Words by Andrea Goto
Recipe courtesy of Michael Finkanauer
Photography by Chia Chong
Styling by Libbie Summers
The food that comes out of Chef Lauren Teague’s kitchen at 22 Square—a relaxed, street-level urban restaurant and bar nestled at the base of the sleek Andaz Hotel on one of Savannah’s 22 historic squares (get it?)—illustrates the best that New Southern cuisine has to offer. The menu is firmly rooted in the South, boasting locally sourced ingredients like oxtail, corn cake and greens, but it boasts a pared-down simplicity that allows freshness and quality to speak for itself.
“We like food from the neighborhood done simply and well,” Chef enthuses as we sit perched at her bar, her diaphanous pale-blue eyes sparkling. The pork belly, her favorite, is a tender morsel honey glazed with restraint and served on a nest of peppery arugula and membrane-thin slices of radish. It’s a Mighty Mouse plating—an equitable bite with big flavor.
“We teach people in the kitchen that you only touch the food so many times. If you have to play with the food to the point that you can’t identify it, then you shouldn’t be doing it,” she explains.
If you’ve ever had gator in any form, you know what Chef’s referring to. Reptile meat tastes like mud, so to make it palatable, it’s beaten, battered and fried into something it’s not: edible.
Instead, her cuisine manages to be simple and honest, yet still remarkable.
The New Jersey native doesn’t like to talk about herself. Her eyes dart nervously and she waves her hands about her face, like she’s trying to make my prying inquires magically disappear. She’s plain-faced and unadorned, wearing her shoulder-length hair pulled back into a low ponytail. The comparison to her food—simple and honest—works, but it feels too precious. There’s a measurable toughness bubbling behind those blue eyes—the kind of grit it takes to run a kitchen that’s resourceful and principled.
“When we buy something, we literally use every piece of it,” Chef explains, “like curing our own meats and drawing out our own stocks.”
The restaurant buys bones from the nearby Hunter Cattle Co. to render down for stocks. But instead of skimming and tossing away the scum formed from the gelatin in the middle of the bones and the melted-down cartilage, the kitchen staff skims it, cools it and puts it through a sieve, using the beef tallow to make candles and soaps that they then give away to guests. Her sous chef, Mike Finkanauer, refined the process, coming up with the idea of adding oatmeal and herbs like rosemary or lavender.
“It’s really, really good for you,” Chef notes, “and good for the environment because it just goes down the sewage. It’s not caustic.”
Good Bones Soap
yield varies depending on what size you cut your bars
Ingredients:
- 5 pounds clarified beef fat (tallow –taken from the excess fat from bones used in stock making)
- 1.9 pounds water
- 10.8 ounces lye
Directions:
In a large heavy stock pot, add the tallow and bring temperature to 120 degrees F. Add the water slowly into the fat. By adding it, you’ll cool the fat down and it will start to solidify. As you stir, the mix will begin to turn into a creamy texture. Begin to heat the mixture to 130 degrees F. Make sure the water and tallow mixture is fully blended before adding the lye.
NOTE: Use caution before adding the lye. Lye is an alkali and will burn your skin. Also, make sure to not use aluminum to mix in the lye as it will react like an acid on the aluminum.
Prepare your mold and set aside. We use old baking pans lined in plastic wrap to prevent sticking.
Sprinkle the lye slowly over the fat and water mixture and stir until combined with a wooden paddle. Increase heat to medium-high for a consistent slow boil. Stir in your choice of textures and aromas at this point (suggestions to follow). Cook the soap mixture, stirring occasionally to prevent boiling over, until it is thick and creamy (approximately 30 minutes to an hour).
Pour your soap into the molds and allow to harden for 2 days before cutting into bars. Allow to harden for an additional week before using.
Textures and Aroma Suggestions:
Chopped rosemary, oatmeal, lavender, dried teas, coconut husk, essential oils
Join Chef Lauren Teague for dinner at 22 Square Restaurant and Bar, and don’t forget to mention chef Michael Finkanauer’s Good Bones Soap.
Libbie’s Food Styling Props: (top image) Natural parchment on top of a piece of French table linen and a pewter plate from Habersham Antiques Market. Plate is sitting on a blackboard with old dark wood floor boards in the background. (bottom image) Silver bowl is a trophy won in 1960 from my mother-in-law, Peggy, when she was the Short-Horn Lassie Queen in Illinois. It is a treasured piece of mine. Knives were picked up in an antique store in California. Copper pouring pot from Habersham Antiques Market. The old piece of wood was a recent gift to the studio from the amazingly gifted artist Bert John. He was cleaning out a space and thought of us!
