Last time I was in Texas and I brought home a big ol’ head of cauliflower from the Kroger, Mom said, “Oh, I don’t like cooked cauliflower. I only like it raw.”  That was before I roasted it up and she couldn’t stop eating it right off of the cookie sheet.

So I knew this time I’d have little resistance from her.

Plus, cauliflower was on sale, and I was in need of taking a little break (albeit a tiny one) from the All Taco, All The Time Diet that I’d been on since I arrived (thank goodness for stretchy jeans).

Mom and I had this for dinner one night and I finished the rest over the next day or two, eating it straight from the fridge. It’s one of those things that can be made in less than a half-hour, which is always a good thing, and is healthy, sure, but the reason I make it – and like it so much – is because it tastes so good. As all things should be. Plus it’s pretty. Any other green leafy of your choice could be swapped out for the spinach (kale, Swiss chard, etc.), and the dressing can be made ahead of time, too.

Now that I’m back in Paris, I’m going to make this again. Hopefully, M. Choufleur-hater will come around — if not, just that much more for me.

Roasted Cauliflower, Spinach and Quinoa

Makes 4 to 6 servings

• 1 head of cauliflower, florets removed
• olive oil
• sea salt and pepper
• 1 cup/170 grams of quinoa (uncooked)
• 2 tablespoons of capers, rinsed
• a big handful of baby spinach
• a few fresh sage leaves, finely chopped
• 8 sundried tomatoes (in oil), chopped
• a handful of walnuts, toasted then roughly chopped
• a big pinch of red pepper flakes
• E-Z French vinaigrette (recipe follows)

1. Preheat your oven to 475°F/245°C and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Toss the cauliflower florets onto the cookie sheet, drizzle a bit of olive oil all over and mix it up with your hands. Salt, pepper and slide into the oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until the cauliflower is browned.

2. Make your quinoa by putting 2 cups of salted water onto boil. When it boils, add the quinoa, turn off the heat, and cover. Let rest for 15 minutes or until the quinoa absorbs all of the water. Fluff.

3. Put your salad together by mixing the cauliflower with the quinoa, capers, spinach, sage, sundried tomatoes, walnuts, and red pepper flakes. Add a bit of the E-Z Dijon French vinaigrette to this and toss. Taste for seasonings and serve warm, room temperature, or cold.

E-Z French Vinaigrette

Makes ¾ cup

• ¼ cup/60 ml of sherry vinegar
• 1 shallot, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard
• sea salt and pepper
• 1 teaspoon of chopped fresh herbs (basil, thyme, chives)
• ½ cup/120 ml of olive oil

Put your sherry vinegar, minced shallot, mustard, a big pinch of salt and pepper, and herbs in a jam jar and shake until combined. Let rest for about 10 minutes — this softens the intensity of the shallots’ flavor and allows the salt to dissolve; then add the olive oil. Taste for seasonings.

See that blue stuff streaked with a wisp of white? That, Paris people, is what the sky looks like.

In Santa Fe, New Mexico, at least.

Somehow the temperature doesn’t seem as chilly when the sun’s out with a sky like this. Or when it’s coming up or going down against a mountain backdrop, looking like an over-saturated photograph…or painting by an artist with a too-heavy hand with the pinks and oranges. It’s just beauty, beauty, beauty, everywhere. Green chile on everything. Burgers. Breakfast burritos. Pizzas. Then there’s the posole. Blue corn. Piñon-laced air. La la la la la.

Now, I did not take this train — the cute Roadrunner that connects Albuquerque and Santa Fe —  but managed to catch this photograph as it was chugging by.  I snapped this as was standing there, sipping a très tasty coffee from the Station at the Railyards, where the barista (who greeted me with “I hope you’re having a groovy day!”) swirled a heaping big spoonful of HABANERO FUDGE SAUCE into my coffee, and I took one sip and thought to myself, JEEEEEZ, this just might be the best thing. Ever.

Or maybe the best thing was the 120-minute (!!) “Mountain Spirit Purification” treatment that I got upon arrival at Encantado Resort (after our 10-hour road trip from Texas), which started with a brisk sage smudging, then moved onto a cocoon-like  adobe clay body mask/wrap thingy, and ended with a juniper and hot stone massage…far too soon.

See this photo below? This is the view from the balcony of my suite at Encantado, and these are the Jemez mountains. I know you’re jealous.

And this is the view from the other side of my room. I was still in my jammies so I didn’t walk up the hill to get a better shot, but I think you get the idea.

Gorgeousness. All around, every damn where you look. This may be the best thing, now that I think about it.

Or these words, which I found on the side of the New Mexico historical records building. Talk about a sign.

It was an easy, lazy trip, with no real itinerary, lots of late mornings, even later lunches, a great afternoon hike one afternoon, and a long overdue visit with my pal Nathalie Kent, who owns the Frenchy-Cowgirl boutique Nathalie on Canyon Road.

After five days, we set the alarm for 5:30 am and drove back to Texas, and watched the landscape flatten as we ticked off the miles, canyons transforming into cotton fields…and cattle feed lots closer to home.

À bientôt, Santa Fe.

This is Rose Trujillo and she’s one of the founders of the Santa Fe Farmer’s Market, considered one of the top farmer’s markets in the U.S. See that sack in her right hand? That’s a package of her buffalo tamales, handmade the night before, she told me. Rose and her daughter also make the anise seed bizcochitos (below), now New Mexico’s state cookie. (Yes, that’s right – a state cookie — any state with the good sense to have its own cookie is my kind of place.)

I realize that visiting a farmer’s market in January probably isn’t the best time of year, but what makes this market special is the abundance of homemade goodies baked by the people that are selling them, like Ruth, along with the farmers selling their produce, or cheese, or yak jerky, or whatever. At the markets in Paris, these people have signs that say “producteurs” above their stands. Here, everyone is a producer.

In other words, there are no stacks of boxes of fruits and vegetables in the back marked with “Mexico.” Not one single one. What’s sold here is grown here. Simple as that.

Of course we don’t have piñon fudge in Paris, but we do have pains au chocolat; there’s also homemade lavender soap at lots of Paris markets, and I’ve seen lots made from honey, but I’ve not seen any made from goat milk – aren’t these sweet?

You say empanadas, but in France, these would be called chaussons, because they look like house slippers…well, sort of.

I love the idea of these mini quiches, and of course, if green chile’s involved, I’m already sold. The bright yellow eggyness of these also tells me that these eggs are super-fresh. Speaking of, when you order an egg anything in Santa Fe, it’s likely that your server will ask “And would you like your eggs to be organic?”

Oh yes, please. Organic, local, free range…and served on a plate that’s been either recycled or upcycled.

Naturally, there’s lots of red chile for sale, too, along with the green. And this being Santa Fe, there’s also a good selection of smudge sticks to scare off evil spirits and hangover nonsense from previous trouble-making souls…something that Paris, a city that’s been around since 500ish B.C. or so, could definitely use.

Jugglers instead of mimes, though really, it’s been ages since I’ve seen a mime in Paris (thank god).

I stopped and chatted with the hydroponic tomato farmers, who supply tomatoes to Chef Charles Dale at Encantado Resort’s restaurant, Terra, and I would’ve bought the organic chicken at Pollo Real if I could’ve taken some home. I saw beets as big as Texas Ruby Reds at one stand, and at $1.50 a pound, I thought about filling up a sack, but the truth is I didn’t have my own sack, and this isn’t the sort of place where people would overlook that sort of thing.

So I stuffed my sage smudge stick into my purse and walked a few blocks west to the Tune-Up Cafe, and ordered my usual breakfast burrito with green chile inside and red chile out, and made a note to bring my own sacks next time. For beets, smudge sticks, and some really cute bars of soap.

My new favorite place in Santa Fe turns out to not be in Santa Fe at all.

Just north of the city, off of Highway 84/285, where you’ll find the famous opera (and flea market), is also the small village of Tesuque. Small as in less than 1,000 people. Beautiful, because the homes here are so neatly tucked into the mountain’s folds that they visibly disappear. And much to my dismay, already discovered by the likes of Robert Redford, Gene Hackman, Ali McGraw, and Shirley Maclaine. (For the record, I only ran into Ali McGraw, and not any of the others, and that was at Encantado Resort where I was staying, and not the Tesuque Village Market…or Tesuque Very Market, which I like to call it, because it is so very cool).

A locals-only sort of place, Tesuque Village Market is where neighborhood folks both famous and non go for a quick coffee for the road, a late-night cocktail, or a jar of natural peanut butter should they be down to the last spoonful. Or, in my case, one of the best thin crust pizzas I’ve ever eaten anywhere (and with my favorite combo of sundried tomatoes, fresh roasted Hatch green chile, and goat cheese), some damn fine blue corn pancakes at breakfast, and chocolate beignets offered up for free by the chef.

I ended up here twice. Or it may have been three times now that I think about it.

If you didn’t know about TVM, you’d drive right on past, as I did last year a few times, thinking, hmmm, there sure are a lot of cars at that run-down looking place. But it’s actually not run-down at all. It’s plain, yes; rustic, absolutely. And just the sort of spot that feels immediately so comfy that you want to come back again and again.

There are long, communal tables in the front room (next to the pizza oven), and lots of smaller ones inside, where people can sit in twos and fours, plus a smallish bar right behind the counter with the candy bars and gum. The year-round Day of the Dead vibe works for me, and as much as I wanted the skull tee with sequined rosebuds for hair, I didn’t want to pay the $40ish pricetag. Besides, there were scones and green chile bread to try.

After we’d finished our breakfast blue corn pancakes on Sunday, outside the snow was falling like powdered sugar…which made the afternoon hike even sweeter. The Sangre de Cristo mountains were prettier than ever, and my new hiking boots felt like I’d worn them a thousand times before. We drove around in the snow for about a half-hour and never found the trail that we were looking for, but came across another one instead…that cut right across the top of the foothills and offered up a gorgeous panoramic view.

Sometimes things just work out just like they should. Very.

These are not mistakes. No, no, these super-flat, chewy-on-the-inside, crispy-on-the-edges cookies are supposed to look this way. Flatter than flat. Like little cookie Frisbies.

I wish I could tell you that because of the thinness, these cookies are somehow less in the calorie department than the fatter version, but, alas, they are as rich and buttery as a cookie should be. They are chocolatey, with bits of bittersweet chocolate scattered throughout, in large and small. They are walnutty; toasted then chopped with pieces left big enough so the taste pops as opposed to merely serving as background music.

They are, in a word, crazygood – that’s one word, right?

I saw a photograph of these cookies not long ago on the Saveur magazine website and I thought they were the funniest looking things, so I had to give them a try. I changed up the recipe a bit here and there – I added a whole bunch of walnuts (instead of just 1 cup) and didn’t grind them into a fine powder like the recipe said; ditto with the chocolate – I figured bigger pieces of both would be much more interesting, and even though I didn’t make them the other way for a compare-and-contrast, I feel pretty safe in saying that my way — with chocolate and walnut bumps throughout — is the way to go here. I swapped out fleur de sel for Kosher salt because I love it so, and I strongly recommend you using it in this recipe – it gives such a nice clean flavor to cookies and both contrasts and enhances the chocolate.

It felt strange to make a flat cookie on purpose after having so many flatten out by accident in France…but in texture and flavor, these cookies are perfectly balanced, and I think they’ll make great tops and bottoms for ice cream sandwiches in the summer.

As If I’m going to wait that long.

Flat and Bumpy Chocolate Chip-Walnut Cookies

Makes 6 1/2 dozen 3-inch cookies

Adapted from Saveur magazine

• 2 cups/250 grams of flour
• 2 teaspoons of fleur de sel
• 1 ¼ teaspoons of baking soda
• 1 ½ cups/330 grams of brown sugar
• 1 ¼ cups/250 grams of sugar
• 1 cup/2 sticks/250 grams of butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla
• 1 ½ cups/180 grams of roughly chopped bittersweet chocolate (I used Callebaut pastilles)
• 2 cups/240 grams of walnuts, toasted then roughly chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F/175°C and line a couple of your largest cookie sheets with parchment paper.

2. Whisk together your flour, fleur de sel, and baking soda and set this aside.

3. Beat the butter and sugars together for a few minutes until it’s light and fluffy. Add the eggs and mix in one at a time; then add the vanilla. Pour in your flour and mix only until it comes together. Now add the chopped chocolate and walnuts and combine.

4. Chill your dough (I was feeling impatient, so I only chilled the dough for about a half-hour, but it was firm and I popped it in the fridge between baking each batch), then scoop out onto your cookie sheets, leaving plenty of room — about 3 inches — between each one so they can spread and not bump into each other. Bake for about 10 minutes, and cool on a rack or leave on the parchment paper (taken off of the pan).

Cowgirl Tip: Forget to take your butter out of the fridge in advance? No problem. Just “soften” your butter by giving it a few whacks with a rolling pin. Be sure to leave it in the wrapper so you don’t make a big mess.

]]> http://cowgirlchef.com/2012/01/15/flat-chocolate-chip-walnut-cookies/feed/ 4 http://cowgirlchef.com/2012/01/12/pear-cucumber-ginger-juice/ http://cowgirlchef.com/2012/01/12/pear-cucumber-ginger-juice/#comments Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:23:11 +0000 epierce http://cowgirlchef.com/?p=6756

I know, I know. A glass of something green that’s not a margarita? What on earth is going on over here?

Well, after sampling: the new 1921 creme de tequila (think tequila meets mocha milkshake and you’re close), served on the rocks with a generous splash of reposado at Steve and Steffie’s one night; super-strong margaritas made with jalapeño-infused tequila at Wild Salsa another; and plain ol’ garden variety margaritas at Lee Harvey’s with my best pal, a pistol-packin’ P.I. to ring in Christmas; and then, the super-strong ones at La Choza and Inn of the Anasazi while I was in Santa Fe, it was time for a new drink.

Hello, Mr. Pear-Cucumber Gingerman.

Now, please don’t worry. I’m not saying au revoir to tequila or anything crazy like that. Nosirrebob. I’m simply trying to find some kind of balance –even a smidgen–for the new year.

So last week I went out and bought a juicer and this is the first thing I made with it. I found some pretty Comice pears at Whole Foods and thought that they’d go quite nicely with some cucumber, spinach, and ginger…and I was totally right. It was so good that I made it again the next day.

Thing is, I’ve been wanting to buy a juicer since last summer, when I was in the throes of testing, testing, testing every single day…and now that I have, I wish I’d gotten one a long time ago. I spent so much of the last few months on such a caffeine + sugar supercharged buzz in order to get the cookbook finished, I just felt like I needed to mix things up a bit, and swap out a coffee or two each day with something green. Or orange. Or red. Just for fun.

Tequila — or what I now like to call “agave juice” — is for the weekends.

Pear-Cucumber Ginger Juice

Makes about 4 servings (appx 45 ounces/1200 ml)

• 1 lime, skin and pith removed
• 1 large cucumber, peeled
• 3 to 4 big handfuls of fresh baby spinach
• 2 fat pears, such as Comice, stems removed
• 1-inch piece of peeled ginger, left whole

Turn the motor on and add the lime and spinach to your juicer, turned to the lowest speed. After a few seconds, increase your speed a notch or two and add the cucumber. Finally, crank up the speed to high and add the pears and ginger…et voila!…you’ve got juice. Total time: about 30 seconds. (Seriously!)

What do you get when you mix chicken with chipotles?

Chicken Tinga, a smoky, fiery Mexican classic that’s just as fabulous heaped onto a crisp tostada, and eaten as a chalupa, or spooned between two flour tortillas and grilled as a quesadilla.

Which is where the whole idea for this chili came from. Last week, I had dinner with some friends at the new downtown Dallas Mexico City-style restaurant, Wild Salsa (which with more than 150 tequilas on the menu, might be better named “Hangover Grande”), and for an appetizer, we ordered the chicken tinga quesadillas, which none of us had tried before. The menu described chicken tinga as simply shredded (the word “tinga” means shredded) chicken with chipotles; and that, my friends, was good enough for me. Indeed it was so simple – just tender chicken that had been cooked with smoked jalapeño chiles and sandwiched between a couple of flour tortillas with some cheese and corn. Nothing much more than that.

I haven’t stopped thinking about it since then, so I decided to come up with a version that would be just as good served in bowl, like chili, and happily scooped with fat tortilla chips, or used as a filling for a soft taco or enchilada. Plus, I just wanted to do something different for the Twitter #LetsLunch chili throwdown…something that would be totally Texas, but with an unexpected twist.

I had our state’s reputation to uphold.  A lot was riding on this.

Plus, I only had an afternoon to pull this together, since I was heading out of town the next day.

I decided to take my chances and just march myself into the kitchen and give it a go. I poached the chicken tenders – a mistake, actually; I meant to buy chicken breasts, but these cooked up much more quickly – and chopped up my onion and garlic. It took just fifteen minutes to poach the chicken; another fifteen or so to sauté the onions and garlic, add the rest of the ingredients (chipotles, sweet corn, and black beans), and fold in the chicken and the fire-roasted tomatoes after that.  Seriously, 30 minutes, from start to finish – I didn’t intend to make such a quick and dirty chili, but that’s what happened. I love it when things come together effortlessly like that.

Easy, quick as a wink, and totally delicious, with the sweetness of the corn offsetting the fire of the chiles, served up with a squeeze of lime, some cilantro, avocado, and goat cheese. I scooped this out of the skillet with tortilla chips (testing, of course), then heaped it onto tortillas for soft tacos (this is one of my favorite ways to eat any kind of chili). Then I ran out of tortillas and had to stop.

For now.

Not a traditional bowl of chili, for sure, but it’s a new year, and I’m hopeful that it’ll be even more exciting than the last. So I figured, Chicken Tinga Chili, why the hell not? Let’s get this 2012 business off to a rousing start — let’s break some rules!

Plus, as my friend Lucy likes to say, “This is no time for caution.” I’m thinking of making t-shirts with this printed on the front.

Here’s what the other chiliheads came up with:

Karen’s Hawaiian Chili at Geofooding
Linda’s Smokin’ Hot Vegan Vaquero Chili at Spicebox Travels
Grace’s Chinese New Year Chili at Hapamama
Cheryl‘s Keema Chili at A Tiger in the Kitchen
Cathy‘s Chunky-Style Cowboy Chili at Showfood Chef
Charissa‘s Clean Out Refrigerator Night Cassoulet, A “Frenchified” Chili at Zest Bakery
Emma‘s Dave’s Chili at Dreaming of Pots and Pans
Felicia‘s Low-Concept Vegetarian Chili at Burnt-Out Baker
Lucy‘s “Full of Beans” Chili at A Cook And Her Books
Pat’s Miso Chili con Carne at The Asian Grandmother’s Cookbook

Chicken Tinga Chili

Makes 4 to 6 servings

• 1 pound/500 grams of chicken tenders
• 1 celery stalk, halved
• 1 carrot, halved
• a couple of sprigs of parsley
• about 10 peppercorns
• olive oil
• ½ of an onion, diced
• 3 to 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 chipotles in adobo, finely chopped
• ⅔ cup/170 grams of canned corn, rinsed and drained
• 1 cup/172 of canned black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 14.5 ounce/411 gram can of diced fire-roasted tomatoes
• 6 to 8 tortillas (corn or flour), for serving
• 1 avocado, chopped, for serving
• a handful of chopped cilantro, for serving
• 3 to 4 tablespoons of goat cheese, crumbled, for serving
• 2 to 3 limes, cut into wedges, for serving

1. Poach your chicken tenders: Put the chicken, celery, carrot, parsley, and peppercorns in a saucepan. Cover with plenty of water and put on the stove over medium-high heat, and cover. When it boils, reduce the heat to a simmer and set the timer for ten minutes. Let the chicken cool in the pot if you have time; if you don’t (and I often don’t), proceed to the next step.

2. Drizzle a little olive oil in a large skillet, add your onions and garlic and turn the heat to medium-low. Cook just until the onion is translucent; about 5 to 10 minutes. Now add the chipotle, corn, and black beans and give it a stir.

3. Add the shredded chicken, combine with the rest of the ingredients, and let this cook for 10 to 15 minutes; then add your tomatoes and let it go for 5 minutes more. Taste and add seasonings if necessary — I didn’t add any additional salt when I made this because it didn’t need it. Serve either in a bowl, or heaped onto warm tortillas with chopped avocado, cilantro, goat cheese, and limes.

]]> http://cowgirlchef.com/2012/01/06/chicken-tinga-chili/feed/ 6 http://cowgirlchef.com/2011/12/29/turkey-gumbo/ http://cowgirlchef.com/2011/12/29/turkey-gumbo/#comments Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:55:45 +0000 epierce http://cowgirlchef.com/?p=6673

I told you I was going to make gumbo…and now that I have, I can’t believe it took me so long. Thing is, I had an old recipe for a gumbo very much like this, but somewhere along the way, I lost it, or misplaced it, or something. And I didn’t think that I could make a gumbo that would taste as good as the one I made back in the (gasp) late 1980s, when I was living in a very small apartment with an even smaller kitchen.

Which just goes to show you. Kitchen size really doesn’t matter. Magic can happen wherever you are.

As I melted the stick of butter and stirred the flour in bit by bit with one of Mom’s long-handled wooden spoons, I felt a little out of practice, a bit unsure about how far to let the roux go. I kept on stirring, as its color deepened and intensified. I’d done this before, I told myself, and when it was as it should be, I’d just know.

And I did. When the roux went from a dark brown to a reddish brown, and I began to smell a nuttiness, I knew that I’d just made a perfect roux. I added the rest of the ingredients, let it all cook for awhile, and soon had a gumbo that may just be my best ever. Better than all of my gumbos past, even.

Turkey Gumbo

Makes 8 to 10 servings

• 1 stick/125 grams of butter
• ½ cup/62 grams of flour
• 1 onion, diced
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 celery stalks, sliced
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
• ½ of a red bell pepper, diced
• 32 ounces/1 liter of chicken stock
• 28-ounce/792 gram can of diced tomatoes
• a big pinch of Cayenne
• 1 teaspoon of sweet paprika
• ½ teaspoon of thyme
• 2 Bay leaves
• 2 cups/450 grams of leftover turkey, shredded
• 4 links of spicy sausage (about 1 pound), sliced
• 1 cup/113 grams of frozen okra
• 4 cups/632 grams of cooked white rice (for serving)
• gumbo filé (for serving)

1. Make your roux: Melt the butter in a deep soup pot over medium-low heat and little by little incorporate the flour, stirring constantly until the mixture turns a deep, reddish brown. Be patient – this is the most important part, and it’ll take about 15 minutes.

2. Add the onion, garlic, celery, and bell peppers to the roux and keep stirring until the onion becomes translucent, about 5 minutes.

3. Hard part’s over. Pour in the chicken stock and tomatoes, and add the Cayenne, paprika, thyme, and Bay leaves, increase the heat to medium and bring to a boil. Once it boils, reduce the heat to a simmer, add the turkey and sausage, and cook for an hour. Add the okra towards the very end. It doesn’t need much time to cook at all. Let your gumbo cool, then refrigerate — it’ll taste better the next day. When you’re ready to serve it, just warm it up, and serve with a spoonful of rice, a pinch of gumbo filé…and you’re there.

Despite the colder-than-Paris weather we’ve been having lately, I’m so happy to be back in Texas for the holidays…surrounded by friends, family, and lots of love.

As many of y’all know, it’s been a wild ride this past year, with more ups and downs than the Runaway Mine Train at Six Flags. But the book’s finally finished and off to the printer, and I’m looking forward to the new year…and the adventures that it’ll bring.

Happy Holidays, everyone. Hope you’re cooking up something fun.

More Big Easy than Big D, with its bowtied waiters and simple, Cajun-inspired menu, S. & D. Oyster Company where I’ve always gone for a gumbo fix. Problem is I can’t seem to stop there. I always want fried oysters, too, and I must have fried shrimp, and since the combo plate comes with both – along with hush puppies and homemade fries — what’s a girl to do but order it all?

Which is what I did the other day when Mom and I were in Dallas for errands (mine) and hairdo (hers).

We sat down at our table for two against the buttercream wall, ordered a couple of iced teas, and snacked on saltine crackers and butter — the only pre-dinner nibble that was offered at restaurants in Dallas in the 1970s before the meal came (or the places that we went to, anyway).

Isn’t it funny how something so completely plain Jane can immediately take you back to another time and place? Crackers and butter. You’d just never think of that today.

We both had the gumbo, loaded with sweet Gulf shrimp, and I ate mine so quickly that I completely forgot to take a photo beforehand — so you’ll have to just take my word for it — it was delicious.

You can’t see the oysters underneath all of the shrimp and fries, but they’re there, and even though they were smallish, about the size of a quarter, the cornbread coating was perfectly crisp and they were just lovely. I don’t think I’ve had fried oysters since the last time I was here, which was probably four years ago.

Hush puppies, either. Ouh la la! What wonderful things hush puppies are! When I took the first bite, I remembered that I’d been wanting to make some of these for awhile, but with chopped jalapenos. I feel like there’s gonna be a hush puppy fry in my near future.

And gumbo, too. I’m already working on that (I already found frozen okra at the Kroger down the street!), so stay tuned…