Category: Humor

Several weeks ago this tiny scrap of paper arrived with a note from a University of Texas friend who now lives in Cody, Wyoming. The note simply said this is Armeda’s custard recipe, but it’s in your mother’s handwriting. No explanation necessary – I would recognize my mother’s scratchy writing anywhere. Her DNA flows through my penmanship as surely as it does through my love of dogs.

When I worked for a year in Houston following my graduation from UT in Austin, the good news was I had relatives from both sides of my family who lived in the metropolitan area; the bad news was I had relatives from both sides of my family who lived within spitting distance of my one bedroom furnished apartment on Shadyvilla Lane. Houston in 1967 was a big city, but not nearly as crowded as it became in the years that followed, so I easily navigated the paths from learning to play bridge at my Aunt Mavis and Uncle Ray’s house on Jalna Street in the northwest section of the city to playing poker or dominoes at my Aunt Dessie and Uncle Floyd’s house on Rodrigo Street in the Heights. Talk about home cooked food. Every home I visited made sure I had plenty of it.

I had a favorite place to visit on Sunday afternoons in the cooler months (yes, there were several cooler ones even in hot humid Houston): my Aunt Armeda and Uncle Vernon’s house which was less than 15 minutes from my apartment. I confess I tried to time my social call around the middle of the afternoon to see if by chance Aunt Armeda was making custard. If she was, I stayed longer. Shameless.

Armeda was my Aunt Mavis’s half-sister who had married my paternal grandmother’s youngest brother. Remember my Aunt Mavis was married to my daddy’s brother Ray. No computerized social networking or dating apps in those days which meant somebody introduced somebody to someone else. Often that someone else was somehow related to the first somebody.

My friend who now lives in Wyoming was still at UT when I worked in Houston, and she often came to see me on weekends – she loved our “custard calls” at Armeda and Vernon’s house as much as I did. I’m sure we raved about the drink to my mother who was aghast at the thought anyone could prefer Armeda’s custard over hers, but could we get that recipe anyway?

I was amazed to see this little scrap of paper with such evidence of use in the past fifty-five years had traveled from Texas to Wyoming to South Carolina and was transported to the sights, sounds, smells of the custard being poured into delicate china coffee cups by a tall regal woman with soft speech and a warm heart. I’ve made the recipe three times recently and still think it’s delicious – if you can read the scribbling, I suggest you give it a try during the holiday season.

Pour with love.