A House Like That

 

 

I never disclose my age without absolutely having to, and then it’s grudgingly mumbled.

I’ll tell you why: I think we automatically classify people, consciously or otherwise, by this number.

If I tell you my age, you’re immediately going to make some assumptions about me: my musical taste (you’d likely be wrong), my favorite movies and TV series (wrong again), all sorts of speculation about my personal life and what it entails (or doesn’t).

I don’t want to know your number, either. I don’t want to formulate ideas about you based on that information.

My grandmother probably started all this. When she was in her nineties, in a hospital bed, with a nurse clearly holding a chart containing all her medical information…she would dutifully recite her full name when asked but visibly halt before giving up her birth year.

I know people who are very old in their thirties. I know people who run circles around me in their eighties.

So why would any of us consent to presenting a stranger a number that’s going to cloister us with every other person born the same year?

I know my doctor needs to know, but even that is damned annoying. I’m convinced the Publix drive-through pharmacy lady asks me every time just to torment me (all the others recognize me and skip it, but she refuses).

I have a birthday coming up; it’s not a milestone or anything, just one more year.

And when I stare at that new number, it’s going to be with gratitude for every single one that preceded it, not angst over whatever changes it might deliver.

I once wrote a poem about aging:

I used to live in a house like that

All shiny and pretty and new

I gradually moved to this shabbier place

But I much prefer the view

You don’t have to tell anyone your number. Let your smile and your energy tell them all they need to make their calculations.

 

 

 

Love from Delta.

 

My Mother Is Beautiful.

It's something I've heard all my life: "Your mother is so pretty."

There was a little boy in a department store who thought she looked like Eva Gabor. Might have been Zsa Zsa, but the kid was referencing Green Acres, I am pretty sure. I've heard Kim Novak suggested, too, and I personally think she's a little closer to target.

She has delicate features and lovely skin and a smile that warms the coldest room like a roaring fireplace. She has sparkling brown eyes a suitor once proclaimed "like pools of black ink." (He was not a poet.)

Her sartorial style is elegant and tasteful. She favors classics in beautiful colors and a vintage rhinestone brooch to sparkle alongside her.
Her sparkle wins. Every time.

These are all lovely attributes, but they don't constitute my mom's beauty. There is so much more than meets the eye when you're talking about an entirely beautiful person.

To see beyond, you'd have to know about the little girl in her Sunday School class years ago, who had perfectly serviceable parents of her own, but chose my mother to cling to constantly and regard as hers.
Because she saw Mom's heart.

You have to know about the ladybug houses she helped my Cousin Debi build, the adventures and projects she concocted to entertain an entire generation of my family.

About her fried baloney sandwiches made especially for my Cousin Hal.

About her incredible musicianship at a baby grand piano, and how she encouraged me to sing along even though cats have sounded better in midnight alleys.

She can produce an oil painting of flowers so detailed and vivid, they've been proudly displayed in other people's homes for generations.
She was about sixteen when she painted those roses.

You have to see her completing a crossword puzzle containing words no normal person has ever heard.
In record time. In ink.

You have to witness her love affair with books, which has translated into an astounding body of knowledge and a curiosity that is never sated.

Her lady in Publix who waits for her with a smile and a hug every time, or countless other people in countless other stores she frequents who light up when she walks in.
They call her by name.
They remember her because she's kind and they've witnessed that kindness over and over.

She is an extraordinary grandmother who took our toddler son into a North Carolina creek daily to move rocks that probably didn't need moving, but it was their project. Together.

Her granddaughter remembers Gran taking her downstairs to her meticulously tended garden at night to pay a magical, candlelit visit to a frog.

And I remember my mom, reading Hiawatha to me at bedtime, holding my hand through every joyful and heartbreaking thing in my life, building me up, making me laugh, constantly teaching kindness, thoughtfulness, thank you notes, generosity, and graciousness. 

She is love, in one lovely package.

My mother is beautiful.
Yours is, too, whether she's by your side or in your heart.

Happy Mother's Day.

One of my all time favorite photos: My mother with her mother and a couple of questionable characters

Love from Delta.

The South 101: Everything You Should Know About Banana Pudding

 

 

Write a blog post, they say. 

Make it connected to your new book's characters. 

Make it captivating.

Okay. Nothing is more captivating than the words "banana" and "pudding" together.

There may be controversy about a few things in The South, but we are in complete accord about banana pudding. Your Aunt Mary Nell brings it to every gathering. Your relations muster some whenever a family has someone in the hospital or loses a loved one.

And in IT ALL COMES BACK TO YOU, Violet and Ronni both adore it. That may not be mentioned in the book, but they do. Trust me, it's a foregone conclusion.

There are people who will tell you banana pudding originated in the North. Those people are lying. Now it's true, they had bananas when bananas were a luxury for Southerners, but they did unspeakable things with them. Like this.

 

What is HAPPENING here?

Lord.


In 1921, (we refer to this as "The Industrial Wafer Revolution"), a Mrs. Kerley in Indiana or Illinois or one of those I-states contributed a recipe for a banana pudding with Vanilla Wafers to a newspaper, while a Mrs. Smith invented a banana pudding with Vanilla Wafers for the Atlanta Women's Club cookbook, Pastries, Puddings, and Dumplings. And that is a cookbook title after my own heart.

• Y'all hush. They weren't called Nilla Wafers until later.
• Mrs. Smith's recipe was way better, bless Mrs. Kerley's heart.

Anyway, in the 1940s The National Biscuit Company (apparently the U.S. was still British enough to call what are clearly cookies "biscuits") published the now-classic recipe on the side of its Vanilla Wafers box, the whole shebang, with one metric ton of wafers, a creamy custard to cradle the bananas lovingly, and a meringue slathered all over the top. Serve it hot or cold. Earn the eternal affection of your family.


This is how it's done, folks, and I guarantee you, Violet would've eaten plenty of this in 1940s Alabama and Ronni is still eating it somewhere.

As for me, I'm a heretic. I like my banana pudding the way my mom and my daughter prepare it (you notice I'm not doing the heavy lifting here): not baked, with chilled pudding.


Here is the most fabulously exciting part of this blog post...my friend Marianne and I are going to the NATIONAL BANANA PUDDING FESTIVAL next month. Yes, this is a thing. Be very jealous, because they have a Puddin' Path, this glorious gift from God where you pay $5 and taste a plethora of pudding.

Grab a hankie—you may have to dab the corners of your mouth—the featured flavors this year include: Moon Pie Banana Puddin', White Chocolate & Caramel Banana Puddin', Puddin' and Pearls Banana Puddin', Caramel Cheesecake Banana Puddin', Eagle Brand Banana Puddin', and many more.

None of these flavors are heretical. They would only be heretical in an I-state (just kidding, y'all).

I fully expect to see some version of Ronni there, and I know Violet will be at the banana pudding festival in spirit. She'd have loved it, and probably would've been crowned Puddin' Princess (I made that up, but they should have one). 

You can follow this link to the Puddin' Path 

Meet Violet and Ronni here, in IT ALL COMES BACK TO YOU (click the pic)

Love from Delta.  

Duke Poultry Farm: Canine Division

Not really. We don't have a poultry farm, just a flock of pampered chickens (who pamper us right back with the best eggs in the world).
What we do have...and you're about to meet them...are two truly fantastic dogs. One is mostly ornamental, and the other is a terribly alert watchdog.
(Spoiler alert: our dogs are not typecast.)
Beau
Beau (no Bo Duke jokes, please) was my wonderful birthday present in 2004. He is a designer dog, flown in from Texas at the height of the Maltepoo craze (I got him before Jessica Simpson received her vicious little Maltepoo onstage from Nick Lachey. Yes, we've had Beau awhile.)

He is named after Confederate General Pierre Beauregard, a nod to his Frenchness and Southern roots (he is 3/4 Maltese and 1/4 Poodle, to be technical...I am no Francophile.) He is smarter than the average human toddler, and better behaved. Here is an old, unedited video of Beau walking in shoes (do not ask me why he was wearing shoes. It is a long story. And please ignore the embarrassing audio track, too...):

He is there the second my feet hit the floor every morning, and accompanies me everywhere. (I mean everywhere.) If someone dares to knock on the door, he will throw his mighty eleven pounds between me and the invader. (He has never bitten anyone. I think I've heard him growl three times. He's a lover, not a fighter; a licker, not a biter.)

He fears no chicken.

 

Bama

Our other amazing dog is a yellow Lab named Bama (SO original, right?). We found her shivering in the cold rain a few years ago, deserted in what I call "Downtown Delta". A handful of food enticed her to our back porch, and we adopted each other. She is 100% Our Dog now, and I cannot fathom why anyone chose to part with her. 

(TRUE STORY: We tethered her to the back porch for her protection at first - we live near a cruel dog-killing highway - and she broke loose and wandered across the road. When I yelled at her, she was so chagrined she fetched her rope and presented it to me.)

I love this dog.

Bama is loyal and loving and occasionally fierce if inspired. (Read: if you tell her to go after something...anything...in the distance.) Throw something, and she will fetch it exactly twice, then sit and regard you with a look that fully emotes, "You get it this time."

In the summer, she is a large, inert object in the yard. Chickens march over her, crossing her like a furry mountain. I have seen a slug hitchhiking a ride on her back. (I am not making this up.) My brother affectionately calls her " White Lightnin' ".

You decide which one is the watchdog (the truth is, they work in concert.) But Beau just exposed his ferocity to five chickens on the porch so I could finish writing this.

Woof and love from Delta.

Lookin' Out My Back Door...

"Since I can't photograph this, I will tell you about the beautiful sunsets here: Late in the day, the sun falls as gently as midnight snow, bathing everything in golden syrup. For a few minutes, the white horse behind my house is a glowing, mythical creature. Then the sun kisses the top of the purple mountain with pink and red and orange, and slides down its back slowly, a lover's goodnight."

I wrote that awhile back...in early fall...to describe the sunsets here in Delta. Sunsets are one thing, but what I was really trying to capture is the quality of the light in late afternoon. It really does look like "golden syrup".

(I know. That's probably too gooey for a lot of you out there.)  

I don't usually wax poetic, but...

Here are a few of my favorite illustrations:

Love from Delta, Alabama.

Oh, Atlanta.

I admit it: I love all things Southern.
Today, my husband and I had the kind of day that reminds me why I like living below the Mason Dixon Line. We stopped en route to Atlanta at Staples in Carrollton, Georgia to get the full manuscript for DELANEY'S PEOPLE printed. Met a lovely young lady named Crystal McCartney, their copy and print expert.
To say I'm a bit picky about my printing needs is a massive understatement. I am the kind of person who can obsess over fonts and card stock and graphics for hours at a time.
I may well be outlawed at Staples in some states.
But Crystal - bless her heart - spent two hours putting together a professional presentation  for me while cheerfully trying to wait on about twenty other customers with their own needs. The thing is, all of these people were sweet and patient and polite and charming and delightful even though a strange woman rolled in and took over their store.
This is typical in the South.
We then drove to beautiful Buckhead to visit the Atlanta History Center. I cannot tell you how impressed I was with their incredible exhibition, "Turning Point: The American Civil War". It was moving and poignant and is a must for history lovers.
Atlanta History Center

"In a weak moment, I have written a book." - Margaret Mitchell

Made it to the Margaret Mitchell House five minutes before the gift shop closed. As you can see: I am capable of shopping under pressure. I will most definitely return to be inspired by the birthplace of the novel I was spoon-fed as an infant. (Okay, I think I read it when I was eight. But you're dealing with a woman here who once wanted to name a cat Scarlett O'Hairy.)
The Margaret Mitchell House

Had a wonderful, delicious dinner at an Atlanta institution, Mary Mac's Tea Room. How can you not love a restaurant that starts you off with a tiny, complimentary bowl of collards in pot likker accompanied by a mini cornbread muffin?
Mary Mac's Tea Room

Every once in awhile, something wonderful comes south from the frozen Northland - tonight it was author Chris Bohjalian. I've been a rabid fan of his since I encountered The Double Bind years ago, and have read his entire oeuvre (except the early novels he seems to have paid to have hidden away...). He is funny and charming and witty in person - not always the case with authors - and I am grateful to have met him.
And he gave me my very own SECRETS OF EDEN ROCK AND ROLL BOOK TOUR t-shirt.
That's enough to make a Scarlett-type just faint.

Chickens = Eggs = Cupcakes

Okay, which comes first?

EGGS.

If you want the world's best cupcakes, start with the world's best eggs (I learned this years ago from cupcake magic: little cakes with attitude by Kate Shirazi).

The perfect dozen you see here were personally gathered from our henhouse by moi. They are daily gifts from Nilla (the green ones), Zeus and Poseidon (the deeper brown ones), and Diablo (the lightish ones). If you want to bake cupcakes (cakes of any kind, for that matter): start with eggs containing huge, orangey, gooey yolks. Not the typical grocery store kind...I'm talking Whole Foods or something organic and fresh and pretty.

CHICKENS.

With the right eggs…I’m serious about that…you are equipped to make virtually any cake/cupcake taste wonderful. They don't have to be from scratch; use a mix (I prefer the one that sounds like a Scottish guy).


Here’s a recipe for my legendary Chocolate Cherry Fudge Cupcakes:

• 1 box Devil's Food Cake Mix
• 1 can cherry pie filling
• 3  huge, perfect eggs
• About a teaspoon of almond extract

Mix these ingredients by hand and carefully measure into two lined cupcake pans. Bake at 350 degrees for about 18 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean (might be a bit of cherry goo…that’s okay).

Frosting:

• 1 cup sugar
• 5 tablespoons butter
• 1/3 cup milk
• A tiny bit of vanilla extract
• ½ to 2/3 of a 12 ounce package of semi-sweet chocolate chips (at least half – how rich do you want it?)

Bring everything but the chocolate chips to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil for about a minute. Add the chocolate chips and stir well. Work fast – you want this kinda like a ganache! Pour it over slightly cooled cupcakes, trying not to make a mess (hint: use a big spoon).

If you want, you can pipe white frosting atop each one and decorate with a maraschino or other cherry. I like to flavor the white decorative frosting with cherry and almond extracts...just a bit.