Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Garden Mac™

I have discovered a new toe-curl, and oh, darlings, are you ever gonna love this. Are you ready? Roasted tomato bechamel. "What are its uses?" you might be asking yourself. "What aren't its uses," I retort! The first is mac n chee, of course! With garden vegetables!

Okay, now we're talking. I'm getting some real food outta the garden, and not just kale, chard, collards, kale and kohlrabi. And more kohlrabi and collards. Naw, this is when we can start telling crucifers to just fuck right off and get into the good stuff: the nightshades (tomatoes, chiles, eggplants), cucurbits (cukes, zucchini, pattypans) and legumes (bush beans, runner beans). Oh my.

Okay, to be fair, my tomatoes are still green and these little rubies are from the store. And my peppers are still wee little green nubs, a mere twinkling in their daddy's eye. But soon! Sooon. Besides, I have Sylvetta arugula, Purple Queen bush beans, Albarello di Sarzano zucchini.

A simple roast on the tomatoes is all you need: one hour at 400 degrees, with only a drizzle of oil and a sprinkle of salt. Go about your business making a standard bechamel (butter + flour + 5 minutes = roux, whisk in milk until creamy gravy, simmer for 10-15, S&P and nutmeg to taste). When you pull the tomatoes out of the oven, though, deglaze the baking dish with some cheap white wine and scrape all the good tomato-y fond off, which will melt into a nice golden-orange juice. Stir this into the bechamel that's happily bubbling away on the stove. Add your garden vedge (trimmed into bite-sized pieces and quickly sauteed tender-crisp), a handful's worth of various grated cheeses (I had Jarlsberg and some Parm Redge going blue). Stir together with the cooked macaroni and some greens, and pour the whole thing back into the tomato-roasting dish. Top with more cheese, and bake for 15-20, until bubbly and gooey.

Mark my words, roasted tomato bechamel is going to be a thing.

Hey, so please tell me I'm not the only one who Googles her own blog once in awhile. You do it too, right? Because SiteMeter is great and all, but just doesn't always tell you who's looking and linking. Well kiss my grits if I didn't find out that a nice intern at Fine Cooking Magazine had given yours truly a nod on the Kitchen Sink (that's the Editor's blog!) as one of the reasons why working at Fine Cooking is so hard! Because she gets tortured by all of the yummeh on the internet! It's a good thing that I am so self-absorbed, or else I'd never have had the chance to thank them for the attention. It's enough to make a girl blush, really. Thank you for the traffic, Fine Cooking (and omg I love Fine Gardening too)!

Another shout-out deserving my thanks: my good friend Foodycat has honored me with the Arte y Pico Award. I am extremely flattered that anyone even reads this damn thing, let alone wants to give me an award. Really, my blog is just type-written masturbation, and all of the photos are just there for those times when words fail me. So thank you, Foodycat! In keeping with my curmudgeonly ways (now it's tradition), I will not pass this on to anyone else.

Happy summer!

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Good Taste Noodle House


I am totally guilty of this, by the way. I can eat completely mediocre food in a slightly dingy joint, but if Scott and I are the only white people, it's Fucking Amazing, and The Best-Kept Secret in Portland. In the case of Good Taste Noodle House, it's not that the secret is well-kept, it's just that it's well-kept from white people. This place really is fucking amazing, though, and not just because it has an entirely (except for us) Asian clientele.

Good Taste Noodle House is, like all of my favorite eateries these days, tucked away behind a mini-mall in Chinatown-East. You turn off the main drag, drive through a narrow passageway, and park in the center of a little oasis of Asian goodness that includes a Thai joint, a small teriyaki joint, a crawfish joint (the fuck?) and a coffee shop, among others. You want desperately to try them all, but patience, my dear. We will try each of them in time.


When you first walk into Good Taste Noodle House, you are first greeted by lovely roasted chicken and ducks smiling at you through a plexiglass box. You smile back, then notice the hindquarters of a suckling pig dangling from a salty hook in the adjacent box. You look around and see people shoveling food into their mouths with lime-green chopsticks, silent but for the sound of slurping.

You take a seat at any of the brightly-lit tables and notice, to your unimaginable delight, that they sell food by the pound (joy of joys!!). You make a mental note of this, should you find yourself needing a whole salty, crispy duck in the future.

I glance at the menu, tempted to ask the beautiful, demure waitstaff to bring me "whatever is your favorite", but instead ordered the crispy duck with shrimp wontons in broth. Scott ordered the ginger and green onion chicken with dry noodles. As we wait for our food, I joke with Scott that I should get the words "roasted duck" tattooed down my shoulder in Chinese characters, and when people ask me what it says I'll tell them it says "beautiful wisdom". We have a good laugh about this.

Oh, good lord look at this sexy bowl of noodles! The silken wonton floating lackadaisically in the intense, unctuous broth. The sliced hunks of duck, all crispy skin and fatty, rich meat nestled atop a wad of chewy yi mein.

Scott's dish came with the same yi mein (a fried wheat noodle, yellow in color from the addition of egg), piled high with soft, white chicken and two dipping bowls: one of a scallion-chicken broth, and the other of grated ginger mixed with oil. Scott thought his noodles tasted a bit funny, and I did notice a bitter aftertaste on them. I think this could be from the cooking water (maybe had an herb or root added to it?) or the noodles may have been colored with lye-water (one of the other possible additives to give the yellow color), which apparently gives a distinctive smell. I chased my bite with a nibble of chicken and a spoonful of broth, and this helped.

As with our stomachs, the place began to really fill up. We got some boxes for our leftovers so someone could have our table.

I implore you to find the Asian people where you live, and find out where they eat. Chances are, it ain't the Panda Express. Good Taste Noodle House is a small peek into another culture - one where English isn't the first language, and one where a good bowl of noodles is tantamount to happiness.

Good Taste Noodle House
8220 SE Harrison St.

Portland, OR



Good Taste Noodle House on Urbanspoon

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Cazuela de Chorizo y Queso

...or Mexican Lasagna

...or Lowering the Bar

This time of year, I usually have to make a concerted effort to pull shit out of the freezer ahead of time so we have some dinner options. Once in awhile, though, I get too ambitious (really, just once in awhile), and pull 5 meals' worth of meat out of the freezer and then just, oh forget about it for a week. Then it's a harried scramble of profanity to cook it all in time. These are the times when I either have stroke of utter genius, or completely phone it in with this Hamburger Helper-esque abortion. This meal was the latter.

This time we had a venison backstrap, some ground turkey, and about 18 inches of Mexican chorizo in the mix. Whoa, turns out the carnicería near our house has really fucking good chorizo! Unfortunately, this was discovered after I already turned it all into a red-headed stepchild of Bolognese, using some leftover green and yellow bell peppers, some roasted jalapeños (from the freezer) and some onions. Diced it all up, fried it in the delicious orange chorizo grease. Added some Mexican oregano and a bit of cumin. One more run through the fridge - oh, here's a little container of sliced black olives, a half a can of black beans and one more sad kohlrabi (peeled and diced). In they go. I threw in a can of El Pato Mexican tomato sauce, and to cut the heat, I added some regular ol' stewed tomatoes.

I had a package of Trader Joe's no-boil lasagna noodles, a package of shredded cheddar/jack, and a hunk of cotija that had about ten minutes left on it. I had a tub of expired (but not-yet-sour!) cottage cheese, which I blended with some cilantro scavenged from the garden, and it was a reasonable facsimile for ricotta.

Gah, even the photos came out bad!

Oh god, what an embarrassing mess this was. A fucking mess! But oh, hey I almost forgot? Greasy, spicy sausage, sheets of pasta and gooey cheese all fresh from the oven ALWAYS TASTES GOOD. I win. Take that, Creepy Anthropomorphic Talking Glove!

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Kedjenou with kelewele and collards with green peppers in tomato-peanut sauce

God, this post is gonna be long.

I finally got a little time to post this African food I've been threatening to make! But let's back up a bit - why would a little white bitch up in the Pacific NW be interested in making African food in the first place? You can blame that one on the YouTubes.



I was flipping through, looking for Naija videos (I can't stop listening to Afrikan Boy), and this caught my eye. It is a fucking hilarious riff of Lil' Wayne, so please just indulge me and watch it. I had no idea that Nigerians were so food-centric! I love them already. I decided that I should share this video with you all, but wanted to cook a meal to really set it off.

I have all those collard greens I've been talking about, and I knew that many African countries use greens. I'd also had chicken-peanut stew once, but the peanut butter had been slightly burned and the stew ended up tasting like singed ass hairs. I wanted to avoid this, so (being a scientist) I did a little research.

I found this website, The Congo Cookbook. I can't say enough wonderful things about this website. It's like an African Epicurious.com, mixed with a little Wikipedia. You can scroll to your desired dish (e.g, chicken, meat, seafood, stew, etc.), and you just roll over a listed dish and it tells you the main components, and where it's from. Then if you click the link, it takes you to the recipe page, which gives the information about how it's served, the specific country or region that perfected it, and other foods commonly eaten with it. This is ideal for my infotainment junkie needs! I will be coming back often. Also, they have no idea who I am: I have not been solicited to review their website (although I am going to tell them I did and see if they'll send me a cookbook or sommat!).

I decided I wanted to stick to west African food to honor the Naija Boyz, and so I could give a shout-out to Courtney, my homegirl at Coco Cooks (her dad is the original Naija Boy). Nikki Miller-Ka at Nik Snacks says every day is African Day at her house, so she gets some love too.

Kedjenou is a stew from Cote d'Ivoire of chicken and vegetables (eggplant and/or okra - I chose "and"), with a tomato-based sauce. I probably spiced it more heavily than is traditional (I love tomato with ginger and hot chili), but it was so good! This is traditionally prepared in an earthware vessel called a canari (or canary), but I used a Chinese clay hotpot instead.

I'm not going to post the recipes since they're not really mine, but for the stew I just browned a cut-up chicken (thighs, legs and wings are best) in a little oil with some chopped onions and garlic, tossed in some minced ginger and sprinkled some Berbere spice over the top. When it was browning up nicely I added the chopped eggplant and some chopped tomato, a bay leaf and some thyme, then a few dashes of Maggi. Next I added some stewed tomatoes and some chicken stock and put the lid on to simmer for about 45 minutes. Since I wasn't cooking over coals I didn't bother doing the shake-every-five-minutes canari method, I just gave it a shake a couple times. About 10 minutes to the end I added the okra (I prefer okra al dente) and let it finish off (falling-off-the-bone tender is done). Serve with buttered rice.

Maggi's claim is true: it improves the taste. Maggi sauce is the wheat alternative to soy sauce, and can be found all over developing countries and in Asian grocery stores. This is actually Chinese Maggi (common theme here), not west African Maggi, but I like the sauce over the cubes and already had some in my cabinet.

Kelewele is spiced fried plantains from Ghana. I love fried plantains, so this was really a no-brainer. These are tossed with some cayenne and ginger before they get fried, and provide a wonderful, unctuous sweetness to the plate.

The greens with green pepper, ironically, were originally the whole point (I just have so many of them!), but ended up a side dish. I removed the stems from the collards and chopped them finely. I sauteed them with chopped onion and green bell pepper, added some tomato salsa and a couple spoonfuls of chunky peanut butter (stir together), then added the chopped greens. A spoonful or two of water and a lid, then 10 minutes later it's on.

Some astute readers will notice a glaring omission: I didn't make fufu. I totally planned to, bought the yams and everything, but I ran out of burners! I will next time, I promise (and then I won't need to use a fork).

One last thing, my baby girl Emiline over at Visions of Sugar Plum has tagged me for a meme! She's the only person I can forgive for this egregious disregard of my "No Memes, Plzkthx" policy, so I will play along and say thank you! But I will not tag anyone.

1. Last Movie I Saw In A Movie Theater?
Hellboy II

2. What Book Are You Reading?
Persepolis (and yes, even though it has pictures it is still a book)

3. Favorite Board Game?
Boggle

4. Favorite Magazine?
Gourmet

5. Favorite Smells?
My husband's armpits (mixed with his deodorant), honeysuckle, tomato leaves

6. Favorite Sounds?
Four-part harmony, bacon sizzling, territorial hummingbirds

7. Worst Feeling In The World?
Failure

8. First Thing You Think of When You Wake?
I really need to pee before he even thinks about poking me with that thing

9. Favorite Fast Food Place?
Burgerville

10. Future Child's Name?
I won't divulge the ones I'm planning on using, but a girl's name I really like is Astrid, and I really like Sy for a boy

11. Finish This Statement—“If I Had a Lot of Money, I’d…
Write my cookbook, have a really clean house, learn to be a DJ, become fluent in a few more languages..."

12. Do You Drive Fast?
I can't drive 55. Unless I'm in a 40 mph zone.

13. Do You Sleep With a Stuffed Animal?
No, but I stuff a pillow between my tummy and my thighs.

14. Storms—Cool or Scary?
Erotic. You decide which of those that falls under.

15. What Was Your First Car?
A honey-colored 1978 Buick Limited. I called her The Mothership Connection.

16. Favorite Drink?
A Gayhound (vodka with pink grapefruit juice, and a sprig of fresh rosemary).

17. Finish This Statement—“If I Had the Time, I Would…
Write my cookbook, have a really clean house, learn to be a DJ, become fluent in a few more languages..."

18. Do You Eat the Stems on Broccoli?
Waste not, want not.

19. If You could Dye your Hair Any Other Color, What Would It Be?
Fuschia.

20. Name All the Different Cities In Which You Have Lived.
Portland, OR. You might think that's boring until you find out how awesome Portland is.

21. Favorite Sport to Watch?
Men's swimming.

22. One Nice Thing About The Person Who Sent This To You
She's who I'd be if I were nicer and more talented (and ten years younger).

23. What’s Under Your Bed?
Carpet, errant slippers, hrblz.

24. Would You Like to Be Born As Yourself Again?
Of course! That's not to say I wouldn't do a few things differently if I had my druthers.

25. Morning Person or Night Owl?
Neither? I'm most coherent between 9:00 and midnight.

26. Over Easy or Sunny Side Up?
I guess Over Easy. Sunny Side Up is just so in-your-face.

27. Favorite Place to Relax?
One of those massage chairs that you sit in while you're getting a pedicure.

28. Favorite Ice Cream Flavor?
Rocky Road.

29. Of All the People You Have Tagged, Who Is the Most Likely to Respond First?
Haha, joke's on you - I didn't tag anyone!

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Steak Berbere with celery remoulade and panmolle

...or Perfect Summer Dinner v2.0

Today is (hey shorty, it's; we're gonna party like it's;) my birthday! The hubz, some homies and I decided to let me cook last night instead of going out - I know that sounds like Opposite Day, but I was really feelin' it, so we rolled with it.

Look at these brontosaurus steaks! I initially had been planning on making some African chicken stew and collards (I'm really into the Naija thing right now), but cooking stew didn't sound good when it's so hot in the house. So I made some Ethiopian berbere spice, which is basically two ingredients away from my secret rub (the two other ingredients are fenugreek and dried onion). I'll do my African post next week, I have something up my sleeve.

Bottom round is a slightly chewy cut, but where it lacks in tenderness it more than compensates in flavor. And isn't that what it's really all about? I smeared the berbere into those thick-ass steaks with a bit of salt and let them sit for awhile while I prepped the sides.

I really can't get enough tomatoes this time of year, but talk to me in a month, when all ten of my tomato plants are fruiting and I'm scrambling to get them into everything we eat (I tried to stagger my plantings with varieties that fruit at different times, but a cold spring really fucked that all up). I picked up a tub of perlini mozzarella and made a simple vinaigrette of good red wine vinegar, olive oil, minced thyme, basil and oregano, some lemon zest and S&P. Toss the perlini with cubed heirloom tomatoes and let it sit and marinate in the dressing for an hour or so. Serve over thinly-sliced, grilled levain for a sort of deconstructed panmolle.

I had some celery root that needed eating, and decided to keep it classic instead of coming up with some precious reinvention of the wheel (as is my wont). But tragedy! Just as I had my heart set on celery root remoulade, I realized that the celery root in my fridge was spongy and slightly lignified (i.e., not tasty). I tried to score some more at the store, but they only had two tiny ones. I supplemented the celery root with some shaved tender, white inner celery ribs and leaves. The ribs were an ideal, refreshing accoutrement to the dense, earthy root, and added a bit of crisp, mineral salinity to cut through the rich remoulade.

Remoulade, by the by, is just an emulsion of egg yolk, white wine vinegar and/or lemon juice and olive oil, whisked with a bit of Dijon and grainy mustard. It sounds fussy to make homemade mayo until you realize that it's perfectly acceptable to use your immersion blender to do the heavy lifting (fuck sake, you're making homemade mayo - you really got something to prove, whisking that shit by hand?). Add some chopped cornichon, shallot and capers, and some minced tarragon and parsley. I added some minced fennel flowers for a nice touch of anetholic sweetness - they taste like fresh Good & Plenty candies in flower form (the nectar was in full production), and compliment the tarragon perfectly.

Corn on the cob went on the grill and took a slather of compound butter. The only thing better than fresh, grilled corn on the cob is receiving a neck rub, or possibly a foot massage. Just shuck (but don't jive) it right over the compost heap, and wash it with the garden hose. Brush with a little olive oil (help flare up the coals a bit), and cook until golden brown and chewy.

The perfect summer meal, good enough to cook on one's birthday.

We enjoyed this with a precocious Walla Walla cab, a gift from Norm for Scott's birthday. I intended to make a simple dessert of grilled peaches and mango nectarines with a sliver of brie, but it was getting dark and I was getting buzzed - but this is on the List! I also grilled the back of my pinky fucking with the corn, and decided that I'd had about enough of standing in front of a hot grill anyways.

Yay, birthday!

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Grilled squid and kohlrabi salad with lemon-garlic vinaigrette

Man, it's just been too nice out! How could anyone sit in front of the computer when there's a vegetable garden to water, or a praying mantis egg sac to check for hatchlings, or white wine hangovers to nurse? Can't beat Portland in the summer.

Scott had to attend a work-dinner thing with the uppity-up-mucky-muck of his company this evening (business cazh in 90+ heat, poor guy), so I had my sweet friend from small times, Jason, over for dinner. Jason and I used to cook and eat together once in awhile a looooong time (when I was still vegetarian), when I was really into perfecting tuna casseroles and tweaking a pack of ramen. I've come some ways since then, and so has he.

I had some squids thawed in the fridge and was craving sunshiny Mediterranean flavors. I really needed to eat some of the kohlrabi in the garden, had some lemons and a bag of mixed greens. I'd been tossing ideas around all day (I also have an ungodly amount of Nero di Toscano kale and collards, both of which are the size of a 3rd-grader), but settled on a nice salad at the last minute. The "last minute" was determined by coming home to the chagrin of open windows on a really hot day.

I rinsed the squids (pre-cleaned, thank goodness) and dressed them in lots of chopped garlic, the juice and zest of one lemon, a coupla tbsp chopped fresh marjoram, an ample drizzle of good olive oil and some S&P. I cut a kohlrabi into matchsticks and added them to the marinade, which was by now turning my squid into ceviche. A little sliced red onion was the last touch.

Hot grill pan to get some marks on the vedge, then remove to a separate bowl and hit the squid to the heat. It was too wet (and already cooked in the acid of the marinade) to get any char, but it only took a second to heat it through. I added the cooked squids to the grilled kohlrabi-onion and reduced the dressing with a hit of leftover cheap chardonnay (thanks for the hangover, Bear's Lair!) to soften the garlic.

Cool for a minute or so to tepid, then top a plate of mixed baby greens with warm handfuls of the squid-kohlrabi-onion mixture, top with a drizzle of the warm vinaigrette. Serve with sliced baguette (copiously buttered with good Dutch butter) and my ubiquitous heirloom tomato salad. After we devoured our squid salads, we lazily pecked at open-faced sandwiches made from the salt-and-peppered tomato and cultured butter on that wonderful, soft sourdough (still bakery-cozy). Commence eye-roll and toe-curl.

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Salmon burgers with sauce gribiche

...or, Perfect Summer Dinner v. 1.0

I have a feeling there will be more of these "perfect summer dinner" posts, what with it only being the first week of it or so, so I thought I'd just preemptively number this and wish it well.

So I don't know if I told you this (I have some of you in comments and such), but I've switched teams for awhile. No, I'm not a lesbian (ha! you wish) I'm just not eating meat for awhile. Since I had all the pork leftover from the roast (not to mention the whole loin I bought), still have the lamb, and still have the half a beeve, I've been literally forcing meat into every meal and my kidneys need a break. Oh, I'm sure I'll crack soon - I have only had tofu or seafood since last Saturday. But before I switch back, ever so fickle, I made some wonderful salmon burgers, served al fresco. The burgers are actually store-bought salmon patties (whaddyagonnado) dressed up with a seasoned panko coating.

To really do this right, serve them with heirloom tomato salad (dressed simply with balsamic, walnut oil, fines herbes, a crack of pepper and a crunch of Maldon.

The warm spell demanded corn on the cob cooked the way my grandma always did: boiled with a spoonful of salt and sugar.

The only work I really had to do was in constructing the condiments. For the burger, I combined minced dill, tarragon, parsley flowers and a wee bit of chopped quickle with lemon zest, crème fraîche, a squidge of store-bought mayo, a bit of Dijon mustard and a drib of white wine vinegar. Salt to taste. (Yes, this is poser's sauce gribiche because it has crème fraîche and doesn't have boiled egg, but some of you are still adding cream to your buerre blanc so don't even front.)

A compound butter for the corn: minced thyme, oregano, and marjoram with some grated parm redge, garlic and S&P smashed into some good cultured butter.

This meal paired perfectly with Wandering Aengus heirloom blend cider. A match made in heaven!

Top the burger with a schmear of the sauce gribiche, a little thinly-sliced quickle and some butter lettuce (onion optional - I can't go without, but Scott's delicate palate is easily burned out by things like raw onion, horseradish, sharp mustard, etc.). Note the lovely pilsner glass in the background. It's monogrammed! A birthday gift to Scott from his lovely mother Linda (he loves them, Linda!).

Hot fun in the summer sun!

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Crawdad Sliders with Hot Sauce and Fennel Frond Mayo

...or, ZOMG! Crawfish Boil 2008!

Now! With updated soundtrack!

Our good friends Jeremy and Alicia have an annual crawfish boil, since Jeremy is from New Orleans and they have what might actually be a full acre in North Portland. Okay, this wasn't really my food event to post, but you know how it is: you walk into a party and you own it. You just have to. Besides, Alicia always upstages me in the tits department (her ass is pretty stellar too), so it's only fair that I try and cook at her party.

This year it was 100 degrees out (no joke), so instead of baking cornbread and making my famous skillet beans™, Scott and I spent the day at the beach and just brought a sack of soft potato rolls, a jar of dill pickle slices and a bottle of mayo so people could make crawdad sliders.

Let them eat sliders!

When I was a kid of about 5 or 6, my brother and I would hop the fence at the edge of the apartment's parking lot and catch crawdads in Johnson Creek. My mother was wise to not ever let us eat our catch, as Johnson Creek is on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 303(d) list for just about every pollutant, including, but not limited to, benzene and fecal coliform (E. coli). These lovely little freshwater crustaceans on the table, however, were farm-raised and overnighted from Nawlins: safe and delightful to eat.

To eat a crawfish (aka crawdads, crayfish, or mudbugs), simply break off the tail, gently flex and break off the uropod and telson (the tail flap thingy at the end) and slowly pull out the intestine in one long string (it may be full of crawdad poo). Doesn't this just sound delicious? If you can't get the intestine out in this step, just pry the meat out of the shell as you would a tiny lobster, but then you'll have to devein the tail meat with your thumbnail before popping the meat in your mouth, or you'll get muddy grit in your teeth.

Crawfish meat tastes like a rich, buttery prawn, but with a slightly meatier texture (less "bouncy" in the mouth, if that makes any sense). If you're keepin' it real, suck the good stuff out of the head. I was not drunk enough to suck orange goo out of the head of a bottom feeder in 100-degree heat.

While Jones and Gordo plucked succulent meat from the tails, I hoarded all of the heads in a ziplock so they wouldn't get flies. The following day I simmered two gallon-sized bags of heads in two bottles of Two-Buck Chuck Chardonnay for a couple hours, then strained and simmered again until I had only a few cups of sticky-rich crawfish stock for later étouffée.

This went on for three batches or so. In other words, an asston of crawfish.

People weren't really catching on to the whole slider thing, so I mixed some hot sauce and mayo, and picked some of the fronds off the giant shrub of fennel (then picked into little bits) in the yard to make a zesty, herbed mayo. I mixed this with some of the tail meat that I painstakingly harvested, and loaded the mixture onto split potato rolls with a couple slices of pickle. Young bamboo twigs made excellent picks to hold the little sammies together. Enjoy with an ice-cold Abita Turbodog (but not the Purple Haze, it tastes like bong water).

I changed the widget on my sidebar to showcase some of my favorite Nawlins funk. I did this just for you! You can't say I don't care. Thanks to Alicia and Jeremy for a great party (as always)!

Happy summer, y'all!