Talk Elections

I'm obsessed with the idea of cheese on grits ever since I first heard of it about a week ago.

I like all that native american maize--hominy, grits, polenta, farina, corn tortillas.  I think I was a Mexican in my previous life--and even I can't imagine eating cheese on grits.  Although, if it were queso fresco, crumbled and gently heated, it'd probably be good.  It's good that way on polenta, farina, and white corn tortillas, which are all basically the same thing as grits. 

Problem is, when I first heard of cheesy grits, from a televised news report on the Romney campaign, I googled it and found that the "cheese" wasn't the sort of cheese that normally gets served on hominy-based products.  It was like Velveeta or something, which isn't really cheese at all (In 2002, the FDA required kraft to change the "processed cheese spread" label to a "processed cheese product" label.  Mmmmm, processed cheese product.)  I'm just not buying that Romney is into that yellow-colored, partially-hydrogenated cottonseed oil that passes for cheese in some parts, even if he is a white corn man like myself.

I'm wondering if anyone here has ever tried it?  If so, is it a tasty treat?  Where can I get some?

Okay, apparently you can buy grits in the supermarket.  I've only ever had them at restaurants, chains like Denny's, and at the All-U-Can-Eat breakfast buffet places like Shoney's, and in some breakfast-included hotels along the interstate, and once at a small diner in NYC when I saw it on the menu.  I think I posted about that here when I was living in Manhattan a few years ago.  In all those places I always saw it served plain, and you could opt for salt and pepper.  I actually used some hot sauce on it as well.  Not bad with hot sauce, but then everything goes well with hot sauce so that's not surprising.  Unfortunately restaurants never have anything good like Melinda's XXXXtra reserve sauce or El Yucateco salsa verde.  They seem only ever to have that vinegary Mcilhenny tabasco sauce.  Don't know why that one's so popular.  Marketing, I suppose.  

Anyway, I've found on google that you can actually buy boxes of grits, so all you have to do is add water and make your own at home.  How cool is that?  My guess is that it won't be as tasty as the freshly ground and alkalined maize, like you see the old Maya women pounding in small villages in the Yucatan peninsula, but it's probably the same quality that you'd get under the heat lamps at Shoney's.  And the nice thing about buying a box and making it at home is that you can put any kind of cheese you like on it.  You could try a nice Vermont yellow cheddar, or brie (I'd cut the bloom of the edge if I were going to use brie) or even chavrie.  I'll probably use a little freshly grated mozzarella on my first try, and lots of black pepper and salt.  

Mr. Food suggests the following recipe:

3 1/2 cups water
    1 cup white or yellow grits
    1 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
    4 tablespoons butter
    1/4 cup milk
    1/2 teaspoon salt
    1/4 teaspoon black pepper
    1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper

In a large saucepan, bring water to a boil over high heat. Add grits and cook 5 to 7 minutes, stirring occasionally until mixture is thick.
     
Remove from heat and add cheese and butter; stir until melted.
     
Add remaining ingredients and stir until well combined. Serve immediately.


Anyway, I'm going to look around the oatmeal and malt-o-meal aisle next time I'm in the grocery store to see if I can find any boxed instant grits.  I've probably walked past it a million times and never noticed it, but now I'll be sure to look for it.  

Grits are awful. I feel very fortunate not to have to subsist on corn gruel.

It may be an acquired taste, but I don't ever remember a time when I didn't like white corn, My son gags every time we go near a tortilleria when we're on vacation in Mexico, so I never offered him any polenta ("grits" to gringos).  And the few times I've brought corn tortillas home, my wife won't go near them.  She only likes the flour ones.  Yet, they both love corn.  They like corn on the cob, corn from a can, frozen corn, salty corn, peppery corn, little bitty corn cobs like you find in Chinese dishes, and cornbread.  How can you like corn and not like grits?  It could be the pH.  Grits/polenta/whitemaize/etc. all have a much higher pH than corn, and the process that makes them causes a reaction with the sugars that render it much less sweet than the corn that grows on stalks.  I suppose that's what people like about corn, the fact that it's sweet.  As for me, I could go my whole life without eating a corn on the cob and I'd be happy.  I'm not a big fan of yellow corn.  Then again, I'm really not into sweets.  But give me a white corn tortilla or a polenta soup and I'll scarf it down.  

There's a huge difference between sweet corn and field corn.

I bet you also like nutella on your crêpes.  Or strawberry goulash.  I prefer shredded pork on mine.  I have found that there are those who go in for sweet fillings, and those who go for the more savory flavors.  Same goes for bagels:  some like cinnamon, raisin, or blueberries with their bagels.  I like onion or garlic with mine. 

I never cross-referenced this, but I'd hazard a guess that those who would choose a garlic bagel over a blueberry bagel are the same types who would choose hominy and hot sauce over a corn on the cob.

Probably wouldn't bet ten thousand dollars on it, though.  ;)

There is room for sweet and for salty on my plate. It just depends on the food in question. I like pretzels salty and dessert sweet. Corn mush I can do without altogether. And the best thing in a bagel is, of course, smoked fish.

They're okay, I guess.

A follow-up.  There was no seminar today so I left a little early. 

The purchase

As it turns out, the local super does have grits.  Two kinds, in fact:  Quaker grits and Quaker instant grits.  The instant grits featured butter flavor, and that did not appeal, so I opted for the regular grits.  They were about where I thought they'd be, on the aisle with malt-o-meal and oatmeal and wheat bran rice meal and other hot breakfast cereals, but they were very low, on the lowest shelf, which is probably why I never noticed them.  The Quaker regular grits come in a 24-ounce paper can, with plastic lid, and sells for $2.15.  I also picked up a small block of Monterrey Jack. 

The preparation

Following the directions, I poured 3/4 cup of Quaker grits into 3 cups of vigorously boiling water, added a dash of salt, stirred it, reduced the heat, and covered it and let it simmer for five minutes, stirring occasionally.  I then served my son a small bowl of it.  Predictably, he sniffed it, gagged, and absolutely refused to even give it a try.  (That's his mother's influence, I think.  She spoils him.  After slaving away in the kitchen for hours, she serves him, and if he doesn't like it, she goes back to the kitchen to make something else.)  On a brighter note, my wife seemed to approve of the grits, but only after she cut some pork and green onion into it.  Basically, that's her solution to all food crises:  add stir-friend pork and green onion.  As for myself, I opted for a goodly portion of the monterrey jack, which I diced with a knife rather than grating, and mixed it into the hot grit porridge.

The judgement

I'd have to say, after having tried them with an open mind, that I prefer my grits sans fromage, so that's how I'll vote.  Now, it could just be my choice of cheeses, but I like all sorts of cheeses so I don't think so.  Or, it could have been the wine pairing.  Truth be told, I should have served it with a delicate pinot grigio, but I don't have any white wines at the moment.  I've a basement full of wine, but they're all peppery Spanish riojas or gritty Lang d'oc-Rousillons or fiesty Aussie Shiraz or velvety California Cabernet Sauvignons, so I picked out a decent Jacob's Creek Shiraz 2008.  But I have a little of the WalterMitty in me, to be honest, and I'd say that any wine is good wine, especially if it's red wine, so I don't think it was the pairing either.  I just think that I prefer pepper, salt, and a little hot sauce on my grits.  No butter.  No cheese.  After all, I don't take milk in my coffee and I don't take milk in my tea, so why should I want any on my grits?

Overall, I cannot recommend cheese on grits.  Thank you for your attention in this important matter.

I swear to God I don't know what grits are.

You lived in Mississippi for several years and never ate cheese (NOT CHEESY) grits?  Wild.

I've had instant grits from the grocery store lots of time, and there's many varieties of them, including different flavors of cheese grits.  They're all fine, though none are particularly great or anything.

I prefer my grits with salt, chocolate dressing, peach-flavoured sauce, cheesecake and ketchup. Mmmmmmm.

Yeah, not only have I never had them, I've never even seen what they look like.

Three years.  Had grits a few times there.  To be fair, I've also ordered grits at a restaurant not far from my house when I lived in Manhattan (yes, I lved pretty close to the 'hood).  I've also had grits on little interstate highway buffet breakfast dives.  Don't recall that I ever saw them served with cheese.  Always they were served with salt, and pepper was an option.  I saw a few folks drowning them in butter (especially in Mississippi), but I can't say that I'd ever seen them with cheese till Willard mentioned it.  Mind you, it's not something I seek out, the way I seek out certain kinds of meats or booze--after all, my two favorite food groups remain the meat group and the booze group--so I may have overlooked them on a menu, somewhere, sometime.  

And, to be fair, I have had my share of white corn tortillas with queso fresco on various trips way down south (farther south than Mississippi, I can assure you) but I can't honestly say I've ever put the two seemingly disparate concepts of cheese and grits together before this season's GOP nominating contest.  And now that I've tasted them, I can't say that I ever will again.



'round here they got two kinds:  Quaker grits and Quaker instant grits.  And they're on the bottom shelf.  And there are maybe four boxes of each (This is a giant mega grocery store that probably stocks as many as 100 large boxes of Quaker Oats at any given time, just for perspective.)  I'm guessing that grits aren't a big seller in Iowa.  Bratwursts, on the other hand, are another matter.  Man, I never saw so many, or so many different kinds, of bratwursts till I came to Iowa, but that's another diatribe.


Anyway, I'll probably finish off this 24-ounce can with salt and hot sauce.  Probably have them once every two weeks over the next several months, something like that, then I'll probably live the rest of my life without purchasing another container of Quaker grits ever again.  I will, however, continue to sample the grits from the various buffets as my travels may take me from time to time.  Just because I don't like 'em with cheese doesn't mean that I don't like 'em.

Who voted for black people food?

Some southern food is exciting, some the good kind of exciting, mostly the gross kind of exciting.  And some southern food is boring as Dothan Alabama.  Grits fall into the latter category.

Maybe Dothan finds you just as boring as you find Dothan.  I didn't find Dothan particularly boring.  I certainly found enough to occupy my 14 or so hours in Dothan. 

I spent a night there once when we were on our way back to Iowa from Clearwater, taking it slowly.  Motel Six I think it was.  Big statue of Elvis out front.  Very kitch.  I had my bicycle strapped to the trunk and took it down for a ride around town.  I think I spent a couple of hours touring Dothan.  Got back and took a nice long swim in the hotel pool, then we had a relaxing dinner near the hotel.  My son was about 2 at the time and we strolled him about a little.  It was all very pleasant, as I recall.

Matt Cain was born in Dothan, Alabama.

Imagine cooking a paste of flour and water. Subsitute coarse corn meal for the flour. That's grits. The ultimate poverty food. Which is why it's so particularly preposterous that Mitt Romney would get excited about eating it.

I've always loved grits. Instant grits are bearable, but good homemade grits are absolutely excellent, and an essential part of a full breakfast (which also includes eggs, plenty of bacon and/or sausage, homemade pancakes of some variety, several warm and flaky biscuits, and a large cup of strong coffee [or maybe just orange juice]). At Tulane I occasionally made such meals for my friends as a "breakfast for dinner" type thing, and everyone loved it. Some of the Yankees were hesitant to try grits because they were entirely unfamiliar with the food (and yeah, if you've never seen it before I guess it looks a bit weird), but in the end a lot of people were surprised by the fact that they actually liked them.

To make them well, you need some cheese, without overdoing it. IMO, sharp cheddar works pretty well, though in a bind I once used "Fiesta Blend" cheese and it ended up tasting good too. You don't want to mix much cheese into the pot of grits, as that just gives them a strange consistency and color. Put a little bit of cheese into the pot, to help the general flavor, and then sprinkle some more on the top of each bowl you scoop out. Also, be fairly liberal with the salt and pepper. If you want to experiment I've heard that adding shrimp with cajun seasoning to grits can be tasty, too.

I suppose it's really just a comfort food for me; my parents, grandparents, and pretty much every other relative I know makes grits for breakfast all the time. Also, yes, it's cheese grits, not "cheesy" grits. :P

I've never had grits either.

so it's basically a corn pancake?

^Ive only had them a long time ago- the consistency is closer to oatmeal than a pancake.

The aftermath

So this morning there was a lumpy smear of white substance in the pot.  It had dried overnight, but not completely.  No longer having a porridge consistency, it looked very much as if someone had run a heteropolymerization reaction in the pot and let it cure naturally, allowing the solvents evaporate.  Having had some experience cleaning such vessels I fretted over cleaning the residual grit from the pot.  As it turns out, clean-up is breezy.  I went in at an acute angle with a big spoon in order to start scraping, but the whole thing just lifted up, flopping about like rubber.  One, big, amorphous, irregularly-shaped lump of white corn paste came out on the spoon, with very little sticking to the stainless steel pot.  Washing the pot required one swipe of a soapy sponge.  How easy is that?  I did try tasting it, of course.  Hair of the dog and all that.  Nasty, it was, and I cannot recommend cold grits.  Grits should only be taken hot, not long after cooking.  Any grit left over should be composted or maybe fed to the cat, if you have one.  

I've had the instant stuff from the grocery store before.  It didn't taste very cheesy at all to me.

so, angus...you've moved on from bacon ice cream sundaes to cheesy grits.

I'm surprised you could find instant cheese grits in your local store.  Here, all I could find was regular grit and instant grit.  I know that there are some regions of the country where white people commonly eat grits, but yours isn't one of them  Neither is mine.  I suppose Hartford has a large enough black population to support a grit industry.  Maybe you can find a wider grit selection in your stores than we can.  The city I live in is 96% non-hispanic white--probably typical of Iowa--and the largest minority here is not black.  (There are far more types of soy sauce in my local market than there are types of grit.)

Ah, I still have 20 of my 24 ounces left.  I may just try cheese grits with some different cheese.  As you might well imagine, supermarkets in the Upper Midwest have many types of cheese on offer.


jmfcst,
I'm told that they're "Cheese grits" and not "cheesy grits."  Which also explains why Al Sharpton made such a big deal of it on his show a few nights ago.  He kept saying, "Well, there's something cheesy about Romney..." and kept using the word cheesy over and over, and emphasizing it when he said "cheesy grits" while simultaneously rolling his eyes.

I never did get around to trying the bacon sundae, by the way.  :(

Nah, the selection here probably wasn't much better.  My store only had the plain stuff and the cheese stuff.  I tried looking for the other flavors that the box listed since the cheese flavor sucked, but I couldn't find any.

I live in probably one of the whitest towns in the country.  But it's fairly rural, if that means anything.  I'm kind of surprised that a state like Iowa wouldn't have a whole lot of grits in store.

You'd think, given all that corn.  But here people only want their corn served in one of two ways:  on the cob or in the fuel tank.  

I've only ever seen a preponderance of grit (or grit-type foods) in the Greater South, in the Yucatan peninsula, in Guatemala, and in the northern part of Manhattan (north of 125th street.)  But I'd venture a guess that Compton, Philadelphia, Hartford, and Detroit also have their share of grit-friendly venues. Most other places it's a quirky thing.  In Iowa you never see them, not even on breakfast buffets.

Back to topic:  It wasn't the grit aspect of cheese grits that intrigued me, but the cheese aspect.  That's the part I'd never heard of.  The "fiesta blend" cheese Bacon King mentioned really piques my curiosity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grits

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For those of you who don't know what they look like.

So mashed potatoes meets cream of wheat or something like that?

I think it's the same thing as cream of wheat, except with corn of course.

Okay, for the unitiated, I found this video of an industrial-scale grit manufacture:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x55u2t_molinos-de-nixtamal_tech


mmmm, don't it look tasty, boys and girls? 

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Mmmmmmm... heart attacks.

I've never eaten grits and after reading the description of what it actually is, I'm not inclined to either.

It's just cornmeal.

Grits? Dude, that's Canadian Moderate Hero food.

Okay, so the boy is doing art class at a local museum on Saturday mornings now, and I figured it'd be a good chance to give it another go.  With them gone, I don't have to put up with his gagging.

I cycled to the local super and bought a block of Happy Farms sharp cheddar for today's experiment.  Following the Quaker Grits recipe for the second time, I added water and grit, and steeped it for five minutes.  This time, when I put it into the bowl, I added a little cumin along with copious quantities of black pepper and salt.  Also, I'm trying the cheddar instead of the Monterrey Jack this time.  I cut off approximately 30 grams of the cheddar and pushed it into the middle of the grit porridge, gave it a few minutes to melt, and stirred.  It ends up being a little yellowish.  Nothing bright orange, as is depicted in Ernest's signature, so maybe I'm not using nearly enough cheese, but I feel like I'm using enough to judge it.

Not bad, but it still doesn't knock my socks off.  Oh, also I served myself a delicate Pinot Grigiot with the grit mixture today.  I can safely say that the pinot grigiot is a much better match for the grits than the red wine was.   (I don't usually start drinking alcohol at 10:45 am, but I really needed to find out what wine works best with grits.) 

At this point, I'm still convinced that I prefer my grits sin queso.  Still, perhaps I just haven't found the perfect cheese accompaniment yet.  Perhaps I'll go with something savory next time, like a freshly-grated romano.  Maybe next weekend  I still have about 3/4 of the contents of the package of grits left, so he search can continue!

Don't know if that counts:

My mom used to cook polenta sometimes and little pieces of cheese or butter or marmelade was put inside, to get some flavor.

The cheese counts.  Not the butter.  Polenta is grits, so if Mama put cheese in the polenta then you have had cheese grits.  How'd you vote?  Do you prefer your polenta with, or without, cheese?

Marmalade, on a separate note, is interesting, but not as interesting as cheese, imho. 

I'm leaning toward putting some animal product in it.  Grits are cholesterol free, and it just didn't do it for me as a filling lunch.  It's 6:00 now and I'm starving.  Normally, I'm just sort of hungry and ready to eat dinner at 6, but today I'm weak and can't think straight.  Gonna need something in my grits besides marmalade, I'm afraid.  I'm still not sold on the idea of cheese grits.  Bacon grits, maybe?

You'd make a poor field hand, angus.

indeed.  

Tried that one summer.  Tried cowboy work too.  And convenience store clerk, floral delivery, fast food frycook, pizza delivery, waiter at a seafood restaurant, metalworker, woodworker, welder's assistant, cable TV installer, engineer's aide, document deliverer, chicken inoculator, election return reporter for the AP, math tutor, science tutor, Spanish tutor, English/Spanish interpreter, and telemarketer.  Though I wasn't particularly adept at pulling in the crop, field hand was far from my least favorite blue-collar job, by the way.  That honor goes to telemarketing.

Garlic and roasted eel!

That's the best topping I've found so far for grits.  Take a clove or two of garlic and slice it very thin, or dice it, then just put it into the boiling water.  Don't sautee it or anything, just drop the garlic slivers in raw.  Then add a can of roasted eel just about a minute before you take it off the heat.  Or you can use sardines, but not the ones in mustard sauce.  I suppose any canned fish will work, but I wouldn't recommend kippers, because that's smoked herring and I should think that it would clash with the white corn flavor.  I've tried both sardines and roasted eel so far, and they're both excellent with grits and garlic, but I think I have a preference for the eel.

I still haven't found any way to make cheese taste good with grits.  I've tried mozarella, swiss, parmesan, queso fresco and cheddar, and it's just nasty.  It always adds a fatty filmy consistency, the way melted cheese always does.  I guess if you're a fan of melted cheese, then that might be okay.  I don't like it.  Garlic and canned fish is the way to go.

I've never eaten or as far as I know even seen 'grits', which may be a little strange growing up in Missouri, but you'd be surprised, the upper-middle classes of that state are largely un-Southern.  However I do remember there being cans of plain 'hominy' in my mother's secondary pantry (down the hall quite far away from the main kitchen, between the sort of 'workaday' or kitchen dining room and the laundry room), which no one ever ate, except for me.  I would take them down warm them up and eat them with sandwiches.  But those were actual little hunks of corn if I remember rightly.

That pantry was funny - rarely used, and there were a lot of very odd canned goods in there.  There was also an odd sort of structure built into the wall of that 'kitchen dining room' which contained about 30 bottles of Jim Beam and Johnny Walker, which my father had received as gifts over years.  We were such weird kids we never drank any of it though it sat there unattended through years of adolescence.

I can remember that the real dining room with the fancy 'antique' table, and.. oh what are those things called, the big low furnitures in a dining room along the walls.. anyway that dining room was only used for our private family meals or special occasions, while the other one was used just for guests, which if you think about it seems very backwards, as it looked really quite poor - it looked like a traditional farmer's dining room, complete with a metal-and-formica table and linoleum floor.  But somehow it was just the place for people to pop by for cups of coffee, sandwiches, or coco in the winter - everybody from guys just back from hunting or dirty from working on the farm, or kids who'd been sledding.  Dad even did a lot of business in that back kitchen - it had enormous windows, so it was just the location for rolling out subdivision plans or deeds or contracts. 

Damn, missing dad and that old table, he's dead now and I don't doubt my terrible sibling has thrown out the table.  It looked a little like this, only longer: http://www.flickr.com/photos/14477776@N03/6281488307/

There are buffets, sideboards, and console tables.  What you describe sounds like a sideboard.  We had one as well for a number of years. 

We never had the chrome/formica table, although they were popular in my youth. 

Never had grits at home till I bought that can of them a couple of months ago, but I'd always see them on the buffet lines are certain restaurants and hotels.  Still see them, in fact.  In april I stayed two nights at a Quality Inns & Suites in Norfolk and it came with full breakfast.  They had grits there.  I always try a spoonful of them when I see them on the buffet, because it's something we never had at home, and it's something that my folks never would have ordered for me when we went out for breakfast, so there's the exotic quality.  Like egg rolls, really.  I always eat at least one of them when I'm at a chinese buffet, not because they're good.  In fact, they're usually not good, but they are exotic.  It's something we never eat at home.  Even though I'm married to a citizen of China, and much of what we eat is what some would call exotic, we never have egg rolls.  And in all my trips to China I never encountered an egg roll.  The only time I ever see them is when I'm at an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet in the United States, and I always eat one.  Same for grits.  Only time I ever see them is at all-you-can-eat buffet places in the United States, and I always try a spoonful.  Now, when I finally finish this little 24-ounce can that I bought a couple of months ago for the specific purpose of trying them with cheese, I'll probably not ever buy it again for home use, but I will still, from time to time, grab a spoonful of them when I see it on a buffet.  Although, I'll certainly not put cheese on them.  I'll cover them in hot sauce like I always do, and, given my newfound knowledge, if there happens also to be roasted eel on the buffet, I'll put some of that on them.

Hey, thanks, yeah that's it - it was a sideboard on one side, and a 'buffet' on the other.

Those chrome/formica tables were were fantastic for a room that didn't have to be too 'dressy' - they were very cleanable, very durable..

Grits are pretty good when prepared correctly. Shrimp and grits is actually quite a classic dish.

ooooh.  hadn't thought of that.  I still have a couple of servings left in my canister, and we always have shrimp in the freezer, so maybe I should whip up some of that. 

Not tonight, though.  Tonight is Hot Pot.  Three kinds of mushroom, two kinds of bracket fungi, three kinds of leafy green vegetables, thin-sliced chicken, thin-sliced beef, thin-sliced pork, with meatballs, porkballs, fishballs, and shrimpballs, all added to a pot of boiling water which has previously been spiced and oiled.  Good eats.  Messy, though, so we only do it about once every couple of months or so. 

I hate that hot-pot.  People are always eating that stuff in big buffet-style restaurants here, where you boil it up at your own table in a little charcoal fire.  Its hot, smokey, you're toiling (cooking your own food), and worst of all it doesn't taste good at all.  Restaurants where you cook your own food offend me.

Ha!  I noticed that in Shanghai.  Shanghai is about 34 degrees north latitude and on the sea.  It is comparable to, say, Savannah or Charleston in climate.  Hot, wet, sticky.  And their favorite food seems to be hot pot.  And, unlike Savannah or Charleston, Shanghai isn't necessarily air-conditioned.  Oh, the hotels have adjustable units in the room, and the western franchises like Burger King, Starbucks, and McDonald's have AC, but most of the restaurants along Nanjing Lu (the strip) are not air-conditioned.  So you are basically in a hot, sweaty, sticky, moist restaurant where every table has a big hole in the center with a big bowl of boiling water.  Electrically heated in china.  I've been to many such places, in several cities, and never saw any charcoal, but the effect is the same. 

I always went back, though.  It's so tasty.  And talk about fresh!  When you order shrimp, they bring it to you still moving.  You get a little tin containing about fifty live shrimp, squirming and jumping over each other, and you take the top off and they jump into the pot of boiling water.  My son loved it the first time he saw it.  First time I saw it I was 41, so it seemed kinda weird.  First time he saw it he was 4, so to him it's normal.  I'm glad he had that experience.  For his whole life, it'll be the most normal thing to be served living shrimp that jump into the pot of boiling water at your table.  The Chinese have a healthy respect for fresh seafood, and it doesn't get any fresher than that.

Sorry, I ain't a robot.

Butter and parmesan today.  I took two of those little parmesan cheese topping condiment packets that come from Pizza Hut, and a huge dollop of butter (about the equivalent of two tablespoons) and added that to 3 cups of the grit porridge as it came off the stove.  To that I added a copious amount of black pepper and some salt.  Not bad.  I'm going to call it Polenta Parmigiano, but we will always know it as Cheesy Grits.  So far, this is the best I've been able to come up with for Cheese Grits.  All other recipes left more than a bit to be desired. 

Final installment. 

I had a 19-ounce ribeye last night and far too much booze, to celebrate getting rid of all that old junk, so today I'm going to have a meat-free and, if I can stand it, an alcohol-free day.  For lunch I got that can of grits out and noticed that 2/3 of a cup solid remained, so I boiled 8/3 cups of water and added the grits, along with a finely diced jalapeño and some finely diced white onion.  After five minutes of cooking I put it into a big bowl and placed some freshly picked and washed cilantro from my garden.  Mmmmmm.  A bit like putting pico de gallo in the grits, sans tomato and lime.  Then I cut up about 2 ounces of medium cheddar and folded that in till it melted.  I topped it off with some Cholula, for that hint of chipotle.  ("El sabor autentico de la salsa Mexicana.")  That did the trick.  I'd have that again.  Too bad it's all gone.  I don't think I'll buy any more, but in the end I did discover it:  Cheddar, cilantro, onion, chiles, and a dash of chipotle. 

¡Viva las grits!

Yesterday's dinner involved two kinds of land mammals, as well as fish, shrimp, and duck eggs, so today I decided to go with an animal product-free lunch.  I really should get my cholesterol level measured.  We had couscous today for lunch.  I had diced mushrooms, onions, serranos, carrots, and tomato in mine, and covered it with a fairly liberal amount of Cholula.  Not bad, but I think I like the grit flavor better.

I had some grits with cheese sauce at a breakfast bar at Big Boy once.