I went to the strangest charity party last week. The venue was weird (a bank), the charity was weirdly targeted, the various associated partnerships (a cola, a magazine, a liquor store) were a weird combination. It was as if the organizers had put all the elements (cause, event, venue) into a big barrel and drawn them out, like a game of Clue. Professor Plum in the Conservatory with a knife. Dinner for free musical instruments for kids in a fabulous home. Coffee in a hotel lobby for kids in need. Food drive for community pantry in a school gymnasium. Wine in a bank to raise money for disadvantaged children’s camps.

Even the guest list was unfathomable. I don’t attend a lot of charitable events, but I do see the same faces at many of them. So it’s probably a good thing that there was a new crowd there.

Except it didn’t look like a crowd that was breaking out the check books. It wasn’t a hail-fellow-well-met crowd. It wasn’t the frosted-hair-and-fake-nails set. It wasn’t the earnest, well-heeled matrons. Instead, there were modestly dressed seniors sporting windbreakers and big inexpensive handbags, rushing the buffet and complaining about the food. And a few youngish people in branded sports gear.

There was just a token buffet. Snacks, really, plus lots of flowers. It was gone in a flash.

And then, just like that, the party was over. I just had to tell someone, so thanks for listening.

From December 7 to December 27, we spent just 4 nights at home. The rest of the time, we were either going to a party or throwing a party or cooking something to take to a party or sleeping off a party or washing clothes to attend another party. On the 20th nearly-consecutive night of parties, we attended a “festive casual supper” of 42 people, all relatives of ours, stretching to second cousins once removed and ex-step-aunt-in-laws.

One efficient party-giving gesture is cooking big pieces of meat. For one party, we semi-smoked a turkey (more on that below). For another, we made gumbo from the turkey. For another, we made our own homemade honey-baked ham. And finally, the beef roast, but that’s a story for another day.

Semi-smoked turkey was a huge success. We roasted a 12-pound turkey for about 3 hours, so it wasn’t yet done, but approaching it. We fired up the smoker and stoked it with mesquite, then put the turkey in a roasting pan and into the smoker for an hour. When it registered 150 degrees, we called it “done,” tented it in foil for a while, then  rushed it to the cutting board. It had  just the right amount of smoke flavor and was perfectly moist. And truly, I did not hing but oil and salt the skin, then put it in the oven, then transfer it to the smoker. People were arriving in minutes, so we didn’t shoot a photo.

You may be one of those people, like me, who love flavor pyrotechnics, so here’s one we conjured around the party table. A hunk of semi-smoked turkey, a swipe of wasabi mayo, a single zinfandel-simmered cranberry and a chunk of pickled watermelon rind. Searing hot, sweet, firm, chewy, tender. Da-yum. Took a photo of it, but accidentally deleted it.

(Just an aside on the smoker itself: my brother bought it from a guy who sells them from the empty lot near the 12th Avenue branch library in Nashville on Saturdays in good weather. The guy is a welder from Mt. Juliet. He converts discarded water heaters into smokers just the right size for civilian use.)

It’s not every day that someone tosses their best easy recipe your way.  The home-baked honey ham was one of these. My mother-in-law makes a refined-tasting ham for holiday breakfasts, and just rattled off the formula one afternoon. Buy a canned ham or a semi-boneless ham. It should say fully cooked, or ready to at, which you wouldn’t do under normal circumstances. Wipe off or rinse the ham, dry it a little so the honey will stick, then coat it with honey. Wrap it in two layers of foil and seal it well. Bake it in a roasting pan at about 300 degrees for 3 hours. Cool and slice. Two steps, great ham.

If I’d shot just three photos per party, that would have been 48 pictures. Besides the professionally shot photos of party number two, I only have two to offer. This is Spicy Nut Mix from recipezaar. Despite the name, it’s not especially spicy, and it’s a nice offering for the noneaters of sweets.

It was a good party season f0r homemade baked goods: this year I discovered some great cookies. This is our cookie tray from last night’s party.

Starting at the top and moving clockwise: lemon-butter wreaths from our cookie gun; Maida Heatter’s Chocolate Cracks; black walnut bars made with black walnuts from our yard; shortbread with a caramel-pecan top layer; lemon-glazed persimmon bars; jubilee wafers.

We learned a new way to “frost” the chocolate cracks, which by themselves aren’t so Christmasy, but they’re really chewy and fudgey, so you want to invite them to the party.  We add peppermint extract and frost them with Shirley Corriher’s technique: roll the dough balls in granulated sugar first, then in powdered sugar. The granulated sugar layer prevents the moisture in the cookie from wetting the powdered sugar, so the cookies stay frosty-looking.

I only make black walnut bars every couple of years. Black walnuts, they’re a lot of work. You have to gather them in either a basket (that you never want to use again for anything else) or a paper bag. Let them sit in the basement until the hulls soften and turn dark brown (and the bottom of the bag disintegrates). Pour  them onto the driveway in the tracks of the car tires. Run over them to remove the hulls. Wear gloves to pick them up and wipe them off, or even rinse them off. Back in the basket to dry. Crack with a heavy rock. Pick meticulously. One hour of picking will give you about 1 cup of nuts. Hardly anyone sells black walnuts — they’re a pain and they don’t keep well — so if you want them, you do them yourself. Their dark, almost fermented flavor is ideal for adding to a toffee cookie bar.

Lemon-glazed persimmon bars: I’ve looked for years for something to do with the persimmons that are abundant most years in the yard. In the past, I sometimes made persimmon pudding, which is a pudding in the English sense of something baked and of a soft, spoonable texture. The bars are easier to eat, to transport and to serve. They are nicely spiced, and dates add some extra chew. The recipe is from Epicurious and I love it so much I wish I could move to a persimmon island and eat them full-time.  A photo of persimmon puree.

Jubilee wafers came from the 1973 Joy of Cooking. I wanted a refrigerator dough that I could make in advance, then shape and decorate later. I’ve made every roll cookie in the Joy, I thought, but somehow I overlooked Jubilee wafers.  Jubilee wafers call for a lot of honey, a lot of spice, and half a cup of bourbon. Jubilee, I’ll say. They were also supposed to have nuts and fruit, but I left those out. It’s a chewy, spicy cookie with a little touch of jubilee. A keeper.

Not on the tray were Jennifer’s little miniature gingerbreads, made from a great Williams Sonoma Thanksgiving cookbook recipe. Good molasses flavor, lighter texture than most gingerbreads, with a little orange flavor. And Ashley’s layered stacks of sugar cookie alternating with jam. They looked like accordions, sort of, and I admired all the work that went into them, and how good they were.

If you loved the Pla-Doh Fun Factory as a child, then you’re a great candidate for a juicer. Feed something in and it comes out as something else. It makes work feel like play.

Days of meticulous work squeezed into one long evening late in the summer when some beloved old friends gathered to  test juicers for Fine Cooking magazine (the issue is currently on the newsstand). We put a mountain of fruits and vegetables into the maws and hoppers of more than a dozen of these contraptions. Once you start, it’s hard to stop. Seriously, it’s like a Fun Factory that turns out the healthiest imaginable beverage.

Here was the oddest looking juicer, dubbed Marvin, the paranoid android in Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

With the weather so hot, and so much juice on hand, what else could we do but make refreshing bellinis, watermelon daiquiris and cherry popsicles? Kale juice and beet juice, though — we had to draw the line. Beets are very dirtlike in flavor , so we crossed them off the happy hour menu, and kale juice is just the very taste of extreme personal self-discipline.  Nothing wrong with that, but that’s what January is for.

The competition came down to factors like ease of cleaning, size of footprint and perceived sturdiness. Because every one of those juicers made floods of juice in seconds, which is basically what you want in a juicer.

Fourth of July celebration in the Whitland Avenue neighborhood. We like it for a lot of reasons. It’s a chance to see people we like and hardly ever see. This year, the weather was pleasant. Our friends have a fun party with lots of kids running around, popsicles, and a bouncy castle.

I was lucky enough to be asked to judge the food contest. It’s always fun to meet the other judges, who are sometimes friends, sometimes restaurant people or both. The competition is respectably stiff, with lots of well-prepared and well-presented entries. There are two categories: Great American Picnic Food and Desserts. It’s all about execution: this year, a simple but perfectly executed cucumber salad won, along with a pretty butterbean and tomato salad (blurry photo below) in the picnic division, beating out competitors like a mango and shrimp salad and a pesto and sun-dried tomato pasta.

An apple pie in an unbelievable homemade crust won the Dessert category. The runner-up was a chocolate latte meringue pie, a little bit of innovation that was done well. Excuse the blurry photo — it was the kind of party where I ran into a friend’s sister, borrowed her camera for ages, couldn’t really work it well, then asked her to go to a lot of trouble to post these photos. Seriously, you’ll never come across a better group of people. I wish the Whitland picnic were a commune.

But mostly the day was about the Declaration of Independence, rousing patriotic music, politicking, and talk. Lots of talk and visiting, which I can never get enough of.

As long as the potlucks and picnics of May continue, the greatest hits of Junior League cookbooks past and present will roll out of my kitchen on colorful disposable plates. It’s the kind of food you’re somehow supposed to feel guilty about, because it’s full of short cuts and prepared or ready-to-use products. As if those were bad.

Vegetable Squares are defensible junk food masquerading as a side dish or appetizer. Almost everyone will eat them.

Puppy Chow (Dawg Food if you attended the University of Georgia) is light, sweet and crisp, and so good you’ll have to force yourself to move away from the bowl. And it can be thrown together in about 20 minutes.

The season goes on — what are you bringing?

Vegetable Squares

I use homemade Dijon garlic vinaigrette in place of the ranch dressing mix, and use just 1/3 to 1/2 cup of mayonnaise.

2 (8-count) packages refrigerated crescent rolls

2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1 envelope ranch salad dressing mix

1 bunch broccoli, cut into tiny florets, lightly steamed if you like

2 colored bell peppers, minced

1 zucchini, shredded

4 carrots, shredded

Chopped fresh chives or parsley, if desired

• Press the crescent rolls into a 9 x 12-inch baking pan, pressing the dough to seal the seams. Press it slightly up the sides of the pan to form a lip. Bake at 375 as directed on the package. Let cool.
• Mix the cream cheese, mayonniase and salad dressing mix until smooth. Spread it over the cooled crust. Layer the vegetables over the cream cheese mixture.
• Sprinkle with chives or parsley, if you dare, or if the children are older. Cut into about 32 bars. Makes 12 kid-size “side dish” servings or about 16 adult appetizer servings.

Puppy Chow

Pretzels make a good substitute for about half of the Chex. When we run out of Chex, we’ve substituted Golden Grahams and Cap’n Crunch.

1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter

1/3 cup peanut butter

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips or chopped white almond bark

9 cups Crispix or Corn Chex

4 cups (1 pound) confectioners’ sugar

• Melt the butter, peanut butter and chocolate in a saucepan, mixing well. Measure the cereal into a large bowl or soup pot. Pour the chocolate mixture over it and stir gently but quickly to coat.
• Pour the confectioners’ sugar into a large paper grocery sack (or a plastic sack without holes). Add the chocolate-covered cereal and toss to coat with confectioners’ sugar.
• Serve right away or store in ziptop plastic bags.
• Bake sale time: This recipe makes enough to fill 15 snack-size plastic bags.

Writing from a foxhole here in the middle of what we call SuperWeek, the crazy two-week period at the end of the school year. Our calendar goes into overdrive in mid-May. Piano recital, last piano lesson, field day, school picnic, church picnic, choir finale, choir picnic, volunteer appreciation, teacher appreciation, graduation, confirmation, ice skating show, two family birthdays, Steeplechase, and Mothers Day. The latter is a big deal in our family — there are 11 sisters-in-law (plus a couple of exes), and more mothers than your average FDLS gathering. Between three of my sisters-in-law, we have 11 mothers. I personally have four.

The house has to be clean(ish), too, for the beloved old friends who come through town during this time to commemorate rituals with their own families. It guts me that I can only spend a harried hour or so with someone who was once a daily joy, or an exceptional friend, or someone who embodies a wonderful time during our lives.

The baking opportunities during SuperWeek are as numerous as the occasions. I slot in a quick batch of this or that when I can — it’s helpful to have a roll of homemade slice-and-bake cookies in the freezer, or a dozen mini muffins in a tin. And it seems like the least little nice thing to give a lemon bar to someone I love and miss.

Last week I volunteered to bring lemon bars to my friend Tricia’s Steeplechase gathering. I’ve gotten sort of jaded about these things — you make a homemade treat, take it somewhere, and everyone is avoiding carbs, so most of it goes back home. Or you labor over something different and interesting like homemade gingersnaps or macaroons, and everyone seems to prefer the Kroger sugar cookies.

Time being short on the morning of the race, I had to make a decision: wash hair or bake lemon bars? Is there even a choice when you’re likely to see people you haven’t seen in years? I mean this is my home town, and this is the South. I don’t even go to the grocery without lipstick – what if I run into an old neighbor or classmate? Then they’ll tell everyone, “Oh I saw her at the store — she was looking a little tired. And she’s put on weight.” I can’t really do anything about the weight, but I can wash my hair.

My tentmates kept saying, “I can’t believe you forgot to bake the lemon bars.” I replied, “Oh, I didn’t forget. I made a choice.” They were a little unhappy but they were nice about it. I’m sort of flattered that they were disappointed.

Sooooo …. I learned two things during SuperWeek. First of all, keep cooking — someone somewhere really appreciates it.

The second thing is more practical, and I learned it from my old cherished friend. You can prepare Six-Week Muffin batter, keep it in the fridge quite literally for six weeks and bake individual microwave muffins in just 2 minutes! Incredible on both counts. Everlasting batter, microwaveable muffins.

We were going to be really, really late to a potluck last week, and I knew it beforehand. I wanted to take something that everyone would love, so they would be happy to see us, instead of annoyed that we were late. So I made deviled eggs.
It was my first batch of deviled eggs ever. That’s because I sincerely dislike them. I’m not even a little waffley about the matter. Eggs are kind of ~eh~ for me anyway, and deviled eggs embody all the things that make me pull a face. The smell, the rubbery whites, the … Sorry.

    But a distant relative of mine — my step-half-sister-in-law’s mother — who is a wonderful Southern cook, once told me that you simply cannot prepare a large enough batch of deviled eggs to meet the demand. “They’ll eat every last one you make, no matter how many,” she said.

I’ve always wondered what the devilish part of deviled eggs is. If cleanliness is next to godliness, what is next to devilishness? Is it the mustard? That hardly seems worthy of the name “devil.” Here’s a Southern transplant who uses Tabasco — that seems more satanic, anyway, than mustard.

    A cookbook I’ve been working on lately (Junior League of Greater Ft. Lauderdale) included an interesting deviled egg recipe that looked like it might conjure a little underworld-y heat. Instead of the usual suspects, the filling included horseradish. I added a spoonful of a hot Russian mustard. Those Russians, they know from hot mustard. Then I decorated the little cholesterol boats with olives, a twinkling of dill and little chive appendages. I figured the olives would warn away little kids. The chives and dill were just for personality: some looked a little like lawns, or smiley faces, or Mr Potato Head. You want people to know they’re getting something a little out of the ordinary, right?

I didn’t taste one — you can put lipstick on a pig and all that. We arrived well into the dinner hour, and everyone had fixed a plate. I was a little worried I’d have to take the devils back home. But my stephalfsisterinlaw’smother was right — 20 minutes later there was nothing left on the dish.

It’s almost Derby Day. It’s almost Mothers Day. It’s almost graduation, all important garlic-cheese grits occasions. I hear there’s a small stash of garlic cheese roll at the Apple market on Lebanon Road in Donelson, but that doesn’t help you if you’re in, say Maryland or Alabama.

This fuzzy photo shows the last known garlic cheese roll in captivity (click the link to read about the discontinued cheese roll).

If you reached this page looking for a substitute for Kraft Garlic Cheese roll, try this recipe I found on the Kraft chat boards. I modified it so the roll sizes match the Kraft 6-ounce roll. 

Garlic Cheese Rolls

1 1/2 pounds sharp cheddar cheese, grated

1/2 pound processed cheese product such as Velveeta

3 ounces cream cheese

1 teaspoon seasoned salt

Garlic powder to taste

Soften cheeses and mix all together well. Shape into six rolls and wrap securely in foil or plastic wrap.

Big Fella went to an all-boy Superbowl party and shot this photo. I asked, “Were there naked women there too?” Because, you know, it seems like that’s the  only element missing from an otherwise perfect evening.