At least once a week, both my mother and grandmother would make homemade biscuits from scratch for breakfast.  They’d always make a big batch, enough to freeze into “individual” serving sizes of 2 or 3 (“snack” vs. “meal”).  Grandma would make buttermilk biscuits, impossibly fluffy and light, and I would eat them with Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup and butter.  Mom went all macrobiotic when I was in high school and started making them with whole wheat flour.  Which was disastrous at first and they came out like hockey pucks.  But she gradually learned how to adjust her recipes so they weren’t terrible, and whole wheat or unbleached all-purpose flour became more easily available.  I also discovered the love of my life at that point – Steen’s 100% Pure Cane Syrup – and never willingly ate anything else on a biscuit or pancake ever again.

Anyhow, I can’t shake the weekly biscuit habit.  I use the JOY recipe, with unbleached flour, sometimes with buttermilk, sometimes drop biscuits instead of rolled (only if I forget and flub up the recipe).  I take great pleasure in kneading, punching, and making little shapes with the dough.  The problem is, with my singleton status, I end up eating them all myself.  Between that and my potato habit I’m likely to ruin my bid for bikini shape.  I’ve started walking an average of 10 miles a week to try to justify my carb intake.  Because I will forever be entranced by those fluffy little bites of love.

biscuits

a first iteration, the goal being to eventually replicate Grandma's fluffiness w/increasingly more hearty whole grain flours

 

Reunion – Day 5

Sunday was July 4 itself and my gracious hosts brought me out to the sticks to their family home for dinner.  Lucky for me, they ground their own approximation of the Pat LaFrieda burger mix and made St. Louis gooey butter cake to bring for dessert.  I pretty much ate only that the entire day.

That night at Essence festival was my very reason for attending.  Mary J. Blige was headlining, with none other than Jill Scott opening for her.  Two of the most incredible voices of our times.  Jill tore the house down and Mary built it right back up.  Jill channeling Isaac Hayes or George Clinton with crazy pychedlic 70s fashions and silhouetted go-go dancers, with a marvelous Afro, dancing and laughing and being her all around radiant self.  And being at a Mary J. Blige concert is like being in church.  Laughing, crying, celebrating, and most importantly singing along every single word.  The entire audience – all 50,000 concertgoers – clings to and sings every single word, probably just like they do in their cars, showers, or anywhere else.  I didn’t take any pictures.  I was literally caught up in the rapture of the moment. (Except when I was elbowing chicks in the VIP for the chicken satay.)  It didn’t disappoint!

One of my favorite breakfast meals growing up was oatmeal…  It felt like a warm hug from grandma.  I like mine stiff, with cinnamon, raisins and a fat cube of butter in the middle, drenched in whole milk.  But trying to conceptualize oatmeal as a savory dish is both compelling and mind-blowing for me.  I’m dipping my toe gingerly into the mix, this time adding a dry-aged grana padano cheese grated over my regular recipe.

Oatmeal w/Grana Padano cheese

Oatmeal w/Grana Padano cheese

Now, Mark Bittman suggested scallions and soy sauce…  But I’m leaning more toward the fried egg and sausage mix some Chowhounders recommended, with a little tomato relish or salsa…  Any thoughts or suggestions?

Every. Monday.  New Orleans families serve red beans and rice for dinner.  Every family’s red beans is different, and everyone has a different method of cooking them.  Some people swear by soaking them overnight about 12 hours, “to get the gas out” or to cut down on cooking time.  Others add extra bay leaf for the same reason.  My family is in the latter camp, and this recipe takes about 2-2.5 hrs tops.  This is my grandma’s recipe; we rarely ever bothered to make our own.

In a vegetarian variation, I simply omit the meat and add extra seasoning to taste, everything else is largely the same.  Serves 8-12.

1/2 lb of smoked meat (optional, smoked turkey necks or legs OR slab bacon cut into cubes OR traditionally, ham or picklemeat)

1 lb dried red beans, washed/rinsed

1 large onion

1/2 bell pepper (optional, preferred in veggie)

1/2 pod of garlic, to taste

4-5 bay leaves

3 tablespoons of olive oil

1 lb smoked sausage

salt and pepper to taste

1 heaping tsp of sugar

1. Cover the beans in a pot with about 5 inches of water, add smoked meat, and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to a simmer.

2. Sautee finely chopped onions, garlic, and bell pepper in olive oil.  When onions are clear, add them to the simmering beans. Bring heat back up to a low boil for 15-20 minutes or so then reduce heat to a simmer again and cook for approximately 1 hour.  Stir occasionally to avoid sticking.

3. Add salt and pepper, bay leaves, and sugar to taste.

4. Slice smoke sausage into half-inch rounds, add to beans.  Simmer for another 20-30 minutes or until beans are thick and creamy.  The smoked sausage adds a strong extra meaty flavor to the beans…  some folks prefer to BBQ the sauasage and serve on the side…

Serve over your favorite rice (I prefer brown), with hot sauce to taste.  Some folks like to put a mayo or mustard dollop in the beans as a garnish (I think it’s because their parents really couldn’t cook that well).  I like mine plain and good, w/Tabasco and a slice of french bread.  They’re also extra delicious and creamy on the second day, after they’ve had a chance to cool, and great to freeze and reheat.

When I was on a hunt for gumbo ingredients the other day (beef smoked sausage and possibly andouille sausage) in Harlem, I found myself in the C-town on 125th.  While for a long time that grocery was the only one for miles around aside from Fairway and a few exorbitantly priced organic markets… that doesn’t excuse the fact that in general, all C-towns in the city have a faint lingering odor of under-refrigerated meat and dairy products.  I braced myself and ran in, all the way to the back, where I knew the prepackaged Hillshire Farms sausage would be.

Once inside though, I was fascinated by the proliferation of “regular” groceries.  I’d insulated myself in a bubble of organic fresh fruits and veggies and sustainably packaged grains and granolas for so long, the sight of hundreds of boxes of Fruit Loops and other neon cereals startled me.  And then I remembered how much I *loved* Frosted Flakes as a kid, and grabbed a box.

So I quickly found the beef smoked sausage and allowed my eyes to peruse the shelf to see what other odd random “regular” groceries they had.  Hot sausage by the 5 lb box, but something about it was a little too neon red to pique my interest.  Then I found the beef bacon.  I found duck bacon at Fairway once before and it was a delightful experience, so I figured this would be tasty if not delicious.  Good god, was I wrong!

It was like salt cured beef with no smoke flavor…  All grease and stringy mush.  I threw it away.  Couldn’t eat it.

All that said, I would be willing to bet that if I got the beef bacon from Fairway, Whole Foods, or some other fancy organic market, or from a good local source it might be delicious.  No. 7 in Fort Greene taught me well that all prepared meats are NOT created equal!

But those fancy markets never had it.  Because beef bacon is… gauche.

I suffer, so you don’t have to.

Beef Bacon raw, w/packaging

It seemed like a good idea at the time

Beef Bacon in a pan

it turned out a disaster

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