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Recipe for Basil Yogurt Sauce

Basil

View do jour, June 15 2019

This recipe for basil yogurt sauce is from “Season Big Flavors, Beautiful Food” by Nik Sharma, a beautiful book with great recipes. Sharma also has a website A Brown Table, http://www.abrowntable.com/, and a blog at http://www.abrowntable.com/home.

We came into a great deal of cut basil from a friend who was going to be away from home for several days and had lots of basil in her garden getting ready flower.  We were in a similar situation a few years back and took advice from some online source to cut the basil back severely and give it away. The cut basil grows back in time in a relatively short time, ready for you to enjoy when you return form your trip.

Basil yogurt sauce uses a cup of leaves and is delicious as an accompaniment to vegetables, on eggs,  or as a dip. In his cookbook, Sharma uses this with sweet potato fries, The recipe that follows is as I made it.

Ingredients:

  • 1/4 cup full fat organic yogurt
  • 1 cup fresh basil leaves
  • 1 shallot
  • 1/2 ripe avocado
  • juice of 1/2 lime
  • 4 black peppercorns
  • 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

Method:

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and combine until smooth. You can add a little bit of water to thin the sauce.  If you plan ahead, which I didn’t do this morning, refrigerate for a couple of hours before use.

 

 

 

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2019 07 07 ernie food
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Recipe for Don Deluise Mama’s Birthday cake

We have often made this for Lynn’s birthday. Very good!!

6  eggs separated

3/8 cup sugar (he says 1 cup)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 heaping teaspoons baking powder
1 cup flour (I used sprouted wheat)
wax paper
2 round 9-inch baking pans
Beat egg whites until foamy.  Slowly add egg yolks to egg whites, one at a time. Then add sugar and vanilla.  Add baking powder to flour and gradually add to the other ingredients and mix well.
Pour half the batter into each round pan, both of which have been lined with wax paper.   Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes.  Remove from pan, cool cakes on rack.  Remove wax paper (easily after a little cooling).
Topping:
1 pint whipping cream whipped
fruit of choice.
2019 01 07 ernie Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink

October 29. Gulf Shores Alabama

Gulf ShoresWe arrived here yesterday in the evening. Our motel is the Best Western on the Beach, a very apt description. We got a beach facing room with a balcony.Nive view and we can sleep with the door open to our balcony to hear the waversall night long, or whenever we are awake.

We had dinner at Doc’s seafood. It was OK. I had friend oysters and Lynn fried shrimp.. A unique feature is they give you some horseradish and let you make your own cocktail sauce. Not too special otherwise.

We ate breakfast at Hazel’s Nook, #1 rated for breakfast. Really a buffet with an omelet bar.More fried food! Then we drove to Fort Morgan and stopped at Bohn Secour nature preserve and beach on the way back.  It was beautiful. White sands, mild surf. Also a crane on the beach, long thin neck some red markings on its belly. After that sublime time we went to a place named Lambert’s. More fried food! Moe other unique features of the place, but not nourishing or enjoyable. Then we drove to the pier at Gulf Shores Sate Park. Then back to our beach where we had a nice, brief time on the beach. We took pictures of the sunset from the beach.

For dinner we went to Mikee’s. Really very good! I had steamed Ruby Red shrimp, 6 steamed oysters and Lynn had a salad and pan seared shrimp. A pound of shrimp either way was $13.99!! Best meal yet in Gulf Shores.

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2018 10 29 ernie food
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October 25, long drive to Natchez in the rain

We had a long drive to Natchez from Clarksdale. Some of it was our own fault because we decided to go to Cleveland, Indianola, Leland, and Greenvillealong the way. A restaurant in Cleveland had been recommended by a chef we talked with in Oxford. We had an early lunch at the Delta Meat Market in Cleveland. Excellent food. The restaurant was in a strip of businesses, a gentrified part of town. We stopped into Abraham’s clothing store. THe help was great but we really didn’t want to buy anything.We eventually started talking with the owner, Dannyy Abraham. He had a baby grand piano in the shop and asked if we wanted to hear some blues. Who wouldn’t? He played and sang for us Hewas very gregarious and we enjoyed talking with him. He told us the real Crossroads, where RobertJohnsonmadea pact with the Deveilwas at the intersection ofroutes8 and 1 in Rosedale, MS>  We deceidedtogoforit, about15 miles out of our way.  him

2018 10 26 ernie Music
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October 24. Clarksdale MS

Drove from Oxford to Clarksdale via Avalon – Home of Mississippi John Hurt. Nothing there but a dirt road and some broken down, decorating shacks/buildings.

Then took a semi-paved road to Money where Emmet Till was abducted and killed. remote areas. Small towns. Only agriculture, mostly cotton. Our primary destination was Clarksdale MS. Lots of Delta blues lore and music there. We stayed at the Shack-Up Inn the self proclaimed lest American Bed and Beer establishment. Spent the night in a converted share cropper’s shack.

Heard acoustic blues at the Inn then went into town to hear blues at Ground Zero and reds. A full music night. Ate chicken wings at Levon’s. It was very neat to hear all that music in a variety of settings. Rain started overnight.  Many puddles the next morning as it continued to rain.

2018 10 26 ernie Music
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Oct 23. Nashville to Oxford MS

Drove on the Natchez Trace Parkway. Beautiful/. Got off near Tupelo and stopped in a Elvis Presley Birthplace.. Not bd but fairly unremarkable. Then drove yo Oxford, MS.Spen the night at Ole Miss Motel. Cheap but clean and quiet. No frills. Walked to town and he Square. Ate dinner at Neon Pig. Next morning went to Big Bad Breakfast and then to Ole Miss Campus. Taylor Grocery was closed do drove to GRIT and had excellent red beans and rice topped with catfish.

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Visiting with friends including APtBS in Nashville

We visited with David Popkin, Pam Perez, and Dan Popkin at David and Pam’s home in Nashville, Oct 20-23.

It was great to spend time with them again.

We also got to spend time with Oliver and the rest of the folks in A Place to Bury Strangers. 

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2018 10 23 ernie A Place to Bury Strangers
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Jonesborough Tennessee

We drove to jonesborough, Tennessee on October 19. As usual Lynn did all the driving. We traveled on interstate 81 most of the way. Scenery was nice but lots of cars and trucks

We had a reservation at Franklin House BNB where we spent the night. The item got is tickets for “A Spot on the Hill” a one hour performance telling the stories of several people who were in the local cemetery. 

The performance was at the cemetery. Interesting stories. Jonesborough is where national story tellling competitions and held.

After that we walked around town. Bought some CBD oil at a hemp store. There was obviously a party or outdoor music going on in town. We were directed to the local distillery where a band was performing outside. I think it was an event to promote breast cancer research. ≥

Today we drive to Nashville to visit with David Popkin and Pam. And see Oliver and APtBS on Monday. It seems we’ll have a drive in the rain.

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2018 10 20 ernie Travel Comments (0) Permalink

A Place to Bury Strangers reviews: a show in San Francisco, the album RePinned

A Place to Bury Strangers are on the road again. A Place to Bury Strangers & Kraus at Starline Social Club, Tuesday, October 9, 2018 is a review of a recent show in San Francisco.

Bringing their trademark disorienting and immersive live experience to the bay, APTBS dished out a multitude of tracks, including many from their latest album, ‘Pinned’.

The band has also recently released the album “Re-Pinned” a remix of many of the tunes on Pinned. Andy Frisk wrote a review of the album in the piece   A Place To Bury Strangers Gets Remixed on Re-Pinned in his blog Shutter 16.

Rarely does a great album, or artist, get to be the object of such great re-mixes. APTBS and Pinned are one of those lucky artists and albums.

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2018 10 12 ernie A Place to Bury Strangers
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Blur at the ocean

We’re in Virginia Beach for a few days. The hotel we are in, The Breakers, is on the boardwalk and a short walk to the ocean. Aa usual, I get up around dawn to take pictures of the sunrise. While I was taking photos this morning I got the idea to take some shots of the waves at a relatively slow shutter speed. 1/20 or 1/25. 

Some examples are in this post.

They are dark, being taken in the early morning. Not the most satisfying but I think they may have their place. So often I see and indeed take shots of waves at a higher shutter speed to freeze their motion. That is appropriate, but showing some motion is really much more realistic. We live with the motion and see the motion, but part of a moving image. The task here is to record the motion but to freeze it as well.

 

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