Key to the heart is a good plate of food: Fried Green Tomatoes

Nothing says, “Spring!” like good home cooking. It helps reduce stress, assures a healthy diet (if you choose healthy foods), and provides an opportunity to self-indulge or invite a few comrades or special family members just to say how much you appreciate their love and support (Hopefully, they help form your network of support.) Everybody likes to eat, and as my mother, Ms. Essie, liked to say, “The key to the heart is a good plate of food.” So without further delay, I’d like to start with one of my mother’s southern recipe favorites. This recipe has been passed down from Mississippi but tweaked. Let me know what you think. Or add one of your own.  Thanks for visiting and for listening in.   Emme

Fried Green Tomatoes

v    Tips

1. Buy organic, when possible.

2. Wash & slice tomatoes, dip in eggs, coat by dipping in flour.

3. Use a non-stick skillet and fry in canola oil. Do not stack tomatoes.

4. After both sides of tomato are brown, remove tomatoes & don’t burn.

5. Cool tomatoes on a large plate lined with a paper towel to absorb oil.

6. Using substitute eggs creates varying results.*

7. Drenching egg-dipped tomatoes in corn meal creates different results.*

8. If tomatoes are not fried crisp or appear soggy, your heat is too low.

9. If fire is too hot, tomatoes will burn. Watch tomatoes carefully.

10. If skillet collects flour residue, burning results. Stop cooking and

remove all residue with a clean with paper towel (between intervals of frying).

v    Preparation

1. Prepare tomatoes as directed (below).

2. Fry in hot oil at medium heat so as not to burn tomatoes.

3. Brown tomatoes on both sides and carefully remove from skillet w/ spatula.

4. Place browned tomatoes on a large plate or platter to cool and absorb oil.

5. Transfer to serving dish lined with ornate paper towel.

v    Recipe

1. Slice five (5) green and firm tomatoes (sliced only).

2. Beat two (2) fresh eggs (with or w/o the yolk) in a bowl.

3. Add light salt and paper and beat again.

4. Pour or sift ½ to 1 cup of flour into another bowl. Set aside.

5. Dip a handful of sliced tomatoes into egg wash and set aside.

6. Heat oil in skillet to medium hot. Do not burn.

7. Dip each egg-washed tomato slice in flour (individually).

8. Place several in hot skillet together, brown each side.

9. Remove slices and cool on a paper-towel lined dished.

v    Serving

1. Stack tomatoes and serve on lettuce and home sweet pickles.
Add ranch dressing and top with parsely. Goes well with anything.

2. If fried in corn meal, serve with ketchup or vinegar and sea food.

3. Serve in a sandwich with home sweet pickles and ranch dressing.

4. Serve with sweet tea and lemon (southern style) or a favorite beverage.

5. Add a side salad with a favorite dressing—or not.

Our "hidden biases" against "difference" are exposed!

Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People exposes our invisible biases against those considered “different.” The irony is, many of us would totally disagree because we’re just too egalitarian, or so we think. Yet, our self-perceptions feed into the society in which we live, changing its people and creating unnecessary stress.

In Blindspot, our “self-perceptions are challenged by leading psychologists Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald as they explore the hidden biases we all carry from a lifetime of exposure to cultural attitudes about age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, sexuality, disability status, and nationality” (http://www.goodreads.com). I haven’t read the book, fearing it might alter my perception and influence this writing, but I plan to read it because it validates my perceptions based on what I have observed: We harbor negative attitudes and expectations based on race, religion, gender, culture and more.

I should begin with my early bias against black people. I grew up with beautiful, brown people in a racially integrated neighborhood. My first love happened when I was in second grade. Robert was a beautiful brown-eyed boy of seven, with brown skin. I didn’t count the boy I fell in love with when I was only six because he was my neighbor, a red-head, freckle-faced boy named Rusty who had the whitest skin and who was also my brother’s best friend. I didn’t know there was a problem, but each week the  neighborhood seemed browner and browner, and I started to think something was wrong with these people who chased my friends away.

Since childhood, I have had many friends from different cultures and backgrounds. Each one brings something different to my perception of reality. On the job, I met people from more than a hundred cultural and ethnic backgrounds. I appreciate them equally. While I loved talking and sharing ideas with a diverse group of people, and although my workplace capitalized on it’s award-winning programs aimed at diversity, behind the scenes was a different matter, and anyone offering a difference of opinion was discredited or ignored.

I recently visited Europe which has it’s history, culture, and perspective, but I returned home more appreciative of my country because of it’s diversity, but I know the equality and diversity is not as it’s hyped up to be. That’s a fact of life in America. Choice made within groups such as schools, churches, the workplace are based on hidden biases. We have all heard the familiar phrase, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”

On the job, hidden biases are difficult to detect until teamwork is required. According to NPR’s public radio discussion about the book, Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People, people unconsciously gravitate to what is familiar. I know from personal and group-related experience that people also escape from what is familiar, which is why certain racial and ethnic groups avoid people of their kind even as others seek out people they feel a kinship to. Groups are formed and maintained based on an unwritten, unstated, and unacknowledged agreement that favors a dominant cultural or racial perspective. Those challenging or questioning the dominant perspective are often marginalized, ostracized or ignored.

But hidden biases are not only found in the workplace. They are found in advertisements, social networking, celebratory events, and interpersonal relationships. On a daily basis, we consume information according to our biases, and although sometimes we haven’t a clue, all too often we participate in promoting activities and supporting behavior based on preconceived notions and biases. If we happen to sense our own biases, we easily rectify the situation by adding diversity to our circle of friends or attending an event that makes us appear more diverse. This is done by making sure to have “friends and associates” who are considered “different” or by taking in a movie or performance that appeals to a diverse audience. Despite the appearance of things, in reality, such friends or events are often flaunted or exploited as needed.

Yes, hidden biases exist among good people all over the world, but I am most familiar with what happens in America. In addition to the biases we show against other cultures, races and religions, we show biases in the way we treat those of different genders within the same culture. We even show biases in educational settings when the instructor or facilitator is considered “different.” The unwritten agreement among American citizens is two-fold. On the one hand, we like to applaud cultural diversity, racial integration, and equal rights. On the other hand, we maintain prejudicial beliefs and applaud physical attributes of the dominant culture (though secretly repackaging desirable attributes of certain minority cultures.) For example, I once heard a woman say: “This stuff leaves you too dark. I just want to look tanned; I don’t want to be black.”

Those unable to balance these two aspects of our society—appearance and reality--can expect to undergo stress. Unconscious hidden biases create inequality and stress in minority cultures, but those challenging this aspect of our society are discouraged or labeled “trouble-makers.” They often are eventually pushed out of certain social circles and excluded from teams formed in the workplace. Inability or unwillingness to accept hidden biases has dire consequences for the workplace because it leads to teams that are less creative and less dynamic because it leads to feelings of inadequacy or isolation, whether imposed by team members or by the individual.

Hidden biases are not just for conversation. They are a source of negativity and stress on the job and in society as a whole. Hidden biases affect the well-being of people and this affects the well-being of the team environment. Teamwork means more creativity, but only if the team is truly accepting of difference and diversity. Hidden biases are taking a toll on our economy due to negative outcomes like underperformance, absenteeism, physical illness, and  health costs associated with emotional disorders such as PTSD and depression. The book by Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald could be the start of important discussions regarding the way good people continue to hide biases and ignore negative effects.

Writing is therapeutic: Untitled short story about women and girls (in progress)

Rhonda & Reggie would be half sister and brother but our mother couldn’t ever tell them since at the time Reggie was formed, Mama was going with Bear Robinson, the plumber and to tell the truth, after fifteen years, she still wasn’t sure who the father was, my dad or the plumber. The plumber and dad are brothers, which wasn’t discovered until Mama and Daddy was discussing family backgrounds at the kitchen table one afternoon after I got home from school. Suddenly dad said, “Yeah, that Bear Robinson keep approaching my son like the boy belongs to him.” He and Mama had a good laugh but when mama looked over at me, the laughing stopped. Daddy must have thought we was in on some secret, so he slapped her and then me.

My momma didn’t take lightly to being slapped in the face. After all, it was her face that got her whatever she wanted in life, that and her big behind. She grabbed a spatula and started cracking it across my daddy’s head. The skirmish didn’t last long, but I think it scarred me forever, that fight. It was so sudden, so surprising and so unlike my daddy. At that particular second, I learned to distrust men, and I thought I knew why my momma was always returning smiles willingly provided by men as she walked me down the street. She was looking for a replacement. But my daddy seemed to have it right. He once told Reggie, “Always respect your mama and if you get married, make sure your wife respects your mama, too.  If you make a woman respect your mama, she’ll respect you, too.” I don’t know if Reggie remembered but I know I did.  I liked knowing the rules, but as a girl growing up, we never had rules, at least not ones we could understand. Instead, we had quotations and old sayings to live by.

"Keep your legs crossed and your dress down," I heard the women say. But I always wore jeans. I noticed as soon as I got breasts, boys started whistling at me. I hated the sound of snakes hissing, and hated myself for attracting them. Ronda is three years older than Reggie and is pregnant already. The man promised to marry her, though.

"All a woman needs is a good man to provide for her. She’ll learn the rules later." This is what my Aunt Dottie said when my mama told her the news. I miss my auntie a lot now that she’s dead. With my sister planning to marry before the baby started to show and Reggie now officially gone girl-crazy, I was beginning to feel lost. 

Note to reader: Feel free to comment on any aspect of this story in progress. It's a short short story, which will end very soon. If you want to suggest an ending, feel free. Or you can add a very short story of your own, which I will post on this blog. Thank you for visiting this blog site. 
(c) M.D. Johnson (2013)