Feeding the Servants

Our daughter Catherine is President of Lutheran Campus Ministries at St. Matthew's Lutheran Church in Charleston.  A couple of weeks ago, she was part of a group of about 22 that took part in a Servant Weekend in Aiken.  They put a whole new roof on a house, and worked in a food pantry, among other things. They left to go back to the Holy City on Sunday morning, and had to pass within a couple of miles of our house, so we invited them over for a lunch. Now these are young adults from The Citadel and the College of Charleston, and when we feed such college kids we generally try not to provide food they'd get in the cafeteria or the local pizza joint. This is the second year we've done this so we kinda-sorta had good idea of what they'd like. This is the menu we offered:

Pork Chops

Rice & Mushroom Gravy

Deviled Eggs

Grilled Squash

Kale Casserole

Brocolli Salad
Weaver D's Sweet Potatoes
Green Beans

Lime Jello-Pineapple Salad

 Slow Roasted Roma Tomatoes with Feta & Olives

Sour Cream Dinner Rolls

Chocoalte Layer Cake with Ganache Filling and White Chocolate Butter Cream Icing

Appalachain Stack Cake

Do-it-Yourself Trifle with Pound Cake, Boiled Custard and Blueberry-Blackberry Filling

Most of these were tried and true recipes, but the kale casserole originally used spinach.  It turned out very well, getting rave reviews, especially from some of the Cadets (along with  the Stack Cake and the Lime-Jello Salad!).  One really cool part was that pretty much all of the veggies and (the blackberries!) were from South Carolina! W. P Rawl's here in Lexington, Beechwood Farms in Greenville county, Callaham's Orchard in Williamston,  and a roadside stand in Marion County.

They got here about 20 minutes earlier than we had planned, but we still got things together pretty much on time.  It was great and they were a fantastic group of young adults!  We really enjoy groups like this. With these guys and gals as our future leaders,  folks, things are gonna be just fine!

Simply Southern Supper

This summer while I was recovering from knee replacement surgery, I had a lot of time on my hands. I watched a whole lot of cooking shows that I wouldn't normally watch. I was also able to thoroughly read and re-read some cooking magazines, cookbooks, and foodie books.

One of the books was John Besh's My Family Table. It is a very good book that I highly recommend, especially if you are cooking for a family. He talks about making family meals that are both simple, fun and delicious. He advocates not roasting a chicken for Sunday dinner, but roasting a whole ovenfull of food: two chickens, a roast, and maybe some side dishes. That way you can have some now, some for leftovers later in the week, and some to freeze for when you don't have time to cook, or to use in other dishes.

I also re-read Donald Link's Real Cajun, and Bill Smith's Seasoned in the South.

Other reading material that I persused well and truly was from the Southern Foodways Alliance's early publications, from their Cornbread Nation series and from their Oral Histories. Celebrating the row crop farmers, BBQ pit masters, all good stuff. With all of this reading and viewing and thinking,  I had a VISION, (choral music from the Holy Grail, please) and a remembrance of long ago.

THE VISION: I came up with a idea for something I like to call Simply Southern Suppers.  The goal would be to simply eat well with friends. It doesn't have to be 5 course meal.  It doesn't have to be gourmet, or fine china. It's just sitting down to the table with good food, good conversation and good folks. It doesn't have to be all good friends. One of our all-time favorite things to do is cook for Catherine & Stewart's friends and cohorts.   Maybe it's just acquaintances who might one day become good friends one day!

The remembrance: Back in 1970's my mother and grandmother made a whole bunch of blue denim placemats. They were fashioned to resemble a pair of jeans and the pocket held a red bandana napkin. I asked Mama Glenda about them, and she brought them down, about 40 of them. She couldn't remember why they got made, but thinks it was BBQ wedding shower for someone. But anyway, they look pretty cool, and I thought they would look great on a red checkered gingham table cloth. However, our dining room table is 14 feet long, and I couldn't find a tablecloth near that big. So . . . . I bought 15 yards of it on sale, and Alice made the tablecloth! Looks real purty, don't it?

So the goal is to have a fairly simple menu, but make it good. If it's a complicated dish, we'd try to do most of it ahead of time so we could just heat it up, or pull it out of the fridge, depending.

Here's the first nights' menu:

Green Tabasco Chicken (simple, 3 ingredients)

Oven Roasted Boudain (very simple)

Pennies from Heaven (made ahead)

Spinach Casserole (assembled ahead)

Sourdough Bread (made that day)

Assorted Pickles

Athena Cantaloupe (cut that afternoon)

Not Fried Green Tomatoes (made earlier that afternoon)

Butter Cake with Mocha Butter Cream Icing (made before and frozen, assembled that morning)

A Good Time was had by all.  It was little bit more than I had originally envisioned, but we're going to work on that.