Month: February 2024

Food For Thought

/ cigarman501 / 15 Comments

“The cakes and pies and casseroles beckoned like gastronomic sirens, and there was no one to lash me to the mast.” ― Chris Fabry, The Promise of Jesse Woods

Drug of Choice-an excerpt from the book Food for Thought by Don Miller

While food is my drug of choice, “Food for Thought” is not a cookbook. There are some recipes, recipes from angels now gone, who with their hands, cast iron pans, dollops of bacon grease or lard, and a lot of love, created so much from so little. There are other recipes from those that still exist and come to you over the cable ways on such channels as the Food Channel or from the internet.

Primarily it is a book of memories and history, a Southern history if you will, chock full of pig parts, home grown ingredients, and possibly roadkill. No not roadkill but there might be a possum or a raccoon story to tell. It is stories of an elusive quest for the perfect biscuit, peanuts poured into an eight-ounce Coca Colas, dope wagons in the cotton mill, and why when we order a Coke we are asked, “What kind of Coke?”

There is diversity, lessons taken from Scot Irish Appalachia fused with Native American and African American food and combined into dishes that have culturally diffused throughout the United States. 

There are also too many essays involving pig parts, pulled pork, liver mush, sausage, slow cooked ribs, I need to quit before I go crank up the smoker.

None of the recipes shared are mine. Some are old family recipes, others from Methodist and Baptist cookbooks handed down by previous generations in my family. Lastly, some came from the Food Channel and such and are noted and linked as such.

Really lastly, any beautiful photographs of certain dishes are not mine. My dishes rarely come out looking photograph worthy. To quote an old college chemistry professor I had, “Find your wife’s disasters and you will eat like a king.” Thank you Dr. Setzler. The proof is in the eating not in the looking.

Food For Thought: From the Musings of a Mad Southerner may be purchased in Paperback or Downloaded from Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVF3PFTB/ref=sr_1_1?crid=CYH7YGW5PD0N&keywords=Food+For+Thought+Don+Miller&qid=1707591751&sprefix=food+for+thought+don+miller%2Caps%2C438&sr=8-1

Hope Eternal

/ cigarman501 / 11 Comments

“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.”
― Tom Bodett

Just a few days ago I was mired in depression. I was exhausted from lack of sleep, felt I was being assailed from all sides while trying to minister to my bride, Linda. There was a leak in the upstairs bathroom, home therapies and doctor’s appointments galore. And, AND…she wanted me to apply fingernail polish to her nails. Oh, the pressure. I was having a real pity party.

My wife had some issues, setbacks in her recovery from a stroke and chemotherapy for ovarian cancer. I was just a step away from despondency when “BAM!”, said by the John Madden voice in my head, hope reared its beautiful head. We are still on the defensive end of our field, but we are moving the ball forward.

Her stroke has caused changes in personality along with vision and balance issues. There is a slight weakness in her right side, but her balance issues are as much a vision issue as it is a weakness issue. I mean, with my steadying influence, she gets around okay…maybe too okay.

One personality trait, aside for her needing purple fingernail polish applied, that has not changed is her bull headedness. She is and always has been a type A personality. Linda is going to do what Linda wants to do when she wants to do it. She has always been the poster child for self-reliance.

She is not to get up and move around without assistance. Right? Wrong. How many times must I ask you not to get up without help? Bull-headed self-reliance.

“Now baby, I’m going to the bathroom. Stay where you are until I get back.”

She nods her head and smiles sweetly while saying, “I won’t move” but has rearranged the furniture before I can get back from a thirty second piss. The rearrangement is due to her falling onto the couch sending the puppies in two different directions. Thankfully, it was on the couch.

I sleep on the same couch next to the recliner she sleeps in. “Don’t you have a bed?” Why yes, we do and a bedroom that houses it. We have found it is too far from the bathroom. The bedroom with a close by bathroom is up fifteen steps which are not navigable currently. I sleep on the couch so I can assist should she need to get up…if she takes the time to wake me up.

Two nights ago, I awoke to find she had taken herself to the bathroom, cleaned up, changed her clothes and was standing in the kitchen making toast and jelly. Bad news, it was three in the morning, the witching hour. Good news, there were no new bruises because she hadn’t fallen. Remember, I said I was exhausted from lack of sleep and as good a reason as I can produce for not waking up on my own. The puppies were no help either. I must believe her guardian witch was looking out for her.

Part of me, the logical side, was mortified.  The hopeful side was celebrating.

I reminded myself, there was a time when I mentioned how bad the brakes were on her ’73 VW Bug. She commented, casually, “I don’t need them, I have a horn.” That is not a lie. “Damn the torpedoes, Linda is on her way.”

On a safer note, this morning as we returned from the bathroom, Linda stopped, bent from the waist, and without bending her knees, picked up a dime I had missed when sweeping the floor. I’d say her vision and balance have improved. My cleaning skills have not.

Life is full of mysteries and mine is full of little hopes to hang my hat on. Her vision has holes in it that will never improve, but she is learning to navigate around them. Her balance is better, and she is physically strong. The best is that she is hopeful, and her hope sustains me.

Don Miller writes at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?fbclid=IwAR3vLExkIeP5kMTh-isZEUoByY0dey7OFK_G1WGQZF5QokB_dWBC5Wihzcc&ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Check back, he will be releasing a new book, “Food for Thought”, soon.