Saturday, February 18, 2006
About Me
- Name: Aunt B
- Location: Nashville, Tennessee, United States
Like Donnell Alexander says, "It's about completing the task of living with enough spontaneity to splurge some of it on bystanders, to share with others working through their own travails a little of your bonus life." But, it's mostly the kind of place that folks looking for "girls and cars" stumble across by accident.
I'VE MOVED. COME CHECK OUT THE MOST RECENT STUFF HERE.
WHERE TO DIRECT YOUR HATE MAIL AND LOVE LETTERS
ALL PROCEEDS GO TO BEER
THINGS I SAID RECENTLY
- The Underpants, Revisited
- A Poem for David Boaz
- The Underpants
- Vacation
- My Problems are Obvious
- The Professor's Bean Soup and Other Stories
- Mrs. Wigglebottom's Love for Trucks
- Karin Agness is So Cute I Could Just Eat Her Up (a...
- Please Explain This To Me
- Walk, Don't Run
THE CAST OF CHARACTERS
Aunt B.--Your kind host.The Butcher--My youngest brother, who lives with me and works as, you guessed it, a butcher. He knows everyone in town.
The Recalcitrant Brother--Our middle brother, who lives in rural Georgia and has a kind of movie star life, if that movie star is Burt Reynolds in Deliverance.
The Reverend--Our Dad, a Methodist minister, perpetually three years from retirement.
Mom--Our Mom. She doesn't get a funny nickname because our mom will not stand for funny nicknames.
Mrs. Wigglebottom--My dog. She's got terrible manners.
The Corporate Shill--Or The Shill, as we call her. My friend from college who was constantly getting me into trouble and going to parties she neglected to tell me about where cute boys would ask her "Where's Aunt B.?"
The Legal Eagle--The Shill's husband.
The Super Genius--She lived next door to me my freshman year of college and we've been friends ever since my first day on the floor.
Miss J.--My first adult friend, meaning the first lasting friendship I made after college. She was my roommate in grad school.
Her Lover--Her Husband.
The Divine Ms. B.--Miss J.'s sister and one of my heroes, because she's brave and funny and mystic and fearless.
JR--My oldest friend. I've known her since I was in the second grade.
Elias--JR's husband and the person who's musical tastes have most strongly affected my own. Oh, how I long to be cooler than him!
The Professor--My closest friend here in Nashville. She's a genius, but she'll never tell you that.
The Man from GM--I've known him since I was 16 and he still hasn't forgiven me for telling him I was a vegetarian when I wasn't.
The Redheaded Kid--No one knows where he comes from or where he goes when he leaves here. I assume he's the Butcher's friend. The Butcher assumes he's mine.
6 Comments:
I think you have hit on a basic midwestern and southern difference. I have never seen a noodle recipe and would have had no clue how to make them. This seems pretty straight forward. I 've only ever had egg noddles from a bag.
I grew up with dumplings as probably the closest things to noodles, but they are much more bread-like. Can you clue me in on "Chicken and pastry"? Would this dish use your noodles too?
I haven't ever heart of "chicken and pastry." Maybe some other Midwesterner can clue us both in. Dumplings and these noodles are not that much different, as my poor mom can tell you. Every time she tries to make my grandma's noodles, she ends up with dumplings in the pot.
Mmm. We got an Italian pasta maker for Christmas, and your Grandma's recipe and technique is the same as that described in the Italian manual. (Which is hilarious in itself because it was apparently translated by a non-native speaker of English and so has wonderful lines like, "If you have been provident and bought the ravioli attachment...") Anyway, C. made our first batch the other night. You have to make sure that your volcano has sides tall enough to house both the eggs, because if you don't, as he found, the volcano erupts egg everywhere. The noodles were *awesome* though. I can't wait to make lasagna with those giant flat fresh noodles that you get before you slice them. Pasta is just like the ultimate comfort food.
Miss J
Perhaps 'chicken and pastry' is something like a pot pie?
A difference between dumplings and noodles is the addition of some baking powder (or is it soda, I can never remember) and a bit of liquid, and dumplings are usualy poached in a liquid rather than boiled like noodles. They are more roundish (golf ball sized) and should be fluffier, rahter than solid like a noodle.
Homemade noodles are the best.
I wondered if it was a pot pie, too, or something fancier. Saraclark, come back and answer our questions!
J., it's funny because it's just a normal noodle recipe, but I think the fact that she never actually rolled them extremely thin and that she cooked them in, basically, beef broth made them taste much different than pasta noodles.
The recalcitrant brother is going to try them and see if he can get them to work.
Peg, my poor mom. Her dumplings always disintigrate and her noodles turn to "numplings." The woman can cook up a storm and she makes a pie crust better than just about anyone, but any kind of main course dough fails her.
In Eastern North Carolina, "chicken and pastry" or, more simply, "chicken pastry" is basically large, flat pasta noodles boiled with a whole, cut-up chicken (or chicken parts). You boil them together in a large pot of salted and peppered water. No vegetables, no gravy. You end up with tender pasta noodles and savory chicken in a rich chicken broth.
I grew up in Eastern NC, and this dish was always a treat. We have it on special occasions like Thanksgiving but also for Sunday dinner (i.e., lunch). Simply one of my favorite meals. It takes me back . . . .
I finally learned to make the pastry myself in the last year, so now I don't have to rely on Grandma, my Mom, or my Aunt Jean to make this for me whenever I go home.
You can buy the noodles commercially now from Anne's Dumplings--http://www.annesdumplings.com/. They even serve them "way up North" in Pennsylvania where I now live.
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