Sometimes it’s fun to just wing it when it comes time to cook. Not everything has to go by a recipe, you know. Sometimes you can just use what’cha got. A couple nights ago we were having barbeque chicken, and by the way, I never make my Carolina barbeque sauce the same way twice. Some batches are better than others, but they’re always good. I decided I wanted some potatoes, maybe a casserole … [Read more...]

The longer I cook, the more I begin to understand that salt is not just salt, sodium chloride, NaCl. It is a vital and unique ingredient in almost everything we cook. I have also come to realize that’s it’s hard to put too much salt (and pepper) on meats. If a guest reaches for a saltshaker, you have not used enough salt, or perhaps you didn’t use the correct type of salt. So which salt to use? … [Read more...]

Often, the right sauce is the perfect compliment to the meat entrée. Such is the case with filet mignon, or beef tenderloin. Since a beef tenderloin is the leanest of the prime steak cuts, and lacks fat, which gives beef its flavor, a good sauce can make this tender cut of beef come alive. Recently we enjoyed cooking an entire tenderloin for guests and I came up with a simple sauce that was, I … [Read more...]

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...]