Life With….

I am a summer and spring person – I love the weather and the abundance of greens and vegetables.  I hate the cold with a passion, though there do exist aspects of fall and winter I love.  For example I love soup, and making it from scratch, I love fires and the excuse to stay indoors and read by one, I enjoy the richness of fall colors in nature, fashion, and in food.  I love the winter holiday of Christmas and the fact that holidays and nature conspire to bring you closer to your family and friends by huddling inside – just as, summer sometimes does with its long days and opportunities for cooking out.  That being said, I still hate the cold and would happily spend most fall and winter days indoors avoiding the weather.

This past weekend was spent with my mother’s father’s family; all of her first cousins and surviving aunt and uncle were there.  Her own parents and my aunt passed on years ago – and since that time my mother has seemed to reconnect to this branch of the family she did not seem to have contact with as I grew up.  I remember a few times they came down to visit, and one family trip to Colorado where we saw them, but outside of a few funerals, we did not have much contact with them.  What was surprising was how many of them I had actually met, even if I barely remembered it.

My father and I were talking about it last night and he mentioned how he had always been jealous of her family when the they began dating.  My father grew up oversees and rarely saw his grandparents or cousins and his immediate family was odd to say the least; my mother grew up surrounded by hers almost all living in the same city and the majority if not all living in the same state.  Until I was 12, my mother, her sister, and a psuedo-sister all lived within a block of each other – my mother having randomly joined them in Atlanta when my father took a job there.

When I was 12 we moved to Florida, within the next five years my aunt died and my grandmother moved down to be near us so that my mother could help her with health issues.  After that we rarely saw my cousins – I have not seen one of them for about six years, though I have seen the others and my uncle more recently.

This past weekend, as I previously noted, we had that side of the family, and two of cousins in for a large reunion.   To welcome them to the South we had a full on pork weekend – a mustard tenderloin with apple chutney on Friday.  The weather was such, see fogged in, that we had no choice but to spend the night in the living room and on the porch, eating and drinking.  This was followed by a gorgeous hike, college football, a repat of the pork of Friday night catered by my favorite barbeque from the Carolina Smokehouse.  If we had held the event in the summer, yes we may have been outside more and less distracted by football, but I doubt the memories would be so golden tinted as they were warmed and lit by fires burning  inside and out, figurative and literal.

In the mornings, when it was only the high school to young adult generation (i.e. the third generation) – most of whom were not staying with their parents – my mother cooked up local venison sausage which was killed by her friends, which for reasons to be discuss in another post I did not eat, breads, amazing grits which had been soaked overnight in chicken stock to bring out the creamy flavor without using cream, and scrambled eggs.

I took charge of the eggs the first morning – making them with soy milk and a dollop of sour cream a dairy I have learned I can eat in a tiny amount if cooked.  I added salt and pepper and mixed it all with a fork.  The eggs were large locally raised and fresh from the free range chicken producing a more luxurious result, and by slow cooking them over medium low heat for the eggs release a decadent creamy goodness.  You cook them until  just short of firmly scrambled and slightly runny.  The eggs are part of my sunday morning tradition, and are a great way ease into the day and allow for people to come together as a group while drinking coffee and enjoying the view and family bonding.

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Create Your Badge  All text and copyrights preserved by the author for words and original pictures and may not be used without author's permission. For more information visit http://www.peebesalgy.com Follow me on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/peebesalgy or contact me directly through http://www.peebesalgy.com/blog/contact-me/ Courtney Brown | Create Your Badge