FRIED CHICKEN MEMORIES

Summer always reminds me of fried chicken. Hot sunny Sunday afternoons out in the backyard with the smell of fried chicken sneaking out the back screened door.

Mama would be standing over what had to be an unbearably hot stove frying up chicken in her two cast iron skillets. Fresh snapped green beans seasoned with country ham bubbled on one burner and potatoes for mashing on another, while fresh homemade biscuits baked in the oven. 

As soon as the chicken frying was done Daddy would step in to make his secret recipe of southern milk gravy. I was twelve before he passed that secret on to me. It was one of the proudest days of my life. Mama's chicken and Daddy's gravy put Colonel Sanders to shame here in Kentucky. 

Every summer Sunday I would sit on my swing lazily swinging back and forth while my bare toes trailed a line in the dust just waiting for that chicken dinner. For Mama to call out that supper was ready. 

I was a child who didn't eat much. A child, who when Daddy came home from work at six o'clock would be sitting at the dining room table, and when he asked why I was at the table before supper was ready I would answer that I was still sitting there from lunch because I refused to eat. But you would never catch me not eating that fried chicken supper.

When I was nine we moved to Canada, away from my little southern home. We moved into a big house and my parents did a lot of entertaining of my father's clients from all over the world. My mother was a gourmet cook and served some amazing dinners, but her fried chicken with Daddy's gravy was a favorite. 

I'll never forget the man from Australia, who at the end of the meal one night asked if anyone else wanted more potatoes and gravy. When the answer came back as no, he took the big serving bowl of potatoes, covered them with gravy, and proceeded to finish them off, wiping the remaining gravy from the bowl with a leftover biscuit.

I have many memories of wonderful meals from over the years, but whenever I catch the smell of chicken frying I am transported back to our first little house and summer Sundays. Of Mama and Daddy in that small hot kitchen cooking up the best meal ever.