Jesus Loving, southern cooking Grandma!!!

“We are all in a position to change someone’s life with our gifts and our disasters. But only if we use our gifts to leave the disasters behind.  ~me

AS many of you I have found many gifts smack dab in the middle of this pandemic.  It has been even more joyous when you find a gift wrapped up in an unexpected situation. One of my friends introduced me to this adorable and I mean adorable, Jesus loving, southern cooking, joy spreading grandma, Brenda Gantt.  She lives right down the road and around a few corners from my lake house in Andalusia.  

If you have not seen her cooking show filled with adorable southern tales and deep fat fried southern cooking, stop this blog right now and go to, “Cooking with Brenda Gantt.”  I promise you will thank me but you may get swept away and watch story after story and you should if you have a heart or a tear duct at all….cry, then laugh, then cry and laugh again.  

I hope I get some of this story right and if  I don’t forgive me and know that you will at least get the jist of it and know where my heart is leading you!!!  So according to what I have read and seen Brenda who lost her precious husband George just a few days or so after my sweet Hugh left this earth, was well known for her southern charm and cooking. She was not fancy but boy did she have heart and everyone and I mean everyone at the tune of many hundreds then quickly  thousands started watching her. She was known to invite folks over after church to eat a home cooked meal but after COVID that led the way to these more than popular how to cook videos.

Looks like this sweet Brenda Gantt has most surely used her gifts and taken what she has and is sharing her love of Jesus and southern food. Britt and I got lost in time as we listened to her stories of her mama getting  a new radio because her daddy sold a cow.  Brenda shares wistfully that they would gather around  and listen to radio shows for hours as a family and I could not help but wish for a time such as this.

And then I remembered. I think we are in a time such as this.  We are staying home and cooking more, being with family more and finding ways to entertain ourselves without ferris wheels and big slides.  Heck I have even been cooking!!!! You heard me, EVEN  I have been gently forced by the corona bug to get out my pots and pans and go back to my southern cooking roots, Thanks in part to COVID but mostly to this fun loving southern lady with joy that is evident in her eyes and in her voice.

I hope to meet her one day and perhaps I will run into her at  The Pig, picking out the best ears of corn so she can sit on her big ole porch and show us how to shuck that corn.  I think she really gets wound up with story telling when the shucking begins.

Life  really can be as hard or as simple as we make it. I guess we could all just fuss and moan and groan at the changes we are experiencing or we can look at our gifts and talents and use this time to enjoy them. We can use this time to remember who we are and who we are becoming. We can use the gifts and the talents we have and the tragedies and disappointments and love on God’s kids. People really need us now. We need each other.

I know that God did not put me here to be miserable about what I no longer have or changes that I was not expecting. I do believe however that I want to use this one beautiful life and take all that I have and all that I am becoming and share it and be thankful for all of it.  

I do however want to learn how to eat southern and have jeans that fit at the same time!!! When I find that out, I will be the first to let you know.  

Loving you so much, super excited about the rest of this life!!! I hope there is lots of fried cornbread and other such yummy things in your future!!!!

Karen

Ps. Farmer markets are delightful places to social distance and find fresh vegetables.

Pps.  Hugh is probably shaking his head and saying,”Jesus, I had no idea that woman could cook, I just thought she was sweet!!!!”

PPPs. I am also a Jesus loving, southern cooking YaYa, I am just not a facebook youtube sensation, but maybe just maybe!!!