fifi

My late, great basset hound took a more direct approach. If I didn't have her small Milkbones in stock, she could really get pissed and stare you down. It was a ritual that when I got home from work, she got 3 Milkbones. If I ran out, I was in for a WHOLE EVENING of her following me around. When I sat down, she would sit down and start the staring. It got really uncomfortable. Milkbones were always in my pantry.

Many thanks for the Toast Dope idea. My sister and I have a pile of lovely tan crystal sugar that we got from a friend who's family grows sugar in Louisiana. I think we will make up a big batch of Toast Dope to give away as treats for the holidays. Ooooo... A good excuse to play with my microplane.

Now that I think about it, I am not at all sure that grits and polenta are the same thing. "Traditional southern" grits are all hominy grits, I think. Polenta is just plain corn meal, I think. Hominy (posole in Mexican terms) is corn kernels that have been treated with lye. The flavor and character of the corn is changed somewhat. For one thing, that treatment of the corn "releases" some of the B vitamins and makes them nutritionally useful. In fact, many years ago in parts of Italy where polenta became a staple food for the poorer population, vitamin deficiency diseases (pellagra mainly, I think) became epidemic. I don't have any polenta around right now to check the label and see if it sheds any light on the hominy issue. Does anyone know the answer to the grits/polenta question?

Chaudoc brand is my current standard for canned coconut milk. It comes recommended by several Thai chefs. Also, if you let it sit and don't shake it, you can dip the coconut cream off the top after you open it. I get it at my Asian market for about 60 cents a can. There are big differences in brands of coconut milk.

I recall being at a dinner at a pretty good, not great, Chinese place with this complete asshole. I am sure you will recognize the know-it-all type that is actually a complete idiot. He starts heaping the hot mustard on an eggroll. I "restrained" myself from issuing any warning. Was that evil???

I have finally settled on Emeril's Rustic Rub as my favorite "BAM!". I have gotten samples of Prudhomme's seasonings and they are very good, too. But for that quart jar of handy seasoning mix that I use for lots of things, Rustic Rub it is. Actually, it has become my favorite rub for pork butt before smoking. I buy the big Tone's bottles of spices at Sam's for these ventures. Otherwise, you could go broke. And, how bad could Tone's be? I have seen them on shelves in various chef's kitchens on cooking shows. The andouille and shrimp jambalaya that I made is great as a leftover. I will munch on it for another day before I freeze it in single portions. I do find that I have to add a sprinkling of water to reheat.

There is probably something to that, Pan. But I find that even my kids (early 30s) are getting pretty tired of having to shout. The same is true of the 20-somethings that I work with. They are starting to find the trend annoying-to-impossible to deal with. When we start planning a workgroup dinner, noise level is one of the first things to come up. I was beginning to think that I was entering into "old fogey" mode but that just isn't true.

You have hit on one of my very favorite rants. There has been something going on in Houston with noise levels the past few years. There seems to be a theory that a high noise level makes for "excitement", "buzz", high energy" or some crap like that. The noise level is created with all hard surfaces, a really crowded room, loud music or some mix of the three. It drives me nuts. I can't enjoy the food. I can't talk to my dinner companions. I leave with ringing ears, a hoarse voice and, quite likely indigestion and no recollection of what I just ate. I have a list of restaurants that I absolutely WILL NOT go to (unless trapped with a group) because of noise. Pappasito's (I don't even make an exception because they have really good fajitas), Joe's Crab Shack (the food isn't that good anyway so no loss there), and Ruggles (great food, really uncomfortable room) come to mind. There are others. Enough people here bitch about this trend toward higher noise levels that Alison Cook includes noise level in her restaurant reviews for the Houston Chronicle. What are these people thinking? edit to add: In none of these cases is "meaningful dining" necessarily the goal or the issue. I am talking about genuinely uncomfortable dining rooms that probably would not pass an OSHA decibel allowable.

I will try to check out Fiesta or Hong Kong Market here. However, now that I know what one looks like, I don't think I have ever seen them at either place. The horticultural characteristics of the tree as described at that link do not look very promising. Seems to be one picky bitch.

When I have a lot of bacon to process, I put it on a rack over a baking sheet in the oven. The thought of doing that much bacon in a frying pan is just painful to me. Good grief, I envy your cool temperatures so that your garage can become a cooler.

Oh dear... Bless his heart.

So... What have you done with your tasso so far? Have you made any tasso cream sauce? I remember seeing Paul Pruhomme doing this on Larry King several years ago. That stuff is lethal.

Salt. I was actually doing a cooking thing one time with my sister and nephew over and discovered that I was out of... salt. Nephew actually had to go to the store. WTF??? You don't ever run out of salt.

Great article and really good writing. I had forgotten about crepes. Crepes were one of those things that I used to do about 30 years ago, like tempura, that were sort of "performance art" parties. For crepes, I would have an assortment of fillings, sweet and savory, and the guests would stand around awaiting the next crepe. Come to think of it... that was kind of fun.

Guess what... Kroger's has Camellia red beans. BTW... to the uninitiated... any other red kidney bean just doesn't hack it. Only Camellias cook up to that wonderful creaminess. As to the gumbo essentials... my sister, the traitor, is planning her garden and okra is in the offing. I am contemplating a midnight raid with 2-4-D.

Yeah... I think of dried shrimp as nothing more than a salty bar snack. I recall that at that time, most of the product went to Japan. They used these big tumblers to get the shells off and sold the shells to zoos for flamingo food. The crustacean shells helped to keep their feathers pink. Does your African Grey talk? I stayed in a B&B in Victoria, BC a few years ago and they had this amazing African Grey. I am straightening some magazines on the coffee table and this bird says... "Is that really necessary?" One of the cats saunters by and the thing screeches... "Look out! I'm an eagle". Do folks really use dried shrimp in their jambalaya? (Lame attempt to stay on topic.)

Oh my! I had forgotten about Parafilm. Too many years out of the lab I guess. That stuff would be great for sealing off jelly jars.

Yeah... My late gumbo goddess in La Place referred to her jambalaya as "red rice" but there was no tomato in it. She considered tomato in jambalaya as an assault upon the saints of the church. Go figure. Is there still a dried shrimp industry? In the late 60s at FDA we tried to get something on them. They were drying shrimp on platforms in the middle of the swamp for chrissakes. We are thinking bird shit and other potential contaminants. We never found a thing wrong with it. Must have been the salt content.

Cool link, Toliver. You are a true internet wizard. Do you think that the un-reuseability might be due to condensation as it comes out of the fridge? The champion story of this sort... (off topic but what the hell)... My sister is a nursing student in the late 50s. She is doing her turn on the psych ward and has this patient in there with a nervous breakdown or some other disorder. This guy tells her that he has invented a way to make integrated circuits with photographic methods. She can have 100 shares in the company for $50. She is a poor student and this is the psych ward after all so she doesn't bite. Can you spell Texas Instruments?

Ah... The "tomato or not" issue raises its head. I can go either way. I made a jambalaya last night because Ronnie Suburban's pictures said that I had to. After I dumped in the andouille, I made my decision... no tomatoes tonight. Another day and it might have gone a different way. I do have a confession to make. The andouille came from... shh... California. Aidell's. Actually, it was pretty good.

Memesuze, I will definitely do that. I will start a thread in Texas on sources for our neighbors' goodies. It may be a while, though, since a lot of my time is taken up until after the holidays. If anyone finds stuff before I do, I hope they post it. The tasso situation has been particularly distressing. How the two places I tried can call that stuff tasso is beyond me.

You are probably closer to right on this one, Dave. I just found the gecko thing interesting and wondered what utility would come out of it. Do you remember when someone figured out that dolphin skin had these microscopic striations, disrupting turbulence, allowing them to move through water with greater ease? Then they started plastering the hulls of America's Cup racing yachts with a plastic equivalent of dolphin skin. My brain is an absolute stew of weird and mostly useless information. That is why I leaped to the gecko thing. I think the Post-It technology has more promise. BTW... Did you know that the Post-It adhesive is actually a failed attempt to develop an adhesive?

SSB checking in here. I haven't tried this stuff yet but it is next on my list. I have seen a couple of commercials and I find it fascinating. I keep wondering about some research I read about recently on geckos. Yes... geckos. It seems that the question was how they manage to run around on ceilings. Well, their cute little feet have microscopic hair-like projections that vastly magnify the surface area, likewise magnifying any hydrogen bonding effects or... ummm... something like that. I'll get back to you.

Houston has only one major newspaper, The Houston Chronicle. (Locally known as The Barnacle.) It does a pretty poor job with a couple of exceptions. I cruise it regularly for posting on the Texas forum. The Wednesday edition has the Food section. It is pretty mundane on most days. Oh... There might be some useful recipes but usually nothing of great interest. On Friday, the dining guide comes out. It is a "tabloid format" insert. The one bright spot is that they now have Alison Cook as a restaurant reviewer. She is a delightful writer. So that means that she gets barbs in the Whine & Dine column. That is where our locals wax eloquent on dining experiences. "The portions are huge. We love this place." Incongruously, The Houston Press, the "alternative" weekly, has the incomparable Robb Walsh on board.

Yeah, Bond Girl, you are right. There are several themes that run through Cajun cooking. One of them is the use of "The Trinity", the combination of onion, celery, and bell pepper. Roux shows up in different guises but not in jambalaya. The use of cayenne and salt as opposed to black pepper and salt is also characteristic. Although, contemprary cooks are adding black and white pepper to the mix. Cajun cooking is fun because it so lends itself to improvisation and it seems to always come out delicious.