A Tyraid,if you will

So my {and my 2 sisters and my brother} Daddy died on the morning of dec 19,2010. He was 52 years old ,and died from a pulmonary embolism. It was unexpected,sudden,and yes horrible.
Im shaking as I write this tonight. I dont know if its my nerves,or the wind,or dehydration from the stomach virus we all have in various stages here at my house.

I have to get these thoughts out. Here are some of them in no particular order.

1. loosing a parent is the hardest event I have ever had to try to deal with in my life.

2. It does not matter how old you or your parent is when they pass. there is a hole there. One that you realize the moment it hits you,that will never be filled again.

3. No,you dont understand. that is unless youve lived it yourself. its not like loosing a grandparent or aunt,or dog. So dont tell me you do. you dont

4. While I know ppl have ment well,Im sick of hearing "it must really be hard this time of year" meaning Christmas time. As opposed to when March or April will make it any different? Um no.

5.you find yourself crying. not really sobbing, just tears that you cant explain,nor do you want to.

6. Unless you have just lost a child, I win right now. Yes,life is going on,but for me,right now,its stopped a little bit,and I need some time.

7. I cant be there for anyone else right now. While I can be happy or sad for you during your life or whatever is happening, I cant pay attention to it, b/c yes, Im being self absorbed right now.

8. I do have an excuse for seeming distant and scattered. there is a hole somewhere in me,that I cant explain. and maybe I never will

9. My siblings nad I all reacted pretty much the same way. the reply was screams of NO, not MY Daddy and then mass confusion.

10. You,as a child,expect to bury your parents. but not when you are 29 and your Dad is 52. It is not fair,dammit!!!

11. I feel drawn to my siblings right now in a way I cant explain. Maybe they and only they can help fill that void,since we came from the same place. But yet,Im afraid to talk to them.

12. trying to explain his Grandaddy dying is one of the most difficult things Ive ever experinced as a Mom,and holding my son while he weeps breaks my already broken heart even more.

13. No, you cant ask your Daddy how he felt when his Daddy died. You cant ask him how to get over this and how to move on.

14. Death is only peaceful for the dead. It sucks for everyone else who has to come to terms with it.

15. Embrace the parent you have left. It really,sadly,helps, when they too have lost thier own Daddy pretty unexpectedly.

16. If you were ever still a child, your youth is gone. Reality and mortality really hit home and set in.

17. Im trying to let this make me a better Mom.

18. You can't be Scarlett O'Hara and think about it tomorrow. Its the last thing you think about before you go to sleep and the first thing you think about when you wake up.

19. I need space, I think. I need to be left alone in my own thoughts. Im still in schock.

20. Even if you leave a message on that voicemail you play over and over,you KNOW you wont ever be getting a call back.

Operation Make a FruitCake,for the first time

I have literally been craving Fruitcake. I bought all the necesary components.

Currants,

Fruitcake Mix {a bland of citrus particles,and cherries.Comes in a tub and does not taste ANYTHING like fruitcake when you eat it directly from said tub. you live and learn}

Raisins

candied cherries and pineapple

Having never eaten a currant before,it was with the display,so I thought what the heck,its a holiday cake,so why not? I have the other ingridients on hand.

Nuts,

eggs,

butter,

sugar,

flour,

and Nuts.



Ive been researching cookbooks. From Paula Deen's first Lady and Son's, a garden club cookbook,my Memaws garden club printed,and even the "Bible". THe Joy of Cooking. When I found fruitcake recipes they have instructions like this

"Soak a week,, in a dark closet,, under the stairs in rot gut burbon"

" replump raisins in stale coffee for an hour"

"If you have no burbon on hand,use whatever you have!!!" Lightbulb! Best one yet. Plus you dont have to soak the fruit till its rancid and fonkey. Plus,yall know I have no paitence. Remember me making apple butter a while back?

So, I put a few scoops of the citrus stuff in a non stick pan with about 3/4 c of Blue Curcaco Liqueir. Ok, Im all set. Into the steaming blue booze, I add the citrus fruit, some raisins,some currants,a 1/4 cup of water, 1/4 cup of Molasses,and a sprinkle of coconut. Smells a bit like cough syrup. The kind the Dr gives you,makes you feel all warm,but taste like ass.

Its soaking for a few minutes,and now Im going to commence to cream up some butter,vanilla, white and dark sugar...

I didnt like ANY of the recipes I saw either online or in my cookbooks. The Devil on my shoulder is saying
" Suzy FN Homemaker, YOU can do a better job,than even the Queen of Southern cooking herself, Ms.Paula Deen." YOu think? hmmmmm we will see....

The Acutal making and putting in the oven:
Ok,so in my best wanna be the Next Food NextWork Star, I assembled all my ingredients.Some of this and that. inlcluding my brand new super duper Sunbeam standmixer {you too can have one,currently onsale at Walmart for 74.99} I got out my angel food cake pan. For a 1.99 GoodWill special,that pan has served me very well.
Anyway. I creamed
2 sticks of butter. I think one salted,one not
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 large hard glob of dark brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla
a splash of maple flavoring
and 2 eggs
I cremaed it all up with a new little hand mixer, {onsale at your local kroger for 8.99. both my new lectric mixers cost half what the KitchenAid one I wanted does}

Into the Mixer bowl,I put 3 1/2 cups SR flour,but added a dash of sea salt,and baking powder. Some of the following. I used the Racheal Ray method and palmed it. {by the time I was done,my palm was burning,freaking ginger!}
cinnamon,the expensive 1.00 kind,
all spice,ginger,cloves,and I did fresh grate nutmeg. {Ive had the same jar of nutmegs for years,and I just grate it off as needed}

So I got out the bread hooks for this monster job.{BAD IDEA!!!}
I sifted the flour mix with the hooks,and began to add my wet stuff. well,the hooks only made a small well. So I used a silicone scraper in an attmept to slide it all together. THAT did not work. So I grabbed a flat bamboo thingie,and me nad the mixer went to town.

{ASIDE: Caleb and I are still in our jammies. though we have had a wash today.Its easier to wash tees and capri's even in winter than jeans. Plus,they are tons more comfy. He is on a tall stool liking bowls and scrapers and measuring cups.He thinks himself a mini chef,and who am I to tell him no. BUT,the lil sucker grabs my shirt the whole time. i think hes afraid of falling off the stool. Thats gotta be the only thing hes afraid of. So I have a helper elf with me this whole trip.}

Ok, so the hooks were NOT doing the trick. I got to looking for my mixer beaters,I KNEW I had run in the DW earlier today. Um no,they were no where to be found. I turn around from the sink and DW to see Caleb licking yesterdays,now crunchy, cookie dough off one. Check one beater,now where n the sam hell is the other one? OH! There is is,on the floor,under an oven mitt. Best place for em,eeeh? gotta feed the mice!

So into the sink the crusted beaters go. Meanwhile the mixer is running with the bread hooks,and I hear a sound behind me! Caleb has turned on the mini hand mixer. Crap! hes gonna burn it up! So while the beaters are soaking I unplug the mini thingie,and scrape with my bamboo,paddle,shall we say, the fruitcake mix. I add the fruited mixture that had been soaking in Grandpa's cough syrup. I mean Blue Curcaco. More paddle scraping,and fighting. There are terms in Physcology about man vs things,or things vs man. Well, today it was man and machine vs 100 year old fruitcake recipe,idea. My arms are STILL burning.

Ok,so big beaters washed and clamped into the mixer. I crank that bad boy up,scraping as I go. Next thing I know Its a fruitcake batter tornado in the kitchen! In my noviceness with a grown up machine,I cranked it up too high. That green goo shit went everywhere! Me,Caleb,the counter,and back of the mixer.
EASY girl! We will get it done,I tell my mixer. Shes new,and Im a novice at the fruitcake making business,so we learned together.
Into the batter goes some slivered almonds and half a bag of walnut halves {they arent halves anymore though,b/c I made something or other last week,and whacked the whole bag with my industrial meat mallett Josh MADE me for Christmas last year.

Anyway. So, tornado over,nuts in with the fruits. I spray my pan,and a small bread pan. This stuff is looking like Fiona, Shrek's wife made it. CRAP! I forgot to add the candied cherries and pineapple. So I hack them up on a small board, mixer still humming away. Oh,yeah, I GOT THIS!
Note to fellow cooks, when using candied cherries,they WILL roll off onto the floor. So a rinse they got and chopped and bowled up they went.
It looks and smells like fruitcake to me! Gone is the cough syrupness,replaced by spicey molasses scent.

I stop the mixer,and pan up my dough. This was the heaviest dough Ive ever panned before,yall. I tried,once again to use my scraper.But no avail,so me and the bamboo paddle got it into the prepared pans.

Its now in the oven on 350 with the timer set for an hr. We shall see how it turns out. But if licking the goo off me and Caleb is any indication, well,its gonna be quite tasty if I do say so myself.
I've blogged on how I did this for a few reasons:
1. if it taste like ass,I will know what NOT to do,and follow somebody's grandma's recipe
2.If its good,Ive got it written down!
3. Im making this so other wont have to this year,and in the words of Johnny Carson, there is only one fruitcake and everyone just keeps passing it along. Well in West TN,today, I will know where it came from!

Wild Goose Chase for Potato's

Not that long ago Josh and I saw a Modern Marvel's episode on the humble Potato. Its one of the few shows we agree to watch at the same time. The show was informative,and towards the end, it showed the newer varity of hybrid potato's. Some of which are differnt colored. Not only is the skin a rainbow of colors,the flesh of them is as well.

Hmm, Josh said he would love to see what the hype was all about. Mental note,check. Find my husband,who does not ask for much,colored fleshed spuds. So, I began a serious hunt for them. I started at my local Kroger store,even asking the produce manager if they carry them. He kinda lifted his hat,and scratched his head.

"Nawp," he said,"I've heard of them,but we dont carry them yet." Ok, so that was a couple of months ago. I stuck the notion of spuds in the back fo my head with the zillion ohter things,I'd love to give my family,but constantly am on the look out for.

This past week, I facebook friended a local,Memphis,TN, green grocer store.EasyWay,where its always Fresh! Some friends from school and their family run and own the several locations. I posted on the wall inquiring about blue potato's. They too did not carry them. Dern!

I had to go to East Memphis to my neuro Dr,to get my back seen about,and had a lightbulb moment. Hmmm,Im close to Whole Foods, surely to goodness they have them there! When I walked in,I instantly knew I was out of place. Me with my heavy Carhartt coat on,and get out of my way look on my face. I went directly to the man with a smile stacking onions. I inquired about the illusive spud.
"Yes Ma'am, we carry them,but right now they are hard to get,and we dont have any right now.But you can check out the Fresh Market down the street."He smiled and went back to stacking. Looking at me as if KNOWING,I was not an East Memphis kind of girl. I have country as cornbread written all over me.
So I drove, {In VAST amounts of pain,in the cold,mind you} to the other organic market up the road.
I saw someone with a name tag,and inquired about the spuds. I saw on a display where they normally are,beside the fingerling potato's.
Side note about Fingerlings. I bought those first,b/c my Kroger did carry them. They last a while in the fridge,and hold up well in stew,are smooth and buttery in texture and would be great with anything you want to do with them.

The man at FreshMarket told me,yes they carry them,and since none were out,he would go check with the produce manager to see if any had arrived on that days truck. Leave it to me to ask the meat man,about freaking blue taters. He came back with someone else,who told me the same story as the man at Whole Foods. They carry them,but are hard to get right now. DAM,I thought. Poor Ole Josh aint ever going to get blue taters.
So I gave up for the time being. Had my nerve block on my back,and got a pain pilled wild hair up my ass to hit Korger. My unassuming friend,Melanie, got conned into going with me. She had been warned,but decied to go along anyway to push the buggy,and pick up low shelved items.
Well,LOW and BEHOLD,they had Purple potato's at my local Korger store! I did the wonkey Happy Dance right then and there. well good as I could being on pain meds the day after a back prodecure! Melanie was howling laughing at me,b/c I was so happy that I hugged her!
They came in 2lb bags,I didnt even look at the price,and I brought them home. I got a huge hug and kiss from my much appreciative husband!

So last night we decided to simply roast the new spuds to see how they tasted! YUM is the word. At my house,since we're poor, we eat a lot of potato's. I buy them in ten lb bags normally,esp when the brown ones are on sale for 20lbs for 2.99, I divide them up sometimes to share with friends. Anyway, so a simple roast.

Josh washed them,and I cubed them, pre heated the oven to 400,and set the timer for 20 minutes.




I gave them a liberal dose of sea salt,pepper and Olive oil.




I checked them after 20 minutes and they were done,but we like a little crunch on ours. So ten more minutes later,and whaaa Laaa, taters.









I mixed up some blue cheese,sour cream,and a shot of creamy horseradish sauce for them. They are yummy. Smooth,creamy,earthy. It was worth the wait. They will be a special occasion thing around here,but Im just so glad I found them. It IS the simple things in life that can make you happy!



Plus,they look pretty in my vintage Homer Laughlin bowl!