Along life’s journey we meet many people. Some become really good friends that we have for a lifetime and yet others just make an impact on ours lives for a little while and then we loose contact with them forever. This is the case of a girl I met when I first moved to Bristol, Tennessee.
Again my husband had to put in so many hours on his job and I was left alone to fend for myself. We only had one car which he used to get to work most of the time. But I didn’t mind walking and so I did a lot of it. By now I had my first born, a precious little dark haired girl, all of 18 months and rapidly growing with each passing day. I would put her into the stroller and off we would go. A Burger King had just opened a couple of miles away so we made many trips that direction. This is where I had my first Whopper! In fact in was so good the first time I had one, I shared a second one with my little daughter.
After a while the empty apartment next to us became rented. I’m ashamed to admit this but I can’t remember their names. How exciting it was to get to know them though. I had never met anyone from Salt Lake City or the whole state of Utah for that matter. She was beautiful, tall and lean, with fabulous short dark brown hair and big brown eyes with long lashes of course! No wonder she was chosen to be a nude model for the art department at the University of Utah and while attending a concert there by Peter, Paul and Mary she met and dated either Peter or Paul, again I can’t remember which one. She had lots of fun things to tell me and it made for many interesting afternoon talks. She also enjoyed cooking and was teaching me how to use herbs and spices and in which recipes you used each one. Her “significant other” worked at Raytheon in Bristol. Every night when he came home she had prepared a delicious home cooked dinner using different herbs and spices that I was just learning about.
One evening when my friend’s partner came home from work, he announced he was being transferred to Norway. Norway? So the next day she and I went to the library because there were no computers to quickly look up information on. The interesting part that I remember best is the way they described the weather in Norway. It read that it rains so much there that they have fresh flowers on all the tables in the restaurants, even in the ice cream shops to remind the people that spring will come again! The people just put on their rain coats and rain boots and go about their business as usual. What a nice thought!
Excitedly my friend and her partner started planning their move. As it turned out for her to get to go to Norway with him they “had” to get married. She was very happy about that.
The day finally came for them to leave. Passports and visas in hand and bags all packed. As my friend was saying goodbye she handed me the cookbook we had been using all those prior months before and she wasn’t going to be allowed to take her spices with her either so she also gave them to me. I was so excited then, but still sad to see them go.
This cookbook by McCormick is out of print now but I saw on line there were some used ones for sale. Bristol had several things to offer like the race track Paul Newman raced on, the park I took my little Heather to that had a train to ride around on and the big sign downtown that said Bristol, Tennessee on one side and the same sign said Bristol, Virginia on the other side but my favorite gift of all was this little paperback cookbook she left me.

I add some butter and seasoned salt and any extra spices I feel like. You can serve it on rice, pasta or like they do in the south, try putting it on grits with a little cheese on top.