Church parties

We had an international dinner Friday night, and I bought Hungarian stuffed cabbage with barbecued ribs on top of it. It was delicious, if I say so myself. The barbecued pork ribs were gone before I knew it.

We had all kinds of Asian, European, Hispanic, African, and more I can't even remember, dishes. I sampled a lot of different things, so I basically had small bites of a large variety of foods. I loved it, especially when I scored a piece of chocolate cake that was really moist, the way a good chocolate cake should be.

The next day, I had leftover stuffed cabbage, and if there's anything better than stuffed cabbage, it's leftover stuffed cabbage. I remembered that it was that way when my mother made it when I was growing up. I did not exactly use her recipe, but threw one together with a general guideline of an online recipe. I used cooked brown rice, ground turkey, and ground pork in mine. I filled up a roasting pan with cabbage rolls filled with the meat mixture, added a can of sauerkraut, topped it with a can of tomato paste, topped that with the pork ribs, and cooked it for 2 hours in a 350 oven. It was nice and done when I took it out, and I put some homemade barbecue sauce on it for the last 15 minutes. The ribs looked a lot better wearing the sauce.

Then we had a little gathering after church today, and I brought some pigs in a blanket that were from the frozen section of the dollar store. I had cooked them on the indoor grill last night, and then heated them up to serve at this little after church party. They went quickly. Most of the finger food was sweets, at least when I got to the tables, but there were some grapes, and some cheese and crackers.

DH asked me if the "pig" in the blanket was sausage. I told him I thought they were hotdogs, but really did not know, because I had not made them from scratch. He was surprised to learn they were from the dollar store. I did bring 2 packages, so it only cost me $2 to look like a good cook. Well, at least to some people at the party, lol. I did not even try them. I'd had them before and really did not think they were all that great. People at our church parties will eat just about anything, though.

As I put the plate of food on the table, I turned, and an acquaintance of mine was spilling her plate, so I helped her get it upright. She coldly said, "Thank you.", and then turned to her son who is 15 years old, and weighs about 300 pounds. She was asking him what the food I had brought out was. He had already scarfed one down, and was grabbing some more. He told her they were sausages.

I mention this here, because this woman has been difficult for me to deal with for the past few years. I thought we were okay, but recently she's been complaining about something that happened 2 years ago, when I could no longer help her family in a driving situation.

Well, just to get it off my chest, I've done a lot of favors for this person, and she still did not appreciate it, and still doesn't understand why I had to stop doing this almost daily driving favor. I have sleep apnea, and it is severe enough that I've had to curtail my driving for my own personal needs, like going across town to shop. I stay closer to home now, and I only drive when I'm rested enough. I can't take a chance on getting into an accident.

I really can't help it, but the whole thing just makes me sad. I thought the problems we had were water under the bridge, but I think she takes joy in holding grudges against me. Well, I have my own life and all that. The weird thing is that my family has helped hers and taken them all out to dinner since that time. You would think I would have been forgiven, but apparently not.