I recently attended the funeral of a dear friend’s mother. The eulogy delivered by her daughter was warm, heartfelt, and brought a smile to people’s faces when she spoke about her mother – the worst cook she’d ever known. She…

Once upon a time, my kitchen was beige. Not literally – it’s been painted antique white, cantaloupe orange, and palest blue, but never beige. No – it was the food itself that lacked color. The palette of my palate was…

My mother made perfectly shaped dainty cookies that put Martha Stewart’s to shame. But the texture tended to be on the dry side. I prefer mine chewy. That led me to altering her recipe. So what if my cookies were…

The smell of bacon frying, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, hearing the scraping of a spoon continuously swirling around the bottom of the heavy cast iron skillet as my Granny made her famous chocolate gravy. Sensations I knew all…

Unlike the antique bronze lamps and the family-themed statuettes I recently inherited from my mother, I became the owner of her oversized recipe collection close to 20 years ago. Around that time, she had moved into an independent living facility that…

Each year, we bring her out and she takes her place on top of our kitchen counter. It’s the smallest turkey you’ll ever find, but it’s hugely important to our household. The little turkey is a craft our daughter made…

For almost two decades, a local non-profit has been substantial in helping feed those in need along the Grand Strand. Founded in 2003, Michael “Mike” Luvollo, a retired cattle farmer from New England, moved to our rural area and quickly…

For years, my husband and I would traipse between his parents’ home and mine for Thanksgiving dinner. It was tradition, and besides, there were so many leftovers to take home I wouldn’t have to cook for the rest of the…

When I was a little girl, my father worked as an engineer for an oil company in Alabama, and part of his job required him to wine and dine potential clients. Where we lived in Mobile, there were few fancy…

We found fifteen bottles of ketchup in my grandmother’s cabinet. Four in her fridge, all partially empty and their openings rimmed with the crusted dried ring that showed they hadn’t been used in a while. She’d only been in assisted…

In 2021, the polar vortex left millions of Texans with no electricity or water available. My niece’s family, warned about the stoppage of water, filled bathtubs and containers with the precious liquid. Other friends with no electricity left their homes…

“How do you know when you’ve had a good Thanksgiving?” my middle son, who had driven home from south Texas for the holiday, asked many years ago. “Having all the family together,” I answered instantly. I didn’t even have to…

Thanksgiving. Just the mention of this holiday has me salivating for turkey and sweet potato casserole treasuring memories of cherished family traditions. One very weird tradition I have carried into my adulthood is that the turkey is always referred to…

Marcel Proust eloquently described the flood of memories linked to the sip of a cup of tea and some scalloped, French cookies called Madeleines. He wrote about things remembered from the “lost past” that resurged to his conscious mind through…

When I think of “must-have summer recipes,” several dishes immediately come to mind. Key lime pie; cheesecake; all manner of red, white, and blue desserts for Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day; potato salad; deviled eggs; fried green…

I had no idea the juice was supposed to taste awful. What was wine, and was I in trouble? It was Christmas Eve 1965 and for the first time in my ten years (or for as long as I could remember) we…

For a moment, we can be in their kitchens, standing in their shoes, and sharing their stories. This holiday season, there are fewer gifts to buy and cards to mail. There are empty chairs at dinner tables and gaping holes…

As for spices, I may own three. (Do salt and pepper count as spices?) “Hey, what’re you making?” My older son had wandered into the kitchen as I was browning some breaded chicken for dinner. “Chicken with bread crumbs and…

Americans would say I’ve developed a green thumb; the Brits say I have green fingers. Someone once said, “Gardening is cheaper than therapy…and you get tomatoes.” I think that pretty much sums up why I do it – all those…