Making my way thru my Friday Friend Cookbook, one recipe at a time.
What is the Friday Friend cookbook: I have about 50 of my closest friends and family on an e-mail forum which I called the Friday Friends (from all over the county). At first, most of them didn't know each other, (they knew me) but over the past 18 years, we've answered and shared silly--and serious---questions, exchanged Secret Santa Christmas gifts, had a dieting contest in which we paid a $1 a week and that money went to a scholarship fund for a Friday Friends son's memorial scholarship, and we went on a great vacation for my 52 birthday.
AND, we contributed recipes for a cookbook.
I was looking at the cookbook the other night and I said, "I should make every recipe in here for my blog."
The Handyman--who knows me better than I know myself (this happened to be a question on the Friday Friend forum once---does your spouse/partner know you better than you know yourself?)--said, "you'll never, EVER do that."
WELL---maybe I'll show him! Maybe I will.
The Handyman--who knows me better than I know myself (this happened to be a question on the Friday Friend forum once---does your spouse/partner know you better than you know yourself?)--said, "you'll never, EVER do that."
WELL---maybe I'll show him! Maybe I will.
Which brings me to this... recipes #189
My Mom's Peachy Keen Cobbler
Peachy Keen Cobbler is a drink! The name is very deceiving.
You will notice that I cut this in half, if not in 1/4 for the Handyman and myself. We enjoyed it last summer on the patio. We love our patio on summer evenings--and enjoying a nice cool summery drink is great!
When I was really young, my mother didn't drink at all. I remember her saying that she just didn't like the taste of it. There was horrible pressure in the 1960's tho, to drink up--don't be a stick in the mud, etc etc, Someone always was trying to make her try something--they had just the drink for her! So sometimes she would have orange juice and club soda. No one would ever notice--she had a bubbly personality anyway--they were just happy to see her with a drink in her hand.
I'm not sure when things began to change, but slowly she started to like some trendy drinks with naughty names. I don't know if she actually liked them at the time, or just thought they were funny, but for a while I can remember my dad making "Slow Screws" for everybody.
A Slow Screw was orange juice and sloe gin.
It had many variations on the name -- just change the alcohol a bit and Wah-La you have a Slow Comfortable Screw against the wall.
Just in case you wanted to know.....these are the drinks with naughty names my parents would sometimes toss out there at a dinner party. It was very risqué at the time, but they'd all laugh, my parents and their friends, as if they'd discovered some secret joke that we kids knew nothing about.
Okay, so at the time, we didn't have a clue to what they were so amused about. Back then (and admittedly this was before I was a teenager) I just thought how cool they were, laughing and having cocktails with their friends.
When they had dance parties in the 60's, my brother and I (and sometimes children of my parents friend who were supposed to be sleeping in a spare room) would sit at the top of the stairs, in our pajamas and listen to the clink of the ice in the glasses, their laughter and the sound of their shoes sliding across the concrete floor of the basement before my mom would notice us and shoo us off to bed.
In the 70's it became the popping of beer bottles and the shooting of pool, as by that decade they had carpeted the basement floors and bought a pool table.
Always in the mornings tho, there would be leftover cocktail glasses with lipstick stains and stale ashtrays with cigarette butts, record albums on the floor and....
(for the record my parents didn't smoke, but some of their friends did)
Oh...I rambled on... here are the variations on a Sloe Screw:
Sloe Comfortable Screw- 1 ounce vodka, 1 ounce Southern Comfort, 1/2 ounce sloe gin, fill with orange juice.
Sloe Comfortable Screw Against the Wall- 1 ounce each of vodka, Southern Comfort and sloe gin, fill with orange juice, top with Galliano. ('The Wall' refers to the Harvey Wallbanger, which Galliano is famous for.)
I wonder why these drinks go out of fashion?
For years my mom's favorite was a Fuzzy Navel made with Peach Schnapps and Orange juice -- it seems she stuck with orange juice in her drinks forever. She never was a big drinker and most times she would have been happy with a glass of orange juice and club soda.
The Peachy Keen Cobbler seems to be a variation on the Fuzzy Navel, in my humble opinion.
It was very good.
My dad was not a Shriner until I left home... and, how does this fit into the story, you might be asking yourself about now? I think most Shriners are drinkers. There you have it. When I think of Shriners I think of the men in the funny cars or serving breakfast at county fairs and cocktails.
My dad joined the Shriners because he liked the idea of the Shriner hospitals. He liked to raise money for the kids and their families in need. And I'm sure he didn't mind the cocktail hour either.
In the last years of their lives they had so much fun with their friends in the Shrine organization. Those parties took the place of the dance parties of their 20's and the pool playing parties of their 30's.
See? Cocktail glasses in the background?
My mom would have killed me for this one... but... cocktails?
It kind of proves my point. 😍
A few years ago, the Handyman and I and some of our grandchildren were at the lake, and we went into town to watch the 'Children's Parade' for Chief Joseph Days and guess what was the best entry we saw? The little guys with Fez hats like the Shriners driving their little cars!
Eli, Emerson and Evalynn waiting for the parade to begin.
And the little Shriners! I think they were advertising the breakfast before the rodeo.
The cutest things ever!
And there you have it --- Friday Friend Recipe #189!
