Toni Morrison said: “All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.” I can’t help but think that there is something in this story from Gisele Perez of Pain Perdu Blog that keeps her heart flowing back to the roots of her childhood home. New Orleans has mythical allure, once its waters flow through your veins– dams and levees are pointless. Keeping Cool on St. Anthony Street.
Many of my childhood summer vacations were spent in New Orleans- the city my family left when I was 6 years old- visiting my father’s family. All of my mother’s family had already moved to Los Angeles. When I asked her why they left, she responded: “I was the last one in my family to go.”
We stayed between the two houses my grandfather built next door to each other almost 100 years ago in the Creole section of the city. My Aunt Leticia and her family lived in one, and my unmarried aunt, Nanny Marion lived in the other.
Aunt Leticia married the boy across the street, my Uncle JuJune, and after their wedding, he moved into the house where she had grown up. Uncle JuJune’s sister stayed in his childhood home with her family, so in the evenings, after washing the dishes, Aunt Leticia would sit on the front porch, cooling off with a glass of lemonade and talking across the street with her sister in law and the other neighbors.
Aunt Leticia spent most of her days cleaning, and cooking for her family, and any other of my uncles and cousins who might drop by. Her only regular outings were to 6 A.M. Mass at Corpus Christi Church on Sunday mornings and the Saturday trips to Schwegmann’s, the big new supermarket on Airline Highway. She’d get dressed up, and Uncle JuJune would pile all of us kids in the back of the car and off we’d go.
When the California cousins were visiting, Sundays brought a large gathering of extended family for supper in the big unpaved yard between the two houses. There were huge feasts of gumbo, fried chicken, ham and potato salad, with ice cold watermelon to finish.
Summers in New Orleans were (and still are) steamy enough to immediately fog up my glasses when I stepped outside the air-conditioned house, but there were plenty of treats to keep us cool. Sodas were delivered by the crate load to Aunt Leticia’s house, the way that bottles of milk were delivered to our house in Los Angeles. Nehi, in orange, grape and strawberry flavors, Barq’s root beer and of course, Coca-Cola, which flowed at meals there like wine does in the French countryside. In Los Angeles, sodas were a holiday-only treat in the household headed by my dentist father. There was also a neighborhood specialty called huckabucks, a fruity punch mixture frozen into paper cups, sold by one of the neighbors, and the ubiquitous NOLA specialty, snow balls, paper cones filled with shaved ice and topped with sticky sweet syrups- my favorite was bright red strawberry, but sometimes I’d go for a half and half with spearmint. And Aunt Leticia made a pineapple sherbet that my mother still longs for to this day. Unfortunately, none of my cousins learned to make their mother’s sherbet, but I decided to try my hand at it this week. I hope Aunt Leticia would be pleased with my results.
New Orleans Style Pineapple Sherbet
Print This Recipe Yield 6Source Gisele Perez- Pain Perdu BlogPublished
Ingredients
- 3½ cup crushed pineapple packed in juice, with the juice
- 5 ounce sweetened condensed milk
- 1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice or more to taste
- 2 egg whites
- 1 pinch salt
Directions
Combine pineapple, sweetened condensed milk and lemon juice in a bowl and chill for several hours. When ready to freeze pineapple, milk mixture, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt, then fold them into the mixture in 3 additions. Freeze in an ice cream freezer machine according to your machine’s directions. The sherbet will be soft. It may be served as is, or placed in a freezer to freeze harder.
I can totally see this working …I am lucky to have hanger available in my area…
Flank steak is one of my top 3 cuts of beef. Grilled to medium rare and sliced thin, it is so perfectly tender. I ate earthworms last night, loved that story, Greg.
That fig can go anywhere and why not with flank steak. Never thought of it before, but I like it.
I am not a big fan of steak but this looks like I would inhale it, no question!
that jam sounds absolutely killer. Gotta find some fresh figs soon! — S
We have this nearly weekly and cut just as you describe. Prepared much the same way. It is a classic! Pairing with figs sounds divine and sounds like a classic in the making to me.
You know, I actually don’t think I’ve ever even had flank steak. But with my introduction to it being covered in figs…I’m pretty sure I could fall head over heels immediately.
I love the earthworms and salamanders story, very heart-warming. I adore those cuts of beef that have worked for a living — infinitely more tasty than filet mignon. Here in Europe it seems it’s only the French that really appreciate flank steak (bavette) and as a result it can be difficult to find elsewhere. I might try making this with hanger steak, which is a similar cut and a bit easier to find.
Is my true favorite cut, there is only one p animal I believe and in the U.S. it is hard to find outside restaurants. GREG
I love flank steak and I love figs…so thinking I must be loving this at some time in the near future!
I’ve been making flank steak for 25 years. Credit fajitas. We had just moved to Denver; I had just gone out to dinner in this strange environ filled with Mexican dishes and after my first order of fajitas I HAD to know how to do those at home.
I guess I was lucky to learn from that first experience about scoring, marinating and cutting across the grain. I’ve made many a convert myself…so many people wondering what it was they had eaten and totally shocked it was a TOUGH flank steak. It’s all in the preparation baby.
I do have friends that do not like them. And I guess rightly so. If you like your steak well done…don’t bother with flank steak. It will not work; it does get dry and tough!
It’s why 1000 people will come by my post, but 3 will leave a comment. But you get what I am saying! That makes me happy. GREG
The most requested dish when dining on the Bijouxs family patio is always flank steak — your recipe adds a new, wonderful take on the old-time favorite we all enjoy, earthworms and all!
And what about the Midwest’s darling cut, skirt steak? It’s not really the same as flank, but we don’t see it here in SoCal?
LL
P.S. Figs and steak sound perfect.
I think this is a lovely combination of ingredients…and just glad there are actually no earthworms and salamanders on the list!
I love flank steak, my dad always used to grill it when I was a kid. Great recipe Greg!
What a gorgeous sandwich! And I’ll bet the wine pairing is spot on too. Bravo!