kayb

@rarerollingobject...I repeat, I REALLY want to work in your office. My office treat today (on site at a client's) was packaged cheese and crackers.

@Okanagancook Fascinating. Thanks for that. I had assumed it was what I grew up knowing as "Hog jowl," and always had cured, only later learning it was really guanciale. It was a treat in place of bacon when I was growing up. I can only assume the cheek muscle was either cut along with the jowl (seems like a remember a "streak of lean" along one side), or it got ground up in sausage. The head always got rendered for "head cheese," aka scrapple or souse meat, which is one reason I won't touch the stuff (the watching it being made).

Likewise in Arkansas, Tennessee and much of the rest of the South. I'm fortunate to live 30 miles from the Missouri line, so I can make a border run on a Sunday, holiday or election day, should I find myself out of something critical.

Well, it's been two great Road Food meals in a week. Went to Wilson, Arkansas last night to hear Jason D. Williams, a protege and alleged out-of-wedlock child of Jerry Lee Lewis, and certainly his spiritual heir at the piano -- whew, what a show! Wilson is a fascinating town, built in the Arkansas Delta by plantation owner Robert E. Lee Wilson in the early 1900s for his bride, to mimic an English village. Lovely Tudor-style architecture surrounding three sides of a green. It had fallen, like many towns in the South, on somewhat hard times in the early years of this century, until it was purchased, along with the multi-thousand-acre cotton plantation that surrounds it, by an entrepreneur with a yen to create, or recreate, something special. He has founded the Delta School, a private school that, by all accounts, is providing a superb education to local kids and kids from a ways off. Part of their studies include working in the Wilson Gardens, which grow organic produce that's sold at the Wilson Grange, a farm market that also hosts cooking classes and concerts. There's some new retail, a new museum focusing on the local pre-Columbian culture, and a great deal of new, upscale housing is going up, as Wilson becomes the new "cool place" to live and visit. They do big name concerts (at least medium name, like Jason D) at least once a month, outdoor festivals every couple of months, and are just generally doing all sorts of neat stuff. More here. The Wilson Cafe had anchored one corner of the square for decades. Some few years ago, when my kids were in school, it was a seafood and steak place on Thursday-Saturday nights, a popular place that included a buffet with all-you-can-eat crab legs and boiled shrimp, which made it a favorite of mine. It closed a few years ago, but the resurgent Wilson leadership has brought it back, with a focus on farm-to-table produce grown across the highway, local beef, chicken and pork, and bringing in a well regarded chef from Memphis to run the place. Its prices are reasonable -- steaks are in the 30-ish range, and come with a potato side and a salad. The menu ranges from there down to burgers and sandwiches. We went over for dinner before the concert. All I photographed were the deviled eggs. Bacon and cheddar deviled eggs, in point of fact. So simple. So good. My companion had fried shrimp, pronounced them good, although she didn't care for the slaw, which was quite spicy. I went with Arctic char, in some sort of vaguely sweet reduction glaze, over -- are you ready for this -- bacon barbecue mac and cheese. Sweet Baby Jesus. What a study in glorious excess. I wanted to take a vat of that stuff home. I bet there were 500 calories in every bite. Rich, buttery, cheesy, smoky, salty, a whiff of a sweet tang from barbecue sauce...have mercy! All that saved me was it was so rich I just had to stop. Fish was good. I ignored the sauteed kale side. Oddity of the evening, and I've noticed this eating there before -- no bread served with the meal. I didn't miss it. As I said, show was a killer. If you ever get a chance to see Jason D. Williams, and you're any sort of a Jerry Lee Lewis fan, don't miss him.

Milk bread, from the Food 52 website, credited to a restaurant in NC, and referenced by someone on here recently. Too dark, a failing of bread in my CSO and of the baker for not remembering to shield it halfway through with some foil. The one in the rear was pulled after about half the bake time and frozen, to be finished later when I want fresh bread. I've had reasonably good luck with that method. Good bread, plenty sturdy for sandwiches, but the texture is a little odd. Chewy/spongy, kinda.

Lord, honey, they're Baptist down there.

$1.99 US Prime price. Just looked and bought it. Thanks. Here.

Nuts on Clark at Midway has always been my Chicago mainstay. After coming into Midway like a hot grounder into shortstop (the only kind of landing I have EVER had there), I'm generally not in the notion for anything heavy to eat. And there are plenty of bars. In Baltimore, O'Brycki's in the main departure area has a wonderful crab cake. I think I remember reading their only remaining in-town restaurant had closed, leaving the airport their only outpost. In Houston Hobby, Pappadeux, which apparently is a regional seafood chain, is pretty good. I like their Mexican ceviche. In Atlanta, Paschal's, in C Concourse and in the main departure lounge is a fine, fine place for a down-home Southern breakfast. Those folks can make some biscuits and sausage gravy....

All you can do is all you can do.

I once had 12 pounds of Wright's bacon in the freezer. Kroger and some other store ran consecutive sales, and I had coupons. Stocked up. I also stocked up the last time Aldi had the small knockwurst, which I like to pickle in chunks with quail eggs. I think I have eight pounds in the freezer.

Why, why, WHY do people think it's necessary to heavily batter and fry okra to the point of being bulletproof? Sigh. Barbecue looks good, though. For that Texas stuff, anyway.

Oh....my....that lechon!

Prayers for your safety and minimal damage. Stay dry and safe!

Road food payoff: A No. 10 can full of tamales. Stripped of shuck, and ready for application of cheap grocery store chili. The final product, sans Saltines, which I added moments later. And the remaining 2 dozen and 9 bagged up and waiting for the freezer. For those who are not familiar, Delta tamales are a different creature from Mexican tamales. The seasonings are quite different, for one thing; salt, pepper, red pepper. No garlic, no onion, no cumin, etc. The masa is very thin, the filling-to-masa ratio is probably 4:1. They're boiled instead of steamed. And sometimes you find them wrapped in foil or waxed paper instead of corn shucks. Some folks prefer chopped onions on top of theirs; I don't care for raw onion, so I don't. And always, always, cheap no-beans grocery store chili, and Saltines. And a cold Co'Cola. One of the multitude of reasons I would live nowhere else.

Eeek! Well, at this stage in my life, I'd just about as soon have 'em fried as raw.

Oh....my. What a marvelous dinner. Puts me in mind of the Catbird Seat in Nashville. I'm about ready to go back there.

Welcome to the forums, and I'll be anxious to hear of your results on the noodles!

I looked and didn't see an appropriate topic for this post, so I made one. "Road Food," of course, was made famous by Jane and Michael Stern on public radio, but we've all been out on business or pleasure travel and happened up on marvelous food in the most unlikely of places. Here's a place to post same, and I'll start off with my stop this morning. I had been on a business trip that took me to LA -- that would be Lower Arkansas -- and spent last night in Monticello, in the southeastern quadrant of the state. I commend to you, by the way, the Trotter House BnB there, where they fed me breakfast that would have sufficed for me and a friend. I set out withh a couple of stops planned, but no real schedule, and decided on a whim I wanted tamales to bring home. So I betook myself east and south to Lake Village, in the far southeastern corner, to Rhoda's Famous Hot Tamales and Pies. And they are, in fact. Famous, that is. At least in the Mid-South, where people might grant you could get good tamales across the Mississippi River in Greenville, MS, but if you want pie, you need to cross the bridge and go to Rhoda's. I pulled in about 10:30 a.m. Miss Rhoda's daughter, who has taken over most of the cooking duties, was slinging pots and pans in the kitchen, and dishing up cabbage cooked with ham, sweet potatoes and fried chicken for the day's lunch. She stopped to fish me three dozen tamales out of a massive pot on the stove, and pack them in their cooking liquid in a No. 10 can that had probably held that day's sweet potatoes. Meanwhile, her mother, Ms. Rhoda herownself, hollered at me from around the corner, where she and a gentleman friend were tying tamales, three to a bundle, with strips of corn shuck. "Where you from, baby?" I'm from Jonesboro. "Whooo, that's a long way. You come all the way down here to get some of Rhoda's tamales?" Well, sort of. I was in Monticello on business, and while I was that close, I wasn't going to miss getting tamales to take home. Can't get good tamales in Jonesboro. "Honey, I know dat's right. Y'all got them Meskin tamales up there." (I did not promise this post would be politically correct. Sorry.) We visited for a few minutes, all the while Ms. Rhoda's gnarled and bent fingers flying as she'd pluck up three tamales, stack them in a pyramid, grab a length of husk, slide it beneath the stack, and cinch it not-too-tight. Tamales went in a pot on the floor. We had gotten through people we both knew up and down the Delta when Ms. Rhoda's daughter called me back to the other side of the room. "Baby, I got yo' tamales." And in fact, she did, foil over the top of the can, the whole things wrapped in a few pages of the Chicot County Advertiser. Forty bucks, and well worth it. "What kind of pie you got today?" I asked hopefully. "Lemme look." She pulled open the oven door. "Lessee, I got pecan, chess and egg custard. I got apple and peach. I got coconut cream. Won't be ready for about 15-20 minutes." Sadly, I didn't think I had 15-20 minutes, nor did I need to bring home an entire pie. Had I had, I would have been faced with the Hobson's choice of chess or pecan or coconut cream. My tamales, still in the can, are in the fridge. Tomorrow, I'll parcel them out, wrap them in plastic wrap, and freeze them. Then I'll go to the grocery store and get cans of cheap no-beans canned chili and boxes of Saltine crackers, and be sure I have plenty of cheddar cheese to grate for the top, and we will binge on tamales. And I will wish I had egg custard pie.

I should have taken a pic. Stayed at a B&B in a small town in South Arkansas last night, and got up to a breakfast that would have satisfied three truck drivers. French toast, fried him, yogurt with fruit, coffee. And the rooms in this BnB, in a lovely old turn-of-the-century house with air conditioning that works REAL well, are $75 a night. I skippped lunch, and, so far, dinner. Still cruisin' on that breakfast.

On a work related road trip today and had lunch in a sandwich shop on the town square in the small town of Warren, AR. Discovered something I think may be lifechanging in the sandwich realm. Ordered the turkey parmesan sandwich, which boasted decent deli smoked turkey, cheese, tomato, lettuce, and avocado. What elevated it was that the bread, a nice sourdough, been liberally buttered and SPRINKLED HEAVILY WITH GRATED PARMESAN BEFORE GRILLING. Dear sweet Baby Jesus, that was marvelous.

Six Instant Pots. That's damn impressive. I'm fond of mine, but have no wish for another.

@chefmd writes: "A trip to V. Sattui tasting room resulted in purchasing these two very aromatic dry wines. Drinking at 10 AM is very wrong. Tasting wine at 10 AM is very different. It is also 1 PM east coast time. " In whose world is drinking at 10 a.m. very wrong? Certainly not mine. It is, after all, five o'clock somewhere.

I have no clue if they actually use mayo in Mexico. That's just a holdover from the tomato pies of my childhood.

It was perfect. Had a little bit of chew, not mushy, but very tender. I always err on the side of going more time instead of less with pot roasts, shoulder roasts and the like; I'd rather have them fall-apart tender than not.

Oh, my God. I perfected this thing this summer. It's habit-forming four ears of corn, kernels cut off and cobs scraped Assortment of tomatoes, sliced if regular tomatoes, cut in half if cherries or grapes; about 2-3 pounds' worth Olive oil and sea salt A cup of plain greek yogurt about 1 tsp. smoked paprika about 1/2 tsp cumin about 1 cup grated cotija cheese 1/2 cup mayonnaise (preferably Hellman's, unless you're one of those Miracle Whip peeps) 1/2 cup grated co-jack cheese Your favorite pie crust Sliced or half the tomatoes (I generally use a combo), drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt, and roast at 325F for an hour or so, until a lot of the moisture is gone. Stir together the corn and milk scraped from cobs, yogurt, spices and cotija cheese. Set aside. Stir together the mayo and grated co-jack. Set aside. Par-bake pie crust, using weights, for 10 minutes, or just don't use one (I generally don't). In a nine-inch deep dish pie pan, or in crust, layer corn/yogurt mixture with tomatoes, winding up with tomatoes. Top tomatoes with mayo-cheese mixture. Bake at 350F for 20 minutes or so, or until topping is browned. Let cool a bit before eating. Serve warm or at room temp. Good the next day, but needs to be warmed to take the chill off. Roasting the tomatoes is the key. Whole thing gets too soggy, otherwise. This was yesterday's. It's gone now.