I think it all started with the novelty coffee I bought. I don’t usually hold with flavored coffee’s but every now and then it’s a nice diversion. I picked up this Dulce de Leche flavored stuff from a local brand I’d never heard of. I brewed my standard 4 cups to get my heart moving and was immediately pissed off about how thin it tasted. The Dulce de Leche flavor was there, but the coffee flavor was very weak. Naturally I assumed I’d be needing more coffee to get as much done as I needed to before my son arrived. I also had to go to the store to pick up some key limes.

Now remember, this is about 0700 in the morning on a Saturday and I’m at the grocery store that’s been open for about an hour. They’re still stocking and it looks like a bomb has gone off in a group of civilians who are apparently confused by the concussion of the blast and are just sort of ambling about.

I’m very much a get in, get what I need, and get the fuck out of Dodge sort of person who walks in straight lines between the points I’m trying to get to. I’m naturally like that, without chemical enhancemet, and then the caffeine I assumed was not present in the watery sweetness of the flavored coffee kicks in.

I start sweating profusely. I’m calculating the likely trajectories of the wandering clueless and the people stocking shelves. I’m grabbing my limes as I walk past their location on to whatever my wife asked me to pick up while I’m there and I am in and out and gone in less than 10 minutes. I’m also burning at that same level of intensity for the next 5 hours.

Well played, insipid coffee. I never saw that coming. Well played, indeed.

Now, it’s also worth mentioning that I have this new camera I’m still getting used to and I’m having some issues with the autofocus. A long-time friend of mine, in fact the person besides family members I’ve known the longest, 40 plus years or so, is coming undone in his own way and loaned me another camera and some lights for my little video exploration. He also gave me some good advice on shooting. “Kill the autofocus and instead pre-adjust your focus on the thing furthest in the distance and you should be good to go.”

So I set his camera as the stove cam as he stated it’s really weak in the autostabilization department and put my own camera above my cutting board and prep area. On either side of the prep area, I set up one of his lights, which can be seen from space, incidentally and proceeded to fiddle with the manual controls on my camera. The bottom line is, for the entire day, I have two minutes of usable video which my son shot accidentally while trying to take still pictures with my camera.

It is frustrating, but I’m a larval food blogger and I’m approaching it the same way I do food and really everything in life. It’s a learning process. I can’t get good without sucking first. I have to do the suck. It’s necessary. People with Natural talent have no appreciation for the journey. Poor buggers.

Now at the same time, I’m also really wishing I could find an experienced camera operator who will work for food, because damn.

“Hey. Homeless guy! Your sign says you’ll work for food. Can you operate a camera? GET IN THE VAN!”

I did manage to get some decent still images for the recipe pages, but I’ll be honest. They are heavily doctored because when I say I have to suck first, I really, really suck. That which hurts, teaches.

I started the morning making the key lime pie, which turned out as expected. It’s a generic recipe. It’s one of those odd ones where we nod to convention and paranoia and bake it but in truth, there is enough acid in the lime juice to denature and set the eggs in the recipe. It is literally an icebox pie. But salmonella fears prevail and they get baked, but in truth, if you get the filling hot enough to kill salmonella, it’s overcooked and disgusting so everyone bakes theirs for no real reason. Isn’t conventionality a kick?

I decided to make my own barbecue sauce for the meatloaf, using that instead of the traditional leathery ketchup layer almost everyone’s mother did. I was relatively happy with the sauce, but I do agree with MrsDamnCook and the Offspring that it was a little heavy in the vinegar department. Not terribly, just not what we’re used to around these parts for a sweet barbecue sauce. I’ve reduced the amount of vinegar by half in the final recipe.

The meatloaf came together as expected, but I admit I’ve become accustomed to my wife’s lower calorie meatloaf. Even my lower calorie version of this very forcemeat is more of what I’m expecting. The irony is this loaf is the very recipe I “low caled” and now I like that one better. Again, we Humans are such creatures of habit. Don’t get me wrong, this one is plenty good, but there are some major differences between ground pork sausage and ground turkey in the final flavor, mouthfeel and overall density. I still enjoyed it but it took some getting used to. Like when you reach for a glass of Coke and it turns out to be Dr. Pepper. Like that.

There was nothing special about the mashed potatoes. I made them like I always do for rustic mashed potatoes. I’ve posted the recipe for those as well.

I garnished the meatloaf with “tobacco onions” for which there is no recipe. You slice the onions as thinly as you can, across the grain, you toss them with flour and then deep fry. Season with salt and pepper while they are hot. If there is anything to worry about it’s making certain you squeeze out as much liquid as you can so that the flour doesn’t clump, lest you wind up with a sort of fried onion wad that while tasty, isn’t really useful as a garnish.

Speaking of squeezing out moisture, I also did a squash casserole which I admit was completely experimental. I really like dill with squash. I the subtle sour notes of the dill really heightens the sweetness of yellow squash. So I decided to replicate that in a squash casserole by incorporating Havarti laced with copious amounts of dill.

The trick with squash casserole is to remove as much moisture as possible from the squash. I should have roasted mine, but having both ovens running during the summer is not the best idea for my 50 year old air conditioning unit, so I steamed them and let them drip in a colander for an hour. It almost worked. Almost. The flavor was good and “squashy” thanks to the mild nature of the Havarti. Nonetheless, the posted recipe recommends roasting your squash.

I did get some shots of the final plate which reminds me I really need to think about what I’m serving, not from a flavor perspective but from a plating perspective. This was like a “study in browns and yellows”. I also really need to keep garnishes on hand. Some chopped tomatoes, green onions and fresh dill would have gone a long way in improving the final plating. But it’s Sunday Supper and really, who gives a shit?

There’s this razor’s edge I’m walking between what is traditional and works well together versus being visually appealing on the internet. I’m always going to be on the side of the food, to be honest. I can’t eat a picture and neither can you.

Until next time, which I think is in mid-July due to some scheduling conflicts and the July 4 holiday. I’m going to be ironically celebrating American independence from the UK by experimenting with pork belly and some baby back ribs. I’m reasonably certain the pork belly will wind up on the Freestyle Kitchen page no matter what happens. Once that’s done, I’ll get back on track with red beans and rice, fried okra, corn fritters and I think a bread pudding. I’ll try to remember colorful garnishes.