PAMINNA CHEESE TIME!

 

IT'S JULY, FOLKS!!   And I let THE FOURTH get on past without a mention of that Summertime Staple:    Pimiento Cheese. Pim-eee-en-toe is what that looks like. Perhaps pim-yen-toe.   No Fourth is the same without it. No outdoor celebration, picnic, cookout, Coleman-in-a-boat, campside or Lawn Tea can be complete until a plate of dainty little sandwiches, fine hearty ones, or a whompin' big bowl with a matching bowl of RITZ or Premiums beside is on that picnic check or white-tent Battenberg, as big as you please.    

But Paminna Cheese, the good old Grandma of all Southern spreads, is not of those pronunciations or provenance. It's not entered into lightly, not if you want the REAL stuff.

It's not my Mother's version, with mild or American cheese, little flecks of smushed-into-pulp pimiento, and chopped sweet pickles (in our case LIME pickles, a family standby since Mother tasted the canned version made by my first MIL, made one "making," and claimed it for her own).

And it's certainly not that pink Velveeta paste with a little mayo, served up and lurking in every Dairy Case in every Safeway, Sunflower, Winn-Dixie and Food Club below the Mason/Dixon. Those clear little round cartons, how they woo the unwary, how they call to the quick-minded hostess, the gotta-make-a-snack, the hasty-sandwich-platter people. That lifeless goo has appeared soft and comfy on Wonder Bread, on Ritz, and painstakingly stuffed into Bugles at more Bridal Teas, Preacher Poundings, Coke Parties, afternoon socials and garden club meetings than the most sociable of guests.

That stuff is a comfort food, of sorts; it is squishy and mild and bland, and a white-bread sandwich made with it is the Movie Extra of foods: there, and useful in its way, but just hovering in the background while the real action takes place.

REAL Paminna Cheese (always capitalized, and spelled like it sounds) is a lusty, tangy, splendid mouthful of bright flavors which delight your tastebuds and make you smile. It's the easy-to-put-together quick spread of all time---no eggs to boil, no creamcheese to bring to room temp and smoosh around, nothing to chop or measure (though I've become addicted to making it with just-minced whole roasted red peppers, usually Trader Joe's, as we always have them in the fridge, and I even throw in a little pour of the juice from the jar).

And I DO wish Kraft would catch on to grating the SHARP cheese into those little fine threads like they do some of the other flavors---I grew a great fondness for the PC of my first MIL, who ground the whole shebang through the finest little holes in her big ole clamp-it-on-the-counter sausage grinder---hers came out a bit like clay, and we probably coulda made little fruit and pink piggies out of the stuff, like marzipan.

The ingredients are simple, and can be changed according to anyone's taste; ramping up the tang is easy, with more mustard, more L&P; it can be rosier with all the peppers you like---two minced makes a fine combo with a six-cup pack of the cheese.

And this is a please-yourself recipe---get yourself several teaspoons out of the drawer before you start, and take a wee taste as you go. I always envision that people making this recipe take a spoontip and taste it, making that little tip-tip-tip sound, then clanging the spoon into the sink before adjusting the quantities and dimensions, grabbing another spoon for another smick, until the proper perfection is reached.

Lo, and BEHOLD!!! I just went to the fridge to verify the size of the package in the drawer, and it's FINELY shredded. Sometimes you can find it. It's the two-cup size (I buy whatever size is the best price total, even if I have to buy three small to make one big---that's Southern Kitchen math. Or perhaps just my own. Oh. Well).

Recipe:

A Two-Cup pack of Kraft SHARP, finely grated
One jar of pimiento, buy chopped or whole---cut them as you see fit
Squirt of French's Yellow
Coupla glugs of Lea & Perrins
Big spoondig out of the cute little Durkee's Sauce jar

Good-sized clop of Mayo---Duke's or Blue Plate for the REAL experience, but Kraft's OK
Several good grinds of the Pepper Mill

Stir it all up in a medium-sized bowl, and taste a teensy bite. Adjust any and all quantities to suit yourself. A lot of L&P will make it kinda tan, but still delicious. This fits perfectly into one of the flat Glad-Boxes, and seems to benefit from the close confinement, sorta all soaking up everything else's good natures and making the whole thing WAY good. Like a close-knit Sunday School Class or maybe Group Therapy.

For the authentic experience, serve it with Premium saltines, or Ritz crackers.

Makes a KILLER grilled cheese, especially on Sourdough or rye. It's also SPLENDIFEROUS on those asparagus roll-up things that were so popular about twenty years ago. And spooned over a fresh-off-the-grill sirloin burger, enclosed inside a buttered-skillet-sizzled bun---the Bleu Cheese proponents have no idea.

And ANYTHING served surrounded by Devilled Eggs is sure to be a hit.

Add on to mention:  There's a New Kid in Town.

If you're lucky enough to have an Aldy nearby, grab a couple of sticks of EMPORIUM White Cheddar---the size of a jumbo stick of butter, with the black label.   It takes Paminna cheese to a whole new elegant level, with only the addition of pimiento and mayo.   Classy and Fabulous.  

ASIAN MARKETS

 

I love shopping at the Asian markets, coming home laden with boxes and jars and frozen items, as well as quite a few fresh vegetables. The white mushrooms (can't find a pic online, and clerk couldn't name them for me) were a huge tender stem, with just a small blossoming top. We'll be having those as a little side dish, just to try their own flavor before mixing with other items another time.

We watched the busy shoppers bagging up burdock---I've seen it grow down South, but these were yard-long thin shoots, apparently limited only by the dimensions of their shipping box. There were greens aplenty, and several that I wanted to ask if they were for cooking as a dish, or herbs for flavoring another dish. The great stacks of boxes held baby bok choy, broccoli rabe, tiny pickling cucumbers, the shiniest of scallions whose ROOTS were even white and thick and pretty.

There were the fanleaves of all sorts of greens, and I was struck by the jewelly loveliness of the tiny turnips and daikons still attached to the neat sheaves, like dangly earrings on a deb. The slenderest of lavender eggplants, others of a mottled stripey pale green; small melons and limes and bunches of what looked like the daffodil sprouts punctuating our back garden---all were just sitting there, no refrigeration, just being gathered up as a daily fresh-shopping excursion which must occur for more families here than I realized.

We loaded up on a gallon of soy sauce, which I decant into a bottle for storing in the fridge door; big can goes into the cool storeroom. Jars and bottles of oyster sauce, aji mirin, sambal oolek, rice wine vinegar, coconut milk; fresh udon, a couple of packs of VERY firm tofu for the mapo another evening, bean sprouts, bamboo shoots and water chestnuts, a half gallon of medium Kimchi, and a pack of frozen squid as a treat for Leah, who likes them dusted with cornstarch and sizzled just a few seconds in peanut oil.

 I've never actually CLEANED any, but I figure it can't be harder than catfish. And these looked so nice, just 2" little fellows, lined up so symmetrically in their little styrofoam bed with their wee grabbers all curled up like pink babytoes.

No wonder so many Asian cooks seem to live ZEN. 

GOOSE CAVORTS

 

The "Toast" as we came to call it, began WAY in the Nineties, when we were first here on a Military base for "a few months" and has extended into 36 years because we loved it here, and had not such call to return to the HOT SOUTH.   We came for five months, with his coming in October of 1990, to begin, with plans to come home for Christmas and bring me back for the further three months.   Then came Desert Storm, and he could not "get leave," so he had a talk with his Colonel about going to bring me back---My silver-tongued sweetie could get gold from a stump.   Colonel said, "We're on Lockdown.  Have your A-- in a chair in the room on Monday.   That's all I've got to say."

So we had Christmas on Christmas Eve, with all seven of our children gathering down on the coast, and woke Christmas morning at four to kiss lots of sleeping faces and drive all day to get here.  His children had gone home after dinner to be with their Mother for the actual Eve and Day, and Leah and her brothers planned a nice dinner to cook together for the actual day.    

 He'd taken a tiny apartment in a nice complex, for such a short duration, and we were at the very back, with a whole parking lot and vast lawn of picnic tables.   Our Ground Floor windows, wide open to that Spring breeze, first became the target of a pair of mallards.  There were also DUCKS and GEESE in the central lake, and soon they caught on that there were goodies to be had around at #13.   They brought their kin and neighbors and babies, and finally we were visiting the "used bread store" twice a week.  

But before those little dinner visits turned into the Avian Tearoom, we began with a little couple, named Maurice and Velveeta.   They came to the bedroom window at 5 a.m., better than reveille, and chatted away til we brought breakfast.     THEN, they brought a Third Wheel---and MY, did she SQUEAK---not murmuring a bit til we woke, but with the abrupt WAAAAAAIKKK of a Klaxon on a clown's suit---we named HER Miranda, because we SO wished she'd remain silent.

And so it went, with the wee three becoming crowds, then flocks, then a drove of thirty or more, with the lake-scenery geese soon getting in on the action.   THEY were even louder than the ducks with their honking blares, and when two or several tied up out on the lawn---it was like a bar-room fight with a Pep Squad.   Not to mention their unmentionables---mating season was a surprise to our ears, with quite a lot of goose music day and night, and when one guest asked about the noise, Chris just said, "That's just the geese cavorting."

And so it became Goose Cavorts, which my sharp-wit sweetheart immediately proposed as a toast at our next gathering.    He raised his glass and said, "GOOSE CAVORTS!" and party-goers followed suit, to whatever inflection they thought they'd heard.    So many of them had served in Germany and all over Europe, lots thought it was one of those languages.    And still we say it from time to time, that long-ago silly misnomer of a TOAST:   GOOSE CAVORTS!!    and never explain.   Do say you'll propose it with no explanation!!  (never on a serious, somber occasion)  See if it will catch on.

MRS. COPPER'S 100TH

                   Mrs. Copper, our upstairs sitting room, June 17, 2023, back from her new home for our final celebration together on her 97th.  One daughter taught ESL for several years in I believe Dubai, and the necklace spells her name in Arabic.  

Today would be the Hundredth birthday of my dearest friend and neighbor, a sweet and humble lady born in Germany and married to a handsome young G.I. in the late Forties.   She came to a strange land, raised four wonderful, successful daughters, and lived a simple life of home and family.   Our small houses in this 1959 subdivision are little Ranches, both with a big finished basement---ours with two bedrooms, a BIG party/dining/TV room, another kitchen, and bath.

Hers was divided into dormitory-type rooms, with SIX twin beds, for his two daughters lived with them part of the time.   Eventually they took in his Mother, then brought hers over from Germany for her last years.    I cannot fathom the mornings in that little house, with six off to school, and the three older ladies settling in for the day.   That kind, gentle man lived with NINE females for about five years there, and all sorts of numbers from time to time.   He DID work nights---a long career at the daily newspaper, and they had their dinner before 5 p.m. so Dad could eat one meal with the girls.  

And Mrs. Copper---so named because our first Granddaughter called her after their magnificent Chocolate Lab, Copper---the noblest, most companionable dog I've ever met.   Mrs. Copper worked with a "survey company," driving all over the city and county to stores and banks and corporations to stand in the door or outside with a clipboard, asking folks to rate the business, or what ice cream flavors, or clothes colors, or which insurance.   

Way back in the 00s, I longed to have a LAWN TEA---named this blog for that kind of event---I planned a party every year, jotting tablecloths and punchbowls and all sorts of trivial bits, and something would always hinder, always delay.   So twenty years ago, I gave Mrs. Copper a Strawberry Breakfast on our patio for her 80th birthday,  with just the house of us. She had mentioned several times that during WWII she and her mother had a little pear tree in the backyard, and that was the only sweet they would have some years, and she longed for just one strawberry.  She rose at 5:30 every day of her life, and so we made it a BREAKFAST party, and we'd meet and celebrate in the early June sunshine.

This one is ca. 2012, and most of the goodies were delivered at dawn by Leah, coming home from  the Bakery she managed for twenty years.   The donut holes and raspberry filled holes, and the neat round ball of Irish soda bread with its delightful crisp sugar coating to crunch between your teeth---those were her contributions, fresh from her oven, and she selected and brought the three cheeses on the bread plate.    See the little red candle in the top of the snowballs?   That's the birthday candle in Hannelore's favorite treat.

That went on, every June, and after she moved away two years ago, she came for one last celebration with us.   I MISS my friend, my over-the-fence pal, our history-teller and sweet confidante.   She, the eighty-foot hackberry tree and the second kitchen were what decided us on buying this house back in 1997.   

And NOW---fate and prayers and CENTURY 21 have brought me a new little companion, a quicksilver little sprite turning SEVEN tomorrow, so I've just Amazoned a tiny sun-dress, some unspillable glitter nail polish, a set of Unicorn Academy books, and some strawberry-strewn paper plates, for our celebration at eight on Sunday morning.   Time goes on, and brings the loveliest things down that long stream of friendship.

Happy Birthday, Hannelore!   Happy Birthday, Rebekah!  And 93 more.

DRAW AGAIN, PLEASE

 

Yesterday was a FUN DAY---Sweetpea's Graduation Party, with a whole crowd of friendly folks at a local Masonic lodge ours for the afternoon and festooned by her Mom in absolutely perfect mementos, colors, hundreds of pictures of her life-so-far, her awards, her travels with the band to ten countries at their invitation to play concerts, family and friends and pets and other such loving miscellania of Life.

It was just a perfect afternoon, with a good number of her classmates there for the whole afternoon, up at the big balloon-festooned photo corner, at the big buffet of ordered-in fried chicken and lots of family dishes set down at the most perfectly-decorated tables and counters I've ever seen for a graduation.   I walked in to be ushered straight back to a table of her classmates, who welcomed me as warmly as another teenager, and asked, "Do you like SCRABBLE?   I brought a board."    And indeed I do.   

Much moire non about the party itself, but Leah insisted I post about the game, for it was too funny to waste.   I'm not a one to use naughty words in any inappropriate setting, but I've met with most of those now-grown graduates quite a few times---in our home for tea or dinner, taking a group to brunch, etc., and I know them pretty well---especially their humor.

So begins the Scrabble game:  the passing around of the tile-trays, then the the little black velvet bag from which we drew our letters.  I know that Sweetpea had warned them that I was a pretty good player, and they were sharp for the match---watching every motion of my hands as I hid the tiles as they went onto the tray.    And I must have had a weird expression on my face, for the first three spelled a word already.   And the next two spelled another, littler word, which combined with the first----well I'd never actually put down such a daring word before, ever.   And I had fleeting thoughts that they had RIGGED the bag, for a joke on me.

Sweetpea, not in the game because of her hostessing and hugging and introducing and such, came over to our table and walked around behind each of us.   At mine, she fell out hold-your-sides laughing, causing everybody to jump up and come see.   Wait til you're the cause of such levity it calls half the guests to flock toward the fun---six teenagers, each smart as a whip and with wits like a ninja knife--and all enjoying Grandma's laughing at herself to the fullest.

Of course, I had to put all my tiles back and re-draw, since everyone had seen my "hand."   It was a fabulous game of Scrabble, with lots of doubles and triples and add-ons to victorious yells.   And you know, you've never had such a compliment as your own GRAND gloating that you won the game (never adding on "at your age," just the facts, ma'am).    I heard her telling it to folks all over the hall, over and over, "ganjin WON the Game!"

(And as for the first draw I exchanged:   I would have settled for     S-P-I-N-E.)