Mayhaw Man

I'm having a bunch of people over for a boil on Monday night (normally, it's red beans for this group, every Monday night at someone else's house-been doing it for years-but as I have a fabulous new back yard and there are going to be alot of out of town types around, we decided to splurge-it's pretty funny, normally the bean night thing is casual, just show up if you are around because it happens like clockwork. For this, I actually sent out an email announcement and asked people to respond so that we could buy enough to go round, and every single person said that they would show up. It's a pretty good indicator of how few boils are happening this year. It's usually a cheap, easy party. Not so right now). I have been shopping round and it looks like, no matter what, I'm going to be paying $2.50 lb or better. You know they're high when subbing with some shrimp as a filler is a cheaper alternative. I can get off the boat, mixed (unsized), shrimp for 2 bucks a pound right now. I'll keep shopping, but it looks like that's going to be the price. I'm pretty fired up though. I love a boil.

Ok, I'm with you on all of it. Manly, indeed. But this "chip buttie" thing? What is a chip buttie and what makes it such a manly snack?

I watched it tonight with interest...I thought it was a very good show that showed the spirit of the city...Got to see several restraunts I have visited in the past and hope to visit in the future. I have family in this weekend that I plan on cooking creole chicken & grits, cheese sausage bisquites and bread pudding for tomorrow...I am looking forward to visiting family in NO this summer, I hope things are back in order. ← I watched tonight as well. It was not badly done. I just wish that he had started a long time ago. Better late than never, I guess. As far as this summer, or next summer, it won't be back in order, at all, but it's still a great place to get a decent meal. I had dinner at Brigsten's last night and it was pretty damned stupendous. It was very hard to imagine, as usual, that just several blocks away there were miles of empty houses and abandoned businesses.

OK, so I live in the Lower Garden District between Prytania and Magazine. Guess what I did today? That's right, sportsfans, I caught cabbages,onions, potatoes and beads at the Irish Channel Parade (I only live a couple of blocks from Parasol's, I could hear reels, jigs, and the oft repeated Danny Boy for most of the afternoon ). Tomorrow, it's corned beef and cabbage and while I am doing that I am going to smoke a butt so that I can have it on Monday night with some slaw made from all of that cabbage. The remainder I will smother and freeze. Don't you have parades in your town where people drink beer and throw food simultaneously? No? You guys need to get with it!

Always. Implicitly. Without question.

I don't have any monkeys. Should I get some. Is the bread worth it?

Like this. I made this cake last week subbing strawberries for peaches And if you line the bottom of the tube pan with parchement your life will be much longer and you will have much, much lower bloodpressure.

Well, that's true enough, Jaymes. But since they didn't have vehicles or highways, they would have had no way to kill 'em.

Nothing to it. Hell, he's got his own school.

But they are really nice shoes. The finest patent leather, gold buckles and everything.

Damn. Now you tell me. I was wondering why I kept ending up between the kitchen door and the hallway to the can. Next time I'll be better prepared.

that Death by Gumbo is really a good reciept (yeah, I know, but it's what my grandmother called recipes and I like seeing it on my keyboard occasionally) You know, Prejean's in Lafayette has pheasant quail and andouille gumbo that is pretty close to what you get out of that recipe, which is to say that it's really, really good, as are almost all of their soups. I would be up for a cooking project of some sort. Especially with Crawfish season slowly coming round.

The airport is open and most of the roads leading into the city are clear. A bit of shopping can yield a very well priced hotel room (before the storm, next to New York and San Francisco, we weren't cheap-but now? If you can find a room? It's a bargain). Our customs procedures are easy, though our customs are a bit strange, apparently, to the rest of the world. But we do have a spot or two where an adventurous world traveler might find a good bite to eat and some friendly natives to talk to.

Viet Nam Italy North Africa New Orleans (believe me, it's about as far as you can get from the US right now)

Believe it or not, Antoine's is doing brunch and not suprisingly it is reputed to be really good and a hell of a value. I hope that they keep it up. Come to think of it, I might go on Sunday and I'll let you know. A sport jacket will do it, I think, but really, probably not even needed in out Post-K attired world (think about it-if you lost your house, you lost your suits. No one, ever, evacuates with their nice clothes. Hell, I left in my yard shoes as I thought that I would be back, per usual, in two days or so). Antoine's Sunday Brunch Elizabeth's actual menu seems to be different everytime that I go in. I love that, me. You will, absolutely, love the Longbranch. Please say hello to Alison for me and tell her that I swear that I will call her next week. Really. I mean it this time.

Presumably, also tomatoes, pumpkins and squash? Birds are not mammals. I figure that the largest land mammals in North America -- and certainly in what's now Mexico -- were bison. I do not know what the limits of the bison's range were, but I do seem to remember that they did roam around at least the northern part of Mexico as late as the 19th century if not later. ← I had no idea that bison could be traced that far down the continent. Very intriguing. What the Mexican people ate before the Euro-invasions is always a fascinating subject. Even more fascinating is what they are still eating and growing. So much hasn't changed. There are all sorts of indigenous fruits - chico zapote and zapote negro are two and so many edible herbs and flowers - the flowers of the tzompantle come to mind - and let's not forget about mushrooms, ant eggs, grasshoppers and grub worms. Theobroma, Caroline, Esperanza and Jaymes and so many others from this forum could shed some light on the subject. I'm sure we've touched on the topic a few times at least. ← There would have been, also, all manner of deer like animals, wild goats and wild sheep. There is alot of evidence in the the way of cave paintings, kind of like early food porn, if you think about it. And there are still lots of 4 legged mammals running around (these examples are from Baja California, but they can be found in other parts of Mexico as well-Stuff on 4 legs that might be a good lunch when properly prepared

Authentic, not indigenous, is probably pretty accurate. Some of the largest concentrations of olive trees in the world are in the beautiful and remote Guadalupe Valley in Northern Baja California (between Tecate and Ensenada-also the home of a couple of huge wineries). You see them for sale in stands all over the place and, in fact, the place that I worked for a few years in Tecate had about 60 trees on the property that were well over 150 years old. They produced some really, really good olives which a couple of our employees processed and jarred in big jars. They were delicious. I still have a jar, just for the memory, and it would be interesting to see how they taste now, though they are 8 years old or so (they still look great). This is a really good area for a long drive if you are ever in San Diego looking for a long day trip. Much to do, very, very beautiful in a desolate way, and a really fun drive if you have some nerve, a fast car, and some diapers (you'll need them, believe me, it's Mexican rural driving at it's most casual-coming around a corner and finding a brick truck laboring up a hill at 5 kph while you are going 120 kph is an exciting event everytime that it happens). All kinds of people have moved to this part of the country for all kinds of reasons

I thought that a few images, no matter how poor, might be of use to some of you who only read the pictures. These are 1)grainy 2) occasionally out of focus 3) colorful 4) kind of crazy 5) my digital camera had gone missing (since found) and I was using disposables and had them developed and emailed to me. The reasons for this are because that's how Mardi Gras is. Here are a few and there are a bunch more on Image Gullet (link below photos at bottom of post) The early morning scene outside the R Bar, just before the St Ann's Parade arrived St. Ann's on Chartres, just off of Elysian Fields headed for the R Bar. There were about a dozen brass players, and roughly a gazillion costumed revelers dancing and, if memory serves me, at this point the band was playing a really long version of Smokey Johnson's, "It Ain't My Fault" There were 2, count 'em, 2 women playing slide trombone in this motly but talented ensemble! Revelers The Naked Chefs (rear view only-trust me-it's best this way) Yes, they gave me a leg. Yes, it was good. The band takes a break after the crash at Canal and Chartres Cooking on the Avenue (I have much better pictures of this part of the action, but they are in the hands of a magazine publisher at the moment. I'll post what's left when I get them back He was trying to get me to go try his friend's red beans and chicken. I did, of course. I didn't want to hurt his feelings. I'm nice like that. Graham, Parade Boy Extraordinaire. Lots more and some of the same here. I'll add to them as I get them.

Well, you know, sex sells. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying.... You have to actually be a member to see the models! That's hysterically funny.

He's everywhere. Everywhere, I tell you! Look for him soon in the National Inquirer. "Aliens from St Martinville take over World Food Press"

Also, I have one of these bad boys, The Ultimate Edge Professional 12"X3/4" 600 Grit Diamond Steel, and it will pretty much do the trick on knives that just need a few quick whacks in order to put them to use in surgery or cutting fine slices of anything you might want to cut fine slices of. They are reasonably priced and last for a good while under normal conditions.

A really good friend of mine, someone who really knows from knives, gave me one of these things this weekend after seeing the state of my otherwise very nice set of kitchen blades (I wouldn't say that they were dull, I mean, with the right amount of sawing I was coming out with nicely crushed tomatoes-and hey! They sell crushed tomatoes in the store. So how could that be bad? I ask you?). Anyway, that thing is pretty sweet, and even though until Saturday I had never heard of one, I'm all over it now. I'll be badder than that Chef guy on the Ginsu commercial. Now all I have to do is stop on the way home and buy some cokes, so that I'll have a few cans to test them out on. And a block of wood. And maybe a brick, just to see if they stay sharp after punishing use.

I didn't see Chris on Mardi Gras day, though apparently we were in many of the same places. This is a nice piece, not dissimilar to the one above- Chris Rose wasn't ready for Mardi Gras to end.

Spicy, marinated shrimp grilled on a sugar cane skewer is always a hit and easy to do, as well.

Jason, It's very unlikely that those, especially at that time of year and considering the volume that are sold, were from Plaquemines Parish. They likely came from the Atchafalaya Basin and that large tidal basin/estuary/swamp was pretty much unaffected in any major way by either of the storms. It can take a pretty good beating and still come out ok (though several years ago a storm (can't remember which) "turned" the water in the shallow basin and killed alot of stuff as it pretty much got so muddy that fish couldn't get enough oxygen to live-though it was the beneficiary of a major restocking effort that has got it back on the right track-it's an amazing place, that basin, though most people only see a small portion of it as the pass between BR and Lafayette), especially for crawfish, as they live in the mud anyway and the lack of fish (main predators, along with birds and small mammals) does them nothing but good. Hopefully, as the year progresses and the basin bugs come into play, the prices will slowly drop. I'm looking forward to boiling season.