Blogging from A to Z: April – 2016: G

The Blogging from A to Z challenge is to post everyday during the month of April 2016, except Sunday. I will start with the letter A and hopefully make it all the way to letter Z. Hope you enjoy the read!

Come sit a spell with me and learn about the foods and memories of my Southern heritage, and enjoy a little Southern talk along the way… I grew up in the heart of Georgia, married a Yankee in Connecticut and suddenly became displaced from my roots. But one thing is true – You can take the girl out of the South – But you can’t take the South out of the girl! I’ve learned to eat differently over the years, but I’ve never given up the foods I grew up on. When I left Georgia, at the young age of nineteen, I knew how to cook nothing! I pretty much learned to cook by asking mama over the phone, how do you do make this, and how do you make that; thank heavens for my Southern mama! Even though mama doesn’t cook too much today, she still remembers the recipes and she’s been my go-to person every night in chatting about my Southern foods and many of her memories.

Southern Food and Memories

Yummy, lets start “G” right off with breakfast Grits. Every Southerner loves a buttered dish of them with their scrambled eggs at breakfast, and don’t forget to grab a biscuit. Now in the South we only put butter and salt on our grits, but those Northerners just have to change the taste by adding sugar. Yep, that’s exactly what my husband does – he thinks he’s eating cream of wheat. I tried telling him, you can’t put sugar on them, but his answer is, “I can’t eat them without sugar.” So I give in and let him add sugar. When I go home, there’s a well-known restaurant, known to the locals as Stricklins; it’s just a ways over in Athens and they make a mean pot of grits. It’s usually on my go-to-list – stopping for breakfast at least once while I’m home. Heck, I’d go every morning if I didn’t have to drive 20 miles to get there.

My “Cooked to Death Green Beans“

One of my favorite green vegetables is green beans, but I call them Cooked to Death Green Beans – why you ask? Well, I generally cook them to death in a pot of chicken broth, with bacon, onion, salt and lots of pepper. There are only certain beans I like to use, either the frozen flat green beans or the beans in a can called kitchen sliced. Always pour off the liquid in the can – mama says never use the juice from the can! If you’re a mind to try, just cover the beans, chip up some onion, much as you like, pull a few pieces of bacon apart and drop in, add very little salt if your chicken broth is salted. I do add quite a bit of pepper though – that seems to give it, it’s taste. I cook, and cook them, until their super soft and tender. It’s hard to explain – but next time you’re in the South – eat some Cooked to Death green beans.

Now for dessert, lets see… it would be my Mama Bryan’s German Chocolate Cake. Mama Bryan is my grandmother, my daddy’s mama – don’t know why I called her that, but I did. I lot of Southern grandmothers had names like “other mama” “big mama” and mine was “mama Bryan” – adding the last name after mama. I can still see that cake with it’s goey pecan coconut frosting sitting on her side table in the dining room. LOL … I can remember seeing it sitting there, but I can’t remember eating it. Well maybe she never gave me a piece…

Well if you wanna come sit a spell with me, I have some green beans that need snapping. Pull up a chair, don’t be shy.

Need More A to Z -then you know what to do…2016: Blogging from A to Z Challenge

© 2016 Jeanne Bryan Insalaco