I began following my grandma around in the kitchen when I was just a little country sprout not even old enough to be in grammar school.

At around age 7 I decided I was going to be a chef [although the allure of being a pro wrestler like the Mongolian Stomper was quite strong to my young psyche].

At that tender age the foods of Kentucky received all my focus but as I grew up and began visiting Louisiana I gained a new perspective.

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I have a long and storied relationship with fried catfish.

Growing up in the Cumberland Highlands region of Kentucky affords one the opportunity to eat lots of fried catfish.

While the honor of being the official state fish belongs to the spotted bass, it's far more common to find catfish on menus across the state.

One of the great meals of my life came at the early age of ten years. A restaurant opened in Williamsburg, Kentucky called The Brass Pot and on Friday nights they offered a catfish buffet.

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Old school, country meat markets in Texas are vanishing. Long Horn Meat in East Austin is one of the last of a dying breed and the last of it's kind in Austin proper.

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Any good cook has a handful of mashed potato recipes in their repertoire. I like Cheddar/Jalapeno mashers, Garlicky Red Bliss Mashers and Bacon Gouda Mashers but my all time favorite is Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes.

Once again, this recipe takes me back to my time spent in the Greek and Soul Food kitchens of Birmingham Alabama as I was making my initial foray into the world of professional cooking and eating.

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Green bean eating is writ into my families genetic code. We're all farmers, gardeners, chefs and mountain folk. With an absolute abundance of vegetables grown the right way [with cow manure] you soon grow accustomed to having a big pot of green beans plucked from a nearby garden or field at every single meal.

While I love Kentucky style green beans they're not the over the top version you get down in Alabama where their cuisine is more of a hybridized version of white folks country food and black folks soul cooking.

The key to successful green bean making is ratio. There must be an equal amount of bacon as relative to the bean. The dish is further powered by sweet onions and potatoes. Kenebec is the best potato I've ever tasted but might be hard to come by depending on where you live.

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Is to start with a chile Poblano or perhaps a chile Chilaca. By upgrading your chile you're now standing on a base of deliciousness far superior to the lowly Bell.

More later... Ok, it took a couple days but I finally managed to hit the kitchen.

Stuffed Chile Poblano Peppers

This is the revised version of a recipe I devised for one of our Txoko dinner parties. The trial run was merely good. Which is nowhere near good enough. I want each recipe I publish to be the best version of that dish that any person ever tasted. I'm confident that the recipe below will make the best stuffed pepper you ever put in your mouth

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The best thing that ever happened to me was moving from lily white Kentucky when I was a teenager to Birmingham, Alabama. It was like taking a magic carpet ride to a land a million miles away both culturally and psychically.

Alabama is the land of plenty with white country folks, Greek immigrants a couple generations away from their homeland, African Americans, Italians and Lebanese all stirring the pots in kitchens both humble and grand.

As a serious eater I took to my new home with aplomb. Plumbing out all the local restaurants for their delicacies became my hobby which I quickly turned into a paycheck from the local rag.

While I loved all the exotic foods I'd never been exposed to it was the soul food that powered me on a daily basis: Oxtails, Collard Greens, Smothered Chicken, Fried Pork chops, Whiting Fish Sandwiches, Skins and Pieces [ Chicken Wings simmered with skin on potatoes] the list was endless and I was determined to winnow the finest from a city whose offering were seemingly endless.

At culinary school the foods I was so enthusiastically eating every day were looked down on by the administration. I'd lobby to have a class centered on soul food and be summarily shot down in favor of the cooking of a French man who'd been dead for a couple hundred years.

Though I never won any of those battles I did manage to become a respectable soul food cook. Here's one of my favorite recipes:

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