Triangle Fridge Study: Bill Smith

In our Triangle Food Issue, published Wednesday, May 29, we asked five local chefs, farmers, and small business purveyors to let us peek inside their fridges. You can read the rest of the interviews here.

Bill Smith: Former chef at Crook’s Corner

So, you were in Mexico for five weeks and just got back a few days ago. How’s your fridge looking? 

Smith: I tried to get out as much as I could before I left. A friend of mine was staying here, but he didn’t use much of anything. The one thing that I was able to make when I got back: I had two eggs and about a half stick of rancid butter and country ham and some odd pieces of cheese, so I made a big wheel of cornbread out of that.

Can you list some other items you’ve got in the fridge?

Half of what’s in here is jelly and cordials and pickles that people have given me. Most of it is in the back. I see a jar of figs in brandy that someone gave me for Christmas and some pickled jalapeños.

Collards and cauliflower that I got at the farmers market this morning.

I’ve always got beer, of course.

A little piece of country ham hock that I got from Cliff’s. I live alone, so I never want a whole ham hock, but you can get it in chunks at Cliff’s, which is handy.

Bacon from Cliff’s.

Cheese: regular goat cheese from Celebrity Dairy and Calvander and Danziger from Chapel Hill Creamery. 

Buttermilk.

There’s this great brand of salad dressing they have at Weaver Street Market called BRIANNAS. I’d never heard of it until lately. I have their ranch dressing.

Membrillo, which is a quince paste that I learned about in Spain years ago. It’s really good with cheese.

Peas soaking to be cooked later on.

Several bottles of Prosecco.

Rosé.

Honey wine from Quebec.

Do you have mayo?

I don’t have mayo right now.

When you do have it, is it typically a certain brand?

I don’t get in the mayonnaise fight. There are too-big problems in the world to fight about mayonnaise. 

I will tell you, one of the kids who used to work for me had a fight with his father and he was living in his car, so I let him come live at my house for a while—he slept on my couch—and he started buying this mayonnaise that’s made with lime juice, McCormick Mayonesa. So I buy it now when I go to the Latino grocery store down the street from me.

My great-grandmother always used Hellmann’s and made a big point of pointing out that she did. She was an old lady from Eastern North Carolina. I’ve wondered why she made such a big deal about it, and the only thing I can figure is that during the Great Depression they pretty much lost everything but they had pretense still, and I think Hellmann’s was a little bit more expensive and they could brag that they’d spent that extra 10¢ or whatever to have the fancier mayonnaise. She always called it by name.

Out of all the times you open your fridge, what do you reach for most often and what do you do with it?

I do not cook very much here. Bacon, beer, and butter are my three favorite foods, so those are the things I’ll be reaching for, if anything.

I’m gonna run through a list of foods that some people refrigerate and some people don’t, and you tell me your stance. Bread?

Corn bread, but not bread. I never refrigerate bread. I’ve got some in a bread box on my counter.

Eggs?

I don’t like eggs. I do keep ’em around if I’m making stuff. 

And you keep them in the fridge when you have them on hand?

Yes. Although I know people who don’t. When I was growing up, nobody did.

Peanut butter?

Not in the fridge.

Tomatoes?

No. You never refrigerate tomatoes. Never, never, never. You ruin ’em. Once you slice them, you have to. But never ever refrigerate whole tomatoes.

Is there anything you eat cold out of the fridge without heating up?

I love cold spaghetti. I also love cold collards. And I love cold barbecue on a slice of raw onion. When I was at Crook’s Corner, that was one of my favorite late-night snacks. I would get a slice of onion that would’ve gone on a hamburger and pile barbecue on top of it.

Is there anything in your fridge that’s expired right now?

I have cherry vanilla bitters from a food festival I went to a very long time ago. I don’t know if it’s poisonous yet. It’s one of those things that just sits in the door.

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