Lost Recipes and the Best Summer Drink Ever

(Guest post by The Boyfriend)

Do you ever forget about favorite recipes?

Perhaps you prepared a dish so often that you temporarily burned out on it...and then forgot about it. Maybe you made the dish only on special occasions...and those special occasions didn't occur for a while.

But have you ever said to yourself, for whatever reason, "You know, I haven't made Dish X in ages!"? And then ran to the store to get the ingredients because you couldn't wait to put it together? All the while recalling pleasant memories of the dish?

It was in this vein that re-discovered the perfect summer drink: The Bourbon Slush.

On a recent hot afternoon, I was looking for something to add to my mental file of "Beverages, Summer, Refreshing." This file normally contains three beverages:
1. Beer
2. A 50/50 mix of fruit juice and Sprite
3. Beer

About fifteen years ago, I stumbled across the bourbon slush. And it was a happy accident, indeed. Light. Refreshing. Quick. Perfect for summertime. I made at least one batch of the drink during each of the next several summers. Then, inexplicably, the drink just dropped off my culinary radar for probably ten years.

Just as inexplicably, the drink re-emerged from recipe purgatory. I have no idea as to why I thought of it, but I did. I pulled the recipe that a friend and I had freely adapted from an old charity cookbook that I found years ago on a bargain table in a Philadelphia bookstore (A Second Helping, published by the women's ministries of Gloria Dei Church).

And I headed to the grocery store.

I returned half an hour later and went to work...

The Bourbon Slush
2 cups strong tea (3 or even 4 teabags)
1 1/2 cups sugar
12-oz. can frozen orange juice concentrate
12-oz. can frozen lemonade concentrate
2 1/2 cups bourbon
6 cups water
Sprite or 7-Up

Dissolve the sugar in the tea while the tea is still hot. Add all remaining ingredients, and pour into a large freezer-safe container. Put the mixture into the freezer. Stir the mixture every couple of hours for the next 24 hours, until the mixture has frozen. Because of the alcohol, it won't freeze solidly, but will retain a slushy consistency (hence the name "Bourbon Slush"...clever, no?) (Note: The original recipe, titled "Slushy Beach Drink," called for only a half cup of bourbon, and listed even THAT as "optional." Right.)

To serve, fill a glass (any size) two-thirds to three-quarters full of the slush mixture. Give the mixture an extra splash of bourbon (this step is optional, but highly recommended). Finish filling the glass with Sprite or 7-Up. Stir. Enjoy.

The mixture will keep in the freezer for weeks. Once you've made the slush mixture, it's two minutes from freezer to glass. Quick. Easy. Extremely tasty.

So...when was the last time you remembered a long-lost favorite recipe?

Review: Alabama Fish Bar

(Guest blog by The Boyfriend)

The most venerable and beloved dish for any native Southerner (That's me...Hi.) HAS to be catfish and hushpuppies. Well, unless you count barbecue. Authentic, slow-hickory-smoked barbecue is the best.

But I digress. That's another story for another posting.

Fried chicken, country ham, grits, biscuits, and cornbread would have to be near the top of the list, too. Oh...and banana pudding...I love banana pudding. And peach cobbler.

Again, I digress. My Southern genes come out with a vengeance when I talk about food.

But catfish and hushpuppies would definitely be number one on the list. I think. (And for what it's worth, "FRIED catfish and hushpuppies" is a redundancy. How else would one cook them? And down South, anything worth eating is worth frying.)

So when I drove past the Alabama Fish Bar (located at the corner of Race and Liberty in Over-the-Rhine) for the first time several months ago, I knew I would be eating there sooner or later. As a native-born Alabamian who spent the first thirty-nine years of his life there, how could I NOT? A few days ago, I was craving catfish and hushpuppies and decided to do a late lunch at AFB.

I arrived around 1:20, well after peak lunchtime, and the line still extended out the door. This is a good sign.

When I finally muscled my way inside the door, the first thing I noticed about the chalkboard menu was that it included neither catfish nor hushpuppies.

ALABAMA Fish Bar? With no catfish or hushpuppies? Excuse me?

(At this point, the reader should disregard everything that appears in the first and fifth paragraphs of this posting.)

Despite my self-righteous indignation, I decided to stay and order.

The menu offers three kinds of fish: cod, whiting, and perch. All the fish are fried. So the place does have at least a passing link to the South, after all. Dinners include six or seven (you read that correctly) fish filets, fries, and two slices of bread. Coleslaw is available as a side dish.

All of the people in line ahead of me seemed to be regulars and to know the protocol of ordering. They all looked at me, and I could read their minds: "New guy." There's nothing worse than being a newbie among veterans. I was trying to make up my mind when the guy behind the counter yelled "NEXT IN LINE! STEP UP AND PLACE YOUR ORDER!" Two other people in line immediately said "That's you." I hate pressure. But at AFB, they apparently move people in and out quickly and efficiently...probably why people don't mind lining up out the door. If you're a customer, it's get out of the way or get run over.

I settled quickly on the perch dinner. Of course, as soon as the guy totaled the order, I remembered that I hadn't ordered coleslaw. I asked meekly if I could add a side to the order. (For a fleeting moment, I felt like George Costanza, reliving "The Soup Nazi" episode of Seinfeld..."NO FISH FOR YOU!") He obliged, but I could read the look on his face (and the faces of the other customers): "New guy."

I spent most of the next four minutes studying the tops of my shoes and trying to appear invisible. I did notice out the corner of my eye, however, that as most customers received their orders, they covered their food with one or more of the three sauces that sat in squeeze bottles on the counter. (I'm not exactly sure what the sauces were, but I suspect that they were ketchup, mustard, and hot sauce.) Customers then received a packet of sauteed peppers and onions before the whole order was wrapped and bagged.

Since I wasn't exactly sure of what was in the squeeze bottles and was too embarrassed to inquire (not to mention that I needed to photograph the order before eating), I asked for tartar sauce in a container. When the whole order was wrapped and bagged, I headed out the door for home.

My earlier umbrage about the catfish was quickly replaced with total satisfaction. The perch filets were perfectly cooked...dredged in a cornmeal breading and fried to golden brown perfection. (The cod and whiting appeared to be dredged in a flour-based batter.) The perch were well seasoned, crispy on the outside, and light and fluffy on the inside. The fries were OK, but nothing more. The coleslaw was creamy and very sweet. I didn't touch the two slices of white bread.

I did take a couple of bites from the pepper/onion packet. To say that the peppers were "hot" would be akin to describing the Empire State Building as "tallish". My eyes watered, and my tongue burned for a good fifteen minutes.

Usually, if I haven't eaten fried foods in a while and then make an entire meal of fried stuff, I'll end up chewing half a Costco-sized bottle of Tums. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that the meal was not at all greasy. They use the right kind of batter and have the fryer set to the perfect temperature. I was tempted to finish all seven filets, but thought better of it. No need to tempt fate. Besides, fried fish (like fried chicken) makes a terrific cold snack. (Ed. note: I found them in my fridge when I got home. Yum!)

The people at Alabama Fish Bar fry fish for a living, and they do a terrific job. I forgive them for the catfish issue. I'll be back soon. And I hope this time not to embarrass myself.

The Boyfriend’s Excellent Summer Eating Adventure

(Ed. note: We have a guest blogger this summer, the ever-wonderful Boyfriend. )

A few weeks ago, Julie and I were having lunch at Habanero in Clifton when I was reminded of something I’ve believed for a long time: The country’s best cheap eats are often found close to college campuses.

This shouldn’t be surprising. College students love to eat out but don’t usually have much money. They don’t usually go for complex or sophisticated fare, but there will always be a market for feeding good food at bargain prices to college kids.

Though it has been more years since college than I’d like to admit, I well remember counting out change from my coin jar to finance a Saturday-night burger. Late-night pizza, the cost divvied up among five or six people in the dorm, was a staple back then, as I’m sure it continues to be for college kids today.

I attended a marginally accredited, mid-sized state university in a “college town” in the Deep South. And although, even in those days, there were plenty of fast-food chains available, my favorite places were the locally owned mom-and-pop joints. And what’s truly amazing is that most of them are still there. I still visit all of them from time to time, whenever I find myself in that part of the country. One place, I swear, serves the best wings and fried pickles I’ve ever eaten (and after a recent trip there, Julie concurs). Another serves an incredibly flavorful and juicy hamburger with a peppery ketchup-based sauce and the strongest onions I’ve ever eaten. Probably my favorite place had, among other things on an extensive menu, my all-time favorite char-grilled hamburger steak, smothered with a mountain of sautéed onions.

Or am I wrong? Is it possible that my long-ago favorites aren’t really all that great…that my taste buds are colored by nostalgia? It’s no matter, I suppose.

As a high school teacher, I have a fair amount of free time during the summer months, especially this summer. And as someone who feels a need always to be productive, I’ve decided to undertake a major summer-long project: Lunch.

And this is where I need your help.

What are your favorite food memories from college? I’d love to hear them. And, especially if you attended college within an hour’s drive or so from Cincinnati, I’d like to know what your favorite food haunts were. Give me the names of the restaurants, along with your favorite dishes at those places, and I hereby pledge to treat myself to lunch at least twice a week for the next two months, investigating and reviewing your recommendations.

(I didn’t say it was a noble or worthy project, just a major one.)

Please respond soon. I’m hungry.