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| Prime Rib for Thanksgiving Dinner. Perfection. |
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| Bacon Flavored Green Beans |
Amy and her husband Jeff were gracious enough to host our
Thanksgiving Feast at their home in Amarillo
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| Bleu Cheese Sauce |
And I do mean Rocked It. That
Prime Rib was a thing of beauty. Perfectly cooked, tender, juicy goodness. Makes my mouth water just to think of
it. Amy whipped up a delectable bleu
cheese sauce to go with it, as well as an Au Jus that I could sit and eat with
a spoon. Heck, I could drink it with a straw, it was that delicious!! Probably
because of the wine that was in it.
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| Surprise! My sweet sweet Sissy. |
I learned something very important about wine that day. I came toting a bottle of wine that my friend
Tammi introduced me to called “Red Electra.”
It is a California Muscat wine, and it is sweet and a little
bubbly. I thought my Sweet Mama would
like the flavor of it, so I mainly brought it for her to try. She does not always care for the darker reds
that my sister and I like to partake of on occasion.
Since Mama is not much of a drinker, I was taken by surprise
when she looked at the bottle and declared, “This wine doesn’t have enough
alcohol in it.” Huh? Hadn’t even crossed my mind to check the
alcohol content, and here she is telling me it’s too low.
“Whattaya mean it doesn’t have enough alcohol in it? How much is it supposed to have?” I
inquired.
“Well,” she informed me, “I always buy my wine according to
the alcohol content. This stuff only has
5%. That’s too low. See this bottle I brought?” She hoisted a
bottle of $5 White Zinfandel and peered
at it’s label. “This is good stuff, it has almost 11%.”
My sister and I looked her and busted out laughing. “So that’s
how you tell the good stuff, huh?” we asked.
She started laughing too. My Mama has the best laugh, especially when
she is laughing at herself. Her whole
face laughs, and you can tell she is on the verge of laughing herself into
tears. It makes everything funnier, and
it is one of my favoritest things in the wide world. Mama’s laugh.
I could sort of understand her thinking behind shopping for
the highest concentration. She was
taking the "quantity vs. quality" approach. I guess buying wine to her is like buying
skeeter spray; instead of choosing your product based on scent or flavor, you just
look for something strong enough to kill a small hummingbird.
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| Half Apple Pie |
With our wonderful dinner down the hatch, it was time for
Dessert Round One. (There are always multiple rounds of dessert when you’re a
Butterton.) Mama had made some beautiful pies: chocolate with the most
beautiful calf slobbers on top, a delicious pumpkin pie complete with whipped
cream, and a Half-Apple Pie. Now, when
she brought the pies in and announced that she had made my brother in law a
“Half Apple Pie”, I was a little confused.
I assumed that it was half filled with apple pie filling and maybe half
filled with cherry or something else that would kinda go with apple. I had never seen her do this before, but it
seemed somewhat logical. Turns out, what
she was referring to was the fact that it only looked like she had used half
the amount of pie filling. The top crust
on the pie had somehow sunken in, so that the pie had a concave look to
it. So much so in fact that Dad thought
it was just an empty pie crust waiting for the filling. I thought it was genius, because it made for
more crust, my favorite part. I think I
will start requesting Half Apple Pie every year from now on.
After Dessert Round One usually comes game time, so we can work up an appetite for Dessert Round Two. We love to play games, especially Mama. And she cheats at the games she’s bad at. Makes the rules up as she goes along. Peeks at the trivia answers when nobody’s looking. Skips her board game pieces ahead a few spaces. When she’s good at a game, she plays for blood. Slams down doubles on a Mexican Train just to see if you can back it. Shrieks in delight for you to “PUT YOUR PENNY UP!!!” when you can’t. That’s why it is so much fun to beat her when you can actually get it done.
We were trying to decide what to play when I remembered a game I had seen advertised called “LOGO”. It looked like fun and I guess I was drunk on Au Jus because I suggested that we head to The Wal Mart and see if they had it. Now, most people who know me know that I despise The Wal Mart. Only go when it’s absolutely necessary and usually in the middle of the night. But here we were, only hours shy of the beginning of Black Friday, making a trip into the belly of the beast. I was sure that we would need bail money. Or Valium. We got there and the parking lot was packed but not completely full. Amy and I left Mama in the car and headed in to face our fate. We walked through the doors dodging customers with flat screen TV’s and 362 boxes of Christmas lights. Dread welled up in me like a fist in my stomach. I despised these people for no reason other than them being present at the moment.
We stepped into the store and lo and behold, there it was,
not 20 feet in. “LOGO” in big white
letters on a red background. My heart
skipped a beat. I was practically giddy.
Could it be true that we could walk right in and it would be there for
us on a silver platter? I grabbed a box
and we sprinted for the checkout stands where another Thanksgiving miracle
awaited. A green light beckoned from above
one of the Self-Check Registers. Not a
soul was near. I didn’t even have to
argue with the recorded voice when it told me to Please Place The Stupid Item
In The Freaking Bagging Area. Just
slapped the barcode against the glass, swiped my debit card through the
machine, and raced out of the store. Not
one bit of anxiety, no cussing, no waiting.
I was truly Thankful.
I hope all of you had
as joyful and happy a Thanksgiving as we did.
I am blessed with the most wonderful family, and even though I make fun
of ‘em a little here and there, I truly do thank God for them.
