Hello Folks, I live in Georgia, not far from Savannah. I was raised in Texas, and moved out here in 1971. I've lived around this area for over 37 years and I still get picked on by friends, my husband, and my kids (sometimes!), for the remnants of my Texas accent and some of the words I use. Where I lived in in Texas, I should have been exposed to some of the Southern-style cooking that we do down here, but I wasn't. Things like cheese grits, collard greens, sweet tea, and Brunswick stew, were completely foreign to me! But I brought with me some Texas-style cooking of my own. For instance, biscuits do not come in tins out of the dairy section in the grocery store, they are made by hand. True chili does not have beans in it. True barbeque is not smothered in some sweet concoction that comes in a bottle, it has a dry rub or is marinated in a sauce overnight in the fridge, and then it is slow cooked over nice hot hickory, apple, mesquite, or crabapple coals, or a combination of any of them. My Mama would kill a chicken on Saturday morning, I had to sit on the back porch with a pillowcase and pluck the feathers off of it and put the feathers in the pillowcase. Then she would gut it, take out the parts she would cook such as the heart, liver, gizzard, and lungs, or the 'lights' as mama called them, cut the chicken up and double-dip and double-bread all the pieces, then fry it in hot lard. Everything that we ate on Sunday was cooked on Saturday, even breakfast. She made the best soda biscuits and yeast biscuits (she called them holiday biscuits) I have ever tasted! Her biscuits had only one size - big! She called them 'cat-head' biscuits. I guess that she called them that because they were the size of a large cat's head! I know that you could use them as hamburger buns. Chili was made with slow cooked (on the back of the stove, not in a modern slow cooker or crock pot!) round steak or the neck meat of the steer that was killed that year. Sometimes, it was made with the deer meat from the deer that dad had killed that season. It goes without saying that chili was a cold weather meal. Dad and his friends would dig a pit in the ground about 6 feet deep, fill it with logs and branches of whatever wood they wanted to barbeque meat with, then set it on fire. When it got low, they would throw in some more wood and let it burn down until they had a good 3 to 4 foot deep bed of coals going. Then they would lay on the grill that someone had made, and then the ribs, steaks, and at least one backstrap and roast would go on. They would 'tent' it over with wet burlap. The kids, including me, had the job of watching the burlap and as it dried, we had to sprinkle on water (or beer) with a garden sprinkler. All this was done early in the morning, and the meat would cook all day. Just at dark, it would be ready, literally falling off the bones, at dusk. We would set up tables on the screen porch and have supper. Some of us kids would have been drafted into turning the handles on 3 or 4 ice cream churns, and mama and the other ladies would be cooking up the beans (pinto) with homemade sweet sauce, real mashed potatoes, red - eyed gravy, biscuit gravy, all types and forms of veggies, including fried okra, eggplant, squash, and pickles. Yup, pickles! Those were my mama's speciality. She would make 2 types; One with her bread & butter pickles and one with her (award - winning!) dill and fennel pickles. They also made dipping sauces for the barbeque, horseradish, sweet, hot, mild, mustard, applesauce & banana pepper, mincemeat & garlic, and sweet garlic. Sweet-bacon (bacon smoked with brown sugar or molasses) baked beans, and cheese & bacon baked potatoes. Oh, man, it was a wonder that all of us didn't die of heart attacks from the cholesterol, or be 100 lbs. heavier after we ate! No one went home, the grown-ups slept inside, along with the babies under 2, while the rest of us kids made bed rolls and slept out on the screen porch. Inside, there was an old-fashioned drip fan (these were what used to be called air conditioners), while us kids out on the porch had fans. It was grand! My husband raised our kids here in this area on a farm and we did a lot of the same things, including the summer barbeque. We had even built a screened porch to sit out on in the evenings. A few differences were made. Inside we had what everyone thinks of as a/c's, while we set up an old-fashioned drip fan out on the porch for the kids. That was a long time ago, and our kids are now grown with kids of their own. We now have mini-versions of these barbeques where the meat is now bought in the store and it is slow-cooked on grills with wood coals and in homemade smokers. The grandkids still sleep out on the screen porch, but one or two of us ladies sleep out there with them. It's a sign of the times that we do not leave our kids and grandkids alone outside, even on a locked screen porch! We still have ghost stories, and silly "Am I Lying" games, sings, and Post Office. It's a shame that a lot of these old traditions are going by the wayside as our new way of life is causing our younger generation to believe that milk, eggs, meats, and bread come from the store. How they got there, no one seems to even question. On holidays I bake cookies, cakes, and homemade breads. I create Cookies-in-a-Jar and Cakes-in-a-Jar, along with different 'secret recipe' items and semi-rare jellies and jams, are made for gifts. I will also make homemade ornaments to be given with my baked goods, especially at Christmas. I also started a new tradition for Christmas. I will set up a few days for the grandkids that live close by and put all the ingredients and items ready to make cookies and ornaments. Then I call up mom and dad and tell them to pick out a day when they're going Christmas shopping or will be wrapping presents for the kids. Then I keep the grandkids that day and we have a rowdy good time making cookies, Cookies-in-a-Jar, bread, and ornaments for them to give out as presents. They love this as most of them aren't old enough to get allowances, yet. But even the older kids love doing this as well. Especially as I tell them stories of the 'good old days' when I was growing up, or stories about their mom or dad. The 'under 2' grandkids, Papa gets to take care of! But we have only 2 of those, so he isn't overwhelmed, not by the 'special delivery' diapers, but by keeping the lil rascals busy! He has been horsy to over a dozen grandchildren so far, and I'm pretty sure 'horsy' is pretty tired. But, so far, he can throw on a tape or DVD of their favorite cartoons and the kids will be mesmerized until they either get hungry, thirsty, sleepy, or mom or dad comes after them. This gives the parents time to shop, have a nice dinner alone, and some needed "us" time without the kids. This is a holiday gift that I try to give them before Christmas. It is well-apreciated, let me tell you! Well, I've run on with this thing, but I figured that you would get a sense of my husband and me by telling you what we try to do, instead of dry statements that just tell you where we live, how old we are, etc. Oh, we also make goodies for the animals, as well. Doggie treats, Kitty treats, and wild bird treats. This is who we are. And I hope that we can add to some of the tidbits of wisdom that I'm sure all of us can use, young and old!