Ronni’s Appalachian-Style Cornbread (Gluten-Free) This is my favorite traditional-style Southern cornbread, and the one my friend Ronni Lundy grew up eating in Corbin, Kentucky. And to which she pledges allegiance! No sugar, no flour, amen. Ronni says, “If God had meant cornbread to have sugar in it, he’d have called it cake.” Here we have the apocryphal luckiness given by… Read More
Four-Citrus Golden Pico de Gallo with Mint Instead of the typical tomatoes, this pico uses citrus fruits – oranges, blood oranges, and pink grapefruit – to provide the juicy acidic component necessary in this dish, which is almost as much salad as it is condiment. It provides a nice, light, refreshing balance to the other foods on the plate, and,… Read More
Citrus Golden Ring Cake I this cake lucky for New Years? Why yes: round foods represent for the cycles of the year and the roundness of a full life; yellow and orange because, they’re signifiers of wealth. But the inherent goodness of this rich, lemony cake, dense and moist, makes anyone who takes a bite feel lucky indeed, on the… Read More
Brazilian Style Collard Green Salad Raw collard greens? A a few brief years ago it would have hardly been comprehensible to most Americans, especially Southerners. But times have changed with the advent of kale salads. While many find the texture of kale objectionable – its curliness, if it is not cut finely enough, can get caught in the throat – … Read More
To jump straight to the featured recipes, use these links: Spicy-Smoky East-West Black-Eyed Peas Brazilian-Style Collard Green Salad Extra-Moist Cheese-Black Pepper Cornbread Ronni’s Southern-Style Gluten-Free Cornbread Four-Citrus Pico de Gallo Golden Orange-Pecan Cake with a Citrus Glaze Otherwise, stay put on this page and join me for an exploration of easygoing New Years entertaining and how and why certain foods… Read More
In the years since I have been an adult, I have hosted a New Year’s Day open house, in the late afternoon on the first day of the new year, probably once every three or four years. What I served at the first one, back when I was nineteen and had just moved to the small Ozarks boho Victorian arts… Read More
THEY COULDN’T LOOK MORE UNPREPOSSESSING. AND THEY COULDN’T BE EASIER. AND THEY COULD NOT POSSIBLY BE MORE DELICIOUS, OR MORE PERFECT FOR THIS TIME OF YEAR. MEET MY MOTHER’S BAKED APPLES. AND, IF YOU HAVE SOMEONE AT YOUR THANKSGIVING TABLE WHO IS GLUTEN- OR GRAIN-FREE, OR AVOIDING ADDED SUGAR, OR VEGAN, BUT YOU STILL WANT THEM TO BE ABLE TO… Read More
WHAT? A WEEK OF 90 DEGREE DAYS BEFORE WE EVEN HIT SUMMER SOLSTICE? ARRRRGGGH! OKAY, THAT DOES IT: IT’S EARLY IN THE SEASON FOR ME DO MY ANNUAL POST OF MY BLISSFULLY CHILL CUCUMBER-GREEN GRAPE SOUP RECIPE, BUT, HAVING JUST MADE THE FIRST GALLON OF WHAT WILL BE MANY GALLONS BETWEEN NOW AND FALL… I MUST. IT’S EASY TO MAKE,… Read More
— a pandemic pantry post — 8 WAYS TO DELIGHT IN SUMMER & FALL’S FRUITS AND VEGETABLES; YES, EVEN (ESPECIALLY) NOW I have been thinking a lot this year about something Annie Dillard wrote: “How we live our days is how we live our lives.” For reasons you know as well as I do, these, the days of 2020, have… Read More
To learn the whole story on this revolutionary method of cooking Oven-baked Polenta, go here. If you just want the recipe, you’re in the right place. Ingredients: spray oil, or butter, vegan butter, or olive oil, for greasing pan (plus optional addition later) 4 to 5 1/2 cups water (less water gives you a thicker finished polenta, more a thinner;… Read More
Spicy-hot, featuring dimensional multiple layers of flavor, this creamy coconut milk-enriched potage will almost certainly join your family’s list of regularly repeated favorites (unless your family numbers a majority of straight salt-and-pepper only, meat-and-potatoes eater with no tolerance for envelope-pushing). Even with reduced-fat coconut milk, its richness comes through clearly, mitigating and blending the spices and peppers. I’ll admit that… Read More
Because I am vegetarian, these black-eyes, untraditionally, don’t have ham or bacon in them. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t recall fondly the smoky savor and fatty richness that these ingredients add to such beans; so, I just set out to find a non-animal way to get there. What makes these smoky? A mixture of chipotle peppers and toasted… Read More
