Cultural Exploration: Collard Greens

Thanks to Cait and Porsche, I have an amazing cookbook called "The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook" which includes almost 600 pages of southern favorites from all different regions. After trying collard greens at Comfort a few weeks ago and loving them, I really wanted to see if I had the capacity to make this dish, of if there was some kind of genetic factor involved in the art of Southern cooking.

While I can't claim to make collard greens anywhere near as wonderful as Comfort's, I actually think that these are good enough that I would make them again. Now I'm envisioning some kind of big 'Return to Richmond' party, complete with greens, grits, fried chicken and all the other good stuff that the Lee Brothers offer. Except for boiled peanuts. There will be no boiled peanuts at my imaginary party.

So that you can make your own greens, here is the Lee Bros. recipe for Sunday Collards.

SUNDAY COLLARDS (serves 6):

1 T extra-virgin olive oil, peanut oil or canola oil
1 smoked ham hock, smoked hog jowl or 1/4 lb slab bacon, diced
8 C water
3 dried chile peppers or 1 T crushed red pepper flakes
1 T kosher salt
3 3/4 lb collard greens, ribbed, washed, and cut into 1-inch-wide strips

1. Pour the oil into an 8-quart stockpot over medium-high heat and swirl it around so it covers the bottom. Score the ham hock with a small sharp knife, and when the oil begins to shimmer, set it in the pot. Sear the hock all over as best you can and allow it to render some fat, about 6 minutes.

2. Pour the water into the pot; it will his and pop for a few seconds. Add the chiles and salt and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat do medium-low and simmer for 30 minutes, until the stock is deeply flavored with smoke and spiciness.

3. Add a few handfuls of the collards to the pot. The greens will float on the surface, so stir them frequently, submerging them with the spoon, until they have turned a bright kelly green (3 to 5 minutes) and become floppier and more compact, so you can add more handfuls. Continue adding handfuls of collards, stirring and submerging them, until all the greens are in the pot (6 to 10 minutes). Turn the heat to low and simmer very gently for 1 hour. The greens will be very dark matte green and completely tender.

4. Place on plates with a slotted spoon, and pass a cruet of Pepper Vinegar at the table.

Washington DC: Epsilon Delta Mu Style

This Saturday was spent wandering around DC with some friends from my sorority. While DC isn't in Richmond, I consider it my duty to point out to all non-Richmonders how close we live to the nation's capital. Friends from New York take note: I do not live in the deep south. Seriously.

When Emma and I were both working in Chicago last summer we became incredibly addicted to Potbelly Sandwich Works and would go there at least once a week -- each of us choosing the same sub every time. Potbelly's is Chicago's own amazing sub shop, and it has been one of the greater sadnesses of life in Richmond that I cannot get a roast beef sub that is so good it's mood-improving, all for about $4.00. Needless to say, after meeting Emma and Aileen at Metro Center, our first stop was Potbelly's.

After choosing to eat outside on the windiest day of the summer - we did get plenty of exercise chasing our meals' waxed paper around the block - the three of us decided to walk around the mall and the surrounding area. The first thing on our sightseeing tour was the White House. After seeing many movies where the White House is lit with dramatic skies or zoomed in on in an almost threatening way, I have to admit that it looked a bit plain in person. Or at least, plainer than I had envisioned. Sure the house was huge and beautiful, but it truly does seem like a house. Not really a government building where the head of state works. While the house itself was slightly underwhelming, the masses of protesters were not.

Next on our stop was the mall. We started at the World War II memorial, saw the Lincoln Memorial (I am preferential to this one, having grown up in the Land of Lincoln), and then walked through the whole mall, where they were setting up the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and holding the World Children's Festival. The Folklife Festival looked awesome -- I may have to go back to DC to tour it again once it's open. The picture of the truck that I've included is actually part of an exhibit. The Children's Festival, on the other hand, looked pretty lame. Other than the fact that they were building an amazing representation of the United States in Lego's, the festival looked like it had attracted about 20 kids to one small tent with two performers. By far the best thing that happened to us on the mall was the college kid offering free hugs, who advertised with a large poster.

After spending some time getting cultured (and sunburned) on the mall, we moved the party to the house of one of our sisters who just finished her freshman year at Kenyon. She lives in DC close to Silver Spring in a beautiful house. The evening that followed was filled with an amazing dinner of pasta, salad and pie; punch so good that made our EDM punch seem even grosser than it always has; and imaginary rides on the Thorne's baby-blue Vespa.

Agecroft Hall

After visiting the Three Lakes Nature Center, I decided to change focus a bit. I crossed town and headed to Agecroft Hall. Agecroft is in my favorite Richmond neighborhood that I could never afford. If I ever decided to stay in Richmond, get married and have 2.5 kids, Windsor Farms is where I would want to live.

Agecroft Hall is a Tudor estate that was originally located in Lancashire, England. The house was built in the late 15th century, and after many years of use fell into disrepair. When it became apparent that the house was going to sink into the ground due to nearby coal mining, it was auctioned off. A Richmond tobacco company owner named Thomas Williams Jr. bought the house and had it crated up and shipped to Richmond. After two years of restoration, the house became their home. He bought the house for $19,000 at auction in 1925, but the restoration and rebuilding cost him over $250,000. An enormous project considering the impending depression, but Williams seemed to be quite well off.

One year after completing his dream home, Mr. Williams passed away. His wife, who was 29 years his junior, remarried and stayed at Agecroft. Many years later, after Agecroft became too much for her to manage alone (her second husband had passed away by this point), it was turned into a museum in the period of the late 15th / early 16th century. The home itself is beautiful, but the gardens are spectacular. Throughout the property there are 15 gardens. A sunken garden, an Elizabethan knot garden, an herb garden and a scent garden among many others. I spent most of my time wandering from garden to garden, soaking in the scenery and the scents.

To add to my early statement about the 2.5 kids and all, if I decided to move to Richmond permanently (and happened to have about $100 million in the bank), I would want to live at Agecroft Hall. The gardens and the view of the river make it the perfect place to live, even without the house.

Three Lakes Nature Center

My first stop today was to Three Lakes Nature Center. It's only about five miles from my apartment, but seemed like a quick way to get out of the city. According to the Henrico County website:

"Three Lakes Nature Center and Aquarium brings together three worlds; air, water, and land, for visitors to explore. The center features a variety of exhibits designed to give the visitor hands-on knowledge of the plant and animal life of the area. A 50,000 gallon aquarium gives visitors a "fish-eye" view of the underwater world.

The exhibits in Three Lakes Nature Center and Aquarium introduce you to the wildlife living in the wetlands and woodlands of the park. Through simple, self-guided tours, appropriate for all ages, hands-on activities, and animal habitats, the Nature Center makes the world of nature come alive."

With the prospect of seeing the world of nature come alive, I figured that even if it was only half as good as it sounded, it still might be fun.

Thankfully, the Nature Center didn't disappoint. The Three Lakes Nature Center includes three lakes, a nature center and several playgrounds. I think that to be fair it should probably be called the Three Lakes Playground and Nature Center, but I suppose that might be a little much. I started my excursion by visiting the nature center itself. They have a great collection of fish, turtles and snakes, and it was fun to see how much all the little kids enjoyed it.

After doing some learnin' about nature, I took a walk around two of the three lakes. Today was a perfect day to spend outdoors, and Three Lakes had the perfect scenery. The birds obviously know that they're safe there and so it's become something of a hangout. About a hundred geese, ducks, herons and turtles were hanging out on the main lake, all begging for food. Once I got away from the Nature Center, I felt like I owned the whole lake. No one else seemed interested in actually getting out in the woods, so I had the whole place to myself.

If you're looking to get out in the woods without actually taking a huge amount of time out of your day, I highly recommend the Three Lakes Nature Center.

Drewry's Bluff / Fort Darling

My second stop today was at the site of Fort Darling. While the fort is long gone, evidence of its presence is still incredibly visible. After walking through the woods for half a mile or so, I came to the site of the fort, which is on Drewry's Bluff overlooking the James River only a few miles from the site of Henricus.

At the site of the fort, mounds of earth about twelve feet tall mark the old boundaries. I was amazed to see that more than two hundred years after the Battle of Drewry's Bluff ( for more information see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Drewry's_Bluff ) in 1862, the fort's underground tunnel and bomb shelter are still visible.

Aside from the history, which is amazing, I highly recommend Fort Darling as a picnic site for a sunny day.

Citie of Henricus

Today I visited the historic Citie of Henricus in Chesterfield County. Founded in 1611, Henricus was the second permanent settlement in Virginia. The city was started by Sir Thomas Dale, on instructions from the London company when they wanted a more suitable location for a colony than the swampy land at Jamestown. It is in the same area where Pocahontas grew up, and is situated on a bluff overlooking a beautiful part of the James River.

To get to Henricus from Richmond is almost a straight shot down 95 South. As I got closer to the historic site, the land was beautiful and smelled fresh and green. But then everything changed. Suddenly, after turning down what looked to be a small country road, I was greeted by the site of an enormous power plant whose facilities run almost to the edge of the road. Piping stretched as far as I could see, and the grounds were filled with towering piles of coal. It was at this point that I got a bit nervous. what kind of historic village exists in the middle of a power plant? And should I really be driving this close to all that scariness? I have a vivid imagination, and all I could think about was blowing up. After rounding one more curve I was back to the Richmond countryside and through the gates of the Henricus site. Given the amount of billboard advertising leading up to the site, I was surprised at the lack of immediate excitement. There were only three other cars in the parking lot when I arrived. For six dollars I got a pass to the site and was ready to go.

The Henricus site includes both an Indian village and the colonist's village. In the Indian village I met an Indian in full leather get-up complete with fringe. My Indian friend, who was in reality a middle-aged balding man with a serious southern accent, was planting tobacco with a small wooden tool. While he wasn't very good at role playing -- he talked to me about the celebrations that were taking place for the 400Th anniversary of Jamestown -- he knew quite a lot about tobacco and told me that at Henricus they plant a strain native to Virginia.

After visiting the Indian village, I walked through the colonist site. I was slightly underwhelmed with village given its lack of instruction, but the buildings were really neat. The entire settlement's buildings are made of some kind of dried mud and stone patted into wood frames. The roof of every building is made from dried circular reeds piled almost a foot high and bound together. Looking at the settlers gardens I found myself looking at the tiny amount of tobacco that was grown. Henricus was the first place where tobacco crops were grown and cultivated for sale in Europe. While I'm sure there was more tobacco then than now, I still can't even fathom how little tobacco it took to become an international enterprise, compared to today.

After visiting the historic site I walked out along the bluff, where the view of the river was quite beautiful. On the bluff was the remains of a light house - just foundations at this point - and two statues. One, an obelisk, was dedicated by the Colonial Dames because Henricus was supposed to be the location of the first American university.