Straight From The Hart

It’s almost Thanksgiving so let’s talk turkey.  I was reading through some back issues of my Bittersweet magazines and found a great artic le written by Doug Sharp based on an interview he had done with John Earl Kays of Falcon MO back in 1978, known at the time to be one of the best turkey hunters in the area.  Doug’s informational essay detailed the amount of patience and skill required of the hunter to harvest “the big one” and it certainly made me appreciate the convenience of buying my turkey at the grocery store. We had a skilled turkey hunter in the church I pastored in Farmington and when he invited Milan and me to his home in Doe Run to eat fried turkey, we didn’t hesitate, although we had no idea what we were in for. Usually his wife did the cooking but when it came to frying the wild turkey fresh from the hunt, John took over the kitchen.  He sliced up the turkey breast into small thin pieces about the size of a large potato chip, breaded them in his ...

What's your favorite comfort food?  I can think about macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, biscuits and gravy.....but my alltime favorite has to be homemade dressing served with either turkey or chicken. That's what we had tonight, and I was ready for comfort food, for sure. Milan had purchased a whole chicken at the grocery store because it was on sale.....a lot of meat for a small amount of money.....smart purchase in these days of high grocery prices everywhere. I cooked it in the crockpot all day, so had lots of rich chicken broth to make dressing with, as well as the leftover cornbread from last night.  Fresh cornbread just won't work in dressing, gotta be leftover for sure. I still use Grandma Dame's recipe, simply the best ever. You take 2 or 3 eggs and whip them up with a fork in a big bowl.  (It's impossible to make just a little bit of dressing.) Then you break up the cornbread into small pieces and you really need a little bit of some coarse br...