Raising Six Grand

For the last four years I’ve made a donation to our local Juvenile Diabetes (JDRF) fundraiser.  This is a great charity, the local group raises hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they always score very high for efficiency and effectiveness.  And our community gets very involved in the fundraising.  This group never sits still; they sponsor […]

Would You Like to See my Cleaver Collection?

We’re a peculiar lot.  Professional cooks often have quirks and idiosyncrasies that most rational people would find perhaps, circumspect.  Yet we earn those quirks sincerely.  It comes with our territory.  Long hours in a brutal environment, late night trips to the emergency room and looking at all those tattoos and piercings can make anyone a […]

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 […]

Gingered Captain Black

A few weeks ago Captain Morgan was in town.  The Captain had sponsored a contest to highlight their new Black Rum and our bartender Jay entered with a first class drink, Gingered Captain Black.  To the winner went a booty of Captain Black treasure so Jay went for broke.  For this drink you’ll first need […]

Would you like Cheese Puffs with That?

A few weeks ago we made Parisian style gnocchi to serve with a steak dish.  These are made from Pate Choux (cream puff or eclair style dough) that has been flavored with aromatic herbs and Parmesan cheese, then pushed through a pastry bag with a straight tip into boiling water, poached for about two minutes, […]

Is that Honeysuckle local?

Honeysuckle is in bloom right now.  It seems to be everywhere, if you drive with your windows down, the perfume from this wildflower rushes in with the breeze.  Honeysuckle has such a wonderful aroma and flavor and that flavor can be captured, you just have to pick a lot of the blossoms.  So the other day I […]

Tonight’s Special is…

“Tonight’s special is a fresh flounder filet, served on top of a mix of Roasted Vegetables from Parson’s farm including Swiss Chard, Baby Carrots, Garlic Scapes, Napa Cabbage and Sweet Onions, finished with Bagna Cauda and Fried Leeks.” This week we received some amazing produce from Daniel Parson’s farm in Clinton, SC.   Dinosaur Kale, Baby […]

Tonight’s Special is…

“Tonight’s special is Rainbow Trout, it’s two boneless filets of Sunburst Farms Trout with a Scallop Mousse filling, the mousse has been seasoned with shallots, garlic, parsley and chives then the filets are wrapped in two slices of Benton’s Ham and it’s oven roasted, served over stone-ground grits with sauteed morel mushrooms, local baby carrots, […]

Cream-filled Doughnuts

Jason asked me to make some banana cream filled doughnuts for a private party so I tried several different techniques.  I made a couple of batches of yeast risen doughnuts (recipe is in the back of my novel, Doughnuts for Amy) and also a cake doughnut recipe.  Cake doughnuts are leavened with baking powder and/or […]