Dinner, Tea, Sandwiches and Cake
by Jerry Harris

Last night we had dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants. This place has great fried chicken. In fact, I was not eating fried chicken because we do our best to eat healthy. I read an article in the local paper about Donna's Dairy Freeze having the best fried chicken in town and how they cook it and all. I was impressed. I was very curious and intrigued especially since I pass Donna's daily. It is practically a neighborhood restaurant, locally owned and operated. So I told my partner Greg about the article and he read it and was intrigued as well. Fried chicken is one of those Southern staples that we both grew up on. We had given up eating it years ago and we do not fry anything at home.

The article stated the best way to enjoy this chicken is to order it, wait there 20 minutes while it is cooked and then take it home. By the time you get it home it is perfect and you know what, the article was right. Both of us were completely satisfied and we have been customers ever since. We have gotten to know Donna and she is always glad to see us come in. We go once or twice a month as a special treat but we eat-in now. It is not a fancy place and it is self-service but the chicken and iced-tea are real good.

"Would you like some tea?" was the first question we heard at our friends Jo and Terri's place after dinner. We said yes although this was a different beverage than what we had at Donna's. We were visiting to help make some box lunches for Terri's Skillful Means Workshop on Saturday. We had not been to their home before but had taken an educated guess on the house because we knew some things about them. When we were greeted by Arnaud Maitland, we thought we were at the wrong house. Arnaud is one of the presenters of the workshop from Berkeley, CA. We also met Helena Gold and Caroline van Tuyll both from Berkley.

Helena is originally from Brazil and she helped us with making sandwiches. She also was very kind in offering me a chance to attend the workshop. Greg is going to help setup the workshop and may stay for a while. We all got to talk a bit, as we got creative on the sandwiches. There was a little tension I guess due to pre-workshop jitters. Greg told Terri to breathe. I imagine this is something she will be telling her participants tomorrow.

After all was done, we had a little more tea and some pound cake that Greg made that day. They thanked us for our help and we left for home. Once home I was thankful for a great day.