Mayhaw Man

Abita Amber is a lager. I oughta know. I was the brewmaster there for a very long time. Yes, they are sold outside of Louisiana. Colorado-I don't know. I will find out for you though.

Man! Get a load of that cheese! (as an aside I think that showing off your cheese is tacky as many of us do not have it available at the corner store and get intensely jealous at the sight of such a fine plate of the stuff )

Me too Thanks for doing this. It's about time the blog left North America for a while. What are your shopping habits? Do you shop small every day or do you occasionally hit a giant market and load up on staples? And more importantly-do you like bacon? (I base all personal relationships on the answer to this question )

Fun Finnish Facts For Fabulous Finn Fans

Anybody who wants to meet can p.m. me and I will try to get everyone together and announce it here (it seems to make more sense than going back and forth here. Currently I am thinking around noon on the first Saturday will be a good time. we can set a place (that early in the day it won't be too crowded and we can make alternate plans for later if anyone is interested). And Bleachboy, I would be happy to meet you and your wife-I believe that it is my turn to buy! Brooks

We hardly ever discuss nuclear physics or the political situation in Finland, but that is because I don't think any of us are well versed in these subjects. Anything else is fair game as long as the discussion is held in a civil manner.

I do-look at my above response (which I have conveniently attached to this in order to keep you from tiring yourself out with all of the pesky scrolling )

I like it in Vietnamese coffee as well, I just don't care for it much in a stand alone brew. On the other hand, if I liked plenty of milk in my coffee I might like it more, but I prefer it black (or pretty close to it-maybe just a tiny bit of cream).

IMHO-none

I hope that Joe bought a decent cup of coffee while you were here. That wouldn't have been the property in the Tchopitoulas Corridor (bordered by Race St and Annunciation) would it? ANyway, back to the chicory- Chicory is another left over vestige of our French Roots (as opposed to our Spanish, British, and African roots-we have a lot of roots as they are supporting a pretty damn big tree ). It was a popular in coffee in France about the time we were under French rule and it seems to have kind of stuck here. Community, CDM, French Market, etc. all sell dark roasted coffee with chicory and they sell alot of it. Coffee consumed in New Orleans by natives tends to be dark roast with an addition of chicory out of local preference. Even in nearby Acadiana (Lafayette area) you will see most people drinking dark roast, but without the addtion of chicory. Chicory, incidentally, is the stalk of the endive plant and I could be wrong but I believe that the sources for it are mostly imported. I don't drink it very often. I like my coffee strong and black-but not chicory. My father always said, "If I wanted my coffee to taste like it had boiled acorns in it, I would go out and rake the yard." I have to say that I kinda agree with him. Interesting little piece on Chicory in the Coffee review

That sounds like it was alot of fun. Did you happen to take any photos of your cooking setup? Brooks

Yeah, Yeah Whatever. 250 different things and not a hot dog, hamburger, or funnel cake in the place! Plenty of good seating still available.

Russ, They've got them two ways on the menu and then pretty much have at least one of those Galitoire's, "bring me something interesting with a softshell in it" specials all of the time. They do them as Softshell Meuniere-which is about as traditional as it gets in butter laden New Orleans and they do straight up fried softshell, which definitely has a crust-much like the one I described above-single dip in egg wash and into seasoned flour. Fried in very hot oil for a whatever the minimum of time it is to get it golden. Galitoire's fried soft shells are pretty damn tasty. The trick to doing them at home is getting the egg wash right and not going crazy dredging them in the flour. You are going for a light, crunchy crust-not a big thick goopy thing like fish and chips. I have never seem the actual recipe, but I would be very suprised if they were using a batter rather than a eggwash/flour combo. I don't know anyone in town who uses one for that kind of food (clearly many types of oriental fry is done this way). Batter-liquid stand alone stuff that fish gets dunked into in order to form a crust while frying. This is not the same as eggwash/flour combo. Edited to correct meuniere before anybody noticed.

And I respectfully disagree as well. I love fried softshells, when they are done right. The trick is to make sure that coating is not too thick and does not take too long to cook. Softshell crabs do not require much in the way of heat to get them done through and through and the mistake that many people make when frying is to coat them too thickly-by the time the coating is cooked, the crab is overcooked. This is a bad thing. Frying soft shells is one of those things that should require training and a license before you are turned loose on an unsuspecting public. At the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival the nice folks at Galley Seafood have been serving up delicious and perfectly fried softshells and placing them on New Orleans french bread for about 15 years. This is a good start to a great sandwich. The addition of some good tartar sauce, a little hot Zatarains mustard, and some crystal hot sauce is just about all anyone can ask of a sandwich.

Anybody know what very happy maufacturer of pedometers they ordered these from and what their ticker symbol is? I bet that salesman got something nice for that sale of a lifetime.

Another great way to cook these things is to put them in a water type smoker under a fair amount of heat (much higher than normal smoke temp-if you have the ability to adjust the temp, anyway). They don't have to be cooked for long before they are bright red and have a nice smoky taste. Delicious. I also use a fish basket sometimes (one of those flat two sided screen things) and cook them over a charcoal or wood fire). Once again delicious. I also like them sauteed in butter along with onion and garlic and some zippy peppery seasoning (your choice-I like Crystal Hot Sauce and coarse crushed black pepper). They're kind of hard to screw up. A fresh softshell is a good thing.

But of course, everyone's sense of humor is different.

You can try some of these guys, but it is just a bit early (especially in light of this little cool spell we have had this week). Softshells that are sold commercially here in Louisiana are the by roduct of the crab catch and alot of hard work for the producer. Suring the summer they are very plentiful (as are regular blue crabs) but they never really get down to a bargain. I used to have a guy in Venice, LA who was a homebrewer and he would trade me softshells for brewing grain. It was a great deal, I hated to see it end. Good article explaining soft shells How it's done and you can do it yourself if you want to When buster crabs are pulled out of crab nets they are seperated from the rest of the catch and taken back to the dock to be put into shallow tanks in which they are allowed to molt. These tanks must be checked every couple of hours as a crab that has lost is shell cannot move until it begins to harden again and the rest of the more mobile denizens of the molting tank will make a snack out of their helpless neighbor. Flying Soft Shells Seafood Online Quality Crabs from Lake Ponchatrain Hope this helps. Next weekend I will be enjoying, at exactly 6:45 on Friday p.m., a softshell crab poboy from the Seafood Galley Booth at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. I will most likely do the same thing for the next 7 days. I love that sandwich

Andouille is essentially chopped smoked ham, seasoned (seasoning varies with the maker) packed into a casing. Foodie is right in that it is not exceptionally full of fat. There are a number of sources, all of which do mail order, that will allow you to try a couple of native sausages: Poche's Meats in Breaux Bridge Hebert's Specialty Meats Jacob's World Famous Andouille Comeaux's Meat in Lafayette John Folse Company Store Out of all of these I prefer Poches for the sausages and Hebert's for the stuffed chickens. Shipping is pretty reasonable and service seems to be acceptable at all of these places. Try em out.

Alrighty then. Who's in? Here is an old article that appeared in Offbeat about food at the Jazz Festival that could have been printed yesterday (except for the drinking way too much part, that was another life ) Eat like Me!]What Big Shot Chefs (and me) eat at the Jazz Fest 10 days to go. I am giddy with anticipation

I've got some time to kill and don't have to work Wednesday (am driving a kid to Destin to spend the rest of the week and I am going to spend the night and have dinner at The Smiling Fish-going to get up early and get back to work by noon) so I will answer Soba's family dining queries as they relate to the Mayhaw Household. We cook virtually every night. I would like to say that this is because of our thrifty habits, but a fair amount of the monthly budget ends up in food (judging from some of the heated replies in a thread involving household food expenditures we are in the upper scale foodwise for a family of four-but it is my hobby and my passion and I suppose that my family enjoys this more than if I spent my expendable income on collecting stamps). And I do manage to have plenty of stuff prepped and in the freezer or pantry to speed up the process. Very little gets wasted. I always have several kinds of stock ready to go and will often take a little time off and prepare things to go into the freezer for those days when modern life interferes with full on food prep. Usually I decide what's for dinner, but I am always willing to take suggestions or requests. Usually has more to do with I start dinner before all of the little Mayhaw's get home in the afternoon (I work from 6-3 mostly). The likes and dislikes thing is certainly taken into account, but for example, my youngest doesn't like okra much and that means he is just missing something on his plate-not that we skip it. HE WILL however, eat okra and bacon casserole (who wouldn't? ). If we have guests that I know have eating requirements that are important to them, I will always try to accomodate. No advance notice however means no accomodation and no apology. Religious requirements are one thing I will always try to respect. Vegetarianism-hell, I've always got some carrots. Let em gnaw on that. Not really, we eat a pretty broad variety of stuff. Tonight was pasta carbonara (with some awesome pancetta from Central Grocery in New Orleans). The night before was shrimp creole. Friday night we are making sushi at home for a crowd of friends. Who knows what will be next. Generally I am inspired by whatever looks appealing at the farmers market, the butcher, or the seafood shop and go from there. No I don't clip coupons (but I wish I did) and I respect those that do-as long as they aren't in front of me in the grocery store (then I don't love them so much). We do about 1 big grocery trip a week, 1 Sam's (Costco to some of you, same thing) trip a month, and a couple of trips to the Farmers market, butcher, seafood place a week. Whatever seems interesting. It could be school and grades, could be my wife's life in the world of ne'er do well hippie artists, it could be music (my kids have very broad tastes-which is good because otherwise they would be miserable), or lately it could be politics of the left wing variety. There aren't any rules as long as the conversation is pleasant and you don't talk with your mouth full of food. We usually have it together by about 7:30. Sometimes earlier but not very often. Everybody at the table most nights, although we do have a third dining area in our house in a large addition (I believe some of you would call this a great rom, I call it an energy absorbing, hard to cool and heat, money pit-27 foot ceilings are not all they are cracked up to be heating and cooling wise-oy! ) that the boys eat at when they are too many of them to comfortably fit at the table (or when parental patience for fart jokes is at a low ebb) . We have extra guests more often than not, kids and adults. I would not have it any other way. I love to serve food to other people and we have been blessed with good friends that are more like family in many ways, so why not feed them? Formal dinner parties are rare, although we do like to blow it out with the whole service every once in awhile. It's fun to get out all of the good stuff sometimes. We have all kinds of informal parties and go to lots more. Kids are generally always involved, although we are reaching an age point where many of our friends children have moved on to school or whatever and many others (like our own kids) have kids that don't need much watching. THere was a point when every invitation read:kids are more than welcome, but if you bring them, you watch them. I was always o.k. with that and we took them just about everywhere. At this point I am glad we did. They grow up too fast to leave em at home with a sitter all of the time. Whenever I try new food, at this point. They eat pretty much anything you put in front of them and lots of it. If they don't want it, I let it slide-right down my throat. Waste not, want not. The preparer of the meal has the option to refuse after dinner dish duty at all times (although I do them alot-I kind of like washing dishes and loading the dishwasher). Whew! What are you doing, writing a friggin book?!

And it still is. I had one this afternoon exactly like that. Auntie Em-did you ever order any nectar?

These two photos are of BBQ shrimp before and after. The only ingrediants are shrimp, butter, olive oil, coarse chopped garlic, lemon juice, black pepper, salt (just a little bit), and worcestershire. This is the way I learned how to do it and they are pretty close to Manale's (close enough anyway, they are damn good and there are never any left). Before. About ten minutes later. It is all a matter of adjustment. Make a few batches and see what you like. I will post my recipe in recipe gullet (there can be no copyright violation here-everybody and their mother makes this stuff-it would be like copyrighting a cup of coffee-which of course is ossible, but would be difficult to prove uniqueness)

I don't know anybody who buys roux, but most of the people I know have at least a little respect for both themselves and others. Anybody can make the stuff. There are two ways to do it. Low and slow, hot and fast. I prefer hot and fast, the method popularized by Paul Prudhomme during his reign at Commander's Palace. His kitchen staff made it by the ton and developed a name for it-Cajun Napalm. If this sticky flour and oil mixture flies out of the pot and onto your body it will burn the hell out of you instantly and when you react and try to wipe it off you will just spread it and burn yourself some more. Be careful. This batch was made with 1/3 cup peanut oil and 1/3 cup AP flour. I did not clen the cottom of the pan, or deglaze it. I went straight in and started scraping. By the time the oil is hot and the flour starts to brown, everything will be loose off of the bottom of the pan. I often mix two kinds of fat (such as you suggest), just remember that this will most likely lower the burn point of the roux so you will have to make sure that you are constantly scraping and stirring-which you should be doing anyway-in order to keep it from buring. I have just added the flour and oil to the pan where sausage has been browing. The grease from the sausage was removed, but the pan was not scraped in anyway-hence the floaties in the oil. I am about 5 minutes into the deal over wide open high heat. THe pan is clen and smooth and the chunks left over from the sausage are breaking up, adding to the smoky goodness of the roux. THis roux is ready for my purposes. I could have gone a couple of shades darker, but did not want to for this particular gumbo. Sausage and Chicken should have a dark, but not black or burnt roux. I heave in the vegetables to stop the browning of the oil. And that's it. Simple and quick. Maybe 10-12 minutes from start to finish. Don't buy bottled roux. I don't even know if Sandra Lee would reccomend it.

The best night at Sal and Judy's would be an off night at Mosca's. Maybe 15 years ago I might have agreed with you, but now Sal and Judy's is a building with the name only. Yes, they still do a booming trade and have lots of regular customers, but the food is not in the same class or nearly as interesting as Mosca's. Of course, this is just my opinion and many people's may differ, but I regularly drive the long drive from the Northshore to Mosca's. I only live 15 min. from Sal and Judy's and I can count on one hand how many times I have been there in the last few years. Also, with luck, Lacombe is currently an hour from downtown (whether you come through Mandeville or Slidell) and given that traffic on the Northshore is now among some of the worst in the country the drive may take much longer. For those of you in much larger urban areas that are laughing that I claim the traffic is so bad, think about this- All roads in and out of New Orleans are bridges-one wreck and it's all over for the rest of the day sometimes. There are now over 200,000 people living on the Northshore that either cross a 24 mile 2 lane bridge with no exits or the I-10 (there are a couple of more tiny roads with even tinier bridges, but for all practical purposes they don't count). The place is a zoo in rush hour. A very slow moving zoo, over water. This was a dumb place to build a town-below sea level, more or less on a sunken island, in a flood plain right in between two of the biggest rivers in the world.