My good friend Virginia Willis is a lot like the title of her brand new book: Basic to Brilliant, Y’all: 150 Refined Southern Recipes and Ways to Dress Them Up for Company. Virginia is basic, as in down-to-earth, real, practical and good; and she is also brilliant, as in creative, intelligent, accomplished, and inspiring. In…
This chocolate cake is completely delicious, and not the least formal, which I’ve learned, from the staunchly loyal, old-fashioned cake lovers in my family, is a very good thing. When my friend Sarah Copeland, author of the wonderful blog Edible Living, told me that she was writing a cookbook, I made room on my kitchen shelf…
My introduction to these great little cookies came in the weekly newsletter I receive via email from Deb Perlman of Smitten Kitchen. She makes clear that she shares the cookies not just because they are fantastically good, but because they are a shortcut way for us into a book she adores and highly recommends, “Dining…
