I was raised on farms in two rural Missouri communities. . .one in the Ozarks and one in mid-Missouri. We butchered our own meat and my father was a mortician. I bet I can out-gross anyone in the Dish, but I won't. I have to confess that I have eaten blood sausage. I have not ever speared an eyeball with a fork even though I have partaken of whole suckling pig and lamb. I like eating eggs so fresh that they weren't even laid yet. . .it was a real treat when we stewed a hen.

My Italian heritage is this: my mother is half Muskogean (Creek) Indian and half Dutch. She went to an Indian boarding school run by Catholic charities but when the Depression came the school was closed and the children dumped without even bus fare home. . .(as if they could ride on a bus in the south.)

She made her way around in a hard knock life from the age of nine until she ended up living in Kansas City in a Sicilian neighborhood. She changed her name to "Ruth Anne Corvino" and became Italian to escape at least one kind of prejudice. She is 80-plus years old and cannot draw Social Security because she can't produce a birth certificate. Fortunately my father left her an endowment when he died so, while not rich, she can keep on pretending to be Italian.

I am red-haired and freckle-faced. . .not a drop of that NA blood shows on my face although I have 5 points on all of my jaw teeth. . .my father was Scots-Irish but I look like the Dutch grandparent. . . .