This is the midsummer cherry tomato harvest, soon to become tomato sauce. The brutal heat and drought are taking their toll on the garden. So are a recent outbreak of black beetles which look to me a lot like love bugs from memories of them many decades old now. I'm satisfied with this season's meager planting considering the extreme heat and lack of rain they endured. This bit of the harvested tomatoes with the rest have provided a couple of gallons of sauce, along with plen

I don't consider myself to be an artist by any measure of the word. The stuff I create is more craft than art. And my crafting arises from being so particular about how I like to have things. Take pizza, for instance. I've eaten a lot of pizza from the cheapest frozen brand heated in barely functioning dive-bar toaster ovens to some of the finest handmade, woodfire-oven-baked pizzas created by superb chefs of the art form. But I like the pizzas I create most of all. None of t

It's interesting sometimes to see what shapes vegetables and fruits sometimes grow into. A little tomato guy. Or a double-butt cherry. Is this perfection over the mundane, more boring shapes of normality? They are more fun.

I've been on a sopapillas and coffee kick for breakfast this fall. After getting a warming fire started in the living room stove, the sopapillas are easy to prepare from a small ball of refrigerator dough while the coffee perks. I'm allergic to honey so I apply a drizzle of doughnut glaze to them instead. By time they're ready to eat and still warm, the coffee is piping hot and ready to pour. Then it's a delight scarfing them down between sips of coffee while reading all abou

Perfect first rise of the weekly batch of bread dough stirs interesting pleasant sensations from eager desire to plunge hands in and knead away to growing appetite as its delicious aroma wafts upward. What to make first with it? Half goes into the refrigerator for later use. The other half for something special on this fine autumn morning... a batch of cinnamon rolls! I used to watch my mother kick into high gear baking mode when autumn arrived, marveling at her industriousne

On this 14th day since my trip into town shopping for supplies, no signs of COVID-19 here, and the POTUS is back at the White House pretending he has superhumanly survived his case of the disease (with the help of a phalanx of high-powered medical specialists). In his wake many others are now isolated in quarantine after attending to his every wish and whim while in hospital, during his foolish ride-in-the-car-car photo op and in close contact with him before that. It seems h

After jars have thoroughly cooled and contents nicely jelled, breakfast including toasted homemade bread slathered with wild chokecherry jelly becomes essential daily autumn fare. Nothing sold in retail stores can come close to taste sensations this combination provides. And it beats the hell out of munching on mullein seeds.

Canning chokecherry jelly is a risky operation involving lots of glass jars, fire burning from multiple stovetop elements (gas elements on my stove) and scalding liquids (lots of boiling water and the cooked jelly liquid itself). So chances of sustaining severe burns are significant if careful attention is not paid during every single step of the process. I've been canning jelly for fifteen years using the same steps each time now without ever getting burned. But yesterday's

My tacos improved significantly after I finally stopped using those awful store-bought taco shells.Besides being way too expensive at anywhere from $0.15 to $0.25 per shell, their flavor and texture are totally uninteresting. Much better to buy a tall stack of corn tortillas at less than half a cent each and fry or bake them to a perfect, much more flavorful crispy texture. They also look much more appetizing than factory-made shells exhibiting zero personality. Better yet, g

Doing my part to suppress the spread of SARS-CoV-2, I dutifully stayed away from the supermarket for six months and two days between March 19th and Sept 22nd while regional test positivity rates steadily declined. Then before they could begin increasing again as fall arrived, I made a pre-dawn dash into a store during its old folks shopping hour and stocked up for fall and winter. I hadn't had fresh fruits for more than five of those months, eating canned and dried alternativ

I love smoked kipper pizza baked in a skillet. It's easy to make with a day-old refrigerator dough crust and is a dish easily made even...

My grandfather was an ABC (Alcoholic Beverage Control) man, patrolling the southwestern corner of Oklahoma to make sure liquor store and nightclub owners in the area adhered to state liquor sales and serving laws. He used to take me with him on patrol, making the rounds to stores, clubs and remote places across countryside as well searching for illicit still operators. We never found anyone violating laws while I was riding with him and I wondered what it would be like to wat

Living in bayou country spoiled me on seafood dishes readily available there, like a good étouffée at Dupuy's Seafood & Steak in...

An easy dessert to prepare and so good. Especially when it's snowing again for the fourth time this spring.

Here I am so far over the hill it's pathetic that I've never had a Monte Cristo Sandwich before in my entire life. Having been on a...

Celebrated arrival of Robins with an early ribeye and mushrooms lunch followed by french toast made with a fresh slice of homemade bread....

Every time I cook up a batch of spaghetti sauce, I think of Betty. I had not heard of bay leaf before Betty. She made its use special...

I stopped wasting money on store-bought breads a long time ago. Too expensive for such bland product which is as much air as foodstuff....

Sesame shrimp is another favorite dish any time of year. Add a jigger of wild chokecherry juice to the recipe and it's a work of...

All this writing about life in Louisiana made me hungry. Catfish and fries for supper tonight! Now, if only I could figure out how to...