fifi

I am quite sure that Robb will try it again. There isn't much that puts him off.

We were a small family, just the four of us, but we often had friends in that were like family. My sister and I still do that. For a while it was strictly traditional, all of the usual suspects mentioned so far. Then, when I was in my early teens, mom & dad's interest in cooking really took off. It was a wild ride ever since. Sometimes we still had to have mom's traditional cornbread dressing or her potato salad but everything else was fair game. We continue that tradition to this day. Probably the most fun was the year we did a Jean Andrews' Thanksgiving menu. It was in some magazine and we did the whole thing. The turkey was stuffed with tamales and the pan was lined with them to soak up the juices. I think I remember corn fritters and sweet potatoes with ancho paste. The recipe for the turkey is in The Pepper Trail. I think the whole dinner was in Southern Living and titled "A South Texas Christmas" or something like that and it was at least 15 years ago. We have been known to fry about a dozen turkeys at a time. Since we have the pot of oil heated up, folks bring their "free turkeys" for processing into something edible. For that, we might make a Cajun version of the cornbread dressing, lots of trinity, andouille sausage and like seasonings. And, with that pot of now seasoned oil going, the crudite tray, that someone always has to bring, gets dumped in so that it will get eaten. Then there was the goose disaster that I did one year. I had never cooked a goose and was anxious to try it. I got the recipe from a Cajun friend. You stuff the well seasoned goose with potatoes, wrap it in bacon and put more potatoes in the bottom of the pan. The bacon was artfully arranged and it looked lovely coming out of the oven. It was at that point that I realized that I had a vat of fat. Then it dawned on me that the recipe was intended for wild geese that don't have all that much fat by the time they get this far south. About 30 years ago, Mother was on a Weight Watchers kick and did a whole traditional dinner according to the WW rules of the time. We drove all the way in from New Orleans for that disaster. The dinner was eaten in relative silence. At the end of the meal, someone let out the first giggle. Soon, we were all collapsing on the floor laughing hysterically. We made a "real" dinner the next day. I guess you could say that our tradition is to see what we can come up with for this year. But there is always some form of the traditional dishes done with a twist.

I just saw The Scissor Slicer on TV today. Watching the guy use the thing made my hands hurt. Who thinks up this stuff? And then goes to all the trouble to manufacture it?

I never really thought about this much, Busboy. Thanks for bringing it up. I have to agree that "washing up time" is pretty precious. When the kid or kids are here, that is some really high quality time. If it is just me, I enjoy it as a time for reflection.

I come from a family of hunters and fishermen. I am not much of a hunter but I have caught my share of our finny friends and dispatched them for my table. Some would say that fish are not "cuddly" and therefore not a problem. Well, I don't know about that. When you have had that big tuna on to other end of your line and gotten to know it during the hour's battle it took to get it to the boat, you tend to kinda respect the beast. The same is true of the trout or big redfish. The big buck white tail deer is the same story. You see it standing in the wood. It is so proud and graceful. And one pull of the trigger on the rifle brings it down. Then you have to actually do something with the carcass. You have to take its insides out and get it ready for being meat for the table. The same is true for geese, duck, dove. My nephew is the hunter in the family now. When we are feasting on some of his bounty, we discuss the beauty of the beast and relive the moment of the kill, the nobility of the beast. This is not too far from our distant ancestors, I guess. In my experience, all of us hunters and fishermen tend to celebrate the lives we take. We may get into it more with the warm blooded animals than the fish but I still respect that big tuna that I boated. My grandparents at one time raised pigs, and geese, and ducks, and chickens. We respected them as well. And we ate them. I was raised by hunters and fishermen and taught to respect the lives of the animals that we took to eat. Somehow, that seems a lot more "right" to me than the impersonal plastic wrapped package in the grocery store, even though that is what I use most often these days.

I just finished up the pork with apricots and cardamom recipe. I am not usually a fan of fruit in savory dishes but I am beginning to think that this one is a keeper. I only snitched a taste (well . . . a few tastes) but this is really good. It isn't really sweet and the flavors are really complex. I did have to digress a bit from the recipe. For some reason, I can't seem to find small shoulder roasts anywhere. I have defaulted to "boneless shoulder country ribs" to do anything other than a honking huge whole butt. I did cook down the braising liquid a bit to make it more like a glaze. For this, I intend to store the pork in the sauce. No reason other than I would like to have the flavors infuse into the pork a bit more. I am not sure that my pork was the best. I think it was a bit lean.

MarkinHouston . . . Oddly enough, I have never been to a gumbo cook-off. I would love to go and see some of the contraptions. Thanks for reminding me about the scaling feature, Toliver. I completely forgot about it. My concern with the gumbo was more about being able to reproduce the technique on a larger scale but you bring up a good point. I will be scanning RecipeGullet when I get the next call . . . "We got 3 crates of eggplant donated. Now what?"

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Another one caught in our web. That looks mighty fine, Tejon.

All of the above. Especially the pork roast rolled with anything else in a tortilla. Add to that . . . This summer I must have done Eggplant Gratin a dozen times. I have it once for dinner (just me) then the rest goes into a pressed sandwich with extra olive oil for the next day's excursion. I have made it without the sausage more often than not. Another one that has been requested several times was Crab Boil Corned Beef. Leftovers are certainly used for sandwiches and any other scraps become corned beef has served with eggs.

Now that is a great idea. I gave three copies of the book for Christmas. I should offer to add notes. I may have to try that pork and apricot recipe when the kids are here. One of my "stocking stuffer" gifts from the kids was a packet of cardomom.

Thanks Malawry. That gives me a benchmark. My double batch makes about 8 to 9 quarts, let's call it 2 gallons. That means if I use the large heavy pot for roux and trinity to quadruple it, that will pretty much approximate what you did successfully. I don't have a problem with tranferring it to a lighter pot for the simmering. The bigger pots in this kitchen are pretty heavy aluminum, not really thin cheap stuff. At that point, it doesn't make a lot of difference as long as you simmer low enough and stir occasionally to keep it from scorching on the bottom. If you did the searing of the trinity I am sure that your gumbo was divine. Thanks for giving me the courage to quadruple.

Mother and Dad passed away a few years ago within two weeks of each other, Dad first. Unhappily, they were in bad shape the last two years so we saw the event with some measure of relief. We buried Mother with a "bridal bouquet" of orchids and fresh herbs from my garden. She was one of the first "in the neighborhood" to get into fresh herbs of all kinds that no one had ever heard of. That was in the late 50s. (She also raised orchids for a while. Dad built her greenhouse.) Theirs was one of the truly great love stories. Dad was a very strong man and came out of the war with a master diesel mechanic's rating and soon also became a master carpenter. Sort of a "man's man" kind of guy. But he did cook. My first memory of him in the kitchen was when he made Scotch Raisin Bread every Christmas. That was about all I remember of him in the kitchen until I was in junior high and he got the cooking bug really bad. We still remember some of his whackier experiments, usually with large hunks-o-cow. Mother was a really good and adventurous cook but Dad took it to the limit sometimes. He would get obsessed with a recipe and tweak it forever. I thought a lot about Dad as I did this chicken recipe in the eGCI braising class. My sister and I take great joy in our memories of them, often connected with some food event. My sister swears that she was at the stove one day and had this "vision" of them arm in arm and Mother was saying "Look Eddie. She is adding too much garlic." I told her to change her choice of wine.

Yeah, Smithy, that is my question. I bought my 9 quart Le Creuset specifically to double my basic recipe and all of its variations. I had been using my 8 1/2 quart Calphalon saucier and it would get really close to not being big enough for the long simmer stage. A few times, a bit too much shrimp led to frantic "bailing" to another pot. But then, my preferred technique is to do this all in one pot and that means that that pot has to be heavy for the roux making. So, lets say that if you vary the technique and make the roux in a heavy pot of some sort that will also hold the trinity then you could transfer it to a larger lighter pot of some sort for the rest of the process. I am not willing to give up searing the trinity in the hot roux so the heavy pot has to hold all of that. (I am really convinced that that is one of the techniques that separates a truly great gumbo from the merely good. The comments here about the heavenly aroma of the trinity hitting the roux only reinforces my belief.) So, we are back to the limiting factor being the size of the heavy pot for the roux and trinity. Now my question is . . . At what point does the amount of oil and flour become too much to stir correctly to achieve even browning? My dad's saying in the face of every difficulty was "Get a bigger wrench." I get visions of the witches and their cauldron with a wooden spatula the size of a boat paddle. The kitchen I am dealing with is a smallish commercially equipped affair. It has large pots and bowls, commercial range and ovens, large coolers and such. It serves for weekly "home cooked meal" sales to the community as a fund raiser and they prepare maybe 100 or so. It is also used for special events like to prepare the sides for a big BBQ. It doesn't have the big steam kettles or anything else like you would find in a really big operation. I remember seeing some of Malawry's kitchen in her blog, I think. It is something like that but maybe not quite as well equipped. Having never worked in a commercial kitchen, how do they do it? I can tell an "industrial scale" gumbo a mile off. It may be good soup but it ain't great gumbo. So . . . How do the great ones do it? What is the limit on their batch size?

Thanks for that great report, Kevin. I agree with you about the planning of these things. I don't remember the dates but I went to the Messina Hoff thing last year and nearly died in the heat. We have some lovely weather later in the year. WHy they insist on doing this in the heat I haven't a clue. With that rant over, Thanks for the tips on the various vineyards. I am an absolute dunce about wine. But I like to drink it. Interesting that you say whites go down pretty well. I wonder why that is. Do you have any notes from Haak? They are "down the road a piece" from me. I have always thought that a winery in Santa Fe is pretty strange.

Oh man . . . Another reason to be upset that my closest Costco is over 50 miles away, with traffic. Why would a mangosteen be illegal?

You bought the garnish?

MCH . . . You will be glad to know that we did just that, double batch with okra from a guy's garden. It was a big hit. Malawry . . . How far were you able to go with scaling up? For my basic recipe, the ratios are: 1 cup oil/1 cup flour 2 cups onion/1 cup celery/1 cup bell pepper trinity 6 cups liquid 2 pounds "meat" This is the type of quantity that I have doubled before. Also, how dark did you go with the roux? I wouldn't think getting it really dark is very practical for a large batch. The "teaching recipe" was designed to help folks get that ultra dark version like the Upperline version that Jason pictured. What we did for our multiple double batches was more like what I did for the seafood here. Any help will be appreciated because we are likely to do this again. Multiple batches were kind of fun but not very efficient and if we don't have as much volunteer labor around won't be as practical. From what I hear, there wasn't anything left over to freeze. The folks were really appreciative of getting a favorite comfort food from home. I also understand that there was some amount of surprise that Texans could do so well. ( overheard . . . "Of course, this isn't as good as Aunt Sadie's but it is pretty darn good.")

You guys beat me to it. I have been helping a friend of mine. She has access to a commercial kitchen and has asked for help in scaling up some favorite "home cooking" recipes. They are doing some cooking for some of the smaller shelters here. Red Beans and Rice and Jambalaya are pretty easy. Gumbo, I dunno. I have successfully doubled the basic "teaching recipe" but I am not at all sure about going further than that. What my friend finally did was to make several double batches of different styles. For our purposes, we didn't try for the "how dark can you go" routine. We were after volume. They were all very good and well received. For some of us, it is never too hot for gumbo. But the question remains . . . Is gumbo one of those things that doesn't scale up very well?

Now that is a sad thought. Now that I think about it, I don't think I have ever had, much less made, asparagus with a cheese sauce. Hollandaise yes, cheese no. I am not even sure that sounds good, even with real cheese.

If you want to get really confused, check this out.

Yes to all of the above. When doing a whole brisket, I usually cut it into the flat and the point. I put the remote thermometer in the flat and when that is done, I move it to the point and drink some more beer.

My great Aunt Minnie used to make apple peel jelly. She was a waste-not want-not kind of gal. She made legendary pies and always saved apple peels to make jelly. I don't have a recipe though.

First, welcome Doc-G. You have touched on a subject dear to my heart. On the grades of brisket . . . this is a topic of great mystery to many of us. I am friends with a couple of competitive BBQ teams and they are wondering the same thing. Where is the USDA Prime brisket? Where can you get wagyu brisket? Actually, wagyu beef was developed here at Texas A&M (University) as far as I can tell and we still don't have an answer. I started a thread here not long ago on this very subject and no answers yet. On the cooking of brisket, I can't think of a better place to send you than this one. I have a Weber bullet and love it. But, if you have some sort of smoking set-up with a water pan for a heat sink you can achieve the same results. The key is to keep a constant (as much as possible) temperature of about 225F at the meat. Take a look at the information on that site about the temperature "stall" at about 170F when the fat melting and collagen conversion is happening. That is a fascinating phenomenon. I will be really interested in hearing what you can find as to "grades" of brisket. Whatever you find, don't be tempted to trim any fat before smoking. If you want to check out a Texas BBQ Click Here.

What would I change? I will take it that the question means that the restaurant has great food and I would like to go there but I don't because of these issues. I am also assuming that things like loud and obnoxious patrons are something that the restauranteur has limited control over. Loud music. If I can't talk to the waiter or my companions I am outta there. Actually, even if I have a coveted reservation, and I get there and it is loud, I leave! Tables shoved together. If I have to try to turn myself into a Gumby to get to the ladie's room I will not be back. Small table, large serving dishes. How dumb is that? You can't even find room for your wine glass. Amazingly, there are several restaurants here that have all of these "qualities" and they have a large crowd of masochists. Go figure.

Oh dear. I'm afraid that my list is long. While I love to cook, I have this alarming tendency toward laziness. That, and the fact that I live alone leads to some short cuts. I cook a lot of beans. I have developed "the Parson's method" of cooking beans, from the thread that rancho_gordo linked to, to a state of art. But I also have to have some cans of beans in the pantry for an impromptu bean salsa. Goya is my favorite brand. Bread crumbs is a given. As someone above said, I do not eat a lot of bread, so making them fresh is not usually an option. Mayo is the same thing. I am not going to make it myself for a sandwich. My fave is Hellman's Mayonesa made with lime juice. I can get it here at Randall's, a Safeway company. I love Shake 'n' Bake. If I have that in the pantry I am good to go for a pork chop or a piece of chicken in the DeLonghi. Mae Ploy Thai curry paste to be sure. The same thing goes with pasta sauce. Classico is my current favorite. Canned petite diced tomatoes to be sure. I am not a tomato lover. Raw tomato makes me gag so I don't grow it or normally buy it. Besides, processing raw tomato is a real PITA for the little bit that I would normally use. Frozen peas and corn are God's gift to mankind. Same thing goes for spinach. When you get into condiments, the list gets ever longer. There are some things that you can't do without in Mexican cooking . . . Knoor Chicken Base and Maggi to name a couple. I have made my own Worchestershire, once, Emeril's recipe. Great. Not worth it. Ketchup . . . Heinz. Pace Picante has a place in my heart. I really don't like fresh Pico de Gallo . . . It's that fresh tomato thing. Jane's Crazy Salt is a requirement for an avocado sandwich with lentil sprouts. I am sure there are more.