Day off!

So we are off today and D isn't feeling well, so we are just going to make dinner at home and watch Darwin Barney and the Cubs take on the hated Texas Rangers.  Who are way better than the cubs this year...  So we'll just see how that goes.

But anyway, our dinner is as follows:
Roasted corn on the cob, sauteed local shrimp with butter, lemon, and fleur de sel,
and...

BOUDIN.
We are eating that boudin you and Rachel bought us.

I have cajun on the brain, so here are 3 short-term Cajun goals I will accomplish before mid-summer.

1) I will make my own boudin.
2) I will make my own tasso.
3) I will accomplish the Boudin Corn Dog.  (Rules: must be crunchy on the outside, must be soft-boudin-texture inside, and must stay on the stick.)

Its on, I'll let you know how it was...

Who dat, go Cubs!

Traditional cooking...GRILLING

I can honestly say I never thought of grilling as a art or even a skill that is difficult to master but I humbly stand corrected. Lots of fun and interesting facts came out of this section and I wanted to share (even though you have already read this) and asked a few questions.

• Charcoal burns "cleaner" than wood? I have tried to look up this terminology and have read it over and over again in the book itself but I feel that a Jesse explanation would help me more.
• Drippings are what really flavors the food not the coals or wood. (O.o) That's my new Mind Blown face...anyways. If this is true then is that another reason for a marinade? The meat juices and marinade that drips into the fire, causes a flare and then smoke, is what actually flavors the food? Is stressing about the type of wood to use as fuel better left for smoking purposes? Also what do you prefer when you BBQ? I know my father likes charcoal.   
• Thinking of radiant heat as a light ray has really helped me to picture what is truly happening on a grill and in understanding how distance from the source of heat isn't a simple lifting of the rack. (hee hee last words made me chuckle)
• Also most grills are black? Who decided this and should they get a slap on the wrist? If the best grill is reflective then why don't we all have chrome grills besides the fact that it could be a costly endeavor. The last one is just me ranting. I will look it up and get back to you unless you have some wisdom on the matter already.

 Moving along nicely now and enjoying getting (O.o) about ever other paragraph! Hope you are well and I will talk to you SOON!

I miss Louisiana

So I finished the Charleston Grill cookbook, and I gotta say, uninspired.  The recipes were too simple to have been real restaurant recipes, yet the book was of no use to the home cook because they kept calling for things like microgreens and demiglace.  I don't have a problem with the demiglace thing, except that there was no recipe in the back for it...  Bullshit.  Worst of both worlds.  (Stole a couple of good ideas, though, see previous post.)

Anyway, I started my next book, Real Cajun, by your uncle Donald Link.  I just read the intro, and it is so well written that I wanna be sitting in a lawn chair in someone's back yard drinking a long neck of Dixie and eating boiled shrimp and corn like its my job.

Apart from making you want to be there, he is doing a great job of writing, really writing, how to cook.  For instance, when he talks about paprika, he says he prefers hot to sweet.  He also says either one will work.  He also says, and this is the kicker, that if your paprika doesn't say sweet OR hot, its no big deal, go ahead and use it.  Its a little thing, but it means a lot to me.  I get so obsessed with doing a recipe just right, that I could see 24-year-old me stopping what I was doing and driving over the river to Whole Foods (cause they are the only ones that have sweet AND hot paprika) with my kitchen destroyed and the chicken part-way seasoned on a cutting board in my kitchen, with D totally pissed at me, and getting the stuff when the stuff I had at home that I got for $4 at Piggly Wiggly would HAVE DONE JUST FINE.  And you are cut from the same cloth, Boo Bear, so I know you know what I'm talking about.

So anyway, I have been inspired JUST FROM THE INTRO to write a short list of things I miss, food-wise, about living in Louisiana.

1) Steen's cane syrup, and its bizarre by-product, cane vinegar
2) A million cases of satsumas for 20 cents a pop at the French Market
3) Zapp's Chips, especially Dill Gator-Taters and Cajun Craw-Taters
4) Stock crabs at the grocery store
5) Fried chicken at gas stations
6) Crab boil potato salad... How can the potatoes at a crab boil taste better than the crab?  And yet...
7) Boudin, and boudin balls
8) The two schools of po'boy thought: wet and gravied, crispy and fried, plenty of mayo on either
9) Turtle soup
10) Barbecue shrimp at Pascal's Manale
11) Corn pudding and a Vietnamese iced coffee at Pho Tau Bay
12) Little greasy bags of fried pork skin at Swamp Fest at the Zoo on St. Charles
13) Every restaurant having red drum on the menu all the time
14) Creole mustard being the standard mustard for everything
15) And lastly, although I didn't even know about it when I lived there... Slap Ya Mama hot sauce.  It is the gold standard by which all Louisiana hot sauces are to be judged...  In the words of New Orleans drag-queen rapper Big Frieda "When the Queen come round everything shut down.  You hoes, get back, all you hoes bow down!"

(What, you are a member of Louisiana gay culture and you don't know about Big Frieda???  Go to youtube and type in "Na Who Mad" right now...  You'll hate it, but its awesome.)


(And in the interest of equal time, a very, very short like of things I DON'T miss about Louisiana)
1) 24 hour liquor stores.  You know me.  Sometimes I need someone to tell me its time for bed.
2) Chickory coffee.  Gross.
3) Mirlitons.  I have never completely understood mirlitons.  Texture of apple, flavor of potato.  Why do coonasses love them so much?


Anyway, that's all I got.  Great fishing weather, but I'm working 1000 hours a week, so no go....
Talk to you soon...

Got Caught Up in the Numbers...but I think I am back on track...

OK...so remember how you and Nate would tell me I would was getting too caught up in the numbers therefore missing the big picture or over all lesson...well I did it YET AGAIN but at least this time I was able to step back and start on a new (hopefully better) path. What had happened was... I finished Book 1 early YAY so I decided that I would go back and write down notes of all the facts I thought were interesting....next thing I know I got a full blown outline (practically rewriting the book) and caught myself worrying about formatting of ALL THINGS! Needless to say I got behind and just started Book 2 today....a little late but thankfully nothing earth shattering.

The two things I wanted to talk about are a from the end of book one...

First) Radiant Heat.... I feel like my mind should not be this blown but it is! SO Toast since it starts out in most cases white has high reflectivity therefore takes longer to brown but once it starts to brown and becomes darker its reflectivity lowers because black absorbs more light than white. This is why Toast takes FOREVER to brown but once it browns it literally burns if you blink your eyes. SO here is the question...giving this new found knowledge...Will pumpernickel bread toast faster than white bread? I know heat plays a roll and not just the color of the bread... just curious.

Second) Leidenfrost Effect... It happened to me on a regular basis at work but instead of wondering why it was happening or how... I was usually just annoyed because it meant my pan was WAY to hot. After reading about it I am more curious than annoyed. I was wondering... Since the water forms almost perfect spheres in the pan because of the steam encapsulation ...would it make an almost perfect sphere if you dropped the water droplets out of the hot pan straight into liquid nitrogen?

I am so happy you liked the fishing book and look forward to many days at the pier hearing all about it. Hope to hear from you soon! Thanks for getting me back in gear.

Inspiration Stimulus Package

Well, Sweets, you said you needed a little inspiration, and today I reached the halfway point of the Charleston Grill cookbook.  It's kinda lightweight, but I definitely got 4 great ideas out of it.  The recipes themselves are kind of imprecise, but the ideas....

#1) Salad of Veal Sweetbreads, White Asparagus, Fried Black Trumpets, and Citrus Truffle Vinaigrette
      Not so much on the salad angle, but the black trumpet-white-asparagus-truffle combo is hot!  And imagine if you considered the sweetbreads to be interchangeable with poultry.  You could have Crispy Confit Duck Hearts with a Saute of White Asparagus, Black Trumpets, and Truffle Jus...

#2) Salad of Bresaola and Porcini with Arugula.
      Remember bresaola?  That's the air-dried beef loin, like steak prosciutto.  That with porcini (AKA ceps) the most earthy mushroom ever.  Dank, mineral-y flavors abound.  The kicker, though, is that the book recommended this with a white Burgundy.  Rich, robust white wine with gamy salty dry meat and the funkiest of shrooms...   Lemme get that.

#3) There is a recipe for garlic soup, which is cool, but we both know Susan Spicer's is pretty damn good.  What I thought was cool about this recipe, however, was that it called for roasted garlic AND sauteed garlic...  Got me thinking, garlic has so many faces.  We should devise a dish that calls for garlic in all three of its forms.  Think about the savory, even boldness of roasted garlic, the mild complexity of blanched garlic, and the metallic twang of raw garlic.  If we could separate the flavors enough for them to be distinct, and then recombine them in a way that doesn't let them get lost...

#4) There is a recipe for fennel soup, and it talked about cooking it with vermouth.  Its not a new idea, I used to see Grant Achatz doing it WAY back in 2001, but it is still a cool move.  Fennel has that spiced-wine flavor to it, so vermouth will reinforce that note.  Gotta play with that one.

So that's three unanswered posts, boo-boo.  Where yat?  You can't possibly be as busy as me...

p.s. I hope this Supreme Court thing goes your way.  There will be some funny looks on some Louisiana faces....

Fisherman's Ocean- Completed!

I have officially finished Fisherman's Ocean.  It was informative, and scientific.  Its scientific nature was its blessing and a curse.  Instead of straightforward hints and tactics, the author gives you an idea for how to gather data and results to make your own tactical decisions.  This makes it a lot more informative in the long run than any fishing book I have ever read before.  He teaches you how to figure out what to do in changing situations, rather than just how to handle specific situations.

Ultimately, I think this is the only strategy that can work.  Any fishing author can relate things that were successful.  This guy, instead, told how he built his strategy based on information, and how to gather that information.

Other fishing books: "Here is how you rig up to catch a mackerel."

His book: "Here is a list of factors that influence whether or not you will find a mackerel.  Even if the conditions are wrong, you may still find one.  Conversely, even if conditions are right, you might not find one.  If you find one, here are a list of rigs that might work, and why they might work.  They might not work though.  If not, here is a list of factors to consider.  Write down your experiences, log what works and what doesn't, change spots, change strategies, and eventually, you should catch more mackerel."

In a way, he is the only honest fishing author I have ever read.
Thanks, Sweets, for the well-thought out and informative read.

Next, I go through Charleston Grill cookbook with a highlighter, tagging anything that I think is at least 20 years out of style.  Woo!

A Culinary Hi-Wire Act!

\


Last night I did something amazing.  We had 2 tables in the book, and the GM came back and told me that there was a 5-top VIP regular coming in, and he wanted me to just cook whatever.  Great, right?  Well, the kitchen was on sort of a short crew for the slow night.  Me on GM, a pizza guy, and my shakiest saute cook on saute, and no expo at all.  Plus, I had a trainee working with me on GM.  It was his first night.  Not second, or third, first.

I couldn't plan the meal until I knew what the wines were, but he didn't pick them until they all sat down.  So I have a VIP tasting, on a short crew, with no menu or prep.  Hmm....  This might get dicey.

So he picks two big, bold reds for his meal.  Dammit.  The only red meat I have in house is steak, so I start to look around for other things I can use that can stand up to these wines.  Chorizo, speck, mushrooms, cool, I have options.  I start to get a plan together.  Then, his server comes back and orders a round of apps "to get him started."  A chorizo and speck plate, a mushroom appetizer, dammit dammit dammit.  There goes my entire plan.  The server (a rather attractive young Viking named Carlie Van Horn) comes back and tells me to go ahead and get it started.  Then, we get crushed.  Walk-in 15-top, VIP 2-top, 3 4-tops AT THE EXACT SAME GODDAMN TIME (7:30, to be exact).

So my shaky saute guy gets clobbered, I am training my new guy who doesn't know how to do anything, and pizza stays busy, all while I make up dishes for this guy WHILE HIS TABLE IS FIRED.

And it all came out ok.

The menu:

First Course (while they were having a round of Champagne)
Seared Sea Scallop, Butterbeans a la Tourangelle, Onion Soubise

Second Course (CA Syrah)
Hot Duck Confit, Red Potatoes Cooked in Duck Jus Rotie, Buttered Green Asparagus, and Reduced Shortrib Braising Juices

Third Course (Cab/Merlot blend from Alto-Adige, Northern Italy)
Medallions of Flatiron Steak, Walnut-Truffle-Parmesan Farrotto, Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Vin Cotto, Shaved Bone Marrow Torchon

And for dessert (with their Alois Kracher Chardonnay/Welshreisling blend late-harvest white)
Heather the Elf's Passionfruit Panna Cotta with Lemon Jam, Bruleed Bananas, and Plantain Chips

All's well that ends well, but I really don't want to do that again.