Norm Matthews

I got nostalgic when I decided to cook a small brisket in the crock pot for dinner. I don't remember the last time I made brisket in the slow cooker but I remember mom putting one in a heavy lidded skillet on the back of the stove on Sunday morning before church and by dinner we had one of my favorite meals. That was before crock pots and television. I also remember when I started to learn how to cook on my own and discovering that you can't cook a brisket in the oven like a rib roast. Mom, dad, my sister, and I lived in a red brick apartment on Strawberry Hill in KCK, pictured below in more recent times. It had a candlestick phone and the oven was an enameled cast iron Magic Chef. Tonight, we has some cheese scones with the brisket but those pictures turned out blurry.

I recently got new grates for my gas grill and about the same time got an email linking to the way a guy prepares his ribeye steaks for competition. He used the same grill grated that I had and I wanted to try the method, with some reservations. I used a much thinner steak and some of the same seasonings but did not do the trimming and other prep that he did. My gas grill does not get as hot as his charcoal grill did and I shortened the cooking time since mine was at least 1 1/2 inch thinner. We had ours with twice baked potatoes

I have a recipe for cheese scones from an Australian born friend and it has strong white flour as an ingredient. I am not familiar with that term. Can you tell me what is meat by strong flour? Her recipe uses baking powder rather than yeast. I normally would think a non yeast bread would use what I would think of as a soft flour but your recipe would be best with what I would call a hard flour.

I think of the Chicken pot pie I make sort of similar to Southern chicken and dumplings with a crust instead of soft steamed dumplings.

liuzhou said it better but I was trying to explain why the US Supreme Court is not the Irish High Court so a comparison is not applicable. Of course state and local laws are different and there are other Federal taxes on some consumables. Kansas has the same rate of tax on all grocery items as it does on everything else. A lot of other states have lower or no taxes on some food or all foods.

@Eatmyswords Ireland has a tax on non-staple foods (VAT). The Irish suit was asking the court to rule that Subway bread was a staple food and as such, not subject to the tax. Because the sugar content exceeded the definition for bread, the court ruled that it was subject to that Value Added Tax. I don't think our US Supreme court would have reason to consider such a case because our laws do not add an extra tax to pastries, ice cream, chocolate, etc.

Still had green beans and tomato from the farmers market so we had those with grilled ribeye steaks. Charlie had his with mac&cheese. Mine was a nuked potato. The green beans were done in a couple minutes in the Instant pot. Neither of us like crispy green beans.

These were not frozen. I dipped the okra in milk and egg then put them in a bag with flour, salt and pepper. I started them in a hot skillet and they were not gooey, but probably would have browned more in a hotter skillet.

I got some tomatoes and okra at the farmers market and found some shrimp in the freezer. Initially I thought about cooking the shrimp with mussels in fish stock and white wine. I went to the store and got some mussels but when I got home I found that they smelled really bad. Both the guy behind the meat counter and i were wearing masks so neither of us noticed anything at the time. I ended up cooking just the shrimp with some Creole seasoning with red bell peppers and garlic.

When Charlie was a preschooler, he spent the days at the restaurant with his Korean family and had whatever he wanted when he was hungry. About the time he was ready for school, his mom sold the restaurant and moved on to bigger and better things in San Francisco. In elementary school, Charlie really complained about cafeteria food. I told him he just had to adjust to American food. I didn't know until later that he threw up after every lunch. When he ate at home, everything was OK. I told him that if he didn't like something on his plate, he didn't have to eat it but he at least had to taste it first. I don't recall that happening too many times. But when he went to live for a summer in LA with his grandparents while I finished my masters degree, they let him eat McDonalds everyday and he was a chubby little boy when he got back home. He did better by the time he got to middle school About 8 years ago, I was in the hospital with a broken ankle. I waited 4 or 5 days until the surgeon scheduled me. I think the lady who brought the food didn't like me because she usually took most of it back. As someone said earlier, it was low fat and low salt and really bland. Luckily Charlie and Cassie would bring me some food from home or a restaurant when they visited.

Dinner yesterday was Daeji Kalbi ( grilled baby back ribs). They are always messy on the grill so I tried using a couple of grill mats. They worked out well.

Charlie's request for dinner was for pork bulgogi which we already had some in the freezer. We had it with rice and kim chi. Yesterday I got a really nice and ripe peach from the market so that was dessert. I put some raspberry jam in the middle, grilled them a little than poured some melted ice cream over it.

I got a chicken yesterday, cut it up, froze some of it, made stock with some of it, and breaded and cooked the breasts for dinner today.

I saw a recipe called Creamy Garlic Chicken and it looked good but when I read the recipe just before going to the store, I thought it looked a lot like Chicken Florentine so I looked up some of those recipes and decided to do Giada de Laurentiis' recipe. I also wanted to try a new coleslaw recipe with tricolor slaw mix, pineapple and bacon. While I was making it, I suddenly had remembered that awful salad at every church social in the 1960s with cabbage, carrots, pineapple and lime jello. I wondered if the person who made up this recipe was maybe the granddaughter of the person who made up that green jello salad. I went ahead and made it with a little trepidation. I figured if it was terrible, I wouldn't tell anyone. The pineapple was just a slight addition to the taste and the bacon hardly noticeable. Charlie said it was good.

It's true that Diners and Truck Stops have equipment and resources that makes food taste different than I could ever hope to make at home and perhaps it is useless to try, but Charlie hasn't found what he is looking for in those places either. A very long time ago a couple of guys I knew had set the same quest for themselves and it turned out to be a lot like that song from Don Quixote. I felt sorry for them to set have such a silly goal but I am finding out is isn't as easy as I thought.

Charlie has been searching for Chicken Fried Steak like they had in the high school cafeteria so when I see one, I give it a try. He said it was good but he is afraid the only ones like he had mist have been made in a factory. I tried some with cubed steak and some with pork.

While at Costco today, I picked up a boneless leg of lamb, not knowing what I'd do with it but by the time I got home I knew it was going to be Chislic, which is cubed, marinated, skewered and grilled lamb. A guy from South Dakota who started teaching at our school the same year I started introduced us to Chislic. At the time it was little known outside of South Dakota. Maybe it still is for all I know. A decades long internet friend in Florida who recently passed away always put a little dry powdered Ranch dressing in the mayonnaise when she made deviled eggs. Everyone except Charlie loves them that way. I didn't tell him I put some in and he didn't notice. He ate 6 out of 8.

I smoked today's brisket with oak wood, Texas style, seasoned with just salt and pepper. My smoker was running hot- around 300º. I don't know what was different but it got done in about 8 hours.... well the front half got done, I am finishing the last half in the oven now. The last picture is the crispy end that was closest to the fire. Arthur Bryant used to put these trimmings out for people to take and nibble on while waiting in line to order. They were very popular but he couldn't put them on the menu because this is about all there is on one brisket. There were never enough to make complete servings for one without running out very quickly. After his death, someone reimagined his" burnt ends" by cubing the almost done large end of the brisket, putting some more rub on it and a little sauce and finishing it in the smoker. That is what you will get when you order burnt ends at BBQ restaurants today.

On your list, #6, OB Bear has Dak gangjeong which is the chicken both Charlie and I have made at home and is the same as from the restaurant we ordered from last night. https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/dakgangjeong The chicken and waffles concept, sparked an idea that using honey instead of rice or corn syrup in this Korean recipe is something to try next time. I first heard about a Southern and Soul food restaurant that has waffles and fried chicken, around 15 years ago I think it was one in NYC. I had never heard of it before then. My mother's side of the family is from Southern Missouri and Arkansas and my dad's brother, who's son is my age, lived in Mississippi.

Charlie discovered a Korean restaurant we haven't been to and noticed they had fried chicken on the menu. It's the kind with the crispy skin and a sweet ginger glaze. We have both made it before but not in at least a couple of years. It is kind of an involved process. Anyway, Charlie ordered some an picked up for our dinner tonight. He also got a stew with rice cake in it. I couldn't pronounce or attempt to spell the name of it, but it's good to know we can get that really good chicken whenever. We always just did wings but this one had some legs included. The picture was taken after dinner was done. These are the leftovers.

We had dinner a little early. I grilled the wings early expecting to reheat them with the sauce later, but by the time they were done on the grill, we were both hungry and ate them right away. Charlie said they were a good appetizer. I thought they would be less messy if we used the sauce for dipping instead of coating them but I was wrong. They were still messy.

I came across a video of Jaques Pepin making soup from whatever he found in the refrigerator and he mentioned that he didn't throw away the chicken skins. He crisped them up in the oven. He didn't give any details on how he did it, he just had some that he broke up and added to the soup, like crackers. I wanted to try that so I looked for his method and when I was looking, I found his recipe for crusty chicken thighs and decided I'd make that for dinner today. (the crispy chicken skins were good but they were just a snack yesterday) I also came across a recipe for strawberry mousse and remembered I had not made that since before I met Charlie's mom so decided to make that too. It looked fancier that the one I used to make. We had some kimche with it but it didn't make it into the picture.

Your step mother obviously has a great sense of style.

Yesterday was my son's birthday and he invited a few relatives and friends over for dinner. I grilled a couple of his favorites: Two kinds of kalbi, baby back ribs and beef short ribs.

I picked up some corned beef on a whim and cooked it today. It shrank a LOT. We had it with roasted cabbage and carrots and an apple pie with meringue top crust. The recipe said it was an Irish style pie.