{"id":12867,"date":"2014-03-26T08:30:24","date_gmt":"2014-03-26T13:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=12867"},"modified":"2014-03-24T17:28:36","modified_gmt":"2014-03-24T22:28:36","slug":"local-food-art-noodles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/local-food-art-noodles\/","title":{"rendered":"Local Food: Art Noodles"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JesseYancyColumnHeader\"<\/a>When I was working at Audie Michael\u2019s<\/strong>, a restaurant on the Square in Oxford (current site of the City Grocery<\/strong>), we became well-known for two items outside our regular menu. One was gumbo, and the other was lasagna. We ran both regularly as luncheon specials.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since we were basically an upscale burger joint, we didn\u2019t do a lot of catering, usually only large take-out orders for regular customers. But one day Pat Lamar<\/strong>, a wealthy, socially prominent patron and later mayor of Oxford, sent in a messenger carrying a beautiful, knee-high McCarty bowl with a tapered bottom. My boss came waltzing into the kitchen with this huge piece of pottery and said, \u201cMrs. Lamar wants you to make lasagna in this for her party tonight.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"lasa2\"<\/a>\u201cSure,\u201d I said. \u201cIs this oven-proof?\u201d He looked at me like I\u2019d hit him with a hammer. \u201cWhat do you mean, oven-proof?\u201d he asked. (He was a nice guy, just lacked focus.)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLook,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019m not about to take an expensive piece of pottery, fill it full of lasagna, and bake it in an oven without knowing that it\u2019s not going to shatter into seven hundred pieces.\u201d Suddenly realizing the situation, he asked, \u201cWhat are we gonna do?\u201d (In my experience, this has been management\u2019s basic reaction to anything that\u2019s not in the manual.)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFirst thing, call her up and see if she\u2019s baked in it before,\u201d I said. A few minutes later he came back and said, \u201cShe\u2019s never put it in the oven, but she thinks it will be fine.\u201d I was skeptical. Even if the piece was insured, I didn\u2019t want to have to clean up an oven full of lasagna and broken crockery. So I got on the phone and got in touch with Ron Dale<\/strong>, a ceramics professor at Ole Miss.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJesse Lee,\u201d he said, \u201cTo be honest with you, I do not know if it will withstand the heat or not. But the one thing\u00a0not\u00a0to do is to put a cool piece into a hot oven.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So I took a deep breath and made lasagna. I filled the bowl with warm water to heat the ceramic up a bit, poured that out and filled it with layers of meat, cheese, sauce, and noodles, all still very warm. The entire ordeal (which took two people to lift) went into a cold oven.<\/span><\/p>\n

I started turning up the thermostat 25\u00b0 every fifteen minutes or so. I was on pins and needles. My boss Don positioned himself in front of the oven on a stool staring at the oven door until I ran him out with a mop. After two hours, the lasagna was bubbling beautifully and the bowl was fine. I found a box big enough to hold the damn thing and was just closing the lid when Mrs. Lamar\u2019s people came to pick it up for the party, which had already started.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once it was out of my hands, I went up to the bar and got good and snockered. I deserved it.<\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

This article was originally printed in The Local Voice<\/em> #199 (published March 6, 2014). To download a PDF of this issue, click HERE<\/span><\/a>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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