We are on the cusp of berry season, strawberries are just finishing up, but a few blueberries and blackberries are hitting the stands.  We’ll get some raspberries around here, but not too many.  And of course, there are the other fruits like peaches and plums just starting to make an appearance.  All the hues from [...]

I could not let the grand occasion of the Royal Wedding pass without remark.  I have always been enamored of all things royal. I get that from my Grandmother, who was an avid follower.  She knew her royal history and loved to read the latest updates on the British royal family’s lives.  I used to [...]

Before molten lava cake or chocolate fondants or fallen chocolate cake there was Tunnel of Fudge Cake.  It’s a classic recipe, and I am sure many people have their own version. Tunnel of Fudge Cake is possibly the recipe that I have been making longer than any other, and more often.  My mother passed this recipe [...]

The holidays are here and that, for me, means egg nog.  The most wonderful time of the year!  I love egg nog straight from a Santa Claus mug, but it is a great flavor for baking and adds real holiday cheer to almost anything.  I stir it into hot chocolate, oatmeal, bake it in breads [...]

Pound cake was one of my first baking exercises.  For many years I had a basic cream cheese pound cake recipe that I made often, sometimes with added flavors.  For most of this time, I honestly did not know that the name pound cake comes from the original ingredients – a pound of each. As [...]

Just under a year ago, I put up the first post on The Runaway Spoon, my instructions for real Buttermilk Fried Chicken with a story about my encounter with Julia Child.  It took a couple of years of consideration and many months of planning and design to get the site started, but here I am, [...]

  In the great and varied universe of classic Southern desserts, caramel cake is possibly the North Star.  A soft, white cake covered in thick, thick caramel frosting.  The center layer of frosting bleeds a little into the cake and the frosting on the top and sides takes on a slight crispiness – bite into the [...]

Every time I buy rhubarb at the grocery, at any store, the cashier has to ask me what it is and then struggles to find it on the produce code chart.  Is it a vegetable or a fruit (technically a vegetable, by the way)? Once a cashier suggested I memorize the code to make it [...]

My grandparents lived on a farm in Middle Tennessee.  It was a wonderful place for grandkids, and my brother and I made great use of it.  Lots of rolling, verdant land to run around on, cows mooing in the background.  There was a creek running through the property, shallow enough that we could wade around [...]

On my month long food tour of France this summer, my first stop was in the Mayenne, serendipitously during cherry season.  All around the property of the cookery school, cherry trees hung heavy with beautiful ripe cherries – petite, juicy griottines and big round pale reds, almost like a Queen Anne.  I picked the fruit [...]