Last Weekend Home

During the years my parents lived in Florida, the kids and I would visit as often as we could. These visits were always preceded with my mom asking me what I would like to eat while I was there. I usually had no trouble rattling off all of my favorite dishes. She loved to cook for me and I loved her cooking. It was a perfect relationship.

Now I find myself doing the same. A visit home from college always brought about the question, “What would you like to eat?” College has a way of instilling a real appreciation for home cooking in most kids, mine included, so they always had some quick answers to that question.

Calvin and Vicki decided to spend their last weekend home with their families. Calvin’s last weekend home before the big Seattle send-off had to be special—especially food-wise. I think we created some new memories. Friday night’s request was fried catfish—a dish I hadn’t fixed in awhile so it was perfect with French fries and homemade coleslaw. I think my son Corey ate at least two pounds of fish. Saturday dinner was Mom’s choice, so I did slow cooked BBQ ribs with homemade mac & cheese and seasoned green beans. For dessert, Calvin picked peanut butter pie.

After dinner we played a board game, something new to us called “What’s Yours Like?” Henry won it from a radio station. It’s a guessing game based on clues given by the players and while totally innocent, the sexual innuendo can’t be helped so it kept us laughing.

We started Sunday morning with a platter of Monkey Bread and finished the day with Calvin’s final request, beef tenderloin steaks on the grill. Of course these had to be accompanied by Cathy-style potatoes (there's a story behind the name) and a fresh green salad. A lemon tart with shortbread crust and fresh raspberries ended our culinary venture.

Cathy and Andrew joined us for Sunday’s dinner, so it was quite a fun evening and even though we had an early airport call the next morning, we stayed up late playing “Pictionary”, one of our family’s all time favorites, simply because it makes us laugh so hard. We even save our favorite “classic” drawings, where a couple line strokes result in a split second correctly shouted answer, like “The Alamo”, while everyone else at the table is frantically looking at drawings and saying things like, “salamander” and “Ben Franklin”.

This weekend was a great throwback to the days when the kids were younger and we played a lot of games—just simple, relaxed fun, with a lot of laughter. What a great send-off! Seattle, here they come!