MAYBE A MILKSHAKE

Setting: Very small town diner, very small town.

DD, with our three GRANDS in tow, was heading home from several towns over, and it was getting past suppertime. They went IN rather than hunting a drive-thru, because it was HOT, they needed to find a restroom, and they needed to wash their hands.

She had a look at the menu, then consulted with the children. Waitress stood waiting, after informing her that the “short cook” had already left for the day.

She ordered, hoping that SOME cook was on the premises. In succession, she asked for five child-friendly, everybody-has-em items, from right there on the menu.

These are her requests, followed by the Waitress’ replies:

CORN DOG: Mmmm---NAAAAW. Ain’t got none a that ‘til Monday.

PIZZA: We outa THAT, too.

HAMBURGERS: That might take a while.

GRILLED CHEESE: I might be able to do that.

GRILLED CHEESE WITH BACON: I never thought a that before---sounds GOOOD.

They did, indeed, have their supper---Grilled cheeses with bacon, milk and Cokes, and then they shared a milkshake from the big green whir-mixer over behind the counter, because it was THERE and because they saw the counter-lady filling one of those big frosty metal containers with REAL dips of ice cream before attaching it and letting it spin.

It was all delicious. And memorable.

BLANCMANGE

I’ve always wanted to make Blancmange. Correction: For a lot of my younger years, I wanted to make BLANK-MANGE. That’s what it looked like in literature (which was the only place I ever knew it to be, and since no one I knew ever said it, I took it at face value). And I never once heard it pronounced, until the Seventies, I think, when Mr. Humphries mentioned to Mrs. Slocombe that his Dear Mother was out delivering Blah-monggzzzzzhe to several of her elderly friends.

But it had already sounded just that wonderfully elegant when Mrs. March and the girls, or perhaps Miss Ellen O’Hara, carried it to the ill and infirm, along with some uplifting tracts and a jar of calf’s-foot jelly.

There just HAD to be a great delight in that perfectly white orb of deliciously-healing stuff, in all its coddly-wobble glory. But though I knew then not a speck of French, and stuck to my original pronunciation (also knowing what real MANGE could do to a puppy’s complexion), it STILL sounded superior to delivering soup and cornbread in a basket, no matter what the ailment.

I’ve assayed an octuplet of small white FireKing bowls of Panna Cotta, those rich, smooth half-balls of pure sweet cream, that spooned-up quivery silk melting sweet on your tongue before you can swallow a mouthful. They came out perfect, sliding from the cups with a satisfying tokkk onto the milk-glass plates. A moat of strawberry puree poured round, and several minutes of nothing but mmmmms and ahhhhhs and an occasional smacking sound, then the gentle scrape of spoons claimed the last rosy drops.

That was an absolutely perfect Summer dessert---stunning on the plate, delicious as the most exquisite gelato. But it just seemed too much, somehow, for someone who was not well---too rich and too fancy and too too. Plus, I can’t see anyone of Marmee's or Scarlett’s day making a quart of heavy cream into food for the poor.

It remained a gleaming perhaps---a someday thing, like writing memoirs or traveling to Greece. I WOULD make some, I knew that I would, but it just got pushed in back of today and grocery lists and other necessaries---a gentle maybe in the long Barrel List of my life.

And THEN I looked for recipes. Well, it shocked heck out of me, I can tell you, to find that instead of a luscious, soft-swallow spoonful, those dishes of the Poor Baskets and the Elderly Ladies’ Dole carried about by all those fluttery ladies in hats---those were made of CHICKEN. And Rice. And Flour.

It just HAD to be something else---a creamy, quivery white nothing-of-a-dish, easy to digest, gentle on the stomach, tasting of brighter days and better times. But it was Chicken and Rice! And probably not any of the good parts, at that. The whole thing just blew all my lofty thoughts into the stewpot.

Sure, I’ll still make some---the sweet-cream kind---someday. But it won’t be authentic, with that wimple-and-gloves feel of the convalescent’s basket. It will be a frivolous thing, a dainty little dish for fickle appetites, not a serious dish to fortify and strengthen.

That original chicken version lived up to its WhiteFood name, but oh, my!!! My feathers fell, my ambition fled, and I’m saving my efforts for something other than ordinary Soup---Good For The Soul or not.

Anyone have a dish they've always longed to make? I will if you will.

But I just KNOW that Emma took Mrs. and Miss Bates the REAL THING.

"Treat, Mother!"

MMMMUSIC

PHOTO BY MARTY KITTRELL

Think of it: never man-made sound, and then, MOZART!!

I think that those of us whose Great Movies Of All Time list includes Out of Africa will recognize this line---Denys says it to Karen when they’ve placed a gramophone out in the bushes to see what effect music will have on the baboon troop.

The animals had listened, fascinated, to the sounds emanating from that even-more-fascinating machine, before they succumbed to the interesting whirl of the turntable and reached out, their curiosity overtaking their fascination, their grabbing fingers scritching the record and the music into a shriek of dismay.

I thought of this scene this morning, as I sat for a moment in my chair with my coffee, idly clicking morning channels, and finding a sweet little romantic movie with two young folks of the 1850’s courting beneath Daddy’s disapproving eye and Aunt’s simpering glee. The four of them gathered in the parlor after dinner, and the young duet at the piano began a song; immediately two white-capped heads appeared in the door, as the two maids clearing the table followed the sound of the notes to their source. The two young women stood, entranced, as the two sweethearts played and sang---he in perfect tune and his lady in a quavery, uncertain voice, and though all the action and sound and focus were on the musical pair in the foreground, I thought about how much those hard-working women-of-the-downstairs must have loved listening to that song.

They probably came into service in their early teens, with never a note of music save perhaps a fair-time fiddle or some harvest hoedown of the time; they would not have been exposed to anything save the wheezy organ of a village church, the sound of the organ as variously vigorous or listless as the small boy assigned pumping-duty on Sundays.

And the hunger for that foreign sound, those notes of piano or fiddle or harp---those have been a part of our humanity since first stick-hit-rock, I’d imagine. First rhythm, then hum, then strum---grass serving for tongue-hum, and reed for tootle and whistle and different pitch of hum.

I asked a fabulous lady bass-player once how she ever chose to play that particular instrument, and she said that it just came to her fingers, and she’d never have ever thought to pick up anything and just blow into it. Thinking of how people might choose, it’s also a miracle that certain ones DID have access, and an incomprehensible loss that so many could-have-been virtuosi did not come to be, for sheer lack of exposure to the particular instrument of their genius.

And the lost music, I think, is the saddest melody of all, but the Found---AHHHH, the swell of the found, and the melody of the IS---those are enough beautiful to last us our days.

HAPPY RETURNS

Isn't it lovely when something once loved and lost is FOUND again?

I think the very first blog I ever read regularly when I discovered the Internet was one written by a fabulous writer and an ALL AROUND GOOD PERSON.

She was so wonderful that she shared her site with other writers, founding a Colony for women writers and commenters, and after that had run its course, we were ALL bereft, for we'd so enjoyed her tales and her adventures and the way she could make a milk-run to 7-11 into a charming, feel-good story. This woman can WRITE!! Oh, my.

She's not all roses and smiles, for she tells things like they are; she loves fiercely, is loyal to her last breath, and follows The Girls' Code. Her Secret Hanker for Johnny Depp is not a secret, she wrestles with everyday blues and pesky relatives and ordinary obligations of life, and her great horde of admirers would follow her anywhere.

And now she's back, in her original home, her original incarnation---Derfwad Manor. I can't think of anything more welcome than the sight of that familiar face, that familiar banner proclaiming her return.

I know a lot of you come by and peek in on my own favorites over there on the right-hand side, and I know I've not ever steered you wrong---these folks are some of the best on the 'Net.

Please give a look-in to the NEW, the ONLY---MRS. G!!! You'll just LOVE her---I Promise.

http://derfwadmanor.blogspot.com/

It's a wonder I can type with all this Happy-Dancin' going on!

DINING AL FRESCO

Chris always looks forward to breakfast at Shoney’s on the way home up I-65. This time we got there just as they’d closed that wonderful “breakfast bar” with all the grits and bacon and biscuits with that lovely cold strawberry topping, but the fresh-cooked Sunday Dinner bar was really good---fried chicken and all the Southern trimmin’s including collards and cornbread.

THEN, when we got on up to the Smokehouse, I regretted that lunch, any of which I could cook at home, because the scent of smoke was so enticing and I’d wanted just ONE good barbecue sandwich on our trip South. Maybe next time.

So, we decided we’d have our dinner WAY up the road, at a place we’d seen on our route of travel---there used to be one like it in our hometown, and we hadn’t tasted their fondly-remembered cuisine in quite some time. We opted to dine al fresco, and the fountain added to the ambience of the evening.

The tiny birds-in-residence added their song to the event, and they joined us in our dinner on the patio.


The whole atmosphere was wonderful, the food just as remembered, the same-though-far-away-in-time-and-place service-with-a-smile. We both associate the place with memories of old times of our youth, and the evening air, the paving still damp from the cooling shower, and the music enticed us to dance, for we were the only diners on the patio. It WAS difficult, I must say, NOT to step around the floor to “Twist and Shout,” and “Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll,” but we restrained ourselves, dedicating our time to such wonderful food while it was still hot.

I had a wonderful grilled chicken cutlet, with a lettuce, tomato and bacon salad, pain ordinaire, and pommes frites.

Chris opted for a saucisson supreme, with its accompaniments of fromage Americaine and a lovely poivron et tomates sauce:

Yep---that's a big old foot-long Chili-Cheese DAWG.

His side dish of choice was a familiar crisp dish of tiny pommes croquettes, with their savory topping of fromage and more of the that luscious sauce.

The famous DANIEL Bite:

The waitstaff was attentive and cheerful---downright perky, in fact, but who can be anything else working where THIS is the norm:

What can I say---we’re small-town all the way, and couldn’t pass up a trip to SONIC while we had the chance, for Old Times’ Sake.