CONSOLATION STEW

Hated leaving the family to come home & back to work, but bringing Mom's Brunswick Stew back eases the pain...

Starfish Sushi

One of my favorite things in life is the unplanned "let's-eat-drink-and-feast" meal. You know, you set out to do one thing - in this case, Christmas shopping - and wind up doing nothing but eating and drinking.

It happened to me last week when I was headed to have "just a drink after work then we're going shopping" with a friend and the next thing I knew, I was headed home at 9:30pm having done no shopping, but instead, eating and drinking for the past few hours.

Here's some photos from Starfish Sushi ( www.starfishatlanta.com ), a fantastic sushi resto in the Avamore building on Peachtree Road in Buckhead. It's the same building with Restaurant Eugene and Holeman and Finch. We had probably 6 or 7 more dishes than what I snapped pictures of but honestly, it was all too tasty to stop and shoot a photo.

One particularly memorable dish was a Hamachi with serrano peppers, with cilantro and a tiny slice of serrano. Was my favorite dish of the night. The yellowtail was thick cut, almost like little ham steaks, and served with a bit of ponzu. It was FANtasty.

The first photo is a Pompano, served with sprouts and truffle oil (and per the menu, sea salt but none of us tasted any - didn't matter, it was really good even without the salt).

The second is a roll with some of the most brilliant looking roe - I believe it's called the "Ocean's Eleven" on the menu, but I could be mistaken because by the time this roll came around, about two gallons of sake had made it to the table, too.

CHRISTMAS PARTY GOODIES

I went to a friend's cocktail Christmas party the other night and these cupcakes and this candy dish caught my attention ... naturally.

I'm still wondering where he found this old timey candy! My Dad LOVES this stuff.

OATMEAL CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

Anyone who's ever read this blog knows I'm no baker.  There's too much measuring and "preciseness" to it.

But I'm trying to change, really I am.

Here's my first attempt at cookie baking - oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

STEAK NIGHT

A little salt. A little pepper.  3 minutes per side.

Mmm. Steak night!

THE LAST OF THE THANKSGIVING HAM

It's the last of the Thanksgiving Ham... but used for ham & eggs!

Thanksgiving Morning Biscuits

Mama's making Thanksgiving morning biscuits...  :)  I'm a happy son!

FRESH EGGS

From my Mom's chickens...

OFFICE CAKE

Sometimes, it's a joy to come to the office. Especially when the nice lady you know bakes a cake  :)

ONLY BREAD AND LIQUOR

I'm trying not to buy food because I'm going out of town for a few days but THIS is ridiculous!

Mmmm Goodness

A little Dutch cocoa... a little hot milk... mmmm, goodness

Quick Shot: Good Good Eat

While strolling through the aisles of international snack foods at the Buford Highway Farmer's Market, this little gem jumped out.

Everyone says, Good Good Eat!

YUMBII TRUCK TACOS

Went to the Yumbii truck today for lunch. (Follow them on Twitter at @yumbii or on Facebook)

Is there such a thing as "gourmet" tacos? If so, these were they - chicken or/and pork tacos, pork sliders and sesame fries. If not gourmet (which* I* think by definition they are) then, the Yumbii truck definitely puts out a unique taco!

Made the couple of blocks walk on a nice fall day so worth it!

LAST OF THE MOM-MADE BISCUITS

Sad day. I am not a biscuit maker so I brought some back from visiting my Mom. This is the last one.

With eggs - ;) cause it's just wrong to eat only biscuits, isn't it?

LET'S MAKE PEACH ICE CREAM

For a late birthday supper, my friend Ken made me peach ice cream.

Add a few scoops to birthday cake and ... TASTY!

1979 TAPPAN MICROWAVE COOKBOOK

So I'm on a little vacay with the family this week - lots of Mom-and-Grandma kinda cooking and hopefully, a little rest and relaxation.

I started looking through my Mom's cookbook shelf and I ran across the cookbook from our first microwave - a big old Tappan from 1979.

Ew. I know it was all the rage but the thought of cooking a roast in the microwave, or (as you can see in one of the photos) shellfish disturbs me.

And lamb chops? Who knew? I can't imagine the taste, and lack of a good sear. But the photo is priceless!

Microwaves are for reheating leftovers and popcorn ONLY.

IMPROMPTU DINNER

I love it when dinner gets made on a whim. One of those "hey I'm hungry aren't y'all hungry let's make dinner" kinda things.

I was hanging with some friends this afternoon and just exactly that happened.

We wound up making braised (ok, not a REAL braise) brussel sprouts with bacon fat and butter, roasted new potatoes, and watermelon salad with feta, basil and lime juice.

Oh yeah - and some brats and chops on the grill. But the meat was sort of incidental to the sides!

REFILL THE FREEZER IN 100 DEGREE HEAT - UGH

I SO don't want to go out today. It's already darn near 90 degrees and not even 11am!

But, the freezer is bare. I have only a few Trader Joe's items (some brown rice, herbs, french bread), one box of frozen veggies, grits, and a bunch of white freezer.

I don't like seeing the bottom of my freezer. I like seeing lots of tastyness in there!

This heat is oppressive. When *I* don't want to go grocery shopping - going to Trader Joe's is like going to the mall for me - it's too darn hot.

HOT SUMMER, HOT CHOCOLATE

Is it wrong to crave (and make, and drink) hot chocolate in July in Atlanta?

Thanks to watching a repeat episode of the Simpsons in which Marge served hot chocolate with marshmallows, I developed a wicked craving.

So, a little milk, a little chocolate, a little heat, and a little while later ... Hot Chocolate in July!

Now to turn the a/c down a few degrees and pretend it's November ...

Peachy-Keen: Redux

A few years ago I posted a recipe for my Mom's Peach Cobbler (or, as it states in the recipe, blackberry or any other seasonal fruit). Here's the link to the recipe:

http://smileyeats.blogspot.com/2007/04/peachy-keen.html

Recently I made the trip to my hometown for a family reunion. It's been years since I've been to one and I was excited about seeing family AND, cooking with my Mom.

We made a number of dishes for the reunion - if you follow me on Twitter at @smileyeats you saw photos - but the dish we made that was the biggest hit of the weekend was a peach cobbler.

Here's a sort-of "cobbler life-cycle" series of photos - enjoy!

FLIP IT AGAIN

FLIP BURGER BOUTIQUE

1587 Howell Mill Road

Atlanta, GA 30318

404.352.FLIP

www.flipburgerboutique.com

Yes - the entire city is stuffed with burger joints. Yes, the foodierati are all voicing their "I'm so over it" disdain.

I don't care - I LIKE fancy burger joints.

After a quick trip to Star Provisions earlier in the day, a friend and I (someone I can always count on for a hey-let's-go-here-and-order-lots-to-taste meal) decided to head up Howell Mill and hit Flip Burger Boutique.

As I made mention earlier, we order quite a bit and then treat it sortof like a tasting menu - a little from here, a little from there. Today's choices were:

Fried Okra and Confit Duck Nuggets - the okra was good but a bit too salty and the duck nuggets were SPOT ON TASTY. Shredded duck, breaded, deep fried, served with blood orange dipping sauce (which had a bit of a kick to it).

The burgers - the Southern, the Butcher's Cut and the Thai Chicken - we both agreed the best of the three to be the Southern, with its layering of almost-pickled pickles, pimento cheese, green tomato ketchup and a deep fried patty, but we were torn on which burger ran 2nd and 3rd.

Both were really good - the Butcher's Cut, with its blue cheese and red wine jam was a bracing taste departure from the sweetness of the Southern. And the Thai Chicken patty (served between two iceberg lettuce leaves - pointless, IMO) was fresh and bright and had just the right amount of cilantro and vinegar.

Onion rings

Ok - so the onion rings were an afterthought brought on by watching the couple next to us eating theirs. They just looked so good - and were! VERY onion-ey. Light batter, I believe it was vodka batter or something. All in all a great ring.

EGGS AT 4AM (with just a bit of innuendo thrown in for good measure)

There's a number of benefits to living alone - bathroom habits are yours alone, television watching doesn't have to be discussed, quiet time for reading is readily available.

And, waking up at 4am on Saturday morning with a wicked craving for scrambled eggs isn't going to disturb anyone.

I wasn't dreaming about chickens or food or sex or the movie Alien or sex or golf balls or sex or anything else I can think of that would trick me into craving scrambled eggs - I just knew I had to have them.

So, next thing I know, I have a pan filled with nutty-smelling butter and 3 eggs.

And there lies another plus to living alone - you can quell any craving you have at any time! :)

FIRST SUMMER(ish) CUCUMBER

Grabbed some vegetables off the back of an old(er) man's truck this morning.

Found me a cucumber - did a little fancy peel and had it for lunch with a little salt and pepper!

BATTERED FRENCH FRIES

I'm visiting my family in south GA for a few days and I met up with a couple of old friends at the local "pub" for supper.

The menu was fairly standard pub fare, so something prompted me to ask the server a few questions - one of which was "What kind of french fries do y'all have"?

I swear I heard angels sing when she said "blah blah blah battered blah blah". Battered french fries?? Really?

Yep - and tasty they were!

Pretty Pepper

I had supper with some friends tonight. Being Cinco de Mayo, the meal naturally consisted of fajitas and tacos :).

My job was prep work - chopping, slicing, sauteeing, etc. And while slicing the peppers I noticed how pretty the red ones were - see photo above.

IN THE "Random stuff you find at Kroger" CATEGORY

Hmmm ... not sure about the "Bitch" line of libations ... I'd be willing to try Bitch Bubbly but I'd prolly have to pass on Bitch Wine.

Seems like a line that someone from a "Real Housewives of" show would come out with.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

BACON-TASTIC NOVELTY

On a recent trip to Richard's Variety Store (one of the greatest stores in Atlanta) I kept noticing a theme emerging ... Bacon. Lots of bacon-ish items. Strange bacon-ey items.

Gummy Bacon, Bacon flavored toothpicks, Bacon Band-aids, Bacon soap and my personal favorite, a bacon car air-freshener!

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