Observe and report

Dear Fellow Southerners:

I don’t think we know just how weird we are until we get around people who “ain’t from around here.”

Y’all* know I was just in Savannah. While there, I had to load up on things I can’t get in Oregon.

1. Collard greens. When I find them in Oregon, the leaves are small and anemic. I’m used to ones the size of tobacco leaves.
2. Barbecue sauce. Vinegar-based. Don’t give me any of that sweet Kansas City crap.
3. Crab Shack hot sauce and seasoning. They also have a mustard-based barbecue sauce that’s pretty good.
4. Applewood-smoked bacon. There is no comparison to meat from the Ogeechee Meat Market.
5. Pimento cheese-flavored popcorn. Yes, please.
6. Fresh okra. I asked for it at Roth’s the other day, and you would have thought I asked for a package of human fingers.
7. Coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts. That is not a Southern thing, but there’s no runnin’ on Dunkin’ in the PNW. Probably because of Starbucks. I don’t want DD ground coffee. I can get that. I want the in-store brewed coffee. So I froze a Box o’ Joe and packed it.

More than half of my 44-pound suitcase (!) filled with groceries.

One morning this week, I woke up singing “BFE” by Kane Brown. That was the morning I decided to have fried okra for breakfast. That’s right: cut, bathed in egg, coated in a mix of seasonings, flour and corn meal. For breakfast. I made it slightly healthier by popping it in the air fryer.

And so I’m singing the song, dredging this okra in breading, and I realized this:

You can take the girl out of the South, but you can’t take the South out of the girl.

I smiled, and kept on going.

My okra was amazing.

Clearly, I ain’t from around here.

And that’s ok. It makes me appreciate my background even more.

All y’all have a good day, ya hear!

Your Redneck Friend,
Beth (the devil who went down to Georgia 😂)

*Legit contraction not limited to the South anymore.