A couple of weeks ago, I was hanging out with my bar friends way past dinner time. It was getting to be near midnight, and my stomach was aching for some food.
So, I did what I used to do when I was in undergrad and staying out late at TC's and I made a McDonald's run.
Only, this time, I went with my friend A.
A just so happened to want a hot fudge sundae.
Since we were going back to the bar, I pleaded with him to wait until we got back to eat the sundae.
Why?
Because McDonald's hot fudge sundaes + Bailey's = LOVE.
Apparently, I have created a monster. If you know me, you know how I get about food sometimes. I love it. I never imagined I would see someone more obsessed with this combo than myself.
Showing posts with label Food stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food stories. Show all posts
Monday, October 18, 2010
Friday, January 8, 2010
The great cornbread disaster of 2009 (or how I got my Ph.D. in Cornbread)
As y'all know, life has been a bit hectic for me lately, but I think I had it under control pretty well, all things considered. (Except for the tree never getting put up.)
I made my grocery list the day after I got back from Knoxville, and The Boyfriend and I went off to Publix. That was the smoothest major grocery trip experience ever. I got most everything on my list and the searching was minimal.
A few days later, Christmas Eve, I woke up and got that vegetable soup on to start cooking. I had been looking forward to this all year.
Vegetable soup + cornbread = Perfect Christmas Eve.
About 5:00, I started the cornbread. Batter looked good, finished product looked PERFECT. Around 6:00, I began serving the dinner. I cut into the cornbread and it seemed a little different, but I just chalked it up to maybe putting too many eggs into it. (Cornbread quiche, perhaps?)
I couldn't resist how yummy the cornbread LOOKED, so I snuck a bite. (A cook has to make sure the finished product is edible.)
And it's a good thing I did.
I warned my guests that it didn't taste bad, it just didn't taste. Gamma asked if I added salt. No. You only add buttermilk, eggs, and hot oil. The Boyfriend insisted it was because I did not use a cast iron skillet. (Oops! I left them in Auburn.) No. The skillet would not affect the taste that much. And then Granny asked the million dollar question.
"Did you use plain cornmeal?"
"Duh! I just wanted plain cornbread."
"You didn't buy self rising?"
Turns out, Publix played a nasty trick on us young Southerners this Christmas. Their cornbread shelves were full, but they were mostly full of plain cornmeal.
I thought I was a cornbread expert, since I know how to make it perfectly and without a recipe and measuring tools. Turns out, I had one more lesson to learn.
I'd leave y'all with a recipe, but the thing is, there is no recipe. My only secret is, if you are following the direction on the White Lily bag, add an extra egg. It makes a world of difference. (P.S. If you don't have an iron skillet to pre-heat with oil in the oven, heat up some oil in a skillet on the stove, then add to the mixture before baking. It adds a little crisp you wouldn't get with a plain old pan.)
I made my grocery list the day after I got back from Knoxville, and The Boyfriend and I went off to Publix. That was the smoothest major grocery trip experience ever. I got most everything on my list and the searching was minimal.
A few days later, Christmas Eve, I woke up and got that vegetable soup on to start cooking. I had been looking forward to this all year.
Vegetable soup + cornbread = Perfect Christmas Eve.
About 5:00, I started the cornbread. Batter looked good, finished product looked PERFECT. Around 6:00, I began serving the dinner. I cut into the cornbread and it seemed a little different, but I just chalked it up to maybe putting too many eggs into it. (Cornbread quiche, perhaps?)
I couldn't resist how yummy the cornbread LOOKED, so I snuck a bite. (A cook has to make sure the finished product is edible.)
And it's a good thing I did.
I warned my guests that it didn't taste bad, it just didn't taste. Gamma asked if I added salt. No. You only add buttermilk, eggs, and hot oil. The Boyfriend insisted it was because I did not use a cast iron skillet. (Oops! I left them in Auburn.) No. The skillet would not affect the taste that much. And then Granny asked the million dollar question.
"Did you use plain cornmeal?"
"Duh! I just wanted plain cornbread."
"You didn't buy self rising?"
Turns out, Publix played a nasty trick on us young Southerners this Christmas. Their cornbread shelves were full, but they were mostly full of plain cornmeal.
I thought I was a cornbread expert, since I know how to make it perfectly and without a recipe and measuring tools. Turns out, I had one more lesson to learn.
I'd leave y'all with a recipe, but the thing is, there is no recipe. My only secret is, if you are following the direction on the White Lily bag, add an extra egg. It makes a world of difference. (P.S. If you don't have an iron skillet to pre-heat with oil in the oven, heat up some oil in a skillet on the stove, then add to the mixture before baking. It adds a little crisp you wouldn't get with a plain old pan.)
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Forgive me, did someone say, "Food"?
I have this thing with Halloween food. My traditional Halloween spread consists of pigs in a blanket, chips, dips, drinks, anything that looks good at the grocery store, and, duh!, candy. Once I decided I was too old to go trick-or-treating, I enjoyed getting dressed up and passing out candy to the cute little kids. Since trick-or-treating falls during dinner time, it's tradition to have a snack buffet on Halloween night.
Being in the fall spirit, and having been invited to attend the midnight showing of Rocky Horror, I was in an entertaining mood that Sunday Halloween in 2004.
My neighbor below me came over and her friends showed up. We were having cocktails and I was obsessed with downloading Rocky Horror songs and printing out the audience participation script so I could brush up on my Rocky Horror.
I threw together a costume by adding a pair of cat ears to my standard Long and Leans, black shirt, and black heels outfit.
I taught my guests how to do the "Time Warp."
Being the good, strong, Southern lady I am, I had to serve hors d'oeuvres. And with it being Halloween, I didn't have to think too hard at all about what to serve.
I went to the grocery store and grabbed cocktail smokies, croissant dough, chips, dip, cookies, crackers, cheese and, of course, beer. So easy.
My Nepalese neighbor popped in and I insisted he stay for a while. I was so proud of myself because I knew he could eat everything I was serving. (Since he is Hindu, he doesn't eat beef.)
Or so I thought. So much so, I even told him the food was beef-less.
'Cause cocktail smokies are pork, right?
Nope. They have beef in them.
I found that out a few weeks later, when my Nepalese neighbor and I were in the grocery store together and he told me it was important for him to read the labels because beef is snuck into a lot of foods. Out of curiosity I checked the cocktail smokies.
Sure enough, beef was one of the ingredients.
Y'all, I felt so bad. Not only did I feel bad for disrespect someone's religious beliefs, I felt like a failure as a hostess.
Thankfully, my Nepalese neighbor is a very Zen Hindu, who said, "It's okay. It was an accident. You didn't know. I didn't know. We are forgiven."
Being in the fall spirit, and having been invited to attend the midnight showing of Rocky Horror, I was in an entertaining mood that Sunday Halloween in 2004.
My neighbor below me came over and her friends showed up. We were having cocktails and I was obsessed with downloading Rocky Horror songs and printing out the audience participation script so I could brush up on my Rocky Horror.
I threw together a costume by adding a pair of cat ears to my standard Long and Leans, black shirt, and black heels outfit.
I taught my guests how to do the "Time Warp."
Being the good, strong, Southern lady I am, I had to serve hors d'oeuvres. And with it being Halloween, I didn't have to think too hard at all about what to serve.
I went to the grocery store and grabbed cocktail smokies, croissant dough, chips, dip, cookies, crackers, cheese and, of course, beer. So easy.
My Nepalese neighbor popped in and I insisted he stay for a while. I was so proud of myself because I knew he could eat everything I was serving. (Since he is Hindu, he doesn't eat beef.)
Or so I thought. So much so, I even told him the food was beef-less.
'Cause cocktail smokies are pork, right?
Nope. They have beef in them.
I found that out a few weeks later, when my Nepalese neighbor and I were in the grocery store together and he told me it was important for him to read the labels because beef is snuck into a lot of foods. Out of curiosity I checked the cocktail smokies.
Sure enough, beef was one of the ingredients.
Y'all, I felt so bad. Not only did I feel bad for disrespect someone's religious beliefs, I felt like a failure as a hostess.
Thankfully, my Nepalese neighbor is a very Zen Hindu, who said, "It's okay. It was an accident. You didn't know. I didn't know. We are forgiven."
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Just because it's located in the North doesn't mean it can't be Southern
Y'all, have I got a good story for you.
The first thing I remember learning how to cook was cornbread. Hundreds of times my Granny poured ingredients into the plastic bowl as I stirred. Eventually, I began pouring in ingredients, a little at a time, until she said, "That's good." If you know anything about cooking in the South, you know we Southerners do not really use recipes. We cook by intuition. It took me YEARS to perfect my cornbread, and I even managed to give my Granny a secret: add an egg. It won't hurt anything and, for some reason, it always makes things taste better.
Now, I'm not too keen on sweet cornbread, even though I do like it from time to time (even, dare I say, crave it). For me, sweet cornbread, like beer and wine, is an acquired taste. I do not, under any circumstances, like peppers in my cornbread. Blasphemy, I tell you! Dressing is even an acquired taste for me. I used to think it was a waste of good cornbread.
When I was in eighth grade, we were taught that Maryland, even though it's located up North, is a Southern state. I don't quite get what's so Southern about Maryland because I used to know a girl from Maryland and she wasn't that Southern. Also in eighth grade, I went to Washington, D.C. I was forewarned that biscuits would not be served at breakfast in the mornings. When I was in ninth grade, I had a "boyfriend" who was from somewhere "up North" and he told me it was true that grits were not available for purchase at the grocery store up "there". So, everything about the differences between the North and the South, I learned in junior high. In college, I had a friend from Ohio who refused to even try pound cake (but his family did enjoy my pound cake that one Christmas).
Being a Political Scientist, by major, and a Historian, by minor, I was really excited to go to Boston in 2005. We were going in the summer, so I was even more excited to escape the misery that is summer in the South. But, knowing about how Northerners are about cornbread and grits, two things I could not ever live without, I braced myself.
Well, my dreams of a cool August were smashed when I found out it was not cooler up in Boston during the summer. As soon as I stepped foot outside the airport upon arrival, I was hit with a wall of humidity. Just like home.
Mom and I embarked on the scariest cab ride ever from the airport to the Hilton Back Bay. When we arrived, shaken and stirred from the terrifying cab ride, topped off with the cabbie scraping another car just before slamming on his brakes to drop us off at the hotel (yes, true story), our room wasn't quite ready. The hotel let us drop off our luggage and we decided it was time to get some food (after all, we had been up since the rooster cock-a-doodle-doo'd and we had been on two flights, back to back, that only served pretzels and drinks, AND all that combined with the wacky cab ride, we were staaaaaahving, y'all). So, we ask the person at the hotel where to eat and they sent us up the street to this place.
This is where it gets good, y'all. Not that wild cab rides and pretzels and ginger ale mid-flight aren't good, but this is where it gets really good. Mom and I were seated in this AIR CONDITIONED place (not quite to the really good part, but AC is a very good thing) and when they took our drink orders, they put, in front of us, a basket of, brace yourselves, y'all: CORNBREAD. Can you believe it? It is possible to be up North and still be Southern.
And, even though the drivers were wacky, let me tell you, y'all, the people were pretty nice up there. All the time we were asked where we were from, and never once did someone say something ugly about Southerners. They loved our accents (may mine RIP, which is a whole 'nother post for some other day), and one person even marveled over the roller coaster at VisonLand.
Now, I did have one te-niny problem up there: the tea. See, I'm a bit un-Southern when it comes to my tea. I like it unsweet. (Although, like my cornbread, I do like it a little sweet from time to time.) So, you can imagine my excitement about going up North and not having to send back my tea a million times at a restaurant because the server failed to listen to my request for UNsweet tea. Well, y'all, while eating at a restaurant on Newbury Street one day, I was dying for some tea. Just to be sure, since so far my trip had been a dream for a Southerner, I asked the waitress if it was indeed true that the tea was "just plain old, normal" tea. She confirmed. I ordered my tea and when Mom and Brother looked at me expectantly as I prepared to take my first sip of UNsweet tea in days, I just had to ask them if it was, by some cruel twist of events, sweetened. They answered in the negative, so I took a swig. Y'all, don't ever take a swig of tea up North as if you're expecting Heaven to flow through your mouth. Mom couldn't contain her laughter anymore. I finally understood why the Bostonians threw all that tea in the harbor: Nestea, y'all, is nas-tea.
I propose, y'all, that we Southerners adopt Boston as a Southern location. It can't be too hard to fix the tea situation. And I believe any place that serves cornbread upon arrival would be open to grits, so that shouldn't be too complicated to correct. We can just call it polenta, like the Italians do, and they'll totally go for it. Don't you think so?
The first thing I remember learning how to cook was cornbread. Hundreds of times my Granny poured ingredients into the plastic bowl as I stirred. Eventually, I began pouring in ingredients, a little at a time, until she said, "That's good." If you know anything about cooking in the South, you know we Southerners do not really use recipes. We cook by intuition. It took me YEARS to perfect my cornbread, and I even managed to give my Granny a secret: add an egg. It won't hurt anything and, for some reason, it always makes things taste better.
Now, I'm not too keen on sweet cornbread, even though I do like it from time to time (even, dare I say, crave it). For me, sweet cornbread, like beer and wine, is an acquired taste. I do not, under any circumstances, like peppers in my cornbread. Blasphemy, I tell you! Dressing is even an acquired taste for me. I used to think it was a waste of good cornbread.
When I was in eighth grade, we were taught that Maryland, even though it's located up North, is a Southern state. I don't quite get what's so Southern about Maryland because I used to know a girl from Maryland and she wasn't that Southern. Also in eighth grade, I went to Washington, D.C. I was forewarned that biscuits would not be served at breakfast in the mornings. When I was in ninth grade, I had a "boyfriend" who was from somewhere "up North" and he told me it was true that grits were not available for purchase at the grocery store up "there". So, everything about the differences between the North and the South, I learned in junior high. In college, I had a friend from Ohio who refused to even try pound cake (but his family did enjoy my pound cake that one Christmas).
Being a Political Scientist, by major, and a Historian, by minor, I was really excited to go to Boston in 2005. We were going in the summer, so I was even more excited to escape the misery that is summer in the South. But, knowing about how Northerners are about cornbread and grits, two things I could not ever live without, I braced myself.
Well, my dreams of a cool August were smashed when I found out it was not cooler up in Boston during the summer. As soon as I stepped foot outside the airport upon arrival, I was hit with a wall of humidity. Just like home.
Mom and I embarked on the scariest cab ride ever from the airport to the Hilton Back Bay. When we arrived, shaken and stirred from the terrifying cab ride, topped off with the cabbie scraping another car just before slamming on his brakes to drop us off at the hotel (yes, true story), our room wasn't quite ready. The hotel let us drop off our luggage and we decided it was time to get some food (after all, we had been up since the rooster cock-a-doodle-doo'd and we had been on two flights, back to back, that only served pretzels and drinks, AND all that combined with the wacky cab ride, we were staaaaaahving, y'all). So, we ask the person at the hotel where to eat and they sent us up the street to this place.
This is where it gets good, y'all. Not that wild cab rides and pretzels and ginger ale mid-flight aren't good, but this is where it gets really good. Mom and I were seated in this AIR CONDITIONED place (not quite to the really good part, but AC is a very good thing) and when they took our drink orders, they put, in front of us, a basket of, brace yourselves, y'all: CORNBREAD. Can you believe it? It is possible to be up North and still be Southern.
And, even though the drivers were wacky, let me tell you, y'all, the people were pretty nice up there. All the time we were asked where we were from, and never once did someone say something ugly about Southerners. They loved our accents (may mine RIP, which is a whole 'nother post for some other day), and one person even marveled over the roller coaster at VisonLand.
Now, I did have one te-niny problem up there: the tea. See, I'm a bit un-Southern when it comes to my tea. I like it unsweet. (Although, like my cornbread, I do like it a little sweet from time to time.) So, you can imagine my excitement about going up North and not having to send back my tea a million times at a restaurant because the server failed to listen to my request for UNsweet tea. Well, y'all, while eating at a restaurant on Newbury Street one day, I was dying for some tea. Just to be sure, since so far my trip had been a dream for a Southerner, I asked the waitress if it was indeed true that the tea was "just plain old, normal" tea. She confirmed. I ordered my tea and when Mom and Brother looked at me expectantly as I prepared to take my first sip of UNsweet tea in days, I just had to ask them if it was, by some cruel twist of events, sweetened. They answered in the negative, so I took a swig. Y'all, don't ever take a swig of tea up North as if you're expecting Heaven to flow through your mouth. Mom couldn't contain her laughter anymore. I finally understood why the Bostonians threw all that tea in the harbor: Nestea, y'all, is nas-tea.
I propose, y'all, that we Southerners adopt Boston as a Southern location. It can't be too hard to fix the tea situation. And I believe any place that serves cornbread upon arrival would be open to grits, so that shouldn't be too complicated to correct. We can just call it polenta, like the Italians do, and they'll totally go for it. Don't you think so?
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