Introduction
It never rains but it pours…no sooner has Bettina
shown Uncle Eric the door than another clutch of relatives comes pouring in. Bettina’s
mother, father, Cousin Mabel, her children, and Cousin Wilfried are attending
the State Fair and apparently desperate for a good home-cooked meal!
Six adults and an unspecified number of children to
feed…sounds like a hopeless task. But, ever the optimist, Bettina is certain
that with a little careful planning she can not only feed this ravenous mob but
find time to visit the fair herself.
“It will take only a few minutes,” she muses while
arranging the dining room flowers, “to set the table, cream the potatoes, boil
the corn, slice the peaches, and make the tea!”
Part 1
The Menu
Cold
Fried Chicken
Creamed
Potatoes
Corn
on the Cob
Head
Lettuce with Celery Seed Dressing
Sliced
Peaches
Chocolate
Cookies
Tea
Milk
Preparing the Meal
Cold
Fried Chicken
I purchased the smallest chicken I could find for this
recipe (in the wan hope that a smaller, younger bird would be a bit more
tender). Alas this fowl was tiny but tough…I had quite a time cutting/snapping
it into appropriate-sized pieces. The leg quarters refused to separate into legs
and
thighs and so went into the pan whole—maybe not a bad
thing as now they’ll have approximately the same cooking time as the two half
breasts.
Seasoning
with salt and paprika.
Dredged
in flour.
Melting
the lard (*gulp*) in the skillet (actually my Dutch oven). It’s sturdy and
large enough to fry up all the chicken pieces at once.
Toss in the chicken, brown thoroughly, add some water,
put the lid on the pot, and fry for about thirty minutes—nothing to it!
Creamed
Potatoes
I’m don’t quite see how three cups of boiled chopped
potatoes would be enough to feed Bettina’s crowd (six adults plus and an
unknown number of children) but, fortunately, it should be plenty for my family
of two adults and one child.
I
boiled and chopped these potatoes the day before and then let them sit in the
refrigerator overnight.
Now for the white sauce…
Melting some butter.
Three
tablespoons of flour (plus salt and pepper).
Adding
milk and cheese.
“Cook
until the consistency of vegetable white sauce (about one minute after it
boils).”
Then simply add the potatoes.
This
dish took far less time to prepare than expected—so much so that I had no
choice but to place the potatoes in a baking dish and then into the oven to stay warm.
Corn
on the Cob
It’s
not yet corn season (when locally grown stuff is plentiful) so I had to turn to
the Jolly Green Giant and a tray of his imported, overpriced ears.
Ugh—this
ear is less than fresh. The brown extended to the cob so I had no choice but to
toss it out.
After
dumping one of the Giant’s ears I had just three left to boil—a real rip as the
corn cost me $4.99!
Head
Lettuce with Celery Seed Dressing
Quite
a number of ingredients for a so-called “simple” dressing. I’m just glad I had
a bottle of celery salt at the back of my cupboard and didn’t need to buy any.
The
oil.
Oops.
The dressing is to be mixed with an egg beater rather than shaken, so I had to put the
ingredients in a bowl rather than a bottle.
The
oil plus salt, dry mustard, paprika, celery seed, onion, sugar, and lemon
juice.
I
rarely use my manual egg beater, but in this case it’s far less hassle than hauling
out the electric.
Properly
mixed and ready to be stored in the refrigerator. Thanks to the use of lemon
juice rather than vinegar it has a relatively mild flavor, and the color
certainly is attractive.
Stewed
Peaches
There’s no doubt in my mind that Bettina gets her peaches straight off the tree but unfortunately I do not...there are none available in the markets right now, either.
These
commercially canned ones will have to do.
Chocolate
Cookies
Any Bettina recipe requiring baking chocolate makes me
uneasy—mainly because the amounts called for are maddeningly vague. I never
have been able to successfully translate her “one square” into numerical ounces
or grams, but I suppose there’s always hope…
Creaming
the butter and sugar.
Sifting
the dry ingredients.
An
egg...to be beaten into ¼ cup milk.
Mixing it all together.
Here
it comes—“add 1 square of melted baking chocolate”. @%@^#^#!
Interesting
marble effect.
But
with a little more mixing I was left with a uniform, suspiciously pale dough. I
still don’t know if I added enough chocolate, but I guess I’ll find out.
The
dough rolled out onto a wooden board.
Cut
with a circular cookie cutter.
The
recipe says to butter and flour the tray, but to heck with that. This sheet is
non-stick and I’m sure it’s fine as is.
Tea
It’s
been a while since I served hot tea (hardly the thing to serve heat-addled
guests who’ve spent the day at the State Fair, in my opinion), but I still
remember the steps: scald out the tea pot, boil the water in a separate
container, pour into the pot, add tea (or, in my case, tea bags), and let steep
for about five minutes.
Milk
Never ever has a moo juice appeared on Bettina’s
table, but I guess there’s a first time for everything. At least my milk is
already pasteurized and doesn’t have to first be strained, boiled, etc (come to
think of it, that’s probably the reason Bettina so rarely serves it—it’s just
too much hassle).
How It Looked
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