shellfishfiend

I saw the movie and thought it was okay. It was a Netflix, so I wasn't out much money. I loved the scenery. Just beautiful and unknown to me, so that was nice. I have read several Peter Mayles books and liked them. They are light reads. After watching the movie, I have not read the book it was based on. I know I would then fully realize how much better the movie could have been.

I make virtually the same dish, only I usually stir in a little white wine, let it evaporate a little, then throw in a tespoon of capers. Made this two nights ago with catfish and have had success in the past with tilapia.

Love cold pizza. It is like a whole new dish-tastes so different from hot pizza. My aunt and uncle used to send us a smoked turkey every Chrsitmas. We would just set it on the top shelf of the refrigerator and hack off pieces until it was gone. Ate it in front of the open door because as soon as you closed the door, you realized you needed one more bite. When my husband pulls leftovers out to nuke them, he always takes a bite of the dish cold, no matter what it is. (He does not double di though.) He says he just has to. I was always a fan of cold pumpkin or sweet potato pie. I liked those two cold better than hot.

Perfectly steamed broccoli, hit with just a squeeze of lemon juice can be terrific. Same for fresh asparagus, although I add fresh ground pepper. It tastes of spring. I love a great cucumber, crunchy and fresh tasting when dressed with rice wine vinegar. Tomato, fresh off the vine, warmed by the sun, and sprinkled with sea salt. Summer in a bite.

In New Iberia, which is the town the factory sits just outside of, there is a restored plantation home downtown called The Shadows. We did both the Shadows tour and Avery Island our last trip down. You won't be there when Avery isalnd is in full bloom, but it is still beautiful. You feel like you are in another world.

I would be interested in knowing how many egulleters have a bottle of sirachi. I know I have one. I have often noticed it in bloggers kitchen pics.

I have had success in the past with charcoal and newspaper. Either one, you place it in the container, close it up and let it sit for at least 24 hours. This has helped remove the smell of boiled crawfish in plastic coolers, so it should work on a peach scent.

I stopped buying seafood from China several months ago. For one thing, I think Gulf shrimp are far superior to anything from China and I am close enough to the Gulf to easily buy them. Brookshire's, the local chain where I buy my seafood, does a good job of displaying country of origin on the seafood. I have been trying to buy only USA seafood products. I trust it and since I am closer to the source, I know it is fresher. The practices in China scare me. I don't think I am the only one. I think chefs could win a lot of customers by openly informing thier customers of the origin of the fish they serve.

In 2008, I will eat more produce from the farmer's market I will make more food to give away to others (it puts a smile on my face and theirs) I will find a Japanese restaurant with good food and good service (have yet to find one with both in the area-but still hopeful) I will learn_how to make the baby octopus salad I love so much (found a local source for the baby octopus today-now I just need to develop a sauce recipe) I will teach my sister anythign she wants to know about cooking, but will not force it on her I will read more books by people in the food industry and not just cookbooks, but I won't stop reading cookbooks

Those are beautiful memories and I know many people will envy the relationship you had with your father. If you do bring yourself to ever eat the last of the soup, you might salt it with tears, but I bet a smile will be on your face. Thank you for sharing this with us.

We aren't big dessert eaters, but most weekends I make an angel food cake and we eat it with strawberries. Any leftovers get wrapped in copious amounts of saran wrap and frozen. (They freeze beautifully.) Last Friday evening, I put two wedges of cake on top of the deep freezer to thaw while we ate supper. Just as we finished supper, my father called. I stepped outside to talk to him. It was a 30 minute talk. While I was outside, my husband closed the cat up in the bedroom and let our lab, Heppie, in to run around the house. I don't do this, as Heppie is a canine paper shredder. When I came in from my talk, I asked my husband if he was ready for dessert. He said he would pass. I asked him why. "Well, Heppie ate my pice of angel food cake." He swore he only turned his back for a minute, but she got one peice down on the floor, unwrapped all the plastic wrap, and was holding the corners of the wrap with her paws and licking the last of the crumbs when he found her. I thought it was sweet he said it was his piece and not mine. I split my piece with him, so all three of us had angel food cake that night.

I don't think I would mind turkey leftovers cooked in a new way, but we never had a chance to experiment. My aunt and uncle sent us a smoked turkey every Thanskgiving from Burge's. After the big meal, it was lightly covered and set on the top shelf of the refrigerator. For several days, every time one of us would walk past, we would pull or hack off a piece of that smoked goodness. No leftovers....but maybe a higher electric bill from openign the refrigerator door so much. I grew up with a grandmother that said "waste not, want not." I am sure I would find a way to utilize leftover food.

Sorry, I have no idea where you would buy it. I have never seen it in stores. We always killed our own (and yes, it is currently squirrel season). I would have gladly paid a premium for cleaned squirrel meat as I hated skinning them. Almost any price would be worth it to avaid that tough task. It was never my favorite game meat.

I don't usually bake, as I hate to follow a recipe exactly. But, I always do exactly what you are talking about. I find every recipe I have for a certain dish and decide what parts I want to keep and which I want to leave out. Or, if I have an ingredient on hand, I will find 20 similar recipes that call for it and combine parts of several to develop my own "original" recipe. I prefer to never use just one source for anything, whether it is research or recipes.

Making gravy. A cast iron skillet with shiny fat in it, then flour stirred in that turns gray then brown. Stir, stir stir...then add the milk and in about a minute magic happens. Once I sprinkle in gobs of pepper, it looks like speckled goodness. I also love to watch the changes in roux. Of course, the more worn out my stirring arm gets, the less entralled I become.

I do the same thing. Brine. then remove the backbone. Flaten it out. Onto the broiler pan that came with the oven, into the fridge uncovered. Let it chill out over night until the next evening. get home, slice some potatoes. But them in the bottom of the pan with some S&P. Season the bird. Into a HOT oven. It cooks pretty fast. Much faster than if it were whole. It's good stuff. And the potatoes are to die for, ← How do you remove the backbone? Chicken is one of those things I love and am learning to butcher, but I fail at the moment. ← I just did this yesterday for the first time and it was easy (if you have a good pair of kitchen scissors). I just cut down both sides of the backbone and pulled it out. Then I flipped the chicken over and mashed on it with all my might. The chicken flattend right out. I didn't brine, but I marinated for an hour and then dry rubbed it. It sat in the fridge overnight and I grilled it in about 40 minutes. I read that if you remove the wishbone, it will carve better. I didn't bother.

I like to stock my deep freezer with items when they are on sale. Usually I check in my freezer and see what proteins I want to cook for the week, then get other required items when I go to the grocery store. I feel very crafty if I can use both protein and frozen veg. from the freezer. My meals tend to develop based on what's on hand or on sale. It is deer season here and I have not bought meat from the store in at least a month and won't for at least another month. I have to make room for venison.

You just kicked in a flash-back. I forgot about the bacon we were gonna cook at grandma's. It started to burn (no fan to get smell out) so I took the cast iron skillet over to the window to "cool it down". Unfortunately grandma had those filmy nylon curtain things above the sink and when the skillet touched them they MELTED! My cousin and I ran away. She tracked us down and it was quite a day. I think we were about 8 or 9. ← I know the material you are talking about. My mother had a red nightgown of the same material and we tossed it over a lamp once for a cool red lighting effect. You can guess the rest...

I don't recall exactly what we were making, but I convinced my little sister that we should cook breakfast for my parents. We couldn't have been more than 5 and 3 years old. My parents were either really sleeping hard, or felt comfort in the fact that the kitchen was about 5 steps from their bedroom. I know one of us stood on my mom's tea kettle to reach the stove. She commneted on the dent for years afterward. When we were through with whatever it was that was in my mom's favorite skillet, the looks of it and the skillet bothered me so much I told my sister we had to take it outside and hide it. I do remember it was very cold (rare for that far South). Of course my mother eventually found her skillet. She wasn't mad, at least not that she let on, but some ground rules were established for future cookign forays. The first real meal I remember cooking was when I was 12 and my dad had just started working off-shore. He was going to miss my mom's birthday, so we decided to cook a special meal for her and make her a birthday cake. We found a recipe for "One-Skillet Spaghetti" in a Boys and Girls Club Cookbook (I still have it) and walked to the convenience store for the ingrediants we didn't have on hand. I think it actually turned out okay, as the dish was made several more times in our house. My mother was touched and my father was proud. My sister and I felt very pleased with ourselves.

The last time my father was at my house, he jokingly told my husband that I didn't know how to buy bananas. I like to eat them when they have a touch of green left or the have just turned solidly yellow. So I buy the greenest bananas I can find in the store. In a perfect world, I would be able to go to the store each day and by one banana in this perfect state. I like to keep my house on the warm side, and my bananas ripen very quickly. I can stomach a brown spot on the skin, but multiple brown spots means the banana is destined for banana bread. I love the firm texture and clean taste of barely ripe bananas. I want to have to chew it, not be able to gum it.

I save bits of cheese and cooked meats in the freezer for use in quiche. Anytime a recipe requires half an onion or bell pepper, I go ahead and slice the whole thing and freeze them (double wrapped). Frozen bell pepper is fine in most recipes. When I have a lot of little bags of onions and bell peppers, I make fajitas. Shrimp shells always get frozen until I have enough for stock. Odd bits and pieces of bread get frozen until I make meatloaf or need bread crumbs. I add a touch of vinegar to empty containers of srirachi, hot sauces and mustard, shake well and use in salad dressings. It gets every last drop out.

As a child, I watched my grandfather put bananas on his Wheaties. I began to copy him becasue I thought everthing he did was perfect. We only ate low sugar cereals, so the bananas added a little sweet touch. During peach season, over-ripe peaches were often substitued for bananas. I have noticed large tiered racks of bananas in the cereal aisle in several local stores. I too am curious as to how this banana/cereal pairing became popular.

We always called the end piece (white side/brown side) the heel. Growing up, money was too tight to waste it, so it was eaten with much complaint. My husband refuses to eat it and I would rather not. I save them for bread crumbs. As to cut, everthign on the diagonal. Tuna salad tastes better cut this way. Really Hamburgers get cut only if they are enormous (I have samll hands).

My father taught us about keeping store-bought cake icing in the freezer. Our favorites were chocolate and german chocolate (with coconut and pecans). You take a large tablespoon from the drawer and dig out a spoonfull of the frozen icing. In essence, you make an icing pop. You could feel the sugar crystals crunch between your teeth. I also like to freeze gummy candies for when I want something sweet. Frozen gummy bears are my favorite.

Much to my (and many others) embarrassment, the state of Louisiana only this year banned cockfighting. IIRC, the new ban begins next year. Can't come soon enough.