Yesterday's Lunch and a Memory

Good morning!

I thought I'd tell you about yesterday's lunch.  It was good and had some interesting things in it.

I re-heated the tender steak from Sunday's dinner, for the meat course.

With the leftover corn, which I cut off the cob, I made esquite...Esquite is popcorn, but it is also pan-toasted corn kernels fried up with green pepper, onion, red pepper, jalapeno.  You understand, when I say fried I mean stirred around in a pan moistened with spray oil.  Very little fat. It would be more delicious with more fat, but it is good.

I boiled up some baby bok choy for the green vegetable.

And on the side I made a travesty of Mama's fried corn bread. To make it, put some white corn meal and salt in a good sized bowl.  I used a cup but half a cup would have done for us.  You boil up a saucepan full of water, and pour it into the white corn meal, and stir.  Go for a little at a time.  I remember that Mama said, each time, "It's not ready. Keep pouring." The point is that the water cooks the corn meal gradually, and it softens and puffs up.  You don't want it to be too wet.  It has to be cooked and softened but still malleable like clay.  When you can handle it you make it into oval cakes. I still remember the prints of Mama's fingers on the cakes.  Then she would heat up Crisco in a black iron  pan, and fry these cakes until they were golden and crispy.  Oh, how delicious they were!  They should be eaten with cold golden butter melting into the hot corn cakes. 

Mine were not as good because I made them too moist I think, and just put the batter onto the skillet in dabs. Also, using spray oil cuts down some deliciousness right there, but I do try to watch it.  My little cakes fried up very nice and were a good adjunct to the meat and gravy, but they were not as golden and crisp as Mama's were.  Can one of my sisters tell me if these cakes were dipped into flour before being fried?  That might have made them more golden.Tell me how Mama did it , in your memory.  And I'll share it and give you credit, by the numbers.

Three of my sisters will be seeing each other this week, as no's 3 and 5 and their husbands drive down to Brownsville and the Nasty Beach for a few days.  Lucky them.  The nasty beach got its name thanks to my mother, who complained about her only outings being to "that Nasty Beach."  My cousin no. 1, who was a great razzer, picked up on it and that is what the beach was called from then on.  I loved the beach, nasty or not.  They've missed the 26th of June, Dia de San Juan, (the Baptist), when everyone goes to the water.  The beach is very popular that day for sure...but I loved it always.  The sun comes up over the beach instead of going down over it as in California. It's wonderful to be out at dawn with the sun coming up, in a moment of cool air at the beginning of the day...I still remember the little tiny rainbow-colored clams we used to dig up for their beauty.  How we loved them.  When we took them home, they never looked as lovely as they had there in their  brown sand. YAZZYBEL