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eG Foodblog: adoxography - transiting Venus and Taylorville driveby


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I confessed to the cheetos earlier. Now, dinner!

In honor of the succession of Tennessee, there were biscuits, which started, as all good biscuits should, with this

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which with the addition of some buttermilk,leavening, a blend of butter and crisco, and additional flour because it's so ridiculously humid, became this

i8161.jpg

I don't work the dough much before getting it on the baking sheet. It's lined with foil to help keep the bottoms from burning

i8163.jpg

And the end result?

i8162.jpg

But really, what are biscuits without something to sop up? Inspired by the BBQ Shrimp thread, and the fact that shrimps with heads were $4/lb at Valli, we ended up having something like this...

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And that's when things got entertaining. First, he asked how to eat them. After explaining, he took the bowl, AND NO NAPKINS, into our computer room to play Everquest. Conversational highlights included

"I got brains all over me."

"There's no way to do this with one hand, is there?"

"You know how I have that bones, skin, and gristle thing? How did you manage to work all of them into one meal?"

"This is the most horrific meal ever. It doesn't matter if it tastes awesome".

Dinner ended with him coming into the room where I was and politely requesting that next time, I peel stuff for him. I promptly did, with one of the last of mine, only getting the tips of my fingers dirty. He only looked slightly disgusted when I handed it to him.

To make it better, I made dessert.

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I broiled apricot halves with a bit of butter and brown sugar, toasting some walnuts in the same stuff on the other side of the pan. I warmed some dulce de leche for the plate, and put the broiled apricots and walnuts on top.

I think he's better now.

I told you I was evil. :)

--adoxograph

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I confessed to the cheetos earlier.

Sorry I missed your cheetos confession earlier, but seeing them in the picture would have :shock: 'd me under any circumstances :biggrin:

As for the biscuits (and the rest of your delicious-looking dinner)...*applause* :smile:

=R=

"Hey, hey, careful man! There's a beverage here!" --The Dude, The Big Lebowski

LTHForum.com -- The definitive Chicago-based culinary chat site

ronnie_suburban 'at' yahoo.com

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mmmm.... biscuits look wonderfull, I tried, but I think I have a genetic thing (possibly because of being scottish) where my biscuits mysteriously turn into scones 0_o some would say it's the same difference, I say bleh.

Spam in my pantry at home.

Think of expiration, better read the label now.

Spam breakfast, dinner or lunch.

Think about how it's been pre-cooked, wonder if I'll just eat it cold.

wierd al ~ spam

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Good biscuits are one of the hardest things on earth to make properly! My sister in law , who hailed from St. Louis, made the perfect biscuits every morning when she visited us years ago. I thought, no big deal....until she left and I tried making them myself. Every morning for a month I made biscuits....read, "hockey pucks" until I finally got them right. I've never made them again! We gained 5 pounds that month, too!

You have to have southern genes to get them right. I'm convinced about that.

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Those shrimp look great!

And as for the peeling thing, many people (me included) just pull the head and eat the body, shell and all, but not the tail (although I will eat the tail on fried shrimp :wub: ). They are quite crispy after the oven/broiler and much easier to eat this way. I don't think that this would work for your SO however :laugh: .

Brooks Hamaker, aka "Mayhaw Man"

There's a train everyday, leaving either way...

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(although I will eat the tail on fried shrimp :wub: ).

OHHHH...my husband eats the shells too! YUK. I thought he was unique in the universe.....

Adox: you must train the SO. Deprive him of food, let scent of bbq shrimp waft over to him and when starvation overtakes his aversion to touching the peels, he will come to understand the tactile pleasure of ripping those shrimp bodies apart!! :laugh:

I used to travel to Hong Kong with my designer who had an aversion to pulling the shrimp head from the body, so I would have to rip all the heads off for her. After, say 4 or 5 years, I had her finally trained so that she could do it all by hersef. So, if she's trainable, anything is possible!! :biggrin:

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In a home with two human occupants and four active computers (as well as numerous unassembled parts, cords, and artificial intelligences) one can expect that there will be dinners not at the table - we're both cool with that. However, I knew EXACTLY what would happen when he took that bowl of shrimp out of the kitchen.

In fact, on my one 24 hour trip to New Orleans (long, long story - but it does involve a hero with a white Mustang) my friend Wayne and I ate ate Mr. B's Bistro. He had the BBQ shrimp, and, thanks to a number of hurricanes, managed to get the sauce everywhere, including on his ear, without getting a single drop on his bib. The waiters kept swinging past our table to watch.

I'm actually really impressed that no sauce ended up imbedded in any keyboard in our house last night. But yes, I knew there would be shrimp brains galore.

mwahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah.

I haven't done so yet, but I'd like to say thank you to everyone for such wonderful compilments about the foodlog so far - this has been great fun! (that having been said, if anyone is feeling inspired for next week, PM me, or I'll just pick someone m'self).

This morning the heat has broken because it is raining, so the hot mint tea was pleasant. Traffic, on the other hand, was decidedly not, so I will sustain myself with a cup of decaf from upstairs.

Is there anyone left on the planet who recognizes that a coffee with cream and sugar is a coffee regular, or is it just me and Detective Lenny Briscoe?

--adoxograph

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:wink:

It's you and Lenny, I'm afraid...and Lenny just retired. I only know the idiom because I'm an editor, and I never use it.

I handle the mess factor for shrimp-peeling meals by simply layering the dining room table with newspaper, and serving corn on the cob (and blueberry pie for dessert). The meal is at the table, by damn, not on the sofa or in the bedroom, or anywhere else...or other parties risk my wrath.

In other words, the entire point of the meal is that Neatness Does Not Count for the duration, only the 'yum' of it all. Afterward, the (few) dishes go into the dishwasher, the newspaper goes with the shells and cobs straight into the trash (desperately needful: crustaceans' shells can smell really nasty really fast in hot weather) and out the door.

Forgive me for the waste, St. Jacques...but I don't often use the shells for bisque afterward.

Loving this blog!

:biggrin:

Me, I vote for the joyride every time.

-- 2/19/2004

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Oh, and this afternoon I'll be taking a tour at the French Pastry School and will be joining some co-workers tonight at the Goose Island Brew Pub, just so your curiosity is piqued.

I just got an email from my sister - she gave my biscuits passing marks. Yay!

--adoxograph

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I used to work at a bagel shop in Rhode Island, and it was amazing how many different things people meant by a coffee, regular.

Customer: Coffee, regular.

Me: Cream and sugar?

Customer: (looks at me as if I were insane) Yeah, I said coffee regular!

Customer: Coffee, regular.

Me: Cream and sugar?

Customer: (looks at me as if I were insane) No, regular. Like medium.

Customer: Coffee, regular.

Me: Cream and sugar?

Customer: (looks at me as if I were insane) No, black. Regular!

Customer: Coffee, regular.

Me: Cream and sugar?

Customer: (looks at me as if I were insane) No, just cream. Not too white, not too black. Regular!

Et cetera. Boy, now I am experiencing some serious semantic satiation with respect to the word "regular."

"went together easy, but I did not like the taste of the bacon and orange tang together"

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I can't see the pic of the finished biscuits! Though based on the raw ones going onto the sheet, they look really yummy!

I just got my hands on a bag of White Lily flour (which, for those of you not in the know is low-protein flour from the South and, I'm told, critical for making really tender biscuits). There are biscuits calling my name from that bag. Maybe with lunch.

As for lunch, it depends on when I'm eating dinner. If I know it will be early, lunch will be in the middle of the day. Otherwise, I like it on the downward slope of the workday. Though when I was working 7:30-4:30, the downward slope was anything after 11:30.

"I just hate health food"--Julia Child

Jennifer Garner

buttercream pastries

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I haven't done so yet, but I'd like to say thank you to everyone for such wonderful compilments about the foodlog so far - this has been great fun! (that having been said, if anyone is feeling inspired for next week, PM me, or I'll just pick someone m'self).

I nominate JohnnyD. A summer's week in Maine!

(Actually, I'm just dyin' to know if he wears that hat year 'round, like some incidental-but-totally-crucial Northern Exposure character) :laugh:

Diggin' yer blog, BTW.

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I really, really lamented Lenny's retirement in the season finale. Heck, I have even heard Jerry Orbach's Broadway hits CD...

And now, a literary interlude.

I'm currently reading The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson, which, alas, has very little to do with rice or salt. It's an alternate history tale where Europeans in the 14th century are actually completely wiped out by the Black Plague, rather than simply a quarter of them. The story then follows the Asian Expansion across the world. As is par for the course, the author's science is fantastic (I love how Newton's Laws of Motion come about). The structure of the story is very interesting. However, my main argument - and the reason why I feel I can stand on a soapbox here - is that the author completely discounts the influence of food on history. You'd think, with that title, they might explore the spice trade, sugar trade, SALT trade in the course of the 1400 or so years the book covers. Nope.

Why is it that food becomes the invisible history? I would make the claim that one's perception of a culture is often strongly influenced by the cuisine. Here, we discuss concepts of authenticity in food, consider crossing food boundaries, explore where food comes from. Are we as a group of aficianados so distinct a population from the norm that we can't see history without its food? Or is the rest of the world just missing out because all they see is sustance?

That latter option would explain most fast food....

Oh yeah, but I'm liking the book.

--adoxograph

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Thank you for the link, Rachel! And definitely get the book if you like alternate history, or liked Kim Stanley Robinson's other books (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars, among other titles)

Lunch at my desk - salad, bits of bread and gorgonzola, cherries. I'll be leaving in half an hour, and then it will be pretty busy for a while - no updates until later, I suspect. But hey, later, there will be festivities!

--adoxograph

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I nominate JohnnyD. A summer's week in Maine!

(Actually, I'm just dyin' to know if he wears that hat year 'round, like some incidental-but-totally-crucial Northern Exposure character) 

I nominate GGMora! Spring Fling in the Green Mountains, wooohoooo!!!

(Actually, I just want to see more crazy marzipan critters. How about a catamount? ...or "champ", the elusive monster of Lake Champlain? There's an idea... it would have to be huge!)

:rolleyes:

"I took the habit of asking Pierre to bring me whatever looks good today and he would bring out the most wonderful things," - bleudauvergne

foodblogs: Dining Downeast I - Dining Downeast II

Portland Food Map.com

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I nominate JohnnyD. A summer's week in Maine!

(Actually, I'm just dyin' to know if he wears that hat year 'round, like some incidental-but-totally-crucial Northern Exposure character) 

I nominate GGMora! Spring Fling in the Green Mountains, wooohoooo!!!

(Actually, I just want to see more crazy marzipan critters. How about a catamount? ...or "champ", the elusive monster of Lake Champlain? There's an idea... it would have to be huge!)

:rolleyes:

Well...I did Thanksgiving week...does that count?

Malheureusement, the marzipan freak is not of my own making.

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Curses!

So you did... It certainly does count.

Well, I have been mulling it over ever since I followed Lucy around Lyon but it's not appropriate right now. Give me another couple of weeks or so, so I can get comfortable in my new job, get a camera, and summer arrives for real.

Oh, and I need to dry-clean my hat...

"I took the habit of asking Pierre to bring me whatever looks good today and he would bring out the most wonderful things," - bleudauvergne

foodblogs: Dining Downeast I - Dining Downeast II

Portland Food Map.com

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Guys, Lenny isn't fully retired. He'll be on L&O: Trial By Jury coming to NBC in Winter '05.

"Some people see a sheet of seaweed and want to be wrapped in it. I want to see it around a piece of fish."-- William Grimes

"People are bastard-coated bastards, with bastard filling." - Dr. Cox on Scrubs

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As is par for the course, the author's science is fantastic (I love how Newton's Laws of Motion come about). 

Not entirely par for the course. Having paid a delightful visit to mags at her bookstore last Friday, I came away with two historicals into which I plunged eagerly. Unfortunately the first one, set in the early-mid 17th century, put me off almost immediately with a plot point revolving around use of potassium cyanide. Hello? Only about 250 years early; and once you see something like that it makes everything else suspect. (That book had other flaws, in particular a coy and self-conscious style; but this sort of thing is not rocket science, not when it affects one's credibility so deeply.)

Why is it that food becomes the invisible history?  I would make the claim that one's perception of a culture is often strongly influenced by the cuisine.  Here, we discuss concepts of authenticity in food, consider crossing food boundaries, explore where food comes from.  Are we as a group of aficianados so distinct a population from the norm that we can't see history without its food?  Or is the rest of the world just missing out because all they see is sustance?

Both. And of course there's the converse curse: how often have you read a book or seen a movie with historical elements, only to become so preoccupied with the presentation of food that you lose track of all other substance? Even aside from my own screamingly obvious instance, i.e. "Master and Commander," this happens to me all the time. And I'm not the only one. My favorite extreme illustration, comprising both food and history, is Careme's long impassioned essay about Napoleon's life on St. Helena, focused entirely on the dreadful gastronomic privations of that final exile, especially the shocking indignity of a former emperor being subjected to the work of a team of four chinese cooks!

Definitely the kind of guy who would have photographed his food....

Loving your blog. Biscuits like that would definitely be worth seceding for! (Hmmm... think I feel a batch o' biscuit coming on myself. Don't have any southern genes, except maybe the south of Russia, but I generally acquit myself pretty well in the biscuit department.)

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balmagowry, were those other historicals by Robinson? If so, weird, he's known for being completely anal about details like that - or maybe he's better with the speculation research than the historical. :) I just don't see how all references to food can be completely ignored over a timespan of that length. As for being distracted by food in something, I can see your... hey! Zoidberg's like lobster!

Nothing fancy for lunch today...

i8208.jpg

...and dinner was just parmesan garlic fries and a small beer - which is to say a pint glass of small beer, as opposed to a normal beer in a small size - because I wasn't much interested in food. However, the menu at Goose Island Brew Pub seemed to have some decent bar food options. The small beer was very nice, smooth, not too anything really, just a nice pint. Sometimes, a pint and fries is all you need.

i8207.jpg

A good portion of my day today was spent at the French Pastry School. I was there to get a tour of the school and to observe the afternoon class. The class was doing their last day of building a combination sugar/chocolate showpiece, no real teaching (hah!) and there was some question as to how much I was actually going to be able to see. No worries there, and the rain was sort of my friend as it turns out.

Because of the humidity, many people were having trouble with their sugar work. One student's sugar work was completely melted. I had been wandering around talking to the other students, and so I said to him, "I'm not going to bother you, I know you have a lot to do."

The student, Rene, turned to me and said, "Actually, I could use your help, if you don't mind."

Mind? Let me wash my hands...

I ended up helping make a sugar pyramid, putting a sphere together, playing with ribbon candy, and everyone, everyone, kept offering me chocolate to eat. It was like I was suddely everyone's favorite pet/assistant. I had one decidedly small world moment, when we determined that Rene and I were born on the exact same day. We decided it was destiny that I would be helping him.

Or maybe it was that I caught the Fifth Element reference in his showpiece.

There was another woman, not anyone I know, who did the tour with me. She left after about an hour, and the only people she really talked to were the woman in charge of the office, and me. To me she queried, "You're not a student? You're so active."

Not sure how to respond to that one.

If you were given somewhat free reign to particpate in a class like this (and Chef Sebastien was definitely including all of us when demonstrating or making a particular point) would you sit on the sidelines? Well, I stayed for almost 5 hours, whatever that says about me. :)

Now you may be wondering why I was at the School in the first place. No reason. Really. Hey look, transit of....

damn. Nighttime.

--adoxograph

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