"Kitchens were made to bring families together." ~ copied

Well, well, look at what we find here. It's another day to go about our 'business' and the only one we have to work with at the present moment is Wednesday, July 8, 2020. Last Saturday, July 4th, I did a mini cookout for us to enjoy. We haven't had the big family gathering since Christmas which proceeded the Coronavirus scare. I decided to do a barbecue. Pork ribs and chicken quarters. Preparation is key. Get the meat ready including seasoning and marinating. Prepare the barbecue sauce. Get the grill ready. Check and recheck all the things needed. I used Granny Mac's unwritten, handed-down recipe for the barbecue sauce. Granny Mac was a special cook. Her innate ability to taste as she cooked and to know exactly what to add is something that I'm not sure can be taught. Once you get her sauce going, just like she did it, you begin to taste and adjust, taste, and adjust. I can see her standing at her stove doing just that. When you taste you ask yourself, "Is this Granny Mac ready?" If not, what does it need? Maybe a pinch or two of additional salt, a spoonful of brown sugar, a little more mustard, or, just a wee shake of the Louisiana hot sauce bottle. It all comes down to knowing which one to add. When people ask for the recipe and they do, I always tell them I don't have one because to my knowledge there never has been one written down. However, I can give them the basic ingredients. What I can't give to them is the ability to answer in the affirmative, "Is it Granny Mac ready?" Her barbecue sauce became legendary and I am so thankful I took the time to watch her do it. Remember what she always said about cooking. "Cooking is mostly about caring. If you care enough you will do okay."

Example of a family gathering and dinner on the grounds.

As I prepared the grill I recalled how we all were excited on the family reunion day when Uncle Asa would do an outdoor cookout. He came all the way from Florida and we always knew him being home meant a big family cookout. He and a number of helpers would dig a shallow pit and then use stakes to stretch out hardware cloth. That became the cooking surface. They would start a fire of selected wood and shovel the coals into the shallow pit and spread them out. The wood would be continually burning until it was no longer needed. He would arrange 50 halves of chicken, some sausage, maybe deer meat, and other meats on the hardware cloth. Granny Mac's barbecue sauce would be brought out in a fairly large pot after the meat had cooked for an appropriate amount of time. Uncle Asa would make him a large dauber for applying the sauce by using wire to tie some cloth to the end of a short stick. The smell. Oh my! We kids would lay down on the grown with our faces in our hands waiting for the time when they said we could eat. When it came time to eat, well, we did our best to let all involved know how much we appreciated them and enjoyed the food. I don't think we ever grilled at any other time except when we had the big family gathering. If you bumped into someone a few days later they often would say they had heard we had one of those big 'eat-in meet-ins'. They would then add, "I suppose it came with some of Miss Mac's sauce." See what I mean. I do not exaggerate when I use the word legendary. Perhaps not in breadth of coverage but certainly to all who knew of her wonderful commitment to serving good food.

I mention these things because even though I only fed four, the wife and I, along with our middle son and his youngest, it still included all the memories of those family get-togethers from our past. I used the wife's mom's pairing knife to peel the potatoes for the potato salad. We have much fancier potato peeling utensils but that knife is the best for the job and it comes with built-in memories. We also used her hand mashing tool to work the potatoes. We used Granny Mac's barbecue sauce. We used pots and pans that carried with them a history. When it came time to eat, I led in a prayer of thanksgiving to God for we know that all we have including the feast before us is due to His provision. You guessed it. What a meal! One of the real reasons it was so good is because of the memories it invoked. I could hear Uncle Asa saying to me, "Now son, that's your second half of a chicken. Don't take it if you don't intend to eat it." My response, "Don't worry about that, not one bit!" Yeah. I know. You are right. Food may have played too big of a role in our upbringing but it was all wrapped into what we did each day and it was our version of family. I do know visitors would comment on how it was worth being there to watch us kids eat. Really? Those people must have been really starved for, pun intended, and very hard up for entertainment. All of it blended together to make this just passed 4th of July Saturday cookout a feast of both food and fellowship including the revisiting of so many who helped make us who we are today. No. We didn't have two scoops of nostalgia for dessert, but, later we enjoyed a wonderfully sweet and cold watermelon brought to our home from Louisiana. Thank you, Lord. Amen. ...More later.