As I drove up to the kitchen early Sunday morning, I had a “conversation” with Mama.”Can you believe this Mother? Here I am on the way to the kitchen to cook Fried Chicken for several hundred just as you did so many mornings at Mary Macs.” Never in my wildest dreams did I see this as my Sunday work but as so many of us have learned, life has a very funny way of bringing you back to the destiny you were meant to live.

In the Atlanta restaurant scene, Mother’s title was “Queen of Dixie Cuisine.” And, it does not get more Dixie than Fried Chicken. So who would want to go up against a Queen’s chicken?  Until  I took over the Farmhouse restaurant just this past year, I had never fried a chicken in my life!!  Steve and the girls and I had dinner with Mother at least one night a week at Mary Mac’s  so it wasn’t as if they were deprived. When your Mother has the best chicken in town , why cook it at home. Plus, I had seen so much of it in my lifetime that it was never a choice of mine when we went out for Southern.

But I here I was in my “kitchen” serving Sunday chicken with horseradish potato salad, steamed asparagus and Mother’s squash souffle to all the guests dressed in their Easter finery. 

When I finally left the kitchen at 6pm, I could feel Mother with me, see her smiling and saying “mighty tasty chicken.”