back to mississippi

I managed to post using the updated blogger, and I also found umpteen comments "awaiting moderation." Who knew there was such a thing? So I moderated. Thanks for the kind words, all. I've published most of them with their appropriate posts now. It's good to hear your voices.

It was good to return to Mississippi last month to do research for book two of the sixties trilogy. I've been to the Delta several times now, and have chronicled some of those trips here, here, and here. This time I took Jim, who had never been to the hill country (we spent the first night in Oxford) or the Delta.

It was a revelatory trip. So let me catch up here a bit on this Saturday morning in Atlanta where it has turned cool after a stormy rain and I've got a homemade split pea soup simmering on the stove.

We started on a Sunday afternoon, after Jim's church gig, with our coolers packed and had an old-fashioned picnic at the Alabama Welcome Center. I had such high hopes (ridiculous, I know) of eating well on this trip and keeping to my newly (and firmly) established food routines. hahahaha.

 This would be the nutritious last meal with real greens that we ate until we ended up with family in Brandon, five days later.

We made it to Oxford in time for supper at Taylor Grocery. I first went to Taylor Grocery with Jim Allen, my Mississippi driver on my book tour for Each Little Bird That Sings in 2005. Jim drove me all over the Delta on that leg of the tour, and told me I had to eat at Taylor Grocery. "Good catfish," he said, and he was right.

I had the catfish -- it's still good -- and we left our names on the tablecloth with all the rest of the unknown names, and went off sleepy and weaving into the dark, to the Inn at Ole Miss, where we crashed into bed well-fed and were asleep in seconds.

Next, Square Books in Oxford, a nap at Rowan Oak (William Faulkner's home), and a drive into the Delta -- the heart of book two of the sixties trilogy.

Off to stir the soup first. Maybe make some cole slaw. Cornbread. You know.