Do we have to go to San Antonio for this? Let me guess, the catch is that Hub will be there too.
Jim
Yes, there are around 10,800 Dopers who should be very envious that we got to gorge ourselves on Chef Troy’s cooking! (Give or take a few sock puppets) Chef should realize that rjk and I have been too busy to post. 
Don’t remember many specifics about the night 'cause I was a little loopy myself (however, unlike Balance that means I don’t remember things for 5 minutes - not that I can only get a page & a half post from 3 square inches of notes) I do remember 3 conversations going at the table at dinner - and the conversation threads were criss-crossing. :eek: I also remember getting teased by everyone about “mud bugs” :mad: :eek: I also remember ExTank’s impersonation of the Wallace and Grommet characters - he had the look down pat and was hilarious.
I missed the conversation about vinegaroons (and scorpions thankfully : phew : ) but I took rjk to the FW museum of Science and History yesterday and we had a discussion over a vinegaroon and a scorpion - the vinegaroon was seriously trying to be ugly, even uglier than scorpions.
That’s “Wallace and Gromit,” sweetie. Come on over and we’ll watch it sometime.
Okay, I see I’m going to need to take over the descriptions of the food. I swear, I love you guys but your powers of description leave something to be desired. If you’re complimenting a woman on her appearance, you don’t just say, “you’re, like, pretty and stuff.” You get specific. You tell her she has captivating eyes, and creamy skin, and perfect smoky eyelashes, and kissable coral lips that call to your own, and so on… blinks what was I talking about? Oh yes, the food…
We began with individual crawfish pies… tender, succulent crawfish tails, onion, potato, celery, and peas in a rich cream sauce thickened with a flour-and-butter roux and encased in buttery, flaky pie crust, then baked to golden-brown perfection.
The main course was two kinds of jambalaya. Each featured a spicy, flavorful blend of rice, onion, bell pepper, celery, and herbs & spices, studded with chunks of rich smoked sausage and moistened with a combination of chicken stock, V-8, and a couple of shots of Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco. In one pan, the sausage was joined by tender, juicy chunks of chicken breast; in the other, plump, tender shrimp and crawfish tails. Creole sauce (a piquant blend of tomatoes, onion, celery, bell pepper and lots of creole seasonings, cooked overnight) was offered on the side. Salad and fresh bread accompanied the jambalayas.
Finally, dessert was my special peach bread pudding. Unlike the heavy, leaden, raisin-infested bread puddings you’ve suffered through in the past, this is light and airy, thanks to the lifting effect of several eggs and the replacement of the heavy cream with peach nectar and a little 1% milk. It also was loaded with diced peaches, and each serving was topped with a dollop of whipped cream.
Bet you’ll ALL come next time, won’t you?
Its clear that not only did I miss out…I MISSED out!
Maybe Chef will cook again…
-SS 
BTW, that was “Carry on up the Khyber”. The Khyber Pass was the main route between British India and independent Afghanistan. For details, see http://www.rhino.org.uk/khyber.htm.
And thanks again, Chef!
I definately need to come visit the DFW area, the trip would be well worth it just for the company. The food sounds delicous and from the excellent description Chef Troy gave I’m sure it was.
Well… you know… I’m not completely sure what I did…
I went out with my mother to replenish my dorm room munchies and what not… got one half of my birthday present [side note]the company my mom ordered from has been taking its sweetass time getting the stuff to my house… she ordered the stuff two weeks before my birthday…going on five weeks now for that second half…[/side note]: cute leather boots…
Then there are six hours I cannot account for… I guess I took a nap or something.
Around 11, I started getting ready for a party: the Pi Kappa Alpha [hereafter refered to as Pike] Marriage and Divorce party.
The basic idea:
- Find a person of the opposing gender who isn’t opposed to shameless flirting.
- Ask them to marry you.
- Proceed to one of the two “marriage chapels” and get married.
- The vows are silly, and officiated by one of the Pike brothers.
- Big Sloppy Kiss.
- You get a little metal ring and a certificate for two free beers, one for each of you.
- Repeat steps 1-7 as many times as possible.
I think the highlight of my weekend was getting an email from my friend Mark, who I haven’t seen in a few weeks. [he’s sooooooo cute…]
Apologies for the delayed posting; for a major college town, Jonesboro, AR’s internet service and phone systems suck.
Mudbug pie! Light and flaky crust, tender yummies all on da inside. For a man what say he don’ know how to make pie, he sure 'nuf did these right
And the Jambalaya! AAIIEE! Chefy did it up a done-do-right! I do declare! It went faster than a speeding bullet stuck in da butt of a bat-outta-hell! I shoulda took two bags home! Da first bag was-a-goner 'afore I hit Texarkana! Pouring down rain, I-30 a mess, hostile truckers, zero visible, and there I were scarfing cold jambalaya outta zip-lock baggie! It were dat good!
And da bread puddin’? I don’t even like bread puddin’, but if Chefy say he make some more, I will be there! Light, tasty, and no heavy on the tummy after.
Okay, so much for lame Cajun-style adjectives. I pity the rets of The Straight Dope for not being able to attend Saturday night. I don’t think that there was enough to go around, so a lottery would have been in order; the rest would just have be content to bask in the presence of such an accomplished Chef, inhaling the tantalizing aromas wafting from the kitchen of a culinary demi-God (sorry, Chef; Momma ExTank reads this board, and I’m hoping for some of Momma’s home-made mushy spuds, sage dressing and sweet potato pie this T-Day).
And thanks to Balance for the mead. Good stuff. Good stuff! I have the suspicion that it’ll sneak up on you if not careful, which, in my book, is the hallmark of truly good alcohol.
I’m going to wait until the hottest parts of next summer and jet up to Vancouver for vacation with RJK. See the sights, drink some most excellent Canadian beer, relax in temperatures more closely suitable for human habitation.
Clarifications:
Wallace and Gromit and similarly styled clay-mation doesn’t give me nightmares; it just gives me the willies.
They look like meth freaks! They do! They really do!
Arachnids no longer give me nightmares, ever since I discovered what a can of WD-40 (with the red tube atomizer device attached) and a Zippo can do to the little eight-legged alien monsters. I’m not a kill-them-all-and-let-God-sort-'em-out-type. At least not anymore. I readily acknowledge that some probably serve some purpose, and have a place somewhere in the ecological hierarchy.
As long as it ain’t nowhere around me.
And I swear to God that that scorpion was over a yard long, pissed off and coming at me. He’s just lucky I didn’t have any grenades.
:muttering: Let 'em see what a willie-P does to ‘em, bet they keep their distance, I tell you what…did not know who he was messin’ with…
Read the sig.
ExTank
“Mostly Harmless :p”
ExTank, you sho’ nuff knows how to work the massive ego of da Chef, I gar-on-tee.
grin did you really eat your bag of jambalaya in the car?
dances off in a state of extreme flatteredness
I grabbed a spork and a coke from a gas station on I-30, and scarfed about 2/3 of the bag you gave me, while peering desparately through my crazily waving wipers trying to see the road 10 ft. in front of my car.
It was semi-warm (I had the heater going in the car), and de-licious! When I got into Jonesboro, I nuked the rest of it and finished it off.
ExTank
“Mostly Harmless :p”
Chef, we knew that only you could describe the meal properly.
Since this thread has risen from the grave once more, I’ll add that I finally remembered some stuff that Grace talked about.
Specifically, I remember her saying that she was looking forward to going gray, and was quite incensed that someone had plucked out the one gray hair she had ever managed to grow.
There was also something about finding an unblocked porn site on a school library computer–allegedly while searching for lyrics (to the Krispy Kreme song?) She wound up having to contact the maker of the blocking software directly, at which point the humorless-sounding fellow at the other end asked her to go back to the site to get the address for him. IIRC, she held her hand over the much-too-detailed-for-Grace-thank-you-very-much image while reading off the address to him. Moral: Be very careful about following links to “LYRICS!LYRICS!LYRICS!” on a public terminal.
You can fill in the rest, Grace–sooner or later I’m going to get you to post more than three lines about one of these gatherings. 
I just can’t get away from the little buggers!
I’m sorry I missed the DFW DopeFest. I felt no need to ruin this one by insisting that Chef Troy play his Army of Darkness DVD for us again.
Actually, I didn’t know there was one scheduled - I was at Food-on-a-Stick-Fest in Houston, eating corn dogs, shiskabobs, and other such foods.
There were cats there, too…
Pete
Long time RGMWer and ardent AOLer
Woo Hoo!! Thank you Balance for remembering stuff I said. I knew I had a couple of drinks but I something had to have happened after “Grace arrives.” 
BTW, good luck trying to get me to post more than 3 sentences. I’m the 3 sentence queen. If it can’t be said in 3 sentences, it shouldn’t be said.
So, the gray-hair bit was OK, but I shouldn’t have related the story about the porn site? It was four sentences…
Actually even the porn story was three sentences if you don’t count the moral of the story. BTW, the 3 sentence limit is when I’m typing, not when YOU type. You’re welcome to type as much information you can fit from those notes you take.