Life is just a chair of bowlies

Hubby Bee: You’re into Bowls, aren’t you.

Me: Yes. It’s hereditary.

Hubby Bee:Uh-huh. In his incredibly skeptical tone.

No, really it is! With this summer flying by (we’ve already been cheated out of 3 weeks), the weddings are mounting up, and so are the number of wedding gifts we have to buy. This is how this conversation started. Two weeks ago, I suggested that a friend of ours buy the Martha Stewart set of bowl off of another friend’s registry for their wedding. These bowls are FANTASTIC! I love my set! But, this week, looking at my cousin-in-law’s wedding registry, I noticed that she has this set of bowls on her registry, and they are my must have (for her, of course!). So, fast forward to this conversation that just went down over Gmail chat between Hubby Bee and I.

I’ve already suggested that the Boggs family LOVES pottery. And what is the best for of pottery? Crocks. Women in my family have inherited well-worn crocks and bottle for many generations. These bowls have lived a lifetime of family stories. They have held in them a lifetime of recipes. From blueberry muffins made on a sleepy Summer Saturday, or Gyoza (dumpling) mix for a dinner party after my parents returned from China in 1998. My mother rarely used a bowl from a set of store-bought bowls. All of her crocks are mismatched, and the more mismatched they are, the better! Some of my favorites include the cream colored rippled bowl that always holds the batter to pancakes on Sunday mornings, and the bright green one my father purchased from a local antique shop just a couple of years ago.

Imagine a kitchen cabinet pregnant with bowls. Every shelf a beautiful array of painted porcelain. Some of these bowls are only big enough to hold an egg or two, but some are big enough to old the only recipe that could feed our whole family at one Sunday brunch…the aforementioned Blueberry muffins, doubled. twice.

These bowls may seem trivial to everyone else, but to our family, they are a tribute to our cooking skills. I am not shy about the abilities of my family as cooks. Most things we do quite well at, and these bowls are the symbol of our affection of cooking. To the art of cooking; to fill the stomachs of our longing family members. These are the ones that open their hearts to try our Duck A La Orange for the first time, or to heartily pig out of our famous Thanksgiving day rolls.

Even THINGS like bowls can be hereditary, it’s just a matter of time before someone realizes the importance of crocks to the household and they become the most coveted item of the house. Southern influence? You bet. Maternal influence? Absolutely. It wouldn’t be my mother’s house, aunt’s house or grandmother’s house (not to mention the cooking) without a well-worn, definitely used crock in which to create the concoctions that fill the belly and warm the heart.

To Sew or Not To Sew

Being creative in the ways of fabric is one lesson I have failed miserably at.
I do not know how to sew. At all. I used to know. In fact, I had one of those little red children’s sewing machines as a child. But even then, I was horrible at it.
The Boggs women, on the other hand are all accomplished stitchers, quilters, cross-stitchers, darners, tailors, and the like. I have failed. I can not quilt, nor can I stitch. I can cross-stitch, but here’s where I fail: completing a piece. I have yet to fully complete one pattern. I believe that I am a victim of my generation. No longer can we sit still, exhausting our eyes trying to fit a piece of moss green floss (not tooth floss) on a needle through fabric repeated times. Boring? I don’t think so, but then there’s that movie I wanted to go see, or that band playing at that bar that I rarely go to, but half of my friends are going, so I’ll sit still at the bar and ruin my hearing, rather that sit in the piece and quite of my home and ruin my eyesight. Cynical much? Yes. But only because I am victim to the 21st Century Lifestyle I am living my early adult years in and to my Generation…I think we’re Generation Y??
But this sewing thing I have never been able to get a hold of. Nevermind that every pair of pants I purchase needs to be hemed because NO ONE makes pants for a 6 waist and a 26″ inseam. Believe me it’s CRAZY. Even pants labeled SHORT are 2-3 inches too long. So, I buy these pants and promptly send them off to my mother, who can sew wonderfully, to hem them with the usual 4″ off the top. Then I wait. And wait. Finally I can make that trip to my mother’s house to pick them up, four weeks later.
ah, well…that’s the price you pay for a mother who is still willing to hem her adult daughter’s pants every once and a while. In an act of personal growth, I did put a sewing machine on my Christmas List.
Quilting is also something I need to learn from the Boggs family. But that is another story for another day. In the mean time, I’m going to go curl up in the quilt my aunt made for me when I was born.

Lesson 2: Boondoggles are completely appropriate

“Oh, it was another one of your mother and her sisters’ boondoggles.”
This is a phrase is hear from my father on a constant basis. ‘Boondoggles’ are road trips of seemingly no importance, taken just because you’re bored and want to get out of the house and usually involve some kind of shopping for a special something that you can’t get anywhere else.
Take for example, when my uncle died, my mother and I went to visit my aunt for a week, a mere 6 weeks before my wedding. Of course, this included a boondoggle from the second we got off the plane in Louisville, Kentucky. It included valet parking, the Marriott downtown, the Hard Rock Cafe (check another off in my endless goal to reach all the Hard Rock Cafes) , and of course, a visit to Louisville Stoneware. This was the crown-jewel in our boondoggle.
Pottery-an icon of the south (yes, Kentucky considers themselves The South. Fine by me). Pottery by Louisville Stoneware and Hadley Pottery are the quintessential places to go to understand only part of the south’s rich culture. Used for years in my grandmother’s home, they are durable, beautiful and extremely useful-like I said, a description of the South, but more importantly of Southern Women.
So we visited both places, which are rooted so deeply into our historical and genealogical beings, to gain some comfort in the trials of life. It is no surprise that we find shopping and great hotels rooms comforting, but shopping for pottery is how my mother, my aunts and I find comfort when we’re together.
As for our other boondoggles? Those are stories just waiting to be told.

Lesson 2: Treat yourself to road trips for fun.

Lesson 1: Llama Cakes and Secret Rolls.

It is essential in my family that you know how to cook. Now, this isn’t “know how to cook” to please your man, your father, or anyone else (women’s lib-at ease). This is “know how to cook” to please your palette. The Boggs women are famous for their biscuits, pot roasts, creative pies and oh yes, our rolls. Now, this is the family secret. No, you won’t find the recipe here, or anywhere else. My mother barely let me have it! But, these are the crowning piece to our cooking success. Found at as many functions as possible, these rolls are the purpose of a family secret society of cooks.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t the day I went away to college that I realized my mom was a genius in the kitchen. It had to be the day my youngest brother, 5 years younger than me and my best friend, came home from kindergarten and said, “Mom, I want a llama on my birthday cake.” Now, my mom being the creative baker she is, looked at him and said, “You want a Llama cake?” “No! I want a llama ON my cake,” Evan replied. And what did he get? A Llama on his cake.

Now, if that wasn’t enough, weeks later he came home from the same kindergarten and said, “Mom, we need a cake for class.”
“And what kind of cake do you need?” My mother replied.
“A cake for the ocean.”
And so was born….The Yellow Submarine cake. Yes, periscope and all.

Lesson 1: Learn to cook and bake and please your palette.