Donna's Muse Papers

The phrase, “Well, bless your (or her or his) heart,” has been assigned an undeserved negative connotation these days, I believe from Yankee writers who pretend to understand the South. When I was growing up, blessing someone’s heart meant just what it says. Folks said it to or about folks who were going through a difficult time or situation because there just were no other words to convey one’s sympathy, or more importantly, empathy, because we’d all known hard times. We were asking God’s blessing on that person. Take for example if you were standing in the churchyard after services talking about sister Beth who had lost her husband, or someone’s child home sick with chicken pox, or brother Clyde who just came home from the hospital, “Well, bless her (or his) heart” preceded the plans to take food to them, visit, and pray for them. When a little one fell and skinned her (or his) knee the grown up in charge would scoop up the child and with a “bless your little ...

The past two weekends I’ve participated in writer’s events. Last weekend Jackie Dove-Miller and I traveled to Ridgeland, SC for the Second Annual “Novel” Wine Tasting, Arts, and Literary Festival. It was held at the September Oats Winery, a beautiful setting of live oaks dripping with Spanish moss. We were blessed with perfect outdoor-event-weather. Over sixty authors and artists participated. Walking the grounds in their 19 th century finery were members of Sons of Confederate Veterans Charles Jones Colcock Camp 2100 and the Massachusetts 54 th Company 1. As could be expected there was an air of having stepped back in a bygone time. I met new people and had my first taste of shrimp gumbo. I am hooked and want more, more, MORE! The writers and artists were treated with a complimentary glass of wine and the wine tasting room stayed busy throughout the day.The icing on the cake was having two of my daughters, Deborah and Julia spend the day with us, helping out with ...

This is not a cooking blog. No way! But, after seeing a thread on Facebook about how to peel an onion and not cry I thought I’d share a tip my mother taught me on how to peel an onion without crying. It is so simple I don’t know why everyone doesn’t know it – cut the root end of the onion off first, before you start peeling it. Apparently the roots are the source of the chemical that irritates your eyes. Once it is removed and discarded you can peel and dice without crying. My second tip will tell you how to how to peel a hard boiled egg without breaking the egg. All of my life I have struggled with trying to peel a boiled egg without it ripping out part of the egg.   My mother-in-law advised not to use fresh eggs for boiling. She always had a dozen of week-old eggs on hand for making boiled eggs. That improved my performance somewhat, but I didn’t always have that extra dozen eggs on hand, and even when I did, at least some eggs would still break in the peeling. I was ...