Is Cooking Becoming A Lost Art?

 

Please welcome my guest, Katherine Grey. For many of us, cooking with Mom is a treasured memory, Katherine uses that memory as a springboard to discuss her feelings about today’s tendency to avoid cooking. Like Katherine, I remember making cookies with my mom. Chocolate chip and peanut butter were my favorites, but Mom accused me of eating as much dough as I cooked. To this day, I love chocolate chip cookie dough.

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 The young women of my nephew’s generation (he’s 21) seem to take great pride in the fact that they can’t cook or as they say, “can’t boil water.”  Why is that, I wonder? Did their mothers not teach them how to cook or about the immense feeling of satisfaction when you make a meal or bread or a cake or anything else from scratch? Did they not pass on the sense of pride one feels when given a compliment on how good something they’ve made tastes? Or perhaps their mothers never learned to cook themselves. It would be hard to pass on the art of cooking if one never learned themselves.

 Maybe I find the concept of not knowing how to cook so foreign because I was taught to cook by a mother who rarely used anything out of a box or can. I didn’t have a store-bought cookie until I was a teenager and was at a friend’s house. I’m only in my late thirties so it’s not like store-bought cookies were some new innovation.

 I was four years old the first time I made cookies with my mother. I remember kneeling on a dining room chair, helping my mom stir together the dry ingredients of a recipe, learning to crack an egg.  (She was smart enough to have me crack them in a separate bowl or else we would have eaten a lot of shell pieces with our cookies.) She taught me to use measuring cups and spoons by giving me my own bowl in which to measure flour, sugar, baking powder. Over the years we made all different kinds of cookies from chocolate chip, to peanut butter, to ginger snaps to oatmeal and more. As I grew older, I graduated from doing more watching than cooking to being responsible for mixing the dry ingredients together, to mixing them with the wet ingredients, to being able to take the hot pan from the oven (this was a big deal to a twelve-year old), to finally making the entire recipe by myself for the first time.

 Unfortunately, nowadays making cookies means buying a package from the refrigerated section of the grocery store and either breaking the pre-cut dough into pieces or slicing a log of dough into circles and tossing them in the oven. 

Baking cookies with my mother throughout the years is one of my fondest memories and maybe the reason why, as an adult, cookies are one of my favorite things to bake.

 When I do hear someone say they don’t know how to cook, I want to tell them they can learn. If you can read and follow directions, you can learn how to cook. Get a cookbook that looks interesting, read through the recipes, and choose one to try. This is how I made Coq Au Vin for the first time. Yes, I know how to cook but I’d never made it before and didn’t know anyone who had. The first time, the chicken came out a little dry.  The second time, the chicken stuck to the bottom of the pan, but the third time, it came out great. You can learn to cook. It just takes patience and practice.   

 And start with something easy. Like cookies.

 Oatmeal Walnut Cookies

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup packed brown sugar
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup Crisco shortening
1 egg
¼ teaspoon vanilla
¾ cup quick-cooking rolled oats
½ cup chopped walnuts**
Small dish of granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a mixing bowl, stir together the first 6 ingredients (through the baking soda). Add the Crisco, egg, and vanilla to the bowl and beat well. Stir in the oats and nuts. Form into small balls. Dip the top of each ball in the dish of granulated sugar. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake for 10 to 12 minutes.
Makes 3 ½ dozen cookies.

** I sometimes substitute craisins for the walnuts.

About Katherine Grey

At the age of four, Katherine pestered her mother to teach her to read. From that point on, she spent the most of her childhood lost in the pages of one book after another. Soon she began writing stories of her own, populated with characters doing all of the things she was too shy to even contemplate doing herself.

A chance meeting with another writer led Katherine to seriously pursue a writing career. Her debut novel, Impetuous, was released by The Wild Rose Press in August 2011.

Katherine lives in upstate NY with her family though she threatens to move south at the beginning of each winter season.

Visit her at http://katherinegrey.blogspot.com

Eating alone and liking it

In spite of friends, family, and eating out a lot, I eat supper alone several nights a week. I manage to avoid some of the obvious pitfalls, such as cereal for dinner or overeating. And I do try to be creative, so that fixing and eating supper is fun. Sometimes I carry my supper for one to the front porch and watch the world go by. But you learn that there are some things you just don’t cook for one—like sheet cake! Even if you froze it in single-serving portions, it would last forever and you’d get very tired of it.
I asked other friends what they do about eating alone. One claims that it’s because she won’t cook for herself and eats out that she can’t lose weight. Another said, “When I want meatloaf, I cook it and portion it out in the freezer.” I was telling still another friend that someone asked me what you did when you wanted a rhubarb pie. (Since I’ve never made a rhubarb pie in my life, it’s a moot point; my mom made them, but I don’t particularly like rhubarb.) Anyway, my friend said when she was divorced and single, she baked a rhubarb pie, ate the whole thing herself, and thought how wonderful it was not to have to share it!
Someone suggested that the freezer is a single person’s best friend, but I countered with: “Or your worst enemy.” If you freeze a lot of leftovers, you end up with stuff that you don’t want to eat but feel you should. Remember that your mom always told you, “Waste not, want not.” Freezing often doesn’t improve the quality of food—just the opposite. I admit that if I get a yen for sloppy Joe or tuna Florentine, I fix it and freeze it—but too often I throw away much of the leftovers.
I have a partial solution for that: buy a vacuum food saver. Remember the Save-a-Meal machines of the ’70s? They sealed food into a plastic bag so that you could freeze it. Trouble is, they left all that air in with the food, and eventually ice crystals formed on it—a sure sign the food is no good. The food saver draws the air out and essentially cryovacs the food. It’s great for saving meat—for instance, if you buy a pack of four chicken breasts and only cook one. Food-save the other three individually (the plastic comes in rolls, so you create the size bag you need). Save leftovers, or use the food saver to preserve that really good piece of cheese you bought for a dinner party but didn’t completely use. (Don’t freeze the cheese—just keeping air from it will keep that white mold from forming on it.) If you’re really smart about using this machine and have the accessories, you can save red wine in the bottle or put things in special jars. (I’m not that smart).
One word, though, about the freezer and food-saving: the airtight seal doesn’t last forever, so don’t leave leftovers too long, and keep an eye on them. I have two serving-size portions of lamb in the freezer as I write; the seal has broken down, and ice crystals are on the meat. I’ll probably pitch them, though right now I just keep eyeing them and choosing something else. (My mother used to think I was far too willing to pitch leftovers.)
Baked goods don’t work well in the machine—bread, for instance, gets squished because the machine draws air out of the bread as well as the bag. Bread freezes nicely in regular baggies, so you can keep a loaf for a long while. (My kids dispute this and want to refrigerate it, but I insist that it gets stale in the fridge.) When Megan bought a food saver, Brandon tried to “save” everything in the refrigerator. She reported that it was an absolute failure with scallions, which subsequently had to be thrown out. Use some common sense here!
But even with a food saver, leftovers can be discouraging. If you bake lasagna, eat your portion—or maybe three portions in a week—that’s still a freezer full of lasagna. So save the lasagna for when the kids come home—or go to the best Italian restaurant you know.
When you cook for yourself, you have to get rid of some long-held notions. One is that “Waste not, want not” dictum that sings like a refrain in our heads. When you cook for one, you’re going to waste some food—just pitch it with a clear conscience. It’s not waste on the scale that you’d waste food if you cooked for a family of six and had unusable leftovers. Reconcile yourself to both discarding some food and eating the same thing two nights in a row. (If it’s good, that shouldn’t be a problem.)
A lot of recipes can be reduced to serve two, but it’s sometimes hard to reduce them to a single serving. So eat salmon burgers or some other delicacy two nights in a row if you don’t want to freeze the other burger.
The other caveat is that you have to learn to shop at a grocery that has a good butcher. I bet you don’t buy meat or fish from the butcher because it’s more expensive. But you’re only cooking for one! It’s not that much more expensive. It’s better to ask the butcher for one chicken breast than to buy four in a package and have those leftovers. Or use chicken cutlets or tenders instead of a package of breasts. I’ve been told that the chicken in those pre-packs of four has already been frozen and defrosted; if you take it home and freeze it, you’re freezing chicken that is already on its way to getting old.
Want salmon? Buy a one-serving piece.
Some random ideas:
■ Toss cooked tiny pasta with Parmesan, pepper, and a little heavy cream. Add a little chopped parsley for color (even the dried kind).
■ Ask the butcher for one or two small lamb chops (if you like lamb) or one pork chop.
■ Make an individual pizza, using a flour tortilla as the crust. Top with whatever you want. One I like: spread pesto over the tortilla and top with roasted veggies and goat cheese. Or try a topping of creamed spinach, artichoke hearts, chopped Roma tomatoes, and Parmesan. Invent your own! Bake at 400º, but watch closely so the tortilla doesn’t burn.
■ Buy those frozen hash browns that can be resealed. Then if you have leftover turkey, for instance, you can make turkey hash. Use bottled or dehydrated turkey gravy to bind together and spice it up with a little garlic powder, Worcestershire, onion, etc.
■ Buy sliced turkey in the deli and put it on toast. Cover with cheese sauce or Alfredo sauce and broil. Top with cooked bacon and a tomato slice.
■ Some things in the produce department—spinach, broccoli, beans, mushrooms—come loose, so you can buy whatever amount you want. Asparagus doesn’t, and that troubled me for a while. It’s so expensive, but it’s so good. Now I buy a pack of very fresh asparagus (did you know it should be standing in water and not lying on a shelf?) and then I eat it all week—with lemon butter, on buttered toast, chunked up in salad, or even plain.

Do you cook with canned soups?

Two or three  years ago, I wrote a memoir/cookbook, Cooking My Way Through Life with Kids and Books —why I wrote it is too long a story to tell here, but it was fun to do and I was pleased with the results. A local university press that publishes cookbooks reviewed the manuscript and, after many months, sent a detailed six-page critique from a reader. The critique was like a roadmap for a revision, and I was grateful, but at one point it called my recipes “nice faux gourmet recipes.” Referring to my recipe for that standard, King Ranch Chicken, the anonymous critic claimed she never used canned soups but always made her own white sauce. The comment made me think of all the things you can do with canned soups without feeling guilty.

Canned soup recipes have probably been around as long as canned soups, and probably controversial just as long. The critic’s comment sounded like snobbery to me, but a lot of people simply prefer not to use canned ingredients. One person on a web forum about canned soups said she objected to tomato soup recipes, because they left an aftertaste. I don’t particularly like beef-based soups, like vegetable beef, and I hate the smell when someone is heating one in the office microwave. What did I really mean by canned soups? Creamed soups, such as chicken, mushroom, and celery. But then there’s that good bacon/spinach dip recipe that calls for cheddar cheese soup (not always easy to find).

Some people object that canned soups are high in sodium and fat. Yes, but you can buy low sodium and low fat. Others simply prefer not to use canned soups and make white sauce, as the lofty critic did, or use one of the recipes for substitutes on the web.

Canned Soup Substitute

2 c. nonfat powdered milk

¾ c. cornstarch
¼ c. or less inst. vegetable bouillon
2 Tbsp dried onion flakes
1 tsp. basil
1 tsp. thyme
½ tsp. pepper

Trouble with that is, you’ve used four prepared ingredients, gone to a lot of trouble, and probably (I don’t know this for sure) produced a pretty tasteless or artificial-tasting product. There is of course a difference between canned and prepared soups, like instant vegetable bouillon or dried onion soup mix, from which almost everyone makes that sour cream dip that disappears as soon as you put it out..
Once I gave a “retro” dinner party, and we all brought dishes from the ‘50s. One guest brought that dip, and one of the men looked at his wife and said, “Can you get this recipe?” She smiled and said, “I think I can figure it out.”

Neither Jacques Pepin nor Julia Child ever cooked with prepared or canned soups, but Rachel Ray does. I’m for canned soup in moderation but not to the extent I need to buy 101 Things to Do with Canned Soup or The Biggest Book of Canned Soup Recipes.

Almost everyone knows how to make King Ranch Chicken with soup, but here are a couple of less common recipes that I’m fond of.

 Colin’s Queso

1 lb. hamburger

1 lb. sausage (your choice if it’s mild, medium or hot)
1 16 oz. jar Pace picante sauce (again, mild, medium or hot—you choose)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 lb. Velveeta Original (I use Light if Colin isn’t looking)

Brown meat in skillet, breaking up the chunks. Put meat in a crock pot, add remaining ingredients, and heat until cheese melts and ingredients are blended. Serve hot with corn chips. I used to put chips in the bottom of soup bowls, top them with this queso, and serve it to my kids as a one-dish meal.

 Spinach-bacon spread

8 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
2 10-oz. pkgs. chopped spinach, thawed and well drained—squeeze it by hand for best results
32 oz. Monterey Jack cheese with jalapeños, shredded
1 11-oz. can cheddar cheese soup, undiluted
1 8-oz. pkg. cream cheese
1 tsp. Greek seasoning
½ tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. Tabasco, or less if you prefer; this is pretty spicy
Paprika

Combine everything but bacon and paprika. Heat until cheese melts. Stir in crumbled bacon, sprinkle with paorprika. Serve hot with crackers.

 Don’t know how to make King Ranch chicken? Write me at j.alter@tcu.edu. It’s a Texas classic.

Things my mom used to make without recipes

My mom was a great cook, and one of my huge debts to her is for instilling in me a love of good food well prepared. Mom collected recipes at a greater rate than I do, and when we cleaned out her house there were notebooks upon notebooks, each carefully labeled--desserts, cakes, vegetables, etc. I finally gave up going through them and saved the few I had in my memory plus the ones she'd sent me over the years. But I remember things she used to fix without recipes and taught me to do at an early age.
One was a breakfast dish: she'd fry bulk pork sausage until it was brown, drain the grease, and then throw sliced apples, I presume Granny Smith or other tart ones, in with the sausage and cook until the apples were softened.
She also used to make a bread pan of mush (today we'd say polenta), slice it the next morning, fry and serve with syrup. In Chicago, it was a rare treat. Now that I'm a long-time Texan I know that fried mush is a common dish. I have no idea how Mom, a lifelong resident of Illinois, learned to do that unless her German mother taught her.
And remember how our moms used to score hams, insert cloves, and cover with brown sugar? My mom did that with Spam during the war years. I thought it was wonderful.
But the two I really want to share now are appetizers: a blue cheese dip and cheese-stuffed mushrooms.
The blue cheese dip had only one essential ingredient--blue cheese. After that you were on your own. I used to put in any and all of the following: cream cheese, sour cream (no light sour cream in those days), cottage cheese, mayonnaise. A mixture, depending on your mood, is best. Add some sliced green onions, garlic powder, perhaps a bit of dry mustard and a dash of Worcestershire (be care of the last two--they can overwhelm even blue cheese if used to excess). We didn't have a food processor, of course, but I'd put it in the blender. Serve with crackers. It never came out the same way twice. My favorite story about that dip has to do with my father's executive secretary, for whom I worked in high school (best training I ever got!). She made it for her man of the hour and apparently it was awful. She accused me of trying to sabotage her love life by giving her the wrong recipe. I didn't, but I have no idea what she did to it. These days I see similar recipes in magazines. Low-fat yogurt would be a great ingredient, if you didn't get it too soupy.
The recipe of Mom's that I use a lot is for the stuffing for mushrooms, and again there are no precise amounts. Shred sharp cheddar cheese, add sliced scallions, some dry mustard, a dash or two of Worcestershire, and enough mayonnaise to bind. Use it to stuff large mushroom caps. Mom used to soak mushrooms in salty water to clean them but I know now that's wrong--wipe them with a damp paper towel.
Be sure to bake these, not broil, at least at first, so that the mushrooms cook through and you aren't serving melted cheese spread in raw mushrooms. I bake in the toaster oven (if I'm not making too many) and keep an eye on them. When the mushrooms begin to look soft, I switch to broiler to get a crust on the cheese. Helpful hint: slice a bit off the bottom (top?) of the mushroom cap so that it sits flat in the oven/broiler and doesn't drip its delicious ingredients all over the foil you've lined the baking pan with.
This is good uncooked as a spread or sandwich filling and as an open-faced sandwich broiled. Enjoy! More about my mom's cooking to come--I could write volumes.

Biscuits from Imogene Duckworthy

Imogene worked for her Uncle Huey, waiting tables at Huey's Hash, for more years than she cared to remember. She didn't just take orders and balance hot plates on her arms, though. She paid attention in the kitchen. Especially when Clem, the cook, decided to put his Cheddar Green Onion Biscuits on the menu.

You won't find this recipe in Choke, the first Imogene Duckworthy Mystery, but she'd like you to have it in case you find yourself invited to a potluck and don't know what to bring. You can always use more biscuits.

If you're curious about what happened after Immy quit her job in a huff, you can wade into that recipe for disaster by getting either a paperback or e-book copy of the novel. It's for sale in lots of places. Visit http://kayegeorge.com/novels.html to find one.

And now, the recipe Immy copied down when she saw Clem mixing up those goodies!

Cheddar Green Onion Biscuits

2 1/4 c. Bisquick

6 T. butter, chopped coarsely

1 1/2 t. minced garlic

6 oz. grated sharp cheddar cheese

3 green onions (or scallions) chopped finely

1 c. buttermilk

Cut butter into Bisquick until the texture of coarse crumbs. Stir in cheese, onions, and garlic. Add buttermilk and stir just enough to mix. Do not overmix.

Drop onto greased cookie sheet or pizza stone by heaping teaspoonsful.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15-18 minutes or until golden brown.

Makes nearly 4 dozen.

Optional: Add 4 oz. coarsely chopped green chili or jalapeno peppers.

adapted by Kaye George from a recipe on My Sister's Kitchen

 (http://mysisterskitchen.wordpress.com/2006/07/06/cheddargreen-onion-biscuits/)

Cooking the 1887 way

A friend loaned me a copy of the Boston School Kitchen Text-book, published in 1887, revised 1909, by Mrs. D. A. Lincoln. True to the style of the day, that's how she was identified--by her husbands's name although someplace I did find that she was Mary J. Lincoln. This is not a cookbook so much as a book laying down the principles of cooking and housewifery, as they were to be taught in the school. Emphasis ws on the nature of food and proper combinations--no guesswork allowed. An early chapter stresses personal cleanliness: no touching of face or hair while cooking (how many times do you brush your hair off your forehead?), no using your apron as a towel.
Here's what you could buy for 25 cents back then: 1/2 quart oysters; 1 lb. butter; 1-1/2 lbs oleo (I didn' even know they had oleo then), 13 lbs. potatoes, 1/2 lb. beans, 8 lbs. "Indian" meal which presumably was corn meal.
There are lessons on Cooking, Food, Boiling or Cooking in Water, Invalid Cookery, Batters, Laying the Table and other essential topics--20 lessons in all, each with questions at the end.
Did you know that a salmi is a stew of game? I've cooked ragout and wondered what set it apart from stew--it's a stew highly flavored with wine.
 The section on Invalid Cookery interested me--it suggested toast, specifically milk toast; I remember my mother serving that to me when I was sick. She also sserved crackers crumbled in warm milk with butter, salt and pepper. Ice cream and eggnog are recommended, along with beef juice. To make the latter, you dice 1/2 lb. lean beef and put it in a widemouthed bottle on a trivet. Cover the beef with cold water and simmer two hours until the meat is white. Strain, and season the broth with salt and pepper.
There are recipes for cooking mutton chops and suet pudding, boiled mutton with gravy, baked heart. fried corn-meal mush (my mom fixed that too), baked crackers with cheese, and something called cracker brewis which is sort of like my mom's crackrs in milk only you bake it until the milk is absorbed.
It's fun to carefully turn these  yellowing pages and imagine the earnestness of the woman who compiled this, the care with which teachers must have followed her specific instructions--in laying the table, special care must be taken so that everything is provided, from butter plates to filled water glasses, and no one has occasion to leave the table (a good idea in this age when children tend to get up and wander around). In serving,  you must take care that  your thumb doees not touch the top surface of the plate. The knife is only used as a divider; the fork conveys all food to your mouth. I remember my British father insisting that you do not switch the fork from your left hand to your right aftr cutting meat. It was always awkward to me. So was the proverbial, "Butter your bread on your plate, not in the air." At the close of the meal, fold your napkin so that the table may be left in an orderly fashion. A lot to remember.
Sadly in these ancient pages, I didn't find anything I felt impelled to cook. Not even the chicken fricassee.

Shape Note Singing Salad

Please welcome my guest, Chloe Webb, author of The Legacy of the Sacred Harp (TCU Press, 2010). Here, she gives a brief history and explanation of Sacred Harp Singing, along with the delicious recipe that a group of us now request she bring to every potluck supper. It's wonderful.

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My grandmother, Terry Dumas Nolan, used to say there was never a better feast on earth than at an all-day singing and dinner on the grounds, “food and music to feed the soul.” In Union Parish, Louisiana, fresh butter beans and homegrown tomatoes were everyday fare, but desserts—such as coconut cake with lemon filling or peach ice cream from a hand-cranked freezer—were special enough to beg the recipes.

I heard Grandma sing only the alto line of the four-part Sacred Harp music, and I concluded that the music had no melody. Hearing the other three parts in her head, she often burst into song loudly and enthusiastically. The music is sung a capella, with no instrumental accompaniment. The tenor part, on the third line of the four lines of music, is sung by both men’s and women’s voices, and generally has the melody, although all four parts are needed to form the complete sound. The top treble line is also sung by both men and women, with women usually singing an octave higher than the men. Usually only women sing alto, the second line down, although occasionally a man might find the alto range suits his voice comfortably. The bottom line, or bass, is naturally for men’s voices. But would-be singers are encouraged to try several parts to find the best fit. And not being a good singer is not a good excuse for not singing; there are no auditions. Everyone is welcome to sing Sacred Harp.
The music is interchangeably called Fasola, shape note, or Sacred Harp singing. The term “fasola” refers to the “fa-sol-la“ solfege system of music that assigned syllables to each note in an octave. Most of us learned this as the “do-re-mi” system, which came later. Fasola, used by Shakespeare in his plays, was the system of music the first colonists in Jamestown would have sung. Later, a distinctly American invention assigned a specific geometric shape to each syllable, which corresponded to each note in an octave. “Shape note” music became immensely popular, especially because it could be sung by even illiterate singers; anyone could read the four shapes: “Fa” is a triangle, “Sol” is a circle, “La” is a square, and the less-often sung “Mi” is a diamond. Even life-long singers sometimes get syllables mixed-up, so singing “La” all the time is perfectly acceptable. The only thing that’s unacceptable about singing Sacred Harp is criticizing someone’s singing.

A full morning of singing whets big appetites, and the table is always crowded with photo-worthy dishes. The food is not actually served “on the ground,” although in the rural South, the table is customarily outside in a covered pavilion built especially for the purpose of all-day singings. The pavilion might be lined with benches, or sometimes only makeshift seating is available. A country church ordinarily has an adjacent cemetery, and I can vouch that an alabaster stone makes a very good spot to take a brimming plate. There’s something reassuring about being close in spirit to those whose voices once sang the same words and the same tunes.
A Sacred Harp salad recipe that has recently become known as mine is not mine at all, but came to me in a circuitous manner: from a Tucson singer, Paige Winslett, who got it at a California singing from someone who said it was from Alabama. In further tracking, Paige found on the Internet, “What Got Me Interested in Shape Note Singing Salad” from Jane Spencer in North Carolina. Jane says it is also called Bok Choy Salad, but she renamed it. She was not singing shape note music when her mother (Dorothy Lane) kept bringing back great recipes from all-day singings, so the salad was the starting point for her. She says, “Mama got this recipe from ‘some man’ and she can’t remember who. So if you are that ‘some man’ who brought this dish to a singing, please let us know.”

What Got Me Interested in Shape Note Singing Salad

http://buncombe.main.nc.us/~mbbweb/harmony/recipes/interestedsalad.html
Jane Spencer (2005)

1/2 cup butter or margarine
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup sesame seeds
(2) 3-oz. packages of Ramen noodles (any flavor, broken up)
3 oz. package sliced almonds
2 lbs. bok choy
4 stalks green onions

Dressing:
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar (I use balsamic)
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce

Melt butter over medium heat, add sesame seeds, sugar, broken noodles and almonds. Brown these, then cool to room temperature.

Wash and chop bok choy and onions and place them in a bowl.

Mix dressing ingredients.

Add the seed/nut/noodle mixture and dressing to the bok choy and onions just before serving.

“Eternal wisdom has prepared A soul-reviving feast;

And bids your longing appetites The rich provisions taste.”

From “Odem” #295 in The Sacred Harp, 1991 revision

Words, Isaac Watts, 1707; music, Leon McGraw, 1935

 Chloe Webb, Fort Worth, Texas