Meat + Sugar what could be better?

That was what my beloved Pablo the PB (Poolboy) said about the hamloaf I prepared for our Sunday dinner. Hmm doesn't that line make me sound like a real southern Ioway hick? Hamloaf is made with mix of pork and ham plus cracker crumbs, egg, milk, mustard and pepper. After you cook it for an hour, it's topped with a glaze of vinegar, brown sugar and more mustard. Thus meat and sugar. Yum.

Several years ago, when we got a couple new priests in our town (after the best priest ever, Fr. Howard was transferred to Dunlap), I decided to take them a meal of hamloaf. Fr. Acrea and Fr. Kenkel admitted they loved it when people made them home cooked meals. So I whipped up a hamloaf and dropped it off along with a note that said when to add the glaze that I had delivered on the side. But I must have forgotten to identify what the meal was. So a few days later Fr. K sent a note thanking us for the "lovely meat mixture."

Fr. Kenkel is probably the best thanker I've ever know. He always sent thank you notes for everything imaginable. He thanked Paul and me for our years of service helping with the marriage ministry by giving us a neat framed picture. He also often thanked me in person after weekly mass - like for showing up. But the best was when I attended communal confession (I know they call it reconciliation now, but it still feels like confession to me...guess that's why I haven't been for so long). Anyway, I spilled my guts to Fr. K and I'll be darned (notice I didn't swear) if he didn't thank me for all the good things I do. Like he was trying to cheer me up - you're not a bad person even though you gossip and cuss Les, you teach people to recycle!