My Son of the South

I’m a southern girl. I was raised primarily in the mid-west (a perfectly wonderful place to grow up and be from, I might add) but our home was a southern home. My mother’s family is from the south and my daddy’s is from the mid-west and I have always believed that I grew up with the best of all possible worlds. When I moved to Alabama in 1986, it was as comfortable as an old shoe. I had come home.

My life in Alabama had some unpleasantness (that is how we southerners like to refer to lots of things…including what some textbooks call the Civil War) and within a decade, I found myself the single mother of a son going off to college and a teenaged daughter. I was unprepared for such a life, but I put on my big-girl panties and pulled from my strong Midwestern resolve and my Rebel pride and decided that some unpleasantness was NOT going to ruin my life.

Little did I know what God had in my path, just around the bend. Earlier this week, I shared about my first kiss with Ed, on a chilly Sunday evening. I’m not kidding at all when I tell you that my heart skips a beat after more than a few years just thinking about that slow, sweet first kiss.

I suppose I should just go ahead and confess that the person involved in the unpleasantness was a Yankee. Yes, believe it or not, my first marriage was a mixed one. A Southern/Midwestern girl married to a Massachusetts Yankee. He pahked his cahr in the yahd. Everything he did, he did intensely and most of it quickly. He walked fast, he thought quickly and he talked fast. He kept my little ole head spinning at times.It was an interesting time that ended up, as I said, unpleasantly.

One of my prayers at the end of that marriage and the beginning of the rest of my life was that if God had another mate for me, could he please, Please, PLEASE be a Southerner? You know what? God really does answer prayers, and sometimes He answers in spades. The deliverer of that sweetest of first kisses is now the love of my life and the man of my dreams. Also the answer to my prayers, as he was born in Macon, Georgia (doesn’t get any more Southern than that, I tell ya!) and lived in Memphis, Tennessee from the time he was 12 until he graduated from college. I am happily ever after-ing in the Camelot subdivision with a true Son of the South! Seriously a Southerner!

His Mother doesn’t care much about cooking, and I don’t think I’m talking out of turn, because she says the same thing. Neither did her mother. But, I’m told that his paternal grandmother, Ma, was an exceptional southern cook. And he sure does love him some Southern Cooking. I’m going to share one of his favorites with you, because you just might have a Son of the South that you’d like to please. The recipe below is for Pecan Tarts. The first bite will make you hear the soaring ovation from ‘Gone With the Wind’. You just want to eat them slow and savor all the goodness.

Go ahead…try it. And, y’all come back, ya hear?

~ Mollianne

Pecan Tarts

3 whole eggs

1 cup white corn syrup

1 cup chopped pecans

1 cup sugar

¼ cup melted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

16 tart shells (from the frozen foods section at the Piggly Wiggly, y’all!)

Mix all ingredients well for about 2 minutes with a mixer. Pour into raw tart shells and cook very slowly at 300 degrees for 45-50 minutes.