Granny’s Secret Recipe for Trouble
More than food was on the table
Granny was never into baking cookies, but she made some mean fried chicken! Most Sundays we would get together, all us girls hanging out in the kitchen chatting while Granny was breadin’ up that chicken and putting it in the frying pan. We learned how to cook by hanging out in her kitchen.
If I recall, it was a Sunday after church the summer between my sophomore and junior years in high school. Me, my sister, Charlotte Ann, cousins Verina Sue and Martha Jo, were snappin’ beans or scrapin’ potatoes. Granny was at the stove, busy with her chicken when we heard hoopin’ and hollerin’ from the front room. We figured the Atlanta Braves had struck a home run.
We were wrong. That wasn’t run-of-the-mill hoopin’ and hollerin’, it was the startled reaction to a Tommy Lee Jones-like dude crashing through the front door, gun drawn, and a mean snarl on his face. Me n’ the girls stopped dead (hopefully, not like, dead-dead) in the dining room.
I thought Grandpa was gonna charge this interloper, but he kept his head and softly asked, “Well howdy there sir, you sure you got the right place? We was about to sit down to Sunday supper. Today, it’s fried chicken, mashed potatoes, my wife’s white gravy (best in the South), and a heapin’ side of southern-style green beans. You…