A New Feature

I've been rather lapse on blogging for sometime, with plenty of posts queued up to be published, but for some reason I just haven't been on top of it. Maybe it's the levity of the whole format of blogging - really, if I can't play around and have fun with something, then my interest in doing it is probably going to wane really, really quickly. I recently had a thought and, as most thoughts that draw me in and inspire me tend to be, I was amused by it, so I'm presenting it here as a feature among the mountain of spices blog-log. Are you ready? Are you really, really ready?

Here it is:
Presenting the "Double Wide Diner".

Admittedly, the logo is rather shoddy, but hopefully it conveys that lifted from an old fifties or sixties TV show look. I just hastily put it together after thinking about what it should look like, because it is also necessary for it to convey something as well.

What is the "Double Wide Diner", you ask? Well let me tell you!

Basically, the "Double Wide Diner" is going to cater and pander to those of us who shamelessly admit to loving junk food and junk recipes in all of their glorious forms, something I'm sure you all - all two of you faithful readers out there - can get behind. I believe that the concept has probably been fermenting in the back of my mind for sometime, but what set it off on this current precarious course was a haphazard discovery of a recipe for Chocolate Puddin' Pie on the side of my box of graham crackers. This is just the sort of homespun recipe that the Double Wide will be seeking to fulfill you with. Puddin', indeed.

Years ago I worked at a small, funky Café whose tongue-in-cheek mission was to redeem the bad food stuffs from our childhood, re-creating and making them palatable and tasty once again. Their specialty was in comfort foods and the traditional ethnic background which spawned the affronting weekly meal. As an example, something like Pork Chops and Applesauce with Mashed Potatoes, Spinach or Asparagus - which, for my family meant that it came primarily from a can, including the pork chops, I often suspected - would have become an unendurable standard fare that now creates mixed feelings for us in both the food and comfort categories. What to do? Embrace it and improve upon it. The food wasn't bad, per se, it's just that our parents and our school cafeterias didn't know how to prepare or cook it, and often the recipes found in magazines and newspapers of the day could be held directly responsible. At the Café they sought to change all of that, and they succeeded; soon any dish or recipe deemed unsalvageable was brought in and tinkered with, resulting in a near-miraculous transformation and a new found retro culinary delight.

Here at the Double Wide, we won't aim so high. There won't be any lofty ambitions to Frenchifize a lowly American classic, regulating it to high brow status so that we can worship it before others. We are going to call them as we see them and present them as we find them, in all of their glorious, high calorie, health defying, decadent audacity. We're talking Junk Food here, folks, made with the cheapest of ingredients for the fullest effect of a quick and easy high.

For our first feature presentation, we bring you a recipe, direct from my Graham Cracker box -

Chocolate Puddin' Pie

Crust:

12 Whole Honey Graham Crackers crushed to 1 - 1/2 cups
(process in blender or use a rolling pin)

3 Tbsp. Brown Sugar

6 Tbsp. Butter or Margarine, Melted

Filling:

1 - 1/2 Cups Milk

1 Package (4 oz.) Chocolate Instant Pudding

1 Container (8oz.) Dairy Sour Cream

For Crust, preheat oven to 300 degrees. Butter a 9 inch pie plate. Combine crumbs and sugar. Add butter. Mix thoroughly. Press mixture onto bottom and sides of pie plate. Bake 10 minutes. Cool completely.

For Filling, combine milk and pudding in mixing bowl. Beat slowly with rotary beater or low speed of electric mixer about 1 minute. Beat in sour cream just until blended. Pour into crust. Chill at least 1 - 1/2 hours or until set. Makes 6 - 8 servings.

Weren't those directions completely thorough and directly to the point? It's like being told, in no uncertain terms, the exact procedure to follow at the Department Of Motor Vehicles, lest you make a mistake and have to do it all over again. Or the way I speak when I'm feeling grumpy and surly. No room for art here. But thankfully there is never a day so terrible, an encounter so difficult, a mood so bad that can't be lightened with a very large slice of Chocolate Puddin' Pie or something equally satisfying from the large selection we'll have at the Double Wide Diner.

Y'all come on back, now - Ya hear?