Pairings...

An Autumn Sunday, onions, carrots and potatoes. Nothing better!

Unless you were married for 40 years to a man who didn't eat beef, you just can't appreciate the anticipation of a Sunday roast. That divorce freed my culinary senses like nothing else.

My ex had gout, so he couldn't eat leafy vegetables or mushrooms, and he didn't like pork! So, I became the queen of turning poultry into  meat loafs, chili, meatballs and BB'd pulled turkey long before it was popular! As a matter of fact, I became so skilled at disguising a chicken in dishes typically made with beef, that I wanted to open a restaurant called "The Fowl Cow"!

No? Well, anyway, I picked the perfect, cool, fall Sunday afternoon to make a beef eye roast, and surround it with onions, carrots and potatoes. This aroma is second to none. And, as luck would have it, my son Kyle called to say that he would be around the corner from me to watch football with some buddies and was then coming over for Sunday dinner! Perfect!

Now, I had a reason to um...for lack of a better term, beef things up. My first thought brought me back to Sunday dinner's at my Dad's. In his younger years, Dad was a butcher and most likely why he always seemed to buy the best cuts of meats. And when I think of dinners at his house, a roasted beef was always accompanied by either a cucumber salad, or coleslaw. Just as roasted pork was always served with a side of applesauce. If his famous homemade chicken soup was on the stove, then you knew there would be chip steak sandwiches, potato chips and pickles as well. If you knew one thing on his menu, you knew the rest of the meal. My old man had parings down to a science.

It could be why I can't eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (which I love) without a bowl of vegetable soup (another specialty of his). Although, that may have actually started with a school lunch thing, but no matter, it's coupling is a favorite of mine. All of those things were flooding my head as I drove to the store for coleslaw fixings.

Anyone coming to Sunday dinner deserves a special treat!

So many of our memories are tied to meals. The flavors, the aromas, the conversations...the family. It was worth the trip to the grocery store, even on a weekend, which I usually avoid at all cost.

After all, it is Sunday, 56 degrees, the leaves swirling in circles, and a nice cut of beef marinating at home. The only thing that could make me smile more is the thought that somewhere, a woman is standing in her kitchen, thinking "I can't believe I'm making another chicken." Score!