I am a devotee of the transformative powers of buttermilk.  It makes chicken tender and biscuits light.  Cakes have a fine crumb and dressings a nice tang.  I use buttermilk whenever I can, and I go out of my way to buy the best, farm-fresh buttermilk available.  I make biscuits of all sorts, marinate chicken [...]

This is, I suppose, a treasured family recipe.  For my entire life, both my mother and my aunt often waxed poetic about the favored meal of their childhood.  Waffles and Hash.  We were regaled at family meals about the tradition of having Waffles and Hash for Sunday night dinner.  Any mention of family food traditions [...]

Every community, particularly in the South, has those handful of classic community cookbooks that everyone seems to own, or haveaccess to, or just know about.  They are the reference points for the community table. Compiled by church auxiliaries, symphony leagues, historic societies, these treasure troves bind a community through the most essential love we all [...]

Here we are again. The days are cold and a little gloomy, the holidays are over, and it is time for hunkering down at home. Right about now, I imagine everyone is craving a nice big bowl of warm, comforting goodness. It’s always nice to have a little twist on a classic, and mine is [...]

Back in the summer, I boasted to you that I am a chicken salad savant and that I have versions for every imaginable occasion and all seasons.  This is my favorite fall chicken salad, full of the crispy, crunchy, bold flavors of the season.  And yes, chicken salad is perfect in fall – it’s not [...]

A rut-buster.  That’s what this recipe is all about.  Veering off the road a little bit, getting out of the ordinary. Traditional lasagna is a good thing, make no mistake, but it’s nice to go in a different direction every once in a while.  Move away from the meat sauce to a creamy white lasagna, [...]

I am something of a chicken salad savant.  I came late to the party, having an unreasonable and unfathomable aversion to mayonnaise in my youth and childhood.  That, and little exposure to good chicken salad.  I only choked down bad, plastic-container chicken salad out of politeness at parties and luncheons, and maybe a school cafeteria. [...]

Real Chicken and Dumplings have got to be one of the best examples of good, Southern country cooking.  It is creamy and comforting and one of those dishes that makes something from nothing with amazing results.  There are undoubtedly as many ways to make Chicken and Dumplings as there are cooks who make it.  The [...]

There are some recipes or food ideas you come across that stick with you, who knows why.  Chilaquiles is one of those ideas for me.  Over the years, I have come across recipes or food travel articles about Mexico or the Southwest that talk about this dish – one that uses leftover tortillas, sauce and [...]

I don’t do Halloween.  Of course, as a kid it was my favorite time of year, what with the candy and all.  I used to spend weeks thinking about my costume, and they were almost always homemade.  I was Darth Vadar one year in a navy blue blanket and German helmet a neighbor kid’s grandfather [...]