Stuffing

I’m obsessed with Thanksgiving this year.  It’s going to be different from what I usually do.  I am actually cooking a bird.  I’m making stuffing for the first time in my life.  Hubbard wants a stuffing with oysters.  I’ve found a recipe that sounds good on Epicurious.  It’s a bread stuffing, not cornbread.  For some reason I have this urge to combine breads in the stuffing.  I mean, why does it have to be just one bread?  Wouldn’t it be prettier with different colored breads?  What do you think?  Also, the stuffing recipe calls for chopping up the oysters.  Is that necessary?  What if you had small oysters?  Couldn’t you just leave them whole?

Heritage Turkey

Has anyone every eaten one?  Curious to hear about it…

Christmas Anyone?

Are you thinking about Christmas yet?  I’m having one of those rare lucid moments when I realize that if I start doing something about it now, I might have accomplished Christmas by the time it gets here.  I’d like to make something for people.  I’m not sure what.  Have any of you got any clever plans for gifts this year?

What to do?

Fairy Fire Pepper Jelly

You gotta love that name…  Here’s my artful photo.

My friend Tony sent it to my from Georgia.  This is seriously good stuff.  Another photo, just in case that one wasn’t enough…

Isn’t that the prettiest jelly ever?

Organic? Heritage? Free Range? Raise Your Own Turkey?

So, what do you do?  Get a big Butterball from Tom Thumb or go all out and drop few bucks on some special turkey?  Have you had a heritage turkey or organic or whatever they might be called?  Could you tell a big difference?  I’m curious and slightly confused!

All This for $10.95

At lunch, Sushi on McKinney offers a great bento box.  You get cold soba noodles (I’m crazy about the noodles), a piece of tuna sushi, salmon and a couple of pieces of California roll, a bowl of rice, two pieces of shrimp tempura on a pile of tempura fried onions with sauce, a little broccoli and a pile of teriyaki.  I had chicken.  Oh, and a salad or a bowl of miso soup to start.  I think this is a real deal for $10.95.

GO TEXAN at Pappas Bros. Steakhouse

I don’t have time to really blog about it until tonight, but I had one of the best dining experiences of my life at Pappas last night.  The concept of trying so many Texas products at one meal…  the excellent service (hi, Jason!) and atmosphere at Pappas…  not to even begin to mention the excellent preparation of the food and wonderful wine pairings…  It was just great!  I’ll fill in the details tonight.  But, just take my word for it.  If you can make it in by the 2nd, you won’t be sad you did.  That venison tenderloin was as good as any steak I’ve tasted.  Besides, it was just fun to have something different in that fabulous steakhouse style.  I wish I could go back tonight and maybe Wednesday.  OK, Thursday and Friday would be good, too.

Gotta get back to work.  More on Pappas tonight!

M

The Great State Fair of Texas

All together now…  what opens tomorrow?  The Great State Fair of Texas!  Who’s going to be there?  Margie and Hubbard and tons of their friends!  What do you do at the Fair?  Eat fried foods!  Foods on a stick!  Better yet, fried food on a stick!

The Fair is famous for it’s food and now we have the yearly fried food contest.  This year in the Best Taste catagory our winner was Fried Peaches and Cream.  Most Creative (hold on to your hats) – Fried Butter.  Now I’ve heard tell that the butter is more like a donut hole with a bit of flavored butter in the middle.  I couldn’t help but picture a disgusting blob of soft butter.  I don’t think I could eat that or even want to eat it.  I’m really curious about it, though.  So, I plan to find the booth and stand around watching people eat the stuff.

I think the peach thing sounds OK except they might have gone a little overboard.  The peach batter has cinnamon, coconut and graham cracker crumbs in it.  The peaches are topped with whipped cream.  If they would have stopped right there I would have been happy.  They could have left out the coconut even.  But, then I find that all this is sprinkled with powdered sugar, drizzled with raspberry sauce and has a side of vanilla buttercream icing for dipping.  Whoa.  I think they included everything they could think of in this dish.  I might have to try it though.

What about Twisted Yam on a stick?  Spiral cut yam on a skewer, fried and then sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon.  At work we were thinking that it might go well with the Country Fried Pork Chops with a side of cream gravy.  They can keep the ketchup.  Yuk.

There are several other items…  Texas Fried Pecan Pie, Sweet Jalepeno Corn Dog Shrimp, Fried Peanut Butter Cup Macaroon and Green Goblins.  That last item got a “5 antacid” rating in the paper today.  Think spicy shredded chicken and guacamole stuffed into cherry peppers, batter and deep fried, topped with queso.  I find the choice of cherry peppers puzzling.  Pickled cherry peppers?  Really?  All this is new for this year’s Fair.  And believe me, plenty of fried food has accumulated over the years. 

Of course, first stop…  Fletcher’s Corny Dog slathered with mustard and a beer.  I seriously don’t know why I keep eating these things.  There is so much good stuff at the Fair, much more interesting than a corny dog.  The only reason I can imagine is that I’ve been eating them at the Fair for as long as I can remember.  On opening day, the grease is new and the corny dogs are handed to you almost too hot to eat.  It’s a tradition.  I love having a Hans Mueller sausage in the big tent.  That’s also a good place to score a glass of cheap wine.  They don’t seem to realize that wine glasses are not necessarily supposed to be filled to the very top and I’m certainly not the one to point it out to them.  Jack’s Fries are fantastic.  I never have white vinegar on my fries except at the Fair.  Oh, and the Belgian Waffles…  so light and fluffy, topped with powdered sugar, whipped cream and fresh strawberries.  Looks like it would be too sweet, but it’s just perfect.  I could go on about Fair food for quite a long time.

If I don’t have too many beers while I’m sitting around talking with our friends, I’ll try and take some pictures!  Don’t work too hard tomorrow.  And next year, take the day off and go to the first day of  The Great State Fair of Texas.  The grease is clean and all the employees are happy about their jobs.  All of that changes as the Fair continues over the next three weeks.  But, the Fair is never a bad place to be.  I wonder if Hubbard is getting a season’s pass this year…

Roger Loves Butter

Roger, the 27 pound dachshund, has eaten much worse than this.  Glad he got the cheap stuff this time.  He once ate six chewy pralines and hid one in the chair for later.  Drank 2 cups of heavy cream.  Never even a burp out of him.  He’s got a stomach of iron.  (thank goodness!)  We must have come home before he had a chance to finish off the stick. 

Question

So.  Should I blog about the absolute worst experience I’ve ever had in a restaurant?  This was our first visit.  I really want restaurants like this one to thrive in Dallas.  But, I have never been so angry in a public place in my life.  After a nice big argument with the waiter I was literally shaking.  Hubbard is insisting that I write about the whole wretched affair.  Should I should visit again and actually try to enjoy my food?  Can I say the thought of visiting again scares me?  I was so upset last night that I couldn’t finish a small appetizer and barely even touched my main course.  Is it fair to completely trash a place based on one visit?  I couldn’t even really tell you if the food was good or not.  And they did pick up the tab for our meal.  Now, if they’d let me get a good slap in on that waiter, I’d feel better.  Nothing like being insulted when someone ought to be apologizing.  So.  What do you think?  If this was a chain restaurant, I’d tell every gory detail.  I only hesitate because this incident was not something that was going on at other tables.  This was particular to us.  And, again, this is the type of place that Dallas needs more of.  If this was your blog, what would you do?