Customization is wow!

Customization! I made a background all by me onesies. And now I’m trying to figure out how to get around the image upload limit in Blogger. Will I be successful?

Sam's excitement suggests that I am!

The simplicity of it suggests that I really should have figured this out a long time ago.

From the rising of the sun to its setting

This photo was snapped with my phone whilst driving over a bridge with my mom saying "be careful!" I couldn't get over the way the rays so vividly cut through the clouds. It was breath taking. I captured this on the same day we were going to visit my grandmother's grave. It was the one year anniversary of her death, August 20th. To memorialize her, we sat on a bench near her headstone and ate one of her favorite breakfasts: Hardees biscuits. (Her favorite was sausage, but Mom went for chicken and I skipped the meat, just egg and cheese please.)

Despite my mom's throbbing headache and a sweet, but annoying old lady who would not go away, we had a nice morning. It gave us at least a little time to reflect on the woman we loved and still love. Lately I've been reflecting on her more often. And so this musing took shape in the form of words on a screen...

On August 20th, 2010 Mammaw passed away. She was a beautiful woman in a spectrum of ways; a true southern lady. She wouldn't dare leave the house unless her hair was fixed and her stockings were on. A hard working mother, wife & friend, she gave of herself completely until she took her last breath.

She fostered my love for food at a very young age. Waking up to her frying eggs in bacon grease (in theory: disgusting, in reality: delicious) or skipping school lunch to have an egg sandwich will always be some of my favorite memories. And oh boy! could she cook a roast! Or fried chicken and gravy! or chicken pot pie! or biscuits! (I apologize for the punctuation overdose, but if you had experienced this food, you'd be exclaiming too!) Anything she set her mind to, she could cook.

Thankfully, she passed that trait onto my mother. Mom's forte is baking, but really if she were given the ingredients of the "Chopped" crew, she could whip up a tasty dish in 30 minutes or less. Drat! I'm making myself hungry!

She not only passed on the cooking gene, but the industrious one as well. My mother worked hard to help our Mammaw, forfeiting a job of her own and even time with her family to assist her as she aged. And the aging process was not always easy or graceful for Mammaw. However, she always wanted my mom to be successful at everything she did.

So I diverge a little to remind my mom of that; seeing that she started a new job this week (yay!). Mammaw may have been her biggest fan, but she is just one of many big fans. We're all rooting for her to succeed. And Mammaw would be to.

Donut feel like forever...

to me it does.

Once again I've put this off for over a month. I'm sure I would be motivated to post more if I knew I had more followers. But since I'll never be Julie Powell I should be content to enjoy posting for the simple pleasure of writing about something I love... life & food. And since life has been busy as of late (fyi: learning a new language is hard) I suppose I'll take a brief moment to blog about the latter.

The specific food of the moment is the all powerful Donut. Not just any donut. It's a Julie Darling Donut. Behold...

The work of art you see here is a Pancake 'n Bacon donut. No, not bacon bits. Puh-lease. These folks do it right. They fry the bacon in house, crumble it up and sprinkle it on the icing like Tinkerbell's fairy dust. Pure magic. And, naturally, if you have donuts, you must serve decent coffee. Once again, Julie Darling did not fail to please. Bold, tasty coffee and a lovely little lounge with couches on which one can sit and enjoy said coffee.

Julie Darling is just one more brick in the wall of evidence that proves Chattanooga is one of the best cities in America.

Enjoy the photos below. And be careful not to let the drool puddle up on the keyboard. It's rather damaging.

Bavarian Cream

Tangerine

Pancake 'n Bacon

Classic Chocolate Frosted

Happy Eating!

(thanks, Megan for the use of your pictures!)