A trip through the past

A housefull of home folks, Sunday dinner.

Had a wonderful, wonderful trip back home over the weekend, and a couple of fine meals, as well.

The above would be a view which covers maybe half the people who were eating dinner following the Homecoming service at Liberty United Methodist Church in Camden, TN, on Sunday.  The fellowship hall, maybe a 40 x 80 room, did not have an empty seat; some folks scattered out to the Sunday School classrooms.

Back in the center back of this photo, you can see two of my kids’ heads. But you can see us all better in this one, taken after dinner.

From left, Child C, AGC2, Self, AGC3, AGC1, Child B, Child A. A fine-looking crew, if I do say so myownself.

Amazing Grandchild 3, who was somewhat underwhelmed with the whole thing, was snoozin’. AGC 1 was her general whirlwind self, and managed at one time to color on a pew and the sanctuary door with a marker before we snagged her. AGC 2 ate. A lot. And smiled. A lot.

And I had a marvelous time, and got to see a lot of old friends and kinfolk.

The food was as plentiful as I remember. There’s a counter separating the kitchen from the seating area, about four feet wide, and every square inch of it was packed with food. Fried chicken. Baked ham. Meat loaf. Barbecue. Casseroles of every description. Green beans. Creamed corn. Sweet potatoes. Potato salad. Cole slaw. Salads, both fruit and green. Cornbread. Rolls. Biscuits. I touch only a tiny portion of the abundance that was there.

Desserts and drinks took up four 10-foot folding tables of their own, elsewhere around the room.

It certainly did not matter to be the last in line. They were NOT going to run out of food. Except for deviled eggs. I hated that. Guess I’ll have to make me some this afternoon, being I have a gracious plenty of eggs. Oh, and they ran out of the cherry cream cheese pie, which was always one of my favorites (cream cheese, condensed milk, cherry pie filling, among other things), so I contented myself with two kinds of fruit salad.

Cooking for the home folks

Dinner here. Sunday. Y’all come.

You may have perhaps noticed a dearth of posts of late. I’ve been in a blue funk all week, in large part due to a tragedy suffered by a dear friend, who lost her 20-month-old granddaughter in a house fire on Saturday. After a funeral yesterday, there’s a sad road trip today to Central Pennsylvania to lay the little angel to rest in the family plot where her ancestors can watch over her.

Which put me in mind of my own upcoming road trip to visit the family church, and the graves of my parents, this weekend. It’s Memorial Day.

Not Memorial Day the holiday created to honor the war dead across the centuries; Memorial Day to honor the ancestors who built the church in which I grew up, which is always the third Sunday in May, which was noteworthy when I was a kid because there was no Sunday School so I got to sleep late, and there was Dinner on the Ground.

(N.B. I’ve never been sure if it’s “dinner on the ground,” or “dinner on the grounds,” as in, the property. If anyone knows, please enlighten me.)

Cooking for the kids

I’m  back in Nashvegas, having responded to an SOS from Child B upon learning that her husband was afflicted with strep. And since I have a couple of appointments up this way next week, and since I have some favorite Civil War sites I haven’t visited in a few years, Lucy and I are hanging here until then.

I’ve been cooking, but — no photos. Because, well, I haven’t taken any. Not sure why. It just hasn’t been on my priority list. But we’ve had some fine meals.

I got here Friday, after a six-hour drive and a stop off in Marion to see Child A. Also had previously made a stop at one of the culinary treasures of Eastern Arkansas, the Big Bayou Market in Bald Knob. (Yes, that’s the name of the town. Shut up.)

Dinners, past and future

Participated in a lovely dinner party last night (no pix, but there was much food, drink, laughing, talking and general good-times-had-by-all).

When I had posted recently about my carbonnades a la flamande, two of my local friends picked up on the post and expressed near-lustful thoughts about the same. From that grew a plan; I would repeat that dish, convey it to one friend’s house, she would make sides, others would bring adult beverages, and we would be off to the races.

Birthday sweets

 

Child C, showing off GF birthday cake and Amazing Grandchild 3.

Child B, mother of the adorable toddler and brand new baby boy, had a birthday Jan. 2. (She was my tax deduction who didn’t arrive as scheduled on Dec. 28; in a full turn of irony, her new one was due Jan 1 but came in a C-section on Dec. 28, so she got the tax deduction I did not.) As I was up there grandmothering, it naturally fell to me to cook her favorite things for a birthday meal.

Those being red beans and rice, and coconut macaroons. The “generally vegan and healthy” rule around the house was suspended temporarily, as the beans had a pound of andouille sausage, 12 ounces of ham and about 12 ounces of chicken in ‘em. (The chicken was leftover chicken tenders wrapped in bacon.) Now personally, I see nothing especially unhealthy about this, barring what is probably a bordering-on-dangerous amount of salt and nitrites. Particularly when it’s paired with beans and tomatos, both healthy on their face, and brown rice, just full of good nutrients. I’d planned on coconut macaroons instead of birthday cake, as she is my gluten free kid and loves her a coconut macaroon better than almost anything.

Twice lucky; a good start to 2013

Which, of course, I am beginning in the same fashion as I ended 2012; juggling, procrastinating, doing what has to be done first, and devil take the hindmost.

With some carrots and hummus, it made a fine, if non-traditional, New Year’s meal!

This was the meal with which I opened 2013. I am writing about it five days later, because, well, because I’ve been involved in more important things. Like holding babies. And driving home. And retrieving Lucy. And sleeping in my very own bed. And now I am contemplating this disaster area which purports to be a house, and thinking about the week I have upcoming, and wondering when I may ever find time to get done all I have left undone.

Yep, not much different about this year than last.

Notes from the lost days, Part 4

Blogger’s note: this is the last of the “lost days” posts. It dates from sometime in early October, after I had bought sorghum at the Farmers Market. Hopefully, camera, laptop and WordPress will all align and I can detail my upcoming visit to the Big Easy for some spectacular food.

There are these things that take you back to childhood.

I grew up in Benton County, Tennessee. Which is not close to much of nothing, but is mostly north of I-40 right before you cross the Tennessee River headed east. Which is to say it’s one of those undecided countines, torn betwixt the hills and the delta,, and not real sure what it wants to be when it grows up.

When I was a kid, it grew cotton. I used to get out of school every year in late September, early October for cotton-picking. And one year I actually picked cotton. Picked all day, bored to tears, fingers burning, picked 35 pounds, made $1.65, determined that manual labor was not my forte, and gave that stuff up. Determined right then I’d make my living with my brain, not my brawn.

Back from, well, here

Hellooooo, troops! Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea, ‘n all that.

You may (or may not) have noticed I have not been in evidence here at Chez Keyboard for the last couple of weeks. Quite frankly, I have had better things to do, namely standing by and being grandmotherly while Child C birthed Amazing Grandchild No. 2, and then thoroughly enjoying grandparenthood when Child B and Amazing Grandchild No. 1 were here all this week.

Children B and C, AGC 1 and 2. Beats cooking any day.

I cooked. I guess. I was concentrating on other things. Like how to take care of a boychild after he’s been circumcised. (I had girls; I never had to do these things.) Like remembering how one deals with colicky babies. (He was an easy keeper for a while, and then he got over it. Dammit.)

Weather, keeping cool, working late

All the above add up to not much cooking going on at Chez Brockwell. Plus, shee-it, folks, it’s freakin’ HOT!

It is, allegedly, ONLY 93 degrees outside right now, a couple of minutes short of noon. That would be in the wake of five or six straight days of triple digits, up to and including 109 on Friday. Combine that with 16 feet x 72 inches of south-facing windows in my den and dining area, and an a/c that runs constantly and can’t get the living room/den area down below 78 degrees, and you see my problem.

Hello? Anyone there?

 

This would be me, but I’m not blonde.

Well.

You might well note that, from the absence of posts and the allusions to assorted activities, it’s been an eventful, and busy, month.

Child C and Future Son-In-Law have moved in. NS has been moved out; he has some issues which require a different sort of living environment, one where he can get the help he needs. (As an aside, to any of you who cope with mental illness in a friend or family member, I understand your plight much more than I once did.) Work has showered me with projects and assignments on which I am so behind I do not see much hope of ever catching up, or at least not before mid-2013.