Those bartletts we bought last weekend at the farmers’ market were hard as rocks, so they’ve been sitting on the counter in a closed bag. They’re very close. They’ll be perfectly ripe tomorrow. I’ll eat some raw, and poach some. Pears are a very nearly perfect food.

Time for biscuits and gravy again.

Biscuits

There are several “secrets” here. Lard will make the biscuits rise more, but doesn’t brown like butter, so I always use half and half. Crisco is nasty stuff, always has been, always will be, and if you use it, don’t tell me about it. “Handle as little as possible” isn’t an old wives’ tale. Forget cutting the fat in with a pastry cutter (unless you’re among the 0.000001% of the population who happens to have a good one), and don’t even think about the mixer or the food processor. Use your hands, er, your fingers, and work quickly. If you can’t get pastry flour (sold in the South as White Lily), use half all-purpose and half cake flour. And finally, cut the biscuits with a biscuit cutter if you want them to rise high. You can use a glass, and I have many times, but the dull edge of the glass smooshes the sides, and they don’t rise like they do if cut with a sharp biscuit cutter.

2 c. flour
4 1/2 t. (1 1/2 T.) baking powder
1 t. salt
1/2 c. lard, or lard and butter, COLD, cut into small pieces
2/3 c. milk

Mix together flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the lard, and cut in, until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal (this is best done with your hands). Add milk, and stir just until it cleans the side of the bowl.

Toss out onto the counter. Gently “knead” only four or five times, just until it is smooth — knead is a bad word, because kneading is working the dough to develop the gluten. Anyway. Do NOT use a rolling pin. Pat out to about a half-inch thick. Cut biscuits and place on a baking sheet. You may gather the dough, pat it out, and cut out biscuits, but only one more time (for a total of twice). Bake at 400 for 10-13 minutes. Note: If you use all lard, don’t use appearance to judge whether they’re done, because they’ll be overdone by the time they brown on top. Use the thump test instead.

Sausage and gravy

Honestly, all my life I’ve been hearing people claim they can’t make gravy, and I don’t get it. Nothing could be simpler. If you’re getting lumpy gravy using a spoon (and I don’t get that either, since if you stir constantly and bring it to a boil, the lumps will cook out), use a whisk.

Oh. Today’s sausage is leaner than it used to be. You may have to add a little oil, lard, or bacon grease. Just warning you. You can make this traditional, or smooth. Your choice.

1 lb. country sausage (Jimmy Dean sage is good, and they have a new flavor called intense that’s just as good). No other sausage will do. No smoked sausage, no cooked sausage, forget it. Go to the store where the sausage is, and that ain’t the deli counter, and buy some.

2 heaping T. flour
lots of black pepper
salt
2 c. COLD milk (more or less)

If you’re making traditional biscuits and gravy, cut the roll lengthwise and dump the whole thing into a cold pan. Turn the heat on medium, and as it cooks, break it up with a spoon, until it’s done, then leave it in the pan and proceed with making the gravy. If you’re making smooth, cut it into patties, put them in a cold pan, and cook them over medium heat until they’re done, then remove, but leave the grease in the pan.

Add the flour to the fat in the pan, and stir with a spoon or a whisk into a roux — if there’s too much flour, it will be dry, instead of smooth, so add a bit of oil or other fat and stir it in until you have a smooth roux.

Turn the heat up on high, and add about half the milk. Stir constantly and energetically. The roux will thicken the milk (I never get lumps, but if you do, keep stirring and they will cook out). When it starts to get really thick, add more milk, stirring it in, and keep adding milk until the gravy is the consistency you prefer. My home was the center of the Great Gravy Wars, where my grandmother would tell my mother, “Nancy Jane, your gravy’s so thick you could cut it with a knife!” and if my grandmother had made the gravy, my mother would complain that it was too thin. Gravy was a passionate topic in our home. Me, I like it about halfway between the two not as thick as my mother’s, but thinner than my grandmother’s.

Salt, and generously season with black pepper. Very generously.

When the gravy is done, you’re ready to eat. Split a couple of biscuits on your plate (or leave them whole, if you want), and spoon gravy over them. Down home cooking at its best.

“I am rosemary, not a green centipede.”

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with those pork chops, but then I remembered we just picked up another half-gallon of heavy cream at the dairy, so I’ll smother them. With picked-today corn from the market on the side.

Click for hugeficated version.

Unlike many, I know exactly where my dinner comes from (interactive map!) A couple of weeks ago, I braised chops Mediterranean style, in white wine, garlic, rosemary, thyme, tomatoes, olives, and roasted red peppers:

And blackberry cobbler for dessert.

continues, now that I know that yes, people do make and eat sorghum in Pennsylvania. Since I have to go across town to Mass fairly soon (it’s the Feast of the Assumption), I can hunt on the way back.

There seems to be a lack of small groceries here. But there’s that place down by Mt. Tussey. They sell lots of local food items. I may try there, if Weis and Giant prove fruitless. Or sorghumless.

We’ll see.

Must work a trip to Wegman’s in soon. My McCain shirt came today. I figure I can dawdle in the organic, free range section, where the highest concentration of limousine liberals are.

Wal-Mart doesn’t carry it. I asked, and was taken to an aisle. The guy pointed to the molasses. Er, no.

On my earlier post, Joubert commented:

I have to buy mine on the Net. I can’t remember how you use it but I use it as porridge and buy it here:

https://www.shop-southafricans.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=153

Sorghum is a grain. Joubert was raised in South Africa, and they eat the grain there. We feed the grain to livestock (and now, use it to make ethanol). Sorghum is also the syrup made from the cane, the same way molasses is made from sugar cane (the juice is pressed out, then slowly boiled down).

Sorghum is not molasses. Sorghum is made from sorghum cane. Molasses is made from sugar cane. Molassess is much darker and much more strongly flavored than sorghum. Not the same. Not even very similar. Sorghum has its own unique flavor, because it’s made from sorghum cane, not sugar cane.

People in Pennsylvania do make and eat sorghum. All I had to do was a little web research. There are even a few Pennsylvania brands, so if I keep looking, I may be able to find it somewhere around here. If I can’t, there are a couple of Pennsylvania food shops that sell it online.

But it is undeniably true that nobody here here, as in State College here, has a clue what sorghum is.

I was at Wegman’s yesterday, and while there, I looked everywhere for sorghum. When I checked out, I went to the service desk, where there were three women working. I asked. The two women closest to me gave me deer in the headlights, and the one furthest away, raised her head and shook it.

“They probably don’t even know what you’re talking about,” she said. She was from Arkansas.

But I refuse to give up. I figure if anybody has sorghum, Wal-Mart is it, so I’m headed down the road to Wal-Mart in search of sorghum.

Sometimes you have to, like if you want a Chicago-style pizza here. Thin, wussy, New York style pizza is fine, I guess, but I’ve been wanting a pizza with guts for some time, and around here, the only thing I can do is make it myself.

Recipe here.

They’re the same, except shortcake has sugar added. Sure, you can buy biscuits in a can, and I do from time to time, but they’re so easy to make, it always makes me feel guilty. Oh. And who started this “flaky biscuits” crap? Biscuits aren’t supposed to be flaky.

Buttermilk biscuits

Add 4 T. of sugar, and you have shortcake.

4 c. flour (see below)
1 t. salt
1 T. baking powder
2 t. baking soda
1 c. lard, or butter, or a combination, COLD, cut into small pieces
1 c. buttermilk

Preheat oven to 375.

About the flour. Pastry flour is ideal, but it’s hard to find. Half cake and half all-purpose will do well; just all-purpose is fine.

Mix the flour, salt, baking powder and soda in a bowl. There is no point in sifting, but you may, if you like. Add the lard or butter, then cut in. Most pastry blenders are cheap wire that only works if the fat is far too soft, so either find a good one (good luck with that), use a fork, or best, use your hand.

When mixture looks like coarse cornmeal, dump the buttermilk in all at once, and stir just until it holds together.

Dump on a floured counter, and lightly flour the top. This should be handled as little as possible. Do NOT knead. Do NOT use a rolling pin. Pat the dough out about an inch thick. Cut with a biscuit cutter, and place biscuits on a baking pan. You may quickly and gently push the remaining dough together and pat it out, then cut more biscuits, but you may only do this once (do it a second time, and the biscuits will be nasty).

Bake 20-25 minutes. Eat with butter and sorghum (if you can find it — I had no idea sorghum was “regional” until we moved here).

I recently ran across an interesting cobbler recipe, a shortcake-y cobbler, not the kind of cobbler I grew up with. It’s basically berries baked with a shortcake crust on top. The shortcake is more absorbent than the flaky cobbler crust I grew up with, and soaks up the juices. Good stuff, and easy to make.

Blackberry (or raspberry) cobbler

4 c. (2 quarts) berries
2 - 2 1/4 c. sugar
6 T. cornstarch

2 c. flour
4 T. sugar
4 t. baking powder
1 stick COLD butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 c. milk

Preheat oven to 425.

Mix the berries, sugar, and cornstarch, and pour into a deep, buttered pan.

Mix the flour, sugar, and baking powder, and cut in the butter. Mix in the milk, stir just until it holds together, then put on a floured counter. Pat into more or less the size and shape of the top of the dish, lay over, fold any excess down the sides, and bake on a foil-covered baking sheet for 35 minutes, until top is done and berries are bubbly. This is really good even without vanilla ice cream.

Eating penis overshadows leaked Olympics opening ceremony video

The first corn of the season! Today: Corn pudding, with chicken, sauteed in butter and cream.

After the movie, of course.

From Nittany Meats. Way too bland. I don’t mean “not hot,” I mean indistinguishable from ground pork. This seems to be a sausage-challenged area.

And it’s too lean. You put sausage in a cold pan with no fat or oil, turn the heat on low, and let it cook. That’s the way you’re supposed to cook sausage (or bacon). That’s what I did, and this sausage stuck to the pan.

Haven’t tried the bacon yet. But I’ll be going back to Jimmy Dean sage sausage. They’ve come out with a new flavor, “intense,” and it’s good, but I like the sage. Sausage is supposed to have lots of sage in it. That’s what makes it taste like sausage, instead of ground pork.

(Dark) chocolate-covered cherries. Scuse me, I need another one.

I’m not sure what’s going on in France. First, it was CW and line dancing. Now, this.

EVEN if you couldn’t be on the Champs-Élysées for Bastille Day on Monday to watch seven parachutists float down in front of President Nicolas Sarkozy, you can still celebrate the greatness of France with a new local tradition.

Eat a hamburger.

Beginning a few years ago but picking up momentum in the past nine months, hamburgers and cheeseburgers have invaded the city. Anywhere tourists are likely to go this summer — in St.-Germain cafes, in fashion-world hangouts, even in restaurants run by three-star chefs — they are likely to find a juicy beef patty, almost invariably on a sesame seed bun.

“It has the taste of the forbidden, the illicit — the subversive, even,” said Hélène Samuel, a restaurant consultant here. “Eating with your hands, it’s pure regression. Naturally, everyone wants it.”

It is a startling turnaround in a country where a chef once sued McDonald’s for $2.7 million in damages over a poster that suggested he was dreaming of a Big Mac. Hamburgers were everything that French dining is not: informal, messy, fast and foreign.

Of course, they are French, so some are plopping foie gras on it. But others, not.

And while steak tartare shows up on practically every brasserie menu, chefs now recognize that a hamburger is not simply six ounces of chopped lean beef grilled until crusty.

“No, that would be an error,” said Ms. Grasser-Hermé.

“A hamburger is the architecture of taste par excellence,” she explained. “The meat needs to be a mix of fatty and lean. Not raw, not rare. It must be medium rare. At the same time the bread needs to be smooth, tepid, toasted on the sesame side. I like to brush the soft side with butter. There needs to be a crispy chiffonade of iceberg lettuce. Everything plays a role.”

In developing the Salle Pleyel burger, Ms. Samuel and Ms. Ezgulian felt the weight of tradition. “We’re a little terrified of making a mistake,” said Ms. Samuel. “We cling to things like the soft buns, sweet-and-sour pickles, onions, tomatoes, cheese. We need these guideposts because we don’t have the history, the context. Otherwise, for us, it’s not a burger. It’s a hot sandwich.”

This doesn’t surprise me:

Also, he explained, Parisians don’t really understand about drinking a milkshake with the burger. They order it as dessert.

No, the fried apple pie is the dessert. Wait, nix that. MickeyD’s dropped that from the menu when Ray Croc died and his idiot wife took over.

Clicky for biggie:

Recipe here.

Cherry pie will have to wait until tomorrow. I’ll make it early, so when I get back, I can have a piece or three.

Pics below the fold.

Went to the Peoples’ Choice at Boalsburg yesterday (pics to follow). Scott’s was there, but I only got one sandwich, instead of my customary two, since I wanted pirogies and fries. And a milkshake.

I was expecting a couple of pirogies. I got four, floating in melted butter and onions. The fries were top-notch, too, but I came home swearing I’d never eat again.

Went to the farmers’ market, and picked up sour cherries and Hungarian wax peppers. Have to go back to Meyer today because we forgot half of the empty milk bottles.

The Peoples’ Choice Festival is this weekend too, in Boalsburg. We’ll be going today. Scott’s will be there, with their roasted pork sandwiches. Here are some pics (click the pic to hugefy, but you knew that), below the fold.

Scott’s is at the Boalsburg Arts Festival this weekend, so I got a cheesesteak (not bad), real fries, apfel strudel at Helmut’s (brought home), and of course, stopped at the creamery and got an ice cream cone. Pics later.

Nittany Meats had bacon (of course). I usually don’t buy ground meat (I grind my own), but there was this bin labeled, “Bacon Burger.” I asked. Yes, it was hamburger with bacon ground up in it, and you know, we had to have some of that. And I picked up some loose country sausage while we were there.

Doctor appointment at 3.

First, to Nittany Meats for bacon (and maybe other things). Back here to toss the food in the refrigerator, then into town to the Arts Festival (and food!)

The festival here is about the same size (and same kinds of things) as the 4th Street Festival in Bloomington. However, this one is spread out over a larger area, and there are booths only on one side of the street, which I find to be a great idea. It makes moving around much easier.

Oh. And they have more (and better) food.

I made potato soup last night. Today, we’ll hit the Arts Fair (I think it started yesterday), for Scott’s roasted pork sandwiches and apfelstrudel, then Nittany Meats to try their bacon. They make and smoke all their sausages. I’m hoping they sell their own bacon, too.

And I didn’t mean to single out Sam’s. Any bacon you buy in the supermarket is waterlogged.

One of the things we have been getting at Sam’s is bacon, because they sell it in 2 2-lb packages for less than you can get it in the supermarket. For the last couple of days, I’ve been snarfing down bacon for lunch trying to get to the end of the bacon.

It’s not Sam’s, specifically (they sell a national brand). It’s bacon at any store.

When did they start adding all that water?

That’s my first problem with bacon. My second (or second and third, depending on how you look at it) is the cut. These days, you can either get thick cut, which is too thick (tried to crumble any?), or “regular,” and that’s thinner than bacon used to be cut, too thin.

So this weekend, we’ll be going to Nittany Meats and trying their platter bacon.

Bitter had a bitter experience with a particularly disgusting sounding pie. Chocolate banana pie.

Ugh. The bile is rising in my throat just looking at the name.

Okay, I admit, I love bananas and hate all things banana (banana bread, banana pie, banana cake, banana candy, all disgusting items that should never be eaten). But this is one of those “pies” with whipped cream on top.

Whipped cream never, ever, under any circumstances is a pie topping. Never. Meringue goes on pies. You can serve whipped cream with pieces of pie, but no, never should it appear as a pie topping.

Never.

Key Lime Pie, you say? That’s a nasty excuse for a pie, candy sweet and vile. And it has a graham cracker crust. That’s not pie. Pie has a pie crust. Graham cracker crusts are for cheesecakes and junior high home ec recipes for kids who can’t make pie crusts. That’s filth. If you like lime and want a pie, make lime meringue pie.

Carrot cake in the oven.

Home Depot opened yesterday (didn’t realize it was open till we drove past it today). I looked closely, and saw no NO FIREARMS signs. I did see a guy in a T-shirt who was obviously printing.

Haven’t I seen discussions about Home Depot prohibiting concealed carry?

You may or may not recall that aging latte liberal who was trying to buy designer frozen Thai dinners with foodstams (of course, it was Wegman’s, where else?) I was at Wegman’s yesterday and wanted something to eat fast that I could just nuke for a few minutes, and picked up one of those Thai dinners (except now, they’re $8.99).

Let’s just say it was a mistake, and leave it at that. For less than twice the money, I could have driven down to the Thai place downtown and had a pretty good curry. Today’s the same, but just in case, I picked up a Stouffer’s lasagna.

Actually, I’d rather have a cheeseburger or three, but I am not going to drive back into town today. Am. Not. No. Way. Ain’t. Gonna. Happen.

A medical physiologist asks:

French-fries are junk-food, but roast potatoes are not; bread is a basic food-stuff, but biscuits are junk; wine comprises “empty calories”, but fruit juices are health foods; the sugar in cake is detrimental to health, but the sugar in honey and grapes is not. White bread is not “nutritious”, but cauliflower is, though it consists of 90% water, 5% starch, a minute amount of protein, and only traces of vitamins and minerals (other than potassium). What then is “junk” food?

And concludes:

“Junk-food”, we must therefore conclude, is any consumable prepared outside the home which children find delicious.

But not necessarily children. For example, serve 3 lbs of spinach in a bowl as spinach, and it’s wholesome. Use those same 3 lbs of spinach to make cream of spinach soup, or even creamed spinach (one of life’s greatest pleasures, provided one doesn’t overdo the nutmeg), and it’s no longer wholesome.

Or mashed potatoes. Make dull, uninteresting potatoes with nothing more than a bit of milk and salt, and they’re wholesome. Add butter (the more the better, of course) or gruyère, and they’re suddenly an indulgence, or “empty calories.”

I think the physiologist is correct about the palate, and just hasn’t noticed that it’s not necessarily children’s palates. If it tastes really delicious, it’s not wholesome. It’s culinary puritanism.

Back from errands. I’m hungry. I think I may run down to the Waffle Shop.

Quaker Steak and Lube is not closing. The sign refers to the lot in front, on the street (lots come with liquor licenses here?) I really need to remember that those onion rings are an inch thick, and six defeated me — along with a dozen chipotle wings.

As a rule, I’m not a big fan of chain restaurants, but I’ll try anything, and I’m willing to make exceptions when warranted. So while I’m not a fan (at all) of Outback, Texas Roadhouse has great ribs (steaks aren’t too bad, but you have to order the thick cut).

Then, there’s Quaker Steak and Lube. Every chain has a gimmick. Theirs is classic cars and motorcycles. It’s kind of a cross between a restaurant and a classic car museum (and there’s one in Indiana, in Portage). Speaking of, Texas Roadhouse is a bit strange here, with the Texas flags alternating with Penn State and Steelers banners and signs. Anyway.

I’d never heard of the chain before we moved here. And while I love wings, I think barbecued chicken is weird (pork, dammit, pork), so I never got into the buffalo wings thing. But Quaker Steak and Lube specializes in wings, and does these chipotle dry rub wings that are amazingly good, and then there are the onion rings that come stacked on a car antenna (you order by the size of antenna). Anyway, there’s a rather disturbing sign in the lot in front of them here that would seem to indicate that they’re going out of business. Thing is, I can’t find anything on the web or in the local rag about their going out of business, and there are always cars parked there. So I think here in a few minutes I’ll head over there for some of those wings and onion rings and just ask. If they closed, well, that would be really sad. Really. Those onion rings can’t be beat. “Hellacious” is the word that comes to mind.

Here’s Bike Night at the local Quaker Steak and Lube, every Wednesday night during the summer here in State College.

I’ve only used the grill once this year, and while we were at Sam’s, I saw a package of two two-pound chuck roasts, and was suddenly inspired, so I tossed it in the cart ($2.88/lb, pretty damned cheap for beef around here). I got cheese — Land o’Lakes Co-Jack, to be precise, then we went next door to Wal-Mart for a supermarket tomato (not for me — I don’t eat filth on my burgers) and buns (they only have huge packs at Sam’s).

I lit the coals, then ground one of the roasts. I don’t buy ground meat. When I first used my grinder, I had an Aha! experience when I saw that everything came out looking the same. I (generously) added kosher salt and coarsely ground black pepper, mixed it up, and made it into four half-pound burgers.

Mmmmmm, meat! Animal flesh! Dead cow! Mmmmmmm! And after trying nearly everything, I have settled on Co-Jack as the best cheeseburger cheese. I’ve done the cheddar thing, and it’s good, but it’s too designer. It’s no longer a cheeseburger.

If I’d thought about it, I would have picked up cole slaw fixins, but I didn’t.

Coals are almost ready . . .

Mmmmm, dead cow! Mooooooo!

As someone I used to know once said, “If it doesn’t shriek in terror when it’s harvested, it doesn’t belong on a plate.”

I just saw this really stupid TV ad for Garlic Pro. It’s a little chopper — you put your garlic in it and push the handle up and down, just like that chopper Ron Popeil offered years ago, but smaller. But wait! You have to peel it first, so you also get a cheap little rubber tube. See, you roll it in the rubber tube and the peel comes off! And you get both for only $14.95 (offer doubled if you order on the phone)!

For the kitchen technique impaired who are thinking, “Wow, that’s not much, and it’s really cool!” let me save you that $14.95, because you have one implement in your kitchen that peels and chops garlic.

Really?

Yes, really. It’s called a knife. Follow the instructions:

To peel garlic

1. Place garlic cloves on cutting board.
2. Smash garlic cloves with the flat of the knife blade.
3. Throw peel in trash.
4. Voilà! Peeled garlic!

To chop garlic (I could say just chop the garlic, but that wouldn’t be helpful, and I am always helpful)

1. Hold the tip of the knife blade (at the top, not the edge) between your left thumb and forefinger (reverse if left-handed)
2. Hold the knife in your right hand, and with your left, hold the tip of the blade against the cutting board (reverse if left-handed)
3. Rock the blade up and down, moving the knife in a circular motion (either clockwise or counter-clockwise) while holding the tip stationary (hint: it helps if the garlic is under the blade)
4. Voilà! Chopped garlic!

You just saved $14.95 (plus shipping and handling, of course), and the embarrassment of having spent that money on a cheap piece of plastic and a cheap rubber tube.

You’re welcome, I’m sure.

Nice end cut chops. Mashed potatoes and gravy, of course.

You know how berries are — they don’t keep at all. And when you have way more dead ripe strawberries than you can possibly eat, well, what do you do?

You make strawberry ice cream, to go with the brats.

The Creamery is good, no doubt, but I can make better.

Strawberry ice cream. Let’s see, salt, ice, more strawberries, more cream . . .

Them’s some hellacious strawberries.

It’s International Bacon Double Cheeseburger Day! (actually, it’s Ingrid Newkirk’s birthday, but who’s keeping score?)

I was going to get more strawberries at the market today, but we still have some of that carrot cake left. Thursday.

The bacon is done. The pork steaks have thawed. All that’s left is to peel the potatoes and put them on to boil. As soon as they are, I turn the heat down under them, coat the pork steaks in seasoned flour, then start them cooking in the bacon grease. When they’re done, I mash the potatoes with a stick of butter, and make the gravy — just can’t forget to crumble the bacon in it, or worse, eat it all first. That’s a problem, not eating bacon.