racheld

And how many eggs did they cook all at once, and what size pan? It would seem to be quite a conjuring trick, trying to baste or remove them all while they're perfectly `a point (sorry---my keyboard doesn't have one of those language thingies). I just had visions of a big pan, with dozens in it, clamoring "Me! Me!" at the same time, whilst the hapless spoon-wielder juggled madly, dipping and splashing, to rescue the little fellows before they were hard-boiled. Fresh from the wonderful pics of your repast, we consigned ourselves to the Sunday brunch at a rather pricey hotel this weekend. And of course, Eggs Benedict was what our tastebuds desired. Suffice it to say, the ice sculptures were lovely and the coffee was superb. As were the fruit selections, the madeleines, the croissants. But alas, the eggs. A perfectly wonderful poacher-person's artistry was lost--nay, smothered, beneath an insipid white sauce reminiscent of Campbell's Cream of Chicken. It was too thin to remain in place, and provided a see-through glaze over the eggs and flabby, thin "Canadian bacon"---hah! whilst forming a moat around the rusk and heading for the rosemary potatoes. No lemon, no cayenne; just a floury, watery, tasteless glue which served only to contaminate everything else on the plate. Take that back---the "garnish" overall was a violent sprinkling of a brightly-colored pepper/paprika of some unfortunate bastardage. So, on this cold and rainy night, the poaching pan will be at the faintest murmur, the yolks at room temperature, the perfect amount of fresh-squeezed lemon awaiting. Tender cohesion of yolks, butter, juice, with a reverent sprinkle of salt and cayenne. A gentle toasting of the muffins, quick sizzzz of both sides of the bacon in a hot skillet, removal and trip of quiver-yolked eggs to drying paper, then assemblage, anointment, Heaven. A mimosa as we move softly about the kitchen, the poached asparagus will receive its own golden cloak, the grapefruit's mask of pale golden sugar will be kissed briefly by the broiler, and we will sit down. And Proust himself would have loved those madeleines.

Got it!!! Ne plus ultraness to the nth degree...that's it! Thanks for the lengthy explanation. Somewhere in my reading past, there was a series writer who described the tastes, aromas, succulences, unctuosity, mouthfeel, mouthwateringness in the most elaborate detail, and his favorite word for the best of the best was "cockaigne." I've always remembered that word, though I may not have spelled it correctly. Wish I could remember who he was---does anyone recall anything like that in readings of past years?

Gorgeous Food!!! Isn't it wonderful to see young/novice cooks get that "I GET it" look on their faces???!!! Everything looks scrumptious, and your recipes are much appreciated. The terrine will be on my schedule for this weekend. Yum. PS......I cook food, read about food, write about food, and have somehow missed the onset of the use of the word "sexy" in reference to comestibles...is that the latest "in" word in menu usage? Just wondering how it came about.

Yesterday, Dear Hubby's annual b-day brunch. We usually have it on Superbowl Sunday, and everybody can go home and vegg out in front of their own TV's while we take a nap and eat leftovers for dinner. That would have made it fall in February this year, so we settled on last-Sunday-of-January. And forget the nap. One guest, a loquacious bachelor friend, stayed til after 6. Hubby baked a lovely ham on the Webber for about four hours, and it fell in juicy creamy-pink slices, just floating off the knife onto the platter. I made a broccoli/bacon/Jack quiche, a red and yellow pepper fritatta, a carb-treasure of a hashbrown casserole, laden with coarse-grated Colby and Gruyere. Hearts of baby romaine with raita; bocconcini, grape tomato and basil salad; tiniest steamed baby carrots in lemon vinaigrette. A cut-glass cakestand with strawberries like fat rubies circling a bowl of ricotta sprinkled with Turbinado sugar; a tall compote filled with bright golden sticks of fresh pineapple. A thick rope of Kielbasa roasted skin-crackly and full of savory juices, served with Rothschild's grainy raspberry honey mustard; cathead biscuits in a big black skillet, with homemade threeberry jam. Dear Daughter made a fresh peach cobbler and a Caillebaut ganache birthday cake. Endless latte from my new Senseo, Kona blue in the French press, iced tea in tall goblets. Everyone stayed for hours, til almost twilight, then went home to either a carb coma or a cheese seizure. 'Twasn't breakfast, but 'twill serve.

About ten years ago, we lived in a small apartment complex. The Manager was a young single woman, cute and perky, but a little STRANGE. She wore a white-tie-and-tails ensemble (no pants, just black stockings and Mary Janes) to the Christmas party. She kept a wide smile on her face at all times, speaking in lisps and mumbles, even in the face of reported flooding or fire, including the time she shepherded the EMT's to our neighbor's door after the dear elderly woman had a heart attack. But the time she took the cake--no, scratch that; there was no dessert--was at the gathering out on the little sports area for the Summerfest, which consisted of a volleyball game (four participants), a frizbee toss (one frizbee, two tossers) and a pig roast. Signs and letters-under-the-door were put out a couple of weeks in advance for Saturday noon, and quite a few of us accepted. They had hired a professional for the pig cooking part, a nice young man who wheeled up with his big barrel-shaped grill/roaster and set up shop just where the enticing smells would greet us at 5 a.m. Being from the South, and transported to Indiana, we hadn't had really good pit BBQ in quite some time. At noon, we walked down the block, following our noses to the wonderful aromas and beer-inspired laughter and chatter. For the thirty or so of us gathered, the half pig lying atop the grillbars looked quite adequate. As the party progressed, that pig could have joined the loaves and fishes and fed thousands. The chef started slicing; a line formed. We stood expectantly, inhaling the fumes of rich, smoky porkiness like pilgrims breathing the air of sanctity. We held our plates, watching as the first crusty slices met plate and were carried away to the buffet for the requisite sides of potato salad, coleslaw, and baked beans. Then, after the first dozen or so people had received their servings, there was whispering amongst the chefs, as the several guests remaining in line in front of us started to mutter amongst themselves. We craned forward to see, and our eyes met a disappointing, break-the-heart-of-the-hungry sight: the pig was bleeding. Not just pink-rare juicerunning, but bleed, seeping out between the knifemarks and flowing out onto the huge cutting board. I don't know if the chef was on his first run, or the fire was not regulated correctly, or the timing not calculated correctly. It was AWFUL---the bleeding armadillo cake in Steel Magnolias leapt to mind. The chefs managed to carve around and snip off pieces which were tender and edible; they did serve everyone who was in line, but after having our lunch manicured off a practically-raw carcass, we were just out of the mood. We took a couple of bites of the crackly skin---tasty, but the UGH was already implanted. We said our thank-yous and headed home to make a sandwich. But the finale was the buffet---as we stood with the "hostess" saying goodbye, I watched an assistant refilling the three "serving dishes" with pototo salad, slaw, and baked beans straight from grocery-store deli containers. I had to look twice for the actual images to register. The three square yellow containers on the buffet next to the open cellophane packs of buns all had the word "crisper" in script on the little silver margin at the top. Familiar, yes. We had one just like them in the fridge in our apartment!!!

There's a wonderful article on Slugburgers by Rheta Grimsley Johnson, Mississippi's BEST writer of articles-on-all-things-both-arcane-and-interesting. I read it several years ago, and it featured sounds, sights, smells, tastes, reactions and aftereffects of her first and only exposure to Corinth's most famous culinary creation. I had hoped to find her archives somewhere online, but the only site wants to sell me a book from e-Bay. Oh, well, trust me, it was a lovely bit of writing, bringing to life every greasy, salty, mustard-clad bite. You could almost hear her arteries begin to harden. My raisin' was in the Delta, and we had never heard of the "hill" folks' delicacy, though our local Milk Bar---guess we were too rural for a complete "Dairy" title--sold something similar. The little one-room building, whitewashed all around, had so many items and prices printed in white shoe polish on the INSIDE of the windows that you could barely see the workers within. You walked up to the little screen-flap window, picked your poison from a long list of cholesterol, paid your money, and promptly had the screen slammed down as the cashier turned to yell your order at the frycook standing two feet away. The refrigerator door was opened to reveal several tall stacks of half-inch pink checkers, each separated by a small square of tornoff waxed paper. One of these was grabbed by the paper and slapped upside down on the grill. The hot, dusty parkinglot air began to fill with the tongue-aching scent of sizzling meat as the cook threw two bun halves into the grease deposited on the grill by decades of burgers. It never mattered to the cook if you got two tops or two bottoms, bun was bun; you didn't care either---you just wanted that sizzling and frying and mustard-smearing to be done, with a nice slice of onion and a coupla rings of salty dills slapped on. The meat, by this time, had been spatula-smashed with all the weight of Miss Evvie's muscular right arm, flowering into a bun-sized, thin circle with crisp, lacy edges. Greasy spatula saluted top of bun, the lot went into a crisp crackle of waxy paper with the fancy pinked edges, and you received your prize, seizing it to your bosom like a holy relic. You backed away, averting your eyes from the waiting hordes, lest they lose control and wrest your long-awaited treasure from you. A dime into the machine around the corner, the sissssssss of an ice-filled Pepsi bottle, and you retreated to the grimy picnic tables in the shade of the back lot, sinking onto that splintery bench like returning from battle. Rustle of paper, scent of onion-mustard-meat approaching your lips, then Heaven. As I said, I've never tasted anything called a Slugburger, but I remember those filler-filled burgers of my youth with great pleasure, and with regret for the youngness of it, the bright-eyed lusty joy with which we wolfed down whatever was put in front of us, the uncaringness of the days before cholesterol and triglycerides were invented. That Milk Bar owner built house after house, renting them to many families, and she built them one 25c hamburger at a time. Slugburgers: no. The most memorable sandwiches of our lives: oh, yes.

The small volumes with the cardboard covers and little plastic spiral edge are my very favorites, I think. They contain fourteen recipes for Green Bean Casserole, all printed so as not to hurt anyone's feelings. There are omissions, transpositions, and hilarious typos, in addition to some really outlandish combinations and seasonings. But the little books contain the best of each cook's repertoire, gleaned from old McCall's and Farm Journals and from under the hairdryer. Mammaw's recipe for pound cake and Sawdust Salad, Mrs. Pund's uncooked fruitcake, the various alchemies which convert a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom into veloute, bechamel, whatever is required---those are the foundation of a kitchen and a cook's reputation. They represent the downhome, solid, family-around-the-table values which are disappearing like vapor from our homes and towns. When we were first married, we lived in a little furnished house, vacated by an elderly lady who went into a nursing home. Her lone cookbook was one of the church-published variety, and when we moved, I asked the Realtor if I could buy it. She gave it to me, and it's still my favorite cookbook among all the hundreds on my shelves. On the front cover, in the shaky, still-elegant script of an eighty-year-old hand, are the words: "Butter Scot Pie. Look on page where pie are."

My FIRST post, about everybody's first CFA---tastes and pickles and soft buns and steamy chicken----you're missing something folks!! The SAUCE, the SAUCE!!! It comes in a teensy rectangular packet, and you have to ask for it at the counter...they're dicey about putting out containers of condiments. Just say, "Two sauce, please" with grammar-be-darned ease, and snag a little pack of mayo while you're there. Leave that warm sandwich in its little foil sauna and open the sauce, tearing the little lipped lid all the way off. Tear the corner off the mayo, and set both of these important accessories on one of the little folded napkins at your table. THEN, and only then, do you lay the softly steaming packet in front of you. Gently split the sandwich wrapper, tearing it just so at the bottom, so as to make an irregularly-shaped nice silvery plate. Now you're cooking. Lift the top bun off the chicken and rearrange the pickle, if you choose, and IF you were lucky enough to receive more than one...it's like a double-yolk egg; finding two slices means GOOD LUCK all day. Then, pick up that little box of sauce and gently dribble a teensy bit onto the inside of the top bun. Squeeze a bit of the mayo in a pretty little pattern mongst the red bloblets, and put the top back on the sandwich. You can even pick up one of those crispy wafflefries and spread the sauces neatly if you're dainty. NOW: squeeze the remaining mayo into the remaining sauce in the little cup. Break a waffle and stir the red and white til it's a lovely browny pink. Crunch down that baptized bit of crisp potato, close your eyes, and give thanks for the six days a week the doors are open. Eat sandwich. Dip fries at will. Go to counter for more sauce and mayo---you're hooked. When Life hands you lemons, they make pretty good ammo if you throw them hard enough.