"never trust the sort of cooking...."

I am enjoying a low key vacation with my family this week. My daddy is a generous man and rented a little house on the Alabama gulf coast for himself, his bride and their kids.

I've spent time in the waves, time in the pool, time in the sand and time in the kitchen.

But, shockingly, that hasn't taken up all my hours. The rest of the time, I've been reading.

I brought Crime and Punishment to read, and have read some of it, but regardless of the gaping education hole that not having read the greatest Russian novel apparently leaves, it is not the most uplifting beach read.
Strike one.
I also went to the library and checked out some Agatha Christie stuff, only to find out that the novel collection I picked up are her six romance novels, rather than six of her 84 amazingly British murder mysteries.
Strike two.

But don't fret. I also picked up Forever Summer by Nigella Lawson, who gives Dame Christie a run for her money as my favorite British author. And my stepmother brought an Ina Garten cookbook. So, I know you're shocked, but I've been reading about food.

And have dishes to try to carry us through labor day.
But Nigella doesn't write recipes. She writes prefectly crafted essays that happen to be about food.

In one such essay, she echoed the sentiments of Robert Capon in his collection of essays on domestic life, Bed and Board. Capon opines about our relationship to Things. When we love a thing in itself, that is proper, Godly materialism, but when we love a thing for what it can do for us - convey social status, etc., that is far from good. Mistress Lawson is writing about Cheesecake Ice Cream.

She says, "I don't claim [cheesecake icecream] as an original idea...but striving for originality is frankly a grievous culinary crime. Never trust the sort of cooking that draws attention to the cook rather than to the food."

That's the lesson I've gleaned this week of reading and writing about food. It's also the reason all recipes should be shared. It isn't about what glory the food [or clothes, or work, or friendships, or anything] can bring to us; its about the glory that we, by way of the perfect dessert, can bring to God and His Creation.

I am so looking forward to being back in my own kitchen to hopefully draw attention to some yummy summer food.

of the black eyed variety

Every spring, I crave black-eyed peas.


This kind:


Not this kind, ever, especially post superbowl xlv:



I was about to say "I don't know why, but every spring I crave black-eyed peas" but that would be a lie.

I know exactly why.

My mother, whilst I was growing up, was not a meat and potatoes kind of girl, but, as in most of America, most of her meals had some type of meat in them. We weren't pot roast people or roast chicken people (like my family now is), but we were spaghetti sauce with ground beef and chicken enchilada people.

But every summer, from April through September, inclusive (because that is summer here), my mother would have what she deemed "vegetable night." This seems silly, because we had vegetables every night, and we were not always meat-ed people (meatless taco salad, cheese ravioli, red beans and rice, black bean soup are just four entrees I can remember that appeared sans meat).

But I understand it now. These vegetable nights were when she could serve vegetables that tasted like God meant them to taste. These vegetable nights were to showcase the vegetables. We didn't have broccoli or carrots or salad like on every other night. These vegetable nights almost always followed a trip to the farmers market.

We had tomatoes, served alone, with dash of salt and pepper. We had corn on the cob, boiled for just a hot minute and then buttered (or, per my mother, margarined, don't get me started, bless her heart), salt and peppered. We usually had cornbread. And we had peas. Sometimes purple hull peas, sometimes I don't even know what, sometimes just the plain ol' pea of the black-eyed variety. If we were lucky, we got fried okra to along with it, or if my mother had her way, sauteed squash, heavy on the onions. And if my baby brother, her baby child, was around, we also had a tomato tart. Because, see, it's his favorite.

These nights found my mother at her best, that is, my mother without measuring spoons. She was just throwing stuff in pots and pans, as she well should be. It is harder for her to do that than it is for me; her motto is, "If I make it the way the recipe says and it tastes good, why would I mess with it?"

Mine is, "I like variety and have an overconfidence that often leads to greatness, but at least as often leads to 'I should have just followed the recipe.'"

Thus, I walk the line.

But I look back on these hot, summer evenings with great joy in my heart. She just threw in butter, salt, sugar, pepper with abandon.

Mama was always working from farmers market peas. She, except on new years, never bought non-fresh peas. She didn't like them enough to try to dress up a supermarket distant fourth place when she could just be patient and wait for a Mississippi backyard blue ribbon champion.

I did inherited neither her wed-to-recipe-ness nor her patience. But I did inherit, with a vengeance, her love of food and her seasonality.

I am growing my herbs (more on that later this week). Paul has planted his tomatoes. My children have been playing in the sprinkler. The air conditioning is on; if I have to sweat, I also get to eat summer vegetables.

I've been incorporating summer veggies into our menus for the last few weeks: I've made a tomato tart (but had to buy basil for it), we've had corn on the cob, and I've made squash.

But this week, I felt it come on. A need for a veggie night.

So, tonight we did it. Though, we'll have better ones later in the year, when all the veggies can be farmers market.

We had corn on the cob (which Ada slathered with butter, I protested, she said, "I gave up butter for lent, Mama, I have to enjoy Easter"); we had biscuit bread - as southern as southern can be; we had a big green salad; we had leftover Easter mac and cheese; and we had black-eyed peas.

Now, fresh black-eyed peas should be nearing unadulterated. God made them a certain way, and you should only add a little onion, salt and pepper to them.

But dried peas in a bag from Kroger need a little more help. And since it ain't culinary summer quite yet, we had the latter.

So I googled and messed around and so forth. Ultimately, I fiddled with a Paula Deen recipe.

And this is what I did. Paul and I highly recommend it. If you have "but I don't like pie-see food Mama" people at your house, cut down on the pepper, chili powder and onion. But as is, this is not a spicy dish - just a little hint of a kick.

1 lb dried black eyed peas, soaked (I used the quick soak method taught on the bag, and was very satisfied - that's a first time for me)

1 onion, sized to preference - I used large - are you shocked? Cut into whatever size pieces of cooked onion you prefer

In a pan over high heat, put a mixture of olive oil and bacon grease, the second of which you have dutifully saved in a jar in your refrigerator for occasions such as this. If you have not done so, you can fry up some bacon really quickly and crumble to throw on top of the black eyed peas. Or you can skip the bacon grease and go with some butter. I think my mixture was about a tablespoon of each.

Throw in onion, saute over medium heat for about 6 minutes, until soft - you don't have to get it to a translucent point.
Then add:

1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
3/4 teaspoons pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 can Rotel (Or, obviously, store brand tomatoes and green chilies, but don't you think everyone knows what Rotel is better than "Can of Diced Tomatoes and Green Chilies", huh, don't ya?)

Stir around for a bit.

Toss in soaked beans and 4-5 cups of water. Bring to a boil. Cover. Cook on Medium or Medium-Low heat for 45 minutes to an hour.

Serve and enjoy! On veggie night or whenever the mood so strikes.

the pain of longing for today.

i'm not one to put all my eggs in the basket of the dictionary definition of a word, but i have to say that this evening, i'm motivated to actually look one up. (this is not to say that i don't believe in dictionaries - i love them, but there are a lot of words for which the connotation is actually appreciably different and sometimes contradictory to the denotion, which is all a dictionary will offer. So... i just think one has to be careful not to limit a word to the dictionary definition too much... whew)

nostalgia: The term nostalgia describes a longing for the past, often in idealized form.^[1] The word is made up of two roots (νόστος nostos "returning home", and άλγος algos "pain"), to refer to "the pain a sick person feels because he wishes to return to his native home".
This according to the Gospel of Wikipedia.

I experience nostalgia often -

I am nostalgic for my early childhood (ages 3-7) when I can remember vividly being fitted for my Circus tuxedo when I was four, who I sat by in my kindergarten class (between Tal and Brock, end of table, in Mrs. Brasfield's and Mrs. Hull's class), and making stone soup in the first grade.

I am nostalgic for those lovely middle grades - when i had the best haircut of my life in 4th grade, shaving my legs (after lengthy written negotiations with my parents about a shave-start-date), playing in the pearl river (new years resolution in sixth grade was to have 'too much fun in '96'-), going to the fair sans supervision, and learning the macarena.

I am nostalgic for high school - corsages, making out, hammocks, being a designated driver, playing pool, reading literature and thinking I was the first person to discover it, and beginning to write competently.

I am nostalgic for college - both the pre-Ada college - chicken on a stick, waking up and it taking a minute to remember all of the priceless details from the night before, alcohol sick friends, cigarettes, the first class in which your brain became stimulated, talking with other people who love and are fascinated by the same things you are -
and with-Ada college - falling in love, talking about your future when one is supposed to be studying, sweatshirts, swingsets in the park, real intellectual stimulation, and learning to laugh at ourselves.

And now I find myself nostalgic for today - wishing to come back home - as though I have really already left. Because I know that I will not have very many days like today - and certainly those days will end.

A day when I got to stand up and lead the girl part of "Praise ye the Lord" at Vacation Bible School while Paul stood up and led the boy part, both of us cracking up the whole time.

A day when I listened to my husband rant and rave about the stupid f**ingly inefficient city of Jackson, which has left the fire hydrant in our front yard running for over 24 hours now, and then a day when I watched it come over his face that maybe their inefficiency wasn't so bad after all.... as he rounded up the children and pushed them outside to experience the fire hydrant first hand.

A day when I watched as my kids giggled and loved and laughed their way to a cooler June afternoon - soaked and delighted, as they ate fresh cherries for a post hydrant snack, and Eason tried to teach Ada Brooks to spit 'sherry seeds'.

A day when I cooked a fresh tomato tart for supper, and listened to my family be genuinely pumped about fresh basil. All three of them.

A day when I sat on my couch between two sparkling post bath children and read "The Foot Book" by Dr. Seuss and then patted them on behinds and sent them off to be tucked in by their (more-mobile) father.

A day when I looked at my husband and realized how much I respect him.

I am already in pain for the fact that nothing will ever be this day again. Nothing. Perhaps nostalgia is not the pain that comes from wanting to go home - it is the pain that comes from knowing that it's impossible. Hopefully, this nostalgia will be motivational - push me toward loving every moment - even (and especially) pouring bleach on the cherry stains.