Mayhaw Man

This summer we put up a good bit of stuff, particularly pickles as we had a bumper crop of cukes. Dill Pickles Bread and Butter Pickles Green Tomato Relish (alot, great on peas) Stewed Tomatoes Okra and Tomatoes Spaghetti Sauce Mayhaw Jelly (8 oz jars, bought the juice at the farmers market) Pickled yellow squash Pickled green beans (rattlesnakes and kentucky wonder bush)

Yet Americans still have time to watch four hours of television per day. Something doesn't add up. It takes less time and costs less money to cook simple dishes like spaghetti with meat sauce than it does to make a round-trip to Burger King and buy food there. A large Whopper Value Meal costs $5.49 (plus tax) at the Burger King near me. Even with kids' meals at lower prices, it costs almost $20 to feed a family of four at Burger King. For $20, you don't have to eat brown rice and squash. You can eat good-quality food that doesn't take very long at all to prepare. At the ShopRite where I do much of my grocery shopping: How long does it take to cook a London broil? 12 minutes? $1.49 per pound on sale this week. How about some steamed asparagus to go with that? $1.49 per pound. Potatoes. Maybe 20 minutes if you cut them up and roast them. 5 lbs for 99 cents. A whole boneless pork loin? Maybe cut into medallions so it only takes 8 minutes or so to cook. $1.79 per pound. (Too expensive? The whole hams are 69 cents a pound.) Broccoli. 99 cents a pound. Two pounds of pre-mixed, pre-washed Dole green salad for $3. Hypothetically, assuming I could find the right size packages, for $18 I could make, for four people: 1/2 pound per person of London broil ($3) 1/2 pound per person of steamed asparagus ($3) 2 pounds per person of potatoes ($2) 3/4 pound per person of pork loin ($5) 1/2 pound per person of broccoli ($2) 1/2 pound per person of green salad ($3) I think there might be some leftovers. That's what you can get for what it costs to take 4 people to Burger King. And everything on that list could go from package to table in half an hour. We keep hearing how food is too cheap; we keep hearing how people can't afford to cook at home. At least one of those statements has to be false. Hey Fat Guy, I have a great idea for a new TV show......... Fat Guy's 30 Minute Meals..........after you drove everyone wild with your sparkling personality and razor sharp wit you could get a gig promoting Burger King Baguette #6....."The Fat Guy Special".

Yeah I agree. Plus she lives in a rural area outside of New Orleans (actually closer to Lafayette) and has a running cast of old guys who bring her produce and stuff, her long suffering husband Rock (there's another great name) and a bottomless pit of old line, true South Louisiana recipes just like Mom used to make (literally). Marcelle Bienvenue's Column for Today

I understand the rules involving reviews as far as paying and so forth, thanks to your answers to others. I would like to know the criteria for selecting the places that are reviewed and if there is a hard and fast rule about how many visits are sufficient for a review? Are the choices up to the reviewer or does the editorial staff make these decisions and send the reviewer on his or her merry way? And as a follow up, when a reviewer feels that a place really deserves to be slagged, is there a second opinion taken or does the ruling stand? Thanks, Brooks

Here in New Orleans the food section comes out on Thursday. Has been forever as far as I know. Marcelle Bienvenue (the woman who has helped Emeril cowrite a couple of his books) writes what is usually a very good column on some nuance of Louisiana food. Generally, while small, it is a pretty good read, as far as food sections go. As far a reviewers go, for years we had Gene Bourg, a gentleman and someone who totally understood the slightly "stuck in a time warp scene" in New Orleans dining. His work now sometimes appears in Gourmet, Food and Wine, etc. He left about 7 or 8 years ago and the paper has not been able to keep anyone for very long. Which is probably good, because it seemed that they didn't get it. I mean, how many times does someone need to review Commander's Palace and Uglesich's? The paper also stopped doing grocery store ads as part of the newsprint sections of the paper long ago. I think this had more to do with the advertisers wishes that their ads not run region wide than it did with any editorial/advertising dept. decision. All Grocery ads now run as inserts (billions of them on Sunday and Thursday) that can be changed out according to where the paper is going to be thrown/sold.

I like Cazadores and Tenoche (which comes in a ceramic bottle that is a pretty cool bonus with some good tequila). I noticed in Mexico, if I had my trabjolleros over, they would always go for the Cazadores if they were given a choice of several good top shelf tequilas. It was also much better priced in Mexico than in the US, still a premium there, in relative terms, however.

I'm thinking Al Roker. He already has a hokey show on Food TV, and I am pretty sure a TV weatherman qualifies as a second stringer.

Butter lettuce, satsuma, toasted pecan and avacoado salad Grilled Redfish (it's that time of year here in South La.) Baked Sweet Potato Pecan and red onion risotto As I write this the Cubs are down by three in the eighth. AUUUGGGHHHH

Yes, but was it the size of your finger like this one? Hillbill, Try to imagine my own dissapointment and need to engage in self mutilation when I realized that I did not digitally preserve my dining experience at BK. How can I ever move on in the ranks of great foodwriting until I learn to totally document every dining experience? I am shamed. I will now slink off from my keyboard and go watch the Cubs (hopefully win). Incidentally, the one that I had, while the mustard version, was, in all fairness, a reasonably close facsimile of the photo over the counter. It didn't look bad at all. Just not good. Kind of plain, like I said. Edited for the typing challenged (me)

The third McDonalds (Ithink this is the one you are referring to and until five minutes ago I thought it was the first as well (Google knows all, Google sees all) is on Lakewood in Downey. It's actually kind of neat in a throwback way, arches and all, souvenir stand next door. O.K. In the interest of science and feeling like I was eating for the good of mankind (or at least the slice of it that frequents egullet) I stopped on my way home this evening at Burger King (the first time I have spent a fast food dollar in years) and bought Baguette #2. I totally concur that it is just another sandwich. It was not bad, but I would not buy another. Bread was rather chewy and tasteless (and why they are cutting off the ends I will never understand. I watched the person behind the counter throw away about a 1/2 dozen bread ends while I was waiting. What a waste.) and the "grilled" chicken breast had no, and I MEAN NO, taste. It was not objectionable, just didn't taste like anything. The sauce tasted like any run of the mill sweet mustard (that kind that comes in the container that looks like a bear comes to mind). Happily, there was one solid piece of decent lettuce and a couple of slices of hydro tomato. The sandwich was plain and there was very little to object to. Just plain. Now, I may be a harsh critic.I do live in South Louisiana. The sandwich capital of the planet (imho). Within one hour of my house I can get the premier examples of some of the best sandwiches served on this or any other planet. Oyster po boys from Casamentos or Acme. Shrimp po boys from Domilises or Crabby Jacks. Grilled trout po boys from Uglesiches. Muffelettas from Central Grocery. All of these are made with care and thought and only top notch ingredients and the best bread (Zip, Leidenheimers, Binders, all of these make the perfect vehicle for a swell sandwich). Softshell Crab Po Boys from THe Seafood Galley on the Westbank (the Jazz Fest version is my favorite dining experience of all time, bar none, in any category, fine, casual, home, etc.) Anyway, I took one for the team and lived to tell about it. I would take a chance again for the good of man kind, but probably not on that particular item.

So. Is THAT why the Flaming Orange Gullies we were served at our table at Beacon were pre-flamed, as opposed to the flamed-in-my-face version at the bar? Man, in New Orleans on Sunday morning at Brennans they have so many open flames going at one time you would think you were in a steel mill or a glass plant. THose guys with the BF carts are all over the place. It actually heats up the room. It is alot of fun though.

Looking at the web site I thought it was interesting that it's a microbrewery that's also making root beer. I realize that root beer started as an prohibition-era alternative to beer (right?) but I thought that for legal or corporate-logistical reasons nowadays beer is made by beer companies and soda was made by soda companies. Actually, there are a number of small breweries making products (primarily soft drinks) other than beer. We started doing it for much the same reason as the others did. There is a very expensive bottling line sitting idle and when idle it is a dead cost, not a money making part of the business. We already had a distribution process that could handle it and it seemed like a good idea. It worked out rather well for Abita (as it has, for example, for Sprecher in Milwaukee), but if we had known how much time and effort it would take to get shelf space for a soft drink, I am not sure that we would have done it. You see, with beer it is federally prohibited for retailers to charge money to put the product on the shelves (they can refuse you altogether, but they can't make you pay for placement. Hence the "down in the corner location" of many small brewery products). The big breweries get around this by, among other things, providing lots of cool point of sale items and displays for various events and holidays, which has the same effenct as buying shelf space. Small breweries just can't compete on that level (and are not trying, as we are trying to sell taste to more developed palate, rather than blandness to the masses). For example, most people simply do not understand that a good quality neon (even bought in huge numbers) can cost two hundred dollars or more. I takes alot of six packs to make up that cost. Soft drinks, on the other hand, are just groceries and the big guys (Pepsi and Coke) pay a fortune to get those end caps and center spacings. Most stores handle them to maximum profit by splitting the year between them. Six months with a giant coke display, six months with a giant pepsi display. Small soft drink bottlers don't have a chance unless they go into it with the same mind set as a microbrewer, with the idea that they are going to sell to a smaller number of discerning customers and charge more for their products. We got into the pure cane sugar thing because I grew up on a farm and wanted to use as many Louisiana products as possible. Also, we got to put a nice logo on the bottle that is controlled by the State Agriculture Dept. when a large enough percentage of your product is made with native ingrediants. The other reason we got into soft drinks (maybe the primary reason) was that Abita Springs is a very small town (one light, two stores, etc.) in a fairly rural (although increasingly suburban) area outside of New Orleans and we wanted to be able to sponsor kids ball teams and donate to local schools, events, etc. and we clearly could not do this with the beer, as the neo prohibitionist set thinks that a donation from a brewery would cause small children to rush out and spend their allowances on expensive, esoteric brews. Basically the policy at Abita for a long time (don't know about now) was to give the stuff by the 1/2 bbl. to anyone that was having an event and would put up a sign. We bought alot of good will, had alot of fun (which was the original point of the business anyway), and got to have our kids tell people they played for the "Root Beers".

Is it possible to find a soda with cane sugar in a supermarket? I've been looking in my local supermarkets since I read about cane sugar vs. corn syurp here and haven't found any. I thought that perhaps one of the specialty or ethnic sodas would have cane sugar but so far everything I've checked (even the pretentious uppity-looking brands) has corn syrup. I almost never drink regular sodas but this corn syurp vs. cane sugar issue sure has piqued my curiosity and I'd like to do a taste comparison. Abita Root Beer is made with Domino Cane Sugar. It is available from many mailorder sources if you can't find it locally (I think it is in alot of states, but not widely distributed). As a disclosure I should note that I was involved in the inception of the product and it's original distribution, although I have absolutely nothing to do with the company now. It is, however, still damn good root beer. Abita Root Beer Home Page

Is is because they gave you a paper crown? I never liked their food much, but there was a period of time, during my princess phase, that I was enamored of their paper crowns. The paper crowns were the best!

I think in your price range that you are generally going to end up in the blended scotch category. I am a huge fan of Famous Grouse, the scotch that slkinsey refferred to in his earlier post. I also like Dewars and Johnny Walker Red. That being said, I prefer Irish Whiskey over all others. I lived in the middle of Ireland (Enfield, Meath) for a while and although due to economics you don't see people drinking large quantities of whiskey, when they do they are generally drinking Jameson's (if they have dough) or Paddy's (if they have low dough). Bushmill's tends to be consumed more prevelantly in the North of Ireland, although I think that has more to do with the cultural/political situation than it does taste. It is damn fine whiskey. I liked Jaz's idea about the airline bottles. I had never thought of them that way, but that would be an excellent low budget way to try alot of stuff on a low budget. One more suggestion....you may want to consult with a local quality liquor vendor about the possibility of joining a local whiskey tasting club. A lot of areas have them and I think you would be able to get alot of advice plus some "hands on" experience in the field. This post has been modified for "Foster Brooks" like typing errors....politely pointed out by CTGM I posted this at work and rarely take the time to go back and edit for typing errors, since I should be doing something productive anyway. Sorry

I doubt it will tarnish her culinary image and probably help her out in the eyes of her loyal food fans, which BTW, many post on FTV's forums claiming that the FHM shots were faked and really weren't Ms. Ray. edit: where's my coffee? Who else could work their face into those goofy, fake-sexy positions. It is exactly what I would have imagined she would look like in that position. Not that there's anything wrong with that. After a quick review of the Food TV site, I deduce that it is not the facial expressions of Racel Ray that they are refferring to. I think it has more to do with the areas below the goofy grin

Rachel Ray is already all over Dannon Yogurt Containers. It looks to me like she has a better agent than Rick Bayless, not to mention the fact that she is much more photogenic. Unlike Mr Bayless, who became well known through other means and seems to have traded all of his previous good will and respect for a burger dollar or two, Ms. Ray became popular through Food TV and she certainly isn't known for standing on any "culinary high ground" that I know about (I have no clue where she existed previous to Food TV). I can't imagine that it pays very well. Perhaps she is looking to step up the ladder and get comfortable in better dining establishments, enabling her to go from "$40 per Day" to $120 per Day". Either way, good on her. While I am not a fan of either show, I am a huge fan of taking the money and running as long as it doesn't seem particularly hypocritical and in this case it does not look like it is.

I think it would be more accurate to describe Lloyd Maines as Natalie's dad. After all, he got her the gig . No Llloyd...no current model of the Dixie Chicks. Do you have any hints on a good way to get a kid to start reading the paper? I have a thirteen year old boy who is big on the news and sports, but gets all of his info from computer, tv, etc. There are plenty of papers around the house (New York Times, Times Picayune, etc.) but he still goes for the new fangled services. Do you think that that is just the way kids are going to be getting their news in the future? I mean, I write for the Picayune weekly along with the occasional feature and have pretty strong opinions about the worth of papers in society, but the young people I am around don't seem to feel the same way. Any thoughts?

Are all of the large West Coast chains unionized? I used to like to look at the name tags at Ralph's when I was living in San Diego and see how long people had worked there (Wanda, 22 yrs. etc). The concept was new to me as I grew up in the deep south and damn near nothing is unionized here (don't ask me why, some stupid cultural holdover ) and organizers fail over and over again to get it voted in when they bother to try. Were I there I would not cross. Service workers in this country need all of the support they can get. Since it is becoming clear that that is the only kind of worker we are going to have left in a few years (my opinon, anyway) .

Various kinds of pickled/preserved stuff (capers, pickles of all sorts, roasted bell peppers, basil pesto, etc) Olives (more pickles, I am going to be well preserved in my old age) Tomato Products (rediculous number of various sauces and whole (including my owned canned creole tomatos as I put up two bushels this spring) Condiments (hot sauces particularly) Syrup ( everytime I make holiday batch of pralines I start fresh and end up with extra)

Thought some of you might find these rating sites for some of the other products mentioned in this thread: You rate it .com Many types of "snake oil" are reviewed here. I will say that P.T. Barnum seems to have been right.

Bayless sold out. After slagging fast food and American eating habits in mass media for a very long time he is shilling for Burger King. Big Deal. Burger King found his price and he took the check. You, however, are doing exactly what anyone who ever wanted to get paid for what they would be doing anyway if they could afford it would do. (yikes that's a bad sentence). Good on you. Incidentally, you should get your people (if you have "people") to talk to the people at Immodioum AD (they definitely have "people"). With all of the stuff you cram into your pie hole, you would be the perfect spokesman for that fine product. I can see it now...... Hi,Tony Bourdain here, after a long day of eating unbelievably tasty bugs and vermin ridden meat, I head back to the hotel and gobble down a handfull of these little beauties and they plug me up like the Hoover Dam. I wake up the next morning ready to head out for more exciting local cuisine and I don't care if they stew it in batshit, it's not gonna ruin my day. Immodium AD. I think of it as my little cork in a pill."

Hm. Well, it was a statue anyway. Nothing so grand as a wallet. I have some plastic Mao lighters around someplace though. Jinmyo, Are those the knock off zippos that play "The East is Red" while you are lighting up your "555"? I bought a whole box of those things, I love 'em!

Good Point Two other really good League nooks from the South with good desserts are: Southern Sideboards-Jackson MS Jr. League Cotton Country Collection- Monroe, LA Jr. League The book from Monroe gets my vote as the best all round deep south/Delta cookbook ever printed. It has sold well over a million copies (it was printed in 1974) and keeps on going like the eveready bunny. Great pies, great cakes, great cookies. Available at Amazon.

Back in the early eighties, when the oilfield money was still flowing like West Texas #1 Crude and the economy in New Orleans was still an economy resembling a first world country, I stood in line at K Pauls. I was a regular at his grocery store/sandwich shop/check cashing operation that he was then operating on the second floor on Chartres St. above what is now K Pauls. His cookbook had just come out to rave reviews and people were lining up down the block waiting for a community seat in order to try his fabulous burned fish and other big food. I had never been in the real place downstairs. (let me point out, imho, except for the whole burnt redfish thing, Paul Prudhomme is a master at what he does and I have enjoyed his cookbook (the first one) as much as any one that I have ever had). I was dating a girl who I thought I wanted to impress and while she knew nothing of good food, she knew alot about what was hot and trendy in New Orleans. We marched down to the Quarter and queued with all of the other people (mostly locals at that point, with a smattering of tourists) waiting for a table. Now, this was New Orleans in the summertime and it was late afternoon. Still very hot and the humidity was at it's usual 95% owing to the daily afternoon rain that seems to fall without fail every afternoon. I got a little thirsty and since the line stretched out down the street quite a ways and it was clear it was going to be a while we decided that drinks were needed. This need was facilitated by a nice lady who came out of the place and offered libations to those waiting for tables. The only thing was....there was only one choice. Cajun Martinis. Vodka or gin. Period. Anything else and you had to wait until you were permitted to enter and sit. For those of you who have never had the experience, a Cajun Martini was (and still is I guess, haven't been there in 15 years, although I see Paul all the time in the Quarter on his little electric scooter thing) a drink that was served in a quart mason jar. It was designed to serve a couple of thirsty people a few drinks each (much like the shaker at the table thing popular in alot of places today). These things were pretty much vodka or gin, a little bitty, tiny, bit of vermouth and a big, fat, hot jalapeno pepper. They were made several days in advance and allowed to age under refrigeration and by the time they were ready to serve the pepper had turned them into a firey jolt. The real problem with them was that they actually made you thirsty. The oily hotness of the pepper made the natural reaction to drink more and maybe wash out the oil, but this was a bad plan if you wanted to get rid of the heat. They kept getting hotter. And Hotter. Ad infinitum. Anyway, we stood in the hot sun drinking Cajun Martinis up with jalapeno stuffed olives and we were there long enough and had consumed enough to decide that round two would be in order. Bad error on my part. We were finally seated with a nice couple from Alaska (oil company attorney and his wife. I am sure that they were lovely people and if they are out there anywhere, I hope that they have forgiven me by now. Stuff happens and I am sorry). We were pretty juiced and in retrospect, I am sure that it was obvious from the start to the couple we were seated with. I was in the restaurant business and of course the drinks only made my finely honed opinions louder and more forceful. I ordered for everybody, got a decent bottle of Champagne to cool off my burning gullet, and proceeded to tell the nice couple from Alaska what was wrong with oil companies and lawyers and any possible combination thereof. I am sure that in the process I insulted everything that I could think of that had anything to do with Alaska and only God and those nice people know what else I said. I finally reached the point where EVEN I realized that I was being a complete ass (believe me, this is not my nature in the least. I am usually, if nothing else, gracious and solicitous to visitors in our fair and interesting city) and I shut up. Sadly, it was too late to be charming and the ensuing silence while waiting on our order only caused me to nod off. Lovely sight, I am sure. Our food was eventually delivered and my date (who incidentally, was thankfully not quite as loaded as I was, but pretty close) had the good sense to ask for the check and have me scribble my signature on the ENTIRE check, ask for the stuff to be boxed up, apologize for my boorish behavior, and hustle me out of the place. We stumbled over to the Napoleon House (three doors down) and ate our food, from our styrofoam containers, there. What a waste of a really good meal. I made a minor recovery (enough to realize that my car was good where it was and we took the streetcar home to her house) and actually began speaking some form of english by the time we got back to her place. Sadly, she had had enough of me and pretty much told me to never "darken her door" again, which is a shame. I am pretty sure I have gotten that loaded in a place once or twice since, but I know that I damn sure never made an ass out of myself like that again. I have become a master of making quick goodbyes when I make the error of "too much, too soon" which is not very often.