Early Thanksgiving Feast a Hit!

Many of you hopped on over to Dotter’s new blog and read about our early Thanksgiving feast, sans the Turkey.  Thank you all so much for being so supportive and for leaving her those great comments.  We were sitting in her living room that night, and as she was checking her blog on her I-Phone, I heard her say, pensively, “Hm.  I have about 66 visits to my blog.  Must be some of Mommer’s friends.”  Y’all are the best!

So, here’s the really cool thing about having Thanksgiving early:  I can come back here and tell you about a couple new things she/we tried and liked and can share the recipes with you.

Even though I’ve been making this dressing for a few years, this year it came out better than ever.  Well, at least I thought so. You just can’t mess with perfection.

The background story.  Do you like stories behind recipes?  Well, I do.

Several years ago, my retired brother-in-law was spending some time back in his little hometown of Verda, Louisiana, where he died unexpectedly.  His funeral was at a small country church, and there was a meal for everyone in the fellowship hall afterwards.

Everyone knows just how good country cooks are, and this spread was no exception.  What caught my eye, as I went down the line looking at the offerings, was a big, oval Magnalite pot of cornbread dressing.  I’ve never seen dressing at a church pot-luck of any kind and have only ever eaten it on special holidays.  (I’m not sure why that is.)  So I helped myself.

LilSis was with me, and I think she tried it, too.  I apologize, but I can’t remember if Dotter was there or not, but either she or LilSis (or both) went ga-ga over the banana pudding.  I’m not a great fan of it anyway, but they went on and on about how delicious it was and could not quite put their finger on what made it so special.

Turns out, after I went around the room to find out who made the dressing, it was Mrs. Geraldine Fletcher.  She was such a nice lady.  She found a piece of copy paper, folded it in half, and sat right down beside me and wrote out the dressing recipe from memory.  And then we imposed on her again when we found out SHE was the one who made the banana pudding as well.

A photo of the dressing will have to suffice for now, because having already launched the duck-hunting boat at 5 a.m. for Termite and his new hunting companion, I now have to get ready to head to the big city of New Orleans to help with a concert to benefit those families who are ill from the BP oil spill of April, 2010.  All the proceeds are going to help them through LEAN (La. Environmental Action Network).  I will come back later and post the recipe, if anyone is interested.  Be warned, though, it is not for the faint of heart; rather, for those who want to start with the making of their own chicken broth. (Update:  Here’s the recipe)

Until then, hop on over to Dotter’s blog, Pocketful of Pennies, and read all about the wonderful meal and time we had at our early Thanksgiving feast!  She covered it quite well–in person and on her blog!

See ya later, alligator!

BW

PS  Those kids made me laugh so hard, I only almost wet my pants twice!

PS Again:  Termite just text me from the duck blind “I got a do-gris!”  Gotta love technology.  Guess we’ll be cooking duck tomorrow.