Black Eyed Peas Quotes

So then, it’s fair to say that you were thinking about me all week?” Now it was my turn to look shaken. Damn. Just when I had him. “No…and…. no, I will not go out with you.” I leaned back in my chair and decided to look at the score board. Maybe, if I ignored him, he would leave. The Black Eyed Peas were playing loudly over the speakers. I tapped my foot to the rhythm. “Why not?” He seemed agitated. I liked it. “Because I am a llama and you are a bird and WE are not compatible.

Jake's POV: Meanwhile, Ally was here with Marshall Moss, who she was obviously going to hook up with later. They'd barely stopped touching each other all night. Even now, they were out in the middle of the dance floor dancing to some Black Eyed Peas song. No reason to be touching for a fast song, but they were. Holding hands while they bounced around with friends. She looked happy. Which made me want to punch someone. Preferably Marshall Moss.

Yeah, yeah, whatever. I have great taste in music, we can listen to Justin Bieber and Black Eyed Peas and Nickelback all day long!

The trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans. I say, the trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans.

How do you do that?” I asked. “What do witches eat?” “Witches loves pork meat,” she said. “They loves rice and potatoes. They loves black-eyed peas and cornbread. Lima beans, too, and collard greens and cabbage, all cooked in pork fat. Witches is old folks, most of them. They don’t care none for low-cal. You pile that food on a paper plate, stick a plastic fork in it, and set it down by the side of a tree. And that feeds the witches.” The

The soft song from the past threatened to awaken feelings and memories she avoided like black-eyed peas and family reunions.

I want something…violent. “Pump It,” by the Black Eyed Peas, yeah.

Sturt's desert pea Meaning: Have courage, take heart Swainsona formosa | Inland Australia Malukuru (Pit.) are famous for distinctive blood-red, leaf-like flowers, each with a bulbous black centre, similar to a kangaroo's eye. A striking sight in the wild: a blazing sea of red. Bird-pollinated and thrives in arid areas, but very sensitive to any root disturbance, which makes it difficult to propagate.

She cooked a Southern supper as Ma would have: black-eyed peas with red onions, fried ham, cornbread with cracklin', butter beans cooked in butter and milk. Blackberry cobbler with hard cream with some bourbon Jodie brought.

and everybody was happy that uncle lee was able to get that scholarship even though you wondered when you could do quadratic equations in your head why you had a basketball scholarship but you always knew that you had to take what they were giving since that was all you were going to get but you never fooled yourself about either the taking or the giving or the needing or the having you just sort of said to yourself I'll have to see what is being offered

I lift the pot lids and see that I've made a fragrant yellow rice with cilantro. Somehow, black-eyed peas found their way into the rice, but I can tell from the smell that it works. The chicken looks juicy, and smothered in onions, it's cooked perfectly without a thermometer. The green salad with a spinach base is crisp. Not a complicated meal, but one made for comfort.

One tribe, one tribe One tribe, one time, one planet, one {race} Race, one love, one people, one {and} Too many things that's causing one {to} To forget about the main cause Connecting, uniting But the evil is seen and alive in us So our hopes are colliding And our peace is sinking like Poseidon But, we know that the one {one} The evil one is threatened by the sum {sum} So he'll come and try and separate the sum But he dumb, he didn't know we had a way to overcome Rejuvenated by the beating of the drum Come together by the cycle of the hum Freedom when all become one {one} Forever

I guess you’ll just have to get used to having a police car outside the grocery store, the gym, and wherever it is you go for lunch with your friends,” Jack lectured. “And this goes without saying: you need to be careful. The police surveillance is a precautionary measure, but they can’t be everywhere. You should stick to familiar surroundings, and be vigilant and alert at all times.” “I got it. No walking through dark alleys while talking on my cell phone, no running at night with my iPod, no checking out suspicious noises in the basement.” “I seriously hope you’re not doing any of those things anyway.” “Of course not.” Jack pinned her with his gaze. She shifted against the counter. “Okay, maybe, sometimes, I’ve been known to listen to a Black Eyed Peas song or two while running at night. They get me moving after a long day at work.” Jack seemed wholly unimpressed with this excuse. “Well, you and the Peas better get used to running indoors on a treadmill.” Conscious of Wilkins’s presence, and the fact that he was watching her and Jack with what appeared to be amusement, Cameron bit back her retort. Thirty thousand hotel rooms in the city of Chicago and she picked the one that would lead her back to him.

Eat some beans with every lunch. Among your choices are chickpeas, black-eyed peas, black beans, cowpeas, split peas, lima beans, pinto beans, lentils, red kidney beans, soybeans, cannellini beans, pigeon peas, and white beans.

Integrate at least three of these items into your daily diet to be sure you are eating plenty of whole food. 1. Beans—all kinds: black beans, pinto beans, garbanzo beans, black-eyed peas, lentils 2. Greens—spinach, kale, chards, beet tops, fennel tops 3. Sweet potatoes—don’t confuse with yams. 4. Nuts—all kinds: almonds, peanuts, walnuts, sunflower seeds, Brazil nuts, cashews 5. Olive oil—green, extra-virgin is usually the best. Note that olive oil decomposes quickly, so buy no more than a month’s supply at a time. 6. Oats—slow-cook or Irish steel-cut are best. 7. Barley—either in soups, as a hot cereal, or

The house had a small galley kitchen where my mother performed daily miracles, stretching a handful into a potful, making the most of what we raised. Cooking mostly from memory and instinct, she took a packet of meat, a bunch of greens or a bag of peas, a couple of potatoes, a bowl of flour, a cup of cornmeal, a few tablespoons of sugar, added a smattering of this and a smidgeon of that, and produced meals of rich and complementary flavors and textures. Delicious fried chicken, pork chops, and steak, sometimes smothered with hearty gravy, the meat so tender that it fell from the bone. Cob-scraped corn pan-fried in bacon drippings, served with black-eyed peas and garnished with thick slices of fresh tomato, a handful of diced onion, and a tablespoon of sweet pickle relish. A mess of overcooked turnips simmering in neck-bone-seasoned pot liquor, nearly black—tender and delectable. The greens were minced on the plate, doused with hot pepper sauce, and served with a couple sticks of green onions and palm-sized pieces of hot-water cornbread, fried golden brown, covered with ridges from the hand that formed them, crispy shell, crumbly soft beneath.

In the winter of 1968, Kya sat at her kitchen table one morning, sweeping orange and pink watercolors across paper, creating the plump form of a mushroom. She had finished her book on seabirds and now worked on a guide to mushrooms. Already had plans for another on butterflies and moths. Black-eyed peas, red onions, and salt ham boiled in the old dented pot on the woodstove, which she still preferred to the new range. Especially in winter.

A chilled pea soup of insane simplicity, garnished with creme fraiche and celery leaves. Roasted beet salad with poached pears and goat cheese. Rack of lamb wrapped in crispy prosciutto, served over a celery root and horseradish puree, with sautéed spicy black kale. A thin-as-paper apple galette with fig glaze. Everything turned out brilliantly, including Patrick, who roused himself as I was pulling the lamb from the oven to rest before carving. He disappeared into the bathroom for ten minutes and came out shiny; green pallor and under-eye bags gone like magic. Pink with health and vitality, polished and ridiculously handsome, he looked as if he could run a marathon, and I was gobsmacked. He came up behind me just as I was finishing his port sauce for the lamb with a sprinkle of honey vinegar and a bit of butter, the only changes I made to any of his recipes, finding the sauce without them a bit one-dimensional and in need of edge smoothing.

Maybe a young Jacques Cousteau...?" Sadie was still working on the boy in the suit. "But that would just be silly. I mean, a suit...? On.No." Apparently our scrutiny hadn't gone unnoticed. Teddy-Jacques-Whoever was bearing down on us,smiling broadly under the mustache that,I noticed, was coming loose at one corner. "Good evening,ladies!" He was a senior, I thought. We didn't have any classes together; he was AP everything,but I thought I remembered seeing him during Performance Night in the spring, part of a co-ed a capella group. They'd done a Black Eyed Peas song-pretty well,too. He was cute, too, in a pale,lanky way. "Walter Elias Disney," he said with a bow. "At your disposal." "Walt Disney?" Sadie was obviously too intrigued to be shy. "Um...?" He grinned and waved his arm at the spectacle behind him with a flourish. "The myriad talents of Johnny Depp aside,it is debatable whether any of this would have come about without me. It seemed only appropriate that I should make an appearance." I nodded. "I'll buy that." He bowed again,but his eyes stayed on Sadie. "Would you care to dance?" "Oh.I....Oh." Several emotions flooded her face in an instant: terror, pleasure, uncertainty, and why-the-hell-not. She darted a glance at me. I gave a quick, emphatic nod. I would be fine. She absolutely should dance. "Sure," she said. And off they went.

Ant then, opening her eyes, how fresh like frilled linen clean from a laundry, laid in wicker trays the roses looked; and dark and prim the red carnations, holding their heads up; and all the sweet peas spreading in their bowls, tinged violet, snow white, pale - as if it were the evening and girls in muslin frocks came out to pick sweet peas and roses after the superb summer's day, with its almost blue-black sky, its delphiniums, its carnations, its arum lilies was over; and it was the moment between six and seven when every flower - roses, carnations, irises, lilac - glows; white, violet, red, deep orange; every flower seems to burn by itself, softly, purely in the misty beds; and how she loved the grey-white moths spinning in and out, over the cherry pie, over the evening primroses!

She gazed out at the seductive vista. The countryside was dressed in its prettiest May garb- everything budding or blooming or bursting out in the exuberance of late spring. For Laura, the landscape at thirteen hundred feet up a Welsh mountain was the perfect mix of reassuringly tamed and excitingly wild. In front of the house were lush, high meadows filled with sheep, the lambs plump from their mother's grass-rich milk. Their creamy little shapes bright and clean against the background of pea green. A stream tumbled down the hillside, disappearing into the dense oak woods at the far end of the fields, the ocher trunks fuzzy with moss. On either side of the narrow valley, the land rose steeply to meet the open mountain on the other side of the fence. Here young bracken was springing up sharp and tough to claim the hills for another season. Beyond, in the distance, more mountains rose and fell as far as the eye could see. Laura undid the latch and pushed open the window. She closed her eyes. A warm sigh of the wind carried the scent of hawthorn blossom from the hedgerow.

Counting, This New Year's Morning, What Powers Yet Remain To Me - 1953- The world asks, as it asks daily: And what can you make, can you do, to change my deep-broken, fractured? I count, this first day of another year, what remains. I have a mountain, a kitchen, two hands. Can admire with two eyes the mountain, actual, recalcitrant, shuffling its pebbles, sheltering foxes and beetles. Can make black-eyed peas and collards. Can make, from last year's late-ripening persimmons, a pudding. Can climb a stepladder, change the bulb in a track light. For four years, I woke each day first to the mountain, then to the question. The feet of the new sufferings followed the feet of the old, and still they surprised. I brought salt, brought oil, to the question. Brought sweet tea, brought postcards and stamps. For four years, each day, something. Stone did not become apple. War did not become peace. Yet joy still stays joy. Sequins stay sequins. Words still bespangle, bewilder. Today, I woke without answer. The day answers, unpockets a thought from a friend don't despair of this falling world, not yet didn't it give you the asking

Take control of your mind and meditate.

Grace rolled up her sleeves and joined the group in the kitchen, where Gladys, Pablo's wife, had worked all day directing many other women who kept food pouring out the front and side door, onto a long series of folding tables, all covered in checkered paper table cloths. While some of the women prepped and cooked, others did nothing but bring food out and set it on the table- Southern food with a Mexican twist, and rivers of it: fried chicken, chicken and dumplings, chicken mole, shrimp and grits, turnip greens, field peas, fried apples, fried calabaza, bread pudding, corn pudding, fried hush puppies, fried burritos, fried okra, buttermilk biscuits, black-eyed peas, butter bean succotash, pecan pie, corn bread, and, of course, apple pie, hot and fresh with sloppy big scoops of local hand-churned ice creams. As the dinner hours approached, Carter grabbed Grace out of the kitchen, and they both joined Sarah, Carter's friend, helping Sarah's father throw up a half-steel-kettle barbecue drum on the side of the house. Mesquite and pecan hardwoods were quickly set ablaze, and Dolly and the quilting ladies descended on the barbecue with a hurricane of food that went right on to the grill, whole chickens and fresh catfish and still-kicking mountain trout alongside locally-style grass-fed burgers all slathered with homemade spicy barbecue sauce. And the Lindseys, the elderly couple who owned the fields adjoining the orchard, pulled up in their pickup and started unloading ears of corn that had been recently cut. The corn was thrown on the kettle drum, too, and in minutes massive plumes of roasting savory-sweet smoke filled the air around the house. It wafted into the orchards, toward the workers who soon began pouring out of the house.

I look at the spread on the counter. I took Jacob's advice and went all out on the classic Southern good luck New Year's foods. In addition to my medium-rare porterhouse, there is hoppin' John over buttered Carolina gold rice, slow-cooked collard greens, corn pudding. The black-eyed peas are good luck in the Southern tradition but also in the Jewish, albeit not usually cooked with bacon the way these are. The greens are supposed to represent money, the corn represents gold. We're closing on the house this week, and I'll take whatever good luck I can find to start the New Year, hoping for a career resurrection and some personal clarity. There is a pan of three-layer slutty brownies sitting on the counter, chocolate chip cookie on the bottom, a layer of Oreos in the middle, brownie batter on top with swirls of cream cheese.

GLYCEMIC INDEX (GI) AND GLYCEMIC LOAD (GL) OF COMMON PLANT FOODS* FOOD GI GL Black beans 30 7 Red kidney beans 25 8 Lentils 30 5 Split peas 25 6 Black-eyed peas 30 13 Corn 52 9 Barley 35 16 Brown rice 75 18 Millet 71 25 Rolled oats 55 13 White rice 83 23 Whole wheat 70 14 White pasta 55 23 Sweet potato 61 17 White potato (average) 90 26 There is a nutritional hierarchy of carbohydrate-rich plant foods.

So it is, while Southerners form societies to preserve the perfection of black-eyed peas and argue vehemently the merits of ham bone versus pickled pork in red beans and rice, the mention of succotash stirs less excitement in the Yankee heart than finding a dime in a pay-phone coin return. The best New England can offer by way of chauvinistic boasting about the stuff comes from the diary of a Vermont farmer, whose single culinary reference for an entire year was a laconic “This day I din’d upon Succotash” (quoted by Evan Jones in American Food).

The moral of the story: Every day is a special day. A tear in your chiffon? So what! A food stain on that satin ruffle? Big deal! A little paint spatter on that velvet blazer merely adds to your overall patina. When women ask me for fashion advice, I always say the same thing: “Go home and throw out all your ‘work’ clothes!” If you always dress as if you are going to a party or a Bowie concert—or a Black Eyed Peas concert—you will always have more fun.

Why do Southerners eat Black Eyed Peas on New Year’s Day? The story of the Southern tradition of eating black-eyed peas as the first meal on New Year's Day is generally believed to date back to the winter of 1864 - 1865. When Union General William T. Sherman led his invading troops on their destructive march through Georgia, the fields of black-eyed peas were largely left untouched because they were deemed fit only for animals. The Union foragers took everything, plundered the land, and left what they could not take, burning or in shambles. But two things did remain, the lowly peas and good Ol’ Southern salted pork. As a result, the humble yet nourishing black-eyed peas saved surviving Southerners - mainly women, children, elderly and the disabled veterans of the Confederate army - from mass starvation and were thereafter regarded as a symbol of good luck. The peas are said to represent good fortune. Certainly the starving Southern families and soldiers were fortunate to have those meager supplies. According to the tradition and folklore, the peas are served with several other dishes that symbolically represent good fortune, health, wealth, and prosperity in the coming year. Some folks still traditionally cook the black-eyed peas with a silver dime in the pot as a symbol of good fortune. Greens represent wealth and paper money. Any greens will do, but in the South the most popular are collards, mustard greens, turnip greens, and cabbage. Cornbread - a regular staple among Southerners in the absence of wheat - symbolizes gold and is very good for soaking up the juice from the greens on the plate. You should always have some cornbread on hand in your kitchen anyway. Good for dinner and in the morning with syrup. Pork symbolizes bountiful prosperity, and then progressing into the year ahead. Ham and hog jowls are typical with the New Year meal, though sometimes bacon will be used, too. Pigs root forward, so it’s the symbolic moving forward for the New Year. Tomatoes are often eaten with this meal as well. They represent health and wealth. So reflect on those stories when you sit down at your family table and enjoy this humble, uniquely Southern meal every New Year’s Day. Be thankful for what this year did give you in spite of the bad, and hope and pray for better days that are coming ahead for you.

The woman had long black hair that hung to the middle of her back and smooth, olive skin that clearly suggested she was foreign. Her almond-shaped eyes were beautiful, a rich brown color that suggested vibrance and heat.

thank you—but—but—I think I'd rather go right back and take the letter to father," faltered Una. "You see, he'll be glad that much SOONER, Miss West." "I see," said Rosemary. She went to the house, wrote a note and gave it to Una. When that small damsel had run off, a palpitating bundle of happiness, Rosemary went to Ellen, who was shelling peas on the back porch. "Ellen," she said, "Una Meredith has just been here to ask me to marry her father." Ellen looked up and read her sister's face. "And you're going to?" she said. "It's quite likely." Ellen went on shelling peas for a few minutes. Then she suddenly put her hands up to her own face. There were tears in her black-browed eyes. "I—I hope we'll all be happy," she said between a sob and a laugh. Down at the manse Una Meredith, warm, rosy, triumphant, marched boldly into her father's study and laid a letter on the desk before him. His pale face flushed as he saw the clear, fine handwriting he knew so well. He opened the letter. It was very short—but he shed twenty years as he read it. Rosemary asked him if he could meet her that

Ellen went on shelling peas for a few minutes. Then she suddenly put her hands up to her own face. There were tears in her black-browed eyes. "I—I

He glanced at his wife, still sound asleep with her black satin eye mask and earplugs snugly in place. Dave used to think that only people in movies slept that way, and then he met Beth. She had more requirements for a good night’s sleep than anyone in The Princess and the Pea. It used to annoy him, but he was starting to find it endearing.

Did you know that eggplant and black-eyed peas were brought over to America from Africa?

For starters, as best I can tell gyms are legally required to play the Black Eyed Peas at all times, which, despite the fact that I am sometimes genuinely looking to get a party of some sort started, is more than I can bear.

He put one of the platters in front of Liv, forcing her to get up-close and personal with his dinner creation. It looked even worse on her plate than it had from a distance. Liv was glad she had a strong stomach. She’d seen some fairly disgusting things during nursing school, especially during her surgery rotation and in the burn unit, but none of them were quite as nasty as Baird’s “pizza.” “Well, go ahead. I thought you were starving.” She looked up to see him watching her, black eyebrows raised in anticipation. Oh my God, I’m actually going to have to eat it! Her stomach rolled at the thought. “You, uh, gave me so much I don’t know where to begin,” she lied weakly. “Only one piece.” He frowned. “Is it too much?” “It’s just a little more than I’m used to. Uh, on Earth we cut a pizza into eight or ten wedges.” And we don’t top it with fruit cocktail! “I can cut it into smaller pieces if you want,” he offered. “No, no. That’s okay. I’ll make do.” There was no putting it off anymore. Taking a deep breath, Liv lifted the huge sloppy slice and forced herself to take a bite. “You like it?” Baird stared at her suspiciously. “Mmm, delicious,” Liv mumbled, fighting her gag reflex. Inside her mouth the flavors of canned salmon, lima beans, and fruit cocktail were fighting and she wondered how in the world she would swallow without throwing up. But the big warrior was still watching her carefully for her reaction and she didn’t want to insult him. With a monumental effort she choked down the mess and prayed it wouldn’t come back up. “So it’s good?” he asked again. “Unforgettable,” Liv assured him which for once was the absolute truth. “Glad you like it.” Baird lifted his own piece of pizza and, keeping his eyes on her the entire time, took a huge bite. But when he started to chew, his face turned a peculiar shade of red. “Gods!” Getting up from the table in a hurry, he ran to the sink and spat out the mouthful. Then he turned back to Liv. “That was fuckin’ horrible. Why didn’t you tell me?” Liv shrugged, not sure if she should laugh or feel sorry for him. “I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.” “I’d rather have my feelings hurt than eat that slop.” Baird frowned. “I don’t understand what you humans see in that dish anyway.” “Well…” Liv tried to think of a way to put it tactfully. “We don’t always make it exactly like that.” She nodded at the half a pizza she’d put back down on the metal serving tray. “But I did everything the clerk told me to,” Baird protested. “He said it was mistake proof. That anyone could do it.” “Anyone can do it. You just put a little too much on it, that’s all.” “Damn it to hell.” Baird sighed. “I’m sorry, Olivia. I wanted to make all your favorites—the things I saw you eating in my dreams. It was between this and that other stuff you like with the raw sea creatures rolled in the white grains. I thought this would be easier.” “Sushi?” Liv bit her lip to keep from laughing. “You were going to try and make me sushi?” As badly as he’d screwed up the pizza, she couldn’t imagine what his version of sushi would look like. Visions of a whole dead fish coated in sticky rice and rolled in peas and carrots instead of roe rose to mind. Ugh. Baird shrugged. “I wanted to. I wanted to make you something special every night. But I guess I’m not very good at cooking human food. Sorry.” He sounded so crestfallen and his broad shoulders slumped so sadly that Liv couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. She rose and went to put a hand lightly on his arm. “Hey, don’t worry about it. I’m sure if I tried to make Kindred cuisine I wouldn’t do any better.” Baird

Beans also digest very slowly, providing sustained energy and preventing the blood-sugar roller coaster commonly associated with high-carb and/or processed foods. Many bean varieties also boast folic acid, which benefits the heart, as well as immune-boosting minerals like magnesium, iron, zinc and potassium. Best Sources: Red beans, small red kidney beans and pinto beans rank among the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s top four antioxidant-containing foods. Other beans you may want to add to your rotation: black beans, garbanzo beans and black-eyed peas. Should

Dere been some queer things white folks can't understand. Dere am folkses can see de spirits, but I can't. My mammy larned me a lots of doctorin', what she larnt from old folkses from Africy, and some de Indians larnt her. If you has rheumatism, jes' take white sassafras root and bile it and drink de tea. You makes lin'ment by bilin' mullein flowers and poke roots and alum and salt. Put red pepper in you shoes and keep de chills off, or string briars round de neck. Make red or black snakeroot tea to cure fever and malaria, but git de roots in de spring when de sap am high. "When chillen teethin' put rattlesnake rattles round de neck, and alligator teeth am good, too. Show de new moon money and you'll have money all month. Throw her five kisses and show her money and make five wishes and you'll git dem. Eat black-eyed peas on New Year and have luck all dat year: "'Dose black-eyed peas is lucky, When et on New Year's Day; You'll allus have sweet 'taters And possum come you way.' "When anybody git cut I allus burns

If I switch metaphors... it’s like if you make a meal and your audience is waiting to eat it, but when you put it on the table, they have to watch you eat it. That would be the Ashbery kind of poetry. It’s a great meal, and maybe you’re a terrific eater, so they watch and wow, those noodles look delicious. But Mary’s attitude is that, if you never get to eat it, you’re like the cafeteria worker, which is why she does not like that kind of poetry. ...Baraka would say your obligation is to feed black people. If other people are eating it, that’s fine, but this is your job. But does that mean I’m only making black-eyed peas and collard greens? What does it mean to say only certain people? I like a little sea bass, too, or a little halibut. So for someone to say this is your audience and you have to give people the thing they’ll really eat, I’m saying you don’t know what people’s capacity is. Maybe they’ll like caviar, maybe you’ll like octopus. Or maybe they won’t. But I’m still trying to get people to the table. Who those people are, I don’t really think too much about that. I don’t think about everybody that looks the same; I don’t know who those people are, but I’m going to feed them.

Percy Mosely was running a special on a vegetable plate: collards, black-eyed peas, candied yams, cornbread, and banana pudding for two-fifty, during the week of the Hope House grand opening, only. After that, three bucks.

There were two bartenders and six servers. Black-eyed pea cakes with shrimp. Zucchini and corn fritters. Coriander-spiced beef fritters. Burgundy beet risotto tarts. Lemon-spiced chicken with dilled cucumbers. Pigs in a blanket with mustard, which Claire always threw in as a joke but was invariably the first thing the caterers ran out of because everyone loved tiny hot dogs.

Do not eat field peas, black-eyed peas, speckled peas, red peas or brown peas. Do not eat lima beans, or baby limas. Do not eat any bean but the small navy bean -- the little brown pink ones, and the white ones.

DE’S PEAS (DeForest Kelley)—4 goodly servings 1 pkg. black-eyed peas 1 large onion 4 hot Italian sausages Rinse and cull peas. Remove thin skin from sausage. Mince onion. In heavy pot (Dutch oven type) crumble and brown sausage. Add onion and sauté until limp and golden. Add peas and enough water to cover, plus approx. 1 inch. Bring to boil, turn to simmer, place lid on a bit askew so just a trickle of steam can escape. Cook 3 or 4 hours, until they are the way you like them. Stir them every once in a while during cooking, and add water if necessary. If, when tasting, you’d like a bit more spice, add a dash of cayenne pepper.

in the days before refrigeration, salt had to be added to butter as a preservative. Salted butter is for spreading; unsalted is for cooking, as it allows for better control of the salt in the recipe.

One thing that makes good corn bread difficult to get is regional prejudice. A man from Arkansas blanches, for example, at the thought of putting molasses on his dodger like a Missourian, and instead wants it buttered, or plain with a dish of black-eyed peas and sowbelly. And he wants it made of white meal, not yellow.

A dairy house was a small shed or building with a dirt floor, usually dug down two or three feet below grade where the earth was cooler. There may have also been a pit dug a few feet deeper, lined with smooth stones or brick. This would serve to keep milk and buttermilk cool.

Vivian Weaver took us from pot to pot in her kitchen, lifting lids, stirring and tasting as she went along. There was seafood gumbo, fried fish and fried chicken, dumplings, butter biscuits, cornbread, fried okra, black-eyed peas, green beans, and bread pudding.

Do you have any Black Eyed Peas?" He looked puzzled by the question. "To eat?

The music suddenly cut from a popular Black Eyed Peas song to a fast song from the Roaring Twenties. The lights came up and shone on the makeshift dance floor.

Mae drew closer, bending down to peer at the tiny words written on the ripped scraps of paper. Most of the pieces were no bigger than a Post-it. Smothered chicken. Shrimp and grits. Lamb chops. Fried chicken. Black-eyed peas. Chicken pot pie. Oyster dressing. Corn casserole. Barbecue sauce. Seeing these felt like being reunited with an old friend. The tiny handwriting was unfamiliar, but the dishes jumped out at her like memories. Her dad had talked about some of these. He'd told her about shrimp and grits on those mornings at Skyline Diner. And he'd mentioned oyster dressing and corn casserole once when Mae had asked him what his family ate at Thanksgiving. The barbecue sauce might have been something Althea made a big vat of for their annual Fourth of July event.

The smothered chicken and gravy, collard greens, and the black-eyed peas she'd modified to make vegetarian for Sierra were ready and warm on the stove. The rice waited patiently in the rice cooker on the counter. The corn fritters were warming in the oven. The peach cobbler, fresh out of the oven, cooled on the counter next to a dish she hadn't told the Townsends about, which she'd covered in foil until it was time to bring it out. The entire house smelled heavenly, from the savory garlic and onion to the rich chicken-gravy to the cobbler's sweet cinnamon spice.

He was a relentlessly physical little boy, always climbing things and falling off them and hitting them with other things to see which of them would break. He was especially devoted to a violent form of football that was played with several dozen boys from all over the area. Oriel captained one team, and the other was led by an exotic-looking child named William Colingham, who had dark eyes and long, loose black hair—the Dugfalls and the Colinghams were the two large landholding families in the Great Wold Valley. The ball was an inflated pig’s bladder filled with dried peas, and the playing field was the whole town and the fields around it. The game generally left crops and fences and small outbuildings in ruins and only ended when the bladder popped or someone got seriously hurt.

And anytime you do your best. Whatever your best is. You are a winner. You are a writer. You are telling your story. Good for all of us. You are.

And isn’t that what literature should teach us. To be our own hero. To love. To care. To cry. To laugh. To live. And try to let others live, too.