The Pork Boys Do M.P.'s Birthday

Owing to spells of illness and sundry domestic crises, we had to put off M.P.'s birthday dinner until last Sunday, which turned out to be a nice, peaceful day here in Texas, the temperature outside merely a balmy 90 degrees.

As per our custom, M.P. - resident cook and chef extraordinaire - asked your Head Trucker to prepare the birthday repast, featuring a childhood favorite of his:  Cajun chicken fricassee over rice, accompanied by sweet peas in butter sauce, fried garlic corn, and toasted garlic bread.  And I am always glad to have a chance to cook for M.P. who, as my longtime truckbuddies know, routinely serves up so many delicious meals for me.  M.P. really loves to cook; he thinks and plans and even dreams about it all the time.  It's his glory and chief delight in life, and he is entirely self-taught.

Your Head Trucker's talents in the kitchen, as in all other areas of life, are few and small.  But I believe I can safely say now that I have mastered the fricassee.  When I first made it for M.P. a couple of years ago, he pronounced it delicious, saying it was just like his mama made it.  But this time, after I've improved the recipe a bit, he declared it excellent and perfect.  He even said with a guilty grin (shhh!) it was better than his mama's!  You can't get higher praise than that.  So now he has given yours truly the accolade of Honorary Cajun with Two Stars, which I shall bear proudly.

Enough talk, here's the pictures - I do wish I could hand you boys a plate.  It's plain cooking, all right, but it will fill you up.  Click the pics to enlarge.

M.P. likes to use a seashore theme for our summer Sunday dinners.  This week, he crafted a whimsical lighthouse out of empty seasoning jars.

Our pretty Sunday dinners, not to mention birthday and holiday meals, always feature wine and candlelight and some festive theme of M.P.'s devising.

Sweet peas and butter on the left, gen-yew-ine Cajun chicken fricassee on the right.  If any of my truckbuddies want the recipe, let me know in the comments and I'll post it.  (First you make a roux . . .)

Fried garlic corn topped with parmesan cheese on the left, plain white rice on the right, fluffy and moist.  And just so you know, the stovetop was spotlessly clean when I started cooking, three-and-a-half hours before this picture was taken.  I can cook or clean, but not both at the same time.

Toasted garlic bread, hot out of the oven, ready to serve.

Lightouse on the rocks.

Alas, your Head Trucker's talents do not extend to cake decorating.  But it's the thought that counts, right?  M.P. was delighted with the strawberry cake, the cream cheese icing, and the watermelon wine.
(Try it, you'll like it!)

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