kayb

Most anywhere you go will be better than you've ever had anywhere else. Some of my favorites: Interstate. Go for lunch. It's in the 'hood. Ask for sauce on the side; they have a heavy hand with it. Central. Two locations, one on Central, one on Summer. Excellent sides. Good beer selection. Germantown Commissary. Out of the way, but good. Huge portions. Deviled egg half with every plate. BarBQ Shop. Good variety. Nothing to sneeze at. Three Pigs. Hole in the wall at Quince and White Station in a strip mall. Barbecue like they used to serve it in any number of Memphis bbq joints. No frills, cheap, good food. Cozy Corner. Also in the 'hood. Worth the trip for the smoked Cornish hens. You will note I don't mention the Rendezvous, potentially Memphis' most famous BBQ joint. That's because I don't think they're that good. Ribs are OK, if you get there early before they dry out, but mostly, it's atmosphere. Quintessentially Memphis, though. Corky's used to be great. Not so much any more. Leonards, back in the 50s and 60s, was allegedly wonderful; not so much any more. Tops, one of the most ubiquitous, is only average. If I could only go to one, it'd probably be Interstate at lunch, Central in the evening. Other barbecue aficionados will swear by others. Those are mine. Finish your dinner off by going to Westy's, downtown, for hot fudge pie.

M'mmm, RRO. That looks marvelous.

There was a sizeable Italian community in the small Arkansas Delta town where I spent 30 years. Tomato sauce, with meat, was "spaghetti gravy."

Hello, almost-neighbor (I'm some 5 hours to the southeast). Looking forward to this. One of these days, I'll get ambitious enough to make my own tamales. Anxious to see what you have in store for us! (edited to change directions)

Bumping this thread, because I made a reasonably decent ricotta cheesecake tonight. I've gotten into making homemade ricotta, since I've found a source for fresh milk. So a half-gallon of milk yields about a pound of ricotta, which in turn goes into a cheesecake with six (farm-fresh) separated eggs, 3/4 cup of sugar, some almond flavoring, some almond meal, and some heavy cream. It's sprinkled with turbinado sugar: and baked at 350 for 40 minutes. And there it is. It'd be better with a fruit compote over it, but I was lazy. Not at all bad by itself. Recipe is 6 eggs, separated ¾ cup sugar 1 teaspoon almond extract 2 cups fresh ricotta 1 tablespoon lemon zest 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 ½ cups almond meal ¼ cup heavy cream ¼ teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons demerara sugar Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously butter the sides and bottom of an 8” springform pan. Dust the sides lightly with hazelnut flour. Line the bottom with parchment paper and butter this, too. Whisk together egg yolks and sugar until light and fluffy, then whisk in vanilla. Stir in ricotta, lemon zest and hazelnut flour until well blended. Whip heavy cream until soft peaks form and fold that in. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites with salt until they hold firm peaks. Fold this into ricotta mixture in three increments, trying not to overmix. Pour into springform pan and sprinkle a layer of demerara sugar over the top. Bake for 20 minutes; rotate and bake for another 20. Cake is done when slightly springy and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Serve with a dollop of créme fraiche, whipped cream or whipped ricotta.

My go-to at Cracker Barrel is the hash brown casserole. Cheesy,oniony, potato goodness.

I received my SideKIC in the mail this past week, and put it to work today. Strip steaks, from my CSA grass-fed beef vendor. My set-up: Custom-cut styrofoam lid, per Chris Hennes: I like my steak just to the medium side of medium rare, so I set the controller to 137.5. Way too done. I'll roll it back to maybe 130 or 132 next time. In any event, I was quite pleased with my SideKIC, particularly as a sous vide newbie. It was simple to use, and did what it said it would do. I have ribs in the fridge vac-packed with dry rub, that'll go in the cooker tomorrow for 48 hours; ribs on a weeknight will be a novelty! I'm pleased, glad I bought it, and looking forward to exploring the world of sous vide.

Welcome, amkr! Lovely meals. Please tell me about the last one.

Adding my thanks to David...will be cooking a corned beef brisket between now and St. Paddy's Day, and be assured this will be the destination for a good bit of it.

All about sinful.

Only rarely have I had distinguished guests, but I've done versions of this, for sure.

Oooh. I WANT that chile sauce.

I make no claims to the authenticity of either of these -- likely little to any -- but I make an "enchilida pie" when I'm too freaking lazy to roll the enchiladas and make sides. It involves layering flour tortillas, meat of some sort, black beans, whole-kernel corn, enchilada sauce and cheese, and repeating until I run out of dish room. Kids love it. The other is taking essentially the same ingredients along with a masa/cornmeal batter; the Dutch oven gets well greased, masa goes in the bottom, other stuff in the middle, and a thinned masa batter mixed with cheese on top, and it's baked. Kids love that one, too.

PEEE-can vs puh-CAHN -- I grew up in the South saying the latter. My Northern friends tend toward the former. Other regional differencews are CRAW-fish and CRAY-fish (in Arkansas and Tennessee, they're the former), and PRAW-leens and PRAY-leens. I'm of the PRAW-leen persuasion.

Back before the gluten-free thing, I knew every convenience store along I-40 and I-30 in Arkansas (and most of I-40 in Tennessee) that had deep-fried corn nuggets. Love those things.

Franci, the recipe is Ina Garten's, here. And I didn't have an old rooster -- I had boneless, skinless chicken thighs from the supermarket. A reasonable substitute. dcarch, I continue to be astounded at your creativity.

Depends on how desperate I am and how much work I want to do. If I don't mind a little assembling and baking, it's coconut macaroons -- dried bakers coconut, a little sugar, an egg, some almond extract, a little almond meal to bind it...shape spoonsful onto a baking sheet and it's 20 minutes at 350. If I don't want to work -- some fruit drizzled with a little condensed milk, which I am never without.

As mentioned previously, sweet potato and pulled pork hash. I picked up a pound of pulled pork from one of the several local barbecue emporiums (emporia?), got home, and discovered I had but one lonely sweet potato. I also had some acorn squash, so the lighter-colored chunks in the hash are that. They tasted much like a potato. Diced and fried the sweet potato and squash until brown a bit on the outside and soft within, added the chopped-up pulled pork to heat and get some crispy bits, then drizzled with No. 5 sauce that came with the pork. You've got to love a 'cue joint that has five different sauces. This one is spicy with a touch of sweet. It was excellent.

Nothing tremendously exciting, but some decent meals in the past week. Shrimp and grits. Sweet potato and pulled pork hash. Coq au vin.

Ooohhh. Can you hook a sista up with a recipe for that?

Cornbread, fortunately, is a very forgiving thing. For 26, I'd ballpark it at -- 4 cups cornmeal, 2 cups flour, 2 tbsp baking powder, 2 tsp. salt, 1/2 cup oil or bacon fat or melted butter (personally, I do not believe one can successfully make cornbread without bacon fat, but that's just me), and enough milk to make the batter the consistency you want it. (I never measure when I'm making cornbread, so the above is an approximation.) Grease and heat the pan before pouring the cornbread in. Bake at about 400 F until golden brown.

If there is such a creature as Garden Ridge in NYC, I bought 3 dozen clear glass plates and bowls for a brunch I was doing for my daughter's graduation. A buck apiece. I keep them in a big Rubbermaid tub in the guest room closet (OK, so NYC apartments probably don't have a guest room closet) with Wal-Mart a-dozen-for-$3 washcloths in between pieces and haul it out once or twice a year. I have to cobble together flatware, two services for 12 and two for eight, two of which I borrow, but it works. I use paper/plasticware at work for lunch, because if I wash my "real" stuff I always wind up washing everyone else's coffee cups and bowls they've left in the sink. They pay me too much an hour for me to spend it washing dishes.

Franci, I LOVE mullet. On the Gulf Coast (aka the Redneck Riviera), all the little beach restaurants make the most magnificent po'boys with them. And always in a cornmeal breading. ScottyBoy and Xilimmns excellent-looking versions of carbonara. I'm jonesing for that; acquired some quinoa penne (celiac disease is SUCH a pain!), and I'm going to try it this week. Have not yet found gluten-free linguine, other than rice-based, and I really don't care for rice-based pasta in traditional pasta applications.

I vote for an extension of this blog. It's wonderful!

Please let this be an elaborate joke, please... I mean, I'm openminded and all, but bacon just would not get me going, not in that way, anyhow. Ick. On an equally uplifting, tasteful, and, unfortunately, apposite note, Stronzo beer tastes like beer with... wait for it: orange juice. Yep, this brew has it all: classy name, charming marketing, and a flavour that makes you want to pound a bottle of Jaegermeister to make it go away. YeeHah. Speaking of making it go away...whoever invented Jaegermeister ought to be taken out and duly shot.