Was culling photos and ran across some UVI shots from one and (I believe) three. This one of Vic and Pee Wee always brought a smile to my face.
I have more.
Last night I was looking through recipes for a particular item and realized I have a bunch of Vic's which I use on a regular basis. Oyster saute comes to mind and several with swimps. I don't think I have them all and would like to collect them and maybe with the help of the Faithful publish them. Not sure it is a salable item but with infamous Uncle Vic stories interspersed it might make a stab and helping Pat maintain our sandbox. The title, of course, would be . . .
"First, you make a roux . . ."
What does anybody think? I need all the recipes I can gather that were posted. Could possibly ask Miss Elaine and Jen for theirs. Bet there are some that even we don't have.
Mikey
3/18/1963 - -31-327 factory hardtop express, the only one left.
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.
-Albert Einstein
Having produced a 256 page cookbook, be advised you are looking at a year's work, details up the wazoo and a lot of out of pocket expenses. It just doesn't come together easily.
Walt,
I am aware. Like you I have spent my life in marketing and one of my good friends is a successful (published) novelist. Not the same as a cookbook, but . . .
When and if I undertake this I know it will be a labor of love and you are on my radar as a source of info. Maybe even a small amount of help?
Keep the recipes and stories coming.
Let's get'er done!
Mikey
3/18/1963 - -31-327 factory hardtop express, the only one left.
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.
-Albert Einstein
I'm in for multiple copies. I am sending Vic's daughter a cookbook my company put together last year to raise funds for cancer research. Uncle Vic's Cajun Pork Roast recipe is in it. If you want to pm me your address I will send you a copy as this is a designed fundraising for cancer research cookbook and it comes with an instruction program as to how to do everything. It is a far cry from Walter's beautiful cookbook, but maybe we can use it as a guide?
Okay Brew.....rub them with sea salt and put them on the indirect end of the grill, uncovered, meat side up. Close the lid on the grill and keep the heat about 225 degrees. Use a small firebox on the hot end of the grill with some hickory chips for smoke, change the chips now and then.
The Sauce.......ahhhhhhh, the sauce....been in my family since before The War of Northern Agression......
Take a saucepan and melt three sticks of original Parkay and add some olive oil to the melted Parkay, say the equivalent of a couple more sticks. Add the juice of at least 4 lemons, then slice up fine the peel of two or three of the lemons and add to the pot and simmer. Add two tablespoons of sea salt and two tablespoons of soy suace, then press in a lot of fresh garlic, say a whole head, continue to simmer - the trick is to cook down the lemon peel to a mush. If it looks too thick, add some more olive oil, if too thin, add some more chopped lemon peel - a food processor will chop the woo-woo outta the peel, but its better thinly sliced and hand diced. Keep slowly cooking down the sauce as you use it, adding a little olive oil if you start to run low.
Let the ribs cook an hour or so unbasted to let the sea salt make a rind, then baste the ribs frequently with the sauce as they cook. Cook them for 8 or 10 hours......after about 6 hours turn them meat side down and baste the bone side, let them cook that way for an hour, then flip 'em back over, continue to baste to keep them from drying out. They are getting toward done when the bones start to stick out. As long as you keep them basted real good they are hard to overcook.
Buy ribs with a lot of fat on them - grocery stores in the ghetto have the best. Stay away from "lean" or "heart healthy" shit. We cookin' ribs here, not dieting.
MorrisPress Cookbooks was the publisher. With lots of Brethern contributing their favorite UV recipe and or anecdote, I bet we would have a fun tribute put together with love.
.........and gives me a full 48 qt. Igloo of half shell oysters, that's the ones that are not clumped up, all iced down. I found my favorite Monel oyster knife and shucked a few, slurped them down off the knife, and they were fat & salty. So I shucked about 3 dozen and made me & the Bride some oyster saute' for dinner.
Here is how you do it. Let the shucked oysters sit in a container for about a half hour so the crud settles out, and you get clear oyster likker on top.
I use an electric skillet to make the saute', as you can control the temp very close. Put about a half stick of real butter in and about the same volume of good virgin olive oil. Heat slowly. Chop about 3 green onions fine, and about 2 cloves of garlic fine too, put them in. Add about 4 or 5 dashes of soy sauce, about 2 dashes of worchester sauce. Couple of dashes of Crystal hot sauce or about half that of Tobasco. Stir all that around slowly while the onion and garlic saute'. Pour in the clear oyster likker from the top of the oyster container. Pour in about a half cup of dry white wine. Let all this saute' for about a half an hour, stirring it whenever the thermostat on the skillet kicks on. Goal is to bubble out the water in the olive oil, butter, wine and veggies. Add more oyster likker when it gets too thick, and more white wine. Taste it a lot - you will know when the saute is done - veggies should turn a dark gold.
Wash the oysters good, then drain them in a collendar. Get the finished saute' bubbling good and put the oysters in. The goal is to just 'curl' the oysters, maybe takes 3 or 4 minutes, moving them around the skillet with a spatula. "Curling" the oysters happens when the edges start to separate into what almost looks like gills on a fish. If you cook them past the curl they will be tough and ruin this recipe. Err on the side of undercooking - really Faithful, it only takes 3 or 4 minutes. Serve with toasted bread to sop up the saute' on the plate. Figure about a dozen and a half per person. Damn good. Notice no salt added in this - the oysters, veggies, soy sauce & wine do that just right.
Well, we have an old family recipe for bbq sauce for slow cooking stuff. It goes back into the late 19th century for sure. Most bbq sauces are tomato based and sweet. I do it different.
Mine is lemon-butter-garlic-wine based. Here is how you make it:
Take a large pot and melt four sticks of butter in it (you can use Parkay and it's about as good for you cheap guys).
After the butter is melted, pour in about 1/4 of the volume of melted butter of good olive oil.
Put as much fresh chopped garlic in as you can stand, or a samll jar of minced garlic.
Put in about 4 or 6 tablespoons of soy sauce.
Juice about 5 lemons in a juice machine, or if you gonna hand squeeze them, do about 8. I use a lot of lemon juice, so don't be bashful. Put the lemon juice in. Take about 4 of the lemon rinds and cut them in very thin strips, then chop them and put them in, all the while the sauce is just bubbling on the stove, stir it with a wooden spoon (oh yeah, I use a teflon pot) to keep the garlic and lemon rinds from sticking and burning.
If you got them, chop up a couple of green onions fine and put them in. Simmer all this on a very low heat for about 20 minutes.
Add a cup of dry white wine and let it all simmer for another 15 minutes or so.
You be'z done. For stuff like pork ribs, I let them cook on the grill at about 350 for a half hour to get the fat going before I start basting them with the sauce. You have to move the meat off the hot side of the grill cause the sauce will flare up. Keep the meat on indirect heat and baste when it looks dry. Turn often. Now and then you can move the meat onto the hot side of the grill and let it flare a little to sear if it looks like it's sorta pale. I do country style pork ribs for about 2 hours, chicken quarters for about an hour and a half, and a rack of pork baby back ribs for about 2-3 hours, but slow the heat down some for the baby backs. The UV lemon based sauce will make a crust on the meat, that's the goal, so moving on and off the hot side of the grill is needed to make this happen.
For smoking fish, use a cold smoker as fish do not like heat at all. Dolphin (mahi-mahi) do the best, turn a golden color and stay real firm. Wahoo does not smoke well. Tuna, don't even think about smoking as it turns to mush. Some of them yankee cold water fish ought to do ok smoked, but use a cold smoking technique.
Jambalaya is probably the best known coonass food, but shrouded in mystery on how it's made. Here's my super-simple recipe for feeding about 8:
Take about a pound or so of hot (spicy to you yankees, if you can't find hot, just add some Tabasco) smoked link sausage, cut it in 1/2" discs and put it in a big cast iron dutch oven and simmer it to get the fat to come out. Chop up a large white or yellow onion as fine as you can and put in with the sausage and saute' until the onion is clear. Chop up about a quarter cup of parsley and a few pods of fresh garlic and put in after the onions turn clear. Continue to saute' a few minutes until the parsley is limp. Then add a cup and a half of water and bring to a low boil. Now add about a pound or two of raw peeled shrimp and a cup and a half of long grained white rice. What the hell, throw in a teaspoon of thyme.
Stir all this just once, reduce the heat to a low boil, and cover it. Don't stir it again. Simmer under cover for about 30 minutes. It's OK to look at it now and then and if the mixture looks like it's sticking to the pot, raise it with a fork, but don't stir. When the grains of rice are nice and tender and not sticking to each other, it's ready. If during the 30 minutes or so it looks like it's getting too dry, add a little more water, if too watery, let it go a little longer. When done it's not watery or dry, just moist. Season to taste at the table, 'cause it's easy to add and impossible to take out.
Perhaps one of the most famous of coonass foods. Frozen peeled crawfish tails are generally available nationwide in specialty food stores. If you can't find them, shrimp do almost as well. Here's what you are gonna need:
1/4# real butter;
two large white onions, chopped;
two stalks celery, chopped;
two cloves garlic, minced;
one medium bell pepper, chopped (I hate bell pepper, so never use it, but lots of folks do);
two pounds of crawfish tails and fat (or shrimp);
4 tablespoons general purpose flour;
2 cups water;
4 chicken bouillon cubes;
chopped tops of three green onions;
some chopped parsley.
Melt the butter is a heavy large skillet. Slowly saute' the veggies (except green onion and parsley)in the butter for about 30 minutes. Add crawfish or shrimp (and their fat) and saute for one minute, then stir in flour and continue to saute for another 3 minutes. Add water, bouillon and green onion and parsley and simmer for another 15 minutes. During the last 15 minutes, taste and add salt and Tabasco to taste. Serve over white rice. Serves 4-6.
Let's make Coonass seafood gumbo for the holidays. Yep, first you make a roux, unless you can find some of the already-made-up roux by Savoie in the glass jar. I'm assuming you can't, so let's do it from scratch.
Take a cast iron dutch oven and pour just enough Pompian extra virgin olive oil in to cover the bottom. A roux is flour browned in oil. Slowly heat the oil in the dutch oven and sprinkle in some general purpose flour, and as the oil starts to get hot (take it slow, rookies) take a spatula and stir it constantly. Keep putting flour in until the consistency is about that of heavy cream, but you gotta stir all the time. Keep browning the flour in the olive oil - now here is the Gospel - until it turns the color of dark peanut butter and once you experience the smell, you will never forget it when it's just right. If you go over the line and burn the roux, just throw it out and start over.
Now once the roux is ready, it's time to put the veggies in, which you have already cut up and have ready, becsuse this is a matter of seconds when the roux is just right. Chop up some yellow onions (white onions will do, but yellow is better) pretty fine, ok to use a food processor, a lot of onions, say 3 cups. Then do some fresh garlic - a lot, can't use too much, use the side of the knife to crush it and makes it real easy to peel, then chop up some celery fine. Have all this ready to go when the roux gets just right. At The Moment of Truth when the roux is done, dump all the veggies in the pot and saute' them in the roux, continuing to stir constantly for about 15 minutes until the onions start to turn clear. Keep the heat low as if you burn the veggies you have to start over.
Once the veggies are done, then put some stock in the pot and you are out of the woods on burning stuff. I use shrimp stock, just boil the heads and shells of shrimp when we boil them, that stock will freeze for a year easy. Fish carcasses will boil up a good stock too. If you don't have stock, plain water will do. DO NOT put any seasoning in the gumbo, as the ingrediments do that.
So after you put the water/stock in, bring the gumbo up to a very slow boil, and add a couple of smoked turkey legs - if not available, use smoked chicken quarters, or if no smoked stuff around, just use chicken fryer legs. Goal is to boil the meat off the bones. Then get some good smoked sausage, cut it in thin circles like half dollars, and saute' it in a skillet, brown it and cook most of the fat out of it, let it sit on a paper towel to drain further, then throw it in the gumbo.
Let the gumbo simmer for about 2-3 hours and now and then skim the grease off the top with a big spoon. As the meat cooks off the bones of the poultry, fish the bones out.
Peel raw a couple of pounds of shrimp (save the heads and shells for your stock boil later) and put them in the gumbo about 10 minutes before you are ready to serve it. Oysters the same.
Serve over white rice. Again, do not put any seasoning in the gumbo, let your guests season it at the table.
Posted By: Vic Roy <royvictor>
Date: Sunday, 25 December 2005, at 6:32 p.m.
Well, hope all the Faithful had as good a Christmas as me & our family. We had the whole gang (about 20+ folks) over for lunch, including my Dad, who at 95, is still full of jokes, and wanted his bloody mary done 'just right', three dashes of Tobasco. The Bride did a turkey stuffed with shrimp dressing. Our gang ranges in age from the twin grand girls (2) to my Dad. We all ate too much. Oh yeah, the Bride did her famous choc. pecan pie too.
Thought I'd share our recipe for Coonass lobster. Since you can now get Maine lobster live in any supermarket in the country, it a helluva bargain if done right. Get a 1 & a quarter pound lobster per person. Get a big pot and par boil them for about 4 minutes, then take them out and let them cool. What we goona do is broil the tails, but first we gotta make the sauce.
Take a cast iron skillet and melt a half stick of butter per person in it, then add some virgin olive oil. Then chop up some green onion & some fresh garlic and saute that down slowly. Then add some white wine, saute that down, add a little lemon juice and saute until pretty thick.
Then take the lobsters and break the heads off and dig all the yellow fat out of the head and put in the saute and very, very slowly saute it.
Take the lobster tails and carefully slice the underside of the shell down the middle and open it up and break it off, where just the meat is exposed and the hard shell stays on the bottom. We are gonna broil the lobster tails on the half shell.
Put the lobster tails on a cookie sheet covered with alum. foil, meat up, and baste them good with the saute'. Put your oven on 'broil' and let it heat up real good, maybe with the wire shelf about half way. Baste the tails again with the saute' and then pop them under the broiler for about 5 minutes or until them start smoking. Goal is to blacken the meat but not burn it. Take them out, and baste them again with the suate' before serving. If they are not blackened enough, pop them back under the broiler for a few more minutes. Takes a real hot broiler to do it right.
Serve with a green salad topped with feta cheese and some toasted french bread with the same saute' on it.
"Faithful, these are baked oysters. Probably would work just as well with cherrystone clams, scallops that are not too big and similar stuff.
Here we go, what you need to feed 6 or 8:
1. two cups Progresso bread crumbs;
2. one tablespoon crushed red pepper, or a teaspoon of Tabasco;
3. juice of two lemons;
4. 3/4 cup of good virgin olive oil;
5. one clove garlic, pressed - I usually just use the side of a knife to crush it, then peel it, then chop it a little and squish it again with the side of the knife and put it in;
6. three tablespoons chopped parsley;
7. one cup of grated Paresan cheese;
8. a quart of oysters, drained.
OK, combine (for you non-chefs, that means stir it all up in one bowl) everyting but the oysters in a bowl. Take a baking dish that you have put just a real thin layer of olive oil in, and lay the oysters out in the bottom, if they overlap that's OK. Take a spoon and put the dressing you have mixed up in the bowl on top of the oysters and spread it out even. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 350 for 30 minutes, then put under the broiler for about 4 or 5 minutes to brown the top.
The high in Coonassland today was about 35. Supposed to get colder over the weekend. Al Gore, my hanging chad is for you.
So after our office party at noon today, me & snow hauled pot plants into the shop and I lit the fireplace and opened a bottle of good port. Son Capt. Brent brought some oysters from his secret hole and I shucked them. Ate a few raw, perfect. Then did the oyster saute' for me & the Bride just now, modifying the recipe some since the oysters were so big and fat. Best ever, so here goes for big, fat oysters:
Take a cast iron skillet and half cover the bottom with extra virgin olive oil. Melt about a third of a stick of real butter in with the oil. Chop 4 pods fresh garlic and put in along with 3 green onions chopped and a chopped half celrey stick. Put in some Tony Chacerie's and some Crystal hot sauce, just a little. Saute' the veggies in the oil and butter for a while (20-30 minutes, and you have to stir it all the time with a spatula or you burn it) until clear, then pour your oyster liquor (the juice from the shucked oysters sitting in a bowl, let all the crud sink to the bottom and just use the clear liquor) in along with some dry wine and cook down. Wash the oysters one by one under tap water to get all the shell fragments and pearls out, then drain the oysters in a collendar real good. When the saute' is cooked down to the point it is as thick as it's gonna get without burning, put the oysters in and raise the heat some. Cook them till they curl, or about 4 minutes, turn them and cook another minute at the most. Serve with buttered, toasted french bread.
Will make you forget the cold.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you, the Faithful. May we have as many laughs in the new year.
Now let me share how real Coonasses cook big stuff. Let's do a couchon de lait. Suckling pig. Take about a 60# pig and spread it, cut down the ribs, and wrap it in chicken wire and twist the wire to pull it tight. Inject the pig with garlic and pepper. Hang it by a chain from a swing set and put it on the driveway. Then build a big fire out of oak logs in front of it, and put some roofing tin behind it to reflect the heat back on the pig. Poke the pig now and then to keep it turning. Drinking is permitted during this process. Drill is to start it cooking at midnight for serving at noon the next day. When done about 12-14 hours later, lay the couchon out on a picnic table on some newspaper and cut it up (it really just falls apart) and serve with lots of paper towels.
The couchon de lait is the Coonass dirty little secret - you will never find it in a cookbook. Sort of like cockfighting is still legal here. Wehn you want to know if your neighbor is a real Coonass, look for a burnt spot on his driveway.
Me & the Bride just had a feast. We got a dozen big soft shell crabs from a relative of our office mgr. ($2 a pop, a steal) and I just cooked some, so let me share the recipe'.
We cooked 3 for the 2 of us and with the steamed spinach and toasted french bread we could only eat one each, so have the other left for a good coonass breakfast in the morning.
Take a big cast iron skillet and melt a half stick of real butter in it, then add about the same of virgin olive oil and simmer. Fine chop about 3 green onions and 3 or 4 cloves of fresh garlic. Put the onions and garlic in the saute and simmer slowly, stirring with a spatula. Add some dry white wine and let cook down. A couple dashes of soy sauce and a few drops of hot sauce, go easy on the hot sauce.
After it has cooked down real slowly, add some more white wine and cook it down again. I usually cook the saute' about 45 minutes, adding wine to keep it from getting too thick.
Then take your soft shell crabs and clean them, which mean pulling the top shell up from each side without removing it, and getting the gills (dead men) out. Then lay the crabs on some folded paper towels and put another paper towel on top and pat them dry. You want to get as much water out of them as you can.
Then put them in the skillet real carefully and saute' about 5 mins. a side. Use a wide spatula to turn them as they are pretty fragile. Serve with steamed spinach and toasted frech bread and the saute' gravy.
Mike, I'm sitting at the doctors office laughing in pain. I had a swordfish mishap this week and tore my torso up pretty well, ribs and all. I'm missing Tio Vic's party cause of it.
The suckling pig hanging from a swing set chain was fantastic. Would sure enough turn some heads in my hood. Thanks for the repost. I miss the old fart tremendously. -Tom
Did two of these Friday and 12 poeple could only eat one, so got some real good left overs.
Get a boston butt, bone in, about 9#, look for a layer of fat on the bottom and plenty of fat marbeling in the meat. Wash it good in warm water, let it drain. Get some really fresh garlic, not the crap that's been sitting for months and is dried out. Peel as much garlic as you can stand fooling with, then slice the garlic length wise into slivers about the thickness of popsicle sticks. Take a sharp pointed knife and poke holes in the top and sides of the roast and push the garlic down in it, I use a pattern of about 1". Put the roast in a deep pan, elevated on a wire rack about an inch. Dust it good with sea salt (sea salt cooks 10 times better than regular salt).
Now let's make a rub. Take a small bowl and put about an inch of good extra virgin olive oil in, then enough sea salt to make the oil pretty thick, then spoon in a lot of crushed garlic - it comes in a little glass jar and is a puree'....if you can't get the crushed, puree' some minced garlic in the blender. Mix all that up unitl its a thin paste. Add some Tony Chachere's if you have it. Rub the roast all over (don't need to do the bottom) with the rub. Put it in the oven at 325 for about 3 hours, uncovered. Throw away the fat that collects in the pan. After that I put it on the bbq pit (no pan, just plop it on the grill) with the top closed for about another 2 & a half hours (pit temp about 300-350) and use a meat therometer to see when it hits 170 degrees. Use indirect heat or it will burn up. I put some wet hickory chips on the hot side of the pit.
Anyway, the outside makes a great crust and the meat is tender and moist...... Around here a 9# roast costs about 12 bucks, so cheap eats, and damn good. I slice up the left overs and put enough for a few sandwiches in zip locks in the freezer.
Hope it turns out good. I boiled some shrimp last nige for the camp crowd and they ate them like locusts eat corn.....started with a premium product tho, some 16-20 white shrimp, heads on, that were caught around Venice in a skimmer net at night, so no trash or muddy taste from a bottom trawl......our son Capt. Brent brought us a bunch a few weeks ago and I froze them - again, heads on - in quart continers and filled with water....now another old, old coonass trick - thaw the shrimp out very slowly, say in a frig over a couple of days...this destroys the "glue" that holds the meat to the shell, works for just about anything with a shell..crabs, lobster, etc......one of my patent atty. law partners got a patent on this process for LSU many years ago.....blast freeze and slow thaw is the trick.
Anyway, I boiled the shrimp in just salted water (used coarse sea salt) and put them in the boiling water for 4 & a half minutess, then removed from the heat and poured crused ice into the pot until the boil water cooled to below room temp, thus stopping the cooking....then let them soak for 20 minutes to soak up the salt....I normally use some crab boil but my mouth and throat are still not up to any sort of red pepper yet...the docs say it might be another year or so....but I've learned to cook without pepper, just using natural seasonings and everything tastes 10 times better.....pepper is sort of to disguise bad cooking?
"Winterized" AJ this morning....plugged in the block heaters and Air Dry 100 watt cabin heater and that's it. It was in the low 40s this morning....helluva change from the hot, humid summer from hell we've had...even built a big fire in the fireplace at the camp last nite....the guys (including The Minister de Pollo, who told me to say hi to you guys) sat around enjoying adult beverages and watched football while the girls chatted.
I'm watching the Boston football game.....is that what the North Pole looks like?
The Bride gave me a wireless bbq therometer for our 40th anniversary, what a gal. The thing makes cooking big chucks of meat on the grill a snap vs. a crap shoot.
We have used the wireless to do a fresh pork ham (big sucker) and a beef rump roast, both with great results. Tonight we did a rolled pork loin. I stuffed the middle with a lot, yep a lot, of fresh sliced garlic, put some olive oil in there, then some salt and Tony Chacherie's and bound it up with wet cotton twine. On the outside I rubbed it with sea salt, Tony's, and some crushed garlic that is like a puree'. Let it sit for a while, then put it on the bbq pit with a few wet hickory chips. Pork needs to get to 170 to be done, and this little 2+ lb. loin took about an hour and 15 minutes to get there at a pit temp of about 325. My s.s. pit has a built in therometer that is wahcko, so I use the laster temp infrared gun, just raise the lid, shoot the back of the lid, and you need to see about 300-350.
Faithful, that garlic stuffed loin was so good it would make you slap your Mama........ I basted it with a little butter, oilive oil, and crushed garlic twice, first when it got to 140, then again when it got to 155.....
Don't forget to cut the twine off.... Bon appitte'..... Next time we are gonna stuff it with some oysters and corn bread dressing with tasso.
My good friend and B31 Faithful Dr. Brian Mendenhall of Longview, TX sent me a nice chuck of wahoo they caught last weekend out of Venice, La. I consider wahoo the absolute top fish in the world, bar none.
So I decided to cook up some for me & the Bride for supper, & here's how I did it:
First, wahoo has an incredibly delicate taste and texture so it must be very, very carefully prepared and for God's sake, not overcooked.
I took a cast iron skillet and melted a half stick of real salted butter with a sprinkle of extra virgin olive oil thrown in. Then I hand chopped one green onion and added it to the saute', then pressed in two smallish cloves of fresh garlic. I let that slowly, very slowly saute' for a few minutes, then added one teaspoon of lemon juice and two teaspoons of white wine and let it all continue to saute', stirring with a wide spatula to keep it cooking uniformly. Now taste the saute'. Add wine, lemon, or a touch of sea salt to your taste if needed. Your saute should be on low to medium heat.
Take your wahoo and slice into half inch thick pieces no more than about 4" square and rinse them under tap water and pat them dry. Now the moment of truth.......lay - don't plop - the wahoo in the saute' and cook for no more than 2 minutes then flip and cook the other side for 2 minutes. Serve with some french bread and a green salad and spoon some of the saute' over the fish. The two minute rule is an absolute, any more will ruin it. I usually cheat and cook it about 90 to 100 seconds per side.
My customer provides free digital and online manuals plus offers a link to "LULU" where his customers can have their own manual printed to order.
Customer gets to choose the quality of the manual, whether B&W, Color, Paperback or Spiral bound. He said his people write and edit the manual then upload. Books are not expensive and monies can be directed as needed.
Mean Mike,
Great start! Recognized some. Will check my pile when I get back Monday. Going to do a film in Richmond this weekend.
Do you suppose that Miss Elaine, Brent, or Jen prowl our sandbox? Would love to ask for their participation but don't want to bother them if it is too soon. Andre, anyone else in the Baton Rouge area have a clue.
And to the rest of the Faithful as you can see Mike has made a huge start but it's just a start. What have you got? If possible, want it just as Vic gave it to you.
How about some Coonass, Flophouse, fishing, Port Eades, family, drinking, eating, cooking stories. This is what will make this a hit.
On with it gang.
Mikey
3/18/1963 - -31-327 factory hardtop express, the only one left.
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.
-Albert Einstein
Uncle Vic had been working way too hard. I had been doing a lawsuit for Uncle Sam in Texas. Uncle Vic got 892,000 frequent flyer miles in two years as a result. I like to fly, but enough is enough. The straw that broke Uncle Vic's back was a six day trip to Louisville in February. It was cold as hell with dirty snow all over the place. Plus, if you've ever been to Louisville, you know there ain't squat to do. You can only see where they make baseball bats so many times, you know. And the food sucks.
Anyway, after five days of listening to lawyer-dribble, I headed home on a Friday afternoon. Nope, not so fast, Uncle Vic; the snow was swirling, and Mother Delta was way late. To make a very long story shorter, I bounced into BTR at 4:15 a.m. on the dreaded midnight - the sucker ain't been on time once in it's life - flight from Atlanta that stops somewhere in Alabama. Having been a pilot in my distant youth, I guess me and the real pilots were the only ones aboard that knew that the BTR control tower closes at midnight - yeah, they go home and turn off the lights. ...You're on your own. ...Scary.
Driving my battered truck home from the airport at that god- awful hour, a sudden realization swept over me. Sorta like the oncoming headlights from the pickup trucks headed to the early shift at the chemical plants: This Sucks. So what ya gonna do about it, Uncle Vic? The question kept coming back to me with the recurring whine of the Monster Mudders on I-10: What ya gonna do, big boy? That's when I decided Uncle Vic was going to retire.
The next day I broke the news to wife Miss Elaine. She was very understanding. "You dumb bastard, you ain't but 53; you can't retire! What the hell you gonna do with yourself?" is a cleaned up version. Undaunted, I went to the office and informed my partners of the impending event. Their reaction can best be described as derision. "What else is new, Camel Breath?" one shot back, "you think just 'cause you have to travel a little, you're working?" Another asked if he could have my corner office. The receptionist asked how she should start answering the phone. Hmmmmmmm.
I finally settled for semi-retirement. It has a certain ring to it. Semi-retired. I liked it. Our son, Capt. Brent, fresh graduated from LSU, was just cranking up his charter business, but he seemed sort of cool to me being his deck hand. A couple of buddies humored me and took off a week or so and we went fishing. We tore them up. I got pretty fond of hanging around the Venice Marina the mouth of the Mississippi River in the middle of the week. I learned how to cook fish and shrimp a million ways.
After about two months of this, I decided it was GREAT. I would call my office on the cell phone every day or so, and they still mentioned my name when they answered the phone. Comforting. I'd go by the office now and then and check my mail, and act important. Nobody paid much attention to Uncle Vic. It didn't bother me a bit. I was in the groove.
About July, a bunch of lawyers I knew from Amarillo, Texas called. I had apparently promised them (whiskey talk, for sure) that I would take them marlin fishing. I told them I would pick them up at the New Orleans airport in two days.
These four cowboys showed up with enough gear for a year. They had snake leggings already tied on their shins. They had pith helmets and mosquito nets. One of them had a gawdam suitcase the size of a steamer trunk, and another had a fancy hard rod case. The case held - no lie - a two piece bream casing rod and a Zebco 33, still in the Wal-Mart wrappings. The first thing they wanted to do was go to the temporary gambling casino in the New Orleans ghetto. I explained to them that we needed to get down the river before dark. No good. We went and paid our Tax On Stupidity at the casino.
I took them to a decent cajun restaurant and they loved it. A couple of them had a beer for an after-dinner drink. Classy. When the check came, all four of them bolted for the men's room. Ominous sign.
We finally got to Venice way after the pelicans had roosted and loaded all their mountain of gear on my 31 Bertram, "Another Joy". We headed down the river in pitch darkness and were about opposite Pilottown (where the bar pilots change to the river pilots) when two of them got seasick. They were chumming over the windward side of the boat. Worse Omen.
We finally get to Port Eads - a marina owned by the Plaquemines Parish government that is 25 miles from the nearest road - and it took hours to get things sorted out. I cooked up something and they seemed to calm down a little, but they kept the snake leggings on, even in the houseboat. I had conned Capt. Brent into coming down from Venice after his charter to go offshore with us the next day, and he showed up about midnight. He just shook his head when he saw my "crew". The cowboys were just getting cranked up on the whiskey, and Buzzy, the cajun harbormaster, was showing them how to play bouree. Bouree is a cajun card game that is similar to hearts, but the rules are flexible, to say the least. Bouree is why cajuns have no visible means of support. I couldn't even watch; it was that much of a slaughter. Buzzy remarked how I needed to bring more of my Texas buddies down. I guess so. It's called redistribution of wealth.
The next morning dawned clear and calm. We herded the cowboys on the boat, snake leggings and all, and headed out on a 165. The reports were that the blue water had gone. I told the cowboys we were going to the blue water no matter what. They seemed happy enough gawking at the massive deep water oil rigs and drinking beer. 50 miles, and still dirty water; 75 miles, the same. Capt. Brent started squirming, but I convinced him to press on. Finally at 101.2 n.m., still in dirty green water, the mutiny started. Then the squalls started boxing us in. We never put the baits in the water. The cowboys, who had never seen a body of water bigger than a stock pond, were terrified as it got rougher and rougher. They had finally learned to chum downwind, though, snake leggings and all.
We finally fought our way back to Port Eads just before dark, still in the rain. Buzzy was waiting on the dock, shuffling the cards. The bouree students went down for the count the second night. The next morning we had to literally drag them on the boat. We went out by the Lena and found a tropical depression. I kept hosing the cowboys down with the washdown pump. Capt. Brent blew his stack when a foamy 8-footer almost swept the bridge, and in we went. Capt. Brent did not say a word; he stormed into the houseboat, got his stuff, jumped in his skiff, and hauled ass back to Venice. I was stuck with the whining cowboys at 10 in the morning. I didn't have the heart to turn Buzzy loose on them for any more bouree lessons. I sat down and thought, something I hadn't done a whole lot of since my glorious semi-retirement.
Suddenly, a realization swept over me; This Sucks. I declared an emergency and told the cowboys a killer hurricane was bearing down on us, the water moccasins were on their way, and we had been ordered to evacuate, right now. They grabbed gear and we headed upriver with the twin Cummins on the governors. I piled them in the truck and drove like a madman to the New Orleans airport and kicked them out on the curb, barely pausing.
Finally rid of the scourge from 270 degrees, I slowly headed up I-10 to B.R. I started thinking of going back to work full- time, and how much fun it would be. Miss Elaine was right, I guess. Dumb Bastard.
Mikey,
Jeremy and I went to the party yesterday and met the whole family. Yes they do read the sandbox and I mentoned that a possiby tribute was being discussed. I think Miss Elaine, Jen, Brent, his sisters all will probably contribute. They're just like UV Good Folks. Really enjoyed their company.
Mac
Boston Butt pork roast, about 6-8#
2 heads fresh garlic
olive oil
sea salt, fine ground
garlic powder
crushed garlic
Peel the garlic cloves and slice them lengthwise. Place the sliced garlic in a small covered dish with a little water and microwave for about one minute until the garlic is soft. Wash the roast well and let drain, then place on a cutting board. "Stab" the roast with a long filet knife and stuff the garlic in the holes, in about a one inch pattern, all over.
Now place a nice little mound of sea salt in a small bowl and mix in some olive oil to make a thick paste, then add some crushed (or better yet, some pressed fresh) garlic and mix. Rub the roast all over with the salt and garlic paste, then dust the roast with some garlic powder.
Best if done on a covered BBQ pit with some hickory smoke at about 230 degrees, but can be done in the oven at 230-250. Takes about an hour a pound on the pit. Use a meat thermometer and cook to 160, remove from heat and cover with aluminum foil for about 20 minutes, the carve and serve.
Remember, real Cajun cooking does not use red pepper, the guests add Tobacco or Crystal hot sauce to their taste at the table.
Hey Tom.....the gal in the Tampa area I've dealt with is Kaylyn Bolin - she goes by Kay - at www.captlou5050@hotmail.com Sghe put me together an electric start kit for short money, and also got me a good "C" claimp (transom clamp) 'cause one of my originals was froze up....easy to deal with. She ships post office collect, so you need the exact cash to give the postman. You can tell Kay I sent you.
The decals are made by Magic Brush, also in Fl.....they make the originals for Whaler.. www.magicbrushsigns.com The ones for the 13' Whaler are the 14 inch ones and the pair is $25...I had them make a pair of my state rigistration #s too, for another $25....don't think you can order online, have to call them.
Both places were first class.
Try a Boston Butt pork roast...get one about 10#...wassh it good in warm water...then slice up a bunch (say, 2 or 3 heads) of fresh garlic into fat slivers and soften them up in the microwave by putting them in a dish with a little water and zap them for about 45 seconds....then take a fillet knife and stap the roast in a close pattern and stuff the garlic in the holes with yhour finger.
Next, make a rub out of sea salt, crushed garlic, and olive oil...mix to a thick paste and rub all over the roast. Then bake it either in the oven or on a BBQ pit at very low heat - say 225-235 for about an hour a pound, or better yet, use a meat therometer and get the interior to 170....when done, take it off and cover with foil and let it sit for about 20 minutes before slicing and serving. I do mine on the pit and put some hickory in a smoke box with it. The mroe fat on the roast the better.
It is 103.7 degrees outside right now....hottest its been in a couple of years...###### Algore......good news is I'm going to Panama in two weeks where at least it rains.
Vic
----- Original Message -----
From: Annulli, Thomas - Middlebury, CT
To: 'royvictor@cox.net'
Sent: Monday, August 02, 2010 2:28 PM
Subject: Boston Whalers
Hi UV:
I hope you are well. I am following up on our Boston Whaler emails – I think you mentioned to me that you knew a woman that could sell me the parts for converting my 35hp Evinrude to electric start, and to add an alternator for charging my battery? In addition, Dug Stowe mentioned to me that he thought you found a place that sells the Boston Whaler decals still – I have the red ones on my boat.
Finally – since my family loves your recipe for Jambalaya – I get asked to bring it everywhere – any other recipes you have for a family gathering? My family is like yours – a lot of times there are 18 – 24 of us at the table!
Mac,
Thanks for the info. I'll wait at this point for them. If I don't hear by Monday when I return I'll try the direct approach.
Tom, Louis,
That's the stuff. Love the comments included. This will give it that personal touch. Walt knows what I mean.
Mikey
3/18/1963 - -31-327 factory hardtop express, the only one left.
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.
-Albert Einstein
This was just one of them, early on after Mara was originally diagnosed. I really have ahard time sharing this and sort of want to keep the rest for myself plus rereading this takes me back. This however was Vic in a nut shell the best that I knew him which wasn't even close to those who really did. I envy those who were very close to this man.
===============================================
Well, forget the 'woulda, shoulda' and look forward, not backwards. I was told a couple of years ago my ass was toast and it was not, or at least not yet. The mental part of dealing with a disease that will probably kill you or a loved one is way different from dealing with a potential car wreck or a bolt of lightning on the golf course.
I had to come to grips with the fact I had a life threatening disease. I was 65 at the time and just retired. The whole damn thing was not fair. I saw depression closing in on me. I was sitting on the porch of our camp one day during my first chemo and radiation back in the fall of '08 feeling damn sorry for myself when it dawned on me that if I was indeed gonna die by the end of the year I was not gonna make myself and everyone I loved miserable doing so. So I just stood up, shrugged my shoulders and said to myself "SCREW IT". I then started living my life one hour at a time...none of this day at a time stuff, one hour at a time. It pulled me through. When my routine PET scan right before last Christmas showed a "lit up" lymph node in my neck near where my original cancer had been, I was pretty mad.....I thought I had beaten it....nope, face reality Vic, you didn't....so, surgery, major surgery, the pathology from which was not encouraging, so another round of chemo and radiation twice a day for 3 weeks....but I had already been thru the "I'm gonna die" deal and this was a breeze. Do not look over your shoulder, and do not second guess the docs....I had the precision radiation the first time and still had a bunch of side effects, most of whcih went away in 6 months...this time I had the wider shot and the side effects went away in a little over 3 weeks....so don't beat yourself up. You have to be the rock, the sturdy oak. You do no one any good if you are consumed by this. You and I have never met, but I know you. I am ready to help if I can. My home phone is 225 XXX XXXX and my cell is 225 XXX XXXX. Anytime you feel you need to talk to someone who's been there and can relatef, and in the strictest of confidence, call me.
Vic
72 Bertram 25 FBC "Razorsharp" Hull #254-1849
Things of quality have no fear of time.
Bondage to spiritual faith faith to great courage courage to liberty liberty to abundance abundance to complacency to apathy to dependence to bondage
Mark,
Know that was tough, it was tough to read, but that was Vic. If we do the book this goes in. This was a part of Vic that made him special. He faced life head on, even when it sucked. He tried to take the sting out for us all. This makes him human, this make him real. This is what we loved about him.
Thanks, pal
Mikey
3/18/1963 - -31-327 factory hardtop express, the only one left.
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.
-Albert Einstein
Coming back to read this site is so overwhelming. I think my dad would get a kick out of the cookbook and like the idea of the funds going to keeping his "sandbox" afloat. I'm assuming someone has a copy of the bisque recipe we had printed. That recipe was his pride and joy inthe last couple of years. It was the best thing he ever made and he knew it- if ya'll need it or anything else let me know. Jen
Jen,
Whatever you, Brent, and Ms Elaine are willing to share we would love to have for the book. Not just recipes but anecdotes, stories, lies, exaggerations, we don't care as long as they wee a part of Uncle Vic. My Daddy always said, "never let the facts interfere with a good story." It always works. Heard Vic tell one story about four different ways and they were all entertaining, otherwise what's the point?
Also, at some point I would love to talk with all of you. There is still so much I don't know. Meanwhile, I look forward to the bisque recipe.
Mikey
3/18/1963 - -31-327 factory hardtop express, the only one left.
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.
-Albert Einstein
