Celebrating 50 years with Southern Living
There is one magazine you will see on the coffee table in any Southern home. It is the Southern Living. I grew up with this magazine. In fact, the first recipe I cooked in my mom’s kitchen was from Mother’s Southern Living Cookbook 1967. It was a homemade pecan pie. When I say homemade, indeed it was. My Mother and Daddy operated a bed and breakfast. My childhood years were spent growing up in a home with 33 rooms and three stories. Guests were in and out all the time and many became lifelong friends. My Mother’s kitchen was always busy. The home had a huge dining area and the kitchen door swung both ways. I’m getting a little off track, a memory I’ll discuss another time. Back to the my first pecan pie. Mother taught me how to knead the dough for a pie crust. The secret was in the handling of the dough and keeping it lightly floured. Mother had several rolling pins and my favorite was the smallest one with the red handles. It fit into my small hands perfectly. I rolled the dough out . I then took a large dinner plate and placed it on the rolled out dough and cut around the plate with a knife. A perfect circle. I then carefully placed the circle into a pie dish. The next part of the recipe came from her Southern Living cookbook. Fresh eggs, sugar, a touch of karo syrup , butter, Watkins vanilla extract and pecans from the trees that grew in our back yard. Bake until set at 350 degrees. Add a touch of whipped cream and serve. I know this recipe from memory.
And can you believe it ? Southern Living Magazine is celebrating it’s 50 anniversary this month.
My library is filled with their cookbooks of years back and many of their magazines. I can not part with them. They are stored in boxes, and my husband reminds me every year it is time to declutter. They aren’t clutter to me. The anniversary edition is a look back into history of the South and Celebrating the South in all its finest.. The anniversary celebration was a combination of an old fashion get together complimented with Southern Hospitality. The details of the event are true to the South. I know you will want to get a copy for your own coffee table.
Another reason I love this magazine is they give with the times. They offer a Southern Living app that you download to your ipad. If you are a subscriber, all you do is open the app and the issues are downloaded to your ipad. You can read them before they are on the stands. You have them readily available while waiting at a doctor’s appointment or having your hair done. Back issues stay in the bookstand on your ipad. You still get your magazine in the mail . This is just an added perk of being a Southern Living subscriber.
The edition is jammed pack with 50 tips on gardening, 50 style picks , 50 Southern getaways , and even the 50 most prized recipes of the South . Grab your copy and enjoy . I don’t plan on letting go of my Southern Livings anytime soon.
With Valentine’s Day approaching, I can’t help but think of my favorite romantic author. He writes love stories from the heart. He makes it all believable and you fall in love all over again with love. Nicholas Sparks ! He is not a native of North Carolina but he reminds me of a saying my husband told me when we met. ” I may not have been born in North Carolina, but I got here as soon as I could”. Nicholas Sparks resides in New Bern NC. This little town,in fact, is where my husband and I spent part of our honeymoon. A beautiful, quaint, easy living city on the Neuse and Trent Rivers .
It is the birthplace to Pepsi. And Pepsi has its own museum you can visit. My husband and I visit New Bern when we are passing through traveling to Atlantic Beach, NC. And in our last visit, my husband took me on the tour by Nicholas Sparks’ home. I know, of course, we didn’t see Nicholas, but the ride on the river was worth it all, plus seeing his home was a treat. When Nicholas Sparks’ book , The Notebook was made into film, my girlfriends and I had to see it. We were then forever fans of anything Nicholas wrote . And he has continued to write many love stories . When his book, Nights in Rodanthe was being filmed at the Outer Banks, I had friends who auditioned to be extras and were able to say, ” I was in a movie with Richard Gere.” You can still see the cottage , Serendipity, but it has been purchased and moved to a safer location. After Hurricane Bill, it nearly crumbled into the ocean. In the movie it was called The Inn At Rodanthe.
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Down South, we like parties and festivals. If a friends says they are throwing a party, you know it is going to be a good time. Throwing a party takes some preparation. You don’t want to be in the kitchen when the drinks are being pour. It takes a couple of weeks pulling a tailgating party together and for a backyard barbeque, we start planning sometime a month out. We even create our own invites and mail them out. If you are in a pinch, and forgot someone, you will attach that pretty made invite to an email and hit send. We know a phone call is not enough . A true Southerner wants you to have a written invitation. My Mother, Bless Her Heart, has a tattered steno binder where she keeps addresses . All through the years when you visited at her home, before you left , she would gracefully ask your address and number. She would hand you a pen that wrote in sharp black tucked in the binder . She taught me to never write an address or a check in red. Later, she compiled them in her address book that she carries in her purse. Needless to say, this was past down to me . Thank goodness, now for the handy apps for creating contacts. I never have to offer a pen. Mother would be shaking her head at me if she knew.
North Carolina is Horse Country. From the Outer Banks with native ponies to the mountains of Asheville, farms and stables abound. Growing up in Carolina, you will have experienced at least once in your lifetime a horse ride. As a child, I visited my grandparent’s weekly. And my granddad had a horse. Dan, the horse, was my Granddad’s pride and joy. Being a farmer, Granddad depended on Dan for many things.
Burlap and Lace burst on the scene in weddings several years ago.Coming from a true Southern background, I couldn’t see the beauty of the two put together. My idea of burlap wasn’t for weddings. Burlap reminds me of being a kid and having a potato sack race. The races were fun, but I hated how the sacks felt when they brushed my legs. Growing up I remember burlap corn feed bags for the chickens . So needless to say, when a bride to be, came to me with the idea of burlap and lace and called it rustic, I nodded my head in agreement, but inside I was saying, “okey.” Of course, as a designer I was going to give it my best to please the bride. It is her day, so I took it all in and after she left, I started researching burlap and lace. I was surprised to see that the idea of burlap and lace goes back to Ireland and the Irish Potato Famine of 1846-47. The Irish have a grand history of lore and charm. And to an Irishman, the lowly burlap bag had its place of legacy. Potatoes came in burlap sacks. And it was potatoes, or more accurately the lack of potatoes, that brought the Irishmen to America. The Irishmen did not want to leave their Ireland but poverty and famine gave them little choice. So to an Irishman, the brown burlap represents the poverty and powerlessness that drove thousands of Irish immigrants away from their homes and families. The term “lace-curtain” is an expression describing the upwardly mobile Irish Americans, during this period. The white lace shamrock, so often displayed on St.Paddy’s Day , represents to an Irishman, that they were willing to suffer to have a better life. So seeing, a white lace shamrock or any lace on a background of coarse brown burlap represents the challenges against many odds to make a better life for themselves. I thought, “Why, this like a marriage “! Two people believing in their commitment for better or worse, and during their lifetime they will sustain a love that has no bounds. I am not sure that today’s brides know this little piece of fact when they are deciding their day. But when anyone ask me for a design using burlap and lace, I love telling this story. Burlap and 
isn’t just for weddings. I found once designing with it, the ideas are endless. Mason jars wrapped with burlap and lace, monogrammed burlap runners with lace and burlap napkin rings and coasters are used. Even personalized flags that weather really nicely outside can be created .
If you love designing as much as I do, you actually enjoy the winter season. You are inside and have a reason not to venture out into the snowy weather. With winter in full force, for me it means staying toasty warm and designing. I get so into the design, I look up and find everyone has gone to bed and I am still putting one more finishing touch on it… With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, I wanted to share a freebie 
. You use an iron to press the decal onto the sweatshirt. Enjoy this design and if you like, please share a picture of your creation in the comments or share on your Pinterest page. My Pinterest has a board of 
. I enjoy creating floral designs for sweethearts. It is much like a wedding. A young man comes in to order flowers for a new girlfriend. He tells how special she is, her beauty, her smile,and her love . You know as a designer your design reflects his love. You 
Moments later, you look up and an older gentleman is ordering his flowers. He has been with his wife who he calls his sweetheart for fifty years. He talks of her smile, her beauty and her love for him. And you know his love must shine through the design. You personalized it with his love for her in your thoughts. A favorite story I must share happened 15 years ago. I was busy working on arrangements . I finished most of my orders and one of the coworkers gave me a message. A customer had requested for me to design an arrangement for his wife. He didn’t care about the cost. He said she was the puzzle piece he had looked for. He felt like the day he meet her he had come home. I asked , what is her age, how long have they been married, what are her favorite colors and flowers. He hadn’t given that information and he hadn’t left a number to call back. He just said he would pick them up at five. I was nervous. He had said the cost wasn’t an issue. I started creating and then hesitated, wishing, I knew more about this lady. I took a deep breath and thought, what would I want for Valentines flowers. I started again and thought of my husband, and created the design of my dreams. Finished, it sat on the case all afternoon. Customers ooh and aah for it. Five o clock and we are closing and still no man shows to pick up the arrangement. I’m worried. I know it is closing time. It had been a very long day and yet, I couldn’t leave without delivering this arrangement. I called my husband and told him I would be late. He said, I’ll come down and wait with you and later we can celebrate with dinner. Thirty minutes later, still no customer pickup. I opened the shop door to my husband and he said Happy 
