CAFFAYS WHERE I COME FROM

 

Part of the South's reputation for good cooking has been built upon the delicious offerings in the restaurants, cafes, buffets, eating places, holes-in-the-wall, fish shacks and barbecue joints which populate the area like lightpoles. Places that promise little and deliver grandly are not hard to find, and the elite cuisinical Meccas of such as Keller and Dufresne and Ripert and Boulud have not so fervent a following of dedicated patrons and admirers as do the small, known-mostly-to-locals places dotted all over the South.

Doe's Eat Place in Greenville is one well worth mentioning, a shabby old building with black skillets turning out heavenly steaks and takeout tamales delivered in coffeecans and tables close enough to the stove to get singed. The steaks there ARE world-famous, with Zagat and Michelin and the Sterns pointing the hordes to the door. Quite a few others come to mind, of lifelong popularity and a steady, loyal clientele who make Friday night at the Hollywood (fried dill pickles!) or lunch at Stitt's or a special celebration at Mary Mac's traditions in their areas.

But there are also very small places, principally patronized by locals, and word-of-mouth is their only advertising. They're also well worth a word, and a visit. There are small formica-tabled diner types, with divided crockery plates and plastic menus needing a good wipe from a wet rag. Hamburgers and meatloaf and liver-and-onions abound, with fried chicken and catfish prominent in the bill of fare, and you see the why of the diked plates when the overflowing chicken-fried steak and gravy and mashed potatoes are set before you.

And the Meat 'n' Threes!!! Lines go around the block, even at the shacky ones with creaky floors, mismatched furniture, and oilcloth from the Seventies on the tables.

Dishes required for all self-respecting Southern Meat'n'Threes (rotating basis, Meatloaf Tuesday, etc., quite acceptable):

Fried Chicken,
Chicken Livers
Chicken and Dumplins
Meatloaf
Country Fried Steak
A big ole pink ham for Sunday Dinner, cloves optional
Whole Turkey Breast, sliced into the gravy
Mashed Potatoes
Mac N Cheese
Butterbeans
Fried Okra
Snap Beans w or w/o Baby Potatoes
Sweet potatoes, usually canned, with sugar and butter simmered with the juices to almost caramel

Kidney Bean Salad with boiled eggs and celery and a good clop of Blue Plate or Duke's

Pea Salad, ditto, with the addition of sweet pickles
Devilled Eggs
Three Bean
Five Cup
Jello

Combination Salad (Iceberg, tomato chunks, cucumber, bell pepper) with choice of 1000 or Ranch, or sometimes already tossed and wilting into the bowl, with just mayo and salt

Congealed Salad--Any flavor, with crushed pineapple and KoolWhip stirred in before jelling

Cornbread; any version, including jalapeno; sticks, wedges, squares or muffins, but they'd better not APPROACH it with the sugar bowl unless they're north of the Tennessee/Kentucky line

Rolls
Light Bread
Biscuits
Coconut Cake---creamcheese icing is good, Seven Minute is perfection
Chocolate Cake
Chess Pie--the addition of a tablespoon of cornmeal gives it the perfect texture

Chocolate Pie

Lemon Icebox, made with Eagle Brand, egg yolks and fresh-squeezed lemons, and the orphaned whites whipped into a downy cushion, swirled atop, and just barely kissed into golden peaks by the oven

Karo Pecan---everybody's Mama's recipe
Peach Cobbler (No cinnamon---just butter, sugar, vanilla---pure and perfect)
Nanna Pudding

Nobody would expect all of the above every day, but the assortment and variety and good cooking is astounding.

And our good fortune: though we live in what Chris calls the "Northernmost Southern State," we have at least three places very close by which serve exactly the above menu, done in exactly the way you'd find it in Natchez or Clarksdale or Greenwood.

Here, you’d have to specify: Sweet Tea. Down there, they just bring it.

And moire non re: Hollywood, Round Tables, and Miss Flossie's Caffay

MEMORIAL WEEKEND, 2026

It's not quite holiday weather here today, with the warmth of the sun and bright skies and the snap of flags in the sunshine, the smoke of a thousand backyard grills raising delicious scents into the Spring air. There were no sunbeams to wake to, but the damp skies will not dim the services and celebrations of this long Spring weekend.

But weather hasn't much to do with the feelings that surround this special day, this day of remembrance and honoring and taking stock of our nation's blessings. The placing of wreaths, the little flags stuck into the earth of countless graves, the floral tributes, the handful of limp posies clutch-wilted in a child's hand, the tears of remembrance---those will quietly and reverently go on even as the scent of charcoal drifts up and the promised rain comes down.

I have a deep-imprinted vignette in my memory-collection, of sitting there in a hot scratchy dress several years ago, to see my Mother-in-Law receive the folded flag "With the thanks of a Grateful Nation." And so we remember GrandDaddy, in all his twenty-something years of service. 

I still have a secret, heartfelt gleam of pride for my own Sailor/Soldier whose twenty six years of service was oddly commemorated with the presentation of the folded flag in our back garden during that strange, closed-in time when the World changed in 2020.  We had just rung the big plantation bell seventy-three times to honor the years of Chris' life, in a small moment rather improvised as his Marine Colonel brother presented me the flag after we all took a turn of ringing the bell. That upright, stiff-chinned Marine had bought, ironed, and perfect-folded the flag himself to bring the thirteen hours to our house for the small, important ceremony unwitnessed by anyone save us beneath the trees and our family members on a Face-Time call all over the country.  

 We'll always be grateful to all the other servicemen and women, and those we'll never know of as we sleep safely on their watch.     And just looking at the flowers in the picture above, the two tall, stalwart reds and the smaller, just-as-strong pink, I think of all our sisters and daughters in uniform, especially the one determined young woman who left for training the day after graduation nine years ago with the tiny tremolo of our long-ago bedtime “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” echoing in my heart.   I gratefully salute the strong, brave women who step up to the mark, who serve standing proud beside the men whose strength and bravery have stood true for centuries.

We feel a surge of gratitude, of pride, of thankful praise for all the ones who take our well-being and our freedom so seriously that they live and die for it, and us.

And so I say "Thank you," to each and every one, and give a prayer of thanks for all of our service-people, past and present---those standing proud in uniform today, those who have served, no matter what the term, those who have retired from their service, but remain ever soldiers, those lying beneath the brave small flags, and those in unsung graves around the world, known only to the angels and remembered in the hearts of those who loved them.

124 years with two still serving.

TALK ABOUT A DERBY!!

I've long loved the Kentucky Derby---the sunshine, the roses, the infectious humor/style of the those hats-to-challenge-Ascot, the scent-of-the-mint in those sweaty julep cups, camaraderie  and the great energy and thunder of those muscles and hooves.   I still watch that sweet video from decades ago, of the baby colt and his Mama already discussing the ROSES---I usually have a few sweet tears for that one.   

Today, I ventured into a blog heretofore unknown to me from Linda's Link Party and to me, it has some of what blogging should be about---Home, Family History, Hospitality, and an evocative hand on the pen to set the stage so beautifully.   I'd missed looking in on the Derby on Saturday, and my first glimpse of a new site this morning  was mesmerizing  and captivating and I hope you'll look in on this wonderful telling of a FIRST in racing history, and the lovely hospitality of the writer.   

SALT PRAIRIE

LETTER FROM A GRANDDAUGHTER

 

I've been asked recently about my outlook on Life, and why I'm interested and take Joy in so many small things, and I think that it's the company I keep.    For example, a Granddaughter with the sharpest wit, a tender soul, and intellect way beyond her years.   I just sent a copy of one of her e-mails to NANA DIANA, who had just sent me a profoundly great compliment, to illustrate the small things that BRIGHT me, every day.    From a 21-year-old Jane Austen fan with her own magnificent library, eloquent writer, and magical touch with the knitting needles. 

She works in a jewelry store, with her exquisite manicure modeling rings for bashful swains and their sweethearts, and a letter from her is a wonderful gift:

 From last August, when I NEEDED a lift, as we were in the midst of four weeks of a hot, dusty, messy, EXPENSIVE re-wiring of the whole house:

-----------------------------------------------  

Happy August, Ganjin!! I’m practically sizzling with excitement for this approaching fall. One of my many philosophies is that since Christmas is allowed November, December and January, then we should grant my hearts most fondest holiday and season the last two weeks of August, the first belonging to the dog days of summer naturally.  I’m so excited that I’ve already begun window shopping for new decorations. I have little reason these days for costumes, seeing as I’m not much of a party goer nor do I have parties to attend, but that opportunity may present itself at my local renaissance faire’s new fall festival. 

I'm sorry my replies have been so few and far between. I’ve accidentally made myself quite useful at my job and I’ve taken as many hours as they can possibly give me. The shop is turning into something of a winter wonderland (my manager gets a bit ahead of herself when it comes to Christmas festivities). Every year we receive boxes upon boxes of stuffed animals for charity. The proceeds of them are donated to Saint Jude’s children’s hospital and the stuffed animals are either kept or donated to children or elderly in the surrounding area. I’ve enclosed a picture of our two variations this year. We’ve also put up this massive beautiful arch in front of our door that has inflicted a torrent of glitter upon the whole store and my person. 

I had a woman come in the other day that reminded me so much of you. She had these lovely iridescent dragonfly wing earrings and was remarkably kind. She ended up buying on a whim a citizen watch that came with an extra bangle she swore to give to her daughter. Sometimes I think people are put in our path to remind us of loved ones so that we might love them even better and miss them even more. 

Today is a lovely, breezy, overcast day. It’s a welcome break in the streak of 100 or more degree days. It makes me think of a Taylor Swift song I play obsessively once August shows its face. It’s a rather sad song (titled “August” aptly enough) but the opening lines “Salt air, and the rust on your door. I never needed anything more,” is a breath of fresh air every time I hear it. A reminder that every Summer closes with the relief of Autumn. That every sunburn heals and every humid inhale is one closer to the first fogged exhale of winter. That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy my summer though. It was filled with new opportunities and excitement; long drives giggling over the ill fortune of a broken AC in 120° weather; cheering on friends from afar during brave, once in a lifetime kind of moves; and as always pages turned on a well loved book and stitches knit on a much anticipated project. 

My current read is “The Invisible Man” but H.G. Wells and my current knitting project is a bag as a present for K’s birthday. You may know universal studios in Orlando has opened up a new park, and in it they have a whole land dedicated to the classic universal monsters I love so dearly. Amongst them is a character who hasn’t wandered the parks in many many years, the Invisible Man himself, and I was so utterly thrilled at his return that I just had to order the book in and read his story again. I’ve collected a handful of pictures I thought you’d might like to see of new jewelry, bookshelfs and trinkets, yarn and their subsequent end results, my newest silly bumper sticker, and critters and the like. I love you, I hope the last vestiges of summer ‘25 treat you well."xxxxxxxxxxxxxx\

ISN'T SHE A MARVEL?  I'M SO BLESSED.     THESE sweet young folks are  whence springs my JOY.

    

TRACKS, PART II

 

Image from the Internet---my home clothesline is long a thing of the past, except for heavies being aired out for storage.   I DID notice in the search, that only one out of perhaps every fifty scenes DID have the proper way to pin things on the line---every single item took up TWO pins, with little spaces between.   

We lived four houses down from a railroad track---my most delightful time of day was when the Illinois Central stopped to take on fuel. I would run down the block, climb the enormous, swooping trails of wisteria vine in the last neighbor's yard about six feet up, and peer into the dining cars, all alight and bright with white napery, ladies in their nicest hats, and the coats of the smiling waiters.

But my daytime relationship with the train-tracks was a more personal one, born of years of time-between-trains---we knew the schedules and the whistles and the times of every arrival and departure. During my early childhood, before the engines switched from coal to other fuel, the close-to-the-tracks houses had a whisper of fallout from that coal-smoke. I’d be sent out on washing-day with a damp rag, to reach up high, grasp the heavy wire clothesline in that dampened cloth, and walk one-end-to-the-other, tightly clutching the line as the residue from several-days’ train-passings was gathered into a grimy blackness in the center. And when we took in the fresh-dried clothes, my Mother would “look the corners” for any telltale misses which had been folded beneath the clothespins into her fresh-washed laundry. We ran out in a frenzy many a washday, when the far-down-the-turn whistle reminded us that the train was due. We’d gather armfuls of the whites helter-skelter, holding them in great loose swags as we snatched the pins loose and ran for the back door with hems dragging and socks spilling in our wake.

Those hurried-frantic day-moments of grabbing damp clothes were SO worth the nights---I thought it the most wonderful, the most romantic, the most elegant thing in the world to be able to sit there in that small space, with lovely shining silverware and china, and be one of those happy, beautifully-dressed passengers enjoying their meal. I never saw beneath shoulder-height, but having seen train dining cars in the movies, my child’s mind converted those images into glorious colors and gleams, with flowers in vases and a silvery coffeepot wielded by the white-coated waiter.

I've told several times of the darkened evenings of watching the colorful displays of the people in the train windows, just their shoulders-and-heads view, reduced to small soundless color TV portrayals in those rectangular windows, kindling a travel-longing in my soul. I'd have been content just to sit there, sidelined on that switch-track forever, living that soundless life of gracious warmth and genial company over the china cups.

Moire non of my own fabulous trip-on-a-train, with every one of the wonderful experiences I'd dreamt of.

TRACKS PART I

 

PHOTO BY MISSISSIPPI'S MARTY KITTRELL

Beneath the wild melodies of the wind chimes at night, I can hear the low moan of the trains passin’ through a few blocks from our house, especially in this lovely weather, with the windows open, and the sound wends its way in through those shady windows, down the long hall, and flows down these narrow stairs like oil down a drain. To my ears that oh-so-familiar old woooooooaaan is an echo of past train-sounds of decades, from those hot Delta days whose clock was the train-times; they stopped for water, for coal, to offload and take on passengers, and the mail was unloaded as swiftly as tossing out the bags.

The strong-as-iron mailbags with their leather-belt straps and their old-penny locks had the grinds of cinder-landings and underfoot stompings and dusty-concrete-draggings branded into their indestructible fabric. Not even years of being hung in all weather from the T-frame, feet from the tracks, to be snagged by the hook of the fast-passing express, could pierce the armor of those magical mailbags.

We loved that conjuring trick, and gathered to watch, every time we could---the depot worker would squint his way out into the sunshine, holding or dragging the gray-brown canvas lump, manhandle its weight up the several feet onto its iron gallows, and step back toward the door of that “railroad-colored” building---a sort of blacky-grayish-grunge color which marked every small-town depot I’d ever seen.

Smalltown "Postmistress" hanging out the day's mail with her hair and slip blowing in the wind.

The fast-approaching train would shudder past, the clicks of the pin-width gaps between the rails causing those flying silver wheels to give off their trademark ca-CHUNK ca-CHUNK as the open door neared the swinging mailbag. In a move fast as a blink, the hook swung, the bag disappeared into that big maw, and the train was gone, in a diminishing clamor and whoossshhhh that left us breathless ourselves, and again amazed by the magic.

And of more Train Magic from the past, moire non.

SLICE OF CUT CAKE

 

Daddy's Aint Ruth, who was as "Country as they come,” raised a whole passel of chillun, each with two names in the family fashion, and each growing up in that not-too-large frame house with the two outdoor faucets through the wall over the kitchen sink.  They were big old high brass things, both gushing out cold water into that wide trough sink, deeper than ours, in those days before doubles and all those charming little modern doo-dads on one side, so handy for disposal and rinsing and bar needs.  The two faucets were put in together years before, in trust of a "hot water heater" somewhere in the nebulous future.  And many a dish went through that kitchen, a literal dozen plates per meal at the long wood table down the length of that fragrant, colourful room, and also a literal two-meats and four casseroles,a big skillet of bread, and several  pots of sump’n nother just picked and shelled from the garden.

And the desserts!  I’ve never seen so many or such variety at a plain old family meal---it was common to have cake and pie AND a puddin’ sitting on the sideboard as they sat down to supper after a hard day’s work.   She had but two cake recipes, for the actual layers---a yellow one and a chocolate, rich with a great cloud of Hershey’s cocoa sifted into the Godchaux before creaming in that immense old Sunbeam the shade of aged ivory.  But the additions and the flavorings---she had about five good-sized bottles of Raleigh flavorings in the cabinet, even back then when I was a teen and boasted THREE of my own---vanilla, of course, and lemon extract and the ethereal almond for the most exquisitely flavored pound cakes.    She also had coconut and "imitation rum," of all things, and in addition to putting a few drops of the coconut into the cake layer before baking, she’d set the freshly-grated coconut aside, put a few more drops into the “milk” which was carefully saved from the coconut.

One of the boys usually had coconut duty, and he’d poke the ice pick into the three little monkey-face holes at the end, maneuver the holes over a little bowl, and drain out all the what-chefs-today-call-water before taking the coconut out to the shade and a big concrete block, to crack it gently with a hammer and dig all the lovely soft meaty insides loose, like hulling out a particularly fragrant oyster from its shell.  Those curvy bits of meat had a gentle brownish rind on the outside curve, which had to be removed with a small sharp knife, to keep the whitewhite flesh pristine for the grater.

I can just hear the whushwhush of the grating, as Jean Evelyn or Mary Ruth stood at the table with the big old box grater, filling the big pyramid with great drifts of the snowy shreds, ready for the cooling cake.   And Aint Ruth had a way of taking that leftover bowl of “milk,” adding in a bit of sugar and a teaspoon of that delightful extract, then tossing the liquid around in a bowl with all those mounds of coconut.   This was left to sit whilst one of them heaped the great billows of seven-minute onto and over those three layers, straight from the cooling rack. 

  She was the first I ever saw to take some strips of waxed paper, slide them under several sides of the cake, and collect all the coconut which fell from the expert fingers patting it gently onto every inch of the gleaming frosting.   At the end of the process, they’d slide out the paper, then dump all the bits of escaped coconut onto the top of that gorgeous cake, and it was done.

BUT.   If one of the boys (or girls, for that matter), had come through the kitchen with a little sweet-craving, they’d just matter-of-factly take a whack at whatever cake layers were lying there cooling.   And this was not the “OH, Hon!  Don’t cut the cake ‘fore the company sees it,” where one neat slice from the finished marvel would be noticed, but only in passing.  This was a quick knife through one of the naked layers resting on the racks, picked up like a pizza wedge and lifted for a bite as the culprit headed elsewhere in the house or leaned casually against the counter for a chat with the cooks. And then the cake-assembler had to deal with an oddly-shaped piece to frost and stack, which they did with such a practiced, unfazed air, or simply saying “Guess we got a two-layer cake today!” with a casual swat in the direction of the cake thief, that it must have been a frequent occurrence.

That simple, natural gesture of confidence and welcome-to-it astonished me the first few times,  for I loved to be there for the Saturday baking (or Sunday morning, if they were adding on a little extra for us “company”), and I could not fathom being allowed to just demolish a project like that.   Cakes were sacred things, round and perfect and immaculate of construction and method---the formula had to be right for them to rise, or to taste right, or to be exactly enough for the three layer-pans, and to so casually dismember some of the parts before the actual assembly---it rather sent my baking mind into disarray for a bit, as if she’d snipped a big hank of fabric off a dress, leaving the hem a foot shorter on one side.

I realize now that those cakes and their casual treatment, that easy comfort in the kitchen and in that whole filled-to-the-brim house, with the respectful, kind kids and absolutely devoted parents---those cakes were the absolute symbol of a kind of child-raising I’d not encountered before.   There was a philosophy of trust and an easy camaraderie amongst all of them, a gentle kind of living together with all taking a willing part in the keeping of the home and family. 

 I was raised in a  tight-ship-kitchen, a flinch-over-spilled-milk household, with never in my life a cake cut out of reach of Mother's watchful eyes, even though I had baked every single one made in that house since I was Twelve.   The cake might come out at dessert time, be judiciously sliced onto the right number of small plates, and then went back under the cover, with a a snap and slide back beneath the cabinet until Mother brought it out again.  My only graduation to being alone with a cake was about my junior year, when my parents started delaying their dessert until about nine,  between GEORGE GOBEL and DINAH SHORE,  and I could go to the kitchen and set a tray with two cups and saucers and two little cake plates, boil the copper kettle, and pour the boiling water over the Folger's instant, to go with the two slender slices I delivered to the coffee table before going back to my chair.   And here were all those cousins making free in their own homes, just helping themselves to a needed part of a whole-yet-to-be-made, with scarce as thought as popcorn.

The first time it happened, I looked at her, wide-eyed, then back at the wedge-missing layer on the rack, and as I turned my gaze to her face again, she laughed, reached out a casual finger and patted up some crumbs.   Just before she put them into her mouth, she said, “I ain’t never made a cake that couten’ be CUT!”

My, how we all adored her!!

Dumplin' Days

 

I SWEAR, Y'all!!  This April weather is what they might call CAPRICIOUS---it's been cutting capers all over the map, thermometer and Thermostat settings.   The honeysuckle was sweet through the windowscreens last night, and this morning's 45 sent the windows DOWN and the furnace UP.   Days like this make me want to cuddle in and treat it like it's February again, one more time for the sun gets to make the calls all Summer.  

It's what would and should be known as a Dumplin' Day. Those are the ones when the weather is just TOO cold and bad to go out in, the warmth of home and flannelly shirts and cups of cocoa beckon, and the scents of a pot of something richly simmering on the stove soothes and relaxes the body and soul. And nothing is better at that than a big pot of chicken and dumplings. It's even a silly, feel-good word---dumplings---sounding like the fat cheeks of rosy new dolls or the back of a baby's plump knees.

My Mammaw's (and in turn my Mother's) dumplings were the roll-out-on-the-counter type, made with some of the stock from the simmering pot. Fat carrot slices, chunks of celery and some leaves, and an onion or two, speared all round with toothpicks, THEN cut into sixths or eighths, gently bubbled in the deep heavy Wearever pot with the biggest old hen from the butcher's counter, and in some instances, an elderly one from her own stock, come to the fullness of days in that dusty chickenyard out back.

The yellow-fat old bird seethed away for a couple of hours, turning the vegetables into smooth, melting mouthfuls, and raising glistening dots of oily fat to the surface of the rich stock. A few peppercorns, a handful of salt from the little crock beneath the counter, maybe a small curl of sage from the bush perfuming the air out by the porch.

Several cups of the broth were ladled into a small flat pan and inserted into the freezer for half an hour so the dough wouldn't take a quick-rise as it was stirred together---that was MY reason, for I always kept SR flour. And it's easier working with cold dough than when it's warm and stubborn. Dough-crawl was always a problem---must be something in the sense-memory of millennia of dough that keeps it trying to retract from every thump of that rolling pin.

The first broth-chilling pan I remember was one of those little flappy-handle ice-cube trays, clickety cube-release thing removed, slid back into its neat little frosty slot in the freezer compartment. Flour and broth were stirred into a stiff mass, no herbs or salt or butter, then the whole chilly lump dumped onto the flour-dusted white countertop, top dusted with more flour, and rolled, elastic and lively, into a big round disc.

Great slashes of the big ole cutter-pan made squares and triangles and odd little shapes from the rounded edges. A gentle slip into the bubbling pot, ten minutes lid off, ten with it on, and the dish was ready. The chicken had already been lifted with the huge old slotted spoons, set aside to cool a little, then was sort of yanked into presentable pieces, hacked into serving bits, sliding from the bone, with the backbone and neck removed to a small plate for Grandpa's thorough attention and enjoyment. These were also the two pieces with the small bits of bone which might escape into the broth, and Mammaw had a strict aversion to having any stray bits left to surprise the unwary.

The whole stew was ladled into a huge farmhouse bowl, a big ceramic one with a yellow rim and flowers on the sides. We could have fed a regiment from that bowl. I kinda doubt that there's ever been a civilization or culture in this wide world that DIDN'T have some version of chicken and dumplings. I hope not.

In the first kitchen, that of the little "shotgun" house of my very early childhood, my Mammaw could reach each and every item whilst standing in front of the stove...one quick turnaround was all that was possible. The stove (an early Amana, I seem to remember, from repeating the beautiful word like a mantra as I stood on the big flour bucket and stirred stuff), the fridge (a tiny Philco that I could almost see the top of, with its latchety pull-down lever to open the door "Ca-Chick"), and an immense Hoosier cabinet were, with a scruffy-but-scrubbed wooden table, the only appliances and furniture in the room.

The cabinet held a flour sifter in one side, into which about a ten-pound bag would fit. You just stuck a bowl under (dumpling flour went into a heavy red-outside-creamy-white-inside bowl which resembled and weighed about as much as something carved from an immense brick).

Mammaw had one of the first dough-scrapers I had ever seen, made by my own Dad by cutting a metal pie tin in half with tin snips. Mother had the other half at our house, and the two ladies made good use of the homemade convenience. The business edge was wicked sharp, I recall, and not to be trifled with. Later Daddy thought to give a little corner snip off both of the flat sides, and there you had a neater surface for scraping, plus you could cut your dough and piecrust very handily without grabbing a knife. It also was useful when you finished...just scrape the scraps and flour to the edge, hold the flat half-pan beneath the counter, and hand-dust the debris into it...no messy cleanup.

Mammaw also had the traveling scissor-man "dull" the edge of her scraper. The man came to town several times a year to sharpen anything that needed it---he had an array of wheels on which he ground the knives, scissors, even your garden hoe and plow. He would also patch a pot, putting little metal washer-thingies through a hole to reseal it into usefulness. He ground the sharp flat blade of her scraper to a shining roundness, so that the metal would not scar the white enamel pullout tray of her Hoosier cabinet, on which she rolled her crusts and dumplings.

That recipe was geared to a bowl that would probably hold two gallons. That big old farmhouse bowl weighed enough empty to require a good lifting arm, and full---well, there were always plenty of volunteers to lug it to the table.

And with side dishes of greens and silverpeas and chowchow and conserves and a big heavy-cut glass each of celery stalks and slender green onions standing next to the steaming, crusty cornbread or featherlight risin' rolls---Any general or king could have sat down to that table.

THAT KINDA DAY.

BLESSIGNS, REDUX

You know how you can look at a page, and there's the faintest little nuggle that something is NOT QUITE RIGHT?   I guess I've proofread for so long, the misses just glare out at me---I can telll from here that there are three l's in that TELL.  Or hidden in a milllion of very fine print.   Several years ago, there was one such little typo on a Holiday letter that just caught my eye, and my heart.    A blogger signed off with "BLESSIGNS," and it so struck me that it's not wrong, and so apropos to the subject that they must be a REAL THING---at least while I spell the word like that.    So, for this Spring morning, with all that NEW and FRESH and WONDERFUL out there, and to come---I wish everybody BLESSIGNS.    

 I like that. We just oughta recognize more of those signs than we do, I think. It could be a color, or a breeze, or a beautiful sunrise, a line we read or hear, or even a rainy day that hinders something we meant to do, but what we do instead is ever so much more meaningful---and we usually don’t even know it. It might even be a person whom we don't even consider important or interesting or worth our time, but there could be a wonderful gift awaiting the taking.

I’m going to start really looking out for BLESSIGNS---they must be everywhere, if I’d just raise my eyes from the dishpan or the monitor or the little day-to-days that are waiting, same as always, day after day.

They’re out there. And in here. I just have to be more aware and more interested and alert, and there they’ll be. I don’t think it was accidental that I saw that odd little word on on that next-to-last day of that whole year of '08, and I've really kept watch since.

Dear Bob Ross was a genius in his field, and in Life, as well.   "There are no mistakes, just Happy Accidents."

Happy Accidents and many BLESSIGNS to YOU!!   Keep a lookout.

 

HONEYSUCKLE'S OUT!!

 

Per

                         Perfect palette of color in the lawn-wide Fairy Dell.

Pictures of growing spring, and farms, and homes,
With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and bright,
With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking sun, burning, expanding the air;
With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of the trees prolific;
In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a wind-dapple here and there;
With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky, and shadows;

And the city at hand, with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys,
And all the scenes of life, and the workshops, and the workmen homeward returning.

Walt Whitman   "When Lilacs Last . . .'

We're still in the mud-stage from last sunset's quick, fast Gully-Washer---so dark, I hurried out to put the cans out, then a bright hour and a half before the real dark fell velvet blue.   But this morning, I noticed four clumps of tulip greens---the faithful old things were here when we moved in, and that's 29  years ago. Last year they didn't even bloom, but we left them there in hope, sorta like a faithful old dog who's outlived his huntin' days, but still deserves a place by the fire.

And Miss Effie, the nesting flamingo who sits at the foot of the BIG TREE, will soon lay a few tiny pastel eggs in her nest, in honor of the Season. She's been with us since three houses ago. You DO know that flamingoes sitting on a nest are NOT TACKY, don't you? Just wanted to be sure.

And all over the beds, small remnants of Used-to-Be narcissus and jonquils and hyacinth are peeping out---remnants of impulse grabs at the check-out of many a long-ago wait-in-line a the grocery, the fillin' station, and other places that stick the pretty temptations RIGHT THERE while you're waiting and have your wallet out anyway---those bulbs dried in a sack in the fridge drawer to give them the whole renewing-cycle of a REAL year, if they're lucky, and tossed toward the mulch pile in June and missed, if they weren't. 

 The moss is a verdant blanket of velvety hues, all across the back garden, and with all this lovely weather lately, REAL Spring  promises to be right around the corner. Before we know it, the grapevines will be sending out their little seeking fingers and the Fairy Dell is already filling with the gleamy leaves of millions of little purple violets. Something about hundreds of yellow dandelion blooms scattered upon that moss among the dainty purples---the color wheel knows what it's doing---perfection.   The Winter-crimped carpet of ivy is already beginning to green up and shine, and even a couple of bushes have either retained lots of fresh leaves, or they're just jumping out to get a head start.

I'm headed out now to shear off a few limbs of the Honeysuckle visible from Leah's high window---it's waving in the constant breeze out there snugged up with the wind chimes, and perhaps I'll pick a blossom or two, put my tongue to the honey, and for a moment, be EIGHT again, lying in clover, tasting the hot Summer sweetness of those years---dusty feet,  scabbed knees and all.  

SPRING LETTER FROM MISS MARTHY

A SPRING LETTER FROM MISS MARTHY TIDWELL:

Dear Rachel,

I hope this letter finds yall all well and warm, and dug out from under all that Ice and Snow!  We are all well as Common and gettin all set up for Spring.  

Sledge got us a new little Troy-Bilt this year---said the old one was just give out, and too heavy, besides, so we've got the rows all ready, and some of the reddishes are just about eatin-size and the peas might soon make a good mess to cook.   I know your Mammaw always said wait til after Good Friday to put a seed in the ground, but once he got his hands on that new little red plow, he was out there by February when he could find a sunny day.  He's got a good stand of snap beans and the cucumbers  and those  cantaloupe vines are takin off into the middles, already.    And I always think of that time with my Mama's cantaloupes the minute one vine shows on the ground---that was just the meanest thing that Mrs. Walker ever did, and Mama never forgot it.   

I don't know if I ever told you the story, but it come about with the Missionary Society at their July Meeting.   You know, they went around the county, with one church hostin one year, and another the next---well it was our turn, and there was such a great foofraw for everything to be JUST SO---you know how good cooks put their best pot forward haha.   And this year they had the idea to make a really fancy Salad Bar like they'd see on a cookin' show.   

Well, we'd had a real Bumper Crop from that handful of saved-up seeds you gave us on our trip up there that year, those Decker seeds that they said wouldn't grow anywhere but Indiana---well they musta thought our Miss. dirt was close, because we had a right smart good turnout all through July.   We had enough to give a few neighbors one, and they just couldn't quit makin' over those Mushmelons.   

So when Mama heard that the preacher's wife had saved up grapevines and made baskets special for the boquets for the tables, and their son John had come home that day before from Delta State just to do the flower arrangements---who ever thought ferns and pitcher plants and bayou lilies would look so elegant?  Well, Mama thought she'd give everybody a taste of those good melons.

She'd saved up four of the best ones.  You know they're big as a basketball, and so sweet.   Well she got out a couple of real nice platters, and begged the borry of Earnestine's silver wedding platter, too.   She peeled and sliced those melons into the perfect moon shapes, and I'm tellin' you those platters looked like a magazine.   We even put a few sweetpea blossoms on there for a little purple.   We had to put books in the back seat to balance 'em all flat, but they made it to the Fellowship Hall OK.    

 I went on ahead, because I had made a double recipe of Chicken Salad.   Four of us did, to have enough.  Then I waited and helped carry in the platters and they were so pretty under that Saranwrap. 

The melon went into the church refrigerator to last the mornin til lunch, and when finally lunchtime came, the church ladies brought in the food.   Everything looked so pretty when the ladies came into the hall, and Mama walked over to see all three of her platters of that golden goodness, and she got the shock of her LIFE.    Them slices was just plumb gritty-gray cause they was scattered with enough black pepper for a hog killin'.   And salt too, had to be---for all those pretty slices, washed down in all the juice leakin' out, and just RURNED that good melon.   Well, somebody had done takened, and scattered hafe a box of black pepper all over them cantaloupes!!  It looked like it was covered in ants, and a lot were swimmin’ in the juice down on that silver Weddin’ platter!  

I could see the tears in Mama's eyes for how ugly that was and  all that waste.  And Mrs. Walker standin over there, just watchin to see how Mama took it.   Mama asked who did that and why and she said, "That's the way WEE like it at Mye house." 

Mama said she first started to say this wasn't her house it was the Lord's house and she hadn't no businness prinkin up somebody elses food, but she just kept her mouth shut because ladies from all over the county were coming in.   But many and many a member saw that mess and knew all that salt and pepper was just to burn Mama's hide.   I don't know if Mrs. Walker ever got to help with a luncheon again.    I do know that hardly anybody ever made over her food at First Saturday again, and plumb few ever took any on their plates---even when she made that Mountain Mama Delight, and that's sayin' somthin.       

That's all til next time.  I clean forgot to turn on the TV for my story, I got so caught up in tellin this.   Take all mistake for Love,

                 your friend,   Marthy Tidwell

 

LIME PICKLES AND CANDIED WATERMELON RIND

 

We've had a fabulous celebratory time this LONG already weekend---Friday with a six-year-old neighbor who LOVES pink and pretties like we do---she and her Mama came for cookie decorating for a couple of hours.   Then Sweetpea and her Mama were here for Easter Lunch yesterday, with wonderful tales of their St. Patrick's Week trip to Ireland.   Her high school band was invited to St. Patrick's Day parade, and they had a wonderful week.   They had also made a tour around Europe last June, performing concerts in five countries.  Her Ganner would be SO proud---he brought home so many musical instruments while she was younger, and she settled on playing Clarinets, but also plays Sax as well.   

Today was just us of the house, slow and comfortable, choosing lunch from several days' yummy leftovers, a whole afternoon with just pre-views and trailers of the "new" Jane Austen series---it was almost like watching the whole movie---we KNOW how it ends, Heart/Heart.   Our favorite Author---we speak often in Austenese, with quotes from all the books populating our conversation in our Southern Drawls.  We exchanged our Easter bags---always new Spring-flavored shopping bags to each other, and mine had divine Silicone kitchen items---ladles and spatulas for every use, candy and Peeps and a Moon Pie and best of the best---she'd searched and found the jars of Candied Watermelon Rind I used to save up 79 cents to buy for myself at Safeway every two weeks when they were all babies.   It came in a narrow jar like olives always came in---just room for about seven of the inch-big cubes in a lovely green syrup.  They sold the candied Cantaloupe, as well, with golden syrup.      And she'd Amazoned two pints of LIME PICKLES, so very like the ones I learned to make from her Grandmother, my first Mother-in-Law.   Such sweet remembrance, and so thoughtful a gift.

 Then just at a beautiful sunset, the two small neighbor children were invited over again for a few moments to receive their bags of fun things and candy.   

The livestock has been fed (Seven cats, three possums and five raccoons that I know of---we should have bought stock in Friskies and Nutrena five years ago),---they get their dinner out the back door, on an immense cafeteria tray twice the regular length.                                                                                                                                     The dishes are awaiting Monday, and Leah has retired with a Miss Marple.    I've had a Spa Hour and it's Hubble Time, so good night and a Happy Week to you all!  

PS.  I reminisce and speak of my Mammaw so often here, I feel everybody should know about her by now.   Mammaw of the Roses, the family history told in stories, the dozen white Persian cats with one blue eye and one green, who "lived by the clock and the calendar and time for the mail to be up."   She had a correspondence with Park and Burpee seed companies which equaled her letters to and from family, didn't get an indoor bathroom until 1958,  raised two children in a shotgun house without electricity til "TVA came in 1938," and had a little grave of her first daughter out where she plowed and planted her garden. 

 I doubt that she traveled more than seventy miles in her life (to Memphis when Grandpa was in the hospital).  She had a black silk dress with a rhinestone pin in her closet that she'd ordered from Sears Roebuck to be buried in, and she wore it once the time Mother and Daddy took her to Memphis and she danced with Lawrence Welk.  

She also had The Louvin Brothers play and sing in her front yard when they were traveling from show to show with her Brother-in-Law's band.   I was about eight, and she and I served them noon dinner on the way to their next date, and she got to play along on her mandolin to Tennessee Waltz.

Today would be her 131st Birthday!

RADAR AND HER FAMILY

                                                            

We've had a long love and affinity for BUNNIES.   When we were first married, Chris knew I loved and missed having a pet in the house, and so surprised me with a precious pink-and-white baby rat.   She lived in an aquarium in aspen shavings, with a mylar-silver coffee-sack as her hidey-home, and traveled with us everywhere.   She'd travel in a charming small birdcage, and I'd sweep grandly into whatever motel we were occupying, with a scarf draped over her little house.   She was very easy to support---a tiny leftover from whatever our lunch/dinner was, her licky-water bottle, and whenever we got out of the car for any length of time in the Summer, we'd stand two or three icy cans from the drink cooler in her abode, to snuggle on to keep her cool.   We loved and cared for a succession of those little girls, for when one seemed to be gently easing into her last days, he'd being home a baby---Seven in all we had, over those first years.  

But before Penelope (christened PeePee forever by Daughter Two, when she immediately peed into her hand on first meeting)---there were Bunnies.  We lived in a tiny "mill" house in a charming little town on the Alabama line, and one cool evening near Easter when Chris came home from making calls on clients, our hug included a "Reach into my Pocket."    I obligingly reached into his blazer pocket, and encountered the softest, warmest little creature---she was white with a perfect little raccoon mask on her eyes and lop ears.   Due to the ears and the fact that MASH was playing in the background when he came home, her name was immediately RADAR.  He'd stopped by the local Rabbit Man's farm and picked her up for me.

And Radar loved living in that little house with the fabulous screened porch---she'd spend her days out there in the sunshine, and slept in her bin in the bathroom; the big old clawfoot-tub made a great hidey-space beneath til she got too tall to be comfortable under there.   We almost had to pay for renovations on that house---in the night, she would walk up to the bathroom wall, gently gnaw loose a piece at the bottom of the wallpaper, and start backing up, tearing that inch-sized strip toward the ceiling clean as a carpenter.   And WIRES!!!   Back then only our phones had charger-wires, and her great joy was to nip one in half and just keep walking.   And her HATE for a broom was lethal---she'd grab the bristles in her teeth, I'd swing the broom gently up in the air, and she'd hang on to give it an enormous KICK with her hind feet.  

Chris one day brought her home a Husband---a much larger long-hair Lop, and she had three babies in her bin in the tub.   The first one kinda escaped out into the tub, and was named Houdini; I was such a mystery fan we named the next two WhoDunnit and Sherlop.      And when we moved down to the coast, with a big yard, Radar's five babies with LONG hair like their Daddy were named Samson, Fabio, Rapunzel, Godiva and CrystalGale.   They found nice homes with neighbors and kin when we moved up here, and I 'spect there's a line of long-haired Lop-Ears still flourishing in LA (Lower Alabama in Chris parlance).