Life - grace grits and gardening

Adios Texas.

October 22, 2014 By Talya Tate Boerner

In 1981, I packed up my sparse belongings and headed to Texas with no real vision of life beyond high school. I only knew I was ready to leave. Ready to get on with college. You know the saying, the world was my oyster.

Yesterday as I crossed the Red River into Oklahoma, I said, “Adios,” to Texas. Although I’ll return occasionally, things will be different. I will be a visitor.

For weeks and weeks, we’ve been purging and packing and decluttering. Moving is hard work. Multiple trips to Goodwill. A yard sale. Monday things got real as we said goodbye to our Dallas home on Worth Street.

Walking through for the last time, her rooms sat empty yet overflowed with memories.

I thought back on our first night in the house when the kids were young and the house was new to us. Her creaky floors and old beams felt strange yet comforting, welcoming. We had no way to know what Worth Street would hold for us.

All those Thanksgiving leftovers enjoyed. Slumber parties when the entire house was overrun with wide-eyed, giggling girls. How many books were read underneath this roof? Movies watched, decisions made, walls painted and re-painted, spelling words studied, plants planted, loads and loads and loads of laundry washed and folded, homecoming and prom pictures taken from the front porch swing, tears cried and wiped away, debates argued, suppers eaten, prayers prayed?

Tate (red vest) with his friends. Prom 2010.

We built a rich life together on Worth Street. It wasn’t always perfect, but it was real.

It was ours.

There are things I will dearly miss.

The slant of the early morning sun through the upstairs porch.

The summer dragonflies and how they flit and dip into the pool water.

Our secret garden beyond the iron gate.

Her stately columns.

The history of the area and being part of something bigger.

Our friends.

Since the moment we decided to leave Texas, I’ve been writing this blog post in my head, trying to imagine different neighbors, a different way of life. There is no neighborhood like Munger Place, and we consider ourselves fortunate to have lived there.

A piece of my heart will always be in Texas, but I hope you’ll follow my adventures in Arkansas.

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

Musical Pairing:

Already Gone, Sugarland

Simple Pleasures #2

October 5, 2014 By Talya Tate Boerner

Week two living in Fayetteville…I feel more unpacked and settled in with more time to write. And that’s nice! Here are a few of last week’s simple pleasures.

Clouds. Monday night I joined a group of Northwest Arkansas Blogger friends for dinner at The Depot. Walking to meet them, I stopped to take a picture of this incredible cloud hovering over Dickson Street. It was a huge cloud—the only cloud in a clear sky. After I took the picture I decided it was in the shape of a razorback. Do you agree?

Birds. The birds found my bird feeder. After a week of no feathered visitors, I can’t tell you how excited this made me. Yesterday three fat cardinals fed at the same time. Of course I didn’t have time to get a picture of them, but this little guy posed for me. So cute.

New Friends. My sister-in-law and her friends, Stella and Barbara, have welcomed in right into their weekly dinner group, and it feels like I’ve been there all along. (I have been a regular visitor during the past year, but my attendance has been very sporadic.) Tuesday night Barbara made chicken pot pie and an assortment of appetizers and salads. Talk about comfort food… these ladies know how to do it up! I get to host in two weeks. Yay. What to cook?

Rain and Cooler Temperatures. We finally received much needed rain. The front brought cooler temperatures. Much cooler. Like a low of 38 degrees Saturday morning. Brrrrr!

Junkin & Pumpkins. I went junkin with my writer friend Laurie who blogs at Junque Rethunque and See Laurie Write. Such a fun day (more coming on this later). Even before I arrived at The Junk Ranch (really how can you not love that name?), I got a thrill simply driving past pumpkin patches in Prairie Grove. Those fat orange pumpkins sitting in the fields caught my eye, and I know the Great Pumpkin is waiting out there somewhere.

Prairie grove pumpkin patch - Simple pleasures

Can you see the pumpkins? I couldn’t get very close, but they are there!

What simple pleasures did you enjoy recently?

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

Did you miss last week’s post?

Simple Pleasures #1

Keiser’s Kitchen – a foodie blast from the past

October 3, 2014 By Talya Tate Boerner

Fall in the part of the Delta where I grew up meant harvest, football and countdown to the Keiser Halloween Carnival. Friends, it was THE big event in our little town. I’ve written about my reign as Halloween Queen HERE if you’d like to get background information. The thing to know for purposes of this post is that the PTA mothers raised money for the school primarily so their kid and class representative could wear the coveted cardboard glittery crown.

A.BIG.DEAL.

Way back in Nineteen Hundred and Sixty-Nine (gasp), the year I was nominated Queen of the second grade class, our most successful fundraiser was the Keiser cookbook, aptly named Keiser’s Kitchen.

This cookbook belongs in a museum showcasing middle twentieth century PTA Mom handiwork.

Way before computers and high speed copy machines and your choice of cool fonts, regular construction paper covers were cut to size, manually stapled and hand lettered using a Bic marker. Someone (probably Momma) collected and typed the recipes on a clunky manual typewriter before running them off on the mimeograph machine in the teacher’s lounge. And I’m sure there was sniffing. Sniffing the mimeograph paper was the reward at the end… (if you don’t know what I mean, you are showing your young age.)

What a labor intensive project compared to today’s technology.

Our copy of Keiser’s Kitchen is priceless.

During the upcoming fall weeks, I plan to recreate these dishes as presented (along with maybe a little story about the Keiser mom who originally submitted the recipe). There are over thirty recipes, so I won’t do all of them because really, how many Jell-o salads does one need? But I plan to make lots of them. I think we need to remember these recipes, taste this simple, basic food lovingly made by our mothers who saw to it that we gathered around the supper table every night for a family meal.

I’ll warn you now, there will be no salted caramel frosting or balsamic anything. But sometimes maybe that’s what we need.

Stay tuned!

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.