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05/04/2003 Archived Entry: "PSYCHO ITALIAN MOTHER"
PSYCHO ITALIAN MOTHER
The twelve pound sirloin roast was in the oven "slow cooking" a hundred miles from here but I could smell it this morning when I woke up. That wonderful aroma wafted through my bedroom window and I couldn’t resist it. It wasn't my fault. It reminded me of the days of my youth. It made me get in my car and head west ...just like that. I followed the scent, which was so familiar and heavenly.
Two hours later I arrived at my friend's Downer Creek Inn and Restaurant in Trego County, as it is known to her friends. It’s a wonderful remote farm out on the prairie where she grew up as a child, and after years in the city making her very successful mark, was drawn back to. It belonged to her grandfather and her father, and now is the place she once again calls home. Her ancestors build the home and the out buildings on their acreage. You can feel the warmth of her ancestors all around. It’s a place where you just naturally feel very welcome.
Her friend of many years who farms her land and helps with keeping the place tidy was there when I drove in. We hit it off right away. We examined all the nooks and crannies of the farm. The Quonset hut which housed her father’s machine shop, and been idle for seventeen years since his death, has been cleaned up and made to look like new. Her friend stores his equipment in there. It is alive with activity once again, as her father would have wished. I looked like a wide-eyed naif as I gawked at the biggest combine and wheat hauler thing you ever saw. As you know, the farther west you go, the larger the farms become and the equipment that is needed for it gets bigger and more expensive. It takes a lot to dwarf me, but I was certainly very small by comparison.
We wandered to the house and into the kitchen where the roast was about to come out of the oven and my friend was stirring and hovering over all the other good things simmering on the stove. You must understand that this woman is like a psycho Italian mother who measures your love for her by how much you eat and like her food. I complied across the board. There were only three of us to work our way around this enormous roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn on the cob, fresh asparagus, homemade biscuits, and a bowl of lovely browned onions that had smothered the roast, giving it that wonderful aroma that drifted on the early morning breezes to Ellsworth. She has a hands on approach to rural living, in every way, in everything she does. Dinner was perfect...so delicious...the kind that will never fade from my memory. I related completely to her Italian mom syndrome and let her know that in every way I could.
I’ve been itching for a road trip and when she wrote this morning to say I could be there in time for dinner, I hopped in the car and headed west. We had a wonderful visit, as we always do.
By mid afternoon, as we were sitting at her kitchen table gazing out the window to the southwest, I could see the threatening clouds starting to build up a short distance away and head our direction. I know the signs and knew it was time to head out ahead of the storm. And quite a storm it turned out to be. There were many deaths and a lot of destruction in the eastern part of the state and in Missouri. It will dominate the news in the morning.
And I wonder about the Sampler Festival…if they got the tents taken down and the exhibits removed before the storms hit. The counties in southeastern Kansas, as well as the Kansas City area, were hit very hard and experienced extensive damage.