An Ode to Fried Dough

I am a big fan of all baked goods, and, as with most things, I think they can only be improved upon when they're deep-fried.  Cider doughnuts have always been my especial passion, but but when they're available, I will always, always go for...

Behold.

Beignets*.

For those of you not lucky enough to have traveled to New Orleans, these are what people down there generally think of when you say "doughnuts."**  They're made with a yeast dough like any non-cake doughnut, then rolled out, cut into squares, and deep-fried until they puff up and turn golden-brown.  Then (and this is important), they're dusted with an obscene amount of powdered sugar and served with a cup of chicory coffee (if you're The Cajun) or milk (if you're me, because I don't like coffee, and tea would be weird).  If you're a coffee drinker, you may dump the excess sugar into your cup after you've finished your beignets.  Do not do this if you're drinking milk***.  Bonus points are given if you're wearing a dark color and manage not to look like you've been caught in a blizzard by the time you're finished.  A good beignet is never greasy, crisp on the outside, and soft (but never undercooked) on the inside; it's no wonder we eat them every morning they're available****.

The place where many people (me included) eat their first beignets is the legendary Café du Monde in Jackson Square in the French Quarter†.  Yes, it's crowded and packed with tourists, and, yes, there are weird people panhandling nearby, but that's part of its charm, and if they're making the doughnuts fresh right then and there, this place has no equal.

Crowded and weird and sticky.  Love it.

If you've been there already, or don't want to deal with the crowds and the traffic, there are a few other places that we approve of.  Café Beignet is on Royal, just behind the cathedral, and it's much quieter, with equally good food and coffee.

See?  Much quieter.  And they have resident cats.

If you're outside the French Quarter, Morning Call also makes some very good beignets, and you're not likely to see many other tourists there.

My favorite beignets in the entire world, however, do not come from the French Quarter.  As a matter of fact, they don't even come from Louisiana††.  There is a tiny shop, also called Café Beignets, in Gulf Shores, Alabama, and they won my undying affection years ago.  From what I understand from my coffee-drinking family, the coffee isn't quite as good, but the beignets are made when you order them, so they're always perfectly puffed up and excruciatingly hot, and you have to poke holes in them with a coffee stirrer to let the steam out, lest you burn yourself. 

So, please, if you're a fan of baked things, fried things, breakfast things, or things covered in powdered sugar, seek these out.  They're one of the most sublime breakfast (or lunch or snack or dinner or high tea or...) items out there, and a crucial part of the New Orleans (or coastal Alabama) experience.  However, upon reflection, perhaps having them every morning wasn't the greatest idea.  Guess it's time to dig out my Pilates tapes.



* Pronounced either ben-yay or bin-yay.  If there's an "S" on the end, don't bother pronouncing it.  And there will always be an "S" on the end, because eating just one of these babies would be a crime.  They come in threes for a reason.

** As a matter of fact, that's what my mother-in-law calls them.  Because when these are readily available, you just don't bother with any other kind of doughnut.

*** Just trust me on this one.  Please.

**** This is one of the reasons why my two chief souvenirs from last week's Thanksgiving trip to Louisiana were a head cold (not the beignets' fault) and an extra five pounds (quite possibly attributable).

† They do have other locations, but I wouldn't bother with any but the original.

†† That faint yowling noise you're hearing is The Cajun's family, all screaming, "HERESY!!!"

I Love the Holidays

...especially the obscure ones.

Today is National Bundt Cake Day!  How are you celebrating?

My Lemon Bliss Cake.  It tastes better than it looks.

I don't know where this holiday came from, and I don't care.  All I know is that it's an excuse to bake something bad for me in one of my favorite pans (though it's a love-hate relationship today, alas), and ogle the lovely and inspiring* blog of The Food Librarian as she bakes her way through an entire month of cakes in tubular form**.

As I'm lazy and didn't want to make an extra trip to the grocery store, I chose a recipe that I already had the ingredients for - King Arthur's Lemon Bliss Cake.  It's fairly easy and very yummy***, but I have one caveat: the recipe says to merely "lightly grease" your tube or bundt pan.  Against my own better judgement, I followed those instructions, and it stuck, which is why you should not look at my picture above, but rather at The Food Librarian's version, which is much prettier.  In reality, I should have ignored the "lightly grease" part, and should rather have buttered the heck out of the pan and then thoroughly floured it.  Lesson learned.

Much prettier on the inside.  And tastier.

So, go!  Bake something decadent and eat it, just because you can!


* And totally diet-destroying.  Do NOT attempt on an empty stomach.

** Also, the slogan "I Like Big Bundts" cannot be improved upon.  Go ahead and try, I dare you.

*** Sweet, lemony, and slightly sticky.  Good stuff.  I expect it will make an excellent breakfast.

Period of Adjustment

So we've been here for nearly four months now, and while life is settling down quite nicely, there are still a few things about this part of the world (in no particular order) that confuse me:

• To-go cups.  Nearly every time we're in any kind of restaurant with a non-alcoholic beverage in front of us, our server will ask at the end of the meal if we'd like our drinks in a to-go cup.  I've never seen that before.  Fancy places and fast-food places alike.
• Sweet tea.  Blurgh.  An acquired taste, I guess.
• Monogrammed cars.  Yes, really.  An astonishing number of people (mostly women, to judge by the font) have a sticker of their monogram on the rear window of their cars.  Some are in color, some have polka dots, but ALL of them are in the exact same curly font*.
•  People walk down the middle of the street here.  All over Spartanburg, in the busy downtown area, out by the mall, and everywhere in between, people don't seem to use crosswalks.  Even if there's a perfectly good one just 10 feet away, so many people cross the street by simply walking slowly into traffic.  And then sometimes they cross the street, and sometimes they wander down the middle of the street for a while.  It's not at all unusual to see people strolling quite happily down the center of a very busy street, rather than using the (conveniently located, I thought) sidewalks or crosswalks.  This is something I genuinely do not understand.
• What the heck does "sassy" mean?  I see this word used all over the place, on clothing boutiques, gift shops**, bumper stickers, and TV commercials.  The only way I've heard it used up until now is as a description of undesirable behavior in children, but here it sounds like an attribute used to describe women***, and the women in question seem to be quite proud of it.  I can't imagine describing a New England woman as "sassy."  Strong, self-reliant, or resourceful, but never "sassy."

Apropos of absolutely nothing, here are some lovely leaves in my backyard.

• Cars.  I have lots of family in Michigan, my father grew up in Detroit, and I fully understand the appeal and importance of buying American.  I was slightly taken aback, however, when the very nice lady at the county offices (where I was paying the taxes on our cars) informed me with a bright smile that she didn't know anything about the Acura**** I drive because "Southern girls drive Fords."  I honestly don't believe she was being sarcastic or nasty, I just think that it has never occurred to her to drive anything other than a Ford.  By the way, BMWs aren't considered foreign cars around here since BMW employs 5000+ people in this county (and judging by Upstate parking lots, a fair number of them are using their employee discount.).  I'm also seeing a very high percentage of Challengers and Mustangs, although the number of pickup trucks seems about the same as in central Pennsylvania.  And a few people still have Hummers; one of our neighbors drives one, but I hadn't seen one in so long that I didn't recognize it.  A fair number of hybrids in the neighborhood, too, though not as many as in Cambridge (not a surprise).
• I think I've mentioned before that people are nice.  Like, really nice.  Like, almost creepily nice.  Those bookshelves we bought from that furniture store up in Landrum†?  The store owner sent us a thank-you note for buying them.  The Cajun got his hair cut at a new salon?  His stylist sent him a thank-you note.  Same thing happened to me, but with a different salon (owned by the same people, though) and different stylist.  The volunteer coordinator at the library?  Three thank-you notes in my first two weeks.  I'm used to thank-you notes for Christmas and birthday presents, but... for a haircut?  On the other hand, the customer service down here is FABULOUS.  It's lovely to need help in the grocery store and actually get it, rather than watch the (few and far between) employees run away from you. And did I mention the home improvement stores? In my experience, these are always the worst places in terms of getting help, but we went to Lowe's last week, and before we had been inside the store for more than 2 minutes, four employees came up and asked us if we needed help!  This, I can get used to. Quickly. 

So the verdict is that I really, really like living here.  But I don't think I will ever learn to enjoy sweet tea.

* Very similar to "Curlz," if you're familiar with that one.  It's rather froo-froo, which is why I'm assuming most of these people are women.

** Usually the kind of shops that sell those monograms.

*** It is also the name of a very sweet cat of my acquaintance.

**** An Acura which was (mostly) built and entirely assembled in Ohio, incidentally.

† The shelves are GORGEOUS, by the way.  I would love a whole house full of them.