Our Quickie West Virginia Trip, part 1
As reported on Twitter (NOT gay), my sensors are telling me I’m operating at roughly 46% of capacity this morning. We drove all day yesterday, and it takes its toll on me. Apparently I’m an old man now? Is that what it’s come to? Pass the beer nuts.
We hadn’t seen my parents since April 2008, when they brought Andy (Black Lips Houlihan) back to our house following the London trip. And that’s no good. We can’t allow so many months to pile up between visits. Someday, I know, I’ll regret it.
I didn’t keep very good records, so I’ll probably have to fill-in some of this as I remember it, but here are a few random notes from our quickie West Virginia trip:
The drive from PA to WV was no good. We got stuck in three major traffic copulations, and traveled less than 80 miles in two hours during one stretch. The full journey, which is about 530 miles, required eleven hours to complete.
And that’ll make a man run his hands through his hair, at a high rate of speed. In fact, hand-through-hair speed directly corresponds with the slowness of the vehicle. It’s called the Kay Factor.
An aunt and uncle were at my parents’ house when we finally arrived, and we all sat down to a kick-ass comfort-food extravaganza of a dinner. There was beef roast, green beans (my Mom calls ‘em ‘half-runners’ for some reason), smashed taters, about ten other tasty things, and lemon meringue pie for dessert. DAMN good.
I’d requested that particular meal, because it reminds me of big holiday feedings from my childhood. What would be your ‘back-home’ meal request? What constitutes your own personal childhood comfort-food extravaganza?
After we finished eating, my Dad proclaimed himself “full as a tick” and my Mom shot him a dirty look (a tradition). It was now time to break out a few Yuenglings from our cooler, but only my aunt would have one. Because they’re apparently so exotic and strange…
My uncle told me the guys at his job believe Yuengling is made by Anheuser-Busch. “That’s the only reason they agreed to try it,” he said, and I almost did a spit-take.
And imagine taking a glob of Play-Doh, and throwing it down on a kitchen table. One side would flatten-out, right? Well, that’s the way my inner organs felt when I woke up on Friday morning. It was like sleeping on a slab of concrete, with sheets. Both my kidneys were shaped like a D.
My Dad had back trouble years ago, you see, and got addicted to mattresses from the “unnecessarily firm” category. So all the beds at my folks’ house are like, you know, the driveway. When I hoisted myself off the platform, lightning bolts of pain ricocheted around inside my body. I thought I was going to require a set of clip-on crutches.
After an artery-clogger of a breakfast we went out in my parents’ minivan, and roamed around. We did a quick tour of Dunbar, and there are pockets of it that still look like the town where I grew up, but I don’t recognize more and more of the place. It’s kinda disconcerting, spending time there now. It’s all incredibly familiar, but not really. Ya know?
We ended up (as we always do) at a massive collection of strip malls, known to the locals as “Corridor G.” While there the Secrets drove some go-carts around a track, for twenty bucks(!) or so. The younger one kept bouncing off the guardrail and this was pissing-off the keeper of the karts, who threatened to kick him out. The Secret didn’t care for any of it, and came off the thing shooting dirty looks in every direction.
We had lunch at Olive Garden, and it was pretty darn good. Our waiter was as gay as gay ever gets, but had an extra-thick accent. He was a full-on poofterbilly, but took good care of us.
Toney needed to go to Target, but I asked my Dad to drop me off at Books-A-Million instead. I mean, seriously. I was looking for a specific book, and couldn’t find it. So I went to the information desk, and the cat-eyed hipster said, “Do you have a question?” How friendly.
I assured her I did have a question, and she said nothing and started pecking on her keyboard. Finally, she quit and said, “And?” This little alterna-chick was starting to piss me off…
She looked up my book, and walked off without saying anything to me. I assumed she was going to check the shelf, but it was just a guess. What the hell, man? Eventually she came back, and unenthusiastically said, “We don’t have it. You wanna order it?”
“Ha!” I answered, and walked away. I guess I told her, didn’t I?
And I’m barely into this tale, and need to quit already. I’ll continue tomorrow, with the story of Jeff Kay wedging his heft through a “narrow passage” cave, if you can believe it. Good god…
I’m glad to be back. Thanks to everyone who held down the fort in the comments section while I was away. I haven’t read all of them yet (46%), but will.
See ya tomorrow.
Filed under: Daily
Yay
Tada!
Coming up on three years here, and Corridor G is still 119 to me. I refuse to budge.
We were looking at home celebration pictures (birthdays, anniversary) and noticed that a bunch of them feature meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green peas, all without having planned to do so. Yeah, that’s our comfort food. Comfort food out? Chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and green beans.
Cogratulations Qweezy! You’re a real dandy.
Comfort food from home, summer barbeque’s with my Dad’s bbq chicken, and my Mom’s scallopped potatoes. MMMM
Top 10. Eh, it’s something!
Top 10 WOOO!! HOOO!!
Siete!!
Top ten, baby!
Roast beast, my mom’s sherry potatoes and broccoli. Or my mom’s raviolis. Damn – I need one of those meals now. I’ve tried to duplicate these things, and while I’m good a the roast and my mom’s pasta sauce, the sherry potatoes have eluded me for years.
Happy Monday, Surfers!
Absolutely no back home comfort food for me. My Mom made the weirest shit imaginable as a kid, and this is the reason I learned to cook. For example, take a can of stewed tomatoes and heat it in a pot with 2/3 of a loaf of bread. That was fucking dinner. How about eggs, fried in bacon grease, until it looked like an overcooked silver dollar pancake, brown and crusty and needing a gallon of milk to wash it down. That was weekend breakfast. Try the pork chopps, deep fried in grease until it became a shoe leather/ crispy combo. Cookies?- how about skipping stones. Nothing my mom could ever cook or would cook now would coax me to go to her house to eat. When we visit the resort town of Dunbar, we always make sure to go out to eat before we visit. Welcome back, Jeff.
Did you know- switching from a 12-inch dinner plate to a smaller could help you lose about 18 pounds per year? I mention this due to the doctor imposed diet I need to go on. I will let you know how it works. Today’s weight, 296 pounds. Will be going through corrections officer training soon, so I need to lose a little. Today, only ate 3/4 of a pizza for lunch instead of a entire 18 inch pizza. Gave the other two slices to a homeless guy, just for bonus points.I’m on my way!!
On IPOD right now- “Lucky Number”- Lene Lovich
Chilled shrimp cocktail with cocktail sauce, heavy on the horse radish, Italian wedding soup, stuffed turkey, mashed potatoes, a gallon of turkey gravy, sweet potatoes, broccoli and cheese casserole, stuffed mushroom caps, peas, home made bread, and pumpkin pie for dessert. Wash it all down with my dad’s home made Daygo red wine (about 20% alcohol content).
Then take a 2 hour nap on the couch.
At Books a Million, sounds like maybe you interrupted alterna-chick in the middle of working on her own blog, “Bookstore Bitches” or some such… She probably twittered (gay verdict still out) about you after you left.
Comfort Food: Biscuits and Gravy, but not sausage gravy, just the white flour and milk gravy with lots of salt and pepper. And not those cheap rock biscuits from a can either, but the big fat flaky ones. YUM!
Lucky 13
Good Afternoon Surf Reporters…….
Even though my mom is Irish, she makes a kick ass lasagna. Even though my wife is Alaskan Indian, she makes kick ass pierogies.
Those are 2 comfort foods straight from the heart.
My grandmother, dearly departed, made a beef / vegetable stew that was absolutely the best. Never could replicate it myself, never sampled an equal elsewhere.
A really good chocolate milkshake, does that count as comfort food?
Well since my grandmother passed away, the only food I request when I visit home, is going out for dinner. My mother has one way of making all foods – overcooked and dry as a bone. YUK! All meat tastes like shoeleather and guaranteed something is always BURNED. Hence the reason why I learned how to cook.
Sorry to hear your trip was a PITA (Pain In The Ass). 81 south of I78 shouldn’t have been too bad. Most of that construction wrapped up years ago. However anything north of I78 or south of Carlisle, I’m sure in true PA fashion is just horrible.
My Moms spaghetti & MEATBALLS! I learned how to make them myself, but so much freakin work. Pot roast & gravy, with mashed ups topped with gravy of course. Pork & sauerkraut with mashed up with butter.
Now, on the other hand, my great grandmother, who I basically lived with in Cabin Creek with her and my great grandfather, as a convenient place for my parents to dump me off on the weekends and summer, cooked like a scientist. Red eye gravy and beef… pancakes with cups and cups of sugar in them, topped with sorghum. Can’t count the number of times she took a live chicken, beheaded it in her kitchen and immediately made it into a feast, complete with stuffing and gravy. Goddammit, now I regret giving the two slices of pizza to the homeless guy. As usual, this topic made me start thinking and today, salivating like Pavlov’s dog.
Did you know- I don’t think I will be losing any weight today?
On IPOD right now- “The Swing”- INXS
My comfort food now: salad, water and scotch
My mom’s (and dad’s, they both made it the same way) roast beef and vegetables. The beef was a cheap chuck roast, fatty enough to keep it moist, with potatos, carrots, onions in the pan. I figured out how to make it, but a certain flavor eluded me. Then, I remembered that my folks would always put a bay leaf in the bottom of the pan. Bingo! That was it! Nailed it! When I make it, I add a couple cloves of garlic and a little worcestershire sauce. Sear off the roast first, then put it and the vegetables in a 9×13 pan with a little water, salt and pepper, cover the whole thing with aluminum foil and bake for 2 hours at 350. YUM!! And the leftovers are even better.
I noticed when I was in the Pittsburgh airport not to long that a lot of the people working in the shops there were plugged in, and as a result, treated customers as if they were interrupting their day.
The one exception being the massage place. The people that work there are apparently made to stand in front of the store if they are not massaging someone.
A friend of mine (who lives in Cross Lanes) once grabbed a cell phone out of a girl’s hand at a Diary Queen due to the fact she continued talking on her phone instead of taking his order.
Two things that my mom makes that are comfort food to me: meatloaf and sage dressing/stuffing (not necessarily eaten at the same time…they’re just my 2 favs).
I’m a good cook, but I can’t make either of those things takes like hers. I’m more of a baker & candy maker.
Don’t tell me home has changed. I mean seriously how much can it change? Everyone there has blue hair, Gino’s and Kroger’s are still in business, and the commode bowl will be played on Thanksgiving!Planning to go up one weekend to see the family. Gotta work it around football season, hoping to bring my favorite neice back to the “Big Easy” with me for a couple of weeks. Show her there is a world past I77.
Comfort foods….I REALLY miss my grandmothers apple pie, her baked mac & cheese, and the 100′s of doughnuts she made at Christmas. We lived across the street from the fire dept on Roxalana Rd and we alwys took doughnuts and cookies to the firemen. Sunday dinner was always, fried chicken (the more grease the better), green beans (canned, not frozen from the garden ), butered potatoes, homemade biscuits, wilted lettuce and bacon salad. It wasn’t a mean if there wasn’t meat, potatoes and bread on the table.
I don’t miss Dunbar but I do miss my family! (SOMETIMES!!)
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I think half runners refers to the bean stringing process. If I remember correctly, half runners had one string, and whole runners had two. Am I even close on this?
I don’t miss anything my mother cooks but boy do i miss my grandma’s cooking. She would make anything taste wonderful. Best homemade pickles in the world. My mom is a good cook but I have turned out to be better which is unfortunate because i can make my own comfort food.
WVBumblebee- wilted lettuce and bacon salad- oh that sounds so good!!! damn i miss my grandma.
Ugh, my mother is the same kind of cook as Angry White Guy’s mother. Horrible, overcooked, dumped out of a can crap. One of our family legend stories involves my brother embarrassing himself as an adult. He asked a new girlfriend to make him the beans they had the other night, the ones that were bright green and kinda squeaked in your teeth when you bit into them. His girlfriend said, “Um, you mean green beans?”, and he said, “No, green beans are grayish green and stringy, these were bright green and firm.” Yeah, they were green beans, but he just didn’t know because he did not eat a normal, fresh green bean until he was 19 years old!
And the only thing my grandmother ever made was reservations. She could pour you a mean cocktail though.
@ Greg….you are correct, at least according to what I remember my grandmother telling me.
@Tilly…that is my favorite, it was lettuce wilted with vinegar and water then fry bacon crispy and break it into small pieces and add to the lettuce. Yummy!!! (and hte next day you can use the vinegar for cucumbers and onions). Grandmother NEVER wasted ANYTHING!!
@Knucklehead: Two versions: 1):1 lb russet potatoes, scrubbed clean, sliced into 1/4-inch slices
1/4 cup butter (1/2 a stick), melted
1/4 cup dry sherry
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
Method
1 Preheat oven to 375°F.
2 Arrange potato slices in layers in a gratin pan or baking pan, sprinkling salt and pepper over each layer. Pour sherry over the potatoes. Pour the melted butter over the potatoes. Make sure the potatoes are well coated.
3 Bake uncovered for 30-40 minutes or until potatoes are cooked, but not mushy, and they are slightly browned on top. Remove from oven, sprinkle with chopped fresh parsley.
2) Buy a bag of Cape Cod Kettle chips & wash it down with a bottle of 4 aces cream sherry (Highly reccomended by the Rubby outside the Liquor store!)
WVBumblebee-
From what I can remember, from my last trip to the resort town of Dunbar about three years ago, the Hillside of the RR tracks is still about the side. The River side, where my family lived seems to be a suburb of Institute now, and I frequently saw packs of our Southern Guests of Our Country roaming the streets at 3 a.m.. It was the same way on my previous trips there 5, 8 and ten years ago. My parents, content with ONE lock on their doors for years, now have FIVE locks on their front and back doors. But, for some reason, they never consider moving. I do not miss it there one bit. I can experience the same cultural phenomenon in Florida, but on a larger scale and with more things to do.
Did you know- That there is probably still a cellophane cigarette wrapper with ten orange microdots inside it hidden behind a television cable outlet in the wall at Ms. Knighton’s former classroom at Dunbar High? Or so I have heard.
On IPOD right now- “Gangsters”- The Specials
First welcome back Jeff!
Favorite comfort meal would be pork loin, homemade mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob.
Stop, I’m on a damn diet and your making me hungry people. OK , resume…
Mom is not much of a cook but her mother was, and how! big meals and small. A bowl of her homemade-from-their-garden vegetable soup would set me right every time. I miss that sweet woman.
My husband can whomp up some victuals. His food will be our son’s comfort food when he’s looking back. He makes our Thanksgiving dinners and that kind of big deal meals. I’ve never made a turkey or ham. I should try it sometime, tho.
I know my way around the kitchen, I just have things I’d rather do. and I clean as I go. A few times through football season, I’ll make some awesome meatloafs dinners, my husband’s favorite. I vary the recipe (sometimes American, sometimes Mexican, maybe Italian…) and they kick ass every time. He marvels that he doesn’t get heartburn! so, what can I say? oh, and I make spaghetti much better than he does but sometimes I think he messes it up on purpose. You know, just so I’ll pitch in ever now and then.
@AWG…Mrs. Knighton’s room? I’ll remember that when I go back, LOL!
And 5 locks on the door? I don’ t even remember having A lock on the door.
Brother lived on 25th street for several years and recently moved to Woodrums Lane due to neighborhood problems. He’s a county sherriff and hte house next door was selling drugs but he couldn’t get the wonderful Dunbar police dept to do anything about it, so he moved.
By the way…do you know who I am? I know who you are…..LOL!
WVBUMBLEBEE- my grandma had a sweet sort of dressing it was vinegar too but i remember it being sweet. Is that the way y’all do it? that was really good stuff. i should figure it out. Of course i don’t grow leaf lettuce like grandma did but i could get some at a fancy pants store that would make my tight ass grandma turn over in her grave. She never wasted anything either!!
When I want to be comforted I always reach for cocaine and Mexican whores – ah, it reminds me of dear old Dad.
As far as food itself goes I think I’d have to go with Chef Boyardee® canned pastas.
My Grandmother used to make something called “tamale pie”. It was a stew of sorts. I love my grandfather’s smoked brisket, ribs, and sausages. Whenever we go to Texas I call ahead so he can be ready. Chicken fried steak with white gravy and garlic mashed potatoes is another favorite.
Whenever I have a craving I ask my wife to make it. I don’t care what time of year it is, and it doesn’t have to make sense. The other night I requested chicken pot pie, green bean casserole with those crunchy onion things on top, and deviled eggs. For dessert she made funnel cakes.
My favorite comfort foods, a 1 inch thick porterhouse steak rare with saute’ mushrooms and onions with asparagus and garlic mashed potatoes. My cajun style Gumbo, Ettuofee, Jambalaya and shrimp creole. I also can do most Italian dishes as well as a mean stir fry. I’m single and I have been away from home since I was 17.
It has to be my Grandma’s and now that she’s passed, my uncle’s homemade ravioli! Those suckers are as big as my hand and we have both meat and cheese-filled ones! Man, I can’t wait until Christmas!
My Mom was a marginal cook. Very bflat stuff. Never actually ruined anything although most of the table was taken up with condiments. My sister would put ketchup on her peas. Her and I seldom speak. Dad can’t cook a lick. I’m suprised he’s still alive since Mom’s been gone 10 years. (last time I went back home). And he keeps gaining weight! ‘Snack head’ for sure. German grandma… her chicken and dumplings and Dutch Apple pie. Italian grandmother (yeah, there is a difference)…anything she’d make. Even a cheese sandwich! Maybe it was just Louie’s (Italian grandfather) supply of peaches and wine but Nonnie was amazing as I remember. She never called me David…always Davis. Sweet!
I really like bookstore girls. Smarty types I guess, like library chicks. We usually get along nicely. Dunno? Work can suck but that’s not your falt. Maybe she’d rather be a welder.
Crap…the L was before the T and I don’t think that word needs a U in the first place so it’s not my FAULT!
Thanks, Pagan – gonna give that a try tomorrow. I know my mom uses butter and olive oil, so I’ll add a little of that, as well.
I’ll keep you posted.
Pot roast and Poke salad, wilted lettuce, Fried okra and potatoes, baked thin sliced pork chops, snap beans with ham bits, fresh sliced tomatoes, and onions straight outta the ground, brown gravy over white rice and sweet iced tea. Yum!
My grandma was a lunch lady for a while and she made the best homemade cinnamon rolls, they were as big as your face! Same with biscuits, those will never be recreated. My other grandma bought a mean bucket of the colonel’s chicken. My grandpa grew the biggest garden ever.
Fried chicken! Buy them birds small so they wil be tender – no 5 lb heifers! 3 lbs or less! Cut it up right so there will be a wishbone and then soak in buttermilk. Flour and fry it up in peanut oil! Use the rest of the buttermilk to make “cat head” biscuits. Macaroni salad or potato salad that has never been in the fridge! Fried green tomatoes and pan fried okra!
Notice the trend here? Fried and more fried! Fresh white acre peas would also be good! Bitch to shell tho.
I think my mom was not quite as bad a cook as AWG’s, but up there. She was always an adventurous cook, but never all that good. About the only thing I wistfully remember is this so-called “black pie” that Mom used to make, the recipe for which she steadfastly refuses to divulge. I think it’s akin to shoofly pie, but it’s hard to know as I’ve never tasted the shoofly.
So nowadays I make my own comfort food: pot roast; homemade stock which becomes various gravies, sauces and soups; some recipes of my own that involve roasted or braised meats and/or decadent sauces. And of course the lovely potato, which I believe to be a fundamental component of comfort food in general.
My GF’s mother makes some seriously kick-ass pierogies. I’d only ever had Mrs. T’s before, and this was a real eye-opener… lots of butter and onions. Good stuff.
Mom’s German pancakes (sort of crepe-like, sort of Swedish pancake-like) with cherry compote or plain, old sprinkled sugar
or
Mom’s deviled eggs, Rouladen, kohlrabi with Hollandaise sauce, boiled potatoes, and Rote Grütze with warm vanilla sauce
My wilted lettuce recipe:
Fry up 7-8 strips of bacon. When done, remove from skillet, dry on paper towel, then crumble them up. Add about a cup of vinegar and a half cup of sugar to the bacon grease and heat back up on the stove. Put lettuce, crumbled bacon, and some sliced green onions in a bowl. Toss. Pour hot bacon, vinegar, and sugar mixture over the top. YUM!!
@ Brynhildr – *Sigh* I’m think of my youth days in Jersey, mmmm!!!
Crap…I can see grilled cheese and soup is not going to cut it around here tonight at my place Oh what… and we’re having cole slaw too!?!? Well then! Nope!
And now I want some goddamn cheese cake and I just opened a can of peaches to go with my wine.
SR…stay the course. AWG…fuck it for today!
comfort food? Nah, mom wasn’t a great cook (but we had dinner at 5 or 530 daily for 18 yrs) and now that all the siblings are out of the house she cooks for herself.
Comfort food I’ll make myself, biscuits and gravy.
@ Zazu the Pitts: That sounds like some mighty fine eatin’, there. What time’s dinner? 5:30?
@ Carol – Is it the hot dressing that wilts the lettuce, or is there something that needs to be done to the lettuce in addition to what you have outlined?
@TILLY – I have to disagree with you about your mom’s cooking. She has a sour dough starter that she has had since about forever. You can’t argue with the deliciousness that comes from that.
I only get home once or twice a year, but one of the highlights is Mom’s cooking. Yeah, she’s not the best, and certainly not gourmet, but she does a cupla things that scream comfort.
One is her spaghetti sauce. Simple tomato/meat blend. The best on this Earth. And probably other Earths.
Another is what we like to call “Calumphs”. Some sort of roast beef cut, shaved into small shavings, fried until well done, served on white bread with butter. That’s some good sh*t man.
@ DTO – Thanks man, I need that…Down 20 45 more to go then I’m at my Seal weight. Started back working out on the leg and bench press again. Legs are @ 650lbs, BP is 375 for now, I will get it up to 550 in 2 months. Also working the abs to keep the stomach tight as I drop.
Jeff, your mom cooked a typical WV Sunday dinner. She calls the beans half-runners for good reason. They are a cross between bush beans and runners – so – Half-runners. My mom cooked them all the time! We can’t get them here in NC, so I always buy some when I go to Chas. My mom’s favorite dinner on Sunday (after the roast) was friend chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans and chocolate cake for dessert with ice cream. Her gravy was legendary. All my boyfriends wangled dinner invitations on Sunday in the hopes that my mom would have gravy on something – didn’t matter what.
@ Greg – Sunday “dinner” is served around 1 pm. No “lunch” served down here in GA.
My mama could fry up a mean chicken and I can too as my hips can attest!
I can’t remember who said “You can’t go home again” but he was right. It all changes and there is nothing we can do about it.
@Tilly My grandmother made a sweet dresing but it didn’t have the vinegar. Mayo, mustard, suger and a little pickel juice. I also use this as my dressing in slaw and my mixture for deviled eggs. Like I said, grandma never threw anything out!!!
@T. Farty – you kill me. Laughed out loud. Is it OK to actually spell out those words?
@SR…I started a year before I hiked Grand Canyon when I was 50, as a birthady present to me, as far as getting in shape. Nordic-Trac and walked everywhere and road my bike. Day by day. Keep at it. It’s a bitch. Mind set man and I know you know that.
Ok….now…back to food!!!
I was going to wait until tomorrow but I can’t…Spelunker is a poofter word.
My favorite comfort food is pinto beans and cornbread with a raw onion on the side, with a big glass of cold milk.
The cat-eyed hipster waited on me about a month ago. I was looking for, SuperBad: The Drawings. She didn’t seem too pleased until I said, “You know, the book with the drawings of dicks?” Then she was okay with me. If she had freckles, it’s the same girl…I’ll bet.
Everytime you mention Andy, I listen to Black Lips! So I got that going for me.
I’m so simple. My mom made the most delicious scrambled egg sandwich on toast. I think I have it nearly perfected.
My MIL is the worst cook ever! Anything I serve the Evil Twin is like manna from heaven as far as he is concerned. I learned well from my mom!
@ WTB-
Yes, the hot dressing wilts the lettuce. Nothing else needs to be done to it. Fresh leaf lettuce works best.
My comfort food is my Grandmother’s salted cod in white gravy with a glass of Russian spice tea and pudding for desert (home made pudding, not that instant shit).
So all the beds at my folks’ house are like, you know, the driveway.
Classic! Almost spit all over my monitor!
WV BumbleBee & Tilly – when my mom comes to visit us, she always makes us wilted lettuce!! bacon, vinegar & a little sugar over leaf lettuce.
The other thing she makes is a round steak/potato thing. She slices potatoes and puts them in the bottom of a cake pan. Cuts up round steak, flours it and pounds it with a meat hammer. Put on top of potatoes, pour Lipton onion soup overtop, cover with foil and cook until halftime of the Steelers game. Delicious.
Chicken and dumplings with home made yeast rolls. My grandmother made the best ever. My mother’s chicken and dumplings are good, but not like I remember my grandmothers were. It’s the same recipe as far as I know, granny’s just tasted better for some reason.
Fried Chicken livers and mashed potatoes and gravy followed by vinegar cobbler. Vinegar cobbler was a dish my grandmother made back in the depression. It sounds gross but it was awesome!
Did we ever decide that Twitter wasn’t gay? I thought the vote was 60/40 in favor of poofus maximus.
My dad had back trouble most of his life (fell off a roof at age 13), so every bed in our house growing up was from the “unnecessarily firm” category. To make them even firmer, instead of a box spring, they were on a sheet of plywood. To this day, if I sleep on a “normal” bed, I feel like I’ve been bent, folded, spindled, mutilated and stapled around the edges.
When I got married, my wife literally woke up with bruises until we reached a compromise: extra-firm pillow-top on a sheet of plywood. She doesn’t get bruises and my back doesn’t feel too bad as long as I don’t stay in bed more than six hours.
Comfort food? This sounds extremely simple but mine would be my mom’s hamburger gravy on a mound of torn apart white bread and mashed potatoes. Man I love that stuff. In the service, my dad said it was served on toast and they referred to it as SOS or Shit On Shingle.
The wilted salad I make is a spinach salad with hot bacon dressing. You cook the bacon and crumble it over fresh spinach. Then you mix balsamic vinegar with the bacon drippings and pour it over the salad. Oh, and there are sliced mushrooms in the salad too.
Are we talking about the same thing?
My mom’s specialty is her “homemade” version of whatever she had last at her local Olive Garden, where “homemade” consists of at least three canned items mixed together and dumped over overcooked pasta. Comfort food at my mom’s is take out from The Sunrise Inn!
Now my grandma is another story…roast beast and the best damn gravy ever over potatoes mashed with butter & canned milk. There were other things served, but I never cared. Damn, I miss my grandma.
WVBumblebee-
Yes, I figured out who you are some time ago. Your screen name was a hint. Also, I know who your brother is, his wife, whose first name begins with “S”, the drug selling neighbor whose last name begins with “S”.
Did you know- Somewhow I lost two pounds overnight (now 294)? I was told I should eat something for breakfast. Normally, I do not eat breakfast, or I would weigh 350 by now. However, the doctor said eat something small. I had a small box of Eggo waffles. I couldn’t stop after two waffles. I did jog three miles last night though, but, as always, the cherry kept blowing off the end of my cigarette.
On IPOD right now- “One Step Beyond”- Madness
@Jason- These are not the same two salads although they are both delicious.
I have always heard it said that you need to eat something for breakfast, however small, to keep your metabolism up which in turn helps your body to burn calories. I’ve had many a person tell me that when they stopped eating breakfast to lose weight it caused them to gain weight. Hard to believe but apparently true.
If I eat breakfast, by 9:00 a.m., my stomach is saying “OOOOOwahhhhiiiieeeahhhhhhhhhhh” so loud that everyone in my office can hear it. Skipping breakfast- do not have that problem, but am hungry as a Badger at lunchtime. Just got back from lunch and had a taco salad. It’s a salad, right? Better than a whole pizza. Better than five Whoppers. Right? C’mon, encourage me.
On IPOD right now- “War Pigs”- Black Sabbath
AngryWhiteGuy,
Try a diet where you only eat certain shapes. Only eat things that are round, for example. This would mean that pizzas and hamburgers are okay, while slices of toast are not. I have a feeling that such a plan would result in rapid weight loss.
And Eggo waffles for breakfast. You are a dietary genius, J.
I know this is late…but mom was a killer cook. I couldn’t tell you what the best was cuz everything was delish! Her cheese burgers were to die for. To this day, I still can’t duplicate them. Served with home made potato salad…deviled eggs…onion casserole (recipe to follow), and her apple pie… I give it a big ol’ Andy Griffith…MMM..MMM..MMM!! My dad was a baker by trade. I swear he made the original “smiley face” cookie…way before Eat-n-Park in Pittsburgh. Only his came on a stick like a giant lillipop cookie.
Vadellia Onion Casserole:
2-3 large Vadellia onions, sliced thin
1 block of Vermont WHITE Cheddar Cheese, shredded
1 bag plain potato chips (I like Lay’s), crumbled
2 cans Campbell’s Mushroom Soup
1/2 C. milk
Layer in large casserole: Onions, cheese, potato chips. Continue to top of casserole dish. Mix soup and milk. Pour/spread over top of casserole. Bake 350 for 1 1/2 hours.
TIP: White cheddar cheese only. Orange cheddar will be stringy and will not taste the same. Guaranteed.
This is one of the very best recipes EVER! Every time we go to a Bike run or picnic…I’m requested to bring it!