Twice, I've asked a native New Orleanian woman what her family's favorite thing that she cooked was, and been pleasantly surprised by hearing an answer that I'd never heard before in my short, sheltered life.  The first was "rice and gravy," and the second was "chicken and butter beans."  My road to understanding rice and gravy was a winding one, but I think I've got it down (I wrote about that experience for the Southern Food & Beverage Museum, which you can find a link to on my "Elsewhere" page).

Chicken and butter beans was something altogether different; I didn't even know what a butter bean was.  Lynn Becnel, whom I worked with at Tulane, said it was her husband's favorite dish of all.  I was eager to try it, and found some freshly packaged butter beans at a local vegetable stand.  I know my way around a bean, so I did what I always do with dry beans: I soaked them.  Take note here that butter beans don't need soaking.  You can do it, but you'll end up with a bunch of white beans shedding their tender skins as if it were molting season.  You'll also probably stand there over the bowl, wondering if you're supposed to help them by popping off the skins of those who still have them.  That's what I did.  Let's just say my beans disintegrated in the pot!

Now I've learned, through trial, error, and some good advice from Lynn, that you just don't cook butter beans very long (and certainly don't soak them).  They're tender, rich, and creamy--a perfect starchy addition to smothered chicken.  Smothered chicken is basically a chicken fricasee with some extra vegetables added, along with stock, to produce a thick gravy.  In other words, it's like a big group hug.  I jazzed this one up with a good dose of Tabasco Green Sauce, which is probably not as spicy as you think.  The Tabasco gives the whole works a shake up, like drunk aunt Mimi on Treme.  All group hugs should have one of those.

spicy smothered chicken and butter beans

This is especially good over biscuits, with a side of sliced red garden tomatoes.  You can also add chopped fresh tomatoes to the gravy in the skillet, if you like.

• 1 whole chicken, cut up into 8 serving pieces
• 1/3 cup Tabasco Green Pepper Sauce, plus 2 Tablespoons

• 1 cup dried butter beans (large limas), rinsed and sorted (or 1 15-oz can butter beans, drained)
• 1 bay leaf

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper, plus more to taste
• 3 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 stalks celery, thinly sliced
• 1 green bell pepper, diced small
• 1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme (or 2 sprigs fresh)
• 1 1/2 cups chicken stock
• 1/2 cup minced parsley

1. Marinate the chicken: Rinse the chicken pieces, pat them dry, and place in a large bowl.  Add 1/3 cup Tabasco Green Pepper Sauce and turn the pieces around in it to coat well.  Cover and refrigerate for 20 minutes, while you get the beans cooking.
2. Meanwhile, cook the butter beans: Place the beans and bay leaf in a medium saucepan and cover with water by 4 inches.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, for 40 to 50 minutes, until the beans are very tender when tested (the skins will pucker up and look frilly at first, but will stretch and relax as they cook). Drain and set aside.
3. While the beans are cooking, remove the chicken from the refrigerator.  Combine the flour, salt, and pepper in a bowl.   Lightly coat each chicken piece in the seasoned flour.
4. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet with deep sides over medium-high heat.  Add half the chicken and cook until browned on both sides, about 10 minutes per batch.  Remove chicken to a plate and repeat until all the chicken is browned.
5. To the same skillet, add the onions, celery, and bell pepper (add extra oil if the skillet is dry), and saute for 5 to 7 minutes, until softened.  Add the jalapeno, garlic, and thyme, and saute another minute or two.
6. Add the chicken stock and 2 Tablespoons Tabasco Green Sauce, and combine well.  Nestle the chicken pieces back into the skillet, skin side-up, and bring the liquid to a boil.  Reduce heat to a simmer and partially cover; simmer for 30 minutes.
7. Add the reserved butter beans to the skillet, replace partial cover, and simmer another 10 to 15 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and the gravy is thick.  Taste for seasoning and add more salt, pepper, or Tabasco Green if necessary (I added about a teaspoon more salt). Serve hot, sprinkled with parsley.

serves 6 to 8

Disclaimer: Tabasco compensated me for creating this recipe.

Do you remember the eggplant at Liuzza's I wrote about a while back, the eggplant I said was like eating eggplant dreams? Well, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.  We've been back to Liuzza's no less than four times in the past weeks just for the eggplant (of course, we stay for more).  I really wanted to replicate it with this fried eggplant, though that's not quite what happened. But what did happen was something mighty delicious.

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Hopefully, in about 48 hours when the floods have subsided, we'll head out for a picnic.  We'll pack up some fried chicken or buy some crawfish or pick up a coupla po-boys, but whatever the food is, we'll grab some shade to enjoy a few hours of the last precious non-heatstroke-inducing sunny days in New Orleans.  Gosh, I sure hope this rain stops soon!

Fried chicken has got to be the quintessential picnic food, and all over the country, too--not just the south.  Everybody loves it, it travels well, it's easy to eat out of hand, and it's usually really, really good.  When I get a hankering to fry up some chicken, Paul does his happy dance and begs for me to fry about 30 chickens.  He could probably eat it all!  We've tried lots of recipes over the years, but I recently unearthed a couple of tricks (read: secrets) that help it come out pretty heavenly and super duper crispy:

1. Dredge your chicken dry-wet-dry, and put an egg yolk in the wet batter.  True!
2. After frying, bake all the chicken at 350 for about 40 minutes, so you won't bite into any undercooked pieces. It's true! This is Ina Garten's method, and it saves me all kinds of grief.

When it comes to seasoning the dry flour and the wet batter, there are no rules.  You can make it garlicky, herby, extra extra spicy, or even...mustardy?  Try anything!  I'm always happier with my chicken when I'm afraid I've overseasoned the flour, so I would advise you to just go for it.  GO FOR IT.  You might just have the most heavenly picnic in history.

extra-crispy fried chicken

for the wet batter

• 1 cup flat beer (or water)
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• lots of ground black pepper
• several shots of Tabasco

for the dry flour

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (or to taste)
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder (or to taste)
• 2 teaspoons salt
• lots of ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or to taste)

• 3 1/2 pounds bone-in chicken parts (I used 6 drumsticks and 4 thighs)
• several cups of vegetable oil for frying

1. Preheat the oven to 350, and set a baking rack over a sheet pan to hold the chicken once it's fried.
2. Make the wet batter: Combine the beer and egg yolk well in a small bowl.  Combine the flour, salt, pepper, and Tabasco in a medium bowl, whisking well.  Slowly pour the beer mixture into the flour mixture, stirring thoroughly to remove any flour lumps.  (If this mixture gets too thick from sitting out, thin with a tablespoon of water.)
3. Make the dry flour: Combine all the ingredients, whisking well, and divide between two medium bowls (one bowl will be for the wet chicken).
4. Heat 1" of vegetable oil to 365 in a medium to large pot (I use an 8-quart pot) with high sides.  If you don't have a frying thermometer (I don't), test the oil by dropping in a crouton-sized piece of bread--any old bread will do.  If it starts sizzling immediately and turning into an actual crouton, it's good to go.  If not, it's not hot enough--or it's too hot if the bread starts to burn right away.
5. While the oil heats, rinse and pat dry the chicken pieces. If you like, you can season the naked chicken first, with salt, pepper, cayenne, or what have you.  Dredge the chicken first in dry flour, then in wet batter, then in the other bowl of dry flour.  Set aside until ready to fry.
6. Add chicken to the hot oil in batches to avoid overcrowding; I fry 4 pieces at a time.  Fry for about 15 minutes per batch, turning over after 8 minutes, until golden brown and crispy.  Remove to the baking rack and let rest while you fry the other batches.
7. When all the chicken is fried and on the baking rack, place the baking sheet in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the juices run clear when a thigh is pierced with a knife.  Let cool about 5 minutes before eating.
8. See? I told you it was crispy!

Makes 8 to 10 pieces, serves 4

P.S.: Even with this amount of Tabasco and cayenne, the chicken wasn't too spicy.  So if you want red-hot chicken, I would definitely increase those amounts!

Nothing beats a good bowl of gumbo, ever. A few weeks ago, when we were traveling to Oklahoma for Christmas, I asked Paul what his favorite thing to eat in New Orleans was. I was thinking that my personal favorite was a seafood po-boy, but Paul answered without a second of hesitation, "Gumbo." It's true that our city is the best at making gumbo. There's nothing quite like it for the combination of comfort, soul-edifying flavor, and use of traditional ingredients that it offers. It's taken a long time for me to post a recipe for gumbo on this site, and it's with good reason. We've been making gumbo for years and have tried all sorts of approaches, but we've got a good one here that's sure to please. When you make gumbo, make a big pot and don't take any shortcuts. It's worth it; your New Orleans soul will thank you.

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Yesterday I read a great article on alternet.org that my friend Meredith highlighted on her blog, The Boiled Down Juice: it's called Compost Cuisine, and it's full of really interesting ways that a few chefs in California are using "whole vegetables" in the same way other chefs use whole animals, or in other words, using all parts of the animal, from head to tail.  They're doing things like stuffing squash stems and slow-cooking kale stems until they're soft like pasta, and reducing lemon and carrot peels into flavor-packed "ash" in the oven.  I don't know if I'm up to ashing my vegetable peelings, but it's fun to see what possibilities there are in cooking things that we would otherwise throw out, or if we're more sustainability-minded, throw in the compost pail.  It's good to find creative, delicious ways to use up what's old.

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[sweet potato grits and deviled chicken thighs]

My name is Jennifer, and I am a cookbook junkie.  Recently our library underwent a complete cleaning, reorganization, and shelf-ification, and a few discoveries were made: Paul and I have duplicate copies of many things.  We don't have much in the science genre.  And I have approximately 250 cookbooks.  Cookbook collecting is definitely a habit for me, and reflects my evolution as a cook.  Consider the first cookbook I ever bought, The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, in 1991.  I had my first apartment at O.U., and though I wasn't a vegetarian, I was deathly afraid of poisoning myself by preparing meat improperly; thus began a long period of collecting vegetarian books.  Or my long-lived low-fat obsession, punctuated every Christmas with the latest Cooking Light yearbook. Thankfully, Cooking Light has lessened its low-fat strictures somewhat and is more about well-balanced eating, so I still follow it.  And in recent years, my focus has been Louisiana and Southern cooking, resulting in enough volumes to fill an entire shelf.  The latest purchase, Basic to Brilliant, Y'all, by Virginia Willis, is a great collection of Southern-based recipes with solid cooking techniques built in to each recipe (Willis is classically trained).  It joins the ranks of my favorite cookbooks that actually teach you how to change the recipes into something else, which is equivalent, in my mind, to a private cooking lesson (How To Cook Without a Book, The Art of Simple Food, and In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite are similar books).

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Most of us have a soft spot for good old macaroni and cheese, and personal preference usually depends on what we grew up eating at potlucks, church dinners, or our grandmother's table.  Some folks insist on American cheese being the only cheese that can meld with macaroni, and some profess a strong affinity for a crispy breadcrumb topping that crunches up in the oven.  Me?  I'm a pretty straightforward, white-sauce-meets-pasta kind of gal, though I'll put just about any kind of cheese into the sauce (anything that grates, anyway--no brie or fresh mozzarella).  I like an extra layer of cheese over the top, and I've developed a tendency to add a dollop of grainy Creole mustard to the sauce before I stir in the macaroni; it sparks the sauce a little bit, just the way I like it.

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Jot this down in your travel notebook, your vacation planner, your dream journal, or last year's Jazz Fest ticket: reserve a table for Sunday brunch at Patois next time in New Orleans.  If you're into local, good, and hidden, Patois is your dream spot.  The brunch menu (not to mention the dinner version) is so good, you'll spend about 15 minutes deciding what to order while you're nibbling the biscuits and muffins from the bread bowl.  We looked over many brunch menus before deciding to meet up at Patois, and I think it was one of the best brunches we've had in the city.

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Soup weather, a.k.a. my favorite season, has arrived! Once the high dips below 90 for several days in a row, I consider it official. There are so many delectable soups to rustle up and dig into, though, and it's really hard for me, as a devoted soupster, to choose which to make first. This year, I settled on minestrone for its calming, vegetableish effects, but I had an ulterior motive...I wanted to try frying some chickpeas, and I decided they'd come in handy as a crunchy crouton for the soup. I'd planned to include chickpeas in my minestrone, so what could be easier than reserving a few chickpeas from the can and frying them up?

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Because New Orleans (and all of Louisiana) is such a melting pot, and because Cajun and Creole dishes often have similar roots, including French, Spanish, Italian, African, Haitian, Cuban, German, and Native American, some of the distinctions between what's Creole food and what's Cajun food can be hard to make. In his book My New Orleans, chef John Besh explains that Creole gumbo pays tribute to a "rich variety of cultures and ingredients, whereas Cajun gumbo evolved as the essence of peasant food, a way to feed a large number of people making the very best of whatever meager ingredients were at hand," and John Folse's Encyclopedia of Cajun & Creole Cuisine extolls Creole cuisine as a "more sophisticated cousin" to Cajun cooking. Explanations like these work perfectly when comparing elegant Creole dishes to rustic cast-iron Cajun stews, but the waters grow murkier near a pot of jambalaya.

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