RL Reeves Jr Recipe: Pinto Beans With Jalapenos and Bacon
When I’m motoring out to Central Texas barbecue’s legendary smokehouses I do not eat side dishes.
People fly to Texas from all over the globe to eat at the smoked meat temples of Smithville, Taylor, Lockhart and Luling.
It ain’t for the potato salad.
RL Reeves Jr Recipe: Spaghetti With Sweet Onion Brisket Ragu [photo courtesy Ryan Adams]
Such was the case on many trips to Agata’s kitchen in Alabaster, Alabama.
There is an enormous Italian diaspora in central Alabama.
For decades, immigrants from the Boot have traveled to Dixie to settle into the fertile blacklands, and begin their new lives among the country folk of Chilton, Shelby and Jefferson counties.
It’s a little known fact that the Birmingham area hosts some of the finest Italian restaurants in the whole United States.
Places where they still bring a hot loaf of bread to table the moment you’re seated, Chianti bottles line the walls, and the tablecloths?
Even after almost 20 years in professional kitchens I’m still picking up tricks and techniques from some of my friends who are skilled home cooks.
Such is the case as I sit to dine at my buddy Ron’s house in verdant Pflugerville Texas.
He’s a retired insurance adjuster and an enthusiastic home cook who can bang out a top notch smoked pork shoulder and bottles his own righteously fiery Tex Mex table salsa with loads of jalapenos.
We’re having a fish fry and he’s anxious to show me his rice pilaf recipe and technique.
RL Reeves Jr Recipe: Funky Hot Vietnamese Collard Greens With Fried Green Onions
The foodways of Alabama barbecue are second only to Texas for their primacy in the world of USA smoked meats. When I was a teenager growing up in Birmingham I raced across the state on my Honda Interceptor motorbike trying as hard as possible to eat from every smokehouse in the Yellowhammer state.
RL Reeves Jr Recipe: Oven Roasted Carnitas
It was a family reunion, puro la raza, and I was the only gringo there. The tias and abuelitas were gathered in the kitchen making all the tortillas, rice and beans from scratch but I had been entrusted with the carnitas.
Here’s how I became, as they put it, an honorary Mexican
RL Reeves Jr Recipe: Carroll Shelby Texas Chili With Ground Turkey
The underground economy in New Orleans is still thriving. I did a friend a nice favor recently and in exchange he gifted me a three pound packet of Jennie O ground turkey.
A Recipe For Couche Couche
Up in Appalachia it’s called cornmeal mush but the backbone of the dish is identical.
You fry up a pan of cornmeal batter in bacon drippings, and as it’s setting up you take a wooden spoon and stir it around a bit til it’s all crispy bits mixed with soft white bread.
A Recipe For Homemade 7UP With Stevia
How To Smoke Five Pounds Of Grocery Store Pork Chops
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