Tag Archives: friends

Celebrations

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Today I’m celebrating two milestones: It’s my birthday and it’s also the one-year anniversary of this blog. Both are in pretty good shape — I think, anyway. My day started off great and kept getting better. Younger Daughter, finishing up college in two-hours-away Birmingham, called this morning. In the middle of our conversation, the front doorbell rang. “Strange,” I thought. “An early-rising friend? Somebody from Sunday school?” Nope — it was Younger Daughter, faking me out. She had gone to my favorite Birmingham bakery to be first in line for my favorite almond croissants and drove the more-than 100 miles to bring me birthday breakfast. What a sweetie! I also got a phone call from 16-month-old grandson Capt. Adorable. His mommy, Older Daughter, said she coached him to say “Happy birthday, Grandma,” and I do believe I heard him say that. Or maybe he was making the “baaa” sound — his latest animal. Either way — adorable! I also had birthday lunch with Dear Husband and then a phone-call birthday serenade from my parents. Pretty good way to mark turning 52, I think.

And Coffee with Cathy is turning 1, thanks to you all. I love blogging and I love being part of the blogging community and I am eternally grateful to Dear Husband for encouraging me to do this. Where else but the blogosphere can you connect, communicate, express, vent, rant, laugh and learn in the company of talented and compassionate women all around the world? By blogging, you can be a part of something huge and powerful. Or, you can just climb up on your own individual soapbox and say (mostly) whatever you want to your own personal audience. You can talk about politics or decorating or cooking or music or divorce or your children or the Weird Annoying Neighbor next door. Me, I consider my blog my own lifestyle section of my own newspaper — don’t all reporters secretly think they could run the thing better than any publisher? At least this way I don’t have to worry about ad lines and subscription prices and ink costs — all I have to do is indulge in my favorite subjects of food, style, family, friends, books, music … I figure if it’s interesting to me it will be interesting to somebody else. And that’s the joy of blogging — there’s always something to pique your interest. I’m constantly encouraging folks to read and write blogs. It’s amazing the variety and diversity you can explore, the riches and treasures you can unearth with just a click. It’s free, it’s fun, it’s entertaining — what’s not to like?

Thanks to all for helping me celebrate today — and always every day for stopping by and saying “hello.”  Every comment, every visit, every ping and trackback and all that other stuff means so much. Here’s to many, many more!

Food

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Baklava -- Greek cooking class

Some friends and I recently took a Greek cooking class. One group included my friend Sarah, a food-perfectionist and former caterer who used to work with the original Southern-food cook, Nathalie Dupree. I was in the other group. Can you guess which group produced which pan of baklava?

The Amish in Tennessee

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Amish in Ethrudge, TennesseeWhen you’re traveling on U.S. 43 in southern Middle Tennessee, Amish in Ethridge, Tennesseeyou’ll probably share the road with a horse-and-buggy or two. The town of Ethridge, about an hour south of Nashville, is an Amish community and a big tourist draw.  I met some Nashville friends there over the Fourth of July weekend for what we Amish craftsdo best: Eating, shopping and talking. Two of the three were successful, since we ate and talked with no problem whatsoever. But the shopping? Meh. Amish craftsSeveral buildings proclaiming “Amish crafts” and “Handmade Amish goods” hug the highway, but I’m suspicious. And yes, I know: I’m always suspicious. But this time I had good reason, I think. We were expecting to find gotta-have examples of folk-art, but we didn’t. We could have been in any craft shop anywhere — nothing said “I’m special! I’m different! Take me home!” I did spy some wonderfully whimsical furniture, but nothing else impressed. Maybe it’s our perception — when I think “Amish,” I think of high-quality American folk-art, but what we found instead was the same ol’-same ol’. Nothing wrong with that, but we were disappointed because we expected more. You know? We did browse through a nearby flea market, loaded up on Amish-made cookies, bread and candy (or maybe that was just me) and enjoyed an ice-cold Coke out of an ice-cold glass bottle just like we all grew up with. That — and hanging out with my friends — was worth the trip. Check it out yourself at http://www.tnvacation.com/vendors/amish_country_mall/

Anniversary

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Fifth anniversaryFriday is our fifth wedding anniversary, which is a pretty amazing thing. My Weddinghusband John Pitts and I first met more than 30 years ago, when we were journalism students at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, his hometown. Our relationship timeline goes something like this: Dating, breakup, dating, breakup, Cathy wants to get married and John doesn’t, Cathy gets married to somebody else (pause here for 16 or so years until Cathy gets divorced), dating, breakup, dating, breakup, John wants to get married and Cathy doesn’t, dating, breakup, dating, breakup and then somehow both of us want to get married at the same time. Success! And the thing is, even Wedding flowersthrough all the breakups (except for the 16-year married-to-somebody-else thing) we’ve been best friends. We argue, we laugh, we edit each other’s copy, he takes out the garbage and I remind him of family birthdays — what a team! Our wedding was so much fun, and I had the best bridesmaids ever in my two daughters. We had started out planning a surprise wedding — inviting folks for a party and then springing a ceremony on them — but the girls wisely talked us out of that idea so we had a wedding sort of squeezed in between two parties: We had a cocktail party first at this wonderful historic home in Bridesmaidsdowntown Murfreesboro and then everybody walked over to the church for the ceremony and then walked back to the home for a reception. Bonus: We stayed in another historic house that was a bed-and-breakfast directly across the street — so convenient. One of my best memories from the wedding was looking out at the congregation and seeing all our dear family and friends gathered there for us. I don’t think younger brides realize how special that is. Or how special it is to marry the person you care about most in the world, the person who makes you laugh and doesn’t mind when you cry at movies and tells you how to make your writing better, even if that person does listen to Rush Limbaugh. Every day.

Bridesmaids

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Rehearsal-dinner styleYounger Daughter was in town from her summer-school classes this weekend to Bridesmaid stylebe a bridesmaid in a friend’s wedding. I Bridesmaid hairlove all the hair and makeup and these-shoes-don’t-work chaos of getting ready — reminds me of  the prom and party excitement from the girls’ high-school days. For the wedding-rehearsal dinner, YD went with simple black jazzed up with purple accents, although she switched these fantastic purple heels for black sandals before she left the house because her feet already were hurting. Then Saturday morning she got her hair done in this sweet sort of loose and messy half up-do that she and the stylist came up with based on a couple of photos and magazine pictures. Both of my daughters have great hair and know what to do with it — a skill they didn’t get from me but I wish I could pick up from them. I loved how it all came together — I thought the pink bridesmaid’s dresses and the orange bouquets were stunning together. The bride had picked out some wonderful metallic heels for the bridesmaids to wear, and after the wedding YD passed hers on to another friend who admired them and is getting married next, probably thereby starting the Tradition of the Traveling Wedding Shoes. I wonder where they’ll turn up next!

Food

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Ziploc OmeletteOkay, has anybody out there tried the Ziploc Omelet? A friend e-mailed the recipe to me and I’d never heard of it but an Internet search pulled up lots of references. As usual, I’m probably the last one to hear about this! Here’s the recipe, from the e-mail:

This works great and is good for when all your family is together. The best part is that no one has to wait for their special omelet.
1) Have guests write their name on a quart-size Ziploc freezer bag with permanent marker.

2) Crack two eggs (large or extra-large) into the bag (not more than two) and shake to combine them.
3) Put out a variety of ingredients such as cheeses, ham, onion, green pepper, tomato, hash browns, salsa, etc.
4) Each person adds prepared ingredients of choice to their individual bag and shakes. Make sure to get the air out of the bag and zip it up.
5) Place the bags into rolling, boiling water for exactly 13-15 minutes. You can usually cook 6-8 omelets in a large pot. For more, make another pot of boiling water.
6) Open the bags and the omelet will roll out easily. Be prepared for everyone to be amazed.
Nice to serve with fresh fruit and coffee cake; everyone gets involved in the process and it’s a great conversation piece.

What do you all think? I could see where if you’ve got a crowd in the kitchen and everybody’s hungry it’s a great way to feed lots of folks in a short amount of time. On the other hand, I’m not sure about basically eating boiled scrambled eggs. One of the best parts about cooking and eating omelets is the brown crunchy bits on the bottom mixed with the melted cheese and of course with this you don’t get that yummy flavor experience. But there’s definitely a fun factor here and I can see where it would be  entertaining. I may just experiment on myself with this first — but keep a skillet handy just in case.

Home Decor

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Home decorI love finding home-decor ideas in unlikely Home decorspots. You never know when you’ll stumble across some inspiration. Like these exuberantly painted kitchen chairs at the Bottletree Bakery in Oxford, Mississippi. How much fun would it be to grab worn-out chairs and leftover paint and create some whimsical seating like this? In no stretch of the imagination am I a painter but I think that even non-visual folks such as me could do this. I also loved this glass and metal sofa table I saw at a clothing boutique in Oxford. The owners had knotted colorful scarves through one of the support rungs Home decor— so creative! Couldn’t you just see this in one of those huge closets big enough for furniture? You could sit in there and sip wine and read “Town and Country” and contemplate what you were going to wear where that evening. But I might be able to use the same idea by knotting scarves through the ends of the storage shelves in our perfectly-adequate closet, where I stand every day and try to figure out which T-shirt is the cleanest. (And which, by the way, I am slowly inch-by-inch taking over from my husband, who luckily hasn’t noticed that somehow my stuff mysteriously keeps showing up on his side.) This lovely white painted chair with a toile cushion was at the same boutique. It looks like another renovated flea-market find that would be so simple to duplicate. Do you remember a few years ago when toile was everywhere? Then it sort of faded away but now it’s back to where it should be: A s a statement-making classic. And I think the white paint brings out the details of this chair to make it look like something special. Of course, folks who know me and have been to our house know that all my talk about interior-decorating projects is fruitless because I am much too lazy to do anything different from our current coffee-cup-and-stacks-of-newspaper decor. But I have high hopes and ambitious dreams. It just needs a lot more planning and fine-tuning … and shopping.

Shoes

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Shoes Oh, baby — come to mama! I am so in love with these shoes that I Chique in Oxford, Mississippigot this past week at Chique, an unbelievably cute boutique on the square in Oxford, Mississippi. Tucked in the back of a dress shop on South Lamar Street, Chique is the sort of place that your girly sexy soul sort of sighs in contentment whenever you Chiquewalk in. Chique came about after owner Angel Overstreet had gone on several mission trips to Brazil and decided to “help the Brazilian Shoespeople by sharing our favorite souvenir,” according to the Chique Web site — and she started with her hometown of Oxford. It’s quite obvious that these shoes aren’t from around here, as we say. Every pair was sultry and playful and sophisticated and comfortable and affordable — and talking directly to me. I finally narrowed my choices down to two pairs and had to call in reinforcements and drag my friends from their own shopping adventures to help me decide. I love these because they’re a bit more versatile — the other pair was definitely dressy but this pair can go with anything and even on into fall. For less than $100, too. Jackpot! And, to my dear husband who I know is reading this: I only bought these shoes for the purposes of journalistic investigation. And I don’t think I got the whole story, so I’m thinking a followup visit is necessary. Who’s with me? Check out the Web site at http://www.chiqueinoxford.com

Books

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My mom reads to my grandson, Capt. Adorable. I love that they both are holding their mouths the exact same way.

My mom, "Grommy," reads to my almost 14-month-old grandson, Capt. Adorable. I love that they both are holding their mouths the exact same way.

Arrggghhhh! No, it’s not Talk Like A Pirate Day. That is me being aggravated at myself for forgetting things. Like today. I was hanging out with family all day — including grandson Capt. Adorable, my parents and both daughters — and then came home to more computer problems so I spent an hour on the phone getting my wireless router reconfigured and then completely forgot I had an AAUW book-club meeting tonight. I love my American Association of University Women group because those ladies are so dang smart — I just sort of soak up wisdom whenever I’m around them — and it aggravated the bookbejebbers out of me for forgetting it was meeting tonight. Also: I was looking forward to hearing more about our book. “The Golden Child” by Penelope Fitzgerald. Written in 1977, this novel is a delightful poke at pretentious high-museum politics as a world-famous archaeological exhibit opens in London — and murder and mayhem ensues. With proper English decorum, of course. I had never heard of this book or this author, who wrote her first book at 69 so that means there is hope for the rest of us, and I wanted to learn more. Oh, well. Plus, this week I also have forgotten three water bottles and left them at various places: 1) My parents’ refrigerator, 2) the local library board room (which doesn’t sound as impressive when you know I was there only for a Harry Potter book-club meeting) and 3) well … I now have forgotten the third place where I left a water bottle. I think it’s time to go to bed.

Restaurants in Oxford, Mississippi

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City Grocery in Oxford, MississippiOh my goodness, y’all. Run, don’t walk, to City Grocery in Oxford, MississippiOxford, Mississippi and eat at City Grocery on the square. Or drive. However you can get there, just go.  I was in Oxford this past week with friends for a day of shopping and eating and sightseeing, although we all agreed that the eating part was the best. My husband John Pitts even took a long lunch break from newspaper-sports editing in nearby Tupelo City Grocery in Oxford, Mississippito join us  — nobody passes up a chance to go to City Grocery. Owned by New Orleans-native chef John Currence, City Grocery embodies the best of Oxford: Fun, funky, imaginative, leaning toward upscale but never ostentatious and always honoring fresh, local and authentic. Every dish our group ordered, from the roasted garlic and lentil soup to the smoked crawfish salad to the day’s special of pork tenderloin with roasted okra — my new favorite vegetable — was delicious. Plus, the wait staff was the perfect blend of friendly and professional and put up with our somewhat rowdy table. (Hey, we were just excited to have a day off.)  My husband even spotted a celebrity on the way out and shook his hand — TV journalist and author Bob Schieffer was in town to give the Ole Miss commencement speech and of course he went to City Grocery for lunch. You have to, too. Check it out at http://www.citygroceryonline.com and put it on your must-go-soon list.