Mayhaw Man

You could just make them. They are really not that difficult to make. Jaymes has a good recipe in RecipeGullet for a Bourbon Pecan Pie with some very good helpful hints in there, as well. There are also a couple of more recipes that look pretty good. You can do this. It's not that big of a deal.

Fried mush? Certainly not. Here's how!First, make some grits. Better yet, make some cheese grits! Next, put them in a cake pan and let them cool there over night in the icebox The next day (we eat these for breakfast, but who am I to tell you when to fry grits?) heat up some bacon grease (you can use some namby pamby stuff like canola oil or something, but I wouldn't tell anybody that you did it if I were you) and cut the grits out of the pan into managable pieces. Fry them in pretty hot oil, like 375 or so until they are crispy and brown on the outside and warm and delicious on the inside. Fried mush, indeed. Um....ask an old person. I think they'll tell you that's EXACTLY "Fried Mush." After you put the grits in the fridge to set, you've made mush. Years ago, folks made grits by soaking the corn with lye water, or ashes from the fireplace. Some folks make their mush with regular cornmeal. But it's all mush. Some folks roll the squares or wedges in a pancake-type batter before frying. Some folks in a fried-chicken-type of flour mixture. Many folks roll them in cornmeal to give them a crunchier crust. Some people like them topped with a fried egg; others prefer a slice of cheese; still others like syrup of some sort, often sorghum. "Fried Mush" as a name may not have much modern appeal. But rest assured, folks, no matter what you call it, y'all are making Fried Mush. ← I don't know any old people, only well informed young women such as yourself. And I have to admit that I had no idea that was what folks were talking about when they mentioned mush. Fried Grits sounds so much more palatable and healthy!

Plantation Tea 12 family sized tea bags (or enough for 3.5 gallons of tea) 3 bunches of mint leaves 3 c of sugar 2 c lemon juice 1 qt Pineapple juice 4 l of Ginger ale Boil 3.5 gallons water Add the tea, mint and sugar Allow to steep for 30 minutes Remove bags and leaves Refrigerate Just before serving, add lemon juice, pineapple juice, and ginger ale Pour over ice Enjoy Keywords: Non-Alcoholic Beverage, Easy ( RG1269 )

Plantation Tea 12 family sized tea bags (or enough for 3.5 gallons of tea) 3 bunches of mint leaves 3 c of sugar 2 c lemon juice 1 qt Pineapple juice 4 l of Ginger ale Boil 3.5 gallons water Add the tea, mint and sugar Allow to steep for 30 minutes Remove bags and leaves Refrigerate Just before serving, add lemon juice, pineapple juice, and ginger ale Pour over ice Enjoy Keywords: Non-Alcoholic Beverage, Easy ( RG1269 )

Jambalaya Serves 125 as Main Dish. Jambalaya is normally a one pot dish involving meats and/or seafoods, vegetables for flavoring a texture, and finished with rice. There are two principle ways of making the dish. The first way, as in the most common, is to cook down the sausage or meat involved, add the vegetables and tomatoes and cook them down,add seafood at this poin, and then add stock in a proportionate amount to the rice that is to be added at the very end of the dish. This type of jambalaya is known, generally, as "red jambalaya". The second way is to cook all of the ingredients seperately from the rice and to cook the rice in some savory stock, in this case shrimp stock is used, and then to blend them together GENTLY (rice should be blended with very large wooden spoons by sliding them down the side of the container and lifting up-never pushing down or smashing the rice. Rice is your friend. Be kind to it. There is nothing worse than smooshed, gooey rice. This is them panned up in shallow pans and baked at 350 COVERED tightly with foil, until warmed through (if is not served immediatley-either way it is just as delicious) This is known as "white jambalaya". This is a very large recipe, and it is great for large parties as you can make the goo one day and the rice on another. In fact, you can make it and freeze the red part (without the shrimp) ahead of time if you need to. So you will need some time and a big wallet full of money. This is really good and wherever you live in the world, as long as you don't have any complex dietary restrictions, you can enjoy a great dish from Louisiana. Have fun and enjoy! Remember, you can use the scale button at the bottom of the recipe to decrease or increase quantity. I made this for a graduation party I "catered." For more on Jambalaya, please check the Gumbo, Jambalaya, Etouffee, Creole..., Please Advise topic. 10 lb smoked sausage, sliced 10 lb chicken thighs, cubed 12 c onions, chopped 3 c diced, celery 3 c green peppers, chopped 1-1/2 c yellow bell pepper, cupped 11-1/2 c red bell peppers, cupped 12 cloves garlic, chopped 3 tsp Thyme 12 bay leaves 3 tsp Dried basil 6 tsp salt 3 tsp Cayenne 10 1 lb Cans chopped tomatoes 6 1 lb Cans Rotel Tomatoes 6 6 oz Cans tomato paste 3 lemons, halved 10 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined 15 lb Basmati Rice 1)Salt and pepper chicken and then brown in a hot pan with just enough oil to get it started. Remove and set aside. 2) Brown sausage. 3) Add next 11 ingredients and cook for 5 minutes or until onions and bell peppers are wilted. 4) Add the tomato ingredients,the chicken, and the lemons. 5) Bring to a low simmer, uncovered, and simmer for 30 minutes. Stirring occasionally to keep from scorching. 6) Add the shrimp and cook the shrimp for 5 minutes . 7) The rice should be cooked, seperately, as per the cooking instructions for the rice. Rather than cooking the rice in plain water, cook it in a light shrimp or other savory stock. 8) Once the rice is done, while both ingredients are hot, mix as per the instructions above and then either serve or put into pans to be refrigerated or frozen until you are ready for use. Keywords: Main Dish, Intermediate, Dinner, Seafood, Shrimp ( RG1268 )

Jambalaya Serves 125 as Main Dish. Jambalaya is normally a one pot dish involving meats and/or seafoods, vegetables for flavoring a texture, and finished with rice. There are two principle ways of making the dish. The first way, as in the most common, is to cook down the sausage or meat involved, add the vegetables and tomatoes and cook them down,add seafood at this poin, and then add stock in a proportionate amount to the rice that is to be added at the very end of the dish. This type of jambalaya is known, generally, as "red jambalaya". The second way is to cook all of the ingredients seperately from the rice and to cook the rice in some savory stock, in this case shrimp stock is used, and then to blend them together GENTLY (rice should be blended with very large wooden spoons by sliding them down the side of the container and lifting up-never pushing down or smashing the rice. Rice is your friend. Be kind to it. There is nothing worse than smooshed, gooey rice. This is them panned up in shallow pans and baked at 350 COVERED tightly with foil, until warmed through (if is not served immediatley-either way it is just as delicious) This is known as "white jambalaya". This is a very large recipe, and it is great for large parties as you can make the goo one day and the rice on another. In fact, you can make it and freeze the red part (without the shrimp) ahead of time if you need to. So you will need some time and a big wallet full of money. This is really good and wherever you live in the world, as long as you don't have any complex dietary restrictions, you can enjoy a great dish from Louisiana. Have fun and enjoy! Remember, you can use the scale button at the bottom of the recipe to decrease or increase quantity. I made this for a graduation party I "catered." For more on Jambalaya, please check the Gumbo, Jambalaya, Etouffee, Creole..., Please Advise topic. 10 lb smoked sausage, sliced 10 lb chicken thighs, cubed 12 c onions, chopped 3 c diced, celery 3 c green peppers, chopped 1-1/2 c yellow bell pepper, cupped 11-1/2 c red bell peppers, cupped 12 cloves garlic, chopped 3 tsp Thyme 12 bay leaves 3 tsp Dried basil 6 tsp salt 3 tsp Cayenne 10 1 lb Cans chopped tomatoes 6 1 lb Cans Rotel Tomatoes 6 6 oz Cans tomato paste 3 lemons, halved 10 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined 15 lb Basmati Rice 1)Salt and pepper chicken and then brown in a hot pan with just enough oil to get it started. Remove and set aside. 2) Brown sausage. 3) Add next 11 ingredients and cook for 5 minutes or until onions and bell peppers are wilted. 4) Add the tomato ingredients,the chicken, and the lemons. 5) Bring to a low simmer, uncovered, and simmer for 30 minutes. Stirring occasionally to keep from scorching. 6) Add the shrimp and cook the shrimp for 5 minutes . 7) The rice should be cooked, seperately, as per the cooking instructions for the rice. Rather than cooking the rice in plain water, cook it in a light shrimp or other savory stock. 8) Once the rice is done, while both ingredients are hot, mix as per the instructions above and then either serve or put into pans to be refrigerated or frozen until you are ready for use. Keywords: Main Dish, Intermediate, Dinner, Seafood, Shrimp ( RG1268 )

Alright, I have recruited a secret angel to help me with the recipes. I tried to put the jambalaya one into RecipeGullet and it turns out that while I can make beer by the thousands of gallons, make perfectly passable distilled spirits, cook, bake, and lots of other things that don't pay very well, I am completely incapable of getting the ingredients in RecipeGullet. I will take a lesson Tuesday and try to figure it out. But for tonight? I sent them packing to someone more competent. She should have some of them done in the morning, I would suspect, as it will only take someone who knows what they are doing about 2 minutes. The other problem with all of this is that I work in a narrative form, even when I write recipes. Inputting things in exact form with the right kind of terminology doesn't fit with my off the wall way of doing things. But I am adaptable and I know people. We will get them all in there pretty quickly now that I have yelled uncle. Sorry for the delay.

OKOKOK. I'm working on it. I'll have some of them up in the morning and the rest by the end of the day. It's not quite as simple as it sounds, but I'm getting on it tonight.

Those are firebricks that are set in on end. They can be removed to add more air to the fire if needed. I will take another one of the thing if I get home before dark that might show the way that it works a bit better. I will also give you the dimensions if you are interested. Once you get used to the thing, which takes a while (think years) it works really, really great. But it would make a good home project for someone, expecially if you built it for a light sheetmetal top, instead of having to build one after the fact. This project has inspired me to have a new top made for the thing, and I think that I will level the top off while I am at it. I have to figure out exactly how to do this, but I am going to work on it. Warning: This thing is built of FIREBRICK. It gets hot. Do not use regular brick for this. It will not last and it could (probably not, but maybe) even be damgerous.

She made it. The cake and the ice cream were a gift from one of the hosts (there were 6 couples hosting this for 6 boys who graduated). The cake, which I didn't manage to photograph, was great. It was a huge two layer cake that had a layer of strawberry jam between the layers and a really well made butter cream icing on it. Not that anyone care about how it looked, as it got inhaled upon cutting, but it was a really pretty cake as well. I have another party about this size in June, with a little more upscale, cocktail oriented menu and I think that I will just assign someone to do the photos, because I was either too busy or too late to take presentation photos, on top of the fact that I take terrible photos.

Robin knocked out a stunning salad. Well, actually, about 5 salads this size, but they were all the same. This is a take on a salad served at Joe's Dreyfus Store here in Louisiana. At Joe's, it is simply butter lettuce, grapefruit slices, avacado slices, and toasted pecan halves with a very thin, only slightly sweet poppyseed dressing. Today's salad was this but it had hearts of palm chunks, cranraisins, some romaine. It was served in a great big bowl lined with kale and in the back of the bowl was a nice colorful bit of chard and a crown of dill on a very thick stalk. It looked pretty damn colorful and was a great salad. We went through it all. Hell, they even ate the kale. One of my helpers started screwing around-so I drove a tent spike in his head. He went back to work after he got it out. And now ladies and gentlemen, the main attraction. There were 8 of these, which worked out to a precooked weight of roughly 95 lbs. They were all perfect. I tightly wrapped them in foil last night after they had cooled and today put them into the pit shown above for about 2 hours before service. They were tender and delicious. People went crazy. One guy, who claimed that he was a "barbeque freak" and a member of one of those teams that competes, said that is was "hands down" the best he had ever eaten. I don't know about all of that, but 120 or so people left me with nothing but half of the last one which I didn't even put out because my pals in the kitchen were worried about their husbands not getting any of it when they got home. So I made sure they went home with all they wanted. And a not about the fine knife. That is an electric knife made for fileting fish. It has a thin blade with a point on the end that allows you to do some pretty fine trimming. They are cheap and work great. You can spend more, but you won't get better. You also won't get cool yellow and green colors on more expensive models. Sometimes cheap is better. And here it is sliced. I didn't do any closeups, but it had a gorgeous smoke ring on it and was really nice to look at, but better to eat. At this point it was 3 hours or so of full work mode. They all showed up more or less at once and everybody was starving after 3 hours of "as we go forth" and "today we are at a turning point" speeches. The Plantation tea was a big hit. It's pretty easy to make. It's basically just very strong iced tea, simple syrup, fresh mint, pineapple juice, and ginger ale added at serving. No one seemed to really have had it before. maybe it's a Delta thing, but I've been drinking it at parties for as long as I can remember. The lemonade was a big hit. That kid up there with the spike in his head was up squeezing lemons this morning. I made it with lemon juice and simple syrup. Piece of cake. Tasted great. Had it in a 3 gallon crock and we had to refill it twice. Thirsty kids and adults, as it was about 80F today at 1 p.m. I put all of this out by the pool house. this worked great for two reasons: 1) there is a small kitchen and a huge fridge out there. I was able to keep things cold and had plenty of water to work with, plus it is shaded by a porch and a huge old sycamore tree 2) This kept the seniors away from the beer, a long way from the beer. The parents made this request, although I don't think that it was much of an issue. They all seemed to have a great time. Robin takes a break. She worked hard. Well, they both worked hard, although he doesn't seem to happy about it in this photo, but he was generally pretty cheerful and as they were working the tables clearing dishes and so forth, he must have made some connection with some of these people-because several people told me how helpful he was. It's nice to hear people say nice things about your kids. Almost as much fun as bragging about them. Ok, there is not cheese, no muffeletta pasta salad (which was really good, inspite of the fact that I hate pasta salad), no jambalaya, and no two or three other things that I can't even think of at this point. Oh yeah, no cake, no ice cream coffee punch (that stuff is the bomb-rich but delicious-it was a huge hit), and no really, really pretty silver coffee service with all of these demitasse cups from a bunch of different patterns (not my idea, but a great one, a bunch of the hosts put it together. I would do it again. In fact, a dinner party where everyone brought their own place settings ahead of time would be great fun, I think-but I love china, and it might not be everybody's "cup of tea" ) This is a terrible photo, and it was very late in the day (this is basically the hosts and their families left). There were about twenty tables spread around and a couple of tents. All of the food was served under the roof of the veranda on the front of this great house. I only took it because the sycamore tree looked so great with all of the sun coming down through it. That's the pool house there off to the left of the photograph. I'll come back and replace some of the food photos that I am missing, but that about covers it. One more thing. It's not exactly food, but it is a goat. A 64 GTO Convertible that is in the garage where I was working today. It's perfect. I would steal it, but the drool that I left all over it would be a dead giveaway if they used DNA to try to catch me. It's pretty swell. Good night all. I am exhausted. But pretty happy.

I have pictures on 2 cameras and won't be able to put half of them on this computer as I don't have the software on here to do it, so they will have to wait until Monday. But I will put the ones that I have. Today went well, but it would not have gone as well, or have been as much fun, without the help of a couple of women who were charming, funny, efficient as hell, and tireless. These women, both of whom are about my age, have been keeping house (their terminology) for the same small group of women in a small Southern town for a long time. They totally understand how to run a party, a reception, a funeral, or any other kind of social event that involves food and drink served to lots of people in a home and are not afraid, at all, to tell everybody else what to do. I cannot overstate how much fun they were to fool around with today. They were just great. I showed up this morning at 7. I was alone for about an hour in a beautiful house with a really good feel to it. I was really happy to be there for a bit by myself to kind of get my head together and to finalize out attack. This is a crummy picture of the very front of the house. It's design is pretty simple, but something you never see anymore. There is a large sitting room as you go in the front door in the center of the veranda and the sitting room is divided from the dining room by a 2 sided, very large fireplace. There are 4 large rooms all connecting onto one of the two main rooms by way of pocket doors. On one side is a kitchen and two bedrooms. On the other side there are three bedrooms, all very large, with a bathroom on both sides. There is a sun porch on the back. There are all kinds of outbuildings, a spring fed swimming pool (very common here), grape arbors, tons of very old landscaping. The place is basically just gorgeous. This photo does not do the trick, but it's what I've got. I then lit the fire in the big stainless drumstyle pit that would serve as my reheat oven for all of those briskets. It worked perfectly. I built a chimney full of charcoal in one end and stacked all of the briskets on the other. At serving time, 1 p.m. they were perfect. Tender and juicy. Beautiful smoke ring and perfectly blackend on the outside. I was very proud of my work on those things. Here is the pit. You can kind of see one of the arbors in the background. They must have been some kind of fad back in the thirties, because almost all house of this age have at least one of them on the property. While I was dorking around with the pit, everyone else was running around like made getting linens and flowers in place, setting up the bars and drink stations, and popping up a couple of tents. I had some pretty good help today, my two sons and a friend of theirs that is close to all of us and they all worked pretty well with a minimum of whining. They set up and broke down both of the tents; The kitchen was in full swing. There were a ton of dishes to assemble at the last minute, as many of them had to do with salads or refrigerated stuff that couldn''t be put together ahead of time. Robin and Marie worked great together. So a few of the plates started out to the tables (this is a seriously partial list as there were 2 cameras in use, I will fix that later) Pate Asparagus and Bell Peppers with currried dip Goat Cheese Dip (terrible presentation-not what we had planned, but there was a serving dish issue that I couldn't fix quickly, but no one complained ) Blue Cheese dip with Grannyh Smith apple slices and bread sticks (this looked better when we got it all set up right, but I don't think that I got a photo of the final) While we were pripping in the kitchen, the bars were set up. My computer is acting nuts. I am going to post this and start in another frame rather than doing this all over again.

They morphed into something much more noble and delicious. More coming as soon as I can get the pictures up. It's been a long, long, but very rewarding day. It went great thanks to some luck and some stupendously pleasant and hardworking help. The brisket was awesome and the food all looked great. The weather held up nicely and tons of people, more than expected, showed up and we still managed to feed them and to keep them from getting thirsty. I am bushed.

Ok. Jambalaya is all done. There are six pans all set for reheating and an extra gallon for school teachers lunch on Monday (in the middle of all of this mess the mother in charge of "Teacher Appreciation Week" called and asked if I would mind making a little something for an entree for Monday's lunch. Piece of cake I said. Little does she know that I was in the middle of this). While I still haven't had time to do the recipes in recipe gullet, I can tell you that this involved 15 lbs. of Richard's Sausage,5 lbs. of Poche's Andouille, 12 lbs. chicken thighs, and 15 lbs. of fresh shrimp (which my 15 year old, Miles, hero that he is, helped me peel and devein), 15 lbs. of rice and a heaping pile of vegetable matter and spices. No shortage of goodies here, although the picture is terrible and you can't really tell it. I don't have time to play with them tonight. Hopefully I can get it all straight Sunday night. Pasta salad is done. It's really good, for what it is, but I still stand by my above statement. Miles also cut all of the cheese for the cheese tray beautifully. He is also talking about going over to meet the new people who just bought the restaurant around the corner (see the Louisiana board-no time to link) and asking if they will let him futz around in the kitchen. Chip off of the old block that boy. Too bad for him. I was hoping for something better. I am working on tea and finishing up wrapping the briskets, which I failed to photograph-but I can get them Sunday a.m. when I unwrap after reheat. I still have to blanch off 10 bunches of asparagus, which is as big as trees, I couldn't find any decent stuff for love or money. It will have to do, I guess. It will look great but be tough as boot leather. I am enjoying my next to last Blenheim's Spicy Ginger Ale. That, friends, is one good drink. Back to work. No rest for the weary.

You ever done something stupid? I do stupid stuff all of the time. You would think it was my hobby, if you were a careful observer. Anyway, I have 15 lbs. of real basmati rice. I am cooking it all at once. I sort of, kind of, started it out with water for 15 CUPS of rice. Dainbramage, I tell ya. But thanks to my handy digital scale I am back on track. I quickly weighed a cup of rice, did the math, and added the water. It would have been a disaster, as I am not scheduled to do rice but once today. Yikes.

Whoops, I kind of wasn't thinking about having to peel all of these damn shrimp. They are really nicely sized, and are as fresh as they are ever going to get unless you are eating them on the boat, and I know that I shouldn't complain, BUT I REALLY GOT OVER PEELING RAW SHRIMP ABOUT THE TIME I TURNED 23 YEARS OLD. But, I am lucky to have them and many of you wish that you did, so I won't complain. That's about 18 pounds total. I will take the heads and the shells and throw them in the freezer. I'll make stock later. No time now for planning for another meal. I can't even get this one together. They are beautiful. Check 'em out! Just for a size reference, this was about average, but there were some really big ones in there, just enough to make a little scampi for my catering partner and me. Anybody want to come polish some silver? I'll feed you. Will you work for food?

I have no feelings at all right now, except for an incredibly strong ringing in my ears caused by an overconsumption of rediculously good coffee. I am happy about the sale though. They seem to come in waves. Hopefully this is a groundswell and she will catch a good ride on one tonight. This food thing gets me out of having to attend. This is a good thing. Wry, sarcastic people should not be allowed in art galleries. I have no flat surfaces left, I keep having to move things to even put other things down. 15 year old and Robin are taking a load right now, so there is a little more room. I've got to go cook 15 lbs. of basmati rice and make a about 4 gallons of jambo goo. Somewhere in there I also need to toast 5 lbs. of pecans (from, ironically, one of the trees that I am cooking the brisket on top of) and a bunch of sliced almonds. I also have to make a giant 5 gallon batch of very strong tea so that we can make the tea drink. I should have my head examined. Hey! Wait a minute! I did that! Maybe I should see about another round. I think that the last one is wearing off.

At the turn! These have now been on for about 4 hours and have hit roughly 130F all round. I should be in that bizarre temp stall for a while and then it will rapidly go up. I added some more wood and just a bit of charcoal that I started in the chimney (it keeps the wood smoking but doesn't raise the pit temp much. The meat is nicely browned, with a few crispy bits, but not charring. This is just what I am shooting for. These will be let go until they hit just at 190F and then they will be taken off and allowed to cool. They will then be tightly wrapped and ready for a slow reheat in the morning. I will be using a huge drum type pit for the reheat. I could do it in the oven, but that won't be available as that is where the jambalaya will be going. We have been making dressings like crazy for all of this stuff, and the dips, and chopping the stuff for the jambalaya. This jambalaya is a bit different in that it is made in two distinct parts. There is the stuff part and there is the rice part. They are mixed at the last minute and them transferred to pans that fit in the chafing dishes. As I am typing this I am eating apples and bleu cheese dip. That stuff is dead simple to make. All you need is good cheese, good heavy cream, and a food processor. You just whiz it all up, adding a bit of tabasco and worcestershire (did you know that Lea and Perrins (pear-an in this part of the world) were famous Cajuns?). Or one would think so anyway. It's common as tabasco in recipes here. I will be getting the jambalaya cranking shortly. It will take, start to finish, about 2 hours. While all of this is going on Robin has been working like a madwoman and also, she is getting ready for an opening tonight. We got a phone call a minute ago that some early shopping art lover has purchased her biggest piece that was in the show for tonight. Woohoo! Art's a tough racket. No matter what, like anything else, somebody has to sell it. It ain't easy. I am going to try to start putting some of the recipes in. There are a ton of them, so it may take a while.

Oh Boy. Summer's here. It was beautiful an hour ago and a passing thunderstorm is currently dumping about an inch of rain. But it's supposed to clear up and be nice, but the humidity will now be about 1 degree from "bathtub" for the next day or so. Yuck. Here are a few pics of the brisket process: This is really nice meat. Nicely trimmed and pretty much ready to go when I got it. Here it is after a spicy rubdown. These were then wrapped tightly in foil and refrigerated overnight. This is the pit. It was here when we bought the place and I modified it a bit. I made it taller and that makes the fire about 3 feet below the cooking surface. You will notice that there are only 4 briskets on this thing. I will be doing this for about 16-20 hours depending on how it goes temp wise and cooking a total of 8. This is the inside of the pit. I start it with a chimney of charcoal and once it's going I start going in with the wood. I am using some partially cured pecan (it was cut in January and is still a little green-perfect for this kind of thing/ Lots of smoke and moderate heat. Brisket just on the pit Can't have too many pictures of brisket, is what I always say. Really. I say that sometimes. Here is the whole thing with the top on. It is not, in any way, airtight. It just helps to direct the heat. Right now it is staying right around 225F-250F and that's about right. I used to have, until this winter, a great sheet metal top for this that I had made, but it became part of something else because I needed some sheet metal fast for a project and as it was rusting and I needed another one anyway, well, it had to go. I made this one today out of 2X4's and heavy duty aluminum foil. Dan Huntley, writer for the Charlotte Observer, is writing a book right now on "contraption cooking" and I think that this may well qualify. It's pretty much of a rig. But it keeps the heat in and the rain out, so what the hell. And, just so you know that I am on track-a photo of one of the featured items for the relish tray. Stay tuned to this channel for more zany antics from crazed rednecks.

I'm going to pick them up. Right now. The guy just called. They will be fairly mixed-somwhere between 16-20's and some running in the 21 and up categories. Part of the deal with getting them like this is they are sized, quickly, by hand on the back of the boat-not by machine-so you get what you get. But they are really cheap. 2.50 a pound for shrimp that were swimming yesterday and are as sweet and delicious as they can be. Also, something like 40% of the wild caught shrimp in the US are caught just South and West of my house. They are pretty easy to come by.

It comes on here at 1 in the afternoon on Saturdays. I will be standing by as I watch these briskets smoke and I make jambalaya. It's pretty funny that Riceland is sponsoring it. They are in Stuttgart, in Southeast Arkansas and it's not like we have any shortage of rice companies here.

I am working on a solution for this right now. I think that I have decided that I am going to be better off having a sheet metal guy build one for me. I am going to need to put motor on the roof, and it is a long way to the roof. The ceilings in my house are 14 feet (this house is in the Deep South, was built in 1898, and all of the ceilings are that high or higher and every door in the interior has a transom-the only way to keep air moving back then) so the vent run to the roof, up through the attic, is going to be about 25 feet, albeit straight. The reason that I have decided on custom made is that 1) I have a guy that will build it for free as he owes me something 2) My wife is going to paint it as she has done this for countless restaurants at this point and they look really cool when she gets done with them. Hopefully, by putting the motor on the roof, I will be avoiding a bunch of racket. I really like to listen to music while I cook and really don't like to listen to the hood. It's funny, I remember when I used to run this 400 seat place in Baton Rouge La that the turning on of the hoods was the first thing that you did in the morning and the last thing you did at night. That whirring racket was the start of the day and the silence of a clean, empty kitchen was the end. As they were often 16 hours apart, I used to love to hear those fans wind down. I don't want to get that same feeling in my own house.

The briskets will all be cooked on my very large, built just for them, brick pit. The fire will be started at 6 in the morning. I will start a chimney full of charcoal, let it get going pretty good, and then spread it out in the bottom of the pit and add pecan logs (which conveniently are something I have alot of, as I cut two trees this winter). The briskets have been prepped. Each of them is about 12 pounds after trimming. They are really nice pieces of meat that I ordered last week. They have been dry rubbed (recipe will be listed) and wrapped tightly in foil and then put on ice in an ice chest. They will pulled when I wake up and by the time the fire is right they should be more or less not cold anymore and ready to go. This cooking method is open pit BBQ. Not smoked, not water smoked, not any of that stuff. Just placed over a medium low fire of wood and cooked for somewhere between 8-10 hours until they get a through and through temp of 190. They will then be pulled and cooled slowly. Sunday morning, they will go into an oven, wrapped in foil, until they are back up to 190F-200F. They will be rested for 30 minutes or so and then sliced thin with an electric knife, with a bit of last minute fat trimming thrown in. At that point they will go to large serving trays which will be replaced as needed during service. There will be several sauces on the side, including some that are kind of silly, but fun. I will list these when I get together the final list. The jamabalaya is an outdoor activity as it is, normally. It is no big deal except that it takes a ton of chopping and prep to get ready to do the deal. When I get the recipe in tonight or in the morning you will see what I am talking about. As for the rest, much of it will be prepped Saturday at the location and then assembled at the last minute. Much of the prep tomorrow will be done here, as even though I have a demolished kitchen, I do have a ton of room and it is actually more functional than it sounds. Things will be delivered as they are finished (the location is only about 15 minutes away) and they have plenty of refrigeration there. I used to have tons of it here, but alas, I lost it and tore out my kitchen, which is only just now being put back into shape. As long as all of the mise is put together and ready to go ny about 11:30 Sunday morning, we are in good shape. They should start showing up at 1 and they will want service to begin right then. Two hours of listening to "as we go forth" speeches is enough to make anyone hungry and a little bit parched. So far I'm in pretty good shape. A couple of more hours tonight and I will feel pretty good about it.

I am sitting in my wreck of a 100 year old house right now. The one with half of a bathroom ripped out, all of the kitchen ripped out (and when I say all, I mean all, there is nothing in that 20X35 room right now but an icebox and a bunch of my wife’s artwork in various states of completion), and most of my deck missing. I am surrounded by food and more food. Lots of food. Food for 120 people, consisting of graduates of St Paul’s School in Covington, LA and their proud families. I must be out of my cotton picking mind. I really didn’t intend on covering this in eGullet, but it occurred to me that some of you might need some really, really big recipes for some event or another, so I decided that I would go ahead and document this effort. First a little backstory: My background, from the time I got out of high school, all the way through and after college, is in restaurant and bar management. I, at one point, ran the kitchen in a 400 seat restaurant for a while, among other things. As part of that job, we did lots and lots of full on offsite catering. Crawfish boils for 800 people, seafood dinners for hundreds of LSU football players, supporters, etc., wedding rehearsals, etc. At some point, I got really, really good at the organizational part of this and it all became kind of second nature. Once I went into the brewery business, I continued doing some catering as part of the brewery deal and also to bring in some extra dough in the early days of starting a small business when I was making about a dollar an hour. I put together a pretty good rep and enjoyed doing it, but at some point I stopped doing it for money. I would occasionally help friends throw large parties, mostly seafood stuff like crawfish boils and fish fries and the like, and I continue to do that today. It’s fun and I like to do it, so why not. Of course, right now I have just finished working a long week, I have at least 2 pieces due for print publications and one due for a certain online publication. I also have a yard in dire need of attention and a million other things to do. Are they going to get done this weekend? Nope. All of this, incidentally, is being fueled by this afternoon’s delivery of coffee from the really nice folks atHula Daddy Kona Coffee ! It’s great stuff and would wake the dead. I won’t be doing much sleeping for the next two days, so the timing of their delivery was perfect. (disclaimer: I work for the company that hosts their website and Lee and Karen, the owners, are my friends-but it’s still superior coffee) My wife, the art woman, helps and in fact, is the most organized person I know. The woman loves a list and that is the ONE THING THAT IS MOST IMPORTANT WHEN YOU ARE FEEDING LOTS OF PEOPLE. None of this would be happening without her help and I want to say at this point that very little in my life would be happening without her. I am very lucky. If you can put up with me on a daily basis for 21 years, you are either a little nuts or bulletproof – in her case it’s a bit of both, I think. Robin will be doing most of the plating and public setup. She sets a beautiful table and this one will be pretty spectacular judging by the amount of silver, cut glass, and crystal that is appearing around here. She is also doing the last minute prep of the salads and the drinks. I will be doing all of the hot prep work and pretty much everything else. So anyway, I offered to do this because the graduate that is being honored with this little fais do do is a really nice young man that I have known for a very, very long time. In fact, his mother is one of the mid wives that brought my oldest kicking and screaming into this world 15 years ago. They are great people and I really am honored that they trust me with this. I hope that they feel as kindhearted at 4 Sunday afternoon when everyone has gone home and we are left there cleaning up. I have decided that I will put the FULL recipes into Recipe Gullet. All of them are large, and in the case of the Seafood Jambalaya it is for 100 folks. I will do my best to put really good descriptions in the recipes as the best way to go about this, but if anyone ever decides they want to feed a lot of people, just shoot me an email and I will try to do a better job in the blow by blow descriptions. There will also be some photos as a part of this, but how many and how good all depends on how many times I remember to stop and take them. This event is taking place at a beautiful house that is, in fact, just about the best example of a turn of the century giant farm house that we have around here. It’s basically gorgeous. I will have some photos of that Saturday sometime. We will be serving on some long buffet tables under a beautiful veranda. It’s pretty ideal for this kind of service and is probably the last weekend this year when the weather will not cause the women in the group to “glisten” under their Sunday lunch lady hats and the men to not sweat like pigs in their seersucker. It’s going to be in the low 80’s and sunny at lunch time, but that’s pretty comfortable this time of year as the humidity is pretty low, in the high 30’s most days. Soon it will be 95F and 80% humidity. No one wants a picnic in those conditions. Now for the menu. I will try to describe these in short detail. All of the food here, mostly, is at the request of the host. A little bit of it at her insistence. She can be very persuasive. Oh boy. The two main entrees will be barbequed brisket (with an assortment of sauces on the side-not ON the meat) and seafood jambalaya (with sausage from Richard’s, dark meat chicken, and fresh, straight out of the gulf shrimp (as I type this they are being caught-I actually am getting them from the guy who caught them-they will likely be too large for what I am doing but no one is going to complain about the shrimp being too large. That’s like saying, “You know, I have too much money.”) and all of the other stuff that goes in it (link recipe gullet here). There will be pistollettes from Leidenheimer's Bakery in New Orleans and some dark bread from another bakery. Apparently it’s organic and that is a big deal to a few of these folks, but that’s not part of my deal. A full on relish tray with all of the stuff. A giant green salad with butter lettuce, avacado, grapefruit, toasted pecans and a very thin poppyseed vinegarette. This is much like the salad at Joe’s Dreyfus Store here in Louisiana. A pasta salad with bow ties, hard salami, really good provolone cheese, and lots of fresh herbs with a light dressing that is still to be determined after another argument with my spouse and after I lose, it will be some kind of very lightly done balsamic vinegar deal. (I lost on this one all the way round. I hate pasta salad. I think it’s made by people who don’t know how to cook for people who don’t like to eat-I wanted to have a delicious and inventive rice salad that I love, but no dice, so I will put the recipe into Recipe Gullet so that you don’t have to suffer the same fate). East Texas Crunchy Coleslaw is another one that they insisted on, but I happen to love it and I don’t much care that everybody in the world makes it these days for every kind of daytime luncheon that I go to. I can eat a bait of the stuff. It’s good. Trite? Perhaps. Good? You bet. A cheese, bread, and cracker set up with some local cheeses from John Folse’s place. A pate setup. Basic pate made with organic chicken livers and marsala wine. It’s really good and easy to knock out for a bunch of people ahead of time. A goat cheese dip made with more local cheese. Bleu cheese and pecan dip with breadsticks and apples. This stuff is awesome and a snap to make. All it takes is great bleu cheese and really great cream. I happen to have both locally available. There will be a couple of beautiful cakes made by a local baker who makes awesome cakes and homemade strawberry ice cream made with Pontchatoula Strawberries (the last of them, from what I can tell-it’s getting too hot for them to make) Beverages will consist of wine service and milk punch (I am not in charge of this part of the deal) , homemade lemonade, ice tea punch (much, much better than it sounds-one of the most refreshing things you can knock back on a hot afternoon) and Abita Root Beer. That about does it. I will slowly be posting details over the course of te next 36 hours and hopefully some photos. I PROMISE that I will start getting the recipes in tonight at some point. But for now I have to go get 5 briskets prepped for cooking in the morning. Back later.

This is your big chance people! Win the fame and admiration of all people everywhere! For all times! All you have to do is read this announcement and get busy with it! ______________________________________________________________________ The 2nd Occasional Varmint's Pig Pickin' is coming up on Labor Day Weekend. Cool parties deserve cool t-shirts and we need a design. Here's the deal: You design a t-shirt using the eGullet Society and Varmint's Pig Pickin as the two main themes. This can be either a one or two-sided shirt, but beyond that there are no other design suggestions. You have thirty days from today to get this together and submitted to our judging committee (Varmint is the committee. Hey. it's his house). At the end of the contest we will have a thread that displays all of the work. This will give us all the chance to second guess and criticize Varmint's choice. Email your designs to dmccord@egullet.org. Your reward for your fabulous design work will be two tickets to Varmint's Shindig (it is a fundraiser, and tickets won't be cheap), two t-shirts, and bragging rights for a year. eGullet gets the rights to the design. If it happens that you live in Zanzibar, Pretoria, or Jersey City and you can't make it, well, we'll still give you the 2 shirts, a six pack of spicy Blenheim's Ginger Ale (and we'll mail them to you, too!), and the bragging rights! You can't lose. So get with it. _____________________________________________________________________ If you have any questions you can ask them here, but basically it is no more complicated than this. If you can't get a design scanned or you can't email it, just email Varmint and he will give you the particulars. All entries count. Don't let technology or talent interfere with your entry. You never know what kind of choice he will make (and I don't know if he will accept bribes, but I encourage you to give it a shot). Good Luck!