I like books about people who do things.  This summer I have been reading the Little House on the Prairie series, and boy do they do things.  Make their own clothes, their own food – even their own housee.  I have a list of books I have enjoyed that detail the work of women in [...]

If you scroll through the Sweets section on The Runaway Spoon, you may notice a host of very simple pie recipes.  Because I think pie is a perfect dessert, for the cook and the consumer.  The variety of wonderful things that can be packed into a pie crust is extraordinary.  And with little effort, you [...]

I love strawberry season.  Not only do I finally get my hands on delicious berries, but it really means the start of delicious farmers market produce.   I only buy strawberries in season.  I know you can get them all year round now, but I don’t like the watery,  hothouse types, or ones flown in from [...]

Cooking with cola is a Southern tradition undoubtedly dates back to the days when the first glass bottles clinked onto the shelves of the Piggly Wiggly and the Jitney Jungle.  Frankly, in most parts of the South, cola means Atlanta’s own Coca-Cola, or as we call it Co-cola.  I love to cook with cola, from [...]

Tough Nut to Crack Pecans, it seems to me, are thought of as a particularly Southern nut.  I cannot tell you anything about its growing condition or to what region or country the pecan is indigenous, but the trees proliferate around here.  And the nuts feature prominently in Southern cooking from classic pie to divinity [...]