racheld

Rainbows! Flaky pastry! Orlando Bloom!!

We use chopsticks for all varieties of Asian food, in restaurants or at home, as well as for a lot of cooking, stirring, etc., at the stove. Though I might stir up eggs for scrambling with a fork, when it's time to add the eggs to Egg Drop Soup or Hot and Sour Soup, I always grab a chopstick for beating. I like teaspoons for soup and ice cream; most cream desserts we eat with a little set of round-tipped silver spoons with a "TWA" monogram. Chris likes a tablespoon for soup. And from the section of the silverware drawer which holds all the small tableware items for our two Granddaughters' visits, I sometimes eat my morning yogurt with one of the small-bowled spoons with the longish thin handle...just feels like a link to them so far away. And I put out cocktail forks for fruit salad---reminds me of the lovely service at the tearoom-type place where we had lunch when we went to the neighboring town to shop during my childhood. A slice of banana just feels so ELEGANT, somehow, off a teensy fork.

Surely I can't be the only one who'd risk it... ← Well, there WERE three houseguests the time we deep-fried the honey-injected Turkey.

Shoo-fly is not a staple in my part of the South, though I learned the song in first grade. Forgot about it over the years. And there's black bottom, which I didn't mention before. It just didn't seem LADYLIKE, somehow. Possum cake? Haven't even HEARD of that one, though there was that hideous red-velvet armadillo in that movie...

This is just BEGGING to be a sig line!!! Please elaborate on the menu---how long DOES one nuke a goose?

I posed the question at the breakfast table, over lovely warm croissants and pineapple Danish freshmade by DD at her bakery just a couple of hours before. We all agreed: CAKE We discussed fillings and icings, frostings and dustings, mentioning that you can put lemon icebox pie filling as a between-the-layers goodie in a cake, but it's just THERE in a pie. Cheesecake is cake. Mousse cake is cake, as are moltens and bundts and pounds and stacks and cups and bars. And we'd all be much the poorer without Birthday Cake. Few pies have interesting names; with the two notable exceptions of Chess and French Silk, they're boringly named. They're mostly apple or pumpkin or cherry or chocolate (wouldn't THAT one be great as a cake filling---yum, chocolate pudding in between!), but cakes have WONDERFUL names---Hummingbird and Red Velvet and Better Than...as well as Caramelllll (Arrange your lips around that several times--just the word is delicious) and Orange Velvet and Carrot with Creamcheese and Pecan Frosting and Strawberry Mousse and Tunnel Of Fudge and Devil's Food and (equal billing) Angel Food. I just named a few of the thousands of stacked-high, rich-flavored, melt-on-the tongue, layered, rolled, barred, tiered, velvet-crumbed, vanilla-scented, chocolate musked, sweetly-waiting bits of the baker's REAL art. Pie: Roll out crust, pour in fruit, bake. Roll out crust, pour in custard, bake or not. Cake: Chemistry, flavor, MAGIC. Especially the slice of Lemon-Apricot we shared at The Red Squirrel in Cincinnati last weekend. Heaven. We vote cake.

It's almost noon here, so I suppose your day is winding down---hope you're all dressed up and OUT for a lovely dinner. I loved the pics of all the comings and goings, from your breakfast before work to your break in the garden, to all the crowds and festivities (bright, cheery orange everywhere!!--reminds me of my first kitchen. They asked what color; I said bright and cheerful, and it was ORANGE everywhere except the appliances and cabinets--think Brady Bunch). The strolling customers, the foodstalls (I'd choose that devil-may-care anvil waffle any day, much more interesting than those regimented perfectly-square ranks) and your stock of wares. I checked out all the titles, and have only one of the ones you were offering for sale---the Parker (Sunny & Spenser Jesse Stone ) What a fun day!! And I LOVE the fifth-story "elevator" contraption. I always picture that with a piano somehow, creaking its weighty way up to a loft). Looking forward to tomorrow's dinner party.

The spoon thing makes removal of that luscious soft greenness from the shell much easier. But the neatest way to remove the pit is to hold the half with the pit flat in one hand and give a careful little swing of your sharp knife down upon it, embedding the edge of the blade (NOT NOT NOT the point) into the pit with a little "smick." A gentle twist, a knock of the knife handle on the edge of the garbage can, and the pit is gone. (Forktines in palm---NOOOOOOOO) And Welcome, Mike. We've all lifted a potlid and been shocked by the contents' condition...perfectly innocent ingredients just mutiny sometimes, and who knows what they get up to in there in the dark. Your Mom's wit and wisdom is priceless---what a life lesson, as well as a kitchen mantra.

Now, see, I find this salad pretty and infinitely DIVE-able. You even put the anchovies all over to one side so I wouldn't have to touch 'em. And Kris, though I hold you and your cooking in high esteem, I'd have to wear my Wellies to even WADE in that one.

Poundings. Has that been mentioned yet? The tradition may have died out save in very small, secluded enclaves of the Hardest of Shell Baptists and a few Pentecostal congregations, but Pounding the Preacher was a very popular gathering until a few years ago. Packages of fresh-dressed game of all sorts, pork fresh from the hog-killin', buckets and tubs of home-grown tomatoes and potatoes and turnips, great croaker sacks of roasin' ears and flower-embossed slabs of just-churned butter to anoint them, bags and boxes and burlaps and pokes of everything from chitlings to pie. And due to quite a few kitchen-proud local cooks with their own famous recipes, the preacher's family might be eating pound CAKE for weeks thereafter. No self-respecting pastor was expected to do all the preaching, choir directing, visiting, comforting and soul-saving required without ample sustenance to start out with, and the new family in the parsonage walked in to stocked cupboards, pantry and refrigerator, as well as a well-stacked woodpile, brimming coalbin or topped-off butane tank. Newly-married couples were frightened out of their slumbers by honking horns, banging of pans, and raucous shouts from friends and neighbors bearing great stores of foodstuffs, household goods and tools to stock the workshed. I've attended quite a few of these little rural festivals, and the outpourings of generosity ranged from gallons of homemade pickles to a puppy for the kids.

It's good to see my little mint ears sprouting all under the big tree, though it will be such an overgrown tangle by August, I'll think it will creep in and strangle us in our beds. Juleps (now where DID I store those nice metal cups?) and tea and tabbouleh and Miz Paula's Watermelon salad---yum.

Why, you're welcome, Hon!! And welcome to eG---you sure posted in the right place first.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! Everyone is requesting lovely pictures and trips and markets and sites they'd like to see, and I have one request: I saw your journal (?) lying on the balcony table, and hope you will post a pic of your handwriting---a grocery list, a recipe, anything. We all so enjoyed Bleudavergne's minute-by-minute "to-do" list in her lovely script, and I'd love to see your own. My dear neighbor is a German lady who will be eighty in June. She is just a dear, and I get a lift of the heart whenever I see her lovely European writing on a note or card in the mailbox. I hope this is the happiest birthday you've ever had.

Oh, Big H!! If Alton B. had been blessed to have been born in the South, this is the show he'd be hosting!!! He couldn't have said it better. Or plainer. Or more interestingly.

Southern Born and Southern Raised---never had the taste for any kind of liquor, shine included, but my husband's dowry included the contents of a quite elegant bar, not the least of which were several TWO-liter soft-drink bottles of the good ole homemade stuff, gifts from friends along the Alabama backroads. Once when my SIL was visiting, a great group of us broke out the shine for all to have a taste. SIL drank most of her first glass, cut about half-and-half with Diet Sprite by one of the ever-willing volunteer bartenders in the group. She went back to the bar during the evening, replenished her drink on her own, then got up and "lightened" it a bit from time to time. UNTIL she was weaving in her chair, having poured shine from one bottle over her ice, then "cutting" the strength with a pour from a Sprite bottle containing even more of the hard stuff. Glad we noticed her condition before she Sprited herself unconscious.

Oh, Klary, you have RATS!!! My very favorite pets of all time. We had a small apartment when we first moved here, and Chris knew I missed all our Down-South menagerie. We were strolling Wal-Mart one day, went our separate ways, and he reappeared with a little Animal-Crackers box containing a little white girl rat. She was a little delight, named Penelope, but christened (the operative word) "PeePee" by DD#2 on whom she tinkled the first time she picked her up. We had a succession of seven PeePees over the years, getting a wee one when the elder seemed to be getting on in days. After we took in two unwanted, mistreated ferrets, the last PeePee was distressed anywhere in the house, so after she passed on, we haven't had another little girl rat, but you've inspired me to go get another one soon. PS I just noticed their names---what is it about their diminutive cuteness that inspires double naming?

What a lovely surprise!!! I've been out of the loop for several days, and what an unexpected delight to return to your BIRTHDAY blog!!! We have a lot to look forward to this week. And I LOVE that you started out with a trip to a market that has GREENS!!! Turniptops where I come from are just referred to as "greens" and the bunches you just picked or bought or are cooking are called a "mess." As in, "I just cooked a nice mess of greens---come have supper with us." Thanks for the week-long invitation!

I never self-quoted before, but I must draw attention to the Dinner Thread. The sweet thing has just made up some of the purtiest Cheese Biscuits this side of a Baptist All-Day Singin'--and about enough of them to serve a good sized choir and several Deacons. She's getting Southerner and Southerner by the day.

And all filed out, singing and blessed, for a big ole Sunday Dinner on the Ground.

This is PRICELESS!! What have we been missing? Where IS your GALLERY?? We all need to have that last line inscribed on a kitchen plaque. And sazji, the chard/lentil soup: Does the word horta come to mind?

Gorgeous food, splendiferous desserts!!! Just smear a little lipstick on it---Fresser will take it.

This says SO MUCH. And would fit so many occasions. Especially here. I know a sig line when I see one.

Welcome, Sisters!!! Pick up that black skillet and join right in. You're like my old friend whose needlepoint sampler reads: "I wasn't born in the South, but I got here as soon as I could." And Klary, our Amsterdam member of the perfect fried chicken above, has just posted her first shrimp etouffee on the Dinner thread---it looks so good, I offered to FedEx her a bag of grits for next time.

Dayum, FF!! I was just about to sign off, and then THIS!!! Droolings and coveting. I WILL not go to FF's webpage til I have finished the laundry...I will not go to....

Haven't seen the show. Haven't even finished the thread. Just have to give a shout-out to this perfect visual...this will be the watchword for all unwatchable TV forever.