Virginia, DC, AND Florida, The Other Whartons on TV, Boss Ganouj, Oysters in Pensacola.

Photo : Jim McKinley

Ashland, VA, and Washington DC.  Then back to Florida – St. Pete with Dr. John, key west for the “Meeting of the Minds”, and Starke at Cowboys.

DAUGHTERS OF WHARTON TAKE OVER TV

Annie Wharton on Project Runway

Number one daughter, Annie was just on Project Runway modeling her redesigned wedding dress which won the design challenge of the week.  She was baaaad.    Last blog I mentioned number two daughter, Mary, kickin ass at the Toronto film fest with her Joan Baez biopic.  Those Wharton girls are sooo…TV.

Mary and Joan Baez

NEW ALBUM SOON COME

The recording is almost done.  Now to mix and master for a 2010 release.  The album is funky, gospel, blues, with some zydeco, and a heapin helpin of Slide guitar.   Featured on the CD will be Justin Headley, drums, Robert “Freightrain” Parker, bass, and also Biscuit Miller on bass. This is the funkiest and groovinest yet.  Stay tuned for the good tunes.

BOSSA GANOUJ

Here’s my own slant to Baba Ganouj.  Instead of tahini, I use home made almond butter and also a little bit of my Liquid Summer Hot Sauce
2 Cups almonds
3 or four Tbs olive oil
Juice of one lemon
Two Tbs Liquid Summer Hot Sauce (With the holidaze upon us, do NOT forget to order yours HERE)
2 one Lb. eggplants
4 Cloves garlic finely minced
Pita bread for dipping

Cut eggplants in half and place on a greased cookie sheet (cut side down) for 45 min at 375 degrees.  Grind almonds with blender.  Put powdered almonds into a food processor and add olive oil until the mixture is the consistency of humus.  In a bowl, mix almond butter, lemon juice, garlic, and Liquid Summer.  Scoop out the eggplant and add it to the mixture.  Mix well

Bossa Ganouj

MARINA OYSTER BARN

505 BAYOU BLVD. PENSACOLA, FL 850-433-0511

The little disclaimer on the take out menu gives you an idea of what goes on at the oyster barn.  “When we are filled to capacity, we regret that we will not be able to fill take out orders.”  Situated on Bayou Texar since 1969, the Rooks Family Seafood Restaurant has been filled to capacity a lot of the time, dishing out real fresh seafood.  The service is great, the food cooked to perfection, the ambience, casual as a marina setting can be.  $6.50 gets you a mullet sandwich with fries or slaw.  And Dale’s Special is cole slaw, cheese, and grilled onions on any sandwich for half a buck.  In addition to the regular seafood dishes, the lunch specials (from five to eight dollars) include chicken and dumplins.  And the hush puppies are fabulous.  I can’t stand it.  Once in a while, I must have a hush puppy. Of course…don’t forget about the fresh shucked oysters!
Tuesday – Thursday 11 am – 8:30 pm
Friday & Saturday 11 am – 9 pm
Sunday – 11 am – 2 pm

HOME MADE PEPPER SAUCE, BRAINS, VEGETABLE SOUP, AND THE CONTINUING SAGA OF THE SAUCE BOSS

AS THE SUMMER FADES INTO FALL, WE’RE COMING HOME TO TALLAHASSEE. 
HERE’S OUR  SCHEDULE

Check out the highlights of our Canadian odyssey. We had a GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD time.

London, Ontario was a blast!

Sunset in Windsor, Ontario

The crowd in Windsor was hot to go!

Me and the Devil in Toronto

Then we all got religion

If any one who saw the show in Windsor got a movie or photos of the gumbo taking a tumble, please let us know.  We’d love to see em.

DAUGHTER MARY RECEIVED A STANDING OVATION AT THE TORONTO FILM FEST
Yep, at home in my spare time.  The Grammy winner (“Sam Cooke: Legend”) strikes again.  Here’s a link to the film “How Sweet the Sound”  she directed and produced about Joan Baez that airs October 14th on PBS as an American Masters specials.

VEGETABLE SOUP
Sometimes I just put a bunch of fresh vegetables in a pot, with a big splooge of Liquid Summer Hot Sauce and make some soup.

AL – AJAMI RESTAURANT
14633 W. WARREN AVE.
DEARBORN,  MI  48126          313-846-9343

Totally authentic Arabic Cuisine says it all.  Classic lamb dishes, baba ghanooj, hommous, grilled quail, fresh juices, beef tongue, grape leaves, seafood and steak, veal brains…BRAINS?  Sounds yucky, doesn’t it?  Well, actually it is.  This is once…maybe a first where I just couldn’t get it.  I am ready and willing to go native, to leave the beaten path, to venture where no man has gone, to eat about anything.  I have finally been stumped.  Veal brains did it.  Stopped me in my tracks.  Whoa, that’s weird.  I kept thinking about Hannibal the Canibal, sawing Ray Liotta’s skull and sauteing his brains.  Making a little to-go package for the plane.  Some stuff from Dean and Deluccas’s along with left over brains….yum, yum.  However, the lamb chops were great.  The baba ghanooj, smooth and silky, the hommous also, the falafel sublime,  and the portions are huge.  Too big to leave room for dessert.  Shame.  They look great.  And if yer into brains…

PEPPERS! PEPPERS! AND PEPPERS!

MAKE YOUR OWN PEPPER SAUCE

You can make sauce at home.  Take those used Liquid Summer Pepper Sauce bottles, cut up some hot peppers and put em in the bottles.  Pour boiling vinegar over the peppers.  Let it sit for a week or two, and then slosh it all over yer collards.

Oh canada…again? (Toronto with an appearance on national TV–Breakfast TV–Thur Sept 3rd), Gainesville, Harrisburg, Detroit, Pensacola, New Smyrna, Asheville, and Breakfast at BP

The Gumbo

Whirlwind!  Just call me Hurricane Bill.  I’m comin’  to get ya. Here’s where.

Whoa! I gotta slow down a little bit. “I been hittin the road way too hard.  Gotta get back to my back yard”  So the the song goes.

Coming up on the new CD.  Right smack dab in the middle of all this gallavanting around the place, we have begun work on our 10th… 11th …12th (who’s counting) album.  This one promises to be super funky, with a hint of zydeco, and slathered with Sauce Boss originality   Soon come.

Check out the “She’s a Monkey” live Sauce Boss video from Panama City’s Mardi Gras.  Along with lots of other videos of the antics of the Food Dude.

We miss you, Betty Teague.  Betty was one of our favorite gumbo heads and a big supporter of Planet Gumbo.  In fact she designated Planet Gumbo as a charity for her friends and family to acknowledge her recent passing.  She and her daughter Elizabeth came to more Sauce Boss shows than I can count and they were always a big part of the party.  Betty had a great life and we were proud to be a part of it.  Party on Betty. 

Planet Gumbo is now a cause on Facebook.  Join the crowd and spread the word to all of your friends.  To go to Planet Gumbo cause page on Facebook click here.  And if you haven’t found the Sauce Boss page itself on Facebook yet, it’s at http://facebook.com/BillSauceBossWharton

Not Exactly Brunch at Brennan's, But Tasty All the Same

HOMETOWN BP & DELI HWY 98 CARRABELLE, FL 850-697-5111
Breakfast till close (2 pm) for $2.99.  If you’re coming through Carrabelle after a late night on the island, the BP station is a good bet for breakfast.  They also serve fried chicken, shrimp, grouper, wings, sandwiches, and daily specials. The specials are written on the little board next to the fishing poles and crab nets.  The day I stopped in, the special was country fried steak, with mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and roll for $7.25. There’s a few down home flourishes like homemade pepper sauce on the tables and real butter with breakfast.  Add gravy to any meal for fifty cents. And… you can take home a full pint for a buck seventy-five.  Boggles the mind.

ATHENS, KNOXVILLE, OH CANADA, WHAT A HOOT! FIG SEASON AND LIL’ RAYS

Little jaunt to Athens, Georgia, on Thursday, and Knoxville, TN on Friday.  Then back to Florida for our Monday Nights at Harry A’s on Beautiful St George Island, Gainesville Parrotheads, and Paradise in Pepsicola Beach.

Bluesfest International, Windsor, Ontario, July 18, 2009

Man, what a time we had up North. The weather was nice and cool, the gigs were happening, the crowds came out,  and we cooked a lot of gumbo.  In Windsor, Ontario, We were playing to  a crowd of 9,000, and we had em going from the git go.  We were smokin!  I had just put about 10 gallons of ingredients in this HUGE BIG OL pot, and the crowd was eating out of my hand.  At that moment I did the unspeakable.  I was stirring the pot a little too enthusiastically, and the whole thing went over on the stage spilling the contents of the pot in a huge gumbo tsunami.  I looked over at Ted Boomer. the promoter, and he was grinning like a Cheshire cat.  So what did we do?   We did what every Canadian does when trouble rears its head.  We got out the SNOW SHOVELS!  We sloshed it into the garbage, and we threw a bunch of fresh stuff in the pot , and kept on playing the gumbo.  Luckily, the chicken, shrimp and lobsters, were  not in the pot when it went over.  We still managed to feed 300 people.  Here’s the gig in London, Ontario.  What a shew!  Many thanks to Robert “Freightrain” Parker for helping us out on bass on our last tour.

FETA FIGS
I planted this weird fig tree and it got HUGE.  However, it never produced many figs.  And the figs were pithy and had no flavor.  So last year I was about to chop it way back to nothing to contain it, because the tree was so HUGE.  I got busy on the road and forgot about it.   Then one day I came home and this fig tree was covered with juicy, succulent, figs.  The tree had come into its own, producing 2-to-3 inch diameter figs that were delicious!  So I cut em in half and stuffed a little feta cheese and  a walnut into each half.  Man, they’re good. I can’t wait for em to ripen up this year.  Try it Sam I Am.

LIL’ RAYS
500A COURTHOUSE ROAD
GULFPORT, MS 228-896-9601
Their positioning statement: “Poboys, Boiled Seafood”, says it all.  Coastal Mississippi is almost Louisiana.   Lil’ Ray can MAKE a poboy.  In addition to the typical fried stuff, there’s all kinds of grilled items on the menu.  Grilled fish tacos, ahi, shrimp, mahi, catfish.  Or how bout a smoked yellow fin tuna sandwich?  Their seafood gumbo is good also.  (I know gumbo)  And of course, boiled shrimp or crawfish, oysters on the half shell, and steamed royal reds.  All affordable, all cooked right. Lil’ Rays