Month: June 2008

On our way to the Franklin Food & Spirits Festival, we stopped in Athens, Alabama and shopped in the Square for a few minutes. We *loved* the old-fashioned hardware store – it’s called U.G. White Hardware, and it’s been in business since 1917. They carry everything:

They had lots of Radio Flyer toys there for when Shug gets older, and I found a piece of Lodge that I got for the kitchen.

They had some other Lodge cookware there that I had never seen before – some of it was what they call their ‘Signature Series’ and it looks great.

Okay yes I am one of those people with too many pots & pans and serving pieces so I have to keep my Le Creuset and my Mackenzie-Childs on my shelving unit! Anyway, they had something that looked just like Le Creuset, except it was Lodge’s new enamel line. Really, even up close it looked *so* close to Le Creuset, down to the color. I bet it is a lot less expensive too.

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Lodge sponsors the National Cornbread Festival in South Pittsburg, Tennessee, where they’re based. When they have the festival beauty pageant, they name the little girl winners “Little Miss Cornbread” and “Tiny Miss Cornbread Muffin”! Wouldn’t you love to tell people that you were Little Miss Cornbread!? When I was little, I was in beauty pageants – now how many other Jewish girls do you know can say they were Little Miss Merry Christmas!? My favorite title I won, though, is Little Miss Cotton. Hahaha – really!

I do still love to see pageants at festivals. This website shows the queens of some festivals in Louisiana (you have to see it – it’s great). Now, I want to be “Miss Andouille” or the “Crawfish Queen”! I am *loving* the crown and scepter that the Shrimp and Petroleum Queen wears too!!! One of my new friends (with such a fun blog!) wears a tiara when she cooks supper. Um, me too!

On Sunday, people from all over drove to Selma to celebrate Kathryn Tucker Windham‘s 90th birthday. We really wanted to go, but after spending so much time in the car on Saturday, I wanted Shug to have all day to just play around the house.

Our friend Al Benn wrote about the party for the Montgomery Advertiser. Here are small portions:

Windham arrived in a golf cart and took her seat high above the huge crowd just as a Dixieland band strutted down the middle of the street to the library, playing “When The Saints Go Marching In.”

The guest of honor even got a parade permit and, when the library portion of the celebration ended, the crowd marched across a busy, but blocked-off intersection to the Selma-Dallas County Performing Arts Center. That’s where her birthday cake waited to be cut.

Mayor James Perkins Jr. held up a proclamation naming Sunday “Kathryn Tucker Windham Day” in Selma and then took his place in the crowd, holding a little plastic comb with wax paper around it — soon to serve as a makeshift musical instrument. That’s the way Windham wanted to celebrate her special birthday — a fun time for all on a day in which she became an official nonagenarian.

Comb playing may be a lost art, but her friends quickly took to it and joined her in their own renditions of “Amazing Grace,” “I’ll Fly Away,” “You Are My Sunshine” and many other selections.

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Inside, her friends were treated to Moon Pies, grape soda and water as they pushed toward the table to get a piece of her birthday cake. Among those celebrating was author and political observer Wayne Flynt, who is familiar with the glare of spotlights. He described Windham as a woman who is unique in Alabama.

“Some people are important to intellectuals, journalists or politicians, but Kathryn Tucker Windham is probably the only person I know in Alabama who is important to everybody,” he said.

Thank you to ***everybody*** who wrote with their congratulations and sweet wishes about our newest little one! It will take me a little while to write everyone back, but just please know that I (and Av, and Shug) are just so touched!! Mwah!!

Av loves jambalaya and would probably eat it every single week if it was made that often. Last night I made it and it turned out great. Now, I like jambalaya really spicy but it doesn’t have to be that way at all.

I’ve been thinking about how much I enjoy hearing stories about recipes (like the ones in community cookbooks and the newest I bought, Screen Doors and Sweet Tea). When I was in college, I had a friend who was from Dothan, Alabama. We decided to surprise my friend’s mom and come in for Friday night supper, just for a quick visit.

It must have been when we were going to school during the summer quarter, because I remember it was just terribly hot. You know when it is uncomfortably hot even at night with the moon out, and it feels like there’s no air moving? It was that kind of hot.

Well, we got to my friend’s house and rather than ringing the doorbell (since this was supposed to be a surprise) my friend unlocked the front door and we started walking toward the kitchen where we could smell something delicious cooking.

We walked in (surprise!) and there was my friend’s mom – now, my friend is from a very upper-middle class, very respectable, very nice family. The mom is standing there stirring jambalaya on the stove. With no shirt on! We scared her half to death and we were standing there shocked too! Oh, I have never blushed so hard!! Not exactly what we expected!! hahaha!! She apologized profusely…you could tell she was just embarrassed to no end…explaining that it was so hot outside, and so hot in the kitchen, that with no one else home at the moment she just couldn’t help herself, she’d lost her mind, etc etc etc! It turned out to be really funny and every time I think about jambalaya I giggle to myself about the importance of keeping the kitchen nice and comfortable!

Anyway, jambalaya doesn’t take too awfully long to cook, but it can heat up the room, especially on a hot night. Try to keep yourself together when you make it!

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Okay, back to the recipe. This is for Creole jambalaya, which explains why it has tomatoes.

Ingredients (serves 6):
olive oil, for cooking the meat
1 polish sausage, cut into bite-size pieces – using andouille instead of polish would be great too
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
(now you could change up the meats here and use ham and shrimp, or just whatever you feel like)
2 ribs celery, chopped
4 scallions (green onions), chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
14.5oz can diced tomatoes with liquid
2 c. chicken stock (or if you are using shrimp, use shrimp or fish stock instead)
1 c. long grain rice
salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, or just use Tony Chachere’s

Directions:
Use a large pan with straight sides and a tight-fitting lid for this.

Brown the polish sausage in the pan with olive oil and at the same time, set the chicken breasts and broil them in the oven until almost done. When the chicken breasts get close to being done, add them to the pan to finish cooking with the sausage. Get the sausage and chicken nice and brown and tear the chicken into bite-size pieces. I just do this with a pair of tongs and a fork right in the pan.

Add the scallions, bell pepper, celery, and garlic to the pan and cook until tender (doesn’t that look good already!?). Add seasonings:

Next, add the can of diced tomatoes with their liquid, plus the broth and the rice. Get it all mixed in well, bring it up to a boil, then turn it down to a simmer and cover the pan tightly. Leave the pan alone for 25 minutes:

At about 25 minutes, lift the lid and check the doneness of the rice – it ought to be cooked through. Check the seasonings again and serve:

Yum!

Av, Shug, and I are *so* happy to let everyone know that we are going to have a new member of our family in November – a baby boy!

YAY!

(a ***huge*** happy surprise!!)