Jaymes

As opposed to us southerners. Who would refer to all pop as "cokes." And even waitresses in the south would ask, "What kind of coke do you want? We've got Pepsi, Root Beer, Sprite and Orange Drank."

"Ceremonial"! Perfect description. It is, isn't it?

That's the worst, isn't it? When they "correct" you, with a superior air? Frankly, I'd resent that, even if I were wrong. This particular thing happened to me not long ago. Of course, if you actually say "BrooSKEHtah," you get "corrected" a lot. But not usually in so haughty a manner as a few weeks back. The waiter was positively condescending as he stressed, loudly so that people at the next table actually looked over..."It's 'brooSHETTa.' Would you like some 'brooSHETTa'?" To which I responded, "Oh, do you ever put zooSHEENEE on it? And I think I'll have a glass of SHEE-an-tee with my meal tonight." But the one that really gets me is the "hal-a-PEE-no." It's such a common ingredient now. Seems like folks could have picked up on the correct pronunciation ages ago.

Yes, best bedtime snack ever from the "old south" for sure. Back when you could actually get real buttermilk with the little yellow flakes in it, this was a favorite family evening treat. You'd make sure that buttermilk was ice cold before you poured it into the tall glass of crumbled cornbread. Take your iced-tea spoon and head out to the front porch to sit a spell and watch the barefoot kiddos playing "Mother May I" and "Red Light Green Light" in the gathering dusk on the front lawn while the lightening bugs danced around them. And how about "Cornbread Cereal"? Did you ever have that? Just crumble your left-over cornbread into a bowl. Pour a little whole milk or half & half over, then maybe a little sugar or molasses. Or some Georgia peaches. Best cereal ever. How about Cornbread Salad? I still make this all the time to take to potlucks. Never fails to surprise and please. I love Cornbread Salad. And you know, that sweet cake-like cornbread just doesn't work well for any of these applications. You need a sturdy, dry cornbread to hold up to the additions. I'm not saying I don't like sweet cornbread ever. I think it's a pretty good dessert with butter and honey or maple syrup. And it's an okay side dish with a really spicy main like a bowl of chili. But not for sopping up the pot likker from a mess o' greens, or beans, or black-eyed peas and ham-hocks. When it comes to the traditional supporting role that cornbread plays on southern tables, that sweet fluffy cornbread doesn't cut it. It may be tasty, but it just doesn't play well with others.

What passes for winter here in southeast Texas (and early fall elsewhere) has arrived and, with it, our family's annual yearning for thick and hearty soups. So tonight, made the Golden Lentil Soup from Zov's marvelous cookbook, page 98. This soup is wonderful, rich and comforting. It makes you forget that you're "supposed" to be eating lentils because they're so good for you. You'd happily eat it, no matter what. Recipe here: Zov's Cookbook - Golden Lentil Soup I just noticed that the recipe to which I linked doesn't mention the optional variation that Zov suggests in the book. Melt about 2 TB of butter in a small saucepan until it's foamy. Then stir in about 1 tsp or so of dried mint. When the mint softens, add it to the soup at the last minute, just before serving. I never have dried mint, so I do this with fresh mint from the pot on my front porch. I put about a tsp or so of the butter/mint mixture in the middle of each individual bowl of soup as a garnish just before serving. It's an interesting and delightful addition.

Yeah...loved the Vienna Sausage win. "My daddy loves these." So she pulled up her big girl pants and did Daddy proud. Instead of just standing there whining.

Andie, one day I would like to cook with you! I am currently drooling. Hell, I just wanna eat with you.

We smoke a lot of fish on ours. Salmon is particularly wonderful. Shrimp and sea scallops and chunks of white fish on sticks. And don't forget veggies. Zucchini, bell peppers, yellow squash. Cut into large slices and brush with olive oil. For onions, halve them, and brush with butter as they roast. Make veggie shish-k-bobs with a large button mushroom on the ends.

Well, as the kids say, OMG. I can't believe that when discussing the most-popular pot beans of Texas, I forgot about "Ranch Style." If you're invited to the home of a Texan for Mexican food, or barbecue brisket, sausage, ribs, chicken, etc., you will indeed get a bowl of cowboy/Mexican-style charro/borracho/olla beans. But if you're invited for steak, the chances are excellent that you'll be offered some "ranch style" beans to nestle up to your T-bone, alongside your baked potato with all the fixin's. It's been my experience that, rather than in a separate individual bowl like charro/borracho beans, ranch-style beans are most-often served drained somewhat, and in a juicy spreading pile on your plate. The idea is that you cut yourself a piece of steak and you waller it in the ranch-style chili-gravy juices a bit before popping it into your mouth. Every Texan is familiar with the iconic black "Ranch Style Beans" can. It's got a grinning man logo on the top right-hand side of the label, along with the words "Appetite Pleasin.'" But when I first encountered them, back in 1969, they said, "Husband Pleasin'" and they sure were. Which was why I had some. I was living in the Philippines, where I had just met and married my native-Texan husband. Of course, the subject of foods that we missed from home often came up in our conversations. For my husband, it was Ranch Style Beans and Pearl Beer. So I had his mother send me a six-pack of each. That night, before he got home, I opened the beans and poured them into the saucepan to simmer. I took the tell-tale empty cans out to the big garbage bin in the garage to hide them, and waited for him to come home. I don't mind telling you that I wasn't much of a cook in those days so, when hubby came in from work, he was rarely greeted with enticing aromas wafting about our small home. Most often, he was greeted with me, dressed and ready to go out to dinner somewhere. So when I told him that I had found a recipe for Texas Ranch Style Beans and had worked on them all day, there was no way he was buying it. He dumped out the kitchen garbage can and, upon finding nothing, headed for the big bin. "Ah HA," I heard him holler through the open door to the garage. "I knew it. Here they are!" I've made them from scratch many, many times since that first experience so long ago. For those of you unfamiliar with Ranch Beans, they're actually very reminiscent of chili, with basically the same flavor profile. If you are someone that thinks of chili as a savory, spicy beef dish that has some beans added, think of Texas Ranch Beans as a savory, spicy bean dish that has some beef added. Most of the Ranch Beans recipes call for pintos, but you can make them with red beans, chili beans, kidney beans, etc. You cook them in beef broth. I always add a little beef as well - stewed chopped chuck, or BBQ brisket deckle, or browned hamburger meat. This is yet another dish for which I don't have a formal recipe, but you can find many of them on the web if you google "ranch beans" or "ranch style beans." The Homesick Texan does a pretty good job of explaining about these beans on her blog, although I note she doesn't add any beef to hers. Honestly, she should fry up about 3/4 lb or so of good-quality hamburger meat, and maybe a handful of chorizo or other bulk sausage, and try adding that. I'll bet she'd never go back: The Homesick Texan Ranch Style Beans I got rid of the husband a few years ago, but I cook up pots of these wonderful homemade Ranch Beans quite often. I've heard he's still eating his out of a can.

I definitely would not say that. For me, anyway, cooking up a big pot of beans is such a "by the seat of your pants" sort of endeavor that it's impossible to come up with any kind of definitive routine recipe/method. I do usually add a clove or two of garlic with the initial water, but often nothing else until the beans are tender, and sometimes not even then. I have a clay bean pot (olla) that I got in Mexico, and I'll put in the beans and water and put that pot on a low fire and add nothing else to it at all until it's done, when I sprinkle in a little salt, and then serve the beans in individual bowls with some fresh pico de gallo or salsa cruda made with onions, chiles, cilantro and tomatoes on the side to garnish. But sometimes I will saute onions, celery, jalapenos with a little pork fat or bacon or something and some cumin or cilantro or other herb in the bottom of my big stew pot and then add the liquid and the beans. I don't usually add salt until the beans are tender, but sometimes I cook them in chicken broth, which definitely has salt. I will say that no matter what, I don't ever add acid (like tomatoes) until the beans are tender. I heard once, long ago, that adding acid will cause the beans to never soften, although I've heard others dispute that, so who knows. I will say that what seems in my view to be the number-one most-popular bean dish in Texas is Mexican/Cowboy-style pot beans, and the main way to cook them is called Charro Beans, or Borracho Beans (you can google either term for recipes). They're usually made with pintos or Peruana or Flor de Mayo or Flor de Junio, but you can make them with basically anything. There are as many recipes as there are bean cooks, but for the most part, you cook the beans in chicken broth or water with a clove or two of garlic, until tender. "Borracho" means "drunk" in Spanish, so this denotes the addition of beer to the cooking liquid at some point. Then, after the beans are well-cooked and tender, you fry up the "seasonings," which usually include lard, some sort of chiles, onions, more garlic, cilantro, perhaps bacon or salt pork, and tomatoes. After the seasonings are fried, you add them to your pot of tender beans and simmer another half-hour or so. These soupy beans are always meant to be eaten with a spoon, in order to slurp up the juices. They are never served in a heap on your plate in the manner of sweet baked-baked beans. They are either served in bowls (at home and in many restaurants), or in paper cups or something similar (at picnics, etc.) and a spoon. The mistake many folks unfamiliar with this type of bean make is to drain them, and then try to eat them with a fork. So much of the flavor is in the juice, and it's lost if you don't slurp it up with the beans. Fascinating subject. Never-ending possibilities.

I'd love a recipe for these beans (and cornbread). Sounds like the kind of thing I might enjoy come winter! As you are heading into summer in your part of the world, it will be some time before you get to the kind of weather where a pot of soup beans are so enjoyable. Cornbread you can make any time. But how about pot beans, Andie? Any tips for cooking up a tasty mess o' pot beans?

Well, this year, like every other year in memory, I'm making caramel popcorn. It's attractive when packed in small plastic bags. It packs well. It ships well. And, thus far anyway, everybody seems to like it. Caramel Popcorn

Right. Note to self. If you're trying to come up with a clever and attractive and appetizing food dish, probably best not to fashion it in the shape of something that's already pretty disgusting all by itself. Like a half-smoked cigar butt.

I just want to say that although Steve's "runner cannellini" beans may not be the Italian white kidney cannellini beans that traditionally go into Pasta e Fagioli, as I said in an earlier post, they are what we use. And that soup is so good. One of our true favorites around here. I'll admit that I used to use canned cannellini beans for that soup. Canned seemed to be about the same as the old cannellini beans I could find in American grocery stores, and that's when I could find them, not something I could count on. Steve's runner cannellinis are light years better than that. So if you're fond of that soup, and finding fresh authentic Italian cannellinis is an issue, I'd suggest you try Steve's.

I'd love a recipe for these beans (and cornbread). Sounds like the kind of thing I might enjoy come winter! There really isn't a "recipe" for the southern beans and cornbread dinner. Just want to add that although there's no official "recipe," different cooks do have different methods. I'm hoping Angie chimes in, because that girl sure knows what she's doing, and she always has some great tips. In our family, though, it seems like most of the cooks had one or another "secret ingredient." Many put in a pinch of nutmeg. My grandmother added thyme and crushed red pepper. And our fancy aunt had a truly secret ingredient that nobody could exactly figure out. But right before she died, she told my cousin that she (the fancy aunt) had gone to Bermuda on on her honeymoon years ago, and ate beans laced with black rum and Bermuda sherry peppers. So she fessed up that that's what she had been adding ever since. She had been buying the black rum at her local liquor store. But as for the sherry peppers, she ordered them from these fine folks: Outerbridge Bermuda And now, so do I. All you bean buffs should give them a try.

I'd love a recipe for these beans (and cornbread). Sounds like the kind of thing I might enjoy come winter! There really isn't a "recipe" for the southern beans and cornbread dinner. Basically, you just get any kind of bean you like (but not green beans), or maybe black-eyed peas, or whatever, and stew them up with whatever sorts of flavorings you like (such as garlic, or carrots, or "the trinity" or whatever), maybe a piece of some sort of pork product, like bacon, or sausage, or ham, or pork chops, or fatback, or salt pork, or whatever (or leave that out if you don't have any or don't like it or can't eat pork for some reason). You get your beans all nice and flavorful and soupy, and then you make up a pan of southern-style cornbread (which is usually flat and not the sweet cake-like cornbread favored elsewhere, so that it's good for dipping into your beans). You serve the beans in a bowl, with a big spoon to slurp up all that good bean juice, and your cornbread alongside. Be sure to have a bottle of Texas Pete or Louisiana Hot Sauce handy if you want to spice it up a bit. A very traditional southern dinner, especially when it's getting on toward the end of the month, and your cupboard and wallet are bare.

According to the folks that are watching "Last Chance Kitchen" (available online), wherein chefs booted from the main show get a cookoff with other booted chefs for a chance to return, Chuy bested the big guy, Keith. So Chuy isn't necessarily out of it for good.

And although I hate to jump onto the "order more from RG" bandwagon, too, I can't help but put in a wee plug for the "Oregano Indio." I think it quite possibly might be the best, most flavorful herb I've ever encountered. It's certainly in the running. We only discovered it about five months ago, and we've already gone through three jars. Just this past Thanksgiving, I even put a pinch into our traditional Southern-style green beans. Yowza. Oregano Indio

And... Insofar as Texans being "very inflexible about their definition of chili," although I wasn't around in the days of the vaqueros and the cattle drives north, I've been told that the original Texas chile was basically nothing much but beef simmered long and slow in a little water, or maybe beer if they had it, with a variety of chiles - no tomatoes, no beans. Much like what we think of as New Mexico green chile today, to which nobody seems determined to add beans, and about which nobody gets upset. If Texans are proud of their original dish, and want to stick to and honor that tradition, I just cannot see how anyone could conclude that makes them "anti bean" - any more than Italians saying that a proper carbonara never includes cream makes them "anti dairy." I'm looking forward to the next episode, and something else to speculate about. Maybe barbecue? That should be equally interesting.

So are you suggesting that the producers/editors should have aired a disclaimer delineating all the other ways that Texans routinely use beans so that viewers wouldn't reach an incorrect conclusion about Texans and bean habits in general based on one episode that showed a few Texans eating one dish? _______________

I like this SpaghettiWestern. It's like my feeling about beans and chili, quite apart from any competition rules about beans in chili, I prefer beans separately, and not on the side but at another meal. For dinner, we often have that old Southern favorite, beans and cornbread. Sometimes we serve greens alongside, but the beans are the meal, the star. We do put beans into soups, most-notably, RG cannellini beans into Pasta e Fagioli, but for the most part, the only time we serve beans as a side dish is in a bowl of charro beans with Mexican food. We do occasionally make those sweet baked-beans as an accompaniment to fried chicken, or ham, or pork chops, etc., but the bean taste is almost non-existent after they've baked for hours in that sweet tomato sauce, so I don't really consider them in the same category as a bowl of simply-simmered RG beans. They're more like a pile of sweet, flavorful mush.

Doesn't $5.50/pound seem a bit excessive? They have a much richer flavor than Canellini or great Northern beans . Are they worth the extra money? It is all a matter of perspective I suppose. I notice lots of food items that cost as much as twice the price of similar items and they taste better but not twice as good. All things considered, to me, $5.50 is not a lot of money even though it may be high compared to more common beans. It's that all their beans are $5.50. Even ordinary beans such as Canellinis, Pintos and Yellow Eyes. Plus $12 for shipping to East coast. I'd sure hope for that much money they're extra special beans. I was at the local coop today and none of the bulk beans were more than $2, except (organic) Canellinis for $2.29. Got some of those and some Black Eye Peas. Since we're on dry beans, here's an article in the current issue of Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener that's interesting. White Runner Beans – the Northern Gardener’s Lima The author, Will Bonsall, is well known for his work in Maine when it comes to organic gardening. I am a regular customer/consumer of Rancho Gordo beans, and definitely consider it worth the extra time and expense to order them. I'm not saying that you can't get beans anywhere that taste as good as those from RG, but my personal experience has definitely been in that direction. It's not just the "organic" thing that seems to me to be the difference; but rather, the fact that RG beans are so fresh. Even organic beans can take considerable time to package, ship and sit on grocery shelves, you know. If you are a person that adds a lot of seasoning to your beans, you might not notice the difference so much. But RG beans are so good that all you need to do is to simmer them in water with a little garlic and salt and they're wonderful. I've got some pretty terrific bean recipes - my most treasured being charro beans from a famous restaurant in Nuevo Progreso just across the Texas border. It calls for quite a long list of additions and seasonings. For that recipe, I can just go to my local grocery store and buy pintos from the big bulk bean bin. The charro beans are better when I make them with RG pintos, but not so much so that it's worth the extra cost and trouble. But if all you want to do is to cook and serve them simply, so that the unadorned flavor of the bean itself comes shining through, for my money, you can't beat Rancho Gordo beans. For that $5.50 we get enough beans to last our family of 6 through two meals. Still a bargain in my book.

It does look like a lot of work. I think it might be easier for me to just pack up all my stuff and move in next door to you.

What a great idea. Wish I had a bunch of willing friends to do the same. Thanks for sharing. As I said above, my daughter and I are doing essentially the same thing. I can easily see how this book wouldn't appeal to everyone. But it's working very well for us and our needs.

Well, welcome Ian! And what a great first post. Thanks. I absolutely love this dish, and am definitely going to use your tips the next time I prepare it. Which I am now determined is going to be much sooner rather than later. I'm only hopeful I can find the beer you suggest. If that turns out to be difficult, are there any substitutes you might recommend?