Fitz's famous St. Louis Root Beer!

The city of St. Louis is famous for inventing the hot dog, the ice cream cone and the root beer float.  When in St. Louis last week we asked our daughter-in-law, Joanna, where we could take Eva, our soon-to-be six-year-old granddaughter, for lunch, and she suggested we go to Fitz's.  Fitz's dates back to 1947 in St. Louis and is a proud city tradition. 

The bottling of all the sodas is done on site in a room visible from your restaurant table.  The bottling machine was made in the late 1930s.  Fitz's sodas are exported to cities all over the US.  Real cane sugar, not corn syrup, is used to make the sodas (the same reason Mexican Coke tastes so much better than US coke).

I ordered a root beer float for Eva and me  to share.  The floats are made with custard-style ice cream and are so huge that even though Eva and I shared one, we came nowhere near finishing it. 

Eva was excited to order her favorite: smiley-face french fries.  Grandpa ordered a mushroom sandwich which I neglected to photograph.      






I ordered a Fritz's specialty: a BLT that included a fried egg.  It came with a tub of extra mayo.  I thought it prudent to order fruit rather than fries!  Sometimes my discipline amazes me.    

The inside of the restaurant is in the art deco style.  








There are many flavors of soda on tap at the bar.  Eva, Harry and I had a great time together.

The Brits and Branston Pickle

A week or two ago, I suddenly had an urge for a cheese and Branston Pickle sandwich, or a "cheese and pickle" as the Brits would say. I was introduced to Branson Pickle in England many years ago when Harry and I first went to visit his mom in Northern England.  I learned that Branston is a staple that sits in the condiment section on the fridge door in every British home.  

We did not have any Branston on hand, so I took a trip to my neighborhood Byerly's, heading directly for their British foods section, which specifically targets Anglophiles who believe price is no object if you can find some of your favorite English foods.  Over the years, when Harry and I arrive in England, the first thing we do is head for the grocery store in Annfield Plain to buy foods you cannot find in the States.  Cumberland sausages are one of our English favorites but they don't ship them across the Atlantic to Byerly's.  

One can, however, find a vast array of strange foods with strange names in the British section at Byerly's.  Things like Hob Nobs, Marmite, and Salad Cream.

Branston Pickle may be one of those foods it helps to be brought up on, like the English cereal Weetabix displayed on the bottom shelf in the photo above (or pumpkin pie: editor's note).  Harry eats this cereal most mornings and I find it dreadful. (Harry finds pumpkin pie worse than dreadful and never eats it: another editor's note.) Branston Pickle has a long list of ingredients:  carrots, onions, cauliflower, gherkins. vinegar, tomato, apple, dates, mustard, coriander, garlic, cinnamon, pepper, cloves, nutmeg and cayenne.  It is crunchy and sweet tasting. The Branston pickle made for the US market contains high-fructose corn syrup rather than the cane sugar which is used in the British version. (I knew I thought it tasted better in England.) This chutney was first manufactured in England in 1922. The company was sold to a Japanese food manufacturer in 2012.

The Branston sits below the HP, Salad Cream and tea at my Byerly's in St. Louis Park.

















The sandwich is typically made with a strong cheese such as this one made in Wales. Cotswold too is one of my favorite English cheeses and I love it in this sandwich.

Last week we took our little two-year old-friend, Archer, on a picnic and I made cheese and pickle sandwiches for Harry and me. I packed Archer other foods, assuming he would not like such a weird sandwich.  At the park, he looked at me eating my sandwich with hungry eyes and I gave him a tiny bite, expecting him to spit it out.   He loved it!  I guess you just need to start them young.  He would probably like Weetabix too.   

Using a Tortilla Press

Please join this new blog devoted to our passion for food, cooking and entertaining. My other blog: phoebeinherworld, will continue as usual with a focus on travel and other things!   

                                                                                                                       

Harry has wanted to try making his own tortillas ever since we saw them being handmade in San Miguel Mexico last summer.  While in Mexico the first week of July this year, I happened upon a press at an organic farm and restaurant just outside of San Jose which I visited with my friends Mary Ellen and Liz. I bought the press for $28 and packed it into my suitcase as a surprise for Harry, who immediately bought some Masa flour and followed a recipe in one of our Rick Bayless (or Rick Bay Leaf as Harry prefers to call him) Mexican cookbooks.

The recipe is simply masa flour, water, and a touch of salt which you can mix up quickly in the food processor.  The first time Harry made the tortillas, they were so incredibly good that all I did was eat them warm off the grill with a little butter and a sprinkle of salt.  The second time we made them we topped them with some beans and meat, crema, cilantro and salsa.
                                                                                               


The press is a humble looking device.  I now know they are easily found on Pinterest.                                                                  

The flour used to make tortillas can be found at Cub Foods and many other grocery stores.  There is a recipe on the bag.

 
The dough is easily made in the food processor.  It is divided into little balls that need to be flattened before they are put in the press.

Use plastic wrap to cover the top and bottom of the press.

Harry placed the tortillas on a lightly flowered dish towel.














We cooked them on a stove top griddle -- a little complicated because the grill needs to be at different temperatures.  The back burner is on a low heat and the front burner is hot.  The last minute, when the tortilla is on the hot burner it will puff up and that means it is ready to eat.








The final result is so worth the effort that you may never buy supermarket tortillas again!