Southern Hospitality

I had a wonderful time yesterday with my best friend's family. 

Whenever my parents go to parties for dinner, I hate staying home and eating dinner alone. That's when I call up Molly. 

Her family is fairly used to my bringing over food. Whenever I bake, I bring the extras for them. Whenever I make something not-vegetarian that I absolutely have to show off, I pop over to their house.

When my parents went out of town for a wedding and I stayed at their house, they took care of me. I got sick, so they let me sleep in Molly's bed, put on my favorite movie Lady and the Tramp, and made a special trip to the grocery store to get me ginger ale. 

A couple weeks later, I brought over my very first whole, organic, roasted chicken basted in butter and stuffed with garlic, lemon, and herbs. It was my way of saying thank you. 

But this time, I made Greek chicken slathered in lemon zest, juice, olive oil, whole garlic, and oregano. I tossed it with fingerling potatoes, fennel, and red onion. 

I took over their kitchen, roasting it in their oven until the whole house smelled like Mount Olympus. 

After it was done, we all huddled around the sheet pans and stared at it. Then we threw them onto the beautiful, Southern-style platters they had, and I took them to their living room. 

I sat them on the bare carpet, opened the windows, and started taking pictures. (Did I mention that I've known their family since the 7th grade? Bless their patient hearts.)

At one point, Molly and her mom came over and her mom spread a gorgeous lace tablecloth and began taking pictures with me. I was beaming. 

Then we ate. Molly, Molly's mom, dad, grandmother and I all sat around the small wooden table and afterwards, they broke out the lemon custard pie with vanilla ice cream. 

It was beautiful.