Susan in FL

Really, the eggs on shoestrings looks delicious. Sounds like a brunch some weekend soon! Thanks for the link to the recipe. I assume the shoestring potatoes are store bought frozen...? In this photo it looks like it, but there are images missing from the posted recipe and I just want to make sure. Another question I have which I hope you or someone else will answer: How do you give a link to a post so that when clicked, it takes you right to that specific post and not to the top of the topic?

I've enjoyed this thread, too, and sure have missed it.

In my adult life, four days... Twice I didn't drink wine on week nights, to cut back on calories.

What happened to this food blog? Is it over? I hope everything is OK with the writer.

LOL... Love that!

Christopher, I agree with you. I didn't post that opinion since I thought maybe I was swayed because of my personal preference for beers other than Belgian beers. There are a few Belgians I've enjoyed, but it is my least favorite style. Thanks for posting. It's good to hear it from somebody who likes and appreciates them more than I.

Jeanne didn't leave our home in bad shape. Again there is a lot of devastation close to us, but we were lucky with #3. This morning when I walked the beach, the farther south I went, the more damage I saw. Some homes were destroyed. These hurricanes have eliminated any desire I used to have for a house on the beachside. I am very happy to have these five miles between me and the ocean. I hear what you're saying about hurricane parties, etc. I certainly wouldn't drink more than the usual wine with dinner if we were going to get that kind of damage or were going to have to leave. I found it hard to believe that some people were actually going to bars with power outages to drink during these storms! During the first two it was dangerous to walk outside, let alone drive, even inland. Wishing you clear sailing, as well...

Last night's dinner was a stir-fried sort of thing with pork tenderloin, sugar snap peas, flavored with garlic, ginger, and orange zest, and finished with a little glaze of wine and cornstarch; and egg fried rice. For dessert I stopped by Wendy's and got a Frosty, and took it to the beach to sit and watch the gorgeous full moon over the ocean and savored it all. Yum and beautiful!

The good news is my camera works again. I was all in a tizzy about it, and took the battery out and put it back in and it worked. The bad news is we still haven't gotten our porch repaired from the Frances damage, and we haven't finished cleaning it up after Jeanne, so we're having to eat dinner indoors. Last night we had black bean and barley salad with cold slices of left-over spit-roasted beef. Tonight we had a margherita pizza (used Boboli crust to make it easy after a day of hurricane clean-up) and salad of watercress, tomato, cucumber, and onion, dressed with balsamic vinaigrette.

I love it!

I second that suggestion. I'm one of the many who send away for Usingers. In fact, when a hot dog tastes so good, I don't really care what's in it.

LOL!

Whoa! Good story... Sounds like it didn't feel so good, though. I hadn't heard of Everclear, so I searched and learned that it's a grain alcohol, and also perhaps a rock band or something pertaining to music. Anyway, sounds like something I would stay for ever clear of. I've got lots of good memories of snow days up north, with more warming drinks than we drink here of course. Those storms were certainly a lot prettier than this. But all of it is nothing that the sunshiney days on the beach in the upcoming two to three months won't cure. Nothing out of the ordinary tonight with dinner... red wine.

"Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season" (not possible), I started a topic called Hurricane Food during the one before this. This time we're being less creative with food and more adventurous with drink, so I'll start this topic. Do you have any memorable drink recipes or any interesting drinking memories from hurricanes or snow storms, or other weather events that kept you inside the house for way too long periods of time? It's seemingly miraculous that we have power right now, but we do and so we decided to make a cold drink with some of our leftover coffee. Rum seemed fitting under these circumstances and so I did a little online searching, taking advantage of the wonderful convenience of electricity, and found this: Black Maria ...definitely should be called a Jeanne-Something today 4 ounces chilled coffee 2 ounces coffee liqueur 2 ounces rum 2 teaspoons powdered sugar Fill a shaker half full with ice cubes. Pour all ingredients into shaker and shake well. Fill a Brandy Snifter almost full of ice cubes, and strain drink into Snifter. Mmmm good.

Divina, thank you for your input from Florence, Italy!

Another reason I haven't posted much this past week, besides being busy with the house full of evacuated humans and dogs from Pensacola, is my camera has not been working. Now they have gone back to post-Ivan Pensacola and we are getting ready for Jeanne. Hopefully life will get back to normal soon, and hopefully the camera is not terminally ill, and hopefully I'll get back to this, my favorite eG thread. We've had lots of good dinners. Last night we started with lobster ravioli. Then we had roast beef, rotisserie cooked on the grill; green beans with garlic, mint, and EVOO; and left-over coleslaw. The night before was raw oysters, grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, and the original coleslaw. Without photos, it's harder to remember what we had when, but I cooked whatever they requested and a good time was had by all.

What fun! There were 50 replies before I realized this blog was going on! It will be an enjoyed distraction while we still have power, waiting for the current hurricane. About Hot Sour Salty Sweet, I love the photos and the stories.

I have a recipe that doesn't call for a split pig's head. I'll try to find it and post it if anybody is interested. It certainly doesn't taste like the store bought, but if you get your taste buds prepared for something different than that, it's pretty good.

I want to add my thanks for sharing your week with us. It was too much for me to keep up with during this particularly busy week, and I didn't get to "interact" as you wished us to, but I will be reading both your blogs more thoroughly at a later time! Thanks again for the inspirations.

No question for me, Delaware Maid or Rapa. Cold pan, put it in there, turn the heat on to medium or medium-low and fry 'til crispy on each side. No need for butter or oil, but once in a while when we're craving grease, we'll use a little oil. Who would say yuck??? You either eat it and love it, or you don't eat it. It's one of the few things I miss from up north. Recently we found some obscure brand, frozen, here in Florida and it's better than nothing. But whenever we go up north or have friends coming down, we get some of the real thing.

Thank you for the links, Fist. My son of course hadn't been able to see any TV coverage when he left Pensacola, and since he's been here, in this area Ivan has become old news. Our local stations are still reporting on our aftermath of Charley and Frances. He didn't realize that downtown was hit so bad. It was even chilling to me, since I have become familiar with Pensacola from visits to him. If you or anybody come across any other links to good photos of Pensacola damage, and would email or PM me to let me know about them, I would be most appreciative. Does anyone know about the damage to The Fish House and Atlas restaurants? On beachside in the Daytona Beach area, we are just now having reopenings of damaged restaurants, and some it looks like will not reopen.

No tomato this time. Since Mark's etouffee recipe didn't have any, I decided not. Next time I will include tomatoes in some form. Chopped fresh tomatoes, sauce, paste... any recommendation? There will be a next time. My husband said he wants me to make it again and work on perfecting "my" shrimp etouffee recipe. I want to practice up before I serve it to my mother-in-law. It's one of her favorite dishes, and I have never made it for her. Brooks, did you ever post your shrimp etouffee recipe and I've missed it? When I made gumbo, there was nothing left to be desired. I still haven't made Brooksie's Seafood Gumbo, but I think that will be the next gumbo.

Heather, I am sooooo glad I don't have to deal with the Summer's Almost Over Blues. In all seriousness, I think that it got me down almost every one of my 50 years before I came to my senses and made it a priority to move to Florida. We will continue to eat summer-style food almost year round. We usually do hot soups and stews, etc. on rainy days (like today, but today is my husband's birthday and he hasn't yet picked what he wants for dinner!) or during January and the beginning of February. Leite's Culinaria is David Leite's website, one of the best, and David Leite is one of our very own eG members. He is a wonderfully talented food writer and recipe author. Nobody's recipe for cooking a goose is better! Leite's Culinaria has a group of recipe testers, and you can find out more about that here. I hope so!

I made shrimp etouffee tonight, and Mark I used your crawfish etouffee recipe as a "guide." Very good! I'm thinking gumbo of whatever type is more my preference than etouffee... It seems more full of different flavors to me. In the recipes I've seen and made and from what I've read on this thread, there are more ingredients in gumbos.

Or unless whomever you spend the day with eats it with you! It does sound good.