Back, Out & About

It's been a bit since my last post, but I have good reason! I recently had a lot of responsibility changes at work (for the better) and I've been swamped with that at work with less time to think about other things while on the ol' clock. Which is fine - I actually enjoy work again now. And Jenn and I just bought a house! It's just over the mountain in Birmingham to the south end of town. Quiet little neighborhood called Homewood. We're loving it, but it took ALL of our time and we were also without internet for a bit, so I have some catching up to do!

Some Like It Hot

So I was posting about hot foods, and Lord knows I love them. The next thing I did after trying a hot pizza at a local pizzeria in Homewood was make some enchiladas. They were great. Those are whole serrano peppers in the picture. I used several of those and chopped garlic, onion, toasted cumin, and smoked paprika. It was fairly hot, but not anywhere near as hot as some of the things I've been eating lately. This was kind of my last foray into spicy food in the last month or so. I've started becoming obsessed with another kind of food, which I'll get into in the next post.

Squid Ceviche

That being said, I'm going to comment on a couple of things I've eaten recently at restaurants since that's been the majority of my meal sources recently (it's difficult to cook a lot when you're without a refrigerator or refrigerated foods for a couple of weeks). The first one I felt worthy about commenting on is a ceviche dish at Sabor Latino in Homewood. Sabor Latino sounds like the typical Mexican establishment in Birmingham. While there are almost countless numbers of those eateries, Sabor is different. While they have the conventional fare of enchiladas, burritos, and tacos, they also have a wide variety of South American dishes. Specifically, they have a heavy Peruvian influence. I normally try to eat these dishes because I get tired of "Mexican" food as we know it. So I tried the Ceviche. This is a seafood dish wherein the food is only cooked via the acid of lemon or lime juices. So it's basically a dish of raw seafoods. They suggested I try the mix, so I did - fish, mussels, squid (pictured, with friend Sarah's thumb), and octopus. It was plated with softened sweet potato and toasted corn kernels. The dish was incredible - the texture and consistency I love of raw seafood with the bite of the citrus to tame some of the stronger flavors. If you're feeling adventurous, try it out - you won't be disappointed!

Shrimp n Grits

 Forgive me in advance for the quality of the picture - it was dark and I tried a few, but stopped before it turned rude. At a work dinner last night at the Tavern of St. Clair in Pell City, AL, I noticed ribbon icons next to a few of the meals. I asked the server what those meant. She assured me they were award-winning dishes. She could not, however, tell me the type or origin of these awards. Shrimp n Grits is one of my favorite southern/low-country dishes. It can be cooked 1000 different ways and I've yet to find one I dislike as long care was in the recipe. If you know anything about shrimp n grits, you know this picture looks off. It's usually a cream or butter sauce on a bed of grits with some large shrimp and the occasional sausage. This looks more like a soup. Well, it had a tomato-base that was reduced with white wine. This formed the majority of the dish visually. There were huge shrimp in the sauce, along with some Andouille sausage made from local hog. It added a bit of a kick to it, but nothing intimidating. There was also lightly fried broccoli in the sauce. What made this dish unique to me was the grits. Those large fried cakes that look like hashbrowns ARE the grits. They mixed a cream sauce with the grits and fried them into those delicious lumps of crispy, creamy delight. I will definitely be ordering this again, but I'll need to tell them to back off on the salt a bit. Towards the end of the meal, the sauce became a little too much to handle.

Thanks for reading, and I'll be back VERY soon with another post about my developing outlook on food. See you then!