Wind, Beans, and Headcheese

Well, I sit here at work late this evening contemplating several things.

Hurricane food: Gustav and Ike passed through earlier this month. For a number of days we were without power so cooking became a little more exciting. I went through a ton of PB&J crackers. Not exactly gourmet, but easy and no worries about refrigeration. Two nights before Gustav I found a piece of what I thought was a large pork loin in the freezer. Once defrosted I liberally applied my BBQ rub and left it in the oven for about six hours at 280 F. I shredded it like butt or shoulder and put it into the fridge- then ice chest. It came out rather well. My wife was impressed with it. I can only imagine that if I had taken the time and effort to smoke it, that it would have been that much improved. I was surprised that I didn't do more grilling during our power outage. We prepared a decent amount of food before hand easing our work load.

Work food: As I write this I'm eating a ham sandwich. (I just realized that almost everything I write about has something to do with pork) Crackers, an apple, soda. Basic easy work food. I'm fortunate to be able to use a refrigerator here. I can store several items like condiments, bread, soda, lunch meat and cheese so that I can make a sandwich here instead of getting up earlier to pack a lunch. It seems to me that the more a man works with his hands on the job, the more likely it is that his wife has set aside left overs for his lunch the next day. I've noticed that a lot of the engineers I've worked with tend to bring frozen dinners, eat popcorn, or have a vendor buy them lunch as often as possible. We've been making more meals at work recently as well. Being the designated Yankee, am am being educated as to the ways of Southern Men and cooking. Lately it's been about dry beans and sausage:

1 bag of red beans
2 Onions
4 large links of green onion sausage, andouille
Water
Tony Chachere's
in a decent sized slow cooker- over night
Rice- cooked separately.
Serve the beans and sausage on rice.
One of the guys in for the start-up from Alabama made a "stew":

1 head cabbage
1 16 oz bag of carrots
2 lbs of hard sausage like used above
1 Onion
4 Potatoes
Water to barely cover
Simmered until potatoes, cabbage, and carrots have softened.

Headcheese: We've also been into headcheese. I was first introduced to headcheese 7 years ago in Chalmette. Sliced thin served on a saltine cracker. The guys mentioned it last week. I made an attempt to hit a small hole in the wall place just north of town. No dice. I make a wrong turn and I didn't want to fight traffic more than I had to. That weekend I found headcheese made by Veron's at the grocery near the house. Hot and regular. Brought that along with some saltines. Not bad. One of the guys brought some in from a small town closer to the plant along with Tiger Sauce. Not bad combination. Tiger Sauce and captain's wafers isn't too bad either. Headcheese was supposed to have been originally made with muscle and organ meat from the hog's head. Gelatin would help hold it all together. Today it is more likely scraps. I'm not sure what legislation was passed, but supposedly it is illegal to make headcheese the old way anymore. As they say- they used to use everything but the oink. Now- is it good? If you let yourself forget exactly what it was made of and you don't mind the texture- not too bad. It can be seasoned differnent ways, so it will depend of course upon where it came from.

Enough for now. I have to decide if I'm going to stick around the plant until 3 AM or not.

Burritos As Big As Seth Rogen's Head

Tacos are wonderful food. Burritos are even better. Wrapped properly they are one of the most perfect ways to eat anything. Made burritos for dinner last night.

It was impossible to come up with an inkling of an idea for dinner. I needed inspiration so I made two stops on the way home. First I dropped off at the new little neighborhood market across the street from the subdivision. This was the first time since the place re-opened that I'd been in. The store has a ton of space. They turned it into a little grocery store- amazing. The aisles were filled with small quantities of all the normal grocery store items. My amazement requires some explanation. In it's two previous lives this store front was more of a South Louisiana specialty meats store with beer and a lunch/dinner counter that had really good steak (they would put signs out on the road a few nights a week- Steak Nite or Crawfish Thursday. These poster board and Crayola signs. Not much effort went into the signs, but the food was pretty darned good) and another store like that but not as well executed. I used to drop in the last place to pickup really great deer, pork, or beef "hot sticks" (slim jims with identifiable meat pieces) or jerky to bring to the plant as goodies for the engineers and millwrights. That is typical salesman stuff here, boudin balls, headcheese and crackers, biscuits, boudin links, doughnuts, ice cream. You pharma reps know exactly what I'm talking about- pens, calendars, post-it pads, and Starbucks for the docs. I do hats, calendars, pocket protectors, and 6" scales or rulers- hot items those are. This store in the oldest version I'm aware of was also directly associated with an industrial sized ice maker and distributor behind the place. Those folks were incredibly generous prior to Katrina as they stayed open the night before landfall to make sure that people had ice. I'll never forget the insane rush for ice and propane that night. The second stop on the way home was at the grocery store a little further down the road. The place I mentioned earlier that had the shallots. Nothing extra-ordinary there, except that the cashier, a girl who appeared to be in high school, told me that I look like Seth Rogen (after some discussion on the topic her exact words were "Seth Rogen on fire". I'm a redhead) I do have the Jew-fro, wear glasses, I've packed on a few pounds, and my face is roundy... so sure, why not. She'd seen the Thursday midnight showing of Pineapple Express.

Back to burritos. I love burritos. I love La Bamba's burritos. I miss them terribly. We used to make fanatical late night runs to the nearest La Bambas. When I was at Bradley my fraternity brothers would drive an hour to Bloomington Normal for a fix. When I was going to Cincinnati I'd drag my friends and roommates to Oxford to the restaurant at Miami of Ohio. La Bambas is good drunk food. I was first introduced to La Bambas while visiting colleges my senior year of high school. My father and I visited Illinois at Urbana Champaign (which turns out to be the first storefront) and Purdue (which happens to be the second) and ate at both. We were amazed by the burritos as big as our heads. There is a substitute here called Izzo's that is quite good. They wrap the burrito in foil the exact same way. One must hold the burrito on it's end and unwrap the foil as one munches his way down. Otherwise you'll end up with burrito on your shirt and in your lap. I saw the tortillas and ground beef and thought of the typical toppings that I knew we had in the fridge. I was set.

http://www.labambaburritos.com/ beware- cheesey site with 64K synth music

http://www.izzos.com/