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

WHY IN THIS MODERN WORLD?

I want to be able to pour my first cup of coffee, add my skim milk and walk into the den, plop down into my chair, grab one remote and press one button.  We are so past sending men to the moon and yet, with all of the wonders of our computer age, using any new device is more complicated and requires a laptop. 
                                                                          

This picture, 1988, represents the hope of tomorrow.  A toddler being held in place by her Daddy so her mother can take a picture of their brand new, beautiful television set, a gift from her generous great-grandmother.  Top of the line with beautiful color.  A true pleasure to possess, anticipating years of entertainment and information.

Our first t.v. was black and white and had such a small screen that one of us had to jump up and go read any pertinent words in the story we were watching.  A true story.  But all we had to do was plug it into an outlet in our first apartment on the first day of moving in and ta da.   Modern television.  No waiting for an appointed, accredited, officially sanctified employee with the secret handshake of knowledge bestowed in an old underground former fallout shelter owned by a large conglomerate where everyone sits around laughing about Mrs. Taylor while they dine on cheese and crackers.  (All apologies to anyone resembling this description who is a friend or friend of a friend of mine.  Or relative of a relative.)

We moved up in the world on this day in 1988.  Of course, we had really moved up in the world the year before when this little model arrived in our lives.  But maybe not quite, concerning the t.v.  We still did not have a magical remote, just easily accessible buttons. 

Cate and Finn have been making fun of this t.v. for years.  Other family members once insulted the color of a football field a few years ago, while enjoying a weekend at our house.  In the last few months, the sound started having just the slightest hint of a buzz but we were used to it like you get used to a button being off of your favorite old run around jacket.  Still works.  Truly, the skin tones were still good and all of the tornado warning maps were still the proper color, maybe a little bit brighter.

The history and culture of our world in the last twenty six years has lit up our home because of this set.  The fall of the Berlin Wall.  The first bombs of Desert Storm. Peter Jennings delivering the news.  Maya Angelou reading the inaugural poem "On the Pulse of Morning" while fellow Arkansan President Clinton looks on.  "There's no place like home" played over and over during the little model's bout with a lingering pneumonia.  Barney.  Kris Allen winning "American Idol."  "China Beach."  Survivors being pulled from the destruction of the Northridge earthquake while I sat watching in my living room.  My first NASCAR race, the Daytona 500 and seeing Dale Earnhardt hit the wall.  Sometimes the unfolding minute by minute into days not allowing me to look away from the screen such as The Sago Mine Disaster when a poem started inside of me and was written while waiting.  The Friday night snare of my always favorite "Dallas."  The funeral of my beloved Princess Diana.    A living Pope riding away from the Vatican while a new Pope steps up to the balcony.

As the years have passed, the sidewalk cellphones have been filming history almost before the professionals can get a camera set up.  September 11, 2001.    

The new NASCAR seasons starts tomorrow, Daytona 500.  Sunday night is big around this house.  Doc Martin.  And as declared, the best show ever, while I was jumping up and down last Sunday, Downton Abbey.  Now we have over 200(?) stations but we don't watch much television.  Tastes change. 

But who can watch a television in the comfort of their favorite chair tomorrow?  Not me.  Nice big brand new television in place.  Your welcome C & F.  The sound problems really became unbearable
this past week.  The BB place helped me pick out a good one, the one they said was made in the U.S.A.  I always ask, even though we know the odds of a technical item being American made is like me not eating an entire box of newly delivered Thin Mints, with restraint, over the weekend.  My BB helper obviously doesn't know about an American/ Mexican border.  He also told me it would be easy to install as did the nice lady working for the big conglomerate where I had to trade in boxes. And pick up the ONLY acceptable remote.  Why just one remote?

Oh, well.  Cookies in hand and ensconced in my bedroom, where there is a lovely t.v. that was properly installed a couple of years ago, I'll be watching Jr. and Danica race around the Florida track and Countess Violet and Isobel exchange pithy repartee.  On Monday, I will try to find a human to talk to and schedule reinforcements.






**By the way, the little model was too fashionable to ever wear plain diapers out of the house.  Only when relaxing at home.  Kind of like curlers in your hair.  See.  I date myself even there!