$15.95 paper
ISBN 978-0-8078-5655-0

Published: Fall 2005

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Copyright (c) 2005 by the University of North Carolina Press. All rights reserved.

Excerpt from the Introduction
We All Felt Cared For

In my first book, Mama Dip's Kitchen, I talked about growing up on a farm in Chatham County, North Carolina, with my brothers and sisters. Farming wasn't called a career then, but we learned how to prepare the fields, plant, chop, pick, harvest, and cook the food that we grew. We milked the cows, fed the pigs and the chickens, and churned our own butter. We used a mule for help on the farm. Papa wouldn't let us have a horse because he said horses were too frisky for us.

After moving to Chapel Hill, I went to a beauty school in Durham. I never wanted to go to beauty school, but after my Papa begged me to go, I went. I lived with my grandmother while I was in school. What I really wanted to do was to cook because I loved to cook. My brother and sister were both cooking at the time, and I wanted to, also. So, my first job after I got out of beauty school was cooking for the Patterson family over on Wilson Court in Chapel Hill. Later, I cooked at the Carolina Coffee Shop and at various places around the University of North Carolina, including fraternity houses, and then I worked at Bill's Barbeque for 18 years.

I gave birth to my first child in 1949 and my last in 1957. I had become the mother of eight—five girls and three boys. (In the fifties, it wasn't unusual for people to have big families.) We had a hard time finding a house with three bedrooms. We finally moved into a house in the Northside community of Chapel Hill and lived there for nine years. We had a wood cookstove and wood heater. My house was no different from those of most of the other families we knew. The children took turns sleeping on the couch and floor. In the winter months, it was a struggle to put food on the table and buy wood and coal for the stove to keep warm.

I was always the main breadwinner. When my husband got out of the army after World War II, the only job he could find was in the sawmill. When it rained or snowed, he couldn't work. So I worked two jobs and ironed clothes for students on campus. I also washed and curled hair for neighbors and friends (using what I learned at the beauty school).

Despite our struggles, there have been so many things to laugh about—like when a card table suddenly collapsed and spilled all of the food on the floor. One year my oldest daughter, Norma, collected money from everyone and bought my first watch from the pawnshop at Five Points in Durham. Later, the children began giving me different kinds of salt and pepper shakers. Another year I said I knew what gifts would be good for my birthday and Christmas gifts, and I picked a china pattern at the Belks department store and asked for pieces. After I got so many nice pieces, my granddaughter Stephanie and I decided to start a china club for those in the family with homes of their own. After Norma got her china I don't know what happened, but our china club was sort of forgotten. Maybe it was Mama Dip's that we all got wrapped up in.

In 1976 I was walking down the street when George Tate, who was the first black realtor in town, stopped me and asked me to take over a failing restaurant that was leasing some space in one of his buildings. My first reaction was "What? I have no money!" Well, I did have $64, so I thought it over and then used that money to buy the food for the first meal. I bought Pine Sol and wax to clean the old restaurant; bacon, eggs, grits, flour, bread, instant coffee, and Pet milk to cook breakfast; and Joy detergent to wash the dishes. After I made money from that first meal, I went right out and bought the ingredients for the second one, and we served dinner that evening. We've been open ever since.

In the beginning we had 18 seats, and then after nine months we moved things around to make room for 22 seats. After taking down a wall, we grew to 38 seats. Later we were able to rent the other side of the building, and we grew to 94 seats. The seating grew but the kitchen did not, which caused us to have a slowdown in service. We wrote out a different, new menu every day, and I realized that it was difficult to keep that up. I began to wonder about myself. The hours at the beginning were from seven A.M. to one A.M. At first, I did not realize how many hours I was working, but then I had never worked only one job at a time. Later, we changed the hours to eight A.M. to ten P.M. and also fixed a standard menu. Life settled down, and in 1997, I began to think about building a new, bigger building across the way at 408 West Rosemary Street. I started the process of buying the land and building a new restaurant with a parking lot. Around the same time, many of my customers and my friends, including Alice Welch and Bill Neal, were encouraging me to publish my recipes. So I began to write a cookbook.

In the early part of 1998, the magazine Southern Living wrote an article about my restaurant and me. It was published on Memorial Day weekend, May 31, 1998, and it drew a huge crowd to the restaurant. We could barely feed all the people who came to Mama Dip's Kitchen that weekend. We closed at 11 P.M. and got most people served by 1 A.M. People also tasted the Mama Dip's prepared food we had for sale, and they wanted to know all about my jellies and about my garden too, which was mentioned in Southern Living.

Around Thanksgiving time of that same year, ABC's Good Morning America called and talked to my daughter Elaine about my appearing on their show. She was so excited that she told one of my other daughters, Annette, who suggested that she tell them yes for me. However, when I heard about all this, I said I didn't really want to go to New York for Thanksgiving. My kids said, "Mama, you have to do it!" but I told ABC I didn't want to come. So ABC said they would come to Chapel Hill instead and set up a feature on my cooking right on the UNC campus.

When word got out about this, a chef at a local Chapel Hill restaurant called to ask me if I was looking for a food stylist. I answered, "No, I have never heard of a 'food stylist.'" He was pleased to let me know that he was one. I really didn't know what to say but told him, "Maybe Good Morning America is looking for someone, but not me, sir." After I hung up the phone, I was so puzzled. I began to think, "What would they do to style collards, potatoes, cornbread and other country food?" Maybe he was kidding me. I thought that hair and clothes probably needed a stylist, but not food. I later learned that there really is such a person as a food stylist.

The news got around somehow that I needed a food stylist. A woman called from Raleigh, introduced herself as a food stylist, and said she would like to come to Chapel Hill to meet me. I said OK and waited to see what she wanted from me.

When the food stylist arrived at Mama Dip's, she said she would be happy to work with me and with the food for ABC's show. We talked about the food that I would prepare and about exactly where and when the taping would take place on the UNC campus. She had some pretty bowls and baking dishes for us to use. Along with the pecan pie, I was to have some fried chicken, ham, collards, yams, cornbread, and coconut cake already made. ABC asked me to make a pecan pie during the taping of the show with Spencer Christian. It was truly an experience having Mr. Christian help me stir! It was also great fun to be on TV so early in the morning.

We all had a good time on UNC's campus with Spencer Christian and the ABC Good Morning America staff, as well as the students on campus who got up early in the morning to be part of the show. We could feel the dew on our feet as we walked on the grass, and my whole body got chilled, but the thrill of being there with Spencer Christian and ABC kept me warm. The food stylist made the food look like a picture in a book. I loved it. I was really worried about how my pecan pie would come out. It turned out to be really great.

On February 1, 1999, we moved into our new location across West Rosemary Street from the old restaurant, where we had been for 23 years, and then in the fall of that year Mama Dip's Kitchen was published. The past five years since then have been more than I could ever have imagined. Now, looking back, I wonder how I made it through the first years, and I realize that Mama Dip's Kitchen and Mildred "Mama Dip" Council grew up together. Now I am in my seventies, have my restaurant in a new building, am still making jellies, pickles, and chow-chow, and have written a second cookbook. I have never looked back until now.

I had never imagined that I would publish a book or that a national TV network would call and invite me on their show. I had always thought of myself as a simple country girl. What did I have? I was born on a farm in Chatham County and raised there by my Papa with my four sisters and two brothers. My Mama had passed on in 1931. She wanted her children to grow up together. So, with the oldest child about 12 and me about 2, Papa took on the challenge of raising us all together when the economy was at its lowest point—the Great Depression. He was a great Papa—a steward, cook, teacher, farmer, and motivator for all of us! He taught us life skills.

Growing up on the farm, we learned to plant, chop, pick, shell, can, fish, and hunt—and to cook all of the things we grew and caught. My sisters and brothers and I found joy in so many things. For fun we jumped rope and played jack rocks, baseball, and learning games. We also always challenged each other—who could jump rope the longest or hit the ball the farthest or pick more cotton. We always wanted to talk about what we accomplished at the supper table.

Farm life was all about community. Farming friends and relatives shared the same concerns and values—working hard together, going to school and to church, and helping each other when needed. We shared each other's struggles and were told stories about challenges and how to overcome them. We went to school, but college was never mentioned as an option for us at that time. However, people would tell me how my mother had gone away to college to learn to be a teacher and that when she came back she wore these pretty blouses and skirts. That was quite unusual in those days!

Every year for many years, Papa planted nine acres of cotton in long rows up and down hills on a tenant farm. When I was young I was given a short-handled hoe and shorter rows to work on at chopping time in the late spring. Late August, September, and October were cotton-picking time. The younger children would get a feed sack to fill with the cotton. Once we were eight years old, our sacks got bigger. At the beginning of picking season it was a lot of fun, but as the season wore on our backs became so tired. Papa kept our spirits up by bringing special goodies from town. When he sold some cotton, he would bring back cocoa for hot chocolate, peppermint and horehound sticks, and Coca-Cola for us to share.

I loved to plow the fields with our mule, Joe, who was very gentle. All we had to say was "giddiup Joe" and he would go. We would say "har" and Joe would go right and then "gee" to have him go left, and we said "woo" to make him stop. At the end of the day after plowing, I would look back at the field and think it really looked pretty. Plowing was much easier than chopping.

I plowed until the warplanes started zooming overhead during World War II. Strange trucks started passing by, too. Some people said that soldiers dressed in funny-looking uniforms were camping down on the nearby Haw River. One Sunday, Papa stood up in church and told the ladies of the congregation that they should be like "mother birds" and get up early to help boys who were going off to war. We knew little about the war—only that the authorities drafted men from ages 18 to 45. When our family's turn came, my brothers left home for the army and the navy, and they didn't come back home to the farm before Papa and I moved to Chapel Hill.

When the war was going on Uncle Sam took all our men. It seemed that no men were left, just snotty-nosed boys who wore "turn-over" shoes (shoes that were worn down on one side) and faded overalls that were patched on the butt and knees. Papa would go to other farms to get boys to help us on our farm. When they would come to our farm, they would just stare at me as if they were saying, "What are you doing out here?" I challenged all of them. "Are you going to work or just stand there and look at me, you lazy things?" I said.

I always had to stop playing and tie the mule to a tree or bush at the spring to get fresh water for the lazy boys. We didn't have a well and used a spring to get our water. I wanted to take the boys with me so I could push them onto the snake that always hung around the spring. When I saw the snake, I would chunk rocks and sticks until it slid away. The spring was down a little hill, and I would kneel on a piece of plank placed next to it to dip the water out into a bucket. Most of the time the bucket would be a gallon Jewell lard bucket. The dipper was a big gourd that Papa cut the top out of and then cleaned out the seeds. Later, Papa could afford a galvanized dipper.

Sometimes when we were in the fields, the galvanized dipper would spring a leak, and it would be a long time before Papa could get another one. We would just drink from the broken one, with water coming out of the hole. When aluminum dippers came into the store, Papa bought one, but the handle didn't stay on it long, and then we just started using a blue and white pot. I liked to drink the water and let it run down from my mouth onto my dress or onto the ground when it was hot in the field.

We planted cotton, corn, wheat, oats, rye, and sugarcane. We also had a garden in a special place near the house. We planted our early vegetables there—onions, cabbage, and English peas in January and February, Irish potatoes in late March, and string beans and field peas around Good Friday, the week before Easter. Sweet potatoes were the last thing that we planted in the spring. Papa and most all the farmers had a cedar post hanging high with gourds to scare the crows away from the gardens. Sometimes smaller birds would lay their eggs in the gourds in the springtime.

At the house, our inside broom was made of wild straw that grew three feet tall in the fields. We had to wring off the roots. This means we would twist the straw from the roots, turning it until the roots broke off and we were left with a handful of straw. In the fall, after the frost, we would clean off the leaves left on the straw and wrap a twine string around the top of the broom to make a handle. It would be bushy, and we would cut off the tip to even it across. The brooms always stood beside the wood box or the fireplace. The yard broom was made of dogwood limbs or branches. The limbs would have to be cut off the tree and pulled straight. Four to five limbs would be tied together. One person would hold them together while the other would tie them. Sometimes we used corn shucks stuck in a piece of oak wood for our outside broom. Using a bracing bit, we made holes in the wood and pushed in the corn shucks. Our mop was made of burlap sacks tied around a hoe.

We had lye soap for washing, and we had something called "bluing" for rinsing our clothes. It made the water a pretty blue color. The biggest washtub was used for bathing on Saturday nights. We used sweet or Octagon soap for bathing, and we took turns in the washtub. After we were age ten or so we had to put the middle part of our body into the washtub first when getting in, then the rest would follow. For some reason the tub seemed smaller!

Papa built what was called a hothouse for raising chickens. Back then, many farmers talked about how much money they made raising and selling fryers. Our hothouse could hold 500 chicks. Papa would go somewhere in nearby Pittsboro and order baby chicks that were all the same color and size. When they came in, they were so pretty, chirping and eating. A lantern had to be put in the hothouse so that the chicks could eat any time during the day or night. We had to keep food and water in their trays all the time. The chickens grew fast. In three or four months they would weigh up to three pounds. Someone would come in a big truck with coops to take them away. We had to catch them by their legs and count them while we put them in the coop. Then the hothouse was cleaned out, new sawdust was added, and then here came more baby chicks. I liked it when we got food in exchange for the chickens. Other times we would exchange them for pretty socks printed with checks or flowers.

Most of the women in the community earned money by taking in washing. That's what they called it. They were washing and ironing for white people. The men's collars and cuffs were supposed to be stiff. The starch was made from flour and water boiled until almost clear. The sheets would be slick as glass, folded evenly and put in a basket to be delivered or picked up by the man of the house.

When corn-shucking time came in late summer, the black women had to go help the white women cook, and the white men would come help to shuck Papa's corn. When the women had dinner ready, the white men would eat first. Then the black men ate. The children ate last. That was the way it was on every farm. The word segregation never came up. The white people called Papa "Uncle Ed." This exchange of labor was part of the people in the community sharing their skills with each other. No one paid anyone else for it.

About every three months, two men came around selling special goods. The Watkins flavoring man had a creamy vanilla flavoring and whole nutmeg that we had to scrape with a knife for our egg custard. The lemon flavoring that he sold was good in apple pie or cobbler. The vanilla was put on dried apples for fried pies—though they weren't actually fried. They were grilled in an oblong cast-iron pan shaped like a platter. It had two big holes at each end that we used as a handle. When we weren't using it, we hung it on the wall behind the stove over the wood box.

The kids really didn't like anything the Watkins man sold but his flavoring. He also sold black draught, Epsom salt, barcum worm killer (my, oh my, it was bad stuff), and cod-liver oil that seemed to have come straight from the fish—not even diluted. He sold clover leaf ointment that we put on our legs after we sat too close to the fire. All the girls got polka-dotted legs in the winter from sitting too close to the fireplace in the cold early mornings. Sparks would fly out of the fireplace and burn our skin. We would all stand around the fireplace and could warm only our fronts until the fire really got started. When breakfast was ready, we had to warm our plates over the kitchen fire or stove before putting the food on them in winter. If we didn't do this, the molasses and butter and gravy would sit like pancakes on the cold plate.

The other salesman was the hair-dressing man. We called him the Sweetheart Man. He sold "Sweetheart and Dolly Dimple" hair grease, coconut shampoo, and tar shampoo. Tar shampoo was supposed to help cure the ringworm that some children had. Ringworm looked like a little white-gray spot where mounds of hair would fall out. It was really hard to cure. Papa said that those children who had it weren't getting enough to eat. Our family never had ringworms.

The Sweetheart Man also sold us big hair-straightening combs that we warmed on the corner of the cookstove. Then we would take the mirror from the wall, prop it on the flour can, and made ourselves pretty. We would part our hair in the style we liked and twist and roll locks of our hair with strips of brown paper bags. We would sleep with the rolls in our hair overnight and take them out in the morning for school or church. Sometimes our hair would be twisted with thread or plaited in cornrows or braided.

I was real tender-headed. Jeanette Burnette, our neighbor across the creek, was the only one who ever combed my hair after Mama died. She would twist my hair in threads, and, my family said, I just didn't want anyone else bothering my head.

When I was five, my father cut off all my hair. It was long past my shoulder, and I wouldn't let it be washed in the first May water. (In the spring, the first May water was caught in a can, and it was like gold in every household. Everybody washed their hair in it.) So Papa asked me whether I wanted any hair. I shook my head and told him, "No, sir." He said, "Just sit there until I come back."

I will never forget the slender, silver scissors and the shiny clippers with two handles that he carried back. He began to put the hair that he cut in my lap. The clippers skinning my head hurt. Soon I had no hair. My hair actually grew back fast, but Papa said he would not cut it any more. He said I would have to let Jeanette Burnette cut my hair after that. Jeanette remained my good friend, and we continued to see each other for many, many years until she died.

No one could believe how fast I was growing. I always had big feet. Papa would put half-soles and heels on our shoes when we wore a hole in them or nail the toes back down if the leather came loose. He had two shoe horses—one that had two sizes and one tall one—that were kept in a back room. He would buy sheets of leather, mark out the piece needed, lick the nails, and knock them in. Then he would trim the leather, file the edges smooth, and put taps on the heel and toe. He would take a pair of my brother Jim's shoes and put taps all around the shoe sole, and then we would clap for one another and buck dance or tap dance on Sunday afternoons like Papa had taught us.

We used to place a piece of paper over a comb to make a harp and dance. We all could dance. Susie Q and Truckin' were dances we all learned. Now kids do a dance called the Chicken that is similar to Truckin.' We learned dancing from our older sisters. One year someone brought a Victrola home. We would wind it up, put the needle on, and play those blues, sad songs, and gospel quartets.

Country life for Papa in Chatham County was a lot of work and very little play. Still, I sometimes look back and think that those were the better days, because we didn't work on Sunday and Saturday evening was time to prepare for Sunday and to play.

The neighbors' children were always at our house on Saturday to play. (Later in the day I would hear our neighbors calling to their children from across the meadow branch, "You had better come on home!" The meadow branch was the creek that ran between the Burnette and Cotton family farms.) We made many things to play with. The bean shooters we used were usually made from dogwood limbs, but sometimes we used oak limbs. If we wanted a pretty one, we would cut it to look like a "Y" with two prongs and a handle. Then we cut the tongues out of old shoes and cut strips out of old inner tubes. We would make a hole in each end of the leather shoe tongues and tie the rubber strips to the leather. Then, using strong thread, we would tie the leather and rubber to the prongs. We called them slingshots, and they were dangerous. My brothers could knock out a chicken or a bird with one.

Another thing that we made for playing was a wagon. I learned how strong oak was and the difference between red oak and white oak trees for making parts for the wagon. Our neighbor, Boy Baldwin, would saw two wheels from the big end of the tree and two wheels from the smaller end. We made a shallow hole in the backyard and let it fill with rainwater in which we soaked and seasoned the wood. We let it soak in the hole for days with a rock on top so it would not warp.

Using the bracing bit like a chisel, we bored a hole in the center of all four wheels. Then we took off the bark and shaved both sets of wheels into the same size. We made the axle out of wood from a white oak tree, shaving it with old, broken glass until it was slick as glass. In the evening, while we were sitting by the fire or doing nothing we would put the wagon together, make a bed for it, and tie rope that was too worn to use on the mules around the axle to get it ready to roll down Buckner's Hill in the springtime. We used to guide it with our feet. Through the winter the old wagon would be worn out from hauling wood from the woodpile to put on the porch, but we would fix it up again the next spring.

We all caught spring lizards and tadpoles and often made what we called a Ginny hole to put them in. We played with them in the hole. We also made a bigger Ginny hole for swimming. To make this, we would move the rocks and dirt near the creek by hand until we had a hole. The hole would fill up when it rained, and sometimes the creek would fill it in also. Then we would go swimming. I never could swim well. We had to close our eyes while the others got in and out of the hole because we didn't have swimming suits.

The creek and Ginny hole got us all in trouble one time or another because we would get playing with each other and forget the time. I would listen for some parent to holler, "Y'all better come on home and get in some wood" (or "milk" or "feed"). If we were called too often and didn't come back in time, our parents would meet us with a switch. At every lick we would be asked if we were going to do it again. Sometimes we would go home with our friends while they got their switching, and sometimes they would come home with us while we got ours.

Papa could never really whip us. My brother Jim wanted to get his licks first so he would lie on his back and slide around and holler. Papa would look at us and say, "If Effie were here, she would tear y'all to pieces." (Effie was my mother's name). But Papa just didn't have the nerve to whip us. So often, he would instead remember and chuckle about the silly things he did growing up and then let us go.

We entertained ourselves at home together as a family. We had a battery-run radio that Papa would turn on when it was time for Fibber McGee and Molly, Amos and Andy, Lum and Abner, and the boxing matches. We would all sit around the kitchen table and make sounds—patting our hips and chests to sound like a horse trotting, for example.

My Aunt Laura and Uncle Jim lived about six miles from us. Uncle Jim was my Papa's brother, and he and Laura didn't have any children. We went to their home often after church. Since my Mama had died, Papa asked Aunt Laura to tell us about where babies came from. Aunt Laura talked to me about womanhood. All the older people were telling their children the same thing—that babies came from a stump in the woods. When one of the women had a baby, they would send their other children to play with us until the baby was born. Back then, new mothers didn't get out of bed for nine days after birth. The room would remain dark, and other women from the community would come to care for the new mother, the baby, and the house and to do the cooking, too. After nine days, the children would finally see the baby. And then we would go looking for that stump. We never found one.

When I had my first child I felt that Papa had let me down by letting Aunt Laura tell me this. She had never birthed a child. Unlike today, back then we weren't taught the truth about womanhood and birthing.

Growing up in the country certainly taught me how to handle many of life's struggles, but I'm not sure I was quite prepared to be on national TV when I was close to 70 years old. As it turned out, Good Morning America was just the beginning.

After the University of North Carolina Press published my first cookbook, Mama Dip's Kitchen, in 1999, I was asked to appear on the Food Network show Cooking Live with Sarah Moulton. I couldn't believe it! The UNC Press staff told me that I had to go to New York on an airplane to appear on the show. I thought, "To New York—you have got to be kidding me! Flying is not my kind of ride, you know, and all that walking, too!" I needed to think about it. I didn't know what exactly I needed to think about, just that I had to think. In just a few days they wanted me to go to New York and stay in the Paramount Hotel. I had read about this hotel and the movie stars that stayed there. I couldn't believe I would be going to stay in that hotel.

They said that someone would come pick me up at the hotel and take me to the place where Sarah filmed her TV show. They wanted me to cook live on TV. I was excited and happy about the possibility of being in New York City, but the airplane ride was still weighing on my mind. I felt shaky. My daughter Elaine told me that I should just get on the plane, get an aisle seat, and shut my eyes. That's it. Well, I won't say anymore, but I decided to go.

We arrived in New York, and I was taken to the studio, where I was supposed to get ready for the show. I met the makeup stylist, a young lady. She asked me to sit on a little stool and then she began applying makeup. After she finished, I said to myself, "Maybe I should ask for samples of that makeup!" I was so surprised that she had covered all the moles on my face. All I could think to say was, "Look at me, no moles. Where did they go?"

A representative from UNC Press went with me to tape the TV show, and afterward we went out to dinner. I am sure that everyone at the restaurant thought that my face was natural. When I got back to the hotel, I began to prepare for bed and took a shower. The water began to turn brown. I washed and rinsed several times. All the towels and wash clothes were brown, and I was sure that I had finally gotten all the make up off. The next morning I noticed that the pillowcases were brown. And still all my moles weren't there. When I get back home, for days people would ask, "Who did your face?" I couldn't see one mole. I got many compliments about my makeup. People said that it looked great! I did feel good about myself.

My first trip to Cooking Live with Sarah Moulton was quite an experience for me, since it was my first time cooking in a TV studio kitchen with a gourmet chef. First, I had to feel good about myself. I was worried because I am 6'2" and Sarah is only 5'. I had to figure out how to talk, hear her, and look at the camera all at the same time. For a 70-year-old, it was something really, really new. It was like something coming out of the sky—you weren't expecting it. Sarah and I cooked a good meal, and I enjoyed it. We made chicken, fried green tomatoes, and sweet potato biscuits. The UNC Press made a tape of it, but to date I haven't looked at it.

A year later, Sarah Moulton called and said that she wanted to cook with me again. When she called, I wasn't home, so she left a message that she wanted to come to my house to cook in my kitchen. When I got this news, the first thing that popped into my mind was a list of what I would need to do to get ready for her to come here. Suddenly I realized that I had just two days until she arrived, so I stopped running in circles and thought, just let her come and we'll work it out when she gets here.

Sarah arrived in Chapel Hill, bringing her camera and staff with her. At 8:30 in the morning, the makeup lady knocked at the door. Nobody had told me that a makeup lady was coming. She needed a place to make us up, so I fixed up my bathroom, put a pillow on the commode, and that's where I sat for my makeup. About 8:45 A.M., the food stylist arrived. She had her dishes and things that she wanted to cook, so we found space in our little kitchen.

Suddenly the doorbell rang, and it was Sarah Moulton. She acted as if we had worked together everyday, although it had been a year since we had cooked together on her show. The taping was an all-day thing. We cooked pie and made piecrusts for Sarah's new show, Sarah's Secret.

Later, we walked around my neighborhood on Martha's Lane and talked about different things—everyday conversation about food and such. Then we ate at Mama Dip's Kitchen. We had a good day that lasted from 9 A.M. to 7 P.M.

After Sarah Moulton came to my home, the 700 Club called and said they wanted to do a documentary on me. I agreed, and the producer came to the restaurant and spent the day with us. He interviewed me about my life and got many of the details of my childhood. Then they made a film of my life. The interviewer played my Papa, and his daughter played me in the film. When I saw this tape, it brought tears to my eyes.

After Good Morning America and Cooking Live with Sarah Moulton, people began calling from local TV stations. I could not imagine what was happening. What had I done to get all this attention? I had been cooking this same country food for many years. What was going on here? It was one call after another. I was so surprised.

Then the QVC home shopping network asked me to come on their channel to sell books, and so I flew to Philadelphia with a UNC Press representative. I was shaking because flying was still not my favorite ride. The pilot handled the flight well, and it went okay.

After the long ride in a big, celebrity-style limo, we got to the QVC headquarters, and the staff there geared me up and escorted me to the TV area. The host for my segment, David Venable, introduced me to the TV viewing public, displayed some of my food, which had been prepared for the show by a food stylist, and talked about my cookbook. After a few minutes the bold electronic sign read, "Sold Out," and the staff escorted me back to the studio guest room. All the books were gone.

In the guest room, there were TVs and counting machines that showed us how many books had been sold on QVC that day. I sat down—everyone was clapping and celebrating. I really didn't feel that there was anything to be happy about. I felt alone. That's when I asked for a drink. I felt that I needed something stronger than a Coke. Well, they served only sodas. But after a few minutes I was ok. I guess I had been a bit nervous.

I appeared on QVC 19 more times to sell my Mama Dip's Kitchen cookbook. A representative from my publisher was always able to go with me to these shows. I was beginning to be OK on a plane—but then came September 11, 2001, and flying became a lot harder. The two-hour wait in each airport was not so bad, but the planes seemed to get smaller. I would think to myself, "Oh, my goodness—for goodness sake. I can hardly buckle my seat belt, but I will be ok."

My first time on a UNC public television fund-raiser was interesting. I asked my daughter Spring to drive me to the station and assist me. I cooked fried chicken prior to leaving and put it in a new Pyrex casserole dish. At the studio, I set my dish on a burner in an area behind the stage. Somebody at the fund-raiser forgot to turn the burner off. I was about to be introduced with Bob Garner, the North Carolina barbecue and country cooking author, and then Spring was supposed to bring the chicken in from the back. But about four to five minutes into the show, we heard a big bang—the sound of an explosion. It was my chicken going everywhere. The Pyrex casserole dish had overheated and blown up. Thankfully, we weren't on live TV yet. It ended up working out fine because I had brought another chicken with me. Later that evening the situation seemed funnier that it had when we were on the show.

After Good Morning America had put me on the map, I was asked to visit 56 places in 2001, including schools, libraries, community groups, and so on. I am often asked to give food donations for community projects and children's groups. Most of my donations are chicken drumettes or chicken wings. When someone calls and says that they are having a meeting and would like a donation, chicken wings come to mind. I have cooked many chicken wings for so many people. I enjoy doing it because I believe in people helping people, and it is one way for me to give joy back to the community.

When bookstore owners ask me to come speak at book signings, I always write a speech. Then I forget to look at it or leave it at home, so I end up just telling stories about myself, Mama Dip's, and the community where I grew up. Everyone tells me that they like to hear my stories because they can imagine the scene so clearly or, sometimes, even remember what I'm describing, whether it is picking cotton or milking the cow, the aprons people wore in the kitchen or the spread on the tables at community dinners. These are country things that people love to hear about. We walk around everyday not realizing that what we did with our time back in 1930s and 1940s was so different than it is today with all the technology and things that people have.

When I go to the schools to talk about my business, the kids ask me about the money part. They always want to know how much money people can make in a restaurant before they ask me about the work part. We have a lot of fun figuring out how much money I might make. For example, if I bought a chicken for this price and sold it for that price, how much money would I make? It is sort of like a word problem for the class to work out.

Schools were very different when I was growing up. We had one teacher for grades one through eight, and we were all in the same room together. I would end up learning to spell all the words that the eighth graders knew well before I was in the eighth grade. At school every morning we had to say the Lord's Prayer and sing a certain song:

Good morning to you.
Good morning to you.
We are all in our places with sunshiny faces,
And this is the way to start a new day.

[Introduction continues in book]