Confessions of a Girl Raised In The South.

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I am a girl raised in the south, but I can hardly say that I'm a GRITS.

First of all, I don't really like grits. Or sweet tea. I didn't taste pimento cheese until I was 30. 

I do call all soft drinks "cokes," and I sure do like my Chick-fil-A waffle fries and lemonade, but I don't know the Waffle House slogan. 

I'm picky about my peaches and fried pickles, but I don't know anything about a fried green tomato. I own a cast-iron skillet, but I don't know how to use it.

I say y'all (mostly because I think it's much more efficient than "you all), I'm polite, and I wave to my neighbors. But I didn't grow up saying "yes ma'am" and "no sir" unless I was at my neighbor's house. 

I don't listen to country music, I don't swoon when a pick-up truck rolls by, I had to google seersucker and smocked, I don't care for monograms, I don't own anything with the outline of my home state drawn on it, and (here's my biggest confession) I can't name more than two SEC football teams.

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Nevertheless, I was born and raised here, and now I'm raising my son here. I'll be interested to see what bits of Southern culture make their way into our home in the years to come. 

Here's a start-- I've got a biscuit recipe. One I'm pretty proud of. It's decently easy, definitely delicious, and it's freezable. Which means if I can get my hands on some good jam and learn how to make sweet tea, I'm ready to host anybody who knocks on my door.

Now that's Southern.

Photo Friday: Blueberries

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Photo Friday: Blueberries

The temperatures here are still hovering in the low eighties, which means that our air conditioners are still hard at work for most of the afternoon. But the nights are slightly cooler and we've watched our first football games of the season, so it seems that autumn's arrival is inevitable.

Before trading in the sweet, summer peaches for crisp apples, we headed to a nearby beach for lobster rolls and I picked up a pint of blueberries from the farmer's market to bake into muffins.

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Boston Bucket List Update

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We're down to our last few days of living in Boston, which means that packing-mode has just about taken over. I thought I would take a few minutes to revel in a bit of last-minute denial of the fact that the hall closet is still full of jackets and shoes, not to mention the untouched plates, bowls, and spoons in the kitchen cabinets, and update our Boston Bucket List.

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Homemade Frosting

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One of the few ways my mother spoiled us growing up was with homemade frosting. Every cupcake, every birthday cake, every Sunday "I just wanted dessert" cake that I can remember was covered in sweet, from-scratch, homemade chocolate, vanilla, or cream cheese frosting. I didn't know what canned frosting tasted like except for the occasional gingerbread house-making class party in Elementary school. And I must say that homemade frosting, well, it takes the cake.

And yet, the simple, sweet satisfaction of homemade vanilla frosting atop a chocolate cupcake eluded me for years. My mother made it look so simple: softened butter, powdered sugar, a splash of vanilla and a splash of milk swirled together with a beater, or even a spoon. And yet, I encountered disaster after disaster while trying to whip up a batch myself.

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Week-End Update: February Vacation

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For the past three years, February Vacation has been the one break from school during which we don't travel, which means that I have a full nine days to do whatever whim strikes me. As always, I made an overly optimistic to-do list that had no hope of being completed, but the things I did manage to squeeze in made for a relaxing (although frozen) break.

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Pantry Cooking: Mashed Potato Cakes and Poached Eggs

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I've been thinking up ways to expand past my "Week-End Update" posts, and cooking has been at the top of my list for a while.  The problem is, I'm definitely in the learning process, which means that meal planning is currently a stressful activity for me as I have to sift through magazines each week for recipes.  I am never more excited than when I can look at a few ingredients, put them together on my own somehow, and have it turn out!  In honor of that simple joy, I present the inaugural post of "Pantry Cooking": recipe experiments based on what I've got around the house.  

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