“Mr. Ready’s Coming!”
For a cook, there’s something very endearing about a cookbook that contains a recipe that begins with, “For 1,000 pounds of pork…” For a modern chef that would translate into 12 eighty-pound cases of pork butts. And that my friends, is a lot of pork. From Rivets and Rails, Recipes of a Railroad Boarding […]
Random Facts
As requested by my friend and fellow author, KJ Waters. I’ve had one ambulance ride and they didn’t even turn on the lights or sirens. I can remember pulling a chair up to the kitchen counter to help Mom cook. If there’s nasty weather (tornado watch/warning) in the evening’s forecast, I’ll go to bed […]
Bits of Glass
I recently picked up one of my favorite books from my childhood, Edward Jablonski’s Flying Fortress. It’s a highly researched and detailed account of the brave American airmen that flew B-17 bombers during World War 2. I can remember devouring that book in fifth grade and hoping that one day I would also be […]
Bits of Glass
I recently picked up one of my favorite books from my childhood, Edward Jablonski’s Flying Fortress. It’s a highly researched and detailed account of the brave American airmen that flew B-17 bombers during World War 2. I can remember devouring that book in fifth grade and hoping that one day I would also be […]
Breakfast Anyone?
Breakfast. I love cooking breakfast. Muffins, pancakes, waffles with Vermont maple syrup, quiches, yogurt and fresh fruit parfaits, freshly squeezed orange and apple juice, fruit smoothies, bacon and eggs, buttermilk biscuits, scrambled eggs with cheese and herbs; I could keep going but I think you get the idea. My kids used to happily sit […]
“Are You Scared?” Part 1 of Phil and Rannie’s Story
The bedside pump softly gurgles as it pushes oxygen through fresh water. White noise, it’s rain softly falling on a tin roof or the gentle whoosh of seawater on a sandy shore. Just the accompaniment for a dying man. Phil draws a breath through the clear tube and reaches to his nose, adjusts the tubes […]
Coffee Cans and Bacon Fat
Paul Fehribach isn’t interested in coffee that comes in a can but he certainly knows how to use a coffee can. At Big Jones, his bustling Chicago homage to traditional Southern cuisine, he is recreating the type of homestead cooking that his great-grandmother pioneered at her family farmstead along the Buffalo Trace. “She used to […]
From Brooklyn to Bourbon
As a kid growing up in south Louisiana our little town celebrated a smoked pork sausage with a three day fair, the Andouille Festival. We would grill it, fry it, put it on a stick, toss it into jambalaya and gumbo and even award a local beauty with the title of Miss Andouille Festival. Small […]
A Tour of Benton’s Smoky Mountain Ham
We spent this past weekend in Chattanooga, TN visiting a very good friend of Amy’s and on the way back we stopped at Benton’s Country Ham in Madisonville, TN. Benton’s is perhaps the most famous, most sought after bacon and country ham producer in the United States. Their pork is featured at the finest and […]
Summer Pizza with Handmade Mozzarella
A dear friend of ours recently paid us a visit, just long enough to share some wine and pizza. Kelly loves good pizza but is careful about her diet so I made the pizza dough and made the mozzarella. A few local tomatoes, some basil from our garden, a shave of Parmesan and a splash […]