racheld

What a great thread!!!! And Ivan, I wish I could tell you about the time my hubby broke the 7 gal carboy of just-begun homemade champagne against the toilet, and the bathroom was invaded by ants. Sticky, indeed. rachel ps. maybe somewhere in an obscure oenological reference, there's a bit on "Wine to Wear."

Thank you all SO much for your interest and your kind advice. I'm gonna keep trying. And Charles, I feel the same way about beer, just cannot swallow it without a grimace. But I LOVE your Mom's advice. rachel

You KEEP a staff which lets your hard work and beautiful creations fall over or break on the way to table? They need to be in a greasy spoon ferrying plates of potatoes and gravy--at least the thumb marks will fill in as soon as they set the plate down. What do your customers/dining clientele say?

Is there hope for me? I read the articles, I hear the words, I see the colors, inhale the aroma, CRAVE to enjoy the flavor and nuance and experience of wine. We buy a nice bottle, have all the proper expectations, open and pour and then I have to squinch up my face and gingerly take a wee sip, because the taste of ANY kind is just unpleasant. My husband is not a wine-drinker either, but he can at least finish his glass at a dinner party. Mine just sits there, mocking, as our hosts discuss the interesting points which I will NEVER understand, but really, really want to. I am not a just-turned-legal-age novice who is just starting out---this has been going on for YEARS. I just cannot swallow the stuff--there's a bottle of Tawny Port in our cabinet that I've managed to sip maybe six glasses of over the past year, but it's sweet as Koolaid. I want this so much---the mouthfeel and the scent and the fruitiness and woodsiness which I read about. This industry has survived for millenia, with great hordes joining in to shout its praises, buy its wares, enjoy its ecstasies. Am I just cursed with a stubborn palate, and is there any hope of redemption? rachel

Our wedding was twenty years ago, WAY down South, on my parents' lawn, with food done by the dear people who had assisted me in catering weddings for many years. We served beverages on the new deck where we had just repeated our vows; a big punchbowl of 40-weight Iced tea, one with fruit punch, and one of an odd concoction of champagne and CranApple, a favorite of my Mom's. The good Baptist ladies virtuously shunned the bottles of chilled bubbly being poured, averting their eyes as they headed for that GOOOOOOOOD red punch. A dear friend had asked me many years before to "do" her a little wedding, as they had absolutely no funds to have any sort of reception. We had scouted her up a nice white prom dress, I made a small tiered cake and a lovely tea-party table; I had dozens of silk corsages from all my years as a caterer, so we passed them out abundantly to Moms and Grandmothers and Aunts. Another friend did the photography, just for the price of the film. We had a wonderful small lawn ceremony, just at sunset, also on my parents' lawn, and the bride just kept saying she'd never forget me for doing such a lovely day for them. SOOOO. I asked her to coordinate the reception for our wedding, and she did an outstanding job. I was doing the food myself, and I had intended only that she see that things got put out on the tables in a timely fashion, platters filled, etc., but lots of the ladies from our little church insisted on pitching in and helping her, and we had ONE wonderful reception spread. Some made huge bacon-crusty pans of baked beans, another made fifty pounds of the BEST potato salad; there were Summer salads and pasta salads; bowls and platters of fruit and dips and spreads. My Dad did his famous bbq, eight-hour-pitted pork shoulders which just collapsed from the bone into melting, tender smokiness. The young woman who had always provided my fresh vegetables picked her smallest, tenderest crops two days before: we did platters of steamed baby squash and zucchini and potatoes and turnips, with a warm sour cream/butter/ sea salt dip. The tiniest green beans tossed with red onion, yellow peppers and cherry tomato slices in a cool sesame vinaigrette; crudite of the smallest and tenderest radishes and snow peas and sugar snaps and broccoli and carrots. Platters of devilled eggs, garnished with olives or capers or caviar; Lo Mein salad with black sesame seeds and cucumber; a tea table of tiny sandwiches, chou puffs with chicken salad, inch-biscuits with ham, cornbread mini-muffins with smoked turkey and cranberry mayo. Another friend to whom I had referred all my birthday cake clients for several years insisted on making our wedding cake, and I just let her do her own thing. It was a luscious white cake with white frosting; it was buttery and sweet and perfumed with wonderful vanilla. It tasted like the very best cake on the very best Birthday you ever had, the day no one gave you clothes or practical stuff, but toys and books and games, and ribbons for your ponytail. We had NONE to save for our anniversary; it was eaten down to the last crumb, with Homemade ice cream. Even though there was pie. THERE WAS PIE. Those ladies set up a pie buffet to confound and delight Miss Marthy herself. The meringue alone could have floated off with all the balloons around the lawn. There were coconut pies, lemon icebox pies, chocolate and chess and banana cream. Cobblers and banana pudding and Ooey-Gooey bars and lemon squares. I watched as one man left the table with a plate in each hand, a significant slice of several cream pies on one plate, and several berry kinds on the other. He made a quick detour past the ice cream servers, grabbed a BIG spoon, and settled himself over in the small side garden, sitting right on the grass with his back against the fence. Don't think I saw him again the whole evening. My sons' friends had all chipped in for kegs of beer, as their present to us, and there was a great crowd out around that area all afternoon. As darkness descended, all those young folks trooped out to the big open field beside the lawn, and we all sat with our drinks on lawn chairs or quilts, watching a wonderful display of fireworks, a gift from my husband's Army unit. Lovely day, lovely memories...thanks for letting me remember them again and share.

We love a quiet Easter late lunch--a few friends, pretty tables with pastel linens and white plates, spring wine and iced tea with lemon. This year the plans have been changed a bit, as daughter and family will be here from Atlanta (expected and anticipated---haven't seen them since Christmas). We had also invited her in-laws---lovely people---to drive up from their home about 2 hours South, to join us for the first time. I have the silver all polished, the linens pressed, lots of cleaning and preparing out of the way, and have now learned that the whole family---MIL and FIL, their dau, SIL and their baby, and two other pre-teen grandchildren will be coming up on Thursday, getting hotel rooms and spending the four days visiting back and forth here and at their hotel. The guest of honor is, of course, our mutual new granddaughter, who makes any and all preparations and entertaining more fun. So now, we'll have 14+ to Easter lunch (usual friends will be invited for a less crowded lunch the following Sunday). We and they will be in and out, letting the kids swim at their hotel, going out to dinner together, gathering here for impromptu meals and visiting, egg dyeing, etc. One special event will be a Fairy Tea for all the ladies in the family---it's a special thing between our six-year-old Granddaughter and me---they lived with us for quite a long time, and we've been drinking Fairy Tea together since she was just a baby. I wrote her a poem about it last year, an artist in England asked if she could paint several of the scenes from it, and it will be featured in a book on Fairies coming out in September. Our granddaughter will make part of the dessert for our Easter buffet...she has her own small set of whisks, rolling pin, wooden spoons, small steel bowls, scrapers, etc., and has been wielding a little offset spatula for about three years now, spreading buttercream on cupcakes like a pro. She likes to decorate with sprinkles, royal icing flowers, anything pretty which adds color and beauty to her handiwork. Last year, we all met for a potluck dinner at the hall which had been rented for our daughter's baby shower, and I took a cake, already frosted in buttercream. Our Grand and her little friend sat and attached Easter goodies to the cake---marshmallow chicks and bunnies, jelly beans, robin's eggs, flowers--poking them into the frosting until it was completely covered. Sylvia Weinstock, look out!! SOOOO, IF I get to spend a little time in my kitchen without filling orders for drinks, snacks, lunch, Koolaid and martinis, I'll be cooking and serving our usual Easter lunch: Ham---a whole one; Hubby will slowly grill it on the Weber for about four hours that morning, then slice Baked Penne with three cheeses Poached asparagus with Hollandaise OR cold with mustardy mayo sauce A platter of crisp romaine hearts with raita Steamed baby carrots with lemon vinaigrette Pineapple casserole Broccoli/raisin/red onion/bacon salad/cooked sweet dressing Devilled eggs Fresh-baked loaves with pastel eggs braided in Corn muffins/honey butter Strawberries with ricotta/Turbinado dip Cheesecake with lemon sauce (sauce is very tart filling for lemon icebox pie) Decorated cupcakes on the cupcake tree Spring wine, iced tea, espresso---champagne to toast our new granddaughter Looking forward to all the work and the family togetherness. rachel

Stirring Fuddddddge. Or pudding or Creme Anglaise, just as it gets that little LOOK of almost ready, and the thickening. We make about a hundred pounds of homemade fudge and other dipped candies every Christmas, as gifts and for drop-ins, open houses, etc. Doesn't sound like much in this day of factory-produced everything, but making one five-pound pot at a time takes quite a while. I use wooden paddles, about wooden spoon size, flat-edged and ever-so-slightly slanted; one has a series of slits and I watch the flow of the liquid through the openings as I stroke the mixture gently, coaxing it into silky cohesion. The paddles clear the entire pan bottom in about five swirls, as opposed to a metal spoon which clears a path the size of a thread with each stir. All the final ingredients lie ready to hand: the heavy slabs of Callebaut dark with great mounds of chopped pieces lying beside; golden-toasted pecans or cashews or macadamias, the dried cranberries and golden raisins and stemmed, well-blotted maraschinos, the sumptuous dark richness of Madagascar vanilla. My trance is usually interrupted by the ding of the timer, signaling the end of cooking time, but there's just a KNOWING to it, the ripple of the bubbles, the wake of the paddle as it grows heavier with the thickness of the fudge. I like walking past all the filled pans, seeing the satin sheen of the surfaces change as the stilling, firming process continues; the rows of evenly-spaced nut halves or small marshmallows or stripes or feathering---there's a satisfaction in the finished product. And meditation in the preparation.

Wooo, Jaymes!!! You could nail Jello to the wall!! What a great sentence. As a longtime student (PhD in Church Suppers, WMU meetings, Garden Club receptions, et al) of the Southern covered dish social phenomenon, may I say you have captured the heart of every woman who sets down her best effort, in her best, prettiest dish, and then looks up to see that new hussy bearing in a tray of hummingbird tongues garnished with Carmen Miranda's best hat. The Pillsbury Cookoff pulls forth no such efforts as the collective strivings of a community of proud cooks on Church Supper night. You took that pride, that work and effort and heartwish, and condensed it into one concise, knifesharp sentence. Bravo. rachel And mirepoix in macaroni? Ohio's too good for 'em.

Plochman's Stone-Ground Mustard San-J Tamari/Soy sambal Assuming vinegar could be obtained soon from coconuts or other native fruit/plants. And salt from the sea. (Now to find that indigenous romaine.....)

Those are ground TOFFEE almonds. Even better.

In San Antonio, we had the best breakfast burritos of all time. The young waiter, smitten by my beautiful blonde niece who was my traveling companion, listened devotedly to her complicated instructions (She's a SA native and a REAL chile-head) and brought us burritos the size of baseball bats. We took pictures. They were tender wraps enclosing a half pound of nippy chorizo, scrambled eggs, oil-cooked onions and green pepper, and enough queso to hold the whole mass together whilst we munched. Silly me---midst all the glorious Brit breakfast spreads for the next two weeks, I craved that Texas concoction. Had another when we got back. And our own airport in Indy has a quick-wok place, open for breakfast, which has a golden touch with Bourbon chicken. While all around me are rustling McMuffin bags, I tuck into a plate of tender, juicy chicken chunks and sauteed julienne of zucchini, carrots and yellow squash. And it also helps that there's a Cinnabon in the next booth, plus a heavenly hot-pretzel counter called Auntie Anne's, featuring warm, doughy pretzels coated in everything from standard salt to ground sugared almonds. We pop in there to the food court just for a pretzel now and then.

Kozy Shack tapioca in the little cottage-cheese tub. Not from childhood (see below) but just discovered it in the last few years. NOT any kind of red soup in a can. My Mom's first impulse after feeling my forehead was to reach for the can opener and heat up that Campbell's Vegetable Beef. Just can't associate that with pleasant times, after all those years of feeding it to a fever.

An afterschool slice of my Mammaw's cold, flabby, more-flour-than-meal cornbread grabbed from the old Hoosier cupboard on the way out to the garden. Sprinkle salt into other hand. Find and pick the ripest, juiciest tomato from the plants; rub one surface briskly on front of shirt to sanitize. Take a bite, dip into salt, alternate with bites of cornbread. Feel the breeze. Hear the birds. Take a detour by the backyard faucet for a long cold drink and a cleanup. She was also the summer purveyor of her favorite teatime snack: a quick trip into the house for a Wonder Bread, Blue Plate Mayo and homemade blackberry preserves sandwich, eaten carefully to avoid drips. I liked them all separately, but in tandem, no. But there was always that three-layer pineapple cake with 7-Minute, waiting in that same cabinet every day of my young life. She made one every Friday afternoon, after she had cleaned up the noon-dinner dishes and mopped the kitchen floor. I got to sift the flour from the built-in sifter in the cabinet, and measure it out, along with the baking powder, sugar, salt and soda. And sometimes I would go out to the chickenyard for four fresh orange-yolked eggs (a MUST for cakes---they made the layers a lovely deep gold). She'd crank up the big old Sunbeam mixer and get that cake in the oven in ten minutes flat. The whites would go into the top of the double boiler with cream of tartar, water and sugar, to be beaten every minute of the seven minutes. I did the careful timing, watching the little red second hand of the old white Bakelite Philco clock as it made its slow journey. The runny, slimy whites mixed into a magical, creamy concoction the glossy-white of mountain snow (though I had never seen any). A "tall can" of Del Monte crushed pineapple was drained in the big strainer and further squeezed as dry as possible by hand. The layers were placed one by one on the big round platter and sprinkled with the pineapple syrup, then smeared with the white frosting. Onto the frosting went tiny fingertip dabs of the pineapple, little clumps all over the surface. All the layers were stacked this way, then a final coat of the frosting, with the requisite swirls and curlicues, then the last of the pineapple dabbed all over the top. The Friday-night cake was elegant and beautiful, its golden layers falling tenderly beneath the knife. The Sunday cake was a little disheveled, with its frosting beginning to droop a bit, and the little pineapple divots sinking further into the snowy cushion. By Monday, the frosting had taken on the receding look of Winter's last snowfall, with craters and show-throughs and bits of brown crumb emerging through the white, but the taste just got better and better, the layers moister and more flavorful. The Midweek cake, what there was left of it, was still standing, though the layers were listing to one side, testament to their valiant days of patience in the dark of that cupboard; the frosting was just bits and crumbs of crystals, sugary crunches that fell prey to all passing fingers. The crumbs left on the platter were gummy and drying, and better than the best bar cookies or lemon squares or chess diamonds. Thursday night, the scrape of fork tines claimed the last rich, fruit-essenced bits, and the week was done. Friday was cake day, and all was right with the world. She'd be 110 next month. God bless all the dear patient women who teach children to cook.

I got the urge to stop at Big Lots while we were out today. Picked up six heavy beautiful clear faceted bottles; I'll grab some corks from our winemaking store and be ready for the herb onslaught this summer. We make glorious oils and vinegars--great for gifts, and though it's a NONO, I love them on a windowsill, catching the light. Also got some kitchen brushes with a good rubbergrip handle, great for doing the prep-wash before sticking things in the dishwasher. Six crackly-smooth cellophane bags of pretty pastas to go in my clear cannisters on the counter. A pretty little squatty jar of roasted peppers, chopped into a wonderful sauce with lemon juice, capers and herbs. Some pickled jalapenos for Hubby, who likes to hold them up by their tails and eat them in one bite; three pairs of the same Playtex yellow gloves as I get anywhere---99c each. Also several plastic tablecovers for summer, lots of Easter basket stuffers, some ribbon, lotion and a card---receipt total: 38.19. And there WERE no veggie-filled bottles anywhere! I spoke too soon. But there always have been. Some of those bottles must hold half a gallon. Speaking of brushes, I got one of those e-mails that was forwarded for about the fifth time, saying that much energy could be saved and fires averted if we'd all put our dryer filters into hot water with dish detergent and scrub them with a brush once a month. Dryer sheets cause a waxy buildup which covers the screen so that even water can't get through---so I did, and the difference in waterflow is amazing. So now the air can fly through and cut down on drying time and our enormous electric bill. Maybe someone would like to try that. Sorry, hijack!!

We have Dollar Tree, Dollar General, a couple more, and DEALS---the BEST. Everything in the store is $1.00 (occasionally a little sign on the shelf will read, "2/$1"). I go in for wrapping paper and come out with mixing bowls (HUGE bright plastic ones; I bought 6 the other day---great for bread or washing produce, etc). I buy all my reading glasses at DEALS---they have several racks up front, and I get the same little 1.50's that I buy at Sam's for $14.95. We were just mentioning the great quality of the lemons I got there about three weeks ago---they were wrapped three-to-a-pack in those little yellow net tubes like onions come in---and they were the BEST lemons I've found in years. The skin was satin-smooth, they were hefty with juice, and even the bag had a good handfeel, quite good quality, though I don't have a clue why I care. I've bought wooden spoons, VERY nice rubber spatulas, name brand wrap and parchment and foil, plus I always cruise the freezer section. A couple of months ago, they had Homemade brand ice cream ($5.69 at my local supermarket) for 1.00, and I bought all six. It was super, still WAY within exp. date. We also picked up a dozen of the garden whimsies, fanciful dragonflies and butterflies and grasshopers, wrought of copper wire with polished-stone decorations, all on tall sticks. We'll use them for party favors at a lunch or dinner on the lawn sometime this Summer. But my very favorite, I think, is BIG LOTS. I had never heard of it til we moved here about 15 years ago, and when we first started going in occasionally, it was a chaos of scattered items, clothing wrenched from the hangers and lying about underfoot, broken crockery put back mongst the good, etc., but now, thanks to the power of TV and the charisma of Jerry Van Dyke, the stores are filled with shoppers. Bright, open aisles, wonderful selection, great bargains. I just stand and browse the food aisles, picking out wonderful roasted peppers and caper-stuffed olives and tapenades and jams. I bought their entire stock of E.D.Smith preserves and jams...great square jars of rich jewelly fruit--tripleberry is a delight. Those sell for $5+ at a local market, as well, and made great stocking-stuffers. I love finding pepper jellies and mint jellies and Pirouette cookies and all sorts of spreads and mustards---the 4-oz. jars of very fancy flavored mustards were $2, as opposed to the 3.79 at the other stores. And there is always one aisle of jars, bottles, urns of foodart. I can think of it no other way---the containers are of graceful shapes, and are filled with carefully-arranged slices of lemons and oranges and whole grapes; there are bottles of olive oil with masses of wasptail peppers arranged into sunbursts and stalactites. Kumquats are arrayed in rows and swirls, a jar may hold pepper slices of great variety and color, along with giant lima beans and baby corn. The variety reaches infinity---it's sculpture and painting and garde manger all in one glass bottle, but you could not THINK of ever actually eating it---too much ATTENTION has been paid to it, by hands unknown. I imagine people sitting in Taiwan or Tijuana, stuffing those lovely bits of color into JUST the right arrangement with long sticks, while dust and the scent of jasmine float through the open windows. And THEN I saw one of those "entrepreneur" things on Food Channel about a woman whose business makes those things...they were touted as high art and gourmet heaven all in one, and sell for astronomical amounts. I had lumped them in my mind with the bottles of rose-scented bath oil containing a plastic flower and some floating flakes of gold foil, tempting only to third-graders in search of a quick gift for their teacher. I LOVE shopping at the "cheap" stores!!

We went to England and Scotland on one of those all-inclusive bus tours last year. We would go into the hotel dining room at the end of the day and be handed a "short menu" of the two or three entrees/salads/desserts they were offering to tour groups, as opposed to the general menu given to hotel guests and locals there just for dinner. My Sis and I noticed that the table was always completely set, including soup spoon and salad/appetizer fork, but as soon as we ordered whichever we chose, a server came around and scooped up the remaining unneeded piece of silverware. One night Sis ordered soup, and I, a salad as a first course. Salads came around first, and she picked up her salad fork, took a taste of mine, set the fork down, and they grabbed it up and put it onto a cloth-covered tray they carried to hold the "unused" silverware. We started watching, and EVERY restaurant we ate in did the same thing. We hoped that they were just taking them away to go into the dishwasher with everything else, but one night, the server dropped a fork and placed it in the hand BENEATH the tray, I suppose to mark it as "dirty." Thank goodness it was near the end of our tour---we surreptitiously scrubbed our silverware with our napkins under the table every night thereafter. We all know rearranged germs are more sanitary, right?

I just found this thread, read just the last four pages, and now am sitting in a puddle!!! And it's all your fault!! All the blender/mixer spews have given me a good laugh over the memory of my own dear Mammaw, who taught me to cook. She got her first and only Sunbeam mixer for Christmas and made a cake the next day, manual unread. She put six eggs into the bowl and let 'er rip. She told us about the disaster later at Sunday dinner, and my Mom asked if the eggs had gone to waste. I can hear her VERY Southern accent replying, "WASTE 'em? They uz awwwwl up in the top of the Hie-yuss!!!!" First time she ever mopped the ceiling.

Five-cup salad. Marshmallows and crushed pineapple, and the other three cups could be anything--coconut, sour cream, Koolwhip, Mandarin sections, Fruit Cocktail, Jello, mayo, and one we just spotted in a local cafeteria: grated sharp cheese. It was yummy. And they called it Mississippi salad---I'm FROM there, and never had that one. And SHARP Pimiento Cheese with lots of bitter pimiento, including the juice out of the jar. Black pepper and a little mayo...memories of teenage Coke parties, with the little crocheted panties on the bottles. And sometimes those parties had complicated little sandwiches: checkerboard, stripes, pinwheels, all made with the same three fillings: pimiento cheese, tuna salad, egg salad. And a loaf sandwich constructed to look like a cake: A loaf of unsliced bread (hard to get---you had to go to Wonder Bread and drive up at their employees' entrance and get someone coming out to go in and get one for you). You took it home, sliced off all the crust all way around with your electric knife, sliced it longwise into five slices, and spread each one with a filling, alternating for color contrast. You stacked it, then frosted the whole thing with softened cream cheese (with a drop of McCormick food color if you were fancy) onto which you piped or attached some sort of flowers, maybe cut out of thin carrot slices with green onion blade stems. And I just saw one of those dip-the-bottom crepe pans in Goodwill not long ago. It had little crusties all up the sides...guess they threw it out in disgust after one try. It DID look as if it had spent a long time in solitary, maybe in a dark cabinet.

Years ago, a recipe went round the South for chicken, marinated in Wishbone Italian, rolled in crushed cornflakes, baked til tender and golden. It turned up at church suppers, funeral feasts, potlucks, pitch-ins, and Tupperware gatherings. We were invited to the home of friends for dinner (we knew the husband well, as he and my hubby were members of several organizations and both were farmers. Had met the wife briefly on occasion). Living-room-served Appetizer was rumaki, but not bacon-wrapped. The livers had been marinated in the soy mixture, dumped in a baking dish, marinade and all, topped with slices of bacon, and baked til the bacon was brown around the edges. The whole panful was poured into a glass dish, which then resembled some science experiment gone awry---graybrown chunks of boiled liver, long ecru flappy strands of boiled bacon, the whole floating in a brownish fluid flecked with liver crumbs and congealed lumps of blood. We were given toothpicks and told how much easier this recipe was than wrapping all those yucky, bloody livers. And you know, if you could get past appearances, they weren't so bad; whole water chestnuts had taken on the hue of the sauce as well, so you weren't sure which you might be putting into your mouth. Then the main course: the famed Cornflake Chicken. But they were out of cornflakes, it seems, so the hostess made do with the next best thing in the cereal cupboard: Grapenuts. After the first bite, we cut and scraped and managed to eat the INSIDE of the chicken pieces---the outsides resembled wallpaper flocked with BB's. Seeking to avoid a sure trip to the dentist for repair work, we did some meticulous carving and managed to carry on a conversation, all at the same time. Side dish was a lovely platter of baked sweet potato surprise. The recipe included mashing the potatoes, then forming them into a ball around a marshmallow, then rolling the balls in: (developing a theme here) TADAAAAAAAA!!! Cornflakes. Repeat chicken chorus ad lib. How anyone could have thought TWO dishes rolled in cereal would make a balanced meal is beyond me, but the Grapenuts carried both recipes to heights undreamed of by the original cooks. They are lovely people, but this was quite an unforgettable meal. (And then later there was the time she was out in the garden gathering turnip greens, in her shortie nightgown...a story for another time).

Oven roasted Kielbasa with raspberry honey mustard, crisp bacon, omelet with broccoli and caramelized onion, sourdough tartines, cherry/strawberry preserves and some paper-thin slices from a 4x5x1 slice of smoked elk, gift from a friend from Bosnia...smoked it for two months in his smokehouse. Senseo coffee and 5-Alive. Norah Jones on the CD player. "My heart is drenched in wine............."

Shrimp and grits is an old favorite in Louisiana and all across the Gulf Coast. I had never tried it until a visit to Metairie, and now it's served in martini glasses at every Southern wedding. My first introduction to grits as anything besides breakfast was in a catfish/seafood place in Pensacola. A young family at the next table all went up to the several steam tables/buffets laden with oysters and mussels and all manner of fried and steamed seafood, vegetables and desserts, and all came back with plates containing one catfish, fried whole, and a generous puddle of some white sauce or gravy. My first thought was tartar sauce, but it was solid white, so I asked one of them what it was. They all looked at me as if I had descended from Mars. "It's GRITS. What did you think it was? You know, fish and grits." And I imagine it has been a normal combination for many years, especially for the coast and river-dwellers, whose plentiful supply of fish and shrimp was right out their door or down the road, there for the catching. Many families subsisted on whatever they could catch or shoot or seine, and the foodstuffs they could raise on their own land. And fish or shrimp and grits were certainly a part of every coastal household's food supply---the seafood free for the taking and the grits ground from their own corn, or bought cheaply from a store. So, what's to keep the next generation, and the next, from enjoying the plain country fare they learned to eat at Grandma's table. Even if it IS gussied up with exotic herbs and fancy serving dishes. p.s. re: grillades and grits, above. Several years ago, I bought a little church cookbook from a neighboring town, and one of the committee members was a woman who probably could not have FOUND her own kitchen without a map. She had had a cook for all of her married life, and submitted some wonderful recipes. They printed one recipe exactly as she wrote it: Gree-yards and Grits.

We went back to Mississippi for my Dad's funeral last year, and it was like stepping right back into the good old shoes you always put on when you come home. There were hundreds of people trooping through the funeral home, making their way through a jungle of carnations and lilies; a gentle, sympathetic hug here, a big gruff bearhug there, old friends and parents of friends, people you had forgotten, and people you stared at in confusion, awaiting a cue as to who or where or when had made them a part of your longago past. We stayed in the home of Dad's best friends, and there was a steady stream of visitors, bearing great bowls and platters of good old Southern cooking; after the first day, the house held at least one of every item Tupperware ever issued. Every lady in town and thereabouts came in with her special best recipe, presented whole and perfect on an outstretched palm, handed over with a little deprecating murmur of how it didn't turn out quite like usual, or how she had just lost her touch for poundcake. Then, after the funeral, lunch at the local Baptist church, managed and coordinated by the same dear ladies who have "done" weddings and showers and baptism receptions and new-preacher welcomings for all the years of my life in that church. They were a little smaller, a little paler, but the bright smiles and the sweet welcomes took us back to our teens, when the same women, a little sterner in the presence of so much potential havoc, turned out hamburgers and hot dogs and four-layer puddings for all our gatherings. The buffet was enormous...indeed, it was the rec-room's Ping-Pong table, covered in immaculate white, pressed into use for a group of such proportions. The food was placed around the outside of the table, yard after yard of fried chicken, succulent pink ham slices, homemade rolls and cornbread in all its varieties; bowls of collards and greens and snapbeans with tiny pearls of new potatoes; an immense basket of crisp okra wheels which must have taken the cook all morning to bread and fry; potatoes, fried and steamed and mashed and made into many varieties of potato salad--plates of it with slices of boiled egg christened with glowing dashes of paprika; bowls and platters and trays of it, all decorated with bell pepper slices and green onions cut JUST SO. One platter was "too pretty to eat" with its pile of salad crowned with a sunflower constructed of judicious piles of sieved yolk and white, all arranged with an artist's fingers. The vegetables were of the out-of-my-freezer variety, with butterbeans and Crowder peas and blackeyes sporting a fan-cut slice of salt pork. Corn, both kernel and creamed, was offered in bowls and pans and the big black skillets it had been baked in. Baked beans varied from straight-from-the-Showboat-can to crusty long dishes of melting beans anointed with brown sugar and molasses and a sizzling lattice of bacon. Beans and potatoes; peas topped with the tiniest pods of tender okra; lettuce salads and fruit salads and many variations of five-cup;devilled eggs---there were at least six of the egghole platters on the table, each with its requisite center of stuffed celery and/or olives. a big pot of pintos, with several pounds of ham cooked to a silky tenderness, just melting into the broth---a stack of bowls and spoons alongside; too many other homemade dishes to remember. And the desserts were magnificent. Poundcakes and chocolate-frosted layers, rich yellow layers with a coat of 7-minute encrusted with snowy coconut, stacks of pancake-thin layers with their sheath of poured caramel. Tender, flaky piecrusts filled with cherries and peaches from their own trees, warm rhubarb and strawberries and blackberries peeking out from between sugar-strewn lattice, cobblers and crisps and dumps and brownies...with several bowls and pans of hot or cold banana pudding, meringue-laden or Kool-Whipped, take your choice. We hugged and reminisced and laughed and ate. We got a little too loud for a funeral gathering, especially when my son was persuaded to tell my Dad's favorite story of the time my husband ran down a steep bank, frantically tossing away a lawn chair and his fishing rod, struggling valiantly to stay upright, then lost the fight and ran completely off into the lake, leaving only his floating hat to mark his spot. Daddy loved that story; he loved those people and the good times and good food and good gatherings of all his eighty-three years. He liked nothing so much as a party where everyone laughed and talked and he could "fling good food amongst 'em." His last homecoming was just that. He would have LOVED that party.

Velveeta chunks and Pet milk melted in a BIG measuring cup in the microwave. Stir in a pound of al dente penne til well coated, then toss in several kinds of REALLY Gucci cheeses. The sumptuous Velveeta coating makes all the yummy grated stuff stick. Bake the whole thing in a big gratin pan and serve to any and all "gourmets" you know. One guy said he couldn't decide if he were in the best bistro in Paris, or eating at Grandma's while watching cartoons. But don't tell the secret of the sauce.

I'm coming into this discussion several months late, but it's fascinating--a bit of remembered history which has evaded most cookbooks, and indeed, most cooks. My first MIL made a stacked cake, of homemade batter---"first you start with some yard eggs; they make the cake good and yellow." She made enough batter for a three-layer cake, but the process involved pouring in only a small amount, then spreading it thinly in the buttered pans. This was put into the hot oven, timed for several minutes only, then whisked out, flipped onto nice "cup towels"---always cup towels, never tea towels or dish towels, though they were all made of the same waffle-imprinted fabric. Then the pans were washed, re-buttered, and another spreading and baking, til all the batter was used, whether it came out an even number or not. Until then, I had never washed the same three pans four times in an afternoon. Jam went between some layers, frosting between others, in some formula of distribution which I never quite captured. The entire cake was then covered in a "poured" frosting, usually chocolate or butterscotch, which was swirled into an attractive pattern. Mine had a tendency to keep dripping off the cake, leaving naked, droopy layers surrounded by a luscious moat to be scraped up and re-united with individual slices as they were cut. (If sneaky fingers hadn't stolen the entire sticky pond of it before serving). The stacked cakes and pies sound rich and scrumptious; most of the cakes seem to be MADE OF pies. I just can't fathom how, in those days before teflon and Pam, they might have removed warm chess pies from the pan without breaking and falling apart. And can you imagine slicing down through SEVEN layers of pie? And EATING a slice? The slices must have been one microt wide, or everyone would have been on a sugarbuzz for the duration. This has been a nice memory...I'm glad I stumbled on the thread. (But it doesn't make me want to go through all that buttering and washing). rachel

YESSS!!! That's what I got when I googled the word. I haven't delved into my own JOC in quite some time. I knew it was all familiar. But this particular writer (70's issues of a small, unassuming mag of uncertain ancestry and glowing magnificence) could wring the last drop of essence from a description. He quoted recipes, described the consistency of sauces in stanzas worthy of Byron, and waxed eloquent on shapes and colors and tastetingles and combinations, when fusion was still limited to rocket science. He brought such imagery to the page, reminiscing of the silvershine and chinaclink and scent of the roses in the Orrefors vase, describing his own travels and delvings into cuisine beyond mere mortals' depth or comprehension. And all this, to my memory, in a weekly/monthly? column which may have been mimeographed or may have contained typos and ads for fondue sets. So, "cockaigne" was not his own, was not of his own creation; oh, well. He used it perfectly, took it up so many notches that I've remembered it all these years as a towering compliment to the best of the chef's art. And so it is, but I do wish I could remember the writer who first implanted it in my cook-memory. Does anyone of an age to have been cooking in the 70's have any recollection of this column? I'm going to have to go on a journey through all these shelves of oddly-colored BA and F&W and Gourmet---they all took on a burgundy, bloodymud color in that era, disconcerting when it tainted the greens of salad, the golds of fruit and bread, the sparkle of May wine. Thanks, Fern, for the input. Magnificent Tarte Tatin!!! rachel