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| By Ligaya Figueras | | Senior Editor - Food & Dining |
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Hi, food friends!
One thing I’ve learned in my career as a journalist is that readers want the inside story. Today, I’ll dish up some behind-the-scenes news and notes about the AJC’s food and dining coverage.
My greatest joy as an editor is the first read-through. When I assign a story, I have an idea of the final piece, but the writer’s research, interviews and unique manner of storytelling are what shape it, give it clarity and bring it to life. Those unknowns are what make reading a draft akin to opening a Christmas present.
While “unwrapping the bow” of AJC food and dining reporter Olivia Wakim’s story on female entrepreneurs, I was struck by two quotes. One was from Niki Pattharakositkul, owner of 26 Thai, Blackjack Bar Tapas and Pink Lotus. “Opportunity doesn’t come and knock at your door,” she told Olivia. “I take it first, and I will figure out what to do next.” The other was from Monica Sunny, founder of the Chai Box tea company, whose father often told her, “You got to get on that train. You may not know where it’s headed, just get on there and figure it out.”
Today’s newsletter holds other examples of women who have proven their ability to “figure it out.” Acclaimed chef Mashama Bailey, along with her business partner, John O. Morisano of The Grey in Savannah, finally opened L’Arrêt by The Grey in Paris this week, a project that has been years in the making. Meanwhile, C.W. Cameron’s “Southern pies that made history” story is deeply informed by KC Hysmith, a woman who painstakingly wades through archaic cookbooks and newspaper clippings to separate fact from fiction in her work as a food historian, including as the historical editor for “When Southern Women Cook: History, Lore, and 300 Recipes With Contributions from 70 Women Writers,” a keeper of a cookbook published last year by America’s Test Kitchen.
I suppose there is my own news to share as a woman in food: I am retiring. After 10 years at the AJC, 20 years writing about food and 25 years in the world of publishing, I will be saying goodbye in late September. It has been a privilege to be the AJC’s food and dining editor for the last decade, and I’ll be savoring every moment of the next two months.
Is there a woman in food who inspires you? Send me their story at [email protected].
| Georgia women who are cooking up success |  | | Salwa Kisswani owns and operates Evergreen and Market and is with a few of her variety of pickles at her Tucker warehouse. | | Credit: Jenni Girtman | | Cheese, chai, charcuterie and chocolate have long histories of culture, tradition and indulgence. Eight women in Georgia are helping to integrate these, and other food and drinks, even deeper into the region’s culinary narrative.
Women like Monica Sunny, Jocelyn Dubuke and Sarah Koch may not always see their names front and center, but they’re taking their food ventures to new heights and helping to shape foodways in the region and even an ocean away.
For some, it’s a later-in-life career change or passion project, while others always knew the future they wanted for themselves.
Salwa Kisswani drew inspiration from her mother and grandmother. One of her happiest memories was when they would call her into the kitchen to help make pickles.
Those warm memories — and a dissatisfaction with commercially made pickles full of preservatives and dyes — drove her to start making pickles five years ago on her own using her grandmother’s brine recipe.
The operation started small with Kisswani and her husband, Randy Michael, selling at a few farmers markets and stocking an antique shop they owned in North Georgia with pickles.
Kisswani’s mother warned her against becoming an entrepreneur and encouraged her to pursue a career with stability. Others told her she would be wasting her life on pickles, but for Kisswani, “it just feels like I’m actually building something.” She quit her corporate job in software development and dedicated herself to a pickle business.
👩🍳 More women who are making an impact in Atlanta’s food scene and beyond |
| A message from KAISER PERMANENTE | | | Why one patient ‘can’t say enough about Kaiser Permanente’ | | |  | |
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While ovarian cancer diagnoses have declined over the last few years, a woman’s risk of getting ovarian cancer during her lifetime is 1 in 91, according to the American Cancer Society. Genetics are a risk factor for those who get ovarian cancer, and that risk increases more for those who have BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene changes than for those without them. Kaiser Permanente member Brenda Grissom is one of those who had a genetic indicator increasing her cancer risk.
Learn more about Brenda Grissom’s story.
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| | | The Week's Essential Food and Dining Stories
 | | Chuck E. Cheese opens arcades for adults, including one in Buford |
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 | | Acclaimed Savannah restaurant The Grey opens sister restaurant in Paris |
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 | | Madison restaurateur discusses fire that destroyed multiple eateries |
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 | | Izakaya menu outpaces omakase at new Buckhead NoriFish |
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| These Southern pies made history |  | | These classic Southern pies have a history that spans decades. Clockwise from top left: Green Tomato Pie, Crook's Corner's Atlantic Beach Pie, Vinegar Pie and Dinah Shore's Chocolate Chip Walnut Pie. | | Credit: Aaliyah Man | | Southerners may think of themselves as being preeminent pie-makers, but according to food historian KC Hysmith, many Southern pies are adapted from our country’s Colonial history.
“We brought the recipes over from Europe as part of our baking tradition and adapted them to the ingredients we had on hand,” said Hysmith in a phone interview from her office in Carrboro, North Carolina.
Take vinegar pie. It falls in the category of chess or transparent pies — sweet custard pies with a filling of eggs, butter, sugar and something to set the filling like flour or cornstarch — with roots that may trace back to England. Chess pies were often made with lemon, but when lemon wasn’t available, cooks substituted vinegar.
As with many old recipes, vinegar pies can go by many names. Hysmith noted that during the Depression it was sometimes called “desperation pie” or “pantry pie.” “In the ’70s it was styled as ‘pioneer pie,’ tying into a nostalgia for pioneer things at that time,” Hysmith said.
Another transparent pie with many names is a chocolate chip nut pie that some might know as a “Derby pie” or “thoroughbred pie.” “Lots of people have recipes for these, often from their aunts and grandmas. These pies became especially popular when chocolate chips were created, probably in the ’20s or ’30s. Some have walnuts and others use pecans. They might be flavored with whiskey or bourbon,” said Hysmith.
🥧 Read more about pies that stand the test of time |
Upcoming Events
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| Golden Krust, the Caribbean fast-casual restaurant chain, is celebrating Jamaican food, music and culture with its tour around the U.S. It will stop at Block & Drum for a celebration featuring live music and DJs, patties and Jamaican food from Golden Krust and drinks from Bacardi and Vita Coco. Tickets are $10 per person. |
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| Pearson Farm is bringing Peach Week to Atlanta. Participating restaurants will offer peach-centric dishes and drinks with proceeds from each dish sold benefitting CURE Childhood Cancer. Find peachy food at restaurants like Chai Pani, Miller Union, Kitty Dare, Sweet Auburn Barbecue and Indaco. |
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| Bill Oakley, head writer for "The Simpsons," will be hosting a dinner in Atlanta for his national tour, "An American Culinary Curiosity Dinner." Oakley and chef Joey Ward will present a seven-course dinner showcasing regional American dishes that are hard to find outside of their hometowns. Tickets are $180 per person, and there are seatings at 5:30 and 8 p.m. |
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More From Food and Dining
 | | Attention, humans: Food delivery robots have been spotted in metro Atlanta |
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 | | Metro Atlanta food scene has big week in TV, and more local restaurant happenings |
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 | | Spilling the tea on Third Door’s delightful chai latte cocktail recipe |
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 | | Spanakopita inspiration makes moist, tender meatballs |
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| A better tomato sandwich |  | | Put a new spin on an old summer favorite with an Heirloom Tomato Sandwich with Bacon Mayonnaise (left side upper), an Improved Classic Tomato Sandwich (left side lower) and a Grilled Tomato and Chimichurri Sandwich (right side). | | Credit: Chris Hunt | | It is, perhaps, a fool’s errand to attempt to improve upon the most perfect of summer lunches: a tomato sandwich.
If you have a ripe tomato in hand, you’re not likely to make a bad sandwich, no matter your bread or mayonnaise. It is, after all, about that tomato.
Still, imagine for a minute that you’ve had a tomato sandwich for lunch every day for the past few weeks. You may be ready for something just slightly different. You may be willing to stir a little something into your mayonnaise, experiment with a different type of bread or even fiddle a little with your tomato.
My strategy for reexamining the tomato sandwich was to approach each critical ingredient — tomato, bread and mayonnaise — differently in three separate recipes. By taking on the sandwich this way, instead of adding new elements, each recipe stays true to the simplicity of the original.
Limiting ingredients means that you don’t run the risk of overcomplicating and overwhelming what should be the hero of each sandwich.
🍅 Three recipes for improving upon the classic |
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