Everyone knows how we white people feel, the glorified Mammy figure who dedicates her whole life to a white family. Margaret Mitchell covered that. But no one ever asked Mammy how she felt about it.

Here's to new beginnings," Stuart says and raises his bourbon. I nod, sort of wanting to tell him that all beginnings are new.

I was born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1969, in a time and place where no one was saying, Look how far weve come, because we hadnt come very far, to say the least. Although Jacksons population was half white and half black, I didnt have a single black friend or a black neighbor or even a black person in my school.

You're gon' have to say to your self, am I gon' believe what them fools say about me today?

I wash my hands, wonder how an awful day could turn even worse. It seems like at some point you'd just run out of awful.

At one O'Clock, Miss Celia comes in the kitchen and says she's ready for her first cooking lesson. She settles on a stool. She's wearing a tight red sweater and a red skirt and enough makeup to scare a hooker.

I may not remember my name or what country I live in, but you and that pie is something I will never forget.