Busy, busy, busy week
Busy, busy, busy week
This week has sure been a busy time at our house. Mother’s Day was great thanks to family and friends.
Paul prepared a fine breakfast for the two of us. If I should become unable or worse, he will not starve. He is a good cook.
During the years I worked at Columbia Records he oftentimes cooked for our girls some of his favorites. Our daughters consider those times , happy memories.
Give me a bowl of grits laced with a pat of butter and Kraft’s sharp cheddar cheese, a few passes of the salt and pepper shakers over them and I’m in hog heaven.
Now some might not find those tiny white beads in a bowl so delicious. They might say they put a few rattles in the gut. No not me, they are always on my breakfast menu when I serve eggs.
Paul passes up grits and opts for oats and a pile of prunes. He is eighty-one , eight months older than me; might be, he needs them to energize his battery. I will have two please.
In 1957, one month after the elopement with the above mentioned, I boarded a Trailways bus and traveled to Portsmouth, Virginia to join the little sailor for the yuletide holidays.
His ship was due to dock after completing a shake-down cruise on the Atlantic ocean.
He rented an upstairs apartment in a sea captain and wife’s Victorian home on High Street.
A small grocery was across the street. My sister-in-law, that lived in the town went with me to shop for breakfast items. I asked for the cream of wheat and the brothers were out of that item. They suggested grits and Pauline encouraged me to try them. She said they were very popular in the south.
On the way home, she gave me pointers on how to prepare them then added her brothers would love them. I made enough to feed my sailor and his brother in my granite pan from another story with no ending.
I ended up eating the coarsely ground grain myself. They weren’t interested in the gritty fluff in the colorful tin cereal bowls. I, on the other hand, loved the texture and taste and they pleased my palate.
Paul was transferred to shore duty in California. We moved into a house that housed several military couples. We met a sailor and his wife from Stateline, Mississippi.
One day Bonnie Pope and I were discussing food; she mentioned okra. I wasn’t sure that would serve my menu well. Then she asked me if I had ever tried grits. She handed me a small brown bag of the gems and two cans of okra from her pantry. Little she knew the rest would become history.
Whenever we go to Cracker Barrel I have a side of okra. And grits, well that’s another story that lives on.
I become panicky when the boxes of individual packets are absent from the grocer's shelf Especially, in recent days shelves are short of so many items, supply can not keep up with demand.
So, last week Starla, fully aware of her mother’s grit habit, sent me a large brown mailer filled with enough packets of the stuff to see me through mid-June!
When folks see me they claim I am always smiling. I think it could be my tongue is searching for lost grits or just because I am happy. Regardless of whatever troubles befalls me, I am gritty. I smile and carry my burdens alone!
I can be reached by phone at 317 - 286 - 7352 or drop me a line to 649 South Grant Street, Brownsburg, IN., 46112.
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