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Picnic in Flatonia

We stopped a the city café in the small town of Flatonia for many years, but this served buffet style café folded up and now does not exist.  So, we know Flatonia cafes and coffee shops.  Now, however, we headed for the Sacred Heart Catholic Church Picnic last Sunday.  We had been to this church picnic many years ago but so long ago that we had difficulty recalling the date.
The church is located about 5 blocks south of I-10 on Highway 95.  We arrived not long after the 11 am starting to serve time, found a short line to buy tickets.  From those already eating, we decided they started serving earlier than the 11 am posted time.
In line, we were just ahead of the local policeman, so we probed his mind to fill us in on the local police activity.  He said that about half their police action was due to locals, the other from those passing through on I-10. With all the nefarious activity that goes on in big cities, can you not imagine all the miscreants travelling on I-10 between Houston and San Antonio?
When we got inside the hall, we saw that most of the 9 member force was already eating.  Good thing the criminal activity was low for the moment.
It took very little time to course the line to the food serving area. It was well organized and flowed smoothly.  The dinner was fried chicken, stew, green beans, sauerkraut, bread and dessert.  The stew is always interesting in that it consists of just meat, no vegetables included----the difference must be a north/south thing.  Growing up in Michigan, we knew stew as a mixture of meat and vegetables cooked in a pot for a long time----a long time was necessary because the meat used was very tough---aged on the prairie as my dad would say.  This beef stew with no vegetables, we concluded, was probably originally called stewed meat, but the word meat was dropped over time.  All the "sides" were tasty and well presented.
Dee found a slice of green grape pie on the desert table.  This pie slice created a bit of discussion with the people sitting near us on the long table.  The pie was made as a custard pie with not very many green grapes. So we all speculated that the person who made the pie had only a limited supply of grapes as most made green grape pie as one would make apple pie. Those sitting around us concurred.

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