grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

Cole Slaw in Vintage Pyrex (and other kitchen traditions)…

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kitchen

I love our kitchen. The longer we live in this house, the more deeply I believe it is one of my favorite places anywhere. I love it not only for its expansive windows that look out over our backyard (the space where we spend most of our free time), but also because it’s the room that holds so much tradition. If a house has a soul, its core is rooted in the kitchen.

Don’t you agree?

I thought about this recently as we prepared our Easter meal. We kept it simple this year, deciding on ribs with all the trimmings. Yes, it may have been more typical of a 4th of July picnic, but no one seemed to mind. Our kitchen comes with no rules, other than that one rule standard for all southern kitchens—we don’t want anyone to leave hungry.Continue Reading

Ho-Ho-Holiday Traditions

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Clementines

Yesterday I bought a big bag of clementines at Harps. The mere sight of all that orange fruit piled in the produce aisle where sweet cherries lived during summer nudged me into Christmas. As I dumped them into a bowl on the kitchen island, I thought about holiday traditions and how I do certain things because somewhere buried in my holiday memories, we’ve always done it that way.

Back when I was a kid, Momma bought tangerines. (Clementines are a rather recent U.S. phenomenon, initially shipped over from Spain one year when the Florida citrus crop suffered a particularly bad year.) In my bowl, they smell just like Christmas on the farm, and they help fill the summer watermelon void.Continue Reading

Oh my word, it’s Thanksgiving Week!

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Buttermilk Pie - It's Thanksgiving Week!Oh.My.Word. It’s Thanksgiving week, y’all! I know I say it all the time and odds are good this won’t be the last. This year has flown by. And what a unique one it’s been. 2016 was the year I published my first book—something by the very definition can never, ever be repeated. And yes, I’m already talking about 2016 in past tense because if we round up, it’s over. Stick a fork in it.

Ov-er. Well, except for the flurry of activity ahead of us for Christmas.

So Thanksgiving week. We think about family and food and football and no, don’t you dare step on the stupid bathroom scale because during Thanksgiving week, all bets are off about calories. Who cares! And while we’re at it, let’s not talk politics, just this once. Instead let’s watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade(!), an old movie or two, play Monopoly, drink champagne. Celebrate every teeny tiny thing because, yes, some of the most remarkable goodness is doled out in teaspoons and snippets and slivers of time.  Continue Reading

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

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