Fried Pickles, French Fries, Buttermilk
Today's Eat Drink Cook talks about awesome air fryer snacks, making buttermilk, Festivus, tempura, crisp white wines, Buddy and lots of potatoes!
This is Eat Drink Cook: a life-journal from a Napa Valley dad, wine expert and enthusiastic cook. Twelve subjects, often intertwined, with an emphasis on food, wine, cooking, being a dad and just a guy enjoying these crazy times the best I can. Read me for food & wine tips, recipes, and normal stuff I come across that you may find interesting, too.
The Dawson home is bereft of holiday lights, Christmas trees and yuletide cheer beyond a poinsettia and a few Christmas cards as we’re all leaving on a jet plane this weekend. That means the next Eat Drink Cook substack will be in 2025. Now, I could write on location, but I won’t for two reasons: 1) Eat Drink Cook is about everyday and accessible cool stuff, not “look at me doing rad stuff in amazing places” show-off doo-doo. Not until someone picks up the check to have me write about doing swanky stuff. Shout out Corrupt Wine Writer. And 2) I’m not taking my laptop.
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Eatin’
For the Air-Fryer catering business I have on the side I found two “wow I can’t believe how good these are products.” Find these, air fry them, and enjoy with a crisp Muscadet or dry Riesling.
Budweiser Beer Battered Pickles
Strong Roots Crispy Skinny Fries
Everyone loved the pickles. We did not drink Budweiser with them.
The Skinny Fries refers to the unpeeled potatoes. They are not particularly skinny. These are very good French bistro-worthy fries. Like anything you air fry, don’t cut the fry-time short, and toss everything around every 6 or 7 minutes for an even cook.
They are both nationally distributed. I bought these from the Grocery Outlet in north Napa. Strong Roots has a good story about their plant-based, sustainable products, including a Climate Footprint metric posted on the packaging. I don’t quite understand it, but it’s cool.
Drinkin’
Let’s get down to brass tacks* on my wine choice with these pickles and fries.
PREISS Gruner Veltliner “Flo” 2022 from Austria. Comes in a liter, so think of it as 33% more for free, like laundry detergent. Tangy, textured, peppery, refreshing and perfect with (air) fried food! Outer Space Wines, my Monday hang-out, has it for $21. Eat Drink Cook readers get 20% off while supplies last. Let them know you read it here to get the deal.
*I learned today it’s brass tacks, not brass tax, which makes perfect literal sense.
A Recipe
I’m a big buttermilk fan, but the store options are lame: sold only in quarts (too much) and 2% (too thin). So I made buttermilk using half & half, lemon juice and a touch of salt. Easy as pie. Actually easier than pie. Watch the video.
The buttermilk went into a Buffalo Ranch dressing I made for the fries and a cranberry sauce/lemon cake. I may order dry buttermilk culture starter online. Last time I got on a make-my-own-buttermilk kick Holly but me a bag. I never got around to using it then threw it out three years later.
A Show
We watched ELF the other day. We’re not the watch-this-holiday-movie-every-year kind of family…every three or four years will do. Anyway, I just love this scene with Buddy and Caroline in the doctor’s waiting room. And the movie is a connection for Talia’s generation to two of the greats, Bob Newhart and Ed Asner.
Steppin’ Out & Bein’ A Dad (a two-fer)
After a Christmas street fair and a picture with a roving Santa (slightly awkward) I took Talia for a chilly al fresco dinner (we had our dog Moxie with us) to enjoy the talents of neighbors Amami Sushi/Charcoal Kitchen and No Love Lost Wine Co.
My first visit to No Love Lost got me to thinking how much I’d like to eat Amami with their wines, their very crisp, 10.5% alcohol Chardonnay in particular. Assorted maki rolls and tempura were heartily enjoyed, and my food and wine pairing was good fun. We talked Amami into serving us from plates rather than needless to-go containers, wasteful in this situation. Try them both out, together! They’re at Main and Clinton streets in Downtown Napa.
An Artist
One holiday album, not a compilation?
The Temptations Christmas.
Listening to their Silent Night at the moment and getting a little verklempt.
An Event
You’ll find me Friday night at The Merry Meritage Holiday Ice Skating Rink at The Meritage Resort in south Napa watching Talia go round & round and surreptitiously sipping on something warming, soulful and vinous from my wine flask (our little secret). It will be something worthy of the merry occasion yet appropriate for plastic cups! Rhone Valley red no doubt. You can find me there from 6 to 8. Happy to share.
Sport
I came upon this story of golfer Steven Alderson of Australia. The first time he left Australia he won in Spain on the G4D, Golf for the Disabled, tour. He finished 7 under in the two day tournament and was the only golfer under par.
Alderson is autistic, was bullied relentlessly growing up, and kept on going.
“If you’re being bullied, just do your best to ignore it and be the better person,” he said. “You’re gonna be the better person in the long run when you’re older, anyway.” Here’s the story.
Note his diet due to food allergies: french fries, potato chips and the like. And chicken, apparently fried chicken mostly.
The Story of Festivus
We are five days away from Festivus, officially celebrated on December 23 “as an alternative to the perceived pressures and commercialism of Christmas.” Festivus was NOT invented by the writers of Seinfeld, exactly. The author Daniel O’Keefe invented Festivus and celebrated it with his family starting in 1966, and his son Dan O’Keefe co-wrote the Seinfeld episode that included Festivus. It aired in December 1997. Years later, Dan O’Keefe wrote “The Real Festivus” which documents his family story of Festivus. Makes a great stocking stuffer for the Seinfeld devotee.
So on Monday, be sure to air your grievances and lift something heavy.
Use your legs.
Country
T minus 33. Deep breath. To play it safe I donated a million dollars to the 47 inaugural fund. Better safe than sorry.
Finally
Merry Happy Joyous Delicious Christmas Hannukah Celebrations Devouring!