Southern Living Literally Take 1

A year of Southern Living Literally Take 1


The first issue arrived in April and had a scrumptious strawberry & orange marmalade tart gracing the front cover. I decided to make it for my Mom for mother’s day. Being the oldest of three daughters, I knew that if made her the edible cover of Southern Living and gave her both the tart and the magazine – I would score big on the daughter list. (If you have girls in bulk – it’s competition central often. Healthy competition. Good for the soul. Good for the mother getting gifts…)

There were so many firsts. Lessons from “Southern Living Literally Take 1”:

1- Make sure you use a large bowl when whipping heavy cream. It grows and gets really big really fast like some sort of mad science project. (Emphasis on the word mad please.) Switching bowls in the middle of your whipping might entice you to curse – which is neither lady like nor Southern proper. (Surely the Southern Living test kitchen ladies are not switching bowls and cursing mid tart prepping!)

2- Use little strawberries because they are dainty and pretty and they look like the cover! Do not purchase the berries that need their own zip code to exist. (Darn you Costco!) They look stupid – thus, the cursing may enter your mind again. Then you have to go to a Farmer’s Market and buy locally - like you should have done in the first place - because they have tiny-little-cutesy-cover worthy-berries.

3- Be realistic please. If you are going to make a fruit tart, try not to focus on the picture too much because it’s a magazine cover people! Surely I cannot make a magazine cover in my own kitchen. Trying such a feat may cause my self-worth on a Sunday afternoon to hang in the balance if I try to compete with paid professionals in commercial kitchens with tiny little strawberries that are just oh so cute…

4- Back to the whipping of the cream – whip it last second. Not last minute. I repeat last second. It falls. It leans. It drips in your fridge and has the consistency of Elmer’s glue when dried. You will hate it and it will hate you right back. So I beg of you (well – me really…) whip it last second for crying out loud!

5- On a bright note – the tart crust was doable, thick, golden brown right out of the oven and drama free. Exciting because when I read that I needed to knead it – I groaned.

Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of the tasty tart that I made because I did not know at the time that I would be blogging about this experience. Next cooking of the cover I will be camera ready. But all in all – it looked like a tart. A pretty tart to tell you the truth. It did not show a single sign of my struggle once complete.

My mother loved it. Told me she loved it. Ate it. Told me she loved it again. Ate it later and called me to tell me she loved it.

In conclusion, next time I, Elizabeth, will have 1. - a large whipping bowl, 2. - tiny berries, and 3. - a camera. Lessons learned and no long term damage. Success – tart style!



One cover down.



11 to go.