How You Want Them Eggs, Hon?

In my ongoing campaign to singlehandedly sustain the dairy and pork industries, I have spent a considerable part of my afternoon grating cheese and frying bacon (not for us...for something at church tomorrow). And as I was cooking pound-o-bacon number two a few minutes ago, I determined that right now my kitchen feels decidedly like a truckstop...that I just need to pile my hair up on my head, have a name tag embossed with my name, and forevermore refer to David and Alex as either "sugar" or "darlin'."

Really, all that's missing is a neon sign.

And, you know, truckers.

But other than that it's just like a truck stop.

I guess you'll have to take my word for it.

A little earlier I contemplated calculating the fat content of everything I'm preparing - it's a little bit of trivia I'd like to remember, kind of like the whole 32 sticks of butter thing. But as soon as I figured that I'd fried 120 fat grams worth of bacon, and grated 148 fat grams worth of cheese, and I hadn't even approached the egg and butter territory yet, I decided that I'd just stop counting right then and there, lest I be seized with chest pains simply from looking at numbers that high.

But you know, who wants to show up for a big celebratory meal to find soynuts, tofu, sprouts and dried fruit on the table?

And yes, I know there's a little something called A Happy Medium, but we don't really go for that so much in the South. I mean, I know in my own family we tend to vacillate between two extremes: wrapping pretzels in lettuce and calling it a meal, or combining butter with sausage and bacon, wrapping it in dough, sticking it in a deep fryer, and then spreading cream cheese on top.

(Please don't be alarmed. I totally made up that last thing. We would never, ever do that. Because cream cheese by itself is for Yankees. We Southerners would use mayonnaise.)

It only occurred to me last week that I do talk about food a lot on my blog, and a large part of that is because Southerners talk about food a lot in real life. A couple of years ago Alex and I went to visit Lea Margaret and her family, and for an entire evening LM and I went through her cookbooks, and her mama's recipe box, and we talked about who ate what when and how much they enjoyed it.

And it's not enough, at least down here, to mention a preference for the generic form of a food and leave it at that. Saying, "I like chocolate" is, quite simply, unacceptable.

But if you said, "Hey. Do y'all remember that restaurant that used to be on the corner across from the old post office? It was in that building that used to have a guitar shop but then they just picked up and left town all of a sudden and so Mr. Davis went in there and put in a soda fountain? And then he got REAL busy because his wife would make homemade chicken and dumplins every Friday for dinner and he had so much business that he opened a full-fledged restaurant? Well, that's where I had my first piece of homemade chocolate pie, and I'd cut off my right arm and four of my toes if I could have just one. more. bite."

So food. It means something to us down here.

And that being said, I'd better get back to frying that bacon. There are about 50 people who are expecting me to feed them in the morning and elevate their cholesterol counts ever-so-slightly.

I'd hate to let them down.