on grits...

as a follow-up to my recent post on shrimp and grits, a bit of unsolicited advice on the subject of grits: the difference between good and bad grits is as dramatic as the difference between minute rice and sticky white japanese sushi rice--there is NO comparison! NONE!!! so, get you some good, coarse stoneground grits from a small mill. yellow or white makes no difference at all to me, but some people prefer one over the other.

i highly recommend the grits from from the old guilford mill. two of my favorite Southern restaurants are crook's corner in chapel hill, nc, whose chef and founder was the late, fabulous, bill neal (from whom came the shrimp and grits recipe i lately posted) and the hominy grill in charleston, sc, whose chef, robert stehling, was trained by bill neal. both restaurants order their grits from this mill. you can also buy grits from both restaurants, but it's all the same.

here's another note--robert stehling went directly from working under bill neal at crook's to working for david page and barbara shinn at home in new york. he apparently taught david page and barbara shinn the art of canning, which enabled them to sell their homemade ketchup, for which they are now famous. all these interconnections! home was my hands down favorite restaurant when i lived in NYC, and the cookbook they released, recipes from home, is now one of my favorite cookbooks--it contains THE chocolate pudding recipe of all time, as well as the best roasted chicken, apple pie, and pumpkin pie recipes i have ever found. i can't recommend it enough.