I GOT ALL MY SISTERS
“We are family, I got all my sisters with me.
We are family, get up everybody and sing.”
That is the chorus to a song by Sister Sledge from their album “We Are Family.” The album features the four Sledge sisters with some of the background vocals done by Luther Vandross.
Anyway, that song has been going through my head since before three of my four sisters paid me a visit in Madison during Thanksgiving. And my other brother, Steve was also here. Frankie had guest visiting her in Houston and didn’t come. Plus, they played the Bayou Classic in Houston on Saturday after Thanksgiving because of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation to New Orleans. Betty, Deloris and Vivian (Along with Dawn and Kenny) came last Tuesday and left this past Monday. The Sister Sledge couldn’t have said it any better when it comes to the great time we had during those six days. This was my first Thanksgiving with them since 1968, I think.
We had done major cosmetic work to the house to make things comfortable for them since the place hadn’t been touched in the last twenty years. Twenty years of accumulated, random junk. Most of the cosmetic work had to do with removing all the carpet and having wooden floors installed downstairs and the floors upstairs refinished. Most of the rooms were painted and we put new draperies in all the rooms. I completed the last of the work before driving down to O’Hare to pick them up late Tuesday night. Whew, I was tired, but also excited about getting them to the house to see what had been done.
I have four of the most loving and godly sisters that a brother could ask for. They all want to take care of me. They always did, even when Mamma was here. And they love having me cook for them. That is exactly what I had planned. All three of them said on Sunday, “What are we going to do on Tuesday when we are at home after eating all this good food here for six days?” It’s not that they don’t cook, (All of them are excellent cooks, except for Bettye. She would rather not, if she can help it) but they were on vacation. The food just taste better when it’s shared with someone else, especially family, and when they are also good cooks. I love cooking for them.
Dawn, Deloris’ daughter, and I made homemade baking powder biscuits just about every morning. Now, there is a story behind this biscuit thing. We can still remember when Mamma use to make biscuits from scratch, too. Those were the good old days. Buttermilk biscuits with Brer Rabbit Syrup on top and oatmeal or grits on the side. As Archie Bunker would say, “Those were the days.” That is, until Mamma went to visit her sister, Novella, in Chicago. You see, Aunt Novella had become industrialized. She didn’t do biscuits from scratch anymore. Just about everything she made came out of a can. It was there in Chicago that she introduced Mamma to Hungry Jack biscuits in a can. Since then biscuits at our 312 ½ Bozemen Street homestead were never the same. Some of us didn’t speak to Aunt Novella for a long time and there are others of us that are still mad at her. What can I say, we love our home made biscuits.
Now, Jon and I have cooked many a biscuit on Christmas and New Year’s morning. And they have turned out decent, but Dawn and I got down and rightfully dirty with these biscuits. Our goal was to produce a biscuit that people all around the world (At least on Starker Avenue) would want resting on their plate next to their grits, and waiting to be jellied and buttered. This biscuit would have to stay together when separated; not fall into a heaping mound of crumbs when the top was separated from the bottom. A biscuit that would withstand the rigors of jelly and butter spreading without falling apart. I’m here to tell you that by the third morning we had biscuit making down to a science. We took notes on what our clients reported and adjusted the recipe for the next batch. We will have to wait and see if Dawn remembers how we got to such a high level of perfection when she goes home to visit from Southern.
Of course, Vivian made her signature caramel cake and an award winning sweet potato casserole for Thursday, and a big pot of pinto beans for our other brother, Steve, on Wednesday. Wednesday’s dinner was a feast in itself. Along with the pinto beans, we had a heaping pot of Jean’s Seafood Gumbo, smothered pheasants, rum cake, an Iowa ham, corn bread and rice. Yummy, yummy, ya, ya! (No, that’s not a song; it means the food was really good. Like when you step on it) By Thanksgiving’s Day dinner, I joked that Emeril would have armed wrestled Steve for a place at our table. Emeril would have lost though. Steve is a big, big boy. We sat a table that Martha would have been proud of. (Viv and Martha are real tight)
Now when you live, sleep and eat with non-industrialize southern women, life can be energetic. Put the three of them with a mailman and anything is liable to happen. Take for instance their sleeping habits. I would swear that Bettye and Steve didn’t go to bed Wednesday night, but, they say they did. They were up before the 5AM Thursday morning. I know because I was laying in bed listening to them. Without the carpet, I thought they were in my bedroom. Bettye is usually asleep by 6PM and up by 4:30AM, meditating, reading or exercising. Steve is a mailman and he’s got the same “up early” hours no matter the weather. I’d try to beat Vivian to the kitchen and she was usually finishing her first cup of coffee by the time I got there.
During all the cosmetic work, I had taken the dining room chandelier down with the intention of replacing it with a more modern ceiling fan. It was one of those things on the list that never got done. Anyway, Thursday morning after breakfast I knew that the work light had to be replaced with something more formal before dinner. So, I’m thinking, “There is nothing open today to buy a fan.” Maybe I could clean the old chandelier’s crystals, put in new bulbs and put it back until I could replace it. Let me tell you, a new fan wouldn’t have come close to the ambience that the old chandelier added to the dining room. And to think I was about to toss it out. With the crystals cleaned, catching and reflecting the light from brand new bulbs, the dining room was transformed into a lovely place to eat.
Steve and Bettye got Kenny really going by saying something about his “dog”, Kolby Bryant. You see, Kenny and Kolby are like possum and sweet potatoes. Thursday after breakfast they got him going about what Kolby was doing in the hotel room with that girl. Kenny insisted that Kolby was framed. He said that when all that hotel room stuff happened, Kolby was in Las Vegas playing bingo; that Kolby was just sitting in Las Vegas, minding his own business and waiting for the number B-19 to win.
It snowed most of the way back to Madison Tuesday night. We woke up Wednesday to enough snow for Dawn and Kenny to build a midget snow man. They swept up all the snow from the deck and went to work. When they finished it looked a lot like the snow man on “Charlie Brown’s Christmas Show.” That was an understatement. It looked just like that snow man. Kenny put his favorite Laker’s head band on it. I took pictures of them with that snow man just in case there would be any non-believers out there. I think this was their first experience with snow.
I remember an episode of Sanford and Son where Red Foxx went someone’s house that lived in the suburbs. When he walked in he had this strange and confused look on his face. When the woman asked, “What’s the matter?”, he said “I don’t know but when I find out I will tell you.” A little while later, after he had gone through the woman’s junk, he looked at the woman and said. “You know what’s wrong with this house?” And the woman replied, “No, What? He said, “Your house don’t have no smell.” “You know, fried chicken smell, collard green smell.”
By the time we finished cooking on Thursday and with all the wonderful foods we cooked on Wednesday, the house smelled like the Food Network kitchen. The smells permeated the entire house. It smelled wonderfully delicious. It a toss up as to whether I enjoyed the food or the smells better.
No matter the foods we ate, the biscuits Dawn and I cooked, the smells I enjoyed or the ambience of the crystal chandelier, Thanksgiving this year was grand. It was grand because I had “almost” all my sisters with me.
Later, and I love ya!
We are family, get up everybody and sing.”
That is the chorus to a song by Sister Sledge from their album “We Are Family.” The album features the four Sledge sisters with some of the background vocals done by Luther Vandross.
Anyway, that song has been going through my head since before three of my four sisters paid me a visit in Madison during Thanksgiving. And my other brother, Steve was also here. Frankie had guest visiting her in Houston and didn’t come. Plus, they played the Bayou Classic in Houston on Saturday after Thanksgiving because of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation to New Orleans. Betty, Deloris and Vivian (Along with Dawn and Kenny) came last Tuesday and left this past Monday. The Sister Sledge couldn’t have said it any better when it comes to the great time we had during those six days. This was my first Thanksgiving with them since 1968, I think.
We had done major cosmetic work to the house to make things comfortable for them since the place hadn’t been touched in the last twenty years. Twenty years of accumulated, random junk. Most of the cosmetic work had to do with removing all the carpet and having wooden floors installed downstairs and the floors upstairs refinished. Most of the rooms were painted and we put new draperies in all the rooms. I completed the last of the work before driving down to O’Hare to pick them up late Tuesday night. Whew, I was tired, but also excited about getting them to the house to see what had been done.
I have four of the most loving and godly sisters that a brother could ask for. They all want to take care of me. They always did, even when Mamma was here. And they love having me cook for them. That is exactly what I had planned. All three of them said on Sunday, “What are we going to do on Tuesday when we are at home after eating all this good food here for six days?” It’s not that they don’t cook, (All of them are excellent cooks, except for Bettye. She would rather not, if she can help it) but they were on vacation. The food just taste better when it’s shared with someone else, especially family, and when they are also good cooks. I love cooking for them.
Dawn, Deloris’ daughter, and I made homemade baking powder biscuits just about every morning. Now, there is a story behind this biscuit thing. We can still remember when Mamma use to make biscuits from scratch, too. Those were the good old days. Buttermilk biscuits with Brer Rabbit Syrup on top and oatmeal or grits on the side. As Archie Bunker would say, “Those were the days.” That is, until Mamma went to visit her sister, Novella, in Chicago. You see, Aunt Novella had become industrialized. She didn’t do biscuits from scratch anymore. Just about everything she made came out of a can. It was there in Chicago that she introduced Mamma to Hungry Jack biscuits in a can. Since then biscuits at our 312 ½ Bozemen Street homestead were never the same. Some of us didn’t speak to Aunt Novella for a long time and there are others of us that are still mad at her. What can I say, we love our home made biscuits.
Now, Jon and I have cooked many a biscuit on Christmas and New Year’s morning. And they have turned out decent, but Dawn and I got down and rightfully dirty with these biscuits. Our goal was to produce a biscuit that people all around the world (At least on Starker Avenue) would want resting on their plate next to their grits, and waiting to be jellied and buttered. This biscuit would have to stay together when separated; not fall into a heaping mound of crumbs when the top was separated from the bottom. A biscuit that would withstand the rigors of jelly and butter spreading without falling apart. I’m here to tell you that by the third morning we had biscuit making down to a science. We took notes on what our clients reported and adjusted the recipe for the next batch. We will have to wait and see if Dawn remembers how we got to such a high level of perfection when she goes home to visit from Southern.
Of course, Vivian made her signature caramel cake and an award winning sweet potato casserole for Thursday, and a big pot of pinto beans for our other brother, Steve, on Wednesday. Wednesday’s dinner was a feast in itself. Along with the pinto beans, we had a heaping pot of Jean’s Seafood Gumbo, smothered pheasants, rum cake, an Iowa ham, corn bread and rice. Yummy, yummy, ya, ya! (No, that’s not a song; it means the food was really good. Like when you step on it) By Thanksgiving’s Day dinner, I joked that Emeril would have armed wrestled Steve for a place at our table. Emeril would have lost though. Steve is a big, big boy. We sat a table that Martha would have been proud of. (Viv and Martha are real tight)
Now when you live, sleep and eat with non-industrialize southern women, life can be energetic. Put the three of them with a mailman and anything is liable to happen. Take for instance their sleeping habits. I would swear that Bettye and Steve didn’t go to bed Wednesday night, but, they say they did. They were up before the 5AM Thursday morning. I know because I was laying in bed listening to them. Without the carpet, I thought they were in my bedroom. Bettye is usually asleep by 6PM and up by 4:30AM, meditating, reading or exercising. Steve is a mailman and he’s got the same “up early” hours no matter the weather. I’d try to beat Vivian to the kitchen and she was usually finishing her first cup of coffee by the time I got there.
During all the cosmetic work, I had taken the dining room chandelier down with the intention of replacing it with a more modern ceiling fan. It was one of those things on the list that never got done. Anyway, Thursday morning after breakfast I knew that the work light had to be replaced with something more formal before dinner. So, I’m thinking, “There is nothing open today to buy a fan.” Maybe I could clean the old chandelier’s crystals, put in new bulbs and put it back until I could replace it. Let me tell you, a new fan wouldn’t have come close to the ambience that the old chandelier added to the dining room. And to think I was about to toss it out. With the crystals cleaned, catching and reflecting the light from brand new bulbs, the dining room was transformed into a lovely place to eat.
Steve and Bettye got Kenny really going by saying something about his “dog”, Kolby Bryant. You see, Kenny and Kolby are like possum and sweet potatoes. Thursday after breakfast they got him going about what Kolby was doing in the hotel room with that girl. Kenny insisted that Kolby was framed. He said that when all that hotel room stuff happened, Kolby was in Las Vegas playing bingo; that Kolby was just sitting in Las Vegas, minding his own business and waiting for the number B-19 to win.
It snowed most of the way back to Madison Tuesday night. We woke up Wednesday to enough snow for Dawn and Kenny to build a midget snow man. They swept up all the snow from the deck and went to work. When they finished it looked a lot like the snow man on “Charlie Brown’s Christmas Show.” That was an understatement. It looked just like that snow man. Kenny put his favorite Laker’s head band on it. I took pictures of them with that snow man just in case there would be any non-believers out there. I think this was their first experience with snow.
I remember an episode of Sanford and Son where Red Foxx went someone’s house that lived in the suburbs. When he walked in he had this strange and confused look on his face. When the woman asked, “What’s the matter?”, he said “I don’t know but when I find out I will tell you.” A little while later, after he had gone through the woman’s junk, he looked at the woman and said. “You know what’s wrong with this house?” And the woman replied, “No, What? He said, “Your house don’t have no smell.” “You know, fried chicken smell, collard green smell.”
By the time we finished cooking on Thursday and with all the wonderful foods we cooked on Wednesday, the house smelled like the Food Network kitchen. The smells permeated the entire house. It smelled wonderfully delicious. It a toss up as to whether I enjoyed the food or the smells better.
No matter the foods we ate, the biscuits Dawn and I cooked, the smells I enjoyed or the ambience of the crystal chandelier, Thanksgiving this year was grand. It was grand because I had “almost” all my sisters with me.
Later, and I love ya!
posted by Lee Thomas @ 6:48 PM
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