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Mack's Corner

This Week

Swimming with Dolphins My son Macky was born 3 months premature in 1983. He had Cerebral Palsy (CP) and mentally he was about 2. He was a great kid, a really great kid. When he was 12 Make-A-wish gave us a trip to Florida to go swim with the dolphins. Macky loved to swim. We could put a life-preserver collar on him and he would swim all over the pool for hours. But there was a problem with the dolphins: Macky didn't understand dolphins or what he was supposed to do with them or why they... Read More
Posted by Mack Oates at Saturday, October 27, 2018

This Week

Precisely where you are.. I was watching my favorite chef Thomas Keller on the Today show one day. He was selling his new cookbook "Bouchon". It's written by my favorite cookbook writer Michael Ruhlman, it's a great book, I've had it for years. It's all bistro food, which is like eating at "The Arcade" in downtown Memphis except in Paris. Its blue plate special food from France. Chef Keller was telling everyone how easy everything is to make and that any... Read More
Posted by Mack Oates at Saturday, October 20, 2018

This Week

Kitchen Confidential One of my favorite books is "Kitchen Confidential". It's by and about Anthony Bourdain, the former chef at Les Halles in New York City. It's kinda crude, not bedtime reading for kids. There's nothing Christian about Anthony Bourdain. But, I really like him. He talks about the kind of people that he likes to hire as "line cooks".  These are the people that do all of the cooking in a restaurant. He says they have to have "Charact... Read More
Posted by Mack Oates at Saturday, October 13, 2018

This Week

Veg-O-Matic I was slicing potatoes for a rehearsal dinner a few years ago. I had 10 pounds and I had to slice them very thin. The thing you use to do that is called a mandoline. They come in two types, cheap ones that don't work and expensive ones that do. The cheap ones have about 40 attachments, they're usually plastic, cost $19.95, and all of the blades are only sharp enough to cut your hands and nothing else. You can cut your hands to pieces slicing 1 onion, because you have to... Read More
Posted by Mack Oates at Saturday, October 6, 2018