Around the Kitchen Table - How to Make a Cajun Style Florida Snapper with a Lime Margarita Sauce

Chef Dennis Littley, and we're here for another episode of Around the Kitchen Table. And I'm going to make some of my not so famous, but some, well, famous in my mind anyway, of a blackened snapper. And I actually couldn't get any red snapper today, and we got some yellow snapper, so at least we got some snapper in the house. And today my co-host Susan Sarah is in the same state as I am. Unfortunately though, she's about 7 hours away, and she's all the way in the Panhandle, up in the far far west corner of Florida. So it's still like being a couple states away. So I'm gonna turn it over to Susan for a minute, and then we're gonna talk to her because she's just getting back from New Orleans, and we'll see how that trip went. Hey, Susan!

Yeah, hi, hi, Chef! It's great to see you again. And yeah, this— I'm excited about the show because it's all about the Gulf Coast and lifestyle and food, and I have immersed myself this past— since Thursday, and I'm here. I was here to go to the Jazz Fest in New Orleans, which I went to this weekend, and I saw Santana.

Wow.

And I saw last night, I saw Eric Clapton.

Oh my God.

Okay, yeah, so let me tell you, I paid the price. I paid the price. The heat, the humidity, it's unbelievable. In fact, I have a little bit of a top 10, but it's actually a top 9, how I know I'm in the Gulf Coast.

Okay.

I know I'm in the Gulf Coast.

Should we start on that?

Yeah, let's do that first.

Alright.

It's number 10, it's 87 degrees, it's 90% humidity, and I'm wearing a hat. I mean, Figure, I thought I only, you know, use the hats in New York in the winter. So I don't know, everyone wears a hat around here. And okay, you hear me? Okay, I can hear you. Are you hearing me? Okay.

Yeah.

Okay, good. Okay. Number 9, there are just too many specialty drinks around here. And not enough time to drink them. They're blue, they're coral, they're peachy, they're aquamarine. I mean, they're all over the place. Number 8, every day I've had 3 carbs on my breakfast plate. Count 'em, 3. I mean, but see, you know, as I said before, when you go on vacation Food has no calories and money has no value.

That's true. Now, how much meat did you have on that breakfast plate too, though?

Well, there are things that are not necessarily identifiable, so I'm not sure. I mean, they make sausage down here, I don't know, 10 different ways. So I think I tried them all.

That's good.

I did have some protein. I mean, Grits is a protein, right?

Well, in the South it is.

Right, exactly. In fact, that was my number. That was a number. So now I only have 6 or 7 more.

Okay.

That grits is a protein. Okay, and next one. All I know is someone said to me, I don't get it, but she said to me, suck those shrimp heads, baby. So apparently you have to not only eat the shrimp but you have to suck the shrimp heads. Right. So I did.

South, it means a completely different thing. You don't want to say that up north.

No, but I did it. I did it. And it was— and the shrimp New Orleans way, I don't know what kind of brown stuff they put in it, something like brown butter. I think that should be on your list.

Okay.

It was amazing. Okay, you heard of the Freshman 15?

Yes.

Down here, it's the weekend, Bayou Bulge 15. It only takes a weekend.

I can see that.

It just takes a weekend. And I will tell you something else at Jazz Fest, next one, number 5 or number 4, I lost count, which you just do here. Visiting the Gospel Tent at Jazz Fest will not take away your sins. That I know. Not when there's all the debauchery in New Orleans after you leave. That's not happening.

That's just a rest stop, actually. That's what it counts as.

That's right. That— oh yeah, they do have the misters. They do have the misters at the top. The only, the only tent that has that. So, and then the next one, is that restaurant Rustic Chic or trashed. We don't know, we can't tell. But you know, so that's, that's a few observations. And you can see—

Do we have a number one?

Yes.

Wait a minute. Number one is good.

Oh my gosh, I forgot number one. Number one is, and remember, I don't drive these roads, I drive them up north. The roadkill looks good enough to eat.

Well, most restaurants it will be.

So here I am, and look at the backdrop. I am at Cheryl Clendenin's— I never know how to say your name—

Clendenin. Clendenin. Clendenin. Yes.

Okay. Beautiful shop called In Detail. And Cheryl, have you gotten on yet or no? No, I can't get on. Okay, Cheryl's not getting on, but we're going to put her in the film strip, but I will Turn it around. Oh good, good girl. Okay, so do we see Cheryl there? We see Cheryl.

Hi, Cheryl. Hi, Chef, how are you?

Great, nice to see you.

Nice to see you too.

Yeah, so we are here in Cheryl's beautiful shop and I think I'm going to do another quick thing that I did in Milan. I can't keep track of where I've been now, but the pounds actually tell me where I've been. And I'll show you a couple of little nice little things about the shop. Can you see some of these coastal colors? And you see some yellows and aquas and beautiful blues. Can you see that? And I want to show you this chair. How about this? I mean, is that coastal or what?

That's very coastal.

Yeah, so this is all about the coastal lifestyle, and it's a beautiful, beautiful showroom, and we're gonna show you more in a little while. But now, what about you, Chef? What, what did you do? Did you see Santana or Eric Clapton this weekend?

No, I'm afraid I did not. I didn't see anybody this weekend, unfortunately, but that's okay. Some weeks, some weeks we have days like that, although I did go to the Neverending or not the never-ending, the Great American Pie Festival on Saturday. And by the time I got out of my, my little room where I was doing interviews and went to the never-ending pie buffet, it was just too hot to even think about eating too much pie. So I grabbed a piece of apple pie from the Legendary Pie Company and just called it a day at that point and walked back to the car.

Did you at least have some ice cream?

No, no, I didn't. Publix had some ice cream there and I went over to say hello, but no one that really knew me was there. So that's the PR team that I talked to from Publix. But I know, I just, I'm telling you, when I'm done, sometimes I'm done. I just wanted to go. And one good thing that came out of that was those— I did order a rolling cart to store all my stuff in for these kind of events because I had it in my backpack, and after a while carrying that and my heavy tripod was too much. So I ordered a lightweight tripod and a rolling cart, so I'm prepared now.

Oh good, that's good. Yeah, I know those carts, they're so, so invaluable, and they're actually great for small kitchens too. You know, you can use them in so many different ways.

So, uh, so this is more like luggage, it's not one of those, it's a salesman's case actually.

Oh, one of those, okay.

Yeah, I can put my laptop in, I have an extra microphone now and a camera and Everything will just go in there and I can just walk to where I'm ever going instead of schlepping everything on my back.

Well, Chef, that's what I've been doing, especially going to trade. Oh, maybe you want— I guess you should turn your mic off or your sound down. How do I do that?

Okay.

How's that? I still hear you.

I just muted her.

Oh, you know, yeah, did you mute it?

Yeah, I just muted her.

Okay, he muted you.

You'll pick her up when she talks.

Yeah, we will. So yeah, no, I have one of those cases also that is invaluable for going to trade shows or walking long distances, and you put everything in it. I have it right here with me, so that was a good Good purchase.

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah. So we have blackened redfish— blackened yellowfish today.

Well, it's yellow snapper. So let me get this going and we'll get started. Yeah. Some other things, but yeah, it's yellow snapper and I don't really want to call it blackened because I don't make it in traditional sense of blackened. It's more or less tailored to how I want to eat it. I'm not a real big spicy hot fiend. And when I would make it in the restaurant, this is pretty much the same way I would do it too, is I would cut the seasoning a little bit just to give people a fighting chance. I mean, you can always make things hotter, but once it's that hot, it's hard to really detract the heat from the item. So what I do is I add— I had Cracker Meal down. But I couldn't find cracker meal in any of the stores around here to save my life.

Yeah.

I didn't feel like pulling out the RoboCoupe to make my own, so I had some Panko breadcrumbs, and they're pretty close too. What I'm looking for— why I was using cracker meal is because it's lighter. It's just not quite as heavy as breadcrumbs. It gives you just a little bit of a different coating to it. So the Panko works just about the same way.

So you use— let me ask you for a moment. I've heard of these robo-coos, you know, I think for a lot of mainstream American cooks, you know, you think of the Cuisinart, but I actually recently researched other alternatives and I came up with the Bosch has a strong power, strong motor in their mixer. Processor, and I also looked at RoboCoupe. So that's something you've used forever?

Yeah, you know, actually, I call it that as generic. It's a food processor to me. That's what a food processor is. I actually have a KitchenAid is what I use right now.

Oh, okay, okay. I was thinking of the brand name.

Yeah, well, the RoboCoupe, you know, if I— price-wise, we're talking about maybe $600-$800 for a RoboCoupe.

Wow, okay.

A nice KitchenAid product, and I'm not doing stuff that often, or I'm not dissolving things like I would in the restaurant, that I don't need that kind of power. So, you know, a KitchenAid is perfectly good for almost everything I would do.

Yeah, so most, most home cooks don't need that.

No, not at all. Not— it's overkill. I mean, if you got the money and you want to have one just so your friends can go, oh my goodness, when they come in, That's fine, but you don't need one. So what I did was I put a little bit of oil in the pan, and now I am putting some of the breadcrumb mix, the Panko breadcrumbs seasoning and a little bit of brown sugar in it just to take away some of the heat factor. And it's going into my hot pan, and we're just going to get a nice color on it because I'm actually going to finish these in the oven, which is what I do with a lot of products. It saves you time, you move on to other things, and if you wanted to do these ahead of time too, you could.

Okay, can I?

You could, yeah, you could do just what I'm doing now, sauté them, chill them down, put them in the refrigerator, and then when it's time to have your dinner party, put them in the oven, finish them off., and you're good to go. That way you don't have to have the house have all the smell in it if you don't want to, and you get it out of the way so you're not all hot and sweaty when your guests come too. So you could prepare this like when we would do this as a special at the restaurant. I would do about 50 of these this way, turn them over, do a little bit on the other side, and then put them and chill them. And then as they were ordered they would go in the oven one at a time, two at a time, whatever it was, didn't get finished. So, you know, this way they were fresh when they went in, they didn't take as long to prepare, and, you know, when you get really busy, it was a time saver.

Okay, so when you say— okay, that's why I questioned it, because when you say make ahead, you don't mean the day before, you know, because fish you kind of want to cook Yeah, I wouldn't.

It would be all right, but I wouldn't do it. I mean, I would do it earlier in the day, but I would not do it the day before. I would, you know, again, if you had leftovers, say you were having 30 guests come over and only 20 showed up or 25 showed up, you could either freeze them, do them another time, or the next day if you wanted to have them, then you could heat them up. So I mean, you can get away with some things with it because they're going back in the oven and they're going to crisp up and finish cooking. But for the most part, you know, I would try and cook them the day that you did prep them.

Okay, good point. Good clarification. And yeah, and yellow snapper, I have not even heard. I wonder if that's a local. Is that a local fish? It wasn't.

I don't think it was a Florida fish, but it was a Gulf snapper.

So what are your local— what's your local fish? Well, you're a little bit inland, but—

Yeah, well, grouper's the big thing.

Grouper?

Grouper. And there is a Florida snapper, but it just, it must not be running right now. And I mean, I had to go into Whole Foods to get this. Nobody had any fresh snapper around, but this is Beautiful fish. It was a fresh fish. She filleted it in front of me. It was about a 2.5-pound fish, and I got about a pound and a quarter of meat out of it. About half of it was waste and half of it's— These are nice-sized fillets. It's going to be some good eating. If they hadn't been that big, like I was going to have her do 2 small fish for me, and she did find a bigger one. I would have done some shrimp with it too. The shrimp roll was really good.

Okay, you didn't say that was a whole fish that you got, right?

It started out as a whole fish.

Oh, so then they— but you didn't bring it home as a whole fish, did you? They filleted it.

No, you know, if they're going to cut it for me, it makes no sense for me to do it and bring it home.

So you don't have to pay for the whole fish?

Yeah, you do.

Oh, that— I was wondering if that's what I was— wow.

Yeah, you, uh, they weigh the fish. I mean, and whole fish was like $11 a pound. If you buy the fish already done, it was, I think, $23 a pound.

Interesting. Wow.

Either way, they get you. I mean, the— this was probably one of our most expensive dinners because it came to $29 for the two— for the one big fish. But it Like I said, it is beautiful. It is so fresh, you know, I expect it to jump out of the pan and slap me.

So, uh, and probably better to start from a whole fish than who knows how long those, long ago those fillets were cut. So I think you have, you have a top, uh, quality product there.

Oh, absolutely. You know, whenever you can start with a whole fish, believe me, that is definitely definitely the way to go. So let me turn this off. All right, here is our finished product. They're almost done. I can feel the meat still a little soft. And you know what happens is as it cooks, it gets firmer. So once it gets firmer, that's how you can tell when it's really done. So right now it's not real done. It's still got a little bit of way to go. So I'm going to put this in the oven to finish it off. But whenever— go ahead.

No, I was— I just said, I see. Yeah.

And then whenever I put fish in the oven, I always put a little bit of water in the bottom of the pan.

Okay, but what about water mixing with the panko breadcrumbs?

Not that much. All I have is a little bit, like a couple tablespoons.

Ah.

Just to keep it moist. I mean, to me, I always— the way I think about it is fish came from the water. You want a little water in it to keep it moist. Otherwise, it's going to dry out more when you put it in that heat. So I've got a little bit of water in here, and I'm going to put it in a hot oven for about 15 minutes, and then we're going to top it with the sauce and everything.

All right?

Sounds good.

Okay. Let me get that going. Alrighty, so let me get rid of this camera for now and back to here. And so that's, that's really, you know, the hardest part of doing the fish. So like if you were doing a party with 6 of them or 8 of them, you would just, you know, knock them out, get them all done. And then like I said, you could put them on a big tray, put it in the refrigerator, I mean, even if you wanted to do them and say— you're liable to lose some of the breading, so you have to be careful if you froze them. I would individually wrap them in film wrap after they froze solid. So whenever you're freezing something like this, I would put it on a tray in the freezer, let it freeze solid, take them off, and then wrap them individually so you keep the integrity of the fish and the topping. Intact. You know, if that's what you wanted to do, like I said, if you did have some leftover and that's what you wanted to save them for. But if not, you know, just put them in the refrigerator, let them cool, and when you're ready to have dinner, then you pop them in the oven for about 20 minutes, 15-20 minutes. Make your sauce then if you want to, and just serve it up and you're in business. Look like a star.

Oh, great, great.

Yeah, say you don't eat fish, or say you can't find snapper, or say it's just too expensive for you. You can do this with just about any fish you want. You can do it with tuna, you can do it with swordfish. You can't do it with something really easily with flounder because it's a little too tender. You could do it, but it would not be real easy to do. But any kind of a steak fish, it works fine on. Or if you don't eat fish, it's great with chicken. So either way, you can serve something up really nice with it.

Well, you know, I think, you know, being down here and thinking summer and the heat and the humidity and everything, I mean, don't you think that the nice bright citrusy flavors really are what you want?

Absolutely.

You know, in this kind of weather.

Absolutely. Like I said, even if you want to grill your chicken or grill your fish, Forget about blackening it. If you don't even want to do that process, make yourself this beautiful salsa we're going to do. You can make this sauce easy enough, or even if you just want to serve it with the salsa, or maybe put some blackened seasoning, a little Cajun seasoning on it before you grill it. I mean, there's so much you can do when you stop and think about it and take variations off the same theme. This is just to give you, like, to perk your imagination, to give you some ideas of what you can do with food. And the citrus this time of year, or mangoes. I have some fresh pineapple and fresh strawberries here today, and the mango that I made up for my salsa. That's really easy to make. It goes so well with so many different foods.

Great, so let's see what you're doing.

Okay, well, that's cooled off. That's the beauty of the induction. And let me put this back on. It looks like I lost a camera. Oh yeah, my other computer signed me out, so we'll, uh, I'll do it in front of you here. Let me just fix this though because this, uh, that's going a little Hinky on here. Get rid of this background. Okay, good. Alright, well, I'm gonna make a salsa, so we'll do it right here where you can see. And to make a fruit salsa, you can use pretty much any fruit that you like in it. I like to go for different colors, a couple different flavors. Cantaloupe is real good, honeydew is good, watermelon is good in it. Right now I have mango, so I'm going to put some mango in here. I have some pineapple, some fresh pineapple, some red onions.

Mmm, I like that.

Okay, yeah, and it's going to add a little bit of different flavor to it. I actually need a bigger bowl, so let me grab a stainless steel bowl. It's just a little bit bigger.

Okay, I'm going to throw out something, you know, again, random and strange. Can you put things like— I don't know, the herb tarragon comes to mind. Well, it's a little bit, um, I don't know if sweet is the word, or would you put dill or any types of herbs? Would you use?

You could use anything you want to use. I mean, experiment with it and see what flavors you like. I mean, basil would be good. I mean, even rosemary would be a little good. Dill would probably be alright. But again, you know, you gotta think about how it goes with the fruit that you're putting it with., and then what you're serving it with. So I mean, if you were serving it with plain grilled chicken, that would be good. You know, you could play around with it and add different things to it.

What about mint?

Mint would work as well, but with blackened, you know, we're gonna stay in that— or with the Cajun, we're gonna stay in that vein. And since I'm calling it salsa, I'm gonna use cilantro. Okay, so that's what I use. But you can play around. I mean, you could make— say if you were doing an Italian marinated chicken, you might want to put basil in it or some other some other things in it. So now I'm going to add some chopped strawberries. The only thing you have to remember with strawberries is if you make this up too far ahead of time, they're going to bleed really bad. This is something you can mix it all together except for the strawberries and mix them in before you want to serve it.

Did you say bleed?

Yes.

Is that a technical chef's— I never heard that. I've had a few Scary thoughts for a moment.

Now, you know, the color is going to come out of them. So when any of the color comes out of anything, they bleed, you know. So it'll— it will change the color of everything else or change the integrity of the dish because of the coloring change. So right now it's going to look beautiful, colorful, and perfect, but as it sits over a period of a couple hours The strawberries are going to start to get a little ugly, and the colors are going to start to transfer a bit. So a little salt.

How much salt?

A little bit. And then I squeezed my limes earlier, so I'm going to put a little bit of lime juice in. So we're making it just like we would make a normal salsa, except for the tomatoes. We're using fruit. And voilà! And that's it.

Oh, that's it. How easy.

Excellent.

Okay, I have another question.

Yes.

What about, could you put some sort of liquor or liqueur or, I don't know, port or something in it? A little bit.

Yes, you could. You could put some triple sec in it. You can make it drunken, put some vodka or tequila in it. I'm not a big fan of port, so I don't tend to use something like that. You could probably put a little whiskey in it, but I would stay with something clear, a little less flavorless, or a liqueur like, you know, an orange liqueur or something in it to give it a little flavor. One of those new vodkas, fruit-flavored vodkas, would be be great too.

Oh yeah, yeah, there are so many flavors.

I'm not a big alcohol in my food person, just never been a fan of it. But you know, the sauces is one thing, but you know, in the food directly, but you know, this is definitely something you could play with and you could enjoy, and it wouldn't hurt it, I don't think. So that's our beautiful salsa, and that's done now. If you want to talk for a few minutes, I have to clean the pan, so I'm going to kill my sound and I'm going to clean the pan.

Sure, you go ahead. Okay, before I get Cheryl out here, I think, you know, I'm in, I'm in the mood of the Gulf Coast here. I have my white gauzy shirt, I have my hat, you know, my Panama hat. So I'm really feeling it. I'm really feeling it. And, you know, coastal in terms of our interiors have been such a big trend. So many people want that easy feeling that you can get really in any region of the country. I'm on Long Island, so for us we have— we also have water surrounding us, such as, you know, the north and south shores of Long Island. We have the Hamptons. And by me, the coastal look is characterized by quite a bit of white, for example, in kitchen cabinetry in the kitchen. Everyone loves a white kitchen, which is so popular. And of course, I think some classic colors are the aquas, the soft blues, the yellows, you know, maybe the peach. Now you have to be careful because, well, I'll tell you, to me, there are, there are peach colors and there are peach colors. Some of them can be a little nauseating. So, you know, and if it's used with the same tone, the same mid-tone of a turquoise, you have to be careful because it could be a little too candy cane. Let's call it candy cane. So you may want to vary your color, maybe a dark one turquoise that's dark and smoky, and maybe another peach or yellow that's very, very light and soft. And use them in proportions. There's definitely color theory to follow. There's also— what I love are analogous colors. That's the scientific term. And analogous colors are colors that are next to each other on the color wheel. So we'll have, say, in the blue family, first we'll have, say, lime green then we'll have aqua, something in the aquas, whether it's dark or light, that's next to it on the color wheel. Then we may have yellow. And when you have 3 colors together, that's— all you have to do is look at a color wheel, and whether you have painted walls or say pillows or even utensils that are in those 3 colors, you have a theme, you have a color theme, and that is also very, you know, coastal. The creamy whites are very coastal too. So it just gives you a very light look. And I would also say that it's also nice to change things up. So in the spring and the summer, it's a nice idea to change your artwork, get new placemats and change out your utensils and change out your artwork and your kitchen rugs, things like that. And it really freshens, gives you a fresh look for the season. So, Chef.

That sounded good. You know, and I heard you talking about peach and we went through that struggle with our bedroom when we were painting it. And slapped about 4 different colors of peach on the wall, and actually none of them really, really looked good when we were done. So we picked the lesser of the evil.

It is tricky. And you know, and you're going to now plate this and put this together?

Well, I have to make the sauce, and other than that, yeah, we're all good to go.

So, okay, because is it a good time for me to run and get Cheryl? Because she ran away.

Why don't you go and get Cheryl, and we're just going to talk for a minute.

Good. I'll be right back.

And then we'll start, okay?

Okay.

So let's see if we have any questions while I'm here. I'm gonna do some shoutouts. Here we go. Christopher is saying, I'm not a fan of a white kitchen. Must mean that I'm not everyone. Well, you know, Christopher, I didn't think I was either, and then the more I started thinking about it, I started liking the looks of the white cabinets. I was never a fan of white. We may be doing that. I'm not sure yet, so jury's still out on that one. Lynn's here, as Lynn Bloor, talking to David Leopold and Helena Bellamente. My kids are pasta bots, 7 days a week, that's lunch. You know, I could eat pasta every day too, Lynn. I know what you're talking about with that.

Oh, I have a few good ones. I have a few good comments. I don't know if you've seen them.

Why don't you go ahead and do them, and I'm gonna get the I'll get your other computer set up for the other camera too while we're doing it.

Sure. Well, Aslan Blore says, I've hunted— to George Cohen— I've hunted high and low for Meyer lemons in the UK, no luck. I've never tasted them. Are they a little sweet? Well, we can ask Chef that question when he comes back. And the Fishes Larry Bourne— oh yes, no, now I have to say his name. Fournillier? Fournillier. Fournillier. Okay, that sounds pretty Frenchy to me. The fish is looking excellent, Chef Dennis Littley.

Thank you, Larry.

Yep, and then another one from George Cone. We've got lots— to Aslan Bloor— we've got lots of Meyer lemons that work great with fish too, especially on the grill. That's interesting.

Oh yeah, grilling lemons is wonderful.

Okay, that's something I didn't— I wasn't aware of. Yeah, I'll need to do that sometime. But don't go away, don't go away. Okay, and Aslan Glor says, I'm a huge fan of cooking with tequila and lime as a flavor combo, especially with seafood.

Oh yeah, they go together so well.

Okay, that's what I was wondering. I I'd like to know more about that, you know, as we go along cooking with liquors or things like that. And Kathleen DeCosmo says to David Leopold, "I find panko breadcrumbs to be the best with fish recipes." Yeah. They do work very well. Now, I don't— I wonder if you would use it with salmon. I don't do that. I don't use anything breaded with salmon. Do you?

No, I generally don't use breaded, but I'll make other kinds of toppings for them. I like pistachios on salmon. I did a green tea salmon that had some breadcrumbs in it and some other spices. You can put a coating on it. Think of it more not as a breading, as a crust. Crust. This isn't really a breading on this fish either. It's a crust. If you think of it in terms of that, you can wrap your head around it a little better and think about different things that you can put into the crust for it. Nuts are notoriously wonderful with fish and go so well with fruit. It's like a marriage made in heaven there, depending upon what the fish is. Even topping it with some toasted some toasted nuts of some sort if you don't want to coat it in them, with some berries or something. It's a wonderful way to serve fish to give it some different flavors, or citrus, fresh grapefruit, some orange. Lemon and lime are always used with fish, so it's a natural. Think outside the box with it, too.

Yeah. Here's another comment from Christopher Vogelman. "I love light wood cabinets with black granite counter tops and autumn orange walls stimulates the appetite. I mean, that's what they say. They say, you know, blue, forget it. But I would imagine reds and oranges. What do you think, Chef?

You know, that sounds pretty good to me. You know, it definitely is something to get you awake. My kitchen was coral one time, and that really was a nice color. And, you know, we went to like a lighter green, I think, which really wasn't one of my favorites.. I could see that color as being bolder, so they're going to make you want to eat, I think. Granite anymore, after being a photographer and taking pictures of food, I don't think I want a dark, dark color countertop anymore. It really did nothing for the food and for the pictures I was taking. Killed the light. They weren't my favorite. They look beautiful just to look at, but thinking of it from my perspective now is I'm going to take pictures of food on them too. I don't know, there might be too much contrast with the white.

Well, I have to tell you, that's one of the hottest trends is dark countertops.

I believe you.

It is. So I have Cheryl here with me, so if you want to go ahead, then we'll bring—

We'll bring Cheryl in. Let's talk to Cheryl.

Oh, okay. So Cheryl, you want to come around here? You want to get in here with me, or do you— are you in there? Okay, well, Cheryl's going to join me in the film strip here. I'll be out of view and then we'll talk to Cheryl. So Cheryl, yes, my view of the coastal kitchen, okay, and I'm curious, and I purposely did it because, I mean, you are all about coastal. I mean, you look where you are, you're on the beach, you live on the beach, you know, I live in suburban Long Island, but tell me what your version is, and I'll be curious how they, how they mesh.

She's putting me on the spot here too, everybody, so just so long as you know that. A coastal kitchen to me is really about, you know, about the relaxation aspect of it, I think. I think, you know, very soft colors, happy, not a lot of heaviness and that sort of thing, even though I do a lot of traditional kitchens and it's heavy and dark and woods and all that. But I think, you know, what I try to do is put in some of the coastal colors but not over the top, like no seashells, no seashells, no coral. Coral color, but, you know, I mean, coral—

coral motif, you know, it just gets in the way of cooking, right, Chef?

You know, you can't have all that cutesy stuff sitting on the counter. You need equipment and all that on the counter. Yeah, so, you know, I think the coral colors are great. I'm doing a job right now where we're doing that and introducing coral into it in the colors. But I think it's a feel almost more than anything, Susan, more of an aura and a very relaxed sort of kind of a vacation feel, but yet still that you're not because we all live here.

And what about windows? Big windows?

Yeah, I like, well, you know, I'm totally into the unfitted look, which I know that we both share that idea. Yeah, and so I don't like a lot of wall cabinets anyway. And I think part of it's from my own aesthetic that I like. If I don't see it, as you can tell. Yeah, I give you the tour of my showroom and go, oh my God, you have drawers to put anything in. Yeah, so I'm like that in the kitchen too. I like to see things but not necessarily on a countertop. So I like either glass-fronted cabinets or shelves, open shelving and that sort of thing. It does require you to be clean and all that sort of stuff.

Yeah, tell me something, do you do mostly white kitchens?

No, but we do a lot of white kitchens, but I do color, you know, like the one last year that won the NKBA Award was a turquoise, a bright blue, that was on the coast, it was on the water. White cabinets, turquoise V-groove in the back of the glass cabinets, but then a big turquoise island. With a light countertop, which garnered a lot of attention. You know, a lot of people really like that. Yeah.

And what about metal finishes? What are people liking now?

Well, you know, I'm not— I'm probably not much of a satin nickel or brushed nickel person. You know, I think chrome is always the best. I don't do any oil-rubbed bronze, hardly at all.

No, no. You know, that seems to be done, don't you think?

Yeah, I think it's totally done.

Yeah.

I think chrome is great. In bathrooms, I like polished nickel. It's my favorite finish. But in a kitchen, I like chrome. Yes, you have to clean it, and it's going to get spots and stuff, but there's nothing like cleaning that great faucet you have. No, you're right. And you take a little wipe and you clean it off, and it's like, ah, kitchen is clean.

Yeah.

I love that. I love that aspect of it. But it's a very soft, colorful, relaxing type of thing is what it says to me. Subtle colors, colors that speak softly in a real relaxed look unless you're going for that bold pop like we did in that turquoise one.

Now can I show the— put the camera on some of these samples you have here? This is a current job that we're on Cheryl's work table and I would— it's a mess too. Yeah, but that means you're working. So I want to show some of the samples we have here. What is this? This is a fabric for chair?

Yes, yes. This is actually a bathroom right here. I just put this on, I think, G+ too and Instagram and whatnot. This is a wallpaper that's going above this beautiful tile. This is tile in the shower. Polished nickel you see on the faucet there. That's like a little bench. This is for a teenage girl's— room is what we're looking at here. Very much like these kinds of colors are good.

Beautiful.

Now this house isn't old.

Oh, look at these, very soft. Wow.

But very soft and sort of easygoing, I think. Doing a lot of mosaic tile on the floors.

Uh-huh.

That's kind of fun. But you know, you get the idea.

Did you get a good look at that, Chef?

Yes, I did.

Oh, good, good, good. So, you know, one thing I did not do is properly introduce Cheryl. So let me just take a moment to do that. And I mean, Cheryl, you'll do it better than I am, but I will say that Cheryl is nationally renowned. She's probably won a million NKBA, National Kitchen and Bath Association, awards. Cheryl is— maybe not a million. Cheryl is very widely published. She's constantly in the magazines, and she's also just been a part of the launch that American Standard did on their luxury line, which is DXV. I was also a designer on that launch, and I did it— I designed the kitchen and Cheryl designed the bathroom. Cheryl likes bathrooms, designing bathrooms. I do bathrooms under protest. But what am I missing? What else can I— and she has a beautiful shop right here in Pensacola and works in the region and beyond. What am I missing?

That pretty much sums it up. You said it all and probably then some. And then some. So I do work here in town, but I also do a lot of work out of town. Lately, a lot of my work is out of town. One not far from you, on Major Island.

I know, you should give it to me. No. It's New Jersey. It's on the coast.

It's all interior stuff, you would be bored.

Yeah, no, I don't do that stuff.

Unfortunately, we're not doing the kitchen thing yet, not yet anyway.

Yeah, so Cheryl and I, you know, we respect each other greatly, and so that's the nutshell about this beautiful place we're in, Cheryl's beautiful store.

Sounds good.

Yeah, so there you go, a little bit about that, coastal living, and what's next to What's next for you, Chef?

Well, all I got to do now is put the sauce together really quick and plate it up and we're done. We can have dinner pretty soon.

Okay, I'm hungry.

For this, all I'm going to do is heat the pan up a little bit again and I'm going to pop it. I'm using a spoon today just so I don't frighten you with my fingers in the butter. We're going to melt a little butter. And you notice we didn't use any butter throughout the whole dish.

No, not yet.

No. So now, I mean, now we're going to get to it, but all right, so we got a little butter in there. I'm just going to put a little bit of brown sugar in here. So it's almost like you're making a candy a little bit, if you stop and think about it.

Making a candy?

Yeah, a little bit. Brown sugar and butter.

Oh, brown sugar and butter. Yes, yes.

Okay, Chef, I have a question.

Yes.

Okay, I know I live on the Gulf Coast and have lived on the coast in California and here for many years, but I don't eat seafood.

Wow.

After I picked Susan up off the floor, we are going to seafood.

Really?

We're going to a wonderful seafood place tonight called the Grand Marlin, but I won't be having seafood. The sauce that you're making now, is that transferable to a different— to chicken or pork or meat or anything like that?

Chicken. It would be wonderful with chicken. Anything that I've made today for this fish would go just as well with chicken. Grilled chicken, blackened chicken, anything you want to do.

Excellent.

So we do this, and now I'm going to put in some lime juice and just a little bit of chicken stock too, not a lot. But here's my lime juice going in now, and this was the chicken stock that I put in, just a little bit more of that, not much. Okay, and it's starting to thicken a little bit now. We add in some tequila.

Come on, a little more.

Now, if this was gas, this would ignite and look pretty, for no other reason than to look pretty.

Oh yeah, I don't know where I was, but the whole pan— somewhere in New Orleans for dinner. The whole pan, I think the flames went up to fi.

Yep. So now I take off, I turn the heat off a little bit, I put a little bit more butter in just to thicken it up. Mmm, it's got a nice lime flavor. I'm going to hit it with just a little bit of tequila more, just so it doesn't all cook off and I have a little bit more alcohol flavor. I don't want it all gone. Now, if you wanted to, if you weren't making the salsa, you could actually put some fruit right in this, and it would be a wonderful sauce over chicken or over the fish. Put some toasted pine nuts in there with it, and that would be great over— you could also cook some shrimp. Like, if these weren't so big, I would have probably done a couple shrimp each for with the fish and added that along with this. This is just going to be the sauce just to finish it off. We're going to want to add just a little bit of color, and that's something you do right at the end. A little more cilantro, because if you put it in too soon, it's going to discolor on you.

Oh, right at the end.

Yep.

Looks pretty good, huh?

Well, the sauce does. I don't know about the fish part.

That's my glass, it's just fogged up on me, but I'm going to take one of these beautiful fillets. Let's put this back here where we can see it. All right. Hit it with a little bit of sauce. You never want to overkill. You want to, if anything, put it around the fish, not across it.

I know, you keep saying that, and I'm one to overkill with sauces. I drench it, and I shouldn't.

Well, you can always serve it on the side. All right, and then I'm going to— you can either serve this right on the plate, or I have It's nice little dishes. Or you can do it like this, put it in here and then just turn it out so it's almost got a little bit of shape to it. Let's get a little bit of strawberry right there. A little piece of lime wouldn't hurt if you had it. Unfortunately, I used all my limes on the sauce.

That is looking colorful and— yeah.

And so that is my Cajun style. It's a yellow snapper today, not red snapper. And it's got a fresh fruit salsa with mango, strawberry, pineapple, red onion, cilantro with a lime margarita sauce.

That looks terrific. Now, Chef, it looks like you have a sort of— crispy, soft message to the meal. You have the crispy crust, you have the tender fish, you have the soft sauce, but yet you have the crunchy— it's kind of a crunchy soft kind of texture, would you say?

Yep. There's a little bit of crunch to it, but not much. It's just very delicate. Okay, and then you have a little bit of nice white meat fish under here.

That looks tender.

Yeah, very, very tender.

Really tender. Wow, I bet you can't wait to take it— yeah.

Very nice.

Okay, I'll be over in 7 hours.

Very, very nice blend of flavors. You know, it should be. Not overpowering. Should be a nice complement. You have a nice fresh fish, and believe me, this fish was just magnificent. But nice fresh fish that you can taste some of the freshness in it. You have a little bit of seasoning and a little bit of texture with the breadcrumbs to give it a little bit of different mouthfeel. You have the sweet and the sour and a little bit of alcohol, so you got bitter Got a lot of things going on in the sauce to really perk up your taste buds, and then you got that nice salsa just to really just round it off. So it's really a perfect meal. And again, if you don't eat fish, this would be wonderful with chicken too, so with grilled chicken.

That's great. I think it's an impressive but easy dish for entertaining.

No, it is. I mean, like I said, you know, just doing those couple sauté pans or a couple big sauté pans. You know, you have to change the grease out, sautéing them after probably about 2 or 3 batches of it, just so it doesn't get too crusty or things. But I'm telling you, you could do those, put them on a sheet pan. You got 8 people coming over, 10 people coming over, whip them out and, you know, under half an hour, get them all in the refrigerator, chill down. You put the cookie sheets in the oven when you're getting ready, serve them their salad, put the fish in the oven. By the time they're done their salad, you're ready to serve them dinner.

That sounds great. Now one last question for you. Kathleen DeCosmo says, "What kind of a cocktail would you pair this recipe with?" Now this is your specialty.

Go ahead.

Why don't you tell us what you would serve with it?

Well, I think it has the lime sauce with it, I'd probably serve something that it was sort of refreshing. Maybe a margarita, I don't know. I mean, that might be too much of overpowering with the lime sauce, but margaritas go with everything as far as I'm— in Cheryl's world.

That's exactly where I was thinking too. I was headed towards a margarita or a nice— if you drink beer, this would be a perfect time for a nice, really cold, refreshing beer. You know, not something too heavy.

Yeah.

A Blue Moon or something along a pale ale, a nice Pale Ale, they're just really, really cold.

Well, I think I'll be having a margarita later when we go to dinner.

Sounds like a plan.

Yeah, great, just beautiful dish, Chef, once again. This is— they're each very special in their own way, and you know, this is great. Thank you.

Oh, my pleasure. I'm glad we had a chance to chat, and I'm just so sorry that Why, you're so close, you're still so far away.

I know.

I'll be there soon. I'll be there soon.

I know. Then I will definitely cook for you when you're here, too.

Good.

You won't be getting teased anymore with the show stuff. You'll actually get to eat it.

That's right.

Good. I may have to tag along on that.

Yeah, you'll tag along, too. Okay. Great show.

Okay. You guys got anything else you'd like to add before we head off?

Yeah, no, I think we're going to do our research at the restaurant tonight.

I'm going to take Susan to see my new digs, I think, I hope, in a little while. After I go put out about 15 fires that have occurred while I've been sitting in here with y'all. Not the fires that you might be putting out someday, but the fires I put out here.

Right.

Familiar with.

All in a day's work. That's exactly right. This has just been a food vacation for me, and, you know, it's just such an important part of, you know, our lives and our mood, and good food is a good thing.

Absolutely. Most important part of getting together is that communal table, you know, around the table. A lot of things.

There we go.

Alright, so thanks so much for coming by, Susan. I'm glad you made it to Pensacola on time. And see, you know, if you didn't, everything still would have worked out okay. You know, life goes on, and we'll just eat, be happy, and meet up next, next week for the show.

Sounds good.

See y'all later.

Okay, see you next time. Bye y'all.