Aunt Clara

Aunt Clara did most of the cooking at my Grandmothers house. About five feet two inches, she was grossly overweight. With no aversion to extra butter and sugar, most of her recipes were delicious. The pineapple upside down cakes were oozing with syrupy glaze that you could lick off of the plate when she wasn’t looking. Pound cakes were always abundant, and most of my relatives had the results on their hips! The first thing that I always looked for at family gatherings was the homemade macaroni and cheese. I don’t mean the dry kind that someone stingy about how much butter and cheese they use made. I mean the Aunt Clara kind – with the real cheese, butter, and milk still bubbling in the casserole dish she placed on the table. Then you have home grown peas and butter beans cooked to perfection – soft but not mushy. I can still see my Daddy’s lips watering before he scooped up a hearty helping of her homemade chicken and dumplings. Not the kind made from canned biscuits and bisquick mix. I am talking about flour, water, and a rolling pin! If only I had learned to make them before she passed away! I always had time for eating, but never had time to watch the process. Too busy socializing with my cousins, I never managed to make it to the kitchen until it was time to eat.
My mother had eleven brothers and sisters, and family events were real events. Uncle S.A. and Uncle Jimmy would park their pickups with the tailgates facing each other about twelve feet apart. We had a huge piece of thick plywood that they balanced on each end with their truck beds and in the middle, with a saw horse. As soon as the table was in place, the women started bringing out the food! Bowl by bowl, they brought every kind of food you could possibly imagine. Thinking back, it seems a little strange that we couldn’t afford a real table, but the groceries were abundant. Of course, Aunt Eleanor and Uncle Roger grew most of the vegetables. Uncle Jimmy owned his own business and always bought the turkey, ham, roast and whatever else my Grandmother wanted for every occasion. Everyone else brought one dish or another, and we all had our favorites. When eleven brothers and sisters and all of their extended family members start assembling food, it gets serious.
Now our family has pretty much gone their separate ways and we don’t get together. However, I can’t eat at a country buffet without thinking that the people who run these restaurants could learn a thing or two from my Aunt Clara. Never marrying, I can see now that food was her only true love, and this was obvious when you bit into anything she cooked. I don’t think that I share her passion for food, but I would love to have just one more bite of her famous macaroni and cheese!