Month: May 2008

Last month, the Kitchen Sisters, who have their own show on NPR, did a segment on the Angola Rodeo called ‘Broncos and Boudin‘. Besides mentioning the rodeo itself, they discussed the food prepared and served for the guests: cracklins, pig tails, boiled peanuts, boudin balls, etouffee…

Part of the story mentioned a previous episode they had done about Robert “King” Wilkerson, who, after 29 years in solitary at Angola, was freed upon appeal in 2001. The Kitchen Sisters told about how Mr. Wilkerson made pralines in his cell, using tin cans for a stove, with ingredients he gathered from elsewhere. Now that he has been exonerated, Mr. Wilkerson sells his pralines, which he now calls “Freelines”.

The Kitchen Sisters say, “Wilkerson had made pralines two days before Hurricane Katrina hit, and gave all the candy away to the rescue workers helping trapped city residents evacuate in boats. When we met him, he just did not have the heart to make candy. But a few days before he left the Bay Area to return home to New Orleans, he made us a big batch of beautiful ‘freelines’.”

The recipe for Freelines is also on the Kitchen Sisters’ website, here.

Well, I just had to order some (the Freelines website is here). Av loves pralines and of course I do too. About a week and a half ago, I placed my order and they came in today, along with a personalized note from Mr. Wilkerson apologizing for them taking so long and letting me know that he included an extra bag for my patience (even though I never asked him about the order or anything!)

These are *huge* pralines…and delicious! Av and I shared one when he came in for lunch today. My recipe makes our favorite pralines, but really, these are the best ones I have ever had from anywhere else.

Tammy in Cuba, Alabama and I have been talking about Koolickles.

I had my first one at a Double Quick in Clarksdale, Mississippi back in November of 2006. It’s somehow become one of the most popular pics in my Flickr photostream (it’s #4 with 5000+ views, behind this wedding cake with 8000+, a Katrina sign with 6500+, and the Bryant store).

They’ve been written about in the NY Times and USA Today, but I had never made a batch, and once Tammy and I started talking about them, I figured it was time to finally make some.

I wanted to make them the traditional way (with regular dill pickles) and I also came up with an idea to try to make them completely different – using bread and butter pickles. My thinking was that since bread & butters are already sweet, the addition of Kool-Aid would only make them sweeter and maybe even yummier. Well…

I used the same method for both batches. I drained off the pickle juice into a colander, threw away any of the big spices or garlic pieces that got caught in the colander, then added sugar and Kool-Aid to the pickle juice.

The regular dills had about 2 cups of juice inside, so I used two Kool-Aid packets of cherry flavor and added the sugar for those batches. The bread and butter pickles had only about 1 cup of pickle juice, so to that I added one packet of cherry K-A and one packet’s amount of sugar that’s suggested.

Is it sounding yucky yet? Pickle juice and Kool-Aid is probably not something you automatically think of tasting good together.

Each day for the past week, I’ve taken one pickle out and tested it for taste and color, etc. I think that they are ready right at one week. A strange thing happens – after about the third or fourth day, the pickles start to look like they are shrinking. The Kool-Aid color starts getting further and further into the ‘meat’ of the pickle, too. At one week, you can really taste the Kool-Aid flavor and it’s a Koolickle:

Now, they’re really not for everybody. Some people *really* like them and there are a lot of people who really-really do not. I can go either way. I think I’m just as happy with a regular pickle (Av is a pickle snob and will only eat Claussen or Wickles, but I’m not and think best ones are served at high school football games – taken out of those huge jars with a pair of tongs and put in a pocket of foil). But anyway…

…those bread and butter pickles turned out great! They’re sweet and cherry-flavored and actually very nice! The only thing is, what’s the best way to serve them? They’ll need to be drained pretty well because cherry Kool-Aid will stain just about anything.

Would deviled eggs with tiny cubed pieces of b&b Koolikle (like relish) taste good or not? Not sure. But just straight out of the jar – one or two of them – yum.

The Wickles pickles that I mentioned above – they were created by a couple of brothers in Dadeville, Alabama that we visited with once (they’re super-nice). They started a line of pickles that are sweet and hot…sooooo good.

The other day when we were in West Blocton, we went to one of the places that’s been listed on the Alabama Places in Peril list…the Italian – Catholic cemetery.

What makes it so interesting is that the monuments are inscribed in Italian, and some of them have stories. This first one is of Nargiso Nucci:

It very roughly translated reads: “On the land of the extinct — the mortal remains of Nargiso Nucci of 52 years who died in Blocton, Alabama on July 7, 1908 after having suffered for 12 consecutive years on the altar of a painful disease. Death took him from those suffering, and the affection known for its kind quality leaves already his wife Adrietta and his seven children his enduring memory. Pray for his tomb.”

This one is for Elizabeth Castelli:

It translated reads something like this: “Here lie the ashes of poor deceased Elizabetha Castelli born in 1864 murdered at the young age of 36 years, robbed and killed by a murderer of the black race at 8am on December 15, 1902 leaving behind her husband and son, weeping and sobbing”.

This area of Alabama has coal mines all around, and this monument has the miner’s tools sculpted into it:

We subscribe to Alabama Heritage magazine, and in the last issue they asked for readers to send in pics of “story” monuments, so I sent the top two in. The editor wrote me that they’re putting together a web page for all of the ones they’ve received, so it should be interesting to see all the others!

(my original post about Mr. Wharton, with pics and video, is here)

Mr. Wharton received notice on April 25th from the city to appear in court for “unlawful storage of junk”.

I’ve gotten emails that people are organizing to help Mr. Wharton keep his yard/garden neat and tidy. And Felder Rushing, who I think the world of, paid Mr. Wharton a visit and was quoted as saying it was a “paradise garden” and that the art should be “celebrated” – *and* that he’s seen these kinds of issues between private citizens and local governments before and that “the city always loses”. A video of Felder in Mr. Wharton’s art garden is here.

One thing that is promising is that the director of the Department of Community Development (the dept. that started this whole business), Jerry Galloway, said that Mr. Wharton is not being summoned to court for his artwork, just his “scrap material” – which sounds a little different than what they have said in the past.

Thank you to *everyone* who has let me know that they did something – wrote a letter, sent an email, talked to someone.

Let’s keep this going so that the city stops harassing Mr. Wharton and instead does like other cities with artist environments and starts promoting visitors to come see the quirky, artsy, off-beat part of town that’s easy to love.

Tom Fitzmorris published his guide to Jazz Fest food, and one of the things on it that got three stars was a dish called ‘grilled chicken livers with pepper jelly’ being served by the Praline Connection.

I thought that sounded different, so I went to their website but there wasn’t really any better description than that so I decided to just make up my own way. I didn’t do the livers grilled – I actually made them into the simplest chopped liver, and since I wasn’t sure how they were served, I decided to make it into an appetizer by cutting rounds of baguette toasted, covered with a little hot pepper jelly, and topped with chopped liver. Wow did it ever turn out great!

Ingredients – this will make 15-20 appetizers:
2-1/2 lbs chicken livers
handful of white or yellow onion, chopped (I used vidalia)
salt
olive oil
hot pepper jelly
baguette

Directions:
First, I just sauteed my onions in a little olive oil, then added the (thoroughly washed) chicken livers and cooked on medium-high until they were done (added some salt here too). Drained off the liquid and poured the liver and onions into a bowl, then used my Braun hand mixer to chop it into a smooth consistency. Some serious ugly going on at this point:

I poured a little more olive oil into the skillet that the livers cooked in (so they would pick up a little of the liver/onion flavor that was left) and let them fry just a little so they would be toasty on one side:

They came out nice:

Then I covered the toast with sweet hot pepper jelly (I used Stonewall Kitchen brand):

…and finished by topping each piece with the chopped liver:

It’s not terribly photogenic but oh was it good! I’m definitely making these as appetizers for our next big supper with guests!