Mayhaw Man

Nah, with the exception of Ireland I don't know of another situation where they have made concessions to local mores. They think they are the best and the line of thought is that if they serve their best, regardless of location, the local population will come around. McDonalds is willing to change the menu to local tastes pretty much everywhere they go.

day old bud through 40 feet of 8 year old lines. mmmmmmm. Nah, the serving setup for this in the dome (I didn't drink any, but I am a beer guy by trade and check this stuff out like restaurant guys check out stoves and salamanders) was being served out of draft boxes and the lines are all of two feet long and the Dome require them to be cleaned once a week (which is a real pain in the ass, frankly, as I used to have to do it for Abita because the delivery guys couldn't do it because it took too much time out of their day. The Dome is very big and cleaning 6 draft boxes took a couple of hours because of all of the walking. It did give me the opportunity to take advantage and go enjoy a debris po boy at Mother's if I timed the cleaning job right ).

I can say, without reservation or fear of being wrong, that the Bud that you get in Italy is going to be as close a facsimile of the Bud that you get in St Louis (trust me, I was involved in an overseas project with AB and know the guys who run the Michelob Specialty group, which is where overseas brewing tends to end up department wise). They spend a phenomenal amount of money, time, and effort to match the flavor profile exactly (a gas chromatograph is their best friend in this effort, outside of some of the best tastebuds in the world sitting in St Louis tasting beer from all of the breweries all over the world. THey don't care what it costs until they get it right. I once HAND DELIVERED a six pack from our project in Tecate (Azteca- a now abandoned competitive product to COrona-which oddly enough AB owns a majority percentage of the parent company, Modelo, but cannot sell in the US as Barton Brothers and Gambrinus have a long term contract based on sales and the good sense of Modelo to not put all of their eggs in one basket) to Hawaii as August 3 wanted to see what the progress was. It was a very good gig while it lasted. One of the best learning experiences of my life. The idea is that when you buy a Bud brewed in Wuhan, China or one brewed in Newark, NJ that they are going to have identical flavor profiles. They don't always have it perfect, but you can bet that they are trying. One notable exception is the Bud served on draught in Ireland. The beer has been changed slightly to account for the nitrogen pouring setups in most pubs. Even Budweiser pours with alagas over there (a co2/nitro mix) and I have to say that once you get past the fact having a creamy lager is weird, it can be a very pleasant drink. Bud may not be the best beer in the world (there are many I would prefer if I were still drinking them-Guiness in St James Gate and Anchor Steam. fresh draft in SF come to mind), but I think that I can safely say that it is the best made, in terms of quality control from grain to glass. Their attention to detail, comapny wide, is mind boggling. They don't care how much it costs to get it right. Anal attention to detail is a point of company pride. Try one and see what you think. If you like it in the US you will probably like it in Italy.

Breakfast this morning was Chez Waffle. I treated myself as I had to be work at 5 and got up a little early. I love Waffle House for exactly what it is. I like watching the short order cooks and I like the mix of customers. On Saturday morning at 4:30 the spots at the bar were filled with two very distinct types of people-drunks sobering up from the night's revelry and guys heading for the docks with boats on trailers ready for a day's fishing. I enjoyed a ham and cheese omelette with wheat toast w/apple jelly, grits, and hash browns/smothered, covered, scattered. It was exactly like it always is. Dependable. It might not be the best thing I have ever eaten but it is certainly not the worst (that award goes to a place next to my hotel in Tacoma, WA, although I did appreciate the short term weight loss ). I'll be working until about lunch and then am going to go to the farmers market to see if there are any shrimp around. I am hungry for some BBQ'd shrimp (Manale's Style).

nor getting their steak anything close to rare Not unless it is a mistake. Then it's going back to the kitchen for more burning.

Actually, if you got out and did a survey of all the "hicks" that live near you I believe that you would find that they wouldn't touch raw fish with a stick or anything that even looked like sushi. Look at the average "hick" sushi joint, there might be fifteen seats at the sushi bar and another thirty of forty at tabletops. They would have to be moving the "hicks" in and out of there pretty fast to get up to speed on you percieved average. You need more chairs than that to serve all of the 'Hick" diners in any given area. I believe that the reality is that people who love sushi eat plenty of it and keep these "hick" places open (call them "enlightened, educated, well traveled hicks") , but that there are plenty of "hicks" out there who never touch the stuff and I also believe that there are more "hicks" than there are people who spend their time seeking out good sushi or even just garden variety california rolls. I believe that the average person eats no sushi. Not even a roll. Get out and ask some "hicks", they'll tell you. I see them up close and personal everyday. Some close friends, some work for me, and some are aquaintances, but I don't care where you go in this country-the average rural American is not sitting down to toro and sake for his favorite dining out choice.

That's great. Just Great! Thanks for the laugh, Mongo.

It's like this with the coons-either they eat the catfood that is outside for my full time outside cats (they are very cool twin tabbies out of the same litter) that are bigger than the coons, or they turn over my garbage, which they never do. I live in the woods, dude. Waaaay in the woods. In a very rural town in a rural part of a parish in a rural coastal part of the country. Animals happen. Get along with them or not, they are still going to be here. If someone wants to engage in a debate about feeding animals I will be happy to accomodate them. Now about the brick pit. I have modified it about 5 times in the last ten years and have it just where I want it. That thing sings like Hank Williams when it is fired up and adjusted right. You would not believe the quality of the Q that comes off of it's fiery grates. It's slow, cumbersome, and takes lots of fiddling during the cooking process, but man is it worth it. I got most of my modification ideas after looking at some of the pits in the Hill COuntry in Texas. Those guys are the masters of the pit style and all I really did was copy them. If you are interested I am sure that I could CAD up a drawing for you. It would make a nice weekend project for somebody with some masonry skills.

Aww Varmint, I love you man. Alright as many of you probably can't sleep wanting to know how the fish turned out...well....you have to wait a minute and look at this picture of a meal from a month or so back (maybe longer I am not sure when I took this) of some Sushi that we made on Friday night. We try to do this on Fridays a couple of times a month and it really is fun. My fourteen year old is getting pretty good at making some handsome looking stuff. I just let him practice on that fake crabmeat stuff until he got pretty good then I turned him loose. There is some gorgeous tuna that came from a oriental fish market in New Orleans (Kenner actually), dynamite rolls with tuna and REAL crabmeat. Fake crabmeat spring rolls (I like that pressed pollock stuff and I ain't apologizing to anybody-it's not the real thing but as long as you don't pretend like it is the stuff is o.k. on it's on. Some california rolls. There are a couple of other things there, but I can't remember what the hell they were. (this photo got the mark of approval o Torakris-I was so proud I almost burst) The point here is to show you that we don't just fry and boil down here in the swamp, we get around some too. O.K. -now for dinner. I will tell you right off the bat that my camera died in the middle of dinner prep so I will have to come back and add the pictures of most of this meal the next time I make this stuff. Robin brought home new batteries but it was too late. Sorry (and yes I use rechargables, I just don't recharge them ) I will put the recipes in recipe gullet in the morning when I am supposed to be working (last Saturday for a while, this has been a tough week, workwise). A friend brought me some beautiful redfish (2 of them roughly 18 inches). I fileted them and left the skin on. Redfish have very large scales and they are very tough. The indians along the Gulf Coast used to make all kinds of stuff out of them. Anyway the cooking method is simple. Concoct a semi viscous liquid for brushing onto the fish and put the fish over pecan wood (medium to low heat-you should be able to go about 5 seconds with your hand most of the time). Wait. Poke at the fish with your finger. Feel Firm? Good. Take pictures of it for your nerdy internet pals. Eat. Check it out- That is the brick pit that was in the yard when we moved in. It must be going on 50 years old. I did some work to the interior to make it very versatile in terms of fire movement, fire levels, and heat and smoke direction and contro, but basically the outside looks just the same. That is all fire brick made at St. Joe Brick in Slidell (about 15 miles from here) one of the biggest and oldest manufacturers of brick in the country. The thing is cool and will make a serious job out of brisket and ribs and any big hunk o meat that you might want to make more valuable. You can have your green egg, I have my brick pit. I also have a Weber as this thing can be a project for little things (like this) but I used it tonight just to show it to you. This is the finished product in a bad picture. My batteries were dying so I threw the pan down on the deck and took the last one before they conked. The sauce tonight consisted of equal parts of oyster sauce, tiger sauce, and some thick soy. It was very good-kind of a sweet and sour effect. I brushed it on and kept adding it as I went. The fish was perfect. It came right up off of the skin and tasted great (you eat it with the skin still on and it just peels right off. It is the easiset way to eat fish IMHO). Anyway to accompany this we had green salad with avacado and some very unsweet and delicious balsamic poppyseed dressing my wife concocted, okra and tomatoes, okra cornbread (trust me, if you like okra you will like this), and my strawberry ice cream for dessert. There is some of that left (that's an awesome recipe-when fresh berries start showing up in your neck of the woods or the skyscrapers try it out) and I will make some kind of swell thing and take a photo of it. The color was gorgeous. While I have been typing this some friends came by. They come by and remind me that I am abusing my cats and that I forgot to feed them. They are kind of like the SPCA, only different. This group of animal rights activists is a little more self centered. But they have cool masks. They (there are 4 or 5) come by every night and eat whatever the cats haven't. If the cats ate it all or we forgot to feed them, they climb up on the chairs on the porch and look in the window and tap. After you get used to it they are very fun to watch so I guess that I don't mind feeding them. This has been going on for years and I suppose I am feeding the babies all grown up now. Have a good night. I'm tired. Once again, sorry about the pictures, but I will at least get the recipes in the rg tommorrow.

The pressure of being the weeks blogger is weighing heavy on my shoulders as of this moment, but I will do my best ot recover. Right now as I type the Cuisinart Machine is grinding out some really good (judging by the mixed custard and fruit) Fresh Louisiana Strawberry Ice Cream. I got the recipe off of epicurious (if you are looking for the recipe it is called literally Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream). It is made with 100% local stuff-the strawberries, the milk(Smith's), the sugar (Domino), the salt (Mortons-from Avery Island-proably where your salt comes from too, and the lemons (maybe, anyway-the claim comes a litttle late in the year for me to believe it) all came from La. It should be delicious. The custard turned out beautifully (I made it last night) and cooled overnight. Strawberries were pureed along with a little lemon juice and some sugar (suprisingly little) and then strained through a fine seive. The whole thing is happily churning away and should be ready for hardening shortly (I wish I had one of those Ronco Nuclear Freezers that we have been discussing on the frozen Tuna thread. I made the custard with unhomogenized and totally delicious heavy cream from Smith's Creamery in Mt. Hermon, LA. If you look at a map of Louisiana you will see that the Southeastern portion (the top of the bottom of the boot ) butts up against Mississippi. This is one of the most sparsely populated regions in the entire Gulf South. No oil, not good farmland, no manufacturing-just one thing- a ton of dairies and milk production facilities. The area is gently rolling hills and looks much more like it would be in Wisconsin or some other very green and open pastured part of the US. This is also the area that Chicory Farms makes it's line of artisinal cheeses (Emeril fans will have seen him waving around a hunk of the Catahoula Blue and screaming at the top of his lungs when he smells it. It is awesomely strong. There are two-Mauthe's (pronounced maw-tays) and Smith's (pronounced Smith's ) that have seen the light and are now producing really high quality dairy products for consumer and restaurant use. Smiths makes this awesome butter with a stunning fat content that I will put up against Pflugra or any of it's cousins any day. It comes in two pound rolls (which I love-but you need a kitchen scale or you are in trouble when you are baking) and tastes fabulous. Mauthe's makes great creole cream cheese and has a very tasty line of cream line milk. Smith's puts some of their products in plastic bottles that look like old milk jugs-a very nice touch and a great eye catcher on the shelf. Hope that satisfies you. You people should go out, it's Friday night for God's sake.

I thought Canada was like another state or something. I knew your money was different but I thought maybe you just hadn't gotten your delivery of cash yet. : Thanks for clearing this up.

Lunch was great and the place was packed. On Good Friday nobody cheats and everybody eats fish. Lots of people taking off early and looking like they might have started off the weekend at noon. There are very few foods that satisfy like a well made oyster po boy on some great bread with oysters that are pretty much flash fried (leaving them juicy and plump, with the crust on the bivalve having a nice toothsome crunch). Oysters are one of the hardest thing to fry well and they do a great job.

What is this amazing new product? Please describe.

When I read this I suspected Tsujimura-san was making a political correct response in defense of the whole sushi freeze/fresh arena. A non-commital, keep- the-apple-cart-stable-and-no-one-will-get-offended, type statement. In other words, he's lying. Bring on the NYT Panel! Maguro Battle! Haaiii-YAH! I believe that the Japanese term for the type of behavior you are describing is "wa". Roughly translated (where is Torakris when you need her-probably asleep) it is a word that covers the idea of working towards the good of the whole and not worrying about success as an individual. There is a great book concerning the concept of wa-You Gotta Have Wa-by Robert Whiting. The book uses baseball as a metaphor for Japanese society. It's a very informative book and entertaining as well. You may well be onto something. We can call it TUNAGATE

Owen? Did it work out or are you just too disgusted to discuss it in a public forum?

Roundworms appear commonly in redfish all along the Gulf Coast (mainly in bull reds-the very large 24 inch plus size). Usually you will only find a few as opposed to an infestation. Most people scrape them away and go on with their business. And I promise that the difference between fresh and frozen in the kinds of fish that I like is pronounced. I live somewhere that gives me the ability to occasionally eat fresh tuna (on the back of a boat, with the fish still lying on the deck if I really wanted to-we did it once but I felt a lttle strange standing over a bloody yellow fin eating toro with my hands, but it was good ). We also eat all kinds of other fish that are just out of the water (I caught them or someone I know did, so the provenece is certain) and there is a difference. The frozen fish isn't bad by any stretch, but, especially in flaky white fish like redfish, snapper, and speckled trout (spotted sea bass for some of you) there is a serious difference in the texture of the fish. It is tougher on the tooth to some degree and has a litle less flavor than the fresh. If we are having a party we will, many times, have some fresh caught fish that someone has brought with them and some more fish out of my freezer or someone else's in order to supplement the menu and have enough for the party. Guess what goes first-everytime? The differences may be subtle, and with tuna, which is kind of a different animal in flavor and texture than many kinds of flaky white fish, they may be almost undetectable. But to say that there is no difference at all or that it is "better" than frozen is, IMHO, bullshit. Now I should qualify this by saying that I do not have a Ronco Nuclear Fish Freezer. Perhaps if fish goes into a freezer that can basically instantly freeze and keep the stuff far below sub zero it might be o.k. (obviously it is-apparently I have been eating it for a long time in sushi bars and I love the stuff-so it is certainly not a bad thing to do) but I still say that fresh is better (at least in my mind).

Breakfast this morning (no kids at home) consisted of a bowl of plain yogurt with some granola like cereal in it (some no name brand my wife buys at a local discount/salvage place and I have no idea what the name of it is) and some strawberries along with some press pot coffee made with Community Dark Roast (no chickory-blech!). Going with the only other co worker (management wise) who didn't take a vacation day today (Good Friday) in my whole office to have lunch at Acme Oyster House. I can tell you now what I will eat as my habit is hard to break (and why would I want to?). 1 Dozen Raw Oyster PoBoy Small Fry (they have great home cut fries-skin on, kinda thin, but not too thin-much like McDonalds original fries in the 60's) Large Ice Tea Tonight will involve something with redfish and okra (not together-I don't think anyway-although fish stew is always nice and a hit with the kids). I'll see what time I get home from work and how much time I have to work. THat is pretty much how all of our meals get figured out. The more time I have the more elaborate it gets. I like to cook and enjoy the process so I usually get carried away with the whole deal.

I just made the custard for Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream. I found the recipe on epicurious (there were a shitload of choices) and it also appeared in the June 2001 Gourmet. The reviews on it were great. I will let you know tomorrow might after I eat the entire batch (this is the only true way to judge ice cream-standing in your kitchen eating it from the container while the container remains in the freezer-any other method pales by comparison )

In the colorful vernacular of today's youth- Word!

I'll find something else that won't offend your delicate aura. HEY_I DID DO SOMETHING TODAY BESIDES SLEEP AND CUT FLOWERS! I roasted a twelve pound turkey that I got at Whole Foods last weekend. It was some kind of free range thing, on sale, and rediculously cheap. The turkey is a sadly ignored bird except around the holiday season and I like them because they are cheap and kind of like the bird that keeps on giving. By the time we are done, to paraphrase my new hero Slaid Cleaves, there won't be anything left of this bird but "skin and wishbones" and precious little of that. The meat will be torn to bits and eaten by my hungry brood and the carcass will end up as stock for another gumbo or soup. Turkeys are no big deal and I don't know why people freak out so bad when they do them around the holidays. Anyway, for those of you following along, I am from Monroe, LA and lived near there til I was 18 (left and never looked back, the door never came close to my ass), but it is the home of what I consider to be the finest general collection of southern cooking ever assembled-The Cotton Country Collection. Look for Hamaker-my Mom and my grandmother are all over it This book is my go to when I want something familiar and this turkey (with a few changes) is one of them. Just look up Marie Snelling's Turkey recipe and you will see why it looks like it does. I do make a change though-she calls for a rub with dry mustard as an ingredient and I use dry wasabi instead of the mustard. WOOHOO its's makes for some zippy skin and a nice flavor deep down in the meat. I also use a fair amount of Tiger Sauce in the rub and especially on the outside of the bird. I put it into a 450F degree oven for about 20 min and then reduce heat to 325F for whatever the appropriate amount of time is per pound (there is a great turkey chart in this book-it is like none I have ever seen-temp and cooking time adjusted for the size of the bird-it never fails). . The key to this is the bacon you are probably staring at (Richard's Bacon-once again-the best commercial pork products in the US). It is laid on top and helps to flavor the bird and to make some swell pan juices with which to make gravy. The whole thing is covered (after the 20 min at high temp) with a evoo soaked cheese cloth and baked. It looks like the one above every time if you do it right and there is not enough that you can say about having a little roasted turkey around to nibble on or make school lunches with. It's damn good. Click on the link and buy the book. You know you want it and it will help keep this thing running. Dinner was leftover risotto (onions, red bell pepper, roasted pecans) and Robin ate gumbo. I made custard for ice cream and a recipe of Martha's for pate brisee that is the single best pie dough I have ever made successfully (the unsucessful batches weren't very good ) No starving mouths tonight. One is on his way to Florida (school is out tommorrow for Good Friday-this place is about 75% Catholic-we're not but both of the boys are in Catholic School so I am learning all kinds of new holidays-I have developed a theory that if a priest worked in a bank he would never have to go to work as he would be off every day ) and the other ute spent the night out. Okra Manana (along with some redfish that a friend brought me as per my begging requests-he caught them this morning and it has been fileted but the skin is still on- it will be delicious).

Nah, you're a real gone chick! Mayhaw is the fruit of a tree that is native to the hot, humid South. It occurs naturally in swamps all over the state and alot of the South. It is delicious. My mom makes the best Mayhaw Jelly in the world. YOu will never be satisfied once you try it by any other pale imitators like apple, or plum, or any other of the lesser fruits. This is a pretty good, botanic type explanation. If you hit the web there is lots more there to enthrall you. And incidentally, I officially think that you are hysterical.

I gotta a yard full of stuff blooming. I cut these about twenty minutes ago-they're not food but I guess you could eat them-so not too off topic. If you think my photo skills are bad, my flower arranging is worse. The combination of the two is pretty awful. These are old roses, yellow irises, Louisiana Purple Irises and some little triangular cream colored flower thing that my wife will need to identify. The plant looks like a tiny iris plant and we have tons of them. The yellow irises are so invasive that the purple ones are hard to keep going. You have to plant them in a whole seperate area (or go get them out of the swamp down the street, they grow wild by the millions there). Dinner later.

Yeah the interior of these houses is interesting. I have 14 foot ceilings throughout the house. THe entire thing is framed in cypress (won't ever rot and bugs don't eat it) and skinned in the same (or was, some has been replaced with cedar in the last few years, can't get cypress siding for love or money anymore). The interior is (or was) mostly plaster walls above a wainscoating and chair rail and the ceilings throughout are tongue in groove bead board (hell, you couldn't BUILD a house for the cost of replacing the woodwork that was put into this house-which is only remarkable now because it was totally unremarkable when it was built-they were all like this). Mine is particularly large for the style (mainly because of an addition and the fact that the huge attic (the peak of the roof on my house is 28 feet from the top of the floor-that's a peak!) was incorporated into a loft kind of thing about 50 years ago). This place has 7 outside doors and I have all the screens that were on them in storage. It stays very cool even in the summer as the heat heads up for those high ceilings. With ceiling fans and an attic fan I generally can get along without running the air (it was centrally aired about 25 years ago, although not heat-I have those big old floor furnaces which work great but suck up gas like Top Fuel Dragsters!) for a suprising amount of the year. What new construction has occurred here has been carefully controlled (mostly) and fits the rest of the place. Generally it has been pretty well done and is nothing to complain about. Even the commercial construction has been done o.k. Look at that picture of the brewpub. That was a commercial building designed as an industrial plant (a working bottling brewery that we quickly outgrew) we still had to do complete board and batten and fit the style of the building to that of Rausch's Grocery across the street. The effect is that is not cute (which is a good thing-I am a firm hater of cute-ever been to Seaside on the other side of Destin-that's cute and it makes me ill) but that is just the way it is. The idea is that you can't tell what is new and what is old and it seems to have worked. Gotta go make dinner. Don't be holding your breath. I have no kids tonight and am just making something for Robin and I (although I am making ice cream) so it might be crawfish omelettes and green beans (that's hericot vertes to you gourmets) that I got today at the veg stand.

I believe that this sort of payment would result in a condition that for most of us would be known as: Fat and Happy

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.