January 15th

Friday. You know it has been a week when a friend calls out of the blue and asks if they can come and drink beer at your house. Of course, you say yes and put an extra steak in the grocery cart just in case the remedy for the week should include additional nibbles of red meat, too.

Jerry and I were at Food Lion when that call came in. God bless our dear friend, Molly. She walked through the door as Jerry was trying to time his Steak Diane to be finished at the same time my corn fritters were going to be done. I love the Commander's Palace cookbooks, but they don't tell you how long a recipe is going to take. They say, "cook for 10 minutes," or "reduce by half, approximately ... minutes." They just don't say "A worn out teacher can complete this recipe in exactly 30 minutes provided that there are no small disasters, like their 8 year old coming in with broken glasses and a black eye due to being hit in the face at point blank range with a football." It was one of those kind of nights.

So when Molly came in, she started washing up dishes and asking what she could do to help. Jerry was quizzing me on how long I was going to be with the fritters. How was I supposed to know? Really? Molly got to/had to play sous chef and I told her to beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. She looked at me...and then she blinked. She started stirring sort of slowly and asked if she was getting them to stiff peak stage. "Not at that speed," I replied. She dissolved into giggles and kept repeating "Not at that speed" all night.

Molly is a funny girl. She is on Facebook and will talk about the blog on Facebook, but do you see her on here as one of the people following the blog? Nope. She was here one night when the order was given to "beat the hell out of it." I don't remember who said it, or what it was about, but it resonated with Molly and she repeated it on Facebook. She even said that she was a little disappointed that it didn't make the blog. Luckily, the phrase came to mind and when I told her that the egg whites were not going to change in consistency at that speed, I remembered, "Beat the hell out of it," and she laid into those egg whites. Stiff peaks in record time.

Jerry Burch makes the best steaks...hands down. We rarely ever go out for steak dinners because we know the best ones are had at home. My personal favorite is his blackened steak (rare in the center) with bleu cheese on top. Goes great with a glass of red wine. The Steak Diane may have replaced the blackened/bleu cheese steaks as my favorite. Lucille stepped out and said that Steak Diane was her new favorite. They were cooked inside had a great sauce topping them. I don't think that it was all that difficult to make them (he finished before I finished with those darned fritters). I hope he will make them again.

Now to the fritters. I sifted the dry ingredients. I made a well in the center and added the egg yolks and then milk. I was supposed to "stir" until thoroughly incorporated. Stir? I had to use my hands to mix it together. It looked like playdough or modeling clay. To this, I added the fresh corn kernels, chopped green onions, salt and pepper. Again, back to mushing it together with my hands. Sour cream...fold in egg whites. This just wasn't like any fritter batter I have ever seen or made. Oh, I forgot, "stir in diced butter"...REALLY???? now we are stirring in diced butter before frying in butter. We hit an all time low (or high if you are measuring cholesterol).

The steak was better than the fritters. The fritters were good, but I didn't just jump up and down over them. I think I will stick with my grandmother's recipe. As for the steak, Jerry can make them any time he wants!!!