What About Ghee?

You know, clarified butter. It’s been melted, had most of its water boiled away. Won’t that work in a pie crust instead of butter, lard or shortening? Unfortunately not. For it’s the structure of butter, not merely its composition, that determines the way it behaves in pie crust.

Milk fat occurs not as a mass of lipid molecules with a few water molecules mixed in, but in pure lipid blobs, each of which is surrounded by a protein coat. It’s those protein-enclosed blobs, plus water, that create the emulsion that is butter. Destroy those blobs and what you get is a greasy slurry.

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Sorry Gang!

I should probably have just declared a July hiatus with all I have going at the moment. Vacation, lotsa business, girls in summer camps…I can’t remember the last time I was so busy. Thanks for all your patience and I hope to be back at my normal posting level soon! – J

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So What Else Ya Got?

Reader Jillian asks if we have any other unique foods here in Louisville. Well Jillian, it’s taken me a while to learn them, but yes indeed we do. The odd thing is that so few are directly related to the Kentucky Derby. You’d think that as the home of one of the world’s best-known sporting events we’d have gone hog-wild with Kentucky Derby…everything…ages ago. But no. Derby Pie(®) is the only well-known edible thing we have with the world “derby” slapped on it.

Which is not to say that there isn’t a whole lot else here that’s unique and interesting. The first odd food I noticed on arrival nine years ago was the rolled oyster. Though you see fewer and fewer of them around these days, they’re a relic of the oyster craze that swept America in the 1880’s. Sure, most people don’t associate Kentucky with sea coasts and mollusk farms, but 125 years ago oysters were very easy to get here. Louisville was a straight shot

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Not Fully in the Saddle…

Still playing catch-up, also spent a good part of the afternoon seeing what little Jo built at her week-long summer robot camp. A nerd much nuture his nerdling, am I right? Boy, those things were cool. More from me Monday!

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Hang on…

Isn’t World Famous Kentucky Horse Race Whose Name Rhymes with “Herbie” Pie just a gussied up pecan pie with chocolate chips and whiskey added? You could say that. For some, panettone is just brioche with candied fruit added. It’s true that at its heart World Famous Kentucky Horse Race Whose Name Rhymes with “Herbie” Pie […]

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Leave for a week…

…and everything goes to hell. Lots of phone calls and meetings to catch up on, which is why posting’s been thin. More coming!

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Pie That Dare Not Speak Its Name

World Famous Kentucky Horse Race Whose Name Rhymes with “Herbie” Pie dates back to 1950. That was the year it was invented by the owners of the Melrose Inn in Prospect, Kentucky: the Kerns. It was shortly named and, in 1968, trademarked. Ever since then World Famous Kentucky Horse Race Whose Name Rhymes with “Herbie” Pie has been synonymous with two things: the Kentucky Derby and lawsuits. Indeed the company which now goes by the name “Kern’s Kitchen” has sued at least 25 times to protect its rights under the law.

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