Family = Food

At least around here, family equals food. It's math that even a toddler can count on. Fortunately, our youngest child left the toddler years behind about five years back, but still, she knew she could always count on tons of food whenever there were dozens and dozens of kneecaps at her eye level at Grandma's house.
A few weeks back, I got an email message that was setting up a treat for my Dad's impending birthday. I went downstairs, quietly confirmed a few details, and got back a reply. Next thing I know, I've got an email from my Aunties saying they are arriving on Friday, to celebrate, and surprise us all.
Naturally, I went downstairs and said "I've got a secrettttttttttttt. Clean the house."
Because I'm like that.
And then I walked away.
Mom starting figuring stuff out, and come Friday, Dad was so excited he was twitching, but he didn't really know who was coming down. He had a suspicion, but just waited out the confirmation rather than making a guess. Because either way, he was going to eat.
Because Mom - she puts on a spread when we have guests. It's a dead giveaway something big is going on.
The variety of food is an inverse proportion to the importance of the guests, too. Important to us, that is. So if the Pope were to stop by, he'd be offered up a wedge of cheese and some crackers, with a nice white wine. But the Aunties... they got the full on sixteen variety meal, five different meals. I'm hoping to start eating some time tomorrow, but in the mean time, I'm still full.
Seriously, the menu covered several pages, and involved trips to Sam's Club, Kroger, Walmart, HEB, and then back to Sam's. Fortunately I was working, so I missed the actual trips, and just got home in time on Friday to start cooking. I entered the kitchen and didn't really leave it at all, until Sunday afternoon.
I'm not complaining, but when Mom started fretting she didn't have enough buns for sandwiches on Friday night, I called my brother. He and his family were on the way over, and they'd already been called five minutes earlier about getting tomatoes and lettuce, to make good sandwiches. So Chucklehead and I are on the phone and I'm telling him we're having a meltdown about not having enough buns, even though there was a nice bread, also, and he asks "should I get buns or not?" He cuts to the chase, that brother of mine. I told him it was up to him, but it looked like Mom was trying to feed the entire 4th Infantry Division, and so she said 8 buns wasn't enough. Needless to say, he brought buns.
We had ham, we had chili con queso, we had strawberries & blackberries. We had creamy jalapeno dip. We had romanoff sauce, for the fruit. We had stuff I can't remember. And we had shoestring onion rings, which were damned fine. Oh, yeah, deviled eggs. We had those, too. Saturday started off with breakfast tacos, and the food never went away, but just morphed into lunch. Which morphed into dinner. Dinner was brisket, homemade potato salad, more stuff I can't remember but I'm pretty sure I cooked or stirred. And ice cream cake. God bless Carvel and their cakes. Although I do NOT recommend trying to wait out the last "60 seconds" of an NCAA playoff game, if the cake is out of the freezer. Just set the DVR and catch up on the game, because the cake was melting everywhere, even before the candles were lit.
There was a boatload of food moving through this house this weekend. Two full jars of mayo, the big ones, are gone. Ditto for the mustard. Something like 4 dozen eggs, in all their cholesteroly glory moved through the kitchen, too. And none of them died a Humpty Dumpty death, either, but thanks for asking. But everyone who came through this house gained another ten points on their bad cholesterol reading.
Seriously, it was awesome this weekend. Dad, Mom, the Aunties, Chucklehead and his family, and best of all, Rio and his son stopped by, too. Fabulous. But if someone came and snatched all the leftovers, I'd be quite pleased. Ham sandwich anyone? Brisket sandwich? Potato salad? Queso? Creamy jalapeno dip? Anyone? Anyone?