A well-constructed grilled cheese sandwich is a beautiful thing.

Crispy, gooey and just flat-out delicious, the sandwich never fails to disappoint, even when it's made, elementary school cafeteria-style, with cheap white bread and processed yellow American cheese. 

No wonder, then, America's favorite comfort food gets its very own food holiday.

Alex McGroarty makes his own ketchup. "It's not like Heinz," he says, smiling, maybe with a twinge of guilt.

He is the chef at Storefront Deli in Los Angeles -- the restaurant lovechild of Zak Walters and Chris Phelps, who also own Salt's Cure in West Hollywood. But Mr. McGroarty is from Sewickley, so he knows good ketchup is important.

It's made of heirloom tomatoes from the farmers market, several vinegars, seasonings, salt and a little brown sugar.
It's one of many items created in-house at Storefront. "We do our own sausage," he says, "we grind our own burger meat, we make our own hot dogs, we do our own bacon. It's great."

These are skills he's picked up from Mr. Walters and Mr. Phelps, who he says have taught him a great deal about nose-to-tail cooking. "They bring in a lot of really, really good meat that I get to see and to play with sometimes. They bring in whole animals -- the whole cow, the whole pig, the whole goat, the whole lamb. It's a lot of fun."

Working the line at Salt's Cure was his first job in L.A. after he and his now wife moved to town from Connecticut "jobless and homeless." Salt's Cure fit with his culinary sensibility, it seems, as he was raised on cooking from scratch. "My mom cooked basically six nights a week," he says, "and then one night we had leftovers. That's where I got [my love of cooking] from -- seeing her cook and always being so enthusiastic about it."

He showed a knack for cooking early on. "I remember cooking for my mom when I was 9 or 10 years old," he recalls. "I cooked a whole dinner for her and my family and I remember her saying, 'Alex that was so good! How did you get everything to come out all at the same time?'"

Now 32, he began working at The Sewickley Cafe as a dishwasher starting at age 15 or 16. When both the chef and the sous chef went on vacation, they needed someone to work lunch. "I wasn't washing dishes much after that."

He continued working at the Cafe off and on until he was 19, ending up second in charge of the line by the time he went to college at the University of Delaware. After that, he moved to New Haven, where he lived for nine years, working in various restaurants and up the line. He never went to culinary school, but believes learning on the job was the right route for him.

"I think growing up in Pittsburgh affected my work ethic," he says. The son of a psychologist, he watched his father work six days a week, often 10 to 12 hour days. By age 13, he was delivering papers. His parents told him that if he wanted to buy something, he'd have to go out and earn money.

But he didn't mind. "I've always found work pleasurable, in a way," he says. "I wasn't the best paperboy, but it was fun biking around."

He finds work at Storefront pleasurable too. He enjoys the process of continually shaping the menu, which wears its badge of blue collar inspiration proudly. It's sandwich-heavy -- there's a ham and Swiss laced with the sweetness of peach jam, as well as a hoagie called The Mousa with pickled cayenne peppers that will leave your mouth burning for hours. The burger has made waves -- impressive in burger-obsessed Los Angeles -- and the BLT (along with the whole restaurant) got a rave from the city's most respected critic. There are breakfast sandwiches, too, as well as a good dozen or so deli sides all created from scratch by Mr. McGroarty.

He'd love to put a Primanti's-style sandwich on the menu, but the restaurant doesn't have a fryer. "Maybe I could get a tabletop fryer and do it that way," he says, brainstorming on the spot.

He plans to continue working for Mr. Walters and Mr. Phelps for the foreseeable future as they "take over the world," he says. He's proud to be their disciple, though he jokes he is not sure if he could take the job since Mr. Phelps is from Baltimore.

Despite a hometown rivalry with his boss, McGroarty wears a Pittsburgh Penguins cap every single day.

Ali Trachta photo
Follow Ali Trachta on Twitter @MySo_CalLife

After Valentine's Day, National Pie Day (today, Jan. 23) is the sweetest "holiday" of all. To participate in the festivities you've got to at least indulge in a piece of pie, if not bake one yourself.

I think pie is good any time of day, but this Pecan Oat Pie is my second pie-as-breakfast/breakfast-as-pie recipe this year. The first, Breakfast Apple Pie, is a recipe I tested from the new cookbook "United States of Pie" by Adrienne Kane.
 
You might be surprised at an oat pie, but this is no bowl of granola. The oats add texture and creaminess that complements the pecans and tempers the sweetness. I remember some time back, when I freelanced at Woman's Day magazine, a reader sent in an oatmeal pie that everyone raved about. So when I found Pecan Oat Pie in the new book "Tasting New Mexico," by husband-wife team Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison, I knew I had to make it. Fabulous! Crunchy and sweet with just the right amount of everything.
 
"Tasting New Mexico" discusses the culinary history of the state and offers iconic recipes, many highlighting New Mexican green chiles. This recipe (chile-free) is from baker Kathy Knapp, owner of the Pie-O-Neer Cafe in Pie Town, N.M. The authors write: "The Pie-O-Neer Cafe [is] so popular now that folks often refer to Highway 60 through town as Pie-way 60."

The recipe made two pies, but I cut it in half to make a single pie. It's good anytime, but especially at breakfast.


PECAN OAT PIE

Pastry for a single crust pie

¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 to ¼ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup light Karo syrup

½ cup dark Karo syrup

3 large eggs

½ cup old-fashioned oats (not quick cooking)

1 cup toasted pecan pieces

Toasted pecan halves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Fit the crust into a 9-inch pie plate, fluting the edges. Place in refrigerator while making filling.

With electric mixer at medium speed, cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add spices and salt and mix well. Stop the mixer and pour in both syrups. Mix at medium-low speed. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each. Mix in oats by hand.

Scatter the pecan pieces in the bottom of pie shell. Pour in filling and arrange pecan halves on top as you wish. Bake 45 minutes, then check to see if pie still jiggles at the center. If it has more than a very slight movement, bake a few more minutes. Do not overbake. The pie will set up as it cools.

Transfer pie to wire rack and cool at least 1 hour before serving.

-- Adapted from "Tasting New Mexico: Recipes Celebrating One Hundred Years of Distinctive Home Cooking" by Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison (Museum of New Mexico Press, 2012, $29.95).

Miriam Rubin writes the Miriam's Garden column and other regular food stories for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She has her own blog, Garden, Cook, Write. And this spring, she has a cookbook coming out, titled "Tomatoes," that's part of the University of North Carolina Press' Savor the South series.

Miriam Rubin photo

In my family, one tradition that has lived on through several generations is the New Year’s pretzel.

Mention this to a non-Pittsburgher and you will get a blank stare and a “Huh?”

Even within Pittsburgh, some folks have never heard of it.

That’s probably because it was originally (as far as I can tell) a tradition limited to Pittsburgh’s German community. My mom grew up in the German community of Troy Hill, where her grandmother baked the raised sweet-dough pretzel.

The deal is, you’re supposed to eat a slice at midnight on New Year’s Eve for good luck in the coming year. Some families insert a coin into the pretzel dough before baking, and whoever gets the coin in his or her slice is supposed to be the one blessed with the good luck (similar to the Mardi Gras king cake tradition). My family never included the coin; we offered equal-opportunity good luck as long as you ate your requisite slice of pretzel.

When I researched New Year’s pretzels for the heck of it a couple years ago, I couldn’t find any other area of the country where people make these things. All I could find were a bunch of displaced Pittsburghers grousing that they couldn’t buy New Year’s pretzels in the cities where they’d moved. Here, you can buy the pretzels in many bakeries and grocery stores – in fact, you could probably still buy one today. Or if you work quickly, you can use my recipe below and still have a pretzel before midnight tonight.

I grew up with my mom schlepping these things all over town. Wherever we spent New Year’s Eve, we took along a pretzel. Now Mom usually makes two smaller pretzels – one for her and my dad, and a second for my brother and his family, who live nearby.

I don’t live close enough for Mom to schlep me a pretzel, so I’m on my own. Most years I haven’t bothered making it, given that I don’t buy the luck myth, and as parents of little kids, we never stay up until midnight on New Year’s Eve anyhow. Mom likes to tease me about this: “[Gasp!] You’re going to have a bad year!”

But this year I decided it was time to make a pretzel again. My kids are old enough to appreciate having some family traditions, and it’s time I got more serious about carrying them through.

So I got out Mom’s recipe – and groaned. Heat stuff on the stovetop, mix, knead, rise, punch down… I had visions of spending my day tethered to a timer and a recipe card.

So I did a little experiment and chucked everything in the bread machine.

Let’s just say my effort didn’t turn out as pretty as Mom’s, but so what. I have a feeling my family will be happy to eat it regardless.

  
New Year's Pretzel, Bread-Machine Style
PG tested
A New Year’s pretzel can be customized to your tastes. A simple buttercream frosting would be tasty, or a buttercream flavored with a bit of almond extract. My mom usually makes a lemon glaze for her pretzel, so I made mine with butter, powdered sugar, fresh-squeezed lemon juice and a drizzle of hot water and then topped the pretzel with toasted sliced almonds. If your family doesn’t like nuts, feel free to top with sprinkles or maraschino cherries instead.
-- Rebecca Sodergren

1/4 cup warm water
1/4 cup milk
3 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces
1/3 cup sour cream
2 egg yolks
2 1/2 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 teaspoons yeast

Place ingredients in bread machine in the order suggested by the manufacturer. Set machine for “sweet dough” setting. (We used a bread machine that allows the dough to rise once and then punches the dough down. If your machine does not allow the dough to rise when it’s on the dough-only setting, let the dough rise until doubled and then punch down before removing from bread pan.)

When bread machine is finished preparing the dough, let the dough stand 10 minutes. Remove dough from the bread machine pan to a lightly floured surface. If dough is too sticky, work in a little extra flour (we needed to do this).

Place dough on wax paper and form it into a rope, squeezing from the middle to the ends, until it is about 3 feet long.

Grease a baking sheet. Transfer dough rope to baking sheet and form into a pretzel shape. Cover and let rise until doubled in size. (My dough was reluctant to rise, so I turned the oven on, heated it to 170 degrees, turned it back off and then put the pretzel in the warmed oven for rising.)

Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.

After pretzel has cooled, add glaze and toppings if desired.


Rebecca Sodergren photo

What are you eating on New Year's Day?

Chances are, if you live in this region, you're having some kind of pork and sauerkraut.

And that would please the makers and marketers of SnowFloss, from the Fremont Company in Fremont, Ohio, that knows how we up in here eat.

They enlisted a Pittsburgher -- Jon Lindsay, executive chef at Jerome Bettis Grille 36 on the North Side -- to present a recipe for the dish on a video. "The recipe utilizes specialized dry rub and searing techniques to develop and seal in a unique interplay between the pork and sauerkraut," the company notes. You can watch and learn at its site, sauerkrautrecipes.com.

Or you can just follow the printed version below.



It does look good.

I myself might try a version of the dish that my buddy Miriam Rubin recently tested for the Food & Flavor section from "The Essential James Beard Cookbook." You can find it on the PGPlate recipe finder. She also tested a fresh recipe for Hoppin' John, another classic good-luck dish. I'll be making my own black-eyed-peas dish with lots of greens -- Lacinato kale currently chilling under the snow in my garden. I could use all the luck and money I can attract in 2013.

New Year's Pork and Sauerkraut Dinner

For the dry rub:

1/4 cup cumin

1/4 cup cayenne

1/4 cup dry mustard

1/4 cup paprika

1/4 cup sallt

1/4 cup pepper

5-pound pork loin

Olive oil

2 cups sliced onions

2 cups chicken broth

5 pounds peeled, sliced potatoes (seasoned with thyme, salt and pepper)

2 thin-sliced apples

1/2 pound sliced bacon

2 pounds SnowFloss sauerkraut

2 cups Riesling wine

Combine dry-rub ingredients and rub into pork.

Sear in pan with olive oil on all sides.

Add onions, add chicken stock, reduce.

Season potatoes and reserve in a baking pan.

Add pork and onions to pan with potatoes.

Add sliced apples, bacon and top with sauerkraut.

Add wine and cover.

Place in conventional oven at 350 degrees for 2 hours.

Enjoy.

Serves 4 to 5.

-- SnowFloss Sauerkraut

SnowFloss photos