My legacy: Macaroni and cheese

I’m still laughing about it. Well, kinda. It’s one of those situations that you have to laugh about to keep from crying.

I rarely Google myself. To those of y’all not savvy about today’s Internet, that’s when someone who is either self-obsessed or merely self-interested goes to the Google search page and types in her own name to see if it will come up and if it does, how many times it appears.

Everything ever written will pop up. In my case, there is even a transcript from a CNN interview I did several years ago.
Actually, I have an aversion to Googling myself. Doing it is akin to drinking a nasty, tall glass of vinegar. Or, at least, that’s how I feel about it.

However, a couple of times yearly, I take the plunge and do it – I only read the first page, though – just to make certain that my website is coming up correctly. It’s primarily how folks find me to hire me for speaking engagements so it’s important to my business. For that reason only, I hold my nose and dive in.

A Google search and its results are indicative of the subject’s life, career and accomplishments. Just now, I have done my semi-annual search – my web designer will be proud as punch by how grown up and responsible I am – and found something so astonishing that I started laughing.
Remember: It’s the alternative to crying.

Google, which gets smarter as each day passes, is able to guess what name or subject is going to be queried – if the person or subject is Google-able – as the letters are typed in. A drop box appears with suggestions based on how many people have Googled that subject in connection with a more defined search.

For instance, a search on Elvis Presley might also show Elvis Presley Graceland, Elvis Presley songs, etc. One thing is certain: Google is only as smart as the data typed in by searchers. Therefore, something will not come up in the drop box unless people have been searching for it. Repeatedly.

There are things that have happened professionally that make me good Google fodder. I was the first female sports writer to cover an SEC football team full-time. I was the first NASCAR publicist to represent two drivers who both started on the front row of the Daytona 500 one year. I have written a best-seller or two. And I have said stuff on both radio and television that set folks to gaggling, giggling and Googling.

But I won’t be remembered for any of that. Oh no. That’s too mundane. Instead, my legacy will be the recipe for what has become my famous Glorious Macaroni and Cheese. A recipe that isn’t even mine. I stole it from Aunt Ozell. Yet, when I shared her recipe, emails poured in from readers who agreed it was the best they’d ever tasted. When I stressed that the mayonnaise in it should be Duke’s only, the folks at Duke’s Mayonnaise asked me to go on a television talk show and talk about it. Then, they asked permission to include it in their recipe book.

“Fine,” I replied. “Just make sure that Aunt Ozell gets credit.” They did. The recipe is identified as Ronda Rich and Aunt Ozell’s Glorious Macaroni and Cheese. Another feather in my Google resume.

After the response I’ve received over this recipe, I now understand why cook books sell so well. According to Google, there are over 16,000 results for Ronda Rich’s Macaroni and Cheese. My legacy. Somehow I always knew that food would, one day, be my undoing.

By the way, if you happen to be one of the few who doesn’t have the recipe or one of the many who had it, loved it but lost it, please don’t write to ask for the recipe.
Just Google it.