Pecan Pie Season

 Thanksgiving is next week. On the way back from Mobile, we stopped by the open air market right off the interstate near Clanton and picked up our favorite fresh organic cornmeal my cousin grows and grinds (hello Cornbread Dressing!). But there were those fresh just shelled huge pecan halves from the Verbena area.  We had just driven through all the farmland in Baldwin County where there used to be pecan groves that had been bulldozed to build subdivisions. Here in sparsely populated Central Alabama, they are lucky to still have their pecan trees.

Since we could not wait to have pecan pie, we went ahead and made a 'test' one. The cable repair man on loan from his home state of Nebraska dropped by right after we had taken it out of the oven, so when he walked in the door and said "Wow, smells great in here" we had to slice him off a large piece to go. Later when we put the forks into our own pieces and took our first bites, my husband declared this recipe a keeper.

I am pretty old to start using a new pecan pie recipe, but more than one person in our family has now cut corn syrup out of their diet.  Thanks, King Arthur, for offering us more than one corn syrup free version of this popular Southern Thanksgiving dessert. The recipe I was handed down contained corn syrup and has always been 'too sweet'.  Here is how we used the King Arthur recipe.

      --Your favorite deep dish single crust pie recipe (no time to learn a new one, right?)

      --1 stick butter

      -- 1/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour

      -- 2 1/8 cups light brown sugar

      --1/2 teaspoon salt

      -- 6 Tablespoons milk

      -- 3 large or extra large eggs (I tend to keep extra large around)

      --2 teaspoons vinegar

      --2 teaspoons real vanilla extract

      --2 Tablespoons good bourbon

      --2 cups best quality freshest pecan halves you can find

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 

Roll out pastry and place it in greased pie plate.  

Microwave butter in large Pyrex mixing/measuring bowl until melted only.

Whisk in the brown sugar and beat until sugar crystals start breaking down.  Add the milk and whisk more, breaking down more crystals. By now the mixture should be totally cool and you can beat in the eggs. Next comes the flour, salt, vinegar, vanilla, and bourbon. Whisk it all together thoroughly.  Gently stir in pecans.

Place the pie plate on a baking sheet and pour the filling mixture into the shell.  Don't worry about the pecans not being on top.  They will rise in the baking process.  All that sugary bourbon goodness will coat them to perfection.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes and then lower the oven temp to 325.  Continue baking for another 20 minutes and check to see if the filling is set and the pecans on top are sufficiently toasty and golden. I had to cook for another 10 minutes or so to get that deep golden crust and toasty pecans we love so much.

You can top with lightly sweetened whipped cream but we never do that. For some reason we like it just the way it is.

We think this recipe without corn syrup highlights the natural goodness of the nuts more and is less cloyingly sweet.

Brinkmann, again

For me, there is only one smoker.  The Brinkmann.  Cheap, reliable, simple enough for anyone to use, must have been a million sold.  You can have your ceramic cookers with their custom lump charcoal, your newfangled pellet smokers, your hand dug hole in the earth with bedsprings and a pickup truck load of good wood.  Just give me my electric Brinkmann smoker please.  And move out of my way.

Unfortunately Brinkmann after decades of manufacturing smokers declared bankruptcy about five years ago.  No more going to Lowe's and forking out $59 for the world's best and simplest home smoker system.  But first, let me describe the perfection that was the Brinkmann Electric Smoker.

1.  Perfect thickness of metal bullet.  Newer models either hold too much heat or are so thin they hold too little. The Brinkman Electric Smoker held the perfect amount of heat as long as you were using it outdoors in temperatures that ranged from, say, 40 degrees to 100 degrees Fahreinheit.  Timing is not exact when using the Brinkmann Electric Smoker because--kind of like using a sous vide--it is very difficult to burn anything. 

2. No digital readouts to fail after the first cookout.  Actually the Brinkmann Electric Smoker had NO readouts of any kind.  It did not even have a basic dial thermometer. Don't worry about it.  Smoking meat is an old technique, invented and perfected way before digital readouts

3. Simple to put together and store afterwards.  The Brinkmann Electric Smoker consists of a metal bullet with lava 'rocks' in the bottom. On top of those sit a simple electric heating element.  Moving upward are a couple of chrome racks, one with a water pan and the other where the meat sits.  And that is it.  All you need in addition is water and some primo wood chunks you have salvaged from the woods. For me, hickory is THE wood.  We have cherry, too, and it is good. If I were in the West, I would probably be into mesquite. But I am not. I am in the South where my entire life I  have smelled hickory smoke from the roadside and then whipped my car into the parking lot from which it was emanating. Rule of thumb: The better the pile of hickory, the better the barbecue. But for the home cook who does not need to smoke 200 pounds of meat today:  BRINKMANN ELECTRIC SMOKER+ Water+ chunks of fairly fresh hickory = home smoked meat perfection.  Assemble from the storage shed.  Smoke meat.  Clean racks and water pan.  Disassemble heating element and store is a safe dry location.  Put the rest of the smoker into a contractor bag and throw it into the storage building until the next smoked meat occasion arises.

WHY THE BRINKMANN SMOKER COMPANY WENT OUT OF BUSINESS

I am no business expert, but I have some longtime customer opinions.

First of all, there was a Brinkmann CHARCOAL Smoker.  Very very bad idea.  Never fall for this.  Charcoal is not a good heat source for smoking meat for 12 hours.  It is great for grilling a steak. It is as bad an idea as pellets for SMOKING meat.  Don't ask me to explain or I will need to tell you the decade of my life spent smoking chickens on a home charcoal smoker, and that story will make neither you nor me happy.

Secondly, the Brinkmann home smoker direction books and cookbooks were pretty much useless and very unappetizing, with recipes that sounded like something your great grandmother made in the 1950s.  Hawaiian Pineapple Smoked Spam.  That sort of thing.  And then the most crucial problem was that the Brinkmann home smoker cookbooks GROSSLY UNDERESTIMATED HOW LONG THE SMOKING PROCESS ACTUALLY TAKE IN A BRINKMAN SMOKER. 

Here is an example of that.  Most home cooks will try to smoke chickens in a propane fueled cast iron smoker.  Their cookbook gives them a cooking time.  They follow the instructions. The chickens always come out dry and with the ends of the drumsticks charred.  Fact.  Always.  So what they do is cut back on the cooking time and think the problem is solved.  Wrong.  Now their chicken is undercooked on the interior but with a nice patina on the exterior.  So they chop it all up and put some premade spice mixture over the entire bowl of chicken. 

Do you realize how bad that is?  on how many levels?

Rule of thumb.  When you read a time chart for a Brinkmann smoker, always double the time.  So if the book says to smoke the chickens for four hours, try overnight instead.  Put the chickens in the smoker when you go to bed, and take them off when you get up.  Or even after you've had coffee for an hour.  They will be fine.  And nothing will be burned. And they will be cooked and moist throughout.  Promise.

NEXT:   Scoring my latest Brinkmann smoker, a roadtrip

The Ordinary Miracle of the Resurrection of the Brinkmann Smoker

We and our friends had tried them all. For us, the start was the old charcoal Brinkmann, the heavy bullet-shaped smoker that required getting up in the middle of the night to light a bucket full of charcoal and wait until it was glowing red with white edges before carefully threading little fireplace ash shovels of coals through the tiny-ish aluminum door to replenish the heat. This was so that no one would die of food poisoning the next day. One too many smoked chickens tasting of 2 AM charcoal lighter made the electric version of the Brinkmann smoker catch my eye in Lowe's when the bottom rusted out of the charcoal fueled one that had served us through 3 summers.

We knew we were cheaters opting for that plug-in heating element. But everyone was going in different directions. This was North Alabama, home of smoked chicken slathered in White Sauce, a vinegar/mayo concoction Big Bob Gibson over in Decatur had thrown together a couple of decades earlier. Every friend and relative we had was dabbling. Green egg cookers with their natural charcoal. Big black iron boxes heated with propane. And everyone buying bag after bag of wood chips: mesquite, hickory, cherry, you name it. Plus the recipes for white sauce were all over the place, using inferior vinegars and adding all kinds of abominations such as sugar and even garlic.

We sampled more than our share of local commercially prepared smoked chickens and white sauce, not to mention all the church dinners and family and friend barbecues featuring a couple of different versions. And each time we came back to our version made on the widely available, inexpensive electric Brinkmann smoker. But instead of buying bags of wood chips, we just saved our fresh windfall hickory limbs and cut them into small chunks about 4" long. The electricity provides a slow even cooking heat while the hickory gives the meat a rich veneer and that pure authentic smoked flavor. I have heard it said and I am a believer: it's not the most expensive smoker that makes the best product. If you want to sample some good smoked meat, go look for the woodpile.

This year, there is plenty of windfall hickory wood, but the company that makes Brinkmann smoker is no longer in business, and our last Brinkmann gave up the ghost at the end of last year.

But thanks to Ebay, we found a new smoker base and were back in business with parts we salvaged from our previous two Brinkmanns.

Now to tackle our vintage White Mountain Ice Cream maker.

Something Warm

OK.  It's January 31 and social media is a meltdown of hate-talk.  The weather lately has been cold/gray/dreary, but today the sun came out early and stayed all day, the kind of day in North Alabama where it feels good to open up the sunroof and catch a nice breeze in the 70s. Time to start rearranging the closet, putting the lined boots and boot-grazing wool coats back into storage.  Time to start looking at clothes lighter in weight and lighter in color.  People sat out at the sidewalk tables downtown at Yumm's and Odette's today: a serving of sun on their faces and breeze in their hair as a side dish with their lunch. For some folks, seed catalogs and garden plans are their happy place about now.  For me, I daydream about going to the Gulf on the first warm weekend.

Growing up, we always knew there was one warm weekend in late February or early March when it was possible to go to the beach and pretend it was already spring. Such a trip had to be spontaneous, spur of the moment. Throw a few things in a bag, grab some cash, fill up the car, go. Worry about the details when you get there.

Stop at the Durbin Farms exit and hope they are open this early. Buy whatever they have that is fresh, and be sure to buy some McEwen & Sons freshly ground yellow grits.  Further down I 65, look for Conecuh sausage, those smokey-flavored thin sausages in casings. Closer to the coast, find another produce stand, and then on the Coast, go to your favorite seafood market.  What you are looking for are fresh local shrimp and fresh local crabmeat.  If they have crabmeat, buy twice as much as you think you will need.

At some point during the weekend, you will want to eat this. 

Or maybe not.  Maybe you will do all of this in reverse order.  You will drive to the coast at night and arrive to see the moon on the water.  You will not stay at someone's house after all and will walk the beach, sleep in the sun, and eat at your favorite haunts. On your way out of town, you fill your cooler with ice one last time and stop to buy seafood.

Either way, this is what you will make to sustain you through the rest of the winter.

Shrimp and Crab on Grits    First of all, cook the grits according to the package directions.  If you bought the McEwen & Sons yellow grits, this will take about 25 minutes. About 10 minutes before the grits are done, gather the other ingredients.
• 8 oz Conecuh sausage in casings • 1/2 medium yellow onion, chopped • 1/2 medium green bell pepper, chopped • cayenne, to taste • 2 tbsp flour • 1 3/4 cup(s) chicken broth, a splash of white wine  • 1 lb raw shrimp, peeled and deveined • 1/2 lb jumbo lump crabmeat • 1 tsp old bay seasoning  In an iron skillet, brown the sausage that has been cut into slices on the diagonal.  Cook until brown.  Remove sausage but save the drippings. Add a bit of olive oil to the iron skillet and saute the onions and peppers until wilted. Using a wire whisk, whisk the flour into the pan. Whisk in half of the Old Bay, the chicken broth, and maybe a good splash of white wine. Let this come to a boil and then reduce heat to simmer. Let it thicken a bit, maybe 3 minutes. Add the shrimp and cook for 5 minutes covered.  Gently add the cooked Conecuh sausage, the crabmeat, and sprinkle on the rest of the Old Bay.  Grind some black pepper on top. Cover it back up and let it all get hot. Serve in shallow bowls over the McEwen & Sons grits.

Twentyfive things you might not know about me (repost)

I do not usually participate in the getting-to-know-you, getting-to-know-ALL-about-you exercises that make the rounds. But I did feel guilty the other day and post this one. I think it has enough 'accent' for this blog.

SINCE A FEW OF YOU ASKED:
1. I like cars.
2. All cars: old ones, new ones, in between ones.
3. I cannot get rid of my old cars. I just add to the collection occasionally.
4. In the office parking lot, the oldest, dirtiest car is always mine.
5. My cars all have clean oil, right up to the full line.
6. There are not enough spaces in my garage to park my cars.
7. There are not enough spaces in my driveway to park my cars.
8. The sum total of the worth of all my cars--if I were to sell them--would not pay for a trip to Paris.
9. Or even Orlando.
10. Maybe Gulf Shores, for a couple of days.
11. I have so many cars that I have to have two auto insurance policies since they won't all fit on one policy.
12. The very few cars that I have owned in the past but which I do not currently own: I know who owns them and where they are parked.
13. I lend my cars freely for extended periods of time to those who need them. I don't ask questions.
14. My insurance agent does not know I lend my cars for extended periods to whomever asks.
15. I feel a special kinship with my mechanics.
16. I look for cars like my cars in movies, and when I see them, that place in the brain that is stimulated by heroin and/or the sight of a loved one.....well, you get the picture.
17. So far, I do not have any cars resting on blocks. So far.
18. Some of my cars are parked in the driveway of the house next door.
19. Actually, there is only one car currently parked in my garage, and that car does not even belong to me, but sometimes I walk past it and use the sleeve of my jacket to wipe off a spot.
20. Country of origin does not matter. I love all cars equally.
21. But I will have to admit there is something about the blended aroma of German leather and petroleum products that is incredibly moving.
22. A car with less than 100,000 miles on the odometer is like a two-year marriage--what do you really know about it?
23. My father once became so angry with a car that he poured a large can of gasoline on it and then flicked a lighted match in that direction.
24. The car did not belong to my father.
25. Other than a few anger management issues, my father was the sanest person in our family

The Squash Parade (repost)

The Squash Parade (repost)

Although I only saw the film "Doc Hollywood" once, several years ago, it was one of the few movies I actually saw in its entirety when my children were small. As I remember, it was not a particularly good film but one of the few movies of that time period I didn't sleep through. Any film that starts out with a gorgeous Porsche roadster plowing into a wooden fence has my attention. O, the heartache! O, the waste! And then the question: can the Porsche be repaired?

Other than the wreck and repair (twice) of the roadster, I can't tell you much else about the plot of "Doc Hollywood," but I remember it served up a slightly off-kilter, comic comparison of life in the fast lane vs. life as I've always known it: life in the dirt lane. Other than the Porsche scenes, there is one other scene I've never quite forgotten. The little town had a parade honoring its most successful agricultural crop, the squash. The movie offered a solid rendering of the small town parade. Nothing like the Macy's parade on Thanksgiving or the Parade of Roses on New Year's Day. Just the local folks hamming it up, walking down the middle of main street and waving to their neighbors, some folks pretending to be dignitaries, another walking down the street leading a pig on a leash.

Through the years, I have remembered this movie scene as I have lived many Fourths of July in the manner the folks in the Bend of the River celebrate. Even those of us who have never been to D.C. or Boston to see the grand fireworks shows and to hear the Marine Band or the Boston Pops conspire on a summer night to make us feel some kind of patriotism deep down in our souls, well, even those who have never seen it in person have watched it on television, thanks to satellite dishes. So I think we know we are missing the mark, but that's not stopping us.

Two "must do's" during the daylight hours of July 4 in the Bend of the River are fishing and swimming. If it is a hot day, dig your worms early, go out and catch an entire stringer of crappie and as many big bass and you can. After you are thoroughly sweaty and sunburned, it's time to go swimming to cool off. The best place to swim, of course, is Smithsonia Light, a tiny island with its own tire swing and shell shallows. Where we fish, I'm not telling. The hog-sized bass that got away on Saturday must be a lake record, and we plan to go back with a better plan very soon.

The other daytime activities vary. Before dawn, the smoker was loaded with ribs, so you know at some point there is pork to eat, but in the meantime there is a swing on a shady screened porch, and next to it is a stack of unread books. There are three canoes, a sailboat, and of course the yard is strewn by this time in July with windsurfing equipment just waiting for 15-20 mph from the South. There is croquet, badminton, a White Mountain ice cream maker, ceiling fans, and a lot of crushed ice and drinks to go with it.

By the time dusk falls, we are applying the sunburn gels and watching the pre-show of the lightning bugs (fireflies)rise up from the lawn. For the last three days, kids have run down to their docks with fireworks 'teasers': a string of firecrackers, a handful of bottle rockets, an occasional Roman Candle launching its glowing red, green, and blue fireballs fifteen feet at the most into the air. About the time the lightning bugs reach the treetops, we grab our flashlights and lawn chairs and head out for the dock. We don't actually know for sure that there will be a fireworks show, but we're feeling lucky.

There are sparklers, Birthday Cakes, screaming MeMe's, more Roman Candles. By 9 pm a flotilla of bass boats, pontoon boats, and a few cabin cruisers have assembled about 200 feet out. When the first of the real fireworks appears--this year it was a large golden chrysanthemum shower with the report of a cannon--traffic comes to a halt on the Natchez Trace bridge. It's time to watch the show.

We don't know exactly who pays for this, but we suspect one of our neighbors must have an interest in TNT, the local fireworks company. This is not the kind of fireworks sold at the neighborhood Southern fireworks stand, a grubby trailer guarded at night by a mean dog and a guy with a shotgun loaded with bird shot. This is the kind of spectacular, coordinated fireworks show that could only be attempted by someone who has read the rulebook and served an apprenticeship. The show starts out slow but works up by degrees. People are catcalling and whistling, clapping and rebel-yelling. The double star helix in red-white-and blue creates a war-like yell of appreciation. So what if it's not Boston and instead of the Pops playing the cymbals in the background, someone has cranked up their stereo with Sweet Home Alabama for the forty eleventh dozen time? For the Bend of the River, it's grand.

Even the next morning early, kids are still running out onto the piers shooting off firecrackers and bottle rockets.

And I'm thinking I need to buy a copy of "Doc Hollywood" as my very own.

I need to see that Squash Parade one more time.

How To Tell If You Are In A Flannery O' Connor Story

(with regards to our friends at The Toast, who started this with Brit Lit)

HOW TO TELL IF YOU ARE IN A FLANNERY O'CONNOR STORY

Every prosthesis you have ever owned has been stolen.  By a Bible salesman.

You have a deep-seated, non-specific, but palpable fear of the line of woods in the distance.

When someone offers you a piece of chewing gum, you take your finger and lift your top lip ever so gently to show you have no teeth.

Everyone in your family is named John Wesley.  Even the females.

You never drive on four lane highways or interstates.  No matter where you are going, you take dirt roads or two lane blacktops with large ominous clouds shaped like anvils looming in the distance.

You keep a large looped strand of barbed wire in your closet.  Just in case you get the urge in the middle of the night to wrap it around your chest, under your pajamas.

Wait.  Hold the pajamas. You don't sleep in pajamas.  Only in dirty yellowed undershirts.

Every single person you come into contact with, each and every day of your life, is going to Hell.  Except maybe that daffy old priest who comes to visit and who hounds you about taking in more refugees of war.

For you, there is only one region of the USA. When you leave it and speak to people, they pretend they cannot understand you and ask you to communicate by writing your thoughts down on a piece of paper and handing it to them.

Every time you see a man repairing large farm equipment, you have the urge to rush to him and warn him to stop. But of course you don't. It never turns out well.

Your hair is naturally curly. And you don't even like Red Sammy's barbecue. You just want your family to get the hell back on the road to your family vacation in Florida.

You have a hard time passing by those statues of jockeys and footmen people place in their yards without stopping to take pictures and post them on FB. Along with a picture of the mailbox and enough other information that people can figure out who it is.

As a child, you had a constant runny nose and liked to take other people's books and hide them in your jacket and steal them.

Sometimes you get the urge to find the nearest street corner and start prophesying.

You have the sense that when you die you might just skip Purgatory and go straight on to Heaven because what you have been living here on Earth has been more than enough punishment to atone for your sins.
















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