"Come & get it!!!"
✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩
✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩
✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩
✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩
✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩
✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩
✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩
LOVE this truck! I'd love to have a life-sized one to drive around. Whoa! Grandmother come to town!
That done, comes the fun (that is, for the 4th of July holiday) of parades of all kinds, our Roundup Rodeo here, the cattle drive through the town of Belle Fourche, playing croquet, softball, & of course, the topper, the FIREWORKS!!!
What would any celebration be without the crowning event, the sustenance, the fare, the edibles, the refreshments, that mouth-watering cookery from the kitchens of Moms & Grandmoms, sisters & aunts. From the grills of Dads & Granddads, ah yes, the FOOD!
Barbecued ribs are a must on the 4th of July. I've been making my own barbecue sauce for about forty years. I'm not sure where I got the recipe, but I have made a lot of adaptations over the years to make it just right. To the added ingredients there are no measurements. I just use my taste buds to see if it's perfect! 😏
Mmmmm, not quite, but almost. Daddy made them every 4th of July & man, talk about perfection! Succulent deliciousness that almost melted in your mouth! Yuuuuumy!
Even with the mouth watering ribs, I don't believe there's a picnic that's complete without fried chicken! I fried a plate of crispy chicken wings instead of a whole chicken. When I was growing up, my favorite part of the chicken was the thigh, but now, & for many years, it is the wing. Oh my gosh! My taste buds go wild with this delectable choice piece of a fried chicken!
I first learned to fry a chicken in my early teens. I learned from watching my mother. Even cutting one up to fry was an art. We raised our own chickens & although Daddy usually did the butchering, one time (& only one time!) my Mother had to do it & she enlisted the help of her four daughters.
The enlistment was not voluntary, I can tell you that.
I won't go into the carnage of that day. Suffice it to say, none of us ever did it again, & the memory is mercifully dulled. When I say butchered, that's what I mean. We were not inhumane, the end was quick. We just really didn't know what we were doing. However, it was great entertainment to my little brother to see chickens run around minus their upper appendage. (It just seems more delicate to put it that way.) I was not entertained in the least. Their may have been some screaming involved with my sisters & I. As I said, the memory has been mercifully dulled. In those days, I did not get attached to any of the chickens so it wasn't an emotional upset. As for the roosters, I was glad of their premature demise. I could finally go to the outhouse without being run down by a rooster who hid by the side of the house, laying in wait for his victim, especially if said victim forgot the broom weapon to whack him with, which didn't dissuade him in the least, just temporarily side-tracked him. (peck, peck, ouch, much yelling when it was an over zealous rooster. Our screams just encouraged them.) On a positive note, he did add to my accelerated ability to run when playing softball at school. Attila the trainer. In the last 35 years, I've had chickens of my own & none of the roosters were ever aggressive, but instead lovable & good-natured, possibly a little on the slow side. & all of the girls were pets with names, several Marys, Petey, (my daughter thought she was a he) Rabbitine, to name a few. Petey was the only one though who was honored by polishing her toenails. We have a picture of all six of the females of our family & Petey with our polished toenails. So cute!
Of course none of our chickens ever had a destiny with the frying pan or cooking pot. We are not cannibals. They died peacefully, of old age, unless they were suffering. They blessed us with many daily offerings that we would have not had otherwise had.
& yes, we have had many chicken graveyards in the different places we've lived. Extreme? Not to us, they were our companions & friends.
Now, back to the frying of a chicken. We buy only organically raised chickens & we buy from people we know. I'm sure in the processing part, they know what they are doing, unlike us growing up.
When I'm frying chicken for a picnic, I use peanut oil, which to me gives a crispier texture, & salt with garlic salt. When I am making a chicken dinner, ala mode, that means with mashed potatoes & gravy 😉, I use canola oil, plain salt & freshly ground pepper. A fresh or frozen organically, farm- raised chicken makes the best fried chicken you will ever put in your mouth! It is more expensive, but worth the flavor. & healthier of course. If you are one of those people who raise & butcher your own chickens, I will happily purchase them from you in the ready-to-cook, or turn-key so to speak, way.
I have made baked beans from scratch. Whether it's a conventional recipe, I don't know. But I cook a pot of navy beans, the day before. I put it in this crock, or sometimes a cast iron dutch oven, add onions, my homemade barbecue sauce, put two bacon slices across the top, & let it slow cook in oven on 200 degrees for two to three hours. Oh boy, a meal in itself really, with homemade bread.
Do you see the dish peeking over the baked beans? That is grilled, bacon-wrapped shrimp seasoned with ground pepper, garlic salt, & ginger. My brother-in-law brought them. This is almost too much food-heaven at one time!
The two years of junior high school, my sisters, brother & I went to a wonderful country school. It was probably two of my favorite years of my life, partly because of the grandma country cooks. I think they made everything from scratch. The meat loaf was outstanding, as was just about everything else, especially the rolls. Manna from heaven! It was at their lunchroom that I had my first sour pickle potato salad. I was hooked! I also loved my Mothers regular potato salad too. For some reason, she never made the sour pickle potato salad & it wasn't until years later when a sister & I were reminiscing about our old country school, that we brought it up & we decided to try & replicate the recipe. Putting my taste buds into gear, I went into action. It took me awhile, but I finally figured it out. The sour was not only dill pickles, but apple cider vinegar that gave it the sour 'kick' it needed. In the last couple of years, I have done some experimenting, & added sour cream, salt & Ranch Dressing. Just a bit, maybe a couple of tablespoons of each; you have to get your own taste buds into action to see what you like. & you begin with mashing the boiled potatoes. I think we prefer the sour over the traditional potato salad. Yummy again!
😋😋😋😋😋😋😋😋😋😋😋😋
I think being a good cook takes some work, organization, & most importantly, as I've always told all six of my girls, who are all good cooks, the most essential part is hovering. I learned to cook by hovering, watching my mother in the kitchen. One of my favorite meals that she used to make (my grandmother too. & she was also a good cook. But that's what grandmothers do, right?) was chicken & noodles. Boy, she could make a mean noodle! & that's one thing I have never perfected to her level. My Grandmother made great banana nut bread. I didn't like cornbread growing up at all, but my sister had a secret to her cornbread that changed my mind. She added twice the sugar that the recipe called for. I found it very toothsome after that! I have tweaked that recipe a bit & instead of oil I use bacon grease & I always cook it in the oven in a cast iron skillet which makes the edges almost crispy. Also, if you have access to freshly ground corn meal, you can't believe the difference in taste, palatably delightsome! I have used antelope, elk & venison to substitute for beef in dishes like Swiss Steak, Pepper Steak, Chile, & roasts, to name a few. If you don't like the gamey taste you can use salt water, milk & even coke to soak in overnight or outright add it to the recipe. My favorite game is antelope because it is mild & very tender. My husband had a recipe for jackrabbit that takes about four hours (jackrabbit is tough & generally unpalatable as far as I'm concerned) to simmer on the stove in a cast iron dutch oven, cooked with fresh herbs & spices, that if you closed your eyes & didn't know what you were eating, you'd swear it was a rich, roast beef! Unbelievable! The meat is very dark, almost black, but very sumptuous. When you live in the middle of the prairie, with a driveway five miles long that becomes sludge when the snow melts, or the snow doesn't melt & you know you won't be grocery shopping for awhile & the jackrabbits are so thick that the ground looks like it's moving whenever you go outside (in case you didn't know, jackrabbits turn white in the winter) in knee-deep snow to get some butter or eggs that you put in the snow to stay cold because the electricity went out, which meant cooking on the woodstove; ( I hope you could follow all of that) then it's some kind of jackrabbit for dinner.
Another aside:
It wasn't fair game ( a little play on words here) unless the animal or fowl, was outside the perimeter of the yard because I considered our yard to be sanctuary for all critters. The only exception was snakes because of possible danger to our pets. & they are creepy, rattlesnakes anyway. 🐍Oh! & a very big badger who thought he was bigger & tougher. We thought so too, but our dogs did not.
One of our miniature dachshunds bravely (maybe a little densely) confronted the badger intruder, then promptly fell down right in front of those knife-like incisors & had a seizure! Not to worry. Our border collie jumped right on his back & attacked him fiercely! The other two dogs were barking & nipping at the badger while one of the kids rushed in & rescued our doggie, Schnitzel, from the jaws of death & potential dinner. That badger decided it was time to get outta there & beat a hasty retreat, & took up residence elsewhere. We never saw him again. Hero Laddie, the border collie, got an extra treat that night! Wow, is this rabbit-trailing or what? Actually, I may have told this story before on another post. I have told it often elsewhere. But I'm almost seventy. That statement can get me out of a lot of scrapes. It used to be because I was blonde. Now it's, "I'm almost seventy." Oh well, it's still a part of the 'aside'.
Festivals,which meant a lot of eating, dancing, fellowshipping, even including wine ( & the first recorded miracle that Jesus did in the Bible, at a wedding, was turning water into wine, remember?) were
celebrated a lot in the Old Testament. & they were initiated by God Himself. He really knew how to throw a party! & I'm not being irreverant here. Look it up & you will see He did. God made us to enjoy life. His life, abundant life here on earth. & part of that is holidays, or festivals. It doesn't give us license to be indulgent & loose. But to enjoy fellowship with our families, our friends & fellow Christian brothers & sisters, because it brings connection.
I have said before that my favorite time of the day was & is, dinnertime, the last meal of the day. (or suppertime as some would call it.) That was & is the time of day when everyone comes together to sit at the family dinner table to eat, & share the days history (we try to keep the conversation positive as it's better for digestion & the heart to speak humor, encouragement, etc.) & the home dinner table is the best place as it's more intimate, inclusive, set apart for your special-est people. & you can get loud as you want (at times)! There is a connecting sense of belonging also to guests or friends. The dinner fare doesn't have to be fancy, but when the table is set with beauty, order, color, where there is laughter & peace, & when the cook has added the little extras to her food like time, love, creativity & energy it brings a great sense of contentment to the partakers. It gives me a great sense of satisfaction when my tired husband sits down at the table at the end of a long tiresome day to eat a good meal that he has looked forward to since lunch, maybe even breakfast. It nourishes my heart to hear the banter & laughter of my children as they eat with relish the food their mother cooked for them. I loved it when my father-in-law who stayed with us at times, would eat that crispy cornbread in a glass of milk alongside a bowl of southern black-eyed-peas with joyful abandon ( he had a lot of pain at times & it was a blessing to have something to enjoy & look forward to) & how his eyes shone when I put a slice of warm, homemade apple pie in front of him with fresh, cream poured over it. & how the grandkids would wait impatiently, hovering over the ice cream maker to lick the spoon when the ice cream was done (a joint endeavor with my husband)! This is no small service that we mothers, wives & grandmothers do for our loved ones. It's such a precious way to say 'I love you'. & it is eternal to pass on the memories, the recipes, the ability. I love pizza! It is definitely a comfort food for me & a treat when I don't make it. But it does not carry the satisfaction or fulfillment of "Thanks Honey, that hit the spot" from my husband. or "Thanks Mom, that was my favorite. You're the best cook in the world!" from a son a daughter. or "Thanks, Gram, that was awesome" from a grandson, who never takes a bite of his food until I take the first one. I love that.
Another grandson always thanks me for every meal when he comes to visit. You see, food, is not only nourishing to the body, but to the emotions & spirit also if it is prepared with love, & at times sacrifice. I guess you could say that cooking & feeding your family, or anyone actually, is a spiritual service as well, even a ministry. Day in & day out. That is one job (among many!) that is never done. But oh the rewards, both here & when we go home to Jesus.
When we lived in our previous home in the middle of the prairie, I bought a cast iron bell that I attached to the back porch. It was used exclusively to call in the kids to come in if they were a distance away, but mostly for dinner.
"Come & get it!!"
as Ma Kettle used to shout to her rambunctious brood, & then stand out of the way of the stampede!
Our crew was not quite that boisterous or disorderly, but those words, or 'time for dinner'! were, & are fraught with meaning to each individual, holding magic, expectation, joy. You know you are in for a good time, for thirty minutes, even an hour or more, even if it's the only time during the day that you had a good time. Am I making too much of food? of cooking? of eating? I don't think so. It's the way we are wired, the way the Lord put us together. Not to be 'foodies' in todays vernacular, or gluttons or food worshippers. Do we eat because we have to eat, or because we want to eat? The Lord made us to feel hunger. Food hunger & fellowship hunger, people hunger, to bring connection in a practical & yet spiritual way too. I think it brings pleasure to the Lord's heart when people sit down at a table together to eat & fellowship, especially when some of the conversation revolves around Him. Then, He is 'supping' with us too. Now that's a thought! An exciting one! Wow. Dinner with Jesus...
"Come & get it!"
Raintree Perk of the Day:
"...if any man hear my voice & open the door, I will come into him & sup with him & he with me." Revelation 3:23
No comments:
Post a Comment