Mississippi G*ddam

Natan bought a Nina Simone compilation album during the break and we've been listening to it on the regular. It has her civil rights song, Mississippi Goddam, which I had never heard, or if I had, it didn't mean much to me at the time. Now that MS is freshly in my mind/spirit/blood, my ears perk up when it comes around. The January 6th New Yorker has an article on hot tamales in the MS Delta, and specifically the hot tamale festival in Greenville (and more specifically, the absurdity of a town calling itself the INSERT CONCEPT HERE "capital of the world". Kind of like how all of the original penny stock traders hilariously had various "vice president" titles in the Wolf of Wall Street movie, or how today companies have "directors" for every conceivable task. Oh, what I wouldn't give to be the "director of improvisational/creative coffee making (with hot cocoa packets)" at my job. Wait, I think I am (self-proclaimed)!  The New Yorker article addresses this phenomenon in the appropriation of various cultural products/phenomenon by towns.).

The New Yorker article also made me excited again about something that I have not yet shared on this here blog, which is the fact that I MADE KOOLICKLES this summer! (bucket list item complete!) At work in August, I gave a presentation on the NEH programs and shared my experience in MS. I made a bunch of food (since food is probably the most important part of any cultural history and was a focus of our study) and koolickles was one of the foods I made (in addition to fried okra and pound cake). There are many recipes online, but the the one from the NY Times is here. I used the recipe in the part-cookbook/part-travel guide "Eat, Drink, Delta".  I let them marinate for a week.