Strata (Breakfast Casserole)
We’ve always been around churches. Here we are in England in the 70s. Look at what a stunner Mom was! I still have that tweed jacket of hers.
Me with Mom in the parking lot of the UNC Planetarium post-Christening.
Action photo of me with the Right Reverend Peter Lee at my Baptism at the Chapel of the Cross. Note, I am in the Greene family Christening Dress.
Mom, my sister, and Peter Lee in our kitchen at Mallette St. Probably during a Choir Sherry.
Mom and Dad with a bunch of their friends in the 70s. I recognize the Pfaffs, the Reeses, and the Lees, who were all church friends. Also pictured are the Foldas and the Schnorenbergs, (I think?)
I put this in for laughs as this is SUPER NOT our style. My Nonnie took me and my sister to the mall to get our portraits taken and came home with this praying photo of my sister. The photographer had insisted. My mom was horrified!
A walk through the various churches of my parents’ past. The left photo is from their wedding at Broad Street Methodist Church in Kingsport, TN. The right is from my aunt Jane’s wedding (she borrowed my mom’s dress!) at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, also in Kingpsort. Aunt Jane is a ham!
When I got engaged, I looked for a photogenic Episcopal church in Houston. We settled on Trinity Episcopal and it actually turned out to be a great fit for several reasons. My husband and I attended for a few years. This photo is from our wedding in 2000.
We finally baptized our little druid! Here she is at the ceremony with her beloved grandparents at Grace Episcopal in Georgetown, Texas. Thank you to David Peters, her Godfather, for arranging it.
Mom with Salisbury Cathedral in the distance. Lady knew her English churches!
This is a composite image my dad made. Some members of the Chapel of the Cross Choir came to our house to sing for Mom on her deathbed. This moment was one of the most beautiful things I have ever witnessed.
EDIT: I found the lost “Faux Christening” photo that i mention in the text below! Me with my daughter, Luca, in the Greene family christening dress. Wimberley, Texas. 2006.
October 1st. It’s officially the season of mourning. We got word of Mom’s cancer in late September of 2018 and she died on October 19. So, this time of year always stirs up some emotions. In any normal place, the weather would be getting cooler and we’d be layering up, thinking of autumn. It’s my favorite season. But, I live in Texas and living without autumn is one of the deals I made with the Devil in exchange for Tex Mex, the Continental Club, and meeting the guy who would become my husband. When I moved here 25 years ago I complained about the lack of Fall colors to my then boyfriend. He pointed at a dead palm tree and said, “That’s brown. There! Fall colors.”.
I’ve been having a hard time writing this post because, frankly, it’s too important and I want to get it right. I went home to Chapel Hill for a weekend recently and Dad took me to the Chapel of the Cross, the church where I was baptized and raised. Mom sang in the choir there for 40+ years and her ashes are buried out front (with several of her friends) under a lovely cross. I don’t think of myself as a religious person, but I’m realizing how much religion has informed me. I’m glad that I grew up within that structure so that I can appreciate what I like about it and have some context to frame that which I don’t.
The Chapel of the Cross is an Episcopal church. The old chapel is actually the namesake for my hometown, Chapel Hill. My parents sought out the parish when they moved to North Carolina in the late 60s. Dad was raised Episcopalian, Mom was raised Methodist. I’m not sure what the deciding factor was for this particular church, but I’m glad they chose it because it was there that Mom and Dad found many of their formative friends. The Chapel of the Cross really is a community, in the best sense of the word, something I kind of took for granted until the church totally SHOWED UP for us during my Mom’s decline.
I was baptized at the Chapel of the Cross by Peter Lee (who would go on to become the Bishop of Virginia), wearing our Greene family christening dress, a tradition that has been passed on for generations. When I had my daughter in 2005 I was sent the Christening dress with no discussion or note. It just kind of arrived one day from a distant cousin! We had planned to baptize our kid, sure, but weren’t in a real hurry and the local church was turning out to be persnickety, demanding too many things of us. So, we decided to stage a “faux Christening” when my family was in town, at least capturing an image of my daughter in the dress for posterity. (There was also a certain amount of pressure to get the pics done FAST before my kid got bigger because my cousin Reed had torn out the shoulders on the dress a few years earlier, requiring it to be repaired. Naughty Reed! Don’t be Reed! ha ha.). I spent some time this morning trying to find the faux Christening photos but came up short. You’ll have to take my word for it. Luca looked like a beautifully dressed little heathen. We did baptize her later when she was in grade school (photo above). I’m glad we didn’t wait til then to cram her in the dress!
As I aged, the Chapel of the Cross stayed in my life. I went there for daycare when I was a toddler. In elementary school, I sang in the Junior Choir which practiced every Wednesday and sang at the 9am service on Sunday. My parents would pick me up early from sleepovers in order to get me there on time. (For some reason I don’t remember really minding?!) I befriended one of the priest’s daughters and we would snack on communion wafers slathered with peanut butter. (It was her idea - let’s throw her under the bus!) Yikes! The Body of Christ with nut spread. I guess wafers are just really stale crackers until they are consecrated. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway. At thirteen, I was confirmed. This wasn’t really a deep spiritual leap for me, it was simply what one did. Confirmation mainly involved a Sunday afternoon discussion club with other teens. Lots of awkward flirting, you know. It’s traditional for people being confirmed to wear white. I chose a flax colored tunic and wrapped my hair in a white turban. I thought I looked super chic. All was good until the Bishop tried to lay his hands on my head and had to wriggle his fingers into the fabric for access. Oops! Didn’t think about that. I went on to be an acolyte with punk rock asymmetrical hair. Bless them, no one in charge gave me grief. I remember having a crush on another acolyte. We would sit in the little alcove up front and I would savor his Polo cologne and worry about when I was supposed to bow to the cross. My solution was to write a cheat sheet of bowing occasions on my forearm.
Needless to say, the church was there for me in whatever form I took. Mom, on the other hand, always had the same form: classy. The church’s Senior Choir sang at the 11am service on Sundays. I have such fond memories of going to fetch Mom after church, getting to hang out with the ladies in the hot choir room upstairs, all of them in some state of semi-dress, chatting and laughing. That room had such a great vibe of camaraderie. We had choir parties (they called them “sherries”), Shrove Tuesday pancake dinners, Youth Group retreats (lots of Cheerwine consumed!), and dozens of Easters, Christmases, you name it….
The Chapel of the Cross was there for us in the good times, for sure. What I didn’t realize was how much the church would be there for us in the bad times. When Mom was dying we had a personal visit from the wonderful new Choir Director, Joseph Causby, to work out the musical details of Mom’s funeral service. (In true Mom style, she planned a musical FEAST for us.) The church’s current Rector, Elizabeth Marie Melchionna, visited us several times over the weeks, bringing Mom communion, praying with us, and discussing the logistics of Mom’s service. The church’s former Rector and current Bishop-in-Residence, aforementioned family friend, Peter Lee, also visited, consoled, and strategized (oddly, we were trying to plan the ceremony around the UNC football schedule for parking reasons. That is a THING!). And, Mom’s friend, the wonderful Chapel of the Cross priest Tambria (Tami) Lee, visited and agreed to write Mom’s amazingly wonderful homily, which you can read here (please note this is her reading copy which isn’t fully edited for punctuation, etc.). And, finally, what I remember so lovingly, is that when we were able to get Mom back to her house, members from Mom’s choir came over one night to sing both for and with her. This act of generosity just gutted me. As you can see from the above photo, Mom lay in bed in the living room, following along as best as she could, while her longtime friends surrounded her with the stunning beauty of song. Soon after this visit Mom released a statement which she asked us to post on her CaringBridge site, “I’m sorry I can’t thank you all individually, but I am thinking of all of you. I feel I am held in a vast embrace of love and grace. Love, Dale”.
A vast embrace of love and grace: who could really ask for anything more when dying? Our family friends, Van and Peggy Quinn, were two of the singers from that night. Van enthusiastically directed the Chapel of the Cross choir for most of Mom’s 40+ year tenure and Peggy was a wonderful alto who sang alongside her. Sadly, we lost both Van and Peggy in the years since Mom died. Van wasn’t in great health at this event but I remember being touched that he showed up. The church SHOWED UP. And I say I’m not a religious person.
When Mom’s actual death occurred, the church gave us guidance as to what to do. There were passages to be read, rites to perform. Dad made a phone call and within minutes both Peter Lee and Elizabeth Marie Melchionna appeared. I found this sense of order and ceremony to be comforting. But, of course, being a Reed who favors dark humor, I couldn’t keep it all classy and was lost to a fit of giggles when they wheeled Mom’s body out and, with a dramatic gesture from the undertaker in the ill-fitting suit, left a weird fake rose in her place on the pillow. We then went outside and were amused to see Mom loaded into a minivan instead of a hearse. If you know my parents, then you know their love for minivans. They cruised around America multiple times in their beloved stick shift Plymouth Voyager (it had to be special ordered!). So, a minivan departure for Mom was kind of perfect. What wasn’t perfect was when the guy made a wrong turn at the end of the street, prompting all of us to yell, “turn LEFT! turn LEFT!”. That was not the send off you picture, but with humor that matched mine, I think Mom would have gotten a chuckle out of it.
I’ve got friends coming for brunch on Sunday so I looked to Mom’s recipes for something to serve. I have to say, Mom is dependable! There’s something for every occasion. I think I’m going to make the Strata, but I’ll also post the Grits Breakfast Casserole as well. Please note that the Strata needs to rest in the fridge overnight, so plan ahead!
STRATA
serves 6
1 lb ground pork sausage
2 tsp prepared mustard
6 slices white bread, crusts removed
2 cups (8 oz)shredded cheese—swiss or cheddar
1 ½ c milk
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
½ tsp worcestershire
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp pepper
Brown, crumble, drain sausage. Stir in mustard.
Cut bread in cubes, place in buttered dish. 11x7x1 ½”
Combine other ingredients. Pour over bread.
Refrigerate 8 hours.
Bake at 350 for 50 minutes.
GRITS BREAKFAST CASSEROLE
This recipe can be made ahead and frozen. Freeze uncooked. Thaw in the refrigerator and cook according to baking directions.
2 pounds of bulk sausage (can use a hot and a regular)
1 cup raw grits, cooked
2 cups sharp cheddar cheese
5 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 stick butter
salt and pepper to taste
Brown and drain sausage and crumble in bottom of a 9x13 inch greased casserole.
Cook grits according to package directions (stiff is better than runny).
Add butter and cheese to cooked grits.
Beat eggs, milk, salt and pepper together and add to slightly cooled grits mixture.
Pour over sausage in casserole.
Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.
AS USUAL, KEEP ME POSTED!
Email and subscription button below.