My good friend J. Kingbossdaddy Davis gave me a great Christmas present last month: “The Southerner’s Handbook: A Guide to Living the Good Life.” Its six sections are filled with wonderful essays covering many topics all should know.
Like Part I on Food (see page 14 for “Big Bad Buttermilk Biscuits”), or Part II about Style (page 68 teaches you “How to party like a Cajun”), III – Drink (containing my favorite so far, on page 121 - “Three Odes to Bourbon”), IV - Sporting and Adventure (page 169 - “Handling Snakes,” and page 176 - “How to Talk to a Game Warden”), V – Home and Garden (page 194 - “The Perfect Tomato”) and Section VI – Arts and Culture (page 240 – “Dance Like a Cowboy,” and page 259 – “Instructions in the Blues”).
Wonderful words, and for those of us who were fortunate enough (by the grace of God) to have been born southern, we get it. For the rest of you, as my dearly departed southern mama would have said, “Bless your hearts,” and keep trying; maybe you’ll get it one day. John T. Edge explains that better at the beginning of, “Why Southern Food Matters (So Much)” – The rest of the country has long wanted what southerners have. They covet our stone-ground grits and skillet-fried okra. They thirst for our whiskey. They want our ham, a chef friend once told me, as we leaned against his truck, swigging a bottle of bourbon, and they want our history.
Reading the three “Odes to Bourbon” – “Sipping Whiskey” by Roy Blount Jr., “Respecting Reserve” by John T. Edge, and “Proud to Drink American” by chef John Currence, I was taken back, by a smoky thought of charcoal aroma, to Lynchburg, Tenn., when I made a wise decision one cold October morning to take about three extra hours to visit the Jack Daniels Distillery. If you ever find yourself in that part of the world, do yourself a favor and drop in. Also, pick up a copy of the “ Southerner’s Handbook.” You won’t regret it. Thanks for mine, Mark. Mercy!
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The weekly magazine I get, aptly named “The Week,” has a regular section called, “It must be true…. I read it in the tabloids.” A few from this latest issue deserve extra attention, like the guy from Washington, a 70-year-old man who had been color blind all his life until a recent bump on the noggin jarred the part of the cerebrum that recognizes rainbows and daffodils and Munchkin land.
The report said that when the alliterate Richard Riggs banged his head on his floor, his “vision exploded in Technicolor.” I understand you can now purchase similar bursts of brilliance from certain stands in Riggs’ home state, as well as parts of Colorado and, still illegally, in Newton County, Ark., or the hidden hills of Rocky Top.
Riggs says he’s looking forward to an upcoming trip to Hawaii with his “new color sense” so he can “watch the flowers – and the bikinis.”
Speaking of bikinis, Tiger Woods’ snow bunny athlete girlfriend Lindsey Vonn wore one once in a Sports Illustrated I happened to be looking at for the articles. But that actually has nothing to do with “The Week’s” report that sidelined skier Vonn is “clamoring for a baby.” Supposedly Tiger doesn’t want any more kids, and instead bought the Queen of Downhill a puppy. We’ll see how this plays out. It’s not like he couldn’t afford a nanny. Maybe Elin would do it. I think she has experience. (Not bad, huh? Maybe inquiring minds would like to read this kind of stuff every week.)