Mayhaw Man

Don't ask me. I just asked my mom, and she doesn't know-she just does it. And both of the other women involved, my grandmother Lois and her long time housekeeper Dorothy, are long gone from kitchens on this earth. I somehow always assumed that it somehow helped with flour adherance, but I honestly never spent much time thinking about it. I just eat the stuff.

Fifi, I am almost betting that somewhere in Houston, given the various immigrant populations that you can find just about anything you want in the way of live poultry. You might start by checking with some ethnic butcher shops and work from there. There is also an excellent source here. As a Texan, you are one of the lucky ones (but I am sure that, being a Texan and all, you already know that) who can get some of these birds who have lived a short, happy live home. home on the free range. In New Orleans, we still have a live poultry market. It's a pretty bizarre place as I don't think many of those yardbirds had ever seen a yard. Good luck in your search for the perfect pullet.

Nice work. I am glad you enjoyed it. It's pretty easy, actually, after you do it a few times. It goes alot faster after you practice a bit.

Actually, I sent you a rather long reply concerning shipping and amounts (both poundage and dollar wise) via pm. I will go find it and resend, although what you found is pretty much the going rate, it looks like-though the per pound price might be a bit lower as you get closer to the event. The Tulane ALumni office must get some interesting requests from hungry alumni.

Doesn't anyone ever get asked, "paper or plastic?" when they are checking out at the market? We can still get paper pretty much everywhere, even Wal Mart will offer if you have frozen food. Anyway, a doubled grocery bag makes a great insulator, and it is what all batch fried food I grew up eating (fish, chicken, hush puppies, whatever) was immediatly placed in. They allow the food to stay warm, but allow steam to escape , so that the crust doesn't get soggy. See? There's a reason for all of the paper bag talk. That chicken recipe is good, the one that Marlene posted. Really good. Better than Dave's. Of course, I've never had Dave's, But that's not really important. Mine's better.

I grew up drinking Dr Pepper as my mom went to Baylor and a trip to the plant (along with seeing the bears) was part of the trip. I did it a couple of summers ago when I was passing through , the plant/museum is still worth the trip.

This is an interesting article about the current state of US wine exports and the amounts, in USD, that are shipped to the top three or four. The price is already bad for producers and a Canadian ban would not be, as pointed out above, a good thing for US producers.

To paraphrase one of Southern Literature's most ignoble heros, Ignatious Reilly, the bard of Constantinople St., who when speaking to a group of quarterites, pretend sailors, and militant lesbians concerning a timely and important political event he was planning- He was asked if some of them might arrive at the gathering in costume? Ignatius replied, more or less, And that is pretty much how I feel about macaroni and cheese. I like it with some sauteed onion and a bit of cayenne baked into the mix, but then again, I like it straight up. What's not to like. A few tasteful ingredients, properly chosen and used, what's not to like? Here in New Orleans this dish is often referred to by natives as "baked macaroni". A fine example of this dish is to be had at Rocky and Carlo's Restaurant out in St Bernard (where you would likely meet many of Ignatius's schoolmates from the 50's, as during the 60's the all moved out to "da Parish" or "Da Nint Ward"). I also like the stuff that they have at Semolina's, although it is hardly traditional in any sense of the word-but it was a staple when the boys were little and we ate there all of the time (my wife designed the interiors of the first twenty or so restaurants so we had a trade out that was pretty bottomless-we ate a lot of the stuff). Anyway, I am ok with stuff in it. Bell peppers and onions are not too uncommon, pimientos are occasionally seen, and it is often served up pretty spicy with cayenne, so I'm ok with that too. Who's to say what's right? There is not a right, I don't think, really. What's wrong, though, is when you forget to call me when it's ready. In case you are at a loss, it goes great with baked ham and some biscuits. Let me know what time to be there.

I don't know about that. I'm a thigh man, myself. Thighs are usually available at pretty unbelievable prices in big "club"packs and they are the best for stewing and soup type projects. I also like them grilled. Much more flavorful meat, IMO. The reason for the cheap price is that North Americans don't like them. I have a friend, my brother's roomate in college, who is now a big cheese with Tyson's in overseas sales and he told me that a very large percentage of the business that they do overseas, particularly in the Pacific Rim, is in legs and thighs. They just have too many left over in NA so they sell them cheap overseas.

Get the regular next time. It's nothing short of just about perfect. I like it better (marginally) that Champagne's in Breaux Bridge and Best Stop-although I wouldn't tell you no to either one of those.

This is a great subject and I look forward to hearing from the experts. I have always loved coffee, and probably am a happy over consumer of this fine beverage. Recently, I started a new job and one of the fringe benefits is that we have, everyday, samples of great food coming through the door from people who would like to do business with my company. One of the things that we see alot of is fine coffee from all over the world. Our everyday drinks include great coffee from Kona, Brazil, Ethiopia, Mexico, Costa Rica, etc. It's really, really fun having all of this stuff around and it is also interesting to see how different it tastes and smells. Coffee is an interesting and widely varying drink and I am glad to see this discussion. Hopefully I can add something to it. An online tasting course would be interesting. Owen?

How about a lazy susan or two in that pantry? Or a swing our door on it that has shelving (my mom has an awesome one, I will take a picture of it next weekend when I am up there-not much to it really, but it sure is a handy place for spices and small jars of stuff).

Tonights project yielded some delicious results. Although, thanks to an overly aggressive flash, it's damn hard to tell. Incidentally, because I was interested in experimenting and because I wanted to try this anyway, I used avacado oil to make the roux (disclaimer-I work for the company that host's the website of the maker of the oil-which is why I had it-OK? Good. No more of that). Why? Because I had some, I really like the taste, and it has a really high flash point, much in the range of peanut oil and I was out of peanut oil. It also smells great when it cooks. In short, for this typ of gumbo, which is strongly flavored anyway with olives and lots of herbs, it worked great and the roux, made cajun napalm style, was spot on. Now, on to the photo narrative-which has some bad photos and hopefully what will improve. You cannot flash some things and that's the way it is. Sorry. Here are the ducks before seasoning. The big ones are two big mallard drakes and the little ones are blue wing teal. I have a freezer full of these things, despite the worst season in the Mississippi flyway in years. It pretty much sucked. But we still got a few in the freezer. These are the ducks after heavy, heavy seasoning. First they were slathered in a paste of worcestershire with various herbs, as listed above, then I hit them with some sea salt and cracked black pepper And here they are on the grill. There is one chimney full of hardwood charcoal and a bunch of pecan twigs out of my yard. I basically smoked the hell out of them at 300F for about an hour or so. They actually had a smoke ring under the skin when I got done. Here is a mallard, cooked beautifully to medium, medium rare (that's perfectly to you duck neophytes). The meat is gorgeous and juicy and tender. Smoky through and through. I could have stopped right now but as I already had a stock waiting for it, I sliced it up. This stuff was really, really good. I will be doing this again next week,no doubt. Just for the ducks. Here is the amount of meat that I used. About half again as much was left over and on the bone and is now, as I type, being turned into stock for some other project. OK. Here is the finished product. It was, really, delicious. The best of the dish I have ever made. The smoked duck made all of the difference. The broth flavored the rice nicely and it was just the right thickness and you could taste all of the components individually and as one. It was, all in all, a great dish. And that's what I did today, between doing eGullet stuff, writing about tamales, and thinking about the crawfish business. It was a busy day. OH yeah, no photos, but we had Pontchatoula Strawberries ($15 a flat) and fresh whipped cream from Smith's Dairy in Mt Hermon, LA. So basically, this whole dinner, came from here. Native food for natives.

A boning project might be great! Boning is not nearly as hard as it seems if you have done it a few times. That would be fun.

Essentially, this dish is a duck gumbo that is made with dark roux, a strongly flavored stock, and olives added during the cooking process. I will be using three kinds of olives, some delicious green ones, some calimari ones (sparingly, as they are overwhelming) and some big black ones that really add no flavor, but I always have a few cans around so I heaved one in. The ducks(2 mallards and 2 teal) are being smoked on the weber, to about medium rare, with lots and lots of pecan smoke. The smoke is the thing here, more than the cooking, as they will get an hour or so stewing in the gumbo. I will make a dark roux and add onion, celery, bell pepper (an orange and 2 greens), garlic (lots of it BAM! Oh yeah, Babe ), and season it as it cooks down with salt, black pepper, oregano, thyme, basil, rosemary, and worcestershire. This will cook down to a liquid state, more or less, if I leave the pot tightly covered and stir occasionally over medium heat. I am using some stock made from a fried turkey carcass that was left over from some production or another in the fall. I will pick the meat from the ducks and reserve the carcasses to make some stock later this evening. I will serve over Texmati rice about the time the boys are about to die from hunger. Sometime around 7:45 if their predictable dining cycles hold up. Photos later tonight.

On a slightly off topic note, I am in the middle of making ducks in olive gravy (sort of). For those of you that would like to see what I am talking about and have a copy of the Cotton Country Cookbook that I am always going on about, this is more or less out of there, except that I am smoking the ducks in heavy pecan smoke instead of browing in a million degree oven. I will, of course, provide photographic evidence so that I can keep up with the rest of you food nerds. This dish, by the way, is common here. I think that it's roots, however, lie in Provence as it is a pretty much classical peasant pot food dish. It's really good, especially if you can let it cook for hours and hours. That will not be the case here, though. I am eating in a couple of hours-so it will just have to do. It will be served with maque choux, cornbread, and some kind of green salad.

Go to a good Aisian market. SPend part of the money on a wok, some cool utensils (some of those stirring and mixing spatulas have become part of my everyday arsenal-they are really cheap and hold up well) spend the rest on some good stuff to test drive your new wok with. Go get some big shrimp or something.

I go, literally, to the alligator farm at least twice a week to pick up my oldest (one of the boys in the family is my son's best friend). The water in the huge swimming pools that they live in is crystal clear. It is, in fact, a working farm, not a tourist attraction-although they completely rebuilt a house like mine (if mine had been ripped to the studs and rebuilt) that was on the property. So you have a beautiful house, a hundred or so huge old pecan trees, and these long, low houses in the back of the property where the gators live and grow-until they are big enough to skin and eat They have a pretty nice life aside from that. Incidentally, hide prices are out of sight for the first time in years. It's good to be an alligator farmer right now. They have tours, so sometimes you go out there and there are all of these foriegn tourists wandering around snapping pictures and stuff. It is kind of surreal.

Nice work! I really like the fact that people all over the world are finally getting something good to eat! You people have been deprived for too long. I am thinking that maybe we should move along here to another project. What's next? Jambalaya? Etouffee? Some kind of Sauce Piquant (you pick the meat-me, I might use some alligator from my neighbors, the alligator farmers.) Anyway, what's next? This is incredibly fun and seems to be a big hit all round the world. This is a strange a bizarre place, this eworld.

Excellent. Really great! Clear photos and concise directions. I live in blue crab world, not big giant crab world, but the basic technique is the same-except for the cooking liquid-it would be loaded with various kinds of spicy goodness.

Hushpuppie Recipe here. Sure they could go with Gumbo. Who's gonna complain! Although I think that I would prefer french bread or hot water cornbread. As for the caviar, it comes from a native sturgeon type fish called the bowfin or chopique (choo-pick) It is remarkably good. I was able to taste it at the Fancy Food Show in SF, and although I have had it many times this was the first time that I have ever been able to compare it to the real deal. It's good. Processed correctly, tastes good, interesting tecture. I would eat it as a stand alone, even though most of the time here you see it as an addtion to something or other. Emeril uses it on alot of stuff as garnish.

Well, since you asked- I would reccomend Amber and Turbodog as the top two choices there (disclosure: I was the brewmaster at Abita for a very long time-these recipes were either invented or developed by me-Turbodog in particular-and I still live around the corner from the original brewery). Amber is a pleasant, lightly hopped lager and Turbodog is a dark, moderately hopped, ale (technically an alt, but who's asking?). Dog is a great pairing for spicy seafood and amber goes well with just about everything. They now have a broad variety of beers that are available in the New Orleans area, and many of them are available nationwide as well-particularly amber, dog, and light. A quick look at their website will give you the distributor in your area and a phone call will narrow it down to a retail establishment.

If you can geet Jax, it's gonna be kinda old. The brewery has been closed for 25 years. On the other hand, you can probably find Abita or Dixie.

A nice side with Gumbo, if you aren't having crusty bread, is hot water cornbread. Simply put, you make a nice mush of corn meal, highly spiced, and mix with hot water until you have it at a consistancy that will allow you to make cakes out of it. Heat up about an inch of peanut oil, and make the cakes by dipping your hands in cold water, quickly making a patty out of the hot corn meal mixture, and placing them in the bubbling hot oil until they are brown and delicious on the outside and warm and toasty on the inside. This stuff also goes great with Chili. The beans IN the chili mix nicely with the sweetness of the cornmeal. Also, while I hesitate to incur the wrath of some of those morons who think that we fry everything and only use lard when we fry......these things are awesome fried in lard. Really. Another level of crunchy, sweet deliciousness.

I am going to be forced to drag up one of the fifty or so chili threads and start talking about "BEAN CHILI- ALL BEANS< ALL THE TIME" if you keep up this stuff. You are talking about vegetable soup with flour in it, sounds like to me. Not a bad thing, but gumbo??? And I suppose, this being hot summertime and all, that you would need to use Okra in it if you are keeping it real. Okra for you Fifi? It's delicious. Nutricious. The perfect green food.