do-over?

I promise I don’t work for Southern Living.  If I did, I’d be floating around on a cloud all day.  Today, I was checking their Tales from the Road blog and came across a post for a Southern Bucket List.  Which made me realize a couple of things.  First, for a proud Southerner, I’ve apparently been no where and done nothing (made even more obvious after reading the list of 40 Things Every Southerner Ought to Do).  Second, I feel as though I should heavily edit my 101/1001 list.  Or start a new sub-list.  Third, I need to be independently wealthy so I can just drive or jet around doing all these wonderfully Southern things.  Or get a job at Southern Living where I could do all these wonderfully Southern things while getting paid.  I’m open to whichever option will have me sitting on a screened-in porch drinking sweet tea sooner rather than later.

and the world turned

Since we last talked I’ve done a lot of stuff.  There were boats and crabs and fireworks and baseball and I need a vacation from my 3-day 4th of July holiday.  And hopefully, I’ll get my stuff together to actually post some stuff about all the independence day revelry that went on, but in the meantime, I had to (once again), sing the praises of the Gabe Dixon Band.  I just realized I’d actually mentioned this song before, but each time it comes up on my iPod, I literally have to stop and catch my breathe.  Take 3 minutes to listen to it: And the World Turned. I just love every single thing about it.  Hope you do, too.

soulmates

I love magazines.  I’m not particularly picky about which one.  I’ve had subscriptions to YM, Teen, Seventeen, Entertainment Weekly, Real Simple, Self, Shape, and Saveur (and those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head).  However, there is one magazine that stands alone.  That if I could only have one magazine delivered to me on a desert island, it’d be the one.  And, un-surprisingly, it’s Southern Living.

Last week, Boo Mama, had a great post about the changes Southern Living went through last year and its near triumphant return to its former glory.  After reading it, I pulled out my July issue and actually read it.  I didn’t just flip through, looking for mouthwatering recipes (nutter butter banana pudding, you will be mine one day. same goes for you bacon pimento cheese.) or awesome places to visit in the South (Hilton Head feature from June and Savannah Beach’s from July, yes to you both. and if anyone can get me to the Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi, I’ll be your best friend for life).  And, after reading it cover to cover, I realized Boo Mama was completely right – it’s a solid magazine.  Cover to cover, choke full of goodness.  I must have turned down the pages on 7 or 8 different articles, from travel, to recipes, and even a couple of the gardening suggestions.  I love every. single. bit. of. it.

And the hidden gem, which I’ve told all of my girlfriends who will sit still long enough to listen about is the Southern Journal, inside the back cover.  This month’s column? “15 Ways to Charm Her,” including bits of wisdom such as standing up for ladies, killing bugs, holding open doors, building and fixing stuff, grilling, calling, paying for the first few dates, and knowing how to make our favorite cocktail(s).  Really good stuff all the way around.

If all this wasn’t enough to prove that Southern Living and I were meant to be together forever (aka meant 2b 2gether 4ever in yearbook speak), today, whoever maintains Southern Living’s twitter account (@southern_living) must have been reading my mind, because 8 minutes after I tweeted about needing a nap, they throw up an article about sleeping porches.  Dear Lord, there is a heaven and it is to be found on a sleeping porch near you.

American by birth and Southern by the grace of God, indeed.

bake your cares away: strawberry shortcake

It all started innocently enough.  A simple email saying we should do family dinner last Sunday night.  Which snowballed from something low-key and simple to a weekend making barbecue, a trip to the farmer’s market for fresh produce, and topped off with homemade strawberry shortcake.  I meandered my way to making strawberry shortcake, from banana pudding, to an ice box cake, to pound cake with strawberries, and finally decided on strawberry shortcake.  I think fate had a hand in things, as there was only one vendor selling strawberries at the farmer’s market last Saturday, and I suspect local ones will become even harder to find as we slide into July.

I ended up using Elise’s shortcake recipe (from Simply Recipes).  I probably would have made Deb’s because I’m intrigued by including hard boiled egg yolks in the biscuits, but since we don’t have a food processor in the house right now, I was a bit weary.  Silly me, I was worried that 9 biscuits wouldn’t be enough for the 5 of us (I’m genetically plagued with making way too much food).  I think I baked the biscuits for a few minutes longer than the recipe called for (I used the biscuits from scratch recipe and, yes, we hae 4 biscuits in the freezer because 9 was gracious of plenty).  The one thing I did steal from Deb’s recipe was brushing the top of the biscuits with heavy cream and sprinkling sugar on them. I’m sure they would have been great without the extra cream and sugar, but it definitely was a great touch.

With the fresh, local strawberries and homemade whipped cream, definitely a keeper for the recipe files.

the way he made us feel

I was planning on posting about strawberry shortcake today (and still very may will), but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Michael Jackson’s passing.  Linda Holmes at NPR’s Monkey See has a great post up memorializing MJ and talking about his 1983 performance of Billie Jean at the Motown 25 special, and, as usual, she says everything I wanted to say, except she says it better.

I was over at Abby’s last night and this was all we could talk about or watch on television.  About how we both remembered watching MJ on MTV, back when MTV played videos.  About how we still chair dance to his music when it pops up on our playlists.  About how “The Way You Make Me Feel” may be the most perfect song in the history of songs.

As I look through my iTunes and the MJ YouTube station I’m struck with the realization that his music really did provide the soundtrack for much of my life.  I remember wanting to put Will You Be There (from the Free Willy soundtrack – don’t judge) on a mix tape and standing poised by my stereo, fingers on the tape deck’s record button, so I could record it from the radio.  I remember thinking the Black or White video was the coolest thing I’d ever seen in my 12 years on earth when it came out in 1991.  And as I got older and went to college and beyond, I re-fell in love with his earlier stuff – Bad, Beat It, Billie Jean, Thriller, Don’t Stop, Man in the Mirror.

And, regardless of what he may or may not have become, his music has left an undeniably huge mark on my life.  John Mayer may have actually put it best last night on Twitter when he said, “I think we’ll mourn his loss as well as the loss of ourselves as children listening to Thriller on the record player.”  Mayer also said, “I truly hope he is memorialized as the ‘83 moonwalking, MTV owning, mesmerizing, unstoppable, invincible Michael Jackson,” and honestly I think that’s what we should all hope happens.

Rest in peace and Godspeed, MJ.

mom

My Mom’s birthday was Saturday.  She was in Chilhowie and I was in Arlington.  We’ve definitely had our ups and downs – my sister says this is because we’re too much alike.  Usually, if I’m home for more than 36 hours, there is some sort of screaming or fighting or sassing involved.  I’m sure that once every couple of weeks, I end a phone call with, “I’mnothanginguponyoubecauseI’msayingbyerightnow.”  That being said, she’s Mom and she understands me in ways that no one else does.

Which is why she never sounds perplexed when I employ the Vicki Beattie Cooking Helpline.  Like when I decided to make her infamous bread recipe for Christmas gifts in 2005, and I called wondering what I’d done wrong by pouring a quart of warm yeasty water into a mountain of 9 cups of bread flour ON MY COUNTER.  I’m sure she was thinking, “How is this my child and why did we pay a gazillion dollars to send her to college?” but instead, she calmly suggested that I should have used a bowl until the flour and water had formed a dough.  Or when she listened to countless ramblings about my plans for Friendsgiving – things like “how many onions should I buy?” and “can I make [insert Thanksgivingy dish] ahead?” and “should I really serve tomato juice?”

Pork barbecue happens after the jump

infinite summer? more like infinite fail #infsum

For the last few weeks, I kept seeing folks on twitter mention that they were thinking about/had been convinced to/were participating in “infinite summer.” Being that I am completely clueless about a lot of stuff, I assumed this was some sort of list of summer related things or maybe a summer cocktail circuit and thought it seemed right up my ally.  I mean, while I may not love summer’s heat and humidity combo, I love nearly every other single thing about summer.

my everest

However, turns out that infinite summer is not about drinking mojitos while playing frisbee on a rooftop deck, but is instead about reading David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. It’s a long book.  It has 100 pages of endnotes.  Reading at the infinite summer website, I had some concerns about reading a book that comes with instructions and warnings.  Honestly, I worried that I wasn’t smart enough for the book.  But, something made me decide I’d still give it a shot.

We’re pretty much supposed to read 75 pages per week.  This is week one.  It’s 2:00 pm EDT on Thursday in Washington, DC and I’m on page 13.  This might be a problem.

have you ever…

Have you ever had a day so full of frustrations and road blocks that you’re worried that one of the following may happen:

1. steam shooting directly out of your ears?

2. your head popping off in a final fit of rage?

3. having a stroke because the stress and frustration has sent your blood pressure through the roof?

4. it takes nearly all of your energy (and the knowledge that you have a fresh faced intern next door) to keep yourself from crying?

I’ve been at work for 2.5 hours and have spent 95% of that time worried that one of the above was going to happen to me.

All the wonderfulness of my weekend has been erased and replaced by stress, frustrations, etc.  This post may disappear at any moment.  Until then, I’ll be alternating between hiding under my desk and combing the Daily Puppy archives to calm myself down.