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The world’s largest Buc-ee’s is coming to Tennessee! On Tuesday, just days after Buc-ee’s broke ground on its first Tennessee location in Crossville, the convenience store chain announced plans for its second Volunteer State outpost. The new store-in Dolly Parton’s hometown!-will be the biggest Buc-ee’s yet. The 74,000-square-foot flagship Buc-ee’s Family Travel Center, boasting 120 fueling positions, and a 250-foot car wash, will anchor a 200-acre development planned for Exit 407 in Sevierville....

Biscuits and gravy is a Southern delicacy. While our gravies vary from kitchen to kitchen and restaurant to restaurant, odds are there’s sure to be one represented on the menu or in a boat on the dinner table no matter where in the South you’re eating. Most all gravies start with a roux, and the varieties are endless: sawmill gravy, cornmeal gravy, redeye gravy, chocolate gravy—wait, chocolate gravy? That’s right: chocolate gravy....

Christmas at North Carolina’s famed Biltmore Estate is something to behold. There’s the 35-foot tall Frasier fir tree in the banquet hall, boughs of holly, candles and pine cones, gleaming ornaments, flickering lights, and enough glorious baubles to make the estate merry and bright. This year marks the 125th anniversary of the Asheville landmark and, pandemic or not, they are celebrating the season in style. The Biltmore has a few ways to enjoy the holiday magic: a daytime house tour, Christmas at Biltmore Daytime Celebration, an evening tour, Candlelight Christmas Evenings, as well as virtual tours, a Christmas pop-up shop, and an online look at their massive Christmas tree set up operation....

Sometimes, you need a little more than blasting Elvis tunes or flipping through photos from back when you rocked a perm to remember the good ole days. That is where Cracker Barrel’s new, old-school line comes in. Dubbed the Retro Collection, the assortment of neat finds tips its hat to the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s with gifts, accessories, apparel, and more. Shop the entire collection online here. Get ready for throwback jadeite butter dishes, syrup and straw dispensers, Fisher-Price classic chatter telephones, and plenty of fun Coca-Cola nostalgia items....

One state lawmaker is pushing for a statue of country music icon Dolly Parton to be erected on the Capitol grounds in Nashville, Tennessee. Rep. John Mark Windle introduced a bill Tuesday that aims to honor the 74-year-old “for all that she has contributed to this state.” Born and raised in the Smoky Mountains, Parton’s philanthropic efforts range from childhood literacy (her Imagination Library gifts more than 1.5 million children’s books each month) to environmental conservation....

Etsy has released its annual wedding trends guide, and from ’70s style to crystal and soap party favors, we’re loving the predictions for what we’ll see at weddings this year. And as lovers of all things vintage, we’re particularly excited to see the resurgence of vintage wedding and engagement rings. According to the e-commerce giant, there’s been a 20% increase in searches on Etsy for vintage wedding rings in the last six months (compared to the same time the previous year), and the trend is continuing to gain momentum....

H-E-B is honoring teachers with a sweet new treat. The Texas-based grocery store is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its H-E-B Excellence in Education Awards with a new Creamy Creations flavor. Available in stores now, the limited-edition “Education Heroes” icing flavored ice cream features cake pieces and rainbow sprinkles and comes in both half-gallon and pint sizes. H-E-B is also donating 10% of proceeds from the “Education Heroes” flavor to DonorsChoose to help fulfill the classroom wish lists of Texas teachers....

Back in spring of 2020, future Houston Astros player Trey Mancini was preparing for another season with the Baltimore Orioles. The outfielder and first baseman was 27 years old when he started to feel off. “I’d just get tired after a few swings. So I knew something was up, but I chalked it up to just getting older,” Mancini wrote for The Players’ Tribune. “I didn’t think for even one second that anything was seriously wrong....

We love our screen doors down South. When the weather is right, there’s nothing like letting in loads of fresh air without allowing your home to become a bug-free-for-all. And you just know that neighborhood cat has been waiting to mosey on in and make himself at home if given the opportunity. One uninvited guest that we thoroughly wish we could keep out, though, still manages to make its way in, leaving a trail of yellow dust in its wake....

Asparagus is a quick and timeless side dish. Sure, it’s most abundant in spring, when it grows fresh and vibrant in many farms and backyard gardens, but you can buy asparagus nearly year-round, no matter where you are. But whether you buy asparagus in April from the famers’ market or in December at the grocery store, you’ll need to take steps to ensure asparagus stays fresh from the moment you buy it until you’re ready to cook it in an asparagus soup, an asparagus quiche, or any other asparagus recipe....

As any home cook knows, the easiest way to bungle an otherwise tasty salad is to ladle on a bland, too-oily, overpowering, or otherwise flavor-sapping vinaigrette. Thankfully, Ina Garten has the perfect recipe to make any salad wow all those who gather around the table: Her four-ingredient lemon vinaigrette. Recently, the Barefoot Contessa was kind enough to demo the easy salad dressing on instagram and we can’t wait to add it to our own kitchen repertoire....

As far as Roman Duncan is concerned, his family’s former foster pup Maggie is “the best dog ever.” Roman, who recently turned 7, fell in love with the pit bull mix while his family fostered her over the holidays at their home in Louisiana. According to People, Maggie was too young to be adopted when she was rescued by North Shore Animal League America (NSALA) last year. As fosters, the Duncans gave the puppy a safe and comfortable place to grow while she worked on her basic obedience skills....

Ree Drummond’s daughter Paige has always had a way with words. So it was no surprise that when her grandfather, Charles “Chuck” Drummond, died in his sleep at the age of 79 earlier this month, that she would pay a truly touching tribute to him. “There’s not much that I can’t say about PaPa,”Paige wrote in a caption to a photo series shared on social media. “When it comes to grandpas I don’t think it could get any better than him....

If you’re on the hunt for a vacation with all the fun and none of the crowds, set your sights on shoulder season. That’s the time that falls between peak season and off season—it’s different everywhere, but if you play your cards right (and keep an eye on the weather), you can sneak in a relaxing vacation and have the beach all to yourself. Southwest Florida, including Sanibel, Captiva, and rest of the Fort Myers area, is a great spot for this....

We know, we know. Julia Child may not be an official Southerner—she was born and raised in California—but with her talent for cooking comfort food and making people feel at ease, we like to think of this gracious, master chef as an honorary Southerner. And right about now, we’d also like to think of ourselves as honorary Californians, thanks to the new Julia Child’s Guide to Santa Barbara County from the Santa Barbara Culinary Experience in partnership with the Julia Child Foundation, which the food website Delish alerted us to in a recent post....

Peach fuzz. We all know it. We all got it. But for some reason, we don’t like to talk about it. Facial hair is just a fact of life, but so many would rather backtalk their grandmother right in the middle of the jarred pimiento aisle in the supermarket than admit to any sort of shaving, waxing, or threading. Why? Your irritated grandmother is asking the same thing—and you’re never getting another batch of pimiento cheese again....

Americans are turning to prayer during the coronavirus pandemic. In March, the Pew Research Center reported that in a survey, 55% of U.S. adults said they had prayed for an end to the spread of coronavirus. In another Pew survey from April, one quarter of U.S. adults (24%) reported that their faith has become stronger because of the coronavirus pandemic, while just 2% said that their faith has become weaker....

When I think of my grandmother, I see her standing in the narrow kitchen of her beachfront condo, her wispy hair pulled back in an oversized, tortoise claw clip, buttering a piece of toast or chopping chives from the back-porch garden or stirring a simmering pot of something on the stove. At home, she wore a pair of shearling-lined slippers and a thin, sherbet-striped robe. She wasn’t a fussy woman, but her nails were always painted (she had a standing biweekly appointment with Miss Mona); and the only thing I liked more than watching her wrinkled hands at work in the kitchen was curling up next to her on the sofa and letting her run her soft, Bubble Bath-polished fingers through my tangled hair....

There are two types of cooks out there: Those who can throw a delicious meal together using whatever happens to be in the fridge in one hour’s time, and those who plan meals out weeks, sometimes months, in advance, and shop and cook accordingly. Certainly, there are those of us who are capable of both, but there are die-hards on each end of the spectrum who would have a hard time converting from a last-minute cook to an advanced planner, and vice versa....

There was no doubt the tree would come first and the house would come second," says owner Stephanie Dixon, referring to the mighty Spanish moss-draped live oak in her St. Simons Island, Georgia, front yard. “It was the only thing left after the space was cleared. Saving this tree was worth giving up half a front porch. I saw this small lot as a blank canvas for building a house and gardens to fit into every available square foot....