Third Annual Thanksgiving with Friends

Last night we had our third annual Girls' Night/Boys' Night Thanksgiving dinner at Melanie and Trey's house. This little tradition started at Katie and Neil's house in 2006, and moved to Meredith and Josh's house last year. Our group has grown since the beginning with the birth of Jane Reynolds (she spent last night at her grandma's house) last year, and next year we'll be including Baby Field #2 AND Baby Smith. It's always good to visit with friends and eat WAY too much great food. We had a blast and can't wait to see how our little annual tradition continues to grow through the years. It took forever to organize this group picture, so enjoy! :)

Iron Chef Jackson

Pardon my absence... I meant to write about this earlier in the week, but I've been in a Nyquil-induced coma for two days with the crud. Yes, the seasonal grunge made a visit to our house this week and knocked me on my butt for about 48 hours straight. Now poor Derek has it, so hopefully he'll start feeling better soon. I have a feeling the germs might have come from our weekend adventures in Katherine's kitchen... read ahead to see where I'm going with this.

Sunday night we were treated to a very special meal at Katherine’s house. Our friend Jason just moved back to Mississippi after spending a few years in South Carolina, where he was working at the Ritz Carlton as a chef. He’s working at Walker’s Drive-In in Fondren now, and we convinced him to cook for us on his only day off. But bless his heart, he should win some kind of food network competition. It was THAT good.

We requested seafood bisque since soups really are his specialty. Well, he and Katherine went on a scavenger hunt all over Jackson trying to find all the ingredients. I think they succeeded in finding everything but vermouth or brandy, even after an attempt at ordering it from a bar and sneaking it into Katherine’s purse in a Ziploc bag. Finally, about four hours later, five live lobsters and a small fortune’s worth of other fresh ingredients were ready to be transformed into some tasty lobster bisque. When I say he made everything from scratch, I’m not exaggerating. I may butcher this process, but I’ll try my best to give a decent play-by-play.

First the lobsters were roasted in the oven, and then he made the lobster stock (like chicken broth or chicken stock) from a bunch of vegetables, white wine, sherry, spices, tomato paste and shells that were basically stewed together.

After scraping the impurities off the top of the stew (as John is demonstrating in the photo above), he drained the stock and then added more water to cook and drain it again in order to capture the flavor and produce as much stock as possible. After he was satisfied with the right amount of pure stock, he added heavy cream to give it a thicker consistency. Once the lobster meat was sautéed in butter and spices, it was time to serve up the bisque. This may sound like a fairly simple project, but the whole process took about 4 hours of straight cooking time.

Through the entire cooking demonstration, all four of us "students" - Katherine, Derek, John and I - shared the same tasting spoon. What were we thinking? Especially after Katherine was talking about how everyone at her office had been sick last week. Needless to say I think we've all shared in the joys of the crud this week.

In the end, the lobster bisque was like heaven in my mouth. Derek made some jalapeno cornbread to go along with it, and it was honestly one of the best meals I’ve had in a very long time. I now have a new appreciation for any kind of bisque served at a restaurant. I know there’s an easier way to make it, but this was the “from scratch” way, and we were very impressed. We are happy to welcome Chef Jason to Jackson (and to our about-to-be-formed supper club)! Next time we just won't share the same spoon. :)

Two celebrations for the price of one

Saturday we headed to Vicksburg to celebrate my brother-in-law’s 25th birthday and Derek’s grandmother’s 70th birthday. We started with a nice dinner out at Tony’s where Ryan blew out the candles on the delicious red velvet cake my mother-in-law made from scratch, and then the party really got started at the American Legion VFW Post on Washington Street for Mamaw’s get-together.

Our favorite good-time band from the lake, Magnolias and Moonshine, was playing, and in honor of Veteran’s Day tomorrow, they were of course sporting their red, white and blue! Check out this picture of the band on stage. They look especially festive with the big bingo board in the background.


Here’s a pic of the birthday girl dancing with her son. You couldn’t pry her off the dance floor. She was boogieing to nearly every song, and she danced with all her grandsons who could barely keep up. :)

We had our own table and entertained ourselves with beer, bourbon, wine and some of Mamaw’s “Colorado Kool-aid” (whoop juice for adults). Door prizes were given at several points during the night, and Derek and I won a free tour of Duff Green Mansion B&B. Lucky for us, we’ve already taken a personal tour with the owner himself, which included a few glasses of wine on the second floor veranda. Maybe we can trade the tour certificate in towards a night’s stay there with the ghosts. :)

Before we left the American Legion to head to The Beechwood (enough said), I couldn’t resist taking a picture of this sign. This pretty much sums up the whole night…

Happy Monday, everybody!

Any pet owner's prayer

A friend of mine at work has a precious little kitten that probably won’t live through the weekend. He was a feral they found outside Keifer’s in downtown Jackson and brought home a few months ago. He’s only about three months old now, and she took him in to the vet yesterday afternoon because he was having trouble breathing. The diagnosis was that he has fluid built up around his lungs, which has caused his lung capacity to deplete to about 10 percent. His heart is now enlarged because of all the effort.

The vet drained the fluid but said there’s not really anything they can do to make the kitten better. They’re just making him more comfortable. Bless his heart. Bless Margaret’s heart. She and her husband never had children, but they have a 12-year-old cat that was just getting used to the idea of having a little buddy to tag along. They thought adding a new pet to the mix would help the eventual transition of losing the older one.

For those of you who are animal lovers out there, please keep Margaret and baby Tux in your prayers. As you can see above, he’s a precious little cross-eyed kitten who was just getting used to life inside a house and away from a dumpster. It’s hard to lose a pet no matter their age. My heart goes out to her. I’m sure this weekend will be a very long one for her.

Dinner with an old friend

Last night I met my friend Meredith for dinner and drinks at Soulshine Pizza. The food and drinks were good, but the company was great! We’ve both had a lot going on the past few months, so it’s been hard to figure out a time to get together for a visit. So when we finally were able to sit and catch up last night, we were so busy chatting that the waitress gave up on us and told us to just let her know when we were ready to order.

The picture above is from her wedding in June 2007. It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year and a half since then! Time is flying … yet one more reason to enjoy the time we have to visit with old friends. Let’s do it again soon, Mere! Love you!

I did my duty

I just got back from voting a little while ago. We actually got an hour of paid leave to go vote today. I guess that’s a benefit of working for the state! Amazingly, I was in and out of there in less than 10 minutes, despite all the horror stories I’ve heard all morning. The only hiccup I had was the little old lady manning the registration table who tried to let me vote as “GRAY, ELLEN A.” Poor lady… she couldn’t hear or spell apparently. Well, lucky for Ms. Ellen A. Gray, I saw her mistake and corrected it before she could do any permanent damage. That’s precisely why you should HAVE to show a photo I.D. before you can vote. I can’t believe you can just tell them your name – or anybody’s name for that matter – and cast your one and only vote.

The picture above is from a co-worker’s precinct in Rankin County at 6:45 this morning. The sad thing is, EVERY election should bring this many people to the polls. In this election, we’ll make history either way, but you shouldn’t just wait for a historic election to vote. It’s a privilege that we should never take for granted. As for the results this time around, I’ve never been one to put a sign in my yard or a bumper sticker on my car. To each their own when it comes to politics and religion… but since this is my blog, I will say I hope we wake up tomorrow with a war veteran and a hockey mom on their way to D.C.

I’m off my soapbox now. My only complaint this election day is that my precinct had apparently run out of the free-Chik-Fil-A-sandwich-for-casting-your-ballot coupons. Oh, well… maybe next time. Happy voting! :)

Halloween and Homecoming

What a busy weekend! Friday we decided at the last minute that we would dress up and go out for Halloween after all. We had planned earlier in the week to just stay home and watch a marathon of Derek's favorite slasher movies, but the weather was so nice we couldn't pass up a night out. And it's not very often that Halloween actually falls on a Friday, so it was a great way to end the work week.

Derek borrowed a few costumes from a co-worker for both of us, but he ended up choosing Popeye, a costume he bought last year but never wore. I was a go-go girl, which came with a long black wig that I had so much fun with! It kind of makes me want to grow my hair long and dye it black. Well, not really, but it was definitely fun for a night. We headed downtown with Ben and Tina for the first annual Blocktober party on Congress Street. It was set up where Jacktoberfest was in front of the capitol and beside the governor's mansion, and it was totally free and BYOB. They had a band and some pretty cute decorations, including orange Christmas lights in the trees and hay bales for everyone to sit on. We saw some pretty funny costumes, including a pregnant cheerleader, Posh and David Beckham (this girl acted just like her, too), the Karate Kid and the Dukes of Hazzard. After we left downtown, we stopped at a friend's house in Fondren for another party and then capped the night off with a visit to Krystal for dinner at midnight. Here's a pic of us with Ben and Tina. He was a hockey player, and she was Hannah Montana.

Yesterday we packed up and went to Hattiesburg for USM's homecoming. My friend Christy set up a tent, and we had a pretty good array of food, including some frosted Jack-o-lantern cookies from Anderson's Bakery in Pascagoula. Yummm... my favorite. We saw a lot of old friends and enjoyed the beautiful weather in our black and gold.

I love going to homecoming, and we had a blast just like I knew we would. I will say the girls in school there now looked more like they were going to tailgate in the Grove in Oxford than the District in Hattiesburg. I have never seen so many stilettos and semi-formals at Southern before. I guess the times they are a changing, that's for sure. Here's a pic of us oldies but goodies. :)

We hit the road about 9 this morning to come home, and I fought the crowds at the grocery store this afternoon. NOT fun, but at least now we actually have some food in this house. I'm getting ready to cook a meatloaf with some cheesy green beans, homemade smashed potatoes and jalapeno cornbread. I think some good home cooking is just what we need to wrap up this wonderful weekend. It's just a shame that Monday's only one good night's sleep away. At least we gained an hour today. I don't think I could have managed losing an hour on a crazy weekend like this. :)