2 cups corn kernels
3/4 cup whole milk
1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup corn meal
3 eggs, separated
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
salt

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Melt the butter in a sauce pan over medium-high heat.
3. Add the milk to the butter and bring to a boil.
4. Slowly add the corn meal, stirring frequently until smooth, then remove from the heat.
5. Stir in corn kernels, baking powder, egg yolk and a pinch of salt.
6. Beat egg white until stiff peaks form and fold into the mixture.
7. Transfer mixture to a baking dish and bake until golden brown, about 20-25 minutes.

Makes 4 servings

4 chicken quarters
1 cup buttermilk
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup corn oil
salt and pepper

1. Marinade chicken in buttermilk for an hour.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
3. Remove chicken from buttermilk, season with salt and pepper and coat in flour.
4. Heat a large skillet over medium heat until hot, then add the oil, and then the chicken.
5. Fry until golden brown, then flip, about 6 minutes per side.
6. Transfer to the oven to finish cooking, about 15-20 minutes.

Makes 4 servings

4 slices bacon
2 cups frozen lima beans
1/2 cup water
1/8 teaspoon rosemary
salt and pepper

1. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat and fry bacon until crisp.
2. Transfer bacon to paper towel, let cool and crumble.
3. Add the remaining ingredients to the bacon fat, cover and bring to a boil.
4. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook uncovered until liquid has evaporated, about 10 minutes.
5. Stir in bacon bits and serve.

Makes 4 servings

There is a huge snow storm going on right now and our car is buried under it. No trips to the grocery store, no real possibility of leaving the house; I'd say it's a good excuse for some artery clogging comfort food. We've got ourselves some Southern cookin' tonight. However, this isn't food that I really like. Of course, there are some Southern comfort foods that warm my heart (like corn bread) but in general the country cooking thing just doesn't do it for me.

Someone asked me why I keep eating foods with ingredients (or in this case, a theme) that I know I won't enjoy. It's because I like trying to overcome that. Tastes change over time and sometimes I like to try and force them to (see the whole Cilantro Fiasco). It's only really been successful this year with eggplant (the Mediterranean Eggplant Cakes are possibly my favorite discovery so far) but there's really no way to know whether or not you truly hate something until you've tried it every way possible; and every possible way is likely impossible to try. So, I try.

If you're wondering if I liked tonight's dinner, I didn't. Not really, anyway. The Buttermilk Chicken was crispy and tender on the inside, but it's very plain. Part of that is my fault for choosing a recipe with such basic seasoning, but I wanted to be able to tell if the buttermilk had any significant impact on its taste. It was good, but it's not good enough to justify a flour dredged and fried meat. I guess part of my reasoning for whether or not I like something factors health into the equation, which makes it a lot harder to like something that isn't good for me; unless it's exceptionally good.

I tried to add some greens to the plate, but Lima Beans with Bacon had everything stacked against it. The recipe called for rosemary and even the slightest amount seems to taint a dish. I haven't found a rosemary recipe yet that I've enjoyed. It also involves lima beans, the pasty and tasteless cousin of every other bean I happen to enjoy, and bacon, which I'm not particularly fond of either.

The Country Corn Bake wasn't anything like I had imagined. Aside from the taste of corn, it really wasn't like anything at all. Well, it was like tasteless baked egg whites, which is the closest thing to nothing at all in dietary existence. It's safe to say that tonight's dinner was not comforting at all, despite the desire to yield comfort food. However, that's nothing a good bottle of wine could not fix, so my rosé colored glasses either tint this meal for better or for worse.