The plan for today is so-called American food. Here are the choices:

Hot dogs - I bought these fancy kosher hot dogs, no additives, no fillers, no by-products. We each had one last night for supper with some coleslaw, and they were very tasty.

This is approximately how my mother made coleslaw, but she grated the vegetables by hand. We had some just like hers in a diner outside Baltimore, which was affirming. For several years, I made my own mayonnaise, and wondered why I couldn't get my coleslaw to taste like hers, then had some at a pot luck and that lady told me to use Miracle Whip in it, and I remembered that was what my mother used.

Creamy Coleslaw

For 3 - 4 servings.

1/3 of a green cabbage
3 - 4 carrots
Sugar
Salt
Miracle Whip (not mayonnaise)
Heavy cream

Grate the cabbage with the coarse side of the grater, and the carrots on the fine or medium holes. (I used the food processor steel blade to chop them individually to the consistency of large couscous.) Combine in a bowl with the other ingredients, tasting it. I added some heavy cream because I had it, and am low on Miracle Whip. It should be sweet but not too much - you should be able to distinguish the cabbage and the carrots.

Today, for lunch we could have hot dogs again, this time with sauerkraut and pork and beans. Jeri knows what to add to pork and beans to make them special. I usually stir in some diced green chiles.

Or I might fry the chicken thighs and legs I bought yesterday, if I don't bake it with sour cream and parmesan cheese mixed and slathered over it (similar to the recipe Jeri posted).

For this fried chicken, you need Lawry's Seasoned Salt. Naturally, there are a lot more things you can add here and there, such as Tabasco in the buttermilk, and more herbs in the coating, and you could skip the buttermilk soaking all together. And you could bake it the oven on a rack instead of frying it. The crust on this chicken isn't crispy and hard, it's softer.

I remove the skin from my chicken because of the fat. It's not as nummy-yummy mybloggers good without the skin, but it's still good.

Fried Chicken

Chicken cut into pieces, skinned
Buttermilk or milk with a little vinegar
Flour
Seasoned salt
Black pepper
Oil for frying

Marinate the chicken pieces in buttermilk or soured milk for about an hour in the refrigerator. Remove and shake dry. Put the flour, seasoned salt and pepper in a bag and shake each chicken piece until well coated. Set on a rack to dry out a little bit if you want to. Heat about 1 inch of oil in a heavy, deep pot, such as a cast iron Dutch oven. I do this because the high sides reduce grease spatters. Fry the chicken on medium heat, sprinkling with more seasoned salt if you want, and turning to brown on all sides. You can cover the pot and let it brown. As it gets brown enough, transfer it to a roaster or other covered pan in a 325 degree oven. Use a rack to hold the chicken. Bake this way until the chicken is done through.

Note: I think my mother did this last step for a couple of reasons: If she was making a lot of chicken, it wouldn't all fit in the frying pan, so putting it in the oven kept it warm and cooked it some more. And at our altitude foods cook slower, so it might have required this finishing time to cook through without the outside burning.

Well, of course, for lunch on a hot day, you might not want a whole big chicken dinner (remember that phrase Winner, winner, chicken dinner?) with lovely hot rolls or biscuits fresh from the oven, creamy mashed potatoes smothered with chicken gravy, and green beans simmered with a little piece of ham or bacon, but here's the gravy recipe in case you do:

Milk Chicken Gravy

Pour out most of the cooking oil, leaving the browned bits in the pan with 1 or 2 tablespoons oil. Stir some flour into it, about 2 tablespoons. Don't put any salt, because it might be salty enough. Stir the flour around until it's incorporated in the grease and foams up a little bit, and the browned bits are scraped up. Gradually stir in milk, stirring constantly, about 1 to 2 cups. You will see the flour bloom out to thicken the milk, and you might have to keep adding more liquid if it is too thick. Taste it for salt and add some black pepper.

Eat that chicken dinner for lunch, and you can get right back to farming with plenty of energy to carry you to sun down. When my grandma was figuring out how many chickens she wanted to kill for dinner, she counted so many pieces per person, 'and one for the pan.' Sometimes she'd double it in order to have cold fried chicken for lunch the next day. Any leftovers were saved until the next meal, when they were put out in the middle of the table in case someone needed a little bit more to fill them up.

Her chrome dinette set table had a large round container under it, held up by the metal frame of the table. I don't know what the makers of that table intended for its use, but my uncles put their chicken bones in it.