Cows were born to roam and graze. Hogs were born to root and wallow. Chickens were born to scratch and peck. According to Will Harris and White Oak Pastures, these are the natural behaviors of animals, making them commonsense tenets of how to raise healthy livestock. “Nature abhors a monoculture,” is one of Will’s favorite sayings.

Five generations of Harrises have farmed a tract of land in Georgia that now raises livestock using traditional, multi-species grazing rotation, no hormones and no antibiotics. But, business was not always done this way. Post WWII, the Harris family farm moved away from the traditional ways of doing things and began raising livestock using more chemicals and fertilizers and blending into the industrialized complex of food production. In the mid-90’s, Will Harris, the current head of White Oak Pastures, made what some called a foolish decision to bring the family farm full circle: moving back to the traditional ways of natural grazing, healthy animals, and respectful butchering.

Harris is the first to admit that making that change wasn’t easy or cheap. In Joe York’s documentary, Cud, produced by the Southern Foodways Alliance, he said, “I was a very conventional cattleman for many years. I went to the University of Georgia and majored in Animal Science and I learned industrial beef production and came home and did it. I used hormone implants on my cattle, fed…antibiotics, confinement-fed a high carbohydrate or corn and soy diet, and used all of the other tools that science had given us to make beef production cheap, and quick, and efficient. But, as I approached middle age, the excesses of that production system came to bother me more and more.”

Ultimately, Harris decided to transition into a grass fed, pasture-grazing style of farming. They stopped using chemical fertilizers and pesticides, something Will Harris admits was difficult. “I’ve never used cocaine,” he said, “but using particular nitrogen-based fertilizers, I believe, is like cocaine for farmers.”

Maggie and I visited White Oak Pastures on the way back from Florida last month and toured the farm with Will. As we rode around the 2,500 acre farm in his pick-up truck, Will called these early years “dark days.” The commitment, the change, and learning new ways nearly cost him the family farm. “Dark days,” he said again. “Can you imagine?”

The farm has expanded from what was once a monoculture of cattle to include sheep and poultry (guarded by 12 beautiful Great Pyrenees dogs) that roam freely and breed naturally. This is certainly not the cheapest or easiest way to raise livestock, but the Harrises and the entire staff they call “cowboys” at White Oak Pastures have adopted it as a lifestyle and have even dedicated themselves to seeing their animals through every stage of their life. They have built on-site abattoirs to ensure a dignified end to their days. Their plant was designed by Temple Grandin famed doctor of animal science, and is intended to allow the animals a humane passing.  Dark days behind him, Will says to me, “I’m happy every day. I love this life.”

Our visit only reinforced for me the connection between the slow food and the slow fashion movements. We at Alabama Chanin make every effort to be a zero waste company, using only necessary materials, reusing everything we can, and throwing very little away. The Harrises take this zero waste approach to everything they do at the farm. Their animal remains are processed in an on-site digester and used as organic fertilizer for their pastures. They are learning to tan hides to increase useable output from their well-loved animals.

More than that, almost half of the farm’s energy is derived from solar panels. They have a small organic farm that grows heritage fruits and vegetables, which the employees are encouraged to take home to share with their families. Like us, the Harrises believe that their skilled workers are artisans. White Oak Pastures employees work on non-mechanized lines rather than rushed and more dangerous assembly lines. When we visited, we ate the “cowboy” lunch that the farm serves every day: organic, farm-raised food for just $1. The pavilion where they eat during the week becomes a farm-to-table restaurant on the weekends. There are plans to build cabins or a bed and breakfast on the property so that others who want to learn more about farming organically and ethically can attend workshops on just about everything White Oak Pastures does – animal welfare, land and food management, growing, and canning.

Will Harris is a fourth generation cattle farmer and offers what he calls “Southern Cowboy Common Sense” on how to recognize if animals are being well treated: “If you would like to open up a lawn chair and drink a couple of glasses of wine while you watch the animal, then you have good animal welfare.”

Transparency is the key to ethical production, no matter what industry you are in. Fast fashion and fast food are both unhealthy lifestyle models that harm individuals and environments. White Oak Pastures is setting an example for a league of industries to follow. Ours included…

P.S.: I loved the film about Temple Grandin’s life. There is so much to read about her amazing life and work.

In 1982, Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw opened Zingerman’s Delicatessen in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The deli quickly became Ann Arbor’s premiere specialty foods store.  As the business grew to include mail order customers across the country, Paul and Ari were presented with an opportunity to open stores nationwide and follow a traditional franchise business model. What they did instead is a great representation of the philosophies that Alabama Chanin tries to embody. Community, sustainability, and education are at the heart of the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, which is made up of eight different, semi-autonomous businesses that operate as one organization. Zingerman’s has remained firmly in Ann Arbor, building successful commerce from within the community, by the community, for the community. This year the organization will have annual sales of about $46,000,000 and employs nearly 600 people.

The Zingerman’s Community of Businesses (aka, the ZCoB) includes a bakery, a coffee roaster, a creamery that makes both fresh cheese and gelato, a candy manufactory, and a James Beard award-winning restaurant. ZingTrain, Zingerman’s business training service, offers seminars that share the organization’s approach to leadership, service, open book management, visioning, etc. They offer baking classes at BAKE, their nationally recognized baking school for the home baker. Zingerman’s also runs a publishing house, which publishes several books by Ari, focused on guiding the small business owner. You can find the titles Building a Great Business and Being a Better Leader in our online store. In the spirit of Alabama Chanin, the books were beautifully designed and illustrated by the Zingerman’s team, printed in Ann Arbor on recycled paper and are not available through mass market distribution.

We sat down with Ari Weinzweig to find out more about this unusual and innovative prototype for a new kind of business model.

AC: Ari, what was the impetus for taking such an unusual route to growing your business? Did it feel like a tremendous risk to go against the grain?

AW: The vision for the community of businesses came out of a year-long dialogue between me and Paul.  It started in the summer of ’93, about a decade after we opened Zingerman’s Deli, when we’d essentially fulfilled our original vision. One morning, Paul sat me down out front of the deli and asked me what I wanted us to be doing ten years down the road. I had no clue, nor much of an interest in working on the answer. But he pushed me on it and we ended up spending a year planning a vision of the future that we were excited about. Our original vision for the deli was clear in that we only wanted one of them—we like unique things (like the clothing at Alabama Chanin) and so we knew we didn’t want to make copies of what we had started. But we did want to keep growing. And that led us over the course of that year to write the vision for Zingerman’s 2009—it outlined the idea of having a community of businesses, all Zingerman’s businesses, but each with its own unique specialty.  All would be located in the Ann Arbor area. Each would have a managing partner (or partners) that owned part of that business and ran it day to day. And we would operate as one coherent Zingerman’s organization made up of these semi-autonomous pieces.

Was it hard to go our own way? Not really that hard, I don’t think. We’ve always gone our own way. I’ve always been averse to doing what everyone else is doing. It was harder to decide what we were going to do. We knew we didn’t want to do what everyone else was doing. We were much more driven to do something special, that we felt good about, than we were to make money. But there weren’t really any models out there for us to look at. So we ended up creating our own. Fortunately, it worked out pretty well.

AC: I’ve heard many people advise against taking on a business partner because you risk compromising your vision, but you’ve built an extensive business based on collaboration. How do you manage working with so many different individuals without losing your overall vision?

AW: For us it starts with the vision. Because we don’t become partners until after we’ve agreed on a vision, it reduces the odds of that happening. The way that we define our vision (described in Part 1 of the Guide to Good Leading, Building a Great Business) results in a collaboratively created, highly detailed, emotionally engaging picture of the future that we want to go after. And because it’s in writing, and we’re likely to have worked on it together for a year or more before we open, it significantly increases the odds of the partnerships working.

It’s certainly not the only way to work. But it works for us. We like having a lot of smart people driving for greatness together. I wrote an essay on the Natural Laws of Business (in Building a Great Business) and #9 is that success means you get better problems. We far prefer the problem of having too many people going after greatness and the challenges that brings, than the one of having to do everything ourselves.

AC: I’m headed to Ann Arbor this summer for Camp Bacon, where I’ll lead an Alabama Chanin workshop and take part in what is essentially a bacon festival (and fundraiser for Southern Foodways Alliance). How did the idea for Camp Bacon come about?

AW: Well, I also wrote a book on bacon—Zingerman’s Guide to Better Bacon. In the book I sort of made up the idea of this great camp that we could all wish we’d gone to. About eight months after the book came out we were in a meeting, talking about the book, and Pete Garner, our marketing manager, laughingly said, “We should actually have Camp Bacon.” One thing I’ve learned over the years is that those off the cuff, not really serious comments are often great, creative ideas. So I said, “You know, you’re right, let’s do it!” And we did. This will be our 4^th annual. We do it is a fundraiser for Southern Foodways Alliance and for the 4H Clubs. We have a great lineup—four or five bacon makers, a couple of bacon poets, and of course you—leading a session on sewing bacon and bacon sewing. Oh yeah, plus all the bacon you can eat! Or in your case, sew!

Find more details about Bacon camp here.

AC: After Camp Bacon, I’m planning to stay over and attend the ZingTrain seminar “Creating a Vision of Greatness,” which promises to help small business owners from a variety of industries grow their businesses to greatness over bigness and achieve their respective visions. There’s a tremendous generosity in sharing what you’ve learned through running Zingerman’s. Why share?

AW: Why not? For openers, the obvious answer is that’s what ZingTrain does—share the Zingerman’s Experience and approach to business through training. Also because people asked—we’re regularly asked about “the secrets” of what we do. The business books and the seminars are those “secrets” (which of course aren’t really secrets, anyways!). On a more intellectual or philosophical level? We believe in what we’re doing. We believe that when we share it, good things happen in the world. And we believe that all involved—all of us who are sharing and you to whom we’re teaching—will benefit.

AC: In your Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading, Part 1, Building a Great Business, you write that your intimate study of anarchism lends heavily to the Zingerman’s business model. Can you tell us a little bit about how being a “lapsed anarchist” has affected the Zingerman’s organization?

AW: When I started studying history at the University of Michigan in the late 1970s, my distrust of authority, along with my fascination with obscure thinkers, drove me to spend a fair bit of time in a section of the university’s graduate library known as the Labadie Collection. Barely remembered today, Jo Labadie (pronounced, Lah-BAH-die), a Detroiter known during his lifetime as “the gentle anarchist,” donated his entire collection of political pamphlets—primarily pieces by anarchists like himself—to the U of M in 1911, creating the core of a now world-renowned collection of publications related to radical politics.

To this day, many people confuse the terms “anarchy” and “anarchism.” While the two sound similar, they aren’t the same thing. The former refers to a state of leaderless bedlam; the latter is a philosophy based on respect for the individual and freedom from the restrictions of government or external authority. Early 20th-century anarchist Alexander (Sasha) Berkman said: “I must tell you, first of all, what Anarchism is not. It is not bombs, disorder, or chaos. It is not robbery and murder. It is not a war of each against all. It is not a return to barbarism or to the wild state of man. Anarchism is the very opposite of all that.”

Anyways, about three years ago as I was working on Part 1 of Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading,  Building a Great Business I started rereading a lot of the old anarchist’s books as preparation for a talk I was giving at the Jewish Studies department at the university here. I was shocked by the amazing parallels between a lot of what they were writing about and the way we were trying to run our business. Respect for every individual, free choice, doing the right thing for the community, the importance of doing work you believe in, the belief that every individual has something to contribute, the thought that hierarchy his rarely helpful…reading it in the context of Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, I was struck by the parallels. It’s pretty powerful.

Here’s one example: in her 1910 essay, “Anarchism,” Emma Goldman wrote that anarchism “is the freest possible expression of all the latent powers of the individual… [which is] only possible in a state of society where man is free to choose the mode of work, the conditions of work, and the freedom to work. One to whom the making of a table, the building of a house, or the tilling of the soil, is what the painting is to the artist and the discovery to the scientist—the result of inspiration, of intense longing, and deep interest in work as a creative force.” Again, replace the words “anarchism” and “society” with “Zingerman’s” or “our organization” and her words pretty much sum up the kind of work experience we’re trying to provide here!

The Alabama Chanin @ Heath Ceramics collection is available in Heath Ceramics stores, on the Heath Ceramics website, and our online store.

Makers and doers Kerry Diamond and Claudia Wu, two friends and former Harper’s Bazaar colleagues, have teamed up to produce the first indie food magazine to celebrate women in the food world. Beautifully designed and expertly curated, Issue #1 – The Tastemaker Issue – will be released in May. I’ve just contributed to their Kickstarter Campaign, which ends this Friday, May 3^rd.

Kerry Diamond, working on the editorial side at Harper’s, went on to open two wonderful Brooklyn restaurants (Seersucker and Nightingale 9) and a coffee shop (Smith Canteen) with her chef boyfriend. Claudia worked on the creative team at Harper’s, later starting her own design firm, Orphan, and the cult indie publication, Me Magazine.

These Real Women are making tremendous inroads, and doing it (really) well. Read more about Kerry Diamond on Refinery29 and more about Cherry Bombe Magazine on their Kickstarter page. Make a donation and get good magazine.

I think that we all have memories of family dinner with Mom bringing one single bubbling hot dish to the table. I have a favorite casserole from childhood, something that my mother called “goulash” that I’m sure bears little resemblance to the actual Hungarian dish. I’m not sure that I’d even like it if I ate it today, but the thought of the curly noodles and the hearty aroma is enough to make me still believe it was practically gourmet cuisine.

The casserole as a meal is an American standard and for many years was a go-to for countless busy mothers. The name of the dish comes from the name of the vessel in which it is cooked. The word casserole is derived from the French word for “sauce pan” and made its way into the English lexicon in the early 1700’s. According to The Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, a casserole is a “dish or pot made from material such as glass, cast iron, aluminum, and earthenware in which food is baked and often served.” The basic concept of a one-pot dish is hundreds of years old: Spanish paella, British shepherd’s pie and pot pie, Italian lasagna and macaroni and cheese. But, the casserole as we know it today is a distinctly American invention.

A traditional casserole includes some form of protein, a pasta or rice filler, vegetables, and something to bind it together, like stock or soup. They are versatile and can be made from virtually anything, which is what allowed them to become a meal time standard. The casserole as a main dish began to appear on our tables in the late 1800’s. However, their popularity grew around the time of World War I, when families were encouraged to conserve resources. A Propaganda-style poster of the day encouraged families to eat “one less ounce of meat a day” and depicted a  mother embracing her thin, emaciated children. Casseroles allowed families to ration their meat by mixing it with the other ingredients, so supposedly no one would notice that less meat was being served.

This same technique became a necessity for many during the Great Depression, when ingredients were scarce and families struggled to keep food on their tables at all. One-dish meals allowed families to stretch resources because there were often leftovers. Cooking a casserole even meant less use of the stove and less dish washing. In fact, tuna noodle casserole became so popular during this time that it appeared in The Joy of Cooking as an easy recipe to make when funds were tight.

The height of popularity for the casserole came in the 1950’s. By then, both Pyrex dishware and Campbell’s Soup were popular and easily accessible to most women. Campbell’s heavily advertised their products as essential casserole ingredients. In fact, the soups were so ever-present in American kitchens that most cookbooks included recipes with Campbell’s soups (particularly Cream of Mushroom) as ingredients. The 1955 edition of The Good Housekeeping Cookbook featured a chapter on casseroles with dozens of recipes using every readily-available protein.

In the 1960’s casseroles became a bit less fashionable and were seen as more of a working class dish. This was at least partially due to the arrival of Julia Child on the American woman’s radar. Her cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, was published in 1961 and became a runaway success. This book made women feel less intimidated to attempt cooking more elaborate meals by giving detailed drawings and easy-to-understand instructions. By the time that Child’s television show, The French Chef, premiered in 1963, her pragmatic approach had convinced many to experiment in the kitchen.

But, the casserole has never disappeared completely from the American culinary radar. There are entire cookbooks dedicated to casseroles. I’m sure that most of us have memories of casseroles being placed on the dinner table by mothers or grandmothers. Perhaps your remembrances are good; possibly, the thought of those meals causes you to shudder or your stomach to drop. Even so, the ease of preparation and the availability of ingredients mean that the casserole isn’t going to vanish from the American dinner table any time soon. I know that some of you are ready to grab your can opener (and throw your calorie counters out the window) to recreate some warm dinnertime memories tonight.

My friend Tasia of Belle Chevre – that wonderful goat cheese I’ve mentioned (a few times) before  –  has created Make Your Own Goat Cheese Kits. I love this idea for a Mother’s Day gift. Maybe if I let my Picky Eater help me make it, she’ll actually eat it. Kit includes everything you need, just add milk (and Mom).

Find kits here, or visit Belle Chevre’s beautiful new tasting room in Elkmont, Alabama.

Photography by Stephanie Schamban for Belle Chevre.

For Marimekko Week, we wanted to make (and eat) one of the delicious Finnish dishes on the Marimekko Feeling Festive blog. Armi Ratia has been an inspiration to so many, myself included, for decades. The clean lines and graphic look of Marimekko patterns are both simple and exciting to the eye and the bold, bright colors exude confidence and happiness. I feel a distant kinship with Armi and the Marimekko process. There exists a shared desire to create beauty in things that will last a very long time.

That colorful simplicity of Marimekko design finds its way into the Festive blog recipes. This Carrot Butter was well loved by our staff on a very cold, grey day.

As so often happens, we couldn’t help but change the recipe just a bit. Carrots are in season here in north Alabama and one of our Alabama Chanin staff dug up some little carrots from her garden for this treat. They weren’t “supermarket” beautiful, but tangled and unique, sweet and delicious, and delivered to us with rich, black soil still hanging from the roots.

You need only two large carrots (or a handful of little twisty ones) and about a stick of butter. The recipe calls for 100 grams of butter, which comes out to one stick minus about one tablespoon. Once mixed together and smooth, I decided it needed a hint more sweetness and stirred in about a half tablespoon of local honey. Spread over homemade cornbread, the Carrot Butter proved very popular.

You can find the detailed recipe here: http://blog.marimekko.com/carrot-butter

We spend a good bit of time in the kitchen, planning meals and testing out new recipes to share, while I spend evenings trying to please the taste buds of my picky eater. I’ve found that kitchen twine has a number of uses, including trussing or tying meat when cooking or when you want to keep a stuffing firmly placed inside of something. Use it to tie fresh herbs in a bouquet garni or bouquet garnish (see recipe below) or wrap bacon on the outside of your roast or bird. I also use my twine for tying up birthday presents and pony tails—and stuffed animals at my house are often doctored with bits of twine.  You might also try making our Knotted Necklace with this twine. It is thinner than our Cotton Jersey Pulls but made in the same way.

Twine, especially for use in the kitchen, shouldn’t be made from synthetic materials (they can melt or chemicals can seep into your food), and we’ve found this organic, non-toxic option works perfectly.

Once the dish is finished cooking, the twine can be cut with a knife or kitchen shears before serving. We always keep a separate pair of scissors in the kitchen for this, for vegetable and pastry trimming, and plenty of other tasks; you don’t want to use paper scissors in the kitchen, or vice versa.

These J.A. Henckels stainless steel shears have become my favorite kitchen scissor. Made with the same quality and forged steel Henckels knives are famous for, they also have a screw cap opener to help with tight jars and bottle caps.

Twine and scissors are now available in our online store. Purchase either item individually or both together.

Our twine comes in 5 colors with 50 yards spun for easy usage. See our website for more details here.

TRADITIONAL BOUQUET GARNI

You can really use any combination of available herbs for your garni, but traditional bundles call for parsley sprigs, thyme sprigs, celery leaves and bay leaves all bundled and tied together so they don’t come apart during the cooking process.

Hydrogen peroxide: It removes mold and disinfects. You can even dip a cotton swab in peroxide and use it to disinfect your computer keyboard. If you stain your linens, pour on a little peroxide, allow it to soak for 30 minutes, then rinse. Start with a mixture of half water and half peroxide. If the stain is still there, soak again using a stronger solution, then rinse.

Club Soda: Use it to clean and shine windows and fixtures. It also shines up a scuffed stainless steel sink. And the old club soda trick really does work on rug stains, since the carbonation lifts up the stain to the surface and makes it easier to clean. If you catch the spill in time, cover it with cornmeal to absorb the liquid then vacuum it up first.

Vinegar: Cuts grease and lime deposits and soap build up. You can also use it to clean countertops, deodorize the toilet and, if you are using white vinegar, clean your grout without staining. Vinegar removes film on floors as well. It works on linoleum, but when diluted, is gentle enough for hardwood flooring, too. For bathroom surfaces, you can heat until just warm, and then spray on for 15 minutes before wiping clean. DON’T use vinegar on marble because it might ruin the surface.

Baking Soda: It scours and removes smudges or scuffs. It is a natural abrasive and can be a good substitute for cleaning powders. Pour some onto a damp sponge to scrub sinks and bathtubs. For tougher stains and grime, make a paste out of baking soda and water or lemon juice. Spread the paste across the surface and leave it there for 10-20 minutes, then scrub. Mix with vinegar to clean stainless steel.

Lemon juice: Removes grease and tarnish. It kills mold and mildew and is a streak-free window cleaner. Use a lemon half to remove stains from wooden or plastic cutting boards. You can also rub lemon juice onto stained plastic food storage containers. Let them dry (preferably in the sun), then wash. Lemons have the added benefit of making your house smell clean without artificial fragrances. Put your lemon peel through the garbage disposal to clean and deodorize.

Salt: Mix it with water to destroy bacteria. This also works in place of baking soda when you need a tougher abrasive. Oven and stove spills can be cleaned by covering the spill with salt and allowing it to sit for a while. The salt absorbs the liquids and makes them easier to clean up. This works especially well with grease and oils. You can also toss some into a burned pan, right after it has happened. The burned spot should wipe off easily.

Olive Oil: Use it to polish wood furniture (mix 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar for a cleaner shine). To prevent drying or cracking of rattan or wicker, lightly brush them with oil and rub in with a soft cloth. If you warm the olive oil first, it thins and can be applied more easily. You can also polish leather shoes with just a drop or two and a clean cloth.

And, don’t forget, those Old Wives’ Tales can often be true:

Don’t rub it in; dab it off – in other words, blot; don’t rub it in more.

A stitch in time saves nine – get to it as quickly as possible to avoid more work.

Out, then in – start on the outside of the stain and work your way in.

Don your French maid costume along the way? Who knows what can happen.
xoNatalie

It’s been nearly three years since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and the repercussions still linger. Tar balls continue to wash up on shore as we wait patiently to learn how much BP will pay in restitution. But the fishing, shrimping, and oyster industries have rebounded in strides, as restaurants on the coast and inland support our ocean’s harvest.

Friend and Chef Chris Hastings of Hot and Hot Fish Club in Birmingham, Alabama, has played a significant role in supporting the industry, spearheading a campaign with the Alabama Seafood Marketing Commission to bring awareness and support to Alabama Gulf seafood, and sharing recipes like his Alabama Bouillabaisse with the reading public.

We sourced our Alabama Gulf shrimp from local seller Doc’s Seafood Market in Muscle Shoals, just across the river, for this recipe from the Hot and Hot Fish Club Cookbook.

HOT AND HOT CREAMY SHRIMP AND GRITS (with just a few tweaks of our own)

1 pound medium (25 to 30 count) shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, divided
1/4 cup minced shallots
1/2 cup equal parts finely diced carrots, celery, and onion (mirepoix)
1 cup seeded and finely diced tomatoes
3 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
2 cups cooked McEwen & Sons organic stone-ground grits
1/4 cup diced bacon
2 tablespoons chopped parsley or fresh chives for garnish

Season the shrimp with 1 teaspoon of the salt and 1/4 teaspoon of the pepper.

Melt 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) of the butter in a large sauté pan or rondeau over medium-high heat. Add the shallots and sauté for 1 minute, being careful not to let the shallots brown. Add the mirepoix and continue to cook for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the seasoned shrimp and cook, stirring frequently, until the shrimp are cooked halfway, about 2 minutes.

While the shrimp are cooking, dice the remaining 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter and set aside. Stir in the tomatoes. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes or until the tomatoes and shrimp are cooked through. Reduce the heat to low and stir in the lemon juice. Add the diced butter, a few pieces at a time, stirring until each portion is incorporated before more butter is added. Season the sauce with the remaining 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the parsley.

Meanwhile, sauté the diced bacon until just cooked, and add to the pan.

Place 1/2 cup of the grits on four dinner plates and spoon equal amounts of the shrimp and sauce mixture over each portion of grits. Garnish each plate with 1 rounded tablespoon of country ham and 1/2 tablespoon of fresh, chopped parsley or chives. Serve immediately.

Reprinted from Hot and Hot Fish Club Cookbook by Chris and Idie Hastings. Available from Running Press, an imprint of The Perseus Books Group. Copyright © 2009