Happy New Year 2017!

I want to wish each and every one of you the greatest of joy and happiness in the coming year!

Adult Tartar Sauce

   
     I made this recipe while playing around one day trying to come up with something better than regular old tartar sauce.  I consulted a couple of my old recipe books for ideas and revisited some of the better ingredients in my remoulade  recipe I wrote oh so long ago.  I like remoulade, it's just a pain to make and involves tarragon which goes brown quicker than an avocado in a heat wave.  Dried tarragon has no flavor because it doesn't dry well so it was off to come up with something that has the flavor of remoulade but not the headache.

White Coffee Pot Maryland Fried Chicken

     Like the Harley's Sandwich Shops I've written about before, White Coffee Pot was a restaurant chain that was purely Baltimore.  Unlike Harley's and Little Tavern, White Coffee Pot dished up real home cooking with a smile in a diner atmosphere complete with jukeboxes at the tables.  Unfortunately time and circumstance caught up with this venerable brand and put and end to the best cup of coffee in Baltimore.

A Chicken Salad Recipe to Rule Them All

     When I set out to create a chicken salad recipe it was for an idea I've been tossing around for some time, a sandwich/sub shop modeled after the ones that used to be in every neighborhood of Baltimore when I grew up.  This is not high end food, this is not hipster food, this is not $100 hamburgers.  What this is is just good old fashioned working man's food eaten for lunch or after a good time at the local bar.

The Ansonia Sunwatch & Instructions

     It's a rare day I come across an ad for something I actually own, especially when it's as rare as this gem.  The Sunwatch is a pocket sundial with a compass to orient yourself properly with the sun.  I just happen to have found one of these when I was cleaning out my dad's house and as far as I know, it belonged to my grandfather.

Oven Roasted Pork Shoulder

     Roasted pork has been around ever since we started killing wild boars in the forest in the dim beginnings of humanity so in that sense this is a "vintage" recipe but for our purposes here this recipe is all my own.  It is based on a Filipino recipe called Lechon sa Hurno which translates into "roasted in the oven".  It's a home based version of the popular party centerpiece Lechon Baboy or roasted pig where a whole pig is gutted and roasted for hours on a spit over an open fire.

Harley's Sandwich Shop Tuna Salad & a Double TT Diner Club

     Harley's Sandwich Shops were a landmark in Baltimore from the 1940's to the 1980's when they were bought up by Shane's.  I was really young when this happened, maybe 8 or 10 years old but I do remember the couple times I went with my grandparents to Harley's.  He was well known for his subs and his burgers simmered in a secret sauce, a recipe I'll get to another time, but it was his jazz show on local Baltimore radio that really made him famous.

The First Efficient Lightbulb

     The light bulb has gone through many incarnations throughout it's lifetime from the early carbon filament Edison Bulbs up to the curly fry CFL bulbs we have today.  Those who know me know that I have no love for either CFL's or LED bulbs for various reasons I don't feel like getting into today.  I'm here to talk about the Mazda bulb, the first energy efficient bulb.

1924 Fish Florentine Recipe

     This recipe comes from a 1924 edition of "Recipes For Everyday", a publication that was available though Crisco.  As you can imagine, Crisco is an ingredient in all of the recipes.  Now I don't have anything against Crisco, I use it when baking cakes because there really isn't a substitute but I don't want to eat it in everything everyday.

Ad: 1905 Tabasco Sauce

     Ah Tabasco Sauce, love it or hate it, it's been around since just after the Civil War.  This fiery pepper sauce is the backbone of Louisiana cuisine and graces tables all over the world.  So what are the beginnings of this iconic brand?

Chicken Soup Recipe, Depression Era

     I've tried many ways of making chicken soup over the years and while they were all good they weren't fantastic I was always looking for something else.  This started as a research project into Depression Era cooking.  One of things that Herbert Hoover promised as president was "A chicken in every pot" and there's a reason for this, chicken was expensive, especially young chickens.  Chickens were kept for laying eggs and after 5 years when they stopped laying that's when they ended up as dinner.

Dragon's Blood Sauce

I posted before about how I had some business cards printed up for the blog.  These were mainly for use at work where I could give them to customers in need of a recipe.  Since I had them printed I think I've given out about 100 of them so far and I hope that at least some of the people I gave them to found this site helpful in their kitchen endeavors.  The handing out of business cards has reaped other benefits though.  I came to have a nice talk about vintage recipes with a couple of wonderful ladies and in the course of conversation the one lady who was visiting from up north stated how she had these old cookbooks and she would love to give them to me to help me with the blog.  Fantastic!  I love old cookbooks and according to her they were church compiled cookbooks which is even better because they often comprise of family recipes that are much better than the advertiser recipes I usually deal with on here.

Recipe: Creole Mixed Greens

Mixed Greens have been a staple item on Southern dinner tables for decades.  Collards, along with Kale, Mustard Greens and Chard fill a very necessary role in proper nutrition providing Vitamins A & C along with Selenium and a whopping 25% your daily fiber (5.3g).  I have cooked green this way for years never really realizing that it is a traditional Creole Recipe dating back to the 1800's.  I've modified the recipe to reduce the sodium per serving.  The liquid on the bottom of the pan is called "pot likker" and is full of nutrients.  This dish is served with bread used to sop up the juices or my wife likes to have it over rice.

Black Forest Cake Recipe

From the start, this has to be the most intensive recipe I have ever made.  I followed the original recipe and made mistakes so what I am giving you here is my modified version for ease of preparation.  You're going to need some must have items in order to make this recipe, 3 cake pans and parchment paper.  Don't skip on the parchment paper or you'll regret it like I did.