Home Cookin'

by Beth

My son comes home tonight for Easter break and after four months of college living he is very much looking forward to some home cooking *g* He's asked for Cheesy Chicken Pockets and Paninis this go around. Over Thanksgiving it was roasted chicken and Paninis. At Christmas he wanted my mom's goulash and Paninis.

In case you missed it, my boy loves a toasty sandwich! He'd often make one or two of what he called Man-wiches for breakfast, lunch or a snack, piling it high with meat, at least two types of cheese and more often than not, a fried egg *g* Sadly, those days are gone as his dorm doesn't have a stove, only a microwave. Which means I'll have to make sure we're stocked up on bread, deli meats and cheeses and eggs this summer.

Some of my guy's other home cooked favorites include cheeseburger soup, cheeseburger pie, barbecue ribs, twice baked potatoes (his aunt is making these for Easter so he'll be thrilled) steak roll-ups and snickerdoodles.

I also try to have all of his favorite foods and snacks on hand. Funny how my grocery bill goes up significantly when he's home :-)

But that's okay. It's worth it to have him in hugging distance!

What home cooked meal would you ask your mom (or any family member) to make for you?

Holiday Food Favorites, 4th of July Style!

by Caren Crane

At work recently, they posted a survey on our Intranet site asking what peoples' must-have food item was for Independence Day. Our headquarters are in Raleigh, North Carolina, where we don't have genteel picnics like the lovely Regency/Victorian affair pictured here. There are never footmen waiting to fetch the hampers and no one ever clears up the mess left behind except the picnickers themselves. When we have a cookout, we do it Southern style. For that reason, the choices on our workplace survey had a distinctly Southern flare. In the South there is nothing we love better than a cookout (or any other affair involving food), so this survey attracted a lot of responses. I did not agree with all the choices presented, but managed to choose one. The choices were:

1. Southern-style BBQ - I could see where they got this one, but I've never considered BBQ a necessity at the 4th of July festivities. North Carolina, though, is the leading hog producer in the United States so I know that many here take their pork products very seriously. They have a tradition here called a "pig picking". They roast a whole pig on a spit over a fire (or on a smoker if they have one for the purpose) and people literally pick the meat off the pig once it's done. I find this a barbaric and unappealing pasttime despite the 28 years I've lived in North Carolina. This one did not get my vote.

2. Corn on the cob - This was more like it. I remember many a family reunion at my paternal grandfather's farm (it was a hobby farm on his timber property) where corn was wrapped in foil and roasted on the grill, as God intended. It wasn't just any old corn, either. It was sweet, white Silver Queen corn that had just been picked from the fields near the house. Best. Corn. Ever! I seriously considered voting for the corn because of my fond memories of the Crane family reunions, but I did not vote for this one.

3. Ice cream - At the above-mentioned family reunion, as well as at reunions on the Dugger side of the family, there was always homemade ice cream. I remember when the ice cream churn had to be loaded with ice cubes and salt and hand-cranked for hours until the ice cream was done. Of course, Poppa Crane had an automatic ice cream maker as soon as they came on the market, which was a nice break for the young men in the family, but I remember the hand-cranked churns and the fresh peach ice cream with a sweet pang of nostalgia. Despite all those peach and vanilla memories, though, I did not vote for ice cream.

4. Hamburgers and hot dogs - The American favorites, burgers and dogs. I have so many memories of grilling hamburgers and hot dogs I have trouble singling any out. I have enjoyed grilled meats as centerpieces of cookouts in Tennessee, Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia and Alabama. I have eaten tons of burgers and dogs and enjoyed each and every carcinogen-laden mouthful. There are few pleasures greater than a hot dog grilled within an inch of its life, popped open at the ends, blackened at the grill marks, slathered in mustard and relish. Mm, mm good! Still, my family gave up beef and pork a couple of years ago and I don't miss beef burgers much. All the hot dogs I've had have been chicken or turkey, which are good but just aren't the same. So, I did not vote for burgers and dogs.

5. Watermelon - Aaah, watermelon. Nothing evokes images of summer quite like watermelon. Hefting a two-inch-thick slice from half a watermelon is one of life's simple, sticky pleasures. As a kid, we always ate watermelon outside. We sprinkled it lightly with salt (no idea why) and spit seeds gleefully into the yard. By the time we reached the slightly-sour part next to the rind, our bare arms and legs were covered in juice. Watermelon eating was followed by turning on the hosepipe (which is what we called the garden hose) and washing the juice off our sun-kissed bodies with clear, cold water. Yes, watermelon means summer to me and watermelon got my Independence Day vote.

Of course, others did not agree with me. Hamburgers and hotdogs won by a landslide, with watermelon coming in a distant second. Corn on the cob was third, BBQ fourth and ice cream dead last, finishing with only 3% of the vote. Much as we all love ice cream, its life is fleeting in the Southern July heat and it simply couldn't hold its own. My own Independence Day must-have is blueberry/blackberry cobbler. It didn't even make the survey!

What are your Independence Day favorites? If you don't celebrate Independence Day, what would you have chosen from our five survey items? Do any evoke splendid summer memories? We would love to hear them!


And for all of you in the United States, HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!

Breakfast of Vampires

by Cassondra Murray

What do you eat for breakfast?



I’m having a series of breakfast crises, so in lieu of therapy, I’m doing a survey.

I have a love-hate relationship with breakfast.

When breakfast is right, it’s REALLY right. When breakfast is wrong?

Dis. Gus. Ting.

When I was a kid, I always ate breakfast. Some of my best memories were of early mornings.

My mom took her first job at a local factory when I was three years old. My grandparents lived between us and town, where she worked. So we’d get up and she’d shuffle me off in my pajamas, with whatever pile of toys and books I wanted for the day, and she’d drop me off at MotherGrant and DaddyMike’s house for the day and she’d be to work before seven .

Yes, I see mouths dropping open and looks of disbelief all around the lair, but it’s true. There were times in my life when I was forced to wear the burdensome cloak of a daywalker. Crime against nature, but there it is.

So anyway, she’d pull into the driveway, we’d pile out of the car with my gargantuan load of necessary accoutrement, and head for the back door. Cows were already mooing in the barn lot. I stood by the back door as mom reached for the handle. She pressed the button on the latch of the ugly gray aluminum storm door. She pulled. It opened just a crack, and the heady scent wafted over me.

Bacon.

Not just any bacon either. I knew from whence this bacon came.

Every now and then Daddymike would be running late, or mom would be running early, and I’d get there before he started breakfast. Daddymike would pull out the butcher knife, give it a few swipes across the whet stone, and off to the smokehouse we’d go.

The smokehouse was dark and the smell was heavenly. Cured meat. Big hams lay on the rough-hewn benches in piles of salt mixture. Other hams and sides of bacon hung from the rafters. He’d cut a chunk off of one of the sides of bacon and back to the house.

Slice the meat. Rinse the salt off. Plop it into the cast iron skillet. And aaaaahhhhhhhh!

There came the smell.

Now when I see eggs at breakfast, I make the sign of the cross and get queasy unless there are copious amounts of gravy to hide them. But Daddymike made perfect eggs. Fried eggs, over medium well plus. (That "plus" is extremely important. Not well done. Not over medium well. Over medium well PLUS a little.) Buttered toast. And coffee. Yes, it was instant, but at that time it was nectar. Diluted by half a cup of milk and a whole bunch of sugar.

By that time MotherGrant was up and about, setting the table, getting the house running for the day. We sat down to eat together. MotherGrant gossiped about the neighbors. I did this every day for years. And my love of breakfast was set.

After breakfast I followed DaddyMike to the barn to milk his three cows. I played. I climbed trees. I played. I ran. I played. I rode my tricycle. I played. I watched Captain Kangaroo. And I played. All the way up to lunch. Then again all the way up to dinner. That breakfast gave me energy in abundance.

The memories of those breakfasts with DaddyMike and MotherGrant haunt me.

Because I can’t get them.

There's the whole "nobody fixes eggs the way DaddyMike did" issue. Bacon comes from the grocery store now, and still smells wonderful, but not like his bacon.

I have searched for other fulfilling breakfast food, and I’ve gone through some stages. I had my Cheerios phase. I had my Captain Crunch phase. I had my egg sandwich phase (lots of jelly to hide the egg) and my bagel phase. In my college days I had a cold pizza and coke phase.

Recently I’ve been traveling down south a lot with a woman who loves fried catfish for breakfast with eggs and grits. I admit, it’s pretty darn good.

In my search for breakfast fulfillment I paused at the front bar, where a few Bandits were taking breaks from the writing caves deep in the bowels of the lair.

“Joanie,” I said, “What do you eat for breakfast?”

Joanie said, “Good or bad day?”

Clearly, this could get more complicated than I thought.

“Okay, Joanie, Good day.”

“A cup of cheerios, and a cup of skim milk.”

I was aghast. “What the heck makes THAT a good day?”

“Bad day,” Joanie went on, “is scrambled eggs, bacon, shredded hashbrowns, a biscuit with sausage gravy. And a Diet Coke.”

Hmmmm. That sounds much closer to a GOOD day to me.

Except for the Diet Coke. *shudder*

“Okay, I said, “Nancy, what do you eat for breakfast?”

“Well my goal is a bowl of Raisin Bran with the serving size specified on the package, skim milk, and coffee with half and half.”

I frowned. “You are not right.”

Donna broke in. “I usually have a cup of Raisin Bran cereal, only I use one-percent milk, I won’t drink skim.” (YES! *Cassondra pumps fist for the very slight gain toward the good-tasting ground of whole milk*) “But,"Donna said, and paused to glance at Nancy who raised one eyebrow, "my favorite breakfast is half of a banana sliced in a bowl, topped with a handful of granola, a cup of low-fat vanilla yogurt, and sliced strawberries and blueberries. “

"Okay I am down with this idea. A parfait. I could go with that...except for the no-protein part. Yogurt does NOT count as honest protein. Yogurt is an interloper. A late-arriving fake. It's hoity toity. And I say that all y'all are a little twisted.” Now Donna has her eyebrow raised.

I have one last hope from the people in the bar. My evil twin. Jeanne.

Jeanne did not hesitate. “Three eggs, scrambled firm. A bowl of Cheerios with whole milk and a bagel with cream cheese. If I’ve got it I’ll eat bacon. Oh and there’s usually a decaf, venti , skim, with-whip mocha involved.”

Hallelujah and THANK GOD!!!! My evil twin comes through again.

“Yes, "Nancy said, but you’re having breakfast at one in the afternoon.” She points at me with that same eyebrow raised even higher. I can see that she’s considering buying a cross-shaped necklace to wear at all times.

“FINE FINE. Okay. It’s true. I am a vampire. But why should I be breakfast-penalized for this?”

And you see, I am penalized. I tend to stay up very late and sleep late. Then I want breakfast. Almost all restaurants turn off the eggs and bacon and turn on the burgers and barbecue by the time I’m up and have had coffee. By that time, any form of biscuit has turned into a reasonable imitation of a hockey puck. And I’m sorry, but I just don’t want spice for breakfast. No ketchup. No complicated sauces. Nothing fancy. No gourmet concoctions in cute heart-shaped ramekins. No mushroom quiche. These foods I mention…they are challenging. I do not want to be challenged by my breakfast.

The world makes breakfast for daywalkers. And I am not one.

And I cannot, under any circumstances, manage cast iron skillets and slow-cooking eggs within the first three hours of waking. To consider such a thing could be a threat to national security. Or at least to the dog and the FedEx guy, who tends to arrive in the mornings. I am not a morning person.

So recently I have been gravitating toward catfish because it’s available even after noon.

But I have to admit, it’s lacking. It’s not DaddyMike’s breakfast.
DaddyMike’s breakfast was comforting, filling, full of energy and not challenging. The ultimate breakfast.

Recently I’ve been logging some long hours and trying to increase my writing output –I mean double or triple it. I have decided that I need breakfast. My books need breakfast. And since I no longer have DaddyMike on this realm, I need help.

What do y’all eat for breakfast?

Eggs? Bacon? Sausage? Toast or biscuits?

How ‘bout potatoes?


What did you grow up eating for breakfast? Do you still like that? Or have you switched? And if so, is it a diet you’re on? Or has your taste changed?

Are there certain breakfast foods which are traditional in the area or country where you live, or where you grew up?


What's your favorite breakfast ever?

Help me, Bandits and Buddies. What’s a vampire to do? (And no, blood is not an option. It's far too challenging for a morning meal.)