Flavorful Paleo Cooking at Arrow (2535 Broad Avenue), Novel (387 Perkins Extended), and Burke’s Book Store (936 South Cooper Street). Or order a signed copy from The Curious Coconut website.

• Cumin • Dried thyme • Beef bone broth (or make your own) • Chicken bone broth (or make your own)

ediblememphis.com 21

{

GROW LOCAL

{

1

ST. JUDE GARDEN & FARMERS MARKET ST. PAUL GARDEN GIVING GROVE MEMPHIS CHELSEA AVENUE GARDEN & FARMERS MARKET

{

COOK TOGETHER

{

2

COMMUNITY KITCHEN SMALL BATCH PROCESSING NUTRITION CLASSES

{

FARM DIRECT

{

3

BRING IT FOOD HUB Sign up for a weekly or monthly subscription of fresh local produce from Bring It Food Hub at memphistilth.org

MEMPHIS TILTH CULTIVATES COLLECTIVE ACTION FOR AN ECONOMICALLY SUSTAINABLE, SOCIALLY EQUITABLE, ENVIRONMENTALLY SOUND LOCAL FOOD SYSTEM.

22 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

HOME PLACE PASTURES

GUIDE

Como, Mississippi What: Vertically integrated, pasture-based beef, pork, and lamb When: Year-round Supporting local farmers is one of the easiest and best ways to connect to the local food system. Signing up for a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share is a surefire way to show your support to local farmers, simplify your shopping, and improve your diet. Typically, a CSA share is a box of vegetables, herbs, microgreens, fruit, and even flowers or meat that you pay for in advance and pick up or have delivered to your home on a regular schedule.

Take a look and sign up. Visit ediblememphis.com/csa-guide for ongoing updates.

ILLUS TR ATION BY EMMA ME SKOVIC

Home delivery: Monthly

JONES ORCHARD Millington, Tennessee What: Fruits, vegetables, and sometimes jarred goods When: April 15 – July 9 Pickup: Wednesdays and Fridays at the Agricenter and at Jones Orchard's Highway 51 and Singleton Parkway locations

ROSE CREEK FARMS

BRING IT FOOD HUB

Selmer, Tennessee

Memphis, Tennessee

What: Certified Naturally Grown produce

What: Local, multi-farm produce with optional non-produce add-ons When: Spring, summer, fall, and winter Pickup: Tuesday - Friday at various locations

COMPOST FAIRY Memphis, Tennessee What: Collection of household compostable materials When: Year-round Home pickup: Weekly Home delivery: Twice a year delivery of finished compost

FALCON RIDGE FARM Toone, Tennessee

When: Year-round Pickup: Thursdays at Integrative Wellness (Germantown) or Tamboli's Pasta & Pizza Home delivery: Thursdays

TUBBY CREEK FARM Ashland, Mississippi What: Certified Naturally Grown produce, half and full shares When: Spring, Summer, and Fall Pickup: Saturdays at Cooper-Young Community Farmers Market; Wednesdays at Cooper-Young Community Association, University Center, Zopita’s on the Square (Collierville), or Tubby Creek Farm

WHITTON FARMS Tyronza, Arkansas

What: Fruits, vegetables, and optional flower add-on When: Spring, summer, and fall Pickup: Thursdays at Collierville Farmers Market, Saturdays at Memphis Farmers Market or Agricenter Farmers Market

What: Certified Naturally Grown produce, half and full shares (floral shares available too) When: Spring and summer Pickup: Saturdays at Memphis Farmers Market ediblememphis.com 23

EDIBLE YARDS

FOOD, NOT LAWNS Growing vegetables curb-forward

BY HEIDI RUPKE • PHOTOGR APHS BY BR ANDON DILL

M

ichael Pollan, who wrote about gardens before he began deliberating dilemmas of omnivores, contends that American houses and yards were designed to be observed from the street by people in passing automobiles. Tidy lawns with a few tasteful shrubs, flowers, or trees are the standard for conventional yard maintenance. Several Memphis yards, however, are bucking that trend. And if you have the pleasure to pass them at the speed of a human walk, you notice the vividness, life, and stories that are absent from properties swathed in uninterrupted grass.

One such yard belongs to Phillippe Leny. A lifelong Mid-Southerner and resident of his Midtown home since 2017, Phillippe quickly recognized potential in his front lawn: a perfect sunny spot in which to grow what he estimates is a quarter of his groceries. The garden stretches from his front steps nearly to the sidewalk. From mizuna to arugula, carrots to pole beans, basil to Swiss chard, Phillippe’s garden is a kaleidoscope of leaves.

“I work a lot, so most of what I grow is pretty quick, like salad greens,” says Phillippe, who works as a cook at Catherine and Mary’s.

Despite an unusually hot fall with little rainfall, Phillippe’s garden was thriving in October when I visited. It practically glowed next to tired-looking lawns and dusty trees. Daily watering and a few simple innovations had made the little patch an oasis.

“It’s a learning process. I recently added a shade cloth, which was a game-changer. It keeps everything cool inside, a little microclimate for greens that don’t like it too hot,” says Phillippe.

Phillippe finds that winter is one of the easiest times to tend a garden in Memphis. Plants need the warmth and sunlight of autumn to get established, but cool weather crops such as salad greens can grow right through the winter, many of them without cover. Kale and spinach are among the hardiest varieties; they can be harvested even in snow.

Organization and knowledge of a regionally appropriate planting schedule are key components to starting a vegetable patch. A few reference books—Eliot Coleman is a favorite author—and some good compost help too.

“It’s amazing what the soil can produce if you take care of it and protect it. It’s full of organisms, and, when it’s healthy, it needs very little input,” says Phillippe.

Phillippe makes gardening look easy with neat rows, healthy plants, and a homemade trellis. He admits, however, that it’s not free of pitfalls. The most challenging aspect of gardening for Phillippe is protecting his greens from summer’s intense heat. If the plants get stressed from heat, they turn bitter or pithy.

Another difficulty is competition from other creatures. Phillippe places an insect cloth over the garden to keep squirrels and bugs from sharing his harvest.

“2019 was the first year I’ve actually had good Swiss chard. In 2018, the squirrels just demolished it,” Phillippe recalls. “They even ate a hole through the

24 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

Phillippe Leny grows an estimated quarter of his food in his Midtown Memphis front yard.

ediblememphis.com 25

RESOURCES TO LEARN MORE Square Foot Gardening: A New Way to Garden in Less Space with Less Work

by Mel Bartholomew One Hundred Dollars A Month blog

by Mavis Butterfield Four-Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman Second Nature by Michael Pollan 26 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

“IT’S AMAZING WHAT THE SOIL CAN PRODUCE IF YOU TAKE CARE OF IT AND PROTECT IT. IT’S FULL OF ORGANISMS, AND, WHEN IT’S HEALTHY, IT NEEDS VERY LITTLE INPUT,” —PHILLIPPE LENY

cover while I was out of town. They climbed up and got the tomatoes too. But I love tomatoes so much that I’m going to plant them and share with the squirrels again.”

Phillippe offers samples of the various crops. Some leaves taste deep and rich, almost nutty, while others are lighter and brighter.

One evokes my own childhood garden. These leaves command far more of my attention than bags of salad sitting in grocery stores.

How could grocery store fare compare with something that was picked a few seconds ago? The flavor is quite literally alive.

A few blocks north and east of Phillippe’s home is another front yard teeming with edible landscaping. Brent Nair has lived in his current house for 20 years, but only in 2018 did he move his garden to the front. The decision was prompted by increased sun exposure and less competition from backyard birds and squirrels.

Brent’s garden consists of 30-inch raised beds made of galvanized tin. The beds form a U shape with two additional rows in the middle.

Over a couple of weekends, he moved three tons of dirt into the beds using a wheelbarrow. Within his 270 square feet of raised beds, he grows okra, multiple varieties of tomatoes, watermelons, squash, cantaloupe, beans, squash, thyme, basil, peppers, and flowers.

This is a garden for all of the senses. Brent’s Thai basil, grown for use in curries, is the size of a small shrub. A swift massage of a leaf between my fingers releases an intoxicating aroma. Bees hum near the zinnias and flowering basil as they gather nectar and help pollinate the vegetables. Hummingbirds, cardinals, and goldfinches were regular visitors earlier in the summer. They love the sunflowers, zinnias, daisies, marigolds, and cornflowers that spiked the beds with red, orange, and blue.

Brent’s motivations for gardening lie as much in the process as in the results. “I enjoy the connection with the earth. I grew up in Iowa and was always around a farm and a garden growing up. It’s a grounding activity,” he says. Long, metal wind chimes punctuate his sentences, giving his porch a church-like aura.

For Brent, gardening isn’t necessarily a frugal activity, though he saves loads of money and plastic by growing his own herbs. He loves the small thrill of gathering ingredients from his front yard while he’s

cooking. The challenge of using and disbursing the produce is fun too; last year, there were about 20 butternut squash to dispatch.

“I like to can and preserve. I made a lot of dill and bread-andbutter pickles with all the cucumbers. We also share what we grow,” says Brent.

There are constant surprises in the garden, some less pleasant than others. When he rotated the butternut squash, Brent found lots of squash beetles that he had to squish quickly. Cantaloupes grew poorly. But the beans did well, and even revived during the long, hot autumn. The okra plants and San Marzano tomato vines were still producing well into October. The German thyme was a triumph. The drama of these accomplishments is tangible. And delicious.

Brent notices that, along with birds and insects, humans are attracted to his garden.

“My wife and I sit on the porch in the mornings and on weekends. Lots of people walk by and ask about the garden, especially the flowers. It’s been an icebreaker with people we don’t know,” says Brent.

Front-yard gardens haven’t always been a minority landscape choice. Victory gardens were a sign of patriotism during World War II. The Australian Capital Territory, where my family lived for a short stint, encourages homeowners to use all parts of their properties for growing vegetables. In my own front yard here in Memphis, I have a couple of garden boxes. Edible Memphis publisher Bill Ganus does too. My friend Erica Edwards grows strawberries along that precipitous front slope that marks so many Midtown houses. Maybe we all hunger for more connection with the earth, the seasons, and our food. Michael Pollan says it well: “Gardening, as compared with lawn care, tutors us in nature’s ways, fostering an ethic of give-and-take with respect to the land.

Gardens instruct us in the peculiarities of place. They lessen our dependence on distant sources of energy, technology, food and, for that matter, interest. For if lawn mowing feels like copying the same sentence over and over, gardening is like writing out new ones, an infinitely variable process of invention and discovery.”

I’ll raise a mizuna leaf to that. • ediblememphis.com 27

28 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL

All’s Fair in Love and Sandwiches— and Bi Bim Bop The little-known link between Kwik Chek and Sam’s Deli

I

BY ERIK ALLGOOD • PHOTOGR APHS BY BR ANDON DILL

n the late ’80s and early ’90s, there was a trend of Korean-owned convenience stores in the Mid-South, which followed a broader national trend. These convenience stores were not attached to gas pumps, and they sold an abridged version of what you could find in Kroger or Cash Saver.

Named after their offered check-cashing service, Kwik Chek was opened in 1988 by a man named Young Choi. Three years later, he turned it over to family friend Sue Reyna, who has managed it since. Kwik Chek—located on Madison Avenue just west of where the Overton Square playground begins, but very firmly planted in Midtown—distinguished itself by providing a deli that served hot and cold sandwiches. Locals on their lunch breaks from places such as Turner dairy across the street and, much later after word spread, Rhodes College students loved them.

“We’re the last of the [Korean-owned, stand-alone] convenience stores open in Memphis,” Reyna said. “I think that’s been because of our adaptability.”

Twenty years after Reyna took ownership, it was clear that the deli was the most popular and profitable feature of Kwik Chek, especially after Korean and Greek items were added to the menu throughout the later aughts. Reyna owned Petra—a Middle Eastern restaurant named after the Jordanian city—a few blocks away, where Tamboli’s is now. After Petra closed in 2011, Reyna greatly reduced the number of items sold at Kwik Chek. She relegated the remaining snacks, drinks, and beer to the corners

of the wall, removed the rows of shelves, and put in tables. Kwik Chek was now a deli first and convenience store second, instead of the other way around.

“We didn’t change the name, because that’s what our customers know us as,” Reyna said. “We are Kwik Chek.”

The deli is known for its muffalettas, which include a spicy garlic habanero sauce; its bi bim bop and bi bim bop burger (which includes all the regular sautéed vegetables, spices, sauces, and runny egg of a bi bim bop with a teriyaki marinated burger patty and a bun instead of rice); Greek additions like dolmas and gyros; a kimchi-infused burrito (which Reyna says is perfect for anyone who needs a quick bite on the run); and other sandwiches and wraps which also feature their flavorful spicy garlic habanero sauce. They even have a steak sandwich which uses bulgogi, a Korean beef preparation with a sweet marinade. The thread running throughout every item on the menu is bright, lingering flavor and a high level of heat.

“We used less spice when we first opened because many of our customers liked it to be mild,” Reyna said. “But the younger generation likes it to be really spicy.”

Reyna credits the Greek influence on the menu to her exhusband, Helario “Harry” Reyna, who operated the popular downtown sandwich shop, Elliott’s, for a few years after their divorce.

“That’s my dad,” Reyna’s daughter, Alexandria Genders, who works at Kwik Chek, chimed in during the interview.

Speaking of ex-husbands…

Sue Reyna owns and manages Kwik Chek, where her daughter and mother work alongside her.

Longtime customer favorites include muffalettas, bi bim bop, and a kimchi-infused burrito. ediblememphis.com 29

30 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

More observant diners might have noticed inescapable similarities in the Kwik Chek and Sam’s Deli menus.

In 2018, a man named Brad Wilbanks, who had worked as a chef for over a decade after retiring from a high-paying financial operations job in the corporate world, opened a restaurant called Sam’s Deli just off the Highland Strip with his new bride Shamira Wilbanks, a first-generation immigrant from India. Many of his best customers are students at the University of Memphis.

Wilbanks had started as a chef while hanging around a coastal town in Florida. He became friends with the owner of a restaurant whose bar he frequented. Through several conversations about the culinary arts, he left enough of an impression that the owner brought him into the kitchen in exchange for his bar tab.

Wilbanks loved it so much that he went to culinary school in Miami and was mentored for three years by a popular Miami chef.

He left Miami for Memphis in pursuit of a woman he would later marry and divorce—Sue Reyna.

Sam’s Deli’s menu features generously sized, gourmet sandwiches, which often have an Indian flair. One of their most popular sandwiches, Sub 65, is made with a favorite Indian chicken dish prepared in a complicated, slow-burning spice blend called Chicken 65. The couple make their own patented spice blends to increase the flavor of all of their slow-roasted meats.

Their reimagined pot roast ditches the potatoes, onions, and carrots—which water down and over-sweeten the flavor—for a pork loin with a generous spice rub. That flavorful pot roast makes the foundation of their Big Tex pot roast sandwich. They make a gigantic muffaletta (a whole one can comfortably feed four people), which can be served with their flavorful spicy garlic habanero sauce.

In addition to sandwiches, they are also known for their bi bim bop.

“Most Korean restaurants sauté their vegetables, but we don’t do that for anything but the onions,” Wilbanks said. “We shred the other vegetables really fine, and they cook with the other stuff.

We use Korean rice, sesame oil, but unlike other places we don’t use soy sauce because I think it masks the flavors of the meat.”

Wilbanks said his wife’s brother thought that bi bim bop was called a “billy bop” for the longest time, so they added the Billy Bop to the menu. It’s a larger bi bim bop and includes all the meats together. Sam’s Deli also offers authentic Indian meals every Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday.

More observant diners might have noticed inescapable similarities in the Kwik Chek and Sam’s Deli menus.

Reyna was the manager of both Kwik Chek and Petra from 2003 until Petra lost its lease in 2011. While she was the manager, Wilbanks had a hand in the popularity of Petra.

“We used to have belly dancers and fire eaters outside the restaurant to drum up business,” Wilkins said. “When we first started, we even put up dummies in the seats to get people to stop in. Nobody likes to stop at an empty restaurant.”

It was on Petra’s menu that the bi bim bop originated. It was by far the restaurant’s most popular item. This was one of the first restaurants to feature the item in Memphis, and certainly the first in Midtown.

“We sold over 50,000 bi bim bops while Petra was open,” Wilbanks said. “I’m very proud of that number. If we hadn’t lost our lease, that restaurant would still be open today.”

There are unmistakable similarities between what Wilkins and Reyna consider to be good food. The Greek and now Japanese items on Kwik Chek’s menu and the Indian influence at Sam’s Deli all show a willingness to combine disparate cuisines in the interest of deliciousness and a complex flavor profile. They’re both inspired by their international and domestic travels and often bring items home to their menu. They’re both unafraid to crank up the spice level in their food, although Sam’s Deli is a little more temperate.

The signature, beloved garlic habanero sauce that covers both of their dishes is not actually the same. Sam’s is a little lighter up front with more of a kick on the back end, while Kwik Chek is more immediately strong. Similarly, there are plenty of longburied disagreements over who came up with what during this history, and Reyna and Wilkins do have different philosophies about how to manage a deli. But they both have managed to create distinctive eating experiences that bring big flavor to our city.

Within a few miles of each other, there’s a convenience-storeturned-deli where an elderly woman is making Korean dumplings by hand, and a new deli with traditional Indian food on special.

And on any given weeknight, you can see someone ordering a bi bim bop or a muffuletta at either deli. And they’ll both give you extra garlic habanero sauce, if you ask. • Kwik Check • 2013 Madison Avenue Sam’s Deli • 643 South Highland Street

Brad and Shamira Wilbanks run Sam’s Deli near the University of Memphis. Like Kwik Chek, Sam’s Deli is known for its bi bim bop and muffaletta. Other popular choices, like the Sub 65, include Indian flavors. ediblememphis.com 31

GROWING UP

INSPIRED BY

Binghampton Inspire Community Café serves up nourishing food, economic justice, and a warm welcome for all

BY ERIK A C AIN • PHOTOGR APHS BY MEK A WIL SON

“W

elcome…欢 迎…A loha…Bienvenido… …Karibu.” If seeing the word “welcome” isn’t enough when entering a place of business, try being presented with it in six languages—English, Mandarin, Hawaiian, Spanish, Arabic, and Swahili. That’s the immediate handshake and hug you feel at Inspire Community Café. And owner Kristin Fox-Trautman extends the welcome with a smile as broad as the diverse cultures served daily at the café.

If the personalities don’t grab your attention, the menu is sure to intrigue you with its quinoa bowls, fresh salads, glutenfree gourmet pancakes, quesadillas, homemade chili, house-made hibiscus or matcha green tea, salted caramel lattes, and affordable family meals to go.

Inspire Community Café was built around the concept of economic equality. It was started by Kristin Fox-Trautman and co-founders Terrance Whitley (chef), Charlena Branch (kitchen manager), Jackie Chandler (barista and cashier), and Tevin Whitley (cook). The dynamic team had a mission to create meaningful, living-wage jobs; healthy and delicious food; and a gathering place for local change makers. After many conversations around the dining room table, the team dreamt up a business plan that produced more than just food—it offered a promising and healthy future.

Everything in Inspire’s small, cozy space is intentional and eclectic. The entryway features “merchandise on a mission,” a section designated for local businesses to promote and highlight their missions, services, and products. Local nonprofits offer for sale everything from mugs, T-shirts, and handmade pot holders from youth in the neighborhood to children’s books and gym shorts. (The team directs 100 percent of proceeds back to the organizations.) The dining tables were handcrafted from upcycled pallet wood by the team with the help of a local craftsman. The art dispersed throughout the space was designed by children in the Binghampton neighborhood through a partnership with Carpenter Art Garden.

32 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

Owner Kristin Fox-Trautman often can be found greeting customers with a smile at Inspire Community Café.

Charlena Branch

Inspire’s chia breakfast pudding is served two ways—cocoa banana nut (pictured here) or honey green matcha.

Tevin Whitley

ediblememphis.com 33

The “merchandise on a mission” section offers items from local nonprofits that receive all of the proceeds from what’s sold.

Jackie Chandler

34 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

Inspire Community Café sources several of its own ingredients and products from local and regional vendors—Carpenter Art Garden (produce), Sweet Magnolia Gelato Co. (gelato), Thistle and Bee (granola, honey, and tea), La Baguette (bread), Araba’s Sweet Spot (vegan cookies), Pink House Alchemy (handcrafted syrups), and French Truck Coffee (roasted coffee).

All of the dishes are designed to offer healthier ingredients, with lots of flavor. There are plenty of vegan and vegetarian options, and Taco Tuesdays are a customer favorite.

The team members see themselves as more of a family, with bonds that were made some 20 years ago. Terrance, Charlena, Jackie, and Tevin crossed paths with Kristin at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in downtown Memphis, and later at Sacred Heart Church, where she was a young adult and youth leader. Their weekly youth group provided a space where they could share healthy meals, meet immigrant families from different ends of the earth, have open dialogue about world events, and study the Bible.

Terrance recalls meeting Kristin when he didn’t always know where his next meal would come from. He was sleeping on a friend’s couch and hanging with the wrong circle of people. When he was in his early 20s, Terrance landed a job as a dishwasher at South of Beale.

Two chefs who worked there asked Terrance if he wanted to learn to cook. His first dish was a grilled steak, seasoned with salt and pepper. From then on, Terrance took to the grill often, preparing made-from-scratch, hearty meals. “I don’t consider myself a chef. I just know how to make food taste good,” he says.

Kitchen manager Charlena is an introvert who describes Kristin as the glue of their family. She says Kristin exposed them to countless volunteer opportunities, out-of-town trips and conventions, and the overall spirit of giving back. “I am truly thankful for all Kristin has done for my family and others in the community,” says Charlena.

“She is always trying to solve everyone’s problems.” Charlena worked in a variety of fields, including housekeeping and catering.

She experienced an array of what she considers dead-end jobs and wanted something more empowering.

Then there’s Jackie, the barista and cashier who is the creative of the group, with her raved-about decorating skills. Tevin, who once was gripped by a system of incarceration, is now known as the cook and pancake expert.

Lastly, there’s Kristin, who worked in nonprofit for 20 years, ending her tenure with over seven years as vice president of youth development at Bridges. She wanted a more flexible work schedule after her youngest daughter was born. Lucas Trautman, Kristin’s husband and a former youth leader at Sacred Heart, was her biggest supporter when she began wishing up a way to create a more just and compassionate community. Lucas is a child psychiatrist, Brazilian jiu jitsu brown belt, and owner of Stardust Jiu Jitsu (housed next door to the café).

Terrance Whitley

“I don’t consider myself a chef.

I just know how to make food taste good.”

—TERRANCE WHITLEY After leaving Bridges, Kristin approached Terrance about starting a restaurant. After including the others, the restaurant idea grew from serving up something different and special for their own well-being to giving back to the community.

They took their personal experiences into account when drawing up their core values for the business—love for people, passion for life-giving food, and thirst for justice. And mixed into all of it was the hope of creating a gathering place and building community. After about five years of conversation, cooking together, and venue-seeking, the team designed a menu, created a profit-sharing model, and made a commitment to pay living wages. “We know a lot of people who work really hard and live below the poverty line,” says Kristin. “Our goal is to contribute towards economic justice, which is why we were strategic in pricing our menu items to be profitable, yet affordable for anyone who walks through our doors.”

For its first year, Inspire operated out of a mobile food truck, managed by Charlena. They primarily served Bridges but also traveled to events and other locations. The truck operated a few times a week, just to keep the momentum going until they found a permanent space in a new shopping center at Sam Cooper and Tillman.

Kristin and Lucas had connections and friends in the Binghampton community—including refugee families who had settled there.

The couple recognized the under-resourced food desert and wanted to add access to fresh and healthy food.

Inspire’s brick-and-mortar location opened on January 4, 2019. “Opening day was an exhausting and proud moment, bringing out a huge crowd, and now our anniversary has given us time to reflect and celebrate,” says Kristin. “We hope people in Binghampton feel valued, knowing this space is for them. The community has inspired us, and it’s been very humbling. To have them welcome us into their community and say ‘we’re glad you’re here’ lets us know we’re doing something right.”

The team is currently completing the Project Green Fork certification. “We want to continue to pour into the space and are eager for the profit-sharing to kick in so our team members can start living some of their personal dreams, such as home ownership,” says Kristin. “We’re excited to continue expanding our food offerings and reaching out more to Binghampton residents to get them to see this as their home away from home.” • Inspire Community Café • 510 Tillman Street ediblememphis.com 35

As a child in Mexico, Marisela Pérez—who owns Caminos de Michoacán—often baked bread alongside her grandfather.

36 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

MEET THE MAKER

Caminos de Michoacán These fresh-baked goods offer a taste of Mexico on Macon Road

BY ALE JANDRO PAREDES PHOTOGR APHS BY ANDREA MOR ALES Marisela Pérez’s quotations are translated from Spanish by Alejandro Paredes.

M

arisela Pérez doesn’t consider herself to be a person of many friends. Having run the most popular Mexican bakery in Memphis for the last 10 years, she’s widely known among the local Latino community. But that also has left little or no time for friendship—or, for that matter, for much of anything else. Caminos de Michoacán (The Roads to Michoacán) opens every day, including Sundays, at 7 a.m. and closes at 10 p.m.

“We open early because we supply a lot of smaller businesses, not only here in Memphis, but also in surrounding areas in Mississippi and Arkansas, which sell our buns and pastries,” Marisela says.

Some of these clients use Marisela’s buns to make their own tortas, and others are wholesalers themselves. Visiting Marisela’s bakery, I realize the amount of bread they produce must be huge. They have shelves and shelves full of pan dulce (the name for a variety of sweet pastries), pudín de pan (spiced bread pudding), roscas (similar to donuts), roscónes (large, ringshaped “donuts” meant to be shared), pasteles (birthday cakes), and more.

The bakers’ clock-in time is 2 a.m.

All of the bread they produce every morning is sold by the evening, so the cycle starts again, day after day, in order to keep the clientele happy.

“We have a reputation for being the most expensive bakery in town, but also the best one,” Marisela says proudly.

I get two large pieces of bread pudding, two buns of pan dulce, and a large braid of fluffy, sugary bread. Not even $6! Definitely better than Panera, just a bit further down the road.

When she was a child, Marisela and her seven siblings used to help their grandfather bake bread in a small village called Estado de Mexico, between Guerrero and Michoacán. Marisela’s restaurant’s name evokes the peaceful and naïve atmosphere of her childhood in a little village halfway to the big city and far from supermarkets, restaurants, and grocery shops. There, her grandfather supplied everyone with the sweets that are central to Mexican ediblememphis.com 37

“We have a reputation for being the most expensive bakery in town, but also the best one.”

—MARISELA PÉREZ

Bakers arrive at 2 a.m. to begin filling the bakery cases.

38 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

traditions. So, for her, Día de Reyes (January 6—the day Mexican children get their Christmas toys) also meant a lot of work in her grandfather’s oven. They were in charge of supplying the village with roscónes, which are large and shared by entire families. Their sweet crust is complemented with fruits, which vary from region to region but typically include cherries, pears, and figs. Nowadays, Marisela’s roscónes are renowned and one of her more popular products. No roscón on Día de Reyes is like no turkey on Thanksgiving.

“I never thought I would end up running a bakery myself,” she confesses. “It was out of necessity.” As the oldest of eight, she started at an early age helping her single mom with duties and her grandfather with baking. He didn’t have a formal shop, but he was the one who knew the trade; it was more of a social responsibility than a business. Marisela could only complete sixth grade because she was an important part of running such a large family. She came to the United States at 23, first to Dallas. Then she married and moved to Chicago, where she and her husband ran a restaurant. In 2000 they moved away from the big city, to Memphis, after he had a stroke. They had visited cousins in Memphis and thought it would be a good fit.

They started Caminos de Michoacán as a taqueria on Raleigh LaGrange Road. When they divorced in 2009, Marisela moved Caminos de Michoacán to its current location and added the bakery. “I had grown up around bread so it was natural that I incorporated something that I was really familiar with into the business,” she says.

Nowadays two of her brothers run the bakery with a friend. “They are the ones who come here every morning at 2 a.m.,” she says.

They rest from the grueling schedule only when the weather is warm and the demand for pan dulce lowers.

All of her siblings have worked at the restaurant with her. She feels really proud of it because she was the first one to come to the United States and has spearheaded a better quality of life for all of them. Her two daughters, however, only help in the restaurant when needed. Both are successful

on their own, one working for International Paper and the other as a makeup artist.

“When you work this hard, family is important. I may not have a lot of friends, but I have a large family and we spend time together, even if only working. This is a family business for real,” she says with a big smile. “Last time we got all together, taking into account all the cousins, their spouses, and kids, there were around 80 of us. We did it here, at the restaurant, one of the rare times that we were closed to the public.”

Caminos de Michoacán is also a taquería, so you can find typical Mexican dishes. (For breakfast they serve chilaquiles, made out of homemade tortillas.) One dish that you won’t find anywhere else is the codorniz en salsa (Cornish game hen in salsa).

This beautiful piece of poultry is served deep fried and tossed in your choice of salsa. For the faint of heart, I recommend the Mexican salsa. If you’re into really hot spice, you have to try the chile de árbol salsa, which even some Mexicans find to be a bit too much for them.

Marisela exudes the energy of an accomplished woman.

Thirty years of hard work in the United States don’t seem to have taken a toll on her smile and smooth manners. But she thinks she’ll soon be ready to slow down.

“I think three or four more years working at this pace will be enough for me. Then I would like to spend more time with my

In addition to being a bakery, Caminos de Michoacán is a taqueria, serving traditional Mexican dishes. grandkids and let someone else in the family run the business. We have helped each other to make it this far, and I think I am ready to be only a founding advisor,” she laughs. • Caminos de Michoacán 3896 Macon Road • Memphis, Tennessee ediblememphis.com 39

EDIBLE INK

BY

40 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

ALE

JAN

DRO

PA R E D

E S • I L L U S T R AT I O N S B

YM

HA ART

PA R

K

ediblememphis.com 41

( BEST ) MEMPHIS FRIDGE

GREELY & RAMONA SONIN MYATT Making a general store a home for two artists in West Memphis

BY S TACE Y GREENBERG • PHOTOGR APHS BY RICHARD L AWRENCE

“I

moved from ‘The Best Coast’ to ‘Best Memphis,’” says Ramona Sonin Myatt, who goes by Sonin.

A Memphis native, she lived in Venice Beach, California, from the late ’90s until just a few years ago, when she reconnected with (her now husband) Greely Myatt, and they bought the old Dabbs Store in West Memphis, Arkansas, to live and work in.

Sonin is a professor and coordinator of the Merchandising Program in the Fashion Department at the University of Memphis. She wrote the new Fashion Design curriculum and updated the program’s other two concentrations when she arrived at the university. In two years she has grown the Fashion Design concentration from nine students to 31 students.

Greely, who’s originally from Amory, Mississippi, taught sculpture at Arkansas State University for four years in the ’80s before moving to Memphis. He’s been a professor of sculpture at the University of Memphis for 31 years. He’s on his last semester of research leave until May, and then he’s officially retiring. His work is playful and incorporates found objects.

He has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions across the United States, Europe, and Japan. Greely has some public art pieces in Memphis that you may have seen—Quiltsurround behind City Hall and Everybody’s Talkin’ in Audubon Park. You might have also noticed his neon sculpture, declare, inside the Tennessee Brewery.

Sonin and Greely knew each other back in the day, but the stars aligned for them when Sonin returned to Memphis to visit her mother after her sister’s death. A mutual friend, Dave Thompson, invited them both to Boscos for a few beers.

“Then Greely and I did five cross-country trips in a year,” Sonin recalls.

After leasing a building in the Edge District from fellow artist Pinkney Herbert for nine years, Greely was looking for a building to purchase as a studio and home. He spent years driving through West Memphis looking for a place to call his own.

“I found a building on Broadway, but there wasn’t a clean deed, and the deal fell through,” Greely says.

They “stumbled” on the Dabbs Store at the last minute.

42 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

From 1913 to 1975, the building was a general store, which serviced the railroad.

The building’s most recent tenants included an architectural firm and the residents of two upstairs apartments. But when Greely and Sonin saw its “for sale” sign, the whole building had been empty for a year. Within five weeks it was theirs.

“We spent the night before Christmas here in 2017, and moved in officially in January 2018 because that was the day we brought over Oreo, our cat, and once you bring the cat you’re officially moved!” says Sonin.

Now they each have a studio downstairs, and the upstairs apartments are being renovated into one big living area. There are three refrigerators. The main one is in one of the original kitchens, where they do most of the cooking; there’s a snack fridge downstairs close to their studios, and an old empty one in what will one day be a remodeled kitchen.

We visited the couple (and their two pit bulls, Avalon and Venice, who are West Memphis Animal Shelter alums) on a Saturday afternoon to learn more about their life in West Memphis.

Edible Memphis: Who does the cooking?

Sonin: I do everything except make Rotel and grill. We usually have a 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. dinner time. I get home from class at 6 p.m. or 7 p.m., and I want to have some cocktails first!

Greely: She’s a very good cook, and she cooks, but it’s always at midnight. She’s got every TV on, and the music is on, and she’s using the roller to paint the kitchen. [Laughs.]

Sonin: I like the production!

It looks like Greely likes to make “sweets.” Tell us about these wooden cupcakes.

Greely: The wooden cupcakes with caulk icing were meant to be an art fair impulse item. In New York I sold 21 in 20 minutes for $100 each. So then I made plaster ice cream cones. And then I made a wood and caulk cake for David Lusk Gallery. I made a 54-layer cake on my 54th birthday. I started making them as gifts for Christmas and birthdays. There’s also s’mores, ice cream sandwiches, and cheesecake made from various materials.

Ramona Sonin Myatt (left) and Greely Myatt live and work in the old Dabbs Store in West Memphis, Arkansas.

ediblememphis.com 43

Greely Myatt has served as a professor of sculpture at the University of Memphis for 31 years.

OK, back to real food. What’s a typical meal?

Sonin: I make lots of Chicken Milanese, pot roast, meat loaf (Greely loves meat loaf), soups, Bolognese (Greely only eats penne pasta), smoked turkey, ham, lots of burgers. It’s always meat!

Greely smokes his own turkey and ham on a smoker the U of M gave him for 30 years of “extremely excellent” service.

We like to snack on cheese, especially 1,000 Day Gouda from Trader Joe’s. I’m surprised my heart is as healthy as the doctor says it is. I always ask, “Are you sure my cholesterol is low?” I go up and down stairs all day long, though.

We do eat some vegetables. Greely likes potatoes and carrots, and he loves grilled asparagus and green beans. I love Italian spinach, dolmas made from meat and collard greens—there are no grape leaves in West Memphis.

Best thing about West Memphis?

Sonin: It’s nine minutes to the Arcade [Restaurant].

Greely: There’s a great view of the Arkansas Delta plain across the land to the west from the 40 bridge. If there wasn’t a flood plain, people would already be here. That’s what Brooklyn is.

Sonin: I think people think it’s further away than it is. We wanted to leave Memphis, but not leave Memphis.

So you once referred to West Memphis as the Brooklyn of Memphis. What did you mean?

Sonin: “Best Memphis” is a better descriptor. There are a lot of empty buildings on Broadway. The gas station at the end of Avalon would be a great studio. It’s going to happen eventually.

4 4 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

The mayor [Marco McClendon] is really trying hard. He got Randy Walker from Minneapolis to do the [art installation on the] water tower on Broadway.

Greely: A year after we moved over here, I did a show called Best Memphis at DeltaARTS. The neon Best Memphis sign is still on view in the lobby. That’s also when I made these [Best Memphis] hats [motioning to his head] .

What things do you do for fun here?

Sonin: Southland Casino. I love to gamble. I had Vegas four hours away when I was in Venice. Greely times me because I don’t know when to quit! When Greely’s not timing me, his favorite thing is working in his studios in Best Memphis.

Favorite restaurants in West Memphis?

Greely: Crossroads Cafe—there was a magnet on the fridge when we bought the building. Ray’s B-B-Q is really good. Williams Bar-B-Q is good. [Looks to Sonin.] Have they closed? It’s just off Broadway on 14th. They won an award recently. Well, they’re all “world famous”—maybe they gave it to themselves.

Sounds like you like barbecue.

Greely: I was a judge for the displays at Barbecue Fest [Memphis in May’s World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest] for 10 years. It was great. Only about 10 teams would enter. We’d go down on Thursday morning, and they’d give us an apron, a pen, and a pitcher of Bloody Marys and drive us around on a golf cart.

Favorite place to shop locally for food?

Sonin: I can’t go in the Big Star—I get harassed. People touch my hair, follow me down the aisles.

Greely: I have no problems. I fit right in.

Sonin: I trek out to Trader Joe’s in Germantown. It’s closer than Nashville or New Orleans. Plus, it is by my mom’s house. I go to Kroger on Union for cheese.

What do you stock up on at Trader Joe’s?

Sonin: Meringue candies. All the candy, actually. Ground beef and other organic meat because it’s affordable. Rainbow carrots.

Dog treats. Actually, I get flowers, dog treats, and then food! I like the box of wine for $11.99. And the carnitas.

Is there a farmers market?

Greely: ASU had one in the parking lot, but it was more like a flea market.

Sonin: Brandon [Pugh of nearby Delta Sol Farm] used to drop a bucket of flowers on the porch. In the spring, the front area is my garden. (In Venice I had a garden year-round where I grew my own food.) Last year, tomatoes, okra, radishes, peppers, carrots, and herbs (lemongrass, thyme, parsley, rosemary, sage, catnip, Thai basil). It was great. I’m turning the kitchen into a green room—the sun is perfect.

What is the first thing you remember cooking?

Sonin: When I was around five, I grew radishes in the garden for the first time, and, when I picked my first one, I was going to save it and put it in my room. My mom made me put it in a salad.

Greely: In college I cooked pork chops in a slow cooker with a can of chicken and rice soup What was your first food-related job?

Greely: Soda jerk at a dairy bar drive-in.

What is your “default” thing to cook when you’re hungry and need to make something fast?

Sonin: Grilled cheese!

Greely: Munchos and Pancho’s dip.

Name any ingredients that you couldn’t live without.

Greely: Sugar and salt.

Sonin: Cheese!

Name your favorite indulgence (food/cooking/kitchen-wise).

Sonin: We have a smart-refrigerator fantasy!

Name your favorite thing to do in the kitchen, or your favorite part of the cooking process.

Greely: Watching Sonin stir.

Sonin: Wine. A little for the dish, a little for the chef.

Ramona Sonin Myatt is a professor in the University of Memphis’s Fashion Department and does most of the cooking for herself and husband Greely Myatt.

Name your least favorite thing to do in the kitchen, or your least favorite part of the cooking process.

Sonin and Greely: Cleaning the iron skillet.

Name your favorite kitchen tool or gadget and why it’s your favorite.

Sonin: My mezzaluna! Makes me feel all kitchen witchy!

Do you watch cooking shows on TV? If so, which ones?

Sonin: Beat Bobby Flay, but my fave is anything Nigella! She’s saucy and campy fun!

Greely: The ones Sonin watches.

Most embarrassing thing in the fridge?

Greely: Velveeta. I’m not embarrassed, but people make fun of it.

Sonin: I hid it behind the LaCroix in the fridge so you wouldn’t see it! I used to buy Pancho’s, freeze it, and take it to my son in LA. Out there it’s more about pickled carrots and onions. They have melted cheese, but nothing like Pancho’s dip. Chain restaurants have a version of it, but why would you do that in LA? Greely: Here in Best Memphis, cheese dip is not an issue. • ediblememphis.com 45

LOVE LET TERS

A Love Letter to the West Memphis Applebee’s (Wait, What?)

Sometimes, you need to relax your principles

BY AMBER C AR SWELL • PHOTOGR APHS BY BREE Z Y LUCIA

I

consider myself a person of some principle regarding food. I bet you do, too, if you’re reading this magazine.

The vegetables I don’t grow myself I buy from a CSA, and, if that isn’t in season, it’s organic; at the very least, I buy as fresh and whole as I can find. I find the appeal of Trader Joe’s baffling, considering its preponderance of plastic packaging around things like bell peppers and oranges. We had backyard chickens—had, until our dog got to them, a tragedy of such proportion to our bleeding hearts that we’re still working up the fortitude (and chicken fortress plans) to try again. I care deeply about the meaning of sharing food that came to be through labor and love, the old recipes and cookbooks passed down that link me to my foremothers, the ingredients that connect me to the good earth that grounds me.

46 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

Most importantly, for years I have had a badge of honor that literally no one cared about except me: a shining distinction crafted and given to me with great aplomb by myself, polished with the same fastidious zeal and upturned nose of Percy Weasley-made-Hogwarts-prefect. This badge declared that I would never, ever eat at chain restaurants.

And then I moved to West Memphis, where I discovered Applebee’s and the all day, every day $1 PBR. I swear it wasn’t serious the first time. During the move I had found a gift card to Applebee’s, at least a decade old, moldering in a forgotten corner of a desk drawer. “Are millennials even allowed to have these?” I joked with my wife. “When in West Memphis,” she shrugged, and we laughed all the way to Applebee’s on the day we closed on our house. How meta! How ironic! The only millennials not responsible for killing Applebee’s!

I’m not sure when we lost control. After one particularly trying day, I texted a beer emoji and a string of incoherent letters, which denotes an existential crisis that can only be solved by beer; aka, a beer emojincy. Instead of meeting at home to cross back over the bridge to our favorite brewery, we wasted no time and met at the Applebee’s. Pabst Blue Ribbon, a long talk at the bar, crisis averted, life would go on. The bill was $6, which ain’t bad for sessions solving existential crises.

We went back after a few weeks. Larry Johnson, the bartender, remembered us and our drink order; we chatted about our lives, his hopes and dreams of opening a place of his own in town. “All people will be welcome there, you know what I’m saying?” he boomed with a knowing look at his two new lesbian regulars. I drank my PBR from a frosty mug and looked around.

I began to notice that this, actually, was a cross section of the true South. Here was the family of six celebrating a special night out at a restaurant. Next to us was a group of hunters, still in their camo and orange vestments, who’d spent the day contemplating ducks. When I showed up to watch a Kansas basketball game, there were two other Kansas displacements who lived not a mile from us and traded stories about Lawrence with me. We sat, white and black and working-class like no hipster joint I’ve ever eaten at, as my wife points out in nearly all my favorite Memphis restaurants.

Larry holds court at the bar and asks with delight and concern where we’ve been—unlike the favorite brewery where, after two years, the bartender still demands our IDs and tries to split our check into two. No sweet potato emulsion over shaved radicchio, no pricey plateless interpretations of appetizers, no haute renditions of classic Southern food—but don’t you tire of that, too? Somewhere, on our sporadic bi-monthly-ish visits, I stopped laughing.

I suppose I get to keep my principled foodie badge due to a technicality. We don’t eat at chains; we just drink there. Plus, this is my badge given by my rules, so there’s no use arguing.

But I’ve relaxed a little in the badge’s purity. The most depressing thing about West Memphis is nearly every physical reality the

Larry Johnson, Applebee’s bartender, serves up his drinks nightly to a diverse customer base that ranges from hunters to priests, lifelong Arkansans to out-of-state transplants. ediblememphis.com 47

town holds: endless concrete, flooding and potholed streets, a food scene that is mostly unaware of the terms “local” or “vegetarian” or “salad,” a casino which makes unfathomable amounts of money and does hardly anything at all for the community living around it.

But as I live here, I keep stumbling upon something hidden at its heart. For all the cards that have been dealt to this place (truck stops, no city planning, did I mention the blight of that casino?), I have accidentally found that a faceless, soulless, corporate chain restaurant still cannot repress the goodness of the community. I wish it was shining through somewhere else, sure, but perhaps my shiny badge could handle a different set of values—that purity of association could be less of a concern.

This applies to many situations; ask Ellen DeGeneres about the public outcry for sitting next to George W. Bush at a ball game for an easy example of the value we stock in purity.

I guess I’m saying there’s hope even in this existential crisis, though the PBR still helps. If you end up going, tell Larry I sent you—and under no circumstances should you have the $1 blue zombie drink special if you plan on getting back over that bridge. • Editor’s note: Find more of Amber Carswell’s West Memphis love letters at ediblememphis.com.

Amber Carswell has found that many crises can be averted through a long talk over a $1 PBR at the West Memphis Applebee’s.

48 edible MEMPHIS • SPRING 2020

Applebee’s • 208 West Service Road • West Memphis, Arkansas

al

MEMPHIS, TN