Aloha Y'all: Potluck? No Thanks-

Aloha Y'all: Potluck? No Thanks-: Okay, here goes.   I hate Potlucks. I know your mama says hate is a bad word; but I HATE potlucks.   Really.   I can’t get over it.   I envi...

The Lone Lemon

Just one lemon.  One lemon.  My tree looks like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree with a lone yellow ornament. I had visions of my kitchen counter  crowded with  woven baskets spilling over with bright yellow sunshine balls, still warm from the afternoon sun.  Nope, just one lemon. But I am still grateful for the one lemon.  Did I tell you there’s only one lemon?

But there is a gravitas to what to do with the one lemon.  My first thought was to make a bold mouth-puckering cocktail.  Would that be special enough to celebrate this lovely lemon? Squeeze every ounce of the juice, mix it with a simple syrup add vodka, shake, spill the liquid sunshine into a chilled martini glass rimmed with lemon sugar.  AIn’t one thing wrong with that.  But one cocktail, and by one I mean one for me and one for Sweet Michael, didn’t seem squeeze worthy.  Please remember this the next time you’re filling up the produce bag at your supermarket, this lemon took almost a year from bloom to ripe.  A year.  And this only child lemon has not had a moment of privacy.  Every morning while I am making my morning tea, yes dear, sweet tea, I peek out my window and make sure the lemon is still hanging out on the end of the branch.  This is not citrus OCD, I have to check each morning and evening because the lemon tree’s neighbor is a guava tree which right now, looks like some scary Tim Burton harvest.  The birds love to feast on the guavas but apparently, the feasters do follow the stereotype of eating like a bird, leaving half of the fruit.  So the lemon has been spared from the guava marauders. 

Tart sweet cookies or a cake would seem to fulfill the destiny of this lemon.  But with only one lemon (remember?)  there is simply not enough juice. And I would feel awful if I dishonored the fruit by blending with store-bought lemons.  Yes, that sounds like total citrus snobbery and I’m going to own it this time.  There is a definite lemon hierarchy with the homegrown lemon sparkling at the very top.

But I can’t get my mind off of baking with the lemon.  So I remembered a southern lemon cake with a thin lemon-powdered sugar  glaze.  This cake was more of a  coffee cake baked in a loaf pan.  With the additional tartness of added buttermilk , to compensate for the one lemon, this lemon loaf was a sweet success. So let me leave you with a little southern thought for the day; when life hands you lemons, squeeze a wedge into your sweet iced tea and count your lucky stars you can call yourself a southern gal!

Potluck? No Thanks-

Okay, here goes.  I hate Potlucks. I know your mama says hate is a bad word; but I HATE potlucks.  Really.  I can’t get over it.  I envision the innocent dishes placed on the communal table as having traveled from the grossest homes imaginable.  So when an event pops up and someone chimes in with, “let’s have a potluck”; my internal voice murmurs, ”let’s not”.  I’m not saying my house is spotless and sometimes the stacks of magazines ,mail, and (clean) folded laundry cause me to suffer from C.H.A.O.S. (Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome); but I am quite vigilant about my food prep area.  I pay attention to cross contamination. Trust me, I’m vigilant.  I always use separate cutting boards for meat and veggies.  Always. 

So let’s get back to the dreaded potluck situation.  The holidays are here.  Meaning it is prime potluck season. So at work, there is a plan for a huge Thanksgiving Potluck.  So I was kind of avoiding the whole planning conversations until the dreaded moment came; a blanket email asking for responses to , “what are your bringing”?  I squared my shoulders, took a big breath and typed these two words, “not participating”.  Whew; what a relief. My mama, Sweetpea, also had a very strong reaction to potlucks.  She said folks are wasting their time on all this cooking mess.  Go to any potluck, she said, and see what disappears first; it’ll be the KFC, people will go for  the store-bought stuff!

So let’s get back to the subject of why I hate potlucks. Wow.  That’s getting easier to say; let’s do it again; “I hate potlucks’.  The anti-potluck sentiment comes down to this.  There are two distinct images I can’t shake: double dipping and hoarders.  Too many times I have seen folks going through a potluck and I honestly feel that  a crudités station is the most dangerous place at a party.  I must have a radar for it; out of the corner of my eye I always seem to catch the folks who have just dunked their carrot or celery back into the dip AFTER they have already dunked , bitten and chewed on the same carrot or celery. Ugh! Gag!  I know it is dramatic thinking.  I own it. But I picture that innocent aluminum clad potluck dish as having its beginnings in a hoarder’s home.  You know the ones you see on TV, where there is a goat’s trail that the person has to scoot sideways to get through the walls of trash.  Picture this: precariously perched on the tippy edge of the counter where mountains of dirty pots , moldering food, and meandering cats have claimed their real estate is where the imagined potluck dish is being prepared.  Blame it on an Oprah episode; where the lovely well-dressed lady sat in the audience and then her life was forever ruined by the featured clip of her hoarded home…and wasn’t she the one who was fighting and crying to keep the lone dirty sock so she could reuse it sometime in the future?  Okay, so this is what I am picturing as the home of the potluck dish. 

So yes, invite me to your home and I will gladly come and dine with you. I promise, I’ll be relaxed and do my best to be a sparkly guest.  But there is something about bringing the dish out of the house that makes me cringe.  Writing this I see that if I come into your home I can access the prep area and obviously, just the act of inviting folks into your home makes you a non-hoarder.  So that’s it!  I just had a breakthrough- I need to see where it (the dish) is prepared.  Yep, that’s it.  So go enjoy your potlucks, enjoy sharing your dishes, and please don’t fret about me; I’ll be chatting and happily munching on the chicken out of the bucket!

10.01.2011

A Boat, A burn and A ball

We walk into our house, being met with the welcome smell of something
Italian cooking. And being the lone cook in the house; it is a divine
pleasure to have someone else be cooking for you , especially today.Kisses to you, my lovely slowcooker. 
Sweet
Michael and I had a resort day, a stay-cation and adventure day all in one.

The morning started with Michael announcing we were going on the boat, on
the bay. Yippee! I asked for thirty minutes to gather some ingredients
together for dinner tonight. While the cubed pork was browning, I sliced
thick chunks of zucchini that followed the pork in my old faithful, princess
iron skillet. I brought down my Crockpot from the cabinet and opened two
fourteen ounce cans of whole tomatoes. The browned pork and zucchini were
added to the tomatoes with a halved onion and a can of cannellini beans.
The skillet was empty but still sizzling, so I quickly rough chopped cabbage
to sauté in the pan. A quick smash of three garlic cloves were added to the
pot. A healthy pinch of sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, oregano,
tarragon, and hot pepper flakes tossed in. A quick stir, settling the glass
lid on the pot, setting the dial to low and we were off.
After many hours, research, considerable deliveries and postage, the boat
was finally running. I grabbed my brand new boat shoes; so cute with their
squeaky white soles and a fetching two tone combo of chocolate brown and
ballet pink(and if you ever needed to know… my favorite color it is the
special shade of ballet pink). Even the insides of the shoes were a perky
navy and white nautical stripe. I had only been awake less than two hours
and already it was turning out to be a lovely day; the promise of the day
alone with my sugar, cooking and new shoes-to boot (pun intended). A fabulous day on the bay!

Aloha Y'all Launch

This is it; the launch of Aloha Y'all. I am staying up way too late because I have to be at work in seven hours.  The show should be starting up in four weeks so folks can come visit this blog. I guess I am taking a sip of the Kool-ade; the black cherry version of the social network.  It's a little coo coo crazy!