fried green tomatoes

Call it a midlife crisis or a middle of the night idea.. but I have been drawn to the old recipes lately. The recipes that not many people eat, much less prepare these days. The forgotten, tattered and yellowing bits of paper with handwritten ingredient lists, speckled with stains… from distant relatives that have moved beyond this place we know.

those people that never knew digital…

Digital can teach you a lot, but it can’t teach you how to live. It can’t teach real life. The sad thing is, it is teaching people how to live. Brands, beauty and bucks – that’s it. Apparently that’s all you need.

But it’s not. The tiny facets of life that show up in the old, the used, the second hand.

The smell of old paper or the stained pages of a used cookbook. a bible stuffed with highlights and notes, or a simple novel that became a trusty escape from a life less desired.

I will never be without books.

Which, is crazy for me to say because I’m a blogger. A digital writer. You won’t find me in print. But you’ll find me here. As much as I loathe the digital age, I, too- embrace . This has been my catalyst for something, something more. Maybe something less. Maybe an escape, maybe a retreat, maybe just a hiding place for all the stuff inbeween.

Nonetheless. Here I am, with a plate of thickly battered, peppery sweet fried green tomatoes. Second hand me, with a second hand plate – offering you a second helping.

With some sauce, on the side.

Speaking of saucy sides.. doesn’t that sound like a book? The second hand southern chef with a saucy side? She’s divorced (second hand) lives on a tomato farm, (inherited and barely surviving) and they have an abundance of green tomatoes so she tries to find creative uses for them… then she falls for the tomato picker hunky guy; and unearths some hidden lithium or something on the farm and the become disgustingly rich but decide to not be rich and build an orphanage … hallmark movie for sure. Because they are simple, predictable mind numbing.

I’m rambling.

I’m tired. I’m literally on 4 hours of unrestful sleep, or lack there of.

I need to come back to this. Or I could just slap a recipe and a photo and call it a post.

Talk to me.

Do I even keep writing? Someone in China managed to get my old Domain- and all of my old traffic. I went from tens of thousands of hits a day to maybe 6. Things that make me say, “what’s the point?”

Today I’m not sure. But, for now I will give it just one more go- not just one more post, but one more season. One more season to share some stories and recipes and snippets of life. My life that has changed so very drastically since the inception of this blog over a decade ago. Check out my very first post here.

My photography has a ways to go… but it’s definitely come a long way.

Back to today’s title. Fried Green Tomatoes. To be honest I think I made these almost a year ago. But, they were good enough to remember and good enough to make agian. And, there is no recipe- I’m sorry. I’m sure there’s great one from the web. I used a box. Because I had five kids, green tomatoes on the brink of turning red and no time to spare measuring cornmeal. Which, in turn is essentially what most boxed mixes are: remeasured dry ingredients. and if you’re like me- sometimes a box can save time and sanity.