Monthly Archives: March 2012

Friday in Chicagoland

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Go vote in yesterday’s poll! Don’t you want to be part of me cooking up some frightening concoction????

Well, here I am in a city I love, hanging out at an airport hotel. You can’t win them all. Meetings are going well at least.

Made it to the airport this morning with no major issues, on time and everything. Knew I needed to eat something before we got on the plane, so tried “Denver” breakfast tacos from Schlotzsky’s. They were interesting. For $4.95 you got two soft shells stuffed with essentially a Denver omelet EACH. They were heavy. I ate one and thought that was more than enough. Plus they had really sad tater tot type potatoes with them. I don’t think Schlotzsky’s has a fryer. These were pretty sad. But a relatively good deal, pound for pound, if you want a bunch of food.

Flight was quiet, in a pretty small jet, only 4 seats across, was almost full as usual. I alternated between knitting (my mom’s socks are finished except to Kitchener stitch the toes – which requires a quiet well-lit room and possibly some chanting) and reading a new book. “How to Moon A Cat” which is part of a series my friend Cathy started me on. They are fine airplane reading.

Arrived in Chicago and our hotel is close to Harry Carey’s so we went there for lunch rather than eat at our own hotel. I had read that the spinach pappardelle was good (online research prior to trip) so I tried that.

It was pretty good, although I could have done with more noodles and less sausage. The noodles are green, those are not green peppers. I like the large wide pappardelle noodles.

I went to take a picture of my board member’s meal, and my camera, which had said “battery full” last night, said “battery empty” and shut off, so that was the end of that. I though I had my battery charger along, but I have my WORK camera battery charger along….so no more pics from this trip, I guess.

I was the only female at a table full of farmers tonight. You always get served first when that is the case. Not that I sat at that table on purpose, but women are usually in the minority at farm meetings, you usually don’t have to wait in line for the restroom. We discussed many entertaining subjects: combine fires and then wild fires (if you think a kitchen fire is expensive, try a combine fire), 9-foot catfish (you need to use a foot long perch for bait), skeet shooting for real men (search YouTube if you are interested), how to convert a farm truck to an electric engine, the price of fuel, World War II transportation logistics, and probably several that can’t remember. Very entertaining. This hotel is open-centered, around an atrium, and I can still hear laughing from the 1st floor, and I am on the 6th, so they are probably still telling stories down there.

The meal was fine, minestrone, a salad, and then a small steak, two shrimp, carrots, asparagus (which was particularly good I thought) and a mound of mashed potatoes. What was striking was the plate of butter. There were two types of butter, plain whitish, and then a darker colored one that we finally asked and found out was herb/garlic. They were in huge mounds piped onto a plate – I kid you not, EACH of those butter mounds was bigger than the serving of mashed potatoes we got. They are going to go broke on the butter in this place. Of course, from the consistency, I am not convinced it was REAL butter, so maybe that explains it.

Anyway, a good travel day, uneventful. That makes me concerned about the trip home, hopefully it will be uneventful as well.

My Very First Poll – Which Cookbook?

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I have a new hero. This blogger not only collects frightening recipes, she MAKES them and feeds them to her husband. And takes pictures of him eating them. This would never work in our house. http://www.midcenturymenu.com/ She has separated them into “worst” and “best” – of course I am reading the worst first. I may have nightmares tonight.

RetroRuth has inspired me to try some new recipes. It is Spring, hey, why not? So, I am going to have a little interactive feature here, and allow you to VOTE on which cookbook I should make a recipe out of, and then vote on the recipe. Of course, I am not married to someone who will eat tuna and mayo in lime jello, so I am going to pick recipes that look edible, but I will pick a good selection and then you can have your say, and then I will take photos and document the process, including our reaction. Sound like fun? Tough, do it anyway!

So, I pulled five cookbooks from my stash (I tried to narrow it down but really, who can resist some of these lurid covers) and at the end of the entry, you will find a poll on which one you want to see recipes from. I will be on travel for a few days, so you probably won’t have a recipe choice until Monday. Hopefully something entertaining will happen to my on my business trip that I can write about. (Not TOO exciting however, like being stuck in Chicago an extra day, etc.) (Not that I mind being in Chicago, but I like to DO THINGS in Chicago, not be stuck at the airport.)

1st Cookbook – Metropolitan Cook Book, by The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. I am guessing this one is from the 40s. It appears the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company published a series of these, I saw one from 1922 that looks similar on the inside but the cover on this one seems more recent. Has an assortment of recipes and I love the graphics on the cover.

The 2nd cookbook – “Meals for Two” from the Encyclopedia of Cooking, complete in 24 Volumes (I don’t think I have them all…..) published by the Culinary Arts Institute. I figure at least with this one I won’t be making a recipe with a large quantity. Again, a variety of foods. From 1954, a true Mid-Century cookbook. From the appearance of that meat, they didn’t go for “lean” back then.

Again from the Culinary Institute: 500 Tasty Sandwich Recipes. If you think I am going to make that one on the cover with the asparagus and tomatoes, you are wrong. But it is a delightful picture, yes?

Number 4 is “Body Building Dishes for Children” – again from the Culinary Institute. I just love the lurid photography on these. I do believe that is hash on the cover. Back from the days when we needed to fatten the children up, not skinny them down. I know we don’t have any children but this one just amused me too much.

This one is also from the Culinary Arts Institute but is not part of the Encyclopedia of Cooking. It is part of their “500” Series. Apparently they figured 500 recipes for anything was enough for anyone. 500 Snacks – Bright Ideas for entertaining. From 1940. This cover is kind of dark but if you start looking at it closely you can see some frightening things.

So vote away! One vote per person! I will keep the poll open until Sunday night! Ken, you will just have to figure out which book looks least disturbing and tell all your friends to vote for that one.

Leftovers, Anyone?

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I was saved by my planning ahead last nigh. Still feeling somewhat nauseous, I wasn’t about to make anything with meat for dinner. Aha, I thought, I have an 8 by 8 pan of lasagna in the freezer from February. So I thawed that out for Ken for dinner and re-heated in the oven (better that way) and I even had a little tiny bit.

Other than that, not much going on. I had a meeting in Denver this morning so worked from home after that. Other than getting kicked off the remote login several times and complaining to our IT contractor about that, it was a quiet day. Went to Knit Knight at Panera Bread, did NOT sample the tortellini as I intended as I did not think my stomach was up to that. Had a very enjoyable time knitting, as usual. Now one day in the office before I go on travel again. At least it sounds like the weather is going to be good and I won’t get snowed in while I am in Chicago.

Since it was my birthday this weekend (which I got to enjoy by being SICK), how about some adorable baby pictures? :  )

Two weeks old:

Six weeks old:

Five months old:

Yeah, yeah, I was cute then, what happened? Yada yada yada, I have heard it all. Look how young my parents are! See what (cough) years of me will do to you?

Recovery Mode

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Sorry for no entry yesterday, but I was still recovering from either food poisoning or a stomach virus this weekend. I suspect food poisoning, because as soon as I got all of that food out, I felt much better. Not a pleasant night while that was happening though, and everything I planned on getting done on Sunday got postponed. Felt a little better on Monday, I had been planning on working from home and attending a lunch meeting, but took a sick day instead and skipped the lunch meeting (food, still, ugh, not a good thought.) Have been subsisting on popsicles, Lipton chicken noodle soup, milk toast, and 7Up. Would make Jello but I forgot to get any CoolWhip, and what is Jello without Coolwhip?

And Sunday was my birthday, so that was an interesting way to spend my birthday. Memorable, I guess.

What do you eat at your house when you get sick? Growing up it was always 7Up, and Campbells Chicken noodle soup. Ken introduced me to the Lipton chicken noodle soup mixes, and I had heard about milk toast, and just tried it for the first time (not bad).

It is very odd for me to not want to look at, think about, smell, or watch food on TV. I started to go upstairs when Ken had warmed up some leftovers for dinner and I had to turn around, and wait for awhile. Usually I claim Monday night as “My TV” night when I get to watch Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, but not this Monday….

MaryAnne was more than happy to have me home all day, she thought I was here specifically to throw her sparkly balls for her to fetch. I did manage to wash a couple of loads of laundy (delicates, etc.) that Ken didn’t do yesterday, and put away my laundry. Made a run to the library and the grocery store (for popsicles) and then came home and thought I might need a little nap. I lay down on the couch at about 3 and woke up at 5:45, don’t remember dreaming or anything, just waking up occasionally when the house creaked because of the terrific wind we were having and thinking, hmm, I have been asleep about 15 minutes. I hope I sleep that well again tonight.

It has been so nice here that thoughts have turned to gardening. Thinking I will turn one of the beds that I usually put tomatoes in into a poppy bed. Wishing I could get up to SD to get some of my grandmother’s poppies, which are already up, so it will probaby be too late by the time I get up there. I love homegrown tomatoes but I always seem to plant a bunch of them and then it is too hot or too cold or too dry or too wet and I don’t get good results, so maybe I will just try one in a container and a few in the regular garden.

Vintage Watkins Cookbook Brownies

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Since I take such delight in posting bad/scary recipes from vintage cookbooks, how about if I post a good recipe. I was emulating one of my favorite food blogs, Time Travel Kitchen, and I thought about submitting this as a guest post, but now I have my own blog and am short on materials, so here it is!

This is from an old Watkins cookbook, I don’t know how old because I didn’t take a picture of the copyright page, and right now I can’t find the cookbook. That is how it goes in this house sometimes. Watkins was a company that used to have sales women like Tupperware, etc. I don’t know if they ever had parties. They had spices and flavorings (like vanilla extract) and maybe cleaning products. They are still listed as a home business opportunity online. Or you can order the products online. Whenever I see someone at a fair or festival selling Watkins, I stock up. You can also buy Watkins at Walmart now, but the bottles are pretty tiny.

Artsy picture of brownie ingredients. I am not really sure I succeeded in being artsy. Do you wash your sifter? Obviously I don’t. But it is flour and cocoa and stuff like that, and it would probably rust if I washed it. So there.

Here is the cookbook. I also have a Watkins cookbook that is strictly salads.

Here is the recipe:

I did not use Watkins Baking Powder or cocoa. I did use Watkins vanilla. The book does not tell you what size pan to bake in, but it didn’t make a huge amount of batter, so I used a well-greased 8 by 8 glass pan. I do believe I cooked them at 350, that is about what a moderate oven should be. Don’t you love how these old cookbooks assume everyone will know that. Along with “little salt” – I used about 1/4 tsp. They taste flat without salt.

They kind of cave in in the middle and are all cakey and fudgy. Despite the recipe suggestion, these do not need frosting. They are quite rich already.

Some of the better brownies I have ever made. Very rich. Unfortunately, I took these pictures several months ago, so I have no hot and delicious brownies to go eat now. Oh well, at least I had something to write about!

So have you ever used Watkins products? Do you have a Watkins cookbook?

New Pasta at Panera Bread

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I saw a sign for new pasta at Panera, and of course I can’t remember where….it seems like it was outside my usual stomping grounds, but who knows where that is. Anyway, I couldn’t find ANYTHING on line about it, so I figured it was a test market thing and I had come across one store featuring it. But when I went to Knit Knight at the local Panera, there it was. So, as a public service, and to get it out there on the internets, here is my review of Panera’s new pastas. Well, two of them at least. (My review of the tortellini, here!)

I am betting they added these because of the success of their macaroni and cheese. According to a known mac and cheese fancier, my friend Cathy, who is a known macaroni and cheese fancier, it is pretty good. So they are trying three more kinds, and you can get them by themselves (more on that later) in a small size with a cafe soup or salad, or a large size with a cafe soup or salad. Well, at Knit Knight I had the pesto sachettini, with a Ceasar salad, and a chunk of baguette. The small combination is $8.29 and the large is $9.99. I find that to be a kind of questionable value. Even better, I stopped at Panera near work the next day because I of course forgot to pick up a copy of the flier that had information about the pasta on it, and I wanted to get one more kind, so I could have sampled at least 2 different kinds before I wrote this review. Without the salad or soup (you still get the bread) – a little tiny bowl of pasta is $7.79. Holy catfish. They are making money on this hand over fist. However, I guess it about in line with their other prices, which I do not consider to be a bargain. This is my opinion and my opinion only. Our knitting group is meeting at Panera, at least temporarily, and it is refreshing to have something different to order. I will try the tortellini next week so I can have a complete report.

Colorado is apparently a test market for these, since I have seen them in at least 2 different cities (and maybe 3, if I could remember the first place I saw them….)

On to the actual food. At Knit Knight I had the sachettini pesto. The sachettini are little “purses” full of cheese. They say there are six different kinds of cheese in there, but it was just kind of bland and cheesy. The pasta was well past al dente. I wasn’t wild about the pesto, because I like my pesto pretty strong, but it turned out to be pretty strong later when it was repeating on me all night (is that a tactful way to say that?) Maybe I was just drinking too much soda. One of my other friends tried it too and she gave it a seven or eight out of ten. I gave it a 5, better than Fazzoli’s but worse than Noodles and Company.

Now, the Rustic Penne Bolognese which I had by itself, was very tasty. The noodles are thick and quite sturdy, and hold up better than the sachettini. The bolognese sauce was very tasty. However, this is what you get for $7.79 –

If you don’t want a soup or salad with it. So, that soup or salad is valued at about 40 cents if I am remembering the prices right.

Here is the little informational sheet they have about the pastas:

So, my recommendation is: If you are tired of the “Pick two” option, you can try this one for something new and get pasta instead, with a soup or salad. Next week I may even try the ‘large’ tortellini to see how large it is. The sacrifices I make for the reading/eating public. But I wanted to get something out there because Google is remarkable lacking in information. So, here it is! Worth a try, especially the bolognese. I will report back next week on the tortellini. Great taste, at least on the bolognese, maybe not such a great value, but decide for yourself.

Worcestershire: Not Just For After the Shower, for Any Time You want to Smell Like Fermented Anchovies

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I had great ambition to get up on Sunday morning and make waffles (best waffle recipe here) but then I remembered I had leftover shrimp soup so the waffles will wait until next weekend. Worked on the landscape quilt more (the sky is about doing me in….) and alternated with cleaning up the sunroom and kitchen, finally getting all of the pictures that had been taken down after the October kitchen fire for cleaning and painting. More or less in the same places. I think.

Lunch was steaks with this marinade. It has been floating around Pinterest so I thought I would try it. I would debate it being the “World’s Best” but it was pretty good. It was very windy, and hard to get the grill started. Peeled a bunch of potatoes and mashed them so we will have those leftovers all week. Steaks, cheesy brocolli, and mashed potatoes with pork gravy (out of beef gravy mix, see next paragraph…..)

Ran to the grocery store as we were starting to get quite a list and Ken needed some things for work breakfasts.

I learned an interesting thing at the grocery store. If the guy who was bagging groceries leaves and no one takes his place, things stack up and it is possible for a bottle of Worcestershire sauce to get stuck at the end of the belt, where it goes around and around and around and that friction will remove the lid AND the little “sealed for your protection” jobby and Worcestershire sauce will spray all over the place. Oh well, there are worse things to smell like than Worcestershire sauce.

Tried another new recipe for dinner. Saucy Asian Meatballs. My picture isn’t nearly as perfect as hers but I did buy a fun new plate at CostPlus World Market to display them on.

I used chicken instead of beef or pork because Sunflower had ground chicken on sale and we tend to eat a lot of beef so a change is good. The meatballs were good, the sauce needed something. Maybe it was just a taste we were not used to. Of course, I determined there was not going to be ENOUGH sauce for putting over rice, so I stretched it with teriyaki sauce, so that probably didn’t help. We tend to like sweeter Asian sauces, so I may experiment next time.

I leave you with a rare picture of sibling cleanliness, on top of the laundry pile. MaryAnne very rarely puts up with this for long.

Saturday, Saturday

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Saturday morning started out with a quick trip to my Avon lady’s house to pick up my order. I stock up big time on their bubble bath every time it is on sale. It is the best bubble bath I have found anywhere, and believe me, I try everything. I tend to like the “kid” scents first.

When I make a “My Favorite Products” page, Avon bubble bath will be the first thing on there. I usually get a bunch of lip balm too, usually anything jelly bean/sugary candy flavored. I am not sure that it ends up doing my lips much good, since I like the taste and then lick my lips….

Ken went out golfing because it sounded like Saturday was going to be nicer than Sunday. He doesn’t always get to golf in March. In 2003, we had the St. Patrick’s day blizzard, which amounted to about 3 feet of snow, so March is highly variable.

After my Avon pick-up, I went home to work on the landscape quilt a little more. Then off to Gregorio’s, the Mexican restaurant that has the shrimp soup that I love love love. The crowd was a little thin there, with it being St. Patrick’s day. Apparently St. Patrick’s day is not a day for Mexican food. The soup was as good as always, apologies for forgetting to get a picture. It had this delicious mostly chicken (?) or shrimp based broth, maybe not even tomatoes, onions, potatoes sliced very thin, a little rice, many many green peppers and red pepper and jalapenos (especially if you tell the waitress you want it HOT HOT HOT). Well, it was not quite as spicy hot as last time, but it was good. Their chips and salsa are good too, and by the time I the soup gets there, I can’t eat the whole thing, so I get a container to go and then I have breakfast for the next day! Mmmmmmmmm. I have not yet figured out how to duplicate this recipe at home.

Then I stopped at Tuesday morning on the way home because I was still looking for hat boxes. They had only one, and I didn’t particularly care for the design. I went home from there, forgetting that I wanted to stop at Hobby Lobby and look for hat boxes, and that I should go to the library to pick up the books I had on hold.

Progress on the quilt:

Those reds on that hill are really red-violets, the color is a little off in this picture.

I got home and worked on the landscape quilt again, and ran out of Wonder Under (fusible product for sewing, iron on to the back of fabric and then you can iron the fabric onto other things). My role model in fusing quilts (Melody Johnson at Fibermania) says ONLY use Wonder Under, so I took my 50% off coupon to JoAnn fabric and I bought a whole bolt of it. That should hold me for a while.

Since I was out and about again (I need to consolidate my appointments better so as to save on $$$ gas) I ran to Hobby Lobby and found a hat box (victory!) for less than $10, it may have been even more on sale than that, I forgot to look at the receipt, as well as part of my niece Taylor’s birthday gift (HA! Taylor, I know your sister reads this, I am not going to say what it is!) and stopped at the library to get my books, including “Yellowstone Super Volcano” by Harry Turtledove, which probably means I will have nightmares about volcanoes all week.

Then I went to DSW and went shoe shopping. Unfortunately, I was wearing Crocs so I didn’t have my orthotic inserts in, and that affects how shoes fit, so I bought 3 pairs and I am pretty sure I will have to return at least 1. I still have to stop at Bass some night this week, I usually have good luck there.

I had put a turkey breast in the crock pot earlier in the day Saturday, and it smelled great. I knew I was going to miss out on crispy skin this way, but I wanted to get it cooked and out of the freezer, knowing it would make good leftovers for Kenny to eat this week on the days when he has to work late. Between the juice from the Crockpot (including 15 oz of chicken broth the recipe calls for) and the plastic bag of gravy that came with the turkey breast, I made A LOT of gravy. Had leftover mashed potatoes from earlier in the week, was too tired to peel potatoes Saturday night and decided to do that on Sunday and make PLENTY for the week. I used this recipe, and it was excellent. Very moist. Sorry, no pics of the turkey, it tasted great but it wasn’t beautiful.

MaryAnne the Gargoyle

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It was a busy weekend, starting out Friday night with me making it home in time for us to go to the fish fry at the nearby Catholic Church (the week before, my drive home took an hour and a half, so we were too late for the fish fry, and went to Texas Roadhouse for rolls, large drinks, and steaks instead.) The fish fry was OK. They fried the tarnation out of that fish – it was a little tough for me. Ken liked it. In addition to the fish, there was Kraft macaroni and cheese, fried potatoes, cole slaw, bread and carrot cake for dessert. Lemonade, coffee and water to eat. Only $7 each, it was very reasonable at least. A little heavy on the carbs maybe. :  )

MaryAnne has a new bad habit. She jumps up on top of the entertainment center, hoping to reach down to the second shelf below and get one of her sparkle balls. If she wouldn’t knock them under the washing machine, she wouldn’t have this problem. Needless to say, it is a little startling to walk into the room and see furry gargoyle peering over her realm. There is also catnip on that shelf.

We don’t put her stuff on the TOP shelf, because she could reach that.

She thinks she is quite clever. This is what you see when you walk into the room, feel the hairs on the back of your neck prickle, and look up:


Got quite a lot of knitting done on my Mom’s socks while watching re-reruns of Diners, DriveIns and Dives on various evenings. I am down to where I need to start decreasing on one of them, so I will continue to work on the foot on the other one until I am also that far along, and then start decreasing on both of them.

I also spent some time looking through one of my top well-loved church cookbooks. It is not actually a “church” cookbook, it is the Hendricks Community Hospital Association Cookbook, published in 1993. I believe I purchased it in Hendricks while I was there for an auction, the summer I did repertory theater after college. It has the true mark of a good midwestern cookbook, separate sections for cookies and bars. You know they are serious about their bars if there is a separate section. I think I may have found my long lost favorite lemon bar recipe. I will experiment and post. It is also good to look through a cookbook again after you have maybe set it down for a few years, because your tastes change and you may cook differently, so more recipes may be useful. Which just means you should never get rid of a cookbook, maybe that is why I have so many, someday I should count them.

Noticed my crocuses were blooming this week! I was going to take a picture but they close up pretty early, and I missed them. The tulips and iris and several other perennials are also up, I am pretty sure we will get snow on them at some point but hopefully it won’t freeze too hard. It looked like snow/rain in the foothills this afternoon but apparently it is just dust blowing in the wind. There was a major fire going out on the Eastern plains on Sunday evening, I have farmer friends out there that I am thinking about. It is very dry and windy, we could use some moisture (even snow!) for the crops and just simply to cut down on the fire danger.

Leo says we don’t have to worry about HIM jumping up on the entertainment center. He and his fishy are happy to stay on the ground.

SDSU Jackrabbits and Funeral Food

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Well, we enjoyed a rousing basketball game Thursday night, with the SDSU (SOUTH DAKOTA, not San Diego) Jackrabbits giving Baylor a run for their money in their first NCAA appearance. You have to love a team called the Jackrabbits. No one else has that team name, thank you very much.

Our alumni association held a watch party at a downtown bar, and I had told my boss this was very important and I was going to leave at 3:30 to get through the traffic and attend. For a while there, Ken and I were among the 4 oldest people there. Eventually some more people who had graduated before 2000 appeared. We all grouped together and talked. We were NOT the ones doing shots, please note. One of my Facebook friends suggested that we tell stories about the olden days, when you had to look stuff up at the library, and go to division II games. Oh yeah. But it was very fun to be with a group of about 50 people, enjoying the game.

One of the gals there was from Lemmon. And I said, oh, my uncle was married to B.H. from Lemmon (names changed to protect the googleable). And she said, “Was his name R.?” “Why, yes,” I said. “B’s mom is MY mom’s best friend!” she said.

I tell you, South Dakota is one giant small town.Too fun.

Well, then we got to talking with the four of us “more distinguished” alumni, about all-you-can eat lunch buffets (we are from SD, of course we are going to talk about food) and how you aren’t going to make any money on a lunch buffet if you have a high percentage of South Dakotans showing up. Which led me to say we grew up training on church potlucks and funeral luncheons. And I had to tell them my mom and dad had a funeral to go to today, and m & d were talking about just going to the service and not staying for the lunch, and I was shocked, shocked I say, because funeral lunches are good! And one of the guys said “Yeah, you don’t want to miss the egg salad sandwiches!” Which totally cracked me up because I had talked to Mom on the phone and that is what they had! Or that is what she had, my dad had either beef salad or ham salad. My fellow alum said “I haven’t even SEEN ham salad anywhere but SD.”

So I think for my next knitting party I am going to have to make beef salad sandwiches. I don’t have a grinder any more, (we also talked about how you need the big heavy meat grinder) (Mom still has hers that was a wedding present 48 years ago, from Aunt Lucille and Uncle Emil, she thinks) so I will have to try the food processor. This recipe is a pretty good approximation, although I don’t think we ever added anything so fancy as eggs, probably because my dad wouldn’t eat them, and you had to be real careful with the onions if he was eating them too.

http://pamsmidwestkitchenkorner.blogspot.com/2010/11/beef-salad-sandwich.html

So, I am not trying to be disrespectful of anyone’s funeral, but most of the funerals I have attended have been celebrations of life, and I know the deceased would have been happy we enjoyed the food.

Other things common at SD west river funerals (or maybe just Folsom, SD funerals): If there are sandwiches with lunch meat, there will be some with mayo and some with butter. Chips. Relish tray. BARS (how to tell a good cookbook, they have sections for cookies, and cakes, AND BARS!). And every kind of salad you can imagine. Jello with fruit, jello with vegetables, jello with mayo (ugh), Cool Whip in every incarnation imaginable. And KoolAid for the kids, coffee for the grown ups and ice tea if it is summer. I still go for the KoolAid myself.

What am I missing as far as funeral food? What did you grow up eating at funerals?

And, a picture of fancy Jello for your enjoyment.

Yes, I made that, of course.