racheld
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Posts posted by racheld
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No matter the geography, a man with a black skillet, a bottle of Beau Monde and a breakfast nook has well earned his G.R.I.T.S. Guy credentials. Add a pull-out rack of orphaned Tupperware, and you merit a Ribbon of Honor.
As the resident Southun-er (or perhaps just the loudest), I'm glad to get acquainted with your area and those beautiful huckleberries. To tell the truth, I had always imagined them to be jewelly little knobbed berries, like blackberries, only huckle-flavored.
Now go cook something in that black skillet!
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YAAAAAYY!!!! Someone resurrected our prototype, our zenith, the heights to which we can all aspire (but not without a stomach pump).
It's too good to stay mustering away in the archives; it should be read annually, at least. (Though that eel part gives me the squicks).
Go, Katherine. And where've you BEEN?
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[Host's note: To minimise the load on our servers, this topic has been split. This discussion continues from here.]
I am going to a raw vegan potluck this weekend. I can't wait to report back something memorable to this thread.So----how was it? Anything memorable, unpleasantly or otherwise? I've eaten WITH vegans, but never when the entire meal was so strictly concocted.
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Calico Rock, Arkansas---how interesting is THAT!!!??? Sounds like a dream vacation---I Googled it, and the pic of the cliff formation the hikers are gazing from reminds me of the Indian profile on a Fifties Pontiac.
I love that area, but hadn't heard of CR before. Since you're transported to the South, any questions or translations from Bubba, Redneck, Fishin' Camp, Huntin' Dawg, Delta Deb or Garden Club languages spoken here and gladly supplied.
Welcome, nonblonde007!!
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Tracey,
How in the BLUE HECK did you know we're supposed to head down that way this coming weekend?
VERY quick trip, as this came up just yesterday. I'm still cravin' the real pit-stuff, and hope to get to meet the Boss Hoss.
And are you SURE you took that picture THERE? That's a mighty fancy-ass bottle sittin' next to that beautiful sandwich. Truffle oil, indeed!! Do I need to watch out for arugula in the slaw, as well?
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Cap'n Hook in Peter Pan?
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Yep.
You wanna knuckle sandwich?
No, I'm waitin' on a Double Chubby Chuck.
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Where do I sign the petition? (Though I blush to say I like the teensy little noodles, crispy and crunchy, on a salad with butter lettuce, paper-thin Vidalia, citrus vinaigrette, and mandarins straight from the can).
Just the product-which-shall-remain-nameless, with its little stuck-together tower containing bits in dark glue and bits in yellow glue, conjures "special" dinners at the table of my oh-so-talented-cook Mother, who occasionally would buy the chubby stack and serve it up with home-cooked Uncle Ben's.
Daddy would manfully scoop some of the stuff onto a huge plate of rice, and I would sort of drib and drab a bit of the "sauce" onto my portion of the little way-separate grains. We always had it with an iceberg salad with homemade pink dressing, slightly sweet and tangy with the juice from homemade lime pickles.
I have ONLY ONCE bought a can and served it for supper, in response to Chris' mentioning a couple of times his fond memories of having it at family dinners. His Mother, the Dearest Angel in the Mother-In-Law brigade, cooks three things well: Fried catfish, creamed corn, and those crinkly French Fries that come pre-cut and frozen.
And in his family of six, perhaps the allure was the scarcity of the portions divided amongst a family with three growing boys; the mythical hungry-an-hour-after-Chinese-food must have set in DURING the meal, making the fare all the more exotic and crave-able as the last bits were scraped from the bowl. That's the only thing I can think of.
So, a couple of years ago, I bought a pack. I dutifully opened, heated---mixed??do you put it all together? I forget. (Thankful smilie here)---and served.
And after a bite or two, we agreed that absence HAD, indeed made the heart grow fonder of a memory, a childhood experience, an IDEA, but not fond of the actuality.
I remember once WAY back when my children were young, and the city cousins were out at the farm for their usual Sunday afternoon visit. Glennie, the glamorous, gorgeous cousin, started to take her leave, mentioning that she was getting hungry and had supper to prepare for her husband at home.
We offered anything out of the pie safe, refrigerator or larder. "Oh, NO!!" she said. "I'm craving Chinese!" My envy button kicked into overtime, because she lived in TOWN, five minutes from the place that made the best food in the known world. They made the most wonderful fried rice in the history of the cuisine, and we always joked that if we ever became millionaires, we'd just build them a house on our farm, set them up a kitchen, and let them live at their leisure, on call to cook for us now and then.
She went on, "I've got a can of that GOOOOOOOD La Choy stuff---you just open it and stick it in the microwave," licking her Revlon-red lips. My thoughts of her elevated stature dwindled at that moment, never to return. All her gorgeous clothes and the exciting life she must lead, all the references to the country club and the golf course---all those went poof into a puddle of cornstarch-ridden, gluey La Choy oblivion.
And after they all left, despite our having lovely leftovers from our usual big Sunday after-church noon dinner, we all hopped in the car and drove the fifteen miles through those winding old country roads for some of the BEST Chinese in the history of the world.
Edited cause my heart wasn't in the right place.
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Charming----thanks, K8!!!
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New Clue in honor of watching an old favorite---I rewound four times, so I hope I heard it right:
A Mexicali Chili Barb
A Double Chubby Chuck
Two Orders of French Fries
Two Cherry Cokes
Deserted before the order arrives, to go look for liquor.
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Oh my!
There was this one episode of Star Trek DS9 where the characters are at a Klingon restaurant, and the Klingon chef slops a plate of black, squirmy, slimy worm-things which the customers proceeded to eat with relish....
GAAA-AAAACK!! And it has to be very fresh. As in moving.
They've featured plates of it in several episodes, and they all looked more edible than that potful.
I'm glad it was YOU, Nishla---your track record for beautiful food will hardly be sullied by one ugly dish. But this one DOES take the crumbcake.
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Thanks, Sweetpea, for all the wonderful tour---your pictures and descriptions have been great.
And I'd almost believe you've got yourself a Malaysian version of the Mississippi Walkin' Catfish. Couldn't see any whiskers in that photo, but it just COULD be.
It fits all the description you gave, down to the "few bones" bit.
Try them deep-fried, headless, skinned, whole, with a breading of corn meal, salt and pepper. Hushpuppy recipe available upon request.
Thanks for the lovely trip!!
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Wow. And Kudos. Sounds like it got raves.
Glad you did it, glad it's over, glad they liked it.
ps You were gonna make 250 raviolis by YOURSELF? And then all the rest?
For Fathers' Day, why not just go dive for the oysters as well?
Again Wow.
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Soooooo---what did you cook? How was it received?
Did everyone (including the Guest of Honor) ooooh and ahhhh?
Have you recovered from your labors, or have you yet to be released from the oubliette?
Empathetic minds want to know.
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I join in the "wherever it is. . ." contingent. I love it already.
If I could just walk WAY out on that FARRRRR jut of land. . .
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PS I just talked to Chris and he's bringing a pound and a loaf for supper.
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I'm so glad you're blogging again!!! And from a totally different place---you young folks just jet around the world, sampling and enjoying all the different cuisines, like it's just a trip down the street.
I'm enjoying all the photos of the restaurants, your Mom's cooking, etc. The great tableful of banchan was a marvel. And the kimchee soup
I've never had kimchee served hot---my favorite is a really peppery one with small cubes of crisp turnip. -
Love this thread!!! I, too, am a whitebread (actually cornbread, if truth be known) convert, Southern raised and deli-deprived. We had a little hole-in-the-wall "cafeteria" in an adjoining town, the "shopping" town. The small "hot-line" could always be counted on for sauerkraut and some enormous juice-bursting sausages, two per order, with a dainty string-bow holding the little garlicky garland together. Another pan held slumpy stuffed peppers, the beef-and-more-garlic bread stuffing wafting its siren-call up and over the other fragrances in the display.
Scalloped tomatoes, crisp latkes the size of thick saucers, their tiny frill-cups of applesauce and sour cream awaiting your choice, a deep pan of the yellowest noodles I'd ever seen, halves of shiny-brown baked chicken and their roasted potato-wedge accompaniments, the first and only "green" green beans of my experience, barely poached, then tossed with oil and onion and peppers. They were a far different breed from the low-cooked snap beans of our table, and had a "beany" tang to them that ours never had---perhaps the long cooking in our kitchen removed all trace of their former lives, imbuing them with the salt and hammy, porky goodness of their additions, making our beans merely the conveyor for all the rich tastes of Southern standards.
And way down on the end, after the deep-meringued desserts, the tapioca in little cut-glass dishes, the high-standing squares of kugel with its proud golden crust---the lady with a moustache to rival my Uncle Alphonse's, the avert-my-eyes-so-as-not-to-stare lady, took our measure, our unused-to-the-fare tenor, our redneckness shining through, and would ask, in a charmingly lilting accent, "RRRRRRRoll or conbraid?"
I would draw up my shoulders, cloaking myself in knowingness and all the worldly air assumable by my ten-year-old clunky little self, and say, "Rye, please."
She'd smile confidentially, reach beneath the counter, and bring forth two slices---inch-thick grayish-tan, soft, pillowy slices, crusted in gold. Onto a tiny plate they went, slid across the silvery counter to my waiting hand.
I LOVED that bread. It was Dorothy's door after a lifetime of black-and-white Wonderbread film. It was always freshly made, sometimes still warm, with a lovely silky crumb, a stretch-and-chew to the crust, and little pings of surprise when you crunched one of the seeds.
I remember that little twelve-foot counter as one of the brightest memories of my restaurant past. And now, when we enter the sanctity of the fluorescent brightness of Shapiro's, with its tantalizing scents and tastes and tables to seat two hundred, I still take up that plate of rye and bear it to my table with the same child's anticipation. And it never fails to live up to expectation.
And while not quite the towering need-a-trellis-for-support sandwich pictured elsewhere, the juicy, glistening meat with its edging of unctuous fat, the soft, perfect bread, the mustardy tang---they're all on this plate:
Along with a perfect pickle, of course.
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Too many plastic bags are overflowing the HUGE wall-hung bag in the pantry/laundry room. Our grocery has handy hanging rolls above the produce, set there like the valances on Miss Scarlett's portieres, and I wind off a great long stole of bags, wrapping them around my neck. As I choose and bag, I tear off each one in turn, til the babyseat is overflowing with poufy tops spouting above the lemons and avocados and tomatoes shining through the thin plastic.
Then, the meat department, where little floor posts hold vertical rolls for those pesky leaking trays of chicken parts, pork chops, and icy naked birds. The mental illness on my part comes in trying to get each tray situated just SO in the bag, the price scan facing the clear side of the plastic, though I KNOW that little old magnetic thing can read through walls, if necessary. Two like items are set back-to-back, as I try to position the barcode as well as possible between the bits of green writing.
And at checkout, my worst bit of brainburn comes when they say "Paper or Plastic?" Though there are signs blaring everywhere touting the use of paper and the evils of plastic, I say "Plastic." Then the compulsion comes to blurt the same mantra I say every week, "If your paper bags had handles, I'd use paper. I have to carry the groceries up the steps and down a flight of stairs to get to the kitchen, and with paper, I can carry only one bag at a time." Do I really think that's going into the cashier's head as she peeps the items past the sentry? Do I think she cares?
Nope, and I say it anyway, to assuage this need-to-excuse. She could care less if I requested FIVE bags per item---she's not bagging the stuff. And still I choose plastic, still I explain.
No dogs, no diapers, no need for the flimsy produce bags. They go into the trash, wadded into the space of a peanut or stuffed down the also-nondegradable Dr. Pepper bottles which make up part of our garbage. The nice thick white ones are for saving, for all sorts of uses---birdcage cleanouts, for carrying lunches or snacks, and all the other quick-carry needs.
We used to live in a papermill town, and we got used to the permanently-stationed mill workers who seemed to take turns standing at the checkouts, chastising any and all who dared to choose plastic over paper. A long litany of paper's virtues and jobs for the locals and the evils of plastic drowned out the muzak on many a shopping trip, and the picket lines outside WalMart were a constant gauntlet to be run on every visit.
I'd rather have paper---I like a neat array of them slotted between the freezer's side and the baking-pan rack. They're handy for lining cake pans, for draining fish and hushpuppies, for dredging chicken to fry. Something about that fold-down and shake, with its little cloud of flour emerging as the folds are unfurled, reminds me of cooks in my past, and the repetition of such an age-old ritual rounds out the generations, somehow, in a very satisfying way.
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May 14? Is this a stereotype, in that we'll guess Idaho or Ireland? Or a funny-shaped bit of nature's wit, so we'll guess the wit of Fresser or srchb or Carrot Top?
Given the number of new fruits and vegetables surfacing on all fronts, it doesn't even have to BE a potato. But if it is, it's an odd one.
And even WITH the clue, I haven't got one.
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Already offered and answered, WAY back. A very memorable line, and I've never looked at chocolate mousse the same again.
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My first post, please be gentle with me
I love you already
More, please. Any thread, just keep posting.
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Or redleaf. And frilly Simpson. And best of all, if you can get away with it: the tiniest, just-unfurled leaves of curly mustard, with the bittery-ness not QUITE developed, just enough to punctuate all the mild shyness of the little lettuces.
My venerable salad spinner is a battered old Tupperware-ish thing, bright orange dinged here and there by errant knifeblades or droppage onto this slate floor. It is missing one picket of its little cog-fence inside, and so does not spin perfectly unless clasped tightly to your bosom just SO as you madly whirl the top knob. As the spin slows, it drawls to a slow close with increasing clackety sounds, like some old tractor ending a hard day in the field.
This sublime dish was the favorite of a neighbor, called "Wil-did Leddis Sallid" by her family. She sometimes threw in a chopped boiled egg or two, and the lagniappe was the saved-til-last treat: dipping that big ole tablespoon into the bowl, hearing it scrape gently across the crockery, and spooning up some of the luscious, vinegar-y, bacon-y bowl-drippin's onto your cornbread.
A wonderful restaurant here makes the dressing, bringing it out hot and fragrant in its own little pitcher, for pouring onto your spinach salad, which already has slices of the whitest lengthwise mushrooms, rings of red onion, and a little dish of crumbled bacon for sprinkling after the dressing goes on. It can be made into quite a production, each addition leading to the next, with the whole warm dressing/cool salad mixed at the last second and eaten while the flavors and temperatures are still at their best.
I'm thinking a table set out under our new carved-out arbor space, candles flickering in time with the fireflies, and wide soupbowls of this salad set before each guest, a gentle-poached egg atop, with a quick grind of pepper, and some thin cornbread wedges snuggled alongside for sopping up the last delicious juices.
I can't BEGIN to think what course could follow that.
Yep. Tis the season.
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Is #154 Jamon Jamon?
I totally missed this guess yesterday---but no---it's not the right answer.
Favorite lunch meat
in Food Traditions & Culture
Posted
I like most everything from the deli counter (save souse---an unfortunate leaving-out-overnight in a warm grocery store, with the melted result cascading over the slicer, the counter, the floor is still a vivid trauma), but my favorite "lunchmeat" of all time has to be the five-pound CAN of a Spammish mystery meat given GIFT-WRAPPED by the janitress at my office to DS#2 upon the occasion of his high-school graduation.
It looked vaguely like a 40's Army ammo-case, and could, indeed, have housed all manner of weaponry and ordnance, the great heft of that long can requiring carrying clasped to your chest like a baby with a shiny little key attached. The turning of that key took muscles cultivated by years on the farm, and went on for a long time. As the squarish pinky-gray log was coaxed from the more-than-a-foot-long tin, it fell with a decided smock onto the platter, lying there with little flecks of aspic clinging to its slick sides.
We cut it into approximate pound bits, bagged four and froze them, and gave the remaining one its deserved pomp and splendor by cutting it into cubes and skewering it on those fluffy-panties toothpicks with cherry tomatoes, pineapple bits, or cocktail onions. Several strong mustards on the side served to counteract the rich, not-quite-Spammy flavor of each bite.
We took pictures of the platter in all its glory, and Queen Ethel almost wept with delight at the image, as well as at her lovely little Tupperware of the goodies that I carried to work. I REALLY wanted to ask to read that Thank You note.
That STILL goes down as #1 on the list of "Strangest Gifts I Have Known." Right up there with the set of Odor-Eaters received by a neighbor, folded into a birthday card from his mother. And he was a VERY clean person.