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.