in this issue
ready for a close-up
According to Vincent J. Musi, a photographer who specializes in animal portraiture and has shot everything from a honeybee to an elephant for National Geographic, there are secrets to getting every animal to look its best. For a series of in-your-face portraits of big cats, for instance, an assistant held up raw beef on a stick to get just the right look from a lion at the Houston Zoo. But the snow leopard wasn’t such an easy mark. “I discovered I had to sing to it,” Musi says, “a cross between Frank Sinatra and Elvis Costello.” When it comes to photographing dogs (Musi’s main focus these days), the bag of tricks is less complicated: squeaky balls, plush animals, and an oversize pack of bacon-flavored treats. His secret weapon, however, is his…
mail-order meat
I love trips to my local butcher (especially for a teres major cut), but recently I received a box of American-raised Wagyu beef from Kentucky’s Black Hawk Farms and put it to the test. We grilled the outside skirt steak and served it with a panzanella with local heirloom tomatoes, and the results had both our kids and our guests digging in for more. We also used the company’s ground beef to make simple sliders in a cast-iron skillet, and the buttery flavor blew us away. A longtime supplier to restaurants, the farm has just recently started shipping its humanely raised beef to the public. It’s one of the tastier packages you can get in the mail.…
“i think of barbecue as communal food. it brings people together for the best of times”
Adrian Miller WRITER Among the many titles Adrian Miller has held throughout his career—James Beard Award–winning culinary historian, attorney, staffer to President Bill Clinton and then Colorado governor Bill Ritter Jr.—perhaps the tastiest is his gig as a certified barbecue judge. “I always think of barbecue as communal food,” he says. “It brings people together for the best of times.” He is currently working on a book about the history of African American barbecue, tentatively titled Black Smoke, and for “Pit Boss” (p. 55), Miller interviewed the pitmaster Derrick Walker of Smoke-A-Holics BBQ in Fort Worth. Through all of Miller’s hands-on research, one dish reigns. “Spareribs,” he says, “are my touchstone.” Jared Soares PHOTOGRAPHER The more time he can spend with a subject, the better the pictures, says the D.C.-based photographer Jared Soares, who has…
“my yield mother to no substitute would rind for watermelon pickles in her chicken salad”
SIMPLE PLEASURES “Happy as a Mudlark” (August/September 2020) brought back so many wonderful memories of my adventures with my eighty-two-year-old mom doing the “Sanibel Stoop” along the Thames. I never knew that our digging in the mud had a term. Faryl Hart Richmond, Virginia Great article about my favorite fish as a young boy in the 1950s (“River of Roosters,” August/September 2020). At daylight, my brother and I would set up half a dozen cane poles on forked sticks in the Waccamaw River, and before all the rods were baited, one would go off with a longear sunfish. Around lunchtime, my dad would pull out a cast-iron skillet and fry up a mess of them, and we’d have a loaf of Merita bread and a Pepsi to go with them. Ron Hickman Blairsville, Georgia FOOD…
social chatter
To devein or not to devein shrimp? A recent gardenandgun.com story got readers fired up about whether or not to remove the dark, gritty line along a shrimp’s back. Deveining is just a waste of shrimp-eatin’ time. Mike Burch Once you know what the line is, you can’t unknow it. Mark Richardi It will not kill you, otherwise I would be dead long ago. J Robin Hall It’s just terroir. @glotoriousc My back hurts when I am through deveining, but it is so worth it. Christine Eklund If it bothers you, add some hot sauce and chase it with a shot of whiskey! You’ll be fine. Carlos Del Valle For little bitty shrimp, I don’t, but for jumbo Gulf shrimp, oh, yes. Micheline Maynard How many beers have you had? That is the real question. Glen Ward If you are…
sit, stay, smile
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