I was raised in an old-fashioned Southern home that was blessed by being of Irish descent. Mealtime was an adventure. Friends would come over and think they were having a holiday meal. No, it wasn't Christmas or Thanksgiving. It was Tuesday night at the Reilly's.

We always ate at the kitchen table. We had a formal dinner room, but that was never used. The river-barge sized table in there was always dusty as were the formal portraits of long lost relatives we had never met. The kitchen was where all the action took place, so that is where we would eat.

The food that was served from that kitchen table was unbelievable...Fried chicken swimming in grease. Meatloaf loaded with onions. Mashed potatoes. Creamed Potatoes. Fried potatoes. Two types of potato salads - white (with mayo) and yellow (with mustard). We would have died without our potatoes. Salads made from veggies picked that day from the garden in the back. Boiled okra floating in slime. Fried okra. Hearty soups that would be called stews by the culinary experts. Fried apricot pies, a southern staple. Busy day cakes mixed with both ancient and new hands. Sugar cookies with the thumb print of their maker firmly stamped in them. Sweet tea in Mason jars. Biscuits soaked with honey. Gravies so thick you had to cut them with you fork. Home grown tomatoes white from all the salt. Deep-fried pork chops. Onions with only a sliver of liver. We love our onions almost as much as we love our potatoes. Celery stalks in purple water, an edible science experiment. Turnip greens with slabs of bacon. Chocolate cake with chocolate chips baked inside.

We didn't serve the healthiest of meals by today's standards, but both of my grandparents lived to be 93. They both went to Heaven at a younger age than all of their brothers and sisters who ate just like they did. Research says that foods we ate would kill you. My family's history teaches not eating those foods will kill you.

Elbows on the table we a must. Share and share alike was a motto we lived by and you had to protect your plate. Not that we didn't have manners. We did. We also had fun as we politely used our napkins and our "boarding house reach" as my grandfather called it. We all knew the differences between eating out and being at home. Eating out we sat up straight, ate quietly, and we weren't flustered when facing more than one fork. At home, we talked, laughed, and even sang (if the mood struck) at our kitchen

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