{"id":485,"date":"2011-09-22T09:18:53","date_gmt":"2011-09-22T09:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vandfam.net\/dev\/wordpressmu\/college\/?p=485"},"modified":"2011-09-22T09:18:53","modified_gmt":"2011-09-22T09:18:53","slug":"from-real-thai-to-southern-pies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=485","title":{"rendered":"From Real Thai to Southern Pies"},"content":{"rendered":"
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You can almost smell the apples baking in Nancie McDermott\u2019s kitchen. Photo by Mary Lide Parker.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nancie McDermott\u2019s<\/a> (watch the video<\/a>) culinary journey has taken her full circle: from her grandmother\u2019s big dairy farm kitchen in Orange County to the rural countryside in Thailand and back again. She writes about food for a living, but you won\u2019t find her kitchen to be fussy or pretentious. It is a place where you can fall in love with cooking.<\/p>\n

A big bowl of Granny Smith apples sits on a wooden table in a basket she bought from Ten Thousand Villages. Today\u2019s assignment: making \u201cMiz Bob\u2019s Double Apple Pie,\u201d one of more than 60 recipes in her 10th<\/sup> cookbook, Southern Pies<\/a>:<\/em> A Gracious Plenty of Pie Recipes, From Lemon Chess to Chocolate Pecan<\/em>. (Chronicle Books, 2010). (Check out the inside back cover<\/strong> of the fall 2011 issue of Carolina Arts & Sciences<\/em><\/a> magazine for the recipe.)<\/p>\n

McDermott graduated from UNC\u2019s College of Arts and Sciences in 1973 with a degree in English<\/a>, but she always knew she wanted to see the world.<\/p>\n

McDermott grew up in Burlington and High Point, and remembers making her very first pie, egg custard (still today one of her favorites), at the hand of her grandmother.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also remember riding along in the old white Ford and getting out and going in the ditch and picking blackberries,\u201d McDermott says as she peels and chops apples for pie, metal mixing bowls spread out before her. \u201cShe made blackberry rolls, sort of like blackberry dumplings, with a circle of soft dough with blackberries and sugar and butter in the center, pinched up into a little purse.\u201d<\/p>\n

McDermott also recalls her father (UNC School of Law class of 1950) taking the family for long afternoon visits to the Intimate Bookshop in Chapel Hill. There she was captivated by The Time Life Book of World Religions.<\/em><\/p>\n

After college she joined the Peace Corps in 1975, where she spent three years in Thailand, first in the small town of Thatoom, on the Moon River in Surin Province, about 360 miles from Bangkok. There she taught English to junior high students, and she fell in love with Thai food.<\/p>\n

After returning to the United States, to Greensboro, she earned her teaching certificate and began teaching seventh and eighth grade English and social studies. On the side, she dove headfirst into cooking, writing and teaching about food. She met her future husband after moving to New York City in 1981. His graduate work took them to Southern California in the mid-80s, then they moved their family to Chapel Hill in 1999.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe essence of my first cookbook, Real Thai: The Best of Thailand\u2019s Regional Cooking<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> is the food my students cooked [while I was in the Peace Corps.] I ate homey Thai food every day,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

After multiple cookbooks on Asian food, McDermott once again embraced her Southern roots, first with a book on cakes, then on pies. She reaches into the cupboard and pulls out cinnamon and nutmeg (\u201cI love organic Saigon cinnamon, but I also love the every-grocery-store-has-it cinnamon,\u201d she says.) She sprinkles sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon on the apples in a square pan, then transfers them to a metal pot with handles (used to make rice or soup in Thailand), so they can begin deliciously stewing in their juices on the gas burner.<\/p>\n

Then, with flour dusting her fingers (and soon a spot or two on her shirt and cheek), she tackles what can strike fear into the heart of the inexperienced baker: the homemade pie crust.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t stop reading! Even though McDermott includes a chapter on making pie crusts in her latest book, she is also a fan of store-bought pie crusts, adding that one of the biggest gifts she gives people is \u201ca reality check.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy take is lighten up, people!\u201d she said. \u201cI think it\u2019s a wonderful time to be making pie because we can go to the grocery store and get a frozen shell or a sheet of pastry. To me the most important thing about a pie is what\u2019s inside it, not the crust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Butter pie crust is her favorite, but even though a food processor sits on her countertop, McDermott says you can just as easily make a pie crust using one of her favorite kitchen tools: a fork.<\/p>\n

\u201cPie crust is very forgiving,\u201d she says, rolling outward with a tapered French rolling pin from the center, in quarter turns. \u201cIf it tears, just press it back together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDoesn\u2019t that smell wonderful,\u201d she pauses, as the cozy kitchen fills with a heavenly fragrance like cinnamon-scented perfume or Christmas in August.<\/p>\n

For McDermott, part of the joy of cooking is getting in touch with her culinary historian side \u2014 telling stories, exploring where things come from, answering the questions that don\u2019t get asked. She\u2019s launching a local group called Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina (CHOP NC), a group of food-lovers, cooks and history buffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m interested in, for this apple pie recipe, why is there an extra \u2018magical\u2019 layer of pastry in the middle; can I track that down? That\u2019s the detective aspect I love the best,\u201d she says. \u201cI see value in honoring and knowing what came before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up in a world where I saw what a pleasure it was for my grandmother to cook.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more about McDermott at <\/em>http:\/\/www.nanciemcdermott.com<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>http:\/\/www.nanciemcdermott.wordpress.com<\/em><\/a>, or follow her on Twitter: @nanciemac. <\/em><\/p>\n

[Story by Kim Weaver Spurr \u201988] <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nancie McDermott\u2019s culinary journey has taken her full circle: from her grandmother\u2019s big dairy farm kitchen in Orange County to the rural countryside in Thailand and back again. She writes about food for a living, but you won\u2019t find her kitchen to be fussy or pretentious. It is a place where you can fall in love with cooking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fine-arts-humanities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}