Boots in the Oven

The Elusive Buttermilk Fantail

I don’t bake. It’s not that I don’t like it; in fact on several occasions I’ve been spotted eating my entire body weight in baked goods. The tapes have been destroyed but the facts remain.

In the past I have avoided bakery because of the scope of its commitment. Most recipes require draconian adherence to proportions, lengthy time allotments, and exacting observance of temperature and humidity. Bah.

But as I rapidly close in on my 30th year in life I’m starting to believe that “a man ain’t no kinda man what can’t make a yeast roll.” Humorous colloquial dialect aside, I mean what the hell? How can I not bake a roll? Both my grandmothers baked rolls; my mom and my aunt bake rolls; I spent a year in culinary school and cooked in two restaurants. I see no room for excuses.

I’ve been fiddling with my biscuit recipe for a few years and am gathering a semblance of competence, but biscuits aren’t really bread. I mean they are, but they’re a quick bread with no use for yeast and development of gluten and relaxing of proteins and the like. So there is still work to be done.

I was planning on baking some traditional yeasty goodies from Shirley Corriher’s badass book Cookwise (Thanks awesome wife for awesome Christmas present!) Then the new February Gourmet showed up in my mailbox and damned if it wasn’t an ode to savory baked morsels. One recipe in particular caught my eye- the rare, elusive, brightly plumaged, buttermilk fantail.

Alright. So they’re just called buttermilk fantails. Go ahead and squelch my fun, haters. Regardless, they looked amazing. My first love affair was with a pan of monkey bread so any baked goods that pull apart in layers are high on my list. And buttermilk, lots of buttermilk.

I won’t go into all of the recipe minutiae because Gourmet already did that for me, but I will put in a plug saying these little guys are fairly easy to prepare, super delicious and entirely addictive (our dinner party of four may or may not have eaten the entire dozen, or may have. Whoops.)

Overall, it was a pleasant and mostly painless experience, so be on the look out for more baking projects from the Pants household in the near future. I checked with my doctor and he confirmed that I’m running a dangerous deficit on buttery carbs. Anything to stay healthy, that’s my motto.

-L. Pants

Taco Truck Hopscotch

Our friend David, The Soup Peddler, is a walking, cooking, rolodex of who’s who in Austin and fortunately for us he likes to make folks mingle. A couple nights ago he had the great idea to get a few Austin food bloggers together for a taco truck mini tour. Hell yeah.

Much to her chagrin Girlie had to opt out due to an HOA meeting/barbed-wire-cage-death-match. However, Mando and Ixchel from Taco Journalism, Jodi from Foodtouring, her friend Adam, and a recovering chef named Tom rounded out our field trip roster.

We were supposed to all meet at a truck just west of the Lamar and Oltorf intersection. I was running late so I really thought I was in the wrong spot when I pulled into a pitch black parking lot with no truck and a homeless man sleeping on a loading dock. I was reassured when the homeless man sprang up and turned into David.

He explained that everyone else was late too (Damn unreliable foodies. We can’t be trusted) and that the truck had in fact left the scene. A known hazard of the taco truck sport. I thought perhaps that they may have been discouraged by this piece of menacing signmanship.

Moments later we were all convened and undaunted we boldly headed to truck #2- El Primo at S. 1st and Live Oak. It had all the hallmarks of a promising taco: small, simple, clean, and smelling of deliciousness.

Journalblog takes a foodblog break - Oysters and Cheeseballs

So, Thanksgiving was, well, the fourth Thursday in November or something, like it is every year.  And you may notice that it's now the third Thursday in January. 

But I'm just now getting around to editing, categorizing, and even looking at the pictures from that time.  And these come with RECIPES, so that's exciting, right?

Thanksgiving this year was a humdinger, with lovely folks from New York, Chicago, Baton Rouge, and Austin gathering in Mandeville.  The prospect of feeding nine people at each meal was pretty daunting, but between all of us, we made it happen.

Sometimes with pyrotechnics.

There's a restaurant in New Orleans (well, Metairie, actually) called Drago's that is famous for their charbroiled oysters.  We've been a couple of times, and they're delicious and much fun.  And Husbear's family loves to recreate them during oyster season, when a box of 100 can easily be had for around $25.

When his brother Brandog fixes them, you know you're in for a pyrotechnic treat.  He starts with about seventeen pounds of butter.

To this, you add a bunch of minced garlic.  Grate giant handfuls of cheese, too - we use Parmesan.  Oh, and shuck 100 oysters, which is easier said than done unless you've had a lot of practice.  I tend to stay well away!

The Gravlox Revolution will Not Be Televised!

But, hey, it'll be blogged!

This is just the coolest thing ever.  Two of our blogfriends, separately inspired by Husbear's post last year about easy home-curing with salmon, tested his bare-bones recipe by making their own!  And they were both successful!

Check out the Gastronomer's trial with leftover salmon here, and Albany Jane's gravlox (or perhaps gravtrout?) here. 

How awesome is THAT?  Thanks, both of you guys, for the links, and the Mr. could not be happier that the gospel of home-curing is spreading from New York to California!

Uncovering Amarillo's Hidden Weirdness

Amarillo, up in the Texas Panhandle, is overwhelmingly conservative and dedicated to beef.  But there's some oddness lurking right under the surface, thanks mostly to helium baron Stanley Marsh 3.  (He thinks Roman numerals are pretentious, apparently.)

So, after waking up still stuffed with beef from our Big Texan meal the night before, we went out to see maybe his most famous project - the Cadillac Ranch.  Not to be confused with Nebraska's Carhenge, my goodness no.  The Cadillac Ranch is located just off of I-40 a few miles west of Amarillo.

You just park your car on the interstate access road and push through a fence that's kept unlocked at all hours.  Sometimes you have to watch out for cows, though there weren't any nearby when we visited - but you always have to watch for their, uh, leavings.

Sometimes people kindly spraypaint them for you, so they stand out more.