Low Country Boil

Fall is right around the corner. I can not wait for the cool air, the light breeze, and the beautiful colors of changing leaves all around. Right now in Atlanta, it feels as if Fall will never arrive. It's still hot, still humid, and still stifling without air conditioning. Though I know that in only a few short weeks, I will be wearing my sweaters and carving pumpkins and drinking hot chocolate reveling in my favorite season.

While this summer has been far too hot and humid for my taste so far, I felt like I needed to get my spirits up and send summer off right. What better way to celebrate summer than with a traditional low country boil. The delicious blend of potatoes, onions, corn, carrots, and shrimp mixed with the overwhelming mixture of spices cannot be recreated any other way.

I had my good friend R. teach me to make a Low Country Boil the good old fashioned southern way. According to R., there is no other way. He has been making this dish for years and has the timing down to a science. Even though we scaled the recipe down to feed four instead of 40, it still came out wonderful. All you need is a large stock pot, lots of newspapers, and hungry people.

Make Your Own Sushi - Shrimp Tempura and Orange Chicken

After our very successful adventure into making California Rolls, M. and I decided to try something a little different for our next sushi making party. Don't get me wrong, the California Rolls are amazing. So amazing that we couldn't resist making another roll along with our new creations. We just wanted to try something a little more difficult. This led us to a shrimp tempura sushi roll. We loved this roll in our favorite little sushi restaurant, and couldn't wait to see if we could recreate it.

After tossing around a couple of ideas for other versions we wanted to try, M. brought up a chicken sushi roll. Not just any chicken, but fried orange chicken. Weird, unorthodox, but completely delicious.This went against any sort of "sushi rule" I had ever heard, but M. didn't care and he convinced me it would be amazing. And oh how amazing it was.