Everybody Bagna!
Okay not everybody, imagine the garlic-breath! * Hoot!* My Hubby and Nathan left Friday to attend the Milroy Family Bagna in Okmulgee Oklahoma. How’s this for ironic…
Bagna Cauda or ( Bon-yah) is originally from Italy. Yet the Milroy clan is definitively Scotch. They look Scotch, the act Scotch, they drink Scotch. Every fall they get together and observe this obscure Italian tradition. The Milroy’s are Jack’s mom’s family. I guess I should call this the Corbel Family because it all seems to start with the 5 Corbel sisters. Martha (Jack’s Granny) married a Milroy and these folks are her descendents. Another Corbel sister, Betty married (not a Milroy of course, but another Scotch or Irishman)and many attendees are her descendents. If I understand the deal, One of the Corbel sisters, Ruth married a man named John from Italy. The Bagna was from John’s Family. After being introduced to it along with John’s Italian family, hold a Bagna fast became the big autumn family reunion for the entire brood of the Corbel sisters from the 1940’s on. Betty took over the tradition when her sister died and has run the entire show from her house for quite a few years. She is a very spry girl who now has an oxygen bottle stashed somewhere with a 150 foot cord attached. Jack said she gets snagged up now and then, but it only slows her down, she never stops moving.
The deal with the Bagna is that its a miracle so many folks come from so far to alight on this little town in Oklahoma to dip bread, veggies, and cold meats into a cooking anchovies and garlic sauce. It must be the company! *hoot*
I remember first being married to Jack and attending my first one. There is a stack of vintage white diapers. The kind that look like a small table cloth, not the padded type we “young’uns” might be used to. These are for wrapping around your neck and keeping the sauce off your clothes. Clothes pins keep it in place. Then there’s a long table with piles of food, bread, cauliflower, peppers, cold beef, etc all on big platters. In the center of the long table is a skillet with the sauce cooking away. The job of each person is to stir the sauce as they go past and do their dipping, so it doesn’t burn. So what emerges from this is a huge group of people wearing table cloths, slowly moving about a large table laughing and eating and in some cases seeing each other after a year or more separation. From a distance it looks like rather strange amusement park lineup. Strange because no one gets to the ride and because they are all having SO much fun in line! If you want to eat you need to be in the queue. No grabbing your food and slinking off.
Dillon has never been one for the sauce, but he did go for the food without it. Especially the cauliflower. He enjoyed the “diaper” too it fast becomes a cape for flying and other superhero business. He outgrew the cape phase. Pity.
Nathan made his debut at a bagna in 1993. He was barely a week old. Jack’s granny, Martha was alive then. She just loved it that we came even though it was a bit nippy that year. Nathan likes the cold. Its the heat he is not to good with. So being all bundled up with well meaning relations tucking in more “diapers” made sure he was nice and cozy.
No Milroy gathering would be complete without a bar. So there is always a card table full of everyone’s BYOB. Its a varied lot. I remember always being in some state of pregnancy or breast feeding so I could not sample the goodies. But I sure did hang out there to see what everyone was drinking! LOL! These days, I stay home and Jack goes alone or takes the boys. I might never get a shot at that bar! LOL!
This year, Nathan wanted to go and Dillon stayed home. They Bagna-ed Saturday night and Jack and Nate are still in Oklahoma making the rounds to all Jack’s friends. Jack is an Okie boy and that is his old stomping ground so there are many to visit. I hear there are some great pictures taken and a great time was had. We will see the proof when they bring the camera back home. I feel a bit nervous. My Jack, Nate and my camera all gone for the weekend! LOL! Seems a bit much for me to go without. * grin *
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Freebie Monday? Sorry no freebie today. I am taking Labor Day off from creating and going to make potato salad and burn some meat on the grill. Just got a call, Jack and Nate are cutting their trip short and will be here for lunch, so I getting right on that fire building.
Hugs and Kisses!
Edited: September 7th, 2009