Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Recipes to Ring in the New Year

The New Year is a time for celebration. Either your celebrating that you had a great year and you can't wait for another, or you'r celebrating that your poop of a year is finally over and 2015 is going to give you the chance to do it all over. To all of it I say Hear Hear!

While I don't miss a lot of things about New Orleans and especially it's New Years that often left me on a sidewalk hyperventilating of an anxiety attack, I will say, I miss the food. How I wish I could head over to Elyse's and pull up a chair at her table and feel full of everything.

Tonight, we are going to try to fill this house up on our own. With delicious food, good company, and tasty drinks pulled right out of some New Orlean's favorites.

The menu tonight includes the French 75 which is one of my favorite Champagne drinks, warm crab dip, black eyed peas, and Trout Amandine.

Bon Appetit!

FRENCH 75

The French 75 pays homage to the French 75 artillery weapon from World War I. When the French and American fighter pilots came back from their raids successfully, they drank this cocktail in honor of the artillery weapons design.
Makes 1 serving
1¼ ounces Cognac
¼ ounce fresh lemon juice
¼ ounce simple syrup (see Note)
Ice
3 ounces chilled Champagne or other sparkling wine
Combine the first three ingredients in a cocktail shaker. Fill the shaker with ice and shake vigorously. Strain into a chilled champagne flute. Top with the Champagne and garnish with the lemon twist. Serve.

Note: Simple syrup could not be simpler. In a small saucepan, combine 1 cup sugar with 1 cup water and heat over medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Do not let boil. Remove from the heat and let cool. Store the simple syrup in a tightly sealed bottle in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks.



John Besh's :

BLACK-EYED PEAS 

Serves 8
This is such a simple dish, but too often it’s not well executed. The key is to let the peas cook slowly and to give them some love. If they need more water, let them have it. We don’t want the peas to overcook so they explode in the pot; we want them soft enough to burst in your mouth.
¼ cup rendered bacon fat
2 onions, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1 pound dried black-eyed peas
1 pound smoked pork jowls or smoked ham hocks
2 bay leaves
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Tabasco
4 cups hot cooked Basic Louisiana Popcorn Rice (page 15)
1. Melt the bacon fat in a large heavy-bottomed pot over moderate heat. Add the onions and celery and cook, stirring often, until the onions are translucent.
2. Add the black-eyed peas and the pork jowls to the pot, cover with 2 inches cold water, and add the bay leaves. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and cover the pot.
3. Gently simmer the peas, adding more water as necessary to keep the peas covered by 2 inches, until the peas are soft, about 2 hours. Discard bay leaf. Season with salt, pepper, and Tabasco. Serve over Louisiana Popcorn Rice.


TROUT AMANDINE

Serves 6
In traditonal French cooking, a whole fish would be lightly dredged in flour and cooked in butter. In New Orleans we prefer the skinless trout filet. Properly browning the butter makes all the difference. Don’t rush it; take your time swirling the butter in the pan so that the milk solids brown and give off the signature, nutty aroma that is heightened once you add the almonds. Add the lemon juice and serve while the sauce is still foamy.
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon Basic Creole Spices (page 13)
6 5-7-ounce skinless speckled trout filets
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
8 tablespoons butter
½ cup sliced almonds
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
1. Put the milk into a wide dish. Put the flour and Creole Spices into another wide dish and stir to combine. Season the fish filets with salt and pepper, dip them into the milk, and dredge in the seasoned flour.
2. Melt 4 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the filets and cook on each side until golden brown, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer the fish to a serving platter.
3. Add the remaining 4 tablespoons butter to the same skillet over medium-high heat. Swirl the skillet over the heat so that the butter melts evenly and cook until the butter turns brownish, 5-7 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium-low, add the almonds, and cook, stirring gently, until the nuts are toasty brown, about 3 minutes. Add the lemon juice, parsley, and a dash of salt.
4. Spoon the browned butter and almonds over the fish and serve.

WARM CRABMEAT DIP
Recipe courtesy of Mary Ann Meyer.
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup minced scallions
1/4 cup chopped parsley
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups whole milk
8 ounces cream cheese
1 pound lump crabmeat, cleaned
1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
In a medium saucepan, melt butter over medium-low heat. When butter begins to bubble, add scalions and parsley; cook for 3 minutes, or until scalions are translucent. Add flour and stir to coat vegetables; add milk and cook for 5 minutes. Add cream cheese and stir until blended. Add crabmeat and seasonings, stirring wel; cook over low heat until the crabmeat is hot. Serve in a chaffing dish with warm bread, or serve individualy on slices of toasted baguette.
Serves 6 to 8

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Goal Setting As A Human

As the New Year turns and everyone is setting goals and making resolutions to quit smoking, lose 15 pounds, get a job, write a novel, etc. I just want to remind you that perfection is an idea and does not exist in the real world.

The key to this is knowing what is important and what is not. Don't forsake loving yourself and those around you for any goal, it just won't make you happy.

There is no perfect, there is no destination, there is no arriving, there is only the present. It's ok to plan and make goals, but don't do it to your detriment. You deserve to give yourself loving support no matter what. So forgive yourself, say "good enough!" and move on to the next thing.

Life is too short for some unattainable goal such as perfection.

My new year's resolution is good enough.




Friday, December 19, 2014

Adnon Syed I Believe You

In the last episode of serial, Sarah Koenig finally breaks the wall. In reading the letter that Adnon wrote, I finally understood him. To live with a life sentence for 15 years, making his life inside. But now, serial is bringing this all out into the world again.  For him to be judged. Again.

That's why I say, I believe you. 

When else in society do we have the right to judge someone? Sure, we make our own perceptions and carefully log them away somewhere in our heads, some of us who are considered gossips may talk more about people than others, but in the end it's considered impolite. 

When you become a suspect in any crime all of that flys out the window. Your character and entire life become an object that people feel completely entitled  to dissect and desecrate. 

Why do we do this? 

Like Adnon said, he began to feel like a monster. Why would all these people he had considered friends turn against him? Say so many bad things? Believe that he could do something so horrible and then make more judgements on his character that don't stand up to any scrutiny. 

Maybe you luckily have never experienced this. 

But he came to the same conclusion that I once did. You cannot control people's perceptions of you. They see what they see. 

I believe you because you know this. 

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Links for Christmas Future, Past & Present


INTO MIND

With the new year fast upon us, I wanted to share more jewels of thought written by Anuschka over at http://www.into-mind.com 


PACIFIC STANDARD

This is one of my favorite magazines.  As they often tackle a part of what I've been thinking about. This article http://www.psmag.com/navigation/business-economics/what-was-the-job-working-employment-paycheck-benefits-96668/ brings up some interesting ideas of the past and future of identity and it's relationship to our "job."

CHRISTMAS IN SWEDEN

This is my favorite Christmas album. Want some new Christmas songs? This is it. 



Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Change is Hard but Not the Hardest





I want to try and update this on the more regular. It seems to be something I'm going to need to schedule if it's ever going to happen. I think mostly it has to do with the ever changing nature of my life. It seems as I follow more and more people that I don't know there seems to be a common thread. Take Instagram for instance. I tend to follow the people who own sewing businesses for example and all of them have lived in the same place for years. They take pictures of the same thing after the same thing. Do I tire of it? No, in fact it gives me some of the stability I crave. 

The last time I had a steady house for more than a year was in New Orleans but during those two years I had and lost jobs. I ended and started a relationship. In short my life tends to never stand still. 

Do other's lives change as much as mine? As I watch them they seem to be the same. Is this a secret to being able to create the things you want to make for this world? Why can't I ever stay still? 

As I stare down 2015 it still looks murky. A winding road with no clear path and a lot of changes. Another year unable to really fulfill what I want to make in this world? Is what I want stability at all? I just don't seem to know.