A food craving satisfied and memories of rodeo days

 

Eating fried chicken in the cottage

For some time, I’ve been craving fried chicken, so tonight we ordered dinner for four from Bonnell’s Curbside meals. During quarantine, when restaurants saw their business diminish and disappear, Fort Worth’s Jon Bonnell found a way to keep his Bonnell’s Fine Cuisine active. He packaged curbside meals for four, priced them reasonably, and sold them literally on the curb by his restaurant each afternoon, Tuesday through Saturday. They were so successful, he has continued the tradition to this day. We have had them a few times—mostly the Beef Stroganoff. Several of the entrees are pasta which isn’t popular here, usually one is shrimp which I can’t eat, and one is smoked chicken and pulled brisket which doesn’t appeal. The Stroganoff though is delicious, and I still want to try the meat loaf. Tonight’s chicken came with mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, salad, and brownies. And the amount is generous. So craving satisfied.

Jacob almost never ever eats Saturday night dinner with us. This afternoon when I asked if he was joining us, he said, “Probably not. It’s Saturday night, you know.” I replied, “Sometimes in life you have to make choices. We’re having fried chicken.” He said with a grin he’d have to think about that. Somewhat to my surprise, he showed up for supper.

So now I’m full and happy—and waiting until I’m hungry enough to eat the remaining brownie.

We never had fried chicken in my home when I was growing up, which may account for my fascination with it now. I honestly don’t know if my mom ever tried to fry a chicken. (She did teach me early on how to cut up a chicken, something the girls in my family refuse to do—Jordan in particular won’t touch raw poultry, and for some years my function at Thanksgiving and Christmas was to prepare the turkey for roasting. They’ve gotten better now about it.) Not only did Mom not want to fry in all that oil, Dad, the proper Englishman, did not tolerate picking up food in our hands. A sandwich at lunch at the kitchen table was okay but never at the dinner table (we ate with linen tablecloth and napkins every night and no passed food—Dad served the plates as the head of the household; no, we were not rich, just shaped by his Canadian/British background). I have never myself tried to fry chicken, and I find “oven fried” a poor substitute. But tonight I was thinking that what attracts me as much as anything is the slightly peppery seasoning of the coating. I think that’s a southern thing.

Tonight may have been fried chicken night at the cottage, but it is the last night of the Southwestern Exposition and Stock Show, lovingly known in Fort Worth as the stock show and in the past as the “Fat Stock Show.” The powers that be dropped the “Fat” some years ago. Tonight, the owner of the champion steer, a high school girl, is $340,000 richer—I’m no judge but her snow-white steer is one of the most beautiful steers I’ve ever seen. I think a conglomerate usually buys the winner, so it is spared from the slaughterhouse, and the owner is spared that dilemma between emotion and profit.

Rodeo always makes me nostalgic. When my children were little, going to the rodeo was a rite of passage. Each had to wait until they were judged old enough, and then it was one of the highlights of the year. We routinely went with another family for several years and dined on the ribs and sausage offered by Coburn’s Catering, a longtime culinary institution. That family moved away, but then we developed a tradition of all the Alters coming for rodeo—the performance on Friday night, prowling the grounds, especially the Midway Saturday afternoon, and dinner at Joe T.’s Saturday night. It was an annual reunion that I truly looked forward to. Gradually the tradition fell apart—with kids in school, it was hard for families ot get away and parents had other demands. Now, some years Megan comes with a friend, but she didn’t even do that this year. Jordan and Christian have gone several times, with friends, and Jacob has gone at least once. My rodeo days are long over, not just because the arena is not accessible for me but because I’ve joined the ranks of those who don’t want to see the brutality of rodeo, especially the bull riding. Having written a bit about rodeo, I know they take every precaution for man and beast, but it can still be brutal. I don’t want to see anyone or any animal hurt. But it sure does provide some great memories.

Grands at the rodeo, back in the day

 

Twelfth Night … and more about dogs and magical creatures

 

Jacob on Twelfth Night
too many years ago

We celebrated Twelfth Night, the liturgical end of the Christmas season, with our family tradition of each burning a small branch of evergreen and making a secret wish. I spent the morning making a large batch of potato salad and a marinated green bean salad while Christian fixed barbecued meatballs, so it was sort of anticlimactic that two of our guests cancelled because of illness and two others had not shown up by the time I came back out to the cottage.

My twig always misses, but I
don't think that's an omen

But we had a lovely ceremony at the front porch fire pit on this night of the full moon. I love that Jacob has been doing this every year his whole life and hung around with the old folks to make his own wish—then he was off to find his friends. Jean was with us, and Amye Cole, and Jordan burned a secret wish, written and sealed in an envelope, from a friend who was not able to join us.

The news about Sophie continues to be good—this morning, her fever was gone, her kidneys were improving, and she was eating canned chicken. We will go visit her tomorrow morning, and I am hoping we can bring her home Monday. June Bug, who had us as worried on Christmas Day, continues her sudden miraculous recovery. Christian found some pad for dogs’ feet to keep them from slipping, so now Junie is confident in walking—and wanders constantly all over the house.

Since my mind is on animals tonight, I have two things to share. First is a story I stole from Gabe Fleisher’s “Wake Up to Politics” column this morning. (If you don’t read this online bipartisan column of news from D.C., I urge you to look it up—now a college junior in D.C., Fleisher started it some ten years ago as a young boy. It is reliable, accurate, informative, and—as I said—bipartisan, to the point that I sometimes wish he’d lean a bit more left.) Fleisher likes, when possible, to end his daily column with a human interest or humorous story. This was this morning’s:

The Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control recently received an unusual request. “I would like your approval if I can have a unicorn in my backyard,” Madeline, age six, wrote straightforwardly.

Luckily for her, the bureaucracy relented and cut through the red tape. Director Marcia Mayeda wrote back, granting Madeline a unicorn license, so long as she complied with the county’s “conditions,” including that the animal be given “regular access to sunlight, moonbeams, and rainbows.” So nice to know that bureaucracy has a sense of the magical.

Responding to my news about Sophie, a friend sent me this lovely quote from President Joe Biden: “Dogs’ lives are short, too short, but you know that going in. You know the pain is coming, you’re going to lose a dog, and there’s going to be great anguish, so you live fully in the moment with him. You can’t support the illusion that a dog can be your lifelong companion. There’s such beauty in the hard honesty of that, in accepting and giving love while always being aware it comes with an unbearable price. Maybe loving dogs is a way we do penance for all the mistakes we make in life.” Thanks to Jaimie Smith for sharing this—it has been a greatly comforting thought to me.

Make a wish for the coming year, if not on an evergreen branch thrown in the fire, how about on that full moon? And sweet dreams as we had full steam ahead into 2023.

 

 

 

 

Sunday dinner…and some trivia

 

Spatchcocked chicken

When my kids were growing up, Sunday dinner was an event. My brother and his kids and assorted friends came for dinner, and sometimes I cooked for fifteen or twenty. Those were always joyous occasions. My brother would go around the table, and each person had to tell about their week. Lots of laughter. And always a special meal—I remember even doing turkey Wellington, a recipe I wish I had now. Once, when I tried an old country recipe for hamburger/cornbread casserole, my brother fixed me with a long look and asked, “Sis, is the budget the problem?”

These days, Sunday dinner is sort of special but get glossed over by other events, etc. Sometimes Jordan even suggests that our fridges and freezers are full, and we should have leftovers—that seems to me a violation of the social order, but I try to go along. Tonight, though I fixed a real Sunday dinner. Jordan was gone to an afternoon cookie party, and I had been warned that Christian had a major event last night, and I should not ask him for anything. But I talked to him on the side, and he agreed that we could spatchcock a chicken.

A friend asked me, via email, what my day held, and when I said I was hoping Christian and I could spatchcock a chicken, she replied she had no idea what that was. So in case you don’t know: you use kitchen shears to cut along the backbone of the roasting hen (not a fryer) and spread it open—that was the part I thought I could have done, but when I watched Christian do it, I realized it took more strength than I have in my hands. Then you open the chicken up, turn it breast side up, and press with both hands on the chest bone until you hear it crack. We had a five-pound hen, and it cooked in an hour. I slathered it with herb butter before baking, and it was moist and flavorful. Maybe the herb butter was a bit too salty, but that’s my only hesitation.

My dinner plate
with an enormous piece of chicken
but it was so good

I sided it with corn pudding, an old-fashioned dish that I’ve been longing for—and no, I don’t think my mom ever cooked it. It’s not something I remember from childhood. Tonight I used a “quick” recipe that includes a box of Jiffy cornbread mix. With corn kernels and creamed corn, it was quick and easy to put together, and delicious, albeit pretty rich and not good for the diet. Heavy with butter, eggs, and sour cream. My only problem was I underestimated the quantity—it wouldn’t fit in the largest casserole I have, which is not very big. I had to call into the house for a larger one. We also had lightly sauteed asparagus, a family favorite.

To me, this was what Sunday dinner should be. I enjoyed fixing it and eating it. Never mind that I got chicken grease down the front of my favorite pink T-shirt.

And on to the trivia of the day: I love reading book lists, bestseller lists of titles, two-sentence reviews. In other words, I like knowing the wide array of books out there in our wonderful book world. My Austin son-in-law is a real honest book collector, and I love finding titles for him. He will be deluged this Christmas, and I think I have enough ideas for two or three years of birthdays and Christmases. Today though I found a gem of a children’s book. I often find books that make me wish my children or grandchildren were little and would read this book. Today’s find as A Christmas Mitzvah, by Jeff Gottesfeld and Michelle Laurentia Agatha. If the cover is an indication, the illustrations in this book are delightful. It tells the story, based on a real person, of a Jewish man who each year at Christmas did the job of a Christian who wanted to spend the day with family. Over thirty years, the man pumped gas, waited tables, emptied bed pans, and did countless other daily jobs. Truly inspiring. And charming.

Books spinning off the Jane Austen canon are everywhere these days, though Stephanie Barron seems to dominate. She has a new novel entitled Jane Austen and the Year Without Summer. I hooted because I titled my first published novel A Year with No Summer. The marketing department at the NY publisher objected, saying “year” and “summer” were intangibles and kids wouldn’t identify The book came out as After Pa Was Shot, which led my mom to snort and say, “More violence!” And that was back in 1978. Apparently there really was a year without summer—1816—when severe cold swept across the northern hemisphere, causing food shortages. It was thought to be the after-effect of a catastrophic volcano explosion in Indonesia. Yes, even then we lived In one big world together. So much for isolationism.

Not to end on a sour note, but my latest pet peeve is magazines that insert perfurmed advertising pages. I do not want to be assailed to overly heavy or sweet aromas when I’m reading a food magazine. Yep, the offender was Bon Appetit.

And so we begin a new week, with Christmas drawing ever closer. I hope you have lots of good things on your calendar.

 

The rodeo's in town!

Fort Worth awaits this annual event with bated breath--it brings tremendous crowds and lots of income to restaurants, shops, and the like. But it also traditionally brings bad weather. So far we've had semi-cold and one really rainy day, but the prediction for next week is the high sixties. Pray the weather holds. The Southwestern Exposition and Livestock Show began last week, but today was the first day of the professional rodeo.
When my children were young, it was a rite of passage to be old enough to go to the rodeo. We always went with one family of good friends, and if memory serves correctly we ate beforehand because we didn't like rodeo food. It was a time of high excitement, and we all loved it.
Today, my children and grandchildren come for a rodeo weekend--it's become a ritual. This year, next weekend, I will put out snacks--veggies, hummus, cheese, wine and beer. I figure they'll eat corny dogs and whatever at the show.
I've written about rodeo, been to countless performances...and today I no longer want to go. Don't want to see man or beast hurt. (I always used to sneak out during the bull riding, which terrified me.) So part of old age is I don't go. Neither do I go when the family does a walk-through of the barns, the exposition hall, and the Midway. Used to love that too. Last time I went, it killed my feet. Nowadays I don't think my back would take the walking. So I send them off with blessings and nap while they're gone. Then we gather for a Saturday night dinner--usually at Joe T. Garcia's but this year Jordan suggested a change, and we're going to the Star Café, owned by dear friends of mine. The kids and grandkids love my friends Betty and Don and also love the Star--I can already savor the chicken-fried steak.
Jacob went to the matinee rodeo today, with his parents, an event sponsored by Jordan's employer, Gulliver's Travels. Jacob came in about 5:30 full of tales--it seems during the bronc riding, on bronc came out of the chute with a small leap, and then apparently looked around and saw the crowd. He stiffened his front legs and refused to move, as if to say, "They're people out there. I'm not going." In fact, that's what the announcer said, and it made me nostalgic for a moment--rodeo announcers keep a fast pace, but they are always ready with a quip.
Then at least one, and maybe two, bulls in the bull-riding bucked their way through the required eight seconds without dislodging their riders. Then they simply sat down. Needless to say the riders dismounted and made a bee-line for the safety of the sidewalls. Sounds to me like the funniest rodeo ever.
Jacob will go again Monday night, with his friend Hayes whose father will ride in the calf-roping competition. Imagine what a thrill that is for an eight-year-old boy--to see his friend's father, whom he knows, ride. Christian, who has already been to the rodeo twice and will go again several times next week, is taking the boys. After that I don't think we dare mention rodeo to him for a year.
And then after the first week in February, life in "the Fort" will settle back down to normal. And then we all think, with stock show weather behind us, spring is here. Doesn't usually happen that way.