Sunday, October 11, 2015

A MESS OF COLLARDS









I really love this new fridge---I find myself being really persnickety with wiping down the first drop to appear on the door, or giving a good polish to whichever glass shelf or other I’ve just removed something from.  (The mishap with the laid-down flat Rubbermaid gallon of home-cooked figs-in-syrup was a fluke, in which I’d obviously not tightened the big-as-a-saucer lid with my not-as-strong-as-they-once-were hands---that was a MESS, I can tell you, and we hope that will forever be the Worst Thing That Happened To the New Fridge).







But just the other day, I removed something from the top shelf, I remember---during which I must have caught another item, a two-cup Tupperware, knocking it out and down all those feet for a WHACK on the projection which is the freezer, and to the slate floor, where it popped open and went EVERYWHERE.   I just kept looking down around my feet, where the ever-spreading cloudy-green pool just kept spreading around my big old pink Minnie Mouse clogs, with big clots of blackish-green islands moving slow as icebergs as the liquid moved ever wider. 

I stepped ever-so-carefully for an old towel in the laundry room, dropping it like Batman’s cape to cover the onslaught before it fled beneath the fridge.  I just kept looking at the muddy-pool, with my only thought being the lovely pan of shiitake that Caro had made for supper a couple of nights before, but it just wasn’t quite right.
Neither the BLOB nor that slime so beloved of ten-year-olds and Kid's Cable shows has been such a noxious green amalgam of distasteful chunks and goo, and I just could Not Place what it really was.  Now, we call a pot of any kind of greens a "Mess" in the South, but nobody could have predicted this.

  
Haven’t we all had those surreal moments of surprise, as we are so caught off guard that we might interpret something as one thing, and then see a total something else as our eyes try to make sense of what it might be.    And then I knew---it was COLLARDS---the last of that big bowl with the wonderful pot likker that I’d made several days ago, and kept transferring the dwindling supply into ever-smaller storage.  


I got it all swept into the little short-handled dust-pan, down the disposal, with the floor cleaned, mopped and shined, then showered to get off all the splashes.  Just as I started to put my shoes back on, a strange look to the left one caught my eye, and I looked down to see a neat collard bow, sitting right up there like a $500 clip on a Laboutin.   

Appropriate décor for a country cook like me.   Just call me Minnie Pearl Mouse.


Image result for minnie Mouse shoes

8 comments:

  1. Oh I love that new fridge. Tile floors break everything and stuff even breaks on wood floors. Thought that was plastic tied to the top of your shoe.

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  2. It's so true that one wants to keep the new item pristine! Well, now it's baptised!

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  3. So funny! Boy do we love a mess of collard greens. Always hear they are best after the first frost. Your new fridge and floor was getting a good breaking in, now ready for some good cooking.

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  4. Only you could make a "cloudy-green pool" sound so artistic and romantic! The floor (old Douglas Fir which is beautiful but very soft) in front of my refrigerator is so dinged up from everything that tumbles out of it.

    The green adornment of your pink clogs is just perfect!

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  5. I wish there was a way to convey the real laughs that this post engendered! That dumb 'LOL' or a smiley face just wouldn't do it justice. I could hear your voice telling this story and just hee-hawed! I adore your fridge and know you are going to continue to love it - I can't imagine ever getting a different sort.

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  6. Funny!! Beautiful Big ice box!!! Trade ya??! Lol

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  7. Have I told you I bought almost the exact same refrigerator? The difference is that mine is stainless steel colored. Behold my great disappointment when I discovered that it does not support magnets. Ah, well, after 9 years of no magnets in the RV because of the fridge, we got a residential one for that, so I do have magnets for half the year!

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  8. Dear Minnie Pearl Mouse,

    Have I told you lately that I love you

    Beverly♥♥♥

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