My grandparents accomplished what many would call the American dream. They were nowhere near immigrants, they were hard working, blue collar Americans who strove to give their children more than they had. My grandfather, or D-Daddy as I called him, was a line worker at the local rubber factory. My grandmother, Mammajean, was a nurse at the local hospital. They lived, and raised their three boys on a fully functional farm. After 40 hours a week, I have trouble operating a fully functional household, let alone milking cows, tending crops and tilling the fields. Somehow, they always made time and ends meet effortlessly. My Mammjean scratch cooked every meal with love, many of the ingredients coming from her own gardens and fields. My D-Daddy taught his boys to play ball and tend the farm, but didn't want any of them to have to work as much as he did forever. My grandparents wanted their children to have the best of everything, and from those humble farm-boy beginnings rose a successful stock-broker with a law degree, a globe trotting Vice President of a HUGE organization, and my father: a partner at one of the most successful law firms in the state with two undergrad degrees, two graduate degrees, the obvious J.D. and 6 years as a naval officer to his credit. To say that my grandparents accomplished their goal is an understatement.

From these three boys came three girls. One is a globe trotting attorney currently residing in San Francisco with aspirations of moving to Australia with her husband. Her older sister lives 50 miles away from her home town and spends more time on her computer than the average person spends breathing. It's a far cry from the tilling of the fields that was our fathers' upbringing.

Our childhoods' with our grandparents were the best times in my life. They continued to farm, and bred sher peis for extra money on the side. I named a Brutus in every litter and fed the cows from the time I was in diapers. My Mammajean and D-Daddy were the light of my life. I lived to go over there and make homemade brownies with my Mammjean, make the holiday dinners and care for every baby animal that ever blessed their property. Before I was old enough to talk I had three baby piggies and I was never without a runt to nurse into a champion of some kind. They were the best years of my life, which is perhaps why I have grown up so different than my cousins who seem to have moved into the 21st century, while I still long for the 1950s...though I wasn't even a thought until well into the 80s. Perhaps it was because I was the glimmer of their eyes that made me so connected to them. I would always be their baby, and to the day the each died, I thought they could rope the moon. Truth be told, I still do.

My dad's success afforded me the opportunity to go to a very high class private school that cost more per semester than my eventual college tuition. For some reason I never quite felt at ease there. The older I got, the more clear this became. I watched, confused, as my classmates were handed brand new Four Runners for their 16th birthday, despite the fact they had only recently been in trouble for boozing and expensive coke habits. Meanwhile, I longed for a Ford Bronco XLT with a winch and brush guard to go mudding on the weekends I went up to tend to the horses at our small cabin in the mountains. I watched as they spent hundreds at Abercrombie and Fitch while the only thing I found appealing about the mall was Charlie's Steakery and the Great American Cookie Factory. I could never figure out why I couldn't fit into this culture, but by my Sophmore year in high school I realized I simply could not fit in there. I was looking for something else from life, but I had no idea what it was. The next years of my life would be spent searching for this answer.

My first glimmer of the answer came when my youngest uncle bought a milk farm near my grandparents new cattle farm shortly after the passing of my Mammajean. She had been diagnosed with a severe bone cancer, and in the blink of an eye had gone from our healthy, vibrant brownie maker to the grave. The family looked at my uncle's purchase as a reconnection to his youth, and that's most likely what it was, but I always found the decision sensible. My uncle and I had never been close, but in the years his wife could tolerate the life of a dairy farmer, I always wanted to be by his side. My "vacations" to middle Tennessee were spent birthing cows, killing foxes that preyed on the herd and walking the fields at sunset. I always had an instinct for the farm. I could tell a cow was going into labor hours before any pushing or noises commenced, even if they weren't due for weeks. My uncle eventually sold the farm, and from there on my horses were the closest connection I had to the old days.

By college, I could no longer afford horses and my mom had sold our cabin property and the horses along with it. I began the track of an ordinary, broke college student with aspirations of becoming a successful advertising agent. Perhaps I would work for Coca Cola, move to the big city of Atlanta and have an ad in the Super Bowl one day. I would become rich and metropolitan. These dreams were never what got me through, but I did maintain an A average while working 60 hours a week as a bar tender at a local restaurant right across from our football stadium. It was there that my passion for home cooking returned. I really hadn't cooked at all since my Mammajean died. My mom can't cook to save her life, and while my Dad and Step Mother cooked, I never really asked to join. I am the only one in my family that can make my Mammajean's brownies just the way she did...but I couldn't make them until the pain had healed, or more so when someone else's pain needed healing. One of my coworkers and best friends lost a family member, and in the South we bring food to tragedy. I bring Mammajean's brownies. After getting in the kitchen, I began to pay more attention to our exquisite menu at work. My television somehow always found it's way to the food network, and I stopped burning through my meal comp at work in favor of occassionally cooking my own food. Six months later, my D-Dad died. My name was the last thing he ever said, and I was there to hear it. He refused to die in front of me. The whole night the hospice nurses told us they couldn't figure out how he was still alive. I stuck by. I fell asleep on his bed. Then I finally said good-bye. My step-mother and I hadn't been in the car 15 minutes before we got the call he had gone on. I finished the three hour drive back to East Tennessee and pulled out my Mammajean's recipes and read them through tear soaked eyes...and I haven't put them down since. My favorites will still make my eyes water, and you can judge my ranking of the recipe by the number of tear stains on the index card.

I continued to cook through college. I think it's a lot of what attracted my husband. We married my junior year and had a baby the following fall. He was still finishing a chemical engineering degree, and I graduated Suma Cum Laude with a B.S. degree in Advertising with a minor in business and an 18 month old on my hip. To say I was terrified of becoming the head of the household with a professional career is like saying a two legged dog might have trouble pointing quail. I took the first job offer that came my way, which was a managerial position for a fortune five hundred company. I wore a suit to work everyday and many of my direct reports were three times my age. I never saw daylight and my office had no windows. I lasted there three months, and quit into obscurity and a job search. This is where God gave the final bit of blessing that would allow me to finally find that part of myself I had been searching for since my teenage years.

I landed a marketing job with a local hunting dog brand. It offered less money, but my desk was right by a window, I can wear my jeans to work and I get paid to hunt over dogs. My first fall there I got to compete in a clay shoot my brand sponsors. It was the first time I had touched a twelve gauge since before my grandfather died, but it was by no means the last. Some months later we completed our annual hunt/field test trip. It was in those quail fields that I realized what my life had been missing. It was this. It was the simple life. It was my heavy Mossberg 12 gauge over/under on my shoulder as I scouted the quail and pheasant that I would prepare and take home to cook for my family.

Today, I continue to scratch make every meal that is fed in this house. I enjoy fine food and wine occasionally, but I can cook at least as good as 82% of the fine restaurants out there, and I'll take a cold beer and whiskey on the rocks any day. I hunt as often as I can, and I have aspirations of a farm when I can afford it. In addition to the two dogs I have now, I will be adding a hunting dog next year. Unlike many of my peers, I do not care what the latest Mac product is. My clothes are nice, but they won't break the bank, and I am the only person my age I know that owns their home, car and is in debt to no one. The first time my dad's family heard of my hunting escapades, they talked of how proud my D-Dad would be of me...and they're right, but he and Mammajean would be proud of anything I did. They told me that all the time. However, I never got the chance to have that glass of whiskey with them and tell them how proud I am of them for all they did, and all they instilled in me intentionally, and unintentionally. They pushed so hard for their children and grandchildren to get an education, but loving, taking care of the family, cooking, working hard and doing your best in every facet of your life everyday were things that just came naturally to them...and because of that I am now a college educated professional who knows that the greatest joys in my life will forever be found from my home and the Earth...not an iPad.