Adultery - which is the only grounds for divorce in New York - is not grounds for divorce in California. As a matter of fact adultery in Southern California is grounds for marriage.

I think that's what's great about being an actress is you get to learn so many different things like that like learning a little bit of Tibetan here learning a Southern accent there.

I grew up in the southern United States in a city which at that time during the late '40's and early '50's was the most segregated city in the country and in a sense learning how to oppose the status quo was a question of survival.

There's something about Southern women that is so unique yet so universal. Strong southern women are allowed to be soft and feminine and have a sense of humor. But what I love about Southern women in particular is their universality.

People may think of Southern humor in terms of missing teeth and outhouse accidents but the best of it is a rich vein running through the best of Southern literature.

I had in mind a message although I hope it doesn't intrude too badly persuading Americans and especially Southerners of the critical importance of land and our vanishing natural environment and wildlife.

When I was teaching in the 1960s in Boston there was a great deal of hope in the air. Martin Luther King Jr. was alive Malcolm X was alive great great leaders were emerging from the southern freedom movement.

Maybe we've been brainwashed by 130 years of Yankee history but Southern identity now has more to do with food accents manners music than the Confederate past. It's something that's open to both races a variety of ethnic groups and people who move here.

When I was growing up in Mississippi - it was good Southern food... but I also grew up with a Greek family when other kids were eating fried okra we were eating steamed artichokes. So I think it played a big part in my healthy cooking.

Of course I will continue to share my favorite Southern recipes just like my mama grandmother and family shared with me over the years. And now I'll be adding a little bit of a lighter touch to some of these wonderful dishes.

My dad like many Southern men is this very emotionally expressive person who isn't as articulate in words about his feelings as he is with breaking a chair or something like that.

I've got high standards when it comes to boys. As my dad says all girls should! I'm from the South - Tennessee to be exact - and down there we're all about southern hospitality. I know that if I like a guy he better be nice and above all my dad has to approve of him!

You know Southerners are pretty cool.

Well it's a little harder in New York. It's not as forgiving to a film crew. You hold up a bunch of New Yorkers who can't cross the street they're not going to take it well. Southern California? They'll wait. It's cool man. In New York they're like 'Are you kidding me? I gotta get to work.'

Big Star invented a vision of bohemian rock & roll cool that had nothing to do with New York Los Angeles or London which made them completely out of style in the 1970s but also made them an inspiration to generations of weird Southern kids.

I think there's a suspicion in the South of people putting on airs. You see it in most successful Southern politicians but you also see it in someone like Richard Petty who may be a multimillionaire stock car driver but he's also beloved because he has a nice self-deprecatory way about him.

Family trips to Yellowstone and to what are now national parks in Southern Utah driving the primitive roads and cars of that day were real adventures.