Two hundred posts---this Sunday will be eight months---since I took the leap into throw-it-out-there blogging, sending my thoughts and words out to who-knows-where, and November now seems eons gone, and yesterday-fresh.
These words and stories have been received by nothing but kindness; each day brings a pageful of bright flags from nations unvisited save through sending out little snippets of the everyday moments which make up our days. And never have the words been greeted with aught save kinship and welcome. The “followers” are few, and I look on those faces every day with gratitude and respect and welcome of my own, thinking of their taking out a moment to look in, to peek into the windows of our lives here, to walk across the mat and settle into the sitting room or lawn chair for tea and a friendly chat.
And I thank them. I say a heart-deep Thank You to each and every one who has stepped into these pages, for a tiny glimpse, for a fleeting moment, for a settle-in with a Saturday-to-spare immersion. That’s a wonderful thing, a compliment whose import I cannot express, wordy though I am.
The boxes and reams and overflowing closet of midnight words and daily tellings have always been written for ME, somehow, with only family and a friend or two privy to the tales; and now, with this newfound medium, there’s a bringing-out of old thoughts and memories, a dipping-back into the well of the old writings, as well. There's also an unaccustomed wideness to it, a vast unknown to the sharing that is gratifying in a deep way, and scary as all get out, as well.
I just cannot tell you how much the interest and the comments and the mere stopping-by mean to me, for it’s akin to being visited every day by friends, old and new. And that’s a wonderfully happy thing, the bright moments of meeting new folks and re-kindling old friendships.
Your welcome and your words, your interest and your loyal following---I cannot imagine a greater compliment, a greater gift. And for the Two Hundredth Time: Thank you. Thank You from my heart.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
LAGNIAPPE
I'll be out today from very early until about noon, and wanted to get this up and ready in the night, because I've been given a lovely compliment, in that another blogger asked if she could write a bit about LAWN TEA, and link it, so her readers could look in. It was such an unexpected and kind thing to do, and I'm honored to be mentioned on a site that I enjoy so much.
There was a Broadway song back in the Fifties that went, “We be-long to a Mu-tu-a-a-l Ad-mir-a-tion So-ci-e-ty . . .” And I though of it immediately yesterday when an e-mail from my friend Janie at Southern Lagniappe arrived.
I’ve long had deep admiration for this fellow Mississippian whose bright, far-reaching photos of “Back Home” kindle nostalgia and longing and sheer delight in her work, the slideshows accompanied by just the perfect music. It's easy to just sit here and listen, looking my eyes full of scenery and flowers and children and historic sites. Her blog is a wonderful glimpse of another place, of many times, and I can walk right into the pictures of places remembered, places only familiar, places I’ve really never seen but that feel like home.
She looks in here, as well, quite often, and her comments are so sweet and gratifying, as she calls my posts “painting pictures with words.” And then yesterday, I received an-e-mail which was so very unexpected and flattering; she’s featuring this blog on her post today, and linking it for her own followers to look in on.
There was a Broadway song back in the Fifties that went, “We be-long to a Mu-tu-a-a-l Ad-mir-a-tion So-ci-e-ty . . .” And I though of it immediately yesterday when an e-mail from my friend Janie at Southern Lagniappe arrived.
I’ve long had deep admiration for this fellow Mississippian whose bright, far-reaching photos of “Back Home” kindle nostalgia and longing and sheer delight in her work, the slideshows accompanied by just the perfect music. It's easy to just sit here and listen, looking my eyes full of scenery and flowers and children and historic sites. Her blog is a wonderful glimpse of another place, of many times, and I can walk right into the pictures of places remembered, places only familiar, places I’ve really never seen but that feel like home.
She looks in here, as well, quite often, and her comments are so sweet and gratifying, as she calls my posts “painting pictures with words.” And then yesterday, I received an-e-mail which was so very unexpected and flattering; she’s featuring this blog on her post today, and linking it for her own followers to look in on.
And this IS a bit of lagniappe, this out-of-the-blue proffering of such generosity and honor, which causes a smile and a glow of happiness in the receiving and in the having.
Rachel, here is a draft of my post about you and your blog. I wanted you to see it before I publish it, in case you'd like to correct or change anything. I found it hard to express how much I enjoy your writing, but wanted to share it with people who haven't discovered you yet. Let me know if you'd like me to change anything before I publish it. I also took the liberty of editing your header photo, and hope that's okay.
Thanks,
Janie
That’s just the loveliest thing, like recommending a book she liked, and as not many people actually “follow” here, I appreciate her wish to share my words and stories of the South. So I thank her from my heart, and add a link to her own blog, which will just blow you away with its intricate simplicity and beauty and such a gifted eye---anyone can focus and click, but Janie truly SEES through her lens and translates it to page as effortlessly as breathing. I told her that seeing the “new post” sign click on is WAY better’n the “HOT NOW” light at Krispy Kreme.
And it’s just that addictive.
http://southernlagniappe.blogspot.com/
ASIAN STAR SALAD
Lots of things going on today---filling in with a good recipe for a Summer Day is always a good thing. This has a lot of textures and flavors, and is perfect for a patio get-together or a poolside buffet.
Asian Star Salad
½ lb.linguine or spaghetti, broken in half, cooked, rinsed, and cooled
1/2 head sliced Napa cabbage
1/2 head purple cabbage, halved and sliced very thin
1 heart of Romaine, leaves sliced across
8 oz. baby spinach
1 each red, yellow, orange bell pepper, julienne
Wash, drain and pat dry ½ lb. bean sprouts
3 to 6 sliced scallions, white and green
English cucumber, matchstick or long thin strands
½ lb. snow peas, strung, blanched 30 seconds, shocked, sliced long-ways into 3
Handful of cilantro, chopped, stems and all
Toasted sunflower seeds or toasted sesame seeds or a cup of cashew halves (I buy the "broken" ones, cause the whole ones are a bit of a mouthful with salad), toasted gently in a dry skillet---set aside til serving
DRESSING:
Zest and juice one lime
¼ cup peanut oil
3 T dark sesame oil
¼ cup soy sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 T grated fresh ginger
2 cloves chopped, smushed garlic
1 jalapeno, minced, no veins or seeds, or 2 red chiles, sliced thin
Cilantro---handful, chopped
Shake dressing in a jar. Toss salad in large bowl, except for seeds or cashews. Add dressing and toss thoroughly. Serve on wide platter, with seeds or nuts scattered atop. Garnish of onion brushes, snow peas, carrot flowers, if you're inclined to that sort of thing. If you like, scatter a couple of handfuls of Chow Mein noodles on top---the vermicelli size are crisp and wonderful.
Or keep it in a BIG Tupperware, to have all to yourself, for DAYS. It's one of those things in the fridge, like chocolate pie, that will call out to you at odd times, like three a.m.
This recipe is not inherently Southern, but it's one of those that the under-the-hairdryer and Bridge Club circuit would pounce on, make once, and claim for their own, and would not be above casting a judgemental, comparing eye upon an almost-twin platter set down on Church Supper night. "Now the way I make MYE Asian Star Salad . . . "
moire non,
Asian Star Salad
½ lb.linguine or spaghetti, broken in half, cooked, rinsed, and cooled
1/2 head sliced Napa cabbage
1/2 head purple cabbage, halved and sliced very thin
1 heart of Romaine, leaves sliced across
8 oz. baby spinach
1 each red, yellow, orange bell pepper, julienne
Wash, drain and pat dry ½ lb. bean sprouts
3 to 6 sliced scallions, white and green
English cucumber, matchstick or long thin strands
½ lb. snow peas, strung, blanched 30 seconds, shocked, sliced long-ways into 3
Handful of cilantro, chopped, stems and all
Toasted sunflower seeds or toasted sesame seeds or a cup of cashew halves (I buy the "broken" ones, cause the whole ones are a bit of a mouthful with salad), toasted gently in a dry skillet---set aside til serving
DRESSING:
Zest and juice one lime
¼ cup peanut oil
3 T dark sesame oil
¼ cup soy sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 T grated fresh ginger
2 cloves chopped, smushed garlic
1 jalapeno, minced, no veins or seeds, or 2 red chiles, sliced thin
Cilantro---handful, chopped
Shake dressing in a jar. Toss salad in large bowl, except for seeds or cashews. Add dressing and toss thoroughly. Serve on wide platter, with seeds or nuts scattered atop. Garnish of onion brushes, snow peas, carrot flowers, if you're inclined to that sort of thing. If you like, scatter a couple of handfuls of Chow Mein noodles on top---the vermicelli size are crisp and wonderful.
Or keep it in a BIG Tupperware, to have all to yourself, for DAYS. It's one of those things in the fridge, like chocolate pie, that will call out to you at odd times, like three a.m.
This recipe is not inherently Southern, but it's one of those that the under-the-hairdryer and Bridge Club circuit would pounce on, make once, and claim for their own, and would not be above casting a judgemental, comparing eye upon an almost-twin platter set down on Church Supper night. "Now the way I make MYE Asian Star Salad . . . "
moire non,
Monday, July 6, 2009
40-WEIGHT TEA
RANDOMONDAY X
I had almost forgotten the little battered top-half-of-a-double-boiler with its little metal elbows for handles, given me by the daughter of a childhood next-door neighbor. It has a tiny washer-arrangement in one spot, inside and out, with a wee smitch of cracked black rubber beneath each. EVERYTHING was re-used, repaired, re-modeled in her lifetime, I suppose, mostly by the traveling folks with the big old panelwagons (descendants of those creaky peddlers' wagons with all sorts of metal utensils swinging clank-in-the-wind on the outside).
The tinkers came through town every year in Spring, and ladies (or their kitchen help) came out to meet them, bearing their broken or dented items, or great sheaves of knives and scissors for the attention of the wizened little gnome manning the spinning sharpening stone. The men would fix or polish or sharpen, climb the tallest trees to trim the branches, or whitewash any building or fence, whilst the women of the group shopped in the little stores on Main Street or stayed out at the "camp" on a kind farmer's place. The children were interesting and were shyly welcomed onto the swingsets and sandboxes in our smalltown park, and later on in life, I remember a quite dashing young man in an embroidered vest. I wonder how many of us town girls dreamt of that gleaming smile and cascade of dark hair.
Our neighbor's little pot had already seen a lifetime of use, exclusively for making good ole 40-weight Mississippi Iced Tea. She would put the big white "kittle" on the burner, toss a good handful of Lipton leaves into the small pan with a mountain of sugar, and then pour on the boiling water. (Her borrowing of a great quantity of tea from my Mother and paying it back by putting a box into Mother's basket whilst they were in Kroger--that's another story).
The tea "steeped" the required time, was strained into a pitcher of ice and water, thence poured over more ice in big clunky goblets almost too heavy and round for my hands. My Mammaw had the same glasses, the clear ones with flocked grapes like clumps of sand on the sides, but they were for the grown-ups, whilst all us kids enjoyed our tea (unsweetened---I don't know WHERE my family came from, but they'd been in the South for generations by then) in Welch's or Garrett glasses.
And Mrs. P. put LEMON in it. Nowhere in my house was ever a lemon for tea; my Mother shuddered at the thought of any kind of sweetener approaching her tea, thence lemon was deemed unnecessary, save for the odd icebox pie, to take "the fish smell" off your hands and kitchen utensils, and perhaps a hair-rinse now and again.
Mrs. Prine's tea was nectar for whatever minor gods were relegated to that hot, steamy Delta we lived in. It was almost syrupy-sweet, extra-flavorful from the unaccustomed lemon, and just the best thing this side of a cherry Coke at the local drugstore. I would shakily lift my half-full goblet, swig it down, then wipe my lips of all traces, fearful that my clean-fanatic Mother would know that I had been sipping something made by a woman she considered just this side of "trashy in her ways." Not in a moral way, of course---Mother would never have let me past the fence---but in housekeeping and yard-tending.
Mrs. P’s parents lived with them for great stretches of time, those seemingly endless Summers of heat and dust rising, and that lovely tea an oasis in all that too-bright atmosphere. Grandma was diabetic, and always smashed her saccareen tablet between two spoons, adding it and stirring it into the already-toothache-sweet tea. Saccharine was available only at the drugstore, was a tablet like medicine, was FOR diabetics, and thus negated all the sugar content.
And I did love that tea, and so inherited the little pot when Mrs. P. broke up housekeeping to move in with her daughter. The little round silver discs will spin on the wee knob-ended pin which keeps them captive, the memories flood in, and the little pan is never used except for remembering.
I had almost forgotten the little battered top-half-of-a-double-boiler with its little metal elbows for handles, given me by the daughter of a childhood next-door neighbor. It has a tiny washer-arrangement in one spot, inside and out, with a wee smitch of cracked black rubber beneath each. EVERYTHING was re-used, repaired, re-modeled in her lifetime, I suppose, mostly by the traveling folks with the big old panelwagons (descendants of those creaky peddlers' wagons with all sorts of metal utensils swinging clank-in-the-wind on the outside).
The tinkers came through town every year in Spring, and ladies (or their kitchen help) came out to meet them, bearing their broken or dented items, or great sheaves of knives and scissors for the attention of the wizened little gnome manning the spinning sharpening stone. The men would fix or polish or sharpen, climb the tallest trees to trim the branches, or whitewash any building or fence, whilst the women of the group shopped in the little stores on Main Street or stayed out at the "camp" on a kind farmer's place. The children were interesting and were shyly welcomed onto the swingsets and sandboxes in our smalltown park, and later on in life, I remember a quite dashing young man in an embroidered vest. I wonder how many of us town girls dreamt of that gleaming smile and cascade of dark hair.
Our neighbor's little pot had already seen a lifetime of use, exclusively for making good ole 40-weight Mississippi Iced Tea. She would put the big white "kittle" on the burner, toss a good handful of Lipton leaves into the small pan with a mountain of sugar, and then pour on the boiling water. (Her borrowing of a great quantity of tea from my Mother and paying it back by putting a box into Mother's basket whilst they were in Kroger--that's another story).
The tea "steeped" the required time, was strained into a pitcher of ice and water, thence poured over more ice in big clunky goblets almost too heavy and round for my hands. My Mammaw had the same glasses, the clear ones with flocked grapes like clumps of sand on the sides, but they were for the grown-ups, whilst all us kids enjoyed our tea (unsweetened---I don't know WHERE my family came from, but they'd been in the South for generations by then) in Welch's or Garrett glasses.
And Mrs. P. put LEMON in it. Nowhere in my house was ever a lemon for tea; my Mother shuddered at the thought of any kind of sweetener approaching her tea, thence lemon was deemed unnecessary, save for the odd icebox pie, to take "the fish smell" off your hands and kitchen utensils, and perhaps a hair-rinse now and again.
Mrs. Prine's tea was nectar for whatever minor gods were relegated to that hot, steamy Delta we lived in. It was almost syrupy-sweet, extra-flavorful from the unaccustomed lemon, and just the best thing this side of a cherry Coke at the local drugstore. I would shakily lift my half-full goblet, swig it down, then wipe my lips of all traces, fearful that my clean-fanatic Mother would know that I had been sipping something made by a woman she considered just this side of "trashy in her ways." Not in a moral way, of course---Mother would never have let me past the fence---but in housekeeping and yard-tending.
Mrs. P’s parents lived with them for great stretches of time, those seemingly endless Summers of heat and dust rising, and that lovely tea an oasis in all that too-bright atmosphere. Grandma was diabetic, and always smashed her saccareen tablet between two spoons, adding it and stirring it into the already-toothache-sweet tea. Saccharine was available only at the drugstore, was a tablet like medicine, was FOR diabetics, and thus negated all the sugar content.
And I did love that tea, and so inherited the little pot when Mrs. P. broke up housekeeping to move in with her daughter. The little round silver discs will spin on the wee knob-ended pin which keeps them captive, the memories flood in, and the little pan is never used except for remembering.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
RAINED-ON PARADE
We seem to have come full circle from “Can you believe this gorgeous weather? In JULY??” to “I can’t believe it’s raining all day on the FOURTH!!! (in tones of Suellen when Scarlett stole Mr. Kennedy).
It was not quite so bad as all that, with the parade time pretty cloudy, very cool for flag-waving-time, but quite enjoyable. We simply walked the small distance to the parade route, stood leaning on a conveniently-parked car beneath the trees, and watched the small-town assortment of bands, small children, old soldiers, crepe-papered trailers and tractors and Radio Flyers and a great gaggle of door-postered vehicles announcing this and that political someone whose eager minions scattered theoretical blessings at our feet in the form of Tootsie Rolls and a good percentage of all the cellophaned sweeties available in the local markets.
The motorcycle patrol led off, with sirens paving their way---their crisp black uniforms and shiny kneeboots lending a polished air to their basketweaving maneuvers up and down the street, and when the first band, T-shirt clad and perhaps forty strong, stopped in review and started the strains of “God Bless America,” I felt the swell of hometown and country-pride, as well as the prickles of tears. We stood erect from our casual hip-slumps against a stranger’s fender as the Colors passed, and then for the dozen or so older gentlemen in various uniforms of past service, some smartly stepping along, and others moving more slowly, their step and waves not quite as brisk, but their aura of brave determination as palpable as at Normandy, at Pan Mun Jom, in the grim steambath of the Tet Offensive and the dry oven of Desert Storm.
Then came all the political figures who could lay claim to a local position of note; their vehicles passed in a slow blur of star-and-stripe posters, waving hands and flung candy, and were rather ironically followed by a fire-and-brimstone preacher with a loud microphone and a trailer encircled with dire depictions of Hell.
Horses with ribboned manes, strollers full of babies and dogs and balloons, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts and tiny gi-clad dojo-kids, kicking and lunging their way along the route, firetrucks and motorbikes and a great phalanx of roller-skaters, with a surprising dearth of in-lines---they wore the same ankle-high four-wheelers that we all rented on Saturday nights at the rink. They all made up the character of the parade, and of the red-white-and-blue pride we were watching pass on the everyday street.
Another band, perhaps two hundred this time, led off with rifle girls snapping those white plastic weapons with the expertise of blunt-chinned Marines, then the great ranks of silver instruments with a rousing rendition of “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah” following them past the crowds. The Flag Girls were like bright butterflies bringing up the rear, with flutters of red and white still visible down the route til they turned the last corner.
A few cool, misty drops hit our arms just as the parade was winding down; we strolled home, full of patriotic pride and gratitude. We went to Golden Corral for a few lingering bits of the wearying brunch, came home to the first earnest raindrops, read for a bit, then took a nap in the windows-open cool to the sound of the soft Summer rain.
A hot dog for supper, just because, and a retrace of our route out at 9:30, in the still-pattering raindrops, the unaccustomed slacks and windbreakers feeling just wrong for fireworks. We stopped short of the gotta-be-muddy-by-now park grounds, took shelter under the deserted colonnade of the shopping strip, and watched the fireworks glow through a glass darkly, as the clouds and mist afforded a barely-translucent view. We opened our bag of sweet dark cherries and for politeness’ sake, bagged our spit-out seeds into a smaller bag for disposal. Grass is one thing and all, but it just wasn’t right, somehow, to spit anything onto the public pavement.
I did notice something I’d never seen before---the slick wet black of the parking lot between us and the fireworks had the shine of the arc-lights over on the outer rim, and mirrored the skyward colors as the fireworks made a brave attempt at their usual glory. Neither the real nor the valiant reflection of themselves fulfilled the clear-skies splendor of former nights. Tomorrow that old black lot will be dulled and dry, with only the ranks of yellow lines for color, but last night was its night to SHINE.
It was not quite so bad as all that, with the parade time pretty cloudy, very cool for flag-waving-time, but quite enjoyable. We simply walked the small distance to the parade route, stood leaning on a conveniently-parked car beneath the trees, and watched the small-town assortment of bands, small children, old soldiers, crepe-papered trailers and tractors and Radio Flyers and a great gaggle of door-postered vehicles announcing this and that political someone whose eager minions scattered theoretical blessings at our feet in the form of Tootsie Rolls and a good percentage of all the cellophaned sweeties available in the local markets.
The motorcycle patrol led off, with sirens paving their way---their crisp black uniforms and shiny kneeboots lending a polished air to their basketweaving maneuvers up and down the street, and when the first band, T-shirt clad and perhaps forty strong, stopped in review and started the strains of “God Bless America,” I felt the swell of hometown and country-pride, as well as the prickles of tears. We stood erect from our casual hip-slumps against a stranger’s fender as the Colors passed, and then for the dozen or so older gentlemen in various uniforms of past service, some smartly stepping along, and others moving more slowly, their step and waves not quite as brisk, but their aura of brave determination as palpable as at Normandy, at Pan Mun Jom, in the grim steambath of the Tet Offensive and the dry oven of Desert Storm.
Then came all the political figures who could lay claim to a local position of note; their vehicles passed in a slow blur of star-and-stripe posters, waving hands and flung candy, and were rather ironically followed by a fire-and-brimstone preacher with a loud microphone and a trailer encircled with dire depictions of Hell.
Horses with ribboned manes, strollers full of babies and dogs and balloons, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts and tiny gi-clad dojo-kids, kicking and lunging their way along the route, firetrucks and motorbikes and a great phalanx of roller-skaters, with a surprising dearth of in-lines---they wore the same ankle-high four-wheelers that we all rented on Saturday nights at the rink. They all made up the character of the parade, and of the red-white-and-blue pride we were watching pass on the everyday street.
Another band, perhaps two hundred this time, led off with rifle girls snapping those white plastic weapons with the expertise of blunt-chinned Marines, then the great ranks of silver instruments with a rousing rendition of “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah” following them past the crowds. The Flag Girls were like bright butterflies bringing up the rear, with flutters of red and white still visible down the route til they turned the last corner.
A few cool, misty drops hit our arms just as the parade was winding down; we strolled home, full of patriotic pride and gratitude. We went to Golden Corral for a few lingering bits of the wearying brunch, came home to the first earnest raindrops, read for a bit, then took a nap in the windows-open cool to the sound of the soft Summer rain.
A hot dog for supper, just because, and a retrace of our route out at 9:30, in the still-pattering raindrops, the unaccustomed slacks and windbreakers feeling just wrong for fireworks. We stopped short of the gotta-be-muddy-by-now park grounds, took shelter under the deserted colonnade of the shopping strip, and watched the fireworks glow through a glass darkly, as the clouds and mist afforded a barely-translucent view. We opened our bag of sweet dark cherries and for politeness’ sake, bagged our spit-out seeds into a smaller bag for disposal. Grass is one thing and all, but it just wasn’t right, somehow, to spit anything onto the public pavement.
I did notice something I’d never seen before---the slick wet black of the parking lot between us and the fireworks had the shine of the arc-lights over on the outer rim, and mirrored the skyward colors as the fireworks made a brave attempt at their usual glory. Neither the real nor the valiant reflection of themselves fulfilled the clear-skies splendor of former nights. Tomorrow that old black lot will be dulled and dry, with only the ranks of yellow lines for color, but last night was its night to SHINE.
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