A visit to my great-aunt Doris’ house meant only one thing: Aunt Doris’ famous chicken n’ dumplings.  Since she lives in Danville, Kentucky, such childhood visits were rare but deliciously anticipated, with a longing for warm, yeasty dumplings and thick chicken-filled broth.

If I close my eyes, I can still remember Doris standing over a bubbling copper pot, wooden spoon in hand.  Like many traditional Kentucky homes, Doris’ kitchen was the nucleus of the house, larger, in fact, than her living room.  In addition to a table that seated four, her husband James had moved a loveseat and large console television into the room so as not to miss any Kentucky Wildcats games.

Doris stopped making her famous chicken n’ dumplings years ago.  And after I became vegetarian over three years ago, I thought such delicacies to be beyond my non-carnivorous palate.  That is, until Morningstar began making their Chik’n Strips Meal Starters.

The boy and I looked up recipes and finding very few for vegetarian chicken n’ dumplings, decided to concoct our own.  It actually turned out very, very well on the first try.  So well, we’ve had it twice this week.  I am listing it here for your culinary delight.

(Note: I don’t measure ingredients, just guesstimate)
1 package Morningstar Chik’n Strips
Diced celery
Diced potatoes
Butter (real or we use the fake spray butter)
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
2 cans vegetable broth
Salt, pepper, garlic, onion powder for seasoning

2 ¼ Bisquick and 2/3 cup milk for the dumplings (according to Brandon)

Saute the celery and potatoes in butter
Mix together celery, potatoes, soup, broth, seasonings and chik’n strips
Bring to boil and simmer for 10 minutes
Add dumplings and simmer for another 10 minutes

Bon appetit.

The time change isn’t the only difference between southern Kentucky and well, the rest of modern civilization.

Take for instance, the flea market sporting a 20 foot tall Indian frozen forever in a Heil Hitler! salute.

Or the sorry, near-sighted pink elephant grasping a martini in his paint-chipped trunk.

And who can possibly resist the allure of Dinosaur World with over 100 lifesize dinosaurs?

See these and more photos from our trip on our gallery page.

A film exploiting poorly misunderstood cultural differences shouldn’t make me giggle, yet I found myself laughing hysterically every other minute while watching Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

Read about how Borat hoaxed America here.

The film succeeds because no one featured in the film, save Cohen, his co-star Ken Davitian and the crew, knew they were being filmed for a real American movie.  All of the people aside from the two actors waived the right to their public image under the assumption that this was a documentary about America to be shown in Kazakhstan.

Although tactics used were deceptive and dishonest, the end result of a shocking frank and honest look not at the culture in Kazakhstan, but at American culture, revealing the unspoken, seedy undertones of how some people really feel.  Because some of the subjects believe Borat to be a morally backwards foreigner, they let slip their own racist, sexist and homophobic comments.  In the end, the deeper meaning remains: which nation is more backwards and morally bereft?

But, deeper analysis aside, this movie is funnier than say, all Austen Power flicks combined.  Cohen is master of slapstick comedy and comedic improvisation.  I like very much Borat film and definately recommend shelling over ten bucks to see it.

Brandon and I usually take mini-trips on each others birthdays.  Last year, he chose to go to Nashville for, well, hell if I know.  We like old old country but the new pop country regurgitation they try to pawn off as music leaves us cold.

On one of our nights down there, we got a hankering for pizza and googled local places.  One place stood out; it was a pizza place with a mafia-type theme with pizza names like The Enforcer, One Last Kiss, and Sleepin’ with the Fishes.  I mean, who can resist a crazy themed restaurant with a veggie pizza called The Informant, right?

We drove round and round looking for Mafioza’s Pizzeria, to no avail.  As the hour drew past 9 p.m., we were both ready to eat at the Quickie Mart cafe when we happened along a crowded neon-lit strip near Vanderbilt University.  There, beckoning like a pizza-pie shaped oasis in the desert of the eternally hungry lied Pizza Perfect.

Walking in to the dimly-lit, dingy style place, my expectations were low.  This was a college hangout and dive, populated by kids in jeans and flipflops.  The setting was near cafeteria style, with cheap plastic booths and a football game blaring on the TV.

We ordered the veggie pizza and to our surprise, bit into ecstacy on first bite.  It truly did live up to its name.  So much so that in deciding where to go this year for his birthday (election day, 11/07) Brandon decided he wanted to go back to Nashville for some more perfect pizza.

So, we head off this morning on a 4 and a half hour drive in search of perfect pizza.  Happy birthday, baby.