Southern Living

So I ended up outside Birmingham AL in my evacuation from Gustave, which was lovely. Pretty rolling hills, cheap BBQ and tea with so much sugar you could stand a spoon in it. Anyway, I decided to try and keep some semblance of normalcy among all the trashy lit reading and beer I mean tea sipping, so I contacted my friend Donna Florio who is the Senior Food Editor at Southern Living to see if I could come visit and do....something. She said sure and on Wednesday I headed up to Southern Progress, the home of Southern Living, Coastal Living and Cottage Living. I picked a great day. The recipe testers were sampling about 20 different dishes, from coleslaw to grilled pork to some tasty brownies. I got to taste everything and even put in my two cents about adding buttermilk to a soup instead of cream. The voting system was pretty straightforward. All the editors and recipe developers voted by raising their hands, giving a number on a scale of 1-2. A recipe that still needs some work gets a 1.5; a 2 is a solid recipe; a 2.5 is very good; and a 3 is outstanding. It was interesting to listen to the various critiques, especially listening the the various criteria: family friendly, kid friendly, an "interesting application" which meant a new use for a predictable food like broccoli. After all the sampling and voting, Donna introduced me to everyone and I talked about the museum, our mission, several of the projects we are working on and how everyone could help support us, whether through our Menu Project or in other ways. Everyone was really thrilled to hear about the museum and promised to come visit the next time they were in town. It was a tasty day.