Peasant Food is Good Food: Beans and Rice

There is a song by Spearhead that I love, and it goes (in part) like this:
“….The way to my heart/ is with a garlic clove
it smells hella sexy/ when it’s on the kitchen stove
(chorus)
Red beans and rice, red beans and rice, red beans and rice,
make everything nice
red beans and rice, red beans and rice, red […]

Green Salad with Chevre, Black Walnuts, Apples and Pomegranate Vinaigrette

This very picturesque salad was a collaborative effort between Morganna and I, and it typifies all that I believe a salad should be–a beautiful combination of flavors, color, textures and aromas which beguile the senses while retaining an essential simplicity of presentation which is still lyrically aesthetic.
I made the dressing, and came up with […]

How Do You Make Shrimp Etouffee? Well, Cher, First You Make A Roux….

Now you see why I had to explain to y’all how to go about making a roux.
Because if you don’t know how, the first sentence of most etouffee recipes will not make a damned bit of sense to you, whether they are in many Cajun-Creole cookbooks or they are coming from the mouths of […]

Pork and Apple Enchiladas Verde Casserole

Apples are gloriously in season this month; at our farmers market, a double handful of varieties are currently available, including two of my favorites, MacIntosh and Jonathan. MacIntosh apples, in fact, were the first apples I introduced Zak to in order to convince him that he really liked apples. He was convinced for years that […]

Saturday Dinner: Sort-Of, But Not Quite Pork Chops, Applesauce and Mashed Potatoes

I didn’t really know what to call this post, really, because the dinner came out of improvisation on the theme of a many a childhood dinner in West Virginia: pan-fried pork chops served with applesauce on the side, with mashed potatoes and some sort of green vegetable (usually cooked from a vibrant verdant beauty into […]