Miss Dots Delicious Dining

August 15, 2016Leave a comment

Miss Dots

1715 University Blvd

Tuscaloosa, AL 35401

Miss Dots Chicken Shop is one of the many restaurants Tuscaloosa has added to its growing foodie scene in recent months. Miss Dots Tuscaloosa is the newest addition to John Cassimus’ quickly growing collection of restaurants. He and business partner Tyre Stuckey opened a Miss Dots location in the Birmingham township of Mountain Brook just a few weeks before their Tuscaloosa launch. Risky? The men don’t seem to think so. The new fast casual chain is the second that the duo has tackled; the first is the contagious Zoes Kitchen that is quickly spreading across the southeast. The new up-and-coming Miss Dots chain is sure to make a huge impact with its traditional southern cuisine in a fast casual setting.

Owners aptly named Miss Dots after a local culinary inspiration, Miss Leona Rogers— AKA Dot. Miss Dot and owners have created the perfect mixture of a southern at-home meal and a fast dining experience unprecedented in Tuscaloosa. The restaurant is located within Tuscaloosa’s forgotten mile, bridging the gap of between The Strip and Downtown. With plenty of parking and brand new sidewalks, Miss Dots is easily accessible to Tuscaloosa locals and students alike. Continue reading →

The Power of Simplicity: Janet Hill, Fannie Farmer, and Perfect Recipes a Century Later

August 5, 2016August 15, 2016Leave a comment

In her late thirties, high school teacher Janet McKenzie Hill ventured to Boston, where she enrolled at the Boston Cooking School. After studying under American culinary pioneer Fannie Farmer, then director of the BCS, Hill graduated in 1892. She went on to found the Boston Cooking School Journal, which she edited for many years, and author numerous cookbooks, including Salads, Sandwiches, and Chafing Dish Dainties (1899), Practical Cooking and Serving (1902), and Whys of Cooking (1916) (Feeding America). This recipe for ginger cakes—flavorful spice cookies boasting a crispy exterior and a dense, chewy center akin to soft gingerbread—comes from her 1909 volume Cooking for Two: A Handbook for Young Housekeepers.

Plain Ginger Cakes

½ cup of molasses

1 teaspoonful of soda

¼ cup of butter

¼ cup of boiling water

2 cups of flour

½ teaspoonful of salt

½ tablespoonful of ginger

½ teaspoonful of cinnamon

Stir the soda into the molasses; melt the butter in the boiling water; turn all into a bowl and stir in the flour, sifted with the salt and spices; add more flour if needed, but keep the dough as soft as can be handled. Roll a little of the dough at a time to a sheet about three-eighths of an inch thick and cut into rounds. Press two pecan nut meats into the top of each, and dredge with granulated sugar. Bake in a moderate oven. The recipe will make about twenty cakes.

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Margherita Flatbread Pizza, Tequila Optional

June 6, 2016August 15, 2016Leave a comment

“…for the first time I saw how three or four ingredients, as long as they are of the highest and freshest quality, can be combined in a straightforward way to make a truly excellent and occasionally wondrous product.” -Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential

I’m no chef, but I must say I am all about taking a short list of ingredients and throwing it together into something amazing. It’s the college kid in me. The only problem is that the “occasionally wondrous” is just that: an occasional thing. Honestly, a hardly occurring thing. Of course, I am not a master with food like Anthony Bourdain. Continue reading →

Boorish Bread

June 2, 2016August 15, 2016Leave a comment

“He’s the best at what he does, after all. The finest bread I’ve ever had. And the most expensive: in human cost, aggravation, and worry. Hiring Adam Real-Last-Name-Unknown was always a trade-off—with God or Satan, I don’t know—but it was usually worth it. Bread is the staff of life. And Adam, the unlikely source” (242).

–Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential

Boorish Bread

If you could eat one food for the rest of your life and nothing else, what would it be? Your grandmother’s roast beef and gravy? Your mother’s meatloaf? Greasy pepperoni pizza from that pizza joint down the street that stays open until 2 a.m.?

If I had to choose, I would choose bread. But not just any bread. The heavenly, doughy goodness that is Texas Roadhouse rolls. Continue reading →