Doc Promus, aka (born) Jerome Felder Blues and Rock song writer for many years, penned the song "Save The Last Dance For Me", in 1960 and it was originally recorded by Ben E. King. (Pomus wrote a lot of songs for the RCA publishing arm Hill and Range, like Little Sister and Marie'sThe Name, Of His Latest Flame, for Elvis.) This will become relevant in a few paragraphs.
A few months ago, Devin was asked to volunteer our home for a special event. Our (Her) horse trainer Theresa P. was now engaged to a very special guy named Jesse. We were honored to offer our completely rebuilt (Second time in three years) home for the event. Devin was wise and secured a caterer even though the marriage parties friends and family were taking care of a lot of details, we have thrown a few events at the house and we know how helpful it is to have the pros do their thing.
We ended up with about 80 cowboys and friends (and these are the real thing, not urban cowboys, but rodeo, jumpin, roping, cutting, type cowboys who derive most if not all of their income from equine activities.) Here is a picture from the event.
Our caterers, Something Special handled the h'orderves and Bad To The Bone BBQ folk were hired by the family to provide chicken Tri-tip cornbread and beans. (I had Red Neck Salad today. One piece of Tri-Tip, One piece of chicken, and one piece of cornbread, for lunch.) My son in law offered to DJ for the event, so he was up on the deck spinnin the sounds (Sorry, they don't spin records anymore. When he wasn't using iPads or CDs he took breaks to the country channel on Pandora. Cool huh!)
One of the family members, Uncle Mike had a beautiful high end baritone/tenor voice and sang America The Beautiful, it was well received. Once they discovered Ryan had a microphone that would reach down to the crowd, Uncle Mike did a few more ditties as well as Theresa's dad George joined in. Theresa via Devin asked if I would do the Hawaiian Wedding song which I did, then Uncle Mike and I joined to one of his and my dad's favorites, Danny Boy. (Quick pull the microphone back up Ryan!) He did and we went back to more country music.
Now when Ryan was not looking I played several of those country songs backwards on his equipment. Do you no what happens when you play country music backwards? You get your truck back, your girl friend comes back, you are rehired, you become sober, and your dog comes back to life. Baddah Bing.
Then the crowd began moving our furniture in the back yard to set the area for some electric glide, or slide or just The Electric. Sorry dance folk, I'm a singer so I am out of my comfort zone here. Folks were dancing and havin' a down home good time. Thank you Mr. DJ.
A group of the family women got 89 year old Gramma Melba, up to glide or slide or what ever. After a few minutes, Melba had had enough and sat at the table with me and Ted. Though we exchanged very little small talk, Melba looked fine and even turned down several opportunities to slide and glide some more.
A few minutes later Devin asked for my phone and said she had to call 911. Something was very wrong with Melba. Ted and Karen (EMTand a PADI EFR person) went to here side. After a minute they had Melba in our living room doing CPR. There were plenty of folk there with relative experience and the obnoxious drinkers were few and on their best behaviors.
My buddies at station 45 showed up surprised it was not me for change. (I have frequent rider miles in the station 45 med wagon.) They got Melba quasi-stabilized enough to transport and we wrapped up the evening after that, all hoping for the best.
We were notified this morning that Grandma Melba did not make it through the night. She attended her last party and her last dance at our home with friends and family. Our thoughts and prayers go out to her family and hope they remember she was slidin and glidin minutes before she was ill.
This morning we returned our back yard into the normal backyard without too much adieu. Caterers will be picking up tables chairs and table clothes. I had to move a few cases of beer and wine and try and find room for lots of trash and recyclables. When I went in the wine room I noticed my bottle of 18 year old Glenlivet Single Malt. I apparently had 9 years worth of the stuff because it was almost half gone.
After getting the house back in order, we did what everyone does after having a party for 80 some people. We got ready for our next party that evening. OK it was not a party, but Dennis and Jerene took our F 250 last week to carry the bed for their daughter's boyfriend Alec. (I know you all remember that.) Well they had to bring it back, so we suggested they invite their daughter, the boyfriend, Mike and Patti, Jerene's sister and her husband, along with Ryan and Kristin, for a bakers dozen of folk.
We decided on Hawaiian Sliders, caramelized corn off the cob, and Caesar salad. That would be followed by cake pops and brownies left over from the Cowboy party. During dinner, since everyone there were blog readers, Patti suggested I put a recipe in my blogs. Ok, I get it, keep him busy with trivia, music history, and recipes and he won't have time to dull us to death with stock stuff.
Nice try Patti. Well Ok, just one. The corn was big hit tonight so let's kick off the Salve Lucrum Cookbook Column with, Cronin's Carmelized Corn. (Dave, you'll notice these recipes have the name Cronin in them. I used to be on Hanna's menu then got delisted like a poor performing stock on the NYSE.)
I was lazy today and ordered 20 ears of corn, barbequed, off the cob from Woodranch, a local BBQ place. WARNING, this is a stupid expensive way of doing this recipe. Usually I cook extra corn from a back yard BBQ and keep the left over corn and take it off the cob myself. Today Woodranch BBQ'd it and cut if off the cobb. From the price, I am pretty sure Donald Trump must have done it.
Anywho I had 20 ears of corn corn, and brought it home in a heavy duty foil roasting pan. I took that and threw it right on the BBQ burner on medium high heat, (If you don't have a separate burner, I would suggest cooking in a big frying pan inside.) Put the grilled corn on the heat and make a pocket in the middle and drop in some butter. I used a whole stick for 20 ears and it was just right. Let the butter melt. Let it get happy and once the grilled corns starts to caramelize, (smoking, starting to turn brown, getting' real happy) drop in about 4-5 tablespoons of brown sugar.
Turn down the heat and let the brown sugar melt and coat all the corn. Then keep it warm for up to 35-45 minutes if you must. Everybody loves this easy corn recipe.
Now if you haven't had a BBQ or do not want to spend about 3 dollars an ear to have it grilled and de-eared, get some high quality frozen corn, boil or steam per the instructions and then cook in a big frying pan with butter until just staring to brown. Then add butter as needed and finish off with the brown sugar.
For best results, use grilled corn. Because of the sweetness and the fact this is usually served with meat, you can either go with a medium bodied white wine like a Pinot Gris from Oregon or Washington, or the Txakoli white wines from Spain. They are a little fruitier than the Gris, but not sweet sweet. If you just want some red and are serving meat, the sweet corn will get lost with a big cab so try a spicy zin. The ladies were drinking a Fume Blanc from Grgich Hills (@$20.00) and Dennis and I enjoyed the Brazin Zin(@$15.00) from Lodi, CA.
Since 6/29/2012
