The Game Department is hard at work, stocking trout in all the appropriate mountain streams and lakes, and fishermen are having early success. That means stocked trout will be welcomed guests at numerous dining room tables, which is good and bad. The bad part is that stocked trout are lacking in flavor, and any flavor they may have tastes like fish food pellets, not crawfish. Hatchery trout spend … [Read more...]

On a trip to the grocery store last week, I had in mind a Boston Butt pork roast, cooked all day at a low oven setting. My fellow foodie, Terry Tigner, wrote about that method of cooking in one of my first CvilleBuzz issues last winter. I saw a decent Boston Butt (which isn’t a butt at all, but rather a pork shoulder) but right beside it was a fresh picnic ham that had just been … [Read more...]

Perfect Potato Wedges By Jimmie Brewer   On a recent trip to Atlanta to see my son Jimmie and his family, the Atlanta Brewers served us salmon in caper sauce along with potato wedges. The salmon was delicious but the potato wedges were truly remarkable, so much so that I asked for the recipe. It’s not often that you ask for a potato wedge recipe, but these were special. I have had … [Read more...]

The pork tenderloin is the most tender of all cuts. It is the filet mignon of pork. Yet, it is one of the most value-priced cuts of meat there is. There is absolutely no waste, it’s lean and nutritious and it’s very inexpensive, about $5 a pound. But I rarely buy it. For some reason, I have been unable to cook and serve pork tenderloin that I considered a knockout dish. I have tried all sorts … [Read more...]

By James Friend Dickerson   We love cooking at Kamp Karen, our family getaway. Oysters are and remain one of our favorite foods. We eat them grilled, steamed, fried, sautéed, stewed and yes, sometimes we eat them raw. We particularly like Rose Bay and Belhaven, NC or Chincoteague, VA oysters.  For New Years Eve, my wife Karen and I shared kitchen duties. We feasted on Angus steak … [Read more...]

Greg Leffler and I were fortunate enough to bag a few geese over New Year’s and we divvied up the harvest. By the way, we fileted the breasts and discarded the legs. Still, cooking a goose so that it’s edible is sometimes a challenge, but Greg and his wife Leah came up with what sounds to be a terrific recipe. They both said it was excellent. Here’s how they did their version of Crockpot … [Read more...]

Not everything I cook turns out as an award winning “Chopped Champion. In fact, I have experienced a number of disasters in and around the kitchen. It’s just that I don’t write about those very often. Today, however, is a confessional. This is a recipe for “How Not To” cook Blackened Quail. I had a few quail in the freezer from a prior hunt on a Virginia game preserve and I wanted to try a … [Read more...]

How in Sam Hill do you fry a turkey – or anything for that matter – without oil? I was about to find out. For Christmas, my daughter Angelin and her husband, Brent, gave me a Big Easy Oil-less Turkey Fryer from Char-Broil. They knew how much I love to deep-fry a turkey, Cajun style, and that was my main present from my generous Greensboro family. The day after Christmas, we decided to check it … [Read more...]

The more chicken you eat, the easier it ease to lose weight, so we eat a lot of chicken in our house. Trouble is, you soon run out of ways to prepare the tasty fowls, so I am always on the lookout for new and improved recipes. Not long ago, I was rummaging though the grocery aisles with the spices and flours and saw a breading called Mama’s Seasoned Coating Mix. I bought it not knowing exactly how … [Read more...]

One of the hardest parts of the daily duties of being a home chef is not preparing the main course or even the dessert. It’s what to do with the vegetables. We get in a rut, or at least I do: green beans, broccoli, brussel sprouts, tossed salad, zucchini, lima beans, and then repeat. My daughter Laura introduced me to one of her go-to veggies – roasted radishes. It’s a colorful, tasty and … [Read more...]