kayb

Ah, Foxfire. In the 70s, my husband and I were going to drop off the grid, live in the Appalachians, and be self-sufficient. Never even got to the Appalachians, and couldn't bring myself to give up frozen pizza and beer in a bottle. But I did dearly love the Foxfire books, so I picked up the pickling and preserving one, as well as the small game and meat, traditional baking and planting by the signs. At 99 cents apiece, who could pass them up? My father always swore by planting by the signs. And he had one of the most gorgeous gardens in the county, so it must have worked.

Love the LeGuin quote. What a loss.

When my father was going through his final illness, and I'd make an every-weekend pilgrimage to his home, he announced one day, "You know, I wish I had a good Reuben sandwich." So the next Friday, I stopped off in Memphis at the Jewish deli, bought corned beef, sauerkraut, and rye bread, went on home, and made him a Reuben. And did so on the next (final) 12 weekends of his life. I never eat a Reuben now that I don't think of him. Funny. Country boy from West Tennessee, probably never got any closer to a real Reuben than Fort Bragg, NC (I do know he never was in NY, which I think of as ground zero for Reubens), but he loved 'em. And the man could make the best sauerkraut in the world. One had to, he explained with total seriousness, make it "by the signs," i.e., when the Farmers' Almanac told you the moon phases and other Zodiac indicators were right.

Not in the market to buy another, but I'm about due to cook something with mine. Undetermined as of yet just what that might be. I don't use it as often as a lot of people, but damn, I do love it.

Say that five times, fast....

I had the stuff to make that one (with vanilla wafers vs Chessmen), but decided at the last minute I wanted the old fashioned kind. Finished it off today. I may or may not have eaten it twice a day since Sunday.

That is a lovely thing. As one who can very nearly eat her weight in a pissaladiere, I suspect this would be a real pig-out for me. All the more reason to try it.

Got to make a stop by my favorite barbecue purveyor and pick up a bag of pork rinds. I do love me a good pork rind.

Veggie fried rice with Asian chicken meatballs and hoisin sauce. Wasn't half bad, thankfully, because there's a boatload of it left.

Carbonnades a la flamande over Gouda grits. A favorite. And I had onions that needed using. Am still cursing my liquor store for no longer carrying Green Flash Double Stout, my beer of choice for this dish. I made do with Guinness.

Throwback breakfast. Biscuits, bacon, sorghum molasses creamed with a pat or two of butter. To have been historically accurate, should have been accompanied by scrambled eggs and a dish of canned tomatoes, but I wasn't in the notion for that. And it seems I managed to turn on some goofy filter on the cell phone camera, too.

Wonder if one can make homemade Nilla wafers? I would think there has to be a recipe somewhere.... I have, in a pinch, done them with graham crackers.

I used Jackson's wafers. And yes, those are my overbeaten egg whites. I stuck them in the Kitchenaid and let it go while I was doing something else. Should have paid more attention.

Rules are handy when you're learning a (dish, cuisine, technique, etc.). Once you have it in hand, that, for me, is when it's time to branch out. I would, for instance, never have thought to create the shrimp salad that uses shrimp, corn, avocadoes and cocktail sauce, but I was looking at all those one day and, well, it made sense. As did the chicken salad with corn and bacon and grated cheese, and a yogurt/mayo dressing spiced with smoked pimenton and a little cumin. I break rules on a fairly regular basis. But I follow them on a lot of other occasions. Depends on the day and the dish.

Before my daughter the super-smeller moved in with me and limited some of the cooking I can do, I used to caramelize a five-pound bag of onions at a time. I'd slice them, pack them in the Crockpot, sprinkle a little salt, and lay a stick of butter on top, and let them cook for 18 hours on low. Perfect caramelized onions. I'd put them in one-cup portions in plastic bags and freeze them, and pull them out for whatever dish I wanted. It was wonderful to be able to make French onion soup without having to caramelize the onions, among other things. I can tell you that this procedure, if you start your onions shortly after dinner, will result in a VERY pungent house about 3 a.m. Just sayin'.

Banana pudding like my Mama used to make, with boiled custard cooked in the double boiler. I over beat the egg whites for the meringue, so it isn't very pretty, but I'm surely looking forward to the taste.

Well, I haven't dived into Modernist Bread, but I do bake bread in my CSO. If I'm doing loaves, I have two Circulon 8 1/2 x 4 pans that fit inside it perfectly. I move the shelf to the lower rack, and that gives me (99 percent of the time) enough room for oven spring. I use the bread setting. I have a doubled sheet of foil at ready, and I slip that between the tops of the loaves and the top elements when the top gets as brown as I want it -- otherwise, you will generally scorch the top of your loaves. I do rolls either in the pan that came with the CSO, or in my 10 x 10 Wilton I ordered for it. The Wilton has two-inch sides, not that that generally matters. they work for bread sticks, too. Ditto for sweet rolls, etc. I could use a six-well muffin tin, but just never have. If I'm of a notion to do a boule, I generally do it in my Lodge 10 1/2 inch round baker. About the only time I use the oven for bread any more is if I'm doing a BIG batch of rolls (1/2 sheet pan size) or one of my bigger loaf pans that won't fit. I really do like the bread setting; I find my loaves have a really nice crust and a good spring.

Crawfish etouffee over a number of different fried proteins is good. Catfish PonchartrExain, for one example. I was referring mostly to KFC's ability to take a number of things that ought to be good -- fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, gravy -- and render them absolutely nasty. Except, as mentioned above, biscuits.

Depends on what I'm doing with them. I generally buy Yukon Golds, as they present a decent balance of mealy/creamy, and thus can be used for most purposes. I like the big ones if I'm going to peel and cube them, because it's easier to peel a big potato. (I always peel and cube my potatoes for salads, for example; I dislike potatos cooked in the skin and then peeled and cubed for salads). I eat a lot of wedged and roasted potatoes, and for those, smaller sizes are OK, as I generally don't peel them (another point for YG's; you can't eat a russet's skin, or at least I can't). And I purely love YG "potato skins," tennis-ball-sized potatoes, baked, halved, scooped out, insides brushed with bacon grease, salted, broiled, filled with cheese, bacon, scallions, then broiled again, served with sour cream. I make dinner off that at least once a week. Last time I bought a bag of those, I had problems with bad spots in the centers. Ever experience that?

Loving the breakfast buffet.

Looks to me like a helluva waste of crawfish. Not to mention not doing much for your chicken, either. Not a KFC fan. Though they make good biscuits. I'll give them that.

FYI...a poached egg inside that baked potato would be a fine thing. Just saying. Oh, dear sweet baby Jesus. Just kill me now. I WANT that.

A very fine toastie.

She's a fortunate woman. I can remember it being an annual event in Memphis, the first day Dinstuhl's (local well-known candymaker) had their first chocolate covered strawberries. Line would be out the door and all the way down the block. And I would be in it.

I like my serrated knives for two things: bread, and fresh tomatoes.