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Posts Tagged ‘Southern traditions’

Southern Living makes me sad

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on December 20, 2012 | 10 Comments »

Because of Southern Living I contemplate the purchase of Christmas topiary.

Because of Southern Living I recognize beachy pastels as possible holiday colors.

Because of Southern Living I find my self uttering words like “table-scape” and “disco-ball-esque.”

Because of Southern Living I am sad.

This year’s Christmas issue, a “special double issue,” found its way to my mailbox in November to taunt me, to mock me, to make me feel vaguely inferior and sort of shabby. Page after glossy page featured showplace rooms with every imaginable bit of color-coordinated holiday finery. The coral drapes match the coral and teal tree that match the coral and teal gifts that match the stockings hung by the chimney with more than just a teensy bit of care. Everything is “punchy.” It all must “pop.”

Editor M. Lindsay Bierman must have had me in mind as he watched this issue come together. In what appears to be an attempt to empathize with the common reader, he shares a dark secret with us — that his own Christmas won’t look like the pages of the magazine either, that his kitchen will be messy, that his presents will not be works of wrapping art. The magazine is to inspire, he writes, to bring out the “dreamer,” the “doer.”

I don’t buy it. My suburban ranch-style home, a product of the late 60s just like me, is not now and never will be a decorator show home — no matter how much I dream or do. It’s just not, well, it’s just not…Audrey. My decorating style can only be characterized as eclectic (read inherited, free, antique and/or thrift combined with a variety of local art work and sundry little collections of things that please me).

And you know what? I like it that way.

A couple of weeks ago, I put down the Southern Living and set about my own Christmas decorating as I do every year. My holiday style, much like my decorating style, can only be described as eclectic (read not matching, inherited, free, antique, gifts). I don’t have a snowy white tree. None of my decorations necessarily match, or mismatch. And I could not care less about seasonal napkin rings.

But here’s what I do have.

Elves in a Styrofoam and glitter hot-air balloon

Elves in a Styrofoam and glitter hot-air balloon

I have elves in a Styrofoam and glitter hot-air balloon. Every year, me and Sarah, Granny’s housekeeper and my constant companion, would unpack Granny’s Christmas ornaments, every one carefully wrapped in tissue paper from the year before. This was my favorite. Where were the little elves going? Are they going home to the North Pole? Running away? Were they like the Jumblies, which my mother read to me over and over at my behest, off in search of adventure and Chankly Bore? The elves are hanging on my tree right now, and every time I see them, the same thoughts still run through my mind.

Wax Christmas balls

Wax Christmas balls

I also have Granny’s wax Christmas balls which, after many, many years of hot Southern attic summers, have melted into the very tissue paper that was supposed to protect them. Even though they can no longer be used, I still keep them, and admire their misshapen beauty every year. I guess the Alabama heat eventually gets the best of all of us.

Paper chains

Paper chains

I have the paper chains Sonny and I made with dime store construction paper and Scotch tape. They’re a little faded, but the memory of the afternoon we spent making them has not.

boot

Ceramic Santa boot

I have a ceramic Santa boot given to me by my third grade Sunday School teacher, Miss Bobbi. It has my first and middle name painted on it in gold. It came filled with candy. I’ve had it for thirty-five Christmases now.

Baby's First Christmas

Baby’s First Christmas

I have a Baby’s First Christmas ornament given by Daddy to Sonny for just that. I have thirteen more ornaments, each one different and special, that Daddy has given Sonny every year since the first. One day Sonny will have them on his own tree.

Santa and Mrs. Claus

Santa and Mrs. Claus

Did you know that Santa and Mrs. Claus lead secret, double lives? In addition to all that toy making business, the also serve up salt and pepper every year on my dining table. I can’t remember a Christmas without them.

Grapevine wreaths

Grapevine wreaths

I have grapevine wreaths made from grapevines I grew. Sometimes I put ribbons on them. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I leave them up all year ’round. Wish I could do the same thing with my Christmas lights, but the neighbors would talk.

My Christmas extravaganza

My Christmas extravaganza

Speaking of lights, here are mine! White lights are elegant and all that, but I like the colored ones better and lots of them. I wish I had more lights this year. I also wish I had an extension ladder. And a staple gun. And the courage to climb up on the roof.

Here’s what I have.

Real Southern living. And that doesn’t make me sad at all. In fact, it makes me rather happy.

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Merry and Bright

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 19, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Dear Readers,

I’d like to share with you a story I wrote that was published today on Bourbon & Boots, a website that specializes in all things Southern. It’s called Merry and Bright: Why We Love to Bake With Booze, and you can find it right here: www.bourbonandboots.com/merry-and-bright.

Thank you all for reading this year and for your kind words, encouragement, and the stories that you have shared with me. I hope each and every one of you have a very safe, happy, and peaceful holiday.

Love and hugs,

Audrey

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Have you got game?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 21, 2012 | 3 Comments »

“Taste this and guess what it is!” Aunt Lois* says to me one Thanksgiving morning while jabbing at me with a carving fork, a piece of grayish meat dangling from the tines.

“Go on; taste it!”

Now I don’t know about you, but I want to be able to readily identify my food. Even at a  young age, I didn’t think I should have to guess what exactly it was that I ingested. Plus, Aunt Lois had a history of cooking things that were, uh, a little too “organic” for my taste.

For instance, I was at her house one day near lunchtime and naturally the talk turned to what we should fix to eat. Unable to decide, we did what every self-respecting Southerner might do when on the horns of such a dilemma — we went out to the garage to plunder through the deep freeze, that enormous coffin-like receptacle for all things blanched and frozen, fishy or gamey, or just plain too unwieldy for your normal Frigidaire.

Aunt Lois dug past the fish filets, the venison steaks, and even some frog legs and pulled out a freezer bag. “Let’s eat this!” she said holding the bag up with something near glee in her eyes. Before me dangled two little carcasses pressed flat in the plastic, nekkid, arms and legs akimbo almost like they were shocked to death and flash frozen in their surprise. “Squirrel!” And off she went in search of the chicken fryer. Squirrel. Oh my. Couldn’t we just have a tomato sandwich?

Flash forward to Thanksgiving. Aunt Lois shows up at Mama’s house with a huge roasting pan containing an unnaturally large roast smiggling around in some sort of au jus with a few onions and mushrooms. Once in the kitchen, she sets upon it with a vengeance, wildly hacking at it with a carving fork and a large blade akin to a machete.

“Taste it! Guess!”

I thought it better to guess before eating. Just in case. You never know with Aunt Lois. Hmmm, I thought to myself, what lives around here?

Goat? “No.”

Wild hog? “No.”

Deer? Please let it be deer. I’m running out of options. “No.”

I’d seen what I thought was a bear track once. Lord, I hope not. Bear? “No.”

“It’s MOOSE!” she finally exclaimed. “A gift from a friend of mine who went hunting out West!”

Moose. Have mercy. No wonder it was so dang big!

For the record, if any of you, my dear readers, perchance to go out West and think to bring me a gift, I’d much prefer something that either makes me look good (like jewelry) or smell good (like perfume). I would just as soon not be remembered with a hunk of dead animal flesh, thank you very much.

But the same can’t be said for Aunt Lois, once an ace hunter her ownself. Aunt Lois, who has a room full of mounted heads from deer she felled. Aunt Lois, sweet, flirty, mischievous. Aunt Lois, who can gut a fish or a squirrel or a deer without ever so much as chipping her frosty pink nail polish. Aunt Lois, who doesn’t take “no” for an answer.

So taste I did. Gray, dense, gamey, a little too chewy. But if you slog it through some gravy, like most not-quite-palatable things, it wasn’t half bad. In “The Maine Woods,” Henry David Thoreau likened moose to “tender beef, with perhaps more flavour; sometimes like veal.” I don’t know if I’d go that far, but after a good deal of mastication it did, ultimately, go down.

Thanks to Aunt Lois, I have had to be game (pun intended) to try any number of things that I probably would not have without her insistence. Among other things, I have picked shot off my plate, learned to ignore the fact that supper looked like Kermit from the waist down, and been educated as to the best way to pull the skin off a catfish. And I am a better person for it.

So here’s to mystery. Here’s to culinary adventure. And here’s to knowing what’s on your plate before the blessing is said. Happy Thanksgiving!

*Aunt Lois is actually my great aunt, Granny’s youngest sister.

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Baby Jesus would not approve

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 13, 2012 | 12 Comments »

Something is missing.

I’ve looked for it in my neighborhood, at the mall, on television. Nothing.

It was a homely little thing that used to pop in once a year between the end of October and the end of December. When it came to visit, it usually brought with it some family — both blood kin and chosen. I didn’t have to get all dressed up, although I usually busted out the good china just for fun. I didn’t have to spend days decorating for it’s arrival or un-decorating after it had gone. I didn’t have to attend an interminably long church service just because of it (don’t tell Brother I said that!).

It always brought good food, my favorite food, food that was to be had only once a year. It knew Mama liked “hand pie” and that I liked pecan. It always brought both. And there was usually some wine, a little for me and a little for the old bird…a little more for me.

We enjoyed its company. It was fun. Relaxed. It liked football. And napping. And long walks in the woods. Maybe it should take out a personal ad to increase its popularity, because frankly it surely doesn’t seem very popular any more.

Our old friend Thanksgiving has been lost in the holiday shuffle, a mere bump in the road to grandma’s house between Halloween and Christmas. A bump in the road much like a dead possum — we race right by it, scattering Autumn leaves and hauling a Tupperware container of leftovers as we stumble headlong into the marketing mayhem called Christmas. The skeletons are barely back in their closets nowadays before the Christmas lights are up and the carols are playing.

For the record, I’m against it. With every fiber of my being I loathe seeing/hearing/smelling/tasting anything that has to do with Christmas before the last crumb of pumpkin pie has been snarfed up, much less weeks before I’ve even thought about purchasing the first can of Libby’s. I feel horrible for the poor folks who have to leave their own families to go work for Black Friday cum Gray Thursday Evening cum Slightly Off White Wednesday. Baby Jesus would not approve.

Nor do I. Bah humbug.

Thanksgiving is certainly no wild commercial success. The pilgrim hat and Puritan garb do not lend themselves to party wear. We don’t give scads of elaborate gifts wrapped in festive burnt umber and tangerine. Old Saint Brigit, patron saint of poultry farmers, doesn’t leave her mystical coop in desolate rocky Ireland to break and enter into your house and leave little surprises in your sock. No strings of lights shaped like maize and acorns adorn every twig in the yard. Hand-print turkey art anyone?

But Thanksgiving gives us so much more than just sustenance to fuel our rabid Christmas shopping. Mercifully lacking in gaudy finery, it gives us an opportunity to reflect on the things we are truly thankful for. And I’m not talking about a 30 day slog through social media one-upsmanship. I’m talking about truly counting your blessings, quietly and sincerely.

Thanksgiving gives us an opportunity to share the day with family and friends who are just like family without the pressure of gift giving, the distraction of presents, the looming debt. A chance to focus on the people, not the shiny stuff. A chance to commune over a hot meal and the concomitant leftovers.

I have a feeling my old friend will show up again though. Probably about the time Tom Turkey rolls out on his way to Herald Square, followed by the Broadway numbers, the Rockettes, the balloons (Kermit is always my favorite), and ending with the Man his ownself — Santa Claus. At least Macy’s remembers. Yes, Virginia, there is still a Thanksgiving.

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Talking to the dead

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on January 11, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

I recently found myself alone in a car traveling a bleak and rainy back road with the ashes of a man whom I have never met. Alone for two hours.

“What did you do?” said my friend, as I relayed to her my somewhat odd circumstance.

“I talked to him,” I answered, honestly.

I mean, what else are you going to do? It seemed impolite to do otherwise.

So we (or, rather, I, since it seemed to be a decidedly one-sided conversation) discussed the inclement weather, his new home, and some general current events. I wondered if he already knew what was happening, but since he didn’t interrupt me, I carried on. We (or I) sang along to the radio some as well. After all, two hours is a long time to keep up an amiable social discourse.

You would think my friend might be vaguely surprised that I had spent the better part of two hours chatting away with an urn, maybe even shocked. But she was actually only vaguely amused. She had, after all, implored her husband to dig up her beloved cat’s carcass and move it across two states to their new home in Alabama. He obliged because he, like we all do, understands that Southerners seem to have a unique relationship and fascination with their dead. It’s almost as if they are not. Not really.

For instance, I called Mama shortly before Christmas to coordinate our holiday festivities. High on her list of things to do was getting fresh flowers to the cemetery to decorate the graves of her parents and Daddy’s. And when I say high, I mean high, as in after shopping but before menu and wardrobe planning. After all, everyone needs some Christmas cheer even if they are looking down on it from Heaven. Or up, as the case may be, but we always hope down.

When I was a little girl, Mama, Granny and I spent endless hours in old country cemeteries searching for the final resting places of distant relatives. They would recount generational relationships with such detail and accuracy that it made I Chronicles seem dubious in its recounting. We would also examine the graves of strangers and try to figure out who they must have been in relationship to their neighbors and what their lives must have been like. Lost children. War dead. Widows. All with real lives to be imagined and stories to be told.

Later on, after visits home from college, before I drove back, I would always stop by Pinecrest Cemetery to talk to Baw for a little while. Then I would drive over to Mt. Nebo and say hey to Sarah, my childhood caregiver. I would brush away the debris and the occasional errant fire-ant from their headstones, pull a weed or two, and be on my way assured that they were watching over me as a traveled. Who needs therapy when you can air out all your problems to a marble slab and invariably come around to a solution?

Southerners remember and recognize the birth dates and anniversaries of the dearly departed. We celebrate them, even if for a fleeting moment, as if they were still with us. In the case of those taken too soon, we imagine what they would be doing had they lived. For the elderly, we are thankful for the end of suffering, pain, and dementia and imagine their great reward found in a land of cloudless day.

We plan ahead for Decoration Day so that we can make our rounds to visit everyone. We surround ourselves with their belongings. Granny’s wedding ring. Pawpaw’s shotgun. A crocheted doily. A family Bible with notes scrawled in the margins. We remember our loved ones in the prime of their lives. Happy. Healthy. Carefree.

In the South, with its history of war and poverty, disaster and disease, death is just as sure as the fact that grits is always plural. We’ve learned to cope with and even embrace the inevitable with resignation, respect, and, often, humor. Is there really any other choice?

I had seen pictures of my traveling companion as a young man. Blonde and tanned. Wearing his military uniform. Holding his baby daughter. It was this person with whom I talked during that long car trip from Georgia, not the inanimate jar of dusty remains strapped into the passenger seat. Had he lived, he would have been my father-in-law, and I wanted to make a good impression.

I know it may seem odd, but you know you do it too. It’s really perfectly natural. At least in the South.

Until they start talking back, that is.

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Happy New Year and pass the innards, please.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 30, 2011 | 2 Comments »

Y’all know I’m about as Southern as they come. And those of us reared below (way below) the Mason-Dixon Line are defined by many aspects of our culture, chief amongst them being our traditional foods. But one thing that I have never been able to stomach, literally or figuratively, is the idea of eating innards.

Yes, I said it. Innards. In-erdz, which are defined as “the internal parts of the body, entrails or viscera.” Yum.

Now I understand that New Year’s day is a time to partake of the symbolic food item. I get that greens represent monetary good fortune. I will douse them in pepper sauce and lap them right on up. I will feast on the humble black-eyed pea, which is said to swell with prosperity as it is cooked. And I will more than likely indulge in a bit of bacon or some other sort of innocuous processed pork product so that I will forever move forward just as our porcine friends do as they root.

But I will not, cannot, ingest an innard. Tradition be damned.

I remember Granny and Baw were often known to ring in the New Year by enjoying a big steaming plate of brains and eggs for breakfast. Brains, y’all. Not bacon, not sausage – brains. The very idea is enough to put me off breakfast entirely. Scrambled eggs are just fine on their own, even runny ones. But mix them up with chunks of gray matter, and…well…there’s just not enough ketchup in the world to disguise that.

And I must apologize to all of you lovers of the chitterling, or “chitlin” as they are commonly called. I have smelled them cooking and cannot overcome it. I have eaten some truly foul-smelling cheeses that turned out to be just divine once you got them past the olfactory gland, but between my knowledge of this particular innard’s function and its fragrant nature, I’ll just have to say “no thank you, ma’am.”

Now Mama and Daddy will surely spend the first day of the year as they always do – indulging in head cheese or souse. Now there are two words that I firmly believe should never, ever be used in conjunction. They are “meat” and “jelly,” which is just what souse is – a meat jelly. The long and short of it is this: you cook the creature’s head until all the remaining meat bits give up the ghost and fall into the stock which will then congeal due to the natural gelatins in the skull. My parents will sprinkle some vinegar over this cold, pink gelatinous slab of meat goo (because that makes it better, she says as she rolls her eyes to the heavens) and gobble it up! Not me, brother.

Now I will confess to have eaten, when I was very young in the pre-nugget days, a pickled pig’s foot or two, but that is more of an extremity than an innard. I have very nearly relished a vienna sausage perched atop a Saltine cracker, but that was on a fishing trip. And I really don’t even mind the occasional smear of pate’, but I was in a foreign country. It is there, however, that I must draw the line.

If it looks like an innard and smells like an innard, then by Granny it must be an innard. And somehow I just can’t get my arms up around the fact that eating innards will bring you anything more than a swift gag reflex, much less a whole year’s worth of happiness, health and prosperity.

Which is exactly what I wish for all of you, dear readers. And thank you for reading my little stories, sharing your thoughts and memories, and indulging me in this little folly. I am truly honored to have shared this last year with you and look forward to many more.

Now can somebody please pass the cornbread?

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Uncommonly good

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 27, 2011 | 1 Comment »

I heard on the news this morning that new legislation has been introduced by several New England senators making it a felony to sell fraudulent maple syrup made from, as the reporter put it, “common cane syrup.”

Here’s what I have to say about that – Fine by me!

I think should be a crime to taint perfectly good cane syrup with any sort of flavoring, including and especially maple! In fact, I think it should be a crime to disguise the nectar of this divine grass as anything other than what it is: a nearly-perfect gift, multi-purpose gift from the gods. Common? Hardly.

Sugar cane and I go way back. Baw* planted a big field of sugar cane every year. He and I would go down to the garden to check its progress and he would always cut me a piece of the stalk with his pocket knife and peel back the greenish purple peel so that I could chew all the sweet juice out of the fibrous interior. I would gnaw on it until it was practically dessicated for fear of missing even one drop of sugary goodness.

Little did I know at the time that this reedy confection from which I derived an uncommon amount of enjoyment could be used as fuel, both for people and machines. In India and Central and South America, various derivatives of sugar cane are food staples. Staples. Not condiments. Staples. Rum, a human fuel on a whole other level,  is made by fermenting and distilling molasses. More intriguing to me, however, is the fact that Brazil and the United States lead the world in the industrial production of ethanol. The United States makes it from corn; Brazil makes it from…you guessed it…sugar cane! Yes, sirree. The Brazilians are driving around in cars powered essentially by the same juice that fueled a rambunctious, tow-headed little girl on a farm in South Alabama.

Now the juice of raw sugar cane has a particular, peculiar flavor that is incomparably good, but cook its juices down until they are exquisitely coffee-colored, vaguely burnt tasting, and viscous and, well, that’s damn near perfection.

In November, before the first frost, the sugar cane would be cut. Baw had it hauled over the state line into Mississippi to Mr. Brannon, who had the all of the syrup making equipment and the know-how. On the appointed day, early in the morning, we would ride over there to watch the magic happen. To begin with, the men would feed the cane through a big mill to extract the juice which would then be strained to make sure there were no errant leaves, twigs or yellow-jackets to sully up the final product.

If I was good and didn’t get in the way,  I would get a cup of pure, unadulterated cane juice to sip on. I could be really good when I wanted to. And boy, if there was a cup of cane juice at stake, I wanted to.

Mr. Brannon had a long vat with divided compartments that sat over a hot fire of lightered wood. As the juice fed through the different chambers it would slowly cook while Mr. Brannon walked up and down the length of the vat, skimming, testing, watching until the transformation from liquid to syrup was complete. Waiting for it to get right.

Many hours later, when Mr. Brannon gave the signal, the men would leap into action putting the hot syrup into cans, and Baw and I, smelling like wood smoke and candy, would head home with our share.

Now I have had a lot of fancy desserts in my time, but not one of them holds a candle to my all-time favorite. Take careful note of this complicated recipe and maybe you can recreate it. Take a pat of soft butter and put it in the middle of a plate. Pour a few tablespoons of cane syrup on top of the butter in the middle of the plate. Mash it all up together with a fork. Get you a hot biscuit (homemade, not canned), cut it in two, and slather the butter/syrup concoction on the halves.

Then lap the whole gooey mess up with a reckless disregard for the sticky, buttery bits that drip back down onto the plate. After all, those can be sopped up with another biscuit. Afterward, be sure to lick the last tenacious crumbs from your fingers and marvel in how good and satisfying the whole experience was. Uncommonly  good.

Just try to get that from a tree.

*For those of you just now coming into the story, “Baw” is what I called my maternal grandfather for some reason long forgotten.

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A glorious mess

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 4, 2011 | 2 Comments »

This morning I came into possession of something I can only term a “mess” – a glorious mess.

You see, Brother called me and said that he’d been given a gift, a downright boon if you ask me, but since he was going out of town, he’d be unable to partake in said gift and did I want it. My answer was an unequivocal you’dbetterbelieveitIamonmywayrightnowdon’tdoasinglethinguntilIgetthere!!!

What was this benevolence? This act of kindness? This good fortune hidden in a garbage bag?

I was a mess of raw goober peas!

Just as fresh and purty as you want ‘em to be. Brown, knobby, just smellin’ like green. Why, they still have the stems on them!

Sing with me, ya'll! "Peas, peas, peas, peas...eating goober peas...goodness, how delicious...eating goober peas!"

Now you may not be aware that we are currently faced with a peanut shortage and the price of this lovely legume is about to flat skyrocket. So to get a whole mess of them, why…why I nearly became verklempt. Choked up, I tell you!

Just how much is a “mess,” you ask? Well, when this descriptive unit of measure automatically popped into my mind as I received this windfall, I wondered the same thing. I do know a bushel is a definite unit of dry measure, about 8 gallons, and I know a bushel is made up of 4 pecks, there are 2 gallons in a peck, and so on into the high math of cups. But what about a “mess?”

I know you can have a mess of greens (and don’t I wish I did!) which I think would be about an armload – as many as you can comfortably tote without a sack. But you can also have a mess of fish, which belies the dry measure concept. I think a mess of fish (again, I reiterate, don’t I wish I had one!) would be about a full stringer, maybe a dozen or so. Given these parameters and some general life experience, I would have to surmise that a mess is enough to feed your family and maybe have a little left over to share or put up for later.

Here’s something I know do for sure. Those grand goobers are going to spend a few hours swimming in a boiling, briney bath this very night so that come Saturday, when all our kith and kin are coming to watch the football, we can gobble up this glorious mess, the juice running down our chins and our arms until we are absolutely sick with good fortune. I can’t wait.

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Standing on the promises

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 18, 2011 | 2 Comments »

Nowadays, when the work day nears an end and there’s not enough time left to start another project but too much time to call it church and head to the house, we automatically turn to the computer to fill that void. We stare until our eyes burn at the glare of news, friend updates, celebrity gossip, sales. With aching heads and dulled minds we creep toward the magic hour of freedom.

How did people fill the lull of the afternoon before computers and internet and smart phones? Well, I’ll tell you what my people did.

They played music.

At Mama’s office, along about three o’clock in the afternoon when the last customer had gone, the mail had been taken to the post office, and the phone quit ringing, she and Barbara, her secretary, would pull out their instruments – Mama, the fiddle, and Barbara, the accordion – and commence to playing all the good, old hymns that make you happy to be a child of God.

The old, brown weathered hymnal they played from had dispatched a message of hope to generations of world-weary souls for whom the prospect of cities of gold far outweighed the prospect of another day hauling logs out of the woods and to the mill.

♫ I will meet you in the morning by the bright river side, when all sorrow has drifted away… ♪

Barbara could play anything on the piano or the accordion, you only had to hum a few bars and her long fingers would fly over the keys and fill in your off-key gaps with all the right notes, plus a few embellishments to get you in the spirit.

♫ Precious memories, unseen angels, sent from somewhere to my soul… ♪

Mama, fiddle tucked under her chin and toe tapping time, would draw the bow over the strings releasing the melodies she’d known by heart since childhood. Mama knows every word to every song ever written, no matter how obscure.

♫ As I travel through this pilgrim land, there is a friend who walks with me. Leads me safely through the sinking sand… ♪

"Fiddler" by Audrey

Sometimes Old Man Snookum Wally, a shade-tree mechanic from Okwaukee, would drop by with his guitar or fiddle to play a few songs with them. Once he brought me an old guitar he’d found at a flea market and showed me how to play a few chords. I still have it.

♫ I once was lost in sin, but Jesus took me in, and then a little light from heaven filled my soul… ♪

Claude Platt lived about a block away. Every day, he’d drive over and park in front of the office, go across the street to see what was happening at the police station and then come over to catch up on the latest news, shadowed every step of the way by his big old redbone hound, Skafer. He didn’t play, but he’d clap his gnarled, prize-fighter hands and chime in on the low parts.

♫ Love lifted me (even me), love lifted me (even me). When nothing else could help, love lifted me… ♪

When five o’clock rolled around, the instruments went back into their cases, the lights were turned off, the door locked against the night. And we all headed to our homes, the lingering refrains of faith guiding our way.

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Steam Table Etiquette

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on September 13, 2011 | 2 Comments »

One of the most miraculous inventions ever is the steam table. For those of you not familiar with this giant of gastronomical gadgets, let me explain. The steam table is a long, stainless steel contraption filled with hot water to keep bins of food warm, palatable, and at the ready for the hungry throngs who will pass before its sneeze guard, stomachs rumbling and mouths watering.

What you may not realize is that the steam table commands certain etiquette. There is a method to the madness of providing an endless array of all things fried, casseroled, breaded, broiled, baked, oh…and, of course, steamed. Some establishments are fairly rigid in their expectations that you adhere to the protocol, such as Niki’s West, where an ordering faux pas might just get you passed over, and some are more lax, such as Ted’s, where the nice ladies behind the buffet seem endlessly patient, but you should nonetheless always be on your best.

What, you may wonder to yourself, does etiquette have to do with a steam table? A lot, actually. There are rules – sometimes written, sometimes just understood – but rules at any rate that must be adhered to in order to maintain the integrity and the function of the steam table.

  1. Always keep the line moving. No matter how interesting your companions’ gossip may be, no matter how much you want to know what happened on Young and the Restless, do not become so enthralled in conversation that you fail to move ahead with the line. The people behind you will become restless, start coughing and shuffling in a veiled attempt to snap you out of your oblivion, and eventually will give you an exasperated tap or nudge. The beauty of the steam table, you see, aside from its ability to provide about a million delicious choices at any given time, is its efficiency. Do not, for any reason, no matter what Wanda did at the bridal shower after mimosas and before petit fours, fail to keep the line moving ever forward.
  2. Plan ahead. A menu will always be posted, somewhere. It is your mission to find said menu and make your choices. If you are lucky, like at Niki’s, there will be a menu and the line will make several passes in front of the steam table. You should take this opportunity to assess the menu items. When you get to the trays, however, your decision must be made. When you are acknowledged, do not waver. Do not stammer. Proclaim your choices in a clear and concise manner, and then refer to Rule 1. Your plate will find you on down the line when it is ready for you.
  3. Children do not get to choose. Refer to Rule 2 and discuss the menu options with your child ahead of time. The steam table does not constitute window shopping for food. This is no time for a “teachable moment.” Furthermore, all the choices will break a child down faster than the prize counter at Chuck E. Cheese’s. No one wants to be in line behind you and little Bitsy when y’all get into a standoff because you want her to have broccoli and all she wants is macaroni and cheese. God forbid it escalates to the point where she throws herself to the floor in a hissy fit. Avoid the embarrassment, the reproachful glances, the raised eyebrows. Tell her what she wants ahead of time, get it for her, and keep that line moving!
  4. Get off the phone. The people behind the counter have been there since the early morning. They are hot. They are harried. They will be standing there long after you have finished your coconut pie and third glass of tea. They deserve your attention and respect. Get off the phone and give it to them. Nothing on that phone is so important you can’t take a break to order your meat and three. If it is life or death, you shouldn’t be standing in line at the steam table anyway.
  5. Make sure you are dressed appropriately.If you wish to worship at the Altar of Steam, you must dress for the occasion. Now no one

    Sign in the entryway at Niki's West

    expects you to don your full Sunday-going-to-meeting attire just to get lunch, but you are, after all, out in public and should be suitably clad. I defer to Niki’s again for their bold statement on the proper attire. Please refer to the photo. Take it to heart. Cover what should be covered, make sure your ‘do is done, and head on out for some finger-licken’ good lunch!

  6.  Don’t forget to tip. You may think that since you had to stand in line and carry your own plate, you don’t have to tip. My friend, you thought wrong. The nice lady who had unloaded your tray, kept your glass full, removed your detritus, and fetched you pepper sauce and extra butter is every bit as deserving of a tip as anyone. Be generous. Be more than generous.

The steam table – a Southern institution, a wondrous creation, a meat-and-three miracle. By following just a few itty, bitty rules, common courtesy really, you too can revel all up in it. Just remember to save a slice of pie for me!

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