Cooking | Gourmandistan

A parching, painterly interruption leads to Peach Ice Cream Pie

July 29, 2012 by Steve

Horrifying heat is not good for ice cream. Neither, it seems, is it good for house painters. After weeks of weather-related delay, our house and kitchen were freshly painted and finally freed from painters. The outside, in its lovely new creamy white color, was baptized by a couple of non-drought-relieving nickel-sized hailstorms (thanks again, global weirding!). After restoring the cookbooks, WWII posters and various tchotchkes to our kitchen we were ready to once again bespatter its freshly painted walls with […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Ice cream, Peaches/Nectarines, Pies & Tarts, Recipes, Vegetarian

Literally grinding out a peanut butter brownie post.

July 14, 2012 by Steve

We began Gourmandistan as merely a way to amuse ourselves (and some may claim we still amuse merely ourselves). But we have grown quite attached to you, our readers. Our urge to post to this blog has grown beyond the simple need to stick recipes where we can easily access them to encompass the idea that someone out there in cyberspace might actually miss us if we’re gone. That is why, even though our home has been in complete disarray […]

Categories: Brownies, Chocolate, Cooking, Food, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

Potato Salad and Patriotism (with a bit of Blackberry Cobbler)

July 4, 2012 by Steve

It’s the 4th of July, a day many Americans celebrate with beer, bizarre outfits and bloviating about “the greatest best country God has ever given man on the face of the earth.” Gourmandistan takes a slightly different path to celebrate the Fourth, a bit quieter than the usual American practice of blowing stuff up real good. Unfortunately, to the sort of people who desperately want to believe they live in “Real America,” being different is a dangerous thing. These people […]

Categories: Blackberries, Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Independence Day, Old cookbooks, Pies & Tarts, Potatoes, Recipes, Salad, Vegetarian

Baked peaches for a baking planet.

July 1, 2012 by Steve

A few of Steve’s “friends” (mostly the Facebook and “Fox & Friends” kind) might deny any existence of global climate change. Try as they might, though, they can’t deny it’s been horribly hot in Gourmandistani territory the past week or so. All-time heat records are being broken every day. The astonishing heat contributed to something called a “land hurricane” that swept through not too far from here, killing several and knocking out power to millions without any letup in temperature. […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Peaches/Nectarines, Recipes, Rice, Vegetarian

Lifting the curse of CSA chard

June 25, 2012 by Steve

If you’ve ever had a farm share, you’ve undoubtedly shared Gourmandistan’s occasional feelings of basket fatigue. That’s the point where you can’t think of one more thing to do with a bunch of Russian kale, basil or (please forgive us, Pavel) a bounty of accursed beets. Up until recently, one of the fatigue-inducing entries was Swiss chard. Though the chickens always loved the leftovers. Chard is a leafy green vegetable that comes with a variety of stem colors, but when […]

Categories: Cooking, Eggs, Food, Grains, Recipes, Swiss chard, Vegetarian

Peach Cobbler and Prejudice

June 21, 2012 by Steve

Gourmandistan prides itself on its inclusiveness and tolerance of all cultures and traditions, especially the edible ones. But xenophobia seems to be hard-wired into the human psyche, and even those of us who strive to be civilized may still retain traces of irrational antipathy towards certain groups. For Steve, this happens to be people from Indiana—something that did not help when a nascent Gourmandistan decamped to Indianapolis for about a year. Long, long ago in an advertising galaxy far, far, […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Old cookbooks, Peaches/Nectarines, Recipes, Vegetarian

Let’s go pea!

June 17, 2012 by Steve

One of the smaller joys of Steve’s life is his tangential connection to Austin-Peay State University, home of (at least to Steve’s scatologically-slanted ear) the greatest cheer in college athletics. A few seasons back, as Steve giggled at the chants of “Let’s Go Peay!” while the Governors lost to his beloved Wildcats, Michelle’s dad (also a rabid UK fan) revealed he’d attended the small university near the Kentucky border in Tennessee. By the transitive power of shared TV-watching (a right […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Peas, Recipes, Soups & Stews

Nice precedent, damn quail

June 11, 2012 by Steve

Gourmandistan’s freezers hold some dark and shameful secrets, many of them involving foodstuffs not normally found in your mass market cookbooks. Steve’s penchant for odd bits of animals leads to small collections of things such as sweetbreads and pig feet, and Michelle’s lifelong hunter father often gifts us with undated and sometimes ill-described parts of former wildlife such as venison, wild turkey and pheasant and recently, two brace of quail. We appreciate and try to use every portion of meat […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Meat Pies, Old cookbooks, Quail, Recipes

Blueberry jam with lemon verbena, British jubilee with venom verbiage

June 3, 2012 by Steve

Steve was very happy when Susan of the delightful Susan eats London gave a bloggy boost to his pressure on Michelle for more blueberry jam. Michelle had been avoiding making more for fear it would once again cook out too thick. But when Steve bought a few “extra” quarts at this Saturday’s market, she made another batch, and some sweet cream biscuits to boot. The chopped fresh lemon verbena in this version adds just a touch of herby tartness that […]

Categories: Blueberries, Cooking, Food, Jams & Preserves, Recipes, Vegetarian