C & C Bar-B-Q Grilling Sauce Is Some of Kentucky's Finest

    Being a Southern boy, I am always on the lookout for great little barbecue places to eat as well as bottled barbecue sauces that are being sold on the market whether it be major grocery store chains or little mom and pop shops along the way.
   However, I ran across "C & C Bar-B-Q Grilling Sauce" from a friend of mine who is a manager at restaurant in Glasgow, Ky.  He showed it to me and told me how good it was.  He even let me taste of spoonful of it.  I was immediately hooked and I had to have a bottle of it.  He said of a couple of friends of his created it and have it bottled and they only sale it at several locations in Glasgow and Southcentral Kentucky.  This sauce has a nice kick to it and wonderful flavor!  I've used the sauce two times already on my gas grill barbecuing butterfly pork chops and the flavor was outstanding!  I plan on using in some chicken breasts as well as other types of pork and white meats while cooking on the gas grill.
    If you would like to purchase a bottle of  this very unique Kentucky barbecue sauce, you can get it at Nannie's & Poppy's Consignment Shop in Cave City, Ky., just off I-65 between Nashville, Tenn. and Louisville, Ky, for $4 a bottle.  It's well worth the money.  Their address is 101 Baker Hale Road, Cave City, Ky. 42127 and phone numbers, 270 590-2019 or 270 646-8618.

Read More

"The Help" Might Hit A Little Too Close To Home For Some White Southerners

The first time heard about the newly released movie, "The Help," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Help_(film) was several weeks ago from one of my Facebook friends named Gene Simmons. Gene is the famous bass player from the rock band, "Kiss" that's been around for almost 40 years and I am one of the his lucky 5,000 friends who has the privilege to be acquainted with him on his Facebook page. Apparently, Gene likes to go to movies often with his family especially newly released movies. He said it was a great movie and that he highly recommended it on his Facebook page.

Then my wife goes to Oxford, Miss., last week for a visit for several days with two of her best friends and they go see it. So on the way back home to Bowling Green, after I picked her up, I basically heard about the whole movie. I didn't know at the time, what to quite to think about the movie from her description. However, she just kept commenting on how good the movie was and that I would like it and that I should go see it. I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

So last night, my wife and I and our good friend from church go see it at the theatre here in Bowling Green. The theatre was crowed with mostly white people and only a hand full of African Americans. It's a long movie (see trailer) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuNPN_9f1CM but I was really entertained throughout the whole movie and I could really relate to it especially since I was born and raised in Memphis, Tenn., and we also had hired help too during my 14 years of living there. I also spent 11 of my years in Mississippi where I graduated high school and went to college at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) in Oxford which is not too far where the movie takes place in the early 1960's in Jackson, Miss. Our maid's name was Mary Lee and everyone called her "May Lee." May Lee, who wore a white uniform when she worked for us and who's husband was a veterinary hand and a preacher, was a hard worker, cooked and cleaned for the Smith household and practically raised me. She would also punish me me when I got out of line liked when I crossed the street without her permission or the time I almost burned the BBQ Pit House down in the backyard along with my friend John Rutstein from down the street. Basically, she would strip a mulberry bush limb and make a switch and whip my legs until the bled. Back in the middle 1960's, people could get away with that kind of whippings on children. She also had my parents permission to do so. And if I got mouthy and disrespectful calling her the "n' word, I would send me upstairs and I couldn't come down until my parents got home from work.

However, May Lee had a gentle side too. She would pitch the baseball with me outside, watch me when I went swimming in the baby pool at the former Army Depot Country Club in Memphis off Airways Boulevard among other things. We would talk for hours at a time too when I was a little fellow. That's how I related to the movie last night. I was strongly reminded our help and that strong figure of a woman in my early life, "May Lee."

Now if my mother were still alive, the movie may have offended her because it might have hit a little too close to home. It might have reminded her of the time, May Lee wanted more money during the in the 1960's Civil Rights movement but my mother did not wanted to pay her anymore than she was already paying her. So May Lee left to go work for a neighbor. I remember it felt so strange to see May Lee go work for the Davenports one morning. I cried because she had known me from the day I was brought home from the hospital. However, they managed to work out a deal and she came back to work for us until my parents divorce in 1974. I have only seen her three times since 1974. I saw her once in 1980 when my sister and I went by to see her at her house in Cordova, Tenn., and at my dad's funeral in 1993 and then my mother's funeral in 2000, both in Memphis. May Lee is still living today and we still keep up with each other through phone calls and cards usually at Christmas and birthdays. She also still calls me "her son," and we always end our cards by saying "Love, Galen or May Lee."

The only draw back about this movie, if you're not from the South, you might get some wrong impressions that are magnified in the film about Mississippians and Southerners. And I would dare say that somethings in the film are misrepresented or twisted, but I would also say a lot of it is accurate. It's just the way things were back then in the 1950's and 1960's in the South. There's nothing we can do to go back and change or undo anything except learn from it and try to continue to understand the needs and feelings of others. I would say that a lot of white Southern parents who were involved in those type of behaviors portrayed in the film are probably long gone by now. Our generation, the Baby Boomers, we were the children that were raised by "The Help" or the "Maids" if you will and who are still around to see the movie and try to make sense of it all. For me, it reminds me of the strong bond that was made with our maid during my childhood while being raised in the South.

All in all, the movie is great and I highly recommend it like Gene says. You won't be disappointed far as a movie about the South goes. Just try to keep an open mind when you see it, that's all.

Read More

Sleeper Agent Announces A Headliner Tour Via The Audio Perv

Bowling Green, Ky's alternative, garage rock, pop band, "Sleeper Agent" who has been making headlines across the country and the world in newspapers, magazine and all over the internet, announces a headliner tour via The Audio Perv. Check it out! http://theaudioperv.com/2011/09/03/sleeper-agent-kick-off-headlining-tour-this-weekend/

Read More

Yellowberri's "SKYe Magazine" Throws Down Local In-Depth Reporting

If you're addicted to your laptop or desktop computer much less your smart phone, now you can read some really good, in depth local reporting about Bowling Green and Southcentral Kentucky via Yellowberri's online "SKYe Magazine."http://skyemag.com/

SKYe Magazine shines a light on our own very interesting local color and culture in the Bowling Green and surrounding areas with some sharp, intelligent reporting. Since Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green offers one of the best up-to-date journalism schools in the country with all the latest technology, SKYe magazine taps into a multitude of young and talented journalists from the university in the areas of print, photography and videography. For me personally, I am intrigued with the amount of good talent that the online magazine displays with its awesome reporting and stories. The videos that are offered are tremendous in quality in my opinion. Whether it be a local rock band performing or a human interest subject being interviewed, the videos in the online magazine are always professionally done and crafted as well as carefully edited.

In this month's edition of the magazine, they offer great pieces on the now-world famous Bowling Green bar and music venue, "Tidballs," and the recent surprise gig by Bowling Green's "Cage The Elephant," "Sleeper Agent" and "Schools," that sold out in minutes without any advertising-only by word of mouth. You can also read about Jordan Speers, a Bowling Green artist, who is headed for the big time with his album art for the debut "Sleeper Agent" CD, "Celebrasion."

Check it out because you won't be disappointed as SKYe Magazine brings out our local culture to the forefront in vivid color and detail on the world-wide web.

Read More