Charleston Academy of Domestic Pursuits

A Handbook of Etiquette with Recipes

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• Publisher: Stewart, Tabori & Chang
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781613125991
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Culinary Arts

Nestled deep in the South is a tiny Academy that teaches classes in the most important subject in the world: the domestic arts. The Academys unique curriculum includes everything from cocktail-party etiquette to business entertaining, dealing with household guests, and cooking for the holidays. Here, after a little gentle instruction from Deans Pollak and Manigault, interspersed with plenty of humor, students find they are living healthier, having stronger ties to friends and family, and using their houses to branch out in ways they never dreamed possible. Since not everyone can get to their sold-out classes in Charleston, the Deans are now offering this book so happier living can be within everyones grasp, not just the select few.

ORGANIZATION:

The Kitchen Wears Many Hats

At one time or another the Deans’ kitchens have served as dining rooms, offices, playrooms, homework stations, living rooms, wineries, and even penal colonies. A room this integral to family life has to be organized for maximum efficiency or the owner can’t exploit all its advantages.

Kitchens require a multitude of ambiances. A dimmer switch for overhead lighting is necessary for all the activities the kitchen will host. There is no way to do homework without plenty of lighting; conversely, there is no way to relax with your glass of wine under klieg lights.

Kitchens crave order. The kitchen should be a transitory area for coats, backpacks, mail, and pocketbooks—not their final resting place. Every afternoon Dean Manigault’s daughters do their homework and science experiments in the kitchen. To start cooking the nightly dinner, Dean Manigault needs a leaf blower and bullhorn to have extra paper and books removed from the countertop. After your meal, keep in mind that dirty dishes do not improve with age, so get in there and get them clean. Keeping your kitchen tidy is a good habit to form early and practice often.

If possible, kitchen gadgets should be put away when not in use. Finding out-of-sight homes for the food processor, blender, etc., is the quickest way to declutter your kitchen. However, the coffee maker is used every day, so this creator of lifeblood has earned its counter space, and the standing mixer is so heavy that you’ll never want to move it.

If you have a bad back, like Dean Pollak, where you place your heavy pots is important. A hanging rack is essential for her physical well-being and not merely a decorative element. Unless you are as tall as LeBron James, teetering on top of stools and countertops to retrieve items from way up high is dangerous and unsustainable. Cupboard shelves that extend all the way to the ceiling are only appropriate for storage items that are rarely used. Once something has been put this far out of sight, you will forget its very existence.

Even the Deans need motivation to get our kitchens in order. Sometimes, it’s not until we’re inviting six to ten of our well-heeled friends over for a gathering that we look at our kitchens through their eyes and say, “Oh, boy! We’ve got some work to do.” The Deans roll up our sleeves and tackle one area at a time, working our way around the room. Do not let yourself get so carried away that you store anything in the oven. Believe it or not, the Deans have actually seen this done! We start tidying several days before our jump-up, not twenty minutes before guests walk in. Now our party has served two purposes: to reconnect with friends and to return the kitchen to a state of Zen. Be sure to clean up after guests leave, also, or all the hard work will have been in vain.

When the Deans are shopping for food for a specific recipe, we put all the ingredients for this recipe in one bag. Then we refrigerate the bag in its entirety—that way, we don’t have to hunt and peck for ingredients or forget any. The ancillary items we already own, we get out before we start cooking. If you do this, you won’t mess with your timetable by having to do a last-minute search. This is part of mise en place, a fancy culinary way of saying, “Get your ducks in a row,” or preparing all your ingredients, equipment, and utensils so they’re at hand when you begin to cook. Each chopped item, liquid, or dry good gets premeasured and put in its separate bowl. Get in the habit of the proper mise en place! The Deans’ mantra is “Don’t sleaze your mise.” Cooking cannot be fun or relaxing when fear of catastrophe looms overhead, so it’s no wonder people can drink a whole bottle of wine while cooking their nightly meal if they never got in the habit of a proper mise.

Just as important as mise en place is cleaning utensils, countertops, and dishes as you proceed with your recipes. Any moment that you’re not sautéing or mixing and your eyes and hands can be diverted should be spent washing up. By the end of cooking, you won’t be faced with a disastrous mess—you’ll have a clean kitchen and a delicious meal.

Leftovers need to be monitored. Nothing repulses the Deans more than spying long-forgotten items in the back or bottom of the refrigerator. Rotten food casts a shadow of doubt on the freshness of all the contents of your fridge. Rotate leftovers to the front of the shelves so you don’t lose sight of what you have.

Similarly, a pantry in chaos is useless. If the cans, boxes, and jars are out of date, then your pantry is a graveyard. Not only is your money being wasted, so is your time, because you’ll have to run out at the last minute and purchase items that should be at your fingertips. Be sure to keep an eye on expiration dates. Dried herbs and spices are especially vulnerable. Just like Baby New Year turns into decrepit Father Time, so, too, do these seasonings disintegrate into dung-colored dust. You’re fooling yourself, but no one else, if you think you’re adding flavor to your food with these outdated additives. The Deans insist you assiduously check your cabinets and keep your spices for no more than a year. When in doubt, throw it out.

MUST-HAVES:

School Supplies

COOKBOOKS We can’t emphasize strongly enough the importance of jotting your ideas in the margins of your cookbooks. First and foremost, note whether you even like the recipe. It may seem impossible to believe, but after years of cooking you will forget what you have cooked, let alone whether the recipe was tasty or not. Next, write down any tweaks you made or wish to make next time. Was the heat high enough? Would you add more cumin? Would you double the quantities? You can even remark on who ate the meal with you and what they thought of it, if relevant. We are not advocating writing an entire new cookbook in the margin, but you and your future grandchildren will treasure your pithy comments later on.

The Deans have collected thousands of cookbooks over the decades and the walls of our kitchens are libraries. We still get misty-eyed about the ones we gave away, when we deluded ourselves in the thought that we had too many. The older the book, the better, because not long ago very few chefs took the time to write a book, and those who did had groundbreaking recipes in their minds and on their stoves. Having purchased our book, you’re well on your way to a stellar cookbook collection.

KITCHENAID OR OTHER STANDING MIXER This is a large, heavy piece of equipment and has an expensive price tag. However, the initial outlay pays off. Both Deans have had ours for more than two decades and we use them at least once a week. If you amortize the price over twenty years, the mixer is probably the cheapest thing in the kitchen. Dean Manigault’s KitchenAid has outlasted her marriage by at least a decade. The Deans wish that every relationship we had was as constant and reliable as the one we have had with our respective standing mixers.

SILPAT, ROUL’PAT, OR OTHER SILICONE BAKING SHEET Even your emotionally neediest family member cannot help but feel loved when presented with a slice of homemade pie. A silicone baking sheet is what makes that pie possible, because it’s essential for rolling out flaky dough. Gone are the days of scraping your countertop to remove sticky dough remnants. Now you just roll out your dough on the silicone. Biscuits and silicone are a marriage that no man should tear asunder. After being folded and refolded, the biscuits will rise to towering heights. Cookies can be baked on the silicone. How one piece of rubber can be all things to all doughs, we’ll never know.

THE ACADEMY’S SOUTHERN BISCUIT

We don’t care who you are—nobody has the time or desire to make a flaky croissant first thing in the morning. If you are making croissants, then you are baking four hundred of them and opening up a patisserie. We assert that pastry has personality; the croissant is haughty and refined. The biscuit, on the other hand, is a plucky little fireplug with a can-do attitude. He is the friend to every meal and will even do appetizer duty if you but ask. He has a wide-open smile ready to accommodate ham or melted butter. He just wants to be loved. Folding the pastry a few times creates layers—a nod to its French cousin, the croissant. MAKES 12 TO 18, depending on size of biscuit cutter

3 cups self-rising flour, preferably White Lily

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into

4 equal pieces 1½ cups whole buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 500°F.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Using two knives or a pastry blender, cut the butter into the flour until it forms pea-size pieces. Add the buttermilk and stir with a wooden spoon until the dough almost forms a ball.

Place the dough on a silicone baking mat and begin folding up the sides, right and left, until a ball forms. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough to ½-inch thickness. Fold one side of the dough into the center and then fold in the other side. Roll out again and refold in the same manner three to six times. (Each roll and fold creates flaky layers within your biscuits.) Roll out one final time until the dough is ¾ inch thick.

Cut out biscuits with a 2-inch biscuit cutter or an inverted glass.

Place the biscuits on a nonstick baking sheet. Gather the scraps, reroll, and cut out more biscuits until all of the dough has been used. (At this point, you can cover the unbaked biscuits with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 24 hours, or freeze for up to 3 weeks.)

Bake until lightly browned on the top and bottom, 10 to 12 minutes. (Bake frozen biscuits at 425°F for 25 minutes.)

SKILLET The Deans are in complete agreement that the skillet is the mo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• PART I: ELEMENTARY EDUCATION
• PART II: CONTINUING ED
• PART III: MASTER CLASS
• PART IV: THE DEANS CONCLUDE
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INDEX OF SEARCHABLE TERMS