Chicken Fried Squirrel.: Chicken fried

Sunday boys

Friday boys

So if I haven't said this before, let me be totally clear that I'm a city girl born and raised. I remember well my first quick trip to the South 18 years ago. My new in-laws were hosting a small reception for us in Camden, Arkansas. I boarded the plane in Phoenix in October wearing a crisp, breezy yellow summer dress, espresso colored high-heeled sandals, and big hammered metal earrings, my overly blonde curls piled in a bun on top of my head. I'd spent the day before packing and selecting the right perfume and accessories and cosmetics and worrying how I'd look and what outfits would be appropriate, all the time picturing sipping mint juleps on columned porches with linen-clad gentlemen. The furthest south I'd ever been was the petrified forest of New Mexico. When my hunky fiance had told me he was a Southerner as if that bore consideration, I smiled and said "cool". He seemed very Oregonianish like me except for the faintest of twangs, and I assumed that Southerners were just Oregonians who preferred overalls to flannels, iced tea to Starbucks, and pick-ups to Subarus. After all, this is America and we're all the same.
We had to actually change planes on the tarmac in Oklahoma, and the air traffic controllers undoubtedly had a good chuckle over the hysterical blonde girl sprinting awkwardly over the icy runway with 50 mile an hour sleet ripping through her yellow sundress. Everyone, EVERYONE else wore overalls, boots, parkas, hats, gloves, scarves, thermal cuffs peeping over wrists and ankles. We landed in Little Rock to a crowd of denim, fleece, and unshaven faces. The airline attendant near the gate said something completely unintelligible that sounded like "Diddle beetle body boo?" which my husband said meant "How was your flight?" He spent the whole weekend translating what was supposed to be English but was really a moonshine-drunk type of Ozark gibberish. And oh, the places we went! Meandering drives through endless trees and hills, past homes the size of sheds with old toilets and trucks on blocks and piles of rusty tools in the yard. I started keeping track of how many front porches had washers and dryers, how many had couches and TV's, how many had people just sitting there in the middle of the day doing nothing but waving to passing cars. I almost couldn't process my first little exposure to the South, it was culture shock extraordinaire.
In lieu of the front porch and juleps, we ate deer and squirrel for dinner that night. Where I'm from, squirrels are like fluffy pets that live in your Douglas Fir trees. I've actually gone into an artisan gardening store and purchased squirrel accessories, little feeders from which to hang their organic corn cobs, binoculars for a closer look at nature's most adorable ambassador. Squirrels are NOT food to Yankee girls from the suburbs. So I only begrudgingly nibbled a tiny squirrel knee at dinner and vowed to avoid the South if possible in the future.
I knew the squirrel eating thing was going to be an issue when we ran away from civilization this summer and headed south. However, I didn't expect that I'd be Googling divorce attorneys after midnight last Tuesday after telling my husband that I will NEVER eat a squirrel the rest of my life, so help me God.
We had to come to an agreement though. So... HE can eat all the squirrel he wants, and I can eat all the sushi and seaweed and hummus I want, and neither the twain shall cross. Thus, there are squirrels soaking in brine in the fridge today next to my tahini, waiting for the missionaries (two young unsuspecting servants of God from Utah, and from North Carolina where they actually DO sip juleps) to come to dinner this week. Squirrel and dumplings, oh my!
By the way, if you come to visit, just pack camo and Razorback gear. That's it. Leave the yellow dresses at home unless you really want to be made fun of for looking goofy.