Don wanted to interview me about my great-grandmother, Mama Bobo. Of course, to most of the world, she is known as Miss Mary Bobo.

My great-grandmother, Miss Mary Bobo, standing in front of The Hotel in Lynchburg, TN.

Frankly, the interview was a ton of fun! Don has done several pieces on the distillery & the boarding house so he is very familiar with the area.  It’s very easy to talk to Don, which I’m sure, is a lot of the reason he is so good at his job. Not sure which I enjoyed more, picking out old pictures to share with him or showing the pictures to him. Thanks to my cousin, Sherrie Moore, it was easy to find some pictures Don would like. (Sherrie has taken on the role of family historian & has diligently been scanning & uploading old family pictures for all of us to be able to access.)

We went through several pictures of Mama Bobo & her sister, Ophelia Motlow. It was delightful looking at the pictures of the two of them when they were young.

A picture of the very young Miss Mary Bobo & Ophelia Motlow. Taken way before Ophelia married the famous Lem Motlow or Miss Mary Bobo had become famous.

My guess is that Mama (Miss Mary Bobo) was probably 15 or 16 years old at the time. This guess is based on the fact that she is still not in an ankle-length dress, the attire for a young woman of the time.

As happens, the two young ladies grew up, married & had children. Unfortunately, it’s also pretty common for such ladies to end up widows eventually as happened to these sisters. But they remained close & talked on the telephone frequently.

Ophelia Motlow on the left & her sister, Miss Mary Bobo on the right, visiting with a friend.

Mama was a delight to know & a huge inspiration. She never outgrew her love of children as can be seen in the photo below.

I look at this photo & I can hear Mama saying "gimme some sugar" right before she leaned over to get a kiss from her great great grandson.

A collection of the blooming daffodils from our yard.

Flowers feed my soul. The beauty of them calms & centers me. The scent brightens my mood & brings a smile to my face.

My roses are blooming their heads off.

Knowing the importance of flowers to me, I have always filled my yard with them. With a fairly new house & yard, there are lots of nooks begging for flowers to be planted in them. Last year, I was too overcome with grief to add more than a handful to the yard. But this year, I have felt Jim nudging me to plant. He has been reminding me that one of the reasons we bought the house was all the places it had that I could plant flowers. It has seemed that the plants themselves are echoing Jim.

Even though it was a 3 year old plant tuber, I got ONE bloom all of last year from this peony plant.

I planted lily bulbs last year in pots. A mixture of Oriental lilies & Asiatic lilies caught my eye last year & I brought them home. Carefully planted them in pots & watched & waited. Nothing! Most of them didn’t even sprout any greenery! The ones that did only grew about 4-5 inches tall & refused to do anything else. The pots were as barren as my soul. But this year — all those barren pots have grown lily plants! They vary in size but all of the pots are full of lush green stalks. They are also loaded with flower bulbs. I no longer remember which bulbs were planted in which pots so it will be delightful surprise after surprise as they bloom.

THIS is one of pots of lilies that didn't even sprout last year!

Having watched all of this and knowing my feelings about flowers, Sarah bought me plants for Mother’s Day. While we were having our enjoyable day together yesterday, we went round to several places & I picked out flowers. There is a strip between the ditch at the bottom of the hilly front yard and the road that is a pain to mow or weedeat. My plan is to eliminate that strip of weeds with a little grass. Slowly I’m replacing the unruly weeds with daylilies.

The lily bulbs had multipled so much, one of the bulbs was forced up in the air. So it grew sideways & produced this lovely flower.

I’m not planting your common orange daylilies. I’m planting glorious reds, yellow, fragile pinks & bi-colors. I picked out 2 different colors of daylilies. Kept eyeballing some Knockout Roses. Everybody keeps telling me they need very little care. I’m about to find out! I picked out 2 of them & they are going to join the daylilies in transforming that ugly weedy strip into a thing of beauty.

Drained macaroni

With all of Jim’s health problems, it’s no wonder I’ve been craving all kinds of comfort foods. Sarah’s been wanting me to fix some macaroni & cheese for awhile now so I’ve decided to get to it. I have several macaroni & cheese recipes I use depending on the cheeses I have onhand & which one I feel will suit my tastes better at the time. Some of them are very simple & easy with only 1 cheese involved; some are more complicated & use several cheeses. Today, I don’t want to have to pick up more cheese & just want a simple basic macaroni & cheese. As usual, I have cheddar cheese onhand.

Layered macaroni, cheese, & cracker crumbs just needing milk poured over them.

That’s why I went with the simplest & most basic one I have. Once again, I’m using one of my great-grandmother’s, Mama Bobo. Cook 2 cups of macaroni in boiling, salted water until it’s tender. Drain the macaroni. Grease a 2-quart casserole dish. Place 1/4 of the macaroni in the casserole dish  & pepper it to taste. Taking 2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese & 2 cups of crushed cracker crumbs, layer a 1/4 of the cheese over the macaroni & cover with 1/4 of the cracker crumbs. Continue this until all ingredients have been used. Then pour 2 1/2 cups of milk over the layers in the casserole dish. Place in a 350 oven, uncovered & bake for 50 minutes. Try to refrain from eating it until it has cooled enough you won’t burn your tongue!

Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers with parmesan cheese

Tonight I did something different. I usually use the whole wheat Ritz crackers for the cracker crumbs. We have some Pepperidge Farm goldfish crackers that are made with parmesan cheese. Nobody in the family has liked them that much. Not wanting to waste them, I decided to use them for making the macaroni & cheese. You wouldn’t think such a small detail would matter, but frankly, we liked it even better than usual. I have some more of those crackers left so will try it again & see if they do work better or if it was just we were so hungary.

Oops. Somebody has already been in the mac & cheese!

Mama owned the boarding house in town & ran it for years. In 1908  she & her husband, Jack (Lacy Jackson) bought & opened the Bobo Hotel. As far back as I can remember, it was always referred to as the Hotel, but it was a boarding house not a hotel. For many years, Mama fed guests of Jack Daniel’s Distillery there at dinner time. The dinner bell would be rung & everybody that was eating would go in to sit down. The tables of distillery guests always had a woman from Lynchburg as their hostess. She would encourage talk, answer questions, make sure everybody had plenty to eat & make it a pleasant experience. Meals were served family style with a waiter keeping full dishes on the table. The food was excellent and in the summer the vegetables came from a garden for the hotel.

We always sat at a round table in the corner in the dining room closest to the kitchen. Quite simply, it was called the family table. The only way you were seated there was if you were a relative, friend or invited guest of Mama’s. Quite simply, us kids loved it. When we finished eating, we would run into the kitchen to tell Mary Lou, Dill & the other cooks that it was good & off we would run. A favorite spot of mine was Mama’s private quarters “playing the piano”. I put that in quotes because I didn’t & don’t now play the piano. In actuality, I banged away on it. But it was grand fun.

Lynchburg Courthouse

Brown Foreman, the current owner of both Jack Daniel’s Distillery & Mama’s boarding house, just finished restoring the boarding house. That was one of things I wanted to see. First, I parked downtown & Sarah & I walked around the town square & wandered in a few shops. It has changed so much from when I was young & was allowed to walk to town by myself on visits. In fact, the only thing on the square that is still there besides the courthouse is Farmer’s Bank! Nothing else remains from my childhood.

The Bobo Hotel as it has been restored by Brown Foreman.

After that, due to the cold, we got back into the van & drove to the hotel. From the outside, I can only say they did a beautiful job. It looks grand. It was open so we wandered inside. I was overwhelmed with memories. However, I will admit that I was very upset to find Mama Bobo’s private living quarters a gift shop. I have to admit that business-wise it made good sense, but it did make me a bit sorry I had gone inside. That’s what’s wrong with going back to important places from our past. What is important to us, probably isn’t to others & may well be totally changed or changed in ways we don’t like. I have to say though that I am grateful to Brown Foreman for restoring the hotel.

My grandparent's home & I have many happy memories of it.

If you’re not familiar with buckwheat flour, I suggest checking out http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-buckwheat-flour.htm; This site gives a nicely detailed explanation about buckwheat.

As you can see, buckwheat pancake batter is darker than the usual pancake batter.

In response to her request, I got the bacon started in the iron skillet. When the bacon was almost done, I mixed up the pancake batter using the the buckwheat flour. There’s no need for a special recipe. Any recipe you have for pancakes can be used. All you do is substitute buckwheat flour for the flour or part of the flour in the recipe. Straight buckwheat is too heavy for my taste so I always substitute half of the flour for buckwheat flour.

After that, all you do is fix your buckwheat pancakes just as you would any other pancake. If you haven’t fixed pancakes before, be careful when pouring the batter into the skillet to allow for the batter to spread. Have your heat on medium heat & heat your skillet before pouring any batter into it. Watch carefully for the edges to turn slightly brown & the hot batter to have lots of air bubbles in it. This is your sign to turn the pancake.

Look carefully and you can see the bubbles you will look for as 1 of the signs your pancake is ready to be turned.

Pancakes will get tough if you flip them multiple times so they are one of the foods that you only want to turn once. This makes it important to learn the proper moment to turn them.

The finished buckwheat pancake with butter is waiting for syrup to be poured.

Leftover roasted chicken being cut up for Wild Rice Chicken Soup.

Have some roasted chicken left over from the other night. Have this hankering for a pot of soup. Good combination. Start the search first through my recipes to see if anything strikes my fancy. If it doesn’t, I’ll move onto hunting a new chicken soup recipe.

Ah! Wild Rice & Chicken Soup. Hmm, sounds like I have the one! Pull the medium crockpot down & start throwing ingredients in there. First thing I do is start cutting the chicken off the bones & cutting it up into bite-sized pieces. Then I slice my celery and baby carrots. Baby carrots aren’t required. I simply have started keeping baby carrots since I can usually find them for the same price as regular carrots. (Less cutting is required for them.)

The mushrooms are rinsed & easily sliced. All the vegetables are now in the crockpot. I add the can of soup & stir throughly. Start adding the chicken broth & discover I have a problem. I have miscalculated how big this batch is! Pull down the large crockpot & transfer all the ingredients into it. Finish adding the required chicken broth & water. Turn the crockpot on to the low setting & leave it alone.

Bowl of the finished Wild Rice Chicken Soup

Left it alone all afternoon to cook while I worked on other things. Soup is another one of those foods that I consider a comfort food–especially on cool days and evenings. Once it’s ready, Jim is in the soup  several times before going to bed. Even though I know better, he swears he’s never had the soup before. Tells me it’s the best soup he’s ever had. However, that’s not the first time I’ve heard that so let’s just say he really likes this soup.

Wild Rice and Chicken Soup
1 can cream of mushroom soup            1 cup celery
2½ cups chopped cooked chicken        1 6 oz. pkg. long grain & wild rice mix
2 cups sliced fresh mushrooms            5 cups chicken broth
1 cup coarsely chopped carrots            5 cups water

In crock pot combine soup, chicken, mushrooms, carrot, celery, rice and contents of seasoning packet. Gradually stir in broth and water. Cover and cook on low setting for 6 hours.

But this was simply unacceptable to me. After stewing about it for approximately a day, I decided to complain. It was simply sour cream I did NOT keep the receipt so I decided my best option was to complain on the web site. So on November 17 I sent a complaint about the item. Today, I received an answer from Kelly Smoot, Consumer Research Specialist. It was a nicely worded apology.

The main paragraph of the emailed response follows:   “It is extremely important to our company that you took the time to notify us of your experience with the Food Lion Sour Cream you purchased in our store. We truly appreciate the feedback we receive from you, our valued customer. Please accept our apologies for this incident, as it is certainly not representative of the high standard of quality we strive to offer our customers. We have forwarded the information in regards to the product you purchased to the appropriate individuals within our supply chain. You may be assured that all concerns are taken very seriously and are thoroughly reviewed. If, at any time, you are not satisfied with our products, please do not hesitate to return the item(s) and the receipt to the store, as our manager on duty will be happy to refund the full amount. We hope you will try this item again in good faith, and your next experience will restore your confidence in the quality of our products.”

In these days of tight economic times, it didn’t make me happy. I don’t make it a policy of complaining all the time about every little thing, but generally I have found that companies try to make things right with customers that take the time to complain. I’m not unrealistic. I wasn’t expecting a big dollar gift certificate with them begging for forgiveness. I did think it was reasonable to hope for a coupon for a container of sour cream of their brand.

How many of you keep the receipts of the food items you buy until you have consumed all the items? Personally, I didn’t think my problem had been addressed. So I responded to Ms. Smoot’s reply:  “While I appreciate your prompt reply to my complaint, it did nothing to take care of my complaint. In the real world, people do not save receipts for consumables such as groceries; they save receipts for high dollar items such as cameras, computers, refrigerators. I am NOT impressed with how Food Lion handled the matter. In fact it triggered my memory of the expose that was done several years back on Food Lion.”

It will be interesting to see if my issue is dealt with or if all I will receive is a canned response of “we’re sorry”.

I’m sorry I didn’t take a picture of the item when it was first opened. It would hardly be fair to take a picture now as more time has passed for the mold to continue growing. A picture now would not give an accurate view of what I found when the sour cream was opened.

Ground Sirloin

Hamburger steak is one of those comfort foods that Jim really likes. It’s also a very simple food item to fix that doesn’t require being accurate in measurements.

I always start with at least 1 pound of ground chuck. If I can find it reasonably priced, I go for ground sirloin for more taste with less fat content. Add salt & pepper to your taste. Those are the basics. Then I add chopped onion; how much onion depends on the mood I’m in. Some nights I add just a couple of tablespoons of onion for just a hint of onion. If I’m really in the mood for onion I’ll add ½ cup of onions. You don’t want the taste of onion to be overwhelming so I don’t suggest more than that amount. If your ground meat doesn’t seem to want to stick together to make a patty, add 1 egg. Then divide into 2 to 4 patties depending on the number of patties you want. Lightly pat the ground steak together into an oblong shape. Place in a heated iron skillet on medium & cook to your preferred degree of done. Jim likes his more well done than I do so I always start cooking his before mine. That way both patties finish cooking at the same time & we both get our hamburger steak fixed to our taste.

Jim

If you want to add toppings, it’s a simple thing to saute a mixture of onions & green peppers, onions & mushrooms or just mushrooms while the hamburger steaks cook. After the hamburger steaks have cooked, use the drippings to make gravy to top them with if you’re a gravy fan. As you can see, it’s easy to dress this comfort food up several different ways to suit anybody’s taste.

Hamburger steak ready to serve, just add vegetables.

Pecans in the hull.

The ones that are out of their hull are hard to find on the ground. The shells blend into the ground so well. We gather the ones we can find. Every time we think we have found them all, we find more that we’ve overlooked. Sarah even climbs up into the tree like a little squirrel to pick them. She always has loved climbing trees so I just warn her to be careful.

We leave after gathering as many pecans as we can find. I think we have a nice haul of them. Will be better able to tell after we get them shelled. I can’t help but think how much my mother would laugh if she could see me. I don’t like pecans & never have so I know that if she were still alive, she would be highly amused at the sight of me gathering pecans as if they were precious jewels.

As always, I have a plan. A few will be needed for the fruitcake I’ll be baking in a few weeks. Some will be fixed as sugared pecans, a delightful (so I’m told) treat & given as Christmas gifts. i will make at least one pecan pie for Jim.

Pecans in the hull & with the hull removed and only the shell remaining.

Pecans in the shell.

So when I found the ad for free walnuts, it was a no brainer to go get some. I am so glad I did. First, it was the easiest thing in the world as the walnuts had already been picked. They were all piled up in a wheelbarrow! All we had to do was bag them to take home. Piece of cake.

Then we were shown an antique car the gentleman owned. When was the last time you were up close to a 1929 Ford Roadster? The car was in great shape. Only 2 parts of it were not original parts. The gentleman had had so much trouble with the generator, he had installed an alternator. The other replacement part was a bigger battery than the car originally had. He had been told that the reason the horn sounded anemic was the battery was too small so he replaced it.

It’s not often you get an upclose history lesson like we had today. Of course, Sarah had no idea what a rumble seat was so that was an eyeopener for her. The gentleman who owned it was also nice enough to show us HOW one proceeded to get into the rumble seat. It’s quite a trick. Wish I had had my camera with me, but we only went for walnuts & didn’t have a clue we would see such a fabulous car.