CORN BREAD AND CORNBREAD ACCESSORIES

 I'll take it as a sign. He said the building is full of stuff. Well that'll happen to a building with a good roof and a lock. When broached on the matter of putting on a Pone restaurant, he mentioned using the parking lot for a garage sale or vegetable stand, but his suggestion that we put up a sign "PONE" (I think I like vertical better) or some-such struck a pone resonant note. The idea being the sign gets their attention, we bait this here field (parking lot) with free cornbread and coffee or soup, and eventually remove the free banner and replace it with now open. 

 Duh, I mean deet-dah-dee! Even when I was little I already thought of the road (mostly highways) as a river. What better place to cast the pone. Should we build a pier? Hmm, a sign eh? I see a giant floating spoon, and off in the middle distance his band "The Accessories" Cornbread, Soup, Coffee, Beans, and Salad. I see the beginnings of a Flatware County Christmas. 

NOW THE SUN SHINES BRIGHT ON MY OLDE KENTUCKY PONE

 Ones't agin. It was a rainy day again, well most places anyway. It really made the sudden warm sunny breakouts more dramatic. Mmm, the world smells like fresh cornbread. Kentucky Cornbread 2.0 at it's finest, this is the cornbread siren who calls to me in the night.

 I doubted the yard sale was going to happen, but I needed to get back in my cornbread grove anyway. The color @ 25min was golden and begining to pull away, slightly darkened edge. For some reason I had to pry every one of them out with a butter knife, still I only broke one. Oops, almost too much cheese, it was delicious. Driving them up to the lake took just about as long as making them.

Now I gots to make me some. Rather than back down the amount of cheese, I tried cubes instead of shreds. I figured the big cubes would sink easier, and maybe even not stick so bad.

I love my chipotle peppers and adobo-sauce, but I have rendered a lot of otherwise excellent cornbread sadly inedible. Three little slivers of chipotle and sometimes even four, half a teaspoon of adobo and a few cubes of cheese are a fragrant smoky tangy tease. Five or more-- while looking even better, left my mouth feeling scalded even the next day.

I admit it cheap played into it some. I love my chpotles, and it's a drag to use 2 peppers, and less than 3 teaspoons of the adobo-sauce, and throw the rest away. Chili might happen tomorrow and yes maybe even more cornbread, but chances are the rest of those peppers and the adobo  will be trashed before tomorrow night.

They look harmless enough, and yet they posses the mostly hidden charms of, chipotle, adobo,and cheese. They're stronger than they look. when they'd cooled a bit I flipped em and tapped the backs of the pans. None fell out. I poked around and managed to tear a couple up.

 Since I had to pry every one the mini-loaves out of both pans, I had to get way better than butter knife good to have any whole pieces with tonight's soup. The carefully calibrated chipotle-abobo-cheese was "A Mothers Day miracle," but the plain and plain/cheese were almost too good. One bite to taste test, mmm, and them one bite witha little extra molasses and margarine. Man, are these things evaporating or what?

GET BACK ON A NEW BIKE

 I'm still not completely  over the scary cheese debacle, but the missing corn bread has left  a big void in my cornbread heavy dinner portfolio. Since I'm still a little embarrassed to face the Kentucky-Cornbread 2.0 recipe so soon after the stinky cheese incident, I thought " How bout Old School?"

  I've had an interesting non-selfrising recipe for a couple of months. It makes a two skillet batch, and looks very different.

  This recipe was shared with me by my friend Matt @ the Piggly Wiggly. At first glance it makes almost exactly twice the amount of batter that my usual favorite  (Kentucky Cornbread 2.0), but this is not nearly all that's not the same.

 Even cut in half this recipe calls for twice the buttermilk of the Kentucky Cornbread 2.0 recipe and  1/2cup more cornmeal. The 2 eggs is similar, but the amount of oil seems skimpy even before it's split (Plush Neon Monkey pointed out that some recipes add their oil hot, and I remembered such a verbal stipulation for this recipe.) So I guess I'll half the baking soda, and the salt, and give it a whirl (with regular cornmeal, and corn oil).


Already with the next wrinkle? Not quite enough buttermilk, ok grate, the onion that is (it should work, it's an acidy liquid).

Well it was more eventful than the pictures can reveal, no time to take em. I had my hands full stumbling through the ingredients. I heated my oil separate (inna pot) and pre-oiled my mini-loaf pans. I began to mix up the wet ingredients, eggs, onion, buttermilk, and still the oil was waiting on the stove.

I was just about to pour in the corn meal when I realized it had no baking soda to react with , so I quick put a teaspoon inna bowl and mixed it with the corn meal. I put the pans in to pre-heat. I stirred the cornmeal- baking soda  mix into the liquid. I was comforted to see it begin to bubble, and thought about what all the different ingredients did. That was when I realized that there wasn't any salt in it, and grabbed a half teaspoon looking amount in my hand (hmm sounds like too much, looking at the recipe's 1/4 teaspoon requirement) and scattered and stirred it in. The pans were ready.

  I forgot to set the timer at first an had to guess how long they'd been in the oven already. @ 26 min they were a little dark, and were about to turn the corner. They did have the large crumb associated with Old School cornbread. The taste ,while a relief after the last batch-o cornbread-trauma, they were a bit bland. To be fair I did short the buttermilk, and I wonder about the baking soda, salt, cornmeal, and oil. Oh yeah there wasn't spossed ta be any onion either. Still I'll definitely be test-driving  this recipe at least one more time.

EINIE MEANIE MIME A MOLD

No, it really looks like that. Really it was smaller and cuter in my fevered dreams of pone. Just as well, as it is also still doing a comfortable looking business, "That's right--he says he's not dead yet."

Hey, I didn't make it rain. It really screams down in tha heels 1960's Gulf Breeze Fl, especially on those too sunny days. I did lust for the foot traffic and excess parking, but I have repent. Apparently good parking isn't as rare around here as it is on my home-world.

 I spotted the  'WishIwasadairybarn' location somewhere back between Camp Winnataska Road and Camp Creek Road.

At this distance you can see the drive-in-window potential, but close up, the bars on it and all the other windows seemed a little grim. Lawn furniture aside, the no gas sign, the blacked-out windows, and all those bars didn't really make me wanna try and remember the name of this road. I'm sure the smell of fresh cornbread would make it seem like a nicer place to be but, well maybe later.


 But wait there's more, As far as I know, this place has been empty for quite a while. Well it passed the first test. When viewed through the cracked windshield of a farm truck you can see the pone-tincial jumping off it in orange and green flakes right along with the paint.

Gosh I hope This place wasn't a bait store last.

Okalee dokale, neighborinos, I've still gotta ton of arithmetic homework to do yet. How much cornbread can I actually bake inna day, and how much beans or chili goes with it? Hmm, betcha Tha Shadow knows.

ONCE A-PONE A TIME

When we first talked about a cornbread restaurant it sounded kinda comical. I mean, I make a lot-o cornbread, and I have a lot-o time, but once it's made... ? I can see it in my head perched on the side of the highway like one of those Hawaiian back road snow-cone stands. It doesn't quite haunt me, ok, so it's haunting me. It's not like it's the first idea to keep me up all night several nights inna row, but it's got me wondering if maybe this cornbread thing might be be too hot for me to handle.

I read somewhere recently (I tried to look it up, but no) that, "If you're not dreaming then you're just sleeping." Well if I was sleeping I wouldn't tripping so hard over the whole thing. I suppose the same capacity that makes it possible for me to tweak corn bread recipes for going on four months now, is the same one that's kept me up tripping on the details of the fantasy cornbread restaurant. I'v made it through the PhotoShop dreams, and the grand theft auto San Andreas dreams, the Portals2 dreams (excellent, even in a dream), and even once I dreamed I was in the army tiling a shower with toast while my dad stood over me critiquing the placement of almost every piece. Sometimes this made me a little grumpy the next day but at least I was sleeping.

 I have a building tentatively in mind, Though to tell the truth if someone offered me a job making cornbread that didn't require I learn book-keeping, workmans comp, income tax management, and several sleepless nights worth of other stuff I don't know about starting a restaurant, I'd probably jump it. But hey, I did finally get a little sleep, while it was still dark, last night. So if this trend holds even a little while, I reckon I'll should unravel this thing at least far enough to see if it's a possibility.

 In any case the Pone must go on, and even though I missed my Halloween window of opurtunity, I have a whole series of *scary-cheese cornbreads to explore. *Scary-cheese is a cheese that's so strong, that a piece no larger than a pea will ruin a cracker.