Not too many minutes later, and certainly not when I was hungry again, we ended up at yet another family dinner. It is the south and we eat a lot together. And when I say together I mean everybody. Growing up, we were never worried about the quantity of food, but the quantity of chairs became an issue. It never failed: if you set 10 places, you would need 12, and if you set 12, sure enough you would need 14. My aunt, who we love dearly even though she was the first catholic the family had ever had, and a Yankee to boot, luckily has a wonderful sense of family tradition from her own childhood. She had just purchased a dinner service for thirty. Good timing, because when cousins come to town, it's always a party. Since she is from New Jersey, the menu was lasagna, not BBQ or fried chicken. However, knowing of our secret mission, my uncle Johnny snuck by the Carolina BBQ buffet and brought us a little bit of pig for an appetizer. Carolina BBQ Restaurant provides two types of BBQ for us to taste. Chopped with vinegar sauce, and pulled with more of a tomato base.I didn't find much to brag about in the vinegar base, but Sarah and Uncle Johnny thought that the tomato base was a least good enough for it to be scarfed in a matter of minutes. The slaw, although finely chopped how I like it, was not as good as it looked. It it just didn't have the sweet and sour taste I have grown to love.
After searching the house for extra chairs, and counting again and again to make sure we had enough place mats, we finally sat down for the main course. It was 14 in all sitting down to mixed matched chairs and a table full of lots of food. Lasagna, of course, a salad, cheesy bread, fresh cantaloupe, and Grandma's deviled eggs with apple pie and lemon cake for dessert. We eventually decided that we should probably go on off to bed, so we hugged our relatives goodbye and drove on back to Joan's house.
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