*** Random Thoughts
Every year around this time, I vow to take a week or two to get my mind and body ready for this blasted time change. Starting Monday, everyone in the house went to bed five minutes earlier, and got up five minutes earlier the next morning. Each evening and morning we add another five minutes. Come Sunday, we’ll be halfway ready. I’m hoping it will help.
So far, I have to say that a five-minute change is harder than I thought it would be.
It’s been a brutal winter. Colder than usual, windier than usual, gloomier than usual. I’m not one to generally mind the cold or the rain but I’m done, thanks. I’ve been apologizing to summer for all the nasty things I say about her and her humidity and mosquitoes and all. Come back. Please.
I’ll welcome the warmer seasons with open arms. Another good thing about the never ending winter is how grateful I feel for blue skies and sunshine.
Best,
Keetha
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*** Great Quotes
In answer to daylight savings time:
"Only a white man would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket and sew it to the bottom of a blanket and have a longer blanket." – Native American proverb
*** Fun Food Idea
As the days get longer everyone probably wants to be outside enjoying the warmer weather, especially after how cold it’s been all winter. That’s a good time to throw some chicken in the slow cooker and head outside to grill some vegetables for side dishes.
Allow one chicken breast per person and add a roughly chopped onion, a quartered garlic clove or two, salt, pepper, juice of one lemon, and other seasonings such as creole or Greek or Italian. You pick. Add some white wine or chicken stock, just a bit, and let it cook for several hours.
Heat up the grill and slice zucchini and squash longwise, about one-half inch thick. Brush with olive oil. Brush portabella mushroom cap with olive oil and grill. Asparagus can be wrapped in proscuitto and grilled and that was our greatest hit from 2008 when we hit on that idea.
Fresh green beans and asparagus spears are also really good tossed with olive oil and seasonings and put in a grill pan. They get the yummy grilled flavor and it’s just as easy as cooking them on the stove.
For dinner, have mixed grilled vegetables along with slow cooker chicken.
You can make wonderful sandwiches with the leftovers.
In the Kudzu Kitchen:
Again with the leftover vegetables: Panini!
Homemade ravioli
*** Pass It On
If there’s someone you think would enjoy this newsletter, please forward this issue in its entirety. Email me at kudzuuu at gmail dot com to subscribe.
*** Hit the Highlights - a few choice blog posts from last month:
Weekend in Vegas. I mean, Tunica.
House Story: Hoarder Version
House Story: Master Suite
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*** Shameless Bid for Commerce
“Keetha DePriest Reed's "More Culinary Kudzu: Recollections and Recipes from Growing Up Southern" is part cookbook, part collection of wonderful essays on food, family and growing up Southern and altogether great fun…
I would very highly recommend "More Culinary Kudzu" to anybody who enjoys good food and good writing as well as to anybody who wants to find out more about the South. As for me, I only have one question left - how do I get invited to one of their family reunions?” – review by ReaderViews.com
*** Recommended Reading
I must be living right because I have read so many good books lately. It makes me feel like it’s such an abundant, big, wonderful world when I read back to back books that are so good they make me forget where I am, I’m so into the story.
I finished Anna Karenina last month and it’s amazing. I loved it and will read more Tolstoy, although not right away.
Approximately two pages into The Happiness Project and I could tell it would be one of my favorite books of the year. I highly recommend it.
Then there was Sing Me Home, which I also really enjoyed.
Books I read in February.
*** Adorable Thing My Child Said
Him: I droove the golf cart!
Me: You did what?
Him: I droove the golf cart and it was so fun.
Me: Really? You droove it?
Him: Yes ma’am and it was so fun.
Me: All rightey then.
***
Following a question from him about how babies are born:
Me: (long silence)
Me: It’s really hard to explain.
Him: Just try, Mommy. Do your best!
*** Mississippi Writers Guild
The Mississippi Writers Guild sponsors writer workshops, conferences, writer retreats and reputable writing contests. Membership dues are only $40.00 per year.
The Mississippi Writers Guild is a non-profit association of writers from all over the state and is a growing part of Mississippi’s literary art landscape.
*** Calendar
Sunday, March 28 – Palm Sunday
Sunday, April 4 – Easter
Saturday, April 10 – World Catfish Festival, Belzoni, Mississippi, where I’m one of the judges for its first Catfish Cooking Contest. It’s also my 20th class reunion. My word. Twenty years. How did that happen?
Monday, April 12 – I’m speaking at the National Library Week luncheon in Winona.
*** Reminders and Unsubscribe Info.
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