Signs of Life

This blog is dedicated to food, to health, to family and to the South! And to the roots of things. 

 I was raised in Oxford, MS along with my two sisters as a young girl and have strong memories of food rooted in red soil.  Eating wild, tart, astringent, wonderful crabapples from a tree outside the apartment building where we lived.  Picking and eating red,  juicy, incredibly fragrant wild strawberries at a friends house until I felt like I would burst.  Watching my mom's mom crack pecans from the tree in the back yard-with her bare hands!  I was sure she was the strongest lady on the planet, so impressed was I.  Eating piping hot breaded catfish and hush puppies. Not to mention the crawdad's!
  For the last several years I've lived in the Northwest, and in that time learned about organic and even biodynamic farming.  Started working as a cook and making connections with farmers in the valley where I lived and realizing what amazing things were being raised/grown/made within 100 miles of where I lived.  Events in life being what they are, I had the opportunity to come back to the South for a month and stay with my family.  On a recent visit several things happened that served to inspire me to use the month to explore the food scene.  A local family dairy, an emerging organic CSA(yep,you heard me right!), an old fashioned grocery in a near-by town. Not only that, but it looks to be an opportunity for me to reconcile some old-fashioned notions I still hold about this place where I was raised but rarely feel at home.  It's exciting to see changes occuring in a place I considered hopeless, and to see that our notions of "how things are" can be incorrect in excellent ways.
 I'm already a little behind as I've been here for three days already, but I'll catch up.  The adventures in my new food world are already piling up!  I am blessed with a family of foodies and my first dinner involved my sister Liz's Cinnamon-Roasted Chicken.  A recipe soon to follow.  Also involved in this story are my two nephews.  They are champion wild-violet pickers and we soon hope to have wild-violet jelly on the table...