Browsing: Food & Dining

I’ve been on a Southern kick recently, and nothing is more Southern than black eyed peas

But don’t despair! There is another option, an option that talented cooks can turn into an art form: leftovers! Leftovers should not be delegated to a last course option, when treated with care, your family will welcome your creativity, and your food budget won’t take a hit.

Fall has got to be my favorite time of the year. What a blessing it is to wake in the morning to a cool dawn, after suffering through another brutal South Mississippi summer. It’s a great time to go for a walk in the Desoto National Forest or a bike ride around the old Biloxi cemetery. 

When most people think of Coastal cuisine, gumbo and jambalaya almost always come to mind, and those are two very good and classic examples.

There probably is no more iconic American food than a good old-fashioned hamburger. Its about as American as you can get. It’s a food that can easily be made at home, but once the fast food industry took off with the idea, our eating habits changed forever.

Tradition, elegance, and history define Mississippi’s oldest restaurant, Weidmann’s. Located in Meridian, the iconic restaurant was established in 1870 by Felix Weidmann, a Swiss immigrant chef on a transatlantic steamship.

Not a lot of people may share this opinion, but I think that a good hot dog is hard to beat. You know, wieners, franks, tube steaks, or just plain hot dogs, the German creation that has become such an American tradition, just isn‘t  for everyone it seems. Do you love them or hate them?

If you regularly read my musings, or you might to prefer to a call them ramblings, you know I have an affinity for fried pork chops (fried anything really). What could be better than a battered and fried pork chop with pan gravy?

Tough times call for being very frugal in the kitchen, stone soup comes immediately to mind, but I do not think I would go quite that far. Not to worry, though, there are lots of other good recipes that you can turn to, recipes that stretch ingredients and aren’t overly expensive. It’s a style of cooking most often referred to as country cooking. 

Football season has returned to Mississippi! This season brings watch parties, tailgating, and cooler weather (eventually). A great pot of chili is a welcome addition to all three. Chili is quick to toss together, requires little active cooking time (thanks to a slow cooker) and feeds a crowd. Setting up a toppings bar is a fun way to customize for guests.  

n of my favorite things to do in an expensive restaurant, is to order a selection of appetizers. It dramatically reduces the cost of the meal, but you get a good feel for what the chef is capable of. The Italians, who have as many as eight courses, call the first one antipasto, or “before the meal,” and the Spanish call it tapas.

Typically, breakfast is not just my thing. A decent cup of coffee and I am good to go. The German’s mid-morning meal of fresh baked brotchen (still hot from the oven of course), a little tab of butter and jam, with coffee, is pretty good, but good brotchen is just so hard to find. Americans are getting better at it, but most folks just don’t seem to appreciate fresh bread in the morning. 

If you have followed my ramblings for any length of time, you know I have talked endlessly about the quality of ingredients being a very important key to your cooking success.

For those who have never had the opportunity to feast at Loco Taco, the first thing you should know is that this is not your average taco restaurant. The menu offers a variety of truly authentic Mexican foods, but tacos truly take centerstage at this upbeat, colorfully decorated restaurant, owned by Fidel Cubillo.

The city of Bologna in northern Italy is famous for many things, but perhaps mortadella is its most well-known hallmark. It, or a similar version of it, has been made in Italy since the first century and the Romans called it “farcimen myrtatum,” or ground meat in a mortar

Perhaps the three sisters to Southern tables are corn, beans and tomatoes.