Entertaining

My cousins and sister from Chicago came out to visit on Monday.  I didn't know what they would think of my lifestyle.  We were all raised on farms, but the two cousins live in beautiful houses, very neat and clean.  There is no way I can make this place look neat and clean, even for a six hour visit!  Just too much going on here.  But my worries about what they would think were ill founded.  I forgot how important eating is to all of us.

The centerpiece of my kitchen is a butcherblock counter with four stools around it.  I was laying out the stuff for lunch bit by bit, and was going to clean the dining room table of seed packets and catalogs and lay out my great grandmother's Limoges china for our lunch.  The potato soup had just started to simmer - potatoes and onions from my garden, milk and cream from the cows, homemade butter.  There were deviled eggs, the hens' contribution, circling pickled hot peppers that I canned in September.  Two bottles of wine were breathing, and the homemade Gouda and Colby cheeses were coming to room temp on the cheese board.  Homemade Boursin cheese was ready to go.  And have you ever added a dollop of sweet, hot jalapeno jelly on creamy herb and garlic filled Boursin, liberally spread on homemade crostini?

In came sister Kay, Sharon and Ruth Ellen.  They did not make it past the butcher block.  They sat down and started tucking in.  Soup came later, when it was finally done, and I remembered to cut some thick slices of deer sausage, made from a deer that lived here on this farm, to complete our lunch.

For dessert, we had home canned apple slices and pears topped with Greek yogurt.  Add a sprinkle of cinnamon and some walnuts, and it's the food of the gods.

We did eat on Great Grandma Ploch's china, but it was as we sat on the stools in the kitchen.  The seeds never did get moved from the dining room table, and no one cared.