My Starfruit tree is producing more fruit -it’s like the Ever Ready Bunny- it never stops and I have one Banana Tree left. My Mallika Mango tree is loaded with green, teardrop-shaped fruit. So far, I’ve just eaten them plain, but have plans for Mango Ice Cream, Mango Bread and Salad Dressing. We’ve also been lucky to get fruit from other people’s trees.

On that same day as the First day of Summer, I was invited to participate in a #eatnorthamerica Instagram Food Blogger’s meeting, where we all posted recent photos and liked and commented on each others posts. We then had three challenges to post- breakfast, our favorite chicken dish and dessert. For the breakfast post, I posted what I ate for breakfast that day- Coffee and Chilaquiles and (we were allowed 2 posts) and a Miami Bowl, which is a breakfast bowl of my own invention. It consists of: rice, black beans, sliced avocado, salsa, a fried egg, plantain chips & a cilantro lime sauce on top. Que rico!

For someone who LOVES chicken almost every which way, I had a surprisingly small amount of chicken photos- I need to work on that. The last challenge was dessert, but I missed the cut-off time of 9 p.m. to post.

I was SO excited that the new Elvis movie by Baz Luhrmann came out last week, on Friday. I’m a huge Elvis fanatic and actually got to see him in 1970 with my grandparents and sister Kelley on Miami Beach. I still remember picking out my outfit for the concert with my grandmother (as if Elvis would notice an 10-year-old little girl) and being so excited for the show. After the concert was over (it was fantastic!), we were going to try and see him outside, but instead heard the famous words: “Elvis has left the building.”

Since I went to the concert with Kelley, we went to see the movie together on Sunday. The actor who played Elvis (Austin Butler) did a fantastic job nailing the voice, moves and look of Elvis. I wasn’t as crazy about the actress who played Pricilla, more for the lack of chemistry between the two of them, than her acting ability. Baz Luhrmann’s films are glitzy, fast-paced and eclectic, blending music and genres, and this one was no exception.

Elvis, the movie, did a good job conveying how revolutionary this Southern boy was with his music (which crossed race lines) and his singing style, back in the ultra-conservative 1950’s. I mean, this is a guy who wore a pink Lansky Brother’s suit to sing on the Louisiana Hayride! Ultimately, it was also a sad story, as the once-wild Elvis becomes trapped in the gilded cage Parker created for him. Although Tom Hanks, who plays Parker, says he tried to find the humanity in the part, make no mistake about it. Colonel Parker is the villain here.

The food I craved this week was Comfort Food, probably similar to what Elvis ate when he was home at Graceland. Although I didn’t have his famous Fried Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich, I did make myself a delicious BLT one night for dinner, with sliced vine-ripe tomatoes, Romaine Lettuce and bacon. I slathered mayo on one side and mashed avocado on the other, on a PumpernickeI Tuscan toast. It really hit the spot! I don’t eat bacon very often so keep it in the freezer, but the problem with this is, it freezes together in a solid lump and makes getting one or two slices extremely difficult. I saw a video on Instagram on how to solve this problem. Brilliant hack!

While I don’t really like cooked salmon, I did attempt a Food and Wine Roast Salmon with Miso Butter and Radish Salad recipe which was baked in the oven, and served with Scallion Oil. It was actually very good (for someone who doesn’t like salmon.) I’m trying to eat more of it. Those Omega 3’s are supposed to be good for your brain!

Thursday I made my favorite homemade Mac ‘N Cheese to go with grilled pork loin and sliced tomatoes. The leftover Pork Loin turned into Pork Tacos for lunch the next day. And Sunday, after the movie, we grilled St. Louis Style Ribs on the charcoal grill with a rub, along with corn on the cob, Elote-style and Baked Beans. I used Bush’s Baked Beans, but jazzed them up with some mustard, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and chopped onion, like my Mom makes.

In preparation for the Elvis Movie, I watched an Elvis documentary called The Searcher on HBO Max. It’s a 2-parter and part one was really good. We are still slogging through The Staircase; honestly sometimes I feel like I’m on trial trying to get through this darned show! I recently watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the hilarious movie set in Hawaii with Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell and Jason Segel, who also wrote it. Catch it while you can, because it’s leaving Netflix soon, as are a slew of other good movies. I presently stream Netflix, Peacock and HBO Max and Zeke wants to get Paramount + to watch The Offer, about the making of The Godfather. Where does the streaming stop? How many subscriptions can one have? Remember the old days when you just turned on the TV and there were three main channels?

Christopher and Courtney are coming back to Tallahassee after an almost-year stint in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. My sister Elise just got back from a visit there and was able to spend time with them, little Liam and Boxer dog Maggie. I won’t have all three grandchildren in Miami, but at least they’ll all be in Florida and that will have to be enough. And it seems that most everyone I know has fled, or will be soon fleeing, the humidity of Miami for the cooler mountains of North Carolina.

Were he still alive, Elvis would have been 87 this year, the same age my Dad would’ve turned on his birthday, July 4th. They were born in 1935- both Depression babies, children of the South, Rebels, Military Veterans, Family men and Hellraisers. My Father, however, couldn’t sing his way out of a paper bag, although he did sometimes belt out the Marine Corp Hymn with gusto. I’ll be making my Dad’s favorite dessert, Toll House Cookies, for his birthday on the Fourth of July in his memory. If you want an excellent recipe for Pound Cake, look up Elvis’s Pound Cake on Epicurious. It’s a hunk, a hunk of deliciousness.

Speaking of which, Azucar, the wonderful Ice Cream Shop in Little Havana is coming to Suniland. They are taking over the old Tutti Frutti spot. They have so many delicious, Miami flavors but also have the Elvis- a Peanut Butter ‘N Banana ice cream- that would go great with that pound cake!

And totally unrelated to all this, Happy Birthday to my husband Zeke! He’s 60 today! Yippy!

This was the song that we danced to as our first dance at our wedding.

Wise men say, only fools rush in But I can’t help falling in love with you.

Elvis, Blue Hawaii

Up Next: Mom’s Baked Beans

Most of the food that was “Most-Loved” last year was Comfort Food, not surprising since readers were dealing with the second year of a world-wide pandemic and we definitely needed comfort. Out of the five recipes I tried, there were two I would make again. One was for scrambled eggs, the other was a soup. But, I actually prefer the Thomas Keller’s (of Per Se fame) recipe for scrambled eggs, so will publish it in a future Foodie in Miami post.

Cold Noodle Salad with Spicy Peanut Sauce by Hetty Mckinnon was the first recipe I tried and made while Lauren was home for Christmas, since she likes Asian food. I liked it and it seemed relatively healthy, although I had to make a special trip to the grocery store to get soba noodles. Soba noodles are made of buckwheat, known as a “high vibration food” and were eaten by Buddhist Monks before going into deep meditations and long fasts. My main problem with this recipe was it made a lot (although it claimed 4 servings) and languished in the fridge until I finally threw it out. So maybe would be good recipe to make for a pot-luck dinner.

I made the Creamy Baked Macaroni and Cheese by Eric Kim when I had Wyatt and Grace over for Cookie Decorating, thereby killing two birds with one stone. (Now that I write this, I realize this saying is no longer politically correct.) Imagine my dismay when they both said they didn’t want Mac ‘N Cheese for dinner, but the Chicken Fingers I’d picked up, to-go. I insisted they try some, but I have to confess, it was a bit one-note and the Velveeta (which I NEVER have on hand) made the cheese stick to the roof of my mouth in a creamy slick I didn’t like at all.

The Crispy Gnocchi with Burst Tomatoes and Mozzarella by Ali Slagle was quite good and combined two recent trends- Cooking from the Pantry and the Burst Tomatoes with Cheese phenomena that blew-up on Tik Tok last year, into one recipe. While I don’t think it’s necessary to use shelf-stable gnocchi (you had to get fresh mozzarella, cherry tomatoes and basil at any rate), crisping the gnocchi in a cast-iron skillet was a revelation. It made them browned and crispy on the outside, while staying creamy on the inside, adding a new dimension to the standard pasta dish.

I really enjoyed the Lemony White Bean Soup with Turkey and Greens by Melissa Clark and it came at a perfect time, as I’d recently gotten a delivery from Empower Farms with a bunch of greens. Although it calls for ground turkey, I think you could substitute turkey chunks, instead of ground turkey, making it a perfect after-Thanksgiving soup. I like to make a pot of soup on Monday and have it on hand for lunches or snacks for the rest of the week and this one is a good soup to have in rotation.

The Extra-Creamy Scrambled Eggs by Kenji-Lopez-Alt was probably the easiest recipe to make and my favorite. It called for potato, tapioca or cornstarch; having only cornstarch on hand, that was what I used. Adding the cornstarch slurry (cornstarch and water mixed together) helps keep the eggs moist and tender. The recipe advises that more vigorous stirring results in finer, softer curds, while less stirring results in larger, fluffier curds, so choose accordingly. I had to think about this for a moment; I decided I like finer and softer.

Extra-Creamy Scrambled Eggs

Recipe by Kenji Lopez-AltCourse: BreakfastCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy

Servings

2

servings

Prep time

4

minutes

Cooking time

2

minutes

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons potato starch, tapioca starch or cornstarch

• 4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4 inch cubes

• 4 eggs

• Pinch of kosher salt

Directions

• In a medium bowl, whisk together starch with 1 1/2 tablespoons water until no lumps remain. Add half the butter cubes to starch mixture. Add eggs and salt and whisk, breaking up any cubes of butter that have stuck together, until the eggs are frothy and homogenous. (There will still be solid chunks of butter in the eggs.)
• Set your serving plate near the stovetop. Heat 1 tablespoon water in a 10-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high, swirling gently until the water evaporates, leaving behind only a few small droplets. Immediately add the remaining 2 tablespoons butter and swirl vigorously until the butter is mostly melted and foamy but not brown, about 10 seconds.
• Immediately add the egg mixture and cook, pushing and folding the eggs with a spatula, until they are slightly less cooked than you’d like them, about 1 to 2 minutes, depending on doneness. More vigorous stirring will result in finer, softer curds, while more leisurely stirring will result in larger, fluffier curds. Immediately transfer to the serving plate and serve.
• Tip: If cooking fewer eggs or more, adjust pan size accordingly, and note that cooking time in Step 3 can vary significantly, needing as little as 15 to 30 seconds for 2 eggs, or as long as 3 to 4 minutes for 8 eggs.

While I’m glad I made all five of these recipes (I don’t always get around to it) I won’t be running to make any of them again. I’m hoping that this year’s Most-Loved list includes some more exotic and out-of-the box recipes. If I can’t travel anyplace exotic, I’d like to at least experience other cultures that excite my mind and tastebuds in my Miami kitchen.

Up Next: Welcome to my Funeral