So here's the menu for our little grillin', chillin', and tailgatin' party this weekend at St. James Cheese Co on Saturday, Aug 16th from 12-5 pm. We have three repeats from last week, plus a couple of new items, and we might be fooling around with another thing or two.

Encore performances by:

Eat a (grilled) Peach -- from the Mid-City Green Market on Thursday afternoon, I'll have some Chilton County peaches from Alabama with crumbled bacon, blue cheese and quince sauce. $8

The New Eggplant Parmesan Balls -- my retooled version, with the mozzarella hidden inside these roasted garlic & eggplant "meatballs" with red gravy on the side. The eggplant should be from the Green Market, too. $8

The Burnin' Baloney -- grilled mortadella wrapped around luxurious 'due latte' robiola, made with cow's and goat's milk from the Langhe region of Italy, with a little salad. $8

New Things:

Grilled Exotic Mushrooms over Truffled, Cheesy Grits-- we'll see what Mike, my great produce guy, gets me. There have been porcinis around, but I'll be happy with King Oyster Mushrooms. $12 *** for cook's note

The Gueydan Duck Dog -- grilled Marciante's Duck Sausage stuffed in a big pistolette, also grilled, with bourbon mashed sweet potatoes on the bread cradling the two links of sausage, slaw and jalapenos your way -- on the side or heaped on top. $12

Since the Gueydan Duck Festival is coming up next week in the little Cajun town of Gueydan, I figured we ought to do a shout out, and besides, everybody loves sausages when you're tailgating for football. Geaux Saints!

All these items are sure fire for Saturday's menu. We might have a couple wild cards: Richard is wanting me to batter up some little divots of stinky cheese closely related to Epoisses, I think they're the Trou, and deep fry them! I guess we could call 'em "stinkbombs," but that isn't a particularly good selling point (unless you're a Beavis & Butthead fan like me...), so I haven't quite thought that one all the way through yet. It'd probably be good in a salad, like when people do a warm crusted chevre salad, except it'd be even more luscious and pungent. I haven't costed out the cheese, yet, much less composed the salad, so it remains a figment of other realms thus far.

I'm also thinking of doing a grilled dessert, in a limited quantity. I got a couple ideas, so if I have time to consider the pleasures of dessert, then it could happen. Since I won't be able to do this event again soon, I really can't afford to make a huge production this time around, plus it has been raining every day all this week... So grilled dessert is what they call a "game time decision."

I hope you won't have any uncertainty about dropping by for our grilling party this Saturday. See all y'all there!


***we thought about doing shrimp and grits, but that's a "been there, done that" dish for many of us, so I thought I'd bring back something I did when I first got the missile/penile shaped King Oyster Mushrooms. I cut a mushroom into thick slices lengthwise, rubbed it in garlicky, parsleyed good olive oil, and grilled it. At the time, I had a really small grill, so I actually could not do one entire King mushroom at a fell swoop and, as I recall, our hood was barely working, so it made for a rather smoky adventure at The Delachaise. The dish couldn't go on the menu because it's a cardinal sin to put something on the menu that you cannot cook two of at the same time, much less barely do one at a time!

I always dug the simplicity of the dish, and with the right mushrooms the flavor is undeniably meaty. The truffles in the grits might seem over-the-top, but truffles share the fungus allegiance with mushrooms, so it makes sense... and it's over-the-top. I guess we'll figure out which cheese to pair in the grits from among the hundreds there at St. James on Saturday morning.