June is proving to be as busy as May

                At two-o’clock Friday last, my schedule finally cleared. Now I could leisurely read the daily papers that had piled up. I could check blog stats, Facebook, online news-and-opinion as long as I wanted to.

                Keeping me from that retirement ritual was not anything I couldn’t control, but things happened in an odd confluence of events and time. First, was a week’s writers retreat at Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum in Piggott. Then Florida son flew up for the weekend. The extensive, quarterly Calliope poetry column was due. Finally, I was to host the local writers group on Friday last.

                In this case, the hostess gives the guests gifts; those were bought earlier: a flower-motifed clip, a box of Vanilla Honey tea bags and a gel pen, fine point.

The hostess must clean the areas that writers access: living room, from entry through the room, dining room floor and path to the bathroom, plus said bathroom. The work area—the dining room table—must be redressed. The correct-sized table cloth scrounged for, from either the buffet or the linen closet.

                I don’t think I’d be called a slob, but cleaning for company is about the only time I bother. With only the cat as “family” I DO make sure his area is cleaned enough to keep down the odor.

                Our group schedule is to snack first since it’s a mid-morning meeting. I determined in a Facebook conversation with Linda Ann Yarberry Bragg to use my “good” dishes from now on, so I pulled out snack plates and cups, large and small matching bowls to center the two partitioned platters—all in the Dewdrop pattern. Oh, and we had tea.

                At Harvest Foods on Thursday, I’d filled bag after bag with fruit: 4 plums,4 peaches, 2 grapefruit, 4 nectarines, a container of strawberries and 4 Kiwi. At the cheese display, I selected Cheddar cuts, Colby cuts, Provolone, and Muenster slices. I searched for gluten-free crackers, to no avail, but in passing, I spied a package of Simply White Cheddar Cheetos. It was mine! On the back side of the sack, clear down to the last line was: GLUTEN FREE. Hallelujah!

                We got down to the meat of the day: critiquing previously-submitted pieces. Mine was a new incident for the memoir, which I devised at the H-P retreat earlier in the month. Another was Chapter 7 in a novel. A third was a 10-year look-back on the anniversary of the moon landing, and a fourth was a blog post from an earlier time. It was 12:30 when we finished commenting and praising and asking for more.

                We adjourned to Tacos for Life for our meal. Noisy! Full! A queue! But we all enjoyed our selections. Two of us took boxes of uneaten (too much!) food home for later.

                Serendipitously, we were offered a week’s getaway in July, so our next assignment will be due then.

                One member commented, “Why is it so hard to write when you have so much fun doing it?”

A siblings/spouses’ potluck lunch

by Pat Laster

 

“What is so rare as a day in J”… January when one finds oneself in the pleasant situation of preparing a “pot” for a gathering of one’s siblings for a Sunday lunch?

Let’s see, now. According to Sister Hostess, I’m to bring a vegetable. But before we break the phone connection, I blurt out (I’ve been accused of being blunt; is blurting similar?) “Oh, deviled eggs!” I knew she loved deviled eggs. “But eggs aren’t a vegetable!” I said. That was OK, she assured me.

           I boiled the eggs the night before. But what about a vegetable? I DO have a head of cabbage in the fridge. Brother-in-law loves cabbage, so I take down from the back hall shelf (that’s half-filled with cookbooks) Irma Rombauer’s The Joy of Cooking,  a wedding gift from 1960. I’ll have to be careful—b-i-l will NOT touch any food to his lips that has been cooked in wine.

            The old book’s back is loose, the pages are yellow, and now and then I see a notation of a date and occasion for a certain recipe.

             I don’t cook much now-a-days, (except this past Christmas) but as long as I breathe, children and grandchildren, do NOT snitch that book from my domicile. You may fight over it afterwards if you wish. Draw straws, perhaps. Or maybe no one will want it, preferring to zap frozen foods in the microwave, order out or eat out.

             The index of this thick book is a work of art--if details can be construed as art. Under “cabbage,” (page 957) are 27 entries. I mark the index with a paring knife lying nearby and turn to “Boiled, p. 275.

            Here is Irma  Rombauer’s helpful introduction: “Lemon juice is good added to sauces for the cabbage family. The old way of cooking cabbage is to cut it in sections and boil it for hours. The new way is to shred it finely and barely cook it, allowing only 7 to 8 minutes.”

             Decision: whether to cut in chunks (as I’d envisioned) or shred finely, which would take as long to do as it would take to boil the chunks. I opt for the chunks.

            (I look away from the computer screen to the book to see what comes next in the recipe and the accursed cursor moves to the end of the last sentence. I move it back. This happens THREE times! The next time, it moves up into the body of this piece. Grrrr! If it were a child, I’d send it to its room!)

           I drop the wedged cabbage into one-half inch of boiling water, cover the pot and cook it for 10 minutes “until tender but crisp.” Drain it, the recipe continues. Arrange the cabbage into a 9 x 13 inch baking dish. Dress it with one stick of melted butter (1 tablespoon per cup of cabbage: I eyeball it) into which I shake some croutons (instead of bread crumbs), 3 shakes of dried parsley flakes (instead of a teaspoon of chopped), the juice from an eighth of a cut lemon and several dashes (to taste) of Greek seasoning (my addition instead of salt).

            I pour the above ingredients over the cabbage, then sprinkle a package of bleu cheese crumbles (my addition, not Irma’s) over the top.

            ‘Twas a hit with those who liked cabbage. The leftovers I gave to two of them, the hostess and the brother-in-law.

             Other delicious foods included smoked pork, black-eyed peas, pasta salad, broccoli salad and homemade rolls from our mother’s recipe. This sibling also brought carrot cake and apple pie.

            Now, I ask you, which smells up a kitchen more? Cabbage cooking/cooked or a bowl of vinegar sitting out to “take up” the aroma, er odor of cabbage?

            I believe I’ll take the cabbage.