racheld
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Posts posted by racheld
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Spluck - Any food of mucky thick consistency which, when thrown against the wall, would make a similar sound. Tapioca pudding might be the ultimate spluck.
No, Dear. It's a BIIIIG spatula fulla pate'----Trust me.
PS Framboids: those little bumps on a raspberry.
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Miss Shirley got the secret to good biscuits from a Grandmother, I think. She was told that the liquid should be increased from the usual measure, to make a "wet mess" of the dough. I can see her floury hands now, pinching off pieces of that gooey dough, rolling them into roundness, and settling them close in a baking pan, so their proximity would make them rise up "good and high" instead of spreading across the bottom of the pan like cake batter.
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The first “meal” I made was a breakfast in bed for my parents when I was three. I got 2 plates and covered them with Triskets, and then as carefully as my little chubby fingers could, placed one Lifesaver on each. This was paired with a tall cold glass of milk. I think that the green flavor worked especially well.
Now, that's the sweetest breakfast in bed I ever heard of. And the Dan-deel-yun in the jelly glass was the perfect touch.
How many packages of Lifesavers did you have to open, and who ate them all?
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I just heard a whisper from the past. My Great Aunt Lorayne (born Willa Lorene with the twentieth century, but changed to Lorayne-with-a-Y at sometime in her madcap youth) married and buried three husbands, and after the last, was alone in her little house except for family and guests in and out. She may have BEEN a feminist of the first order---she certainly had a reputation in early days for being outside the box in lots of areas.
She said to me during her final widowhood: "I still cook for occasions." This just after a holiday, can't remember which. She had got out the good china and cooked the traditional recipes, perhaps enjoying them alone with a copy of Whitman or Proust or Susann---big fan of them all--- or perhaps sharing with any number of nieces, nephews, friends or all our families.
She also dressed for every day as if she were going to a party or to church, nice dress and jewelry, stockings rolled just below the knee, pretty little shoes that seemed much too nice to cook in. I hoped to sorta BE her when I grew up, with all the spirit and enthusiasm for occasions, and for making daily life an occasion, as well.
And I think I have. We cook and laugh and sit down to tables laden for a crowd, or set the same dishes before just the two or three of us, with just the same ingredients and care-taking in the making. I haven't cooked in several months like I used to, and wondered for a while if I had reached my own slowdown-leading-to-a-shutdown, and even with a three-week houseguest, I haven't been in the kitchen as much as accustomed. But I still set out pretty dishes, move the cameras and papers and other accumulation completely off the table to accommodate the flowers, the salt-dips, the goblets. It BRIGHTS me to set down something in a pretty way, as well as to make it delicious and nourishing.
With the holidays, I feel the fire of anticipation, the cool, crisp air kindling the braise-something or simmer-soup-all-day feelings, with the closing-in and the laying-by a primal need to share warmth and food. I think that's a feeling as old as the first fire-and-a-stick kitchen, and as common as breath.
I think I do it for ME, mostly, for how I feel about the process and the nurturing and just the fact of chopping and sauteing and lifting a lid on a wonderful dish. To set it before someone I love---that's frosting on the cake. (Preferably chocolate).
PS---dividend---who washed the dishes?
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I hope your machine is up and running soon, cause I LOVE this!!! (Our catastrophe of the week when I blogged last Thanksgiving was that Chris had a three-day hospitalization with a kidney stone. I wanted to be there all the time, but felt I had to be HERE some of the time---he's his usual cheerful self now).
I'd always wanted (and asked for) someone to show some big-city grocery stores. I have only movies and TV for my reference of your area, but it seems that the streets are too full of storefronts to accommodate one of the free-standing stadium-size markets like we have here. I just have visions of all of you shopping like movie people, every day after work, with a tiny basket over your arm as you buy a chicken, three potatoes, one roll of toilet paper, and a bunch of carrots (tops included to hang over the top of the bag as you fumble for your keys to get in the door to answer the phone). I lead a sheltered life.
I love your cats---those sparkly green eyes. And our new GrandDaughter was almost named Brooklyn
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I LOVE this!!! Only in the South could you go to Droopy's for a Snowball!
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I'm very ecumenical with my sports support---GO, RAZORBACKS!!! My best friend lives in Arkadelphia, so I'll gladly cheer for them.
I did have an encounter with a REAL one of those in my youth, which looked MUCH smaller dead than alive---he was all snort and tusks and fury, kickin' up clods and running through the brake, and the hunters all scattered and ran before they shot. I was in the relative safety of the back of the step-sider, but it was still a scary moment, as one guy got his rifle caught in the brush and fell down, but piggy was headed for the one who was still running.
A friend's Mom cooked a roast and invited me over, and it was porky, as I remember.
Now, THAT would make a REAL country ham.
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well thank you & my apologies on the mis-understanding (I thought you were talking to Mayhaw).
Dear Lord, I reckon I was!!! I got the two of you all besmuddled (again) and HE must think I'm too senile to breathe---I wrote HIM a "bye--thanks" note when Varmint stepped down last month. Y'all are gonna think I'm too addled to live.
I just get all three of you Southern Gentlemen mixed up in what's left of my feeble mind. You all write well and cook great, and I admire botha those. (I plead house guests for two weeks, one more to go---lotsa talking ALL the time).
OKAY:
Thank you, Varmint, for all your work and kindness toward all of us here at eGullet. Our heartfelt appreciation.
Thank you, Mayhaw Man, for all your brave, courageous reportage on New Orleans for the last couple of years. You're all our Heroes.
Thank you, Lan4Dawg, for stepping to my aid during the big "Eggs in Giblet Gravy" debate WAY back. I was catching Blue Heck from some of the EWWWWW Contingent. You all but requested sabers at sunrise, and I appreciate it.
Now---Go, DAWGS!!
How's that?
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I assume you mean REBELS. We here in Georgia are the DAWGS (& that other team fr/ Miss like to pretend).
NO. I meant YOUR DAWGS, as in wishing you well, and them a victory over whoever they're playing. I didn't care enough about the outcome of the games when I went to school there, and haven't given them much thought since, unless Daddy was here, eagerly searching every cable channel for a Rebel game on the weekend.
He's probably had several discussions with Coach Vaught and Bear Bryant since he passed on, as they were two idols of his.
And that dressed-up hussy might have been ME, since that was my usual attire when attending games, but I don't like beer, so I wasn't strolling drinking any. Or smoking. My Mama WOULDA snatched me bald-headed if she'd caught me with a Kent on a sidewalk. (Our little smoke-breaks together way back when, while we hid from Daddy, are another topic).
Back on topic---I've catered many a Delta game party and Bowl celebration, with big trays of good ole cathead biscuits and country ham on the buffet.
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Maybe, but probably not. I tried one once, and though I knew it came out of an assembly line of ground-up, molded-to-shape meat formed to look like four slats of a fence, I just could not get past the shape of the thing.
Besides, it was recommended by Chris' brother, who WILL NOT, CANNOT eat onions. Every meal they ever had in our house, he stressed that he could not eat anything with onions in it. He'd examine every dish before taking a serving, then he'd pick through every bite on his plate to make sure. And at Thanksgiving every year, I'd make him a separate little pan of cornbread dressing, sans onion.
Then, he just kept saying how he liked those McRibs, and how he couldn't wait til lunchtime. I think he had one every day for weeks and described them in such ecstatic terms, I ordered one. And bit straight into several bits of raw onion---fresh, not those little re-hydrated crumbs they put on burgers. Never made any special dishes for him again.
So, enjoy something you like---different tastes make the world go round.
rachel,
whose recipe for chicken salad contains powdered sugar (it's a Southern thing)
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Our one newspaper had an absolutely abysmal "critic" for several years. I'm fond of reviews and critics and all that, and was delighted just to live in a town WITH a newspaper, but he just WASN'T making it fun.
So I called the editor. I told him how disappointing it was, week after week, to turn to such drivel.
Holding my lower jaw WAY forward like that awful deb in Auntie Mame, I said something like, "It DOES appear that a publication with your credentials could afford a restaurant reviewer who has SOME appreciation of ambience or sauces or wine.
'My wife had the fish. I had the steak. She liked hers. I didn't like mine. We spent eighty dollars' is NOT an acceptable review, and I'm surprised that with his recognition factor, restaurants don't turn him out or poison him when he appears. You can do better, though I don't think HE can."
Somehow, we had a new reviewer within a couple of weeks, a sharp young woman who writes well and knows her business.
I will not run, nor will I serve if elected. But thank you for the great honor.
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on a weekend when the Rebels are off losing a game somewhere else.
Were I any kind of sports fan, or even a good daughter, I would remember that my Daddy would be spinning, spinning if I said I didn't care that you said that.
Rebel games were for wearing my newest, tightest sweater and combing my waist-length hair to best effect for that Saturday-afternoon sunshine (and maybe a handy camera, if the game were televised). I DID go out with a couple of the guys on the team, but I discovered long before most that Jocks as a rule are usually not very interesting off the field---there may be a Mensa member or two somewhere on SOME eleven, but some are downright stupid without a playbook and a coach yelling directions.
So---from a far remove from both you and Ole Miss---I hope your DAWGS did good.
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You FOUND it!!! I almost went wading through all my Fishers, because it sounded JUST LIKE HER. I knew better than to try right now, because I flip through, find a favorite section, and just dive in, to emerge hours later, dishes undone, and some faint recollection that dinner needs starting.
This is SO cool---I HAD that particular book, the TLFOW one, but sent it to Daniel with several Southern-style cookbooks in a flurry of housecleaning sometime last year. I just love it when a memory triggers a nice remembrance for someone else as well.
It's almost as good as sitting down to tea together.
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What? No Puff Pastry? No Shalimar??
I'd play, but my years of lists are in journal-type books---parties, for whom, menu, date, time, etc.
Next list in line is groceries, jotted dish-by-dish from menu page, then all items shrunk to ONE of each, since if I'm making chicken salad, I list chicken, eggs, celery, etc., then for devilled eggs I list eggs, mayo, etc. It's all transcribed into WORD for printing and taking to store. (For some strange reason, STENCIL font appeals to me---big so I don't need my glasses).
Then, dishes, platters, bowls, silver---with what goes on each.
Next list is of chores to do day-by-day Thurs., Fri., Sat---usually day of party.
Last list is of actual dishes I need to pick up---if it's a delivery only, I leave everything and pick up my dishes day after.
I love looking back at five or ten years ago, remembering the day we did Miss Caroline's luncheon on the porch at the bird sanctuary, or the Rehearsal Dinner at the boat dock, where we served on the patio, in the party room, and on several conveniently-moored-but-rocking boats of all sizes.
I'll sometimes be reminded of a dish I haven't made in a great while, and we'll have an incongruous plate of jalapeno rolls and salmon rosettes for dinner.
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Awwww, you remembered!!! I have two more little girls now to have Fairy Tea with, and a tiny boy who will surely enjoy it, as well.
And Cambric---oh, yes. That's the sip of the day at a lot of tables.
And chocolate sandwiches---I've asked this before, but I'd like to remember where I saw it. A child remembered that a sedate, demure teacher brought a baguette to school every day, split and filled with bits of chocolate, and wrapped in waxed paper. She would sit on it all morning, and by lunchtime, her ladylike behind had heated and smushed that sandwich into a warm, chocolatey delight, the envy of all the children with bread-and-butter lunches. Anybody remember who wrote that, or what story I'm remembering?
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OHHHHH, Y'ALLLLL!!!!
May I offer a beverage?
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If Yankee Candle made a bacon candle, we would have one in every room.
Somebody will klep this for a sig line before the day's out!!!And maybe YC will take heed---we'll have something for winter candlelight besides potpourri.
I think there are maybe five cans of Vy-eenies in the pantry right now---Chris likes a sandwich now and then.
Chicken lips! Yum.
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And I. I can smell the deep burgundy smoke from here.
Oh, Dear Heavens. I just looked at this---you've been blogging a day, and now two crazy women groupies, cadging a cigar. What next?
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Despite its being my one of my favorite cities on Earth, I think this is my first London DIVE!!!!
God bless gracious, potluck-sharing hosts.
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I was so enchanted that I went Googling, and this introduction is worth reading:
http://www.asianpacificfund.org/awards/bio_chiang.shtml
And now that lovely chicken casserole in the oven has NO appeal at all---wish I lived in San Francisco (wistful pink heart, fraught with longing).
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A long visit from my own Dear Mother-in-Love, so all my attention is captured for a while. Just a skim of the above so far, but just your name and the picture will hold me til I can drink in every word.
I'm so glad to see this---just lovely to anticipate on a rainy day.
rachel
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Happy anticipation from the Heartland---Gatwick and London and markets, oh, my!!
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fairy bread spread?
I know I'll need to explain this childhood treat. Basically, it is white bread spread with butter and then "hundreds and thousands" spread on top of that. You make a sandwich, cut it into triangles and have Fairy Bread. It is a staple at children's birthday parties, but I have noted that you can buy margarine with the hundreds and thousands in it.
I just re-read a dear old familiar Agatha Christie story in which the murder weapon was hundreds and thousands---I've always thought of them as "pink-fetti." Chris fondly remembers butter-and-sugar sandwiches from childhood, and the thought of that sandy crunch makes me cringe.
Already cubed cheese, several flavors, mounded on a plate and stuck full of toothpicks.
But I think Fairy Bread would be right at home at our house.
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For all the years I've been a member here, far too many of my posts have included "In my Southern childhood. . ." I have thoroughly enjoyed and felt every moment of these remembrances and reminiscences.
The tellings and sharings of those times and learnings and formings are priceless. Precious and priceless.
rachel
Repeat Broadcasts on Food Network
in Food Media & Arts
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And what's meringue if you leave out the eggs altogether?