By Sherman Shifflett   Not long before Mom passed away in 2003, I asked for some of her recipes. She replied, "I don't have no recipes. I just throw stuff together".  Then it dawned on me that I had never seen her measure anything, but I remember some of the things she did. Mom put a pinch of sugar in everything she cooked: A pinch of sugar in boiled potatoes; a pinch of sugar in … [Read more...]

Farm raised Tilapia is fast becoming one of the most popular denizens in various seafood market counters in the United States. People enjoy the mild flavor of the fish and the fact that it is a sustainable resource, taking pressure off of many threatened, wild caught species. Tilapia is also relatively inexpensive. It was $4.99 a pound at Kroger’s last week, which drew my attention. This would … [Read more...]

Lake Anna Fish are turning on at Lake Anna. In the Big Fish contest at Anna Point, Mike Harper has a 1-8 crappie; Tom Lernihan has a 7-4 striper and Jeremy Cash put an 8-1 largemouth on the scales. During a 3-19 tournament, Ken Pressley and Mike Hicks combined for an impressive limit of bass totaling 24.61. The big’un went 7.51. Crappie are making their move to shallow water and many are … [Read more...]

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...]