While searching for recipes to make chow chow, I discovered the Celebrating Appalachia channel. Browsing through all of the videos Mrs. Tipper Pressley has made over the years, I found a heartwarming and nostalgic quality to her and her family’s way of life, not just for food but how they live. Before starting her YouTube channel, Tipper started with her blog, with the best name in the world: Blind Pig and the Acorn.
While my immediate and most of the extended family grew up in Texas, I did have an aunt that married and settled in Arkansas. I can still remember the visits we’d take there, out in the middle of so many trees, creeks and rivers, and the hints of the Ozark mountains. What I also keenly remember was their way of living, which compared to my urban upbringing seemed so simple. Meals weren’t complicated, time was spent outdoors, reading, or playing a board or card game, and time was savored, not worrying about so many trivial and ultimately unimportant things. An odd way to put it perhaps, but it’s something I’ve noticed even more these days with more of technology’s promises and time spent more on work related things.
