Flame Thrower

Robert St. John, who you may recall appeared here back in May for the release of his book New South Grilling, returned last weekend for his official Viking Cooking School visit.  It was a two-day event in which participants stayed at the Alluvian Hotel and were treated to remarkable fare from Robert's books as well as regional dishes prepared by Viking chefs.  Needless to say, we ate very well and posted this not only to gloat but to redeem Robert's grilled bananas foster recipe, which we butchered while testing recipes for our review of the book.  At the cooking class on Saturday morning, Robert good-naturedly called us out and demonstrated just how easy it is to prepare this flaming dish.  Perhaps we had the flame too hot and didn't use a whisk, or maybe we just weren't cooking on the finest Viking cookware, but we burned two pans-full and wasted some nice rum in our early attempts.  Robert made it all look very easy and told some hilarious stories, many of which involved his young son and their misadventures in the public restrooms of various eateries.  He's a great storyteller (you can check out his weekly column here) and a great bananas foster flame thrower.