Grazing

Sometimes when the idea of a meal just doesn't come to fruition then I just graze.   The past few weeks I have had a lot of issues and situations going thru my mind and it has been difficult how to express some of these thoughts cohesively, so this blog entry is a grazing piece, just tasty bullet points.

• I watched the documentary on the "God Hates America," leader/founder Fred Phelps called "Fall from Grace," and there is so much to say; but it would only be anger fueled right now and in risk of giving any of his hate speak any further attention all I can say is that I truly deep down feel sadness and pity for him and his family and any followers or congregation members in his church.   I pray that one day they will find the Love of God and all their hate will melt away.
• Love and hate can both be action words.   Hate can speak blood, sweat and tears; but Love takes blood, sweat and tears.
• I feel sorrow for those who give their hearts, minds, and money over to the likes of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck.
• Glenn Beck being in Washington, DC is a sad day for free speech and a sad reminder how easily ignorance begets ignorance.
• Reaction is usually ill informed fear
• I am thankful for Erma Bombeck and her legacy of domestic satire (i.e.  If Life is a Bowl of Cherries Then What am I doing in the Pits?;  Family:  The Tie that Binds.....and Gags!; The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank.)  It makes me smile esp. in personal times of domestic lulls.
• It is time for the Obama administration to grow up and start plowing thru all the mumbo jumbo out there.   I believe in him it is time for the administration to believe in themselves once again.

What topic might you, the reader want to see covered in my blog?

Until the next full en tree enjoy grazing my darlings.

Limp Lettuce

Apathy is just LAZY parading around in a fancier vocabulary word

~(Russell Jackson)

I was reminded the other day that one of the top ten food tragedies is biting into wilted lettuce.   I have been known (allegedly~ wink, wink) to love GOOD Southern fried food, buttermilk biscuits, blackberry cobbler, and butter; however I do love fresh veggies.   Overcooked veggies are another tragedy but nothing is as disappointing as the anticipation of biting into a good club sandwich or Caesar salad only to not feel that crisp cold crunch and instead find a limp slimy piece of lettuce.  

As I grow older the cold soul less indifference of apathy like limp lettuce is an infuriating discovery. 

I am thankful for technology, don't get me wrong; but as much as technology has helped society in its progression I feel that it has also had an unintended side effect that results in a good old fashioned case of the "Lazies."   As smart phones, texting, and I-pods help us tune out the world I see that so many are so tuned out that they cannot be bothered anymore to be a real functioning part of society.   

I see people so tuned into their texting that they have walked out in front of cars.   I have waited on people who think having a conversation while they order is okay and get frustrated when I can read their sign language supposedly directing me as to what they want.   The few times that I have commented that if they hung up or paused their conversation long enough to tell me their order they act as if I am the one with bad manners or worse yet they shrug their shoulders in indifference.

I think apathy is the most frustrating quality in a person, government, or society at large.   At least when there is an argument I feel that the person on the other side might actually have an opinion that he or she has thought about or shock, shock, horror of all horror CARES about.   

I think this new higher tech method of tuning out has helped society slip more comfortably into their apathetic lazy boy recliners and throw care to the satellite and gigabyte winds.   Again, technology, Per Se,  is not the evil here, there are a lot of variables.    

Let's face the fact that "caring," does take more work than a shrug of the shoulders or a roll of the eyes.   If we are talking politics here then "caring," means being involved enough to read, listen, and learn.   It means not just hearing one sound byte that tells us what we want to hear but sifting through several sides of the story to at least be somewhat able to hold a conversation and or debate on a subject.    If we are talking relationships it can be as complex as answering "I don't know," to a question about why the relationship isn't working to as easy as "I don't care," when asked what do you feel like for dinner.   (Don't get me started down that path!)

It is one thing to be easy going and carefree; but easy going and carefree doesn't equal apathetic or non-caring.  

Apathy is dangerous.   In a smaller setting such as one's personal relationships ironically the "I don't knows/I don't cares," can eventually erode the basic foundation of a relationship.   If you don't care or don't know about a lot of things then eventually the other person(s) feel you ultimately don't respect them enough to take the time to care or know.

In society Apathy grows opportunity for propaganda, disease, and even war.   I think this recent economic meltdown for example has become worse because all of our outlets of tuning out has kept us shielded and blind to the brewing storms and underlying causes that pummels our financial stability to this day.

I agree it is nice when life is calm and you can coast along.   I have no problem in adapting to a life that is drama free; however being able to evolve means sometimes getting involved.  Settling for a bowl full of limp lettuce to me means settling for a life of so-so.   I still say there is nothing better than taking a bite full of crisp crunch.   I think life needs crunch.

Canned Biscuits

It was not cafe society, it was Nescafe society~ Noel Coward

I have never been able to reconcile canned biscuits in any form.   Even my dear Southern Cook Diva Paula Deen has several dishes which utilizes canned biscuits and I've been there and the end verdict is that the ideas were time savers but not taste bud pleasers.   The recipes were not bad tasting but neither were they blow your mind good.   Biscuits are one of those foods where homemade is mandatory in my opinion.   There are other examples of food that I believe needs to be as organic to homemade as possible.   I believe friends come under the same category as pieces of your life that need to remain as organic and original as possible.

A few years ago during my second go around in the amazing Southern California oasis, San Diego I fell into a little click that was unexpected and turned out to be more drama than it was worth.   You know that pop that can biscuits make when you open them, well when ever I have gone the canned biscuit route there were two things I could count on; I always jumped when the can popped and I was always underwhelmed by their taste and wound up feeding them to the birds and squirrels in the park.   Well I get those feelings every time I think back on those friends.   Thankfully just like I never use or rarely am served canned biscuits I hardly ever think about those bleak days and fake friends.

I ran across the Noel Coward quote above a few days ago and I agreed completely with Mr. Coward.   Sometimes you find people are just not what they present themselves to be.   I could give a lot of juicy stories about this couple of years in my life; but that maybe another story or novel another time.   The main and quite hard lesson I had to learn is that you have to let go of those things or persons in your life that makes your journey full of drama, less genuine, or even just bland.  

When I left San Diego I let go of a lot of all the hurt and anger I had experienced during that acquaintanceship with that click.   The triangle had grown incestuous and  it seemed that even maintaining friendships with even the fringe people whom I had grown close to out of that group still came with strings and tainted energy from the core group I had pulled away from.   The hard part was letting go of those friendships.   I came to realize that although these people had wonderful qualities the fact was they couldn't cut their losses as well and remove themselves from the center of  that negative energy.   I found my last communication with some of them still talking smack and relating disappointments in the core group; but they still endeared themselves to them through dinner parties, clubbing, and miscellaneous other functions.  

I found myself feeling that anxious feeling I got when unrolling the canned biscuits anticipating the pop every time I talked to one of them.   The anticipation of hearing more gossip on the others or what one of them had said or did to this one, it was still one last string keeping me remotely attached.    Even at a non invested literal thousand mile distance I came to realize that even that remote string had to be cut for me to move on in my own life.  

It is easy to stay in something because it has just become the norm or it is easier than just letting go.   Letting go is such a powerful step.   The older you get and the more stuff life hands you the more you realize how precious time is and how little room you have for all the clutter and drama.   Instant coffee is easy but brewed tastes heavenly, so why bother with instant.   Canned biscuits don't taste horrible but they are a very poor substitution.  Friends and people in general in your life that pull energy away from you adding drama, negativity or just existing in your life is like a flavorless canned biscuit on a plate.  

Tossing Salad: Obama's Religion, A Mosque & Gay Marriage~ OH MY!

"I tossed so much salad that I forgot the fucking dressing~ I need a drink!"  
~ June Bug Guice

Summertime brings about the predictable magazine and food show clips with ideas on salads and bbq.    They are always titled something obligatory like "A New and Fresh Way to Spruce up your Summer Salads!"   Blah, blah, and blah, blah, blah, blah!  Not that salads & barbecues aren't a sensible and season appropriate food; but much like the media making much ado about nothing like Obama's confusing religious ties, a mosque in NYC and then don't forget forbidden and "fabric of society threatening," Gay marriage; there is just too much focus on unoriginal material and rhetorical "been there, done that," bullshit that we forget the important stuff.   (How do you like that segue way folks!   No, your Diva is not afraid to reach and grasp when she has to!)

I used to work in food service when paying my way through college and I was lucky (god, I can't believe I just said that) enough to land myself in a new retirement facility.   I learned and heard amazing stories from a gilded generation of elderly folk.   Most of all I was blessed to work with this crazy out of a sit-com cast of characters.   One of my favorites was this curmudgeonly chain smoking, quip slinging woman named June Bug.  The quote above come from her on a day of an event we were preparing for at the "home," and of course chaos and insanity ruled the day.   Even though she is gone I still hear her funny quips and crazy stories and I laugh.   There is no way to shed light on how funny this quote was because you all would have had to of course been there; yet picture in your mind Bette Davis (circa All About Eve) playing Flo (from the sit-com Alice) with a deep smoky boozy voice like Bea Arthur and you may be able to envision how over the top funny this one moment and this one little snippet could be.

Like that day (here comes another "smooth" segue way) I can't help but to envision myself taking on the role of June Bug Guice being delivered like Bette Davis playing Flo from Alice standing on the front steps of the White House and delivering that line over a loud speaker in front of thousands of reporters and live news cameras.  Although I would add an addendum:  "Stop this fucking insane ignorant white noise and get something fucking done already, HELLO our economy is sinking down an already shit clogged toilet!"   (How is that for a vivid statement!)

All of the right wingers, tea party zealots and media are tossing this huge shit storm of a salad with very benign thin veneered sustenance to take away the spotlight from the fact the economy is spiraling downward again, we are slowly (but trust me) losing interest on the BP spill creating a small window of opportunity to perhaps skip out of some responsibilities and clean up and ultimately tying up the President so that he has to worry about wading through all this iceberg lettuce to get to any real nutritional nugget of any count.

The Republicans and the right wingers all of a sudden realized they could not keep using the rhetoric about Obama screwing up the economy and throwing away zillions of dollars like wilted lettuce because they have no real solution except to say and vote "NO," on everything.   All of sudden is this rhetoric not only sounding like the wrong way to Americans without jobs and dependable income; but some are starting to wake up to the fact that "Oh yeah, some of these Republicans were there during the past Bush Whacker Jr. Presidency of 8 years which led to this huge meltdown."  

And I'm not just blasting the right wingers and mislead misnamed so called tea party numb skulls!   Here is some whoop ass for the left and middle as well.   Whining and putting out the fires is like digging through your salad to locate a croûton that still has crunch.   Send the fucking salad back and get a new one for god's sake!   You cannot run nor hide nor just rebut the opposition at this point.   Remember many Americans obviously voted for Bush Whacker Junior twice so our new found "moment of change and racial evolution," is very very fragile at best.   It is to easy for the masses to return to their dumbed down rhetoric from the likes of Palin that we are at a very slippery slope my darlings.  

And oh, as for the middle~ well sit on your asses as usual on this mid term election, it might be a good idea this time.

The fact that America which is founded on religious freedom is caring what religion he is and if he goes in public to pray (and how often) and so blatantly spewing hate about a mosque's right to build because it is a few blocks from a national tragedy & lest we forget about the battle scared equal rights of a segment of the population to marry because it offends someone's religious views on the sanctity of marriage is simply UN-AMERICAN.  

How would Sarah Palin or Meg Whitman feel if their state or nation had to vote on whether or not they could marry their spouses?    Again it is another piece of  freedom of religion we are all supposedly guaranteed in this country.   How can my religious views affect your religious views?   If I don't like your religious views does this mean I should draw up a Prop 8-esque initiative to be voted on to ban your view?  

This is at the very heart of why the pilgrims sought out the new world because at the time England was demanding one way of  religious thought and practice.   Those that vote on Prop 8 or any ban on Gay Marriage, those who care what religion Obama is, and those who spread hate about a Mosque to be built without thinking through their opposition call themselves Americans but ironically their actions and their words prove they ultimately disapprove of America's first founding ideas, they are proving to be ignorant of their path that could shake and undo the foundation of this great country.   They are proving to be Un-American.   Their salad is truly tossed and without dressing.  

Heart Kicking

A friend recently posted on Facebook that he just got his heart kicked again.   A reminder that heart break happens to us all.   One of the great levelers of the playing field for all is love with its peaks and inevitably its valleys.   This friend of mine is amazingly handsome, eyes so deep that you drown every time he even says hello.   Beyond all the physical attributes is a heart as big as all get out.   Generous with hugs and smiles he lights up the darkest corner in any space.   So it is always so hard for me to imagine anyone could hurt this beautiful creature; but like I say, Love makes victims out of all of us at one time or another.

Ironically Judy Garlands drops on my playlist singing Almost like Being in Love and I wonder when a hopeless romantic like me fell out of love with being in love?   I still discover the remains of the romantic in me from time to time; but unfortunately I discover them when I’ve allowed myself to start to have expectations and hope about how things are going in my own relationship and then the inevitable shoe drops and I become aware of the reality and boundary of this kind of romantic dreaming and scheming.

I understand now why all of my friends who were in long term relationships and marriages always told me that it takes “work.”  I guess those of us who are the hopeless romantics think things should be sort of a magic carpet ride at least 50% of the time.   I foolishly thought that all this heart break and being kicked in the heart kind of stuff would be a part of my history when I dated all those losers and found the Prince.   All of a sudden I would have rewritten happy endings to Funny Girl and The Way We Were with my shiny new mind blowing relationship.

The truth is it is pretty mind blowing.   Mind blowing that at the end of the day, when all is said and done and I’ve stepped out of my fairy tale bubble bath that it does, after all, take work.   The other mind blowing thing is that you are in this relationship and you still get your heart kicked around.    Wasn’t all that bullshit supposed to end the minute you cross over that dating stage into the “together forever,” stage?   Reality Check my darlings, at least for me, you can get your heart kicked even by the alleged "Mr. Right."    Friends I’ve known that have been together for twenty years gives me even more startling facts that indeed even after that amount of time they still get their hearts trampled on from time to time.   WTF?

Sometimes I worry that I must be building up all these walls because I notice things that used to ruffle me barely even register in my heart and tear ducts anymore.   But then something will come along and I find myself feeling kicked in the heart and I guess it is at that point that I can take heart that if I’m feeling it that strongly then I must not be heartless after all.

I am slowly learning that not everything has to live up to my fantasy and somehow balance that with still trying to maintain some sort of romantic hopefulness.  The great thing about love is that it comes in many forms and just like a generator when the storms of life have cut off the main power we can rely on the love of friends and family to back us up.  No matter how many times my heart has got the shit kicked out of it and seemingly shattered into unfix-able pieces it was love in some form that held the glue.  

 To my friend who is feeling a fresh round of heart kicking I guess this wasn’t necessarily a very uplifting comforting piece; but he can take heart that he isn’t alone and that the benefit of having so many friends is that he has that much love he can lean on and count on.  This ole Southern Fried Diva sure is sending him much love.   Hugs baby doll!

Takes A Licking and Keeps on Baking

Norman Rockwell helped capture and perhaps made iconic the place that food plays in the nostalgia of Americana.   This Independence Day in 2010 in particular finds me looking to a bit of comfort in things Americana like Norman Rockwell, visions of apple pie, kids running through the fountain of a city fire hydrant, or memories of me and my childhood dog wading through the ponds and creeks in the mountains back home.

Food itself always seems to be a source of comfort.   A common denominator we can all seem to agree on and come together over.   In times like these I found great comfort in the dinner party we had last night.   Good friends, Southern food, good stories, and lots of laughs.   Rockwell captured food as an American thread in this diverse patchwork quilt we call the United States.   Several Iconic Rockwell paintings come to mind:  the young boy and the cop at the lunch counter, the grandmother and grandfather serving Thanksgiving turkey, or the young boy bowing his head in grace with his grandparents over the dinner table.   Yes, maybe it seems like drippy sticky sweet images; but I cannot help to be comforted by these images.

The pictures bring back my own memories like me standing on chair in my granny's kitchen as she made cake letting me steal licks of the batter.  

I think it is these memories and nostalgic notions that are in fact our country's strongest bond.   If we lose our ability to look upon these images and memories and find comfort then I think the terrorist win.   As we move forward as a country we have to bring all the history with us.   How do we learn if we do not take a look at history and see our failures as well as our victories.   No nation exists without the good and the bad.   All nations, free or otherwise, have all had less than glorious moments; yet I dare say all nations also have traditions that bind even the most diverse factions together.  

The fourth of July means many things to many people in America.   Fireworks, flags proudly displayed, watermelon and picnics, remembering the brave that fell in war and saluting the brave that march forward.  In every fourth of July celebration today around the country I doubt there will be one event in which food is not the center of function.   We are a country that likes to believe that we keep on keeping on no matter what and  I believe we can and will.   For me I will hold the memory of my granny in her tiny kitchen sweltering in the humid Mountain summer stirring up her homemade short cake as the roar of a fan desperately turned to give a bit of relief and the smell of red ripe strawberries filled the air.

Doubt In The Cake

I have often heard it said that, "proof is in the pudding."  For me it is in the cake.  Allow me to digress a bit.   I started really cooking around the age of 8.   Of course my first few efforts were really attempts to mimic the foods that I would watch my Granny & Mama make.   I remember the first time I decided I was going to cook a full meal by myself, I had turned 8, it was summer & my parents were enjoying a Saturday morning sleep in, expecting the kids would be safely tucked away.   I woke up at 6 AM and made my bathroom visit all sleepy eyed and looking forward to jumping back into bed; but midstream an idea struck me to cook breakfast.   Now luckily this story is not a story of the house burning down; it is actually a story of utter shock that an 8 year old that could barely reach the stove did not burn down the house or himself and in turn fried eggs and bacon with some burn but not inedible.  The parents were too amazed I think to consider punishment and instead sat down and ate their breakfast.   Emboldened by my first success I recreated the same breakfast for many weekends to come until the eggs were not as crispy as the bacon and the bacon was no longer charred and so I decided it was time to branch out into making Granny's biscuits.   Baking would hang me up and cause anxiety for years to come.   It was not until I was older that baking a cake did not cause a case of the "quits," to hit.

My family, a true Southern family steeped in good ole backwoods Blue Ridge Mountain fatalism helped profound my sense of doubting myself in all things, not just baking.   My mom's favorite saying which still resonates in my head from time to time is, "well, don't get your hopes up."   Now I know that is just a mom trying to help her child not get their hopes so high that they get crushed when things don't come out exactly as the child wants it to.   But for many years that little saying kept me from starting projects or finishing projects.  

In those adult years when I decided to push through my anxieties and sometimes overwhelming crippling doubt I discovered just how pervasive and malignant doubt can be to the human spirit.   It brings a huge swell of pride and accomplishment every time someone compliments me on a cake, pie, or brownie.   For many years my doubt kept baking a big mysterious scary lion I could not tame.    Maybe it was the reruns of Julia Child's cooking show on PBS or my discovery of Ina Garten (a.k.a. The Barefoot Contessa) on the Food Channel; but both went a long way in dismantling my mountain of fear and doubt surrounding baking.  

Doubt in my life is not a conquered monster long gone.   It remains a malignant part of my complex make up that is from time to time a raging ravishing cancer reeking havoc on even my every day chores.   However,  I am  happy to report that a good portion of the time it becomes more and more a disease in remission with every little triumph and small hill I might traverse.   The one thing I realize is that doubt, with all its debilitation is as only powerful as one makes it.   There is always the possibility that your cake won't rise or your apple pie won't win the prize but the amazing power you create within yourself when you TRY will trump that old doubt monster in submission.   Ask anyone who is addicted to my Outrageous Diva Brownies or Pound cake and I say without blushing they are winners, proof that doubt has no place as an ingredient in any recipe.   Proof, for me, is in the cake!