Its all in the planning….

I’m the type of mom that likes to plan ahead. When the children, nieces, nephews were all home and not scattered across the U.S. my house was ground zero for Thanksgiving. Total of people chowing down neared twenty. So you had the adult table and the childrens table to set.  Needless to say with that amount of folks it required planning second to D Day invasion or as my father-in-law fondly called it “Feast Day Invasion”.

 

I cooked my stuffing in pan cake pans froze them and warmed them up that day. Pies and cakes were cooked the weekend before and that day only the greens. Yes in the south you must have your collard greens cooked with ham grease.  Which leads me to this story.

 

I believe it was about seven years ago, my oldest son was seventeen and I was a working elementary school teacher. Because time was crunched, I got it into my head to cook the Thomas T. Turkey on Sunday before the holiday. Son was working at a local eattery so he helped me lift the 23 pound bird and place it in the roaster then to the oven before work. Not a problem. 

 

While my bird was cooking, I fixed my collards. Now, when you cook a country ham, you save the grease for seasoning. Again, I freeze mine in old ice trays so you can plop a cube into the mix. I forgot, the trays had been broken and the only ones I found stored in plastic bags were the naked lady ice cubes. Imagine my husband’s face when I asked him to stir and the upper torso of a woman who was well endowed bobbed to the surface. I should have known at that point things were going down hill.

 

So turkey browned and cooked. Collards tender and stored in tupperware awaiting Thursday. We all went to sleep with vision of feasting dancing in our heads.  The next morning, I readied for work as son stumbled into the kitchen for his morning corn flakes.

“Will, I’m off to work. don’t touch the turkey. I’ve got left over meatloaf for your lunch see you at four.”

I never should have mentioned the turkey. 

 

According to him, everytime he opened the icebox the reynolds wrap (aluminium foil) lifted and he heard a wee little voice, “TASTE ME”. He slammed the door but he said it kept drawing him back. So, he cut a piece from the bottom to make sure it was done. He SAID it tasted great, however it was like Lays – “You couldn’t eat just one”. So… Yes, he went back and back and back and back. When I got home at four, he was curled into a ball complaining of stomach pains.  Inside my refrigerator were the skeleton remains of my Thanksgiving Feast.  Several doses of pepto bismal later my son went to the store and bought a fresh turkey so that Thanksgiving Day around 5 a.m. we began cooking  Theodore G. (for glutton) Turkey and it was ready for the Rockwell  portait. 

 

Our family still talks about that Thanksgiving. I used it to demonstrate descriptive writing for my fifth grade students and yesterday in the store, one of them home from College asked if I remembered that.   

My son called this am from “Lanta” that city in Georgia for those that may not understand southern speak (Atlanta) he wanted to know if I was cooking the Terry early. Yes, my children like to name the bird. I told him I would not cook it until Tuesday when he came  home so he could sit infront of the oven with the little light on an watch it. Then, it will go under lock and key until Thursday.  

 

Some traditions never change.

I ponder as I wander

 seem to be suffering from writer’s ADD yet again. 

I wonder if it comes from coming to the conclusion of a story. I am down to the last 50 pages of a manuscript and suddenly I can find a host of other things to do rather than write.  So I am taking this page today to cleanse my thoughts, allow my muse to flow and otherwise get my fat behind in gear.

Writing anything that comes to mind, whether it rambles or not, is important. Often you don’ t know what you might have stumbled upon until it is sitting there on paper. 

so, here are my thoughts… today…

1. saw a fantastic sign on a beautiful old Queen Victorian house, “FIRST LADY” hum what an interesting premise for a book…..

2. I’ve got 250 pages in a manuscript, you think its finish … Oh pleaseeee

3. Writing my please the muse but it puts holes in the pocketbook. I need to find a part time job in this down turned economy so that I can feel like I am helping out at home as well as working toward my goal of selling my stories. 

4. with that said and done, I need to get my manuscript up and finish, this character has been drunk for two days and I don’t think there is enough black coffee in the territory of Wyoming to cure his hangover if it last much longer.

Be sure to check out www.redrosepublishing.com New exciting reads are out! Some books are now found on Amazon.com.

Check out:

Bound by Fate by Amanda Cummings

Chamberlain’s Knight by Skyler Grey

Unspeakable by Kayleigh Jamison

The Mountain Top by Jennifer Mueller

Junk n Her Trunk by Marie Rochelle

Rockbound by Rochelle Weber

Remember Red Rose Publishing updates their site every Thursday new releases will be out on Nov. 13th. To keep in touch with your favorite Red Rose Author join www.redrosepublishing.com to see what those roses are up to.

EXCITEMENT REIGNS

There is a feel in the air about this election. You could see it this morning in the faces of the young, the old, the variety of faces that stood in line with me, in the pouring rain from 6 am to 9:30 am when we finally got a chance to cast the ballot.   The winner is of course our nation. By stepping into the ballot box today, we reaffirm our commitment or link to the constitution and prove that it is by far the best working document for all people.  I was so proud to see some of my former students now old enough to vote standing in line. 

Its been a good day.  To top it off, I recieved my cover for my new book.. I am so excited.

Home for the Holidays

The time has changed back to “God’s on Time, not Mr. Roosevelts” as my grandmother used to say and with the shorter days and crisp wind the song Perry Como used to sing about the holidays plays over and over in my mind.

My mother, if she was living, would be getting those bunt pans out and buying the candied pineapple, citrone, cherries both green and red and mixed fruit for that fruit cake. I know most you you don’t like fruit cake, however my mom’s was something to die for. 

She would make the basic recipe like a pound cake a dozen eggs, pound of butter, pound of flour, brown sugar and white, vanilla, a touch of almond, nuts, raisins, and dates.  My job when I was little was to crack the pecans and pull the sweet meat nestled between the hard shells and place them in the grinder to make chips. On that first Sunday in November the great bake would begin. While watching whatever football game was on, she would faithfully stand there and cut those dried fruit and such into tiny pieces and place into a bag then put in the refrigerator over night. 

The next day brought out brown shopping bags we’d cut to line the steeple pans. I got to grease and flour while she mixed the eggs, sugar, flour, flavorings together. Then using a wooden spoon, she begin to mix the fruit and nuts into the mixture. No, it was disgraceful to dump them all in. You must put them a cup at a time until gone.  A half of cupful of mixed color cherries she’ d artfully arrange across the surface.  Then it would bake.

You had to walk carefully around the house, no loud sounds cause you didn’t want it fall. But oh, how that house would smell. It was torture to smell the cake baking and know you were not to get a slice until Christmas Eve. She would use a piece of uncooked spagetti to make sure it was done. When no damp pieces of cake were found on the thin macaroni, she declared the cake done and it was put on a coke bottle upside down to cool. 

Then secretly, because she was a baptist, she’d pull the bottle from beneath the dark recesses of the kitchen cabinet. The bottle we later found out had some Brandied Peaches that she and my grandmother had made back during WWII and she had been syphoning off a cup full of “juice” since 1945. Those peaches came from Irving Street in Norfolk to Ballylinn Road in Virginia Beach to Suffolk in 1968 as a holy relic left over from that great conflict. I am sure peach snops went inside once or twice but my grandfather would have to go buy it cause, “The ladies from the church might see”. 

The peaches are gone now and so is my mom. But the memory remains. It is a long lasting memory and I am blessed that my children share it. I am thinking of making a fruit cake for the holidays. My son is coming home from Lanta as he says add the A and you can figure out what city. I think on that Wednesday before Thanksgiving, we are going to get together with my daughter and make a fruit cake. It won’t be nearly as good as my mom’s but it will be a memory made for them and my grandson. While we talk, we will fill the room with her presence and I know her spirit will be there. And on Christmas eve,  after we read “The Night before Christmas ” and place one sleeping lad down, we will get together and cut the cake as the presents are placed beneath the tree. Mom will get a slice and it will be left at the head of the table in her honor.

“For the holidays you can’t beat home, sweet home…”

 

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