Eggplant, tomato and chickpea casserole. © Ryan Schierling |
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Where did you rip off that recipe? It's delicious...
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Carrots on the side.
Carrots, front and center. © Ryan Schierling |
Sunday, December 19, 2010
TGICFS.
CFS and eggs @ Bakehouse Restaurant & Bar. © Ryan Schierling |
astringent unsavory
I steered you wrong, love
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Pickled ugly.
Wait for it. © Ryan Schierling |
Nobody likes okra. There's no good use for it. It's unsightly, it's slimy and mucilaginous, it's a disgusting fibrous little pod that has no redeeming qualities and even less flavor. The only possible way to eat it is to batter it, deep-fry it and dip it in ranch dressing, which is (while delicious) the lowest common denominator for food. You could deep-fry poison oak leaves, dip them in ranch and they would be palatable (until your throat swelled shut).
Okay, I'll take that back. No, not the lowest common denominator part about frying vegetables and dipping them in ranch dressing, but the part about okra being completely unlovable.
A friend with a quarter-acre garden had an okra bounty this year that was entirely unmanageable. He gave away gallon-size plastic bags of the stuff, and would have another one for you before you could even think of what to do with the last one.
Of course, we sliced, rinsed, soaked in buttermilk, battered and fried them. We made Bhindi Masala (turns out that slime cooks away nicely). We pickled them with tons of garlic and Tabasco peppers from our garden.
(L) Garlic and Tobasco peppers. (R) Okra, pre-pickling. © Ryan Schierling |
And now, surprisingly, every time I snag a spicy, crunchy, pickled pod from one of the many, many jars in the refrigerator, I can't help but think how pretty those ugly little things are.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Franklin Barbecue.
To be perfectly honest, I do not know anything about Aaron Franklin. I do not know where he grew up or where he honed his barbecue skills.
Aaron Franklin, serving up Franklin Barbecue. © Ryan Schierling |
I do know there are a great number of mouth-watering disciples proselytizing furiously for Franklin. Magazines (the November 2010 issue of Food & Wine heralded Franklin Barbecue as one of the best U.S. restaurant openings), newspapers (Austin Chronicle and Dallas Observer have effused) and local food blogs (too many to mention) fall all over Franklin.
I have tried my best to avoid influence.
I subscribe to the mantra of "believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see."
Taste is the truth, the way and the light.
But, I want to believe.
It's nearly 2011. "Trailer food," once heralded as the next wave of culinary adventure, is already being lambasted as played-out, from Portland to Pensacola. Too popular, too quickly, they said, and now the food-hipsters are haters.
But, as I find out, Franklin is not trailer food. Open only a little more than a year, there are a pair of enormous propane tanks that have been converted to smoke meat, and apparently, communicate with the Gods. The white and aquamarine trailer serves only as food dispatch and cash-out, an ever-so-brief altar between the heat and the eat.
Ah, yes. The eat.
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