By ANN WORTHINGTON

Scanning my cookbook recently, I came across a recipe for sausage balls and I just had to make some.

But first I discovered I had to visit the grocery store for some of the required ingredients. Arriving at the meat counter, I had a hard time trying to decide which brand of sausage I wanted. As you all well know, we enter the supermarket for one or two items and most always come out of the store with several things we think we just have to have.

I paid for my groceries and headed home to prepare the sausage balls, which I knew would delight my husband as well as my grandchildren. As I easily peeled the paper from the sausage, I thought about the differences of the way I purchased the sausage and the way my mom obtained hers.

She surely didn’t make a dash for a store. If she wanted to make something from sausage, she went to our food pantry, retrieved a jar of sausage she had worked so hard to can, and after breaking the seal of the jar, she could use the meat for whatever she was cooking.

I remember so well during hog killing time when my mom and some ladies she had hired to help her would take some choice parts of the pork, fasten a little machine to the end of our table, feed some of the meat into the mouth of the sausage grinder and it would come out of the other end, mixed and ready to stuff into casings or make into patties.

I remember how good the meat smelled as the aroma of frying patties wafted throughout the house. All I could think of was that I could hardly wait for a few pieces to chow down on with a good cold sweet potato and a frosty glass of milk.

My mom didn’t allow us to sample too much of the good-smelling sausage. This was canned, placed in a cool place in our pantry to be used for the many meals she had to prepare for a large family that could eat her out of house and home, as I often heard her joke and laugh at her explanation.

I thought how lucky I am that I didn’t have to go to so much trouble and work as my mom did, but I’m sure she loved doing things she thought would make us happy.

Well, my friends, as I said, the sausage balls are baking and the house smells wonderful.

All I have to do now is put on the coffee pot with cups of decaf, flip on the television and have an evening of goodies, letting my mind drift off from time to time with thoughts and memories of a family that now has gone on to its heavenly rewards.

My friends, I need to hustle to ready myself for an art class I’m taking at our local college, so until next time, always join with me to tell as many as you can that you love them, and remind them that God loves them too, and as always, be truly blessed.