THE COLOURS OF THE WIND

 

Such Weather art as REDS AND GREEEEENS and all the shocking orange and yellows screeching from the screen.   I'd found a young man with the charming name of MAX (insert little exclamatory, shattery O here)  VELOCITY, on YouTube and since he was doing all warnings to Montana, I just settled to my puzzle.   And THEN I realized:   There CAN'T be another Bloomington and Mitchell and Orleans and Evansville just South there in Montana---too much coincidence.   It was for HERE---I'd been out in the morning, with a little fun shop at ALDI for Christmas leftovers and stocking stuffers for next year, and all was well when I came in lugging all the loot.  

Between then and lunch and MAX, the skies had taken a TURN and then it began to get dark  and I set a little grabbit lantern at my feet just in case.   We had one traumatic outage this past Summer whilst we were having the house re-wired---trauma enough in itself, but worse.

You know how "They Say" that a tornado sounds like a "Freight Train,"---I suppose for the greater weight of the train at the time, rather than a nice excursion or Express for commuting. At least they said that in all my Southern raising---on the Memphis NEWS Dave Brown used those exact words.   And Somehow, the winds were so gusty and the cold descending fast---I swore I could hear AMTRAK and Illinois Central and the Queen:  City of New Orleans, right here around our house.   I LOVE trains with all the love in my small-town-girls' heart, but I could see our enormous TREES waving in the yard as limber as the WeatherBush.    The Across-the-street neighbors had taken down the elaborate array of all things inflatable and lightable, or we'd have had a mylar/vinyl/plastic catastrophe right here in the street.   And dear Minnie Mouse, who we have laughed at for years for her tendency to deflate overnight, and fall sprawling with a drunken smile on her face---once up a tree, with her inebriated, goofy grin facing US, might have made it as far as I-65 before landing.  

We made it through the night, with no visible damages, and only the tiniest dust of white rime in the sidewalk cracks to show for all the rain, but that YouTube art was Scary as all get-out---like runaway Seventies graffiti in neon colors.  I have not heard of any damages or outages, and  it did allow for a couple of hours of texting with Sweetpea, with our describing the sounds and strength of the rainfall and the winds, and setting up a date or two for lunch while she's out of school.     You take BLESSIGNS where you find 'em.      Stay warm and well.  

THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AT THE GOLDEN TORCHES

 

Thursday would have been the Thirty-fifth Anniversary of the Christmas Day that we moved from Alabama to Indiana. I’ve told you about our ongoing love affair with Waffle House HERE, from Christmas Day, 1990, when we were on the road to our new life here.  We’ve had countless breakfasts there since, sometimes at midnight, if the whim strikes.

So, that Saturday of 2015, the day-after-Christmas, we braved the sleety day to go and celebrate our TWENTY-FIVE years in this wonderful, adopted place.  

We walked in onto the slippery, slidey tile floors---wet with countless footsteps, and were embraced by that unmistakable aura of good coffee, sizzling bacon, and the welcoming bright waitresses and cooks.  

We were seated beneath the only PINK-painted lamp in the house, with fanciful snowflakes giving our table an unaccustomed rosy glow.

MY kind of Art.

The windows had all been painted from the inside with festive scenes---wreaths and drums and ornaments, reminding me so fondly of a nice boy from my childhood, whose great talent for chalk-drawing was amazing---he’d come into our classrooms after school, painting blackboard after blackboard with scenes of elves and Santa, or Easter bunnies on bright green hills, or hay-shocks and pumpkins.  It seemed so magical to walk in one morning to such happy pictures, like strolling into one of those Easter eggs with the tiny dioramas inside. 

Waffle Houses are always filled with a cheerful energy, with scurryings and lively banter and rushing to get that good hot food out HOT.   You might well be seated in a Scalosian restaurant, with whatever instantaneous delicacies they might boast, for all the lightning speed of the Waffle House Staff.

Our own server Brittney seemed quite interested when we told her it was our “anniversary of Waffle House," and as she sped and skidded on those continuously-mopped floors, we told her of our tradition, and then, as she went back into the cooking area, we could hear the words “anniversary” several times, including once from the booth just ahead of me, where sat a nice couple having their own breakfast.

On one of Brittney’s return trips with that ever-filled pot, she handed us our ticket.  “I told my manager Nate about your anniversary, and he’s paid your bill,” she said.  

What a lovely thing!  We were simply overflowing with thanks, and as we prepared to leave, we asked to meet Nate and thank him.   He came out and stood behind the register as we repeated the story, with all the staff gathered round.   I don’t talk very loud, but I could hear “AWWWW,”   from several places around the room, and as we headed for the door, I waved and said Bye, and it seemed that the whole room chimed in, waving and calling out.

And that was our Anniversary visit to the Golden Torches, ten years ago. Yesterday would have been exactly thirty-five years since that memorable visit, and I wish that I could be there THIS MINUTE, bathed in that bright golden atmosphere of hustle and hum, smelling those delicious scents of BREAKFAST, and re-living those precious days.   Y'all need to stop in sometime, for scattered, smothered, covered and topped.   

GRAPENUTS CHICKEN

 

Years ago, a recipe went round the South for a tasty chicken dish, 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 the men of our family were members of several organizations and all were farmers. I had met the wife briefly on occasion). Now, for the life of me, I cannot imagine what prompted the invitation, except possibly the husband's urging of a social occasion amongst us four.

And I was delighted for an evening which entailed real shoes, a dining room, and someone else's cooking. The idea of sitting down for an entire meal, without jumping up for the salt, refilling glasses, or wiping up spilt ones---that had its charms, as well. And though I did not know these people well, it was going out for the evening, an unusual and lovely thing, indeed.

Living-room-served Appetizer was rumaki, but not bacon-wrapped. The livers and whole water chestnuts 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 clear glass dish, which then resembled some science experiment gone awry---graybrown chunks of boiled liver, long flappy strands of ecru 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 there we stood, all dressed for special, probing our toothpicks into the brothy clumps with the enthusiasm of folks poking a bear with a stick. We emerged with a dripping bit, held our tiny plates beneath on the way to our mouths, and hoped for the best.

But you know, if you could get past appearances, they weren't so bad; the crispy chestnuts had taken on the hue of the sauce as well, so you weren't sure which you might be putting into your mouth, and would be surprised that the soft unctuousness you were expecting might turn out to be a not-unpleasant crunch.

But then came the True Crunch: 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: Grape-Nuts. Now, Grape-Nuts, on a good day and in its natural state, perhaps with a little pool of milk and a scatter of blueberries, is a passably pleasant breakfast. But those hard little nuggets, already baked into a shelf-life of ninety-nine years---well, baking them further still---that was not a good idea.

After the surprise of 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. Hoping to avoid a trip to the dentist for repair work, we did some meticulous carving and managed to carry on a conversation, all at the same time. Even after all this time, I can remember trying to separate those little stone crumbs from the tender chicken, corral them in my cheek, then swallow them like aspirin with a few sips of tea, whilst maintaining a conversation.

Side dish was a lovely platter of baked sweet potato surprise, another favorite au courant on the hairdryer circuit. 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, with a nice gravelly coating of Grape-Nuts around those mooshy sweet potatoes---like a mouthful of sweet aquarium rocks. How anyone could have thought TWO dishes rolled in cereal would make a balanced meal is beyond me, but the Grape-Nuts carried both recipes to heights undreamed of by the original cooks.

I think of that nice lady occasionally, how she opened her home to us, set her table nicely and cooked us dinner, and how ungratefully snarky my memories are. And I don't think I ever told the story from that day to this---it just seemed so ungrateful, somehow, after all that effort, and not befitting the hospitality.

But I still can't pass the cereal aisle without thinking of that chicken.

YORKSHIRE PUDDING, REDUX

 

When I went to England for the first time, I had a list of things to try and see and do and buy and experience, quite a few of them food-related. I wanted a bowl of porridge in Scotland (related in another post), Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding, treacle tart, a real afternoon tea with scones and cream and jam, and several other traditional things (all of which were accomplished and enjoyed very much).

So the first night on the road, we had dinner at our little hotel, and it was the only buffet of the trip, save for the bountiful breakfasts for which England is so famed. As I passed the gentleman who was "carving the joint," I asked for the beef. He misunderstood and carved off two hefty, steaming, juicy slices of the pork instead. I just accepted it, went right down the line, retrieved the nice muffin-pan shape of golden Yorkshire pudding, poured a bit of the rich brown gravy from the silver boat onto both, and had one of the best dining experiences of my life. It was rich and salty and BEEFY with the essence of the meat.  That sauce/gravy moat was the very embodiment of generations of Dripping, and would have been worth five hours' turning of the beef spit in the fireplace by small boys in the kitchen.

Later in the week, we stopped for lunch in the Lake District, and Yorkshire pudding was one of the features of the day in the restaurant/souvenir shop we were ushered into. I thought I'd try it one more time, and it was a bit different from the first. My plate arrived, or at least I hoped there was a plate under the weight of that huge bowl-shaped piece of browned dough holding its pint of gravy. The gravy was not so rich this time, nor did it have that tang of good meat essence nor the satisfying flavour of anything but browned flour and whatever liquid was used to make it. But it made up in quantity.

It was enormous. It covered a dinner plate, with just room on the edges for the server to get a tiny thumb-grip on either side. It looked as if a brown cake-pan had been appropriated from the kitchen, filled with brown liquid, and sent to table, its little ridges of sides barely holding in the flood. It sloshed when it was set before me, and the quandary arose: dip a spoon in that bread bowl and eat gravy soup until the ramparts could be breached, or cut right in, thus granting exit to enough brown sauce to flood the pretty tablecloth and perhaps flow back toward the kitchen. I'm a generous cook, with a lavish hand with the groceries, but I think I've served MEALS without that much gravy on the table.

Then we looked around us. Whole families were chowing down on plates of the kiddie-pool-sized servings. Twig-sized young women were tucking into the stuff with the gusto of lorry-drivers, and small children had their OWN great moats of brown in front of them. It was amazing. This was food for hearty hikers, tramping into the house in Wellies, beaming and rosy-cheeking their way through great trenchers of heavy food and gallons of steaming tea. Flour and water were the order of the day, and we were all consuming enough carbs to bankrupt Atkins several years early.

The pudding appeared to have been baked in a pieplate or cakepan, with inch-high sides which rose up and held its juicy burden, and the bottom was just about the depth of a piecrust, though springy and tender. I shared spoonfuls of the gravy all round the table; my companions scooped up spoons and bowls of it. One lady had no receptacle save her plate, so she lifted her teacup to the tablecloth and accepted a saucerful.

We all dipped and slurped and it made immediate "English dip" for the hearty sandwiches of all others at the table. I managed to down about a third of the rich eggy bready pudding, saturated as it was with the salty sauce, and passed samples to fellow travelers at other tables. When we finally lugged our stuffed selves out and back onto the bus, we left one semi-circle standing like a dough map of Stonehenge, listing toward the gravy. The stuff could have made a Biblical legend, a story passed down through whole families as they gathered on Friday nights, with children for generations asking, “Tell about the gravy which never ran out.”

When we left to go trekking through Wordsworth country, there was STILL a great moat of gravy left on that plate, with the golden pudding swelling and growing limply pale in the light of the grey afternoon.

TOUCHING THE PEN

 

 In a note just now to my friend Monique in Canada---she of the delightful and sumptuous La Table de Nana, now closed down and sorely missed, I mentioned an old custom which I think of now and then.   Letters often used to begin: I take my Pen in Hand. . .   And a lot of people DID take that for true, especially some of our town residents who had the misfortune of having never learned to read or write.   And so,  I had a few patrons who counted on me to read their letters from family and friend, as well as to WRITE them.   As I took down their words,  quite a few of them would finish the little session by a hesitant touch of my pen.   It's as if the writings were some unspoken RITES---a sacred ritual to the words, in which touching the pen, though they could not write nor read what I was putting down---that conveyed some sort of power to the words, and made them theirs.    

Even folks who came in and could only write their X on a note or document---that power of touching my trusty Parker 51 Gold-All-Over---a graduation gift which has lasted me decades---those folks trusted in the POWER of the touch, and the proof of their being there in that moment to vouchsafe their word and their agreement.    And even Wills and Deeds were treated with the dignity of their "X" if I had written in their name, and BY: racheld.   The confidence in that touch was solid, legality was confirmed, and the courthouse understood.  

I think of those long-ago folks, the ones who never learned to read or write, whose education probably stopped in third grade when they had to Quit School and help with the farming or sawmilling or road-upkeep, and my heart weeps in retrospect for what they missed and I partook of so freely and unthinkingly.   I coached several would-be drivers through the little Mississippi Highway booklet and all its rules, and once I was allowed to go to a formal required test for a friend, reading him the questions from the page about parts of engines and carburetors and flywheels and such, so he could mark A-B-C-or-D on the long answer sheet for a mechanic's certification.   They knew I couldn't coach him and certainly wouldn't cheat.

   

And the TIME---the time that they did have free---when they could have been transported into that magical world of BOOKS or even hunting magazines or the Commercial Appeal--I grieve for the wasting and missing out on all those colorful, exciting, heart-touching tales and interesting news and facts which I could pick up and set down at any moment.   I'm sure their pride in their children and all the recipients of those letters was bittersweetly great, for their own loss. 

But those dear folks, those with the concrete confidence of stone for the Power of the Touch---I wonder if there are any who still convey their faith into that simple small ritual of Touching the Pen.