The End of Summer - Sunday

What is it about the end of summer that makes one nostalgic? This week seems to be a week of memories from my past. It began on Sunday morning when I woke before dawn. I walked out on the back porch to enjoy the silence and was first greeted with out-of-the-norm cool temperatures and then no silence.

Our pond had a frog and he was croaking just enough to keep the crickets, tree frogs, and other insects flustered. If I closed my eyes I was instantly brought back to a time when my parents had a camp at False River, north of Baton Rouge. Sleeping on the back porch, the smell of the water, the sounds on the lake came to me instantly. I was reminded of those wonderful days when my biggest problem was what swim suit to wear the next day, because we lived in our suits and brought several with us each time we made the weekend trips. I hated when summer was over and trips to False River ended. I was so afraid we wouldn't have a camp the next summer. All of that came back to me listening to the frog in my pond.

Later I decided to cook my Mamma's homemade potato soup for lunch. The smell of onions and potatoes always bring back good memories of my mother. It didn't matter if I woke up to the smell of her soup cooking or came home from school and see her standing at the stove smashing the onions and potatoes, the steam spiraling high up above the big pot, it always made me feel grounded. This was Mamma's go to meal when someone was sick. She'd pour it into an old glass mayonnaise jar and deliver it that day, sometimes while still warm. Me, I toss a salad, throw in some French bread, bag it all up and take it to my friends. I am never surprised at the reaction I get from family and friends when I bring them Mamma's potato soup - soup for the soul, I call it.

I decided to make BLT sandwiches to go along with the potato soup. My favorite part is the first bite especially if I get a good taste of mayonnaise with it. Long gone are the pork bacon and real mayo sandwiches like the ones my grandmother Claudia made; now made with turkey bacon and mayo with olive oil (a new discovery that is delicious) but nothing beats a tomato that is homegrown. And although I have one yellow, two red, and one pink all heirloom and one hybrid Big Boy tomato plants, I am getting one tomato at a time. Very odd, but it's been an odd summer.

Today it was a yellow tomato that I almost let get too ripe as it turned orange on the vine! But delicious and perfect for our BLT's. And like my grandmother, I don't toast my bread. And also like my Mamma's potato soup, my grandmother would make her BLT's for breakfast, lunch or dinner and usually anytime I requested one. We'd sit at her round oak table in the kitchen covered in a cotton print tablecloth with a matching napkin next to our Haviland china plates. She poured my milk into a tin glass which kept it very cold for a long time. I guess now every time I eat a BLT I'm reminded of my grandmother's grace and dignity and ability to make a child feel special just by eating a bacon, lettuce, tomato sandwich.