I just read that Jessica Simpson is going to appear on “Oprah” this Friday to complain about John Mayer calling her “sexual napalm.”
What’s wrong with being sexual napalm?
MUST I BEAR THIS BURDEN ALONE?
“Have a nice glass of wine, and take your top off.” – Julia Roberts, on how to have a great Valentine’s Day
Last Valentine’s Day, I made a big mistake. Well, actually, four small ones. A lovely little set of pastel Conversation Heart Mini Cakes. Elisa Strauss (from Confetti Cakes!) linked to them on her blog. My photo of them popped up on other food and design sites.
They were cute, but they were so not for my man. All that fondant? I might as well have shown up for Valentine’s dinner in a turtleneck and sensible pants.
So, this year, it’s not about handmade truffles or homemade lollipops or anything that looks like it would fit right in at the unicorn-themed birthday party of a 4-year-old girl. Nope. This year, Jeff’s getting a huge candy heart full of the culinary equivalent of taking one’s top off: Sausage Balls.
When it comes to dips, I’m an equal opportunity glutton. Warm spinach and artichoke? Yes. Ro-Tel® Queso? Can’t pass it up. French onion? Give us some privacy.
But every once in a while, you find a dip that transcends the genre, and for me, that’s Seven Layer Dip. Black beans, sour cream (or Greek yogurt), chunky guacamole, fresh salsa, scallions, cheese and cilantro. It’s like a bean burrito in a bowl. And by that, I mean it’s like Heaven.
“Our meal is free to any members of Division 194. We are with you till hell freezes, and when it does, we will furnish blankets to keep you warm.” – Bennie and Clovis Martin, owners of Martin Brothers’ Coffee Stand and Restaurant, birthplace of the po’ boy
While everyone else counts down to Turkey Day, the clock on the New Orleans Po-Boy Preservation Festival website is marking the seconds until Sunday, Nov. 22. The day historians, chefs, musicians, artists, craftsmen, volunteers and fans will take to the streets to celebrate the poor boy (or po’ boy), New Orleans’ most famous sandwich. A crisp baguette split and barely hanging on to piles of fried seafood or roast beef and gravy, freshly shredded lettuce, sliced tomatoes and mayonnaise, remoulade or Creole mustard.
It’s time to save a culinary treasure from being lost in the swelling sea of torpedo-sized fast-food sandwiches. And if you don’t live near New Orleans, saving the po’ boy means making one.
A few weeks ago it started raining in Nashville and hasn’t stopped, so we now have a small pond in the backyard that might be able to support life. One of our neighbors helpfully pointed out that the pond wouldn’t be there if I stopped backing into the yard and parked in the garage. Like a normal person. And I’m all, BUT WHERE WOULD WE KEEP THE BODIES? Kidding! But the rain and all that comes with it have given me a sinus infection that’s starting to inhibit my ability to function as a normal person.
So, since I can’t go around town speaking my mind and shaming my mother, I decided to heal myself a truckload of soup. Not a healthy, restorative, vitamin-packed soup, like a minestrone or a country vegetable. Oh, hell no. It had to be something I could eat with Fritos®. Preferably while watching “The Biggest Loser.”
Thank God and Mama for trashy-good Taco Soup. Read More…
When I was in college, my hometown was hit by a roof-lifting, glass-shattering, building-leveling tornado that cut right across the downtown. What matters most is that everyone was safe, and if you took a drive through the area now, you’d never guess how much has been rebuilt. The only casualties were some of the businesses, including a feed store whose seeds, driven into the ground by the tornado, produced a lot full of sunflowers in the middle of all the construction, and one of Jeff’s favorite restaurants, Moose Creek Beer & Bait House, home of the Rattlesnake Burger.
Moose Creek’s Rattlesnake Burger wasn’t actual rattlesnake but a spicy combination of ground chicken and andouille sausage. One night Jeff and I were talking about the tornado, and he mentioned that burger. With a tone of wistfulness and reverence. So, we picked up a pound of ground chicken and a pound of andouille and spent the next couple of hours experimenting with spice mixtures and making quarter-sized burgers.
When Jeff and I were planning our wedding trip to Hawaii, the travel package included a rental car. The choices were a convertible versus something-that-wasn’t-a-convertible. We went with the convertible and drove off in search of adventure. What we found one evening was a roadside trailer loaded with grills full of Huli-Huli Chicken, barbecuing over mesquite coals.
Even if I’d just eaten Thanksgiving dinner, I would pull over for Huli-Huli Chicken. The smell! The smell of smoke and chicken marinated dark brown sugar, fresh ginger, soy sauce, pineapple, rice vinegar, garlic, ketchup and a little Worcestershire. A sort of Hawaiian take on teriyaki sauce that’ll make your taste buds wake up and say, “Aloha.” But the strange thing is that you don’t really find it in Hawaiian restaurants. You find it at roadside stands, temporary parking lot set-ups and fundraisers – all with very long lines.
There’s an ice storm coming. Remember that episode of “Little House on the Prairie” where Pa ties a rope from the house to the barn so he can tend the livestock during a blinding blizzard?
This isn’t going to be anything like that.
A Middle Tennessee ice storm usually means some broken tree limbs, maybe a short a power outage and an insane rush to the grocery for “essentials.” People will wait in the grocery line for 15 minutes to buy a frozen pot pie, eight rolls of toilet paper, a bag of Oreos and some Jiffy Pop.
My favorite meal for a night like this is Baked Ziti with Italian Sausage. Gooey cheese. Spicy browned sausage. Really, I could stop right there, but I love to experiment with different mix-ins (i.e. peppers, onions, mushrooms), cheeses, herbs and pasta sauces, especially ones that include red wine.
Oh, how I crave this stuff. There should be a 12-step program.
P.S. I’m going to kick myself for saying this, but the sausage isn’t essential. If you’re a vegetarian or just trying to eat healthier, feel free to leave it out. There, I said it. Now, I’ve got to go scrub off the shame.
This month’s You Want Pies With That? challenge, chosen by the calculatedly evil Anne Strawberry, was holiday music. Something that immediately makes me think of the really awful cringe-inducers piped into every store: Wham’s “Last Christmas,” Madonna’s “Santa Baby,” Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Any Christmas carol performed by a child, cartoon character, 80s band or Muppet.
Then, there are some holiday musical abominations that kinda work. I always get a laugh–a poignant laugh– out of seeing Bing Crosy and David Bowie doing “Little Drummer Boy.” And Run DMC’s “Christmas in Hollis.” And I always sing along with “I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas.”
Thus inspired, I forged this Mele Kalikimaka Pie.
Wha? Huh? I KNOW! I didn’t grow up singing “Mele Kalikimaka,” either. But Jeff and I got married in Hawaii on New Year’s Eve, and that Christmas season, it seemed like Bing Crosby was singing “Mele Kalikimaka” EVERY TIME we turned on the radio: “Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say/On a bright Hawaiian Christmas Day/That’s the island greeting that we send to you/From the land where palm trees swayyyyyy.”
Like the song, the pie is a delicious abomination of traditional holiday ingredients and Hawaiian favorites. Apples, brown sugar and cinnamon meet macadamia nuts, pineapple and coconut. And cream cheese. And IT WORKS! Aloha, Hula-Hips! Read More…
Jeff has brought a lot of good things into my life (like, say, sanity), but one of the ones I appreciate most is chicken chili. All the flavor of chili in 15 to 20 minutes? Sign me up. Plus, it’s light enough to eat year-round.
We started making chicken chili by following the directions on a seasoning mix packet. Then we added fire-roasted tomatoes and frozen corn. Then Frank’s Hot Sauce. And we kept tinkering until we finally came up with a seasoning mix of our own.
So, here’s our Fired-Up Chicken Chili. It’s thick and spicy, perfect for a cold night or cheering on your favorite undefeated football team. My father is a chicken-hater, and even he loves it, so this variation might work for the chili-lovers in your family, too.
