We hit an auspicious number related landmark date this week: 12/12/12, a numerological wonder not to be repeated in our lifetimes. Since nobody seems to have attached any particular significance attached to this number sequence, why not create your own way to celebrate “Triple Twelve”?Allow us to recommend eating. Lots and lots of eating. The holiday season is packed full of the best foods traditional Southern culture has to offer, but we often deny ourselves even one day of true indulgence because the Ghost of Bathroom Scales Future keeps giving us dirty looks. It’s a perfect time, just this one time, to recapture the tastes of past moments and to truly enjoy this moment we’re in.
On 12/12/12, spend twelve minutes being thankful for the top twelve favorites things in your life, then give yourself twelve hours to eat twelve great Southern foods you wouldn’t ordinarily allow yourself.
You could start with anything on a biscuit: country ham, sausage, honey, jams and jellies. Move on to cheese—cheddars and goat cheeses—you’ll probably want wine with that. There’s Southern boiled custard, candies—and if you’re inclined to spend some time in the kitchen, sweet potato casserole, and cakes soaked with rum or whiskey. Heck, invite 12 friends over to join you, for that matter! Send 12 baskets with 12 festive local foods to 12 of your favorite people. The options are endless.
The Pick Tennessee Products website, www.picktnproducts.org, is the perfect place to find the local foods and ingredients for any holiday celebration, whether it’s the once in a lifetime kind or the kind that rolls around every year. The site posts statewide directories of nearly 2,000 individual farmers and farm-direct businesses who list more than 8,000 Tennessee food and farm products. Savvy cell phone users can point their phone cameras at a Pick Tennessee Products “QR” code that takes them straight to the website home page.
Pick Tennessee Products is featuring 12 terrific Tennessee foods on Facebook and Twitter beginning on 12/12/12 to celebrate the 12 traditional days of Christmas, which begins on Christmas Day and lasts through Epiphany on Jan. 6.
Find Tennessee farm direct, locally grown and made foods at www.picktnproducts.org. Follow Pick Tennessee Products on Facebook at www.facebook.com/picktnproducts and Twitter at @PickTnProducts.
