I’m ashamed to say that I’ve never really cared for the typical Southern version of cheese grits. The grits are tasteless, the cheese is lumpy, and the eggs dry everything out. When the casserole cools down, you have to cut a cube out of the solid yellow mass and smash it down with the back of your spoon. That’s about as unappetizing as it gets. My version makes a rich and creamy dish that actually tastes like cheesy grits instead of a corn-based custard.
In the latest Bon Appétit advice column, a reader described a scene where her dining companions flummoxed the wait staff by wanting to divide the check six ways for different amounts. She asked for advice on the best way to split a check among a group. This was the answer she got:
Unless you’re with only one other person (okay, maybe two–I’m feeling generous) or you’re 17 years old and out with a group of friends at a local chain, splitting a check is lame. […] So the next time you go out with a group of friends who want to divide the check every which way, be a thoughtful, considerate person and put the whole thing on your credit card. If they’re your friends, they’ll pay you back. If not, well, then you need new friends.
I skipped a bit there for copyright purposes, so click here if you want to read the whole thing.
The wife’s sewing supplies have dominated the dining room table for a while now. Her brother brought back some fabric from Africa, and she made a retro-looking dress out of it. She also made a tiny dress for a friend’s baby. I’m impressed with how quickly she can turn these things around these days.
Click here to check them out.
I mentioned a while back how much I enjoyed reading Frank Stitt’s cookbook. I actually lugged the giant tome to and from the beach over a few days. For my recent birthday, the wife bought me Soby’s New South Cuisine Cookbook so I could keep learning. Who could blame her? She eats the food.
After my successful experiment with homemade linguine noodles over the weekend, I decided to make some spaghetti. Over the years, I’ve learned to experiment incrementally to see what my flavor limitations are. Like with bread, pasta is 95% flour. That means that you’d have to add a lot of another ingredient to be able to taste it. I thought I’d roast some garlic and mix it with some olive oil in lieu of an egg in the basic dough recipe. I figured even if we couldn’t taste the garlic, the noodles would be healthier.
Over the weekend, the wife and I watched the HBO documentary, No One Dies In Lily Dale. It’s about a small town in upstate New York. The way Orlando is all about theme parks, Lily Dale is all about psychics and spiritual mediums. There are rows of houses that offer palm readings, psychic body scans, séances, and spiritual readings. The town has become a tourist destination for all sorts of people, but mostly for those overcome with grief. I would have been disappointed if anyone still believed in this stuff 75 years ago when Harry Houdini exposed “mediums” for the frauds that they are, but I’m awestruck that people still buy into this nonsense in 2010.
The wife and I stumbled upon a Shriner Parade early on Saturday morning. In case you didn’t know, the Shriners are officially called the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. They’re an offshoot of the Freemasons and sponsor a 50-bed pediatric orthopaedic hospital here in Greenville. I don’t know why they didn’t hold the parade around lunchtime when downtown is bustling, but they got lucky with a surprisingly cool breeze. I was hoping for more fezzes and tiny cars, but it was fun nonetheless.
I’ve been wanting to make pasta noodles from scratch for a while. When we got a stand mixer for a wedding gift, we also got a ravioli attachment. I’ve always wanted to use it, but it seems pretty useless without a pasta roller. Since the pasta press attachment costs a cool $150, I thought I’d better buy a cheaper version first and make sure I’m using it often enough to justify the cost of going electric, so to speak. I picked up a manual pasta press for about $35 and decided to get down to business.
Prior to a family reunion a couple of years ago, a relative of mine ran across an interview with my maternal grandfather, Claude Smeraglia, from July of 1968. At the time, he lived and worked in an Italian-American enclave adjacent to the airport in Birmingham, Alabama. The interview was conducted by a Samford University student at the East Side Drug Company, a pharmacy he owned and operated. I’m guessing the student’s thesis was a comparison of past cultural discrimination with the racial discrimination and unrest that dominated the headlines at the time. To put his remarks in context, you need to remember the social and political turmoil of 1968. His thoughts on the growing entitlement mentality and Americans’ demands for cultural assimilation seem eerily prescient.
Most people who discover Bob Dylan’s music these days run across a song of his (or a cover of a song of his) in a film or on Pandora. If their interest is piqued, they’ll likely buy one of his greatest hits albums on a whim. The first Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits album was released in 1967 and was by all accounts a great compilation album. Despite the fact that only four years had passed, the folks at Columbia decided to ride the success of the first Hits album by pressing another one in 1971 that included songs from many of the same albums. Although the second Greatest Hits album would go on to become one of Dylan’s most successful records, it was only half-filled with fan favorites. Dylan insisted that some previously unreleased songs be included to appeal to existing fans, a gambit that payed off many times over. Dylan’s third Greatest Hits album, released in 1993, is an even stranger compilation of songs.
