This last Sunday the fam attended a funeral service for a dear family friend. It was stoic and beautiful. It shocked me how easily I fell into step with the Lutheran rituals during a service. It's like riding a bike I guess. Once you learn it, you learn it for life.
Jan Jeide will be dearly missed. We "lost" her several years ago when she lost her short term memory and was moved to an assisted living home. She had no recollection of who many of her friends were at some point which is difficult on the living.
Because of the funeral, the subject of death and dying came up at Sunday dinner. It was interesting to witness how couples perceive their death. Each couple had an idea of what they thought was wanted by their spouse. Some have talked about it, others, clearly had not. Which made me laugh at some of the surprised faces of, "What? You want what?" If nothing else, maybe this Sunday dinner started conversations.
Dying has long been something I fear. Not because I'm afraid of the great beyond, but because I'm afraid I will not have accomplished everything in my life, or seen everything, or experienced everything. And what if no one misses me? Hopefully I will die at ripe old age...and by then most my family members close to me will be long gone (which I'll miss them dearly). The realization that I might actually die alone is troubling to me.
Anyhow, back to more interesting and uplifting discussion. What did we have at Sunday dinner?
Chili!
Or is it Chillie?
Or Chilli?
Or chile?
I can never figure out which chilli is chili.
ahem...
Let's start with dessert. It is something, I believe you should start with because you never know if you'll survive to the end of a meal. So why risk it.
New York Style Crumb Cake. (insert trumpets and angels singing)
Despite my best efforts to utterly destroy this cake by forgetting a major ingredient (baking powder) it didn't turn out half bad. It was a bit floury tasting at times, and a bit more dense then I like my cakes. But it was good enough to find it's way into the Jenn Favorites and the "Need to Make Again" list.
The recipe is here if you want to give it a try.
Mmmm Chili bar. I've made Frito Lollies for previous Sunday dinners and I'd prefer to not duplicate meals if I can. I mean I have 1500 recipes, I'm pretty sure I can find something new for Sunday dinner for a couple of years.
It had been a cold and blustery week and so recommendations for chili made their way to my Inbox. Which is good. I like chili. I especially like my chili. My chili bar contained, fritos, crackers, onions, sour cream, cheese and hot sauce. Along side of the chili we had Queen PopUps Famous Cornbread...OMG soo good, as well as a new twist on slaw. I had enough chili left over to have one lunch, one service to Blueberry, and one serving to the Pantry Goat - who wasn't at all happy that I eat chili as a leftover.
I asked for a serious photo first and Seattle SIL took me way too - well - serious. I used my external flash this time so we had better lighting to see all those lovely faces.
Left to Right: Mr. Queen PopUp, Queen PopUp, BigBro, Seattle SIL, The Pantry Goat, Puck, Blueberry, The Yank, PhotoGirl and Moi.
And of course the not so serious photo. You'll not the BigBro and The Pantry Goat are hiding...they "said" they were glaring longingly into each other's eyes...which has become tradition. We'll never know.
Next Sunday dinner will be smack dab in the middle of the holiday hoo-la-la. I've decided to do a cookie exchange. So all you normal attendees to Sunday Dinner...get your holiday cookie or sweets recipes out.
0 comments:
Post a Comment