Tales from the Trailerpark

My life is just a series of “what the hell was I thinkin’” moments.

What the hell was I thinking this week when I agreed to cook dinner at my home for 15 people? I quit cooking a few years back when a couple of local pizza joints started delivering to my neck of the boogerwoods. I mean, come on, y’all…..why would anybody in their right mind go grocery shopping, put groceries away, get groceries back out, cook the groceries, mess up the kitchen, clean up the kitchen…..well you get the picture…..when there is a perfectly working telephone sitting beside my computer. I, also, keep one on the end table beside the sofa just in case dinner time rolls around and I’m caught up in “Redneck Weddings”. My food delivery guy even knows to open the door, grab the money off the counter, and leave without making a sound so as not to disturb me.

When we built this house, my husband (who has never cooked a day in his life) insisted on picking the kitchen appliances. That was just hunky-dory with me since I had no intention of using any of them except the microwave. This man who, eats cold soup out of a the can when I’m gone , did some heavy-duty shopping for kitchen stuff. He chose a beautiful 2 oven stove complete with warming drawer. What the hell is a warming drawer? I’m dead serious when I tell you that I have never opened it. One day, maybe, I’ll get out the book that came with it and see what I can warm in it. This kitchen has a lovely glass-top stove with that big hood thing above it (that thing that draws air out). It comes in really handy when I have a lot of company that smokes.

Anyway, it started out really simple. I agreed to cook for my 2 daughters and their families….a total of 8 people. Eight people is more than enough. But, then, my daughter mentioned that her neighbors didn’t have anywhere to go for Easter dinner. I must have been caught up in Maury’s guest who had already tested 14 men to see who her baby daddy was because I just said, “Invite them to eat with us.” OK…2 more. I figured I’d worry about that on Saturday (which is today! Crap!). Things got worse from that point. I’m not sure how it happened but I have 15 confirmed dinner guests for tomorrow. That’s the ones that I know about right now.

I finally dragged myself down to the grocery store to buy food to cook. I didn’t know how much all those people would eat so I bought the biggest turkey that I could find. That sucker weighs 21 pounds. And, it’s frozen. Still. I decided not to sweat it. I figured that I’ll worry about that in the morning. I have a perfectly good (and large) ham in the freezer, but cannot bring myself to cook it. It’s hubby’s fault. Some of y’all may remember the post that I wrote when he went boar hunting and shot a boar in the ass. That boar head is now hanging in his office. Now, I cannot partake of pork products without seeing that ugly thing hanging there.

I looked up some recipes in a cooking magazine that I get in the mail. Somebody thought it was real damn funny to send me Taste of Home. Maybe, it was somebody (like my husband) trying to either give me a hint or inspire my domestic side. Little do they know, that I bought a hex and voodoo book and smoked that side out a while back.

I sat down with some of the magazines and looked thru them. I picked a couple of side dishes that I thought had really pretty pictures and used less than 5 ingredients. I’ll do them tomorrow while the turkey is either cooking or defrosting. As some of you know, I wanted to fix cooter but could not find any cooter in the meat department. I just wanted to fix cooter because it sounds dirty. I wanted to say, “Would you like to try my cooter? It’s the best anywhere around! It took all morning to clean that thing!” So, turkey, it is.
WalMart had some delicious looking giant-ass strawberries and I bought some. I remembered that around Christmas time, I had bought some of that chocolate that you melt and dip stuff in and decided to make some festive looking strawberries. I carefully followed the instructions but they ended up looking like big dog turds with leaves on top. So, I ate them.

more…..

I started this post on Saturday but did not get to finish it due to trying to thaw that big ass turkey every way I could think of. I finally used a hair dryer. The motor on hair dryer burnt up but it thawed the bird enough to make it somewhat pliable. I could at least get that bag of nasty innards out. What does one do with those Silence Of The Lamb looking things? I have ,yet, to find a use for them, other than scaring my kids into staying out of the jelly beans when they were little. I’d catch them in the candy, stick one of those nasty parts on a fork and jiggle it in their face, telling them that I was going to make them eat it for dinner if they didn’t leave the candy alone until after supper.

While trying to figure out how to make my Creamed Buttered Mushrooms look like the magazine picture instead of a wino’s vomit, I got a little stressed out. What’s good for stress? Marshmallow bunny!!!! Russell Stover….yum, yum. Each year, I make my girls an Easter basket. This year was no exception. I bought 3 marshmallow chocolate bunnies. One was for me.I got out my bunny and unwrapped it, savoring the feel and the smell of that chocolate. I made one big bite of the ears. That’s when I heard my husband say, “Those are really good. I just ate one.”

Whaaaaat? If he ate one, then there was only two left and I just ate the damn ears off of one. OMG….this was a regular clique’….somebody ate the bunny ears…and it was me. Since, I had already told my girls that I had them a bunny, I could only come up with 2 solutions…..run back down to WallyWorld and buy another or eat the ears off the second one so that they would be even. There was no way that I was gonna go back to WW. The crowd the day before was like a murderous bunch of zombies at Disney World. So, I did the other and ate the other one’s ears. That was a big mistake. It was just so damn good that I couldn’t resist eating the rest. Then, of course, I had to eat the all of the other bunny. Couldn’t just give one of my daughters a bunny, could I? WTH…I’d just lie and say that the whole town had sold out of marshmallow bunnies! No prob.

This reminds me of Easters when my kids were at home and I did the full Easter basket thing every year……all the way thru their teen years. Do you realize how hard it is to make teenager’s Easter baskets? At this age, they are wanting jewelry, gadgets, money, etc. And, of course, they know the Easter bunny doesn’t exist but they keep acting like they believe. And, I know that they know. And, they know that I know that they know. But, being a really, really poor (no, I won’t go into that AGAIN right now) kid, it has always been important to me to make sure each holiday is special. And, it’s always been important to them to let me make each holiday special (which also worked out very well with them getting stuff they wanted by indulging me).Again, I know that they know and they know that I know…etc.etc.etc. In conclusion, my kids got all their bratty wants fulfilled and I got my “Mother Of The Century” award in my head.

Here, I have to digress for a sec. I use to be a health nut. Now, I’m just a nut. I walked 3-5 miles every day on purpose. Now, I complain that they don’t have valets at the mall. Anyway, one of my daughters walked with me for a while. Our walks took as by this little, old lady’s house. This lady was very sweet, but somewhat eccentric. She had a thing for yard ornaments. The concrete ones. She had one of those little black boys sitting with the fishing pole on her front porch. Don’t mean to sound racists. Do not send me threatening hate mail. I’m just stating the facts. One day, we walked by and the little black boy had been knocked over and his head was laying a couple of feet away from his hands that were still holding his fishing pole. Something about that gave daughter and me a massive case of guffaws and giggles. Once again, no hate mail, please. It was not because it was a little black boy. It was because it looked like he was fishing for his head.

That Easter, I could not think of anything to put in my girl’s baskets. Then, I got this brilliant idea. And….well….uh….I stole borrowed the little black boy’s head. I took it home and put it in my daughter’s basket. The next morning, I heard her laughing really hard. She came into the kitchen holding the concrete head with tears streaming down her face. That made up for the fact that I had stolen borrowed the head and the little old lady only had a body with a fishing pole on her porch. A few days later, I convinced her that we had to put it back. So, here’s what we did……we did a drive-by head rolling. I pulled my car up really close to the porch and she opened her passenger’s side door and rolled that little black head right back up on the porch. We laugh about it every Easter. This Sunday, I had 12 people show up. My youngest daughter suggested that we go around the table and share our favorite Easter memory. The head rolling was my other daughter’s favorite memory.

Sunday morning, I went to church. Then, I got this really paranoid thought. My youngest daughter was suppose to bring the rolls for dinner. My YD doesn’t cook at all and therefore, doesn’t shop for anything other than frozen foods. What if she didn’t bring enough bread? This made me actually venture back into Wally World. WW has that neat rack of marked down bakery goods. On Sunday, it was loaded with all kinds of different breads. I loaded up. Jewish soda bread, sun-dried tomato rolls, Jalpeno biscuits, asiago rye bread, etc. Lots and lots of bread. Then to my horror, my daughter showed up with 2 huge containers from Sam’s (large quantity store) of rolls and croissants. There was enough bread there to feed a medium size town. Thanks goodness for Trailerpark Skipper (my oldest daughter) who is on a gigantic cheapskate kick. The girl is so cheap that she’s trying to figure out how to make toilet paper from junk mail. She came to the rescue and took a carload of bread home with her to freeze. She has decided to make casseroles featuring bread. I told her not to bring me any. I had enough stale bread when I was little and really, really (alright, I won’t say it again after this) poor.

So, there you have it…..the highlights of my WTWM, redneck Easter. I could write so much more but I wanna do some internet surfing and see who sells cooter. I’m determined to have it for my next holiday dinner.

Hope you had a good Easter.