How do I go about telling the story of chicken spaghetti? I'll start with my Grandmother.
Let me just say right off the top, my Grandparents; Katie and J.O. (aka Shorty) were involved with more crap as older retired people, than I have ever seen in all my life!!! Please do not even kid yourself thinking you know any other 2 people that were this involved! Good Grief! They belonged to everything! My poor mom was drug around as a young girl to nightly, weekly, monthly, and supreme special 5th day of something meetings. OK, let me get back on track. Meetings.
Meetings, I believe are just excuses for people to get together and eat. It's great fun, most of the time. You ask me how I know… Yes, They got a hold of me and I too have been a Worthy Grand Matron. I regress. Food.
Food has always been important to meals don't you think? We all seem to love to eat. We're obsessed with either buying cookbooks, making cookbooks, or watching people cook. Well, it was the same back in 1973. And on top of that, Grannie was a Home Ec teacher, so the woman could flat out cook and owned ever type of cookbook there was.
I am not sure if all cooks do this, or if it's women, or if it's just the women in my family, but we collect recipes. All kinds of recipes! My family stores them inside of other cookbooks. They're stained from being too close to the action and are written on things from evening programs, to the inside cover of another cookbook, to slips of paper folded over in half.
When my Grannie passed, I got the cookbooks.
Let me tell you how much fun my momma and I had sitting down and just going over those cookbook. Let me read what I have in front of me right now:
- It's 2 pieces of paper, folded in half, not badly stained, with the recipes for Chicken Salad, Tuna Salad, Chicken Spaghetti, and something with salmon, gelatin and an aluminum mold.
- Here's a list of things she picked up at the store; buttermilk, dark brown sugar, heavy cream and bourbon.
- Here's one for stuffed cherry tomatoes, chicken spaghetti and a cheeses ball. Wait, here's another chicken spaghetti…
Come find out, Grannie had a lot of chicken spaghetti recipes spread throughout cookbook kingdom. They varied by how many people it fed. She had to be prepared for all these meetings that were all about eating.
Through this, I saw a few things about my Grannie that I hadn't paid much attention to when I was younger. Beside the fact that she liked chicken spaghetti, she was all about hospitality! These cookbook are full of party how-tos and they are more than directions, they were stretching the dollar as far as possible.
Every Christmas, Grannie would make an Italian Creamcake. I believe it is my most favorite cake, ever. I use to think it was German Chocolate, then Red Velvet, but now I gonna go with this Italian Creamcake. Anyway, after Grannie was gone, nobody made Italian Creamcake anymore. Come find out, it was cuz nobody had the recipe! So I slowly started going through some of the cookbooks that I've unpack. I picked up:
Smart Ways to Cook & Entertain
Our Favorite Recipes
Sponsoned by: Desha Court No. 2
Order of the Amaranth
1973
I looked under the desserts, and was blown away when I found Italian Creamcake by Katie Marie Clark. Called Preacher man from the other room to tell him what I found, called momma to tell her I found it and was going to make it! I made my list, got everything together, and made that cake! Man that was a good cake!! Grannie would be proud!
As I was closing the cookbook, I reached for something to mark that page and placed it in the book. It was another recipe for chicken spaghetti.
I smile, thinking about my Grannie. I don't guess you can ever have enough recipes for chicken spaghetti.
Miss you Grannie!
