Life with the Gourmands

She: What is this?
Me: It's a deconstructed BLT.
She: But there's no bacon.
Me: That's right.
She: And there's no lettuce.
Me: That's right.
She: Or tomato.
Me: That's right.
She: What kind of bread is this?
Me: Tilapia.

Three or Four Things on July 4

I’ve been reading the internet and the consensus is clear: the best thing about America is bacon. Everybody knows how to cook bacon. Throw it in a skillet and cook it topside on the stove until it shrivels to a third its original size. Arrange it on a sheet pan and throw it in the oven at whatever degrees you can fat-finger into the Apollo Control Panel. It’s done when the smoke detector alarms the dogs and sends their poor little heads under the seat cushions. Even the attic smells like bacon if you did it right. You can’t overdo it either: it built for American Excess. You can cook bacon until it is completely devoid of H2O and disintegrates into black powder when you touch it. People will still eat it. Even the French will eat it if they think nobody’s looking. It is the only meat that can’t be judged when it is grossly overcooked. There’s something truly American about a carbon footprint that’s longer than it is wide. And on July 4, bacon is but the breakfast-y lead-in to Independence Day BBQ.

BBQ is the closest we Americans get to haute cuisine. We can’t poach fish. In fact, we don’t even know what that means. The French tried to teach us when they came over during the Revolutionary War to help us whoop the British, but it didn’t take. In America, we have plenty of fish, and plenty of poachers, but no poached fish. But BBQ snobs we are. It’s very egalitarian. You can make three dollars a day selling people rancid vegetable oil for brake fluid and still be a BBQ snob.

Pork shoulder is the stuff of fist fights. Don’t believe me? Just eavesdrop on the Lone Star BBQ Society. Want to know the real reason for concealed carry and semi-automatic weapons with large magazines? Brisket. A tough brisket is a hangin’ offense in Texas, and who has time for a trial? Or tying a knot in a rope.

You put your brisket in the smoker at 200-plus “Fahrenheit,” which is German for “degrees.” The question of that “plus” leads to at least six annual gun fatalities in Texas, not mention innumerable Facebook trolls. My plus is 12 degrees. In any case, after about two and a half hours, the imperative question is whether it is time to pull the meat off. Now yesterday, I was on my lonesome on my suburban deck and had no one to argue with. The meat thermometer was reading on the high side of 140 and climbing to 150. It was a crisis. Since I was on my own I did the only thing I could do. I stuffed a cherry bomb in my mouth and threatened to blow my teeth out unless I pulled the brisket off the heat.

Stubbornly, I let it smoke for another 20 minutes and then finally took the brisket off. It wasn’t perfect. It ruined my day and that of 300 million of my fellow Americans, even if they don’t know it yet (but they will if you share people!) It’s embarrassing, but I own it.

Well, today I’m smokin’ the spare ribs, which have been swimming overnight in my secret marinade. Ribs aren’t as sensitive to cooking time. Five or six hours low and slow will be perfect.  In the mid-Atlantic, we’re on the docket for heavy rain come the Fourth, but fortunately BBQ leftovers don’t count as “leftovers.” BBQ is as good as the real deal the next day around, which is not true of poached fish.

Statistically, the only thing more dangerous than BBQ on Independence Day is firecrackers, so be careful out there. Remember, to shut down a bad guy with a bottle rocket you need a good guy with a bottle rocket. Make sure you have plenty of ‘em. Just bear in mind that everything in your arsenal was made in China.

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I Have No Ass

Frog jeans.

#noass # flatass, the hashtags speak for themselves. The ass deficit is of great consternation in the women's body image market.  This space is one of the richest sources of butt selfies, in this case a fundamental dystopia of butt ugly. These non-Kardasians have tried everything from butt pads to orthopedic shoes. Still, no butt cheeks are to be seen. These loaves failed to rise before they got baked.

But white guys like me are genetically marked for the No-Ass Syndrome.  I guess asses were not evolutionarily useful to the western European gene stock. Come to think of it, I am not sure what purpose a plump butt is supposed to serve. The only application I am aware of is to stretch denim.

Which brings me to the subject of Casual Friday. Many workplaces like mine condone dressing down on Fridays.  Jeans are permitted. Let me tell you something, just because you can wear jeans doesn't mean you should. I can't remember the last time I saw a man over 25 who looks good in jeans. Casual is not a synonym for Ugly. No-ass white guys are better advised to consider a nice pair of khakis or some navy blue Dockers.

The first stage of No-Ass Syndrome is Grief. But let's hurry on to the second stage, which is Acceptance. Wear your 501's around the house. But leave your jeans at home. The world will be a better place if us flat ass white guys give going out in jeans a long rest.

Note: shortly after publishing this post, I got added to the  @allaboutdab00ty No-Ass-List. I'm immortal.

Lane Cake

What is Lane cake? That's what I asked Google when I got to page 139 of my copy of To Kill A Mockingbird. We're in Chapter 13 and to Scout's dismay, Aunt Alexandra has arrived from Finch's Landing and declared residency at the house in Maycomb "for a while." Being well regarded in town, she is welcomed almost as royalty.

In greeting, Miss Maudie makes a Lane cake that Scout says was "so loaded with shinny it made me tight." Miss Maudie Atkinson is known for her superior Lane cakes, which are...?

That question led me to a 2013 article by Tom McNamara called The Cake That Made Maycomb Famous: The Lane Cake. You can read the article (which includes a recipe), but the upshot is that it is a cake with a sugar and bourbon ("shinny") filling usually involving finely chopped raisins or pecans. Judging from the comments section, many of Mr. McNamara's readers expected coconut in the filling. It is topped by a standard Boiled White Frosting.

Have ya'll ever had Lane cake? Do you make Lane cake? If so MIO wants to hear from you. If you have your own recipe, you can email it to myirrefutableopinion@gmail.com, and I'll be glad share it in this space (with your permission, of course.) I may even pick my favorite and try it myself!
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Take the Food Trivia Quiz!

Take the food trivia quiz! Do you know, or can you guess, the right answers?  You will find those below.

1. What breakfast food gets its name from the German word for "stirrup"?

2. Under federal guidelines, how much alcohol can there be in a beer labeled "non-alcoholic?

3. How did the "pound cake" get its name?

4. Wild rice isn't rice. So, what is it?

5. How long does it take to hard boil an ostrich egg?

6. What does the pasta word linguine actually mean?

7. When Birdseye introduced the first frozen food in 1930, what was it called?

8. What is the traditional food served at Wimbledon each year?

9.  What does VSOP mean on a bottle of cognac?

10. What do Eskimos use to prevent their food from freezing?

If you score:
1-3: you are a dumpster diver
4-5: you are a casual diner
6-8: you are a gourmet food critic
9-10: you cheated

Answers:
1. The bagel; 2. Up to 0.4999 percent; 3. From the 1 lb quantity of ingredients (sugar, butter, eggs, and flour); 4. An annual grass that grows in marshy lakes and shallow streams; 5. An hour and 45 minutes; 6. "Little tongues"; 7. Frosted food (yuk!); 8. Strawberries and Cream; 9. Very Superior Old Pale; 10. A refrigerator

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Make Your Own BBQ Sauce!

Summer is here and many of you will have hardworking grills and even belching smokers turning out pork ribs and beef brisket and other delectable extractions from lower down on the food chain.  With that comes the need for the marinades and sauces that make everything taste oh-so-special. The king of them all: BBQ sauce.

I am going to suggest that you make your own, if you don't already. That is not because there is any lack of fine BBQ sauces available off-the-shelf at your local grocery store. There are many good ones indeed, and BBQ sauce is one of those things that bottles and stores quite well. The argument for making your own is that you have mastery over the flavor that way, and that makes a huge difference for the savoriness of your meat and for stamping your Q with your own unique imprint. And it's ridiculously easy to make.

It helps to understand the history of BBQ sauce. The "styles" of BBQ sauce Americans are likely to think of today, Memphis style, Texas style, Carolina styles, and so on, came into being just a few generations ago. Bear in mind that tomato ketchup, which is the basis of most southern BBQ sauces (except Alabama White), was not a clearly defined product until the early years of the twentieth century. Other countries have their versions too: South America has chimichurri (for asado), the Chinese have hoisin. Until well into more contemporary times, "BBQ" sauces were ad hoc concoctions of mayonnaise, butter, lard, or various fermentations (such as Worcestershire sauce), flavored and spiced in a zillion different ways in different times and places.

The point is: there are no hard and fast rules to confine you and there is really a lot of freedom to tailor a sauce to your occasion. It is very easy to experiment, without radically departing from convention. Here's a list of likely basic ingredients you will use for a tomato-based BBQ sauce:

• Ketchup
• Mustard
• Brown sugar
• Vinegar
• Worcestershire sauce
• Minced garlic
• Onion powder
• Salt and pepper

As an example, let's say we are going to sauce up some baby back ribs. How do like your ribs? Decide what you want your sauce to bring to the party. When I smoke ribs, I want a bold and tangy sauce to go with 'em. So the plan might be: keep it simple and adjust the amounts of vinegar and brown sugar to achieve the effect I want. Dump a bottle of ketchup in a sauce pan and turn the heat to medium. As things start to warm up in there, add 1 cup of brown sugar (packed) and get it to dissolve. Then a splash of vinegar (about a tablespoon) to start. What kind of vinegar? Just whatever is on hand. White or Apple Cider vinegar, either one, will satisfice.

Let's go ahead and add a tablespoon of the Worcestershire sauce and put the bottle away. A little bit of Worcestershire will contribute some nuance to our sauce; too much will ruin it.

Now for the mustard. For this sauce, I think I'll go a little light on the mustard. Let me rummage around and see if I can find some dijon, or anything upscale from French's Yellow. Stir in about a tablespoon of it. I want to preserve the bold tomato-y flavor, so I'm not going to be too heavy handed with the garlic either. Just a half a tablespoon of the minced stuff will do.

Then let's sprinkle in about two teaspoons of onion powder and a big pinch of salt. We'll turn the heat to low and let it simmer for ten or twelve minutes, stirring occasionally. It's important not to taste and render judgment too soon. Allow time for the flavors to come together.

Grab a couple of spoons. One is your dipping spoon, the other your tasting spoon. Scoop up a sample of the sauce with your dipping spoon, and transfer it to your tasting spoon. Taste. How is it?

Now, there is already an excellent chance that our BBQ sauce is just about what we want. Not tangy enough? Then add another little splash of the vinegar and taste again, always remembering that it's easier to add an ingredient than it is to take it out. If you goof, don't worry, you will just have to add more brown sugar. If you goof a lot, you may have to add more ketchup too, just to keep everything in balance.

Okay, so our sauce is bold and tangy. But do you feel it's still a little bland? No fear! We'll make some adjustments to finish this off. Another teaspoon of onion powder. Taste. A little more garlic. Taste. Add the black pepper. Taste. Want a little smoked paprika in there? Why, it's a free country! Taste. Shoulda used just a tad bit more mustard? Add it. Taste.

Just keep adjusting and tasting until, as far you're concerned, it's perfect! Next time, you might be grilling up some chicken. In that case, you might make more use of spices (chili powder, paprika, etc.), add some lemon zest as well as some juice of the lemon, to get yet a different effect. And that's the point. If you're going to all the trouble to cook up a great meal at home, it is really not that much to ask for a home brewed sauce to make sure it's special.

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Tired of Broccoli? Read This!

CNN is running a piece today called Food #fail, yet another of those infamous listicles we get salt and peppered with these days, in this instance admonishing you that there are ten foods you're allegedly eating wrong. One of them, it turns out, could be broccoli. Author Sarah Bruning (originally writing for Health.com) suspects you of mistreating your broccoli, perhaps because you've grown weary of the raw stuff, or of choking down the steamed product. Among your potential crimes: boiling and frying. Both offenses tend to compromise the nutritional value of your veggie.

Steaming is the right way to prepare broccoli, for sure. But if you are getting bored with your side of bland florets, try my technique.

Steam your broccoli in a basket as you are compelled to do by good sense and Ms. Bruning. But don't stop there. When your broccoli is tender, transfer it to the saute pan which you have presciently placed over medium heat. Drizzle on some olive oil and toss, then season with a pinch of salt and two teaspoons (per head of broccoli) of ground coriander. Saute quickly and do not keep the broccoli on the heat very long - no more than about two to two-and-a-half minutes. When everything is up to temperature, drizzle on the juice of half a lemon. Serve immediately

And there you have it! Really, really tasty broccoli, with all of its vitamin C and antioxidants intact. I await the torrential rain of your grateful emails.
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Bad Belly's Shrimp Jambalaya

Lordy! I'm gonna tell you all about how to whip up one of my favorite spicy suppers. It's a shrimp Jambalaya that's super easy to make, although it does have a bunch of ingredients, which to get off on the right foot happen to be these:

1 lb 26/30 ct. shrimp, peeled with tails off
1 lb Andouille sausage
2 c. chopped yellow onion
1 c. diced bell pepper
4 cloves chopped garlic
1 tbsp sage
1 tbsp thyme
1 tbsp flour
1 28 oz. can whole plum tomatoes
2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp. Cayenne pepper
2 tbsp. Tabasco sauce
2 tbsp. fresh chopped dill
2 tbsp. fresh chopped parsely
Juice of 1 large lemon
Salt and pepper
Rice as an accompaniment

The neat thing is that if this dish becomes part of your repertoire, it's very easy to keep these provisions on hand, since frozen shrimp will do, and Andouille sausage does well in the deep freeze as well. However, it is imperative to use fresh herbs. If you need to go shopping, go ahead. I'll wait.

Back? Good. Bad Belly's recipe is more a Cajun style Jambalaya, although in New Orleans you can get a more refined Creole version. Stop the ponies! you say. What's the difference?

Let's back up. In crude terms, you could say that Creole cooking is for the City Mouse and Cajun cooking is for the Country Mouse.  The ingredients tend to be largely the same, except that Cajun cooking was designed to help us po' folks choke down rancid meat. Oh, I guess that doesn't sound so good inside a recipe. Forget I said that.

The term "Cajun" derives from les Acadians, who were the French that colonized North America in the seventeenth century. The Creoles are more specifically the settlers of Louisiana and New Orleans in particular. They were French and Spanish, and their cuisine was very much in the Continental tradition, while Cajun cooking was, shall we say, a bit more rustic. Thus you might find that the thickener in Creole Jambalaya will be a roux of butter and flour, while in Cajun Jambalaya it might be a slurry of oil and flour. But don't worry. We're having the good stuff.

Let's be clear though: we're not having authentic Creole or Cajun anything. We would have to go to Louisiana for that. But we're having the next best thing: home cooking using a rigorously tested recipe. I promise a delicious outcome or I will hang myself. Let's get started.

Using a chef's knife, break the Andouille sausage down into bite size pieces and commence to brown it in a pre-heated cast iron skillet until - wait what did you say? You forgot the sausage on your grocery run?

Don't worry. Bet you have some bacon. You can substitute and that works well. Just run your knife through about a third of a pound of bacon and drop that in the pan instead.

Whether it's the Andouille or the bacon, brown until the fat is fully rendered. Turn the heat down to medium low. Add the chopped onion and peppers and sauté until tender, adding the garlic, sage and thyme toward the end. Season with salt and pepper.

Add the flour and make a slurry. Adjust the amount of flour until the oil is fully absorbed. Add the canned plum tomatoes (crushed by hand), together with any liquid, add Worcestershire sauce, tabasco, and cayenne pepper. Stir. Turn heat to low and let simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the shrimp and fresh chopped dill and cook until shrimp is done (about 5 minutes.) Add the juice of 1 large lemon and stir, then sprinkle with fresh chopped parsley. The lemon and parsley perform crucial magic and make the dish explode with life and freshness that you will want to share with everybody you know. Go ahead. Brag. I do.

(Serve over rice.)

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Please leave a comment below, or you can email your comments to: myirrefutableopinion@gmail.com. I am looking forward to hearing from you!

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