Category: Malakoff

By Loretta Humble/Around the Town

Last week I tried to offer you a peace offering for my talking so long about all the Thanksgiving dinners I had. I told you if I offended you, to let me know and I’d give you a cup of the gumbo I was going to make from the Thanksgiving leftovers. I got no requests, except a broad hint from Michael Hannigan, who told me how much he likes gumbo. That shouldn’t surprise me. You never take me up on my offers. You wouldn’t take my purselane; you wouldn’t take my lamb’s quarters, and when I ask you for a solution for something that is puzzling me, you never respond. Well, sometimes Fran Estes and Donna Rinn do, but they are a VERY small percentage of you. At least I think they are. Oh my, what if they are IT? What if they are the only ones reading my chatter? Well, they didn’t request gumbo, either. I guess it’s because they thought the column was OK. But then maybe it’s because they, and the rest of you if there are any more of you– don’t think I can make good gumbo. Well, you’re all wrong. I make excellent gumbo.

But now you’ve missed your chance. I’ve been reorganizing my freezer, and I found a bunch of gumbo from previous batches, and I’ve got to eat that up before I can make more. I’m certainly not going to feed you gumbo that’s been in the freezer since spring. And by the time I get around to making more we will all have forgotten all about it.

I got to do two fun things this week. First Jo Ann Surls took me as her guest to a fashion show at the Arboretum sponsored by the Athens Women’s Clubs. And we both won door prizes—Jo Ann won fancy jellies and I won a wool scarf, which we immediately traded with one another. We had a great lunch and learned the latest styles are not exactly what Jo Ann and I are wearing. And because Charlene Hughes was there I learned something else I’d been wondering about for a while.

Charlene and Don Hughes live just down the road from me, and I am so impressed with their garden. I want to grow a garden like it. So I watch them all the time, trying to learn their secrets. One thing Don does is save up lots of leaves to plow into the soil in the fall. He has had them in big black garbage bags stacked up neatly on the side of the garden all year. But for the last week, all those bags had been sitting in neat rows all over his garden. Aha! I said, he’s got some secret reason for leaving them in the bags instead of dumping them on the ground. I’ve got to find out if there is something here for me to learn.

But Charlene cleared it up for me. When Don started to dump the leaves, fire ants came out of the bags and attacked him. So he left them in the bag till he figured out how to deal with the fire ants. I didn’t ask what that entailed, but I guess he figured it out, because now they are out and tilled in.

The other fun thing of the week was when Carl and I got to visit Michael and Catherine Lenz’s new place, which is the lovely house on East Tyler Street when Vivian Tumlinson used to have her real estate office, where we heard a wonderful young singer from South Africa named Noa Milan. It seems Amanda Whatley was in South Africa doing good deeds, when she happened to go to a little concert that Noa, whose day job is teaching music, was putting on. She was so impressed with Noa that she persuaded her to come to the states and see if she can make it big time. And I promise you, Noa is THAT good. And she is starting that effort right here in Henderson County. She is going to do a benefit performance at Henderson County Performing Arts Center, on December 19. I know it is a busy time of year, but take my word, if you go, you will be glad you did.
You can get more information and buy tickets by contacting Catherine Lenz at 903 677 4247, or messaging her on Facebook.

 

By Delanda S. Johnson

Citizens National Bank and Johnson Chapel AME Church came together on Monday, Dec. 2, to build a better future for the Malakoff community.

Johnson Chapel AME Church was host to approximately 12 citizens from the Malakoff community who met with representatives from Citizens National Bank.

Carlos Padron, Assistant Vice President Branch Manager at Citizens National Bank in Malakoff, greeted the public and said, “This is a great opportunity for us to get to know the people in Malakoff and surrounding areas and for them to get to know us.”

The meeting was attended by members of First Baptist Church Bro. Derryl Jackson, Sis. Willie J. Graves, and Bro. Ricky Thomas. Bro. Robert Reed represented Church of Living God. Sis. Genova Smith represented Antioch Baptist Church. Sis. Marjorie Walker a concerned citizen who wanted to learn more about banking was in attendance. Rev. Vincent Bailey, Jr., Darty’s Temple came to gain knowledge on banking. Rev. R. C. Emanuel, owner of Emanuel Funeral Home in Palestine, and the Pastor of Rice Chapel AME Church in Dallas, Tx., and Rev. Judge Bill Burton from Athens, and the Pastor of St. Thomas AME Church in Alto, both who came to give support to Johnson Chapel AME Church and its members Evangelist Alma J. Berry, Bro. Elcril Smith and Sis. Delanda S. Johnson. Continue reading “The importance of credit”

I don’t know about you, but I had a few too many Thanksgiving dinners. Five of them, or six, if you count stopping by my son’s house and scarfing up good stuff after most of his company had gone home. That would make three on Thanksgiving Day itself.

The first one on Thanksgiving Day was at Carol Yager’s house. I can’t miss that one, because she makes tons of wonderful food, and right after we eat and hurriedly clean up, she heads for Bastrop for several days, and gives me all her leftovers. Including the turkey, which still has all its dark meat, and makes a wonderful base for gumbo. After that, late afternoon grazing at Carl’s folks, and the late-late snack at Sonny’s, where I scored another leftover: Granddaughter Ariel sent us home with some of her delicious butternut squash casserole.

But all this stuffing really started on Tuesday, when my sister Mary and I went to eat lunch with her kids at Tommy and Bernice Harris’ house, where we ate wonderful things, and enjoyed their beautiful home, already decorated for Christmas.

Our whole-family Thanksgiving get-together has evolved into a waffle breakfast in the big room in the old nursing home. Tina and Randy cook the waffles and sausage and the rest of us gobble them up and visit. Right at the last minute the fancy commercial grade waffle maker broke, so they stopped at the Dollar Store where they found a couple of very inexpensive ones that make waffles in the shape of animals. They worked fine, just made thinner waffles, which was OK, since most of us would be better off with less waffles anyhow. I had an elephant and half a giraffe.

That was Saturday morning. Daughter Liz’s Thanksgiving dinner, which I had been elected to cook for, had been scheduled for Friday, but got changed to Saturday in order for granddaughter Laken to be there. So we ended up stuffing on animal waffles in the morning and then on another round of regular Thanksgiving type stuff at Liz’s house that afternoon. I got to bring home leftovers from there because I made double so I could.

Last night I finished turning the remains of the turkey into raw material for the gumbo. It is tucked snugly into the freezer. Maybe I’ll make a huge pot and share it with all these folks who fed me those Thanksgiving dinners. Hey, I just said that to fill space, but now that I think of it, I think I really will do that. There’s enough meat and stock for a lot of gumbo from that turkey, but it can just be the beginning. That’s the fun of gumbo, you can just keep adding to it. Some of that ham I brought home, some sausage, some shrimp, some kind of fish, tons of okra, celery and onions, and who knows what else. You surround it with a dark mysterious roux, and have people wondering what will show up in the next bite.

I’ll bet you think this is the most boring column I ever wrote. I don’t blame you. But it’s the best I could come up with. But tell you what–maybe I can make it up to you: if you’ve read this far and are dissatisfied with it, let me know and I’ll give you a cup of that gumbo if and when I get it made.