Sam

My adult friends and I live for a good themed potluck, but before I found my group that's as equally excited by dinner as I am, I had Sam. Tea parties, murder mystery parties, finer things parties, Sam hosted them all. Perhaps my penchant for hosting and hanging onto friends who love hosting goes back to her. Sam identifies as American, specifically Southern. I met her freshman year - probably in our PE class. My key memories are that she would walk-not-run warm up laps with me, and during lunch she'd be a social stray with me. Somewhere along the way, she became Penny (and I, Milly).

Thank you for this one, dearest Penny, for I loved this excuse to make pulled pork in my parent's Instant Pot. Aside from a quick search for Carolina style bbq for a general idea, I freehanded this vinegar-based and sugary sauce and maybe got a little carried away because it was almost too saucy, too flavor-packed to eat on its own.

But that's okay! Because the pulled pork filling was paired with quick and easy lightly salted sauteed green bean pieces.

I was most excited for the yeasted bao dough because I was about to pack these guys with corn. A whole can of sweet corn gets pureed and haphazardly subbed into the dough in place of water. You know, I feel like corn gets a bad rep, but it's truly one of the most delicious plants on this planet. Okay, that felt like a bold statement as I was typing it, but then I started thinking about sweet grilled summer corn, creamy corn soups, all things masa, popcorn, golden kernels sprinkled in salads in ceviches on pizzas, those big starchy Peruvian ones, Korean corn cheese - fuck. We've all seen this kid's take on corn, yes? I remember reading Omnivore's Dilemma back in college and feeling flabbergasted by the pervasiveness of corn in our diet and our.. everyday lives. If you're not familiar with the book (or if I remember correctly, one specific chapter in the book), Michael Pollan walks us through how corn gets processed into its components - starch, fiber, protein, oil - which can all be further processed into the thousands of products we depend on. 

Obvious food items like grits, meal, and flour are produced via dry milling. These are the ingredients that give us cornbread, snack foods, cereals, breadings, hush puppies!, bakery mixes, and can be fermented for beer or liquors. Wet milling of corn gives us all the bits and bobs that can be turned into more food products and also nonfood products. This is the process by which corn is broken down into its building blocks to give corn oil, cornstarch, and corn gluten (not like bread gluten). Cornstarch can further be converted into sweeteners and ethanol. And then all these things like glues and adhesives, textiles, papers, plastics, inks, acetic acid, cosmetics, cleaners, and on and on.

Well all in all, my corn wrappers bundled a hefty scoop of bbq and a spoonful of green beans that were steamed. Maybe I overdid the ratio of filling to wrapper because these guys were barely able to contain themselves.

Mottled by corn bits but also mottled by saucy fatty pork bits.

Things I'd do differently: maybe be less heavy handed on the brown sugar in the pork. refine the corn dough to be more fluffy.. and buttery.

Sam's complete list:

nc style bbq

grandma's spoonbread/corn bread

green beans

dad's brunswick stew, esp in the cold weather

grandma's xmas congo cookies with lots of brown sugar, chocolate chips, nuts

also grandma's no bake drop cookies with oatmeal and chocolate