A recipe from Tracy

(Interpretation of my book cover by Katherine Olmsted. Used by permission of the artist, age 5.)


Tracy, who you meet in Chapter 10, is my best friend from high school. I just love Tracy. She runs a small catering business and when I have had a rough day, I call her and ask her what she is cooking up. It soothes me. Below, a message from her and a recipe that is just...beyond.

I can say with absolute certainty that I have never submitted anything to an official website before. For my maiden submission to land on Jancee's very own website is terrifically exciting! Jancee and I first met in 1982 and we have continued to be life-long pals since those glorious Chatham Township high school days have passed. In every conversation since then, we have laughed about our lives, our friends, our circumstances, her celebrities, my suburbia and all points in between.

She and I have this Southern thing. My entire family is from the south, I went to college in South Carolina, have a passion for southern food, culture and the art of story-telling. As you well know from Jancee's masterpiece, her wonderful mother, Judy, is the epitome of a modern southern belle. Naturally, Jancee has inherited all of her mother's wonderful southern characteristics and has found a way to incorporate them into her thoroughly modern New York life. I love that about her! We talk about what our Easter menus will be, down to the last detail (we have done this religiously for the past 10 years). She knows that until recently there was no substitute for homemade biscuits made with White Lily flour and that now you can find a perfectly acceptable replacement in your grocer's freezer! I think she is a closet domestic goddess.

As I write, I have a crock pot simmering with barbecued pulled pork which has become one of Jancee's favorite recipes. My youngest daughter, Katherine, is hungry for lunch as she needs to make the kindergarten bus in 25 minutes. As I look at her twirling in her favorite new skirt and hot pink grosgrain hair bow, I hope that she will be lucky enough to have a few really good friends with whom she will always be able to laugh. Jancee and I have such different lives and yet it's remarkable that we find each other's lives so compelling, and funny! I have vivid recollections of our junior and senior years in high school. I have a few memories that I want to share...I remember hunkering down in Jancee's basement watching General Hospital with her fat and beloved cat, Lucy, sitting on my lap drooling. I had grown up in a dog loving family and cats were foreign creatures to me. Lucy and I somehow managed to forge a bond. I even named my first cat Lucy II. This simple act forever endeared me to the Dunn family.

Another standout memory involves a throng of us Chathamites piling into an assortment of vehicles to caravan to the hallowed NJ Meadowlands for a Springsteen concert. This was a de rigeur event and you were a nobody if you couldn't score a ticket. It was the 'Born In The USA' tour, so we all dressed in the obligatory red, white and blue. The guys (including my then future and now ex-husband, Bob), wore their white football jerseys and the some of the girls wore rolled up bandanas across their foreheads (quite the fashion blunder) as we blared "Glory Days," drank Old Milwaukee and ate sloppy joes from the Hickory Tree Deli. The concerts were not to be outdone by the trips to Frank’s shore house, the most memorable being the post-senior prom shore trip. There must have been thirty of us there, I still remember us all posing for a sunset photo on the deck; it was grainy and dark, but nonetheless captured happy suntanned faces full from the night before yet anxious for college that loomed ahead. Those were the days, truly, they were. Alas, Mom duty calls me back to reality and the school bus awaits.

Carolina Barbecued Pork

2 onions, quartered
2 TBSP brown sugar
1 TBSP paprika
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 4-6 lb. boneless pork butt or shoulder roast
3/4 c. cider vinegar
4 tsp. Worcesteshire
1 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 16 oz. jar store-bought hickory flavored bbq sauce
Hamburger buns

Place onions in crock pot. Combine brown sugar, paprika, salt, pepper and rub over both sides of roast. Place roast on top of onions. Combine next 7 ingredients and mix well. Pour half of mixture over roast, cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours. Remove meat and onions and drain. Shred meat with two forks and chop onions. Combine with bbq sauce and serve on hamburger buns. Use remaining vinegar mixture to drizzle over pork (it's spicy and adds a real kick) or just use BBQ sauce, whichever you prefer is fine!
Note: the meat freezes really well in ziploc bags.