Decadent

Tonight I'm making mushroom chicken with a broccoli and wild rice pilaf and homemade angel biscuits. It was a childhood favorite and a decadently fattening and savory meal. Dessert is going to be pear salad with a pear-half topped with a dollop of homemade mayonnaise, a sprinkle of sharp cheddar, and a candied cherry half upon a bed of crisp, green lettuce. The chicken will cook for hours until fork tender, taking on the essences of cream of mushroom soup, rich real butter, and tangy sour cream. I just feel like treating myself tonight even though I will be eating alone. Of course, there is Maggie and she will get a small plate after the food has cooled. I got a phone call from my brother the other night that inspired this menu. "Remember that mushroom chicken mom always made when we were kids? It was delicious. I am tired of California, tofu, and froufrou food." I grinned and immediately called my mother for the recipe. It took her an hour of searching to find it in one of her recipe notebooks and then she called me back. She hasn't cooked in over a decade. Not once. So her recipe books have been squirreled away in a closet collecting dust.

Another food fact about my life, was that I bought a HUGE jar of dill pickles and it is sitting on my kitchen counter full of gigantic pickled cucumbers – the type of pickle jar that would be sitting on the counters of little country stores near my grandmother's house in God's country, yesteryear. It was on sale for $2.99. I love anything vinegary and salty and will waltz into the kitchen to fish out a pickle and enjoy it wrapped in a paper towel. Luckily, pickles have few calories or I would balloon up eating so many.