David Hruska

Recipes Files And Food Drawings From Grannie Huffman

In the first part of our interview with Amber Huffman, the former private chef for wine entrepreneur Jess Jackson (he passed away a few weeks ago) was telling us about what she learned about being "lucky" in life - and the horse racing business - from her former boss ("You made your own luck - don't ever sell yourself short," Jackson told her). And how she landed a cooking gig - and now lives -- on such a storybook Kentucky horse farm. Did we mention that she is getting married this summer to the estate's gardener? Yeah, The Cook and the Gardener, take two. Let's not forget that little 300-person Derby Day party snafu a few years back, when Jackson and his wife, Barbara Banke, had no spirits on the party menu, just wine. In Kentucky. Within a few miles of Bourbon County.

In this edition of our interview, Huffman talks about her Southern Dairy Freeze cooking evolution, why our grandmothers deserve the credit for getting us back to nose-to-tail cooking, and what you really should be serving for Saturday's Derby party.

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AHuffman

Huffman's Backyard View Yesterday (Literally)... Yeah, We're Jealous

This weekend's Kentucky Derby may mark the beginning of summer mint julep season, but for Amber Huffman, the private chef at two Lexington, Kentucky thoroughbred racehorse farms, Saturday is all about wine. "Mint juleps are nasty, the worst! You can't go adding sugar to bourbon; it's already sweet," says the 35-year-old Kentucky native. She is quick to point out that her Julep bias has nothing to do with having been the private chef for California wine billionaire Jess Jackson, the pioneering legacy behind Kendall-Jackson who passed away in Sonoma a few weeks ago at the age of 81 (Jackson and his wife, Barbara Banke, own Stonestreet thoroughbred racehorse farm in Lexington). No, Huffman is a believer in bourbon as a purely solitary reflection.

Turn the page for the chef's reflections on Jackson ("a truly wonderful man") and why even California wine drinkers with limitless bottle budgets really should let Southerners stock the bar on Derby Day. Duly noted.

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Inspired by the "Texan Concepts" concept at our sister publication, the Houston Press, we're launching the first in a series of highly scientific Venn Diagrams exploring what people actually eat vs. what Angelenos think they eat. First up: the (not so) dirty South.

What we think Southerners eat vs. what they actually eat.

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Proving that everyone in Los Angeles -- even food trucks -- can have a second act, Willoughby Road (Twitter: @willoughbyroad) is back on the road.

The first time Jeshua Garza and Adrian Ochoa launched their nouveau southern food truck in Jan. 2010, they went out of business in under three months. Willoughby Road 2.0 rolled out October 6th, with a retooled business model, menu and truck.

"When you first start out, you think this is going to be easy. You think: We have great food. People are going to love it. You think you're going to have a line like the Grilled Cheese Truck or Kogi in two weeks," Garza says. "It's not like people think. It's really difficult. We just couldn't keep up with the rent."

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The Southern Food issue of Oxford American.

It's a pig-eat-pig world -- especially in the South -- and nobody does a better job of burrowing into its greasy nooks than Oxford American.

The quarterly mag's Southern Foods issue, guest edited by John T. Edge, recently hit the stands. A masterpiece of carefully curated minutiae and eccentric trend pieces, it's some of the best food writing currently in print.

Highlights:
--Eating dirt -- literally.
--Emile DeFelice's Caw Caw Creek Pastured Pork.
--Has success spoiled chicken-on-a-stick?
--Elusive chef Peter Chang (if the New Yorker profile wasn't enough).
--Searching for the native Arkansas cuisine.
--L.A.'s Southern-y food trucks: Mattie's Southern Kitchen and now defunct Willoughby Road and Asian Soul Kitchen.
--PI 601236 01, reviving a rare sesame seed.
--From plow to pint at Fullsteam Brewery.
--Writing African-Americans back into the origin myth of Creole cuisine.

Read it from cover to cover -- if you can get your hands on a copy. Most L.A. bookstores don't carry of Oxford American. A friend brought me a copy from New York.