Profile: Pinckney

I am a middle age guy who started cooking in the 60's out of a need to eat something better than college food service stuff. I grew up in a household with a cook, but both parents liked to participate on weekends and did a lot of entertaining and all the menu planning. Neither thought too much about it, but one brought a scientific bent to the process and the other just knew what she liked and how she wanted it done. Both read cookbooks and one subscribed to the Time/Life series of world cookbooks. These were quite exotic for the time; most of what we had eaten came from family recipes, "it's just done this way, that's why.." and several reliable books, like The Joy Of Cooking, Charleston Receipts and a few others.

College food revealed to me that I had been eating pretty well as a kid and I learned that if I wanted to continue to do so, I was going to have to learn how to do it. Julia Childs started on the television; I had friends who had spent time in Asia and learned the rudiments of stir-fry and basic prep. I started acquiring knives and cooking vessels - some of which I still use to great effect 45 years later.

Cooking has always been a creative outlet for me. I never thought about doing it as a profession because I was afraid it would stop being fun. It's still fun and though I cook a little less often and for fewer people, I still do it and try to keep learning new pieces. Most everything I do is shaded somewhat by the lowcountry style I grew up with.

	Pass the Polenta: And Other Writings from the Kitchen by Teresa Lust Paperback, published by Ballantine Books	$11.95 $8.36
	Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, Camille Kingsolver, Steven L. Hopp Hardcover, published by HarperCollins Publishers	$26.95 $18.86
	Joy of Cooking by Irma Von Starkloff Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker Hardcover, published by Scribner Book Company	$35.00 $24.5

	FDR's Martini	Jun 28
	Now's the time - Small (Baby Artichokes)	May 01
	Oyster Stew from "Oysters, A Culinary Celebration"	Apr 28
	Another Poulet au Vinaigre from the Hess's taste of America	Apr 19
	Deviled Crabs from Charleston Receipts	Apr 09

Dessert vs. Serving Spoon?

At a recent dinner dessert was accompanied by large coin silver spoons. A discussion broke out about the size of the spoons and several people insisted that these were not dessert spoons, but serving spoons. The host said, “No, they’re dessert spoons”, and produced some even bigger spoons, stating that, “these are serving spoons.”

There was no argument about the really big spoons being serving pieces, but the large spoons were still being discussed so smaller spoons of the same style an...

updated Mon, 2 comments

Big Green Egg conquers Texas Brisket

Grillmybunz, a member of Foodsville from the very beginning, has made some significant contributions to my culinary well being. Early on, he suggested that we could be drinking much better coffee if we roasted it ourselves and he wrote a piece about the Big Green Egg. I resisted both ideas briefly; the BGEgg longer than the coffee, but eventually went back to roasting coffee and recently, for Father’s Day, gifted myself the Egg.

The Egg isn’t a new thing at all ...

updated Jun 22, 5 comments

The Mayan Riviera - ohmygoodness. NO!

It recently became necessary for my beloved to take a vacation. She wanted to go somewhere interesting and not stressful and preferably with a beach. “Great”, I said. “How about Edisto Island?” She countered with Argentina and we settled on Mexico as the flight to Argentina is eleven hours and the one to the Yucatan is only four.

Mexican food is loved by many and I sometimes count myself in that number, however …. there isn’t any on the Yucatan pe...

updated Jun 11, 1 comments

Field Peas

I just spent seven days among the wild grape vines dancing with a chain saw and fertilizing ancient fields with liberal amounts of money and so - coincidentaly - can report on the state of the Edisto Island tomato crop. The state of the crop is there ain’t one this year. The farmers might plant some soy beans because they can do most of the work with machinery. Vegetables take hand labor and there isn’t any certainty this year that there will be any. Much of the large scale tomato pl...

updated May 26, 2 comments

Herbs coming

A few days ago I went out to the front yard to get some overwintered rosemary for the lamb chops and saw that the herbs were beginning to green up. The sage has gone from dusty grey to bright green and thickened considerably. The mint has surreptitiously expanded out of its bed over the winter and will have to be fought back into place. It's half way across the yard. The rosemary hasn't really started to do a lot relating to spring. This could be because we kept having war...

updated May 17, 2 comments

Making Red on Edisto

My niece, Kirsten, spent a lot of time with my mother and learned to make Tomato Catsup from her. She and her sister, Elizabeth, are now carrying this recipe forward to glory and it is a big seller at the annual Trinity Christmas Bazaar in Columbia. I never did it because my mother always made it in August when the last tomatoes were still on the vines and the temperature was in the high and soggy nineties. She usually undertook this task with my aunt Ellie in the kitchen on E...

updated May 09, 2 comments

Endangered Foods from The NYTimes.

There is a very interesting article about disappearing foods and how to save them in the NYTimes at this location.

updated Apr 30, 1 comments

Pulled Pork Methodology

It is possible–No! It is likely–that I will revisit and rewrite this article/recipe more than a couple of times.

Pulled pork is an easy thing to do. It’s also an easy thing to mess up by trying to make more of it than it is. Simple is really the best way to go, and there are a number of different but SIMPLE ways to come at a good pulled pork sandwich. My favorite is made by Bobo Lee at Bobo’s Po’ Pig on Highway 174, on the way to Edisto Beach, Sout...

updated Apr 29, 8 comments

One Way with Oysters

Recently, I came across a book* of oyster recipes—variations on raw, though elegant, entrees—and started thinking about the oyster roasts on Edisto Island. There is generally something to eat besides oysters, but oysters are the prime reason for standing around in South Carolina’s semi-cold, wintery, north wind with a bunch of shivering fellow oyster fans. Side dishes consist of venison chili, maybe, or a soup of some kind and a dip. There are always crackers—Saltin...

updated Apr 28, 4 comments

COFFEE

It surprises me that there aren't more people talking about coffee on this site. I came to appreciate this marvelous stuff rather late in life. For my first forty odd years I had nothing to do with the stuff other than the occasional dose diluted something like one to one with milk, but after an illness that left me tired in the afternoons I started drinking coffee. It has grown on me and continues to do so and is a silver ling to an otherwise nasty cloud.

I live in an...

updated Apr 23, 4 comments

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Favorite regions: Herbs, Spices, Condiments, Game, Meat, Seafood, Poultry, Coffee

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