On the road with Southern Living and summer gumbos

 

Morgan Murphy starts with corn salad from Tin Top café in Grady Alabama and ends with the Ranch Burger from Jim's Drive Inn in Lewisburg in West Virginia.

It’s enough that traditional state plates make the section art in this Southern Living romp through the south. This new book is "Off the Eaten Path:On the Road Again." 
I remember Murphy’s great friendly style of writing, his making friends of people who want to feed him and even his napkin notes of great music to listen to as you take a road trip toward these great restaurants and meals.

Sweet Tea brined pork chops? It’s how they do in Florida. Caramel cake in Georgia, a sorghum bacon cookie in Kentucky…. It’s all too good!

“Dallas,” by our own Johnny Winter, is on the Texas Soundtrack list.

Something exciting to me is that I met Mimi Montgomery Irwin, whose dad kicked off the kolache craze at The Village Bakery in Texas. The family recipe for Kolache dough is in this book. There’s a bit of definition in the book, but go ahead and get with Mimi in West (West, comma, Texas as the locals say) for the whole story. Kolaches are supposed to have fruit, like apricots. The same dough, filled with sausage, can be called klobasniki, but not a sausage kolache.

Morgan Murgphy, give me a call before your next book. I’ll come with.

Summertime gumbo

January is National Soup Month. The first feeling of fall in the air sets my mouth watering for chili. But when do you crave gumbo?

In Southeast Texas it’s a year-round thing.

It’s my comfort food, hands down and it wouldn’t be Christmas Eve without it.

Seafood, chicken, sausage or okra make me happy, and I bet it does most of you all, too.

Readers, do you have a favorite summer version of gumbo?

Let me share your stories. Share them at:

darraghcastillo@icloud.com