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January 23, 2008 | 3 Comments

Post to the Host:
Here in Snellville, Georgia ("Everybody is Somebody in Snellville") this weekend, we experienced a rare event: three inches of snow. The family hunkered-down in the den to listen to "A Prairie Home Companion" Saturday night after an exciting afternoon scraping the snow off the grass and constructing snow people. On the show you mentioned "chicken hot dish."

Now, here in the south, our comfort food is fried chicken, rice and gravy, string beans seasoned with bacon, sliced home-grown tomatoes, and buttermilk biscuits with honey or jam. However, the traditional southern meal just doesn't seem appropriate for our snowy weather. I'm ready to try chicken hot dish; it sounds cozy, nutritious, and filling. I hope you will post the chicken and tuna hot dish recipes for us loyal listeners to try.

Carol H.

You build a hot dish on rice or noodles, Carol, so choose one, and then choose your sauce — cream of mushroom, tomato, or something else — and then chop whatever marginal vegetables are sitting in the crisper, waiting to be thrown away, and then you toss in the chicken to stew in the sauce. Top with grated cheese, or not, or Bac-O-Bits, or not, or chopped green onions, or not, and eat in dim light. Myself, I'd prefer the fried chicken but only if you made it. I haven't had really good fried chicken in Minnesota since my mother stopped making it. She was a fine cook but old ladies come to a point where they simply lose interest and they'd rather go to Country Buffet, home of All-U-Can-Eat Mashed Legumes.

3 Comments

Sandy Gilman | January 23, 2008 3:11 PM

I'm embarrassed to say the descriptive
menu, especially
the biscuits, made my mouth water -- seriously!
I'm here at work at a Child Development
Center in Irvine, CA. It's lunch time
and all I have to eat is a container
of yogurt.
And, it's beginning to rain! (We'll be
inside this afternoon).
Boy, for some of that comfort food...

Sandy
San Clemente, CA

Connie Bos | January 27, 2008 11:31 PM

I think Snellville has got the right idea. "Everybody is Somebody." Ditto it's sister city Smellville, where they proudly proclaim "Everybody's got a body." Where every old biddy, and every creaky old man is capable of great pleasure. Probably everyone else then too. How? Sense of touch. Touch. Touch. The magical sense. The human body. The only thing the Goddess thought we'd be needin', besides a Mama. There's a whole world in there. Maybe even heaven. The body's own gold mine, accessible by touch. Anyway, that old biddy and creaky old gent, they close their eyes, see, and get that old sense of touch a workin' and voila- they are beautiful, they are golden. If this were heaven, that'd be reasonable. He says "Will you do something for me?" She says "What? Do you want me to help you rob a bank? O.K." It doesn't matter if they are old and decrepid- their touch still works. Thank you for letting me put in my 2 cents about Smellville, a democratic place with a democratic touch.

James A. Heath | January 28, 2008 5:38 PM

Mz Carol,
I've been in Snellville,Lawrencville and Loganville. I lived in Decatur not to far from "CabbageTown". It's been awhile since I have been there.....but....RICE??? Most of the Mom and Pop restaurants I frequented around there didn't have rice with Fried Chicken. The traditional side dishes with fried chicken are, green beans,fried okra, fried squash, possibly fried green maters and as always---MASHED TATERS---and gravy.
Rice??? I have been taught it was a traditional "Nawthurn" side dish. Rice has it's place in the South. Gumbo, and Pudding along with various other meal concoctions I can understand . Being Bred and Born in Ala-BAMA I have to wonder as to your Suthern-ness. For generations Southern Belles have been taught mashed taters is a side dish staple with almost all meals. I LOVE mashed taters with cheese, peppers, onions and countless other ways.
But to serve rice with true Fried Chicken, unless for strict dietary reasons, is unheard of.
Please Mz Carol say it isn't so!?!?!?
Cordially yours James.