Mimi's Part of the Tradition

I am sitting down resting and drinking some real Coke after finishing up my cooking.  Here is what I am taking to the Metzger's house:

That is enough cornbread dressing, corn, and cherry-Coke salad to feed an army.  I'm just hoping there will be some leftovers!

My contribution always looks just like this--if Jay and Terri are here.  The reason?  Cherry-Coke is the only Jello salad Jay likes, so I never make anything different if he will be eating!  It was my mother's recipe, and there's no telling how many times I've made it in my life.  Kroger is now the only store which carries the black cherries.

The dressing was Jack's mother's recipe.  If I do say so myself, and I do, it is mahvelous!  Everyone's dressing is different, of course, so Shirley (Rob's mother) brings her family-favorite dressing, too.  It is also mahvelous!  Do you think we'll have enough?

The corn has a life of its own.  It all started with the Shawnee pottery corn dish--two of which are pictured here.  (I removed the lid of one so you could see the corn.) One of those was given to us when we married.  It was a shower gift from a friend of Jack's mother in Forest Hill Baptist Church, where he attended.  I used to buy one package of frozen cream style corn and one package of whole kernel corn (in multiples) to create my corn casserole.  Then Green Giant changed the cream style to more of a whole kernel with cream sauce.  So now, it's just buttered up cream style.  But, a holiday would not be a holiday without this corn in these dishes.  And talk about something hard to find, I have to go to Super 1 in Forest Hill to find this essential corn!

There's a funny story about the corn dishes.  One Easter we had brought Madeline and Susannah home from church before going to lunch at their house.  Jack placed our food, including the two filled corn dishes, in the back of his Navigator, having raised the third seat and fastened it with a seat belt to keep it up.  We got everyone and everything loaded.  Unbeknownst to us, Susannah unfastened her seat belt  (the one holding the seat!) and fastened it back properly around her.  We made it a block or so before the seat crashed down on our food!  The amazing thing is this: Only the base of one dish broke.  Not the fancy lid!  And what's even more amazing?  Later Rob's sister and brother-in-law, Linda and Pat, found a base--minus its lid--in Arkansas when they were there on their motorcycle!  They schlepped it home, and I was back in business!

We have countless things for which to be thankful, but one of them has to be the traditions of our family--and a family that loves traditions.