Foodie hell in Orlando

Okay, maybe "hell" is overstating the case slightly. And perhaps "Orlando" is too broad an area to disparage, as I stayed within the confines of a golf resort 25 miles from downtown. And I suppose it's even a stretch to call myself a "foodie," given that my predilection for eating, and talking about eating, is a trait shared with, oh, just about the entire population.

But if I'd titled this post "A few not-very-good meals in a golf resort somewhere in Florida," where's the fun in that?

In fairness, I wasn't there for fun; I was at the Healthcare Internet Conference, a fabulous few days of full-on marketing nerdery with 450 other people looking to figure out how to make their hospital websites more inviting, valuable and user-friendly. From that perspective, it was great, and I came away with a notebook of scribble and a list of ideas to put into practice.

But outside of conference hours, I was pretty much on my own for foraging purposes. Had this been New York or Miami, I could have strolled out of the hotel and into any number of dining options. Instead, I was surrrounded by 36 holes of Greg Norman-designed lawn atop what was once swamp.



So I ate:

• A straight-from-the-fridge sports-bar chopped salad, arranged on the plate as though intended for a child going through the "none of my foods can touch each other" phase
• A chocolate croissant topped with icing
• A blackened grouper sandwich with the consistency of a sock
• This:

Disturbing as the above looks, it was a godsend; being a high-end resort, prices were elevated, and my travel budget didn't include meals. So the hors d'oeuvres served during the early evening networking session became dinner, supplemented by

• Trail mix and bananas.

Perhaps, then, you can understand my gratitude when I arrived back in Boston, and The Boy met me at the airport and said, "Let's go to Hungry Mother."

An hour later, I was sipping a gin martini sweetened with honey syrup and sharing a bowl of boiled peanuts. And then this arrived.



A choucroute of collard greens topped with a pork rib, a thick slice of bacon, and the most amazing garlic sausage I've had in ages.

There's no place like home.

Hungry Mother (and other women)

Last night saw a return to Hungry Mother for a girly night out with Linda, Melinda and Cindi. I used to work with the first two reprobates; Cindi is a more recent member of the gang who shares our ribald sense of humor and appreciation for good nosh, so it was a fun, improper, tasty night all round.

Yes, there were cocktails: Cindi chose an insanely good vodka martini with thyme, rosemary and red pepper flakes, and she very kindly and generously allowed me to take her last olive, which had been soaking in a house-made lemon marinade. Melinda had a Manhattan-esque concoction that featured sorghum syrup and amaretto, garnished with a boiled peanut.

But that really has nothing to do with the quality of these photos.

Linda just moves very very fast.



Melinda always looks this blurry.



And Cindi's cocktail really was almost as big as she was.



So we talked about gardening and crazy neighbors and kids and rock 'n' roll and food.

And we ate: the amazingly tender and deeply flavored beef tongue canapés; the soft boiled peanuts sprinkled with gray salt; the crunchily battered fried oysters with tabasco sauce; the catfish pâté with sweet fig jam and sharp pickled ramps; the feather-light gnocchi with delicate mushroom broth; the roast chick'um with hot jalapeno spoonbread; the light and flaky catfish (possibly cooked to perfection, depending on your own personal concept of what "perfection" means); the single juicy fried green tomato; the rich and creamy grits topped with ham and cheese.

And somehow there was room for dessert. But just to share, you understand; just a spoonful to say we'd tried. Really. So we gamely dismantled a lovely buttermilk pie, light and fluffy and lemon-scented, and did our brave best with a dense, deliciously dark chocolate pot de crème infused with cardamom.

It looks as though Hungry Mother is still doing well, though I felt a twinge of apprehension at our waitress's hope that we notify our friends about the place: "Tell everyone when you go to work tomorrow! Tell them you had a good time!" Are they just pushing word of mouth, or do they really feel under-promoted? Time will tell, though as long as they're cooking at the current standard, they should be quite safe.

So, ladies: where next?

Hungry Mother

New to Cambridge: Hungry Mother, a restaurant that sounds like a '70s prog rock band but serves up lovely southern comfort food, courtesy of a Virginia-raised, French-trained chef.

It's on the site of the former Kendall Cafe, but any signs of that live-music venue are long gone, and the look is urban-rustic-moderne: dark wooden floors, white wood, muted colors.

Sounds like a million other bistros, it's true. At Hungry Mother, the differences are in the details, specifically:

• Water is served in Mason jars, giving a laid-back, down-home touch to an otherwise sophisticated setting.

• The restrooms are papered with cookbook pages: Julia Child's classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one, The Virginia Housewife in the other. Not only does this suggest someone at Hungry Mother has a fundamental passion for homestyle cooking (and a sense of humor), it also turns a trip to the loo into a chance to learn how to pickle walnuts.

(That could be a new euphemism: "'Scuse me a minute--I have to go learn how to pickle walnuts.")

• The whole place smells. Like. Ham. Not something you'd necessarily want in a Glade candle in your living room--you'd be gnawing on the sofa in no time--but when you're in a hammy zone, perusing a hammy menu, and the whole place is perfumed with sweet, smoky hamminess, it's heavenly.

The menu at Hungry Mother is small, which makes things easier (especially for those of us unable to make decisions). From the section of the menu titled "To tide you over ..." we chose beef tongue canapés, thinly sliced marinated meat with Gruyère and a dab of Dijon mustard, the tongue tender and intensely flavored.

Then The Boy went for the green salad, which featured both red and golden beets, roasted, as well as slices of blood orange. It looked like a plate of jewels, and the mild sweetness of the beets matched well with the sharp citrus and the vinaigrette dressing.

No salad for me, though: I took the pork sausage, which came in its own individual skillet (awww! Bless!) on a bed of black-eyed beans, and was topped with sweet chow-chow, a bright, tangy-fresh complement to the grilled sausage and smoky beans.

My entree was catfish; cornmeal-breaded and served with collards, it's a dish we often make ourselves. Except, of course, that Hungry Mother takes it up a notch, matching it with cauliflower and capers, and dressing the greens with a mustard vinaigrette. Fabulous.



The Boy went all-ham-out, opting for pork shoulder braised in bourbon, sweet and tender, on a bed of creamy grits. Amazingly--I could hardly believe it--he thought the pork rib that came with it was "almost too much meat" (what???); the dish would have been just fine with half the portion. (I'm not sure who he is or what he has done with my husband ...) Of course, he ate it anyway (okay, maybe it really is him).

No room for dessert, which was a shame, because I was intrigued by both the cardamom chocolate pot de crème and the sorghum ice-cream that accompanied the pecan sticky bun.

Next time, Hungry Mother. Next time.