I have been asked …  “Now that you have eaten your way through eight states with so many new dishes being served in your home, what is the favorite dish so far?”

Well, it seems that Mississippi Sin is the favorite.  That just figures.  My family likes something with the word sin in the title.  We could call it Mississippi Trangression or Mississippi No-No.  Or perhaps we could double M it and call it Mississippi Misdeed.  Then again there is Mississippi Violation.

Whatever it is called, it was a hit.

I personally favor the Key Lime Cheesecake.

Florida

State Capital: Tallahassee

Nickname:  The Sunshine State

State Bird:  Mockingbird

State Flower:  Orange Blossom

Florida, the peninsula of the U.S., boasts three distinct shores.  The Atlantic beachfront stretches 400 miles and packs the sand hard.  The Gulf of Mexico  is lines with softer, seasheel rich beaches.  And to the northwest on the Panhandle the beaches have the color and feel of white sugar.  Florida is the flattest and lowest state with its very highest point at 345 feet above sea level.  We discussed this during Family Hour in our home and my children decided that it would be a bad thing to add water to the Atlantic Ocean.  Florida would disappear. 

I’ve never been to Florida so all this came from my books, not my head.

The Spanish founded St. Augustine in 1565 which makes that city the continent’s oldest permanent European settlement.  The Spanish lost it to Britain in 1763 but Spain regained it 20 years later.  The U.S. obtained the territory in 1821 and the native Seminoles fought to  keep the land, but most were forced west.  Florida was part of the Confederacy, therefore we categorize it as a Southern state.

After the Civil War, the railroad came to The Sunshine State.  Orange groves were planted and tourists began to visit from the chilly north.  The state eventually became a retirement haven for senior citizens, as well as a refuge for immigrants after the Cuban Revolution in 1959.  Miami became the major gate to the Caribbean and much of Latin America. 

When I hear people talk about Florida, I mostly hear about spectacular theme parks and beaches, but these things do not interest my family as much as three places they would love to see … the Everglades, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, and Key West.  The Overseas Highway, which spans 113 miles between Key Largo and Key West, has more than 42 bridges and links more than a hundred islands.  Karen and I have a piano duet that we enjoy entitled Key Lime Sunset that musically pictures old Key West where the inhabitants keep a quaint and beautiful tradition: each evening the entire village drops whatever is going on and congregates on the Western shore to pay homage to the sunset.  Adding tourists to the mix a circus atmosphere is created with souvenir hawkers, musicians, acrobats, and a festive spirit.  When the sun sets, the people applaud. Many then visit the cafes to have Key Lime Pie.   Karen and I enjoy playing the duet because it has the lushness of the tropical scenery, the networking of the people, and the acrobats and clowns all compacted into 13 pages of music.  Maybe someday we will see Florida – we’d love to.

For our meal, I made Florida Champagne, non-alcoholic, but a favorite of my son.  It is based on Florida orange juice and other juices with some fizzy soda.  Hidden inside are maraschino cherries.   Part of it is cooked and chilled before adding all the juices. 

Bread by James. 

We substitued in red potatoes for Florida Tomato Grits which is from the Panhandle.  I just knew my children would not eat them.

Florida Spicy Tilapia.  A cayenne peppered fish dish.

Karen totally outdid herself on a Key Lime Cheesecake.  Key Limes are different than the larger limes.  They are bitter.  So all you need is sugar!  Go see Karen’s blog if you want to make this delicious desert.   http://familybuildingworkshop.com/Karen/2009/09/23/key-lime-cheesecake/

Maybe someday our family will make it to Florida to enjoy authentic Key Lime Pie and see a few palm trees and stick our toes in sugar sandy beaches.  If only Karen and I could figure a way to place our electric keyboard out on the beach and play our duet – now that would be a great ending to a sunshiney day!

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Since July we have been planning a triple baby shower and I have to say that this was an overwhelmingly joyful time for me to know three wonderful Christian women who will give birth over the next few weeks.  Since two of the babies are boys, and one is a girl, Kathy and I spent over an hour in Party City choosing paper supplies and designing the cake for the occasion.  None of the pinks and blues matched well and we wanted something a little more contemporary since the ages of the moms span almost two decades.  We finally decided upon a square plate of many colors but could not figure out which color to use for the tablecloth.  Since the store was empty, we placed colored tablecloths on the floor and placed packages of plates on each one to determine what would work.   Odd to me, we chose brown.  Brown for a shower? 

The Blanchards opened their home for the occasion.  Christa added decorations throughout her home that added a special touch.  Here is Kathy setting out the cake.  It was one of those yummy pudding filled ones.

Our hostess put fresh flowers in a baby wipes container. 

Here is the cake top.  Kathy had matched up the texture on the letters to what was on the plates.

The napkins.  The photo is washed out.  The above photo is the actual colors.

Some of the gifts.

Amber and her husband Mark.  This is their first baby and we are hopeful for a September birthday.

Dara in the kitchen putting together a delicious brunch that she and Christa planned.

Amber.   I can not wait to see her holding her newborn son.  There is just something about first time mothers.

A party-goer with a smile.

The next photo is the Mommies.  Due in September, October, and November.  Kecia is having a girl.  I can’t wait for this baby to be born.  Kecia is perfect for having four girls.  They have Teacup Tuesdays at their house and all kinds of neat girl things going on.  Gina has baby number seven baking in the oven.  I can’t wait for this baby to be born because there is a particular beauty in seeing a mother in the later season of fertility giving birth.  There is also a special thing about seeing the fullness of a home with so many children.  I am thankful that there are growing numbers of Christians who are now embracing God’s sovereignty over the womb and receiving His blessings after a generation of Christians who refused life.  God did not design our fertility to the limitations of bearing children only in our 20s or early 30s.  He gave us fertility into our 40s.  Having had two in my 20s, two in my 30s, and three children in my 40s, I can honestly say that there is a blessing that is out of this world to have children late in life.  Yet most people miss this blessing.  And many women in their 40s and 50s become lost and have mid-life crises and try to find fulfillment.  My friends and I who have had children in our 40s have not experienced these things.  We are so busy and fulfilled and loving our family that our days are already full of God’s blessing.  There are times that I feel so sad for women who have chosen barrenness.

A first baby, a fourth baby, and a seventh baby.  What more could have we asked for in a baby shower?

Peeking at the cake.  “Could we pleasssssse cut it?” asked my red headed friend.

Yes, we can and here is your piece.

Visiting. 

Games.

Bibs made by the children.

Sidenote:

If you are listening to the music, this is the lullaby that I sing to my children and have for 23 years.  This was a lullaby long before Disney stole it.  They just improved on it by adding a Cocker Spaniel to it.  My Emily wants a King Cavalier Spaniel.  My Karen wants an Italian Greyhound.   My Kathy wants a Poodle.  My Annie wants a Shetland Sheepdog.  My Abigail wants a Beagle.  My Kimberly wants a Great Pyrenese.  My Matthew wants a hound … Basset or Coon. 

Yesterday I saw a snowshoe kitten with brown ears and tail.  Exquisite eyes.  If James weren’t allergic to cats, this sweetie would have come home with me.  Never seen a cat like this one before.  The animal world is incredible, just incredible.  The mind of God, so creative and vast, created them all.

 

 

Please wait for “Whistle While You Work” to come across your computer speakers.

We interrupted our tour through the US on September 5th to celebrate a milestone in our lives.  My husband, James L. Spangler, on September 5th, 1989 began working for a company named Computer Language Research which was based in Carrollton, Texas.  The company has been bought out twice but my husband has remained in employment there for these past twenty years. 

In honor of his faithfulness to his employer and to us, we planned a special meal for him.  My children, all seven of them, wrote him letters to tell him how much they appreciate him and how much his diligence and longevity and consistency benefit us.  I helped the younger two write theirs, but the others I did not and neither have I seen the contents of those special love letters to Daddy since they have been opened.  They are special and private.

For weeks I thought about what would be the best meal to make for James.  We eat a particular diet (except for the Eat Your Way thing) but I thought for a 20th Anniversary we could surely break that diet and make his very favorites.  Roast beef came to mind … with mashed potatoes and peas.  I wanted to throw in some shrimp scampi too.  All easy things to make.  The one that had me stuck was popovers.  James loves popovers but I don’t make them well. 

Often my husband likes to grocery shop with me or our daughters so while in the store I casually asked him about popovers.  He said he loves them, but not as much as Yorkshire Pudding.  Now that is popovers made in beef broth or drippings.  I asked if he would tell me how to make them.  He said I never could learn.  I gave him a funny look and he asked why did I have to learn.

And so the story goes that he found out about the anniversary celebration.  He thought the celebration was ridiculous, but the meal sounded great.  In fact, he told me that his mother was Queen when she made roast beef and mashed potatoes.

So here is the anniversary meal which I did not make, but James did.  He had such a grand time doing this that it cracked me up.  I got such a hoot out of it.  He chose a different shrimp recipe … one that came from our honeymoon in Vermont.  And yes, he made the Yorkshire Pudding.   

He did not get away with doing it all.  The children had made his favorite cookie – a recipe from Consumer Reports back in the 80s called The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie.  And several of us girls produced his favorite : banana cream pie all from scratch.

During desert I asked my husband to give the history of his employment and we recounted God’s faithfulness to us.  There were at least three times that James was up for a promotion and even the bosses said he should have it, but it went to another.  Not long after that the position of promotion was eliminated.  So James’ job has been protected through those times, through the company buy-outs, and through other trials.  He also did not take a job with a company in Houston back in 1988 although they wanted him.  That firm went out of business due to a scandel and it would have been in the very division that James would have worked.  God’s Hand has been guiding and directing even when we have not been able to immediately see it.

When Karen was a little girl I asked her if she knew why Daddy went to work every day.  She confidently responded, “To buy me chips.”  (As in potato chips.)  That has been a standing joke in our home now for 20 years. 

When I think of the all of the men in the world who do not provide for their families, it really hits home to me how much my husband does to take care of me and my children.  And when I look back several generations in my family and in James’ family, we have had men who faithfully took on the tasks of daily work and earning daily bread.  They did not shirk from their calling as Provider.  Thank you Lord for this heritage.

Thank you James for providing for me and seven younguns for all of these years.  There is no value that can be placed upon the daily sacrifice you make for us.

 

 

 

 

Alabama

Nickname:  Heart of Dixie

Capital:  Montgomery

State Bird:  Northern flicker

State Flower: Cameillia

Alabama anchored the Confederate States of America and led in being the first to secede in 1861.  The name of the state comes from an old Indian name, “Alibamu.” 

Alabama is a state of mostly low rolling plains with a Black Belt of rich, dark soil spanning the middle.  This is why Alabama was known for its cotton way back before the Civil War.  This ended in the 1920s when the boll weevil destroyed the cotton harvest.  This demanded more variety in agriculture, hence peanuts, sweet potatoes, and pecans are now main crops in Alabama.  There are many chickens and pond-raised catfish.  Vast stands of oak and pine support a giant forest products industry.    There are more turkeys per acre in Alabama than any other state in the U.S.  (but another state is the top producer of turkey – figure that one out.)

African American botanist George Washington Carverdiscovered over 300 uses for peanuts and 118 uses for sweet potatoes while teaching at Tuskegee University.  Americans consume over 4 million pounds of peanuts a day.  In a year we eat enough peanut butter to cover the floor of the Grand Canyon. 

Alabama Boil is an old dish served in the backroads of the Heart of Dixie.  You get a bigggggg pot and you stand up unshucked corn around the edge.  Throw in 8-12 onions, 8-12 potatoes, a couple of pounds of green beans, red peppers, and several pounds of sausage … Italian, Polish, or whatever.  Then an inch of water goes into the bottom of the pot and it steams the whole lot for about 4-5 hours.

Alabama Peanuts

I have never had these served like this.  These were raw, in the shell, and boiled for hours in water and several tablespoons of salt.  Cool slightly, peel, and eat.  They then softly crunch like a cooked bean.

The corn in the Alabama boil swelled up into rich, yellow kernels.

We knew somewhere along our tour of the South we would have to make some catfish.  Catfish has not been served in the Spangler home in 25 years, so this was very different for us.  James grilled it. 

The finished meal.

The safest place in all this world is ever the place of duty.  God’s wings are over it.  God’s peace guards it.  It is said that at the centre of the cyclone there is a spot where there is almost perfect calm.  A leaf there is scarcely stirred, and a baby would lie there unharmed.  So at the centre of every great peril in life is a spot of holy calm where even the feeblest would not be harmed.  It is the place of duty, of obedience, of the doing of God’s will.  He who stays there amid peril and trial is perfectly safe.  No storm smites him, no plague comes nigh his dwelling.  The way of duty is always a place of absolute safety.  But he who departs from this charmed centre soon finds himself caught in the wild swirl and in peril.  None of sin’s ways are safe.

J.R. Miller in his devotional book In Green Pastures