Robin…who is this Aunt LuLu you keep referring to every time you share a recipe?
I am SO glad you asked. Aunt LuLu (read Ain’t) is every Southern woman who stands over the serving table at the church potluck to make sure no one walks away without a spoonful of her latest cream-of-mushroom-creation. This woman wants credit for her hard work and she wants to see your face as you bite into her most recent experiment.
Aunt LuLu is a recipe saboteur, though. If she makes something particularly delectable, you are gonna have to ask for the recipe no less than ten times and you can be pretty sure once you finally get the darn thing, she has left out several key ingredients so your rendition of her dish will never be QUITE as good as hers. (I KNOW people like this, so don’t tell me I’m being overly dramatic!)
Aunt LuLu likes to bake sweets so delicious and addictive you would swear she put some sort of illegal substance in them and makes you forget that Crocker woman’s first name. Once she has you hooked and you lower yourself to once again grovel for her recipe she’ll scoff, “Oh honey, you know that’s a family recipe! I don’t give that out!”
I thumb my nose at the Aunt LuLu’s of the world! HERE’S a newsflash, unless your name is Sister Schubert or Famous Amos, NOBODY is tryin’ to rip you off. We just want to be able to make your pound cake without you having to watch us lick the plate when we’re done ’cause we don’t know when you’ll grace us with it again.
And unlike your great-great-grandmama’s pearls that Uncle Bubba hocked at the pawn shop to go to the bingo hall, you can give out a recipe and STILL keep it for your-own-self. (But honey, the pearls are long gone.)
Amen sista!