When in Virginia, do as the Virginians do, right? When it comes to food, that means taking home a Virginia cookbook so you can replicate some of the best recipes at home, wherever that may be. Our choice was Dishing Up® Virginia: 145 Recipes That …
When in Virginia, do as the Virginians do, right? When it comes to food, that means taking home a Virginia cookbook so you can replicate some of the best recipes at home, wherever that may be.
Our choice was Dishing Up® Virginia: 145 Recipes That Celebrate Colonial Traditions and Contemporary Flavorsby Patrick Evans-Hylton (Author), Edwin Remsberg (Photographer).
One of the things we liked about this cookbook was its knowledge of Virginia’s history. It divides the food by regions, so you get some of the Shenandoah Valley area that we have focused on in a series off stories, and you also get the Chesapeake Bay, Wine Country, and more.
You get not only the author’s recipes, but a compilation of some of the recipes from noted Virrginia restaurants, such as the Willliamsburg Lodge, which offers its Fried Green Tomato Salad. You also get a taste of Thomas Jefferson’s love of food, with dishes such as Monticello Apple Cake.
The book offers sample menus, unusual seafood recipes, a maple syrup-inspired Chicken Wings recipe perfect for this time of year, and, well, a whole state’s worth of delectable appetizers, entrees and desserts.
Check it out, whether you are in Virginia or not, both for its recipes and for its travel hints and places to see when you go East.
About The Virginia Series
The Shenandoah Valley is nestled between the Blue Ridge and Appalachian Mountains in historic and scenic west-central Virginia. It has the transportation infrastructure and connection to markets in every direction. One of their major areas of focus is the food processing taking place in the region. The Food Channel recently had the opportunity to work with the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) to tour some of the up and coming places, and to talk with entrepreneurs as well as established business people eager to tell the Virginia story.
Ligonberry pancake from Egg N’ Joe in Scottsdale, AZ. Ligonberries are not just for Europeans or Scandinavians anymore. The uniquely tart fruit is gaining attention for its antioxidant properties as well as its flavor. It’s time for our usual Food …
Ligonberry pancake from Egg N’ Joe in Scottsdale, AZ. Ligonberries are not just for Europeans or Scandinavians anymore. The uniquely tart fruit is gaining attention for its antioxidant properties as well as its flavor.
It’s time for our usual Food Trends report…but, of course, there is nothing usual about how we look at food.
The Food Channel keeps an eye on trends throughout the year, using a mix of data analysis, industry knowledge, analysis of consumer behavior, scientific advances, and global travel experience. We watch with the best as consumers order, prepare, eat and share their personal food tidbits.
If you’ve followed our reports, you know that we work hard to define the behavior that comes out of an observation. It’s not so much the food or the flavor as it is what is driving people to talk about it, buy it, interact with it. With all that said, here’s a look at what we see ahead.
Spice variety is the…well, spice of life. Photo by Paul K. Logsdon.
1. Fresh Spices. 2024 is the year you’ll clean out your spice rack. The past decade has brought us a plethora of new spices—flavors and combinations that were never really accessible before. Black Truffle Parmesan Seasoning. Ceylon Cacao Chili Powder. Umami spice, and the flavor of the year from McCormick, Tamarind & Pasilla Chile Naturally Flavored Seasoning. Then there are the staples that 25 years ago weren’t common in most American kitchens, like cumin and cardamom. And if we start talking about salts, we may never end!
Part of this trend is the movement toward using spices such as cinnamon for their potential health benefits. The rest of it is simply a way to move flavor forward. So, make room for some new staples, and—while you are at it—clean out expired spices. While many hold their flavor, if they no longer smell like they should, are cakey, or they aren’t properly sealed, toss them and treat yourself to new ones.
Along with this will come new understanding about how to season food properly—watch for some self-help videos talking specifically about this. People are asking for it.
2. Heritage Recipes. Old Recipes are making a comeback. It’s funny how those secret family recipes have a way of popping up every decade or so. We’re seeing SO much on social media where people are sharing recipes from old cookbooks, or letting loose of their grandmother’s secret sauce recipe. TikTok has contributed to this trend, perhaps because old recipes offer an unending source of new content. No matter the cause, this is bringing some good recipes back to the forefront, particularly as home cooks add their own flair as they update the ingredient list and simplify the instructions.
Lemon and Berry Tarts from Mirabella’s Table in Rogers, AR. Photo by Paul K. Logsdon.
3. How and When We Eat. There is a burgeoning afternoon evolution of coffee shop-like opportunities for remote workers. We’re seeing life extend beyond the coffee shop into charcuterie and cheese shops, and small plates that don’t require a happy hour to go along with them. Undoubtedly, this is a natural move as we incorporate the lessons of the Covid pandemic into the new realities of worklife. Buffets went out during the Covid pandemic, but are back in a smaller scale. One of the latest adaptations is the “carousel” approach, with a mix of made-to-order items and table service. Mirabella’s Table in Arkansas, where Walmart’s headquarters mean new ideas hit the area quickly, used this approach for its Christmas Eve menu. A fresh omelet station was set up where you could order what you wanted; same with a prime rib station where you could select an end cut or rarer slice. Meanwhile, offerings included baramundi, salmon, shrimp scampi, lemon ricotta pancakes, bobka French toast, seasonal tarts (pictured above) and a whole lot more. All the fun of a buffet with shareable portions brought to the table in all-you-can-eat style.
Coffee Lemonade from Freckleberry Teahouse in Galveston, Texas.
4. Playing With Our Coffee. Speaking of coffee shops, it seems something new with coffee comes up every year. Cold brew, pour over, you name it. This year it’s the addition of lemonade. Coffee Lemonade is now a thing, perhaps because citrus is being lauded for its own health benefits—but maybe just because it’s a flavor combo that seems a bit out there. Try it, though, particularly with an iced version like our Starbucks-inspired recipe, here. And, while we’re on the subject of lemonade-style beverages, we’ve become a fan of Freckleberry Teahouse in Galveston, Tx. They offer a Butterfly Pea Tea that is smooth going down, and presumably loaded with the antioxidant benefits of the peaberry. It’s also fun and insta-worthy, since the tea changes color when mixed with lemon. Oh, and First Watch has a seasonal drink called a Purple Haze, with lemon, sugar, butterfly pea flower tea and lavender. Thankfully, having a little fun with your food is always on trend.
If you want to know a little more about the peaberry, we found a good primer, here:
And, if you want to try making Coffee Lemonade at home, check out this Starbuck’s recipe.
5. Passive Kitchens. It’s back to the 70s with a new concentration on energy efficiency—but now it’s under the term “passive houses,” and it’s hitting the kitchen big time. New designer kitchens are all about natural light, sustainable materials, and lower utility costs. Kitchens are being re-engineered and, while most of us won’t be remodeling any time soon, homes of the future won’t just have utilitarian kitchens. They will be spaces where creativity reigns in both design and home chef-friendly functionality.
Photo by Paul K. Logsdon.
6. AI-Generated Cooking Prompts. We’re not saying that AI can replace recipe development. We’re certainly not saying that AI can take over your kitchen. At least not yet. But AI can write a recipe. We don’t know who ends up owning the copyright, or how many permutations may eventually be created…and, as far as we know, no one is out there testing the recipes. But, ask ChatGPT, as we did, to put together a few ingredients and see what you get. For years, culinary artists have asked for a way to easily review the ingredients in their pantry and come up with something to eat. Here you are, in 2024.
We gave a simple command: Write a recipe using chocolate chips and cinnamon. We can’t say it’s not similar to a hundred muffin recipes in our cookbook archives, but it was quick research and a doable recipe. See the recipe, here.
7. The Electronic Experience. The trends so far are leaning heavily toward home cooking again this year—another outcome of Covid. However, restaurants are recovering from the onslaught of having to recreate themselves for delivery and outdoor dining, and are once again paying attention to their back-end technology. They’ve discovered that the newest part of an exemplary dining experience is one that includes seamless payment and the use of the latest apps. The problem is that there are a bunch of possibilities now—Square, Toast, MyCheck, to name just a few. While Square seems to have a good share of the mom and pop market, we expect to see more of this sorted out as consumers demand a good experience from start to finish.
One additional note on this: We’re seeing a lot of frustration over customer service, so along with an evolution in electronics, we see a revolution in employee training gearing up.
8. Retirement Food. The latest wave of Baby Boomer retirements is doing what pundits have predicted for years: made senior facilities wake up to what people really want. Institutional food is being replaced by chef-created menus and on-site restaurants. These retirees are not into traditional dayparts, either. They like elevenses, high tea, extended coffeebreaks, workout menus, and—dare we say it—flavor and texture that is hard to achieve when you are serving hundreds at a time. Boomers are still a sizeable and influential category, even if it appears GenX is creating all the newest trends. It’s still Boomers who have expendable cash to travel and try new things. So, seniors and food is a category worth watching.
9. Appliance Cooking. We’re always asked about a piece of equipment when we do our trends report, so here’s one for 2024: the rice cooker. Those who want them have air fryers, but rice cookers offer a small appliance that doesn’t have to sit on the countertop. Recipe books such as “I Love My Rice Cooker” are popularizing some unexpected uses of the appliance and bringing new interest to meals. Hint: We recommend the Root Beer Beef Shortribs recipe.
10. The Olympics of Food. The 2024 Summer Olympics are in Paris starting in July, which brings a whole new level of culinary interest to the world. Combine this with the renewed interest in European travel and you have something worth paying attention to. While the focus will be on sports, we expect new interest in crepes, croissants, and escargot.
Reconstructed tacos with the cheese on the outside, from MartAnne’s in Flagstaff, Az.
BONUS
In addition, here are some individual food items we’re watching for 2024:
Pizza bowls will continue to innovate, as people avoid carbs but want the rest. Forget scraping and eating the top—new bowls are on the horizon. So quit arguing about the type of crust and focus on the flavor and other ingredients.
Breakfast soups are now a thing. It’s a way to extend the dayparts, and even the seasons, since cold soups are becoming more and more popular as well.
We did deconstructed food. Now people are doing reconstructed food: putting the cheese on the outside of the taco, for example, as pictured above.
Mushrooms are popping up as a flavor enhancer as well as a standalone meal.
Savory baking is growing. This is a trend that was pretty much confined to high end bakeries until lately, as home cooks are more willing to experiment with timesaving shortcuts, such as refrigerated dough or frozen puff pastry. And, since a little sweet goes a long way, pastries and popovers are showing up with all the elements of a quiche. A few years ago we predicted hand pies would become more universal, and we were right—this just moves them from a hand-held lunch into a standard breakfast item.
Ambience. Simply put, nothing matters more when debating the merits of various 19th holes around the United States.
Ambience.
Simply put, nothing matters more when debating the merits of various 19th holes around the United States. So say Golfweek’s Best 800-plus raters who were polled to determine the top 10 golf course bars and restaurants. More than 400 votes were cast to establish this list.
Views are important, but not everything. Same goes for the food. The drinks menu matters, of course. Service is key. But none of these alone is enough to earn a place on Golfweek’s Best initial list of top 19th holes that includes three private clubs and, perhaps more importantly, seven spots where anyone can grab a seat.
The Tap Room at Pebble Beach Resort in California (Courtesy of Pebble Beach)
Instead, it’s all about the vibe. A chance to relax, just hang out. Enjoy a sip, the conversation, the golf and the heritage. It can be difficult to describe what makes one space a better hangout than others, but you know it when you see it. And then you never want to leave.
Check out Golfweek’s Best ranking of Top 10 19th holes. And by that,
we mean not just on this website. Go see for yourself.
Davis Love III, the unofficial mayor of the island, helped give Southern Soul a new lease on life, and it later returned the favor.
ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. – Smoke rolled from the side of the building. Within minutes flames leapt from the roof. By the time the fire department extinguished the blaze, the roof had collapsed and Southern Soul, the half-century-old converted gas station that Harrison Sapp and Griffin Bufkin had turned into a haven for barbecue lovers was gutted.
The fire happened in 2010, just months after Guy Fieri of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” the Food Network favorite, had filmed a segment that was bound to shoot Southern Soul to stardom. But to hear Sapp tell it, something special resulted from their hopes and dreams going up in smoke.
“The whole island took care of us,” Sapp said. “The building was still smoking, I thought our little dream was done and he’s standing there telling me we could use his warehouse for as long as we needed to.”
He is Davis Love III, PGA Championship winner, Ryder Cup captain, host of the island’s PGA Tour stop, the RSM Classic, who grew up on this part of a chain of barrier islands nicknamed the Golden Isles, working in the cart barn as a teenager and cutting the crab grass out of the greens at Sea Island’s Seaside Course with a hook knife. Love, the unofficial mayor of the island, helped give the restaurant a new lease on life.
Just weeks after the fire, Southern Soul was back in business, operating first under a canvas tarpaulin and then a mobile food trailer. Sapp remembers being hot and sweaty and just plain dirty. Every chance he could, he’d escape for some A/C.
“I would go into their office (at Crown Sports Management, which represents Love) like Kramer in ‘Seinfeld’ and just sit on their couch and talk to them forever,” Sapp recalled. “We just became friends.”
Bufkin and Sapp had served Love over the years in their previous lives as bartenders at various island establishments, but they struck up a friendship over food.
“Davis loves barbecue more than anybody you’ve ever met,” Sapp said. “He’d rather be cooking barbecue than anything.”
— Southern Soul BBQ (@southernsoulbbq) April 3, 2020
That segment of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” aired in the fall of 2010, not long after Southern Soul moved back into a restored version of its original restaurant at the side of a roundabout just a mile off the beach. Business boomed.
“It’s amazing what happens when he comes,” Love said of Fieri. Not long after, Garden & Gun heaped praise and pretty soon it snowballed to Southern Living proclaiming Southern Soul “the best barbecue in the south.”
During the RSM Classic, if you’re looking to meet a professional golfer, just take a seat at one of Southern Soul’s picnic tables and wait. Jimmy Walker and Trey Mullinax were among the first pros to show up. Walker critiqued the brisket, and Mullinax wondered why they closed so early. Zach Johnson, Jonathan Byrd, Keith Mitchell, Hudson Swafford and Harris English – who says, “It’s hard to beat that weekday worker pulled pork sandwich and fries, but I need a nap afterwards,” – are among the local pros who eat there regularly.
“When they are younger they eat there a lot,” Sapp said. “When they get married, their wives don’t let them go there as much. They won’t say that, but that’s the truth.”
On Tuesday of tournament week, Sapp began cooking in the oak-fired Lang and Oyler pits at 1 a.m. to cater lunch on the driving range at Sea Island, which has become a tradition like no other.
Love, who likes to stop by for the Thursday pastrami special, inquired after the fire about expanding the business and ended up going in as a partner in Southern Soul. (In 2019, they opened a second restaurant, Frosty’s Griddle and Shake – you haven’t lived until you’ve tried the Davis Love III pimento cheeseburger – and currently have a building under contract in Brunswick, Georgia, for their first restaurant off island.)
“Yeah, I’m shocked how it has blown up,” said Love, who can be found pitching in to cook Boston butt, smoked for 12-14 hours over oak, at Southern Soul when they are short-handed. “I’m their least talented, highest-priced employee.”
Love moved to the island as a child in 1978, when his father, famed teaching pro Davis Love Jr., was given a blank slate to start an instructional school anywhere in the country he wanted. He chose Sea Island Resort, and Davis has called this place halfway between Savannah, Georgia and Jacksonville, Florida, home ever since. With his golf and business successes, Love, the winner of 21 PGA Tour titles, could have moved anywhere, but he and wife Robin, his high-school sweetheart, never considered leaving and built a home nestled among live oaks and palms on a secluded five-acre lot with prime marsh frontage. For a decade, Love hosted the RSM Classic’s pro-am draft party in a tent in his backyard, where participants feasted on the island’s best low-country cuisine, including barbecue from Southern Soul.
Sapp gets all choked up when he thinks of Love’s contributions to the community, some of which are well-documented through his Davis Love Foundation, which has raised more than $14 million in its first 12 years hosting the tournament to support charities focused on children and families in need. But there are other acts of kindness for which Love seeks no publicity. Take, for one, how Love cooked up all the food in their freezer and gave it away to locals when the island lost power during a hurricane a few years ago, and his efforts to support the restaurant business when COVID-19 hit and threatened many of his regular haunts.
“He would book parties with them and pre-pay for everything – jeez it is hard to talk about – to help them pay their rent,” Sapp said. “He wouldn’t say he was paying their rent, but that’s basically what he was doing. He booked two parties with us that he didn’t have for a year and a half. He was doing that all over the island. I mean, he’s legit. I’d kill somebody for him.”
Flames fully engulf the St. Simons Island home of Davis Love III in 2020. [Kyle Jurgens, Glynn County Fire and Rescue]On March 27, 2020, 10 years to the day that Southern Soul burned to the ground, Love’s home was destroyed in an early-morning two-alarm fire. Thankfully, no one was injured. Just as Love was the first resident on the scene to lend a helping hand when Southern Soul was engulfed in flames, Sapp and his wife returned the favor, cooking breakfast for the Love family and first responders.
“It was really sad that it happened to him,” Sapp said. “We all sat there and watched it burn.”
But just as Southern Soul came back better than ever, Love has proved he can conquer all. When he speaks of the fire, it doesn’t take long for him to shift the conversation to the outpouring of support his family received.
“I feel so blessed,” he said.
Family keepsakes were lost, but what Love learned to appreciate is that he truly is a beloved member of the community, an island institution every bit as much as the avenue of oaks dripping with moss that stand sentinel at Sea Island’s entranceway, or the bag piper playing at sunset. For Love, this whole island will always be home.
The concept combines food, drink and putting, with further expansion planned in 2022 in Florida, Texas and Arizona.
The Tiger Woods-backed PopStroke, an experiential golf and casual-dining business, has broken ground on the east side of Orlando as the company plans to open seven new locations in 2022.
PopStroke currently has two locations open, one in Fort Myers, Florida, and another in Port St. Lucie, Florida.
Each PopStroke location features two 18-hole putting locations designed by Tiger Woods and his TGR Design, which also designs full-size courses. Other amenities at each location will include a jumbotron screen with a putting leaderboard, an outdoor gaming area with pingpong and other games, an open-air restaurant, an ice cream parlor and a playground. PopStroke said in a media release announcing the fresh groundbreaking that the golf experience will be designed for players of all skill levels.
A finished PopStroke facility (Photo submitted)
The Orlando location in Waterford Lakes is one of seven that are scheduled to open in 2022 in Sarasota, Florida; Houston; Salt River/Scottsdale, Arizona; Glendale, Arizona; Tampa, Florida; and Delray, Florida.
The Orlando location is scheduled to open in April and was the second groundbreaking among the list of announced new locations. The Sarasota facility is scheduled to open in March, with the others in line behind that, according to popstroke.com.
“Orlando has long been recognized as one of the premier entertainment destinations in the world and a natural fit for PopStroke’s continued expansion,” company founder Greg Bartoli said in the media release. “We look forward to being a part of such an exciting and rapidly expanding community as we introduce the PopStroke brand to people of all ages across Central Florida.”
Founded in 2018, PopStroke is co-owned by Bartoli and Woods’ TGR Ventures. The company is headquartered in Jupiter, Florida.
Welp. It finally happened. James Harden is officially a Brooklyn Net.
We all knew this was coming sooner rather than later after Harden’s incendiary press conference from Tuesday night where he called out his teammate’s lack of talent.
But no one knew that the deal would be this bonkers. It took doing a four team deal with a whole bunch of draft picks changing hands and going to Houston for it to happen, but the deal is done, according to The Athletic’s Shams Charania.
The details are wild. The Rockets traded Harden and got back Brooklyn’s entire draft for potentially the next six years.
Sources: Full current trade:
Rockets: Victor Oladipo, Dante Exum, Rodions Kurucs, 3 BKN first-rounders (22, 24, 26), 1 MIL first (22, unprotected), 4 BKN 1st round swaps (21, 23, 25, 27)
