A Foodie is Born

I remember sitting on the counter in my mamaw's kitchen as she made fried chicken and biscuits. It was those special Sunday dinners that brought my family together each week. My mamaw was by no means a fancy cook, but watching her make those meals is my first real memory of food. A memory that sparked a love affair and made me the foodie I am today.

I had the pleasure of learning from three generations of Southern cooks. While I wasn't quite old enough to help my mamaw make fried chicken and biscuits, I watched closely and still remember her patting out her flaky biscuits by hand. I can even still see her old weathered hands, covered in flour. Time shifts and I'm in my granny's kitchen making cookies. I remember spilling flour on the table and trying to cover up my mess, but my granny just laughed it off and we made some of the best sugar cookies I've ever eaten. Skip forward one last time and I'm a pre-teen learning to love cooking from my mother. Out of the three cooks I learned from, she is the closest to what I would call a foodie.

My mother inspired me to try new foods, new cooking techniques and to embrace cooking. I was born in the 1980s and must admit that other people my age could have cared less about learning to cook or bake. I, however, loved everything about food and that passion grew. I began to read cookbooks as if they were the latest bestselling novels and began to create my own recipes. It wasn't just reading about food and cooking that I loved though. Serving food has always been a pleasure for me that I can't quite describe.

There's something about seeing the looks on people's faces as they take a bite of a batch of cookies I baked just for them that is pure heaven to me, which brings me back to my mamaw. I'm not sure if my mamaw really loved cooking or not, but I know she loved how the family gathered around the table to eat her food. You see, being a foodie is more than an appreciation of fine foods and the exotic. Sometimes, being a foodie is also about the feelings that one gets from the experiences that food creates.

You might say that I was really inspired to be a foodie by the three generations of women that had a hand in teaching me to cook and that's true. However, the way my mamaw approached cooking and the experiences she took from cooking for her family inspired me more than anything. The following article was written in her honor and shares my version of her biscuit recipe that I remember so fondly.

How to Make Southern Biscuits