Star (Supposed to be Orzo) Pasta Salad: New Family Favorite

Last week the Pipkins' Family Reunion was held in this old house with it's high ceilings, ample seating space, and warm welcoming atmosphere.  The rain dampened nothing but the outside, spirited conversations (and a few spirits on the front porch the night before) and the catching up on a year's worth of news permeated every corner of every room of the house.  Two six-foot tables were filled with food from one end to the other -- and that's just food, sweet tea and desserts were on two other tables.  There wasn't a bad thing on the food tables at all but there was one favorite for me and The Fellows and Gurlfriends:  Claudia's orzo salad.

I know.  This isn't orzo.

 Amazing, right?  We could've fed another fifty people.

Desserts!

The orzo salad brought by Claudia, though... The flavors were unexpected:  heavy basil without being overpowering, crunch of pine nut and finely diced sweet onion, sweet bites of cranberry, and just enough olive oil to coat the pasta and help blend the flavors.  We were fairly fighting over the leftovers of it, which were all gone by Sunday night.  

I decided today I wanted to make it to carry to friends' house whose mom had passed.  I've known them my entire life, their children were in Mama's kindergarten, their grandchildren entrusted to my care as a home-based child care provider in a previous chapter of life a decade long.  The memorandum was made:  feta cheese, dried cranberries, and orzo.

Have I mentioned before that Leakesville has one grocery store?  Yep.  Piggly Wiggly.  The dollar stores and Fred's also have some groceries but the Pig is the main source for food in this town of 898 souls.  List in hand and cruising down the dairy aisle I was delighted to find crumbled feta cheese, the one item on the list I wasn't expecting to find.  I had already planned to substitute smoked gouda for it (and may yet).  Dried cranberries were in stock.  Only orzo was left to pick up.  Alas.  No orzo.  

I didn't think elbow or fusilli, bowtie or shell or rigatini or penne would work.  The pasta needed to be dense or compact to carry it's own starchiness and heft in the salad.  Or something of that nature.  Glancing around I spotted the star pasta from Mexico.  It'd have to work (and it did).

Coming home to cook the pasta and assemble the salad, I discovered there were no pine nuts.  I think I ate them a couple of weeks ago.  I get like that sometimes, purchasing a whole can of unsalted roasted cashews and consuming a few at a time every time they're walked by until they're gone... or a half pound of pine nuts taken out of the freezer in the course of cleaning it.

There are plenty of roasted chopped pecans, though.  And a lime to add back in flavor that's going to be missing from the pine nuts.  

I've guessed at the amounts of everything making Claudia's salad and it's so close to hers, I'll have to have her make it again just to check and see (which is an awesome way to get her back up here from the Coast).

Here's what you'll need:

One pound of orzo (or two 7 ounce packages star pasta)

Half-cup extra virgin olive oil

Zest from one lime

Juice of one lime

Half-cup diced fresh basil

Half-cup finely chopped sweet onion

Half-cup roasted chopped pecans (or half-cup pine nuts and forget the lime)

Four ounces of crumbled feta

One cup dried cranberries

 No Southern freezer is without pecans in it.  I keep roasted chopped

pecans in the freezer for cheesecake crusts, Italian cream cakes, and 

emergencies, just like today's.

Fresh basil from the little herb garden.  I only grow rosemary,

garlic, oregano, basil, dill, and taragon - my favorites!

Cook pasta, drain, and rinse well.  In bowl combine olive oil, lime zest, lime juice, chopped onion, and basil.  Add everything else but the pasta, making sure everything is well coated with oil.

Add pasta and mix until all ingredients are well distributed.

Only the pasta water was salted.  The feta's saltiness is adequate

for the entire salad.

I've put it in the very same pretty (disposable) bowl Claudia brought the salad in last week so the family won't have to return it.  It's also been garnished with basil blossoms.

It's quick and easy and delicious.  I had everything chopped and mixed together by the time the pasta was finished cooking.  With any recipe posted, y'all make it your own.  My friend Chris doesn't care for pine nuts and said she used almonds instead.  I'm so going to do that when I make this again.  Don't care for basil?  uhmmmm... it kind of IS the main flavor - you might want to try a different recipe.  Dried blueberries or white raisins instead of dried cranberries?  I think that'd be splendid!  Make it your family favorite today.

Y'all enjoy!

Fambly is...

  Late last summer a cousin died suddenly.

Bagpipes echo back from the edge of the woods at interment.

It stormed this day, the multiharmonic "Amazing Grace"

hung as heavily as the storm clouds.

A second cousin.  A half second cousin.

(and that's LeaAnn, too, alongside Powell)

His granddaddy was Daddy's half brother.

Daddy, Uncle Woodrow, and Uncle Sherman 

from left to right

The degree of relationship doesn't matter, and indeed, the fact that the offspring of Uncle Sherman and Aunt Selma are halves never will.  Some misguided folks even in the Deep South would say he was a distant relative.  I disagree.  He was family.

Large family gatherings were not uncommon.

No.  He was fambly.  I like the mispronounced misspelled word, reminiscent of preschool days, chimbleys and libaries.  There's something wholesome, innocent, and sincere about it: fambly.  Say it softly out loud to yourself:  fambly.  See?

The cousin's death brought extended fambly to my home for pre- and post wake meals

some of them to spend the night.

Years apart became quickly uttered dialogue as lives were caught up from here

to here.

We've missed our shared memories of concatenatious lives as fambly.  Fambly is.

It's difficult to find the right words (unusual for me, I know) to tell you what fambly is.  I need to show you.  Be forewarned:  it's a lot of pictures with a melancholy bent and several poignant photos.  If you're in a menopausal PMS mood like I am, grab a handful of kleenex, a glassful of something-or-another to drink, and a source of chocolate.  And get ready to think about your fambly and what they are and mean to you...

When lives become shattered

And storms destroy your shelter, it's fambly that helps you clear the debris and pick up the pieces.

An F3 tornado moved through Leakesville, MS in April, 

two weeks before Alabama was hit so tragically. 

Fambly will take you to Corky's on Poplar after treating you to a manicure.

They'll let you crash at their house almost unannounced.

They'll let you drink their wine and prop your feet up on the only ottoman -- as long as you remember to share it and not hog all the space.

Fambly will bring shrimp to your house

and cook it and drink your beer, in turn.

**giggle** It's a dry county.  You don't actually EVER see the beer...

They cry with you when the nest become empty.

Youngest Fellow at high school graduation.  And Mama.

They laugh at your phobias.

EEEeeeeek!  It's a sorta kinda snake!!!!

Oh.  Soaker hose...

They've set the precedent for work.

Grandma Havard.  Her name was Sabra.  Everybody called her Aunt Sabe.

The old folks tell stories of her twice-widowed life

with youngsters at home, taking in washing and whatever was available

to support her boys.

and literacy.

Grandma Pipkins, reading.  

Fambly is silly

Brothers John and Bill.

and sillier

Sponge Bo, Allison, and sweetie pie Hudson.

and silliest.

Mama hanging on for dear life behind Cousin Ronny

They know the significance of shared moments on the front porch whether sitting in the rocker

Oldest Fellow 

or on the porch swing with a friend.

Youngest and friend.

They sit with you in dark hours

The Turners.

They were neighbors before I was Fambly!

coming across this state to be by your side

Connie, Bill, and a very tired me (LCH bites).

And sometimes two states.

Don Sherman came from Mobile, 

Gene and Suzanne drove from Tallahassee!

They brave the knowing smile of the Christian believer when their hearts and spirits have never been heavier

Niece Kimberly peeks around John's spiritless form

as her sibling John Shannon helps us with the piano.

transporting you where one day, you must also go

I never want to hear my mother's sobs again.  Ever.  Period.

trying to stand between you and what must be,

Bill, Joe, Mike, and Kimberly's husband, Bryan

giving you a perfect example of stoic resolve when the future is different than the way you'd planned and how best to deal with it.

Mama said driving up to her house after burying her son,

"Let me get these clothes changed and these ol' hurting shoes

off.  Mary, put on the coffee water and make

sure everybody's fed. I've got to get to the barn."

Fambly was around a little before you were

 Joe, Mike, Bill, and John

but you're what adds to it

Baby Mayree 

to make it whole.

As long as you hope to remember;

Billy.  The First Grandchild and Nephew

1972 - 1994

As long as you hope;

Hattie Catherine Havard 2011

Photo courtesy of J. Bell Photography

"Fambly" is the subject of the predicate "is."

Fambly is...

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Now that you've been smitten by the stunning photograph of the latest Great (niece, that is), go check out the very talented fellow in Austin, Texas.