The Perfect Snow

In rural Southwest Alabama, we rarely get snow. When we do, the whole world stops dead in its tracks. To us, snow can only mean one thing – we must stay put wherever we are, or get somewhere as soon as we can and stay there. None of us know how to drive in snow, and even less about icy conditions. That is why this Saturday was the perfect snow. It was a long weekend. Some of us had plans to go somewhere – which were promptly cancelled. It was Saturday, so the majority of us were not going to work anyway. It couldn’t have happened at a nicer time. We were prepared for a leisure pace already, just by virtue of it being Saturday. We were not yet out of our cozy pajamas when the snow started. In fact, I didn’t get out of my cozy pajamas until the next day.
Like most of us, I had plans for the holiday weekend. I was going to a very special birthday party for a friend turning 50. She had gone to a lot of trouble to plan an interesting party. We were going to the local ceramics shop and make her a commemorative set of dishes. She had her color scheme all outlined. We were each going to make her a plate for a present. She was going to design the platter and have us all sign it.
I was also going to travel to Georgia to visit my sister. Since I am in the tourism business, we were going to get out and scout some of the rural areas around Milledgeville where she lives. I told her to plan something fun. Her reply was “All we have to do to have fun is walk out the door.” That is the truth. I look forward to visiting with her. So much for all those plans….
Instead, I just kept on my satin, flannel lined “I Love Lucy” striped pajamas and my fuzzy mohair socks for the duration. I say duration because the snow only lasted one day. That is what made it perfect. I happened on a holiday weekend and was of short duration. Needless to say, I didn’t go out to play in the snow in my Lucy pajamas. I watched movies I had recorded. I read a good book. I made a bubbling pot of chicken and rice that I turned into a casserole with almonds. I sat by the fireside. I had a memorable nap, my first in months. In short, it was the perfect day. I kept a kettle of tea warm on the stove. The nearest I came to the outdoors was to take a picture of my snow swept garden out of the window. It was a gray, gloomy day that just begged for solitude. I think my soul almost caught up with my body. I listened to classical music and the programming of National Public Radio. When Garrison Keillor talked about the cold, I was right there with him. I was just glad that I didn’t have to get out and shovel snow.
The next day turned off beautiful and bright. I hoisted out my fur coat because it was still cold. We don’t have a lot of use for fur coats around here because generally, a sweater and jacket are enough. They are so much trouble. A fur weighs a lot. I do like them. I am not one of those people who has an attitude about wearing animals. My fur coats have generally had previous owners. I am very fond of vintage furs. The way I look at wearing fur is that if I wasn’t wearing it, those little critters would have given their lives in vain. Apparently, a lot of people in my church share similar feelings, because we looked like a bunch of Eskimos at the Methodist church. It’s hardly worth it. We run to the car in our furs, then dash into the church. When we get in, we discard the furs. When we get into the sanctuary, we either have to sit on them, or bother the person in the pew in front of us, or wear the heavy thing. Some vanities just may not be worth it. None of us would want furs anyway unless we had seen movie stars draped in them on the silver screen.
Speaking of the silver screen, a cold weekend is the perfect time for movies. It’s also the perfect time for reading, visiting by the fireside and just letting your soul catch up with your body. It’s a gift from the Universe that we are just too busy to give ourselves – the gift of relaxation and coziness.

A Good Pot of Something

Winter calls for a good pot of something bubbling on the stove. Anybody can have one. People who are gone to work all day can use a crock pot and the rest can enjoy the smell while they have a Dutch oven on the stove top.
People in rural southwest Alabama will generally have their pots full of vegetable soup which will always include lots of tomatoes, butterbeans, okra, and corn as the chief ingredients as well anything else. If you say vegetable soup to anybody around here, you better have put those things in the soup if you call it vegetable. A lot of folks put up what they call “soup mix” in jars or frozen. The quantities of the four aforementioned vegetables will vary according to how good the four individual crops were during the previous growing season. I am going to say something sacrilegious now, but I feel I must do it in the interest of sharing our culture. You can use canned tomatoes and butterbeans. You can use frozen okra and corn. When I think how the canners I know have slaved over their soup mixes, I feel bad for them. Putting up vegetables is a slave maker. Any person who has ever put up fresh vegetables knows what I am talking about. When they are ready, it’s now or never. They must be picked at their peak of ripeness, and canned or frozen instantaneously. I have seen many vacations postponed or not taken because “the corn will be coming in soon”. Corn is the worst taskmaster of all because its very sweetness depends on a speedy processing. Now there is a frozen corn put up in packages like bulk sausage that taste just like Momma’s that she grated off the cob. The people who take great pride in their own corn canning even have to admit that they have been equaled. I suspect they are secretly glad of the alternative. Corn canning is the worst slave master of all. You can’t even wait a day on it. Okra, butterbeans, and tomatoes can be held out a day, if you spread them out on newspapers so they don’t go through a heat. Butterbeans and okra can actually be refrigerated. Tomatoes can be refrigerated as a last resort, but they won’t be as good. Corn can’t have any of this forgiveness. In fact, I decided long ago that I would buy my corn in the roll because I don’t have any masochistic tendencies and I think putting up corn is a subtle form of torture. I thank God for large scale farmers and wish them commercial success of the greatest magnitude.
I am going to have to admit something else to you. This traditional vegetable soup is not my favorite pot of something. One pot meals are some of my favorite foods, but I like variety. I actually like the other local traditional bubbling pot better. It is dry beans cooked with some form of pork. It can be a ham bone or bacon or even a good smoked sausage such as our local Conecuh or Monroeville brands. They can be plain or have a whole onion or some garlic thrown in. They can be seasoned with plain salt or my favorite Creole seasoning. They can be soaked ahead of time for a nearer fresh texture or cooked long and hard for a mushy texture. Any of these ways they are delicious. They can be a meal in themselves or a side dish. They best way to eat them is in a bowl like soup with crumbled cornbread and chopped green onions.
Another soup pot specialty I have just come to terms with in my old age is the hunter’s delight – venison or deer meat as the locals call it. I had some bad experiences with deer meat in my childhood. Somebody would have a deer drive and give Mama some meat. She would tell us it was beef and cook it bone dry in the oven. The poor deer was already filled with hormones from running for its life on the deer drive. Then to be cooked without special seasonings and misrepresented as beef was a bad deal for all concerned. I always thought deer meat tasted funny and usually it does, unless properly butchered after not being run through the woods with brooms, guns and whooping hunters in hot pursuit.
I am finally convinced that venison can be good food, if prepared properly. I have a gentleman caller who knows how to treat it right. He waits for it in a tree, shoots it quietly without fanfare, and then bleeds it out right away. He then hangs it up and begins the butchering process. He removes all fat and tendons, leaving only chunks of meat. He then grinds it twice himself, or cuts the tenderloin into slices. When he makes a pot of venison chili, I’ll put it up against anybody’s chili – beef or venison. We ate it two nights in a row recently. The first night the chili was served in a bowl with cornbread, onions and yellow cheese. I don’t know why it had to be yellow cheese, but when I put out some pepper jack cheese, he objected and ‘lowed as how only yellow cheese would do. Of course, I had some on hand. My house is cholesterol heaven. The second night, I made a taco salad with the chili. I loved the little extra crunch of the vegetables.
I would be happy to have a pot of something bubbling on the stove every night of the winter. I think pots contain my favorite foods. I’m not through telling you about our pots of things. This is TO BE CONTINUED.

More Simmering Pots

I told you I wasn’t through talking about pots simmering on the stove. How could I end with some many southern food specialty pots yet unexplored? There are several local delicacies that we haven’t talked about as well as some of my own favorite creations. There is nothing more creative than a one pot meal and this is the time of the year when a simmering pot equals a feeling of home and wellbeing.
Every southern cook has some variation of chicken and dumplings as well as a gumbo recipe. The original creation of chicken and dumplings came as a result of having a tough old bird that needed eating. It had to be turned into chicken and dumplings, dressing, or chicken salad in the traditional rural southwest Alabama kitchen. The chicken would create a fat rich broth. Some cooks were content to just stew the chicken with salt and pepper. I could never let well enough alone. I have to put celery, onions, carrots and herbs in my broth along with a tenderer version of the chicken. I might even add some tiny English peas to pot at the end since they don’t take long to cook.
The preparation of dumplings is a personal matter. Originally, it was a matter of making a biscuit dough or pie crust and rolling it out thin. The dumplings would be dried for a few minutes, and then slid into boiling chicken broth. The pot would then be covered and allowed to simmer for a bit on low heat. The best dumplings I ever ate were a tie between those prepared by Dot Ellison of Midway Baptist Church and Miss Lola Brown of St Stephens. Miss Lola’s are thicker. Dot’s were thin and silken. I had Dot give me dumpling making lessons. I learned that her tricks were to use very little shortning in the dough, roll them paper thin, then let them dry for 15 minutes. Women now rarely have the patience of Dot and Lola. They want instant dumplings. Some use canned biscuits. Some use bought dumplings. I have discovered a perfect substitute for Dot’s thin, silken specialty (please forgive me, Dot). I use flour tortilla, sliced into strips directly from the package. They are a duplicate of Dot’s painstaking labor. Try it. I won’t tell if you won’t.
Gumbo is another painstaking process if you make a roux. Around here we call any thick soup with okra a gumbo, but the real one always starts with a roux. Making a roux is a long process of browning flour and fat together without burning it. Fortunately,
I ran upon a real Louisiana Cajun with an eye toward progress. He taught me to make a roux in the microwave. You take a two cup Pyrex measuring cup and put in ½ c each of flour and your favorite fat. Mine is bacon grease with no apologies, but my vegetarian friend uses olive oil with good results. You put it in for 2 ½ minutes on high, then stir. If it is not brown enough to suit you, then put it in for a minute more. You can then dump it into a pot and add the vegetables you wish to sauté in the roux. Gumbo is something you can’t shortcut the simmering process in to meld the flavors of the seasonings. However, if you are making seafood gumbo, the seafood should only be added at the very end (about the last 15-20 minutes) or it will be tough and dry. The shrimp will all but disappear if cooked too long. Again, this will be continued. It’s dinner time.

A Sense of Place

What is the best thing about the place you are right now? If you were to take a snapshot of this moment what would you like to save in your memory? For me, it would be the sense of coziness I feel from being inside on this cold, wet day. Most of my life is one big scamper, running from place to place meeting with people. I love doing it, but after running around in the rain all day yesterday, it’s wonderful to sit quietly in my own space, hearing the birdsong outside the window and the classical music on the radio, wearing casual clothes. I’ve already been out and about this morning for a meeting. I have more later in the day, but the next few hours are mine to be in one place. It is the time I use to bond with my surroundings and be glad that I can be still and think.
We all need a space that is our thinking place. Mine is in my living room. I have an old house that snuggles around me when I have time to light for a little while. I bought this house when my husband (now my ex-husband) was out of town. Buying the house has nothing to do with exing. It was a different issue entirely, but that’s another story in another lifetime.
When I walked into this house it said to me “Where have you been all this time?”.
We were looking at the house across s the street that did not speak to me in the same way. The people living in the house were moving and had three people lined up to look at the house. Fortunately, I was the first. I bought it on the spot. Old houses were not as expensive in those days before they got trendy. My husband of the era was fine with it. My parents were aghast. They had grown up in old houses and were thrilled with their cozy cottage. My daddy said “Why on earth would you want an old house? They are cold and drafty.” My mother remembered everybody having to huddle around the fireplace to stay warm in the front, while the backside was still cold.
They could not understand because they were not antique collectors. They didn’t like antiques for the same reason that they didn’t like old houses; they were part of the post WWII generation that wanted everything modern. No old stuff for them, thank you very much! I had already been collecting antiques for a while. When we moved in this house, I had bought a grand piano that I had no place to put. The people were keeping it for me until I found a place for it. This house was that place. I say was, because although I am still in the house, the piano is long gone. Like every mother, I had high hopes for my children and culture. Neither of them would take piano lessons. I gave up on culture and the grand piano about the same time. I sold the piano and kept the uncultured children, who both, incidentally, at one time or another have said to me that they wish they had taken piano lessons. I say uncultured tongue in cheek because both of my children began to exhibit cultural tendencies later in life. Both have an appreciation for art, music, history, and literature. They have both been to museums and concerts. My daughter is a world traveler and my son is a history major. He and I had a conversation once about travel. I asked him if he could go anywhere in the world where he would like it to be. Of all things, he said “Versailles” and he pronounced it right. Since my children were both raised in rural southwest Alabama and turned out to exhibit cultural tendencies, I am pleased.
I certainly do not apologize for being in rural Alabama. It has a great feeling to me. It has a sense of place that I wish I could share with you. Those of you from here who are reading this in some other part of the world will know what I mean. We may have a cold wet day today, but tomorrow will be beautiful. It may be 18 degrees tonight, but it won’t last long.
Even on this cold wet day, I can look out the windows and see the beauty of the bleak landscape. There are a lot of evergreen shrubs around the yard and the bare trees have a purplish hue against the grey. I have 5 big windows in my living room that I keep uncovered so I can enjoy the outdoors, as well as two in the dining room. I have tried at various times to curtain them. I have even brought home nice silk drapes on occasion to try. I just can’t do it. Bringing the outdoors inside is part of my sense of place. I have a wonderful scented candle to perfume the air and music wafting about me.
After Christmas, I found a gilded JOY with a place for a votive candle in front on a platform. It sounds tacky, but I am enjoying it as a reminder that JOY is the most important thing to focus on. Liking where you are is putting you halfway there in finding
JOY in your sense of place.

New Orleans Trip

I shared a little about the New Orleans trip on my last blog, but I didn’t tell you much about the city itself. New Orleans is coming back. I was down last January during Mardi Gras and the place felt like it had no soul. This year that had changed. New Orleans felt good again.
We accidentally picked the National Championship Football weekend to travel down for our eating day. I certainly had not a clue. I am a Public Radio fan, not a sports fan. Apparently, birds of a feather flock together, because all of us girls were surprised to find ourselves in football land. I had no idea how many variations of fan attire regalia existed. There are the basic school colors, the embellished fan colors, a multitude of fan message shirts and suits, plus fan emblazoned camouflage. None of them appealed to my fashion sense. I realize that I am in the minority of southern people in this attitude. Apparently, it is not just southerners. There were whole hoards of funnily dressed people going up and down Bourbon Street yelling O-H-I-O in unison. Sports are a big thing. I realize that. I just didn’t realize how many people would travel so far and spend so much money to be peculiarly dressed and yelling things.
New Orleans is all about food to people like me. When I go there, I go to eat. A trip always entails a trip to the Café Du Monde for coffee and beignets, even though I HATE chicory in my coffee. It always means a trip to the Central Grocery for a muffaletta to take home. I love those big fat loaves of bread stuffed with cheese, cold cuts and olive salad. It means having some kind of seafood done with something spicy. We had dinner at Arnaud’s. I discovered that I really like their version of Creole mustard. The one I buy at the grocery store has too much vinegar. Theirs is milder and is even good on crackers.
The good thing about living in driving distance of New Orleans is that we can go back often if we choose to sample a variety of dishes. We have always considered New Orleans as the place to go when we are feeling cosmopolitan and adventurous. New Orleans is the nearest thing we have in the US to a European city.
Our culinary heritage here is rural southwest Alabama has always been influenced by the Creole heritage. We have always loved seafood, spices and fats in our cooking. Every cook has some form of gumbo in their repertoire. We just go to New Orleans to get new takes on what we are already preparing or to eat something a little fancier than we are used to, and then we come home and make it. Some of us buy cookbooks with the recipes in them. Others of us just taste and correct the seasonings until we get it right, but all of us look to New Orleans as our cultural icon of eating. Food is a big part of our culture and we go to New Orleans to get a fix. We save our money, and then go eat well. We can’t think of a better way to have a good time and bring home good memories. New Orleans welcomes one and all – those who are casual and those who dress funny.

SEESAW WEATHER

This is already a strange year for weather here in rural southwest Alabama. At the turn of the year, it was 15 degrees. Now it is 72 and porch weather. To tell you the truth, I kind of like this seesaw weather. It gives us the best of both worlds – hot and cold. I don’t know how I’d fare in a world of shoveling snow for 4 months or more a year. Snow has always been a romantic fantasy as in “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” or “Let it Snow, Let it Snow. Let it Snow.” I became a huge fan of the television series “Northern Exposure” when it was on back in the 90s. I have always romanticized about wintering over there just once since then.
When we have a day of snow down here, it paralyses everything. Schools shut down. Nobody goes out anywhere if they can help it. We all make big pots of something bubbling on the stove, pop popcorn, and make hot chocolate. It’s like a minor holiday of sorts. It is a passing fancy. We are not like a consultant that I work on projects with from upstate New York. When we were planning our next meeting, some one suggested February. She looked skeptical, and then laughed. There are no February statewide meetings where she is from because all the snow makes it hard to get together. They have had a particularly hard year this year with winter storms. Here, we’ve just had a little taste of bitter cold.
Right now, my laptop and I are sitting on the front porch contemplating life in 72 degree weather, which to my way of thinking, is just about perfect. I have on a long sleeved shirt, but it is cotton. I am barefoot. The wind chimes tinkle gently in the breeze
I have a big glass of iced tea nearby. Tea is a passion of mine.
I had a major tea adventure Saturday afternoon. A group of friends went over to New Orleans for the day. Yes, we are within eating distance of the Food Capitol of the United States. We can get there in a little over 4 hours. If we are with a group of friends, we can use that time to catch up with each other. We all live in different places and don’t get to visit as much as we’d like. We all meet up in the Mobile area and travel together.
The New Orleans trip was on the cusp of the bitter cold weather, but turned out to be a balmy day. We enjoyed time in the French Quarter eating around, but the highlight of the trip was having tea at Windsor Court, a small British boutique hotel on the edge of the Quarter. As you know, the British take their tea seriously d they price their afternoon tea accordingly. Some things are worth it. This is one of them. I am a tea drinker. It is my morning beverage of choice. Whenever I travel, I buy teas and have quite a collection. Rarely do I find one I don’t like. One that I didn’t like was a chocolate orange hazelnut green tea I bought in Baltimore. It sounded better than it turned out to be. Windsor Court serves none of that nonsense. Theirs is real British tea leaves made in pots to order. There were 5 of us, so we each got a different kind of tea. We had great fun passing the pots around and trying them all. Between us, we got Earl Grey, Jasmine, Pomegranate Oolong, Christmas Spice Tea and Gunpowder Green. I think my favorites were Earl Grey and Pomegranate Oolong.
One of my friends tells a wonderful tea story that I always think of when I drink Earl Grey tea. She said she was having afternoon tea at the Adolphus Hotel in Houston with a newly rich third wife oil heiress who was trying to learn the habits of civility. She looked at the tea list and said “Gimme some of that Early Grey tea”. I love that story.
I know that tea drinking has a reputation for stuffiness, and places like Windsor Court are a bit formal in their service. I wondered if we would be under dressed for the occasion in our jeans and weekend wear. I shouldn’t have worried. There were women at tea dressed in Ohio State jerseys that were in town for the national football championship game. There was also one chick dressed in what could only be described as hooker clothes. She had on a red sequined bustier over black satin Capri pants. These folks were treated with the utmost civility by the staff. I’m glad to see the world relaxing.
The food with the tea was not thrilling. There were 3 courses of foods. They were beautifully presented on fine china and silver stands. The sandwiches were a bit dry with no butter or mayonnaise on them. The scones were delightful, with their accompanying clotted cream, lemon curd, and raspberry preserve, but were heavy and filling. The chocolate and bite sized desserts were from a purchased source. Well, you don’t’ go to tea at Windsor Court for the food anyway. It’s the atmosphere. There was a chamber music group playing during tea time. The Christmas decorations were still up on Twelfth Night. They were beautiful and quite tasteful. There were swaged garlands made entirely of magnolia leaves gilded and twined with little gold lights. There were matching wreaths in all the windows adorned only with a red ribbon lined with gold. In the Center of the lobby was a Christmas tree the size of a swimming pool. It was the experience we went for. I feel very civilized just sitting here on the porch contemplating the memory.
Maybe when the weather turns cold again, I’ll have some friends over for afternoon tea. It will cold again soon. It is January, so we can count on it. At least we won’t have to worry about shoveling snow!

WHAT THE BLACK BELT MEANS TO ME

I’ve lived in the Black Belt all my life except for a brief foray into the city for a few years in Birmingham. The vibrations are different there. I realized it when I would go and come. I could feel my roots getting reconnected with the soil as soon as I hit Perry County on my way south. I noticed it, too, when I went through Dallas County to visit a friend in Sardis. Somehow, the Black Belt just feels different from the rest of Alabama. The difference is in a good way. The whole thing is a sense of place. It feels like I belong to the land and it belongs to me.
An extension of the feeling of belonging is connected to relationships. Before I went to Birmingham, I knew the people I could count on. The friendships were real and genuine. Once I got to Birmingham, I found a whole different group that would have run over their grandmother with a transfer truck to get ahead in whatever they were pursuing. Maybe cities are all pavements and striving, more cutthroat, faster paced. Maybe as a rural person, I value relationships and nature more than I do fame and fortune. Maybe I care more about sitting on the porch sharing stories with friends than I would about going to the charity balls and having my picture in the paper while wearing a fancy dress.
It’s not as though people in the Black Belt don’t know how to entertain. We’ll easily travel fifty miles to go to a good party anytime. It’s always been that way. One of my favorite stories that I share while sitting on the porch is one told me by Carl Morgan, a former mayor of Selma. He grew up in Uniontown in the 1920s. Carl Carmer says of Uniontown in his book “Stars Fell on Alabama”…”There are two places in the world where they know how to throw a good party – Paris, France , and Uniontown, Alabama.” A friend whose mother grew up in Uniontown recounted the quote to me while we were at a good party in Uniontown.
Carl Morgan’s story sums up a lot of things about entertaining in the Black Belt.
His father had a hunting camp where during hunting season, he would entertain out of town guests. The rest of the time, he and his local friends would go out there to get away from the women and drink whiskey. Nobody drank anything but bourbon whiskey and they drank a lot of it when they got together. Their wives didn’t particularly like it when they drank so much, so they headed for the woods and a hunting camp to hide out.
Mr. Morgan wanted to do something special for his friends at his entertainment. The month had an “R” in it, so he ordered a sack of oysters to be sent up from Mobile on the train. He went to the local railroad station and teletyped to Mobile to find out how long it would take to get the oysters from Mobile to Uniontown. He found out it would take 6 hours by train. The oysters would be sent in a forty pound sack in the shell and packed on ice, so they would be perfectly safe to eat upon arrival. Oysters would only be serve in a month with a “R” in it for two reasons: one was that it would be cooler weather with less likelihood of spoilage ,and the other was that in the months without an “R’, the oysters would be less flavorful because they would be spawning. Oysters have always been considered a winter delicacy in the Black Belt, and Mr. Morgan knew he would please his guests.
When the oysters arrived, Mr. Morgan took them and his cook Zeola out to the camp. He made the cocktail sauce ahead of time, so the flavors could blend. He instructed Zeola to shuck the oysters, and then serve cups of them to the men while they drank their whiskey before dinner.
The men began drinking and awaiting Mr. Morgan’s treat. He called out to the kitchen to Zeola to see if they oysters were ready. She assured him it wouldn’t be much longer. He had to call several more times before she finally arrived carrying one cup of oysters. When Mr. Morgan questioned Zeola on where the rest of the oysters were, she said “When I got through getting all the black stuff out, this is all that was left.” His friends didn’t get any oysters, but they got a great story to tell that lived on long after both Mr. Morgan and Zeola were gone. Getting one cup of oysters out of a 40 pound sack makes a great tale. The guests left knowing they had been well entertained. The meal would have lasted a few minutes, but they could dine out on the joke on Mr. Morgan for the rest of their lives, having a story good enough to be passed into generational lore. All the elements of the Black Belt are there: an appreciation for good food and entertaining, with an even greater appreciation for storytelling, socializing, and being in a natural setting. The people were real. They made mistakes in communication, but the mistakes were honest and without malice, just like the people. In the Black Belt, we treasure who we are: ancestors, warts and all.