Mayhaw Man

I went last night to support a friend that had to go get a "difficult"family member out of jail. The guy has a substance abuse problem (a huge one) and has been in and out of jail for a long time. Very sad. But his brother is a good friend and a decent guy so I went along to help him pass the time. Anyway, while taking this guy home, he regaled us with tales of food in the lockup( he was there for a month). It sounded much like food in an actual hell- The Waiter-jailbirds The Chef-Jailbirds Companions-Jailbirds Breakfast-unsalted grits, canned fruit, instant coffee, a piece of "sausage" two days a week, biscuit Lunch-baloney sandwich w/mayo only-fruit-weak green kool aid-beans and rice or baked chicken (salt and pepper only) on Sunday Dinner-baloney on a hot dog bun, a few chips, beans and rice a couple of times a week. That's it. Sounds like hell to me. There are guys who spend years in the place eating this same stuff over and over again.

Bud's aging in the secondary stage (completely fermented but off of the yeast, mostly) is done under pressure (roughly 5 psi) and the beer is allowed to rest at a slightly rising temp from regular fermentation temps. This virtually eliminates all hint of detectable diacetyl in the products. It also allows for a fair amount of natural carbonation to develop in the beer, meaning that the potential for a nice, creamy, small bubble head is increased. No matter what your taste preferences are, I will stand on a beer box at St. James Gate or in Burton on Trent and scream at the top of my lungs that, technically, Bud is probably the most consistantly made beer in the world. When you spend any time in the brewing culture there (this is completely seperate from any mass marketing annoyance that takes away from beer lover enjoyment) you start to realise that the people who make the stuff care about what they make almost to the point of obsession, and that obsession starts in St Louis at the desk of the big cheese and heads on down all the way through the brewers, cellermen, and packaging guys. They are crazy for doing it right. It is pretty admirable, in my opinion. It never was my favorite quaff, but at least you know what you are going to get from bottle to bottle. The ads for the day old beer running here on local radio explain the whole delivery process and it seems doable, if not a little silly.

What I actually said, if memory serves, is that while I support their right to make an honest living, I am not very comfortable with it and I also don't feel like I need to feel obligated to tip when I go to the john at the House of Blues (the place I was referencing). Considering the price of beverages at the "House of Rules" it seems to me that tipping in the bathroom might be the definition of the term "they got me coming and going". The other part of it is that what do people do in the rest room that would possibly demand a breath mint? (actually, I don't think that I want an answer to that )

The "green" character is probably due to acetaldehyde. Though Bud denies it, the beer has long been associated with beyond-threshold levels of the compound; it is quite often present in krausened beers, which if I'm not mistaken Bud is. It has a "green apple" aroma and mild taste, in minor quantities. As to the "day old - fresh" idea: water is indeed fresh after a day. Doh! (Sorry, couldn't resist - my glasses are craft-ale colored)... Paul Bud is indeed krausened. The flavor profile of fruitiness is considered to be a desirable part of the product. The other part of the flavor profile of what most people consider as green beer is diacetyl ( flavor often described as buttery), which is pretty much non existant in all A.B. products, as they spend a fortune on both tasting and gas chromatograph testing of each batch of product..

I'm thinking baking powder, but it would seem like the amount might be a bit excessive-(but I've never made this, obviously, so what do I know?) edited to say that I should probably remove the dumbness, but I will just leave it as it is no secret about me and dumbness.

One of my proudest accomlishments in the recent past

Welcome to the Big Leagues, Redtressed. I believe that you will enjoy it here. And no whine of dragon flies. Where I live they are drowned out by cicadas, crickets, and frogs. To those that think the middle of nowhere is quiet, I reccomend that you come down and hear the cacaphony that is life in the swamp. It is loud here. Especially after a warm, spring rain, like the one that seems likely today.

I guess that I was always hoping that my first cover quote in the WSJ would be on something other than bathroom attendants. OTOH, I pretty much subscribe to the theory that any press is good press. Won't my mother be proud, "my son, the toilet expert. ugghh".

30 minutes is about right. Still worth it.

Copy the link you want to add to a post from the header in the link's website Click on the grey box above labeled "http://" Paste the link (starting with www.) in the first pop up Title it in the second Hey, Hey-you too are posting handy links for the enjoyment and amazement of others! Nothing to it.

Agreed, and if we have an eGulleteers Bass Masters Classic I want you in the boat. My point, way on up there (besides I was annoyed by the rediculous name calling and stereotyping that certain less broad minded members seem to resort to when they are trying to make a point) is that there is no way that the sushi consumption in this country adds up to a pound per head for every man, woman, and child in this country as I don't believe that anywhere close to a majority ever touch the stuff. I WAS NOT saying that they wouldn't eat it, hell I live in a part of the country where offal is a regular and honored part of the cultural food heritage and a place where all classes of people enjoy a crustacean that lives in ditches and eats dead stuff. I certainly believe that with the right exposure and with the right availability you could get some of these people to eat something as simple and some rice with a hunk of fish on top. I am probably a pretty good case in point. I did not eat a bite of the stuff until I was 23 and had just moved to New Orleans. I happened to work right around the corner from the first sushi joint in town and went in there with some more enlightened individuals (thinking back on it, this story proves my point about anybody who is exposed to the stuff will probably like it-the guy I was with was frim West Point, MS and while he is still one of my best friends and a bright and well educated guy he can still pretty easily be described as a "redneck")and they showed me the joys of raw stuff served well. Within a week sushi became my go to meal when I was in a hurry on the way to work and I wanted a quick snack. I love the stuff now, the stranger the better, bring it on. I think most people in this country would be the same way, given the chance. I knew you would find this. I'm with you and as far as sushi goes I pretty much feel like the Japanese described in your post. I just want the stuff to taste good and to be good for me. That seems like a pretty simple thing and most of the time my experience with sushi has left me pretty satisfied that I have acheived both of those goals.

I believe that this request would be a text book example of "hauling coals to Newcastle". Colorado has more breweries per capita than any state inthe country. There is good beer falling out of the trees and flowing in streams there (although Coors got in trouble for the streams thing, I thought that it didn't sound too bad-but it is apparently hard on the trout).

That's very knd of all of you. Thanks. I enjoyed it more than you did, I promise. Nope. It would have been a pleasure to meet you but I was on the northshore of the Lake in Covington at the Acme location on Boston St. across fromthe old Courthouse. It is just the same, same menu, same oysters, same tasty fries, etc. I am really glad to have it over here. There are a couple of decent raw bars here though, Morton's in Madisonville on the Tchefuncte River is one place that I particularly like.

Good Luck. Looking forward to it! Brooks

If nothing else the week that I have spent doing this little narcissistic cataloging of my daily life on the internet has made me come to realize just how much I love this place and my life and how much I appreciate where and the way that I was raised. I live in the South. I was born here, raised here, and I imagine you could get pretty short odds that I will die here. No one in my family has ever lived for any appreciable time north of Camden, Arkansas or west of Austin, Texas for the last 175 years. I have traveled often and far, both to other parts of this country and to foreign ones. I lived in another country for a while and found it alluring and beautiful, but I still came home to the humidity, the pimento cheese, and the iced tea. Where else would I fit? I’m a 42 year old man with politics that are ridiculously (and impractically) to the left and a sense of humor that most people would describe as broad, varied, and inappropriate. Hell, it’s all funny to me and if you can’t make fun of it what good is it in the first place? We tolerate (some would say cultivate) eccentricity down here like we tolerate the heavy air and the heat, so it’s not much wonder that nobody pays people like me much mind at all. The South and my upbringing are just part of me, I can't help it and I clearly like to tell other people about this part of the world and it's people. My parents aren't much different, even though I don't think they give it much thought. I like the fact that the first person who I ever knew with a record collection was my Dad, who had (and still has, jealously guarded from his two oldest boys) the complete Hank Williams collection on 78’s (he saw Hank get married in New Orleans-twice in one day as there were two shows- at the Municipal Auditorium and though he has done much to be proud of in his life, buying those two tickets still ranks as one of his highest achievements in my eyes) and he has every Johnny Cash album released up until about 1972. He still listens to that stuff and doesn’t have much use for “hot country”. My old man is a pretty cool guy. I like that I can remember my grandfather stopping his old Chrysler (it had a great under dash a.c. that would occasionally shoot hunks of ice out of it) at the very edge of the Delta in Mer Rouge, LA at the foot of Red Hill in 1967 and telling us grandchildren to hop out of the car and “go get some of that corn there across the ditch”. To this day I don’t know if we were supposed to be pulling that corn, but I sure remember shucking a grocery sack full of it on his porch and eating our potentially ill gotten gains slathered in butter and salt at the same table that now sits in my kitchen. I like thinking about the long drive from Monroe to Mobile on old Hwy 80 and then to US 98. The regular mid trip stop was at the Roundtables Restaurant in Mindenhall, MS. (now sadly closed) where we boys would be allowed to fill our own plates with all the fried chicken, butterbeans, purple hull peas, mashed potatoes, and yeast rolls that we could stomach with the only admonition from my mother being, “Brooks, don’t be a pig!” Those lazy susans fairly groaned with the food I came to love. Lord,I wish I had a picture of that. Talk about food porn. I like knowing that my children hunt with me and their uncles on the same land that my grandfather took us to when we were boys. If there is anything better than sitting in a cold duck blind with your boys and your brothers I have never done it or heard of it. I love the South because there are plenty of people here who I can identify with, no matter their socio economic circumstance. Family, music, food, God, and friends come first and the order of these items is completely interchangeable at any time and nobody with good sense questions which one of them you are putting first at any given moment. Contrary to what many of you might think, politics are more like a sport down here than something to ruin a relationship over. Sure it’s serious business, but most of us are still willing to pass the peas and cornbread when it comes time for lunch. We can all go vote when we’re through eating. This has been a great deal of fun and a pretty good experience. I appreciate all of the kind words and encouragement that have been offered here. I hope ya’ll enjoyed this as much as I did. When you come down here make sure that you come with an empty stomach and an open mind. My part of the world can fill your soul as well as your stomach. Brooks Hamaker Abita Springs, LA 4/11/04 I suppose that StInGer will be along shortly to start a new blog. It should be interesting. Hasta Luego.

Dinner Tonight. This wraps it up for me. I will be posting some pics on here of a huge party I am going to tommorrow, but they will just be follow ups to last Sunday's low key affair, so this is officially it. Tonight's menu consisted of shrimp straight outta the Gulf (or to be more exact, I believe Lake Borgne). These shrimp were so fresh that there was NO FAT squishing out from behind their heads and the only smell that they had was the smell of salt water. They were pretty perfect. If you ever get the chance to eat TRULY fresh Gulf Shrimp-don't miss it. I feel truly blessed that I am able to do this more or less year round. We cooked a few on the grill with the italian sausage (locally made/with seeds-very good) and they were great. They barely have to be cooked. We had the aforementioned grilled sausage (although it was really for sandwiches later in the week), a great salad with some of the lettuces that I got at the farmers market on Wednesday (they were still perfect, I guess they are only 3 days old as they got picked Wed. before market) with strawberries, toasted pecans, and my wifes balsamic poppyseed dressing. We had baguettes of Leidenheimer's bread to dip in the delicious pan juices from the shrimp and Strawberry Ice Cream that I made some more of. It was all pretty wonderful and I loved it and so did my boys. So without further adieu: Really Fresh Raw Shrimp-they were swimming last night BBQ Shrimp in the Raw-Shrimp, garlic (5 heads total), lemon juice, Crystal Hot Sauce, Lea and Perrins (Justin Wilson used to call it Lea and Pear AN- two famous cajun guys ) butter, and evoo. That's it. Broil under the broiler (duh) for 10 min or so. A really good salad. Good balsamic and strawberries were made for each other. Eat. Dip. Let the joyous juices run down your arms. Giggle and thank God you're alive. Or at least that's what we did. Here is the whole gorgeous feast. And yes, we eat like this alot. Really. Here is a shot of the ice cream. Once again-I highly reccomend this recipe that I referenced above. Hope you enjoyed it. I know I did.

Not as scary as KB Scotch. That stuff good for drinking and stripping paint out of hard to reach cracks in furniture (it was also handy for reaching hard to reach cracks in the sidewalk with your face )

I hope that some of this helps. It's questions like this that make the internet the amazing thing that it is. The last place in New Orleans after K and B closed down all of it's many purple doors and sold out to Rite Aid was Schweickharts Drugs on Carrollton Avenue near the uptown streetcar barn. The Schweickhardt's held out until the last one retired and now they too are just a humid memory on the streetcar line. Nectar, as best I can describe it, is a red syrup (hence the name nectar) that taste like wedding cake (almond and vanilla, primarily) and there is a company that has begun making it after a several year absence. I can't find it on the web and it is Saturday night. but I will be on the job and get back to you Monday. I should be able to get you an address to order. I believe that they are calling themselves the New Orleans Nectar Company,, but I could be wrong. Regards, brooks

Owen, It's a complicated issue. This is a response in the "baltimore" thread that Bourdain started to soomething that came up. It kind of has the answer. I am currently trying not to burn shrimp in the broiler so this was easier than retyping: It's not exactly the same thing, considering that much of the blue crab that you eat in Maryland as "Maryland Crab" and many of the oysters that you eat as "Blue Point" are from Louisiana and Texas (ask to see the tag on the sack or the box (box more likely in this case as that is how the "selects" are usually packed. We have no shortage of anything seafood wise to speak of. The issue here, particularly with crawfish, is price as it relates to labor. Crawfish just happen. They are every damn where. Ditches, lakes, drainage canals, rice fields, river basin, the ornamental ponds in my backyard. We have lots of water (65% of the entire watershed for the entire United States passes within 25 miles of my house). The problem with crawfish here (and what I believe you are referring to) is that the labor market in China is such that they are able to grow and PICK the boiled or steamed bugs and pack them into pound bags (although Chinese Crawfish almost are never packed by the pound, but in 12 ounce bags as they are banking on most consumers expecting to be getting a pound and not taking the time to read the fine print (and it is FINE) much less expensively than we can do it in packing houses on the Gulf Coast, even at minimum wage. This problem of inexpensive imports is what is hurting our crawfish industry here, not a shortage of the raw product as has happened in Maryland. Crabs are a little different for two reasons-the Gulf Of Mexico and it's brackish bays and bayous continue to produce crabs in very healthy numbers. #1 males go for about a buck, cooked, at any local grocery here and are and have remained inexpensive and delicious. They are easy to catch in a trap and most people I know here in this tidal parish catch their own off of their own or some friends dock. I do. The second reason that crabs are different than crawfish is that they only occur here, the blue crab is not something that can be grown economically or well elsewhere. The cost of labor in picking crab meat is very high. It is very skilled labor and takes a meticulous and delicate touch to do it at high speed in a commercial packing house. Along the Gulf Coast it was primarily natives who took care of this job, and primarily women as they have more skill and a more delicate touch at this onerous task, but right after the VIet Nam War there was a huge influx of Vietnamese Immigrants to SOuth Louisiana (three reasons-we're primarily Catholic, we still have some French speaking culture left down on the bayous in the central Gulf part of the state, and there was a huge contingent of ex Vietnamese army helicopter pilots who found work in the then booming oil fields giving rides to rig workers and moving around equipment) and their wives and daughters started filling the spots in the picking houses. The cost of crabmeat (particularl the highly prized lump portion of it) is all in the labor-the raw product is comparitively cheap. You can make a decent living if you can pick the things fast enough. The picking houses are much like the old cigar factories. Someone reads or there is some other audible entertainment to keep your mind off of the paring knfe in your right hand and the crab in the other. The houses are fascinating places to visit. They don't exactly offer tours, but most of them are happy enough to let you have a look if you ask nicely. So, the reason for the reasons for the crab shortage in Maryland (sad though that is) are not quite the same as the shortage of native crawfish tail meat in Louisiana.

Bux, I agree with you completely. I was only pointing out what I think of when one uses the generic term "sushi". I do believe, however, that Steven is correct when he says-

Proving that I have become a complete net nerd I have photographed my fabulous coffee drink for the world to admire and as an added bonus I have thrown in a shot of my ice cream maker whirling away as my homemade strawberry ice cream was freezing last night. You can also thrill to the appearance of my Waring blender, a big ass bottle of Mexican vanilla and a razor sharp 12" Sabatier Slicer (at least 20 years old, I prefer it to many of my chef's knives-easy on the hand and well balanced) that has been rehoned and sharpened to pretty damn sharp on my nifty Lansky knife sharpeners (the ads for these often appear at the top of the knife threads on eGullet). That book in the background is "Martha Stewarts Pies and Tarts, which will figure in either tonight's or the last entries Sunday. Ice Cream in the making Delicious slkinsey inspired coffee drink (thanks Sam!) Edited because I don't close parenthesis very well (parenthetically speaking, as I often do both in print and in live conversation) and because apparently I can't spell ad.

I have been enjoying the Times Picayune while consuming a frozen coffee concoction I made with inspiration provided by the iced coffee blog. I didn't have any syrup so I used Ghiardelli Cocao Powder and it turned out just fine. Here is what I did- Ice Giant shot of espresso like drink made with a steam blower machine thing Malted Barley Powder (I love that stuff on ice cream) Domino Light Brown Sugar Cocao Powder I blended it all up in my swell deco Waring Blender until it was a frothy sensation and poured into an old coca cola fountain glass (the 1/2 hour glass shape) and enjoyed it outside while reading this unbelievably hysterical column by my friend Chris Rose-whose sense of humor is at least as warped as mine (plus he gets a full time meager salary and benefits from the Picayune). His old columns are always a fun read if you like this. Read it through. He turns a good phrase. Richard Simmons beats burly biker to an inch of his life and the guy cries like a girl! Dinner later (with photos, I have recharged the trusty batteries )

Thanks for taking the time to do this. I am sorry that I had to publicly embarass you in order to get you started. That's me. I'm there. I'm going hunting for a cool new vacuum rig in the Amazon right now!

So what the hell are we talking about? When I think of sushi, I am thinking of sashimi or nigiri, although I think that as far as my "hick" diatribe goes that I was speaking of pretty much the whole generic sushi joint menu (rolls, cooked eel, fake crabmeat, roe, omelettes, sashimi of any sort, the whole nine yards). I stand by me premise that the average person in this country won't touch the stuff and that most of the people populating this website have a warped view of what Joe Lunchbucket (thanks Mr. Burns) eats when he has the expendable income and the time spend it. Barbara Hansen of the LA Times has an interesting piece about a very nice website that makes for some interesting reading on the various types of sushi. That LA Times food section is some piece of work.

Score! My wife just called and said that she got 16-20's (large to medium large) shrimp for three dollars a pound. Ya wanna talk fresh? These were hauled out of the water last night by the shrimp man's brother and he is selling them today out of the back of his seafood truck at the Covington, LA farmers market. WooHoo! I love BBQ'd shrimp. All of that garlicky-buttery deliciousness and you don't even have to peel them. A lazy gourmet's delight.