Alabama Tracks

I’m finding that the longer I live in the True South, the more assimilated I’m becoming.  Good thing???  I’m not really sure.
The other evening I had a quick passing thought that a hot cereal would be good for breakfast the next morning.  It’s been a little cool the past few nights and the thought of warm Cream of Wheat or Oatmeal sounded fabulous. I pushed the thought aside and went to bed.

The following morning I was a little bit later than what I had hoped and oatmeal wasn’t on the agenda.  Cream of Wheat wasn’t either because I didn’t have any.  Grits were out of the question.  I’m a northern bird and we like our Cream of Wheat hands down over grits any day.  I had my bowl of puffed millet with fruit bits and proceeded to work.

By 9:30, my craving for hot cereal hadn’t gone away.  I was hungry again which was odd because the millet has been holding me until lunch time most days with the occasional granola bar for a snack.  I headed to the cafeteria hoping they would have some instant oatmeal.  None.  Grits were the only thing they had.  I got a bowl, filled it to the top with cheese grits and proceeded to my desk.  There, I ate the entire bowl!  I couldn’t believe it.  My fix was satiated and so was my stomach.

So thus, I’m convinced that this is one of “pregnancy” things that you’ve just got to have whether you liked it before you got pregnant or not.  I don’t think it will become a regular item on my plate, but I do think that I won’t be so picky if they find their way to my plate erroneously again.  And who knows, as the winter progresses, that might be a descent morning breakfast substitute if I don’t have time to make something at home.

The other item that I’m slowing trying to learn to like is greens.  I figure the more vitamin K that I can get now, the less likely the hospital will be able to say that I haven’t provided enough for my baby and thus want to give her a vitamin K shot upon birth.  So each Thursday, I buy some greens from the cafeteria to supplement my lunch.  Most of the time they turn  out to be collard greens.  By the time that I get to cafe, the pepper sauce is gone, so I eat them as they are.  Not my favorite, but definitely tolerable.  Last weekend while at Cracker Barrel I ordered some and they were awful.  This week the cafe had turnip greens which were okay but were not the same as the standard collards.

Now I don’t know that I’ll take the time to make these at home as I’ve heard they stink up a house something fierce.  And I know that the black woman in the cafeteria has learned to make these the correct way from her upbringing so trying to mimic her methods, most likely won’t pan out for this northern bird.  And I also have been told that just preparing greens to be cooked takes forever and a day with something like 5 washings of the greens. I think I’ll stick to the cafe’s greens for now.

I’ve lived here for 3 years and parts of me have been assimilated.  Others haven’t.  I do not like Cracklin Cornbread.  I don’t understand having tasteless cornbread with beans or greens just to have it get soggy, and I don’t understand having grits with shrimp or catfish.  Blech!!!

There are just somethings, whether pregnant or not, that don’t sound appealing.

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