Jump to content

annecros

eGullet Society staff emeritus
  • Posts

    2,636
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by annecros

  1. If you'll be making it as far as the Jacksonville area and/or St. Augustine - I can make some recommendations (I live in the area).  Let me know whether you want lunch or dinner suggestions or both.  Robyn

    Very nice of you. Sounds like the poster will be in your back yard.

    Is the Raintree still open in St. Augustine? I knew the owners once upon a time, and it was a fine place to have a nice meal.

  2. Oh wow, your partner and I may have gone to high school together. There are only four High Schools total in Albany, Georgia. I went to DHS, a "river rat."

    I would suggest hitting Jacksonville. Lady and Sons is great for the tourists, but home folks don't go there cause we can prepare it ourselves.

    Mullet and oysters, you need to drive to the panhandle of Florida. It doesn't get better than that.

    If you feel like taking a little drive - then Thomasville has a great farmer's market that has a great pile of food prepared homestyle. There is another place up the road in Montezuma Georgia that is oh so good. Southern cooking skillfully prepared by Mennonites. Fantastic and fresh.

    Otherwise, I am sure others will chime in here...

    I need to make a couple of calls to see what is new and jumping in that part of the country. Take care and have fun!

  3. I am tired of this series. Maybe things will gear up later, but so far it is a big snooze.

    I kind of like Marcel lately though. I guess I will tune in for at least another couple of episodes. If nothing else, in the hope that Betty goes home. Of course, the producers could be mainipulating me...

    Naw, they wouldn't do that, would they?

    :rolleyes:

  4. You will never starve if you have collards and cornbread. Looking up the nutrional information will clue you in to this most perfect of foods.

    While I've never been south of the Mason-Dixon line and east of the Mississippi at the same time, (a character defect I intend to remedy soon!), I have it on good authority that one of the defining characteristics of a north/south orientation is whether or not you put sugar in your corn bread.

    There's supposedly an old Southern saying; "If there's sugar in the corn bread, there's a Yankee in the kitchen!"

    SB (Thinking that could be a clue in a murder mystery? "Your Honor. My client couldn't have poisoned his wife. Lab results showed there to have been not only arsenic, but sugar in the fatal corn bread. As a true Southern Gentleman he would never have put sugar in his cornbread!") :rolleyes:

    WEEELLLL yes, sugar in the cornbread is an abomination. However, I was known to throw in a handful when my German husband insisted that cornbread must have sugar.

    I have since weaned him, and he understands the natural sweetness of corn which must not be adulterated with artificial additives. A real convert. He never met an okra pod he liked until he met me either. We all know that no one preaches as well as the convert.

    :wink:

    Good luck with your rectification. I think you will find it pleasant. Have a good time in the south, and just make sure you are not in a big hurry.

    Darling husband would never try to tell me how to prepare cornbread, or greens, or for that matter grits, these days.

    I love him.

    Interesting side note and edited to add: Collards need to be thoroughly cooked in order to maximize the nutrional value stored in them.

    Somebody was smart with all the braising.

  5. My first loaf with the bran--I'd been using semolina--was a lot easier to clean up after than the ones using semolina--the bran doesn't soak through and turn to glue like the semonlina, and forms a nice barrier between bread and towel that holds even when damp.  No muss, no fuss.

    And still a nice crust.  Even a pretty crumb.

    <a href=" Inside (bread) title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/137/341264316_15e57583a2.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Inside (bread)" /></a>

    And I'm getting plenty of flavor with 100% white whole wheat flour in a 20-22 hour rise.

    Lovely picture. Well done, and a great slice of life.

  6. Nothing could be truer. Just as in real estate the key is location, location and location, the key to successful buffeteering is reconaissance, reconaissance and reconaissance.

    Love it.

    How would one pronounce "buffeteering"? I think I would favor a silent "t", sort of like the silent or slurred "g" in Target.

    Just sounds better.

    BOO-FAY-earing.

    This topic is making me hungry. Fried rice for dinner.

  7. I've actually found this recipe unmessy, relatively speaking.

    Flavor was the issue for me, and judging from other posts the issue for everyone else as soon as they bake this. Inserting flavor into bread, a blank canvas, isn't too terribly hard. I am thinking subbing in buttermilk for some of the water, but the sour I have living on the counter is doing a great job for now.

    The ease and ability for anyone to make a loaf of bread is magical to me. I appreciate it. Staff of life and all that.

    However, if I did not have some of the physical limitations that I do have, I would prefer to work with more sophisticated recipes and doughs and methods and whatnot.

    That's why I cook. It's fun to play!

  8. Interesting in that you say that the food (which is very much a foundation of the southern culture) transcends race, but that you find racism alive and well. But then again the racism is predominately experienced via "transplants" into the culture.

    There was nothing civil about that war, excepting that it occured in our own house. A family feud, that white southern people, who cannot help being born, are required to bear the consequences of for several generations.

    I think, and this is my opinion only, that the southern stereotype needs to be put where it belongs, away. Branding a person as hateful, ignorant, and uncaring hurts. It hurts me when others make that judgement based upon my skin color and accent.

    I have personally found the south very inclusive. Your milage may vary. As it does anywhere in the world. But as a whole?

    Greens and cornbread are a perfect food.

    I agree with you 100% re: the southern stereotype and where it needs to be put. Essentially, that was the point I was trying to make. Northerners, including my NYC family have this very ABC Mini-Series impression of "The South" which couldn't be more inaccurate. What I meant to say (after re-reading myself I wasn't sure if it came out this way) is that there is no more racism in the South than anywhere else in the world (being an interacial family we speak from experience) and to the contrary the people we have met in Georgia that have generational roots here are some of the nicest and open people we have ever met.

    Never before have we met a "people" who are so interested in knowing each other on such a deep and personal level and its been wonderful. I've said this before, in NYC, a good neighbor is the one you never hear and never know of.

    I think the food culture itself lends itself to this "get to know you" vibe or aura or what you'll call it. Its almost like a slow walk, or the very opposite of the US fast food culture.

    As for greens, I've only eaten them in a restaurant. We hope to brave making them ourselves very soon, if only to try and make pot liker. As for cornbread, my breakfast today was it in a bowl of milk, it was perfect.

    Oh man! You haven't cooked greens in your own home yourself! I am shocked NYCMike.

    :biggrin:

    The collards should be absolutely lovely there in Atlanta right now. I would hold off on the turnips and mustard until early spring though. Don't even think about buying that precut stuff in a bag, it is obscene, and you just don't taste the dirt and life in them like you do with the whole.

    Those spring greens (mustard especially but turnips too) are amazing, young sweet and tender. Collards are usually better with a little cold weather on them, not as bitter.

    My mother recalls a family that was put out of their home during the depression. They dug up the collards and piled them on a wagon and paraded out of town with them, along with small furnishings and family pictures of course. You will never starve if you have collards and cornbread. Looking up the nutrional information will clue you in to this most perfect of foods. My mom's favorite dessert was a glass of buttermilk with cornbread crumbled into it. Nothing wrong with that.

    Let us know when you drop the hock in the water. A pressure cooker is helpful when cooking collards as well, but it is good and good for you regardless.

    I come from an interracial family as well. We always had room at the table, if that's not too personal.

    You have to eat, ya know.

  9. Anyone who enters a buffet immediately taking food without scouting the entire region of gluttony to identify the premium items shall hereby forever be called a buffet-buffoon.

    I think this qualifies as a caveat. Wise words, my friend, wise words.

    I love it, thanks for giving me a giggle!

  10. Do buffets where you are not charge for excessive wastage? The ones I'm familiar with always charge a certain amount per 100 grams of wasted food.

    Some of the buffets do have signs that say "you will be charged for wasted food", but I've never seen that hapen - and it certainly has not happened to me.

    But I must say - if the guy at the duck station tells me that I must take a bun for every piece of duck I get, then it's entirely their fault that the food gets wasted, and I pity the person who might try to make it my fault, or charge me.

    And on a related note, I sometimes take a small sample of many things from a new buffet, and certainly don't eat the things I don't like, so if they tried to tell me that that was "waste", they wouldn't get very far either.

    But how does it work where you are? Do they actually come around and inspect the plates and weigh what you haven't eaten? And are they so picky as to judge "waste" in 100 gram increments? That could be a few bites of various things that you didn't like! (As opposed to somebody with 'big eyes' simply taking extra pounds of food that goes to waste uneaten, I mean.)

    I'd like to see them try to charge me for wastage. Not gonna happen.

    Of course, I try to eat everything I pull off the buffet, but sometimes you end up on the short end of the russian roullette game, and some things are just not edible.

  11. I've actually had good, fresh sushi here:

    http://www.gocrazybuffet.com/

    I go there once a year when an old friend comes to visit. We make funny faces and giggle about the "Craaaaaaaa-See Buffet!" It's a bonding ritual.

    It is definitely one of those places that wearing tennis shoes and taking a hike to the back pays dividends.

    The "Z" in "Crazy" is backwards in all the marketing material. I guess that's what makes it CRAZY!

    :biggrin:

    I must admit to prefering the hibachi to the sushi station, though.

  12. Is it not a double edged sword to expect and assume the worst of people? Just because you are at a specific exit number on I-95 that you can assume that stupidity and ignorance reign?

    Setting the bar low, is patronizing in and of itself. It is a poor assumption. Every individual is entitled to set their own standards of behaviour, without prejudice based upon skin color or the fact that they can make a mean cornbread or burst from the womb knowing how to fry chicken.

    Karen, I have personally found you to be a very sweet natured open minded person. That in itself gives you the right to call yourself southern.

    I will back you up, and I have the moral authority!  :wink:

    After all, we even defend our crazy aunts...

    I'm not so sure that attitude of assumption of ignorance reigning because of an exit number on the highway exists as much as it might have in years past, Anne. There are so many people that have travelled the highways so very much that surely the ones that think this way are a *very* small number. One hopes. Plus, you know, we've had several Presidents of the United States with accents in their voices that say "Deep South" and regardless of one's thinking on their individual "performance" as President, it does take a bit of a Top Dog in some way to get to that seat.

    As for your other question, yes, almost everything is a double-edged sword, actually, looked at close enough. I run to metaphors for fun quite often when I write. Please forgive me, dear lady, and if you will, say quietly to the computer screen, "Bless her heart".

    ( :laugh: )

    P.S. I intend to get crazier the older I get. I figure that's a preogative of age, no matter whether north or south of whatever line one chooses. Hope you'll still defend me? :wink:

    .................................................

    Now I just got back from the west coast of Florida. It was Southern, but not Southern like here in old Virginny. The food was different, as was the sun and the soil. Darn it, but I was glad to come home to my *own* particular twang of accented voice and my own variety of foods available. (Oops. Erase that last part. We grow beef here, not seafood, and to my mind seafood just doesn't travel well far past the dock, in some vital way. :sad: )

    Isn't it interesting that even those Presidential sorts in recent years who are not Southern, have adopted southern accents and mannerisms? It is an interesting phenomenon, and somehow a person, though powerful, is perceived to have a "common" touch I think when they talk slow - with a crap eating grin!

    Once we get to a "certain" age, darling, forgiveness and defense is neither sought nor necessary, but I do have your back.

    :biggrin:

    Oh man, if you were here last week, you surely enjoyed our sunshine and warm temps! I planted two rose bushes on Christmas Day, and they are already showing new growth. BBQ today as well. I really love it down here.

    There are definitely gradients of southern in the south. Keeps things interesting.

  13. How long did junior rest for?  And no pictures?

    An hour. His temp peaked within 20 minutes though, and sorry no pictures. I hate that he ended up a bit overdone, but the lovely thing was the meat was so good that it could take the imprecise cooking. I'm sold on this Certified Angus Beef thing. Its a bit more expensive, but a good reliable compromise $ vs. taste when I want beef. So tasty, and amazing marbling.

    Everyone was busy with their new toys, and we really didn't get enough regular pictures of family and fun. I guess that is what makes memories, though.

    I cut out two ribeye steaks, so when I thaw and grill them maybe I can get a shot in before they are devoured (isn't it sad that all I am left with is two ribeye steaks and the chine and ribs for soup out of a 17 pound hunka hunka meat?)

    :shock:

    By the way, if tasty pork brings you luck, I should have a great 2007! THAT was perfect, but I am up with a bit of heartburn now...

  14. Junior was wonderful!

    Pulled him at 120, but the rascal rested to 135 :blink:

    I am thinking it was the size of the roast and the heat stored in the bones.

    Too done for me, but the kids and significant others like thier meat medium to medium well. so the audience was well satisfied.

    Had an open faced sandwich the next day, kids took meat home, and I have two more meals for hubby and I in the fridge.

    Now, on to the 11 pound heritage pork fresh ham I have presalted in the fridge to smoke and eat tomorrow for luck!

    Life really is good. If nothing else, we eat well.

    :biggrin:

  15. No need to apologize. We just have different perspectives.

    Now, how do you feel about fried chicken and collard greens? What about the theory that if you parked enough pickup trucks loaded with coolers of beer in the parking lot of the United Nations, and put some pork and chicken on the grill out there, all the world's problems would be solved on a long afternoon?

    I've seen a lot of fueds resolved holding down the bed of a pickup truck...

    :biggrin:

    I like collards and fried chicken - but rarely eat them in restaurants because they're usually way too salty. Also - fried chicken is really not a great thing to eat that often. I do make collards at home - which I think are much better than those I find in restaurants (won't tackle fried chicken at home - too much of a mess).

    I think it would take more than pork and chicken to resolve the problems with the United Nations :wink: . Robyn

    Nobody in the south eats fried chicken "that" often. It is quite the treat, and worth the cleanup.

    But you are getting there in cooking the foods at home. Home cooked is always better. Pity the poor souls waiting in line at Lady and Son's and understand that they just can't do it for themselves. Almost crippling.

    I think if the UN focused upon simpler things, as in nourishment, they might be able to make a more positive impact upon the world.

    :wink:

    I like ya Robyn. You've got spunk.

  16. *But* I was having a feeling about two things that made me write what I did. First, the repetition of the phrase that the boundaries of the War were what should define the South. Personally, I think one can *always* find more positive boundaries than a War to define any area at all, unless one wants to focus on the War every time the place is thought of.

    To me, there are so many better things about the South than that war. I've had wars of sorts in my own life, and I don't choose to define myself by them, either, for in ways they seem to make me lesser rather than more. They are part of me, a big part - but *not* what I want to be remembered by. That is my own way of wishing to be. Just my opinion. Other's mileage may vary.

    It also seems to me that sugar-coating or pretty-ing up of things, romanticising them beyond their means, might be dangerous in a long-term way to anything. The culture of manners is a marvellous thing in the South, *but* to make it seem as if it were everywhere at all times might lead to *expectations* for those that do not know the South well. . .and when they do visit, if those expectations are not met for whatever reason, disappointment could follow. Better, I think, to say that a glass of water (to use the metaphor) is a magical yet true part of the culture that one *might* find, rather than promise that they will find it. Then, that truly wonderful gift that is given in times and places that happen when they happen, will be a real gift, not an expected prettiness, not a tap-dance done for those who wait to see it.

    Snip

    Making a character out of oneself or out of one's culture, though manners and foodstuffs, is a two-edged sword. It can backfire when done too insistently, for human nature will rebel at the continued insistence of a theatrical sort.

    In hopes that this leaves my intent clearer,

    Karen (who has lived here ten years now and who yet will never be considered a "Southerner", most likely, unless a whole lot of moonshine happens to confuse someone for a brief moment or so. . .) :wink:

    Is it not a double edged sword to expect and assume the worst of people? Just because you are at a specific exit number on I-95 that you can assume that stupidity and ignorance reign?

    Setting the bar low, is patronizing in and of itself. It is a poor assumption. Every individual is entitled to set their own standards of behaviour, without prejudice based upon skin color or the fact that they can make a mean cornbread or burst from the womb knowing how to fry chicken.

    Karen, I have personally found you to be a very sweet natured open minded person. That in itself gives you the right to call yourself southern.

    I will back you up, and I have the moral authority! :wink:

    After all, we even defend our crazy aunts...

  17. We've been wondering how race factors into the food culture of the south especially considering the very strong slave influences.  What we have found so far in the few "native" peope we have met is that the food itself seems transcends race, it is more part of a shared experience that goes back many generations.  So in that regards geographical history or American history of the south seems to be the best qualifier.

    I'll agree with an above poster about racism being alive and well in the south, as anywhere else in the US.  But, funny enough my hispanic wife experiences it for the most part from transplants (which make up the majority in my area it seems), the native people in general have made moving down here socially wonderful. :-)

    Reminds me of something my friend who was born and raised in Agusta once told me when describing the difference between north and south.  In NYC we are taught in school about "The Civil War".  When I mentioned this to my friend he laughed and said "we don't call it that, there was nothing Civil about that war."

    Interesting in that you say that the food (which is very much a foundation of the southern culture) transcends race, but that you find racism alive and well. But then again the racism is predominately experienced via "transplants" into the culture.

    There was nothing civil about that war, excepting that it occured in our own house. A family feud, that white southern people, who cannot help being born, are required to bear the consequences of for several generations.

    I think, and this is my opinion only, that the southern stereotype needs to be put where it belongs, away. Branding a person as hateful, ignorant, and uncaring hurts. It hurts me when others make that judgement based upon my skin color and accent.

    I have personally found the south very inclusive. Your milage may vary. As it does anywhere in the world. But as a whole?

    Greens and cornbread are a perfect food.

  18. Very good! The only tip I would add, is that the "best" food is the most relatively distant from the buffet line that it can get. Don't stumble and fill up on the cheap door stops, but rather walk to the farthest serving point, and work your way back to the table.

×
×
  • Create New...