There is a radio ad running here in Dallas by GEICO, in which the gecko talks about coming to Texas to sell policies.  Of course there is a reference to everything being bigger in Texas and that things are different in Texas.  Certainly I do not dispute that.  However, in recent months I have given more thought to living somewhere else because (a) Rick Perry, the governor, is exceeded only by George Bush in being the stupidest (or is that most stupid) person on the planet; and (b) I have been to Vermont.  In talking with my daughter last week, who is in Vermont, she was lamenting the fact that she was not in the South.  This was a statement a long time coming as she has always talked of living in a metropolitan area on the East Coast.

There are many fine things about the South.  I was reminded of one yesterday when I came home and saw that my wife had purchased the most recent issue of D a publication that focuses on the Dallas area.  On the cover was the teaser for the central article, The 25 Best Chicken Fried Steaks,  Ok, you just can't go wrong with a title like that.  While every place may have a country style steak or some concoction like that, it is in Texas where it rises to an art form, and people breakdown the product into its various components for assessment (leading to the ultimate question:  Are you a dumper or a dipper?  Meaning do you dump the cream gravy all over your CFS or do you dip each piece).  This was reinforced recently when I watched an episode of Giada's Weekend Getaways on the Food Network. She went to the Broken Spoke in Austin and had the Chicken Fried Steak.  You gotta love a girl like that.  Other than going to Threadgills and getting the CFS and the Fried Chicken Livers it doesn't get any better than that.

We very much are a product of where we live, and perhaps that makes me, among other things, a Chicken Fried Steak.  So whether I wind up in Wales, Vermont or somewhere in between, I will be in search of that place that serves a Chicken Fried Steak to remind me where I've been.