Come and get it ----- Chicken Fried "Snake"

My grandson Bryant is an avid hockey fan. He went to his first hockey game when he was just a month old and really loves the game. Luckily for us he doesn't really care who wins or loses as long as he gets to go to the ice arena and take in all the excitement. All fall he begged his dad to bring him to Portland for the weekend so that he visit Grandpa and Ganny and he could go to see his favorite hockey team - the Portland Winterhawks. He doesn't really understand that the Hawks have only won about 7 games all season and are not a very good team this year. . . they are his heros. It didn't take much talking to convince Zac to bring him since Zac loves to spend his weekend at Powell's bookstore. So, Zac and Bryant came for a weekend of hockey and fun.

When he went home Bryant promptly reported to his mom that he wasn't sure whether he wanted to go to Grandpa and Ganny's house again because he had almost had to eat Chicken Fried "Snake" for dinner. He just couldn't believe that we'd actually eat snakes. After quite a bit of talking Jenny finally convinced him that it was Chicken Fried STEAK, not Chicken Fried Snake.

Jenny may have thought the issue was settled, but evidently it wasn't because shortly after he arrived in Portland for Christmas Bryant said he wanted to talk to me about that Chicken Fried Snake. He wanted us to have it for dinner that very night. Since it is one of our family favorites I quickly agreed with the provision that he helped me make it.

Bryant loves it when we cook together...but he wasn't quite sure about wearing an apron. He got much more enthusiastic when he found out that we got to play with flour, milk and eggs.

He couldn't quite believe that we got to get flour all over the kitchen. Well, one thing led to another and pretty soon we were having a flour fight. As you can see I got the worst of the flour fight.

Bryant looks perfectly clean, but believe me he wasn't. And the kitchen had flour from one end of it to the other. But from now on whenever Bryant has Chicken Fried "Snake" he'll remember the flour fight we had when we were cooking it together. That's what it's all about --- creating a lifetime of memories. (Just like when we play "Old Maid" and the winner gets to smash a chocolate cupcake into the losers face...but that's another story).