A Southern Semester

Full of pimiento cheese, fried chicken and pickled okra, working as Rebecca Lang’s intern this past semester has been a Southern girl’s dream come true. She has opened her kitchen to me sharing recipe secrets and all sorts of “Quick-Fix” tips in the kitchen. There is truly something special about working with Rebecca.

As soon as she describes her grandmother’s fried chicken, mouths begin to water. When cooking class participants inhale wafts of the sizzling grease, their stomachs grumble with anticipation. Rebecca’s success as a cooking instructor comes from her talent to eloquently articulate recipes and culinary knowledge. Not only is she a successful chef and cooking instructor, Lang is also a cookbook author, contributing editor for Southern Living, and mother of two young children. In addition to all of that, she flies to Tampa every couple of months to shoot cooking segments for the nationally syndicated show Daytime.

I still am in awe of how she does it all. She is an inspiration and role model like no other. If people asked me years ago, or even today, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I would say “Rebecca Lang”. She balances life between home and work, and always makes herself available to me, a student aspiring to make it in the competitive world of culinary journalism. She has invited me to listen to webinars with the founder of Saveur magazine, shared countless articles and food journals, and personally shared struggles and successes with her own career. I don’t think I will ever be able to thank her enough for everything she has done for me.

As her intern I was assigned various jobs, since her schedule changes week to week. One of my main jobs was managing all of Lang’s new media outlets. I was in charge of the upkeep of rebeccalangcooks.com and the Facebook page for Quick-Fix Southern. I also helped prepare for events; including picking appropriate recipes, grocery shopping, and prep work. I was often given tasks of running errands for the company. Mailing books, making copies of recipes, and picking up promotional posters were a few of these responsibilities. I formatted recipes for cooking classes and helped with photography to use on her blog. Keeping up with a multitude of tasks made the internship a constant learning experience.

After such a fabulous semester working together, I was sad to leave Rebecca last week. It never felt like work, just good ole’ Southern fun in the kitchen. Although I will miss hearing about her summer adventures through Texas and Daytime shoots with Southern Living, I am thrilled to return in the fall and help her once again. I love each second here in Italy, but I can’t help craving her White Pimiento Cheese. If you haven’t picked up a copy yet, I highly recommend Quick-Fix Southern, not because I worked for Rebecca, and not because each recipe is delicious and timesaving. I recommend it because it is the epitome of modern Southern cuisine. It’s good food, fast with all the Southern sophistication and charm found in grandma’s cooking.