Whoopi can serve me a drink in Ten Forward on Star Trek The Next Generation.

I love the pies at Joe's Pie Diner in the movie Waitress.

Swill champagne served by Pee Wee Herman and throw shrimp into each others' mouths with The Blues Brothers.

If you're not already tracking every food and beverage you consume then I suggest you start. Recording your intake and seeing how your glucose level responds gives you knowledge that you can use to make positive change.

I like myfitnesspal, and your new fitbit can upload to it.

I made something like Ropa Vieja for the first time about a month ago when chuck roast was on sale. It was delicious and would be great in tacos.
I used a 3lb Chuck Roast. Rubbed about 2t ea salt & pepper into it and browned in a Hot cast iron skillet w 2T oil about 2-3min per side; transfer to Crock Pot. Thinly slice 1 large or 2 small onions; a bell pepper, chop garlic (I used 6-8 cloves). Seed and chop chili peppers - I used 1 jalapeño & 2 Serrano. Add vegetables, 2 cans diced tomatoes, and 1/2t cumin to top of roast. Cook on low until meat is tender - we went 7 hrs. Remove the roast; pull away & discard fat & connective tissue; shred with forks. Combine shredded beef and veggie mixture and serve.

I grew up on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and we bought brown shrimp on the dock, washed, sorted & headed them, piled them into cleaned half gallon milk cartons, covered them with water and froze them to enjoy year-round. My parents still live there and are still doing this.

Shrimp season begins about the same time that we get the first yellow squash out of the garden. I love a squash and shrimp casserole!

Here is Mom's best batter for fried shrimp. Roll in flour, dip in batter, roll in flour, and let them rest a few minutes before frying in corn or canola oil.

2 egg yolks
2 c ice water
1 3/4 c flour
1/4 c corn starch

In medium bowl beat egg yolks and water. With wire whisk, stir in flour and cornstarch. Do not over beat, batter should be lumpy. Using a pie plate with plain flour, coat item to be fried light, dip into batter and back into flour and place on a cookie sheet to rest.

Larry's Southern Kitchen serves good soul food.

Here's the "water story" from Abita Spings beer:

Let's start with the water. It's the reason the Abita Brewing Company is located in beautiful Abita Springs, Louisiana. While most other breweries must filter and chemically treat their water for the brewing process, Abita does neither. We take ours straight from the source. Our water is drawn from a deep artesian well in the Southern Hills aquifer system. Over 3,000 feet deep in some areas, it contains fresh water kept pristine in underground structures that are more than five million years old. Our water has been tested and shown to be free of man-made pollutants, including Tritium, a man-made radioactive isotope that marks all surface waters.

Since its days as a Choctaw Indian settlement, Abita's spring water has been a cherished natural resource. The Choctaws used it for medicinal purposes and tourists at the turn of the century flocked to the springs to "take the water" and recuperate from yellow fever.

A story is told of a young Spaniard named Henriques who lived in Louisiana during the late 1790s. While hunting along the shores of Lake Pontchartrain, he met a beautiful Choctaw girl and persuaded the chief to allow them to marry. After bringing her home to New Orleans, Henriques watched his wife grow pale and weak and soon he realized that she was very ill.

None of the local doctors could cure her so Henriques finally consulted the Choctaws’ medicine man. The young woman was carried to the spring and left there with only a hammock, food and a dipper to drink from the spring. When Henriques returned, to his amazement, his wife was totally well and the water’s fame as a curative began to spread.

Word of the wonderful water spread to neighboring communities and in 1887, the first railroad arrived to the area. Boarding houses, hotels and restaurants were soon constructed to accommodate visitors. In 1903, the town of Abita Springs was formally organized and later chartered in 1912.

I found a copy of the cookbook Great Chefs of New Orleans II in a thrift shop. The copyright is 1984. I've had the pleasure of dining at only three of these: CP, Brennan's and Trey Yuen.

Warren Le Ruth of Le Ruth’s, Gretna
Daniel Bonnot of Restaurant de la Tour Eiffel
Willy Coln of Willy Coln’s Restaurant, Gretna
Gerhard Brill of Commander’s Palace
Günter Preuss of Verailles
Geoffredo Fraccaro of La Riviera, Metarie
Claude Aubert of Le Bec Fin, Covington
James and John Wong and three more brothers of Trey Yuen, Mandeville
Chris Kerageorgiou of La Provence, Lacombe
Roland Huet of Christian’s
Gerard Thabuis of La Savoie, Metarie
Michael Roussel of Brennan’s
Gerard Crozier of Crozier’s

I typically keep one or two one liter bottles of Trader Joe's olive oil out on counter. I've wondered about buying pour spouts to insert into the necks of the bottles to replace the screw cap and largish plastic spout that come with the bottles.

Please don't critique my choice of oil, yes, there are finer oils. I'm interested in a pour spout for TJ's 1l bottles. Have you tried one that you like and can recommend?

Brian Battistella runs Battistella's in Raleigh, NC.
http://battistellas.com/chefschoice.html

I've got TJ's frozen battered eggplant slices in my freezer now. With a jarred tomato sauce and some mozzarella you've got a quick vegetarian dish.

I grew up in the great Southern state of Mississippi and assure you that almost any vegetable can be seasoned with bacon. Is the result as yummy as when using a ham hock? Well, probably so. Generally one begins the dish with only the bacon in the pot and gently cooks to render the fat, as in this recipe from Emeril after he had lived in Louisiana for several years.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/em...

Try Maple View Farm. They describe their buttermilk as "The taste like grandmother used to make. The best friend cornbread and biscuits ever knew." Here's their "where to buy" page.
http://www.mapleviewfarm.com/where_to...

I've got this one. http://www.amazon.com/OXO-Good-Grips-...

It's great for when I cook a pork shoulder. Cook till it's falling apart. Pull the meat out to "pull" it - typically with two forks. Strain the cooking liquid into the separator. Typically concentrate the defatted liquid and pour it back over the pulled pork.

The factory at Ashe County Cheese will be in action Oct 15 so that may be a good day to visit the factory & store. http://www.ashecountycheese.com/schedule.htm

Arts events listed here http://www.ashecountyarts.org/documents/AD168forweb_000.pdf

If you like hard apple cider McRitchie Winery & Cider Works is about 45 miles away. http://www.mcritchiewine.com/

I slice pork thin, season with S&P and fry. Set pork aside then add cabbage cut into about 1inch squares, chicken broth, salt and as much sriracha as you can stand. Add back the pork and cook until the cabbage is done to your liking.

I like fish en papillote with matchsticks of carrot and squash. I put a little butter and white wine and a pinch of fine tarragon in. I find it important to season each ingredient individually as I assemble the packet.

au contraire mon frere
this recipe makes a delicious gumbo http://www.marciaball.com/gumbo.html

but I very much agree that making from scratch is best.

When I still lived in Mississippi almost all of my wine came from Martin Wine Cellar or Dorignac's, yes I broke the law transporting from Louisiana into Mississippi but it was worth the risk to avoid the ABC limitation.

Searching Wine Spectator for wine award winning restaurants in the state turns up 16, and about 5 are on the coast. That's not the best way to select a restaurant, and it won't turn up all of them with good wine lists, but it may help you on your next visit to the coast.

Nick Apostle of Nick's in Jackson deserves credit for relaxing some laws. Through Nick's hard work restauranteurs can sell wines that are not normally stocked by the state warehouse.
see http://meridianstar.com/opinion/x681105885/You-ve-come-a-long-way-Mississippi/print
Still, the way I read the law you may legally brown bag wine or liquor only if the establishment has a beer-only license.

Brown-bagging
An on-premises ABC permittee shall not allow brownbagging on his licensed premises.
However, the law does not prohibit a beer (only) permittee from allowing consumers/customers from brown-bagging legally purchased alcohol beverages at his premises if in a county wet for alcohol. (If the beer permittee is located in a dry county for alcohol, brownbagging and/or possessing alcohol beverages is illegal.) A beer (only) permittee may sell set-ups to the customer, but may not store on his premises, serve, or otherwise prepare cocktails with brown-bag alcohol beverages. A beer (only) permittee may charge a corkage fee to allow customers to brown-bag.
source: http://www.dor.ms.gov/docs/ABCBook2.pdf

Contrast this to the server who was immediately fired from Raleigh's Angus Barn for bragging about the very generous tip given by Peyton Manning.
http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/b...

I've eaten in the main restaurant twice and just won't go back. The one meal downstairs in the wine cellar was wonderful, and is worth returning to. Those meals in the wine cellar give Chef Royal opportunities to demonstrate that he is an Iron Chef.

And one day I'm going to try the hamburger upstairs in the lounge.

I like Alton Brown's Roasted Edmame
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ro...

Only Burger - eaten there about four times and keep going back. Fries are good too.
Chirba Chirba - ate there once, they were good, but kept thinking how a full bag of Trader Joe's pork gyoza is $3.25 and I was paying so much more for a few dumplings only slightly better.

Try Halgo. I haven't been there in quite a while.
http://www.halgo-durham.com/

I think most everyone agrees the event was a huge success. I found it very easy to park beside the ball fields off Hunter Street with a short walk to the festival area.

I arrived just after 12:30PM Saturday. By then the organizers had distributed all of the free tickets to sample the competitors' foods. So I hung out with some friends who were competing in BBQ for the very first time and sampled their ribs, shoulder and brisket. They placed in the sauce judging, and about 2/3rds of the way down the pack of 30 entrants in the KCBS judging. Here are the judges' results.
http://www.kcbs.us/events.php?year=20...

A few random notes:
My friends were next to a team that came all the way from California to enter this event.
There are chicken and beef for those who do not intake swine.
This is not a whole hog Eastern Carolina style event.
For a first attempt at what planners hope to be an annual event, it was a tremendous success, but of course they saw ways to make future events better.
Next year I'll arrive well before organizers distribute the tasters' tickets.

Even if I used parchment I would not use the peel.

I might still use a bit of the zest, the yellow from the outermost part of the peel. But the white part of the peel, the pith, does not belong inside your fish packet.

For generations before we had air conditioning people did "store it on the stove top in a coffee can;" however, I keep mine in the fridge.

I think the bitterness on your fish was from the lemon peel. Yes the lemon will react with the aluminum, and yes parchment is better, but I bake fish with lemon in aluminum foil with good success.

I always cut the peel off the lemon, slice it, and pick out the seeds. I like to add a tablespoon or so of white wine as TeRReT does, and a tsp of butter. You can add matchstick cut vegetables like carrot, zucchini or whatever you like best, a few shrimp added in are always good. The main rule for cooking in packets is to season each component individually because there's no stirring as it cooks - just the vapors moving through the packet.

Thanks much to you all! I'll add some juicy tomato sauce to the top and work a knife and/or spatula around the edges and between the noodles to help the fresh liquid work its way down to the pasta where it's needed.

You know how I felt with my good sausage and cheeses and my cheap jarred sauce? I felt like a rube! A well-scrubbed hustling rube with a little taste. And a chewy dry lasagna.

Hannibal Lecter: You know what you look like to me, with your good bag and your cheap shoes? You look like a rube. A well scrubbed, hustling rube with a little taste. Good nutrition's given you some length of bone, but you're not more than one generation from poor white trash, are you, Agent Starling? And that accent you've tried so desperately to shed: pure West Virginia. What is your father, dear? Is he a coal miner? Does he stink of the lamp? You know how quickly the boys found you... all those tedious sticky fumblings in the back seats of cars... while you could only dream of getting out... getting anywhere... getting all the way to the FBI.
Clarice Starling: You see a lot, Doctor. But are you strong enough to point that high-powered perception at yourself? What about it? Why don't you - why don't you look at yourself and write down what you see? Or maybe you're afraid to.

I assembled two pans of lasagna this week. I did not precook the pasta. I put about two pounds of browned fresh sausage and ground beef into a jar of Prego. I put about a cup of chopped parsley from my front porch into the ricotta and egg mixture. Everything layered up beautifully. Cooked one pan the next day sealed with foil then added parm and mozzarella and baked just till the cheese melted.

Damn but it was dry.

I still have the second uncooked pan in the fridge. What can I do to improve it? Just put more juicy tomato sauce on top? Add water/wine? Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.