Mayhaw Man

It's funny that you posted this. Someone sent it to me yesterday and I wondered, after I read it... If the relationship goes bad, do you chalk it up to Gastrointerruptus? Just wondering.

Who knows? Thanks to the unbelievably bad,even useless, website that the Picayune utilizes, as do a number of other Newhouse Publishing dailies, it's pretty much impossible to do anything but a web search and hope for the best. I honestly don't remember what they had the last time round. I hate that website with a passion, as do many, including most of the employees of the papers that are stuck with it.

This is, after all, New Orleans. We eat. We eat well. We eat alot. Reading reviews for many of us is much the same as reading the Monday morning wrap up of the latest Saints related disaster. We read it, we appreciate it for what it is, but no matter the situation, we'll be back in the Dome next Sunday watching them tee it up again, regardless of the latest, inevitable, mishaps. I'm glad Brett's back at it. He's exceptionally good at what he does and I've enjoyed his work ever since he's been tapping it out. I enjoyed the NYT piece, as well. Kim Severson, since the storm, has developed a great list of sources and has developed a solid understanding of the city, it's restaurants, and the way that things work here. That's a good thing for all of us. Many of the "hit and run" food writers who have come to town in the last couple of years have missed the point, again and again, by a wide margin. Kim seems to get it better than most.

Okra and Tomatoes Squash Casserole Ann's Roasted Chicken Pound Cake A bath

Do you have a starting and finishing (or dead, or whatever) gravity on the stuff? It might just be done. Also, how did you make it? I'm with CDH, it's hard to say without some basic info.

Yeah, I know, I'm from the South. What else is new? Have you thought about grits in their many delicious forms. Not only are grits of a fine texture, but they can be cooked so many different ways, and with so many bases/stocks, that they can be not only tasty but damned nutricious, as well. You can cook them in stocks of all sorts (ham stock, of course, is the way that I like to go) and put them into many, many recipes. http://recipes.egullet.org/recipes/r1015.html http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...1&mode=threaded http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=22793 http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=75102 http://recipes.egullet.org/recipes/r237.html That should give you a start. Give them a try. Once you start eating grits, you'll never want another side of hash browns! B

Sure, I'm a lib, and I believe that everyone should have access to the same information... and you can read it, as well! "Called ya ka mein, this multi-ethnic soup is prepared primarily at Asian-American owned corner stores in African American neighborhoods, with familiar American groceries standing in for traditional Asian ingredients. There are many different spellings for the dish (ya ka mein, ya kamain, yat ca mein, yada mein, etc.) with none being authoritative, and the same can be said for its many various recipes. A typical serving could include spaghetti noodles, shrimp, chicken or sometimes bits of roast beef, almost always a hard boiled egg, whole or chopped up, green onions and other common greens and a strange, salty broth with soy sauce standing up as a prominent main ingredient. It’s generally eaten with a plastic fork on the street."

I am hardly retired, just trying to make a living after spending this time last year trying to knock the back of my head out. It's taken a while to get back into the swing of things. Ya ka mein. I had a recent experience with it, at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, where my SO (if you know who she is, you will know, at least, that she knows a little about food and particularly Southern food) was escorted by someone who, at least, knows the history of the stuff and another guy, who is a real fan, and has been eating it in corner groceries around NOLA all of his life. While she spent a great deal of time talking to the ladies in the booth (she's like that-it's all about the cooks, no matter their background or culinary educational notches on the gun), she kinda came away with the impression that, while not bad, it's sorta like salty pho without enough stuff in it. I pretty much feel the same way. I do have a recipe around here somewhere, and I did make it once to figure out what the deal is, and I'll put it in this thread shortly. I would cover the history here, but I think that the link does about as good as I can do.

If it gives you any kind of heads up, there is a bottle of Stroh 80 in my bar that has EXACTLY 3 ounces out of it. We tried to make Stroh drinks with it one night and, well, other than the clear problem that it doesn't taste very good, there is the whole "it's gonna be a really short party" effect. It's awful. Believe me, with my friends, if anything lives longer than a year in a bar and isn't an empty bottle, it's probably damned near undrinkable. Cab drivers would like it to become a popular beverages, however.

Canadianbakin beat me to it. The stuff is a staple of Southern homes and it was around a whole lot sooner than the a.c. was. It holds up great. And, besides, it's delicious

Todd, Matt Rowley is in town. Give me a call. He had some AMAZING stuff that he apparently copied at the Lib of Cong. It would be a good start. B

I do them overnight all of the time (on a large, old school Weber). It actually works pretty well, as long as I get up, maybe twice, and stumble out back to make sure that I'm cooking and not burning. I did a couple of picnic hams this way over the weekend and they turned out really well. As I type I am enjoying, alot, a deviled ham sandwich made with the above mentioned meat and it's pretty danged delicious.

Trust Julia. She did not fall off of the cabbage truck. I do this all of the time (as recently as last night) and, really, it's just about as good as it gets. It was, in fact, her favorite thing to eat. And, given that it's Julia Child, that's really saying something. I am "associated" with a woman who can roast chicken as well as anyone on Earth, but i can't do it like she can with her method, no matter how many times I try (I guess those Beard Award things might actually mean something besides good pr, but I still have my doubting moments), but this methodology is dead simple and delicious. A chicken. It ain't nuttin but a bird.

Out of all of the beers that I have ever made, and there have been alot, my favorite was a "found beer" that turned up in a cooler corner in a small bar in New Orleans, in a 1/2 keg, buried under a bunch of other stuff. It had never been moved or touched. It just happily sat in the back of a small walk-in, being ignored because it was no longer on tap. The owner of the place called to tell me that he had found it and asked if I wanted it back. I actually told him that I would come pick it up, but it was probably done for, in terms of decency and taste. I got over there about 3 in the afternoon, about the time he opened up, and we drug it up to the front and put it on tap, just to see what the deal was with the stuff. Well, 7 hours later (or so, the memory is a little hazy, both from that night and from age on the brewer), we decided that it was potentially the best beer that we had ever had. It had started out as a very chocolaty porter, with a little higher abv than fits the style, and not much of a hoppy character (just nicely bittered) but closer to a porter than anything else. What had happened to it over that year was that the chocolate had become totally infused, smooth as silk, and the hopping had actually become more pronounced (we used British grown Fuggles and Kent Goldings). The stuff was amazing. The next day I packed up the remainder and hauled it back across the lake where, for a couple of months, we doled it out to very, very well behaved tourists as a reward for not being annoying and to ourselves. It was amazing. But, generally, my taste in beer runs closer to the fermenter the better. I like it fresh, as a general rule. It makes a difference. For those of you who hate those "big beers", you should have some of that stuff, unpasteurized, straight off the line. Budweiser, in it's intial state, is a subtle and amazing taste treat. Sadly, that same beer (or anyone's beer, I don't mean just AB), just a few weeks later, becomes lackluster and dull, most of the time anyway.

I guess my only comment has to do with demand. Is there really that much pent up demand for a hamburger in D.C.? Or the whole region, in general? I sure don't have any idea, but there are some things to think about. Face it, we're not talking cheap here-certainly generally inexpensive, but not fast food cheap and the mid priced food market, especially on the East Coast in the corridor, is not exactly short on options already. Were I an investor, especially in the current economy, I would take a long, hard look at the usual vexation for all restaurants-location, location, location. If these guys are putting burgers in places that people are going to have to travel to, for any distance at all, really, I would think twice about it. People are generally creatures of habit anyway, and given current economic considerations, unless they happen to be burger freaks (and there are certainly some of those around! ), they aren't driving 10 miles to try out yet another "betta' burger." They'll just keep going to whatever place is conveniently located near them. And, if these guys are hitting the serious money, higher priced market, they might want to take a look at the recent news about Starbucks closing 600 stores. The problems that the burger guys will incur with overexpansion are exactly the same ones that Starbucks is incurring right now.

Now, see, that's a brunch I'd attend, with two milk punches to keep Monday at bay. Up here, you get the coffee, scrambled eggs, and not much else on that list. But you knew that, didn't you. ← Almost forgot, one very important item that, without fail, graced those tables-tiny, little, way homemade demi biscuits, about the size of a silver dollar. They were great, because, not only were they delicious, but you could wrap a bunch in a napkin and have them handy as you were one eyeing down the road back to your mama's house.

I don't know where it came from, but it's been going on here in New Orleans (which, contrary to what the loud, poorly selected, and poorly played, recorded "cajun" music blaring from cheesy t-shirt shop doorways might lead a hungover NOLA neophyte to believe, is not in any way Cajun-that's not far from here, but it ain't here) for a long time. Hell, they've made movies about it. I mean, they could have just as easily called it "Brunch at Brennan's." The old line places here in town that do it all pretty much do the same thing. One funny thing about it is that, among working professionals in or around the biz, there are differing opinions about it. If you are cooking, well, who wants to go BACK to work at some unGodly hour to make Eggs Benedict? On the other hand, if you are a REAL Jazz musician, well, it's another gig and it's pretty easy money. The food, taking a quick look at menus around here are similar, most of them, if not all, throwing in Champagne, Milk Punch, or Bloody Marys into the mix. It's not a bad way to spend a Sunday morning if you can manage to get outta going to church with your mama and them, or at least that's always the way that I have felt about it. One thing about them here, and elsewhere in tourist areas is that it gives people a chance to get out in the daylight and mix it up with the locals (at least that's true in New Orleans) and that's not always the case when you are dining out at the high end places at night. I grew up in the Delta, about 300 miles North of here, and brunches on Sundays were almost always associated with some social event, mainly weddings. At that time, you never saw them in restaurants. You had to get way dressed up, in appropriate Garden or French Quarter attire, behave properly, and be able to go home and take a nap before whatever the afternoon/evening event was. The nap, in this case, was KEY. Without it, you might not be able to navigate the event and on to the next well set bar with, in my case, the same able and heavy handed bartender (all the ladies in my hometown used the same guy for years and years and years-someone long ago should have deposed him. He could have written a book that makes all of those Southern slice of life/disaster/bad behavior books look like Dr. Seuss. He paid attention. I loved that guy. He bartended my wedding and about ten parties that week. Damn near killed us all). But, the food at these things was usually outstanding, with, never have been sure why, grits and grillades front and center, scrambled eggs, little crawfish pies and , a nice, big fruit thing going on, lots pork products at the ready, and plenty of dessert type things like coconut cake, pettifores, and chess pie. Coffee was usually there, but, oddly, I'm not sure if there was ever any in the pot. Don't remember seeing anyone ever drinking any. I think that part of the reason that these things were so prevelant as social events was that, up til the mid to late 70s, most towns in the South were under Blue Law restrictions and you couldn't have done it at a restaurant if you wanted to and most country clubs, excepting the usually illegally operated on Sunday 19th holes, didn't serve drinks on Sunday. They don't seem to happen quite as much these days as they used to. More places around the South are open on Sunday now and it's just a hell of a lot easier to buy everybody some lunch and get back to dressing the bride, or the church, or undressing your, well, nevermind that part, but it was part of it. But, generally, I would say that brunch is a great excuse, these days, for restaurants to pump out a meal that they can make alot more on than breakfast thanks to the liquor thing going on (Cafe Brulot anyone? We make it right by your table!) and being able to sell a little more upscale than straightup breakfast. Plus, here in NOLA, many of you have probably noticed the Sunday night is not exactly the best night of the week to try and eat out. Brunch does have something to do with this. Firstly, they have already made the dough for the day and secondly, they gotta give the staff a break. Brunch, at least at the highend places, often has the same wait staff that you would have had the night before and those guys can't work all of the time.

I know that this is just a basic suggestion, but we have had very good luck just doing what McMillan does above-exactly like he does. It works so well that, the other night, it occurred to me that a paint shaker would be a good tool to have around. Just put it in, set for 10 minutes, and go do something else. Come back, open, pour, add a little soda, enjoy.

It is, in fact, the largest privately held distillery in the US, if I am not mistaken. Goldring is now, with Republic and it's various offshoots, the largest liquor, wine and spirits distributing combo in the US. They're all over the place and growing like a weed. It's also a very cool place, if you happen to like that sort of thing (industrial plants with millions of gallons of delicious refreshments sitting around). Check it out. If you don't like this sort of thing, well, don't look. Go to the shrink, instead

Yeah, well, you know you know who owns it, and that's about as local as you can get around here. Just handier to make it up there, I guess. Frankly, after I talked to you about it last week, I looked into it and I think it's been made up there, or at least somewhere else, for years. What we need to do is to invent a cocktail that contains Dr. Tichenor's. It's still made right here in NOLA. I might have to begin working on that, though it's a bit early in the day.

My friend Pableaux Johnson wrote a piece a couple of years ago about food and things to do in Siena. It's got some really good information on a general trip and some specific places to eat. I hope that it helps.

Well and succinctly said. Give the man a cigar. Or, perhaps, a rib. Whatever. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Gas is good for reheating stuff, that's about it.

That looks delicious. I haven't had any of that stuff in a very long time. I guess I know what I'll be baking on Sunday afternoon while I watch Roger beat the tar out of that little heathen in cutoffs. I do like a good piece of cake.

Funny how life works, if you look at it the right way. Several months after this thing, we had a couple of weather issues that changed everything. The house that is in the photos had about a dozen people in it on the night of the 28th and they had to spend three days cutting their way out of the long leaf pines that came down on the property. No power, no water, no nothing. Just a couple of chain saws and a lot of really tired folks. A couple of weeks later, something similar happened. That's life here, I suppose, but alot of things changed for all of us thanks to those storms. The boys who were having the party have now graduated from high school, and all are going to college. The tall one that belongs to me, Miles, is now taller at 6'6", and on his way to LSU. He got into the landscape architecture school, which is a really big deal, and we're all really pleased. The one with the spike in his head, Gram, is now a student at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts and I am really pleased about it, as I will get to see him regularly and often as I live not too far from there. It's an amazing place and we are really lucky that he managed to, on his own steam, get in there-spike in the head and all. My house, about 5 miles from the house where the photos are from, got pretty much mooshed by pecan and pine trees and it took about two years to get it back together, though today it is, by any standards, really lovely in a rebuilt 125 year old small hotel kind of way. Sadly, I don't live in it anymore, but Robin and the boys do and they love it. The hurricane took alot of lives that week and left alot more in confusion and conflict. In my case, it ended a marriage and started a new path in life for all of us. It's sad, but we are hardly the only ones in this boat and I suppose more time should be spent, by all of us, concentrating on what we have and not what we have lost. Now that that's all out of the way, we can move into the current and the recent past. I moved to New Orleans, bought a really nice, small, classic sideporch shotgun house in Uptown (oddly located just down the street from a freezer that contained 90 grand that may or may not legally belong to my congressman, Bill Jefferson), and have a wonderful partner in my life that I don't know how I ended up with or deserve in any kind of way. She cooks in DC and is kind of a big deal in that world, but I go, or she comes, back and forth alot and it seems to be working for both of us. I like DC, and Delaware, and she loves it here. We have friends on both ends of the line that we care about and are close to, and, when they are sober enough, are good folks to have around. We're luckier than hell in that regard. We have some plans that are slowly coming to fruition in the food world up in the Delta and it's likely that we will both end up there, together, sooner rather than later. Time will tell, I suppose. Enough of that. To answer your question, yes, I am still doing this for other folks. I am lined up to do two late summer things as going away parties for folks and one of them will not be dissimilar to what's above this post. I also have taken up baking as more than just a passtime and have been selling a few cakes on the side for good money and for good reviews. Also, thanks to my friend and confidant Pableaux, we also started this Monday night salon and bean fest that became much more than a cheap meal and some dependable Monday night laughs. The whole thing kind of morphed into something much more and, for a while anyway, everyone who was in town working on a story came by to see what the stormtards were up to. If you're gonna be depressed, angry, confused, and at loose ends, you might as well do it in the national press, I suppose. That kind of fed into some big holiday meals and, oddly, those meals fed into a piece that will appear in Southern Living in November. It's a little bit staged, but, beyond that, it's dead factual all the way down to the food. The only thing that's fake is we generally aren't that well dressed and I rarely have my hair (what's left of it after I managed to knock off the top of my head in a biking accident last August) as neatly coiffed. We're all very handsome. Look for it. It should be pretty funny, if nothing else. As I type I have four butts and two briskets going on my newly constructed pit out back. Excepting one of the briskets, they're all for someone else. I wasn't going to do this but thanks to the idiots at Delta Airlines (started in my hometown, and I'm loyal, but this is getting silly) I wasn't able to go to DC this weekend and I kinda really wanted to see Guy Clark, an acquaintance from a long time ago and, other than James McMurtry, the best singer songwriter currently working on this planet out on the mall and follow that up with the Marine Corps band shooting cannons during the music. Oh well, next year. They don't seem to ever run outta ammo, so I'm sure that I will get another chance. My way better half (she owns, among other things, Johnny's Halfshell on Capitol Hill) is at work selling picnic lunches to the lazy swells who didn't want to make their own and I wish that I was there helping. It woulda been fun. I also have a couple of Crack Cakes in the oven (it's a coconut cream layer cake with a bad nickname, thanks to the fact that there is never any left in the morning after a party) and am making squash casserole and some okra and tomatoes to take to an event tonight after the fireworks out on the river. Overall, not a bad day or, now that I think about it, a bad life. I think that I'll spend the rest of the 4th concentrating on that and not the fact that it's raining and hot outside. Thanks for the note, Rachel. I needed to think about some of this stuff and I don't do it often enough. Life goes on, and, well, you're better off with something good to eat. Best, B

Sometimes, well, you just gotta wonder... "This place has always been sort of sacred to me," Hansen said. "Why would you rob a sno-ball stand? It's like taking candy from a baby." I'm glad that she's ok. I can't believe that I didn't hear about it this weekend. Knocking off a bank is one thing, but Hansen's, that's just a bit beyond anything that I can understand or forgive.