A Good Friend
Judy Conlin
One has many friends throughout their lifetime. There are old friends we’ve had since we were young, workplace friends, club friends, church friends, and casual friends. No matter who they are or where we met them, we cherish them all.
My column today is about a friend I met late in my life. We usually get together at least once a week and sometimes study our theater lines or just talk about our lives and always laugh a lot.
The incident I am going to talk about today shows why I admire her so much. She was coming to visit me one morning and I decided to make a little snack for us. As you know, I am not Betty Crocker, but I love to entertain. I wanted to try something new and different, but I wanted it to be easy- something I could handle but would show what a good hold I had on this entertaining business. I sorted through recipe books, clippings, and magazines wanting to find a simple recipe that would still be impressive, I stumbled upon a recipe for an easy grape salad. I should have known that what they called easy and what was easy for me were two different things, but I started out with high hopes.
There were only a few ingredients, so I started out quite happy with myself. All you had to do to start was cream sour cream, sugar and cream cheese together. That sounded simple. It should have been but with my arthritic hands it was very difficult. It said to continue this creaming until there were no lumps. I worked and worked and worked. My arms and hands were killing me but there were still lumps.
I finally resorted to using a mixer which was not recommended, but it was all I could think of doing. Even so there were still lumps but they were smaller lumps. My aching legs from the long standing and my aching arms and hands from creaming decided it was good enough.
It was time to add the previously washed and dried red and green seedless grapes. Well, I had only gotten a small portion of those grapes in when my bowl was running over with lumpy dough. I grabbed a larger bowl and began putting in more grapes only to have this bowl overflow also. I found a larger bowl and once again poured my mess into it and the remainder of those darned fat grapes. There was now lumpy dough all ove my kitchen island, the discarded bowls, and , of course, me.
It was now time to chill this and prepare the topping of brown sugar and chopped pecans. I won’t go into the details of how my chopping pecans went. Just let me say that I am still finding bits in my hair and various parts of the kitchen.
Despite all this, the following morning I felt good presenting my lovely grape salad. It looked delicious. I dished it up all the time telling my friend how difficult it had been to make, but was worth the effort. I did not mention that it was called easy grape salad.,
As she took her first bite, I waited expectantly. “Well, what do you think?” I asked.
She looked up, staring me straight in my eyes. “I wouldn’t bother doing it again,” she said.
I couldn’t help bursting out laughing and soon we were both laughing. Most people would have mumbled some vague compliment, but this was a true friend. She was perfectly honest. She did have a second helping just to salve my ego a little, but I was left with this mammoth bowl of leftovers which I’ve been working on for days. I can hardly waddle out to my car. Still, I am grateful for having such a good friend.
More later,
Fat Judy www.nursejudyinfo.com
