I am a lover of shrimp burgers and especially the ones from my favorite drive in restaurant. Living on a fixed income it's a treat for me to pick up any meal and especially this one. On the way home, from another free parking beach day, I had a craving for this favorite grub just like any other beach trip day. I pulled up to order and remembered I had to use the restroom while waiting for it to arrive. I threw my $20 bill on the seat beside me (so I thought) and when I returned to pay the bill I couldn't find it anywhere! Talk about embarrassed! And they do not take credit cards! Yikes! The only thing I knew to do was tell the waitress I could not accept the food. Suddenly this lady in the car beside me asked what was wrong. I shared my dilemma not expecting her to help. She offered to pay and said she could empathize with my love of this place and especially my love for this famous shrimp burger! Thank you ma'am!
Well here we are finally! The last day of 2020 and I can honestly say I have never seen anything like it in my whole 25 + years of teaching. I have gone from online teaching to classroom teaching then back to online teaching, back to classroom teaching again and now by choice back to online teaching. It has been quite the rollercoaster ride! Not only has it rocked my world as a teacher but it has rocked my daughter's world as a student. For kids with a two parent loving family with a stable home life it was probably not easy as well. But my daughter already had an unstable family life. She had change from one week to the next as a kid of joint custody and now change during school hours. I have cried many a tear over these changes not only as a teacher but as her mom. I have been here and then not been here but hoped as a 13 then 14 year old she was mature enough to handle the responsibility on her own. I was ready to let her fly. That was not the case.
I had taken a job in another county and tried to help set her on what I thought was a successful schedule of her own. It was dicey the first nine weeks but not great the next. So I made that choice. I have chosen to work from home online again. I started remembering back to that time in my adolescence when I was alone quite often after school. How I felt so insecure because I was still a kid yet also felt adults should leave me alone because I'm almost in high school! But there were so many days I longed for my mom to be there after school. To advise and tell me how to improve my time management, study habits, choice of friends, etc. I would have never admitted to it back then. I envied my first cousin who had all of those things. The choice to work from home again has not been not an easy one. But I know I cannot get this time back in my daughter's life. I know her struggles with school during this pandemic are my biggest concern and far outweigh my need for working outside the home. Guiding her and giving her a sense of security is my top priority in life. So I pray for guidance, provision and perseverance in 2021. May God bless us in the year ahead. Childhood: my best dishes remind me of a time when life was simple and I felt loved and well fed. My grandmother, Ma Ma Liles, always made sure of this! She was always asking: are you hungry? Let me fix you something. Her favorite thing to pull out and almost at every lunch year round was her famous soup. She named it vegetable soup but I remember it being full of whatever she had left from a previous scrumptious family meal on the Oaks Farm. It might include turkey, fresh ham, hamburger, sausage, chicken and of course any vegetable from the wonderful garden my Pa Pa Liles grew each year. Every taste reminded me of love and family. That's what life on the farm was about. My grandparents were a huge part of my life growing up. They cared for me every other weekend and over half my summer vacations and more. They had enough love for 500 grandchildren and i could feel it in every ounce of my bones! I have recreated her recipe and renamed it cupboard soup of course because it can be made with anything you have in your cupboard or on hand.
Cupboard Soup: (Make as little or as much as you like, but it freezes well) 1 - 2 pounds of any cooked and cut up meat such as hamburger, beef, ham, sausage, turkey or chicken 1 - 2 14. 5 oz. cans of petite diced tomatoes 1 can of tomato soup undiluted 2 - 3 cups of veggies of your choice (peas, any beans, corn, carrots, potatoes) 2 cups of cut up cabbage 4 -6 cups of broth (beef and chicken or turkey) 1 small cut up onion 1 t. garlic powder 1 t. Italian seasoning 1 t. seasoned salt 1/2 t. pepper 1 Bay leaf 1 - 2 T. olive oil I usually brown the onion with any raw vegetables such as the cabbage in the olive oil on medium high to help give the soup some depth of flavor. After they have browned add the rest of the ingredients and bring to a boil. Turn down to low and simmer at least an hour or so. Add more broth or seasoning to taste. The longer it cooks the better it tastes! Enjoy! Did you ever see anything like it? The crazy world of sports today? I can honestly say that I always felt sports brought everyone together for a common cause: your favorite team. It didn't matter your political persuasion, religion, gender, race, etc. If you liked my team then we were united! Not this year....the craziest sports year ever! Not only do athletes just play sports but they also tell you their opinions of everything else under the sun. So much so that now fans are not excited about the sport anymore. The game was the place to escape those every day issues. The ones that divide us. I could watch a game and get excited with the other fans because we had that one thing in common: the team and the win! Now fans are disenfranchised. Many are boycotting due to the issues brought up before, during and after the games.
I miss the old days. The days when sports were just sports. Watch a game, pull for your team and get excited with all the other fans because it brought us together, united for a reason. Will it every return to those days? This avid sports fan will not lose hope! For many years I cooked for four people. Yes my Ex and oldest daughter were not picky eaters. They ate pretty much anything I would create or try to recreate and what joy I felt that people enjoyed my cooking! Cooking was therapy amongst the chaos. I was a Food Network junkie for years. Oh to try this recipe and add this ingredient or subtract that ingredient! I learned that I had quite a talent for creating dishes.
Never the less I also discovered that I was cooking for the enjoyment of others. I recently have lost my drive to cook. It's not as much fun cooking for my youngest daughter. She's quite the picky eater. She could live off chicken nuggets, French fries and whatever fast food is available due to no fault of her own and the circumstances she was forced into with the joint custody. So in this predicament I have had to tell myself that it's ok to cook just for me. It's ok if I'm the only one that enjoys what I cook. The drive is starting to return. Today I mixed up a batter of waffles from a recipe I tweaked from the Bisquick box. So here is my version: Waffles: 1 cup of Bisquick mix 2/3 cup of milk 2 T of melted butter 1 t. baking powder 1 egg Mix all dry ingredients. Add the milk and egg and mix until incorporated. Melt the butter and pour in slowly while mixing into batter so as not to heat up the raw ingredients. Let batter sit for about 15 minutes or over night in the refrigerator to rise. Cook on your favorite waffle iron and enjoy! Even if you have to eat right by yourself! So when you are that divorcee with kids there is always that lull time during any holiday season. You know, the time when the kids are no longer there and all of the sudden you have this huge block of time on your hands. And then it dawns on you: that list, the proverbial list, the one that never goes away! The list that has enough items for 50+ single moms and you can't seem to find those 49+ moms to help you with that list. The things at the bottom are the ones you despise the most: changing the light bulbs in the garage. Those same lights you have spent months ignoring but are reminded of every time you get out of your car past 5 pm and you have no way of seeing through the over packed garage to get into your house! You keep clicking your auto unlock on your car keys to get the car lights to flicker and be of some assistance. And how many months can you keep doing this? When is Daylight Savings time again? You have to conquer this list! You have to attempt to put some dent into it while the kids are away! But what about me time? What about the other family you have been neglecting? Did you call everyone or visit everyone over the holidays? Now, back to that "To Do' list. Somehow I will get some items checked off. And those garage lights? That has to move up to the top of the list before I break my leg.
|
AuthorSuzanne Taylor: mother, divorcee survivor, abuse survivor, ESL teacher and lover of food and sports ArchivesCategories |