Category: Food

In Smokey and the Bandit, Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason) stops at a restaurant and orders a “diablo sandwich”.

Everyone in metro Atlanta knew the restaurant in the film was an Old Hickory House, a locally-famous barbecue chain. Problem was, Gleason improvised the “diablo sandwich” name. Old Hickory House never sold such a thing, but once the movie became a huge hit TONS of people started asking for it. So they retroactively invented one: their standard pulled pork sandwich with two pickle chips, liberally doused in Texas Pete hot sauce. Not Tabasco or Crystal or Frank’s. Texas Pete.

Old Hickory House used to have over 20 locations.

Atlanta folks may remember that the (now closed) LGBTQ-friendly Cowtippers steakhouse at 1600 Piedmont Road was once an Old Hickory House. And the Atlanta Fish Market – somehow STILL open at 265 Pharr Road – was also once an Old Hickory House. There was the 2655 South Cobb Parkway location, which has been Swapna Indian Cuisine for some time now. Or the 6420 Roswell Road location, which was a strip club called “Flashers” for some time but has been empty for years. My family ate at the Scott Blvd. and N. Decatur Road location often; the building still stands as the Wheelhouse Pub. When I lived in Dunwoody I tried to eat at the Dunwoody Village location at least once a week. It closed in 2014, long after I moved to Charlotte.

Speaking of, there were Old Hickory Houses outside Atlanta, too. There were allegedly locations in Athens, Tallahassee and Chattanooga, although documentation is hard to find.

And also: Charlotte! Originally opening where else – Freedom Drive! – in 1957, the restaurant moved to 6538 N. Tryon in 1972:

It was unusual in that T. Jack Black and his wife Ann, owners of the chain – didn’t own any of the Charlotte location (not even a fraction), and perhaps never even visited it. It’s said that Black’s father, William, came up here to help his cousins, Bobby and Gene Carter, get the restaurant up and running. I ate there once, the day after its upcoming closure was announced. The food was just OK. It was probably coasting on its reputation for years. It’s fair to say the Charlotte location had little contact with the other locations.

Sadly, the Old Hickory House featured in film – at roughly 151 Main Street, Forest Park, Georgia – no longer exists… at all. It was knocked down decades ago and is still a vacant lot, although a newish Wendy’s now occupies part of the property. The Wickes billboard seen in the movie is still there, although according to Google Maps as of November 2022 it was advertising a local Chinese buffet.

There’s only one Old Hickory House left, at 2202 Northlake Parkway in Tucker (near near Northlake Mall, obviously) . And the “diablo sandwich” is still on the menu if you want one!

20+ years ago, in a different lifetime, a good friend of mine brought me a tin of See’s Toffee-ettes from one of her trips to Los Angeles. And oh my God, I was instantly in love! On a recent trip to Colorado I was super-excited to learn that my hotel was close to a See’s shop! So of course I dropped in and got a tin of Toffee-ettes. But imagine my surprise when, just a few weeks later, I was at Trader Joe’s and found their almost-identical “English Toffee with nuts”.

Which candy will reign supreme? Let’s find out:

The Toffee-ette is shorter but fatter, rounder and more irregular in shape. The almond bits are also much larger than the Trader Joe’s product, which looks like a “log” of toffee that’s cut to size (which, to be fair, probably is how its made, through an extruder, like pasta).

On taste, See’s kills it, you guys! The almond bits are great – with that crunch-forward bite – and then there’s the “candy shop chocolate” taste. You know what I’m talking about. You go to the beach or somewhere with a fresh candy shop… you know what that FRESH CHOCOLATE tastes like! Yeah, that… but then there’s ANOTHER crunch from the toffee, which is straight-up sugary, buttery heaven. The folks at See’s have been doing this for a long time, and they know what the hell they’re doing.

As mentioned, the Trader Joe’s candies have much smaller almonds on the outside. So, much less crunch. In fact, it almost seems like the almonds are there just to keep your fingers from melting the chocolate. Incidentally, I find it curious that almonds are the only nut listed on the ingredients label, but all the packaging just refers to them as “nuts”. You’d think ALMONDS would be a selling point. I mean, See’s mentions almonds TWICE on their label! The chocolate on the Trader Joe’s candy is commercial- grade chocolate – not terrible, not anything to get excited about either. And that’s when I notice a taste I don’t like. It’s a very faint, yet VERY THERE sour taste. It’s not the dreaded “Hershey’s Sour”, but it’s very close. It only lasts a second or two, but it takes me out of the dream. Just then, the sugary toffee hits. And it’s pretty good. Again, nothing to hoot or holler about, and maybe a bit too burnt for my taste? Where See’s toffee is a beautiful café au lait color, Trader Joe’s is quite obviously several shades darker.

But then there’s this: See’s are only available in their own shops (which don’t exist on the east coast) or via Internet. And they’re expensive: $25.99/pound (454g). Trader Joe’s gives you almost twice as much (30 ounces, almost two pounds, 850g) for over 60% less: $10.99.

When it comes to overall flavor, I’m ridin’ and dyin’ with See’s here. I don’t know if this is a year-round Trader Joe’s item (doubt it), but if it is, that could change the equation a bit. Getting a tin of these from my local TJ’s in the dark of February or for my birthday in March would be nice!

Realistically, though, either of these candies are something I’d only buy once or twice a year anyway. If this was going to be an “everyday” candy, I could see TJ’s being the better “bang for the buck” option. But as an annual treat, I say spend the extra for the good stuff.

One (minor) complaint about Toffee-ettes: you better eat them outside or over the sink, ‘cos almond bits are gonna fly everywhere when your teeth hit that toffee!

WINNER: See’s

Sorry for so many food posts lately… but let’s face it: once you get to be 48 years-old, your days of chasing women, drowning in whiskey and going on peyote-fueled vision quests with Jim Morrison’s ghost are over. So… FOOD IT IS, THEN!

“Compound butter” is what happens when you let butter sit out to soften, then mix in some stuff, then put the butter back in the fridge to firm up again. The “stuff” you put in the butter can be a liquid, like wine or honey (hmmmm… honey butter!). It can be spices and herbs, like the garlic-herb butter on top of your steak. But it can also be… cheese!

This post at The Takeout talks about “brie butter”. You just get 8 ounces of good Irish or French butter and an equal amount of brie cheese.

Cut the rind off the brie, cut both into small-ish cubes, then mix in a food processor until it becomes a smooth paste. You’ll probably need to stop several times and push the butter\cheese mixture down the side of the processor bowl with a spatula, by the way.

The traditional thing to do would be to put a thick line of the stuff on a piece of plastic wrap, then use the plastic wrap to form it into a summer sausage-sized log… which is why the garlic-herb butter you get on your steak at restaurants is often shaped as a perfect disc. But I’m lazy, so I just put mine into a Chinese takeout soup container.

Let me just say that this stuff is the Truth and the Light. And the post at The Takeout knocks it out of the park when it says:

Somehow, both ingredients come through in equal measure; it’s almost like they agreed to take turns. You get hit with the brie right up front, but then the cheese yields to its counterpart, giving way to a creamy, buttery finish.

They’re spot-on: the brie and butter somehow compliment each other perfectly, the flavor of one fading out while the other gently takes over. This stuff is absolutely delicious – sinfully delicious – and I’d recommend it to anyone!

There was a ripple of excitement on the Internet last week. There’s a writer at The Takeout named Gwen, and recently she went through her friend Julie’s old family recipes. She noticed several 70s casserole classic recipes by someone named “Buggy”. Buggy had a recipe for a burrito-style beef casserole; it intrigued Gwen, so she shared it with everyone. People on message boards, Reddit and Facebook picked up on the recipe… so I decided to give it a try.

The recipe is at the link, but it’s pretty damn simple: brown a pound of ground beef; when done, drain, add taco seasoning and water per the package instructions. While that’s going on, mix a 16 oz. can of refried beans, a cup of Bisquick\Pancake mix and  ¼ to ½ cup of water in a large bowl. Make an even layer of the bean & Bisquick mix in a greased 9-10″ pie plate or oven-proof skillet. When the beef is done, pour it over the bean & Bisquick layer. Then pour a 15.5 oz jar of your favorite salsa over that, then top with your favorite shredded cheese. Bake at 350F for around 30 minutes.

Do that, and you end up with this:

So… how is it? Meh. It’s not bad. It’s food, and it’s fairly tasty. But I ate it without any kind of emotion whatsoever. Ya know? Like, when I make Mom’s Tuna Casserole I feel a wave of childhood nostalgia. When I make Cracker Barrel’s hash brown casserole I almost feel like I’m cheating the system. I don’t feel anything like that when making Burrito Bisquick Bake. It’s just something to stuff in my face on a Tuesday night.

Would I make it again? Sure. Why not? In fact, the reason I made it in the first place was because I already had most of the ingredients on hand, which is how 70s casseroles worked. But the jury is still out as to whether this would make my regular rotation.

I hit the spice aisle at Walmart the other day for chili powder, when something caught my attention:

Yes, it’s Tapatío powder. How is it?

Well, it tastes exactly like Tapatío sauce. Now, I know what you’re thinking: “expert analysis, Jim”. But hear me out: the fourth ingredient in this stuff – after salt, red pepper and garlic – is “vinegar powder”. And once the powder hits your tongue, it instantly rehydrates, so it tastes just like the sauce… albeit a slightly crunchy one, since the other crystals don’t melt at the same rate as the others.

So, I guess the market for this is anyone who wants the flavor of Tapatío sauce without the moisture that comes with it. Rimming margarita glasses with this instead of salt might be cool. I’m not a big fan of spicy popcorn, but sprinkling this over a bowl of popcorn would probably work a lot better than actual liquid sauce. It would also work with sandwiches being made ahead of time, like for a picnic or a tailgate – the powder has all the flavor, but doesn’t make the bread soggy. And I guess the powder might travel better – it can’t leak into a backpack, and since it’s not a liquid it’s TSA-friendly, right?

So that’s cool. But aside from the practical uses for the powder, I just don’t see a taste difference.

Boterkoek (Butter cake) is a delicious treat from The Netherlands.

My favorite thing about it is its texture. It’s dense, but not hard. You’ve had pound cake before, yeah? You’ve had shortbread before, yeah? Boterkoek is somewhere between the two: not crunchy like a cookie, but solid enough that you can pick up a piece and eat it like a brownie, no fork or plate needed.

What’s more, the denseness of the cake means that it keeps for quite a while, so long as it’s kept in the fridge. I had a two-week old slice for dessert tonight and it was as good as the day I baked it!

But the best part of boterkoek is, anyone can make it. Trust me – I’m the worst baker in the world, and I can do this:

SOFTWARE

1 cup good butter, softened
1½ cups white sugar
2 beaten eggs
1 tablespoon almond extract
2½ cups AP flour
2 teaspoons baking powder

HARDWARE

1 electric mixer
1 small bowl
1 medium bowl
1 large bowl
1 spatula
1 fork or whisk
2 round 8″ cake pans (or even better, glass pie plates)

NOTES: Take the butter out of your fridge a few hours before you want to make the cake. Also, this is a terrific recipe to splurge on some nice European butter. Cultured butters from Ireland, France and Finland are readily available near me, and at Lidl and Aldi they’re competitively priced, too. Take the hint. Lastly, if you only have one pan or pie plate, fear not: later, when dividing the dough in half to make two cakes, simply put one half in a zip-top bag and put it in the fridge – it’ll be good for a couple days. You could probably freeze it too, but don’t quote me on that!

1) Preheat your oven to 350F.

2) Put the sugar and butter in the large bowl, then use the electric mixer to cream them. Don’t know what “creaming” is? Watch this:

You don’t need a stand mixer to do this – any electric hand mixer will work, you just have to move the mixer around in the bowl.

3) Beat the eggs in a small bowl, then add almost all of it to the butter and sugar (we need a tiny bit for the last step, so save a little). Mix for a few seconds with the mixer until incorporated, then add the almond extract and mix for a few seconds more. Put the mixer aside and use the spatula to scrape as much dough off the forks as you can.

4) Add the flour and baking powder to the medium bowl, and stir well with a whisk or fork to mix.

5) Slowly add the flour to the dough, adding a little bit, then stirring with a heavy-duty spoon, then repeating until the flour has been incorporated completely. As a warning, the dough will look very dry.

6) Grease the pans (or use Pam, if you’re lazy). Put half the dough in each pan or pie plate and press it into place.

7) Remember the leftover egg? Brush it across the top of the cakes. If you forgot to save some egg, just beat another one and brush it across the top of the cakes. Don’t go crazy though: a little bit is all you need!

8) OPTIONAL: You can put sliced almonds on the top, if you wish. It’s also traditional to drag a fork across the top of the cake, creating a design a bit like this:

9) Bake at 350F for around 30 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and delicious!

Let cool completely before serving. Keeps amazingly well in the fridge – just take a piece out just as you sit down to dinner and it’ll be delicious by dessert time!

Carbonade flamande is a classic Belgian stew. I must admit that, even though I’ve been to Belgium, I didn’t have carbonade flamande while there – I was too busy eating all the mussels in Brussels! But I saw the dish in an episode of Bizarre Foods: Delicious Destinations and just had to try it! I did a test run a couple months ago, and have tweaked the recipe slightly. Try it out some time – you just might like it!

1-2 DAYS BEFORE

The first thing we need is… gingerbread. Yes, gingerbread. Don’t worry, it’ll all make sense later. If you’re really motivated, you can google “Belgian grandma gingerbread recipe” and make it from scratch. If you’re not quite up for that, you can call around to local bakeries and see if they have any. But if you’re lazy like me, you can just go to your local grocery store and pick up a box of Betty Crocker gingerbread mix:

It couldn’t be easier: just dump the mix into a large bowl, add one egg and 1½ cups water, and stir with a whisk for a couple minutes until the batter is smooth. Then pour into a greased 8×8″ glass pan and bake for around 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean:

Let the gingerbread cool completely, then cover with aluminum foil.

THE NIGHT BEFORE

The night before you want to make the stew, you need to make the marinade:

You can be super lazy and buy 3 pounds of stew meat, but for best results use 3 pounds of chuck roast instead. Cut a block off the roast, cut the block into cubes, then cut those cubes into bite-size cubes, trimming any excess fat as you go.

See the red plastic container in the above picture? Yeah, that wasn’t big enough for the meat and marinade, so I put the beef cubes in a gallon-size pitcher, along with 3 crushed cloves of garlic, two bay leaves and two 11.2 oz. bottles of Belgian ale. I used Gauloise, a blonde ale available at my local Lidl. It’s not the best Belgian beer you’ve ever tasted, but at $6.49 for a four-pack you can’t go wrong. Of course, if you have a preferred brand, you can use that… especially a sour Belgian ale, which is the traditional beer for this dish.

Put the meat + marinade in your fridge until the next day. The pitcher actually worked out really well – it was roomy, and the waterproof seal made it easy to turn the pitcher over and mix everything up, which is something you should do a couple times while marinating.

IT’S STEW TIME!

The next day, drain the beef but keep the marinade! Seriously, the liquid is important, so don’t throw it out:

Pat the beef dry with paper towels. Heat a couple tablespoons of vegetable oil in a French oven and brown the beef in small batches:

Why small batches? We want to fry the beef, so that it’s golden brown and delicious. If we threw all the beef into the pan at once, it would steam instead of fry, and we don’t want that. So take your time and do it right!

While the beef is cooking, stack 4 slices of bacon on top of each other, then cut into pieces. Also, slice three medium to large onions.

I totally spaced on taking pictures here, but once the beef is done, set it aside and drain any water in the pan. Add the bacon and cook until crispy, then remove. Leaving the bacon grease in the pan, cook the onions for about 10 minutes, until decently caramelized.

Once the onions turn brown and delicious, add 1½ cups of beef broth to the pan and scrape off the fond – the dark brown bits stuck to the bottom of the pan – with a wooden spoon. When you’re done with that, you should have something like this:

It’s finally starting to come together! Add the marinade, beef and bacon to the pot, along with several springs of thyme:

Now… we could cook this on the stovetop for a couple hours. But I don’t wanna do that. The whole point of using a French oven is so that we could put this in the oven. So do that: put the lid on your French oven and cook the stew in your oven for around an hour at 325F. It should look like this:

So… remember the gingerbread? If you used an 8×8″ pan, cut the gingerbread in half, then cut it in half again, then turn each piece on its side and cut those in half. What we’re aiming for is four pieces of gingerbread, each about the size of a slice of bread. Put a total of two or three heaping tablespoons of real French Dijon mustard (don’t cheap out now!) on some of the slices… or divide it between all the slices, it doesn’t really matter. Just spread the mustard on the bread, as if you were making a sandwich.

Add a tablespoon of packed dark brown sugar to the stew along with a handful of parsley and stir well. Then add the gingerbread slices, mustard side down:

Put the lid back on and return to the oven for another hour, stirring the stew every so often. You’ll end up with something like this:

I’ll grant that it doesn’t photograph well, and might not look that appealing:

But trust me, it’s damn tasty! The beef was outrageously tender without being “mushy”, and there’s just something about the interplay between the ale and the gingerbread that’s just soooooo goood! You might find the sweetness from the gingerbread a bit too much – if so, some salt & pepper should fix that right up.

Carbonade flamande is traditionally served in a bowl with Belgian-style fries or roasted potatoes on the side. But there’s nothing stopping you from serving this over rice or egg noodles if you want.

For the past several years, Lay’s has held its “Do Us a Flavor” contest, where people from all over the United States submit flavor ideas to the company. The ideas are narrowed down to four and made into actual products consumers vote for. And thus, “Cheesy Garlic Bread”, “Wasabi Ginger” and “Southern Biscuits & Gravy” became actual potato chip flavors.

This year, however, Lay’s is doing something a little bit different. This year it’s “Passport to Flavor”, four exotic flavors from around the world. Which nation’s cuisine will reign supreme? Let’s find out, from worst to first!

#4 Brazilian Picanha – Picanha is technically a cut of meat called a “rump cover” in the US. Although largely unknown in the US, it’s a highly-prized cut in Brazil, and is often grilled and served with chimichurri, a green sauce made of parsley, garlic, oil, oregano and vinegar.

THE TASTE: These mostly taste like sour cream & onion chips, with occasional bursts of generic “steak” flavor. If you’ve ever had Herr’s Kansas City Prime Steak chips, it’s a very similar taste, but a bit more… refined, for lack of a better word. To me, the steak flavor of the Herr’s chips is IN YOUR FACE and totally artificial; the Lay’s chips somehow taste a wee bit more authentic. But there’s not enough of it. And when the almost non-existent chimichurri flavor kicks in, it’s almost as if there was some kind of flavor mix-up at the factory, as if someone accidentally added a small amount of salt & vinegar flavoring to sour cream & onion chips. They’re not bad, exactly. I’d eat them again if I had to. They’re just kind of… underwhelming.

#3 Greek Tzatziki – I love gyros as much as the next guy. And a big part of that is the yummy tzatziki sauce that comes on them. I normally don’t care for yogurt and cucumbers individually, but put ’em together, and you’ve got deliciousness, buddy!

THE TASTE: What’s the opposite of underwhelming?  Oh yeah – overwhelming, which is how I’d describe the cucumber taste of these chips. I don’t get any garlic or dill at all – just ALL CUCUMBER, ALL THE TIME. I watched a YouTube review where a guy said all he could taste was “creamy dill”. I don’t know what planet that guy lives on, but all I get from these chips is cucumber, with a tiny note of some kind of cream\yogurt taste in the background. These wavy chips are so flavorful it’s almost unpleasant. I’d eat these again if I was at a sub shop and these were the only chips they had left. Otherwise I’ll pass. But at least they deliver on some flavor, which is more than you can say about the picanha chips.

#2 Indian Tikka Masala – I love Indian food, and one of my favorite Indian (okay, fine: Anglo-Indian) dishes is tikka masala. The lovely exotic spices. The tomato tang. The lush decadence of the cream. It’s all there, and it’s all good. Some folks like to say that tikka masala has replaced fish & chips as Britain’s national dish. And they’re not wrong – it’s that popular in the UK because it’s just that good.

THE TASTE: Man, I really, really, really wanted to love these chips. First, they’re kettle chips, which are always awesome. Second, I love tikka masala. But while these chips mostly hit the right flavor notes, there’s just something really, really, really “off” about one particular flavor note. When you first put one in your mouth, you get a kind of “generic curry” taste. Which is OK, I suppose. But then there’s this… godawful note of rancid chicken. I kid you not. The missus and I once accidentally forgot a pork tenderloin in the fridge. It was a couple weeks past its expiration date, but I decided to open the vacuum-sealed pouch to see if it still might be edible. As soon as the knife pierced the plastic, the kitchen filled with a smell that was partly vinegary, partly gamey, and partly the sweet smell of rot. It was not pleasant. And these tikka masala chips have a flavor note that, just for a second, tastes almost exactly like how that bad pork tenderloin smelled. If you can get past that – and the more chips I ate, the less I was able to do so – then you’re rewarded with a complex melange of flavors that do, in fact, taste like tikka masala. But that sour chicken note… blech! It’s like the stormtrooper hitting his head on the doorway in the original Star Wars: you might have watched the film a hundred times and never noticed it. But now that it’s been pointed out to you, you cannot not see it every time.

#1 Chinese Szechuan Chicken – Everyone has had Szechuan chicken at some point in their lives, right? Well, except the poor girl working at the Lake Wylie Publix I asked while looking for these chips. She also didn’t know what gyros were, much less that tzatziki sauce you put on them. I didn’t have the heart to ask her about picanha and tikka masala. Anyway, Szechuan chicken is one of the cornerstones of American Chinese restaurants. You’d be hard-pressed to find a Chinese place that didn’t have this on the menu.

THE TASTE: Nailed it. These chips taste almost exactly like the Szechuan chicken you’d order from your local Chinese take-out place. I mean, Lay’s captured every aspect of the taste. Funny thing about these chips: I was able to find large bags of the other flavors during a routine trip to Walmart. But my local Walmart didn’t have these. While out running errands, I stopped at a different Walmart and happened to see the small bags of these chips near the front of the store. I got two small bags instead of walking all the way to the back of the store to find a large bag. When I got home last night, I kept telling myself to slow down, that I needed to save a few chips for writing this article today. I inhaled that small bag. They were that good, and that addictive. Having said all that, I’m not entirely sure these are a flavor with staying power. Seems like these would clash with a lot of dishes normally eaten with chips (like sandwiches and hot dogs). It’s almost like they’re too specific. If someone was just eating the chips by themselves, then these are a good option. With something else? I’m not sure. But I’ll enjoy them while they’re here – they’re delicious!

I know this isn’t much of a “recipe”.. but I had these at a family potluck a few weeks ago and have made them TWICE since!

Software

1 16oz. bag dried blackeyed peas
3 packets Goya Ham Flavor Concentrate
Non-stick spray

Hardware

1 paper plate (see below)
1 mesh strainer (see below)
1 large spoon
1 Crock Pot

1) Go through the peas and remove any deformed peas or debris like pebbles or twigs. I pour about a quarter of the bag onto a paper plate, go through them, dump them into a mesh strainer, then repeat with remaining peas until done. But that’s just me.

2) Once you’ve gone through all the peas, rinse them thoroughly in a mesh strainer or colander.

3) Spray the inside of a Crock Pot with non-stick spray, then dump the peas in. Fill with water until the peas are covered by approximately 2 inches of water.

4) Add the three packs of Goya seasoning, then stir well to dissolve.

5) Cook on HIGH for two hours. Every so often check that the water level is OK, and add more if necessary. Give them a stir around once an hour.

6) After two hours, taste them. You may find them a bit too hard for your liking; if so, continue cooking for another hour or so, until done. If they’re close to being done, turn the heat down to LOW and cook for an additional 30 minutes or so.

We usually eat around 6:00 at my house, so I start these around 3:30. By 5:00 they’re nearly done, so I turn the heat down to LOW and let them go for around another 30-40 minutes before eating.