Kelly At Large #144 The New Year's Edition
In which I share one half-baked thought and an imprecise recipe for really good cornbread.
Well, it’s 2025. I spent the last afternoon of the old year eating bacon-flavored bugles and listening to Bluegrass while I peddled away on an antique stationary bike which roared like a lion with every rotation of the crank.
In the evening was a glass of champagne and a plate of puff pastry appetizer things from Picard which we ate while watching a concert broadcast from Berlin. Today, I made black-eyed peas for luck and cornbread studded with chorizo and Compté baked up in little gold bricks of financiers.
I had bigger plans but couldn’t sleep last night giving birth to the modest epiphany that the most important thing from here on out is to figure out how to be free in the midst of growing constraints. And even that is optional. Some days it’s just easier to submit.
New Year’s Cornbread
Whisk together:
1 cup cornmeal
½ cup wheat flour
¾ T or so baking powder
¼ t baking soda
a few chipotle flakes
a pinch of salt
some ground pepper
Stir into the flour mixture:
2 or 3 T of minced chorizo
¼ cup of minced (NOT GRATED) compté or gruyere or whatever. You do not want it to disappear into the batter.
Beat an egg, then whisk into that a bunch of milk and a glug of olive oil.
Get ready to add this to the dry ingredients, then remember that you haven’t preheated the oven.
Crank it up to 200 C with the intention to lower it to 180 C which is something like 350 F. Take the occasion to go for a piss. When you’ve finished (and thoroughly washed your hands or at least thought about it), return to the kitchen where you mix the dry and wet, decide the batter’s too thin and dump in a little more cornmeal, then spoon it into little rectangular financiers molds which go straight into the oven for 15 or 20 minutes until they’re spotted brown with roasted cheese and melting chorizo.
Leftover batter becomes five delicious pancakes, two of which are gobbled up while the cornbread financiers bake.
Do black-eyed peas really need a recipe? I make them more or less the way I make black beans, making a sofrito of minced red pepper, onion, garlic, then adding in soaked beans and boiling water to cover. For black beans I add some chorizo and a little red wine. For the peas I added some chipotle flakes for the heat and smokiness and just a little ketchup for sweetness.
They were good over rice with some grated cheese and a little hot sauce next to a vinegary salad.
May your New Year be equally tasty.
That’s it for this time.
Disgruntledly yours,
xoxo Kelly
Bored already? Order one of my books from a local bookstore.
Les Odyssées de Fally Dogswell: ISBN : 9781736155882 (original French)
The Odysseys of Fally Dogswell: ISBN : 9781736155868 (English)
Eating Fire: My Life as a Lesbian Avenger: ISBN: 9781452941332 (English)