Let's pretend: you have to have a special meal, it has to be just perfect. Describe your favorite meal; What would you start with? Who would prepare it, and where would you enjoy it? What time of day? Anything and everything you think about it. And if you want, you can post a recipe or two.

-- Cindy (SE IN.) (atilrthehony_1@yahoo.com), January 24, 2001

Answers

That's easy. Chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy and corn and iced tea prepared by my mother and eaten sitting at her kitchen table at high noon on a hot summer day here in Texas with the air conditioner going full blast. Looking out her kitchen window at the hay being cut and baled in her front hay field.

I remember having just such meals as this with my dad sitting at his place at the table listening to the farm report on the radio. Mom would be scurrying about the kitchen getting everything ready then we would all sit down and eat together. Dad's gone now and Mom dosen't cook as much as she used to. The front hay field has a new subdivision in it and everything has gone to hell. The dairy hasn't been a dairy in twenty years and nothing's the same. I just see Mother on Friday evenings but I talk to her every day.

Things do change constantly. I guess that's the way it's supposed to be. I just don't like it. Guess I'm too much of a hermit to adjust to all this.

-- Joe (jcole@apha.com), January 24, 2001.

Hey Joe, That is my husband's favorite too! Although he would have to wait a couple of hours to squeeze in Strawberries and icecream!! Might add homemade rolls too! Quit being a hermit and join us for dinner! Mine would probably be a great big pile of everything fresh out of the garden! Corn on the cob, tomatoes, green salad with everything in it!, Fresh strawberries and icecream for dessert! Yum! Ya'll are making me hungry again!!!

-- Nan (davidl41@ipa.net), January 24, 2001.

there are so many favorites, first my kids favorite: fried chicken, mashed potatoes with chicken gravy, corn on the cob, homemade biscuits, grape juice and raspberry pie for dessert. Another favorite, homemade pizza, big salad, fruit salad, iced tea.

-- Melissa (cmnorris@1st.net), January 24, 2001.

A warm, breezey Sunday summer afternoon at my maternal grandmothers. Lots of relatives for dinner. They had 16 children. The big kitchen with a giant table. A fire in the cook stove. Hot biscuits, wilted lettuce, fried chicken, potatoe salad, fresh sweet corn, fresh sliced tomatoes still warm from the sun, fried green tomatoes, green onions, sliced cucumbers, deviled eggs. Real milk, iced tea, and hot peach cobbler right from the oven with cream poured over it. Lots of laughter and love. Play in the creek ,wander in the woods and barns, like we were told not to do. Makes my eyes moist.

-- Terri Perry (teperry@stargate.net), January 24, 2001.

I have to say that everyone has some wonderful food listed.

A lazy Saturday afternoon in the summer, because alot of my family works out on Monday and i don't want anyone to rush. Vegetables on the grill brushed with olive oil and spices, fresh out of the garden. BBQ chicken, watermelon, all kinds of greens in a salad, deviled eggs, fresh sliced tomatoes, and for dessert a green tomatoe pie or homemade ice cream with peach spice topping.

The entertainment would be the sounds of the children splashing in the river, peels of laughter, my 93 yr. old Grandfather sitting in his favorite chair smiling and ice cubes clinking in our glasses of tea.

-- Shau Marie (shau@centurytel.net), January 24, 2001.

My favorite meal wouldn't have all that much to do with the food, although it probably would include some sort of game, taken from our freezer, and cornbread, 'cause Grandpa loves it so much. My mom isn't a bad cook, but Julie's better, so she can cook it (I guess that means I have to do the dishes).

It would be in the cold part of the year, in the evening, and we'd have Mom and Dad, and me, and brother and sister (Julie), and Grandpa and Grandma from next door, and Aunt Pat and Uncle Art from around the corner, all around the big table in Mom's dining room. It has to be in the cold part of the year, and in the evening so that none of the men have to go back to work.

After dinner, Dad would set up the projector(s) and screen, while the women folk cleared the table and do the dishes. Then we'd all sit around and watch the old family movies and slides and remember all the times gone that will never come again.

To get an evening like that, I would probably eat mac 'n' cheese and green beans (two foods I loathe)! I'd love to have a tape recorder and video camera too, and interview them about all the things they lived through. I didn't know the questions when I was young . . . . Of the grown-ups, only Mom and Auntie Pat are left, and Pat's losing her memory. The rest have all passed on. So the heck with the food, bring on the folks!

-- Joy Froelich (dragnfly@chorus.net), January 24, 2001.

My husband says that I cook enough for an army! Why don't ya'll just come to dinner! The best part of a meal IS the fellowship! Joy is right!

-- Nan (davidl41@ipa.net), January 24, 2001.

Uh....waitress wer're ready to order....

I'll have the stuffed mushroom caps with garlic butter for an appetizer. For my salad, I'd like a wilted spinach with hot bacon/vinegarette dressing and a boiled egg crumbled on top and a side bowl of piping hot french onion soup with heavy dark bread and a combination of swiss and gruyere chees browned to perfection under the broiler. For my entree' I'll have the filet mignon med-rare. After we have finished with the meal you may bring some chocolate/raspberry cheesecake for dessert.

(Next, let's pretend how to pay for all this)

-- Heather (heathergorden@hotmail.com), January 24, 2001.

Hey Heather, if you wait till the mushrooms are ready in our woods I'll fix ya some of those caps! Have ya'll tried fried morrel(SP?) mushrooms? YUM! Fun to go searchin for them too! And the onion soup...Have you ever eatin wild onions scrambled with eggs? Now that is good! My husband always says in his sweet quiet voice....HEY WOMAN QUIT YOUR GRAZING AND FIX SOME REEEEEEAL FOOD! HaHa! Oh, and lambs quarters and poke Yum! Ya'll have got me dreaming of eating AND spring, now I'm in trouble!!!

-- Nan (davidl41@ipa.net), January 25, 2001.

Ok, Nan, You bring the mushrooms, we've got wild onions,danelion greens, fresh eggs, wild raspberries, fresh horseradish for the beef (some of you organic beef growers can bring that) The daylillies will be coming up soon and we can have salad with their shoots in it as well as violet and pansy blossoms. If I get out to the garden early enough and plant some spinach we can have that too.

We are all sick here right now and I look forward to real food again.

-- Heather (heathergorden@hotmail.com), January 25, 2001.

Gotcha covered on the spinach Heather! I have a cold frame full of red leaf lettuce, salad bowl lettuce, spinach, and radishes. Been eating out of it all winter! AND do I have some hamburger meat for you........let's see.....probably down to just 263 packages by now! Haha! How about a nice boysenberry/blackberry cobbler for dessert. Topped with real whipped cream.....do you know that you all are awful for my diet!!!!!HAHA!

-- Nan (davidl41@ipa.net), January 26, 2001.

Appetizer: Alaskan King Crab legs Salad: Who needs salad when you can have King Crab legs? Entree: Grilled King Crab legs Desert: Cold King Crab legs Beverage: Garlic butter, of course. ;-)

-- Wingnut (wingnut@moment.net), January 26, 2001.

Cindy - you are becoming ubiquitous! Wingnut, if you are not in Alaska, you don't know what King crab legs taste like. If you are, contact me immediately for a trade (lobster!) and I will even consider those awful Dungeness crabs! But there is nothing to compare with Uncle Brad's Seafood Chowder! I'll send you some if you will return the gesture! GL!

-- Brad (homefixer@SacoRiver.net), January 29, 2001.

Ubiquitous...being everywhere at the same time.....I looked it up! Brad......Yikes!

-- Nan (davidl41@ipa.net), January 29, 2001.