Receipts.1

3 limes

1 bunch cilantro

1 red onion

1 white onion

1 bag spinach

1 bottle white wine (Las Brisas - a white from the Rueda region of Spain. You see the $$)

1 bottle buttermilk

I often stand there in line at the grocery story wondering what my groceries say about me. Making snap judgements about the guy behind me with the three packages of ground beef, corn chips, chocolate milk, case of red Gatorade and bag of Gala apples.

Meatloaf, perhaps?

So I thought I would just put it out there. I think it's especially interesting now that I live in a neighborhood - um, maybe city - that doesn't really put much stock in full-on grocery stores, thus I have been doing a lot of shopping for a little of things.

In this case my friends just gave me the gift of seven homegrown California avocados. Guacamole? Cold soup? Etc. Etc.

Peach Cobbler: Look No Cans

This is my take on the easy peach cobbler recipe that's all over the internet. I know it's a little late in the season for peaches in many places, but I just visited the local farmer's market in my new neighborhood and came home with a mound of them. I wouldn't normally go here, but I have a friend who hates to bake and has adopted this recipe as her one and only. Now that we don't live in the same town, I find I miss it, so I'm making it my own. I suppose it's a great recipe whatever way you slice it, but most of the versions I've found call for self-rising flour and canned peaches, two things that never darken my pantry door.

Easy Peach Cobbler

1/2 c. unsalted butter

1 c. flour

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp (loose) freshly ground nutmeg

1 c. sugar

1 c. milk

16 oz. (about four) peaches, pealed and sliced

one: Melt butter in the bottom of an 8x10 baking pan.

two: Mix dry ingredients thoroughly with a fork. Add sugar and mix. Add milk and stir until smooth.

three: Make sure butter is evenly distributed over the bottom of the pan - i.e. it's on a flat surface - and poor batter over butter without mixing. Lay fruit slices over the top, again no need to mix.

four: Bake at 375 for 20-30 minutes or until the edges are a nice golden brown. Let cool for a cool 15 and enjoy.

I'll see if I can come up with a nice bourbon vanilla ice cream recipe to go with this one.

There's a Maggot in My Flour

That is, we live in the south.

That is, life must eat and goddamn but don't we have a lot of life down here.

That is, have you seen Suspiria?

That is, it's not poverty it's a Dario Argento movie.

That is, my friend stopped by the other day and brought my attention to something I never thought worth a second glance. It was so necessary and it seemed so intuitive.

Here's the story:

About two years ago I lived in this lovely little shack back in the BR with a very fabulous, if a little cook-lite, friend. Let me set the scene. When my friend rented the place for us - I was out of the country - our landlady mentioned that people 'keep telling me to put some work into these places, really renovate and up the rent, but I don't want to do that. I want to be able to provide cheap housing for students." Sweet isn't she? Very generous. Your average slum lord. Upon moving in, one of the first things I discovered was that when the oven was turned on, the scent of roasting shit permeated the entire house. Turns out.....well actually I don't think what I found under that oven need be described, but let me just say I baked nothing for the rest of that year. Not one thing.

So there I am, in our tiny, hobbled kitchen sauteing bok choi for my peanut noodles when something hits me on the head and bounces, landing on the stove about an inch to the left of my frying pan. Huh, I think and bend over to see.

To see a big, fat, white, writhing worm thing, Like a maggot. About half-an-inch long and thisthisthis close to having fallen in my food. What if I had stepped away for a moment and it had fallen in the pan? I wouldn't have even known.

And so I look up - really look - and there they are. All of these blanched streaks squirming around on the top of the walls. On the ceiling. And little brown, worm-shaped cocoons stuck to the white paint. I couldn't help it. I screamed.

And then I got mad. What the fuck, I thought. We're vegetarian for god's sake. It's not like there's a new shipment of meat stored up in our attic rotting away.

Is there?

No, of course there wasn't. It didn't take long to figure out where the wormies were coming from - much less time, in fact, than it took me to get up on a chair and wipe my ceiling down with bleach. They were, you guessed it, coming from the flour. All of our dried goods, which we had up until that point been keeping in our open-air open-face cabinets. No matter the container, no matter how air tight the seal, there were moths and well-fed larvae in all of our pasta, flour and bulk grain.

I threw out everything. And I started keeping my flour in the freezer.

So a week ago, my friend comes over - a fellow baker - and I reach into the freezer to get us some gin.

"You're a genius," she says.

"What?" I say.

"Your flour," she says. "We keep getting bugs in our flour. You've got it in the freezer."

"Oh, yeah," I say. "It helps."

"Pure genius," she says. "You should blog about that," she says.

Ta-da.

Snob Review: Raising Cane's, Baby

What better way to end days and days of eating off the highway (if I never eat Subway again...) but with Baton Rouge's best home-grown fastfood!

Raising Cane's began as a homework assignment for a business class at LSU. Todd Graves, Cane's founder, apparently got a terrible grade on his chicken finger business plan, but there's no dream quite as strong as the dream of fried chicken. After years of hard work out in the real world, he raised enough capital to get it going and finally opened the first store outside LSU's north gate in 1996. It was off to a bustling, finger-licking beginning, and the business has since expanded beyond our little sleepy BR berg into 13 other states of this our great nation.

One of the best thing about Cane's, I think, is the simplicity of their menu. They really have only 6 items from which to assemble your meal: chicken fingers, french fries, coleslaw, Texas toast, super-secret Cane's sauce and soda. You can order any of these a la carte, or you can go with one of their meals - various numbers of fingers, fries, toast, sauce and a drink or the Cane's sandwich: chicken fingers on a bun. That's it. That's all she wrote.

Brilliant.

Of course, what makes this simplicity pay off is the quality of the (fast)food. There's no denying the fastfood fried-ness of these meals. But everyone needs a little fastfood in their lives, and if you're gonna do it why not do it right. Do it local...or at least not BIG business. Do it yum.

First and foremost, these are some serious chicken fingers. I have to admit, I'm a sucker for chicken fingers. They were the very last meat I ate after I had become vegetarian - I ordered them delivery to my dorm in Boston and snarfed them in the common room, hoping no one would catch me and tell the vegetarian police. These chicken fingers are no McDonald's processed crap. They are clearly chicken - all white meat, flaky like chicken can be, tender and with the right meat:fried ratio. (I.e. more meat less fried. But still very very fried.) Definitely Cane's crowning glory. As they should be. The fries are fries - not particularly potato-y but salty like fastfood fries were meant to be - and while the sauce could use a little more kick in my opinion, it was creamy, saucy, good. Nothing here is pretending to be good for you, and so maintains its high taste level, but everything is quality. KFC should hang its head in shame.

Lastly, just a word about the ambiance. The original store, the one where I purchased these lovely fingers, is a real LSU staple. College kitsch on the walls and tiger print upholstery. Def worth the visit. And you see that guitar on the wall behind me? Enter to win.

the Fuckin Neat-o

Since I've been on the outs with food, we'll kick off this month with a drink.

This one is sunny New York summers with a slug of Texas trouble. Credit where credit is due, this was my mother's stroke of genius. We were mixing our first drinks - in honor of two June birthdays, mine and my mother's Texan friend - when my mom pulled out the jalapeno vodka.

As for the name, well, we asked my mom to do the honors, but she refused, claiming to be bad with names. Physicists are silly. Thus it was left to the children, and so in honor of my imaginary fan club, I present to you:

the Fuckin Neat-o

- 2 parts (oz.s) jalapeno vodka (or other spicy booze)
- 1 part (oz.) cucumber juice (approx. 1/2 cuke)
- Juice of 1 substantial lime wedge
- Strawberries, halved in sugar
- Cracked ice

makes 1 drink

Puree half a cucumber. Place mush in a mesh strainer or perhaps a cheese cloth and strain juice into a bowl. Combine booze and cucumber juice in a martini or rocks glass. Squeeze lime juice over the top, add strawberries and ice, stir and serve!

The strawberries, btw, where prepared beforehand. Halved and mixed with sugar and a dash of Grand Marnier or like liqueur. This brings the strawberry juices out a little, but you could simply use fresh ones if that's what you have on hand. It doesn't take long, however, for the sugar to take effect.

Consider mint.

By the way, genius in the arena of drinks and food is nothing new coming from my mother. Stacie Nunes is our resident gourmand up in New Paltz, NY. A physicist at SUNY New Paltz, she's begun catering friends' parties on the side and keeps threatening to start her own blog. Let's hope she makes good on this threat. What can we do to force her hand?

Things are Happening

So I've been on a vacation of sorts, but I'm back!

I think.

Depending on my travels.

Partly, I haven't been doing much in the way of cooking lately because it's just too damn hot. I lose my appetite at the beginning of the summer down here while my body takes some time to calibrate. It's much more difficult to write interesting things about food when you're don't find food interesting. However, there are some things to be said about that - about the things that have sustained me in my uncharacteristic period of eating to live.

Rather than living to eat. Yadda yadda.

Partly II, I've been away, and I will be away again starting tomorrow. The summer is the time to get out of the dirty south and head north, so it was New York and now Oregon and then a long drive back through California and across the desert. I don't expect to be doing much in the way of cooking on this trip, but I do expect to find some wonderful - in Portland - and wonderfully terrible - see: I-10 - food on my travels. Which means more Snob Reviews.

Last partly, pictures might be slow coming. As they have been. I'm adverse to posting without pics cuz it seems too dull, but I don't know that I'll get my camera set up on the tiny computer for the trip. You'll have to wait and see.

(A note on snobbing. It came to my attention, while I was home in lovely up-state New York, that my snobetarian lifestyle transcends the bounds of good eating. I discovered this when I tried to make the argument that people from New York were generally neither more upper-class nor more uppity than people from the mid-west. I then proceeded to snob on every topic that came up for the rest of the day. Possibly week. So. What does this mean? Well, what it means to me is that I need to really embrace the snobbing. Writing teachers are always telling you to figure out what it is you do that makes your voice yours and to work it. Apparently, what I do is snob. It doesn't come from a mean place, or a place of judgement, mind you. Not usually. Don't be offended. Expect more snobbing.)

Wine Snob 101.1

It's the inaugural post from the inaugural BR wine club! Look for monthly notes from your friendly southern Wine Snobs.

Each month, maybe more, we'll pick a theme, pack over some bottles and compare. In honor of the nearing summer solstice and the sudden Louisiana summer heat wave, it's Riesling Riesling Riesling!


Cupcake Riesling $14.99 ish
(check/check -)
Columbia Valley 2009 (13.5%)

nose: green apple, orange blossom, honeysuckle, peach, stemmy straw

mouth: citrus, grapefruit, sour apple, gooseberry, lemon?

This has a strong attack and a mellow fruity aftertaste. It was one of the drier ones we tasted with more of an in-your-face sauvignon blanc tartness than I expect from a Riesling. Perhaps a little imbalanced. Sort of like that guy who talks too much cuz he's insecure. He'll flirt his face off at a party, make you laugh, dance on the table, but don't be fooled. You're gonna have to make all the first moves.


Chateau Ste. Michele “Dry Riesling” $8.99 ish
(check/check -)
Columbia Valley 2008 (13%)

nose: banana, white cherry, pine, round and warm

mouth: eucalyptus, pepper, apricot, vanilla on the finish

A bigger, softer wine with solid peachy Riesling fruit set off by a peppery bite. Like a scoop of sherbert with pop-rocks on top.


Trimbach $22 ish
(check +)
Alsace 2007 (12.5%)

nose: moldy (cheese), wet wool, peach, apricot, faint blossom

mouth: lavender, soy sauce, geranium, orange blossom

This one is smooth smooth smooth with a bit of bite at the end. An acerbic wit, a sardonic soft-talker. You won't realize what she was really saying until you've already turned away. A Redstar Bar hipster. She only listens to early 80s cure. And you just can't get enough.


Pacific Rim $10.39 ish
(check)
California I-just-totally-spaced-on-the-year-here? (12.5%)

nose: orange zest, soap, wet cardboard, computer paper in your mouth, melon, peach, kerosene!

mouth: barnyard straw, dried apricot, bing cherries, cooked green beans

Totally surprised me based on the non-standard bottle, the cheesy looking label. A really interesting balance of fruit and other. Not overbearing. Not so cutesy. You go back. You go back.

"It's the velveteen rabbit! It's Blonde Redhead!"


Schloss Vollards Qualitätiswein $16.99 ish
(check -)
Rheingau (10.5%)

nose: honey, grass stemmy, perfume-y floral

mouth: honey, fake grape, peach nectar, pepper?

“It's like eating a popsicle on a dock on a summer evening.”


Clean Slate $11.99 ish
(check -)
Mosel-Saar-Ruwer 2008 (10.5%)

nose: green apple, yellow raisin, horse, campfire, menthol, slate?

nose: green apple jolly rancher, (sweet), grapefruit on the end

This wine tastes like "colors."


Riesling Qualitätiswein $?
(check -)
Mosel-Saar-Ruwer 2007 (9.5%)

nose: butterscotch.

mouth: vanilla. One note. We got bored.

Tastes like grandma, plastic couch covers and perfume. Tastes like the night before your quinceÑera.
(And that's all she wrote. Are we drunk?)


Selbach-Oster Kabinett $17.99
(check +)
Mosel-Saar-Ruwer 2008 (9%)

nose: gasoline, wet dog, burnt sugar, pickled okra, clay, anise, lavender, peach?

mouth: honey, grapefruit, pineapple

This one seemed the most characteristically Riesling, and had the roundest, most complex flavor. A well-fed, well-travled gentleman with a very nice pocket watch who likes to hand out cigars.