Brian Abner Culinary, Grosse Pointe, MI (2026)

Name: Brian Abner Culinary
Address: Grosse Pointe, MI, 48230, US
Telephone: +13135304302

www.brianabnerculinary.com

10/18/2026

Good Friday Afternoon All!

We’re looking at the menu, we’re looking out the window, and all the cues match.

It’s fall in Metro Detroit.

The Lions, Red Wings, Wolverines, and Spartans are already testing the preseason optimism of their faithful. Sports aside, this is a good thing. Fall is what makes the Midwest feel like the Midwest: apples, c***r, and donuts at the orchard; mums and pumpkins on the front steps; comfy sweaters and jackets on us parents, while our kids are still getting around in shorts and sneakers with no socks.

Chef Brian fears his beloved Madras shorts may have seen their last action for the season.

It’s official.

So we’re leaning into the fall standards this week: applesauce, pumpkin cheesecake, cabbage, casseroles, roasts, sweet potatoes, and sausage-and-cornbread dressing. With dried cranberries, naturally, to make the dressing even more Midwestern.

We all know proper stuffing—or dressing—is one of the best parts of the Thanksgiving table. But why should we only make it once a year? Tradition can be a wonderful thing. It can also be stupidly limiting. Last week’s potato pancakes didn’t wait for Hanukkah, and ch*****ne doesn’t need to wait for a wedding. The same goes for dressing.

Our Cider-Brined Pork Loin Roast comes with mashed sweet potatoes, green beans, homemade Michigan applesauce, and sausage-and-cornbread dressing with dried cranberries. It’s a little preview of the Thanksgiving table, minus the holiday traffic and the family debate about who makes the best stuffing.

There’s plenty more fall comfort on the menu. We have Swedish Meatballs in rich brown gravy with caramelized onions and a hint of sour cream, Stuffed Cabbage Soup, and Spinach, Wild Rice, Mushroom, and Cheese Casserole with roasted sweet potatoes and a house-baked herb baguette. There’s also Asian Chicken Noodle Soup, with ginger, scallion, bok choy, vegetables, and Chinese noodles in a rich stock.

Wednesday’s Four-Cheese Ravioli comes with creamy garden-vegetable marinara.

Wait. Garden-vegetable marinara? Didn’t we just confirm, unequivocally, that it’s fall? The garden is done.

Well, not exactly. While it is undeniably fall, some of our gardens haven’t gotten the memo. They’re still pumping out tomatoes, zucchini, squash, peppers, and anything else they can manage. It’s like Milton from Office Space: fired sometime before the movie even begins, he keeps showing up every Friday, wondering what happened to his paycheck and refusing to believe his time there is finished.

If it were our kitchen, we’d keep putting him to work. So we plan to use every last bit the garden has to offer in that ravioli sauce—and we’re not even violating any labor laws.

Comfort food also dominates the Wednesday half of the menu: French Onion Chicken, topped with melty cheeses and served with caramelized onion gravy and brown-and-wild-rice pilaf; Hearty Autumn Vegetable Barley; and Beef and Potato with Red W**e and Vegetables.

And then there are Beef Tenderloin Tips with red-w**e beef au jus, horseradish sauce, mashed potatoes, and green vegetables. Sometimes you just have to treat yo’self. Last week we made the case that ch*****ne doesn’t need a special occasion. This is the time—and the entrée—to put that theory to the test. We’re overwhelmingly confident in a positive outcome.

For something sweet, we have Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake Cups: creamy pumpkin cheesecake over a buttery graham cracker crust, finished with whipped cream. I’m pretty sure this will set off the Pumpkin Pie vs. Sweet Potato Pie debate in the kitchen. Once it starts to overheat, we’ll remind the staff that we’re making cheesecake this week, not pie, so the arguments aren’t relevant yet.

Besides, it’s poor etiquette to debate pumpkin versus sweet potato before Halloween. We’re not Staples ruining summer with Back-to-School specials in July, or Lowe’s putting up Christmas decorations in August. We’re kitchen folks. We have standards.

That should do it. The leaves, the menu, and even Chef Brian’s shorts have all reached the same conclusion:

It’s fall.

Have a Great Weekend,
Brian and The BAC Team

Email from Brian Abner Culinary Good Friday Afternoon All! We’re looking at the menu, we’re looking out the window, and all the cues match. It’s fall in Metro Detroit. The Lions, Red Wings, Wolv

10/09/2026

Good Friday Afternoon All!

Well, October is moving right along.

The leaves are changing, the temperatures are dropping, and the political temperature appears to be moving rather enthusiastically in the opposite direction.

If you happened to catch last night's Michigan Senate debate, you'll know things got a little heated.

Fortunately, we have something to offer.

Following last night's fiery debate, we decided a little bipartisan cooperation was in order.

Our Congressional White Bean Soup brings the Senate's traditional white beans together with our very own House-Smoked Pork.

The candidates brought the heat. We're bringing the smoked pork.

Finally, something coming out of Congress that everyone can agree on.

Or at least we hope so.

We're staying out of the rest of it.

On to dinner.

Italian Sunday Pork Roast with Potato Gnocchi

This week we're preparing a classic Italian Sunday Pork Roast, slowly braised with tomatoes, garlic, fennel and white w**e until beautifully tender, then served with pillowy potato gnocchi and its rich, rustic tomato sauce.

Naturally, we're serving it on Tuesday.

Apparently, somewhere along the way, we've misplaced our calendar.

In fairness, after spending most of our lives in kitchens, keeping track of the days has become increasingly challenging. And while we're aware that the little computer we carry around in our pockets can tell us precisely what day it is, we're also getting older and frequently forget to consult it.

In any event, it's Sunday dinner.

On Tuesday.

We hope you'll forgive the scheduling irregularity.

Spinach Pie. Popeye Really Missed the Boat on This One.

We're also making a particularly substantial Spinach Phyllo Pie this week.

Not one of those little triangles with a few lonely leaves of spinach tucked inside.

Ours is thick, tall, generously loaded with spinach, herbs, and plenty of wonderful Greek feta cheese, all tucked between layers of crisp, buttery phyllo pastry.

It's an outstanding way to get a generous helping of healthy leafy greens without really noticing you're eating healthy leafy greens.

Which brings us to Popeye.

The poor fellow spent his entire career squeezing spinach out of tin cans and swallowing it whole.

Had his girlfriend Olive Oyl known how to make a proper spinach pie, we suspect Popeye might have ended up looking more like the Incredible Hulk.

And Bluto?

He'd have kept his wandering eyes off Olive Oyl and moved out of town.

Problem solved.

Our Spinach Pie accompanies Monday's Greek Meatballs dinner, complete with Tzatziki and Mediterranean Vegetables, and we're also offering generous individual portions as a side.

And While We're Discussing Sides...

We're offering a large Classic Caesar Salad this week.

Crisp romaine, plenty of Parmesan, and crunchy croutons made right here in our kitchen from French baguettes.

Naturally, our Caesar dressing is made from scratch as well.

There's nothing especially complicated about a good Caesar Salad. But when the individual components are made properly, the result is considerably better than the sum of its parts.

And sometimes, a big bowl of really good Caesar Salad is exactly what you want.

A Little Mushroom Magic...not to be confused with Magic Mushrooms...

Our vegetarian offering this week starts with rich, creamy Parmesan Risotto, topped with braised fall greens and savory Marsala Mushrooms.

The mushrooms are sautéed with garlic, onions and Marsala w**e, developing those deep, familiar flavors that make Chicken Marsala such a perennial favorite.

We're simply giving the mushrooms the starring role this time.

Add a bright lemon-parsley gremolata, and you've got a wonderfully hearty autumn dinner.

No meat necessary.

And nobody's going home hungry.

The Great Clam Chowder Mystery

There are many things we've learned over our fourteen and a half years in business.

There are also a few things that remain completely beyond our understanding.

One of them is New England Clam Chowder.

Years ago, I made clam chowder every Friday at The Golden Mushroom.

Later, I made clam chowder every Friday at Opus One.

For years.

We've made an awful lot of clam chowder.

And we've seen firsthand just how much of the stuff people can eat on a Friday.

So we're reasonably confident in our clam chowder training.

We're also reasonably confident that people enjoy eating clam chowder.

Yet somehow, in fourteen and a half years of Brian Abner Culinary, I've never quite figured out how to convince you folks to buy much of it.

It's one of the great unsolved mysteries of our little business.

Nevertheless, we're giving it another shot this Wednesday.

A proper, creamy New England Clam Chowder with clams, potatoes, bacon, cream, and all the usual good things.

Perhaps this will be the week we finally crack the code.

If not, we'll continue our investigation.

And Then There Are Latkes!

Who says potato latkes are only for Hanukkah?

Or Chanukah?

Or Channukah?

However you spell it, we see no reason to reserve perfectly good potato pancakes for one particular holiday.

Wednesday's vegetarian offering features crispy Potato-Leek Latkes, golden brown on the outside, tender inside, and served with a sauté of spinach, artichokes and chickpeas.

A cool, herby Green Goddess dipping sauce brings everything together.

They're familiar, comforting, and far too good to enjoy only once a year.

Besides, if we're already serving Sunday dinner on Tuesday, we're hardly in a position to start enforcing the calendar now. Note: We feel the same way about Ch*****ne. It should be available whenever one is thirsty, not solely for toasts and special occasions.

And Finally, Carrot Cake.

You know autumn has officially arrived when we start taking perfectly respectable root vegetables and turning them into dessert.

This week it's our Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting.

Which means we're also rapidly approaching that special time of year when the annual Sweet Potato Pie vs. Pumpkin Pie debate erupts in our kitchen.

And believe me, it gets heated.

Wives, mothers, grandmothers. Nobody is safe.

Family recipes are questioned. Generations of culinary tradition are challenged. No one, and nothing, is off limits.

My personal position?

I'd probably favor sweet potato pie if somebody would just figure out how to make one without approximately twenty pounds of added sugar.

Sadly, I've yet to encounter such a pie.

So pumpkin it is.

Fortunately, our Carrot Cake requires no such controversy. Just plenty of carrots, warm spices, and a generous helping of cream cheese frosting.

Something we can all agree on.

For now.

Elsewhere on the menu, we've got French Onion Soup, Rustic Italian Sausage & Potato Soup with Kale, Tuscan Chicken with Sun-Dried Tomato Cream Sauce, a very comforting Classic Meatloaf with Mashed Potatoes and Gravy, and a few more goodies.

And there you have it.

A little Greek food, a little Italian food, some old-fashioned American comfort food, a congressional compromise, an ongoing investigation into the purchasing habits of clam chowder enthusiasts, and a family feud over holiday pies.

Not a bad week.

Enjoy!

Have a Great Weekend,
Brian and The BAC Team

Email from Brian Abner Culinary Good Friday Afternoon All! Well, October is moving right along. The leaves are changing, the temperatures are dropping, and the political temperature appears to b

10/02/2026

Good Friday Afternoon All!

Let’s be frank.

We’re heading into our fourth week of football. Hockey season has started. Our windows have been closed at night—and most of the day—for weeks now. Halloween decorations are beginning to garnish the front yards, and the calendar officially reads October.

There is no longer any denying it.

It is fall.

Fortunately, this week’s menu appears to have accepted that reality more enthusiastically than some of us have.

Our Egg Bites contain sausage, caramelized onion, cheddar and sage. Because while eggs may occasionally tolerate tomatoes, spinach and feta during the warmer months, once October arrives, they clearly want sausage and sage.

Frankly, don’t we all?

The same seasonal logic applies to potatoes.

Warm, creamy, cheesy Potato Gratin should probably be regarded as a cornerstone of a balanced autumn diet—not merely a luxurious side dish. We’re not sure exactly where it belongs on the traditional food pyramid, but we’re confident it occupies very large sections near the top, middle, and bottom.

In line with FDA recommendations, we’ll be serving it as both a standalone side and alongside our Fire-Roasted Pork Loin.

For the pork, we’ll be firing up our massive 275-gallon smoker. The woodpile is fully stocked for our fall-weather smoking escapades. This summer’s storms brought down plenty of trees, and local tree-removal crews were happy to provide us with usable logs.

Yes, we really do use locally downed wood, which we split and age ourselves for the smoker.

Talk about hyperlocal.

This began several years ago when DTE was trimming trees in Chef Brian’s yard. The crew noticed the enormous smoker and accompanying woodpile and offered to cut the tree into usable logs and leave them behind for us.

Yes, please!

Ever since, we’ve relied on locally downed trees to fuel the smoker. There is now a small—but very real—possibility that the wood used to smoke this week’s pork loin came from a tree that once stood in your yard.

We’re also continuing our international orange-chicken exchange program.

Last week’s Orange Chicken took us to Asia—or at least to the American takeout interpretation of Asia. This week’s Chicken Breast à l’Orange takes us to France.

Two interpretations of the same basic idea from two of the world’s greatest cuisines.

Perhaps one of history’s only genuinely acceptable examples of “separate but equal.”

This week’s French-inspired version is a direct riff on classic Duck à l’Orange: pan-roasted chicken breast with fresh orange, brandy and a savory citrus pan sauce, served with toasted-almond rice pilaf and broccoli.

We’ve simply removed the duck and most of the pomp and circumstance. We briefly considered acquiring an enormous brass duck press, but apparently that belongs to an entirely different French duck preparation. The French do not lack for duck-related ceremony.

It is still classical French cooking, however, which means it has already undergone several centuries of rigorous testing. Its deliciousness may therefore be accepted as scientific fact.

“Maurice” Ham Salad should largely speak for itself.

Everyone seemed to love our Ham Salad a few weeks ago. We decided that the only possible improvement would be to give it the full Maurice treatment: sweet pickles, chopped green olives, hard-boiled eggs and Maurice dressing instead of straight mayonnaise.

Short of packing it in 24-karat gold to-go containers, having it served to you by sc****ly clad ladies or spiking it with wonderfully illicit drugs, we’re not sure how it could get any better.

Basically, the entire Wednesday-delivery side of the menu is the culinary equivalent of putting on your most comfortable sweater, sitting in front of a fire and sipping a good glass of red w**e.

Seasonal.

Comforting.

Warming.

Enjoyable.

Chicken Pot Pie Soup. Chicken Parmesan. Mustard and Brown Sugar Glazed Brisket. Corn and Sweet Potato Cakes with c***r-braised kale, applesauce and sour cream.

Even the tomato soup has been warmed up with curry spices and basmati rice.

And just when Curried Tomato Soup begins to look like the strange outlier, consider this: many of the warming spices found in curry blends—ginger, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and nutmeg, depending upon the blend—are the same spices doing the heavy lifting in your Pumpkin Spice Latte.

It seems improbable.

Possibly even wrong.

But the overlap is very real.

For those wishing to continue their overseas adventure, our Italian Antipasto Pasta Salad contains rotini, salami, cheeses, roasted peppers, olives, pepperoncini, herbs and red-w**e vinaigrette.

Here in Grosse Pointe, we realize pepperoncini serve as both a garnish and a warning.

Dessert this week is a Maple-Pecan Blondie.

Maple and pecans are about as conclusively autumnal as two ingredients can be. If they were running for the Senate, they would destroy both the smart Muslim guy and the comfortable-sounding white guy in any fall election.

Maple and Pecan: the rare unity ticket capable of sweeping every county in Michigan.

For anyone unfamiliar with the term “blondie”—outside of the great 1970s and ’80s band featuring the remarkably attractive Debbie Harry—it is essentially a brownie that isn’t brown.

Thus, blondie.

Ours is rich and buttery, made with brown sugar, real maple syrup and plenty of toasted pecans.

Also, if anyone happens to know Debbie Harry and can persuade her to stop by, we would be extremely interested in that as well.

Fall has arrived.

We might as well eat accordingly.

Have a wonderful weekend!
The BAC Team

Email from Brian Abner Culinary Good Friday Afternoon All! Let’s be frank. We’re heading into our fourth week of football. Hockey season has started. Our windows have been closed at night—and mo

09/25/2026

Good Friday Afternoon All!

Early fall has arrived in Michigan.

The days are still pleasant, the windows can remain open during the day, and the truly determined among us can occasionally pretend it is still summer.

The evenings, however, are getting cool.

The brief back-to-school excitement has also faded right on schedule. New shoes, fresh notebooks and the novelty of seeing friends again bought us perhaps two cheerful weeks.

We have now returned to the traditional daily interview:

“How was your day at school?”

“Fine.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

“How much homework do you have?”

“I dunno.”

A less successful day may earn the slightly more descriptive response of “stupid.”

Meanwhile, summer is quietly being dismantled around us. Lawn mowers are being powered down, leaf blowers are being fired up, and summer toys are beginning their long journey into garages, basements and sheds.

Even the finest madras shorts are starting to lose their argument against long pants.

Sad face.

Fortunately, fall does offer compensation: football, bonfires, comfy sweaters and a completely legitimate reason to start eating hearty things covered in gravy.

And chili.

If we must wear pants, there should be chili.

If we must endure the Lions, there should be chili.

This week we’re making a classic Beef and Bean Chili with plenty of ground beef, tomatoes, peppers, kidney beans, garlic, warm spices and just enough jalapeño and chipotle to keep things interesting. It is exactly what chili should be during football season: thick, hearty and entirely capable of becoming dinner.

The comfort-food theme continues with our new Cheesy Hash Brown Bake: shredded potatoes baked with sour cream, cheddar, caramelized onions and scallions, then topped and baked until golden. It comes in our usual generous 4”×4” piece and should make a crisp autumn evening a bit warmer.

Or morning or afternoon, for that matter...

The first delivery of the week also brings Swedish Meatballs in a rich gravy finished with caramelized onions and a hint of sour cream, served over twisty egg noodles with green vegetables. They’re warm, comforting and completely irresistible—or, as the world’s most famous Swedish Chef from The Muppets might put it:

“Hurdy-gurdy, bork, bork, bork, bork, bork!”

Even the chickens are getting dressed for fall.

Just a few weeks ago, they were adorned in wildly colored pestos and summer vegetables. For this week’s Chicken Saltimbocca, they’re bundling up a bit in prosciutto and sage, with white w**e sauce and linguine to keep them warm like a cozy blanket.

Likewise, our Beef Enchiladas have snuggled themselves into flour tortillas before being covered with house-made chili sauce and plenty of cheese.

Our vegetarian dinners are pure fall: a Truffled Roasted Cauliflower, Caramelized Onion and Cheese Tart with braised greens and white beans, and a creamy Spinach, Wild Rice and Mushroom Casserole with roasted sweet potatoes.

As fall as it gets without having to rake the leaves off your plate.

Here’s to pleasant afternoons, cool evenings, bonfires, football and extracting at least one complete sentence from a child before Thanksgiving.

Want to get the kids talking? Bribe them with one of our freshly baked Chocolate Chunk Cookies.

Content to leave the kids quiet and grumpy in their rooms? Enjoy the cookies all to yourself.

Have a wonderful weekend!
The BAC Team

Email from Brian Abner Culinary Good Friday Afternoon All! Early fall has arrived in Michigan. The days are still pleasant, the windows can remain open during the day, and the truly determined a

09/18/2026

Good Friday Afternoon All!

It is beginning to feel like fall in Michigan.

Not rake-the-leaves, turn-on-the-furnace fall just yet—but the early version. Cool mornings, comfortable afternoons, open windows, and the first entirely reasonable excuses to start eating apples, mushrooms, slow-roasted pork and things covered in gravy.

Naturally, the menu followed.

Michigan apples are beginning to arrive, and we’re leaning into them properly.

Dessert this week is a Michigan Apple Spice Cake made with loads of diced fresh apples, cinnamon and warm baking spices. This is not a delicate cake decorated with three carefully arranged apple slices. The apples are baked throughout, where they keep the cake especially moist and where apples belong. Each generous piece comes with our housemade cinnamon whipped cream.

Local Apples make another appearance in our Overnight Oats with Michigan Apples, Raisins and Cinnamon, as well as our new Autumn Chicken Salad.

The Autumn Chicken Salad is a creamy, scoopable chicken salad made with gently poached chicken, crisp Michigan apples, dried cranberries, toasted walnuts, celery, green onions and fresh herbs. Excellent by itself, over greens or piled unreasonably high onto good bread.

Once we leave Michigan apple country, this week’s menu becomes a little geographically restless. We begin in France, meander through Germany and America, visit Maryland by way of New Orleans, and ultimately find ourselves right back in Burgundy.

Apparently, no matter where we intended to go, we kept returning to the mecca of all things good food: France.

There are worse travel problems to have.

Our first stop is French Onion Chicken.

We marinate lean chicken breast with garlic and thyme, pan-sear it, and serve it with a rich gravy loaded with deeply caramelized onions.

But the real trouble began when we started thinking about what should go beside it.

Everybody knows the best part of a crock of French onion soup: the bread that absorbs the broth beneath that bubbling, deeply browned layer of cheese.

So we turned that part into an entire casserole.

Our Four Cheese Strata starts with cubed artisanal bread soaked in a savory milk-and-egg custard, mixed with sautéed onions, parsley and four cheeses, then baked until crisp and golden on top while remaining soft and rich inside.

Basically, it’s an irresistible savory, cheesy bread pudding.

Enjoy it alongside the French Onion Chicken, or indulge in a second generous helping, sold separately for $9.

Warm it in the oven for breakfast. Slice it and sear it in a buttered pan, then serve it with eggs. Put it beside practically anything for an effortless midweek dinner. Or eat it standing at the kitchen counter around midnight with a tall glass of w**e in an incident your spouse need never know occurred.

From France, we wander over to Germany for Oktoberfest—which, somewhat confusingly, takes place mostly in September.

In its honor, we’re making Schweinbraten: pork delicately seasoned with caraway, clove, paprika and Düsseldorf mustard, then roasted low and slow until exceptionally tender. It’s sliced and served with little potato dumplings, onion-mustard gravy and braised cabbage.

We’ve kept the dumplings small—about gnocchi size—so they catch plenty of butter and gravy without becoming enormous potato cannonballs.

We’re also making Classic German Potato Salad with tender potatoes, bacon, sautéed onions, carrots, celery; and parsley in a warm whole-grain mustard and c***r-vinegar dressing. Rich and vibrant with bacon, mustard and vinegar, this classic needs no mayonnaise. It is equally good served warm, chilled or somewhere in between—and excellent beside roasted pork, chicken, sausages, eggs, or absolutely nothing but a fork and an open refrigerator door.

And, if we’re being completely honest, after watching those German barmaids carrying impossible numbers of full b**r steins in traditional garb, I’m buying whatever they’re selling.

Our trip through America begins with three large Western Egg Bites made with Dearborn ham, sautéed onions, bell peppers and cheddar cheese.

It then brings us to Classic Chicken Noodle Soup, made with the short, thin noodles you remember.

There is no need to mess with a classic. Just prepare it very well.

We simmer our chicken stock in-house for hours, add fresh chicken, carrots, celery, onions, parsley and herbs, and naturally include a generous splash of white w**e. We may be in America, but we still tend to cook a little Frenchish.

Incidentally, fancy restaurants are currently putting those same little noodles onto elegant plates and calling them by their proper name, "fideo". Even on a fancy plate, they still look like chicken noodles to us.

Wednesday brings the return of Golden Mushroom Soup.

I had the good fortune to work at The Golden Mushroom, and as saucier I personally prepared the restaurant’s namesake soup many times. Our version is made as I prepared it there: loads of fresh mushrooms sautéed with onion, garlic and herbs, dried porcini mushrooms, housemade stock, a generous splash of Madeira and a little cream.

Mushroom season is undoubtedly Golden Mushroom Soup season.

For a lighter, brothy, and especially wholesome option, we’re also making White Bean and Autumn Vegetable Soup. Tender white beans are simmered with Dearborn ham, carrots, celery, onions, parsnips, sweet potatoes and cabbage in housemade stock with white w**e.

The Wednesday entrée lineup is particularly dangerous. Wednesday’s vegetarian entrée is back to Pure Michigan. A roasted butternut squash seasoned with cinnamon and nutmeg, then filled with quinoa, brown rice, wild rice, dried cranberries and toasted pumpkin seeds. It’s finished with an apple-brown butter drizzle and served with roasted cauliflower and a side salad.

Our Maryland-Style Crab Cakes are gently mixed with sautéed onion, celery, red bell pepper, parsley and seasonings, coated in cracker crumbs and pan-fried until golden. They’re served with New Orleans remoulade, lemon-parsley rice pilaf, and green beans sautéed with sweet corn and cabbage.

Finally, we return to France for Traditional Beef Burgundy.

The beef is flash-seared in a smoking-hot pan, then slowly simmered with bacon, mushrooms, aromatic vegetables, plenty of red w**e and stock until fall-apart tender. The braising liquids become the sauce, and the Burgundy is served with herb-roasted potatoes, green beans with corn and cabbage, and a side salad.

The menu may have traveled a bit this week, but it arrived exactly where early Michigan fall seems to be pointing us: apples, mushrooms, good soup, slow roasts, browned cheese, red w**e and plenty of gravy.

Not a bad place to end up.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Brian & the BAC Team

Email from Brian Abner Culinary Good Friday Afternoon All! It is beginning to feel like fall in Michigan. Not rake-the-leaves, turn-on-the-furnace fall just yet—but the early version. Cool morni

09/11/2026

Good Friday Afternoon All!

Our menu this week has a more comforting, back-to-school feel. A happy accident, really.

Much of this week’s menu somehow flowed from last week’s Dolly Parton Bread Pudding. Apparently Dolly is still doing good work.

The bread pudding got everyone in the kitchen talking about old-school desserts—the things almost everybody remembers, almost everybody likes, and, for some reason, you just don’t see very often anymore.

Coconut Cream Pie came up.

The response was pretty much unanimous: everybody loves a GOOD coconut cream pie. Unfortunately, “good” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. When you do stumble across one these days, there’s a fair chance the crust is soggy, the filling tastes like it came out of a bucket, and the coconut has been sitting around since the Carter administration.

So we made ours a Coconut Cream Pie Cup.

You get the important parts: buttery graham cracker crumbs, rich housemade coconut-vanilla cream, plenty of lightly sweetened whipped cream, and toasted coconut. But because it’s built in a cup rather than sliced and driven around Grosse Pointe in the back of a delivery vehicle, there’s no soggy bottom crust, no collapsed slice, and no cream pie slowly migrating to one side of a box.

Sometimes changing the format actually makes the old thing work better.

Once we started down the old-school-food rabbit hole, the kitchen suggestions kept coming all week.

Naturally, old-school Tuna Noodle Salad made its presence known.

And we mean the real, old-fashioned kind: little pasta shells, tuna, celery, peas, scallions, parsley, mayonnaise, Dijon, and just a little pickle for brightness. Pretty much the way you remember it—except made by people who have spent many years cooking in professional kitchens rather than by a commissary somewhere in Ohio filling five-gallon tubs for grocery-store delis throughout the Midwest.

The flavors remain. We’ve simply paid a little more attention to them.

Of course, once a kitchen full of cooks starts talking about tuna and noodles, the next great American word is never far behind:

Casserole.

One tuna-and-noodle situation seemed sufficient for a single menu, but by then we couldn’t shake the casserole thoughts. So we landed on a Bacon, Cheddar & Scallion Potato Casserole.

Excellent with eggs for breakfast, perfectly happy standing alone as a side, and perhaps happiest cozied up to our Brined Pork Loin Chop with Caramelized Onion-Sherry Gravy.

And not to be forgotten, we have the Kind and Gentle Grandmother of old-school American classics:

Traditional Split Pea and Ham Soup.

Made in our case with proper Dearborn ham.

Now let this serve as your reminder that it has probably been too long since you called your mother or grandmother.

If Split Pea Soup is the Gentle Grandma you had better not forget, then Beef Tenderloin Tips with Mashed Potatoes and Chicken Piccata are the leather-jacket James Deans of comfort food.

You don’t need a reminder. They’re already on your mind. You have them on speed dial.

Sticking with our increasingly rebellious—and, let’s be frank, fun and exciting—imagery, consider our Chesapeake Chicken Chowder the 1970s Norton Commando 850 of this week’s menu.

Fast. Full of personality. A little dangerous. Possibly a little more excitement than the surrounding engineering was prepared to accommodate.

(It’s a British bike. Insufficient engineering is to be expected.)

Now, don’t think heavy New England clam chowder. This is chicken, sweet corn, potatoes, and summer vegetables in a lighter, savory broth, finished with just enough Old Bay to give it that unmistakable Chesapeake character and a splash of cream to remind your cardiologist that he’s not the boss of you.

Thankfully, our chowder delivers the full rush of flavor from the safety of your kitchen table. No scorched calves from the exhaust pipe, and nobody has to discover at 100 mph that the motorcycle would prefer not to turn.

From there, our comfort-food tour wanders across the Atlantic.

We’re making Chicken Paprikash, one of the great comfort dishes of Hungary. For this one, we specifically seek out real Hungarian paprika. Years ago, a friend brought some back from Hungary for us, and the difference was enough that we’ve been willing to track down the real thing ever since.

We keep the dish mostly traditional, although we do sneak in just a pinch of smoked paprika for a little extra depth.

Because this is America, and we can do what we want.

And while we’re already wandering around Central Europe, we’re considering the Paprikash our little warm-up to Oktoberfest—which, despite the name, takes place largely in September.

Nutty Germans.

And because America has always been at its culinary best when we start borrowing everybody else’s food, we’ve also brought back our popular Asian Cashew Chicken Salad, along with Hearty Santa Fe Chicken & Bean Chili for a little international flair.

Yes, we know. Santa Fe is in America.

Possibly soon to be located in the newly renamed state of New America.

The name was intentional because it fits nicely with this week’s largely mom-and-apple-pie American theme. The flavors, however, are decidedly south of the border—as though the recipe were smuggled to us through an elaborate series of tunnels running beneath the Rio Grande.

Add in Broccoli & Cheddar Egg Bites as Michigan broccoli begins coming into season, Chicken Lemon Rice Soup for something lighter and brothy, and our Portabella Mushroom Ravioli with Madeira Sauce, and somehow what began with Dolly Parton and a conversation about forgotten desserts turned into an entire week of food.

We’re not entirely sure how we got here.

But we’re pretty happy with where we ended up.

Have a Great Weekend,
Brian and The BAC Team

Email from Brian Abner Culinary Good Friday Afternoon All! Our menu this week has a more comforting, back-to-school feel. A happy accident, really. Much of this week’s menu somehow flowed from l

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