Potluck suppers

An  insulated casserole carrier from Moonlight55

I looked up the origin of this term. One theory is that it refers to communal meals served by Irish women in one pot--each woman threw in whatever she had. In the American West, the meals were community affairs with no planned menu--everyone brought whatever dish they wanted and you literally took "luck of the pot." I have been to potluck suppers where there was an assigned menu--if you signed up for the entree, you got a recipe to fix. I once signed up for dessert and made my first Bundt cake--half of which stayed in the pan when I tried to take it out. I learned the hard way that  you must take the cake out of the pan five minutes after removing it from the oven. So I made a second cake, and one of the men in the group ever after referred to me as the "two-cake" lady.
My daughter Jordan has instituted small summer night potluck suppers at her house, and she chooses a theme for each. We've had pizza (she was out of town that week, and Christian could do it), and salad suppers, and, of course Mexican night. Most recently it was southern down-home cooking--chicken (okay, from KFC), mac and cheese, turnip greens, green beans (my contribution), and the best sweet cornbread I've ever eaten. I'm not sure what she'll come up with next for the theme.
I take my dishes in a wonderful casserole carrier that my mom bought years ago at a church bazaar. When she was widowed, she lived near us and ate supper with us almost every night, always bringing a dish in the carrier. A friend said she could make a pattern from mine and copy it--and she made several. I bought them as gifts. But recently Terry Moon saw the title of my food blog and wrote me about her handmade gift ideas. She sells insulated casserole carriers, trivets, pot holder, and skillet handle coveers made of designer fabric. Check them out at http://www.etsy.com/shop/moonlight55. I think casserole carriers are one of the greatest things invented since sliced bread.
Here's the recipe for Christian's green beans--I call them that because my son-in-law, not an avid vegetable eater,  loves them. I warned him he would have to share. He didn't realize I was joking and said solemnly, "Oh, I will." You never know how many people will be there, so I took enough for Cox's army and suspect they had lots of leftovers. I used three large cans of green beans last night, but usually only use one--and if it's just the four of us (including Christian) I often don't have leftovers.

Christian’s Green Beans
3 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled, grease saved
3 scallions, chopped
Vinegar to taste
1 28-oz. can green beans, drained
Fry bacon crisp and remove from the skillet to drain on paper towels. Leave enough grease in the skillet to sauté scallions. Pour in vinegar to taste, and add drained green beans. Crumble the bacon over the beans. Serve hot.

Dinner on the Grounds

Chloe Webb, author of Legacy of the Sacred Harp, on the left and Melinda Esco, production manager at TCU Press, on the right. Below, some of the guests at the Dinner on the Grounds.

The Bookish Frogs, a community support group for TCU Press, met at the home of Mary Volcansek tonight for dinner on the grounds, a feast usually associated with Sacred Harp or shape note or fasola singing. Yes, dinner is usually held outside, on picnic tables, or with blankets spread on the ground, but as I assured serveral nervous would-be guests, we would be meeting inside tonight. Too darned hot for dinner literally on the grounds--besides, Mary's backyard is the domain of her two feral cats. But we had the traditional bounteous feast associated with this custom, a potluck that ranged from the best lemony potato salad I've ever tasted to a tomato mozarella salad and the crunchy Asian salad that author Chloe Webb said is the reason she started shape note singing--I need more details on that story, but my friend Jim Lee declares it's the best salad he ever ate. We had asparagus and pasta salad and deviled eggs and spanikopita (all gone before I got any, but I did sneak a deviled egg before anyone began eating because I knew they would go quickly). There were spinach balls and boursin cheese and watermelon and fruit salads and simply a host of good dishes, including peach cobbler and homemade ginger snaps..

After dinner Chloe gave a brief talk on the origins of sacred harp singing and what people should expect. It is, she emphasized, participatory music and not listening music. She passed out music sheets and encouraged everyone to sing. First she and a small group of singers who had come to dinner sang Amazing Grace in fasola syllables--the melody was lovely and clear--and then she encouraged all of us to sing it in the words we know. But I got tickled when she said if you don't know what to sing, it's perfectly okay to just sing La, La, La. It was an interesting program about a musical tradition that is gaining followers across the country and undergoing a revival of interest.

Legacy of the Sacred Harp, which mixes genealogy and sacred harp history, is available from University Publishing, 1-800-826-8911.

But the purpose of this blog is not to sell books, it's to talk about food. I intended to take two dishes: I cleaned and sliced Brussel sprouts, doused with them a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper, and roasted them for 15 minutes. While they were still hot out of the oven, I tossed them with a light lemon vinaigrette. And then I left them in the refrigerator when I went to the dinner. But I did take the main dish, which we know as Louella's rice. I never met Louella--she was the stepmother of my good high school friend Barbara Ashcraft--who remains dear to me to this day. Here's the recipe, although I doubled it--for the faint of heart cook this couldn't be easier.

Mix:

1 cup Minute Rice

1 cup grated sharp cheddar

1 cup sour cream

1 can cream of celery soup (since everything else in this is high cholesterol, try to assuage your conscience and use the Healthy Heart version)

1 4 oz. can chopped green chillies

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Not exactly gourmet fare, but so delicious. Barbara tells me it appears at every family meal they have--and they have a lot, since she and Don have five children and I've lost count of how many grandchildren plus they just had their first great-grandchild.

There may well be a sacred harp group in your area--you can visit, join in the singing, and, if  you're lucky, they'll have dinner on the grounds.