Momma's Doughnut Hole

Once or twice a year --- but never in the summer when it was hot ---my
Momma would find her special pot that she used for cooking doughnuts.
It had a wide open mouth and was fairly deep. She would put a whole
can of fresh lard into the pot and melt it. She saved used lard in a
jar, but she never used this to cook doughnuts.

"You don't want doughnuts that taste like fish," she would say. And
that's true. We didn't want hamburgers that tasted like fish either,
but that didn't seem to bother her.

Doughnut making time meant that I got to go in the kitchen to help.
We would roll out the dough and then cut the doughnuts out. We used a
biscuit cutter but it had a special little center piece that you could
attach that automatically made it into a doughnut cutter. Or if you
left it in, as we sometimes did, you had biscuits with holes in the
middle.

One of my jobs was to cut the doughnuts out. I had to cut as close as
possible to each doughnut so we didn't waste any dough. Then I would
pick out the dough from the hole cutter. I would collect the pieces
of dough (not the doughnut part) and the holes, wad them up and roll
the dough out again. I kept repeating the process until there was
practically no dough left. I would try to make the smallest doughnut
in the world with the final leftovers. I thought people might pay me
to see something like that but apparently people weren't as curious as
I was.

My other job was to carefully put the doughnut dough into the sizzling
lard. The doughnuts cooked fast and the lard could pop up on you. We
had some chopsticks from a Chinese restaurant that we had gone to once
(nobody in our family could eat with two skinny sticks) and the
chopstick was perfect for flipping the doughnuts when they were done
on one side. Then I used them to pick up the
doughnuts and put them on a large platter.

One they had cooled a little, I took the sifter full of powdered sugar
and would cover the doughnuts with a snowstorm of sugar.

These were cake doughnuts...nothing like those air-filled things you
could get at the Krispy Kreme shop. "Sweet air!" my Daddy called
those.

He soaked his doughnut in his coffee. And one doughnut could easily
suck up half a cup of coffee. I soaked mine in milk.

We made little plates of doughnuts to deliver to the neighbors. This
was done mainly so if they made doughnuts, they would share with you.

May Article for Saluda Lifestyles

CHICKEN EVERY SUNDAY

I love chickens. I always have. When I was a kid, we had chicken
every Sunday. Other
than fat back and other pig parts, it was about the only meat we ate.

I had two pet chickens. The first one was a hen. I used to hypnotize
her all the time. They are very vulnerable to hypnotists. You just
pick them up, put them above your head and swirl them around a few
times. Set them down and they are in a trance. Unfortrunately, they
are not under your command. One, they are fairly stupid. Then the
other thing is, they don't talk our language. You have to talk
Chicken Talk if you want them to do anything. But, still, it was a
hoot to have a hen in a trance.

The second pet chicken I had was a rooster who was half-blind. He had
a habit of wandering under the house in the middle of the day. It was
dark under there and he thought it was night time, so he would roost.
And roost. And roost. When I finally missed him, I would have to
crawl under the house and drag him out into the daylight.
Immediately he would start crowing as loudly as he could. (I told you
chickens were dumb.) He was not very reliable as a wake-up call
unless you were working on the second shift.

Once I got to a certain age, it became my responsibility to kill the
chicken for Sunday
dinner. It was a big responsibility for a 10 year old boy having to
make life and death decisions. especially when it involved some of
your friends. (I was an only child so
I befriended anything that breathed, except snakes. )

I would toss out a few pieces of dried corn and all the chickens would
come running.
They would start pecking at the corn and I would have to decide whose number was
up. Sometimes I would say "inny-menny-minny-moe" and use that method to choose.
Sometimes I would ask God to guide me in my decision. After all, he
knew which chickens had been good or bad. But usually I just had to
make a quick decision or the corn would run out and they would run
away.

I learned to grab one by the neck, grit my teeth and wring its neck.
Sometimes I wrung it so enthusiastically that the whole head would
come off in my hand and the chicken would go running around in the
yard like...well...a chicken with its head cut off. That was always
amusing to a 10-year-old boy, but not to his Momma. If we were having
people over for supper, I'd have to kill two chickens. Or if they
were big eaters on my father's side of the family, I'd have to kill
three.

Killing them was gruesome, but it was the easy part. After they had
quit running around,
I had to boil water in a big pot in the yard, then I had to dip them
in the water...get the chicken really wet and then pick the feathers
off.. There were always some small feathers left, but I could singe
them off. Again, fairly amusing for a young boy.

I had a step grandmother who lived with us from time to time. She was
Jewish, we were told. She insisted that all the blood be drained from
her chickens before they
were cooked. So I would usually have to chop the heads off of these
chickens which was more dangerous than it probably sounds. I was a
nervouse boy, you see, and
to hold a flapping chicken on a chopping block, hold an ax and swing
it at the neck of
the chicken was intimidating. I was always certain I would chop off a
few fingers for killing all those other chickens. I figured there was
a Chicken God someplace just eager
to settle the score. But it never happened. My step grandmother made
me hang her chickens upside down on the clothesline while they dripped
blood. That was a spooky
sight but, again, fairly amusing for a yung boy. And even his friends
who would come by
and say, "I see your step grandma is in town again."

I have a couple of chicken feet now, but no chickens. Chicken feet
are powerful charms
in the Voodou World. A friend and I went to a voodou shop in New
Orleans and the woman had a pile of chicken feet. I asked her how
much for two of them. She said
$10. I said, "I can buy two whole bar-b-qued chickens at Ingles for
$10." She said, "Sure, but you don't get the feet and that's where
all the power for warding off evil is." So I got two. So far, so
good.

I would have chickens here at Lake Sheila. But we have covenants that
don't allow any
undomesticated animals. I suppose if I walked my chicken on a leash,
I could claim that
it was domesticated.

Joe Adams

Re-Inventing One's Self

I've never thought that one should have the same career for 40 or 50 years.  That's why they invented retirement.  Give it up!  And then re-invent yourself, I say.

 

In fact, a guy I know up in Asheville did a movie about people who have re-invented themselves...a socialite who now does Tupperware-like parties, but she sells sex toys...a computer guy who now uses spare parts to make into artwork.  It's amazing really.

 

I personally worked very hard in my primary career in order to quit early.  I didn't want to retire.  I just wanted to try some other things without being under the pressure of making money from it.  I was eager to re-invent myself.  I became, among other things, a newspaper publisher, a custom home builder, an antiques dealer (open only on Saturday, whether I felt like it or not),  art dealer, a public speaker, a portrait photographer specializing in tongue portraits (more on this at another time), an award-winning playwright, a newspaper humor columnist, an ordained minister (so I got my ordination through the mail...so what!  I didn't have to study for 8 years...I mean, everything you need to know is in The  Book). 

 

The list goes on.  I enjoyed all of the new careers although some of them were short-lived due mainly to a lack of interest on the part of the buying public.  It's true of most inventors. Edison invented hundreds and hundreds of items,

but we remember him most for the lightbulb and his movie projector.  (I like Edison. Although he was the first person to

have an inground swimming pool, he never exercised.  Well, he exercised his brain. He rarely slept;he would have ten minute naps on a cot in his lab.)

 

As I minister I did unusual weddings.  One in  particular was called JUMPING THE BROOM.  In early days here in the Sea Islands, black slaves weren't allowed to marry. But they did and it was signified by the couple whooping it up and then jumping across a broom.  My part of the ceremony was simply bringing The Broom.  The Broom was decorated with

various voodoo symbols.

 

For a short while I was also a pornographeer of sorts. This was way before the internet made it easy to find risque material.  I have this information by heresay understand.

My career in porno was more than 50 years ago when I was a struggling college student with a wife and child to support.

One day I was getting a haircut in a real barbershop. The barber had a couple of deer heads mounted to the wall. I

was reading a magazine for men...popular mechanics or

something similar.  I came upon the idea of advertising and selling "wild stag photos.  Send $3 cash."  I got myself a post office box and I was in business.  Money came rolling in!  I was true to my promise...I sent each respondent three

black and white photos of deer in the wild.  I never had any

complaints, although I started thinking that someone would

be at the post office waiting for me so they could beat the tar out of me.  But I stopped selling the wild stag photos for a different reason.  I was afraid St. Peter would question me about it when I got to the Pearly Gates.  I'm not sure he has a sense of humor.

 

Oh, yeah. I was a fortune teller.  And I also wrote resumes by mail.  My motto was: I Can Make Anyone Look Good. Even Attilla the Hun.  My first rule was: Never put your picture on your resume if you are ugly. Save it for the interview.

LOSE FAT WHILE YOU SLEEP

That was the headline on an advertisement I saw 55 years ago when I was a portly
young teenager. Probably the best headline I had ever read. Imagine?
Lose weight while you sleep. I try to dream of exercising now hoping
that the dream
will actually build my strength and make me lose weight.

When I saw the ad, of course I got together $12.95, bought a money order and
sent away for this miracle weight-loss product.

When it came and I unwrapped it, it looked like a bright, rose-colored shower
curtain...with arms and legs. It was plastic and had a long zipper down the
front. The whole idea was that you slept in these plastic pajamas, and since
your body is mainly made up of water, you would sleep and sweat it away.

Made sense to me. The instructions didn't say how fast this worked
but I worried
that I would wake up the next morning with a skinny body, a fat face, fat hands
and fat feet. But I could live with that. So I zippered myself into
my shower curtain suit and went to bed.

I didn't wake up skinny. But I did wake up wet. At first I thought I
might have
pee peed in my bed, but then I remembered the suit and thought, "It's working.
It's working. I'm melting away."

Every day I dried the suit out and would put it back on that night. I
was on to something here and was very excited. The fifth day,
however, when I took off
the plastic suit, I realized my skin was the same bright reddish color
all over my body as the suit was. Heat rash! Nobody said anything
about getting heat rash. But I was red all over except for my face,
hands and feet. Bright red!

I thought to myself, "How can I possibly get undressed for gym and take a shower
with this Indian-red body?" Of course everyone would want to know
what had happened to me. I couldn't think of any disease that caused
a rash on your body,
but left your feet, hands and face faultless.

Some kind soul in the gym shower solved the problem for me when he
declared: "Some bitch of a birthmark
you got buddy."

About the same time, the zipper broke on the front of my plastic suit
so I had to
decide whether to invest some more money and order another one or to trash it.
I trashed it. Now I have a suana.

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO FRUITCAKES?

Fruitcakes used to be as common as Christmas trees in December. But they seem to have gone out of culinary style. I still get one every year from a friend of mine in Pennsylvania, but he is a die-hard traditionalist who refuses to quit making them. He's down to making only two a year now...one for himself and one for me. I look forward to its arrival...it weighs a ton because he loads it with rum. If you slice one piece you can usually squeeze out a jigger of rum. Now that's what I call fruitcake.

My friend wraps the cake in cheesecloth and selects a nice tin to mail it in. The cheesecloth takes on a rusty look and I keep thinking it is The Shroud of Turin... I keep expecting an image of Jesus to appear. Or at least the Virgin Mary who was supposedly a great fan of fruitcakes.

Scientist thought they found a large fruitcake in King Tut's Tomb, but it turnned out to be a jelly doughnut.

My father's church sold fruitcakes every year for years and years. Claxton Fruitcakes. He was suppose to sell the cakes to raise money but instead he would buy 5 boxes of them and then he gave them away to people intead of selling them. If you were his son, like I was, you would get at least l0 of these babies. They were shaped like big sticks of butter. I tried my best to offer pieces or even whole cakes to people, but no one bit. I could eat one a month so I took to freezing them and breaking them out as the year progressed. They could have used a little rum but since it was a Methodist church that was selling them, rum was a no-no. One summer I used one as fishing bait. The fish didn't bite.

At Christmas I used to buy two round fruitcakes...one large and one small. I would put them on a cake plate, small on top of the other one. Then I would drizzle white icing over them and put a large red candle in the center hole. It made a magnificent centerpiece for the Christmas dessert table, although no one ever cut into the cakes. I got the cakes at the dime store...and whatever happened to the dime stores?? Well, they have Dollar Stores now so maybe they sell fruitcakes.

I should have signed up for The Great Fruitcake Toss they have every January in Colorado. Those people know how to get rid of unwanted fruitcakes...throw them over to Utah.

One of the best teleplays I ever saw was based on Truman Capote's story of making fruitcakes every year with his crazy cousin. They would make one and send to the President of the United States. They had to collect nuts and shell them; get the waxed fruit; go to some old Indian to get some booze to soak the cake in. Then they would wait to get a thank you letter from the President. Sweet story.

I know companies are still making fruitcakes...Assumption Abbey is one of the most famous. And Collins Street Bakery in Texas makes a nutty one that's really delicious And Dancing Deer makes a "harvest" cake that's a more contempory type of fruitcake. But as long as my friend Charlie from Pennsylvania keeps making them, I am set in the fruitcake department. And in the rum department as well.

GET THAT MAN OUT OF THE KITCHEN!

When we invited people over for dinner, they never ask "What's cooking?"  Then ask,

"Who's cooking?"

 

If I am the Cook Du Jour, they invariably find some lame excuse like: I think my Mother

died today.  Huh!  I've heard that one before.

 

As Marie Antoniette said, "Let them eat cake...from Ingles."

 

I'm creative in the kitchen.  I think of it as a chemistry lab with pots and pans.  Just because a potato is white doesn't mean you have to serve it that way.  I learned that

years ago when I was in college.  I would get home from school oftentimes earlier than

my wife got home from work.  I made mashed potatoes, but I discovered food colors so I would make them green with pink gravy.  I thought it looked great but my wife turned away in disgust.  And she threw away the food coloring.

 

I admit that I am sort of messy in the kitchen.  A chef needs assistants.  Check the ones on TV...they are never washing dishes as they go or worrying about how many

pots and pans they are using.  My oven has so many drippings on the bottom, I could

make a meatloaf.  And I think I might.

 

I love meatloaf.  (The Saluda Grade Cafe has fantastic meatloaf, by the way.)  I come from a long line of meat eaters and meatloaf is our meat of choice...perhaps it's because not everyone still has their God-given teeth and meatloaf is easy to gum.

 

Everybody in our family loves meatloaf and we have an annual meatloaf cooking contest.  We even have a shirt that says: Don't Let Your Meat Loaf.

 

I am ashamed to say that I have been eliminated more than once.  Last year I made my meatloaf in a muffin pan....12 perfect little meatloafs.  My oldest daughter is very bossy when it comes to competitions.  She put herself in charge and immediately

eliminated me without the judges even getting a taste.

 

"This is NOT a muffin-cooking contest.  It's a loaf we're looking for and these are

meat MUFFINS.  You're out of the race!" she announced.

 

Guess who won?  She did with a Mexican meatloaf.  I have to admit that it was very

tasty, but she should have shaped it like a sombrero.

 

We also have a chili cooking competition.  I have a placque in the State of Virginia for winning the chili competition there.  My chili is called "My Lips Have Taste The Glory of

The Coming of the Lord" chili.  I also won for Longest Name.

 

But in my family (with the same Bossy Judge) my chili got eliminated.  Why?  "Because it is not red, and everyone knows that chili has to be red."

 

I made White Chili.  I know it sounds like some sissy thing from California but it had real buffalo meat and three types of white beans.  And it was darn good.

 

"But it isn't RED!", my daughter proclaimed.

 

"But it will burn the hairs out of your nose and the tequila will make you hallucinate.

That's what counts."

 

"No cowboy would ever eat this," she countered.

 

"If he rode side-saddled he might".

 

 

 

PHAT PHIL FROM PHILLIE

When I was in Basic Training at Fort Jackson, S.C. years ago, we had a guy in our platoon named Phat Phil From Phillie.  We didn't call him that to his face.  But that's what everybody called him when they talked about him.  He was fat. He was from Philadelphia.  And his given name was

Phil.

 

     He was what people called a Whop.  We didn't call him that to his face either.  He was Italian.  We

were friendly with Phat Phil for one reason alone:  His Mother, a fine Italian woman herself, would send him huge boxes in the mail.  They were stuffed with all kinds of delicacies---cookies, cakes, salami, pasta sauce in jars, cheeses.  We thought pizza was the only food that Italians ate, but Phil's

momma introduced us to a world of good eating.

 

     When the mailman called out Phil's name at mail call and we would see the big box from home, we would quickly gather around his bunk in anticipation of his opening the package.  We were like little birds waiting to be fed.  Little vultures.

 

     Phil liked all the attention so he generously passed out samples, telling us what each thing on the menu was.  Usually everything was eaten within half an hour and poor Phil had to go back to being an ordinary fat soldier until the next package came from home.

 

     The packages gave us a great idea.  My friend Blair and I wrote to our mothers, aunts, cousins and most of the girls in our senior high school class.  We told them we were in the War.  (Actually we enlisted three days before the Korean War was technically over.)  We told them the Army was

starving us to death and begged them to send anything that wouldn't spoil en route.

 

      My Mother came through right away (I was an only child).  We were smart enough to pay the mailman to put our packages into our laundry bags which hung on the end of our bunks.  We didn't want a throng of guys attacking us like we attached Phat Phil.

 

      I can't tell you how happy we were to come in from a day of marching and see the shape of a

box in our laundry bag.

 

      We already Had a plan in mind.  We would carry the bag out as if we were going to the laundromat.  But instead of going there, we both crawled under the barracks which was about

two and a half feet off the ground.  We dragged our goodies behind us.  When we got under the building far enough not to be seen, we sat and carefully opened the box.

 

     My Mother wasn't Italian but she was Southern, so she knew how to put together a satisfying

CARE package for her only son.  She had cans of Vienna Sausage and Potted Meat,  Crackers of

various kinds, sardines, bananas and peanut butter.  She sent pimento cheese sandwiches already

made and wrapped in tinfoil.  They travelled surprisingly well.

 

     Our big problem was the height of the barracks.  We could take a bit of a sandwich, but our necks were bent over so much we couldn't swallow anything.

 

     I sent Blair back into our barracks to get our two field shovels.  When he came back, we dug

a hole large enough to sit in with our heads held high.  We called it our "Dining Room" and dine,

we did.

 

     Every day more packages arrived.  Some were just cookies or candy.  But we also started

getting canned hams.  We needed to get our dining room better organized for opening and slicing

ham.  I wanted to make a little table but we couldn't find any scrap wood.  So we started wearing

our ponchos to keep the grease off of our clothes.  One person asked what kind of laundry detergent we used because we always smelled so edible when we came in from one of our feasts.

 

     We didn't share our food with anybody, nor our secret dining spot.  If you went to Fort Jackson

today, the hole is probably still under the building with a lot of empty Vienna Sausage cans.  Our

mailman started making us give him monthly payments to keep his mouth shut.  We should have stuffed it with one of Phat Phil's salamis.

 

 

 

YOU WANT A ROOM ON THE ROAD OR A MEANINGFUL EXPERIENCE?

I used to travel a lot; mainly on the road.  And if I was travelling by myself, I didn't care what kind of room I got as long as it was clean.  And  I actually rejected a couple of rooms that looked like there might have been a chainsaw murder in them.  Maybe it wasn't blood on the carpet, but it looked scary.

 

I had never stayed in a motel until I went in the Army.  When my family went anywhere, we

travelled at  night.   My Father wouldn't stop at a motel.  He just assumed they cost a lot of

money and my Mother wasn't keen on sleeping where "who knows who" has slept and done

other things.  My Father would say, "Sleep in the car."  So I did.

 

I have since stayed in a lot of motels and hotels, including very upscale ones.  My wife likes

to travel first class so whenever she goes I have to upgrade my accommodations.  It's actually

ridiculous what some places charge now...$300 to $400 a night in New York is considered

mid-priced.  But I don't go to New York that often or stay that long, so I usually bite  the bullet and pick something unusual.  A big price doesn't necessarily mean you'll get a great place.

I like to stay at new hotels when they open.  We stayed at one years ago...it was so fancy,

they didn't even have a sign on the place; you just had an address.  And when you arrived,

handsome young men in black escorted you in.  It was designed by Andre Putnam, a hooty

tooty French designer.  Everything in the hotel was done in black and white.  We had what

was fondly called a Loft...a bedroom, sitting room, bath all done in black and white.  Cher

had an apartment there.  It was one of those places that you go to be see and be seen

although I don't think we were chic enough to be seen.

 

The same hotel group opened another hotel in the theater district, so we booked there once.

The rooms were tiny but the lobby was huge and filled with designer furnishings...enormous

modern chairs that were very uncomfortable.  And there were mirrors everywhere...when the

elevator doors opened,  the inside was covered with mirrors.  When they got to your floor and opened, there was a huge mirror right in front of the door.  People who stayed there not only

wanted to be seen, they wanted to see themselves as well. They had a menu in the room for ordering rental videos...x-rated, gay and straight.  They would bring them to your room.  We

didn't order any.  I didn't think they should know what we were doing in our spare time.

 

Now  the big thing is providing guests with a "meaningful experience",  not just a firm bed and a good night's rest.  One meaningful experience, for example, is  a 6-hand massage.  It's

not included  in the room rate; it's extra.  And not cheap.  I mean, it's very difficult to find massage help that has six hands. Other  meaningful experiences include aroma therapy

whereby they shoot exotic smells into your room. 

 

Mainly I just want a place to sleep peacefully.  Years ago I started staying at Hampton Inn

when I was on the road. When they first started opening them, the motels were fairly reasonably priced...then gradually (well not all that gradual actually), they started bumping up the prices.  A place I stayed at in Atlanta was soon more  than a hundred dollars a night.

I thought that was a lot for one old guy to sleep and park.  So I soon downgraded my choices

and looked for bargains.

 

But last year I switched back to Hampton Inn.  My wife told me she had stayed at one and

the rooms and bedding were so luxurious.  I thought,  "How luxurious can they be?".  So I

decided to stay in one...price be damned (plus I have an AARP card).  Well, let me  tell you,

they are luxurious...the beds especially.  They are so nice,  in fact, that I started stopping

after only being on the road for a couple  of hours. Normally I drive for 7 or 8 hours before

stopping but I was coming back from Mississippi and I started stopping before I had even

gotten on the road good.  Not all the Hampton Inns had been redone at the time, so one time

I checked out when I saw the room was the old standard.

 

You have to be careful with budget motels.  Years ago I stopped at one in Columbia, S.C.

When I checked in, she asked if I wanted a telephone.  It was extra.  I'm deaf so I passed on

the phone.  Then she wanted to know if I wanted a TV.  I  did, but they added it to my bill.

She wanted to know if I wanted toilet paper.  I asked, "Does this place have a bed with the

room?"  She said, "Yes, but sheets and pillow cases are extra."  Talk about your ala carte

services.