Lemon tree pics...

Just a snippet of the tree...

Spring is arriving...sort of...and it's getting mighty green

As a cook I also enjoy some mild gardening - growing tomatoes, herbs, and other assorted bits to add to my cooking. It beats paying for them over and over...just pay once and go snip. It takes some time and care but no more than is involved in preparing a meal. I found a little gem of a landscape and garden place here...not far from the house and they carry all sorts of plants and trees for a real garden...not the heavy ornamental stuff I'm used to finding - I'm talking multipple varieties of lemons, limes, kumquats (one sour and one sweet), grapefruit, and the like. We're in a "citrus" area so we have all sorts of these - and they are reasonable - I was looking last night for a Meyer lemon and the best I could do was about $50 shipped for a tree - not a plant - an actual ready to bear fruit tree. I called this place - Martin's in Luling for the curious - and asked - they had Meyers in stock and two out of three were blooming. It's parade day here in the burgeoning metropolis of Luling so they were closing early and the streets are a disaster but I hurried over and bought a tree and a thing of fertilizer for citrus and got two very delicious and ripe white grapefruits thrown in for $31 (tax included). I like this place - the lady running the shop knows her stuff and I'll be going back - how can I resist? Affordable, knowledgeable, and just around the corner. I will post pictures...the tree is covered in buds and there is one bloom - that just smells unreal - I can tell I'm going to like this tree...

Best laid plans...

So the wife didn't get her job...we'll be staying on here for a while longer...not exactly boosting my morale but such is life. On the food front...it's Mardi Gras season here and King cake is the order of the day - one would think that purple, gold, and green (the colors of Mardi Gras) sugar would be relatively simple to locate. I'm new here and maybe I looked in the wrong spots but I could find green and gold with only minor trouble but purple (which appears on half or more of the cakes in this town) was more difficult than any needle in any haystack. Never fear...I bought purple icing color and solved my issue creatively. I'm baking this afternoon and tomorrow and will post pictures...hopefully.

Off the road...and hopefully into my own kitchen soon...

Right, back home again and back into the mix that is work and just trying to get by. Biggest event so far has been baking a scratch cake for my mother-in-law's 60th birthday. I pulled out a few stops - she wanted some lemon thing from her childhood and I glanced over the recipes that she said sounded close...buttercake, lemon curd, and buttercream icing. No sweat...well...no worries anyway. There's always sweat in my kitchen. The cake turned out very well...no one could understand why I went the scratch route (which is normal...no one much does that these days). It wasn't as visually beautiful as I would have preferred but when you're dealing with no gear you get what you get. It ate just fine.

Other notes...I inherited my grandmother's dough trough for Christmas - my wife and I had looked at these on our honeymoon and weren't really willing to part with that sort of cash - glad we waited...got a much nicer one for free...and it comes complete with value and heritage.

We may be moving into our own place soon...my job is getting a little better and the wife has a solid lead on something paying equal to mine...hopefully in a month or so we'll be moving (again) and setting up our house again. Stay tuned...

Christmas comes a little early in New Orleans this year...

It's the holidays as we are all painfully well aware of. For those of you who wait until the absolute last minute to shop tomorrow is it for you. Since we travel at the holidays (to be with family) things get jumbled or rushed from time to time. Today is a prime example - it's the 23rd - and we did family Christmas here today. I have to work tomorrow and the other part of the family here has had stuff booked for Christmas eve for some time now so today was it. We had a non-traditional meal - steak, twice baked potatoes, salad, and bread, we also had apple pie and pecan pie for dessert. No ham or turkey, no sweet potatoes, or any of the usuals. I think I like this one better...I don't eat as much and I enjoyed it more. Maybe steak will make its way onto the menu. After lunch was the gift opening extravaganza. Now bear in mind we opened gifts with a 2 and a 4 year old. There were bits of paper everywhere. Now this is our first Christmas as married folks and my in-laws are still trying to figure me out a little bit. Last year I got a few things that were great; this year there were two that were just really amazing. My in-laws bought me a handmade end grain cutting board

This was made by a man in our church here who does this as a hobby. If anyone is interested in obtaining one of these (he has more designs than this) post a comment or send me an email and I'll pass along his information. The second gift was a last minute thing from my wife - something she didn't think I'd like but that I happen to love:




I don't know if it's a terribly accurate timer or not (we got a digital timer for our wedding that's my favorite) or that I'd ever even use it - but it's a fun countertop item that adds character to our kitchen. I don't know if I'll post tomorrow and I know I won't on Tuesday so Happy Christmas to my readers, family, and friends. God has blessed abundantly this year and I am thankful for all He has provided. I'll try to post from on the road later this week.

Updates and thoughts...

Say what you like about Emeril Lagasse. Some dislike him because he suffers from, as one author penned, a deplorable excess of personality. Others think he makes food too simple or dumbs it down. There are times he grates my nerves like nails on a chalkboard and others that he bores me to tears with the routine. However no one should ever say he dumbs down anything...especially food. I had the privilege to dine in the flagship restaurant again today. The first trip was in '03 and I was on vacation here (New Orleans) in the city. Today was my office Christmas party (we're a small, family type office and we celebrate Christmas, not holidays). I enjoyed the porkchop again (this one was a single cut, not double) along with lobster bisque and the meyer lemon frozen souffle. The service was flawless as was the food itself - one of the best dining experiences I have ever encountered. There was nothing dumb about the masterful flavor combination of caramelized sweet potatoes, the tangy sweet sour of the tamarind glaze, and the subtle heat of the green chile mole. Chef Lagasse has a charisma that many might envy - but he brings food to the masses and shows them that there is no magic in restaurant kitchens that a home cook, with time and effort, cannot duplicate.

New location, new starter, new direction...

So we made it safely to New Orleans. Let me say this much. I've moved multiple times in my life. I've never enjoyed it. I can tell you I enjoyed it even less driving the truck pulling a trailer at 4 am with semis screaming past on either side. I left indentions in the steering wheel.

I tried the barm/boiled grain starter thing...my starter didn't like it. I had to toss it for the move and have started another...I'm using organic flour and it seems to be more active faster.

So...a mildly new direction for this blog. I have had arrangements made for me to get some cooking lessons from a friend of my inlaws who are true Cajuns. I'm excited...I know that no two kitchens do things alike but learning from someone who grew up on this cuisine will be better than some restaurants take. I think I want to merge/fuse it with Classical French - a la La Bonne Cuisine by Madame Saint-Ange and French Bistro. Somewhere in the back of my head I can get a picture of a really unique and delicious spin. I'll be posting more as time goes on. Since I'm searching for work my time is relatively free...hopefully I can devote some time to catching up on this and other minor projects.