Recipes

Monday, 29 - March - 2010

My first memories involving cooking were of sitting on the counter-top and watching my grandmother peeling potatoes. I remember watching her make the most beautiful and delicious pancakes that to this day, I cannot match for look, but they do taste just as good. When I was about 2 or perhaps it was when I turned 3 years old, I remember her making me a white cake with coconut frosting. I loved my grandma and she loved me. I was destined to be a cook.

When I was six years old I was living with my parents and I began cooking. My dad lined the kitchen chairs up along the kitchen counter so that I could move from the stove to the sink without ever stepping off the chairs. Don't think ill of my parents; my mother's handicap made it very difficult for her to cook and my dad was working two jobs at the time. This is the reason I had been living with my grandparents until I was big enough to take care of myself. But back to cooking.

I doubt that my first endeavors were much more than hotdogs and canned food. But things inproved and by the time I was 11 years old I could make a Sunday dinner of Fried Chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, and green beans. I had leard how to use the oven and make boxed cakes from Duncan Hinds. Still, I didn't know that there were such things as recipe books up until then. That is when I was forced to take a cooking class at the school I attended. Recipe books were a revelation to me, but I hated that class. I only owned one cookbook and it was Betty Crocker's Cookbook with a cover of blue and white checks. I loaned it to someone when I was around 16 years old and that is the last I saw of it, but that's not the point. The point is, once I understood the basics of cooking and baking recipes all the doors opened and I could inprovise which I often did. From blue mashed potatoes when I was 9 years old all the way to Turkey with cornbread dressing and gibblet gravy when I was 17 I had my failures and successes. I still have my failures but we won't talk about those now.

All of the recipes on this site have been made, refined in some cases, and taste tested by my family and friends. If you would like to submit a recipe please don't hesitate. My email is at the bottom of every page. Please include your name if you want to be credited personally. If you have a story or history to go along with it, feel free to send that along too. The only stipulation is that I will not post it on The Daily Biscuit until I have made it and it has been taste tested and judged by my family and friends.

I hope you enjoy some of these recipes. Oh, you won't find my recipe for blue mashed potatoes.

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