blogalicious: Southern Palate

When they got off the plane, my father was wearing a button down shirt, tucked into rain pants, capped off with leather loafers.

Here are a few things you should know about my parents:

1. My father has Pizza Hut listed in his address book

2. They speak in Southern American English (SAE) (I grew up not understanding that hill and heel were two completely different words, or that penguin is not pronounced pinguin)

3. They love in n’ out burger

4. My mother’s response to my attempt at engaging her in a conversation about climate change: “All I know is that when it gets warm outside, I turn on my air conditioner”

5. My mother occasionally refers to butter as “oleo”

6. My father is completely covered in hair much like a gorilla

Most obviously (especially to anyone who has spoken to them on the phone), my parents sprung forth from the belly of the South. They are exceedingly polite. They talk often of the olden days and how different our lives could have been were we to stay in the South. Most likely I would have wanted to compete in “pageants” and have crushes on boys who did “rodeo”. I might have children by now, and maybe I would have named them things like “Crystal Gail”, “Brenna”, “Dallas”, or “Dwayne” (actual names of childhood friends). I would probably teach them values that I currently do not have such as the importance of “pageants” or “rodeo” in the development of one’s young mind. I would probably also not be a vegetarian. Oh no, if there is one thing to NOT be in the South, it is black (but also weird or vegetarian).

Oh, Southern food, I loved you so! If there was any doubt as to it’s edibility, it was fried. Mashed potatoes, gravy, ocra, collard greens stewed with ham hock, catfish, cheese grits made with eggs (!), BBQ (“pulled pork”), homemade taffy in the summer, dinner rolls, fried tomatoes. None of that low-carb crap when you could ingest large quantities of sugar, breaded and lard. My grandmothers only cooked with lard saved up from previous meals...and I ate that lard like it was going out of style.

My parents are in town, and we made my grandmother’s chocolate pie recipe. She made up this recipe and was senile when she told it to my mother, so it was definitely a beta version for the 00s, but it was surprisingly close to the real thing. Cocoa, sugar, cornstarch, eggs. It is in the syle of those crappy pudding-chocolate pies that are sold in most diners, but sooo much better as it has a deep unadulterated chocolaty taste. Many a summer my brother and I were forced to go spend a week at her house (in Holcomb, MO, dangerously close to Tennessee, Arkansas and Kentucky). The town’s economy was cotton and was dreadfully void of anything to do for “fun”. My grandmother would watch her soaps( and talk to the TV as if the story line were REALLY happening) while Will and I bought liters of mountain dew at the one tiny store in town and rifled through her stuff. But without fail, we could fill our little bodies with fried okra and chocolate pie.

Some pictures from the ‘rent's visit:

We ate Chinese food...