Just so you know that I’m not the only one in the family that has funny fiascos, this story was just sent to me by my precious cousin, Marion who lives in Miami. She shared this story with me and gave me permission to use it here. It will bring a smile to your face when you read it. I told her to stick with teaching art and get out of the kitchen before it’s too late…..so here it is: (Cora, this should make you feel better about your cupcake caper)
Steven told me that when we traveled to the Carolinas on vacation his family would prepare many home-made, southern meals for us we would have difficulty eating everything. However, not one home cooked meal was cooked for us the entire month of July except for the meatless, Texas chilli I cooked for Steven’s vegetarian sister in North Carolina. Needless to say, I’ve been in a cooking mood ever since we returned from vacation. Two days ago I cooked fried pork chops, collard greens (from my “Shrimp, Collards & Grits cookbook I found in Savannah), corn-on-th-cob, and risotto w/mushrooms & golden raisins. Ummmmmmmmm Good!!!! The collards were amazing so today, I found a great recipe for buttermilk pie in the same Savannah cookbook. I bought the ingredients and everything was going fine as I carefully measured and prepared the ingredients exactly as the recipe instructed. The 9″ pie plates with uncooked pie crusts were also prepared just as the recipe stated.

As I poured the pre-tasted, delicious pie filling in the 9″ pie shells I thought that they looked really full, but who am I to question Ervena Faulkner, a retired educator, a popular columnist for the Beaufort Gazette and a published cook? Her recipe says to pour the filling into unbaked pie crust in 9” pie plates so that’s what I did. Then I put the excessively filled pie shells in the pre-heated oven anticipating the sweet, succulent flavor my home made, Low Country Buttermilk Pies.

No more than 5 minutes later the kitchen, the dinning room, the living room, the bedrooms, the entire house was filled with smoke billowing from the oven and everything in the house instantly absorbed the burnt buttermilk oder. I threw open the oven door to discover that both pies had overflowed and my sweet, pungent pie filling was burning into a large, black crisp on the bottom of my oven. I turned off the oven and tried to rescue my pies, but the smoke attacked my eyes as I grabbed the pies and I spilled even more filling on the oven door, the kitchen floor and counters. I opened the sliding glass doors, turned all the ceiling fans on high and soaked the furniture and air with an entire can of Febreeze. Then I cleaned up as much of the spilled filling as possible.

I had been preparing lunch as my pies began to cook, but we were forced to eat our lunch on the patio in the rain to escape the smoke and fumes. After lunch, Steven scraped as much of the crispy pie filling from the oven as possible, then I shut the oven door and set the knob to “self clean”. Thank goodness for modern technology! I hurried around the house closing the interior doors to prevent the smoke from contaminating the air in our bedrooms.

Eventually when the oven is clean again, I will put my pies back in the oven to finish cooking, but I worry about their success after the cooking process was interrupted and the sweet, creamy filling will probably taste like burnt charcoal. What a fiasco!! When I closed all the interior doors in the house, I didn’t I know that my bedroom door locked. Steven tried to coax the lock open for 20 minutes with no success. Not only is my pie episode a complete disaster, I have no idea when I’ll be able to re-enter my bedroom and bathroom. The last time I saw the key to that door was in 1979 when I bought the house 32 years ago. Please….that key is long gone!

Here I sit with all the windows and doors open while the air conditioner runs full blast and my electric bill triples with no buttermilk pies. Next time I get the urge to make a home-made pie I’ll just go to the grocery store and buy one like I usually do.

I just had to share this idea with you. Yesterday at church, I was visiting with a friend and asking her if she got moved into their new place. She told me that yes, they had moved and that several of the ladies from our class had come over and helped her line her shelves and got her kitchen all put together. I stood there and thought about that and how nice that was for people to still go over to help a friend get settled. But, as I was thinking about how I should have thought about going over to help, she began to tell me what they did. Instead of buying the normal shelf paper which can get pretty expensive if you have lots of kitchen cabinets, she had gone and bought a box of the cheapest linolium flooring to use. The box of flooring cost her $6.00 and it was enough to cover all of her shelves. They just cut each sq to fit the cabinets and she now has shelving that she can wipe down and it really dressed up the inside of her dark cabinets. Had never even thought about doing that. So there you go, a new idea that would save you money and so easy to use. Also, I am so excited that we are having FRESH fried okra tonight. My grocery store had beautiful baby fresh okra so am frying some along with potatoes, fresh cut tomatoes, fresh green beans and squash….a perfect veggie meal tonight. When there are so many wonderful veggies to munch on, we don’t even miss having meat. We are trying to eat “meatless meals” Monday through Thursday nights so we can splurge alittle more on the weekends. Since there are so many car shows around the area over the weekends, there always seems to be people selling grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, so we don’t feel so bad when we allow ourselves to eat those delicious grilled hamburgers over the weekend. This weekend, we have two outdoor concerts to attend, one Saturday night and one Sunday night with our Sunday School class, so I know we will be really chowing down at the outdoor dinners. Am already counting down until Saturday night…great weather, concert music in the park and a dinner eaten out side…..ah…..what a weekend!

This was such a wonderful day. Fixed lunch for some friends today and instead of eatting and rushing out the door to go back to committments or errands, we actually sat around until almost four just visiting and talking. We learned alot from each other. One of the ladies is facing the “empty nest” season of her life and is anxious about what she will do with herself. One friend is wondering what career she will be studying for as she is single and knows that she will need to be doing something that will provide not only a living, but doing something that she loves. Another is enjoying the “golden years” of her life and was telling us about the neighborhood that she has lived in and the neighbors that are eager to help in return for her teaching them English. Another has been having health problems and is “coming back to life” after some months of some real pain. We all had stories that we shared, as we sipped on tea and cupcakes. There was enough food to send home with the ones who wanted to take chicken salad for sandwiches for their dinner. It was just so refreshing to sit and learn from ladies ranging in age from the middle 30’s to the late 70’s….it reminded me of stories I have read in magazines, that women used to take the time to do just what we did today. We were encouraging to each other, sharing stories of our families and our lives that hopefully might inspire each of us in our attempt to live our lives, to reach out to others. Thank you sweet ladies for staying and sharing. The laughter and the fellowship were refreshing! One of the ladies actually brought me vegetables from her garden. Another brought me a wooden spoon that her husband had made. Beautiful gifts, given from the heart…I think we all learned today that these are the times that grow us, not only in listening to friends, but makes us want to do this again.; very very soon……..This was not an afternoon in the South, it was in our home in California! They might not have Sister Schubert rolls here, but we did just fine without them today.

What a weekend! Tonight we have tickets to go to see Jay Leno so be looking for us. Looking back, I should have left my hair pink so maybe they would think we are younger than we look and pick us out to sit on the front row. We are wearing our Depends in case we do get up front and don’t want to look like “old foggies” that have to get up and head to the bathroom, halfway through the show. Ha. Tomorrow there is a huge car show in Glendale, which is the town right next to Pasadena and Paul Revere and the Raiders are singing on stage. Now, I know, they must be old, as they were singing when I was a teen ager. So Randy is all excited about tomorrow. Cars and Paul Revere, all in the same day. He has the whole day planned already. Luckily, since getting my hair cut yesterday, there is only about 2″ of hair on my head, so I can sleep a little longer as I won’t have to do anything to my it. Just get out of bed, shower and blow dry my hair, which should only take about 2 min…1 min per inch. My hair is officially shorter than Randy’s so it takes him longer to get ready than it does me. But….it makes the perfect cut for riding in a convertible. I have to tell you about last night. We go to eat our traditional Thursday night Mexican food but decided to try a different restaurant. When we pulled into the parking lot, they charged us $2.00 to park, so Randy pulls out $2.00 and hands it to the nice young man and he tells us where to park the car. After parking the car, we walked across the parking lot, having to pass the young man who took our money and Randy says to him, “does the $2.00 pay for you to watch our car to be sure nothing happens to it?” Oh my gosh, I was so embarrassed. The young man answered him by saying, “your not in Mexico sir, just a Mexican restaurant”…..I loved his comeback! But now I am too embarrassed to go back there, so guess we are now on another quest to find good Mexican food and hopefully we will be able to continue going back there unless Randy gets us thrown out of that parking lot.

Friends (well, if you can call them that, after laughing at me the last two weeks) have told me that I need to write about my hair experience the past couple of weeks. I would post pictures, but it is just too embarrassing for the world to see. Randy has been happy, because the “hair horror” has actually kept me at home. I keep waiting to see if maybe time will take care of the color and the cut, but so far, all I have gotten is texts from my kids telling me not to come back to Texas until this new color wears off. Let me begin at the beginning.
About 3 weeks ago, I was preparing to go visit family back in Texas. As it was time to color my hair, (yes we are cheap and color it at home), I thought I would surprise Randy and buy a little “lighter” shampoo in color and really get rid of the gray that was beginning to completely take over the blonde color that I knew God must have intended me to have, but He probably just ran out of bleach and just thought He would let me pick out what color blonde I really wanted to be. So through the years, the colors have gone from…well, let’s just say that sometimes, there have been colors that no one has every seen before, but….it kept life interesting. OK, back to the story,
I woke up on Fri before I was to leave on Mon. Got out my shampoo-in kit and proceeded to mix it. As I began to mix the color, I noticed that the color was one which had powder packets that meant that this was truly “bleach” and not just shampoo-in color. But…I thought to myself, this will really get rid of the gray, so I continued. As I was waiting the normal 30 min for it to develop, I began to see that the blonde was REALLY blonde, or should I say “white”. I hurridly washed it off and lo and behold, there was a total stranger staring back at me from the mirror. I looked like Tammy Fae Baker without the lipstick. I hurridly drove to Sallys to buy a frosting cap but told the guy I wanted one that had bigger holes, so I would have more red color to get rid of this awful white color. He sold me a “chunky cap” which lets you pull big chunks of hair out to frost. He looked at my hair and reminded me that my hair was now a blank slate in which would really intensify any color put on it so to be careful. I thought to myself, “now what does this little smart alec guy know about hair color, he is just probably a shelf stocker and after all, I have been coloring my hair for about 50 yrs now. I know what I am doing” So I come home and put the red color that I had bought when they didn’t have my #67 red that I always use. It looked very close to what I was use to using, so how different could it be? Well, after I pull huge chunks of hair out of the little holes all over my scalp, I apply the red…..30 min later, I take off the cap and OMGosh, I look like Christmas. I now have Christmas red and white hair. Now I am really crying.I call Randy and ask him to please make a stop at the drug store to buy more hair color. He does and calls me from CVS. He is reading all the “red” colors while I am on the computer trying to see what color he is describing to me over the phone. He buys “Chile Pepper Red” and comes home. We once again, are hoping that this color will bring the Christmas red down a notch or 10. We color all of the top of my hair, trying to leave some of the blonde to make it look like it is supposed to be frosted. Well, I now looked like a gypsy. I cannot even make myself go to church the next day because it is just flaming red with still “white streaks”. I wash it with Gain laundry detergent, Pomolive Hand soap, Tide, anything to help strip the color out. Nothing is working. Monday arrives and I have no choice but to head to the airport. People are staring, some are snickering but I hold my head high and make them think that I “meant to do this”. Upon arriving in Dallas, well, how do I put this? I sent out texts to everyone I might be seeing to warn them that if I see even one little smile cross their faces, I would write about them in my blog the rest of their lives. My daughter, Jodi, had to turn away when she saw me she was laughing so hard. As I continued to wash it over and over trying to get all that awful red out, my hair slowly fades to pink. So now people were coming up to me and sayin, “oh, you have pink hair”. Yes, I had pink hair, so I have gone from looking like a gypsy to a 60 yr old punk rocker.There have been to many comments to post on here, but as soon as I got home last week, I went and bought another red color kit. Now it was black/dark cherry red. Maybe getting it cut would take some of the black color out, so I ran into SuperCuts because there is no way I am going to go around looking like an old punk rocker with pink/dark cherry red hair. The girl cuts my hair and asks me how I got my hair that color. I didn’t have the energy to tell her. She finishes cutting my hair and Randy is waiting for me. We get in the car with me having wet hair. I run into the house and wash it and dry it only to discover that the sweet young lady who probably just graduated that morning from beauty school cut my hair about 2 in shorter on one side than the other. So now I have lopsided, dark red hair that continues to gather looks when I walk down the street. Let’s just say that the way I look, I should be wearing about 6 earrings and one in my nose, and lots of tattoos. I always wondered what it would be like to be the center of attention…..now I know! At least when we go see Jay Leno on Fri night, you will be able to spot me in the audience. Will hope this story has a happy ending. I go to the beauty shop on Thurs. If it looks better than it does now, I will post a picture to let you know,that I will now be able to go out of the house without sunglasses and a hat.

This past weekend ended up being such a great time. As you know, this was our first July 4th since moving to California in Jan. Some friends invited us to their lake house for the weekend where we experienced not only some amazing food, but made some great memories with new friends. Randy and I had rack of lamb for the first time and discovered that we liked it alot. Our host baked German pancakes with fresh sliced cinnamon apples to pour over the pancakes with fresh butter and lemon juice. We feasted on baby back ribs, egg strata, pita bread and hummus and several new recipes that I cannot wait to cook. We drove back home yesteray only to realize that the best fireworks show in the Los Angelos area was right around the corner. So we loaded our chairs and poured us a glass of tea and headed for the Rose Bowl to be totally blown away at the beautiful fireworks being set off right before our eyes. Although Randy and I talked about how much we missed Sevy and Jaden, our grandsons, who always went with us to watch fireworks, God blessed us with precious new memories and we came home feeling so thankful for all we have. It was a most enjoyable Fourth of July.

Well, I have traded my Texas horse for the plane ride back to California. Returned last night after being back in Texas for the past 10 days. It was absolutely wonderful to come back to 80 degree weather instead of the 100 degrees in Dallas. Because of the marvelous weather here, I am able to look the other way when I am in 6 lanes of slow traffic, or driving 45 min just to get to the WallMart, or go to the grocery store, assuming that I will just walk down the baking isle to pick up a bar of German Chocolate, only to find that they don’t carry it and I have no choice but to buy a Betty Crocker German Chocolate cake mix to make for Randy’s birthday….ok, now that I mention it, maybe the weather here isn’t so grand…….maybe I can put up with the hot dry Texas weather. I can always cool off in the Wallmart that was 10 min from my house and had German Chocolate always on the shelf and any flavor of Duncan Hines cake mixes I could ever want.
Californians, I have decided, are at their health and fitness clubs, which I might add are on every corner, because they don’t know what really great foods are out there. Because they just can’t go to the frozen food section and grab a bag of breaded fried okra, or scoot on over to the frozen bread isle and toss in pans of Sister Schubert rolls or drive to the nearest Babes for the worlds best chicken fried steak, or purchase any flavor at all of Blue Bell ice cream, why not spend their time working out? There is really nothing to keep them in the kitchen. When I feel my hostility going away at the lack of southern foods available and catch myself going to the other side (yes, I even joined my husband the other night in ordering sushi, although all mine were cooked, not raw)of eatting more organic, healthy foods, it is time to head back to Texas for another visit, where I feast on Luby’s turkey and dressing, and days on end of Tex Mex and chicken fried steak. On the plane ride back to California, I resolve to come back with a more positive attitude, telling myself that I don’t need all those awful foods that I have just gorged on while visiting my family. Then Randy picks me up at the airport and we begin to talk about all the great things I did while I was there and it alwas centererd around Southern foods…..now heading to the grocery store to pick up a few things to cook the next couple of days reminds me of where I am, and even though I wasn’t able to buy okra, or SS rolls, or Blue Bell ice cream, it is good to be home and to look forward to having a great salad with my sweet hubby tonight. Then I think we will walk to the corner fitness center. It would be nice to work off the Southern foods that I did bring with me.

We are celebrating Fathers Day without any kids this year. Since moving to California, we have experienced some loneliness, but also some sweet new adventures, since our weekends are pretty much free. Last night, we went to the Rose Bowl for the first of the summer concerts, led by Marvin Hamlisch. It was just so gorgeous to be sitting outside and not sweating. It was a gorgeous night, with us taking lawn chairs and a nice dinner, which we had prepared at home. The music was celebrating Pasadena’s 125th year birthday. We discovered that we love being outdoors with people who were strangers, at first, but we all left, saying that we would see each other at the next concert. Groups of people were sitting all around us, on blankets or chairs and you could see buckets of friend chicken, you saw shish kabobs, french bread, cheeses, pies, even a group celebrating a birthday with birthday cake and singing Happy Birthday and letting the birthday girl, (looked about 50) blow out her candles with everyone around clapping when she did. These evenings become such wonderful memories. As we drove home, we talked about how much we enjoyed our night. Our dinner ended with tiramasu and we were like two little kids who kept watching for the fireworks to begin. When they did, we sounded just like we had never seen fireworks before, just “oohing and ahhin’after each beautiful firework lit up the sky…Today we are finishing up our Fathers day celebration by thanking the Lord for our Christian Fathers, who showed us that sometimes the best memories are those which as spent with family…..which in turn makes us miss, not only our dads, but our kids, as well……we are so grateful for our families and for wonderful memories of our dads. Randy’s Fathers Day will be spent going to a car show this afternoon, his perfect idea of a great Fathers Day, In and Out Burger and a car show, how different from what a mom would plan for Mothers Day! But figure I will act excited about his plan, it might buy me a little trip to the ice cream store this afternoon. Happy Fathers Day, Randy, you are a great dad and grandfather and I am so blessed to be with you and walking right beside you at the car show. Life is made up of memories and thanks to you, we have many wonderful memories to remember.

Last night was our last night to have Janet and Gary before they head back to Dallas. It has been a fun-filled week, with lots of touring and lots of new restaurants and constant going. One night as we were sitting around talking about our favorite foods, Gary and Randy both said that one of their favorite dinners was a pot of pinto beans, with cornbread and fried potatoes and onions. So that was what they requested on for dinner last night. This past week, we have eaten on the coast in Newport Beach, Italian on Rodeo Dr, In & Out burgers, Chinese food in Montrose, homemade roast and potatoes here the first night, but all of us agreed, last night’s beans and cornbread was our favorite meal. It just felt good. It was like coming home after being gone for an extended time. It was such a comfort food. We sat around the table for an hour afterword, sharing stories about our trip to Greece and the funny memories we share there. But when we got up to clean the table, we all thought about what a wonderful evening we had just spent. The dinner probably didn’t cost $10 to fix, was easy clean up and quick to cook, except the beans which had been cooking all day. We retired to the den, full and happy, and ready for a slice of homemade carrot cake. The pot of beans and fried potatoes just hit the spot. Filled us up and the scent make the house smell so “southern”. This menu will now become part of our “tradition” as to what we cook for company. It was just one of those meals that makes you feel like you are all family. So forget Olive Garden, go to the store and grab yourself a bag of pinto beans….you will be glad you did.