When driving around getting errands done, if Companion Bubba wants to stop to buy a soft drink at a local drive-thru fast food place, he will suggest that we get a "CoCola" even if it is a diet Sprite that we want.

Groceries are not carried in a bag, but in a sack.

Venison is always referred to as deer meat...when I pointed out that hamburger is not referred to as cow meat, I got no response..

In NY, convenience stores (like 7-11) are called convenience stores, here they are called curb stores.

Supermarkets are called grocery stores.

A funeral procession stops traffic BOTH WAYS and locals bow their heads even if they haven't a clue of whose funeral it is.

A sign on the highway towards the airport reads Airport next three interchanges. (Not ramps?)

Recently while shopping on Senior Citizen's Day in our local Kroger's, Companion Bubba stated, "They called a meeting of little old ladies and they all showed up."

In the South, people 'might could' do something, as in "I might could go to Walmart today."

When sitting outdoors in the summer, it is not uncommon to see people in their backyards with electric fans on.

The local laundrymats are referred to as Washaterias.

I saw a sign on an abandoned eatery, Rest-To-Rant.

Piggly Wiggly is a bona fide supermarket.

Peanuts are boiled in salt water in the shell and eaten warm, they're considered a delicacy.

Okra is breaded and fried, hot dogs are breaded and fried and slathered with ketchup and mustard and impaled on a stick, and called "corn dogs." Dill pickles are breaded and fried.

Ice cream is fried. Snow cones are drizzled with flavored sweetened condensed milk.

Did I mention that my newly adopted state has the highest obesity rate in the US?

Fresh shrimp is sold right out of the back of a pick up truck, parked next to the highway from an ice chest that saw better days, like 1976. ~Mississippians don't need no stinkin' USDA.~

I have more differences to point out, but I'll save them for another day. I'll be back..

In the meantime, remember that love is when you're still dancing long after the music has stopped.

(Thank you Companion Bubba)

Ok I guess it is time for me to try to fill in those of you who haven't had the privilege of moving South. We Northeasterners have a difficult, though not impossible time when we first get here. I've only lived here 11 months, but I am "getting" it. The language barrier alone is enough to keep one on one's toes, although again, carefully listening and asking companion Bubba to translate will get one through one's day. Just allow me to cite a few examples...here they do not 'push' anything, they 'mash' it, grocery carts are referred to as 'buggies', a cardboard box is called a 'pasteboard' box, and if a southerner wants to speak with you, it is said that they will 'holler at you.' They don't "gossip," here, but instead, "share."

When barricades are set up on a road in order to facilitate sewer work, repaving, etc, the orange cones are ignored and one will drive right through on the chance that they will not have to take the designated detour.

One day, when I first arrived here, I was eating a cheese stick and Bubba looked at me and shouted, "Molly! Are you eating a candle?" Bubba never saw a cheese stick.

Other than the Olive Garden there are no Italian restaurants, but plenty of chicken restaurants and even more buffets. Pasta is not common other than macaroni for macaroni and cheese, a southern staple, eaten with every meal. Hush puppies are not a brand of footwear here, but little fried balls of bread.

There are no garages, but instead, carports, and they are filled such as a garage is in the north. However, everyone can see the mess in a carport. Very few people drive a sedan, most vehicles on the road are pick up trucks. Locally, they are referred to as pick-m-ups.

The first day of hunting season is a southern holiday, second only to Christmas. Thanksgiving is not spent with friends and family, but spent instead in the woods hunting for deer. Dinner rolls are a rarity, but cornbread is served with almost every meal. Potatoes are only served as potato salad, and 'greens' could be anything from turnip greens to spinach. There is only dinner and supper here, no lunch.

All in all I love it here and especially loved when I was hearing about the temps and the blizzards in the Northeast last winter, and I was just in shirt sleeves here. Bubba is not without a sense of humor about the South, many times he'll apologize about being in the South, with a "Molly, this is the South, you can't expect us to be as up on things as you New Yorkers are."

Finally, one of the funniest moments when I first arrived here happened while I was observing an elderly woman trying to pull her car out of a parking spot and she had to take about five tries before she did it. When she finally succeeded, I noticed that her front license plate said, "God is my Co-pilot" and Bubba stated, "Oh My Goodness, she should have let Him out, she could have killed Him!"

It's been 'pertnear' a year now since I migrated from New York state to the southern state of Mississippi. It has taken some time to be able to observe and then put into words what some of the differences are. Today I'll try to touch upon SOME OF the food differences..(I said try)

As I previously stated, there are no Italian restaurants here other than the chain Olive Garden, which, in my opinion, doesn't come close to being Italian. Southerners are not savvy to real Italian cooking, and in fact, I have found that most say they don't like it.

Companion Bubba and I enjoy the very casualness of a certain restaurant here, locals do not call it a 'Seafood Restaurant' such as we would in the North, but instead, a 'catfish' place. It is a big room, set up like a Bingo parlour, with some folding tables and with some folding chairs, some wooden ones too, with a leg that is a bit shorter than the other three legs, some as rickety as a cheap plastic lawn set. The menu is written in chalk on a board hanging on the wall, so smudged from the owner making changes, that you have to stare at it to make sense of what is written. If you want to change any part of your meal, the waitresses are most accommodating, always responding to any change requests with a "Sure you can Darlin'!" The appetizer is cole slaw and sliced onions to go along with the pitcher of 'sweet tea' that is brought to the table immediately, no variation on that.

The tables are covered with vinyl tablecloths, a bit sticky to the touch, (I assume from the spillage of sweet tea)and the silverware, a fork, comes individually wrapped in a long white narrow paper bag per place setting. I asked Companion Bubba why the fork is placed inside the bag, and he assured me it was their way of letting the customers know it was a clean one.

There is no central air, instead three window air conditioners blow at full tilt so loud one has to almost shout to be heard. Consequently, the ambiance is not a quiet, subdued, quaint, romantic place, but a restaurant that serves food so good that Southerners forgo all of that. Who needs romance and candlelight when one is hungry?

All of the seafood on the platter is fried except the shrimp. 'Boiled' shrimp is the way to go here. That means fresh shrimp boiled in spices in order to give the shrimp a bit of a bite. On this platter there is a pile of boiled shrimp, a few fried shrimp, catfish, oysters, hush puppies (fried spiced balls of bread or cornmeal?)the size of golf balls,(not the shoe) and one crab cake with a side of fries served in a plastic basket as the meal. Believe me, it is more than enough to bring home for another day.


Companion Bubba and I have eaten breakfast out also and I have found the differences in food selection as varied as my hair color, depending on the mood of my new beautician, Tammy, here in the south, but I digress. One cannot ask for 'toast' with their breakfast, one asks for biscuits here, one does not ask for hash browned potatoes, one asks for grits..either buttered or with gravy. Speaking of gravy, Companion Bubba refers to a gravy that his mother (herein called Mama) called hoe handle gravy, and I have heard of red eye gravy, but have never tasted it. Eggs are cooked over, over light, over hard, or scrambled. Meat is ham, smoked ham or country ham, bacon is cooked hard or not. All breakfasts are served with jelly. Breakfast sausage is what we in the north call keilbasa. All breakfast meats are smoked and processed here. You cannot order a bowl of oatmeal or a fruit dish for breakfast, nor are English muffins available here, biscuits only...No such thing as a bagel with cream cheese, there is no such thing as a bagel in any menu in fact. Sweet tea is served with all meals, including breakfast and now that I think about it, I wonder if hot tea is served anywhere? I will research it and get back to you on that one.

I am not finished yet, I need to do another blog...there's the subject of peas here and of course greens...and I may well come up with something else that I think of during my every day life meanderings that I feel you should know about. Until then, Bon appetit or y'all come back ya hear?

I really don't know what a blog is, but I heard, out of the corner of my ear, that it is a spot for saying things that you wish to share with others..I need to say what's been on my mind lately.

I sometimes wonder what got eaten first, the chicken or the egg. And did the first chicken chef try to eat the feathers?

I also wonder about hair color, not the natural kind, but the kind that comes in a bottle. Don't you sometimes wonder what prompted that?

I also wonder about Snow White and the seven dwarfs...wasn't she overwhelmed by the work of seven of them? Are you kidding me? Imagine the laundry alone.

Why is flatbread called "flatbread?" Isn't all bread, when sliced correctly, flat? By the same token, how can we have flat hair when in fact our heads are not?

How does the picture get on the TV screen? what is this internet stuff? How does a CD player work?

Why do the people in NY talk differently than, say, the people in Mississippi? It's all English, right?

Ok I'm done thinking about things for today, maybe tomorrow I'll have more to talk about.

I know I have more to tawk about, but I don't know how to keep adding on to my blog...why not just call it a paragraph?