Who Moved My Cheese?

No, seriously... who?  Although this isn't hot-off-the-press news, I was recently reminded that Kraft completely pulled the rug from under all Southern cooks by discontinuing their treasured garlic cheese roll.  Our reaction was utter, heart-stopping shock.  Yankees have a difficult time understanding our outrage.  No splendid delicacy, it was truthfully more like Cheez Whiz with garlic powder, so our plight has received little sympathy from most uppity Northern neighbors.  In fact, most of them have never even heard of it (so they say). After several attempts to find it in ANY grocery store, I finally got together with my pal Google and started hunting.  There were a few things here and there... What happened to the Kraft garlic cheese?  Has it been discontinued?  Just rumors for a while, you see.  And then there it was.  Confirmed in black and white.  Devastating.  Completely devastating.  It's been discontinued.  WHAT ABOUT CHEESE GRITS!?!  WHAT ABOUT CHRISTMAS!?!?   No self-respecting Southern cheese grit recipe was without the roll.  And no self-respecting Southern Christmas morning was without the grits.  Oh, the horror.  Remember in "Rudolph" when Santa threatened to cancel Christmas?  That's what it was like, folks. 

And it's not just me.  A quick search on most any cooking site will find at least one, "HELP!  Kraft discontinued their garlic cheese roll!  What about my broccoli casserole?!"  One sweet soul trying to help shared that when he inquired at his local K-Roger just what on earth could replace this Southern staple, he was told that the yahoos at Kraft Inc. themselves sent down the word from above:  Apparently, their Kraft Easy Cheese Roasted Garlic Cheddar is the garlic cheese roll IN A CAN.  You know, the one that kids turn upside down and make aim for their mouth with in some sort of cheese-OD attempt?  That's the one.  I say, try it at your own risk.  But these are the Christmas grits we're talking about here.  Not a time to be chancing things.  Maybe we should just have a garlic roll revolt.  A cheese rebellion!  Even Facebook has two pages dedicated to bringing back the big orange roll.  Well, it worked for Betty White!

As before, no bells-and-whistles recipe, but the kind I like best:  sentimental!  This is the recipe that Mimi used to make those creamy, deliciously good cheese grits every Christmas morning (you listening, Kraft?  Taking away our traditions?  Our memories?!)  Of course, since then the recipes have been jazzed up with even more yumminess... bacon, sausage, Rotel and the like.  But THIS is where it all started.  Now to give proper credit, Mimi's recipe was from the absolutely wonderful, A Grand Heritage, A Culinary Legacy of Columbus, Mississippi.  Ole Possum Town has some of the best cooks in the world and everything in it is divine.  Of course the gorgeous Columbus photos and information are favorites of mine, too.  I have always kept mine out on a bookholder in my kitchen, open slap-dab to the middle to a photograph of a giant barbeque spread at Magowah Gun and Country Club.  The ribs are front-and-center, looking like they're about to jump right off the page into your drooling mouth.  Truly, a bib should be required just to look. 

Mandatory for all Columbus gals, I now have Mimi's, which was given to her by my Daddy and inscribed, "To Mimi, Happy Birthday & Merry Christmas 1983.  Edwin."  (My mother, my Aunt Kay and my Mimi were the only three people I ever heard call my Daddy, Bubba, by his Christian name.)   And don't you just love the way that Southern cookbooks credit their female contributors as "Mrs. WhateverHerHusbandsNameIs" and then their maiden name in parentheses?  I love the South.  Therefore, our family grits recipe for all of these many years is actually from Mrs. Howard Fisackerly (Doris Barrett) and it's the perfect one, of course.

Cheese Grits 

4 cups water (Mimi sez 3-3/4)               1/2 cup butter
1 teaspoon salt                                          1 (6 oz) roll garlic cheese (good luck!)
1 cup grits                                                  2 eggs and milk to make 1 cup

Preheat oven to 350F.  Bring the water and salt to a boil; add grits; simmer until done.  Add butter and cheese, stirring until melted.  In a large measuring cup, beat eggs and add milk to equal 1 cup.  Blend into grits; pour into a 2 quart casserole.  Bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until light brown on top.  Yield:  4 to 6 servings.

Note:  As I should have mentioned with the Fried Corn post, Cavender's Greek Seasoning should be added... to EVERYTHING in the world that isn't a dessert.  (And likewise, I add cracked black and red pepper as well).  And of course, Mimi had to add something extra, which was shredded Cheddar on top of the grits, added in the last 10 minutes or so for an even cheesier delight. 

Think I'll go make some right now.  Agh... no cheese!

Brows Don't Lie

It’s so hard to recall exactly when, but I believe that junior high was about the time my hair betrayed me. Not one who easily embraces change, when my heretofore tow headed nest began having darker roots, I was not happy. Don’t get me wrong—it’s not that I think blondes really do have more fun (they do! they do!) or live some magical fair-haired life (champagne & caviar… dancing til dawn… it’s all true!). It’s just that I had been blonde my whole life, was accustomed to it and then BAM… the betrayal begins. There were of course, the positive points of turning brunette (thinking… thinking… surely, there is a positive point). Finally, I would be taken seriously! No more dumb blonde jokes (Who cares? I didn’t get them anyway!) But sadly, even that wasn’t enough to keep me away from the L’Oreal aisle at Harco Drug Store lo, those many years ago. And so it began, though now I’m a Garnier Gal. Since that time, my hair and I have had a strict “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. I don’t ask what color it really is by now and it doesn’t tell me.

But these damn brows of mine. Curses! Today, as I was using my super-fabulous Mr. Tweezer that Sally gave me for Christmas a while back, I saw it. Right there in the magnified mirror so that its existence was amplified to the fifth degree! Not blonde. Not brunette. Not black. White. White. WHITE!

It seems that when I carefully plotted my perfect plan of denial with my somewhat loyal hair, I completely failed to include my brows. Offended maybe? Feeling left out perhaps? Whatever the reason, they have extracted their revenge. Of course I’m now googling the myths… pluck one and three come back? True or not? I’ll let you know, ‘cause that sucker is G-O-N-E. I’m currently in negotiations with my eyebrows to pull them into the policy loop, but I fear my initial thought is true. Brows don’t lie.

“I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb... and I also know that I'm not blonde.”   Dolly Parton

Fried Corn in a Cool Whip Container

Years ago in Tupelo, we were having a Going Away party for my fabulous friend, Sally, who was moving to Nashville. We all gathered at Vanelli's and were tickled to have some great entertainment, a still up-and-coming local singer, Paul Thorn. Equally tickling was that he played a great bluesy version of "Mustang Sally" for our honoree. One of his original songs, however, caught my ear with the lines

Now, when I got ready to leave

She put some greens a Cool-Whip bowl
Yeah, now, when I got ready to leave
She put some greens a Cool-Whip bowl
Cause she knew I wouldn't' bring
Her Tupperware back

I couldn't believe my ears, as Mimi had done this with all of us for years. But, I thought she was the only one! A fantastic cook, we always hoped to end up with a Cool Whip container after any of her meals. I can recall traveling back to Tupelo from Columbus and the thought would hit me... you've got fried corn in this car... yes, you froze it and even put it in the trunk to make sure you didn't get into it before you got home, but... you've got fried corn in this car. And so here and now, I will confess that I have stopped on the side of Hwy 45 North to retrieve a container of those still slightly frozen vittles. And I would give my right arm to have some right now.

Do we really need one more recipe blog? Addicted to them, to recipes and to cookbooks myself, I say there is never enough. No originals here, just passing down some good 'uns, fit for a Cool Whip container.

The concept: You take a scumptious pecan pie and add the only thing in the world that's missing. Chocolate. Leave it to Mimi to have introduced her lucky brood years ago to this now famous sinful delight. How coveted were her recipes? She left her completely stuffed Recipe Box to me in her official Last Will & Testament. Yes, lawyers were involved with the dispersement of her handed down gems. I have this one framed on my kitchen wall and am sharing here now just as she wrote it.

KENTUCKY DERBY PIE
Combine

2 eggs slightly beaten
1 cup sugar
1 stick oleo, melted (that's butter, y'all)
about 1/4 cup flour

Then stir in
1 cup nuts (toasted whole pecans)
1 6 oz. semi sweet chocolate morsels
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix and pour in 9 inch unbaked pie shell.
350 degrees 15 minutes
325 degrees about 30 minutes or more.
Cool Whip, powdered sugar, bourbon on top.

And Away We Go!

What a strange feeling this is. I can think of a million things to share as my... Ta Da!... first ever blog post, but today is such a special day that it's really easy to know what my subject matter will be. For anyone who knows anything at all about me, my grandmother, Mary McGuire Fleming, has been the greatest influence of my life. Mimi wasn't the kind of grandmother who babysat us a lot when we were kids or sat in a recliner waiting for my mother to bring us over to sit in her lap. She was the kind of grandmother who had a million things going herself and looked liked ten million dollars doing all of them (per her completely unbiased grandchild, you understand). It wasn't really until I was a teenager that we became close, if I recall correctly. But once we did, there was no stopping us.

Well, today is now officially May 26, the date that we lost her in 2006. In some ways it feels so much longer than four years and in others, just like yesterday. I remember being in complete fear of that day for oh so long because I had never before awakened (or as Mimi said, "waked up") without her. Would I be the same person? Would I ever laugh again? Would I even want to laugh again? I never wanted to know. But of course, that wish wasn't granted. She was ready. I was not. As usual, she won.

We all knew that years before, Mimi had made a deal with The Lord, which she had shared with us. She only wanted to stick around as long as she could still wear high heels. Now, once those days were gone, she wanted to be gone with 'em. Like many things she shared that make us still laugh to this day, we weren't really sure if she was kidding or actually believed it herself. I mean, she was serious about The Lord. And she was serious about high heels. So you do the math. One of our favorite sayings of hers was whenever we talked about Jesus, Mimi would say, "He's just CRAZY about me." Of course He was crazy about her, but who on earth ever said it like that?! So when her heel kicking days ended years before, much to her dismay, I always got the distinct impression that she truly was confused. I mean, they had a DEAL. And He is The Lord. What went wrong? And so my first non-devastating thought was wondering if that was her first conversation with The Almighty. Clearing up their misunderstanding, you know.

Her two daughters, my mother and my aunt, are very Godly women. Mimi and I agreed that we were too, but just not as good as them. We both wondered how someone with a naughty streak like her, coupled with my granddaddy Pal, whose own streak was even more emphatic, ever produced two such girls. And when musing about the afterlife, we agreed that they would both be living in the gated communities of heaven.... while we two slightly less heavenly gals would have zip codes in the projects. We were fine with that! I mean, the worst part of heaven is STILL heaven, right? And so it was decided that we would just be ourselves down here and at least have close relatives in the better section of town to go visit once we crossed over.

Have no doubt, I could go on and on and on writing about this woman who so defined me. As you can probably guess, I miss her, miss her, miss her. Terribly. But how blessed we were to have her for so many years and to enjoy her for so long. Today will of course bring some tears, as it does every year, but the laughter... oh my, the laughter will be there as well. As every grandparent should, she thought that we each just hung the moon and we thought that she planted every star. And who knows, maybe she did.