Loose Lips Limeade

A page from the original BSC cookbook - 1991

It's August, and a perfect month to reflect on frozen beverages.  As a matter of fact, I do believe this should be the official Frozen Adult Beverage Month!  But anyway...

I can honestly say that nothin' starts off a great Supper Club like a good ole  "lip loosener".  Makes us  forget we are tired or that our job sucks and any other annoyance of the day.  We’ve all been together so long, some folks wonder just what we have to talk about and well, thing is…we never know until the Loose Lip Limeades (L3's) kick in.   Then, about 30 minutes after serving the first one, it’s anybody’s game.

Just start askin’ folks stuff, or tell an old story with a new twist just to see who takes the bait.  For even more fun, open up with, “Purl told me a funny story about you the other day.”  We all know that Purl has let many a cat out tha proverbial bag, the child can’t help herself.

All that bein said, here’s a general recipe.  Feel free to make substitutions as you see fit.  

Basic Loose Lips Limeade

A can of frozen limeade

Use that empty can and fill it with tequila

Note:  Always use your can!  If it was a 6 oz can, use 6 oz of tequila, if it was a 16 oz. can…ditto)

1/3 can "Granma Ney" or Triple Sec

A tray of ice cubes or more depending on the size of your can…or your blender

Feelin Fancy? Use real lime wedges to squish on top

Dump it all in a blender and puree.  If for any reason it doesn’t render the desired kick, top it with another shot of tequila and stir…or just suck it off the top, you won’t care about the rest of the drink when it’s gone.  

This recipe is deeply rooted in Supper Club tradition and has many variations.

• The Supper Club Margarita when made with bottom shelf tequila (Poor Peppe)
• The Ruski-Rita when made with bottom shelf vodka (Aristocrat)
• The Flora-rita when made with frozen orange juice
• The Champa-rita when made with Cooks
• And last but not least…Bubba’s Best Cruncha-rita, first created when the cap off the bottle went in the blender and currently not recommended due to posin' a choakin' hazard. 

Cheers everybody and just remember, in the wrong company “Loose Lips Can Sink Ships” but in the safe harbor of Supper Club, they just float our boat!  Drink and talk responsibly!  

Hittin' the Fan

You know, these are tryin' times!

Peas of Mind

I have to say, I was scratchin’ my head this weekend while enjoying the free-for-all in Bobby’s garden. He and Dianne had gone into town for the birth of their sixth grand-child and told Buck and me to pick the garden so things wouldn’t go to waste. Well, you don’t have to tell me twice to pick a garden; I only hesitate when I fear I might come off too greedy, I didn’t want Dianne to come back home and wonder if a plague of locust had been through.

That bein’ said, Buck and I set out, like a pair of hungry trick-or-treaters, baskets and bags in hand, across the short divide between Shipman’s Farmacy and the Oley Garden O’Plenty.

Buck headed straight for Dianne’s garden shed to “rest-up” from the stroll, while I made a beeline for the heirloom tomatoes.

You can always tell an heirloom; it doesn’t care if it’s pretty, it grows just as lobed and split-ugly as it wants to be, cause in the garden it’s not about bein’ pretty, it’s about the taste and heirloom tomatoes are bread for glory. When pickin tomatoes, it’s a good idea to carry a salt shaker in your back pocket just in case temptation strikes.

So with a “not-to-greedy” bag filled with tomatoes, it was time to move onto the more back breakin’ task of pickin beans. Now I have to say that while I know some things about pickin a garden, I got a little confounded when it came to the corn and black-eyed-peas. I had to take pause cause, they looked ready, but we all know that “lookin ready” and “bein ready” are two different things and not knowin’ the difference can get you in a bunch of trouble, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, those black-eyed-pea vines were loaded with what looked like long green knotty fingers, five beans to the palm. I knew each one of those knots was a precious pea but I was still baffled ‘cause some of the pods were as green as the vine; some were changing over to a soft pinkish brown, and then some were as tan and weathered as my grand-momma’s hands.

I have to say, the whole experience got me to thinkin about life and potential; about recognizin prime and bein’ in season. It was one of those moments when I wish I had paid closer attention…to a lot of things.

But I was in the garden and I figured I would just have to use my senses to figure things out; do they cling to the vine or release with a touch, do they smell “green” or has that given away to a hint of maturity, do they give to touch or resist? I just figured there was wisdom in the garden and if I wanted to eat black-eyed-peas, I was just gonna have to tap it, one pea-pod at a time. So not unlike that little trespasser, Goldilocks, I set out to find what was “just right”.

The green ones were full enough but not willin to give into the harvest, they hung on for dear life and defied every effort to open up. When they did, the pea was as pretty as a little emerald and just as hard. Searchin back as far as I could, I could never remember eatin’ a green black-eyed-pea so I decided these ladies were not ready to leave the vine.

Movin on to the pinkish brown ones, they popped off the vine with little effort, and while not quite as eye catchin, they opened as easy as a new zipper and surrendered perfect cream colored peas with shiny black eyes that I swear seemed to twinkle! The taste test said it all, they were as good raw as they would be after a slow simmer in nothing but black pepper and a pinch of salt. I had found the princess pea-pod and was ready to pick my fill.

But while I had deduced what was prime, what about the old ladies of the vine, the ones with parchment thin brown fingers and “knuckles” that seemed to have shrunken and hardened in place? With all due respect, surely they had a destiny other than the compost pile.

Curiosity got the best of me and as I cautiously peeled back the pod, somethin that sounded like pearls from a broken strand, tapped, bounced, and rolled across the table. You could have knocked me over with a ham-bone, ‘cause inside, pretty and bone white as you please were perfect little dried peas, just like what you see stacked up in the grocery store on New Year’s Eve. I was so excited ‘cause I swear I could almost hear the old girls whisper with well preserved dignity, “now you know.”

So with baskets full of peas for dinner and some for luck, Buck and I closed the garden gate and headed home for the peace that comes with shellin’ beans on a hot summer day.


Note:
Special thanks to Bobby and Dianne Oley for sharing their bounty each and every time we return to the Farmacy. Your garden is a treasure and a testament to your caring, nurturing ways.

Set no Trap....Take no Bait

I remember one time VerDell asked me, "So just how important is it for you to have the last word?" She does stuff like that, asks questions that just shut you up for a minute. But it got me to thinkin about bait and traps and how some folks just enjoy settin'um up.

It got me thinkin about my Daddy and how much he loved to argue...or debate as he used to like to call it. Only thing was, he knew exactly where he wanted to go with the "open discussion". He was a master and the path was filled with traps and "gotcha's" and dead ends. After he retired, he and my Uncle David would sit in the livin room and go at it all day, and bein it was our house, Uncle David would usually storm out and say sumthin like, "You're just full of it Jimmy," and Daddy would shake his head, flash a smile and say, "Wore him down again..but he'll be back for another round." As usual, he was right, and by lunch time, it would start all over again.

When Radcliffe's get together it's like that sometimes. Others look on like they're watchin' a tennis match and we're pretty much oblivious to their bewilderment...or discomfort. It's a strange head-strong family, we just do what we do cause it's what we did..keep three reason's ahead!

I'm not sayin it's right and it doesn't sound pleasant, but in a way, it was good family fun and Daddy always said, the minute you start cussin, everybody stops listenin' so callin somebody a stupid shit-head was an automatic default. Daddy wouldn't listen to cussin; and some days he wouldn't even listen to reason. But he loved it, sittin there in his big ole chair, usually with a cat on his lap and cigarette in his hand; Lord Know-It-All on his throne.

I just want you to know I say all this with a smile and a touch of nostalgia. I'm m not dissin' Daddy. Nope I could stand my own thanks to him and much to my Momma's dismay. Last thing in the world she ever wanted was another strong will to contend with but that's what she got in my brother and me.

But I digress, I'm thinking about all this because Daddy died fifteen years ago this week, on the hottest day on record. He'd do just that and say, "told you it was hotter'n Hades here".

I do miss him and thank him for teachin' me about not cussin' when I'm fussin, how to spot a bullshitter (I didn't say he wasn't colorful at other times) and how to reach down deep for stuff. There were times when his style served me well, but these days I'm learnin that, "Really?" is a good answer too. I'm conservin' energy and pickin my battles, cause some aren't worth the sport.

RIP Big Jim!

Slippery

I feel bad, I haven't been cuttin "the Mustard" because I felt like this was a place to do something special, you know, keepin the stories alive and all. But I'm lonely here because nobody else writes and for Godzilla's sake folks, Lurlene needs bait, a carrot, sumpin to go after, so toss me a bone!

So anyway, I decided that I would start to put a few comics from the Book of Lurlene up. After all, they're a part of the moment too. You know like when you go out and somebody says somethin so darn funny or "pointed" as my Momma used to say, and you think, to yourself, "now I'm just gonna remember that forever" and five minutes later not one person can remember exactly what it was, but everybody agrees it was good and it could have been published in the Reader's Digest, if you could just remember it. Well, that's what these are like for me.

This one is "through" VerDell. She and I talk on the phone in the morning, it's like our little "pic-me-upper so I can get through this day Lord" time. I say somethin that has no meaning and is probably not based on any fact and she calls me out on it and we get into a rant or she just says somethin profound without even knowin it, kinda like the other day when we were talkin about how often we find ourselves between in a rock and a hard place and she said, as dry as you please, "good thing we're slippery". Simple as that! Well, I was no more good, I rolled and told her I was gonna write that down and I did, sorta.

So thank you to all my muses and while these won't ever appear in the Reader's Digest, they'll cut the Mustard when words fail me!

Que’ Lime Pie: A true Two-Bit-Teena Summer Dessert

You know, it's a sad thing...summer birthdays, nobody wants to spend the day in a hot kitchen..or even worse, over a hot grill. And don't even think you're gonna get a cake, cause a good one takes forever if you do'um right, or just 50 bucks if you order one from Caroline's, but that's another story. (We love our Caroline's)

So when Purl, and yes I will give credit where credit is due because I often am guilty of overlookin' the fact that the idea really wasn't mine; like with those roasted red peppers I "re-jarred" and gave to the Bee, but I won't go into that here.

As I was sayin' So when Purl came up with this fine ice-box pie it wasn't even digested when the rest of us weren't puttin our own spin on it. Even Bubba got in the mix cause his favorite pie is Rum cream and he thought, "Hell, a cup of 150-rum would just make this even better, and then I said; well, hell to you too, what about a couple shots of cheap Tequila and a pretzel crust, we'd have our-self a good ole Margarita pie! So then Lushious said, "Well hell to the power of three," what about a Cosmo pie for goodness sake?

If it hadn't been for Holly askin about a Pot Pie, I think we could have gone on all night, but we forgive her and her tendency to revert back to her tie-dyed hippy-skinny-dippin and eatin olive sandwiches days.

But be that as it may, we had such a good time that VerDell and I decided this mornin that the Que Lime Pie would be the official Birthday Pie of the Two-Bit-Teena's and if you were born in summer...that's your cake!

So, that bein decided it made it important to get the basics put down.

Start with 1 store bought Graham cracker crust
Add
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk

• 1 8oz tub Cool Whip (don' t use low fat - it won't work)

• 1/2 cup Nellie & Joe's Key (or Que’) Lime Juice (found in the juice section, not the mixer section)

In a bowl
Mix milk, Cool Whip and juice together
pour into crust. Refrigerate for several hours.

I put mine in the freezer and pulled it out to thaw after folks sat down and it was fine. It refreezes too..as long as the alcohol content remains legal.

So Bone Appetite everybody and Many happy summer birthdays!

All Sides

Perspective is a powerful player, it's kinda like our content, a stew of influence. VerDell and I can look at the same thing and still see or miss something that leaves the other baffled. I was talkin to her about this the other day...I told her there were three sides to every coin; heads, tails, and the edge and sometimes the truth was on the edge. But I was in the bed thinkin' that there's another side...the inside and all that went into the makin of that coin and that's a player too, cause sometimes new quarters don't work in a vendin' machine.