Cast Iron Chronicles: Greek Pasta

Posted by on Feb 2, 2013 in dish | 0 comments One thing about keeping your cast iron handy is that it’s suddenly easier to make dinner. Here’s a dish that takes two pans and about a half an hour. Plus, it’s vegetarian! This a great one to fix if you’re incorporating Meatless Mondays into your routine and you’re too tired to think about cooking anything complicated. Greek Pasta 1 lb. penne pasta 1 can cannellini...
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Jane Austen, Fanny, Emma, Elizabeth Bennet, and Me

Posted by on Jan 28, 2013 in dish | 0 comments Today marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice. Originally titled First Impressions, it was the first manuscript Jane Austen wrote, but not the first to be published; the first edition title page reads “by the author of Sense and Sensibility.” When I was in college, my fabulous advisor, the inimitable Dr. Jim Skinner, was the departmental expert in all...
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I’ll Make Me a World

Posted by on Jan 24, 2013 in dish | 0 comments One of my father’s favorite books is James Weldon Johnson’s poetry collection God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. The whole collection is gorgeous, a tour-de-force of imagery, theology, and culture. Johnson is better known for “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” adopted by the NAACP as the “Negro National Anthem,” but Daddy’s favorite and...
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Cast Iron Chronicles: Rescue

Posted by on Jan 5, 2013 in dish | 0 comments Despite growing up in a very Southern household, I never developed an affinity for cast iron cookware. (Don’t revoke my Southern card just yet.) My mother, like many women who married in the ’60s, received a full set of Revere Ware, so most of my childhood kitchen memories involve copper-bottomed steel rather than iron. My grandmothers used iron in the usual ways–to fry chicken...
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Thirteen for ’13

Posted by on Jan 1, 2013 in dish | 0 comments Fresh starts are always so enticing, like the smooth surface of a brand new jar of peanut butter (or better yet, Nutella). There’s something so peaceful and calming about them, and yet you know that you can’t get to the good stuff until you dig in and get messy. So it’s in that vein that I submit this list of things I’d like to accomplish in 2013. Establish an...
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mimi’s Black Magic Chili

Posted by on Oct 28, 2012 in dish | 0 comments Tonight is the church’s Halloween Hoedown and the return of the church-wide Chili Cookoff. If there’s one thing that’s pretty certain in church-related cooking contests, it’s that the Bero/Gaston women will do very well. Mama, aka Miss Carolyn, is famous for her homemade soups and ridiculously good pecan shortbread, while middle sis, Cigi, makes a chocolate thing so good...
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