A Week of Thanksgiving - Turkey Boudini

It's been a week of Thanksgiving and that's okay with me because Thanksgiving was never meant to be closed up in a single day.

As always there are many things to be thankful for and it's so important to count every blessing. I still remember a prayer that one of Jay's basketball teammates said at our house years ago when they played middle school ball. Thomas was over to visit and we were about to eat lunch. I noticed that he was waiting for the blessing and I asked him if he would like to say one. He bowed his head and softly prayed, "Dear Lord. Thank you for these clothes on my back, this food on the table and this roof over my head."

As Oprah would say that was a defining moment in being thankful. Leave no stone unturned when counting blessings.

Thanksgiving week started out with David III following Jay and the GWU Basketball team to Indiana for games first at Indiana University and then at Butler University. For basketball fanatics both of these places are something like mecca. There was a lot of talk about past ballgames, the Hoosier Movie, Bobby Knight, and which was the infamous thrown chair.

I kept up thru text messaging, email, internet and even plain old newspaper and radio. I didn't make the trip to Indiana because on Thanksgiving morning the team was flying home and we had invited them to Lattimore for Thanksgiving lunch at the Cabin. So with our family and friends we were planning lunch for close to 60 people.

Everyone had their normal assigned duties like Sister's Layered Salad and Coconut Cake, Cindy's pecan pies, Judy's oyster casserole and ham, Penny's Sweet Potato Casseroles, Libby's Broccoli Casseroles, Mama and Daddy's Sage Dressing and Gravy, and of course Silver Queen corn and Little White Half Runner Green Beans from the Lattimore garden.

In addition to the normal assigned duties we doubled up on some things and added a few more things. Jamey and David co-ordinated brining and smoking a turkey in the big cooker. That was a big hit. I fixed two huge turkeys in Oven bags and took one out to Jackson's house since we were running out of oven space. I added mashed potato casseroles and more mac and cheese because I was pretty sure the basketball team would show up hungry after a five day road trip.

And then I mentioned to Dad that I was planning to make an extra run of their Sage Dressing for 60. Well that opened up a competition much like Mama Crowder and Aunt Veva C used to have at the Spangler reunion. Daddy and Mama each made their own runs of Sage Dressing and I made a run as well. As folks moved through the buffet line at the cabin, Daddy lobbied everyone to eat from each pan and then decide whose was the best. He not so quietly pointed and whispered, "This one is mine and I think it's the best."

I'm not sure whose Sage Dressing really was the best but it's safe to say mine did not make the cut. It looked right and had the right seasonings but was way too dry. I blogged the recipe with instructions from Daddy in November 2010. If you are using that recipe I think you may want to go overboard when it says "add about 3 cups of chicken broth and then add milk to the right consistency".

Penny and Libby put up a piece of poster paper so that anyone could write something that they were thankful for. As the day went on the list grew and included food, family, friends, tennis, skeet shooting, train rides, the cabin, and Jack and Ruby. Someone wrote they were "thankful that we didn't burn the food".

For some time Daddy has had yellow legal pads by his couch at home to write down things he wants to do or things he is thankful for. He leaves no stone unturned on his list of blessings. My all time personal favorite was one he wrote years ago that said, "I am thankful that I can still put on my pants standing up."

Thanksgiving at the Cabin turned out great with one of the most beautiful sunny days in November. We had a very diverse crowd including people from Sweden, Norway, Turkey, New York, Indiana, Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma and even Idaho. It was a busy and fun day and then a really good afternoon for a nap.

We did miss sharing lunch with David IV who was working at the Cowboys game on Thanksgiving Day. And we missed lunch with Paul, Amy, Melia, Kai, Dan and Elizabeth, but we won't close Thanksgiving up in a single day. We'll be thankful for our blessings wherever they are.


Turkey Boudini

Sis taught me how to make Turkey Boudini and she learned it from Ann Corn. We always laughed when we said the name because it sounded like something Mrs. Corn would make up. Recently I googled it and believe it or not there is a recipe on Cooks.com that is named Boudini. So I don't know where Mrs. Corn learned this but it's really good for leftover turkey.

We didn't have any leftover turkey from Thanksgiving lunch. Out of 3 turkeys that added up to about 57 pounds, there was nothing left but here is the recipe anyway.

Layer in a pyrex dish:

Turkey or Chicken, cut into bite sized pieces
1 Can Drained English Peas
1 Can Cream of Mushroom Soup
Grated Cheese

Bake at 350 degrees till bubbly and cheese is melted.

Book Club, Board Meeting and Basketball - Oyster Casserole

The leaves have mostly fallen and the days have gotten shorter but there is no shortage of gatherings and other goings on around here.

The Gardner Webb Runnin' Bulldogs are running all over the country. By the end of the Thanksgiving weekend they will have played eight preseason games. Seven of those eight games are away. This week they are in Indiana with games at Indiana University and Butler. David and some other parents are following the team but I decided to stay home to get ready for Thanksgiving. I did get to the one home game against Lees McRae and enjoyed watching the team win a fast paced running game. Of course it was fun to watch Jay and the team, and I also enjoyed watching the Holtmanniacs. It's always interesting to see these students come out in force to support the Dawgs in their own unique way.

Daddy wanted to host a Ruby's Cookin' for his Board Meeting so Penny, Libby, Cindy and I dropped by to help with that. Mama's house was cozy and her table was decorated with the turkey/pineapple centerpiece that always appears this time of year. Corn, green beans and crowder peas from the Lattimore garden were served with corn sticks, cornbread, ham biscuits, mac and cheese, slaw and crumb top apple pie.

Carol and I tag teamed our Literario Book Club program with a review of Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games. This is the first book in a fascinating triology that is written on many different levels with all kinds of themes and symbolism. It's even more fascinating because the movie to be released next March was filmed very very close to home and we were fortunate to experience some of that excitement.

I went to work researching themes, characters, symbolism and setting and, as someone once told me, the essence of discovery is what you find while looking for something else.

What I found was a website called teacherspayteachers.com. This site is devoted to teachers who work to create interesting lesson plans and then offer to share them with other teachers. These are no boring lessons but very involved and creative plans that make learning fun.

There are teachers who are using The Hunger Games in classrooms all over the world to teach students about literature and life with a book that they actually want to read.

Students of all ages want to read this book.

Carol and I studied and studied and as she said we could write a dissertation just on the symbolism of food in the book. You know it always does come back to food. Food is universal.

Carol brought food to the book club program - bread with goat cheese and basil, chocolate cake and what she called Capitol Lamb Stew. You really could write a dissertation on the symbolism of bread alone. Life, sustenance, transformation, manna from heaven, breaking bread together, sacrifice. There is a lot going on with bread. No wonder I love it so much.

We brought some props to book club as well. Carol filled up a cornucopia with a bow and arrow, some burned bread and a sprig of dandelion from my yard.

The only yard work we have done lately involved cutting back and removing things. David had mentioned that he was going out to remove some huge dandelions that were growing in the back yard. He was surprised when I almost panicked and said, "NO DON'T get rid of the DANDELIONS!" What he didn't understand was that I had been nurturing those dandelions for use as a prop at book club. After reading The Hunger Games, I have come to see dandelions in a new light - symbolizing hope, resilence, and resourcefulness.

It's amazing how your attitude towards something can change just by looking at it another way.

Recently I had several conversations with various family and friends about a phrase that Daddy introduced me to years ago. Non-productive thinking. Daddy used this phrase when we needed an attitude adjustment. He would point out that whatever we were complaining or worrying or grumbling about was using up valuable thinking space without helping matters any. Non-productive thinking is such a waste of time and energy. David often says it another way - "don't be part of the problem, be part of the solution".

So Thanksgiving week is here and the fast pace will get even faster. But it's good to remember that Thanksgiving week is a great time for the best of all productive thinking - counting our blessings.



Oyster Casserole

Oysters start appearing in the grocery store aisles about this time of year and so I was motivated to fix this for dinner one night last week. I cut the recipe in half for David and me and served it with a hot cup of clam chowder. It was great on a cold rainy night.

Heat 1 pint standard oysters till warm (standard are the smaller ones)
Grease casserole dish with butter

Crumble several saltine crackers into the casserole dish and then a layer of oysters
Repeat crumbled crackers and oysters for 3 layers and then pour oyster juice over

Beat together 3 eggs, 1 cup milk, one stick melted butter, dash worchestershire, salt, pepper, 1/4 tsp baking powder

Pour mixture over casserole. You may need to add a little more milk until it seeps to the top layer.

Bake at least 45 minutes at 425 degrees. We like it cooked till browned and crunchy.

Long and Winding Road

Music is a powerful thing. It's powerful for those who can do it and also for those of us who just love hearing it. Lattimore Church has always had both kinds of people.

There seems to be a musical gene in a lot of people in Lattimore and the musical talent in that little church over the years is impressive. Those of us who didn't get the performing gene did seem to get the appreciation gene. Or maybe Mrs. Lattimore and Aunt Burnette and Donnis and Bob and others just coaxed music appreciation into us. As children we sang all kinds of great old songs that I still love.

Lattimore Church still has great music and anytime there is a fifth Sunday in a month, instead of a typical 11 o'clock sermon they have a full hour of music. It can be the congregation, or choir, or special musical guests.

October had a fifth Sunday and Harrill had arranged for a very special musical guest - legendary musician Doc Watson from Deep Gap, NC. I was unable to go, but Libby had taped it on her cell phone so I did get to hear parts of it. Libby also shared a picture of Mom and Dad talking with him after the program. Daddy and Doc Watson are both 88 years old and Daddy had mentioned that he had almost stayed home that morning but was so glad he decided to go hear Doc play gospel music and talk about his life.

On the tape, I heard Doc say, "Most of the things I know about guitar I figured out for myself."

Doc is blind and learned to play guitar at the School for the Blind from a left handed guy who played a guitar that was strung upside down and backwards. Doc must have gotten a whole bunch of those music genes.

He went on to play "In the Pines" and a lot of other great songs and, as he says, his guitar still talks for him. But he did talk a bit about his faith and you could hear in his voice that his testimony was humble and honest and true. He said he had just about been dragged to church as a kid and had joined the church and then went on to live his life like he wanted to. He said a lot of the folks who claimed to be christians didn't seem to act much like it. Then he sang a song about the devil - "O Satan, he's a liar ... and he wears a hypocrites shoes".

He went on to talk about how he found peace with his faith. He said he was listening to a CD by another musician and heard Randy Travis sing, Doctor Jesus..mend my heart..heal my soul . Doc started to sing too and said, "I didn't have to tell nobody, I didn't have to cry or anything, but a feeling just came over me and it's still here."

Doc must be pretty good at figuring things out for himself.

Mom and Dad enjoyed talking with him after the program. No doubt living for more than 80 years gives people a lot of things to talk about. There are a lot of twists and turns and things to figure out along the way.

Recently, David and I took Mom and Dad up to see the beautiful fall leaves on their property at Lake Lure. David had to clear some trees to get up on the mountain and as I watched the road open up in front of us, I started thinking of the Beatles song The Long and Winding Road.

I've listened to it several times in the last few days and it's still as beautiful as ever. I read that Paul McCartney said the words were somewhat ambiguous on purpose so people could interpret them for themselves. Sometimes humans just try to explain too much and control too much. Another Paul tried to explain a lot of things several thousand years ago and people are still arguing about it all. Maybe sometimes it's good to do what the Beatles said in another song and just Let It Be.

I got a really great snapshot of Mom and Dad standing on the hill in the pines with the colorful hardwoods and beautiful lake in the background. I posted the picture on facebook and suddenly people from all over were commenting about what a special couple they are. Libby said they looked like two little children with a secret. Others commented about how happy they are.

Just before I took that picture Mama had made me laugh out loud. She can be so funny and dramatic. She was walking up the long and winding road and I was a little worried that she might trip or fall or slide on the leaves. I yelled, "Mama where are you going?" And she turned around and started dancing and singing, "The bear went Ooo-ver the Mountain, the bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the MOOOUUUNNN-TAAAIINN! To see what she could see!"

It's not that they don't have worries and sorrows and pain in their lives, it's that Mama and Daddy choose to enjoy life. They choose to have a little fun and to focus on the positive. Like another song that Mama used to sing a lot. "You've got to accent-tu-ate the positive. E-lim-inate the negative. Hold on to the affirmative. And don't mess with Mr. In Between."

Here's to Mama and Daddy - and music and mountains and long winding roads.

Homecoming - Lemon Bars

If home is where the heart is, then Halloween weekend there were a lot of hearts at Wofford College. It was homecoming weekend and the recently graduated Class of 2011 wanted to come home. This included David IV who didn't think he would be able to fly in for homecoming. He had to work late on Friday night and early on Monday morning and then there was the cost of booking a flight at the last minute.

The Mom in me couldn't stand for him to miss his first homecoming (or miss seeing him myself), so I was thinking I would just bite the bullet and see if there was ANY way to get him home. I started using every search engine I could find to get flights that worked for both his time schedule and homecoming activities. I did find one flight in and one flight out that could work, but since it was late in the game, the prices were pretty scary.

And then - lo and behold - the miracle of using airline miles for a free flight became a reality. Not being very frequent flyers until recently, I have to admit I had never used airline miles for flights and I was pretty darn surprised when it worked like they said it would.

As I talked with the nice lady on the phone about a possible round trip flight for David, I explained that there was a fairly short window of time for him and we needed non stop flights at specific times from a specific airport. I could hear her computer keyboard clacking away and in a few minutes she said, "Okay he can have those flights and with your air miles there will be no charge".

Like they say in Lattimore I almost dropped my teeth. "Seriously? Not even a $50 charge? or anything?" The nice lady laughed and said, "Yes. Did you not think it really worked?" Well. No. And I was beside myself with joy to know that it really doesn't pay to be cynical about everything.

So we threw together a small, quick and easy tailgate of homemade pimiento cheese sandwiches, cream cheese and olives, Bojangles fried chicken and lemon bars. And it wouldn't have been a tailgate without cheese wafers and bloody mary's. So I guess it wasn't that quick but it was small and easy.

We arrived at Lot E and pretty soon were joined by David, KC and Emily. These three had converged from Texas, Georgia and New York to spend homecoming with a lot of others who had converged from all over the place. The Class of 2011 is just beginning to learn what jobs, time constraints and responsibilities in the real world mean. The effort that it took for these Wofford college friends to be together for homecoming was real. And so was the happiness on their faces.

The game started and more friends reunited and it was even more fun because the Terriers gave Elon a sound methodical drubbing. It was fun to watch Mitch, Brad, Nate, Eric, Brenton, and so many others still in uniform come out with a great win and then come out for another reunion at the post game tailgate.

We laughed hearing stories of oldtimes that were really only a year or so ago, but stories and memories are great no matter how old they are.

There were more homecoming festivites including some Halloween fun complete with a cute little devil and a sparkly winged cowboy angel.

We left the revelers to get back home and get ready for another reunion on Sunday. Jay had basketball practice and wasn't able to be at Wofford's homecoming so we planned Sunday dinner at home with the boys. Rhett texted from the beach that he could bring some fresh shrimp to Shelby on Sunday so that helped set our menu. Rhett boiled the shrimp in beer and made up a cocktail sauce. I made Cowboy Soup, cornbread, Crumb Top Apple Pie and David grilled some pig.

Mama and Daddy surprised us with a visit and we pulled up a chair for them. It was bittersweet because while we were all enjoying being together, Daddy was experiencing the loss of his best friend.

Like they say in Lattimore, Carl had gone home. A different kind of homecoming.

Carl and Daddy were friends beginning as little boys from Lattimore and lasting over 80 years. (see February 6, 2011 blogpost) Our families have been together for camp outs, beach trips, weddings, funerals, parties, and much more over all of those years.

So Daddy pointed out to Rhett, Jay and David that while each of them had been friends basically all of their lives, they were only in their 20s. He said, "Add about 60 more years to your friendships and you will have something really special."

The value of friendship couldn't be more evident than during homecomings.

Beth Anderson's Lemon Bars

Beth Anderson worked in Shelby years ago and I don't know where she is now but she gave me this recipe. I wrote it down as Beth Anderson's Lemon Bars so I think about her anytime I make these. They are good for most any occasion including homecomings.

Grease a 9 x 13 pan. I use Pam spray.

Mix together the following. It will be fairly dry but sticky.

1 package Duncan Hines Lemon Supreme Cake Mix
1 stick of melted butter
2 eggs

Spread the mixture into the greased pan. I spray a spoon with Pam to help spread the sticky mixture out evenly in the bottom of the pan.

Mix together the following. It will be gooey.

8 ounces cream cheese (softened. If I am doing this on the fly, I nuke for 30 secs)
1 box of 10x Powdered Sugar
2 eggs
1/2 Tablespoon lemon juice

Pour this mixture over the first layer.

Bake at 325 degrees for 20-30 minutes. It will spring up in the middle when it's ready. Sometimes I bake at a lower heat for a little longer.

Let it cool completely before cutting.