Got Sausage?

Today was my day to stay at home with Mom’s old lady and cook Sunday lunch. Mom had kept a recipe for a breakfast casserole from the newspaper that she wanted me to try. She also wanted me to make a cake to go along with it.

As I read over the recipe after the others had left for church, I noticed that it said that the casserole could be prepared up to twelve hours ahead of time and refrigerated. That suited me just fine. I decided to go ahead and prepare the casserole and stick it in the fridge. Then maybe I could actually sit down and relax for a bit before the after-church stampede arrived. I was blissfully ignorant of things to come.

I put the casserole together and stuck it into the fridge and was in the process of mixing up the cake when the phone rang. I never enjoy it when the phone rings on a Sunday morning while people should be in church. It’s almost never good. I glanced at caller ID and saw that it was Dad’s cell phone. The thought that instantly flashed through my mind was that something disastrous had happened. I mean, you just don’t normally get a call from Dad when the sermon should be in progress, unless something bad has happened.

I answered and he told me that a couple we had met many years ago while I was installing church pews with Dad had arrived at church and that he would probably be bringing them home for lunch. He was hoping to prepare me just in case I didn’t think I would have enough food.

I didn’t have a clue! The lunch that was perfectly fine for family suddenly was inappropriate for company. I looked through the freezer for something additional to make but nothing really struck me. I decided I would wait until Mom got out of church and then call and consult her. I finished up my cake, cleared off the table, and cleaned up my mess from my morning cooking. I did a few other miscellaneous chores around the house as well. I was trying to set the table, make tea, and find biscuits to make when Kris and Jolene arrived at home.

I still was unable to reach Mom, but suggested making something like green beans or corn to go along with the casserole. Kris was horrified and was quite adamant that “You don’t serve corn with breakfast casserole!” She decided that some sausage gravy to go along with the biscuits would be in order. She and I went scrounging around in the freezers in the garage, and in her pursuit of ground sausage, she found some smoked sausage links as well. She latched onto those and decided that we would make some of them too.

While I was out in the garage, Jolene had discovered the tea that I was brewing when they arrived. I had forgotten to set the timer, so she took for granted that the tea had been brewing too long and finished making it. She didn’t realize that I had just started brewing it when they arrived, which resulted in some rather anemic tea.

We finally finished making lunch and sat down to eat our Sausage Breakfast Casserole, Sausage Gravy and Biscuits, and Smoked Sausage Links. Notice a pattern here?? Dad asked the blessing on the meal, and we started passing the food. I was sitting on the same side of the table as the couple, and Kris, Jolene, Martin, and Mom sat opposite them with Dad at the head of the table.

The first item to reach me was the sausage links and I noticed that the lady just passed them on without taking one. She took a biscuit, but passed the sausage casserole along as well. I began to get just a bit suspicious when Dad made some sort of comment about the breakfast casserole and hoping it wouldn’t upset their metabolism to eat breakfast at lunch. I think she made a comment about it being fine “except that I’m a vegetarian.”

Oops! Let’s review…Sausage casserole, Sausage links, Sausage gravy. Hmmm…not a vegetarian meal. So much for not serving corn with breakfast casserole! Mom tried to convince her that she could “cheat just once, on a Sunday.” I wanted to go hysterical. Who ever heard of trying to convince a vegetarian to “cheat”? So the poor lady ate biscuits with strawberry jam for lunch and assured us that she would be just fine.

We had tried so hard! I knew better than to make much eye contact with Kris or Jolene. I could see the desire to laugh uncontrollably in their eyes and twitching mouths. Kris seemed to do a pretty good job, but Jolene wasn’t quite as good at it. My own napkin hovered around my mouth for a portion of the meal, lest Jolene should catch sight of my own twitching mouth and lose control.

Fortunately, we had desert, so the lady had a nice-sized portion of cake and ice cream to sustain her until she could make it back to the safety of her parents’ church where “Oh, yes, they definitely know I’m a vegetarian.”