So, you want to hear about Tennessee?

Going back “home” as people like to say…it’s a weird thing for me. I’m not quite sure where my home is. I didn’t grow up in one place with one solidified family. I’m not sad about that fact….I’ve just begun to think about it from an objective perspective since I’ve gotten older.
I’ve been “homesick” few times in my life. Do you know the feeling I’m talking about? Where things just don’t feel quite right in your gut and nothing you do can make it better. Nothing. Unless that something is to pack your bags and head right back where you came from. For me, I would get homesick for certain smells. They say that smell is the strongest sense when it comes to memory. I would go on month long road trips with my father in the summer(he was a truck driver), and I always handled it well. Never really got homesick. But once arriving home, walking through the door of my mother’s house, a comfort would surround me. At that time in my life, I would usually come home to some kind of a soup on the stove. Onion, garlic, and other various aromatics sprinkling the air. (As my Aunt Terry would say, “Your mother, I swear that woman could make a soup outta rocks!!”) She’d greet me with a hug. She usually smelled of a combination of Estee Lauder’s White Linen, Virginia Slims, and hard farm work.
My father on the other hand, I never really got “ homesick” for. He wasn’t around much when I was younger. I would see him for a bit probably on average about every 3 months. He would send cards and call often and every meeting was a joyous occasion. It had to be. There were so few, I certainly would hope they wouldn’t be bad ones. I remember mom dressing me up in my best dresses. There were bows in my hair, and bells and lace on my socks. My shoes shined. I would pace back and forth struggling to contain my excitement, driving my mother up a wall, making her regret even telling me he was coming. I’d sit at the French doors of the back porch. Nose and hands stuck to the glass, condensation from my breath fogging the rectangular windows. And then I’d spot him. He was rather hard to miss, really. A great big green Peterbuilt truck parked across the street at the Shell Station. And I had the same reaction every single time. I’d leap to my feet, wrench open the front door, and run as fast as my 3,4,5,6,7,8 year old legs could transport me. I was pelting towards him while he walked his typical carefree gait. A 6 foot 2 inch broad shouldered man wearing a Kansas Jayhawks cap and a big smile, with arms wide open. He smelled just like his cards that came in the mail. Clean, aftershave, coffee grounds.
Now as a grown woman (and it’s still hard for me to write that….me? a woman?), I still remember those smells and how they made me feel. They can transport me back to a world where my biggest worry and concern was where my favorite stuffed dog, Peanut, had disappeared to. When going back to Tennessee in November, I was slapped in the face with those smells. And let me tell you, it had been a LONG time. It had gradually started to sink in on the 14 hour drive down. The grassy plains rescinded into rolling hills, rolling his transformed into highways carved through mountains. The air became heavy, damp, and cold. It was fall on the edge of winter in the South.
My car hugged the outrageously curvy roads with much success surprisingly, and they seemed to grow more twisted the closer I got to my mother’s house. Finally I pulled in at the very top of the ½ mile long driveway. A rusted gate overgrown with grass was pulled off to the side. A large portion of open pasture was interrupted about halfway down by an elegant red barn on the left, and another random outbuilding on the right. The driveway was washed out like a riverbed and had a steep slope leading to what used to be remnants of a thriving garden on the right, Up the hill a little ways was the log house. What used to be considered my “home”. A structure built from a family’s 2 log cabins from over 200 years ago, torn down to make 1 big, fairly modern one. It sat there staring at me, almost completely choked in green ivy. Stoic, it reminded me of something beautiful in its sadness, a picture out of “The Secret Garden”.
I could go on and on and paint you picture by picture with words and descriptions of smells and sights, but none of it would encompass the feeling I felt when stepping over the threshold of the back door into my mother’s kitchen and similarly a couple more steps into her arms. Years later, the same smells remained. The house and land had undergone some major wear and tear, but it was all still the same. Unfortunately, though the house seemed to still hold its noble ground, my poor mother seemed quite simply, exactly what she was. Older. More tired. More sadness. More pain. I won’t go into it any more than that. Describing the house is much easier to do.
One of my fondest memories of the trip was cooking dinner for her, my brother, and his wife. We had just had a lab on braising the day before I executed the drive so, I was determined to practice my learned skills. I have to say, braising might be my favorite of all the cooking methods. It’s humble. It doesn’t ask for much more than a little love and a lot of time. You don’t have to be pretentious and buy the most expensive piece of meat off the cow. Tough, inexpensive cuts from the shoulder, breast or lower chest, or hind sections. These sections of the cow work much harder than the middle sections and are therefore much more exercised with stronger connective tissue. By cooking them slow and low in a flavorful liquid, the muscles and fibers are tenderized resulting in an exquisitely elegant piece of meat.
The braising liquid is very important. Veal stock is ideal. I realize this is difficult to come by in some cases…if you don’t have the bones or time to make you own, you might be able to purchase it at your local butcher’s shop. Otherwise, try to make a beef stock…but if you’re unable to do that, I suppose the only option is to buy commercial beef stock off the shelf of a grocery store. If you do this however, be expectant that the great potential of your end result will be stifled. The 2nd important liquid is a good red wine, preferably a burgundy. Once again, better the wine, better the end result. It’s a personal choice.
Here is the recipe from my class Copyrights Chef Timothy O’Donnell:
RIBS:
6 pounds beef short ribs, cut 2" thick,
trimmed to include one bone each
to taste salt
to taste pepper
3 each onions, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 each leeks, white and pale green
parts only, roughly chopped
1 each carrot, peeled and roughly
chopped
2 each plum tomatoes, roughly
chopped
6 cloves garlic, smashed
6 sprigs thyme
8 sprigs parsley
3 each bay leaves
1 ½ cups red wine
3 cups veal stock, hot

GREMOLATA:
¼ cups parsley, chopped
½ each lemon, zested and minced
1 clove garlic minced

1. Season ribs generously with salt
and pepper and refrigerate 4 to 6
hours, or overnight.
2. Arrange ribs bone-side down in
roasting pan and roast at 475
degrees until lightly browned, about
20 minutes. Meanwhile, saute onions
in olive oil in large skillet over medium
heat until lightly colored, 6 to 7
minutes. Add leeks and carrot and
cook until slightly softened, 3 to 4
minutes. Add tomatoes, garlic, thyme,
parsley and bay leaves and saute 2
minutes more.
3. Spread vegetables in roasting pan
large enough to hold ribs.
Arrange ribs on top of vegetables,
bone-side up. Add wine and enough
hot stock to barely cover ribs. Cover
pan tightly with foil and place in oven.
When braise begins to simmer, after
about 20 minutes, loosen foil and
reduce heat to 350 degrees.
4. Begin to test for doneness after 1
1/2 hours. A skewer or paring
knife inserted into meat should
encounter no resistance, and meat
should be nearly falling from bone.
When they are tender, uncover ribs and
turn them again so that bone side is
down. Pour off and reserve braising
juices. Raise heat to 450 degrees and
return ribs to oven for a final
browning.
5. When they are beautifully glazed,
after about 10 minutes, remove
from oven. Strain braising liquid into
bowl, pressing down on solids to
extract juices. Allow liquid to settle,
then spoon out grease. Pour liquid
back over ribs and reheat if serving
immediately, or cool, refrigerate and
serve next day with Gremolata.
6. Gremolata: Just before serving,
mix parsley, zest and garlic and
scatter over short ribs. (These
ingredients should be prepared at the
last minute.)

I served these with vichy carrots, celery root puree, and steamed asparagus.