Outside the dugout: What's cooking?

It was supposed to have showers and thunderstorms in Gainesville today.

But it didn't so I had to mow my front yard.

Yesterday it started raining after I mowed the back yard.

 

Mine needs a lot of tending that I have not been keeping up with. I have Boston fern that has gone viral and lots of sabal palms that need to be dug up.

And kaempferia pulchra (peacock ginger)
that has gone out of bounds. It is a lovely ginger. Maybe I could have some local nursery dig a lot out for free.

 

Extra cooking today.

My youngest son's best friend since kindergarden's father passed and I am smoking two chickens for the family and giving up half of the yellow rice pilaf as I always make a huge batch. My wife made ham salad and my MIL baked a cake.

Food to be delivered to his (deceased father's) mother's house.

My oldest son knew him very well as he was the dad that did the most for marching band and my son was in that.

 

Food is so important. It binds people together.

My very best friend in Gainesville was my bike riding buddy. In his youth he was a domestic pro bike racer. For years we rode with a young team that we mentored on Sundays when there wasn't a race, we rode the local "hammerhead ride" that had national level riders and even guys that were at the highest level of the sport, but twice a week we rode the local rail trail and shot the chit.

Then he was diagnosed with a blastoma. That is the same brain cancer that John McCain had.

Most of his friends took him to lunch.

I also did that with a walk.

While I walked with him several times per week because with his brain impairment he could not ride, I made him dinners.

I knew what he liked and I made it.

I found out later that he really wasn't divorced and his actual wife thanked me.

She said that nobody else cooked him the food that he liked.

 

Depends.

It is a lot like wine.

I don't ever want to taste wagyu beef because I know that I will love it and cannot afford it.

 

I like a lot about Asian cooking in that the meat is just a small part of the dish and not the main taste. That is sound nutrition in that it helps with accessing iron from vegetables (like spinach).

 

Made the toppings for the carnitas tacos: diced onion, cubed avocado with lime juice, diced radish, cabbage, finely chopped cilantro and one you might not have heard of. Pickled red onion. It is a great topping from the Yucatan.

 

Tonight is grouper with a macadamia nut, panko and cilantro crust, sautéed rapini, and rice.

 

Rapini is also called broccoli rabe. It is to Italian cooking what greens are to Southern cooking. I blanch them and then sauté in olive oil and a tiny bit of red pepper flakes. It is slightly bitter to balance out the sweetness of the grouper. If you need to cut the bitterness a bit you can use some lemon juice when sautéing.

Panko is Japanese bread crumbs. They are light and flakey and less heavy than regular bread crumbs. It is what is used for tempura.

Cilantro is coriander leaves and is a staple in Mexican and South Asian cuisine. Warning: Some people think that it tastes like soap.

Of course the grouper crust has a lot of butter in it. Everything tastes better with a lot of butter.

Or bacon.

Never tried butter and bacon together, though.

That might need a side of Lipitor.

 

Minor update to the dinner plans. My wife requested the rice to be made with some datil peppers.

Datil peppers are the same species as habaneros and Scotch bonnets and have been part of the St Augustine cuisine since forever. Similar heat, but a more pronounced citrus flavor. So just a few in the mix.