just jan: Iced Tea

Hey! How are ya'll? There's a table set up for us outside. Ya'll come on out. Would you like to try some green tea? I'm sorry, I bet you thought I was about to offer some fried green tomatoes. Not today. You know they say green tea is healthier but I have to drink my sweet tea. Oh goodness, did you hear about that man from Arkansas that had kidney failure from drinking too much iced tea? Black tea has a chemical called oxalate that is known to cause kidney problems. It's also in chocolate. Are you screaming "NO" silently like I am?! Just how in the world do I live without tea and chocolate?!

We do have a cold pasta salad with jumbo shrimp along with kale chips. Yum! We also get to enjoy minted fruit salad. For dessert, we will have a choice between lemon squares and strawberry shortcake with fresh strawberries from Louisiana.

It's a filling meal without being too heavy. The flower arrangement was grown in my backyard! These are fresh clippings from the yard right before I set the table. There are two different fabrics on the table. The bottom is my blue and white toile and a sheer on top with blue flowers here and there. It photographed almost white though.

I just don't know if I believe that a person could get so sick from drinking a lot of tea. The news said he drank a gallon of tea a day. But down here we all drink a lot of tea in the summer. Well, I drink it year round. But I don't smoke or drink booze. So maybe it's not so bad.

I am hearing another Southern female narrator in my head. It's Sissy Spacek from the movie "Crimes of The Heart". Can't you just hear her all up in the air about the tea? I agree with her, it's a sad day when your tea is poison. It's hot and humid and you just got to have some sweet tea in the morning to wake up. Then a couple of glasses before noon. Well then if I go to town and do much running around I will be so thirsty I might as well just pick up the whole pitcher and guzzle it. She was called Babe in the movie. Do you remember?

It's about three sisters that come together when their granddaddy is very sick and Babe has shot her husband. Diane Keaton and Jessica Lange play her sisters in Copiah County, Mississippi. I wrote about the house that reminds me of the one that was used in the movie here.

She drank a lot of lemonade in the movie with lots of sugar. She was also in The Coal Miner's Daughter and played the part of Loretta Lynn. In the movie, Loretta (Sissy) always called her husband Doo. I guess it was a nickname.