How The Country Boy Came To Eat Prosciutto

For months now, we’ve been feeding Mama J. and Papa T. dinner every night. By “we” I mean Hula comes home from work, cooks dinner, slaps food onto two plates and sends it down the street via Hubby. Sometimes he drives the truck. Sometimes he uses the golf cart. And these nifty plastic deviled egg carriers from Wal-Mart that perfectly hold foil wrapped plates. It’s usually a race to get dinner finished in a timely fashion, so those two don’t die of starvation. Old folks like to eat early, ya’ know. And Hula doesn’t get home from work until 5pm or so, so it’s run, run, run from the minute I hit the door. When the food hits the plates I often throw my hands in the air al la rodeo cowboy and yell, “Time!” Or sometimes I channel my old Rocky Horror Picture Show days and sing out, “Masta’, dinner is prepared!” Teen Angel laughs. Hubby doesn’t. Sigh. Smart aleck humor is so unappreciated in my house.

One of the biggest obstacles we’ve had to overcome is Papa T.’s palate. The man grew up on a farm in rural Tennessee during the depression. Dinner to him is a piece of pork, two starches and a piece of cornbread. Period. He is not an adventurous eater. Wild and crazy to him is leaving the bacon grease out of the green beans. Now, the rest of us are foodies. We enjoy all kinds of foods. We like to try new things. Hubby wasn’t always that way. He takes after his dad. When we first married he ate meat and vegetables. End of story. No spaghetti. No lasagna. No enchiladas. No seasonings. It’s the way Mama J. cooked when Hubby was growing up. It took a while, but eventually I forced him to try new things, and now he eats all kinds of stuff. Except for fish. If it’s not cod or salmon, he skips the fish.

Teen Angel and I are always experimenting with new meals. Our pantry is full of interesting stuff. Nothing makes us happier than visiting Whole Foods. The closest one is two hours away from us, so when we venture to Nashville, we take a cooler for a Whole Foods stop. Other women shop for shoes. The Hula-gen gals shop for organic pasta made from corn, pasta colored with squid ink and blood oranges. And cheeses. All kinds of cheeses. When we whip up something new, Mama J. dives in, Teen Angel and I happily chew away and Hubby sniffs it warily and then cleans his plate. Well, except for that potato pizza fiasco I had last month. I don’t know what happened, but instead of crispy golden potatoes on my homemade crust, I had underdone mush. It was not good. We all scraped off the potatoes and ate the crust. Man CAN live by bread alone. At least until the next morning. We are proof.

Papa T. just doesn’t care for anything but the mundane, and I’m not making more than one kind of meal each night. As mama used to say, “I ain’t runnin’ a truck stop,” so we have to compromise. I make my fair share of pork seasoned vegetables and homemade biscuits and cornbread. Don’t get me wrong. I love a good homemade biscuit. It’s one of my favorite food groups. But the rest of us can stand only so much of that fare. We like lighter, healthier stuff and more fun stuff, so I have resorted to a tactic I used with Teen Angel when she was much younger and much pickier. I lie. I know it’s shameful to do that to a blind man with dementia, but we all do what we must to get by. If a kid thinks a talapia fillet is a chicken nugget, and he’ll eat a chicken nugget, you tell him it’s a chicken nugget and everyone eats in peace. If Papa T. wants country cookin’ we simply tell him what he wants to hear before he digs in. When I send Hubby down the street with plates of out of the ordinary, I give Hubby the “lie”. For example: Sunday night I made homemade pizza with caramelized red onions and prosciutto. It was delicious, if I do say so myself. It’s a recipe from The Pioneer Woman, and let me just tell you that homemade pizza crust recipe of hers is great. Now Papa T.’s idea of pizza is thin crust cheese pizza. If he could get rid of the sauce and eat just the crust and cheese, I think he would, so when Hubby asked was on the menu, I told him, “Homemade pizza with caramelized onions and prosciutto, but tell your daddy it’s plain pizza and country ham.” “Aye-aye,” my partner in crime said, and down the street he went. A half hour later he returned. Papa T. had gobbled up every bit of his pizza and country ham and declared it “mighty tasty”. And there was peace all over the land.

This technique seems to work well as long as we stick somewhat close to the truth. I’m just not sure he’s going to believe the gnocchi is tiny biscuits.

Sweet!

While waddling around the BBQ Festival last weekend, we stumbled into my favorite ice cream shop. It will close soon for the winter season, leaving us to wait until spring for their reopening and a tasty scoop of their peach ice cream. There’s something charming about a business that does things the old fashioned way, like shut down for winter. In fact, the whole darn place is pretty charming. I can sit there all day soaking up the atmosphere and savoring a sugar cone filled with any one of their flavors.

I love the long counter.

And the tin ceiling with pendant lights.
There are the old milk bottles on the top shelf.
Have I mentioned that my great grandpa used to deliver milk to people’s homes?

I like the old fashioned décor.
And I really like the nice people who work there.
This guy is married to a woman who used to run around with Hubby in his teenaged years. He knows some dirt on Hubby and likes to share it. He’s fun that way.

Best of all, I like the ice cream. All homemade and delicious.
My flavor pick on this day? Cherries and cream.
When it comes to ice cream I can usually take it or leave it, but this place has me wrapped around their udder.

Favorite Childhood Foods

Thirty five plus years before KFC started dumping mashed potatoes and corn into a bowl and mixing them up, Hula was swirling her taters and corn together with copious amounts of salt and black pepper. Today, she stills mixes her taters and corn. With copious amounts of salt and pepper. And butter. Mmmmmm.

The down side to this is the amount of fat and sodium in that bowl. The up side is the corn doesn't slide off the fork or plate.

Hula thinks that when she is old she shall wear red hats with purple dresses, grow tomatoes and mix her potatoes and corn.

Word of the Day

SHORTBREAD

Pronunciation: short-bred
Function: noun
Date: 1801
Definition: a thick cookie made of flour, sugar, and a large amount of shortening.

Used in in sentence: "I might as well rub that shortbread on my a$$ 'cause that's where it's goin'."

*It is my new addiction since Teen Angel started bringing it home from the bakery every time she works. The Mother's Day shortbread cookie shaped like a crown with "mom" written on it was especially good. I'd show you a picture, but I ate it so fast I forgot to take a photo until it was all gone.

A Few of my Favorite Wedding Photos

Who doesn't love a chocolate fountain?

Truth in Advertising

Dear makers of Crystal Light,

May I suggest that you take a lesson in product naming from the folks at OPI nail polish? Their names are so descriptive and whimsical, and they always seem to fit the contents of the bottle perfectly. I'm making this suggestion because this:

should be Sunday, Bloody Sunday or My Bloody Valentine or even Murder She Wrote. 'Cause Cherry Pomegranate doesn't begin to describe what happens when you mix it with club soda.Just a thought.

Your home girl,

Hula

Confessions

Forgive me Father for I have sinned. I have fallen victim to the evil BBQ Festival. I have been gluttonous.

Day 1-BBQ sandwich, chips, slaw, baked beans, cookie (Just for lunch-Don't ask about dinner. I'm too ashamed). Day 2-BBQ sandwich, 1/4 rack of ribs, iced tea, cheesecake on a stick, several bites of Dippin' dots (just for lunch-Again, don't ask about dinner).

I am guilty of the sin of lust, lusting after my friend's big fat plate of ribbon fries. Lusting after those BBQed shrimp, the fudge brownie sundae, the fried ice cream and the cajun corn. Oh, and the fried pies.

I am guilty of envy, envious of my friend's polish dog and BBQed chicken. Envious of another friend's fried Oreo and that foot long corndog.

Forgive me Father. What shall I do? What's that? Six Hail Mary's and three miles of running at the United Way 5k tomorrow? Sigh. Okay, and while I'm at it, I'm just going to tack on another three miles 'cause we still have one more day of this doggone festival. Just in case.

Tales From the Butter Belt

Growing up in the Butter Belt, I learned to cook with layers of butter, shortening and lard. Everything was battered, breaded and fried. Grilled chicken was something that was stuck to the front of the car when one of Grannie’s roosters failed to cross the road fast enough. I had a finger lickin’ good diet for the first twenty five years of my life, but soon after I married I realized my arteries were probably on a fast train to Plaque Town, and I started to clean up my act. I dragged my family along with me.

I weaned the Hula-gens (thanks janjanmom for that moniker. It’s totally appropriate.) from whole milk. Over the course of about six months we went to 2%, then 1% and finally skim. Now the only time we have whole milk in our house in when I make homemade ice cream, and Teen Angel laps up the leftover drops in the jug like a wino slugging back Mogen David. My bunch is content with the stuff under the pink cap and doesn’t whine (anymore) about watery milk. I quit frying everything. I bake and grill. I threw away the lard and shortening and cook with light touches of olive oil and canola oil. I found sneaky ways to pass off meat free meals, and I don’t keep snack cakes and high calorie drinks around the house. We don’t eat out during the week, saving the junk food and fatty stuff for the weekends. I can’t get Hubby to use the flaxseed on his oatmeal yet but he loved the low calorie, high protein smoothie I made with soy protein powder that tasted like a banana milkshake. While we haven’t given up the occasional chili cheese dog at our favorite bar and grill, we’ve made some big changes over the last seventeen years. I hope we’re not done. I hope we continue to evolve into life long healthy eaters. However, I have decided there are a few foods that I simply cannot give up. There are a handful of things I refuse to eliminate from my diet. I love them and cannot let them go. They are dear friends that enrich my life, make my heart sing, generate world peace and save the whales. Okay, maybe not those last two.

1. Fried potatoes: Not French fries. I’m talkin’ slivers of potato fried in a thin layer of oil in a skillet with lots of black pepper and maybe some green onion until they’re soft in the middle and slightly crunchy on the outer edges. The kind that have to be drained before you slide a big old wad of them onto your plate. These can stand alone as a meal for me. If you give me a choice between ice cream and fried potatoes, I will choose the potatoes any time. Hand to God. Because they’re so bad for me, I make them only about three times a year, when I just can’t stand going without them any longer. Fried potatoes and biscuits al a mode makes me want to sing Yankee Doodle Dandy from the rooftop.

2. Italian cream cake-I like ALL cake. To me there is no bad cake. Only cake and better cake, but Italian cream is my favorite. I can resist a big piece of German chocolate or red velvet, but I cannot pass up a piece of Italian cream cake when it is within a four mile radius of my eyeballs. One of my favorite local restaurants sells this, and I thank the good Lord they do every time I belly up to their serving line. I then ask the Lord to forgive me for the sin of gluttony that is soon to follow.

3. Iced tea-The nectar of the south. The beverage that has sustained my people through depressions, recessions, wars and potato famines (as in going without fried potatoes). The genetic makeup of anyone living below the Mason Dixon line is mutated by the mass quantities of sweet tea ingested over generations. I’m told it is possible to determine during autopsy which state you hail from by assessing the levels of sweet tea in your DNA samples. We go through a gallon of tea every 24 hours at my house. I’m personally responsible for drinking about half of it. I’m a little different from most folks in these parts in that I don’t like my tea very sweet. I like it a little on the stout side. That’s probably because I grew up in a neighboring state just north of here and transplanted to Kentucky. If I had been born here, I would require six packets of sugar per eight ounce serving.

4. Circus peanuts, Sweet-Tarts and a variety of other small candies that are perfect for nibbling on while reading a good book in the comfort of my recliner and wallowing with my lap dog. I have to be careful though. If I leave the candy on the end table when I get up to go to the bathroom, the dog will eat it. Have you every seen a miniature schnauzer eat banana Laffy Taffy? I’m not big on truffles or chocolate bon bons, but I cannot kick the circus peanut, Sweet-Tart habit. And I make the most of January and February when the Brach’s Conversation Hearts (large please-no knock offs) are in season. This is the biggest flaw in my diet; a big black gaping hole that swallows me up and coats me in sugar. I have learned to cut back, but I can’t eliminate this crap completely. If I didn’t log 60 gazillion miles on my running shoes each week my backside would be the size of the Hindenburg solely because of candy.

With a little effort I could give up meat. I like pizza but could do away with it. I could even say goodbye to ice cream. Heck, I could give up hamburgers if I tried. I am disciplined in many ways when it comes to food, but my Achilles heel is the stuff listed above. However, I have decided these are the vices I’m keeping around. I don’t smoke. I rarely drink. I don't do drugs. Jeepers! A girl’s got to have something bad in her life. And Johnny Depp is taken.

Dressing for Success

No matter how old you are you still feel like the kid in the room when you're with older family members and they continue to perform certain roles within the family. Some jobs are left dangling in front of you with the admonition of "some day when you're old enough". Well, apparently, I'm finally old enough because mother called me last night to divide up the cooking for the Thanksgiving meal at her house, and I've been assigned...gulp...the dressing. "Would you mind", she asked? "Sure. Not a problem," I said smoothly, but the whole time my mind is screaming "Oh my God, I get to make the dressing!" Sniff. Sniff. Weep. Weep. I'd like to thank the Academy for this honor. I'd like to thank God and my family. My agent. You like me. You really, really like me.

Holy Cow. I can't believe it. This is one of those protected jobs usually performed by a mature female member of the clan, which in our family is my mother. Before her, it was my grandma. Grandma was the grand dame of dressing makers. She started two days early what seemed to my wee young mind, a complicated, top secret process. I remember watching her from my stool at the end of the kitchen table, amazed at the fact that she used chicken noodle soup in her recipe. When I asked her about her recipe she seemed a little evasive, giving me the old "a little bit of this and a little bit of that" dodge. I always vowed to worm that recipe out of her but she died before I was able to. That's one of my biggest regrets to date because her dressing was da bomb. No wait. Off the hook is the new phrase, right?

So, I'm feeling rather honored that I get to step into those big shoes (And they were big. Grandma had bunyons.) and carry the dressing torch. But here's the thing....I don't know what I'm doing. I've never made dressing in my life. I've watched others do it. I read yesterday how the Pioneer Woman makes hers, and I've read many a recipe, but I've never made it. And we all know how tricky dressing can be. It's easy to get it too sticky or too dry or too crusty or too bland or too sage-y. It's easy to screw it up. Sigh. The pressure is intense. I cannot fail. I have a standard to live up to. I have a torch to carry. A flame to ignite in my own Teen Angel, who is possibly the next generation of dressing makers. I'm hoping that somewhere up there Grandma is watching and between now and Thursday will whisper in my ear the trick to making a successful dressing. In the meantime, I'm going to savor this honor and the fact that I'm finally old enough to take on this important task. Or wait, does this just mean I'm getting old? Where's my manager?

The Last Supper

What would you want for your last meal? I recently read an article in Time Magazine where famous chefs answered that question. Apparently, the Last Supper game is pretty common among chefs when they’re sitting around shooting the breeze. The author seemed surprised that most of them wanted simple comfort foods that reminded them of their childhood or family life. That doesn’t surprise me at all. I mean, really, if you’re about to kick the bucket and won’t be eating again wouldn’t you rather have fried chicken and mashed taters instead of some foo foo foi gras, fish egg covered dish? By the way, I’d like to know who looked at goose liver and said, “I’ll bet if we slice this up and cook it, it’ll be real tasty.” Personally, I don’t like to eat anything that serves as a filter in an animal’s body. I may be from the South, but I’ll skip the livers and gizzards thank you. I digress. Let’s just say, I get the whole comfort food angle.

The last meal has crossed my mind more than once. Back when I was in journalism, it would come up whenever the state penitentiary got ready to electrocute someone. The media would always get details about the prisoner’s last meal. For some quirky reason, I found it interesting. I’ve also been on that website (can’t think of the name of it right now) that documents prisoners last meals. Fascinating reading. Don’t judge. You know you’re going to Google it when you finish reading this. I thought about the last meal thing this week when I was dying of typhoid in my bed at home. Probably because I had no appetite and wanted to eat something other than the mandarin oranges and ice water I choked down for four days. I had visions of all kinds of grand dishes, but when it came time to choose I finally settled on these.

Steamed crab legs with drawn butter-It’s one of the things that makes me believe there is a God. I could eat my weight in these things. In fact, I’ve tried. One time I ate so many I threw up. Now I try to stop when I’m full up to my esophagus. I love the crustacean.

Sliced tomatoes-They must be homegrown, and they must be liberally sprinkled with salt. Hey, who cares about blood pressure when you’re eating your last meal? No dressing, no others adornments, just several slices of the nectar of Heaven. Eaten with my fingers.

A big spoon full of cream cheese-Ah, one of my favorite food groups. A little maple sugar in it wouldn't hurt.

Buttered mashed potatoes-Potatoes, another one of my favorite food groups. The one thing Oprah and I have in common.

Fried potatoes-sliced thin and lathered in salt and pepper.

Popcorn-Popped on the stove in oil with plenty of salt. (Have you figured out I have a problem with salt?) None of that greasy microwave stuff. I want the old fashioned kernels that have to be shaken around in a pan. It reminds me of when I was a kid and mama used to pop a dishpan full of it for us kids.

Italian Cream Cake-A big old honkin’ slice with cream cheese frosting. Did I mention that I like cream cheese?

Sweet Tarts-Just a handful. And please make them all strawberry and grape. Leave out the lemon and lime. I can eat the orange if I have to.

Iced tea to wash it all down-lightly sweetened with crushed ice. No lemon. And for the love of Pete, NO INSTANT.

Even if I stay off death row I will one day have a last meal. I hope I’m really old when it comes, and I hope I still have enough teeth to eat the above. If not, I’m going to look mighty funny gumming that popcorn. And I'll need the chewy Sweet Tarts.

Hold The Pumpkin, Please

We are fast approaching a time of year when I stand out like a sore thumb. Thanksgiving will be here before we know it, and I’ll have to start avoiding two of the most popular fall foods, pumpkin and sweet potatoes. I hate ‘em. While the rest of the world is lapping up candied sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie, I’m turning my head. I don’t like anything that tastes or smells like pumpkin. No pumpkin bread, no pumpkin pie. I don’t even eat pumpkin roll and that contains large quantities of cream cheese, one of my favorite food groups. It doesn’t matter how much you spice it up or cover it with sugar, I can’t eat pumpkin. It gags me. The same goes for sweet potatoes. I get rave reviews for my candied sweet potatoes, but I have to hold my nose when I cook them. All the marshmallow cream in the world can’t dress them up enough for my taste buds. Ooh, and don’t bring me any of that southern favorite, sweet potato pie. Blech! It’s one of the few (and I mean very few) desserts I won’t eat.

I don’t know why I’m this way. I like other foods that are considered quite nasty by other folks. You know, brussel sprouts, broccoli, cabbage. I love cabbage. I actually crave cabbage on a regular basis. That’s downright weird, I know. I even eat chick peas, and nobody likes chick peas. I have to admit I’m not a spinach eater, but that’s because I ate large quantities of it as a kid due to my Popeye addiction and heaved it up one night all over my long hair. Whoops. I should have given you a gross alert on that one. Anyway, I didn’t care too much for spinach after that. I’m not big on turnips either, but I think that’s because my mom scared me with turnips. I had a great aunt who was prone to freezing her leftovers for years and reheating them for big family gatherings. When we got to Aunt Tottie’s house, Mama would sniff out the stuff most likely to cause salmonella and whisper a warning in my ear. Inevitably, it was, “Don’t eat the turnips, tell your brothers”. I think she instilled a turnip phobia in me I can’t quite shake. They’re probably quite lovely.

Every year I try a little bit of pumpkin, just to see if I’ve outgrown my distaste for it, and every year I end up spitting it out in a napkin and wiping my tongue like Tom Hanks in “Big”. The hardest part is living with the comments from people who can’t believe I don’t like it. Around these parts, it’s almost like breaking the eleventh commandment if you don’t eat pumpkin pie. And then when I tell them I love cranberry relish, they really freak, because no one else likes the cranberry relish. “What? You’ll eat cranberry relish, but you won’t eat pumpkin pie? What’s wrong with you?” Well, nothing’s wrong with me. I just don’t understand why someone would look at a hard, round sphere and say let’s peel that sucker open and cook the stringy stuff in the middle. I’ll bet that’s some good eatin’. This year I’m asking for a truce. Don’t ask me to try the pumpkin pie, and I won’t do my turkey dance for you at the table.

Heaven's Just A Sin Away

On the fifth day the Lord put forth a tempting snack that when used in moderation is a right and glorious thing but when used in gluttony becomes an enemy to thine hips. Thine enemy has a name and that name is circus peanut. Lord, forgive me for I have sinned with the circus peanuts..again. I am a weak and sinful child…AGAIN.

Usually, I’m pretty disciplined about my eating habits. I’m trying to make up for years of lard fried pies and convenience store burritos. During the week, I eat lots of fruits and vegetables. I limit soda to a half a can a day. I skip dessert and limit the deep fried stuff. I let go on the weekend and enjoy some of the bad stuff, but I don’t get too carried away, and I go back to being a good girl on Monday morning. I don’t binge on buffets anymore, and I’ve converted the whole family to skim milk. They give me dirty looks behind my back for it. I can feel it, but I don’t care. It’s good for us.

The one area I have trouble with is candy. I can’t resist a little candy when I’m reading at night. I try to limit myself to a handful of Red Hots or Sweet Tarts, but I can’t break the habit entirely. I’ve tried going cold turkey, but that just led to a frenzied search in the cabinets yielding only dried out Peeps from Easter. Which I ate…in secret…so no one would see me eating four month old candy. I felt like an alcoholic drinking cough syrup because it was the only thing in the cabinet. Ashamed, but satisfied, and then full of guilt. So now I keep a little stash of candy handy and try to control my habit. I’d been doing okay, until I fell off the wagon about two weeks ago. All because of this:

The circus peanut. An orange wad of marshmallow that doesn’t even taste that good. Unless consumed with a glass of iced tea and a good book. I’ve found they’re best when eaten fresh, while they’re still somewhat soft, but I’ll eat them when they’re as dry as cardboard. I’m addicted. I like the way they feel, smooth on the bottom, textured on top. The smell is…I’m not sure how to describe it….a tad fruity but mostly…artificial sweetener. Whoo! God is good. I like that nice piquant aftertaste, too. I can’t stay away from them. I don’t know what brought this on or when it will end, but I’m beginning to worry. I bought a bag last Friday, and it’s already empty, two days faster than the last bag I ate. Sometimes I’m not even aware that I’m eating them. I found one on the bathroom counter Saturday and had no recollection of bringing it in there with me. Food..in the bathroom….that’s desperate…and gross. I grabbed two on the way out the door the other day and got a little panicky when I got belted into the van and couldn’t find them. After a frantic search under Teen Angel’s disgusted gaze I discovered them…in my purse. I didn’t even care that they were fuzzy. I’m telling you. It’s bad. I didn’t even have this kind of weird craving when I was pregnant with Teen Angel. So, I’m admitting my addiction publicly..on these pages…hoping it will shame me into better behavior. All I can say is it’s a good thing I wasn’t in the Garden of Eden. I could have passed on the apple, but if that serpent had waved a circus peanut in my face I would have slid to hell on a fast Brach’s train. Pray for me, brothers and sisters.