Chapter XX – Phone Conversations with Anthony

One night I called Anthony to get some recipes from him. I was making a family cookbook for daddy’s side of the family and I wanted to include some of his recipes in it. He thought for a few minutes and told me he had two recipes he wanted me to add to the book but they were dishes he’d fixed in jail so they were for a lot of people.  As he proceeded to tell me one of the recipes I got tickled at him but he didn’t think it was funny.  Both recipes are below and once you read them you will see why I was laughing. 

Burrito                                       

5 oz. sausage

5 oz. salami

1 lg. dill pickle - like at the movies - dice

6 oz. Jalapeno cheddar cheese

1/4 cup milk

1 sm. bag hot and spicy corn chips - crushed

1 box Crackers

Rolling pen

Garbage bag

Water

Mix all ingredients except for crackers and water and set aside. Make dough with crackers and water. You do this by adding ½ cup water to 1 sleeve of crackers. Cut the bottom of the garbage bag off, open up and cut in half down the middle and place end to end. Place on table and place dough on this. Roll dough out on garbage bag so it is 8’ by 6'. Add the bowl ingredients to the dough. Roll it like a burrito (roll bottom towards middle of dough, then roll starting with one side and rolling all the way to the other). Cut in 4"- 5" pieces all the way down and cook at 450 degrees for 5 minutes or eat as is.

Personal Notes: Recommend to eat as is and good luck making it. This is spicy.

You can also put onion dip in with the cheese. 2.5 oz. onion dip.

 

Now you can see why I was laughing so hard.  Hey, how many of you can say you have recipes with a garbage bag in them in your family cookbook.

 

Here is the second recipe.  I am including it because these are the only two recipes I have of his.

Breakfast Meal                    

2 eggs

2 spoonfuls pimento

3 spoonfuls onion – diced

Garlic salt - dash

1 sl. ham - chopped

Salt & pepper to taste

Add all ingredients but eggs in a greased skillet and sauté until onions are brown.

Add eggs but don’t touch until the bottom turns white and then scramble. Cook on medium high.

 

I thank God every day I got those recipes from him because he was included in the family cookbook.  I sent Anthony a copy of the finished cookbook and once he passed away Daddy gave the book back to me and I gave it to Uncle Don to keep.

While we were on the phone that night Anthony told me he had burned me a CD of songs he thought I would like and he was mailing it to me.  He also asked me if I remembered Torrence, one of the guys that would occasionally come to the house and I told him, “No.”  He told me he went by his house to see him when he was in Mississippi but he was in Louisiana at the time. His mother told Anthony Torrence had finally released a CD and she gave Anthony a copy of it which he was sending me as well.  I had no idea who that guy was until Anthony told me to go to a certain video and watch it.  I watched the video and sure enough that was the guy that had come to our house a couple of times. Even Kevin recognized him when he saw the video. 

Anthony was happy for Torrence but upset at the same time because he had tried and tried to get Anthony to rap with him. Anthony didn’t think he was good enough to rap with Torrence so he turned him down repeatedly and now he was wishing he’d taken him up on his offer.

One day I was talking to Anthony on the phone and he kept laughing.  I asked him what was so funny and he told me Mimi was frantically going through the house looking for her keys.  I asked him why that was so funny and he told me, “Because I am standing at the end of the stairs with her keys in my hand and she keeps walking past me going up and down the stairs looking for them.”  I told him to give his grandmother her keys and after a few more minutes I heard her say, “Give me my keys, you have been standing here all this time with my keys in your hand watching me walk up and down the stairs and you were having the time of your life weren’t you?”  Then Anthony said, “Yes ma’am.”  We all laughed.

There were many times Anthony would call me and put his “friends” on the phone to talk to me.  I’d never met these kids but they’d call me Mom and talk to me like they’d known me their entire lives. 

One night I was on the phone with Anthony and I was telling him about seeing my first Moon Dog and he asked me what that was.  There is no way Anthony would’ve known what a Moon Dog was because people down South don’t have them.  A Moon Dog is when the temperature gets so cold ice crystals form around the moon and appear like a rainbow in the night.  I told him I’d taken some pictures of it and he told me he wanted to see them when I got them developed.  I promised him I would.  Throughout the years he’d ask me about those pictures and each time I’d tell him I hadn’t developed them.  After Anthony passed away I got them developed and he would’ve loved to see them.  I’m sorry son.

There was another time Anthony and I were on the phone and he said, “Mom I have to go it sounded like Charlie fell!!!” and he hung up the phone.  A few minutes later he called me back laughing so hard I couldn’t understand what he was trying to tell me.  After he stopped laughing he told me when he got upstairs he saw Charlie with his butt in the tub and his feet hanging over the edge and asked him if he needed help getting up.  Daddy just looked at Anthony and very sarcastically said, “No, I’m sitting in here this way on purpose. Boy you’d better help me up.” They both started laughing and then he asked Daddy what happened and Daddy said while he was painting the bathroom wall above the tub he slipped and fell and that was what Anthony heard. 

I so miss those phone conversations with Anthony.  I’d give anything to have that phone ring just one more time and hear his voice on the other end.