HOPE MILLS — If you are watching your waistline, Joy Cannady says, the 54th Annual Gray’s Creek Woman’s Club Buffet and Bazaar might not be where you want to be. If you have a hankering for country cooking, Cannady says, the 54th Annual Gray’s Creek Woman’s Club Buffet and Bazaar is exactly where you need to be.
“You don’t come down here on a diet,” says Cannady, the 70-year-old president of the Gray’s Creek Woman’s Club, which has been a part of this community southeast of Fayetteville since 1916.
The 54th Annual Gray’s Creek Woman’s Club Buffet and Bazaar is an autumn rite, and if you like down-home, country cooking, you’ll want to be at the Gray’s Creek Community Building from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Thursday at 3024 School Road.
“This always is the best week for the club,” Cannady said. “It’s a lot of hard work, but it’s fun for people who have grown up here” and new residents, who call Gray’s Creek home. “I like seeing what I call the ‘golden oldies” and everybody sitting around talking after they eat.”
Plates are $15 each, Cannady said. You may eat in or take your plate home.
“We’re not delivering this year,” she said.
Along the serving line
The menu will include country ham, fried chicken, chicken tenders, chicken and pastry, green beans, lima beans, collards, steamed cabbage, sweet potatoes, potato salad, deviled eggs, relishes, cornbread, rolls, cakes and pies.
Longtime Gray’s Creek residents Dennis Walters, Dennis Cashwell, Bill Melvin and Will Walters, Cannady says, are preparing the pig for the country ham.
“I call them ‘the Walters’ Boys,’” Cannady said.
Coralisa Matthews is supervising the chicken preparation along with help from Darrell Warwick and William Parnell.
“Ted Lambert and Catherine Bass are our chicken ‘n pastry cookers,” Joy Cannady said. “Mable Hurley and Karen Graham are cooking the cabbage. Nancy Honeycutt, Linda Parnell, Susan Walters, Debbie Cashwell, Sue Bennett, Coralisa Matthews and Amber Harwell are cooking the green beans. The butter bean girls are Nancy Honeycutt, Linda Parnell, Susan Walters, Debbie Cashwell, Sue Bennett, Coralisa Matthews and Amber Harwell.”
The potato salad and the deviled eggs always are crowd favorites, and Joy Cannady says Deena Pittman, Sue Bennett, Linda Parnell, Debbie Cashwell, Catherine Bass, Nancy Honeycutt, Amber Harwell, Susan Walters, Ashland Stambough, Mable Hurley, Helen Brockett, Coralisa Matthews and Patsy White are working hard to see there’s plenty for all.
“Linda Parnell and Catherine Bass are in charge of the cornbread,” Cannady said.
You’ll want to leave room for dessert.
“We have pound cakes galore,” Cannaday said, and pies, too. “We have pecan pie, pumpkin pie, and I’m baking a chocolate chess pie.”
This buffet isn’t just about your palate. The Gray’s Creek ladies hope you will take some time to mosey around the crafts room, where Cannady says you will find plenty of items for sale that will strike your fancy.
“We will have bunches of pound cakes for sale,” she said. “Pickles, jams and jellies. We have koozies for your soups. We have some wooden, decorative Christmas trees and some small baby quilts.”
Something else the Gray’s Creek ladies believe may interest you is the raffle for the patriotic quilt, which was pieced by Karen Graham, Nancy Hope and Cannady. Gaby Shelley will be on the front porch selling raffle tickets for $20. Whether you need a quilt for the coming winter months or not, you just may find yourself buying a raffle ticket.
“Gaby can sell anything,” Cannady said, and the day is all for a good cause.
Proceeds from the buffet and bazaar, according to Cannady, Gray’s Creek high, middle and elementary schools, Alderman Road Elementary, Gallberry Farms Elementary, four education scholarships for county high school students who will attend a college or technical school, Gray’s Creek fire departments, the Gray’s Creek Christian Center and needy families.
From here and yonder
“The weather is supposed to be nice,” Cannady said.
You won’t just find Gray’s Creek folks, but people from here and yonder to include Fayetteville, Hope Mills, Massey Hill, Eastover, Spring Lake, Godwin and Wade.
“It’s just a great community thing,” said Dennis Walters, 76, who says he hasn’t missed many of the buffet and bazaar’s since growing up from age 12 in what he affectionately calls “the branch.”
Walters says there likely will be 600 people there by lunchtime, including politicians from Fayetteville, Hope Mills, Spring Lake, Eastover, Linden, Falcon, Godwin and Stedman hawking votes ahead of the Nov. 4 general election.
“Every campaign year,” he said about political candidates, “they make a good showing.”
Epilogue
Everybody is welcome, and remember, it’s all you can eat.
“It’s the best day of the week for the club,” Joy Cannady said. “I hope we run out of food in the nick of time.”
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
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