• Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Meta

The Perfect Meal

Posted on January 8, 2015 by susanrray

searchDaughter held a plate in her hand and surveyed the spread of food on my kitchen counter. Boneless grilled chicken breasts, steamed broccoli, baked sweet potatoes, pasta salad, plain pasta, apple and pear wedges, whole mandarin oranges, sour dough rolls. “This is the perfect supper!” Daughter said.  Condiments littered the counter: honey mustard dressing, shredded Parmesan cheese, three kinds of mustard, honey, butter, mixed-up salt, and brown sugar. Certainly not a true southern Christmas dinner, but it’s what I served my seven Grands, ages 9 and younger, and their parents.

The perfect supper? I chuckled and nodded. “What?” Daughter said. Before I could respond, her three-year-old daughter got her attention by holding an empty paper plate and saying, “I’m hungry.” I was thinking that the perfect supper, or any perfect meal, is one that someone else prepares and serves. It was on the tip of my tongue to say, “As perfect as the sandwich you made for me one time.”

It was a hot summer day and I was mowing our yard with a push lawn mower. Daughter and Son were about 6 ½ and 5 years old, respectively, and played in the sand pile or rode their Hot Wheels and bicycles. The rule was that while I mowed, the children played outside where I could see them, but they couldn’t come close to the mower. My mind wandered, but I kept one eye on my children. They got my attention when they stood side-by-side and waved their arms high above their heads. I turned the mower off and motioned for them to come to me.

“We’re hungry!” they said. It was close to lunchtime, but I needed just a few more minutes to finish mowing. “Can we make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?” Daughter asked. The three of us went inside our house to the kitchen and gathered a loaf of bread, a jar peanut butter, a jar of grape jelly, table knives for spreading, and pitcher of lemonade. I went back outside to finish mowing.

Daughter and Son served the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with pride and I was thankful that they had made lunch. The outside picnic table was set with three paper plates and cups and white paper napkins. We talked and ate every bite of our sandwiches and then Daughter said, “Mom, that bread looked funny.”

“Funny?” I asked.

“Mostly on one side. It had some spots. Kinda’ gray and green. ” I must have looked surprised. “It’s okay. We put that part on the inside,” she said. “And we got some of it off,” Son added. The perfect lunch –peanut butter and jelly sandwiches made with moldy bread. Prepared and served by my young children.

Now, both Daughter and Son are good cooks and through the years, they’ve served many meals that I’ve enjoyed and appreciated. Spaghetti, grilled salmon, seafood gumbo, fried chicken salad. Delicious meals. But none more memorable than that peanut butter and jelly sandwich lunch – the first meal they made for me.

A perfect meal. It’s not just about the food.

#####

 

 

Filed under: Food | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

I Know the Feeling

Posted on July 31, 2014 by susanrray

 

Screen Shot 2014-07-31 at 6.58.02 AMLast summer Robbie invited me to bring my Grands, ages 8 and 6, to swim at her house while her 9 ½ year old grandson Noah was visiting. The children splashed and played along beside each other, just as children do when they meet someone new. At lunchtime, we all dried off and spread our towels to sit around the pool. Noah started inside the house, turned, and asked my Grands, “Do you’ll want a Luncheable?”

 

David and Lou frowned. I answered for them. “No, but thank you, Noah. We brought our lunches.” I handed my Grands the small cooler in which Daughter had packed their food. Rollup sandwiches, made with flour tortillas filled with thin sliced turkey and shredded mozzarella cheese. Hunks of watermelon. Clusters of grapes. Homemade cookies.

 

Noah settled himself beside David.   He ripped the thin cellophane covering off a square plastic package. Lou tilted her head and looked at the package. David eyed it and said, “What’s that?”

 

“What’s what?” Noah said.

 

“Your lunch?” David asked. Inside the six-inch square plastic package were three small round tortillas, 5 slices of pepperoni, some white shredded cheese, and a take-out ketchup sized packet of pizza sauce.  Lou furrowed her eyebrows as if memorizing the package’s contents.

 

“It’s like little pizzas,” Noah said. Using his teeth, he ripped open the packet and he squirted red sauce on a tortilla.

 

“Where’d you get it?” David asked.

 

“Nana gets them at the grocery or somewhere,” Noah said. David held his roll up sandwich close to his mouth but he didn’t bite it, instead he watched as Noah covered the tortilla with a pepperoni slice and cheese.

 

“That looks really good,” David said and he laid his sandwich back in the cooler. “Does every grocery store have them?” Noah shrugged his shoulders. “I wonder if Mama could find them.”

 

“I think they’re by the milk and stuff,” Noah said and bit into his miniature pizza. David and Lou watched as red sauce dribbled down Noah’s chin. I knew exactly how my Grands felt. I remember being envious when I was young and spent the night at a friend’s house and for breakfast her mother spread Blue Bonnet margarine on toast. At my house, we spread home-churned butter on Mom’s homemade biscuits.

 

Now, watching Noah and David and Lou, I restrained myself from raiding Robbie’s refrigerator for two more packaged lunches. “Noah, would you like some watermelon?” I said. He bit into the watermelon and somehow that reminded David and Lou that they, too, had food to eat.

 

But that’s not quite the end of the story. Last week Robbie again invited us to her house. “We’ll eat lunch and swim, just like last year,” I told my Grands. “Noah is there. And on the way, we’ll stop at the grocery store to buy your lunch, maybe Lunchables.” They chose exactly what they’d watched Noah eat a year ago.

 

My Grands and Noah pulled the cellophane covering off their lunches and each ate every morsel packed in those small plastic boxes. I knew exactly how my Grands felt. The way I felt decades ago when I carefully unwrapped a stick of yellow margarine, put it on a serving plate, and told my friend, “Mom is making toast for breakfast.”

 

###

 

Filed under: Children, Food, Friends, Grandchildren, Lunch, Water Fun | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

More Cornbread

Posted on July 23, 2014 by susanrray

search

When my friend Tommy Sue offered corn light bread* that she’d baked the day before, I was skeptical and almost chose a commercial bun that came with the carry out barbeque supper. “If you don’t want a bun, here’s some corn light bread I made yesterday.” Cold corn bread? The only way my mother served cold cornbread was crumbled into a glass of milk and eaten with a spoon, which was Sunday night supper. I went along with my girlfriends who also sat around Tommy Sue’s dining room table and I laid a piece of her homemade bread, baked in a loaf pan and sliced like banana bread, on my plate. Slathered with soft butter, it was delicious.

During dinner we college girlfriends discussed how we make and bake cornbread differently. We agreed that it is usually baked in a black skillet and in a hot oven, but Tommy Sue’s mother baked cornbread in a loaf pan and often served it cold. We realized that we bake cornbread like our mothers did. Blondie’s mother told her to remember 2, 2, and 2. *  Two cups of cornmeal, 2 eggs, and 2 cups of buttermilk. Heat ¼ cup oil in a black skillet in a 450° F oven and pour about half the oil in the batter, stir well, and watch the batter sizzle when it’s poured into the skillet.

Jo Ann’s family had milk cows and no milk was ever wasted so her mother used the old milk, no-longer-good-for-drinking-milk, to make cornbread. After baking, she turned the bread onto her tiled countertop and covered it with the skillet until the middle was soft. Friend Alicia learned to heat ½ cup oil in a black skillet and drop spoonfuls of thick batter into the skillet allowing the oil to bubble around each spoonful. After baking, the spoonful-size portions break apart easily. All of us agreed that the best cornbread was baked in hot bacon drippings. Our mothers kept a jar or small crock close to the stove to pour bacon grease into and that was used for cornbread and to season vegetables.

Kathy’s mother always baked plain cornbread to serve with pinto beans, and she made Mexican cornbread to serve with vegetable soup. The mention of Mexican cornbread started a whole new topic. Broccoli Cornbread* is made with Jiffy cornbread mix, butter, eggs, cottage cheese, onions, and chopped frozen broccoli and baked in a 9 x 13 pan. There’s Creamed Corn Cornbread, Zucchini cornbread, and Green Chili Cornbread. I googled cornbread recipes and got 3,950,000 results. That’s more varieties of cornbread than there are black skillets!

After the first column about cornbread, readers have shared their stories. Tricia’s mother was born and raised in Ohio and her Sunday night supper was a one-pan meal. She cooked pork sausage – either patties or crumbled – and then poured cornbread batter into the hot skillet and baked it. Seems like this should be a good Southern dish. I’ve heard about hush puppies, cornbread dressing, spoon bread, hoecakes, Johnny cakes, hot water cornbread, cornbread salad, vegetable spoon bread, and crackling cornbread.

This cornbread saga may not be ended yet. There may be yet another cornbread story.

*Recipes posted http://susanrray.com

 

 

 

 

Filed under: Food, Friends | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

Hot Cornbread

Posted on July 10, 2014 by susanrray

 

search

 

Once again at Farmer’s Market, there are fresh green beans to be broken and cooked with a slab of thick bacon.  There’s yellow crookneck squash to slice, sprinkle with salt, roll in cornmeal and fry.  There’s nothing quite as good as summer vegetables, except the cornbread that goes with them.

 

Mom was a good cook.  Just before Husband and I married she told me, “Here’s what you do.  Set the table every night.  Even if supper is leftovers, your family knows that you’re making supper.  And serve hot bread.”   Mom’s bread was usually cornbread.  When I was about 9 years old, making cornbread was my supper chore.  Two cups of Martha White self-rising cornmeal, one beaten egg, and enough buttermilk to make the batter just right.  Stir with a wooden spoon.

 

Mom’s cornbread skillet didn’t have a handle – it had broken off.  That skillet was used only for baking cornbread.  She turned the oven to 425° F, put a couple of spoonfuls of bacon grease in the skillet, and both skillet and grease got hot while I stirred the batter.  Mom poured about half of the hot grease into the cornbread batter, and I gave it one last stir and dumped it into the hot skillet.  But my chore wasn’t done.  The cornbread bowl had to be washed immediately.  If not, the batter dried and stuck like glue to the bowl.  More than once, I didn’t wash the bowl and after supper, Mom washed the dishes and I dried them, and then I had to scrub the cornbread bowl.

 

The cornbread baked for twenty minutes and came out of the oven with a golden brown crust just as Mom called Dad, my brother, and me to the supper table.  She turned the bread onto a dinner plate and it was the only food we were allowed to have on our plates before the prayer.  Mom cut the cornbread into wedges, put a piece on everyone’s plate, and we slathered it with butter, then Dad said the blessing.  Sometimes I’d eat my first piece of cornbread before even filling my plate with meat and vegetables.  And if I didn’t like anything else for supper, I’d fill up on cornbread and milk.

 

Mom’s cornbread recipe never changed, but sometimes she fried hoecakes and sometimes she baked corn sticks and muffins.  On hot summer days when she didn’t want the oven heat, she dropped spoonfuls of the batter into a black skillet on top of the stove and fried hoecakes.  My favorite was the corn sticks.  Thin, crunchy sticks of cornbread with browned crust with every bite.   I didn’t keep up with Mom’s cornbread skillet, but I have the black iron corn stick and muffin pans.

 

I made Mom’s basic cornbread recipe for years.  Then I discovered Corn Light Bread, made with cornmeal, flour, sugar, buttermilk, and an egg.  Sweet, finer textured cornbread.  When my Grand, Louise, was four years old, she proclaimed it, “The best bread ever!”  She may be right.

 

I know that there are many cornbread recipes, and that’s a column for another day. Right now, I’ve got a mess of Roma green beans cooking, squash ready to fry, and I’m stirring up some of the best bread ever to bake in Mom’s corn stick and muffin pans.  A fine summertime supper.

 

###

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed under: Food | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

Thanksgiving – Then and Now

Posted on November 27, 2013 by susanrray

iz347022I stood at the corner of Mom’s dining room table.  Mom and Dad, my two aunts and uncles, and my grandparents sat in ladder back chairs around that drop leaf cherry table.  We children – my brother, my two boy cousins, and I – set our plates on the table corners and as the food was passed we spooned it on our plates.  And we ate at the linen covered card table just an arm’s length from the big table.  Thanksgiving, when I was a kid.

Mother and her two sisters took turns hosting holiday meals and they did it with style.  Best china and crystal and silver.  A starched white tablecloth and matching napkins.  A fall centerpiece.  And these three ladies were good cooks.

The menu rarely changed.  Turkey, dressing, giblet gravy, green beans, creamed corn, lima beans, sweet potato casserole, jellied cranberry sauce, relish tray, rolls, pumpkin pie, chocolate pie, sweet tea.  All homemade, from scratch, except for the bake and serve dinner rolls.  Mom, as the hostess, cooked the turkey and dressing, and all three sisters stirred and tasted and seasoned the gravy to get it just right.  Aunt Doris made pies.  Aunt Nell made the relish tray and lima beans.  The vegetables – home grown beans and corn – taste the same no matter who cooked them.  Sweet potatoes topped with melted marshmallows.

After we ate, the women gathered in the kitchen for the clean-up ritual.  Out came plastic containers to divvy up the leftovers.  Enough for each family’s meals over the weekend.  Mom’s and my aunts’ talking and laughing and sharing secrets entertained me, and I willingly dried the dishes just to be close to them.  The clean up was finished when I crawled under the table to move its legs so that both leaves could fall, and it was moved back against the wall.

When my generation married and had homes and children, Mom and my aunts passed on the honor of hosting Thanksgiving.  We’ve sat at many different tables as my family grew.  And our menu expanded.  Cousin Carolyn’s whipped potatoes and green congeal salad.  Cousin Janie’s cherry salad.  Sister-in-law Brenda’s sweet potato casserole with a crunchy topping.   My cranberry salad.

Tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day, Husband and I will sit at that same cherry dining room table at Brenda’s home.  Sit with her, my two cousins and their wives, and all our children and grandchildren who can be there.  We’ll sit in those same chairs where my grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, and my brother once sat.  In prayer, we’ll remember them—those who are no longer with us.

We’ll fill Brenda’s best china plates with the same foods that have graced that table many Thanksgivings, and we’ll probably repeat some of the same stories that have been told since I was a kid.  After we eat, we women will gather in the kitchen with take-home containers in hand.  We’ll clean up the kitchen, and then one of the children will crawl under the drop leaf table to move its legs so it can be moved against the wall.

I’m thankful that Mom and my aunts created Thanksgiving traditions.  And it makes me happy to celebrate with family around the same table where I once stood and filled my plate.  Back when I was too young to sit at the big table.

 

Filed under: Family, Food, Thanksgiving | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a comment »

It’s Fall at Farmer’s Market

Posted on October 10, 2013 by susanrray

Picture 2     Last Saturday morning, I felt like I was visiting a friend who had changed her décor.  Where ears of corn had filled the beds of pick up trucks, now there were pumpkins.  Bushel baskets that had overflowed with green beans now offer turnip greens and sweet potatoes.  During the past few weeks, Farmer’s Market has taken on a whole new look.

“No, we don’t have fresh spinach,” a seller told another shopper.  “But we’ve got plenty of turnip greens, Swiss chard, fall lettuce, and kale.”  He waved his hand over a table.  All those greens, plus turnips, and a variety of peppers.   I walked passed tables loaded with quart jars of green beans, spices, brightly colored zinnias, apples, pears, fried pies, eggs, fresh baked breads.  “If you like peach cobbler, you’ll love this peach bread,” said a lady wearing a red baker’s apron.

I spotted a pick-up truck loaded with pumpkins and squash.  “Tell me about your squash,” I said.  Twenty minutes later the vendor, Mrs. Fielder, was my friend.  She said, “Cut this spaghetti squash (yellow and small football shape) down the middle, get the seeds out, cook it in the microwave or bake it.  Then instead of those boxed noodles, pull out the middle of your squash, kinda’ in strings or strands, and pour your red sauce over it.  It’s better than any packaged noodle.”

I thought I knew the best way to cook butternut squash, seasoned with butter and brown sugar.  “Don’t you sprinkle them with cinnamon?  Oh, it’s good,” Mrs. Fielder said. “And cut up an apple and bake it with your squash.  Or add a can of mandarin oranges.  A little fruit gives butternuts a whole different flavor.”

“Have you ever eaten a raw butternut or acorn?”  Mrs. Fielder asked.  “Try eating one like you’d eat a apple.  Or make a salad – like you’d make an apple salad.”  I’ve munched on raw yellow summer and zucchini squash, but never a butternut or acorn squash. And I thought a few slices of onion were all I needed to season an acorn. Mrs. Fielder said, “Make a little stuffing – just like for Thanksgiving – and bake a ball of it in the middle of half an acorn.  It’s really good.”  And if I want an orange fall decoration, all I have to do is lay an acorn squash in the sun for a few days.  “Use it for decoration and then eat it.  Winter squash keep a long time in a dry, cool place,” my new friend said.

Picture 1 “Is that a pumpkin or squash?”  I asked, pointing to an orange and white striped vegetable that was shaped somewhat like a drinking gourd.  “A pumpkin – a Kershaw pumpkin,” Mrs. Fielder said.  “And it tastes as good as it looks.  Like a cow pumpkin.  You know, the old timey light-colored real pumpkins?”  She and I agreed that the bright orange pumpkins are pretty, but the delicious pumpkin pies that our mothers made were from cow pumpkins.

I bought so many squash that Husband and I can eat it prepared a different way every night this week.  But we won’t.  Acorn and butternut squash and that Kershaw pumpkin and a few fall colored leaves make a perfect table decoration.  I’ve made a grocery list for my next shopping trip to Farmer’s Market:  more squash, sweet potatoes, apples, pears, turnip greens, and whatever looks good.

Filed under: Food | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Peppermints and Cupcakes

Posted on July 18, 2013 by susanrray

Picture 2             “Can we play the peppermint game after lunch?”  my Grand, age 6, asks.

“Sure,” I say.  “Do you remember who taught you that game?”

“Aunt Doris,” eight-year-old David, answers quickly.  “Remember the time I found a peppermint under the couch and she didn’t even know it was there?  It was kind of hard, but I ate it anyway.”

“I wanna’ play too,” says Ruth, age.

“Play, too!”  shouts my two-year-old Grand.  It’s Thursday.  The day these four Grands are Husband’s and my lunch guests.

Aunt Doris, the Grands’ great-great aunt, always had York Peppermint Patties to share with children.  But she didn’t just give them to the children – they played Aunt Doris’s game, Hot and Cold.  A game most everyone has played.  The children hid their eyes or went into the kitchen while Aunt Doris hid peppermint candies in her living room.  “Okay, you can start hunting now,” she’d say.  And then one at a time, each child looked for a peppermint while Aunt Doris gave clues as to how close the hunter was to the hidden treat.  Cold – far away from the candy.  Warm – getting closer.  Hot – very close.

I don’t know who had more fun.  Aunt Doris, my Grands, or maybe Uncle Hugh and I as we watched.   “Hide it again,” my older Grands would say, “and this time made it really hard.”  The same candy might be hidden two or three times, and Aunt Doris refused to give any clues except cold, warm, and hot.  A simple game and a simple candy treat, that connected two generations, separated by more than 80 years.  And now I hide the peppermints.

It occurred to me that so much of what grandparents do, we do to make memories and connect our grandchildren with those we love.  One afternoon when our oldest Grand was about four, Husband came home from work with a box of fancy cupcakes.  “Aren’t the kids (meaning our daughter, son-in-law, and two Grands at the time) coming for supper?  I bought dessert.”  I wanted to know what the special occasion was, but I didn’t get an answer.

As the table was being cleared of dirty plates and meat and potatoes, Husband left the kitchen and came back carrying a picture of my dad.  “Today’s a special day.  It’s your great-grandfather’s birthday,” he told our Grands.  “He made this kitchen table.  This one where we just ate supper, and he was your Gran’s daddy.”  And with that, a tradition began.  On the birthdays of my deceased parents and Husband’s father, we eat cupcakes, look at pictures, and talk about Papa, Grannie, and Grandfather.  Our Grands will never know and love these three great-grandparents as they do Grandmother, who visits and brings macaroni and cheese and chocolate pudding, but maybe they’ll remember that Papa was a schoolteacher and a postmaster, and that Grannie sewed beautiful clothes and owned a flower shop, and that Grandfather owned a grocery store.

  It’s all about the memories and connections.  And peppermints and cupcakes.images

###

Filed under: Food, Grandchildren, Lunch | Tagged: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Grocery Shopping – It can be an Adventure

Posted on June 12, 2013 by susanrray

images

Walking shoes, with orthotic inserts, laced and tied.  Car keys, purse, reusable shopping bags, coupons – all in hand.  Grocery list made and on my clipboard.  I was ready.  Or as ready as I’d ever be for senior citizen discount shopping day at the grocery store.

Once, years ago – long before I was eligible for a senior discount – I ran into this same grocery store to quickly pick up a few items.  I couldn’t get to the milk cooler because three grocery carts blocked them, and three gray-haired shoppers held tightly to their carts as they discussed their doctor appointments.  A conversation that convinced me to never shop this store on senior shopping day.  Until last week.

I really meant to shop on Tuesday, but somehow, Tuesday dwindled away.  And although I shop at several different grocery stores, only one carries the cottage cheese that my Grands and I like.  And I really hate to drive around town shopping here and there, especially on a rainy day.  I’m a task-oriented person when it comes to shopping.  Get it done and get out.  So I gave myself a pep talk.  ‘This is an adventure.  Something you’ve never intentionally done.  And everyone should do one new thing everyday.’

I eased my mini van into the store parking lot.  A long white sedan backed toward me.  I threw the gearshift into reverse, backed up, and avoided being hit.  A gentleman waved as he pushed a loaded grocery cart just two feet in front of my van.  The parking lot was as full as the one and only time I shopped on the day before Thanksgiving.  ‘Forget the cottage cheese!’ my brain screamed.  I inhaled.  ‘But you’re here and it’s an adventure – or maybe a risk.’  I parked, grabbed my paraphernalia, pulled my rain jacket hood over my head, and sloshed to the store’s open doors.

“Well, you look ready for the day!”  A store employee greeted me as he shuffled wet shopping carts into rows.  “The buggies are wet, but there’s plenty of paper towels to dry them.”  Oh, great.

Inside the store, I looked at the customers milling around the fresh produce.  They reminded me when my parents, both retired, decided to spend January in Florida.  After two weeks, they came home to Tennessee.  “There weren’t any kids near our apartment.  I never saw one school bus or one young family.  Just people as old as me,” Mother said.

I fit right in with the people at the grocery store.  I chatted with two friends I rarely see.  I visited with a former student, who was assisting his mother with her shopping.  When I realized my grocery cart was blocking a man’s view of birthday cards, I apologized and pulled my cart toward me.  “Oh, no.  It’s okay,” he said.  “I’m just perusing.  My wife is shopping.”  I moved at the pace of fellow shoppers.  And when I saw the 10% discount on my cash register tape, I gloated.

I like discounted prices – that’s why I bought six containers of cottage cheese.  Enough to last until the next senior shopping day.

###

 

Filed under: Everyday Life, Food | Tagged: , , , | 3 Comments »

Eating High on the Hog (as my mother would’ve said)

Posted on May 29, 2013 by susanrray

images-1

Last week I ate way above my raisin’.  Squash Blossom Salad.  Shrimp and Grits.  Pulled Bourbon Chicken with Peach BBQ Sauce.  I savored every morsel.  While visiting Charleston, South Carolina, with my college girlfriends, we chose restaurants that served some mighty good food.

Those squash blossoms could’ve grown into yellow squash and then been sliced and dredged in cornmeal and fried in a black skillet.  But the chef at Carolina’s Southern Bisto stuffed the blossom with goat cheese, dipped it in a thin sweet batter and then deep-fried it.  Melt in my mouth good.  Served over blanched green beans and garnished with chunks of yellow beets and pickled ramps.  Yellow beets?  They taste just like red beets.  I wondered if those ramps were the same variety as the wild onions that grew in my childhood family’s pig lot.  “To preserve all those flavors,” the waiter said, “the chef sprinkles a light lemon vinaigrette.”  After sopping the last crumbles of goat cheese with crusty bread, I considered cancelling my entrée and ordering another salad.  It was that scrumptious.

South Carolina Shrimp and Geechie Boy Grits, Sweet Peas, Woodfired Fennel, Ramps, Poached Celeste Egg.  The description on the menu at The Husk was too enticing to pass up.  Geechie Boy Grits taste just like the Quaker grits.  And sweet peas?  Green peas.  Ramps, again?  “Just the bulb of the onion.  Quartered and sautéed to the peak of sweetness,” the waitress said.  The same with fennel.  What’s special about the poached Celeste Egg that was served floating on top of the grits?  Celeste raises chickens on her farm, just like my friend Karen who sells me her brown country eggs.  Beautiful presentation, that matched the description, and delicious.

During a cooking demonstration, a young chef prepared Pulled Bourbon Chicken with Peach BBQ Sauce, and she proved to me that chicken thighs aren’t just for frying.  But then any meat soaked in bourbon before baking is bound to be tasty.  “And then pull it apart to look like southern barbeque,” Michelle, the chef, said.  The recipe for the sauce included ketchup, apple cider vinegar, garlic, spices, and more – all the ingredients in any good barbeque sauce – with the addition of a cup of peach nectar.  “Gives it a zing!  Your family will think you’ve created a special barbeque.”

So I came home inspired to try my hand at these dishes.  If you hear of anyone whose squash blossoms mysteriously disappear this summer, I raided the garden.  The next time I make Shrimp and Grits I plan to announce, “Tonight we’re having Shrimp and Quaker Grits, Green Peas, Sautéed Onions, Poached Karen Eggs.”  And I have all the ingredients for chicken thighs and peach sauce – I even bought a bottle of Willie’s Hog Dust that is a Charleston’s man’s own creation of BBQ spice.  But, I’d never pass off chicken and peace sauce as barbeque.

All these fancy dishes have to wait.  Right now I’m craving beans and cornbread and a bowl of turnip greens.

Filed under: Food, Travel | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Sweet Strawberry

Posted on May 15, 2013 by susanrray

imagesOur mission is to pick strawberries.  Daughter wants two or three gallons.  A couple of gallons for me.  We have lots of help.  Her children, my Grands, are experienced berry pickers.  We travel across the county line into White County to our favorite strawberry patch, and we’ll know we’re there when we see the little red barn – actually a shed.

A big shaggy dog lies in front of the closed shed door, and a hand-written, cardboard sign announces, “CLOSED.”  White buckets are stacked on a table.  “Let me check this out.  Maybe we can pick anyway,” Daughter says as she steps out of the van.  Penciled directions on notebook paper reads ‘Help yourself to picking.  A bucket holds a gallon.  $9 a gallon.  Leave your money in the cookie jar.’

My two-year-old Grand sits, like an overseer, in her stroller amid the rows of strawberry plants while Daughter picks berries close to her.  Every plant boasts berries—a few are red.  Many more are small and green.  “Come this way, Gran,” 8 year-old David tells me.  “There’s a lot here!”  He swings a bucket, holding a few red berries, as he tromps past.  Fifteen minutes later, his bucket is almost full.

Lou, age six, frolics in the wide space between two rows of plants.  “There’s strawberries everywhere!” she says.  She checks out each of them, some she picks and puts in her bucket.  “Look at these beautiful flowers.  Are they weeds?”  She breaks a stem with miniature daisy-like blossoms.  Four-year old Ruth stays close to her mother and chooses the reddest berries to fill her bucket.  When her little sister squirms, Ruth rushes to her.  “Here, Elaine, do you want a strawberry?”  Ruth blows on the berry before giving it to her sister.  Elaine’s first bite sends red juice down both her arms.  Using a stick, Ruth draws lines and circles in the damp dirt beside her little sister’s stroller.

With one bucket full of berries and another half full, I call for David, who’s starring at a large strawberry he’s clutching, to help me.  “Not right now.  I’m waiting for him to take a bite,” he says.  A bite?  Who?  “There’s a tiny little ant on this berry.  Do ants eat strawberries?”  Ruth left her post beside her little sister.  “Look, Gran,” she calls to me.  “I found three.”  Assuming that she’s holding three strawberries, I hold my bucket toward her.  “Three ladybugs!” she announces and cradles them in her cupped hands.  A bucket of berries is spilled and picked up.  A few soft, mushy ones are thrown.  Shoes stick in the mud.

Daughter gathers all the troops and suggests if everyone finds just ten more bright red berries, we’ll be finished.  So in less than an hour, after putting money in the cookie jar, we leave the strawberry patch with five gallons of berries.

Mission accomplished.  And so much more.  Experiences and lessons.  About trust and honesty and sharing and working together.  Some weeds have pretty flowers.  Ants eat almost everything.  Ladybugs hide under leaves.  All that makes the strawberries on my Cheerios taste even sweeter.

###

Filed under: Food, Grandchildren | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

« Previous Page — Next Page »