Something for you, a Southern legacy

History is rife with examples of human ingenuity. Art, science and spiritual mechanisms which visions have made a mold of our world and so, it seems, a canvas of ourselves is created. Generation upon generation from cave to condo are steadfastly intent upon redefining the human image. Tattoos, body sculpting, piercing and sacred adornments are part of the everlasting human psyche and, not surprisingly, more common among 'free thinking', spirited and spiritual people.

The trend to increasingly innovative interpretations of the human body is more prevalent today than ever before and among people inclined to vegetarianism and the spirit of life that underlies such reverence for life, expressions of self are significantly on the rise.

Artists, venturers in the spirit world, fire walkers, transmorphants and tribal centric humans are more likely to express themselves as part of the circle of life, dependent upon it, and subservient to it; caretakers and taken care of as the last creature of a creation the never ends and not simply a user, or an outsider but rather a creator, a being, an animal.

Block Parte: What it means to be Southern

Southern Blogs Ring, the premier source on Southern culture, manner, missive and nostalgia will be holding a group blog to celebrate being alive, southern and free all at the same time.

You’re are cordially invited Saturday April 30th to attend our first neighborhood cotillion and brunch.

The menu will be a light repast of Southern classics and down home cooked tales served up with Southern style and taste by your hosts:

• Whacky Southern Housewife
• The World According to Tish
• Garden Stuff
• The Gardens Gift
• The Which Blair Project
• Florida Gardening
• A Southern Belle’s Musings
• An American Housewife
• Southern Porch
• The Green Cutting Board
• Animal Broadcast Network
• Romantic Ramblings
• The Naked Vegetarian

Guests will be offered words, photographs, entertainment and some surprises, to be sure. So plan to attend and spend some time with us in the South.

Leda chef

4/5/05 New York Times, Lawrence Downes

"The list of things we do to animals before we eat them is constrained only by the limits of human hunger..."
_________________

Charlie Trotter, chef of the restaurant that carries his name has been serving upscale cuisine to a continual chorus of praise and delight for years, but if he has been preaching to the choir then it seems the morality of the pulpit has finally come home to roost.

Chef Trotter, author of "Charlie Trotter's Meat and Game," it appears, has forsworn the practice and cuisine art of foie gras, a change of heart supposedly prompted by a recent trip to a duck farm/foie gras manufacturer.

California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger banned the force feeding of ducks and geese to produce the fatted liver last year. The law takes affect in 2012. Apparently Chef Trotter can be a bit more autocratic in his own digs, the ban is in effect now.

Other chefs of the realm have been serving their own dish of distate by dissing Trotter, but his stand is courageous and timely none the less and we think he has the right to his moral and ethical standards. Those who imply otherwise might one day eat some crow.