Friday with Friends: "Gail Pallotta"

From Eva Marie: This is one of the best things I've read in a looooooong time! You'll think so too, I just know it!

The Sweet Tea Line

     Every summer my mother put fresh mint in our tea. She grew her own in the backyard in the small North Carolina town where I grew up. When she served the cool drink, just seeing it tantalized my taste buds.

      When I got tall enough to reach the kitchen counter, Mother gazed at me with intense dark eyes.

     “I’ll let you make the tea. It’s easy.”                           

     She showed me how to cover five tea bags with water in a saucepan, bring it to a boil and let it steep. 

     “While you’re waiting…” she picked up our tea pitcher… “pour the sugar in here until it looks right.”

      Demonstrating, Mother turned up the Dixie Crystal bag and emptied about one-and-a-half to two cups. Then she put in lemon juice until it looked right, about two tablespoons. She added the tea and filled the pitcher with water the rest of the way.

     “That’s all there is to it.” She served up two glasses and topped them off with sprigs of mint.  

     I’ve been making it ever since. For a Southerner sweet tea is both a necessity and a delicacy offered with each meal. Most of us have discriminating tea tastes.  

     I was married before I realized other people lived without it. The day I found out, my husband and I were on our way to Michigan. We stopped for lunch in Indiana.

     When the waitress came to take our order, I asked for sweet tea.

     She raised her blonde eyebrows. “I’m sorry, ma’am, we don’t have sweet tea. We have raspberry tea if you’d like.”

     For several seconds I sat speechless, thinking how do people eat without sweet tea? I shook my head to clear it. “Yes, thank you, raspberry tea will be fine.”

     Now don’t get me wrong, I liked the raspberry tea, but it’s no substitute for sweet tea.

     After I moved to Georgia I heard people refer to the gnat line. A person can travel south from Atlanta and get to just below Macon and sure enough the gnats show up.

     There’s a sweet tea line too. If one travels far enough north or west the sweet tea runs out.

     When our daughter attended college in Kentucky, the town where she lived served sweet tea. But when we rode forty miles northeast to have dinner with friends, we passed the sweet tea line.

     My cousin who grew up in California says, “To this day, I do not believe I have ever seen sweet tea on a menu in California. And during my west to east coast trips via car, I must say, I do not remember sweet tea offered anywhere except in the southern belt.”

     I have another cousin, originally from New York, who now lives in Florida. She drives in the southeast as well as the northeast. Once she gets into parts of Virginia and Washington, D. C., she finds no sweet tea.

     Two relatives who travel from Georgia to Canada have different memories. One says, “Sweet tea--only in the south.” The other thinks he once drank it in West Virginia.

     It would be interesting to know how many towns bordering the southern sweet tea line serve the refreshing drink. Comments answering the following questions should help.

     Have you passed the sweet tea line? How far did you travel from the south before the sweet tea ran out? And where were you?

Wanna know more about Gail's book? 

Feature writer Cammie O’Shea recently suffered through a heartbreaking split-up with her fiancé. She wants no new relationships when she moves to Destin, Florida, to take a job at a newspaper. But she has to interview real estate developer Vic Deleona. He’s quite smitten with her and arranges extra meetings in an attempt to court her. Cammie resists his advances. However, after several mysterious break-ins occur, including one at Cammie’s condo, she and Vic launch their own investigation into the crimes. Then Cammie grows fond of him. She gets an opportunity to return home to her old job. Will Vic solve the crimes and win Cammie’s heart or will she leave Destin?  

Wanna know more about Gail?

Gail’s husband, Rick, says she’s the only person he knows who can go in the grocery for a loaf of bread and come out with someone’s life story. That’s probably because she inherited her mother’s love of people and enjoys talking to them. Working as an editor and freelance writer, Gail published a couple hundred articles. While some of them are in anthologies, two ended up in museums. In 2004, the American Christian Writers Association named Gail a regional writer of the year. She recently published her first romance, Love Turns the Tide. Last fall an excerpt from Love Turns the Tide won the Clash of the Titles Challenge in the best nature / weather scene category. When Gail isn’t writing she likes reading, swimming, and getting together with friends and family.

Gail wants to write books of faith that show God’s love. Visit her Web site at http://www.gailpallotta.com and her blog at http://www.gailpallotta.blogspot.com

Love Turns the Tide is available from www.awe-struck.net in the inspirational category. 

Friday with Friends "Ava Pennington"

I love, love, love my guest for this week. Ava Pennington is a delight to know ... and a delight to read. Check it out!

Southern Lessons    

By Ava Pennington                                                                                

I’m a city girl. A northern city girl.  I was born in Brooklyn and worked in Manhattan for most of my corporate career. My New York accent is as much a part of me as my brown eyes and crooked smile.

But things change. Twelve years ago, we moved south – one thousand miles south to Florida. Now, I know true southerners do not consider Florida a bona fide southern state. Southern wisdom dictates that “when you’re in Florida, you have to go north to get south.”

Still, I’m surrounded by enough southern influence that this northerner has learned a thing or two…usually the hard way!

There was the time a friend hosted a gathering, but realized too late she only had unsweetened iced tea. It didn’t seem like a problem to me – why not offer sugar to those who wanted to sweeten their iced tea? I suggested. The collective southern gasp – followed by laughter – informed me of my faux pas. First lesson: true sweet iced tea is never sweetened when cold!

Speaking of sugar, one of my dearest friends at church is a lovely older woman who hails from the Deep South. As our relationship developed, I made a point of greeting her with a hug each time we met. Soon that wasn't enough. One day, she greeted me with, “Gimme some sugar.” Was she asking for another hug? I didn’t need to puzzle long. She quickly complemented her warm embrace with a big kiss. Second lesson: southern kisses are sweeter than sweet iced tea!

After living among southerners (and southern wannabes!) it was bound to happen. I began to pick up southern mannerisms. I even address my Bible class as “y’all,” although it does sound funny with a New York accent. Still they are quick to remind me that I haven’t quite arrived until I address them properly: “all y’all.”

Sigh. I have much to learn.

For more information about Ava, go to:

www.AvaWrites.com
www.facebook.com/AvaPennington.AuthorPage
One Year Alone with God: 366 Devotions on the Names of God (Revell Books)
Do You Love Me More? (Standard Publishing)
Will I See You Today? (Standard Publishing)