........And All That Stuffing

     It is easy for me and I suspect many Americans to romanticize this time of year.   Thanksgiving usually is the big kick off to all the colors, sounds, smells, bells, whistles & all the trappings of the holiday season.   As images of Haiti's continuing downward spiral now expedited by the Cholera epidemic it may take a special strain of a "PollyAnna" complex to see things in a more positive upbeat light.   Speaking for myself it seems almost pompous to sit in my warm home and regale about all my many blessings this year; especially when in our own country the growing number of people on public assistance and unemployment is still growing.   However I will endeavor to share even just a shred of something positive.

In the middle of this old world's chaos there is always one small shred of light through any darkness.   Whether it be the irrepressible spirit of those trapped Chilean miners or some small town family who invites those without family or those whom cannot afford food to their Thanksgiving table, the triumph of the human spirit on a global level or that little snippet of human kindness is all a piece of the bigger picture.  

If Thanksgiving was just about the bird itself then it would not carry much weight (pun intended); but thank God for all the potatoes, yams, casseroles, gravy, rolls, dressing, pie and stuffing.   I believe sometimes in life you have to look at all of life's "stuffing," (chaos) and find that small or large little savory rich detail that makes you smile, makes your heart warm, makes you realize how blessed you are.   I look at the sadness and tragedy in Haiti and feel very humbled.   I am thankful that I recognize that it could be any of us.   There are those who might say it could never be in the United States of America; but then I remember just a few years back when Katrina hit and it was very evident that even in the good ole USA there can be third world poverty, disease, destruction and despair.   As the old saying goes, "there but for the grace of God."   It isn't about the sum of all the bad things that happen in life I believe it is about finding the small miracles and stunning blessings that happen or exist in each event.  

One of my favorite Broadway musical show tunes is "All that Jazz," from Chicago.   One of the lines in the last verse goes: "Ohhhh I love my life and all that jazz."  It isn't just about the main event or star attraction its all the jazz or sides and gravy that count too.  Well it doesn't just happen at Thanksgiving; but I believe since it is the season it bares saying.... I love my life and all that stuffing.   I hope you find all the sumptuous sides and stuffing in your life and you find the humbleness that brings you the joy of being grateful.   Happy Thanksgiving~ Love The Southern Fried Diva!

Sweet Potato Pie (Trumping Post Mid-term Election Stress Syndrome)

     Each Season has its change.   Change can be calculated in subtleties and sometimes in broad brush strokes.  It is hard for me to chose a favorite season.  I am a summer baby being born square on the summer solstice so when Summer rolls around I embrace all the smells of fresh vegetables, cut grass and sun baked mid morning dew.   As a child Spring was such a big event because I became so amazed by these little crocuses that came up through late snows under mama's hydrangea bush.   As a kid Spring also signaled that summer break from school was within sniffing distance.   Winter was magic because of snow, ice, and howling winds.   But since we are in the middle of Autumn we'll stick to that season.   Some things I love about Autumn are the crisp cool air, the leaves, the sound of rustling leaves & then the holiday season that gets kicked off by the campy fun candy laden haunting night of Halloween.   I love the colors of deep reds, golds, and all the shades of brown.   Autumn is also the season of winding down.   Harvesting what you've sown all year and preparing for what winter's long if not unpredictable cold and sometimes barren months might bring.  

No matter what corporate America has done to Thanksgiving and Christmas commercially; to me they are important punctuation marks on the calendar.   Thanksgiving has its own special meaning with the smells of food, gathering of family and for me the Macy's day parade.   The Macy's day parade for me is the official sounding shot kicking off Christmas.   Christmas has been and always will be simply defined as magic.  It is the one time of the year my childhood comes flooding back in a hazy Hallmark Currier & Ives glow.

The idea of "seasons," is a metaphor for change in life.   My hometown of Hendersonville, North Carolina is known as the land of four seasons.   Every season has its own smells, beauty, darkness, lightness, drama and simple joys.   In 2008 a "season of change," was upon the land as Obama fever swept across the nation and world.   For some the change is not happening, for some it is happening but too slowly.   As of Tuesday November 2nd, 2010 the mid-term elections heralded yet another season of change for our country.   By Wednesday I felt an overwhelming flood of discouragement and in that moment I knew I had to change my own impending season of doom lurking above my soul and spirit.    So I went to the kitchen and bake I did.
The house filled with smells of my Granny Pop's sweet potato pie recipe in the oven.   My Diva-Licious Brownies the next day filled the house with wafts of chocolate and toffee.

It would be so easy this morning to sit down and write a blog full of negative feelings about the Tuesday election results.   I could be responding to all the crazy political spin in the air this morning on the  Sunday morning news show.   Let's face it the country has been reeling for several years now.   I will not bury my head in the sand like the proverbial Ostrich.   I recognize what is going on, I have to call it for what it is but I cannot let it dictate my spirit.   So I chose to Sweet Potato Pie it right now.

One of my favorite fun reads is The Sweet Potato Queens 1st Big Ass Novel by Jill Conner Browne which I will be breaking it out this week to give myself a chuckle and get myself in the mood to bake my signature Sweet Potato pies for the upcoming holiday events.    Whether you are a liberal or a conservative I urge ya to go check out or buy a copy of the The Sweet Potato Queens 1st Big Ass Novel and just let all this political bullshit and tough economical times leave your spirit.   It is okay to laugh, in fact I think it is essential to laugh. It does not cost anything to smile or laugh or both.   It just takes a moment of switching off that little "negative nelly," button in your brain and choosing to find even the smallest things in life pleasurable.   For me, today, it means turning off the TV full of negative news, turning on some favorite tunes and baking a sweet potato pie.   The smell will bring back precious memories for me of my Granny Pops baking this delicious treat for Thanksgiving.   Having a slice tonight with a cup of coffee will be a little slice of heaven of its own; but on Thanksgiving watching friends and family smile as I cut into the Sweet Potato Pie and watch them loosen their belt buckles in anticipation will out trump any bad election news and briefly chase away the economical dark cloud above our heads.   Life is too short my friends so have a slice of pie, read a fun silly book, step outside and smell the Autumn air.   Enjoy life~ bake Sweet Potato Pie!

Witch's Brew

America sure has one hell of a smelly steaming toxic cauldron a brewing!   This election has bubbled nothing but toil and trouble.   Some of it is classic Halloween camp, think of Christine O'Donnell's political ad claiming in that eerie serial killer voice, "I'm not a witch."   She was dressed in black with a smoky black background and speaking in that weird tone all that was lacking was a gnarled leaf-less tree with a screeching bat flying across a big ominous orange harvest moon.   The latest spending report according to CBS news puts this year's mid-term election costing upwards of 3 billions dollars..... that looks like $3,000,000,000!   Which to me looks like Count Dracula moving in for a little midnight snack!   Ironically I am not scared by who might be elected into office this year as much as I am scared that in such a shaky economy we sit idly by why 3 billion dollars gets sucked into some big black vortex.   The scariest about any of this is the empty words that both sides utter.   No one has a game plan except how to win a bull shit election.   No one has a recipe for getting things done.   Politicians on both sides of the aisle are sucking the life blood out of democracy.   If Sylvia Browne or Dionne Warwick's psychic friends connections could hold a séance and bring the spirits of our founding fathers forth for a round table congressional butt kicking it sure would be helpful right about now.   As the 2010 election comes to its climax on Tuesday I believe it will go down less like a tea party and more like a Tim Burton version of the Salem Witch Trials.   Unfortunately this year looks more like a trick than it does a treat.  Finding a shred of dignity and democracy this election year was like bobbing for poison apples.   All I'm saying is don't drink the Witch's brew this year!

American Pie: A Killer Filling!

     I love a slice of pie.   I believe my Granny Pop's homemade pies hold a special place in heaven.   A warm slice of her blackberry pie in the winter made from blackberries we picked together in the summer and frozen or put up in her unbeatable preserves was my favorite pie piping hot out of the oven.   Her rhubarb strawberry pie in the summer was my favorite pie to eat cold.   In fact I've not really ever met a slice of pie I didn't like or least could cover with ice cream and trudge on through.  However I believe a slice of the metaphorical American Pie has too much filling and quite honestly has no taste.
     The flood of political campaign ads for the mid-term elections this past year has reached an intolerable fever pitch.   On both sides of the political fence and right down the middle of the political landscape  I am ashamed of every political figure head we the people have supposedly put in office.   During a time of our country's shaky economical foundation in which millions remain unemployed and foreclosures across the land threaten to break the back of the American dream of home ownership these political ads are costing millions and millions of dollars.   I find it sickening that everyone of these ads spin out of control exaggerating facts and bemoaning the out of control spending of congress and the government at large however spending millions right in front of our faces for TV airtime, robo-calls, mailers, etc.   It is not only insane but stands as a slap across every hard working American's face that hopes they can pay the rent or mortgage and put food on the table.   All these millions and millions of dollars flushing down the proverbial toilet to put people in office who continue a cycle of saying much but delivering little.   Yes, it has been this way for a long time; but honey darlings the American Pie has been stuffed plum full of toxic energy and poisonous greed.   The pie burst open a long time ago and the filling has oozed out over our common sense.   The so called "tea partier's," have this big smug idealistic trumpet sounding that they are wanting change however they too have joined the masses in the mud spending millions.   When do we simply unite and stand in front of Congress and our government; Republicans, Democrats and every thing in between and say "Enough, we forbid you to spend any more money on elections, you raise that money and pay off the national debt!"
    I know it is easier said than done; but I am firing the warning shot today if anyone is listening.   We have already begun swallowing the poison slices of pie.   The so called middle class is being swept under the rug daily.   Wake up America, it's time to throw out the pie we've been mindlessly stuffing ourselves with and start from scratch baking a new one.   It is the season to demand WORK, not words from our elected officials.  If we want to get this recipe right we are going to have to go back to the blackberry patch and weather the sun, heat, snakes, and thorns to get to the ripest and juiciest fruit.   As the old cliche goes, "don't throw good money after bad," and as my Granny Pops always said, "you ain't gonna get a good pie with store bought berries, ya have to go pick 'em in order to do up a good pie!"   Start baking with fresh ingredients America, the store bought stuff is killing us.

Popcorn~ Just Add Hot Air

That good ole snack food standby popcorn is amazing if you think about it.   It is a relatively cheap snack that feed many with very little effort.   I mean if you break it down it is just a little kernel of corn with a lot of hot air which turns to a puffy white buttery goodness.  I think the analogy can be made to pop music.   Although we know that "pop" music is short for popular music, I tend to think of what has become popular music today more closely related to pop corn.   It is palatable hot air with maybe a kernel of musicality.  The lyrics and chord changes are predictable and usually the "talent," behind the song is not vocally strong.

I would like to take it a step deeper and coin a new phrase known as "Pop Politics."   Pop politics is a bunch of hot air surrounding skewed little kernels of fact that can be puffed into provocative sound bytes.   It fits our current culture to a tee though.   We as a society have a bad case of short attention span, we need our politics boiled down to quick buzz words and shorter details of the fact.   This "need," of ours to have our information handed to us on a silver platter as quick as a Google search has created the perfect environment for these pop politicians to pop up and thrive.

Pop Politicians such as Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, etc. are full of puffed up sound bytes delivered with sometimes corny theatrics rich in recycled rhetoric but short on vetted deeply researched facts.   They chose a "popular," stance and stick with it unyielding to any idea of going beyond the headline and studying all the facts on both sides.  Pop politicians worry more about their image than getting any real work or results.  They are talking heads with eyes set on their own ego led ambitions rather than protecting constitutional ethics or accomplishing any concrete good that takes into account many opinions other than their own nor embracing any fruitful debate.  They are uninformed half vetted talking heads who settle for easy popular sound bytes over any notion of going against the grain out of worry of scraping their own fragile yet glossy slick image.


Pop politicians embrace pop politico speak using loaded words to attach their character to like "maverick," or "rogue," although they never back up these claims with any real recognition of what those words mean nor offering an noticeable action to give these words any real meat.


Pop politics and their participants are just puffed up little kernels with lots of hot air to spare.

Wake Up & Smell the Holy War

Does anyone remember the Crusades from history?   Perhaps Texas has cut that from history text books as well!   Well briefly the Crusades were a military sanctioned war by Christian Europe against Middle East Muslims.   The crusades lasted from the 11^th thru the 13^th centuries.  Now in the 21^st century we have seen Jihad by Islamic radicals against non-Muslims and now I feel the tide is turning back the pages of history and we are getting ready to see another Crusade era.   The rhetoric surrounding the proposed mosque in NYC near Ground Zero, and the most recent media ploy by some two bit pastor in Florida claiming to burn the Qur’an on the anniversary of 9/11 is bringing about a hint of the Crusades to my ears.

Some may argue that we entered a holy war the minute we sat foot in Iraq.   It is true that anti-Islamic sentiments have been growing in volume since we declared war.   In return it has become easier for Americans to lump Islamic radicals in with Islam because it is a religion not understood in our largely Judeo-Christian society.  

There is no denying that everything changed on 9/11.  Americans definitely became more aware of Islam.   However aware we became the dialogue about the Middle East and Muslims since then surrounding Islam I think like most things in our society we allowed to become politicized reducing it all down to quick, easy sound bytes instead of full fledged informed conversations.

It is interesting that Christians conveniently forget about the Crusades the same way they tend to forget more recent history like The Salem Witch trials, slavery, the KKK, Fred Phelps in Kansas.   So called “witches,” were hung in Salem, Mass. By Christians out of situations we have since learned were ignorant misunderstandings.  Many Slave owners justified owning slaves thru selected text in the Bible.  More recently the KKK claims to burn crosses and terrorizes African Americans and people of Jewish faith in the name of God and even more beguiling is the pastor in Kansas that believes in hating soldiers and homosexuals.   So Christians have their radicals too.  

I won’t go into core beliefs held by both religious faiths that they both share; but it is sad that most that spread this kind of hatred are ignorant of some of the really beautiful tenets both Christians and Muslims share.   I have long maintained that ignorance is the biggest weapon of mass destruction known to man.   Ignorance begets misunderstanding, lies, and ultimately hate.

The past decade we have seen our precious American society go backwards in time.   Forgetting history and repeating it.   We have seen the all too eerie return to a war type mentality that closely resembles the horrific Vietnam War era.   In the latter years of this decade we have seen our own consumer based desires and Bush economics bring us back to a time that closely resembles the Great Depression.   

I believe that we chance a return back in our history time machine again to a time reminiscent of the Crusades if we continue to spread this anti-Islamic rhetoric.   Repeating history as we have seen in the past ten years is a costly and deadly course of direction.   Repeating history is a very harmful symptom of the disease of Ignorance.   The less we know the easier it gets to let those with their own greedy agendas to knock the foundation out from under a society and inject their own venom.   The New York City mosque debate & the nut job pastor in Florida calling for Americans to burn a Qur’an may seem like headlines that we take for granted will disappear in a few days but for me they are red flags that something more uglier is festering and boiling underneath and I’m afraid if we don’t recall our history we might just be gearing up for another holy war.

Divas of Daytime Belting Out "Its Raining Men"

All I can say is check it out..............it is a sticky sweet hunk filled video w/glorious vocals by the divas!

(Anyone feel like a rainstorm.........ummmmmmmkay!!!!   Don't forget the "umbrella" )

http://sn.soapnet.go.com/video/its-raining-men-the-divas