Since the subject of my upcoming Kindle eBook will be natural yeasts and whole grains, I thought it appropriate to post a picture of the little guys that make it all possible. Say hello to my yeasty friends! These are yeast cells from a raisin yeast culture that I've been maintaining for over a year. I've used this culture countless times to grow a mother, convert the mother to a 'chef', turn the 'chef' into levain, and the levain into wonderful bread. In a few days I'll show you how to start your own natural yeast culture and begin your journey into the fascinating world of baking without commercial yeasts.  Have patience, my children, and the Yeast Priest will reveal his secrets!

For those of you that are science geeks, the image was made by staining yeast cells with methylene blue. The microscope is an Omano (http://www.microscope.com -- great people!), the camera is a Nikon D5100 with the Omano 'CamAdapter' kit, and I used ControlMyNikon (http://controlmynikon.com) software for image capture. The final shot was cleaned up and tweaked using Adobe's LightRoom 3.

You can't have BBQ without Brunswick Stew, so Julie dove right in and cooked us up a batch. This was her first Brunswick Stew and I have to say she hit it right out of the (Fenway -- Go BoSox!) Park. She suggested pulling about a pound of 'Q off the smoker about 8 hours into the process and incorporating it into the stew. What a great idea!  This was no doubt the best Brunswick Stew I have ever had, and no squirrels were harmed in the making. Although given their abundance in our yard the next batch of stew might just have have some squirrel!

There was a huge batch of stew -- always seems to be the case, I think it's a requirement that Brunswick Stew be made in gallons -- so we put up a bunch in the freezer. Julie and I had to laugh thinking about her Mama buying stew from the local fire departments and freezing it in those styrofoam cups... Mama never took the stew out of the styrofoam... she just popped it straight into the freezer, plastic drink lid and all. Never seemed to hurt the stew and we always got excited when we spotted one of those cups sitting on the counter defrosting. We miss you, Mama!

We broke out the smoker last weekend and invested the time in producing an authentic Eastern North Carolina-style BBQ. Low, slow and pit cooked over direct heat. Just a few hickory coals under an 8 pound Boston Butt, with the temp held at around 225'. Took about 9 hours but check out the results! The top image is about an hour into the process -- the red pan holds water to keep things moist. The bottom pic, well, that's Mr. Brown Goes To Town! Look at all that Outside Brown! True 'Q enthusiasts know that Outside Brown is the best part and the only way to get real brown is to cook over direct heat. It's a lot more work to make sure you don't burn your meat -- remember, LOW and SLOW -- but the end result is sublime. I knew I had done good when my neighbor took a taste and literally jumped back two feet. His eyes got real wide and he said "Man, that's MOIST! That's the BEST 'Q I've ever had!' And he's a big smoker and BBQer, so I took that as a real compliment. Sadly, this batch is long gone. Gonna have to fire up the smoker and make us some more!

We're BACK! Hard to believe it's been a couple of years since I first started this blog. I went into the process with great enthusiasm, but with almost no feedback or comments coming in I soon grew bored. I've finally realized that I need to get all this culinary energy OUT of me or I'll explode and this blog is the perfect outlet.

First off, shouts out to a new book we've added to our collection of 850 and growing...  Callie's Biscuits and Southern Traditions: http://www.amazon.com/Callies-Biscuits-Southern-Traditions-Heirloom/dp/1476713219 We just received this book last Friday and already have fallen totally in love.  We made the maple-glazed pork loin last night, and was it ever good!  We didn't have the called-for white potatoes so we substituted sweet potatoes, which turned out to be a really happy thing. The recipe called for cooking the dish in a cast iron skillet and then covering with foil prior to baking in the oven. We used our trusty Lodge dutch oven instead.  375 for an hour and (insert moans here) we were grooving on the best Sunday dinner we've had in a long time. Highly recommended.

We haven't had the time to try other recipes from the book yet, but from what we've seen so far I'm sure they will turn out perfectly.  We sent a comment to Carrie Morey, the author, and she promptly responded. That's a first for us and we tip our hats to Carrie and her crew for great customer service. If she's planning a second book I'm going to be first on the wait list!  Five stars, recommended without reservations. Don't pass go, get on Amazon and, as they say here in the South, 'Git y'all a copy!'