Fried chicken is my temptress, my tormentor. I wish I didn’t love it so. I only make it 3 or 4 times a year, but I daydream of it the other 362 excruciatingly fried-chicken-free days.

A decade ago during my first stint living in the south, I begged native friends and colleagues for…

Last year about this time, my daughter brought homemade peanut butter cookies into her 4^th grade class for her birthday. Not only had none of the 23 children in her class ever had a peanut butter cookie, none of them knew what peanut butter was. Full disclosure: We were living in rural northwest…

I grew up in suburban Ohio in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s with parents who loved good food. This was an anomaly in our typical town. While my friends’ kitchen pantries were stocked with cans of Vienna sausages, pots of Deviled Ham, bags of Nacho Cheese Doritos, and packets of Keebler…