Thursday, December 24, 2009


Sometime around 1971 my mother returned from a long stay with her brother Tony in North Carolina. I remember very well that she looked at me and said, “You have always thought me to be a terrible cook. You have been right, but now I am going to prove to the contrary. I can cook."  She showed me a pocketbook which she had purchased in Greensboro, Marion Brown’s – Southern Cook Book , new edition, August 1970. She had tried some of the recipes under the supervision of Uncle Tony’s wife and most competent cook, Renate.

My mother cooked the most heavenly chicken I have ever had, Adalyn Lindley’s Chicken A La Barbara.

Serves Six to Eight

1 roasting chicken 1 stalk celery
1 cup flour Carrots, parsnips, parsley
Salt, celery salt, pepper 1 qt. water
paprika to taste 1 tablespoon flour seasoned
chicken giblets with salt and pepper
Tops of wings and neck ½ cup cream

Mix flour and seasonings and rub chicken inside and out with mixture. Melt ¼ pound of butter and rub over seasoned fowl. Take the chicken giblets, top of wings and neck, a celery stalk, carrots, parsnips and parsley (desired amount of each vegetable) and put into about 1 qt. of water. Cook like soup for 1 hour. Strain. Mix 1 tablespoon seasoned with salt and pepper with ½ cup cream. Thicken stock with this. Put the chicken in a hot oven until slightly browned. Every 15 minutes pour ¼ cup stock over. When it is used up put cover on chicken and let simmer in oven until done.Special permission, Adalyn Lindley, Manager, Neiman-Marcus Tea Room, Dallas Texas.

We had Chicken a la Barbara for our Christmas Eve dinner. I have made this recipe before so I have modified the recipe for a whole cup of cream and a half a qt more of stock. The sauce is so good that you need more to serve over the chicken and the white rice I usually serve it with. We had cucumber salad, roasted red, green, and yellow peppers with onion. To drink we had a BC rosé wine and ice cold spiced apple juice. For dessert Rebecca made cookies and a blueberry/apple pie from scratch. I had our special container that converts cream into real whipped cream.



Before we opened the presents I snapped a few Fuji instant b+w prints. One would have been enough except I overexposed the first one and Hilary systematically closed her eyes for the subsequent ones. In the end I liked and somewhat corrected the over-exposed one. The second picture features Rosemary’s 19-year-old cat Toby. Bruce Stewart made Toby look lively with some expert gesticulation.

To any who may be reading this blog I wish them a Merry Christmas.