Sylvia's Scenario

Ever since we went to the Masters in 2010  with my sister and her husband, we have gotten together on Masters Sunday for a southern food feast and watch the final day of the historic golf tournament.  This year was exciting since one of our favorite golfers won, Rory Mcllroy, in a sudden-death playoff.  That was exciting.  My sister invited her childhood girlfriend and her husband who are also avid golfers to the Masters Sunday feast this year.  The more the merrier is our motto.  And we really had a feast, too.  The main entree this year was shrimp & grits, recipe from the NY Times that my sister made.  It was made with a flavorful tomato base with jumbo shrimp and she served it in bowls on top of cheese grits.  So good! This really could have been a meal on its own, it was so good.  But we had to include all the fixin's, mostly out of our notorious  Mrs. Wilkes Cookbook .  We both bought her cookbook after we ate at her d...

For our Masters Sunday meal yesterday, I came up with a menu of my favorite southern foods to cook, plus a few new items on the list.  One of the new foods was this pimento cheese dip.  I'm not a big fan of pimento cheese but it is so popular in the south.  At the Masters, they serve pimento cheese sandwiches for $1.50 each, one of the most popular concessions.  (the photo is compliments of Southern Cooking. ) The sandwiches are wrapped in green paper so they will blend in with the greens in case they end up blowing in the wind.  I could not take any photos when we were there in 2010 because they don't allow cameras or cell phones on the premises.  Such a shame.  In fact, you can't even take in a purse unless it's a very small size.  There are so many rules about Augusta National, period.  It was a very educational experience, to say the least.  We went with my sister, Barbara and her husband, Jim.  Bruce and Ji...

We had another memorable Masters dinner last night.   We watched the final day of the Masters golf tournament yesterday at my sister's house this year since we now live in the same city.  She and her husband have journeyed to Boise for the past 5 years during Masters weekend so we could spent it together after our trip to the Masters in 2010. Bruce and Jim would golf Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and then come home and watch the tournament on TV.  A true golf weekend.  Barbara and I would prepare a Southern food dinner, in honor of Augusta, Georgia, where the Masters is held every year.  (We loved all the Southern food on that trip in 2010!)  So, Barbara prepared a delicious Southern food dinner for us yesterday, the last day of the tournament.  We had Tall and Fluffy Buttermilk Biscuits from Cook's Illustrated that had a perfectly crisp outside and soft, fluffy inside.  I love Southern buttermilk biscuits.  Who doesn't? The m...

I've always loved the banana/chocolate combination.  Remember my  chocolate swirl banana bread ?  It's one of my favorites.  Now I have a cookie version!  I made these last night while Bruce was catching up on the Masters Golf Tournament that he recorded.  This is Masters weekend, you know. S ince we live in Seattle now, we're getting together at Barbara and Jim's house instead of them driving to Boise and spending 4 days watching it at our house for our usual  Master's Weekend .  Living near each other is a lot easier.  Since we all four went to the Master's together in 2010, we feel the need to be together on this special weekend.  Now, we live only 20 minutes away.  So nice.  We can each stay in the comforts of our own home so I have lots of extra time this Master's weekend.  I had one over-ripe banana left in the fruit bowl, which is often the case.  After moving, I decided I'm not freezing bananas anymore...

The newest addition to my collection of Southern food recipes is this Fresh Apple Cake we had for dessert last night on our third day of Masters weekend.  We had another superb dinner of barbecue king salmon along with some Southern sides of  biscuits , cheesy potatoes and coleslaw. (The coleslaw is a simple recipe of chopped green cabbage with the same mayonnaise dressing used in my macaroni salad  recipe plus a sprinkle of celery seed.) For appetizers, we had steamed artichokes  with a little mayonnaise and chilled Chardonnay.  The sisters are enjoying Masters weekend, too. I chose a recipe from  Tea-Time at the Masters  for our dessert called Fresh Apple Cake and made a few adaptions of my own that resulted in this  spectacle cake. The glaze on this cake tastes like pralines and is ooey-gooey delicious! The cake makes for a beautiful presentation if you want a cake that wi...