Things that have occupied my mind today

We started off our day with sausage, an egg, and a biscuit.  Actually, the biscuits were leftovers.  We had biscuits and gravy yesterday for our noon meal (dinner); I sent the leftover gravy and two biscuits with a granddaughter and saved two biscuits for us.  I don't really like sausage or bacon as much as I used to, and am not terribly crazy about fried eggs either, but Cliff loves that sort of food.  The main thing I really like about it, as cool weather approaches, is the homey smell of an old-fashioned breakfast when you go outside and then re-enter later.  The smell lingers for hours, welcoming me home.  

For dinner today we had a ham casserole we both like, since I found some of last Easter's ham in the freezer recently. 

that's the ham casserole at the top (look at that cheesy sauce).  We had smothered okra to go with it.  I wasn't paying attention and overcooked it, but it was still delicious.  Just a little ugly.

Yesterday I went with Cliff to get some parts  he needed for the mower.  I don't know what brought it up, but something sparked a memory of his mother, and I told him about it.  "Did you know," I said, "that when your mom made a pie shell that needed to be baked before the filling was put in it (like for chocolate pie), she put the raw crust on an upside-down pie pan to bake?"  

Cliff said he didn't know that.  Of course he didn't.  Every once in awhile he'll walk through the kitchen when I'm cooking, stop and watch a minute, and say, "Huh.  I didn't know that's how you did that."  And usually it's something basic I've been doing for 50 years.  Cliff tends to stay out of the kitchen while the magic is going on, so he's unfamiliar with all aspects of it.  Anyway, about the upside-down pie plates:  His mom is the only person I ever saw baking pie crust that way.  I wish I had asked her why.  She has one sister living (90 years old and on Facebook!!!!) so I went to Aunt Gertrude's status and asked if she baked her piecrust like that.  She answered,  "I never did do it like that.  Didn't know she did.  Mom never did.  Of course I do like Mom did."  Cliff's youngest sister, who doesn't have a big presence on Facebook, saw the conversation and said yes, Melva did do the upside-down pie plate.  Have any of my readers ever known someone to do that?  I even searched in vain on Google, trying to find out if it was something others had done.    

Here's a strange thing about Cliff's mom's family:  They eat onions with almost every meal.  When Aunt Gertrude's asthma forces her to the hospital, she asks for raw onions with her meals.  Most of the nurses know her, since she's in the hospital several times yearly.  It isn't just her with the onions, though.  That whole family goes on about onions until you'd swear they were talking about the fruit from the tree of life in the Bible!  Perhaps it's a regional thing in the Ozarks, though, rather than a family trait.  When I married Cliff, he wouldn't eat raw onions, said they made him sick.  Now it's nothing for him to whack off a slice of onion to have with his meal.  

Let's see:  What's Gabe up to?  I don't think I've told my readers that he likes to eat off the table when nobody's looking.  At some point as he was becoming pretty well potty-trained, I began leaving him loose in the house when we left for brief periods of time.  I did that a few times and found nothing out of place when we returned.  However, as I was washing dishes one day with my back to the table, I heard slurping noises:  Gabe was on a chair licking and eating butter that was sitting on the table.  Trust me, when we leave him at home now, he goes in his kennel.  Oh, and he received another bath today because, once again, he rolled in carrion.  When he sees me getting his bath ready, he runs to the back of his kennel and goes deaf, so I have to reach way back there to drag him out.

  
If it matters to anyone, I'm reading "The Great Alone".  I didn't really need anything to convince me not to move to Alaska, but I surely know it for certain now.

Yours truly, 
Donna