Happy Friday!
How was your week?
Mine was fab-u-lous!
Spent 6 wonderful days in California with my mom and sisters and family.
(( Thanks, Mom for the plane ticket ride. ))
So much laughter with sisters + mom + family that my smile lines still haven’t calmed down.
I hope they never will.
Another amazing take-away from my California family time was when my nephew Jared and his beautiful wife Clarissa gave to me a container of sourdough starter from Kinderwood Farms – a Bed and Breakfast – where they went on their first year anniversary in Aptos, California. This sourdough starter was a very special gift from the Farm to them as an anniversary gift.
** check out Kinderwood Farms here **
Totally cool place for sure!
And I’m the fortunate recipient of a portion of it as well!
Believe me – I packed it super-duper careful – double taped, double wrapped, double bagged the container for its ride to its new Texas home destination.
Success – made it safely!
Jared and Clarissa have sent to me all the links of the how to and what not to do as I learn how to properly grow my sourdough starter. At home on my kitchen counter!
I’m so excited to get it happily growing!
And then get to experimenting with recipes.
Friends around here will be recipients of this special sourdough starter as it does its thing.
Thanks Jared and Clarissa!
The 6 days swept by super fast being with Mom and all my beautiful family – but the memories are forever.
Great line-up to present today.
BEGINNING WITH:
TRACY BECKERMAN’S COLUMN
Pretty sure we can all relate at one time or another to that something-something in the fridge we just had to seek out and toss!
4 FABULOUS CARTOONS
By masterful syndicated artists who bring instant smiles to our faces.
(I think the goldfish cartoon struck my funny bone first and with an instant LOL)
QUICK QUESTION
What would be the tagline to the sitcom of my life?
“Believe It or Not”
How about you?
JERRY CLOWER’S
Never disappoints. This story had me smiling big time!
QUICK AND EASY “FRIED CHICKEN” RECIPE
Is a winner-winner chicken for dinner.
Big plus – no frying pan and splattering oil!
THANKS ALL FOR BEING PART OF THE DAYMAKER READABLE ART COMMUNITY
READING + SUBSCRIBING + SHARING + ENGAGING
We are so grateful for your valuable time.
Ready?
Set.
Here we go.
Enjoy.
LOST IN SUBURBIA
THE BAD, SMELLY THING
BY TRACY BECKERMAN
As the chief domestic officer of our family, I’m usually pretty fastidious about the cleanliness of my home.
But every once in a while, something escapes my attention, and then, before I know it, we have a disturbing situation on our hands.
Such is the case with my refrigerator,
“Something in the fridge has gone bad,” said my husband, slamming the refrigerator door on the offending smell.
“I may have forgotten to throw something out,” I likely the guilty party said.
“Well, don’t worry about it,” he said. “At this point, whatever it is can probably walk itself to the garbage.”
I will typically empty out the leftovers once a week. But occasionally a leftover will be pushed to the back of the fridge, out of sight and out of the smell zone, until it gets so bad we have to bring in a crime scene cleanup crew to take care of it.
Typically, the offending culprit is just one lone container, and the stinkified aroma is not that bad.
In this case though, the smell was so horrific that it was clear there might be multiple former leftovers that had transmutated into things with consciousness and, possibly, hair.
Knowing the endeavor of finding and disposing of the problem could singe my nose hairs or otherwise expose me to a life-threatening health hazard, I donned rubber gloves, a rain poncho and a surgical mask.
Experience had taught me that when it comes to rotting leftovers, you can never be too careful.
“OK, save the dog and yourself,” I announced. “I’m going in.
But my husband did not leave.
He offered to help, proving once again that love is not only blind but olfactorily challenged.
After he put on his own personal hazmat suit, we opened the fridge and began clearing out the items in the front that we suspected were blocking the offending items in the back.
We soon came upon four storage containers in the back that looked and smelled suspect.
My husband opened the first one.
“What is it? Or rather, what was it?” he asked, stepping back for fear that the thing in the container would leap out and consume him, then consume the house, the city and all the people in it.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Maybe fish?”
We both stared at the former fish and realized we no longer had fish, but we did have an excellent source of homegrown penicillin.
We opened another container and decided that not only did the contents have to go, but so did the container itself.
“I’m afraid to open the next one,” said my husband as he reached for the third storage container. “Every time I open one, I think it couldn’t be as bad as the last one, and it’s worse.”
“No, we can do this,” I assured him through my mask. “There’s just one more container.”
As we pried open the top, my son walked into the room, assessed the situation, then peered into the Pyrex.
“Oh, hey! I was wondering what happened to my leftover pizza,” he said.
I raised an eyebrow at him.
“It was just biding its time before it could take over the world,” I said.
“Oh, cool,” he replied. “Do you think I can still eat it?”
~ Tracy Beckerman is the author of the Amazon Bestseller, “Barking at the Moon: A Story of Life, Love and Kibble.”
COPYRIGHT 2025 CREATORS.COM
QUICK QUESTION
WHAT WOULD BE THE TAGLINE TO
THE SITCOM OF YOUR LIFE?
LAY STILL
BY JERRY CLOWER
It was the Mississippi-Alabama game, my last year at Mississippi State. I broke my right hand toward the end of the fourth quarter.
Alabama broke out a sophomore running back that day named Geodetti.
That was the runningest fellow I have ever seen in my life.
He would stop and start and slither and belly back. I’ve never seen nobody run like he could; he was a running machine.
One time he was gone for a touchdown, and he turned around and run back through us just to humiliate us.
I was playing left defense tackle. You put your best linemen there.
Back in them days most football teams run to the right, and I was playing left defensive tackle.
Butch Abbinger took the snap from the center.
Butch pivoted and quick pitched the ball to Geodetti.
Here he come around my side.
I run over a guard named Mesorani, knocked another guard down named Holdnack, got ahold of Geodetti around the waist. Ah, ha! I knew I had him for a loss, because on the Mississippi State side I could hear them cowbells ringing.
Just as I went to sling Geodetti to the ground, he slithered.
Just went straight up in the air like you squeeze a watermelon seed.
I fell to the ground on my belly, Geodetti come down in my back — just done a little dance on top of me.
Oh, was I hurting!
He was stomping me. But he jumped off me and commenced to running and I’m laying there on the ground on my belly, beating the ground with my fists.
My teammate, Dog Owens said, “Jerry, get up and chase him.”
I said, “Lay still, he’ll be back by here in a minute.”
~ COPYRIGHT 1992, by JERRY CLOWER
STORIES FROM HOME
REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION
UNIVERSITY PRESS OF MISSISSIPPI
QUICK AND EASY “FRIED” CHICKEN
This Quick and Easy Fried Chicken recipe was given to me from a catering assistant, Carl, who was working on the show Breaking Bad with us. While this is not a recipe the caterers would use to feed the hundred plus crew members, he told me this is how he makesQuick and Easy Fried Chicken at home when he doesn’t feel like doing the whole oil frying in a skillet drill.
I’m a giant fan of Quick and Easy Fried Chicken – but I’m so not a fan of splattering, spitting grease all over the stove top.
This is Quick and Easy Fried Chicken is a dream recipe.
HERE’S HOW WE MAKE EASY FRIED CHICKEN
INGREDIENTS:
4 large chicken breasts, skin on
1/2 cup Bisquick
1 tsp salt
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp dried tarragon
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp black pepper
Olive oil
Butter
NOW WE PREPARE EASY FRIED CHICKEN
- Preheat oven to 425*
- Put all the dry ingredients into a ziplock bag. Shake to mix.
- Put enough oil into the bottom of a 9″ x 13″ baking dish to coat the bottom.
- Place a chicken breast in the bag with the dry ingredients.
- Shake to cover the breast with mixture.
- Repeat with remaining breasts.
- Place chicken, skin side down, in baking dish.
- Add 1 TBSP butter of butter on each breast.
- Bake for 30 minutes.
- Then turn chicken breasts over.
- Bake an additional 15 minutes.
SERVE WITH
Mashed potatoes + greens of choice (think green beans, side salad)
In a sandwich with some great buffalo chicken sauce, pickles and thin sliced purple onions
Chopped up – bite size – pieces on a salad
~ Hippie Cowboy recipe box
Easy fried chicken! Love this!
Beckermans article…Haha! Been there…
The fried chicken sounds soooo good! Must must must try!!!
Loved the chuckles. I’ll smile all weekend.
See you Monday!
I love Daymaker question: WHAT WOULD BE THE TAGLINE TO THE SITCOM OF YOUR LIFE?
The answer to my family’s life time tagline would have to be “Who would ever believe it?” We have a large family and it’s full of interesting stories.