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by an old woman and her teenage grandson.
    The woman smiled to reveal a couple of missing front teeth.
    “Help ya?” she said, sounding an awful lot like Granny from the Beverly Hillbillies .
    Tanner took a quick look at the goods sitting on her table. On one end were some freshly dug potatoes as well as a pile of okra. On the other were jars of molasses, apple salsa, pickled beets, and something labeled “Ball Busting Chow Chow.”
    He picked up a jar of the chow chow and read the handwritten label. The list of ingredients included cabbage, Habanero and sweet red peppers, onion, sugar, and spices.
    “You make this yourself?”
    “Course I did. It’s a family recipe from me mammy.”
    “Is it spicy?”
    “Make you sweat like a whore in church.” She looked over at her grandson and cackled. He offered a quick smile before going back to snapping a paper sack stuffed full of pole beans.
    “See anything you like, Sam?”
    She set down a jar of salsa.
    “Not really. I was hoping for something a little… meatier.” She glanced over at the tent that had smoke puffing out the top.
    Tanner nodded to the old woman.
    “I’ll come back and get a jar of the chow chow on my way out.”
    “Can’t guarantee it’ll still be here, but y’all come back anyway.”
    They turned and headed in the direction of the tent surrounded by billows of white smoke.
    As they got closer, Samantha sniffed the air.
    “Yum. It smells like chicken.”
    Tanner smelled it too but wasn’t quite ready to place any bets on the particular species being grilled. The man doing the cooking was in his mid-fifties, and his two assistants were portly twin sisters probably half his age. All three were soaked in sweat from working around the large brick fire pit.
    As Tanner and Samantha approached, one of the women turned and said, “You folks hungry?”
    Tanner studied several chunks of blackened meat cooking on a metal grate.
    “It sure smells good.”
    “It is good. You want a sample?”
    He looked down at Samantha, and she nodded, licking her lips.
    The woman slipped a paring knife out from her apron and sliced off a strip of the blackened meat. As she turned back around, the man cooking the food slapped her playfully on the butt.
    “Hey!” she exclaimed with a broad smile.
    The woman’s sister joined in by swatting at his hand.
    “How come you’re always slapping her butt and not mine?”
    “Cause hers is nicer than yours.”
    The woman put her hands on her hips.
    “They’re the exact same!”
    “No, they ain’t.”
    “So, you’re sayin’ you like her butt better’n mine?” The woman’s face was starting to turn red.
    “I most certainly do.” Before she could protest, he held up a finger. “But there’s other parts of you I like better. It all works out in the end.”
    “How do you figure?” Her tone was already softening.
    He reached out and put his arms around both women.
    “Cause at the end of the day, I get you both.”
    Both women made little snorting noises, but it seemed more for show than anything else. It was a dance they had done a hundred times before.
    “Don’t mind him none,” the first woman said, holding the knife out with a piece of meat dangling off the end. “He’s the worst man we ever came across.”
    Her sister quickly added, “Which is why we married him.”
    Both of the young women giggled.
    Tanner took the meat and handed it to Samantha. She smelled it and then took a small nibble. It met her approval, and she quickly stuffed the rest into her mouth.
    “Good?” he asked.
    “A little stringy,” she said, pulling a little piece from between her teeth. “But, yeah, not bad.”
    Tanner turned back to the woman and set his backpack on the table.
    “I’ve got a few things, if you’re willing to trade.”
    “Sure. Let’s see what you got.”
    Tanner dug around and pulled out a pouch of freeze-dried lasagna.
    “How about this?”
    She picked it up and studied the back of the package, as if