I wish you could see this woman beside me. She's eating fried chicken like a starvation victim. And using her whole body to do it.
She takes a large bite, then wipes her chin with her sleeve. She pauses only to sip sweet tea. Then, it's back to destroying more drumsticks.
She stares at my discarded bones and says, “You like it?”
No.
I love it.
Her fried chicken is legendary. Hens everywhere from here to the next county marvel at this woman. That's because you've never seen anyone—not even the Colonel—fry a bird the way she does. Local poultry stand in line, volunteering their lives toward her cause.
It's no exaggeration:
she lives for food.
You'd never know it to look at her, but she plans her life around supper, her summers around vegetables. We once postponed a family vacation because tomato season wasn't yet in full swing.
You ought to travel with her. She hauls ten coolers wherever she goes. They're stocked with things like: buttermilk, eight kinds of cheese—nine counting pimento—chicken salad, tuna salad, coleslaw, potato salad, egg salad, pear salad, fruit salad, cucumber salad, Jell-O salad, and ambrosia.
She believes in the gospel according to whole…