This Week’s Southernism, Monday, March 29, 2021

“Life is an unanswered question, but let’s still believe in the dignity and importance of the question.”

—Tennessee Williams

Photo: Deborah Fagan Carpenter

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Perfectly Peeled Hard-Boiled Eggs

Why has it taken me so long to figure out how to make perfectly peeled hard-boiled eggs

 By Patsy R. Brumfield
The Southfacin’ Cook
  
Years ago, I complained to my long-time friend Joe Rutherford of Tupelo that I hated to peel hard-boiled eggs. Joe was famous for making dozens of stuffed eggs for the many Tupelo First Presbyterian Church dinners.
 
“I like to peel eggs,” he responded. “Really?” I thought, then stupidly failed to ask the obvious follow-up question any decent reporter would have: “Why?”
 
The answer, I now believe, was that Joe knew the secret and I didn’t – UNTIL NOW!!
 
I’m one of those people who like to watch TV cooking shows. Oh, not just any cooking show, but those snooty ones like America’s Test Kitchen or Cook’s Country, where they try a recipe 732 times in 732 ways at 732 temperatures so that you and I don’t have to. Well, of course, no one I know would do something so foolish – but these folks are in the biz. Somebody else pays for all that wasted, undelicious food from the unsuccessful 731 times.
 
So, recently, these cooking people offered a brainstorm: How to cook the perfect hard-boiled egg.
 
I jumped on it and friends, it’s so easy and so great, I am going to share with the four of you who didn’t already know this.
 
Here we go:
Equipment: medium Dutch oven, metal steamer, large spoon, medium mixing bowl
Ingredients: 6-8 eggs at room temperature, ice, cold water
 
1. Place steamer in the Dutch oven and add enough water to come to the steamer’s bottom. Remove the steamer. Turn the eye on high and cover until it’s rip-roaring with a boil.
2. Place eggs in the steamer basket. Turn the stove eye off. Place the steamer/eggs in the Dutch oven. Turn the heat to medium-high. Cover and steam your eggs for 15 minutes. If you’ve put more than 6 eggs in the basket, let it go another 2 minutes.
3. While eggs are steaming, put mixing bowl in the sink, add 2 trays of ice cubes. Pour cold water into bowl about half-way up.
4. When your timer goes off, carefully uncover the eggs, lift the steamer and, with your large spoon, place eggs one at a time into the ice-cold water. Leave them to chill 20 minutes.
5. Now it’s time to peel them your favorite way. The TV cooks said to drain the water and knock the eggs around in the bowl to crack them. I prefer to take the large spoon and tap all over the outside of the egg, then slide my thumb under a successful abrasion to begin peeling.
Regardless of how you peel, you’re going to peel like a Gold-medal Olympian. Never in my life have I experienced such joy as the ease this technique provides, plus the inside egg is beautifully golden (without that ugly gray or greenish color produced when you boil them).
And so, before you prepare those eggs for Easter, think about how much easier the dyed eggs (and successive generations of eggs in your kitchen) will peel by this technique.
I really want to call Joe and tell him I know his secret. But bless his soul, quite literally, my cell service doesn’t reach that far into Heaven. Regardless, Joe, I know. 🙂
Photos: Patsy R. Brumfield
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This Week’s Southernism, Monday, March 22, 2021

“You can tell a lot about a person by the way they handle these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.”

—Maya Angelou

Photo: Deborah Fagan Carpenter

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This Week’s Southernism, Monday, March 15, 2021

 

“The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order in the continuous thread of revelation.”

—Eudora Welty

Photo: Deborah Fagan Carpenter

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This Week’s Southernism, Monday, March 8, 2021

“The quietly pacifist peaceful always die to make room for men who shout.”

— Alice Walker

Photo: Deborah Fagan Carpenter

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WINTER WHITE IN THE MID-SOUTH

Two weeks ago, the Mid-South was blanketed first with freezing rain, then with two or three rounds of sleet and snow. Butch Boehm’s photographic record of the 
“white-washing” shows just how beautiful, (while sometimes treacherous and deadly) Mother Nature can be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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This Week’s Southernism, Monday, March 1, 2021

“If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. Walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food. It’s a plus for everybody.”

— Anthony Bourdain

Photo: Deborah Fagan Carpenter

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February, Black History Month: A Personal Tribute to Three Mississippi Heroes.

February, Black History Month: A Personal Tribute to Three Mississippi Heroes.

As a boy growing up in Mississippi, I read the “Whites Only” signs posted around town. “Whites” and “Colored” designations painted on water fountains, restroom doors, and waiting rooms decorated our town. Schools, churches, restaurants, and hotels needed no such notices. It was understood: “No Colored Allowed.” “Whites Only” on our side of the tracks.

I was 12, when Bob Moses, Hollis Watkins, and Brenda Travis appealed to our consciences by publicly protesting what was, in Mississippi and throughout the South, “legally right, but morally wrong:” Segregation.

Each of these three Civil Rights heroes, put their lives on the line by taking direct action for voting rights, access to public facilities, and fair and equal status for all Americans in our society. Bob led voter registration drives, Hollis “sat-in” at our Woolworth lunch counter, Brenda “sat-in” at our Greyhound bus station, and led a march on City Hall. Each of the three faced violence and jail sentences. Brenda was exiled from our state.

“Every name-in-the-book” was hurled, or spat, at these three crusaders. Repeatedly, I heard how evil they were. The assessment seemed wrong to me. Fairness seemed right. Courage to stand up against injustice seemed right. Bob, Hollis, and Brenda became my heroes.

As an adult, I am today privileged to know Bob Moses, Hollis Watkins, and Brenda Travis. These are three of the finest, kindness, gentlest, humblest, most caring and genuinely good persons I am blessed to know.

In this, Black History Month, wherein we celebrate African-American contributions to our nation in the fields of science, government, literature, music, athletics, military, politics, and other, I would like to add a word and category.

Thank you, dear black sisters and brothers, for helping us become better people.

J. Randall O’Brien, February 2021

 

 

Photo taken at the National Civil Rights Museum: Deborah Fagan Carpenter

 

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This Week’s Southernism, Monday, February 22, 2021

“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find ways in which you yourself have altered.”
— Nelson Mandela
Image: Deborah Fagan Carpenter
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This Week’s Southernism, Tuesday, February 16, 2021

“It’s in our soul to have Mardi Gras.”

— Arthur Hardy

 

Mardi Gras Beads: Albert Herring/CC 2.0

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