Comfort Food and Comfortable People~

Growing up we often had hamburger steak for dinner.  I don't recall ever having a regular steak at home. We had this dish with mashed potatoes and gravy made from the drippings from the frying of the hamburger steaks. Delicious.  I have to say I have never made this dish in all the years I have been married and I don't know why. I saw this picture from South in your Mouth and vow to take this on  one day soon.  I do also recall as a child the best hamburger I have ever put in my mouth was fresh beef  in hamburger form straight from the butchering.  It has an entirely different taste and one that is remembered all these years.

Then there is pizza.  Ahhh. I was a senior in high school on a date.  We went to this little place in Parkersburg, West Virginia and my date ordered this beautiful pie.  Had never seen one.  Had never heard of it.  When I tasted it it was cast in the 'memory taste' that stayed with me and it is a fond thought. I remember the pizza but forget the boy who bought it. The next year I attended Otterbein and had pizza on a regular basis.  In fact I walked eight miles for pizza with my sorority sisters on a walk for some cause--forgot the cause remember the pizza AND the eight mile walk.

It started when we were newly married in one of the very first apartment building areas in Columbus off of Olentangy Road.  Our new friends kept wanting us to come for coffee and I wondered why?  I was not a coffee drinker and my parents never had time to 'go for coffee' or 'come for coffee', so it took me a long time to get it.  Now,it is a comfort that I enjoy every day.

 

We are looking forward to today and Joe's family reunion. I don't have to cook and that is a lovely thing. I'll have pictures, I'm sure.  Even though I am not cooking we are not going empty handed: we have Joe's gift Maker's Mark and a new whiskey (to us)called Knob Creek named after Lincoln's birth place in Kentucky.  I've not seen Joe drink that, so it should be a nice treat for him.  Stuart Woods, the author of around forty novels and ones that I am really in to at the moment, wrote of Knob Creek Bourbon in many of his books. Then our niece Kathy loves brussel sprouts and eats them like popcorn.   I am taken a dish of those for her. Her husband gets Mr. and Mrs. T, a spicy bloody Mary mix that I find to my liking and I wanted him to try that.   Tom and Chee enjoy my homemade granola, so we have some bags of that for them.  Pam gets wine and George gets granola too. We five will be there with bells on in just a few hours, with pleasure.

We had a great family reunion today in Cincinnati.  Here are some pictures. Click on the pictures to make them larger.