I just had to explain to our 19 yr old intern who's a vegetarian that Chicken Ramen Noodles have actual chicken in them. Not a lot, it's about the third to last ingredient but "powdered cooked chicken" is definitly in there.

My South is cornbread without sugar; biscuits; grits; greens; field peas cooked with a ham end; pulled pork with some outside meat; green beans cooked with ham and topped with chopped raw onions; and muscadines and scuppernogs. It's where "peas" means crowder, black-eyed, field and related peas, and the other peas are English or green peas. It's where people still talk about "sweet milk," as opposed to buttermilk, and iced tea comes sweet unless you ask for unsweetened. It's making eye contact with strangers and smiling. It's also poor schools; crazy liquor laws; an unhealthy obsession with high school and college football; and going from your air conditioned house to your air conditioned car to your air conditioned office.

Ginger and I have very similar Souths. Add in people still calling margarine "oleo," red velvet cake made from scratch, old women asking who your people are, funeral parlor fans at church for the women who are hot flashing (because there is air conditioning for the rest of us), hypocritical church goers who bemoan the demon liquor on Sunday and get drunk on Friday, leaving bags of squash and tomatoes on your neighbor's porch because your garden is overflowing, finding bags of eggplant and cucumbers on your own porch, sitting in the kitchen shelling peas and pecans and snapping beans, watching the Gaither Gospel Hour on Saturday nights, and swimming in the lake.

I quit swimming the lake as soon as I saw an alligator gar skeleton on the beach. I will still tube in it, if the tube has a bottom.

Alligator Gar

ETA: From wiki "The alligator gar is an aggressive, solitary fish that lives in fresh water bodies in the southeastern U.S. It is carnivorous and feeds by lurking amongst reeds and other underwater plant life, waiting for food to pass by. It has even been witnessed attacking a five foot alligator before devouring it."

Spongebob at my BRANE!

On this computer I have my homepage set to iGoogle. It's got a particularly nice picture of the Eiffel Tower today. But I just looked at the tab and thought it said iGiggle.

Anne, much strength to your family. I hope the antibiotics do their job.

Suzi, sorry for the heme issues. Hope you enjoy the amusement park.

I think my brain is fried, but at least SpongeBob didn't eated it!

I forgot boiled peanuts and fried okra. Something must have eaten my brain. Fortunately, it couldn't have been Spongebob. Spongebob does seem to be pretty omnipresent; the grocery store had Spongebob spinach.

As ChiKat says, there is the denial and general craziness about demon rum. This joke is funny in the South: How can you tell the difference between a Baptist and a Methodist? The Methodist will speak to you when you run into him at the liquor store.

I only had a brief South, but my South is green and rolling. It's sitting on a hillside watching thunderstorms tumble in across the Smokies. Pipe smoke curling up into the evening sky as we sway on the porch swing. Lying languidly across the bridge, dreaming and watching the willow branches sweep across the surface of the creek. Splashing & playing in the swimming hole, trying to see how deep it was.

My South was the backdrop for my courtship. Long walks hand in hand under blazingly starry skies. Hiking up Roan Mountain and holding each other tight as the fog curled 'round us until we were in complete whiteout. Music ringing out into the open air everywhere. Love.

I forgot boiled peanuts and fried okra

Goodness! Me, too! And, fried catfish or crappie that was caught that day (and if it's a good-sized crappie, it's called "titty crappie" because you have to hold it against your titty to get the hook out...or so says my dad). Moonpies. RC Cola.

This joke is funny in the South: How can you tell the difference between a Baptist and a Methodist? The Methodist will speak to you when you run into him at the liquor store.

Oh, yes. I have heard that joke often.

My South is tainted with the shock of seeing it for the first time as an adult. And being an outsider Yankee. Let's just say if I had only seen the Buffista South it would be a better place for me.

Maria, playing with Daisy in Dallas is the best!

Oh yeah, the boys were watching SpongeBob last night and I thought about poor ND. That voice gets old real quick.

The list of Southern foods does not appeal at all, except grits. Had them the first time in my 20s and it was love at first taste.