CORNMEAL CONSPIRACY - FAKE NEWS?

The season is upon us. Those of us who are cooking the holiday dinners. And probably the ones growing weary standing in long lines at Kroger. One night I spent three grocery store hunts for sour cream. If you can, shop early. I feel for the people who have to wait until the last minute.

What do racing and cornmeal have to do with each other? NASCAR.com (2016) reports over 10 million miles have been raced on Sunoco Green E15. The very last race of the season, the end of NASCAR ethanol consumption, is days before the holiday season begins. Connection?

We need to be concerned. "People" know about it but nobody is talking. There is the possibility that the cornmeal shelves will be empty days before Thanksgiving. I tell you it is all being burned away in engines every day but most notably in the auto racing industry. There is no sense whatsoever in thirty-two cars going around a track or a track that twists and turns on a course. That is a lot of gasoline for five hundred miles and all of those cars are burning, burning, burning.  And there is only one women they let race. But to look at her, I don't think she eats much so it is of little concern to her that the very essence of Thanksgiving and Christmas meals is going up in the air as all those little cars race their tires off.

This is serious. This is not fake news. Without cornmeal, there can be no cornbread. And you have to have cornbread to make Dressing for Thanksgiving. Cornbread is to the South like a popover to Menomonie, Wisconsin, a flour tortilla to San Antonio, Texas and a lobster roll to Boothbay, Maine. A shortage of cornmeal could disrupt the usual beautiful holiday tradition of steaming sage dressing full of onions and celery and the plated little jellied roll of cranberry sauce.

Thank goodness this nonsense will soon be shed.  #48 is stuck with seven titles to end 2017. Will he retire? Daryl Earnhardt and Richard Petty did win seven times but will Jimmie go for #8 in 2018?

He was raised in California. I don't know if they give a fig about dressing over there, sitting on that fault line.  This is true because I wouldn't make it up.  Dressing, as we Southerners know it, may be at stake.  Corn continues to be a bumper crop.  That should be a good thing but they are growing it to make fuel.

But with all of that corn going for fuel, especially the racing kind, the eating kind is getting scarce.  No one will say anything because corn has always been so very important to the American diet, right from the first step out of the boat.  They don't want a corn panic like the spinach panic of 1843.

I am having trouble sleeping at night because I am worried about having enough cornmeal to make my dressing for Thanksgiving.  It is the perfect dressing.  Course, a perfect dressing is only doable with a perfect cornbread.  You have to have a Mamaw to teach you to make perfect cornbread and I'm not giving that secret away for nothing.  But it is a real secret, I promise.  And there are good Southern cooks who can't make a mean dressing.  Bless their heart.  Cornbread is the backbone.     

 Fixing dressing in my family requires nerves of cast iron.  Iron chef is nothing.  We have so many good cooks we can't fit all the food on the table.

Stuffing is not dressing.  Little pieces of “light bread” do not make up a southern dressing.  Let’s face it.  What success can you hope for by saving bread scraps for two weeks?  They get dry.  Did you ever hear of someone taking Chicken and Stuffing to a grieving family?  They’d mourn all over again. 

I have stuffed those little chickens but I will never stuff a turkey.  I know folks can't help where they are raised but the thought of stuffing makes me lose my appetite for a couple of weeks.  Millions are raised on white bread stuffing.  White bread is good for toast and a peanut butter sandwich and a fried baloney sandwich. 

I've got to put my mighty pen down and find out more about this conspiracy.  Maybe they are just trying to put us on a diet by taking away corn.  I'll be glad when all of this racing is over.  It is not healthy to sit out there in all of that dust, noise and smells.  Course, I can't be too harsh because a lot of good Southern folks are rooting on their favorites.  And they don't know about this NASCAR Cornmeal Conspiracy.  It hasn't even been on Fox news, yet.    

 COMING TOMORROW  
# Sizzle Perfect Cornbread - No-Stick Guarantee 

Revision of original 11-11-13