Faith, Folklore, and Friends

Some foods are more than nourishment. Some can make you think of a place, take you back to your childhood, or bring up a special memory. When you hear Fried Green Tomatoes , you think South . They have always been cooked here, perhaps because they were always abundant in the spring and summer time. The great southern lady, actress, and writer Fannie Flagg popularized them worldwide with her book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe , which was made into an award-winning movie. One can't cook and eat fried green tomatoes without thinking about the movie. We didn't have them a lot at my house when I was growing up. My mom mixed them with crookneck squash and fried them together. After the tomatoes ripened, we had them sliced at every meal (yes, including breakfast). Would you like to cook some of your own? Here's what I do. Collect some green tomatoes when they are about the size of a tennis ball. In a shallow container, mix 1/2 cup self-rising flour and 1/2 cup self...

Sometimes, I wonder what God the Father thinks about some of our prayers. I'm talking about the unsaved, those who refuse to accept free salvation, thanks a lot but not today, but, deep down, think they are so special that God is just waiting to give them whatever they want. I'm talking about those who have God confused with Santa, and only think of Him when they have something to add to their wish list. I'm talking about really, really stupid prayers. For example: A drought-stricken community gathers together to pray for rain. Somewhere in the crowd, a devout teenager prays that it will rain on Monday, but not on Sunday, because if it rains on Sunday, her hair will get frizzy, and she has an awesome date with an awesome guy, which is far more important than the crops blistering in the field. A student earnestly prays, even turns off his music in reverence, that God will help him on the big test today. It's true his teacher gave him all the notes he needed, and ...

Sharing from Dr. Mel Blake: Hi Everyone, I have gotten several emails with reference to this topic and so I thought that I would make a collective reply. It seems the Mars Hoax 2010 has started. Some of you over the next little while will get an email announcement with regards to a spectacular close approach of Mars (closer than any time for recorded history). It will say that this event will take place in August and be the event of your lifetime to see the red planet and it will make claims on how big Mars will appear in the sky. It all looks very official and sometimes even has NASA logos. This is because they are reproducing NASA public domain notices. This email is a hoax. The Red Planet made its closest approach for decades in August, 2003 around the dates the email quotes. Ever since then, every year, around this time of year the hoax email has re-surfaced and generated lots of public inquiries and confusion. I can only guess the motive for the hoax. It could be si...

Forget the 90 degree days. Forget the farmers tilling the soil with their big green machines. Forget that the summer solstice, that time when the days are longest, has not yet arrived. You know it's summer when the fireflies come out. In long ago summers, we all went outside after supper. It was cooler there than in the house, where Mama had been cooking and canning all day. Our parents would sit on the porch, more often than not with a friend or relative that dropped by. The younger set would chase fireflies, or lightning bugs. We would run through the familiar yard chasing them until it was dark and the dew formed on the grass around our bare feet. Mama always kept jars that were no longer good for canning for us to capture lightning bugs in. With a hammer and a nail, we would poke holes in the top of the lid to allow the little creatures to breathe. We would often forget them, if Mama made a watermelon call, or some other distraction grabbed our attention, and the poor things wo...

I have always loved them. One of my earliest memories is walking with my mom and siblings along the road, looking for dewberries along the sides. My mom always tried to collect enough for a cobbler, and we didn't help a lot because we ate the ones we found instantly. Dewberries are a lot like blackberries, except they grow on brambles, or wandering briers, instead of being upright. They are more tart that blackberries, and actually taste more like raspberries. They are common all over the country, but you have to be persistent to find them. I have never found enough at one time to make jelly or jam. The plants begin to bloom in mid-to-late April here, and that's the best time to look for them, their white blossoms easily identifiable. The blossoms develop into tiny green berries, which turn to red as the grow, and finally turn to black when they are mature. You have to really want dewberries to go to the trouble to get them. The brambles are covered with stickers,...

There was a new baby boy born this week to our friends at the House of Hope. It is always such a joyous occasion to have a wee one in the house. Several years ago, I went through two successful pregnancies. Things were a lot different in the seventies. It seemed my mother and grandmother had a superstition for everything I did while I was pregnant. First of all, it wasn't supposed to be mentioned in public until the tummy protruded to a point that it could no longer be denied. (Yes, Grandma, we went past the holding-hands stage. I think most married people do!) At about my eighth month, my firstborn was kicking and I allowed my unmarried sister to put her hands on my tummy to feel it. My grandma was so embarrassed, she got up and left the room. (I must have been a wild woman!) During my mother's and grandmother's pregnancies, they didn't go to church, the store, or anywhere public. They thought it best to be modest. However, after the baby was born, they thought it perf...