Check out the bottom of the page for recipes featuring this week's Diva fixin's!

Berea College Pinnacle, April 11, 2013

Well, the wild and lovely sisters have survived yet another weekend of honky-tonking and howling at the moon.  These action-packed 72 hours included male strippers, a quart or two of ‘shine, confrontational drag queens, a Presidential inauguration, a drunken wrestling match, a Mary Kay party, over 100 sad country songs, a three-hour square dance ‘til ye drop and an eight-hour traffic gauntlet on 1-75.  Well, no regrets.  Could we please change the subject?

As the warm spring rolls in over the foothills of little Berea, so do the requirements and stress of the semester’s end – WHICH ARE REALLY JUST NOT OUR THING.  Makes you want to go home, don’t it? This longing for home has been echoed in many of our Dispatches, but isn’t it our job to offer you survival strategies?  Hell, we need them any way.  We might as well not hold out and keep them to ourselves. 

So, listen here, baby.  We know that paper is about to get you.  We know that sitting through PowerPoints or writing one of your own on a beautiful April day seems torturous.  We know that these evenings of meetings and homework are keeping you from the cocktail that you need so desperately.  Between the endless learning, labor and service that has depleted your reserves, make time for the Divas’ Recommended Remedy of the Week.  Cook yourself a little something and share it with your friends.  Make a pot of coffee and sit down for some honest talk with the ones that you love.  Retreat to the front porch or the apartment kitchenette in your soul.  Hang your troubles out on the clothesline for a while and let the spring breezes make you over anew.  Maybe you ought to pay a little attention to that special someone you’ve been eyeing all semester and have a little spring fling.  Whatever is good for the whole you and keeps you healthy – that’s what you should be setting aside your precious moments for.  Maybe exercise is for you.  It isn’t for us.  Whatever blows your skirt up and gets you happy, honey do that.  You’ll be better for it when you set your carpal-tunnel-ed out hands back to the keyboard to work. 

PERSONAL TIME.  That’s what we’re talking about.  It’s either make it or break.  Take a deep breath right now.  Yes you had better do it and we don’t mean maybe!  Treat it like you just heard your mama yell your full name!  Give thanks for that clean air and listen to your Divas. 
In our hour of need, we cling to each other and call our grandmamas.  They set aside their spoons on the stove and took out these recipes to read off to us.  Even these hurried two minute conversations restored our souls and brought us back to the Motherland.  We hope that these quick and easy dorm-friendly favorites will help you pull yourself together.  This self-collection showcases the true purpose of a Southern salad, the mayonnaise or dairy based manna that is more likely to bring on the diabetes than its green, leafy counterparts.  Fix you one of our famous salads and sit a while.  Enjoy.  Let your mind wander back where it belongs.