Jaymes

Right. A chocolate-pecan pie isn't really the place to start. I'm considering trying a chocolate-pecan pie this year, in addition to the regular pecan pie, and as a variation - a change of pace. But it just ain't a celebration in the South without a Traditional Pecan Pie. Regarding the "corn-syrup-free" thing... Pecan pies traditionally call for regular ol' corn syrup; NOT the high-fructose corn syrup (a commercial product) that is the current bugaboo. In fact, I find it very odd that the recipe to which you linked, although clearly aimed at the home cook, mentions leaving out "high-fructose corn syrup," which, I personally, have never seen a home cook use. And I cannot imagine a recipe for a homemade pecan pie that would call for 1 cup high-fructose corn syrup. That makes me suspicious that (in this one instance, anyway) Eddy didn't know what he was talking about. And, although I think Blue Ribbon or Steen's Cane Syrup is preferable, it's still all sugar.

How many? And when? And do you make any other adjustments in the ingredients?

Pecan Pie season is almost upon us once again. I was asked for my recipe. Here it is. And, I'm wondering if anyone has tried a chocolate pecan pie? I love chocolate and I love pecans and I'm wondering how they would do together in a pie.

Hi Patrick, you got me thinking and doing a quick internet search brought up tons of wild rice stuffing recipes. I think I'm going to try one in my turkey this year. I'll still have to make a batch of the bread stuffing, which I do in my crock pot, for my DH. Yep, we're Southern, so we do cornbread dressing anyway. And it does usually contain some white bread crumbs along with the cornbread. But for my niece, who also is gluten intolerant, I've made a special batch. It's pretty tasty... If the rice thing doesn't work out, you might consider cornbread.

Rancho Gordo sells wild rice. I don't know how "wild" it is, but I do know it's delicious. I'm sure if anyone wants to know any more about the provenance, all you'd have to do is to email him. http://www.ranchogordo.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=RG&Product_Code=3WIL&Category_Code=GAR6#.Um61S0ko7UM

Well, I think it's an experience you should not miss. If for no other reason than it's so universally American. And, when in Rome...... As for the marshmallow thing - the chocolate and graham cracker taste definitely combine with the marshmallow to become the strongest part of the flavor profile. I'm not that wild about marshmallows by themselves. But I sure do love me some S'mores!

Franci - I see you are in Monaco, but don't know if you are a Monegasque or an American ex-pat (among many possibilities), so don't know if you are familiar with the quintessential American "cooking over fire" dessert: S'mores. Even when we're not doing a lot of cooking in our fireplace, making S'mores is a common winter treat for all the kids and grandkids. If you are an American, I have no doubt you're more than familiar with them, so forgive me for stating the obvious. But if you are European, there's a chance you don't know about them. I know there are places on this planet where you can't get graham crackers but, if Monaco is one such, you can make them, or substitute some other kind of cookie. We've done it with oatmeal cookies to grand acclaim. It might be a good place to begin your fireplace cooking experiments: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-S%27more

We were living only a few miles down the highway from you when that ice storm hit and we, too, were forced to cook in our fireplace for a couple of weeks. Funny what a difference it makes when you're forced to do it because you have no electricity anywhere else in the house. As opposed to doing it because it's kind of an occasional fun thing.

At one point, I did quite a bit of cooking in the fireplace. We had a hook that swung into it, and we could hang a pot on it. It would probably be pretty difficult for you to install a swinging hook, but there are tripod things with hooks for just that purpose. Also, we had a basket-type gizmo for toasting chestnuts, etc, that I used for a great many things. Amazon link - roaster But the first thing I'd recommend you get is an authentic "Dutch oven," the sort that was actually used as an oven in fireplaces, and in open campfires. It's got legs that you can sit right in the coals. And a flat top, so you can pile more coals on top and, indeed, use it just like an oven - bake breads, cakes, etc. As well as the more obvious stews, soups, etc. You also can flip that flat top over and use it like a skillet or griddle. Amazon Link

I've been to that Sandhill Crane Reserve. Was lucky enough to stand there and watch the cranes flying in from what seemed to be all over the world. Black silhouettes gliding through a flaming sunset. Remarkable. But nope. Going to see some snakes. Equally spectacular wildlife, to be sure, but against a background far different than a flaming sunset sky. http://www.snakemuseum.com/ Thank you so much for taking the time to reply to my query. Think we will, indeed, fashion our route to visit some of your suggestions!

You are a champ. And, yes, they do feel heavy. That is something I noticed very distinctly about my keffir limes. They feel very heavy for their size. Remarkably so.

Which makes me wonder if, had the shrimpers' wives said that since they've arrived in New Orleans they're all using an Italian-American red sauce, would Cap'n Vietnam be praised for "capturing the spirit of the Vietnamese community in New Orleans"? I think that ruining a key protein seems to be the worst sin. Overcooking shrimp until it's rubbery and unpleasant does demonstrate screwing up a pretty basic skill, regardless as to what else you do with it.

So, my little family is going to be taking a mini-road trip, from San Jose up to Lodi, where we'll only stay one night. Would love to plan a route that offers a bit of culinary exploring, ideally one route up, and another route back down. Any favorite highways and byways that offer some terrific food stops? And how about a nice place for our one night in Lodi?

Now that I look at your photo a little more closely, I see that you made your cut closer to one end of the fruit. I just cut mine right through the middle. So it's entirely possible that that's the reason why there are not a lot of seeds visible in your photo. When I cut my keffir lime more closely to one end, I don't see so many seeds visible as in the middle. And otherwise, your fruit looks exactly like mine. I'm back to thinking that yours indeed might be a particularly large keffir lime.

Me, too. The "extra veggies" thing. Not because I want a free salad. But because I really really like extra veggies. I'm definitely not a "two patty" kind of girl.

You don't have to take a trip to the South to try Southern-style cornbread. It's easy to make. It's just firmer and much less sweet than what my older relatives called, "that ol' sweet cakey Yankee cornbread." There are several reasons for that, as explored in some length in that other cornbread thread. But one reason is that Southerners eat cornbread in a variety of ways that just don't work with the sweet cakey variety. I can't imagine dragging a piece of Marie Callendar's sweet cakey cornbread through a bowl of greens or beans or black-eyed peas and hamhocks. It won't crumble and hold up well if I put it into a tall glass and add ice-cold buttermilk and sit down to eat it with an iced-tea spoon out on my front porch on a hot summer evening. It won't work well the next day if I want to crumble it into a bowl and add some sugar and milk and eat it as a cereal; heated for a sort of "cream of corn" cereal if it's a blustery, rainy day. It makes really lousy cornbread salad, one of our very favorite dishes to "carry" to a church potluck. Nope. So we get our big black cast-iron skillet, add a little bacon grease, put it into the oven until the grease is sizzling, pour in our cornbread batter, stick it back into the oven and Bob's your Southern uncle who knows a thing or two about proper Southern cornbread. Cornbread was cheaper and easier to make than white bread. It was the sustenance of the South. Sometimes, if I want cornbread to be more like a side dish with some kind of meal like fried chicken or pork chops, I'll make that ol' sweet cakey Yankee cornbread. I'll even add a can of creamed corn, or some chopped green chiles, or jalapenos. It comes out almost more like a corn pudding. But, most of the time, if I want corn pudding to serve alongside fried chicken or pork chops, I'll just make corn pudding.

Wow. Lovely. I have a Baccarat pitcher and several decanters that I've used often over several decades. Still as gorgeous today as it was when I bought it.

Pulled a lime from my keffir tree and cut into it just to compare. The keffir has a lot more seeds than yours, so I think that rules it out.

I have a kaffir lime tree. The limes do have a bumpy skin just like in the photo and they grow to about a 2-3" diameter, about the size of a tennis ball. I also have a couple of calamondin/calamansi trees. They don't really look anything like this photo. They are much smaller than the poster is describing, their skin is smooth and, when ripe, they're a bright orange. I can't say for sure that I know what this fruit is but I'd guess it is a kaffir lime, although mine don't get up to 4", so I don't know. I am positive, though, that it's not calamansi. Is it possible that it could be ugli fruit? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugli_fruit

Well, if you think about it, the corn tortillas of Mexico are basically cornbread. And the tamales are also a type of cornbread, stuffed with something (savory or sweet) and then rolled in corn husks and steamed.

I also want to recommend this older thread for anyone interested in cornbread. My family has a pretty long history with cornbread and I posted about it in this thread. Guess I could cut & paste, but hate to repeat myself.

Pimento cheese is a spread...soft, creamy, not chewy in the least. Not a solid hunk of cheese like the typical pepperjack. It's usually not very spicy, though some folks have a heavy hand with the cayenne. The little flecks of red roasted peppers add no heat at all. Yes, Shel. It's a cheese spread used on sandwiches, or crackers, or, that ubiquitous staple of Southern relish trays, pimento cheese spread into celery sticks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pimento_cheese http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6877304

Nothing so kind as that. As I said, we all gathered happily and expectantly around the chafing dish, and dug in. It was like an episode of Twilight Zone where everything seems normal at first but then you notice that something is....well...just a little "off." We looked at one another like, "Is it just me, or......"? We really couldn't quite place the flavor because, it turns out, that when pimento cheese is heated, the flavor changes. Also, the cheese bits were chunky, not smooth like queso. Finally, somebody just blurted out, "What is this?" Chilton (the Yankee feller) said, "It's that cheese and peppers stuff you all like." I said, "Did you make it using some sort of new recipe because the Velveeta & RoTel didn't sound good enough?" He said that no, he had bought a great big tub of it and then, as proof, retrieved said big tub from a nearby trashcan. When we realized he had just bought the industrial size of pimento cheese and put that into the chafing dish, we pointed and hooted and howled at his expense, until tears were running down our cheeks. Should add that he didn't find it anywhere nearly so hilarious as we did.

It took several minutes before we figured out that this Yankee feller had gone to the grocery store, bought a tub of pimento cheese, and heated that up, and served it as queso. It never would have occurred to me to melt that.....are you sure he's not on to the next big thang??? I know! It never would have occurred to any of us to heat up a tub of pimento cheese. And it's not that it was exactly bad. Just odd. Really odd. I considered the possibility that he was on to the next big thang, but it was just so strange. You should try it. A very interesting experiment. I did think to myself that it might work better for little kids that don't like the regular "queso dip," which is much, much spicier.

I'm currently living in Texas, and we recently had an amusing incident with what we call a "Yankee feller" that just moved here. He had been to enough parties here that he had become accustomed to seeing our second most-popular dip (the first being salsa): chile con queso. Or just "queso" for short. So it's his turn to provide some snacks for the office party. Not only was he not familiar with our queso before he got here, he knew nothing of our pimento cheese, either. At the party, we gather around the hot dip that looks like queso. We each grab a chip and dig in. But it was the oddest, strangest queso dip that any of us had had. I wish I could adequately explain to you how comical it was to see all of these quizzical, puzzled expressions. Yes...it was cheese...and it seemed to have some red peppers...but...but...it was just not right. It took several minutes before we figured out that this Yankee feller had gone to the grocery store, bought a tub of pimento cheese, and heated that up, and served it as queso. The feller that brought it said he thought it was just fine. The rest of us thought it was just weird. Suffice it to say that none of us ever made it again. Including the Yankee feller.