Friday, April 26, 2013

It Took The Pickle!!!

Ok...this is a little late in the writing, but let's go back to Thanksgiving last year.  It'll be worth the trip, guaranteed.

My daughter hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for the family at her home; everyone brought their favorites and she certainly had a few of her own to share.  One of her specialties is a very Southern way to fix yams.  She learned how to do it when she was going to college in Dallas, Texas, from one of her best friend's mom.  It's so simple and so good that I do it the same way now.  Simply peel the yams, cut them up in nice sized pieces, put them in a nice stainless steel pan, cover them with sugar (white sugar, mind you) and put the pan in the refrigerator overnight.  You see the sugar somehow turns into a light sugar syrup overnight - it must leech out some of the moisture in the yams as the hours go by.  Now to cook them you add absolutely nothing, place the pan on the burner, medium heat, and watch your yams like a hawk, turning them over gently, as the sugar syrup becomes a gooey lovely thick sugary goodness coating your yams - cook until tender.  Oh my Oh my Oh my!  Well we look forward to this dish now every year,,,,maybe twice a year for Thanksgiving AND Christmas, if we're lucky!

So.....now.........as Paul Harvey would say,,,,,,,,"For the rest of the story...."

Remember the part about peeling the yams?  Well, when my daughter peeled them,,,,somehow,,,,,alllllll of the peelings went into the garbage disposal at the same time,,,,and,,,,,oh,,,,you are already figuring out what took place?  Genius that you are!

Yep.  In the rush of things, sometimes we don't get all of our ducks in their proper row....and these peelings certainly weren't in theirs. We, of course, didn't hear about this story, until the Thanksgiving meal had been eaten and enjoyed by all....the story was saved for the end of the evening - so much the sweeter to savor -- and to laugh at!

Yes, you also may recall at the beginning of this little tale, I said the yams are prepared the night before.  So here they are, my daughter and family (husband included) getting the house ready, cooking, cleaning, doing a million little things that they would be doing to prepare for guests - basically us - family!  And wearing themselves out in the doing, noooooo doubt.  That's my daughter allright!

So.....back to the yams ...... when......my daughter turned on the garbage disposal after peeling alllllll those yams......yep ------ CLOGSVILLE!

JAMMED THAT PUPPY RIGHT UP!!

In comes hubby.....who now...in the dead of night.....has to get under the sink and play plumber!  He has to completely take apart the plumbing,,,,,unjam all the peelings that have found a lodging place where they ain't 'upposed to be....and put the whole thing back together again !  It was late.  Seriously late.  Hubby was not all that happy.  Neither was wife.

Uhhhhh....sooooooo now that the plumbing is back together,,,,,now that the sink seems to be in proper order again,,,,,the question is....does the bloody garbage disposal work?  Can we trust it?  Well,  I guess we better test it out then, right?  (You can imagine this conversation between wife and hubby - that's your job.)  Sooooo,,,,,wife grabs something to put down the disposal,,,,what that something was,,,,,but let's pretend it was a stalk of celery, ok?  "NOOOoooooo," hubby says,,,,,,"not that!"  (Whatever it was,,,,,onion peels maybe? I don't know - it was not a good thing, on that we can be assured.) "Something SOFT!" he adds. "OK," wife says,,,,,,,"let's try a pickle!"

A PICKLE!

Of course!

A PICKLE!

So,,,,pickle it was.

And pickle disappeared -------- down the garbage disposal and down the drain!

I believe the last words that were uttered in the kitchen that night were:

"OH THANK GOD!  HONEY, IT TOOK THE PICKLE!!!!!"