“Things Every Southern Woman Should Know How to Make”

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Alice clicked on the headline, mildly curious about what yet another stranger thought should be in her kitchen repertoire. Pictures of China plates mounded with crispy fried chicken, greens, cobbler, and a pile of biscuits a mile high flooded the screen, all set off with a pitcher of sweet tea beaded with condensation. The table was set; an apron draped off to the side next to a box labeled “Gramma’s Recipes” in fine calligraphy. She closed the browser and put away her tablet. She was born a Georgia peach, but she couldn’t make a cobbler to save her life. Did that mean she wasn’t southern? Or maybe just not “Southern.” For Alice, there was no recipe box full of family traditions. Her younger years were filled with rental homes in different states and her father’s voice coaxing her toward a text book rather than a cookbook. Metalworking and fabrication held more interest than learning to flambé or sauté. Did it make her less of a woman that her cooking skills consisted of fresh salads
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Poetry: You Never Went Back


The sesame seeds stuck to your teeth
Started the chain reaction
Laughter, like an infection
spread like Rome’s consuming fires.

An accident, that first giggle
became a epidemic as the
next table caught the fever.
My laugh arced like electricity
across the room.

Composed, you stood
Outcast, you turned to go.
I offered frantic protests
amidst hiccuped chuckles.

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