Mayhaw Man

Pork

I made strawberry sorbet last night using Busboy's formula. Delicious. Locally grown strawberries picked yesterday morning ($18 a flat, usually they get cheaper as the season goes on, so it should be a good year price wise). I made the simple sugar with turbinado sugar (real turb, not the fake stuff with syrup added back to granulated) instead of white granulated. I also crushed a few mint leaves and added them to the syrup as I was making it. None left. Might have to do it again tonight, although strawberry icecream sounds good as well.

You can't have any.

Puppy drum? OK, I give up. What is a puppy drum? Puppy Drum are a small size (< 5 lbs.) Black Drum. THese fish are very common in the Gulf of Mexico and while they do not qualify as the sleekest looking fish in the food chain, they are particularly delicious and have a succulent sweet flesh that is very flaky (not unlike cod). The nice folks at the LSU Ag Center provide more drum info here Tonight's dinner is: corned beef and cabbage fresh snap beans The First Pontchatoula Strawberries of the Year with a little sweetened heavy cream. (they are amazingly sweet and succulent this year, pray for no more cold weather and we will have them through May if we are lucky) A little description of the Ponchatoula Strawberry by EL

I am pretty sure that they only make the diet version. I had a couple of sips last night when my wife showed up with a can. It wasn't bad-I liked the lime taste, in fact I prefer it over Diet COke (not saying much there though, as I don't like diet coke much-but I do LOVE regular coke).

No doubt with beans

Corn Foam? MMMMMMM

And more evidence supporting the theory that "Soul Food" is neither an insulting term or a cuisine developed wholly by people of African American backgrounds - This is a brief, incomplete description provided by Joyce White, the woman who wrote the book on the subject (literally). Soul Food Q & A I reccomend going back and reading some of the discussion on this topic during the Q & A as it covers much of the subject matter we are trying to politely stumble around with here.

Varmint, You have now (finally) hit on something in your project I can be of help with. There is someone in your area who does "food grade stainless work". This person is talented, reasonably priced, and looking to do something for fun besides work in a factory repairing and installing food equipment. This person would love to come over and look at your job. I don't know the guy but I promise there is one. The reason I know this is that in every city I have ever built a brewery in I have been able to find one of these guys. A lot of cities, a bunch of breweries, and a bunch of welders. Stainless guys are not cut out of the same cloth as the guys that repair trailers and do ironwork. They are pleasant and seem to take a great deal of pride in their work. Actually, I have a guy in Charlotte that I have used on a couple of jobs. If you would like I will call him and see if he knows anyone up your way. I bet he does. Incidentally, I believe that you will find stainless to be pretty inexpensive. The prices on sheet metal are reasonably good right now, so labor is the issue. You will also find custome made to be much less expensive (generally) than what you find as ready made. Stainless countertops will generally be formed over wood and you will be suprised if you decide to do a little more research what can be formed out of sheet metal by someone who knows what he is doing.

I believe that "Grits and Truffles" proves that there is indeed, "such a thing". Glad you enjoyed the meal. I know that you were looking forward to it. Happy Anniversary!

Dude, I ate grits with shaved white truffles just last night. Seriously! One year wedding anniversary. And I just got through telling someone "Man, that fusion food thing is so yesterday". Wrong again How good were the grits? Yellow or white? Course or fine? Plain or Cheese? C'mon-we wanna know!

Bleachboy, Perhaps we could get more takers if we suggested a "Sautee of Creamed Corn with Fois Gras and Shaved White Truffles" (I believe black truffles would be overdoing it a bit)

Excellent Report. I have been to many of the place on your list as I lived in Tecate, BC, MX for about 2 years. Cocketeles Rock. I love that stuff.

Fish Tacos ala Rubio's (since I am only 2000 miles from the nearest Rubios) I used some beautiful puppy drum my neighbor brought me this afternoon. Delicious.

I can almost fathom this being good. Especially if you replaced the pimientos with some minced fresh jalapenos. And make the White Kernel and Yellow Kernel FRESH. If it is all fresh (except hominy, which I have never seen fresh) it is Awsome. I was merely suggesting a use for some stray cream corn. I was not implying that it was anything close to haute cuisine

Iowa Cooks It came from my wife's grandmother's house after she passed away. You gotta read it to believe it. More meatloaf recipes in one book than you will ever find anywhere else.

It could be the same reason that store brand pizza tastes great in the middle of the night.

O.K. This is a little embarrassing to admit, but I have always loved the stuff. Now that you can get the rolls of cut corn out of the frozen produce section (a really good thing, I quit canning the same thing because the frozen is just as good). I know that this could come out of some bad cookbook, but just trust me: Equal Parts of (2 cans of each is about right for 10 people) Creamed Yellow Corn White Kernel Corn Yellow Kernel Corn Large White Hominy Small Jar Pimientos 2 Cloves garlic-minced Salt and Pepper to taste Put into a Pyrex Baking dish and bake at 350F for 30 min. I know, I know. But you just have to trust me on this one. I got all the way through college eating this stuff and have continued to eat it on occasion.

I don't understand. What kind of recognition do you suggest? I have responded to MSG's comments about Southern Food being somehow stolen in another thread from last summer. The subject here (which of course I was part of the problem) has badly strayed from the original topic of Northwestern University and a letter written by a student. Southern Foods-Is They or Ain't They?

As an answer to a comment by MSG in this thread about "Southern Foods, Is they or Ain't they I would like to point out that food in the South (what apparently, judging by this thread and the comments I have previously read on others) was and is certainly influenced by blacks who were brought here as slaves. But it has much to do with other groups as well. On the other hand I do not believe that the term "stolen" applies here. The culture that this food came out of was poor and rural. This condition treated both black and white cruelly and when either group had the chance they left for a more industrialized North and West that needed the labor and were willing to pay for it. Stolen implies that there has been some kind of crime done. making the best out of what is available is certainly not a crime. The foods that people ate in the South in 1900 and the foods that Southerners eat today have not changed that much, even though there are many other kinds of foods easily available to them thanks to modern transport and refrigeration. We eat the stuff because we like it. We eat more pork than the rest of the country and that certainly wasn't "stolen" from anyone. Greens were grown by EVERYONE as a staple food because in many parts of the South they can be grown year round and were often the only fresh vegetable available in the winter.. Certainly many parts of the food culture were imported directly from Africa or the Carribean (hell, just the word Gumbo has African Roots). Stolen is a poor choice of words. It implies ownership and I do not believe that anyone owns a Southern Food. I could go on but I think that it might be better to suggest some of you take the time to go back and read through this old and interesting thread.

As a cracker dude who would order fried chicken, greens, corn bread, iced tea, and peach cobbler for my last meal, my opinion here may not count for much but I pretty much agree with Tryska right down the line. EVERYBODY I KNOW who grew up in close proximity to me eats this stuff as a choice, not to fulfill someone else's sterotypical dream for us. I like fried chicken. I like fois gras. I like Head Cheese. I like truffles. I like beer. I like Champagne. I like my redneck neighbors. I like Yankees (which is a good thing since my nearest neighbors are snowbirds from Minn). When they name a national holiday after me I HOPE that everyone in this country will sit down to a delightful well cooked meal of some of the above items-particularly fried chicken, which when cooked with real chicken (not 10 percent ploy whatever added for flavor, etc. is one of the finest meals on the planet). Equally as tasty and delicious as 8 week old dry aged beef from Bern's or Ruth's or Luger's and just as good as the fabulous duck liver pate I enjoyed at Peristyle the other night. And I agree pretty much down the line with MSG's comments above (sometimes I stun even myself ) except that I don't think that the comments need to be limited to black people. We all grew up eating this stuff and no one called it soul food (in fact the first time I ever saw that term was on a sign in a movie (either Shaft or Cotton Comes to Harlem)). Down here, like Trysta said, we pretty much call it lunch. Mr King probably did eat his share of chicken and greens. While we all tend to think of Mr King as a full time social activist, he was a minister FIRST. For those of you that have no sense of the Southern traditions involving preachers and Sunday lunch you should know that having the minister over after dinner (especially a visiting one, as Mr King would have often been) is an honor and you put out the best meal possible. This would be, for Sunday lunch, typically chicken, peas, mashed potatoes, butterbeans, bisquits, etc. This food, when cooked well, is considered by guests to be an honor to eat, not a stereotypical insult. I'm sure he enjoyed it many times as that is what his hosts-black and white- were likely to have prepared for their honored guest. This is a silly argument (at least as held by the Northwestern letter writer -the egullet part has been pretty intelligent and entertaining, so far ) and I can't think why I have even put in my two cents worth except that I believe that Dr King was a hell of a brave guy and if you believe in all of that heaven and hell stuff you have got to think that he is up there laughing at all of this.

No matter how the advertorials are labeled or sectioned you should not use your name for both these advertisements (it is what they are) and your regular column. There will be no way, at some point, for people to distinguish between one or the other. If you are going to do it offer to write with no name (best case scenerio) or with a nom de plume (this would be ok, but not preferable to no name).

As someone who has occasionally dealt with this issue (almost exactly) I feel like this: If it is clearly marked as an advertorial type review (better yet if it is in a section of the paper that only has this sort of thing) I don't see a problem with it. The column will provide good writing experience for "the guy" as well as a little extra income. Papers fill space and some papers choose to fill some of their back business pages with exactly this kind of work. The Picayune used to produce a pullout a couple of times a year that did this sort of thing (although they dropped the thing a few years ago). On the other hand if any of the places covered in the advertorial end up in some sort of legitimate review under "the guy's" other (real I assume) name, than I would say that "the guy" should stay away from it in order to protect (I'm assuming here ) the otherwise good reputation that he has built up with his current readership. In New Orleans there is a guy who is an excellent writer, incredibly knowledgable about Louisiana food, and just a generally nice guy. He crossed the line a number of years ago (by studied choice) after spending a number of years doing straight critical review. I still enjoy his work, but no longer consider him to be an authorative voice in the matter of restaurant criticism. One never knows if it is real or whether the review is a paid commercial (he goes back and forth so much that it really is impossible to tell). I enjoy his columns and cooking instructions, I like his radio show (in fact it is one of the longest running and most interesting food shows on the radio in the US) and know that many people enjoy the outings he occasionally sponsors and I am absolutely not being critical. He made the choice on his own after careful consideration and is very upfront about the whole thing. I am just using him as an example of what could happen to you if the two things are not clearly defined.

This company is based in Dallas and is run by Susan Spicer's brother Tom. He occasionally lists them on his produce list and would be a good source to start. All of this stuff is available by air and would be an excellent resource for anyone looking for interesting and hard to find items-he carries a huge variety of mushrooms and during th e summer has the Louisiana ones. Incidentally, Louisiana Chanterelles are a summertime product (result of quick and heavy afternoon rains and extremely high humidity in the wooded areas where they are found. Hope this helps. I remember when Kevin Graham ran Windsor Court. It was a great place (15 years ago)

Big Deal There is not one Nascar Driver on the whole Circuit who can make a smoked brisket, a seafood gumbo, or a chocolate chess pie as well as I can. So there!