Faith, Folklore, and Friends

Yesterday, Hub, Baby Boy, Rachel, and I attended the Cornbread Festival in South Pittsburg, Tennessee.  South Pittsburg is where Lodge makes all those iron skillets to cook cornbread in. I think the festival is twelve years old, and this was our third time to attend.   It was an almost-perfect day. Rhonda Vincent and the Rage put on a good show, and their sponsor, Martha White, was generous with gifts and samples. Cornbread Alley lets you sample many different kinds of cornbread, including some with chocolate chips and pecans.  They were all good, but after all that sampling, I was thinking it might be a little better with a pork chop to go with it. With more than sixty vendors with real art, it was hard to choose what to take home. I especially loved the bird houses. It was hard to miss this one-man band clown.  His doll had eyes like Chucky and it kinda scared some of us.  Then the clouds started churning,...

The tradition of eating certain food on New Year's day in order to bring health, wealth, and all good things in the new year is old. So old, in fact, that no one can really pinpoint when it started. The food varies greatly depending on what part of the world you live in. One explanation for the South, that is just as good as any to me, is that during the Civil War, the northern soldiers had not been taught about the goodness of garden greens. It is told that when the soldiers passed through and took all the food, they left the greens and the black-eyed peas, finding them undesirable. The people who stayed ate what was left. Probably a more accurate scenario is that greens will grow all winter here except during the coldest winters, and cooks wanted something fresh to prepare for the New Year's holiday. Who knows? This New Year's day, we made the collards a little different than usual. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Grandma's or Paula Deen...