Moss - Original oil painting by Rex Dingler ~Editilla Crowtellas~ We so love this artist's work, both on and off the canvas, that at least one piece (and probably more) will grace the unveiling of Editilla's House of Piety. Everyone has their story of when they spotted Nola Rising in those dark days of The Line after The Flood. I can't tell mine. But, I will say that whenever I looked up there Nola hung, pulling me through it all. Mailing it in: The New Orleans Dining Scene in 2011 ~He Said/She Said NOLA
Latest News from Hogs for the Cause ~Editilla Notellas~We got this from their Newsletter, and didn't know how else to link. We love these folks and recommend everyone subscribe to HFTC so you can get gems like this recipe below.
Chef Stephen Stryjewski’s Braised Pork with Mayhaw Jelly and Black Pepper Biscuits ~Stephen Stryjewski, executive chef of Cochon Restaurant, has had a 2011 full of Dominating: the 2011 James Beard Award for Best Chef 2011, a third place finish at Memphis in May in the Category of Whole Hog, and of course the 2011 Whole Hog Championship at Hogs for the Cause. Here, Chef Stryjewski shares his recipe for braised pork with black pepper biscuits and mayhaw jelly. But he had us at braised pork.
Braised Pork 8 lbs pork shoulder, bone in 5 Onions, peeled 5 Oranges, peeled 1 can Chipotle 10 Jalapenos, stem removed 3oz thyme ½ lb Garlic Cloves 16oz OJ 1T Cayenne Pepper 3T Chile powder 2T White pepper 5T Salt
Puree all ingredients except pork in a food processor and rub it in to the pork shoulder. Refrigerate overnight. Place pork and all juices into a dutch oven, cover, and place in a 350 degree oven for 4-6 hours or until meat is falling off the bone
Black Pepper Biscuits 5 cups White lily flour (measure after sifting) 1T plus ½t baking powder 3 T black pepper 1T kosher salt ½cup (1/4 lb) packed lard, chilled 1¼ cups buttermilk 3T unsalted butter, melted
Mix flour baking powder, black pepper and salt thoroughly. Add lard, half flour finely blended the other half about ½ inch pieces. Pour in buttermilk, and stir quickly just until dough is a blended mass. Turn dough immediately on floured surface, knead 8 to 10 times. Gently flatten dough with hand into even thickness, then roll out ½ inch thick. With a dinner floured dinner fork pierce the dough completely through at ½ inch intervals. Cut with a 2 1/2 or 3 inch round cutter. Don’t reroll scraps. Bake 10- 12 minutes. Brush tops with melted butter. Yield: about 15 2 ½ inch biscuits. Mayhaw Jelly can be purchased at a specialty grocery store. It can also be substituted with Orange Marmalade or Pepper Jelly.
~Editilla Notellas~We missed posting yesterday, and posted little today, because we're getting into the dirty nitty gritty of restoring Editilla's House of Piety. I commute now from Memphis to Nola in 2-week work trips. It's gotten hard, and is getting complicated as we move into the guts of the house. While I had NO INTENTION of getting into something like this, a total gutting restoration, it seems well and fitting to go for it, smooth to the fine.My father gave me this house in a way, as he was gracious enough to include me in the succession of the family farm ---much to my honest and great surprise! Really. It's a long story, perchance even a book, but suffice to say I expected Nothing.
He'd tied up loose ends, come to me more than once. Pop and I were settled.
My father passed away at sunrise on July 11th, 2009. He was 80.
I loved him very very much.
One of the last cogent talks I had with Pop was from a pay phone in the French Market, during the Flood'05, I think the day or so after the Produce Company had exploded atop a 200 year old toxic waste dump a few blocks from my studio, and sometime after I had fought another man in the dark dark with a two foot long sword. It is hard to say what day it was, but it was so hot.
Dog Flora and I were aimlessly wandering into the Quarters to get away from the acrid smell of poison which still blanketed the hood like a rat bag.
Nearly everyone we knew had gone by then.
It is hard to describe the bleakness. It was just hard.
No cell phone towers within a hundred miles yet these old pay phones that Huey P Long installed still worked. So, Editilla phoned home. After getting the rest of the screaming family off the phones, I began to broach the issue with my father of my last wishes etc. It took a second, since Pop was still under the impression that "this can't be happening in America".. that people wearing a uniform meant something and I just needed to go find them and get out of there.. that our country, his country.. well whateva... we were left to die. I knew this. Many there knew this.
About that moment a NOPD car drove by full of BlackWater Mercenaries, all the windows gone with their little rifles sticking out, ball caps on jar heads... I really remember the tiny sunglasses when they looked Directly At Me. They too knew this.
"No, Pop. America doesn't DO uniforms any longer," I said.
So, I needed to get my affairs in order. No more 2nd chances.
"No, Pop, I'm not leaving dog Flora. She is all I have left."
Pop of course disagreed with that sentiment, all of it --and wasn't having any of it. "OK THEN, You get your Goddamn Dog on the Goddamn Levee and go North and we'll find you!" said R.L. Biles.
I broke down.. "Yes sir," said his son, and got my ass in gear.
Alas, his youngest, the straggler, the errant troubadour, I could not face my father until he came and found me, still armed, in Memphis, 4 months later.
He had a massive stroke the following April, yet was allowed 3 years to say goodbye to his children, 6 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren.
A Ramblin'wreck from Georgia Tech and a Hell of an Engineer,
both Civil and Electrical, 17th in his class, Lt. Col. USAF Ret,
Formidable Nemesis of the Corps of Engineers, to wit: "Son there is Nothing more dangerous than a lying engineer, because then all you have left is the word of a liar."
Planter, Maker, Science Fiction fan, Dog Lover,
Master of Sarcasm and Ruthless Wit,
Protector of the Sunflower River,
Son of the Mississippi Delta, Richard Leonidas Biles Jr.
Da Train! Da Train! City of New Orleans ~How We Rollas~ On another one of our "work trips" for Editilla's House of Piety (EHOP) we take the southern rails. 7am comes hard on our nerve, but soon the MS Delta is sliding by, shining like a... like a laser-plained, leveled, leveed, over-irrigated, precision- agriculture guitar. We've been riding this particular train since 1979. It leaves Memphis, exiting the bluff into the delta at the beginning of the Corps Levee, then quickly into the very center, en route to Greenwood to Yazoo City, MS, the bottom gum line of the delta. Just passed Marks (they used to just beat the Hell outta my Cleveland High Wildcat football team. I mean every time. Mean delta boys in Marks.) The fields are beautiful golden -fresh cut wheat- and green of new soybeans. The cotton is moving along, but there is still a Lot of water around. The corn to me seems late. These little towns are but slivers of a glory they never had in the first place. This is across the tracks from Faulkner's Delta, "Their Day" was taken along time ago, if not by the Corps of Engineers' flood strategy then whittled down and sold to feed China. But in the space of a crack in an old oiled wooden floor, art has remained embedded in the land of my yout and festered. Many of these towns have secretly taken in Nolafugees, like Water Valley where Waiting Room Gallery immigrated.
Low levees get boost from corps ~Nikki Buskey~Houma~ The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is raising a floodwall at the Golden Meadow pump station from 11.5 feet to just under 14 feet, said Joey Wagner, corps manager for the Larose-to-Golden Meadow levee project. The corps will also improve protection at the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port deepwater facility and low-lying floodwalls along the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway in Larose.
~Hat Tweet @TheAbitaBeer~It's today http://batonrougebeerfest.com, 1-4p. Abita & 300 brews around the world. Tickets at the door or Ticketmaster. See you there!
