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What do you call it when everyone cooks something and brings it a gathering to share? When I was a child that was called a “covered dish” dinner—or lunch or supper. We used to have those at church a lot, as I recall.

Covered Dish Meals

They were called covered-dish meals because naturally whatever you cooked had to be covered so that you could transport it. Women collected cooking and serving dishes and utensils just so they could contribute nicely to covered dish meals. They also collected and refined special recipes.

People loved those dinners, where all the cooks brought their specialty dishes. Certain dishes were so popular that you had to get in line early, or there would not be any left for you. Running out, of course, was a great compliment to the cook.

Potluck Meals

On the other hand, if you were at somebody’s house and stayed till kind of near lunch or supper time, you were likely to be invited to “take pot luck.” That meant to share in just whatever the family was having anyway, no matter how scrappy.

In the South, including East Texas, a potluck invitation was tendered sort of apologetically. Because Texas hospitality requires cooking and serving the guest’s favorite dishes and/or the hostess’s most renowned specialties—and with a potluck dinner there was not time to do that.

So sometimes you got a splendid meal, maybe a pot of stew or some wonderful cold fried chicken or roast beef sandwiches. Other times, you got hastily scrambled eggs, toast, and dabs of reheated vegetables. Good luck or bad luck, it was just whatever was in the pot (so to speak).

Collaborative Meals Today

So how is it that people started referring to covered dish meals as potlucks? All I can figure is that they did not realize that the best covered-dish meals were organized. One or two people volunteered to coordinate, and everyone else signed up in advance to bring veggies, entrees, desserts, bread, or chips and dips. There was no worry that there would be mostly salads and no entrees, because someone coordinated that.

So I guess if people just showed up with whatever they felt like, with no coordination, it could feel sort of like pot luck…maybe. But that’s no excuse.

We need to bring back the good old Texas term “covered dish dinner” (or lunch). And while we’re at it, folks, use a sign-up sheet to make sure we aren’t all trying to make a meal on just bread and chips. Don’t you think?

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“Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth,” is one of those old-fashioned Texas expressions that is hard to define for people today, because the context has changed so much. It is still a useful expression, though, and an interesting one, so I will try.

Before the word cool came to mean hip, or up to date, or whatever, it was used in a couple of different ways in social situations. Cool could mean standoffish and unwelcoming, as in “Expecting a warm welcome, the visitors were greeted coolly.” (Think of “lukewarm enthusiasm” or worse.)

Or cool could mean calm, unfazed, not angry. For example, “While Bubba was red-faced, screaming and yelling and stomping his boots on the porch, Lila remained cool and just stared at him.”

The opposite of cool in the first sense is warm, as in receiving a warm hug. In the second sense of the word cool, the opposite is hot, like Bubba who is clearly burned up about something. Obviously butter would melt pretty fast in his mouth!

So if Lila replies to Bubba in that cool, calm manner, showing no evidence of anger or upset, anyone watching might say, “She answered him so sweetly, butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.”

What makes this expression a little hard to explain is that there is another factor involved. When my grandmother used this expression, it was generally not a compliment.

That is to say, maybe Lila had done something awful, and here she was acting so cool and innocent, as if the resulting uproar had nothing to do with her. Imagine if your sister took your car without permission, wrecked it, and then sailed into your house, acting completely innocent, as if nothing had happened—even though she knew you had every right to be mad.

Or maybe Lila had said something that sounded sweet and innocent (so cool that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth) that she knew was guaranteed to send Bubba into an apoplectic fit. You see sometimes there is an element of nerve and gall about the manner described by “butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.”

Frankly I am not sure I ever heard that expression used to describe a man. That’s not because men do not exhibit the same kind of behavior. It’s probably because this expression dates from a time when sexism was socially approved and encouraged.

So I hope that explains it. Just in case you run into a situation where it fits.

And I know eventually you will, wherever you are.

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Hosting and hostessing in Texas is a big, big thing. As the host or hostess you are completely responsible for the welfare and happiness of your guests for the duration. You do not leave people stranded even if it is a public meeting and you have the flu.

So the other night a sick friend asked me to lead a meeting for him. It is a regular meeting of a group of usually about 10 or 15 like-minded people at a nearby restaurant. It is mostly social, and I always go anyway.

I have hosted that meeting for him several times before, and it was no big deal. But this time it was different. It was a Stella Dallas party!

What’s that, you ask? Well, I’m fixin’ to tell you.

My paternal grandmother, Nana, and her sisters were addicted to soap operas. Apparently they started listening when the soaps first came on the radio, whenever that was.

To overhear a phone conversation between any two of those sisters, you would think they were talking about people they knew. “That Lisa! She is terrible! She does not deserve Bob.”

But no, they were not gossips; they were soap fans. And they all three lived in the same tiny Texas town, so they could indulge in soap character discussions without running up the phone bill.

By the time I came along the soaps were on TV, so if one of the sisters was forced to run an errand during an important episode, she would call another sister afterward to find out what happened. Because, after all, you could not follow TV soaps on the car radio.

Friday was the big day on the soaps. Everyone knew that the soaps just lallygagged all week, and the really good stuff always happened on Fridays. On Fridays the sisters would coordinate their schedules to make sure at least one of them would be home to report to the others.

So soaps were a big, big deal in my family, and at least one of them contributed to this Texas family’s lingo. It seems that way back in the 1930s or 1940s, on one of those old radio soap operas, there was a character named Stella Dallas.

According to Nana, the Stella Dallas character was very wealthy but did not have any friends. Stella had somehow come into a lot of money but did not fit in with the other rich people in town.

So when Stella Dallas gave a huge, lavish, expensive party and invited all the important people in town, no one came. No one at all.

Ever since then, if anyone ever gives a party and no one shows up, that’s what my family calls “a Stella Dallas party.”

Whatever you may call it, a Stella Dallas party is the absolute nightmare horror of any real Texas hostess. And wherever you are, here’s hoping that you never have one.

In my case, I decided that the no-show meeting was actually my friend’s Stella Dallas party, because nobody knew that I would be leading the meeting. That was never announced, thank goodness. (Now that’s just between you and me.)

Whew! That means my reputation as a Texas hostess is still unsullied. What a relief!

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Blowin’ and goin’ is an old-fashioned East Texas expression. I wasn’t sure people still used that fine old Texas phrase till Sunday, when two middle-aged couples sitting behind me at the ballet were talking about their various pleasure trips:

“Speaking of shopping, on our trips to Europe we’re always just blowin’ and goin’. We never have time for buying trinkets to bring home,” said a man.

“Well, we were blowin’ and goin’ on this trip, for sure,” said the woman from the other couple.

In Texas English, blowin’ and goin’ means dashing around, all busy busy busy, almost without stopping to take a breath.

Strange as it seems, to say that someone has been just blowin’ and goin’ is generally considered a compliment. The implication is that they have been working hard and getting a lot done—even if what they achieved, as in this case, was apparently just having a really good time.

Dogs are a big thing in Texas, especially in the country, where everybody tends to have at least one dog as a watchdog. And often there are two or three, because some are hunting dogs.

The first dog I ever had was a solid brown medium-size mutt with a black stripe down his back. I named him Tippy.

The name came from the first puppy I picked from his litter, a light brown and white spotted puppy with a white tip on his tail. The first Tippy got run over by a car before he was old enough to leave his mother, so Daddy picked another pup, but we still called him Tippy.

Tippy must have had a wide variety of ancestors. His mother appeared to be all or mostly leopard, a breed of hunting dog with gray fur and pale blue eyes. Sort of rare. 

None of the puppies looked like her, though, and none of them looked like any other particular breed. Daddy used to say that Tippy was “leopard and Heinz” (after the food brand Heinz, which used to claim to have “57 varieties”).

Tippy was a bold little pup. He did not like the boys who put the groceries in the car at the grocery store—or much of anyone else besides our family. When he grew up, he was a great watch dog.

Meanwhile, though, when he was little, he needed training. Although I was encouraged to play with him, Daddy had a saying that I used to hear a lot. “Don’t tease ‘im, you’ll make ‘im mean.”

Funny how these things stick with you. I use that expression now for dealing with certain people and organizations that you just can’t tease, or kid around with, or argue with. 

You have to be very careful with some people and groups about what you say and do—or they can turn on you like a snake. And they may have the power to make your life miserable in some way. They may be touchy relatives, or government bureaucrats, or….you fill in the blanks. I know you know what I mean.

But now maybe when you are dealing with one of these hard-to-deal-with types, you will remember what my Daddy used to say about raising puppies. It’s good advice, and nobody else will know why you’re smiling. It’ll be just between us, OK?

So whenever you are engaged in delicate negotiations with a person or group who seem like kind of an unpredictable force of nature, remember what Daddy used to say.

“Don’t tease ‘em, you’ll make ‘em mean.” And you’ll do just fine.

Once upon a time there were two good old Gulf Coast girls. One was from Bay City; the other was from Texas City. They were roommates and sorority sisters in college.

A few years later one married a man from Oklahoma. The other married a Houstonian. The husbands liked each other, too, and life was good.

Then a hurricane was predicted. It was aimed right at Houston.

No problem. The Gulf Coast girls came from families that had weathered generations of hurricanes, going back a hundred years. They knew exactly what to do.

The night before the hurricane, after filling ice chests with ice, filling every possible container with water, from soup pots to bathtubs, and gathering hurricane supplies such as candles, flashlights and batteries, tape and builder’s plastic, and lots and lots of Doritos and bean dip, the Gulf Coast girls were cooking.

You see, if the electricity is cut off, you want to have all the perishable foods cooked up and stored in your ice chests so you have something to eat while you wait for the power to be restored (besides the Doritos and bean dip). And that can take days.

It’s a good plan, and it has worked for generations of women on the Texas Gulf Coast ever since…well, ever since there were refrigerators and TV weathermen.

Of course, all that preparation just drove the husbands crazy. The husband from Oklahoma had never been through a hurricane and had no idea why Bay City girl was making such a big deal about it.

The Texas husband was a city boy who had never experienced the deprivations of a real hurricane. He had been through one as a teenager and thought it was no big deal. He was a neat-freak who couldn’t see any reason to have ice chests filling the kitchen and pots, jugs, and bottles of water just everywhere!

So by midnight, both husbands were fit to be tied. The Gulf Coast girl from Texas City just ignored her know-it-all Houstonian. But the Bay City girl finally could not take the Okie’s carping anymore. Long about midnight, she gave it all up.

“Fine. Fine. Fine!” she exclaimed, took off her apron, and put the cooked food in the fridge. “You’ll see!”

Well, as it turned out, it was kind of a puny hurricane. Texas City girl and her Houstonian husband sat in their sunroom and watched the storm while sipping cocktails with a California friend who had driven through the storm to visit because he was lonely. The lights were out for about two hours that afternoon—not long enough to really miss the A/C.

Afterward, Texas City girl had all those zillions of pots of water to pour out, dry off, and put away. And Mr. Houston was pretty smug.

But Bay City girl and the Okie were not so lucky. In their part of town, just a few miles away, and in much of the rest of the city, the power was out for about 10 days. And they could have really used some of that lovely food she was trying to cook up before the storm took out the electricity.

We know all this because the Gulf Coast girls compared notes a couple of weeks after the storm was over.

What we don’t know is what Mr. Oklahoma said the next time Bay City girl started preparing for a hurricane. Not much, I’ll betcha.

Sometimes you just have to make a bold statement to make someone get your point. Of course, if you’re a Texan, you just like to be colorful and emphatic anyway.

“You don’t have a dog in this fight” is a way of telling someone to back off, because the situation is not their concern. It’s also a way of warning someone that they shouldn’t interfere in someone else’s business, lest they get hurt.

So instead of saying, “Butt out” as our Yankee cousins might, we say that dog-fight thing, which is kind of more polite, don’t you think?

Not everyone is fortunate enough to be born a Texan. Some people go to a lot of trouble to become naturalized Texans, though. Hence this column.

So how do you tell if you’ve made it? Here are some of the criteria.

You might be a Texan if

* You would rather be whipped than give up your pickup truck.

* You have a gun and know how to use it. And nobody’s gonna take it away!

* You know the start and end dates of duck season, dove season, and deer season (hunting, that is).

* You consider driving (fast!) to be a right, not a privilege.

* You know what mineral rights are and would never buy land without them. (Oil royalties! Yeehaw!)

* You can ride a horse western style, and you don’t even remember learning how.

* You know where Big Thicket, Palo Duro, Pecos, the Valley, the Island, and Hippie Hollow are.

* You are addicted to Dr Pepper.

* You know what “Remember Goliad!” means.

* You keep a loaded shotgun in your closet to shoot rattlesnakes and water moccasins in your backyard.

* You can name the five biggest rivers in Texas off the top of your head.

* You often use the following words or phrases: andale, que pasa? (or que paso’?), cerveza, chalupa, tostada, cabrito, quinceanaria. (Points are subtracted, however, if you don’t say ‘em right.)

* You know where the Marfa Lights are (and what they are).

* You drink Shiner Bock longnecks.

* You would much rather live in Austin if you could find a decent job there.

* You know where the Guadalupe Mountains, the Llano Estacado, the Golden Triangle, George West, Nacogdoches, Possum Kingdom, and the King Ranch are.

* You know who The Raven was—and what all he did.

If you are still studying to be a naturalized Texan, consider that a pop quiz. Checking the answers is your homework.

The rest of y’all, just stay tuned. Eventually you’ll probably find all the answers here… Eventually. Maybe.

Meanwhile, be sweet!

If your mama is not from Texas, you may never have heard, “Don’t give me those slanty-eyed looks!”

I believe that outside of Texas giving slanty-eyed looks would be called “looking askance.” That is, giving “a sidelong look with suspicion and distrust.” Add to that “unspoken disapproval, rebellious tendencies, and general grumpiness,” and you have a pretty good description of the tone of a slanty-eyed look.

Now imagine the eyes narrowed in annoyance, glancing up out of the corner of the eye at the person who provoked the look, as the slanty-eyed looker turns away in disgust.

Cats everywhere are masters of the slanty-eyed look. So are thwarted teenagers who disdain to argue with impossibly out-of-date adults.

Uh-huh, you’ve seen those looks. And not just in Texas either.

“Bless your heart” is a very versatile Southern expression. Here in Texas it can be as straightforward as your grandma saying, “Well, bless your heart, Sugar! Of course you can have more cake!”

It can also be a sort of polite insult, laced with pity. “Well, bless his heart, he never did have any sense.”

It can express sincere gratitude for someone’s unexpected thoughtfulness. “Well, bless you heart!”

Or it can imply that that someone is hopelessly naive but at least means well. “Bless your heart, I wish it was that easy.”

All in all, you can’t always be quite sure what the speaker is implying (which is one reason why “Bless your heart!” is used).

But one thing you can be sure of is that when someone says “Bless your heart,” they are not looking for a fight. And that’s a blessing, right there.