Hillbilly Recipe

     It's been real nice lately being around a kid, not just any ordinary kid, but an onry 15 year old active boy.  One night at supper, he was quite critical and animate about the table venue.   Myself, being perhaps just as onry at times, decided that he could cook his own supper from now on.  I, being a little more accustomed to palatable table fare, allowed only one evening of  chef boy-ar- Hunter with plenty of ketchup. That isn't working very well either. Perhaps it was a guilt complex that maybe I wasn't giving my best, or that maybe a thought came I should get out of the box of  hillbilly cooking methods and try make something  more delictable to the customs of a hungry growing teen. Nevertheless, I found myself looking for a cookbook.  I thought maybe one night tater tot-hot dish would suffice.
     I went through a change of life recently, and for the love of all good things i will not expound on the details of searching high and low in my kitchen, through boxes in the house, through crevasses of the mind and soul, but I could not find a cookbook on my property to say politely as trying not to offend light eared readers, and not to revert to character defects of an untamed tongue and the mind of a uncouth hillbilly; but, I could not locate a cookbook to save my part of the body that cushions a seated pose.  I was explaining this to a friend of mine in frustration and laughter of the details of missing cookbooks from my home.  We decided that cookbooks do not belong to hillbillies.  And either a hillbilly can get by without one, or if he can not then he must lose a degree of status among the uncultured and unkempt life of fellow hillbillies.  After all, it would be poor to admit that we might actually use a written recipe or need one sometimes.
     I must share with the reader our next conversation of oral proportions.  I must also confess that men, especially hillbilly men actually share recipes.  Yes, ladies do not monopolize the recipe sharing world.  Single guys need to eat something different every so often and we do enjoy eating and eating well and we must share something with our fellow hillbilly buddies so that they should not suffer of get bored with with singleness of purpose  food.  So my friend shared with me his recipe in hillbilly dialect his version of potato soup:
     "You take a kettle like this one (grabbing a 4 quart sacepan).  You fill it about up to here( pointing about 2/3 toward the top) with potatoes and onions.  You can add some gralic if you have some around.  Cover with water and boil a long time.  After you boil it a long time, you can add some meat: bacon, ham or sausage.  Summer sasusage even works. Turn the heat way down(simmer).  Then you add a good goober(1/3 to a1/2) of sour cream or chip dip if you got it.  Add a smaller goober(1/4 to 1/3 cup) of ranch dressing.  Add cream to thicken it up, and milk to get it to the consistency that you want. Do not boil! jus let it simmer.  When the meat and everything is good and hot, add a good handful of grated cheese(any kind) on top.  Do not stir.  As soon as that is melted, dish it up."
     Be it male understanding, or hillbilly bonding, this recipe made very good sense to me.  I take no offense to one who whose noggin is baffled or perplexed.  Perhaps the reader is not hillbilly enough to comprehend simple explanations and may require a more scientific standard written down recipe.  And that is ok.  I personally extend my condolences.
     As for supper tonight I can cook using wither the hillbilly method, or a traditional recipe card method.  Either one will get my tater-tot hotdish in the oven.  As long as I mix in a dash of understanding, and a few shakes of respect,  a goober and a half of compassion  and a few sprigs of tolerance,  a bunch of love and a teaspoon of patience,  dinner will go just fine as it normally does.  I have to admit that it would be nice if having a kid in the house came with a recipe that turned out every time.  Bless my table Lord and we thank Thee for Thy gifts.