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Wilted Lettuce

Independence Forever

Fried Meat Pies

Early Lessons from a Kitchen Stool

Bread Pudding

My Big Brother’s Savings Account

Bailey’s Smothered Pork Chops

Smoked Pork Chops

Braised Cabbage with Ginger

Cabbage with Celery and Water Chestnuts

Short Ribs à la the Big Easy

Braised Short Ribs of Beef

Mother’s Long View

Red Rice

Roasted Capon

Good Banana, Bad Timing

Banana Pudding

Ready-to-Wear Tripe

Tripe à la Mode de Caen

Red Tripe with White Rice

Menudos (Tripe Stew)

M.J. and the Doctor and Mexican

Tamales de Maiz con Pollo (Green Cornhusk Tamales with Chicken Filling)

Saving Face and Smoking in Italy

Roasted Turkey

Corn Bread Stuffing

Haute Cuisine a la Tabasco

Veal Medallions

Pate

Molded Eggs Polignac

English, Please

Onion Tart

Sweet Southern Memories

Spoon Bread

Fried Apples

Homemade Biscuits

Sausage

Fowl Communication

Decca’s Chicken, Drunkard Style

Bob’s Boston Baked Beans

M. F. K. Fisher and a White Bean Feast

Cassoulet

From Pizza to Claiborne and Back

Beef Wellington

Puffed Pastry

Gazpacho

Petit Pois

Twice-Baked Potatoes

Haricots Verts

Vinaigrette

Sisterly Translation

Pickled Pig’s Feet, or Souse

Hog Head Cheese

Dolly and Sherry and Making Sisters

Chicken Livers

Buttered Noodles

Writer’s Block

Éclairs

Custard Filling

Golden Whipped Cream

Chocolate Syrup

Massachusetts, Tennessee, and an Italian Soup

Minestrone Soup

Minnesota Wild Rice

Black Iron Pot Roast

Black Iron Pot Roast

Oprah’s Suffocated Chicken

Smothered Chicken

Ashford Salad ’96

Tomato Soufflê

Chakchouka (Moroccan Stew)

Ashford Salad ’96

Mixed Salad with Feta and Golden Raisins

MY GRANDMOTHER, who my brother, Bailey, and I called Momma, baked lemon meringue pie that was unimaginably good. My brother and I waited for the pie. We yearned for it, longed for it. Bailey even hinted and dropped slightly veiled suggestions about it, but none of his intimations hastened its arrival. Nor could anything he said stave off the story that came part and parcel with the pie.

Bailey would complain, “Momma, you told us that story a hundred times” or “We know what happened to the old woman” and “Momma, can we just have the pie?” (Momma always ignored his attempts to prevent her from telling the tale.) But if we wanted Momma’s lemon meringue pie, we had to listen to the story:

There was an old woman who had made it very clear that she loved young men. Everyone in town knew where her interests lay so she couldn’t get any local young men to come to her house. Old men had to be called to clean out her chimney or fix her roof or mend her fences. She learned to count on finding young strangers who were traveling through the area.

One Sunday morning there was a new young man in church sitting alone. Mrs. Townsend saw him and as soon as the last hymn was sung, before anyone else could reach him, she rushed over to his bench.

“Morning, I’m Hattie Townsend. What’s your name?”

“George Wilson, ma’am.”

She frowned a little.

“Anybody get to you?”

“No, ma’am. I don’t know anyone here. Just passed by, saw the church, and stopped in.” He had used the word ma’am out of courtesy.

She was all smiles again. “Well, then I’m inviting you, and I am a good cook, to my house for Sunday dinner. I have my own chickens and two cows, so my chickens are fresh and my butter is rich. I live in walking distance. Here is my address; come around this afternoon around three o’clock.”

She patted him on the shoulder and left the church. A few young men from the congregation rushed over. “Mrs. Townsend invited you for dinner?” “Yes.”

“Well, I’m Bobby. Here’s Taylor and this one is Raymond. We’ve all been to her house and she’s a good cook.” The men started laughing.

“No, she’s a great cook. It’s just that after you eat, she pounces.” “Man, the lady can pounce.”

The stranger said, “I don’t mind a little pouncing.” They all laughed again. “But man, she’s old. She’s older than my mother.”