A family cooking class was a GREAT opportunity to finalize the Glover Gardens gumbo recipe. And, what a great Gumbo Team my second cousins made… the Owens Gumbo Bros.

I have my own very strong reasons to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month.

Homemade food, lovingly prepared, delivers far more than just taste and sustenance. It carries with it the intent of the cook, the connection between the cook and the eaters, the history of the recipes and legacy of how they’ve been enjoyed by others in the past, the impact it has in the moment it is enjoyed, and the promise of a story, like this one.

Glover Gardens was bestowed the gift of a grandchild earlier this year. We’re calling him GK#1 here in the blog, perhaps to be followed by GK#2, GK#3, etc.

Sometimes, people die because they feel “less than”; they die because they think they’re alone. They think they’re the only ones crying in the night, because they’re crying alone and don’t feel safe enough to talk about it. We. Have. To Talk. About. It.

Along with my Sister-in-Love, we are grieving the loss of Jimmy Edington.

Oh, Baby! We are over the Goodnight Moon with joy about the upcoming addition of Glover Gardens Grandkid #1.

A remembrance and a haiku for the intrepid little lady we lost, Ruth Violet Hiatt Holt.

My grandmother is 100 today, a bona fide centenarian. Wow!

A poem dedicated to my brother, a victim of suicide, who suffered in silence. Call the suicide prevention hotline at 800-273-8255.

Graduation 2020. Anyone who has ever been proud of their kid knows how I feel, that telltale lump in the throat and feeling that your heart might burst into a thousand pieces of joy-light that shoot out into the universe as sparkles of optimism for the future, theirs and the world’s.

Graduate studies in Studio Jazz Writing (composition), along with a paid teaching assistance-ship and a Fellowship at the Henry Mancini Institute are on the docket.

Cooking and eating are communal activities, and shared memories form very easily when food is involved.

Each year, memories fly out of these treasures like dust motes in the light and gently come to rest on me.

I remember my brother now more with joy at what was than sadness about what will never be.

A homemade meal, a bottle of wine, and a great conversation. It was a perfect little party for three – my niece, her partner and me.

Savory, flavorful and redolent with tradition, this dressing is always at the top of the family request list. Even so, it took almost 30 years to accurately document the recipe.

October 16 is a special day. RIP Oscar Wilde and Dad.

Making gumbo together is a bonding activity. You need chicken pickers, sausage slicers, vegetable choppers and a roux maker. Part 3 of the Glover Gardens Gumbo Series.

A 7th grade essay sums up how gumbo got started for us: “My family has a 35-year history with gumbo.” Part 2 of a series.