Sweats Suits to Sweat

With single pane windows, our motorhome is designed for temperate weather. Not long ago it was so cold we wore sweats to bed. Now we just sweat. Fortunately the front air conditioner problem was as simple as removing the mud dobber nests.

Here in the Deep South of Mississippi, the weather rivals an Indian sweat lodge. If it takes three days for our body to adjust to a temperature change, my body didn't get the message.

At the downtown Farmers Market in Louisville, I bought a freak of nature cucumber horseshoe shaped, yellow squash, zucchini, small onions and a ball of eggplant best described as a purple baseball. I sautéed the veggies with garlic and portabellas in EVOO and ate the cucumber in a sandwich. Cucumber chills to the bone; I need all the help I can get.

At market a luscious caramel loaf cake was as large and long as three meatloaves; it could feed the Presbyterians and Methodists. Deep pound cakes were butter pecan with pecans, caramel and one with a pound of butter, the original pound of everything cake. No samples offered.

With the humidity at max, I’ve come to the conclusion fried foods are all that is crisp in the South. Handpie Ginny has Gin’s Market outside of Fayetteville, TN on the way to Lynchburg. She cooks down fresh peaches and apples and makes her own crusts for frying. Stop by when you’re in the neighborhood. When we worked late in Fayetteville, Ginny brought us supper of shrimp etouffe. Scrumptious. Born and raised in Louisiana, she told about her whole family getting up in the night to go to the draining rice fields to collect bushels of crawfish/mudbugs. I’ve grown to like them boiled and have had the tails baked into focaccia bread. The only time I saw crawfish tails in Nebraska was during Lent and they were shelled out.

Since I started this story, the weather turned deliciously cool. Just say something about Mother Nature and she changes: sweat jackets are in order in the evenings.

2009 Red Convertible Travel Series