When Life Tastes So Good

So much is goin' on around me, but at least I'm keepin' my own head above water. If you read Queen Hester's blog, The Bitches Council, you know she isn't in a good place lately. Her fat, balding, asshole of a husband decided to leave her for some unattainable fantasy life. Mmhmm. Go'on Peter Pan! Butt rag!

Definitely will be his loss, someone else's gain.

Several compatriots my friends are goin' through struggles. I've been trying to convince Leoban to take me for weekend in "Re-homo" (Rehobeth Beach, DE) to escape monotony, but LB has his own hands full with his ailing father and a son going off to Uni in August. Pretty much puts the kibosh on those plans.

So what have I've been doing to fend off life's woes? How I managed to come out unscathed is any body's guess. Going to church helps, I suppose, but just little simple things really. Been reading James Baldwin, including Another Country and Giovanni's Room. Then there's my culinary habits.

Thursday, my Southern roots came shinin' through in the kitchen. Cooking is my true love and I've always wanted to open a restaurant since I was a tyke. My Grandmama woulda been proud of me. As they say, "I put my put my foot in it."

Don' ask me what inspired me to cook, cuz I couldn't tell you. I'd been hungry more than a minute for some catfish. There's no decent take out places locally for good catfish, so I decided to make make my own. Last time my mum was in town, she stocked mu freezer up with catfish, salmon, tilapia, flounder, cod, shrimp, and scallops. (I'm usually too cheap to buy seafood on my own. Shit is way beyond my budget!)

Got up early in the morning, seasoned, breaded, and fried my catfish, made fresh cole slaw, sweet potato potato salad, string beans with smoked turkey wings, homemade corn bread and corn muffins, plus sweet tea! By the time five o'clock rolled around, the house smelled divine!

I don't know who all I done made all that food for cause it's jus me up in da joint. I have enough leftovers for days. I plan on giving half to Tamodi and Hester to feed their families, I have so much food!

Unfortunately, I never quite learned how to cook for one person. Just ask Hester, Napoleon, Miss T, or E.J. about last year's Christmas dinner and the spread I prepared. I had enough food to feed probably 100 people. Tha's no exaggeration either!No wonder I collapsed Christmas night. I'd been up 48 hours cookin' LOL.

I learned how to cook at my Grandmama's knee. She was a South Carolina gal who had 14 siblings, so she always made large meals. Even af'er her brothers and sisters were all dead and buried, Mom-mom cooked large ass meals. I get my joy out of cookin'. It's one of my talents plus it brings me closer to her memory. All my daddy's people are gone now, 'cluding him, except for a handful of cousins spread out between Richmond and Hampton Roads. Issy's cousin, my second cousin, lives in Richmond. Freddie's gay as the day is long, in his late 60s by now, so there won't be any left, unless I have kids to continue the family name. All my sister's kids have their daddies' last names.

Enough of that though. I can still see Grandmama to this day. Picture the house in SW DC, smell the food cookin' as we walked through the door, Grandpop watchin's games on TV, radio tuned into another baseball game. Hmph. Takes me back to summer way long gone....

By the by, the photos are courtesy my cellphone of dinner.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
-DT