kayb

Memphis, of course, is iconic; Interstate Barbecue is my favorite, followed by (tie) Central Barbecue and Germantown Commissary, followed by (tie) Three Pigs, The Barbecue Shop and Cozy Corner. I'd add Trolinger's in Paris, TN, and the Smokehouse in Camden, TN. Lewis's in Moscow, TN, gets raves, but I've never been overly impressed. Ditto the go-to place in Covington, TN, whose name escapes me. Can't leave Arkansas out of the mix. There's Jones Cafe in Marianna; Craig's BBQ in DeValls Bluff; and over here in my adopted home town of Hot Springs, there's McClard's (favorite of former President Bill Clinton) and Purity Barbecue Lounge, my current favorite.

Last night, as I was cleaning out the fridge (there were things in there that were old enough to vote), I discovered the heavy cream was about to hit its expiration date, so I decided to make up some creme fraiche. I usually use yogurt, instead of buttermilk, but I discovered the only yogurt I had was strawberry, so I used sour cream instead. Left the container sitting on the counter with a lid on it, as I had been invaded by gnats and didn't want to add protein to the mix. In short -- I forgot it until this morning. Took off the lid and sniffed; smelled fine. But it was thin. Until I stirred it, at which point it began to thicken up remarkably. Never got quite as thick as what I make with yogurt, but certainly thick enough to make a nice sauce. I sweetened it and just ate an entire 12-ounce carton of blackberries drizzled with it, in two helpings. Two questions: Is it still creme fraiche if you use yogurt or sour cream, instead of buttermilk, as your culture? And why did my batch wait to thicken until I took off the lid and stirred it?

I keep a box of graham crackers and a jar of peanut butter and honey in the credenza at work; it serves for breakfast if I oversleep, lunch if I can't get out or don't bring anything, or a snack when I have what is fondly described in the South as a "sinking spell"... I also like cheese, any kind of fruit, carrots and hummus. I'll often keep a block of cheese and a bag of apples in the office fridge for snacks/lunch/breakfast for several days.

Been on the road, so little cooking this week. Did manage an old favorite, a BLT, or a BLAT, if you insist: Just before I left town, a group of which I'm a member held a fundraiser -- we sold pre-orders for live Maine lobsters to be flown in, and gave buyers a choice of either cooking their own or us cooking them for them. We cooked about 100 of the 120 lobsters we sold (also sold 150 frozen lobster tails). It was a great fundraiser, and a lot of fun, as we cooked corn and potatos, went through about 10 pounds of butter, had a blues band and the whole works. We'll do it again next spring. Lobsters came in big styrofoam coolers with dampened newspaper. The finished product, below: They were great! The outdoor setting and the music, not to mention the keg of cold beer, were all big pluses. And I loved that some folks came out fully prepared to enjoy their lobster:

Challah French toast.

I had a really good hummus at a restaurant recently that had a flavor I couldn't identify (but it was good!), so I asked. Allspice. I now add allspice to mine, which is pretty traditional otherwise.

There are a multitude of good bottled barbecue sauces on the market; I like Sweet Baby Ray's (which may be regional). But if I'm doing a pork loin or loin chops, I prefer a sweet-hot sauce, like: -- guava jelly, horseradish and white wine -- raspberries, chipotles in adobo, and red wine -- pineapple, habaneros, lime juice and so on and so on.

Catching up after a busy few days.... --- Kim, Easter dinner looked fabulous, and I will be trying Mr. Kim's smoked lamb! The tostadas and the shrimp quesadillas looked pretty amazing, as well. --- MiFi, loved your photos, and everything looked mouthwatering. --- Rico, that etouffee looks remarkable. I'm going looking for that book. --- DooDad, you're breaking my heart with that Low Country Boil...I want that, now! Managed to find my way into the kitchen a few times in recent days. One evening, my first attempt at paella: with a plate of caprese salads, with the first ripe tomato of the spring (greenhouse grown, but still...) Red beans and rice, with arepas and tamales (the tamales from our signature barbecue joint here in Hot Springs) For a dinner for friends, grilled pork loin chops with raspberry chipotle glaze, roasted carrots, roasted broccoli with lemon and walnuts, and salt potatos. And finally, some shrimp, homemade cocktail sauce and tomatos I prepared quickly to go with this spring pea salad I was recipe-testing for Food 52 -- and it's a wonderful salad!

I had a very interesting starchy salad I've often thought I'd try to recreate sometime I needed to serve a crowd. It's a combination of all sorts of grains/small starches -- barley, quinoa, brown rice, wild rice, wheatberries -- cooked and then refrigerated in order to dehydrate a bit so the grains will separate. Then they're tossed with a dressing -- the one I had was with a balsamic viniagrette, but it could be any kind -- and some halved cherry tomatos. I could also see adding some halved olives, mostly because I love olives. Or you could eliminate the tomatos and olives and go with dried fruit....

Here's one I love with toasted baguette slices or pita chips: 1/2 cup black olives, minced 1/2 cup green olives, minced 2 cloves garlic, minced 1/2 cup dried figs, soaked in wine or cider to rehydrate, minced EVOO balsamic vinegar You could put it in the food processor, but I prefer to just mince it finely. You can also mince some tomato, drain it,and stir it in. I season with the balsamic until I get the flavor I want, and then add the EVOO until I get the consistency I want.

I'm making RBR this week, with the bone from the Easter ham. I soak my beans overnight, and boil the ham bone the night before for stock as well. When I'm ready to cook, I'll brown my andouille and my diced ham and some cut-up chicken thighs (boneless, and I'll generally skin them, as well, since the skin gets soggy in the remaining cooking process. Then I'll brown the onion, red bell pepper and garlic (don't like celery, so I don't use it, but I use at least six cloves of garlic for a pound of dry beans). If I'm drinking wine at the time, I'll add a quarter-cup or so. Here's where my version departs from the traditional Creole RBR. Drain the beans and put them in a pot with the aromatics, the meat, and two cans of diced tomatos and a can of diced tomatos with green chiles. Add enough ham stock to give you enough liquid to cook the beans. Season with paprika, bay leaves, salt and pepper, a few dashes of Pepperdoux or Pickapeppa hot sauce, bring to a boil and then simmer until the beans are tender. Add a heaping tablespoon of gumbo file powder and simmer for another 45 minutes. Not the Creole version, but it's good.

Great post! Drooled my way through it thinking about when I could make a NOLA run (can drive it in abput 7 hours....h'mmm...). Hate you missed Willie Mae's, though.

I have often done PB&J on flour tortillas for events where kids were attending...easier for little hands to hold, less chance of a major mess if dropped.

Thanks for the recipe, Greg, and let me add my welcome to both you and BertaBurtonLake. It's a great forum, even for amateurs like me. And that's a beautiful boxer, even if she does chew USB cables! (I have a Pug who does the same....) My Easter menu, for just youngest daughter and me, is simple and has our favorites -- Ham (mustard and brown sugar glazed, in the oven as we speak, as dinner is tonight) Asparagus (roasted, with Hollandaise) Potato salad Deviled eggs Angel food cake with strawberries and sweetened creme fraiche for dessert.

From a Southern goy who loves latkes -- sour cream and apple butter.

Roast chicken marinated in a miso-mirin mix, and roasted in what I thought was a clever manner, for someone who doesn't have a formal chicken roaster. A conventional tube pan would work better than a bundt, but I didn't have one. Skin at the neck opening was almost charred, but that was because I failed to lower the oven rack enough. Great way to roast a bird, though! That's a mashed potato gratin with gruyere and caramelized onions in the back.

I believe that is the cook's privilege!

Loh rd God. I know when I'm outdone. I'm WAY outdone. That's amazingly wonderful, and I'd love to be able to turn out that dish on command. I salute you.

Yuengling Lager. OK, I'm a plebian.

H'mmm. I may have missed the reduction step, or perhaps it's because I finished it in the slow cooker because I wasn't going to be home. Thanks for that knowledge. Regardless, it was good.

Rendang (beef braised in coconut milk) over brown rice, with sesame snow peas.

Smoked salmon hash with scallions, topped with a misshapen pair of over-easy eggs, but hey, I'm flipping eggs lefthanded because I'm still in a cast (until a week from Wednesday!), so I deem them acceptable. I have to say,this was not as good as I had hoped, having eyed the recipe for a few weeks before I got around to it. Something about the way the smoked salmon, the potatos and the eggs play with each other, or fail to.... So I recouped this morning with Cheddar Bacon Muffins (recipehere) and fresh strawberries with creme fraiche and brown sugar. Florida berries, but good.

I had an absolutely marvelous sea bass filet at Cafe Pacific in Highland Park, Dallas, last fall....they called it "three onion" sea bass, and it was roasted in a marvelously crispy panko breading that had grated Vidalia and red onions in it, with scallions chopped and scattered over. They served it over roasted corn risotto with ancho chile cream sauce, and I thought I had died and gone to heaven...

New York Strip steak seared on a griddle pan, with risotto and caprese salad from the first locally grown (in a greenhouse) vine-ripened tomatos of the season...and I had to use dried basil as the grocery had no fresh and my herb garden is not yet begun for the summer....

Andiesenji, I love Idiazabal as well; like it better than Manchego, I think. I tend toward the hard, aged cheeses or the semi-firm younger ones. Lately I've been buying 3-month aged sheeps milk and cows milk cheese from my free-range organic meat supplier, and that's keeping me happy. I supplement it with an aged Gouda (most recently Green Heart), Idiazabal, Manchego or Uniekaase Robusto. And I try to keep Gruyere and Jarlsberg around as well. When I've had a big lunch, dinner is often cheese, fruit, toast, honey and a glass of wine.