The people's voice of reason
The people's voice of reason
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Southern cuisine is known for its rich and flavorful dishes. It often includes high amounts of carbohydrates, fats, and sugars. This makes it a challenge for people with diabetes to find suitable options with Southern Cuisine. I have not dwelt on this subject very much in the past. However, there are plenty of delicious and healthy dishes that diabetics can enjoy. Here are some examples: 1. Grilled or roasted meats: grilled or roasted chicken, pork, beef, or fish can be a great source of...
I was scanning through some of my past articles searching for topics that I had mentioned in the past. The most obvious topic appears in the articles in the last two months of the year. What I had called the FOOD Months. The topic was Guests and Food. The time when your house has the most guests, friends and family. And the time when the largest meals are usually prepared and served. I have had a lot of pushback about trying new dishes and alternative cooking methods for Thanksgiving. This is...
It is that time of year! Harvesting your garden and picking fruit from your orchard and trading some of your excess with your neighbors for their excess vegetables and fruit. And do not forget the farmers markets. What clued me in to what I was going to write about was the bushel of pears my wife brought home from her sister’s farm. We are canning pear preserves and are up to 32 jars and should finish with about 50 plus. Tomatoes are plentiful and any dish that needs a tomato sauce in the r...
We just came back from my somewhat annual summer vacation to Ruidoso New Mexico. We went out to eat more than in the past and we cooked more than in the past and since we were celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary, there were meals prepared for my wife and I, by friends of ours. So, I'm changing the format of my article this month. I will have a description of a dish, the recipe and the picture. And I will have pictures of dishes with little about what is in it. At least not a full recipe. Th...
“As a Super Bowl commercial showed, people weren’t quite sure what to make of the items delivered in their Uber Eats orders, as they attempt to eat products ranging from a stick of deodorant to a tube of lipstick.” If you ordered deodorant and lipstick, no matter what else you ordered, if you can’t figure out which is which, then you should have someone else ordering for you. And have someone else open the packages for you. If you are ordering the items needed for these recipes from a web pag...
It was time for my yearly pilgrimage to Saint Francisville, Louisiana. It was time for the literary festival celebrating Walker Percy's life and works. There are lectures about “The movies of the Moviegoer” by Read Mercer Schuchardt, “The History and Culture of Barbecue.” with John Shelton Reed and “Walker Percy–A Personal History” by a friend of mine since college, Dave Duty and much more for any Walker Percy fan. And if you know anything about Walker Percy, there is always Crayfish and bourbon...
I just saw what the inflation rate is and what the rate is expected to rise to before the year is over. I did not have to read the newspaper or watch the news to tell me that everything is getting more expensive. I went to the grocery store to buy food to buy gas. I have not received a pay raise that would cover the extra that I must shell out to make up for the additional costs. But I do have a few tips that will ease the pain of higher costs. I have mentioned it before in other articles. The f...
Though this article is titled Southern Cuisine, I’m adding a subsection this week titled, Southern Weather. If you have not heard, we had a tornado go through Lowndesboro. Though I have not heard if it was straight line winds or a tornado, the outcome was the same. It hit late Wednesday night March 30 thru Thursday morning. And just like the stories you hear about the strange way that tornadoes act, this one came into town at Highway 80 and did most of the damage on the west side of Broad S...
I was surfing the web, looking for ideas for my next article. I came across several articles that caught my eye. They were articles written about the fast food restaurants that on the surface sounded like they are serving the standard fare for a typical fast food restaurant: hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, gumbo, biscuits and gravy, and grilled-cheese sandwiches. What caught my eye was that most of the descriptions of the food were missspelled. You could tell what they were trying to describe bu...
The recipes chosen for this issue were determined by the weather and age.. Last night was the coldest for the year. It is only February, so colder days could come back at anytime. Besides the weather, I wanted to continue with my theme of finding older recipes that I have ignored or how to prepare them has been lost. With all of the premade meals you can find in grocery stores and with the partial opening of restaurants, it is very easy to have a meal and not have to prepare it. And just the...
With the weather being cold and wet, I have been spending more time at home. So, every day the same question comes to my mind. What is a good meal to eat on a winter’s day? I have watched my share of cooking videos on my computer, my T.V., and my iPad. This makes a long list of meals to choose from. It is a long list, but not much in way of variety. Every article I read or video I watched has a soup or stew, or a dish that you serve in a 9 by 13 baking dish, or a list of things you can serve b...
I hope you and your family had a wonderful holiday and were able to celebrate Christmas with your loved ones. This time of year is all about tradition. With Covid still lingering, busy schedules, and just life in general, some families extend their get-togethers into the New Year. If you are like me, you have fond memories of baking pies, giving of presents, or having a meal with your friends and family. All of this demands planning to make Christmas a memorable event. Did you prepare the...
This is not a normal year. Covid19 has changed everything. You cannot take the same trips that you use to take. You cannot visit places you were planning to visit this year. You cannot buy things you use to buy. I am sure that the items I was planning to buy are on a container ship floating off the coast of California. You cannot eat the way you use to eat. I have noticed that the grocery stores have large empty shelves. I have found items that were not stocked before. I have found items that...
Every cook has a go-to cookbook for recipes but also as a resource for conversions, measure, and cooking guidelines. One of my resource books is The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. Since Thanksgiving is coming upon use, I thought I would answer some of the most asked questions about cooking your turkey according to America’s Test Kitchen. Guidelines: Start turkey in a 425-degree oven then finish at 325 degrees following these directions: For a 12-14 lb. turkey start at 425 for one hou...
What to do this weekend. Having a hard time deciding what to have for your next meal? Don't cook! This is the season when it is sometimes too warm to cook and too cold not to cook. So when it is just a lazy time and you can't make up your mind what to do, just don't cook. Instead of cooking, prepare a dinner or lunch that can be prepared without cooking. I am sure there are ingredients in your refrigerator that are cooked and can put together to create a meal. Be creative preparing a salad. And...
September is the bridge between summer and the start of fall, which is September 22. I can remember some hot Septembers. This is the time when the gardens around Alabama are at their peak in producing the fruits and vegetables that we had planted earlier in the year. The gardeners have been watering, weeding and trying to keep the deer from eating everything down to sticks in the ground. I say this with the voice of experience. All of my okra looked like I planted small sections of a bamboo fish...
“From the land of Poka-sheen where anything that isn't Bone is no fosh.” That line, in Portuguese, is the description of the Azores on the cover of the Cornerstone CookBook printed at Lajes Field, Azores in1956. I just got the cookbook from my sister. She kept it because our mother has a recipe in it. There is also a connection in the cookbook to a column in the San Antonio Express-News, by Karen Hiram, called “Recipe Find.” Readers write in asking for recipes of something they ate at a restaur...
Currently, Chef Spooner is tending to family matters, so we are happy to include some previous favorites he submitted to the Gazette. With summer heating up and the recent July Fourth celebrations, consider a light, cool salad for a satisfying meal or, if a salad isn't enough, try Chef Spooner's suggestions below to add some substance to that crisp lettuce ... create one of his other tasty recipes found here! -------------------- From May 2018 Southern Cuisine and Chef Spooner: Salads do not f...
Finally! It seems that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and it is not an oncoming train. The mandatory restrictions concerning masks has faded. Restaurants are trying to re-open even with the limited pool of workers to fill the jobs. Prices for food have started to increase in the grocery stores. The health news might be getting better but the general cost of living is increasing. Now is the time to bring your household expenses under control. Did you know that the third largest househo...
April lived up to the adage, “April showers will bring May flowers,” at least the shower part. I have been trying to do more yard work and re-design my garden. When I have time from work to start on my new garden, it rains. The upside of the rain, is my garden will have a good start in moist soil. Another plus is I have more time to catch up on my binge watching of my favorite shows. The downside is I spend way too much time binge watching cooking shows which produces downloads of recipes to...
There is a glimmer of hope on the horizon. With improved numbers pertaining to the pandemic, people are now feeling safer and are tired of the restrictions that were placed on restaurants and even family gatherings. There is hope that the restaurants we missed for the past months will start back. Even new restaurants should open with fare that the chefs have been developing, waiting for their turn to shine. Families are getting tired being cooped up in their homes and will visit missed...
I was reading about Southern cooking traditions, the standards that define a Southern kitchen and a Southern cook and realized that the knowledge on how to fix these staples, these meals, these time tested dishes, is slowly passing away. It is becoming a lost art in homes everywhere in America, not just the South, where the children are not learning the basics of cooking, let alone, the traditional meals that bind generations. You have seen lists before; those that tell that you, you have lost...
Here is February, the Canned Food Month, National Cook A Sweet Potato Day, the Return Shopping Carts to the Supermarket Month, and the Hot Breakfast Month. With these month-long celebrations there is Oatmeal Monday, the second Monday of February, and the 3rd weekend of February is National Margarita 2eekend. Then Super Bowl Sunday is National Pork Rind Day (aka National Pork Rind Appreciation Day). Have you figured out why I have mentioned all these holidays? You are right –except for r...
Hooray, the year 2020 is over! No one thought that 2020 would end up like it did. They are now looking forward to 2021. But we do not know how 2021 will turn out. No matter how 2021 progresses, we have learned a lot about making do with a different set of circumstances, different rules, and different ways that we interact with each other. The food industry has gone through tough times. How we obtain food, either in the grocery stores or at restaurants, has changed a great deal. We have lost the...
Last month I said that by the time you read the November article we may or may not know who is going to be the President of the United States. It is still a matter of discussion, but it looks like we will know who it is by the time you read this article. The topic of discussion I hear mostly is that will this year never end! I think that we are ready to start a new year that is less stressful, less unknowing, and less chaotic. If you noticed the Christmas decorations and gifts were for sell in...
