A Cooking Basic: Cornbread

If you live in the south, cornbread is most likely a staple of your diet. Not that they don't eat cornbread up north - they do - it just seems to be more popular down here.

And, there are about as many cornbread recipes - and opinions about what cornbread should taste like - as there are people in the south. So, I offer this little post to demonstrate the basics about cornbread - not to issue myself as an expert on the subject, or to even say this is the RIGHT way.

For example, this recipe uses white corn meal. To some people I have just committed a grave error. And, this recipe has NO sugar. Another foul to some. Also, this cornbread is made in a round cake shape - not muffins. Sacrilege to many. This recipe is a coarse bread - you can really taste the meal in it. Some people prefer their cornbread to be more like cake. I say live and let live. What's more, I would never put milk of any kind over my cornbread. I'm just not gonna do it.

But, since the "how to string a guitar" post was so popular, (and I use that term popular loosely) I thought I'd try to work in a few more "how to" posts. And, people, I don't know enough about much to do a "how to" post on just anything. But, I do know how to cook. So, I thought a few posts about cooking basics might be interesting. If you're a master chef or even an occasional cook, this will be totally boring for you. However, if you like to learn cooking basics then you've come to the right place today. And if you don't, well, maybe you'll like the pictures. Or, come back tomorrow. I'll certainly have changed the subject by then.

So, here we go. This recipe is the one S's family makes. That's the way S likes it, so we use this recipe. That said, it has all the basics of a good cornbread recipe, minus the aforementioned personal preferences. I'm going to call it Anna's Cornbread because Anna, S's grandmother, is where S thinks the recipe originated. Whether this is true or not or just family lore, she's getting credit today on Ate Up Amateur.

Anna's Cornbread

1 1/2 cups white corn meal
1/2 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
Some cooking oil

If you're a novice looking to cook more, one thing you can do is take a basic recipe like this one, and change it up - add more baking powder to see it rise, sift the ingredients for a different texture, by all means add sugar if you like it. And, see what happens. It's science people - like little science experiments. And you just might like the outcome.

So here we go. The first thing you do is preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Then, you get out your cast iron skillet. Cast iron seems to be important to this recipe - I've baked it in a glass loaf pan and other containers and S says it doesn't taste as good. It probably crisps up pretty good in the cast iron, if nothing else. Anyway, you put some oil - a two inch circle, maybe, or less, in the bottom of a cast iron skillet, and you put that skillet into the oven while it's preheating. This allows the oil to become more viscous and cover the entire bottom of the pan. Note to you - should you try to photograph this action, do a better job than I did. Two blurry photos. Geez.

Then you measure out your white corn meal and your flour and put it in the mixing bowl.

Then follow suit with these. And give it all a toss.
(That means mix it together.)


Some action shots of adding the salt...fancy.

Next comes the wet ingredients.
Egg and buttermilk.

There's another variation. Sometimes people use "sweet" milk for their cornbread. I will have you know there is no such thing around our house as cornbread made with anything but buttermilk. But, to each his own!

Then mix the ingredients together with a spoon (or a whisk - S likes to use a whisk. I don't see the need.) When it's ready to go in the skillet, it will look like that bottom photo.



Take your skillet out of the oven. That oil will now be good and hot. You can swirl it all over the bottom of the skillet. Spoon the cornbread batter into the hot oil - check out that sizzle? Use the spoon to spread the batter (dough?) out all over the bottom of the pan.

Return the skillet to the oven and bake at 450 degrees for 20 minutes.

Then go read something. Or cook something on the stove. Or feed the dogs or practice your guitar. Do something for twenty minutes. It'll bake without you looking or doing one thing to help it along. If you're feeding S, you'll slice up your potatoes and get them into the skillet to fry. Somehow, in S's head, cornbread must be accompanied by fried potatoes.

Ding! 20 minutes later, browned cornbread goodness. Amen.

Left-top. Right-bottom.
The bottom gets browner because of that oil.

Then cut it up and serve it with some butter. Or ketchup, or navy beans. Or ham. Pick your poison.

Another S oddity is pictured above - he CUTS OFF the BEST PART - ala the blueberry muffins with no blueberries in them - and leaves the crunchy bottom to languish in the pan. Strange man. But I love him, so more power to him. Keep on, baby.

So, there you go. If you're a cornbread novice, try it out. If you just want to try a new cornbread recipe, go ahead. Or, come back tomorrow and I'll talk about something else. See you then.

Vienna

It was a cold, windy, rainy day the day we had some free time in Vienna. It was probably some of the coldest, wettest weather we experienced while in Europe. It was also a Sunday, which meant the churches were otherwise occupied and not readily available for heathens like us and nothing - virtually nothing - else was open. The stores and some museums close on Sundays in most of Europe. And, good for them. Unless, of course, you are a tourist on your only day in Vienna. Then, it does limit your options.

I should say the night before our walk through Vienna, we did walk over to the famous Sacher Hotel and shared a piece of Sachertorte. After they made us "check" my sweatshirt jacket in the cloak room, we sat down in a very Viennese like room and were served. We were unimpressed. Perhaps we don't have a discriminating palate. It just tasted like stale chocolate cake to us. The coffee was good, though.

There were a couple of really well done tourism books in our hotel room. So, we decided to walk to the St. Stephens Cathedral and see what we could see, go to the Mozart House Museum, walk through the palace area and past the opera house near our hotel. Then, we planned to take a tram out to the big city cemetery to visit the graves of some of the world's most famous classical composers, (Beethoven, Brahms, Schoenberg, Strauss, etc) who are all conveniently buried next to one another.

First stop - St. Stephen's Cathedral

The cathedral is under reconstruction - it's porous limestone exterior requires a lot of upkeep. I do like the marketing on the construction sign - "Our St. Stephens Cathedral" as in Vienna's - not just the parishioners. It is of course an historic building, built on top of two former churches, and home to a congregation that stretches back to 1147.

I was struck, especially on the exterior, by the tile roof and how "Eastern European" it looked - as much as the Austrians don't like to be associated with the Hungarians, they are intertwined, whether they like it or want to ever admit it.

Mass was just finishing as we arrived.
They have a barrier to keep the heathens (tourists) out.
The priest blessed us as he went by. (God save their souls.)

When the parishioners went in for the next Mass, I followed them to take a few quick shots of the space before the next Mass began. It, too is a very impressive cathedral and houses a great many interesting antiquities. And, some dead people too. Every Catholic church needs it's share of dead people, no?



This lady right here - the one with the tan coat on and the fuzzy purple hat - she was none to impressed with me. She gave me all I needed to know by the look she rendered on me as she passed. "Filthy heathen tourist who is in my way and totally disrespecting my Sunday Mass experience." Yes, ma'am. That's all true. But, you see, it's my only day in Vienna, so please excuse me. I wish I would have captured the look I got. It was priceless.

I was struck by the different styles present all in the same place.

There was a medieval/renaissance altar, a baroque altar, and a Gothic pulpit. I also noticed, because we were there during Lent, the purple drape at the back of the main altar area - I figured there was a big crucifix back there, all covered up. From what I can find, though, it was just another old altar...not sure the "ruling" on all of that. I mean, that neo-classical crucifix was in plain view.

After the church - after they ushered us on out of there for the next Mass to begin - we tried to head to Mozart's house. This took some doing - it's sort of hard to find, and the map only gives you a vague idea of where the entrance might be. It is behind the cathedral, up a couple of small streets, on the back side of the main thruway. The museum did not allow you to take photos. It was a thorough accounting of Mozart's life in Vienna, and out of the 9 or so apartments where he lived, this is the only one still in tact. He lived there for two and a half years and produced a number of important works during this time, including Marriage of Figaro. The exhibits were well done and extensive. It was so much information that when we finished, we were exhausted, really. Interesting and exhausting.

Mozart is well loved in Vienna, as indicated by this homage, and by all the crappy souvenirs they sell with his likeness emblazoned on them! I was thinking of trying the yellow treble clef thing in my front yard. I'm sure S will mow around it and the neighbors will love it.

While walking through the streets of Vienna, we saw these two monuments to famous people with Viennese ties - the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler's likeness was on the outside of the Vienna Konzerthaus, and the statue to German poet Goethe (a little more peculiar and not connected to Vienna, at least as I can find) was on the road between the palace area and the opera house. Goethe has certainly had better days - it looked like someone had affixed some paper to his face on the day we were there...poor guy.

The weather didn't let on, but spring was around the corner.
Look at those buds on the trees?
And, I found the gates to be very beautiful.

In general, I found Vienna to be an architecturally interesting place, as witnessed by the photo montage above, but hard to enjoy in the weather. Additionally, I'd say the people are not too friendly - they are all (generally speaking) sort of "stuck up". Besides the history and grandeur of the surroundings, I'm not sure I need to return to the city. Perhaps I need to give it another try in better weather.

I like this photo of S and the overcast light coming in.

Here's another example of the great gates Vienna sports throughout.

I tried to use it for some interesting photos.
I'm not sure I captured what I was going for.

These are the "outtakes" of our "self-portrait" photo shoot.
We were in the palace area.
Can't you tell?

One more thing about that palace area - it's all museums and government buildings now. But, man oh man - I can see why the people revolted - what opulence! I'm not a communist or anything, but geez, this place was OVER the TOP.

A funny shot - an ad for a "Vienna Soul" station.
Apparently, Vienna Soul listeners speak English.

After we walked that area, we ate at this perfectly lovely Italian restaurant near our hotel. After several days in the Germanic countries and some really strange meals, we were sort of both over the schnitzel, if you know what I mean. This place was delicious. I will say, when we were in Italy, I got sick of Italian food. It's just that I guess we're used to variety here in the ol' US of A. For dessert, S ordered an orange sorbet. He wanted a photo of it, because it was served in a frozen orange shell and he thinks he'd like to do that here at our house when we have guests over sometime. If you're coming over, don't hold your breath. The photo of me - I was not upset - I was just cold and tired. And, so was S. So, instead of heading out on the tram to the cemetery where we could stand in the rain again, we went back to the hotel and took a nap. A Sunday afternoon nap in Vienna. It was divine.

So, that's our time in Vienna. We left VERY EARLY Monday morning on a train to Prague, where we had two days to ourselves to explore that city. I have lots to tell you about that place when I get around to it - and video. Video! I know you can't wait. I'll get that stuff up here sooner or later. That's it for today. See you here again tomorrow. Auf Wiedersehen!

An Outdoor Concert

On Memorial Day evening, S and I and S's parents, Cheryl and Sam, went to Flagpole Hill to hear the Dallas Symphony Orchestra perform a Memorial Day Concert.

The crew.

This is an annual tradition here in Dallas, where thousands of people turn out to listen to the music. Most people go out with their extended families or friends and many have elaborate spreads of food and fun. We normally go with our lawn chairs and just hear the music.




This year, though, at sort of the last minute, I got a bee in my bonnet and decided to pick some food up at the grocery and take a little picnic out there to enjoy. It turned out to be sort of nice to get there a little early, sit outdoors, eat and people watch.

I should point out those bags up there are Envirosax. A set of five of those puppies roll up and fit nicely in a glove box. You can then easily take them into the grocery with you and load up all the groceries, no problem. Good for the environment. And, they are so pretty, too...they have a ton of designs. I highly recommend them.



We had plenty of food - the best picnic one can conjure up at the grocery store with little planning. I want to point out to my father - look dad - that I only paid $3.99 for 8 pieces - EIGHT PIECES - of fried chicken at the deli counter at the grocery. Bargain. BAR-GAIN.

My dad came to town once over Labor Day weekend, and we went to a parks concert at the Dallas Arboretum performed by the Dallas Wind Symphony. Anyway, because he was in town, and we were going to go to this concert, I wanted to prepare a special picnic. A little more planning had gone into that one. And, I wanted to buy some Bubba's Fried Chicken to go with the meal.

There were two things wrong with that chicken as far as my dad was concerned - first, we drove WAY too far to pick it up. Dad thinks we drive too far to do anything in Dallas. (Just did a Google Map - 2.8 miles from my door to Bubba's.) And, second, it was too expensive. We could have, Dad thought, gotten the deli chicken at Kroger for half the price and it would have been just as good.

Whatever Dad - Bubba's is worth the drive. And, I think you liked that chicken. Ahem. But yesterday, I did the "Dad thing" and got the deli chicken. And, yes Dad, it was darn good chicken. And closer to my house and everything.

We won't even go into what I paid once for steak when he was here and the reaction it garnered from Dear Ol' Dad...will we, Dad? (I love my Dad - don't get your panties in a bunch - this is all in fun, and he will know it.)

We also had some vegetables.

Some chips and crackers and salsas and dips.

And of course that chicken.


Some watermelon and other fruits.

Seed maybe? I dunno.

And some cookies.

After we ate, our bellies were smiling.
I even got S to show a smile on his face!
Sort of.


Sam, in addition to liking the fruit, was decked out in his patriotic regalia.

There were some others with the patriotic bent...

...a little blurry, but you can see that Patriot over there.

People brought their pooches...

...we did not.
And believe me, Ellie and Echo were just fine with that.

A little later, the concert got underway and the sun went down.

The kids brought out the spinny light-up thingys.
That's a technical term, you understand.

They played the Armed Forces Salute and Sam stood for the Army.
(Like this one, but a different arrangement.)

And this guy saluted during the entire Air Force tune.

I thought of my dad here too - gosh, I thought of you a lot last night, Dad. When my dad is there, and a band or orchestra performs the Armed Forces Salute, he can stand for three branches of the service - the Navy, where he served for 8 years, the Marines, because he was stationed with the Marines while in the Navy in Vietnam - the Navy supplies the Marines with all of the medical personnel and maybe other stuff too - I don't know the particulars. I just know he wore a Marine uniform with Navy insignia on it when he was in Vietnam. And then, later in life, he was in the Army National Guard. So, he gets to stand a lot because he served his country in lots of places. And so did a lot of men and women at this concert- the crowd really looks around and claps for them. It's very cool.

And then, after America the Beautiful AND The Battle Hymn of the Republic, at the very end...

...there were fireworks!

Being a 4th of July baby and all, those fireworks hold a special place in my psyche. I mean, when I was very small, my father told me they shot them off in honor of my birthday. So, I can do nothing but like them. It's ingrained in my brain.

It was a nice evening - a little hot to begin with, but as the sun went down it was a lovely time to be outdoors at a concert with a picnic, however thrown together. And, an outdoor concert honoring this country and those who have served it was even better.