Bourbon Balls
I was trying to turn on my kid’s location services because she was traveling and this was the message that greeted me on my phone. “No location found” for Dale Reed. Absolutely gutted me.
A note from the author Allan Gurganus after he attended one of my art shows. Mom forwarded it to me via email. More details below.
This song came on my Spotify shuffle and kicked me right in the stomach yesterday.
My sister “Elisabeth” (explained below) with our cat, Rosie.
I think Mom is making Paskha for her choir party here. It’s an Eastern European dessert that needs lots of straining so she would put it in a cheesecloth in a colander and put trashy beers from Dad’s poker game on for weight.
Mom was always my biggest cheerleader. Here’s an email from her where she describes me pulling my toy with my mouth as an “example of my early creativity”. ha ha. Bless her.
An email from Mom, clearly enthralled with her first grandchild!
I also found this in my emails (from Dad, not Mom) with the intro: “I am sick and tired of hearing about how dumb people are in the South, so I challenge my "smart" Yankee friends to take this exam.” It closes with, “As an added bonus for taking the “REDNECK CHALLENGE,” here’s some southerly advice that may come in handy down the road a piece: Next time you are too drunk to drive, walk to the nearest pizza shop and place an order. When they go to deliver it, catch a ride home with them.” Ha Ha, amazing.
The front of the program I made for Mom’s memorial service.
The inside of the program featuring one of Mom’s favorite poems by Ezra Pound.
Hello Dale fans near and far. I just looked back at my blog and it has been almost two months since I last posted. I’m sorry to have been so remiss. It’s been busy with the holidays, new projects, a little travel, and college applications (for my kid). I just couldn’t focus and get the words down. At one point I wondered if maybe I was done with this blog. I think several of the items above show that I am DEFINITELY NOT done with this blog. As long as I am grieving my mother, this is a useful outlet for me. And, let’s face it, I will always be grieving my mother. My friend Bernadette lost her mother last week. Fortunately hers lived to the ripe old age of 97, as opposed to my mom’s 77. Bernadette shared the various stages of her mother’s decline in the most beautiful posts on social media, truly celebrating her Mom’s life in the process. Death happens to all of us. I appreciate it when people are honest about it. When Mom was dying and I was writing about my experience I heard from a lot of people thanking me for being so open. Many folks had regret that they weren’t able to be as expressive as they would have liked to have been when their loved ones died due to family expectations or traditions or just plain old self-censoring. If you know me at all, you know that I am an open book. I couldn’t NOT share what was happening to me. And, the same holds true for my grief. Bernadette has an expression she uses, “grief contractions”. Grief is an ongoing process, you’ll periodically find yourself knocked out by pain. I’m not sure what’s currently brewing but my mother is on my mind and I am choosing to lean into it.
Yesterday I was painting in my studio and Lucinda Williams’s Sweet Old World came on my Spotify. Massive grief contraction. I couldn’t do anything but put my paint brush down and weep. “Look what you lost when you left this world, this sweet old world……”. What a lot of people don’t know is that my daughter is actually named Lucinda. I should have known that I would be forever plagued by the question, “after Lucinda Williams?”. My answer is always, “not NOT after Lucinda Williams”, if that makes any sense. I mean I like Lucinda Williams but I really just liked the name. It means “light” and sounds kind of fancy and British. My daughter goes by Luca now, which suits her better. When I was pregnant I remember Dad calling me up and saying “Now, child (I’m not sure he called me child but it sounds about right), there’s only one name that makes sense to call this baby.” I couldn’t possibly think of what name he would suggest. Elvis Herselvis?! (That is the name of a real female Elvis impersonator.). Dad went on to say, “Elisabeth”! That’s my sister’s name. I mean it’s a nice name and all, but it wasn’t on our list. I ignored him and didn’t tell him our name until the actual baby was in the world and he couldn’t argue. If I remember correctly, Dad did the same thing to my sister when she was pregnant a few years later, suggesting “Sarah”. Fortunately, she didn’t make it awkward for me and totally blew him off, too, opting for the name “Leah”, which is perfect for their daughter. Reed girls activate!
I went on Facebook today to have a virtual visit with my mom. If you don’t know about this Facebook function you may find it useful. You can go to another person’s page and then click the little “…” on the upper right and scroll down to “See Friendship”. This pulls up every post that has been shared between you and that person. After Mom died I liked to do this occasionally, it was sweet to see what we sent back and forth to each other: lots of food & recipes, beautiful dresses, fun crafts, Southern stuff, John Singer Sargent paintings…. kind of a mixed bag. We had our own language. There was a certain shade of blue that we both particularly loved, the color of the deep sea being churned up and catching light. We shared several photos of that color with each other over the years. Well, I guess that Mom’s account has been inactive for too long or something because everything about her is gone. Just like that. Freaking gone! Talk about another kick to the gut. That was like a decade of little love letters between the two of us. Gone.
Looking for a “Mom” fix I switched over to email and typed her name in the search area, seeing what it might retrieve. Mom liked to send photos. Like A LOT of photos. And, unfortunately (in this instance), she was super organized and loaded them onto Shutterfly. Well, it turns out I’m not able to login there at the moment and they keep threatening to delete stuff, so it’s going to take some serious sleuthing to retrieve that info. I really just wanted a quick and easy walk down memory lane yesterday. I did find several emails where Mom sounded exactly like her old self, with her quick and dry wit. I also found the note from the author Allan Gurganus (featured above) that Mom forwarded to me after he attended an art exhibition that I had at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina. I remembered that my friend Julie is Gurganus groupie so I sent it to her, confessing that I’d actually never read any of his stuff. (Ok, maybe not groupie. Fan. But groupie sounded better.) Julie wrote back that I should start with the short story about the “woman having a baby at a bridge party” and forwarded me this link. If you have any interest, I highly recommend clicking it – it will take you to an entertaining tale of Southern ladies, bridge party food (think: aspic, party mix, and mints), and women trying to deal with a crazy situation while hoping to maintain some sense of etiquette. When a pregnant woman’s water breaks mid-bridge hand the other ladies end up moving her onto the kitchen counter, surrounded by ridiculous party food, where she unknowingly gives birth on a family heirloom tablecloth, much to the hostess’s chagrin. At some point someone busts out the bourbon. So, I figured Mom’s Bourbon Balls would be a good recipe to share today. She actually has two recipes, one is covered in chocolate. Mom made sure to note, “100 proof bourbon really is the best, it carries on over the sweet.” Pro Tip! (If you’ve ever spent Thanksgiving with the Reeds, you know we love our bourbon. Click here for Larry Griffin’s Bourbon Sweet Potatoes.)
Please enjoy and welcome back to the Dale party.
BOURBON BALLS
1 cup finely crushed vanilla wafers
1 cup finely chopped pecans
1 1/2 cup of confectioners' sugar, divided
2 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa
2 tablespoons bourbon
1 1/2 tablespoons light corn syrup
Combine vanilla wafer crumbs, chopped pecans, and 1 cup of the confectioners' sugar. In a measuring cup, blend the Bourbon and corn syrup; stir into the dry mixture. When thoroughly blended, cover and refrigerate for an hour or more.
Sift about 1/2 cup of confectioners' sugar onto a large piece of waxed paper. Shape small amounts of the dough into balls then roll in powdered sugar. Store tightly covered in the refrigerator. These can be frozen. Makes about 3 dozen.
BOURBON BALLS WITH CHOCOLATE
1/2 cup butter
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar (more as needed) sifting helps remove the little lumps
4 tablespoons bourbon
pecan halves
1 package semi sweet chocolate chips
Cream butter. Add sugar gradually. Beat well. Slowly add the bourbon, blending well. Chill 1 hour or more. Roll into 1" balls. Chill again for 1 hour or more.
Melt chocolate in the top of a double boiler. Gently dip each ball in the chocolate and place on waxed paper. At this time before the chocolate sets place the pecan half on the top with a gentle push. Chill. Store in a covered container
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