I’m planning to keep this website pared to its essentials: publications as they come out, the occasional link, and a serialized novel or two. I’m currently looking into some self-publishing options for a couple novels, and this will be the place to come for that, too.

Bill Kte’pi, writer of wrongs

Mr Marquand’s Travelers Guide to Tango (2nd edition)

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But for the moment, here’s the original, now over 11 years old. This is probably the oldest thing I’ll let anyone read. To be fair, there are things about it I’d be too old to think of now, which is appropriate.

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Brown butter. Simmer ten sticks of cheap butter — about six bucks — in a pan until the water has cooked off and the dairy solids have browned. Use a mesh strainer to divide the results into shelf-stable clarified butter, which you can use in place of other cooking fats, and brown butter solids. Brown butter solids are a great addition to both sweet and savory sauces, in addition to other uses. (They go well with duck and root vegetables, so they’re a good winter thing.) “Ten sticks” isn’t the most convenient unit — if you buy three pounds of butter you’ll have two sticks left — but it creates just the right amount of clarified butter to fill a plastic Fluff container.

Duck confit.

In sour cherry season, pit sour cherries, freeze a bunch of them, candy a bunch of them.

In citrus season, make marmalade, make candied lemons and other citrus, make citrus-infused sugar (sometimes with cinnamon, vanilla, or Szechuan peppercorn), freeze sour oranges, and make infusions.

Fill ice cube trays with lemon and sour orange juices; store the cubes in freezer bags.

Cure ham in January, hang it at the start of spring, until the end of the year.

When in season, freeze fresh and roasted tomato purees, lima beans, fava beans, fresh corn, black-eyed peas, ramps, and okra. I always freeze too little tomato puree, though freezer space is a factor.

Make pectin-free strawberry preserves when in season. Nothing but strawberries, sugar, lemon juice, and time.

Pickle ramps when in season.

Make stock with roasted bones, with at least two days of simmering. Reduce stock to very very strong demiglace and it’ll keep forever.

Make greens, with smoked pork stock and at least a full day of simmering.

Make pimento cheese, which has actually become pimento beer cheese: shred sharp Cheddar in Cuisinart, then replace grating disc with blade. Process shredded Cheddar with just the right amount of beer, before adding pimientos (jarred or home-grown and roasted), ramps (pickled or fresh), Louisiana hot sauce, a bit of mustard (prepared or powder), and mayonnaise (preferably homemade, yes).

Strain yogurt. Start with a quart of unsweetened unflavored yogurt with active cultures, and dump it into a strainer lined with cheesecloth (or a clean kitchen towel), over a big bowl. Leave overnight. You can call this yogurt or labneh, doesn’t matter. I like it for breakfast with fruit or any of the aforementioned jams or marmalades.

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Now, I know cooking. I know a lot about cooking. I wouldn’t be surprised if more of my friends and acquaintances think of me as a cook than as a writer. Working at home, coming of age in New Orleans, growing up with a garden instead of individually wrapped packets of carrot confetti, all these things contribute to being good at cooking.

So I normally scorn the tendency of meat departments around here to offer a dozen different kinds of marinade instead of, you know, an actual variety in cuts of meat.  Today I went to the supermarket looking for chicken livers, because I loved the fried livers with pepper jelly that I made earlier in the week.  Didn’t see them.  Asked at the counter.  They were out.  Asked about skirt steak.  They don’t carry it anymore.  Well, at this point I had taken up enough of their time that I felt I had to get something — which is silly, but nevermind — so I bought two of the bacon-cheddar pre-made hamburgers at $4.99 a pound.

I make a lot of burgers.  I cook mostly on cast-iron, and that’s perfect for burgers, which as many burger bloggers and burger bookwriters have noted in the last couple years, are best griddled, not grilled.  Cooking on a hot flat surface gives you a good sear and a crust, maximizing the Maillard reactions and getting the most flavor out of the beef.

So I got home, preheated one of the little cast-iron pans, put one of the patties on it …

… and the kitchen was silent.

No sputtering fat and juice.  No sizzle.  No sound at all.  I actually thought I might have turned on the wrong burner.  But no, it was cooking.  When I flipped it, the “sear” had a weird look to it, the way meatballs do after you’ve rolled them in flour and browned them. This seemed to fit with the fact that when I picked up the thin uncooked patty, it didn’t sag or risk breaking at all — it was as inflexible as a hockey puck.

So I looked at the ingredients, and the problem was evident right away. This bacon-cheddar burger had more than half a dozen ingredients, of which bacon was the last.  Bacon being last is fine if beef and cheese are the only two things in front of it, but there’s more potato starch in this alleged burger than bacon.  Potato starch!

What resulted had snap like a Slim Jim, a hot dog saltiness, and a firm texture like meat loaf. Whether or not you think that sounds appealing, it’s nothing like a hamburger.

The other patty will probably be chopped into bits and tossed into an omelette. It’s not terrible, it’s just … nothing like a hamburger.

My favorite webcomic, Garfield Minus Garfield, is coming out in paperback.

The blueberry Aviation: Fill a jar with wild blueberries and Luxardo maraschino liqueur. Let sit for at least a few days. Shake, with ice, 2 oz gin, 1 oz key lime juice, 1 oz blueberry maraschino. Repeat as desired.