Tuesday's Southern Style Tunes

From the movie (and one of my all-time favorites!) "The Help"

Johnny Cash & June Carter (Cash) ......Jackson

Monday Musings on All Things Southern

I'm reading THE HELP (now a major motion picture) right now. Loving every minute of it. Amazed this is Kathryn Stockett's first novel, however, according to her bio, she worked in magazine publishing and marketing for nearly a decade. And, she lived in New York City, so I'm sure she absorbed some of the artistic culture one can only obtain there.

That said, this woman knows the South. And she knows what life was all about in the 60s for white families as well as for black.

I flipped to the back of the book to read her acknowledgments (as any good author would do) and noticed that her family, like so many of our families, had the "maid." Or, "the help."

Our maid's name was Etta Mae. Oh, gosh...I loved that woman! She was good and kind. So loving. Loyal. Looking back on it, for Mother to have entrusted the care of my brother and me to any woman while she "ran her errands" means the woman had to have had godly virtues and values.

I have two very distinct memories concerning Etta Mae. The first concerns the day she didn't come to work but sent someone in her place (she was sick, if I remember correctly). Mother was out "running her errands" when the mail came. Among the letters and such was a box, the perfect size for the doll I'd ordered off the back of a cereal box. I was beside myself to open that box! But the substitute help would have nothing to do with that until Mother got home.

I demanded (!!!) she allow me to open the box. I told her very plainly what was in it. But she held her ground.

When Mother came home, I ran past the substitute and said, "So-and-so won't let me open my box!"

Mother looked at the package, realized what it was and said, of course, I could open the box. I spun on my little five-year-old heels toward the woman who wasn't nearly as nice as Etta Mae, placed my hands on my hips, jutted my chin forward and said, "See! I told you I could open it!"

Mother immediately put the box away and made me wait another 24 hours.

Mother did not believe any child should talk to any adult with disrespect. No matter what.

The second memory involves the day Etta Mae's husband couldn't come get her from the house. By this time, I was probably seven years old or so. Etta Mae was in the midst of fretting when Mother told her "it's okay, Etta Mae. I'll drive you home."

"Do we get to go too?" I asked, speaking of my brother and me.

Mother said of course we did; she couldn't very well leave us at home alone.

I was thrilled! I was going to get to see where Etta Mae lived! We piled into the car. Mother in the front driver's seat, Etta Mae in the middle of my brother and me in the back. With my face pressed against the glass, I said, "Etta Mae, do you live far from us?"

"Not too far," she said.

I continued peering out the window, watching the landscape change from the sprawling ranch-style homes of the new families in town, to the massive Victorians of the "old money" along Main Street. And then, to small houses, many unpainted. Lots of dark-skinned, barefoot children running around in sandy, grassless front yards. Furniture meant for living rooms and dens stretched across narrow front porches. Front doors were wide open; I could see straight through what I now know are shot-gun houses.

I felt panic rising. "Etta Mae," I said, fearful this was actually where she lived. Not wanting my beloved Etta Mae subjected to such poverty. "Is your house pretty like our house?"

Etta Mae chuckled. "Oh, no chile...my house is not pretty like anybody's."

About that time, Mother--all pink-faced--turned into a driveway. A pack of children ran toward the car, frightening me all the more. My brother wanted to get out and play; I wanted to adopt Etta Mae, take her home and make my bedroom her bedroom. I could move in with Van.

"Them's my young 'uns," she said. She opened the door on my side, scooted over me, said, "Thank you, Miss Purvis," and got out.

I cried all the way home.

Make that three memories...Years later, I was a nursing student. My family and I had just sat down to supper when the phone rang. It was a friend of mine, an elderly doctor who had been my muse. He was about to perform an autopsy and, knowing I was struggling with Anatomy & Physiology, asked if I'd like to join him. He'd be more than happy to show me each part of the human body, how it works with all the other parts.

I jumped from the table, brushed my teeth, and out the door I went. Hours later, I returned, totally amazed by what I'd seen. The face of my  mother, however, looked grim.

Daddy was with the GBI (Georgia Bureau of Investigation). He'd gotten a call while I was gone and had left to work a new case. Murder. Gunshot. 22-year-old black male. The same man I'd just seen sliced opened and used as a teaching tool. Then my mother said, "He was Etta Mae's son."

One of those little children I'd been frightened by ten or eleven years earlier had been my first autopsy viewing. My heart hurt now. No longer was he an gunshot victim who died, he was Etta Mae's son (Etta Mae had long retired from "helping" the white women by this point).

Years later I asked Mother why she had "help" at all back when we were children. She didn't work outside the home, after all. I said to her, "I have a full-time job, work myself silly with church functions and school functions, have a house the same size as yours, and I don't have a maid!"

Mother replied, "That's just the way things were done back then."

Well, I reckon so.

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. 

Wednesday's Recipe of the Week

Another recipe from Miss Betty's handwritten 1950s/60s recipe book!




Stuffed Celery

Ingredients 


Celery
Large cream cheese
1 package onion soup mix
Worcestershire sauce, few drops
Paprika

Directions


Mix together the cream cheese, onion soup mix and  Worcestershire sauce. Spread mixture along the stalks of celery. Sprinkle with paprika.

Wednesday's Recipe of the Week

Another recipe from Miss Betty's handwritten 1950s/60s recipe book!


7 Layer Casserole


Ingredients


1 cup uncooked rice
1 cup whole kernel corn, drained
2 cans tomato sauce
1 lb. ground beef, cooked and drained
1/2 cup finely chopped onions
1/2 cup finely chopped green pepper
Salt and pepper
Bacon, uncooked
3/4 cans water

Directions


In a greased casserole dish spread rice evenly over the bottom. Then layer the corn and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Pour 1 can of the tomato sauce and 1/2 can of water on next. Sprinkle on the onions and green peppers. Evenly spread the ground beef and sprinkle that with salt and pepper. Pour the other can of tomato sauce and 1/4 can of water over everything. Finally, add strips of uncooked bacon as the top layer. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Uncover and cook about 30 minutes longer or until bacon is crisp.

Wednesday's Recipe of the Week

Another recipe from my mother's hand-written recipe book (circa 1960). This is Southern at its best. You'll notice there are NO ingredient "amounts" written here. Should be fun just to try it with the old "a pinch here" and "a dollop there" attitude. 


It's what Southern kitchens were build on...


Brown Betty


Ingredients


Apple sauce
Graham crackers
Chopped nuts
Cinnamon
Syrup
Butter

Directions


Spread applesauce in a flame proof dish. Top with crushed graham crackers, chopped nuts and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Drizzle 5 or more T of syrup over the top, depending on size of dish. Dot with butter. Broil until crisp. Serve hot or cold.

[Photo from KitchenScoop.com]

Tuesday's Southern Style Tunes

(If there is an advertisement before this plays, ignore it... LOL)

I have to tell you, I love this song and this video so much. It's got all the 

qualities of a good ole Southern story. 

The message is just as powerful; when we do the right thing 

(even if it's to correct the wrong thing), 

God blesses in amazing ways.