A gift of fresh blue crabs at Gumbo Cove sent me into my vintage cookbook collection, where a family of creamy crab casseroles inspired this lemony Crab and Artichoke Casserole recipe. Along the way, I found patterns, party-food history and even more questions for Cooking the Past Forward.

Old community cookbooks hold more than recipes: they preserve stories, traditions, tribal knowledge and the culinary DNA of a place. Cooking the Past Forward is my new Glover Gardens journey to explore that knowledge, follow the questions it raises and carry the best of the past into our kitchens and onto our tables today.