Faith, Folklore, and Friends

The Foothills Parkway is the oldest unfinished road construction project in Tennessee.  Congress authorized construction of the road in 1944, and they are still working on it some 74 years later.  Fortunately for all of us, a 16.1 mile section was completed on November 10 of this year.  It takes you from Walland to Wears Valley. We drove on it last week, tired after driving all day.  It was a gloomy, dark day, and we really didn't know what to expect. It was awesome, literally breathtaking. I don't know if I have ever seen anything so beautiful. That is Townsend, Tennessee in the valley. Below is Wears Valley, just before the end of the parkway.  We had planned to watch the sunrise on our way home, but because of snow and ice, the parkway was closed that day..  You can be sure our next trip to the Smokies will include some time here.

If you love gardening, you have probably seen P. Allen Smith's Garden Home on Create and other TV  stations. Last week, Hub and I toured his home and garden at Moss Mountain Farm.  A.maz.ing!!!!! There was seventy of us, and they fed us lunch here. It turned out to be a hot, most excellent day!  In fact, Hub and I are planning to return in the spring.  Want to go?

It is that time of year again.  There are lots of green tomatoes on the vines that are now dying, just about done with their cycle of life. We have had numerous BLTs and salsa-drenched omelets and burritos, so it is okay to pick the green tomatoes now. There are hundreds of  fried tomato recipes online, so here is another one for you. Starting from the left: 1/2 cup of plain flour; 1/2 cup of milk and an egg; 1/2 cup corn meal, 1/2 cup of bread crumbs, and, just to make it interesting, 1 Tablespoon Tony Chachere's Creole seasoning.  Beat the egg and milk together, and mix the meal, bread crumbs, and seasoning. Slice some firm, green tomatoes that have been washed and dried.  I usually use one tomato per person. Dip the tomato slice in the flour, then in the egg/milk mixture, making sure you cover it completely. Shake off any excess, then coat with the meal, bread crumbs, and seasoning mixture.  I did this wi...

Stories from my Daddy Storytelling is the oldest form of record keeping.  Most of what we know of ancient history is from oral telling of facts and events, with each generation passing them on to the next. Stories are the most important inheritance we have to pass on.  ~ Donald Davis I cannot remember a time when my Daddy wasn't telling stories.  He told them while we worked, at the supper table, before bedtime.  In the summer, when the heat from the tin roof and wood cook stove drove us out of the house, we sat on the porch with a gnat-smoke in a metal half-bushel tub and Daddy told stories: Stories about hard times, violent deaths of people we didn't know but had allegedly shared DNA, war stories, and mule stories. They included tales about his siblings, which amazed me because his subjects were now elderly people with children of their own, and it was so hard to imagine my sweet aunts jumping fences while running from snakes. Daddy told stories of favorit...