“I’m not so much of a cooker as I am a smoker. I smoke meats. I like anything from ribs to brisket to fish. I smoked some spare ribs and some baby back ribs yesterday, and I finished them up today. I did them with a dry rub from my next-door neighbor, Mr. Michael Ruoss, [...]
The Gravy: In the Kitchen with John Gros
“My grandmother would run the Quarter and the Bywater growing up as a girl. Her house was always the gathering spot for family get-togethers: baptisms, first communions, birthdays, funerals, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving. She did it all. Growing up, I didn’t think too much, except, “We’re going to Maw Maw’s house, and we’re going to eat [...]
The Gravy: In the Kitchen with Ben Jaffe
“These are amazing, aren’t they? This is chard, and the color is awesome. What we’re cooking is a recipe my godfather taught me, Harold Dejan. He was at our house a lot. He and my dad played in the Olympia Brass Band, and Harold was a Creole and he still spoke Creole. He really lived [...]
The Gravy: In the Kitchen with Raphael Bas
“In France, you go to the bakery. The king cake is right there, under your nose. It’s cooked, ready to go, some of them still warm. Looks beautiful. It’s easy to just grab it from there and consume it. Eat it! Bakeries are there for that. Patisseries. But you see, February, it’s the month of [...]
The Gravy: In the Kitchen with June Yamagishi
“In Japan, we eat the golden-fried pork chop, tonkatsu. I don’t make that. I use a soy sauce base that is fruity and sweet, with apple, ginger and honey. This is the secret: Sake! Makes it sweet; makes meat tender. When I’m in a restaurant, I always sit at the bar to see the cook [...]
The Gravy: In the Kitchen with Bill Summers
“I have a system, and I like to stick to it—it’s not having one. This is an expensive meal, this. It cost me $50 to buy all this stuff. I like to cook with palm oil, and it’s really not good for you. It’s saturated. So I cut it with olive oil, which is good [...]
The Gravy: In the Kitchen with Mystikal
“I do most of the morning cooking. I’m the breakfast chef. I grew up in New Orleans, Uptown, in the 12th ward, a block off of Louisiana and a block off of Tchoupitoulas. My mom cooked everything. Gumbo, all the traditional New Orleans cuisine; the red beans, the crawfish etouffee. She got down, from the [...]
The Gravy: In the Kitchen with Big Al Carson
“I grew up right here in New Orleans. I’m homegrown, as I always say. I grew up in the Seventh Ward and the Lafitte projects. I’m right here in the midst of things. Homegrown. I used to cook more than I do now, because I just can’t stand up at the stove like I used [...]
The Gravy: In the Kitchen with 10th Ward Buck
“I like hot. I like to use Crystal because I’ve experienced it and it’s not too salty. Some hot sauces have their own taste. Men love spice. My Mardi Gras [sauce] is not too hot, where my women are starting to take onto it also. We call it the Mardi Gras sauce because it has [...]
The Gravy: In the Kitchen with George Schmidt
“Painters mix stuff together, and you’ll find a lot of painters who are cooks because it’s an extension of this, instead of colors you’re mixing flavors. I got myself Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but French cooking is like a mist before the eyes while Italian cooking is like a pat on [...]
