Here’s a quick touch on things I’ve been doing/eating lately…warm weather means fun food events!

PHiNS Club of Jacksonville Gumbo Festival:

Gumbo Guys (our favorite)

Gumbo

Jax Truckies Food Truck Competition:

Sliders from Monroe's on the Go

Sonny’s BBQ Blogger Dinner:

Riiiibs

And finally…ITALY!! Mario and I took a “we’ve got no kids, let’s do what we want” trip to Rome and Florence (my most favorite city I’ve ever visited). On my last trip to Italy during a semester abroad, my travel buddies and I were pounding 2-a-day gelatos (no change there) and lots of cafe sandwiches for the cheap. I got to eat a little better this time around. So if you need to know where the best gelato is in Rome or Florence, or where Fiorentini stop for wine and crostini on a warm evening, I’m your girl.

Gelato in Rome

Carbonara Pizza in Rome

Potato Souffle we made in Tuscan cooking class

Another spot in Dayton I decided I needed to try was City Barbeque. I could always smell the smoke wafting out when I stopped by Chick-fil-A, and let’s not even mention the fact that it’s attached to a Graeter’s ice cream shop.

City Barbeque

Founded by a BBQ competition team in 1999, City Barbeque’s menu offerings cover many of the US’s barbeque styles. According to their website: “Our pork shoulder is reminiscent of the southeastern United States, the brisket and sausage take you to Texas, and the ribs exude a blend of Memphis and Kansas City.” When I floated into the restaurant on a wave of smoke à la an old Warner Brothers’ cartoon, I decided to keep it simple with a pulled pork sandwich (slider sized for lunch) and my first ever taste of fried pickles:

Pulled Pork Slider

Fried Pickles

I was surprised that the pulled pork came sauce-less. I’ll confess that I had never had a pulled pork sandwich until freshman orientation at GT 6 years ago, but I’m pretty sure that all the variations I’ve tasted since then came pre-sauced. However, I discovered that the probable reason for this was the six sauces available at the table for use at my leisure. From North Carolina-style vinegar sauce to Kansas-style sweet red sauce, they had everything you might want to slather on your ‘Q. I decided to try their Original Kansas-style sauce, and I commenced dousing my pulled pork in lots and lots of the stuff–I tend to like the bun to be slightly mushy when I eat it. The sandwich was pretty good, and I actually struggled to finish the 1/4 lb slider. The generous portion of pork had a little fat, a little char, and a lot of yum.

I wasn’t so impressed with the fried pickles, which to me just tasted like pickles dipped in cornmeal. The batter was a little thin and didn’t have much flavor. Since this was my first time trying fried pickles though, maybe they were supposed to taste this way?

City Barbeque serves up the usual suspects found at a ‘Q restaurant: ribs, sandwiches (pulled pork, sausage, brisket, etc), and chicken. The sides are more of the same. I enjoyed my sandwich, but wished I had tried a different side with my meal.

www.cityqbbq.com

Well, I’ve made it out of Ohio, took a quick trip home for the 4th of July, and now I’m back in Atlanta. I’ve only got a few posts from Ohio as most of the area around me was populated with casual dining chains. One chain that I found and loved, however, was Penn Station East Cost Subs.

Penn Station

Penn Station is a sandwich chain that started in Cincinnati, OH in 1985 and now has 200+ locations across 12 states. They’re known for their cheesesteak, and I tried one on more than one occasion, along with their vegetarian Grilled Artichoke sub (among other things. I visited a lot.):

Cheesesteak

Grilled Artichoke

I won’t even pretend that these subs are healthy, but they are crazy delicious. The cheesesteak is tender and juicy, and they’re generous with the meat. I was getting mine with grilled onions, mushrooms, and mayo, but Penn Station also offers a ton of other add-ons for the cheesesteak. The bread, baked in-house daily, was soft and perfect for soaking up grill juices.

I think I may have liked the meatless grilled artichoke sandwich even better than the cheesesteak though. With artichoke hearts, mushrooms, provolone, oregano, parmesan, and mayo, it’s a quite hearty sandwich. I know that grilled subs are far from fine dining, but you could really taste the Parmesan come through in every bite. The artichoke hearts are obviously canned but still retain a great meaty texture, even buried under provolone cheese.

Penn Station does not currently have any locations in Georgia, but I would urge anyone visiting any states along the midsection of the US (KY, OH, MO, IL, etc) to check them out. Any potential ATL-area franchisers might also think about putting a Penn Station here. Possibly planted across the street from my apartment.

www.penn-station.com

Hi faithful reader(s…maybe?)!

Just giving a heads-up that I’m away from my 2nd home of Atlanta for 6 weeks I’m doing top-secret if-I-tell-you-I-have-to-kill-you research for the Air Force at Wright-Patterson in Dayton, OH. Ok it’s really not so top-secret…but it sounds much more interesting that way, right? Not to worry, I do have a few Atlanta posts left to hammer out, and hopefully I’ll be able to whip up something decent from my extended stay hotel (“well” equipped with one pot and one pan). Any suggestions on things to eat/do in Dayton and surrounding areas are greatly appreciated! I’m already anticipating trips to Columbus and/or Cincinnati to spice things up.

Hit my inbox via the contact link above or leave your suggestions in the comments. Thanks for reading!

On my drive back to Atlanta, I made a pit stop at a little place in Mobile, AL I’ve been meaning to try out since I started making drives to and from Atlanta (~5 years). Wintzell’s Oyster House is apparently a Mobile tradition famous for its “fried, stewed, or nude” oysters. I didn’t visit the original location in “Historic Mobile”, but the Saraland location right off I-65 didn’t disappoint.

Wintzell's Oyster House

The interior walls of the restaurant are covered in corny one-liners–like, “What’s the most arrogant insect? A cocky roach!”–which kept me occupied during my quick stop. I ordered one of Wintzell’s lunch specials: a half dozen oysters on the half shell with fried crab claws and fries. The oysters are served “any way you want ‘em”, and Wintzell’s offers raw, grilled, Rockefeller, Monterey, and Bienville. I asked the waitress whether I could mix and match my cooking styles, and after a quick check with the kitchen I decided on half grilled, half Bienville (covered with shrimp, crabmeat, and parmesean sauce):

Half-Dozen Oysters: Grilled and Bienville

Fried Crab Claws

I got the chargrilled oysters as a “true test” of Wintzells’ oyster cooking ability. Sadly, I was underwhelmed by these. Acme or Drago’s serves up a better plate any day. But what did I expect, comparing New Orleans to Alabama (sorry, I couldn’t resist )? The Oysters Bienville, however, were quite delicious. Although far from a purist’s oyster of choice, the seafood parmesean sauce was creamy and flavorful and still allowed for the taste of the oyster to come through.

The crab claws and fries were well seasoned and well fried, and I always appreciate when a restaurant has good fries (mainly because I know how much bad ones can detract from a meal).

I’m glad I finally took the time to stop at Wintzell’s Oyster House. It could become my pit stop of choice when traveling back and forth from BR to ATL!

www.wintzellsoysterhouse.com

Ok, so my family only served one of those dishes for Thanksgiving, but isn’t that a great song anyway? I’ve been MIA since Thanksgiving because finals are next week, so I’m stopping in to share a few pics of my family’s spread, starting with some homemade Muscadine Wine from my aunt and uncle:

Family Wine

I don’t know what they did with this wine, but it was delicious and had a ridiculous alcohol content.

I was with a bunch of aunts, uncles, and cousins at a huge cabin we rented out on the Louisiana side of the Toledo Bend Reservoir. Hilarity ensued.

So, here’s [most of] the spread:

Sides

Desserts (except the random Tostitos)

and my plate:

My plate

Clockwise from the top, mac and cheese, ham, green bean casserole, mom’s sweet potato casserole (bomb!!), my braised greens (underneath a roll), and at 12:00 above the plate, grandma’s gumbo, which I had been looking forward to for weeks. We also had stuffing, turkey, a few more sides, and an array of desserts, so this was just my first plate

I’m already looking forward to Christmas!! And I’ll be back soon with recipes for some things I’ve made in the past few weeks!

This next and final post on my Jamaica adventures (happily) consists only of things I tried. We’ll start off with…rum!

Jamaican Rum Factory

Rum Punch Made with Jamaican Rum

I had the opportunity to go on a tour of the Appleton Estate for a look at how rum is made. However, I think most people on the tour (including myself) were most looking forward to the tasting at the end. We started out by seeing the old methods of extracting cane juice from sugar cane and separating the brown sugar and molasses. We then got to see their “new” distillery and aging rooms. We were able to taste 5 or 6 different Appleton products, all of which were very good and quite strong. Appleton makes their own versions of a number of alcohols you may be familiar with, such as Coco (Malibu), Rum Cream (rum version of Bailey’s), and a coffee liqueur (comparable to Starbucks’?). An interesting tidbit: Check your bottle of rum for where it was made (Latin American country or elsewhere) and whether there is a number on the bottle. Latin American countries may list a number like “12″ to signify that the average age of the rums in the bottle is 12. However, countries on the British system, such as Jamaica, would list 12 signifying that the youngest rum in the bottle is 12 years old.

Allspice Leaf

On the way to the Appleton Estate, our tour guide stopped and pulled some of these leaves off a tree for us to crush and smell.  We all tried to guess what the scent was–cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg–turns out they were all right…sorta.  This is actually an allspice leaf, which, contrary to popular belief, is not a blend of spices.  According to the guide, chewing the leaf  numbs your gums, which led to the discovery of novocaine.  I haven’t found any websites to verify this claim, but this was still probably the coolest bit of trivia I learned on the trip.

Finally, a few items of local cusine I was able to try: conch fritters and jerk chicken.

Conch Fritters

Jerk Chicken and Rice

Admittedly, the conch fritters came from the Negril Margaritaville, but the chain is pretty good about featuring local cuisine on their menus. That said, the fritters were very yummy, but had more bread than I would have liked. The jerk chicken came from a stand on our resort’s beach and was fabulous. The plate I have pictured is covered in “spicy sauce” but they offered a sweet sauce for topping as well. I may try to convince Mario to jerk some chicken next time he grills. Yum!

I made it back home in time for Mother’s Day, and I thought that our Mom’s Day meal was definitely a fitting “Back in Baton Rouge” post: CRAWFISH!

Cooler of Crawfish

It has been such a long time since I’ve had boiled crawfish, so I was really excited when my mom said that was what she wanted to eat on her day. We bought these freshly boiled from Baton Rouge seafood staple, Tony’s Seafood. I was a little disappointed that my dad didn’t make them himself like usual, but Tony’s did an excellent job.

First Tray of Crawfish

Sucking the Head

Here’s my first tray of crawfish (I like to start small so I don’t feel like such a huge pig on my 2nd and 3rd trays) and a little head-sucking action. I’m not a true crawfish head sucker, as I just like to get the juices out and not all the “stuff”. The next step in eating is “pinching the tail” to get the meat out. I’ve heard non-natives say that this is too much work for such a small amount of meat, but when you have really well cooked crawfish (so spicy your nose runs), it’s all worth it. Tip to new eaters: Don’t eat the crawfish with straight tails, because they were dead before they were cooked (and who knows how they died). Here is a great website on how to boil and eat crawfish.

I saved some empty crawfish shells to try making my first crawfish bisque, so stay tuned for a post on that attempt. What a great start to a great summer!

I’m fresh off my trip to Jamaica, slightly sunburned, but wishing I was still lying out on the beach.  Because I did a lot of “touristy” things while I was there, I wasn’t able to try as much local cuisine as I would have liked.  So, this post will talk about a few things I did try, and a few I should have tried based on advice from tour guides and other locals.  First off, Jamaica’s national dish, ackee and saltfish (photo courtesy of flickr user galif548).

Ackee & Saltfish

Ackee is a fruit related to the lychee which starts out looking similar to an apple.  The insides, which are cooked for the national dish, strangely resemble scrambled eggs.  Ackee can be bought canned even in the states, but the locals say that (of course) freshness is sacrificed with this method.  Saltfish is a salted, dried fish, usually cod or mackerel.  For this dish, it is flaked and sauteed along with the ackee, spices and vegetables.  Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to try the national dish

Coconut water, which I did have the pleasure of trying (canned, though) is the clear liquid inside young coconuts.  The canned version, which has a little added sugar and preservatives, also has “coconut jelly” floating around inside, which turns out to not be as weird as expected.  The coconut jelly is really just small slivers of young coconut meat.  The drink itself tastes mostly like, well, water, with a light coconut aftertaste.  Quite refreshing!

Can of Coconut Water

I’m planning the rest of this post out in my head as I type and am realizing that it may turn out to be longer than expected, so I will cut off here and turn it into 2 posts.  Also, the second-to-last sentence I wrote seems to have way too many commas, so I must be tired.   So, Jamaica Part 2 will appear shortly!  Respect mon!