This week has been one of guilt and coincidences.
To start with the heavier course (which you shouldn’t do), guilt is a pretty easy thing to come by during Lent. I mean, isn’t that what it’s all about? Well, I suppose it’s more about redemptive reflection, but it sure feels a lot like guilt.
See, instead of New Years resolutions now, I save myself for Lent—with mild success. For instance, I’ve taken a cue from a fellow church member and tried giving up sweets for the past couple of Lenten seasons. Again, with mild success.
This year, however, I’ve been a little less penitent. Call me stressed, call me crazy, just don’t call me late to dinner.
To illustrate for you how successful my journey has been so far, let’s go over the timeline. This year, Lent started February 18, followed immediately by my best friend Kendall’s birthday. Sundays are apparently cheat days for some, so I got to delay a taste of her Dubai chocolate birthday cake to lessen the blow.
Then, I started eating dates smeared in peanut butter, the blueberry oatmeal I alluded to last week, tuna salad on brioche… I really was doing something.
When I was talking to my friend Sara this past week, imagine my surprise when it turns out we both had tuna salad in the fridge—coincidence!
Then, on Thursday I gave myself an excuse. “Oh, well, since I’m seeing some folks on Friday I might as well make them something.” So what did I make? If you guessed cookies, then you know me all too well.
Peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, to be exact. If you think that title is a mouthful, wait until the real thing is there.
When I tell you I have 10 pounds of oatmeal, that’s not an exaggeration. What does one do with all this oatmeal? I mean, seriously! Sure, I can just keep having oatmeal.
At that rate, I could start dressing in burlap, bringing honey and pickled locusts to the potlucks, but that might make me stand out at the barbecue joint. Then again, who’s afraid of doing that? Certainly not me!
Of course, you can use oatmeal as a binder in meatloaf—a novel, if not fiber-rich option. Besides, as a firm believer in the principle “you are what you eat,” I have waking dreams about physically turning into the foods I regularly consume.
Maybe it’s my subconscious trying to tell me something… to eat something else.
Thus, I bought some cabbage and set out to make a slaw.
When I was younger, slaw was something I turned my nose up at. Journeying down to Ezell’s Fish Camp in Nanafalia growing up always felt like a pilgrimage. Mainly, because it was so out of the way.
Right there on the river, next to a cotton patch in the summertime, I remember breathing in the summer air by a picture window. Your appetizer, no matter what, was always a wooden bowl of slaw with a red plastic basket of saltines and Captain Wafers.
I’d pluck through the Captain Wafers and eat just about every last one of them, so much so that my great grandmother would bring a sleeve of Club crackers just to make up the difference. She never got on to me about it, just handed me a frog leg and slipped another set of silverware into her purse.
I didn’t get on to her about that, so you could say we had a mutual understanding.
It wasn’t until I was older that I saw the inherent value of slaw. Sure, it’s great to have a pile of pulled pork and baked beans or a basket of fish (fried hard) and hushpuppies, but you gotta have something other than sweet tea to cool all that down.
Here, then, is the recipe for Ezell’s slaw, which I can shamelessly confess I’ve enjoyed sans fried fish or smoked pork.
Ezell’s Fish Camp Cole Slaw
- 1 large head cabbage, chopped
- 1/2 cup chopped onions
- 1 cup sweet salad cubes, undrained (Mt. Olive works best)
- 3 Tablespoons sugar
- 1 1/4 cup real mayonnaise
Put chopped cabbage in refrigerator and let chill until ready to serve. Mix together onion, salad cubes with their vinegar, sugar and mayonnaise. Cover and refrigerate until ready to mix.
When ready to serve, add mayonnaise mixture and toss. The amount of dressing used will depend on the size of cabbage.
Yield: about 16 servings.
If there’s one thing to stress with this recipe: don’t be stingy with the sweet vinegar. It really does make all the difference. Even the smell of this dressing is enough to transplant me right from my kitchen to the riverfront.
Although, as I’ve read in the recipe notes and when talking to others about this recipe, there’s something about being at Ezell’s that this recipe can’t recreate—another coincidence.
For propriety’s sake, this recipe is yet another from Carolyn Nelson’s Memaw’s Southern Cookin’—which has become an invaluable resource for me. At this point, I need some shorthand for it, since I use it so much.
I don’t know what kind of mayonnaise you use, but I’ll take this opportunity to spread the gospel of Duke’s Original. It is Alabama’s finest, after all.
You’d be surprised how quickly you’ll go through some cabbage, especially during Lent when everyone is serving fish. Not to mention at 89 cents a pound, it’s next to impossible to argue against something so cost-effective.
When I’m watching my daily allotment of Beyond the Gates, you wouldn’t believe the amount of fish commercials I’ve been seeing. Popeye’s, Jack’s, Captain D’s—I’m sure I’m leaving out some fictional fast food character who has reeled in enough fish to get us through Easter.
Now that the weather is turning warmer, this slaw is already making its comeback to my fridge.
Speaking of, I’m sure there’s some overnight oats in there I should be fishing out to eat. If you see me walking around dressed as the Quaker Oats quaker, please throw me in a truck and send me to Ezell’s to knock some sense into me.
You’ll be doing all of us a favor.
