A Rat Pack Saturday Night

The Rat Pack held its monthly soiree' at Roger and Maddy Harmon's home last night.  We had agreed to cook at our house and transport the food.  We would have entertained at our place but our dining area is so small that six adults really crowd each other.

The day was, to put it politely, INTERESTING while the evening was pure unadulterated fun.  Sheila and I started by going out early to pick up a few items we had missed the night before including freshly dressed chickens at the local meat market.
During our rounds, we passed a hole in the wall mex place that serves champurra all day long on Saturday. Sheila had seen the signs and had to have some thinking it was just rich Mexican hot chocolate.  She came back to the car with two thirty two ounce styrofoam cups of the stuff.  The second she got into the car with it, I smelled something that both triggered ancient memories and turned my stomach.  As soon as I pulled the lid off the cup, I recognized the smell.  Boiling corn hog mash.  Champurra is made by boiling cornmeal, sugar and chocolate, stirring it constantly.  It is quite nourishing but for gringos an acquired taste at best.  I chose not to acquire the taste.  I couldn't get past the olofactory associations.

We got home and cooked all afternoon, carefully timing the start of each dish to end at 5:45, the target time we had chosen to leave the house and drive to the Harmons and still have fresh, hot food when we got there.    It got kind of testy in our kitchen after a while.

But, the beans were done on time and came out perfect.  Same for the collard greens.  We started frying chicken at 4:45 and at 5:45 the last piece was coming out of the oil.  Everything but the potatoes was fresh and steaming hot when we served it at the Harmons.  The menu was skillet fried chicken, pinto beans, collard greens, oven fried potatoes and cornbread.  It was darn good if I do say so myself, one of those ethnic meals designed to get you back in touch with your inner redneck.

Maddy outdid herself with a chocolate cheesecake that was sinfully delicious.  Roger had provided a magnum of Blackberry Mad Dog and kept rounds of the official drink of the Rat Pack, Champipple, always available. For those of you who are too young to remember Red Foxx, Champipple is the poor person's equivalent of a wine spritzer made with sweet, cheap wine like Mogen David.  It is actually quite good in a naughty soda pop kind of way.

After dinner, we settled in with a pot of coffee and played a totally insane game of Apples to Apples that lasted until way past everybody's normal bedtime.  There were plenty of jokes around the table and much good-natured foolishness.  A good time was had by all.