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Dr. BBQ's Barbecued Barbecue Shrimp

I’ve never been interested in cooking traditional American BBQ, mainly because I do not like what I cannot control, and in this particular case, the BBQ grill is outside of my domain with a fat “trespassing renders marriage contract null and void“ sticker on the front. But to give my husband control over a hunk of brisket roasting away for over 6 hours in a pad-locked container with a 3 inch crusty, scratched plastic window is just way too much stress for my Type-A personality to handle. Is it done? Is it done? What does it look like? Is it ok? Do I need to baste? What if it fell over? Can I take its temperature? CAN I TOUCH??? PULEEEEZZZZE!?

I’d just rather not subject myself to that kind of torture.

So, when I was asked to cook alongside Ray Lampe, the famous “Dr. BBQ” for a charity event to benefit The Crescent City Farmers Market in New Orleans, it was no big deal. So what if he’s a BBQ Grand Champion with a couple hundred awards under his belt, can he pleat perfect dumplings one handed, fold laundry with the other and fend off 2 whining kids? Think not.

We met last week to shoot a few pics to market the event and at first glance, the razor-sharp spiky blonde hair, trophy belly, baggy black shorts, flavor-savor beard and a killer watch tattoo where time stops at 5:01pm was everything I had expected from a man who carried a name, Dr. BBQ, with swaggering authority.

While grilling skewered shrimp for the recipe below, Dr. BBQ casually mentions that he’s the new Executive Chef of Southern Hospitality Restaurant in New York owned by Justin Timberlake.

Holy hickory! I’m only ONE DEGREE OF SEPARATION from “Dick in a Box”!!!

How can I not embrace this larger than life chef who’s on a first name basis with a celebrity that I’d throw my lusty, naked body at? Apparently, the mere thought of SexyBack caused immediate brain damage and I ended up saying stupid things like, “do you ever get mistaken for Guy Fieri’s dad?” Ouch. I think I just insulted my one degree.

Can I CTRL-Z that comment?

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February 22nd, 2008 in Uncategorized |

Green Tomato and Jalapeno Jam

If there’s one thing that I absolutely cannot stand, it’s wasting vibrant, perky produce. But when a recipe calls for only 1 tbl of fresh, minced herb and the store only sells them in gargantuan bunches, my palms sweat as I begin planning my week’s menu all around this stupid little herb, just so every last bit of it gets used. Cooking is no longer fun when I have to come up with concoctions like Chocolate Parsley Ice Cream, Oooey, Gooey, Caramel Oregano Buns or even Lucky Charms with Marjoram Sprinkles just to avoid the guilt of being a wasteful human being and risk bad veggie karma.

Wouldn’t it be cool if produce stores sold herbs by the fraction of an ounce? Like, I could go and pinch a teeny, tiny little bud of dill that weighed 2 grams, because that’s all the recipe called for. I’d gladly pay double the price just so I don’t have to open my refrigerator door and have this dill monster shaking its now soggy, flaccid fist at me, screaming, “Curse you, vegetable sinner!”

Last fall, inspired by my friend, Jan, I began planting my own herb and vegetable garden to combat this problem. I had visions of running outside on a whim, caressing my beautiful, lively herbs, inhaling its sweet, grassy fragrance, and only plucking what I needed for tonight’s supper. Dreamily, I purchased 3 tomato vines, 6 different herbs, a selection of 4 gourmet lettuces, broccoli, 3 chili peppers, and 3 lime trees. I could hardly wait!
It’s been 4 months. So, you wanna know what really happened? Well, the plants grew fast and furious – the tomatoes shot up 3 feet in one month and started popping out hundreds of green tomatoes, the herbs went hopping mad and took over the entire side of the lanai, especially the mint, which began its hostile takeover of garlic chives. The colossal broccoli leaves cannibalized all available sunlight and left poor chili peppers to crane its neck this way and that just to reach a spot of warmth.

The garden totally consumed me – from figuring out what to do with a bucket of lettuce leaves every other day to scolding mint bully to back the hell off of chives. I began giving away bouquets of herbs to friends, neighbors, the mailman. I left bags of tomatoes in unlocked cars at the gas station. I hid herbs in my purse, pouncing on anyone browsing in the herb section, “Hey, ya want some free herbs?” And no, Thai Basil is not smokable.

It was bad, outta control bad. Thankfully, the “Giant Arctic Florida Freeze of 2008” happened in January and the frost took down about half of my crops.

BEFORE AFTER ARCTIC FLORIDA FREEZE

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February 13th, 2008 in Uncategorized |

How to Turn Cheap "Choice" Steaks into Gucci "Prime" Steaks

(Grilled Porterhouse with Garlic-Herb Butter, Shoestring Fries and Spinach with Garlic Chips. Thank you Kelly for cooking my spinach while I tended to my rugrat children who thought it would be funny to watch Mom trip over the marbles that they dumped down the stairs. Ha. Ha. That was funny boys.)

If you are a meat-lover, I hope that the title of this post + luscious photo is enticing enough for you to read though the entire article. Because I promise you that it's worth it. Even if you don't eat meat, this is a must-read...as you can impress the hell outta your carnivorean friends. (and sometimes, when you're a vegetarian in a herd of carnivores...it would just be nice to have that extra, "dude....you didn't know that about steak???!" in your pocket.)

My entire family (including the 2 yr old kid) just adores steak...you could probably classify us as professional steak-eaters. In fact, it is my husband's life-long quest to hone his grilling technique so that our steaks at home turn out charred crusty on the outside and perfectly medium-rare on the inside. With grill marks for show, of course. Seriously, we are too cheap to eat out at nice steak restaurants. For the past 4 months, we have been experimenting with how to get full, juicy, beefy flavor of a ribeye with butter-knife tenderness of a filet mignon without paying up-the-butt for Prime cuts.

And after 4 months of eating steak 2x a week, I think we've figured it out.

So, my friends, I am offering you a very juicy secret, one that will turn an ordinary "Choice" cut of steak into a gucci "Prime" cut. Do you know the joy of buying Choice and eating Prime? It's like buying a Hyundai and getting a free mail-in rebate for a BMW upgrade!!!

The secret after the jump.....

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August 28th, 2007 in Uncategorized |